Consider the depth and the extent of the historical soil
in which they penetrate, and you may judge of their vigor. Consider
the height and unlimited growth of the trees which they nourish, and
you may judge of their healthiness. Everywhere else, one or other
having failed, in China, in the Roman Empire, in Islam, the sap has
dried downward and the tree has become stunted, or has fallen.... It
is the modern man, who is neither Chinese, nor antique, nor Moslem,
nor Negro, nor savage, the man formed by Christian education and
taking refuge in his conscience as in a sanctuary, the man formed by
feudal education and entrenched behind his honor as in a fortress,
whose sanctuary and stronghold the new social contract bids him
surrender.
Now, in this democracy founded on the preponderance of numbers, into
whose hands am I required to make this surrender? - Theoretically, to
the community, that is to say, to a crowd in which an anonymous
impulse is the substitute for individual judgment; in which action
becomes impersonal because it is collective; in which nobody
acknowledges responsibility; in which I am borne along like a grain of
sand in a whirlwind; in which all sorts of outrages are condoned
beforehand for reasons of state: practically, to the plurality of
voices counted by heads, to a majority which, over-excited by the
struggle for mastery, will abuse its victory and wrong the minority to
which I may belong; to a provisional majority which, sooner or later,
will be replaced by another, so that if I am to-day oppressor I am
sure of being oppressed to-morrow; still more particularly, to six or
seven hundred representatives, among who I am called upon to choose
but one.
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