But there is a much-used, widely-spread, and very convenient objection which many excellent men fail not to proffer in such a case. “It is true,” say they, “that if human discussions and quarrels could be referred to the highest moral authority on earth, it would afford great advantages; but this is not practicable. Times have changed, and it is impossible to hope that this authority can ever recover the influence it would require in order to act efficaciously.”
If good men adhere to the fatal habit they have acquired of renouncing beforehand all effort, for fear it will not be successful, nothing can be done; and there remains to us nothing but to veil our faces while awaiting the destruction of our country and of all organized society. But even were we reduced to despair, we never have the right of renouncing our convictions nor of ceasing to act personally according to the prescriptions of our faith. Before concerning ourselves about the doings of others, and without needing to count on success, we must begin by conforming ourselves to the teachings of truth, which is by its nature unchangeable; for there is no progress or civilization which can alter one iota of the divine laws.
Moreover, he is very bold who would dare to predict what Europe will or will not be several years hence. Either it is condemned—and then, for his own peace of mind, a man should allow himself to be guided by his conscience with the full certainty of not doing wrong—or God wills to save Europe still another time; and this can never be, save by truth.
With regard to practical means, of which they make so much at the present day, I see no one who proposes them inspiring any confidence. Every one hesitates, gropes, and most often acknowledges that he can only invent. The present hour is favorable to good, in this sense: that the greater number of practical errors no longer exercise the same seduction as at the beginning of the century.
Evil presses us on all sides, and, according to the expression of one of our most distinguished publicists, “1789 has failed.”[78] After 1789 there is no middle way between social war and the return to good. We meet at every step upright minds who break their idols; there are too many who know not yet with what to replace them, but it is still much to have seen one’s error.
Furthermore, there are untiring seekers, some of whom have found the whole truth, and others who find but the fragments; all help to prepare the way for the reconstruction of the social edifice. He to whom I have dedicated this work[79] will pardon me, I hope, if I quote from him. I do not believe that there is another example of an equal influence so rapidly exercised by a book so serious, so grave in matter, so little attractive to the frivolous reader, as that which he has written upon Social Reform. To rediscover social truth by the method of observation and analysis was already a phenomenon which I consider unique of its kind; to cause it to be adopted by so great a number of minds biassed and filled with hostile prejudices, and most frequently badly prepared by their previous studies, is a fact still more astonishing. Thus, as I said in my dedicatory epistle, it is impossible for me not to see herein one of the most consoling signs of our age. The scientific processes of M. Le Play were, perhaps, the only ones which would find favor with a generation so dialectical and so enamored with the exact sciences as ours.
Notwithstanding the sorrows which oppress us, we must not despair; and, above all, we must not trouble ourselves too much concerning the errors of what people agree to call public opinion.
The errors regarding the general will reproduce themselves, under another form, in the uneasiness which this self-styled queen of the world instils into the minds of men of good-will. If we consider closely what the elements of opinion are, we very quickly perceive that, in general, it merits the name of public only because it proclaims itself very loudly and makes itself known in all the public squares. In reality, a party much less considerable than we suppose announces to the world, and imagines, most frequently in good faith, that it alone is enlightened. Its boldness inspires awe, and by degrees those who compose it succeed in persuading the multitude, and in persuading themselves that they represent the only opinion worthy of note. And who are these? Financiers and journalists who carry on business in common; loud-voiced lawyers; professors much tainted themselves; officers occupying a position, and others wishing to obtain one from them; the idle pleasure-seeking men and women. Is it, then, true that these represent the nation?
Eager for their own interest or for that of others, these pretended echoes of public opinion are wont to say “The people believe, the people wish, the people will never consent, it does not suit the people, etc. What a pity! The people are nothing in revolutions in which they are but passive instruments. France no longer ardently desires anything except repose. At first sight this proposition would seem true—the previous consent of the French is necessary for the re-establishment of the monarchy. Nothing is more false. The multitude never obtains what it wills; it always accepts, it never chooses. We may even notice an affectation of Providence (if I may be allowed the expression), inasmuch as the efforts of the people to attain an object are the very means which it makes use of to withdraw them from it.
“In the French Revolution the people were constantly chained, outraged, ruined, torn by factions; and the factions, in their turn, the sport of one another, constantly drifted (notwithstanding all their efforts), only to be dashed against the rock which awaited them.… In the establishment and the overthrow of sovereignties … the mass of the people enter only as the wood and the cord employed by a machinist. Their chiefs even are such only to strangers; in reality, they are led as they lead the people. When the proper moment shall arrive, the Supreme Ruler of empires will chase away these noisy insects. Then we shall be astonished at the profound nothingness of these men.