ity so profoundly conceived. But this
is not explicit. Questions regarding education, poverty, revision,
are not admitted among the fundamentals and are left to future
legislation. The most singular passage is that which ordains that no
man may be molested for his opinions, even religious. It would appear
that Toleration was that part of the liberal dogma for which the
deputies were least prepared.

The Declaration passed, by August 26, after a hurried debate, and with
no further resistance. The Assembly, which had abolished the past at
the beginning of the month, attempted, at the end, to institute and
regulate the future. These are its abiding works, and the perpetual
heritage of the Revolution. With them a new era dawned upon mankind.

And yet this single page of print, which outweighs libraries, and is
stronger than all the armies of Napoleon, is not the work of superior
minds, and bears no mark of the lion's claw. The stamp of Cartesian
clearness is upon it, but without the logic, the precision, the
thoroughness of French thought. There is no indication in it that
Liberty is the goal, and not the starting-point, that it is a faculty
to be acquired, not a capital to invest, or that it depends on the
union of innumerable conditions, which embrace the entire life of man.
Therefore it is justly arraigned by those who say that it is
defective, and that its defects have been a peril and a snare.

It was right that the attempt should be made; for the extinction of
privilege involved a declaration of rights. When those that were
exclusive and unequal were abandoned, it was necessary to define and
to insist on those that were equal and the property of all. After
destroying, the French had to rebuild, and to base their new structure
upon principles unknown to the law, unfamiliar to the people,
absolutely opposed to the lesson of their history and to all the
experience of the ages in which France had been so great. It could not
rest on traditions, or interests, or any persistent force of
gravitation. Unless the idea that was to govern the future was
impressed with an extreme distinctness upon the minds of all, they
would not understand the consequences of so much ruin, and such
irrevocable change, and would drift without a compass. The country
that had been so proud of its kings, of its nobles, and of its chains,
could not learn without teaching that popular power may be tainted
with the same poison as personal power.