. The true primitive colors were unknown before me."He is a Newton, and still better. Previous to his appearance "the place occupied by the electrical fluid in nature, considered as an universal agent, was completely ignored. . . I have made it known in such a way as to leave no further doubt about it."[11] As to the heat-engendering fluid, "that substance unknown until my discovery, Ihave freed the theory from every hypothesis and conjecture, from every alembic argument; I have purged it of error, I have rendered it intuitive; I have written this out in a small volume which consigns to oblivion all that scientific bodies have hitherto published on that subject."[12] Anterior to his treatise on "Man," the relationships between moral and physics were incomprehensible. "Descartes, Helvetius, Hailer, Lecat, Hume, Voltaire, Bonnet, held this to be an impenetrable secret, 'an enigma.'" He has solved the problem, he has fixed the seat of the soul, he has determined the medium through which the soul communicates with the body.[13] - In the higher sciences, those treating of nature generally, or of human society, he reaches the climax. "I believe that I have exhausted every combination of the human intellect in relation to morals, philosophy and political science."[14] Not only has he discovered the true theory of government, but he is a statesman, a practical expert, able to forecast the future and shape events. He makes predictions, on the average, twice a week, which always turn out right; he already claims, during the early sessions of the Convention, to have made "three hundred predictions on the leading points of the Revolution, all justified by the event."[15] -- In the face of the Constituents who demolish and reconstruct so slowly, he is sufficiently strong to take down, put up and complete at a moment's notice.
"If I were one of the people's tribunes[16] and were supported by a few thousand determined men, I answer for it that, in six weeks, the Constitution would be perfected, the political machine well agoing, and the nation free and happy. In less than a year there would be a flourishing, formidable government which would remain so as long as Ilived."- If necessary, he could act as commander-in-chief of the army and always be victorious: having twice seen the Vendeans carry on a fight he would end the war "at the first encounter."[17] -- "If Icould stand the march, I would go in person and carry out my views.
At the head of a small party of trusty troops the rebels could be easily put down to the last man, and in one day. I know something of military art, and; without boasting, I can answer for success." -- On any difficulty occurring, it is owing to his advice not having been taken; he is the great political physician: his diagnosis from the beginning of the Revolution is always correct, his prognosis infallible, his therapeutics efficacious, humane and salutary. He provides the panacea and he should be allowed to prescribe it; only, to ensure a satisfactory operation, he should himself administer the dose. Let the public lancet, therefore, be put in his hands that he may perform the humanitarian operation of bloodletting. "Such are my opinions. I have published them in my works. I have signed them with my name and I am not ashamed of it. . . . If you are not equal to me and able to comprehend me so much the worse for you."[18] In other words, in his own eyes, Marat is in advance of everybody else and, through his superior genius and character, he is the veritable savior.
Such are the symptoms by which medical men recognize immediately one of those partial lunatics who may not be put in confinement, but who are all the more dangerous;[19] the malady, as they would express it in technical terms, may be called the ambitious delirium, well known in lunatic asylums. -- Two predispositions, one an habitually perverted judgment, and the other a colossal excess of self-esteem,[20] constitute its sources, and nowhere are both more prolific than in Marat. Never did a man with such diversified culture, possess such an incurably perverted intellect. Never did a man, after so many abortive speculations and such repeated malpractices, conceive and maintain so high an opinion of himself. Each of these two sources in him augments the other: through his faculty of not seeing things as they are, he attributes to himself virtue and genius; satisfied that he possesses genius and virtue, he regards his misdeeds as merits and his whims as truths. - Thenceforth, and spontaneously, his malady runs its own course and becomes complex; to the ambitious delirium comes the persecution mania. In effect, the evident or demonstrated truths which he advances should strike the public at once; if they burn slowly or miss fire, it is owing to their being stamped out by enemies or the envious; manifestly, they have conspired against him, and against him plots have never ceased. First came the philosophers'
plot: when his treatise on "Man" was sent to Paris from Amsterdam, "they felt the blow I struck at their principles and had the book stopped at the custom-house."[21] Next came the plot of the doctors:
