isinterestedness. In England they
quickly foresee the danger.

In vain is philosophy there indigenous and precocious; it does not
become acclimatized. In 1729, Montesquieu writes in his memorandum-book:
"No religion in England; four or five members of the House of Commons
attend mass or preaching in the House. . . . When religion is mentioned
everybody begins to laugh. A man having said: I believe that as an
article of faith, everybody laughed. A committee is appointed to
consider the state of religion, but it is regarded as absurd." Fifty
years later the public mind undergoes a reaction; all with a good
roof over their heads and a good coat on their backs[4201] see the
consequence of the new doctrines. In any event they feel that closet
speculations are not to become street preaching. Impiety seems to them
an indiscretion; they consider religion as the cement of public order.
This is owing to the fact that they are themselves public men, engaged
in active life, taking a part in the government, and instructed through
their daily and personal experience. Practical life fortifies them
against the chimeras of theorists; they have proved to themselves how
difficult it is to lead and to control men. Having had their hand on the
machine they know how it works, its value, its cost, and they are not
tempted to cast it aside as rubbish to try another, said to be superior,
but which, as yet, exists only on paper. The baronet, or squire, a
justice on his own domain, has no trouble in discerning in the clergyman
of his parish an indispensable co-worker and a natural ally. The duke
or marquis, sitting in the upper house by the side of bishops, requires
their votes to pass bills, and their assistance to rally to his party
the fifteen hundred curates who influence the rural conscience. Thus
all have a hand on some social wheel, large or small, principal or
accessory, and this endows them with earnestness, foresight and good
sense. On coming in contact with realities there is no temptation to
soar away into the imaginary world; the fact of one being at work on
solid ground of itself makes one dislike aerial excursions in empty
space. The more occupied one is the less one dreams, and, to men of
business, the geometry of the 'Contrat Social' is merely intellectual
gymnastics.

II. Conditions In France.

The opposite conditions found in France.--Indolence of the
upper class.--Philosophy seems an intellectual drill.--