spirit sought to encompass all things, not in order to do violence to them, but to bring them into harmony. Above all, he had the power of seeing the human element in all things, and this universal sympathy was equally averse to narrow negation and fanatical affirmation. All intolerance inspired him with horror.[1]
He had put himself at the head of a great revolutionary party, but it was with the desire "of saving the great work of democratic revolution from the sickening and brutal odour of blood, murder, and hatred which still clings to the memory of the middle-class Revolution." In his own name, and in the name of his party, he demanded "with regard to all doctrines, respect for the human personality and for the spirit which is manifested in each." The mere feeling of the moral antagonism which exists between man and man, even when there is no open conflict, the sense of the invisible barriers which render human brotherhood impossible, was painful to him. He could not read those words of Cardinal Newman in which he speaks of the gulf of damnation,
- ↑ "As for myself, I have never made use of violence to attack beliefs, whatever they may be; nay, more, I have always abstained even from that form of violence which consists in insult. Insult expresses a weak and feverish revolt, rather than the liberty of reason." (1901.)
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