1. CHAPTER I
THE PROGRESS OF DEMOCRATIC BELIEFS SINCE
THE REVOLUTION
1. Gradual Propagation of Democratic Ideas after the
Revolution.
IDEAS which are firmly established, incrusted, as it were, in
men's minds, continue to act for several generations. Those
which resulted from the French Revolution were, like others,
subject to this law.
Although the life of the Revolution as a Government was
short, the influence of its principles was, on the contrary, very
long-lived. Becoming a form of religious belief, they profoundly
modified the orientation of the sentiments and ideas of several
generations.
Despite a few intervals, the French Revolution has
continued up to the present, and still survives. The
rôle of Napoleon was not confined to overturning the
world, changing the map of Europe, and remaking the exploits of
Alexander. The new rights of the people, created by the
Revolution and established by its institutions, have exercised a
profound influence. The military work of the conqueror was soon
dissolved, but the revolutionary principles which he contributed
to propagate have survived him.
The various restorations which followed the Empire caused
men at first to become somewhat forgetful of the principles of
the Revolution. For fifty years this propagation was far from
rapid. One might almost have supposed that the people had
forgotten them. Only a small number of theorists maintained
their influence. Heirs to the “simplicist” spirit of the
Jacobins, believing, like them, that societies can be remade from
top to bottom by the laws, and persuaded that the Empire had only
interrupted the task of revolution, they wished to resume it.
While waiting until they could recommence, they attempted
to spread the principles of the Revolution by means of their
writings. Faithful imitators of the men of the Revolution, they
never stopped to ask if their schemes for reform were in
conformity with human nature. They too were erecting a
chimerical society for an ideal man, and were persuaded that the
application of their dreams would regenerate the human species.
Deprived of all constructive power, the theorists of all
the ages have always been very ready to destroy. Napoleon at St.
Helena stated that “if there existed a monarchy of granite
the idealists and theorists would manage to reduce it to
powder.”
Among the galaxy of dreamers such as Saint-Simon, Fourier,
Pierre Leroux, Louis Blanc, Quinet, &c., we find that only
Auguste Comte understood that a transformation of manners and
ideas must precede political reorganisation.
Far from favouring the diffusion of democratic ideas, the
projects of reform of the theorists of this period merely impeded
their progress. Communistic
Socialism, which several of them professed would restore the
Revolution, finally alarmed the
bourgeoisie and even the
working-classes. We have already seen that the fear of their
ideas was one of the principal causes of the restoration of the
Empire.
If none of the chimerical lucubrations of the writers of
the first half of the nineteenth century deserve to be discussed,
it is none the less interesting to examine them in order to
observe the part played by religious and moral ideas which to-day
are regarded with contempt. Persuaded that a new society could
not, any more than the societies of old, be built up without
religious and moral beliefs, the reformers were always
endeavouring to found such beliefs.
But on what could they be based? Evidently on reason. By
means of reason men create complicated machines: why not
therefore a religion and a morality, things which are apparently
so simple? Not one of them suspected the fact that no religious
or moral belief ever had rational logic as its basis. Auguste
Comte saw no more clearly. We know that he founded a so-called
positivist religion, which still has a few followers. Scientists
were to form a clergy directed by a new Pope, who was to replace
the Catholic Pope.
All these conceptions—political, religious, or moral—
had, I repeat, no other results for a long time than to turn the
multitude away from democratic principles.
If these principles did finally become widespread, it was
not on account of the theorists, but because new conditions of
life had arisen. Thanks to the discoveries of science, industry
developed and led to the
erection of immense factories. Economic necessities increasingly
dominated the wills of Governments and the people and finally
created a favourable soil for the extension of Socialism, and
above all of Syndicalism, the modern forms of democratic ideas.
2. The Unequal Influence of the Three Fundamental
Principles of the Revolution.
The heritage of the Revolution is summed up in its entirety in
the one phrase—Liberty, equality, and Fraternity. The
principle of equality, as we have seen, has exerted a powerful
influence, but the two others did not share its lot.
Although the sense of these terms seems clear enough, they
were comprehended in very different fashions according to men and
times. We know that the various interpretation of the same words
by persons of different mentality has been one of the most
frequent causes of the conflicts of history.
To the member of the Convention liberty signified merely
the exercise of its unlimited despotism. To a young modern
“intellectual” the same word means a general release from
everything irksome: tradition, law, superiority, &c. To the
modern Jacobin liberty consists especially in the right to
persecute his adversaries.
Although political orators still occasionally mention
liberty in their speeches, they have generally ceased to evoke
fraternity. It is the conflict of the different classes and not
their alliance that they teach to-day. Never did a more profound
hatred divide the various strata of society and the political
parties which lead them.
But while liberty has become very doubtful and fraternity
has completely vanished, the principle of equality has grown
unchecked. It has been supreme in all the political upheavals of
which France has been the stage during the last century, and has
reached such a development that our political and social life,
our laws, manners, and customs are at least in theory based on
this principle. It constitutes the real legacy of the
Revolution. The craving for equality, not only before the law,
but in position and fortune, is the very pivot of the last
product of democracy: Socialism. This craving is so powerful
that it is spreading in all directions, although in contradiction
with all biological and economic laws. It is a new phase of the
interrupted struggle of the sentiments against reason, in which
reason so rarely triumphs.
3. The Democracy of the “Intellectuals” and
Popular Democracy.
All ideas that have hitherto caused an upheaval of the world
of men have been subject to two laws: they evolve slowly, and
they completely change their sense according to the mentalities
in which they find reception.
A doctrine may be compared to a living being. It subsists
only by process of transformation. The books are necessarily
silent upon these variations, so that the phase of things which
they establish belongs only to the past. They do not reflect the
image of the living, but of the dead. The written statement of a
doctrine often represents the most negligible side of that
doctrine.
I have shown in another work how institutions, arts, and
languages are modified in passing from one people to another, and
how the laws of these transformations differ from the truth as
stated in books. I allude to this matter now merely to show why,
in examining the subject of democratic ideas, we occupy ourselves
so little with the text of doctrines, and seek only for the
psychological elements of which they constitute the vestment, and
the reactions which they provoke in the various categories of men
who have accepted them.
Modified rapidly by men of different mentalities, the
original theory is soon no more than a label which denotes
something quite unlike itself.
Applicable to religious beliefs, these principles are
equally so to political beliefs. When a man speaks of democracy,
for example, must we inquire what this word means to various
peoples, and also whether in the same people there is not a great
difference between the democracy of the “intellectuals”
and popular democracy.
In confining ourselves now to the consideration of this
latter point we shall readily perceive that the democratic ideas
to be found in books and journals are purely the theories of
literary people, of which the people know nothing, and by the
application of which they would have nothing to gain. Although
the working-man possesses the theoretical right of passing the
barriers which separate him from the upper classes by a whole
series of competitions and examinations, his chance of reaching
them is in reality extremely slight.
The democracy of the lettered classes has no other
object than to set up a selection which shall recruit the
directing classes exclusively from themselves. I should have
nothing to say against this if the selection were real. It would
then constitute the application of the maxim of Napoleon:
“The true method of government is to employ the aristocracy,
but under the forms of democracy.”
Unhappily the democracy of the “intellectuals”
would simply lead to the substitution of the Divine right of
kings by the Divine right of a petty oligarchy, which is too
often narrow and tyrannical. Liberty cannot be created by
replacing a tyranny.
Popular democracy by no means aims at manufacturing
rulers. Dominated entirely by the spirit of equality and the
desire to ameliorate the lot of the workers, it rejects the idea
of fraternity, and exhibits no anxiety in respect of liberty. No
government is conceivable to popular democracy except in the form
of an autocracy. We see this, not only in history, which shows
us that since the Revolution all despotic Governments have been
vigorously acclaimed, but also in the autocratic fashion in which
the workers' trades unions are conducted.
This profound distinction between the democracy of the
lettered classes and popular democracy is far more obvious to the
workers than to the intellectuals. In their mentalities there is
nothing in common; the two classes do not speak the same
language. The syndicalists emphatically assert to-day that no
alliance could possibly exist between them and the politicians of
the bourgeoisie. This assertion is strictly true.
It was always so, and this, no doubt, is why popular
democracy, from Plato's to our own times, has never been defended
by the great thinkers.
This fact has greatly struck Emile Faguet. “Almost
all the thinkers of the nineteenth century,” he says,
“were not democrats. When I was writing my Politiques et
moralistes du XIXe siècle this was my
despair. I could not find one who had been a democrat; yet I was
extremely anxious to find one so that I could give the democratic
doctrine as formulated by him.”
The eminent writer might certainly have found plenty of
professional politicians, but these latter rarely belong to the
category of thinkers.
2. Natural Inequalities and Democratic
Equalisation.
The difficulty of reconciling democratic equalisation with
natural inequalities constitutes one of the most difficult
problems of the present hour. We know what are the desires of
democracy. Let us see what Nature replies to these demands.
The democratic ideas which have so often shaken the world
from the heroic ages of Greece to modern times are always
clashing with natural inequalities. Some observers have held,
with Helvetius, that the inequality between men is created by
education.
As a matter of fact, Nature does not know such a thing as
equality. She distributes unevenly genius, beauty, health,
vigour, intelligence, and all the qualities which confer on their
possessors a superiority over their fellows.
No theory can alter these discrepancies, so that
democratic doctrines will remain confined to words
until the laws of heredity consent to unify the capacities of
men.
Can we suppose that societies will ever succeed in
establishing artificially the equality refused by Nature?
A few theorists have believed for a long time that
education might effect a general levelling. Many years of
experience have shown the depth of this illusion.
It would not, however, be impossible for a triumphant
Socialism to establish equality for a time by rigorously
eliminating all superior individuals. One can easily foresee
what would become of a people that had suppressed its best
individuals while surrounded by other nations progressing by
means of their best individuals.
Not only does Nature not know equality, but since the
beginning of the ages she has always realised progress by means
of successive differentiations—that is to say, by increasing
inequalities. These alone could raise the obscure cell of the
early geological periods to the superior beings whose inventions
were to change the face of the earth.
The same phenomenon is to be observed in societies. The
forms of democracy which select the better elements of the
popular classes finally result in the creation of an intellectual
aristocracy, a result the contrary of the dream of the pure
theorists, to beat down the superior elements of society to the
level of the inferior elements.
On the side of natural law, which is hostile to theories
of equality, are the conditions of modern progress. Science and
industry demand more and
more considerable intellectual efforts, so that mental
inequalities and the differences of social condition which spring
from them cannot but become accentuated.
We therefore observe this striking phenomenon: as laws and
institutions seek to level individuals the progress of
civilisation tends still further to differentiate them. From the
peasant to the feudal baron the intellectual difference was not
great, but from the working-man to the engineer it is immense and
is increasing daily.
Capacity being the principal factor of progress, the
capable of each class rise while the mediocre remain stationary
or sink. What could laws do in the face of such inevitable
necessities?
In vain do the incapable pretend that, representing
number, they also represent force. Deprived of the superior
brains by whose researches all workers profit, they would
speedily sink into poverty and anarchy.
The capital rôle of the elect in modern
civilisation seems too obvious to need pointing out. In the case
of civilised nations and barbarian peoples, which contain similar
averages of mediocrities, the superiority of the former arises
solely from the superior minds which they contain. The United
States have understood this so thoroughly that they forbid the
immigration of Chinese workers, whose capacity is identical with
that of American workers, and who, working for lower wages, tend
to create a formidable competition with the latter. Despite
these evidences we see the antagonism between the multitude and
the elect increasing day by day. At no period were the elect
more necessary, yet never were they supported with such
difficulty.
One of the most solid foundations of Socialism is an
intense hatred of the elect. Its adepts always forget that
scientific, artistic, and industrial progress, which creates the
strength of a country and the prosperity of millions of workers,
is due solely to a small number of superior brains.
If the worker makes three times as much to-day as he did a
hundred years ago, and enjoys commodities then unknown to great
nobles, he owes it entirely to the elect.
Suppose that by some miracle Socialism had been
universally accepted a century ago. Risk, speculation,
initiative—in a word, all the stimulants of human activity—
being suppressed, no progress would have been possible, and the
worker would have remained as poor as he was. Men would merely
have established that equality in poverty desired by the jealousy
and envy of a host of mediocre minds. Humanity will never
renounce the progress of civilisation to satisfy so low an ideal.