FERRERO AND THE DECLINE OF CIVILIZATIONS
381
ing th.em from their concrete and historical backgrounds, he gave
himself up to the study of their formal and psychological elements.
The old principles are breaking down, the old religion leaves the
souls of men indifferent, the old morality has grown ridiculous,
the old art leaves people cold; but the new class which is gaining
the upper hand in society is incapable of founding a new discipline
and of fixing boundaries which will be accepted by everyone
because recognised by everyone as being true, just and good. Up
to the time of the first world war Ferrero's thought had been chiefly
busied with the moral and esthetic aspects of the death of civilisa–
tions; the reading of Talleyrand suggested to him a complementary
theory that fitted its political aspects. He read Talleyrand's
memoirs when
ill
in bed in the early days of November 1918, in
the very week, therefore, that saw the military collapse of the Cen·
tral Powers; and this reading was for him a "tremendous flash of
lightning" as he himself has said. Pages 155 to 162 of the second
volume were a revelation to him. They are the pages in which
Talleyrand expounds his doctrine of legitimate power and shows
that a system of balance and a stable peace among European states
are possible only if all these states are governed by legitimate
powers, that is, powers conforming to a principle of right accepted
by the subjects and respected by the rulers.
The definition of legitimacy found in Talleyrand completed
those of quality and boundaries already formulated by Ferrero.
Quality, boundaries, legitimacy; these became his trinomial. The
world is in chaos because we no longer know on what principles
the right of command and the duty of obedience are founded.
Either men learn to live subordinating power to justice, or they
perish. A society can have peace and security only if it is grounded
on a legitimate order. We must not let ourselves be deceived by
the grandiose constructions of modern political activism: they are
edifices built on sand. The old monarchies have been destroyed,
but sham democracies have crept into their places, mere show–
window democracies; the old generals are still in command, they
have replaced the plumed helmet by the Phrygian cap, they no
longer believe in the emperor, but neither do they believe in the
people. The instruments of democracy, such as universal suffrage,
plebiscites, mass organisations, have turned against democracy;
there is no longer accordance between end and means, between
path and goal. The contradictions of the age of transition which
Ferraro brought to light are the internal contradictions of the
