The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1

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" Who would want to pass a lifetime in sterile observation, if
they, apart from their duties and nature's demands, had had to bestow
their time on their country, on the unfortunate and on their friends!"
-- Of what use are the fine arts? They serve only as public flattery
of dominant passions. "The more pleasing and the more perfect the
drama, the more baneful its influence;" the theater, even with
Molière, is a school of bad morals, "inasmuch as it excites deceitful
souls to ridicule, in the name of comedy, the candor of artless
people." Tragedy, said to be moralizing, wastes in counterfeit
effusions the little virtue that still remains. " When a man has been
admiring the noble feats in the fables what more is expected of him?
After paying homage to virtue is he not discharged from all that he
owes to it? What more would they have him do? Must he practice it
himself? He has no part to play, he is not a comedian." -- The
sciences, the fine arts, the arts of luxury, philosophy, literature,
all this serve only to effeminate and distract the mind; all that is
only made for the small crowd of brilliant and noisy insects buzzing
around the summits of society and sucking away all public substance.
-- As regards the sciences, but one is important, that of our duties,
and, without so many subtleties and so much study, our innermost
conscience suffice to show us the way. -- As regards the arts and
the skills, only those should be tolerated which, ministering to our
prime necessities, provide us with bread to feed us, with a roof to
shelter us, clothing to cover us, and arms with which to defend
ourselves. -- In the way of existence that only is healthy which
enables us to live in the country, artlessly, without display, in
family union, devoted to cultivation, living on the products of the
soil and among neighbors that are equals and with servants that one
trusts as friends.[36] -- As for the classes, but one is
respectable, that of laboring men, especially that of men working with
their own hands, artisans and mechanics, only these being really of
service, the only ones who, through their situation, are in close
proximity to the natural state, and who preserve, under a rough
exterior, the warmth, the goodness and the integrity of primitive
instincts. -- Accordingly, let us call by its true name this
elegance, this luxury, this urbanity, this literary delicacy, this
philosophical eccentricity, admired by the prejudiced as the flower of
the life of humanity; it is only mold and mildew. In like manner
esteem at its just value the swarm that live upon it, namely, the
indolent aristocracy, the fashionable world, the privileged who direct
and make a display, the idlers of the drawing room who talk, divert
themselves and regard themselves as the elect of humanity, but who are
simply so many parasites. Whether parasitic or excretory, one attracts
the other, and the tree can only be well if we get rid of both.

If civilization is bad, society is worse. [37] For this could not
have been established except by destroying primitive equality, while
its two principal institutions, property and government, are
encroachments.

"He who first enclosed a plot of ground, and who took it into his
to say this belongs to me, and who found people simple enough to
believe him,[38] was the true founder of civil society. What crimes,
what wars, what murders, what misery and what horrors would have been
spared the human race if he who, pulling up the landmark and filling
up the ditch, had cried out to his fellows: Be wary of that impostor;
you are lost if you forget that no one has a right to the land and
that its fruits are the property of all !" -- The first ownership
was a robbery by which an individual abstracted from the community a
portion of the public domain. Nothing could justify the outrage,
nothing added by him to the soil, neither his industry, nor his
trouble, nor his valor. "In vain may he assert that he built this
wall, and acquired this land by his labor. Who marked it out for him,
one might ask, and how do you come to be paid for labor which was
never imposed on you? Are you not aware that a multitude of your
brethren are suffering and perishing with want because you have too
much, and that the express and unanimous consent of the whole human
species is requisite before appropriating to yourself more than your
share of the common subsistence?" --

Underneath this theory we recognize the personal attitude, the
grudge of the poor embittered commoner, who, on entering society,
finds the places all taken, and who is incapable of creating one for
himself; who, in his confessions, marks the day when he ceased to feel
hungry; who, for lack of something better, lives in concubinage with a
serving-woman and places his five children in an orphanage; who is in
turn servant, clerk, vagabond, teacher and copyist, always on the
look-out, using his wits to maintain his independence, disgusted with
the contrast between what he is outwardly and what he feels himself
inwardly, avoiding envy only by disparagement, and preserving in the
folds of his heart an old grudge "against the rich and the fortunate
in this world as if they were so at his expense, as if their assumed
happiness had been an infringement on his happiness." [39] -- Not
only is there injustice in the origin of property but again there is
injustice in the power it secures to itself, the wrong increasing like
a canker under the partiality of law.

"Are not all the advantages of society for the rich and for the
powerful?[40] Do they not absorb to themselves all lucrative
positions? Is not the public authority wholly in their interest? If a
man of position robs his creditors or commits other offenses is he not
certain of impunity? Are not the blows he bestows, his violent
assaults, the murders and the assassinations he is guilty of, matters
that are hushed up and forgotten in a few months? -- Let this same
man be robbed and the entire police set to work, and woe to the poor
innocents they suspect! -- Has he to pass a dangerous place, escorts
overrun the country.-If the axle of his coach breaks down everybody
runs to help him. -- Is a noise made at his gate, a word from him
and all is silent. -- Does the crowd annoy him, he makes a sign and
order reigns. -- Does a carter chance to cross his path, his
attendants are ready to knock him down, while fifty honest pedestrians
might be crushed rather than delaying a rascal in his carriage. --
All these considerations do not cost him a penny.; they are a rich
man's entitlements and not the price for being rich. -- What a
different picture of the poor ! The more humanity owes them the more
it refuses them. All doors are closed to them even when they have the
right to have them opened, and if they sometimes obtain justice they
have more trouble than others in obtaining favors. If there is statute
labor to be carried out, a militia to raise, the poor are the most
eligible. It always bears burdens from which its wealthier neighbor
with influence secures exemption. At the least accident to a poor man
everybody abandons him. Let his cart topple over and I regard him as
fortunate if he escapes the insults of the smart companions of a young
duke passing by. In a word all assistance free of charge is withheld
from him in time of need, precisely because he cannot pay for it. I
regard him as a lost man if he is so unfortunate as to be honest and
have a pretty daughter and a powerful neighbor. -- Let us sum up in
a few words the social pact of the two estates:

You need me because I am rich and you are poor: let us then make an
agreement together. I will allow you the honor of serving me on
condition that you give me the little that remains to you for the
trouble I have in governing you."

This shows the spirit, the aim and the effect of political society.
-- At the start, according to Rousseau, it consisted of an unfair
bargain, made by an adroit rich man with a poor dupe, "providing new
fetters for the weak and fresh power for the rich," and, under the
title of legitimate property, consecrating the usurpation of the soil.
-- To day the contract is still more unjust " by means of which a
child may govern an old man, a fool lead the wise, and a handful of
people live in abundance whilst a famished multitude lack the
necessities for life." It is the nature of inequality to grow; hence
the authority of some increases along with the dependence of the rest,
so that the two conditions, having at last reached their extremes, the
hereditary and perpetual objection of the people seems to be a divine
right equally with the hereditary and perpetual despotism of the king.
-- This is the present situation and, any change, will be for the
worse. "For,[41] the occupation of all kings, or of those charged with
their functions, consists wholly of two objects, to extend their sway
abroad and to render it more absolute at home." When they plead some
other cause it is only a pretext. "The terms public good, happiness of
subjects, the glory of the nation, so heavily employed in government
announcements, never denote other than disastrous commands, and the
people shudder beforehand when its masters allude to their paternal
solicitude." -- However, this fatal point once reached, "the
contract with the government is dissolved; the despot is master only
while remaining the most powerful, and, as soon as he can be expelled,
it is useless for him to cry out against violence." Because right can
only exist through consent, and no consent nor right can exist between
master and slave.

Whether between one man and another man, or between one man and a
people, the following is an absurd address: ' I make an agreement with
you wholly at your expense and to my advantage which I shall respect
as long as I please and which you shall respect as long as it pleases
me.' " --

Only madmen may sign such a treaty, but, as madmen, they are not in
a condition to negotiate and their signature is not binding. Only the
vanquished on the ground, with swords pointed at their throats, may
accept such conditions but, being under constraint, their promise is
null and void. Madmen and the conquered may for a thousand years have
bound over all subsequent generations, but a contract for a minor is
not a contract for an adult, and on the child arriving at the age of
Reason he belongs to himself. We at last have become adults, and we
have only to make use of our rights to reduce the pretensions of this
self-styled authority to their just value. It has power on its side
and nothing more. But "a pistol in the hand of a brigand is also
power," but do you think that I should be morally obliged to give him
my purse? -- I obey only compelled by force and I will have my purse
back as soon as I can take his pistol away from him.

VII: THE LOST CHILDREN.

The lost children of the philosophic party. - Naigeon, Sylvain
Maréchal, Mably, Morelly. - The entire discredit of traditions and
institutions derived from it.

We stop here. It is pointless to follow the lost children of the
party, Naigeon and Sylvain Maréchal, Mably and Morelly, the fanatics
that set atheism up as an obligatory dogma and a superior duty; the
socialists who, to suppress egoism, propose a community of property,
and who found a republic in which any man that proposes to re-
establish "detestable ownership" shall be declared an enemy of
humanity, treated as a "raging maniac" and shut up in a dungeon for
life. It is sufficient to have studied the operations of large armies
and of great campaigns. -- With different gadgets and opposite
tactics, the various attacks have all had the same results, all the
institutions have been undermined from below. The governing ideology
has withdrawn all authority from custom, from religion, from the
State. Not only is it assumed that tradition in itself is false, but
again that it is harmful through its works, that it builds up
injustice on error, and that by rendering man blind it leads him to
oppress. Henceforth it is outlawed. Let this "loathsome thing" with
its supporters be crushed out. It is the great evil of the human
species, and, when suppressed, only goodness will remain.

"The time will then come[42] when the sun will shine only on free
men recognizing no other master than Reason; when tyrants and slaves,
and priests with their senseless or hypocritical instruments will
exist only in history and on the stage; when attention will no longer
be bestowed on them except to pity their victims and their dupes,
keeping oneself vigilant and useful through horror of their excesses,
and able to recognize and extinguish by the force of Reason the first
germs of superstition and of tyranny, should they ever venture to
reappear."

The millennium is dawning and it is once more Reason, which should
set it up. In this way we shall owe everything to its salutary
authority, the foundation of the new order of things as well as the
destruction of the old one.

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NOTES :

[1] "Discours de la Methode."

[2]This is evident with Descartes in the second step he takes. (The
theory of pure spirit, the idea of God, the proof of his existence,
the veracity of our intelligence demonstrated the veracity of God,
etc.)

[3] See Pascal, "Pensées" (on the origin of property and rank). The
"Provinciales" (on homicide and the right to kill). -- Nicole,
"Deuxième traité de la charité, et de l'amour-propre" (on the natural
man and the object of society). Bossuet, "Politique tirée de
l'Ecriture sainte." La Bruyère, "Des Esprits forts."

[4] Cf. Sir. John Lubbock, "Origine de la Civilisation." --
Gerand-Teulon, "Les Origines de la famille."

[5] The principle of caste in India; we see this in the contrast
between the Aryans and the aborigines, the Soudras and the Pariahs.

[6] In accordance with this principle the inhabitants of the
Sandwich Islands passed a law forbidding the sale of liquor to the
natives and allowing it to Europeans. (De Varigny, "Quatorze ans aux
iles Sandwich.")

[7] Cf. Le Play, "De l'Organization de la famille," (the history of
a domain in the Pyrenees.)

[8] See, especially, in Brahmin literature the great metaphysical
poems and the Puranas.

[9] Montaigne (1533-92) apparently also had 'sympathetic
imagination' when he wrote: "I am most tenderly symphathetic towards
the afflictions of others," ("On Cruelty"). (SR.)

[10] Voltaire, "Dic. Phil." the article on Punishments.

[11] "Resumé des cahiers," by Prud'homme, preface, 1789.

[12] Voltaire, Dialogues, Entretiens entre A. B. C.

[13] Voltaire, "Dict.Phil.," the article on Religion. "If there is
a hamlet to be governed it must have a religion."

[14] "Le rêve de d'Alembert," by Diderot, passim.

[15] "If a misanthrope (a hater of mankind) had proposed to himself
to injure humanity what could he have invented better than faith in an
incomprehensible being, about which men never could come to any
agreement, and to which they would attach more importance than to
their own existence?" Diderot, "Entretien d'un philosophe avec la
Maréchale de ....." (And that is just what our Marxist sociologist,
psychologists etc have done in inventing a human being bereft of those
emotions which in other animals force them to give in to their
maternal, paternal and leadership instincts thereby making them happy
in the process.. SR.)

[16] Cf. "Catéchisme Universel," by Saint-Lambert, and the "Loi
naturelle ou Catéchisme du citoyen français," by Volney.

[17] "Supplément au voyage de Bougainville."

[18] Cf. "Mémoires de Mm. D'Epinay," a conversation with Duclos and
Saint-Lambert at the house of Mlle. Quinault. - Rousseau's
"Confessions," part I, book V. These are the same principles taught by
M. de la Tavel to Mme. De Warens.

[19] "Suite du rêve de d'Alembert." "Entretien entre Mlls. de
Lespinasse et Bordeu." - "Mémoires de Diderot," a letter to Mlle.
Volant, III. 66.

[20] Cf. his admirable tales, "Entretiens d'un père avec ses
enfants," and "Le neveu de Rameau."

[21] Volney, ibid . "The natural law . . . consists wholly of
events whose repetition may be observed through the senses and which
create a science as precise and accurate as geometry and mathematics."

[22] Helvétius, "De l'Esprit." passim.

[23] Volney, ibid. Chap. III. Saint-Lambert, ibid. The first
dialogue.

[24] D'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature," II. 408 493.

[25] D'Holbach, "Système de la nature, " I. 347.

[26] Diderot, "Supplément au voyage de Bougainville."

[27] Diderot, "Les Eleuthéromanes."

Et ses mains, ourdissant les entrailles du prêtre,
En feraient un cordon pour le dernier des rois.

Brissot: "Necessity being the sole title to property the result is
that when a want is satisfied man is no longer a property owner. . . .
Two prime necessities are due to the animal constitution, food and
waste. . . . May men nourish themselves on their fallen creatures?
(Yes for) all beings may justly nourish themselves on any material
calculated to supply their wants . . . Man of nature, fulfill your
desire, give heed to your cravings, your sole masters and your only
guide. Do you feel your veins throbbing with inward fires at the sight
of a charming creature? She is yours, your caresses are innocent and
your kisses pure. Love alone entitles to enjoyment as hunger is the
warrant for property." (An essay published in 1780, and reprinted in
1782 in the "Bibliothèque du Législateur," quoted by Roux and Buchez
"Histoire parlementaire," XIII, 431.

[28] The words of Rousseau himself ("Rousseau juge de Jan-Jacques,"
third dialogue, p 193): From whence may the painter and apologist of
nature, now so disfigured and so calumniated, derive his model if not
from his own heart ?"

[29] "Confessions," Book I. p.1, and the end of the fifth book. --
First letter to M. de Malesherbes: "I know my great faults, and am
profoundly sensible of my vices. Even so I shall die with the
conviction that of all the men I have encountered no one was better
than myself". -- To Madame B---, March 16, 1770, he writes: "You
have awarded me esteem for my writings; your esteem would be yet
greater for my life if it were open to you inspection, and still
greater for my heart if it were exposed to your view. Never was there
a better one, a heart more tender or more just.... My misfortunes are
all due to my virtues." -- To Madame de la Tour, "Whoever is not
enthusiastic in my behalf in unworthy of me."

[30] Letter to M. de Beaumont. p.24. - Rousseau juge de Jean-
Jacques, troisième entretien, 193.

[31] "Emile," book I, and the letter to M. de Beaumont, passim.

[32] Article I. "All Frenchmen shall be virtuous." Article II. "All
Frenchmen shall be happy." Draft of a constitution found among the
papers of Sismondi, at that time in school. (My French dictionary
writes: "SISMONDI, (Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de) Genève, 1773 -
id. 1842, Swiss historian and economist of Italian origin. He was a
forerunner of dirigisme and had influenced Marx with his book:
"Nouveaux principes d'économie politique.1819. SR.)

[33] "Confessions," part 2, book IX. 368. "I cannot comprehend how
any one can converse in a circle. . . . I stammer out a few words,
with no meaning in them, as quickly as I can, very glad if they convey
no sense. . . . I should be as fond of society as anybody if I were
not certain of appearing not merely to disadvantage but wholly
different from what I really am." -- Cf. in the "Nouvelle Héloise,"
2nd part, the letter of Saint-Preux on Paris. Also in "Emilie," the
end of book IV.

[34] "Confessions," part 2, IX. 361. "I was so weary of drawing-
rooms, of jets of water, of bowers, of flower-beds and of those that
showed them to me; I was so overwhelmed with pamphlets, harpsichords,
games, knots, stupid witticisms, simpering looks, petty story-tellers
and heavy suppers, that when I spied out a corner in a hedge, a bush,
a barn, a meadow, or when, on passing through a hamlet, I caught the
smell of a good parsley omelet . . I sent to the devil all the rouge,
frills, flounces and perfumery, and, regretting a plain dinner and
common wine, I would gladly have closed the mouth of both the head
cook and the butler who forced me to dine when I generally sup, and to
sup when a generally go to bed, but, especially the lackeys that
envied me every morsel I ate and who, at the risk of my dying with
thirst, sold me the drugged wine of their master at ten times the
price I would have to pay for a better wine at a tavern."

[35] "Discours sur l'influence des sciences et des arts" -- The
letter to d'Alembert on theatrical performances.

[36] Does it not read like a declaration of intent for forming a
Kibbutz? (SR.)

[37] "The high society (La societé) is as natural to the human
species as decrepitude to the individual. The people require arts,
laws, and governments, as old men require crutches." See the letter M.
Philopolis, p. 248.

[38] See the discourse on the "Origine de l'Inégalite," passim.

[39] "Emile," book IV. Rousseau's narrative. P. 13.

[40] "Discours sur l'économie politique," 326.

[41] "Discours sur l'Origine de l'Inégalité," 178, "Contrat
Social," I. ch. IV.

[42] Condorcet, "Tableau des progrès de l'esprit humain," the tenth
epoch.

CHAPTER IV. ORGANIZING THE FUTURE SOCIETY.

I. LIBERTY, EQUALITY AND SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE.

The mathematical method. - Definition of man in the abstract. - The
social contract. - Independence and equality of the contractors. - All
equal before the law and each sharing in the sovereignty.

Consider future society as it appears at this moment to our
legislators in their study, and bear in mind that it will soon appear
under the same aspect to the legislators of the Assembly. - In their
eyes the decisive moment has come. Henceforth two histories are to
exist;[1] one, that of the past, the other, that of the future,
formerly a history of Man still deprived of his reason, and at present
the history of the rational human being. The rule of right is at last
to begin. Of all that the past generations have founded and
transmitted nothing is legitimate. Overlaying the natural Man they
created an artificial Man, either ecclesiastic or laic, noble or
commoner, sovereign or subject, proprietor or proletary, ignorant or
cultivated, peasant or citizen, slave or master, all being phony
qualities which we are not to heed, as their origin is tainted with
violence and robbery. Strip off these superfluous garments; let us
take Man in himself, the same under all conditions, in all situations,
in all countries, in all ages, and strive to ascertain what sort of
association is the best adapted to him. The problem thus stated, the
rest follows. - In accordance with the customs of the classic
mentality, and with the precepts of the prevailing ideology, a
political system is now constructed after a mathematical model.[2] A
simple statement is selected, and set apart, very general, familiar,
readily apparent, and easily understood by the most ignorant and
inattentive schoolboy. Reject every difference, which separates one
man from other men; retain of him only the portion common to him and
to others. The remainder constitutes Man in general, or in other
words,

"a sensitive and rational being who, thus endowed, avoids pain and
seeks pleasure," and therefore aspiring to happiness, namely, a stable
condition in which one enjoys greater pleasure than pain,"[3] or,
again, "a sensitive being capable of forming rational opinions and of
acquiring moral ideas."[4]

Anyone (they say)may by himself experience this elementary idea,
and can verify it at the first glance. Such is the social unit; let
several of these be combined, a thousand, a hundred thousand, a
million, twenty-six millions, and you have the French people. Men born
at twenty-one years of age, without relations, without a past, without
traditions, without a country, are supposed to be assembled for the
first time and, for the first time, to treat with each other. In this
position, at the moment of contracting together, all are equal: for,
as the definition states, the extrinsic and spurious qualities through
which alone all differ have been rejected. All are free; for,
according to the definition, the unjust thralldom imposed on all by
brute force and by hereditary prejudice has been suppressed. - But if
all men are equal, no reason exists why, in this contract, any special
advantage should be conceded to one more than to another. Accordingly
all shall be equal before the law; no person, or family, or class,
shall be allowed any privilege; no one shall claim a right of which
another might be deprived; no one shall be subject to any duty from
another is exempt. - On the other hand, all being free, each enters
with a free will along with the group of wills constitute the new
community; it is necessary that in the common resolutions he should
fully concur. Only on these conditions does he bind himself; he is
bound to respect laws only because he has assisted in making them, and
to obey magistrates only because he has aided in electing them.
Underneath all legitimate authority his consent or his vote must be
apparent, while, in the humblest citizen, the most exalted of public
powers must recognize a member of their own sovereignty. No one may
alienate or lose this portion of his sovereignty; it is inseparable
from his person, and, on delegating it to another, he reserves to
himself full possession of it. - The liberty, equality and sovereignty
of the people constitute the first articles of the social contract.
These are rigorously deduced from a primary definition; other rights
of the citizen are to be no less rigorously deduced from it, the main
features of the constitution, the most important civil and political
laws, in short, the order, the form and the spirit of the new state.