‘It is one thing for it (the government) to be absolute, another for it to be arbitrary. It is absolute in relation to constraint, there being no power which is capable of compelling the sovereign, who in this sense is independent of all human authority. But it does not follow that government is arbitrary; because, apart from the fact that all things are subject to God’s judgment (which applies also to the government we have called arbitrary), there are laws in empires, and everything which is done contrary to them is void of right.’ It will be seen that the defence of arbitrary government is a new thing among French teachers, even in regard to Bossuet. (I am speaking of Bossuet’s _doctrines_, not of his practical advice.) Note K (Page 91) _This is the teaching of Nietzsche._ I must repeat that throughout this work I am considering the teaching of Nietzsche (and Hegel’s too) insofar as it has become the pretext for a great moral preaching, though I know perfectly well that in reality this teaching is something far more complex. I shall quote the following judicious observation, in connection with the fact that certain philosophers have only themselves to blame for ‘the misunderstanding of their true thought’: ‘Nietzscheism has been subjected to the same test as Hegelianism. And no doubt here and there philosophical themes have served especially as pretexts to cover up a new offensive on the part of barbarism. _But the fact that they have been utilized, the manner in which they have been utilized, have a significance which must not be overlooked._ Is it not the criterion of a philosophy which may be called rational without reserve and equivocation, that it should remain incorruptibly faithful to itself? On the other hand, _the systems which begin by accepting contradictions, reserving the right to add that they are capable of surmounting them or of “living” them, lodge their enemy in their midst_. Their punishment is that their antithesis still resembles them; and that is what has happened to Nietzsche.’ (L. Brunschvicg, _Le Progrès de la Conscience dans la philosophie occidentale_, p. 431.) This book contains an excellent exposition of ‘Hegelian themes’ and ‘Nietzschean themes’, precisely insofar as they have become political breviaries. Note L (Page 94) _Long before the disciples of Taine and Auguste Comte._ When this book appeared in a periodical, certain persons declared that the whole of my attack on the modern ‘clerk’ went astray because I did not give more space to the author of _Origines de la France Contemporaine_. He, they said, was the ‘great realist “clerk” of the past fifty years, while those I attacked were only his small change.’ (This sudden contempt for the thought of Barrès and Maurras of the part of certain people is certainly surprising.)