* The interference of public authority in every branch of public
endeavor.
* Constraints put upon labor, trade and property, upon the family and
education, upon worship, habits, customs and sentiments.
* The sacrifice of the individual to the community.
* The omnipotence of the State.
No theory could be more reactionary since it moves modern man back to
a type of society which he, eighteen centuries ago, had already passed
through and left behind.
During the historical era proceeding our own, and especially in the
old Greek or Latin cities, in Rome or Sparta, which the Jacobins take
for their models,[1] human society was shaped after the pattern of an
army or convent. In a convent as in an army, one idea, absorbing and
unique, predominates:
* The aim of the monk is to please God at any sacrifice.
* The soldier makes every sacrifice to obtain a victory.
Accordingly, each renounces every other desire and entirely abandons
himself, the monk to his rules and the soldier to his drill. In like
manner, in the antique world, two preoccupations were of supreme
importance. In the first place, the city had its gods who were both
its founders and protectors: it was therefore obliged to worship these
in the most reverent and particular manner; otherwise, they abandoned
it.
Pages:
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223