THE PART PLAYED BY THE PEOPLE IN REVOLUTIONS

1. The stability and malleability of the national mind.

The knowledge of a people at any given moment of its history
involves an understanding of its environment and above all of its
past. Theoretically one may deny that past, as did the men of
the Revolution, as many men of the present day have done, but its
influence remains indestructible.

In the past, built up by slow accumulations of centuries, was
formed the aggregation of thoughts, sentiments, traditions, and
prejudices constituting the national mind which makes the
strength of a race. Without it no progress is possible. Each
generation would necessitate a fresh beginning.

The aggregate composing the soul of a people is solidly
established only if it possesses a certain rigidity, but this
rigidity must not pass a certain limit, or there would be no such
thing as malleability.

Without rigidity the ancestral soul would have no fixity, and
without malleability it could not adapt itself to the changes of
environment resulting from the progress of civilization.

Excessive malleability of the national mind impels a people to
incessant revolutions. Excess of rigidity leads it to
decadence. Living species, like the races of humanity, disappear
when, too fixedly established by a long past, they become
incapable of adapting themselves to new conditions of existence.