If ever sectarians had the right to reproach another for changes in

his beliefs, this right certainly does not belong to the disciples of

Fourier, who are always so eager to administer the phalansterian baptism

to the deserters of all parties. But why regard it as a crime, if they

are sincere? Of what consequence is the constancy or inconstancy of

an individual to the truth which is always the same? It is better

to enlighten men's minds than to teach them to be obstinate in their

prejudices. Do we not know that man is frail and fickle, that his heart

is full of delusions, and that his lips are a distillery of falsehood?

_Omnis homo meudax_. Whether we will or no, we all serve for a time as

instruments of this truth, whose kingdom comes every day.

God alone is immutable, because he is eternal.

That is the reply which, as a general rule, an honest man is entitled

always to make, and which I ought perhaps to be content to offer as an

excuse; for I am no better than my fathers. But, in a century of doubt

and apostasy like ours, when it is of importance to set the small and

the weak an example of strength and honesty of utterance, I must not

suffer my character as a public assailant of property to be dishonored.

I must render an account of my old opinions.

Examining myself, therefore, upon this charge of Fourierism, and

endeavoring to refresh my memory, I find that, having been connected

with the Fourierists in my studies and my friendships, it is possible

that, without knowing it, I have been one of Fourier's partisans. Jerome

Lalande placed Napoleon and Jesus Christ in his catalogue of atheists.

The Fourierists resemble this astronomer: if a man happens to find fault

with the existing civilization, and to admit the truth of a few of their

criticisms, they straightway enlist him, willy-nilly, in their school.

Nevertheless, I do not deny that I have been a Fourierist; for,

since they say it, of course it may be so. But, sir, that of which my

ex-associates are ignorant, and which doubtless will astonish you, is

that I have been many other things,--in religion, by turns a Protestant,

a Papist, an Arian and Semi-Arian, a Manichean, a Gnostic, an

Adamite even and a Pre-Adamite, a Sceptic, a Pelagian, a Socinian, an

Anti-Trinitarian, and a Neo-Christian; [72] in philosophy and politics,

an Idealist, a Pantheist, a Platonist, a Cartesian, an Eclectic

(that is, a sort of _juste-milieu_), a Monarchist, an Aristocrat,

a Constitutionalist, a follower of Babeuf, and a Communist. I have

wandered through a whole encyclopaedia of systems. Do you think

it surprising, sir, that, among them all, I was for a short time a

Fourierist?

For my part, I am not at all surprised, although at present I have

no recollection of it. One thing is sure,--that my superstition and

credulity reached their height at the very period of my life which my

critics reproachfully assign as the date of my Fourieristic beliefs.

Now I hold quite other views. My mind no longer admits that which is

demonstrated by syllogisms, analogies, or metaphors, which are the

methods of the phalanstery, but demands a process of generalization and

induction which excludes error. Of my past OPINIONSS I retain absolutely

none. I have acquired some KNOWLEDGE. I no longer BELIEVE. I either

KNOW, or am IGNORANT. In a word, in seeking for the reason of things, I

saw that I was a RATIONALIST.

Undoubtedly, it would have been simpler to begin where I have ended.

But then, if such is the law of the human mind; if all society, for six

thousand years, has done nothing but fall into error; if all mankind are

still buried in the darkness of faith, deceived by their prejudices and

passions, guided only by the instinct of their leaders; if my accusers,

themselves, are not free from sectarianism (for they call themselves

FOURIERISTS),--am I alone inexcusable for having, in my inner self, at

the secret tribunal of my conscience, begun anew the journey of our poor

humanity?

I would by no means, then, deny my errors; but, sir, that which

distinguishes me from those who rush into print is the fact that, though

my thoughts have varied much, my writings do not vary. To-day, even, and

on a multitude of questions, I am beset by a thousand extravagant and

contradictory opinions; but my opinions I do not print, for the public

has nothing to do with them. Before addressing my fellow-men, I wait

until light breaks in upon the chaos of my ideas, in order that what I

may say may be, not the whole truth (no man can know that), but nothing

but the truth.

This singular disposition of my mind to first identify itself with a

system in order to better understand it, and then to reflect upon it in

order to test its legitimacy, is the very thing which disgusted me with

Fourier, and ruined in my esteem the societary school. To be a faithful

Fourierist, in fact, one must abandon his reason and accept every

thing from a master,--doctrine, interpretation, and application. M.

Considerant, whose excessive intolerance anathematizes all who do not

abide by his sovereign decisions, has no other conception of Fourierism.

Has he not been appointed Fourier's vicar on earth and pope of a Church

which, unfortunately for its apostles, will never be of this world?

Passive belief is the theological virtue of all sectarians, especially

of the Fourierists.

Now, this is what happened to me. While trying to demonstrate by

argument the religion of which I had become a follower in studying

Fourier, I suddenly perceived that by reasoning I was becoming

incredulous; that on each article of the creed my reason and my faith

were at variance, and that my six weeks' labor was wholly lost. I saw

that the Fourierists--in spite of their inexhaustible gabble, and their

extravagant pretension to decide in all things--were neither savants,

nor logicians, nor even believers; that they were SCIENTIFIC QUACKS, who

were led more by their self-love than their conscience to labor for the

triumph of their sect, and to whom all means were good that would reach

that end. I then understood why to the Epicureans they promised women,

wine, music, and a sea of luxury; to the rigorists, maintenance of

marriage, purity of morals, and temperance; to laborers, high wages;

to proprietors, large incomes; to philosophers, solutions the secret

of which Fourier alone possessed; to priests, a costly religion and

magnificent festivals; to savants, knowledge of an unimaginable nature;

to each, indeed, that which he most desired. In the beginning,

this seemed to me droll; in the end, I regarded it as the height of

impudence. No, sir; no one yet knows of the foolishness and infamy which

the phalansterian system contains. That is a subject which I mean to

treat as soon as I have balanced my accounts with property. [73]

It is rumored that the Fourierists think of leaving France and going to

the new world to found a phalanstery. When a house threatens to fall,

the rats scamper away; that is because they are rats. Men do better;

they rebuild it. Not long since, the St. Simonians, despairing of their

country which paid no heed to them, proudly shook the dust from their

feet, and started for the Orient to fight the battle of free woman.

Pride, wilfulness, mad selfishness! True charity, like true faith,

does not worry, never despairs; it seeks neither its own glory, nor

its interest, nor empire; it does every thing for all, speaks with

indulgence to the reason and the will, and desires to conquer only by

persuasion and sacrifice. Remain in France, Fourierists, if the progress

of humanity is the only thing which you have at heart! There is more to

do here than in the new world. Otherwise, go! you are nothing but liars

and hypocrites!

The foregoing statement by no means embraces all the political elements,

all the opinions and tendencies, which threaten the future of property;

but it ought to satisfy any one who knows how to classify facts, and to

deduce their law or the idea which governs them. Existing society seems

abandoned to the demon of falsehood and discord; and it is this sad

sight which grieves so deeply many distinguished minds who lived too

long in a former age to be able to understand ours. Now, while the

short-sighted spectator begins to despair of humanity, and, distracted

and cursing that of which he is ignorant, plunges into scepticism and

fatalism, the true observer, certain of the spirit which governs

the world, seeks to comprehend and fathom Providence. The memoir on

"Property," published last year by the pensioner of the Academy of

Besancon, is simply a study of this nature.

The time has come for me to relate the history of this unlucky treatise,

which has already caused me so much chagrin, and made me so unpopular;

but which was on my part so involuntary and unpremeditated, that I would

dare to affirm that there is not an economist, not a philosopher, not a

jurist, who is not a hundred times guiltier than I. There is something

so singular in the way in which I was led to attack property, that if,

on hearing my sad story, you persist, sir, in your blame, I hope at

least you will be forced to pity me.

I never have pretended to be a great politician; far from that, I always

have felt for controversies of a political nature the greatest aversion;

and if, in my "Essay on Property," I have sometimes ridiculed our

politicians, believe, sir, that I was governed much less by my pride

in the little that I know, than by my vivid consciousness of their

ignorance and excessive vanity. Relying more on Providence than on

men; not suspecting at first that politics, like every other science,

contained an absolute truth; agreeing equally well with Bossuet and

Jean Jacques,--I accepted with resignation my share of human misery,

and contented myself with praying to God for good deputies, upright

ministers, and an honest king. By taste as well as by discretion and

lack of confidence in my powers, I was slowly pursuing some commonplace

studies in philology, mingled with a little metaphysics, when I suddenly

fell upon the greatest problem that ever has occupied philosophical

minds: I mean the criterion of certainty.

Those of my readers who are unacquainted with the philosophical

terminology will be glad to be told in a few words what this criterion

is, which plays so great a part in my work.

The criterion of certainty, according to the philosophers, will be,

when discovered, an infallible method of establishing the truth of an

opinion, a judgment, a theory, or a system, in nearly the same way as

gold is recognized by the touchstone, as iron approaches the magnet,

or, better still, as we verify a mathematical operation by applying

the PROOF. TIME has hitherto served as a sort of criterion for society.

Thus, the primitive men--having observed that they were not all equal

in strength, beauty, and labor--judged, and rightly, that certain ones

among them were called by nature to the performance of simple and common

functions; but they concluded, and this is where their error lay, that

these same individuals of duller intellect, more restricted genius, and

weaker personality, were predestined to SERVE the others; that is, to

labor while the latter rested, and to have no other will than theirs:

and from this idea of a natural subordination among men sprang

domesticity, which, voluntarily accepted at first, was imperceptibly

converted into horrible slavery. Time, making this error more palpable,

has brought about justice. Nations have learned at their own cost that

the subjection of man to man is a false idea, an erroneous theory,

pernicious alike to master and to slave. And yet such a social system

has stood several thousand years, and has been defended by celebrated

philosophers; even to-day, under somewhat mitigated forms, sophists of

every description uphold and extol it. But experience is bringing it to

an end.

Time, then, is the criterion of societies; thus looked at, history is

the demonstration of the errors of humanity by the argument _reductio ad

absurdum_.

Now, the criterion sought for by metaphysicians would have the advantage

of discriminating at once between the true and the false in every

opinion; so that in politics, religion, and morals, for example, the

true and the useful being immediately recognized, we should no longer

need to await the sorrowful experience of time. Evidently such a secret

would be death to the sophists,--that cursed brood, who, under different

names, excite the curiosity of nations, and, owing to the difficulty

of separating the truth from the error in their artistically woven

theories, lead them into fatal ventures, disturb their peace, and fill

them with such extraordinary prejudice.

Up to this day, the criterion of certainty remains a mystery; this is

owing to the multitude of criteria that have been successively proposed.

Some have taken for an absolute and definite criterion the testimony

of the senses; others intuition; these evidence; those argument. M.

Lamennais affirms that there is no other criterion than universal

reason. Before him, M. de Bonald thought he had discovered it in

language. Quite recently, M. Buchez has proposed morality; and, to

harmonize them all, the eclectics have said that it was absurd to seek

for an absolute criterion, since there were as many criteria as special

orders of knowledge.

Of all these hypotheses it may be observed, That the testimony of the

senses is not a criterion, because the senses, relating us only to

phenomena, furnish us with no ideas; that intuition needs external

confirmation or objective certainty; that evidence requires proof, and

argument verification; that universal reason has been wrong many a time;

that language serves equally well to express the true or the false; that

morality, like all the rest, needs demonstration and rule; and finally,

that the eclectic idea is the least reasonable of all, since it is of no

use to say that there are several criteria if we cannot point out one.

I very much fear that it will be with the criterion as with the

philosopher's stone; that it will finally be abandoned, not only as

insolvable, but as chimerical. Consequently, I entertain no hopes of

having found it; nevertheless, I am not sure that some one more skilful

will not discover it.

Be it as it may with regard to a criterion or criteria, there are

methods of demonstration which, when applied to certain subjects,

may lead to the discovery of unknown truths, bring to light relations

hitherto unsuspected, and lift a paradox to the highest degree of

certainty. In such a case, it is not by its novelty, nor even by its

content, that a system should be judged, but by its method. The critic,

then, should follow the example of the Supreme Court, which, in the

cases which come before it, never examines the facts, but only the form

of procedure. Now, what is the form of procedure? A method.

I then looked to see what philosophy, in the absence of a criterion, had

accomplished by the aid of special methods, and I must say that I

could not discover--in spite of the loudly-proclaimed pretensions

of some--that it had produced any thing of real value; and, at last,

wearied with the philosophical twaddle, I resolved to make a new search

for the criterion. I confess it, to my shame, this folly lasted for two

years, and I am not yet entirely rid of it. It was like seeking a needle

in a haystack. I might have learned Chinese or Arabic in the time that I

have lost in considering and reconsidering syllogisms, in rising to

the summit of an induction as to the top of a ladder, in inserting

a proposition between the horns of a dilemma, in decomposing,

distinguishing, separating, denying, affirming, admitting, as if I could

pass abstractions through a sieve.

I selected justice as the subject-matter of my experiments.

Finally, after a thousand decompositions, recompositions, and double

compositions, I found at the bottom of my analytical crucible, not the

criterion of certainty, but a metaphysico-economico-political treatise,

whose conclusions were such that I did not care to present them in a

more artistic or, if you will, more intelligible form. The effect which

this work produced upon all classes of minds gave me an idea of the

spirit of our age, and did not cause me to regret the prudent and

scientific obscurity of my style. How happens it that to-day I am

obliged to defend my intentions, when my conduct bears the evident

impress of such lofty morality?

You have read my work, sir, and you know the gist of my tedious and

scholastic lucubrations. Considering the revolutions of humanity,

the vicissitudes of empires, the transformations of property, and the

innumerable forms of justice and of right, I asked, "Are the evils which

afflict us inherent in our condition as men, or do they arise only from

an error? This inequality of fortunes which all admit to be the cause of

society's embarrassments, is it, as some assert, the effect of Nature;

or, in the division of the products of labor and the soil, may there not

have been some error in calculation? Does each laborer receive all that

is due him, and only that which is due him? In short, in the present

conditions of labor, wages, and exchange, is no one wronged?--are the

accounts well kept?--is the social balance accurate?"

Then I commenced a most laborious investigation. It was necessary to

arrange informal notes, to discuss contradictory titles, to reply to

captious allegations, to refute absurd pretensions, and to describe

fictitious debts, dishonest transactions, and fraudulent accounts. In

order to triumph over quibblers, I had to deny the authority of custom,

to examine the arguments of legislators, and to oppose science with

science itself. Finally, all these operations completed, I had to give a

judicial decision.

I therefore declared, my hand upon my heart, before God and men, that

the causes of social inequality are three in number: 1. GRATUITOUS

APPROPRIATION OF COLLECTIVE WEALTH; 2. INEQUALITY IN EXCHANGE; 3. THE

RIGHT OF PROFIT OR INCREASE.

And since this threefold method of extortion is the very essence of the

domain of property, I denied the legitimacy of property, and proclaimed

its identity with robbery.

That is my only offence. I have reasoned upon property; I have searched

for the criterion of justice; I have demonstrated, not the possibility,

but the necessity, of equality of fortunes; I have allowed myself no

attack upon persons, no assault upon the government, of which I, more

than any one else, am a provisional adherent. If I have sometimes

used the word PROPRIETOR, I have used it as the abstract name of a

metaphysical being, whose reality breathes in every individual,--not

alone in a privileged few.

Nevertheless, I acknowledge--for I wish my confession to be

sincere--that the general tone of my book has been bitterly censured.

They complain of an atmosphere of passion and invective unworthy of

an honest man, and quite out of place in the treatment of so grave a

subject.

If this reproach is well founded (which it is impossible for me either

to deny or admit, because in my own cause I cannot be judge),--if, I

say, I deserve this charge, I can only humble myself and acknowledge

myself guilty of an involuntary wrong; the only excuse that I could

offer being of such a nature that it ought not to be communicated to the

public. All that I can say is, that I understand better than any one how

the anger which injustice causes may render an author harsh and violent

in his criticisms. When, after twenty years of labor, a man still finds

himself on the brink of starvation, and then suddenly discovers in

an equivocation, an error in calculation, the cause of the evil which

torments him in common with so many millions of his fellows, he can

scarcely restrain a cry of sorrow and dismay.

But, sir, though pride be offended by my rudeness, it is not to pride

that I apologize, but to the proletaires, to the simple-minded, whom I

perhaps have scandalized. My angry dialectics may have produced a bad

effect on some peaceable minds. Some poor workingman--more affected

by my sarcasm than by the strength of my arguments--may, perhaps, have

concluded that property is the result of a perpetual Machiavelianism on

the part of the governors against the governed,--a deplorable error of

which my book itself is the best refutation. I devoted two chapters to

showing how property springs from human personality and the comparison

of individuals. Then I explained its perpetual limitation; and,

following out the same idea, I predicted its approaching disappearance.

How, then, could the editors of the "Revue Democratique," after

having borrowed from me nearly the whole substance of their economical

articles, dare to say: "The holders of the soil, and other productive

capital, are more or less wilful accomplices in a vast robbery, they

being the exclusive receivers and sharers of the stolen goods"?

The proprietors WILFULLY guilty of the crime of robbery! Never did

that homicidal phrase escape my pen; never did my heart conceive the

frightful thought. Thank Heaven! I know not how to calumniate my kind;

and I have too strong a desire to seek for the reason of things to be

willing to believe in criminal conspiracies. The millionnaire is no more

tainted by property than the journeyman who works for thirty sous per

day. On both sides the error is equal, as well as the intention. The

effect is also the same, though positive in the former, and negative

in the latter. I accused property; I did not denounce the proprietors,

which would have been absurd: and I am sorry that there are among us

wills so perverse and minds so shattered that they care for only so much

of the truth as will aid them in their evil designs. Such is the

only regret which I feel on account of my indignation, which, though

expressed perhaps too bitterly, was at least honest, and legitimate in

its source.

However, what did I do in this essay which I voluntarily submitted

to the Academy of Moral Sciences? Seeking a fixed axiom amid social

uncertainties, I traced back to one fundamental question all the

secondary questions over which, at present, so keen and diversified

a conflict is raging This question was the right of property. Then,

comparing all existing theories with each other, and extracting from

them that which is common to them all, I endeavored to discover that

element in the idea of property which is necessary, immutable, and

absolute; and asserted, after authentic verification, that this idea

is reducible to that of INDIVIDUAL AND TRANSMISSIBLE POSSESSION;

SUSCEPTIBLE OF EXCHANGE, BUT NOT OF ALIENATION; FOUNDED ON LABOR, AND

NOT ON FICTITIOUS OCCUPANCY, OR IDLE CAPRICE. I said, further, that this

idea was the result of our revolutionary movements,--the culminating

point towards which all opinions, gradually divesting themselves of

their contradictory elements, converge. And I tried to demonstrate

this by the spirit of the laws, by political economy, by psychology and

history.

A Father of the Church, finishing a learned exposition of the Catholic

doctrine, cried, in the enthusiasm of his faith, _"Domine, si error est,

a te decepti sumus_ (if my religion is false, God is to blame)." I, as

well as this theologian, can say, "If equality is a fable, God, through

whom we act and think and are; God, who governs society by eternal laws,

who rewards just nations, and punishes proprietors,--God alone is the

author of evil; God has lied. The fault lies not with me."

But, if I am mistaken in my inferences, I should be shown my error, and

led out of it. It is surely worth the trouble, and I think I deserve

this honor. There is no ground for proscription.

For, in the words of that member of the Convention who did not like

the guillotine, _to kill is not to reply_. Until then, I persist in

regarding my work as useful, social, full of instruction for public

officials,--worthy, in short, of reward and encouragement.

For there is one truth of which I am profoundly convinced,--nations

live by absolute ideas, not by approximate and partial conceptions;

therefore, men are needed who define principles, or at least test them

in the fire of controversy. Such is the law,--the idea first, the pure

idea, the understanding of the laws of God, the theory: practice follows

with slow steps, cautious, attentive to the succession of events; sure

to seize, towards this eternal meridian, the indications of supreme

reason.

The co-operation of theory and practice produces in humanity the

realization of order,--the absolute truth. [74]

All of us, as long as we live, are called, each in proportion to his

strength, to this sublime work. The only duty which it imposes upon

us is to refrain from appropriating the truth to ourselves, either by

concealing it, or by accommodating it to the temper of the century,

or by using it for our own interests. This principle of conscience, so

grand and so simple, has always been present in my thought.

Consider, in fact, sir, that which I might have done, but did not wish

to do. I reason on the most honorable hypothesis. What hindered me from

concealing, for some years to come, the abstract theory of the equality

of fortunes, and, at the same time, from criticising constitutions and

codes; from showing the absolute and the contingent, the immutable and

the ephemeral, the eternal and the transitory, in laws present and past;

from constructing a new system of legislation, and establishing on

a solid foundation this social edifice, ever destroyed and as often

rebuilt? Might I not, taking up the definitions of casuists, have

clearly shown the cause of their contradictions and uncertainties, and

supplied, at the same time, the inadequacies of their conclusions? Might

I not have confirmed this labor by a vast historical exposition, in

which the principle of exclusion, and of the accumulation of property,

the appropriation of collective wealth, and the radical vice in

exchanges, would have figured as the constant causes of tyranny, war,

and revolution?

"It should have been done," you say. Do not doubt, sir, that such a task

would have required more patience than genius. With the principles of

social economy which I have analyzed, I would have had only to break

the ground, and follow the furrow. The critic of laws finds nothing more

difficult than to determine justice: the labor alone would have been

longer. Oh, if I had pursued this glittering prospect, and, like the

man of the burning bush, with inspired countenance and deep and solemn

voice, had presented myself some day with new tables, there would have

been found fools to admire, boobies to applaud, and cowards to offer me

the dictatorship; for, in the way of popular infatuations, nothing is

impossible.

But, sir, after this monument of insolence and pride, what should I have

deserved in your opinion, at the tribunal of God, and in the judgment of

free men? Death, sir, and eternal reprobation!

I therefore spoke the truth as soon as I saw it, waiting only long

enough to give it proper expression. I pointed out error in order

that each might reform himself, and render his labors more useful. I

announced the existence of a new political element, in order that

my associates in reform, developing it in concert, might arrive more

promptly at that unity of principles which alone can assure to society

a better day. I expected to receive, if not for my book, at least for

my commendable conduct, a small republican ovation. And, behold!

journalists denounce me, academicians curse me, political adventurers

(great God!) think to make themselves tolerable by protesting that they

are not like me! I give the formula by which the whole social edifice

may be scientifically reconstructed, and the strongest minds reproach

me for being able only to destroy. The rest despise me, because I am

unknown. When the "Essay on Property" fell into the reformatory camp,

some asked: "Who has spoken? Is it Arago? Is it Lamennais? Michel de

Bourges or Garnier-Pages?"

And when they heard the name of a new man: "We do not know him,"

they would reply. Thus, the monopoly of thought, property in reason,

oppresses the proletariat as well as the _bourgeoisie_. The worship of

the infamous prevails even on the steps of the tabernacle.

But what am I saying? May evil befall me, if I blame the poor creatures!

Oh! let us not despise those generous souls, who in the excitement of

their patriotism are always prompt to identify the voice of their

chiefs with the truth. Let us encourage rather their simple credulity,

enlighten complacently and tenderly their precious sincerity, and

reserve our shafts for those vain-glorious spirits who are always

admiring their genius, and, in different tongues, caressing the people

in order to govern them.

These considerations alone oblige me to reply to the strange and

superficial conclusions of the "Journal du Peuple" (issue of Oct. 11,

1840), on the question of property. I leave, therefore, the journalist

to address myself only to his readers. I hope that the self-love of the

writer will not be offended, if, in the presence of the masses, I ignore

an individual.

You say, proletaires of the "Peuple," "For the very reason that men and

things exist, there always will be men who will possess things; nothing,

therefore, can destroy property."

In speaking thus, you unconsciously argue exactly after the manner of

M. Cousin, who always reasons from _possession_ to PROPERTY. This

coincidence, however, does not surprise me. M. Cousin is a philosopher

of much mind, and you, proletaires, have still more. Certainly it is

honorable, even for a philosopher, to be your companion in error.

Originally, the word PROPERTY was synonymous with PROPER or INDIVIDUAL

POSSESSION. It designated each individual's special right to the use of

a thing. But when this right of use, inert (if I may say so) as it

was with regard to the other usufructuaries, became active and

paramount,--that is, when the usufructuary converted his right to

personally use the thing into the right to use it by his neighbor's

labor,--then property changed its nature, and its idea became complex.

The legists knew this very well, but instead of opposing, as they ought,

this accumulation of profits, they accepted and sanctioned the whole.

And as the right of farm-rent necessarily implies the right of use,--in

other words, as the right to cultivate land by the labor of a slave

supposes one's power to cultivate it himself, according to the principle

that the greater includes the less,--the name property was reserved

to designate this double right, and that of possession was adopted to

designate the right of use.

Whence property came to be called the perfect right, the right of

domain, the eminent right, the heroic or _quiritaire_ right,--in Latin,

_jus perfectum, jus optimum, jus quiritarium, jus dominii_,--while

possession became assimilated to farm-rent.

Now, that individual possession exists of right, or, better,

from natural necessity, all philosophers admit, and can easily e

demonstrated; but when, in imitation of M. Cousin, we assume it to be

the basis of the domain of property, we fall into the sophism called

_sophisma amphiboliae vel ambiguitatis_, which consists in changing the

meaning by a verbal equivocation.

People often think themselves very profound, because, by the aid of

expressions of extreme generality, they appear to rise to the height

of absolute ideas, and thus deceive inexperienced minds; and, what

is worse, this is commonly called EXAMINING ABSTRACTIONS. But the

abstraction formed by the comparison of identical facts is one thing,

while that which is deduced from different acceptations of the same term

is quite another. The first gives the universal idea, the axiom, the

law; the second indicates the order of generation of ideas. All

our errors arise from the constant confusion of these two kinds of

abstractions. In this particular, languages and philosophies are alike

deficient. The less common an idiom is, and the more obscure its

terms, the more prolific is it as a source of error: a philosopher is

sophistical in proportion to his ignorance of any method of neutralizing

this imperfection in language. If the art of correcting the errors of

speech by scientific methods is ever discovered, then philosophy will

have found its criterion of certainty.

Now, then, the difference between property and possession being well

established, and it being settled that the former, for the reasons

which I have just given, must necessarily disappear, is it best, for the

slight advantage of restoring an etymology, to retain the word PROPERTY?

My opinion is that it would be very unwise to do so, and I will tell

why. I quote from the "Journal du Peuple:"--

"To the legislative power belongs the right to regulate property, to

prescribe the conditions of acquiring, possessing, and transmitting

it... It cannot be denied that inheritance, assessment, commerce,

industry, labor, and wages require the most important modifications."

You wish, proletaires, to REGULATE PROPERTY; that is, you wish to

destroy it and reduce it to the right of possession. For to regulate

property without the consent of the proprietors is to deny the right

OF DOMAIN; to associate employees with proprietors is to destroy

the EMINENT right; to suppress or even reduce farm-rent, house-rent,

revenue, and increase generally, is to annihilate PERFECT property. Why,

then, while laboring with such laudable enthusiasm for the establishment

of equality, should you retain an expression whose equivocal meaning

will always be an obstacle in the way of your success?

There you have the first reason--a wholly philosophical one--for

rejecting not only the thing, but the name, property. Here now is the

political, the highest reason.

Every social revolution--M. Cousin will tell you--is effected only by

the realization of an idea, either political, moral, or religious. When

Alexander conquered Asia, his idea was to avenge Greek liberty against

the insults of Oriental despotism; when Marius and Caesar overthrew

the Roman patricians, their idea was to give bread to the people;

when Christianity revolutionized the world, its idea was to emancipate

mankind, and to substitute the worship of one God for the deities of

Epicurus and Homer; when France rose in '89, her idea was liberty and

equality before the law. There has been no true revolution, says M.

Cousin, with out its idea; so that where an idea does not exist, or even

fails of a formal expression, revolution is impossible. There are mobs,

conspirators, rioters, regicides. There are no revolutionists. Society,

devoid of ideas, twists and tosses about, and dies in the midst of its

fruitless labor.

Nevertheless, you all feel that a revolution is to come, and that you

alone can accomplish it. What, then, is the idea which governs you,

proletaires of the nineteenth century?--for really I cannot call you

revolutionists. What do you think?--what do you believe?--what do you

want? Be guarded in your reply. I have read faithfully your favorite

journals, your most esteemed authors. I find everywhere only vain and

puerile _entites_; nowhere do I discover an idea.

I will explain the meaning of this word _entite_,--new, without doubt,

to most of you.

By _entite_ is generally understood a substance which the imagination

grasps, but which is incognizable by the senses and the reason. Thus the

SOPORIFIC POWER of opium, of which Sganarelle speaks, and the PECCANT

HUMORS of ancient medicine, are _entites_. The _entite_ is the

support of those who do not wish to confess their ignorance. It

is incomprehensible; or, as St. Paul says, the _argumentum non

apparentium_. In philosophy, the _entite_ is often only a repetition of

words which add nothing to the thought.

For example, when M. Pierre Leroux--who says so many excellent things,

but who is too fond, in my opinion, of his Platonic formulas--assures us

that the evils of humanity are due to our IGNORANCE OF LIFE, M. Pierre

Leroux utters an _entite;_ for it is evident that if we are evil it is

because we do not know how to live; but the knowledge of this fact is of

no value to us.

When M. Edgar Quinet declares that France suffers and declines because

there is an ANTAGONISM of men and of interests, he declares an _entite;_

for the problem is to discover the cause of this antagonism.

When M. Lamennais, in thunder tones, preaches self-sacrifice and love,

he proclaims two _entites_; for we need to know on what conditions

self-sacrifice and love can spring up and exist.

So also, proletaires, when you talk of LIBERTY, PROGRESS, and THE

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE, you make of these naturally intelligible

things so many _entites_ in space: for, on the one hand, we need a new

definition of liberty, since that of '89 no longer suffices; and, on the

other, we must know in what direction society should proceed in order to

be in progress. As for the sovereignty of the people, that is a

grosser _entite_ than the sovereignty of reason; it is the _entite_

of _entites_. In fact, since sovereignty can no more be conceived

of outside of the people than outside of reason, it remains to be

ascertained who, among the people, shall exercise the sovereignty; and,

among so many minds, which shall be the sovereigns. To say that the

people should elect their representatives is to say that the people

should recognize their sovereigns, which does not remove the difficulty

at all.

But suppose that, equal by birth, equal before the law, equal in

personality, equal in social functions, you wish also to be equal in

conditions.

Suppose that, perceiving all the mutual relations of men, whether

they produce or exchange or consume, to be relations of commutative

justice,--in a word, social relations; suppose, I say, that, perceiving

this, you wish to give this natural society a legal existence, and to

establish the fact by law,--

I say that then you need a clear, positive, and exact expression of your

whole idea,--that is, an expression which states at once the principle,

the means, and the end; and I add that that expression is ASSOCIATION.

And since the association of the human race dates, at least rightfully,

from the beginning of the world, and has gradually established and

perfected itself by successively divesting itself of its negative

elements, slavery, nobility, despotism, aristocracy, and feudalism,--I

say that, to eliminate the last negation of society, to formulate the

last revolutionary idea, you must change your old rallying-cries, NO

MORE ABSOLUTISM, NO MORE NOBILITY, NO MORE SLAVES! into that of NO MORE

PROPERTY!...

But I know what astonishes you, poor souls, blasted by the wind of

poverty, and crushed by your patrons' pride: it is EQUALITY, whose

consequences frighten you. How, you have said in your journal,--how can

we "dream of a level which, being unnatural, is therefore unjust? How

shall we pay the day's labor of a Cormenin or a Lamennais?"

Plebeians, listen! When, after the battle of Salamis, the Athenians

assembled to award the prizes for courage, after the ballots had been

collected, it was found that each combatant had one vote for the first

prize, and Themistocles all the votes for the second. The people of

Minerva were crowned by their own hands. Truly heroic souls! all were

worthy of the olive-branch, since all had ventured to claim it for

themselves. Antiquity praised this sublime spirit. Learn, proletaires,

to esteem yourselves, and to respect your dignity. You wish to be

free, and you know not how to be citizens. Now, whoever says "citizens"

necessarily says equals.

If I should call myself Lamennais or Cormenin, and some journal,

speaking of me, should burst forth with these hyperboles, INCOMPARABLE

GENIUS, SUPERIOR MIND, CONSUMMATE VIRTUE, NOBLE CHARACTER, I should not

like it, and should complain,--first, because such eulogies are never

deserved; and, second, because they furnish a bad example. But I wish,

in order to reconcile you to equality, to measure for you the

greatest literary personage of our century. Do not accuse me of envy,

proletaires, if I, a defender of equality, estimate at their proper

value talents which are universally admired, and which I, better than

any one, know how to recognize. A dwarf can always measure a giant: all

that he needs is a yardstick.

You have seen the pretentious announcements of "L'Esquisse d'une

Philosophie," and you have admired the work on trust; for either you

have not read it, or, if you have, you are incapable of judging it.

Acquaint yourselves, then, with this speculation more brilliant than

sound; and, while admiring the enthusiasm of the author, cease to pity

those useful labors which only habit and the great number of the

persons engaged in them render contemptible. I shall be brief; for,

notwithstanding the importance of the subject and the genius of the

author, what I have to say is of but little moment.

M. Lamennais starts with the existence of God. How does he demonstrate

it? By Cicero's argument,--that is, by the consent of the human race.

There is nothing new in that. We have still to find out whether the

belief of the human race is legitimate; or, as Kant says, whether

our subjective certainty of the existence of God corresponds with the

objective truth. This, however, does not trouble M. Lamennais. He says

that, if the human race believes, it is because it has a reason for

believing.

Then, having pronounced the name of God, M. Lamennais sings a hymn; and

that is his demonstration!

This first hypothesis admitted, M. Lamennais follows it with a second;

namely, that there are three persons in God. But, while Christianity

teaches the dogma of the Trinity only on the authority of revelation, M.

Lamennais pretends to arrive at it by the sole force of argument; and he

does not perceive that his pretended demonstration is, from beginning to

end, anthropomorphism,--that is, an ascription of the faculties of the

human mind and the powers of nature to the Divine substance. New songs,

new hymns!

God and the Trinity thus DEMONSTRATED, the philosopher passes to the

creation,--a third hypothesis, in which M. Lamennais, always eloquent,

varied, and sublime, DEMONSTRATES that God made the world neither of

nothing, nor of something, nor of himself; that he was free in creating,

but that nevertheless he could not but create; that there is in matter

a matter which is not matter; that the archetypal ideas of the world are

separated from each other, in the Divine mind, by a division which is

obscure and unintelligible, and yet substantial and real, which involves

intelligibility, &c. We meet with like contradictions concerning the

origin of evil. To explain this problem,--one of the profoundest in

philosophy,--M. Lamennais at one time denies evil, at another makes God

the author of evil, and at still another seeks outside of God a

first cause which is not God,--an amalgam of _entites_ more or less

incoherent, borrowed from Plato, Proclus, Spinoza, I might say even from

all philosophers.

Having thus established his trinity of hypotheses, M. Lamennais

deduces therefrom, by a badly connected chain of analogies, his whole

philosophy. And it is here especially that we notice the syncretism

which is peculiar to him. The theory of M. Lamennais embraces all

systems, and supports all opinions. Are you a materialist? Suppress,

as useless _entites_, the three persons in God; then, starting directly

from heat, light, and electro-magnetism,--which, according to the

author, are the three original fluids, the three primary external

manifestations of Will, Intelligence, and Love,--you have a

materialistic and atheistic cosmogony. On the contrary, are you wedded

to spiritualism? With the theory of the immateriality of the body, you

are able to see everywhere nothing but spirits. Finally, if you incline

to pantheism, you will be satisfied by M. Lamennais, who formally

teaches that the world is not an EMANATION from Divinity,--which is pure

pantheism,--but a FLOW of Divinity.

I do not pretend, however, to deny that "L'Esquisse" contains some

excellent things; but, by the author's declaration, these things are not

original with him; it is the system which is his. That is undoubtedly

the reason why M. Lamennais speaks so contemptuously of his predecessors

in philosophy, and disdains to quote his originals. He thinks that,

since "L'Esquisse" contains all true philosophy, the world will lose

nothing when the names and works of the old philosophers perish. M.

Lamennais, who renders glory to God in beautiful songs, does not know

how as well to render justice to his fellows. His fatal fault is this

appropriation of knowledge, which the theologians call the PHILOSOPHICAL

SIN, or the SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST--a sin which will not damn you,

proletaires, nor me either.

In short, "L'Esquisse," judged as a system, and divested of all which

its author borrows from previous systems, is a commonplace work, whose

method consists in constantly explaining the known by the unknown, and

in giving entites for abstractions, and tautologies for proofs. Its

whole theodicy is a work not of genius but of imagination, a patching up

of neo-Platonic ideas. The psychological portion amounts to nothing,

M. Lamennais openly ridiculing labors of this character, without which,

however, metaphysics is impossible. The book, which treats of logic

and its methods, is weak, vague, and shallow. Finally, we find in the

physical and physiological speculations which M. Lamennais deduces

from his trinitarian cosmogony grave errors, the preconceived design of

accommodating facts to theory, and the substitution in almost every case

of hypothesis for reality. The third volume on industry and art is the

most interesting to read, and the best. It is true that M. Lamennais

can boast of nothing but his style. As a philosopher, he has added not a

single idea to those which existed before him.

Why, then, this excessive mediocrity of M. Lamennais considered as

a thinker, a mediocrity which disclosed itself at the time of the

publication of the "Essai sur l'Indifference!"? It is because (remember

this well, proletaires!) Nature makes no man truly complete, and because

the development of certain faculties almost always excludes an equal

development of the opposite faculties; it is because M. Lamennais

is preeminently a poet, a man of feeling and sentiment. Look at his

style,--exuberant, sonorous, picturesque, vehement, full of exaggeration

and invective,--and hold it for certain that no man possessed of such

a style was ever a true metaphysician. This wealth of expression and

illustration, which everybody admires, becomes in M Lamennais the

incurable cause of his philosophical impotence. His flow of language,

and his sensitive nature misleading his imagination, he thinks that

he is reasoning when he is only repeating himself, and readily takes a

description for a logical deduction. Hence his horror of positive ideas,

his feeble powers of analysis, his pronounced taste for indefinite

analogies, verbal abstractions, hypothetical generalities, in short, all

sorts of entites.

Further, the entire life of M. Lamennais is conclusive proof of

his anti-philosophical genius. Devout even to mysticism, an ardent

ultramontane, an intolerant theocrat, he at first feels the double

influence of the religious reaction and the literary theories which

marked the beginning of this century, and falls back to the middle ages

and Gregory VII.; then, suddenly becoming a progressive Christian and a

democrat, he gradually leans towards rationalism, and finally falls into

deism. At present, everybody waits at the trap-door. As for me, though I

would not swear to it, I am inclined to think that M. Lamennais, already

taken with scepticism, will die in a state of indifference. He owes

to individual reason and methodical doubt this expiation of his early

essays.

It has been pretended that M. Lamennais, preaching now a theocracy, now

universal democracy, has been always consistent; that, under different

names, he has sought invariably one and the same thing,--unity. Pitiful

excuse for an author surprised in the very act of contradiction! What

would be thought of a man who, by turns a servant of despotism under

Louis XVI, a demagogue with Robespierre, a courtier of the Emperor,

a bigot during fifteen years of the Restoration, a conservative

since 1830, should dare to say that he ever had wished for but one

thing,--public order? Would he be regarded as any the less a renegade

from all parties? Public order, unity, the world's welfare, social

harmony, the union of the nations,--concerning each of these things

there is no possible difference of opinion. Everybody wishes them;

the character of the publicist depends only upon the means by which

he proposes to arrive at them. But why look to M. Lamennais for a

steadfastness of opinion, which he himself repudiates? Has he not said,

"The mind has no law; that which I believe to-day, I did not believe

yesterday; I do not know that I shall believe it to-morrow"?

No; there is no real superiority among men, since all talents and

capacities are combined never in one individual. This man has the power

of thought, that one imagination and style, still another industrial and

commercial capacity. By our very nature and education, we possess only

special aptitudes which are limited and confined, and which become

consequently more necessary as they gain in depth and strength.

Capacities are to each other as functions and persons; who would dare

to classify them in ranks? The finest genius is, by the laws of his

existence and development, the most dependent upon the society which

creates him. Who would dare to make a god of the glorious child?

"It is not strength which makes the man," said a Hercules of the

market-place to the admiring crowd; "it is character." That man, who

had only his muscles, held force in contempt. The lesson is a good one,

proletaires; we should profit by it. It is not talent (which is also a

force), it is not knowledge, it is not beauty which makes the man. It is

heart, courage, will, virtue. Now, if we are equal in that which makes

us men, how can the accidental distribution of secondary faculties

detract from our manhood?

Remember that privilege is naturally and inevitably the lot of the weak;

and do not be misled by the fame which accompanies certain talents

whose greatest merit consists in their rarity, and a long and toilsome

apprenticeship. It is easier for M. Lamennais to recite a philippic, or

sing a humanitarian ode after the Platonic fashion, than to discover a

single useful truth; it is easier for an economist to apply the laws of

production and distribution than to write ten lines in the style of M.

Lamennais; it is easier for both to speak than to act. You, then, who

put your hands to the work, who alone truly create, why do you wish me

to admit your inferiority? But, what am I saying?

Yes, you are inferior, for you lack virtue and will! Ready for labor and

for battle, you have, when liberty and equality are in question, neither

courage nor character!

In the preface to his pamphlet on "Le Pays et le Gouvernement," as well

as in his defence before the jury, M. Lamennais frankly declared

himself an advocate of property. Out of regard for the author and his

misfortune, I shall abstain from characterizing this declaration, and

from examining these two sorrowful performances. M. Lamennais seems to

be only the tool of a quasi-radical party, which flatters him in order

to use him, without respect for a glorious, but hence forth powerless,

old age. What means this profession of faith? From the first number of

"L'Avenir" to "L'Esquisse d'une Philosophie," M. Lamennais always

favors equality, association, and even a sort of vague and indefinite

communism. M. Lamennais, in recognizing the right of property, gives the

lie to his past career, and renounces his most generous tendencies. Can

it, then, be true that in this man, who has been too roughly treated,

but who is also too easily flattered, strength of talent has already

outlived strength of will?

It is said that M. Lamennais has rejected the offers of several of his

friends to try to procure for him a commutation of his sentence. M.

Lamennais prefers to serve out his time. May not this affectation of a

false stoicism come from the same source as his recognition of the right

of property? The Huron, when taken prisoner, hurls insults and threats

at his conqueror,--that is the heroism of the savage; the martyr

prays for his executioners, and is willing to receive from them his

life,--that is the heroism of the Christian. Why has the apostle of love

become an apostle of anger and revenge? Has, then, the translator of

"L'Imitation" forgotten that he who offends charity cannot honor virtue?

Galileo, retracting on his knees before the tribunal of the inquisition

his heresy in regard to the movement of the earth, and recovering at

that price his liberty, seems to me a hundred times grander than

M. Lamennais. What! if we suffer for truth and justice, must we, in

retaliation, thrust our persecutors outside the pale of human society;

and, when sentenced to an unjust punishment, must we decline exemption

if it is offered to us, because it pleases a few base satellites to call

it a pardon? Such is not the wisdom of Christianity. But I forgot that

in the presence of M. Lamennais this name is no longer pronounced. May

the prophet of "L'Avenir" be soon restored to liberty and his friends;

but, above all, may he henceforth derive his inspiration only from his

genius and his heart!

O proletaires, proletaires! how long are you to be victimized by this

spirit of revenge and implacable hatred which your false friends kindle,

and which, perhaps, has done more harm to the development of reformatory

ideas than the corruption, ignorance, and malice of the government?

Believe me, at the present time everybody is to blame. In fact, in

intention, or in example, all are found wanting; and you have no right

to accuse any one. The king himself (God forgive me! I do not like to

justify a king),--the king himself is, like his predecessors, only the

personification of an idea, and an idea, proletaires, which possesses

you yet. His greatest wrong consists in wishing for its complete

realization, while you wish it realized only partially,--consequently,

in being logical in his government; while you, in your complaints, are

not at all so. You clamor for a second regicide. He that is without sin

among you,--let him cast at the prince of property the first stone!

How successful you would have been if, in order to influence men,

you had appealed to the self-love of men,--if, in order to alter

the constitution and the law, you had placed yourselves within the

constitution and the law! Fifty thousand laws, they say, make up our

political and civil codes. Of these fifty thousand laws, twenty-five

thousand are for you, twenty-five thousand against you. Is it not clear

that your duty is to oppose the former to the latter, and thus, by the

argument of contradiction, drive privilege into its last ditch? This

method of action is henceforth the only useful one, being the only moral

and rational one.

For my part, if I had the ear of this nation, to which I am attached by

birth and predilection, with no intention of playing the leading part

in the future republic, I would instruct the laboring masses to

conquer property through institutions and judicial pleadings; to seek

auxiliaries and accomplices in the highest ranks of society, and to ruin

all privileged classes by taking advantage of their common desire for

power and popularity.

The petition for the electoral reform has already received two hundred

thousand signatures, and the illustrious Arago threatens us with a

million. Surely, that will be well done; but from this million of

citizens, who are as willing to vote for an emperor as for equality,

could we not select ten thousand signatures--I mean bona fide

signatures--whose authors can read, write, cipher, and even think

a little, and whom we could invite, after due perusal and verbal

explanation, to sign such a petition as the following:--

"TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR:--

"MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,--On the day when a royal ordinance, decreeing

the establishment of model national workshops, shall appear in the

'Moniteur,' the undersigned, to the number of TEN THOUSAND, will repair

to the Palace of the Tuileries, and there, with all the power of their

lungs, will shout, 'Long live Louis Philippe!'

"On the day when the 'Moniteur' shall inform the public that this

petition is refused, the undersigned, to the number of TEN THOUSAND,

will say secretly in their hearts, 'Down with Louis Philippe!'"

If I am not mistaken, such a petition would have some effect. [75] The

pleasure of a popular ovation would be well worth the sacrifice of a few

millions. They sow so much to reap unpopularity! Then, if the nation,

its hopes of 1830 restored, should feel it its duty to keep its

promise,--and it would keep it, for the word of the nation is, like that

of God, sacred,--if, I say, the nation, reconciled by this act with

the public-spirited monarchy, should bear to the foot of the throne its

cheers and its vows, and should at that solemn moment choose me to speak

in its name, the following would be the substance of my speech:--

"SIRE,--This is what the nation wishes to say to your Majesty:--

"O King! you see what it costs to gain the applause of the citizens.

Would you like us henceforth to take for our motto: 'Let us help the

King, the King will help us'? Do you wish the people to cry: 'THE KING

AND THE FRENCH NATION'? Then abandon these grasping bankers, these

quarrelsome lawyers, these miserable bourgeois, these infamous writers,

these dishonored men. All these, Sire, hate you, and continue to support

you only because they fear us. Finish the work of our kings; wipe out

aristocracy and privilege; consult with these faithful proletaires, with

the nation, which alone can honor a sovereign and sincerely shout, 'Long

live the king!'"

The rest of what I have to say, sir, is for you alone; others would

not understand me. You are, I perceive, a republican as well as an

economist, and your patriotism revolts at the very idea of addressing

to the authorities a petition in which the government of Louis Philippe

should be tacitly recognized. "National workshops! it were well to have

such institutions established," you think; "but patriotic hearts never

will accept them from an aristocratic ministry, nor by the courtesy of a

king." Already, undoubtedly, your old prejudices have returned, and you

now regard me only as a sophist, as ready to flatter the powers that

be as to dishonor, by pushing them to an extreme, the principles of

equality and universal fraternity.

What shall I say to you?... That I should so lightly compromise the

future of my theories, either this clever sophistry which is attributed

to me must be at bottom a very trifling affair, or else my convictions

must be so firm that they deprive me of free-will.

But, not to insist further on the necessity of a compromise between the

executive power and the people, it seems to me, sir, that, in doubting

my patriotism, you reason very capriciously, and that your judgments

are exceedingly rash. You, sir, ostensibly defending government and

property, are allowed to be a republican, reformer, phalansterian, any

thing you wish; I, on the contrary, demanding distinctly enough a slight

reform in public economy, am foreordained a conservative, and likewise

a friend of the dynasty. I cannot explain myself more clearly. So firm

a believer am I in the philosophy of accomplished facts and the _statu

quo_ of governmental forms that, instead of destroying that which

exists and beginning over again the past, I prefer to render every thing

legitimate by correcting it. It is true that the corrections which I

propose, though respecting the form, tend to finally change the nature

of the things corrected. Who denies it? But it is precisely that which

constitutes my system of _statu quo_. I make no war upon symbols,

figures, or phantoms. I respect scarecrows, and bow before bugbears. I

ask, on the one hand, that property be left as it is, but that interest

on all kinds of capital be gradually lowered and finally abolished; on

the other hand, that the charter be maintained in its present shape, but

that method be introduced into administration and politics. That is all.

Nevertheless, submitting to all that is, though not satisfied with it, I

endeavor to conform to the established order, and to render unto Caesar

the things that are Caesar's. Is it thought, for instance, that I love

property?... Very well; I am myself a proprietor and do homage to the

right of increase, as is proved by the fact that I have creditors to

whom I faithfully pay, every year, a large amount of interest. The same

with politics. Since we are a monarchy, I would cry, "LONG LIVE THE

KING," rather than suffer death; which does not prevent me, however,

from demanding that the irremovable, inviolable, and hereditary

representative of the nation shall act with the proletaires against the

privileged classes; in a word, that the king shall become the leader of

the radical party. Thereby we proletaires would gain every thing; and I

am sure that, at this price, Louis Philippe might secure to his family

the perpetual presidency of the republic. And this is why I think so.

If there existed in France but one great functional inequality, the duty

of the functionary being, from one end of the year to the other, to hold

full court of savants, artists, soldiers, deputies, inspectors, &c.,

it is evident that the expenses of the presidency then would be the

national expenses; and that, through the reversion of the civil list to

the mass of consumers, the great inequality of which I speak would form

an exact equation with the whole nation. Of this no economist needs a

demonstration. Consequently, there would be no more fear of cliques,

courtiers, and appanages, since no new inequality could be established.

The king, as king, would have friends (unheard-of thing), but no family.

His relatives or kinsmen,--_agnats et cognats_,--if they were fools,

would be nothing to him; and in no case, with the exception of the heir

apparent, would they have, even in court, more privileges than others.

No more nepotism, no more favor, no more baseness. No one would go

to court save when duty required, or when called by an honorable

distinction; and as all conditions would be equal and all functions

equally honored, there would be no other emulation than that of merit

and virtue. I wish the king of the French could say without shame,

"My brother the gardener, my sister-in-law the milk-maid, my son the

prince-royal, and my son the blacksmith." His daughter might well be an

artist. That would be beautiful, sir; that would be royal; no one but a

buffoon could fail to understand it.

In this way, I have come to think that the forms of royalty may be

made to harmonize with the requirements of equality, and have given

a monarchical form to my republican spirit. I have seen that France

contains by no means as many democrats as is generally supposed, and

I have compromised with the monarchy. I do not say, however, that, if

France wanted a republic, I could not accommodate myself equally well,

and perhaps better. By nature, I hate all signs of distinction, crosses

of honor, gold lace, liveries, costumes, honorary titles, &c., and,

above all, parades. If I had my way, no general should be distinguished

from a soldier, nor a peer of France from a peasant. Why have I never

taken part in a review? for I am happy to say, sir, that I am a national

guard; I have nothing else in the world but that. Because the review is

always held at a place which I do not like, and because they have fools

for officers whom I am compelled to obey. You see,--and this is not the

best of my history,--that, in spite of my conservative opinions, my life

is a perpetual sacrifice to the republic.

Nevertheless, I doubt if such simplicity would be agreeable to French

vanity, to that inordinate love of distinction and flattery which makes

our nation the most frivolous in the world. M. Lamartine, in his grand

"Meditation on Bonaparte," calls the French A NATION OF BRUTUSES. We are

merely a nation of Narcissuses. Previous to '89, we had the aristocracy

of blood; then every bourgeois looked down upon the commonalty, and

wished to be a nobleman. Afterwards, distinction was based on wealth,

and the bourgeoisie jealous of the nobility, and proud of their money,

used 1830 to promote, not liberty by any means, but the aristocracy

of wealth. When, through the force of events, and the natural laws of

society, for the development of which France offers such free play,

equality shall be established in functions and fortunes, then the beaux

and the belles, the savants and the artists, will form new classes.

There is a universal and innate desire in this Gallic country for fame

and glory. We must have distinctions, be they what they may,--nobility,

wealth, talent, beauty, or dress. I suspect MM. Arage and Garnier-Pages

of having aristocratic manners, and I picture to myself our great

journalists, in their columns so friendly to the people, administering

rough kicks to the compositors in their printing offices.

"This man," once said "Le National" in speaking of Carrel, "whom we

had proclaimed FIRST CONSUL!... Is it not true that the monarchical

principle still lives in the hearts of our democrats, and that they

want universal suffrage in order to make themselves kings? Since "Le

National" prides itself on holding more fixed opinions than "Le Journal

des Debats," I presume that, Armand Carrel being dead, M. Armand Marrast

is now first consul, and M. Garnier-Pages second consul. In every thing

the deputy must give way to the journalist. I do not speak of M.

Arago, whom I believe to be, in spite of calumny, too learned for the

consulship. Be it so. Though we have consuls, our position is not much

altered. I am ready to yield my share of sovereignty to MM. Armand

Marrast and Garnier-Pages, the appointed consuls, provided they will

swear on entering upon the duties of their office, to abolish property

and not be haughty.

Forever promises! Forever oaths! Why should the people trust in

tribunes, when kings perjure themselves? Alas! truth and honesty are no

longer, as in the days of King John, in the mouth of princes. A whole

senate has been convicted of felony, and, the interest of the governors

always being, for some mysterious reason, opposed to the interest of the

governed, parliaments follow each other while the nation dies of hunger.

No, no! No more protectors, no more emperors, no more consuls. Better

manage our affairs ourselves than through agents. Better associate our

industries than beg from monopolies; and, since the republic cannot

dispense with virtues, we should labor for our reform.

This, therefore, is my line of conduct. I preach emancipation to the

proletaires; association to the laborers; equality to the wealthy. I

push forward the revolution by all means in my power,--the tongue,

the pen, the press, by action, and example. My life is a continual

apostleship.

Yes, I am a reformer; I say it as I think it, in good faith, and that I

may be no longer reproached for my vanity. I wish to convert the world.

Very likely this fancy springs from an enthusiastic pride which may have

turned to delirium; but it will be admitted at least that I have plenty

of company, and that my madness is not monomania. At the present day,

everybody wishes to be reckoned among the lunatics of Beranger. To say

nothing of the Babeufs, the Marats, and the Robespierres, who swarm in

our streets and workshops, all the great reformers of antiquity live

again in the most illustrious personages of our time. One is Jesus

Christ, another Moses, a third Mahomet; this is Orpheus, that Plato,

or Pythagoras. Gregory VII., himself, has risen from the grave together

with the evangelists and the apostles; and it may turn out that even I

am that slave who, having escaped from his master's house, was forthwith

made a bishop and a reformer by St. Paul. As for the virgins and holy

women, they are expected daily; at present, we have only Aspasias and

courtesans.

Now, as in all diseases, the diagnostic varies according to the

temperament, so my madness has its peculiar aspects and distinguishing

characteristic.

Reformers, as a general thing, are jealous of their role; they suffer no

rivals, they want no partners; they have disciples, but no co-laborers.

It is my desire, on the contrary, to communicate my enthusiasm, and to

make it, as far as I can, epidemic. I wish that all were, like myself,

reformers, in order that there might be no more sects; and that Christs,

Anti-Christs, and false Christs might be forced to understand and agree

with each other.

Again, every reformer is a magician, or at least desires to become one.

Thus Moses, Jesus Christ, and the apostles, proved their mission by

miracles. Mahomet ridiculed miracles after having endeavored to perform

them. 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. The peculiar speculations of Fourier and his sect concerning

cosmogony, geology, natural history, physiology, and psychology, I leave

to the attention of those who would think it their duty to seriously

refute the fables of Blue Beard and the Ass's Skin.]

[Footnote 74: A writer for the radical press, M. Louis Raybaud, said, in

the preface to his "Studies of Contemporary Reformers:" "Who does not

know that morality is relative? Aside from a few grand sentiments which

are strikingly instinctive, the measure of human acts varies with

nations and climates, and only civilization--the progressive education

of the race--can lead to a universal morality.... The absolute escapes

our contingent and finite nature; the absolute is the secret of God."

God keep from evil M. Louis Raybaud! But I cannot help remarking that

all political apostates begin by the negation of the absolute, which is

really the negation of truth. What can a writer, who professes

scepticism, have in common with radical views? What has he to say to his

readers? What judgment is he entitled to pass upon contemporary

reformers? M. Raybaud thought it would seem wise to repeat an old

impertinence of the legist, and that may serve him for an excuse. We all

have these weaknesses. But I am surprised that a man of so much

intelligence as M. Raybaud, who STUDIES SYSTEMS, fails to see the very

thing he ought first to recognize,--namely, that systems are the

progress of the mind towards the absolute.]

[Footnote 75: The electoral reform, it is continually asserted, is not

an END, but a MEANS. Undoubtedly; but what, then, is the end? Why not

furnish an unequivocal explanation of its object? How can the people

choose their representatives, unless they know in advance the purpose

for which they choose them, and the object of the commission which they

entrust to them? But, it is said, the very business of those chosen by

the people is to find out the object of the reform. That is a quibble.

What is to hinder these persons, who are to be elected in future, from

first seeking for this object, and then, when they have found it, from

communicating it to the people? The reformers have well said, that,

while the object of the electoral reform remains in the least

indefinite, it will be only a means of transferring power from the hands

of petty tyrants to the hands of other tyrants. We know already how a

nation may be oppressed by being led to believe that it is obeying only

its own laws. The history of universal suffrage, among all nations, is

the history of the restrictions of liberty by and in the name of the

multitude. Still, if the electoral reform, in its present shape, were

rational, practical, acceptable to clean consciences and upright minds,

perhaps one might be excused, though ignorant of its object, for

supporting it. But, no; the text of the petition determines nothing,

makes no distinctions, requires no conditions, no guarantee; it

establishes the right without the duty. "Every Frenchman is a voter, and

eligible to office." As well say: "Every bayonet is intelligent, every

savage is civilized, every slave is free." In its vague generality, the

reformatory petition is the weakest of abstractions, or the highest form

of political treason. Consequently, the enlightened patriots distrust

and despise each other. The most radical writer of the time,--he whose

economical and social theories are, without comparison, the most

advanced,--M. Leroux, has taken a bold stand against universal suffrage

and democratic government, and has written an exceedingly keen criticism

of J. J. Rousseau. That is undoubtedly the reason why M. Leroux is no

longer the philosopher of "Le National." That journal, like Napoleon,

does not like men of ideas. Nevertheless, "Le National" ought to know

that he who fights against ideas will perish by ideas.]