of it! At the present time nothing is more common
or familiar than the project of changing entirely the model of society.
"To subvert a government," writes M. Reybaud of his own country men, "to
change a dynasty or a political constitution, is now an insignificant
project. Your socialist is at peace with kings and constitutions; he
merely talks in the quietest manner imaginable of destroying every
thing, of uprooting society from its very basis."

Indeed, if the power of these projectors bore any proportion to their
presumption, our neighbours would be in a most alarming condition. To
extemporize a social system, a new humanity, or at least a new
Christianity, is now as common as it was formerly, on leaving college,
to rhyme a tragedy. The social projector, sublimely confident in
himself, seems to expect to realize, on a most gigantic scale, the fable
of Mesmerism; he will put the whole world in _rapport_ with him, and it
shall have no will but his, and none but such blind, imitative movements
as he shall impress on it. And it is to a sort of _coma_ that these
projectors would, for the most part, reduce mankind--a state where there
is some shadow of thought and passion, but no will, no self-direction,
no connexion between the past and present--a state aimless, evanescent,
and of utter subjugation. Fortunately these social reformers, however
daring, use no other instruments of warfare than speech and pamphlets;
they do not betake themselves to the sharp weapons of political
conspiracy. They must be permitted, therefore, to rave themselves out.
And this they will do the sooner from their very number. There are too
many prophets; they spoil the trade; the Mesmerizers disturb and
distract each other's efforts; the _fixed idea_ that is in them will not
fix any where else. Those who, in the natural order of things, should
be dupes, aspire to be leaders, and the leaders are at a dead struggle
for some novelty wherewith to attract followers. We have, for instance,
M. Pierre Leroux, most distinguished of the _Humanitarians_, the last
sect which figures on the scene, bidding for disciples--with what, will
our readers think?--with the doctrine of metempsychosis! It is put
forward as a fresh inducement to improve the world we live in, that we
shall live in it again and again, and nowhere else, and be our own most
remote posterity. We are not assured that there is any thread of
consciousness connecting the successive apparitions of