Now, here we have two co-existent facts, Evil,—and Public Force, engaged to counteract the natural social laws. Is the first of these facts the consequence of the second? For my own part, I believe so; I should even say, I am certain of it. But at the same time I can attest this, that in proportion as evil is developed, governments invariably seek for a remedy in new disturbances of the natural laws, and theorists reproach them with not going far enough. Am I not thence entitled to conclude that they have but little confidence in these laws?
Undoubtedly, if the question is between Isolation and Exchange we are at one. But if the question be between free and compulsory exchange, does the same thing hold? Is there nothing forced, factitious, restrained, constrained, in France, in the manner in which services which have relation to trade, to credit, to conveyances, to the arts, to education, to religion, are exchanged? Are labour and capital distributed naturally between agriculture and manufactures? When existing interests are disturbed, are they allowed of their own accord to return to their natural channels? Do we not encounter trammels and obstacles on all sides? Are there not a hundred professions which are interdicted to the majority of the people? Is the Roman-catholic not forced to pay for the services of the Jewish Rabbi, and the Jew for the services of the Catholic priest? Is there a single man in France who has received the education which his parents would have given him had they been free? Are not our minds, our manners, our ideas, our employments, fashioned under the régime of the arbitrary, or at least of the artificial? Now, I ask, whether thus to disturb the free exchange of services is not to abjure and deny the harmony of interests? On what ground am I robbed of my liberty, unless it be that it is judged hurtful to others? Is it pretended that it is injurious to myself? This would be but to add one antagonism the more. And only think! in what a situation [p121] should we find ourselves if nature had placed in each man’s heart a permanent irrepressible spring of action, urging him to injure those around him, and at the same time to injure himself?
Alas! we have tried everything—when shall we make trial of the simplest thing of all—Liberty. Liberty in all that does not offend against justice—liberty to live, advance, improve—the free exercise of our faculties—the free interchange of services. A beautiful and solemn spectacle it would have been, had the Power which sprang from the revolution of February thus addressed our citizens:—
“You have invested me with the public Force. I shall apply it exclusively to those things in which the intervention of Force is permissible, and there is but one—Justice. I shall force every one to confine himself within the bounds of right. You may work freely and as you please during the day, and sleep in peace at night. I have taken under my charge the security of person and property—that is my mission, and I will fulfil it—but I accept no other. Let there then be no longer any misunderstanding between us. Henceforth you shall pay me only the light tribute which is necessary for the maintenance of order and the administration of justice. Keep in mind that henceforth every man must depend upon himself for his subsistence and advancement. Turn no longer your longing eyes to me. Ask me no longer for wealth, for employment, for credit, for education, for religion, for morality. Never forget that the mainspring of your development is in yourselves. As for me, I never act but through the intervention of force. I have nothing, absolutely nothing, but what I derive from you, and for this reason I cannot confer even the smallest advantage on one except at the expense of another. Cultivate your fields, then, manufacture and export your products, carry on trade, afford each other credit, render and receive services freely, educate your children, set them out in life, cultivate the arts, improve your minds, refine and purify your tastes and sentiments, unite, form industrial and charitable associations, join your efforts for your individual good and that of the public, follow your inclinations, fulfil your destinies by the free exercise of your powers, your ideas, and your foresight. Expect from me only two things—Liberty and Security—and depend upon it you cannot ask me for a third without losing the other two.”
I am thoroughly persuaded that if the revolution of February had proclaimed these principles we never should have had another revolution. Is it possible to conceive that citizens, left perfectly free in all other respects, would conspire to overturn a Power [p122] whose action was limited to the satisfaction of the most pressing, the most deeply felt of all our social requirements, the requirements of Justice?
But it was unfortunately impossible for the National Assembly to adopt this course, or make these sentiments heard. They were not in accordance either with the ideas of the Assembly or the expectations of the public. They would have terrified society as much as the proclamation of Communism. To be responsible to ourselves, forsooth! To trust to the State only for the maintenance of order and peace! To expect from it neither wealth nor knowledge! To be able no longer to make it responsible for our faults, our folly, our imprudence! To trust only to ourselves for the means of subsistence and physical amelioration, or moral and intellectual improvement! What on earth is to become of us? Is not society on the eve of being invaded by poverty, ignorance, error, irreligion, and perversity?
We allow that such undoubtedly would have been the fears which would have manifested themselves on all sides had the revolution of February proclaimed Liberty, that is to say, the reign of the natural laws of society. Then we were either unacquainted with these laws, or we wanted confidence in them. We could not get rid of the idea that the motives and springs of action which God has implanted in the mind of man are essentially perverse; that rectitude resides nowhere but in the views and intentions of the governing power; that the tendencies of human nature lead to disorganization, to anarchy,—in a word, we believed in the inevitable antagonism of interests.
So far was the revolution of February from displaying any tendency towards a natural organization, that never were the hopes and ideas of French society so decidedly turned to artificial combinations as at that epoch. Which of these combinations was in most favour? I really cannot very well tell. The business, in the language of the day, was to make experiments—Faciamus experimentum in corpore vili. Such was their contempt for individuality, so thoroughly did they assimilate human nature to inert matter, that they talked of making social experiments with men, just as we make chemical experiments with acids and alkalies. The first tentative was begun at the Luxembourg, we know with what success. Erelong the Constituent Assembly instituted a Committee of Labour, in which a thousand social schemes were engulfed and swallowed up. A Fourierist representative seriously demanded lands and money (he would soon have asked for men also) to enable him to manipulate his model society. Another [p123] Egalitaire representative offered his recipe, which was rejected. The manufacturers were more lucky, and succeeded in maintaining theirs. In the meantime, the Legislative Assembly named a commission to organize “assistance.”
Now, what strikes us with surprise in all this is, that the Ruling Power, for the sake of its own stability, did not from time to time thus enter its protest:—“You are habituating thirty-six millions of men to regard the State as responsible for all the good or evil that may befall them in this world. At this rate, Government is impossible.”
At any rate, if these various social inventions, dignified with the high sounding title of organization, differ from each other in their manner of proceeding, they are all founded on the same principle: Take from one to give to another. Now such a principle clearly could not meet with such universal sympathy from the people, unless they were thoroughly convinced that men’s interests are naturally antagonistic, and that the tendencies of human nature are essentially perverse.