" The bishop of Hippo, who thought the earth flat because it
appeared so to the eye, supposed in consequence that, if we should
connect by straight lines the zenith with the nadir in different places,
these lines would be parallel with each other; and in the direction
of these lines he traced every movement from above to below.
appeared so to the eye, supposed in consequence that, if we should
connect by straight lines the zenith with the nadir in different places,
these lines would be parallel with each other; and in the direction
of these lines he traced every movement from above to below.
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
It may be wrong for me to say it, but surely it
is unfortunate for Christianity that it is true. To restore religion,
gentlemen, it is necessary to condemn the Church.
"Perhaps you will regret, gentlemen, that, in giving all my attention to
method and evidence, I have too much neglected form and style: in vain
should I have tried to do better. Literary hope and faith I have none.
The nineteenth century is, in my eyes, a genesic era, in which new
principles are elaborated, but in which nothing that is written shall
endure. That is the reason, in my opinion, why, among so many men of
talent, France to-day counts not one great writer. In a society like
ours, to seek for literary glory seems to me an anachronism. Of what
use is it to invoke an ancient sibyl when a muse is on the eve of birth?
Pitiable actors in a tragedy nearing its end, that which it behooves us
to do is to precipitate the catastrophe. The most deserving among us
is he who plays best this part. Well, I no longer aspire to this sad
success!
"Why should I not confess it, gentlemen? I have aspired to your
suffrages and sought the title of your pensioner, hating all which
exists and full of projects for its destruction; I shall finish this
investigation in a spirit of calm and philosophical resignation. I have
derived more peace from the knowledge of the truth, than anger from the
feeling of oppression; and the most precious fruit that I could wish to
gather from this memoir would be the inspiration of my readers with that
tranquillity of soul which arises from the clear perception of evil and
its cause, and which is much more powerful than passion and enthusiasm.
My hatred of privilege and human authority was unbounded; perhaps at
times I have been guilty, in my indignation, of confounding persons and
things; at present I can only despise and complain; to cease to hate I
only needed to know.
"It is for you now, gentlemen, whose mission and character are the
proclamation of the truth, it is for you to instruct the people, and to
tell them for what they ought to hope and what they ought to fear. The
people, incapable as yet of sound judgment as to what is best for them,
applaud indiscriminately the most opposite ideas, provided that in them
they get a taste of flattery: to them the laws of thought are like the
confines of the possible; to-day they can no more distinguish between a
savant and a sophist, than formerly they could tell a physician from
a sorcerer. 'Inconsiderately accepting, gathering together, and
accumulating everything that is new, regarding all reports as true and
indubitable, at the breath or ring of novelty they assemble like bees at
the sound of a basin. ' [4]
"May you, gentlemen, desire equality as I myself desire it; may you,
for the eternal happiness of our country, become its propagators and its
heralds; may I be the last of your pensioners! Of all the wishes that
I can frame, that, gentlemen, is the most worthy of you and the most
honorable for me.
"I am, with the profoundest respect and the most earnest gratitude,
"Your pensioner,
"P. J. PROUDHON. "
Two months after the receipt of this letter, the Academy, in its debate
of August 24th, replied to the address of its pensioner by a note, the
text of which I give below:--
"A member calls the attention of the Academy to a pamphlet, published
last June by the titulary of the Suard pension, entitled, "What is
property? " and dedicated by the author to the Academy. He is of the
opinion that the society owes it to justice, to example, and to its
own dignity, to publicly disavow all responsibility for the anti-social
doctrines contained in this publication. In consequence he demands:
"1. That the Academy disavow and condemn, in the most formal manner,
the work of the Suard pensioner, as having been published without its
assent, and as attributing to it opinions diametrically opposed to the
principles of each of its members;
"2. That the pensioner be charged, in case he should publish a second
edition of his book, to omit the dedication;
"3. That this judgment of the Academy be placed upon the records.
"These three propositions, put to vote, are adopted. "
After this ludicrous decree, which its authors thought to render
powerful by giving it the form of a contradiction, I can only beg the
reader not to measure the intelligence of my compatriots by that of our
Academy.
While my patrons in the social and political sciences were fulminating
anathemas against my brochure, a man, who was a stranger to
Franche-Comte, who did not know me, who might even have regarded himself
as personally attacked by the too sharp judgment which I had passed upon
the economists, a publicist as learned as he was modest, loved by the
people whose sorrows he felt, honored by the power which he sought to
enlighten without flattering or disgracing it, M. Blanqui--member of the
Institute, professor of political economy, defender of property--took up
my defence before his associates and before the ministry, and saved me
from the blows of a justice which is always blind, because it is always
ignorant.
It seems to me that the reader will peruse with pleasure the letter
which M. Blanqui did me the honor to write to me upon the publication
of my second memoir, a letter as honorable to its author as it is
flattering to him to whom it is addressed.
"PARIS, May 1, 1841.
"MONSIEUR,--I hasten to thank you for forwarding to me your second
memoir upon property. I have read it with all the interest that an
acquaintance with the first would naturally inspire. I am very glad that
you have modified somewhat the rudeness of form which gave to a work
of such gravity the manner and appearance of a pamphlet; for you quite
frightened me, sir, and your talent was needed to reassure me in regard
to your intentions. One does not expend so much real knowledge with
the purpose of inflaming his country. This proposition, now coming into
notice--PROPERTY IS ROBBERY! --was of a nature to repel from your book
even those serious minds who do not judge by appearances, had you
persisted in maintaining it in its rude simplicity. But if you have
softened the form, you are none the less faithful to the ground-work
of your doctrines; and although you have done me the honor to give me a
share in this perilous teaching, I cannot accept a partnership which,
as far as talent goes, would surely be a credit to me, but which would
compromise me in all other respects.
"I agree with you in one thing only; namely, that all kinds of property
get too frequently abused in this world. But I do not reason from the
abuse to the abolition,--an heroic remedy too much like death, which
cures all evils. I will go farther: I will confess that, of all abuses,
the most hateful to me are those of property; but once more, there is
a remedy for this evil without violating it, all the more without
destroying it. If the present laws allow abuse, we can reconstruct them.
Our civil code is not the Koran; it is not wrong to examine it. Change,
then, the laws which govern the use of property, but be sparing of
anathemas; for, logically, where is the honest man whose hands are
entirely clean? Do you think that one can be a robber without knowing
it, without wishing it, without suspecting it? Do you not admit that
society in its present state, like every man, has in its constitution
all kinds of virtues and vices inherited from our ancestors? Is
property, then, in your eyes a thing so simple and so abstract that you
can re-knead and equalize it, if I may so speak, in your metaphysical
mill? One who has said as many excellent and practical things as occur
in these two beautiful and paradoxical improvisations of yours cannot
be a pure and unwavering utopist. You are too well acquainted with the
economical and academical phraseology to play with the hard words
of revolutions. I believe, then, that you have handled property as
Rousseau, eighty years ago, handled letters, with a magnificent and
poetical display of wit and knowledge. Such, at least, is my opinion.
"That is what I said to the Institute at the time when I presented my
report upon your book. I knew that they wished to proceed against you in
the courts; you perhaps do not know by how narrow a chance I succeeded
in preventing them. [5] What chagrin I should always have felt, if
the king's counsel, that is to say, the intellectual executioner, had
followed in my very tracks to attack your book and annoy your person! I
actually passed two terrible nights, and I succeeded in restraining
the secular arm only by showing that your book was an academical
dissertation, and not the manifesto of an incendiary. Your style is too
lofty ever to be of service to the madmen who in discussing the gravest
questions of our social order, use paving-stones as their weapons. But
see to it, sir, that ere long they do not come, in spite of you, to
seek for ammunition in this formidable arsenal, and that your
vigorous metaphysics falls not into the hands of some sophist of the
market-place, who might discuss the question in the presence of a
starving audience: we should have pillage for conclusion and peroration.
"I feel as deeply as you, sir, the abuses which you point out; but I
have so great an affection for order,--not that common and strait-laced
order with which the police are satisfied, but the majestic and imposing
order of human societies,--that I sometimes find myself embarrassed
in attacking certain abuses. I like to rebuild with one hand when I am
compelled to destroy with the other. In pruning an old tree, we guard
against destruction of the buds and fruit. You know that as well as any
one. You are a wise and learned man; you have a thoughtful mind. The
terms by which you characterize the fanatics of our day are strong
enough to reassure the most suspicious imaginations as to your
intentions; but you conclude in favor of the abolition of property! You
wish to abolish the most powerful motor of the human mind; you attack
the paternal sentiment in its sweetest illusions; with one word you
arrest the formation of capital, and we build henceforth upon the sand
instead of on a rock. That I cannot agree to; and for that reason I
have criticised your book, so full of beautiful pages, so brilliant with
knowledge and fervor!
"I wish, sir, that my impaired health would permit me to examine with
you, page by page, the memoir which you have done me the honor to
address to me publicly and personally; I think I could offer some
important criticisms. For the moment, I must content myself with
thanking you for the kind words in which you have seen fit to speak of
me. We each possess the merit of sincerity; I desire also the merit
of prudence. You know how deep-seated is the disease under which the
working-people are suffering; I know how many noble hearts beat under
those rude garments, and I feel an irresistible and fraternal sympathy
with the thousands of brave people who rise early in the morning to
labor, to pay their taxes, and to make our country strong. I try to
serve and enlighten them, whereas some endeavor to mislead them. You
have not written directly for them. You have issued two magnificent
manifestoes, the second more guarded than the first; issue a third more
guarded than the second, and you will take high rank in science, whose
first precept is calmness and impartiality.
"Farewell, sir! No man's esteem for another can exceed mine for you.
"BLANQUI. "
I should certainly take some exceptions to this noble and eloquent
letter; but I confess that I am more inclined to realize the prediction
with which it terminates than to augment needlessly the number of
my antagonists. So much controversy fatigues and wearies me. The
intelligence expended in the warfare of words is like that employed in
battle: it is intelligence wasted. M. Blanqui acknowledges that property
is abused in many harmful ways; I call PROPERTY the sum these abuses
exclusively. To each of us property seems a polygon whose angles need
knocking off; but, the operation performed, M. Blanqui maintains
that the figure will still be a polygon (an hypothesis admitted in
mathematics, although not proven), while I consider that this figure
will be a circle. Honest people can at least understand one another.
For the rest, I allow that, in the present state of the question, the
mind may legitimately hesitate before deciding in favor of the abolition
of property. To gain the victory for one's cause, it does not suffice
simply to overthrow a principle generally recognized, which has the
indisputable merit of systematically recapitulating our political
theories; it is also necessary to establish the opposite principle, and
to formulate the system which must proceed from it. Still further, it
is necessary to show the method by which the new system will satisfy
all the moral and political needs which induced the establishment of
the first. On the following conditions, then, of subsequent evidence,
depends the correctness of my preceding arguments:--
The discovery of a system of absolute equality in which all existing
institutions, save property, or the sum of the abuses of property,
not only may find a place, but may themselves serve as instruments
of equality: individual liberty, the division of power, the public
ministry, the jury system, administrative and judicial organization, the
unity and completeness of instruction, marriage, the family, heredity
in direct and collateral succession, the right of sale and exchange, the
right to make a will, and even birthright,--a system which, better than
property, guarantees the formation of capital and keeps up the courage
of all; which, from a superior point of view, explains, corrects, and
completes the theories of association hitherto proposed, from Plato
and Pythagoras to Babeuf, Saint Simon, and Fourier; a system, finally,
which, serving as a means of transition, is immediately applicable.
A work so vast requires, I am aware, the united efforts of twenty
Montesquieus; nevertheless, if it is not given to a single man to
finish, a single one can commence, the enterprise. The road that he
shall traverse will suffice to show the end and assure the result.
WHAT IS PROPERTY? OR,
AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLE OF RIGHT AND OF GOVERNMENT.
FIRST MEMOIR.
_Adversus hostem aeterna auctertas esto. _
Against the enemy, revendication is eternal. LAW OF THE
TWELVE TABLES.
CHAPTER I. METHOD PURSUED IN THIS WORK. --THE IDEA OF A REVOLUTION.
If I were asked to answer the following question: WHAT IS SLAVERY? and I
should answer in one word, IT IS MURDER, my meaning would be understood
at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power
to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of
life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to
this other question: WHAT IS PROPERTY! may I not likewise answer, IT
IS ROBBERY, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second
proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?
I undertake to discuss the vital principle of our government and our
institutions, property: I am in my right. I may be mistaken in the
conclusion which shall result from my investigations: I am in my right.
I think best to place the last thought of my book first: still am I in
my right.
Such an author teaches that property is a civil right, born of
occupation and sanctioned by law; another maintains that it is a natural
right, originating in labor,--and both of these doctrines, totally
opposed as they may seem, are encouraged and applauded. I contend that
neither labor, nor occupation, nor law, can create property; that it is
an effect without a cause: am I censurable?
But murmurs arise!
PROPERTY IS ROBBERY! That is the war-cry of '93! That is the signal of
revolutions!
Reader, calm yourself: I am no agent of discord, no firebrand of
sedition. I anticipate history by a few days; I disclose a truth whose
development we may try in vain to arrest; I write the preamble of
our future constitution. This proposition which seems to you
blasphemous--PROPERTY IS ROBBERY--would, if our prejudices allowed us
to consider it, be recognized as the lightning-rod to shield us from the
coming thunderbolt; but too many interests stand in the way! . . . Alas!
philosophy will not change the course of events: destiny will fulfill
itself regardless of prophecy. Besides, must not justice be done and our
education be finished?
PROPERTY IS ROBBERY! . . . What a revolution in human ideas! PROPRIETOR and
ROBBER have been at all times expressions as contradictory as the beings
whom they designate are hostile; all languages have perpetuated this
opposition. On what authority, then, do you venture to attack universal
consent, and give the lie to the human race? Who are you, that you
should question the judgment of the nations and the ages?
Of what consequence to you, reader, is my obscure individuality? I
live, like you, in a century in which reason submits only to fact and
to evidence. My name, like yours, is TRUTH-SEEKER. [6] My mission is
written in these words of the law: SPEAK WITHOUT HATRED AND WITHOUT
FEAR; TELL THAT WHICH THOU KNOWEST! The work of our race is to build the
temple of science, and this science includes man and Nature. Now, truth
reveals itself to all; to-day to Newton and Pascal, tomorrow to
the herdsman in the valley and the journeyman in the shop. Each one
contributes his stone to the edifice; and, his task accomplished,
disappears. Eternity precedes us, eternity follows us: between two
infinites, of what account is one poor mortal that the century should
inquire about him?
Disregard then, reader, my title and my character, and attend only to my
arguments. It is in accordance with universal consent that I undertake
to correct universal error; from the OPINION of the human race I appeal
to its FAITH. Have the courage to follow me; and, if your will is
untrammelled, if your conscience is free, if your mind can unite two
propositions and deduce a third therefrom, my ideas will inevitably
become yours. In beginning by giving you my last word, it was my purpose
to warn you, not to defy you; for I am certain that, if you read me, you
will be compelled to assent. The things of which I am to speak are so
simple and clear that you will be astonished at not having perceived
them before, and you will say: "I have neglected to think. " Others offer
you the spectacle of genius wresting Nature's secrets from her, and
unfolding before you her sublime messages; you will find here only a
series of experiments upon JUSTICE and RIGHT a sort of verification of
the weights and measures of your conscience. The operations shall be
conducted under your very eyes; and you shall weigh the result.
Nevertheless, I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the
abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice,
nothing else; that is the alpha and omega of my argument: to others I
leave the business of governing the world.
One day I asked myself: Why is there so much sorrow and misery in
society? Must man always be wretched? And not satisfied with the
explanations given by the reformers,--these attributing the general
distress to governmental cowardice and incapacity, those to conspirators
and emeutes, still others to ignorance and general corruption,--and
weary of the interminable quarrels of the tribune and the press, I
sought to fathom the matter myself. I have consulted the masters of
science; I have read a hundred volumes of philosophy, law, political
economy, and history: would to God that I had lived in a century in
which so much reading had been useless! I have made every effort to
obtain exact information, comparing doctrines, replying to objections,
continually constructing equations and reductions from arguments, and
weighing thousands of syllogisms in the scales of the most rigorous
logic. In this laborious work, I have collected many interesting facts
which I shall share with my friends and the public as soon as I have
leisure. But I must say that I recognized at once that we had never
understood the meaning of these words, so common and yet so sacred:
JUSTICE, EQUITY, LIBERTY; that concerning each of these principles our
ideas have been utterly obscure; and, in fact, that this ignorance was
the sole cause, both of the poverty that devours us, and of all the
calamities that have ever afflicted the human race.
My mind was frightened by this strange result: I doubted my reason.
What! said I, that which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor insight
penetrated, you have discovered! Wretch, mistake not the visions of
your diseased brain for the truths of science! Do you not know (great
philosophers have said so) that in points of practical morality
universal error is a contradiction?
I resolved then to test my arguments; and in entering upon this new
labor I sought an answer to the following questions: Is it possible
that humanity can have been so long and so universally mistaken in the
application of moral principles? How and why could it be mistaken? How
can its error, being universal, be capable of correction?
These questions, on the solution of which depended the certainty of my
conclusions, offered no lengthy resistance to analysis. It will be seen,
in chapter V. of this work, that in morals, as in all other branches of
knowledge, the gravest errors are the dogmas of science; that, even in
works of justice, to be mistaken is a privilege which ennobles man; and
that whatever philosophical merit may attach to me is infinitely small.
To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its
appearance. In giving expression to the last stage of an idea,--an idea
which permeates all minds, which to-morrow will be proclaimed by another
if I fail to announce it to-day,--I can claim no merit save that of
priority of utterance. Do we eulogize the man who first perceives the
dawn?
Yes: all men believe and repeat that equality of conditions is identical
with equality of rights; that PROPERTY and ROBBERY are synonymous terms;
that every social advantage accorded, or rather usurped, in the name of
superior talent or service, is iniquity and extortion. All men in their
hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made
to understand it.
Before entering directly upon the question before me, I must say a word
of the road that I shall traverse. When Pascal approached a geometrical
problem, he invented a method of solution; to solve a problem in
philosophy a method is equally necessary. Well, by how much do the
problems of which philosophy treats surpass in the gravity of their
results those discussed by geometry! How much more imperatively, then,
do they demand for their solution a profound and rigorous analysis!
It is a fact placed for ever beyond doubt, say the modern psychologists,
that every perception received by the mind is determined by certain
general laws which govern the mind; is moulded, so to speak, in certain
types pre-existing in our understanding, and which constitutes its
original condition. Hence, say they, if the mind has no innate IDEAS,
it has at least innate FORMS. Thus, for example, every phenomenon is of
necessity conceived by us as happening in TIME and SPACE,--that compels
us to infer a CAUSE of its occurrence; every thing which exists implies
the ideas of SUBSTANCE, MODE, RELATION, NUMBER, &C. ; in a word, we form
no idea which is not related to some one of the general principles of
reason, independent of which nothing exists.
These axioms of the understanding, add the psychologists, these
fundamental types, by which all our judgments and ideas are inevitably
shaped, and which our sensations serve only to illuminate, are known
in the schools as CATEGORIES. Their primordial existence in the mind is
to-day demonstrated; they need only to be systematized and catalogued.
Aristotle recognized ten; Kant increased the number to fifteen; M.
Cousin has reduced it to three, to two, to one; and the indisputable
glory of this professor will be due to the fact that, if he has not
discovered the true theory of categories, he has, at least, seen more
clearly than any one else the vast importance of this question,--the
greatest and perhaps the only one with which metaphysics has to deal.
I confess that I disbelieve in the innateness, not only of IDEAS, but
also of FORMS or LAWS of our understanding; and I hold the metaphysics
of Reid and Kant to be still farther removed from the truth than that of
Aristotle. However, as I do not wish to enter here into a discussion of
the mind, a task which would demand much labor and be of no interest to
the public, I shall admit the hypothesis that our most general and
most necessary ideas--such as time, space, substance, and cause--exist
originally in the mind; or, at least, are derived immediately from its
constitution.
But it is a psychological fact none the less true, and one to which the
philosophers have paid too little attention, that habit, like a second
nature, has the power of fixing in the mind new categorical forms
derived from the appearances which impress us, and by them usually
stripped of objective reality, but whose influence over our judgments
is no less predetermining than that of the original categories. Hence
we reason by the ETERNAL and ABSOLUTE laws of our mind, and at the same
time by the secondary rules, ordinarily faulty, which are suggested to
us by imperfect observation. This is the most fecund source of false
prejudices, and the permanent and often invincible cause of a multitude
of errors. The bias resulting from these prejudices is so strong that
often, even when we are fighting against a principle which our mind
thinks false, which is repugnant to our reason, and which our conscience
disapproves, we defend it without knowing it, we reason in accordance
with it, and we obey it while attacking it. Enclosed within a circle,
our mind revolves about itself, until a new observation, creating within
us new ideas, brings to view an external principle which delivers us
from the phantom by which our imagination is possessed.
Thus, we know to-day that, by the laws of a universal magnetism whose
cause is still unknown, two bodies (no obstacle intervening) tend to
unite by an accelerated impelling force which we call GRAVITATION. It is
gravitation which causes unsupported bodies to fall to the ground, which
gives them weight, and which fastens us to the earth on which we live.
Ignorance of this cause was the sole obstacle which prevented the
ancients from believing in the antipodes. "Can you not see," said St.
Augustine after Lactantius, "that, if there were men under our feet,
their heads would point downward, and that they would fall into the
sky?
" The bishop of Hippo, who thought the earth flat because it
appeared so to the eye, supposed in consequence that, if we should
connect by straight lines the zenith with the nadir in different places,
these lines would be parallel with each other; and in the direction
of these lines he traced every movement from above to below. Thence he
naturally concluded that the stars were rolling torches set in the vault
of the sky; that, if left to themselves, they would fall to the earth in
a shower of fire; that the earth was one vast plain, forming the lower
portion of the world, &c. If he had been asked by what the world itself
was sustained, he would have answered that he did not know, but that
to God nothing is impossible. Such were the ideas of St. Augustine in
regard to space and movement, ideas fixed within him by a prejudice
derived from an appearance, and which had become with him a general and
categorical rule of judgment. Of the reason why bodies fall his mind
knew nothing; he could only say that a body falls because it falls.
With us the idea of a fall is more complex: to the general ideas of
space and movement which it implies, we add that of attraction or
direction towards a centre, which gives us the higher idea of cause. But
if physics has fully corrected our judgment in this respect, we still
make use of the prejudice of St. Augustine; and when we say that a thing
has FALLEN, we do not mean simply and in general that there has been
an effect of gravitation, but specially and in particular that it is
towards the earth, and FROM ABOVE TO BELOW, that this movement has taken
place. Our mind is enlightened in vain; the imagination prevails, and
our language remains forever incorrigible. To DESCEND FROM HEAVEN is as
incorrect an expression as to MOUNT TO HEAVEN; and yet this expression
will live as long as men use language.
All these phrases--FROM ABOVE TO BELOW; TO DESCEND FROM HEAVEN; TO FALL
FROM THE CLOUDS, &C. --are henceforth harmless, because we know how to
rectify them in practice; but let us deign to consider for a moment how
much they have retarded the progress of science. If, indeed, it be a
matter of little importance to statistics, mechanics, hydrodynamics, and
ballistics, that the true cause of the fall of bodies should be known,
and that our ideas of the general movements in space should be exact,
it is quite otherwise when we undertake to explain the system of the
universe, the cause of tides, the shape of the earth, and its position
in the heavens: to understand these things we must leave the circle
of appearances. In all ages there have been ingenious mechanicians,
excellent architects, skilful artillerymen: any error, into which it was
possible for them to fall in regard to the rotundity of the earth and
gravitation, in no wise retarded the development of their art; the
solidity of their buildings and accuracy of their aim was not affected
by it. But sooner or later they were forced to grapple with phenomena,
which the supposed parallelism of all perpendiculars erected from the
earth's surface rendered inexplicable: then also commenced a struggle
between the prejudices, which for centuries had sufficed in daily
practice, and the unprecedented opinions which the testimony of the eyes
seemed to contradict.
Thus, on the one hand, the falsest judgments, whether based on isolated
facts or only on appearances, always embrace some truths whose sphere,
whether large or small, affords room for a certain number of inferences,
beyond which we fall into absurdity. The ideas of St. Augustine, for
example, contained the following truths: that bodies fall towards the
earth, that they fall in a straight line, that either the sun or the
earth moves, that either the sky or the earth turns, &c. These general
facts always have been true; our science has added nothing to them. But,
on the other hand, it being necessary to account for every thing, we are
obliged to seek for principles more and more comprehensive: that is why
we have had to abandon successively, first the opinion that the world
was flat, then the theory which regards it as the stationary centre of
the universe, &c.
If we pass now from physical nature to the moral world, we still find
ourselves subject to the same deceptions of appearance, to the same
influences of spontaneity and habit. But the distinguishing feature of
this second division of our knowledge is, on the one hand, the good
or the evil which we derive from our opinions; and, on the other, the
obstinacy with which we defend the prejudice which is tormenting and
killing us.
Whatever theory we embrace in regard to the shape of the earth and the
cause of its weight, the physics of the globe does not suffer; and,
as for us, our social economy can derive therefrom neither profit nor
damage. But it is in us and through us that the laws of our moral nature
work; now, these laws cannot be executed without our deliberate aid,
and, consequently, unless we know them. If, then, our science of moral
laws is false, it is evident that, while desiring our own good, we are
accomplishing our own evil; if it is only incomplete, it may suffice for
a time for our social progress, but in the long run it will lead us
into a wrong road, and will finally precipitate us into an abyss of
calamities.
Then it is that we need to exercise our highest judgments; and, be it
said to our glory, they are never found wanting: but then also commences
a furious struggle between old prejudices and new ideas. Days of
conflagration and anguish! We are told of the time when, with the same
beliefs, with the same institutions, all the world seemed happy: why
complain of these beliefs; why banish these institutions? We are slow to
admit that that happy age served the precise purpose of developing the
principle of evil which lay dormant in society; we accuse men and gods,
the powers of earth and the forces of Nature. Instead of seeking the
cause of the evil in his mind and heart, man blames his masters, his
rivals, his neighbors, and himself; nations arm themselves, and slay
and exterminate each other, until equilibrium is restored by the vast
depopulation, and peace again arises from the ashes of the combatants.
So loath is humanity to touch the customs of its ancestors, and to
change the laws framed by the founders of communities, and confirmed by
the faithful observance of the ages.
_Nihil motum ex antiquo probabile est_: Distrust all innovations, wrote
Titus Livius. Undoubtedly it would be better were man not compelled to
change: but what! because he is born ignorant, because he exists only
on condition of gradual self-instruction, must he abjure the light,
abdicate his reason, and abandon himself to fortune? Perfect health is
better than convalescence: should the sick man, therefore, refuse to
be cured? Reform, reform! cried, ages since, John the Baptist and Jesus
Christ. Reform, reform! cried our fathers, fifty years ago; and for a
long time to come we shall shout, Reform, reform!
Seeing the misery of my age, I said to myself: Among the principles that
support society, there is one which it does not understand, which its
ignorance has vitiated, and which causes all the evil that exists. This
principle is the most ancient of all; for it is a characteristic of
revolutions to tear down the most modern principles, and to respect
those of long-standing. Now the evil by which we suffer is anterior to
all revolutions. This principle, impaired by our ignorance, is honored
and cherished; for if it were not cherished it would harm nobody, it
would be without influence.
But this principle, right in its purpose, but misunderstood: this
principle, as old as humanity, what is it? Can it be religion?
All men believe in God: this dogma belongs at once to their conscience
and their mind. To humanity God is a fact as primitive, an idea as
inevitable, a principle as necessary as are the categorical ideas of
cause, substance, time, and space to our understanding. God is proven to
us by the conscience prior to any inference of the mind; just as the
sun is proven to us by the testimony of the senses prior to all the
arguments of physics. We discover phenomena and laws by observation and
experience; only this deeper sense reveals to us existence. Humanity
believes that God is; but, in believing in God, what does it believe? In
a word, what is God?
The nature of this notion of Divinity,--this primitive, universal
notion, born in the race,--the human mind has not yet fathomed. At each
step that we take in our investigation of Nature and of causes, the idea
of God is extended and exalted; the farther science advances, the more
God seems to grow and broaden. Anthropomorphism and idolatry constituted
of necessity the faith of the mind in its youth, the theology of infancy
and poesy. A harmless error, if they had not endeavored to make it a
rule of conduct, and if they had been wise enough to respect the
liberty of thought. But having made God in his own image, man wished
to appropriate him still farther; not satisfied with disfiguring the
Almighty, he treated him as his patrimony, his goods, his possessions.
God, pictured in monstrous forms, became throughout the world the
property of man and of the State. Such was the origin of the corruption
of morals by religion, and the source of pious feuds and holy wars.
Thank Heaven! we have learned to allow every one his own beliefs; we
seek for moral laws outside the pale of religion. Instead of legislating
as to the nature and attributes of God, the dogmas of theology, and
the destiny of our souls, we wisely wait for science to tell us what to
reject and what to accept. God, soul, religion,--eternal objects of
our unwearied thought and our most fatal aberrations, terrible
problems whose solution, for ever attempted, for ever remains
unaccomplished,--concerning all these questions we may still be
mistaken, but at least our error is harmless. With liberty in religion,
and the separation of the spiritual from the temporal power, the
influence of religious ideas upon the progress of society is purely
negative; no law, no political or civil institution being founded on
religion. Neglect of duties imposed by religion may increase the general
corruption, but it is not the primary cause; it is only an auxiliary or
result. It is universally admitted, and especially in the matter
which now engages our attention, that the cause of the inequality
of conditions among men--of pauperism, of universal misery, and of
governmental embarrassments--can no longer be traced to religion: we
must go farther back, and dig still deeper.
But what is there in man older and deeper than the religious sentiment?
There is man himself; that is, volition and conscience, free-will and
law, eternally antagonistic. Man is at war with himself: why?
"Man," say the theologians, "transgressed in the beginning; our race
is guilty of an ancient offence. For this transgression humanity has
fallen; error and ignorance have become its sustenance. Read history,
you will find universal proof of this necessity for evil in the
permanent misery of nations. Man suffers and always will suffer; his
disease is hereditary and constitutional. Use palliatives, employ
emollients; there is no remedy. "
Nor is this argument peculiar to the theologians; we find it
expressed in equivalent language in the philosophical writings of the
materialists, believers in infinite perfectibility. Destutt de Tracy
teaches formally that poverty, crime, and war are the inevitable
conditions of our social state; necessary evils, against which it would
be folly to revolt. So, call it NECESSITY OF EVIL or ORIGINAL DEPRAVITY,
it is at bottom the same philosophy.
"The first man transgressed. " If the votaries of the Bible interpreted
it faithfully, they would say: MAN ORIGINALLY TRANSGRESSED, that is,
made a mistake; for TO TRANSGRESS, TO FAIL, TO MAKE A MISTAKE, all mean
the same thing.
"The consequences of Adam's transgression are inherited by the race;
the first is ignorance. " Truly, the race, like the individual, is born
ignorant; but, in regard to a multitude of questions, even in the moral
and political spheres, this ignorance of the race has been dispelled:
who says that it will not depart altogether? Mankind makes continual
progress toward truth, and light ever triumphs over darkness. Our
disease is not, then, absolutely incurable, and the theory of the
theologians is worse than inadequate; it is ridiculous, since it is
reducible to this tautology: "Man errs, because he errs. " While the true
statement is this: "Man errs, because he learns. "
Now, if man arrives at a knowledge of all that he needs to know, it is
reasonable to believe that, ceasing to err, he will cease to suffer.
But if we question the doctors as to this law, said to be engraved upon
the heart of man, we shall immediately see that they dispute about a
matter of which they know nothing; that, concerning the most important
questions, there are almost as many opinions as authors; that we find
no two agreeing as to the best form of government, the principle of
authority, and the nature of right; that all sail hap-hazard upon a
shoreless and bottomless sea, abandoned to the guidance of their private
opinions which they modestly take to be right reason. And, in view
of this medley of contradictory opinions, we say: "The object of our
investigations is the law, the determination of the social principle.
Now, the politicians, that is, the social scientists, do not understand
each other; then the error lies in themselves; and, as every error has
a reality for its object, we must look in their books to find the truth
which they have unconsciously deposited there. "
Now, of what do the lawyers and the publicists treat? Of JUSTICE,
EQUITY, LIBERTY, NATURAL LAW, CIVIL LAWS, &c. But what is justice?
What is its principle, its character, its formula? To this question our
doctors evidently have no reply; for otherwise their science, starting
with a principle clear and well defined, would quit the region of
probabilities, and all disputes would end.
What is justice? The theologians answer: "All justice comes from God. "
That is true; but we know no more than before.
The philosophers ought to be better informed: they have argued so much
about justice and injustice! Unhappily, an examination proves that their
knowledge amounts to nothing, and that with them--as with the savages
whose every prayer to the sun is simply _O! O! _--it is a cry of
admiration, love, and enthusiasm; but who does not know that the sun
attaches little meaning to the interjection O! That is exactly our
position toward the philosophers in regard to justice. Justice, they
say, is a DAUGHTER OF HEAVEN; A LIGHT WHICH ILLUMINES EVERY MAN THAT
COMES INTO THE WORLD; THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PREROGATIVE OF OUR NATURE;
THAT WHICH DISTINGUISHES US FROM THE BEASTS AND LIKENS US TO GOD--and
a thousand other similar things. What, I ask, does this pious litany
amount to? To the prayer of the savages: O!
All the most reasonable teachings of human wisdom concerning justice are
summed up in that famous adage: DO UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD THAT
OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU; DO NOT UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD
NOT THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU. But this rule of moral practice is
unscientific: what have I a right to wish that others should do or not
do to me? It is of no use to tell me that my duty is equal to my right,
unless I am told at the same time what my right is.
Let us try to arrive at something more precise and positive.
Justice is the central star which governs societies, the pole around
which the political world revolves, the principle and the regulator of
all transactions. Nothing takes place between men save in the name of
RIGHT; nothing without the invocation of justice. Justice is not the
work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only a declaration and
application of JUSTICE in all circumstances where men are liable to come
in contact. If, then, the idea that we form of justice and right were
ill-defined, if it were imperfect or even false, it is clear that all
our legislative applications would be wrong, our institutions vicious,
our politics erroneous: consequently there would be disorder and social
chaos.
This hypothesis of the perversion of justice in our minds, and, as a
necessary result, in our acts, becomes a demonstrated fact when it is
shown that the opinions of men have not borne a constant relation to the
notion of justice and its applications; that at different periods they
have undergone modifications: in a word, that there has been progress
in ideas. Now, that is what history proves by the most overwhelming
testimony.
Eighteen Hundred years ago, the world, under the rule of the Caesars,
exhausted itself in slavery, superstition, and voluptuousness. The
people--intoxicated and, as it were, stupefied by their long-continued
orgies--had lost the very notion of right and duty: war and dissipation
by turns swept them away; usury and the labor of machines (that is of
slaves), by depriving them of the means of subsistence, hindered them
from continuing the species. Barbarism sprang up again, in a hideous
form, from this mass of corruption, and spread like a devouring leprosy
over the depopulated provinces. The wise foresaw the downfall of the
empire, but could devise no remedy. What could they think indeed? To
save this old society it would have been necessary to change the objects
of public esteem and veneration, and to abolish the rights affirmed by
a justice purely secular; they said: "Rome has conquered through her
politics and her gods; any change in theology and public opinion would
be folly and sacrilege. Rome, merciful toward conquered nations, though
binding them in chains, spared their lives; slaves are the most fertile
source of her wealth; freedom of the nations would be the negation of
her rights and the ruin of her finances. Rome, in fact, enveloped in the
pleasures and gorged with the spoils of the universe, is kept alive by
victory and government; her luxury and her pleasures are the price of
her conquests: she can neither abdicate nor dispossess herself. "
Thus Rome had the facts and the law on her side. Her pretensions were
justified by universal custom and the law of nations. Her institutions
were based upon idolatry in religion, slavery in the State, and
epicurism in private life; to touch those was to shake society to its
foundations, and, to use our modern expression, to open the abyss of
revolutions. So the idea occurred to no one; and yet humanity was dying
in blood and luxury.
All at once a man appeared, calling himself The Word of God. It is not
known to this day who he was, whence he came, nor what suggested to
him his ideas. He went about proclaiming everywhere that the end of the
existing society was at hand, that the world was about to experience a
new birth; that the priests were vipers, the lawyers ignoramuses,
and the philosophers hypocrites and liars; that master and slave
were equals, that usury and every thing akin to it was robbery, that
proprietors and idlers would one day burn, while the poor and pure in
heart would find a haven of peace.
This man--The Word of God--was denounced and arrested as a public enemy
by the priests and the lawyers, who well understood how to induce the
people to demand his death. But this judicial murder, though it put the
finishing stroke to their crimes, did not destroy the doctrinal seeds
which The Word of God had sown. After his death, his original disciples
travelled about in all directions, preaching what they called the GOOD
NEWS, creating in their turn millions of missionaries; and, when their
task seemed to be accomplished, dying by the sword of Roman justice.
This persistent agitation, the war of the executioners and martyrs,
lasted nearly three centuries, ending in the conversion of the world.
Idolatry was destroyed, slavery abolished, dissolution made room for a
more austere morality, and the contempt for wealth was sometimes pushed
almost to privation.
Society was saved by the negation of its own principles, by a revolution
in its religion, and by violation of its most sacred rights. In this
revolution, the idea of justice spread to an extent that had not before
been dreamed of, never to return to its original limits. Heretofore
justice had existed only for the masters; [7] it then commenced to exist
for the slaves.
Nevertheless, the new religion at that time had borne by no means all
its fruits. There was a perceptible improvement of the public morals,
and a partial release from oppression; but, other than that, the SEEDS
SOWN BY THE SON OF MAN, having fallen into idolatrous hearts, had
produced nothing save innumerable discords and a quasi-poetical
mythology. Instead of developing into their practical consequences the
principles of morality and government taught by The Word of God, his
followers busied themselves in speculations as to his birth, his origin,
his person, and his actions; they discussed his parables, and from the
conflict of the most extravagant opinions upon unanswerable questions
and texts which no one understood, was born THEOLOGY,--which may be
defined as the SCIENCE OF THE INFINITELY ABSURD.
The truth of CHRISTIANITY did not survive the age of the apostles; the
GOSPEL, commented upon and symbolized by the Greeks and Latins, loaded
with pagan fables, became literally a mass of contradictions; and to
this day the reign of the INFALLIBLE CHURCH has been a long era of
darkness. It is said that the GATES OF HELL will not always prevail,
that THE WORD OF GOD will return, and that one day men will know truth
and justice; but that will be the death of Greek and Roman Catholicism,
just as in the light of science disappeared the caprices of opinion.
The monsters which the successors of the apostles were bent on
destroying, frightened for a moment, reappeared gradually, thanks to the
crazy fanaticism, and sometimes the deliberate connivance, of priests
and theologians. The history of the enfranchisement of the French
communes offers constantly the spectacle of the ideas of justice and
liberty spreading among the people, in spite of the combined efforts of
kings, nobles, and clergy. In the year 1789 of the Christian era, the
French nation, divided by caste, poor and oppressed, struggled in the
triple net of royal absolutism, the tyranny of nobles and parliaments,
and priestly intolerance. There was the right of the king and the right
of the priest, the right of the patrician and the right of the plebeian;
there were the privileges of birth, province, communes, corporations,
and trades; and, at the bottom of all, violence, immorality, and misery.
For some time they talked of reformation; those who apparently desired
it most favoring it only for their own profit, and the people who were
to be the gainers expecting little and saying nothing. For a long
time these poor people, either from distrust, incredulity, or despair,
hesitated to ask for their rights: it is said that the habit of serving
had taken the courage away from those old communes, which in the middle
ages were so bold.
Finally a book appeared, summing up the whole matter in these two
propositions: WHAT IS THE THIRD ESTATE? --NOTHING. WHAT OUGHT IT
TO BE? --EVERY THING. Some one added by way of comment: WHAT IS THE
KING? --THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE.
This was a sudden revelation: the veil was torn aside, a thick bandage
fell from all eyes. The people commenced to reason thus:--
If the king is our servant, he ought to report to us;
If he ought to report to us, he is subject to control;
If he can be controlled, he is responsible;
If he is responsible, he is punishable;
If he is punishable, he ought to be punished according to his merits;
If he ought to be punished according to his merits, he can be punished
with death.
Five years after the publication of the brochure of Sieyes, the third
estate was every thing; the king, the nobility, the clergy, were no
more. In 1793, the nation, without stopping at the constitutional
fiction of the inviolability of the sovereign, conducted Louis XVI. to
the scaffold; in 1830, it accompanied Charles X. to Cherbourg. In each
case, it may have erred, in fact, in its judgment of the offence; but,
in right, the logic which led to its action was irreproachable. The
people, in punishing their sovereign, did precisely that which the
government of July was so severely censured for failing to do when it
refused to execute Louis Bonaparte after the affair of Strasburg: they
struck the true culprit. It was an application of the common law, a
solemn decree of justice enforcing the penal laws. [8]
The spirit which gave rise to the movement of '89 was a spirit of
negation; that, of itself, proves that the order of things which was
substituted for the old system was not methodical or well-considered;
that, born of anger and hatred, it could not have the effect of a
science based on observation and study; that its foundations, in a word,
were not derived from a profound knowledge of the laws of Nature and
society. Thus the people found that the republic, among the so-called
new institutions, was acting on the very principles against which they
had fought, and was swayed by all the prejudices which they had intended
to destroy. We congratulate ourselves, with inconsiderate enthusiasm,
on the glorious French Revolution, the regeneration of 1789, the great
changes that have been effected, and the reversion of institutions: a
delusion, a delusion!
When our ideas on any subject, material, intellectual, or social,
undergo a thorough change in consequence of new observations, I call
that movement of the mind REVOLUTION. If the ideas are simply extended
or modified, there is only PROGRESS. Thus the system of Ptolemy was a
step in astronomical progress, that of Copernicus was a revolution. So,
in 1789, there was struggle and progress; revolution there was none. An
examination of the reforms which were attempted proves this.
The nation, so long a victim of monarchical selfishness, thought to
deliver itself for ever by declaring that it alone was sovereign. But
what was monarchy? The sovereignty of one man. What is democracy? The
sovereignty of the nation, or, rather, of the national majority. But it
is, in both cases, the sovereignty of man instead of the sovereignty of
the law, the sovereignty of the will instead of the sovereignty of the
reason; in one word, the passions instead of justice. Undoubtedly, when
a nation passes from the monarchical to the democratic state, there
is progress, because in multiplying the sovereigns we increase the
opportunities of the reason to substitute itself for the will; but in
reality there is no revolution in the government, since the principle
remains the same. Now, we have the proof to-day that, with the most
perfect democracy, we cannot be free. [9]
Nor is that all. The nation-king cannot exercise its sovereignty itself;
it is obliged to delegate it to agents: this is constantly reiterated by
those who seek to win its favor. Be these agents five, ten, one hundred,
or a thousand, of what consequence is the number; and what matters the
name? It is always the government of man, the rule of will and caprice.
I ask what this pretended revolution has revolutionized?
We know, too, how this sovereignty was exercised; first by the
Convention, then by the Directory, afterwards confiscated by the Consul.
As for the Emperor, the strong man so much adored and mourned by the
nation, he never wanted to be dependent on it; but, as if intending to
set its sovereignty at defiance, he dared to demand its suffrage: that
is, its abdication, the abdication of this inalienable sovereignty; and
he obtained it.
But what is sovereignty? It is, they say, the POWER TO MAKE LAW. [10]
Another absurdity, a relic of despotism. The nation had long seen kings
issuing their commands in this form: FOR SUCH IS OUR PLEASURE; it wished
to taste in its turn the pleasure of making laws. For fifty years it
has brought them forth by myriads; always, be it understood, through the
agency of representatives. The play is far from ended.
The definition of sovereignty was derived from the definition of the
law. The law, they said, is THE EXPRESSION OF THE WILL OF THE SOVEREIGN:
then, under a monarchy, the law is the expression of the will of the
king; in a republic, the law is the expression of the will of the
people. Aside from the difference in the number of wills, the two
systems are exactly identical: both share the same error, namely, that
the law is the expression of a will; it ought to be the expression of
a fact. Moreover they followed good leaders: they took the citizen of
Geneva for their prophet, and the contrat social for their Koran.
Bias and prejudice are apparent in all the phrases of the new
legislators. The nation had suffered from a multitude of exclusions and
privileges; its representatives issued the following declaration: ALL
MEN ARE EQUAL BY NATURE AND BEFORE THE LAW; an ambiguous and redundant
declaration. MEN ARE EQUAL BY NATURE: does that mean that they are equal
in size, beauty, talents, and virtue? No; they meant, then, political
and civil equality. Then it would have been sufficient to have said: ALL
MEN ARE EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW.
is unfortunate for Christianity that it is true. To restore religion,
gentlemen, it is necessary to condemn the Church.
"Perhaps you will regret, gentlemen, that, in giving all my attention to
method and evidence, I have too much neglected form and style: in vain
should I have tried to do better. Literary hope and faith I have none.
The nineteenth century is, in my eyes, a genesic era, in which new
principles are elaborated, but in which nothing that is written shall
endure. That is the reason, in my opinion, why, among so many men of
talent, France to-day counts not one great writer. In a society like
ours, to seek for literary glory seems to me an anachronism. Of what
use is it to invoke an ancient sibyl when a muse is on the eve of birth?
Pitiable actors in a tragedy nearing its end, that which it behooves us
to do is to precipitate the catastrophe. The most deserving among us
is he who plays best this part. Well, I no longer aspire to this sad
success!
"Why should I not confess it, gentlemen? I have aspired to your
suffrages and sought the title of your pensioner, hating all which
exists and full of projects for its destruction; I shall finish this
investigation in a spirit of calm and philosophical resignation. I have
derived more peace from the knowledge of the truth, than anger from the
feeling of oppression; and the most precious fruit that I could wish to
gather from this memoir would be the inspiration of my readers with that
tranquillity of soul which arises from the clear perception of evil and
its cause, and which is much more powerful than passion and enthusiasm.
My hatred of privilege and human authority was unbounded; perhaps at
times I have been guilty, in my indignation, of confounding persons and
things; at present I can only despise and complain; to cease to hate I
only needed to know.
"It is for you now, gentlemen, whose mission and character are the
proclamation of the truth, it is for you to instruct the people, and to
tell them for what they ought to hope and what they ought to fear. The
people, incapable as yet of sound judgment as to what is best for them,
applaud indiscriminately the most opposite ideas, provided that in them
they get a taste of flattery: to them the laws of thought are like the
confines of the possible; to-day they can no more distinguish between a
savant and a sophist, than formerly they could tell a physician from
a sorcerer. 'Inconsiderately accepting, gathering together, and
accumulating everything that is new, regarding all reports as true and
indubitable, at the breath or ring of novelty they assemble like bees at
the sound of a basin. ' [4]
"May you, gentlemen, desire equality as I myself desire it; may you,
for the eternal happiness of our country, become its propagators and its
heralds; may I be the last of your pensioners! Of all the wishes that
I can frame, that, gentlemen, is the most worthy of you and the most
honorable for me.
"I am, with the profoundest respect and the most earnest gratitude,
"Your pensioner,
"P. J. PROUDHON. "
Two months after the receipt of this letter, the Academy, in its debate
of August 24th, replied to the address of its pensioner by a note, the
text of which I give below:--
"A member calls the attention of the Academy to a pamphlet, published
last June by the titulary of the Suard pension, entitled, "What is
property? " and dedicated by the author to the Academy. He is of the
opinion that the society owes it to justice, to example, and to its
own dignity, to publicly disavow all responsibility for the anti-social
doctrines contained in this publication. In consequence he demands:
"1. That the Academy disavow and condemn, in the most formal manner,
the work of the Suard pensioner, as having been published without its
assent, and as attributing to it opinions diametrically opposed to the
principles of each of its members;
"2. That the pensioner be charged, in case he should publish a second
edition of his book, to omit the dedication;
"3. That this judgment of the Academy be placed upon the records.
"These three propositions, put to vote, are adopted. "
After this ludicrous decree, which its authors thought to render
powerful by giving it the form of a contradiction, I can only beg the
reader not to measure the intelligence of my compatriots by that of our
Academy.
While my patrons in the social and political sciences were fulminating
anathemas against my brochure, a man, who was a stranger to
Franche-Comte, who did not know me, who might even have regarded himself
as personally attacked by the too sharp judgment which I had passed upon
the economists, a publicist as learned as he was modest, loved by the
people whose sorrows he felt, honored by the power which he sought to
enlighten without flattering or disgracing it, M. Blanqui--member of the
Institute, professor of political economy, defender of property--took up
my defence before his associates and before the ministry, and saved me
from the blows of a justice which is always blind, because it is always
ignorant.
It seems to me that the reader will peruse with pleasure the letter
which M. Blanqui did me the honor to write to me upon the publication
of my second memoir, a letter as honorable to its author as it is
flattering to him to whom it is addressed.
"PARIS, May 1, 1841.
"MONSIEUR,--I hasten to thank you for forwarding to me your second
memoir upon property. I have read it with all the interest that an
acquaintance with the first would naturally inspire. I am very glad that
you have modified somewhat the rudeness of form which gave to a work
of such gravity the manner and appearance of a pamphlet; for you quite
frightened me, sir, and your talent was needed to reassure me in regard
to your intentions. One does not expend so much real knowledge with
the purpose of inflaming his country. This proposition, now coming into
notice--PROPERTY IS ROBBERY! --was of a nature to repel from your book
even those serious minds who do not judge by appearances, had you
persisted in maintaining it in its rude simplicity. But if you have
softened the form, you are none the less faithful to the ground-work
of your doctrines; and although you have done me the honor to give me a
share in this perilous teaching, I cannot accept a partnership which,
as far as talent goes, would surely be a credit to me, but which would
compromise me in all other respects.
"I agree with you in one thing only; namely, that all kinds of property
get too frequently abused in this world. But I do not reason from the
abuse to the abolition,--an heroic remedy too much like death, which
cures all evils. I will go farther: I will confess that, of all abuses,
the most hateful to me are those of property; but once more, there is
a remedy for this evil without violating it, all the more without
destroying it. If the present laws allow abuse, we can reconstruct them.
Our civil code is not the Koran; it is not wrong to examine it. Change,
then, the laws which govern the use of property, but be sparing of
anathemas; for, logically, where is the honest man whose hands are
entirely clean? Do you think that one can be a robber without knowing
it, without wishing it, without suspecting it? Do you not admit that
society in its present state, like every man, has in its constitution
all kinds of virtues and vices inherited from our ancestors? Is
property, then, in your eyes a thing so simple and so abstract that you
can re-knead and equalize it, if I may so speak, in your metaphysical
mill? One who has said as many excellent and practical things as occur
in these two beautiful and paradoxical improvisations of yours cannot
be a pure and unwavering utopist. You are too well acquainted with the
economical and academical phraseology to play with the hard words
of revolutions. I believe, then, that you have handled property as
Rousseau, eighty years ago, handled letters, with a magnificent and
poetical display of wit and knowledge. Such, at least, is my opinion.
"That is what I said to the Institute at the time when I presented my
report upon your book. I knew that they wished to proceed against you in
the courts; you perhaps do not know by how narrow a chance I succeeded
in preventing them. [5] What chagrin I should always have felt, if
the king's counsel, that is to say, the intellectual executioner, had
followed in my very tracks to attack your book and annoy your person! I
actually passed two terrible nights, and I succeeded in restraining
the secular arm only by showing that your book was an academical
dissertation, and not the manifesto of an incendiary. Your style is too
lofty ever to be of service to the madmen who in discussing the gravest
questions of our social order, use paving-stones as their weapons. But
see to it, sir, that ere long they do not come, in spite of you, to
seek for ammunition in this formidable arsenal, and that your
vigorous metaphysics falls not into the hands of some sophist of the
market-place, who might discuss the question in the presence of a
starving audience: we should have pillage for conclusion and peroration.
"I feel as deeply as you, sir, the abuses which you point out; but I
have so great an affection for order,--not that common and strait-laced
order with which the police are satisfied, but the majestic and imposing
order of human societies,--that I sometimes find myself embarrassed
in attacking certain abuses. I like to rebuild with one hand when I am
compelled to destroy with the other. In pruning an old tree, we guard
against destruction of the buds and fruit. You know that as well as any
one. You are a wise and learned man; you have a thoughtful mind. The
terms by which you characterize the fanatics of our day are strong
enough to reassure the most suspicious imaginations as to your
intentions; but you conclude in favor of the abolition of property! You
wish to abolish the most powerful motor of the human mind; you attack
the paternal sentiment in its sweetest illusions; with one word you
arrest the formation of capital, and we build henceforth upon the sand
instead of on a rock. That I cannot agree to; and for that reason I
have criticised your book, so full of beautiful pages, so brilliant with
knowledge and fervor!
"I wish, sir, that my impaired health would permit me to examine with
you, page by page, the memoir which you have done me the honor to
address to me publicly and personally; I think I could offer some
important criticisms. For the moment, I must content myself with
thanking you for the kind words in which you have seen fit to speak of
me. We each possess the merit of sincerity; I desire also the merit
of prudence. You know how deep-seated is the disease under which the
working-people are suffering; I know how many noble hearts beat under
those rude garments, and I feel an irresistible and fraternal sympathy
with the thousands of brave people who rise early in the morning to
labor, to pay their taxes, and to make our country strong. I try to
serve and enlighten them, whereas some endeavor to mislead them. You
have not written directly for them. You have issued two magnificent
manifestoes, the second more guarded than the first; issue a third more
guarded than the second, and you will take high rank in science, whose
first precept is calmness and impartiality.
"Farewell, sir! No man's esteem for another can exceed mine for you.
"BLANQUI. "
I should certainly take some exceptions to this noble and eloquent
letter; but I confess that I am more inclined to realize the prediction
with which it terminates than to augment needlessly the number of
my antagonists. So much controversy fatigues and wearies me. The
intelligence expended in the warfare of words is like that employed in
battle: it is intelligence wasted. M. Blanqui acknowledges that property
is abused in many harmful ways; I call PROPERTY the sum these abuses
exclusively. To each of us property seems a polygon whose angles need
knocking off; but, the operation performed, M. Blanqui maintains
that the figure will still be a polygon (an hypothesis admitted in
mathematics, although not proven), while I consider that this figure
will be a circle. Honest people can at least understand one another.
For the rest, I allow that, in the present state of the question, the
mind may legitimately hesitate before deciding in favor of the abolition
of property. To gain the victory for one's cause, it does not suffice
simply to overthrow a principle generally recognized, which has the
indisputable merit of systematically recapitulating our political
theories; it is also necessary to establish the opposite principle, and
to formulate the system which must proceed from it. Still further, it
is necessary to show the method by which the new system will satisfy
all the moral and political needs which induced the establishment of
the first. On the following conditions, then, of subsequent evidence,
depends the correctness of my preceding arguments:--
The discovery of a system of absolute equality in which all existing
institutions, save property, or the sum of the abuses of property,
not only may find a place, but may themselves serve as instruments
of equality: individual liberty, the division of power, the public
ministry, the jury system, administrative and judicial organization, the
unity and completeness of instruction, marriage, the family, heredity
in direct and collateral succession, the right of sale and exchange, the
right to make a will, and even birthright,--a system which, better than
property, guarantees the formation of capital and keeps up the courage
of all; which, from a superior point of view, explains, corrects, and
completes the theories of association hitherto proposed, from Plato
and Pythagoras to Babeuf, Saint Simon, and Fourier; a system, finally,
which, serving as a means of transition, is immediately applicable.
A work so vast requires, I am aware, the united efforts of twenty
Montesquieus; nevertheless, if it is not given to a single man to
finish, a single one can commence, the enterprise. The road that he
shall traverse will suffice to show the end and assure the result.
WHAT IS PROPERTY? OR,
AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLE OF RIGHT AND OF GOVERNMENT.
FIRST MEMOIR.
_Adversus hostem aeterna auctertas esto. _
Against the enemy, revendication is eternal. LAW OF THE
TWELVE TABLES.
CHAPTER I. METHOD PURSUED IN THIS WORK. --THE IDEA OF A REVOLUTION.
If I were asked to answer the following question: WHAT IS SLAVERY? and I
should answer in one word, IT IS MURDER, my meaning would be understood
at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power
to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of
life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to
this other question: WHAT IS PROPERTY! may I not likewise answer, IT
IS ROBBERY, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second
proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?
I undertake to discuss the vital principle of our government and our
institutions, property: I am in my right. I may be mistaken in the
conclusion which shall result from my investigations: I am in my right.
I think best to place the last thought of my book first: still am I in
my right.
Such an author teaches that property is a civil right, born of
occupation and sanctioned by law; another maintains that it is a natural
right, originating in labor,--and both of these doctrines, totally
opposed as they may seem, are encouraged and applauded. I contend that
neither labor, nor occupation, nor law, can create property; that it is
an effect without a cause: am I censurable?
But murmurs arise!
PROPERTY IS ROBBERY! That is the war-cry of '93! That is the signal of
revolutions!
Reader, calm yourself: I am no agent of discord, no firebrand of
sedition. I anticipate history by a few days; I disclose a truth whose
development we may try in vain to arrest; I write the preamble of
our future constitution. This proposition which seems to you
blasphemous--PROPERTY IS ROBBERY--would, if our prejudices allowed us
to consider it, be recognized as the lightning-rod to shield us from the
coming thunderbolt; but too many interests stand in the way! . . . Alas!
philosophy will not change the course of events: destiny will fulfill
itself regardless of prophecy. Besides, must not justice be done and our
education be finished?
PROPERTY IS ROBBERY! . . . What a revolution in human ideas! PROPRIETOR and
ROBBER have been at all times expressions as contradictory as the beings
whom they designate are hostile; all languages have perpetuated this
opposition. On what authority, then, do you venture to attack universal
consent, and give the lie to the human race? Who are you, that you
should question the judgment of the nations and the ages?
Of what consequence to you, reader, is my obscure individuality? I
live, like you, in a century in which reason submits only to fact and
to evidence. My name, like yours, is TRUTH-SEEKER. [6] My mission is
written in these words of the law: SPEAK WITHOUT HATRED AND WITHOUT
FEAR; TELL THAT WHICH THOU KNOWEST! The work of our race is to build the
temple of science, and this science includes man and Nature. Now, truth
reveals itself to all; to-day to Newton and Pascal, tomorrow to
the herdsman in the valley and the journeyman in the shop. Each one
contributes his stone to the edifice; and, his task accomplished,
disappears. Eternity precedes us, eternity follows us: between two
infinites, of what account is one poor mortal that the century should
inquire about him?
Disregard then, reader, my title and my character, and attend only to my
arguments. It is in accordance with universal consent that I undertake
to correct universal error; from the OPINION of the human race I appeal
to its FAITH. Have the courage to follow me; and, if your will is
untrammelled, if your conscience is free, if your mind can unite two
propositions and deduce a third therefrom, my ideas will inevitably
become yours. In beginning by giving you my last word, it was my purpose
to warn you, not to defy you; for I am certain that, if you read me, you
will be compelled to assent. The things of which I am to speak are so
simple and clear that you will be astonished at not having perceived
them before, and you will say: "I have neglected to think. " Others offer
you the spectacle of genius wresting Nature's secrets from her, and
unfolding before you her sublime messages; you will find here only a
series of experiments upon JUSTICE and RIGHT a sort of verification of
the weights and measures of your conscience. The operations shall be
conducted under your very eyes; and you shall weigh the result.
Nevertheless, I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the
abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice,
nothing else; that is the alpha and omega of my argument: to others I
leave the business of governing the world.
One day I asked myself: Why is there so much sorrow and misery in
society? Must man always be wretched? And not satisfied with the
explanations given by the reformers,--these attributing the general
distress to governmental cowardice and incapacity, those to conspirators
and emeutes, still others to ignorance and general corruption,--and
weary of the interminable quarrels of the tribune and the press, I
sought to fathom the matter myself. I have consulted the masters of
science; I have read a hundred volumes of philosophy, law, political
economy, and history: would to God that I had lived in a century in
which so much reading had been useless! I have made every effort to
obtain exact information, comparing doctrines, replying to objections,
continually constructing equations and reductions from arguments, and
weighing thousands of syllogisms in the scales of the most rigorous
logic. In this laborious work, I have collected many interesting facts
which I shall share with my friends and the public as soon as I have
leisure. But I must say that I recognized at once that we had never
understood the meaning of these words, so common and yet so sacred:
JUSTICE, EQUITY, LIBERTY; that concerning each of these principles our
ideas have been utterly obscure; and, in fact, that this ignorance was
the sole cause, both of the poverty that devours us, and of all the
calamities that have ever afflicted the human race.
My mind was frightened by this strange result: I doubted my reason.
What! said I, that which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor insight
penetrated, you have discovered! Wretch, mistake not the visions of
your diseased brain for the truths of science! Do you not know (great
philosophers have said so) that in points of practical morality
universal error is a contradiction?
I resolved then to test my arguments; and in entering upon this new
labor I sought an answer to the following questions: Is it possible
that humanity can have been so long and so universally mistaken in the
application of moral principles? How and why could it be mistaken? How
can its error, being universal, be capable of correction?
These questions, on the solution of which depended the certainty of my
conclusions, offered no lengthy resistance to analysis. It will be seen,
in chapter V. of this work, that in morals, as in all other branches of
knowledge, the gravest errors are the dogmas of science; that, even in
works of justice, to be mistaken is a privilege which ennobles man; and
that whatever philosophical merit may attach to me is infinitely small.
To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its
appearance. In giving expression to the last stage of an idea,--an idea
which permeates all minds, which to-morrow will be proclaimed by another
if I fail to announce it to-day,--I can claim no merit save that of
priority of utterance. Do we eulogize the man who first perceives the
dawn?
Yes: all men believe and repeat that equality of conditions is identical
with equality of rights; that PROPERTY and ROBBERY are synonymous terms;
that every social advantage accorded, or rather usurped, in the name of
superior talent or service, is iniquity and extortion. All men in their
hearts, I say, bear witness to these truths; they need only to be made
to understand it.
Before entering directly upon the question before me, I must say a word
of the road that I shall traverse. When Pascal approached a geometrical
problem, he invented a method of solution; to solve a problem in
philosophy a method is equally necessary. Well, by how much do the
problems of which philosophy treats surpass in the gravity of their
results those discussed by geometry! How much more imperatively, then,
do they demand for their solution a profound and rigorous analysis!
It is a fact placed for ever beyond doubt, say the modern psychologists,
that every perception received by the mind is determined by certain
general laws which govern the mind; is moulded, so to speak, in certain
types pre-existing in our understanding, and which constitutes its
original condition. Hence, say they, if the mind has no innate IDEAS,
it has at least innate FORMS. Thus, for example, every phenomenon is of
necessity conceived by us as happening in TIME and SPACE,--that compels
us to infer a CAUSE of its occurrence; every thing which exists implies
the ideas of SUBSTANCE, MODE, RELATION, NUMBER, &C. ; in a word, we form
no idea which is not related to some one of the general principles of
reason, independent of which nothing exists.
These axioms of the understanding, add the psychologists, these
fundamental types, by which all our judgments and ideas are inevitably
shaped, and which our sensations serve only to illuminate, are known
in the schools as CATEGORIES. Their primordial existence in the mind is
to-day demonstrated; they need only to be systematized and catalogued.
Aristotle recognized ten; Kant increased the number to fifteen; M.
Cousin has reduced it to three, to two, to one; and the indisputable
glory of this professor will be due to the fact that, if he has not
discovered the true theory of categories, he has, at least, seen more
clearly than any one else the vast importance of this question,--the
greatest and perhaps the only one with which metaphysics has to deal.
I confess that I disbelieve in the innateness, not only of IDEAS, but
also of FORMS or LAWS of our understanding; and I hold the metaphysics
of Reid and Kant to be still farther removed from the truth than that of
Aristotle. However, as I do not wish to enter here into a discussion of
the mind, a task which would demand much labor and be of no interest to
the public, I shall admit the hypothesis that our most general and
most necessary ideas--such as time, space, substance, and cause--exist
originally in the mind; or, at least, are derived immediately from its
constitution.
But it is a psychological fact none the less true, and one to which the
philosophers have paid too little attention, that habit, like a second
nature, has the power of fixing in the mind new categorical forms
derived from the appearances which impress us, and by them usually
stripped of objective reality, but whose influence over our judgments
is no less predetermining than that of the original categories. Hence
we reason by the ETERNAL and ABSOLUTE laws of our mind, and at the same
time by the secondary rules, ordinarily faulty, which are suggested to
us by imperfect observation. This is the most fecund source of false
prejudices, and the permanent and often invincible cause of a multitude
of errors. The bias resulting from these prejudices is so strong that
often, even when we are fighting against a principle which our mind
thinks false, which is repugnant to our reason, and which our conscience
disapproves, we defend it without knowing it, we reason in accordance
with it, and we obey it while attacking it. Enclosed within a circle,
our mind revolves about itself, until a new observation, creating within
us new ideas, brings to view an external principle which delivers us
from the phantom by which our imagination is possessed.
Thus, we know to-day that, by the laws of a universal magnetism whose
cause is still unknown, two bodies (no obstacle intervening) tend to
unite by an accelerated impelling force which we call GRAVITATION. It is
gravitation which causes unsupported bodies to fall to the ground, which
gives them weight, and which fastens us to the earth on which we live.
Ignorance of this cause was the sole obstacle which prevented the
ancients from believing in the antipodes. "Can you not see," said St.
Augustine after Lactantius, "that, if there were men under our feet,
their heads would point downward, and that they would fall into the
sky?
" The bishop of Hippo, who thought the earth flat because it
appeared so to the eye, supposed in consequence that, if we should
connect by straight lines the zenith with the nadir in different places,
these lines would be parallel with each other; and in the direction
of these lines he traced every movement from above to below. Thence he
naturally concluded that the stars were rolling torches set in the vault
of the sky; that, if left to themselves, they would fall to the earth in
a shower of fire; that the earth was one vast plain, forming the lower
portion of the world, &c. If he had been asked by what the world itself
was sustained, he would have answered that he did not know, but that
to God nothing is impossible. Such were the ideas of St. Augustine in
regard to space and movement, ideas fixed within him by a prejudice
derived from an appearance, and which had become with him a general and
categorical rule of judgment. Of the reason why bodies fall his mind
knew nothing; he could only say that a body falls because it falls.
With us the idea of a fall is more complex: to the general ideas of
space and movement which it implies, we add that of attraction or
direction towards a centre, which gives us the higher idea of cause. But
if physics has fully corrected our judgment in this respect, we still
make use of the prejudice of St. Augustine; and when we say that a thing
has FALLEN, we do not mean simply and in general that there has been
an effect of gravitation, but specially and in particular that it is
towards the earth, and FROM ABOVE TO BELOW, that this movement has taken
place. Our mind is enlightened in vain; the imagination prevails, and
our language remains forever incorrigible. To DESCEND FROM HEAVEN is as
incorrect an expression as to MOUNT TO HEAVEN; and yet this expression
will live as long as men use language.
All these phrases--FROM ABOVE TO BELOW; TO DESCEND FROM HEAVEN; TO FALL
FROM THE CLOUDS, &C. --are henceforth harmless, because we know how to
rectify them in practice; but let us deign to consider for a moment how
much they have retarded the progress of science. If, indeed, it be a
matter of little importance to statistics, mechanics, hydrodynamics, and
ballistics, that the true cause of the fall of bodies should be known,
and that our ideas of the general movements in space should be exact,
it is quite otherwise when we undertake to explain the system of the
universe, the cause of tides, the shape of the earth, and its position
in the heavens: to understand these things we must leave the circle
of appearances. In all ages there have been ingenious mechanicians,
excellent architects, skilful artillerymen: any error, into which it was
possible for them to fall in regard to the rotundity of the earth and
gravitation, in no wise retarded the development of their art; the
solidity of their buildings and accuracy of their aim was not affected
by it. But sooner or later they were forced to grapple with phenomena,
which the supposed parallelism of all perpendiculars erected from the
earth's surface rendered inexplicable: then also commenced a struggle
between the prejudices, which for centuries had sufficed in daily
practice, and the unprecedented opinions which the testimony of the eyes
seemed to contradict.
Thus, on the one hand, the falsest judgments, whether based on isolated
facts or only on appearances, always embrace some truths whose sphere,
whether large or small, affords room for a certain number of inferences,
beyond which we fall into absurdity. The ideas of St. Augustine, for
example, contained the following truths: that bodies fall towards the
earth, that they fall in a straight line, that either the sun or the
earth moves, that either the sky or the earth turns, &c. These general
facts always have been true; our science has added nothing to them. But,
on the other hand, it being necessary to account for every thing, we are
obliged to seek for principles more and more comprehensive: that is why
we have had to abandon successively, first the opinion that the world
was flat, then the theory which regards it as the stationary centre of
the universe, &c.
If we pass now from physical nature to the moral world, we still find
ourselves subject to the same deceptions of appearance, to the same
influences of spontaneity and habit. But the distinguishing feature of
this second division of our knowledge is, on the one hand, the good
or the evil which we derive from our opinions; and, on the other, the
obstinacy with which we defend the prejudice which is tormenting and
killing us.
Whatever theory we embrace in regard to the shape of the earth and the
cause of its weight, the physics of the globe does not suffer; and,
as for us, our social economy can derive therefrom neither profit nor
damage. But it is in us and through us that the laws of our moral nature
work; now, these laws cannot be executed without our deliberate aid,
and, consequently, unless we know them. If, then, our science of moral
laws is false, it is evident that, while desiring our own good, we are
accomplishing our own evil; if it is only incomplete, it may suffice for
a time for our social progress, but in the long run it will lead us
into a wrong road, and will finally precipitate us into an abyss of
calamities.
Then it is that we need to exercise our highest judgments; and, be it
said to our glory, they are never found wanting: but then also commences
a furious struggle between old prejudices and new ideas. Days of
conflagration and anguish! We are told of the time when, with the same
beliefs, with the same institutions, all the world seemed happy: why
complain of these beliefs; why banish these institutions? We are slow to
admit that that happy age served the precise purpose of developing the
principle of evil which lay dormant in society; we accuse men and gods,
the powers of earth and the forces of Nature. Instead of seeking the
cause of the evil in his mind and heart, man blames his masters, his
rivals, his neighbors, and himself; nations arm themselves, and slay
and exterminate each other, until equilibrium is restored by the vast
depopulation, and peace again arises from the ashes of the combatants.
So loath is humanity to touch the customs of its ancestors, and to
change the laws framed by the founders of communities, and confirmed by
the faithful observance of the ages.
_Nihil motum ex antiquo probabile est_: Distrust all innovations, wrote
Titus Livius. Undoubtedly it would be better were man not compelled to
change: but what! because he is born ignorant, because he exists only
on condition of gradual self-instruction, must he abjure the light,
abdicate his reason, and abandon himself to fortune? Perfect health is
better than convalescence: should the sick man, therefore, refuse to
be cured? Reform, reform! cried, ages since, John the Baptist and Jesus
Christ. Reform, reform! cried our fathers, fifty years ago; and for a
long time to come we shall shout, Reform, reform!
Seeing the misery of my age, I said to myself: Among the principles that
support society, there is one which it does not understand, which its
ignorance has vitiated, and which causes all the evil that exists. This
principle is the most ancient of all; for it is a characteristic of
revolutions to tear down the most modern principles, and to respect
those of long-standing. Now the evil by which we suffer is anterior to
all revolutions. This principle, impaired by our ignorance, is honored
and cherished; for if it were not cherished it would harm nobody, it
would be without influence.
But this principle, right in its purpose, but misunderstood: this
principle, as old as humanity, what is it? Can it be religion?
All men believe in God: this dogma belongs at once to their conscience
and their mind. To humanity God is a fact as primitive, an idea as
inevitable, a principle as necessary as are the categorical ideas of
cause, substance, time, and space to our understanding. God is proven to
us by the conscience prior to any inference of the mind; just as the
sun is proven to us by the testimony of the senses prior to all the
arguments of physics. We discover phenomena and laws by observation and
experience; only this deeper sense reveals to us existence. Humanity
believes that God is; but, in believing in God, what does it believe? In
a word, what is God?
The nature of this notion of Divinity,--this primitive, universal
notion, born in the race,--the human mind has not yet fathomed. At each
step that we take in our investigation of Nature and of causes, the idea
of God is extended and exalted; the farther science advances, the more
God seems to grow and broaden. Anthropomorphism and idolatry constituted
of necessity the faith of the mind in its youth, the theology of infancy
and poesy. A harmless error, if they had not endeavored to make it a
rule of conduct, and if they had been wise enough to respect the
liberty of thought. But having made God in his own image, man wished
to appropriate him still farther; not satisfied with disfiguring the
Almighty, he treated him as his patrimony, his goods, his possessions.
God, pictured in monstrous forms, became throughout the world the
property of man and of the State. Such was the origin of the corruption
of morals by religion, and the source of pious feuds and holy wars.
Thank Heaven! we have learned to allow every one his own beliefs; we
seek for moral laws outside the pale of religion. Instead of legislating
as to the nature and attributes of God, the dogmas of theology, and
the destiny of our souls, we wisely wait for science to tell us what to
reject and what to accept. God, soul, religion,--eternal objects of
our unwearied thought and our most fatal aberrations, terrible
problems whose solution, for ever attempted, for ever remains
unaccomplished,--concerning all these questions we may still be
mistaken, but at least our error is harmless. With liberty in religion,
and the separation of the spiritual from the temporal power, the
influence of religious ideas upon the progress of society is purely
negative; no law, no political or civil institution being founded on
religion. Neglect of duties imposed by religion may increase the general
corruption, but it is not the primary cause; it is only an auxiliary or
result. It is universally admitted, and especially in the matter
which now engages our attention, that the cause of the inequality
of conditions among men--of pauperism, of universal misery, and of
governmental embarrassments--can no longer be traced to religion: we
must go farther back, and dig still deeper.
But what is there in man older and deeper than the religious sentiment?
There is man himself; that is, volition and conscience, free-will and
law, eternally antagonistic. Man is at war with himself: why?
"Man," say the theologians, "transgressed in the beginning; our race
is guilty of an ancient offence. For this transgression humanity has
fallen; error and ignorance have become its sustenance. Read history,
you will find universal proof of this necessity for evil in the
permanent misery of nations. Man suffers and always will suffer; his
disease is hereditary and constitutional. Use palliatives, employ
emollients; there is no remedy. "
Nor is this argument peculiar to the theologians; we find it
expressed in equivalent language in the philosophical writings of the
materialists, believers in infinite perfectibility. Destutt de Tracy
teaches formally that poverty, crime, and war are the inevitable
conditions of our social state; necessary evils, against which it would
be folly to revolt. So, call it NECESSITY OF EVIL or ORIGINAL DEPRAVITY,
it is at bottom the same philosophy.
"The first man transgressed. " If the votaries of the Bible interpreted
it faithfully, they would say: MAN ORIGINALLY TRANSGRESSED, that is,
made a mistake; for TO TRANSGRESS, TO FAIL, TO MAKE A MISTAKE, all mean
the same thing.
"The consequences of Adam's transgression are inherited by the race;
the first is ignorance. " Truly, the race, like the individual, is born
ignorant; but, in regard to a multitude of questions, even in the moral
and political spheres, this ignorance of the race has been dispelled:
who says that it will not depart altogether? Mankind makes continual
progress toward truth, and light ever triumphs over darkness. Our
disease is not, then, absolutely incurable, and the theory of the
theologians is worse than inadequate; it is ridiculous, since it is
reducible to this tautology: "Man errs, because he errs. " While the true
statement is this: "Man errs, because he learns. "
Now, if man arrives at a knowledge of all that he needs to know, it is
reasonable to believe that, ceasing to err, he will cease to suffer.
But if we question the doctors as to this law, said to be engraved upon
the heart of man, we shall immediately see that they dispute about a
matter of which they know nothing; that, concerning the most important
questions, there are almost as many opinions as authors; that we find
no two agreeing as to the best form of government, the principle of
authority, and the nature of right; that all sail hap-hazard upon a
shoreless and bottomless sea, abandoned to the guidance of their private
opinions which they modestly take to be right reason. And, in view
of this medley of contradictory opinions, we say: "The object of our
investigations is the law, the determination of the social principle.
Now, the politicians, that is, the social scientists, do not understand
each other; then the error lies in themselves; and, as every error has
a reality for its object, we must look in their books to find the truth
which they have unconsciously deposited there. "
Now, of what do the lawyers and the publicists treat? Of JUSTICE,
EQUITY, LIBERTY, NATURAL LAW, CIVIL LAWS, &c. But what is justice?
What is its principle, its character, its formula? To this question our
doctors evidently have no reply; for otherwise their science, starting
with a principle clear and well defined, would quit the region of
probabilities, and all disputes would end.
What is justice? The theologians answer: "All justice comes from God. "
That is true; but we know no more than before.
The philosophers ought to be better informed: they have argued so much
about justice and injustice! Unhappily, an examination proves that their
knowledge amounts to nothing, and that with them--as with the savages
whose every prayer to the sun is simply _O! O! _--it is a cry of
admiration, love, and enthusiasm; but who does not know that the sun
attaches little meaning to the interjection O! That is exactly our
position toward the philosophers in regard to justice. Justice, they
say, is a DAUGHTER OF HEAVEN; A LIGHT WHICH ILLUMINES EVERY MAN THAT
COMES INTO THE WORLD; THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PREROGATIVE OF OUR NATURE;
THAT WHICH DISTINGUISHES US FROM THE BEASTS AND LIKENS US TO GOD--and
a thousand other similar things. What, I ask, does this pious litany
amount to? To the prayer of the savages: O!
All the most reasonable teachings of human wisdom concerning justice are
summed up in that famous adage: DO UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD THAT
OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU; DO NOT UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD
NOT THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU. But this rule of moral practice is
unscientific: what have I a right to wish that others should do or not
do to me? It is of no use to tell me that my duty is equal to my right,
unless I am told at the same time what my right is.
Let us try to arrive at something more precise and positive.
Justice is the central star which governs societies, the pole around
which the political world revolves, the principle and the regulator of
all transactions. Nothing takes place between men save in the name of
RIGHT; nothing without the invocation of justice. Justice is not the
work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only a declaration and
application of JUSTICE in all circumstances where men are liable to come
in contact. If, then, the idea that we form of justice and right were
ill-defined, if it were imperfect or even false, it is clear that all
our legislative applications would be wrong, our institutions vicious,
our politics erroneous: consequently there would be disorder and social
chaos.
This hypothesis of the perversion of justice in our minds, and, as a
necessary result, in our acts, becomes a demonstrated fact when it is
shown that the opinions of men have not borne a constant relation to the
notion of justice and its applications; that at different periods they
have undergone modifications: in a word, that there has been progress
in ideas. Now, that is what history proves by the most overwhelming
testimony.
Eighteen Hundred years ago, the world, under the rule of the Caesars,
exhausted itself in slavery, superstition, and voluptuousness. The
people--intoxicated and, as it were, stupefied by their long-continued
orgies--had lost the very notion of right and duty: war and dissipation
by turns swept them away; usury and the labor of machines (that is of
slaves), by depriving them of the means of subsistence, hindered them
from continuing the species. Barbarism sprang up again, in a hideous
form, from this mass of corruption, and spread like a devouring leprosy
over the depopulated provinces. The wise foresaw the downfall of the
empire, but could devise no remedy. What could they think indeed? To
save this old society it would have been necessary to change the objects
of public esteem and veneration, and to abolish the rights affirmed by
a justice purely secular; they said: "Rome has conquered through her
politics and her gods; any change in theology and public opinion would
be folly and sacrilege. Rome, merciful toward conquered nations, though
binding them in chains, spared their lives; slaves are the most fertile
source of her wealth; freedom of the nations would be the negation of
her rights and the ruin of her finances. Rome, in fact, enveloped in the
pleasures and gorged with the spoils of the universe, is kept alive by
victory and government; her luxury and her pleasures are the price of
her conquests: she can neither abdicate nor dispossess herself. "
Thus Rome had the facts and the law on her side. Her pretensions were
justified by universal custom and the law of nations. Her institutions
were based upon idolatry in religion, slavery in the State, and
epicurism in private life; to touch those was to shake society to its
foundations, and, to use our modern expression, to open the abyss of
revolutions. So the idea occurred to no one; and yet humanity was dying
in blood and luxury.
All at once a man appeared, calling himself The Word of God. It is not
known to this day who he was, whence he came, nor what suggested to
him his ideas. He went about proclaiming everywhere that the end of the
existing society was at hand, that the world was about to experience a
new birth; that the priests were vipers, the lawyers ignoramuses,
and the philosophers hypocrites and liars; that master and slave
were equals, that usury and every thing akin to it was robbery, that
proprietors and idlers would one day burn, while the poor and pure in
heart would find a haven of peace.
This man--The Word of God--was denounced and arrested as a public enemy
by the priests and the lawyers, who well understood how to induce the
people to demand his death. But this judicial murder, though it put the
finishing stroke to their crimes, did not destroy the doctrinal seeds
which The Word of God had sown. After his death, his original disciples
travelled about in all directions, preaching what they called the GOOD
NEWS, creating in their turn millions of missionaries; and, when their
task seemed to be accomplished, dying by the sword of Roman justice.
This persistent agitation, the war of the executioners and martyrs,
lasted nearly three centuries, ending in the conversion of the world.
Idolatry was destroyed, slavery abolished, dissolution made room for a
more austere morality, and the contempt for wealth was sometimes pushed
almost to privation.
Society was saved by the negation of its own principles, by a revolution
in its religion, and by violation of its most sacred rights. In this
revolution, the idea of justice spread to an extent that had not before
been dreamed of, never to return to its original limits. Heretofore
justice had existed only for the masters; [7] it then commenced to exist
for the slaves.
Nevertheless, the new religion at that time had borne by no means all
its fruits. There was a perceptible improvement of the public morals,
and a partial release from oppression; but, other than that, the SEEDS
SOWN BY THE SON OF MAN, having fallen into idolatrous hearts, had
produced nothing save innumerable discords and a quasi-poetical
mythology. Instead of developing into their practical consequences the
principles of morality and government taught by The Word of God, his
followers busied themselves in speculations as to his birth, his origin,
his person, and his actions; they discussed his parables, and from the
conflict of the most extravagant opinions upon unanswerable questions
and texts which no one understood, was born THEOLOGY,--which may be
defined as the SCIENCE OF THE INFINITELY ABSURD.
The truth of CHRISTIANITY did not survive the age of the apostles; the
GOSPEL, commented upon and symbolized by the Greeks and Latins, loaded
with pagan fables, became literally a mass of contradictions; and to
this day the reign of the INFALLIBLE CHURCH has been a long era of
darkness. It is said that the GATES OF HELL will not always prevail,
that THE WORD OF GOD will return, and that one day men will know truth
and justice; but that will be the death of Greek and Roman Catholicism,
just as in the light of science disappeared the caprices of opinion.
The monsters which the successors of the apostles were bent on
destroying, frightened for a moment, reappeared gradually, thanks to the
crazy fanaticism, and sometimes the deliberate connivance, of priests
and theologians. The history of the enfranchisement of the French
communes offers constantly the spectacle of the ideas of justice and
liberty spreading among the people, in spite of the combined efforts of
kings, nobles, and clergy. In the year 1789 of the Christian era, the
French nation, divided by caste, poor and oppressed, struggled in the
triple net of royal absolutism, the tyranny of nobles and parliaments,
and priestly intolerance. There was the right of the king and the right
of the priest, the right of the patrician and the right of the plebeian;
there were the privileges of birth, province, communes, corporations,
and trades; and, at the bottom of all, violence, immorality, and misery.
For some time they talked of reformation; those who apparently desired
it most favoring it only for their own profit, and the people who were
to be the gainers expecting little and saying nothing. For a long
time these poor people, either from distrust, incredulity, or despair,
hesitated to ask for their rights: it is said that the habit of serving
had taken the courage away from those old communes, which in the middle
ages were so bold.
Finally a book appeared, summing up the whole matter in these two
propositions: WHAT IS THE THIRD ESTATE? --NOTHING. WHAT OUGHT IT
TO BE? --EVERY THING. Some one added by way of comment: WHAT IS THE
KING? --THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE.
This was a sudden revelation: the veil was torn aside, a thick bandage
fell from all eyes. The people commenced to reason thus:--
If the king is our servant, he ought to report to us;
If he ought to report to us, he is subject to control;
If he can be controlled, he is responsible;
If he is responsible, he is punishable;
If he is punishable, he ought to be punished according to his merits;
If he ought to be punished according to his merits, he can be punished
with death.
Five years after the publication of the brochure of Sieyes, the third
estate was every thing; the king, the nobility, the clergy, were no
more. In 1793, the nation, without stopping at the constitutional
fiction of the inviolability of the sovereign, conducted Louis XVI. to
the scaffold; in 1830, it accompanied Charles X. to Cherbourg. In each
case, it may have erred, in fact, in its judgment of the offence; but,
in right, the logic which led to its action was irreproachable. The
people, in punishing their sovereign, did precisely that which the
government of July was so severely censured for failing to do when it
refused to execute Louis Bonaparte after the affair of Strasburg: they
struck the true culprit. It was an application of the common law, a
solemn decree of justice enforcing the penal laws. [8]
The spirit which gave rise to the movement of '89 was a spirit of
negation; that, of itself, proves that the order of things which was
substituted for the old system was not methodical or well-considered;
that, born of anger and hatred, it could not have the effect of a
science based on observation and study; that its foundations, in a word,
were not derived from a profound knowledge of the laws of Nature and
society. Thus the people found that the republic, among the so-called
new institutions, was acting on the very principles against which they
had fought, and was swayed by all the prejudices which they had intended
to destroy. We congratulate ourselves, with inconsiderate enthusiasm,
on the glorious French Revolution, the regeneration of 1789, the great
changes that have been effected, and the reversion of institutions: a
delusion, a delusion!
When our ideas on any subject, material, intellectual, or social,
undergo a thorough change in consequence of new observations, I call
that movement of the mind REVOLUTION. If the ideas are simply extended
or modified, there is only PROGRESS. Thus the system of Ptolemy was a
step in astronomical progress, that of Copernicus was a revolution. So,
in 1789, there was struggle and progress; revolution there was none. An
examination of the reforms which were attempted proves this.
The nation, so long a victim of monarchical selfishness, thought to
deliver itself for ever by declaring that it alone was sovereign. But
what was monarchy? The sovereignty of one man. What is democracy? The
sovereignty of the nation, or, rather, of the national majority. But it
is, in both cases, the sovereignty of man instead of the sovereignty of
the law, the sovereignty of the will instead of the sovereignty of the
reason; in one word, the passions instead of justice. Undoubtedly, when
a nation passes from the monarchical to the democratic state, there
is progress, because in multiplying the sovereigns we increase the
opportunities of the reason to substitute itself for the will; but in
reality there is no revolution in the government, since the principle
remains the same. Now, we have the proof to-day that, with the most
perfect democracy, we cannot be free. [9]
Nor is that all. The nation-king cannot exercise its sovereignty itself;
it is obliged to delegate it to agents: this is constantly reiterated by
those who seek to win its favor. Be these agents five, ten, one hundred,
or a thousand, of what consequence is the number; and what matters the
name? It is always the government of man, the rule of will and caprice.
I ask what this pretended revolution has revolutionized?
We know, too, how this sovereignty was exercised; first by the
Convention, then by the Directory, afterwards confiscated by the Consul.
As for the Emperor, the strong man so much adored and mourned by the
nation, he never wanted to be dependent on it; but, as if intending to
set its sovereignty at defiance, he dared to demand its suffrage: that
is, its abdication, the abdication of this inalienable sovereignty; and
he obtained it.
But what is sovereignty? It is, they say, the POWER TO MAKE LAW. [10]
Another absurdity, a relic of despotism. The nation had long seen kings
issuing their commands in this form: FOR SUCH IS OUR PLEASURE; it wished
to taste in its turn the pleasure of making laws. For fifty years it
has brought them forth by myriads; always, be it understood, through the
agency of representatives. The play is far from ended.
The definition of sovereignty was derived from the definition of the
law. The law, they said, is THE EXPRESSION OF THE WILL OF THE SOVEREIGN:
then, under a monarchy, the law is the expression of the will of the
king; in a republic, the law is the expression of the will of the
people. Aside from the difference in the number of wills, the two
systems are exactly identical: both share the same error, namely, that
the law is the expression of a will; it ought to be the expression of
a fact. Moreover they followed good leaders: they took the citizen of
Geneva for their prophet, and the contrat social for their Koran.
Bias and prejudice are apparent in all the phrases of the new
legislators. The nation had suffered from a multitude of exclusions and
privileges; its representatives issued the following declaration: ALL
MEN ARE EQUAL BY NATURE AND BEFORE THE LAW; an ambiguous and redundant
declaration. MEN ARE EQUAL BY NATURE: does that mean that they are equal
in size, beauty, talents, and virtue? No; they meant, then, political
and civil equality. Then it would have been sufficient to have said: ALL
MEN ARE EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW.
