Gauguier made an
egalitaire
profession of faith.
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
--Two
billions. And for a literary man, who is neither a savant, nor an
artist, nor a philosopher, nor an economist, and who writes newspaper
novels? --None. ]
[Footnote 18: There is an error in the author's calculation here; but
the translator, feeling sure that the reader will understand Proudhon's
meaning, prefers not to alter his figures. --Translator. ]
[Footnote 19: _Hoc inter se differunt onanismus et manuspratio, nempe
quod haec a solitario exercetur, ille autem a duobus reciprocatur,
masculo scilicet et faemina. Porro foedam hanc onanismi venerem ludentes
uxoria mariti habent nunc omnigm suavissimam_]
[Footnote 20: Polyandry,--plurality of husbands. ]
[Footnote 21: Infanticide has just been publicly advocated in England,
in a pamphlet written by a disciple of Malthus. He proposes an ANNUAL
MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS in all families containing more children than
the law allows; and he asks that a magnificent cemetery, adorned with
statues, groves, fountains, and flowers, be set apart as a special
burying-place for the superfluous children. Mothers would resort to this
delightful spot to dream of the happiness of these little angels, and
would return, quite comforted, to give birth to others, to be buried in
their turn. ]
[Footnote 22: To perform an act of benevolence towards one's neighbor is
called, in Hebrew, to do justice; in Greek, to take compassion or pity
({GREEK n n f e },from which is derived the French _aumone_); in Latin,
to perform an act of love or charity; in French, give alms. We can trace
the degradation of this principle through these various expressions: the
first signifies duty; the second only sympathy; the third, affection, a
matter of choice, not an obligation; the fourth, caprice. ]
[Footnote 23: I mean here by equite what the Latins called humanitas,--
that is, the kind of sociability which is peculiar to man. Humanity,
gentle and courteous to all, knows how to distinguish ranks, virtues,
and capacities without injury to any. ]
[Footnote 24: Justice and equite never have been understood. ]
[Footnote 25: Between woman and man there may exist love, passion, ties
of custom, and the like; but there is no real society. Man and woman are
not companions. The difference of the sexes places a barrier between
them, like that placed between animals by a difference of race.
Consequently, far from advocating what is now called the emancipation of
woman, I should incline, rather, if there were no other alternative, to
exclude her from society. ]
[Footnote 26: "The strong-box of Cosmo de Medici was the grave of
Florentine liberty," said M. Michelet to the College of France. ]
[Footnote 27: "My right is my lance and my buckler. " General de Brossard
said, like Achilles: "I get wine, gold, and women with my lance and my
buckler. "]
[Footnote 28: It would be interesting and profitable to review the
authors who have written on usury, or, to use the gentler expression
which some prefer, lendingat interest. The theologians always have
opposed usury; but, since they have admitted always the legitimacy of
rent, and since rent is evidently identical with interest, they have
lost themselves in a labyrinth of subtle distinctions, and have finally
reached a pass where they do not know what to think of usury. The
Church--the teacher of morality, so jealous and so proud of the purity
of her doctrine--has always been ignorant of the real nature of property
and usury. She even has proclaimed through her pontiffs the most
deplorable errors. _Non potest mutuum_, said Benedict XIV. , _locationi
ullo pacto comparari_. "Rent," says Bossuet, "is as far from usury as
heaven is from the earth. " How, on{sic} such a doctrine, condemn lending
at interest? how justify the Gospel, which expressly forbids usury? The
difficulty of theologians is a very serious one. Unable to refute the
economical demonstrations, which rightly assimilate interest to rent,
they no longer dare to condemn interest, and they can say only that
there must be such a thing as usury, since the Gospel forbids it. ]
[Footnote 29: "I preach the Gospel, I live by the Gospel," said the
Apostle; meaning thereby that he lived by his labor. The Catholic clergy
prefer to live by property. The struggles in the communes of the middle
ages between the priests and bishops and the large proprietors and
seigneurs are famous. The papal excommunications fulminated in defence
of ecclesiastical revenues are no less so. Even to-day, the official
organs of the Gallican clergy still maintain that the pay received by
the clergy is not a salary, but an indemnity for goods of which they
were once proprietors, and which were taken from them in '89 by the
Third Estate. The clergy prefer to live by the right of increase rather
than by labor. ]
[Footnote 30: The meaning ordinarily attached to the word "anarchy" is
absence of principle, absence of rule; consequently, it has been
regarded as synonymous with "disorder. "]
[Footnote 31: If such ideas are ever forced into the minds of the
people, it will be by representative government and the tyranny of
talkers. Once science, thought, and speech were characterized by the
same expression. To designate a thoughtful and a learned man, they said,
"a man quick to speak and powerful in discourse. " For a long time,
speech has been abstractly distinguished from science and reason.
Gradually, this abstraction is becoming realized, as the logicians say,
in society; so that we have to-day savants of many kinds who talk but
little, and TALKERS who are not even savants in the science of speech.
Thus a philosopher is no longer a savant: he is a talker. Legislators
and poets were once profound and sublime characters: now they are
talkers. A talker is a sonorous bell, whom the least shock suffices to
set in perpetual motion. With the talker, the flow of speech is always
directly proportional to the poverty of thought. Talkers govern the
world; they stun us, they bore us, they worry us, they suck our blood,
and laugh at us. As for the savants, they keep silence: if they wish to
say a word, they are cut short. Let them write. ]
[Footnote 32: _libertas, librare, libratio, libra_,--liberty, to
liberate, libration, balance (pound),--words which have a common
derivation. Liberty is the balance of rights and duties. To make a man
free is to balance him with others,--that is, to put him or their
level. ]
[Footnote 33: In a monthly publication, the first number of which has
just appeared under the name of "L'Egalitaire," self-sacrifice is laid
down as a principle of equality. This is a confusion of ideas. Self-
sacrifice, taken alone, is the last degree of inequality. To seek
equality in self-sacrifice is to confess that equality is against
nature. Equality must be based upon justice, upon strict right, upon the
principles invoked by the proprietor himself; otherwise it will never
exist. Self-sacrifice is superior to justice; but it cannot be imposed
as law, because it is of such a nature as to admit of no reward. It is,
indeed, desirable that everybody shall recognize the necessity of self-
sacrifice, and the idea of "L'Egalitaire" is an excellent example.
Unfortunately, it can have no effect. What would you reply, indeed, to a
man who should say to you, "I do not want to sacrifice myself"? Is he to
be compelled to do so? When self-sacrifice is forced, it becomes
oppression, slavery, the exploitation of man by man. Thus have the
proletaires sacrificed themselves to property. ]
[Footnote 34: The disciples of Fourier have long seemed to me the most
advanced of all modern socialists, and almost the only ones worthy of
the name. If they had understood the nature of their task, spoken to the
people, awakened their sympathies, and kept silence when they did not
understand; if they had made less extravagant pretensions, and had shown
more respect for public intelligence,--perhaps the reform would now,
thanks to them, be in progress. But why are these earnest reformers
continually bowing to power and wealth,--that is, to all that is anti-
reformatory? How, in a thinking age, can they fail to see that the world
must be converted by DEMONSTRATION, not by myths and allegories? Why do
they, the deadly enemies of civilization, borrow from it, nevertheless,
its most pernicious fruits,--property, inequality of fortune and rank,
gluttony, concubinage, prostitution, what do I know? theurgy, magic, and
sorcery? Why these endless denunciations of morality, metaphysics, and
psychology, when the abuse of these sciences, which they do not
understand, constitutes their whole system? Why this mania for deifying
a man whose principal merit consisted in talking nonsense about things
whose names, even, he did not know, in the strongest language ever put
upon paper? Whoever admits the infallibility of a man becomes thereby
incapable of instructing others. Whoever denies his own reason will soon
proscribe free thought. The phalansterians would not fail to do it if
they had the power. Let them condescend to reason, let them proceed
systematically, let them give us demonstrations instead of revelations,
and we will listen willingly. Then let them organize manufactures,
agriculture, and commerce; let them make labor attractive, and the most
humble functions honorable, and our praise shall be theirs. Above all,
let them throw off that Illuminism which gives them the appearance of
impostors or dupes, rather than believers and apostles. ]
[Footnote 35: Individual possession is no obstacle to extensive
cultivation and unity of exploitation. If I have not spoken of the
drawbacks arising from small estates, it is because I thought it useless
to repeat what so many others have said, and what by this time all the
world must know. But I am surprised that the economists, who have so
clearly shown the disadvantages of spade-husbandry, have failed to see
that it is caused entirely by property; above all, that they have not
perceived that their plan for mobilizing the soil is a first step
towards the abolition of property. ]
[Footnote 36: In the Chamber of Deputies, during the session of the
fifth of January, 1841, M. Dufaure moved to renew the expropriation
bill, on the ground of public utility. ]
[Footnote 37: "What is Property? " Chap. IV. , Ninth Proposition. ]
[Footnote 38: _Tu cognovisti sessionem meam et resurrectionem meam_.
Psalm 139. ]
[Footnote 39: The emperor Nicholas has just compelled all the
manufacturers in his empire to maintain, at their own expense, within
their establishments, small hospitals for the reception of sick
workmen,--the number of beds in each being proportional to the number of
laborers in the factory. "You profit by man's labor," the Czar could
have said to his proprietors; "you shall be responsible for man's life. "
M. Blanqui has said that such a measure could not succeed in France. It
would be an attack upon property,--a thing hardly conceivable even in
Russia, Scythia, or among the Cossacks; but among us, the oldest sons of
civilization! . . . I fear very much that this quality of age may prove in
the end a mark of decrepitude. ]
[Footnote 40: Course of M. Blanqui. Lecture of Nov. 27,1840. ]
[Footnote 41: In "Mazaniello," the Neapolitan fisherman demands, amid
the applause of the galleries, that a tax be levied upon luxuries. ]
[Footnote 42: _Seme le champ, proletaire; C'est l l'oisif
qui recoltera_. ]
[Footnote 43: "In some countries, the enjoyment of certain political
rights depends upon the amount of property. But, in these same
countries, property is expressive, rather than attributive, of the
qualifications necessary to the exercise of these rights. It is rather a
conjectural proof than the cause of these qualifications. "--Rossi:
Treatise on Penal Law. ]
[Footnote 44: Lecture of December 22. ]
[Footnote 45: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ]
[Footnote 46: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ]
[Footnote 47: MM. Blanqui and Wolowski. ]
[Footnote 48: Subject proposed by the Fourth Class of the Institute, the
Academy of Moral and Political Sciences: "What would be the effect upon
the working-class of the organization of labor, according to the modern
ideas of association? "]
[Footnote 49: Subject proposed by the Academy of Besancon: "The
economical and moral consequences in France, up to the present time, and
those which seem likely to appear in future, of the law concerning the
equal division of hereditary property between the children. "]
[Footnote 50: {GREEK, ? n n '},--greater property. The Vulgate translates
it avaritia. ]
[Footnote 51: Similar or analogous customs have existed among all
nations. Consult, among other works, "Origin of French Law," by M.
Michelet; and "Antiquities of German Law," by Grimm. ]
[Footnote 52: _Dees hominesque testamur, nos arma neque contra patriam
cepisse neque quo periculum aliis faceremus, sed uti corpora nostra ab
injuria tuta forent, qui miseri, egentes, violentia atque crudelitate
foeneraterum, plerique patriae, sed omncsfarna atque fortunis expertes
sumus; neque cuiquam nostrum licuit, more majorum, lege uti, neque,
amisso patrimonio, libferum corpus habere. _--Sallus: Bellum
Catilinarium. ]
[Footnote 53: Fifty, sixty, and eighty per cent. --Course of M. Blanqui. ]
[Footnote 54: _Episcopi plurimi, quos et hortamento esse oportet
caeteris et exemplo, divina prouratione contempta, procuratores rerum
saeularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe leserta, per alienas
provincias oberrantes, negotiationis quaestuosae nundinas au uucu-,
pari, esurientibus in ecclesia fratribus habere argentum largitur velle,
fundos insidi. sis fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus faenus
augere. _--Cyprian: De Lapsis. {--NOTE: what does this refer to? This is
at bottom of pg 341 in MS} In this passage, St. Cyprian alludes to
lending on mortgages and to compound interest. ]
[Footnote 55: "Inquiries concerning Property among the Romans. "]
[Footnote 56: "Its acquisitive nature works rapidly in the sleep of the
law. It is ready, at the word, to absorb every thing. Witness the famous
equivocation about the ox-hide which, when cut up into thongs, was large
enough to enclose the site of Carthage. . . . The legend has reappeared
several times since Dido. . . . Such is the love of man for the land.
Limited by tombs, measured by the members of the human body, by the
thumb, the foot, and the arm, it harmonizes, as far as possible, with
the very proportions of man. Nor is he satisfied yet: he calls Heaven to
witness that it is his; he tries to or his land, to give it the form of
heaven. . . . In his titanic intoxication, he describes property in the
very terms which he employs in describing the Almighty--_fundus_
_optimus maximus_. . . . He shall make it his couch, and they shall be
separated no more,--{GREEK, ' nf g h g g. "}--Michelet:Origin of French
Law. ]
[Footnote 57: M. Guizot denies that Christianity alone is entitled to
the glory of the abolition of slavery. "To this end," he says, "many
causes were necessary,--the evolution of other ideas and other
principles of civilization. " So general an assertion cannot be refuted.
Some of these ideas and causes should have been pointed out, that we
might judge whether their source was not wholly Christian, or whether at
least the Christian spirit had not penetrated and thus fructified them.
Most of the emancipation charters begin with these words: "For the love
of God and the salvation of my soul. "]
[Footnote 58: _Weregild_,--the fine paid for the murder of a man. So
much for a count, so much for a baron, so much for a freeman, so much
for a priest; for a slave, nothing. His value was restored to the
proprietor. ]
[Footnote 59: The spirit of despotism and monopoly which animated the
communes has not escaped the attention of historians. "The formation of
the commoners' associations," says Meyer, "did not spring from the true
spirit of liberty, but from the desire for exemption from the charges of
the seigniors, from individual interests, and jealousy of the welfare of
others. . . . Each commune or corporation opposed the creation of every
other; and this spirit increased to such an extent that the King of
England, Henry V. , having established a university at Caen, in 1432, the
city and university of Paris opposed the registration of the edict. "]
[Footnote 60: Feudalism was, in spirit and in its providential destiny,
a long protest of the human personality against the monkish communism
with which Europe, in the middle ages, was overrun. After the orgies of
Pagan selfishness, society--carried to the opposite extreme by the
Christian religion--risked its life by unlimited self-denial and
absolute indifference to the pleasures of the world. Feudalism was the
balance-weight which saved Europe from the combined influence of the
religious communities and the Manlchean sects which had sprung up since
the fourth century under different names and in different countries.
Modern civilization is indebted to feudalism for the definitive
establishment of the person, of marriage, of the family, and of country.
(See, on this subject, Guizot, "History of Civilization in Europe. ")]
[Footnote 61: This was made evident in July, 1830, and the years which
followed it, when the electoral bourgeoisie effected a revolution in
order to get control over the king, and suppressed the emeutes in order
to restrain the people. The bourgeoisie, through the jury, the
magistracy, its position in the army, and its municipal despotism,
governs both royalty and the people. It is the bourgeoisie which, more
than any other class, is conservative and retrogressive. It is the
bourgeoisie which makes and unmakes ministries. It is the bourgeoisie
which has destroyed the influence of the Upper Chamber, and which will
dethrone the King whenever he shall become unsatisfactory to it. It is
to please the bourgeoisie that royalty makes itself unpopular. It is the
bourgeoisie which is troubled at the hopes of the people, and which
hinders reform. The journals of the bourgeoisie are the ones which
preach morality and religion to us, while reserving scepticism and
indifference for themselves; which attack personal government, and favor
the denial of the electoral privilege to those who have no property. The
bourgeoisie will accept any thing rather than the emancipation of the
proletariat. As soon as it thinks its privileges threatened, it will
unite with royalty; and who does not know that at this very moment these
two antagonists have suspended their quarrels? . . . It has been a question
of property. ]
[Footnote 62: The same opinion was recently expressed from the tribune
by one of our most honorable Deputies, M. Gauguier. "Nature," said he,
"has not endowed man with landed property. " Changing the adjective
LANDED, which designates only a species into CAPITALISTIC, which denotes
the genus,--M.
Gauguier made an egalitaire profession of faith. ]
[Footnote 63: A professor of comparative legislation, M. Lerminier, has
gone still farther. He has dared to say that the nation took from the
clergy all their possessions, not because of IDLENESS, but because of
UNWORTHINESS. "You have civilized the world," cries this apostle of
equality, speaking to the priests; "and for that reason your possessions
were given you. In your hands they were at once an instrument and a
reward. But you do not now deserve them, for you long since ceased to
civilize any thing whatever. . . . "]
[Footnote 64: "Treatise on Prescription. "]
[Footnote 65: "Origin of French Law. "]
[Footnote 66: To honor one's parents, to be grateful to one's
benefactors, to neither kill nor steal,--truths of inward sensation. To
obey God rather than men, to render to each that which is his; the whole
is greater than a part, a straight line is the shortest road from one
point to another,--truths of intuition. All are a priori but the first
are felt by the conscience, and imply only a simple act of the soul; the
second are perceived by the reason, and imply comparison and relation.
In short, the former are sentiments, the latter are ideas. ]
[Footnote 67: Armand Carrel would have favored the fortification of the
capital. "Le National" has said, again and again, placing the name of
its old editor by the side of the names of Napoleon and Vauban. What
signifies this exhumation of an anti-popular politician? It signifies
that Armand Carrel wished to make government an individual and
irremovable, but elective, property, and that he wished this property to
be elected, not by the people, but by the army. The political system of
Carrel was simply a reorganization of the pretorian guards. Carrel also
hated the _pequins_. That which he deplored in the revolution of July
was not, they say, the insurrection of the people, but the victory of
the people over the soldiers. That is the reason why Carrel, after 1830,
would never support the patriots. "Do you answer me with a few
regiments? " he asked. Armand Carrel regarded the army--the military
power--as the basis of law and government. This man undoubtedly had a
moral sense within him, but he surely had no sense of justice. Were he
still in this world, I declare it boldly, liberty would have no greater
enemy than Carrel. ]
[Footnote 68: In a very short article, which was read by M. Wolowski, M.
Louis Blanc declares, in substance, that he is not a communist (which I
easily believe); that one must be a fool to attack property (but he does
not say why); and that it is very necessary to guard against confounding
property with its abuses. When Voltaire overthrew Christianity, he
repeatedly avowed that he had no spite against religion, but only
against its abuses. ]
[Footnote 69: The property fever is at its height among writers and
artists, and it is curious to see the complacency with which our
legislators and men of letters cherish this devouring passion. An artist
sells a picture, and then, the merchandise delivered, assumes to prevent
the purchaser from selling engravings, under the pretext that he, the
painter, in selling the original, has not sold his DESIGN. A dispute
arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both the fact and
the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being
consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right;
only the property in the design should have been specially reserved in
the contract: so that, in reality, M. Villemain recognizes in the artist
a power to surrender his work and prevent its communication; thus
contradicting the legal axiom, One CANNOT GIVE AND KEEP AT THE SAME
TIME. A strange reasoner is M. Villemain! An ambiguous principle leads
to a false conclusion. Instead of rejecting the principle, M. Villemain
hastens to admit the conclusion. With him the _reductio ad absurdum_ is
a convincing argument. Thus he is made official defender of literary
property, sure of being understood and sustained by a set of loafers,
the disgrace of literature and the plague of public morals. Why, then,
does M. Villemain feel so strong an interest in setting himself up as
the chief of the literary classes, in playing for their benefit the role
of Trissotin in the councils of the State, and in becoming the
accomplice and associate of a band of profligates,--_soi-disant_ men of
letters,--who for more than ten years have labored with such deplorable
success to ruin public spirit, and corrupt the heart by warping the
mind? ]
[Footnote 70: M. Leroux has been highly praised in a review for having
defended property. I do not know whether the industrious encyclopedist
is pleased with the praise, but I know very well that in his place I
should mourn for reason and for truth. ]
[Footnote 71: "Impartial," of Besancon. ]
[Footnote 72: The Arians deny the divinity of Christ. The Semi-Arians
differ from the Arians only by a few subtle distinctions. M. Pierre
Leroux, who regards Jesus as a man, but claims that the Spirit of God
was infused into him, is a true Semi-Arian.
The Manicheans admit two co-existent and eternal principles,--God and
matter, spirit and flesh, light and darkness, good and evil; but, unlike
the Phalansterians, who pretend to reconcile the two, the Manicheans
make war upon matter, and labor with all their might for the destruction
of the flesh, by condemning marriage and forbidding reproduction,--which
does not prevent them, however, from indulging in all the carnal
pleasures which the intensest lust can conceive of. In this last
particular, the tendency of the Fourieristic morality is quite
Manichean.
The Gnostics do not differ from the early Christians. As their name
indicates, they regarded themselves as inspired. Fourier, who held
peculiar ideas concerning the visions of somnambulists, and who believed
in the possibility of developing the magnetic power to such an extent as
to enable us to commune with invisible beings, might, if he were living,
pass also for a Gnostic.
The Adamites attend mass entirely naked, from motives of chastity. Jean
Jacques Rousseau, who took the sleep of the senses for chastity, and who
saw in modesty only a refinement of pleasure, inclined towards Adamism.
I know such a sect, whose members usually celebrate their mysteries in
the costume of Venus coming from the bath.
The Pre-Adamites believe that men existed before the first man. I once
met a Pre-Adamite. True, he was deaf and a Fourierist.
The Pelagians deny grace, and attribute all the merit of good works to
liberty. The Fourierists, who teach that man's nature and passions are
good, are reversed Pelagians; they give all to grace, and nothing to
liberty.
The Socinians, deists in all other respects, admit an original
revelation. Many people are Socinians to-day, who do not suspect it, and
who regard their opinions as new.
The Neo-Christians are those simpletons who admire Christianity because
it has produced bells and cathedrals. Base in soul, corrupt in heart,
dissolute in mind and senses, the Neo-Christians seek especially after
the external form, and admire religion, as they love women, for its
physical beauty. They believe in a coming revelation, as well as a
transfiguration of Catholicism. They will sing masses at the grand
spectacle in the phalanstery. ]
[Footnote 73: It should be understood that the above refers only to the
moral and political doctrines of Fourier,--doctrines which, like all
philosophical and religious systems, have their root and _raison
d'existence_ in society itself, and for this reason deserve to be
examined. The peculiar speculations of Fourier and his sect concerning
cosmogony, geology, natural history, physiology, and psychology, I leave
to the attention of those who would think it their duty to seriously
refute the fables of Blue Beard and the Ass's Skin. ]
[Footnote 74: A writer for the radical press, M. Louis Raybaud, said, in
the preface to his "Studies of Contemporary Reformers:" "Who does not
know that morality is relative? Aside from a few grand sentiments which
are strikingly instinctive, the measure of human acts varies with
nations and climates, and only civilization--the progressive education
of the race--can lead to a universal morality. . . . The absolute escapes
our contingent and finite nature; the absolute is the secret of God. "
God keep from evil M. Louis Raybaud! But I cannot help remarking that
all political apostates begin by the negation of the absolute, which is
really the negation of truth. What can a writer, who professes
scepticism, have in common with radical views? What has he to say to his
readers? What judgment is he entitled to pass upon contemporary
reformers? M. Raybaud thought it would seem wise to repeat an old
impertinence of the legist, and that may serve him for an excuse. We all
have these weaknesses. But I am surprised that a man of so much
intelligence as M. Raybaud, who STUDIES SYSTEMS, fails to see the very
thing he ought first to recognize,--namely, that systems are the
progress of the mind towards the absolute. ]
[Footnote 75: The electoral reform, it is continually asserted, is not
an END, but a MEANS. Undoubtedly; but what, then, is the end? Why not
furnish an unequivocal explanation of its object? How can the people
choose their representatives, unless they know in advance the purpose
for which they choose them, and the object of the commission which they
entrust to them? But, it is said, the very business of those chosen by
the people is to find out the object of the reform. That is a quibble.
What is to hinder these persons, who are to be elected in future, from
first seeking for this object, and then, when they have found it, from
communicating it to the people? The reformers have well said, that,
while the object of the electoral reform remains in the least
indefinite, it will be only a means of transferring power from the hands
of petty tyrants to the hands of other tyrants. We know already how a
nation may be oppressed by being led to believe that it is obeying only
its own laws. The history of universal suffrage, among all nations, is
the history of the restrictions of liberty by and in the name of the
multitude. Still, if the electoral reform, in its present shape, were
rational, practical, acceptable to clean consciences and upright minds,
perhaps one might be excused, though ignorant of its object, for
supporting it. But, no; the text of the petition determines nothing,
makes no distinctions, requires no conditions, no guarantee; it
establishes the right without the duty. "Every Frenchman is a voter, and
eligible to office. " As well say: "Every bayonet is intelligent, every
savage is civilized, every slave is free. " In its vague generality, the
reformatory petition is the weakest of abstractions, or the highest form
of political treason. Consequently, the enlightened patriots distrust
and despise each other. The most radical writer of the time,--he whose
economical and social theories are, without comparison, the most
advanced,--M. Leroux, has taken a bold stand against universal suffrage
and democratic government, and has written an exceedingly keen criticism
of J. J. Rousseau. That is undoubtedly the reason why M. Leroux is no
longer the philosopher of "Le National. " That journal, like Napoleon,
does not like men of ideas. Nevertheless, "Le National" ought to know
that he who fights against ideas will perish by ideas. ]
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billions. And for a literary man, who is neither a savant, nor an
artist, nor a philosopher, nor an economist, and who writes newspaper
novels? --None. ]
[Footnote 18: There is an error in the author's calculation here; but
the translator, feeling sure that the reader will understand Proudhon's
meaning, prefers not to alter his figures. --Translator. ]
[Footnote 19: _Hoc inter se differunt onanismus et manuspratio, nempe
quod haec a solitario exercetur, ille autem a duobus reciprocatur,
masculo scilicet et faemina. Porro foedam hanc onanismi venerem ludentes
uxoria mariti habent nunc omnigm suavissimam_]
[Footnote 20: Polyandry,--plurality of husbands. ]
[Footnote 21: Infanticide has just been publicly advocated in England,
in a pamphlet written by a disciple of Malthus. He proposes an ANNUAL
MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS in all families containing more children than
the law allows; and he asks that a magnificent cemetery, adorned with
statues, groves, fountains, and flowers, be set apart as a special
burying-place for the superfluous children. Mothers would resort to this
delightful spot to dream of the happiness of these little angels, and
would return, quite comforted, to give birth to others, to be buried in
their turn. ]
[Footnote 22: To perform an act of benevolence towards one's neighbor is
called, in Hebrew, to do justice; in Greek, to take compassion or pity
({GREEK n n f e },from which is derived the French _aumone_); in Latin,
to perform an act of love or charity; in French, give alms. We can trace
the degradation of this principle through these various expressions: the
first signifies duty; the second only sympathy; the third, affection, a
matter of choice, not an obligation; the fourth, caprice. ]
[Footnote 23: I mean here by equite what the Latins called humanitas,--
that is, the kind of sociability which is peculiar to man. Humanity,
gentle and courteous to all, knows how to distinguish ranks, virtues,
and capacities without injury to any. ]
[Footnote 24: Justice and equite never have been understood. ]
[Footnote 25: Between woman and man there may exist love, passion, ties
of custom, and the like; but there is no real society. Man and woman are
not companions. The difference of the sexes places a barrier between
them, like that placed between animals by a difference of race.
Consequently, far from advocating what is now called the emancipation of
woman, I should incline, rather, if there were no other alternative, to
exclude her from society. ]
[Footnote 26: "The strong-box of Cosmo de Medici was the grave of
Florentine liberty," said M. Michelet to the College of France. ]
[Footnote 27: "My right is my lance and my buckler. " General de Brossard
said, like Achilles: "I get wine, gold, and women with my lance and my
buckler. "]
[Footnote 28: It would be interesting and profitable to review the
authors who have written on usury, or, to use the gentler expression
which some prefer, lendingat interest. The theologians always have
opposed usury; but, since they have admitted always the legitimacy of
rent, and since rent is evidently identical with interest, they have
lost themselves in a labyrinth of subtle distinctions, and have finally
reached a pass where they do not know what to think of usury. The
Church--the teacher of morality, so jealous and so proud of the purity
of her doctrine--has always been ignorant of the real nature of property
and usury. She even has proclaimed through her pontiffs the most
deplorable errors. _Non potest mutuum_, said Benedict XIV. , _locationi
ullo pacto comparari_. "Rent," says Bossuet, "is as far from usury as
heaven is from the earth. " How, on{sic} such a doctrine, condemn lending
at interest? how justify the Gospel, which expressly forbids usury? The
difficulty of theologians is a very serious one. Unable to refute the
economical demonstrations, which rightly assimilate interest to rent,
they no longer dare to condemn interest, and they can say only that
there must be such a thing as usury, since the Gospel forbids it. ]
[Footnote 29: "I preach the Gospel, I live by the Gospel," said the
Apostle; meaning thereby that he lived by his labor. The Catholic clergy
prefer to live by property. The struggles in the communes of the middle
ages between the priests and bishops and the large proprietors and
seigneurs are famous. The papal excommunications fulminated in defence
of ecclesiastical revenues are no less so. Even to-day, the official
organs of the Gallican clergy still maintain that the pay received by
the clergy is not a salary, but an indemnity for goods of which they
were once proprietors, and which were taken from them in '89 by the
Third Estate. The clergy prefer to live by the right of increase rather
than by labor. ]
[Footnote 30: The meaning ordinarily attached to the word "anarchy" is
absence of principle, absence of rule; consequently, it has been
regarded as synonymous with "disorder. "]
[Footnote 31: If such ideas are ever forced into the minds of the
people, it will be by representative government and the tyranny of
talkers. Once science, thought, and speech were characterized by the
same expression. To designate a thoughtful and a learned man, they said,
"a man quick to speak and powerful in discourse. " For a long time,
speech has been abstractly distinguished from science and reason.
Gradually, this abstraction is becoming realized, as the logicians say,
in society; so that we have to-day savants of many kinds who talk but
little, and TALKERS who are not even savants in the science of speech.
Thus a philosopher is no longer a savant: he is a talker. Legislators
and poets were once profound and sublime characters: now they are
talkers. A talker is a sonorous bell, whom the least shock suffices to
set in perpetual motion. With the talker, the flow of speech is always
directly proportional to the poverty of thought. Talkers govern the
world; they stun us, they bore us, they worry us, they suck our blood,
and laugh at us. As for the savants, they keep silence: if they wish to
say a word, they are cut short. Let them write. ]
[Footnote 32: _libertas, librare, libratio, libra_,--liberty, to
liberate, libration, balance (pound),--words which have a common
derivation. Liberty is the balance of rights and duties. To make a man
free is to balance him with others,--that is, to put him or their
level. ]
[Footnote 33: In a monthly publication, the first number of which has
just appeared under the name of "L'Egalitaire," self-sacrifice is laid
down as a principle of equality. This is a confusion of ideas. Self-
sacrifice, taken alone, is the last degree of inequality. To seek
equality in self-sacrifice is to confess that equality is against
nature. Equality must be based upon justice, upon strict right, upon the
principles invoked by the proprietor himself; otherwise it will never
exist. Self-sacrifice is superior to justice; but it cannot be imposed
as law, because it is of such a nature as to admit of no reward. It is,
indeed, desirable that everybody shall recognize the necessity of self-
sacrifice, and the idea of "L'Egalitaire" is an excellent example.
Unfortunately, it can have no effect. What would you reply, indeed, to a
man who should say to you, "I do not want to sacrifice myself"? Is he to
be compelled to do so? When self-sacrifice is forced, it becomes
oppression, slavery, the exploitation of man by man. Thus have the
proletaires sacrificed themselves to property. ]
[Footnote 34: The disciples of Fourier have long seemed to me the most
advanced of all modern socialists, and almost the only ones worthy of
the name. If they had understood the nature of their task, spoken to the
people, awakened their sympathies, and kept silence when they did not
understand; if they had made less extravagant pretensions, and had shown
more respect for public intelligence,--perhaps the reform would now,
thanks to them, be in progress. But why are these earnest reformers
continually bowing to power and wealth,--that is, to all that is anti-
reformatory? How, in a thinking age, can they fail to see that the world
must be converted by DEMONSTRATION, not by myths and allegories? Why do
they, the deadly enemies of civilization, borrow from it, nevertheless,
its most pernicious fruits,--property, inequality of fortune and rank,
gluttony, concubinage, prostitution, what do I know? theurgy, magic, and
sorcery? Why these endless denunciations of morality, metaphysics, and
psychology, when the abuse of these sciences, which they do not
understand, constitutes their whole system? Why this mania for deifying
a man whose principal merit consisted in talking nonsense about things
whose names, even, he did not know, in the strongest language ever put
upon paper? Whoever admits the infallibility of a man becomes thereby
incapable of instructing others. Whoever denies his own reason will soon
proscribe free thought. The phalansterians would not fail to do it if
they had the power. Let them condescend to reason, let them proceed
systematically, let them give us demonstrations instead of revelations,
and we will listen willingly. Then let them organize manufactures,
agriculture, and commerce; let them make labor attractive, and the most
humble functions honorable, and our praise shall be theirs. Above all,
let them throw off that Illuminism which gives them the appearance of
impostors or dupes, rather than believers and apostles. ]
[Footnote 35: Individual possession is no obstacle to extensive
cultivation and unity of exploitation. If I have not spoken of the
drawbacks arising from small estates, it is because I thought it useless
to repeat what so many others have said, and what by this time all the
world must know. But I am surprised that the economists, who have so
clearly shown the disadvantages of spade-husbandry, have failed to see
that it is caused entirely by property; above all, that they have not
perceived that their plan for mobilizing the soil is a first step
towards the abolition of property. ]
[Footnote 36: In the Chamber of Deputies, during the session of the
fifth of January, 1841, M. Dufaure moved to renew the expropriation
bill, on the ground of public utility. ]
[Footnote 37: "What is Property? " Chap. IV. , Ninth Proposition. ]
[Footnote 38: _Tu cognovisti sessionem meam et resurrectionem meam_.
Psalm 139. ]
[Footnote 39: The emperor Nicholas has just compelled all the
manufacturers in his empire to maintain, at their own expense, within
their establishments, small hospitals for the reception of sick
workmen,--the number of beds in each being proportional to the number of
laborers in the factory. "You profit by man's labor," the Czar could
have said to his proprietors; "you shall be responsible for man's life. "
M. Blanqui has said that such a measure could not succeed in France. It
would be an attack upon property,--a thing hardly conceivable even in
Russia, Scythia, or among the Cossacks; but among us, the oldest sons of
civilization! . . . I fear very much that this quality of age may prove in
the end a mark of decrepitude. ]
[Footnote 40: Course of M. Blanqui. Lecture of Nov. 27,1840. ]
[Footnote 41: In "Mazaniello," the Neapolitan fisherman demands, amid
the applause of the galleries, that a tax be levied upon luxuries. ]
[Footnote 42: _Seme le champ, proletaire; C'est l l'oisif
qui recoltera_. ]
[Footnote 43: "In some countries, the enjoyment of certain political
rights depends upon the amount of property. But, in these same
countries, property is expressive, rather than attributive, of the
qualifications necessary to the exercise of these rights. It is rather a
conjectural proof than the cause of these qualifications. "--Rossi:
Treatise on Penal Law. ]
[Footnote 44: Lecture of December 22. ]
[Footnote 45: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ]
[Footnote 46: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ]
[Footnote 47: MM. Blanqui and Wolowski. ]
[Footnote 48: Subject proposed by the Fourth Class of the Institute, the
Academy of Moral and Political Sciences: "What would be the effect upon
the working-class of the organization of labor, according to the modern
ideas of association? "]
[Footnote 49: Subject proposed by the Academy of Besancon: "The
economical and moral consequences in France, up to the present time, and
those which seem likely to appear in future, of the law concerning the
equal division of hereditary property between the children. "]
[Footnote 50: {GREEK, ? n n '},--greater property. The Vulgate translates
it avaritia. ]
[Footnote 51: Similar or analogous customs have existed among all
nations. Consult, among other works, "Origin of French Law," by M.
Michelet; and "Antiquities of German Law," by Grimm. ]
[Footnote 52: _Dees hominesque testamur, nos arma neque contra patriam
cepisse neque quo periculum aliis faceremus, sed uti corpora nostra ab
injuria tuta forent, qui miseri, egentes, violentia atque crudelitate
foeneraterum, plerique patriae, sed omncsfarna atque fortunis expertes
sumus; neque cuiquam nostrum licuit, more majorum, lege uti, neque,
amisso patrimonio, libferum corpus habere. _--Sallus: Bellum
Catilinarium. ]
[Footnote 53: Fifty, sixty, and eighty per cent. --Course of M. Blanqui. ]
[Footnote 54: _Episcopi plurimi, quos et hortamento esse oportet
caeteris et exemplo, divina prouratione contempta, procuratores rerum
saeularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe leserta, per alienas
provincias oberrantes, negotiationis quaestuosae nundinas au uucu-,
pari, esurientibus in ecclesia fratribus habere argentum largitur velle,
fundos insidi. sis fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus faenus
augere. _--Cyprian: De Lapsis. {--NOTE: what does this refer to? This is
at bottom of pg 341 in MS} In this passage, St. Cyprian alludes to
lending on mortgages and to compound interest. ]
[Footnote 55: "Inquiries concerning Property among the Romans. "]
[Footnote 56: "Its acquisitive nature works rapidly in the sleep of the
law. It is ready, at the word, to absorb every thing. Witness the famous
equivocation about the ox-hide which, when cut up into thongs, was large
enough to enclose the site of Carthage. . . . The legend has reappeared
several times since Dido. . . . Such is the love of man for the land.
Limited by tombs, measured by the members of the human body, by the
thumb, the foot, and the arm, it harmonizes, as far as possible, with
the very proportions of man. Nor is he satisfied yet: he calls Heaven to
witness that it is his; he tries to or his land, to give it the form of
heaven. . . . In his titanic intoxication, he describes property in the
very terms which he employs in describing the Almighty--_fundus_
_optimus maximus_. . . . He shall make it his couch, and they shall be
separated no more,--{GREEK, ' nf g h g g. "}--Michelet:Origin of French
Law. ]
[Footnote 57: M. Guizot denies that Christianity alone is entitled to
the glory of the abolition of slavery. "To this end," he says, "many
causes were necessary,--the evolution of other ideas and other
principles of civilization. " So general an assertion cannot be refuted.
Some of these ideas and causes should have been pointed out, that we
might judge whether their source was not wholly Christian, or whether at
least the Christian spirit had not penetrated and thus fructified them.
Most of the emancipation charters begin with these words: "For the love
of God and the salvation of my soul. "]
[Footnote 58: _Weregild_,--the fine paid for the murder of a man. So
much for a count, so much for a baron, so much for a freeman, so much
for a priest; for a slave, nothing. His value was restored to the
proprietor. ]
[Footnote 59: The spirit of despotism and monopoly which animated the
communes has not escaped the attention of historians. "The formation of
the commoners' associations," says Meyer, "did not spring from the true
spirit of liberty, but from the desire for exemption from the charges of
the seigniors, from individual interests, and jealousy of the welfare of
others. . . . Each commune or corporation opposed the creation of every
other; and this spirit increased to such an extent that the King of
England, Henry V. , having established a university at Caen, in 1432, the
city and university of Paris opposed the registration of the edict. "]
[Footnote 60: Feudalism was, in spirit and in its providential destiny,
a long protest of the human personality against the monkish communism
with which Europe, in the middle ages, was overrun. After the orgies of
Pagan selfishness, society--carried to the opposite extreme by the
Christian religion--risked its life by unlimited self-denial and
absolute indifference to the pleasures of the world. Feudalism was the
balance-weight which saved Europe from the combined influence of the
religious communities and the Manlchean sects which had sprung up since
the fourth century under different names and in different countries.
Modern civilization is indebted to feudalism for the definitive
establishment of the person, of marriage, of the family, and of country.
(See, on this subject, Guizot, "History of Civilization in Europe. ")]
[Footnote 61: This was made evident in July, 1830, and the years which
followed it, when the electoral bourgeoisie effected a revolution in
order to get control over the king, and suppressed the emeutes in order
to restrain the people. The bourgeoisie, through the jury, the
magistracy, its position in the army, and its municipal despotism,
governs both royalty and the people. It is the bourgeoisie which, more
than any other class, is conservative and retrogressive. It is the
bourgeoisie which makes and unmakes ministries. It is the bourgeoisie
which has destroyed the influence of the Upper Chamber, and which will
dethrone the King whenever he shall become unsatisfactory to it. It is
to please the bourgeoisie that royalty makes itself unpopular. It is the
bourgeoisie which is troubled at the hopes of the people, and which
hinders reform. The journals of the bourgeoisie are the ones which
preach morality and religion to us, while reserving scepticism and
indifference for themselves; which attack personal government, and favor
the denial of the electoral privilege to those who have no property. The
bourgeoisie will accept any thing rather than the emancipation of the
proletariat. As soon as it thinks its privileges threatened, it will
unite with royalty; and who does not know that at this very moment these
two antagonists have suspended their quarrels? . . . It has been a question
of property. ]
[Footnote 62: The same opinion was recently expressed from the tribune
by one of our most honorable Deputies, M. Gauguier. "Nature," said he,
"has not endowed man with landed property. " Changing the adjective
LANDED, which designates only a species into CAPITALISTIC, which denotes
the genus,--M.
Gauguier made an egalitaire profession of faith. ]
[Footnote 63: A professor of comparative legislation, M. Lerminier, has
gone still farther. He has dared to say that the nation took from the
clergy all their possessions, not because of IDLENESS, but because of
UNWORTHINESS. "You have civilized the world," cries this apostle of
equality, speaking to the priests; "and for that reason your possessions
were given you. In your hands they were at once an instrument and a
reward. But you do not now deserve them, for you long since ceased to
civilize any thing whatever. . . . "]
[Footnote 64: "Treatise on Prescription. "]
[Footnote 65: "Origin of French Law. "]
[Footnote 66: To honor one's parents, to be grateful to one's
benefactors, to neither kill nor steal,--truths of inward sensation. To
obey God rather than men, to render to each that which is his; the whole
is greater than a part, a straight line is the shortest road from one
point to another,--truths of intuition. All are a priori but the first
are felt by the conscience, and imply only a simple act of the soul; the
second are perceived by the reason, and imply comparison and relation.
In short, the former are sentiments, the latter are ideas. ]
[Footnote 67: Armand Carrel would have favored the fortification of the
capital. "Le National" has said, again and again, placing the name of
its old editor by the side of the names of Napoleon and Vauban. What
signifies this exhumation of an anti-popular politician? It signifies
that Armand Carrel wished to make government an individual and
irremovable, but elective, property, and that he wished this property to
be elected, not by the people, but by the army. The political system of
Carrel was simply a reorganization of the pretorian guards. Carrel also
hated the _pequins_. That which he deplored in the revolution of July
was not, they say, the insurrection of the people, but the victory of
the people over the soldiers. That is the reason why Carrel, after 1830,
would never support the patriots. "Do you answer me with a few
regiments? " he asked. Armand Carrel regarded the army--the military
power--as the basis of law and government. This man undoubtedly had a
moral sense within him, but he surely had no sense of justice. Were he
still in this world, I declare it boldly, liberty would have no greater
enemy than Carrel. ]
[Footnote 68: In a very short article, which was read by M. Wolowski, M.
Louis Blanc declares, in substance, that he is not a communist (which I
easily believe); that one must be a fool to attack property (but he does
not say why); and that it is very necessary to guard against confounding
property with its abuses. When Voltaire overthrew Christianity, he
repeatedly avowed that he had no spite against religion, but only
against its abuses. ]
[Footnote 69: The property fever is at its height among writers and
artists, and it is curious to see the complacency with which our
legislators and men of letters cherish this devouring passion. An artist
sells a picture, and then, the merchandise delivered, assumes to prevent
the purchaser from selling engravings, under the pretext that he, the
painter, in selling the original, has not sold his DESIGN. A dispute
arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both the fact and
the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being
consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right;
only the property in the design should have been specially reserved in
the contract: so that, in reality, M. Villemain recognizes in the artist
a power to surrender his work and prevent its communication; thus
contradicting the legal axiom, One CANNOT GIVE AND KEEP AT THE SAME
TIME. A strange reasoner is M. Villemain! An ambiguous principle leads
to a false conclusion. Instead of rejecting the principle, M. Villemain
hastens to admit the conclusion. With him the _reductio ad absurdum_ is
a convincing argument. Thus he is made official defender of literary
property, sure of being understood and sustained by a set of loafers,
the disgrace of literature and the plague of public morals. Why, then,
does M. Villemain feel so strong an interest in setting himself up as
the chief of the literary classes, in playing for their benefit the role
of Trissotin in the councils of the State, and in becoming the
accomplice and associate of a band of profligates,--_soi-disant_ men of
letters,--who for more than ten years have labored with such deplorable
success to ruin public spirit, and corrupt the heart by warping the
mind? ]
[Footnote 70: M. Leroux has been highly praised in a review for having
defended property. I do not know whether the industrious encyclopedist
is pleased with the praise, but I know very well that in his place I
should mourn for reason and for truth. ]
[Footnote 71: "Impartial," of Besancon. ]
[Footnote 72: The Arians deny the divinity of Christ. The Semi-Arians
differ from the Arians only by a few subtle distinctions. M. Pierre
Leroux, who regards Jesus as a man, but claims that the Spirit of God
was infused into him, is a true Semi-Arian.
The Manicheans admit two co-existent and eternal principles,--God and
matter, spirit and flesh, light and darkness, good and evil; but, unlike
the Phalansterians, who pretend to reconcile the two, the Manicheans
make war upon matter, and labor with all their might for the destruction
of the flesh, by condemning marriage and forbidding reproduction,--which
does not prevent them, however, from indulging in all the carnal
pleasures which the intensest lust can conceive of. In this last
particular, the tendency of the Fourieristic morality is quite
Manichean.
The Gnostics do not differ from the early Christians. As their name
indicates, they regarded themselves as inspired. Fourier, who held
peculiar ideas concerning the visions of somnambulists, and who believed
in the possibility of developing the magnetic power to such an extent as
to enable us to commune with invisible beings, might, if he were living,
pass also for a Gnostic.
The Adamites attend mass entirely naked, from motives of chastity. Jean
Jacques Rousseau, who took the sleep of the senses for chastity, and who
saw in modesty only a refinement of pleasure, inclined towards Adamism.
I know such a sect, whose members usually celebrate their mysteries in
the costume of Venus coming from the bath.
The Pre-Adamites believe that men existed before the first man. I once
met a Pre-Adamite. True, he was deaf and a Fourierist.
The Pelagians deny grace, and attribute all the merit of good works to
liberty. The Fourierists, who teach that man's nature and passions are
good, are reversed Pelagians; they give all to grace, and nothing to
liberty.
The Socinians, deists in all other respects, admit an original
revelation. Many people are Socinians to-day, who do not suspect it, and
who regard their opinions as new.
The Neo-Christians are those simpletons who admire Christianity because
it has produced bells and cathedrals. Base in soul, corrupt in heart,
dissolute in mind and senses, the Neo-Christians seek especially after
the external form, and admire religion, as they love women, for its
physical beauty. They believe in a coming revelation, as well as a
transfiguration of Catholicism. They will sing masses at the grand
spectacle in the phalanstery. ]
[Footnote 73: It should be understood that the above refers only to the
moral and political doctrines of Fourier,--doctrines which, like all
philosophical and religious systems, have their root and _raison
d'existence_ in society itself, and for this reason deserve to be
examined. The peculiar speculations of Fourier and his sect concerning
cosmogony, geology, natural history, physiology, and psychology, I leave
to the attention of those who would think it their duty to seriously
refute the fables of Blue Beard and the Ass's Skin. ]
[Footnote 74: A writer for the radical press, M. Louis Raybaud, said, in
the preface to his "Studies of Contemporary Reformers:" "Who does not
know that morality is relative? Aside from a few grand sentiments which
are strikingly instinctive, the measure of human acts varies with
nations and climates, and only civilization--the progressive education
of the race--can lead to a universal morality. . . . The absolute escapes
our contingent and finite nature; the absolute is the secret of God. "
God keep from evil M. Louis Raybaud! But I cannot help remarking that
all political apostates begin by the negation of the absolute, which is
really the negation of truth. What can a writer, who professes
scepticism, have in common with radical views? What has he to say to his
readers? What judgment is he entitled to pass upon contemporary
reformers? M. Raybaud thought it would seem wise to repeat an old
impertinence of the legist, and that may serve him for an excuse. We all
have these weaknesses. But I am surprised that a man of so much
intelligence as M. Raybaud, who STUDIES SYSTEMS, fails to see the very
thing he ought first to recognize,--namely, that systems are the
progress of the mind towards the absolute. ]
[Footnote 75: The electoral reform, it is continually asserted, is not
an END, but a MEANS. Undoubtedly; but what, then, is the end? Why not
furnish an unequivocal explanation of its object? How can the people
choose their representatives, unless they know in advance the purpose
for which they choose them, and the object of the commission which they
entrust to them? But, it is said, the very business of those chosen by
the people is to find out the object of the reform. That is a quibble.
What is to hinder these persons, who are to be elected in future, from
first seeking for this object, and then, when they have found it, from
communicating it to the people? The reformers have well said, that,
while the object of the electoral reform remains in the least
indefinite, it will be only a means of transferring power from the hands
of petty tyrants to the hands of other tyrants. We know already how a
nation may be oppressed by being led to believe that it is obeying only
its own laws. The history of universal suffrage, among all nations, is
the history of the restrictions of liberty by and in the name of the
multitude. Still, if the electoral reform, in its present shape, were
rational, practical, acceptable to clean consciences and upright minds,
perhaps one might be excused, though ignorant of its object, for
supporting it. But, no; the text of the petition determines nothing,
makes no distinctions, requires no conditions, no guarantee; it
establishes the right without the duty. "Every Frenchman is a voter, and
eligible to office. " As well say: "Every bayonet is intelligent, every
savage is civilized, every slave is free. " In its vague generality, the
reformatory petition is the weakest of abstractions, or the highest form
of political treason. Consequently, the enlightened patriots distrust
and despise each other. The most radical writer of the time,--he whose
economical and social theories are, without comparison, the most
advanced,--M. Leroux, has taken a bold stand against universal suffrage
and democratic government, and has written an exceedingly keen criticism
of J. J. Rousseau. That is undoubtedly the reason why M. Leroux is no
longer the philosopher of "Le National. " That journal, like Napoleon,
does not like men of ideas. Nevertheless, "Le National" ought to know
that he who fights against ideas will perish by ideas. ]
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