exaltation without other object than his own person, of cold enthusiasm
and hypocrisy at once sentimental and implacable, of the falsehood of
modern idealism. He may be considered as the real creator of modern
reaction. To all appearance the most democratic writer of the eighteenth
century, he bred within himself the pitiless despotism of the statesman.
He was the prophet of the doctrinaire State, as Robespierre, his worthy
and faithful disciple, tried to become its high priest. Having heard the
saying of Voltaire that, if God did not exist, it would be necessary to
invent him, J. J. Rousseau invented the Supreme Being, the abstract and
sterile God of the deists. And it was in the name of the Supreme Being,
and of the hypocritical virtue commanded by this Supreme Being, that
Robespierre guillotined first the Hebertists and then the very genius of
the Revolution, Danton, in whose person he assassinated the Republic,
thus preparing the way for the thenceforth necessary triumph of the
dictatorship of Bonaparte I. After this great triumph, the idealistic
reaction sought and found servants less fanatical, less terrible,
nearer to the diminished stature of the actual bourgeoisie. In France,
Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and--shall I say it? Why not? All must be said
if it is truth--Victor Hugo himself, the democrat, the republican, the
quasi-socialist of to-day! and after them the whole melancholy and
sentimental company of poor and pallid minds who, under the leadership
of these masters, established the modern romantic school; in Germany,
the Schlegels, the Tiecks, the Novalis, the Werners, the Schellings, and
so many others besides, whose names do not even deserve to be recalled.
The literature created by this school was the very reign of ghosts and
phantoms. It could not stand the sunlight; the twilight alone permitted
it to live. No more could it stand the brutal contact of the masses.
It was the literature of the tender, delicate, distinguished souls,
aspiring to heaven, and living on earth as if in spite of themselves.
It had a horror and contempt for the politics and questions of the
day; but when perchance it referred to them, it showed itself frankly
reactionary, took the side of the Church against the insolence of
the freethinkers, of the kings against the peoples, and of all the
aristocrats against the vile rabble of the streets. For the rest, as I
have just said, the dominant feature of the school of romanticism was a
quasi-complete indifference to politics. Amid the clouds in which it
lived could be distinguished two real points--the rapid development of
bourgeois materialism and the ungovernable outburst of individual
vanities.
To understand this romantic literature, the reason for its existence
must be sought in the transformation which had been effected in the
bosom of the bourgeois class since the revolution of 1793.
From the Renaissance and the Reformation down to the Revolution, the
bourgeoisie, if not in Germany, at least in Italy, in France, in
Switzerland, in England, in Holland, was the hero and representative of
the revolutionary genius of history. From its bosom sprang most of the
freethinkers of the fifteenth century, the religious reformers of
the two following centuries, and the apostles of human emancipation,
including this time those of Germany, of the past century. It alone,
naturally supported by the powerful arm of the people, who had faith in
it, made the revolution of 1789 and '93. It proclaimed the downfall of
royalty and of the Church, the fraternity of the peoples, the rights
of man and of the citizen. Those are its titles to glory; they are
immortal!
Soon it split. A considerable portion of the purchasers of national
property having become rich, and supporting themselves no longer on the
proletariat of the cities, but on the major portion of the peasants of
France, these also having become landed proprietors, had no aspiration
left but for peace, the re-establishment of public order, and the
foundation of a strong and regular government. It therefore welcomed
with joy the dictatorship of the first Bonaparte, and, although always
Voltairean, did not view with displeasure the Concordat with the Pope
and the re-establishment of the official Church in France: "_Religion is
so necessary to the people!_" Which means that, satiated themselves,
this portion of the bourgeoisie then began to see that it was needful
to the maintenance of their situation and the preservation of their
newly-acquired estates to appease the unsatisfied hunger of the people
by promises of heavenly manna. Then it was that Chateaubriand began to
preach.[11]
Napoleon fell and the Restoration brought back into France the
legitimate monarchy, and with it the power of the Church and of the
nobles, who regained, if not the whole, at least a considerable portion
of their former influence. This reaction threw the bourgeoisie back into
the Revolution, and with the revolutionary spirit that of skepticism
also was re-awakened in it. It set Chateaubriand aside and began to read
Voltaire again; but it did not go so far as Diderot: its debilitated
nerves could not stand nourishment so strong. Voltaire, on the contrary,
at once a freethinker and a deist, suited it very well. Beranger and P.
L. Courier expressed this new tendency perfectly. The "God of the good
people" and the ideal of the bourgeois king, at once liberal and
democratic, sketched against the majestic and thenceforth inoffensive
background of the Empire's gigantic victories--such was at that period
the daily intellectual food of the bourgeoisie of France.
Lamartine, to be sure, excited by a vain and ridiculously envious desire
to rise to the poetic height of the great Byron, had begun his coldly
delirious hymns in honor of the God of the nobles and of the legitimate
monarchy. But his songs resounded only in aristocratic salons. The
bourgeoisie did not hear them. Beranger was its poet and Courier was
its political writer.
The revolution of July resulted in lifting its tastes. We know that
every bourgeois in France carries within him the imperishable type of
the bourgeois gentleman, a type which never fails to appear immediately
the parvenu acquires a little wealth and power. In 1830 the wealthy
bourgeoisie had definitely replaced the old nobility in the seats
of power. It naturally tended to establish a new aristocracy. An
aristocracy of capital first of all, but also an aristocracy of
intellect, of good manners and delicate sentiments. It began to feel
religious.
This was not on its part simply an aping of aristocratic customs. It
was also a necessity of its position. The proletariat had rendered it
a final service in once more aiding it to overthrow the nobility. The
bourgeoisie now had no further need of its co-operation, for it felt
itself firmly seated in the shadow of the throne of July, and the
alliance with the people, thenceforth useless, began to become
inconvenient. It was necessary to remand it to its place, which
naturally could not be done without provoking great indignation among
the masses. It became necessary to restrain this indignation. In the
name of what? In the name of the bourgeois interest bluntly confessed?
That would have been much too cynical. The more unjust and inhuman an
interest is, the greater need it has of sanction. Now, where find it
if not in religion, that good protectress of all the well-fed and the
useful consoler of the hungry? And more than ever the triumphant
bourgeoisie saw that religion was indispensable to the people.
After having won all its titles to glory in religious, philosophical,
and political opposition, in protest and in revolution, it at last
became the dominant class and thereby even the defender and preserver of
the State, thenceforth the regular institution of the exclusive power of
that class. The State is force, and for it, first of all, is the right
of force, the triumphant argument of the needle-gun, of the _chassepot_.
But man is so singularly constituted that this argument, wholly eloquent
as it may appear, is not sufficient in the long run. Some moral sanction
or other is absolutely necessary to enforce his respect. Further, this
sanction must be at once so simple and so plain that it may convince the
masses, who, after having been reduced by the power of the State, must
also be induced to morally recognize its right.
There are only two ways of convincing the masses of the goodness of any
social institution whatever. The first, the only real one, but also the
most difficult to adopt--because it implies the abolition of the
State, or, in other words, the abolition of the organized political
exploitation of the majority by any minority whatsoever--would be the
direct and complete satisfaction of the needs and aspirations of the
people, which would be equivalent to the complete liquidation of the
political and economical existence of the bourgeois class, or, again,
to the abolition of the State. Beneficial means for the masses, but
detrimental to bourgeois interests; hence it is useless to talk about
them.
The only way, on the contrary, harmful only to the people, precious in
its salvation of bourgeois privileges, is no other than religion. That
is the eternal _mirage_ which leads away the masses in a search for
divine treasures, while, much more reserved, the governing class
contents itself with dividing among all its members--very unequally,
moreover, and always giving most to him who possesses most--the
miserable goods of earth and the plunder taken from the people,
including their political and social liberty.
There is not, there cannot be, a State without religion. Take the
freest States in the world--the United States of America or the Swiss
Confederation, for instance--and see what an important part is played
in all official discourses by divine Providence, that supreme sanction
of all States.
But whenever a chief of State speaks of God, be he William I., the
Knouto-Germanic emperor, or Grant, the president of the great republic,
be sure that he is getting ready to shear once more his people-flock.
The French liberal and Voltairean bourgeoisie, driven by temperament to
a positivism (not to say a materialism) singularly narrow and brutal,
having become the governing class of the State by its triumph of 1830,
had to give itself an official religion. It was not an easy thing.
The bourgeoisie could not abruptly go back under the yoke of Roman
Catholicism. Between it and the Church of Rome was an abyss of blood
and hatred, and, however practical and wise one becomes, it is never
possible to repress a passion developed by history. Moreover, the French
bourgeoisie would have covered itself with ridicule if it had gone back
to the Church to take part in the pious ceremonies of its worship, an
essential condition of a meretorious and sincere conversion. Several
attempted it, it is true, but their heroism was rewarded by no other
result than a fruitless scandal. Finally, a return to Catholicism was
impossible on account of the insolvable contradiction which separates
the invariable politics of Rome from the development of the economical
and political interests of the middle class.
In this respect Protestantism is much more advantageous. It is the
bourgeois religion _par excellence_. It accords just as much liberty as
is necessary to the bourgeois, and finds a way of reconciling celestial
aspirations with the respect which terrestrial conditions demand.
Consequently it is especially in Protestant countries that commerce
and industry have been developed. But it was impossible for the
French bourgeoisie to become Protestant. To pass from one religion to
another--unless it be done deliberately, as sometimes in the case of the
Jews of Russia and Poland, who get baptised three or four times in order
to receive each time the remuneration allowed them--to seriously change
one's religion, a little faith is necessary. Now, in the exclusive
positive heart of the French bourgeois, there is no room for faith. He
professes the most profound indifference for all questions which touch
neither his pocket first nor his social vanity afterwards. He is as
indifferent to Protestantism as to Catholicism. On the other hand, the
French bourgeois could not go over to Protestantism without putting
himself in conflict with the Catholic routine of the majority of the
French people, which would have been great imprudence on the part of a
class pretending to govern the nation.
There was still one way left--to return to the humanitarian and
revolutionary religion of the eighteenth century. But that would have
led too far. So the bourgeoisie was obliged, in order to sanction its
new State, to create a new religion which might be boldly proclaimed,
without too much ridicule and scandal, by the whole bourgeois class.
Thus was born _doctrinaire_ Deism.
Others have told, much better than I could tell it, the story of the
birth and development of this school, which had so decisive and--we may
well add--so fatal an influence on the political, intellectual, and
moral education of the bourgeois youth of France. It dates from Benjamin
Constant and Madame de Stael; its real founder was Royer-Collard; its
apostles, Guizot, Cousin, Villemain, and many others. Its boldly avowed
object was the reconciliation of Revolution with Reaction, or, to use
the language of the school, of the principle of liberty with that of
authority, and naturally to the advantage of the latter.
This reconciliation signified: in politics, the taking away of popular
liberty for the benefit of bourgeois rule, represented by the
monarchical and constitutional State; in philosophy, the deliberate
submission of free reason to the eternal principles of faith. We have
only to deal here with the latter.
We know that this philosophy was specially elaborated by M. Cousin,
the father of French eclecticism. A superficial and pedantic talker,
incapable of any original conception, of any idea peculiar to himself,
but very strong on commonplace, which he confounded with common sense,
this illustrious philosopher learnedly prepared, for the use of the
studious youth of France, a metaphysical dish of his own making, the
use of which, made compulsory in all schools of the State under the
University, condemned several generations one after the other to a
cerebral indigestion. Imagine a philosophical vinegar sauce of the
most opposed systems, a mixture of Fathers of the Church, scholastic
philosophers, Descartes and Pascal, Kant and Scotch psychologists, all
this a superstructure on the divine and innate ideas of Plato, and
covered up with a layer of Hegelian immanence, accompanied, of course,
by an ignorance, as contemptuous as it is complete, of natural science,
and proving, just as two times two make _five_, the existence of a
personal God....
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I call it "iniquitous" because, as I believe I have proved in the
Appendix alluded to, this mystery has been and still continues to be the
consecration of all the horrors which have been and are being committed
in the world; I call it unique, because all the other theological and
metaphysical absurdities which debase the human mind are but its
necessary consequences.
[2] Mr. Stuart Mill is perhaps the only one whose serious idealism
may be fairly doubted, and that for two reasons: first, that, if not
absolutely the disciple, he is a passionate admirer, an adherent of the
positive philosophy of Auguste Comte, a philosophy which, in spite of
its numerous reservations, is really Atheistic; second, that Mr. Stuart
Mill is English, and in England to proclaim oneself an Atheist is to
ostracise oneself, even at this late day.
[3] In London I once heard M. Louis Blanc express almost the same idea.
"The best form of government," said he to me, "would be that which would
invariably call _men of virtuous genius_ to the control of affairs."
[4] One day I asked Mazzini what measures would be taken for the
emancipation of the people, once his triumphant unitary republic had
been definitely established. "The first measure," he answered, "will be
the foundation of schools for the people." "And what will the people be
taught in these schools?" "The duties of man--sacrifice and devotion."
But where will you find a sufficient number of professors to teach these
things, which no one has the right or power to teach, unless he preaches
by example? Is not the number of men who find supreme enjoyment in
sacrifice and devotion exceedingly limited? Those who sacrifice
themselves in the service of a great idea obey a lofty passion, and,
_satisfying this personal passion_, outside of which life itself loses
all value in their eyes, they generally think of something else than
building their action into doctrine, while those who teach doctrine
usually forget to translate it into action, for the simple reason that
doctrine kills the life, the living spontaneity, of action. Men like
Mazzini, in whom doctrine and action form an admirable unity, are very
rare exceptions. In Christianity also there have been great men, holy
men, who have really practised, or who, at least, have passionately
tried to practice all that they preached, and whose hearts, overflowing
with love, were full of contempt for the pleasures and goods of this
world. But the immense majority of Catholic and Protestant priests who,
by trade, have preached and still preach the doctrines of chastity,
abstinence, and renunciation belie their teachings by their example. It
is not without reason, but because of several centuries' experience,
that among the people of all countries these phrases have become
by-words: _As licentious as a priest; as gluttonous as a priest; as
ambitious as a priest; as greedy, selfish, and grasping as a priest._ It
is, then, established that the professors of the Christian virtues,
consecrated by the Church, the priests, _in the immense majority of
cases_, have practised quite the contrary of what they have preached.
This very majority, the universality of this fact, show that the fault
is not to be attributed to them as individuals, but to the social
position, impossible and contradictory in itself, in which these
individuals are placed. The position of the Christian priest involves a
double contradiction. In the first place, that between the doctrine of
abstinence and renunciation and the positive tendencies and needs of
human nature--tendencies and needs which, in some individual cases,
always very rare, may indeed be continually held back, suppressed, and
even entirely annihilated by the constant influence of some potent
intellectual and moral passion; which at certain moments of collective
exaltation, may be forgotten and neglected for some time by a large mass
of men at once; but which are so fundamentally inherent in our nature
that sooner or later they always resume their rights: so that, when they
are not satisfied in a regular and normal way, they are always replaced
at last by unwholesome and monstrous satisfaction. This is a natural and
consequently fatal and irresistible law, under the disastrous action of
which inevitably fall all Christian priests and especially those of the
Roman Catholic Church. It cannot apply to the professors, that is to the
priests of the modern Church, unless they are also obliged to preach
Christian abstinence and renunciation.
But there is another contradiction common to the priests of both sects.
This contradiction grows out of the very title and position of master. A
master who commands, oppresses, and exploits is a wholly logical and
quite natural personage. But a master who sacrifices himself to those
who are subordinated to him by his divine or human privilege is a
contradictory and quite impossible being. This is the very constitution
of hypocrisy, so well personified by the Pope, who, while calling
himself _the lowest servant of the servants of God_--in token whereof,
following the example of Christ, he even washes once a year the feet of
twelve Roman beggars--proclaims himself at the same time vicar of God,
absolute and infallible master of the world. Do I need to recall that
the priests of all churches, far from sacrificing themselves to the
flocks confided to their care, have always sacrificed them, exploited
them, and kept them in the condition of a flock, partly to satisfy their
own personal passions and partly to serve the omnipotence of the Church?
Like conditions, like causes, always produce like effects. It will,
then, be the same with the professors of the modern School divinely
inspired and licensed by the State. They will necessarily become, some
without knowing it, others with full knowledge of the cause, teachers of
the doctrine of popular sacrifice to the power of the State and to the
profit of the privileged classes.
Must we, then, eliminate from society all instruction and abolish all
schools? Far from it! Instruction must be spread among the masses
without stint, transforming all the churches, all those temples
dedicated to the glory of God and to the slavery of men, into so
many schools of human emancipation. But, in the first place, let us
understand each other; schools, properly speaking, in a normal society
founded on equality and on respect for human liberty, will exist only
for children and not for adults; and, in order that they may become
schools of emancipation and not of enslavement, it will be necessary to
eliminate, first of all, this fiction of God, the eternal and absolute
enslaver. The whole education of children and their instruction must be
founded on the scientific development of reason, not on that of faith;
on the development of personal dignity and independence, not on that of
piety and obedience; on the worship of truth and justice at any cost,
and above all on respect for humanity, which must replace always and
everywhere the worship of divinity. The principle of authority, in the
education of children, constitutes the natural point of departure; it is
legitimate, necessary, when applied to children of a tender age, whose
intelligence has not yet openly developed itself. But as the development
of everything, and consequently of education, implies the gradual
negation of the point of departure, this principle must diminish as
fast as education and instruction advance, giving place to increasing
liberty. All rational education is at bottom nothing but this
progressive immolation of authority for the benefit of liberty, the
final object of education necessarily being the formation of free men
full of respect and love for the liberty of others. Therefore the first
day of the pupils' life, if the school takes infants scarcely able as
yet to stammer a few words, should be that of the greatest authority and
an almost entire absence of liberty; but its last day should be that of
the greatest liberty and the absolute abolition of every vestige of the
animal or divine principle of authority.
The principle of authority, applied to men who have surpassed or
attained their majority, becomes a monstrosity, a flagrant denial of
humanity, a source of slavery and intellectual and moral depravity.
Unfortunately, paternal governments have left the masses to wallow in an
ignorance so profound that it will be necessary to establish schools not
only for the people's children, but for the people themselves. From
these schools will be absolutely eliminated the smallest applications or
manifestations of the principle of authority. They will be schools no
longer; they will be popular academies, in which neither pupils nor
masters will be known, where the people will come freely to get, if they
need it, free instruction, and in which, rich in their own experience,
they will teach in their turn many things to the professors who shall
bring them knowledge which they lack. This, then, will be a mutual
instruction, an act of intellectual fraternity between the educated
youth and the people.