Descendants of the theologians of the Middle Ages, and heirs of the nation of fools so carefully elaborated by our old university; with our minds full of the formulas of our lawyers, and the dogmas of our priests, and moulded by a memoria technica education; instead of being brought up to observe facts, we are accustomed to think in the abstract, so that in the sciences we take energy, motion, matter, race, species, &c. — which are simply convenient terms for classification — for realities, having an existence of their own.
If in regard to such matters as these we commit such errors, we do worse when we enter upon the examination of social questions. We create for ourselves entities, such as order, morality, religion, society, and then, on the pretext of defending order, morality, religion, and society, the stronger crush down the weaker. In the same way as Calino discovers that the forest prevents him seeing the trees, behind these words we no longer see the individuals without whom, nevertheless, there would be neither society, religion, morality, nor order amongst men.
Yves Guyot, Prostitution Under the Regulation System (Edgar Beckit Truman, M.D., F.C.S., trans., 1884), p. 2.
Illustration is a detail from a caricature by the great French artist André Gill (1840-1885).