vilization--the progressive education
of the race--can lead to a universal morality.... The absolute escapes
our contingent and finite nature; the absolute is the secret of God."
God keep from evil M. Louis Raybaud! But I cannot help remarking that
all political apostates begin by the negation of the absolute, which is
really the negation of truth. What can a writer, who professes
scepticism, have in common with radical views? What has he to say to his
readers? What judgment is he entitled to pass upon contemporary
reformers? M. Raybaud thought it would seem wise to repeat an old
impertinence of the legist, and that may serve him for an excuse. We all
have these weaknesses. But I am surprised that a man of so much
intelligence as M. Raybaud, who STUDIES SYSTEMS, fails to see the very
thing he ought first to recognize,--namely, that systems are the
progress of the mind towards the absolute.]

[Footnote 75: The electoral reform, it is continually asserted, is not
an END, but a MEANS. Undoubtedly; but what, then, is the end? Why not
furnish an unequivocal explanation of its object? How can the people
choose their representatives, unless they know in advance the purpose
for which they choose them, and the object of the commission which they
entrust to them? But, it is said, the very business of those chosen by
the people is to find out the object of the reform. That is a quibble.
What is to hinder these persons, who are to be elected in future, from
first seeking for this object, and then, when they have found it, from
communicating it to the people? The reformers have well said, that,
while the object of the electoral reform remains in the least
indefinite, it will be only a means of transferring power from the hands
of petty tyrants to the hands of other tyrants. We know already how a
nation may be oppressed by being led to believe that it is obeying only
its own laws. The history of universal suffrage, among all nations, is
the history of the restrictions of liberty by and in the name of the
multitude. Still, if the electoral reform, in its present shape, were
rational, practical, acceptable to clean consciences and upright minds,
perhaps one might be excused, though ignorant of its object, for
supporting it. But, no; the text of the petition determines nothing,
makes no distinctions, requires no conditions, no guarantee; it
establishes the right without the duty. "Every Frenchman is a voter, and
eligible to office." As