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A delusion in the theory of subversion. There are political and social visionaries who hotly and eloquently demand the overthrow of all orders, in the belief that the proudest temple of fair humanity would then immediately rise up on its own. In these dangerous dreams, there is still the echo of Rousseau's superstition, which believes in a wondrous, innate, but, as it were, repressed goodness of human nature, and attributes all the blame for that repression to the institutions of culture, in society, state, and education.⁶ Unfortunately, we know from historical experience that every such overthrow once more resurrects the wildest energies, the long since buried horrors and extravagances of most distant times. An overthrow can well be a source of energy in an exhausted human race, but it can never be an organizer, architect artist, perfecter of the human character.
It is not Voltaire's temperate nature, inclined to organizing cleansing, and restructuring, but rather Rousseau's passionate idiocies and half-truths that have called awake the optimistic spirit of revolution, counter to which I shout: "Ecrasez l'infame!"⁷ Because of him,⁸ the spirit of enlightenment and of progressive development has been scared off for a long time to come: let us see (each one for himself) whether it is not possible to call it back again!