sophy, a theory
of nature and of man, a theory of society and of religion, a theory of
universal history,[1253] conclusions about the past, the present, and
the future of humanity, axioms of absolute right, a system of perfect
and final truth, the whole concentrated in a few rigid formulae as, for
example:

"Religion is superstition, monarchy is usurpation, priests are
impostors, aristocrats are vampires, and kings are so many tyrants and
monsters."

These ideas flood a mind of his stamp like a vast torrent precipitating
itself into a narrow gorge; they upset it, and, no longer under
self-direction, they sweep it away. The man is beside himself. A plain
bourgeois, a common laborer is not transformed with impunity into an
apostle or liberator of the human species.--For, it is not his country
that he would save, but the entire race. Roland, just before the 10th of
August, exclaims "with tears in his eyes, should liberty die in France,
she is lost the rest of the world forever! The hopes of philosophers
will perish! The whole earth will succumb to the cruelest
tyranny!"[1254]--Gregoire, on the meeting of the Convention, obtained a
decree abolishing royalty, and seemed overcome with the thought of the
immense benefit he had conferred on the human race.

"I must confess," said he, "that for days I could neither eat nor sleep
for excess of joy!"

One day a Jacobin in the tribune declared: "We shall be a nation of
gods!"--Fancies like these bring on lunacy, or, at all events, they
create disease. "Some men are in a fever all day long," said a companion
of St. Just; "I had it for twelve years..."[1255] Later on, "when
advanced in life and trying to analyze their experiences, they cannot
comprehend it."[1256] Another tells that, in his case, on a "crisis
occurring, there was only a hair's breadth between reason and
madness."--"When St. Just and myself," says Baudot, "discharged the
batteries at Wissenbourg, we were most liberally thanked for it. Well,
there was no merit in that; we knew perfectly well that the shot could
not do us any harm."--Man, in this exalted state, is unconscious of
obstacles, and, according to circumstances, rise above or falls below
himself, freely spilling his own blood as well as the blood of others,
heroic as a soldier and atrocious as a civilian; he is not to be
resisted in either direction for his strength increases a hundredfold
through his fury, and, on his tearing wildly through the streets,