qualities of their nature and of their race.-The
Frenchman easily and quickly grasps some general trait of objects and
persons, some characteristic in common; here, this characteristic is the
inherent quality of man which he dexterously makes prominent, clearly
isolates, and then, stepping along briskly and confidently, rushes
ahead on the high-road to consequences.[3302] He has forgotten that his
summary notion merely corresponds to an extract, and a very brief one,
of man in his completeness; his decisive, precipitate process hinders
him from seeing the largest portion of the real individual; he has
overlooked numerous traits, the most important and most efficacious,
those which geography, history, habit, condition, manual labor, or a
liberal education, stamp on intellect, soul and body and which, through
their differences, constitute different local or social groups. Not only
does he overlook all these characteristics, but he sets them aside; they
are too numerous and too complex; they would interfere with and disturb
his thoughts; however fitted for clear and comprehensive logic he is so
much the less fitted for complex and comprehensive ideas; consequently,
he avoids them and, through an innate operation of which he is
unconscious, he involuntarily condenses, simplifies and curtails
henceforth, his idea, partial and superficial as it is, seems to him
adequate and complete; in his eyes the abstract quality of man takes
precedence of and absorbs all others; not only has this a value, but the
sole value. One man, therefore, is as good as another and the law should
treat all alike.--Here, amour-propre (self-esteem, pride or arrogance),
so keen in France, and so readily excited, comes in to interpret and
apply the formula:[3303]

"Since all men equal each other, I am as good as any man; if the law
confers a right on people of this or that condition, fortune or birth,
it must confer the same right on me. Every door that is open to them
must be open to me; every door that is closed to me must be closed to
them. Otherwise, I am treated as an inferior and wounded in my deepest
feelings. When the legislator places a ballot in their hands he is bound
to place another just like it in my hands, even if they know how to use
it and I do not, even if a limited suffrage is of use to the community
and universal suffrage is not. So much the worse if I am sovereign only
in name, and through the imagination; I consent to my sovereignty