our nurseries, or Dr. Arnold our public schools.

And so with the rest of the _philosophes_. That there were charlatans
among them, vain men, pretentious men, profligate men, selfish,
self-seeking, and hypocritical men, who doubts? Among what class of men
were there not such in those evil days? In what class of men are there
not such now, in spite of all social and moral improvement? But nothing
but the conviction, among the average, that they were in the right--that
they were fighting a battle for which it was worth while to dare, and if
need be to suffer, could have enabled them to defy what was then public
opinion, backed by overwhelming physical force.

Their intellectual defects are patent. No one can deny that their
inductions were hasty and partial: but then they were inductions as
opposed to the dull pedantry of the schools, which rested on tradition
only half believed, or pretended to be believed. No one can deny that
their theories were too general and abstract; but then they were theories
as opposed to the no-theory of the Ancien Regime, which was, "Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die."

Theories--principles--by them if men do not live, by them men are, at
least, stirred into life, at the sight of something more noble than
themselves. Only by great ideas, right or wrong, could such a world as
that which Le Sage painted, be roused out of its slough of foul
self-satisfaction, and equally foul self-discontent.

For mankind is ruled and guided, in the long run, not by practical
considerations, not by self-interest, not by compromises; but by theories
and principles, and those of the most abstruse, delicate, supernatural,
and literally unspeakable kind; which, whether they be according to