... From this
rule of law and equity it follows that every system which, under an
appearance of humanity and beneficence, would tend to establish between
men an equality of duties, and to destroy necessary distinctions, would
soon lead to disorder (the inevitable result of equality), and would
bring about the overturn of civil society."
This judicial opinion was an enunciation of the archaic law of caste as
opposed to the modern law of equality, and the cataclysm of the French
Revolution hinged upon the incapacity of the French aristocracy to
understand that the environment, which had once made caste a necessity,
had yielded to another which made caste an impossibility. In vain Turgot
and his contemporaries of the industrial type, represented in England
by Adam Smith or even by the younger Pitt, explained that unless taxes
were equalized and movement accelerated, insolvency must supervene, and
that a violent readjustment must follow upon insolvency. With their eyes
open to the consequences, the Nobility and Clergy elected to risk
revolt, because they did not believe that revolt could prevail against
them.
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