"We are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us," purred 18th Century arch-reactionary Joseph de Maistre in the opening lines of his essay Considerations on France. " The most wonderful aspect of the universal scheme of things is the action of free beings under divine guidance. Freely slaves, they act at once of their own will and under necessity: they actually do what they wish without being able to disrupt general plans."

In this scheme, each "slave" is found "at the center of a sphere of activity whose diameter varies according to the decision of the eternal geometry, which can extend, restrict, check, or direct the will without altering its nature," Maistre pontificates. But that flexibility is enjoyed only by those enlightened few who understand the "eternal geometry," and have been appointed thereby to preside over the rest of us.