Capacities beyond these the people have not to give. Virtue and wisdom
may be the objects of their choice; but their choice confers neither the
one nor the other on those upon whom they lay their ordaining hands.
They have not the engagement of Nature, they have not the promise of
Revelation for any such powers.
After I had read over the list of the persons and descriptions elected
into the _Tiers Etat_, nothing which they afterwards did could appear
astonishing. Among them, indeed, I saw some of known rank, some of
shining talents; but of any practical experience in the state not one
man was to be found. The best were only men of theory. But whatever the
distinguished few may have been, it is the substance and mass of the
body which constitutes its character, and must finally determine its
direction. In all bodies, those who will lead must also, in a
considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the
taste, talent, and disposition of those whom they wish to conduct:
therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very
great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very
rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into
calculation, will prevent the men of talents disseminated through it
from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects. If, what
is the more likely event, instead of that unusual degree of virtue, they
should be actuated by sinister ambition and a lust of meretricious
glory, then the feeble part of the assembly, to whom at first they
conform, becomes, in its turn, the dupe and instrument of their designs.
Pages:
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326