Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/132

118 and folly of short-sighted men. Fraternity? Oh, this is a sublime word, the ideal goal of human progress, a presage of the condition of our race at the time when it attains to the summit of its fullest development, a time still very remote. But equality? That is a mere creature of the imagination for which there is no room in any sensible discussion. In justice to the period preceding the French Revolution it must be said that it never discussed and proclaimed social equality, but merely personal equality before the laws. But the authors and leaders of the great Revolution did not publish this distinction; they sought for a striking and an appealing word, and in their famous motto, sacrificed accuracy to brevity. Thus "Egalité", without any modifying term, appeared in the triad of the revolutionary programme, and the multitudes, who are apt to repeat party cries without reflection, adopted the term as meaning equality in the sense in which it is accepted by the democrats of the Parisian beer tunnels. Equality even before the laws, is possible only in theory, in reality it is impracticable. It is true that if a machine administered the laws they would be carried out with mechanical exactness, without prejudice or partiality, but when a living human being undertakes the task, inequality is unavoidable; the most conscientious judge, armed at all points against external influence, is yet unconsciously to himself, biased by the personal appearance, the voice, the intelligence, the cultivation and the social position of the parties before him, and the point of the law wavers and turns from favor to severity in his hands, as the magnetic needle is turned by the electric current. This source of error in the enforcement of the laws can be reduced to its minimum, but never entirely done away with.

Equality before the laws is difficult, but social equality is absolutely inconceivable. It stands in opposition to