he unworthy complacency of
philosophers; on the other side, a pretended system of perfectibility,
not less suspicious, which, to realize the chimera of a general
perfection common to the whole universe, would not be embarrassed for a
choice of means. This is what would meet his attention. So he carried
there, where the most pressing danger lay and reform was the most urgent,
the strongest forces of his principles, and made it a law to pursue
sensualism without pity, whether it walks with a bold face, impudently
insulting morality, or dissimulates under the imposing veil of a moral,
praiseworthy end, under which a certain fanatical kind of order know how
to disguise it. He had not to disguise ignorance, but to reform
perversion; for such a cure a violent blow, and not persuasion or
flattery, was necessary; and the more the contrast would be violent
between the true principles and the dominant maxims, the more he would
hope to provoke reflection upon this point. He was the Draco of his
time, because his time seemed to him as yet unworthy to possess a Solon,
neither capable of receiving him. From the sanctuary of pure reason he
drew forth the moral law, unknown then, and yet, in another way, so
known; he made it appear in all its saintliness before a degraded
century, and troubled himself little to know whether there were eyes too
enfeebled to bear the brightness.

But what had the children of the house done for him to have occupied
himself only with the valets? Because strongly impure inclinations often
usurp the name of virtue, was it a reason for disinterested inclinations
in the noblest heart to be also rendered suspicious? Because the moral
epicurean had willingly relaxed the law of reason, in order to fit it as
a plaything to his customs, was it a reason to thus exaggerate harshness,
and to make the fulfilment of duty, which is the most powerful
manifestation of moral freedom, another kind of decorated servitude of a
more specious name? And, in fact, between the esteem and the contempt of
himself has the truly moral man a more free choice than the slave of
sense between pleasure and pain? Is there less of constraint there for a
pure will than here for a depraved will? Must one, by this imperative
form given to the moral law, accuse man and humble him, and make of this
law, which is the most sublime witness of our grandeur, the most crushing
argument for our fragility? Was it possible with this imperative force
to avo