e to the
danger of being overrun by a "modern barbarism."

And it would be no wonder if this thought should appear so at present.
For even public opinion--I have already indicated by what means,
namely, through the newspapers--receives today its imprint from the
coining-die of capital and from the hands of the privileged capitalist
class.

Nevertheless this fear is only a prejudice; and it can be proved, on
the contrary, that this thought would represent the highest moral
progress and triumph which the world's history has shown. That view is
a prejudice, I say, and it is the prejudice of the present time, which
is still controlled by privilege.

At another time--at the time of the first French Republic of 1793,
which was necessarily forced to fail from its own lack of
clearness--the opposite prejudice prevailed. At that time it was held
as a dogma that all the upper classes were immoral and only the
common people were good and moral. This view is due to Rousseau. In
the new Declaration of Human Rights which the French Convention, that
powerful constitutional assembly, published, it is even set forth in a
special article--Article 19--which reads "_Toute institution, qui ne
suppose le peuple bon et le magistrat corruptible, est vicieuse_."
(Every institution which does not assume that the people is good and
the magistracy corruptible is faulty.) You see that is exactly the
opposite of the confidence which is called for today, according to
which there is no greater crime than to doubt the good-will and the
virtue of the magistrates, while the people are considered on
principle a sort of dangerous beast and centre of corruption.

At that time the opposite dogma even went so far that almost anybody
whose coat was in good repair appeared for that very reason corrupt
and suspicious, and virtue and purity and patriotic morality were
believed to be found only in those who had no good coat. It was the
period of _sans-culottism._

This point of view had really a foundation of truth, which, however,
appears in a false and perverted form. Now there is nothing more
dangerous than a principle which appears in false and perverted form;
for, whatever attitude you take toward it, you are sure to fare badly.
If you adopt this truth in its false, perverted form, then, at certain
times, this will produce the most terrible devastation, as was the
case in the period of _sans-culottism._ If, on account of the false
form, you reject the