When we see civilization elated with this declining and decrepit phase of its career, we are reminded of a faded belle who, boasting of her attractions in her fiftieth year, excites at once the remark that she was fairer at twenty-five. So it is with civilization, which, dreaming of perfection and progress, is constantly deteriorating, and which will find but too soon in its industrial achievements new sources of political oppression, crimes and commotions.

Nothing is more opposed to concord than the present condition of the domestic and salaried classes. By reducing this poor multitude to a condition very like slavery, civilization, on the rebound, imposes chains upon those who seem to dominate. Thus notables do not dare to amuse themselves openly at times when the people suffer from poverty. The rich are subject to individual as well as collective servitude. A wealthy man is often the slave of his valets. However in harmony the valet himself enjoys complete independence, while the rich are served with an assiduity and a devotion of which one sees not a trace in civilization.

IF the passions and characters of man were not subject, like the material kingdoms, to distribution in series of groups, man would be out of unity with the universe; there would be duplicity of system in creation, and incoherence between the material and the passional worlds. If man would attain to social uniy, he should seek for the means in the serial order, to which God has subject all nature.

The familial union presents as well a mixture of inconvenient ages and characters that inhibit conversation. Morality engenders a frigid atmosphere, as in all places where it reigns.

All repressed passion produces its counter-passion which is as malevolent as the natural passion would be beneficial.

Ignorant as regards the unity of man with himself, the world is still more ignorant in respect to the two other unities - unity of man with God and the universe.

Nowhere is there more constancy and more unanimity than among the French to subordinate that sex which they pretend to honor so highly.

Wisdom, virtue, morality, all these have fallen out of fashion: everybody worships at the shrine of commerce.

An empire derives no advantage from the caresses of two turtledoves who spend a year cooing to each other in public meetings.

It is certain that nature inclines us toward the amorous orgy, just as much as toward the gastronomic orgy, and that while both are blameworthy in the excess, they would become praiseworthy in an order in which they could be equilibrated.