|
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: formulae concerning fraternity, equality, and popular
government, summed up in the celebrated Declaration of the Rights
of Man, of which we shall have occasion to quote a few passages.
The philosophers of the eighteenth century do not seem to have
been very highly rated by the men of the Revolution. Rarely are
they quoted in the speeches of the time. Hypnotised by their
classical memories of Greece and Rome, the new legislators re-
read their Plato and their Plutarch. They wished to revive the
constitution of Sparta, with its manners, its frugal habits, and
its laws.
Lycurgus, Solon, Miltiades, Manlius Torquatus, Brutus, Mucius
|
