Charity takes from us something in order to give it to our fellow-men. If it goes so far as to inspire us to renounce our dearest interests, it is called devotedness.
It certainly cannot be said that to be charitable is not obligatory. But this obligation must not be regarded as precise, as inflexible as the obligation to be just. Charity is a sacrifice; and who can find the rule of sacrifice, the formula of self-renunciation? For justice, the formula is clear,—to respect the rights of another. But charity knows neither rule nor limit. It transcends all obligation. Its beauty is precisely in its liberty.
But it must be acknowledged that charity also has its dangers. It tends to substitute its own action for the action of him whom it wishes to help; it somewhat effaces his personality, and makes itself in some sort his providence,—a formidable part for a mortal! In order to be useful to others, one imposes himself on them, and runs the risk of violating their natural rights. Love, in giving itself, enslaves. Doubtless it is not interdicted us to act upon another. We can always do it through petition and exhortation. We can also do it by threatening, when we see one of our fellows engaged in a criminal or senseless action. We have even the right to employ force when passion carries away liberty and makes the person disappear. So we may, we even ought to prevent by force the suicide of one of our fellow-men. The legitimate power of charity is measured by the more or less liberty and reason possessed by him to whom it is applied. What delicacy, then, is necessary in the exercise of this perilous virtue! How can we estimate with sufficient certainty the degree of liberty still possessed by one of our fellow-men to know how far we may substitute ourselves for him in the guiding of his destiny? And when, in order to assist a feeble soul, we take possession of it, who is sufficiently sure of himself not to go farther, not to pass from the person governed to the love of domination itself? Charity is often the commencement and the excuse, and always the pretext of usurpation. In order to have the right of abandoning one's self to the emotions of charity, it is necessary to be fortified against one's self by a long exercise of justice.
To respect the rights of others and do good to men, to be at once just and charitable,—such are social ethics in the two elements that constitute them.
We speak of social ethics, and we do not yet know what society is. Let us look around us:—everywhere society exists, and where it is not, man is not man. Society is a universal fact which must have universal foundations.
Let us avoid at first the question of the origin of society.[237] The philosophy of the last century delighted in such questions too much. How can we demand light from the regions of darkness, and the explanation of reality from an hypothesis? Why go back to a pretended primitive state in order to account for a present state which may be studied in itself in its unquestionable characters? Why seek what may have been in the germ that which may be perceived, that which it is the question to understand, completed and perfect? Moreover, there is great peril in starting with the question of the origin of society. Has such or such an origin been found? Actual society is arranged according to the type of the primitive society that has been dreamed of, and political society is delivered up to the mercy of historical romances. This one imagines that the primitive state is violence, and he sets out from that in order to authorize the right of the strongest, and to consecrate despotism. That one thinks that he has found in the family the first form of society, and he compares government to the father of a family, and subjects to children; society in his eyes is a minor that must be held in tutelage in the hands of the paternal power, which in the origin is absolute, and consequently, must remain so. Or has one thrown himself to the extreme of the opposite opinion, and into the hypothesis of an agreement, of a contract that expresses the will of all or of the greatest number? He delivers up to the mobile will of the crowd the eternal laws of justice and the inalienable rights of the person. Finally, are powerful religious institutions found in the cradle of society? It is hence concluded, that power belongs of right to priesthoods, which have the secret of the designs of God, and represent his sovereign authority. Thus a vicious method in philosophy leads to a deplorable political system,—the commencement is made in hypothesis, and the termination is in anarchy or tyranny.
True politics do not depend on more or less well directed historical researches into the profound night of a past forever vanished, and of which no vestige subsists: they rest on the knowledge of human nature.
Wherever society is, wherever it was, it has for its foundations:—1st, The need that we have of our fellow-creatures, and the social instincts that man bears in himself; 2d, The permanent and indestructible idea and sentiment of justice and right.
Man, feeble and powerless when he is alone, profoundly feels the need that he has of the succor of his fellow-creatures in order to develop his faculties, to embellish his life, and even to preserve it.[238] Without reflection, without convention, he claims the hand, the experience, the love of those whom he sees made like himself. The instinct of society is in the first cry of the child that calls for the mother's help without knowing that it has a mother, and in the eagerness of the mother to respond to the cries of the child. It is in the feelings for others that nature has put in us—pity, sympathy, benevolence. It is in the attraction of the sexes, in their union, in the love of parents for their children, and in the ties of every kind that these first ties engender. If Providence has attached so much sadness to solitude, so much charm to society, it is because society is indispensable for the preservation of man and for his happiness, for his intellect and moral development.
But if need and instinct begin society, it is justice that completes it.