Moreover, the consequences are not great enough to warrant us to expose ourselves to the danger. The principles of pure science are very small in number. They might even, be easily reduced to one, of which M. Cousin has been the eloquent [pg 040] interpreter—human liberty. This liberty has no need of Political Economy to shine with the luster of evidence; nothing can prevail against it. We can prove that it is as fecund as it is respectable; but if the science of wealth should endeavor to demonstrate the contrary, the primordial bases of society, liberty, property and the family would not be less sacred nor less necessary, for they are the right of humanity. They could not be put aside, even under pretext of any mechanism which would claim to produce more.[45] These sovereign principles of economy flow from the moral law, and they have no reason to dread the power of facts, for the prosperity of nations depends on the respect with which they are surrounded and the guarantees by which they are protected.
We have spoken of the moral law; and, indeed, in our opinion, it is impossible to banish it from the domain of public economy. Any other point of view seems to us too narrow. And when we see eminent men go astray in the pursuit of an ideal which fails to take the human soul into account, and which finds nothing but equations where there are feelings and ideas, we cannot help thinking that they are unfaithful to the thought of the founder of the science, Adam Smith. Man is not simply a piece of machinery. He does not blindly submit to external impulse. Rather is he himself, the greatest of impulses. But to govern things, he must first learn to conquer himself. Personal interest is the powerful motive which he obeys. Man does not live alone, in a state of isolation, in the world. Væ soli! He lives in society and profits by the relations which he forms with other beings, intelligent like himself, and for whom he has a natural feeling of sympathy.
The good that comes to them yields satisfaction to him, and the evil that befalls them falls on him likewise. He cannot turn back entirely upon his own personality. Besides his own interest, he feels and shares another interest—the interest of all. Personal interest is perfectly legitimate. The love of self cannot [pg 041] be condemned. The Savior himself has enjoined us to love our neighbor as ourselves. To love him more than ourselves is a very high and beautiful virtue. It is the self-abnegation which inspired Christian heroes. But heroism is rare, and cannot be imposed, nor taken, as a rule. Personal interest is a powerful stimulant, and the superior harmony of social relations makes it contribute to the general good.
What must be condemned is a fatal deviation of this sentiment which destroys its effect and narrows its actions. What we need to prevent is the degeneration of personal interest into an egotism which parches, instead of fertilizing, and which compromises the future by the exclusive search after present advantage; for egotism is short-sighted. On the other hand, the broader and more generous feeling which inclines us to sympathize with our fellow beings in their sorrows, and to unite our destiny to theirs; that is, the feeling of the general interest, has a limit too.
It would be falsified if it absorbed the individual; if it destroyed the most powerful motive-force by drying up the abundant source of activity; if it attacked moral energy by enervating responsibility; if it extended the circle of results obtained to such an extent that scarcely any one should feel the rebound.
The evil produced by egotism, that sad travesty of personal interest, appears under a form quite as formidable when the general interest takes the form of communism. The coöperation of personal interest and of the general interest is always necessary, both for individual profit and social advantage. There is as much danger in annihilating the individual as in exalting him. History furnishes us with memorable examples of this. It does not allow us to go astray in the narrow ways of a peevish and jealous personality, nor to lose ourselves in the vague labyrinth of a chimerical and false communism. The latter would destroy what constitutes the power and dignity of man. It would wipe out the most prominent features of his noble nature, by destroying the support of energy and activity and the food of moral force.
XII.
But, we are told, Political Economy is only the science of selfishness; Adam Smith is the prophet of individualism; grow rich per fas et nefas is its ultimate teaching. Such a judgment is evidence of much levity and little enlightenment. How could the man who conceived the study of human interests on so large a scale, the philosopher who acknowledged Hutcheson as his master and gave his ideas a still more expansive character, be the apostle of egotism; and how can the science which he founded be its gospel? There is here an error of fact and a defect of appreciation. Hutcheson had based moral philosophy on the feeling which, according to him, engendered all the other virtues, on benevolence, which is disinterested, busied with the welfare of others, with the public weal and the general interest. Adam Smith went further, and sought to base it on a still more energetic feeling, on sympathy.
The first sentence of his Theory of the Moral Sentiments, which is a full resumé of his theory, is as follows: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.” And this is no empty declaration on his part. It is the thought which of all in his book is nearest to his heart; and hence he energetically assails those philosophers who look upon self-love and the refinements of self-love as the universal cause of all our sentiments, and seek to explain sympathy by self-love.
La Rochefoucauld, Mandeville and Helvetius never met with a more determined or energetic adversary. Nowhere have the sweet and amiable virtues, such as ingenuous condescension, indulgent humanity, and the respectable and severe virtues, such as disinterestedness and self-control which subject our movements to the requirements of the dignity of our [pg 043] nature, been better understood or interpreted. Adam Smith is the philosopher of sympathy.[46] His theory triumphs over the cowardly and shameful egotism which concentrates the moral life of the individual in himself, and separates it from the life of the human race of the outré stoicism which refuses the aid of sentiment to reason.[47] According to him, the law of private morals is sympathy; the law of natural jurisprudence, justice; the law of the production of wealth, free labor. But while he defended this principle with energy, he did not become guilty of a real recantation by worshiping the idol he had just overthrown. He would have been culpable of the strangest of all contradictions if he had made the vice which he had just lacerated the very pivot of another part of his teaching.