[p. 122]
|122| states of the Continent, and the principles which, in so far as they are grounded on universal reason, cannot for ever remain foreign, as hitherto, to the English understanding either. – The novi homines, of whom the Duke of Wellington is apprehensive that they will press into the place of the statesmen hitherto, may at the same time find in these principles the strongest support for ambition and for the attainment of popularity. Because in England it cannot be the case that these principles are taken up by the governmental power, which up to now is in the hands of that privileged class, and actualized from it, the men of these principles would have to enter only as an opposition against the government, against the existing order of things, and the principles themselves not in their concrete practical truth and application as in Germany, but in the dangerous shape of French abstraction. The antithesis of the hommes d’état and the hommesà principes, which in France at the beginning of the Revolution set in at once quite sharply and in England has as yet gained no foothold, may well be initiated by the opening of a broader way to parliamentary seats; the new class can gain a foothold all the more easily since the principles themselves as such are of a simple nature, and therefore can be grasped quickly even by ignorance and, with some facility of talent (because on account of their universality they in any case lay claim to suffice for everything) as well as with some energy of character and of ambition, suffice for a requisite eloquence attacking everything, and exercise a dazzling effect on the reason of the multitude, which is equally inexperienced in this, whereas the knowledge, experience and routine of business of the hommes d’état are not so easily acquired, though they are equally necessary for the application and introduction of the rational principles into actual life.
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