OF THE LATE PROFESSOR ROBISON. 529 



The defects of the evidence were concealed by the prejudi- 

 ces and apprehensions which were then so general. The peo- 

 ple of this country were disposed to believe every thing unfa- 

 vourable to the French nation, but particularly to the philoso- 

 phers. All might not be equally culpable, but to discriminate 

 between them was not thought of much importance, and it was 

 the simplest, if not the fairest way, to divide the demerit equal- 

 ly among the whole. The rhapsodies of Barruel had already 

 prepared the public for such impartial decisions, and had held 

 up every man of genius and talents, from Montesquieu to 

 Condorcet, as objects of hatred and execration. 



But whatever opinion be formed of the facts related in the 

 history of this conspiracy, it is certainly not in the visions of 

 the German Illuminati, nor in the ceremonials of Free Mason- 

 ry, that we are to seek for the causes of a Revolution, which 

 has shaken the civilised world from its foundations, and left 

 behind it so many marks, which ages will be required to ef- 

 face. There is a certain proportionality between causes and 

 their effects, which we must expect to meet with in the moral 

 no less than in the natural world ; in the operations of men as 

 well as in the motions of inanimate bodies. Whenever a 

 great mass of mankind is brought to act together, it must be 

 in consequence of an impulse communicated to the whole, not 

 in consequence of a force that can act only on a few. A 

 Hermit or a Saint might have preached a crusade to the 

 Holy Land, with all the eloquence which enthusiasm could 

 inspire; but if a spirit of fanaticism and of chivalry had not 

 pervaded every individual in that age, they would never have 

 led out the armies of Europe to combat before the walls of Je- 

 rusalem. Neither could the influence of a small number 

 of religious or philosophic fanatics, sensibly accelerate or 

 retard those powerful causes which prepared from afar the 



destruction 



