Then he
attacks yet more ancient and more solid foundations, positive
religion, property and the family. - For four years he has been
satisfied with demolition and now he wants to construct. His object
is not merely to do away with a positive faith and suppress social
inequality, to proscribe revealed dogmas, hereditary beliefs, an
established cult, the supremacy of rank and superiority of fortunes,
wealth, leisure, refinement and elegance, but he wants, in addition to
all this, to re-fashion the citizen. He wants to create new
sentiments, impose natural religion on the individual, civic
education, uniform ways and habits, Jacobin conduct, Spartan virtue;
in short, nothing is to be left in a human being that is not
prescribed, enforced and constrained. - Henceforth, there is opposed
to the Revolution, not alone the partisans of the ancient r?gime -
priests, nobles, parliamentarians, royalists, and Catholics - but,
again, every person imbued with European civilization, every member of
a regular family, any possessor of a capital, large or small; every
kind or degree of proprietor, farmer, manufacturer, merchant, artisan
or farmer, even most of the revolutionaries.
Pages:
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267