3. The Jacobin Mentality.
Although the term “Jacobin mentality” does not really
belong to any true classification, I employ it here because it
sums up a clearly defined combination which constitutes a
veritable psychological species.
This mentality dominates the men of the French Revolution,
but is not peculiar to them, as it still represents one of the
most active elements in our politics.
The mystic mentality which we have already considered is
an essential factor of the Jacobin mind, but it is not in itself
enough to constitute that mind. Other elements, which we shall
now examine, must be added.
The Jacobins do not in the least suspect their mysticism.
On the contrary, they profess to be guided solely by pure reason.
During the Revolution they invoked reason incessantly, and
considered it as their only guide to conduct.
The majority of historians have adopted this rationalist
conception of the Jacobin mind, and Taine fell into the same
error. It is in the abuse of rationalism that he seeks the
origin of a great proportion of the acts of the Jacobins. The
pages in which he has dealt with the subject contain many truths,
however, and as they are in other ways very remarkable, I
reproduce the most important passages here:—
“Neither exaggerated self-love nor dogmatic
reasoning is rare in the human species. In all countries these
two roots of the Jacobin spirit subsist, secret and
indestructible. . . . At twenty years of age, when a young man
is entering into the world, his reason is stimulated
simultaneously with his pride. In the first place, whatever
society he may move in, it is contemptible to pure reason, for it
has not been constructed by a philosophic legislator according to
a principle, but successive generations have arranged it
according to their multiple and ever-changing needs. It is not
the work of logic, but of history, and the young reasoner shrugs
his shoulders at the sight of this old building, whose site is
arbitrary, whose architecture is incoherent, and whose
inconveniences are obvious. . . . The majority of young people,
above all those who have their way to make, are more or less
Jacobin on leaving college. . . . Jacobinism is born of social
decomposition just as mushrooms are born of a fermenting soil.
Consider the authentic monuments of its thought—the speeches of
Robespierre and Saint-Just, the debates of the Legislative
Assembly and the Convention, the harangues, addresses, and
reports of Girondists and Montagnards. Never did men speak so
much to say so little; the empty verbiage and swollen emphasis
swamp any truth there may be beneath their monotony and their
turgidity. The Jacobin is full of respect for the phantoms of
his reasoning brain; in his eyes they are more real than living
men, and their suffrage is the only suffrage he recognises—he
will march onward in all sincerity at the head of a procession of
imaginary followers. The millions of metaphysical wills which he
has created in the image of his own will sustain
him by their unanimous assent, and he will project outwards, like
a chorus of triumph and acclamation, the inward echo of his own
voice.”
While admiring Taine's description, I think he has not
exactly grasped the psychology of the Jacobin.
The mind of the true Jacobin, at the time of the
Revolution as now, was composed of elements which we must analyse
if we are to understand its function.
This analysis will show in the first place that the
Jacobin is not a rationalist, but a believer. Far from building
his belief on reason, he moulds reason to his belief, and
although his speeches are steeped in rationalism he employs it
very little in his thoughts and his conduct.
A Jacobin who reasoned as much as he is accused of
reasoning would be sometimes accessible to the voice of reason.
Now, observation proves, from the time of the Revolution to our
own days, that the Jacobin is never influenced by reasoning,
however just, and it is precisely here that his strength resides.
And why is he not accessible to reason? Simply because
his vision of things, always extremely limited, does not permit
of his resisting the powerful and passionate impulses which guide
him.
These two elements, feeble reason and strong passions,
would not of themselves constitute the Jacobin mind. There is
another.
Passion supports convictions, but hardly ever creates
them. Now, the true Jacobin has forcible convictions. What is
to sustain them? Here the mystic elements whose action we have
already studied come into play. The Jacobin is a mystic who has
replaced the old divinities by new gods. Imbued with the power
of words and formulæ, he attributes to these a mysterious
power. To serve these exigent divinities he does not shrink from
the most violent measures. The laws voted by our modern Jacobins
furnish a proof of this fact.
The Jacobin mentality is found especially in narrow and
passionate characters. It implies, in fact, a narrow and rigid
mind, inaccessible to all criticism and to all considerations but
those of faith.
The mystic and affective elements which dominate the mind
of the Jacobin condemn him to an extreme simplicity. Grasping
only the superficial relations of things, nothing prevents him
from taking for realities the chimerical images which are born of
his imagination. The sequence of phenomena and their results
escape him. He never raises his eyes from his dream.
As we may see, it is not by the development of his logical
reason that the Jacobin exceeds. He possesses very little logic
of this kind, and therefore he often becomes dangerous. Where a
superior man would hesitate or halt the Jacobin, who has placed
his feeble reason at the service of his impulses, goes forward
with certainty.
So that although the Jacobin is a great reasoner, this
does not mean that he is in the least guided by reason. When he
imagines he is being led by reason it is really his passions and
his mysticism that lead him. Like all those who are convinced
and hemmed in by the walls of faith, he can never escape there-from.
A true aggressive theologian, he is astonishingly
like the disciples of Calvin described in a previous chapter.
Hypnotised by their faith, nothing could deter them from their
object. All those who contradicted their articles of faith were
considered worthy of death. They too seemed to be powerful
reasoners. Ignorant, like the Jacobins, of the secret forces
that led them, they believed that reason was their sole guide,
while in reality they were the slaves of mysticism and passion.
The truly rationalistic Jacobin would be incomprehensible,
and would merely make reason despair. The passionate and
mystical Jacobin is, on the contrary, easily intelligible.
With these three elements—a very weak reasoning power,
very strong passions, and an intense mysticism—we have the true
psychological components of the mind of the Jacobin.
