No More Learning

I either
KNOW, or am IGNORANT. In a word, in seeking for the reason of things, I
saw that I was a RATIONALIST.

Undoubtedly, it would have been simpler to begin where I have ended.
But then, if such is the law of the human mind; if all society, for six
thousand years, has done nothing but fall into error; if all mankind are
still buried in the darkness of faith, deceived by their prejudices and
passions, guided only by the instinct of their leaders; if my accusers,
themselves, are not free from sectarianism (for they call themselves
FOURIERISTS),--am I alone inexcusable for having, in my inner self, at
the secret tribunal of my conscience, begun anew the journey of our poor
humanity?

I would by no means, then, deny my errors; but, sir, that which
distinguishes me from those who rush into print is the fact that, though
my thoughts have varied much, my writings do not vary. To-day, even, and
on a multitude of questions, I am beset by a thousand extravagant and
contradictory opinions; but my opinions I do not print, for the public
has nothing to do with them. Before addressing my fellow-men, I wait
until light breaks in upon the chaos of my ideas, in order that what I
may say may be, not the whole truth (no man can know that), but nothing
but the truth.

This singular disposition of my mind to first identify itself with a
system in order to better understand it, and then to reflect upon it in
order to test its legitimacy, is the very thing which disgusted me with
Fourier, and ruined in my esteem the societary school. To be a faithful
Fourierist, in fact, one must abandon his reason and accept every
thing from a master,--doctrine, interpretation, and application. M.
Considerant, whose excessive intolerance anathematizes all who do not
abide by his sovereign decisions, has no other conception of Fourierism.
Has he not been appointed Fourier's vicar on earth and pope of a Church
which, unfortunately for its apostles, will never be of this world?
Passive belief is the theological virtue of all sectarians, especially
of the Fourierists.

Now, this is what happened to me. While trying to demonstrate by
argument the religion of which I had become a follower in studying
Fourier, I suddenly perceived that by reasoning I was becoming
incredulous; that on each article of the creed my reason and my faith
were at variance, and that my six weeks' labor was wholly lost. I saw
that the Fourierists--in spite of their inexhaustible gabble, and their
extravagant pretension to decide in all things--were neither savants,
nor logicians, nor even believers; that they were SCIENTIFIC QUACKS, who
were led more by their self-love than their conscience to labor for the
triumph of their sect, and to whom all means were good that would reach
that end. I then understood why to the Epicureans they promised women,
wine, music, and a sea of luxury; to the rigorists, maintenance of
marriage, purity of morals, and temperance; to laborers, high wages;
to proprietors, large incomes; to philosophers, solutions the secret
of which Fourier alone possessed; to priests, a costly religion and
magnificent festivals; to savants, knowledge of an unimaginable nature;
to each, indeed, that which he most desired. In the beginning,
this seemed to me droll; in the end, I regarded it as the height of
impudence. No, sir; no one yet knows of the foolishness and infamy which
the phalansterian system contains. That is a subject which I mean to
treat as soon as I have balanced my accounts with property. [73]


It is rumored that the Fourierists think of leaving France and going to
the new world to found a phalanstery. When a house threatens to fall,
the rats scamper away; that is because they are rats. Men do better;
they rebuild it. Not long since, the St. Simonians, despairing of their
country which paid no heed to them, proudly shook the dust from their
feet, and started for the Orient to fight the battle of free woman.
Pride, wilfulness, mad selfishness! True charity, like true faith,
does not worry, never despairs; it seeks neither its own glory, nor
its interest, nor empire; it does every thing for all, speaks with
indulgence to the reason and the will, and desires to conquer only by
persuasion and sacrifice. Remain in France, Fourierists, if the progress
of humanity is the only thing which you have at heart! There is more to
do here than in the new world. Otherwise, go! you are nothing but liars
and hypocrites!

The foregoing statement by no means embraces all the political elements,
all the opinions and tendencies, which threaten the future of property;
but it ought to satisfy any one who knows how to classify facts, and to
deduce their law or the idea which governs them. Existing society seems
abandoned to the demon of falsehood and discord; and it is this sad
sight which grieves so deeply many distinguished minds who lived too
long in a former age to be able to understand ours. Now, while the
short-sighted spectator begins to despair of humanity, and, distracted
and cursing that of which he is ignorant, plunges into scepticism and
fatalism, the true observer, certain of the spirit which governs
the world, seeks to comprehend and fathom Providence. The memoir on
"Property," published last year by the pensioner of the Academy of
Besancon, is simply a study of this nature.

The time has come for me to relate the history of this unlucky treatise,
which has already caused me so much chagrin, and made me so unpopular;
but which was on my part so involuntary and unpremeditated, that I would
dare to affirm that there is not an economist, not a philosopher, not a
jurist, who is not a hundred times guiltier than I. There is something
so singular in the way in which I was led to attack property, that if,
on hearing my sad story, you persist, sir, in your blame, I hope at
least you will be forced to pity me.

I never have pretended to be a great politician; far from that, I always
have felt for controversies of a political nature the greatest aversion;
and if, in my "Essay on Property," I have sometimes ridiculed our
politicians, believe, sir, that I was governed much less by my pride
in the little that I know, than by my vivid consciousness of their
ignorance and excessive vanity. Relying more on Providence than on
men; not suspecting at first that politics, like every other science,
contained an absolute truth; agreeing equally well with Bossuet and
Jean Jacques,--I accepted with resignation my share of human misery,
and contented myself with praying to God for good deputies, upright
ministers, and an honest king. By taste as well as by discretion and
lack of confidence in my powers, I was slowly pursuing some commonplace
studies in philology, mingled with a little metaphysics, when I suddenly
fell upon the greatest problem that ever has occupied philosophical
minds: I mean the criterion of certainty.

Those of my readers who are unacquainted with the philosophical
terminology will be glad to be told in a few words what this criterion
is, which plays so great a part in my work.

The criterion of certainty, according to the philosophers, will be,
when discovered, an infallible method of establishing the truth of an
opinion, a judgment, a theory, or a system, in nearly the same way as
gold is recognized by the touchstone, as iron approaches the magnet,
or, better still, as we verify a mathematical operation by applying
the PROOF. TIME has hitherto served as a sort of criterion for society.
Thus, the primitive men--having observed that they were not all equal
in strength, beauty, and labor--judged, and rightly, that certain ones
among them were called by nature to the performance of simple and common
functions; but they concluded, and this is where their error lay, that
these same individuals of duller intellect, more restricted genius, and
weaker personality, were predestined to SERVE the others; that is, to
labor while the latter rested, and to have no other will than theirs:
and from this idea of a natural subordination among men sprang
domesticity, which, voluntarily accepted at first, was imperceptibly
converted into horrible slavery. Time, making this error more palpable,
has brought about justice. Nations have learned at their own cost that
the subjection of man to man is a false idea, an erroneous theory,
pernicious alike to master and to slave. And yet such a social system
has stood several thousand years, and has been defended by celebrated
philosophers; even to-day, under somewhat mitigated forms, sophists of
every description uphold and extol it. But experience is bringing it to
an end.

Time, then, is the criterion of societies; thus looked at, history is
the demonstration of the errors of humanity by the argument _reductio ad
absurdum_.

Now, the criterion sought for by metaphysicians would have the advantage
of discriminating at once between the true and the false in every
opinion; so that in politics, religion, and morals, for example, the
true and the useful being immediately recognized, we should no longer
need to await the sorrowful experience of time. Evidently such a secret
would be death to the sophists,--that cursed brood, who, under different
names, excite the curiosity of nations, and, owing to the difficulty
of separating the truth from the error in their artistically woven
theories, lead them into fatal ventures, disturb their peace, and fill
them with such extraordinary prejudice.

Up to this day, the criterion of certainty remains a mystery; this is
owing to the multitude of criteria that have been successively proposed.
Some have taken for an absolute and definite criterion the testimony
of the senses; others intuition; these evidence; those argument. M.
Lamennais affirms that there is no other criterion than universal
reason. Before him, M. de Bonald thought he had discovered it in
language. Quite recently, M. Buchez has proposed morality; and, to
harmonize them all, the eclectics have said that it was absurd to seek
for an absolute criterion, since there were as many criteria as special
orders of knowledge.

Of all these hypotheses it may be observed, That the testimony of the
senses is not a criterion, because the senses, relating us only to
phenomena, furnish us with no ideas; that intuition needs external
confirmation or objective certainty; that evidence requires proof, and
argument verification; that universal reason has been wrong many a time;
that language serves equally well to express the true or the false; that
morality, like all the rest, needs demonstration and rule; and finally,
that the eclectic idea is the least reasonable of all, since it is of no
use to say that there are several criteria if we cannot point out one.
I very much fear that it will be with the criterion as with the
philosopher's stone; that it will finally be abandoned, not only as
insolvable, but as chimerical. Consequently, I entertain no hopes of
having found it; nevertheless, I am not sure that some one more skilful
will not discover it.

Be it as it may with regard to a criterion or criteria, there are
methods of demonstration which, when applied to certain subjects,
may lead to the discovery of unknown truths, bring to light relations
hitherto unsuspected, and lift a paradox to the highest degree of
certainty. In such a case, it is not by its novelty, nor even by its
content, that a system should be judged, but by its method. The critic,
then, should follow the example of the Supreme Court, which, in the
cases which come before it, never examines the facts, but only the form
of procedure. Now, what is the form of procedure? A method.

I then looked to see what philosophy, in the absence of a criterion, had
accomplished by the aid of special methods, and I must say that I
could not discover--in spite of the loudly-proclaimed pretensions
of some--that it had produced any thing of real value; and, at last,
wearied with the philosophical twaddle, I resolved to make a new search
for the criterion. I confess it, to my shame, this folly lasted for two
years, and I am not yet entirely rid of it. It was like seeking a needle
in a haystack. I might have learned Chinese or Arabic in the time that I
have lost in considering and reconsidering syllogisms, in rising to
the summit of an induction as to the top of a ladder, in inserting
a proposition between the horns of a dilemma, in decomposing,
distinguishing, separating, denying, affirming, admitting, as if I could
pass abstractions through a sieve.

I selected justice as the subject-matter of my experiments.
Finally, after a thousand decompositions, recompositions, and double
compositions, I found at the bottom of my analytical crucible, not the
criterion of certainty, but a metaphysico-economico-political treatise,
whose conclusions were such that I did not care to present them in a
more artistic or, if you will, more intelligible form. The effect which
this work produced upon all classes of minds gave me an idea of the
spirit of our age, and did not cause me to regret the prudent and
scientific obscurity of my style. How happens it that to-day I am
obliged to defend my intentions, when my conduct bears the evident
impress of such lofty morality?

You have read my work, sir, and you know the gist of my tedious and
scholastic lucubrations. Considering the revolutions of humanity,
the vicissitudes of empires, the transformations of property, and the
innumerable forms of justice and of right, I asked, "Are the evils which
afflict us inherent in our condition as men, or do they arise only from
an error? This inequality of fortunes which all admit to be the cause of
society's embarrassments, is it, as some assert, the effect of Nature;
or, in the division of the products of labor and the soil, may there not
have been some error in calculation? Does each laborer receive all that
is due him, and only that which is due him? In short, in the present
conditions of labor, wages, and exchange, is no one wronged? --are the
accounts well kept? --is the social balance accurate? "

Then I commenced a most laborious investigation. It was necessary to
arrange informal notes, to discuss contradictory titles, to reply to
captious allegations, to refute absurd pretensions, and to describe
fictitious debts, dishonest transactions, and fraudulent accounts. In
order to triumph over quibblers, I had to deny the authority of custom,
to examine the arguments of legislators, and to oppose science with
science itself. Finally, all these operations completed, I had to give a
judicial decision.

I therefore declared, my hand upon my heart, before God and men, that
the causes of social inequality are three in number: 1. GRATUITOUS
APPROPRIATION OF COLLECTIVE WEALTH; 2. INEQUALITY IN EXCHANGE; 3. THE
RIGHT OF PROFIT OR INCREASE.

And since this threefold method of extortion is the very essence of the
domain of property, I denied the legitimacy of property, and proclaimed
its identity with robbery.

That is my only offence. I have reasoned upon property; I have searched
for the criterion of justice; I have demonstrated, not the possibility,
but the necessity, of equality of fortunes; I have allowed myself no
attack upon persons, no assault upon the government, of which I, more
than any one else, am a provisional adherent. If I have sometimes
used the word PROPRIETOR, I have used it as the abstract name of a
metaphysical being, whose reality breathes in every individual,--not
alone in a privileged few.

Nevertheless, I acknowledge--for I wish my confession to be
sincere--that the general tone of my book has been bitterly censured.
They complain of an atmosphere of passion and invective unworthy of
an honest man, and quite out of place in the treatment of so grave a
subject.

If this reproach is well founded (which it is impossible for me either
to deny or admit, because in my own cause I cannot be judge),--if, I
say, I deserve this charge, I can only humble myself and acknowledge
myself guilty of an involuntary wrong; the only excuse that I could
offer being of such a nature that it ought not to be communicated to the
public. All that I can say is, that I understand better than any one how
the anger which injustice causes may render an author harsh and violent
in his criticisms. When, after twenty years of labor, a man still finds
himself on the brink of starvation, and then suddenly discovers in
an equivocation, an error in calculation, the cause of the evil which
torments him in common with so many millions of his fellows, he can
scarcely restrain a cry of sorrow and dismay.

But, sir, though pride be offended by my rudeness, it is not to pride
that I apologize, but to the proletaires, to the simple-minded, whom I
perhaps have scandalized. My angry dialectics may have produced a bad
effect on some peaceable minds. Some poor workingman--more affected
by my sarcasm than by the strength of my arguments--may, perhaps, have
concluded that property is the result of a perpetual Machiavelianism on
the part of the governors against the governed,--a deplorable error of
which my book itself is the best refutation. I devoted two chapters to
showing how property springs from human personality and the comparison
of individuals. Then I explained its perpetual limitation; and,
following out the same idea, I predicted its approaching disappearance.
How, then, could the editors of the "Revue Democratique," after
having borrowed from me nearly the whole substance of their economical
articles, dare to say: "The holders of the soil, and other productive
capital, are more or less wilful accomplices in a vast robbery, they
being the exclusive receivers and sharers of the stolen goods"?

The proprietors WILFULLY guilty of the crime of robbery! Never did
that homicidal phrase escape my pen; never did my heart conceive the
frightful thought. Thank Heaven! I know not how to calumniate my kind;
and I have too strong a desire to seek for the reason of things to be
willing to believe in criminal conspiracies. The millionnaire is no more
tainted by property than the journeyman who works for thirty sous per
day. On both sides the error is equal, as well as the intention. The
effect is also the same, though positive in the former, and negative
in the latter. I accused property; I did not denounce the proprietors,
which would have been absurd: and I am sorry that there are among us
wills so perverse and minds so shattered that they care for only so much
of the truth as will aid them in their evil designs. Such is the
only regret which I feel on account of my indignation, which, though
expressed perhaps too bitterly, was at least honest, and legitimate in
its source.

However, what did I do in this essay which I voluntarily submitted
to the Academy of Moral Sciences? Seeking a fixed axiom amid social
uncertainties, I traced back to one fundamental question all the
secondary questions over which, at present, so keen and diversified
a conflict is raging This question was the right of property. Then,
comparing all existing theories with each other, and extracting from
them that which is common to them all, I endeavored to discover that
element in the idea of property which is necessary, immutable, and
absolute; and asserted, after authentic verification, that this idea
is reducible to that of INDIVIDUAL AND TRANSMISSIBLE POSSESSION;
SUSCEPTIBLE OF EXCHANGE, BUT NOT OF ALIENATION; FOUNDED ON LABOR, AND
NOT ON FICTITIOUS OCCUPANCY, OR IDLE CAPRICE. I said, further, that this
idea was the result of our revolutionary movements,--the culminating
point towards which all opinions, gradually divesting themselves of
their contradictory elements, converge. And I tried to demonstrate
this by the spirit of the laws, by political economy, by psychology and
history.

A Father of the Church, finishing a learned exposition of the Catholic
doctrine, cried, in the enthusiasm of his faith, _"Domine, si error est,
a te decepti sumus_ (if my religion is false, God is to blame). " I, as
well as this theologian, can say, "If equality is a fable, God, through
whom we act and think and are; God, who governs society by eternal laws,
who rewards just nations, and punishes proprietors,--God alone is the
author of evil; God has lied. The fault lies not with me. "

But, if I am mistaken in my inferences, I should be shown my error, and
led out of it. It is surely worth the trouble, and I think I deserve
this honor. There is no ground for proscription.

For, in the words of that member of the Convention who did not like
the guillotine, _to kill is not to reply_. Until then, I persist in
regarding my work as useful, social, full of instruction for public
officials,--worthy, in short, of reward and encouragement.

For there is one truth of which I am profoundly convinced,--nations
live by absolute ideas, not by approximate and partial conceptions;
therefore, men are needed who define principles, or at least test them
in the fire of controversy. Such is the law,--the idea first, the pure
idea, the understanding of the laws of God, the theory: practice follows
with slow steps, cautious, attentive to the succession of events; sure
to seize, towards this eternal meridian, the indications of supreme
reason.

The co-operation of theory and practice produces in humanity the
realization of order,--the absolute truth. [74]


All of us, as long as we live, are called, each in proportion to his
strength, to this sublime work. The only duty which it imposes upon
us is to refrain from appropriating the truth to ourselves, either by
concealing it, or by accommodating it to the temper of the century,
or by using it for our own interests. This principle of conscience, so
grand and so simple, has always been present in my thought.

Consider, in fact, sir, that which I might have done, but did not wish
to do. I reason on the most honorable hypothesis. What hindered me from
concealing, for some years to come, the abstract theory of the equality
of fortunes, and, at the same time, from criticising constitutions and
codes; from showing the absolute and the contingent, the immutable and
the ephemeral, the eternal and the transitory, in laws present and past;
from constructing a new system of legislation, and establishing on
a solid foundation this social edifice, ever destroyed and as often
rebuilt? Might I not, taking up the definitions of casuists, have
clearly shown the cause of their contradictions and uncertainties, and
supplied, at the same time, the inadequacies of their conclusions? Might
I not have confirmed this labor by a vast historical exposition, in
which the principle of exclusion, and of the accumulation of property,
the appropriation of collective wealth, and the radical vice in
exchanges, would have figured as the constant causes of tyranny, war,
and revolution?

"It should have been done," you say. Do not doubt, sir, that such a task
would have required more patience than genius. With the principles of
social economy which I have analyzed, I would have had only to break
the ground, and follow the furrow. The critic of laws finds nothing more
difficult than to determine justice: the labor alone would have been
longer. Oh, if I had pursued this glittering prospect, and, like the
man of the burning bush, with inspired countenance and deep and solemn
voice, had presented myself some day with new tables, there would have
been found fools to admire, boobies to applaud, and cowards to offer me
the dictatorship; for, in the way of popular infatuations, nothing is
impossible.

But, sir, after this monument of insolence and pride, what should I have
deserved in your opinion, at the tribunal of God, and in the judgment of
free men? Death, sir, and eternal reprobation!

I therefore spoke the truth as soon as I saw it, waiting only long
enough to give it proper expression. I pointed out error in order
that each might reform himself, and render his labors more useful. I
announced the existence of a new political element, in order that
my associates in reform, developing it in concert, might arrive more
promptly at that unity of principles which alone can assure to society
a better day. I expected to receive, if not for my book, at least for
my commendable conduct, a small republican ovation. And, behold!
journalists denounce me, academicians curse me, political adventurers
(great God! ) think to make themselves tolerable by protesting that they
are not like me! I give the formula by which the whole social edifice
may be scientifically reconstructed, and the strongest minds reproach
me for being able only to destroy. The rest despise me, because I am
unknown. When the "Essay on Property" fell into the reformatory camp,
some asked: "Who has spoken? Is it Arago? Is it Lamennais? Michel de
Bourges or Garnier-Pages? "

And when they heard the name of a new man: "We do not know him,"
they would reply. Thus, the monopoly of thought, property in reason,
oppresses the proletariat as well as the _bourgeoisie_. The worship of
the infamous prevails even on the steps of the tabernacle.

But what am I saying? May evil befall me, if I blame the poor creatures!
Oh! let us not despise those generous souls, who in the excitement of
their patriotism are always prompt to identify the voice of their
chiefs with the truth. Let us encourage rather their simple credulity,
enlighten complacently and tenderly their precious sincerity, and
reserve our shafts for those vain-glorious spirits who are always
admiring their genius, and, in different tongues, caressing the people
in order to govern them.

These considerations alone oblige me to reply to the strange and
superficial conclusions of the "Journal du Peuple" (issue of Oct. 11,
1840), on the question of property. I leave, therefore, the journalist
to address myself only to his readers. I hope that the self-love of the
writer will not be offended, if, in the presence of the masses, I ignore
an individual.

You say, proletaires of the "Peuple," "For the very reason that men and
things exist, there always will be men who will possess things; nothing,
therefore, can destroy property. "

In speaking thus, you unconsciously argue exactly after the manner of
M. Cousin, who always reasons from _possession_ to PROPERTY. This
coincidence, however, does not surprise me. M. Cousin is a philosopher
of much mind, and you, proletaires, have still more. Certainly it is
honorable, even for a philosopher, to be your companion in error.

Originally, the word PROPERTY was synonymous with PROPER or INDIVIDUAL
POSSESSION. It designated each individual's special right to the use of
a thing. But when this right of use, inert (if I may say so) as it
was with regard to the other usufructuaries, became active and
paramount,--that is, when the usufructuary converted his right to
personally use the thing into the right to use it by his neighbor's
labor,--then property changed its nature, and its idea became complex.
The legists knew this very well, but instead of opposing, as they ought,
this accumulation of profits, they accepted and sanctioned the whole.
And as the right of farm-rent necessarily implies the right of use,--in
other words, as the right to cultivate land by the labor of a slave
supposes one's power to cultivate it himself, according to the principle
that the greater includes the less,--the name property was reserved
to designate this double right, and that of possession was adopted to
designate the right of use.

Whence property came to be called the perfect right, the right of
domain, the eminent right, the heroic or _quiritaire_ right,--in Latin,
_jus perfectum, jus optimum, jus quiritarium, jus dominii_,--while
possession became assimilated to farm-rent.

Now, that individual possession exists of right, or, better,
from natural necessity, all philosophers admit, and can easily e
demonstrated; but when, in imitation of M. Cousin, we assume it to be
the basis of the domain of property, we fall into the sophism called
_sophisma amphiboliae vel ambiguitatis_, which consists in changing the
meaning by a verbal equivocation.

People often think themselves very profound, because, by the aid of
expressions of extreme generality, they appear to rise to the height
of absolute ideas, and thus deceive inexperienced minds; and, what
is worse, this is commonly called EXAMINING ABSTRACTIONS. But the
abstraction formed by the comparison of identical facts is one thing,
while that which is deduced from different acceptations of the same term
is quite another. The first gives the universal idea, the axiom, the
law; the second indicates the order of generation of ideas. All
our errors arise from the constant confusion of these two kinds of
abstractions. In this particular, languages and philosophies are alike
deficient. The less common an idiom is, and the more obscure its
terms, the more prolific is it as a source of error: a philosopher is
sophistical in proportion to his ignorance of any method of neutralizing
this imperfection in language. If the art of correcting the errors of
speech by scientific methods is ever discovered, then philosophy will
have found its criterion of certainty.

Now, then, the difference between property and possession being well
established, and it being settled that the former, for the reasons
which I have just given, must necessarily disappear, is it best, for the
slight advantage of restoring an etymology, to retain the word PROPERTY?
My opinion is that it would be very unwise to do so, and I will tell
why. I quote from the "Journal du Peuple:"--


"To the legislative power belongs the right to regulate property, to
prescribe the conditions of acquiring, possessing, and transmitting
it. . . It cannot be denied that inheritance, assessment, commerce,
industry, labor, and wages require the most important modifications. "


You wish, proletaires, to REGULATE PROPERTY; that is, you wish to
destroy it and reduce it to the right of possession. For to regulate
property without the consent of the proprietors is to deny the right
OF DOMAIN; to associate employees with proprietors is to destroy
the EMINENT right; to suppress or even reduce farm-rent, house-rent,
revenue, and increase generally, is to annihilate PERFECT property.
Why,
then, while laboring with such laudable enthusiasm for the establishment
of equality, should you retain an expression whose equivocal meaning
will always be an obstacle in the way of your success?

There you have the first reason--a wholly philosophical one--for
rejecting not only the thing, but the name, property. Here now is the
political, the highest reason.

Every social revolution--M. Cousin will tell you--is effected only by
the realization of an idea, either political, moral, or religious. When
Alexander conquered Asia, his idea was to avenge Greek liberty against
the insults of Oriental despotism; when Marius and Caesar overthrew
the Roman patricians, their idea was to give bread to the people;
when Christianity revolutionized the world, its idea was to emancipate
mankind, and to substitute the worship of one God for the deities of
Epicurus and Homer; when France rose in '89, her idea was liberty and
equality before the law. There has been no true revolution, says M.
Cousin, with out its idea; so that where an idea does not exist, or even
fails of a formal expression, revolution is impossible. There are mobs,
conspirators, rioters, regicides. There are no revolutionists. Society,
devoid of ideas, twists and tosses about, and dies in the midst of its
fruitless labor.

Nevertheless, you all feel that a revolution is to come, and that you
alone can accomplish it. What, then, is the idea which governs you,
proletaires of the nineteenth century? --for really I cannot call you
revolutionists. What do you think? --what do you believe? --what do you
want? Be guarded in your reply. I have read faithfully your favorite
journals, your most esteemed authors. I find everywhere only vain and
puerile _entites_; nowhere do I discover an idea.

I will explain the meaning of this word _entite_,--new, without doubt,
to most of you.

By _entite_ is generally understood a substance which the imagination
grasps, but which is incognizable by the senses and the reason. Thus the
SOPORIFIC POWER of opium, of which Sganarelle speaks, and the PECCANT
HUMORS of ancient medicine, are _entites_. The _entite_ is the
support of those who do not wish to confess their ignorance. It
is incomprehensible; or, as St. Paul says, the _argumentum non
apparentium_. In philosophy, the _entite_ is often only a repetition of
words which add nothing to the thought.

For example, when M. Pierre Leroux--who says so many excellent things,
but who is too fond, in my opinion, of his Platonic formulas--assures us
that the evils of humanity are due to our IGNORANCE OF LIFE, M. Pierre
Leroux utters an _entite;_ for it is evident that if we are evil it is
because we do not know how to live; but the knowledge of this fact is of
no value to us.

When M. Edgar Quinet declares that France suffers and declines because
there is an ANTAGONISM of men and of interests, he declares an _entite;_
for the problem is to discover the cause of this antagonism.

When M. Lamennais, in thunder tones, preaches self-sacrifice and love,
he proclaims two _entites_; for we need to know on what conditions
self-sacrifice and love can spring up and exist.

So also, proletaires, when you talk of LIBERTY, PROGRESS, and THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE, you make of these naturally intelligible
things so many _entites_ in space: for, on the one hand, we need a new
definition of liberty, since that of '89 no longer suffices; and, on the
other, we must know in what direction society should proceed in order to
be in progress. As for the sovereignty of the people, that is a
grosser _entite_ than the sovereignty of reason; it is the _entite_
of _entites_. In fact, since sovereignty can no more be conceived
of outside of the people than outside of reason, it remains to be
ascertained who, among the people, shall exercise the sovereignty; and,
among so many minds, which shall be the sovereigns. To say that the
people should elect their representatives is to say that the people
should recognize their sovereigns, which does not remove the difficulty
at all.

But suppose that, equal by birth, equal before the law, equal in
personality, equal in social functions, you wish also to be equal in
conditions.

Suppose that, perceiving all the mutual relations of men, whether
they produce or exchange or consume, to be relations of commutative
justice,--in a word, social relations; suppose, I say, that, perceiving
this, you wish to give this natural society a legal existence, and to
establish the fact by law,--

I say that then you need a clear, positive, and exact expression of your
whole idea,--that is, an expression which states at once the principle,
the means, and the end; and I add that that expression is ASSOCIATION.

And since the association of the human race dates, at least rightfully,
from the beginning of the world, and has gradually established and
perfected itself by successively divesting itself of its negative
elements, slavery, nobility, despotism, aristocracy, and feudalism,--I
say that, to eliminate the last negation of society, to formulate the
last revolutionary idea, you must change your old rallying-cries, NO
MORE ABSOLUTISM, NO MORE NOBILITY, NO MORE SLAVES! into that of NO MORE
PROPERTY! . . .

But I know what astonishes you, poor souls, blasted by the wind of
poverty, and crushed by your patrons' pride: it is EQUALITY, whose
consequences frighten you. How, you have said in your journal,--how can
we "dream of a level which, being unnatural, is therefore unjust? How
shall we pay the day's labor of a Cormenin or a Lamennais? "

Plebeians, listen! When, after the battle of Salamis, the Athenians
assembled to award the prizes for courage, after the ballots had been
collected, it was found that each combatant had one vote for the first
prize, and Themistocles all the votes for the second. The people of
Minerva were crowned by their own hands. Truly heroic souls! all were
worthy of the olive-branch, since all had ventured to claim it for
themselves. Antiquity praised this sublime spirit. Learn, proletaires,
to esteem yourselves, and to respect your dignity. You wish to be
free, and you know not how to be citizens. Now, whoever says "citizens"
necessarily says equals.

If I should call myself Lamennais or Cormenin, and some journal,
speaking of me, should burst forth with these hyperboles, INCOMPARABLE
GENIUS, SUPERIOR MIND, CONSUMMATE VIRTUE, NOBLE CHARACTER, I should not
like it, and should complain,--first, because such eulogies are never
deserved; and, second, because they furnish a bad example. But I wish,
in order to reconcile you to equality, to measure for you the
greatest literary personage of our century. Do not accuse me of envy,
proletaires, if I, a defender of equality, estimate at their proper
value talents which are universally admired, and which I, better than
any one, know how to recognize. A dwarf can always measure a giant: all
that he needs is a yardstick.

You have seen the pretentious announcements of "L'Esquisse d'une
Philosophie," and you have admired the work on trust; for either you
have not read it, or, if you have, you are incapable of judging it.
Acquaint yourselves, then, with this speculation more brilliant than
sound; and, while admiring the enthusiasm of the author, cease to pity
those useful labors which only habit and the great number of the
persons engaged in them render contemptible. I shall be brief; for,
notwithstanding the importance of the subject and the genius of the
author, what I have to say is of but little moment.

M. Lamennais starts with the existence of God. How does he demonstrate
it? By Cicero's argument,--that is, by the consent of the human race.
There is nothing new in that. We have still to find out whether the
belief of the human race is legitimate; or, as Kant says, whether
our subjective certainty of the existence of God corresponds with the
objective truth. This, however, does not trouble M. Lamennais. He says
that, if the human race believes, it is because it has a reason for
believing.

Then, having pronounced the name of God, M. Lamennais sings a hymn; and
that is his demonstration!

This first hypothesis admitted, M. Lamennais follows it with a second;
namely, that there are three persons in God. But, while Christianity
teaches the dogma of the Trinity only on the authority of revelation, M.
Lamennais pretends to arrive at it by the sole force of argument; and he
does not perceive that his pretended demonstration is, from beginning to
end, anthropomorphism,--that is, an ascription of the faculties of the
human mind and the powers of nature to the Divine substance. New songs,
new hymns!

God and the Trinity thus DEMONSTRATED, the philosopher passes to the
creation,--a third hypothesis, in which M. Lamennais, always eloquent,
varied, and sublime, DEMONSTRATES that God made the world neither of
nothing, nor of something, nor of himself; that he was free in creating,
but that nevertheless he could not but create; that there is in matter
a matter which is not matter; that the archetypal ideas of the world are
separated from each other, in the Divine mind, by a division which is
obscure and unintelligible, and yet substantial and real, which involves
intelligibility, &c. We meet with like contradictions concerning the
origin of evil. To explain this problem,--one of the profoundest in
philosophy,--M. Lamennais at one time denies evil, at another makes God
the author of evil, and at still another seeks outside of God a
first cause which is not God,--an amalgam of _entites_ more or less
incoherent, borrowed from Plato, Proclus, Spinoza, I might say even from
all philosophers.

Having thus established his trinity of hypotheses, M. Lamennais
deduces therefrom, by a badly connected chain of analogies, his whole
philosophy. And it is here especially that we notice the syncretism
which is peculiar to him. The theory of M. Lamennais embraces all
systems, and supports all opinions. Are you a materialist? Suppress,
as useless _entites_, the three persons in God; then, starting directly
from heat, light, and electro-magnetism,--which, according to the
author, are the three original fluids, the three primary external
manifestations of Will, Intelligence, and Love,--you have a
materialistic and atheistic cosmogony. On the contrary, are you wedded
to spiritualism? With the theory of the immateriality of the body, you
are able to see everywhere nothing but spirits. Finally, if you incline
to pantheism, you will be satisfied by M. Lamennais, who formally
teaches that the world is not an EMANATION from Divinity,--which is pure
pantheism,--but a FLOW of Divinity.

I do not pretend, however, to deny that "L'Esquisse" contains some
excellent things; but, by the author's declaration, these things are not
original with him; it is the system which is his. That is undoubtedly
the reason why M. Lamennais speaks so contemptuously of his predecessors
in philosophy, and disdains to quote his originals. He thinks that,
since "L'Esquisse" contains all true philosophy, the world will lose
nothing when the names and works of the old philosophers perish. M.
Lamennais, who renders glory to God in beautiful songs, does not know
how as well to render justice to his fellows. His fatal fault is this
appropriation of knowledge, which the theologians call the PHILOSOPHICAL
SIN, or the SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST--a sin which will not damn you,
proletaires, nor me either.

In short, "L'Esquisse," judged as a system, and divested of all which
its author borrows from previous systems, is a commonplace work, whose
method consists in constantly explaining the known by the unknown, and
in giving entites for abstractions, and tautologies for proofs. Its
whole theodicy is a work not of genius but of imagination, a patching up
of neo-Platonic ideas. The psychological portion amounts to nothing,
M. Lamennais openly ridiculing labors of this character, without which,
however, metaphysics is impossible. The book, which treats of logic
and its methods, is weak, vague, and shallow. Finally, we find in the
physical and physiological speculations which M. Lamennais deduces
from his trinitarian cosmogony grave errors, the preconceived design of
accommodating facts to theory, and the substitution in almost every case
of hypothesis for reality. The third volume on industry and art is the
most interesting to read, and the best. It is true that M. Lamennais
can boast of nothing but his style. As a philosopher, he has added not a
single idea to those which existed before him.

Why, then, this excessive mediocrity of M. Lamennais considered as
a thinker, a mediocrity which disclosed itself at the time of the
publication of the "Essai sur l'Indifference! "? It is because (remember
this well, proletaires! ) Nature makes no man truly complete, and because
the development of certain faculties almost always excludes an equal
development of the opposite faculties; it is because M. Lamennais
is preeminently a poet, a man of feeling and sentiment. Look at his
style,--exuberant, sonorous, picturesque, vehement, full of exaggeration
and invective,--and hold it for certain that no man possessed of such
a style was ever a true metaphysician. This wealth of expression and
illustration, which everybody admires, becomes in M Lamennais the
incurable cause of his philosophical impotence. His flow of language,
and his sensitive nature misleading his imagination, he thinks that
he is reasoning when he is only repeating himself, and readily takes a
description for a logical deduction. Hence his horror of positive ideas,
his feeble powers of analysis, his pronounced taste for indefinite
analogies, verbal abstractions, hypothetical generalities, in short, all
sorts of entites.

Further, the entire life of M. Lamennais is conclusive proof of
his anti-philosophical genius. Devout even to mysticism, an ardent
ultramontane, an intolerant theocrat, he at first feels the double
influence of the religious reaction and the literary theories which
marked the beginning of this century, and falls back to the middle ages
and Gregory VII. ; then, suddenly becoming a progressive Christian and a
democrat, he gradually leans towards rationalism, and finally falls into
deism. At present, everybody waits at the trap-door. As for me, though I
would not swear to it, I am inclined to think that M. Lamennais, already
taken with scepticism, will die in a state of indifference. He owes
to individual reason and methodical doubt this expiation of his early
essays.

It has been pretended that M. Lamennais, preaching now a theocracy, now
universal democracy, has been always consistent; that, under different
names, he has sought invariably one and the same thing,--unity. Pitiful
excuse for an author surprised in the very act of contradiction! What
would be thought of a man who, by turns a servant of despotism under
Louis XVI, a demagogue with Robespierre, a courtier of the Emperor,
a bigot during fifteen years of the Restoration, a conservative
since 1830, should dare to say that he ever had wished for but one
thing,--public order? Would he be regarded as any the less a renegade
from all parties? Public order, unity, the world's welfare, social
harmony, the union of the nations,--concerning each of these things
there is no possible difference of opinion. Everybody wishes them;
the character of the publicist depends only upon the means by which
he proposes to arrive at them. But why look to M. Lamennais for a
steadfastness of opinion, which he himself repudiates? Has he not said,
"The mind has no law; that which I believe to-day, I did not believe
yesterday; I do not know that I shall believe it to-morrow"?

No; there is no real superiority among men, since all talents and
capacities are combined never in one individual. This man has the power
of thought, that one imagination and style, still another industrial and
commercial capacity. By our very nature and education, we possess only
special aptitudes which are limited and confined, and which become
consequently more necessary as they gain in depth and strength.
Capacities are to each other as functions and persons; who would dare
to classify them in ranks? The finest genius is, by the laws of his
existence and development, the most dependent upon the society which
creates him. Who would dare to make a god of the glorious child?

"It is not strength which makes the man," said a Hercules of the
market-place to the admiring crowd; "it is character. " That man, who
had only his muscles, held force in contempt. The lesson is a good one,
proletaires; we should profit by it. It is not talent (which is also a
force), it is not knowledge, it is not beauty which makes the man. It is
heart, courage, will, virtue. Now, if we are equal in that which makes
us men, how can the accidental distribution of secondary faculties
detract from our manhood?

Remember that privilege is naturally and inevitably the lot of the weak;
and do not be misled by the fame which accompanies certain talents
whose greatest merit consists in their rarity, and a long and toilsome
apprenticeship. It is easier for M. Lamennais to recite a philippic, or
sing a humanitarian ode after the Platonic fashion, than to discover a
single useful truth; it is easier for an economist to apply the laws of
production and distribution than to write ten lines in the style of M.
Lamennais; it is easier for both to speak than to act. You, then, who
put your hands to the work, who alone truly create, why do you wish me
to admit your inferiority? But, what am I saying?

Yes, you are inferior, for you lack virtue and will! Ready for labor and
for battle, you have, when liberty and equality are in question, neither
courage nor character!

In the preface to his pamphlet on "Le Pays et le Gouvernement," as well
as in his defence before the jury, M. Lamennais frankly declared
himself an advocate of property. Out of regard for the author and his
misfortune, I shall abstain from characterizing this declaration, and
from examining these two sorrowful performances. M. Lamennais seems to
be only the tool of a quasi-radical party, which flatters him in order
to use him, without respect for a glorious, but hence forth powerless,
old age. What means this profession of faith? From the first number of
"L'Avenir" to "L'Esquisse d'une Philosophie," M. Lamennais always
favors equality, association, and even a sort of vague and indefinite
communism. M. Lamennais, in recognizing the right of property, gives the
lie to his past career, and renounces his most generous tendencies. Can
it, then, be true that in this man, who has been too roughly treated,
but who is also too easily flattered, strength of talent has already
outlived strength of will?

It is said that M. Lamennais has rejected the offers of several of his
friends to try to procure for him a commutation of his sentence. M.
Lamennais prefers to serve out his time. May not this affectation of a
false stoicism come from the same source as his recognition of the right
of property? The Huron, when taken prisoner, hurls insults and threats
at his conqueror,--that is the heroism of the savage; the martyr
prays for his executioners, and is willing to receive from them his
life,--that is the heroism of the Christian. Why has the apostle of love
become an apostle of anger and revenge? Has, then, the translator of
"L'Imitation" forgotten that he who offends charity cannot honor virtue?
Galileo, retracting on his knees before the tribunal of the inquisition
his heresy in regard to the movement of the earth, and recovering at
that price his liberty, seems to me a hundred times grander than
M. Lamennais. What! if we suffer for truth and justice, must we, in
retaliation, thrust our persecutors outside the pale of human society;
and, when sentenced to an unjust punishment, must we decline exemption
if it is offered to us, because it pleases a few base satellites to call
it a pardon? Such is not the wisdom of Christianity. But I forgot that
in the presence of M. Lamennais this name is no longer pronounced. May
the prophet of "L'Avenir" be soon restored to liberty and his friends;
but, above all, may he henceforth derive his inspiration only from his
genius and his heart!

O proletaires, proletaires! how long are you to be victimized by this
spirit of revenge and implacable hatred which your false friends kindle,
and which, perhaps, has done more harm to the development of reformatory
ideas than the corruption, ignorance, and malice of the government?
Believe me, at the present time everybody is to blame. In fact, in
intention, or in example, all are found wanting; and you have no right
to accuse any one. The king himself (God forgive me! I do not like to
justify a king),--the king himself is, like his predecessors, only the
personification of an idea, and an idea, proletaires, which possesses
you yet. His greatest wrong consists in wishing for its complete
realization, while you wish it realized only partially,--consequently,
in being logical in his government; while you, in your complaints, are
not at all so. You clamor for a second regicide. He that is without sin
among you,--let him cast at the prince of property the first stone!

How successful you would have been if, in order to influence men,
you had appealed to the self-love of men,--if, in order to alter
the constitution and the law, you had placed yourselves within the
constitution and the law! Fifty thousand laws, they say, make up our
political and civil codes. Of these fifty thousand laws, twenty-five
thousand are for you, twenty-five thousand against you.