What is Property?

IX

Perhaps you will regret, gentlemen, that in giving all my care to method and evidence, I have too much neglected form and style: I would have tried in vain to do better. Literary hope and faith are lacking in me. The 19th century is in my eyes a génésiaque genesis-like/generative era, in which new principles are being elaborated, but where nothing that is written will last. That is even, in my opinion, the reason why, with so many men of talent, current France does not count a single great writer. In a society like ours, seeking literary glory seems to me an anachronism. What is the use of making an old sibyl speak when a muse is on the eve of being born? Deplorable actors in a tragedy that is drawing to its close, the best we can do is to hasten its catastrophe. The most deserving among us is the one who best fulfills this role: well! I no longer aspire to this sad success.

Why should I not admit it, gentlemen? I aspired to your favor and sought the title of your pensioner, in hatred of everything that exists and with plans for destruction; I will finish this course of study in a spirit of calm and resigned philosophy. The understanding of truth has rendered me more cool-headed than the feeling of oppression had given me anger; and the most precious fruit I could wish to gather from this memoir would be to inspire in my readers that tranquility of soul which comes from the clear perception of evil and its cause, and which is much closer to strength than passion and enthusiasm. My hatred of privilege and the authority of man was boundless; perhaps I sometimes made the mistake of confusing people and things in my indignation: now I only know how to despise and pity; to stop hating, it sufficed for me to know.

It is up to you now, gentlemen, who have the mission and character for this to proclaim the truth, up to you to instruct the people, and to teach them what they should hope for and fear. The people, still incapable of judging soundly what is suitable for them, applaud equally the most opposite ideas, as soon as they glimpse that they are being flattered: for them, the laws of thought are like the boundaries of the possible; they do not...