im; in his organization
there is no defect. Inferior elements are as serviceable as the superior
elements; all are essential, proportionate, in proper place, not only
the heart, the conscience, the intellect, and the faculties by which we
surpass brutes, but again the inclinations in common with animals, the
instinct of self-preservation and of self-defense, the need of physical
activity, sexual appetite, and other primitive impulses as we observe
them in the child, the savage and the uncultivated Man.[3331] None
of these in themselves are either vicious or injurious. None are too
strong, even the love of self. None come into play out of season. If we
would not interfere with them, if we would impose no constraint on them,
if we would permit these sparkling fountains to flow according to their
bent, if we would not confine them to our artificial and foul channels,
we should never see them boiling over and becoming turbid. We look with
wonder on their ravages and on their stains; we forget that, in the
beginning, they were pure and undefiled. The fault is with us, in our
social arrangements, in our encrusted and formal channels whereby we
cause deviations and windings, and make them heave and bound. "Your very
governments are the cause of the evils which they pretend to remedy. Ye
scepters of iron! ye absurd laws, ye we reproach for our inability to
fulfill our duties on earth!" Away with these dikes, the work of tyranny
and routine! An emancipated nature will at once resume a direct and
healthy course and man, without effort, will find himself not only happy
but virtuous as well.[3332] On this principle the attack begins:
there is none that is pushed further, nor conducted with more bitter
hostility. Thus far existing institutions are described simply as
oppressive and unreasonable; but now they are now they are accused of
being unjust and corrupting as well. Reason and the natural desires were
the only insurgents; conscience and pride are now in rebellion. With
Voltaire and Montesquieu all I might hope for is that fewer evils might
be anticipated. With Diderot and d'Holbach the horizon discloses only
a glowing El Dorado or a comfortable Cythera. With Rousseau I behold
within reach an Eden where I shall immediately recover a nobility
inseparable from my happiness. It is my right; nature and Providence
summon me to it; it is my heritage. One arbitrary institution alone
keeps me away from it, the creator of my vices as of m