This day the evil is totally changed in France: but there is an evil
there. The disease is altered; but the vicinity of the two countries
remains, and must remain; and the natural mental habits of mankind are
such, that the present distemper of France is far more likely to be
contagious than the old one: for it is not quite easy to spread a
passion for servitude among the people; but in all evils of the opposite
kind our natural inclinations are flattered. In the case of despotism,
there is the _foedum crimen servitutis_: in the last, the _falsa SPECIES
libertatis_; and accordingly, as the historian says, _pronis auribus
accipitur_.
In the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of
France in the net of a relentless despotism. It is not necessary to say
anything upon that example. It exists no longer. Our present danger from
the example of a people whose character knows no medium is, with regard
to government, a danger from anarchy: a danger of being led, through an
admiration of successful fraud and violence, to an imitation of the
excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating,
plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy. On the side of
religion, the danger of their example is no longer from intolerance, but
from atheism: a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and
consolation of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time, to have
been embodied into a faction, accredited, and almost avowed.
Pages:
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253