What is Property? Part 44

[Footnote 30: The meaning ordinarily attached to the word "anarchy" is absence of principle, absence of rule; consequently, it has been regarded as synonymous with "disorder."]

[Footnote 31: If such ideas are ever forced into the minds of the people, it will be by representative government and the tyranny of talkers. Once science, thought, and speech were characterized by the same expression. To designate a thoughtful and a learned man, they said, "a man quick to speak and powerful in discourse." For a long time, speech has been abstractly distinguished from science and reason.

Gradually, this abstraction is becoming realized, as the logicians say, in society; so that we have to-day savants of many kinds who talk but little, and TALKERS who are not even savants in the science of speech.

Thus a philosopher is no longer a savant: he is a talker. Legislators and poets were once profound and sublime characters: now they are talkers. A talker is a sonorous bell, whom the least shock suffices to set in perpetual motion. With the talker, the flow of speech is always directly proportional to the poverty of thought. Talkers govern the world; they stun us, they bore us, they worry us, they suck our blood, and laugh at us. As for the savants, they keep silence: if they wish to say a word, they are cut short. Let them write.]

[Footnote 32: _libertas, librare, libratio, libra_,--liberty, to liberate, libration, balance (pound),--words which have a common derivation. Liberty is the balance of rights and duties. To make a man free is to balance him with others,--that is, to put him or their level.]

[Footnote 33: In a monthly publication, the first number of which has just appeared under the name of "L'Egalitaire," self-sacrifice is laid down as a principle of equality. This is a confusion of ideas. Self- sacrifice, taken alone, is the last degree of inequality. To seek equality in self-sacrifice is to confess that equality is against nature. Equality must be based upon justice, upon strict right, upon the principles invoked by the proprietor himself; otherwise it will never exist. Self-sacrifice is superior to justice; but it cannot be imposed as law, because it is of such a nature as to admit of no reward. It is, indeed, desirable that everybody shall recognize the necessity of self- sacrifice, and the idea of "L'Egalitaire" is an excellent example.

Unfortunately, it can have no effect. What would you reply, indeed, to a man who should say to you, "I do not want to sacrifice myself"? Is he to be compelled to do so? When self-sacrifice is forced, it becomes oppression, slavery, the exploitation of man by man. Thus have the proletaires sacrificed themselves to property.]

[Footnote 34: The disciples of Fourier have long seemed to me the most advanced of all modern socialists, and almost the only ones worthy of the name. If they had understood the nature of their task, spoken to the people, awakened their sympathies, and kept silence when they did not understand; if they had made less extravagant pretensions, and had shown more respect for public intelligence,--perhaps the reform would now, thanks to them, be in progress. But why are these earnest reformers continually bowing to power and wealth,--that is, to all that is anti- reformatory? How, in a thinking age, can they fail to see that the world must be converted by DEMONSTRATION, not by myths and allegories? Why do they, the deadly enemies of civilization, borrow from it, nevertheless, its most pernicious fruits,--property, inequality of fortune and rank, gluttony, concubinage, prost.i.tution, what do I know? theurgy, magic, and sorcery? Why these endless denunciations of morality, metaphysics, and psychology, when the abuse of these sciences, which they do not understand, const.i.tutes their whole system? Why this mania for deifying a man whose princ.i.p.al merit consisted in talking nonsense about things whose names, even, he did not know, in the strongest language ever put upon paper? Whoever admits the infallibility of a man becomes thereby incapable of instructing others. Whoever denies his own reason will soon proscribe free thought. The phalansterians would not fail to do it if they had the power. Let them condescend to reason, let them proceed systematically, let them give us demonstrations instead of revelations, and we will listen willingly. Then let them organize manufactures, agriculture, and commerce; let them make labor attractive, and the most humble functions honorable, and our praise shall be theirs. Above all, let them throw off that Illuminism which gives them the appearance of impostors or dupes, rather than believers and apostles.]

[Footnote 35: Individual possession is no obstacle to extensive cultivation and unity of exploitation. If I have not spoken of the drawbacks arising from small estates, it is because I thought it useless to repeat what so many others have said, and what by this time all the world must know. But I am surprised that the economists, who have so clearly shown the disadvantages of spade-husbandry, have failed to see that it is caused entirely by property; above all, that they have not perceived that their plan for mobilizing the soil is a first step towards the abolition of property.]

[Footnote 36: In the Chamber of Deputies, during the session of the fifth of January, 1841, M. Dufaure moved to renew the expropriation bill, on the ground of public utility.]

[Footnote 37: "What is Property?" Chap. IV., Ninth Proposition.]

[Footnote 38: _Tu cognovisti sessionem meam et resurrectionem meam_.

Psalm 139.]

[Footnote 39: The emperor Nicholas has just compelled all the manufacturers in his empire to maintain, at their own expense, within their establishments, small hospitals for the reception of sick workmen,--the number of beds in each being proportional to the number of laborers in the factory. "You profit by man's labor," the Czar could have said to his proprietors; "you shall be responsible for man's life."

M. Blanqui has said that such a measure could not succeed in France. It would be an attack upon property,--a thing hardly conceivable even in Russia, Scythia, or among the Cossacks; but among us, the oldest sons of civilization!... I fear very much that this quality of age may prove in the end a mark of decrepitude.]

[Footnote 40: Course of M. Blanqui. Lecture of Nov. 27,1840.]

[Footnote 41: In "Mazaniello," the Neapolitan fisherman demands, amid the applause of the galleries, that a tax be levied upon luxuries.]

[Footnote 42: _Seme le champ, proletaire; C'est l l'oisif qui recoltera_.]

[Footnote 43: "In some countries, the enjoyment of certain political rights depends upon the amount of property. But, in these same countries, property is expressive, rather than attributive, of the qualifications necessary to the exercise of these rights. It is rather a conjectural proof than the cause of these qualifications."--Rossi: Treatise on Penal Law.]

[Footnote 44: Lecture of December 22.]

[Footnote 45: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841.]

[Footnote 46: Lecture of Jan. 15, 1841.]

[Footnote 47: MM. Blanqui and Wolowski.]

[Footnote 48: Subject proposed by the Fourth Cla.s.s of the Inst.i.tute, the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences: "What would be the effect upon the working-cla.s.s of the organization of labor, according to the modern ideas of a.s.sociation?"]

[Footnote 49: Subject proposed by the Academy of Besancon: "The economical and moral consequences in France, up to the present time, and those which seem likely to appear in future, of the law concerning the equal division of hereditary property between the children."]

[Footnote 50: {GREEK, ?n n '},--greater property. The Vulgate translates it avaritia.]

[Footnote 51: Similar or a.n.a.logous customs have existed among all nations. Consult, among other works, "Origin of French Law," by M.

Michelet; and "Antiquities of German Law," by Grimm.]

[Footnote 52: _Dees hominesque testamur, nos arma neque contra patriam cep.i.s.se neque quo periculum aliis faceremus, sed uti corpora nostra ab injuria tuta forent, qui miseri, egentes, violentia atque crudelitate foeneraterum, plerique patriae, sed omncsfarna atque fortunis expertes sumus; neque cuiquam nostrum licuit, more majorum, lege uti, neque, amisso patrimonio, libferum corpus habere._--Sallus: Bellum Catilinarium.]

[Footnote 53: Fifty, sixty, and eighty per cent.--Course of M. Blanqui.]

[Footnote 54: _Episcopi plurimi, quos et hortamento esse oportet caeteris et exemplo, divina prouratione contempta, procuratores rerum saeularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe leserta, per alienas provincias oberrantes, negotiationis quaestuosae nundinas au uucu-, pari, esurientibus in ecclesia fratribus habere argentum largitur velle, fundos insidi.sis fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus faenus augere._--Cyprian: De Lapsis. {--NOTE: what does this refer to? This is at bottom of pg 341 in MS} In this pa.s.sage, St. Cyprian alludes to lending on mortgages and to compound interest.]

[Footnote 55: "Inquiries concerning Property among the Romans."]

[Footnote 56: "Its acquisitive nature works rapidly in the sleep of the law. It is ready, at the word, to absorb every thing. Witness the famous equivocation about the ox-hide which, when cut up into thongs, was large enough to enclose the site of Carthage.... The legend has reappeared several times since Dido.... Such is the love of man for the land.

Limited by tombs, measured by the members of the human body, by the thumb, the foot, and the arm, it harmonizes, as far as possible, with the very proportions of man. Nor is he satisfied yet: he calls Heaven to witness that it is his; he tries to or his land, to give it the form of heaven.... In his t.i.tanic intoxication, he describes property in the very terms which he employs in describing the Almighty--_fundus_ _optimus maximus_.... He shall make it his couch, and they shall be separated no more,--{GREEK, ' nf g h g g."}--Michelet:Origin of French Law.]

[Footnote 57: M. Guizot denies that Christianity alone is ent.i.tled to the glory of the abolition of slavery. "To this end," he says, "many causes were necessary,--the evolution of other ideas and other principles of civilization." So general an a.s.sertion cannot be refuted.

Some of these ideas and causes should have been pointed out, that we might judge whether their source was not wholly Christian, or whether at least the Christian spirit had not penetrated and thus fructified them.

Most of the emanc.i.p.ation charters begin with these words: "For the love of G.o.d and the salvation of my soul."]

[Footnote 58: _Weregild_,--the fine paid for the murder of a man. So much for a count, so much for a baron, so much for a freeman, so much for a priest; for a slave, nothing. His value was restored to the proprietor.]

[Footnote 59: The spirit of despotism and monopoly which animated the communes has not escaped the attention of historians. "The formation of the commoners' a.s.sociations," says Meyer, "did not spring from the true spirit of liberty, but from the desire for exemption from the charges of the seigniors, from individual interests, and jealousy of the welfare of others.... Each commune or corporation opposed the creation of every other; and this spirit increased to such an extent that the King of England, Henry V., having established a university at Caen, in 1432, the city and university of Paris opposed the registration of the edict."]

[Footnote 60: Feudalism was, in spirit and in its providential destiny, a long protest of the human personality against the monkish communism with which Europe, in the middle ages, was overrun. After the orgies of Pagan selfishness, society--carried to the opposite extreme by the Christian religion--risked its life by unlimited self-denial and absolute indifference to the pleasures of the world. Feudalism was the balance-weight which saved Europe from the combined influence of the religious communities and the Manlchean sects which had sprung up since the fourth century under different names and in different countries.

Modern civilization is indebted to feudalism for the definitive establishment of the person, of marriage, of the family, and of country.

(See, on this subject, Guizot, "History of Civilization in Europe.")]

[Footnote 61: This was made evident in July, 1830, and the years which followed it, when the electoral bourgeoisie effected a revolution in order to get control over the king, and suppressed the emeutes in order to restrain the people. The bourgeoisie, through the jury, the magistracy, its position in the army, and its munic.i.p.al despotism, governs both royalty and the people. It is the bourgeoisie which, more than any other cla.s.s, is conservative and retrogressive. It is the bourgeoisie which makes and unmakes ministries. It is the bourgeoisie which has destroyed the influence of the Upper Chamber, and which will dethrone the King whenever he shall become unsatisfactory to it. It is to please the bourgeoisie that royalty makes itself unpopular. It is the bourgeoisie which is troubled at the hopes of the people, and which hinders reform. The journals of the bourgeoisie are the ones which preach morality and religion to us, while reserving scepticism and indifference for themselves; which attack personal government, and favor the denial of the electoral privilege to those who have no property. The bourgeoisie will accept any thing rather than the emanc.i.p.ation of the proletariat. As soon as it thinks its privileges threatened, it will unite with royalty; and who does not know that at this very moment these two antagonists have suspended their quarrels?... It has been a question of property.]

[Footnote 62: The same opinion was recently expressed from the tribune by one of our most honorable Deputies, M. Gauguier. "Nature," said he, "has not endowed man with landed property." Changing the adjective LANDED, which designates only a species into CAPITALISTIC, which denotes the genus,--M. Gauguier made an egalitaire profession of faith.]

[Footnote 63: A professor of comparative legislation, M. Lerminier, has gone still farther. He has dared to say that the nation took from the clergy all their possessions, not because of IDLENESS, but because of UNWORTHINESS. "You have civilized the world," cries this apostle of equality, speaking to the priests; "and for that reason your possessions were given you. In your hands they were at once an instrument and a reward. But you do not now deserve them, for you long since ceased to civilize any thing whatever...."]

[Footnote 64: "Treatise on Prescription."]

[Footnote 65: "Origin of French Law."]

[Footnote 66: To honor one's parents, to be grateful to one's benefactors, to neither kill nor steal,--truths of inward sensation. To obey G.o.d rather than men, to render to each that which is his; the whole is greater than a part, a straight line is the shortest road from one point to another,--truths of intuition. All are a priori but the first are felt by the conscience, and imply only a simple act of the soul; the second are perceived by the reason, and imply comparison and relation.

In short, the former are sentiments, the latter are ideas.]

[Footnote 67: Armand Carrel would have favored the fortification of the capital. "Le National" has said, again and again, placing the name of its old editor by the side of the names of Napoleon and Vauban. What signifies this exhumation of an anti-popular politician? It signifies that Armand Carrel wished to make government an individual and irremovable, but elective, property, and that he wished this property to be elected, not by the people, but by the army. The political system of Carrel was simply a reorganization of the pretorian guards. Carrel also hated the _pequins_. That which he deplored in the revolution of July was not, they say, the insurrection of the people, but the victory of the people over the soldiers. That is the reason why Carrel, after 1830, would never support the patriots. "Do you answer me with a few regiments?" he asked. Armand Carrel regarded the army--the military power--as the basis of law and government. This man undoubtedly had a moral sense within him, but he surely had no sense of justice. Were he still in this world, I declare it boldly, liberty would have no greater enemy than Carrel.]

[Footnote 68: In a very short article, which was read by M. Wolowski, M.

Louis Blanc declares, in substance, that he is not a communist (which I easily believe); that one must be a fool to attack property (but he does not say why); and that it is very necessary to guard against confounding property with its abuses. When Voltaire overthrew Christianity, he repeatedly avowed that he had no spite against religion, but only against its abuses.]

[Footnote 69: The property fever is at its height among writers and artists, and it is curious to see the complacency with which our legislators and men of letters cherish this devouring pa.s.sion. An artist sells a picture, and then, the merchandise delivered, a.s.sumes to prevent the purchaser from selling engravings, under the pretext that he, the painter, in selling the original, has not sold his DESIGN. A dispute arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both the fact and the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right; only the property in the design should have been specially reserved in the contract: so that, in reality, M. Villemain recognizes in the artist a power to surrender his work and prevent its communication; thus contradicting the legal axiom, One CANNOT GIVE AND KEEP AT THE SAME TIME. A strange reasoner is M. Villemain! An ambiguous principle leads to a false conclusion. Instead of rejecting the principle, M. Villemain hastens to admit the conclusion. With him the _reductio ad absurdum_ is a convincing argument. Thus he is made official defender of literary property, sure of being understood and sustained by a set of loafers, the disgrace of literature and the plague of public morals. Why, then, does M. Villemain feel so strong an interest in setting himself up as the chief of the literary cla.s.ses, in playing for their benefit the role of Trissotin in the councils of the State, and in becoming the accomplice and a.s.sociate of a band of profligates,--_soi-disant_ men of letters,--who for more than ten years have labored with such deplorable success to ruin public spirit, and corrupt the heart by warping the mind?]

[Footnote 70: M. Leroux has been highly praised in a review for having defended property. I do not know whether the industrious encyclopedist is pleased with the praise, but I know very well that in his place I should mourn for reason and for truth.]

[Footnote 71: "Impartial," of Besancon.]

[Footnote 72: The Arians deny the divinity of Christ. The Semi-Arians differ from the Arians only by a few subtle distinctions. M. Pierre Leroux, who regards Jesus as a man, but claims that the Spirit of G.o.d was infused into him, is a true Semi-Arian.