The things we do!

THE APPLICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION.[1]

CHAPTER I.
I. The Federations. - Popular application of philosophic theory. -
Idyllic celebration of the Contrat-Social. - The two strata of the
human mind. - Permanent disorder.
If there ever was an Utopia which seemed capable of realization, or,
what is still more to the purpose, was really applied, converted
into a fact, fully established, it is that of Rousseau, in 1789 and
during the three following years. For, not only are his principles
embodied in the laws, and the Constitution throughout animated with
his spirit, but it seems as if the nation looked upon his
ideological gambols, his abstract fiction, as serious. This fiction
it carried out in every particular. A social contract, at one
spontaneous and practical, an immense gathering of men associating
together freely for the first time for the recognition of their
respective rights, forming a specific compact, and binding
themselves by a solemn oath: such is the social recipe prescribed by
the philosophers, and which is carried out to the letter.


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