Chapter III: The Social Contract (3)

We complete the estimate of the positive worth and tendencies of the Social Contract by adding to this, which was for the time the cardinal service, of rekindling the fire of patriotism, the rapid deduction from the doctrine of the sovereignty of peoples of the great truth, that a nation with a civilised polity does not consist of an order or a caste, but of the great body of its members, the army of toilers who make the most painful of the sacrifices that are needed for the continuous nutrition of the social organisation. As Condorcet put it, and he drew inspiration partly from the intellectual school of Voltaire, and partly from the social school of Rousseau, all institutions ought to have for their aim the physical, intellectual, and moral amelioration of the poorest and most numerous class.[272] This is the People. Second, there gradually followed from the important place given by Rousseau to the idea of equal association, as at once the foundation and the enduring bond of a community, those schemes of Mutualism, and all the other shapes of collective action for a common social good, which have possessed such commanding attraction for the imagination of large classes of good men in France ever since. Hitherto these forms have been sterile and deceptive, and they must remain so, until the idea of special function has been raised to an equal level of importance with that of united forces working together to a single end.

In these ways the author of the Social Contract did involuntarily and unconsciously contribute to the growth of those new and progressive ideas, in which for his own part he lacked all faith. Præ-Newtonians knew not the wonders of which Newton was to find the key; and so we, grown weary of waiting for the master intelligence who may effect the final combination of moral and scientific ideas needed for a new social era, may be inclined to lend a half-complacent ear to the arid sophisters who assume that the last word of civilisation has been heard in existing arrangements. But we may perhaps take courage from history to hope that generations will come, to whom our system of distributing among a few the privileges and delights that are procured by the toil of the many, will seem just as wasteful, as morally hideous, and as scientifically indefensible, as that older system which impoverished and depopulated empires, in order that a despot or a caste might have no least wish ungratified, for which the lives or the hard-won treasure of others could suffice.

FOOTNOTES:

[176] _Cont. Soc._, I. viii.

[177] _Cont. Soc._, II. xi. He had written in much the same sense in his article on Political Economy in the Encyclopædia, p. 34.

[178] Robespierre disclaimed the intention of attacking property, and took up a position like that of Rousseau--teaching the poor contempt for the rich, not envy. "I do not want to touch your treasures," he cried, on one occasion, "however impure their source. It is far more an object of concern to me to make poverty honourable, than to proscribe wealth; the thatched hut of Fabricius never need envy the palace of Crassus. I should be at least as content, for my own part, to be one of the sons of Aristides, brought up in the Prytaneium at the public expense, as the heir presumptive of Xerxes, born in the mire of royal courts, to sit on a throne decorated by the abasement of the people, and glittering with the public misery." Quoted in Malon's _Exposé des Ecoles Socialistes françaises_, 15. Baboeuf carried Rousseau's sentiments further towards their natural conclusion by such propositions as these: "The goal of the revolution is to destroy inequality, and to re-establish the happiness of all." "The revolution is not finished, because the rich absorb all the property, and hold exclusive power; while the poor toil like born slaves, languish in wretchedness, and are nothing in the state." _Exposé des Ecoles Socialistes françaises_, p. 29.

[179] _Cont. Soc._, II. xi.

[180] _Cont. Soc._, I. iv.

[181] _Ib._, II. vii.

[182] Ch. vi. (vol. v. 371; edit. 1801).

[183] Ch. vii. (p. 383.)

[184] Goguet, in his _Origine des Lois, des Arts, et des Sciences_ (1758), really attempted as laboriously as possible to carry out a notion of the historical method, but the fact that history itself at that time had never been subjected to scientific examination made his effort valueless. He accumulates testimony which would be excellent evidence, if only it had been sifted, and had come out of the process substantially undiminished. Yet even Goguet, who thus carefully followed the accounts of early societies given in the Bible and other monuments, intersperses abstract general statements about man being born free and independent (i. 25), and entering society as the result of deliberate reflection.

[185] _Cont. Soc._, II. xi. Also III. viii.

[186] II. xi. Also ch. viii.

[187] II. viii.

[188] II. ix.

[189] _Politics_, VII. iv. 8, 10.

[190] _Cont. Soc._, II. x.

[191] Plato's _Laws_, v. 737.

[192] _Ib._, iv. 705.

[193] _Projet de Constitution pour la Corse_, p. 75.

[194] _Gouvernement de Pologne_, ch. xi.

[195] _Cont. Soc._, II. vii.

[196] Goguet was much nearer to a true conception of this kind; see, for instance, _Origine des Lois_, i. 46.

[197] Decree of the Committee, April 20, 1794, reported by Billaud-Varennes. Compare ch. iv. of Rousseau's _Considérations sur le Gouvernement de Pologne_.

[198] Here are some of Saint Just's regulations:--No servants, nor gold or silver vessels; no child under 16 to eat meat, nor any adult to eat meat on three days of the decade; boys at the age of 7 to be handed over to the school of the nation, where they were to be brought up to speak little, to endure hardships, and to train for war; divorce to be free to all; friendship ordained a public institution, every citizen on coming to majority being bound to proclaim his friends, and if he had none, then to be banished; if one committed a crime, his friends were to be banished. Quoted in Von Sybel's _Hist. French Rev._, iv. 49. When Morelly dreamed his dream of a model community in 1754 (see above, vol. i. p. 158) he little supposed, one would think, that within forty years a man would be so near trying the experiment in France as Saint Just was. Baboeuf is pronounced by La Harpe to have been inspired by the Code de la Nature, which La Harpe impudently set down to Diderot, on whom every great destructive piece was systematically fathered.

[199] I forget where I have read the story of some member of the Convention being very angry because the library contained no copy of the laws which Minos gave to the Cretans.

[200] III. xiii.

[201] III. xv. He actually recommended the Poles to pay all public functionaries in kind, and to have the public works executed on the system of corvée. _Gouvernement de Pologne_, ch. xi.

[202] _Cont. Soc._, III. ii.

[203] II. i.

[204] II. ii.

[205] III. i.

[206] II. vi.

[207] II. iv.

[208] IV. vi.

[209] _Economie Politique_, p. 30.

[210] _Mélanges_, p. 310.

[211] See for instance Green's _History of the English People_, i. 266.

[212] _Summa_, xc.-cviii. (1265-1273). See Maurice's _Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy_, i. 627, 628. Also Franck's _Réformateurs et Publicistes de l'Europe_, p. 48, etc.

[213] _Defensor Pacis_, Pt. I., ch. xii. This, again, is an example of Marsilio's position:--"Convenerunt enim homines ad civilem communicationem propter commodum et vitæ sufficientiam consequendam, et opposita declinandum. Quæ igitur omnium tangere possunt commodum et incommodum, ab omnibus sciri debent et audiri, ut commodum assequi et oppositum repellere possint." The whole chapter is a most interesting anticipation, partly due to the influence of Aristotle, of the notions of later centuries.

[214] See Bayle's Dict., s.v. _Althusius_.

[215] _Lettres de la Montagne_, I. vi. 388.

[216] _Eccles. Polity_, Bk. i.; bks. i.-iv., 1594; bk. v., 1597; bks. vi.-viii., 1647,--being forty-seven years after the author's death.

[217] Goguet (_Origine des Lois_, i. 22) dwells on tacit conventions as a kind of engagement to which men commit themselves with extreme facility. He was thus rather near the true idea of the spontaneous origin and unconscious acceptance of early institutions.

[218] Of Civil Government, ch. xiii. See also ch. xi. "This legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it; nor can any edict of anybody else, in what form soever conceived, or by what power soever backed, have the force and obligation of a law, which has not its sanction from that legislative which the public has chosen and appointed; for without this the law could not have that which is absolutely necessary to its being a law--the consent of the society; over whom nobody can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them." If Rousseau had found no neater expression for his doctrine than this, the Social Contract would assuredly have been no explosive.

[219] See especially ch. viii.

[220] Hence the antipathy of the clergy, catholic, episcopalian, and presbyterian, to which, as Austin has pointed out (_Syst. of Jurisprudence_, i. 288, _n._), Hobbes mainly owes his bad repute.

[221] See Diderot's article on _Hobbisme_ in the Encyclopædia, _Oeuv._, xv. 122.

[222] _Esprit des Lois_, I. i.

[223] _Cont. Soc._, II. vi. 50.

[224] Goguet has the merit of seeing distinctly that command is the essence of law.

[225] _Cont. Soc._, II. vi. 51-53. See Austin's _Jurisprudence_, i. 95, etc.; also _Lettres écrites de la Montagne_, I. vi. 380, 381.

[226] See, for instance, letter to Mirabeau (_l'ami des hommes_), July 26, 1767. _Corr._, v. 179. The same letter contains his criticism on the good despot of the Economists.

[227] _L'Ordre Naturel et Essentiel des Sociétés Politiques_ (1767). By Mercier de la Rivière. One episode in the life of Mercier de la Rivière is worth recounting, as closely connected with the subject we are discussing. Just as Corsicans and Poles applied to Rousseau, Catherine of Russia, in consequence of her admiration for Rivière's book, summoned him to Russia to assist her in making laws. "Sir," said the Czarina, "could you point out to me the best means for the good government of a state?" "Madame, there is only one way, and that is being just; in other words, in keeping order and exacting obedience to the laws." "But on what base is it best to make the laws of an empire repose?" "There is only one base, Madame: the nature of things and of men." "Just so; but when you wish to give laws to a people, what are the rules which indicate most surely such laws as are most suitable?" "To give or make laws, Madame, is a task that God has left to none. Ah, who is the man that should think himself capable of dictating laws for beings that he does not know, or knows so ill? And by what right can he impose laws on beings whom God has never placed in his hands?" "To what, then, do you reduce the science of government?" "To studying carefully; recognising and setting forth the laws which God has graven so manifestly in the very organisation of men, when he called them into existence. To wish to go any further would be a great misfortune and a most destructive undertaking." "Sir, I am very pleased to have heard what you have to say; I wish you good day." Quoted from Thiébault's _Souvenirs de Berlin_, in M. Daire's edition of the _Physiocrates_, ii. 432.

[228] _Cont. Soc._, II. vii.

[229] _Corr._, v. 181.

[230] _Cont. Soc._, I. v., vi., vii.

[231] _Leviathan_, II., ch. xviii. vol. iii. 159 (Molesworth's edition).

[232] _Cont. Soc._, III. xvi.

[233] _Civil Government_, ch. viii. § 99.

[234] I. vi. Especially the footnote.

[235] _Cont. Soc._, II. i.

[236] _Syst. of Jurisprudence_, i. 256.

[237] _Cont. Soc._, III. xv. 137. It was not long, however, before Rousseau found reason to alter his opinion in this respect. The champions of the Council at Geneva compared the _droit négatif_, in the exercise of which the Council had refused to listen to the representations of Rousseau's partisans (see above, vol. ii. p. 105) to the right of veto possessed by the crown in Great Britain. Rousseau seized upon this egregious blunder, which confused the power of refusing assent to a proposed law, with the power of refusing justice under law already passed. He at once found illustrations of the difference, first in the case of the printers of No. 45 of the _North Briton_, who brought actions for false imprisonment (1763), and next in the proceedings against Wilkes at the same time. If Wilkes, said Rousseau, had written, printed, published, or said, one-fourth against the Lesser Council at Geneva of what he said, wrote, printed, and published openly in London against the court and the government, he would have been heavily punished, and most likely put to death. And so forth, until he has proved very pungently how different degrees of freedom are enjoyed in Geneva and in England. _Lettres écrites de la Montague_, ix. 491-500. When he wrote this he was unaware that the Triennial Act had long been replaced by the Septennial Act of the 1 Geo. I. On finding out, as he did afterwards, that a parliament could sit for seven years, he thought as meanly of our liberty as ever. _Considérations sur les gouvernement de Pologne_, ch. vii. 253-260. In his _Projet de Constitution pour la Corse_, p. 113, he says that "the English do not love liberty for itself, but because it is most favourable to money-making."

[238] III., xi., xii., and xiii.

[239] Mr. Freeman's _Growth of the English Constitution_, c. i.

[240] _Cont. Soc._, III. xv. 140. A small manuscript containing his ideas on confederation was given by Rousseau to the Count d'Antraigues (afterwards an _émigré_), who destroyed it in 1789, lest its arguments should be used to sap the royal authority. See extract from his pamphlet, prefixed to M. Auguis's edition of the Social Contract, pp. xxiii, xxiv.

[241] _Gouvernement de Pologne_, v. 246.

[242] Of course no such modification as that proposed by Comte (_Politique Positive_, iv. 421) would come within the scope of the doctrine of the Social Contract. For each of the seventeen Intendances into which Comte divides France, is to be ruled by a chief, "always appointed and removed by the central power." There is no room for the sovereignty of the people here, even in things parochial.

[243] There was one extraordinary instance during the revolution of attempting to make popular government direct on Rousseau's principle, in the scheme (1790) of which Danton was a chief supporter, for reorganising the municipal administration of Paris. The assemblies of sections were to sit permanently; their vote was to be taken on current questions; and action was to follow the aggregate of their degrees. See Von Sybel's _Hist. Fr. Rev._ i. 275; M. Louis Blanc's _History_, Bk. III. ch. ii.

[244] This was also Bodin's definition of an aristocratic state; "si minor pars civium cæteris imperat."

[245] _Politics_, III. vi.-vii.

[246] _Esprit des Lois_, II. i. ii.

[247] Rousseau gave the name of _tyrant_ to a usurper of royal authority in a kingdom, and _despot_ to a usurper of the sovereign authority (_i.e._ [Greek: tyrannos] in the Greek sense). The former might govern according to the laws, but the latter placed himself above the laws (_Cont. Soc._, III. x.) This corresponded to Locke's distinction: "As usurpation is the exercise of power which another hath a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of a power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to." _Civil Gov._, ch. xviii.

[248] III. iv.

[249] III. vi.

[250] III. v.

[251] _Cont. Soc._, IV. viii.

[252] _Cont. Soc._, IV. viii. 197-201.

[253] This is not unlike what Tocqueville says somewhere, that Christianity bids you render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, but seems to discourage any inquiry whether Cæsar is an usurper or a lawful ruler.

[254] _Cont. Soc._, IV. viii. 203. As we have already seen, he had entreated Voltaire, of all men in the world, to draw up a civil profession of faith. See vol. i. 326.

In the New Heloïsa (V. v. 117, _n._) Rousseau expresses his opinion that "no true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. _If I were a magistrate, and if the law pronounced the penalty of death against atheists, I would begin by burning as such whoever should come to inform against another._"

[255] Plato's _Laws_, Bk. x. 909, etc.

[256] _Areopagitica_, p. 417. (Edit. 1867.)

[257] See a speech of his, which is Rousseau's "civil faith" done into rhetoric, given in M. Louis Blanc's _Hist. de la Rév. Française_, Bk. x. c. xiv.

[258] _Considérations sur le gouvernement ancien et présent de la France_ (1764). Quoted by Rousseau from a manuscript copy.

[259] _Leviathan_, ch. xliii. 601. Also ch. xlii.

[260] _Cont. Soc._, III. xi. Borrowed from Hobbes, who said, "Magnus ille Leviathan quæ civitas appellatur, opificium artis est."

[261] Mackintosh's.

[262] _Cont. Soc._, II. v.

[263] IV. ii.

[264] For instance, _Gouvernement de la Pologne_, ch. xi. p. 305. And _Corr._, v. 180.

[265] _Cont. Soc._, I. viii.

[266] _Cont. Soc._, II. i.

[267] _Ib._, III. x. "Let every individual who may usurp the sovereignty be instantly put to death by free men." Robespierre's _Déclaration des droits de l'homme_, § 27. "When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection becomes for the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties." § 35.

[268] _Cont. Soc._, III. x.

[269] See May's _Constitutional Hist. of England_, ch. iii; and Lord Stanhope's _Life of Pitt_, vol. ii. ch. xii.

[270] In the 6th book of the _Moral Philosophy_ (1785), ch. iii., and elsewhere. In the preface he refers to the effect which Rousseau's political theory was supposed to have had in the civil convulsions of Geneva, as one of the reasons which encouraged him to publish his own book.

[271] One side of this was the passion for geographical exploration which took possession of Europe towards the middle of the eighteenth century. See the _Life of Humboldt_, i. 28, 29. (_Eng. Trans._ by Lassell.)

[272] Rousseau's influence on Condorcet is seen in the latter's maxim, which has found such favour in the eyes of socialist writers, that "not only equality of right, but equality of fact, is the goal of the social art."