have morality sufficient; but I cannot adopt this opinion. Man is a
being so compounded, and his relations with his species are so various
and so fine, that to regulate his mind, and direct his conduct, he has
need of a multitude of sentiments, on which the commands of the
sovereign have not any hold; they are all simple and declared duties,
which the legislators have reduced to precepts, and this rough building,
termed civil laws, leaves vacancies throughout. The laws require merely
a blind obedience; and as they enjoin and defend only actions, are
absolutely indifferent to the private sentiments of men; the moral
edifice which they raise is in several parts a mere exterior form, and
it is at the roof, if I may say so, that they have begun. Religion
proceeds in a manner diametrically opposite; it is in the heart, it is
in the recesses of conscience, that it lays its first base; it appears
to be acquainted with the grand secrets of nature; it sows in the earth
a grain, and this grain is nourished, and transformed into numerous
branches, which, without any effort, spring up, and extend themselves to
all dimensions and in every kind of form.
I will suppose, nevertheless, that we believed it sufficient for the
maintenance of public order, to reduce morality to the spirit of civil
laws, it would still be out of the power of men to draw from this
assimilation familiar instructions proper to form a code of education;
for these laws, simple in their commands, are not so in their
principles. We perceive not immediately why revenge, the most just, is
prohibited; why we have not the power to do ourselves justice by the
same means a ravisher would use; why we have not a right to resist with
violence the tyrannic oppressor; in short, why certain actions, some
indifferent in themselves, and some hurtful to others, are condemned in
a general and uniform manner: a kind of combination is necessary to
discover, that the legislator himself is wandering from natural ideas,
in order to prevent every person from being a judge in his own cause,
and to avoid that, those exceptions and distinctions, of which every
circumstance is susceptible, might never be determined by the judgment
of individuals. In the same manner, from those indirect motives, the
laws treat with more rigour an offence difficult to define, than a
disorder more reprehensible in itself; but of which the excesses might
be easily perceived: and they observe still the same rule with respect
to crimes which are surrounded by greater allurements, though this
seduction is even a motive for indulgence in the eyes of simple justice;
in short, the laws, in adopting a more determinate method, to constrain
debtors to the discharge of their obligations, prove that they are not
compassionate to unforeseen misfortunes, nor actuated by other motives
of equity which merit an equal interest; all their attention is fixed on
the relation of engagements with the political resources, which arise
from commerce and its transactions. There exists thus a multitude of
prohibitions of punishments, or gradations in the penalties, which have
not any connexion but with the general views of the legislation, and
agree not with the circumscribed good sense, which determines the
judgment of individuals. It is then often, by considerations very
extensive and complicated, that an action is criminal or reprehensible
in the eyes of the law: thus, we know not how to erect, on this base
alone, a system of morality, of which every one can have a clear
perception; and since the legislator carefully avoids submitting any
thing to private examination, because he sacrifices often to this
principle natural justice, how then can he wish, at the same time, to
give us for a rule of conduct a political morality, which is all founded
on reasoning?
It is of consequence still to observe, that to the eyes of the greater
number of men, the sense of the laws, and the decrees formed by those
who interpret them, ought necessarily to be identified and blended, and
form only one point of view; and as the judges are frequently exposed to
error, the true spirit of legislation remains often in obscurity, and we
with difficulty discern it.
It is, perhaps, because laws are the work of our understanding, that we
are disposed to grant them a universal dominion: but I will avow, I am
far from thinking that they can ever be substituted instead of the
salutary influence of religion, and that I believe them insufficient
even to regulate the things immediately under their jurisdiction; thus I
would request you to reflect, if the unfortunate errors with which we
reproach criminal tribunals, have not their source in the faults
committed by sovereign authority; when it has referred all the duties of
the judges to the injunctions of the law, and when it has refused to
confide any longer in the conscience and private sentiments of the
magistrates.
Let us render this observation more clear by a single example chosen
from a number. We demand at present, that the legislator explain himself
afresh on the grand question, what witnesses are necessary? but will he
not always run the risk of being deceived, whether he absolutely rejects
a probable evidence, or whether he makes the fate of a criminal depend
upon it? How will he determine, that the testimony of an honest man,
identifying the person of an assassin, in his own cause, should not be
reckoned any thing by the judge; and how can he pretend also, that a
testimony of this nature is sufficient to determine a condemnation, when
he who gives the evidence appears suspicious, either from the motives,
which we must suppose actuate him, or from the improbability of his
assertion? Reason is then placed between two extremes; but intermediate
ideas not being consonant with the absolute language of law, we ought,
in such circumstances, to leave much to the wisdom and integrity of the
magistrates; and so far from serving innocence by acting otherwise, we
visibly endanger it; because judges habituate themselves to render the
laws responsible for every thing, and respectfully submit to the letter,
instead of obeying the spirit, which is the earnest desire of obtaining
truth. What then, some will say, would you wish that there should be no
positive instructions, neither to serve for a guide in the examination
of crimes, nor to determine the character by which these crimes may be
distinguished? This was never in my mind; but I could wish, that in an
affair of such serious importance, they would unite to the judgment
which proceeded from the prudence of the legislator, that which may be
brought by the wisdom of the judges; I could wish, that the criminal
legislation prescribed to the magistrates, not all that they are obliged
to do, but all from which they are not exempt; not all that is
sufficient to determine their opinion, but all which ought to be the
indispensable condition of a capital punishment. Guided by such a
spirit, the commands given by the law, would be a safeguard against the
ignorance, or possible prevarication of the judges; but as any general
rule, any immutable principle, is not applicable to an infinite
diversity of circumstances, I would give to innocence a new defender,
interesting in a more immediate manner the morality of the judges to
search for and examine the truth, and to recal continually all the
extent of their obligations; I could wish, that previous to their
passing a sentence of condemnation, raising one of their hands towards
heaven, they pronounced with earnestness these words: “I attest, that
the man accused before us, appears to me guilty, according to the law,
and according to my own private judgment.” It is not sufficient, that we
command a judge to examine with probity, if the proofs of an offence,
are conformable to those required by the statute; it is necessary to
inform a magistrate, that he ought to enquire into the truth by all the
means that scrupulous anxiety can suggest; he should know, that, called
to decide on the life and the honour of men, his understanding and his
heart, ought to be enlisted in the cause of humanity, and that there are
not any limits opposed to bound his duty; then, without failing in any
of the enquiries ordained by the laws, he would force himself to go
still further, that no evidence proper to make an impression on a
reasonable man might be rejected, at the same time, that none might have
so decisive a force, that the examination of circumstances would ever
appear useless; the judges then would make use of that sagacity, which
seems to discern instinctively; they would not then disdain to read even
the looks of the accuser and the accused, and they would not believe it
a matter of indifference to observe with attention, all those emotions
of nature, where sometimes truth is painted with so much energy; then,
in short, innocence would be under the protection of something as pure
as itself, the scrupulous conscience of a judge.
We have never, perhaps, sufficiently considered how much a methodical
order, when we confine ourselves too servilely to it, contracts the
bounds of the mind; it becomes then like a foot-path traced between two
banks, which prevents our discovering what is not in a strait line. The
strict observance of method diverts us also from consulting that light,
sometimes so lively, of which the soul only is the focus; for in
subjecting us to a positive course of things always regular, and in
making us find pleasure in a determined path, which offers continual
repose to our thoughts, it incapacitates for thinking that delicate
perception of natural sentiments, which has nothing fixed or
circumscribed, but whose free flight often makes us approach to truth,
as by a kind of instinct or inspiration.
I should stray too far from my subject, if I extended these reflections,
and I hasten to connect them with the subject of this chapter, in
repeating again, that if the laws are insufficient, even in those
decisions submitted to their authority, and if the they have absolute
need of the aid of religion, whenever they impose on their private
expounders duties a little complicated; they would be still less able to
supply the habitual and daily influence of that motive, the most
powerful of all, and the only one at the same time, of which the action
will be sufficiently penetrating to follow us in the mazes of our
conduct, and in the labyrinth of our thoughts.
I ought now to direct your attention towards other considerations. All
that is required by public order, all that is of importance to society,
some will say, is, that criminals may not escape the sword of justice,
and that an attentive superintendance discover them under the cloud
where they seek to conceal themselves. I will not here recal the various
obstacles, which are opposed to the plenitude of this vigilance; every
one may perceive them, or form an idea of them; but I hasten to observe,
that in considering society in its actual state, we ought not to forget,
that religious sentiments have greatly diminished the talk of
government; a scene quite new would open, if we had for our guide only
political morality; it would not then be a few men without principles,
who would trouble the public order, more able actors would mix in the
throng, some conducted by mature reflection, and others, carried away by
seducing appearances, would be incessantly at war with all those, whose
fortune excited their jealousy; and then only we should know how many
opportunities there are of doing evil, and injuring others. It would
also happen, that all these enemies of public order not being
disconcerted by the reproaches of their conscience, would become every
day more expert in the art of avoiding the observation of justice; and
the dangers to which the imprudent exposed themselves, would not
discourage the ingenious.
It is then, if I may be permitted so to express myself, because the laws
find men in a healthy state, prepared by religious instruction, that
they can restrain them; but if a system of education merely political
was ever to prevail, new precautions and new chains would become
absolutely necessary, and after having freed us from the mild ties of
religion, the projectors of such a system would increase our civil
slavery, would bend our necks under the hardest of all yokes, that which
is imposed by our fellow-creatures.
Religion, whose influence they wish us to reject, is better appropriated
than they think, to the mixture of pride and weakness, which constitutes
our nature, and for us, such as we are; its action is far preferable to
that of the penal laws; it is not, before his equals, armed with the rod
of vengeance, that the culprit is made to appear; it is not to their
ignorance, or to their inexorable justice, that he is abandoned; it is
at the tribunal of his own conscience, that religion informs against
him; before a God, sovereign of the world, that it humbles, and in the
name of a tender and merciful Father that it comforts him. Alas! while
you at once take from us both our consolation and our true dignity, you
wish to refer every thing to private interest and public punishment; but
permit me to listen to those commands which come from on high; leave me
to divert my attention from the menacing sceptre which the potentates of
the earth weild in their hand; leave me to account with Him, before whom
they shrink into nothing; leave me, in short, to address myself to him
who pardons, and who, at the moment I have offended, permits me still to
love him, and rely on his grace!—Alas! without the idea of a
God,—without this connexion with a Supreme Being, author of all nature,
we should only listen to the vile counsels of selfish prudence, we
should only have to flatter and adore the rulers of nations, and all
those who in an absolute monarchy, are the numerous representatives of
the authority of the prince; yes, talents, sentiments, ought to bend
before these distributors of so much good and evil, if nothing exists
beyond worldly interest; and when once every one cringes, there is no
more dignity in the character, men become incapable of any great action,
and unequal to any moral excellence.
Religious opinions have the double merit of maintaining us in the
obedience due to the laws and the soveriegn, and of nourishing in our
hearts a sentiment which sustains our courage, and which reminds men of
their true grandeur; teaches submission without meanness, and prevents,
above all, cowardly humiliations before transitory idols, in showing at
a distance the last period, when all must return to an equality before
the Master of the World.
The idea of a God, at the same distance from all men, serves also to
console us for that shocking superiority of rank and fortune under the
oppression of which we live; it is necessary to transport ourselves to
the heights religion discovers, to consider with a kind of calmness and
indifference the frivolous pretentions of some, and the confident
haughtiness of others; and such objects of regret, or of envy, which
appeared a Colossus to our imagination, are changed into a grain of
sand, when we contrast them with the grand prospects which such sublime
meditations display to our view.
They are then blind, or indifferent to our interest, who wish to
substitute, instead of religious instructions, political and worldly
maxims; and in like manner, those are inflexible and unfeeling, who
believe they shall be able to conduct men only by terror; and who, in
contesting the salutary influence of religious opinions, expect less
from them than the axe of the lictors, and the apparatus of execution.
What is then this wretched system? For supposing even that the different
means of securing public tranquillity were equal in their effect, should
we not prefer religious principles, which prevent crimes, to the strict
laws which punish them? I understand not besides, how, with the same
hand that they repel religious sentiments, they wish to raise every
where scaffolds, and multiply, without scruple, those frightful theatres
of severity; for if men, hurried onwards to crimes, were only governed
by blind necessity, alas! what do they deserve? And if we still
determine to destroy them as examples, we should assist at their
execution, as at that of beings devoted for the good of society, as
Iphigenia was sacrificed at Aulis for the salvation of Greece.
Religion is, in another respect, superior to the laws, which are ever
armed for vengeance; instead of that, religion, even when threatening,
nourishes also the hopes of pardon and felicity; and I believe, contrary
to the generally received opinion, that man, by his nature, is more
constantly animated by hope, than restrained by fear; the former of
these sentiments compose the tenor of our life, whilst the latter is the
effect of an extraordinary circumstance, or particular situation; in
short, courage, or want of consideration, turns our attention from
danger, whilst ideas of happiness are perpetually present, and blended,
if I may use the expression, with our whole existence.
I perceive, however, that some may say to me, it is not only of civil
and penal laws that we mean to speak, when we maintain that good public
institutions would be an efficacious substitute for the influence of
religion; it would be necessary to introduce laws of education, proper
to modify, beforehand, the mind and form the character. But they have
not explained, and I am ignorant that there are such laws, which they
wish to distinguish from the general doctrines we are acquainted with;
doctrines susceptible, undoubtedly, of different degrees of perfection,
which, before instructing us not only in the virtues simple and real,
but in all those mixed and conventional, have necessarily a vague
character, and could not separate themselves from the support that they
borrow from the fixed and precise ideas of religion. They may cite the
example of Sparta, where the state undertook the education of the
citizens, and formed by laws the extraordinary manners which history has
delineated; but that government, aided in this enterprize by all the
influence of paternal authority, nevertheless proposed but two great
objects, the encouragement of martial qualities, and the maintenance of
liberty: morality was not made interesting, though among us it requires
so much application; and it was rendered less necessary, as every
institution tended to introduce a perfect equality of rank and fortune,
and opposed all kind of communication with foreigners. In short, it was,
after all, a religious opinion which subjected the Spartans to the
authority of their legislator; and without their confidence in the
oracle of Delphos, Lycurgus had only been a celebrated philosopher.
We are still further, at present, from the disposition and situation
which would allow laws of education to govern us, supported only by a
political spirit; in order to make the trial, we must be divided into
little associations; and by some means, not yet discovered, be able to
oppose invincible obstacles to the enlargement of them, and to preserve
us from the desires and voluptuousness which are the inevitable
consequence of an augmentation of wealth, and the progress of the arts
and sciences: in short, and it is a singular remark, at a period when
man is become a being the most compounded, on account of these social
modifications, he has need, more than ever, of a principle which will
penetrate to the very source of his numerous affections; consequently it
would be necessary suddenly to carry him back to his primitive
simplicity, to make him agree, in some measure, with the limited extent
of an education purely civil. Let me add, that a like education could
not be adapted to the commonalty, as in Sparta; they must be separated
from the citizens, and kept in servitude: an observation which leads me
to a very important reflection; it is, that in a country where slavery
would be introduced, where the most numerous class would be governed by
the continual fear of the severest chastisement, they would be able to
confide more in the mere ascendency of political morality; for this
morality only having to keep in order the part of society represented by
those who have property, the task would not be difficult; but among us,
where happily all men, without any distinction, are subject to the yoke
of the law, an authority so extensive, must necessarily be strengthened
and seconded by the universal influence of religious opinions.
I shall conclude this part of my subject by one reflection more;
supposing, even in the sovereign authority, an exertion sufficiently
general to prevent or repress evil, religion would still have this great
advantage, that it inculcates the beneficent virtues, which the laws
cannot reach; and yet, in the actual state of society, it is become
impossible to omit those virtues. It is not sufficient to be just, when
the laws of property reduce to bare necessaries the most numerous class
of men, whose weak resources the most trivial accident disconcerts; and
I hesitate not to say, that such is the extreme inequality established
by these laws, that we ought at present to consider the spirit of
beneficence and forbearance, as constituting a part of social order; as
in all places and times, it softens by its assistance the excess of
wretchedness, and by an innumerable multitude of springs spreads itself
as the vital juice, through forlorn beings, whom misery had almost
exhausted. But if this spirit, properly intermediate between the rigour
of civil rights, and the original title of humanity, did not exist, or
should ever be extinct, we should see all the subordinate ties relax
imperceptibly; and a man, loaded with the favours of fortune, never
presenting himself to the people under the form of a benefactor; they
would more forcibly feel the great extent of his privileges, and would
accustom themselves to discuss them. Men must then find a way of
moderating the despotism of fortune, or render homage to religion,
which, by the sublime idea of an exchange between the blessings of
heaven and earth, obliges the rich to give what the laws cannot demand.
Religion then comes continually to assist the civil legislation, it
speaks a language unknown to the laws, it warms that sensibility which
ought to advance even before reason; it acts like light and interior
warmth, as it both enlightens and animates; and what we have not
sufficiently observed, is, that in society its moral sentiments are the
imperceptible tie of a number of parts, which seem to be held by their
own agreement, and which would be successively detached, if the chain
which united them was ever to be broken: we shall more clearly perceive
this truth, in the examination we are going to make of the connexion of
opinion with morality.
When we imagine we should be able to subject men to the observance of
public order, and inspire them with the love of virtue, by motives
independent of religion, we propose, undoubtedly, to put in action two
powerful springs; the desire of esteem and praise; and the fear of
contempt and shame. Thus, to follow my subject in all its branches, I
ought necessarily to examine what is the degree of force of these
different motives, and what is also their true application. I have
already spoken, in other works of mine, of the opinion of the world, and
of its salutary effects; but the subject I am now treating obliges me to
consider it under a different point of view, and it is by placing myself
behind the scene, that I shall be able to fulfil this task.