Why this mania for deifying
a man whose principal merit consisted in talking nonsense about things
whose names, even, he did not know, in the strongest language ever put
upon paper?
a man whose principal merit consisted in talking nonsense about things
whose names, even, he did not know, in the strongest language ever put
upon paper?
Proudhon - What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
Fourier, more cunning, promises us wonders when the globe shall
be covered with phalansteries. For myself, I have as great a horror
of miracles as of authorities, and aim only at logic. That is why I
continually search after the criterion of certainty. I work for the
reformation of ideas. Little matters it that they find me dry and
austere. I mean to conquer by a bold struggle, or die in the attempt;
and whoever shall come to the defence of property, I swear that I
will force him to argue like M. Considerant, or philosophize like M.
Troplong.
Finally,--and it is here that I differ most from my compeers,--I do not
believe it necessary, in order to reach equality, to turn every thing
topsy-turvy. To maintain that nothing but an overturn can lead to reform
is, in my judgment, to construct a syllogism, and to look for the truth
in the regions of the unknown. Now, I am for generalization, induction,
and progress. I regard general disappropriation as impossible: attacked
from that point, the problem of universal association seems to me
insolvable. Property is like the dragon which Hercules killed: to
destroy it, it must be taken, not by the head, but by the tail,--that
is, by profit and interest.
I stop. I have said enough to satisfy any one who can read and
understand. The surest way by which the government can baffle intrigues
and break up parties is to take possession of science, and point out to
the nation, at an already appreciable distance, the rising oriflamme of
equality; to say to those politicians of the tribune and the press, for
whose fruitless quarrels we pay so dearly, "You are rushing forward,
blind as you are, to the abolition of property; but the government
marches with its eyes open. You hasten the future by unprincipled and
insincere controversy; but the government, which knows this future,
leads you thither by a happy and peaceful transition. The present
generation will not pass away before France, the guide and model of
civilized nations, has regained her rank and legitimate influence. "
But, alas! the government itself,--who shall enlighten it? Who can
induce it to accept this doctrine of equality, whose terrible but
decisive formula the most generous minds hardly dare to acknowledge? . . .
I feel my whole being tremble when I think that the testimony of
three men--yes, of three men who make it their business to teach and
define--would suffice to give full play to public opinion, to change
beliefs, and to fix destinies. Will not the three men be found? . . .
May we hope, or not? What must we think of those who govern us? In the
world of sorrow in which the proletaire moves, and where nothing is
known of the intentions of power, it must be said that despair prevails.
But you, sir,--you, who by function belong to the official world; you,
in whom the people recognize one of their noblest friends, and
property its most prudent adversary,--what say you of our deputies, our
ministers, our king? Do you believe that the authorities are friendly
to us? Then let the government declare its position; let it print its
profession of faith in equality, and I am dumb. Otherwise, I shall
continue the war; and the more obstinacy and malice is shown, the
oftener will I redouble my energy and audacity. I have said before, and
I repeat it,--I have sworn, not on the dagger and the death's-head, amid
the horrors of a catacomb, and in the presence of men besmeared with
blood; but I have sworn on my conscience to pursue property, to grant it
neither peace nor truce, until I see it everywhere execrated. I have not
yet published half the things that I have to say concerning the right of
domain, nor the best things. Let the knights of property, if there are
any who fight otherwise than by retreating, be prepared every day for
a new demonstration and accusation; let them enter the arena armed with
reason and knowledge, not wrapped up in sophisms, for justice will be
done.
"To become enlightened, we must have liberty. That alone suffices;
but it must be the liberty to use the reason in regard to all public
matters.
"And yet we hear on every hand authorities of all kinds and degrees
crying: 'Do not reason! '
"If a distinction is wanted, here is one:--
"The PUBLIC use of the reason always should be free, but the PRIVATE
use ought always to be rigidly restricted. By public use, I mean the
scientific, literary use; by private, that which may be taken advantage
of by civil officials and public functionaries. Since the governmental
machinery must be kept in motion, in order to preserve unity and attain
our object, we must not reason; we must obey. But the same individual
who is bound, from this point of view, to passive obedience, has the
right to speak in his capacity of citizen and scholar. He can make an
appeal to the public, submit to it his observations on events which
occur around him and in the ranks above him, taking care, however, to
avoid offences which are punishable.
"Reason, then, as much as you like; only, obey. "--Kant: Fragment on the
Liberty of Thought and of the Press. Tissot's Translation.
These words of the great philosopher outline for me my duty. I have
delayed the reprint of the work entitled "What is Property? " in order
that I might lift the discussion to the philosophical height from which
ridiculous clamor has dragged it down; and that, by a new presentation
of the question, I might dissipate the fears of good citizens. I now
reenter upon the public use of my reason, and give truth full swing. The
second edition of the First Memoir on Property will immediately follow
the publication of this letter. Before issuing any thing further, I
shall await the observations of my critics, and the co-operation of the
friends of the people and of equality.
Hitherto, I have spoken in my own name, and on my own personal
responsibility. It was my duty. I was endeavoring to call attention to
principles which antiquity could not discover, because it knew nothing
of the science which reveals them,--political economy. I have, then,
testified as to FACTS; in short, I have been a WITNESS. Now my role
changes. It remains for me to deduce the practical consequences of the
facts proclaimed. The position of PUBLIC PROSECUTOR is the only one
which I am henceforth fitted to fill, and I shall sum up the case in the
name of the PEOPLE.
I am, sir, with all the consideration that I owe to your talent and your
character,
Your very humble and most obedient servant,
P. J. PROUDHON,
Pensioner of the Academy of Besancon.
P. S. During the session of April 2, the Chamber of Deputies rejected,
by a very large majority, the literary-property bill, BECAUSE IT DID NOT
UNDERSTAND IT. Nevertheless, literary property is only a special form of
the right of property, which everybody claims to understand. Let us hope
that this legislative precedent will not be fruitless for the cause of
equality. The consequence of the vote of the Chamber is the abolition
of capitalistic property,--property incomprehensible, contradictory,
impossible, and absurd.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In the French edition of Proudhon's works, the above sketch
of his life is prefixed to the first volume of his correspondence, but
the translator prefers to insert it here as the best method of
introducing the author to the American public. ]
[Footnote 2: "An Inquiry into Grammatical Classifications. " By P. J.
Proudhon. A treatise which received honorable mention from the Academy
of Inscriptions, May 4, 1839. Out of print. ]
[Footnote 3: "The Utility of the Celebration of Sunday," &c. By P. J.
Proudhon. Besancon, 1839, 12mo; 2d edition, Paris, 1841, 18mo. ]
[Footnote 4: Charron, on "Wisdom," Chapter xviii. ]
[Footnote 5: M. Vivien, Minister of Justice, before commencing
proceedings against the "Memoir upon Property," asked the opinion of M.
Blanqui; and it was on the strength of the observations of this
honorable academician that he spared a book which had already excited
the indignation of the magistrates. M. Vivien is not the only official
to whom I have been indebted, since my first publication, for assistance
and protection; but such generosity in the political arena is so rare
that one may acknowledge it graciously and freely. I have always
thought, for my part, that bad institutions made bad magistrates; just
as the cowardice and hypocrisy of certain bodies results solely from the
spirit which governs them. Why, for instance, in spite of the virtues
and talents for which they are so noted, are the academies generally
centres of intellectual repression, stupidity, and base intrigue? That
question ought to be proposed by an academy: there would be no lack of
competitors. ]
[Footnote 6: In Greek, {GREEK e ncg } examiner; a philosopher whose
business is to seek the truth. ]
[Footnote 7: Religion, laws, marriage, were the privileges of freemen,
and, in the beginning, of nobles only. Dii majorum gentium--gods of the
patrician families; jus gentium--right of nations; that is, of families
or nobles. The slave and the plebeian had no families; their children
were treated as the offspring of animals. BEASTS they were born, BEASTS
they must live. ]
[Footnote 8: If the chief of the executive power is responsible, so must
the deputies be also. It is astonishing that this idea has never
occurred to any one; it might be made the subject of an interesting
essay. But I declare that I would not, for all the world, maintain it;
the people are yet much too logical for me to furnish them with
arguments. ]
[Footnote 9: See De Tocqueville, "Democracy in the United States;" and
Michel Chevalier, "Letters on North America. " Plutarch tells us, "Life
of Pericles," that in Athens honest people were obliged to conceal
themselves while studying, fearing they would be regarded as aspirants
for office. ]
[Footnote 10: "Sovereignty," according to Toullier, "is human
omnipotence. " A materialistic definition: if sovereignty is any thing,
it is a RIGHT not a FORCE or a faculty. And what is human omnipotence? ]
[Footnote 11: The Proudhon here referred to is J. B. V. Proudhon; a
distinguished French jurist, and distant relative of the Translator. ]
[Footnote 12: Here, especially, the simplicity of our ancestors appears
in all its rudeness. After having made first cousins heirs, where there
were no legitimate children, they could not so divide the property
between two different branches as to prevent the simultaneous existence
of extreme wealth and extreme poverty in the same family. For example:--
James, dying, leaves two sons, Peter and John, heirs of his fortune:
James's property is divided equally between them. But Peter has only one
daughter, while John, his brother, leaves six sons. It is clear that, to
be true to the principle of equality, and at the same time to that of
heredity, the two estates must be divided in seven equal portions among
the children of Peter and John; for otherwise a stranger might marry
Peter's daughter, and by this alliance half of the property of James,
the grandfather, would be transferred to another family, which is
contrary to the principle of heredity. Furthermore, John's children
would be poor on account of their number, while their cousin, being an
only child, would be rich, which is contrary to the principle of
equality. If we extend this combined application of two principles
apparently opposed to each other, we shall become convinced that the
right of succession, which is assailed with so little wisdom in our day,
is no obstacle to the maintenance of equality. ]
[Footnote 13: _Zeus klesios_. ]
[Footnote 14: Giraud, "Investigations into the Right of Property among
the Romans. "]
[Footnote 15: Precarious, from precor, "I pray;" because the act of
concession expressly signified that the lord, in answer to the prayers
of his men or slaves, had granted them permission to labor. ]
[Footnote 16: I cannot conceive how any one dares to justify the
inequality of conditions, by pointing to the base inclinations and
propensities of certain men. Whence comes this shameful degradation of
heart and mind to which so many fall victims, if not from the misery and
abjection into which property plunges them? ]
[Footnote 17: How many citizens are needed to support a professor of
philosophy? --Thirty-five millions. How many for an economist? --Two
billions. And for a literary man, who is neither a savant, nor an
artist, nor a philosopher, nor an economist, and who writes newspaper
novels? --None. ]
[Footnote 18: There is an error in the author's calculation here; but
the translator, feeling sure that the reader will understand Proudhon's
meaning, prefers not to alter his figures. --Translator. ]
[Footnote 19: _Hoc inter se differunt onanismus et manuspratio, nempe
quod haec a solitario exercetur, ille autem a duobus reciprocatur,
masculo scilicet et faemina. Porro foedam hanc onanismi venerem ludentes
uxoria mariti habent nunc omnigm suavissimam_]
[Footnote 20: Polyandry,--plurality of husbands. ]
[Footnote 21: Infanticide has just been publicly advocated in England,
in a pamphlet written by a disciple of Malthus. He proposes an ANNUAL
MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS in all families containing more children than
the law allows; and he asks that a magnificent cemetery, adorned with
statues, groves, fountains, and flowers, be set apart as a special
burying-place for the superfluous children. Mothers would resort to this
delightful spot to dream of the happiness of these little angels, and
would return, quite comforted, to give birth to others, to be buried in
their turn. ]
[Footnote 22: To perform an act of benevolence towards one's neighbor is
called, in Hebrew, to do justice; in Greek, to take compassion or pity
({GREEK n n f e },from which is derived the French _aumone_); in Latin,
to perform an act of love or charity; in French, give alms. We can trace
the degradation of this principle through these various expressions: the
first signifies duty; the second only sympathy; the third, affection, a
matter of choice, not an obligation; the fourth, caprice. ]
[Footnote 23: I mean here by equite what the Latins called humanitas,--
that is, the kind of sociability which is peculiar to man. Humanity,
gentle and courteous to all, knows how to distinguish ranks, virtues,
and capacities without injury to any. ]
[Footnote 24: Justice and equite never have been understood. ]
[Footnote 25: Between woman and man there may exist love, passion, ties
of custom, and the like; but there is no real society. Man and woman are
not companions. The difference of the sexes places a barrier between
them, like that placed between animals by a difference of race.
Consequently, far from advocating what is now called the emancipation of
woman, I should incline, rather, if there were no other alternative, to
exclude her from society. ]
[Footnote 26: "The strong-box of Cosmo de Medici was the grave of
Florentine liberty," said M. Michelet to the College of France. ]
[Footnote 27: "My right is my lance and my buckler. " General de Brossard
said, like Achilles: "I get wine, gold, and women with my lance and my
buckler. "]
[Footnote 28: It would be interesting and profitable to review the
authors who have written on usury, or, to use the gentler expression
which some prefer, lendingat interest. The theologians always have
opposed usury; but, since they have admitted always the legitimacy of
rent, and since rent is evidently identical with interest, they have
lost themselves in a labyrinth of subtle distinctions, and have finally
reached a pass where they do not know what to think of usury. The
Church--the teacher of morality, so jealous and so proud of the purity
of her doctrine--has always been ignorant of the real nature of property
and usury. She even has proclaimed through her pontiffs the most
deplorable errors. _Non potest mutuum_, said Benedict XIV. , _locationi
ullo pacto comparari_. "Rent," says Bossuet, "is as far from usury as
heaven is from the earth. " How, on{sic} such a doctrine, condemn lending
at interest? how justify the Gospel, which expressly forbids usury? The
difficulty of theologians is a very serious one. Unable to refute the
economical demonstrations, which rightly assimilate interest to rent,
they no longer dare to condemn interest, and they can say only that
there must be such a thing as usury, since the Gospel forbids it. ]
[Footnote 29: "I preach the Gospel, I live by the Gospel," said the
Apostle; meaning thereby that he lived by his labor. The Catholic clergy
prefer to live by property. The struggles in the communes of the middle
ages between the priests and bishops and the large proprietors and
seigneurs are famous. The papal excommunications fulminated in defence
of ecclesiastical revenues are no less so. Even to-day, the official
organs of the Gallican clergy still maintain that the pay received by
the clergy is not a salary, but an indemnity for goods of which they
were once proprietors, and which were taken from them in '89 by the
Third Estate. The clergy prefer to live by the right of increase rather
than by labor. ]
[Footnote 30: The meaning ordinarily attached to the word "anarchy" is
absence of principle, absence of rule; consequently, it has been
regarded as synonymous with "disorder. "]
[Footnote 31: If such ideas are ever forced into the minds of the
people, it will be by representative government and the tyranny of
talkers. Once science, thought, and speech were characterized by the
same expression. To designate a thoughtful and a learned man, they said,
"a man quick to speak and powerful in discourse. " For a long time,
speech has been abstractly distinguished from science and reason.
Gradually, this abstraction is becoming realized, as the logicians say,
in society; so that we have to-day savants of many kinds who talk but
little, and TALKERS who are not even savants in the science of speech.
Thus a philosopher is no longer a savant: he is a talker. Legislators
and poets were once profound and sublime characters: now they are
talkers. A talker is a sonorous bell, whom the least shock suffices to
set in perpetual motion. With the talker, the flow of speech is always
directly proportional to the poverty of thought. Talkers govern the
world; they stun us, they bore us, they worry us, they suck our blood,
and laugh at us. As for the savants, they keep silence: if they wish to
say a word, they are cut short. Let them write. ]
[Footnote 32: _libertas, librare, libratio, libra_,--liberty, to
liberate, libration, balance (pound),--words which have a common
derivation. Liberty is the balance of rights and duties. To make a man
free is to balance him with others,--that is, to put him or their
level. ]
[Footnote 33: In a monthly publication, the first number of which has
just appeared under the name of "L'Egalitaire," self-sacrifice is laid
down as a principle of equality. This is a confusion of ideas. Self-
sacrifice, taken alone, is the last degree of inequality. To seek
equality in self-sacrifice is to confess that equality is against
nature. Equality must be based upon justice, upon strict right, upon the
principles invoked by the proprietor himself; otherwise it will never
exist. Self-sacrifice is superior to justice; but it cannot be imposed
as law, because it is of such a nature as to admit of no reward. It is,
indeed, desirable that everybody shall recognize the necessity of self-
sacrifice, and the idea of "L'Egalitaire" is an excellent example.
Unfortunately, it can have no effect. What would you reply, indeed, to a
man who should say to you, "I do not want to sacrifice myself"? Is he to
be compelled to do so? When self-sacrifice is forced, it becomes
oppression, slavery, the exploitation of man by man. Thus have the
proletaires sacrificed themselves to property. ]
[Footnote 34: The disciples of Fourier have long seemed to me the most
advanced of all modern socialists, and almost the only ones worthy of
the name. If they had understood the nature of their task, spoken to the
people, awakened their sympathies, and kept silence when they did not
understand; if they had made less extravagant pretensions, and had shown
more respect for public intelligence,--perhaps the reform would now,
thanks to them, be in progress. But why are these earnest reformers
continually bowing to power and wealth,--that is, to all that is anti-
reformatory? How, in a thinking age, can they fail to see that the world
must be converted by DEMONSTRATION, not by myths and allegories? Why do
they, the deadly enemies of civilization, borrow from it, nevertheless,
its most pernicious fruits,--property, inequality of fortune and rank,
gluttony, concubinage, prostitution, what do I know? theurgy, magic, and
sorcery? Why these endless denunciations of morality, metaphysics, and
psychology, when the abuse of these sciences, which they do not
understand, constitutes their whole system?
Why this mania for deifying
a man whose principal merit consisted in talking nonsense about things
whose names, even, he did not know, in the strongest language ever put
upon paper? Whoever admits the infallibility of a man becomes thereby
incapable of instructing others. Whoever denies his own reason will soon
proscribe free thought. The phalansterians would not fail to do it if
they had the power. Let them condescend to reason, let them proceed
systematically, let them give us demonstrations instead of revelations,
and we will listen willingly. Then let them organize manufactures,
agriculture, and commerce; let them make labor attractive, and the most
humble functions honorable, and our praise shall be theirs. Above all,
let them throw off that Illuminism which gives them the appearance of
impostors or dupes, rather than believers and apostles. ]
[Footnote 35: Individual possession is no obstacle to extensive
cultivation and unity of exploitation. If I have not spoken of the
drawbacks arising from small estates, it is because I thought it useless
to repeat what so many others have said, and what by this time all the
world must know. But I am surprised that the economists, who have so
clearly shown the disadvantages of spade-husbandry, have failed to see
that it is caused entirely by property; above all, that they have not
perceived that their plan for mobilizing the soil is a first step
towards the abolition of property. ]
[Footnote 36: In the Chamber of Deputies, during the session of the
fifth of January, 1841, M. Dufaure moved to renew the expropriation
bill, on the ground of public utility. ]
[Footnote 37: "What is Property? " Chap. IV. , Ninth Proposition. ]
[Footnote 38: _Tu cognovisti sessionem meam et resurrectionem meam_.
Psalm 139. ]
[Footnote 39: The emperor Nicholas has just compelled all the
manufacturers in his empire to maintain, at their own expense, within
their establishments, small hospitals for the reception of sick
workmen,--the number of beds in each being proportional to the number of
laborers in the factory. "You profit by man's labor," the Czar could
have said to his proprietors; "you shall be responsible for man's life. "
M. Blanqui has said that such a measure could not succeed in France. It
would be an attack upon property,--a thing hardly conceivable even in
Russia, Scythia, or among the Cossacks; but among us, the oldest sons of
civilization! . . . I fear very much that this quality of age may prove in
the end a mark of decrepitude. ]
[Footnote 40: Course of M. Blanqui. Lecture of Nov. 27,1840. ]
[Footnote 41: In "Mazaniello," the Neapolitan fisherman demands, amid
the applause of the galleries, that a tax be levied upon luxuries. ]
[Footnote 42: _Seme le champ, proletaire; C'est l l'oisif
qui recoltera_. ]
[Footnote 43: "In some countries, the enjoyment of certain political
rights depends upon the amount of property. But, in these same
countries, property is expressive, rather than attributive, of the
qualifications necessary to the exercise of these rights. It is rather a
conjectural proof than the cause of these qualifications. "--Rossi:
Treatise on Penal Law. ]
[Footnote 44: Lecture of December 22. ]
[Footnote 45: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ]
[Footnote 46: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ]
[Footnote 47: MM. Blanqui and Wolowski. ]
[Footnote 48: Subject proposed by the Fourth Class of the Institute, the
Academy of Moral and Political Sciences: "What would be the effect upon
the working-class of the organization of labor, according to the modern
ideas of association? "]
[Footnote 49: Subject proposed by the Academy of Besancon: "The
economical and moral consequences in France, up to the present time, and
those which seem likely to appear in future, of the law concerning the
equal division of hereditary property between the children. "]
[Footnote 50: {GREEK, ? n n '},--greater property. The Vulgate translates
it avaritia. ]
[Footnote 51: Similar or analogous customs have existed among all
nations. Consult, among other works, "Origin of French Law," by M.
Michelet; and "Antiquities of German Law," by Grimm. ]
[Footnote 52: _Dees hominesque testamur, nos arma neque contra patriam
cepisse neque quo periculum aliis faceremus, sed uti corpora nostra ab
injuria tuta forent, qui miseri, egentes, violentia atque crudelitate
foeneraterum, plerique patriae, sed omncsfarna atque fortunis expertes
sumus; neque cuiquam nostrum licuit, more majorum, lege uti, neque,
amisso patrimonio, libferum corpus habere. _--Sallus: Bellum
Catilinarium. ]
[Footnote 53: Fifty, sixty, and eighty per cent. --Course of M. Blanqui. ]
[Footnote 54: _Episcopi plurimi, quos et hortamento esse oportet
caeteris et exemplo, divina prouratione contempta, procuratores rerum
saeularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe leserta, per alienas
provincias oberrantes, negotiationis quaestuosae nundinas au uucu-,
pari, esurientibus in ecclesia fratribus habere argentum largitur velle,
fundos insidi. sis fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus faenus
augere. _--Cyprian: De Lapsis. {--NOTE: what does this refer to? This is
at bottom of pg 341 in MS} In this passage, St. Cyprian alludes to
lending on mortgages and to compound interest. ]
[Footnote 55: "Inquiries concerning Property among the Romans. "]
[Footnote 56: "Its acquisitive nature works rapidly in the sleep of the
law. It is ready, at the word, to absorb every thing. Witness the famous
equivocation about the ox-hide which, when cut up into thongs, was large
enough to enclose the site of Carthage. . . . The legend has reappeared
several times since Dido. . . . Such is the love of man for the land.
Limited by tombs, measured by the members of the human body, by the
thumb, the foot, and the arm, it harmonizes, as far as possible, with
the very proportions of man. Nor is he satisfied yet: he calls Heaven to
witness that it is his; he tries to or his land, to give it the form of
heaven. . . . In his titanic intoxication, he describes property in the
very terms which he employs in describing the Almighty--_fundus_
_optimus maximus_. . . . He shall make it his couch, and they shall be
separated no more,--{GREEK, ' nf g h g g. "}--Michelet:Origin of French
Law. ]
[Footnote 57: M. Guizot denies that Christianity alone is entitled to
the glory of the abolition of slavery. "To this end," he says, "many
causes were necessary,--the evolution of other ideas and other
principles of civilization. " So general an assertion cannot be refuted.
Some of these ideas and causes should have been pointed out, that we
might judge whether their source was not wholly Christian, or whether at
least the Christian spirit had not penetrated and thus fructified them.
Most of the emancipation charters begin with these words: "For the love
of God and the salvation of my soul. "]
[Footnote 58: _Weregild_,--the fine paid for the murder of a man. So
much for a count, so much for a baron, so much for a freeman, so much
for a priest; for a slave, nothing. His value was restored to the
proprietor. ]
[Footnote 59: The spirit of despotism and monopoly which animated the
communes has not escaped the attention of historians. "The formation of
the commoners' associations," says Meyer, "did not spring from the true
spirit of liberty, but from the desire for exemption from the charges of
the seigniors, from individual interests, and jealousy of the welfare of
others. . . . Each commune or corporation opposed the creation of every
other; and this spirit increased to such an extent that the King of
England, Henry V. , having established a university at Caen, in 1432, the
city and university of Paris opposed the registration of the edict. "]
[Footnote 60: Feudalism was, in spirit and in its providential destiny,
a long protest of the human personality against the monkish communism
with which Europe, in the middle ages, was overrun. After the orgies of
Pagan selfishness, society--carried to the opposite extreme by the
Christian religion--risked its life by unlimited self-denial and
absolute indifference to the pleasures of the world. Feudalism was the
balance-weight which saved Europe from the combined influence of the
religious communities and the Manlchean sects which had sprung up since
the fourth century under different names and in different countries.
Modern civilization is indebted to feudalism for the definitive
establishment of the person, of marriage, of the family, and of country.
(See, on this subject, Guizot, "History of Civilization in Europe. ")]
[Footnote 61: This was made evident in July, 1830, and the years which
followed it, when the electoral bourgeoisie effected a revolution in
order to get control over the king, and suppressed the emeutes in order
to restrain the people. The bourgeoisie, through the jury, the
magistracy, its position in the army, and its municipal despotism,
governs both royalty and the people. It is the bourgeoisie which, more
than any other class, is conservative and retrogressive. It is the
bourgeoisie which makes and unmakes ministries. It is the bourgeoisie
which has destroyed the influence of the Upper Chamber, and which will
dethrone the King whenever he shall become unsatisfactory to it. It is
to please the bourgeoisie that royalty makes itself unpopular. It is the
bourgeoisie which is troubled at the hopes of the people, and which
hinders reform. The journals of the bourgeoisie are the ones which
preach morality and religion to us, while reserving scepticism and
indifference for themselves; which attack personal government, and favor
the denial of the electoral privilege to those who have no property. The
bourgeoisie will accept any thing rather than the emancipation of the
proletariat. As soon as it thinks its privileges threatened, it will
unite with royalty; and who does not know that at this very moment these
two antagonists have suspended their quarrels? . . . It has been a question
of property. ]
[Footnote 62: The same opinion was recently expressed from the tribune
by one of our most honorable Deputies, M. Gauguier. "Nature," said he,
"has not endowed man with landed property. " Changing the adjective
LANDED, which designates only a species into CAPITALISTIC, which denotes
the genus,--M. Gauguier made an egalitaire profession of faith. ]
[Footnote 63: A professor of comparative legislation, M. Lerminier, has
gone still farther. He has dared to say that the nation took from the
clergy all their possessions, not because of IDLENESS, but because of
UNWORTHINESS. "You have civilized the world," cries this apostle of
equality, speaking to the priests; "and for that reason your possessions
were given you. In your hands they were at once an instrument and a
reward. But you do not now deserve them, for you long since ceased to
civilize any thing whatever. . . . "]
[Footnote 64: "Treatise on Prescription. "]
[Footnote 65: "Origin of French Law. "]
[Footnote 66: To honor one's parents, to be grateful to one's
benefactors, to neither kill nor steal,--truths of inward sensation. To
obey God rather than men, to render to each that which is his; the whole
is greater than a part, a straight line is the shortest road from one
point to another,--truths of intuition. All are a priori but the first
are felt by the conscience, and imply only a simple act of the soul; the
second are perceived by the reason, and imply comparison and relation.
In short, the former are sentiments, the latter are ideas. ]
[Footnote 67: Armand Carrel would have favored the fortification of the
capital. "Le National" has said, again and again, placing the name of
its old editor by the side of the names of Napoleon and Vauban. What
signifies this exhumation of an anti-popular politician? It signifies
that Armand Carrel wished to make government an individual and
irremovable, but elective, property, and that he wished this property to
be elected, not by the people, but by the army. The political system of
Carrel was simply a reorganization of the pretorian guards. Carrel also
hated the _pequins_. That which he deplored in the revolution of July
was not, they say, the insurrection of the people, but the victory of
the people over the soldiers. That is the reason why Carrel, after 1830,
would never support the patriots. "Do you answer me with a few
regiments? " he asked. Armand Carrel regarded the army--the military
power--as the basis of law and government. This man undoubtedly had a
moral sense within him, but he surely had no sense of justice. Were he
still in this world, I declare it boldly, liberty would have no greater
enemy than Carrel. ]
[Footnote 68: In a very short article, which was read by M. Wolowski, M.
Louis Blanc declares, in substance, that he is not a communist (which I
easily believe); that one must be a fool to attack property (but he does
not say why); and that it is very necessary to guard against confounding
property with its abuses. When Voltaire overthrew Christianity, he
repeatedly avowed that he had no spite against religion, but only
against its abuses. ]
[Footnote 69: The property fever is at its height among writers and
artists, and it is curious to see the complacency with which our
legislators and men of letters cherish this devouring passion. An artist
sells a picture, and then, the merchandise delivered, assumes to prevent
the purchaser from selling engravings, under the pretext that he, the
painter, in selling the original, has not sold his DESIGN. A dispute
arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both the fact and
the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being
consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right;
only the property in the design should have been specially reserved in
the contract: so that, in reality, M. Villemain recognizes in the artist
a power to surrender his work and prevent its communication; thus
contradicting the legal axiom, One CANNOT GIVE AND KEEP AT THE SAME
TIME. A strange reasoner is M. Villemain! An ambiguous principle leads
to a false conclusion. Instead of rejecting the principle, M. Villemain
hastens to admit the conclusion. With him the _reductio ad absurdum_ is
a convincing argument. Thus he is made official defender of literary
property, sure of being understood and sustained by a set of loafers,
the disgrace of literature and the plague of public morals. Why, then,
does M. Villemain feel so strong an interest in setting himself up as
the chief of the literary classes, in playing for their benefit the role
of Trissotin in the councils of the State, and in becoming the
accomplice and associate of a band of profligates,--_soi-disant_ men of
letters,--who for more than ten years have labored with such deplorable
success to ruin public spirit, and corrupt the heart by warping the
mind? ]
[Footnote 70: M. Leroux has been highly praised in a review for having
defended property. I do not know whether the industrious encyclopedist
is pleased with the praise, but I know very well that in his place I
should mourn for reason and for truth. ]
[Footnote 71: "Impartial," of Besancon. ]
[Footnote 72: The Arians deny the divinity of Christ. The Semi-Arians
differ from the Arians only by a few subtle distinctions. M. Pierre
Leroux, who regards Jesus as a man, but claims that the Spirit of God
was infused into him, is a true Semi-Arian.
The Manicheans admit two co-existent and eternal principles,--God and
matter, spirit and flesh, light and darkness, good and evil; but, unlike
the Phalansterians, who pretend to reconcile the two, the Manicheans
make war upon matter, and labor with all their might for the destruction
of the flesh, by condemning marriage and forbidding reproduction,--which
does not prevent them, however, from indulging in all the carnal
pleasures which the intensest lust can conceive of. In this last
particular, the tendency of the Fourieristic morality is quite
Manichean.
The Gnostics do not differ from the early Christians. As their name
indicates, they regarded themselves as inspired. Fourier, who held
peculiar ideas concerning the visions of somnambulists, and who believed
in the possibility of developing the magnetic power to such an extent as
to enable us to commune with invisible beings, might, if he were living,
pass also for a Gnostic.
The Adamites attend mass entirely naked, from motives of chastity. Jean
Jacques Rousseau, who took the sleep of the senses for chastity, and who
saw in modesty only a refinement of pleasure, inclined towards Adamism.
I know such a sect, whose members usually celebrate their mysteries in
the costume of Venus coming from the bath.
The Pre-Adamites believe that men existed before the first man. I once
met a Pre-Adamite. True, he was deaf and a Fourierist.
The Pelagians deny grace, and attribute all the merit of good works to
liberty. The Fourierists, who teach that man's nature and passions are
good, are reversed Pelagians; they give all to grace, and nothing to
liberty.
The Socinians, deists in all other respects, admit an original
revelation. Many people are Socinians to-day, who do not suspect it, and
who regard their opinions as new.
The Neo-Christians are those simpletons who admire Christianity because
it has produced bells and cathedrals. Base in soul, corrupt in heart,
dissolute in mind and senses, the Neo-Christians seek especially after
the external form, and admire religion, as they love women, for its
physical beauty. They believe in a coming revelation, as well as a
transfiguration of Catholicism. They will sing masses at the grand
spectacle in the phalanstery. ]
[Footnote 73: It should be understood that the above refers only to the
moral and political doctrines of Fourier,--doctrines which, like all
philosophical and religious systems, have their root and _raison
d'existence_ in society itself, and for this reason deserve to be
examined.
be covered with phalansteries. For myself, I have as great a horror
of miracles as of authorities, and aim only at logic. That is why I
continually search after the criterion of certainty. I work for the
reformation of ideas. Little matters it that they find me dry and
austere. I mean to conquer by a bold struggle, or die in the attempt;
and whoever shall come to the defence of property, I swear that I
will force him to argue like M. Considerant, or philosophize like M.
Troplong.
Finally,--and it is here that I differ most from my compeers,--I do not
believe it necessary, in order to reach equality, to turn every thing
topsy-turvy. To maintain that nothing but an overturn can lead to reform
is, in my judgment, to construct a syllogism, and to look for the truth
in the regions of the unknown. Now, I am for generalization, induction,
and progress. I regard general disappropriation as impossible: attacked
from that point, the problem of universal association seems to me
insolvable. Property is like the dragon which Hercules killed: to
destroy it, it must be taken, not by the head, but by the tail,--that
is, by profit and interest.
I stop. I have said enough to satisfy any one who can read and
understand. The surest way by which the government can baffle intrigues
and break up parties is to take possession of science, and point out to
the nation, at an already appreciable distance, the rising oriflamme of
equality; to say to those politicians of the tribune and the press, for
whose fruitless quarrels we pay so dearly, "You are rushing forward,
blind as you are, to the abolition of property; but the government
marches with its eyes open. You hasten the future by unprincipled and
insincere controversy; but the government, which knows this future,
leads you thither by a happy and peaceful transition. The present
generation will not pass away before France, the guide and model of
civilized nations, has regained her rank and legitimate influence. "
But, alas! the government itself,--who shall enlighten it? Who can
induce it to accept this doctrine of equality, whose terrible but
decisive formula the most generous minds hardly dare to acknowledge? . . .
I feel my whole being tremble when I think that the testimony of
three men--yes, of three men who make it their business to teach and
define--would suffice to give full play to public opinion, to change
beliefs, and to fix destinies. Will not the three men be found? . . .
May we hope, or not? What must we think of those who govern us? In the
world of sorrow in which the proletaire moves, and where nothing is
known of the intentions of power, it must be said that despair prevails.
But you, sir,--you, who by function belong to the official world; you,
in whom the people recognize one of their noblest friends, and
property its most prudent adversary,--what say you of our deputies, our
ministers, our king? Do you believe that the authorities are friendly
to us? Then let the government declare its position; let it print its
profession of faith in equality, and I am dumb. Otherwise, I shall
continue the war; and the more obstinacy and malice is shown, the
oftener will I redouble my energy and audacity. I have said before, and
I repeat it,--I have sworn, not on the dagger and the death's-head, amid
the horrors of a catacomb, and in the presence of men besmeared with
blood; but I have sworn on my conscience to pursue property, to grant it
neither peace nor truce, until I see it everywhere execrated. I have not
yet published half the things that I have to say concerning the right of
domain, nor the best things. Let the knights of property, if there are
any who fight otherwise than by retreating, be prepared every day for
a new demonstration and accusation; let them enter the arena armed with
reason and knowledge, not wrapped up in sophisms, for justice will be
done.
"To become enlightened, we must have liberty. That alone suffices;
but it must be the liberty to use the reason in regard to all public
matters.
"And yet we hear on every hand authorities of all kinds and degrees
crying: 'Do not reason! '
"If a distinction is wanted, here is one:--
"The PUBLIC use of the reason always should be free, but the PRIVATE
use ought always to be rigidly restricted. By public use, I mean the
scientific, literary use; by private, that which may be taken advantage
of by civil officials and public functionaries. Since the governmental
machinery must be kept in motion, in order to preserve unity and attain
our object, we must not reason; we must obey. But the same individual
who is bound, from this point of view, to passive obedience, has the
right to speak in his capacity of citizen and scholar. He can make an
appeal to the public, submit to it his observations on events which
occur around him and in the ranks above him, taking care, however, to
avoid offences which are punishable.
"Reason, then, as much as you like; only, obey. "--Kant: Fragment on the
Liberty of Thought and of the Press. Tissot's Translation.
These words of the great philosopher outline for me my duty. I have
delayed the reprint of the work entitled "What is Property? " in order
that I might lift the discussion to the philosophical height from which
ridiculous clamor has dragged it down; and that, by a new presentation
of the question, I might dissipate the fears of good citizens. I now
reenter upon the public use of my reason, and give truth full swing. The
second edition of the First Memoir on Property will immediately follow
the publication of this letter. Before issuing any thing further, I
shall await the observations of my critics, and the co-operation of the
friends of the people and of equality.
Hitherto, I have spoken in my own name, and on my own personal
responsibility. It was my duty. I was endeavoring to call attention to
principles which antiquity could not discover, because it knew nothing
of the science which reveals them,--political economy. I have, then,
testified as to FACTS; in short, I have been a WITNESS. Now my role
changes. It remains for me to deduce the practical consequences of the
facts proclaimed. The position of PUBLIC PROSECUTOR is the only one
which I am henceforth fitted to fill, and I shall sum up the case in the
name of the PEOPLE.
I am, sir, with all the consideration that I owe to your talent and your
character,
Your very humble and most obedient servant,
P. J. PROUDHON,
Pensioner of the Academy of Besancon.
P. S. During the session of April 2, the Chamber of Deputies rejected,
by a very large majority, the literary-property bill, BECAUSE IT DID NOT
UNDERSTAND IT. Nevertheless, literary property is only a special form of
the right of property, which everybody claims to understand. Let us hope
that this legislative precedent will not be fruitless for the cause of
equality. The consequence of the vote of the Chamber is the abolition
of capitalistic property,--property incomprehensible, contradictory,
impossible, and absurd.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: In the French edition of Proudhon's works, the above sketch
of his life is prefixed to the first volume of his correspondence, but
the translator prefers to insert it here as the best method of
introducing the author to the American public. ]
[Footnote 2: "An Inquiry into Grammatical Classifications. " By P. J.
Proudhon. A treatise which received honorable mention from the Academy
of Inscriptions, May 4, 1839. Out of print. ]
[Footnote 3: "The Utility of the Celebration of Sunday," &c. By P. J.
Proudhon. Besancon, 1839, 12mo; 2d edition, Paris, 1841, 18mo. ]
[Footnote 4: Charron, on "Wisdom," Chapter xviii. ]
[Footnote 5: M. Vivien, Minister of Justice, before commencing
proceedings against the "Memoir upon Property," asked the opinion of M.
Blanqui; and it was on the strength of the observations of this
honorable academician that he spared a book which had already excited
the indignation of the magistrates. M. Vivien is not the only official
to whom I have been indebted, since my first publication, for assistance
and protection; but such generosity in the political arena is so rare
that one may acknowledge it graciously and freely. I have always
thought, for my part, that bad institutions made bad magistrates; just
as the cowardice and hypocrisy of certain bodies results solely from the
spirit which governs them. Why, for instance, in spite of the virtues
and talents for which they are so noted, are the academies generally
centres of intellectual repression, stupidity, and base intrigue? That
question ought to be proposed by an academy: there would be no lack of
competitors. ]
[Footnote 6: In Greek, {GREEK e ncg } examiner; a philosopher whose
business is to seek the truth. ]
[Footnote 7: Religion, laws, marriage, were the privileges of freemen,
and, in the beginning, of nobles only. Dii majorum gentium--gods of the
patrician families; jus gentium--right of nations; that is, of families
or nobles. The slave and the plebeian had no families; their children
were treated as the offspring of animals. BEASTS they were born, BEASTS
they must live. ]
[Footnote 8: If the chief of the executive power is responsible, so must
the deputies be also. It is astonishing that this idea has never
occurred to any one; it might be made the subject of an interesting
essay. But I declare that I would not, for all the world, maintain it;
the people are yet much too logical for me to furnish them with
arguments. ]
[Footnote 9: See De Tocqueville, "Democracy in the United States;" and
Michel Chevalier, "Letters on North America. " Plutarch tells us, "Life
of Pericles," that in Athens honest people were obliged to conceal
themselves while studying, fearing they would be regarded as aspirants
for office. ]
[Footnote 10: "Sovereignty," according to Toullier, "is human
omnipotence. " A materialistic definition: if sovereignty is any thing,
it is a RIGHT not a FORCE or a faculty. And what is human omnipotence? ]
[Footnote 11: The Proudhon here referred to is J. B. V. Proudhon; a
distinguished French jurist, and distant relative of the Translator. ]
[Footnote 12: Here, especially, the simplicity of our ancestors appears
in all its rudeness. After having made first cousins heirs, where there
were no legitimate children, they could not so divide the property
between two different branches as to prevent the simultaneous existence
of extreme wealth and extreme poverty in the same family. For example:--
James, dying, leaves two sons, Peter and John, heirs of his fortune:
James's property is divided equally between them. But Peter has only one
daughter, while John, his brother, leaves six sons. It is clear that, to
be true to the principle of equality, and at the same time to that of
heredity, the two estates must be divided in seven equal portions among
the children of Peter and John; for otherwise a stranger might marry
Peter's daughter, and by this alliance half of the property of James,
the grandfather, would be transferred to another family, which is
contrary to the principle of heredity. Furthermore, John's children
would be poor on account of their number, while their cousin, being an
only child, would be rich, which is contrary to the principle of
equality. If we extend this combined application of two principles
apparently opposed to each other, we shall become convinced that the
right of succession, which is assailed with so little wisdom in our day,
is no obstacle to the maintenance of equality. ]
[Footnote 13: _Zeus klesios_. ]
[Footnote 14: Giraud, "Investigations into the Right of Property among
the Romans. "]
[Footnote 15: Precarious, from precor, "I pray;" because the act of
concession expressly signified that the lord, in answer to the prayers
of his men or slaves, had granted them permission to labor. ]
[Footnote 16: I cannot conceive how any one dares to justify the
inequality of conditions, by pointing to the base inclinations and
propensities of certain men. Whence comes this shameful degradation of
heart and mind to which so many fall victims, if not from the misery and
abjection into which property plunges them? ]
[Footnote 17: How many citizens are needed to support a professor of
philosophy? --Thirty-five millions. How many for an economist? --Two
billions. And for a literary man, who is neither a savant, nor an
artist, nor a philosopher, nor an economist, and who writes newspaper
novels? --None. ]
[Footnote 18: There is an error in the author's calculation here; but
the translator, feeling sure that the reader will understand Proudhon's
meaning, prefers not to alter his figures. --Translator. ]
[Footnote 19: _Hoc inter se differunt onanismus et manuspratio, nempe
quod haec a solitario exercetur, ille autem a duobus reciprocatur,
masculo scilicet et faemina. Porro foedam hanc onanismi venerem ludentes
uxoria mariti habent nunc omnigm suavissimam_]
[Footnote 20: Polyandry,--plurality of husbands. ]
[Footnote 21: Infanticide has just been publicly advocated in England,
in a pamphlet written by a disciple of Malthus. He proposes an ANNUAL
MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS in all families containing more children than
the law allows; and he asks that a magnificent cemetery, adorned with
statues, groves, fountains, and flowers, be set apart as a special
burying-place for the superfluous children. Mothers would resort to this
delightful spot to dream of the happiness of these little angels, and
would return, quite comforted, to give birth to others, to be buried in
their turn. ]
[Footnote 22: To perform an act of benevolence towards one's neighbor is
called, in Hebrew, to do justice; in Greek, to take compassion or pity
({GREEK n n f e },from which is derived the French _aumone_); in Latin,
to perform an act of love or charity; in French, give alms. We can trace
the degradation of this principle through these various expressions: the
first signifies duty; the second only sympathy; the third, affection, a
matter of choice, not an obligation; the fourth, caprice. ]
[Footnote 23: I mean here by equite what the Latins called humanitas,--
that is, the kind of sociability which is peculiar to man. Humanity,
gentle and courteous to all, knows how to distinguish ranks, virtues,
and capacities without injury to any. ]
[Footnote 24: Justice and equite never have been understood. ]
[Footnote 25: Between woman and man there may exist love, passion, ties
of custom, and the like; but there is no real society. Man and woman are
not companions. The difference of the sexes places a barrier between
them, like that placed between animals by a difference of race.
Consequently, far from advocating what is now called the emancipation of
woman, I should incline, rather, if there were no other alternative, to
exclude her from society. ]
[Footnote 26: "The strong-box of Cosmo de Medici was the grave of
Florentine liberty," said M. Michelet to the College of France. ]
[Footnote 27: "My right is my lance and my buckler. " General de Brossard
said, like Achilles: "I get wine, gold, and women with my lance and my
buckler. "]
[Footnote 28: It would be interesting and profitable to review the
authors who have written on usury, or, to use the gentler expression
which some prefer, lendingat interest. The theologians always have
opposed usury; but, since they have admitted always the legitimacy of
rent, and since rent is evidently identical with interest, they have
lost themselves in a labyrinth of subtle distinctions, and have finally
reached a pass where they do not know what to think of usury. The
Church--the teacher of morality, so jealous and so proud of the purity
of her doctrine--has always been ignorant of the real nature of property
and usury. She even has proclaimed through her pontiffs the most
deplorable errors. _Non potest mutuum_, said Benedict XIV. , _locationi
ullo pacto comparari_. "Rent," says Bossuet, "is as far from usury as
heaven is from the earth. " How, on{sic} such a doctrine, condemn lending
at interest? how justify the Gospel, which expressly forbids usury? The
difficulty of theologians is a very serious one. Unable to refute the
economical demonstrations, which rightly assimilate interest to rent,
they no longer dare to condemn interest, and they can say only that
there must be such a thing as usury, since the Gospel forbids it. ]
[Footnote 29: "I preach the Gospel, I live by the Gospel," said the
Apostle; meaning thereby that he lived by his labor. The Catholic clergy
prefer to live by property. The struggles in the communes of the middle
ages between the priests and bishops and the large proprietors and
seigneurs are famous. The papal excommunications fulminated in defence
of ecclesiastical revenues are no less so. Even to-day, the official
organs of the Gallican clergy still maintain that the pay received by
the clergy is not a salary, but an indemnity for goods of which they
were once proprietors, and which were taken from them in '89 by the
Third Estate. The clergy prefer to live by the right of increase rather
than by labor. ]
[Footnote 30: The meaning ordinarily attached to the word "anarchy" is
absence of principle, absence of rule; consequently, it has been
regarded as synonymous with "disorder. "]
[Footnote 31: If such ideas are ever forced into the minds of the
people, it will be by representative government and the tyranny of
talkers. Once science, thought, and speech were characterized by the
same expression. To designate a thoughtful and a learned man, they said,
"a man quick to speak and powerful in discourse. " For a long time,
speech has been abstractly distinguished from science and reason.
Gradually, this abstraction is becoming realized, as the logicians say,
in society; so that we have to-day savants of many kinds who talk but
little, and TALKERS who are not even savants in the science of speech.
Thus a philosopher is no longer a savant: he is a talker. Legislators
and poets were once profound and sublime characters: now they are
talkers. A talker is a sonorous bell, whom the least shock suffices to
set in perpetual motion. With the talker, the flow of speech is always
directly proportional to the poverty of thought. Talkers govern the
world; they stun us, they bore us, they worry us, they suck our blood,
and laugh at us. As for the savants, they keep silence: if they wish to
say a word, they are cut short. Let them write. ]
[Footnote 32: _libertas, librare, libratio, libra_,--liberty, to
liberate, libration, balance (pound),--words which have a common
derivation. Liberty is the balance of rights and duties. To make a man
free is to balance him with others,--that is, to put him or their
level. ]
[Footnote 33: In a monthly publication, the first number of which has
just appeared under the name of "L'Egalitaire," self-sacrifice is laid
down as a principle of equality. This is a confusion of ideas. Self-
sacrifice, taken alone, is the last degree of inequality. To seek
equality in self-sacrifice is to confess that equality is against
nature. Equality must be based upon justice, upon strict right, upon the
principles invoked by the proprietor himself; otherwise it will never
exist. Self-sacrifice is superior to justice; but it cannot be imposed
as law, because it is of such a nature as to admit of no reward. It is,
indeed, desirable that everybody shall recognize the necessity of self-
sacrifice, and the idea of "L'Egalitaire" is an excellent example.
Unfortunately, it can have no effect. What would you reply, indeed, to a
man who should say to you, "I do not want to sacrifice myself"? Is he to
be compelled to do so? When self-sacrifice is forced, it becomes
oppression, slavery, the exploitation of man by man. Thus have the
proletaires sacrificed themselves to property. ]
[Footnote 34: The disciples of Fourier have long seemed to me the most
advanced of all modern socialists, and almost the only ones worthy of
the name. If they had understood the nature of their task, spoken to the
people, awakened their sympathies, and kept silence when they did not
understand; if they had made less extravagant pretensions, and had shown
more respect for public intelligence,--perhaps the reform would now,
thanks to them, be in progress. But why are these earnest reformers
continually bowing to power and wealth,--that is, to all that is anti-
reformatory? How, in a thinking age, can they fail to see that the world
must be converted by DEMONSTRATION, not by myths and allegories? Why do
they, the deadly enemies of civilization, borrow from it, nevertheless,
its most pernicious fruits,--property, inequality of fortune and rank,
gluttony, concubinage, prostitution, what do I know? theurgy, magic, and
sorcery? Why these endless denunciations of morality, metaphysics, and
psychology, when the abuse of these sciences, which they do not
understand, constitutes their whole system?
Why this mania for deifying
a man whose principal merit consisted in talking nonsense about things
whose names, even, he did not know, in the strongest language ever put
upon paper? Whoever admits the infallibility of a man becomes thereby
incapable of instructing others. Whoever denies his own reason will soon
proscribe free thought. The phalansterians would not fail to do it if
they had the power. Let them condescend to reason, let them proceed
systematically, let them give us demonstrations instead of revelations,
and we will listen willingly. Then let them organize manufactures,
agriculture, and commerce; let them make labor attractive, and the most
humble functions honorable, and our praise shall be theirs. Above all,
let them throw off that Illuminism which gives them the appearance of
impostors or dupes, rather than believers and apostles. ]
[Footnote 35: Individual possession is no obstacle to extensive
cultivation and unity of exploitation. If I have not spoken of the
drawbacks arising from small estates, it is because I thought it useless
to repeat what so many others have said, and what by this time all the
world must know. But I am surprised that the economists, who have so
clearly shown the disadvantages of spade-husbandry, have failed to see
that it is caused entirely by property; above all, that they have not
perceived that their plan for mobilizing the soil is a first step
towards the abolition of property. ]
[Footnote 36: In the Chamber of Deputies, during the session of the
fifth of January, 1841, M. Dufaure moved to renew the expropriation
bill, on the ground of public utility. ]
[Footnote 37: "What is Property? " Chap. IV. , Ninth Proposition. ]
[Footnote 38: _Tu cognovisti sessionem meam et resurrectionem meam_.
Psalm 139. ]
[Footnote 39: The emperor Nicholas has just compelled all the
manufacturers in his empire to maintain, at their own expense, within
their establishments, small hospitals for the reception of sick
workmen,--the number of beds in each being proportional to the number of
laborers in the factory. "You profit by man's labor," the Czar could
have said to his proprietors; "you shall be responsible for man's life. "
M. Blanqui has said that such a measure could not succeed in France. It
would be an attack upon property,--a thing hardly conceivable even in
Russia, Scythia, or among the Cossacks; but among us, the oldest sons of
civilization! . . . I fear very much that this quality of age may prove in
the end a mark of decrepitude. ]
[Footnote 40: Course of M. Blanqui. Lecture of Nov. 27,1840. ]
[Footnote 41: In "Mazaniello," the Neapolitan fisherman demands, amid
the applause of the galleries, that a tax be levied upon luxuries. ]
[Footnote 42: _Seme le champ, proletaire; C'est l l'oisif
qui recoltera_. ]
[Footnote 43: "In some countries, the enjoyment of certain political
rights depends upon the amount of property. But, in these same
countries, property is expressive, rather than attributive, of the
qualifications necessary to the exercise of these rights. It is rather a
conjectural proof than the cause of these qualifications. "--Rossi:
Treatise on Penal Law. ]
[Footnote 44: Lecture of December 22. ]
[Footnote 45: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ]
[Footnote 46: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841. ]
[Footnote 47: MM. Blanqui and Wolowski. ]
[Footnote 48: Subject proposed by the Fourth Class of the Institute, the
Academy of Moral and Political Sciences: "What would be the effect upon
the working-class of the organization of labor, according to the modern
ideas of association? "]
[Footnote 49: Subject proposed by the Academy of Besancon: "The
economical and moral consequences in France, up to the present time, and
those which seem likely to appear in future, of the law concerning the
equal division of hereditary property between the children. "]
[Footnote 50: {GREEK, ? n n '},--greater property. The Vulgate translates
it avaritia. ]
[Footnote 51: Similar or analogous customs have existed among all
nations. Consult, among other works, "Origin of French Law," by M.
Michelet; and "Antiquities of German Law," by Grimm. ]
[Footnote 52: _Dees hominesque testamur, nos arma neque contra patriam
cepisse neque quo periculum aliis faceremus, sed uti corpora nostra ab
injuria tuta forent, qui miseri, egentes, violentia atque crudelitate
foeneraterum, plerique patriae, sed omncsfarna atque fortunis expertes
sumus; neque cuiquam nostrum licuit, more majorum, lege uti, neque,
amisso patrimonio, libferum corpus habere. _--Sallus: Bellum
Catilinarium. ]
[Footnote 53: Fifty, sixty, and eighty per cent. --Course of M. Blanqui. ]
[Footnote 54: _Episcopi plurimi, quos et hortamento esse oportet
caeteris et exemplo, divina prouratione contempta, procuratores rerum
saeularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe leserta, per alienas
provincias oberrantes, negotiationis quaestuosae nundinas au uucu-,
pari, esurientibus in ecclesia fratribus habere argentum largitur velle,
fundos insidi. sis fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus faenus
augere. _--Cyprian: De Lapsis. {--NOTE: what does this refer to? This is
at bottom of pg 341 in MS} In this passage, St. Cyprian alludes to
lending on mortgages and to compound interest. ]
[Footnote 55: "Inquiries concerning Property among the Romans. "]
[Footnote 56: "Its acquisitive nature works rapidly in the sleep of the
law. It is ready, at the word, to absorb every thing. Witness the famous
equivocation about the ox-hide which, when cut up into thongs, was large
enough to enclose the site of Carthage. . . . The legend has reappeared
several times since Dido. . . . Such is the love of man for the land.
Limited by tombs, measured by the members of the human body, by the
thumb, the foot, and the arm, it harmonizes, as far as possible, with
the very proportions of man. Nor is he satisfied yet: he calls Heaven to
witness that it is his; he tries to or his land, to give it the form of
heaven. . . . In his titanic intoxication, he describes property in the
very terms which he employs in describing the Almighty--_fundus_
_optimus maximus_. . . . He shall make it his couch, and they shall be
separated no more,--{GREEK, ' nf g h g g. "}--Michelet:Origin of French
Law. ]
[Footnote 57: M. Guizot denies that Christianity alone is entitled to
the glory of the abolition of slavery. "To this end," he says, "many
causes were necessary,--the evolution of other ideas and other
principles of civilization. " So general an assertion cannot be refuted.
Some of these ideas and causes should have been pointed out, that we
might judge whether their source was not wholly Christian, or whether at
least the Christian spirit had not penetrated and thus fructified them.
Most of the emancipation charters begin with these words: "For the love
of God and the salvation of my soul. "]
[Footnote 58: _Weregild_,--the fine paid for the murder of a man. So
much for a count, so much for a baron, so much for a freeman, so much
for a priest; for a slave, nothing. His value was restored to the
proprietor. ]
[Footnote 59: The spirit of despotism and monopoly which animated the
communes has not escaped the attention of historians. "The formation of
the commoners' associations," says Meyer, "did not spring from the true
spirit of liberty, but from the desire for exemption from the charges of
the seigniors, from individual interests, and jealousy of the welfare of
others. . . . Each commune or corporation opposed the creation of every
other; and this spirit increased to such an extent that the King of
England, Henry V. , having established a university at Caen, in 1432, the
city and university of Paris opposed the registration of the edict. "]
[Footnote 60: Feudalism was, in spirit and in its providential destiny,
a long protest of the human personality against the monkish communism
with which Europe, in the middle ages, was overrun. After the orgies of
Pagan selfishness, society--carried to the opposite extreme by the
Christian religion--risked its life by unlimited self-denial and
absolute indifference to the pleasures of the world. Feudalism was the
balance-weight which saved Europe from the combined influence of the
religious communities and the Manlchean sects which had sprung up since
the fourth century under different names and in different countries.
Modern civilization is indebted to feudalism for the definitive
establishment of the person, of marriage, of the family, and of country.
(See, on this subject, Guizot, "History of Civilization in Europe. ")]
[Footnote 61: This was made evident in July, 1830, and the years which
followed it, when the electoral bourgeoisie effected a revolution in
order to get control over the king, and suppressed the emeutes in order
to restrain the people. The bourgeoisie, through the jury, the
magistracy, its position in the army, and its municipal despotism,
governs both royalty and the people. It is the bourgeoisie which, more
than any other class, is conservative and retrogressive. It is the
bourgeoisie which makes and unmakes ministries. It is the bourgeoisie
which has destroyed the influence of the Upper Chamber, and which will
dethrone the King whenever he shall become unsatisfactory to it. It is
to please the bourgeoisie that royalty makes itself unpopular. It is the
bourgeoisie which is troubled at the hopes of the people, and which
hinders reform. The journals of the bourgeoisie are the ones which
preach morality and religion to us, while reserving scepticism and
indifference for themselves; which attack personal government, and favor
the denial of the electoral privilege to those who have no property. The
bourgeoisie will accept any thing rather than the emancipation of the
proletariat. As soon as it thinks its privileges threatened, it will
unite with royalty; and who does not know that at this very moment these
two antagonists have suspended their quarrels? . . . It has been a question
of property. ]
[Footnote 62: The same opinion was recently expressed from the tribune
by one of our most honorable Deputies, M. Gauguier. "Nature," said he,
"has not endowed man with landed property. " Changing the adjective
LANDED, which designates only a species into CAPITALISTIC, which denotes
the genus,--M. Gauguier made an egalitaire profession of faith. ]
[Footnote 63: A professor of comparative legislation, M. Lerminier, has
gone still farther. He has dared to say that the nation took from the
clergy all their possessions, not because of IDLENESS, but because of
UNWORTHINESS. "You have civilized the world," cries this apostle of
equality, speaking to the priests; "and for that reason your possessions
were given you. In your hands they were at once an instrument and a
reward. But you do not now deserve them, for you long since ceased to
civilize any thing whatever. . . . "]
[Footnote 64: "Treatise on Prescription. "]
[Footnote 65: "Origin of French Law. "]
[Footnote 66: To honor one's parents, to be grateful to one's
benefactors, to neither kill nor steal,--truths of inward sensation. To
obey God rather than men, to render to each that which is his; the whole
is greater than a part, a straight line is the shortest road from one
point to another,--truths of intuition. All are a priori but the first
are felt by the conscience, and imply only a simple act of the soul; the
second are perceived by the reason, and imply comparison and relation.
In short, the former are sentiments, the latter are ideas. ]
[Footnote 67: Armand Carrel would have favored the fortification of the
capital. "Le National" has said, again and again, placing the name of
its old editor by the side of the names of Napoleon and Vauban. What
signifies this exhumation of an anti-popular politician? It signifies
that Armand Carrel wished to make government an individual and
irremovable, but elective, property, and that he wished this property to
be elected, not by the people, but by the army. The political system of
Carrel was simply a reorganization of the pretorian guards. Carrel also
hated the _pequins_. That which he deplored in the revolution of July
was not, they say, the insurrection of the people, but the victory of
the people over the soldiers. That is the reason why Carrel, after 1830,
would never support the patriots. "Do you answer me with a few
regiments? " he asked. Armand Carrel regarded the army--the military
power--as the basis of law and government. This man undoubtedly had a
moral sense within him, but he surely had no sense of justice. Were he
still in this world, I declare it boldly, liberty would have no greater
enemy than Carrel. ]
[Footnote 68: In a very short article, which was read by M. Wolowski, M.
Louis Blanc declares, in substance, that he is not a communist (which I
easily believe); that one must be a fool to attack property (but he does
not say why); and that it is very necessary to guard against confounding
property with its abuses. When Voltaire overthrew Christianity, he
repeatedly avowed that he had no spite against religion, but only
against its abuses. ]
[Footnote 69: The property fever is at its height among writers and
artists, and it is curious to see the complacency with which our
legislators and men of letters cherish this devouring passion. An artist
sells a picture, and then, the merchandise delivered, assumes to prevent
the purchaser from selling engravings, under the pretext that he, the
painter, in selling the original, has not sold his DESIGN. A dispute
arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both the fact and
the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being
consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right;
only the property in the design should have been specially reserved in
the contract: so that, in reality, M. Villemain recognizes in the artist
a power to surrender his work and prevent its communication; thus
contradicting the legal axiom, One CANNOT GIVE AND KEEP AT THE SAME
TIME. A strange reasoner is M. Villemain! An ambiguous principle leads
to a false conclusion. Instead of rejecting the principle, M. Villemain
hastens to admit the conclusion. With him the _reductio ad absurdum_ is
a convincing argument. Thus he is made official defender of literary
property, sure of being understood and sustained by a set of loafers,
the disgrace of literature and the plague of public morals. Why, then,
does M. Villemain feel so strong an interest in setting himself up as
the chief of the literary classes, in playing for their benefit the role
of Trissotin in the councils of the State, and in becoming the
accomplice and associate of a band of profligates,--_soi-disant_ men of
letters,--who for more than ten years have labored with such deplorable
success to ruin public spirit, and corrupt the heart by warping the
mind? ]
[Footnote 70: M. Leroux has been highly praised in a review for having
defended property. I do not know whether the industrious encyclopedist
is pleased with the praise, but I know very well that in his place I
should mourn for reason and for truth. ]
[Footnote 71: "Impartial," of Besancon. ]
[Footnote 72: The Arians deny the divinity of Christ. The Semi-Arians
differ from the Arians only by a few subtle distinctions. M. Pierre
Leroux, who regards Jesus as a man, but claims that the Spirit of God
was infused into him, is a true Semi-Arian.
The Manicheans admit two co-existent and eternal principles,--God and
matter, spirit and flesh, light and darkness, good and evil; but, unlike
the Phalansterians, who pretend to reconcile the two, the Manicheans
make war upon matter, and labor with all their might for the destruction
of the flesh, by condemning marriage and forbidding reproduction,--which
does not prevent them, however, from indulging in all the carnal
pleasures which the intensest lust can conceive of. In this last
particular, the tendency of the Fourieristic morality is quite
Manichean.
The Gnostics do not differ from the early Christians. As their name
indicates, they regarded themselves as inspired. Fourier, who held
peculiar ideas concerning the visions of somnambulists, and who believed
in the possibility of developing the magnetic power to such an extent as
to enable us to commune with invisible beings, might, if he were living,
pass also for a Gnostic.
The Adamites attend mass entirely naked, from motives of chastity. Jean
Jacques Rousseau, who took the sleep of the senses for chastity, and who
saw in modesty only a refinement of pleasure, inclined towards Adamism.
I know such a sect, whose members usually celebrate their mysteries in
the costume of Venus coming from the bath.
The Pre-Adamites believe that men existed before the first man. I once
met a Pre-Adamite. True, he was deaf and a Fourierist.
The Pelagians deny grace, and attribute all the merit of good works to
liberty. The Fourierists, who teach that man's nature and passions are
good, are reversed Pelagians; they give all to grace, and nothing to
liberty.
The Socinians, deists in all other respects, admit an original
revelation. Many people are Socinians to-day, who do not suspect it, and
who regard their opinions as new.
The Neo-Christians are those simpletons who admire Christianity because
it has produced bells and cathedrals. Base in soul, corrupt in heart,
dissolute in mind and senses, the Neo-Christians seek especially after
the external form, and admire religion, as they love women, for its
physical beauty. They believe in a coming revelation, as well as a
transfiguration of Catholicism. They will sing masses at the grand
spectacle in the phalanstery. ]
[Footnote 73: It should be understood that the above refers only to the
moral and political doctrines of Fourier,--doctrines which, like all
philosophical and religious systems, have their root and _raison
d'existence_ in society itself, and for this reason deserve to be
examined.
