at
use is it to invoke an ancient sibyl when a muse is on the eve of birth?
Pitiable actors in a tragedy nearing its end, that which it behooves us
to do is to precipitate the catastrophe. The most deserving among us
is he who plays best this part. Well, I no longer aspire to this sad
success!

"Why should I not confess it, gentlemen? I have aspired to your
suffrages and sought the title of your pensioner, hating all which
exists and full of projects for its destruction; I shall finish this
investigation in a spirit of calm and philosophical resignation. I have
derived more peace from the knowledge of the truth, than anger from the
feeling of oppression; and the most precious fruit that I could wish to
gather from this memoir would be the inspiration of my readers with that
tranquillity of soul which arises from the clear perception of evil and
its cause, and which is much more powerful than passion and enthusiasm.
My hatred of privilege and human authority was unbounded; perhaps at
times I have been guilty, in my indignation, of confounding persons and
things; at present I can only despise and complain; to cease to hate I
only needed to know.

"It is for you now, gentlemen, whose mission and character are the
proclamation of the truth, it is for you to instruct the people, and to
tell them for what they ought to hope and what they ought to fear. The
people, incapable as yet of sound judgment as to what is best for them,
applaud indiscriminately the most opposite ideas, provided that in them
they get a taste of flattery: to them the laws of thought are like the
confines of the possible; to-day they can no more distinguish between a
savant and a sophist, than formerly they could tell a physician from
a sorcerer. 'Inconsiderately accepting, gathering together, and
accumulating everything that is new, regarding all reports as true and
indubitable, at the breath or ring of novelty they assemble like bees at
the sound of a basin.' [4]

"May you, gentlemen, desire equality as I myself desire it; may you,
for the eternal happiness of our country, become its propagators and its
heralds; may I be the last of your pensioners! Of all the wishes that
I can frame, that, gentlemen, is the most worthy of you and the most
honorable for me.

"I am, with the profoundest respect and the most earnest gratitude,

"Your pensioner,

"P. J. PROUDHON."

Two months after the receipt of this letter, the Academy, in its debate
of Augus