It has canalized European religion, fixed European law, and latterly launched a renewed political ideal. It is very vigorous to-day. It was this force which made the massacres of September, which overthrew Robespierre, which elected Napoleon. In a more concentrated form, it was this force which combined into so puissant a whole the separate men—not men of genius—who formed the Committee of Public Safety. It is this force which made the Commune, so that to this day no individual can quite tell you what the Commune was driving at. And it is this force which at the present moment so grievously misunderstands and overestimates the strength of the armies which are the rivals of the French; indeed, in that connexion it might truly be said that the peace of Europe is preserved much more by the German knowledge of what the French army is, even than by French ignorance of what the German army is. I say the disadvantages of this force or quality in a commonwealth are apparent, for the weakness and disadvantages of something extraneous to ourselves are never difficult to grasp.
What do You think about On Something (Dodo Press)?
