THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



Reason and the supreme being continued to re- 

 lieve one another, until finally Napoleon I. 

 replaced them both by bayonets and cannons, and 

 discredited the supreme being by declaring that it 

 was always on the side of the strongest battalions. 

 And so the reign of reason and of the supreme 

 being ended in the nauseating farce of the resto- 

 ration of " law and order." 



The reign of reason appeared on closer 

 scrutiny as a transcendental image of the cap- 

 italist state. The existence of the supreme 

 being had not been proven, neither by decree of 

 parliament nor by the guillotine, and for that very 

 reason it continued to exist in those heads which 

 were accustomed to reason no better than those 

 which had been chopped off. The categorical 

 imperative, stripped of its gaudy trappings, stood 

 forth as the impotent and incapable wag that he 

 was. The social contract was renewed on the 

 basis of " Every one for himself and the devil 

 takes the hindmost." And the natural rights 

 were bossed around by the right to exploit the 

 proletariat and to place private property above 

 propertyless man. 



In the beginning of the I9th century, the dis- 

 appointment over the failure of all the glittering 

 ideals of bourgeois philosophy soon made itself 



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