_The Diversity of the Intellectual Faculties: they depend on Physical
Causes, as do their Moral Qualities.--The Natural Principles of
Society.--Morals.--Politics_.
Nature is under the necessity of diversifying all her works. Elementary
matter, different in its essence, must necessarily form different
beings, various in their combinations, in their properties, in their
modes of action, in their manner of existence. There is not, neither
can there be, two beings, two combinations, which are mathematically
and rigorously the same; because the place, the circumstances, the
relations; the proportions, the modifications, never being exactly
alike, the beings that result can never bear a perfect resemblance to
each other: their modes of action must of necessity vary in something,
even when we believe we find between them the greatest conformity.
In consequence of this principle, which every thing we see conspires to
prove to be a truth, there are not two individuals of the human species
who have precisely the same traits--who think exactly in the same
manner--who view things under the same identical point of sight--who
have decidedly the same ideas; consequently no two of them have
uniformly the same system of conduct. The visible organs of man, as well
as his concealed organs, have indeed some analogy, some common points
of resemblance, some general conformity; which makes them appear,
when viewed in the gross, to be affected in the same manner by certain
causes: but the difference is infinite in the detail. The human soul
may be compared to those instruments, of which the chords, already
diversified in themselves, by the manner in which they have been spun,
are also strung upon different notes: struck by the same impulse, each
chord gives forth the sound that is peculiar to itself; that is to
say, that which depends on its texture, its tension, its volume, on the
momentary state in which it is placed by the circumambient air. It is
this that produces the diversified spectacle, the varied scene, which
the moral world offers to our view: it is from this that results the
striking contrariety that is to be found in the minds, in the faculties,
in the passions, in the energies, in the taste, in the imagination, in
the ideas, in the opinions of man. This diversity is as great as that of
his physical powers: like them it depends on his temperament, which
is as much varied as his physiognomy. This variety gives birth to that
continual series of action and reaction, which constitutes the life of
the moral world: from this discordance results the harmony which at once
maintains and preserves the human race.
The diversity found among the individuals of the human species, causes
inequalities between man and man: this inequality constitutes the
support of society. If all men were equal in their bodily powers, in
their mental talents, they would not have any occasion for each other:
it is the variation of his faculties, the inequality which this places
him in, with regard to his fellows, that renders morals necessary
to man: without these, he would live by himself, he would remain an
isolated being. From whence it may be perceived, that this inequality
of which man so often complains without cause--this impossibility which
each man finds when in an isolated state, when left to himself, when
unassociated with his fellow men, to labour efficaciously to his own
welfare, to make his own security, to ensure his own conservation;
places him in the happy situation of associating with his like, of
depending on his fellow associates, of meriting their succour, of
propitiating them to his views, of attracting their regard, of calling
in their aid to chase away, by common and united efforts, that which
would have the power to trouble or derange the order of his existence.
In consequence of man's diversity, of the inequality that results, the
weaker is obliged to seek the protection of the stronger; this, in his
turn, recurs to the understanding, to the talents, to the industry of
the weaker, whenever his judgment points out he can be useful to him:
this natural inequality furnishes the reason why nations distinguish
those citizens who have rendered their country eminent services. It is
in consequence of his exigencies that man honors and recompenses those
whose understanding, good deeds, assistance, or virtues, have procured
for him real or supposed advantages, pleasures, or agreeable sensations
of any sort: it is by this means that genius gains an ascendancy over
the mind of man, and obliges a whole people to acknowledge its powers.
Thus, the diversity and inequality of the faculties, as well corporeal
as mental or intellectual, renders man necessary to his fellow man,
makes him a social being, and incontestibly proves to him the necessity
of morals.
According to this diversity of faculties, the individuals of the human
species are divided into different classes, each in proportion to the
effects produced, or the different qualities that may be remarked: all
these varieties in man flow from the individual properties of his soul,
or from the particular modification of his brain. It is thus, that
wit, imagination, sensibility, talents, &c. diversify to infinity the
differences that are to be found in man. It is thus, that some are
called good, others wicked; some are denominated virtuous, others
vicious; some are ranked as learned, others as ignorant; some are
considered reasonable, others unreasonable, &c.
If all the various faculties attributed to the soul are examined, it
will be found that like those of the body they are to be ascribed to
physical causes, to which it will be very easy to recur. It will be
found that the powers of the soul are the same as those of the body;
that they always depend on the organization of this body, on its
peculiar properties, on the permanent or transitory modifications that
it undergoes; in a word, on its temperament.
_Temperament_ is, in each individual, the habitual state in which he
finds the fluids and the solids of which his body is composed. This
temperament varies, by reason of the elements or matter that predominate
in him, in consequence of the different combinations, of the various
modifications, which this matter, diversified in itself, undergoes in
his machine. Thus, in one, the blood is superabundant; in another, the
bile; in a third, phlegm, &c.
It is from Nature--from his parents--from causes, which from the first
moment of his existence have unceasingly modified him, that man derives
his temperament. It is in his mother's womb that he has attracted the
matter which, during his whole life, shall have an influence on his
intellectual faculties--on his energies--on his passions--on his
conduct. The very nourishment he takes, the quality of the air he
respires, the climate he inhabits, the education he receives, the
ideas that are presented to him, the opinions he imbibes, modify this
temperament. As these circumstances can never be rigorously the same in
every point for any two men, it is by no means surprising that such an
amazing variety, so great a contrariety, should be found in man; or
that there should exist as many different temperaments, as there are
individuals in the human species.
Thus, although man may bear a general resemblance, he differs
essentially, as well by the texture of his fibres and the disposition of
his nerves, as by the nature, the quality, the quantity of matter that
gives them play, that sets his organs in motion. Man, already different
from his fellow, by the elasticity of his fibres, the tension of
his nerves, becomes still more distinguished by a variety of other
circumstances: he is more active, more robust, when he receives
nourishing aliments, when he drinks wine, when he takes exercise: whilst
another, who drinks nothing but water, who takes less juicy nourishment,
who languishes in idleness, shall be sluggish and feeble.
All these causes have necessarily an influence on the mind, on the
passions, on the will; in a word, on what are called the intellectual
faculties. Thus, it may be observed, that a man of a sanguine
constitution, is commonly lively, ingenious, full of imagination,
passionate, voluptuous, enterprising; whilst the phlegmatic man is dull,
of a heavy understanding, slow of conception, inactive, difficult to be
moved, pusillanimous, without imagination, or possessing it in a less
lively degree, incapable of taking any strong measures, or of willing
resolutely.
If experience was consulted, in the room of prejudice, the physician
would collect from morals, the key to the human heart: in curing the
body, he would sometimes be assured of curing the mind. Man, in making
a spiritual substance of his soul, has contented himself with
administering to it spiritual remedies, which either have no influence
over his temperament, or do it an injury. The doctrine of the
spirituality of the soul has rendered morals a conjectural science, that
does not furnish a knowledge of the true motives which ought to be
put in activity, in order to influence man to his welfare. If, calling
experience to his assistance, man sought out the elements which form the
basis of his temperament, or of the greater number of the individuals
composing a nation, he would then discover what would be most proper
for him,--that which could be most convenient to his mode of
existence--which could most conduce to his true interest--what laws
would be necessary to his happiness--what institutions would be most
useful for him--what regulations would be most beneficial. In short,
morals and politics would be equally enabled to draw from _materialism_,
advantages which the dogma of spirituality can never supply, of which
it even precludes the idea. Man will ever remain a mystery, to those
who shall obstinately persist in viewing him with eyes prepossessed
by metaphysics; he will always be an enigma to those who shall
pertinaciously attribute his actions to a principle, of which it is
impossible to form to themselves any distinct idea. When man shall be
seriously inclined to understand himself, let him sedulously endeavour
to discover the matter that enters into his combination, which
constitutes his temperament; these discoveries will furnish him with the
clue to the nature of his desires, to the quality of his passions, to
the bent of his inclinations--will enable him to foresee his conduct
on given occasions--will indicate the remedies that may be successfully
employed to correct the defects of a vicious organization, of a
temperament, as injurious to himself as to the society of which he is a
member.
Indeed, it is not to be doubted that man's temperament is capable of
being corrected, of being modified, of being changed, by causes as
physical as the matter of which it is constituted. We are all in some
measure capable of forming our own temperament: a man of a sanguine
constitution, by taking less juicy nourishment, by abating its quantity,
by abstaining from strong liquor, &c. may achieve the correction of
the nature, the quality, the quantity, the tendency, the motion of the
fluids, which predominate in his machine. A bilious man, or one who is
melancholy, may, by the aid of certain remedies, diminish the mass of
this bilious fluid; he may correct the blemish of his humours, by the
assistance of exercise; he may dissipate his gloom, by the gaiety which
results from increased motion. An European transplanted into Hindostan,
will, by degrees, become quite a different man in his humours, in his
ideas, in his temperament, in his character.
Although but few experiments have been made with a view to learn what
constitutes the temperament of man, there are still enough if he would
but deign to make use of them--if he would vouchsafe to apply to useful
purposes the little experience he has gleaned. It would appear, speaking
generally, that the igneous principle which chemists designate under the
name of _phlogiston_, or inflammable matter, is that which in man
yields him the most active life, furnishes him with the greatest energy,
affords the greatest mobility to his frame, supplies the greatest spring
to his organs, gives the greatest elasticity to his fibres, the greatest
tension to his nerves, the greatest rapidity to his fluids. From these
causes, which are entirely material, commonly result the dispositions
or faculties called sensibility, wit, imagination, genius, vivacity, &c.
which give the tone to the passions, to the will, to the moral
actions of man. In this sense, it is with great justice we apply the
expressions, 'warmth of soul,' 'ardency of imagination,' 'fire of
genius,' &c.
It is this fiery element, diffused unequally, distributed in various
proportions through the beings of the human species, that sets man in
motion, gives him activity, supplies him with animal heat, and which, if
we may be allowed the expression, renders him more or less alive. This
igneous matter, so active, so subtle, dissipates itself with great
facility, then requires to be reinstated in his system by means of
aliments that contain it, which thereby become proper to restore
his machine, to lend new warmth to the brain, to furnish it with the
elasticity requisite to the performance of those functions which are
called intellectual. It is this ardent matter contained in wine, in
strong liquor, that gives to the most torpid, to the dullest, to
the most sluggish man, a vivacity of which, without it, he would be
incapable--which urges even the coward on to battle. When this fiery
element is too abundant in man, whilst he is labouring under certain
diseases, it plunges him into delirium; when it is in too weak or in too
small a quantity, he swoons, he sinks to the earth. This igneous matter
diminishes in his old age--it totally dissipates at his death. It would
not be unreasonable to suppose, that what physicians call the nervous
fluid, which so promptly gives notice to the brain of all that happens
to the body, is nothing more than electric matter; that the various
proportions of this matter diffused through his system, is the cause
of that great diversity to be discovered in the human being, and in the
faculties he possesses.
If the intellectual faculties of man, or his moral qualities, be
examined according to the principles here laid down, the conviction must
be complete that they are to be attributed to material causes, which
have an influence more or less marked, either transitory or durable,
over his peculiar organization. But where does he derive this
organization, except it be from the parents from whom he receives the
elements of a machine necessarily analogous to their own? From whence
does he derive the greater or less quantity of igneous matter, or
vivifying heat, that decides upon, that gives the tone to his mental
qualities? It is from the mother who bore him in her womb, who has
communicated to him a portion of that fire with which she was herself
animated, which circulated through her veins with her blood;--it is
from the aliments that have nourished him,--it is from the climate he
inhabits,--it is from the atmosphere that surrounds: all these causes
have an influence over his fluids, over his solids, and decide on his
natural dispositions. In examining these dispositions, from whence his
faculties depend, it will ever be found, that they are _corporeal_, that
they are _material_.
The most prominent of these dispositions in man, is that physical
sensibility from which flows all his intellectual or moral qualities. To
feel, according to what has been said, is to receive an impulse, to be
moved, to have a consciousness of the changes operated on his system.
To have sensibility is nothing more than to be so constituted as to feel
promptly, and in a very lively manner, the impressions of those objects
which act upon him. A sensible soul is only man's brain, disposed in a
mode to receive the motion communicated to it with facility, to re-act
with promptness, by giving an instantaneous impulse to the organs.
Thus the man is called sensible, whom the sight of the distressed, the
contemplation of the unhappy, the recital of a melancholy tale, the
witnessing of an afflicting catastrophe, or the idea of a dreadful
spectacle, touches in so lively a manner as to enable the brain to give
play to his lachrymal organs, which cause him to shed tears; a sign by
which we recognize the effect of great grief, of extreme anguish in the
human being. The man in whom musical sounds excite a degree of pleasure,
or produce very remarkable effects, is said to have a _sensible_ or a
fine ear. In short, when it is perceived that eloquence--the beauty of
the arts--the various objects that strike his senses, excite in him very
lively emotions, he is said to possess a soul full of sensibility.
_Wit_, is a consequence of this physical sensibility; indeed, wit is
nothing more than the facility which some beings, of the human species
possess, of seizing with promptitude, of developing with quickness, a
whole, with its different relations to other objects. _Genius_, is the
facility with which some men comprehend this whole, and its various
relations when they are difficult to be known, but useful to forward
great and mighty projects. Wit may be compared to a piercing eye which
perceives things quickly. Genius is an eye that comprehends at one view,
all the points of an extended horizon: or what the French term _coup
d'oeil_. True wit is that which perceives objects with their relations
such as they really are. False wit is that which catches at relations,
which do not apply to the object, or which arises from some blemish in
the organization. True wit resembles the direction on a hand-post.
_Imagination_ is the faculty of combining with promptitude ideas or
images; it consists in the power man possesses of re-producing with ease
the modifications of his brain: of connecting them, of attaching them to
the objects to which they are suitable. When imagination does this, it
gives pleasure; its fictions are approved, it embellishes Nature, it
is a proof of the soundness of the mind, it aids truth: when on the
contrary, it combines ideas, not formed to associate themselves with
each other--when it paints nothing but disagreeable phantoms, it
disgusts, its fictions are censured, it distorts Nature, it advocates
falsehood, it is the proof of a disordered, of a deranged mind: thus
poetry, calculated to render Nature more pathetic, more touching,
pleases when it creates ideal beings, but which move us agreeably: we,
therefore, forgive the illusions it has held forth, on account of the
pleasure we have reaped from them. The hideous chimeras of superstition
displease, because they are nothing more than the productions of a
distempered imagination, that can only awaken the most afflicting
sensations, fills us with the most disagreeable ideas.
Imagination, when it wanders, produces fanaticism, superstitious
terrors, inconsiderate zeal, phrenzy, and the most enormous crimes: when
it is well regulated, it gives birth to a strong predilection for useful
objects, an energetic passion for virtue, an enthusiastic love of our
country, and the most ardent friendship: the man who is divested
of imagination, is commonly one in whose torpid constitution phlegm
predominates over the igneous fluid, over that sacred fire, which is
the great principle of his mobility, of that warmth of sentiment, which
vivifies all his intellectual faculties. There must be enthusiasm for
transcendent virtues as well as for atrocious crimes; enthusiasm places
the soul in a state similar to that of drunkenness; both the one and the
other excite in man that rapidity of motion which is approved, when
good results, when its effects are beneficial; but which is censured,
is called folly, delirium, crime, fury; when it produces nothing but
disorder and confusion.
The mind is out of order, it is incapable of judging sanely--the
imagination is badly regulated, whenever man's organization is not so
modified, as to perform its functions with precision. At each moment of
his existence, man gathers experience; every sensation he has, furnishes
a fact that deposits in his brain an idea which his memory recalls with
more or less fidelity: these facts connect themselves, these ideas
are associated; their chain constitutes _experience_; this lays the
foundation of _science_. Knowledge is that consciousness which arises
from reiterated experience--from experiments made with precision of the
sensations, of the ideas, of the effects which an object is capable of
producing, either in ourselves or in others. All science, to be just,
must be founded on truth. Truth itself rests on the constant, the
faithful relation of our senses. Thus, _truth_ is that conformity, that
perpetual affinity, which man's senses, when well constituted, when
aided by experience, discover to him, between the objects of which he
has a knowledge, and the qualities with which he clothes them. In short,
truth is nothing more than the just, the precise association of his
ideas. But how can he, without experience, assure himself of the
accuracy, of the justness of this association? How, if he does not
reiterate this experience, can he compare it? how prove its truth? If
his senses are vitiated, how is it possible they can convey to him with
precision, the sensations, the facts, with which they store his brain?
It is only by multiplied, by diversified, by repeated experience, that
he is enabled to rectify the errors of his first conceptions.
Man is in error every time his organs, either originally defective in
their nature, or vitiated by the durable or transitory modifications
which they undergo, render him incapable of judging soundly of objects.
Error consists in the false association of ideas, by which qualities are
attributed to objects which they do not possess. Man is in error, when
he supposes those beings really to have existence, which have no
local habitation but in his own imagination: he is in error, when he
associates the idea of happiness with objects capable of injuring him,
whether immediately or by remote consequences which he cannot foresee.
But how can he foresee effects of which he has not yet any knowledge?
It is by the aid of experience: by the assistance which this experience
affords, it is known that analogous, that like causes, produce
analogous, produce like effects. Memory, by recalling these effects,
enables him to form a judgment of those he may expect, whether it be
from the same causes, or from causes that bear a relation to those of
which he has already experienced the action. From this it will appear,
that _prudence_, _foresight_, are faculties that are ascribable to, that
grow out of experience. If he has felt that fire excited in his organs
painful sensation, this experience suffices him to know, to foresee,
that fire so applied, will consequently excite the same sensations.
If he has discovered that certain actions, on his part, stirred up the
hatred, elicited the contempt of others, this experience sufficiently
enables him to foresee, that every time he shall act in a similar
manner, he will be either hated or despised.
The faculty man has of gathering experience, of recalling it to himself,
of foreseeing effects by which he is enabled to avoid whatever may have
the power to injure him, to procure that which may be useful to the
conservation of his existence, which may contribute to that which is
the sole end of all his actions, whether corporeal or mental,--his
felicity--constitutes that, which, in one word, is designated under the
name of _Reason_. Sentiment, imagination, temperament, may be capable
of leading him astray--may have the power to deceive him; but experience
and reflection will rectify his errors, point out his mistakes, place
him in the right road, teach him what can really conduce to, what can
truly conduct him to happiness. From this, it will appear, that _reason_
is man's nature, modified by experience, moulded by judgment, regulated
by reflection: it supposes a moderate, sober temperament; a just, a
sound mind; a well-regulated, orderly imagination; a knowledge of truth,
grounded upon tried, upon reiterated experience; in fact, prudence
and foresight: this will serve to prove, that although nothing is more
commonly asserted, although the phrase is repeated daily, nay, hourly,
that _man is a reasonable being_, yet there are but a very small number
of the individuals who compose the human species, of whom it can with
truth be said; who really enjoy the faculty of reason, or who combine
the dispositions, the experience, by which it is constituted. It ought
not, then to excite surprise, that the individuals of the human race,
who are in a capacity to make true experience, are so few in number.
Man, when he is born, brings with him into the world organs susceptible
of receiving impulse, amassing ideas, of collecting experience; but
whether it be from the vice of his system, the imperfection of his
organization, or from those causes by which it is modified, his
experience is false, his ideas are confused, his images are badly
associated, his judgment is erroneous, his brain is saturated with
vicious, with wicked systems, which necessarily have an influence over
his conduct, which are continually disturbing his mind, and confounding
his reason.
Man's senses, as it has been shewn, are the only means by which he is
enabled to ascertain whether his opinions are true or false, whether
his conduct is useful to himself and beneficial to others, whether it is
advantageous or disadvantageous. But that his senses may be competent to
make a faithful relation--that they may be in a capacity to impress true
ideas on his brain, it is requisite they should be sound; that is to
say, in the state necessary to maintain his existence; in that
order which is suitable to his preservation--that condition which is
calculated to ensure his permanent felicity. It is also indispensable
that his brain itself should be healthy, or in the proper circumstances
to enable it to fulfil its functions with precision, to exercise its
faculties with vigour. It is necessary that memory should faithfully
delineate its anterior sensations, should accurately retrace its former
ideas; to the end, that he may be competent to judge, to foresee the
effects he may have to hope, the consequences he may have to fear, from
those actions to which he may be determined by his will. If his organic
system be vicious, if his interior or exterior organs be defective,
whether by their natural conformation or from those causes by which they
are regulated, he feels but imperfectly--in a manner less distinct than
is requisite; his ideas are either false or suspicious, he judges badly,
he is in a delusion, in a state of ebriety, in a sort of intoxication
that prevents his grasping the true relation of things. In short, if
his memory is faulty, if it is treacherous, his reflection is void,
his imagination leads him astray, his mind deceives him, whilst the
sensibility of his organs, simultaneously assailed by a crowd of
impressions, shocked by a variety of impulsions, oppose him to prudence,
to foresight, to the exercise of his reason. On the other hand, if the
conformation of his organs, as it happens with those of a phlegmatic
temperament, of a dull habit, does not permit him to move, except with
feebleness, in a sluggish manner, his experience is slow, frequently
unprofitable. The tortoise and the butterfly are alike incapable of
preventing their destruction. The stupid man, equally with him who is
intoxicated, are in that state which renders it impossible for them to
arrive at or attain the end they have in view.
But what is the end? What is the aim of man in the sphere he occupies?
It is to preserve himself; to render his existence happy. It becomes
then of the utmost importance, that he should understand the true means
which reason points out, which prudence teaches him to use, in order
that he may with certainty, that he may constantly arrive at the
end which he proposes to himself. These he will find are his natural
faculties--his mind--his talents--his industry--his actions, determined
by those passions of which his nature renders him susceptible, which
give more or less activity to his will. Experience and reason again shew
him, that the men with whom he is associated are necessary to him,
are capable of contributing to his happiness, are in a capacity to
administer to his pleasures, are competent to assist him by those
faculties which are peculiar to them; experience teaches him the mode he
must adopt to induce them to concur in his designs, to determine them to
will and incline them to act in his favour. This points out to him the
actions they approve--those which displease them--the conduct which
attracts them--that which repels them--the judgment by which they are
swayed--the advantages that occur--the prejudicial effects that result
to him from their various modes of existence and from their diverse
manner of acting. This experience furnishes him with the ideas of virtue
and of vice, of justice and of injustice, of goodness and of wickedness,
of decency and of indecency, of probity and of knavery: In short,
he learns to form a judgment of men--to estimate their actions--to
distinguish the various sentiments excited in them, according to the
diversity of those effects which they make him experience. It is
upon the necessary diversity of these effects that is founded the
discrimination between good and evil--between virtue and vice;
distinctions which do not rest, as some thinkers have believed, on the
conventions made between men; still less, as some metaphysicians have
asserted, upon the chimerical will of supernatural beings: but upon the
solid, the invariable, the eternal relations that subsist between beings
of the human species congregated together, and living in society: which
relations will have existence as long as man shall remain, as long as
society shall continue to exist.
Thus _virtue_ is every thing that is truly beneficial, every thing
that is constantly useful to the individuals of the human race, living
together in society; _vice_ every thing that is really prejudicial,
every thing that is permanently injurious to them. The greatest virtues
are those which procure for man the most durable advantages, from which
he derives the most solid happiness, which preserves the greatest degree
of order in his association: the greatest vices, are those which most
disturb his tendency to happiness, which perpetuate error, which most
interrupt the necessary order of society.
The _virtuous man_, is he whose actions tend uniformly to the welfare,
constantly to the happiness, of his fellow creatures. The _vicious man_,
is he whose conduct tends to the misery, whose propensities form the
unhappiness of those with whom he lives; from whence his own peculiar
misery most commonly results.
Every thing that procures for a man true and permanent happiness is
reasonable; every thing that disturbs his individual felicity, or that
of the beings necessary to his happiness, is foolish and unreasonable.
The man who injures others, is wicked; the man who injures himself, is
an imprudent being, who neither has a knowledge of reason, of his own
peculiar interests, nor of truth.
Man's _duties_ are the means pointed out to him by experience, the
circle which reason describes for him, by which he is to arrive at that
goal he proposes to himself; these duties are the necessary consequence
of the relations subsisting between mortals, who equally desire
happiness, who are equally anxious to preserve their existence. When it
is said these duties _compel him_, it signifies nothing more than that,
without taking these means, he could not reach the end proposed to him
by his nature. Thus, _moral obligation_ is the necessity of employing
the natural means to render the beings with whom he lives happy; to
the end that he may determine them in turn to contribute to his own
individual happiness: his obligation toward himself, is the necessity
he is under to take those means, without which he would be incapable to
conserve himself, or render his existence solidly and permanently
happy. Morals, like the universe, is founded upon necessity, or upon the
eternal relation of things.
_Happiness_ is a mode of existence of which man naturally wishes the
duration, or in which he is willing to continue. It is measured by its
duration, by its vivacity. The greatest happiness is that which has the
longest continuance: transient happiness, or that which has only a
short duration, is called _Pleasure_; the more lively it is, the more
fugitive, because man's senses are only susceptible of a certain quantum
of motion. When pleasure exceeds this given quantity, it is changed into
_anguish_, or into that painful mode of existence, of which he ardently
desires the cessation: this is the reason why pleasure and pain
frequently so closely approximate each other as scarcely to be
discriminated. Immoderate pleasure is the forerunner of regret. It is
succeeded by ennui, it is followed by weariness, it ends in disgust:
transient happiness frequently converts itself into durable misfortune.
According to these principles it will be seen that man, who in each
moment of his duration seeks necessarily after happiness, ought, when
he is reasonable, to manage, to husband, to regulate his pleasures; to
refuse himself to all those of which the indulgence would be succeeded
by regret; to avoid those which can convert themselves into pain; in
order that he may procure for himself the most permanent felicity.
Happiness cannot be the same for all the beings of the human species;
the same pleasures cannot equally affect men whose conformation is
different, whose modification is diverse. This no doubt, is the true
reason why the greater number of moral philosophers are so little
in accord upon those objects in which they have made man's happiness
consist, as well as on the means by which it may be obtained.
Nevertheless, in general, happiness appears to be a state, whether
momentary or durable, in which man readily acquiesces, because he finds
it conformable to his being. This state results from the accord,
springs out of the conformity, which is found between himself and
those circumstances in which he has been placed by Nature; or, if it be
preferred, _happiness is the co-ordination of man, with the causes that
give him impulse_.
The ideas which man forms to himself of happiness depend not only on his
temperament, on his individual conformation, but also upon the habits he
has contracted. _Habit_ is, in man, a mode of existence--of thinking--of
acting, which his organs, as well interior as exterior, contract, by the
frequent reiteration of the same motion; from whence results the faculty
of performing these actions with promptitude, of executing them with
facility.
If things be attentively considered, it will be found that almost
the whole conduct of man--the entire system of his actions--his
occupations--his connexions--his studies--his amusements--his
manners--his customs--his very garments--even his aliments, are the
effect of habit. He owes equally to habit, the facility with which
he exercises his mental faculties of thought--of judgment--of wit--of
reason--of taste, &c. It is to habit he owes the greater part of his
inclinations--of his desires--of his opinions--of his prejudices--of the
ideas, true or false, he forms to himself of his welfare. In short, it
is to habit, consecrated by time, that he owes those errors into
which everything strives to precipitate him; from which every thing
is calculated to prevent him emancipating himself. It is habit that
attaches him either to virtue or to vice: experience proves this:
observation teaches incontrovertibly that the first crime is always
accompanied by more pangs of remorse than the second; this again, by
more than the third; so on to those that follow. A first action is the
commencement of a habit; those which succeed confirm it: by force
of combatting the obstacles that prevent the commission of criminal
actions, man arrives at the power of vanquishing them with ease; of
conquering them with facility. Thus he frequently becomes wicked from
habit.
Man is so much modified by habit, that it is frequently confounded
with his nature: from hence results, as will presently be seen, those
opinions or those ideas, which he has called _innate_: because he has
been unwilling to recur back to the source from whence they sprung:
which has, as it were, identified itself with his brain. However this
may be, he adheres with great strength of attachment to all those things
to which he is habituated; his mind experiences a sort of violence, an
incommodious revulsion, a troublesome distaste, when it is endeavoured
to make him change the course of his ideas: a fatal predilection
frequently conducts him back to the old track in despite of reason.
It is by a pure mechanism that may be explained the phenomena of habit,
as well physical as moral; the soul, notwithstanding its spirituality,
is modified exactly in the same manner as the body. Habit, in man,
causes the organs of voice to learn the mode of expressing quickly the
ideas consigned to his brain, by means of certain motion, which, during
his infancy, the tongue acquires the power of executing with facility:
his tongue, once habituated to move itself in a certain manner, finds
much trouble, has great pain, to move itself after another mode; the
throat yields with difficulty to those inflections which are exacted by
a language different from that to which he has, been accustomed. It is
the same with regard to his ideas; his brain, his interior organ, his
soul, inured to a given manner of modification, accustomed to attach
certain ideas to certain objects, long used to form to itself a system
connected with certain opinions, whether true or false, experiences a
painful sensation, whenever he undertakes to give it a new impulse, or
alter the direction of its habitual motion. It is nearly as difficult to
make him change his opinions as his language.
Here, then, without doubt, is the cause of that almost invincible
attachment which man displays to those customs--those prejudices--those
institutions of which it is in vain that reason, experience, good sense
prove to him the inutility, or even the danger. Habit opposes itself to
the clearest, the most evident demonstrations; these can avail
nothing against those passions, those vices, which time has rooted
in him--against the most ridiculous systems--against the most absurd
notions--against the most extravagant hypotheses--against the strangest
customs: above all, when he has learned to attach to them the ideas
of utility, of common interest, of the welfare of society. Such is the
source of that obstinacy, of that stubbornness, which man evinces for
his religion, for ancient usages, for unreasonable customs, for laws so
little accordant with justice, for abuses, which so frequently make him
suffer, for prejudices of which he sometimes acknowledges the absurdity,
yet is unwilling to divest himself of them. Here is the reason
why nations contemplate the most useful novelties as mischievous
innovations--why they believe they would be lost, if they were to
remedy those evils to which they have become habituated; which they have
learned to consider as necessary to their repose; which they have been
taught to consider dangerous to be cured.
_Education_ is only the art of making man contract, in early life,
that is to say, when his organs are extremely flexible, the habits, the
opinions, the modes of existence, adopted by the society in which he
is placed. The first moments of his infancy are employed in collecting
experience; those who are charged with the care of rearing him, or who
are entrusted to bring him up, teach him how to apply it: it is they who
develope reason in him: the first impulse they give him commonly decides
upon his condition, upon his passions, upon the ideas he forms to
himself of happiness, upon the means he shall employ to procure it,
upon his virtues, and upon his vices. Under the eyes of his masters,
the infant acquires ideas: under their tuition he learns to associate
them,--to think in a certain manner,--to judge well or ill. They point
out to him various objects, which they accustom him either to love or
to hate, to desire or to avoid, to esteem or to despise. It is thus
opinions are transmitted from fathers, mothers, nurses, and masters,
to man in his infantine state. It is thus, that his mind by degrees
saturates itself with truth, or fills itself with error; after which
he regulates his conduct, which renders him either happy or miserable,
virtuous or vicious, estimable or hateful. It is thus he becomes either
contented or discontented with his destiny, according to the objects
towards which they have directed his passions--towards which they have
bent the energies of his mind; that is to say, in which they have shewn
him his interest, in which they have taught him to place his felicity:
in consequence, he loves and searches after that which they have taught
him to revere--that which they have made the object of his research; he
has those tastes, those inclinations, those phantasms, which, during the
whole course of his life, he is forward to indulge, which he is eager to
satisfy, in proportion to the activity they have excited in him, and the
capacity with which he has been provided by Nature.
_Politics_ ought to be the art of regulating the passions of man--of
directing them to the welfare of society--of diverting them into a
genial current of happiness--of making them flow gently to the
general benefit of all: but too frequently it is nothing more than the
detestible art of arming the passions of the various members of society
against each other,--of making them the engines to accomplish their
mutual destruction,--of converting them into agents which embitter
their existence, create jealousies among them, and fill with rancorous
animosities that association from which, if properly managed, man ought
to derive his felicity. Society is commonly so vicious because it is not
founded upon Nature, upon experience, and upon general utility; but
on the contrary, upon the passions, upon the caprices, and upon the
particular interests of those by whom it is governed. In short, it is
for the most part the advantage of the few opposed to the prosperity of
the many.
Politics, to be useful, should found its principles upon Nature; that is
to say, should conform itself to the essence of man, should mould itself
to the great end of society: but what is society? and what is its end?
It is a whole, formed by the union of a great number of families, or by
a collection of individuals, assembled from a reciprocity of interest,
in order that they may satisfy with greater facility their reciprocal
wants--that they may, with more certainty, procure the advantages they
desire--that they may obtain mutual succours--above all, that they may
gain the faculty of enjoying, in security, those benefits with which
Nature and industry may furnish them: it follows, of course, that
politics, which are intended to maintain society, and to consolidate
the interests of this congregation, ought to enter into its views, to
facilitate the means of giving them efficiency, to remove all those
obstacles that have a tendency to counteract the intention with which
man entered into association.
Man, in approximating to his fellow man, to live with him in society,
has made, either formally or tacitly, a covenant; by which he engages
to render mutual services, to do nothing that can be prejudicial to his
neighbour. But as the nature of each individual impels him each instant
to seek after his own welfare, which he has mistaken to consist in the
gratification of his passions, and the indulgence of his transitory
caprices, without any regard to the convenience of his fellows; there
needed a power to conduct him back to his duty, to oblige him to conform
himself to his obligations, and to recall him to his engagements, which
the hurry of his passions frequently make him forget. This power is the
_law_; it is, or ought to be, the collection of the will of society,
reunited to fix the conduct of its members, to direct their action in
such a mode, that it may concur to the great end of his association--the
general good.
But as society, more especially when very numerous, is incapable of
assembling itself, unless with great difficulty, as it cannot with
tumult make known its intentions, it is obliged to choose citizens in
whom it places a confidence, whom it makes the interpreter of its will,
whom it constitutes the depositaries of the power requisite to carry
it into execution. Such is the origin of all _government_, which to be
legitimate can only be founded on the free consent of society. Those
who are charged with the care of governing, call themselves sovereigns,
chiefs, legislators: according to the form which society has been
willing to give to its government: these sovereigns are styled monarchs,
magistrates, representatives, &c. Government only borrows its power from
society: being established for no other purpose than its welfare, it is
evident society can revoke this power whenever its interest shall exact
it; change the form of its government; extend or limit the power which
it has confided to its chiefs, over whom, by the immutable laws of
Nature, it always conserves a supreme authority: because these laws
enjoin, that the part shall always remain subordinate to the whole.
Thus sovereigns are the ministers of society, its interpreters, the
depositaries of a greater or of a less portion of its power; but they
are not its absolute masters, neither are they the proprietors of
nations. By a _covenant_, either expressed or implied, they engage
themselves to watch over the maintenance, to occupy themselves with the
welfare of society; it is only upon these conditions society consents to
obey them. The price of obedience is protection. There is or ought to
be a reciprocity of interest between the governed and the governor:
whenever this reciprocity is wanting, society is in that state of
confusion of which we spoke in the fifth chapter: it is verging on
destruction. No society upon earth was ever willing or competent to
confer irrevocably upon its chiefs the power, the right, of doing it
injury. Such a concession, such a compact, would be annulled, would be
rendered void by Nature; because she wills that each society, the
same as each individual of the human species shall tend to its own
conservation; it has not therefore the capacity to consent to its
permanent unhappiness. _Laws_, in order that they may be just, ought
invariably to have for their end, the general interest of society; that
is to say, to assure to the greater number of citizens those advantages
for which man originally associated. These advantages are _liberty,
property, security_.
_Liberty_, to man, is the faculty of doing, for his own peculiar
happiness, every thing which does not injure or diminish the happiness
of his associates: in associating, each individual renounced the
exercise of that portion of his natural liberty which would be able to
prejudice or injure the liberty of his fellows. The exercise of that
liberty which is injurious to society is called _licentiousness_.
_Property_, to man, is the faculty of enjoying those advantages which
spring from labour; those benefits which industry or talent has procured
to each member of society.
_Security_, to man, is the certitude, the assurance, that each
individual ought to have, of enjoying in his person, of finding for
his property the protection of the laws, as long as he shall faithfully
observe, as long as he shall punctually perform, his engagements with
society.
_Justice_, to man, assures to all the members of society, the possession
of these advantages, the enjoyment of those rights, which belong to
them. From this, it will appear, that without justice, society is not in
a condition to procure the happiness of any man. Justice is also called
_equity_, because by the assistance of the laws made to command the
whole, she reduces all its members to a state of equality; that is
to say, she prevents them from prevailing one over the other, by
the inequality which Nature or industry may have made between their
respective powers.
_Rights_, to man, are every thing which society, by equitable laws,
permits each individual to do for his own peculiar felicity. These
rights are evidently limited by the invariable end of all association:
society has, on its part, rights over all its members, by virtue of the
advantages which it procures for them; all its members, in turn, have
a right to claim, to exact from society, or secure from its ministers
those advantages for the procuring of which they congregated, in favour
of which they renounced a portion of their natural liberty. A society,
of which the chiefs, aided by the laws, do not procure any good for its
members, evidently loses its right over them: those chiefs who injure
society lose the right of commanding. It is not our country, without
it secures the welfare of its inhabitants; a society without equity
contains only enemies; a society oppressed is composed only of tyrants
and slaves; slaves are incapable of being citizens; it is liberty,
property, and security, that render our country dear to us; it is the
true love of his country that forms the citizen.
For want of having a proper knowledge of these truths, or for want
of applying them when known, some nations have become unhappy--have
contained nothing but a vile heap of slaves, separated from each other,
detached from society, which neither procures for them any good, nor
secures to them any one advantage. In consequence of the imprudence of
some nations, or of the craft, cunning, and violence of those to whom
they have confided the power of making laws, and carrying them into
execution, their sovereigns have rendered themselves absolute masters of
society. These, mistaking the true source of their power, pretended to
hold it from heaven, to be accountable for their actions to God alone,
to owe nothing, not to have any obligation to society, in a word, to
be gods upon earth, to possess the right of governing arbitrarily.
From thence politics became corrupted: they were only a mockery. Such
nations, disgraced and grown contemptible, did not dare resist the will
of their chiefs; their laws were nothing more than the expression of the
caprice of these chiefs; public welfare was sacrificed to their peculiar
interests; the force of society was turned against itself; its members
withdrew to attach themselves to its oppressors, to its tyrants; these
to seduce them, permitted them to injure it with impunity and to profit
by its misfortunes. Thus liberty, justice, security, and virtue, were
banished from many nations; politics was no longer any thing more than
the art of availing itself of the forces of a people and of the treasure
of society; of dividing it on the subject of its interest, in order to
subjugate it by itself; at length a stupid, a mechanical habit, made
them cherish their oppressors, and love their chains.
Man when he has nothing to fear, presently becomes wicked; he who
believes he has not occasion for his fellow, persuades himself he may
follow the inclinations of his heart without caution or discretion. Thus
fear is the only obstacle society can effectually oppose to the passions
of its chiefs; without it they will quickly become corrupt, and will
not scruple to avail themselves of the means society has placed in their
hands, to make them accomplices in their iniquity. To prevent these
abuses, it is requisite society should set bounds to its confidence;
should limit the power which it delegates to its chiefs; should reserve
to itself a sufficient portion of authority to prevent them from
injuring it; it must establish prudent checks: it must cautiously divide
the power it confers, because re-united, it will by such reunion be
infallibly oppressed. The slightest reflection, the most scanty
review, will make men feel that the burthen of governing and weight
of administration, is too ponderous and overpowering to be borne by an
individual; that the scope of his jurisdiction, that the range of his
surveillance, and multiplicity of his duties must always render him
negligent; that the extent of his power has ever a tendency to render
him mischievous. In short, the experience of all ages will convince
nations that man is continually tempted to the abuse of power: that as
an abundance of strong liquor intoxicates his brain, so unlimited power
corrupts his heart; that therefore the sovereign ought to be subject to
the law, not the law to the sovereign.
_Government_ has necessarily an equal influence over the philosophy, as
over the morals of nations. In the same manner that its care produces
labour, activity, abundance, salubrity and justice; its negligence
induces idleness, sloth, discouragement, penury, contagion, injustice,
vices and crimes. It depends upon government either to foster industry,
mature genius, give a spring to talents, or stifle them. Indeed
government, the disturber of dignities, of riches, of rewards, and
punishments; the master of those objects in which man from his infancy
has learned to place his felicity, and contemplate as the means of his
happiness; acquires a necessary influence over his conduct: it kindles
his passions; gives them direction; makes him instrumental to whatever
purpose it pleases; it modifies him; determines his manners; which in
a whole people, as in the individual, is nothing more than the conduct,
the general system of wills, of actions that necessarily result from his
education, government, laws, and religious opinions--his institutions,
whether rational or irrational. In short, manners are the habits of a
people: these are good whenever society draws from them true felicity
and solid happiness; they are bad, they are detestable in the eye of
reason, when the happiness of society does not spring from them; they
are unwholesome when they have nothing more in their favour than the
suffrage of time, and the countenance of prejudice which rarely
consults experience, which is almost ever at variance with good sense:
notwithstanding they may have the sanction of the law, custom, religion,
public opinion, or example, they may be unworthy and may be disgraceful,
provided society is in disorder; that crime abounds; that virtue shrinks
beneath the basilisk eye of triumphant vice; they may then be said to
resemble the UPAS, whose luxuriant yet poisonous foliage, the produce
of a rank soil, becomes more baneful to those who are submitted to
its vortex, in proportion as it extends its branches. If experience he
consulted, it will be found there is no action, however abominable, that
has not received the applause, that has not obtained the approbation of
some people. Parricide, the sacrifice of children, robbery, usurpation,
cruelty, intolerance, and prostitution, have all in their turn been
licensed actions; have been advocated; have been deemed laudable
and meritorious deeds with some nations of the earth. Above all,
_superstition_ has consecrated the most unreasonable, the most revolting
customs.
Man's passions result from and depend on the motion of attraction or
repulsion, of which he is rendered susceptible by Nature; who enables
him, by his peculiar essence, to be attracted by those objects which
appear useful to him, to be repelled by those which he considers
prejudicial; it follows that government, by holding the magnet, can put
these passions into activity, has the power either of restraining them,
or of giving them a favorable or an unfavorable direction. All his
passions are constantly limited by either loving or hating, seeking
or avoiding, desiring or fearing. These passions, so necessary to the
conservation of man, are a consequence of his organization; they display
themselves with more or less energy, according to his temperament;
education and habit develope them; government gives them play, conducts
them towards those objects, which it believes itself interested in
making desirable to its subjects. The various names which have been
given to these passions, are relative to the different objects by which
they are excited, such as pleasure, grandeur, or riches, which produce
voluptuousness, ambition, vanity and avarice. If the source of those
passions which predominate in nations be attentively examined it will
be commonly found in their governments. It is the impulse received
from their chiefs that renders them sometimes warlike, sometimes
superstitious, sometimes aspiring after glory, sometimes greedy after
wealth, sometimes rational, and sometimes unreasonable; if sovereigns,
in order to enlighten and render happy their dominions, were to employ
only the _tenth_ part of the vast expenditures which they lavish, only
a _tythe_ of the pains which they employ to render them brutish, to
stupify them, to deceive them, and to afflict them; their subjects
would presently be as wise, would quickly be as happy, as they are now
remarkable for being blind, ignorant, and miserable.
Let the vain project of destroying, the delusive attempt at rooting his
passions from the heart of man, he abandoned; let an effort be made to
direct them towards objects that may be useful to himself, beneficial to
his associates. Let education, let government, let the laws, habituate
him to restrain his passions within those just bounds that experience
fixes and reason prescribes. Let the ambitious have honours, titles,
distinctions, and power, when they shall have usefully served their
country; let riches be given to those who covet them, when they shall
have rendered themselves necessary to their fellow citizens; let
commendations, let eulogies, encourage those who shall be actuated by
the love of glory. In short, let the passions of man have a free, an
uninterrupted course, whenever there shall result from their exercise,
real, substantial, and durable advantages to society. Let education
kindle only those, which are truly beneficial to the human species; let
it favour those alone which are really necessary to the maintenance of
society. The passions of man are dangerous, only because every thing
conspires to give them an evil direction.
Nature does not make man either good or wicked: she combines machines
more or less active, mobile, and energetic; she furnishes him with
organs and temperament, of which his passions, more or less impetuous,
are the necessary consequence; these passions have always his happiness
for their object, his welfare for their end: in consequence they are
legitimate, they are natural, they can only be called bad or good,
relatively, to the influence they have on the beings of his species.
Nature gives man legs proper to sustain his weight, and necessary to
transport him from one place to another; the care of those who rear them
strengthens them, habituates him to avail himself of him, accustoms
him to make either a good or a bad use of them. The arm which he has
received from Nature is neither good nor bad; it is necessary to a great
number of the actions of life; nevertheless, the use of this arm
becomes criminal, if he has contracted the habit of using it to rob, to
assassinate, with a view to obtain that money which he has been taught
from his infancy to desire, and which the society in which he lives
renders necessary to him, but which his industry will enable him to
obtain without doing injury to his fellow man.
The heart of man is a soil which Nature has made equally suitable to the
production of brambles, or of useful grain--of deleterous poison, or of
refreshing fruit, by virtue of the seeds which may be sown in it--by the
cultivation that may be bestowed upon it, In his infancy, those objects
are pointed out to him which he is to estimate or to despise, to
seek after or to avoid, to love or to hate. It is his parents,
his instructors, who render him either virtuous or wicked, wise or
unreasonable, studious or dissipated, steady or trifling, solid or
vain. Their example, their discourse, modify him through his whole life,
teaching him what are the things he ought either to desire or to avoid;
what the objects he ought to fear or to love: he desires them, in
consequence; and he imposes on himself the task of obtaining them,
according to the energy of his temperament, which ever decides the
force of his passions. It is thus that education, by inspiring him with
opinions, by infusing into him ideas, whether true or false, gives
him those primitive impulsions after which he acts, in a manner either
advantageous or prejudicial both to himself and to others. Man, at
his birth, brings with him into the world nothing but the necessity
of conserving himself, of rendering his existence happy: instruction,
example, the customs of the world, present him with the means, either
real or imaginary, of achieving it; habit procures for him the facility
of employing these means: he attaches himself strongly to those he
judges best calculated, most proper to secure to him the possession of
those objects which they have taught him, which he has learned to
desire as the preferable good attached to his existence. Whenever his
education--whenever the examples which have been afforded him--whenever
the means with which he has been provided, are approved by reason, are
the result of experience, every thing concurs to render him virtuous;
habit strengthens these dispositions in him; he becomes, in consequence,
a useful member of society; to the interests of which, every thing ought
to prove to him his own permanent well-being, his own durable felicity,
is necessarily allied. If, on the contrary, his education--his
institutions--the examples which are set before him--the opinions which
are suggested to him in his infancy, are of a nature to exhibit to his
mind virtue as useless and repugnant--vice as useful and congenial to
his own individual happiness, he will become vicious; he will believe
himself interested in injuring society, in rendering his associates
unhappy; he will be carried along by the general current: he will
renounce virtue, which to him will no longer be any thing more than
a vain idol, without attractions to induce him to follow it; without
charms to tempt his adoration; because it will appear to exact, that he
should immolate at its shrine, that he should sacrifice at its altar all
those objects which he has been constantly taught to consider the most
dear to himself; to contemplate as benefits the most desirable.
In order that man may become virtuous, it is absolutely requisite that
he should have an interest, that he should find advantages in practising
virtue. For this end, it is necessary that education should implant in
him reasonable ideas; that public opinion should lean towards virtue, as
the most desirable good; that example should point it out as the object
most worthy esteem; that government should faithfully recompense, should
regularly reward it; that honor should always accompany its practice;
that vice should constantly be despised; that crime should invariably be
punished. Is virtue in this situation amongst men? does the education of
man infuse into him just, faithful ideas of happiness--true notions of
virtue--dispositions really favourable to the beings with whom he is to
live? The examples spread before him, are they suitable to innocence and
manners? are they calculated to make him respect decency--to cause him
to love probity--to practice honesty--to value good faith--to esteem
equity--to revere conjugal fidelity--to observe exactitude in fulfilling
his duties? Religion, which alone pretends to regulate his manners, does
it render him sociable--does it make him pacific--does it teach him to
be humane? The arbiters, the sovereigns of society, are they faithful
in recompensing, punctual in rewarding, those who have best served their
country? in punishing those who have pillaged, who have robbed, who have
plundered, who have divided, who have ruined it? Justice, does she hold
her scales with a firm, with an even hand, between all the citizens
of the state? The laws, do they never support the strong against the
weak--favor the rich against the poor--uphold the happy against the
miserable? In short, is it an uncommon spectacle to behold crime
frequently justified, often applauded, sometimes crowned with success,
insolently triumphing, arrogantly striding over that merit which it
disdains, over that virtue which it outrages? Well then, in societies
thus constituted, virtue can only be heard by a very small number of
peaceable citizens, a few generous souls, who know how to estimate its
value, who enjoy it in secret. For the others, it is only a disgusting
object; they see in it nothing but the supposed enemy to their
happiness, or the censor of their individual conduct.
If man, according to his nature, is necessitated to desire his welfare,
he is equally obliged to love and cherish the means by which he believes
it is to be acquired: it would be useless, it would perhaps be unjust,
to demand that a man should be virtuous, if he could not be so without
rendering himself miserable. Whenever he thinks vice renders him happy,
he must necessarily love vice; whenever he sees inutility recompensed,
crime rewarded--whenever he witnesses either or both of them
honored,--what interest will he find in occupying himself with the
happiness of his fellow-creatures? what advantage will he discover in
restraining the fury of his passions? Whenever his mind is saturated
with false ideas, filled with dangerous opinions, it follows, of course,
that his whole conduct will become nothing more than a long chain of
errors, a tissue of mistakes, a series of depraved actions.
We are informed, that the savages, in order to flatten the heads
of their children, squeeze them between two boards, by that means
preventing them from taking the shape designed for them by Nature. It is
pretty nearly the same thing with the institutions of man; they commonly
conspire to counteract Nature, to constrain and divert, to extinguish
the impulse Nature has given him, to substitute others which are the
source of all his misfortunes. In almost all the countries of the
earth, man is bereft of truth, is fed with falsehoods, and amused with
marvellous chimeras: he is treated like those children whose members
are, by the imprudent care of their nurses, swathed with little fillets,
bound up with rollers, which deprive them of the free use of their
limbs, obstruct their growth, prevent their activity, and oppose
themselves to their health.
Most of the superstitious opinions of man have for their object only to
display to him his supreme felicity in those illusions for which they
kindle his passions: but as the phantoms which are presented to his
imagination are incapable of being considered in the same light by all
who contemplate them, he is perpetually in dispute concerning these
objects; he hates his fellow, he persecutes his neighbour, his neighbour
in turn persecutes him, and he believes that in doing this he is doing
well: that in committing the greatest crimes to sustain his opinions
he is acting right. It is thus superstition infatuates man from his
infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism: if he
has a heated imagination, it drives him on to fury; if he has activity,
it makes him a madman, who is frequently as cruel himself, as he is
dangerous to his fellow-creatures, as he is incommodious to others: if,
on the contrary, he be phlegmatic, and of a slothful habit, he becomes
melancholy and useless to society.
_Public opinion_ every instant offers to man's contemplation false ideas
of honor, and wrong notions of glory: it attaches his esteem not only
to frivolous advantages, but also to prejudicial interests and injurious
actions; which example authorizes, which prejudice consecrates, which
habit precludes him from viewing with the disgust and horror which they
merit. Indeed, habit familiarizes his mind with the most absurd
ideas, the most unreasonable customs, the most blameable actions; with
prejudices the most contrary to his own interests, and detrimental
to the society in which he lives. He finds nothing strange, nothing
singular, nothing despicable, nothing ridiculous, except those opinions
and objects to which he is himself unaccustomed. There are countries
in which the most laudable actions appear very blameable and
ridiculous--where the foulest and most diabolical actions pass for very
honest and perfectly rational conduct. In some nations they kill the old
men; in some the children strangle their fathers. The Phoenicians and
Carthaginians immolated their children to their gods. Europeans approve
duels; he who refuses to cut the throat of another, or to blow out the
brains of his neighbour, is contemplated by them as dishonoured. The
Spaniards and Portuguese think it meritorious to burn an heretic. In
some countries women prostitute themselves without dishonour; in others
it is the height of hospitality for a man to present his wife to the
embraces of the stranger: the refusal to accept this, excites his scorn
and calls forth his resentment.
_Authority_ commonly believes itself interested in maintaining the
received opinions: those prejudices and errors which it considers
requisite to the maintenance of its power and the consolidation of its
interests, are sustained by force, which is never rational. Princes
themselves, filled with deceptive images of happiness, mistaken notions
of power, erroneous opinions of grandeur, and false ideas of glory, are
surrounded with flattering courtiers, who are interested in keeping
up the delusion of their masters: these contemptible men have acquired
ideas of virtue, only that they may outrage it: by degrees they
corrupt the people, these become depraved, lend themselves to their
debaucheries, pander to the vices of the great, then make a merit of
imitating them in their irregularities. A court is too frequently the
true focus of the corruption of a people.
This is the true source of moral evil. It is thus that every thing
conspires to render man vicious, and give a fatal impulse to his soul:
from whence results the general confusion of society, which becomes
unhappy, from the misery of almost every one of its members. The
strongest motive-powers are put in action to inspire man with a passion
for futile objects which are indifferent to him; which make him become
dangerous to his fellow man, by the means which he is compelled to
employ, in order to obtain them. Those who have the charge of guiding
his steps, either impostors themselves, or the dupes to their own
prejudices, forbid him to hearken to reason; they make truth appear
dangerous to him; they exhibit error as requisite to his welfare, not
only in this world, but in the next. In short, habit strongly attaches
him to his irrational opinions, to his perilous inclinations, and to his
blind passion for objects either useless or dangerous. Here, then,
is the reason why for the most part man finds himself necessarily
determined to evil; the reason why the passions, inherent in his
Nature and necessary to his conservation, become the instruments of his
destruction, and the bane of that society, which properly conducted,
they ought to preserve; the reason why society becomes a state of
warfare; why it does nothing but assemble enemies, who are envious of
each other, and are always rivals for the prize. If some virtuous beings
are to be found in these societies, they must be sought for in the
very small number of those, who born with a phlegmatic temperament have
moderate passions, who therefore, either do not desire at all, or desire
very feebly, those objects with which their associates are continually
inebriated.
Man's nature, diversely cultivated, decides upon his faculties, as
well corporeal as intellectual; upon his qualities, as well moral
as physical. The man who is of a sanguine, robust constitution, must
necessarily have strong passions; he who is of a bilious, melancholy
habit, will as necessarily have fantastical and gloomy passions; the man
of a gay turn, of a sprightly imagination, will have cheerful passions;
while the man in whom phlegm abounds, will have those which are gentle,
or which have a very slight degree of violence. It appears to be upon
the equilibrium of the humours, that depends the state of the man who
is called _virtuous_; his temperament seems to be the result of a
combination, in which the elements or principles are balanced with such
precision that no one passion predominates over another, or carries into
his machine more disorder than its neighbour.
Habit, as we have seen, is man's nature modified: this latter furnishes
the matter; education, domestic example, national manners, give it the
form: these, acting on his temperament, make him either reasonable, or
irrational--enlightened, or stupid--a fanatic, or a hero--an enthusiast
for the public good, or an unbridled criminal--a wise man, smitten with
the advantages of virtue, or a libertine, plunged into every kind of
vice. All the varieties of the moral man, depend on the diversity of his
ideas; which are themselves arranged and combined in his brain by the
intervention of his senses. His temperament is the produce of physical
substances, his habits are the effect of physical modifications; the
opinions, whether good or bad, injurious or beneficial, true or false,
which form themselves in his mind, are never more than the effect of
those physical impulsions which the brain receives by the medium of the
senses.