society, so long as a certain destructive principle, inherent in it from the first, born from its womb and nourished on its entrails, had not reached its full maturity; on the other hand, so soon as this destructive principle had come into existence, the society was doomed to certain death, even though it had the best of all possible governments — in exactly the same way as a spent horse will fall dead on a concrete road.
A great step in advance was made, I admit, when the question was considered from this point of view, which was anyhow much more philosophic than the one taken up before. Bichat,[1] as we know, did not seek to discover the great mystery of existence by studying the human subject from the outside ; the key to the riddle, he saw, lay within. Those who followed the same method, in our own subject, were travelling on the only road that really led to discoveries. Unfortunately, this excellent idea of theirs was the result of mere instinct ; its logical implications were not carried very far, and it was shattered on the first difficulty. "Yes," they cried, " the cause of destruction lies hidden in the very vitals of the social organism ; but what is this cause ?" "Degeneration," was the answer; "nations die when they are composed of elements that have degenerated." The answer was excellent, etymologically and otherwise. It only remained to define the meaning of " nation that has degenerated." This was the rock on which they foundered ; a degenerate people meant, they said, " A people which through bad government, misuse of wealth, fanaticism, or irreligion, had lost the characteristic virtues of its ancestors." What a fall is there! Thus a people dies of its endemic diseases because it is degenerate, and is degenerate because it dies. This circular argument merely proves that the science of social anatomy is in its infancy. I quite agree that societies perish because they are degenerate, and for no other reason. This is the evil condition that makes them wholly unable to withstand the shock of the disasters that close in upon them; and when they can no longer endure the blows of
- ↑ The celebrated physiologist (1771-1802), and author of L' Anatomie générale. — Tr.
