“I see an innumerable crowd of like and equal men who revolve on themselves
without repose, procuring the small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill
their souls.”
“Over these is elevated an immense tutelary power, which takes sole charge of
assuring their enjoyment and of watching over their fate. It is absolute,
attentive to detail, regular, provident and gentle. It would resemble the
paternal power if, like that power, it had as its object to prepare men for
manhood, but it seeks, to the contrary, to keep them irrevocably fixed in
childhood…it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their needs,
guides them in their principal affairs….
“The sovereign extends its arms
about the society as a whole, it covers its surface with a network of petty
regulations – complicated, minute and uniform – through which even the most
original minds and the most vigorous souls know not how to make their way…. It
does not break wills; it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does
it force on to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one’s acting on one’s
own…it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way; it curtails, it enervates, it
extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally reduces each nation to being nothing
more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which government is the
shepherd.”
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