any motive in undertaking this work, it was to seek for political
principles. Thus far I have attained to scarcely more than one; and
this is so simple that will seem puerile, and that I hardly dare
express it. Nevertheless I have adhered to it, and in what the reader
is about to peruse my judgments are all derived from that; its truth
is the measure of theirs. It consists wholly in this observation: that

HUMAN SOCIETY, ESPECIALLY A MODERN SOCIETY, IS A VAST AND COMPLICATED
THING.

Hence the difficulty in knowing and comprehending it. For the same
reason it is not easy to handle the subject well. It follows that a
cultivated mind is much better able to do this than an uncultivated
mind, and a man specially qualified than one who is not. From these
two last truths flow many other consequences, which, if the reader
deigns to reflect on them, he will have no trouble in defining.

H. A. Taine, Paris 1881.
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BOOK FIRST. THE JACOBINS.

CHAPTER I. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW POLITICAL ORGAN.


In this disorganized society, in which the passions of the people are
the sole real force, authority belongs to the party that understands
how to flatter and take advantage of these. As the legal government
can neither repress nor gratify them, an illegal government arises