Thus we find a complete opposition between these two great societies, the Celestial and the Roman Empires. To the civilization of Eastern Asia I will add that of the Brahmans, which is also of extraordinary strength and universality. If in China every one, or nearly every one, has reached a certain level of knowledge, the same is the case among the Hindus. Each man, according to his caste, shares in a spirit that has lasted for ages, and knows exactly what he ought to learn, think, and believe. Among the Buddhists of Tibet and other parts of Upper Asia, nothing is rarer than a peasant who cannot read. Every one has similar convictions on the important matters of life.
Do we find the same uniformity among Europeans? The question is not worth asking. The Græco-Roman civilization has no definitely marked colour, either throughout the nations as a whole, or even within the same people. I need not speak of Russia or most of the Austrian States; the proof would be too easy. But consider Germany or Italy (especially South Italy); Spain shows a similar picture, though in fainter lines; France is in the same position as Spain.
Take the case of France. I will not confine myself to the fact, which always strikes the most superficial observer, that between Paris and the rest of France there is an impassable gulf, and that at the very gates of the capital a new nation begins, which is quite different from that living within the walls. On this point there is no room for doubt, and those who base their conclusions, as to the unity of ideas and the fusion of blood, on the formal unity of our Government, are under a great illusion.
Not a single social law or root-principle of civilization is understood in the same way in all our departments. I do not refer merely to the peoples of Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Limousin, Gascony, and Provence; every one knows how little one is like the other, and how they vary in their opinions. The important point is that, while in China, Tibet, and India the ideas essential to the maintenance of civilization are familiar to all classes, this is not at all the case among ourselves. The most elementary and accessible facts are sealed mysteries to most of our rural populations, who are absolutely indifferent to them; for usually they can neither read nor write, and have no wish to learn. They cannot see the use of such knowledge, nor the possibility of applying it. In such a matter, I put no trust in the promises of the law, or the fine show made by institutions, but rather in what I have seen for myself, and in the reports of careful observers. Different governments have made the most praiseworthy attempts to raise the peasants from their ignorance; not only are the children given every opportunity for being educated in their villages, but even adults, who are made conscripts at twenty, find in the regimental schools an excellent system of instruction in the most necessary subjects. Yet, in spite of these provisions, and the fatherly anxiety of the Government, in spite of the compelle intrare[[44]] which it is continually dinning into the ears of its agents, the agricultural classes learn nothing whatever. Like all those who have lived in the provinces, I have seen how parents never send their children to school without obvious reluctance, how they regard the hours spent there as a mere waste of time, how they withdraw them at once on the slightest pretext and never allow the compulsory number of years to be extended. Once he leaves school, the young man’s first duty is to forget what he has learnt. This is, to a certain extent, a point of honour with him; and his example is followed by the discharged soldiers, who, in many parts of France, are not only ashamed of having learnt to read and write, but even affect to forget their own language, and often succeed in doing so. Hence I could more easily approve all the generous efforts that have been so fruitlessly made to educate our rural populations, if I were not convinced that the knowledge put before them is quite unsuitable, and that at the root of their apparent indifference there is a feeling of invincible hostility to our civilization. One proof lies in their attitude of passive resistance; but the spectre of another and more convincing argument appears before me, as soon as I see any instance of this obstinacy being overcome, under apparently favourable circumstances. In some respects the attempts at education are succeeding better than before. In our eastern departments and the great manufacturing towns there are many workmen who learn of their own accord to read and write. They live in a circle where such knowledge is obviously useful. But as soon as they have a sufficient grasp of the rudiments, how do they use them? Generally as a means of acquiring ideas and feelings which are now no longer instinctively, but actively, opposed to the social order. The only exception is to be found in the agricultural and even the industrial population of the North-west, where knowledge up to an elementary point is far more widespread than in any other part, and where it is not only retained after the school time is over, but is usually made to serve a good end. As these populations have much more affinity than the others to the Germanic race, I am not surprised at the result. We see the same phenomenon in Belgium and the Netherlands.
If we go on to consider the fundamental beliefs and opinions of the people, the difference becomes still more marked. With regard to the beliefs we have to congratulate the Christian religion on not being exclusive or making its dogmas too narrow. If it had, it would have struck some very dangerous shoals. The bishops and the clergy have to struggle, as they have done for these five, ten, fifteen centuries, against the stream of hereditary tendencies and prejudices, which are the more formidable as they are hardly even admitted, and so can neither be fought nor conquered. There is no enlightened priest who does not know, after his mission-work in the villages, the deep cunning with which even the religious peasant will continue to cherish, in his inmost heart, some traditional idea that comes to the surface only at rare moments, in spite of himself. His complete confidence in his parish priest just stops short of what we might call his secret religion. Does he mention it to him? he denies it, will admit no discussion, and will not budge an inch from his convictions. This is the reason of the taciturnity that, in every province, is the main attitude of the peasant in face of the middle classes; it raises too an insuperable barrier between him and even the most popular landowners in his canton. With this view of civilization on the part of the majority of the people who are supposed to be most deeply attached to it, I can well believe that an approximate estimate of ten millions within our circle of culture, and twenty-six millions outside it, would be, if anything, an under-statement.
If our rural populations were merely brutal and ignorant, we might not take much notice of this cleavage, but console ourselves with the delusive hope of gradually winning them over, and absorbing them in the multitudes that are already civilized. But these peasants are like certain savage tribes: at first sight they seem brutish and unthinking, for they are outwardly self-effacing and humble. But if one digs even a little beneath the surface, into their real life, one finds that their isolation is voluntary, and comes from no feeling of weakness. Their likes and dislikes are not a matter of chance; everything obeys a logical sequence of definite ideas. When I spoke just now of religion, I might also have pointed out how very far removed our moral doctrines are from those of the peasants,[[45]] what a different sense they give to the word delicacy, how obstinately they cling to their custom of regarding every one who is not of peasant stock in the same way as the men of remote antiquity viewed the foreigner. It is true they do not murder him, thanks to the strange and mysterious terror inspired by laws they have not themselves made; but they do not conceal their hatred and distrust of him, and they take great pleasure in annoying him, if they can do it without risk. Does this mean that they are ill-natured? No, not among themselves—we may continually see them doing each other little kindnesses. They simply look on themselves as a race apart, a race (if we may believe them) which is weak and oppressed, and obliged to deal crookedly, but which also keeps its stiff-necked and contemptuous pride. In some of our provinces the workman thinks himself of far better blood and older stock than his former master. Family pride, in some of the peasants, is at least equal to that of the nobility of the Middle Ages.[[46]]
We cannot doubt it; the lower strata of the French people have very little in common with the surface. They form an abyss over which civilization is suspended, and the deep stagnant waters, sleeping at the bottom of the gulf, will one day show their power of dissolving all that comes in their way. The most tragic crises of her history have deluged the country with blood, without the agricultural population playing any part except that which was forced on it. Where its immediate interests were not engaged, it let the storms pass by without troubling itself in the least. Those who are astonished and scandalized by such callousness say that the peasant is essentially immoral—which is both unjust and untrue. The peasants look on us almost in the light of enemies. They understand nothing of our civilization, they share in it unwillingly, and think themselves justified in profiting, as far as they can, by its misfortunes. If we put aside this antagonism, which is sometimes active but generally inert, we need not hesitate to allow them some high moral qualities, however strangely these may, at times, be manifested.
I may apply to the whole of Europe what I have just said of France, and conclude that modern civilization includes far more than it absorbs; in this it resembles the Roman Empire. Hence one cannot be confident that our state of society will last; and I see a clear proof of this in the smallness of its hold even over the classes raised a little above the country population. Our civilization may be compared to the temporary islands thrown up in the sea by submarine volcanoes. Exposed as they are to the destructive action of the currents, and robbed of the forces that first kept them in position, they will one day break up, and their fragments will be hurled into the gulf of the all-conquering waves. It is a sad end, and one which many noble races before ourselves have had to meet. The blow cannot be turned aside; it is inevitable. The wise man may see it coming, but can do nothing more. The most consummate statesmanship is not able for one moment to counteract the immutable laws of the world.
But though thus unknown, despised, or hated by the majority of those who live under its shadow, our civilization is yet one of the most glorious monuments ever erected by the genius of man. It is certainly not distinguished by its power of invention; but putting this aside, we may say that it has greatly developed the capacity for understanding, and so for conquest. To mistake nothing is to take everything. If it has not founded the “exact sciences,” it has at least made them exact, and freed them from errors to which, curiously enough, they were more liable than any other branch of knowledge. Thanks to its discoveries, it knows the material world better than all the societies which have gone before. It has guessed some of its chief laws, it can describe and explain them, and borrow from them a marvellous strength that passes a hundredfold the strength of a man. Little by little, by a skilful use of induction, it has reconstructed large periods of history of which the ancients never suspected the existence. The further we are from primitive times, the more clearly can we see them, and penetrate their mysteries. This is a great point of superiority, and one which we must, in fairness, allow to our civilization.
But when we have admitted this, should we be right in concluding, as is usually done, without reflexion, that it is superior to all the civilizations that have ever existed, and to all those that exist at the present day? Yes and no. Yes, because the extreme diversity of its elements allows it to rest on a powerful basis of comparison and analysis, and so to assimilate at once almost anything; yes, because this power of choice is favourable to its development in many different directions; yes again, because, thanks to the impulse of the Germanic element (which is too materialistic to be a destructive force) it has made itself a morality, the wise prescriptions of which were generally unknown before. If, however, we carry this idea of its greatness so far as to regard it as having an absolute and unqualified superiority, then I say no, the simple fact being that it excels in practically nothing whatever.