COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



Such was their criticism — a mere bald negation 

 and disavowal of all that had preceded them. 

 And such being their criticism, such also was 

 their political philosophy — an unqualified pro- 

 test, primarily against feudalisrn, monopoly, and 

 divine right, but ultimately, as carried out by 

 Rousseau, against all constraint whatever of 

 man by man, and therefore against the very 

 constitution of society. The immortal pamphlet 

 in which this greatest of sophists sought to de- 

 monstrate that all civilization, all science, and 

 all speculative culture is but an error and a fail- 

 ure, and that the only remedy lies in a return 

 to primitive barbarism, — was the legitimate 

 outcome and reductio ad absurdum of a philoso- 

 phy which began by forcibly severing itself from 

 all historic sympathy with the time-hallowed 

 traditions of our race. 



Such a philosophy may end, as it has ended, 

 in anarchy of thought, but not in rational con- 

 viction. It cannot organize a new framework 

 of opinions, nor can it even thoroughly accom- 

 plish the task of destroying the old framework. 

 It may indeed, as it has done here and there, 

 knock the venerable edifice into unshapely ruin, 

 but it cannot sweep away the cumbersome de- 

 bris, and leave the ground clear for the erection 

 of a new and more permanent structure. It dis- 

 credits altogether too profoundly the earnest 

 work of that average human intelligence of past 



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