‘I quote the whole passage because it gives the very idea of Charles
Maurras. For his classical way of thought, things are beautiful, not
from the shocks of feeling and passion, but from the form and rhythm
which give them continuity, or rather existence in the human sense of
the word. M. Charles Maurras applies this taste for form to the study
of history, and that is the whole of his “sociology”.’
There could be no better definition of the type of man for whom things
are good insofar as they satisfy his artistic sensibility. Let me place
in opposition to him the exactly contrary type, leaving the reader to
judge which of the two may claim to belong to ‘the intelligence’:--
‘... For the perfection of things should be measured by their nature
alone, and things are not more or less perfect because they flatter or
wound our senses.’ (Spinoza.)
_Footnotes_
[1] See Note A at the end of this book.
[2] It is to be noted that a little more than a century ago French
working-men from different provinces frequently engaged in desperate
fights among themselves. (See Martin Nadaud, _Mémoires de Léonard_, p.
93.)
[3] See Petit de Julleville, _La Comédie et les Moeurs en France au
moyen age_, and André Le Breton, _Le Roman au XVIIe Siècle_.
[4] The great novelty is that to-day people accept the position that
everything should be political, that they should proclaim it and take a
pride in it. Otherwise it is perfectly obvious that men, shopkeepers,
or poets, have not waited for the present time to try to get rid of a
rival by political means. Remember how La Fontaine’s rivals kept him
out of the Académie for ten years.
[5] As de Tocqueville profoundly remarks, these only occurred when a
first improvement in his condition encouraged the man of the people to
want more; i.e. towards the end of the eighteenth century.
[6] I am here speaking of Western Jews of the bourgeois class. The
Jewish proletariat did not await our time to plunge into the feeling of
its racial peculiarity. However, it does so without giving provocation.
[7] This was the notion expressed by Benedict XV when he told the poor
‘to take delight in the prosperity of elevated persons and to expect
confidently their assistance’.
[8] For example, M. Paul Bourget’s _La Barricade_, where the author, a
disciple of Georges Sorel, exhorts the bourgeoise not to leave to the
proletariat the monopoly of class passion and violence. See also André
Beaunier, _Les Devoirs de la Violence_ (quoted by Halperine-Kaminski
in the preface to Tolstoi’s book, _The Law of Love and the Law of
Violence_).
[9] ‘The phrase, _the sublime bourgeois_, which would have caused
so much laughter twenty years ago, has now acquired for the French
bourgeoisie a mystic plenitude owing to its fusion with the highest
social and national values.’ (_Eloge du Bourgeois Français_, p. 284.)
[10] Let me define more precisely what is new here. In the seventeenth
century the citizen already had the notion of national honour; Racine’s
Letters would be sufficient to prove it (see a significant page in
the _Mémoires_ of de Pontis, Book XIV); but he left it to the King to
decide what this honour demanded; indignation like Vauban’s against the
peace of Ryswick ‘which dishonours the King and the whole nation’, is
a very exceptional emotion under the old _régime_. The modern citizen
claims to feel for himself what is demanded by the national honour, and
he is ready to rise up against his leaders if they have a different
conception of it. This new development is not peculiar to the nations
living under democratic systems; in 1911 the citizens of the German
monarchy thought that the concessions made to their country by France
in exchange for German abstention in Morocco were insufficient, and
they were extremely angry with their Sovereign who had accepted these
conditions which, in their opinion, were an insult to German honour. It
may be asserted that the same thing would be true of France if she ever
became a monarchy again and if the King took it upon himself to feel
the interest of national honour in a different manner to his subjects.
Moreover, this actually happened throughout the reign of Louis-Philippe.
[11] For example, the humiliation of Olmüts in 1805. It may be asserted
that no democracy would have endured it, at least with the philosophy
displayed by the King of Prussia and his government. On the other hand,
is it necessary to stress the other dangers to peace which existed
under the Kings? It is sufficient to quote Montesquieu’s remark: ‘The
spirit of the Monarchy is war and aggrandisement.’
[12] In 1886, the Schnaebele affair; in 1890, the incident in Paris
where the King of Spain in the uniform of a Colonel of Uhlans was
hooted; in 1891, the incident of the Empress of Germany passing through
Paris; in 1897, Fashoda; in 1904, the incident of the British trawlers
sunk by the Russian Fleet, etc. Of course, I do not claim that the
Kings only waged practical wars, although with them the allegation of
‘wounded honour’ was very often a mere pretext. Louis XIV obviously
did not make war on Holland because the Dutch struck a medal insulting
him. Moreover, I shall grant that from time to time the Kings indulged
in military invasions, a type of elegance which appears to be less and
less tempting to the democracies; one cannot now imagine the peace of
the world disturbed by excursions like those of Charles VIII into Italy
or Charles XII into the Ukraine.
[13] Is it necessary to point out that wars started by public
passion against the will of the government have often occurred under
monarchies? And not only under constitutional monarchies, like the
war of France with Spain in 1823 and with Turkey in 1826, but under
absolute monarchies. For instance, the War of the Austrian Succession
imposed on Fleury by an uprising of public opinion; the War of American
Independence under Louis XVI; in 1806 the war of Prussia against
Napoleon. In 1813 the war of Saxony. It seems probable that in 1914 war
was imposed on absolute sovereigns like Nicholas II and Wilhelm II by
popular passions which they had been exciting for years and then found
themselves unable to restrain.
[14] ‘But what is much more important than material facts is the soul
of nations. Among all races a kind of effervescence it to be noticed;
some defend certain principles, others the opposing principles. By
becoming members of the League of Nations, the different peoples do
not abandon their _national morality_.’ (Speech of the German Minister
for Foreign Affairs at Geneva, on the occasion of the entry of Germany
into the League of Nations, 10th September, 1926.) The orator went on:
‘Yet this should not result in raising up nation against nation.’ One
is surprised that he did not add: ‘On the contrary.’ How much nobler,
and at the same time more respectful of the truth, is the language
of Treitschke: ‘This consciousness of themselves which the nations
are acquiring and which can only be strengthened by culture, this
consciousness means that war will never disappear from the earth, in
spite of the closer linking up of interests, in spite of the growing
uniformity of customs and the exterior forms of life.’ (Quoted by
Charles Andler in _Les Origines du Pangermanisme_, p. 223.)
[15] This is what Mirabeau seems to have foreseen when he announced
to the Constituent Assembly that the wars of the ‘free nations’ would
cause the wars of the Kings to be regretted.
[16] The religion of the ‘national soul’ is obviously and logically
an emanation of the popular soul. Moreover, it has been sung by an
eminently democratic literature: Romanticism. It is to be observed that
the worst enemies of Romanticism and of Democracy have adopted it; it
is constantly to be found in the Action Française. To such an extent
is it now impossible to be a patriot without flattering democratic
passions.
[17] See Note B at the end of the book.
[18] See Brunot, _Histoire de la Langue Française_, t. v, liv. iii.
[19] On this topic see some excellent remarks of Auguste Comte, _Cours
de Philosophie Positive_, 57^e leçon.
[20] As a matter of fact, the peoples do not believe either that their
ambitions go back to their ancestors; they are ignorant of history and
do not believe it to be so even when it is true; they believe they
believe, or, more exactly, they want to believe that they believe.
However, that is enough to make them ferocious, perhaps more so than if
they really believed it.
[21] France is here in a position of manifest inferiority in regard
to her neighbours. The modern French feel very slight inclinations to
claim that they reincarnate the ambitions of Charlemagne or even of
Louis XIV, despite the proclamations of certain men of letters.
[22] For instance, the address of the ‘six great industrial and
agricultural associations of Germany’ to Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg in
May, 1914, which was not very different from that drawn up in 1815
by the Prussian metallurgists to point out to their government what
annexations should be made in the interests of their industry. (See
Vidal de La Blache, _La France de l’Est_, chap. xix.) Moreover, some
Germans are urgent in boldly proclaiming the economic character of
their nationalism. ‘Let us not forget,’ says a well-known Pangermanist,
‘that the German Empire, which is generally considered abroad as a
purely military State, is in its origin (Zollverein) chiefly economic.’
And again: ‘For us war is only the continuation of our commercial
activity in times of peace, with other means but the same methods.’
(Naumann, _L’Europe Centrale_, pp. 112, 247; see the whole book.)
Germany seems to be not indeed the only country to practise commercial
patriotism (England has done so just as much and for a much longer
time) but the only country to boast of it.
[23] And to build up a much less passionate patriotism. Think, for
instance, of the agreements with foreigners accepted by patriotism
based on interest (such as the Franco-German iron cartel), against
which the patriotism based on pride rises up in revolt.
[24] ‘Love of country is a real love of oneself.’ (Saint-Evremond.)
[25] The divinizing of realism, of which patriotism specially consists,
is expressed with all desirable candour in the ‘Addresses to the German
People’ (Eighth Address); Fichte attacks religion for its claim to
situate the superior life outside all interest in earthly matters: ‘It
is an abuse of religion to force it, as Christianity has so often done,
to extol complete indifference to the business of the State and the
nation as the true religious spirit. Men,’ he declares, ‘are determined
to find heaven on earth and to impregnate their earthly labours with
something durable.’ He then shows, with great warmth, that this desire
is the essence of patriotism, and it is evident that for him earthly
labours become divine by becoming durable. This, indeed, is the only
means men have discovered for divinizing their institutions.
[26] It is necessary to recall that the United States did not enter the
last war ‘in defence of principles’, but with the very practical object
of safeguarding their prestige, which had been lowered by the facts
that the Germans had torpedoed three of their ships? Nevertheless,
their desire to pose as having been purely idealistic in this affair is
noteworthy.
[27] It may be said that religious passions, at least in the West, only
exist as a reinforcement to national passions; in France, a man sets up
as a Catholic in order to pose as being ‘more French’; in Germany as a
Protestant in order to declare himself ‘more German’.
[28] Here are two remarkable cases of idealistic passions which in the
past successfully opposed national passion and are now submissive to
it: (_a_) In France, the monarchic passion, which in 1792 was stronger
than national feeling in many people, whereas in 1914 it was completely
effaced by national feeling. (Everyone will agree that attachment to a
certain form of government, i.e. at bottom, the attachment to a certain
metaphysical conception, is an infinitely more idealistic passion than
nationalist passion; however, I do not claim that all the Emigrés were
inspired by this idealism.) (_b_) In Germany, the religious passion,
which only fifty years ago was stronger than national feeling in more
than fifty per cent of Germans, and to-day is entirely subject to
national feeling (in 1866 the German Catholics desired the defeat of
Germany; in 1914 they ardently desired it to be victorious). The Europe
of to-day, compared with the Europe of the past, seems to contain many
less chances of civil wars and many more chances of national wars;
nothing could show better how much Europe has lost in idealism. (See
Note D at the end of this book for additional matter on the attitude of
the modern Catholics towards Catholicism when it is in opposition to
their nationalism.)
[29] For example, in words like the following, uttered at Venice on
the 11th December, 1926, by the Italian Minister of Education and
Fine Arts: ‘Artists must prepare themselves for the new imperialist
function which must be carried out by our art. Above everything, we
must categorically impose a principle of _Italianita_. Whoever copies
a foreigner is guilty of _lèse-nation_ (an insult to the nation) like
a spy who admits an enemy by a secret doorway.’ These words have to be
approved by every adept of ‘_integral_ nationalism’. Moreover, we hear
much the same thing in France from certain adversaries of Romanticism.
[30] ‘Discipline from the lowest to the highest must be essential and
of a religious type.’ (Mussolini, 25th October, 1925.) This is new
language in the mouth of a statesman, even of the most realist kind;
it may be asserted that neither Richelieu nor Bismarck would have
applied the word ‘religious’ to an activity whose object is exclusively
materialistic.
[31] Notably for Renan and ‘speculative a-moralism’. (H. Massis,
_Judgments_, i.)
[32] See Note E at the end of this book for further information on this
prestige, and what is new about it in history.
[33] In 1891 Barrès wrote to the editor of _La Plume_: ‘If these
books have any value, it is from the logic, the continuity of thought
I have put into them during five years.’ (‘These books’ included
his Boulangiste campaign.) And, in the preface to his collection of
articles entitled ‘Scènes et Documents du nationalisme’, he says: ‘I
think that if Doumic will examine it from a greater distance he will
find a development, and not contradictions, in my work.’
[34] I shall be told of ‘clerks’ who, apparently without degradation,
have at some time or other taken the part of a race or a nation, even
of their own race or nation. That is because they believed that the
cause of that race or nation coincided at that time with the cause of
abstract justice.
[35] Similar occurrences may be observed among the ancients. For
instance, Cicero denounced his fellow-citizens for having destroyed
Corinth merely to avenge an insult to their ambassador (De off., I, xi).
[36] Already in 1911, when a writer quoted this sentence: ‘It is
impossible to accept the situation that humanity should be bound
for indefinite centuries by the marriages, battles, treaties of the
narrow-minded, ignorant, egotistic creatures who during the middle
ages were at the head of affairs in this world,’ he felt it necessary
to add: ‘Fortunately these lines were written by Renan; one could not
write them to-day without being called an unpatriotic Frenchman.’ (G.
Guy-Grand, _La Philosophie Nationaliste_, p. 165.) Without being called
so _by the men of thought_--that is the curious part of it.
[37] Quoted by Mgr. Chapon in his admirable study, ‘La France et
l’Allemagne devant la doctrine chrétienne.’ (_Correspondant_, of 15th
August, 1915.)
[38] See his _Letters_, ii, p. 31.
[39] Consider how willingly they now accept military service. See Note
F at the end of this book.
[40] Here are the reasons given by a German Catholic for this attitude
among those of his religion: ‘(_a_) Their incomplete knowledge of the
facts and opinions in the belligerent and neutral countries; (_b_)
_Their patriotism, which could not be allowed to separate itself from
the union binding together the German people_; (_c_) The fear of a
second Kulturkampf, which would be doubly dangerous if the German
Catholics had even appeared to agree with the campaign carried on in
France against German methods of waging war.’ The second reason will
be noted, i.e. the desire to be at unity with the nation, whatever the
moral aspect of its cause. Here, at least, is one reason which Bossuet
did not allege when he screened the violences of Louis XIV.
Let me recall that when, in 1914, the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg in
the Reichstag hinted at a sort of apology for the violation of Belgian
neutrality, he was sharply reproved by the Christian minister von
Harnack ‘for having tried to excuse what did not need excusing’. (See
A. Loisy, _Guerre et Religion_, p. 14.)
[41] The clergy of the allied nations are eager to throw in the faces
of the German clergy their union with injustice in 1914. They abuse
their own good fortune in belonging to nations whose cause happened
to be just. When Italy, in 1923, at the time of the Corfu incident,
adopted towards Greece an attitude as unjust as that of Austria towards
Serbia in 1914, I am not aware that the Italian clergy expressed
indignation. Nor do I remember that in 1900, when a European army
intervened in Chinese affairs (the Boxer affair) and excesses were
committed by the soldiers, any strong protests were uttered by the
clergies of the respective nations.
[42] A particularly remarkable attitude was that of the philosopher
Boutroux. You will find an admirable denunciation of it from the pen of
Charles Andler, _Les Origines du Pangermanisme_, p. viii.
[43] This may be seen especially in the chorus of the Seven against
Thebes: ‘Gods of our City, let it not be destroyed with our houses and
our hearths.... O ye who have dwelt therein so long, will ye betray
this land?’ Six centuries later this may be seen in the ‘Aeneid’, where
the preservation of the Trojan City across the seas is plainly due
solely to the protection of Juno, and in no wise to any inward notion
of Trojan blood giving it an assurance of eternal duration.
[44] Although the Germans appear to have been the inventors of the
passion I am denouncing, Lessing and Schlegel seem to have been the
first to brandish their poets as the expression of the national
soul, from a feeling of exasperation with the universalism of French
literature. The men of the French Pléiade (who will certainly be
brought up against me) wished to give their sensibility a national
mode of expression, a national language; they never claimed to give
a national character to that sensibility, to oppose it to other
national sensibilities. The systematic nationalization of the mind
is undoubtedly an invention of modern times. As regards the men of
learning, this nationalizing has undoubtedly been favoured by the
disappearance of Latin as the scientific language; and no one will ever
be able to say to what an extent this disappearance was an element of
arrest in civilisation.
[45] In Nietzsche’s opinion, this was the case with Wagner, who, when
he gave himself out to his compatriots as the Messiah of German art,
saw that there was ‘a good vacant place to take’, while the whole
of his artistic formation as well as his profound philosophy, was
essentially universalist. (See _Ecce Homo_, p. 58. ‘What I have never
forgiven Wagner is his condescending to Germany.’) One wonders whether
the same might not be said of a certain apostle of ‘Lorrain genius’ or
of ‘Provençal genius’.
[46] The nationalization of the mind sometimes has results whose savour
is not sufficiently enjoyed. In 1904, during the centenary celebrations
of Petrarch, the nations of Goethe and Shakespeare were not invited,
because they are not Latins; but the Roumanians were invited. We do not
know whether Uruguay was invited.
[47] Anatole France, _La Vie Littéraire_, tome ii, p. 274. The
nationalist desires in French writers which I have been pointing out
have had other than political results; no one will ever be able to
say how many among them in the past fifty years have falsified their
talents, mistaken their true gifts in their endeavours to ‘feel in the
French manner’. A good example is the _Voyage de Sparte_, where so
many pages show what a beautiful piece of work it might have been if
the author had not _forced_ himself to feel his Lorrain soul under a
Greek sky. Here we come upon one of the most curious characteristics
in the writers of this age; the rejection of freedom of mind _for
themselves_, the thirst for ‘a discipline’ (the whole fortune of MM.
Maurras and Maritain comes from this), a thirst which in most of them
is the result of a fundamental intellectual nihilism. (On this nihilism
in Barrès, see Curtius, ‘Barrès and the intellectual foundations of
French nationalism,’ extracts in _Union pour la Vérité_, May, 1925;
in Maurras, see Guy-Grand, op. cit., p. 19; and L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans
d’Action Française_, p. 330: ‘I have never seen a more unhappy soul
than his.’) But the psychology of contemporary writers in itself and
apart from its political action is not my subject here.
[48] I think it novel that a poet should give rise to a demonstration
so essentially practical as the address of the Naval League of Venice
to d’Annunzio after the publication of _La Nave_. ‘On the day when your
genius radiates with new splendour over the ancient ruler of “our sea”,
over Venice, to-day disarmed against Pola, the Naval League of Venice
thanks you with emotion, hoping that the third Italy may at last arm
the prow and set sail towards the world.’ (_Translator’s Note._--I have
rendered the French version as quoted; its meaning or lack of meaning
is no doubt inherent in the genius of the original, which I have not
before me.)
[49] Compare with Balzac, who, though a Conservative, never hesitates
to show his Conservatives and particularly his Catholics in an
unfavourable light, if he thinks that the true light. See the examples
quoted by E. Seillière (_Balzac et la morale romantique_, pp. 27
onwards, and 84 onwards), who sharply reproaches Balzac.
[50] ‘_Resurrection_,’ ‘_Jean-Christophe_’ (derived in this respect
from the procedure of George Sand). On the other hand, I seem to find a
great deal of justice done the bourgeois in _Les Miserables_, which is
nevertheless a most ‘tendencious’ novel.
[51] For instance, pre-war French novels showing the French in
Alsace-Lorraine. We may be quite certain that since 1918 the Germans
have written novels which are the exact counterpart to these.
[52] See Note G at the end of this book.
[53] See, for instance, Fustel de Coulanges’s study _De la manière
d’écrire l’histoire en France et en Allemagne_. It will be observed
that this author’s denunciation of the German historians exactly
applies to certain French historians of recent years, with this
difference: That the German alters history to exalt his nation and the
Frenchman to exalt a political system. In general it may be said that
the ‘tendencious’ philosophies of the Germans lead to national war, and
those of the French to civil war. Is it necessary to repeat, after so
many others, how much this proves the moral superiority of the latter?
[54] _Revue Universelle_, 15th April, 1924. Here is that very curious
desire of the moderns to yield to subjectivism, whereas their elders
made every effort to combat it.
[55] See Note H at the end of this book.
[56] Yet the Jesuits thought of doing so to combat the Jansenists. (See
Racine, _Port-Royal_, pt. i.)
[57] On the matter of the lack of literary sensibility which
accompanies this political criticism among its adepts, see a paragraph
of L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans d’Action Française_, p. 334.
[58] The distinction between these two humanitarianisms is well
expressed by Goethe when he relates (Dichtung und Wahrheit) the
indifference of himself and his friends to the events of 1789. ‘In our
little circle, we took no notice of news and newspapers; our object
was to know Man; as for men, we left them to do as they chose.’ Need
I recall that the ‘humanities’, as instituted by the Jesuits in the
seventeenth century, the ‘studia humanitatis’, are ‘the study of what
is most essentially human’, in no sense altruistic exercises. See
further Note I at the end of this book for a curious quotation from one
of the ancients.
[59] This the Church has understood so well, and the corollary to
this truth: That love between men can only be created by developing
in them the sensibility for abstract man, and by combatting in them
the interest for concrete man; by turning them towards metaphysical
meditation and away from the study of history (see Malebranche). This
is exactly the contrary direction to that of the modern ‘clerks’ but,
once again, these ‘clerks’ have not the slightest desire to create love
among men.
[60] Thus they adopt the national spirit if it seems to serve their
interests; for instance, the party of ‘nationalist-socialists’.
[61] Certain nationalists, desirous of honouring cosmopolitanism,
whose full value their intelligence perceives, and yet not wishing
to sacrifice nationalism, declare that cosmopolitanism represents
‘enlightened nationalism’. M. Paul Bourget, who gives this definition
(_Paris-Times_, June, 1924), quotes Goethe and Stendhal as examples,
‘the former of whom remained so profoundly German while striving
to understand the whole movement of French thought, and the
latter remained so profoundly French while he devoted himself to
understanding Italy.’ One wonders how these two masters showed the
least, even enlightened, ‘nationalism’ by remaining profoundly German
and profoundly French. Obviously M. Bourget confuses national and
nationalist.
[62] Almost all works of national propaganda among the small nations
of Eastern Europe are anthologies of poetry. Very few are works of
thought. See the words uttered by E. Boutroux in August, 1915, to the
Committee of the Entente Cordiale, against the peoples who attach too
much importance to the intelligence, which ‘of itself tends to be one
and common to all beings capable of knowledge’.
[63] _Les Nouvelles Littéraires_, 25th September, 1926.
[64] Here is a specimen of the acrobatics which these teachers are
compelled to perform in order to conciliate Christian doctrine with
the preaching of national particularisms: ‘We wish to set the ideal of
universalism in positive relation to the contemporary reality of the
national form, which is that of all life, even the Christian life.’
(Pastor Witte, quoted by A. Loisy, _Guerre et Religion_, p. 18.) Here
are minds for whom the squaring of the circle is obviously mere child’s
play.
[65] Is it not suggestive to note that the Church in the last twenty
years has replaced the commandment ‘Homicide shalt thou not be, in fact
or by assent’ with ‘Homicide shalt thou not be, without right, nor
voluntarily’?
[66] For example in this passage of Bossuet: ‘Since we are obliged to
love all men and since in truth no man is a foreigner to a Christian,
there is all the more reason for loving our fellow citizens. All the
love a man feels for himself, for his family, and for his friends is
united in the love he feels for his country....’ (_Politique tirée de
l’Ecriture Sainte_, I, vi. Notice the phrase ‘All the love a man feels
for himself....’ It wholly justifies Saint Evremond’s phrase: ‘Love
of country is really love of oneself.’) It appears that the Church
would prefer to go on presenting patriotism under this one aspect of
love (see the inquiry of ‘les Lettres’ on the Church and Nationalism,
1922-3), which would allow her to exalt this passion (as its
popularity requires) without violating the principles of Christianity.
Unfortunately for the Church, positive men come along and remind her
that patriotism is something more than love, and includes ‘hatred for
the foreigner’. (Maurras, _Dilemme de Marc Sangnier_.) Who will deliver
us from the truth-tellers?
[67] A. Lugan, _La grande loi sociale de l’amour des hommes_, liv. ii,
chap. iii.
[68] Père Ollivier, _Les Amitiés de Jesus_, p. 142.
[69] _Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique_ (1919), in
the article headed ‘Patrie’. The reader will note the extraordinary
practical spirit of this article, and the desire to love only those who
have done something for us.
[70] Loisy’s _Guerre et Religion_, p. 60. Nevertheless, a certain
number of practising clergy speak in the same way; see Guillot de
Givry, _Le Christ et la Patrie_, towards the end.
[71] It is current knowledge that Italian Fascism and Russian
Bolshevism both derive from the author of _Reflections on Violence_.
He did, indeed, preach class egotism to some extent in a universal
manner, but without any explicit preference for the interest of one
class rather than that of another. In his preaching of egotism there
is a kind of impartiality which does not lack grandeur, a quality not
inherited by his disciples.
[72] And even the teaching of Jesus Christ. R. Johannet says (op. cit.,
p. 153), ‘I have tried to show what a vast amount of Christianity
is contained in the bourgeois type, when it is pure. To condemn the
bourgeois, because he is a bourgeois, in the name of Christ, seems to
me a somewhat daring paradox.’ But this author does not quote a single
text of the Gospels. He only quotes a few interpreters of Saint Thomas
Aquinas, whom he praises for their ‘extra-realist sense of affairs’,
and who apparently for him incarnate the thinking of Jesus Christ. This
work is one of the most perfect examples of the modern ‘clerk’s’ desire
to idealize the practical spirit. (On the subject of Christian doctrine
in the matter of property, see Father Thomassin, _Traité de l’aumône_.)
[73] It might be said that in Christian theology the bourgeois state is
a _function_, and not a rank.
[74] The essential position of the Church on this point (I say
essential; for, by close search, one can find texts supporting the
opposite thesis, but once more the curious thing is the fact that
this search should be made) seems to me defined in these lines:
‘Malebranche inclines, like Bossuet, to look upon social inequalities
and injustices as the results of sin, which must be endured as such,
and to which exterior conduct must conform.... We must not even attempt
to remedy these injustices except by charity, for we should simply
disturb the peace of the world, probably without any result. Only, _we
should not in our own souls attach any sort of importance to these
circumstances and conditions, for the true life is not there_’ (H.
Joly, _Malebranche_, p. 262).
[75] On the relation between Durckheim’s theses and those of the French
traditionalists, see D. Parodi, _La Philosophie contemporaine en
France_, p. 148.
[76] ‘Germany is the sole judge of her methods.’ (Major von Disfurth,
November, 1914.) The philosophy of national moralities seems
essentially German. Is it not very remarkable to see Hegel and Zeller
desiring at all costs to prove that Plato in his _Republic_ defined
a state of good which was only valid for the Greeks, and not for all
peoples? (See P. Janet, _Histoire des idées politiques_, tome 1, p.
140.)
[77] Barrès wrote in 1898: ‘The professors are still arguing about
justice and truth, when every self-respecting man knows that he must
limit himself to inquiring if there is justice in the relations between
two given men, at a given time, under specified circumstances.’ That is
exactly what the Germany of 1914 said in answer to those who brought
accusations against her. Not a single moralist in France before
Barrès--not even de Maistre or Bonald--would have asserted that ‘every
self-respecting man’ can conceive of no justice but one specially
arranged for the circumstances.
[78] _L’Appel au Soldat._ Compare this with the traditional French
teaching, of which Barrès claims to be the heir: ‘Whatever your country
may be, you should only believe what you would be disposed to believe
if you were in another country.’ (_Logique de Port-Royal_, iii, xx.)
It must not be thought that dogma of national truths aims only at
moral truth. Recently certain French thinkers waxed indignant that the
doctrines of Einstein were accepted by their compatriots without more
resistance.
[79] The adoration of the contingent _for its own sake_; otherwise,
and as a step towards the eternal, the knowledge of ‘strange things’
is highly recommended by Leibniz, and even by Spinoza. Renouvier, so
hostile to a certain kind of universalism, never bestows philosophical
value on a knowledge of what is ‘unique and inexpressible’ in the
object. (See G. Séailles, ‘Le Pluralisme de Renouvier,’ _Revue de
Métaphysique et de Morale_, 1925.) He would never have signed this
charter of modern metaphysics: ‘That the philosophers since Socrates
should have contended as to which should most scorn the knowledge of
the particular and should most adore knowledge of the general, is
something which passes understanding. For, after all, must not the most
honourable knowledge be the knowledge of the most valuable realities!
And is there a valuable reality which is not concrete and individual?’
(William James.)
[80] An important literary review recently reproached a critic
(M. Pierre Lasserre) for his supposed inaptitude to understand
‘contemporary literature’.
[81] Curiously enough, these metaphysics of the historic may also be
found among the poets. We all know Claudel’s cult of ‘the present
minute’ (because it differs from all other minutes in that it is not
the extremity of the same quantity of the past); Rimbaud before this
said: ‘One must be absolutely modern.’ Moreover, for certain Christians
dogma is only valid _relative to a time_. There again particularism
seems to have been started by the Germans: ‘No exposition of morality
can be the same for all periods of the Christian Church; each possesses
full and complete value for a certain period only.’ (Scheiermacher.) On
the Germanism in this desire to see everything in its ‘becoming’, see
Parodi, _le Problème moral et la Pensée contemporaine_, p. 255.
[82] These views on the modern cult of the particular do not seem to
me to be invalidated by the arrival of a recent school (Neo-Thomism)
which opposes the cult of Being to that of Becoming. According to the
leaders of this school, it is clear that, despite certain universalist
declarations, human Being really belongs only to them and their group,
although in this case the group is wider than the nation. One of them
would quite willingly say with a Christian of the second century: ‘We
are men; the rest are pigs and dogs.’ Nor do I think I need take into
account those particularisms which claim that by working for themselves
they are working for the universal, seeing that for them their own
group represents the universal. ‘I am Roman, I am human’ (Maurras). ‘I
am German, I am human’ (Fichte) and so on.... However, these claims
show the prestige of the universal in despite of doctrines.
[83] See Note J at the end of this book.
[84] On the cult of the ‘Prussian model’ even among the English
‘clerks’, see Elie Halévy, _Histoire du Peuple anglais_, Epilogue,
livre ii, ch. i.
[85] Sorel, _Le procès de Socrate_.
[86] This has been perfectly obvious to all those guardians of the
spiritual who have condemned it, whatever their motives may have been.
More precisely, Maurras’s work makes the passion of man to found the
State (or to strengthen it) an object of religious adoration; it
is really the worldly made transcendental. This displacing of the
transcendental is the secret of the great influence exerted by Maurras
on his contemporaries. These persons, especially in irreligious
France, were plainly eager for such a doctrine, if one may judge by
the outburst of gratitude with which they greeted it, and which seems
to say: ‘At last we are delivered from God; at last we are allowed to
adore ourselves in our will to be great, not in our will to be good; we
are shown the ideal in the real, on earth and not in heaven.’ In this
sense, Maurras’s work is the same as Nietzsche’s (‘be faithful to the
earth’), with this difference, that the German thinker deifies man in
his anarchic passions, and the Frenchman in his organising passions.
It is also the same as the work of Bergson and James, inasmuch as it
says like them: the real is the only ideal. This _secularizing of the
divine_ may be compared with the work of Luther.
[87] Machiavellian morality is plainly proclaimed in the following
lines, where every open-minded person will recognize, except for the
tone, the teaching of _all_ the present teachers of realism, whatever
their nationality: ‘In his relations with other States, the Prince
should know neither law nor right, except the right of the strongest.
These relations place in his hands, under his responsibility, the
divine rights of the Destiny and government of the world, and raise
him above the precepts of individual morality into a higher moral
order, whose content is enshrined in the words: Salus populi suprema
lex esto.’ (Fichte, quoted by Andler, op. cit., p. 33.) The advance on
Machiavelli is obvious.
[88] The teaching of this writer may be put in this form: ‘All that
is good from the point of view of politics is good; _and I know no
other criterion of good_.’ This enables him to say that he makes no
pronouncement in matters of private morality.
[89] In Richelieu’s _Testament politique_ and the _Mémoires de Louis
XIV pour l’Instruction du Dauphin_, the catalogue of good and ill might
be signed by Saint Vincent de Paul. We read in them: ‘Kings should
take care in making treaties, but once the treaties are made, _they
must observe them religiously_. I know that many politicians teach the
contrary; but, without taking into consideration all that the Christian
Faith provides us with against these maxims, I maintain that since
the loss of honour is greater than the loss of life itself, a great
Prince should hazard his person and _even the interest of his State
rather than break his word_, which he cannot violate without losing his
reputation, and consequently _the greatest strength_ of a Sovereign.’
(_Testament Politique_, part 2, ch. vi.)
[90] Similarly with the writer--Machiavelli, who writes for his
peers, can allow himself the luxury of not being a moralist; Maurras
who writes for crowds cannot do so. No one writes with impunity in a
democracy. Moreover, a political activity which is supported by moral
activity proves that it understands the true conditions of its success.
A master in these matters says: ‘There can be no profound political
reform unless religion and morality are also reformed.’ (Hegel.)
Clearly the particular influence of the _Action Française_ among
all other conservative organs is due to the fact that its political
movement is supported by a moral teaching, although other interests
oblige it to deny this.
[91] _Dictionnaire des Cas de Conscience_ (ed. 1712), article ‘Guerre’.
With such a morality the territorial formation of any European State
would become impossible. This is the type of non-practical teaching,
i.e. of what I mean by the true ‘clerk’. (See Note F at the end of
this book on the subject of the welcome given to this teaching by the
material world.) In the opinion of Vittoria as well, the extension of
empire is not a just cause.
[92] This is the thesis of Alfonso Liguori which to-day prevails in the
Church’s teaching over that of Vittoria.
[93] Cardinal Gousset (_Théologie morale_, 1845).
[94] This is the Scholastic doctrine of war, formulated in all its
rigidity by Thomas Aquinas. According to this doctrine, the Prince
(or the people) who declares war, acts as a magistrate (minister Dei)
under whose jurisdiction a foreign nation falls, owing to an injustice
it has committed and which it refuses to repair. From this it follows,
in particular, that the Prince who has declared war ought solely
to punish the guilty, if he is victorious, and not to acquire any
personal benefit from his victory. This high moral doctrine is entirely
abandoned by the Church to-day. (See Vanderpol, _La Guerre devant le
Christianisme_, titre ix.)
[95] Apparently this was the view adopted by the Holy See in 1914
towards the Franco-German war, Germany benefiting by what theology
calls ‘invincible’ ignorance, i.e. implying that one has used all
the diligence of which a man is capable in trying to understand the
explanations of an adversary. Obviously, one may feel that some
goodwill was needed to think that Germany had a right to this benefit.
[96] Like the thesis of war being just on both sides, this is the
doctrine of Molina, which in matters of law in war has entirely
replaced Scholastic doctrine in ecclesiastic teaching.
[97] In the _Dictionnaire théologique_ of Vacant-Mangenot (1922,
article ‘Guerre’), I find the following passage, which I recommend to
all aggressors desirous of sheltering under a high moral authority: ‘It
is not only the right but the duty of the leader of a nation to adopt
this method (i.e. war) to safeguard the general interests committed to
his care. This right and duty apply not only to a strictly defensive
war, but also to an offensive war rendered necessary by the actions
of a neighbouring State whose ambitious intrigues constitute a real
danger.’ In the same article will be found a theory of colonial wars
identical to Kipling’s when he calls them: _the white man’s burden_.
[98] This expression (i.e. ‘la blague’) is Sorel’s (see Julien Benda,
_Les Sentiments de Critias_, p. 258); and again (_Reflexions sur la
Violence_, ch. ii): ‘You cannot sufficiently execrate those who teach
the people that they should carry out some alleged superlatively
idealistic injunction of a justice moving towards the future.’
Moreover, Sorel professes a similar hatred for those who preach this
injunction to the bourgeoisie.
[99] See Note K at the end of the book.
[100] See _Reflexions sur la Violence_, ch. vi: ‘The morality of
Violence.’ We shall be told that the justice denounced by Sorel is the
justice of tribunals, which according to him is a false justice, a
‘violence with a judicial mask’. There is no indication that a justice
which was a true justice would receive any more respect from him.
[101] In this respect one cannot stress too much in certain political
teachers a defence of intolerance, carried out with a consciousness and
arrogance which hitherto had only appeared sometimes in the mandatories
of a revealed religion. A specimen is quoted by G. Guy-Grand (_La
Philosophie nationaliste_, p. 47). See also one of these defences in L.
Romier, _Nation et Civilisation_, p. 180.
[102] ‘Modern science has established as the measure of truth, not the
deductive demands of its understanding, but the observed existence
of the fact.’ (Paul Bourget.) The ‘truth’ here is evidently moral
truth; for scientific truth the phrase would be a tautology. Once
more, here the ‘fact’ is solely the fact which happens to suit the
author’s passions. When M. d’Haussonville points out to M. Bourget that
democracy is a fact, and an unavoidable fact, he is told that this
belief is a ‘prejudice’ and one suddenly learns that ‘boats are made to
row against the stream’. This is exactly what revolutionaries say.
[103] See Note L at the end of this book.
[104] Another thinker to whom our empiricists are strangely ungrateful
is the author of these words: ‘Consider the danger of one stirring up
the enormous masses which form the French nation. Who could restrain
the disturbance set up, or foresee all the results it might produce?
Even if all the advantages of the new scheme should be indisputable,
what man of good sense would dare to undertake to abolish old customs,
to change old maxims, and to give a new form to a State other than that
it has reached after an existence of 1,300 years?’ (J. J. Rousseau.)
[105] See Note M at the end of this book.
[106] ‘A truly scientific mind,’ says one of these devotees of fact,
‘feels no need to justify a privilege which appears as an elementary
and irreducible datum of the social world.’ (Paul Bourget.) But this
same ‘truly scientific’ mind is scandalised at an _insurrection_
against this privilege, which is also an ‘elementary and irreducible
datum of the social world’. I shall be told this that insurrection is
not a datum of the social world, but of the world of passion where it
is most anti-social. And that indeed is the position of this dogmatism:
It considers the social _independent of the passionate_, whether the
latter has been made social (by Catholic education), or has been
reduced to silence by force (school of Maurras) or by skill (school
of Bainville). The strangest part of it all is that those who argue
in this way about the social _in itself_ accuse their adversaries of
dealing in abstractions.
[107] The position I am here denouncing has nothing in common with that
of a recent school of moralists (Rauh, Lévy-Bruhl) who also desire ‘to
take man as he is’, but in order to discover how he may be made better.
[108] This pessimism, whatever some of its heralds may say, has nothing
in common with the pessimism of the masters of the seventeenth century.
La Fontaine and La Bruyère attribute nothing inevitable or eternal to
the ills they portray. Let me also point out that in their efforts
to discourage hope, the Romantics of Pessimism cannot claim (as M.
Georges Goyau has pointed out to them) that they are based on Catholic
tradition.
[109] Such a group logically comes to declarations like the following,
which every supporter of ‘integral nationalism’ is bound to admire:
‘From to-night onwards let there be an end to the silly Utopia where
everyone thinks with his own head.’ (Impero, 4th November, 1926.) See
Note N at the end of this volume.
[110] On Pragmatism, especially Nietzschean pragmatism, and the place
it holds (whether they confess it or not) in almost all the moral
and political teachings really characteristic of this time, see R.
Berthelot, _Un Romantisme Utilitaire_, tome i, page 28 onwards. I can
best show the novelty of the pragmatist attitude, especially among the
French moralists, by quoting a remark of Montaigne which they all,
before Barrès, would have ratified: ‘The honour and beauty of an action
cannot be argued from its utility.’ Let us not forget, however, that
Nietzsche, always unfaithful to his disciples, declares that ‘in the
long run, utility, like everything else, is simply a figment of our
imagination, and may well be the _fatal stupidity by which we shall one
day perish_’.
[111] That it why Pragmatism is also called Humanism. (See F. Schiller,
_Protagoras or Plato_.)
[112] We know how the two are reconciled. Jesus, they say, preached
the spirit of sacrifice, which is the basis of all human institutions.
As if Jesus preached the spirit of sacrifice which wins battles and
secures empires!
[113] ‘The true warrior remains human in the midst of the blood he
sheds.’ (De Maistre.)
[114] For example, when they make a soldier say in heaven: ‘You must
know, my friends, that among all things done upon earth, nothing
is more agreeable to the eyes of those who rule the universe than
societies of men founded upon respect for laws, which we call cities.’
(Cicero, _Scipio’s Dream_.)
[115] Sorel, loc. cit.
[116] And from any patriotism. Nietzsche and Sorel prove that love of
war is something totally distinct from love of country, although most
often they coincide.
[117] Ernest Psichari, _Terres de Soleil et de Sommeil_. And, in
_L’Appel des armes_, through the mouth of a character who obviously has
all the author’s sympathies; ‘I think it necessary that there should be
in the world a certain number of the men who are called soldiers and
who place their ideal in fighting, who have a taste for battle, not for
victory but for the contest, as hunters have a taste for hunting, not
for game!... The part we have to play, or otherwise we lose our reason
for existing and have no more meaning, is to maintain a military ideal,
not a nationally military ideal, but a militarily military ideal, if
I may so express it.’ The religion of this moralist is, according
to his own expression, _integral militarism_. ‘Big guns,’ he says,
‘are the most real realities which exist, the sole realities of the
modern world.’ And obviously these realities are divinities for this
‘spiritual’ person and his followers.
[118] This depreciation of Greece, to be seen in many French
traditionalists since de Maistre, is constant among the Pangermanists.
(See notably Houston Chamberlain, _Genesis of the Nineteenth Century_,
tome i, page 57.) In a periodical with dogmatic claims (_Notre Temps_,
August, 1927), under the suggestive title ‘Towards a Practical
Idealism’, I read: ‘A young generation trained in this way, _more
sporting than ideological_, supports those who ask whether we are
not at the dawn of a great age.’ Here again the Churchmen do not
lag behind. In _La Vie Catholique_ (24th September, 1927) I find a
warm eulogy of a champion boxer. It is true that this eulogy ends up
with the words: ‘Finally, let us add that Tunney is a convinced and
practising Catholic, and that two of his sisters are nuns.’
[119] Laws, Book I. The exact text of Plato is: ‘In the order of
virtues, wisdom is first, temperance comes next, courage occupies the
last place.’ Plato here means by courage (see the context, notably the
passage about those soldiers who ‘though insolent, unjust, immoral,
know how to fight’) Man’s aptitude for facing death. It seems that he
would not have given the first place to the courage which is strength
of mind, a resistance to misfortune, as the Stoics afterwards did.
With him strength of mind always comes after justice--according to his
doctrine, it is a consequence of justice. Moreover, the courage placed
in the supreme rank by Barrès is not Stoic patience but the active
defiance of death. For Nietzsche and Sorel it is essential audacity,
where audacity is irrational--a form of courage depreciated by all
ancient moralists and their disciples. (See Plato, Laches; Aristotle,
Ethics, VIII; Spinoza, Ethics, IV, 69; even the poets--‘Our reason
which commands our fire,’ Ronsard.)
It seems that facing death, even on behalf of justice, was not so much
the object of praise among the ancient philosophers as it is among the
moderns. In the Phaedo, Socrates is praised for his justice; he is not
very loudly praised because he died for justice. Moreover, the views
of the ancients on this point seem to me well expressed by Spinoza:
‘Death is a thing of which the free man thinks least of all,’ a thought
which does not imply much admiration for those who face death bravely.
One wonders whether the veneration of courage, at least among the
moralists, has not been created by Christianity, with the importance it
attaches to death, and the subsequent appearance before God.
I cannot leave this point without recalling a passage where Saint-Simon
speaks of a nobility ‘accustomed to be good for nothing except to get
itself killed’, _Mémoires_, t. xi, page 427, ed. Cheruel. It may be
asserted that there is not one modern writer, even a Duke of France,
who would speak of courage in such a tone.
[120] And to hold.
[121] There will be found in Barrès (_Une Enquête aux pays du Levant_,
chap. vii: ‘Les derniers fidèles du Vieux de la Montagne’) a striking
example of admiration for the cult of honour inasmuch as this cult,
when ably exploited by an intelligent leader, gives practical results.
[122] This is especially the case with Montaigne who, as everyone
knows, extols honour insofar as it is man’s sensitiveness to the
judgment of his conscience, but very little insofar as it is a desire
for glory--‘put off with other pleasures that which comes from the
approbation of others.’ Barrès believes he sees in that ‘a foreigner
who does not share our prejudices’. Barrès confuses the moralists and
the poets. Before him I do not know one French author with dogmatic
claims who has attributed a high moral value to the love of glory; the
French moralists before 1890 are very unmilitary, even the soldiers
like Vauvenargues and Vigny. (See the excellent study of G. Le Bidois,
_L’Honneur au miroir de nos lettres_, especially on Montesquieu.)
[123] The Abbé Sertillanges, _L’Héroisme et la Gloire_. Compare this
with Bossuet’s two sermons on ‘The Honour of the World’. You can
measure the advance made by the Church during three centuries in its
concessions to lay passions. See also Nicole: ‘On the true idea of
valour.’ The sermons of the Abbé Sertillanges (‘la Vie Héroïque’)
should be read entire, as a monument of a Churchman’s enthusiasm for
warlike instincts. It is positively the manifesto of a helmed ‘clerk’.
You can find in them such emotions as the following which, mutatis
mutandis, might be an extract from the Regimental Orders of a Colonel
of the Death’s Head Hussars: ‘Behold Guynemer, the young hero, the
simple soul with the eagle glance, the slim Hercules, the Achilles who
does not retire to his tent, the Roland of the clouds and the Cid of
the French sky: was there ever a wilder and more furious paladin, more
careless of death, whether his own or that of an enemy? This “kid”, as
his comrades called him, only enjoyed the savage pleasure of attack, of
the hard fight, of the clear victory, and in him the arrogance of the
conqueror was at once charming and terrible.’
[124] Let me recall Thomas Aquinas’s definition of honour, which is not
exactly the definition of the honour extolled by the Abbé Sertillanges:
‘Honour is good (like the love of human glory) on condition that
charity is its principle, and the love of God or the good of one’s
neighbour as its object.’
[125] See the recent Bill to amend Martial Law, known as the Paul
Boncour Bill.
[126] This suggestive remark is Lavisse’s, _Etudes d’Histoire de
Prusse_, page 30. See the whole passage.
[127] Love here is obviously love for the superior species--to which
the preacher naturally belongs. Doubtless it is this love also which
permits of a pity which is not ‘perverted.’
[128] Charles Maurras, _Action Française_, tome iv, page 596. One
thinks of Nietzsche’s exclamation: ‘Humanity! Was there ever a more
horrible old woman among all horrible old women!’ and the German master
adds, always in agreement with many a French master as we shall see
later, ‘unless perhaps it is truth.’
[129] Their harshness has obviously nothing in common with the
harshness implied by these fine words: ‘The man of justice subordinates
passion to reason, which seems regrettable if his heart is cold, but
will appear sublime if he is capable of love’ (Renouvier).
[130] This is the opinion of Machiavelli (chap. xviii) who, there
again, does not therefore consider cruelty as a proof of a high state
of culture.
[131] I find this from the pen of a hero of the First Empire: ‘I was
afraid of feeling _pleasure_’ (the author himself underlines the word)
‘in killing with my own hand some of these scoundrels’ (he is speaking
of some Germans who murdered French prisoners after the battle of
Leipzic). ‘I therefore sheathed my sabre and left the extermination
of these assassins to the troopers.’ (_Memoirs of General Marbot_,
tome iii, page 344.) There is a condemnation of the joy of killing
which would be scorned by many a contemporary writer. In France the
glorification of warlike instincts is much less common among the
soldiers than among the authors. Marbot is far less bloody-minded than
Barrès.
[132] ‘And the honour of virtue consists in contending, not in winning’
(Montaigne).
[133] _La Ruine du monde antique_, page 76. See also in _Les Illusions
du progrès_ (page 259) Sorel’s derisive amusement at a thinker who
said that the preponderance of intellectual emotions is the sign of
superior societies. We may take up Sainte-Beuve’s famous distinction
and say that modern thinkers extol _sword-intelligence_ at the expense
of _mirror-intelligence_. On their own showing it is the former they
admire in Nietzsche, Sorel, Péguy, and Maurras. (See R. Gillouin,
_Esquisses littéraires et morales_, page 52.) Let me observe that
contempt for ‘mirror-intelligence’ implies contempt for Aristotle,
Spinoza, Bacon, Goethe, and Renan. Nor does it seem to me that M. Paul
Valéry is exactly a ‘sword-intelligence’.
[134] _Victor Marie, Comte Hugo_, towards the end. See Note O at the
end of this volume.
[135] This it the only reason why Nietzsche extols art, and declares
(along with all modern moralism) the supremacy of the artist over the
philosopher, because art seems to him to possess the value of action.
Apart from this point of view, it seems just to say with one of his
critics: ‘At bottom Nietzsche despised art and artists.... In art he
condemns a feminine principle, the mimicry of the actor, the love of
dress and all that glitters.... Remember the eloquent page where he
praises Shakespeare, the greatest of poets, for having abased the
figure of the poet, whom he treats as a stage-player, before Caesar,
_that divine man_.’ (C. Schuwer, _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_,
April, 1926.) For Sorel art is great because it is an anticipation of
intense production, as it tends to manifest itself more and more in our
society.
[136] _Evolution Créatrice_, page 216. The true formula of Bergsonism
should be, ‘I grow, therefore I am.’ Notice also the tendency of modern
philosophy to make the practical character of thought its essential
characteristic and to make its consciousness of itself a secondary
characteristic: ‘Perhaps thought must be defined as the faculty of
combining means towards certain ends rather than by the sole property
of being clear to itself.’ (D. Roustan, _Leçons de Psychologie_, page
73.)
[137] The Sphex. The example is given in _L’Evolution Créatrice_, and
has had an immense success in the literary world. (It is, moreover,
imaginary. See Marie Goldsmith, _Psychologie Comparée_, page 211.) The
defence of the practical value of instinct, with the same Romantic
contempt of the rationalist as in Barrès, existed with J. J. Rousseau:
‘Conscience never deceives us; it is to the soul what instinct is
to the body.... Modern philosophy, which only admits what can be
explained, takes care not to admit the obscure faculty called instinct
which, without acquired knowledge, seems to guide animals towards some
end.’ (_Confession de foi du vicaire savoyard._)
[138] ‘If the utility which results from a man’s occupations determined
our praise, the inventor of the plough would deserve the praise of
being a great mind far more than Aristotle, Galilei, and M. Descartes.’
(Bayle.) Fontenelle and Voltaire have pointed out the utility of
certain studies which were considered useless; they never meant that
those who cultivated these studies while they thought them useless were
therefore contemptible.
[139] See above, page 54.
[140] Or moral. Barrès denounces the ‘immorality’ of the scholar who
shows the part played by chance in history. Compare Michelet’s remark,
‘respect kills history.’
[141] As is well known, this is the argument of the ‘Avenir
de l’intelligence’. It allows followers to say (‘Manifeste de
l’Intelligence,’ _Figaro_, 19th July, 1919; on this manifesto, see Note
P at the end of this volume) that ‘one of the most obvious missions
of the Church during the ages has been to protect the intelligence
against its own errors’--an irrefutable saying from the moment that the
errors of the intelligence are everything it says without reference to
social order (whose basis is to be the teaching of the Church). This
practical conception of the intelligence leads to definitions of this
sort: ‘True logic is to be defined as the normal union of feelings,
images and signs, to inspire in us the conceptions suited to our moral,
intellectual and physical needs.’ (Maurras.) Compare this with the
tradition teaching of the French masters: ‘Logic is the art of guiding
reason properly in the knowledge of things.’ (_Logique de Port-Royal._)
The wish to esteem intelligence according to its practical results
appears again in this astounding formula: ‘A critical mind is of value
_through the influence it exerts_ by means of the enlightenment it
bestows.’ (Maurras.) See also how severe is M. Massis (_Jugements_, i,
87) for Renan when he says: ‘The useful is what I abhor.’ Elsewhere
(_Jugements_, 107) the same thinker speaks of a spiritual freedom
‘whose disinterestedness is merely a refusal of the conditions of life,
of action, _and of thought_!’
[142] They add ‘and unscientific’, which is irrefutable as soon as
science means ‘practical’. ‘Bringing up children religiously,’ says M.
Paul Bourget, ‘is bringing them up scientifically’--a very defensible
saying as soon as ‘scientifically’ means (as the author here wants it
to mean) ‘in conformity with the national interest’.
[143] The French traditionalists condemn the truth in itself in the
name of ‘social’ truth. This is the _glorification of prejudices_,
a new thing indeed in the descendants of Montaigne and Voltaire. It
may be said that certain contemporary French masters show a zeal in
defending the interests of society never seen before in those whose
business was to defend the interests of the mind.
The condemnation of disinterested intellectual activity is plainly
laid down in this command of Barrès: ‘All questions must be solved in
relation to France,’ to which a German thinker replies in 1920, ‘All
the conquests of ancient and modern culture and of science are looked
at by us from the German point of view before everything.’ (Quoted by
C. Chabot, Preface to the French translation of _Speeches to the German
Nation_, page xix). For the cult of the ‘useful error’, see an amazing
page in the _Jardin de Bérénice_, quoted and commented on by Parodi.
(_Traditionalisme et Democratie_, page 136.)
[144] Here M. Maurras separates from his Master, de Maistre, who speaks
of ‘the ocean which will one day welcome everything and everyone to
its bosom’. However, the author of the _Soirées de Saint-Petersbourg_
quickly adds: ‘But I refrain from touching on personality, without
which immortality is nothing.’
[145] On the existence of this doctrine of immanence among almost all
Christian teachers until our own times, see Renouvier: ‘l’Idée de Dieu’
(_Année Philosophique_, 1897), and also _Essai d’une Classification des
doctrines_, 3: _l’évolution_; _la création_.
[146] According to Hegel, God constantly grows at the expense of His
opposite; His activity is essentially that of war and victory.
[147] Let me note a keen protest against this conception in
‘Neo-Thomism’.
[148] Compare, for instance, the condemnation of Rosmini with that of
Maître Eckart, where such propositions as ‘Nulla in Deo distinctio
esse aut intelligi potest’ and ‘Omnes creaturae sunt purum nihil’
are declared to be, not heretical, but only ‘ill-sounding, rash and
suspected of heresy’.
[149] Remember that in 1806, immediately after Jena, Hegel’s one
thought was to find a corner in which to philosophize. In 1813
Schopenhauer was completely indifferent to the up-rising of Germany
against Napoleon.
[150] ‘No one has the right to be indifferent to the disasters of his
country; but the philosopher, like the Christian, always has reasons
for living. The Kingdom of God knows neither conquerors nor conquered;
that Kingdom resides in the joys of the heart, the mind, and the
imagination, which the conquered enjoys more than the conqueror if he
is morally on a higher plane and has more mind. Your great Goethe, your
admirable Fichte have taught us, have they not, how to lead a noble and
consequently happy life, when our country is humiliated abroad.’ (First
Letter to Strauss.)
Need I say that Nietzsche, who seems to me a bad ‘clerk’ from the
nature of his teaching, seems to me one of the finest from his entire
devotion to the passions of the spirit alone?
[151] Of course, I am not doubting the sincerity of all the
‘right-thinking’ men of letters. Some persons are so fortunate that
the most profitable attitudes are precisely those which they adopt
sincerely.
[152] This may be clearly seen by the ill-will displayed by the French
bourgeoisie towards the order of their ‘spiritual leader’ forbidding
them to read a publication whose doctrines they like. The change may be
estimated if you remember that when, a century ago, the Pope ordered
the French Catholics to accept the law against the Jesuits voted by the
government of Charles X, they all bowed to his will.
[153] At the end of the War of the Spanish Succession when the north of
France was invaded, Fénelon delivered several sermons in which he told
the invaded population that their sufferings were the just punishment
for their sins. Imagine the reception of anyone who dared to preach
such a sermon to the French in August, 1914! For the manner in which
the ‘taught’ Church to-day treats the ‘teaching’ Church if the latter
does not say what it wants to hear, think of the reception thirty years
ago of Father Ollivier’s sermon on the victims of the fire at the
charity bazaar.
[154] Similar observations may be made about the philosophers, most of
whom--and not the least famous--do not live to-day like Descartes and
Spinoza, but are married, have children, occupy posts, are ‘in daily
life’. All of which seems to me to have a relation with the ‘pragmatic’
character of their teaching. (On this point, see my book: _Sur le
Succès du Bergsonisme_, page 207.)
[155] This is the reign (which seems eternal in France) of the ‘wit’,
with his attribute so admirably denounced by Malebranche in this
delicious phrase: ‘The stupid person and the wit are equally blind to
truth; with this difference, that the stupid person respects truth
while the wit despises it.’
[156] The spectacle of democracies may satisfy another sort of artistic
sensibility, i.e. the sort which is moved, not by the spectacle of
order, but by the spectacle of an equilibrium between forces which
are naturally in opposition. (On this distinction, see the great book
by M. Hauriou, _Principes de droit public_, chap. i.) Nevertheless,
a sensibility to equilibrium is far more intellectual than truly
artistic. See Note Q at the end of this book.
[157] More precisely, since the haughty Romanticism I mentioned above.
The artist’s desire to set himself up as an exceptional being dates
from Flaubert. Hugo and Lamartine never expressed it.
[158] This aversion is particularly strong in Nietzsche. (See _Le
Gai sçavoir_, loc. cit., where generalization becomes a synonym for
platitude, superficiality, stupidity.) Like a true artist, Nietzsche
is incapable of understanding that the apperception of a common
characteristic may be an act of genius--for instance, the apperception
of the common characteristic between the movement of the planets and
the fall of an apple.
[159] So much so that the true champions of ‘sacred egoism’ definitely
condemn them. Bismarck, Wilhelm II, Naumann, Houston Chamberlain, all
argue against classical teaching.
[160] Remember that Nietzsche only truly esteems the thought of the
ancients up to Socrates, i.e. up to the time when it begins to teach
the universal.
[161] This same Barrès is quoted as having said to a ‘Dreyfusist’ in
1898: ‘Why do you talk of justice and humanity to me! What do I care
for? A few pictures in Europe and a few cemeteries!’ Another of our
great political realists confessed one day to his fundamental necessity
to ‘enjoy’. Socrates long ago told Protagoras that the basis of his
doctrine was a thirst for sensation.
[162] It seems to me difficult to deny that pacifism, humanitarianism,
and altruism are _boring_. No doubt, art, science, and philosophy offer
sufficient opportunities for ‘amusement’ without one asking of it
doctrines which set the world on fire. But that is the view of a man
who is not wildly eager for sensation.
[163] The realists are not the only people to-day who find
opportunities for sensation in their political attitudes. It is certain
that the humanitarianism of Victor Hugo and Michelet is far from having
the pure intellectual resonance it had in Spinoza and Malebranche. (See
above, my distinction between humanitarianism and humanism.)
[164] ‘Peace it not the absence of war, but a virtue born from strength
of soul.’ (Spinoza.)
[165] Here is an example: ‘Universal peace will come about one day, not
because men will become better (one cannot hope for that) but because
a new order of things, new science, new economic needs, will impose a
state of peace on them, just as the very conditions of their existence
formerly placed and maintained them in a state of war.’ (Anatole
France, _Sur la Pierre blanche_.) Note the refusal, mentioned above, to
believe in any possible betterment of the human soul.
[166] This observation applied to nearly all anti-militarist literature
up to our own times. We have to come to Renan and Renouvier (at least
among writers not of the Church) to find authors who speak of war and
national passions with the seriousness and respect due to such dramas.
[167] I am not to say whether the claims of France after her victory
might have been _impolitic_, for the thinkers I am discussing here
only speak of what they consider their _immorality_. Notice that the
pacifism of the Church, at least among the great teachers, is not
at all inspired by sentimental considerations, but by pure moral
education. ‘What do we condemn in war?’ says Saint Augustin. ‘Is it
the fact that they kill men who have all one day to die? Only cowards,
not religious men, would bring this accusation against war. What we
condemn in war is the desire to do harm, an implacable soul, the fury
of reprisals, the passion for dominion.’ (This is taken up by Thomas
Aquinas in the _Summum_, 2, 2, xl, art. 1.)
[168] I consider that ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ may be said by
all whose activity is not directed to practical ends: the artist, the
metaphysician, the scientist _insofar as he finds satisfaction in the
practice of science and not in its results_. Many will tell me that
they and not the Christians are the true ‘clerks’, for the Christian
accepts the ideas of justice and charity only for the sake of his
salvation. No one will deny, however, that men, even Christians, exist,
who accept this idea with no practical end in view.
[169] Malebranche, _Méditations chrétiennes_ (ix, 19).
[170] See Babeau, _Le village sous l’ancien régime_, iv, iii; L.
Gregoire, _La Ligue en Bretagne_, chap, vi; Roupnel, _La Ville et
la Campagne au xvii siècle_, i, 1. ‘The peasants,’ says M. Roumier,
‘were only really converted where it was to their interests to be
so, and especially where the local landlords put their influence at
the service of the new religion, and where the Catholic clergy had
completely deserted the parishes. We must be careful not to consider as
Protestants all the “rustics” who took part in pillaging the abbeys and
castles during the civil war’ (_La Royaume de Catherine de Médicis_,
tome ii, page 294). M. Romier quotes the remark of a contemporary: ‘The
whole of the Low Countries scarcely knows what this new doctrine is.’
[171] ‘Le livre de raison de M. Nicolas Versoris’ (_Mémoires de la
Société de l’Histoire de Paris_, tome xii). The author, avocat au
Parlement de Paris, similarly gives two lines to events like the
Connétable de Bourbon’s treachery, and the signing of the treaty of
Madrid. The same attitude exists in the _Journal d’un Bourgeois de
Paris_, 1515-1536; the public misfortunes sketched by the author leave
him completely indifferent. He makes no comment on the disaster of
Pavia. Apropos the treaty of Madrid, ‘it is to be noted,’ writes a
contemporary, ‘that there were no bonfires or rejoicings when the news
of the peace was published, because no one understood anything about
it.’ (Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, v, 49.) Contemporaries mention the
indifference of the people of Paris to the Peace of Westphalia, the
battle of Rossbach, even the battles of Valmy and Navarino. ‘The affair
at Valmy made very little stir at first.’ (Kellerman.)
[172] Michelet relates that in his youth he questioned an old man on
the impressions left upon him by 1793, and the only answer he got was:
‘It was the bad paper year.’
[173] Admire the profundity of Machiavelli, when he advises his Prince:
‘Above everything, avoid taking your subjects’ property; _for men will
more easily forget the deaths of their fathers than the loss of their
patrimony_.’
[174] Inserted in the collection of studies entitled ‘L’Allemagne et
les Alliés devant la conscience chrétienne’. (Bloud et Gay, 1915.)
[175] M. Edmond Bloud quotes this remark of a German nationalist,
which might have been made on the French side of the Rhine: ‘The
Catholic world must be nationalized to re-Catholicize it.’ He adds
that in Germany it is common to hear ‘German Catholicism’ spoken of in
opposition to Roman Catholicism.
[176] And therefore it requires much more courage to do so now than in
the past.
[177] Nevertheless, Zola, Romain Rolland, and Einstein have drunk the
hemlock.
[178] When they allow themselves to be told, as Louis XVI was told by
Turgot: ‘Sire, your kingdom _is of this world_.’ There also exists ‘_a
betrayal of the laymen_’.
[179] Mgr Battifol’s writings support my argument so beautifully that I
hesitate to quote an author who plays so perfectly into my hands. For
example, he spends much time in proving that the spirit of Christianity
‘has resulted, without contradicting itself, in a doctrine of the
morality of war’.
[180] Here is a passage which, except for its violence, seems to me
to express the feelings of most modern laymen on the subject of the
patriotic loyalty of the priests: ‘The clergy of France is ardently
patriotic; it serves gallantly under fire; it absolves and glorifies
every action of the soldier; it regards the accusation of having
deserted military duty as infamous, and does it justice. It is not
for me to say whether it is in accord with the Gospels. We are simply
Frenchmen and patriots; we can only approve and admire the French
patriotic monks and priests. The French priest has no pardon for a
German, the German priest and pastor have no pardon for a Frenchman.
Mother-country first! Kill! Kill! In the name of the God of the
Christians, we absolve you, we glorify you for killing Christians!’
(Urbain Gohier, ‘La Vieille France,’ quoted by Grillot de Givry, _Le
Christ et la Patrie_, page 12.)
[181] This clearly shows in what sense Renouvier is an ‘individualist’.
[182] See his hymn to the mathematician Franz Woepfke.
[183] Jules Lemaître was explicitly this adversary.
[184] ‘For an empirical France,’ say Barrès and Bourget.
[185] ‘Note sur M. Bergson et la philosophie bergsonienne,’ Cahiers de
la Quinzaine. See my book, _Sur le Succès du Bergsonisme_, page 158.
[186] The same thing is to be found in Lamartine when he says of Byron:
‘There is more true, imperishable poetry in the tent at Missolonghi
where he lies prostrate with fever, under arms, than in all his works.’
(_Commentaire de la 2e Meditation._) This is precisely the teaching
adopted by Barrès, Suarès, Péguy (the last preached it by his example,
however), which comes down to saying: ‘There is more poetry in a heroic
death than in all the activities of the mind.’ Note that this position
is by no means common to all the Romantics. Hugo, Vigny, Michelet, felt
all the poetry of action, but they never appear to think it superior to
the poetry of the lofty forms of intellectual life. Hugo never thought
of sacrificing Homer or Galilei to Napoleon, or even to Hoche--to take
a disinterested hero such as Lamartine praises in Byron.
[187] Note that Ronsard is the very type of the man ‘bent over books’.
[188] ‘Germany is the protector and the support of European
civilization’ (Lamprecht.) ‘After the war Germany will again take up
her historic task, which is to be the heart of Europe and to prepare
European humanity.’ (Wilhelm II, _Temps_, 14th September, 1915.)
[189] See Robert Dreyfus, _Souvenirs sur Marcel Proust_, page 336.
_Transcriber’s Notes_
This transcription is based on the English edition of Aldington’s
translation. Some corrections have been applied in consultation with
both the French original (‘La trahison des clercs’, B. Grasset, 1927)
and the American edition of the same translation (‘The treason of the
intellectuals’, William Morrow & Company, 1928). Here are the main
revisions.
• A text comparison with the American edition incorporated these
changes from that edition:
• page 28, footnote 28: ‘more idealistic passion than national[+ist]
passion’;
• page 44: ‘One wonders whether [+there is] a single modern
thinker’ (grammatically necessary);
• the fourth section, ‘Summary--Predictions’, is now correctly
numbered ‘IV’, not a duplicated ‘III’;
• The following changes were made with reference to the original
French:
• numerous instances of unbalanced quotation marks have been fixed;
• page 117: removed an unclosed parenthesis beginning ‘(those of’
in favor of parallel phrases with semi-colons, as in the original
French;
• page 173: added balanced em-dashes after ‘Apart from Erasmus’ as
in the original, to clarify sentence structure;
• page 176: ‘the chaos of the provincial assembles → assemblies’
(original: ‘le chaos des assemblées provinciales’);
• page 181, note 179: ‘with contradicting → without contradicting’
(‘a abouti sans se déjuger à une doctrine de la moralité de la
guerre’);
• A simple table of contents has been added.
• The book cover image accompanying some versions of this text is
original and placed in the public domain.