t's name has been allowed to lie hidden for the most part in a
certain obscurity, or else has been covered with those taunts and
innuendoes, which partisans are wont to lavish on men of whom they do
not know exactly whether they are with or against them.

Generally the men of the Revolution are criticised in blocks and
sections, and Condorcet cannot be accurately placed under any of these
received schools. He was an Economist, but he was something more; for
the most characteristic article in his creed was a passionate belief in
the infinite perfectibility of human nature. He was more of a Girondin
than a Jacobin, yet he did not always act, any more than he always
thought, with the Girondins, and he did not fall when they fell, but was
proscribed by a decree specially levelled at himself. Isolation of this
kind is assuredly no merit in political action, but it explains the
coldness with which Condorcet's memory has been treated; it flowed from
some marked singularities both of character and opinion which are of the
highest interest, if we consider the position of the man and the lustre
of that ever-memorable time. 'Condorcet,' said D'Alembert, 'is a volcano
covered with snow.' Said another, less picturesquely: 'He is a sheep in
a passion.' 'You may say of the intelligence of Condorcet in relation
to his person,' wrote Madame Roland, 'that it is a subtle essence soaked
in cotton.' The curious mixture disclosed by sayings like these, of warm
impulse and fine purpose with immovable reserve, only shows that he of
whom they were spoken belonged to the class of natures which may be
called non-conducting. They are not effective, because without this
effluence of power and feeling from within, the hearer or onlooker is
stirred by no sympathetic thrill. They cannot be the happiest, because
consciousness of the inequality between expression and meaning, between
the influence intended and the impression conveyed, must be as
tormenting as to one who dreams is the vain effort to strike a blow. If
to be of this non-conducting temperament is impossible in the really
greatest characters, like St. Paul, St. Bernard, or Luther, at least it
is no proper object of blame, for it is constantly the companion of
lofty and generous aspiration. It was perhaps unfortunate that Condorcet
should have permitted himself to be drawn into a position where his want
of that magical quality by which even Marat could gain the sympathies of
men, should be so