under definite conditions; a physical force being ascertained and
accurately measured through the deviation of a needle, or through the
rise and fall of a fluid, this or that invisible moral force can
likewise be ascertained and approximately measured through some
emotional sign, some decisive manifestation, consisting of a certain
word, tone, or gesture. It is these words, tones, and gestures which
he dwells on; he detects inward sentiments by the outward expression;
he figures to himself the internal by the external, by some facial
appearance, some telling attitude, some brief and topical scene, by
such specimen and shortcuts, so well chosen and detailed that they
provide a summary of the innumerable series of analogous cases. In
this way, the vague, fleeting object is suddenly arrested, brought to
bear, and then gauged and weighed, like some impalpable gas collected
and kept in a graduated transparent glass tube. - Accordingly, at the
Council of State, while the others, either jurists or administrators,
see abstractions, articles of the law and precedents, he sees people
as they are - the Frenchman, the Italian, the German; that of the
peasant, the workman, the bourgeois, the noble, the returned
émigré,[62] the soldier, the officer and the functionary - everywhere
the individual man as he is, the man who plows, manufactures, fights,
marries, brings forth children, toils, enjoys himself, and dies. -
Nothing is more striking than the contrast between the dull, grave
arguments advanced by the wise official editor, and Napoleon's own
words caught on the wing, at the moment, vibrating and teeming with
illustrations and imagery.[63] Apropos of divorce, the principle of
which he wishes to maintain:

"Consult, now, national manners and customs. Adultery is no
phenomenon; it is common enough - une affaire de canapé . . . There
must be some curb on women who commit adultery for trinkets, poetry,