o
ordinary men. In the system itself, taken as the scheme of a republic
constructed for procuring the prosperity and security of the citizen,
and for promoting the strength and grandeur of the state, I confess
myself unable to find out anything which displays, in a single instance,
the work of a comprehensive and disposing mind, or even the provisions
of a vulgar prudence. Their purpose everywhere seems to have been to
evade and slip aside from _difficulty_. This it has been the glory of
the great masters in all the arts to confront, and to overcome,--and
when they had overcome the first difficulty, to turn it into an
instrument for new conquests over new difficulties: thus to enable them
to extend the empire of their science, and even to push forward, beyond
the reach of their original thoughts, the landmarks of the human
understanding itself. Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by
the supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who knows
us better than we know ourselves, as He loves us better too. _Pater ipse
colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit_. He that wrestles with us
strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our
helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate
acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its
relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial. It is the want of
nerves of understanding for such a task, it is the degenerate fondness
for tricking short-outs and little fallacious facilities, that has in so
many parts of the world created governments with arbitrary powers. They
have created the late arbitrary monarchy of France. They have created
the arbitrary republic of Paris. With them defects in wisdom are to be
supplied by the plenitude of force. They get nothing by it. Commencing
their labors on a principle of sloth, they have the common fortune of
slothful men. The difficulties, which they rather had eluded than
escaped, meet them again in their course; they multiply and thicken on
them; they are involved, through a labyrinth of confused detail, in an
industry without limit and without direction; and in conclusion, the
whole of their work becomes feeble, vicious, and insecure.

It is this inability to wrestle with difficulty which has obliged the
arbitrary Assembly of France to commence their schemes of reform with
abolition and total destruction.[120] But is it in destroying and
pulling down that skill