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.”
