If these principles did finally become widespread, it was not on account of the theorists, but because new conditions of life had arisen. Thanks to the discoveries of science, industry developed and led to the erection of immense factories. Economic necessities increasingly dominated the wills of Governments and the people and finally created a favourable soil for the extension of Socialism, and above all of Syndicalism, the modern forms of democratic ideas.
2. The Unequal Influence of the Three Fundamental Principles of the Revolution.
The heritage of the Revolution is summed up in its entirety in the one phrase—Liberty, equality, and Fraternity. The principle of equality, as we have seen, has exerted a powerful influence, but the two others did not share its lot.
Although the sense of these terms seems clear enough, they were comprehended in very different fashions according to men and times. We know that the various interpretation of the same words by persons of different mentality has been one of the most frequent causes of the conflicts of history.
To the member of the Convention liberty signified merely the exercise of its unlimited despotism. To a young modern ``intellectual'' the same word means a general release from everything irksome: tradition, law, superiority, &c. To the modern Jacobin liberty consists especially in the right to persecute his adversaries.
Although political orators still occasionally mention liberty in their speeches, they have generally ceased to evoke fraternity. It is the conflict of the different classes and not their alliance that they teach to-day. Never did a more profound hatred divide the various strata of society and the political parties which lead them.
But while liberty has become very doubtful and fraternity has completely vanished, the principle of equality has grown unchecked. It has been supreme in all the political upheavals of which France has been the stage during the last century, and has reached such a development that our political and social life, our laws, manners, and customs are at least in theory based on this principle. It constitutes the real legacy of the Revolution. The craving for equality, not only before the law, but in position and fortune, is the very pivot of the last product of democracy: Socialism. This craving is so powerful that it is spreading in all directions, although in contradiction with all biological and economic laws. It is a new phase of the interrupted struggle of the sentiments against reason, in which reason so rarely triumphs.
2. The Democracy of the ``Intellectuals'' and Popular Democracy.
All ideas that have hitherto caused an upheaval of the world of men have been subject to two laws: they evolve slowly, and they completely change their sense according to the mentalities in which they find reception.
A doctrine may be compared to a living being. It subsists only by process of transformation. The books are necessarily silent upon these variations, so that the phase of things which they establish belongs only to the past. They do not reflect the image of the living, but of the dead. The written statement of a doctrine often represents the most negligible side of that doctrine.