with fermenting brain, the pretentious subaltern rattling his dice-
box. . . At the sight of a public official rising from nowhere, even
the soul of a bootblack will bound with emulation." -- He has
merely to push himself ahead and elbow his way to secure a ticket "in
this immense lottery of popular luck, of preferment without merit, of
success without talent, of apotheoses without virtues, of an infinity
of places distributed by the people wholesale, and enjoyed by the
people in detail." -- Political charlatans flock thither from every
quarters, those taking the lead who, being most in earnest, believe in
the virtue of their nostrum, and need power to impose its recipe on
the community; all being saviors, all places belong to them, and
especially the highest. They lay siege to these conscientiously and
philanthropically ; if necessary, they will take them by assault, hold
them through force, and, forcibly or otherwise, administer their cure-
all to the human species.



III.

Psychology of the Jacobin. -- His intellectual method. -- Tyranny of
formulae and suppression of facts. -- Mental balance disturbed. --
Signs of this in the revolutionary language. -- Scope and expression
of the Jacobin intellect. -- In what respect his method is
mischievous. -- How it is successful. -- Illusions produced by it.

Such are our Jacobins, born out of social decomposition like mushrooms
out of compost. Let us consider their inner organization, for they
have one as formerly the Puritans; we have only to follow their dogma
down to its depths, as with a sounding-line, to reach the