The relation between their doctrine and politics is analogous to the relation between geometry and mechanics.[128] We are now in the position of a people who should be familiar with Newton, but in shipbuilding be still on a level with the Esquimaux. The 'rights of man' appear to him to mean, not, as Burke and Bentham once agreed, a set of 'anarchical fallacies,' but a set of fundamental moral principles; and the declaration of them a most wise and 'auspicious' commencement of the 'regenerating labours' of the new legislators. The French revolution represented what Somers would now approve if he had our advantages.[129] A thoroughgoing change had become necessary in France. The church, army, and law were now 'incorrigible.'[130] Burke had seen, in the confiscation of church property, an attempt to abolish Christianity. To Mackintosh it seemed to be a reform justifiable in principle, which, though too roughly carried out, would reduce 'a servile and imperious priesthood to humble utility.'[131] A poor priesthood, indeed, might incline to popular superstition. We could console ourselves by reflecting that the power of the church, as a corporation, was broken, and that toleration and philosophy would restrain fanaticism.[132] The assignats were still 'almost at par.'[133] The sale of the national property would nearly extinguish the debt. France had 'renounced for ever the idea of conquest,'[134] and had no temptations to war, except her colonies. Their commercial inutility and political mischievousness had been so 'unanimously demonstrated,' that the French empire must soon be delivered from 'this cumbrous and destructive appendage.' An armed people, moreover, could never be used like a mercenary army to suppress liberty. There was no danger of military despotism, and France would hereafter seek for a pure glory by cultivating the arts of peace and extending the happiness of mankind.[135]