It had faith in the truth, for it claimed the right thereof to reign in this world.

It had faith in humanity, for it recognized the right thereof to perfect itself and would have had that right exercised without obstruction.

It erred, it lost itself amid this twofold confidence; it attempted what was far beyond its right and power; it misjudged the moral nature of man and the conditions of the social state.

Its ideas as well as its works contracted the blemish of its views.

But, granted so much, the original idea, dominant in the eighteenth century, the belief that man, truth, and society are made for one another, worthy of one another, and called upon to form a union, this correct and salutary belief rises up and overtops all its history.