Final Word

This week's Final Word comes from a contemporary of Thomas Paine:

"Thus had France grown up, and sickened on the corruption of a state diseased. But, as in medicine there is a species of complaint in the bowels which works it's own cure, and, leaving the body healthy, gives an invigorated tone to the system, so there is in politics: and whilst the agitation of it's regeneration continues, the excrementitious humours exuding from the contaminated body will excite a general dislike and contempt for the nation: and it is only the philosophical eye, which looks into the nature and weighs the consequences of human actions, that will be able to discern the cause, which has produced so many dreadful effects."

The winner of last week's competition, who identified Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint , is Ann Black of Oxford Brookes University.