3. Political Revolutions.
Beneath and very remote from these scientific revolutions,
which generate the progress of civilisations, are the religious
and political revolutions, which have no kinship with them.
While scientific revolutions derive solely from rational
elements, political and religious beliefs are sustained almost
exclusively by affective and mystic factors. Reason plays only a
feeble part in their genesis.
I insisted at some length in my book Opinions and
Beliefs on the affective and mystic origin of beliefs,
showing that a political or religious belief constitutes an act
of faith elaborated in unconsciousness, over which, in spite of
all appearances, reason has no hold. I also showed that belief
often reaches such a degree of intensity that nothing can be
opposed to it. The man hypnotised by his faith becomes an
Apostle, ready to sacrifice his interests, his happiness, and
even his life for the triumph of his faith. The absurdity of
his belief matters little; for him it is a burning reality.
Certitudes of mystic origin possess the marvellous power of
entire domination over thought, and can only be affected by time.
By the very fact that it is regarded as an absolute truth
a belief necessarily becomes intolerant. This explains the
violence, hatred, and persecution which were the habitual
accompaniments of the great political and religious revolutions,
notably of the Reformation and the French Revolution.
Certain periods of French history remain incomprehensible
if we forget the affective and mystic origin of beliefs, their
necessary intolerance, the impossibility of reconciling them when
they come into mutual contact, and, finally, the power conferred
by mystic beliefs upon the sentiments which place themselves at
their service.
The foregoing conceptions are too novel as yet to have
modified the mentality of the historians. They will continue to
attempt to explain, by means of rational logic, a host of
phenomena which are foreign to it.
Events such as the Reformation, which overwhelmed France
for a period of fifty years, were in no wise determined by
rational influences. Yet rational influences are always invoked
in explanation, even in the most recent works. Thus, in the
General History of Messrs. Lavisse and Rambaud, we read
the following explanation of the Reformation:—
“It was a spontaneous movement, born here and there
amidst the people, from the reading of the Gospels and the free
individual reflections which were suggested to simple persons by
an extremely pious conscience and a very bold reasoning
power.”
Contrary to the assertion of these historians, we may say
with certainty, in the first place, that such movements are never
spontaneous, and secondly, that reason takes no part in their
elaboration.
The force of the political and religious beliefs which
have moved the world resides precisely in the fact that, being
born of affective and mystic elements, they are neither created
nor directed by reason.
Political or religious beliefs have a common origin and
obey the same laws. They are formed not with the aid of reason,
but more often contrary to all reason. Buddhism, Islamism, the
Reformation, Jacobinism, Socialism, &c., seem very different
forms of thought. Yet they have identical affective and mystic
bases, and obey a logic that has no affinity with rational logic.
Political revolutions may result from beliefs established
in the minds of men, but many other causes produce them. The
word discontent sums them up. As soon as discontent is
generalised a party is formed which often becomes strong enough
to struggle against the Government.
Discontent must generally have been accumulating for a
long time in order to produce its effects. For this reason a
revolution does not always represent a phenomenon in process of
termination followed by another which is commencing but rather a
continuous phenomenon, having somewhat accelerated its evolution.
All the modern revolutions, however, have been abrupt movements,
entailing the instantaneous overthrow of governments. Such, for
example, were the Brazilian, Portuguese, Turkish, and Chinese
revolutions.
To the contrary of what might be supposed, the
very conservative peoples are addicted to the most violent
revolutions. Being conservative, they are not able to evolve
slowly, or to adapt themselves to variations of environment, so
that when the discrepancy
becomes too extreme they are bound to adapt themselves suddenly.
This sudden evolution constitutes a revolution.
Peoples able to adapt themselves progressively do not
always escape revolution. It was only by means of a revolution
that the English, in 1688, were able to terminate the struggle
which had dragged on for a century between the monarchy, which
sought to make itself absolute, and the nation, which claimed the
right to govern itself through the medium of its representatives.
The great revolutions have usually commenced from the top,
not from the bottom; but once the people is unchained it is to
the people that revolution owes its might.
It is obvious that revolutions have never taken place, and
will never take place, save with the aid of an important fraction
of the army. Royalty did not disappear in France on the day when
Louis XVI. was guillotined, but at the precise moment when his
mutinous troops refused to defend him.
It is more particularly by mental contagion that armies
become disaffected, being indifferent enough at heart to the
established order of things. As soon as the coalition of a few
officers had succeeded in overthrowing the Turkish Government the
Greek officers thought to imitate them and to change their
government, although there was no analogy between the two
régimes,
A military movement may overthrow a government—and in the
Spanish republics the Government is hardly ever destroyed by any
other means—but if the revolution is to be productive of great
results it must always be based upon general discontent and
general hopes.
Unless it is universal and excessive, discontent alone is
not sufficient to bring about a revolution. It is easy to lead a
handful of men to pillage, destroy, and massacre, but to raise a
whole people, or any great portion of that people, calls for the
continuous or repeated action of leaders. These exaggerate the
discontent; they persuade the discontented that the government is
the sole cause of all the trouble, especially of the prevailing
dearth, and assure men that the new system proposed by them will
engender an age of felicity. These ideas germinate, propagating
themselves by suggestion and contagion, and the moment arrives
when the revolution is ripe.
In this fashion the Christian Revolution and the French
Revolution were prepared. That the latter was effected in a few
years, while the first required many, was due to the fact that
the French Revolution promptly had an armed force at its
disposal, while Christianity was long in winning material power.
In the beginning its only adepts were the lowly, the poor, and
the slaves, filled with enthusiasm by the prospect of seeing
their miserable life transformed into an eternity of delight. By
a phenomenon of contagion from below, of which history affords us
more than one example, the doctrine finally invaded the upper
strata of the nation, but it was a long time before an
emperor considered the new faith sufficiently widespread to be
adopted as the official religion.
