657 It would thus appear that the world and all its inhabitants are in a state of the most violent fermentation; that they are continually advancing to the extremes of virtue and of vice; and that the same individuals, when considered in different periods of their lives, exhibit a still more remarkable fluctuation. If that be the case, with what propriety can we compare the progress of society to the march of a single regiment, which advances in perfect order, without disorder or deviation? Are we not, on the contrary, rather to compare it to the career of a troop of skirmishers, who rush forward and retreat, advance and halt, and perform a great number of evolutions, which, though they may appear to the eye of the uninitiated to be the result of chance, are nevertheless guided by a general, and are only the means of arriving at a particular end? The movements of society are in like manner guided by a single principle, and though they may appear to be irregular, they are nevertheless so many steps towards the accomplishment of some grand design.