e remain immovable and quiet,
but he wishes everything about him to be in the same condition. The
slightest change disturbs and disquiets him; he would like to see
stillness reigning everywhere. How could the same powerlessness,
joined to the same passions, produce such different effects in the two
ages, if the primary cause were not changed? And where can we seek for
this difference of cause, unless it be in the physical condition of the
two individuals? The active principle common to the two is developing
in the one, and dying out in the other; the one is growing, and the
other is wearing itself out; the one is tending toward life, and the
other toward death. Failing activity concentrates itself in the heart
of the old man; in the child it is superabounding, and reaches outward;
he seems to feel within him life enough to animate all that surrounds
him. Whether he makes or unmakes matters little to him. It is enough
that he changes the condition of things, and that every change is an
action. If he seems more inclined to destroy things, it is not out of
perverseness, but because the action which creates is always slow; and
that which destroys, being more rapid, better suits his natural
sprightliness.

While the Author of nature gives children this active principle, he
takes care that it shall do little harm; for he leaves them little
power to indulge it. But no sooner do they look upon those about them
as instruments which it is their business to set in motion, than they
make use of them in following their own inclinations and in making up
for their own want of strength. In this way they become disagreeable,
tyrannical, imperious, perverse, unruly; a development not arising from
a natural spirit of domination, but creating such a spirit. For no
very long experience is requisite in teaching how pleasant it is to act
through others, and to need only move one's tongue to set the world in
motion.

As we grow up, we gain strength, we become less uneasy and restless, we
shut ourselves more within ourselves. The soul and the body put
themselves in equilibrium, as it were, and nature requires no more
motion than is necessary for out preservation.

But the wish to command outlives the necessity from which, it sprang;
power to control others awakens and gratifies self-love, and habit
makes it strong. Thus need gives place to whim; thus do prejudices and
opinions first root themselves within us.

The principle on