VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 293 



people, was concerned was effete and powerless ; 

 the subjects of a government smitten with para- 

 lysis for everything but the working of iniquity 

 and the generation of scandals ; these naturally 

 hailed with rapture the appearance of the teacher 

 who clothed passion in the garb of philosophy ; and 

 preached the sweeping away of injustice by the per- 

 petration of further injustice, as if it were nothing 

 but the conversion of sound theory into practice. 

 It is true that any one who has looked below 

 the surface l will hardly be disposed to join in the 

 cry which is so often raised against the " philo- 

 sophes " that their " infidel and levelling " prin- 

 ciples brought about the French Revolution. 

 People, with political eyes in their heads, like the 

 Marquis d'Argenson, saw that the Revolution was 

 inevitable before Rousseau wrote a line. In truth, 

 the Bull " Um'srenitus," the interested restiveness 



o * 



of the Parliaments and the extravagances and 

 profligacy of the Court had a great deal more in- 

 fluence in generating the catastrophe than all the 

 '' philosophes " that ever put pen to paper. But, 

 undoubtedly, Rousseau's extremely attractive and 



1 Those who desire to do so with ease and pleasure should 

 read M. Roequain's L' Esprit revolutionnairc en France arant la 

 Revolution. It is really a luminous book, which ought to be 

 translated for the benefit of our rising public men, who, having 

 had the advantage of a public school education, are so often 

 unable to read French with comfort. For deeper students 

 there is, of course, the great work of M. Taine, Lcs Uritjincsdc In 

 France contcmporaine. [An excellent condensed English version 

 of M. Roequain's book, by Miss J. D Hunting, was published m 

 1891.] 



