France -- History -- Louis XVI, 1774-1793; France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799
Through all time, if we read aright, sin was, is, will be, the
parent of misery. This land calls itself most Christian, and has
crosses and cathedrals; but its High-priest is some Roche-Aymon,
some Necklace-Cardinal Louis de Rohan. The voice of the poor,
through long years, ascends inarticulate, in _Jacqueries_,
meal-mobs; low-whimpering of infinite moan: unheeded of the
Earth; not unheeded of Heaven. Always moreover where the Millions
are wretched, there are the Thousands straitened, unhappy; only
the Units can flourish; or say rather, be ruined the last.
Industry, all noosed and haltered, as if it too were some beast
of chase for the mighty hunters of this world to bait, and cut
slices from,—cries passionately to these its well-paid guides and
watchers, not, _Guide me;_ but, _Laissez faire,_ Leave me alone
of _your_ guidance! What market has Industry in this France? For
two things there may be market and demand: for the coarser kind
of field-fruits, since the Millions will live: for the fine kinds
of luxury and spicery,—of multiform taste, from opera-melodies
down to racers and courtesans; since the Units will be amused. It
is at bottom but a mad state of things.
To mend and remake all which we have, indeed, victorious
Analysis. Honour to victorious Analysis; nevertheless, out of the
Workshop and Laboratory, what thing was victorious Analysis yet
known to make? Detection of incoherences, mainly; destruction of
the incoherent. From of old, Doubt was but half a magician; she
evokes the spectres which she cannot quell. We shall have
“endless vortices of froth-logic;” whereon first words, and then
things, are whirled and swallowed. Remark, accordingly, as
acknowledged grounds of Hope, at bottom mere precursors of
Despair, this perpetual theorising about Man, the Mind of Man,
Philosophy of Government, Progress of the Species and such-like;
the main thinking furniture of every head. Time, and so many
Montesquieus, Mablys, spokesmen of Time, have discovered
innumerable things: and now has not Jean Jacques promulgated his
new Evangel of a _Contrat Social;_ explaining the whole mystery
of Government, and how it is _contracted_ and bargained for,—to
universal satisfaction? Theories of Government! Such have been,
and will be; in ages of decadence. Acknowledge them in their
degree; as processes of Nature, who does nothing in vain; as
steps in her great process. Meanwhile, what theory is so certain
as this, That all theories, were they never so earnest, painfully
elaborated, are, and, by the very conditions of them, must be
incomplete, questionable, and even false? Thou shalt know that
this Universe is, what it professes to be, an _infinite_ one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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