the French bourgeoisie does not seem likely to disappear quickly.[151] I have mentioned the lot of those writers who in quite recent times have dared to thwart the passions of the bourgeoisie. This is only one aspect of a very general novelty, of supreme interest to the subject I am discussing. I mean the consciousness of their sovereignty felt by the herd of laymen, and the resolution they display to bring to his senses any writer who dares to say anything but what they wish to hear. This propensity of the layman appears not only in his relations with his writers (and with his press--a newspaper which does not supply its readers with the exact errors they cherish is immediately dropped), but, which is far more remarkable, in his relations with his truly ‘clerical’ teachers, whose voice speaks to him in the name of the Divine. The pulpit-orator who really presumed to censure nationalist passion, who really mortified bourgeois arrogance, would soon (particularly in France) see his flock disperse. He can no longer terrify such a gathering with the fear of punishment, and they no longer believe in anything but the real; consequently they feel stronger and more important than he, and only consent to listen to his preaching on condition that he treats with deference--not to say sanctifies--the egotisms they venerate.[152] Modern humanity is fully determined that those who call themselves its teachers, shall be its servants and not its guides. And most of the teachers understand this admirably.[153] To come back to the modern writer and the causes for his political attitude--I shall add that he is not only in the service of a bourgeoisie which is in a state of anxiety, but that he himself has become more and more of a bourgeois, endowed with all the social position and respect which belong to that caste. The Bohemian man of letters has practically disappeared, at least among those who engage public interest. Consequently, he has more and more come to possess the bourgeois form of soul, one of those most conspicuous characteristics is an affectation of the political feelings of the aristocracy--an attachment to systems of arbitrary authority, to military and priestly institutions, a scorn for societies founded upon justice, upon civic equality, a cult for the past, etc.... How many writers in France during the past fifty years, men whose names are on everyone’s lips, obviously think they are ennobling themselves by expressing disgust for democratic institutions![154] In the same way I explain the adoption by many of them of harshness and cruelty, which they think are also attributes of the souls of the nobility.