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Rh A French democratic writer will be apt to say capacités in the abstract for men of capacity, and without particularizing the objects to which their capacity is applied: he will talk about actualités to designate in one word the things passing before his eyes at the instant; and he will comprehend under the term éventualités whatever may happen in the universe, dating from the moment at which he speaks. Democratic writers are perpetually coining words of this kind, in which they sublimate into farther abstraction the abstract terms of the language. Nay more, to render their mode of speech more succinct, they personify the subject of these abstract terms, and make it act like a real entity. Thus they would say in French, La force des choses veut que les capacités gouvernent.

I cannot better illustrate what I mean than by my own example. I have frequently used the word in an absolute sense—nay, I have personified equality in several places; thus I have said that equality does such and such things, or refrains from doing others. It may be affirmed that the writers of the age of Louis XIV. would not have

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