his comprehension; he does not measure their bearings, he does not
appreciate their limitations, he is insensible to their restrictions and
he falsifies their application. They are like those preparations of the
laboratory which, harmless in the chemist's hands, become destructive
in the street under the feet of passing people.--Too soon will this be
apparent when, in the name of popular sovereignty, each commune, each
mob, shall regard itself as the nation and act accordingly; when Reason,
in the hands of its new interpreters, shall inaugurate riots in the
streets and peasant insurrections in the fields.[3415]

This is owing to the philosophers of the age having been mistaken in two
ways. Not only is reason not natural to Man nor universal in humanity,
but again, in the conduct of Man and of humanity, its influence is
small. Except with a few cool and clear intellects, a Fontenelle,
a Hume, a Gibbon, with whom it may prevail because it encounters no
rivals, it is very far from playing a leading part; it belongs to other
forces born within us, and which, by virtue of being the first comers,
remain in possession of the field. The place obtained by reason is
always restricted; the office it fulfills is generally secondary. Openly
or secretly, it is only a convenient subaltern, a domestic advocate
constantly suborned, employed by the proprietors to plead in their
behalf; if they yield precedence in public it is only through decorum.
Vainly do they proclaim it the recognized sovereign; they grant it only
a passing authority, and, under its nominal control, they remain the
inward masters. These masters of Man consists of physical temperament,
bodily needs, animal instinct, hereditary prejudice, imagination,
generally the dominant passion, and more particularly personal or family
interest, also that of caste or party. We are making a big mistake were
we assume men to be naturally good, generous, pleasant, or at any rate
gentle, pliable, and ready to sacrifice themselves to social interests
or to those of others. There are several, and among them the strongest,
who, left to themselves, would only wreak havoc.--In the first place, if
there is no certainty of Man being a remote blood cousin of the monkey,
it is at least certain that, in his structure, he is an animal closely
related to the monkey, provided with canine teeth, carnivorous, formerly
cannibal and, therefore, a hunter and bellicose. Hence there is in him
a steady subs