We have contracted the infirmities it imports--stoppage of development, instability of internal balance, disorders of the intellect and of the will, fixed ideas and ideas that are false.

These ideas are ours; therefore we hold on to them, or, rather, they have taken hold of us.
To get rid of them, to impose the necessary recoil on our mind, to transport us to a distance and place us at a critical point of view, where we can study ourselves, our ideas and our institutions as scientific objects, requires a great effort on our part, many precautions, and long reflection .-- Hence, the delays of this study; the reader will pardon them on considering that an ordinary opinion, caught on the wing, on such a subject, does not suffice.

In any event, when one presents an opinion on such a subject one is bound to believe it.

I can believe in my own only when it has become precise and seems to me proven.
Menthon Saint-Bernard, September, 1890.
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