Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 03.djvu/54

38 say, they have Faith, were it only in the Gospel according to Jean Jacques. O my Brothers, would to Heaven it were even as ye think, and have sworn! But there are Lover's Oaths, which, had they been true as love itself, cannot be kept; not to speak of Dicer's Oaths, also a known sort.

such length had the Contrat Social brought it, in believing hearts. Man, as is well said, lives by faith; each generation has its own faith, more or less; and laughs at the faith of its predecessor,—most unwisely. Grant indeed that this faith in the Social Contract belongs to the stranger sorts; that an unborn generation may very wisely, if not laugh, yet stare at it, and piously consider. For, alas, what is Contrat? If all men were such that a mere spoken or sworn Contract would bind them, all men were then true men, and Government a superfluity. Not what thou and I have promised to each other, but what the balance of our forces can make us perform to each other: that, in so sinful a world as ours, is the thing to be counted on. But above all, a People and a Sovereign promising to one another; as if a whole People, changing from generation to generation, nay from hour to hour, could ever by any method be made to speak or promise; and to speak mere solecisms: 'We, be the Heavens witness, which Heavens, however, do no miracles now; we, everchanging Millions, will allow thee, changeful Unit, to force us or govern us!' The world has perhaps seen few faiths comparable to that.

So nevertheless had the world then construed the matter. Had they not so construed it, how different had their hopes been, their attempts, their results! But so and not otherwise did the Upper Powers will it to be. Freedom by social