In the long series of ages which have furnished the matter of history,
never was so beautiful and so august a spectacle presented to the moral
eye, as Europe afforded the day before the revolution in France. I knew
indeed that this prosperity contained in itself the seeds of its own
danger. In one part of the society it caused laxity and debility; in
the other it produced bold spirits and dark designs. A false philosophy
passed from academies into courts; and the great themselves were
infected with the theories which conducted to their ruin. Knowledge,
which in the two last centuries either did not exist at all, or existed
solidly on right principles and in chosen hands, was now diffused,
weakened, and perverted. General wealth loosened morals, relaxed
vigilance, and increased presumption. Men of talent began to compare, in
the partition of the common stock of public prosperity, the proportions
of the dividends with the merits of the claimants. As usual, they found
their portion not equal to their estimate (or perhaps to the public
estimate) of their own worth. When it was once discovered by the
revolution in France, that a struggle between establishment and rapacity
could be maintained, though but for one year, and in one place, I was
sure that a practicable breach was made in the whole order of things
and in every country. Religion, that held the materials of the fabric
together, was first systematically loosened. All other opinions, under
the name of prejudices, must fall along with it; and property, left
undefended by principles, became a repository of spoils to tempt
cupidity, and not a magazine to furnish arms for defence. I knew that,
attacked on all sides by the infernal energies of talents set in action
by vice and disorder, authority could not stand upon authority alone. It
wanted some other support than the poise of its own gravity. Situations
formerly supported persons. It now became necessary that personal
qualities should support situations. Formerly, where authority was
found, wisdom and virtue were presumed. But now the veil was torn,
and, to keep off sacrilegious intrusion, it was necessary that in
the sanctuary of government something should be disclosed not only
venerable, but dreadful. Government was at once to show itself full
of virtue and full of force. It was to invite partisans, by making it
appear to the world that a generous cause was to be asserted; one fit
for a generous people to engage in. From passive submission was it to
expect resolute defence? No! It must have warm advocates and passionate
defenders, which a heavy, discontented acquiescence never could produce.
What a base and foolish thing is it for any consolidated body of
authority to say, or to act as if it said, "I will put my trust not in
my own virtue, but in your patience; I will indulge in effeminacy, in
indolence, in corruption; I will give way to all my perverse and vicious
humours, because you cannot punish me without the hazard of ruining
yourselves?"