course. Society, accordingly, disintegrated and a pell-mell, is turned
into a turbulent, shouting crowd, each pushing and being pushed, all
alike over-excited and congratulating each other on having finally
obtained elbow-room, and all demanding the new barriers shall be as
fragile and the new guardians as feeble, as defenseless, and as inert
as possible. This is what has been done. As a natural consequence,
those who were foremost in the rank have been relegated to the last;
many have been struck down in the fray, while in this permanent state
of disorder, which goes under the name of lasting order, elegant
footwear continue to be stamped upon by hobnailed boots and wooden
shoes. - The fanatic and the intemperate egoists can now let
themselves go. They are no longer subject to any ancient
institutions, nor any armed might which can restrain them. On the
contrary, the new constitution, through its theoretical declarations
and the practical application of these, invites them to let themselves
go. -- For, on the one hand, legally, it declares to be based upon
pure reason, beginning with a long string of abstract dogmas from
which its positive prescriptions are assumed to be rigorously deduced.
As a consequence all laws are submitted to the shallow comments of
reasoners and quibblers who will both interpret and break them
according to the principles.[10] -- On the other hand, as a matter of
fact, it hands over all government powers to the elections and confers
on the clubs the control of the authorities: which is to offer a
premium to the presumption of the ambitious who put themselves forward
because they think themselves capable, and who defame their rulers
purposely to displace them. - Every government department,
organization or administrative system is like a hothouse which serves
to favor some species of the human plant and wither others. This one
is the best one for the propagation and rapid increase of the coffee-
house politician, club haranguer, the stump-speaker, the street-