Moreover, his mind was too much engrossed by the sole
picturesqueness of phenomena to delve deep enough beneath them for
their essential relations. This is why it happens that his arguments
are often worse than his convictions, the latter being inherited, in
general, and at least having the residuary wisdom of tradition
together with the additional force of his common sense. Thus, on the
eve of giving the ignorant man a power equal to that of the
intelligent one, and of handing over the supreme decision in the vital
concerns of a country to unsafeguarded majorities less qualified for
the task than ancient oligarchy or autocracy. But he had nothing of
worth to suggest, no alternative save the return to abuses of the
grossest kind which experience had proved to lead to revolution.
His ponderous declaration: "I write by the light of two eternal
truths, religion and the monarchy," was a sort of cheap-jack
recommendation of the so-called philosophy in his _Comedie Humaine_.
His Catholic orthodoxy, if orthodoxy it were, savoured more of
politics than religion. He did not wish the old ecclesiastical
organization and faith of France to be changed, because he saw in it a
useful police agency for restraining the masses.
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