n the laws, but in nature. A free but oppressed and
suffering mind, the palpitation of his noble heart had made every heart
beat that had been ulcerated by the odious inequality of social
conditions. It was the revolt of the ideal against the real. He had been
the tribune of nature, the Gracchus of philosophy--he had not produced
the history of institutions, only its vision--but that vision descended
from heaven and returned thither. There was to be seen the design of God
and the excess of his love--but there was not enough seen of the
infirmity of men. It was the Utopia of government; but by this Rousseau
led further astray. To impel the people to passion there must be some
slight illusion mingled with the truth; reality alone was too chilling
to fanaticise the human mind; it is only roused to enthusiasm by things
something out of nature. What is termed the ideal is the attraction and
force of religions, which always aspire higher than they mount; this is
how fanaticism is produced, that delirium of virtue. Rousseau was the
ideal of politics, as Fenelon was the ideal of Christianity.

Voltaire had the genius of criticism, that power of raillery which
withers all it overthrows. He had made human nature laugh at itself, had
felled it low in order to raise it, had laid bare before it all errors,
prejudices, iniquities, and crimes of ignorance; he had urged it to
rebellion against consecrated ideas, not by the ideal but by sheer
contempt. Destiny gave him eighty years of existence, that he might
slowly decompose the decayed age; he had the time to combat against
time, and when he fell he was the conqueror. His disciples filled
courts, academies, and saloons; those of Rousseau grew splenetic and
visionary amongst the lower orders of society. The one had been the
fortunate and elegant advocate of the aristocracy, the other was the
secret consoler and beloved avenger of the democracy. His book was the
book of all oppressed and tender souls. Unhappy and devotee himself, he
had placed God by the side of the people; his doctrines sanctified the
mind, whilst they led the heart to rebellion. There was vengeance in his
very accent, but there was piety also. Voltaire's followers would have
overturned altars, those of Rousseau would have raised them. The one
could have done without virtues, and made arrangements with thrones; the
other had absolute need of a God, and could only have founded republics.

Their numerous disciples progre