“God desired mankind to pursue a different road altogether, but they have taken their own way, and hence evil has been introduced into the world. Let them turn round at my call, and take an opposite direction, and universal happiness will then prevail.”
When a man sets out in this style it is much if he is believed by five or six adepts; but between that and being believed by one thousand millions of men the distance is great indeed.
And then, remember that the number of social inventions is as vast as the domain of the imagination itself; that there is not a publicist or writer on social economy who, after shutting himself up for a few hours in his library, does not come forth with a ready-made plan of artificial organization in his hand; that the inventions of Fourier, Saint Simon, Owen, Cabet, Blanc, etc., have no resemblance whatever to each other; that every day brings to light a new scheme; and that people are entitled to have some little time given them for reflection before they are called upon to reject the social organization which God has vouchsafed them, and to make a definite and irrevocable choice among so many newly invented systems. For what would happen if, after having selected one of these plans, a better should present itself! Can the institutions [p056] of property, family, labour, exchange, be placed every day upon a new basis? Are we to be forced to change the organization of society every morning?
“Thus, then,” says Rousseau, “the legislator being able to employ effectively neither force nor persuasion, he is under the necessity of having recourse to an authority of another kind, which carries us along without violence, and persuades without convincing us.”
What is that authority? Imposture. Rousseau dares not give utterance to the word, but, according to his invariable practice in such a case, he places it behind the transparent veil of an eloquent tirade.
“This is the reason,” says he, “which in all ages has forced the Fathers of nations to have recourse to the intervention of heaven, and to give the credit of their own wisdom to the gods, in order that the people, submitting to the laws of the state as to those of nature, and acknowledging the same power in the formation of man and of the commonwealth, should obey freely and bear willingly the yoke of the public felicity. This sublime reason, which is above the reach of vulgar souls, is that whose decisions the legislator puts into the mouth of the immortals, in order to carry along by divine authority those who cannot be moved by considerations of human prudence. But it is not for every man to make the gods speak,” etc.
And in order that there may be no mistake, he cites Machiavel, and allows him to complete the idea: “Mai non fu alcuno ordinatore de leggi STRAORDINARIE in un popolo che non ricorresse a Dio.”
But why does Machiavel counsel us to have recourse to God, and Rousseau to the gods, to the immortals? The reader can answer that question for himself.
I do not indeed accuse the modern Fathers of nations of making use of these unworthy deceptions. But when we place ourselves in their point of view, we see that they readily allow themselves to be hurried along by the desire of success. When an earnest and philanthropical man is deeply convinced that he possesses a social secret by means of which all his fellow-men may enjoy in this world unlimited happiness,—when he sees clearly that he can practically establish that idea neither by force nor by reasoning, and that deception is his only resource, he is laid under a very strong temptation. We know that the ministers of religion themselves, who profess the greatest horror of untruth, have not rejected pious frauds; and we see by the example of Rousseau [p057] (that austere writer, who has inscribed at the head of all his works the motto, Vitam impendere vero), that even a proud philosophy can allow itself to be seduced by the attraction of a very different maxim, namely, The end justifies the means. Why then should we be surprised that modern organisateurs should think also “to place their own wisdom to the credit of the gods, to put their decisions in the mouths of the immortals, hurrying us along without violence and persuading without convincing us!”
We know that, after the example of Moses, Fourier has preceded his Deuteronomy by a Genesis. Saint Simon and his disciples had gone still farther in their apostolic senilities. Others, more discreet, attached themselves to a latitudinarian faith, modified to suit their views, under the name of néochristianisme; and every one must be struck with the tone of mystic affectation which nearly all our modern reformers have introduced into their sermons.