“Yet suppose that this change had come to pass, and that all of us were public-spirited citizens; in spite of our comfortable lives among trivialities, should we not be in a fair way to become the most wearied, wearisome, and unfortunate race of philistines under the sun?

“I am not at the helm of State, the decision of great questions of this kind is not within my province; but, setting these considerations aside, there are other difficulties in the way of laying down hard and fast rules as to government.  In the matter of civilization, everything is relative.  Ideas that suit one country admirably are fatal in another—­men’s minds are as various as the soils of the globe.  If we have so often been ill governed, it is because a faculty for government, like taste, is the outcome of a very rare and lofty attitude of mind.  The qualifications for the work are found in a natural bent of the soul rather than in the possession of scientific formulae.  No one need fear, however, to call himself a statesman, for his actions and motives cannot be justly estimated; his real judges are far away, and the results of his deeds are even more remote.  We have a great respect here in France for men of ideas—­a keen intellect exerts a great attraction for us; but ideas are of little value where a resolute will is the one thing needful.  Administration, as a matter of fact, does not consist in forcing more or less wise methods and ideas upon the great mass of the nation, but in giving to the ideas, good or bad, that they already possess a practical turn which will make them conduce to the general welfare of the State.  If old-established prejudices and customs bring a country into a bad way, the people will renounce their errors of their own accord.  Are not losses the result of economical errors of every kind?  And is it not, therefore, to every one’s interest to rectify them in the long run?

“Luckily I found a tabula rasa in this district.  They have followed my advice, and the land is well cultivated; but there had been no previous errors in agriculture, and the soil was good to begin with, so that it has been easy to introduce the five-ply shift, artificial grasses, and potatoes.  My methods did not clash with people’s prejudices.  The faultily constructed plowshares in use in some parts of France were unknown here, the hoe sufficed for the little field work that they did.  Our wheelwright extolled my wheeled plows because he wished to increase his own business, so I secured an ally in him; but in this matter, as in all others, I sought to make the good of one conduce to the good of all.