conflicting social order resembling sometimes a drunken orgy
of demons, and sometimes a Spartan convent; all aimed at replacing the
real human being, slowly formed by his past with an improvised robot,
who, through its own debility, will collapse when the external and
mechanical force that keeps it up will no longer sustain it.

*****

NOTES:

[Footnote 3401: Barrere, "Point du jour," No. 1, (June 15, 1789). "You
are summoned to give history a fresh start."]

[Footnote 3402: Condorcet, ibid., "Tableau des progres de l'esprit
humain," the tenth epoch. "The methods of the mathematical sciences,
applied to new objects, have opened new roads to the moral and political
sciences."--Cf. Rousseau, in the "Contrat Social," the mathematical
calculation of the fraction of sovereignty to which each individual is
entitled.]

[Footnote 3403: Saint-Lambert, "Catechisme universel," the first
dialogue, p. 17.]

[Footnote 3404: Condorcet, ibid., ninth epoch. "From this single truth
the publicists have been able to derive the rights of man."]

[Footnote 3405: Rousseau still entertained admiration for Montesquieu
but, at the same time, with some reservation; afterwards, however, the
theory developed itself, every historical right being rejected. "Then,"
says Condorcet, (ibid., ninth epoch), "they found themselves obliged
abandon a false and crafty policy which, forgetful of men deriving equal
rights through their nature, attempted at one time to estimate those
allowed to them according to extent of territory, the temperature of
the climate, the national character, the wealth of the population, the
degree of perfection of their commerce and industries, and again to
apportion the same rights unequally among diverse classes of men,
bestowing them on birth, riches and professions, and thus creating
opposing interests and opposing powers, for the purpose of subsequently
establishing an equilibrium alone rendered necessary by these
institutions themselves and which the danger of their tendencies by no
means corrects."]

[Footnote 3406: Condillac, "Logique."]

[Footnote 3407: "Histoire de France par Estampes," 1789. (In the
collection of engravings, Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris.)]

[Footnote 3408: Mme. de Genlis, "Souvenirs de Felicie," 371-391.]

[Footnote 3409: De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien regime," 237.--Cf. "L'an
2440," by Mercier, III. vols. One of these lovely daydreams in all its
detail may be found here. The work was fir