The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4

H >> Hippolyte A. Taine >> The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4

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Just the opposite in modern society; what was once the rule has now
become the exception; the antique system survives only in temporary
associations, like that of an army, or in special associations, as in
a convent. Gradually, the individual has liberated himself, and
century after century, he has extended his domain and the two chains
which once bound him fast to the community, have snapped or been
lightened.

In the first place, public power has ceased to consist of a militia
protecting a cult. In the beginning, through the institution of
Christianity, civil society and religious society have become two
distinct empires, Christ himself having separated the two
jurisdictions;

"Render unto Cœsar the things which are Cœsar's, and unto God the
things that are God's."

Additionally, through the rise of Protestantism, the great Church is
split into numerous sects which, unable to destroy each other, have
been so compelled to live together and the State, even when preferring
one of them, has found it necessary to tolerate the others. Finally,
through the development of Protestantism, philosophy and the sciences,
speculative beliefs have multiplied. There are almost as many faiths
now-a-days as there are thinking men, and, as thinking men are
becoming daily more numerous, opinions are daily becoming more
numerous. So should the State try to impose any one of these on
society, this would excite opposition from an infinity of others;
hence the wisdom in governing is found, first, in remaining neutral,
and, next, in acknowledging that it is not qualified to interfere.

In the second place, war has become less frequent and less destructive
because men have not so many motives for waging it, nor the same
motives to push it to the same extremes. Formerly, war was the main
source of wealth; through victories Man acquired slaves, subjects and
tributaries; he turned these to the best account; he leisurely enjoyed
their forced labor. Nothing of this kind is seen now-a-days; people
no longer think of providing themselves human cattle; they have
discovered that, of all animals, these are the most troublesome, the
least productive, and the most dangerous. Comforts and security are
obtained much more readily through free labor and machinery; the great
object no is not to conquer, but to produce and interchange. Every
day, man, pressing forward more eagerly in civil careers, is less
disposed to put up with any obstacle that interferes with his aims; if
he still consents to be a soldier it is not to become an invader, but
to provide against invasion. Meanwhile, war has become more
scientific and, through the complications of its machinery, more
costly; the State can no longer call out and enlist for life every
able-bodied man without ruining itself, nor put too many obstacles in
the way of the free industry which, through taxation, provides for its
expenses; however short-sighted the State may be, it consults civil
interests, even in its military interest. - Thus, of the two nets in
which it has enveloped all human activity, one is rent asunder and the
other has slackened its meshes. There is no longer any reason for
making the community omnipotent; the individual need not alienate
himself entirely; he may, without inconvenience, reserve to himself a
part of himself, and, if now called upon to sign a social contract,
you may be sure that he would make this reservation.

II

Changed minds. - Conscience and its Christian origin. - Honor and
its feudal origin. - The individual of to-day refuses to surrender
himself entirely. - His motives. - Additional motives in modern
democracy. - Character of the elective process and the quality of the
representative.

And so have not only outward circumstances changed, but the very human
attitudes are now different. In the mind of modern man a feeling,
distasteful to the antique pact, has evolved. - Undoubtedly, in
extreme cases and under the pressure of brutal necessity I may,
momentarily, sign a blank check. But, never, if I understand what I
am doing, will I sign away in good faith the complete and permanent
abandonment of myself: it would be against conscience and against
honor, which two possessions are not to be alienated. My honor and my
conscience are not to go out of my keeping; I am their sole guardian
and depositary; I would not even entrust them to my father. - Both
these terms are recent and express two conceptions unknown to the
ancients,[6] both being of profound import and of infinite reach.
Through them, like a bud separated from its stem and taking root
apart, the individual has separated himself from the primitive body,
clan, family, caste or city in which he has lived indistinguishable
and lost in the crowd; he has ceased to be an organ and appendage; he
has become a personality. - The first of these concepts is of
Christian origin the second of feudal origin; both, following each
other and conjoined, measure the enormous distance which separates an
antique soul from a modern soul.[7]

Alone, in the presence of God, the Christian has felt melting, like
wax, all the ties binding him to his group; this because he is in
front of the Great Judge, and because this infallible judge sees all
souls as they are, not confusedly and in masses, but clearly, each by
itself. At the bar of His tribunal no one is answerable for another;
each answers for himself alone; one is responsible only for one's own
acts. But those acts are of infinite consequence, for the soul,
redeemed by the blood of a God, is of immeasurable value; hence,
according as it has or has not profited by the divine sacrifice, so
will the reward or punishment be infinite; at the final judgment, an
eternity of torment or bliss opens before it. All other interests
vanish alongside of a vision of such vastness. Thenceforth,
righteousness is the most serious of all aims, not in the eyes of man,
but of God and again, day after day, the soul renews within itself
that tragic questioning in which the Judge interrogates and the sinner
responds.- Through this dialogue, which has been going on for eighteen
centuries, and which is yet to continue, conscience has grown more and
more sensitive, and man has conceived the idea of absolute justice.
Whether this is vested in an all-powerful master, or whether it is a
self-existent truth, like mathematical truths, in no way diminishes
its sacredness nor, consequently, from its authority. It commands
with a superior voice and its commands must be obeyed, irrespective of
cost: there are strict duties to which every man is rigorously bound.
No pledge may relieve him of these duties; if not fulfilled because he
has given contrary pledges he is no less culpable on this account, and
besides, he is culpable for having pledged himself; the pledging of
himself to crimes was in itself a crime. His fault thus appears to
himself twofold, and the inward prick galls him twice instead of once.
Hence, the more sensitive the conscience, the more loath it is to give
up; it rejects any promise which may lead to wrong-doing, and refuses
to give to give others any right of imposing remorse.

At the same time another sentiment has arisen, not less valuable, but
hardier, more energetic, more human and more effective. On his own in
his stronghold, the feudal chieftain, at the head of his band, could
depend on nobody but himself, for a public force did not then exist.
It was necessary that he should protect himself, and, indeed, over-
protect himself. Whoever, in the anarchical and military society in
which he lived, allowed the slightest encroachment, or left unpunished
the slightest approach to insult, was regarded as weak or craven and
at once became a prey; one had to be proud-spirited, if not, one
risked death. This was not difficult either. Sole proprietor and
nearly absolute sovereign, with neither equals or peers on his domain,
here he was unique being, superior and incomparable to every one
else.[8] On that subject revolved his long monologue during his hours
of gloomy solitude, which soliloquy has lasted for nine centuries.[9]
Thus in his own eyes, his person and all that depends on him are
inviolable; rather than tolerate the slightest infringement on his
prerogatives he will dare all and sacrifice all.[10] A sensitive pride
(orgueil exalté) is the best of sentinels to protect a right; for, not
only does it mount guard over the right to preserve it, but, again,
and especially, for its own satisfaction; the imagination has
conceived a personality appropriate for his rank, and this character
the man imposes on himself as his role. Henceforth, he not only
forces the respect of others, but he respects himself; he possesses
the sentiment of honor, a generous self-esteem which makes him regard
himself as noble and incapable of doing anything mean. In
discriminating between his actions, he may err; fashion or vanity may
sometimes lead him too far, or lead him astray, either on the path of
recklessness or on that of puerility; his point of honor may be fixed
in the wrong direction. But, in sum, and thanks to this being a fixed
point, he will maintain himself erect even under an absolute monarchy,
under a Philip II. in Spain, under a Louis XIV. in France, under a
Frederick II. in Prussia. From the feudal baron or gentleman of the
court to the modern gentleman, this tradition persists and descends
from story to story down to lowest social substratum: to-day, every
man of spirit, the bourgeois, the peasant, the workman, has his point
of honor like the noble. He likewise, in spite of the social
encroachments that gain on him, reserves to himself his private nook,
a sort of moral stronghold wherein he preserves his faiths, his
opinions, his affections, his obligations as son, husband and father;
it is the sacred treasury of his innermost being. This stronghold
belongs to him alone; no one, even in the name of the public, has a
right to enter it; to surrender it would be cowardice, rather than
give up its keys he would die in the breach;[11] when this militant
sentiment of honor is enlisted on the side of conscience it becomes
virtue itself.[12] - Such are, in these days, (1870) the two central
themes of our European morality.[13] Through the former the
individual recognizes duties from which nothing can exempt him;
through the latter, he claims rights of which nothing can deprive him:
our civilization has vegetated from these two roots, and still
vegetates. Consider the depth and the extent of the historical soil
in which they penetrate, and you may judge of their vigor. Consider
the height and unlimited growth of the trees which they nourish, and
you may judge of their healthiness. Everywhere else, one or other
having failed, in China, in the Roman Empire, in Islam, the sap has
dried downward and the tree has become stunted, or has fallen.... It
is the modern man, who is neither Chinese, nor antique, nor Moslem,
nor Negro, nor savage, the man formed by Christian education and
taking refuge in his conscience as in a sanctuary, the man formed by
feudal education and entrenched behind his honor as in a fortress,
whose sanctuary and stronghold the new social contract bids him
surrender.

Now, in this democracy founded on the preponderance of numbers, into
whose hands am I required to make this surrender? - Theoretically, to
the community, that is to say, to a crowd in which an anonymous
impulse is the substitute for individual judgment; in which action
becomes impersonal because it is collective; in which nobody
acknowledges responsibility; in which I am borne along like a grain of
sand in a whirlwind; in which all sorts of outrages are condoned
beforehand for reasons of state: practically, to the plurality of
voices counted by heads, to a majority which, over-excited by the
struggle for mastery, will abuse its victory and wrong the minority to
which I may belong; to a provisional majority which, sooner or later,
will be replaced by another, so that if I am to-day oppressor I am
sure of being oppressed to-morrow; still more particularly, to six or
seven hundred representatives, among who I am called upon to choose
but one. To elect this unique mandatory I have but one vote among ten
thousand; and in helping to elect him I am only the ten-thousandth; I
do not even count for a ten-thousandth in electing the others. And it
is these six or seven hundred strangers to me to who I give full power
to decide for me - note the expression full power - which means
unlimited power, not alone over my possessions and life, but, again,
over my conscience, with all its powers combined; that is to say, with
powers much more extensive than those I confer separately on ten
persons in whom I place the most confidence - to my legal adviser who
looks after my fortune, to the teacher of my children, to the
physician who cares for my health, to the confessor who directs my
conscience, to friends who are to serve as executors of my last will
and testament, to seconds in a duel who decide on my life, on the was
of my blood and who guard my honor. Without reference to the
deplorable farce, so often played around the ballot-box, or to the
forced and distorted elections which put a contrary interpretation on
public sentiment, or to the official lies by which, at this very
moment, a few fanatics and madmen, who represent nobody but
themselves, assume to represent the nation,[14] measure what degree of
confidence I may have, even after honest elections, in mandatories who
are thus chosen! Frequently, I have voted for the defeated candidate;
in which case I am represented by the other who I did not want for a
representative. In voting for the elected candidate, I did it because
I knew of no better one, and because his opponent seemed to me worse.
I have only seen him one time out of four and then fleetingly, at odd
moment; I scarcely knew more of him than the color of his coat, the
tone of his voice, and the way he has of thumping his breast. All I
know of him is through his "platform," vague and declamatory, through
editorials, and through drawing-room, coffee-house, or street gossip.
His title to my confidence is of the flimsiest and shallowest kind;
there is nothing to substantiate to me his integrity or competency; he
has no diploma, and no one to endorse him as has a private tutor; he
has no guarantee from the society to which he belongs, like the
physician, the priest or the lawyer. With references as poor as these
I should hesitate to recruit him even as a domestic. And all the more
because the class from which I am obliged to take him is almost always
that of politicians, a suspicious class, especially in countries in
which universal suffrage prevails. This class is not recruited among
the most independent, the ablest, and the most honest, but among
voluble, scheming men, zealous charlatans, who for want of
perseverance, having failed in private careers, in situations where
one is watched too closely and too nicely weighed in the balance, have
selected roles in which the want of scrupulousness and discretion is a
force instead of a weakness; to their indelicacy and impudence the
doors of a public career stand wide open. - Such is the august
personage into whose hands, according to the theory, I am called upon
to surrender my will, my will in full; certainly, if self-renunciation
were necessary, I should risk less in giving myself up to a king or to
an aristocracy, even hereditary; for then would my representatives be
at least recommended by their evident rank and their probable
competency. - Democracy, in its nature and composition, is a system
in which the individual awards to his representatives the least trust
and deference; hence, it is the system in which he should entrust them
with the least power. Conscience and honor everywhere enjoin a man to
retain for himself some portion of his independence; but nowhere is
there so little be ceded. If a modern constitution ought to clearly
define and limit the domain of the State, it is in respect of
contemporary democracy that it ought to be the most restrictive.

III.

Origin and nature of the modern State. - Its functions, rights and
limits.

Let us try to define these limits. - After the turmoil of invasions
and conquest, at the height of social disintegration, amidst the
combats daily occurring between private parties, there arose in every
European community a public force , which force, lasting for
centuries, still persists to our day. How it was organized, through
what early stages of violence it passed, through what accidents and
struggles, and into whose hands it is now entrusted, whether
temporarily or forever, whatever the laws of its transmission, whether
by inheritance or election, is of secondary importance; the main thing
is its functions and their mode of operation. It is essentially a
mighty sword, drawn from its scabbard and uplifted over the smaller
blades around it, with which private individuals once cut each others'
throats. Menaced by it, the smaller blades repose in their scabbards;
they have become inert, useless, and, finally rusty; with few
exceptions, everybody save malefactors, has now lost both the habit
and the desire to use them, so that, henceforth, in this pacified
society, the public sword is so formidable that all private resistance
vanishes the moment it flashes. - This sword is forged out of two
interests: it was necessary to have one of its magnitude, first,
against similar blades brandished by other communities on the
frontier, and next, against the smaller blades which bad passions are
always sharpening in the interior. People demanded protection against
outside enemies and inside ruffians and murderers, and, slowly and
painfully, after much groping and much re-tempering, the agreement
between hereditary forces has fashioned the sole arm which is capable
of protecting lives and property with any degree of success. - So
long as it does no more I am indebted to the State which holds the
hilt: it gives me a security which, without it, I could not have
enjoyed. In return for this security I owe it, for my quota, the
means for keeping this weapon in good condition: he who enjoys a
service is under an obligation to pay for it. Accordingly, there is
between the State and myself, if not an express contract, at least a
tacit understanding equivalent to that which binds a child to its
parent, a believer to his church, and, on both sides, this mutual
understanding is clear and precise. The state engages to look after
my security within and without; I engage to furnish the means for so
doing, which means consist of my respect and gratitude, my zeal as a
citizen, my services as a conscript, my contributions as a tax-payer,
in short, whatever is necessary for the maintenance of an army, a
navy, a diplomatic organization, civil and criminal courts, a militia
and police, central and local administrations, in short, a harmonious
set of organs of which my obedience and loyalty constitute the food,
the substance and the blood. This loyalty and obedience, whatever I
am, whether rich or poor, Catholic, Protestant, Jew or free-thinker,
royalist or republican, individualist or socialist, upon my honor and
in my conscience I owe. This because I have received the equivalent;
I am delighted that I am not vanquished, assassinated, or robbed. I
reimburse the State, exactly but not more that which it has spent on
equipment and personnel for keeping down brutal cupidity, greedy
appetites, deadly fanaticism, the entire howling pack of passions and
desires of which, sooner or later, I might become the prey, were it
not constantly to extend over me its vigilant protection. When it
demands its outlay of me it is not my property which it takes away,
but its own property, which it collects and, in this light, it may
legitimately force me to pay. - On condition, however, that it does
not exact more than my liabilities, and this it does when it oversteps
its original engagements;

1. when it undertakes some extra material or moral work that I do not
ask for;
2. when it constitutes itself sectarian, moralist, philanthropist, or
pedagogue;
3. when it strives to propagate within its borders, or outside of
them, any religious or philosophic dogma, or any special political or
social system.
For then, it adds a new article to the primitive pact, for which
article there is not the same unanimous and assured assent that
existed for the pact. We are all willing to be secured against
violence and fraud; outside of this, and on almost any other point,
there are divergent wills. I have my own religion, my own opinions,
my habits, my customs, my peculiar views of life and way of regarding
the universe; now, this is just what constitutes my personality, what
honor and conscience forbid me to alienate, and which the State has
promised me to protect. Consequently, when, through its additional
article, it attempts to regulate these in a certain way, if that way
is not my way, it fails to fulfill its primordial engagement and,
instead of protecting me, it oppresses me. Even if it should have the
support of a majority, even if all voters, less one, should agree to
entrusting it with this supererogatory function, were there only one
dissenter, he would be wronged, and in two ways. -

First of all, and in any event, the State, to fulfill its new tasks,
exacts from him an extra amount of subsidy and service; for, every
supplementary work brings along with it supplementary expenses; the
budget is overburdened when the State takes upon itself the procuring
of work for laborers or employment for artists, the maintenance of any
particular industrial or commercial enterprise, the giving of alms,
and the furnishing of education. To an expenditure of money add an
expenditure of lives, should it enter upon a war of generosity or of
propaganda. Now, to all these expenditures that it does not approve
of, the minority contributes as well as the majority which does
approve of them; so much the worse for the conscript and the tax-payer
if they belong to the dissatisfied group. Like it or not, the
collector puts his hand in the tax-payer's pocket, and the sergeant
lays his hand on the conscript's collar. -

In the second place, and in many circumstances, not only does the
State unjustly take more than its due, but it uses the money it has
extorted from me to apply unjustly new constraints against me. Such
is the case,

* when it imposes on me its theology or philosophy;
* when it prescribes for me, or interdicts, a cult;
* when it assumes to regulate my ways and habits,
* when it assumes to limit my labor or expenditure,
* when it assumes to direct the education of my children,
* when it assumes to fix the prices of my wares or the rate of my
wages.
For then, to enforce its commands and prohibitions, it enacts light or
serious penalties against the recalcitrant, all the way from political
or civil incapacity to fines, imprisonment, exile and the guillotine.
In other words, the money I do not owe it, and of which it robs me,
pays for the persecution which it inflicts upon me; I am reduced to
paying out of my own purse the wages of my inquisitors, my jailer and
my executioner. A more glaring oppression could not be imagined! -
Let us watch out for the encroachments of the State and not allow it
to become anything more than a watch-dog. Whilst the teeth and nails
of other guests in the household have been losing their sharpness, its
fangs have become formidable; it is now colossal and it alone still
keeps up the practice of fighting. Let us supply it with nourishment
against wolves; but never let it touch peaceable folks around the
table. Appetite grows by eating; it would soon become a wolf itself,
and the most ravenous wolf inside the fold. The important thing is to
keep a chain around its neck and confine it within its own enclosure.

IV.

The state is tempted to encroach. - Precedents and reasons for its
pretensions.

Let us go around the fold, which is an extensive one, and, through its
extensions, reach into almost every nook of private life. - Each
private domain, indeed, physical or moral, offers temptations for its
neighbors to trespass on it, and, to keep this intact, demands the
superior intervention of a third party. To acquire, to possess, to
sell, to give, to bequeath, to contract between husband and wife,
father, mother or child, between master or domestic, employer or
employee, each act and each situation, involves rights limited by
contiguous and adverse rights, and it is the State which sets up the
boundary between them. Not that it creates this boundary; but, that
this may be recognized, it draws the line and therefore enacts civil
laws which it applies through its courts and gendarmes in such a way
as to secure to each individual what belongs to him. The State
stands, accordingly, as regulator and controller, not alone of private
possessions, but also of the family and of domestic life; its
authority is thus legitimately introduced into that reserved circle in
which the individual will has entrenched itself, and, as is the habit
of all great powers, once the circle is invaded, its tendency is to
occupy it fully and entirely. - To this end, it invokes a new
principle. Constituted as a moral personality, the same as a church,
university, or charitable or scientific body, is not the State bound,
like every corporate body that is to last for ages, to extend its
vision far and near and prefer to private interests, which are only
life-interests, the common interest (l'intérêt commun) which is
eternal? Is not this the superior end to which all others should be
subordinated, and must this interest, which is supreme over all, be
sacrificed to two troublesome instincts which are often unreasonable
and sometimes dangerous; to conscience, which overflows in mystic
madness, and to honor, which may lead to strife even to murderous
duels? - Certainly not, and first of all when, in its grandest works,
the State, as legislator, regulates marriages, inheritances, and
testaments, then it is not respect for the will of individuals which
solely guides it; it does not content itself with obliging everybody
to pay his debts, including even those which are tacit, involuntary
and innate; it takes into account the public interest; it calculates
remote probabilities, future contingencies, all results singly and
collectively. Manifestly, in allowing or forbidding divorce, in
extending or restricting what a man may dispose of by testament, in
favoring or interdicting substitutions, it is chiefly in view of some
political, economical or social advantage, either to refine or
consolidate the union of the sexes, to implant in the family habits of
discipline or sentiments of affection, to excite in children an
initiatory spirit, or one of concord, to prepare for the nation a
staff of natural chieftains, or an army of small proprietors, and
always authorized by the universal assent. Moreover, and always with
this universal assent, it does other things outside the task
originally assigned to it, and nobody finds that it usurps when,