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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: mystic enthusiasm analogous to those provoked by the various
religious beliefs which had preceded it. All they did was to
change the orientation of a mental ancestry which the
centuries had solidified.
So there is nothing astonishing in the savage zeal of the men of
the Convention. Their mystic mentality was the same as that of
the Protestants at the time of the Reformation. The principal
heroes of the Terror--Couthon, Saint-Just, Robespierre, &c.--were
Apostles. Like Polyeuctes, destroying the altars of the false
gods to propagate his faith, they dreamed of converting the
globe. Their enthusiasm spilled itself over the earth.
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