This accusation of the
conservatives against the democrats was a libel. Democracy is by
nature as hostile to the socialistic idea as incapable of filling
the place of royalty, against which it is its destiny endlessly
to conspire. This soon became evident, and we are witnesses of
it daily in the professions of Christian and proprietary faith by
democratic publicists, whose abandonment by the people began at
that moment.
On the other hand, philosophy proves no less distinct from
socialism, no less hostile to it, than politics and religion.
For just as in politics the principle of democracy is the
sovereignty of numbers, and that of monarchy the sovereignty of
the prince; just as likewise in affairs of conscience religion is
nothing but submission to a mystical being, called God, and to
the priests who represent him; just as finally in the economic
world property--that is, exclusive control by the individual of
the instruments of labor--is the point of departure of every
theory,--so philosophy, in basing itself upon the a priori
assumptions of reason, is inevitably led to attribute to the ME
alone the generation and autocracy of ideas, and to deny the
metaphysical value of experience; that is, universally to
substitute, for the objective law, absolutism, despotism.
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