Thus, then, the gentlemen of the Academy disavow, in their
session-chamber, their announcements from the tripod! There is
nothing in such a contradiction astonishing to me; and may God
preserve me from calling it a crime! The ancients believed that
revolutions announced their advent by dreadful signs, and that
among other prodigies animals spoke. This was a figure,
descriptive of those unexpected ideas and strange words which
circulate suddenly among the masses at critical moments, and
which seem to be entirely without human antecedent, so far
removed are they from the sphere of ordinary judgment. At the
time in which we live, such a thing could not fail to occur.
After having, by a prophetic instinct and a mechanical
spontaneity, pecudesque locut{ae}, proclaimed association, the
gentlemen of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences have
returned to their ordinary prudence; and with them custom has
conquered inspiration. Let us learn, then, how to distinguish
heavenly counsel from the interested judgments of men, and hold
it for certain that, in the discourse of sages, that is the most
trustworthy to which they have given the least reflection.
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