We must acknowledge, however, that, to the rule which M. Le Play has laid down, objections arise which at the first glance appear sufficiently grave. We have heard intelligent men doubt whether even the temporary withdrawal of the political questions would be opportune or possible, and that for several reasons.
In the first place, because these questions are irresistibly imposed upon us. They are discussed every day in the debates of the Assembly or by the press. If we give up treating them according to true principles, they will certainly be determined in the sense of the Revolution.
In effect, and it is a second reason, if men of order deny themselves entrance on this ground, it is indispensable that the revolutionary party should promise to abstain likewise. But how can we hope that it will make, much less that it will observe, this engagement? The first aim of this party is evidently to possess itself of political power, by means of which it will be easy to realize its anti-social theories. We must put forth our whole strength in this contest, if we do not wish to have it become impossible for us to defend the social interests.
Finally, here is a consideration which, to the eyes of the men whose sentiments we express, appears still more decisive. They say that in order to make it possible to abstract political questions, and give ourselves exclusively to the study of the social, there should be a line of demarcation drawn between these two domains so closely united. This is what they cannot accomplish. Social and political rights repose on the same basis, they have the same enemies, and are attacked with the same arms. Why is the family disorganized? Why, in labor, is the harmony so necessary between the employer and the employed replaced by an antagonism equally hurtful to both? Is it not, above all, because every rank of society suffers from the rebound of the attacks made politically on the principle of authority?
We do not dispute the fatal influence of the false principles pointed out by M. Le Play—the original perfection preached by Rousseau, the native equality of men maintained by Alexis de Tocqueville, have had their share, and their great share, in the disorders which have totally overthrown society. But the principal cause of these disorders, the revolutionary principle by excellence, is the negation of all authority superior to that of man!
How shall we answer these arguments? It will not be difficult. We can admit them without injury to the thesis of M. Le Play. We would misapprehend him if we placed the Christian principle of authority among the number of political questions which he counsels us to avoid. This principle, in reality, is not less social than political. It is the common foundation of these two orders, the fourth commandment of the decalogue, and, consequently, constitutes one of the essential articles of the social restoration, whose complete programme M. Le Play finds in the decalogue.
What are the political questions we should avoid, if we would see union and strength succeed to the divisions which now paralyze us? Those that spring from opinions.
Opinions divide parties, and create among them interminable struggles. S. Augustine has well said: In necessariis, unitas; in dubiis, libertas. Necessary principles are the domain of unity; doubtful opinions, by provoking liberty, engender division. It is in the very essence of opinion to arouse against it other opinions, to which their probability, more or less great, gives the right to struggle against every light but that of proof. Here is, then, what experience teaches us, and what the dangers of society command us: it is to lift ourselves above this obscure and troubled region where opinions clash, and to rise to the peaceful sphere that principles illumine with a steady light. Here there can be no subject of division among sincere minds. In the social as in the political order, principles convince by their proofs all intellects which have not made a compact with error; and their necessity, as incontestable as their truth, conquers the adhesion of all just men.
We can, then, without contradicting M. Le Play, establish the following proposition: to obtain this union among right-thinking men, without which there is no salvation to be hoped for France, political parties must be silent on the questions which divide them, and cling to the immutable principle whose negation is the chief cause of our misfortunes.
But what is this principle? This is the question we will endeavor to answer with a precision which will leave no doubt in sincere minds; no pretext for the division of parties.