philosophy of the last century delighted in such questions too much. How
can we demand light from the regions of darkness, and the explanation of
reality from an hypothesis? Why go back to a pretended primitive state
in order to account for a present state which may be studied in itself
in its unquestionable characters? Why seek what may have been in the
germ that which may be perceived, that which it is the question to
understand, completed and perfect? Moreover, there is great peril in
starting with the question of the origin of society. Has such or such an
origin been found? Actual society is arranged according to the type of
the primitive society that has been dreamed of, and political society is
delivered up to the mercy of historical romances. This one imagines that
the primitive state is violence, and he sets out from that in order to
authorize the right of the strongest, and to consecrate despotism. That
one thinks that he has found in the family the first form of society,
and he compares government to the father of a family, and subjects to
children; society in his eyes is a minor that must be held in tutelage
in the hands of the paternal power, which in the origin is absolute, and
consequently, must remain so. Or has one thrown himself to the extreme
of the opposite opinion, and into the hypothesis of an agreement, of a
contract that expresses the will of all or of the greatest number? He
delivers up to the mobile will of the crowd the eternal laws of justice
and the inalienable rights of the person. Finally, are powerful
religious institutions found in the cradle of society? It is hence
concluded, that power belongs of right to priesthoods, which have the
secret of the designs of God, and represent his sovereign authority.
Thus a vicious method in philosophy leads to a deplorable political
system,--the commencement is made in hypothesis, and the termination is
in anarchy or tyranny.
True politics do not depend on more or less well directed historical
researches into the profound night of a past forever vanished, and of
which no vestige subsists: they rest on the knowledge of human nature.
Wherever society is, wherever it was, it has for its foundations:--1st,
The need that we have of our fellow-creatures, and the social instincts
that man bears in himself; 2d, The permanent and indestructible idea and
sentiment of justice and right.
Man, feeble and powerless when he is alone, profoundly feels the need
that he has of the succor of his fellow-creatures in order to develop
his faculties, to embellish his life, and even to preserve it.[238]
Without reflection, without convention, he claims the hand, the
experience, the love of those whom he sees made like himself. The
instinct of society is in the first cry of the child that calls for the
mother's help without knowing that it has a mother, and in the eagerness
of the mother to respond to the cries of the child. It is in the
feelings for others that nature has put in us--pity, sympathy,
benevolence. It is in the attraction of the sexes, in their union, in
the love of parents for their children, and in the ties of every kind
that these first ties engender. If Providence has attached so much
sadness to solitude, so much charm to society, it is because society is
indispensable for the preservation of man and for his happiness, for his
intellect and moral development.
But if need and instinct begin society, it is justice that completes it.
In the presence of another man, without any external law, without any
compact,[239] it is sufficient that I know that he is a man, that is to
say, that he is intelligent and free, in order to know that he has
rights, and to know that I ought to respect his rights as he ought to
respect mine. As he is no freer than I am, nor I than he, we recognize
towards each other equal rights and equal duties. If he abuses his force
to violate the equality of our rights, I know that I have the right to
defend myself and make myself respected; and if a third party is found
between us, without any personal interest in the quarrel, he knows that
it is his right and his duty to use force in order to protect the
feeble, and even to make the oppressor expiate his injustice by a
chastisement. Therein is already seen entire society with its essential
principles,--justice, liberty, equality, government, and punishment.
Justice is the guaranty of liberty. True liberty does not consist in
doing what we will, but in doing what we have a right to do. Liberty of
passion and caprice would have for its consequence the enslavement of
the weakest to the strongest, and the enslavement of the strongest
themselves to their unbridled desires. Man is truly free in the interior
of his consciousness only in resisting passion and obeying justice;
therein also is the type of true social liberty. Nothing is falser than
the opinion that society diminishes our mutual liberty; far from that,
it secures it, develops it: what it suppresses is not liberty; it is its
opposite, passion. Society no more injures liberty than justice, for
society is nothing else than the very idea of justice realized.
In securing liberty, justice secures equality also. If men are unequal
in physical force and intelligence, they are equal in so far as they are
free beings, and consequently equally worthy of respect. All men, when
they bear the sacred character of the moral person, are to be respected,
by the same title, and in the same degree.[240]
The limit of liberty is in liberty itself; the limit of right is in
duty. Liberty is to be respected, but provided it injure not the liberty
of an other. I ought to let you do what you please, but on the condition
that nothing which you do will injure my liberty. For then, in virtue of
my right of liberty, I should regard myself as obligated to repress the
aberrations of your will, in order to protect my own and that of others.
Society guaranties the liberty of each one, and if one citizen attacks
that of another, he is arrested in the name of liberty. For example,
religious liberty is sacred; you may, in the secret of consciousness,
invent for yourself the most extravagant superstition; but if you wish
publicly to inculcate an immoral worship, you threaten the liberty and
reason of your citizens: such preaching is interdicted.
From the necessity of repressing springs the necessity of a constituted
repressive force.
Rigorously, this force is in us; for if I am unjustly attacked, I have
the right to defend myself. But, in the first place, I may not be the
strongest; in the second place, no one is an impartial judge in his own
cause, and what I regard or give out as an act of legitimate defence may
be an act of violence and oppression.
So the protection of the rights of each one demands an impartial and
disinterested force, that may be superior to all particular forces.
This disinterested party, armed with the power necessary to secure and
defend the liberty of all, is called government.
The right of government expresses the rights of all and each. It is the
right of personal defence transferred to a public force, to the profit
of common liberty.
Government is not, then, a power distinct from and independent of
society; it draws from society its whole force. It is not what it has
seemed to two opposite schools of publicists,--to those who sacrifice
society to government,--to those who consider government as the enemy of
society. If government did not represent society, it would be only a
material, illegitimate, and soon powerless force; and without
government, society would be a war of all against all. Society makes
the moral power of government, as government makes the security of
society. Pascal is wrong[241] when he says, that not being able to make
what is just powerful, men have made what is powerful just. Government,
in principle at least, is precisely what Pascal desired,--justice armed
with force.
It is a sad and false political system that places society and
government, authority and liberty, in opposition to each other, by
making them come from two different sources, by presenting them as two
contrary principles. I often hear the principle of authority spoken of
as a principle apart, independent, deriving from itself its force and
legitimacy, and consequently made to rule. No error is deeper and more
dangerous. Thereby it is thought to confirm the principle of authority;
far from that, from it is taken away its solidest foundation.
Authority--that is to say, legitimate and moral authority--is nothing
else than justice, and justice is nothing else than the respect of
liberty; so that there is not therein two different and contrary
opinions, but one and the same principle, of equal certainty and equal
grandeur, under all its forms and in all its applications.
Authority, it is said, comes from God: doubtless; but whence comes
liberty, whence comes humanity? To God must be referred every thing that
is excellent on the earth; and nothing is more excellent than liberty.
Reason, which in man commands liberty, commands it according to its
nature; and the first law that reason imposes on liberty is that of
self-respect.
Authority is so much the stronger as its true title is better
understood; and obedience is the easiest when, instead of degrading, it
honors; when, instead of resembling servitude, it is at once the
condition and guaranty of liberty.
The mission, the end of government, is to make justice, the protector of
the common liberty, reign. Whence it follows, that as long as the
liberty of one citizen does not injure the liberty of another, it
escapes all repression. So government cannot be severe against
falsehood, intemperance, imprudence, levity, avarice, egoism, except
when these vices become prejudicial to others. Moreover, it is not
necessary to confine government within too narrow limits. Government,
which represents society, is also a moral person; it has a heart like
the individual; it has generosity, goodness, charity. There are
legitimate, and even universally admired facts, that are not explained,
if the function of government is reduced to the protection of rights
alone.[242] Government owes to the citizens, in a certain measure, to
guard their well-being, to develop their intelligence, to fortify their
morality, for the interest of society, and even for the interest of
humanity. Hence sometimes for government the formidable right of using
force in order to do good to men. But we are here touching upon that
delicate point where charity inclines to despotism. Too much
intelligence and wisdom, therefore, cannot be demanded in the employment
of a power perhaps necessary, but dangerous.
Now, on what condition is government exercised? Is an act of its own
will sufficient for it in order to employ to its own liking under all
circumstances, as it shall understand them, the power that has been
confided to it? Government must have been thus exercised in early
society, and in the infancy of the art of governing. But the power,
exercised by men, may go astray in different ways, either through
weakness or through excess of force. It must, then, have a rule superior
to itself, a public and known rule, that may be a lesson for the
citizens, and for the government a rein and support: that rule is called
law.
Universal and absolute law is natural justice, which cannot be written,
but speaks to the reason and heart of all. Written laws are the formulas
wherein it is sought to express, with the least possible imperfection,
what natural justice requires in such or such determined circumstances.
If laws propose to express in each thing natural justice, which is
universal and absolute justice, one of the necessary conditions of a
good law is the universality of its character. It is necessary to
examine in an abstract and general manner what is required by justice in
such or such a case, to the end that this case being presented may be
judged according to the rule laid down, without regard to circumstances,
place, time, or person.
The collection of those rules or laws that govern the social relations
of individuals is called positive right. Positive right rests wholly on
natural right, which at once serves as its foundation, measure, and
limit. The supreme law of every positive law is that it be not opposed
to natural law: no law can impose on us a false duty, nor deprive us of
a true right.
The sanction of law is punishment. We have already seen that the right
to punish springs from the idea of demerit.[243] In the universal
order, to God alone it belongs to apply a punishment to all faults,
whatever they may be. In the social order, government is invested with
the right to punish only for the purpose of protecting liberty by
imposing a just reparation on those who violate it. Every fault that is
not contrary to justice, and does not strike at liberty, escapes, then,
social retribution. Neither is the right to punish the right of avenging
one's self. To render evil for evil, to demand an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth, is the barbarous form of a justice without light; for
the evil that I do you will not take away the evil that you have done
me. It is not the pain felt by the victim that demands a corresponding
pain; it is violated justice that imposes on the culpable man the
expiation of suffering. Such is the morality of penalty. The principle
of penalty is not the reparation of damage caused. If I have caused you
damage without intending it, I pay you an indemnity; that is not a
penalty, for I am not culpable; whilst if I have committed a crime, in
spite of the material indemnity for the evil that I have done, I owe a
reparation to justice by a proper suffering, and in that truly consists
the penalty.
What is the exact proportion of chastisements and crimes? This question
cannot receive an absolute solution. What is here immutable, is that the
act opposed to justice merits a punishment, and that the more unjust the
act is, the severer ought to be the punishment. But by the side of the
right to punish is the duty of correcting. To the culprit must be left
the possibility of repairing his crime. The culpable man is still a
man; he is not a thing of which we ought to rid ourselves as soon as it
becomes injurious, a stone that falls on our heads, that we throw into a
gulf that it may wound no more. Man is a rational being, capable of
comprehending good and evil, of repenting, and of being one day
reconciled with order. These truths have given birth to works that honor
the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth.
The conception of houses of correction reminds one of those early times
of Christianity when punishment consisted in an expiation that permitted
the culprit to return through repentance to the ranks of the just. Here
intervenes, as we have just indicated, the principle of charity, which
is very different from the principle of justice. To punish is just, to
ameliorate is charitable. In what measure ought those two principles to
be united? Nothing is more delicate, more difficult to determine. It is
certain that justice ought to govern. In undertaking the amendment of
the culprit, government usurps, with a very generous usurpation, the
rights of religion; but it ought not to go so far as to forget its
proper function and its rigorous duty.
Let us pause on the threshold of politics, properly so called. Nothing
in them but these principles is fixed and invariable; all else is
relative. The constitutions of states have something absolute by their
relation to the inviolable rights which they ought to guarantee; but
they also have a relative side by the variable forms with which they are
clothed, according to times, places, manners, history. The supreme rule
of which philosophy reminds politics, is that politics ought, in
consulting all circumstances, to seek always those social forms and
institutions that best realize those eternal principles. Yes, they are
eternal; because they are drawn from no arbitrary hypothesis, because
they rest on the immutable nature of man, on the all-powerful instincts
of the heart, on the indestructible notion of justice, and the sublime
idea of charity, on the consciousness of person, liberty, and equality,
on duty and right, on merit and demerit. Such are the foundations of
all true society, worthy of the beautiful name of human society, that is
to say, formed of free and rational beings; and such are the maxims that
ought to direct every government worthy of its mission, which knows that
it is not dealing with beasts but with men, which respects them and
loves them.
Thank God, French society has always marched by the light of this
immortal idea, and the dynasty that has been at its head for some
centuries has always guided it in these generous ways. It was Louis le
Gros, who, in the Middle Age, emancipated the communes; it was Philippe
le Bel who instituted parliaments--an independent and gratuitous
justice; it was Henri IV. who began religious liberty; it was Louis
XIII. and Louis XIV. who, while they undertook to give to France her
natural frontiers, and almost succeeded in it, labored to unite more and
more all parts of the nation, to put a regular administration in the
place of feudal anarchy, and to reduce the great vassals to a simple
aristocracy, from day to day deprived of every privilege but that of
serving the common country in the first rank. It was a king of France
who, comprehending the new wants, and associating himself with the
progress of the times, attempted to substitute for that very real, but
confused and formless representative government, that was called the
assemblies of the nobility, the clergy, and the _tiers etat_, the true
representative government that is proper for great civilized nations,--a
glorious and unfortunate attempt that, if royalty had then been served
by a Richelieu, a Mazarin, or a Colbert, might have terminated in a
necessary reform, that, through the fault of every one, ended in a
revolution full of excess, violence, and crime, redeemed and covered by
an incomparable courage, a sincere patriotism, and the most brilliant
triumphs. Finally, it was the brother of Louis XVI. who, enlightened and
not discouraged by the misfortunes of his family, spontaneously gave to
France that liberal and wise constitution of which our fathers had
dreamed, about which Montesquieu had written, which, loyally adhered to,
and necessarily developed, is admirably fitted for the present time,
and sufficient for a long future. We are fortunate in finding in the
Charter the principles that we have just explained, that contain our
views and our hopes for France and humanity.[244]
FOOTNOTES:
[233] See the _Republic_, book iv., vol. ix., of our translation.
[234] On our principal duties towards ourselves, and on that error, too
much accredited in the eighteenth century, of reducing ethics to our
duties towards others, see 1st Series, vol. iii., lectures on the ethics
of Helvetius and Saint-Lambert, lecture vi., p. 235: "To define virtue
an habitual disposition to contribute to the happiness of others, is to
concentrate virtue into a single one of its applications, is to suppress
its general and essential character. Therein is the fundamental vice of
the ethics of the eighteenth century. Those ethics are an exaggerated
reaction against the somewhat mystical ethics of the preceding age,
which, rightly occupied with perfecting the internal man, often fell
into asceticism, which is not only useless to others, but is contrary to
well-ordered human life. Through fear of asceticism, the philosophy of
the eighteenth century forgot the care of internal perfection, and only
considered the virtues useful to society. That was retrenching many
virtues, and the best ones. I take, for example, dominion over self. How
make a virtue of it, when virtue is defined a _disposition to contribute
to the happiness of others_? Will it be said that dominion over self is
useful to others? But that is not always true; often this dominion is
exercised in the solitude of the soul over internal and wholly personal
movements; and there it is most painful and most sublime. Were we in a
desert, it would still be for us a duty to resist our passions, to
command ourselves, and to govern our life as it becomes a rational and
free being. Beneficence is an adorable virtue, but it is neither the
whole of virtue, nor its most difficult employment. What auxiliaries we
have when the question is to do good to our fellow-creatures,--pity,
sympathy, natural benevolence! But to resist pride and envy, to combat
in the depths of the soul a natural desire legitimate in itself, often
culpable in its excesses, to suffer and struggle in silence, is the
hardest task of a virtuous man. I add that the virtues useful to others
have their surest guaranty in those personal virtues that the eighteenth
century misconceived. What are goodness, generosity, and beneficence
without dominion over self, without the form of soul attached to the
religious observance of duty? They are, perhaps, only the emotions of a
beautiful nature placed in fortunate circumstances. Take away these
circumstances, and, perhaps, the effects will disappear or be
diminished. But when a man, who knows himself to be a rational and free
being, comprehends that it is his duty to remain faithful to liberty and
reason, when he applies himself to govern himself, and pursue, without
cessation, the perfection of his nature through all circumstances, you
may rely upon that man; he will know how, in case of need, to be useful
to others, because there is no true perfection for him without justice
and charity. From the care of internal perfection you may draw all the
useful virtues, but the reciprocal is not always true. One may be
beneficent without being virtuous; one is not virtuous without being
beneficent."
[235] On the true foundation of property see the preceding lecture.
[236] Voluntary servitude is little better than servitude imposed by
force. See 1st Series, vol. iii., lecture 4, p. 240: "Had another the
desire to serve us as a slave, without conditions and without limits, to
be for us a thing for our use, a pure instrument, a staff, a vase, and
had we also the desire to make use of him in this manner, and to let him
serve us in the same way, this reciprocity of desires would authorize
for neither of us this absolute sacrifice, because desire can never be
the title of a right, because there is something in us that is above all
desires, participated or not participated, to wit, duty and
right,--justice. To justice it belongs to be the rule of our desires,
and not to our desires to be the rule of justice. Should entire humanity
forget its dignity, should it consent to its own degradation, should it
extend the hand to slavery, tyranny would be none the more legitimate;
eternal justice would protest against a contract, which, were it
supported by desires, reciprocal desires most authentically expressed
and converted into solemn laws, is none the less void of all right,
because, as Bossuet very truly said, there is no right against right, no
contracts, no conventions, no human laws against the law of laws,
against natural law."