The Ancient Regime Part 22

[Footnote 3304: Cf. Sir. John Lubbock, "Origine de la Civilisation."--Gerand-Teulon, "Les Origines de la famille."]

[Footnote 3305: The principle of caste in India; we see this in the contrast between the Aryans and the aborigines, the Soudras and the Pariahs.]

[Footnote 3306: In accordance with this principle the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands pa.s.sed a law forbidding the sale of liquor to the natives and allowing it to Europeans. (De Varigny, "Quatorze ans aux iles Sandwich.")]

[Footnote 3307: Cf. Le Play, "De l'Organization de la famille," (the history of a domain in the Pyrenees.)]

[Footnote 3308: See, especially, in Brahmin literature the great metaphysical poems and the Puranas.]

[Footnote 3309: Montaigne (1533-92) apparently also had 'sympathetic imagination' when he wrote: "I am most tenderly symphathetic towards the afflictions of others," ("On Cruelty"). (SR.)]

[Footnote 3310: Voltaire, "Dic. Phil." the article on Punishments.]

[Footnote 3311: "Resume des cahiers," by Prud'homme, preface, 1789.]

[Footnote 3312: Voltaire, Dialogues, Entretiens entre A. B. C.]

[Footnote 3313: Voltaire, "Dict.Phil.," the article on Religion. "If there is a hamlet to be governed it must have a religion."]

[Footnote 3314: "Le reve de d'Alembert," by Diderot, pa.s.sim.]

[Footnote 3315: "If a misanthrope (a hater of mankind) had proposed to himself to injure humanity what could he have invented better than faith in an incomprehensible being, about which men never could come to any agreement, and to which they would attach more importance than to their own existence?" Diderot, "Entretien d'un philosophe avec la Marechale de....." (And that is just what our Marxist sociologist, psychologists etc have done in inventing a human being bereft of those emotions which in other animals force them to give in to their maternal, paternal and leadership instincts thereby making them happy in the process.. SR.)]

[Footnote 3316: Cf. "Catechisme Universel," by Saint-Lambert, and the "Loi naturelle ou Catechisme du citoyen francais," by Volney.]

[Footnote 3317: "Supplement au voyage de Bougainville."]

[Footnote 3318: Cf. "Memoires de Mm. D'Epinay," a conversation with Duclos and Saint-Lambert at the house of Mlle. Quinault.--Rousseau's "Confessions," part I, book V. These are the same principles taught by M. de la Tavel to Mme. De Warens.]

[Footnote 3319: "Suite du reve de d'Alembert." "Entretien entre Mlls. de Lespina.s.se et Bordeu."--"Memoires de Diderot," a letter to Mlle. Volant, III. 66.]

[Footnote 3320: Cf. his admirable tales, "Entretiens d'un pere avec ses enfants," and "Le neveu de Rameau."]

[Footnote 3321: Volney, ibid. "The natural law. . . consists wholly of events whose repet.i.tion may be observed through the senses and which create a science as precise and accurate as geometry and mathematics."]

[Footnote 3322: Helvetius, "De l'Esprit." pa.s.sim.]

[Footnote 3323: Volney, ibid. Chap. III. Saint-Lambert, ibid. The first dialogue.]

[Footnote 3324: D'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature," II. 408 493.]

[Footnote 3325: D'Holbach, "Systeme de la nature," I. 347.]

[Footnote 3326: Diderot, "Supplement au voyage de Bougainville."]

[Footnote 3327: Diderot, "Les Eleutheromanes."

Et ses mains, ourdissant les entrailles du pretre, En feraient un cordon pour le dernier des rois.

Brissot: "Necessity being the sole t.i.tle to property the result is that when a want is satisfied man is no longer a property owner. . . . Two prime necessities are due to the animal const.i.tution, food and waste . . . . May men nourish themselves on their fallen creatures? (Yes for) all beings may justly nourish themselves on any material calculated to supply their wants. . . Man of nature, fulfill your desire, give heed to your cravings, your sole masters and your only guide. Do you feel your veins throbbing with inward fires at the sight of a charming creature?

She is yours, your caresses are innocent and your kisses pure. Love alone ent.i.tles to enjoyment as hunger is the warrant for property." (An essay published in 1780, and reprinted in 1782 in the "Bibliotheque du Legislateur," quoted by Roux and Buchez "Histoire parlementaire," XIII, 431.]

[Footnote 3328: The words of Rousseau himself ("Rousseau juge de Jan-Jacques," third dialogue, p 193): From whence may the painter and apologist of nature, now so disfigured and so calumniated, derive his model if not from his own heart?]

[Footnote 3329: "Confessions," Book I. p.1, and the end of the fifth book.--First letter to M. de Malesherbes: "I know my great faults, and am profoundly sensible of my vices. Even so I shall die with the conviction that of all the men I have encountered no one was better than myself".--To Madame B--, March 16, 1770, he writes: "You have awarded me esteem for my writings; your esteem would be yet greater for my life if it were open to you inspection, and still greater for my heart if it were exposed to your view. Never was there a better one, a heart more tender or more just.... My misfortunes are all due to my virtues."--To Madame de la Tour, "Whoever is not enthusiastic in my behalf in unworthy of me."]

[Footnote 3330: Letter to M. de Beaumont. p.24.--Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques, troisieme entretien, 193.]

[Footnote 3331: "Emile," book I, and the letter to M. de Beaumont, pa.s.sim.]

[Footnote 3332: Article I. "All Frenchmen shall be virtuous." Article II. "All Frenchmen shall be happy." Draft of a const.i.tution found among the papers of Sismondi, at that time in school. (My French dictionary writes: "SISMONDI, (Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de) Geneve, 1773--id.

1842, Swiss historian and economist of Italian origin. He was a forerunner of dirigisme and had influenced Marx with his book: "Nouveaux principes d'economie politique.1819. SR.)]

[Footnote 3333: "Confessions," part 2, book IX. 368. "I cannot comprehend how any one can converse in a circle. . . . I stammer out a few words, with no meaning in them, as quickly as I can, very glad if they convey no sense. . . . I should be as fond of society as anybody if I were not certain of appearing not merely to disadvantage but wholly different from what I really am."--Cf. in the "Nouvelle Heloise," 2nd part, the letter of Saint-Preux on Paris. Also in "Emilie," the end of book IV.]

[Footnote 3334: "Confessions," part 2, IX. 361. "I was so weary of drawing-rooms, of jets of water, of bowers, of flower-beds and of those that showed them to me; I was so overwhelmed with pamphlets, harpsichords, games, knots, stupid witticisms, simpering looks, petty story-tellers and heavy suppers, that when I spied out a corner in a hedge, a bush, a barn, a meadow, or when, on pa.s.sing through a hamlet, I caught the smell of a good parsley omelet. . I sent to the devil all the rouge, frills, flounces and perfumery, and, regretting a plain dinner and common wine, I would gladly have closed the mouth of both the head cook and the butler who forced me to dine when I generally sup, and to sup when a generally go to bed, but, especially the lackeys that envied me every morsel I ate and who, at the risk of my dying with thirst, sold me the drugged wine of their master at ten times the price I would have to pay for a better wine at a tavern."]

[Footnote 3335: "Discours sur l'influence des sciences et des arts"--The letter to d'Alembert on theatrical performances.]

[Footnote 3336: Does it not read like a declaration of intent for forming a Kibbutz? (SR.)]

[Footnote 3337: "The high society (La societe) is as natural to the human species as decrepitude to the individual. The people require arts, laws, and governments, as old men require crutches." See the letter M.

Philopolis, p. 248.]

[Footnote 3338: See the discourse on the "Origine de l'Inegalite,"

pa.s.sim.]

[Footnote 3339: "Emile," book IV. Rousseau's narrative. P. 13.]

[Footnote 3340: "Discours sur l'economie politique," 326.]

[Footnote 3341: "Discours sur l'Origine de l'Inegalite," 178, "Contrat Social," I. ch. IV.]

[Footnote 3342: Condorcet, "Tableau des progres de l'esprit humain," the tenth epoch.]

CHAPTER IV. ORGANIZING THE FUTURE SOCIETY.

I. Liberty, Equality And Sovereignty Of The People.

The mathematical method.--Definition of man in the abstract.--The social contract.--Independence and equality of the contractors.--All equal before the law and each sharing in the sovereignty.

Consider future society as it appears at this moment to our legislators in their study, and bear in mind that it will soon appear under the same aspect to the legislators of the a.s.sembly.--In their eyes the decisive moment has come. Henceforth two histories are to exist;[3401] one, that of the past, the other, that of the future, formerly a history of Man still deprived of his reason, and at present the history of the rational human being. The rule of right is at last to begin. Of all that the past generations have founded and transmitted nothing is legitimate.

Overlaying the natural Man they created an artificial Man, either ecclesiastic or laic, n.o.ble or commoner, sovereign or subject, proprietor or proletary, ignorant or cultivated, peasant or citizen, slave or master, all being phony qualities which we are not to heed, as their origin is tainted with violence and robbery. Strip off these superfluous garments; let us take Man in himself, the same under all conditions, in all situations, in all countries, in all ages, and strive to ascertain what sort of a.s.sociation is the best adapted to him. The problem thus stated, the rest follows.--In accordance with the customs of the cla.s.sic mentality, and with the precepts of the prevailing ideology, a political system is now constructed after a mathematical model.[3402] A simple statement is selected, and set apart, very general, familiar, readily apparent, and easily understood by the most ignorant and inattentive schoolboy. Reject every difference, which separates one man from other men; retain of him only the portion common to him and to others. The remainder const.i.tutes Man in general, or in other words, "a sensitive and rational being who, thus endowed, avoids pain and seeks pleasure," and therefore aspiring to happiness, namely, a stable condition in which one enjoys greater pleasure than pain,"[3403]