French Classics Part 22

The following paragraphs, taken from the second chapter of Book XIV., contain in germ a large part of the philosophy underlying M. Taine's essays on the history of literature:

OF THE DIFFERENCE OF MEN IN DIFFERENT CLIMATES.

A cold air constringes the extremities of the external fibers of the body; this increases their elasticity, and favors the return of the blood from the extreme parts to the heart. It contracts those very fibers; consequently it increases also their force. On the contrary, a warm air relaxes and lengthens the extremes of the fibers; of course it diminishes their force and elasticity.

People are therefore more vigorous in cold climates. Here the action of the heart and the reaction of the extremities of the fibers are better performed, the temperature of the humors is greater, the blood moves freer toward the heart, and reciprocally the heart has more power. This superiority of strength must produce various effects; for instance, a greater boldness--that is, more courage; a greater sense of superiority--that is, less desire of revenge; a greater opinion of security--that is, more frankness, less suspicion, policy, and cunning. In short, this must be productive of very different tempers.

Put a man into a close, warm place, and for the reasons above given he will feel a great faintness. If under this circ.u.mstance you propose a bold enterprise to him, I believe you will find him very little disposed towards it; his present weakness will throw him into a despondency; he will be afraid of every thing, being in a state of total incapacity. The inhabitants of warm countries are, like old men, timorous; the people in cold countries are, like young men, brave.

In the following extract, from chapter five, Book XXIV., the climatic theory is again applied, this time to the matter of religion, in a style that makes one think of Buckle's "History of Civilization":

When the Christian religion, two centuries ago, became unhappily divided into Catholic and Protestant, the people of the north embraced the Protestant, and those south adhered still to the Catholic.

The reason is plain: the people of the north have, and will forever have, a spirit of liberty and independence, which the people of the south have not; and therefore a religion which has no visible head is more agreeable to the independency of the climate than that which has one.

Climate is a "great matter" with Montesquieu. In treating of the subject of a State changing its religion, he says:

The ancient religion is connected with the const.i.tution of the kingdom, and the new one is not; the former _agrees with the climate_, and very often the new one is opposite to it.

For the Christian religion, Montesquieu professes profound respect--rather as a pagan political philosopher might do, than as one intimately acquainted with it by a personal experience of his own. His spirit, however, is humane and liberal. It is the spirit of Montaigne, it is the spirit of Voltaire, speaking in the idiom of this different man, and of this different man as influenced by his different circ.u.mstances. Montesquieu had had practical proof of the importance to himself of not offending the dominant hierarchy.

On the whole, concerning Montesquieu it may justly be said, that of all political philosophers, he, if not the profoundest, is at least one of the most interesting; if not the most accurate and critical, at least one of the most brilliant and suggestive.

As to Montesquieu the man, it is perhaps sufficient to say that he seems to have been a very good type of the French gentleman of quality. An interesting story told by Sainte-Beuve reveals, if true, a side at once attractive and repellent of his personal character. Montesquieu at Ma.r.s.eilles employed a young boatman, whose manner and speech indicated more cultivation than was to have been looked for in one plying his vocation. The philosopher learned his history. The youth's father was at the time a captive in one of the Barbary States, and this son of his was now working to earn money for his ransom. The stranger listened apparently unmoved, and went his way. Some months later, home came the father, released he knew not how, to his surprised and overjoyed family.

The son guessed the secret, and, meeting Montesquieu a year or so after in Ma.r.s.eilles, threw himself in grateful tears at his feet, begged the generous benefactor to reveal his name and to come and see the family he had blessed. Montesquieu, calmly expressing himself ignorant of the whole business, actually shook the young fellow off, and turned away without betraying the least emotion. It was not till after the cold-blooded philanthropist's death that the fact came out.

A tranquil, happy temperament was Montesquieu's. He would seem to have come as near as any one ever did to being the natural master of his part in life. But the world was too much for him; as it is for all--at last.

Witness the contrast of these two different sets of expressions from his pen. In earlier manhood he says:

Study has been for me the sovereign remedy for all the dissatisfactions of life, having never had a sense of chagrin that an hour's reading would not dissipate. I wake in the morning with a secret joy to behold the light. I behold the light with a kind of ravishment, and all the rest of the day I am happy.

In late life, the brave, cheerful tone had declined to this:

I am broken down with fatigue; I must repose for the rest of my life

Then it took a further fall to this:

I have expected to kill myself for the last three months, finishing an addition to my work on the origin and changes of the French civil law.

It will take only three hours to read it; but, I a.s.sure you, it has been such a labor to me, that my hair has turned white under it all.

Finally it touches nadir:

It [his work] has almost cost me my life; I must rest; I can work no more.

My candles are all burned out; I have set off all my cartridges.

When Montesquieu died, only Diderot, among Parisian men of letters, followed him to his tomb.

Belonging to an entirely different world, literary, social, political, from that in which Montesquieu flourished--more than one full century, and that a French century, had intervened--was a man kindred in genius with him, to whom, for the double reason that his intellectual rank deserves it, and that the subject of his princ.i.p.al work is one to command especially the interest of Americans, we feel compelled to devote serious, though it must be hastening, attention. We refer to Alexis de TOCQUEVILLE, the author of that famous book, "Democracy in America." We can most conveniently discharge our duty by letting their likeness in intellectual character and achievement bridge for us the chasm of time between the two men, and thus considering the later in conjunction here with the earlier author.

"Democracy in America" is a most remarkable book to have been, as in fact it was, the production of a young man of thirty. It was the fruit of a tour in the United States undertaken by the writer ostensibly to visit in an official capacity the prisons of the new nation that France had helped create, in a kind of counterpoise to England, on this side of the Atlantic. The inquisitive young French inspector inspected much more than the prison system of the l.u.s.ty infant republic. He observed and studied American inst.i.tutions and manners at large, in order to lay a base line for the boldest speculative triangulation into the probable political future of the world.

Tocqueville held the belief that democracy, as a system of government, was destined to prevail universally. He wrote his observations and reflections, and he made his guesses, primarily for the instruction of France. So confident was his conviction on the subject of democratic destiny for his own country at least, that, while as yet the apparently profound peace was undisturbed of the monarchical reaction under Louis Philippe, he predicted an impending revolution; predicted in fact the revolution which actually occurred in 1848. France, after that date, both during the prophet's life, and subsequently to his death, experienced her vibrations from, one form of government to another; but no one can now deny that thus far the resultant tendency is in favor of Tocqueville's bold speculative forecast of the political future of his nation. The same thing is true, we think, more broadly, of the world in general; and of this Brazil apparently furnishes a striking late instance in confirmation.

"Democracy in America" is a cla.s.sic in literature. Its credit is highest with those best qualified to form a judgment. But its fame is universal.

It a.s.sociates its author in rank of genius with the foremost political philosophers of the world--with Machiavelli, with Montesquieu, with Burke. Every American aiming at a political career, every American journalist having to discuss political subjects should be familiar with this book. Mr. Bryce's more recent work on the United States, which has sprung so suddenly into such commanding fame, by no means supersedes, though it does most usefully supplement, the monumental treatise of Tocqueville--a name generally miscalled "De Tocqueville."

Of Alexis de Tocqueville's life it need only be said that, sprung of a n.o.ble French family, he ran a respectable, though neither a brilliant, nor a very influential, career in the politics of his country; until, discontented with the second empire, that of the usurper, Louis Napoleon, he retired, about 1851, from public service and devoted himself to labor with the pen. His second chief work was "The Ancient Regime," published in 1856, three years before his death.

We cannot probably make a better brief selection, at once more characteristic and more interesting, from Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" than by presenting in large part the chapter ent.i.tled: "Causes which render democratic armies weaker than other armies at the outset of a campaign, and more formidable in a protracted warfare."

A striking ill.u.s.trative light was destined to be thrown by momentous subsequent history in our own land on the sagacity and justness of the speculations hazarded here by the author on his particular topic.

It would not be far wrong to consider that Americans, by the great civil war, furnished, in a single historical case, the double example required for complete ill.u.s.tration of Tocqueville's point: an example of the democratic, together with an example of the aristocratic, community engaging in war after a long peace. Readers may make each his own comparison of the Frenchman's philosophical speculations with the actual facts that emerged in the course of our national strife:

Any army is in danger of being conquered at the outset of a campaign, after a long peace; any army which has long been engaged in warfare has strong chances of victory: this truth is peculiarly applicable to democratic armies. In aristocracies the military profession, being a privileged career, is held in honor even in time of peace. Men of great talents, great attainments, and great ambition embrace it; the army is in all respects on a level with the nation, and frequently above it.

We have seen, on the contrary, that among a democratic people the choicer minds of the nation are gradually drawn away from the military profession to seek, by other paths, distinction, power, and especially wealth. After a long peace--and in democratic ages the periods of peace are long--the army is always inferior to the country itself. In this state it is called into active service: and until war has altered it, there is danger for the country as well as for the army.

I have shown that in democratic armies, and in time of peace, the rule of seniority is the supreme and inflexible law of advancement. This is not only a consequence, as I have before observed, of the const.i.tution of these armies, but of the const.i.tution of the people, _and it will always occur_.

The words italicized by us above ill.u.s.trate the intrepid firmness of our author in staking the fortune of an opinion of his upon the risk of confutation by future fact. He affirms, it will be seen, absolutely, and does not seek to save himself by a clause.

Again, as among these nations the officer derives his position in the country solely from his position in the army, and as he draws all the distinction and the competency he enjoys from the same source, he does not retire from his profession or is not superannuated till toward the extreme close of life. The consequence of these two causes is that when a democratic people goes to war after a long interval of peace all the leading officers of the army are old men. I speak not only of the generals, but of the non-commissioned officers, who have most of them been stationary, or have only advanced step by step. It may be remarked with surprise that in a democratic army after a long peace all the soldiers are mere boys, and all the superior officers in declining years; so that the former are wanting in experience, the latter in vigor. This is a strong element of defeat, _for the first condition of successful generalship is youth_. I should not have ventured to say so if the greatest captain of modern times had not made the observation. [The unequaled success of the aged Von Moltke in the conduct of the Prussian war against France in 1870 is here a curious comment on the text.]

I am therefore of opinion that when a democratic people engages in a war after a long peace, it incurs much more risk of defeat than any other nation; but it ought not easily to be cast down by its reverses, for the chances of success for such an army are increased by the duration of the war. When a war has at length by its long continuance roused the whole community from their peaceful occupations and ruined their minor undertakings the same pa.s.sions which made them attach so much importance to the maintenance of peace will be turned to arms.

War, after it has destroyed all modes of speculation, becomes itself the great and sole speculation, to which all the ardent and ambitious desires which equality engenders are exclusively directed. Hence it is that the self-same democratic nations which are so reluctant to engage in hostilities sometimes perform prodigious achievements when once they have taken the field.

As the war attracts more and more of public attention, and is seen to create high reputations and great fortunes in a short s.p.a.ce of time, the choicest spirits of the nation enter the military profession. All the enterprising, proud, and martial minds, no longer of the aristocracy solely, but of the whole country, are drawn in this direction. As the number of compet.i.tors for military honors is immense, and war drives every man to his proper level, great generals are always sure to spring up. A long war produces upon a democratic army the same effects that a revolution produces upon a people; it breaks through regulations, and allows extraordinary men to rise above the common level. Those officers whose bodies and minds have grown old in peace are removed, or superannuated, or they die. In their stead a host of young men are pressing on whose frames are already hardened, whose desires are extended and inflamed by active service. They are bent on advancement at all hazards, and perpetual advancement. They are followed by others with the same pa.s.sions and desires, and after these are others yet, unlimited by aught but the size of the army. The principle of equality opens the door of ambition to all, and death provides chances for ambition. Death is constantly thinning the ranks, making vacancies, closing and opening the career of arms.

There is, moreover, a secret connection between the military character and the character of democracies which war brings to light. The men of democracies are naturally pa.s.sionately eager to acquire what they covet, and to enjoy it on easy conditions. They, for the most part, worship chance, and are much less afraid of death than of difficulty.

This is the spirit which they bring to commerce and manufactures; and this same spirit, carried with them to the field of battle, induces them willingly to expose their lives in order to secure in a moment the rewards of victory. No kind of greatness is more pleasing to the imagination of a democratic people than military greatness--a greatness of vivid and sudden l.u.s.ter, obtained without toil, by nothing but the risk of life.

Thus, while the interest and the tastes of the members of a democratic community divert them from war, their habits of mind fit them for carrying on war well; they soon make good soldiers when they are roused from their business and their enjoyments.

If peace is peculiarly hurtful to democratic armies, war secures to them advantages which no other armies ever possess; and these advantages, however little felt at first, cannot fail in the end to give them the victory. An aristocratic nation which, in a contest with a democratic people, does not succeed in ruining the latter at the outset of the war always runs a great risk of being conquered by it.

"Democracy in America" must be credited with a very important teaching influence on the political thought of mankind. This influence is more than the impulse of stimulating speculation. It is a practical force fruitful of solid political result. The present writer remembers hearing Tocqueville taught to eager audiences of French students in the College de France, at Paris, by M. Laboulaye, a popular professor in that national inst.i.tution. This was while in France the second empire remained as yet apparently firm on its base, and while in this country the great duel between section and section remained as yet apparently doubtful. The applause with which the lecturer's praise of free inst.i.tutions was greeted signified much. It signified that the leaven of Tocqueville's ideas was working in those youthful hearts. (M.

Laboulaye's lectures, which possessed original merit of their own, were finally published in a volume.) Present republican France owes, in no despicable degree, its existence to the fact that Tocqueville had visited, and reported, and interpreted the United States to his countrymen. Perhaps, also, it is true that the American Union is standing to-day partly because the popular sentiment created by Tocqueville in France favorable to American democracy was too strong, too vivid, and too universal, for the emperor safely to disregard it, in imperial acts, long threatened, hostile to the integrity of the republic. If Tocqueville's guess is right, if democratic inst.i.tutions are indeed ultimately to prevail throughout the world, certainly it cannot be denied that the prophet himself will have done his part toward fulfilling his prophecy.

We feel that we shall have done scant justice to the high and serious spirit who forms the subject of these concluding pages of the present chapter, if we do not go from the one work itself, by example out of which we have shown him, to expressions of his in his correspondence that may let us a little deeper into the personal secret of the man himself. Tocqueville, although, as we have intimated, a believer in the democratic destiny of the world, was not such in virtue of being a democrat by preference himself. On the contrary, his own aristocratic blood favoring it perhaps, his individual choice would apparently have gone, not for, but against, democracy. This seems to be indicated in what follows, written to a friend concerning the purpose of his work, "Democracy in America":

I wished to show what in our days a democratic people really was, and, by a rigorously accurate picture, to produce a double effect on the men of my day. To those who have fancied an ideal democracy, as a brilliant and easily realized dream, I undertook to show that they had clothed the picture in false colors; that the democratic government which they desired, though it may procure real benefits to the people who can bear it, has none of the elevated features with which their imaginations would endow it; and moreover, that such a government can only maintain itself under certain conditions of faith, enlightenment, and private morality, which we have not yet reached, and which we must labor to attain before grasping their political results.

To men for whom the word "democracy" is the synonym of overthrow, spoliation, anarchy, and murder, I have endeavored to prove that it was possible for democracy to govern society, and yet to respect property, to recognize rights, to spare liberty, to honor religion; that if democratic government is less fitted than other forms to develop some of the finest faculties of the human soul, it has yet its n.o.ble and its lovely features; and that perhaps, after all, it may be the will of G.o.d to distribute a moderate degree of happiness to the ma.s.s of men, and not to concentrate great felicity and great perfection on a few. I have tried, moreover, to demonstrate that, whatever might be their opinion upon these points, the time for discussing them was past; that the world marched onward day by day towards a condition of social equality, and dragged them and every one along with it; that their only choice now lay between evils henceforth inevitable; that the practical question of this day was not whether you would have an aristocracy or a democracy, but whether you would have a democratic society, without poetry and without grandeur, but with morality and order; or a democratic society disorganized and depraved, delivered over to a furious frenzy, or else bent beneath a yoke heavier than any that have weighed upon mankind since the fall of the Roman Empire.

The "Commune" in France, "Nihilism" in Russia, "Socialism" in Germany, "Nationalism" in the United States, are all of them, each in its own different way, remarkable historical commentaries on the prophetic political forecast contained in the foregoing letter.