Now, if there be only two assumed means, and if we have demonstrated that the one is as impracticable as the other, we have proved that these system-makers are losing both their time and their trouble.
As regards the disposal of a material force which should subject to them all the kings and peoples of the earth, this is what these dotards, senile as they are, have never dreamt of. King Alphonsus had presumption and folly enough to exclaim, that “If he had been taken into God’s counsels, the planetary system should have been better arranged.” But although he set his wisdom above that of the Creator, he was not mad enough to wish to struggle with the power of Omnipotence, and history does not tell us that he ever actually tried to make the stars turn according to the laws of his invention. Descartes likewise contented himself with constructing a tiny world with dice and strings, knowing well that he was not strong enough to remove the universe. We know no one but Xerxes who, in the intoxication of his power, dared to say to the waves, “Thus far shall ye come, and no farther.” The billows did not recede before Xerxes, but Xerxes retreated before the billows; and without this humiliating but wise precaution he would certainly have been drowned.
Force, then, is wanting to the organizers who would subject humanity to their experiments. When they shall have gained over to their cause the Russian autocrat, the shah of Persia, the khan of Tartary, and all the other tyrants of the world, they will find that they still want the power to distribute mankind into groups and classes, and to annihilate the general laws of property, exchange, inheritance, and family; for even in Russia, in Persia, and in Tartary, it is necessary to a certain extent to consult the feelings, habits, and prejudices of the people. Were the emperor of Russia to take it into his head to set about altering the moral and physical constitution of his subjects, it is probable that he would soon have a successor, and that his successor would be better advised than to pursue the experiment.
But since force is a means quite beyond the reach of our [p055] numerous system-makers, no other resource remains to them but to obtain universal consent.
There are two modes of obtaining this—namely, Persuasion and Imposture.
Persuasion! but have we ever found two minds in perfect accord upon all the points of a single science? How then are we to expect men of various tongues, races, and manners, spread over the surface of the globe, most of them unable to read, and destined to die without having even heard the name of the reformer, to accept with unanimity the universal science? What is it that you aim at? At changing the whole system of labour, exchanges, and social relations, domestic, civil, and religious; in a word, at altering the whole physical and moral constitution of man; and you hope to rally mankind, and bring them all under this new order of things, by conviction!
Verily you undertake no light or easy duty.
When a man has got the length of saying to his fellows:
“For the last five thousand years there has been a misunderstanding between God and man;
“From the days of Adam to our time, the human race have been upon a wrong course—and, if only a little confidence is placed in me. I shall soon bring them back to the right way;