The
public interests, because about them they have no real solicitude,
they abandon wholly to chance; I say to chance, because their
schemes have nothing in experience to prove their tendency beneficial.
We must always see with a pity not unmixed with respect the errors
of those who are timid and doubtful of themselves with regard to
points wherein the happiness of mankind is concerned. But in these
gentlemen there is nothing of the tender, parental solicitude which
fears to cut up the infant for the sake of an experiment. In the
vastness of their promises and the confidence of their predictions,
they far outdo all the boasting of empirics. The arrogance of their
pretensions in a manner provokes and challenges us to an inquiry
into their foundation.
I AM convinced that there are men of considerable parts among
the popular leaders in the National Assembly. Some of them display
eloquence in their speeches and their writings. This cannot be without
powerful and cultivated talents. But eloquence may exist without a
proportionable degree of wisdom. When I speak of ability, I am obliged
to distinguish. What they have done toward the support of their system
bespeaks no ordinary men. In the system itself, taken as the scheme of
a republic constructed for procuring the prosperity and security of
the citizen, and for promoting the strength and grandeur of the state,
I confess myself unable to find out anything which displays in a
single instance the work of a comprehensive and disposing mind or even
the provisions of a vulgar prudence.
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