Chapter 125337–338

340 – Reaction perfects and hastens progress by increasing and purifying the force within it. This is what the multitude of the weak cannot see who despair of their port when the ship is fleeing helplessly before the stormwind, but it flees, hidden by the rain and the Ocean furrow, towards God’s intended haven.

This is to teach us never to despair. Because, for those who are pure of heart and have an unshakable faith, the worst apparent defeat is only a veiled path leading to final victory.

17 February 1970 341 – Democracy was the protest of the human soul against the allied despotisms of autocrat, priest and noble; Socialism is the protest of the human soul against the despotism of a plutocratic democracy; Anarchism is likely to be the protest of the human soul against the tyranny of a bureaucratic Socialism. A turbulent and eager march from illusion to illusion and from failure to failure is the image of European progress.

342 – Democracy in Europe is the rule of the Cabinet minister, the corrupt deputy or the self-seeking capitalist masqued by the occasional sovereignty of a wavering populace; Socialism in Europe is likely to be the rule of the official and policeman masqued by the theoretic sovereignty of an abstract State. It is chimerical to enquire which is the better system; it would be difficult to decide which is the worse.

343 – The gain of democracy is the security of the individual’s life, liberty and goods from the caprices of the tyrant one or the selfish few; its evil is the decline of greatness in humanity.