There can be no denying that it will take time for the liberty, which is the aim and object of human society, to take root in France as it has in America.  French democracy has several essential principles to acquire, before it can become a liberal regime.  It will be above all things necessary that we should have laws as to associations, charitable foundations, and the right of legacy, analogous to those which are in force in England and America.  Supposing this progress to be effected (if it is Utopian to count upon it in France, it is not so for the rest of Europe, in which the aspirations for English liberty become every day more intense), we should really not have much cause to look regretfully upon the favours conferred by the ancient regime upon things of the mind.  I quite think that if democratic ideas were to secure a definitive triumph, science and scientific teaching would soon find the modest subsidies now accorded them cut off.  This is an eventuality which would have to be accepted as philosophically as may be.  The free foundations would take the place of the state institutes, the slight drawbacks being more than compensated for by the advantage of having no longer to make to the supposed prejudices of the majority concessions which the state exacted in return for its pittance.  The waste of power in state institutes is enormous.  It may safely be said that not 50 per cent of a credit voted in favour of science, art, or literature, is expended to any effect.  Private foundations would not be exposed to nearly so much waste.  It is true that spurious science would, in these conditions, flourish side by side with real science, enjoying the same privileges, and that there would be no official criterion, as there still is to a certain extent now, to distinguish the one from the other.  But this criterion becomes every day less reliable.  Reason has to submit to the indignity of taking second place behind those who have a loud voice, and who speak with a tone of command.  The plaudits and favour of the public will, for a long time to come, be at the service of what is false.  But the true has great power, when it is free; the true endures; the false is ever changing and decays.  Thus it is that the true, though only understood by a select few, always rises to the surface, and in the end prevails.

In short, it is very possible that the American-like social condition towards which we are advancing, independently of any particular form of government, will not be more intolerable for persons of intelligence than the better guaranteed social conditions which we have already been subject to.  In such a world as this will be, it will be no difficult matter to create very quiet and snug retreats for oneself.  “The era of mediocrity in all things is about to begin,” remarked a short time ago that distinguished thinker, M. Arniel of Geneva.  “Equality begets uniformity, and it is by the sacrifice of the excellent, the remarkable,