Even the jealousy of all superiority, the passion of envy--that poison of democratic society,--does not always affect as much as might be apprehended their moral judgment. This venom has affected us deeply; nevertheless, excellence is met with joy and welcomed with gratitude as a service done to society, which feels the necessity of being elevated and purified. Respect is more genuine, taste more correct while it remains a stranger to systematic opinions, to mere flights of fancy, and to all romantic emphasis. By a singular and very significant phenomenon, the exaggeration and emphasis of the present period tend towards evil and disorder. The declaimer plunges into the mire. Our times wish good to be true, simple, sedate, and sensible. It is only because it is good, a moral good, that it is esteemed and loved. It is asked to appear but what it is.
Where such a disposition prevails; where good is thus honored for itself, and for itself alone, there may still be much evil, and very serious evil; but such can hardly be the lot of the future.
We are hardly yet advancing towards a future. As yet we have struggled, and still strive to acquire from the heritage of the last century a spoil that suits us; a heritage so loaded, so mingled, that it has plunged us in confusion. We have co-existing in us good and bad, true and false, in direct opposition. { 46} We bear about in ourselves the most contradictory ideas and sentiments. We are driven about and stagger under their varying influence. Now we try to reject all absolutely, now to forget all and live from day to day without thought or design. Vain efforts! The problem harasses every soul, agitates or wearies it, leaves it in doubt or inactivity. None can elude it. A solution is necessary in moral as well as in political order, for individuals as for the state. For this is not a purely political question, which can be settled wholly and completely by charter, law, or cabinet. It is a matter which comes home to each of us; one for which each of us individually has to provide. We must keep, apart from the impulse which the eighteenth century has given to the world and the minds of men, that which agrees with the eternal order which that era often mistook for the world and the human mind. The new truths and laws which come to us from that date, as well as the immutable truths and laws which it overlooked, must live and reign together in our thoughts; we must know for a certainty and unhesitatingly practice what they demand from us. On this condition only shall we see the end of that mixture of agitation and depression, this doubting both of well and ill regulated minds, this barrenness of movement as of wisdom which are the peculiar evils of our era. Government and people reciprocally accuse each other of this evil, and charge on each other the task of applying a remedy. "Let Power be dignified, firm, active, fertile," says the one; "let it sustain and animate, rule and aid society; society will assist, evils will be remedied, good will be done; but it is for Power to take the initiative and responsibility in all this." { 47} "How can I do it?" replies Power. "How undertake the responsibility? It is in society itself--in the mind itself--that the evil exists. They are weak, tottering, inactive; full of doubts and fears. Let people ascend in the social scale; let them show self-control. I do not prevent them. No one can ask me to do more; I can do no more."