Extract from a Letter About the Year 1836.

But, in fact, the endeavour of my thoughts, the object of my studies, is to ascend to the principles which direct men to see man and not individuals, consequently not to love or hate heroes or the guilty great; they only follow a more general impression which I have endeavoured to elucidate, and hatred, even for the worst men, is a bad passion, which grieves and corrupts the heart. But, in taking from before our eyes the human form, we can indulge all our indignation against what is bad in itself, against what is corrupting; and I feel the interior approbation of conscience when I have contributed to brand a bad tendency, a bad principle, with all the power I possess. I have this kind of satisfaction, in thinking of my pamphlet about Algiers. You will there see that I do not think any more than old Pervad, that our civilization gives us the right to disturb the savage in his liberty and his repose, but it makes it a duty to protect him from tyranny and robbery. The more we improve, the more the artificial barriers of nations will sink before the great principle of humanity and reciprocal assistance. It is not because they are barbarians, it is because they are oppressed, despoiled, ill-treated, that we have the right to fly to their assistance; it is because their tyrants have reduced them so low that they cannot extricate themselves, that we have the right to remain, because conquest is the greatest guarantee of peace, of justice, of knowledge, of moral progress.