Chapter XX: Responsibility

[105] . . . . . because I believe that it is under the direction of a superior impulse, because, Providence being unable to act in the social order except through the intervention of men’s interests and men’s wills, it is impossible that the natural resulting force of these interests, the common tendency of these wills, should be towards ultimate evil; for then we must conclude that it is not only man, or the human race, which proceeds onward towards error; but that God himself, being powerless or malevolent, urges on to evil His abortive creation. We believe, then, in liberty, because we believe in universal harmony, because we believe in God. Proclaiming in the name of faith, and formulating in the name of science, the Divine laws of the moral movement, living and pliant as these laws are, we spurn the narrow, sinister, unbending, and unalterable institutions which the blind leaders of the ignorant would substitute for this admirable mechanism. It would be absurd in the atheist to say, ‹laissez faire le hasard!›—seek not to control chance, or blind destiny. But, as believers, we have a right to say, seek not to control the order and justice of God—seek not to control the free action of the sovereign and infallible mover of all, or of that machinery of transmission which we call the human initiative. Liberty thus understood is no longer the anarchical deification of individualism. What we adore is above and beyond man who struggles; it is God who leads him.

We acknowledge, indeed, that man may err; yes, by the whole interval which separates a truth realized and established from one which is merely guessed at or suspected. But since man’s nature is to seek, his destiny is to find. Truth, be it observed, has harmonious relations, necessary affinities, not only with the constitution of the understanding and the instincts of the heart, but also with the whole physical and moral conditions of our existence; so that even when we fail to grasp it as ‹absolute truth›, even when it fails to recommend itself to our innate sympathies as ‹just›, or to our ideal aspirations as ‹beautiful›, it, nevertheless, at length contrives to find acceptance in its practical and unobjectionable aspect as ‹useful›.

Liberty, we know, may lead to evil. But evil has itself its mission. Assuredly God has not thrown it across our path as a stumbling-block. He has placed it, as it were, on each side of that path as a warning,—as a means of keeping us in the right road, or bringing us back to it.

Man’s will and inclinations, like inert molecules, have their law of gravitation. But, whilst things inanimate obey blindly their pre-existent and inevitable tendencies, in the case of beings indued with free will, the force of attraction and repulsion does not precede action; it springs from the voluntary determination which it seems to be waiting for, it is developed by the very act itself, and it reacts for or against the agent, by a progressive exertion of co-operation or resistance, which we term recompense or chastisement, pleasure or pain. If the direction of the will coincides with that of the general laws, if the act is ‹good›, happiness is the result. If it takes an opposite direction, if it is ‹bad›, something opposes or repels it; error gives rise to suffering, which is its remedy and its end. Thus, Evil is constantly opposed by Evil, and Good as constantly gives rise to Good. And we venture to say that, when seen from a higher point of view, the errors of free will are limited to certain oscillations, of a determinate extent, around a superior and necessary orbit; all persistent resistance, which would force this limit, tending only to destroy itself, without at all succeeding in disturbing the order of the sphere in which it moves.

This reactive force of co-operation or repulsion, which, by means of recompense and suffering, governs the orbit, at once voluntary and necessary, of the human race, this ‹law of gravitation of free beings› (of which Evil is only a necessary part) is distinguished by the terms Responsibility and Solidarity; the one brings back upon the individual; the other reflects and sends back on the social body the good or bad consequences of the act; the one applies to man as a solitary and self-governing individual; the other envelops him in an inevitable community of good and evil as a partial element, a dependent member, of a collective and imperishable being—man. ‹Responsibility› is the sanction of individual liberty, the foundation of the ‹rights› of man. ‹Solidarity› is the evidence of his social subordination, and his principle of duty. . . .

[‹A leaf of Bastiat’s MS. being awanting, I hope to be pardoned for thus endeavouring to continue the idea of this religious introduction.›]—R. F.

[106] Religion (‹religare›, to bind), that which connects the present life with the future, the living with the dead, time with eternity, the finite with the infinite, man with God.

[107] May we not say that Divine Justice, which is so incomprehensible when we consider the lot of individuals, becomes striking when we reflect on the destinies of nations? Each man’s life is a drama which is begun on one theatre and completed on another. But the same thing cannot be said of the life of nations. That instructive tragedy begins and ends upon earth. This is the reason why history becomes a holy lesson; it is the justice of Providence.—«De Custine’s» ‹La Russie›.

[108] Allusion to Socialist Utopias of the day.—«Translator.»

[109] “As to the doctrine of necessity, no one believes it. If a man should give me arguments that I do not see, though I could not answer them, should I believe that I do not see? . . . . All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it. . . . . I ‹know› that I am free, and there’s an end on’t.” (‹Dr Johnson.›)—«Translator.»

[110] “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. . . . In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”—‹Gen.› iii. 17, 18, 19.

[111] The interesting developments which the author intended to present here by way of illustrations, and of which he indicated beforehand the character, he unfortunately did not live to write. The reader may supply the want by referring to chapter xvi. of this work, and likewise to chapters vii. and xi. of Bastiat’s pamphlet, ‹Ce qu’on voit et Ce qu’on ne voit pas›.—«Note of the Editor.»

[112] “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.”—‹Romans› ii. 14, 15. See also ‹Bishop Butler’s 3d Sermon, on Human Nature›: “Nothing,” says he, “can be more evident than that, ‹exclusive of revelation›, man cannot be considered as a creature left by his Maker to act at random, and live at large up to the extent of his natural power, as passion, humour, wilfulness, happen to carry him; which is the condition brute creatures are in. But that, ‹from his make, constitution, or nature, he is in the strictest and most proper sense a law to himself›. He hath the rule of right within. What is wanting is only that he honestly attend to it.”—«Butler’s» ‹Works›, vol. ii. p. 65.—«Translator.»

[113] The conclusion of this chapter is little more than a series of notes thrown together, without transitions or developments.—«Editor.»