they ought to fear. The people, incapable as yet of sound
judgment as to what is best for them, applaud indiscriminately
the most opposite ideas, provided that in them they get a taste
of flattery: to them the laws of thought are like the confines of
the possible; to-day they can no more distinguish between a
savant and a sophist, than formerly they could tell a physician
from a sorcerer. `Inconsiderately accepting, gathering together,
and accumulating everything that is new, regarding all reports as
true and indubitable, at the breath or ring of novelty they
assemble like bees at the sound of a basin.'[1]

[1] Charron, on "Wisdom," Chapter xviii.




"May you, gentlemen, desire equality as I myself desire it; may
you, for the eternal happiness of our country, become its
propagators and its heralds; may I be the last of your
pensioners! Of all the wishes that I can frame, that, gentlemen,
is the most worthy of you and the most honorable for me.

"I am, with the profoundest respect and the most earnest
gratitude,
"Your pensioner,
"P. J. PROUDHON."


Two months after the receipt of this letter, the Academy, in its
debate of August 24th, replied to the address of its pensioner by