Thus equality demands the abolition of inheritance, and the equality of possessions. Equality of possessions necessitates collectivism, and collectivism requires the abolition of nationalities. We are _egalitarians_, then collectivists, and by logical consequence anti-patriots.
So argue the great majority of school teachers, with an absolute logic, in my opinion, irrefutable, with the logic which takes no account of facts, and which only takes account of its own principle and of itself. So they will all argue to-morrow, if they continue, as it is probable they will continue, to be very excellent dialecticians.
Will they go back to the premises and say, that if the sovereignty of the people and equality lead logically and imperatively to these conclusions, it is perhaps because the sovereignty of the people and equality are false ideas, and because these conclusions prove them to be false? This is a course not likely to be taken, for the sovereignty of the people and the principle of equality are something more than general ideas, they are sentiments.
They are sentiments which have become ideas, as is the case doubtless with all general ideas, and they are sentiments of great strength. The sovereignty of the people is the truth for him who believes in it, because it ought to be true, because it is a thing as full of majesty for him as was Cæsar in all his pomp for the ancient Roman, or Louis XIV. in all his glory for the man of the seventeenth century.
Equality is truth for him who believes, because it ought to be true, because it is justice, and because it would be infamous if justice and truth were not one. For the democrat, the world has ever been rising gradually, since its creation, towards the sovereignty of the people and the doctrine of equality; the latter contains the former, the former is destined to found the latter and has this mission for its purpose in life; together they constitute civilisation, and if they are not attained, there is a relapse into barbarism.
They are dogmas of faith. A dogma is an overmastering sentiment which has found expression in a formula. From these two dogmas everything that can be deduced without breach of logic is truth which it is our right and duty to proclaim.