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
certain privileges and abuses, we must not for that reason regard
them as partisans of popular government. Democracy, whose
rôle in Greek history was familiar to them, was
generally highly antipathetic to them. They were not ignorant of
the destruction and violence which are its invariable
accompaniments, and knew that in the time of Aristotle it was
already defined as “a State in which everything, even the
law, depends on the multitude set up as a tyrant and governed by
a few declamatory speakers.”
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
without them; what was a maxim is called severity; what was order
is called hindrance. Formerly the welfare of individuals
constituted the public wealth, but now the public wealth becomes
the patrimony of individuals. The republic is spoil, and its
strength is merely the power of a few citizens and the licence of
all.”
“. . . 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
situated. Little as it may be, it will make many mistakes,
because it will be composed of men. Discord will prevail there
as in a convent full of monks; but there will be no St.
Bartholomew's day, no Irish massacres, no Sicilian Vespers, no
Inquisition, no condemnation to the galleys for having taken
water from the sea without paying for it; unless we suppose this
republic to be composed of devils in a corner of hell.”
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
happiness of the early world. Ignorant of all psychology, he
believed that men were the same throughout time and space and
that they could all be ruled by the same laws and institutions.
This was then the general belief. “The vices and virtues of
the people,” wrote Helvetius, “are always a necessary
effect of its legislation. . . . How can we doubt that virtue is
in the case of all peoples the result of the wisdom, more or less
perfect, of the administration?”
There could be no greater mistake.
