The fault lies not with me." But, if I am mistaken in my inferences, I should be shown my error, and led out of it.

It is surely worth the trouble, and I think I deserve this honor.

There is no ground for proscription.
For, in the words of that member of the Convention who did not like the guillotine, _to kill is not to reply_.

Until then, I persist in regarding my work as useful, social, full of instruction for public officials,--worthy, in short, of reward and encouragement.
For there is one truth of which I am profoundly convinced,--nations live by absolute ideas, not by approximate and partial conceptions; therefore, men are needed who define principles, or at least test them in the fire of controversy.

Such is the law,--the idea first, the pure idea, the understanding of the laws of God, the theory: practice follows with slow steps, cautious, attentive to the succession of events; sure to seize, towards this eternal meridian, the indications of supreme reason.
The co-operation of theory and practice produces in humanity the realization of order,--the absolute truth.