And so have not only outward circumstances changed, but the very human attitudes are now different. In the mind of modern man a feeling, distasteful to the antique pact, has evolved.—Undoubtedly, in extreme cases and under the pressure of brutal necessity I may, momentarily, sign a blank check. But, never, if I understand what I am doing, will I sign away in good faith the complete and permanent abandonment of myself: it would be against conscience and against honor, which two possessions are not to be alienated. My honor and my conscience are not to go out of my keeping; I am their sole guardian and depositary; I would not even entrust them to my father.—Both these terms are recent and express two conceptions unknown to the ancients,2206 both being of profound import and of infinite reach. Through them, like a bud separated from its stem and taking root apart, the individual has separated himself from the primitive body, clan, family, caste or city in which he has lived indistinguishable and lost in the crowd; he has ceased to be an organ and appendage; he has become a personality.—The first of these concepts is of Christian origin the second of feudal origin; both, following each other and conjoined, measure the enormous distance which separates an antique soul from a modern soul.2207

Alone, in the presence of God, the Christian has felt melting, like wax, all the ties binding him to his group; this because he is in front of the Great Judge, and because this infallible judge sees all souls as they are, not confusedly and in masses, but clearly, each by itself. At the bar of His tribunal no one is answerable for another; each answers for himself alone; one is responsible only for one's own acts. But those acts are of infinite consequence, for the soul, redeemed by the blood of a God, is of immeasurable value; hence, according as it has or has not profited by the divine sacrifice, so will the reward or punishment be infinite; at the final judgment, an eternity of torment or bliss opens before it. All other interests vanish alongside of a vision of such vastness. Thenceforth, righteousness is the most serious of all aims, not in the eyes of man, but of God and again, day after day, the soul renews within itself that tragic questioning in which the Judge interrogates and the sinner responds.—Through this dialogue, which has been going on for eighteen centuries, and which is yet to continue, conscience has grown more and more sensitive, and man has conceived the idea of absolute justice. Whether this is vested in an all-powerful master, or whether it is a self-existent truth, like mathematical truths, in no way diminishes its sacredness nor, consequently, from its authority. It commands with a superior voice and its commands must be obeyed, irrespective of cost: there are strict duties to which every man is rigorously bound. No pledge may relieve him of these duties; if not fulfilled because he has given contrary pledges he is no less culpable on this account, and besides, he is culpable for having pledged himself; the pledging of himself to crimes was in itself a crime. His fault thus appears to himself twofold, and the inward prick galls him twice instead of once. Hence, the more sensitive the conscience, the more loath it is to give up; it rejects any promise which may lead to wrong-doing, and refuses to give to give others any right of imposing remorse.

At the same time another sentiment has arisen, not less valuable, but hardier, more energetic, more human and more effective. On his own in his stronghold, the feudal chieftain, at the head of his band, could depend on nobody but himself, for a public force did not then exist. It was necessary that he should protect himself, and, indeed, over-protect himself. Whoever, in the anarchical and military society in which he lived, allowed the slightest encroachment, or left unpunished the slightest approach to insult, was regarded as weak or craven and at once became a prey; one had to be proud-spirited, if not, one risked death. This was not difficult either. Sole proprietor and nearly absolute sovereign, with neither equals or peers on his domain, here he was unique being, superior and incomparable to every one else.2208 On that subject revolved his long monologue during his hours of gloomy solitude, which soliloquy has lasted for nine centuries.2209 Thus in his own eyes, his person and all that depends on him are inviolable; rather than tolerate the slightest infringement on his prerogatives he will dare all and sacrifice all.2210 A sensitive pride (orgueil exaltÉ) is the best of sentinels to protect a right; for, not only does it mount guard over the right to preserve it, but, again, and especially, for its own satisfaction; the imagination has conceived a personality appropriate for his rank, and this character the man imposes on himself as his role. Henceforth, he not only forces the respect of others, but he respects himself; he possesses the sentiment of honor, a generous self-esteem which makes him regard himself as noble and incapable of doing anything mean. In discriminating between his actions, he may err; fashion or vanity may sometimes lead him too far, or lead him astray, either on the path of recklessness or on that of puerility; his point of honor may be fixed in the wrong direction. But, in sum, and thanks to this being a fixed point, he will maintain himself erect even under an absolute monarchy, under a Philip II. in Spain, under a Louis XIV. in France, under a Frederick II. in Prussia. From the feudal baron or gentleman of the court to the modern gentleman, this tradition persists and descends from story to story down to lowest social substratum: to-day, every man of spirit, the bourgeois, the peasant, the workman, has his point of honor like the noble. He likewise, in spite of the social encroachments that gain on him, reserves to himself his private nook, a sort of moral stronghold wherein he preserves his faiths, his opinions, his affections, his obligations as son, husband and father; it is the sacred treasury of his innermost being. This stronghold belongs to him alone; no one, even in the name of the public, has a right to enter it; to surrender it would be cowardice, rather than give up its keys he would die in the breach;2211 when this militant sentiment of honor is enlisted on the side of conscience it becomes virtue itself.2212—Such are, in these days, (1870) the two central themes of our European morality.2213 Through the former the individual recognizes duties from which nothing can exempt him; through the latter, he claims rights of which nothing can deprive him: our civilization has vegetated from these two roots, and still vegetates. Consider the depth and the extent of the historical soil in which they penetrate, and you may judge of their vigor. Consider the height and unlimited growth of the trees which they nourish, and you may judge of their healthiness. Everywhere else, one or other having failed, in China, in the Roman Empire, in Islam, the sap has dried downward and the tree has become stunted, or has fallen.... It is the modern man, who is neither Chinese, nor antique, nor Moslem, nor Negro, nor savage, the man formed by Christian education and taking refuge in his conscience as in a sanctuary, the man formed by feudal education and entrenched behind his honor as in a fortress, whose sanctuary and stronghold the new social contract bids him surrender.

Now, in this democracy founded on the preponderance of numbers, into whose hands am I required to make this surrender?—Theoretically, to the community, that is to say, to a crowd in which an anonymous impulse is the substitute for individual judgment; in which action becomes impersonal because it is collective; in which nobody acknowledges responsibility; in which I am borne along like a grain of sand in a whirlwind; in which all sorts of outrages are condoned beforehand for reasons of state: practically, to the plurality of voices counted by heads, to a majority which, over-excited by the struggle for mastery, will abuse its victory and wrong the minority to which I may belong; to a provisional majority which, sooner or later, will be replaced by another, so that if I am to-day oppressor I am sure of being oppressed to-morrow; still more particularly, to six or seven hundred representatives, among who I am called upon to choose but one. To elect this unique mandatory I have but one vote among ten thousand; and in helping to elect him I am only the ten-thousandth; I do not even count for a ten-thousandth in electing the others. And it is these six or seven hundred strangers to me to who I give full power to decide for me—note the expression full power—which means unlimited power, not alone over my possessions and life, but, again, over my conscience, with all its powers combined; that is to say, with powers much more extensive than those I confer separately on ten persons in whom I place the most confidence—to my legal adviser who looks after my fortune, to the teacher of my children, to the physician who cares for my health, to the confessor who directs my conscience, to friends who are to serve as executors of my last will and testament, to seconds in a duel who decide on my life, on the was of my blood and who guard my honor. Without reference to the deplorable farce, so often played around the ballot-box, or to the forced and distorted elections which put a contrary interpretation on public sentiment, or to the official lies by which, at this very moment, a few fanatics and madmen, who represent nobody but themselves, assume to represent the nation,2214 measure what degree of confidence I may have, even after honest elections, in mandatories who are thus chosen! Frequently, I have voted for the defeated candidate; in which case I am represented by the other who I did not want for a representative. In voting for the elected candidate, I did it because I knew of no better one, and because his opponent seemed to me worse. I have only seen him one time out of four and then fleetingly, at odd moment; I scarcely knew more of him than the color of his coat, the tone of his voice, and the way he has of thumping his breast. All I know of him is through his "platform," vague and declamatory, through editorials, and through drawing-room, coffee-house, or street gossip. His title to my confidence is of the flimsiest and shallowest kind; there is nothing to substantiate to me his integrity or competency; he has no diploma, and no one to endorse him as has a private tutor; he has no guarantee from the society to which he belongs, like the physician, the priest or the lawyer. With references as poor as these I should hesitate to recruit him even as a domestic. And all the more because the class from which I am obliged to take him is almost always that of politicians, a suspicious class, especially in countries in which universal suffrage prevails. This class is not recruited among the most independent, the ablest, and the most honest, but among voluble, scheming men, zealous charlatans, who for want of perseverance, having failed in private careers, in situations where one is watched too closely and too nicely weighed in the balance, have selected roles in which the want of scrupulousness and discretion is a force instead of a weakness; to their indelicacy and impudence the doors of a public career stand wide open.—Such is the august personage into whose hands, according to the theory, I am called upon to surrender my will, my will in full; certainly, if self-renunciation were necessary, I should risk less in giving myself up to a king or to an aristocracy, even hereditary; for then would my representatives be at least recommended by their evident rank and their probable competency.—Democracy, in its nature and composition, is a system in which the individual awards to his representatives the least trust and deference; hence, it is the system in which he should entrust them with the least power. Conscience and honor everywhere enjoin a man to retain for himself some portion of his independence; but nowhere is there so little be ceded. If a modern constitution ought to clearly define and limit the domain of the State, it is in respect of contemporary democracy that it ought to be the most restrictive.