CHAPTER XVIII

HOW TO CHECK THE USURPATIONS OF GOVERNMENT

What we have just said confirms Chapter XVI, and makes it clear that

the institution of government is not a contract, but a law; that the

depositaries of the executive power are not the people's masters, but

its officers; that it can set them up and pull them down when it likes;

that for them there is no question of contract, but of obedience; and

that in taking charge of the functions the State imposes on them they

are doing no more than fulfilling their duty as citizens, without

having the remotest right to argue about the conditions.

When therefore the people sets up an hereditary government, whether

it be monarchical and confined to one family, or aristocratic and

confined to a class, what it enters into is not an undertaking; the

administration is given a provisional form, until the people chooses to

order it otherwise.

It is true that such changes are always dangerous, and that the

established government should never be touched except when it comes

to be incompatible with the public good; but the circumspection this

involves is a maxim of policy and not a rule of right, and the State is

no more bound to leave civil authority in the hands of its rulers than

military authority in the hands of its generals.

It is also true that it is impossible to be too careful to observe,

in such cases, all the formalities necessary to distinguish a regular

and legitimate act from a seditious tumult, and the will of a whole

people from the clamour of a faction. Here above all no further

concession should be made to the untoward possibility than cannot, in

the strictest logic, be refused it. From this obligation the prince

derives a great advantage in preserving his power despite the people,

without it being possible to say he has usurped it; for, seeming to

avail himself only of his rights, he finds it very easy to extend them,

and to prevent, under the pretext of keeping the peace, assemblies that

are destined to the re-establishment of order; with the result that he

takes advantage of a silence he does not allow to be broken, or of

irregularities he causes to be committed, to assume that he has the

support of those whom fear prevents from speaking, and to punish those

who dare to speak. Thus it was that the decemvirs, first elected for

one year and then kept on in office for a second, tried to perpetuate

their power by forbidding the comitia to assemble; and by this easy

method every government in the world, once clothed with the public

power, sooner or later usurps the sovereign authority.

The periodical assemblies of which I have already spoken are designed

to prevent or postpone this calamity, above all when they need no

formal summoning; for in that case, the prince cannot stop them without

openly declaring himself a law-breaker and an enemy of the State.

The opening of these assemblies, whose sole object is the maintenance

of the social treaty, should always take the form of putting two

propositions that may not be suppressed, which should be voted on

separately.

The first is: "Does it please the Sovereign to preserve the present

form of government?"

The second is: "Does it please the people to leave its administration

in the hands of those who are actually in charge of it?"

I am here assuming what I think I have shown; that there is in the

State no fundamental law that cannot be revoked, not excluding the

social compact itself; for if all the citizens assembled of one accord

to break the compact, it is impossible to doubt that it would be very

legitimately broken. Grotius even thinks that each man can renounce his

membership of his own State, and recover his natural liberty and his

goods on leaving the country.[1] It would be indeed absurd if all the

citizens in assembly could not do what each can do by himself.

[1] Provided, of course, he does not leave to escape his obligations

and avoid having to serve his country in the hour of need. Flight

in such a case would be criminal and punishable, and would be, not

withdrawal, but desertion.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

THAT THE GENERAL WILL IS INDESTRUCTIBLE

As long as several men in assembly regard themselves as a single body,

they have only a single will which is concerned with their common

preservation and general well-being. In this case, all the springs of

the State are vigorous and simple and its rules clear and luminous;

there are no embroilments or conflicts of interests; the common good is

everywhere clearly apparent, and only good sense is needed to perceive

it. Peace, unity and equality are the enemies of political subtleties.

Men who are upright and simple are difficult to deceive because of

their simplicity; lures and ingenious pretexts fail to impose upon

them, and they are not even subtle enough to be dupes. When, among the

happiest people in the world, bands of peasants are seen regulating

affairs of State under an oak, and always acting wisely, can we help

scorning the ingenious methods of other nations, which make themselves

illustrious and wretched with so much art and mystery?

A State so governed needs very few laws; and, as it becomes necessary

to issue new ones, the necessity is universally seen. The first man to

propose them merely says what all have already felt, and there is no

question of factions or intrigues or eloquence in order to secure the

passage into law of what every one has already decided to do, as soon

as he is sure that the rest will act with him.

Theorists are led into error because, seeing only States that have

been from the beginning wrongly constituted, they are struck by the

impossibility of applying such a policy to them. They make great game

of all the absurdities a clever rascal or an insinuating speaker might

get the people of Paris or London to believe. They do not know that

Cromwell would have been put to "the bells" by the people of Berne, and

the Due de Beaufort on the treadmill by the Genevese.

But when the social bond begins to be relaxed and the State to grow

weak, when particular interests begin to make themselves felt and the

smaller societies to exercise an influence over the larger, the common

interest changes and finds opponents: opinion is no longer unanimous;

the general will ceases to be the will of all; contradictory views and

debates arise; and the best advice is not taken without question.

Finally, when the State, on the eve of ruin, maintains only a vain,

illusory and formal existence, when in every heart the social bond

is broken, and the meanest interest brazenly lays hold of the sacred

name of "public good," the general will becomes mute: all men, guided

by secret motives, no more give their views as citizens than if the

State had never been; and iniquitous decrees directed solely to private

interest get passed under the name of laws.

Does it follow from this that the general will is exterminated or

corrupted? Not at all: it is always constant, unalterable and pure; but

it is subordinated to other wills which encroach upon its sphere. Each

man, in detaching, his interest from the common interest, sees clearly

that he cannot entirely separate them; but his share in the public

mishaps seems to him negligible beside the exclusive good he aims at

making his own. Apart from this particular good, he wills the general

good in his own interest, as strongly as any one else. Even in selling

his vote for money, he does not extinguish in himself the general

will, but only eludes it. The fault he commits is that of changing the

state of the question, and answering something different from what he

is asked. Instead of saying, by his vote, "It is to the advantage of

the State," he says, "It is of advantage to this or that man or party

that this or that view should prevail." Thus the law of public order

in assemblies is not so much to maintain in them the general will as

to secure that the question be always put to it, and the answer always

given by it.

I could here set down many reflections on the simple right of voting

in every act of Sovereignty--a right which no-one can take from the

citizens--and also on the right of stating views, making proposals,

dividing and discussing, which the government is always most careful

to leave solely to its members; but this important subject would need a

treatise to itself, and it is impossible to say everything in a single

work.

CHAPTER II

VOTING

It may be seen, from the last chapter, that the way in which general

business is managed may give a clear enough indication of the actual

state of morals and the health of the body politic. The more concert

reigns in the assemblies, that is, the nearer opinion approaches

unanimity, the greater is the dominance of the general will. On

the other hand, long debates, dissensions and tumult proclaim the

ascendancy of particular interests and the decline of the State.

This seems less clear when two or more orders enter into the

constitution, as patricians and plebeians did at Rome; for quarrels

between these two orders often disturbed the comitia, even in the best

days of the Republic. But the exception is rather apparent than real;

for then, through the defect that is inherent in the body politic,

there were, so to speak, two States in one, and what is not true of

the two together is true of either separately. Indeed, even in the

most stormy times, the plebiscita of the people, when the Senate did

not interfere with them, always went through quietly and by large

majorities. The citizens having but one interest, the people had but a

single will.

At the other extremity of the circle, unanimity recurs; this is the

case when the citizens, having fallen into servitude, have lost both

liberty and will. Fear and flattery then change votes into acclamation;

deliberation ceases, and only worship or malediction is left. Such

was the vile manner in which the senate expressed its views under the

Emperors. It did so sometimes with absurd precautions. Tacitus observes

that, under Otho, the senators, while they heaped curses on Vitellius,

contrived at the same time to make a deafening noise, in order that,

should he ever become their master, he might not know what each of them

had said.

On these various considerations depend the rules by which the methods

of counting votes and comparing opinions should be regulated, according

as the general will is more or less easy to discover, and the State

more or less in its decline.

There is but one law which, from its nature, needs unanimous consent.

This is the social compact; for civil association is the most voluntary

of all acts. Every man being born free and his own master, no-one,

under any pretext whatsoever, can make any man subject without his

consent. To decide that the son of a slave is born a slave is to decide

that he is not born a man.

If then there are opponents when the social compact is made, their

opposition does not invalidate the contract, but merely prevents them

from being included in it. They are foreigners among citizens. When the

State is instituted, residence constitutes consent; to dwell within its

territory is to submit to the Sovereign.[1]

Apart from this primitive contract, the vote of the majority always

binds all the rest. This follows from the contract itself. But it is

asked how a man can be both free and forced to conform to wills that

are not his own. How are the opponents at once free and subject to laws

they have not agreed to?

I retort that the question is wrongly put. The citizen gives his

consent to all the laws, including those which are passed in spite of

his opposition, and even those which punish him when he dares to break

any of them. The constant will of all the members of the State is the

general will; by virtue of it they are citizens and free.[2] When in

the popular assembly a law is proposed, what the people is asked is not

exactly whether it approves or rejects the proposal, but whether it is

in conformity with the general will, which is their will. Each man, in

giving his vote, states his opinion on that point; and the general will

is found by counting votes. When therefore the opinion that is contrary

to my own prevails, this proves neither more nor less than that I was

mistaken, and that what I thought to be the general will was not so. If

my particular opinion had carried the day I should have achieved the

opposite of what was my will and it is in that case that I should not

have been free.

This presupposes, indeed, that all the qualities of the general will

still reside in the majority: when they cease to do so, whatever side a

man may take, liberty is no longer possible.

In my earlier demonstration of how particular wills are substituted

for the general will in public deliberation, I have adequately pointed

out the practicable methods of avoiding this abuse; and I shall have

more to say of them later on. I have also given the principles for

determining the proportional number of votes for declaring that will.

A difference of one vote destroys equality; a single opponent destroys

unanimity; but between equality and unanimity, there are several grades

of unequal division, at each of which this proportion may be fixed in

accordance with the condition and the needs of the body politic.

There are two general rules that may serve to regulate this relation.

First, the more grave and important the questions discussed, the nearer

should the opinion that is to prevail approach unanimity. Secondly, the

more the matter in hand calls for speed, the smaller the prescribed

difference in the numbers of votes may be allowed to become: where an

instant decision has to be reached, a majority of one vote should be

enough. The first of these two rules seems more in harmony with the

laws, and the second with practical affairs. In any case, it is the

combination of them that gives the best proportions for determining the

majority necessary.

[1] This should of course be understood as applying to a free State;

for elsewhere family, goods, lack of a refuge, necessity, or violence

may detain a man in a country against his will; and then his dwelling

there no longer by itself implies his consent to the contract or to its

violation.

[2] At Genoa, the word _Liberty_ may be read over the front of the

prisons and on the chains of the galley-slaves. This application of the

device is good and just. It is indeed only malefactors of all estates

who prevent the citizen from being free. In the country in which

all such men were in the galleys, the most perfect liberty would be

enjoyed.

CHAPTER III

ELECTIONS

In the elections of the prince and the magistrates, which are, as I

have said, complex acts, there are two possible methods of procedure,

choice and lot. Both have been employed in various republics, and a

highly complicated mixture of the two still survives in the election of

the Doge at Venice.

"Election by lot," says Montesquieu, "is democratic in nature." I agree

that it is so; but in what sense? "The lot," he goes on, "is a way

of making choice that is unfair to nobody; it leaves each citizen a

reasonable hope of serving his country." These are not reasons.

If we bear in mind that the election of rulers is a function of

government, and not of Sovereignty, we shall see why the lot is the

method more natural to democracy, in which the administration is better

in proportion as the number of its acts is small.

In every real democracy, magistracy is not an advantage, but a

burdensome charge which cannot justly be imposed on one individual

rather than another. The law alone can lay the charge on him on whom

the lot falls. For, the conditions being then the same for all, and

the choice not depending on any human will, there is no particular

application to alter the universality of the law.

In an aristocracy, the prince chooses the prince, the government is

preserved by itself, and voting is rightly ordered.

The instance of the election of the Doge of Venice confirms, instead

of destroying, this distinction; the mixed form suits a mixed

government. For it is an error to take the government of Venice for a

real aristocracy. If the people has no share in the government, the

nobility is itself the people. A host of poor Barnabotes never gets

near any magistracy, and its nobility consists merely in the empty

title of Excellency, and in the right to sit in the Great Council. As

this Great Council is as numerous as our General Council at Geneva, its

illustrious members have no more privileges than our plain citizens.

It is indisputable that, apart from the extreme disparity between the

two republics, the _bourgeoisie_ of Geneva is exactly equivalent to the

_patriciate_ of Venice; our _natives_ and _inhabitants_ correspond to

the _townsmen_ and the _people_ of Venice; our _peasants_ correspond

to the _subjects_ on the mainland; and, however that republic be

regarded, if its size be left out of account, its government is no more

aristocratic than our own. The whole difference is that, having no

life-ruler, we do not, like Venice, need to use the lot.

Election by lot would have few disadvantages in a real democracy, in

which, as equality would everywhere exist in morals and talents as

well as in principles and fortunes, it would become almost a matter

of indifference who was chosen. But I have already said that a real

democracy is only an ideal.

When choice and lot are combined, positions that require special

talents, such as military posts, should be filled by the former; the

latter does for cases, such as judicial offices, in which good sense,

justice, and integrity are enough, because in a State that is well

constituted, these qualities are common to all the citizens.

Neither lot nor vote has any place in monarchical government. The

monarch being by right sole prince and only magistrate, the choice of

his lieutenants belongs to none but him. When the Abbé de Saint-Pierre

proposed that the Councils of the King of France should be multiplied,

and their members elected by ballot, he did not see that he was

proposing to change the form of government.

I should now speak of the methods of giving and counting opinions in

the assembly of the people; but perhaps an account of this aspect of

the Roman constitution will more forcibly illustrate all the rules I

could lay down. It is worth the while of a judicious reader to follow

in some detail the working of public and private affairs in a Council

consisting of two hundred thousand men.

CHAPTER IV

THE ROMAN COMITIA

We are without well-certified records of the first period of Rome's

existence; it even appears very probable that most of the stories told

about it are fables; indeed, generally speaking, the most instructive

part of the history of peoples, that which deals with their foundation,

is what we have least of. Experience teaches us every day what causes

lead to the revolutions of empires; but, as no new peoples are now

formed, we have almost nothing beyond conjecture to go upon in

explaining how they were created.

The customs we find established show at least that these customs had

an origin. The traditions that go back to those origins, that have

the greatest authorities behind them, and that are confirmed by the

strongest proofs, should pass for the most certain. These are the rules

I have tried to follow in inquiring how the freest and most powerful

people on earth exercised its supreme power.

After the foundation of Rome, the new-born republic, that is, the

army of its founder, composed of Albans, Sabines and foreigners, was

divided into three classes, which, from this division, took the name

of _tribes_. Each of these tribes was subdivided into ten _curiæ_, and

each _curia_ into _decuriæ_, headed by leaders called _curiones_ and

_decuriones_.

Besides this, out of each tribe was taken a body of one hundred

_Equites_ or Knights, called a _century_, which shows that these

divisions, being unnecessary in a town, were at first merely military.

But an instinct for greatness seems to have led the little township of

Rome to provide itself in advance with a political system suitable for

the capital of the world.

Out of this original division an awkward situation soon arose. The

tribes of the Albans (Ramnenses) and the Sabines (Tatienses) remained

always in the same condition, while that of the foreigners (Luceres)

continually grew as more and more foreigners came to live at Rome,

so that it soon surpassed the others in strength. Servius remedied

this dangerous fault by changing the principle of cleavage, and

substituting for the racial division, which he abolished, a new one

based on the quarter of the town inhabited by each tribe. Instead of

three tribes he created four, each occupying and named after one of the

hills of Rome. Thus, while redressing the inequality of the moment, he

also provided for the future; and in order that the division might be

one of persons as well as localities, he forbade the inhabitants of one

quarter to migrate to another, and so prevented the mingling of the

races.

He also doubled the three old centuries of Knights and added twelve

more, still keeping the old names, and by this simple and prudent

method, succeeded in making a distinction between the body of Knights

and the people, without a murmur from the latter.

To the four urban tribes Servius added fifteen others called rural

tribes, because they consisted of those who lived in the country,

divided into fifteen cantons. Subsequently, fifteen more were created,

and the Roman people finally found itself divided into thirty-five

tribes, as it remained down to the end of the Republic.

The distinction between urban and rural tribes had one effect which

is worth mention, both because it is without parallel elsewhere, and

because to it Rome owed the preservation of her morality and the

enlargement of her empire. We should have expected that the urban

tribes would soon monopolise power and honours, and lose no time in

bringing the rural tribes into disrepute; but what happened was exactly

the reverse. The taste of the early Romans for country life is well

known. This taste they owed to their wise founder, who made rural and

military labours go along with liberty, and, so to speak, relegated to

the town arts, crafts, intrigue, fortune and slavery.

Since therefore all Rome's most illustrious citizens lived in the

fields and tilled the earth, men grew used to seeking there alone the

mainstays of the republic. This condition, being that of the best

patricians, was honoured by all men; the simple and laborious life

of the villager was preferred to the slothful and idle life of the

_bourgeoisie_ of Rome; and he who, in the town, would have been but a

wretched proletarian, became, as a labourer in the fields, a respected

citizen. Not without reason, says Varro, did our great-souled ancestors

establish in the village the nursery of the sturdy and valiant men

who defended them in time of war and provided for their Sustenance in

time of peace. Pliny states positively that the country tribes were

honoured because of the men of whom they were composed; while cowards

men wished to dishonour were transferred, as a public disgrace, to the

town tribes. The Sabine Appius Claudius, when he had come to settle

in Rome, was loaded with honours and enrolled in a rural tribe, which

subsequently took his family name. Lastly, freedmen always entered the

urban, and never the rural, tribes: nor is there a single example,

throughout the Republic, of a freedman, though he had become a citizen,

reaching any magistracy.

This was an excellent rule; but it was carried so far that in the end

it led to a change and certainly to an abuse in the political system.

First the censors, after having for a long time claimed the right of

transferring citizens arbitrarily from one tribe to another, allowed

most persons to enrol themselves in whatever tribe they pleased. This

permission certainly did no good, and further robbed the censorship

of one of its greatest resources. Moreover, as the great and powerful

all got themselves enrolled in the country tribes, while the freedmen

who had become citizens remained with the populace in the town tribes,

both soon ceased to have any local or territorial meaning, and all were

so confused that the members of one could not be told from those of

another except by the registers; so that the idea of the word _tribe_

became personal instead of real, or rather came to be little more than

a chimera.

It happened in addition that the town tribes, being more on the spot,

were often the stronger in the comitia and sold the State to those who

stooped to buy the votes of the rabble composing them.

As the founder had set up ten _curiæ_ in each tribe, the whole Roman

people, which was then contained within the walls, consisted of thirty

_curia_, each with its temples, its gods, its officers, its priests and

its festivals, which were called _compitalia_ and corresponded to the

_paganalia,_ held in later times by the rural tribes.

When Servius made his new division, as the thirty _curiæ_ could not be

shared equally between his four tribes, and as he was unwilling to

interfere with them, they became a further division of the inhabitants

of Rome, quite independent of the tribes: but in the case of the rural

tribes and their members there was no question of _curiæ_ as the

tribes had then become a purely civil institution, and, a new system

of levying troops having been introduced, the military divisions of

Romulus were superfluous. Thus, although every citizen was enrolled in

a tribe, there were very many who were not members of a _curia_.

Servius made yet a third division, quite distinct from the two we have

mentioned, which became, in its effects, the most important of all.

He distributed the whole Roman people into six classes, distinguished

neither by place nor by person, but by wealth; the first classes

included the rich, the last the poor, and those between persons of

moderate means. These six classes were subdivided into one hundred and

ninety-three other bodies, called centuries, which were so divided that

the first class alone comprised more than half of them, while the last

comprised only one. Thus the class that had the smallest number of

members had the largest number of centuries, and the whole of the last

class only counted as a single subdivision, although it alone included

more than half the inhabitants of Rome.

In order that the people might have the less insight into the results

of this arrangement, Servius tried to give it a military tone: in

the second class he inserted two centuries of armourers, and in the

fourth two of makers of instruments of war: in each class, except the

last, he distinguished young and old, that is, those who were under an

obligation to bear arms and those whose age gave them legal exemption.

It was this distinction, rather than that of wealth, which required

frequent repetition of the census or counting. Lastly, he ordered that

the assembly should be held in the Campus Martius, and that all who

were of age to serve should come there armed.

The reason for his not making in the last class also the division of

young and old was that the populace, of whom it was composed, was not

given the right to bear arms for its country: a man had to possess a

hearth to acquire the right to defend it, and of all the troops of

beggars who to-day lend lustre to the armies of kings, there is perhaps

not one who would not have been driven with scorn out of a Roman

cohort, at a time when soldiers were the defenders of liberty.

In this last class, however, _proletarians_ were distinguished from

_capite censi._ The former, not quite reduced to nothing, at least gave

the State citizens, and sometimes, when the need was pressing, even

soldiers. Those who had nothing at all, and could be numbered only by

counting heads, were regarded as of absolutely no account, and Marius

was the first who stooped to enrol them.

Without deciding now whether this third arrangement was good or bad in

itself, I think I may assert that it could have been made practicable

only by the simple morals, the disinterestedness, the liking for

agriculture and the scorn for commerce and for love of gain which

characterised the early Romans. Where is the modern people among whom

consuming greed, unrest, intrigue, continual removals, and perpetual

changes of fortune, could let such a system last for twenty years

without turning the State upside down? We must indeed observe that

morality and the censorship, being stronger than this institution,

corrected its defects at Rome, and that the rich man found himself

degraded to the class of the poor for making too much display of his

riches.

From all this it is easy to understand why only five classes are

almost always mentioned, though there were really six. The sixth, as

it furnished neither soldiers to the army nor votes in the Campus

Martius,[1] and was almost without function in the State, was seldom

regarded as of any account.

These were the various ways in which the Roman people was divided. Let

us now see the effect on the assemblies. When lawfully summoned, these

were called _comitia_: they were usually held in the public square

at Rome or in the Campus Martius, and were distinguished as _Comitia

Curiata, Comitia Centuriata_, and _Comitia Tributa_, according to

the form under which they were convoked. The _Comitia Curiata_ were

founded by Romulus; the _Centuriata_ by Servius; and the _Tributa_

by the tribunes of the people. No law received its sanction and no

magistrate was elected, save in the comitia; and as every citizen

was enrolled in a _curia_, a century, or a tribe, it follows that no

citizen was excluded from the right of voting, and that the Roman

people was truly sovereign both _de jure_ and _de facto_.

For the comitia to be lawfully assembled, and for their acts to have

the force of law, three conditions were necessary. First, the body

or magistrate convoking them had to possess the necessary authority;

secondly, the assembly had to be held on a day allowed by law; and

thirdly, the auguries had to be favourable.

The reason for the first regulation needs no explanation; the second is

a matter of policy. Thus, the comitia might not be held on festivals

or market-days, when the country-folk, coming to Rome on business, had

not time to spend the day in the public square. By means of the third,

the senate held in check the proud and restive people, and meetly

restrained the ardour of seditious tribunes, who, however, found more

than one way of escaping this hindrance.

Laws and the election of rulers were not the only questions submitted

to the judgment of the comitia: as the Roman people had taken on itself

the most important functions of government, it may be said that the lot

of Europe was regulated in its assemblies. The variety of their objects

gave rise to the various forms these took, according to the matters on

which they had to pronounce.

In order to judge of these various forms, it is enough to compare

them. Romulus, when he set up _curiæ_, had in view the checking of

the senate by the people, and of the people by the senate, while

maintaining his ascendancy over both alike. He therefore gave the

people, by means of this assembly, all the authority of numbers to

balance that of power and riches, which he left to the patricians.

But, after the spirit of monarchy, he left all the same a greater

advantage to the patricians in the influence of their clients on the

majority of votes. This excellent institution of patron and client

was a masterpiece of statesmanship and humanity without which the

patriciate, being flagrantly in contradiction to the republican

spirit, could not have survived. Rome alone has the honour of having

given to the world this great example, which never led to any abuse,

and yet has never been followed.

As the assemblies by _curiæ_ persisted under the kings till the time

of Servius, and the reign of the later Tarquin was not regarded as

legitimate, royal laws were called generally _leges curiatæ_.

Under the Republic, the _curiæ_ still confined to the four urban

tribes, and including only the populace of Rome, suited neither the

senate, which led the patricians, nor the tribunes, who, though

plebeians, were at the head of the well-to-do citizens. They therefore

fell into disrepute, and their degradation was such, that thirty

lictors used to assemble and do what the _Comitia Curiata_ should have

done.

The division by centuries was so favourable to the aristocracy that it

is hard to see at first how the senate ever failed to carry the day in

the comitia bearing their name, by which the consuls, the censors and

the other curule magistrates were elected. Indeed, of the hundred and

ninety-three centuries into which the six classes of the whole Roman

people were divided, the first class contained ninety-eight; and, as

voting went solely by centuries, this class alone had a majority over

all the rest. When all these centuries were in agreement, the rest of

the votes were not even taken; the decision of the smallest number

passed for that of the multitude, and it may be said that, in the

_Comitia Centuriata_, decisions were regulated far more by depth of

purses than by the number of votes.

But this extreme authority was modified in two ways. First, the

tribunes as a rule, and always a great number of plebeians, belonged

to the class of the rich, and so counterbalanced the influence of the

patricians in the first class.

The second way was this. Instead of causing the centuries to vote

throughout in order, which would have meant beginning always with the

first, the Romans always chose one by lot which proceeded alone to

the election; after this all the centuries were summoned another day

according to their rank, and the same election was repeated, and as a

rule confirmed. Thus the authority of example was taken away from rank,

and given to the lot on a democratic principle.

From this custom resulted a further advantage. The citizens from the

country had time, between the two elections, to inform themselves of

the merits of the candidate who had been provisionally nominated,

and did not have to vote without knowledge of the case. But, under

the pretext of hastening matters, the abolition of this custom was

achieved, and both elections were held on the same day.

The _Comitia Tributa_ were properly the council of the Roman people.

They were convoked by the tribunes alone; at them the tribunes were

elected and passed their plebiscita. The senate not only had no

standing in them, but even no right to be present; and the senators,

being forced to obey laws on which they could not vote, were in this

respect less free than the meanest citizens. This injustice was

altogether ill-conceived, and was alone enough to invalidate the

decrees of a body to which all its members were not admitted. Had all

the patricians attended the comitia by virtue of the right they had as

citizens, they would not, as mere private individuals, have had any

considerable influence on a vote reckoned by counting heads, where the

meanest proletarian was as good as the _princeps senatus_.

It may be seen, therefore, that besides the order which was achieved

by these various ways of distributing so great a people and taking its

votes, the various methods were not reducible to forms indifferent in

themselves, but the results of each were relative to the objects which

caused it to be preferred.

Without going here into further details, we may gather from what has

been said above that the _Comitia Tributa_ were the most favourable to

popular government, and the _Comitia Centuriata_ to aristocracy. The

_Comitia Curiata,_ in which the populace of Rome formed the majority,

being fitted only to further tyranny and evil designs, naturally fell

into disrepute, and even seditious persons abstained from using a

method which too clearly revealed their projects. It is indisputable

that the whole majesty of the Roman people lay solely in the _Comitia

Centuriata_, which alone included all; for the _Comitia Curiata_

excluded the rural tribes, and the _Comitia Tributa_ the senate and the

patricians.

As for the method of taking the vote, it was among the ancient Romans

as simple as their morals, although not so simple as at Sparta. Each

man declared his vote aloud, and a clerk duly wrote it down; the

majority in each tribe determined the vote of the tribe, the majority

of the tribes that of the people, and so with _curiæ_ and centuries.

This custom was good as long as honesty was triumphant among the

citizens, and each man was ashamed to vote publicly in favour of an

unjust proposal or an unworthy subject; but, when the people grew

corrupt and votes were bought, it was fitting that voting should be

secret in order that purchasers might be restrained by mistrust, and

rogues be given the means of not being traitors.

I know that Cicero attacks this change, and attributes partly to it the

ruin of the Republic. But though I feel the weight Cicero's authority

must carry on such a point, I cannot agree with him; I hold, on the

contrary, that, for want of enough such changes, the destruction of the

State must be hastened. Just as the regimen of health does not suit

the sick, we should not wish to govern a people that has been corrupted

by the laws that a good people requires. There is no better proof of

this rule than the long life of the Republic of Venice, of which the

shadow still exists, solely because its laws are suitable only for men

who are wicked.

The citizens were provided, therefore, with tablets by means of which

each man could vote without any one knowing how he voted: new methods

were also introduced for collecting the tablets, for counting voices,

for comparing numbers, etc.; but all these precautions did not prevent

the good faith of the officers charged with these functions[2] from

being often suspect. Finally, to prevent intrigues and trafficking in

votes, edicts were issued; but their very number proves how useless

they were.

Towards the close of the Republic, it was often necessary to have

recourse to extraordinary expedients in order to supplement the

inadequacy of the laws. Sometimes miracles were supposed; but this

method, while it might impose on the people, could not impose on those

who governed. Sometimes an assembly was hastily called together,

before the candidates had time to form their factions: sometimes a

whole sitting was occupied with talk, when it was seen that the people

had been won over and was on the point of taking up a wrong position.

But in the end ambition eluded all attempts to check it; and the most

incredible fact of all is that, in the midst of all these abuses,

the vast people, thanks to its ancient regulations, never ceased to

elect magistrates, to pass laws, to judge cases, and to carry through

business both public and private, almost as easily as the senate itself

could have done.

[1] I say "in the Campus Martius" because it was there that the comitia

assembled by centuries; in its two other forms the people assembled

in the _forum_ or elsewhere; and then the _capite censi_ had as much

influence and authority as the foremost citizens.

[2] Custodes, diribitores, rogatores suffragiorum.

CHAPTER V

THE TRIBUNATE

When an exact proportion cannot be established between the constituent

parts of the State, or when causes that cannot be removed continually

alter the relation of one part to another, recourse is had to the

institution of a peculiar magistracy that enters into no corporate

unity with the rest. This restores to each term its right relation to

the others, and provides a link or middle term between either prince

and people, or prince and Sovereign, or, if necessary, both at once.

This body, which I shall call the _tribunate_, is the preserver of the

laws and of the legislative power. It serves sometimes to protect the

Sovereign against the government, as the tribunes of the people did

at Rome; sometimes to uphold the government against the people, as

the Council of Ten now does at Venice; and sometimes to maintain the

balance between the two, as the Ephors did at Sparta.

The tribunate is not a constituent part of the city, and should have

no share in either legislative or executive power; but this very fact

makes its own power the greater: for, while it can do nothing, it can

prevent anything from being done. It is more sacred and more revered,

as the defender of the laws, than the prince who executes them, or than

the Sovereign which ordains them. This was seen very clearly at Rome,

when the proud patricians, for all their scorn of the people, were

forced to bow before one of its officers, who had neither auspices nor

jurisdiction.

The tribunate, wisely tempered, is the strongest support a good

constitution can have; but if its strength is ever so little excessive,

it upsets the whole State. Weakness, on the other hand, is not natural

to it: provided it is something, it is never less than it should be.

It degenerates into tyranny when it usurps the executive power, which

it should confine itself to restraining, and when it tries to dispense

with the laws, which it should confine itself to protecting. The

immense power of the Ephors, harmless as long as Sparta preserved its

morality, hastened corruption when once it had begun. The blood of

Agis, slaughtered by these tyrants, was avenged by his successor; the

crime and the punishment of the Ephors alike hastened the destruction

of the republic, and after Cleomenes Sparta ceased to be of any

account. Rome perished in the same way: the excessive power of the

tribunes, which they had usurped by degrees, finally served, with the

help of laws made to secure liberty, as a safeguard for the emperors

who destroyed it. As for the Venetian Council of Ten, it is a tribunal

of blood, an object of horror to patricians and people alike; and, so

far from giving a lofty protection to the laws, it does nothing, now

they have become degraded, but strike in the darkness blows of which no

one dare take note.

The tribunate, like the government, grows weak as the number of its

members increases. When the tribunes of the Roman people, who first

numbered only two, and then five, wished to double that number, the

senate let them do so, in the confidence that it could use one to check

another, as indeed it afterwards freely did.

The best method of preventing usurpations by so formidable a body,

though no government has yet made use of it, would be not to make it

permanent, but to regulate the periods during which it should remain

in abeyance. These intervals, which should not be long enough to give

abuses time to grow strong, may be so fixed by law that they can easily

be shortened at need by extraordinary commissions.

This method seems to me to have no disadvantages, because, as I have

said, the tribunate, which forms no part of the constitution, can be

removed without the constitution being affected. It seems to be also

efficacious, because a newly restored magistrate starts not with the

power his predecessor exercised, but with that which the law allows him.

CHAPTER VI

THE DICTATORSHIP

The inflexibility of the laws, which prevents them from adapting

themselves to circumstances, may, in certain cases, render them

disastrous, and make them bring about, at a time of crisis, the ruin

of the State. The order and slowness of the forms they enjoin require

a space of time which circumstances sometimes withhold. A thousand

cases against which the legislator has made no provision may present

themselves, and it is a highly necessary part of foresight to be

conscious that everything cannot be foreseen.

It is wrong therefore to wish to make political institutions so strong

as to render it impossible to suspend their operation. Even Sparta

allowed its laws to lapse.

However, none but the greatest dangers can counter-balance that of

changing the public order, and the sacred power of the laws should

never be arrested save when the existence of the country is at stake.

In these rare and obvious cases, provision is made for the public

security by a particular act entrusting it to him who is most worthy.

This commitment may be carried out in either of two ways, according to

the nature of the danger.

If increasing the activity of the government is a sufficient remedy,

power is concentrated in the hands of one or two of its members: in

this case the change is not in the authority of the laws, but only in

the form of administering them. If, on the other hand, the peril is

of such a kind that the paraphernalia of the laws are an obstacle to

their preservation, the method is to nominate a supreme ruler, who

shall silence all the laws and suspend for a moment the sovereign

authority. In such a case, there is no doubt about the general will,

and it is clear that the people's first intention is that the State

shall not perish. Thus the suspension of the legislative authority is

in no sense its abolition; the magistrate who silences it cannot make

it speak; he dominates it, but cannot represent it. He can do anything,

except make laws.

The first method was used by the Roman senate when, in a consecrated

formula, it charged the consuls to provide for the safety of the

Republic. The second was employed when one of the two consuls nominated

a dictator:[1] a custom Rome borrowed from Alba.

During the first period of the Republic, recourse was very often had to

the dictatorship, because the State had not yet a firm enough basis to

be able to maintain itself by the strength of its constitution alone.

As the state of morality then made superfluous many of the precautions

which would have been necessary at other times, there was no fear that

a dictator would abuse his authority, or try to keep it beyond his term

of office. On the contrary, so much power appeared to be burdensome

to him who was clothed with it, and he made all speed to lay it down,

as if taking the place of the laws had been too troublesome and too

perilous a position to retain.

It is therefore the danger not of its abuse, but of its cheapening,

that makes me attack the indiscreet use of this supreme magistracy in

the earliest times. For as long as it was freely employed at elections,

dedications and purely formal functions, there was danger of its

becoming less formidable in time of need, and of men growing accustomed

to regarding as empty a title that was used only on occasions of empty

ceremonial.

Towards the end of the Republic, the Romans, having grown more

circumspect, were as unreasonably sparing in the use of the

dictatorship as they had formerly been lavish. It is easy to see

that their fears were without foundation, that the weakness of the

capital secured it against the magistrates who were in its midst; that

a dictator might, in certain cases, defend the public liberty, but

could never endanger it; and that the chains of Rome would be forged,

not in Rome itself, but in her armies. The weak resistance offered by

Marius to Sulla, and by Pompey to Cæsar, clearly showed what was to be

expected from authority at home against force from abroad.

This misconception led the Romans to make great mistakes; such, for

example, as the failure to nominate a dictator in the Catilinarian

conspiracy. For, as only the city itself, with at most some province

in Italy, was concerned, the unlimited authority the laws gave to the

dictator would have enabled him to make short work of the conspiracy,

which was, in fact, stifled only by a combination of lucky chances

human prudence had no right to expect.

Instead, the senate contented itself with entrusting its whole power

to the consuls, so that Cicero, in order to take effective action, was

compelled on a capital point to exceed his powers; and if, in the first

transports of joy, his conduct was approved, he was justly called,

later on, to account for the blood of citizens spilt in violation of

the laws. Such a reproach could never have been levelled at a dictator.

But the consul's eloquence carried the day; and he himself, Roman

though he was, loved his own glory better than his country, and sought,

not so much the most lawful and secure means of saving the State, as to

get for himself the whole honour of having done so.[2] He was therefore

justly honoured as the liberator of Rome, and also justly punished

as a law-breaker. However brilliant his recall may have been, it was

undoubtedly an act of pardon.

However this important trust be conferred, it is important that its

duration should be fixed at a very brief period, incapable of being

ever prolonged. In the crises which lead to its adoption, the State

is either soon lost, or soon saved; and, the present need passed,

the dictatorship becomes either tyrannical or idle. At Rome, where

dictators held office for six months only, most of them abdicated

before their time was up. If their term had been longer, they might

well have tried to prolong it still further, as the decemvirs did when

chosen for a year. The dictator had only time to provide against the

need that had caused him to be chosen; he had none to think of further

projects.

[1] The nomination was made secretly by night, as if there were

something shameful in setting a man above the laws.

[2] That is what he could not be sure of, if he proposed a dictator;

for he dared not nominate himself, and could not be certain that his

colleague would nominate him.

CHAPTER VII

THE CENSORSHIP

As the law is the declaration of the general will, the censorship is

the declaration of the public judgment: public opinion is the form of

law which the censor administers, and, like the prince, only applies to

particular cases.

The censorial tribunal, so far from being the arbiter of the people's

opinion, only declares it, and, as soon as the two part company, its

decisions are null and void.

It is useless to distinguish the morality of a nation from the objects

of its esteem; both depend on the same principle and are necessarily

indistinguishable. There is no people on earth the choice of whose

pleasures is not decided by opinion rather than nature. Right men's

opinions, and their morality will purge itself. Men always love what is

good or what they find good; it is in judging what is good that they

go wrong. This judgment, therefore, is what must be regulated. He who

judges of morality judges of honour; and he who judges of honour finds

his law in opinion.

The opinions of a people are derived from its constitution; although

the law does not regulate morality, it is legislation that gives it

birth. When legislation grows weak, morality degenerates; but in such

cases the judgment of the censors will not do what the force of the

laws has failed to effect.

From this it follows that the censorship may be useful for the

preservation of morality, but can never be so for its restoration. Set

up censors while the laws are vigorous; as soon as they have lost their

vigour, all hope is gone; no legitimate power can retain force when

the laws have lost it.

The censorship upholds morality by preventing opinion from growing

corrupt, by preserving its rectitude by means of wise applications, and

sometimes even by fixing it when it is still uncertain. The employment

of seconds in duels, which had been carried to wild extremes in the

kingdom of France, was done away with merely by these words in a royal

edict: "As for those who are cowards enough to call upon seconds." This

judgment, in anticipating that of the public, suddenly decided it. But

when edicts from the same source tried to pronounce duelling itself an

act of cowardice, as indeed it is, then, since common opinion does not

regard it as such, the public took no notice of a decision on a point

on which its mind was already made up.

I have stated elsewhere[1] that as public opinion is not subject to

any constraint, there need be no trace of it in the tribunal set up to

represent it. It is impossible to admire too much the art with which

this resource, which we moderns have wholly lost, was employed by the

Romans, and still more by the Lacedæmonians.

A man of bad morals having made a good proposal in the Spartan Council,

the Ephors neglected it, and caused the same proposal to be made by a

virtuous citizen. What an honour for the one, and what a disgrace for

the other, without praise or blame of either! Certain drunkards from

Samos[2] polluted the tribunal of the Ephors: the next day, a public

edict gave Samians permission to be filthy. An actual punishment would

not have been so severe as such an impunity. When Sparta has pronounced

on what is or is not right, Greece makes no appeal from her judgments.

[1] I merely call attention in this chapter to a subject with which I

have dealt at greater length in my _Letter to M. d'Alembert_.

[2] They were from another island, which the delicacy of our language

forbids me to name on this occasion.

CHAPTER VIII

CIVIL RELIGION

At first men had no kings save the gods, and no government save

theocracy. They reasoned like Caligula, and, at that period, reasoned

aright. It takes a long time for feeling so to change that men can make

up their minds to take their equals as masters, in the hope that they

will profit by doing so.

From the mere fact that God was set over every political society, it

followed that there were as many gods as peoples. Two peoples that were

strangers the one to the other, and almost always enemies, could not

long recognise the same master: two armies giving battle could not obey

the same leader. National divisions thus led to polytheism, and this in

turn gave rise to theological and civil intolerance, which, as we shall

see hereafter, are by nature the same.

The fancy the Greeks had for rediscovering their gods among the

barbarians arose from the way they had of regarding themselves as the

natural Sovereigns of such peoples. But there is nothing so absurd

as the erudition which in our days identifies and confuses gods of

different nations. As if Moloch, Saturn and Chronos could be the same

god! As if the Phœnician Baal, the Greek Zeus, and the Latin Jupiter

could be the same! As if there could still be anything common to

imaginary beings with different names!

If it is asked how in pagan times, where each State had its cult

and its gods, there were no wars of religion, I answer that it was

precisely because each State, having its own cult as well as its

own government, made no distinction between its gods and its laws.

Political war was also theological; the provinces of the gods were, so

to speak, fixed by the boundaries of nations. The god of one people had

no right over another. The gods of the pagans were not jealous gods;

they shared among themselves the empire of the world: even Moses and

the Hebrews sometimes lent themselves to this view by speaking of the

God of Israel. It is true, they regarded as powerless the gods of

the Canaanites, a proscribed people condemned to destruction, whose

place they were to take; but remember how they spoke of the divisions

of the neighbouring peoples they were forbidden to attack! "Is not

the possession of what belongs to your god Chamos lawfully your due?"

said Jephthah to the Ammonites. "We have the same title to the lands

our conquering God has made his own."[1] Here, I think, there is a

recognition that the rights of Chamos and those of the God of Israel

are of the same nature.

But when the Jews, being subject to the kings of Babylon, and,

subsequently, to those of Syria, still obstinately refused to recognise

any god save their own, their refusal was regarded as rebellion against

their conqueror, and drew down on them the persecutions we read of

in their history, which are without parallel till the coming of

Christianity.[2]

Every religion, therefore, being attached solely to the laws of the

State which prescribed it, there was no way of converting a people

except by enslaving it, and there could be no missionaries save

conquerors. The obligation to change cults being the law to which the

vanquished yielded, it was necessary to be victorious before suggesting

such a change. So far from men fighting for the gods, the gods, as in

Homer, fought for men; each asked his god for victory, and repayed him

with new altars. The Romans, before taking a city, summoned its gods

to quit it; and, in leaving the Tarentines their outraged gods, they

regarded them as subject to their own and compelled to do them homage.

They left the vanquished their gods as they left them their laws. A

wreath to the Jupiter of the Capitol was often the only tribute they

imposed.

Finally, when, along with their empire, the Romans had spread their

cult and their gods, and had themselves often adopted those of the

vanquished, by granting to both alike the rights of the city, the

peoples of that vast empire insensibly found themselves with multitudes

of gods and cults, everywhere almost the same; and thus paganism

throughout the known world finally came to be one and the same religion.

It was in these circumstances that Jesus came to set up on earth a

spiritual kingdom, which, by separating the theological from the

political system, made the State no longer one, and brought about

the internal divisions which have never ceased to trouble Christian

peoples. As the new idea of a kingdom of the other world could never

have occurred to pagans, they always looked on the Christians as really

rebels, who, while feigning to submit, were only waiting for the chance

to make themselves independent and their masters, and to usurp by guile

the authority they pretended in their weakness to respect. This was the

cause of the persecutions.

What the pagans had feared took place. Then everything changed its

aspect: the humble Christians changed their language, and soon this

so-called kingdom of the other world turned, under a visible leader,

into the most violent of earthly despotisms.

However, as there have always been a prince and civil laws, this double

power and conflict of jurisdiction have made all good polity impossible

in Christian States; and men have never succeeded in finding out

whether they were bound to obey the master or the priest.

Several peoples, however, even in Europe and its neighbourhood, have

desired without success to preserve or restore the old system: but

the spirit of Christianity has everywhere prevailed. The sacred cult

has always remained or again become independent of the Sovereign, and

there has been no necessary link between it and the body of the State.

Mahomet held very sane views, and linked his political system well

together; and, as long as the form of his government continued under

the caliphs who succeeded him, that government was indeed one, and so

far good. But the Arabs, having grown prosperous, lettered, civilised,

slack and cowardly, were conquered by barbarians: the division between

the two powers began again; and, although it is less apparent among

the Mahometans than among the Christians, it none the less exists,

especially in the sect of Ali, and there are States, such as Persia,

where it is continually making itself felt.

Among us, the Kings of England have made themselves heads of the

Church, and the Czars have done the same: but this title has made them

less its masters than its ministers; they have gained not so much the

right to change it, as the power to maintain it: they are not its

legislators, but only its princes. Wherever the clergy is a corporate

body,[3] it is master and legislator in its own country. There are

thus two powers, two Sovereigns, in England and in Russia, as well as

elsewhere.

Of all Christian writers, the philosopher Hobbes alone has seen the

evil and how to remedy it, and has dared to propose the reunion of the

two heads of the eagle, and the restoration throughout of political

unity, without which no State or government will ever be rightly

constituted. But he should have seen that the masterful spirit of

Christianity is incompatible with his system, and that the priestly

interest would always be stronger than that of the State. It is not so

much what is false and terrible in his political theory, as what is

just and true, that has drawn down hatred on it.[4]

I believe that if the study of history were developed from this point

of view, it would be easy to refute the contrary opinions of Bayle and

Warburton, one of whom holds that religion can be of no use to the body

politic, while the other, on the contrary, maintains that Christianity

is its strongest support. We should demonstrate to the former that

no State has ever been founded without a religious basis, and to the

latter, that the law of Christianity at bottom does more harm by

weakening than good by strengthening the constitution of the State. To

make myself understood, I have only to make a little more exact the too

vague ideas of religion as relating to this subject.

Religion, considered in relation to society, which is either general

or particular, may also be divided into two kinds: the religion of

man, and that of the citizen. The first, which has neither temples,

nor altars, nor rites, and is confined to the purely internal cult

of the supreme God and the eternal obligations of morality, is the

religion of the Gospel pure and simple, the true theism, what may be

called natural divine right or law. The other, which is codified in a

single country, gives it its gods, its own tutelary patrons; it has its

dogmas, its rites, and its external cult prescribed by law; outside the

single nation that follows it, all the world is in its sight infidel,

foreign and barbarous; the duties and rights of man extend for it only

as far as its own altars. Of this kind were all the religions of early

peoples, which we may define as civil or positive divine right or law.

There is a third sort of religion of a more singular kind, which gives

men two codes of legislation, two rulers, and two countries, renders

them subject to contradictory duties, and makes it impossible for

them to be faithful both to religion and to citizenship. Such are

the religions of the Lamas and of the Japanese, and such is Roman

Christianity, which may be called the religion of the priest. It leads

to a sort of mixed and anti-social code which has no name.

In their political aspect, all these three kinds of religion have their

defects. The third is so clearly bad, that it is waste of time to stop

to prove it such. All that destroys social unity is worthless; all

institutions that set man in contradiction to himself are worthless.

The second is good in that it unites the divine cult with love of

the laws, and, making country the object of the citizens' adoration,

teaches them that service done to the State is service done to its

tutelary god. It is a form of theocracy, in which there can be no

pontiff save the prince, and no priests save the magistrates. To die

for one's country then becomes martyrdom; violation of its laws,

impiety; and to subject one who is guilty to public execration is to

condemn him to the anger of the gods: _Sacer estod_.

On the other hand, it is bad in that, being founded on lies and error,

it deceives men, makes them credulous and superstitious, and drowns the

true cult of the Divinity in empty ceremonial. It is bad, again, when

it becomes tyrannous and exclusive, and makes a people bloodthirsty and

intolerant, so that it breathes fire and slaughter, and regards as a

sacred act the killing of every one who does not believe in its gods.

The result is to place such a people in a natural state of war with all

others, so that its security is deeply endangered.

There remains therefore the religion of man or Christianity--not the

Christianity of to-day, but that of the Gospel, which is entirely

different. By means of this holy, sublime, and real religion all men,

being children of one God, recognise one another as brothers, and the

society that unites them is not dissolved even at death.

But this religion, having no particular relation to the body politic,

leaves the laws in possession of the force they have in themselves

without making any addition to it; and thus one of the great bonds that

unite society considered in severalty fails to operate. Nay, more, so

far from binding the hearts of the citizens to the State, it has the

effect of taking them away from all earthly things. I know of nothing

more contrary to the social spirit.

We are told that a people of true Christians would form the most

perfect society imaginable. I see in this supposition only one great

difficulty: that a society of true Christians would not be a society of

men.

I say further that such a society, with all its perfection, would be

neither the strongest nor the most lasting: the very fact that it was

perfect would rob it of its bond of union; the flaw that would destroy

it would lie in its very perfection.

Every one would do his duty; the people would be law-abiding, the

rulers just and temperate; the magistrates upright and incorruptible;

the soldiers would scorn death; there would be neither vanity nor

luxury. So far, so good; but let us hear more.

Christianity as a religion is entirely spiritual, occupied solely with

heavenly things; the country of the Christian is not of this world. He

does his duty, indeed, but does it with profound indifference to the

good or ill success of his cares. Provided he has nothing to reproach

himself with, it matters little to him whether things go well or ill

here on earth. If the State is prosperous, he hardly dares to share

in the public happiness, for fear he may grow proud of his country's

glory; if the State is languishing, he blesses the hand of God that is

hard upon His people.

For the State to be peaceable and for harmony to be maintained, all the

citizens without exception would have to be good Christians; if by ill

hap there should be a single self-seeker or hypocrite, a Catiline or a

Cromwell, for instance, he would certainly get the better of his pious

compatriots. Christian charity does not readily allow a man to think

hardly of his neighbours. As soon as, by some trick, he has discovered

the art of imposing on them and getting hold of a share in the public

authority, you have a man established in dignity; it is the will of

God that he be respected: very soon you have a power; it is God's will

that it be obeyed: and if the power is abused by him who wields it,

it is the scourge wherewith God punishes His children. There would be

scruples about driving out the usurper: public tranquillity would have

to be disturbed, violence would have to be employed, and blood spilt;

all this accords ill with Christian meekness; and after all, in this

vale of sorrows, what does it matter whether we are free men or serfs?

The essential thing is to get to heaven, and resignation is only an

additional means of doing so.

If war breaks out with another State, the citizens march readily out

to battle; not one of them thinks of flight; they do their duty, but

they have no passion for victory; they know better how to die than

how to conquer. What does it matter whether they win or lose? Does

not Providence know better than they what is meet for them? Only

think to what account a proud, impetuous and passionate enemy could

turn their stoicism! Set over against them those generous peoples who

were devoured by ardent love of glory and of their country, imagine

your Christian republic face to face with Sparta or Rome: the pious

Christians will be beaten, crushed and destroyed, before they know

where they are, or will owe their safety only to the contempt their

enemy will conceive for them. It was to my mind a fine oath that was

taken by the soldiers of Fabius, who swore, not to conquer or die, but

to come back victorious--and kept their oath. Christians, would never

have taken such an oath; they would have looked on it as tempting God.

But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic; the terms

are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and

dependence. Its spirit is so favourable to tyranny that it always

profits by such a _régime_. True Christians are made to be slaves,

and they know it and do not much mind: this short life counts for too

little in their eyes.

I shall be told that Christian troops are excellent. I deny it. Show

me an instance. For my part, I know of no Christian troops. I shall be

told of the Crusades. Without disputing the valour of the Crusaders,

I answer that, so far from being Christians, they were the priests'

soldiery, citizens of the Church. They fought for their spiritual

country, which the Church had, somehow or other, made temporal. Well

understood, this goes back to paganism: as the Gospel sets up no

national religion, a holy war is impossible among Christians.

Under the pagan emperors, the Christian soldiers were brave; every

Christian writer affirms it, and I believe it: it was a case of

honourable emulation of the pagan troops. As soon as the emperors were

Christian, this emulation no longer existed, and, when the Cross had

driven out the eagle, Roman valour wholly disappeared.

But, setting aside political considerations, let us come back to what

is right, and settle our principles on this important point. The right

which the social compact gives the Sovereign over the subjects does

not, we have seen, exceed the limits of public expediency.[5] The

subjects then owe the Sovereign an account of their opinions only to

such an extent as they matter to the community. Now, it matters very

much to the community that each citizen should have a religion. That

will make him love his duty; but the dogmas of that religion concern

the State and its members only so far as they have reference to

morality and to the duties which he who professes them is bound to do

to others. Each man may have, over and above, what opinions he pleases,

without it being the Sovereign's business to take cognisance of them;

for, as the Sovereign has no authority in the other world, whatever

the lot of its subjects may be in the life to come, that is not its

business, provided they are good citizens in this life.

There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the

Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but

as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or

a faithful subject.[6] While it can compel no one to believe them, it

can banish from the State whoever does not believe them--it can banish

him, not for impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly

loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, at need, his life to

his duty. If any one, after publicly recognising these dogmas, behaves

as if he does not believe them, let him be punished by death: he has

committed the worst of all crimes, that of lying before the law.

The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly

worded, without explanation or commentary. The existence of a mighty,

intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and

providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment

of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws:

these are its positive dogmas. Its negative dogmas I confine to one,

intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected.

Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my

mind, mistaken. The two forms are inseparable. It is impossible to

live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be

to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or

torment them. Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must

inevitably have some civil effect;[7] and as soon as it has such an

effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal

sphere: thenceforth priests are the real masters, and kings only their

ministers.

Now that there is and can be no longer an exclusive national religion,

tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others,

so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of

citizenship. But whoever dares to say: _Outside the Church is no

salvation,_ ought to be driven from the State, unless the State is the

Church, and the prince the pontiff. Such a dogma is good only in a

theocratic government; in any other, it is fatal. The reason for which

Henry IV is said to have embraced the Roman religion ought to make

every honest man leave it, and still more any prince who knows how to

reason.

[1] Nonne ea quæ possidet Chamos deus tuus, tibi jure debentur?

(Judges xi. 24). Such is the text in the Vulgate. Father de Carrières

translates: "Do you not regard yourselves as having a right to what

your god possesses?" I do not know the force of the Hebrew text: but

I perceive that, in the Vulgate, Jephthah positively recognises the

right of the god Chamos, and that the French translator weakened this

admission by inserting an "according to you," which is not in the Latin.

[2] It is quite clear that the Phocian war, which was called "the

Sacred War," was not a war of religion. Its object was the punishment

of acts of sacrilege, and not the conquest of unbelievers.

[3] It should be noted that the clergy find their bond of union not so

much in formal assemblies, as in the communion of Churches. Communion

and ex-communication are the social compact of the clergy, a compact

which will always make them masters of peoples and kings. All priests

who communicate together are fellow-citizens, even if they come

from opposite ends of the earth. This invention is a masterpiece of

statesmanship: there is nothing like it among pagan priests; who have

therefore never formed a clerical corporate body.

[4] See, for instance, in a letter from Grotius to his brother (April

11, 1643), what that learned man found to praise and to blame in the

_De Cive._ It is true that, with a bent for indulgence, he seems to

pardon the writer the good for the sake of the bad; but all men are not

so forgiving.

[5] "In the republic," says the Marquis d'Argenson, "each man is

perfectly free in what does not harm others." This is the invariable

limitation, which it is impossible to define more exactly. I have not

been able to deny myself the pleasure of occasionally quoting from this

manuscript, though it is unknown to the public, in order to do honour

to the memory of a good and illustrious man, who had kept even in the

Ministry the heart of a good citizen, and views on the government of

his country that were sane and right.

[6] Cæsar, pleading for Catiline, tried to establish the dogma that the

soul is mortal: Cato and Cicero, in refutation, did not waste time in

philosophising. They were content to show that Cæsar spoke like a bad

citizen, and brought forward a doctrine that would have a bad effect on

the State. This, in fact, and not a problem of theology, was what the

Roman senate had to judge.

[7] Marriage, for instance, being a civil contract, has civil effects

without which society cannot even subsist. Suppose a body of clergy

should claim the sole right of permitting this act, a right which every

intolerant religion must of necessity claim, is it not clear that in

establishing the authority of the Church in this respect, it will be

destroying that of the prince, who will have thenceforth only as many

subjects as the clergy choose to allow him? Being in a position to

marry or not to marry people, according to their acceptance of such

and such a doctrine, their admission or rejection of such and such a

formula, their greater or less piety, the Church alone, by the exercise

of prudence and firmness, will dispose of all inheritances, offices

and citizens, and even of the State itself, which could not subsist

if it were composed entirely of bastards? But, I shall be told, there

will be appeals on the ground of abuse, summonses and decrees; the

temporalities will be seized. How sad! The clergy, however little, I

will not say courage, but sense it has, will take no notice and go its

way: it will quietly allow appeals, summonses, decrees and seizures,

and, in the end, will remain the master. It is not, I think, a great

sacrifice to give up a part, when one is sure of securing all.

CHAPTER IX

CONCLUSION

Now that I have laid down the true principles of political right, and

tried to give the State a basis of its own to rest on, I ought next

to strengthen it by its external relations, which would include the

law of nations, commerce, the right of war and conquest, public right,

leagues, negotiations, treaties, etc. But all this forms a new subject

that is far too vast for my narrow scope. I ought throughout to have

kept to a more limited sphere.

A DISCOURSE

WHICH WON THE PRIZE AT THE ACADEMY OF DIJON IN 1750, ON THIS QUESTION

PROPOSED BY THE ACADEMY:

HAS THE RESTORATION OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES HAD A PURIFYING EFFECT

UPON MORALS?

Barbaras his ego sum, qui non intelligor illis.--OVID.[1]

[1] Here I am, a barbarian, because men understand me not.

PREFACE

The following pages contain a discussion of one of the most sublime

and interesting of all moral questions. It is not concerned, however,

with those metaphysical subtleties, which of late have found their way

into every department of literature, and from which even our academic

curricula are not always free. We have now to do with one of those

truths on which the happiness of mankind depends.

I foresee that I shall not readily be forgiven for having taken up the

position I have adopted. Setting myself up against all that is nowadays

most admired, I can expect no less than a universal outcry against me:

nor is the approbation of a few sensible men enough to make me count

on that of the public. But I have taken my stand, and I shall be at no

pains to please either intellectuals or men of the world. There are in

all ages men born to be in bondage to the opinions of the society in

which they live. There are not a few, who to-day play the free-thinker

and the philosopher, who would, if they had lived in the time of the

League, have been no more than fanatics. No author, who has a mind to

outlive his own age, should write for such readers.

A word more and I have done. As I did not expect the honour conferred

on me, I had, since sending in my Discourse, so altered and enlarged

it as almost to make it a new work; but in the circumstances I have

felt bound to publish it just as it was when it received the prize. I

have only added a few notes, and left two alterations which are easily

recognisable, of which the Academy possibly might not have approved.

The respect, gratitude and even justice I owe to that body seemed to me

to demand this acknowledgment.

MORAL EFFECTS

OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES

_Decipimur specie recti_.--HORACE.

The question before me is, "Whether the Restoration of the arts and

sciences has had the effect of purifying or corrupting morals." Which

side am I to take? That, gentlemen, which becomes an honest man, who is

sensible of his own ignorance, and thinks himself none the worse for it.

I feel the difficulty of treating this subject fittingly, before the

tribunal which is to judge of what I advance. How can I presume to

belittle the sciences before one of the most learned assemblies in

Europe, to commend ignorance in a famous Academy, and reconcile my

contempt for study with the respect due to the truly learned?

I was aware of these inconsistencies, but not discouraged by them. It

is not science, I said to myself, that I am attacking; it is virtue

that I am defending, and that before virtuous men--and goodness is even

dearer to the good than learning to the learned.

What then have I to fear? The sagacity of the assembly before which

I am pleading? That, I acknowledge, is to be feared; but rather on

account of faults of construction than of the views I hold. Just

sovereigns have never hesitated to decide against themselves in

doubtful cases; and indeed the most advantageous situation in which a

just claim can be, is that of being laid before a just and enlightened

arbitrator, who is judge in his own case.

To this motive, which encouraged me, I may add another which finally

decided me. And this is, that as I have upheld the cause of truth to

the best of my natural abilities, whatever my apparent success, there

is one reward which cannot fail me. That reward I shall find in the

bottom of my heart.

THE FIRST PART

It is a noble and beautiful spectacle to see man raising himself, so

to speak, from nothing by his own exertions; dissipating, by the light

of reason, all the thick clouds in which he was by nature enveloped;

mounting above himself; soaring in thought even to the celestial

regions; like the sun, encompassing with giant strides the vast extent

of the universe; and, what is still grander and more wonderful, going

back into himself, there to study man and get to know his own nature,

his duties and his end. All these miracles we have seen renewed within

the last few generations.

Europe had relapsed into the barbarism of the earliest ages; the

inhabitants of this part of the world, which is at present so highly

enlightened, were plunged, some centuries ago, in a state still-worse

than ignorance. A scientific jargon, more despicable than mere

ignorance, had usurped the name of knowledge, and opposed an almost

invincible obstacle to its restoration.

Things had come to such a pass, that it required a complete revolution

to bring men back to common sense. This came at last from the quarter

from which it was least to be expected. It was the stupid Mussulman,

the eternal scourge of letters, who was the immediate cause of their

revival among us. The fall of the throne of Constantine brought to

Italy the relics of ancient Greece; and with these precious spoils

France in turn was enriched. The sciences soon followed literature,

and the art of thinking joined that of writing: an order which may

seem strange, but is perhaps only too natural. The world now began to

perceive the principal advantage of an intercourse with the Muses, that

of rendering mankind more sociable by inspiring them with the desire to

please one another with performances worthy of their mutual approbation.

The mind, as well as the body, has its needs: those of the body are the

basis of society, those of the mind its ornaments.

So long as government and law provide for the security and well-being

of men in their common life, the arts, literature and the sciences,

less despotic though perhaps more powerful, fling garlands of flowers

over the chains which weigh them down. They stifle in men's breasts

that sense of original liberty, for which they seem to have been born;

cause them to love their own slavery, and so make of them what is

called a civilised people.

Necessity raised up thrones; the arts and sciences have made them

strong. Powers of the earth, cherish all talents and protect those who

cultivate them.[1] Civilised peoples, cultivate such pursuits: to them,

happy slaves, you owe that delicacy and exquisiteness of taste, which

is so much your boast, that sweetness of disposition and urbanity of

manners which make intercourse so easy and agreeable among you--in a

word, the appearance of all the virtues, without being in possession of

one of them.

It was for this sort of accomplishment, which is by so much the more

captivating as it seems less affected, that Athens and Rome were

so much distinguished in the boasted times of their splendour and

magnificence: and it is doubtless in the same respect that our own age

and nation will excel all periods and peoples. An air of philosophy

without pedantry; an address at once natural and engaging, distant

equally from Teutonic clumsiness and Italian pantomime; these are

the effects of a taste acquired by liberal studies and improved by

conversation with the world. What happiness would it be for those who

live among us, if our external appearance were always a true mirror of

our hearts; if decorum were but virtue; if the maxims we professed were

the rules of our conduct; and if real philosophy were inseparable from

the title of a philosopher! But so many good qualities too seldom go

together; virtue rarely appears in so much pomp and state.

Richness of apparel may proclaim the man of fortune, and elegance the

man of taste; but true health and manliness are known by different

signs. It is under the home-spun of the labourer, and not beneath the

gilt and tinsel of the courtier, that we should look for strength and

vigour of body.

External ornaments are no less foreign to virtue, which is the strength

and activity of the mind. The honest man is an athlete, who loves to

wrestle stark naked; he scorns all those vile trappings, which prevent

the exertion of his strength, and were, for the most part, invented

only to conceal some deformity.

Before art had moulded our behaviour, and taught our passions to speak

an artificial language, our morals were rude but natural; and the

different ways in which we behaved proclaimed at the first glance the

difference of our dispositions. Human nature was not at bottom better

then than now; but men found their security in the ease with which

they could see through one another, and this advantage, of which we no

longer feel the value, prevented their having many vices.

In our day, now that more subtle study and a more refined taste have

reduced the art of pleasing to a system, there prevails in modern

manners a servile and deceptive conformity; so that one would think

every mind had been cast in the same mould. Politeness requires this

thing; decorum that; ceremony has its forms, and fashion its laws, and

these we must always follow, never the promptings of our own nature.

We no longer dare seem what we really are, but lie under a perpetual

restraint; in the meantime the herd of men, which we call society, all

act under the same circumstances exactly alike, unless very particular

and powerful motives prevent them. Thus we never know with whom we have

to deal; and even to know our friends we must wait for some critical

and pressing occasion; that is, till it is too late; for it is on those

very occasions that such knowledge is of use to us.

What a train of vices must attend this uncertainty! Sincere

friendship, real esteem, and perfect confidence are banished from

among men. Jealousy, suspicion, fear, coldness, reserve, hate and

fraud lie constantly concealed under that uniform and deceitful veil

of politeness; that boasted candour and urbanity, for which we are

indebted to the light and leading of this age. We shall no longer take

in vain by our oaths the name of our Creator; but we shall insult Him

with our blasphemies, and our scrupulous ears will take no offence.

We have grown too modest to brag of our own deserts; but we do not

scruple to decry those of others. We do not grossly outrage even our

enemies, but artfully calumniate them. Our hatred of other nations

diminishes, but patriotism dies with it. Ignorance is held in contempt;

but a dangerous scepticism has succeeded it. Some vices indeed are

condemned and others grown dishonourable; but we have still many that

are honoured with the names of virtues, and it is become necessary

that we should either have, or at least pretend to have them. Let who

will extol the moderation of our modern sages, I see nothing in it but

a refinement of intemperance as unworthy of my commendation as their

artificial simplicity.[2]

Such is the purity to which our morals have attained; this is the

virtue we have made our own. Let the arts and sciences claim the share

they have had in this salutary work. I shall add but one reflection

more; suppose an inhabitant of some distant country should endeavour

to form an idea of European morals from the state of the sciences, the

perfection of the arts, the propriety of our public entertainments,

the politeness of our behaviour, the affability of our conversation,

our constant professions of benevolence, and from those tumultuous

assemblies of people of all ranks, who seem, from morning till night,

to have no other care than to oblige one another. Such a stranger, I

maintain, would arrive at a totally false view of our morality.

Where there is no effect, it is idle to look for a cause: but here

the effect is certain and the depravity actual; our minds have been

corrupted in proportion as the arts and sciences have improved. Will

it be said, that this is a misfortune peculiar to the present age? No,

gentlemen, the evils resulting from our vain curiosity are as old as

the world. The daily ebb and flow of the tides are not more regularly

influenced by the moon, than the morals of a people by the progress

of the arts and sciences. As their light has risen above our horizon,

virtue has taken flight, and the same phenomenon has been constantly

observed in all times and places.

Take Egypt, the first school of mankind, that ancient country, famous

for its fertility under a brazen sky; the spot from which Sesostris

once set out to conquer the world. Egypt became the mother of

philosophy and the fine arts; soon she was conquered by Cambyses, and

then successively by the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, and finally the

Turks.

Take Greece, once peopled by heroes, who twice vanquished Asia.

Letters, as yet in their infancy, had not corrupted the disposition

of its inhabitants; but the progress of the sciences soon produced a

dissoluteness of manners, and the imposition of the Macedonian yoke:

from which time Greece, always learned, always voluptuous and always a

slave, has experienced amid all its revolutions no more than a change

of masters. Not all the eloquence of Demosthenes could breathe life

into a body which luxury and the arts had once enervated.

It was not till the days of Ennius and Terence that Rome, founded by

a shepherd, and made illustrious by I peasants, began to degenerate.

But after the appearance of an Ovid, a Catullus, a Martial, and the

rest of those numerous obscene authors, whose very names are enough to

put modesty to the blush, Rome, once the shrine of virtue, became the

theatre of vice, a scorn among the nations, and an object of derision

even to barbarians. Thus the capital of the world at length submitted

to the yoke of slavery it had imposed on others, and the very day

of its fall was the eve of that on which it conferred on one of its

citizens the title of Arbiter of Good Taste.

What shall I say of that metropolis of the Eastern Empire, which, by

its situation, seemed destined to be the capital of the world; that

refuge of the arts and sciences, when they were banished from the rest

of Europe, more perhaps by wisdom than barbarism? The most profligate

debaucheries, the most abandoned villainies, the most atrocious crimes,

plots, murders and assassinations form the warp and woof of the

history of Constantinople. Such is the pure source from which have

flowed to us the floods of knowledge on which the present age so prides

itself.

But wherefore should we seek, in past ages, for proofs of a truth, of

which the present affords us ample evidence? There is in Asia a vast

empire, where learning is held in honour, and leads to the highest

dignities in the state. If the sciences improved our morals, if they

inspired us with courage and taught us to lay down our lives for the

good of our country, the Chinese should be wise, free and invincible.

But, if there be no vice they do not practise, no crime with which they

are not familiar; if the sagacity of their ministers, the supposed

wisdom of their laws, and the multitude of inhabitants who people that

vast empire, have alike failed to preserve them from the yoke of the

rude and ignorant Tartars, of what use were their men of science and

literature? What advantage has that country reaped from the honours

bestowed on its learned men? Can it be that of being peopled by a race

of scoundrels and slaves?

Contrast with these instances the morals of those few nations which,

being preserved from the contagion of useless knowledge, have by

their virtues become happy in themselves and afforded an example to

the rest of the world. Such were the first inhabitants of Persia,

a nation so singular that virtue was taught among them in the same

manner as the sciences are with us. They very easily subdued Asia,

and possess the exclusive glory of having had the history of their

political institutions regarded as a philosophical romance. Such were

the Scythians, of whom such wonderful eulogies have come down to us.

Such were the Germans, whose simplicity, innocence and virtue, afforded

a most delightful contrast to the pen of an historian, weary of

describing the baseness and villainies of an enlightened, opulent and

voluptuous nation. Such had been even Rome in the days of its poverty

and ignorance. And such has shown itself to be, even in our own times,

that rustic nation, whose justly renowned courage not even adversity

could conquer, and whose fidelity no example could corrupt.[3]

It is not through stupidity that the people have preferred other

activities to those of the mind. They were not ignorant that in other

countries there were men who spent their time in disputing idly about

the sovereign good, and about vice and virtue. They knew that these

useless thinkers were lavish in their own praises, and stigmatised

other nations contemptuously as barbarians. But they noted the morals

of these people, and so learnt what to think of their learning.[4]

Can it be forgotten that, in the very heart of Greece, there arose

a city as famous for the happy ignorance of its inhabitants, as for

the wisdom of its laws; a republic of demi-gods rather than of men,

so greatly superior their virtues seemed to those of mere humanity?

Sparta, eternal proof of the vanity of science, while the vices, under

the conduct of the fine arts, were being introduced into Athens, even

while its tyrant was carefully collecting together the works of the

prince of poets, was driving from her walls artists and the arts, the

learned and their learning!

The difference was seen in the outcome. Athens became the seat of

politeness and taste, the country of orators and philosophers. The

elegance of its buildings equalled that of its language; on every side

might be seen marble and canvas, animated by the hands of the most

skilful artists. From Athens we derive those astonishing performances,

which will serve as models to every corrupt age. The picture of

Lacedæmon is not so highly coloured. There, the neighbouring nations

used to say, "men were born virtuous, their native air seeming to

inspire them with virtue." But its inhabitants have left us nothing but

the memory of their heroic actions: monuments that should not count for

less in our eyes than the most curious relics of Athenian marble.

It is true that, among the Athenians, there were some few wise men who

withstood the general torrent, and preserved their integrity even in

the company of the muses. But hear the judgment which the principal,

and most unhappy of them, passed on the artists and learned men of his

day.

"I have considered the poets," says he, "and I look upon them as people

whose talents impose both on themselves and on others; they give

themselves out for wise men, and are taken for such; but in reality

they are anything sooner than that."

"From the poets," continues Socrates, "I turned to the artists. Nobody

was more ignorant of the arts than myself; nobody was more fully

persuaded that the artists were possessed of amazing knowledge. I soon

discovered, however, that they were in as bad a way as the poets, and

that both had fallen into the same misconception. Because the most

skilful of them excel others in their particular jobs, they think

themselves wiser than all the rest of mankind. This arrogance spoilt

all their skill in my eyes, so that, putting myself in the place of

the oracle, and asking myself whether I would rather be what I am or

what they are, know what they know, or know that I know nothing, I very

readily answered, for myself and the god, that I had rather remain as I

am.

"None of us, neither the sophists, nor the poets, nor the orators, nor

the artists, nor I, know what is the nature of the _true_, the _good_,

or the _beautiful_. But there is this difference between us; that,

though none of these people know anything, they all think they know

something; whereas for my part, if I know nothing, I am at least in no

doubt of my ignorance. So the superiority of wisdom, imputed to me by

the oracle, is reduced merely to my being fully convinced that I am

ignorant of what I do not know."

Thus we find Socrates, the wisest of men in the judgment of the god,

and the most learned of all the Athenians in the opinion of all Greece,

speaking in praise of ignorance. Were he alive now, there is little

reason to think that our modern scholars and artists would induce him

to change his mind. No, gentlemen, that honest man would still persist

in despising our vain sciences. He would lend no aid to swell the flood

of books that flows from every quarter: he would leave to us, as he did

to his disciples, only the example and memory of his virtues; that is

the noblest method of instructing mankind.