What Is Property?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
[1840 / Part 15 of 16]
Thus, according to M. Leroux, there is property and property, --
the one good, the other bad. Now, as it is proper to call different
things by different names, if we keep the name "property"
for the former, we must call the latter robbery, rapine, brigandage.
If, on the contrary, we reserve the name "property" for
the latter, we must designate the former by the term possession,
or some other equivalent; otherwise we should be troubled with an
unpleasant synonymy.
What a blessing it would be if philosophers, daring for once to
say all that they think, would speak the language of ordinary
mortals! Nations and rulers would derive much greater profit from
their lectures, and, applying the same names to the same ideas,
would come, perhaps, to understand each other. I boldly declare
that, in regard to property, I hold no other opinion than that of M.
Leroux; but, if I should adopt the style of the philosopher, and
repeat after him, "Property is a blessing, but the property
caste -- the statu quo of property -- is an evil," I
should be extolled as a genius by all the bachelors who write for
the reviews.[*]
[*] M. Leroux has been highly praised in a review
for having defended property. I do not know whether the industrious
encyclopedist is pleased with the praise, but I know very well that
in his place I should mourn for reason and for truth. "Le
National," on the other hand, has laughed at M. Leroux and his
ideas on property, charging him with tautology and childishness.
"Le National" does not wish to understand. Is it necessary
to remind this journal that it has no right to deride a dogmatic
philosopher, because it is without a doctrine itself? From its
foundation, "Le National" has been a nursery of intriguers
and renegades. From time to time it takes care to warn its readers.
Instead of lamenting over all its defections, the democratic sheet
would do better to lay the blame on itself, and confess the
shallowness of its theories. When will this organ of popular
interests and the electoral reform cease to hire sceptics and spread
doubt? I will wager, without going further, that M. Leon Durocher,
the critic of M. Leroux, is an anonymous or pseudonymous editor of
some bourgeois, or even aristocratic, journal.
If, on the contrary, I prefer the classic language of Rome and the
civil code, and say accordingly, "Possession is a blessing, but
property is robbery," immediately the aforesaid bachelors raise
a hue and cry against the monster, and the judge threatens me. Oh,
the power of language!
The economists, questioned in their turn, propose to associate
capital and labor. You know, sir, what that means. If we follow out
the doctrine, we soon find that it ends in an absorption of
property, not by the community, but by a general and indissoluble
commandite [sic] , so that the condition of the proprietor
would differ from that of the workingman only in receiving larger
wages. This system, with some peculiar additions and embellishments,
is the idea of the phalanstery. But it is clear that, if inequality
of conditions is one of the attributes of property, it is not the
whole of property. That which makes property a delightful thing,
as some philosopher (I know not who) has said, is the power to
dispose at will, not only of one's own goods, but of their specific
nature; to use them at pleasure; to confine and enclose them; to
excommunicate mankind, as M. Pierre Leroux says; in short, to make
such use of them as passion, interest, or even caprice, may suggest.
What is the possession of money, a share in an agricultural or
industrial enterprise, or a government-bond coupon, in comparison
with the infinite charm of being master of one's house and grounds,
under one's vine and fig-tree? "Beati possidentes!"
says an author quoted by M. Troplong. Seriously, can that be applied
to a man of income, who has no other possession under the sun than
the market, and in his pocket his money? As well maintain that a
trough is a coward. A nice method of reform! They never cease to
condemn the thirst for gold, and the growing individualism of the
century; and yet, most inconceivable of contradictions, they prepare
to turn all kinds of property into one, -- property in coin.
I must say something further of a theory of property lately put
forth with some ado: I mean the theory of M. Considérant.
The Fourierists are not men who examine a doctrine in order to
ascertain whether it conflicts with their system. On the contrary,
it is their custom to exult and sing songs of triumph whenever an
adversary passes without perceiving or noticing them. These
gentlemen want direct refutations, in order that, if they are
beaten, they may have, at least, the selfish consolation of having
been spoken of. Well, let their wish be gratified.
M. Considérant makes the most lofty pretensions to logic.
His method of procedure is always that of major, minor, and
conclusion. He would willingly write upon his hat, "Argumentator
in barbara." But M. Considérant is too intelligent
and quick-witted to be a good logician, as is proved by the fact
that he appears to have taken the syllogism for logic.
The syllogism, as everybody knows who is interested in
philosophical curiosities, is the first and perpetual sophism of the
human mind, -- the favorite tool of falsehood, the stumbling-block
of science, the advocate of crime. The syllogism has produced all
the evils which the fabulist so eloquently condemned, and has done
nothing good or useful: it is as devoid of truth as of justice. We
might apply to it these words of Scripture: "Celui qui met
en lui sa confiance, périra." Consequently, the best
philosophers long since condemned it; so that now none but the
enemies of reason wish to make the syllogism its weapon.
M. Considérant, then, has built his theory of property upon
a syllogism. Would he be disposed to stake the system of Fourier
upon his arguments, as I am ready to risk the whole doctrine of
equality upon my refutation of that system? Such a duel would be
quite in keeping with the warlike and chivalric tastes of M. Considérant,
and the public would profit by it; for, one of the two adversaries
falling, no more would be said about him, and there would be one
grumbler less in the world.
The theory of M. Considérant has this remarkable feature,
that, in attempting to satisfy at the same time the claims of both
laborers and proprietors, it infringes alike upon the rights of the
former and the privileges of the latter. In the first place, the
author lays it down as a principle: "1. That the use of the
land belongs to each member of the race; that it is a natural and
imprescriptible right, similar in all respects to the right to the
air and the sunshine. 2. That the right to labor is equally
fundamental, natural, and imprescriptible." I have shown that
the recognition of this double right would be the death of property.
I denounce M. Considérant to the proprietors!
But M. Considérant maintains that the right to labor
creates the right of property, and this is the way he reasons: --
Major Premise. -- "Every man legitimately possesses
the thing which his labor, his skill, -- or, in more general terms,
his action, -- has created."
To which M. Considérant adds, by way of comment: "Indeed,
the land not having been created by man, it follows from the
fundamental principle of property, that the land, being given to the
race in common, can in no wise be the exclusive and legitimate
property of such and such individuals, who were not the creators of
this value."
If I am not mistaken, there is no one to whom this proposition, at
first sight and in its entirety, does not seem utterly irrefutable.
Reader, distrust the syllogism.
First, I observe that the words legitimately possesses
signify to the author's mind is legitimate proprietor;
otherwise the argument, being intended to prove the legitimacy of
property, would have no meaning. I might here raise the question of
the difference between property and possession, and call upon M.
Considérant, before going further, to define the one and the
other; but I pass on.
This first proposition is doubly false. 1. In that it asserts the
act of creation to be the only basis of property. 2. In that
it regards this act as sufficient in all cases to authorize the
right of property.
And, in the first place, if man may be proprietor of the game
which he does not create, but which he kills; of the fruits
which he does not create, but which he gathers; of the
vegetables which he does not create, but which he plants; of
the animals which he does not create, but which he rears, --
it is conceivable that men may in like manner become proprietors of
the land which they do not create, but which they clear and
fertilize. The act of creation, then, is not necessary to
the acquisition of the right of property. I say further, that this
act alone is not always sufficient, and I prove it by the second
premise of M. Considérant: --
Minor Premise. -- "Suppose that on an isolated
island, on the soil of a nation, or over the whole face of the earth
(the extent of the scene of action does not affect our judgment of
the facts), a generation of human beings devotes itself for the
first time to industry, agriculture, manufactures, &c. This
generation, by its labor, intelligence, and activity, creates
products, develops values which did not exist on the uncultivated
land. Is it not perfectly clear that the property of this
industrious generation will stand on a basis of right, if the value
or wealth produced by the activity of all be distributed among the
producers, according to each one's assistance in the creation of the
general wealth? That is unquestionable."
That is quite questionable. For this value or wealth, produced
by the activity of all, is by the very fact of its creation collective
wealth, the use of which, like that of the land, may be divided, but
which as property remains undivided. And why this undivided
ownership? Because the society which creates is itself indivisible,
-- a permanent unit, incapable of reduction to fractions. And it is
this unity of society which makes the land common property, and
which, as M. Considérant says, renders its use
imprescriptible in the case of every individual. Suppose, indeed,
that at a given time the soil should be equally divided; the very
next moment this division, if it allowed the right of property,
would become illegitimate. Should there be the slightest
irregularity in the method of transfer, men, members of society,
imprescriptible possessors of the land, might be deprived at one
blow of property, possession, and the means of production. In short,
property in capital is indivisible, and consequently inalienable,
not necessarily when the capital is uncreated, but when it
is common or collective.
I confirm this theory against M. Considérant, by the third
term of his syllogism: --
Conclusion. -- "The results of the labor performed by
this generation are divisible into two classes, between which it is
important clearly to distinguish. The first class includes the
products of the soil which belong to this first generation in its
usufructuary capacity, augmented, improved and refined by its labor
and industry. These products consist either of objects of
consumption or instruments of labor. It is clear that these products
are the legitimate property of those who have created them by their
activity. . . . Second class. -- Not only has this generation
created the products just mentioned (objects of consumption and
instruments of labor), but it has also added to the original value
of the soil by cultivation, by the erection of buildings, by all the
labor producing permanent results, which it has performed. This
additional value evidently constitutes a product -- a value created
by the activity of the first generation; and if, by any means
whatever, the ownership of this value be distributed among the
members of society equitably, -- that is, in pro-portion to the
labor which each has performed, -- each will legitimately possess
the portion which he receives. He may then dispose of this
legitimate and private property as he sees fit, -- exchange it, give
it away, or transfer it; and no other individual, or collection of
other individuals, -- that is, society, -- can lay any claim to
these values."
Thus, by the distribution of collective capital, to the use of
which each associate, either in his own right or in right of his
authors, has an imprescriptible and undivided title, there will be
in the phalanstery, as in the France of 1841, the poor and the rich;
some men who, to live in luxury, have only, as Figaro says, to take
the trouble to be born, and others for whom the fortune of life is
but an opportunity for long-con-tinued poverty; idlers with large
incomes, and workers whose fortune is always in the future; some
privileged by birth and caste, and others pariahs whose sole civil
and political rights are the right to labor, and the right to
land. For we must not be deceived; in the phalanstery every
thing will be as it is to-day, an object of property, -- machines,
inventions, thought, books, the products of art, of agriculture, and
of industry; animals, houses, fences, vineyards, pastures, forests,
fields, -- every thing, in short, except the uncultivated land.
Now, would you like to know what uncultivated land is worth,
according to the advocates of property? "A square league hardly
suffices for the support of a savage," says M. Charles Comte.
Estimating the wretched subsistence of this savage at three hundred
francs per year, we find that the square league necessary to his
life is, relatively to him, faithfully represented by a rent of
fifteen francs. In France there are twenty-eight thousand square
leagues, the total rent of which, by this estimate, would be four
hundred and twenty thousand francs, which, when divided among nearly
thirty-four millions of people, would give each an income of a
centime and a quarter. That is the new right which the great
genius of Fourier has invented in behalf of the French people,
and with which his first disciple hopes to reform the world. I
denounce M. Considérant to the proletariat!
If the theory of M. Considérant would at least really
guar-antee this property which he cherishes so jealously, I might
pardon him the flaws in his syllogism, certainly the best one he
ever made in his life. But, no: that which M. Considérant
takes for property is only a privilege of extra pay. In Fourier's
system, neither the created capital nor the increased value of the
soil are divided and appropriated in any effective manner: the
instruments of labor, whether created or not, remain in the hands of
the phalanx; the pretended proprietor can touch only the income. He
is permitted neither to realize his share of the stock, nor to
possess it exclusively, nor to administer it, whatever it be. The
cashier throws him his dividend; and then, proprietor, eat the whole
if you can!
The system of Fourier would not suit the proprietors, since it
takes away the most delightful feature of property, -- the free
disposition of one's goods. It would please the communists no
better, since it involves unequal conditions. It is repugnant to the
friends of free association and equality, in consequence of its
tendency to wipe out human character and individuality by
suppressing possession, family, and country, -- the threefold
expression of the human personality.
Of all our active publicists, none seem to me more fertile in
resources, richer in imagination, more luxuriant and varied in
style, than M. Considérant. Nevertheless, I doubt if he will
undertake to reestablish his theory of property. If he has this
courage, this is what I would say to him: "Before writing your
reply, consider well your plan of action; do not scour the country;
have recourse to none of your ordinary expedients; no complaints of
civilization; no sarcasms upon equality; no glorification of the
phalanstery. Leave Fourier and the departed in peace, and endeavor
only to re-adjust the pieces of your syllogism. To this end, you
ought, first, to analyze closely each proposition of your adversary;
second, to show the error, either by a direct refutation, or by
proving the converse; third, to oppose argument to argument, so
that, objection and reply meeting face to face, the stronger may
break down the weaker, and shiver it to atoms. By that method only
can you boast of having conquered, and compel me to regard you as an
honest reasoner, and a good artillery-man."
I should have no excuse for tarrying longer with these
phal-ansterian crotchets, if the obligation which I have imposed
upon myself of making a clean sweep, and the necessity of
vindicating my dignity as a writer, did not prevent me from passing
in silence the reproach uttered against me by a correspondent of "La
Phalange." "We have seen but lately," says this
journalist,[*]
[*] "Impartial," of Besançon.
"that M. Proudhon, enthusiast as he has been for the science
created by Fourier, is, or will be, an enthusiast for any thing else
whatsoever."
If ever sectarians had the right to reproach another for changes
in his beliefs, this right certainly does not belong to the
disciples of Fourier, who are always so eager to administer the
phalansterian baptism to the deserters of all parties. But why
regard it as a crime, if they are sincere? Of what consequence is
the constancy or inconstancy of an individual to the truth which is
always the same? It is better to enlighten men's minds than to teach
them to be obstinate in their prejudices. Do we not know that man is
frail and fickle, that his heart is full of delusions, and that his
lips are a distillery of falsehood? Omnis homo meudax.
Whether we will or no, we all serve for a time as instruments of
this truth, whose kingdom comes every day. God alone is immutable,
because he is eternal.
That is the reply which, as a general rule, an honest man is
entitled always to make, and which I ought perhaps to be content to
offer as an excuse; for I am no better than my fathers. But, in a
century of doubt and apostasy like ours, when it is of importance to
set the small and the weak an example of strength and honesty of
utterance, I must not suffer my character as a public assailant of
property to be dishonored. I must render an account of my old
opinions.
Examining myself, therefore, upon this charge of Fourierism, and
endeavoring to refresh my memory, I find that, having been connected
with the Fourierists in my studies and my friendships, it is
possible that, without knowing it, I have been one of Fourier's
partisans. Jérôme Lalande placed Napoleon and Jesus
Christ in his catalogue of atheists. The Fourierists resemble this
astronomer: if a man happens to find fault with the existing
civilization, and to admit the truth of a few of their criticisms,
they straightway enlist him, willy-nilly, in their school.
Nevertheless, I do not deny that I have been a Fourierist; for,
since they say it, of course it may be so. But, sir, that of which
my ex-associates are ignorant, and which doubtless will astonish
you, is that I have been many other things, -- in religion, by turns
a Protestant, a Papist, an Arian and Semi-Arian, a Manichean, a
Gnostic, an Adamite even and a Pre-Adamite, a Sceptic, a Pelagian, a
Socinian, an Anti-Trinitarian, and a Neo-Christian;[*]
[*] The Arians deny the divinity of Christ. The
Semi-Arians differ from the Arians only by a few subtle
distinctions. M. Pierre Leroux, who regards Jesus as a man, but
claims that the Spirit of God was infused into him, is a true
Semi-Arian.
The Manicheans admit two co-existent and eternal principles, --
God and matter, spirit and flesh, light and darkness, good and evil;
but, unlike the Phalansterians, who pretend to reconcile the two,
the Manicheans make war upon matter, and labor with all their might
for the destruction of the flesh, by condemning marriage and
forbidding reproduction, -- which does not prevent them, however,
from indulging in all the carnal pleasures which the intensest lust
can conceive of. In this last particular, the tendency of the
Fourieristic morality is quite Manichean.
The Gnostics do not differ from the early Christians. As their
name indicates, they regarded themselves as inspired. Fourier, who
held peculiar ideas concerning the visions of somnambulists, and who
believed in the possibility of developing the magnetic power to such
an extent as to enable us to commune with invisible beings, might,
if he were living, pass also for a Gnostic.
The Adamites attend mass entirely naked, from motives of chastity.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, who took the sleep of the senses for
chastity, and who saw in modesty only a refinement of pleasure,
inclined towards Adamism. I know such a sect, whose members usually
celebrate their mysteries in the costume of Venus coming from the
bath.
The Pre-Adamites believe that men existed before the first man. I
once met a Pre-Adamite. True, he was deaf and a Fourierist.
The Pelagians deny grace, and attribute all the merit of good
works to liberty. The Fourierists, who teach that man's nature and
passions are good, are reversed Pelagians; they give all to grace,
and nothing to liberty.
The Socinians, deists in all other respects, admit an original
revelation. Many people are Socinians to-day, who do not suspect it,
and who regard their opinions as new.
The Neo-Christians are those simpletons who admire Christianity
because it has produced bells and cathedrals. Base in soul, corrupt
in heart, dissolute in mind and senses, the Neo-Christians seek
especially after the external form, and admire religion, as they
love women, for its physical beauty. They believe in a coming
revelation, as well as a transfiguration of Catholicism. They will
sing masses at the grand spectacle in the phalanstery.
in philosophy and politics, an Idealist, a Pantheist, a Platonist,
a Cartesian, an Eclectic (that is, a sort of juste-milieu),
a Monarchist, an Aristocrat, a Constitutionalist, a follower of
Babeuf, and a Communist. I have wandered through a whole
encyclopaedia of systems. Do you think it surprising, sir, that,
among them all, I was for a short time a Fourierist?
For my part, I am not at all surprised, although at present I have
no recollection of it. One thing is sure, -- that my superstition
and credulity reached their height at the very period of my life
which my critics reproachfully assign as the date of my Fourieristic
beliefs. Now I hold quite other views. My mind no longer admits that
which is demonstrated by syllogisms, analogies, or metaphors, which
are the methods of the phalanstery, but demands a process of
generalization and induction which excludes error. Of my past opinions,
I retain absolutely none. I have acquired some knowledge. I
no longer believe. I either know, or am igno-rant.
In a word, in seeking for the reason of things, I saw that I was a
rationalist.
Undoubtedly, it would have been simpler to begin where I have
ended. But then, if such is the law of the human mind; if all
society, for six thousand years, has done nothing but fall into
error; if all mankind are still buried in the darkness of faith,
deceived by their prejudices and passions, guided only by the
instinct of their leaders; if my accusers, themselves, are not free
from sectarianism (for they call themselves Fourierists), --
am I alone inexcusable for having, in my inner self, at the secret
tribunal of my conscience, begun anew the journey of our poor
humanity?
I would by no means, then, deny my errors; but, sir, that which
distinguishes me from those who rush into print is the fact that,
though my thoughts have varied much, my writings do not vary.
To-day, even, and on a multitude of questions, I am beset by a
thousand extravagant and contradictory opinions; but my opinions I
do not print, for the public has nothing to do with them. Before
addressing my fellow-men, I wait until light breaks in upon the
chaos of my ideas, in order that what I may say may be, not the
whole truth (no man can know that), but nothing but the truth.
This singular disposition of my mind to first identify itself with
a system in order to better understand it, and then to reflect upon
it in order to test its legitimacy, is the very thing which
disgusted me with Fourier, and ruined in my esteem the societary
school. To be a faithful Fourierist, in fact, one must abandon his
reason and accept every thing from a master, -- doctrine,
interpretation, and application. M. Consid-érant, whose
excessive intolerance anathematizes all who do not abide by his
sovereign decisions, has no other conception of Fourierism. Has he
not been appointed Fourier's vicar on earth and pope of a Church
which, unfortunately for its apostles, will never be of this world?
Passive belief is the theological virtue of all sectarians,
especially of the Fourierists.
Now, this is what happened to me. While trying to demonstrate by
argument the religion of which I had become a follower in studying
Fourier, I suddenly perceived that by reasoning I was becoming
incredulous; that on each article of the creed my reason and my
faith were at variance, and that my six weeks' labor was wholly
lost. I saw that the Fourierists -- in spite of their inexhaustible
gabble, and their extravagant pretension to decide in all things --
were neither savants, nor logicians, nor even believers;
that they were scientific quacks, who were led more by their
self-love than their conscience to labor for the triumph of their
sect, and to whom all means were good that would reach that end. I
then understood why to the Epicureans they promised women, wine,
music, and a sea of luxury; to the rigorists, maintenance of
marriage, purity of morals, and temperance; to laborers, high wages;
to proprietors, large incomes; to philosophers, solutions the secret
of which Fourier alone possessed; to priests, a costly religion and
magnificent festivals; to savants, knowledge of an
unimaginable nature; to each, indeed, that which he most desired. In
the beginning, this seemed to me droll; in the end, I regarded it as
the height of impudence. No, sir; no one yet knows of the
foolishness and infamy which the phalansterian system contains. That
is a subject which I mean to treat as soon as I have balanced my
accounts with property.[*]
[*] It should be understood that the above refers
only to the moral and political doctrines of Fourier, -- doctrines
which, like all philosophical and religious systems, have their root
and raison d'existence in society itself, and for this
reason deserve to be examined. The peculiar speculations of Fourier
and his sect concerning cosmogony, geology, natural history,
physiology, and psychology, I leave to the attention of those who
would think it their duty to seriously refute the fables of Blue
Beard and the Ass's Skin.
It is rumored that the Fourierists think of leaving France and
going to the new world to found a phalanstery. When a house
threatens to fall, the rats scamper away; that is because they are
rats. Men do better; they rebuild it. Not long since, the St.
Simonians, despairing of their country which paid no heed to them,
proudly shook the dust from their feet, and started for the Orient
to fight the battle of free woman. Pride, wilfulness, mad
selfishness! True charity, like true faith, does not worry, never
despairs; it seeks neither its own glory, nor its interest, nor
empire; it does every thing for all, speaks with indulgence to the
reason and the will, and desires to conquer only by persuasion and
sacrifice. Remain in France, Fourierists, if the progress of
humanity is the only thing which you have at heart! There is more to
do here than in the new world. Otherwise, go! you are nothing but
liars and hypocrites!
The foregoing statement by no means embraces all the political
elements, all the opinions and tendencies, which threaten the future
of property; but it ought to satisfy any one who knows how to
classify facts, and to deduce their law or the idea which governs
them. Existing society seems abandoned to the demon of falsehood and
discord; and it is this sad sight which grieves so deeply many
distinguished minds who lived too long in a former age to be able to
understand ours. Now, while the short-sighted spectator begins to
despair of humanity, and, distracted and cursing that of which he is
ignorant, plunges into scepticism and fatalism, the true observer,
certain of the spirit which governs the world, seeks to comprehend
and fathom Providence. The memoir on "Property," published
last year by the pensioner of the Academy of Besançon, is
simply a study of this nature.
The time has come for me to relate the history of this unlucky
treatise, which has already caused me so much chagrin, and made me
so unpopular; but which was on my part so involuntary and
unpremeditated, that I would dare to affirm that there is not an
economist, not a philosopher, not a jurist, who is not a hundred
times guiltier than I. There is something so singular in the way in
which I was led to attack property, that if, on hearing my sad
story, you persist, sir, in your blame, I hope at least you will be
forced to pity me.
I never have pretended to be a great politician; far from that, I
always have felt for controversies of a political nature the
greatest aversion; and if, in my "Essay on Property," I
have sometimes ridiculed our politicians, believe, sir, that I was
governed much less by my pride in the little that I know, than by my
vivid consciousness of their ignorance and excessive vanity. Relying
more on Providence than on men; not suspecting at first that
politics, like every other science, contained an absolute truth;
agreeing equally well with Bossuet and Jean Jacques, -- I accepted
with resignation my share of human misery, and contented myself with
praying to God for good deputies, upright ministers, and an honest
king. By taste as well as by discretion and lack of confidence in my
powers, I was slowly pursuing some commonplace studies in philology,
mingled with a little metaphysics, when I suddenly fell upon the
greatest problem that ever has occupied philosophical minds: I mean
the criterion of certainty.
Those of my readers who are unacquainted with the philosophical
terminology will be glad to be told in a few words what this criterion
is, which plays so great a part in my work.
The criterion of certainty, according to the philosophers,
will be, when discovered, an infallible method of establishing the
truth of an opinion, a judgment, a theory, or a system, in nearly
the same way as gold is recognized by the touchstone, as iron
approaches the magnet, or, better still, as we verify a mathematical
operation by applying the proof. Time has hitherto
served as a sort of criterion for society. Thus, the
primitive men -- having observed that they were not all equal in
strength, beauty, and labor -- judged, and rightly, that certain
ones among them were called by nature to the performance of simple
and common functions; but they concluded, and this is where their
error lay, that these same individuals of duller intellect, more
restricted genius, and weaker personality, were predestined to serve
the others; that is, to labor while the latter rested, and to have
no other will than theirs: and from this idea of a natural
subordination among men sprang domesticity, which, voluntarily
accepted at first, was imperceptibly converted into horrible
slavery. Time, making this error more palpable, has brought about
justice. Nations have learned at their own cost that the subjection
of man to man is a false idea, an erroneous theory, pernicious alike
to master and to slave. And yet such a social system has stood
several thousand years, and has been defended by celebrated
philosophers; even to-day, under somewhat mitigated forms, sophists
of every description uphold and extol it. But experience is bringing
it to an end.
Time, then, is the criterion of societies; thus looked at,
history is the demonstration of the errors of humanity by the
argument reductio ad absurdum.
Now, the criterion sought for by metaphysicians would have
the advantage of discriminating at once between the true and the
false in every opinion; so that in politics, religion, and morals,
for example, the true and the useful being immediately recognized,
we should no longer need to await the sorrowful experience of time.
Evidently such a secret would be death to the sophists, -- that
cursed brood, who, under different names, excite the curiosity of
nations, and, owing to the difficulty of separating the truth from
the error in their artistically woven theories, lead them into fatal
ventures, disturb their peace, and fill them with such extraordinary
prejudice.
Up to this day, the criterion of certainty remains a
mystery; this is owing to the multitude of criteria that
have been successively proposed. Some have taken for an absolute and
definite criterion the testimony of the senses; others
intui-tion; these evidence; those argument. M. Lamennais affirms
that there is no other criterion than universal reason.
Before him, M. de Bonald thought he had discovered it in language.
Quite recently, M. Buchez has proposed morality; and, to harmonize
them all, the eclectics have said that it was absurd to seek for an
absolute criterion, since there were as many criteria
as special orders of knowledge.
Of all these hypotheses it may be observed, That the testimony of
the senses is not a criterion, because the senses, relating
us only to phenomena, furnish us with no ideas; that intuition needs
external confirmation or objective certainty; that evidence requires
proof, and argument verification; that universal reason has been
wrong many a time; that language serves equally well to express the
true or the false; that morality, like all the rest, needs
demonstration and rule; and finally, that the eclectic idea is the
least reasonable of all, since it is of no use to say that there are
several criteria if we cannot point out one. I very much
fear that it will be with the cri-terion as with the
philosopher's stone; that it will finally be abandoned, not only as
insolvable, but as chimerical. Consequently, I entertain no hopes of
having found it; nevertheless, I am not sure that some one more
skilful will not discover it.
Be it as it may with regard to a criterion or criteria,
there are methods of demonstration which, when applied to certain
subjects, may lead to the discovery of unknown truths, bring to
light relations hitherto unsuspected, and lift a paradox to the
highest degree of certainty. In such a case, it is not by its
novelty, nor even by its content, that a system should be judged,
but by its method. The critic, then, should follow the example of
the Supreme Court, which, in the cases which come before it, never
examines the facts, but only the form of procedure. Now, what is the
form of procedure? A method.
I then looked to see what philosophy, in the absence of a criterion,
had accomplished by the aid of special methods, and I must say that
I could not discover -- in spite of the loudly-proclaimed
pretensions of some -- that it had produced any thing of real value;
and, at last, wearied with the philosophical twaddle, I resolved to
make a new search for the criterion. I confess it, to my
shame, this folly lasted for two years, and I am not yet entirely
rid of it. It was like seeking a needle in a haystack. I might have
learned Chinese or Arabic in the time that I have lost in
considering and reconsidering syllogisms, in rising to the summit of
an induction as to the top of a ladder, in inserting a proposition
between the horns of a dilemma, in decomposing, distinguishing,
separating, denying, affirming, admitting, as if I could pass
abstractions through a sieve.
I selected justice as the subject-matter of my experiments.
Finally, after a thousand decompositions, recompositions, and double
compositions, I found at the bottom of my analytical crucible, not
the criterion of certainty, but a
metaphysico-economico-political treatise, whose conclusions were
such that I did not care to present them in a more artistic or, if
you will, more intelligible form. The effect which this work
produced upon all classes of minds gave me an idea of the spirit of
our age, and did not cause me to regret the prudent and scientific
obscurity of my style. How happens it that to-day I am obliged to
defend my intentions, when my conduct bears the evident impress of
such lofty morality?
You have read my work, sir, and you know the gist of my tedious
and scholastic lucubrations. Considering the revolutions of
humanity, the vicissitudes of empires, the transformations of
property, and the innumerable forms of justice and of right, I
asked, "Are the evils which afflict us inherent in our
condition as men, or do they arise only from an error? This
inequality of fortunes which all admit to be the cause of society's
embarrassments, is it, as some assert, the effect of Nature; or, in
the division of the products of labor and the soil, may there not
have been some error in calculation? Does each laborer receive all
that is due him, and only that which is due him? In short, in the
present conditions of labor, wages, and exchange, is no one wronged?
-- are the accounts well kept? -- is the social balance accurate?"
Then I commenced a most laborious investigation. It was necessary
to arrange informal notes, to discuss contradictory titles, to reply
to captious allegations, to refute absurd pretensions, and to
describe fictitious debts, dishonest transactions, and fraudulent
accounts. In order to triumph over quibblers, I had to deny the
authority of custom, to examine the arguments of legislators, and to
oppose science with science itself. Finally, all these operations
completed, I had to give a judicial decision.
I therefore declared, my hand upon my heart, before God and men,
that the causes of social inequality are three in number: 1. Gratuitous
appropriation of collective wealth; 2. Inequality in
exchange; 3. The right of profit or increase.
And since this threefold method of extortion is the very essence
of the domain of property, I denied the legitimacy of property, and
proclaimed its identity with robbery.
That is my only offence. I have reasoned upon property; I have
searched for the criterion of justice; I have demonstrated,
not the possibility, but the necessity, of equality of fortunes; I
have allowed myself no attack upon persons, no assault upon the
government, of which I, more than any one else, am a provisional
adherent. If I have sometimes used the word proprietor, I
have used it as the abstract name of a metaphysical being, whose
reality breathes in every individual, -- not alone in a privileged
few.
Nevertheless, I acknowledge -- for I wish my confession to be
sincere -- that the general tone of my book has been bitterly
censured. They complain of an atmosphere of passion and invective
unworthy of an honest man, and quite out of place in the treatment
of so grave a subject.
If this reproach is well founded (which it is impossible for me
either to deny or admit, because in my own cause I cannot be judge),
-- if, I say, I deserve this charge, I can only humble myself and
acknowledge myself guilty of an involuntary wrong; the only excuse
that I could offer being of such a nature that it ought not to be
communicated to the public. All that I can say is, that I understand
better than any one how the anger which injustice causes may render
an author harsh and violent in his criticisms. When, after twenty
years of labor, a man still finds himself on the brink of
starvation, and then suddenly discovers in an equivocation, an error
in calculation, the cause of the evil which torments him in common
with so many millions of his fellows, he can scarcely restrain a cry
of sorrow and dismay.
But, sir, though pride be offended by my rudeness, it is not to
pride that I apologize, but to the proletaires, to the
simple-minded, whom I perhaps have scandalized. My angry dialectics
may have produced a bad effect on some peaceable minds. Some poor
workingman -- more affected by my sarcasm than by the strength of my
arguments -- may, perhaps, have concluded that property is the
result of a perpetual Machiavelianism on the part of the governors
against the governed, -- a deplorable error of which my book itself
is the best refutation. I devoted two chapters to showing how
property springs from human personality and the comparison of
individuals. Then I explained its perpetual limitation; and,
following out the same idea, I predicted its approaching
disappearance. How, then, could the editors of the "Revue Démocratique,"
after having borrowed from me nearly the whole substance of their
economical articles, dare to say: "The holders of the soil, and
other productive capital, are more or less wilful accomplices in a
vast robbery, they being the exclusive receivers and sharers of the
stolen goods"?
The proprietors wilfully guilty of the crime of robbery!
Never did that homicidal phrase escape my pen; never did my heart
conceive the frightful thought. Thank Heaven! I know not how to
calumniate my kind; and I have too strong a desire to seek for the
reason of things to be willing to believe in criminal conspiracies.
The millionnaire is no more tainted by property than the journeyman
who works for thirty sous per day. On both sides the error is equal,
as well as the intention. The effect is also the same, though
positive in the former, and negative in the latter. I accused
property; I did not denounce the proprietors, which would have been
absurd: and I am sorry that there are among us wills so perverse and
minds so shattered that they care for only so much of the truth as
will aid them in their evil designs. Such is the only regret which I
feel on account of my indignation, which, though expressed perhaps
too bitterly, was at least honest, and legitimate in its source.
However, what did I do in this essay which I voluntarily submitted
to the Academy of Moral Sciences? Seeking a fixed axiom amid social
uncertainties, I traced back to one fundamental question all the
secondary questions over which, at present, so keen and diversified
a conflict is raging This question was the right of property. Then,
comparing all existing theories with each other, and extracting from
them that which is common to them all, I endeavored to discover that
element in the idea of property which is necessary, immutable, and
absolute; and asserted, after authentic verification, that this idea
is reducible to that of individual and transmissible possession;
susceptible of exchange, but not of alienation; founded on labor,
and not on fictitious occupancy, or idle caprice. I said,
further, that this idea was the result of our revolutionary
movements, -- the culminating point towards which all opinions,
gradually divesting themselves of their contradictory elements,
converge. And I tried to demonstrate this by the spirit of the laws,
by political economy, by psychology and history.
A Father of the Church, finishing a learned exposition of the
Catholic doctrine, cried, in the enthusiasm of his faith, "Domine,
si error est, a te decepti sumus (if my religion is false, God
is to blame)." I, as well as this theologian, can say, "If
equality is a fable, God, through whom we act and think and are;
God, who governs society by eternal laws, who rewards just nations,
and punishes proprietors, -- God alone is the author of evil; God
has lied. The fault lies not with me."
But, if I am mistaken in my inferences, I should be shown my
error, and led out of it. It is surely worth the trouble, and I
think I deserve this honor. There is no ground for proscription.
For, in the words of that member of the Convention who did not like
the guillotine, to kill is not to reply. Until then, I
persist in regarding my work as useful, social, full of instruction
for public officials, -- worthy, in short, of reward and
encouragement.
For there is one truth of which I am profoundly convinced, --
nations live by absolute ideas, not by approximate and partial
conceptions; therefore, men are needed who define principles, or at
least test them in the fire of controversy. Such is the law, -- the
idea first, the pure idea, the understanding of the laws of God, the
theory: practice follows with slow steps, cautious, attentive to the
succession of events; sure to seize, towards this eternal meridian,
the indications of supreme reason. The co-operation of theory and
practice produces in humanity the realization of order, -- the
absolute truth.[*]
[*] A writer for the radical press, M. Louis
Raybaud, said, in the preface to his "Studies of Contemporary
Reformers:" "Who does not know that morality is relative?
Aside from a few grand sentiments which are strikingly instinctive,
the measure of human acts varies with nations and climates, and only
civilization -- the progressive education of the race -- can lead to
a universal morality. . . . The absolute escapes our contingent and
finite nature; the absolute is the secret of God." God keep
from evil M. Louis Raybaud! But I cannot help remarking that all
political apostates begin by the negation of the absolute, which is
really the negation of truth. What can a writer, who professes
scepticism, have in common with radical views? What has he to say to
his readers? What judgment is he entitled to pass upon contemporary
reformers? M. Raybaud thought it would seem wise to repeat an old
impertinence of the legist, and that may serve him for an excuse. We
all have these weaknesses. But I am surprised that a man of so much
intelligence as M. Raybaud, who studies systems, fails to
see the very thing he ought first to recognize, -- namely, that
systems are the progress of the mind towards the absolute.
All of us, as long as we live, are called, each in proportion to
his strength, to this sublime work. The only duty which it imposes
upon us is to refrain from appropriating the truth to ourselves,
either by concealing it, or by accommodating it to the temper of the
century, or by using it for our own interests. This principle of
conscience, so grand and so simple, has always been present in my
thought.
Consider, in fact, sir, that which I might have done, but did not
wish to do. I reason on the most honorable hypothesis. What hindered
me from concealing, for some years to come, the abstract theory of
the equality of fortunes, and, at the same time, from criticising
constitutions and codes; from showing the absolute and the
contingent, the immutable and the ephemeral, the eternal and the
transitory, in laws present and past; from constructing a new system
of legislation, and establishing on a solid foundation this social
edifice, ever destroyed and as often rebuilt? Might I not, taking up
the definitions of casuists, have clearly shown the cause of their
contradictions and uncertainties, and supplied, at the same time,
the inadequacies of their conclusions? Might I not have confirmed
this labor by a vast historical exposition, in which the principle
of exclusion, and of the accumulation of property, the appropriation
of collective wealth, and the radical vice in exchanges, would have
figured as the constant causes of tyranny, war, and revolution?
"It should have been done," you say. Do not doubt, sir,
that such a task would have required more patience than genius. With
the principles of social economy which I have analyzed, I would have
had only to break the ground, and follow the furrow. The critic of
laws finds nothing more difficult than to determine justice: the
labor alone would have been longer. Oh, if I had pursued this
glittering prospect, and, like the man of the burning bush, with
inspired counte-nance and deep and solemn voice, had presented
myself some day with new tables, there would have been found fools
to admire, boobies to applaud, and cowards to offer me the
dictatorship; for, in the way of popular infatuations, nothing is
impossible.
But, sir, after this monument of insolence and pride, what should
I have deserved in your opinion, at the tribunal of God, and in the
judgment of free men? Death, sir, and eternal reprobation!
I therefore spoke the truth as soon as I saw it, waiting only long
enough to give it proper expression. I pointed out error in order
that each might reform himself, and render his labors more useful. I
announced the existence of a new political element, in order that my
associates in reform, developing it in concert, might arrive more
promptly at that unity of principles which alone can assure to
society a better day. I expected to receive, if not for my book, at
least for my commendable conduct, a small republican ovation. And,
behold! journalists denounce me, academicians curse me, political
adventurers (great God!) think to make themselves tolerable by
protesting that they are not like me! I give the formula by which
the whole social edifice may be scientifically reconstructed, and
the strongest minds reproach me for being able only to destroy. The
rest despise me, because I am unknown. When the "Essay on
Property" fell into the reformatory camp, some asked: "Who
has spoken? Is it Arago? Is it Lamennais? Michel de Bourges or
Garnier-Pagès?" And when they heard the name of a new
man: "We do not know him," they would reply. Thus, the
monopoly of thought, property in reason, oppresses the proletariat
as well as the bourgeoisie. The worship of the infamous
prevails even on the steps of the tabernacle.
But what am I saying? May evil befall me, if I blame the poor
creatures! Oh! let us not despise those generous souls, who in the
excitement of their patriotism are always prompt to identify the
voice of their chiefs with the truth. Let us encourage rather their
simple credulity, enlighten complacently and tenderly their precious
sincerity, and reserve our shafts for those vain-glorious spirits
who are always ad-miring their genius, and, in different tongues,
caressing the people in order to govern them.
These considerations alone oblige me to reply to the strange and
superficial conclusions of the "Journal du Peuple" (issue
of Oct. 11, 1840), on the question of property. I leave, therefore,
the journalist to address myself only to his readers. I hope that
the self-love of the writer will not be offended, if, in the
presence of the masses, I ignore an individual.
You say, proletaires of the "Peuple," "For the very
reason that men and things exist, there always will be men who will
possess things; nothing, therefore, can destroy property."
In speaking thus, you unconsciously argue exactly after the manner
of M. Cousin, who always reasons from possession to property.
This coincidence, however, does not surprise me. M. Cousin is a
philosopher of much mind, and you, proletaires, have still more.
Certainly it is honorable, even for a philosopher, to be your
companion in error.
Originally, the word property was synonymous with proper
or individual possession. It designated each individual's
special right to the use of a thing. But when this right of use,
inert (if I may say so) as it was with regard to the other
usufructuaries, became active and paramount, -- that is, when the
usufructuary converted his right to personally use the thing into
the right to use it by his neighbor's labor, -- then property
changed its nature, and its idea became complex. The legists knew
this very well, but instead of opposing, as they ought, this
accumulation of profits, they accepted and sanctioned the whole. And
as the right of farm-rent necesarily [sic] implies the right of use,
-- in other words, as the right to cultivate land by the labor of a
slave supposes one's power to cultivate it himself, according to the
principle that the greater includes the less, -- the name property
was reserved to designate this double right, and that of possession
was adopted to designate the right of use. Whence property came to
be called the perfect right, the right of domain, the eminent right,
the heroic or quiritaire right, -- in Latin, jus
perfectum, jus optimum, jus quiritarium, jus dominii, -- while
possession became assimilated to farm-rent.
Now, that individual possession exists of right, or, better, from
natural necessity, all philosophers admit, and can easily e
demonstrated; but when, in imitation of M. Cousin, we assume it to
be the basis of the domain of property, we fall into the sophism
called sophisma amphiboliæ vel ambiguitatis, which
consists in changing the meaning by a verbal equivocation.
People often think themselves very profound, because, by the aid
of expressions of extreme generality, they appear to rise to the
height of absolute ideas, and thus deceive inexperienced minds; and,
what is worse, this is commonly called examining abstractions.
But the abstraction formed by the comparison of identical facts is
one thing, while that which is deduced from different acceptations
of the same term is quite another. The first gives the universal
idea, the axiom, the law; the second indicates the order of
generation of ideas. All our errors arise from the constant
confusion of these two kinds of abstractions. In this particular,
languages and philosophies are alike deficient. The less common an
idiom is, and the more obscure its terms, the more prolific is it as
a source of error: a philosopher is sophistical in proportion to his
ignorance of any method of neutralizing this imperfection in
language. If the art of correcting the errors of speech by
scientific methods is ever discovered, then philosophy will have
found its criterion of certainty.
Now, then, the difference between property and possession being
well established, and it being settled that the former, for the
reasons which I have just given, must necessarily disappear, is it
best, for the slight advantage of restoring an etymology, to retain
the word property? My opinion is that it would be very
unwise to do so, and I will tell why. I quote from the "Journal
du Peuple:" --
"To the legislative power belongs the right to regulate
property, to prescribe the conditions of acquiring, possessing, and
transmitting it. . . It cannot be denied that inheritance,
assessment, commerce, industry, labor, and wages require the most
important modifications."
You wish, proletaires, to regulate property; that is, you
wish to destroy it and reduce it to the right of possession. For to
regulate property without the consent of the proprietors is to deny
the right of domain; to associate employees with proprietors
is to destroy the eminent right; to suppress or even reduce
farm-rent, house-rent, revenue, and increase generally, is to
annihilate perfect property. Why, then, while laboring with
such laudable enthusiasm for the establishment of equality, should
you retain an expression whose equivocal meaning will always be an
obstacle in the way of your success?
There you have the first reason -- a wholly philosophical one --
for rejecting not only the thing, but the name, property. Here now
is the political, the highest reason.
Every social revolution -- M. Cousin will tell you -- is effected
only by the realization of an idea, either political, moral, or
religious. When Alexander conquered Asia, his idea was to avenge
Greek liberty against the insults of Oriental despotism; when Marius
and Cæsar overthrew the Roman patricians, their idea was to
give bread to the people; when Christianity revolutionized the
world, its idea was to emancipate mankind, and to substitute the
worship of one God for the deities of Epicurus and Homer; when
France rose in '89, her idea was liberty and equality before the
law. There has been no true revolution, says M. Cousin, with out its
idea; so that where an idea does not exist, or even fails of a
formal expression, revolution is impossible. There are mobs,
conspirators, rioters, regicides. There are no revolutionists.
Society, devoid of ideas, twists and tosses about, and dies in the
midst of its fruitless labor.
Nevertheless, you all feel that a revolution is to come, and that
you alone can accomplish it. What, then, is the idea which governs
you, proletaires of the nineteenth century? -- for really I cannot
call you revolutionists. What do you think? -- what do you believe?
-- what do you want? Be guarded in your reply. I have read
faithfully your favorite journals, your most esteemed authors. I
find everywhere only vain and puerile entités;
nowhere do I discover an idea.
I will explain the meaning of this word entité, --
new, without doubt, to most of you.
By entité is generally understood a substance which
the imagination grasps, but which is incognizable by the senses and
the reason. Thus the soporific power of opium, of which
Sganarelle speaks, and the peccant humors of ancient
medicine, are entités. The entité is
the support of those who do not wish to confess their ignorance. It
is incomprehensible; or, as St. Paul says, the argumentum non
apparentium. In philosophy, the entité is often
only a repetition of words which add nothing to the thought.
For example, when M. Pierre Leroux -- who says so many excellent
things, but who is too fond, in my opinion, of his Platonic formulas
-- assures us that the evils of humanity are due to our ignorance
of life, M. Pierre Leroux utters an entité; for
it is evident that if we are evil it is because we do not know how
to live; but the knowledge of this fact is of no value to us.
When M. Edgar Quinet declares that France suffers and declines
because there is an antagonism of men and of interests, he
declares an entité; for the problem is to discover
the cause of this antagonism.
When M. Lamennais, in thunder tones, preaches self-sacrifice and
love, he proclaims two entités; for we need to know
on what conditions self-sacrifice and love can spring up and exist.
So also, proletaires, when you talk of liberty, progress,
and the sovereignty of the people, you make of these
naturally intelligible things so many entités in
space: for, on the one hand, we need a new definition of liberty,
since that of '89 no longer suffices; and, on the other, we must
know in what direction society should proceed in order to be in
progress. As for the sovereignty of the people, that is a grosser
entité than the sovereignty of reason; it is the entité
of entités. In fact, since sovereignty can no more be
conceived of outside of the people than outside of reason, it
remains to be ascertained who, among the people, shall exercise the
sovereignty; and, among so many minds, which shall be the
sovereigns. To say that the people should elect their
representatives is to say that the people should recognize their
sovereigns, which does not remove the difficulty at all.
But suppose that, equal by birth, equal before the law, equal in
personality, equal in social functions, you wish also to be equal in
conditions.
Suppose that, perceiving all the mutual relations of men, whether
they produce or exchange or consume, to be relations of commutative
justice, -- in a word, social relations; suppose, I say, that,
perceiving this, you wish to give this natural society a legal
existence, and to establish the fact by law, --
I say that then you need a clear, positive, and exact expression
of your whole idea, -- that is, an expression which states at once
the principle, the means, and the end; and I add that that
expression is association.
And since the association of the human race dates, at least
rightfully, from the beginning of the world, and has gradually
established and perfected itself by successively divesting itself of
its negative elements, slavery, nobility, despotism, aristocracy,
and feudalism, -- I say that, to eliminate the last negation of
society, to formulate the last revolutionary idea, you must change
your old rallying-cries, no more absolutism, no more nobility,
no more slaves! into that of no more property! . . .
But I know what astonishes you, poor souls, blasted by the wind of
poverty, and crushed by your patrons' pride: it is equality,
whose consequences frighten you. How, you have said in your journal,
-- how can we "dream of a level which, being unnatural, is
therefore unjust? How shall we pay the day's labor of a Cormenin or
a Lamennais?"
Plebeians, listen! When, after the battle of Salamis, the
Athenians assembled to award the prizes for courage, after the
ballots had been collected, it was found that each combatant had one
vote for the first prize, and Themistocles all the votes for the
second. The people of Minerva were crowned by their own hands. Truly
heroic souls! all were worthy of the olive-branch, since all had
ventured to claim it for themselves. Antiquity praised this sublime
spirit. Learn, proletaires, to esteem yourselves, and to respect
your dignity. You wish to be free, and you know not how to be
citizens. Now, whoever says "citizens" necessarily says
equals.
If I should call myself Lamennais or Cormenin, and some journal,
speaking of me, should burst forth with these hyperboles, incomparable
genius, superior mind, consummate virtue, noble character, I
should not like it, and should complain, -- first, because such
eulogies are never deserved; and, second, because they furnish a bad
example. But I wish, in order to reconcile you to equality, to
measure for you the greatest literary personage of our century. Do
not accuse me of envy, proletaires, if I, a defender of equality,
estimate at their proper value talents which are universally
admired, and which I, better than any one, know how to recognize. A
dwarf can always measure a giant: all that he needs is a yardstick.
You have seen the pretentious announcements of "L'Esquisse
d'une Philosophie," and you have admired the work on trust;
for either you have not read it, or, if you have, you are incapable
of judging it. Acquaint yourselves, then, with this speculation more
brilliant than sound; and, while admiring the enthusiasm of the
author, cease to pity those useful labors which only habit and the
great number of the persons engaged in them render contemptible. I
shall be brief; for, notwithstanding the importance of the subject
and the genius of the author, what I have to say is of but little
moment.
M. Lamennais starts with the existence of God. How does he
demonstrate it? By Cicero's argument, -- that is, by the consent of
the human race. There is nothing new in that. We have still to find
out whether the belief of the human race is legitimate; or, as Kant
says, whether our subjective certainty of the existence of God
corresponds with the objective truth. This, however, does not
trouble M. Lamennais. He says that, if the human race believes, it
is because it has a reason for believing. Then, having pronounced
the name of God, M. Lamennais sings a hymn; and that is his
demonstration!
This first hypothesis admitted, M. Lamennais follows it with a
second; namely, that there are three persons in God. But, while
Christianity teaches the dogma of the Trinity only on the authority
of revelation, M. Lamennais pretends to arrive at it by the sole
force of argument; and he does not perceive that his pretended
demonstration is, from beginning to end, anthropomorphism, -- that
is, an ascription of the faculties of the human mind and the powers
of nature to the Divine substance. New songs, new hymns!
God and the Trinity thus demonstrated, the philosopher
passes to the creation, -- a third hypothesis, in which M.
Lamennais, always eloquent, varied, and sublime, demonstrates
that God made the world neither of nothing, nor of something, nor of
himself; that he was free in creating, but that nevertheless he
could not but create; that there is in matter a matter which is not
matter; that the archetypal ideas of the world are separated from
each other, in the Divine mind, by a division which is obscure and
unintelligible, and yet substantial and real, which involves
intelligibility, &c. We meet with like contradictions concerning
the origin of evil. To explain this problem, -- one of the
profoundest in philosophy, -- M. Lamennais at one time denies evil,
at another makes God the author of evil, and at still another seeks
outside of God a first cause which is not God, -- an amalgam of entités
more or less incoherent, borrowed from Plato, Proclus, Spinoza, I
might say even from all philosophers.
Having thus established his trinity of hypotheses, M. Lamennais
deduces therefrom, by a badly connected chain of analogies, his
whole philosophy. And it is here especially that we notice the
syncretism which is peculiar to him. The theory of M. Lamennais
embraces all systems, and supports all opinions. Are you a
materialist? Suppress, as useless entités, the three
persons in God; then, starting directly from heat, light, and
electro-magnetism, -- which, according to the author, are the three
original fluids, the three primary external manifestations of Will,
Intelligence, and Love, -- you have a materialistic and atheistic
cosmogony. On the contrary, are you wedded to spiritualism? With the
theory of the immateriality of the body, you are able to see
everywhere nothing but spirits. Finally, if you incline to
pantheism, you will be satisfied by M. Lamennais, who formally
teaches that the world is not an emanation from Divinity, --
which is pure pantheism, -- but a flow of Divinity.
I do not pretend, however, to deny that "L'Esquisse"
contains some excellent things; but, by the author's declaration,
these things are not original with him; it is the system which is
his. That is undoubtedly the reason why M. Lamennais speaks so
contemptuously of his predecessors in philosophy, and disdains to
quote his originals. He thinks that, since "L'Esquisse"
contains all true philosophy, the world will lose nothing when the
names and works of the old philosophers perish. M. Lamennais, who
renders glory to God in beautiful songs, does not know how as well
to render justice to his fellows. His fatal fault is this
appropriation of knowledge, which the theologians call the philosophical
sin, or the sin against the Holy Ghost -- a sin which
will not damn you, proletaires, nor me either.
In short, "L'Esquisse," judged as a system, and divested
of all which its author borrows from previous systems, is a
commonplace work, whose method consists in constantly explaining the
known by the unknown, and in giving entités for
abstractions, and tautologies for proofs. Its whole theodicy is a
work not of genius but of imagination, a patching up of neo-Platonic
ideas. The psychological portion amounts to nothing, M. Lamennais
openly ridiculing labors of this character, without which, however,
metaphysics is impossible. The book, which treats of logic and its
methods, is weak, vague, and shallow. Finally, we find in the
physical and physiological speculations which M. Lamennais deduces
from his trinitarian cosmogony grave errors, the preconceived design
of accommodating facts to theory, and the substitution in almost
every case of hypothesis for reality. The third volume on industry
and art is the most interesting to read, and the best. It is true
that M. Lamennais can boast of < page n=440> nothing but his
style. As a philosopher, he has added not a single idea to those
which existed before him.
Why, then, this excessive mediocrity of M. Lamennais considered as
a thinker, a mediocrity which disclosed itself at the time of the
publication of the "Essai sur l'Indifférence"? It
is because (remember this well, proletaires!) Nature makes no man
truly complete, and because the development of certain faculties
almost always excludes an equal development of the opposite
faculties; it is because M. Lamennais is preeminently a poet, a man
of feeling and sentiment. Look at his style, -- exuberant, sonorous,
picturesque, vehement, full of exaggeration and invective, -- and
hold it for certain that no man pos-sessed of such a style was ever
a true metaphysician. This wealth of expression and illustration,
which everybody admires, becomes in M Lamennais the incurable cause
of his philosophical impotence. His flow of language, and his
sensitive nature misleading his imagination, he thinks that he is
reasoning when he is only repeating himself, and readily takes a
description for a logical deduction. Hence his horror of positive
ideas, his feeble powers of analysis, his pronounced taste for
indefinite analogies, verbal abstractions, hypothetical
generalities, in short, all sorts of entités.
Further, the entire life of M. Lamennais is conclusive proof of
his anti-philosophical genius. Devout even to mysticism, an ardent
ultramontane, an intolerant theocrat, he at first feels the double
influence of the religious reaction and the literary theories which
marked the beginning of this century, and falls back to the middle
ages and Gregory VII.; then, suddenly becoming a progressive
Christian and a democrat, he gradually leans towards rationalism,
and finally falls into deism. At present, everybody waits at the
trap-door. As for me, though I would not swear to it, I am inclined
to think that M. Lamennais, already taken with scepticism, will die
in a state of indifference. He owes to individual reason and
methodical doubt this expiation of his early essays.
It has been pretended that M. Lamennais, preaching now a
theocracy, now universal democracy, has been always consistent;
that, under different names, he has sought invariably one and the
same thing, -- unity. Pitiful excuse for an author surprised in the
very act of contradiction! What would be thought of a man who, by
turns a servant of despotism under Louis XVI., a demagogue with
Robespierre, a courtier of the Emperor, a bigot during fifteen years
of the Restoration, a conservative since 1830, should dare to say
that he ever had wished for but one thing, -- public order? Would he
be regarded as any the less a renegade from all parties? Public
order, unity, the world's welfare, social harmony, the union of the
nations, -- concerning each of these things there is no possible
difference of opinion. Everybody wishes them; the character of the
publicist depends only upon the means by which he proposes to arrive
at them. But why look to M. Lamennais for a steadfastness of
opinion, which he himself repudiates? Has he not said, "The
mind has no law; that which I believe to-day, I did not believe
yesterday; I do not know that I shall believe it to-morrow"?
No; there is no real superiority among men, since all talents and
capacities are combined never in one individual. This man has the
power of thought, that one imagination and style, still another
industrial and commercial capacity. By our very nature and
education, we possess only special aptitudes which are limited and
confined, and which become consequently more necessary as they gain
in depth and strength. Capacities are to each other as functions and
persons; who would dare to classify them in ranks? The finest genius
is, by the laws of his existence and development, the most dependent
upon the society which creates him. Who would dare to make a god of
the glorious child?
"It is not strength which makes the man," said a
Hercules of the market-place to the admiring crowd; "it is
character." That man, who had only his muscles, held force in
contempt. The lesson is a good one, proletaires; we should profit by
it. It is not talent (which is also a force), it is not knowledge,
it is not beauty which makes the man. It is heart, courage, will,
virtue. Now, if we are equal in that which makes us men, how can the
accidental distribution of secondary faculties detract from our
manhood?
Remember that privilege is naturally and inevitably the lot of the
weak; and do not be misled by the fame which accompanies certain
talents whose greatest merit consists in their rarity, and a long
and toilsome apprenticeship. It is easier for M. Lamennais to recite
a philippic, or sing a humanitarian ode after the Platonic fashion,
than to discover a single useful truth; it is easier for an
economist to apply the laws of production and distribution than to
write ten lines in the style of M. Lamennais; it is easier for both
to speak than to act. You, then, who put your hands to the work, who
alone truly create, why do you wish me to admit your inferiority?
But, what am I saying? Yes, you are inferior, for you lack virtue
and will! Ready for labor and for battle, you have, when liberty and
equality are in question, neither courage nor character!
In the preface to his pamphlet on "Le Pays et le
Gouverne-ment," as well as in his defence before the jury, M.
Lamennais frankly declared himself an advocate of property. Out of
regard for the author and his misfortune, I shall abstain from
characterizing this declaration, and from examining these two
sorrowful performances. M. Lamennais seems to be only the tool of a
quasi-radical party, which flatters him in order to use him, without
respect for a glorious, but hence forth powerless, old age. What
means this profession of faith? From the first number of "L'Avenir"
to "L'Esquisse d'une Philosophie," M. Lamennais always
favors equality, association, and even a sort of vague and
indefinite communism. M. Lamennais, in recognizing the right of
property, gives the lie to his past career, and renounces his most
generous tendencies. Can it, then, be true that in this man, who has
been too roughly treated, but who is also too easily flattered,
strength of talent has already outlived strength of will?
It is said that M. Lamennais has rejected the offers of several of
his friends to try to procure for him a commutation of his sentence.
M. Lamennais prefers to serve out his time. May not this affectation
of a false stoicism come from the same source as his recognition of
the right of property? The Huron, when taken prisoner, hurls insults
and threats at his conqueror, -- that is the heroism of the savage;
the martyr prays for his executioners, and is willing to receive
from them his life, -- that is the heroism of the Christian. Why has
the apostle of love become an apostle of anger and revenge? Has,
then, the translator of "L'Imitation" forgotten that he
who offends charity cannot honor virtue? Galileo, retracting on his
knees before the tribunal of the inquisition his heresy in regard to
the movement of the earth, and recovering at that price his liberty,
seems to me a hundred times grander than M. Lamennais. What! if we
suffer for truth and justice, must we, in retaliation, thrust our
persecutors outside the pale of human society; and, when sentenced
to an unjust punishment, must we decline exemption if it is offered
to us, because it pleases a few base satellites to call it a pardon?
Such is not the wisdom of Christianity. But I forgot that in the
presence of M. Lamennais this name is no longer pronounced. May the
prophet of "L'Avenir" be soon restored to liberty and his
friends; but, above all, may he henceforth derive his inspiration
only from his genius and his heart!
O proletaires, proletaires! how long are you to be victimized by
this spirit of revenge and implacable hatred which your false
friends kindle, and which, perhaps, has done more harm to the
development of reformatory ideas than the corruption, ignorance, and
malice of the government? Believe me, at the present time everybody
is to blame. In fact, in intention, or in example, all are found
wanting; and you have no right to accuse any one. The king himself
(God forgive me! I do not like to justify a king), -- the king
himself is, like his predecessors, only the personification of an
idea, and an idea, proletaires, which possesses you yet. His
greatest wrong consists in wishing for its complete realization,
while you wish it realized only partially, -- consequently, in being
logical in his government; while you, in your complaints, are not at
all so. You clamor for a second regicide. He that is without sin
among you, -- let him cast at the prince of property the first
stone!
How successful you would have been if, in order to influence men,
you had appealed to the self-love of men, -- if, in order to alter
the constitution and the law, you had placed yourselves within the
constitution and the law! Fifty thousand laws, they say, make up our
political and civil codes. Of these fifty thousand laws, twenty-five
thousand are for you, twenty-five thousand against you. Is it not
clear that your duty is to oppose the former to the latter, and
thus, by the argument of contradiction, drive privilege into its
last ditch? This method of action is henceforth the only useful one,
being the only moral and rational one.
