2. CHAPTER II
OF REVOLUTIONS
The question of resistance is closely connected with that of revolutions.
It may be proper therefore, before we dismiss this part of the subject, to
enter into some disquisition respecting the nature and effects of that species
of event which is commonly known by this appellation, and the sentiments
which a good citizen should entertain concerning it.
And here one of the first observations that offers itself is that it is
not unworthy of a good member of society to be the adversary of the constitution
of his country.
In contradiction to this proposition it has been said, "that we live
under the protection of this constitution; and protection, being a benefit
conferred, obliges us to a reciprocation of support in return."
To this it may be answered, first, that the benefit of this protection
is somewhat equivocal. That civilization is a benefit may perhaps be conceded;
but civilization, though in some degree preserved by the political constitution
of every country in Europe, can scarcely be considered as the characteristic
of a bad constitution, or as inseparably involved with the imperfections
of any. A good member of society will, probably, be anxious to favour the
cause of civilization; but his attachment to that cause may well excite his
wishes to see it freed from the slough of corrupt and partial institutions.
Secondly, gratitude, in the sense in which it is here spoken of, has already
been proved not to be a virtue, but a vice. Every man and collection of men
ought to be treated by us in a manner founded upon their intrinsic qualities
and capacities, and not according to a rule, which has existence only in
relation to ourselves.[1]
Add to this, thirdly, that no motive can be more equivocal than the gratitude
here recommended. Gratitude to the constitution, an abstract idea, an imaginary
existence, is altogether unintelligible. Affection to my countrymen will
be much better proved by exertions to procure them a substantial benefit
than by my supporting a system which I believe to be fraught with injurious
consequences.
A demand of the nature which is here controverted is similar to the demand
upon me to be a Christian because I am an Englishman, or a Mahometan because
I am a native of Turkey. Instead of being an expression of respect, it argues
contempt of all religion and government, and everything sacred among men.
If government be an institution conducive to the public welfare, it deserves
my attention and investigation. I am bound, in proportion as I desire the
happiness of others, to consider it with all the accuracy my circumstances
will allow, and employ my talents, and every honest influence I am able to
exert, to render it such as justice and reason may require.
This general view of the duties of a citizen in relation to the government
under which he lives being premised, we may now proceed with advantage to
the particular points which are calculated to influence our judgement as
to the conduct we ought to hold with respect to revolutions.
There is one extensive view upon the subject of revolutions which will
be of great consequence in determining the sentiments and conduct we ought
to maintain respecting them. The wise man is satisfied with nothing. It is
scarcely possible there should be any institution in which impartial disquisition
will not find defects. The wise man is not satisfied with his own attainments,
or even with his principles and opinions. He is continually detecting errors
in them; he suspects more; there is no end to his revisals and enquiries.
Government is in its nature an expedient, a recourse to something ill to
prevent an impending mischief; it affords therefore no ground of complete
satisfaction. Finite things must be perpetually capable of increase and advancement;
it would argue therefore extreme folly to rest in any given state of improvement,
and imagine we had attained our summit. The true politician confines neither
his expectations nor desires within any specific limits; he has undertaken
a labour without end. He does not say, "Let me attain thus much, and
I will be contented; I will demand no more; I will no longer counteract the
established order of things; I will set those who support them at rest from
further importunity." On the contrary, the whole period of his existence
is devoted to the promotion of innovation and reform.
The direct inference from these sentiments seems to be unfavourable to
revolutions. The politician who aims at a limited object, and has shut up
his views within that object, may be forgiven if he manifest some impatience
for its attainment. But this passion cannot be felt in an equal degree by
him who aims at improvement, not upon a definite, but an indefinite scale.
This man knows that, when he has carried any particular point, his task is
far from complete. He knows that, when government has been advanced one degree
higher in excellence, abuses will still be numerous. Many will be oppressed;
many will be exposed to unjust condemnation; discontent will have its empire
and its votaries; and the reign of inequality will be extensive. He can mark
therefore the progress of melioration with calmness; though it will have
all the wishes of his heart, and all the exertions of his understanding.
That progress, which may be carried on through a longer time, and a greater
variety of articles, than his foresight can delineate, he may be expected
to desire should take place in a mild and gradual, though incessant advance,
not by violent leaps, not by concussions which may expose millions to risk,
and sweep generations of men from the stage of existence.
And here let us briefly consider what is the nature of revolution. Revolution
is engendered by an indignation against tyranny, yet is itself ever more
pregnant with tyranny. The tyranny which excites its indignation can scarcely
be without its partisans; and, the greater is the indignation excited, and
the more sudden and vast the fall of the oppressors, the deeper will be the
resentment which fills the minds of the losing party. What more unavoidable
than that men should entertain some discontent at being violently stripped
of their wealth and their privileges? What more venial than that they should
feel some attachment to the sentiments in which they were educated, and which,
it may be, but a little before, were the sentiments of almost every individual
in the community? Are they obliged to change their creed, precisely at the
time at which I see reason to alter mine? They have but remained at the point
at which we both stood a few years ago. Yet this is the crime which a revolution
watches with the greatest jealousy, and punishes with the utmost severity.
The crime which is thus marked with the deepest reprobation is not the result
of relaxation of principle, of profligate living, or of bitter and inexorable
hatred. It is a fault not the least likely to occur in a man of untainted
honour, of an upright disposition, and dignified and generous sentiments.
Revolution is instigated by a horror against tyranny, yet its own tyranny
is not without peculiar aggravations. There is no period more at war with
the existence of liberty. The unrestrained communication of opinions has
always been subjected to mischievous counteraction, but upon such occasions
it is trebly fettered. At other times men are not so much alarmed for its
effects. But in a moment of revolution, when everything is in crisis, the
influence even of a word is dreaded, and the consequent slavery is complete.
Where was there a revolution in which a strong vindication of what it was
intended to abolish was permitted, or indeed almost any species of writing
or argument, that was not, for the most part, in harmony with the opinions
which happened to prevail? An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts, and punish
their opinions, is of all kinds of despotism the most odious; yet this attempt
is peculiarly characteristic of a period of revolution.
The advocates of revolution usually remark "that there is no way
to rid ourselves of our oppressors, and prevent new ones from starting up
in their room, but by inflicting on them some severe and memorable retribution."
Upon this statement it is particularly to be observed that there will be
oppressors as long as there are individuals inclined, either from perverseness,
or rooted and obstinate prejudice, to take party with the oppressor. We have
therefore to terrify not only the man of crooked ambition but all those who
would support him, either from a corrupt motive, or a well-intended error.
Thus, we propose to make men free; and the method we adopt is to influence
them, more rigorously than ever, by the fear of punishment. We say that government
has usurped too much, and we organize a government tenfold more encroaching
in its principles and terrible in its proceedings. Is slavery the best project
that can be devised for making men free? Is a display of terror the readiest
mode for rendering them fearless, independent and enterprising?
During a period of revolution, enquiry, and all those patient speculations
to which mankind are indebted for their greatest improvements, are suspended.
Such speculations demand a period of security and permanence; they can scarcely
be pursued when men cannot foresee what shall happen tomorrow, and the most
astonishing vicissitudes are affairs of perpetual recurrence. Such speculations
demand leisure, and a tranquil and dispassionate temper; they can scarcely
be pursued when all the passions of man are afloat, and we are hourly under
the strongest impressions of fear and hope, apprehension and desire, dejection
and triumph. Add to this, what has been already stated,[2] respecting the
tendency of revolution, to restrain the declaration of our thoughts, and
put fetters upon the licence of investigation.
Another circumstance proper to be mentioned is the inevitable duration
of the revolutionary spirit. This may be illustrated from the change of government
in England in 1688. If we look at the revolution strictly so called, we are
apt to congratulate ourselves that the advantages it procured, to whatever
they may amount, were purchased by a cheap and bloodless victory. But, if
we would make a solid estimate, we must recollect it as the procuring cause
of two general wars, of nine years under king William, and twelve under queen
Anne; and two intestine rebellions (events worthy of execration, if we call
to mind the gallant spirit and generous fidelity of the Jacobites, and their
miserable end) in 1715 and 1745. Yet this was, upon the whole, a mild and
auspicious revolution. Revolutions are a struggle between two parties, each
persuaded of the justice of its cause, a struggle not decided by compromise
or patient expostulation, but by force only. Such a decision can scarcely
be expected to put an end to the mutual animosity and variance.
Perhaps no important revolution was ever bloodless. It may be useful in
this place to recollect in what the mischief of shedding blood consists.
The abuses which at present exist in political society are so enormous, the
oppressions which are exercised so intolerable, the ignorance and vice they
entail so dreadful, that possibly a dispassionate enquirer might decide that,
if their annihilation could be purchased by an instant sweeping of every
human being now arrived at years of maturity from the face of the earth,
the purchase would not be too dear. It is not because human life is of so
considerable value that we ought to recoil from the shedding of blood. Alas!
the men that now exist are for the most part poor and scanty in their portion
of enjoyment, and their dignity is no more than a name. Death is in itself
among the slightest of human evils. An earthquake, which should swallow up
a hundred thousand individuals at once, would chiefly be to be regretted
for the anguish it entailed upon survivors; in a fair estimate of those it
destroyed, it would often be comparatively a trivial event. The laws of nature
which produce it are a fit subject of investigation; but their effects, contrasted
with many other events, are scarcely a topic of regret. The case is altogether
different when man falls by the hand of his neighbour. Here a thousand ill
passions are generated. The perpetrators, and the witnesses of murders, become
obdurate, unrelenting and inhuman. Those who sustain the loss of relations
or friends by a catastrophe of this sort are filled with indignation and
revenge. Distrust is propagated from man to man, and the dearest ties of
human society are dissolved. It is impossible to devise a temper more inauspicious
to the cultivation of justice and the diffusion of benevolence.
To the remark that revolutions can scarcely be unaccompanied with the
shedding of blood, it may be added that they are necessarily crude and premature.
Politics is a science. The general features of the nature of man are capable
of being understood, and a mode may be delineated which, in itself considered,
is best adapted to the condition of man in society. If this mode ought not,
everywhere, and instantly, to be fought to be reduced into practice, the
modifications that are to be given it in conformity to the variation of circumstances,
and the degrees in which it is to be realized, are also a topic of scientifical
disquisition. Now it is clearly the nature of science to be progressive in
its advances. How various were the stages of astronomy before it received
the degree of perfection which was given it by Newton? How imperfect were
the lispings of intellectual science before it attained the precision of
the present century? Political knowledge is, no doubt, in its infancy; and,
as it is an affair of life and action, will, in proportion as it gathers
vigour, manifest a more uniform and less precarious influence upon the concerns
of human society. It is the history of all science to be known first to a
few, before it descends through the various descriptions and classes of the
community. Thus, for twenty years, and Principia of Newton had scarcely any
readers, and his system continued unknown; the next twenty perhaps sufficed
to make the outlines of that system familiar to almost every person in the
slightest degree tinctured with science.
The only method according to which social improvements can be carried
on, with sufficient prospect of an auspicious event, is when the improvement
of our institutions advances in a just proportion to the illumination of
the public understanding. There is a condition of political society best
adapted to every different stage of individual improvement. The more nearly
this condition is successively realized, the more advantageously will the
general interest be consulted. There is a sort of provision in the nature
of the human mind for this species of progress. Imperfect institutions, as
has already been shown,[3] cannot long support themselves when they are
generally disapproved of, and their effects truly understood. There is a
period at which they may be expected to decline and expire, almost without
an effort. Reform, under this meaning of the term, can scarcely be considered
as of the nature of action. Men feel their situation; and the restraints
that shackled them before vanish like a deception. When such a crisis has
arrived, not a sword will need to be drawn, not a finger to be lifted up
in purposes of violence. The adversaries will be too few and too feeble to
be able to entertain a serious thought of resistance against the universal
sense of mankind.
Under this view of the subject then it appears that revolutions, instead
of being truly beneficial to mankind, answer no other purpose than that of
marring the salutary and uninterrupted progress which might be expected to
attend upon political truth and social improvement. They disturb the harmony
of intellectual nature. They propose to give us something for which we are
not prepared, and which we cannot effectually use. They suspend the wholesome
advancement of science, and confound the process of nature and reason.
We have hitherto argued upon the supposition that the attempt which shall
be made to effect a revolution shall be crowned with success. But this supposition
must by no means be suffered to pass without notice. Every attempt of this
sort, even if menaced only, and not carried into act, tends to excite a resistance
which otherwise would never be consolidated. The enemies of innovation become
alarmed by the intemperance of its friends. The storm gradually thickens,
and each party arms itself in silence with the weapons of violence and stratagem.
Let us observe the consequence of this. So long as the contest is merely
between truth and sophistry, we may look with tolerable assurance to the
progress and result. But, when we lay aside arguments, and have recourse
to the sword, the case is altered. Amidst the barbarous rage of war, and
the clamorous din of civil contention, who shall tell whether the event will
be prosperous or adverse? The consequence may be the riveting on us anew
the chains of despotism, and ensuring, through a considerable period, the
triumph of oppression, even if it should fail to carry us back to a state
of torpor, and obliterate the memory of all our improvements.
If such are the genuine features of revolution, it will be fortunate if
it can be made appear that revolution is wholly unnecessary, and the conviction
of the understanding a means fully adequate to the demolishing political
abuse. But this point has already been established in a former part of our
enquiry.[4] It is common to affirm "that men may sufficiently know
the error of their conduct, and yet be in no degree inclined to forsake it."
This assertion however is no otherwise rendered plausible than by the vague
manner in which we are accustomed to understand the term knowledge. The voluntary
actions of men originate in their opinions.[5] Whatever we believe to have
the strongest inducements in its behalf, that we infallibly choose and pursue.
It is impossible that we should choose anything as evil. It is impossible
that a man should perpetrate a crime in the moment that he sees it in all
its enormity. In every example of this sort, there is a struggle between
knowledge on one side, and error or habit on the other. While the knowledge
continues in all its vigour, the ill action cannot be perpetrated. In proportion
as the knowledge escapes from the mind, and is no longer recollected, the
error or habit may prevail. But it is reasonable to suppose that the permanence,
as well as vigour, of our perceptions is capable of being increased to an
indefinite extent. Knowledge in this sense, understanding by it a clear and
undoubting apprehension, such as no delusion can resist, is a thing totally
different from what is ordinarily called by that name, from a sentiment seldom
recollected, and, when it is recollected, scarcely felt or understood.[6]
The beauty of the conception here delineated, of the political improvement
of mankind, must be palpable to every observer. Still it may be urged "that,
even granting this, truth may be too tardy in its operation. Ages will elapse,"
we shall be told, "before speculative views of the evils of privilege
and monopoly shall have spread so wide, and been felt so deeply, as to banish
these evils without commotion or struggle. It is easy for a reasoner to sit
down in his closet, and amuse himself with the beauty of the conception,
but in the meantime mankind are suffering, injustice is hourly perpetrated,
and generations of men may languish, in the midst of fair promises and hopes,
and leave the stage without participating in the benefit. Cheat us not then,"
it will be said, "with remote and uncertain prospects; but let us embrace
a method which shall secure us speedy deliverance from evils too hateful
to be endured."
In answer to this representation, it is to be observed, first, that every
attempt suddenly to rescue a whole community from an usurpation the evils
of which few understand has already been shown to be attended, always with
calamity, frequently with miscarriage.
Secondly, it is a mistake to suppose that, because we have no popular
commotions and violence, the generation in which we live will have no benefit
from the improvement of our political principles. Every change of sentiment,
from moral delusion to truth, every addition we make to the clearness of
our apprehension on this subject, and the recollectedness and independence
of our mind, is itself abstracted from the absolute change of our institutions,
an unquestionable acquisition. Freedom of institution is desirable chiefly
because it is connected with independence of mind; if we gain the end, we
may reasonably consent to be less solicitous about the means.[7] In reality
however, wherever the political opinions of a community, or any considerable
portion of a community, are changed, the institutions are affected also.
They relax their hold upon the mind; they are viewed with a different spirit;
they gradually, and almost without notice, sink into oblivion. The advantage
gained in every stage of the progress without commotion is nearly the precise
advantage it is most for the interest of the public to secure.
In the meantime it is impossible not to remark a striking futility in
the objection we are endeavouring to answer. The objectors complain "that
the system which trusts to reason alone is calculated to deprive the present
generation of the practical benefit of political improvements." Yet
we have just shown that it secures to them great practical benefit; while,
on the other hand, nothing is more common, than to hear the advocates of
force themselves confess that a grand revolution includes in it the sacrifice
of one generation. Its conductors encounter the calamities attendant on fundamental
innovation, that their posterity may reap the fruits in tranquillity.
Thirdly, it is a mistake to suppose that the system of trusting to reason
alone is calculated to place fundamental reform at an immeasurable distance.
It is the nature of all science and improvement to be slow, and in a manner
imperceptible, in its first advances. Its commencement is as it were by accident.
Few advert to it; few have any perception of its existence. It attains its
growth in obscurity; and its result, though long in the preparation, is to
a considerable degree sudden and unexpected. Thus it is perhaps that we ought
to regard the introduction of printing as having given its full security
to the emancipation of mankind. But this progressive consequence was long
unsuspected; and it was reserved for the penetrating mind of Wolfey to predict
almost three centuries ago, speaking in the name of the Romish clergy, "We
must destroy the press; or the press will destroy us." At present, It
requires no extraordinary sagacity to perceive that the most enormous abuses
of political institution are hastening to their end. There is no enemy to
this auspicious crisis more to be feared than the well meaning, but intemperate,
champion of the general good.
There is a passage in a work of Helvetius written to be published after
his death, which happened in 1771, so much in the tone of the dissatisfied
and despairing advocates of public liberty at present, as to deserve to be
cited in this place. "In the history of every people," says he,
"there are moments in which, uncertain of the side they shall choose,
and balanced between political good and evil, they feel a desire to be instructed;
in which the soil, so to express myself, is in some manner prepared, and
may easily be penetrated by the dew of truth. At such a moment, the publication
of a valuable book may give birth to the most auspicious reforms: but, when
that moment is no more, the nation, become insensible to the best motives,
is, by the nature of its government, irrecoverably plunged in ignorance and
stupidity. The soil of intellect is then hard and impenetrable; the rains
may fall, may spread their moisture upon the surface, but the prospect of
fertility is gone. Such is the condition of France. Her people are become
the contempt of Europe. No salutary crisis shall ever restore them to liberty."[8]
It is scarcely necessary to add that the French revolution was at this
time preparing by an incessant chain of events; and that the train may particularly
be considered as taking its date from the circumstance, the destruction of
the parliaments by Louis XV, which inspired Helvétius with so melancholy
a presage.
An additional support to the objection we are here attempting to remove
may be derived from the idea, not only "that truth is slow in its progress,"
but "that it is not always progressive, but subject, like other human
things, to the vicissitudes of flux and reflux." This opinion has hitherto
been of great influence in public affairs, and it has been considered as
"the part of a wise statesman to embrace the opportunity, when the people
are inclined to any measure in which he wishes to engage them, and not to
wait till their fervour has subsided, and the moment of willing co-operation
is past."
Undoubtedly there is the appearance of flux and reflux in human affairs.
In subordinate articles, there will be a fashion, rendering one truth more
popular, and more an object of attention, at one time, than at another. But
the mass of truth seems too large a consideration to be susceptible of these
vicissitudes. It has proceeded, from the revival of letters to the present
hour, with an irresistible advance; and the apparent deviousnesses of literature
seem to resolve themselves into a grand collective consistency. Not one step
has been made in retrogression. Mathematics, natural philosophy, moral philosophy,
philology and politics, have reached, by regular improvements, to their present
degree of perfection.
"But, whatever may be said of the history of the human mind since
the revival of letters, its history from the earliest records of man displays
a picture of a different sort. Here certainly it has not been all progression.
Greece and Rome present themselves like two favoured spots in the immense
desert of intellect; and their glory in this respect was exceedingly transient.
Athens arrived at an excellence so great, in poetry, in eloquence, in the
acuteness and vigour of its philosophers, and in skill in the fine arts,
as all the ages of the world are not able to parallel. But this skill was
attained, only to be afterwards forgotten; it was succeeded by a night of
barbarism; and we are at this moment, in some of these points, exerting ourselves
to arrive at the ground which they formerly occupied. The same remarks which
apply to individual improvement equally apply to the subject of politics;
we have not yet realized the political advantages, to which they were indebted
for their greatness."
There is but one consideration that can be opposed to this statement:
the discovery of printing. By this art we seem to be secured against the
future perishing of human improvement. Knowledge is communicated to too many
individuals to afford its adversaries a chance of suppressing it. The monopoly
of science, though, from the love of distinction, which so extensively characterizes
the human race, it has been endeavoured to be prolonged, is substantially
at an end. By the easy multiplication of copies, and the cheapness of books,
everyone has access to them. The extreme inequality of information among
different members of the same community, which existed in ancient times is
diminished. A class of men is become numerous which was then comparatively
unknown, and we see vast multitudes who, though condemned to labour for the
perpetual acquisition of the means of subsistence, have yet a superficial
knowledge of most of the discoveries and topics which are investigated by
the learned. The consequence is that the possessors of knowledge being more,
its influence is more certain. Under different circumstances, it was occasionally
only that men were wrought upon to extraordinary exertions; but with us the
whole is regular and systematical.
There is one general observation which ought to be made before the subject
is dismissed. It has perhaps sufficiently appeared, from the preceding discussion,
that revolutions are necessarily attended with many circumstances worthy
of our disapprobation, and that they are by no means essential to the political
improvement of mankind. Yet, after all, it ought not to be forgotten that,
though the connection be not essential or requisite, revolutions and violence
have too often been coeval with important changes of the social system. What
has so often happened in time past is not unlikely occasionally to happen
in future. The duty therefore of the true politician is to postpone revolution
if he cannot entirely prevent it. It is reasonable to believe that the later
it occurs, and the more generally ideas of political good and evil are previously
understood, the shorter, and the less deplorable, will be the mischiefs attendant
on revolution. The friend of human happiness will endeavour to prevent violence;
but it would be the mark of a weak and valetudinarian temper to turn away
our eyes from human affairs in disgust, and refuse to contribute our labours
and attention to the general weal, because perhaps, at last, violence may
forcibly intrude itself. It is our duty to make a proper advantage of circumstances
as they arise, and not to withdraw ourselves because everything is not conducted
according to our ideas of propriety. The men who grow angry with corruption,
and impatient at injustice, and through those sentiments favour the abettors
of revolution, have an obvious apology to palliate their errors; theirs is
the excess of a virtuous feeling. At the same time, however amiable may be
the source of their error, the error itself is probably fraught with consequences
pernicious to mankind.
[[8]]
"Dans chaque nation il est des momens où les citoyens,
incertains du parti qu'ils doivent prendre, et suspendus entre un bon et
un mauvais gouvernement, éprouvent la soif de l'instruction, où
les esprits, si je l'ose dire, préparés et ameublis peuvent
être facilement pénetrés de la rosée de la vérité.
Qu'en ce moment un bon ouvrage paroisse, il peut opérer d'heureuses
réformes: mais cet instant passé, les citoyens, insensibles
à la gloire, sont par la forme de leur gouvernement invinciblement
entraînés vers l'ignorance et l'abrutissement. Alors les ésprits
sont la terre endurcie: l'eau de la vérité y tombe, y coule,
mais sans la féconder. Tel est l'état de la France. Cette nation
avilie est aujourd'hui le mépris de l'Europe. Nulle crise salutaire
ne lui rendra la liberté." De l'Homme, Préface.