Chapter VII: Part 7

"In an uncultivated island, which _you_ are colonizing with
children, it will only be needful to let the germs of truth expand
in the developments of reason! But when _you_ establish old people
in a new country, the skill consists in _only allowing it_ those
injurious opinions and customs which it is impossible to cure and
correct. If _you_ wish to prevent them from being perpetuated, you
will act upon the rising generation by a general and public
education of the children. A prince, or legislator, ought never to
found a colony without previously sending wise men there to
instruct the youth.... In a new colony, every facility is open to
the precautions of the legislator who desires _to purify the tone
and the manners of the people_. If he has genius and virtue, the
lands and the men which are _at his disposal_ will inspire his soul
with a plan of society which a writer can only vaguely trace, and
in a way which would be subject to the instability of all
hypotheses, which are varied and complicated by an infinity of
circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."

One would think it was a professor of agriculture who was saying to his pupils--"The climate is the only rule for the agriculturist. _His_ resources dictate to him his duties. The first thing he has to consider is his local position. If he is on a clayey soil, he must do so and so. If he has to contend with sand, this is the way in which he must set about it. Every facility is open to the agriculturist who wishes to clear and improve his soil. If he only has the skill, the manure which he has _at his disposal_ will suggest to him a plan of operation, which a professor can only vaguely trace, and in a way that would be subject to the uncertainty of all hypotheses, which vary and are complicated by an infinity of circumstances too difficult to foresee and to combine."

But, oh! sublime writers, deign to remember sometimes that this clay, this sand, this manure, of which you are disposing in so arbitrary a manner, are men, your equals, intelligent and free beings like yourselves, who have received from God, as you have, the faculty of seeing, of foreseeing, of thinking, and of judging for themselves!

_Mably_. (He is supposing the laws to be worn out by time and by the neglect of security, and continues thus):--

"Under these circumstances, we must be convinced that the springs
of Government are relaxed. _Give them_ a new tension (it is the
reader who is addressed), and the evil will be remedied.... Think
lees of punishing the faults than of encouraging the virtues _which
you want_. By this method you will bestow upon _your republic_ the
vigour of youth. Through ignorance of this, a free people has lost
its liberty! But if the evil has made so much way that the ordinary
magistrates are unable to remedy it effectually, _have recourse_ to
an extraordinary magistracy, whose time should be short, and its
power considerable. The imagination of the citizens requires to be
impressed."

In this style he goes on through twenty volumes.

There was a time when, under the influence of teaching like this, which is the root of classical education, every one was for placing himself beyond and above mankind, for the sake of arranging, organising, and instituting it in his own way.

_Condillac_.--"Take upon yourself, my lord, the character of
Lycurgus or of Solon. Before you finish reading this essay, amuse
yourself with giving laws to some wild people in America or in
Africa. Establish these roving men in fixed dwellings; teach them
to keep flocks.... Endeavour to develop the social qualities which
nature has implanted in them.... Make them begin to practise the
duties of humanity.... Cause the pleasures of the passions to
become distasteful to them by punishments, and you will see these
barbarians, with every plan of your legislation, lose a vice and
gain a virtue.

"All these people have had laws. But few among them have been
happy. Why is this? Because legislators have almost always been
ignorant of the object of society, which is, to unite families by a
common interest.

"Impartiality in law consists in two things:--in establishing
equality in the fortunes and in the dignity of the citizens.... In
proportion to the degree of equality established by the laws, the
dearer will they become to every citizen.... How can avarice,
ambition, dissipation, idleness, sloth, envy, hatred, or jealousy,
agitate men who are equal in fortune and dignity, and to whom the
laws leave no hope of disturbing their equality?

"What has been told you of the republic of Sparta ought to
enlighten you on this question. No other State has had laws more in
accordance with the order of nature or of equality."

It is not to be wondered at that the 17th and 18th centuries should have looked upon the human race as inert matter, ready to receive everything, form, figure, impulse, movement, and life, from a great prince, or a great legislator, or a great genius. These ages were reared in the study of antiquity, and antiquity presents everywhere, in Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome, the spectacle of a few men moulding mankind according to their fancy, and mankind to this end enslaved by force or by imposture. And what does this prove? That because men and society are improvable, error, ignorance, despotism, slavery, and superstition must be more prevalent in early times. The mistake of the writers quoted above, is not that they have asserted this fact, but that they have proposed it, as a rule, for the admiration and imitation of future generations. Their mistake has been, with an inconceivable absence of discernment, and upon the faith of a puerile conventionalism, that they have admitted what is inadmissible, viz., the grandeur, dignity, morality, and well-being of the artificial societies of the ancient world; they have not understood that time produces and spreads enlightenment; and that in proportion to the increase of enlightenment, right ceases to be upheld by force, and society regains possession of herself.

And, in fact, what is the political work which we are endeavouring to promote? It is no other than the instinctive effort of every people towards liberty. And what is liberty, whose name can make every heart beat, and which can agitate the world, but the union of all liberties, the liberty of conscience, of instruction, of association, of the press, of locomotion, of labour, and of exchange; in other words, the free exercise, for all, of all the inoffensive faculties; and again, in other words, the destruction of all despotisms, even of legal despotism, and the reduction of law to its only rational sphere, which is to regulate the individual right of legitimate defence, or to repress injustice?

This tendency of the human race, it must be admitted, is greatly thwarted, particularly in our country, by the fatal disposition, resulting from classical teaching, and common to all politicians, of placing themselves beyond mankind, to arrange, organise, and regulate it, according to their fancy.

For whilst society is struggling to realise liberty, the great men who place themselves at its head, imbued with the principles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, think only of subjecting it to the philanthropic despotism of their social inventions, and making it bear with docility, according to the expression of Rousseau, the yoke of public felicity, as pictured in their own imaginations.

This was particularly the case in 1789. No sooner was the old system destroyed, than society was to be submitted to other artificial arrangements, always with the same starting-point--the omnipotence of the law.

_Saint Just_.--"The legislator commands the future. It is for him
to _will_ for the good of mankind. It is for him to make men what
he wishes them to be."

_Robespierre_.--"The function of Government is to direct the
physical and moral powers of the nation towards the object of its
institution."

_Billaud Varennes_.--"A people who are to be restored to liberty
must be formed anew. Ancient prejudices must be destroyed,
antiquated customs changed, depraved affections corrected,
inveterate vices eradicated. For this, a strong force and a
vehement impulse will be necessary.... Citizens, the inflexible
austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis of the Spartan
republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Solon plunged
Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the whole science of
Government."

_Lepelletier._--"Considering the extent of human degradation, I am
convinced of the necessity of effecting an entire regeneration of
the race, and, if I may so express myself, of creating a new
people."

Men, therefore, are nothing but raw material. It is not for them to _will their own improvement_. They are not capable of it; according to Saint Just, it is only the legislator who is. Men are merely to be what he _wills_ that they should be. According to Robespierre, who copies Rousseau literally, the legislator is to begin by assigning the aim of the _institutions of the nation_. After this, the Government has only to direct all its _physical_ and _moral forces_ towards this end. All this time the nation itself is to remain perfectly passive; and Billaud Varennes would teach us that it ought to have no prejudices, affections, nor wants, but such as are authorised by the legislator. He even goes so far as to say that the inflexible austerity of a man is the basis of a republic.

We have seen that, in cases where the evil is so great that the ordinary magistrates are unable to remedy it, Mably recommends a dictatorship, to promote virtue. "_Have recourse_," says he, "to an extraordinary magistracy, whose time shall be short, and his power considerable. The imagination of the people requires to be impressed." This doctrine has not been neglected. Listen to Robespierre:--

"The principle of the Republican Government is virtue, and the
means to be adopted, during its establishment, is terror. We want
to substitute, in our country, morality for egotism, probity for
honour, principles for customs, duties for decorum, the empire of
reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of
misfortune, pride for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity,
love of glory for love of money, good people for good company,
merit for intrigue, genius for wit, truth for glitter, the charm of
happiness for the weariness of pleasure, the greatness of man for
the littleness of the great, a magnanimous, powerful, happy people,
for one that is easy, frivolous, degraded; that is to say, we would
substitute all the virtues and miracles of a republic for all the
vices and absurdities of monarchy."

At what a vast height above the rest of mankind does Robespierre place himself here! And observe the arrogance with which he speaks. He is not content with expressing a desire for a great renovation of the human heart, he does not even expect such a result from a regular Government. No; he intends to effect it himself, and by means of terror. The object of the discourse from which this puerile and laborious mass of antithesis is extracted, was to exhibit the _principles of morality which ought to direct a revolutionary Government_. Moreover, when Robespierre asks for a dictatorship, it is not merely for the purpose of repelling a foreign enemy, or of putting down factions; it is that he may establish, by means of terror, and as a preliminary to the game of the Constitution, his own principles of morality. He pretends to nothing short of extirpating from the country, by means of terror, _egotism, honour, customs, decorum, fashion, vanity, the love of money, good company, intrigue, wit, luxury, and misery_. It is not until after he, Robespierre, shall have accomplished these _miracles_, as he rightly calls them, that he will allow the law to regain her empire. Truly, it would be well if these visionaries, who think so much of themselves and so little of mankind, who want to renew everything, would only be content with trying to reform themselves, the task would be arduous enough for them. In general, however, these gentlemen, the reformers, legislators, and politicians, do not desire to exercise an immediate despotism over mankind. No, they are too moderate and too philanthropic for that. They only contend for the despotism, the absolutism, the omnipotence of the law. They aspire only to make the law.

To show how universal this strange disposition has been in France, I had need not only to have copied the whole of the works of Mably, Raynal, Rousseau, Fenelon, and to have made long extracts from Bossuet and Montesquieu, but to have given the entire transactions of the sittings of the Convention, I shall do no such thing, however, but merely refer the reader to them.

It is not to be wondered at that this idea should have suited Buonaparte exceedingly well. He embraced it with ardour, and put it in practice with energy. Playing the part of a chemist, Europe was to him the material for his experiments. But this material reacted against him. More than half undeceived, Buonaparte, at St. Helena, seemed to admit that there is an initiative in every people, and he became less hostile to liberty. Yet this did not prevent him from giving this lesson to his son in his will:--"To govern, is to diffuse morality, education, and well-being."

After all this, I hardly need show, by fastidious quotations, the opinions of Morelly, Babeuf, Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier. I shall confine myself to a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the organisation of labour.

"In our project, society receives the impulse of power." (Page 126.)

In what does the impulse which power gives to society consist? In imposing upon it the _project_ of M. Louis Blanc.

On the other hand, society is the human race. The human race, then, is to receive its impulse from M. Louis Blanc.

It is at liberty to do so or not, it will be said. Of course the human race is at liberty to take advice from anybody, whoever it may be. But this is not the way in which M. Louis Blanc understands the thing. He means that his project should be converted into _law_, and, consequently, forcibly imposed by power.

"In our project, the State has only to give a legislation to
labour, by means of which the industrial movement may and ought to
be accomplished _in all liberty_. It (the State) merely places
society on an incline (_that is all_) that it may descend, when
once it is placed there, by the mere force of things, and by the
natural course of the _established mechanism_."

But what is this incline? One indicated by M. Louis Blanc. Does it not lead to an abyss? No, it leads to happiness. Why, then, does not society go there of itself? Because it does not know what it wants, and it requires an impulse. What is to give it this impulse? Power. And who is to give the impulse to power? The inventor of the machine, M. Louis Blanc.

We shall never get out of this circle--mankind passive, and a great man moving it by the intervention of the law.

Once on this incline, will society enjoy something like liberty? Without a doubt. And what is liberty?

"Once for all: liberty consists, not only in the right granted, but
in the power given to man, to exercise, to develop his faculties
under the empire of justice, and under the protection of the law.

"And this is no vain distinction; there is a deep meaning in it,
and its consequences are not to be estimated. For when once it is
admitted that man, to be truly free, must have the power to
exercise and develop his faculties, it follows that every member of
society has a claim upon it for such instruction as shall _enable_
it to display itself, and for the instruments of labour, without
which human activity can find no scope. Now, by whose intervention
is society to give to each of its members the requisite instruction
and the necessary instruments of labour, unless by that of the
State?"

Thus, liberty is power. In what does this power consist? In possessing instruction and instruments of labour. Who is to give instruction and instruments of labour? Society, _who owes them_. By whose intervention is society to give instruments of labour to those who do not possess them?

By the _intervention of the State_. From whom is the State to obtain them?

It is for the reader to answer this question, and to notice whither all this tends.

One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one which will probably be a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which is founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness of mankind,--the omnipotence of the law,--the infallibility of the legislator:--this is the sacred symbol of the party which proclaims itself exclusively democratic.

It is true that it professes also to be _social_.

So far as it is democratic, it, has an unlimited faith in mankind.

So far as it is social, it places it beneath the mud.

Are political rights under discussion? Is a legislator to be chosen? Oh! then the people possess science by instinct: they are gifted with an admirable tact; _their will is always right_; the general _will cannot err_. Suffrage cannot be too _universal_. Nobody is under any responsibility to society. The will and the capacity to choose well are taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an age of enlightenment? What! are the people to be always kept in leading strings? Have they not acquired their rights at the cost of effort and sacrifice? Have they not given sufficient proof of intelligence and wisdom? Are they not arrived at maturity? Are they not in a state to judge for themselves? Do they not know their own interest? Is there a man or a class who would dare to claim the right of putting himself in the place of the people, of deciding and of acting for them? No, no; the people would be _free_, and they shall be so. They wish to conduct their own affairs, and they shall do so.

But when once the legislator is duly elected, then indeed the style of his speech alters. The nation is sent back into passiveness, inertness, nothingness, and the legislator takes possession of omnipotence. It is for him to invent, for him to direct, for him to impel, for him to organise. Mankind has nothing to do but to submit; the hour of despotism has struck. And we must observe that this is decisive; for the people, just before so enlightened, so moral, so perfect, have no inclinations at all, or, if they have any, they all lead them downwards towards degradation. And yet they ought to have a little liberty! But are we not assured, by M. Considerant, that _liberty leads fatally to monopoly_? Are we not told that liberty is competition? and that competition, according to M. Louis Blanc, _is a system of extermination for the people, and of ruination for trade_? For that reason people are exterminated and ruined in proportion as they are free--take, for example, Switzerland, Holland, England, and the United States? Does not M. Louis Blanc tell us again, that _competition leads to monopoly, and that, for the same reason, cheapness leads to exorbitant prices? That competition tends to drain the sources of consumption, and urges production to a destructive activity? That competition forces production to increase, and consumption to decrease_;--whence it follows that free people produce for the sake of not consuming; that there is nothing but _oppression and madness_ among them; and that it is absolutely necessary for M. Louis Blanc to see to it?

What sort of liberty should be allowed to men? Liberty of conscience?--But we should see them all profiting by the permission to become atheists. Liberty of education?--But parents would be paying professors to teach their sons immorality and error; besides, if we are to believe M. Thiers, education, if left to the national liberty, would cease to be national, and we should be educating our children in the ideas of the Turks or Hindoos, instead of which, thanks to the legal despotism of the universities, they have the good fortune to be educated in the noble ideas of the Romans. Liberty of labour?--But this is only competition, whose effect is to leave all productions unconsumed, to exterminate the people, and to ruin the tradesmen. The liberty of exchange?--But it is well known that the protectionists have shown, over and over again, that a man must be ruined when he exchanges freely, and that to become rich it is necessary to exchange without liberty. Liberty of association?--But, according to the socialist doctrine, liberty and association exclude each other, for the liberty of men is attacked just to force them to associate.

You must see, then, that the socialist democrats cannot in conscience allow men any liberty, because, by their own nature, they tend in every instance to all kinds of degradation and demoralisation.

We are therefore left to conjecture, in this case, upon what foundation universal suffrage is claimed for them with so much importunity.

The pretensions of organisers suggest another question, which I have often asked them, and to which I am not aware that I ever received an answer:--Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies of organisers are always good? Do not the legislators and their agents form a part of the human race? Do they consider that they are composed of different materials from the rest of mankind? They say that society, when left to itself, rushes to inevitable destruction, because its instincts are perverse. They pretend, to stop it in its downward course, and to give it a better direction. They have, therefore, received from heaven, intelligence and virtues which place them beyond and above mankind: let them show their title to this superiority. They would be our shepherds, and we are to be their flock. This arrangement presupposes in them a natural superiority, the right to which we are fully justified in calling upon them to prove.

You must observe that I am not contending against their right to invent social combinations, to propagate them, to recommend them, and to try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk; but I do dispute their right to impose them upon us through the medium of the law, that is, by force and by public taxes.

I would not insist upon the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the Proudhonians, the Universitaries, and the Protectionists renouncing their own particular ideas; I would only have them renounce that idea which is common to them all,--viz., that of subjecting us by force to their own groups and series to their social workshops, to their gratuitous bank to their Græco-Romano morality, and to their commercial restrictions. I would ask them to allow us the faculty of judging of their plans, and not to oblige us to adopt them, if we find that they hurt our interests or are repugnant to our consciences.

To presume to have recourse to power and taxation, besides being oppressive and unjust, implies further, the injurious supposition that the organiser is infallible, and mankind incompetent.

And if mankind is not competent to judge for itself, why do they talk so much about universal suffrage?

This contradiction in ideas is unhappily to be found also in facts; and whilst the French nation has preceded all others in obtaining its rights, or rather its political claims, this has by no means prevented it from being more governed, and directed, and imposed upon, and fettered, and cheated, than any other nation. It is also the one, of all others, where revolutions are constantly to be dreaded, and it is perfectly natural that it should be so.

So long as this idea is retained, which is admitted by all our politicians, and so energetically expressed by M. Louis Blanc in these words--"Society receives its impulse from power;" so long as men consider themselves as capable of feeling, yet passive--incapable of raising themselves by their own discernment and by their own energy to any morality, or well-being, and while they expect everything from the law; in a word, while they admit that their relations with the State are the same as those of the flock with the shepherd, it is clear that the responsibility of power is immense. Fortune and misfortune, wealth and destitution, equality and inequality, all proceed from it. It is charged with everything, it undertakes everything, it does everything; therefore it has to answer for everything. If we are happy, it has a right to claim our gratitude; but if we are miserable, it alone must bear the blame. Are not our persons and property, in fact, at its disposal? Is not the law omnipotent? In creating the universitary monopoly, it has engaged to answer the expectations of fathers of families who have been deprived of liberty; and if these expectations are disappointed, whose fault is it? In regulating industry, it has engaged to make it prosper, otherwise it would have been absurd to deprive it of its liberty; and if it suffers, whose fault is it? In pretending to adjust the balance of commerce by the game of tariffs, it engages to make it prosper; and if, so far from prospering, it is destroyed, whose fault is it? In granting its protection to maritime armaments in exchange for their liberty, it has engaged to render them lucrative; if they become burdensome, whose fault is it?

Thus, there is not a grievance in the nation for which the Government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it to be wondered at that every failure threatens to cause a revolution?

And what is the remedy proposed? To extend indefinitely the dominion of the law, _i.e._, the responsibility of Government. But if the Government engages to raise and to regulate wages, and is not able to do it; if it engages to assist all those who are in want, and is not able to do it; if it engages to provide an asylum for every labourer, and is not able to do it; if it engages to offer to all such as are eager to borrow, gratuitous credit, and is not able to do it; if, in words which we regret should have escaped the pen of M. de Lamartine, "the State considers that its mission is to enlighten, to develop, to enlarge, to strengthen, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the people,"--if it fails in this, is it not evident that after every disappointment, which, alas! is more than probable, there will be a no less inevitable revolution?

I shall now resume the subject by remarking, that immediately after the economical part[10] of the question, and at the entrance of the political part, a leading question presents itself? It is the following:--

What is law? What ought it to be? What is its domain? What are its limits? Where, in fact, does the prerogative of the legislator stop?

I have no hesitation in answering, _Law is common force organised to prevent injustice_;--in short, Law is Justice.

It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them from injury.

It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things.

Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have as its lawful domain the domain of force, which is justice.

And as every individual has a right to have recourse to force only in cases of lawful defence, so collective force, which is only the union of individual forces, cannot be rationally used for any other end.

The law, then, is solely the organisation of individual rights, which existed before legitimate defence.

Law is justice.

So far from being able to oppress the persons of the people, or to plunder their property, even for a philanthropic end, its mission is to protect the former, and to secure to them the possession of the latter.

It must not be said, either, that it may be philanthropic, so long as it abstains from all oppression; for this is a contradiction. The law cannot avoid acting upon our persons and property; if it does not secure them, it violates them if it touches them.

The law is justice.

Nothing can be more clear and simple, more perfectly defined and bounded, or more visible to every eye; for justice is a given quantity, immutable and unchangeable, and which admits of neither _increase_ or _diminution_.

Depart from this point, make the law religious, fraternal, equalising, industrial, literary, or artistic, and you will be lost in vagueness and uncertainty; you will be upon unknown ground, in a forced Utopia, or, which is worse, in the midst of a multitude of Utopias, striving to gain possession of the law, and to impose it upon you; for fraternity and philanthropy have no fixed limits, like justice. Where will you stop? Where is the law to stop? One person, as M. de Saint Cricq, will only extend his philanthropy to some of the industrial classes, and will require the law to _dispose of the consumers in favour of the producers_. Another, like M. Considerant, will take up the cause of the working classes, and claim for them by means of the law, at a fixed rate, _clothing, lodging, food, and everything necessary for the support of life_. A third, as, M. Louis Blanc, will say, and with reason, that this would be an incomplete fraternity, and that the law ought to provide them with instruments of labour and the means of instruction. A fourth will observe that such an arrangement still leaves room for inequality, and that the law ought to introduce into the most remote hamlets luxury, literature, and the arts. This is the high road to communism; in other words, legislation will be--what it now is--the battle-field for everybody's dreams and everybody's covetousness.

Law is justice.

In this proposition we represent to ourselves a simple, immovable Government. And I defy any one to tell me whence the thought of a revolution, an insurrection, or a simple disturbance could arise against a public force confined to the repression of injustice. Under such a system, there would be more well-being, and this well-being would be more equally distributed; and as to the sufferings inseparable from humanity, no one would think of accusing the Government of them, for it would be as innocent of them as it is of the variations of the temperature. Have the people ever been known to rise against the court of repeals, or assail the justices of the peace, for the sake of claiming the rate of wages, gratuitous credit, instruments of labour, the advantages of the tariff, or the social workshop? They know perfectly well that these combinations are beyond the jurisdiction of the justices of the peace, and they would soon learn that they are not within the jurisdiction of the law.

But if the law were to be made upon the principle of fraternity, if it were to be proclaimed that from it proceed all benefits and all evils--that it is responsible for every individual grievance and for every social inequality--then you open the door to an endless succession of complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions.

Law is justice.

And it would be very strange if it could properly be anything else! Is not justice right? Are not rights equal? With what show of right can the law interfere to subject me to the social plans of MM. Mimerel, de Melun, Thiers, or Louis Blanc, rather than to subject these gentlemen to _my_ plans? Is it to be supposed that Nature has not bestowed upon ME sufficient imagination to invent a Utopia too? Is it for the law to make choice of one amongst so many fancies, and to make use of the public force in its service?

Law is justice.

And let it not be said, as it continually is, that the law, in this sense, would be atheistic, individual, and heartless, and that it would make mankind wear its own image. This is an absurd conclusion, quite worthy of the governmental infatuation which sees mankind in the law.

What then? Does it follow that, if we are free, we shall cease to act? Does it follow, that if we do not receive an impulse from the law, we shall receive no impulse at all? Does it follow, that if the law confines itself to securing to us the free exercise of our faculties, our faculties will be paralyzed? Does it follow, that if the law does not impose upon us forms of religion, modes of association, methods of instruction, rules for labour, directions for exchange, and plans for charity, we shall plunge eagerly into atheism, isolation, ignorance, misery, and egotism? Does it follow, that we shall no longer recognise the power and goodness of God; that we shall cease to associate together, to help each other, to love and assist our unfortunate brethren, to study the secrets of nature, and to aspire after perfection in our existence?

Law is justice.

And it is under the law of justice, under the reign of right, under the influence of liberty, security, stability, and responsibility, that every man will attain to the measure of his worth, to all the dignity of his being, and that mankind will accomplish, with order and with calmness--slowly, it is true, but with certainty--the progress decreed to it.

I believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon which I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political, or economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, property, labour, exchange, capital, wages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point of the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same thing--the solution of the social problem is in liberty.

And have I not experience on my side? Cast your eye over the globe. Which are the happiest, the most moral, and the most peaceable nations? Those where the law interferes the least with private activity; where the Government is the least felt; where individuality has the most scope, and public opinion the most influence; where the machinery of the administration is the least important and the least complicated; where taxation is lightest and least unequal, popular discontent the least excited and the least justifiable; where the responsibility of individuals and classes is the most active, and where, consequently, if morals are not in a perfect state, at any rate they tend incessantly to correct themselves; where transactions, meetings, and associations are the least fettered; where labour, capital, and production suffer the least from artificial displacements; where mankind follows most completely its own natural course; where the thought of God prevails the most over the inventions of men; those, in short, who realise the most nearly this idea--That within the limits of right, all should flow from the free, perfectible, and voluntary action of man; nothing be attempted by the law or by force, except the administration of universal justice.

I cannot avoid coming to this conclusion--that there are too many great men in the world; there are too many legislators, organisers, institutors of society, conductors of the people, fathers of nations, &c., &c. Too many persons place themselves above mankind, to rule and patronize it; too many persons make a trade of attending to it. It will be answered:--"You yourself are occupied upon it all this time." Very true. But it must be admitted that it is in another sense entirely that I am speaking; and if I join the reformers it is solely for the purpose of inducing them to relax their hold.

I am not doing as Vaucauson did with his automaton, but as a physiologist does with the organisation of the human frame; I would study and admire it.

I am acting with regard to it in the spirit which animated a celebrated traveller. He found himself in the midst of a savage tribe. A child had just been born, and a crowd of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks were around it, armed with rings, hooks, and bandages. One said--"This child will never smell the perfume of a calumet, unless I stretch his nostrils." Another said--"He will be without the sense of hearing, unless I draw his ears down to his shoulders." A third said--"He will never see the light of the sun, unless I give his eyes an oblique direction." A fourth said--"He will never be upright, unless I bend his legs." A fifth said--"He will not be able to think, unless I press his brain." "Stop!" said the traveller. "Whatever God does, is well done; do not pretend to know more than He; and as He has given organs to this frail creature, allow those organs to develop themselves, to strengthen themselves by exercise, use, experience, and liberty."

God has implanted in mankind, also, all that is necessary to enable it to accomplish its destinies. There is a providential social physiology, as well as a providential human physiology. The social organs are constituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organisers! Away with their rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social workshops, their governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their State religions, their gratuitous or monopolising banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralisations, and their equalisation by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to have begun--reject all systems, and make trial of liberty--of liberty, which is an act of faith in God and in His work.

Footnotes

[1] A franc is 10d. of our money.

[2] This error will be combated in a pamphlet, entitled "_Cursed Money_."

[3] Common people.

[4] The Minister of War has lately asserted that every individual transported to Algeria has cost the State 8,000 francs. Now it is certain that these poor creatures could have lived very well in France on a capital of 4,000 francs. I ask, how the French population is relieved, when it is deprived of a man, and of the means of subsistence of two men?

[5] This was written in 1849.

[6] Twenty francs.

[7] General Council of Manufactures, Agriculture, and Commerce, 6th. of May, 1850.

[8] The French word is _spoliation_.

[9] If protection were only granted in France to a single class, to the engineers, for instance, it would be so absurdly plundering, as to be unable to maintain itself. Thus we see all the protected trades combine, make common cause, and even recruit themselves in such a way as to appear to embrace the mass of the _national labour_. They feel instinctively that plunder is slurred ever by being generalised.

[10] Political economy precedes politics: the former has to discover whether human interests are harmonious or antagonistic, a fact which must have been decided upon before the latter can determine the prerogatives of Government.

End of Project Gutenberg's Essays on Political Economy, by Frederic Bastiat