Contrat Social.
In such succession of singular prismatic tints, flush after flush
suffusing our horizon, does the Era of Hope dawn on towards
fulfilment. Questionable! As indeed, with an Era of Hope that
rests on mere universal Benevolence, victorious Analysis, Vice
cured of its deformity; and, in the long run, on Twenty-five dark
savage Millions, looking up, in hunger and weariness, to that
_Ecce-signum_ of theirs “forty feet high,”—how could it but be
questionable?
Through all time, if we read aright, sin was, is, will be, the
parent of misery. This land calls itself most Christian, and has
crosses and cathedrals; but its High-priest is some Roche-Aymon,
some Necklace-Cardinal Louis de Rohan. The voice of the poor,
through long years, ascends inarticulate, in _Jacqueries_,
meal-mobs; low-whimpering of infinite moan: unheeded of the
Earth; not unheeded of Heaven. Always moreover where the Millions
are wretched, there are the Thousands straitened, unhappy; only
the Units can flourish; or say rather, be ruined the last.
Industry, all noosed and haltered, as if it too were some beast
of chase for the mighty hunters of this world to bait, and cut
slices from,—cries passionately to these its well-paid guides and
watchers, not, _Guide me;_ but, _Laissez faire,_ Leave me alone
of _your_ guidance! What market has Industry in this France? For
two things there may be market and demand: for the coarser kind
of field-fruits, since the Millions will live: for the fine kinds
of luxury and spicery,—of multiform taste, from opera-melodies
down to racers and courtesans; since the Units will be amused. It
is at bottom but a mad state of things.
To mend and remake all which we have, indeed, victorious
Analysis. Honour to victorious Analysis; nevertheless, out of the
Workshop and Laboratory, what thing was victorious Analysis yet
known to make? Detection of incoherences, mainly; destruction of
the incoherent. From of old, Doubt was but half a magician; she
evokes the spectres which she cannot quell. We shall have
“endless vortices of froth-logic;” whereon first words, and then
things, are whirled and swallowed. Remark, accordingly, as
acknowledged grounds of Hope, at bottom mere precursors of
Despair, this perpetual theorising about Man, the Mind of Man,
Philosophy of Government, Progress of the Species and such-like;
the main thinking furniture of every head. Time, and so many
Montesquieus, Mablys, spokesmen of Time, have discovered
innumerable things: and now has not Jean Jacques promulgated his
new Evangel of a _Contrat Social;_ explaining the whole mystery
of Government, and how it is _contracted_ and bargained for,—to
universal satisfaction? Theories of Government! Such have been,
and will be; in ages of decadence. Acknowledge them in their
degree; as processes of Nature, who does nothing in vain; as
steps in her great process. Meanwhile, what theory is so certain
as this, That all theories, were they never so earnest, painfully
elaborated, are, and, by the very conditions of them, must be
incomplete, questionable, and even false? Thou shalt know that
this Universe is, what it professes to be, an _infinite_ one.
Attempt not to swallow _it_, for thy logical digestion; be
thankful, if skilfully planting down this and the other fixed
pillar in the chaos, thou prevent its swallowing _thee_. That a
new young generation has exchanged the Sceptic Creed, _What shall
I believe?_ for passionate Faith in this Gospel according to Jean
Jacques is a further step in the business; and betokens much.
Blessed also is Hope; and always from the beginning there was
some Millennium prophesied; Millennium of Holiness; but (what is
notable) never till this new Era, any Millennium of mere Ease and
plentiful Supply. In such prophesied Lubberland, of Happiness,
Benevolence, and Vice cured of its deformity, trust not, my
friends! Man is not what one calls a happy animal; his appetite
for sweet victual is so enormous. How, in this wild Universe,
which storms in on him, infinite, vague-menacing, shall poor man
find, say not happiness, but existence, and footing to stand on,
if it be not by girding himself together for continual endeavour
and endurance? Woe, if in his heart there dwelt no devout Faith;
if the word Duty had lost its meaning for him! For as to this of
Sentimentalism, so useful for weeping with over romances and on
pathetic occasions, it otherwise verily will avail nothing; nay
less. The healthy heart that said to itself, “How healthy am I!”
was already fallen into the fatalest sort of disease. Is not
Sentimentalism twin-sister to Cant, if not one and the same with
it? Is not Cant the _materia prima_ of the Devil; from which all
falsehoods, imbecilities, abominations body themselves; from
which no true thing _can_ come? For Cant is itself properly a
double-distilled Lie; the second-power of a Lie.
And now if a whole Nation fall into that? In such case, I answer,
infallibly they will return out of it! For life is no
cunningly-devised deception or self-deception: it is a great
truth that thou art alive, that thou hast desires, necessities;
neither can these subsist and satisfy themselves on delusions,
but on fact. To fact, depend on it, we shall come back: to such
fact, blessed or cursed, as we have wisdom for. The lowest, least
blessed fact one knows of, on which necessitous mortals have ever
based themselves, seems to be the primitive one of Cannibalism:
That _I_ can devour _Thee_. What if such Primitive Fact were
precisely the one we had (with our improved methods) to revert
to, and begin anew from!