"
_Rousseau_.--Although this politician, the paramount authority of the
Democrats, makes the social edifice rest upon the _general will_, no one
has so completely admitted the hypothesis of the entire passiveness of
human nature in the presence of the lawgiver:--
"If it is true that a great prince is a rare thing, how much more
so must a great lawgiver be? The former has only to follow the
pattern proposed to him by the latter. _This latter is the
mechanician who invents the machine_; the former is merely the
workman who sets it in motion."
And what part have men to act in all this? That of the machine, which is
set in motion; or rather, are they not the brute matter of which the
machine is made? Thus, between the legislator and the prince, between
the prince and his subjects, there are the same relations as those which
exist between the agricultural writer and the agriculturist, the
agriculturist and the clod. At what a vast height, then, is the
politician placed, who rules over legislators themselves, and teaches
them their trade in such imperative terms as the following:--
"Would you give consistency to the State? Bring the extremes
together as much as possible. Suffer neither wealthy persons nor
beggars.
"If the soil is poor and barren, or the country too much confined
for the inhabitants, turn to industry and the arts, whose
productions you will exchange for the provisions which you
require.
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