CHAPTER III
MENTAL ANARCHY AT THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTION
AND THE INFLUENCE ATTRIBUTED TO
THE PHILOSOPHERS
The Psychology of Revolution | ||
2. The supposed Influence of the Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century upon the Genesis of the Revolution—Their dislike of Democracy.
Although the philosophers who have been supposed the inspirers of the French Revolution did attack
Pierre Bayle, the true forerunner of Voltaire, recalled in the following terms the consequences of popular government in Athens:—
“If one considers this history, which displays at great length the tumult of the assemblies, the factions dividing the city, the seditious disturbing it, the most illustrious subjects persecuted, exiled, and punished by death at the will of a violent windbag, one would conclude that this people, which so prided itself on its liberty, was really the slave of a small number of caballers, whom they called demagogues, and who made it turn now in this direction, now in that, as their passions changed, almost as the sea heaps the waves now one way, now another, according to the winds which trouble it. You will seek in vain in Macedonia, which was a monarchy, for as many examples of tyranny as Athenian history will afford.”
Montesquieu had no greater admiration for the democracy. Having described the three forms of government—republican, monarchical, and despotic—he shows very clearly what popular government may lead to:—
“Men were free with laws; men would fain be free
“. . . Little petty tyrants spring up who have all the vices of a single tyrant. Very soon what is left of liberty becomes untenable; a single tyrant arises, and the people loses all, even the advantages of corruption.
“Democracy has therefore two extremes to avoid; the extreme of the spirit of equality leads to the despotism of a single person, as the despotism of a single person leads to conquest.”
The ideal of Montesquieu was the English constitutional government, which prevented the monarchy from degenerating into despotism. Otherwise the influence of this philosopher at the moment of the Revolution was very slight.
As for the Encyclopædists, to whom such a considerable rôle is attributed, they hardly dealt with politics, excepting d'Holbach, a liberal monarchist like Voltaire and Diderot. They wrote chiefly in defence of individual liberty, opposing the encroachments of the Church, at that time extremely intolerant and inimical to philosophers. Being neither Socialists nor democrats, the Revolution could not utilise any of their principles.
Voltaire himself was by no means a partisan of democracy.
“Democracy,” he said, “seems only to suit a very small country, and even then it must be fortunately
All these men who are supposed to have inspired the Revolution had opinions which were far from subversive, and it is really difficult to see that they had any real influence on the development of the revolutionary movement. Rousseau was one of the very few democratic philosophers of his age, which is why his Contrat Social became the Bible of the men of the Terror. It seemed to furnish the rational justification necessary to excuse the acts deriving from unconscious mystic and affective impulses which no philosophy had inspired.
To be quite truthful, the democratic instincts of Rousseau were by no means above suspicion. He himself considered that his projects for social reorganisation, based upon popular sovereignty, could be applied only to a very small State; and when the Poles asked him for a draft democratic Constitution he advised them to choose a hereditary monarch.
Among the theories of Rousseau that relating to the perfection of the primitive social state had a great success. He asserted, together with various writers of his time, that primitive mankind was perfect; it was corrupted only by society. By modifying society by means of good laws one might bring back the
There could be no greater mistake.
CHAPTER III
MENTAL ANARCHY AT THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTION
AND THE INFLUENCE ATTRIBUTED TO
THE PHILOSOPHERS
The Psychology of Revolution | ||