He could only find this principle in the operation of occult and supernatural forces, producing the half-divine legislators who figure mysteriously in the early history of nations.

Hence he held, and with astonishing ingenuity enforced, the doctrine that nothing else could deliver Europe from the Satanic forces of revolution--he used the word Satanic in all literal seriousness--save the divinely inspired supremacy of the Pope.

No natural operations seemed at all adequate either to produce or to maintain the marvel of a coherent society.

We are reminded of a professor who, in the fantastic days of geology, explained the Pyramids of Egypt to be the remains of a volcanic eruption, which had forced its way upwards by a slow and stately motion; the hieroglyphs were crystalline formations; and the shaft of the great Pyramid was the air-hole of a volcano.

De Maistre preferred a similar explanation of the monstrous structures of modern society.