4. CHAPTER IV
PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLUSIONS RESPECTING THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION
1. Illusions respecting Primitive Man, the Return to a
State of Nature, and the Psychology of the People.
WE have already repeated, and shall again repeat, that the
errors of a doctrine do not hinder its propagation, so that all
we have to consider here is its influence upon men's minds.
But although the criticism of erroneous doctrines is
seldom of practical utility, it is extremely interesting from a
psychological point of view. The philosopher who wishes to
understand the working of men's minds should always carefully
consider the illusions which they live with. Never, perhaps, in
the course of history have these illusions appeared so profound
and so numerous as during the Revolution.
One of the most prominent was the singular conception of
the nature of our first ancestors and primitive societies.
Anthropology not having as yet revealed the conditions of our
remoter forbears, men supposed, being influenced by the legends
of the Bible, that man had issued perfect from the hands of the
Creator. The first societies were models which were afterwards
ruined by civilisation, but to which mankind must
return. The return to the state of nature was very soon the
general cry. “The fundamental principle of all morality, of
which I have treated in my writings,” said Rousseau, “is
that man is a being naturally good, loving justice and
order.”
Modern science, by determining, from the surviving
remnants, the conditions of life of our first ancestors, has long
ago shown the error of this doctrine. Primitive man has become
an ignorant and ferocious brute, as ignorant as the modern savage
of goodness, morality, and pity. Governed only by his
instinctive impulses, he throws himself on his prey when hunger
drives him from his cave, and falls upon his enemy the moment he
is aroused by hatred. Reason, not being born, could have no hold
over his instincts.
The aim of civilisation, contrary to all revolutionary
beliefs, has been not to return to the state of nature but to
escape from it. It was precisely because the Jacobins led
mankind back to the primitive condition by destroying all the
social restraints without which no civilisation can exist that
they transformed a political society into a barbarian horde.
The ideas of these theorists concerning the nature of man
were about as valuable as those of a Roman general concerning the
power of omens. Yet their influence as motives of action was
considerable. The Convention was always inspired by such ideas.
The errors concerning our primitive ancestors were
excusable enough, since before modern discoveries had shown us
the real conditions of their existence these were absolutely
unknown. But the absolute ignorance of human psychology
displayed by the men of the Revolution is far less easy to
understand.
It would really seem as though the philosophers and
writers of the eighteenth century must have been totally
deficient in the smallest faculty of observation. They lived
amidst their contemporaries without seeing them and without
understanding them. Above all, they had not a suspicion of the
true nature of the popular mind. The man of the people always
appeared to them in the likeness of the chimerical model created
by their dreams. As ignorant of psychology as of the teachings
of history, they considered the plebeian man as naturally good,
affectionate, grateful, and always ready to listen to reason.
The speeches delivered by members of the Assembly show how
profound were these illusions. When the peasants began to burn
the châteaux they were greatly astonished, and
addressed them in sentimental harangues, praying them to cease,
in order not to “give pain to their good king,” and
adjured them “to surprise him by their virtues.”
2. Illusions respecting the Possibility of separating
Man from his Past and the Power of Transformation attributed to
the Law.
One of the principles which served as a foundation for the
revolutionary institutions was that man may readily be cut off
from his past, and that a society may be re-made in all its parts
by means of institutions. Persuaded in the light of reason that,
except for the primitive ages which were to serve as models, the
past represented an inheritance of errors and superstitions, the
legislators of the day resolved to break entirely with that past.
The better to
emphasise their intention, they founded a new era, transformed
the calendar, and changed the names of the months and seasons.
Supposing all men to be alike, they thought they could
legislate for the human race. Condorcet imagined that he was
expressing an evident truth when he said: “A good law must
be good for all men, just as a geometrical proposition is true
for all.”
The theorists of the Revolution never perceived, behind
the world of visible things, the secret springs which moved them.
A century of biological progress was needed to show how grievous
were their mistakes, and how wholly a being of whatever species
depends on its past.
With the influence of the past, the reformers of the
Revolution were always clashing, without ever understanding it.
They wanted to annihilate it, but were annihilated by it instead.
The faith of law-makers in the absolute power of laws and
institutions, rudely shaken by the end of the Revolution, was
absolute at its outbreak. Grégoire said from the tribune
of the Constituent Assembly, without provoking the least
astonishment: “We could if we would change religion, but we
do not want to.” We know that they did want to later, and we
know how miserably their attempt failed.
Yet the Jacobins had in their hands all the elements of
success. Thanks to the completest of tyrannies, all obstacles
were removed, and the laws which it pleased them to impose were
always accepted. After ten years of violence, of destruction and
burning and
pillage and massacre and general upheaval, their impotence was
revealed so startlingly that they fell into universal
reprobation. The dictator then invoked by the whole of France
was obliged to re-establish the greater part of that which had
been destroyed.
The attempt of the Jacobins to re-fashion society in the
name of pure reason constitutes an experiment of the highest
interest. Probably mankind will never have occasion to repeat it
on so vast a scale.
Although the lesson was a terrible one, it does not seem
to have been sufficient for a considerable class of minds, since
even in our days we hear Socialists propose to rebuild society
from top to bottom according to their chimerical plans.
3. Illusions respecting the Theoretical Value of the
great Revolutionary Principles.
The fundamental principles on which the Revolution was based
in order to create a new dispensation are contained in the
Declarations of Rights which were formulated successively in
1789, 1793, and 1795. All three Declarations agree in
proclaiming that “the principle of sovereignty resides in the
nation.”
For the rest, the three Declarations differ on several
points, notably in the matter of equality. That of 1789 simply
states (Article 1): “Men are born and remain free and having
equal rights.” That of 1793 goes farther, and assures us
(Article 3): “All men are equal by nature.” That of
1795 is more modest and says (Article 3): “Equality consists
in the law being the same for all.” Besides this, having
mentioned rights, the third Declaration
considers it useful to speak of duties. Its morality is simply
that of the Gospel. Article 2 says: “All the duties of a
man and a citizen derive from these two principles engraved on
all hearts by nature: do not do unto others that which you would
not they should do unto you; do constantly unto others the good
you would wish to receive from them.”
The essential portions of these proclamations, the only
portions which have really survived, were those relating to
equality and popular sovereignty.
Despite the weakness of its rational meaning, the part
played by the Republican device, Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity, was considerable.
This magic formula, which is still left engraven on many
of our walls until it shall be engraven on our hearts, has really
possessed the supernatural power attributed to certain words by
the old sorcerers.
Thanks to the new hopes excited by its promises, its power
of expansion was considerable. Thousands of men lost their lives
for it. Even in our days, when a revolution breaks out in any
part of the world, the same formula is always invoked.
Its choice was happy in the extreme. It belongs to the
category of indefinite dream-evoking sentences, which every one
is free to interpret according to his own desires, hatreds, and
hopes. In matters of faith the real sense of words matters very
little; it is the meaning attached to them that makes their
importance.
Of the three principles of the revolutionary device,
equality was most fruitful of consequences. We shall see in
another part of this book that it is almost the
only one which still survives, and is still productive of
effects.
It was certainly not the Revolution that introduced the
idea of equality into the world. Without going back even to the
Greek republics, we may remark that the theory of equality was
taught in the clearest fashion by Christianity and Islamism. All
men, subjects of the one God, were equal before Him, and judged
solely according to their merits. The dogma of the equality of
souls before God was an essential dogma with Mohammedans as well
as with Christians.
But to proclaim a principle is not enough to secure its
observation. The Christian Church soon renounced its theoretical
equality, and the men of the Revolution only remembered it in
their speeches.
The sense of the term “equality” varies according
to the persons using it. It often conceals sentiments very
contrary to its real sense, and then represents the imperious
need of having no one above one, joined to the no less lively
desire to feel above others. With the Jacobins of the
Revolution, as with those of our days, the word
“equality” simply involves a jealous hatred of all
superiority. To efface superiority, such men pretend to unify
manners, customs, and situations. All despotisms but that
exercised by themselves seem odious.
Not being able to avoid the natural inequalities, they
deny them. The second Declaration of Rights, that of 1793,
affirms, contrary to the evidence, that “all men are equal by
nature.”
It would seem that in many of the men of the
Revolution the ardent desire for equality merely concealed an
intense need of inequalities. Napoleon was obliged to re-establish titles of nobility and decorations for their benefit.
Having shown that it was among the most rabid revolutionists that
he found the most docile instruments of domination, Taine
continues:—
“Suddenly, through all their preaching of liberty and
equality, appeared their authoritative instincts, their need of
commanding, even as subordinates, and also, in most cases, an
appetite for money or for pleasure. Between the delegate of the
Committee of Public Safety and the minister, prefect, or sub-prefect of the Empire the difference is small: it is the same man
under the two costumes, first en carmagnole, then in the
braided coat.”
The dogma of equality had as its first consequence the
proclamation of popular sovereignty by the bourgeoisie.
This sovereignty remained otherwise highly theoretical during the
whole Revolution.
The principle of authority was the lasting legacy of the
Revolution. The two terms “liberty” and
“fraternity” which accompany it in the republican device
had never much influence. We may even say that they had none
during the Revolution and the Empire, but merely served to
decorate men's speeches.
Their influence was hardly more considerable later.
Fraternity was never practised and the peoples have never cared
much for liberty. To-day our working-men have completely
surrendered it to their unions.
To sum up: although the Republican motto has
been little applied it has exerted a very great influence. Of
the French Revolution practically nothing has remained in the
popular mind but the three celebrated words which sum up its
gospel, and which its armies spread over Europe.
