folly, a child or a man, or
the rider or the horse, is all equivocal. What respect then can be paid
to that which describes nothing, and which means nothing? Imagination
has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all
the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a
chimerical nondescript.

But this is not all. If a whole country is disposed to hold them in
contempt, all their value is gone, and none will own them. It is
common opinion only that makes them anything, or nothing, or worse
than nothing. There is no occasion to take titles away, for they take
themselves away when society concurs to ridicule them. This species of
imaginary consequence has visibly declined in every part of Europe, and
it hastens to its exit as the world of reason continues to rise. There
was a time when the lowest class of what are called nobility was more
thought of than the highest is now, and when a man in armour riding
throughout Christendom in quest of adventures was more stared at than
a modern Duke. The world has seen this folly fall, and it has fallen
by being laughed at, and the farce of titles will follow its fate. The
patriots of France have discovered in good time that rank and dignity in
society must take a new ground. The old one has fallen through. It must
now take the substantial ground of character, instead of the chimerical
ground of titles; and they have brought their titles to the altar, and
made of them a burnt-offering to Reason.

If no mischief had annexed itself to the folly of titles they would not
have been worth a serious and formal destruction, such as the National
Assembly have decreed them; and this makes it necessary to enquire
farther into the nature and character of aristocracy.

That, then, which is called aristocracy in some countries and nobility
in others arose out of the governments founded upon conquest. It was
originally a military order for the purpose of supporting military
government (for such were all governments founded in conquest); and
to keep up a succession of this order for the purpose for which it
was established, all the younger branches of those families were
disinherited and the law of primogenitureship set up.

The nature and character of aristocracy shows itself to us in this law.
It is the law against every other law of nature, and Nature herself
calls for its destruction. Establish family justice, and aristocracy
falls. By the aristocratic