ence, "nobility" is done away, and the peer is exalted into man.

Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is
perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the
human character which degrades it. If no mischief had annexed itself to
the folly of titles, they would not have been worth a serious and
formal destruction. Let us, then, examine the grounds upon which the
French constitution has resolved against having a house of peers in
France.

Because, in the first place, aristocracy is kept up by family tyranny
and injustice, due to the unnatural and iniquitous law of primogeniture.

Secondly, because the idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent
as that of hereditary judges or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an
hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous
as an hereditary poet-laureate.

Thirdly, because a body of men, holding themselves accountable to
nobody, ought not to be trusted by anybody.

Fourthly, because it is continuing the uncivilised principle of
government founded in conquest, and the base idea of man having property
in man, and governing him by personal right.

The French constitution hath abolished or renounced toleration and
intolerance also, and hath established universal right of conscience.

Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of
it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of
withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it. Who art
thou, vain dust and ashes! by whatever name thou art called, whether a
king, a bishop, a church, or a state, a parliament, or anything else,
that obtrudest thine insignificance between the soul of man and its
Maker? Mind thine own concerns. If he believes not as thou believest, it
is a proof that thou believest not as he believes, and there is no
earthly power can determine between you.

The opinions of men with respect to government are changing fast in all
countries. The revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam of
light over the world, which reaches into men. Ignorance is of a
peculiar nature; once dispelled, it is impossible to re-establish it.
It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of
knowledge; and though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made
ignorant.

When we survey the wretched condition of man, under the monarchical and
hereditary systems of government, dragged from h