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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: while communicating much of it to sophisms and doctrines. A sign,
in short, of some outbreak which is prodigious and near unless some
diversion shall arise.
Let us pause a moment. Whom are we accusing here? Is it the
eighteenth century? Is it philosophy? Certainly not. The work
of the eighteenth century is healthy and good and wholesome.
The encyclopedists, Diderot at their head; the physiocrates,
Turgot at their head; the philosophers, Voltaire at their head;
the Utopians, Rousseau at their head,--these are four sacred legions.
Humanity's immense advance towards the light is due to them.
They are the four vanguards of the human race, marching towards
Les Miserables |
