For whilst society is struggling to realise liberty, the great men who
place themselves at its head, imbued with the principles of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, think only of subjecting it to the
philanthropic despotism of their social inventions, and making it bear
with docility, according to the expression of Rousseau, the yoke of
public felicity, as pictured in their own imaginations.
This was particularly the case in 1789. No sooner was the old system
destroyed, than society was to be submitted to other artificial
arrangements, always with the same starting-point--the omnipotence of
the law.
_Saint Just_.--"The legislator commands the future. It is for him
to _will_ for the good of mankind. It is for him to make men what
he wishes them to be."
_Robespierre_.--"The function of Government is to direct the
physical and moral powers of the nation towards the object of its
institution."
_Billaud Varennes_.--"A people who are to be restored to liberty
must be formed anew. Ancient prejudices must be destroyed,
antiquated customs changed, depraved affections corrected,
inveterate vices eradicated. For this, a strong force and a
vehement impulse will be necessary.... Citizens, the inflexible
austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis of the Spartan
republic.
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