Chapter X: Alarming Symptoms (3)

The laws of states may be unjust and abominable, and, by consequence, bind no one. There is, on the other hand, a natural law, the source and measure of other laws, originating before all ages, before any law had been written or any city built.[52]

This doctrine, to support which I have designedly cited only pagan authors, is also that of Catholic theologians; for example, S. Thomas and Suarez. But the philosophical school of the last century has so perverted the meaning of the term _nature--law of nature_, that certain Catholic authors (M. de Bonald, for instance) have scrupled to use the consecrated term. It is necessary, then, to explain its true sense.

IV.--NATURAL LAW ACCORDING TO PAGAN PHILOSOPHERS.

The nature of a being is that which constitutes its fitness to attain its end. The idea, therefore, which a person has of the nature of man, by consequence determines that which he will have of his end, and hence of the rule which should govern his actions.

The materialists, for example, who deny the immortality of the soul, and whose horizon is bounded by the limits of the present life, are able to teach only a purely epicurean or utilitarian morality. They cannot consistently plead a motive higher than an immediate, or at least a proximate, well-being; for, what is more uncertain than the duration of our life? In the strikingly anti-philosophic language of the XVIIIth century, _the state of nature_ was a hypothetical state, at once innocent and barbarous, anterior to all society. It is to society that this theory attributes the disorders of man and the loss of certain primitive and inalienable rights which the sect of pseudo-philosophers boasted of having regained, and by the conquest whereof the corrupted and doting France of 1789 was prostrated.

The philosophers of antiquity, on the contrary, notwithstanding their numerous errors, and despite the polytheism which they exteriorly professed, had arrived at so profound a knowledge of man and his nature that the fathers and doctors of the church have often spoken of the discoveries of their intellect as a kind of _natural revelation_ made to them by God.[53]

We have already heard Cicero say that the natural law is eternal, and superior to all human laws. I shall continue to quote him, because of his clearness, and because he admirably sums up the teaching of the philosophers who preceded him.[54]

The sound philosophy which should guide us--according to him, the science of law--teaches us that it is far more sublime to submit to the divine mind, to the all-powerful God, than to the emperors and mighty ones of this earth; for it is a kind of partnership between God and man. Right reason (_ratio recta_) is the same for the one and the other; and law being nothing else than right reason, it may be said that one same law links us with the gods. Now, the common law is also the common right, and when people have a common right they belong, in some manner, to the same country. We must, then, consider this world as a country common to the gods and to men. Man is, in truth, like to God. And for what end has God created and gifted man like to himself? That he may arrive at justice.

Human society is bound by one same right, and law is the same for all. This law is the just motive (the right reason, _ratio recta_) of all precepts and prohibitions; he who is ignorant of it, whether written or not, knows not justice. If uprightness consisted in submission to the written laws and constitutions of nations, and if, as some pretend, utility could be the measure of good, he who expected to profit thereby would be justified in neglecting or violating the laws.

This remark is peculiarly applicable to the present time. It is precisely utility and the increase of wealth or of comforts--in a word, material interests--which the greater number of modern legislators have had chiefly in view; the result is that society scarcely has the right to feel indignant against those who may deem it to their advantage to disturb it. Religion, say they, has nothing in common with politics; the state, inasmuch as it is a state, need not trouble itself about God; the things of this world should be regulated with regard to this world, and without reference to the supernatural. Suppose it so; but then, in virtue of what authority will you impose your laws? There is no human power able to bend or to conquer one human will which does not acknowledge it.[55]

The basis of right is the natural love of our fellow-beings which nature has planted within us. Nature also commands us to honor God. It is not fear which renders worship necessary; it is the bond which exists between God and man. If popular or royal decrees could determine right, a whim of the multitude might render lawful theft, adultery, or forgery. If it be true that a proclamation dictated by fools can change the order of nature, why may not evil become, one day, good? But the sages teach that the human mind did not invent law; it has its birth-place in the bosom of God, and is co-eternal with him; it is nothing else than the unerring reason of Jupiter himself; it is reflected in the mind of the wise man; it can never be repealed.

This “right reason which comes to us from the gods” (_recta et a numine deorum tracta ratio_) is what is usually termed the _natural_ law; and the beautiful language of Cicero recalls this magnificent verse of the IVth Psalm: “Quis ostendit nobis bona? Signatum est super nos lumen vultus tui, Domine.”

V.--INFLUENCE OF PANTHEISM ON MODERN LAW.

Pagan teaching, how elevated soever it may be, is always incomplete; and this is evident even from the words of Cicero.

Since law comes from God, it is very clear that it will be known more or less correctly according as our idea of God is more or less correct. This it is that gives so great a superiority, first, to the law of Moses, before the coming of Jesus Christ, and to all Christian legislation since.

The Jews had not merely a vague knowledge of the precepts of the divine law. This law, in its principal provisions, had been directly revealed to them. Christians have something better still, since the Eternal Word was made man, and the Word is precisely “the true light which enlighteneth every man coming into this world.”[56] The philosophers of antiquity saw this light from afar off; we have _beheld_ that of which they merely affirmed the existence; the Jews contemplated it as through a veil, and awaited its coming. IT was made flesh; it brought us life; “it shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.”[57]

It is not the fault of the Word or of his manifestation, says S. Thomas on this subject, if there are minds who see not this light. There is here, not darkness, but closed eyes.[58]

It is God himself, therefore, whom man refuses to acknowledge when he rejects the fundamental law, which alone deserves the name of law. Human pride and insolence go beyond forgetfulness or simple negation when they have the audacity to put a human law in the place of and above the divine law; which last crime is nothing less than the deification of man. This philosophic consequence of the secularization of the law was inevitable, and is openly displayed in modern doctrines. Atheists, properly so called, are rare; but the present generation is infected with Pantheism. Now, Pantheism proclaims, without disguise and without shame, the divinity of man.

Let us add that this error is the only foundation upon which man may logically rest to defend modern rights. It produces, with regard to constitutions and laws, two principal effects, which it suffices but to indicate, that every honest mind may at once recognize their existence and their lamentable consequences.

Pantheism, firstly, destroys individualities, or, as the Germans call them, _subjectivities_; it sweeps them away, and causes them to disappear in the Great Whole. Do we not likewise see personality, simple or associated--that is to say, individual liberty, associations, and corporations--little by little reduced to annihilation by the modern idea of the state? Does not modern theory make also of the state another grand whole, beside which nothing private can exist?

To reach this result, they represent the state as expressing the aggregate of all the particular wills, and they seek, in a pretended “general will,” the supreme and infallible source of law. But even were this will as general as theory desires, it would not be the less human, or, by consequence, the less subject to error. Whence comes it, then, that they make it the sovereign arbiter of good and evil, of truth and falsehood, of justice and injustice? The Pantheists reply that “God is in man and in the world; that he is one and the same thing with the world; that he is identical with the nature of things, and consequently subject to change.” The general will, the expression of the universal conscience, is then a manifestation of the divine will; and this would allow it to change without ever erring.

This answers all, in truth; but it may lead us too far. If, as says Hegel, God is subjective--that is to say, if He is in man, or, more exactly still, if He is man himself and the substance of nature--neither right, nor law, nor justice could remain objective. In other words, if man is God, there is no longer any possible distinction between good and evil. And this conclusion has been drawn by the learned German socialist, Lassalle. He denies the notion of an immutable right; he is unwilling that we should any longer speak of the family, property, justice, etc., in absolute terms. According to him, these are but abstract and unreal generalities. There have been, on all these subjects, Greek, Roman, German, etc., ideas; but these are only historical recollections. Ideas change, some even disappear; and if, some day, the universal conscience should decide that the idea of proprietorship has had its day, then would commence a new era in history, during which there could be no longer either property or proprietors without incurring the guilt of injustice.[59] From the stand-point of Pantheism, this reasoning is irrefutable; and, on the other hand, we have just seen that Pantheism alone could justify the modern theory of the general will, the supreme arbiter of law.

VI.--HAS THE GENERAL WILL RULED SINCE 1789?

I have just quoted a socialist whose works, though little known in France, are of extreme importance. Ferdinand Lassalle, a Jew by birth, by nationality a Prussian, is possessed of extensive knowledge, critical genius of the highest order, and unsparing logic. We have seen him draw the theoretical consequences of Pantheism applied to law; and it will not be without interest to know how he judges the practical results of the modern theory of rights, as shown in the French Revolution. The socialists have a special authority for speaking of “immortal principles”; for they admit them without hesitation, and their teaching proved that they comprehend them wonderfully.

The _Declaration of the Rights of Man_ is the most authentic summing up of these famous principles; and it is therein that the modern theory of law will be found most clearly stated. “Law,” says Art. 6, “is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has the right of co-operating in its formation, either personally or by his representatives.”

It would seem, from this solemn proclamation, that since then, or at least in the first fervor of this “glorious” revolution, the majority of the “sovereign people” should have been called to “form the laws.” This has been said; it has even been supported at the mouth of the cannon--for, as has been wittily remarked by M. de Maistre, “the masters of these poor people have had recourse even to artillery while deriding them. They said to them: ‘You think you do not will this law; but, be assured, you do will it. If you dare to refuse it, we will pour upon you a shower of shot, to punish you for not willing what you do will.’ And it was done.”[60]

What then took place, and how did it happen that the general will, which had undertaken to make fundamental and irrevocable laws, should have accepted, in the first five years of its freedom, three different constitutions and a _régime_ like that of the Reign of Terror?

Lassalle replies that it is not at all the people who made the revolution, and that the general will was not even asked to manifest itself. He recalls the famous pamphlet of Sieyès, and corrects its title. It is not true, says he, that the _Tiers État_ was then nothing; the increase of personal property has, since then, brought about a _révolution économique_, thanks to which the _tiers état_ was, in truth, all. But legally it was nothing, which was not much to its liking; for the former ranks of society still existed by right, although their real strength was not in keeping with their legal condition. The work of the French Revolution was, therefore, to give to the _tiers état_ a legal position suitable to its actual importance.

Now, the _tiers_, first and foremost, assumed itself to be the equivalent of the entire people. “It considered that its cause was the cause of humanity.” Thus the attraction was real and powerful. The voices raised to protest were unable to make themselves heard. Our author cites, on this subject, a curious instance of clear-sightedness. An anti-revolutionary journal, _The Friend of the King_, exclaimed, “Who shall say whether or not the despotism of the _bourgeoisie_ shall not succeed the pretended aristocracy of the nobility?”

It is this, indeed, which has come to pass, continues Lassalle; the _tiers état_ has become, in its turn, the privileged class. The proof is that the wealth of the citizen became immediately the legal condition of power in the state.

Since 1791, in the constitution of Sept. 3 we find (chap. i., sects. 1 and 2) a distinction established between active citizens and passive citizens. The former are those who pay a certain quota of direct contribution; and they alone possess the right of voting. Moreover, all hired laborers were declared not active; and this excluded workmen from the right of voting. It matters little that the tax was small; the principle was laid down requiring some amount of fortune in order to exercise a political right. “The wealth of the citizen had become the condition necessary for obtaining power in the state, as nobility or landed property had been in the Middle Ages.”

The principle of the vote-tax held sway until the recent introduction of universal suffrage.

Our socialist, proceeding directly to the question of taxes, proves that the _bourgeoisie moderne_, without inventing indirect taxation, has nevertheless made it the basis of an entire system, and has settled upon it all the expenses of state. Now, indirect taxes are such as are levied beforehand upon all necessaries, as salt, corn, beer, meat, fuel, or, still more, upon what we need for our protection--the expenses of the administration of justice, stamped paper, etc. Generally, in making a purchase, the buyer pays the tax, without perceiving that it is that which increases the price. Now, it is clear that because an individual is twenty, fifty, or a hundred times richer, it does not follow that he will, on that account, consume twenty, fifty, or a hundred times more salt, bread, meat, etc., than a workman or a person of humble condition. Thus it happens that the great body of indirect taxes is paid by the poorest classes (from the single fact that they are the most numerous). Thus is it brought about, in a hidden way, that the _tiers état_ pay relatively less taxes than the _quatrième état_.

Concerning the instruction of adults, Lassalle says that, instead of being left to the clergy as heretofore, it now in fact belongs to the daily press. But securities, stamps, and advertisements give to journalism another privilege of capital.[61]

This sketch suffices; and I deem it needless to add that I am far from concluding with the socialists. I am so much the more free to disagree with them as I do not by any means admit the “immortal principles,” but it seems to me to follow evidently from the preceding observations that it is not true, in fact, that the general will has made the laws since 1789.

VII.--DOES UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE EXPRESS THE GENERAL WILL?

Has the introduction of universal suffrage modified, in any great degree, this state of things? Is it any more certain since 1848, than before, that the nation is governed by the general will? We may content ourselves here by appealing to the testimony of honest men. If the general will were truly the master of all the powers in France, our country, which to-day, so it is said, has only the government that it desires, would be a model of union and concord; there could be in the opposition party only an exceedingly small minority (otherwise the term general would be unjustifiable), and we would follow peacefully the ways most pleasing to us.

This would not be saying--mark it well!--that those ways are good. That is another question, to which we will return; but now we are dealing with the question, Are our laws to-day formed or not formed by the general will, according to the formula which I have quoted from the _Declaration of the Rights of Man_?

Notwithstanding the evidence for the negative, I think it well here to analyze hastily that which M. Taine has just given in a little pamphlet containing many truths.[62] M. Taine, being a free-thinker and a man of the times, cannot be suspected of taking an ultramontane or clerical view of the case.

M. Taine is far from demanding the abolition of universal suffrage. He believes it in conformity with justice; for he does not admit that his money can be demanded or he himself sent to the frontier without his own consent, either expressed or tacit. His only wish is that the right of suffrage be not illusory, and that the electoral law be adapted “to the French of 1791, to the peasant, the workman, etc.,” be he “stupid, ignorant, or ill-informed.” From this M. Taine proves at the outset that the ballot-roll is a humbug; and I believe that no person of sense will contest the point. He immediately enters upon a statistical examination of the composition of the elective world in France; and he arrives at the following result: “Of twenty voters, ten are peasants, four workmen, three demi-bourgeois, three educated men, comfortable or rich. Now, the electoral law, as all law, should have regard to the majority, to the first fourteen.” It behooves us, then, to know who these fourteen are who are called to frame the law; that is to say, to decide, by their representatives it is true, but sovereignly, on good and evil, justice and injustice, and, necessarily, the fate of the country.

M. Taine, in this connection, makes some new calculations which may be thus summed up: The rural population embraces seventy out of one hundred of the entire population, hence fourteen voters out of twenty. Now, in France, there are thirty-nine illiterate out of every hundred males, almost all belonging to the classes which M. Taine numbers among the rural population; which enables him to find that seven out of every fourteen rural voters cannot even read. I may observe, in passing, that a peasant who cannot read, but who knows his catechism, may be of a much sounder morality than M. Taine himself; but I willingly proclaim that the seven electors in question could and should have a mediocre political intelligence.

This agreeable writer recounts, in a spicy way, a number of anecdotes which prove “the ignorance and credulity” of the rural populations on similar matters; and he thence concludes that the peasants “are still subjects, but under a nameless master.” This is precisely what I said at the beginning, not only of peasants, but of all modern people in general. Be there a king on the throne or not, somebody decrees this, somebody decrees that; and the subject depends, in a hundred ways, on this abstract and undetermined somebody--“Through the collector, through the mayor, through the sub-inspector of forests, through the commissary of police, through the field-keeper, through the clerks of justice, for making a door, for felling a tree, building a shed, opening a stall, transporting a cask of wine, etc., etc.”

All this expresses well and depicts admirably the ways of modern liberty; and I cannot refrain from citing this last sketch, equally amusing and true: “The mayor knows that in town, in an elegant apartment, is a worthy gentleman, attired in broidered gown, who receives him two or three times a year, speaks to him with authority and condescension, and often puts to him embarrassing questions. But when this gentleman goes away, another takes his place quite similar and in the same garb, and the mayor, on his return home, says with satisfaction: ‘Monsieur the prefect always preserves his good will towards me, although he has been changed many times.’”

The _plébiscite_, the appeal to the people, the invitation to vote on the form of government, addressed to this kind of electors--is it not all a cunning trick? M. Taine thinks so, and many others with him; but he supposes that this same elector will be, at least, capable of “choosing the particular man in whom he has most confidence.” It is with him, says he, in the choice of one who shall make the laws, as in the choice of the physician or the lawyer whom one may prefer. Although it is not my intention to discuss here the opinions of this author, I beg him to remark that his comparison is strikingly faulty; we cannot choose whom we please for our physician or for our lawyer. The former is obliged to go through a course of studies in order to merit his diploma; the latter must fulfil the conditions necessary to be admitted to the bar. To frame the laws is another thing; not the slightest preparation is exacted from those eligible to this duty. Apparently it is not considered worth the trouble.

The ballot-roll and _plébiscite_ being disposed of, M. Taine returns to figures, to study what transpires when the electors are called upon to choose a deputy by district. This gives, says he, one deputy for twenty thousand voters spread over a surface of one thousand kilometres square, etc. Of the twenty thousand voters, how many will have a definite opinion of the candidate presented to them? Scarcely one in ten beyond the outskirts of the town; scarcely one in four or five in the whole district. There remains the resource of advice; but “the spirit of equality is all-powerful, and the hierarchy is wanting.”

We touch here the most sorrowful wound of our social state; and this term even, is it not misapplied?--for we have no longer any order, or, by consequence, any social state. “As a general rule,” continues M. Taine, “the country people receive counsel only from their equals.” Therefore it is easy to employ evil means. These evil means may be summed up, according to the same author, in the abuse of governmental influence, and in a corruption whose form varies, but which makes the affair of an election an affair of money.

There should be, and I have alluded to it in passing, many exceptions made with regard to what M. Taine says concerning the rural population. He believes them manifestly less able to vote than the city populations, while I am of quite the contrary opinion; but it still remains true that direct universal suffrage, such as we have, does not allow a person to choose from a knowledge of the case, and that, in reality, the general will has not, up to the present day, been able to find its true expression.

This is all that I need prove for the present.

VIII.--IS THE GENERAL WILL COMPETENT TO MAKE LAWS?

This is a still higher question, and one which we must now approach. Admitting that the general will could make itself known, is it an authority competent to make laws?

But before starting let us lay down a first principle which, quite elementary as it is, seems to be as much forgotten as the others: if the natural law exist not anteriorly to enjoin respect for human laws, human power would have no other ground of existence, no other support than force. Without a divine lawgiver, there is, in truth, no moral obligation.[63] The hypothesis of a previous agreement among the members of society would not resolve the difficulty; for an agreement would not be able to bind any one, at least if there were no higher authority to secure it.[64]

Whatever may be the immediate origin of law--be it promulgated by a sovereign, enacted by an assembly, or directly willed by the multitude--it would still be unable to rule, if we do not suppose a law anterior and, as Cicero says, eternal, which, in the first place, prescribes obedience to subjects, and, in the second, fidelity to reciprocal engagements, promises, and oaths. This superior law being the natural law, it is always, and in every case, impossible to suppress or to elude it.

Meanwhile, what is understood by the general will? Is it the unanimity of wills? No one, so far as I know, has ever exacted this condition. The question is, then, taking things at their best, of the will of the majority. People grant this, and often give to our modern governments the name of governments of the majority. They deduce then from this principle, that in a population of thirty millions of men, for example, it is lawful that the will of the twenty millions should rule over that of the remaining ten millions. If the constitution of a kingdom, says Burke, is an arithmetical problem, the calculation is just; but if the minority refuse to submit, the majority will be able to govern only by the aid of _la lanterne_.[65]

Scaffolds, shootings, exile, prison--such are, in truth, the institutions which have chiefly flourished since the famous _Declaration of the Rights of Man_.

In the eyes of a man who knows how to reason, continues the English orator, this opinion is ridiculous.

It could not be justified, unless it were well proved that the majority of men are enlightened, virtuous, wise, self-sacrificing, and incapable of preferring their own interest to that of others. No one has ever dared to say that legislators should make laws for the sake of making them, and without troubling themselves concerning the welfare of those for whom the laws are made. Now, the laws being made for all, the majority, if it had the qualities necessary for legislating, should concern itself still more about the minority than about itself.

The Comte de la Marck[66] relates that when Mirabeau became too much excited concerning the rights and privileges of man, it happened sometimes that he amused himself by curtailing his accounts. He cut off first women, children, the ignorant, the vicious, etc. Once, the nation being thus reduced to the little portion whose moral qualities it became necessary to estimate, “I began,” says he, “to deduct those who lack reason, those who have false notions, those who value their own interests above everything, those who lack education and knowledge matured by reflection; and I then asked him if the men who merit to be spoken of with dignity and respect would not find themselves reduced to a number infinitely small. Now, according to my principle, I maintained that the government should act _for_ the people, and not _by_ them--that is to say, not by the opinion of the multitude; and I proved, by historical extracts and by examples which we had unfortunately under our eyes, that reason and good sense fly from men in proportion as they are gathered together in greater numbers.”

Mirabeau contented himself with replying that one must flatter the people in order to govern them, which amounts to saying that one must cheat them.

For the rest, this same Mirabeau acknowledged that equality, in the revolutionary sense, is absurd, and the passion which some have for it he called a violent paroxysm. It is he who best characterized the true result of the destruction of all social order. He called it “vanity’s upsetting.” He could not have spoken better; and the vanity which goes so low could have no other result than that which we behold--the premeditated absence or suppression of all true superiority.

This episode on equality is not a digression, for the system of majorities supposes it. Now, it is absolutely anti-natural. According to the beautiful idea of Aristotle:[67] there is in man himself a soul and a body; the one predominating and made to command, the other to obey; the equality or the shifting of power between these two elements would be equally fatal to them. It is the same between man and the other animals, between tame animals and wild. The harmony of sex is analogous, and we even find some traces of this principle in inanimate objects; as, for example, in the harmony of sounds. Therefore S. Augustine defines order thus: “Such a disposition of things similar and dissimilar as shall give to each what is proper to it”--_Ordo est parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique tribuens dispositio_;[68] and S. Thomas hence concludes that order supposes inequality: _Nomen ordinis inæqualitatem importat_.[69]

But the “immortal principles” have changed all that, according to Sganarelle; so their work, in its final analysis, results in a disorder without name.

The external disorder is visible and pretty generally acknowledged; but the moral disorder passes unperceived. By means of equality on the one hand, and of the secularization of the law on the other, they arrive at this frightful result: for example, that regicide and parricide are, in justice, but ordinary crimes; if, moreover, regicide profits the people, it is worthy of eulogy. Sacrilege is nothing more than a superstitious fiction. In fine, _respect_ being no longer possible nor even reasonable, according to the prediction of Burke,[70] “the laws have no other guardian than terror, … and in perspective, from our point of view, we see but scaffolds,” or courts-martial, which amount to the same thing.

IX.--CONSEQUENCES OF THE SECULARIZATION OF LAW.

How often do we not hear it said that almost all our misfortunes, and, above all, our inability to repair our losses, come from the little respect we have for the law! This statement, which has become almost trite, indicates most frequently a strange wandering. After having destroyed respect for persons, is it not absurd to claim it for their works? But they have done more: they have denied the mission of a legislator. The secularization of the law--that is to say, the denial of a divine sanction applied to law--has no other meaning. Legislators being no longer the mandataries of God, or not wishing to be such, now speak only in virtue of their own lights, and have no real commission. By what title, then, would you have us respect them? Every one is at liberty to prefer his own lights and to believe that he would have done better.

I hear the reply: “It is to the interest of all that order should reign, were it but materially, and the law is the principal means of maintaining order.” You may hence conclude that it would be more advantageous to see the laws obeyed; but a motive of interest is not a motive of respect, and there is a certain class of individuals who may gain by the disorder. No, you will have the right to claim respect for the law only when you shall have rendered the law truly respectable; and to do this you must prove that you have the mission to make the law, even were you the _élite_ of our statesmen and doctors of the law, and much more if you are but a collection of the most uncultivated tax-payers in the world.

Knowledge is something; it is something also to represent real and considerable interests; and I do not deny the relative importance of the elements of which legislative bodies are composed. But nothing of all this can supply the place of a commission; and you will have that only when you shall have consented, as legislators, to acknowledge the existence of God, to submit yourselves to his laws, and to conform your own thereto.

People have but a very inadequate idea of the disastrous consequences which, one day or other, may ensue from the secularization of law. Until now the only danger of which they have dreamed is that with which extreme revolution menaces us.

This is a danger so imminent, so undisguised, that every one sees it; and some have ended by understanding that without a return to God society is destined to fall. Nay, more, the Assembly now sitting at Versailles has made an act of faith by ordering public prayers; and this first step has caused hope to revive in the hearts of men of good-will. But it is not, perhaps, inopportune to draw the attention of serious men to another phase of the question.

What would happen if modern law should go so far as to enjoin a crime upon Christians? The hypothesis is not purely imaginary; and although, happily, thanks to Heaven, it has not yet come to pass, there is a whole party which threatens to reach this extreme. In other countries there has been something like a beginning of its realization. I would like to speak of the school law and the avowed project of imposing a compulsory and lay education. We know what is meant by _lay_ in such a case; and experience proves that the state schools are often entrusted to men whose avowed intention is to bring up the children in infidelity. What would happen if such a law were passed, which supposes that everywhere, at the same time, parents would be compelled to put their children in imminent danger of losing their faith? The Catholic Church is very explicit in her doctrine on the obligation of obeying even a bad government; she orders that useless, unjust, and even culpable laws be borne with, so long as this can be done without exposing one’s self to commit a sin. Neither plunder nor the danger of death excuses revolt in her eyes. But in this case do we understand to what we would be reduced? To resist passively, and to allow one’s self to be punished by fines, by prison, by torture, or by death, would not remedy the evil; the soul of the child remains without defence, and the father is responsible for it. This kind of persecution is, then, more serious in its consequences, and may lead to deeper troubles, than even the direct persecution, which might consist, for example, in exacting apostasy from adults. In this last case the martyr bears all, and the first Christians have shown us the way; but here the torments of the parents cannot save the children, and the parents cannot abandon them; whatever becomes of the body, the soul must be guarded until death.

It belongs not to me to decide; for in this case, as in all those of a similar kind, the line of conduct to be followed ought to be traced by the only competent authority; but the problem is worth proposing, and by it alone it is already easy to throw great light on the abysses to which the atheism of the law is leading the people by rapid strides.

X.--CHRISTIAN DEFINITION OF NATURAL LAW.

It remains to explain in a few words the great principles which should form the basis of law, and which were never completely ignored until these days of aberration and wretchedness. I could not expect to give here, in these few pages, a course of natural law, nor even to trace its outline; but there are some perfectly incontestable truths which it is very necessary to recall since people have forgotten them. When one has no personal authority, he feels a certain timidity in broaching so grave a subject, and in speaking of it as if he aspired to enlighten his kind; and meanwhile error is insinuated, preached, disseminated, commanded, with a skill so infernal and a success so great that ignorance of truth is almost unbounded. Of such elementary rules we often find influential persons, and sometimes persons of real merit, totally ignorant. In other days they would have known them on leaving school, or even from their catechism.

Let us go back, then, to the definition of the word nature, and it will serve as a starting-point from which to treat of what the laws destined to govern man should be.

The nature of a being is that which renders it capable of attaining its end. This is true of a plant or an animal as well as of man; but there are two kinds of ends subordinate one to the other. The end for which God created the world could be no other than God himself.[71] The Creator could only propose to himself an end worthy of himself, and, he alone being perfect, he could not find outside himself an end proportioned to his greatness. God is, then, the last end of all creatures. But there are particular ends; and it is in their subordination that the order of the world consists. The primary ends are, in a certain sense, but a means for arriving at the last end.

But God being unable to add anything to his infinite perfection, the end which he proposed to himself could not be to render himself more perfect; hence he could seek only an exterior glory, which consists in manifesting himself to his creatures. For this it was necessary that some of these creatures should be capable of knowing him. These reasonable creatures are superior to the others and are their primary end; therefore it is that theologians call man a microcosm, a compendium of the universe, and king of the world.

Man is placed in creation to admire it, and by means of it to render homage to God; for, in his quality of a creature gifted with reason, he knows his end, which is God, and the essential characteristic of his nature is the ability to attain this end. He is, moreover, endowed with an admirable prerogative--liberty, or free-will; that is to say, he is called on to will this end; and God, in his infinite bounty, will recompense him for having willed his own good. But man has need of an effort to will good; for his primitive nature has been corrupted by the original fall. He has, therefore, an inclination to evil, against which he must incessantly struggle; and the greatest number of political and social errors have their source in ignorance or forgetfulness of this perversion of human nature.

This granted, the natural law comprises the obligations imposed on man in order that he may reach his end, together with the prohibition of all that could turn him away from it. This law obliges all men, even those who have no knowledge of the positive divine law--that is to say, the revealed law.

Behold how Gerson has defined it:

“The natural law is a sign imprinted upon the heart of every man enjoying the right use of reason, and which makes known to him the divine will, in virtue of which the human creature is required to do certain things and to avoid certain others, in order to reach his end.” Among the precepts which God has engraved upon the hearts of all men is found, in the first rank, that which obliges them to refer themselves to God as to their last end.

From this it follows that every law which tends to hinder or prevent the progress of men toward God is a law against nature, and consequently null (_lex injusta non est lex_); for no human law can change or abrogate the natural law.

XI.--CONTINUATION: THE END OF SOCIETY ACCORDING TO THE NATURAL LAW.

The considerations of the preceding chapter have reference to man considered abstractly from society. But man cannot exist alone. For life and subsistence, during his early childhood, he has need of his kind; so that, from the first moment of his existence, he forms part of a domestic society--the family.

The family being certainly of divine institution, and the duties which it imposes being of the number of those which the natural law commands, we find therein the first elements of all society: authority, hierarchy, consequently inequality, mutual love, and protection--in a word, varied and reciprocal duties. But the family suffices not for man’s social cravings. Man naturally longs after his like; he possesses the marvellous gift of speech for communication with his fellows; he bears engraven on his heart the first precept of his duty towards them: “Do unto others that which you would have others do unto you; and do not unto them that which you would not that they do to you.” The existence of society is, therefore, still a law of nature.

Once formed, society itself has its duties; it has its proper end, which not only should not be opposed to the end of man considered singly, but should moreover contribute to facilitate the attainment of that end. The end of man being God, and this end being attainable only by virtue, the principal end of society will necessarily be to aid men in the practice of virtue; and, that I may not be accused of depending exclusively on theology, I will adduce what Aristotle has said on this subject: “The most perfect state is evidently that in which each citizen, whoever he may be, may, by favor of the laws, best practise virtue and be most secure of happiness.”[72] And what is happiness, according to Aristotle? “We consider it a point perfectly established that happiness is always in proportion to wisdom; … [for] the soul, speaking absolutely and even relatively to us, is more precious than wealth and the body.… Following the laws of nature, all exterior goods are desirable only insomuch as they serve the soul, and wise men should not desire them except for this end; whereas the soul should never be placed in comparison with them.”[73]

We are assuredly far off from this pagan, and he goes still further even than the foregoing; for he lays down as incontestable a principle which is the formal condemnation of the secularization of the law. “The elements of happiness,” says he, “are the same for the individual and for the city.”[74] We have just seen what he understands by happiness; but he adds, in order that he may be the better comprehended, that if the felicity of the individual consisted in wealth, it would be the same for the city. According to Aristotle, therefore, the moral law obliges society as it does the individual. Now, it is precisely this which the partisans of atheistical or merely secular law deny.

XII.--CHRISTIAN LAW.

I have designedly quoted the ancient philosophers, because certain diseased minds who shrink from the authority of the sacred books accept more willingly that of the learned; but I believe that from what precedes one could easily infer the true rule of the relations between church and state. I will not undertake it now; nevertheless, as I address myself, by preference, to those who profess the same faith as myself, I will take the liberty to point out to them some inevitable corollaries of the principles I have just recalled.

The natural law, properly so called, has been confirmed and completed by revelation. Although the precepts whose observance is indispensable to man to reach his end are engraven in the depths of his heart, the blindness and the evil propensities which are the consequences of his fall render him but too forgetful of his duties. Besides, God, having resolved to save man, chose to himself a privileged people, that from it he might cause the Messias to be born; and for the accomplishment of his merciful designs he guided this people and made it the guardian of his law, even to the day on which the promises were fulfilled.

To this end God charged Moses with the promulgation of a positive divine law which contained moral precepts--precepts relating to the ceremonies of the ancient worship--and political precepts; that is to say, precepts relating to the civil government of the Jewish people. The last two classes of precepts no longer oblige; but those which concern morals--that is to say, those of the Decalogue--retain all their force, because they are the precepts of the natural law.

But it is no longer by virtue of the promulgation of Moses that we are bound by the moral obligations contained in the old law. He who is our Judge, our Legislator, our King,[75] has come himself to give us a more perfect law: “Mandatum novum do vobis” (Joan. 13). According to the expression of Suarez, Jesus Christ has made known more perfectly the natural law in completing it by new precepts. Jesus Christ has done still more: he has founded a new kingdom--the church, the mystical body, of which he is the head. He has, therefore, appointed interpreters and guardians of his law, who have the mission to proclaim it to those who know it not; to pardon in his name those who, having violated it, confess and repent; and, finally, to distribute the numberless succors of divine grace--all which have for their object to help us to observe the law as perfectly as possible, and consequently to enable us ourselves to approach perfection. The new precepts added by Christ to those of the natural law are those which enjoin upon us the use of the sacraments and which determine their form; these articles of the new law--if we may be allowed so to term them--are all as obligatory as those of the natural law, because they have God himself for their author. Behold how S. Thomas sums up the whole of the new law, or the law of grace, which Christ came to bring us: “It comprises,” says he, “the precepts of the natural law, the articles of faith, and the sacraments of grace.”

One of the most remarkable characteristics of the Christian law is that it was not written. Jesus Christ _spoke_ his commandments, and, _his word being divine_, it engraved them upon the hearts of his apostles and disciples;[76] but the Incarnate Word had nothing written during the time he spent upon earth. The first Gospel appeared at least eight years after the death of Jesus Christ. If to this observation we add the common belief of theologians, according to which it was only from the coming of the Holy Ghost--that is to say, from the day of Pentecost and after the Ascension--that the law of Christ became obligatory, we arrive at this conclusion: that the means of oral teaching was expressly chosen by the Word for the transmission of his law and his will.

Nothing throws greater light upon the sovereign importance of the church and its hierarchy; nothing manifests better the extreme necessity of a permanent infallibility residing somewhere in the mystical body of Christ. The Council of the Vatican, conformably to the tradition of all Christian ages, has _defined_ that “the Roman Pontiff enjoys the plenitude of that infallibility with which it was necessary for the church to be provided in defining doctrine touching faith or morals.”

These last words show that the Pope is the unfailing interpreter of the natural law, and the judge, from whom there is no appeal of its violations.

The decisions given by the Sovereign Pontiff upon human laws are not recognized at the present day by the powers of the earth. But neither is God recognized; and thus it is that, little by little violence has overrun the world and law has vanished. Europe is returning to a worse than primitive barbarism; and Catholics are no longer alone in saying it.

At the epoch at which the bishops were gathered together at Rome for the last council, a publicist of great merit, an Englishman and a Protestant, speaking in the name of his co-religionists, addressed an appeal to the Pope entreating him to labor for the re-establishment of the rights of the people.

The rights of the people, or the law of nature, said Mr. Urquhart, is the Ten Commandments applied to society. After having cited Lord Mansfield, who says that this right “is considered to form part of the English law,” and that “_the acts_ of the government cannot alter it,” Mr. Urquhart fears not to add “that it is against their governments that nations should protect this right.” And why did this Protestant appeal to Rome? Because, in sight of the unjust wars which ravage Europe, he hoped that the Ecumenical Council “would lay down a rule enabling Catholics to distinguish the just from the unjust; so that the Pope might afterwards exercise juridical power over communities, nations, and their sovereigns.”[77]

The rule exists; for the natural or divine law engraven by God from the beginning upon the hearts of all men, and more expressly revealed in the Decalogue, was the subject of the teaching of Christ. The juridical power and the tribunal from which there is no appeal equally exist; but the voice of the judge is no longer listened to by those who govern human society. But it is not this which is important, and Mr. Urquhart is right--it is the nations which should invoke against their new tyrants the only efficacious protection; it is the people who should first bend before the beneficent authority of the infallible master of the moral law; there would then be no further need of the consent of governments.

XIII.--CONCLUSION.

I said, in beginning the last paragraph, that it was addressed to Catholics by right of corollary from the preceding considerations. It is certain, indeed, that if all Catholics were truly instructed and well convinced of the truths that I have endeavored to set forth as briefly and clearly as I could, a great step in the right path would already have been taken.

But there is a much-used, widely-spread, and very convenient objection which many excellent men fail not to proffer in such a case. “It is true,” say they, “that if human discussions and quarrels could be referred to the highest moral authority on earth, it would afford great advantages; but this is not _practicable_. Times have changed, and it is impossible to hope that this authority can ever recover the influence it would require in order to act efficaciously.”

If good men adhere to the fatal habit they have acquired of renouncing beforehand all effort, for fear it will not be successful, nothing can be done; and there remains to us nothing but to veil our faces while awaiting the destruction of our country and of all organized society. But even were we reduced to despair, we never have the right of renouncing our convictions nor of ceasing to act personally according to the prescriptions of our faith. Before concerning ourselves about the doings of others, and without needing to count on success, we must begin by conforming ourselves to the teachings of truth, which is by its nature unchangeable; for there is no progress or civilization which can alter one iota of the divine laws.

Moreover, he is very bold who would dare to predict what Europe will or will not be several years hence. Either it is condemned--and then, for his own peace of mind, a man should allow himself to be guided by his conscience with the full certainty of not doing wrong--or God wills to save Europe still another time; and this can never be, save by truth.

With regard to practical means, of which they make so much at the present day, I see no one who proposes them inspiring any confidence. Every one hesitates, gropes, and most often acknowledges that he can only invent. The present hour is favorable to good, in this sense: that the greater number of _practical_ errors no longer exercise the same seduction as at the beginning of the century.

Evil presses us on all sides, and, according to the expression of one of our most distinguished publicists, “1789 has failed.”[78] After 1789 there is no middle way between social war and the return to good. We meet at every step upright minds who break their idols; there are too many who know not yet with what to replace them, but it is still much to have seen one’s error.