No difficulties occur in what has never been tried.
Criticism is almost baffled in discovering the defects of what has not
existed; and eager enthusiasm and cheating hope have all the wide
field of imagination in which they may expatiate with little or no
opposition.
* A leading member of the Assembly, M. Rabaud de St. Etienne,
has expressed the principle of all their proceedings as clearly as
possible- Nothing can be more simple: "Tous les etablissemens en
France couronnent le malheur du peuple: pour le rendre heureux il faut
le renouveler; changer ses idees; changer ses loix; changer ses
moeurs;... changer les hommes; changer les choses; changer les mots...
tout detruire; oui, tout detruire; puisque tout est a recreer". This
gentleman was chosen president in an assembly not sitting at the
Quinze-vingt, or the Petits Maisons; and composed of persons giving
themselves out to be rational beings; but neither his ideas, language,
or conduct, differ in the smallest degree from the discourses,
opinions, and actions of those within and without the Assembly, who
direct the operations of the machine now at work in France.
At once to preserve and to reform is quite another thing. When the
useful parts of an old establishment are kept, and what is
superadded is to be fitted to what is retained, a vigorous mind,
steady, persevering attention, various powers of comparison and
combination, and the resources of an understanding fruitful in
expedients are to be exercised; they are to be exercised in a
continued conflict with the combined force of opposite vices, with the
obstinacy that rejects all improvement and the levity that is fatigued
and disgusted with everything of which it is in possession.
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