A certain aggregation of personages, actions, emotions and moods, ideas
and works, which make their appearance in France, find expression in
the French language, and influence French society at the beginning
of the nineteenth century, form in my eyes a naturally coherent
group, from the fact that they all centre round one idea, namely, the
re-establishment of a fallen power. This fallen power is the principle
of authority.
By the principle of authority I understand the principle which assumes
the life of the individual and of the nation to be based upon reverence
for inherited tradition.
That power which is its essential quality, authority owes simply to
its own existence, not to reason; it is a result of the involuntary or
voluntary subjection of men's minds to existing conditions. Authority
had originally only two instruments at its disposal, compulsion and
fear, instruments which it will always retain and use; but at an early
age it began to call forth such feelings as reverence and gratitude.
Men were not ashamed of, did not suffer from, their dependence on
authority, when they felt that they owed an obligation to it. The
authority of the family, the authority of society, the authority of the
state (long synonymous with the will of the despotic ruler) gradually
asserted themselves, and supported themselves, one and all, upon a
still higher authority, the authority of religion. In it the principle
of authority reaches the absolute stage. The will of the Almighty
becomes the supreme law, to which all must bow and which must be
blindly obeyed.
The principle of authority has had a powerful educative influence on
the human race; but its real mission is to make itself superfluous. At
a comparatively low stage man submits to law because it emanates from
authority; at a higher, because he recognises its reasonableness. Where
authority is absolute it must, and as a matter of fact does, demand
recognition as something mysterious and miraculous, and treat all
criticism as rebellion and heresy.
It is its ratification by religion which makes authority absolute.
Owing, however, to the manner in which Christianity had developed in
Europe, the principle of authority had not as yet manifested itself
in that continent in perfect purity. Christianity had (officially at
least) proclaimed itself to be the religion of love, the religion
of Christ. History shows that what the church in reality laid most
weight on was belief in the dogmas of Christianity and in the duty
of submission to supernatural authority--not love, but obedience was
necessarily of supreme importance to it as well as to the state.
So far, however, even the strictest of theologians, priests, and
religious writers had employed the language of religious enthusiasm,
had proclaimed the message of love along with the doctrines of the
faith, and striven not merely to further the cause of authority, but
also to win souls. It was not until a majority of the educated minds
of many countries freed themselves from the yoke of authority in the
domain of the supernatural, and consequently became critically disposed
towards it in the political and social domains also, that the principle
of authority in its purity and its barrenness began to be vindicated
unemotionally, with arguments appealing most frequently to reason
alone, but occasionally also to the imagination.
It is possible to champion the principle of authority in church and
state, in society and in the family, nay, even in the domain of human
knowledge, as the principle of knowledge and of wisdom. During the
period of which I purpose describing the spiritual life it was so
championed in all those domains, but at the time now referred to it was
overthrown in them all.
In order to understand how it came to be resuscitated, proclaimed,
developed, vindicated, established, and finally again overthrown, it
is necessary that we should see how, and by virtue of what fundamental
principles, it was annulled at the time of the Revolution.
It was not attacked at once in all the different domains; but it became
evident that its existence in them all depended upon its existence
in what was considered the highest, that of religion. For it was the
church which, as authority, imparted authority in all the other spheres
of life--to the "king by the grace of God," to marriage as a sacrament,
&c. &c.
Therefore the principle of authority in general stood or fell with the
authority of the church. When that was undermined, it drew all other
authorities with it in its fall.
Not that the man who, in the eighteenth century, laboured more
energetically and successfully than any other for the emancipation of
the intellect from ecclesiasticism and dogma had foreseen such a result
of his labour. Far from it! Voltaire desired no outward revolution.
In his little tale, _Le monde comme il va_, the wise Babouc, who
is at first utterly revolted by the depravity of the great city of
Persepolis, gradually comes to see that the bad state of matters has
its good sides; and, when the fate of the city hangs upon his report
to the angel Ithuriel, he pronounces himself to be entirely opposed to
its destruction. Even the angel does not in the end propose making any
change in the customs of Persepolis, because, "though things are not
good, they are certainly bearable." This train of thought can hardly
be called revolutionary; and Voltaire is, at least at times, of the
same opinion as Babouc. It was always to the sovereigns, not to the
peoples, that he appealed to transform his ideas into actions, and he
often declared that the cause of kings and of philosophers was one
and the same. Hence when Holbach and his collaborators asserted that
"hardly once in a thousand years was there to be found amongst these
rulers by the grace of God, these representatives of the Deity, a man
possessing the most ordinary sense of justice or compassion, or the
commonest abilities and virtues," Voltaire could not control his wrath.
His letters to the King of Prussia, too, contain violent outbursts of
indignation at _Le Système de la Nature_. He did not recognise himself
in these disciples and in these conclusions.
Nevertheless it is Voltaire who constitutes the destructive principle
throughout the Revolution, just as it is Rousseau who is the rallying,
uniting spirit. For Voltaire had destroyed the principle of authority
by vindicating the liberty of thought of the individual, Rousseau had
displaced and superseded it by the feeling of universal brotherhood and
mutual dependence. What these two great men had planned the Revolution
carried into effect; it was the executor of their wills; the thought
of the individual became destructive action, and the feeling of mutual
dependence, uniting organisation. From Voltaire came the wrath of the
revolutionists, from Rousseau their enthusiasm.
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