If, by ill-considered combinations, you relieve men from responsibility for their actions, they may still be taught by theory—but [p487] no longer by experience. And I doubt if instruction which has never been sanctioned and confirmed by experience is not more dangerous than ignorance itself. . . . . .
The sense of responsibility is eminently capable of improvement.
This is one of the most beautiful moral phenomena. There is nothing which we admire more in a man, in a class, in a nation, than the feeling of responsibility. It indicates superior moral culture, and an exquisite sensibility to the awards of public opinion. It may be, however, that the sense of responsibility is highly developed in one thing and very little in another. In France, among the educated classes, one would die of shame to be caught cheating at play or addicting oneself to solitary drinking. These things are laughed at among the peasants. But to traffic in political rights, to make merchandise of his vote, to be guilty of inconsistency, to cry out by turns Vive le Roi! Vive la Ligue! as the interest of the moment may prompt, these are things which our manners do not brand with shame.
The development of the sense of responsibility may be much aided by female intervention. . . . . .
Females are themselves extremely sensible of the feeling of responsibility. . . . . . It rests with them to create this force moralisatrice among the other sex; for it is their province to distribute praise and blame effectively. Why, then, do they not do so? because they are not sufficiently acquainted with the connexion between causes and effects in the moral world. . . . . .
The science of morals is the science of all, but especially of the female sex, for they form the manners of a nation. . . . . . [p488]
XXI.
SOLIDARITY.
If man were perfect, if he were infallible, society would present a very different harmony from that which is the subject of our inquiries. Ours is not the society of Fourier. It does not exclude evil; it admits dissonances; only we assert that it does not cease to be harmony if these dissonances pave the way to concord, and bring us back to it.