And so the man, who had put away from himself everything of an absolute and a priori nature because he declared a purely empirical foundation of social science to be the source of all immorality, arrived at the assumption of an innate, immanent justice as the first principle of society which he, with the arbitrariness of a catechism writer, declared to be "the first and most essential of our faculties; a sovereign faculty which, by that very fact, is the most difficult to know, the faculty of feeling and affirming our dignity, and consequently of wishing it and defending it as well in the person of others as in our own person."
As Proudhon, in spite of the fact that he was always opposing Utopianism, nevertheless fell into the chief error of the Utopians, so, too, finally he shared the destiny of Auguste Comte, upon whom during his life he had rather looked down. Both had started with a sworn antagonism to every speculative foundation of social philosophy, and both finally adopted a deus ex machina in order to preserve the world that was falling into individual pieces before them from a complete atomisation. With Comte it is called "love," with Proudhon "justice." The distinction between the two is somewhat childish. Both perceived the standpoint of evolution, the mechanical conception which overcomes all deviations, without assigning to it the part which it deserves. One may safely say that if Proudhon had been brought into connection with the doctrine of evolution, he would have been one of the leading sociologists. He had an infinitely keen sense of the most secret motions of the social soul, but he believed that he might not approach it lovingly in its nudity of nature, and therefore degraded it to a Platonic idea, after having affirmed its utmost reality. This was an action like that of Kronos, the curse of which never departed from his thought.
To this was added a very scanty and transitory acquaintance with political economy which allowed the practicability of his ideas to appear to him in the easiest light, but which, when he was opposed to one so thoroughly acquainted with it as Karl Marx, placed him in the most piteous position.
One of the commonest reproaches which is made against Proudhon, and which is partly a personal one, refers to his attitude towards Napoleon III. In the little political catechism which is found in his Justice, Proudhon answered the question "Whether Anarchy can be united with the dynastic principle," in the following way: "It is clear that France till now was not of opinion that freedom and dynasty were incompatible ideas. When the old monarchy called together the States General it kindled the Revolution. The constitution of 1791 and those of 1814 and 1830, proved the desire of the country to reconcile a monarchical principle with the democracy. The popularity of the First Empire was one argument more for the possibility of this supposition; the people believed they found in it all their preconceived ideas, and apparently surrender was reconciled with progress. Thus men satisfied their habits of subjection under a lordship, and their need for unity; they exercised the danger of a president dictator or an oligarchy. When in 1830 Lafayette defined the new order of affairs as 'a monarchy surrounded by republican arrangements,' he perceived the identity of the political and economic order. While the true republic consists in the equilibrium of forces and efforts, people pleased themselves by seeing a new dynasty hold the balance and guaranteeing justice. And finally, this theory is confirmed by the example of England (although equality is unknown there), and by the new constitutional states. No doubt the union of the dynastic principle with that of freedom and equality in France has not produced the fruits that were expected from it, but that was the fault of Governmental fatalism; the mistake was made just as much by the princes as by the people. Although dynastic parties since 1848 have shown themselves by no means friendly to revolution, the force of circumstances will again bring them to it, and as France at all stages of her fortunes has always liked to give herself a ruler and to manifest her unity by a symbol, so it would be exaggeration to deny even now the possibility of a restoration of the dynasty. We have heard Republicans say, 'He will be my master who shall wear the purple robe of equality,' and those who speak thus form neither the smallest nor the least intelligent portion; but it is also true that they did not wish for a dictatorship. At any rate, one must admit that there are no symptoms of a restoration in the near future. And what makes us suppose that the dynastic principle is, at least, under a cloud, is the fact that the pretenders and their advisers have no heart for the affair. 'After you, gentlemen,' they appear to say to the Democrats. But after the democracy there will not remain much for a dynasty to pick up, or the economic equilibrium would be false. Non datur regnum aut imperium in œconomiæ."
This certainly reasonable and moderate point of view, which proceeds from the perception that in an organic society the caprice of one individual cannot possibly stop or disturb the course of the social function, and that king or emperor accordingly could at most be a symbol, is also at the bottom of the book on social revolution. In the coup d'état of the 2d of December, Proudhon only saw a stage of the great social revolution, the manifestation of the will of the people, striving in the direction of social equalisation; although perhaps mistakenly, and challenged Louis Napoleon, whose coup d'état he had prophesied, condemned, and sought to prevent, to show himself worthy of public opinion, and to use the mandate given him by destiny and by the French people in the sense that it was entrusted to him.[18] Proudhon probably did not believe, when he was writing the Sociale Révolution, by any means too much in the willingness of Napoleon to take upon himself such a mission as he assigned to him. The language of the book is in any case very reserved, and there is no trace of the apotheosis of the author of the coup d'état.
Nevertheless some have wished to represent this as Proudhon's intention; his early release from the prison in which the little book was written as the immediate effect, and as being the thanks of the Emperor, thus representing Proudhon as a mercenary time-server. But this is not in accordance with the facts. Proudhon remained in his imprisonment almost till the very last day of his sentence, and the attitude of the authorities towards his writings afterwards does not seem to show that any relationship, even a secret one, existed between Proudhon and Napoleon. Proudhon might write what he liked, it was confiscated; in vain he applied for permission to be allowed to issue his paper, Justice; a book which no longer showed the violence of his youth brought him three more years' imprisonment again, which he only escaped by a rapid flight to Belgium, and in the general amnesty of the year 1859 he was specially excepted from its conditions. When the Emperor in 1861, as a special favour, granted him permission to return home before the proper time, Proudhon proudly refused this favour, much as he wished to be in Paris, and only returned there at the expiration of the three years' period, at the end of 1863. These, at least, are no proofs that the author of What is Property? allowed himself to be brought over by the man on the 2d December. But Proudhon was not to breathe the air of his native land much longer. Broken by the troubles of persecution, he died, after a long illness, on the 19th June, 1865, in the arms of his wife, who, like himself, belonged to the working classes, and with whom he had led a life full of harmony and love.
