Moawiya seems to have done his best to gain that approbation, but the details given by the historians are altogether unconvincing.
Westermarck, Origin and Development of Moral Ideas (1906); George Gore, Scientific Basis of Morality (1899), and New Scientific Basis of Morality (1906), containing an interesting if unconvincing attempt to explain ethics on purely physical principles.
Thus the aristocratic constitution of Sieys was transformed into an unavowed dictatorship, a public ratification of which the First Consul obtained by a third coup detat from the intimidated and yet reassured electors-reassured by his dazzling but unconvincing offers of peace to the victorious Coalition (which repulsed them), by the rapid disarmament of La Vende, and by the proclamations in which he filled the ears of the infatuated people with the new talk of stability of government, order, justice and moderation.
When the partisans of Richemont or Naundorff come to the post-Temple careers of their heroes, they become in most cases so uncritical as to be unconvincing.
Yet behind these unconvincing shadows of an imperial court with its financial difficulties, of the classical Walpurgisnacht, of the fantastic creation of the Homunculus, the noble Helena episode and the impressive mystery-scene of the close, where the centenarian Faust finally triumphs over the powers of evil, there lies a philosophy of life, a ripe wisdom born of experience, such as no European poet had given to the world since the Renaissance.
