philosophy of the Revolution could not have invented a word more true, more complete, more divine than Christianity, to reveal itself to Europe, and it had adopted the dogma and the word of fraternity.  Only the French Revolution attacked the form of this ruling religion; because it was incrusted in the forms of government, monarchical, theocratic, or aristocratic, which they sought to destroy.  It is the explanation of that apparent contradiction of the mind of the 18th century, which borrowed all from Christianity in policy, and denied, whilst it despoiled, it.  There was at one and the same time a violent attraction and a violent repulsion in the two doctrines.  They recognised whilst they struggled against each other, and yearned to recognise each other even more completely when the contest was terminated by the triumph of liberty.

Three things were then evident to reflecting minds from and after the month of April, 1791; the one, that the march of the revolutionary movement advanced from step to step to the complete restoration of all the rights of suffering humanity—­from those of the people by their government, to those of citizens by castes, and of the workman by the citizen; thus it assailed tyranny, privilege, inequality, selfishness, not only on the throne, but in the civil law; in the administration, in the legal distribution of property, in the conditions of industry, labour, family, and in all the relations of man with man, and man with woman:  the second,—­that this philosophic and social movement of democracy would seek its natural form in a form of government analogous to its principle, and its nature; that is to say, representing the sovereignty of the people; republic with one or two heads:  and, finally, that the social and political emancipation would involve in it the intellectual and religious emancipation of the human mind; that the liberty of thought, of speaking and acting, should not pause before the liberty of belief; that the idea of God confined in the sanctuaries, should shine forth pouring into each free conscience the right of liberty itself; that this light, a revelation for some, and reason for others, would spread more and more with truth and justice, which emanate from God to overspread the earth.

VII.

Human thought, like God, makes the world in its own image.

Thought was revived by a philosophical age.

It had to transform the social world.

The French Revolution was therefore in its essence a sublime and impassioned spirituality.  It had a divine and universal ideal.  This is the reason why its passion spread beyond the frontiers of France.  Those who limit, mutilate it.  It was the accession of three moral sovereignties:—­

The sovereignty of right over force;

The sovereignty of intelligence over prejudices;

The sovereignty of people over governments.