modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces,
but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book
complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women,
and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he
insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose
their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it.
As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life,
and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time.
A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant,
and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the
peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage
as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating
it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the
oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble.
The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he
complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he
takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting,
where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short,
the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always
engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he
attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he
attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man
in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt.
By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel
against anything.

It may be added that the same blank and bankruptcy can be observed
in all fierce and terrible types of literature, especially in satire.
Satire may be mad and anarchic, but it presupposes an admitted
superiority in certain things over others; it presupposes a standard.