(u.^%. 044^- 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002673303 
 
LIBRARY OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICS, 
 
 Independent Treafiary System of the United States. 
 
 By David Kihlby^ A.B. izmo $1.50 
 
 Repudiation of State Debts in thn United States. 
 
 By William A. Scott, Ph.D. i2mo 1.50 
 
 Sooiallsm and Socinl Keform, 
 
 By Richard T. Ely, Ph.D., LL.D. i2mo 1.50 
 
 American Charities, 
 
 By Amo"! G. WARnsR, Ph.D., Professor of Economics in the 
 
 Leland Stanford, Jr. , University, izmo i .75 
 
 Hnll-Honse Maps and Papers. 
 
 A Presentation of Nationalities and Wages in a Congested 
 
 District of Chicago. With maps. Svo 250 
 
 Special Edition, with maps mounted on Linen. Svo 3.50 
 
 Puntehment and Reformation. 
 
 By F. H. Wines, LL.D. i2mo 1.75 
 
 Social Theory. 
 
 A Grouping of Social Facts and Principles. By John Bascom, 
 Professor of Political Economy in Williams College. i2mo.. 1.7s 
 Proportional Representation. 
 
 By John R. Commons, Professor of Sociology in Syracuse 
 
 Unaversity. i2mo 1.75 
 
 State Railroad Control. 
 
 By Frank H. Dixon, Ph.D. i2mo 1.75 
 
 Southern Side Lights. 
 
 By Edward Ingle, A.B. i2mo. Cloth 1.75 
 
 Taxation and Taxes in the United States under tlie 
 Internal Revenne Hystem. 
 
 By Frederic C. Howe, A.M., Ph.D. i2mo 1.75 
 
 An Kssay on the Present I>lstrlhntion of Wealth in 
 t>he United States* 
 
 By Charles B. Spahr, Ph.D. i2mo 1.50 
 
 Southern Statesmen of the Old R^giuae.* 
 
 By William P. Trent, A.M. izmo. Gilt top, with portraits.. 2.00 
 Worklngmen's Insurance. 
 
 By W. F. Willooghbt, Department of Labor, Washington, 
 
 D. C> i2rao 1.75 
 
 Congrressional Committees. 
 
 By Lauros G. McConachie, A.M. z2mo 1.75 
 
 Municipal Monopolies- 
 Edited by Professor E. W. Bemis. i2mo 2.00 
 
 The Jew in London. 
 
 By C. Russell and H. S. Lewis. With an introduction by 
 Canon BARNETT,.and a preface by the Right Hon. Jambs 
 
 Bryce, M.P. i2nl6,'with colored map 1.50 
 
 Monopolies Fast and Present. 
 
 By James Edward Le Ft.ossiG*'OL, Ph.D., Professor of 
 
 Economics in the University of Denver. lamo. Cloth 1.25 
 
 The French Revolution and Modern French Socialism. 
 
 By Jessica B. Pbixotto, Ph.D. i2mo 1.50 
 
 The Economics of Forestry. 
 
 By Prof. B. E. Fbrnow, Department of Forestry, Cornell 
 
 University In Press. 
 
 Irrlgrafion. 
 
 By F. H. Newell, U. S. Geological Survey In Press. 
 
THE 
 
 FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 AND 
 
 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM 
 
 A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE PRINCIPLES 
 OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE 
 DOCTRINES OF MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM 
 
 BY 
 
 JESSICA PEIXOTTO, Ph. D. 
 PROPERTY OF LIBRARY 
 
 wn YnnK st<\te school 
 iNDusTi I'L a;i} mm relations 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
COPTRIGHT, 1901, 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY. 
 
TO 
 
 PROFESSOR BERNARD MOSES 
 
 IN 
 
 Grateful Acknowledgment of Inspiration and 
 
 GmDANCB. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A LITTLE more than a hundred years ago, there were 
 in France groups of men radically opposed to the so- 
 ciety they saw about them. These men were, more- 
 over, passionately eager to impose upon the nation to 
 which they belonged a new social order which they ad- 
 vocated. Although, strictly speaking, they had no for- 
 mulated system for social reorganization, these revo- 
 lutionists of '93 were fairly agreed upon a certain set 
 of theories which have comrnonly been called the Prin- 
 ciples of the French Eevolution. The defenders of 
 these principles were the French Irreconcilables of the 
 last century. 
 
 In France to-day there is a party numbering nearly 
 two million voters. This party sends to the Chamber 
 of Deputies some eighty representatives; it claims to 
 have a municipal majority in Paris, in about thirty of 
 the other large cities, and in twelve hundred of the 
 smaller cities of France; seventy-eight or more among 
 the daily and weekly journals of the nation are said to 
 be devoted to its interests. Persons belonging to this 
 party profess a political creed sharply criticising the 
 established social order, which they stigmatize as retro- 
 gra^ln its influence on society, and enslaving to the 
 individual. The party offers certain principles by 
 which society, established on a new basis, shall accom- 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 plish its true mission. In the future order they plan, 
 "progress shall engender only progress; that is, pros- 
 perity, health, education and equal intellectual devel- 
 opment for all." The creed of the party goes by the 
 name of Socialism. The persons who indorse its ideals 
 are chief among the Irreconcilables of France of to-day. 
 The problem undertaken in this study is this: To 
 find the immediate^ influences which formed each of 
 these two important schools of Irreconcilables and the 
 doctrines that each eventually advanced; to find fur- 
 ther how far the two theories involved the same and 
 how far they represent divergent principles, and finally, 
 to suggest any conclusions which such a comparison 
 may seem to justify. The investigation was not begun 
 with a view of finding whether or no there was any 
 socialism in the French Eevolution. Opinion is usually 
 agreed, and recent investigation has shown ably and 
 conclusively^ that, even tJiQ^h, during the Eevolution, 
 men often.acted and talked in accordance with social- 
 istic theory, there was not, until 1795, any really con- 
 scious socialism. To set about an inquiry concerning 
 the socialism of the Eevolution would be, then, at this 
 date, to undertake a superfluous task. The. aim here 
 has only been one of statement and comparison. It 
 seemed worth while to ascertain how far doctrines, 
 reputed to be essentially opposed, bore any likeness to 
 each other. To define the immediate influences behind 
 the Principles of the Eevolution and to state their 
 fundamental character; to outline in a similar way the 
 
 1 See notably, " Le Socialisme et la Revolution frangaise." 
 Etude sur les idfies soeialistea en Fraface de 1789 a, 1796, par 
 Andr$ Jjichtenberger, Paris, 1899, 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 growth of the nineteenth century French Socialism 
 and to give the doctrine it has most recently laid down, 
 and then to compare and contrast these two sets of 
 principles: this is a work of investigation which, so far 
 as the writer is aware, has not yet been done, except 
 in a partisan spirit. Such investigation, made im- 
 partially, seemed to have in it something of value. 
 
 The results of the comparison were to the writer, at 
 least, somewhat unexpected. It would seem that, in 
 their views regarding the individual and his rights, 
 and in particular his right to happiness, and in the 
 general lines of their political doctrine, the French 
 Eevolutionists of '93 and the French Socialists of 1900 
 are scarcely separated in opinion. The immediate is- 
 sue in both theories is a political issue, and the science 
 of economics has been called in at the end of the nine- 
 teenth century to play the same role which the thesis 
 of Natural Eights played at the end of the eighteenth 
 century. The fallacy of surplus value seems to have 
 as its parallel in the revolutionary theory, the fallacy 
 of Natural Eights. Each is the war-cry for a political 
 light made in the name of a social injustice. The older 
 agitation posited a man, happy in a primeval time, but 
 thrust out from contentment and now badly in need of 
 an enlightened government, to restore him to his birth- 
 right. The agitation of to-day starts from the con- 
 ception of a man, kept a long time from his just in- 
 dependence, but slowly pushing forward in spite of 
 unremitting opposition, and separated now from his 
 rights by nothing but a machine and its owner, whom 
 a sycophant government protects. In either case, the 
 deus ex machina must be the state. 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 On the other hand, there is a real and interesting 
 separation in the social philosophy of the two doctrines. 
 The later theory asks that an additional right be as- 
 sured to the individual, and therefore that goTernment 
 assume one new function, and it bases its claim for 
 these changes on an idea of social progress different 
 from that of the Kevolutionists. 
 
 The following pages aim to demonstrate these like- 
 nesses and differences. If the matter they present ap- 
 pears insufficient or the result of immature judgment, 
 it is hoped it will, in any event, be an inspiration for 
 some stronger work along lines which, it seems to the 
 writer, cannot but be helpful in adding to a better 
 understanding of latter-day problems. 
 
 The bibliography which is included in these pages 
 does not claim to be in any sense exhaustive. It is 
 rather indicative of the ground that has been covered 
 before reaching the conclusions here set down. 
 
TABLE OF CONTEMTS. 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF THE FRENCH 
 
 REVOLUTION. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE CULTURAL INFLUENCES MAKING FOR NEW 
 IDEALS. 
 
 Page. 
 I. The General Character of the Principles of the 
 
 Eighteenth Century 5 
 
 The new tone in all eighteenth century liter- 
 ature 7 
 
 Its iconoclastic teaching 9 
 
 II. The New Idea of Happiness 11 
 
 The method of finding the new ideals 11 
 
 Primary conceptions 12 
 
 Different ideas of happiness and the way to at- 
 tain it here on earth 17 
 
 III. Doctrine of Liberty 25 
 
 Intellectual liberty 29 
 
 Civil liberty 31 
 
 Political liberty 33 
 
 rv. Theories of Equality and Property 37 
 
 The eighteenth century sympathy for th« idea 
 
 of equality 39 
 
 The positive doctrines of equality 41 
 
 The theories of property 46 
 
 V. The Relative Influence of these Theories 53 
 
 Bibliography of Chapter 1 66 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE SOCIAL FACTS WHICH SHAPED AND DEVELOPED 
 THE NEW IDEALS. 
 
 I. The Part Played by the Old Institutions 61 
 
 Rise of contempt and even active revolt in the 
 
 time of Louis XV 62 
 
 The vacillating policy of Louis XVI 69 
 
 The foreign influences , , 75 
 
 xi 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 II. The Middle Class and Its Relation to the New Prin- 
 ciples 78 
 
 Why no one of the other classes led the move- 
 ment for a new set of principles 78 
 
 The Third Estate as the direct instrument for 
 
 giving realty to the new principles 86 
 
 III. Paris as an Organizing and Concentrating Influence, 93 
 
 Salons 94 
 
 Clubs 97 
 
 Cafes 100 
 
 Theaters 103 
 
 Newspapers 104 
 
 Pamphlets 106 
 
 Almanacs 107 
 
 rv. The Pinal Focusing of the Principles of the Revo- 
 lution 109 
 
 First stage in formulating them is reached in 
 
 1789 -.111 
 
 The final struggle tb legalize the new principles, 115 
 
 Summary 123 
 
 Bibliography for Chapter II , 124 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 I. The Inclusive Character of the Revolutionary Prin- 
 ciples .> 129 
 
 Their predominantly political character 130 
 
 II. Fundamental Conceptions 131 
 
 Law of nature 134 
 
 Theory of man 138 
 
 Social contract 142 
 
 III. The Rights of Man 147 
 
 How the natural rights became positive law. ... 149 
 
 Right to liberty 155 
 
 Right to equality 160 
 
 Right to property 163 
 
 rv. The State and the Individual 172 
 
 Sovereignty 172 
 
 The relation between the state and the indi- 
 vidual IVS 
 
 Conclusion 185 
 
 Bibliography for Chapter III 188 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE DOCTRINES OF MODERN FRENCH 
 
 SOCIALISM. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE IMMEDIATE ANTECEDENTS OF MODERN FRENCH 
 SOCIALISM. 
 
 Page. 
 
 I. The Beginnings of Modern French Socialism 193 
 
 Leading representatives 195 
 
 The salient points of their doctrine 196 
 
 II. Ideas Which French Idealistic Socialism Had in 
 
 Common with All Socialistic Thinking 198 
 
 Ideal of social harmony 199 
 
 Individual happiness 202 
 
 Social justice 205 
 
 Education as means to ameliorate social condi- 
 tions 210 
 
 Demands in regard to property forms 211 
 
 III. Characteristics of This Early Socialism Which Are 
 
 New to Socialistic Theory 214 
 
 Practical aim 214 
 
 Scientific method 216 
 
 Idea of social progress 218 
 
 Criticism of industrial organization 222 
 
 IV. Influence of the French Idealistic Group 231 
 
 Bibliography for Chapter IV 235 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE SOCIAL FACTS WHICH HAVE SHAPED AND DE- 
 VELOPED MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 I. The Altered Standing of Socialism in France To-day, 239 
 
 The new attitude of scholars toward it 239 
 
 Its political status 241 
 
 This chapter aims to show causes of this change, 241 
 ziii 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 II. Alterations in General Standards Which Have Af- 
 fected the Doctrine and Position of Present- 
 day Socialism 243 
 
 New methods of investigation 243 
 
 The principle of democracy in France 248 
 
 Growth of a social consciousness 255 
 
 III. Economic Changes Aid to Develop a Fourth Estate. . 260 
 
 Increasing interdependence of the factors in pro- 
 duction 261 
 
 New appreciation of the value of concerted 
 action 265 
 
 Stimulated desire for another standard of life . . . 268 
 
 IV. The Final Influence Which Defined the Character of 
 
 the Present French Socialism 274 
 
 The influence of Marx 275 
 
 The organization of the present political move- 
 ment 278 
 
 Bibliography for Chapter V 287 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 I. Scientific Socialism 291 
 
 General character of scientific socialism 291 
 
 Materialistic conception of history 295 
 
 Surplus value 302 
 
 Concentration of capital 306 
 
 II. Integral Socialism 314 
 
 Its distinctive trait 315 
 
 Origin and aim of society 316 
 
 Individual rights 321 
 
 Theory of government 329 
 
 Problem of property 335 
 
 Supply and demand under the socialistic rfigime 
 
 proposed 343 
 
 Distribution proposed by the Integral Socialists, 349 
 
 Theory of value 352 
 
 III. Summary of the Principles of the Two Schools 356 
 
 Bibliography for Chapter VI 359 
 
PART III. 
 COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF THE TWO 
 DOCTRINES. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Comparison of the Two Theories 363 
 
 General characteristics common to the French Revolu- 
 tion and to French socialism 363 
 
 Similarity of the view regarding the individual and 
 
 his happiness 363 
 
 Similarity of the political theory. 365 
 
 Separation of theory in regard to function of govern- 
 ment 369 
 
 The two doctrines of property 370 
 
 The distinctive part of modern French socialism 374 
 
 Appendix — Tabular. 
 
 Comparison of the Two Theories 381 
 
 Index 387 
 
 bibliogeaphical index 403 
 
 XV 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF THE FRENCH 
 REVOLUTION. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CULTURAL INFLUENCES MAKING 
 FOR NEW IDEALS. 
 
OHAPTEK I. 
 
 THE CULTURAL INFLUENCES MAKING FOE NEW 
 IDEALS. 
 
 I. The General Charactek of the Peincipi<es or the 
 
 Eighteenth Century. 
 II. The New Idea of Happiness. 
 
 III. Doctrine of Liberty. 
 
 IV. Theories of Equality and Property. 
 
 V. The Eelative Influence of these Theories. 
 
 An analysis of any epoch in the intellectual life of a 
 given society seems clearly to show two kinds of agen- 
 cies at work during the process of development — the 
 one a series of cultural influences reshaping the funda- 
 mentals of men's thoughts; the other, certain social 
 facts which make way among the masses for the new 
 thoughts which have previously been developed. The 
 century of French history about to be discussed shows 
 plainly this double line of development. France, dur- 
 ing the eighteenth century, lived through a severe and 
 interesting social crisis, and the close of the century 
 saw opinion settle upon new theories, because, at the 
 later period, two potent agents for change had finally 
 completed their work. The teachings of a new phi- 
 losophy on the one hand, and, on the other, certain con- 
 ditions of the national life combined to develop radical 
 alterations in the social creeds. The origin and nature 
 of the principles of the French Eevolution, the first ob- 
 jective point of this study, will then be best explained 
 by reviewing the leading principles of the eighteenth 
 
 5 
 
Q PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REYOLVTION. 
 
 century philosophy and stating certain facts in the so- 
 cial growth of the nation. 
 
 The character and influence of the new philosophy 
 that developed in France during the eighteenth cen- 
 tury has heen so often and so ably discussed, during the 
 present century, that the subject seems threadbare for 
 one who comes to an examination of it at the end of 
 that century. French thinking got so undoubtedly to 
 the center of the stage during the last century, even 
 though trained to its part by English thought, that all 
 later study, in whatever quest, seems bound to take ac- 
 count of it and to start from it. 
 
 The surprisingly wide reach of subject and the well- 
 defined purpose which marked the literary activity of 
 the eighteenth century will then be readily recalled. 
 It will be remembered how, even before the seventeenth 
 century closed, the somewhat euphuistic, formal and 
 moralistic literature of Louis XIV's reign lost its com- 
 placent tone and became more vigorous as it became 
 more conscious of a purpose. Men left classic subjects 
 where abstract principles were the chief interest and 
 their own pompous civilization the only background 
 they knew how to give their embodied principles. Dis- 
 gusted, slowly but surely with the formal reality, they 
 substituted first an, ancient or pastoral mode of life and 
 set their Durantes and ValSresf moralizing there. By 
 
 1 Compare " T6l6maque " of F6nelori, the " Histoire de S6v6r- 
 ambea," by Vairasse d'Alais (published 1677), and their 
 numerous prototypes. (See an interesting discussion of this 
 class of writing in Liehtenberger, Le Socialisme au XVIIIe 
 si&cle, . chap, ii, pp^ 36-63, ed; 1895.) See also, in same con- 
 nection, the novels of Marivaux, especially La Vie de Marianne, 
 Ee Payaari Parvenu; also,' the dramas of Delisle; in particular, 
 
NEW CULTURAL INFLUENCES. 7 
 
 the end of the Grand Monarch's reign, the literature is 
 openly criticaP of the age which Louis loved to hear 
 called the " Golden." Racine dies of the chagrin caused 
 by Louis' angry rejection of his plan for social reform;' 
 ^Molieje finds it hard to keep out of trouble because of 
 hjs unconquerable desire to take a fling at manner which • 
 he despises, and to say a scathing word about institu- 
 tions which seem to him shallow and ridiculous ;* B^oileau 
 sneers" at the morals of his time; La Bruyere^ pities / 
 and scorns. To read Vauban'^ and Boisguillebert* is to 
 know how convinced men were that the times were out 
 of joint, and to understand that literature was becom- 
 ing largely a humanitarian criticism of social condi- 
 tions. 
 
 During the eighteenth century, what at the end of 
 the previous century had been tendencies now became 
 pronounced characteristics. During this period, phil- 
 osophic thought altered its tone; scientific learning 
 took new life; social theory as such was practically born 
 
 "Arlequin Sauvage " (1721), or " Timon le Misanthrope" 
 (1722). 
 
 2 For example Saint Pierre,, whose philanthropic sentiment 
 was so remarkable for his time that he is credited by Voltaire 
 with having introduced even the word " bienfaisance " into the 
 language. (Oomp. Voltaire, Discours sur I'homme, VII.) 
 
 3 Martin, Histoire de France, XIV, p. 343. 
 
 4 Compare, for example, the attaek upon religion which is 
 expressed in " Tartuffe " in the character of Orgon. 
 
 6 Compare the " Satires." 
 
 6 In the " CaractSres." See e. g., " Des Grands." 
 
 1 See, in " Projet de Dime Royal," the. demand for a tax 
 which 'should include' all citizens and throw the burden of 
 government support upon those persons whose possessions en- 
 abled them to enjoy the luxuries of life. 
 
 8 " DMail de la France sous Louis XIV." 
 
8 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 to French literature. It is true the " philosophes " were 
 chiefly of the school of Helvetius, d'Holbach, or Eaynal; 
 true, they represent the narrow view of the material- 
 ist, but their vigorous presentation of a somewhat dis- 
 honest doubt, none the less marks a definite epoch in 
 the history of the thought of their nation. The litter- 
 ateurs of the time, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Eousseau, 
 Diderot, Condillac, D'Alembert, vied with the pure 
 scientists, with Lavoisier, Eeaumur, Laplace, Buffon, or 
 Linnaeus, in showing a keen interest in science and 
 taking an active part in the scientific investigations of 
 the age. With Quesnay, Mercier, Dupont de Nemours, 
 and Turgot, economic science escaped from its swad- 
 dling-clothes. The most noteworthy stir, however, was 
 in political theory. Almost every man who took up a 
 pen during the eighteenth century, was moved to sur- 
 mise about and to pronounce upon social conditions. 
 Here the list includes the greater part of the writers al- 
 ready mentioned; there are in addition, Meslier, Morelly, 
 Mably, Fecker, Linguet, names for the social reformer 
 of our day to conjure by ; and all of these are but a few 
 among the many who were struck with the difficult sit- 
 uation of the nation and tried to suggest a way to bet- 
 ter it. Purely imaginative writing may be said almost 
 to have disappeared. Prose or poetry, scientific re- 
 search, philosophy, little was put into writing that had 
 not the study and representation of society in view and 
 the instruction and. reformation of the reader as its aim. 
 In all branches of literature, rhetorical correctness 
 survived. Whether it was Montesquieu or Diderot, 
 Voltaire or Rousseau, or those lesser men whom facts 
 
GENHRAL CBARACTER. 9 
 
 of temperament, character or immediate surroundings 
 made the innovators of the time, each and all were mas- 
 ters of the instrument of language. Though the eigh- 
 teenth century was essentially the time when a hew 
 faith was put forward, it is not too much to say that 
 the capacity of the advocates of this new thinking to put 
 their creed before the world in the brilliant and con- 
 vincing fashion in which they did it, had a notable part 
 in the result which followed their writings. Voltaire, 
 Eousseau, Diderot and the Encyclopedists said, what 
 they and all their world were beginning to feel, in a 
 way that reached the emotions. The very inconsisten- 
 cies of their teachings were hidden by the deftness of 
 their word-painting. Theirs was the success which 
 usually follows when the artist espouses a social cause. 
 The tempest that none of them foresaw or desired, the 
 tempest from which the few who survived to see it 
 fled in sorrow or disgust,* may safely be said to have 
 been inspired by the untiring pen-warfare which so 
 many of the literary men of the eighteenth century 
 waged with unparalleled courage and brilliancy. 
 
 At the period when this new type of literature be- 
 gan to appear, the most conspicuous fact in French na- 
 tional life was that decay which is as much a necessity 
 to progress as is the growth which the word habitually 
 conveys. A certain set of theories which had arisen 
 in a time long past and had then been vigorous, life- 
 giving principles, were still clinging, in a state of un- 
 lovely decrepitude, about an empty and evil society. 
 
 9 For example, Grimm's emigration in diagust at the time of 
 the Revolution, or Eaynal's published disavowal of it. 
 
10 PRINCIPLES OF FRENOB REVOLUTION. 
 
 The militant theological despotism of the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries had been carefully woven ahout 
 with a protecting armor of principles, and these prin- 
 ciples now remained like an empty shell from which all 
 that is vital had long since departed. 
 
 The new philosophy was first of all an efEort to es- 
 cape from the trammels of the higoted and shallow sys- 
 tem out of which it had itself developed. In the pres- 
 ent discussion, that which was new in the thought of 
 France in the eighteenth century is the prime interest; 
 but the power of this same philosophy as a destructive 
 agent making way for new thought is not to be for- 
 gotten. The alteration in opinion which so insensibly 
 crept into all circles of French society during the eigh- 
 teenth century, is due before everjrthing else to the vig- 
 orous onslaughts which a number of able writers made 
 upon the earlier creeds. The new philosophy took 
 shape during the progress of a bitter fight with the 
 decaying theological despotism. Young men who had 
 grown up under the hampering influence of the worn- 
 out traditions which the ruling minority imposed upon 
 them; young men who gradually came to see the worth- 
 lessness of these traditions, finally rose in a literary re- 
 bellion against them. 
 
 But in the progress of this rebellion, these younger 
 minds offered, as well, a constructive doctrine; and it is 
 this latter which is here of first interest. " Children of 
 their times,"*** these men became the fathers of a new 
 set of national principles. They had looked abroad; 
 they had looked at home, and from both directions, they 
 
 10 Von Hoist, French Revolution, I, p. 142. 
 
NEW IDEA OF BAPPINES8. n 
 
 found inspiration to ask that things outworn be re- 
 placed by institutions which seemed to them less un- 
 couth and out of fashion. To make a brief review of 
 the doctrines they advanced is an indispensable first 
 step in a study of the development of the principles of 
 the Trench Eevolution. ■- 
 
 II- 
 
 The one fact which includes all others concerning 
 the principles of the eighteenth century is this, that they 
 represent a denial of authority in the interests of indi- 
 vidual judgment. The writing of the time passed rap- 
 idly from wholesale condemnation of existing institu- 
 tions to a broad claim for reconstruction upon a basis 
 furnished by the reason. Organized authority was dis- 
 credited. In its place arose an energetic demand for 
 the civil and even political liberty of the individual; a 
 demand for a recognition of the truth that all men are of 
 common clay with equal rights to enjoy life. A new 
 idea of happiness and of the means for society to insure 
 happiness to each person took an increasingly strong 
 hold upon the cultivated intellects of the time. 
 
 The new conceptions were the fruits of adopting what 
 was called the rational method. A rising revolt against 
 the dogmas of the Church speedily divided intellectual 
 France into those who denied authority based upon rev- 
 elation and those who continued to support it. While 
 it was still the minority who set up the doctrine that 
 reason was the sole trustworthy guide to teach men the 
 answer to the problems of existence, that minority rap- 
 idly gained precedence. The Church unintentionally 
 
12 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 paved the way. It awkwardly showed men that its re- 
 ligious fervor in persecution was after all state policy ;^^ 
 that it too, more often than not, followed the prompt- 
 ings of reason rather than those of revelation. The 
 brilliant, witty society of the time, enamored of fine 
 writing and adopting generalization as an etiquette, 
 quickly accepted the theory that reason is man's infal- 
 lible guide. Pascal's age called it "foolish reason;" 
 the eighteenth century proclaimed it to be the indis- 
 putable arbiter for all questions metaphysical and prac- 
 tical. 
 
 The thought of the age may be said to have begun 
 and ended in things terrestrial. Things unseen got for 
 the most part a careless shrug of the shoulders; in- 
 terest centered about watching and pronouncing upon 
 the social turmoil. Skepticism and atheism were com- 
 mon enough. In the natural course of things, the de- 
 cay of the old standards, with the accompanying arti- 
 ficiality and insincerity of much of the life, made ma- 
 terialism a part, and not an unimportant part, of the 
 eighteenth century doctrines. But the leaders of 
 thought were, or thought themselves, deists. There 
 were the deists who did little more than posit a creator 
 and grant him ill-defined, supreme and somewhat ca- 
 pricious powers of superintendence ;^2 there were those 
 
 11 When, for example, it became known that the ostentatious 
 burning of heretical writings in front of the Palais de Justice 
 was, more often than not, a burning of waste paper, because 
 the clergy kept the original works for their own reading. 
 Comp. Eocquain, L'Esprit rgvolutionnaire avant la Revolution, 
 ed. Plon et Cie., Paris, 1878, p. 271. 
 
 12 Comp. Montesquieu, especially. Esprit des Lois, Bk. I, 
 ch. i; Voltaire, Discours sur I'Qommie. 
 
PRIMARY CONCEPTIONS. 13 
 
 ■who only " felt " the Creator, and this latter class had 
 the really controlling influence. Kousseau's deism, 
 truly enough a " rag of metaphysics floating in the sun- 
 shine of sentimentalism,"^^ none the less took power- 
 ful hold upon a society sick to death of formalism. 
 Here was a worship which rang with scorn of formulae, 
 theological or philosophical. Hearts long dulled by 
 lip-service responded to that scorn. Here was a wor- 
 ship whose claim of being founded upon love of com- 
 mon sense (bon sens) and love of truth,i* appealed di- 
 rectly to the intellectual pride of the age. All the 
 religious impulse contained in the new philosophy is 
 probably best summed up in the Savoyard vicar's simple, 
 purely emotional deism which sneers not only at Catho- 
 lic cults but also at philosophers' dissertations.^^ The 
 new philosophy may be thought to have said, " Do you 
 want a guide as to how you shall direct your own con- 
 duct and what shall be your relation to j^our fellows? 
 Take a heart with you and go to a study of Nature." 
 
 This doctrine is well defined and interestingly dis- 
 tinctive on the question of the end of existence. Most 
 opinion that carried weight at the time agreed that 
 personal happiness here on earth was the goal to be 
 striven for. On every hand, there is rebellion against 
 what the ages have made of the Christian doctrine; 
 against the interpretation of life that had prevailed 
 up to and through the previous century — a conception 
 
 iSMorley, Rousseau, 11, p. 277. 
 
 wComp. especially Profession de foi du vioaire Savoyard, 
 Emile, Bk. IV. 
 
 iBEmile, Bk. IV (Vol. VII, p. 17, ed. 1782), "Je ne suis 
 pas un grand philosophe et je me souei peu de I'etre." 
 
14 PRINCIPLES OF FMEifCB REVOLUTION. 
 
 that regarded misery as a necessary part of life and 
 self-abnegation as a desirable rule for personal conduct. 
 The right to happiness was now proclaimed. The 
 word happiness might and did, as will be shown in a 
 moment, convey various meanings to the minds of those 
 who used it, but the right to some kind of happiness 
 was unanimously demanded as the birthright of every 
 individual. Men might differ as to whether instinct 
 or reason had prompted association, but they all agreed 
 that the society eventually developed was intended to 
 bring happiness to every human being. The whole lit- 
 erature of the time, consisting as it does largely of pro- 
 tests against the needlessness and the abstract wrong 
 of human misery, infers where it does not state it in set 
 terms, that the right to happiness is obvious. Prom 
 Saint Pierre to Mably, there is little or no change in 
 this point of view. All the forceful thought of the 
 century united to believe that, in the natural and right 
 order of existence, not endurance and unrest, but en- 
 joyment and peace, would be each man's portion. 
 
 It is the abstraction of a natural man that is the 
 chief support of this new idea of happiness, and this ab- 
 straction is worked out by the simplest process. Hu- 
 manity is put under the microscope. It is taken for 
 granted that, as a rule, all men are alike; personality 
 in any real sense is altogether neglected. It is Man, 
 the genus, that is carefully examined. After the ex- 
 amination, the philosophy gravely tells us that all 
 men are essentially similar, capable of the same 
 amount of joy and sorrow, possessed of nearly the same 
 endowments and subject to needs which differ but lit- 
 
PRIMARY CONCEPTIONS. 15 
 
 tle.i® Except Montesquieu," Voltaire^^ and Turgot, 
 all the leading thinkers of the century cut man away 
 from history and environment, and so resolved out the 
 "Natural Man" by that mathematical process which 
 the age put so much faith in. Eousseau, Diderot and 
 the men less known to-day, who were influences in their 
 time, all based their later conclusions upon this pri- 
 mary conclusion of a natural man.^® It is usual for the 
 prevailing theory of the time to found society, as the 
 Physiocrats did,^" on three primary instincts, — ■ those of 
 well-being, of sociability and of Justice, — and to insist 
 that each human being could find, if he would seek it, 
 the guidance of these instincts which had made a primi- 
 tive man happy. It was believed that if men would 
 now use their intelligence wisely and listen to the dic- 
 tates of these instincts, they could find the laws of 
 
 16 This is the idea at the basis of Jean Meslier's " Testa- 
 ment ; " in Moreliys " Code de la Nature," the same doctrine 
 is to be found; in Mably's works, more particularly the " En- 
 tretien de Phocion," it is equally the beginning of all the 
 doctrines put forward. 
 
 17 Montesquieu is not generally ranked as one who recog- 
 nized progress in history. He certainly never stated the prin- 
 ciple in so many words, but his chief works advance a theory 
 which really connotes the doctrine. The fact that he did not 
 state the principle is, probably, a result of the generally un- 
 scientific form of all his writings. 
 
 18 Voltaire, like Montesquieu, felt only instinctively an 
 evolutionary process in society, but the very impulse that led 
 him to write the " Essai sur les Moeurs " is evidence enough 
 that he recognized progress, and therefore did not believe in a 
 primevally happy man. 
 
 19 Eiousseau preaches the natural man with most enthusiasm 
 in the " Disconrs sur I'origine et les fondements de I'in6galit6," 
 etc., and in '■ Emile.'' 
 
 20Comp. Collection des Economistes, 11, p. 435 (cited in 
 Lichtenberger, op. cit. p. 278). 
 
IQ- PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 Natural Justice which are inherent in the universe, 
 " laws that derive from truth alone and not from au- 
 thority." 
 
 When the theorists whose influence meant so much 
 to the generation that came after, had introduced their 
 natural man into society, the usual tendency was to 
 make him a creature of circumstance. Man was good 
 or bad, he remained in a state of primitive perfection 
 or became perverted, according to his opportunities. 
 Those opportunities, society furnished him. G-ood- 
 ness and evil-doing came to be regarded as variable 
 social attributes of man ; morality was held to be a rela- 
 tive term. Montesquieu's scientific exposition of the 
 relativity of all laws is only the most orderly and least 
 exaggerated expression of that which was, in relation to 
 ethics, the current thinking of his time. In most cases, 
 the thought did not go very far. It did not assert, in 
 so many words, as Montesquieu did, the necessary and 
 desirable variations in the moral and positive laws of 
 nations. The discussion usually concerned itself with 
 standards of personal conduct. Again and again it 
 was repeated that there was and could be no absolute 
 and fixed law for all; there was no single and rigid rule 
 of moral behavior which must eternally regulate the 
 acts of men. In particular, the code of ethics then ex- 
 acted by the Church was said to be in direct contradic- 
 tion to the dictates of nature and reason. It is even 
 claimed that under the teachings of the unworthy the- 
 ology of their time, current thinking had actually come 
 to a point where vices were held to be virtues and vice 
 versa. The new creed boldly asserted that the natural 
 
DEFINITIONS OF BAPPINE8S. 17 
 
 and vigor-giving tendencies of men's natures had been 
 cramped and distorted by a fallacious ethical discipline. 
 In answer to the profound and vfidespread antipathy 
 to the prevailing forms, the intellectual opinions of the 
 time took up, and preached with cumulative force, the 
 doctrine that man is not justifiably asked to live a life of 
 self-denial and suffering; that earth and its bounties 
 are for man's enjoyment, and that the natural order of 
 things prescribes free play for man's emotional and in- 
 tellectual life. 
 
 Jt became then a leading principle of the eighteenth 
 century that Nature was the only trustworthy guide. 
 Rightly consulted and recognized, the " code " of nature 
 would teach men how to live and how to associate with 
 each other. Not renunciation, but a proper attention to 
 the demands of one's nature, would show men the true 
 means for useful living. This^creed, which later became 
 little more than the glorification of the passions under 
 the cloak of sentiment and energy, was now announced 
 as the right to happiness. 
 
 There are interesting and noteworthy differences as 
 to what is the meaning of the term happiness, what 
 the way to bring it about and what the social state 
 which each conception of it implies. Three groups 
 can be easily distinguished. There are first, those who 
 held happiness to be conditioned by a vigorous and ac- 
 tive industrial society where the state guaranteed per- 
 fect civil liberty; secondly, those who, on the contrary, 
 saw happiness in a frank acceptance of the conditions 
 to which one was born; and finally, those who thought 
 3 
 
18 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 that happiness consisted in a virtue** which might be 
 maintained for the individual or the state only by the 
 exclusion of luxury. 
 
 The Economists are the best representatives of the 
 first of these groups. For all of this school, happiness 
 meant wealth. Kidding the term wealth of that nar- 
 row interpretation which up to this time had made it 
 coincide with money, these economic philosophers gave 
 it all but a modern interpretation. Wealth was every- 
 thing that had exchange value, and it was such wealth 
 that was the supreme good. When man should know 
 how to create the greatest possible amount of such 
 wealth, individual and national happiness would be 
 insured. If the Physiocrats held to a notion of value 
 which denied real value to anything but agricultural 
 product, it was because in their conception this form 
 of product alone meant real and evident addition to the 
 goods that were capable of increasing the strength and 
 power of society, and so the only real addition to 
 men's happiness. Increase of product meant to them 
 increased wealth, and in their conception wealth was 
 the only certain means to increased happiness. The 
 Physiocrats ardently urged that knowledge should be 
 made more general; that the sciences and arts should 
 aim directly to serve the needs of man, and that educa- 
 tion should strive to lift more and more of humanity 
 above the lower levels of existence; but all of this was, 
 in the eyes of most of the school, merely so many means 
 to an all-important end. The doctrine is now promul- 
 
 4l Virtue never came to mean anything more specific than 
 the observance of the virtues of justice, temperance, courage 
 and the like. 
 
MEANS TO INSURE HAPPINESS. I'g 
 
 gated which economists and socialists alike have since 
 been wont to urge as the essential truth which shall 
 guide all social action, the doctrine that the final end 
 of human activity is a full understanding of the use 
 of the products of Nature. The Physiocrats believed 
 that when such knowledge shall have been acquired and 
 wealth shall have increased, then and not until then, a 
 greater happiness might be expected; then the benefi- 
 cent intentions of the Natural Law that properly rules 
 all matter and all mind would be fulfilled. Since the 
 name of the Physiocrats is connected for all time with 
 the doctrine of " Laisser faire "^ it is hardly neces- 
 sary to state that they stand in the front ranks of 
 those who advocated entire individual freedom as a 
 further measure to insure happiness. If some of the 
 school desired an enlightened despotism, it was only 
 because these held it to be the best means for guarding 
 the individual initiative, which they counted as the 
 condition to the kind of production that would make 
 happiness certain for all. It would seem then, that 
 this plan for bringing about a general happiness, a plan 
 acceptable to so many influential men of the period,^ 
 was a project for increasing the natural wealth of the 
 
 22 On origin of the term, comp. Higgs, The Physiocrats, p. 
 67. 
 
 23 The Economists included men in every walk of life, as 
 a list of the names of the more important among them will 
 show. L6on Say, citing Dupont de Nemours, gives the chief 
 members of the school, as follows: (1) Quesnay, with Mira- 
 beau, Abeille, Fourquex, Bertin, Dupont de Nemours, Abbg 
 Roubaud, Mercier de la RiviSre and Abb6 Baudeau; and (2) 
 Gournay with Malesherbes, Morellet, Trudaine de Montigny, 
 le Cardinal de Boisgelin, AbbS Ciee and Turgot. Comp. LSon 
 Say, Turgot, p. 58, ed. Hachette, Paris, 1891. 
 
20 PRINCIPLES OP PRENCB REVOLVTiON. 
 
 country to the highest limit — all in the expectation 
 that every increase of the natural product would add to 
 the possibilities of general happiness, especially if men 
 were left entirely unhampered to appropriate, to re- 
 distribute and to consume the increasing supply.^* 
 
 "The nations surround themselves with the luxury 
 of wealth and the luxury of minds, and men too often 
 lack bread and common sense. In order to assure to 
 them all, the bread, the good sense and the virtues that 
 are necessary to them, there is but one means: it is 
 necessary to enlighten greatly both peoples and gov- 
 ernments."^ Thus Montesquieu,^® the influence be- 
 hind all the sober liberalism of the age, and with him, 
 Voltaire, reputed chief iconoclast and scoffer of the 
 eighteenth century. In matters of political and social 
 theory, Voltaire, as well as Montesquieu, was really a 
 conservative; he, as well as the greater political theorist, 
 believed in accepting life as he found it. Therefore 
 on the question of means to secure happiness, both held 
 happiness to be quite independent of station in life.*^ 
 Happiness meant freedom in the sphere to which one 
 was born; meant peace and power to satisfy unmolested, 
 
 24 It will be interesting to remember, when the socialists of 
 the nineteenth century come under discussion, how they, con- 
 sciously or not, took the keynote of their doctrine from the 
 Physiocrats who popularized the laisser faire principle so 
 hateful to all socialists. 
 
 28 Garat, Mgmoires historique sur le XVIIIe si6cle et sur M. 
 Suard, p. 302, cited in Lichtenberger, op. cit. p. 93. 
 
 26 The general tenor of the " Oonsidgrations sur les Causes 
 de la Grandeur et de la Decadence des Romains," and of the 
 " Esprit des Lois," is taken to be an entire verification of Mon- 
 tesquieu's point of view in this matter. 
 
 2T Comp. e. g. " Esaai sur les Moeurs," ch. xcviii, and many 
 passages in the " Lettres sur les Anglais." 
 
MEANS TO INSURE HAPPINESS. 21 
 
 inclinations purely intellectual. All men need not have 
 the advantages of wealth nor even the opportunities for 
 special cidture; they need only be free from the in- 
 sistent intrusions of a dogmatic church and a self-seek- 
 ing state. According to their view, happiness was to be 
 found wherever men were left alone to enjoy that which 
 their situation in life had given them. Wherever hu- 
 manity was free to live peacefully without being forced 
 to subscribe to a code of superstition and ignorance, or 
 to feel itself at the mercy of a capricious law, there men 
 might and should be happy. A nation might hope to 
 be made up of contented persons if its laws made civil 
 and intellectual liberty certain This, the view of con- 
 servative materialism in every age, was not only that 
 of Montesquieu and Voltaire, but was one shared as 
 well by a great majority of that numerous and all in- 
 elusive group, the Encyclopedists.^ 
 
 Very different from this easy acceptance of the 
 necessary differences of station and possession, this 
 transfer of the seat of happiness to the subjective life, 
 is the idea of happiness that characterizes the last group 
 to be discussed here. In the idea of writers like Saint 
 Pierre, Meslier and Morelly, of Kousseau and some 
 of his most enthusiastic followers like Mercier de la 
 
 28 Diderot, in particular. Mably expresses perfectly the 
 glittering generality with which the majority at the period in 
 question charmed itself into hopefulness when he said that all 
 social evils have come about because " on a attache le bonheur 
 ft la possession des richesses, au lieu de se souvenir qu'il 6tait 
 en nous, plus que dans les objets qui nous environnent, et que 
 eelui des nations, comme celui des particuliers, fitait attache 
 a une bonne morale." Mably, Prineipes de morale, (Euvres, torn. 
 X., p. 305 (cited in Lichtenberger, op, cit., p. 228). 
 
22 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 Eiviere or Eetif de la Bretonne, happiness meant vir- 
 tue, virtue being interpreted to mean primarily a keen 
 sense of social justice. Here happiness still depends 
 upon liberty; but this latter really rests upon equality, 
 and both will fail to be efficient if there is not to be 
 found in the community a certain sense of fraternity. 
 This ideal of happiness is evident enough in Saint 
 Pierre^ and in Meslier, though it is hard to find a 
 word in the various projects of the one or the " Testa- 
 ment " of the other which precisely states this view. 
 In D'Argenson, this idea of happiness is the one always 
 implied.^" But it was Eousseau and his followers who 
 did most to popularize such a conception of happiness; 
 it was they who industriously preached it, along with 
 the additional thought that if all persons would adopt 
 a simple rural life and a strict suppression of all lux- 
 uries there would then be sufficient subsistence to sup- 
 ply the needs of all, and so every one would be enabled 
 to enjoy the real blessings which Nature provides for 
 each of her children. Exactly in opposition to the 
 view of the Physiocrats, this group held that abstinence 
 and a careful management of consumption were of far 
 more importance than an increase of product. 
 " Emile ", " La Nouvelle Heloise ", " L'An 2440 " of 
 Mercier, " Le Paysan Perverti " and " L'Ecole des 
 
 29 Comp., however, Saint Pierre, CEuvres, torn, xiii, p. 12. 
 " Je suppose que si, dans la sooi6t6, les hommes 6tait tr&s 
 justes et tr&s bienfaisants les uns vers Ics autres, ils seraient 
 en cette vie, incomparablement plus heureux qu'ils ne sont." 
 (Cited in Lichtenberger, op. eit. p. 71.) For example, he says: 
 " Quand nous savons resserrer nos besoins, nous devenons 
 semblable aux dieux." Mfimoires, ed. Rathery, I, p. xxiii, cited 
 in Liehtenberger, op. eit. p. 96. 
 
 30 See e. g. the passages cited from him in Liehtenberger, op. 
 oit., pp. 95-97. 
 
MEANS TO INSURE HAPPINESS. 23 
 
 Peres " of Eetif de la Bretonne are so many ideal pic- 
 tures which aim to point the value of a life of rural 
 simplicity, to accent the happiness which such a life 
 offers, and to show the unhappiness which results from 
 abandoning it for the vicious atmosphere of a city.*^ 
 In the minds of this group, happiness summed up as 
 a sentimental demand for social justice to be realized by 
 rural life and simple tastes. 
 
 It will be noted that, on certain points, all these theo- 
 ries agree. All contend that happiness is " our be- 
 ing's end and aim,"^^ and all hold that a certain social 
 arrangement could bring about such happiness. Chief 
 interest centers about the second point. 
 
 The problem which was after all of first interest to 
 all the writers of this century was the discovery of the 
 social system which would give men the happiness that 
 should be theirs. Public opinion in Prance had always 
 permitted absolute authority to the state, and had also 
 accepted the idea that undivided responsibility for 
 social well-being rested with that state. The new phi- 
 losophy did not contradict this idea. When it set up 
 the notion of a imiversal right to happiness, it again 
 brought forward the state as the only means to bring 
 about those conditions which would realize happiness 
 for each individual. That " each has the right to de- 
 mand that society render his situation more advan- 
 tageous than it is in a state of nature "^' was a thought 
 
 «l See especially " Paysan PerveVti " and " Nouvelle HSloise.'' 
 32 Pope's " Essay on Man " was the inspiration for much of 
 the theory of the time. 
 
 33MabIy, Droits et Devoirs, XI, p. 271. 
 
24 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 which, by the time Mably wrote it in the second half of 
 the century, had come to be a commonplace to culti- 
 vated men. 
 
 DifEerence of opinion appears now, as in all time, 
 when the new theories undertake to define the exact 
 way in which the state was to further the happiness of 
 the individual. The idea varies according to the un- 
 derlying notion concerning the relation between the in- 
 dividual and the state ; but whether they aimed to alter 
 and widen much or little the sphere of the individual, 
 the reformers looked almost invariably to the state for 
 any real amelioration of social conditions. The ma- 
 jority held that, to carry out its function properly, the 
 state must secure to its subjects liberty of thought and 
 person.^* Others held that a universal equality was 
 the only means to secure to each individual the liberty 
 that was necessary and proper.^® There were a few 
 who asked that the state bend all its energies to devel- 
 oping a fraternal spirit; for they believed that the 
 promptings of this fraternal spirit would lead men to 
 desire a general equality of rank and possession, and so 
 finally insure real liberty to all.*® Among these new 
 
 34 Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot and most of the other 
 Encyclopedists are of this group. 
 
 35 The more important representatives of this group are 
 Morelly, Neeker and, in a qualified way, Mably. 
 
 36 This last view of liberty by way, of fraternity, a theory 
 of our own time, now put forward by the Nationalist and 
 Christian socialists, had least vogue in just this specific form, 
 though it has been shown "that there were an appreciable 
 group of lesser writers whose ideas centered about this doc- 
 trine of fraternity. (See Lichtenberger, op. cit., pp. 348-355.) 
 The real idea of Rousseau and such of his disciples as Raynal 
 and E6tif de la Br§tonne, is very nearly this one of fraternity. 
 
DOCTRINE Op LIBERTY. 25 
 
 principles, we hear most of a much-needed liberty and 
 a highly desirable equality. 
 
 III. 
 
 It has already been suggested that when the less 
 popular but more forceful literature of the first half of 
 the century is turned over, a new note is evident in all 
 of it; that when one puts aside the carefully-expressed 
 but often lifeless sentences and utterly unreal tales of 
 those writers who, like Crebillon, Dufresny or J. B. 
 Rousseau, made the belles-lettres of the time, and opens 
 the social philosophers, the difference in quality and 
 tenor of thought is striking, and most striking is the 
 sharp reaction from the rule of authority. 
 
 The idea of happiness now being put forward, in- 
 volved as has been shown, the idea of liberty. The 
 doctrine that the individual must be free, the doctrine 
 of individual liberty, was that most generally and posi- 
 tively urged during the eighteenth century. When it 
 is remembered how repressive measures limited men's 
 acts at every turn, this seems only natural. Almost of 
 necessity, there came a rebound from the narrow for- 
 malism which, in the seventeenth century^, had largely 
 controlled art and letters, government and manners. 
 The age of artificial dress, manners and speech survived 
 well into the succeeding century, but thinking by rule 
 went out long before. Reasoned in a narrow and con- 
 ventional way though much of it be, there is now a 
 universal call for independence. 
 
 This demand for the extension of the sphere of the 
 individual may, in a loose way, be said to have gone 
 
26 PRINCIPLES OF FRENOE REVOLUTION. 
 
 through three phases. It moves, from Meslier's first 
 emotional expression of it/^ to Montesquieu's care- 
 fully weighed, almost Machiavellian statement of its 
 value, and then goes boldly on from Montesquieu to 
 Eousseau. In the earlier period, aggressive thought 
 had scarcely gone beyond the regrets and palliatives of 
 such as Saint Pierre or the fears and reproaches of 
 court frequenters like D'Argenson. Occasionally, the 
 
 3T The " Testament " of Jean Meslier contains the most 
 unequivocal demand for liberty to be found in the literature of 
 the first half of the century. Meslier was possessed by an ex- 
 treme loathing for the traditional legal and social institutions 
 under which he lived. What he voices in his book is little 
 more than bitter rebellion against a church and state abso- 
 lutism which he thinks exists only in order to exploit and de- 
 grade the mass of the nation. Men should be free; they could 
 be free; let them free themselves by a vigorous onslaught 
 upon the church and state who are the chief sinners against 
 the liberties of men. This is the whole tenor of the "Testa- 
 ment; " it is an emotional arraignment of a fixed authority 
 over thought and act, rather than any defined and rational 
 analysis of the pros and cons of the matter. There seems no 
 precise idea as to what freedom, when gained, should consist 
 in. The work is noteworthy as the first passionate expression 
 of a feeling that later in the century became reasoned con- 
 viction. It had no political influence, for Meslier was hardly 
 known to his own time, except as a religious writer (Comp. 
 Lichtenberger, op. cit., p. 75), and his demand for liberty was 
 counted among the revolts against the tyranny of the Church. 
 Though his book really asks for a liberty that is far more wide- 
 reaching than this, his influence upon his time can scarcely 
 have been any but an anti-clerical one. The title of his book 
 is an interesting revelation of its tenor. In full, it runs as 
 follows: "MSmoires des pensges et des sentiments de Jean 
 Meslier, eurg d'Etrepigny et de But, sur une partie des abus 
 et des erreurs de la conduite et du gouvernement des hommes, 
 oft Ton voit des demonstrations claires et gvidentes de la vanitg 
 et la faussetg de toutes les divinitgs et de toutes les religions 
 du monde, pour 6tre adressg &. ses paroissiens apr6s sa mort 
 et pour leur servir de tgmoignage de v6rit6 a eux et a tous 
 leurs semblables." 
 
DOCTRINES^ OF LIBERTY. 27 
 
 imaginative literature expresses tljis revolt against the 
 cramping system and the false manners that prevailed.^* 
 But the increasing unrest due to home and foreign in- 
 fluences gradually made for additional clearness con- 
 cerning the change desired. As impatience with the 
 iasincerity and caprieiousness of the traditional au- 
 thority grew, the conception of liberty bebame better 
 defined. By the middle of the century, for the first 
 time in the history of French thought, the idea of civil 
 liberty had become a doctrine of political theory; the 
 absence of civil liberty from French institutions was 
 pointed out with increasing vehemence. By the close 
 of the century, this demand for liberty had become a 
 bold fight in the name of a " ISTatural right ; " it had 
 grown gradually into the glittering fallacy which took 
 liberty out of the sphere of government and made it 
 something which man possessed anterior to society. 
 
 In this clamor for institutions which should insure 
 liberty to the individual, every one asks for liberty of 
 thought and speech, but there are different ideas as 
 to how much civil and political liberty will best secure 
 such intellectual freedom. There are in these opin- 
 ions, as usual, two extremes and a mean. Two re- 
 markable minds, Montesquieu and Voltaire, while shar- 
 ing to a degree in the fallacies of the time, while ac- 
 cepting " natural law " as the basis of society, .yet take 
 a different view in regard to the laws of society. These 
 laws, whether pertaining to liberty or to other less fun- 
 damental social relations, are held to be historical and 
 
 38 Comp. e. g. the works of Lesage or the novels and dramas 
 of Marivaux. 
 
28 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 variable, changing as men grow to fuller self-control 
 and greater capacity for freedom. The state is always 
 the empirical means by which the greatest possible lib- 
 erty for self-development is to be secured to each indi- 
 vidual. Liberty, political or civil, is, under this con- 
 ception, "the power to do that which the laws per- 
 mit";'® it is a great good toward which men grow, but 
 a possession which can work them infinite evil if they 
 be too early permitted to enjoy it. Of the two extreme 
 doctrines, one extreme is best represented by the Econo- 
 mists. Starting with the creed that laws need not be 
 made by the government, for they will declare them- 
 selves if given any chance, they ask that the individual 
 be left free to work out his own existence in his own 
 way. The state, regarded as the means to prevent any 
 single individual from interfering with the free action 
 of his neighbor, is preferably to be a strong and undi- 
 vided force, able to act surely and swiftly in the in- 
 terests of each individual. Thus this class of thinkers 
 lays great stress upon civil liberty and none upon 
 political liberty. The other extreme, best represented 
 by Eousseau and his followers, rests all hope for an 
 equitable relation between men upon unqualified polit- 
 ical liberty. In the opinion of the group who urged 
 this claim, organized association starts from the ra- 
 tional act of each member of society, and so, in striking 
 contrast to the idea of the Economists, the theory now 
 runs that these separate vnlls must act together as a 
 collective will whenever there is to be an alteration in 
 the form of government; the doctrine of government 
 
 39 Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, Bk. XI, ch. iii. 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 29 
 
 by consent of the governed is theoretically proclaimed 
 and demonstrated. The collective will of man is the 
 povp-er and the only power that justly checks the 
 entire freedom of the individual. Such a powerful 
 light is made to play upon this great and inalienable 
 possession of each individual, this, birthright to a share 
 in the social control, that political liberty comes to have 
 undue prominence, and a just estimate of the true 
 balance between political and civil liberty does not 
 appear. 
 
 It need hardly be said that the representative 
 demand for intellectual freedom was that made by 
 Voltaire. For Prangois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, the 
 mocker, the man whom succeeding generations have 
 called the " elect of God "*" or proven to be descended 
 directly from his satanic majesty,*' liberty meant first 
 of all liberty of thought. Voltaire is guilty of having 
 put into the great mass he wrote, much matter which 
 shows a doubtful comprehension of the topic he had in 
 hand; but whether it was philosophical dictionary or 
 history, scientific essay, novel or drama, one aggressive 
 idea, scorn of legal or social trammels to thought, pene- 
 trated everything he wrote and made it important. No 
 fetters to thought is the doctrine which pulses through 
 all his vibrant French. Blind to the claims of the 
 peasant, Voltaire was emphatically the mouthpiece and 
 partisan of the bourgeois. Every act of his long and 
 world-faring life, as the best work of his pen, gives evi- 
 dence of this narrowness in his humanity. Voltaire 
 
 40 Laurent, La Revolution frangaise, I, p. 264. 
 
 41 Ibid, I, p. 8. Laurent cites M. de Segur. 
 
30 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 likewise taught little or no sense of social responsibility; 
 his demand for intellectual liberty was, on the whole, 
 self -regarding. Candide's " II faut cultiver son jardin " 
 does not phrase the principle of laisser faire dogmati- 
 cally; but it conveys, with all the additional force of a 
 work of art, the same " let-alone " teaching. It is also 
 true that the philosopher of Ferney had only a literary 
 man's perception of civil liberty; and though he was as 
 deeply impressed with the value of such liberty as the 
 peculiar character of his mind permitted him to be 
 impressed with anything so fundamental; though he 
 saw plainly enough the value of the English security of 
 person and property and did much to spread that appre- 
 ciation of it which formed so marked a part of later 
 public opinion;*^ though he can be found asking that 
 all civil laws, even the marriage laws,*^ be secularized 
 and made the same for all, yet he never seriously 
 pressed the subject of liberty, civil or political, beyond 
 the point where it concerned freedom of thought and 
 speech. He really desired liberty only in so far as it 
 meant immunity from systematic repression of thought. 
 He was above all possessed with this one idea of win- 
 ning intellectual liberty for France, and his alternate 
 sneering and upbraiding can hardly be said to have 
 made an effective demand for anything else. But just 
 because he thus narrowed life to the intellectual life 
 of the individual, both his career and his writings ask 
 for intellectual liberty as no other has asked for it. 
 Though every writer of the century included in his de- 
 
 *2 Comp. Lettres sur les Anglais. 
 
 40 Dietionnaire philosophique, II, 68-70; III, 625; IV, 29. 
 
CIVIL LIBERTY. 31 
 
 mand for liberty a demand for intellectual freedom, 
 Voltaire made that specific plea so much his special 
 aim that the whole movement in favor of it is summed 
 up in the work of his facile pen. 
 
 The rising demand for civil liberty gets its best 
 and most rational expression in the works of Mon- 
 tesquieu. Civil liberty is the central point of Mon- 
 tesquieu's system; from it he starts his ideals; by it 
 he gauges the development of the governments he stud- 
 ies; toward it he believes that all governments will tend 
 if rightly directed. In the interests of a civil liberty 
 for which he holds his own country and others similarly 
 advanced to be fitted, Montesquieu attacks dueling,** 
 and all forms of slavery;*^ advocates divorce** and pro- 
 nounces for the social freedom of women.*^ Because 
 this most dispassionate among the representatives of the 
 new spirit is possessed by a keen appreciation of the 
 necessity of civil liberty, he classifies as tyrannies all 
 governments which hinder freedom of person or 
 thought.*^ It is again in the interests of this same 
 principle that Montesquieu opposes a standing army,*' 
 interest,*" and a public debt '^ and advocates a stable 
 currency."^ When he criticises the penal laws"* and 
 
 « Lettres Persanes, LXI ; also. Esprit des Lois, Bk. XXVIII, 
 ch. xvi. 
 
 45 Esprit des Lois, Bk. XV, ch. i. 
 
 46 Lettres Persanes, XVI. 
 
 47 Lettres Persanes, XXVIII; also, Esprit des Lois, Bk. XVI, 
 ch. ii. 
 
 •48 Esprit des Lois, Bk. XIX, ch. iii. 
 49 Ibid, Bk. XIII, ch. xvii. 
 BO Ibid, Bk. XXII, ch. xvi. 
 El Ibid, Bk. XXII, ch. xvi. 
 B2 Ibid, Bk. XXII, ch. iii. 
 
 53 Ibid, Bk. VT; Bk. XXIV, ch. xv; also Considerations, 
 ch. XV. 
 
32 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 the current methods of taxation, recommending instead 
 a progressive tax and stringent sumptuary laws;^* 
 when he deprecates laws of primogeniture^^ or admits 
 that inheritance has only a legal, not a moral sanction,^^ 
 he has always in view a better and more real civil 
 liberty. In truth Montesquieu's epoch-making work 
 taught little that did not accent the value of civil lib- 
 erty^'' as the direct cause of social growth and the 
 means to permanent national happiness. 
 
 In the doctrine of Montesquieu, there was a reser- 
 vation in regard to civil liberty. Not all nations were 
 fit for it; it was not certain that all men had once had 
 civil liberty or must always have it in order to insure 
 their best happiness. Montesquieu taught civil liberty 
 with qualifications that favored gradual development to- 
 ward it; a school followed him which preached it without 
 any reservations. In the second half of the century, 
 the doctrine of civil liberty finally assumed the unquali- 
 fied form where it is asserted that civil liberty is an 
 indispensable necessity for men in all ages and in all 
 positions of life. 
 
 It will be remembered how the social philosophy 
 
 Bi Esprit des Lois, Bk. VIII, ch. vii. 
 
 WLettres Persanes, CXIX. 
 
 66 Esprit des Lois, Bk. XXVI, ch. vi. 
 
 B7 Montesquieu's careful elaboration of the English Constitu- 
 tion aimed to show that the most real liberty yet achieved by 
 modern Europeans was, probably, to be brought about by dis- 
 tributing partly elective and partly hereditary powers after 
 the manner of the English government, but he does not set up 
 the government of England nor that of any other country as a 
 model. Here, too, his chief object is to show the relative su- 
 periority of a government which ■secures civil liberty to its 
 subjects. 
 
POLITICAL LIBERTY. 33 
 
 of the Economists led them to deduce this idea of civil 
 liberty. In explaining their doctrine of what hap- 
 piness was and how it was to be secured, it was shown 
 how they believed that all social well-being was finally 
 conditioned by an entire government recognition of 
 the principle of civil liberty. Their theory, unlike that 
 of Voltaire or Montesquieu, argues, not the expediency, 
 but the justice of civil liberty, and bases the claim upon 
 " Natural Law ", readily discernible if the trustworthy 
 instincts inherent in each individual be regarded. The 
 doctrine of Natural Eights follows from this claim, and 
 the doctrine of Natural Eights is only an unqualified 
 demand for complete civil and industrial freedom. 
 This is the conception of liberty which asks that the 
 state remain only the watchman, the arbiter. Al- 
 though most of those who are of this way of thinking 
 believe in enlightened despotism, the sole purpose for 
 which they would put a despot in charge of the na- 
 tion is to secure certain and stable liberty to each 
 individual. This type of contention in the name of 
 liberty was really part of a contention in favor of free 
 production; since civil liberty was an additional means 
 to aid a better output of national wealth, therefore 
 it was held valuable as a means to social progress. By 
 the end of the eighteenth century, this doctrine had 
 developed numerous and well-defined statements to 
 prove that entire civil liberty was the sine qua non for 
 individual and social happiness, and so the inherent 
 right of every member of the community. 
 
 The dictum that every individual had an inher- 
 ent right to say how and by whom he should be ruled 
 
 3 
 
34 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH RETOLVTION. 
 
 grew up more slowly in France than the doctrine of 
 civil rights, but it none the less gathered force as the 
 eighteenth century progressed. A careful reading of 
 the most important claims for it, makes it evident that 
 not even Eousseau, who gave it most place in his writ- 
 ings and dangled its charms in most attractive guise 
 before men's minds, — not even Eousseau held the doc- 
 trine to be universally and immediately practicable.®* 
 As a theory, however, certain men*" during the cen- 
 tury present entire political liberty as the end and 
 means to all successful association of men. Put for- 
 ward in an uncertain way from the beginning of the 
 century, the idea culminates in its most forceful form 
 in the " Contrat Social " of Eousseau. Many writers, 
 as for instance, Meslier, Morelly or Mably, asserted, 
 without very much attempt at proof, that each member 
 of the community has rightfully a share in the con- 
 trol of the polity of the conomunity. Eousseau aims to 
 prove this assertion. It was Eousseau who made it 
 current doctrine that every individual, by the fact of 
 being a part of the association, was a part of the source 
 of power, and that therefore political liberty was his in- 
 herent and eternal right. 
 
 Eousseau's theory of an original social contract,^ 
 which was believed to be a demonstration of this prin- 
 ciple, is too well known to need more than briefest 
 
 BSComp. Contrat Social, ch. iii-v. 
 
 B9 Meslier, D'Argenson, Mably and Eousseau. It is interest- 
 ing to note that a man of the world like D'Argenson belongs 
 more nearly to this group than to any other. Comp. Con- 
 siderations sur le gouvernement de France. 
 
 60 It is, of course, recognized that Eousseau's theory of a 
 social contract is little more than an interpretation of Hobbes 
 and Locke, but Rousseau gave it to France as England had 
 
POLITICAL LIBERTY. 35 
 
 statement. According to the terms of this doctrine, 
 society derives from the free will of each individual 
 who entered into a primitive contract.*^ This con- 
 tract, consciously made by each and every one of the 
 several parties to it, created society. By that con- 
 tract, each individual became sovereign as well as sub- 
 ject.*^ Thus political liberty was the very base of 
 all association, the only inalienable, imprescriptible 
 right. The very terms of the contract involved a cer- 
 tain surrender of a part of all the other natural rights.^^ 
 Liberty of person and of thought, the rights of equality 
 and property, became in a way gifts of the collective 
 will. What Eousseau adopts as a principle is, after all, 
 the doctrine of the despotism of the majority; but in 
 planning for this rule of the majority, he does not 
 deny true political liberty to each member of society. 
 The opinion of every one of the separate persons who 
 together form a community must, in justice and reason, 
 says the doctrine, go to make up the collective will, 
 even though all these opinions cannot prevail. 
 
 All the communistic writers, then, and the volcanic 
 rhetoric of Eousseau most of all, treated political lib- 
 erty as the first axiom of political theory. Human 
 association connoted it; any institution that imperiled 
 
 given it to him. See the interesting outline of the history of 
 the doctrine of the social contract in Morley, Eousseau, II, 
 pp. 146-148, ed. Macmillan & Co., 1888. 
 
 61 Contrat Social, Bk. I, ch. v. 
 
 62 "A I'instant, au lieu de la personne particuli6re de chaque 
 contractant, eet acte d'association produit un corps moral et 
 collectif," etc. Contrat Social, Bk. I, ch. vi. 
 
 63 Contrat Social, Bk. I, ch. ix. " Car I'gtat a I'ggard de sea 
 membres est maftre," etc. It is always to be remembered that 
 Rousseau, unlike many of his disciples, regarded democracy as 
 an ideal form of government. Cf. Contrat Social, Bk. Ill, eh. 
 iy. 
 
36 PRiilCIPLES OF FRENGE REVOLUTION. 
 
 it by so doing vitiated the whole social structure; it 
 was the mainspring to the happiness and development 
 of man. The conception might and generally did go 
 along with notions directly contrary to any real civil 
 liberty,^* and so the sum of this theory set the pyramid 
 upon its apex. But the doctrine of political liberty, as 
 a right, was none the less definitely proclaimed. 
 
 These men were the only absolute adherents of the 
 doctrine of unreserved political liberty. It is hardly 
 necessary to state that the Economists had no sym- 
 pathy with political liberty. Clearly as they saw the 
 need of civil liberty, it is doubtful if any of the Physio- 
 crats attached any particular value to the right of suf- 
 frage. For those of them who favored an enlightened 
 despotism, even the conception of political liberty was 
 distasteful. Likewise, this notion of an indivisible, 
 imprescriptible sovereignty primevally residing in each 
 individual, and so entitling him to political liberty, was 
 
 W Rousseau, the sentimentalist, undoubtedly sets great store 
 by the freedom of the individual; Rousseau the political 
 theorist almost loses sight of it in his enthusiasm for the 
 rights of the whole body politic. It is true that in his 
 " Emile," and in the " Nouvelle HSloise " Rousseau makes the 
 individual and his development the supreme fact of existence, 
 and counts a certain isolation from society as of first im- 
 portance to the child, in order that he may develop that in- 
 dividuality so desirable in the man; it is true, he often infers 
 even where he does not state, that kind of civil liberty which 
 means the individual's right to immunity from interference 
 with his personal affairs. But the most characteristic and in- 
 fluential part of Rousseau's writings puts so much accent upon 
 political liberty that the sum of his teaching comes danger- 
 ously near to sacrificing the civil rights to the political right. 
 Of Morelly, this is true without qualification. (See e. g., such 
 regulations as would make each citizen " homme public " and 
 force him to contribute to the general needs. Code de la 
 Nature, especially pp. 188-190.) 
 
EQUALITY AND PROPERTY. 37 
 
 no part of the doctrine of Montesquieu and Voltaire. 
 In the theory of each of these men, the whole 
 nation was not necessarily or even preferably the state. 
 It is doubtful if either writer thought that complete 
 political liberty was even the end of all political prog- 
 ress. Montesquieu was by no means an enthusiast for 
 democracy; on the contrary, he had a wholesome ap- 
 preciation of the superior intelligence of the minority. 
 General and unreserved political liberty he deprecated 
 in any but small governments, where the laws aimed 
 at mediocrity and conservatism. The same is true of 
 Voltaire. With no particular sympathy for the masses, 
 but rather a great impatience for the idea of intrust- 
 ing any political power to them, Voltaire naturally be- 
 lieved that the "vulgar" had small capacity for in- 
 tellectual or political usefulness. The "Lettres sur 
 les Anglais " or the " Id^es EepubUcains " best bear 
 •\vitness that he shared the ideas of Montesquieu. It 
 was then Eousseau and the group who followed him, 
 who sent abroad the theory of unreserved political 
 rights. The doctrine that the state and the nation 
 are one, the doctrine that became so great a power in 
 shaping opinion at the end of the century because 
 men who had been accustomed to give much respon- 
 sibility to the state now aimed to give the will of the 
 majority a like absolute power in guiding the creeds and 
 acts of every individual, — this doctrine must be chiefly 
 attributed to Jean Jacques Eousseau. 
 
 IT. 
 Among the theories which gained ground during the 
 eighteenth century, the idea of equality follows in 
 
38 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 popularity upon the principle of liberty. Inequality 
 of condition early came to be regarded by certain think- 
 ers as the root cause of social evils. The " poor eigh- 
 teenth century" had not learned, as the merest be- 
 ginner has learned to-day, to look upon social prob- 
 lems as relative to particular variations of race and tra- 
 dition. Most men sought out one series of social facts 
 and gave them undue prominence. Since the glaring 
 inequality of rank and opportunity was probably the 
 fact most striking to one who superficially observed 
 the eighteenth century French life, many persons set- 
 tled upon these inequalities as the real impediments to 
 a vigorous national life. Although only a minority 
 felt that equality was anything beyond an ideal, al- 
 most every speculative thinker of the time lent a more 
 or less ready ear to the notion that equality of rights 
 and possession was perhaps the only way to secure 
 the social fabric against unhappiness and degradation. 
 Majority opinion agreed that equality would be most 
 desirable in the relations between men; it differed only 
 as to the possibility of finding any social arrangement 
 which could maintain such a relation. The general 
 theory of the time sums up in the assertion that in a 
 far-distant past, men had been capable of the life and 
 social relation necessary for equality, but that the long- 
 continued period during which he had been ruled by 
 false theories and vicious laws had so warped his na- 
 ture that he was no longer fit for it. Many of the 
 writers of the century roused a passion for equality by 
 putting a new ideal before men's eyes, rather than by 
 any active claim they made to have equality set up 
 
IDEALS OF EQUALITY. 39 
 
 in the relations of modern life. A single writer and 
 his satellites gave the idea most force, first by implant- 
 ing in many minds a deep hatred of such social dis- 
 tinctions as were based on birth or holding, and then 
 by teaching the proud self-respect which is the first es- 
 sential for any active belief in equality. 
 
 The reasons for the general prejudice of the cen- 
 tury in favor of the ideal of equality are easily trace- 
 able. In addition to the conditions of the national 
 life which will need a special discussion, certain special 
 influences tended at this time to make the idea of 
 equality seem particularly attractive as a remedial 
 measure. It will be remembered that, at the end 
 of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eigh- 
 teenth century, missionaries began to return to France 
 from the far East and the new West, and that 
 they brought with them the usual enthusiasm of 
 the pioneer for the life he has been able to lead 
 in a new country. The tales these men told filled the 
 many who heard them with a romantic enthusiasm for 
 the peace and simplicity of the primitive life. The 
 literature, more particularly the romance and drama of 
 the time, took up this dream of pastoral life with its 
 simple equality; the "bon sauvage" became the pet 
 ideal in the fiction of the cenl^iry. Most of the imag- 
 inative writings delighted to depict his contentment 
 in his native wilds or to bring the simple child of na- 
 ture to Europe by some fortuitous circumstance, and 
 there, introducing him into, the society of the time, 
 to point the contrast between his artless truth and 
 simple tastes and the prejudices, insincerities and lux- 
 
40 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH RETOLUTION. 
 
 urious tendencies of the times. It is interesting to 
 remember that this admiration for simplicity and frank- 
 ness really crept into sentiments and manners even be- 
 fore the Eevolution came to force the feeling in favor 
 of equality over the line which separates rhetorical en- 
 thusiasm from practical application. The accredited 
 method of reasoning supplemented the stimulus to the 
 belief in equality given by these tales of travel and the 
 romances. When, as was the way of this new method, 
 men were considered as so many similar beings, the 
 natural man, who was thus evolved, was a powerful 
 argument for the ideal of equality. When, on the 
 other hand, the paradisial conception began to lose its 
 force; when the idea of a state of nature replaced the 
 idea of Paradise and an eternal fall on account of divine 
 chastisement was discredited in favor of a fall caused 
 by the wrong route that men had chosen, the feeling 
 became general that inequality was the chief plague 
 resulting from man's failure to discover how to con- 
 duct a commonwealth. When society, using the word 
 in its narrower sense, was arraigned, when forms and 
 ceremonies as well as institutions were held to hinder 
 all Nature's intentions by training men in a stupid imi- 
 tation, one of the other and making them mere "ma- 
 chines who do not think at all,"*" then, by such a 
 theory, the ultimate equality of all men was at least 
 implied. To account, then, for the general tolerance 
 of the conception of equality and t;he conspicuous ten- 
 dency to give the idea logical completeness in a com- 
 monwealth which rested upon the principle, it seems 
 
 «5 Rousseau, La Nouvelle Hglolse, Lettre XVI, 
 
DOCTRINES OF EQUALITY. 41 
 
 only necessary to remember that, along with the grow- 
 ing comprehension of the rottenness and weakness of 
 the government and the love of abstract reasoning, a 
 newly-developed love of nature had caught speculative 
 minds. 
 
 But to believe in equality as an ideal is not neces- 
 sarily to advocate its immediate adoption as a prin- 
 ciple of government. It does not follow that there was 
 a general demand for laws which should establish equal- 
 ity because there are to be found in the writings of the 
 century plenty of isolated phrases by which it would 
 be possible to class many of those who were contrib- 
 uting toward the new way of thinking as adherents of 
 an absolute equality of rank and possession. Because 
 even Montesquieu, most conservative of the advanced 
 thinkers, may be shown to have pointed the value of 
 communism,*® it is not to be argued that he advocated 
 it as an applied form of government. When he 
 spoke in favor of such a social order, he was 
 careful to point out at the same time that it could 
 properly exist only when other facts of social develop- 
 ment were in harmony with this form of association. 
 For him, as for most of his contemporaries, equality 
 was a golden dream rather than a possibility. After 
 all, only two among the writers of the time, only Mes- 
 lier and Morelly, can safely be said to have believed 
 without qualification in a social regime where strict 
 equality was the fundamental principle of legislation." 
 
 66 Considerations sur la Grandeur, etc., ch. iv. 
 
 67Corap. Meslier, Testament, II, p. 210; also III, p. 387. 
 Morelly's entire plan for a commonwealth rests upon the idea 
 of absolute equality. See such passages as those which, in 
 " Code de la Nature," arrange for the distribution of political 
 power and of labor. Code de la Nature, pp. 188-193. 
 
42 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 The others sang a sort of requiem to an equality long 
 since vanished, and aimed to teach resignation to the 
 inevitable lack of this much-to-be-desired social rela- 
 tion. 
 
 The Economists, for instance, took small account 
 of equality, except such as they believed would result 
 from a freed industry. The modern clamor about 
 " inequality of opportunity " would have expressed their 
 demand very well, except that they interpreted the 
 phrase in an opposite sense. Exactly that which mod- 
 ern radicalism holds to be most at variance with equal- 
 ity of opportunity, that is, complete freedom in the 
 industrial domain, the Economists felt to be the only 
 real means for securing a just and desirable equality. 
 Such equality of opportunity as they believed in and 
 aimed at, they thought might be secured through laws 
 maintaining the inviolability of private property, a 
 proportional tax and complete liberty in the national 
 industrial and commercial life. Mably believed equal- 
 ity to be the key to social content ;^^ but, with mild 
 pessimism, he declared it was hopeless to try to main- 
 tain it after primitive conditions had disappeared. 
 Equality, he said, is the ideal, but it is neither possible 
 nor expedient to make it a part of social institutions. 
 "No human power can to-day re-establish equality 
 
 «8 Mably, Entretien de Phocion, X, p. 143. There are many 
 passages where equality is championed with as little qualifica- 
 tion as in the following: " L'6galit6 doit produire tous les 
 biens, pareeque, elle unit les hommes, leur 61Sve I'ftme et les 
 prepare t des sentiments mutuels de bienveillanee et d'amiti§; 
 j'en eonelus que I'in6galit6 produit tous les maux, parcequ'elle 
 les degrade, les humilie et sSme entre eux la division et la 
 haine." Legislation, 1. 1, p. 50; also pp. 49 and 67. (Cited in 
 Lichtenberger, op. clt., p. 227.) 
 
DOCTRINES OF EQUALITY. 43 
 
 without causing greater disorders than those it desires 
 to avoid."«9 A^oltaire and the Encyclopedists treat the 
 matter with even less reverence. Holding that hap- 
 piness is independent of status or possession, they see 
 no connection between equality and social well-being. 
 Voltaire took his turn at depicting the beauties of 
 simple life and equality f° but his most positive writings 
 always accent, in definite terms, those necessary differ- 
 ences in men from which social inequalities must and 
 should follow.^^ He even goes so far as to state that 
 not only inequalities, but inequalities on the basis of 
 property-holding, are inevitable. " It is impossible in 
 our unhappy societies," he says, "that men living in 
 society should be divided into two classes, the one rich 
 to command, the other poor to serve."''^ Diderot, like 
 the rest, let his imagination dwell upon the charms of 
 primitive life;''* but his judgment, otherwise so 
 changeable in matters pertaining to social institutions, 
 seems to have been always consistent on this point of 
 equality. He too, admits a necessary inequality in men 
 associated together; social classes, he says, are neces- 
 sary, but need not be based upon possession; let the 
 antagonism, if there must be one, be at least a competi- 
 tion of intellects.'^* 
 
 68 Doutes adressg » • • aux Economistes, p. 74. 
 
 70 For example in " L'lngSnue." 
 
 71 Essai sur les Moeurs, ch. xcviii. 
 
 72 Disoours sur rhomme, VII. 
 
 73 See e. g., " Court essai sur le caractSre de I'homme sau- 
 vage." (Euvres. Vol. VI, p. 450 ; also Supplement au Voyage 
 de M. de Bougainville. Vol. II, p. 193. 
 
 74 Comp. articles on Homme, Laboureur, Hdpital, Luxe, in 
 EncyclopSdie, (Euvres, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI. 
 
44 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 In connection with the influences which made for 
 ; ' new ideals, Eousseau's doctrine of equality needs special 
 discussion. The great sentimentalist was so full of con- 
 tradictions that, according to the part of his work which 
 is consulted, he can be shown to have supported or 
 deprecated the idea of equality. Even if his discourse 
 on the origin of inequality be omitted,''^ there still re- 
 main many passages in Eousseau's imaginative writ- 
 ings''* and in the more mature political works, which 
 aim to show that equality of the Spartan kind was 
 after all the only certain means to a stable and real so- 
 cial happiness." On the other hand, we find him recog- 
 nizing the desirability of classes'^® and asserting that 
 a government in which social status was not fixed was 
 one of questionable stability.™ One whq provokingly 
 changes his point of view in all matters "of applied 
 politics; one who is consistent only in his sympathy 
 for the poor, his scorn of the luxurious and artificial 
 social life he saw about him, in his firm belief In the 
 social contract and the sovereignty of the people, can 
 scarcely be expected to hold to a fixed doctrine' regard- 
 's The " Discours " might be neglected in a study of Rousseau 
 the political theorist, since it might, with some justice, be urged 
 that the essay was only a, tour de force, undertaken in a spirit 
 of paradox rather than an expression of Eousseau's positive 
 doctrine. 
 
 76 See e. g. Nouvelle Hglolse, II, Lettres XVI, XXI. 
 
 77 Comp. Discours sur L'Economie politique," (Euvres, I, p. 
 303. " Si les enf ants sont Slevfis en commun dans le sein de 
 I'ggalite," etc. 
 
 78 See Nouvelle Hftlolse. This book, among other lessons, 
 strives to show the place and the use of the right-minded man 
 of wealth. See in particular, Lettre X. 
 
 79 Econ. pol., Vol. I, p. 309. " Rien n'est plus funeste aux 
 moeurs et a la rfipublique, que les changements continuels 
 d'Stat et de fortune entre les citoyens," etc. 
 
BOOTtttNES OF EQUALlTf. 45 
 
 ing the largely emotional question of equality. It is 
 not then surprising that, according to the temper in 
 which Eousseau is approached, one may find the prin- 
 ciples that make for either an individualistic or a com- 
 munistic commonwealth.^" Perhaps it is fairest to say 
 that it is on the whole douhtful whether Eousseau him- 
 self was ever quite clear as to the kind of equality a 
 right-thinking majority ought to make public law. 
 
 Yet even though Eousseau's own point of view in 
 regard to equality is open to question, the general 
 tenor of his best-known works undoubtedly made for 
 one kind of sentiment.*^ Though Eousseau advocated 
 equality with far less precision or conviction than 
 Morelly or even Mably, he put into men's minds a 
 sensitiveness with regard to the rights of others, gave 
 them ideals of simplicity of life and of self-respect, 
 which almost of necessity developed in them a feeling 
 concerning social and political equality that he him- 
 self never insisted upon without qualification. Few 
 can read of the sovereignty of the people as he explained 
 it, or of a purely democratic government as he outlined 
 it, without unconsciously adopting convictions in favor 
 of equality. The great stress he lays upon the sanctity 
 of the rights of the individual is only a firm belief in 
 
 80 It is easily proven that the teachings of Rousseau had 
 this dual eflFeot, and that the fiercest advocates of indi- 
 vidual liberty which means equality in the political order only 
 ( such e. g. as Madame de Stael or any of the " doctrinaires " ) 
 were as much the ardent disciples of Rousseau as those who, 
 like Louis Blanc, hold that his teachings warrant serious in- 
 roads upon the individual freedom in the name of a general 
 right to equality. 
 
 81 Contrat Social, Bk. 11, ch. xi. 
 
46 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 equality, social and political, expressed in an indirect 
 way. In short, it might be said that Rousseau, more 
 than any other, stirred in each man who read him 
 those sentiments which predispose to sympathy with the 
 idea of equality. The strong disposition in^ favor of 
 equality which played so prominent a part in the doc- 
 trine of the Revolution, undoubtedly drew some of its 
 inspiration from the feeling of contempt and outraged 
 justice which the arbitrary and selfish government stead- 
 ily fanned into open revolt. Men begin to feel them- 
 selves equal to those who are supposed to be above them 
 when they have learned to despise them. But the feel- 
 ing that later expressed itself in the declaration that 
 " all men are born free and equal " was developed quite 
 as much by the fervid, if sentimental, humanity of Rous- 
 seau as by the political facts of the time. 
 
 Before closing this brief review of the leading 
 principles of the eighteenth century, a word seems de- 
 sirable as to the views of the time regarding the institu- 
 tion of property. 
 
 The eighteenth-century doctrine of property falls 
 into about the same general classes as the views on lib- 
 erty and equality. There are the 6rthodox, the liberal 
 and the iconoclastic theories to be reckoned with. The 
 first may be quickly dismissed. It is enough to recall 
 the fact that, at the time in question, orthodox opinion 
 held that the state was possessor under a polity where 
 the king alone was the state. 
 
 Liberal thought of the period made no serious at- 
 tack upon this theory. Those whom our age is wont 
 to consider the chief reformers of the time, Mon- 
 
THEORIES OF PROPERTY. 47 
 
 tesquieu, Voltaire and the Encyclopedists, made no 
 attack upon the received doctrine of property. Mon- 
 tesquieu^2 ^-^^ Voltaire^^ held property to be a legal 
 right, and only asked that the ruling powers respect 
 the privilege they themselves had given to their sub- 
 jects. None of the Encyclopedists will, I think, be 
 found to have doubted the necessity of private property 
 as a fundamental social institution. As has been re- 
 peated too often perhaps, these Encyclopedists made 
 no attack upon any of the received political institu- 
 tions of their time. It was absolutism, obscurantism 
 and formalism that they opposed; they never came near 
 enough to reality to trace any connection between the 
 false prejudices they hated and the fundamental po- 
 litical institutions of the society they knew. The whole 
 tendency of their teaching was to give prominence to the 
 individual and to his right to think and act as he 
 pleased, and whatever political influence they exerted 
 was therefore in favor of an individualistic system where 
 the property-right rested on law made by a beneficent 
 sovereign. 
 
 During the century, two important theories oppose 
 themselves to this conservative doctrine. On the one 
 hand, there was a strong and important group that 
 claimed the property-right as an inherent individual 
 right and held that the recognition of this right by the 
 state conditioned the effectiveness of each member of 
 
 82 For example, see Esprit des Lois, Bk. XXVI, eh. v. 
 
 83 Compare among other examples, Dictionnaire philoso- 
 phique, art. Propriety, Vol. 54, ed. 1785. 
 
48 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCS REVOLUTION. 
 
 society; under this theory, the state was the guarantor 
 of the property-right. On the. other hand, there devel- 
 oped an uncertain doctrine which continued to think 
 of property as a possession of the state, hut state in 
 most cases, no longer meant a monarch; it meant the 
 whole nation. This theory looked upon private prop- 
 erty as a somewhat regrettable but probably inevitable 
 adjunct to each individual life. 
 
 The Physiocrats are of course the representatives of 
 the first group. In their idea, property was a " natural 
 right." Without property, liberty they said, was an 
 illusion. Property was the cause of all positive law 
 and the root of all progress. The whole duty of the 
 ruler who constituted the state was to secure each in- 
 dividual in the peaceful possession of whatever he could 
 win by his own effort. The greater the number of 
 property-holders, the more real and general was the 
 national prosperity likely to be. They agreed with 
 Montesquieu and Voltaire that individual property was 
 the basis of a successful national life, and that to secure 
 the absolute sanctity of the right was the first means 
 to establish an effective and stable government; they 
 differed from both in that they made the right to prop- 
 erty a natural not a legal right. 
 
 On the other hand, evidences of an intention to dis- 
 pute the accepted laws concerning property are to be 
 found from the beginning of the century. Meslierj_ 
 probably because he had been bred in the old teaching 
 which took property to be a purely legal right and 
 the king the sole legal possessor, urged that the best" 
 remedy for the undue and inequitable exercise of rights 
 
TBEOBIES OF PROPERTY. 49 
 
 in property would be found in transferring all such 
 rights to the conunonwealth.** D'Argenson declared 
 that®' the key to all social disorders was the unequal 
 holding of property, and said plainly that the only way 
 to remedy the matter was to put the lands at the dis- 
 posal of those who cultivated them; he even specifically 
 attacked productive property in the hands of private 
 persons, and suggested that the lands of the wealthy 
 be brought together and put at the disposal of the 
 nation.*® A prejudice against individual ownership 
 of land runs through a great part of the literature of 
 the second half of the century. The usual attitude is 
 not so much communistic or socialistic as merely nega- 
 tive of the private property-right.*'' Leaders of opinion, 
 however, were divided between the ideal of communistic 
 holding and that of state control. It is safe to say that 
 no one of the more important of the later writers who 
 desired communism of some kind, neither Morelly** 
 
 84 Testament, III, p. 387. 
 
 85 " Le mot de I'enigme de nos maux eat la propri6t6 dea 
 fonds, d'oft est venu I'avarice," ed. D'Argenson, Vol. V, p. 139. 
 (Cited in Liehtenberger, op. cit., p. 96.) 
 
 86 " Qu'on mobilize les fonds des particulars, et il y point de 
 mal a cela," VII, p. 337. (Cited in Liehtenberger.) 
 
 STComp. Liehtenberger, who gives an interesting account of 
 these lesser writings, op. cit., pp. 383-388. 
 
 88 •' Ces lois, je ne cesse de le repgter et on ne saurait trop le 
 redire, en fitablissant un partage monstrueux des productions 
 de la terre et des elements m6mes, en divisant ce qui devait 
 rester dans son entier ou y 6tre remis, ai quelque accident 
 I'avait divisfi, ont aide et favorisS la ruine de toute soolabilitS. 
 Sans aliterer dis-je la totality des choses immobiles, elle devait 
 ne s'attaehait qu'a regler non la proprigte, mads I'usage et la 
 distribution de celles qui ne sont pas stables. Code de la 
 
60 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 nor Mably^* nor Neeker^" really felt their idea 
 to be practicable or even desirable under mod- 
 ern conditions, any more than Meslier or D'Argenson 
 had really expected to see the mobilization of all prop- 
 erty under a centralized democratic government. 
 
 It is then one of the interesting contradictions of the 
 eighteenth century, that although much of the thought 
 of the period regarded private property as the reason 
 for the formation of society, and although almost all 
 held it to be fundamental to society's conservation, 
 yet a conspicuous number of persons looked upon the 
 property-right uneasily as a regrettable necessity and the 
 cause of much social misery. Eousseau is largely re- 
 sponsible for this, as for other contradictions of the 
 times. Though Eousseau said enough to make it quite 
 possible to quote him as the defender of private prop- 
 erty, the greater part of his influence went in the di- 
 rection of discrediting an individual property-right. 
 In spite of his frequent outbursts regarding the sanc- 
 tity of property, the sum of Eousseau's teaching creates 
 no respect for property in the hands of the individual; 
 rather it arouses the opposite feeling. Eecalling for 
 a moment the leading principles of his doctrine, the 
 reason for this becomes evident. Eousseau laid greatest 
 
 Nature, pp. 77, 78. Comp. many similar passages in this and 
 in the Basiliade. 
 
 89 " Mais nous qui voyons les maux quii sont sorti de eette 
 botte funeste de Pandore, si le moindre d'espgranoe frappait 
 notre raison, ne devrions nous pas aspirer 3. cette heureuse 
 communaute de biens, tant lou6e, tant regrettge par les poStes 
 * * * et qui, grace a la depravation des moeurs ne peut 
 etre qu'un chim6re dans le monde." (Euvres, XII, p. 380. 
 
 90 gee Lichtenberger, op, cit., pp. 304-314. 
 
THEORIES OF PROPERTY. 61 
 
 stress upon a state of nature, where each and all had been 
 happy ; upon an inevitable social contract, one of whose 
 unavoidable results had been property, and upon the er- 
 rors of an artificial feudal society which practically 
 rested upon the property-right that derived from the 
 social contract. Such doctrines, written with force and 
 emotional conviction, are hardly calculated to teach any 
 real deference for the property-right, even though their 
 author writes at times in a different strain. In vain 
 Eousseau says that the property-right was a natural and 
 individual right, and that the state might touch it oiily 
 by tax or inheritance lawsf^ he had said too often, and 
 in his most convincing fashion, that rational man, unit- 
 ing with his fellows, was perfectly able to alter any 
 of the disagreeable conditions which limited social hap- 
 piness, and he had said too, that property was after all 
 the beginning of the present discontent.®^ The great 
 sentimentalist's real influence in this regard made for 
 strengthening that dubious attitude toward property 
 which is to be found so often in the imaginative and 
 political writings of his time. The sum of Eousseau's 
 teachings only voiced, with deeper feeling and in less 
 uncertain term^s, the doubt, widespread at the time, 
 regarding the expediency or justice of private property. 
 The eighteenth century seems to have been far from 
 clear that the property-right was necessarily an indi- 
 vidual and inviolable right. 
 
 The leading principles of the new thought of the 
 eighteenth century are now substantially reviewed. 
 
 siComp. Emile, II, pp. 181-187; Econ. pol., I, p. 307, ed. 
 
 1782. 
 
 92 Discours sur I'origine, etc. 
 
52 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 During the progress of this hundred years, men come 
 to have a new conception of the individual man, another 
 ideal concerning his existence here, and a new feeling 
 with regard to the state and its relation to the indi- 
 vidual. Most pronounced of all is the altered concep- 
 tion of the sphere of the individual. All this change 
 expresses itself in these new conceptions of happiness, 
 of liberty and equality, which have now been briefly 
 explained. 
 
 In pointing the application of these new theories, old 
 political and social prejudices came constantly under the 
 fire of criticism. There arose frequent protests against 
 legislation which failed to prevent poverty by allowing 
 large private holding, and sumptuary laws, inheritance 
 laws and the like were generally and warmly advocated. 
 The new ideas of liberty and equality developed also 
 a growing unwillingness to accept the old class lines, 
 and there appeared the tendency, later so universal, to 
 eeparate society into rich and poor, rather than to 
 recognize the four classes which past development had 
 1 given to the nation. The logical consequence of this, 
 the increasing exaltation of labor by way of attack upon 
 privilege, is also plainly evident. Th^ same notions 
 of liberty and equality lead to a new appreciation of 
 the desirability of universal education. Boldly ex- 
 pressed though these more concrete conceptions were, 
 they were only so many varying consequences of the 
 fundamental doctrines. To have a well-defined idea 
 of the leading theories concerning happiness, liberty, 
 equality and property is to know sufficiently well the 
 influences which were molding a new social ideal. 
 
INFLUENCE OF TEE SEVERAL THEORIES. 53 
 
 As to the effect of these several principles, the story 
 of how they made th,e " revolution in thought " of which 
 the later revolution was only the outer expression, is 
 well known. It is possibly dangerous to generalize 
 about the relation of the several writers to this later 
 rebellion, and yet it seems almost certain that when the 
 Revolution came, there was a certain cast of thought 
 which dominated. Voltaire and the Encyclopedists 
 swept the ground clear; they tore away the veil which 
 hid the rottenness of the old doctrines. Rousseau's 
 writings gave men most of what they had to put in 
 place of the principles the others had discredited. 
 
 Montesquieu's word reached only a cultured circle, 
 of whom but a few took any share in state affairs. In 
 the face of the storm others raised, his eminently sound 
 political teachings were for a time practically forgotten. 
 Voltaire and the ^ncyclojDedists sowed the wind by 
 anathematizing^ the established institutions whiclTtEey 
 claimidnought to impose as religion and ethics, an ugly 
 and outworn mass of superstition, and So tried to cramp 
 men's thinking into set lines. It was they who roused 
 the "beneficent demon of doubt." Theirs was the 
 message which upset men's standards; but it did not 
 fill'theinwitlrfi missionary spiritTrTdid not make them 
 eager to be active agents for change. So with the doc- 
 trines of the Physiocrats, though in a less degree. The 
 teachings of this school undoubtedly carried great 
 weight, but the persons whom they influenced did not 
 get political power until the whirl of revolution was 
 over. Great as was the share of the Physiocrats in 
 
54 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 popularizing the idea of Natural Eights and certain 
 important doctrines of administrative government, they 
 did not include among the rights they recognized the 
 right to a share in controlling the form of government, 
 and that doctrine was the one most influential in revo- 
 lutionary times. Their theories, falling in with the 
 growing passion for speculative politics and with the 
 prevailing desire to find some remedy for social regula- 
 tions growing more irksome, took deep hold on many 
 minds and made an impression that outlasted the heat 
 of revolution — an impression which, in fact, gave the 
 sharply individualistic stamp to the theory, and par- 
 ticularly the economic theory, of our own century. 
 
 It was_ the fervid teachings _of Eousseau that gave 
 greatest impulse to the doctrines of the Revolution, for 
 EoUsseau's teaching was pfedominatingly^construetive, 
 and his was the deep and intense emotional conviction 
 which makes the fanatic in a cause. Eousseau's con- 
 ception of an inherent right to political liberty, founded 
 upon a primitive and rational contract, this doctrine 
 that held to the old notion of the beneficent and deter- 
 mining influence of the body politic, but now made the 
 state and nation synonymous, was one which made a 
 deeper and more lasting impression upon contemporary 
 thought than the vigorous empirical discussion of ci'rtl 
 liberty and the sound notion of equality which Mon- 
 tesquieu had so ably presented, or the economic argu- 
 ments for civil liberty and equality which the Physio- 
 crats had advanced. If when the Eevolution came, the 
 understanding of civil liberty was somewhat obscure 
 and the few who comprehended its worth and struggled 
 
ROUSSEAU'S INFLUENCE. 55 
 
 for it went to the wall before the feverish claim for 
 universal political liberty, it is perhaps because Kous- 
 seau's was the most passionate and impelling influence 
 of the time; and Rousseau hajLuat-taught, be cause he 
 himself had not understood, the value of civil liberty 
 as the basis of any real and lasting political liberty. 
 Rousseau's sentiment spread the idea of a primevally, 
 happy man, and his doctrine of simplicity of life fos- 
 tered_the idea of equality. Rousseau's spirit of para- 
 dox developed the uncertain notion of property; it 
 popularized as well the idea of the injustice of unequal 
 possessions. It will not do to lose a sense of proportion, 
 — to give Eousseau more than his share of influence. 
 It is true that the revolutionary principles were not one 
 doctrine; they were the composite of many, but Eous- 
 seau'sJiheory was undoubtedly that one among the in- 
 tellectual influences of the eighteenth century which 
 gave a particular trend to the revolutionary theory. 
 
 The eighteenth century prihciples^were thenthe seeds 
 of the principles of the Eevolution. That these seeds 
 bore fruits is not due alone to the warmth and attrac- 
 tiveness which Eousseau breathed upon the wealth of 
 new ideas which the century scattered over Prance. 
 To grow, seed must find favorable soil. That soil was 
 furnished by certain facts of the national life of France, 
 facts that made men in increasing numbers search for 
 new standards. The statement of the immediate causes 
 of the principles of the Eevolution requires that, along 
 with the new principles of the century, these social 
 facts, which contributed to give them root and strength 
 to grow, should be summed up. 
 
56 PEINCIFLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER I. 
 
 The writings which have been used as most representative 
 of the new thought are: 
 
 D'Alembert. (Euvres, ed. Paris, 1821-22: in particular, 
 Diseours prfiliminaire de I'Encyclopgdie ; Analyse de I'Esprit des 
 Lois. — D'Argenson. Mfimoires, ed. Baudouin frSres, Paris, 
 1825. — D'Holbach. Syst6me de la nature, ed. London, 1771. — 
 D'Belvetius. De I'Esprit, ed. Paris, 1845. — Diderot. (Euvres, 
 ed. Gamier frSres, Paris, 1875. Especially, Supplement au 
 Voyage de M. de Bougainville; le Neveu de Rameau; articles 
 on Luxe, HSpital, H6mme, Laboreur ; the " Contes." — Mdbly. 
 Entretien de Phocion, Amsterdam, 1763; Droits et Devoirs 
 du Citoyen, ed. Paris, 1789. — Merder. Tableau de Paris, 
 Amsterdam, 1782; L'An 2440, ed. Paris, an VII. — Meslier. 
 Le Testament de Jean Meslier, ed. R. Charles, Amsterdam, 
 1864. — Morelly. Code de la nature; Basiliade, ed. Paris, 1841. 
 — Montesquieu. CEuvres, ed. Paris, 1820, especially, Lettres Per- 
 sanes; Considerations sur la Grandeur et Decadence des Ro- 
 mains ; De I'Esprit des Lois. — Necker. Sur la legislation et le 
 Commerce des Grains, ed. De Stael, Paris, 1820, Vol. I. — Ques- 
 nay. (Euvres, ed. Oncken, Pari s, 1888. — Rousseau. CEuvres, ed. 
 Geneve, 1782, in particular, Diseours sur I'origine et les fon- 
 dements de Tinggalite ; Diseours sur I'Sconomie politique ; Con- 
 siderations sur le gouvernement de Pologne et sur sa reforma- 
 tion projettee; Contrat Social and many interesting discus- 
 sions in La Nouvelle Heloise and Emile. — Saint Pierre. CEuvres, 
 ed. Aime-Martin, Paris, 1818. — Turgot. Reflexions sur la for- 
 mation et la distribution des richesses. Eng. ed. Macmillan, 
 N. Y., 1898. — Voltaire. CEuvres, ed. Paris, 1785, more specially 
 for social theories, Sigcle de Louis XIV; Charles XII; Essai 
 sur les Moeurs; Lettres sur les Anglais; Candide; Micorm6gas; 
 L'Homme aux Quarante Ecus; Diseours sur I'Homme; Po6me 
 sur le Desastre de Lisbonne; Po6me sur la Loi Naturelle; nu- 
 merous articles in the Dictionnaire Philosophique. 
 
 Among the belles-lettres of the eighteenth century, beside 
 the imaginative writings of the " philosophes," those specially 
 indicative of the thought of the times are: 
 
 Beaumarchais. Barbier de Seville; Mariage de Figaro, ed. 
 Lemerre, Paris, 1872. — Boileau. Satires, ed. Libraire des Bib- 
 liophiles, Paris, 1876. — La Bruy&re. Caract6res, ed. Firmin, 
 Didot, Freres, Fils et cie., Paris, 1869. — Lesage. Gil Bias, ed. 
 Lemerre, Paris, 1877. — Marivaux. Novels and dramas, par- 
 ticularly Vie de Marianne and Le Paysan Parvenu, ed. Gar- 
 nier frferes, Paris. Also most of the writings of Ritif de la 
 Bretonne, Bernardin de Saint Pierre and Sedaine. 
 
 Among more recent writings on the thought of the eigh- 
 teenth century: 
 
BIBLI0ORAP3T FOR CHAPTER I. 57 
 
 Espinas. La Philosophie Soeiale au XVIIIe sifiole et la Revo- 
 lution. Felix Alcan, Paris, 1898. — Higgs. The Physiocrats. 
 Macmillan, 1897. — Janet. Histoire de la Science Politique. 
 Vol. 11, ed. Paris, 1887. — Lavergne. Les Economistes au 
 XVIIIe si6cle, ed. Paris, 1870. — Lichtenlerger. Le Socialisme 
 au XVIIIe sieele, ed. Fglix Alcan, Paris, 1896. — Morley. Di- 
 derot and the Eneyelopedists ; ed. Seribner, N. Y., 1878; Vol- 
 taire, Appleton & Co., N. Y., 1872; Rousseau, ed. Macmillan 
 & Co., 1888. — Reinach. Diderot, ed. Hachette & Cie., Paris, 
 1894. — L4on Say. Turgot, ed. Hachette & Cie., Paris, 1891. 
 — Scherer. Diderot, ed. Calmann Lfvy, Paris, 1880. — Sorel. 
 Montesquieu, ed. Hachette et Cie., Paris, 1887. — Vian. His- 
 toire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Montesquieu, ed. Didier et 
 Cie., Paris, 1879. — Walker-Stephens. Life and Writings of 
 Turgot, ed. Longmans, Crreen & Co., London, 1895. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SOCIAL FACTS WHICH SHAPED AND 
 DEVELOPED THE NEW IDEALS. 
 
CHAPTBE II. 
 
 THE SOCIAL FACTS WHICH SHAPED AND DEVELOPED 
 THE NEW IDEALS. 
 
 I. The Part Played by the Old Institutions. 
 II. The Middle Class and its Relation to the New Prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 III. Paris as an Organizing and Concentrating Infltjenob. 
 
 IV. The Final Focusing op the Principles op the Revo- 
 
 lution. 
 
 The rest of the forward movement of which the ap- 
 pearance of 'a new philosophy marks the first stage, is 
 a story of how new ideals gained ground and took on 
 a specific character as social conditions created a need 
 for them. The revolutionary principles are, in a sense, 
 a concentrated selection of the doctrines of the eigh- 
 teenth century, and it is necessary to inquire with some 
 care how and why such a concentration and selection 
 took place. 
 
 The agents which, during the eighteenth century, 
 negatively or positively co-operated to develop the 
 principles of the Eevolution from the ideas of the phi- 
 losophers, may in a general way be classified as follows: 
 First in importance is the_character of the old regime. 
 Th^_cflndLtii)ns of the reign of Louis XV promoted a 
 well-announce^dissatisfaction and rebellion, and so led 
 the rising generation to adopt new theories as against 
 accepted ones, while the vacillating policy of his suc- 
 cessor and certain circumstances in the life of other na- 
 tions, together served still further to strengthen and con- 
 
 61 
 
62 PRINCIPLES OF PRENCB REVOLUTION. 
 
 firm the desire for other institutions. In addition must 
 be considered an awakened middle class, a peculiarly in- 
 fluential metropolis and a faction pledged to radical com- 
 pleteness. In other words, the new faith spread and 
 grew because misgovernment fostered discontent; the 
 new faith got practical expression because the Third 
 Estate roused to a new notion regarding its proper re- 
 lation to irhe state and awoke to the fact of its actual 
 political impotence; the new faith concentrated to one 
 dominant set of principles, because the social life and 
 thought which centered in the capital of the nation 
 greatly helped to organize and propagate the new opin- 
 ion; and, lastly, this new faith acquired an ultra tone, 
 because doctrinaires, leading the disaffected and the 
 vagabonds whom the old regime had provided, were able 
 to change a spirit of reform to one of insurrection, and 
 thus to express finally the principles of Eevolution 
 in the constitution of '93. 
 
 The history of the internal affairs of France during 
 the hundred years preceding the French Eeyolution 
 gives repeated evidence that the time for passive ser- 
 vice and suffering had passed by early in the century. 
 If it is possible to find in D'Argenson, before 1750, 
 pictures of frequent street risings and to hear the pitiful 
 echo of cries for bread coming from starving men and 
 women, evidently revolution is in the maldng.^ The 
 
 1 Roequain, L'Esprit revolutionnaire avant la Revolution, 
 pp. 122, 136, 137. 
 
RISE Off REVOLT. 63 
 
 4th of October, 1789, seems to have been only the most 
 effective of a series of lesser marches of the women 
 and the rabble to government centers. From the early 
 half of the century, there were those to repeat with 
 increasing conviction, "Eevolution is certain in this 
 state; it falls to pieces from the very foundations; there 
 is nothing to do but to break away from one's country 
 and to pass under other masters and some other form 
 of government {forme de joitr)."^ This spirit of revolt 
 which a neglectful and repressive governinent excited 
 is the fact of chief moment. The decadent character 
 of the reigns of the Eegent and of Louis XV bred that 
 contempt for the selfish government which has aptly 
 been called the " sense of negative equality,"^ a eon- 
 tempt from which the idea of positive equality took 
 courage to push itself into national institutions. The 
 political and class degeneracy and the consequent social 
 disintegration stand as direct antecedents to a rising 
 demand for a social reordering. The rotting-out of the 
 old institutions of church and state and the misery all 
 this caused, is the accompaniment to the rise of that 
 viddespread distrust and rebellion which is the surest 
 spur to the adoption of new principles. 
 
 The blind admiration for the state which had so no- 
 tably characterized the earlier part of the reign of Louis 
 XIV, had dwindled greatly before the old king died. 
 It was all gone by the end of the reign of Louis XV — 
 gone, because dreary tawdriness and grossness had re- 
 placed the dazzling splendor which the best years of 
 
 2 D'Argenson. MSmoires. 
 
 3 Martin, Histoire de Prance. Tome XV, p. 348; see also 
 Eocquain, op. cit., pp. 5-7. 
 
64 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 the age of the Grand Monarch had thrown ahont social 
 institutions. 
 
 Political and social decay undoubtedly began in the 
 reign of Louis XIV. Devastating and fruitless wars 
 and a short-sighted internal administration, which is 
 after all what the reign of the Grand Monarch reduces 
 to, had done their worlc. The strong and, on the 
 whole, beneficent government of Eiehelieu and Mazarin 
 slowly became an empty pageant resting upon hypoc- 
 risy, intolerance and despotism; the glad acclamations 
 of a nation hailing a young monarch who was to lead 
 them to national glory died away in the half-smothered 
 groans of a plundered and neglected commonwealth. 
 Every thoughtful memoir of the times describes the 
 ruthless exploitation and degradation of a nation, tells 
 of a king growing yearly more selfish, fanatical and 
 short-sighted, and of a court going by way of pompous 
 etiquette to an enforced piety and finally to boredom. 
 
 Those who followed seemed bent on completing a 
 work of destruction. While other European powers, 
 great and small, awakened to a new sense of duty and 
 the nations surrounding Prance might almost be said 
 to have suffered from too much care by enlightened 
 despots, who under the guidance of French philoso- 
 phers reformed everything, France herself bowed under 
 the reign of selfish neglect and exploitation. 
 
 Louis XVs reign deepened the growing disdain of 
 every accepted national institution. During that period, 
 Church, state and nobles, to whom the preservation of 
 the national life had been intrusted, were all alike false 
 to their trust. Instead of a dignified church with a 
 
RISE OF REVOLT. 65 
 
 Bossuet to represent it, the eighteenth century knew a 
 rapacious and worldly hierarchy with a Dubois at its 
 head; in place of a stately and powerful monarch, who 
 had at least been the central figure of the national life, 
 the King of France was now one whose life was given 
 to brutish and ignoble dissoluteness, while at his court 
 and under his influence, the gay, luxurious, yet hon- 
 orable nobility of the previous reign had degenerated 
 into a crowd of courtiers, for the most part profligate, 
 rationalistic and selfish. The result of all this was that 
 king, clergy and nobility had come to merit and to 
 receive a deep and general contempt. As the century 
 progressed, all three reaped the harvest of a growing 
 national discredit. 
 
 It is small wonder that the Church was first to rouse 
 disdain and distrust. Eeligion and its practices are 
 ever nearest men's emotions. Those who stand pledged 
 to preach and teach such practices cannot lead lives 
 entirely at variance •with what they preach and main- 
 tain their leadership very long. Catholicism stood for 
 simplicity of life and aim, for faith in the revealed 
 truth, for a single and united church. The Galilean 
 Church of the eighteenth century did not really respect 
 any one of these standards. In worldliness, it outdid 
 the degenerate Anglican Church of the same period; it 
 was intolerant, not for spiritual but for temporal rea- 
 sons; it was rent with internal dissensions. Preaching a 
 broad humanity and the equality of individuals, the 
 heads of the church maintained a glaring inequality of 
 benefice within the church, and, toward the world, an at- 
 titude of haughty and despotic superiority. Where could 
 5 
 
QQ PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 men find respect in their hearts for prelates, many of 
 whom were notoriously licentious in their lives; most 
 of whom strove more for the church's wealth and power 
 than for the salvation of their own or their parishioners' 
 souls; few of whom gave any real support to the dog- 
 mas they were ordained to teach.* If worldliness and 
 skepticism had not been sufficient, schism was there 
 too, to play its part in weakening the church's power. 
 The quarrel of the Jesuits and Jansenists, lasting almost 
 one hundred years, gave to the world an exhibition of 
 pettiness, superstition and tyranny scarcely calculated 
 to edify or to keep alive the respect necessary to any 
 church which would control its adherents. It was 
 as much in consequence of these facts as by reason of 
 the growing influence of the new philosophy, that by 
 the end of the century, men all over the country had 
 only contempt or active opposition to offer a degenerate 
 hierarchy. So many proofs of bad organization and 
 corruption had not failed to bring a deserved derision 
 and neglect to the established protectors of religion. 
 
 The effect of this newly-aroused feeling was as far- 
 reaching as the influence of the Church had once been 
 wide and real. The effect upon the state, for instance, 
 was important. When faith in the established Church 
 died out, faith in the established government failed 
 too. It was on the authority of the Church that men 
 had accepted the absolute monarchy under which they 
 lived. When the Church that sanctioned it no longer 
 
 •* Compare Taine. L'Ancien rfigime. Vol. I, ch. iv; Roo- 
 quain, op. eit., pp. 99 et seq.; Morse-Stephens, French Revolu- 
 tion, Vol. I, p. 295 et seq. 
 
RISE OF REVOLT. 67 
 
 oommanded respect, the government quickly became in 
 danger of a like fate. The fall of political absolutism 
 followed almost necessarily upon that of spiritual ab- 
 solutism. And this, not only because the spirit of 
 Bossuet, proclaiming that "Kings are gods and their 
 power is divine," was gone, but because the monarchy 
 which could give any semblance of truth to such a doc- 
 trine was also gone. Whatever act of egotism, bigotry, 
 double-dealing or persecution the Galilean Church of the 
 eighteenth century omitted to perform, its protector, the 
 state, seemed bent on doing for it. Men had given a 
 willing allegiance to absolutism when, by a haughty for- 
 eign policy and noble protection of letters, it had at 
 least brought fame and glory to France; but they now 
 grew rebellious when the same despotic powers were 
 chiefly used for the ruthless exploitation of a starving 
 nation, in order to satisfy brutish passions or to fur- 
 nish the means for an ignoble patronage. 
 
 Had the state policy of Louis XV been deliberately 
 planned to sow and cultivate the seeds of revolt, it 
 must have been pronounced one of the great successes 
 of modern times. After Fleury's ineffective, if well- 
 intentioned ministry, the function of government 
 seemed to become an organized war on the exercise of 
 free thought, a shameless patronage of rank and privi- 
 lege. The law courts became so many agencies to 
 spread disaffection, for the criminal and civil laws were 
 merely arbitrary rules pliant to the purse and position 
 of the parties in the quarrel. Men may endure capri- 
 cious administration of the civil laws; they may for a 
 long time stand the repression of free thought; but 
 
68 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 when to these miseries are added an irregular and bur- 
 densome tax which puts not only the intellectual life, 
 but the mere physical life as well, in jeopardy, then 
 revolt is not far. Every student of the " revolutionary 
 spirit before the Eevolution " agrees that the inequality 
 of the tax-levy and the ill-advised methods of collecting 
 the state revenues did more than any other single line of 
 policy to corrupt and disaflect the nation. The manage- 
 ment of the public finance was the crowning folly of 
 a deplorable reign. Louis XV's habit of wasteful and 
 lavish expenditure completed whatever work of aliena- 
 tion the other abuses of the century had begun. A 
 well'known epigram tells how the country which had 
 been bled by one cardinal and purged by another, was 
 now being put on diet by a third. Nature, too, was 
 not kind during the century, and at certain periods, 
 through famine and storm, the misery in many sections 
 of the country was extreme. The shocking falling-off 
 in the population of many districts was, in the time of 
 Louis XV, as much a result of distress as of war.*" Yet 
 the government itself maintained a continued policy of 
 magnificence and extortion ; it supported the clergy and 
 nobles in using their customary right to extort from 
 the people the innumerable duties and tolls which the 
 surviving feudal privileges enabled these upper classes 
 to exact ; it urged ruthlessly its own claims to the taille, 
 the gabelle, the corvee, the aides and the countless other 
 internal and customs duties. It will be remembered, 
 too, that although the lower classes were in this way 
 made to pay about eighty-two per cent, of the taxes, 
 
 B Compare Martin, op. clt., Vol. XIV, Bk. Ixxxix; D'Argen- 
 son, M6moires, pp. 301-306, ed. Bar6re. 
 
TACILLATION OF LOUIS XVI. qq 
 
 this was not all their trouble. An increasing difficulty 
 of finding employment was added to the heavy burden 
 of paying the tax, and it gradually came to be under- 
 stood that this decreasing demand for labor was di- 
 rectly traceable to the same government which enforced 
 BO heavy a contribution for the support of those it fa- 
 vored and for itself. For, with respect to every kind 
 of industry, Louis XVs government pursued a policy 
 of ill-advised and special legislation. The vicious sys- 
 tem of the regime is nowhere better evidenced than 
 in the way it discouraged home manufactures by grant- 
 ing a system of monopolies, sometimes to cities, some- 
 times to individuals, while it almost destroyed com- 
 merce by an extortionate tariff and heavy export duties. 
 Whether by taxes unequally levied between different 
 industries and various districts; whether through state 
 monopoly or private monopolies under state protection, 
 by some kind of legislation in regard to every form of 
 industry, the state was forever beside the individual, 
 impeding his activity and demanding an enormous share 
 of his profit. A tottering government defeated its own 
 ends and made for its own destruction. 
 
 In relation to the reign of Louis XVI, a story of 
 good intentions and narrow morality, of ignorance of 
 governmental methods and failure to comprehend the 
 true needs of the situation, is to be set over against the 
 record of a generation beginning to believe that the new 
 ideals might possibly be realized, and growing always 
 more deeply incensed at the vacillating government 
 under which it found itself. To show how Louis XVI 
 added to the ferment of radicalism, it needs not to tell 
 
ijQ PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 t 
 
 a tale of selfish living and gross extravagance, all at the 
 expense of a nation becoming rebellious under persecu- 
 tion. The story is now one which describes the pitiful 
 efforts of a well-meaning but weak monarch to make 
 amends for a century of misrule; it must tell how he 
 instituted a policy as uncertain as that of his prede- 
 cessors — a policy differing, however, in this important 
 point, that it aimed at public wellbeing, even though 
 it ultimately failed to carry out its intentions. Unrest 
 and desire for change came to the definite point of out- 
 break during the fifteen years that Louis XVI was on 
 the throne of France, more because he filled the nation 
 with the insupportable emotion of hope deferred, than 
 by reason of any great misery or persecution for which 
 his government was responsible. 
 
 In the France Louis XVI came to rule, the institu- 
 tional, not the national life was decaying. The vigor- 
 ous literature of the century is proof of the nation's 
 intellectual force. The enormous sums which the gov- 
 ernment managed to extort from the nation prove what, 
 in spite of abuses, its monetary strength must have 
 been, and these sums paid in tax were not the real 
 evidence of the wealth of the country, for the rich 
 bourgeois managed to buy off the farmer-general and 
 the peasants affected poverty in order to evade the de- 
 mands of his agents. There is plenty to show that, 
 during Louis XVI's reign, men grew fairly prosperous.® 
 If the government, aiming to help, had not hindered 
 
 6 See in particular, on this point, Babeau. Le village sous 
 I'aneien regime, and La vie rurale sous I'ancien rggime. Also, 
 BrunetiSre. Le Paysan sous I'Anoien Regime, in Histoire et 
 Litterature. Paris, 1893. 
 
VACILLATION OF LOUIS XTI. ijl 
 
 instead; if it had adopted and carried out any single 
 policy meeting the more urgent claims for reform, the 
 revolutionary principles might never have been formu- 
 lated. 
 
 The government did no such thing. The king 
 and his advisers acknowledged the need of re- 
 forms, but they could not agree upon a settled 
 policy. The admiuistration only succeeded in keep- 
 ing up an intermittent expectation of better things. 
 At the end of the eighteenth century, discontent with 
 the old regime deepened and finally turned to active 
 agitation for new theories, because the whole legisla- 
 tion of the period in question consisted in taking the 
 burdens from the shoulders of an oppressed people and 
 then putting them on again;'' because ephemeral and 
 ill-advised efforts at reform, instead of calming the 
 national impatience, only added to the popular agita- 
 tion. 
 
 The story of Turgot's brief effort to do for France 
 that which he had done for Limousin, and how it was 
 frustrated by the queen and the court faction who got 
 the ear of the irresolute king, is the best known ex- 
 ample of how those in power taught the nation what 
 might be. But the provincial assemblies, though less 
 often cited, are an example even more noteworthy. 
 These provincial assemblies remain for history the most 
 marked evidence of how Louis and his ministers, aid- 
 ing in their own overthrow, made positively for the 
 
 TComp. Bailly. MSmoires, I, p. 42; see, also, Von Hoist, 
 op. cit., I, p. 98; De Tooqueville, L'Ancien Rggime et la Revo- 
 lution, p. 47 and p. 214. ed. Michel L6vy, 1857; Jobez, La 
 France sous Louis XVI, Vol. I, passim. 
 
72 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 progress of new thougfit and helped to determine its 
 character. 
 
 The king set up in each parish of his kingdom as- 
 semblies constituted so as to recognize partially the 
 principle of representation, and intrusted them with 
 measurably-large executive powers. When a monarch 
 does this, he fosters, knowingly or not, the desire for self- 
 government. Moreover, when the government, through 
 such assemblies, permits a fair representation of the na- 
 tion to apportion the tax, to direct public works and to 
 oversee local affairs, by that act it gives to the people 
 most likely to control the minds of others, the chance 
 to see clearly into the structure and methods of the 
 existing administration. If this be done when govern- 
 ment is in severe straits, and is, though against its con- 
 science, forced to adopt an unjust and arbitrary tax 
 system, there follows a national participation in ugly 
 administrative secrets which is, to say the least, 
 undesirable. Through these provincial assemblies, 
 the central government under Louis XVI made 
 just such a revelation of weakness and uncertainty to 
 influential representatives of each class of the nation. 
 Before this policy, like all the rest, was reversed, men 
 had learned that representative local government was 
 not a chimera.* 
 
 The history of the statutory law during the reign 
 in question show similarly how fees, iines and taxes 
 were remitted and then enforced again; how courts 
 were reorganized and then restored to their old 
 status; how industries and cities were freed from old 
 
 8 On the provincial assemblies, see Lavergne, Les Assemblies 
 provinciales sous Loui? XVI, 
 
TACILLATION OV LOUIS X7I. 73 
 
 restraints, only shortly after to have them reimposed. 
 But the assemblies are the best example of how Louis 
 the Good educated his people as to what might be, and 
 at the same time showed them what must be for a long 
 time if the old political order continued. The con- 
 sequence of all this legislative tinkering was the same. 
 Every man who cared to know was convinced by the 
 vacillating law-making that even the government, if it 
 were not afraid of self-destruction, would be willing to 
 pronounce for political liberty, equal justice and a fair 
 and equal tax. The hope of seeing such institutions as 
 should make these principles part of the social life rose 
 high as the weakness and indecision of government grew 
 more apparent, and with that hope, faith grew also in 
 the doctrines that prompted the hope. 
 
 This same shilly-shally policy may be said to have 
 had a notable part in making, not merely new prin- 
 ciples, but the revolutionary character of the new prin- 
 ciples. The letter-patent of December 27, 1788,^ which 
 arranged the preliminaries of a States-general may 
 almost be said to have made revolutionary acts inev- 
 itable. The Third Estate was encouraged to hope that 
 the popular wishes were to be recognized, for it was 
 given double representation; the meeting was called 
 at Versailles, close to that Paris which was known to 
 be in a ferment of radicalism; finally voters in the bail- 
 lages were instructed to bestow full and sufficient pow- 
 ers upon their representatives, the implication being 
 that their representatives were to undertake a work of 
 legislation. To realize how these provisions made for 
 
 9 Cherest. La Chute de I'Ancien Regime. II, p. 241. 
 
Y4 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCB REVOLUTION. 
 
 revolution, it is only necessary to recall how govern- 
 ment weakly left the orders themselves to struggle over 
 the question of representation until the Serment de 
 Jeu de Paume^° settled the controversy of vote par 
 ordre or vote par tete; to remember how well Paris 
 availed itself of the nearness of Versailles, in order 
 finally to force the government to act under its 
 eye and voice, and to recollect how the great bitter- 
 ness of the struggle between king and Assembly grew 
 out of the king's fixed belief that, letters-patent not- 
 withstanding, states-generals were called together, not 
 to redress administrative abuses, but to devise means for 
 filling a depleted treasury. Because government re- 
 fused to recognize the logical conclusions of its own 
 rulings, it finally sent the mob to the Bastille in a dream 
 of ending famine and misery by"^ symbolic demolish- 
 ment of the instrument of tyranny that had stood so 
 long at the city gates. From July 14th, the mis- 
 understanding between the government and the nation 
 was complete. From that time to the end, Louis XVI 
 was the shuttle-cock of contending factions.** The 
 
 10 The resolutions are to be found in full in the Moni- 
 teur for June 20, 1789, or in Bailly, Mgmoires, Vol. I, p. 190. 
 
 11 It cannot be too often accented how lamentable a picture 
 Louis XVI presents in the light of the events which make up 
 the two years during which the Constituent Assembly met. 
 If it were not so pitiful, the picture would be laughable. It 
 is quite usual to see the Assembly doing as it will, taking 
 from the king all that had been his ancient right, and the 
 sanction of his rule, and then, as on the night of August 4th, 
 hastening to send him by a deputation (see e. g., Moniteur, 
 I, p. 293), "its acknowledgments" for what had been done 
 in spite of his wish, and to " congratulate him that he has 
 to command » nation so generous." (See, also, Mirabeau's 
 remarks quoted in Bailly, op. cit.. Vol. I, p. 393.) At each 
 point in the making of the new law, Louis' ineffectual efforts 
 
FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 75 
 
 consciousness of utter separation of view, and the spirit 
 of daring necessary to give an extreme character to the 
 new principle, had been successfully awakened by a 
 series of government blunders hard to match in history. 
 Along with the wearying uncertainty with which 
 Louis XVI's government filled the nation, an outside 
 influence came directly to strengthen into a new faith, 
 the longings which were stirring. Since the revolution 
 of 1688, English individualism, by its thought and by 
 the social institutions it had slowly developed, had grad- 
 ually come to have an appreciable influence upon many 
 able thinkers of France. The days of the Eegeney saw 
 men aping the English dress and amusements; the end 
 of the century saw them eager to imitate the more 
 serious practices of their neighbor. The many men of 
 letters whom persecution or desire for travel led to Eng- 
 land^^ during the eighteenth century returned enthusi- 
 astic, to put before Frenchmen, not merely the social 
 forms, but the political methods, the political theories 
 and the philosophical doctrine they had learned in that 
 foreign atmosphere. English philosophy, as Bacon, 
 Nevrton, Hobbes and Locke had taught it; English 
 deism, as Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke and Pope were 
 spreading it; English institutions, as the rapidly devel- 
 oping political life of the time showed them, — all these 
 
 to block or to change the character of the legislation, his fatal 
 temporizing with all factions, what might be called his pains- 
 taking uncertainty, soon left him inevitably shorn of all real 
 power. Less than a year after the meeting of the States-Gen- 
 eral, the king stood outside the Assembly, " the hostage of the 
 ancient regime in the hands of a nation" (Lamartine, His- 
 toire des Girondins, I, p. 17), playing as sorry a rale of inde- 
 cision and impotence as it was ever given king to enact. 
 12 Comp. Morley. Voltaire, p. 52, ed. 1872. 
 
76 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 aspects of English national life deeply impressed men 
 like Montesquieu, Voltaire and Eaynal, and through 
 them, the lesser writers of the age. It has heen seen 
 how the chief propositions of the English philosophy, 
 the denial of innate ideas and the limitation of all 
 knowledge to that which the senses can affirm, crept 
 into French philosophy as counter-propositions to the 
 dogmas of a theology and philosophy now becoming gen- 
 erally despised. The leading principles of English po- 
 litical philosophy were that very Law of Nature and that 
 theory of Natural Eights which, through the Physio- 
 crats and Eousseau, became so many starting-points for 
 the French political theorists. English civil liberty and 
 English constitutional law gave the Jurists or the ad- 
 ministrative reformer his cue, when he appealed from 
 the present to a more desirable governmental form. 
 
 English civil liberty, English philosophy, English 
 civilization, were then a potent force in shaping revolu- 
 tionary ideas; but it was an English colony separating 
 from its mother country which, at this later time, acted 
 as direct encouragement to the spread of new principles. 
 The American struggle for independence was, in rela- 
 tion to the revolutionary principles, an important 
 fact of the reign of Louis XVI. American colonial 
 life had been the background for the poetic characters 
 in the French literature of the first part of the 
 century. When the struggle of the English colony for 
 its liberty began, on the basis of a declaration of inde- 
 pendence formulated by men whose leading spirit was 
 an ardent disciple of Eousseau, the conflict and what 
 it stood for at once caught the imagination of the 
 French, The interest thus aroused presently influenced 
 
FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 77 
 
 to acts. The imperturbable Franklin was among them 
 to answer with a hopeful " ga ira,"^^ the many eager 
 questions as to the probable outcome of a contest which 
 seemed likely to decide the possible application of the 
 new " rights of man." Brave men of their own nation 
 were constantly returning from the scene of the con- 
 test to tell, as only allies and converts can, of the new 
 democracy and its successful beginnings. ITaturally, 
 what had seemed to be abstract ideas now rapidly took 
 on the appearance of concrete and living facts. The 
 many prefer imitation to invention. The idea of doing 
 what another nation has already done now appealed 
 to liberal men in France, who would have hesitated to 
 enter upon an absolutely new governmental experi- 
 ment. There seems little doubt that the American war 
 of Independence and the events which followed it had 
 a large share in shaping popular opinion to a definite 
 ideal of government. Because it fed the growing hopes 
 of change and gave to France republican leaders like 
 Lafayette and Lally, because it put a modem democ- 
 racy before the imagination of men already possessed 
 by an intense admiration for the theory of democracy 
 and the concrete democracy of antiquity, this fight 
 in the name of the right of the governed aided to hurry 
 the nation forward to a concrete expression of revolu- 
 tionary principles. 
 
 One factor in working this change in the national 
 temper, which was to bring about a new theory, needs 
 considerable emphasis. It has been said that all the 
 
 13 Note the story of the De Goneourts eoneerning Frank- 
 lin's responsibility for the introduction of the phrase into revo- 
 lutionary parlance. La soci6t§ frangaise pendant la Rgyolu- 
 tion, p. 62. 
 
78 I'RINOIPLES OF PRENOB RUVOLVTlON. 
 
 French institutions which stood for the preservation 
 of the national morality and security, falling away from 
 their purpose by reason of weakness or worse, had bred 
 a national distrust and contempt. It has been further 
 explained that the rising national revolt was based upon 
 a new hope, resting upon a new ideal and strengthened 
 by another nation's example, but the exact nature of 
 the medium which was to express this new spirit is yet 
 to be indicated. It is now time to direct the attention 
 to this medium, the so-called Tiers-Etat of France, for 
 the new principles would never have taken the char- 
 acter they did assume had they not been the principles 
 of the Third Estate. 
 
 11. 
 
 To clear the stage for the agent most active in 
 setting up the new theories of social life, a few prelimi- 
 nary words seem desirable to show why the new ideals 
 could have no effective support from the clergy, the 
 nobles or the peasantry.^* 
 
 The clergy of 1789 could never have led France in a 
 movement to establish any new system. This is true, not 
 only because the religion whose vicars they were, bound 
 them to conserve the old principles. Of itself, this fact 
 
 i* The numerical strength of the Third Estate would not 
 in itself be reason enough. Although the privileged classes 
 scarcely numbered together 300,000, in a population of 
 26,000,000 (see Taine, note at the end of I, op. cit., ed., Hach- 
 ctte, 1899), with their power, social and economic, they might, 
 other things being equal, have controlled the affairs of the 
 nation. On the other hand, the peasants, though they made 
 the half of the population (Boiteau, Etat de la France en 
 1789), could not compensate by mere numbers for other de- 
 ficiencies. 
 
CLERGY Ul^iDEli TBE OLD RMQIME. 79 
 
 might not have been an impediment, for, as has been 
 Been, during the century many of the clergy fell away 
 from any real support of the church creeds and might 
 have been willing to discredit old doctrines. The reason 
 for the unfitness of the class was rather social than 
 theological. Even when touched, as they often were, 
 by the new currents of opinion, the clergy were too 
 much divided among themselves, and the influential 
 part of the class had too much to lose and too little to 
 gain by change to be likely to become effective par- 
 tisans of the new philosophy. The clergy drew its per- 
 sonnel from all the other classes and thus, in a cer- 
 tain sense, it included in its ranks elements naturally 
 predisposed to innovating doctrines, but the persons 
 radically disposed rarely made their way to positions 
 of influence. The few poor and lowly men who, like 
 Dubois, did rise to high places, lost on the way any 
 democratic leanings they might have had. On the 
 whole, it was the rule to find cures and their aids 
 of bourgeois or peasant extraction; it was the ex- 
 ception to find any but noblesse controlling the affairs 
 of the Church.i^ Following prejudices common to the 
 society at large, the hierarchical distinctions within the 
 caste corresponds to the same dividing lines which made 
 the other three classes in the kingdom. 
 
 The clergy was then divided within itself, and this 
 too not only on questions of theory. The interests and 
 
 15 The court power over the Church was such that, of the 
 one hundred and thirty-one archbishops and bishops of France, 
 only five were men of roturier birth, and these five were the 
 poorest of all. See Morse-Stephens, French Revolution, I, 
 p. 34, ed. Scribner's Sons, 1886. 
 
80 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 sympathies of its influential members bade them wish to 
 preserve the old order; the interests of the lower clergy 
 dictated just the opposite policy. Time had made for in- 
 creasing the bond between church and state; a system 
 of endowments and emoluments had gradually given the 
 upper clergy much profit and much privilege. The 
 cure, as ruthlessly exploited and as poor in resource 
 as the bourgeois or peasant whose spiritual life he 
 ministered to, might be, and generally was, in accord 
 with his parishioners. But for that very reason he was 
 at odds with the upper clergy and the court party. Ead- 
 icalism might then have a following in the Church ;^^ 
 the most radical principles of the century might come 
 as they did, from the cures who dwelt in distant corners 
 of the nation; but, as a class, no strong movement 
 could be expected from the clergy. Bound to con- 
 servatism by its most deeply-rooted prejudices, disagree- 
 ing within itself upon social questions, the clerical class 
 as a whole, democratic though much of it was, could 
 liardly be expected to make an effective fight for radi- 
 cal innovations. 
 
 The nobility was not, like the clergy, a class divided 
 within itself. In a general way, something like har- 
 mony may be said to have obtained among the nobles. 
 In the first place, the very nature of the class argued 
 for some solidarity; its origin and prejudices made for 
 a predominating unity of opinion within its ranks. 
 While the clergy might increase by appointment or 
 voluntary association, nobility came with birth only. A 
 
 16 As final evidence of this radical drift among the' clergy, 
 it is only necessary to refer to the ao-ealled " insurrection of 
 the cures." 
 
NOBILITY UNDER THE OLD REGIME. gj 
 
 man might come into the class from one of the others 
 by patent-right but, until two generations of such no- 
 bility were behind him, he was only " petite noblesse." 
 
 The order, deriving its status from the feudal system, 
 was a land-owning class and a permanent class, since 
 it only recognized as qualified members of itself those 
 whose claims to enter the class rested upon heredity. 
 A sense of perfect equality thus held among the persons 
 of this class, an equality shaded only by difference of 
 occupation; noblesse d'epee, noblesse de robe, court or 
 provincial noblesse, — no matter the particular interest, 
 any member of the order was a noble first of all. The 
 class stood stoutly together, supporting unanimously 
 a special code of morals and manners, a particular privi- 
 lege of culture for mere culture's sake, and a general 
 right to as much as possible of the joys of life and as 
 little as might be of its cares. 
 
 But unity of opinion, while it is a formidable force, 
 is not enough in itself to make the nucleus of a political 
 party with strength sufficient to forward new opinions. 
 Among the class in question there was a certain concen- 
 sus of opinion, but there was nothing beside, that 
 was of practical value for leadership. From the twelfth 
 century the nobility had been steadily losing any real 
 political power, and at the time under discussion, the 
 class was without any but a self-seeking interest in 
 politics.*'^ Louis XIV had given the final blow to any 
 political control the nobles had managed to have up to 
 that time, and now, under Louis XVI they no longer 
 
 IT Thierry. Essai sur la formation et le progrfis du Tiera- 
 Etat. ed. Furne, 1868, p. 103. 
 
82 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 *. * 
 
 took any real part in the affairs of the government.^® 
 The second estate might direct the armies^® and take a 
 certain share in the counsels of the king; but the entire 
 administration of the national life, that is, the real con- 
 trol of the goTernment, had passed into other hands. 
 As a class these " gentilhommes " of the nation lived 
 in a more or less unavoidable leisure, pleasure-seeking or 
 somewhat superficially literary if at the capital,^" rest- 
 less and useless if in the provinces.^^ The dazzle of 
 privilege which the noblesse still enjoyed to the full 
 blinded them to their loss of power, though it was 
 clear to any dispassionate observer that this power was 
 passing away, both actually and in men's minds. The 
 class was growing poorer too, because, beyond the pro- 
 duct of their lands, they had no means of adding to 
 their incomes; their prejudices shut them out from the 
 commerce that was making the bourgeois wealthy; the 
 same prejudice forbade intermarriage, the only remain- 
 ing expedient by which the one class could have profited 
 by the gains of the other. On the other hand, the grow- 
 ing wealth of the bourgeoisie constrained the nobles to 
 an ill-afforded expenditure in order to maintain that 
 
 18 Comp. Taine, Les Origines de la France contemporaine, 
 p. 99 et seq. ; also pp. 175 et seq. Elsewhere he says they 
 were " aussi strangers aux affaires de France qu'a celles du 
 Japon." ed. Haehette, 1899. 
 
 19 Comp. De Toequeville. " En apparence la t6te d'une 
 armge, en reality un corps d'oflSders sans soldats." L'Ancien 
 Egglme et la Egvolutlon. ed. Michel Levy, 1857, p. 334. 
 
 20 Taine, op. cit. ed. Haehette, 1880, 1, p. 366, says that phi- 
 losophize for the sake of philosophy, not for its application 
 to reality. Comp. De Toequeville, op. cit., I, pp. 103-105. 
 
 21 Arthur Young. Travels in France, ed. George Bell & 
 Sons, 1890, p. 70. 
 
NOBILITY UNDER TBB OLD REOtME. 83 
 
 prestige for elegance and splendor which had always 
 belonged to their class. To escape the debt this expen- 
 diture involved, the nobles were driven to draw heavily 
 on their only source of revenue. To swell their income 
 they used their privileges, and the unscrupulous exer- 
 cise of this right of privilege did, perhaps, more than 
 anything else to discredit the nobility in the eyes of 
 the masses.^^ Some one has well said that a true aris- 
 tocracy rests on wealth, knowledge and birth. Of these 
 three elements, the nobility of France could, at the end 
 of the eighteenth century, claim only birth to justify 
 its privilege; to ofPset this one positive qualification, it 
 had a dozen negative attributes springing from the 
 many small vices and mistaken notions which the tenets 
 of their rank had made class characteristics. 
 
 It is not then surprising to find that, at the close of 
 the century, the noblesse was a caste holding to glamour 
 without substance; a caste whose opinions make for a 
 reactionary policy or at best a strong conservatism. 
 The exigencies of the life of the noble rarely brought 
 him into contact with his tenants, and he was, there- 
 fore, usually entirely ignorant concerning the condition 
 of the mass of the nation. The' new literary movement 
 of the day seemed to the members of this doomed class, 
 subject for an amused patronage or polite ridicule; they 
 appear to have had little idea that it was really a men- 
 ace to the advantages which they, as a class, enjoyed. 
 Between pride and prejudice, frivolity and harshness, 
 the class as a whole aided blindly in its own ruin. All 
 
 22 See De Toequeville, art. on " France before the Revolu- 
 tion," in " Memoires and Remains," ed. 1862. Comp. also 
 Taine, op. eit., I, pp. 416-418, ed. 1880. 
 
84, PRINCIPLES OP fRENCM ttEVOLVTlON. 
 
 its history developed a certain solidarity among the 
 noblesse, but a solidarity making for a class separatism 
 that argued strongly against the class, as such, taking 
 any active share in a national effort for the adoption of 
 new principles. 
 
 As to the peasant and artisan class, those whom later 
 terminology calls the Fourth Estate, their condition, as 
 much as that of the clergy and nobility, precluded 
 them from any initiative part in rebellion. But, while 
 in the clergy, disorganization, and in the noblesse, con- 
 servatism, each made for opinion only weakly leaning 
 toward revolutionary principles, it might rather be 
 said that the peasant could not father revolutionary 
 ideas, because, as a class, he had scarcely come to. have 
 any idea. The peasant was rather " the inert mass on 
 which those who made the Eevolution worked."^ 
 Although the agricultural classes often had real enough 
 grounds for actively seconding the movement which 
 others started, they rarely did it from any reasoned mo- 
 tive. It seems certain that the tendency has been to 
 overestimate the misery of the whole peasantry, because 
 of the undoubted oppression of certain sections of the 
 country,^* but the degradation of the class was in any 
 
 23 Belloc. Life of Danton, p. 18, ed. Charles Scribner's 
 Sons, 1899. 
 
 24 Comp. on peasant, proving his misery, Taine, op. cit,, II, 
 bk. V, ed. 1899; on the exaggeration of this misery, see Ba- 
 beau, Le Village sous I'aneien RSgime; and La vie rurale dans 
 I'ancienne France, by the same author; also, Bruneti^re. 
 Le Paysan sous L'Ancien R6gime, in Histoire et LittSrature. 
 Arthur Young gives suggestions for both sides; Dr. Rigby's 
 Letters paint a rural prosperity, which is very far from the 
 current notion concerning the condition of the peasant under 
 the old regime. 
 
PEASANT UNDER THE OLD REGIME. 35 
 
 case bad enough. As has been said, many among the 
 people were reduced to a pitiable and often vicious con- 
 dition, by reason of the tax system, the neglect and 
 harshness of the land-holders and the wretched pittance 
 they could earn. In 1789 the peasant was, at best, 
 entirely ignorant and superstitious and completely 
 incapable of political action; in many sections of the 
 country his highly inflammable temperament made him 
 ready to adopt any theory which seemed to promise 
 change. Frequently, too, the social depravity, reaching 
 down to the bottom, had changed the tiller of the soil 
 to brigand, contraband or beggar; and this mere brute 
 force, to which circumstances were adding daily, stood 
 ready to combine with any movement which promised 
 a way to bread and immunity from an annoying sur- 
 veillance.^'* Those of the agricultural class, and they 
 were not a few, who already possessed the small hold- 
 ings which have so often mistakenly been accredited en- 
 tirely to the Kevolution, caught most readily at the new 
 philosophy.^* The more fortunate peasant was, per- 
 haps, most ready to rebel, because the new principle 
 of revolution promised to free him from the noble who 
 menaced crops, profits, labor-time and even the very 
 consumption of the small living which might finally 
 be left to him. However, as a class, neither outcast nor 
 well-to-do peasant had any defined principles on the 
 basis of which he rebelled. The peasantry then, along 
 with the artisans,^'' had come to active discontent, but 
 
 25Taine, op. cit., II, bk. v. 
 
 26 De Tocqueville, op. cit., p. 47. 
 
 27 The artisans W€re a comparatively small part of the 
 nation, and, Paris and Lyons possibly excepted, held a posi- 
 tion so little different from that of the peasant that they can 
 safely be classed with them. 
 
36 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 the class had only a partial comprehension of the politi- 
 cal movement; it represents an accented readiness for 
 the harshest and swiftest methods of change.^ The 
 peasant felt instinctively ready to join a radical move- 
 ment whenever it might be set going, but his training 
 and character did not fit him to reason or to lead. 
 Only at the last the " peuple " learned the principles 
 for which they revolted; those principles the Third 
 Estate taught them. 
 
 At the period in question, the Third Estate^* had 
 grown to the position necessary to insure leadership, 
 both because of certain native traits and because 
 certain social prejudices existing prior to 1789 be- 
 came at that later time the special means for rous- 
 ing these native tendencies and driving them to 
 expression. The Third Estate seems always to have 
 developed along lines which were to make it the 
 direct instrument for the formulation of a new 
 social theory. It is not too much to say that the 
 Principles of the Eevolution are practically the expres- 
 sion of the traditional ideals and aspirations of the 
 Third Estate of France. 
 
 The whole history of Prance after the twelfth cen- 
 tury shows the class making a persistent effort for politi- 
 cal supremacy,^" making this effort, too, on the basis of 
 theories which ran counter to those accepted by the 
 government under which they lived. Always, the class 
 
 asBelloc, op. eit., pp. 19-22. 
 
 29 There is no special work on the Third Estate known to 
 the writer, except Thierry's Essai sur la formation et progrSs 
 
 "du Tiers-Etat. All the larger histories have much matter, 
 howeiver, bearing upon the subject. 
 
 30 Thierry, op. cit., ch. iii and iv. 
 
THE THIRD ESTATE. 
 
 87 
 
 seems to have been the radical element of the nation. 
 From its earliest appearance in French history, the 
 Third Estate was an active influence for change; as an 
 order, it strove insistently for the right of self-govern- 
 ment. Sagely supporting the king against the nobles, 
 it grew in strength and power.^^ It first becomes dis- 
 tinct as a class after the feudal regime is well devel- 
 oped. It is then that we first hear the burghers rising 
 against the two forms of despotism which feudalism had 
 created, the domain rule of the nobility and the parish 
 rule of the clergy. By the twelfth century, the mon- 
 archical power had so united itself with these hardy 
 advocates of personal liberty and the rights of industry 
 that the king was thus enabled to control the nobles. 
 It was not long before the burghers had managed to 
 win bourgeois rights, and so to shift the worst inequali- 
 ties of the feudal regime to the serf or peasant class.^^ 
 Bourgeois rights at first included the population of 
 privileged cities only, but soon such rights came to 
 apply to all the inhabitants of villages and communes 
 who had civil rights.^* Thus the class gained strength 
 by addition of numbers, and from this time grows to 
 be numerically the largest of the three upper classes. 
 During the next two centuries, the Third Estate seems 
 always to have had a definite purpose in its struggle for 
 self-assertion; it asks always for change in the direction 
 
 31 De Tocqueville, op. cit., p. 106. 
 
 32 Thierry, op. cit., pp. 36, 37. 
 
 33 Ibid. p. 46. * * * Thus the contention of Boiteau 
 (Etat de la France en 1789, p. 225), and the socialists, who 
 claim that the Third Estate and the Bourgeoisie are not the 
 same thing, hardly seems supported by fact. 
 
88 PBTNCIPLES OF FRENCH BEVOLVTIOIf. 
 
 of larger individual liberty and greater national unity. 
 At times mere class spirit, such as controlled their acts 
 in the States-General of 1484, prompts their demands. 
 Again, the reforms the class asks for, as for instance 
 when Etienne Marcel, Jean de Troyes or Michel de 
 I'Hopital represented them, are actuated by humani- 
 tarian and wide-reaching motives. In every period, 
 however, whether they strove for the aggrandizement 
 of their own order only or for the general welfare, the 
 Third Estate is always a class active for innovation. 
 
 Likewise it rapidly shows itself to be a class striving 
 for political, intellectual and social precedence. When 
 Louis XII established parlement; when succeeding 
 kings encouraged commerce, so that as industrial life 
 broadened, the merchant was added to the craftsman 
 to be again supplemented by the financier and the 
 farmer-general; when religious wars broke down other 
 social distinctions for a time, and the Eenaissance 
 created a world of letters where there were no classes, 
 the bourgeoisie seized upon each of these events as 
 entering wedges for their own advancement. Judicial 
 power and financial power, the two kinds of influence 
 which after all count most in determining the character 
 of the modern nation, soon came to be entirely the 
 possession of the Third Estate.^* The Cahier of the 
 States-General last (1614) preceding that of 1789, bears 
 evidence to the growing jealousy of the noblesse who 
 begin to perceive this rising power of the Third Estate. 
 
 After the discontinuance of the States-General, the 
 corporate political power of the bourgeoisie narrows to 
 
 3* Thierry, op. cit., p. 106. 
 
THE TEIRb E&fATE. g9 
 
 such social control as it can exert through parlement, 
 yet the class continues to grow as a vigorous social 
 force. By the end of the sixteenth century, promotion 
 or purchase had won for the bourgeoisie the highest 
 administrative posts in the kingdom. Saint Simon 
 called the reign of Louis XIV a reign of low bourgeoisie, 
 ("regne de vile bourgeoisie") so great did he conceive 
 the influence of the class to be at that time. The class 
 strove for education, and from among its numbers came 
 the best writers of the age of Louis XIV; but most often 
 knowledge, too, was sought as a means to social power. 
 Just as to-day, so after the sixteenth century, sons of 
 the poorer bourgeoisie might be seen crowding to the 
 universities, eagerly striving for the degree these gave, 
 not so much for the love of learning as for the econo- 
 mic or social position it might bring.^' Thus, what- 
 ever they undertook, whether the law, the industrial life 
 or that purely intellectual, the bourgeoisie sought to 
 make it a means to political power. 
 
 It remains to describe, in a few words, the position 
 of the class from the reign of Louis XIV up to the time 
 of the Eevolution. Most of the social innovations of the 
 seventeenth century, whether in religion, in art, in let- 
 ters or in industry, were begun or, at any rate, most 
 warmly supported by the bourgeoisie. It was they 
 who fathered and fostered Jansenism, a doctrine stimu- 
 lating to reconstruction by its very narrowness. Des- 
 cartes, Pascal, Corneille — in brief, all the great names 
 among the literary celebrities at the end of the seven- 
 teenth century, excepting only La Kochefoucauld and 
 
 35 Thierry, p. 107. 
 
90 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCE REVOLVTtON. 
 
 Madame de Sevigny, belonged to the middle class. 
 Nearly every financial enterprise had a bourgeois for 
 its sponsor; and the commerce and manufacture of the 
 country was practically in their hands, except, perhaps, 
 during the Eegency, when the financial successes made 
 possible for a time by Law's schemes, drew noble, bour- 
 geois and serving-man alike into the vortex of specula- 
 tion. When the centralization of the administrative 
 government had reached its height, when Law could 
 write that " this kingdom is governed by thirty inten- 
 dants: * * * qjj -^^rhom depend the happiness or 
 discomfort of these provinces, their abundance or their 
 sterility,"^® it is interesting to remember that these 
 intendants were almost all of the bourgeoisie.^'' 
 
 However, during the first half of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, the mass of the Third Estate had dropped into a 
 stolid indifference with regard to their political rights. 
 Only parlement and Jansenism express in deeds the old- 
 time objection of the class to absolutism. The phil- 
 osophers are a small circle within the order — a circle 
 dreaming of a well-ordered logical sort of government, 
 where all men should come to a bourgeois level. 
 Throughout the century, the class grows rich;^* up to 
 the Eevolution it continues to hold the majority of 
 places, but it contents itself with administrative power, 
 and for eighty years consents to purchase its rights, — 
 
 36'Lavergne. Les Assemblfies provineiales sous Louis XIV, 
 p. 5. 
 
 37 The same held true as well fifty years later as at the be- 
 ginning of the century. The governors were nobles, but all 
 the power and political prestige belonged to the Intendants. 
 Comp. Taine, op. cit., I, p. 100 et seq., ed. 1899, 
 
 ssTaine, op. cit., I, pp. 402-404, ed. 
 
TEE THIRD ESTATE. 91 
 
 such, for example, as its municipal rights, — over and 
 over again from each successive sovereign.^® As a class 
 the Tiers-Etat seems absorbed in acquiring wealth or 
 in striving after place in the government or among the 
 petty noblesse. 
 
 The result of this ambition was a rise of the class in 
 place and prestige. The actual power of the Third 
 Estate grew to be undoubted; its pride grew likewise; 
 but certain social conditions, which must of necessity 
 chafe that pride, did not change. The manners of a 
 regime are possibly a small thing; but when men have 
 wealth and influence, when they have the judicial and 
 administrative control of the nation, when they are as 
 cultured as any class in the kingdom,*" a social code, 
 which refuses to recognize their true position, is a se- 
 rious irritant. An " etiquette as rigorous as a relig- 
 ion "*^ shut the bourgeoisie from equality with the noble 
 and clergy. The petty and purely arbitrary character 
 of the barrier which kept the Third Estate subordinate, 
 made the distinction the less endurable. If the bour- 
 geoisie became eager for change and the chief factor in 
 revolution, it is not too much to say that the fact that 
 government continued to countenance and justify the 
 arbitrary and humiliating distinctions of this social code 
 gave much of the impetus necessary to drive the class 
 to such a position. The bourgeoisie were undoubt- 
 edly irritated by the instability and uncertainty of the 
 tax; but their prosperity was great, and they might 
 
 39 Thierry, op. cit., passim. 
 
 40 Von Hoist puts it well. " Differences of rank continue to 
 be embroidered on coats, but they more and more cease to 
 be engraved on the thought and feeling." op. cit., I, p. 57, 
 
 41 Belloc. Life of Danton, p. 16, ed. 1899. 
 
92 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REYOLUTION. 
 
 have stood the tinkering with the tax Bystem for a 
 longer time had the government shown any disposition 
 to recognize their social position. The logic of Eons- 
 seau and the Physiocrats gave the last spur to pride al- 
 ready stung past endurance by regulations which pro- 
 hibited men of brains and wealth from being army of- 
 ficers, church prelates or provincial governors. The 
 Third Estate rose to ask for abolition of privilege and 
 liberty of thought, because government refused to recog- 
 nize any laws which would change the distasteful situa- 
 tion. 
 
 To sum up this brief estimate of the relation of the 
 Third Estate to the revolutionary principles. The 
 revolutionary spirit of the bourgeoisie drew much in- 
 spiration from a fierce impatience of the slights put 
 upon them by and in the name of the nobility. It was 
 the outraged pride thus aroused which strengthened 
 the rising contempt for an ineffective government and 
 finally made the bourgeoisie the spokesmen for 
 the new doctrines of the philosophers. Social condi- 
 tions now argued for the desirability of principles 
 which, in a less pressing time, might have seemed to 
 most of the class mere abstract reasoning. When, by 
 the latter part of the eighteenth century, a certain 
 amount of prosperity had made the hatred of meaning- 
 less class distinctions sufficiently pronounced; when im- 
 patience with the uncertain and heavy tax system stirred 
 once more the desire for the old right to a part in ad- 
 justing the tax levy, then, and not until then, the new 
 philosophy which innovators of the class had been 
 eagerly preaching, came to be the voice of the class it- 
 self. The eighteenth century principles which a section 
 
PARIS AND ITS inPLUENCH. 93 
 
 of the Third Estate had fathered were then sifted out 
 and adopted by the whole Third Estate. The republics 
 of Sparta and Eome and the new social and political 
 philosophy of their own land took on new and formerly 
 undreamed of possibilities when men began to feel keenly 
 the cramping character of the institutions under which 
 they lived. Principles of reform which chamber poli- 
 ticians had formulated were now enthusiastically em- 
 braced, because the instincts and present interests of 
 the whole class fell into line with those principles. It 
 was — and the contradiction is by no means a unique 
 one in history — because the Third Estate aimed at 
 social and political supremacy that they became converts 
 to and partisans of theories which held that no man 
 had special rights to such social supremacy. A class 
 rousing with renewed vigor to strive for its political 
 liberty, was now ready to make a supreme struggle 
 to gain the goal toward which it had always been in- 
 stinctively aiming. 
 
 III. 
 
 Before they can become the positive rules for the con- 
 duct of a given society, new principles must have more 
 than a hope to ground on, a bitter grievance as motive 
 and a social class to stand sponsor for them. To give the 
 doctrines which they have adopted an effective political 
 form, it is necessary that the class which supports these 
 new doctrines should find means to concentrate and 
 organize their ideas, and should have been able to win 
 emotional support from an effective part of the nation. 
 The principles of the Eevolution found the necessary 
 concentration, organization and popularization in the 
 
94 PRINCIPLES OP FRENCH REfOLVTtON. 
 
 conditions of Paris life and thought. A brief sketch of 
 the more important social influences in the capital of 
 France must then be added to the tale of the various 
 influences which made for the realization of the new 
 radical doctrine. 
 
 It may or may not be true that, as Arthur Young 
 asserted,*^ Paris was the head and front of the revolu- 
 tionary movement even in 1789. It is, however, 
 undoubted that Paris made the Eevolution of '93.*^ 
 Paris, with its many and interesting aspects of social 
 life, furnished the final arguments that did away with 
 hesitating opinions. In the great metropolis, already 
 the center of European art and manners, men found 
 the courage which comes from a sense of convictions 
 shared. The various phases of social life which the 
 city included, were so many agencies cooperating to 
 create that consensus of opinion which, organized 
 finally into the turbulent sections of '93, brought a new 
 ethical and political system into Prance. The salons, 
 the clubs, the cafes of Paris, the theaters, the news- 
 papers, the very streets, became so many mediums for 
 that association between man and man, by which ex- 
 change of ideas gives to each one a new certainty as to 
 the soundness of his own theories or brings wavering 
 minds into the camp of strong conviction. 
 
 So much has been written concerning the Prench 
 salons that they need little more than mention. For 
 a century or more the salons had been the "talent 
 factories " of the intellectual world of France. To the 
 
 <2 Arthur Young, op. cit., p. 229. 
 
 43 Comp. Cherest. La Chute de I'ancien RSgime, 1. 
 
SALONS OF TEE REVOLUTION. 95 
 
 salons of the eighteenth century men had brought their 
 new ideas for discussion, for criticism or for applause; 
 in the salons of that age along with flirtation or worse, 
 the broadest thinking and the most brilliant literature 
 of the century had found expression. But the salons 
 in 1789, while presenting, like their predecessors, the 
 same general character of gilded chambers and cul- 
 tured women, were none the less intrinsically different; 
 the salons of '89 had become consciously political. 
 Canons of literary art, questions of abstract right and 
 wrong, were put aside, and debate now turned eagerly 
 on the possibilities of a social reorganization on the 
 basis of certain principles. 
 
 This political character of the salons of 1789 is easily 
 recognizable when the leading drawing-rooms of the 
 day are recalled.** If one passes by such reunions as 
 those at Madame de Chambras or Madame de Sabran, 
 where the reactionaries gathered, and puts aside the 
 salons of Madame Necker, where conservatism tried to 
 keep alive after conservatism had become impossible, 
 then it is not only politics but radical politics which 
 hold the floor in all the other prominent salons. In the 
 rooms of Madame de Beauharnais, Madame Helvetius, 
 Madame de Genlis, Madame Talma or Mile, de Meri- 
 court, each hostess had in her own way taken eagerly to 
 politics and to the notion of the Eevolution, and the 
 deputies and their satellites, who were to be the active 
 instruments in the formulation of the principles of 
 revolution, found a welcome at one or the other of 
 
 4*De Goncourt. Histoire de la SocigtS frangaise pendant 
 la Revolution, pp. 10-12; pp. 13-14. 
 
96 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCB REYOLVTION. 
 
 these drawing-rooms. Talent and originality fre- 
 quented Madame de Beauharnais; opportunists and 
 demagogues found the rooms of that " bavarde de la 
 morale," Madame de Genlis most to their liking; the 
 " artistic " politician went to Madame Talma's quaint 
 room, and the bohemians all took a turn at Mile, de 
 Mericourt's. But no matter which lady was favored, 
 the talk at any one of these salons was politics; in all 
 cases the result was to feed high the new hope and to 
 increase the certainty that the old institutions must 
 give way to a new era. 
 
 Thus in a certain way, the salons all served an impor- 
 tant purpose ; they emphasized the drift of opinion and 
 helped to concentrate it. A place where men can air 
 their beliefs, and, by force of defense of them, grow 
 strong in them at the same time that they convince 
 others, is no mean aid to the spread of the new doctrine ; 
 and the salons of '89 were just that sort of aid. A 
 visitor was never more interesting in a Parisian draw- 
 ing-room of that time than when recounting the most 
 recent occurrences in the Assembly or telling of the 
 probable program for the morrow. The talk turned 
 on little else. To be the lion of one of these drawing- 
 rooms it needed only to be able to set forth in good 
 style the Eights of Man and the wrongs of the French 
 nation. When it is remembered that it became quite 
 customary for young men to recite to an eager and 
 admiring circle the motion or speech which they were 
 to give in the Assembly the next day, it is easily credible 
 that some of these gatherings really were " the nucleus 
 of the national assembly, the nucleus whence came the 
 
CLUBS OF THE REVOLUTION. 97 
 
 germs which, made fruitful by public opinion, have pro- 
 duced liberty."*^ Everything goes to prove that the 
 salons were an important factor in kindling enthusiasm 
 for new doctrines and winning allegiance to them. 
 
 The clubs of Paris were not, like the salons, an old 
 and recognized institution of social life ; they may fairly 
 be said to have been born of the new philosophy. Not 
 until late in the century, when a new sense of interest 
 in practical political problems caught and held them, 
 did Frenchmen begin to draw together in small coteries 
 for the discussion of such problems. Even in their 
 origin the clubs were an expression of the new spirit. 
 In the beginning the existing ordinances forced those 
 who desired to gather together to discuss political prob- 
 lems, to put on the appearance of groups of persons 
 assembling in reading-rooms or attending purely philo- 
 sophical or literary gatherings in private homes. Soon 
 all over the country there were such reunions, ostensi- 
 bly social, but in reality political or revolutionary to a 
 greater or less degree.*^ 
 
 These clubs gave a new and vigorous impulse to the 
 revolutionary movement. On the one hand they served 
 as training-schools for political leaders, who up to that 
 time had been unaccustomed to anything but academic 
 oratory; on the other, they were the means by which 
 
 *5 " L'oeuf de rassembl6e nationale, I'oeuf d'ofl Bont sortis 
 les germes qui, f6cond6s par I'opinion publique, ont produit 
 les fruits de la libertfi." (De Goncourt, op. cit,, p. 12.) 
 
 ■46Comp. De Goncourt, op. cit., p. 15; Bailly, op. cit., Vol. I, 
 p. 10; Michelet, Histoire de la Revolution frangaise, 11, p. 
 248. 
 
 7 
 
98 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 these leaders were finally able to play upon the discon- 
 tent of the Paris masses and turn it to account. 
 
 To get convincing evidence of how the clubs gave 
 the leaders of the Eevolution not only their first les- 
 sons in politics but their final opinions as well, it needs 
 only to turn over the reports of the greatest society 
 of them all, the reports of the Jacobin Club.*'' The 
 gradual alteration in the character of the speeches 
 which were given there, evidences strikingly the de- 
 velopment which took place among the speakers. 
 The "conferences" change from philosophic exposi- 
 tion of the Eights of Man and of the Social Contract 
 and become well-rounded political orations or fiery out- 
 bursts of specious mob oratory. And this club repre- 
 sents the true center where the revolutionary principles 
 developed. For what though the Peuillants, the Cor- 
 deliers and the Cercle Social were each in a way force- 
 ful, they were the extremes; the center and sum of the 
 revolutionary theory was at the Jacobin Club. From 
 the Jacobins came the protesting voice which swept 
 away old forms and the convincing principles which 
 guided them to new; it was the Jacobin Society which 
 provided the arm that reached out to crush all impedi- 
 ment to change. The history of the Jacobin Society 
 is the history of the Eevolution in miniature — the his- 
 tory of the Eevolution in its most interesting, that is, 
 its intellectual aspect. The story of this club is, in 
 short, the last page in the history of the revolutionary 
 principles. The chronicle of the Jacobin Club tells of 
 
 *7 The most inclusive work on the Jacobins known to the 
 author is Aulard's La Society des Jacobins. Paris, 1889-1898, 
 6 vols. 
 
CLVB8 OF TEE REVOLUTION. 99 
 
 men slowly gaining positive ideas by virtue of long 
 nightly debates, of men gradually finding at the club 
 the capacity to move others, and then going out to 
 become the leaders in a parliamentary struggle for the 
 ideas they had acquired. When the speeches at th^ 
 Jacobins' for any given time are set alongside those of 
 the parliamentary records for the same time, an in- 
 teresting fact becomes clear. What the leaders said 
 in the assemblies they had usually repeated at the 
 Jacobin Club. It was then, as they became sure of 
 the support of the hundreds who each night crowded 
 the large library of the Jacobin monastery in the little 
 rue Saint-Hyacinthe, that the leaders of the Eevolution 
 developed the daring and force which changed them 
 from social reformers to busy politicians. Prom this 
 gray store-room of the recorded thought of men, now 
 changed to an auditorium, daily growing more and 
 more tumultuous, a new thought-life was sent vibrating 
 through France. 
 
 When it is question of the clubs as to the means to 
 get the ear of the masses, the Jacobins shares the hon- 
 ors with the Cordeliers and the Cercle Social. At the 
 Jacobins, Mirabeau, Barnave, Vergniaud, Eobespierre, 
 came one after the other "to lead men by the ears," 
 but all the clubs did a conspicuous work of propaganda. 
 Nightly, at the Cordelier, Danton's voice rang out, driv- 
 ing home a new patriotism and a new courage to the 
 heart and brain of every small workman and fiery stu- 
 dent who heard him. Nightly, Claude Pauchet pi'eached 
 Eousseau or communism to hysterical men and women 
 at the Cercle Social, and fostered that extreme wing of 
 revolution which culminated in Babouvism. Besides 
 
idQ PRINCIPLES OF FBMcS RMOLVTIOTJ. 
 
 serving as a means to define the politician's point of 
 view, the clubs were then so many means to spread dis- 
 content and a new creed among the already alienated 
 lower classes. At the clubs, the Paris masses added 
 the will to do, to their recently acquired will to think 
 for themselves. 
 
 Perhaps no one of these clubs made for revolution as 
 directly as did the " Club des Enrages," the name 
 often given to the gatherings at the Palais Eoyal. If 
 the more organized societies fed the will to do, the hand 
 to strike for the new principles was found at the Club 
 des Enrages. Here Camille Desmoulins and his friends 
 won the cooperation of all that was disaffected in Paris ; 
 here, when revolt began, those whom famine had nearly 
 maddened or the weak municipality had stupidly in- 
 censed, the hungry, the vicious, the resentful, all empty- 
 pocketed and burning with mere physical smart, heard 
 a story to their liking. N"o fee or form of enrolment 
 kept this most factious part of the city population from 
 loitering in and listening with uproarious approval as 
 men, mounted on chairs, criticised the acts of the king 
 and the Assembly, laughed at the new mayor or decried 
 Lafayette. Most unclub-like of clubs, this was the 
 strongest agent for inoculating the masses with ideas of 
 democracy — or ochlocracy; and it was here that a 
 power was roused which presently became a driving- 
 force for the leaders themselves. 
 
 The Club des Enrag6s is a composite which, when 
 analyzed, resolves into a number of cafes fronting on 
 a large and beautiful court. Each of these cafes by 
 itself, along with many others scattered about the big 
 
cafSs of the revolution. 101 
 
 city, came conspicuously into the foreground as a debat- 
 ing place, where revolutionary principles were knocked 
 about in a tempest of opinion. 
 
 The cafes were an influence more directly emotional 
 than either salon or club proper, yet emphatically an 
 influence aiding the selection and organization of the 
 new theories. At all times during the past two hun- 
 dred years or more, the cafe has been the chief loitering- 
 place in France. Here, in ordinary times, as they sip 
 their coffee or stronger drink, chat with an acquaint- 
 ance or watch the street life drifting past them, 
 Frenchmen catch the current social idea, and thus 
 modify and make socially effective their individual 
 opinions. In 1789, the social idea was everywhere ask- 
 ing for a hearing with an insistence which gave it a 
 marked determinative force. In face of the swelling 
 revolt, the cafe of 1789 changed its whole character in 
 a brief period. 
 
 The swift transformation of the cafe from a peace- 
 able loitering-place to a more or less strongly organized 
 party stronghold is one of the entertaining stories of 
 the Eevolution. How the cafes had been severely super- 
 vised up to 1789, so that no political discussions were 
 permitted in them, is as well known as the way in 
 which, when that surveillance ceased during Keeker's 
 administration, these same cafes became "public 
 schools of democracy and insurrection."** The non- 
 partisan cafe was not even tolerated, as the few learned 
 who, in these troublous times, sought, at the Cafe Flore, 
 a place where they might peaceably have no opinions; 
 
 48 Sallier. Annales frangaises, p. 241. Quoted in Cherest, 
 op. eit., Vol, II, p. 218. 
 
102 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 they soon found themselves forced to take a share in 
 public affairs or to disband.*^ The cafe, as an element 
 of social life, made way for the cafe become the mogt 
 lively exponent of the political situation. 
 
 In the clubs, the debate centered about principles of 
 ethics and government; in the cafes, the fight had 
 rather to do with small differences of opinion and 
 the relative merit of party leaders. One pictures 
 the applause as the habitues of these cafes heard their 
 own sentiments voiced by the orators who were regularly 
 established at most of them. It is easy to guess how 
 the audience got new courage for their convictions, as 
 they listened to the stimulating speakers mounted on 
 table-tops; how their opinions strengthened as they 
 aided to draw up hastily improvised resolutions, and 
 how some must have learned what they were fighting 
 for, as they danced about the nightly bonfires which 
 kept their enthusiasm at gala-day pitch. The daily 
 challenges which the five o'clock " deliberative clubs " 
 sent from Zoppi's or the Cafe des Arts, the Cafe du 
 Bourbon or the Cafe de Mirabeau (Tonneau), the money 
 summarily collected from the frequenters of these places 
 and sent to the militia for arms, were each in a way so 
 many indications of a newly-born idea of concerted 
 action in order to the political end. The hot debates, 
 the bluster and stir which made the Caf6 de Foi,'" the 
 portico of the Eevolution, the very center of sedition 
 and uproar, where old institutions were satirized and 
 reforms tumultuously advocated, are for the present 
 
 49 De Goneourt, op. cit., pp. 207-209. 
 BO Ibid, p. 202. 
 
THEATERS OF THE REVOLUTION. 103 
 
 study less a picture of daily collision between royalist 
 and republican than a scene which evidences the growth 
 of strong political feeling and a final boiling-over of 
 discontent. It seems impossible to overestimate the 
 part of the cafe in the work of disseminating the new 
 opinion by way of shouting it, while at the same time 
 ridiculing the old. 
 
 A word here with regard to the theaters, whose in- 
 fluence was of a kind similar to that of the cafes. It 
 is a fact old in the history of changes in national 
 thought, that the play's the thing by which to spread 
 the contagion of a new idea and nurse a young en- 
 thusiasm to the point of action. In 1789, as at any 
 time in French history, the Paris playhouse did its full 
 share in voicing public opinion and playing upon the 
 emotions of the masses. From the time that " Figaro,"^^ 
 after four years of struggle with censorship, set Paris 
 covertly mocking at the old regime and the inconsis- 
 tencies it presented between men's thoughts and acts, 
 the stage was used more and more boldly to scout the 
 tottering system. When it is recalled that, of the 
 thirty-five theaters which nightly during the Eevolution 
 opened their doors to Parisians of all classes, only four 
 were royalists, it is not hard to guess the direction 
 which the opinions of the theater-goers were likely to 
 take. How " Charles IX "^^ set the example for count- 
 less "pieces de circonstances " of less literary value, 
 but perhaps as much immediate influence, is a bit 
 
 51 First produced in 1784. 
 
 52 M. J. Chenier; produced first on November 4, 1789. The 
 De Groncourts call it " le drapeau de la Kgvolution." Cf., op. 
 eit., pp. 48-53. 
 
104 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 of history which always goes along with the descrip- 
 tion of how tliese plays taught lessons of patriotism 
 and hatred of tyranny and roused or gratified the pas- 
 sions of the day. As the clubs and political hodies came 
 to a clearer understanding of what they were working 
 for, the stage took up their opinions, and by means of 
 the brilliant costumes and stirring events of a past or 
 present time, put club harangues into a poetic form 
 which sent the ideas these advocated, no longer to the 
 intellects of the hearers, but directly to their hearts. 
 The drama's share in giving form to the revolutionary 
 principles is then by no means to be forgotten. 
 
 The newspapers of the time took a conspicuous 
 part in the work of propaganda. The average man 
 reads for one or both of two reasons; he either seeks 
 to find his opinions, put definitely and in a way he 
 himself is incapable of putting them, or he wants to 
 feel a sense of comradeship in his ideas. If, then, in a 
 time of revolt, there is a greedy grasping for daily lit- 
 erature of a radical kind, it is because men are become 
 eager to see their own longings for change worded by 
 those who are less voiceless than they, or because they 
 are keen to know how much and how widely their half- 
 confessed iconoclastic ideas are the general opinion. 
 Similarly, when certain temperaments are possessed by 
 a new ideal which they desire to make current, they 
 find putting it into a brief and popular form the easiest 
 and most suggestive means for spreading such an ideal. 
 The newspaper and pamphlet are then likely to be most 
 prolific and the best indication of public feeling in 
 times of social storm and stress; the remarkable popu- 
 
NEWSPAPERS OF TBE REVOLUTION. IQS 
 
 larity of the newspaper as well as the countless num- 
 ber puMished during the revolutionary period seems 
 thus to be accounted for. 
 
 As facts of practical life, the French newspaper and 
 the notion of democracy came to France at about the 
 same time.''^ The French journal came full grown to an 
 eager public. By this novel means, clever men, most 
 of whom posited democracy as the prerequisite to any 
 successful social life, ably joined, in the preaching and 
 teaching of the new theories. At any period of its his- 
 tory, nothing more partisan than the French newspaper 
 can be conceived of, and the pioneers of '89 were the 
 hardiest partisans of their race. It is easy to imagine 
 how flagging sympathies must have been stirred to en- 
 ergetic alliance by the feverish calls to liberty and 
 equality which the " Eevolutions de France et de Bra- 
 bant," the " Eevolutions de Paris," " L'Ami de Peuple," 
 "Pere Duchesne," and the dozen similar publications 
 sent out daily to a listening Paris. The small circula- 
 tion and uncertain existence of the court papers, such 
 as the "Actes des Ap6tres " or the "Apocalypse " leave 
 little doubt that early in the struggle, majority opinion 
 in Paris had gone over to the notion of revolt. His- 
 tory, telling of the eagerness with which these daily 
 publications were bought and read, and of the sacri- 
 fices which men and women made in order to buy them, 
 proves the increasing popularity of the democracy they 
 preached and the extending reach of their influence. 
 It is clear enough that the journals swiftly became " the 
 
 53 De Goneourt, op. cit., p. 252. " Fils de '89, le journal 
 n'a pas d'enfance." Comp. also, Blanc. La Revolution Fran- 
 caise. III, p. 115. 
 
106 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 cry of war, the provocation, the attack, the defense; the 
 national assembly where everyone speaks and replies, 
 and which furnishes the theme of the other national as- 
 sembly; * * * tribune of paper, more listened to, 
 more ringing, more reigning, than the tribune where 
 Mirabeau apostrophized or Maury replied."^ 
 
 The influence of the pamphlet fell short of that 
 of the newspaper in so far as the public who reads long 
 articles is made up of fewer persons than that which 
 reads publications more brief and abstract in tenor. 
 The sudden appearance of the astonishing number of 
 pamphlets has been called "a particular crisis in the 
 midst of a general crisis."^^ Men still marvel at the 
 enormous output of pamphletary literature,^® and, turn- 
 ing over the five thousand and more specimens of them, 
 which remain to represent this tjrpe of revolutionary 
 writings, they marvel also at the unanimity of opinion, 
 the boldness and simplicity of idea which characterizes 
 most of them. Usually the pamphlet was the voice of 
 the noblemen or clergymen, who represented the revo- 
 lutionary minority in the upper classes. The most 
 moderate asked for immediate and complete abolition 
 of many social abuses; the radical sort asked for an 
 entire alteration in social organization. 
 
 The brochures most frequently read were popular 
 expositions of the ideas of the eighteenth century phil- 
 
 54 De Goneourt, op. eit., chap, x, p. 252. 
 
 55 0herest, op. cit., II, p. 248. 
 
 56 The publication of the pamphlets began with the call for 
 the Assembly of the Notables; in the last month of 1788 there 
 were 2,500 collected. For a good study of pamphlets, with re- 
 gard to the theory they contain, see Lichtenberger, Le Social- 
 isme et La Revolution Frangaise, pp. 31-54. 
 
PAMPHLETS OF THE BETOLVTION. JQT 
 
 osophers, with additional suggestions, as how to apply 
 those ideas directly to existing conditions. In a 
 word, the pamphlets were the final literary presenta- 
 tion of those principles which the thought of the cen- 
 tury had developed. 
 
 Some of these pamphlets taught to the masses what 
 the " Contrat Social " had taught their leaders. Who- 
 soever reads the bold demand for the rights of the 
 Third Estate framed in the pamphlet, whose very title 
 " What is the Third Estate? " (" Qu'est ce que le Tiers- 
 Etat? ") stirred a long-forgotten question, reads Eous- 
 seau, as well as Sieyes. The cool assertion of the 
 rights of the Third Estate, the daring elevation of the 
 caste to the first place in the realm, the positive proofs 
 which its history is said to furnish that it is right and 
 necessary for the Third Estate to hold first place in the 
 legislation, these are the important facts which the 
 pamphlet carries for our purpose. And when others'*'' 
 go to greater lengths, one picturing Prance strong and 
 grand before the world, though deprived by fortuitous 
 circumstances of her clergy and nobles,'* another even 
 openly discussing a French republic,*"® it is evident that 
 the pamphlet was not far behind the journal in express- 
 ing a claim for new theories, all tending in one direc- 
 tion. 
 
 The " almanachs " of this time are so numerous and 
 so characteristic that they merit a word in passing. 
 
 57Condorcet, Volney, Target, Bergasse, Mounier, Servan, 
 Eabaud de St. Etienne, are the most important writers of 
 pamphlets. 
 
 58 Eabaud de St. Etienne; note the resemblance of this 
 idea to that of St. Simon in his " Parabola." 
 
 59 Camille Desmoulins, in his " France Libre." 
 
IQg PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 These curious and distinctively French publications 
 played the not altogether admirable part of the low 
 comedian, whose jokes reach the gallery where the in- 
 tellectual didactics of the leading personages fail of ef- 
 fect. Their share in the work must not be neglected. 
 Particularly in France, where to ridicule is to kill 
 socially, the low comedian has no despicable r61e, and 
 it is probable that the almanac played a significant 
 part in the work of reshaping public opinion. The 
 cheap prose and cheaper poetry of the "Almanach 
 des Eepublicains," of the " Calendrier des Bons Citoy- 
 ens" of Collot d'Herbois; the popular "Almanach du 
 Pere Gerard," or the other more royalist publications 
 of a similar nature,®* are dull enough reading now; 
 but their absurd, even offensive commonplace had much 
 vogue at the time it was edited. The whole tenor 
 of these publications was to belittle the past, to cry 
 aloud the gifts which the present had ready for the fu- 
 ture — above all to exalt a future that was to be shaped 
 by the inspired theories with which the Eevolution was 
 blessing men. Though empty of meaning, unless read 
 in the light of the events which produced them, the 
 almanacs take their place along with newspaper and 
 pamphlet as a medium to catch and hold the possibly 
 unsettled mind of the reading public.^* 
 
 To these more institutional phases of Paris life add 
 
 60 L' Almanach de I'Abbe Maury, Les Almanaohs des Emigres, 
 L' Almanach historique et critique des deputes," are especially 
 noteworthy. Comp. Welachinger, Les Almanachs de la Revo- 
 lution. Paris, 1884. 
 
 81 For a good study of the content and influence of the al- 
 manac, the reader is referred to Welachinger's readable little 
 book. 
 
FINAL FOCUSlJfG. 109 
 
 now the gradual changes which the Eevolution slowly 
 brought about. "When the new ideas of equality and 
 liberty strive to become applied doctrine, Paris still 
 leads in stimulating to active discontent or in making 
 for solidarity of opinion. When the militia organized 
 and all classes thus came shoulder to shoulder in an 
 entirely new service of citizenship; when titles were 
 banished, and armorial bearings were removed from 
 houses where they had been for centuries; when simple 
 and similar dress went along with newly-awakened sen- 
 sibilities concerning a neighbor's rights, each change 
 came to act as another plea for a widespread and en- 
 tire acceptance of principles completely revolutionary. 
 When, on the other hand, Paris streets surged daily 
 with thousands of beggars and unemployed,®^ come foot- 
 sore and in haste to the fount of freedom in order to 
 get a share in the new liberty, that element of blind 
 force arrived which completed the probability of swift 
 and entire alteration in the social institutions. By 
 1793, Paris inclosed within her walls all that was nec- 
 essary to give power to the radical reformer. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We have almost reached the period in French his- 
 tory when the radical rationalism which is the sub- 
 ject of this study took precedence, if only for a brief 
 time, of all other theory, both in the mouths of men and 
 in social institutions. One more group of social facts 
 needs to be noted as a determining influence, not so 
 much now, an influence for the expression of revolu- 
 
 62 There were 119,000 in 1791. Von Hoist, op. clt., 1, p. 47. 
 
110 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 tionary principles as one which decided the final color 
 to be given those principles. In addition to the new 
 culture, the national disintegration and the class awak- 
 ening which were essential preliminaries of a time when 
 new doctrines actually displaced the old; in addition to 
 the elements of Paris life, which aided to concentrate 
 and strengthen the doctrine, the events which decided 
 their entirely radical character need to be noted. The 
 dramatic period which includes the meeting of the first 
 two legislative bodies of France and a small part of 
 the history of the third, also includes the final change, 
 which for a short, yet notable period, made the demo- 
 cratic sentiments of a few doctrinaires and their allies 
 the announced principles of the French nation. During 
 this period passionate debates finally wrought a change 
 in the whole political system of the nation. At the 
 end of the period, uncompromising advocates of a log- 
 ical and complete alteration in the social theory of the 
 time had, with the aid of the Paris mob, won their 
 fight, and for a short while the Principles of Eevolu- 
 tion were promulgated as the law of France. 
 
 This closing period may be divided into three stages. 
 The first is that during which the Constituent Assem- 
 bly begins a definite statement of the principles of revo- 
 lution, and then, with a lingering respect for the old 
 doctrine, compromises on the reforms expressed in the 
 Constitution of '91. The next is that period when 
 revolutionary principles were vigorously demanded, but 
 social anarchy and a struggle of factions chilled those 
 who held, political control so that they hesitated to 
 further the final enumeration of these principles. 
 
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. m 
 
 Finally there came the time ■when a group of opportun- 
 ists got control, and, promulgating the Constitution 
 of '93, completed the record of the immediate causes 
 of the revolutionary principles. 
 
 The Constituent Assembly represents a struggle be- 
 tween abstract philosophy and the doctrines of ap- 
 plied politics; it is the place where the practical men 
 make their last effective protest against the despotism 
 of logic. But the rationalistic type of mind had iirst 
 place even in this earliest legislative body. For the 
 most part, the Constituent Assembly was made up of 
 young, convent-bred men, who had little or no knowl- 
 edge of practical politics"^ — men who, under Paris in- 
 fluences, were daily growing more liberty-mad. Ee- 
 calling this fact, it is not surprising that the deputies of 
 '89 forgot the many important administrative duties 
 which they had come to perform, and spent months in 
 a wrangle over logical principles which, in the eyes of 
 these enthusiasts, seemed the right and necessary basis 
 of the new government they were to inaugurate. 
 Called to make constitutional and administrative law, 
 to alter and codify civil law, to devise means of sup- 
 port for a bankrupt government and eventually to plan 
 for an ecclesiastic and educational system — in a word, 
 to serve at once as legislators and legislature, to make 
 law and to administer the law, they did neither until 
 they had first drawn up the Eights of Man! A spirit 
 of reform rather than of revolution may have later 
 
 63 For one of the best rgsumes of the character of the As- 
 sembly, see Taine, op. cit., Vol. 11, chap. 1, pp. 154-178. Ar- 
 thur Young and Dumont (Mgmoires de Mlrabeau) also bear 
 the same testimony on this point. 
 
112 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 regained control of the Assembly,** because Mirabeau's 
 strong statesmanship fairly dominated that body even 
 against its will ; — none the less this same Assembly 
 sent forth the Eights of Man to France and these 
 Rights of Man were the fundamental doctrine in the 
 revolutionary principles. The stress which the As- 
 sembly laid upon this series of abstractions spread and 
 deepened the revolution in men's minds. 
 
 The remaining work of the Assembly was the Con- 
 stitution of '91. This body of rules for the govern- 
 ment of France is a futile effort to reconcile the prin- 
 ciples of monarchy and democracy. It created as ex- 
 ecutive, a king, whose legislative power consisted in a 
 suspensive veto which gave the monarch a very con- 
 siderable power to block legislation, and so seemed to 
 make constant friction with the legislative almost cer- 
 tain. As to the legislative, its democratic and radical 
 character seemed assured. It is true that its members 
 were required to have somewhat high property quali- 
 fications and were chosen by indirect election, but the 
 legislative body was to be unicameral, and was to change 
 every two years. In consideration of the average of 
 human nature, a plan for a legislature of one cham- 
 ber, which changed its personnel so often, was one 
 which seemed to make factional and ineffective govern- 
 ment inevitable. Most important of all, this instru- 
 ment of government disputed the very terms of the 
 Declaration of Rights which had proudly been placed 
 at its head; for, on a basis of money distinctions, it sepa- 
 rated the nation into active and passive citizens. The 
 Constitution of '91 is, then, the recorded evidence of the 
 
 «* See e. g., art. 16, where the principle of the separation 
 of powers is laid down. 
 
MINORITIES CONTROL. Hg 
 
 momentary compromise between the incompatible ele- 
 ments contending in the Assembly. It is the close of 
 the reform movement as against the revolutionary move- 
 ment; or, to look at it from another point of view, 
 it is the last dyke which the less radical element of 
 the nation managed to erect for a brief time in face 
 of the rising flood of revolutionary opinion. 
 
 It is a curious fact in the political affairs of human- 
 ity — a fact that of course holds good for other than 
 French history — that it is an energetic minority which 
 usually holds and carries with it the more or less unwill- 
 ing majority. Nowhere in history is this better evi- 
 denced than in the successive assemblies of the French 
 Eevolution. If conservatism partly controlled the con- 
 stituent, it was because Mirabeau's voice, raised in 
 warning against the despotism of mobs, checked the 
 majority in their growing passion of eagerness to realize 
 political equality at once. If the Legislative Assembly 
 moved steadily to the extreme democracy which the 
 Convention ultimately sanctioned, it was because within 
 these legislative bodies a small group of energetic Par- 
 isians drove opinion in that direction. True, outside 
 the halls of state, this minority itself was driven; but 
 so far as the legislative assemblies are in question, it 
 seems certain that throughout the Eevolution, the ma- 
 jority at Center, swayed to Eight or Left, alternately 
 the captive of one or the other of the contending minor- 
 ities. 
 
 The formidable ally of this minority, the power be- 
 hind the throne which may be said to have finally ruled 
 France and given it the principles of revolution, was 
 
 8 
 
114 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 of course the Parisian populace. The people of the great 
 metropolis were, at the last, the means to enforce the 
 proclamation of those fundamental laws that gave legal 
 sanction to the Declaration of Eights, and so completed 
 the Declaration of the Eeyolutionary principles. Acting 
 through the Commune and the sections, the Paris 
 masses were the real minority which as early as II'SD 
 began to shape French political thinking. Even in 
 the Constituent Assembly, monarchical ideas grew 
 weak and retired in face of the fierce invect- 
 ive and angry demands of the hungry, excited spec- 
 tators, who daily crowded the tribunes; even at 
 that time, selfish or patriotic reasons impelled men to 
 thiuk and talk after the way of those " sans-culottes," 
 who acted as chorus to all the proceedings of the As- 
 sembly. Later, the rumble of opinion which the clubs, 
 cafes and newspapers sent from outside had no in- 
 conspicuous share in molding parliamentary opinion. 
 When club members, frequenters of caf6s, and the mot- 
 ley united to make more or less forcible entrance into 
 the hall where the Assembly met, bringing almost daily, 
 by delegations or impromptu personal speeches, insis- 
 tent protests against half measures, the bulk of the 
 legislative opinion was frequently caught by sheer force 
 of suggestion. The Parisians soon learned to reject 
 any laws which did not entirely recognize the prin- 
 ciples laid down in the Declaration of Eights; they 
 likewise learned their power as against that of the As- 
 sembly. The continual disorder in Paris and the 
 highly nervous temperament of the Parisian together 
 constituted the last straw which precipitated the nation 
 into absolute democracy. 
 
FINAL STRVOOLE. 115 
 
 In times of social disorganization, political power 
 usually ialls to that group of persons within the na- 
 tion which is sufficiently in accord as to purpose, suffi- 
 ciently strong in organization, and sufficiently pliant 
 in regard to methods of domination. Such a group 
 rarely fails to appear in human societies; it did not 
 fail to appear at the period of French history here 
 under discussion. The dramatic seizure of govern- 
 ment by the Jacobins is one of the narratives which 
 history dwells oftenest upon. 
 
 It will not do to ascribe the Jacobin control to the 
 weakness of the Constitution of '91; nor is it solely at- 
 tributable to the royalist invasion which gave the Ja- 
 cobins the chord of patriotism to play upon. Each of 
 these facts aided the Jacobins, but their rise to 
 power and the conseqiient adoption of the principles 
 they advocated was due first of all to this: in a time 
 of extreme anarchy, a few able men to whom youth 
 gave the courage to dare, caught the temper of the 
 Paris mob, won its support and held it. The successive 
 stages of their struggle to victory — a struggle wherein 
 king, conservative and liberal went down making a 
 hard fight against opinion whose bulwark was the 
 Eights of Man — need only be recalled. Mirabeau-Ton- 
 neau and D'Espremenil were forced to retire before 
 the moderates, who asked for enlightened monarchy; 
 the Malouets and Lallys went to the wall when Sieyes, 
 St. Etienne, Talleyrand or La Eochefoucauld put for- 
 ward the elective principle; these, in their turn, came 
 to seem conservative as Mirabeau, ready for almost any 
 lengths, in order to control and bring stability to the 
 government, played upon the sympathies of the people 
 
IIQ PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 with his oratory,®^ and for a time became their idol. 
 These changes of faction are the successive phases of 
 the struggle between the majority of the parliamentary 
 body and the Mountain, the minority who represented 
 the commune; they need not be dwelt upon. For our 
 purpose, the interest centers about the moment when 
 two powers finally stood face to face. "When men pres- 
 ent in the legislative body from the first, had joined 
 their interests with those of the commonalty which 
 stood roaring outside, the last stage was reached pre- 
 liminary to formulating the principles of revolution. 
 
 If the Jacobins, with the aid of the Paris clubs and 
 the Paris sections, came to rule Prance, it was because 
 the first gift of the Eevolution to the provinces was an 
 anarchy that left them the easy prey to a central despot- 
 ism, and because, in Paris, the Girondins, the party 
 who represented the whole parliamentary opposition 
 to the Jacobins, could give, in these days of '93 which 
 asked for so much more, nothing but a theoretical ac- 
 quiescence in the revolutionary principles. 
 
 Between 1789 and '91, the national life had been 
 shaken to its foundations. Custom and tradition had 
 been arraigned and men had been told that they had 
 a right to question both; custom and tradition had 
 been declared ■ at fault in the light of the Eights of 
 Man; and this idea had, above all others, been per- 
 sistently popularized. Anarchy was practically the 
 first result of the proclamation of these rights. The 
 nation was left without a guide, for the new rulers, in 
 
 W Compare Von Hoist, op. cit., Vol. II, passim. 
 
ANARCHY IN FRANCE. HY 
 
 their inexperience, could not both make constitutions 
 and supervise local administration. Each provincial 
 governor followed his own notion of government; in 
 many cases he had no clear idea on the subject, and 
 thus, presently, the communes legislated each one for 
 itself. Demagogues, preaching the new creed, spread 
 over the country, bringing with them the news of the 
 doings in Paris, telling how the people had captured 
 the Bastille and taken their king to Paris; how the 
 People were now to rule France and have their rights. 
 Scarcity of work and scarcity of food are first-rate as- 
 sistants for the political orator who wishes to decry 
 an old civilization and proclaim a new order, and 
 neither aid failed at this time. When wayfarers and 
 paupers, homeless and half-starved, heard of the 
 Eights of Man, these rights became at once the rights 
 of the needy and hungry; having nothing to lose, none 
 were more ready than they to rally to the new order. 
 Not only the oppressed, but the outcast and destitute 
 fall in with the rebellion against any but democratic 
 law. Soon all over the country it had become com- 
 mon to refuse to pay any taxes at all; a new levy had 
 not been made, and to pay the old feudal burdens had 
 been declared at variance with the Eights of Man. 
 The military caught the new enthusiasm, and, in most 
 of the provinces, recruits and old soldiers alike be- 
 came unreliable in view of their new-found right 
 to individual judgment. The noble who had not al- 
 ready gone to raise a foreign army against his country 
 was at best alienated from any share in the national 
 life, for he had been abruptly and opprobriously shorn 
 
^Ig PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 of everything which he had most prized, and was, be- 
 sides, in many of the provinces, the object of a more 
 and more vindictive hatred. Worst of all, the clergy 
 in many parts of the country were greatly disafEected. 
 No part of this story of the spread of anarchy is so 
 pitiable and terrible as the story of the struggle be- 
 tween the constitutional and the non-juror priests; no- 
 where more than in the districts in which this form of 
 dissension prevailed was the quarrel so bitter or the 
 factional division so fatal to life and property. With 
 the appropriation of the church lands and the civil 
 constitution of the clergy, the baneful element of re- 
 ligious difference, than which there is nothing more 
 terrible between man and man, added a note of bitter- 
 ness to the noisy anarchy of the nation. 
 
 And that anarchy, as has been said, was the oppor- 
 tunity of the Paris commune and its leaders. It was 
 because the country was all divided between the dis- 
 heartened, the disaffected, and the lawless, that the 
 Jacobin society was able to spread its network over 
 France and make, for a time, the despotism of a Paris 
 faction, a national despotism. When the nation is in 
 the throes of a complete upheaval; when the cry for 
 food comes from thousands of starving men and 
 women, and the call for democracy is raised by more 
 than a hundred newspapers urging their demands as 
 a demand of the nation; when 745 men, for the most 
 part keyed up to believe in an imminent millennium 
 incident to the legalization of new-found principles, 
 are called, most of them from advocates' desks, to di- 
 rect a heaving, uncertain national life, a strong and 
 able faction finds its opportunity. Strengthened be- 
 
THE GIBONDINS. II9 
 
 cause France was uneasy and discordant, and Paris yet 
 more restless, hungry and dissentient, the Jacobins, 
 and chief among them, the deputies of the communes 
 of the Paris clubs, faced and vanquished the Girondins, 
 their last surviving competitors in the race to give 
 France a pure democracy. 
 
 The history of the Gironde^® will always move the 
 imagination. The sharp contrast between the begin- 
 ning and the end of the party's existence is an episode 
 whose dramatic pathos can never be overlooked. A 
 group of young, enthusiastic, talented men controlled 
 the majority in the Assembly for almost a year, pre- 
 dominated in the ministry, counted one of their num- 
 ber mayor of Paris, and the press and public, their 
 enthusiastic allies. Then, with a swift turn in the tide 
 of opinion, this Gironde fell from a favor which they 
 made no unworthy fight to retain, and finally be- 
 came fugitives from mob-law or went to the guillotine 
 singing the Marseillaise. In no part of the parliamentary 
 records are there to be found orations more perfect in 
 form and more able in thought than those of Vergniaud 
 and Guadet; no fire and passion stir one in the read- 
 ing as does that which vibrates in the speeches of Is- 
 nard; no subtility of argument, and sage, clear reason- 
 ing in the whole revolutionary period quite equals that 
 of Gensonne or Condorcet; no picture of stolid, pains- 
 taking patriotism can surpass the one for which Eoland 
 
 66 On the Girondina, beside Lamartine, who is too par- 
 tisan to be of real value, see Vatel, Charlotte Corday et les 
 Girondins; J. Guadet, Les Girondins; and the admirable chap- 
 ter on the fall of the Girondins in Morse-Stephens, op. oit. 
 See, also, the Memoirs of Madame Roland, Dumouriez, Bar- 
 baroux and Louvet. 
 
120 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 stands as the original. It thus happens that^ in the 
 esthetic emotion which these facts arouse, the con- 
 spicuous weakness of the Gironde as a political party 
 is often forgotten. It is one thing to put forward, in 
 a brilliant style, a doctrine of progress, the principle 
 of the sovereignty of the people, the dream of a classic 
 republic; it is another to be willing to put those 
 doctrines into law and to be able to make such law 
 effective. The philosopher may be permitted to out- 
 line principles without pointing the method for apply- 
 ing them; such a course is fatal to a politician. In 
 spite of their undoubted abilities, the speculative 
 quality of mind which distinguished most of the 
 Girondists made them, as a party, badly disciplined 
 and without any precise program. The consequent un- 
 certainty of their action made their failure inevitable. 
 Failure is not a crime, and the Gironde would not, of 
 necessity, be discredited because they went down be- 
 fore the Jacobias; but, stripped of its perfect literary 
 form, little that they advocated can be regarded as 
 sound doctrine. However, it was not because of the 
 unsoundness of their theories that the Jacobins turned 
 against them. The Jacobins had little fault to find with 
 the principles advocated by their rivals; what they at- 
 tacked was their lukewarm support of them. The 
 want of unity among the Girondins was the opportunity 
 of the Jacobins. 
 
 Unlike the Girondists, the Montagnards were first 
 of all tacticians; they were strongly organized and 
 ready, each and all, to use any means which came to 
 hand. The Jacobin party spoke the language of the 
 
THE JACOBINS. 121 
 
 people; they played with the ideals of equality of pos- 
 session and of position; they winked at violence, even 
 when they did not join in it. There was more of 
 scholarship among them than their enemies will allow; 
 more real patriotism than m.adness or sedition in their 
 aims. They were thoroughly in earnest and not too 
 scrupulous as to the means they were willing to em- 
 ploy in order to secure that public weal for which, it 
 seems fair to think, most of them were sincerely striv- 
 ing. When the Grirondins opposed the September mas- 
 sacres, because of their illegal aspects, the Jacobins 
 urged that if these were illegal, then the fall of the 
 Bastille, many of the acts of the States-General, the 
 overthrow of royalty, — in fact, the whole revolution, 
 was also illegal.*'^ While the Girondins saw in the 
 Eevolutionary Tribunal and the Committee of Public 
 Safety, deplorable tendencies to high-handed and des- 
 potic acts of government, and in any laws which 
 seemed coercive in relation to trade or money, so many 
 unjustifiable interferences with individual liberty, the 
 Jacobins unswervingly proposed and carried out these 
 measures as the only immediate means to the well- 
 being of the majority. The general method of the 
 Eevolution was attack upon established institutions, 
 upon the emigres,^ upon the priests,*® upon the king. 
 Tip to this point in the offensive war upon old institu- 
 tions, the Gironde was ready to follow or even to lead 
 the Jacobins; but after the tenth of August, the 
 Gironde called a halt. The Jacobins, on the contrary,, 
 
 «TSee Thiers. Histoire de la Revolution, III, p. 99. 
 
 68 Decree of November 9, 1791. 
 
 69 Decree of September, 1792. 
 
±2^ Principles of. fbenob reVolvtioW. 
 
 went the whole length. It was these Jacobins who 
 prepared for pitiless war on all who were not ready to 
 accept the equality of condition as well as the new re- 
 ligion and the form of government which the class 
 newly come to power proposed to establish. It was 
 the Jacobins who, goaded by the foreign war, and 
 starting from the principle of "making royalists 
 afraid," went almost unintentionally, by w^ay of the 
 prison-massacres, into the Eeign of Terror. And what 
 is most to the present purpose, it was the Jacobins 
 who, with the aid of the revolutionary committees of 
 Paris, and backed by the martial power of the Com- 
 mune, secured the overthrow of the Girondins, and 
 then, in the space of eight days, drew up the Constitu- 
 tion of '93. 
 
 The Jacobin constitution of '93, which had waited 
 almost a year to be put together, and was then hastily 
 formulated in a burst of democratic enthusiasm, marks 
 the complete development of the revolutionary doc- 
 trine. This "most popular constitution ever given to 
 men,"™ is, in a sense, the epitome of the principles 
 of the Eevolution. The Constitution of '93 has been 
 the objective point in this search after the facts 
 connected with the immediate cause for the develop- 
 ment of the principles of revolution, because in that 
 instrument men aimed to give legal sanction to the 
 new theories of liberty, equality and fraternity. After 
 the date of its publication, the public policy was 
 
 TO Hgrault de Sechelles. S6ance of June 10, 1793. Moniteur, 
 XVI, p. 616. It will be remembered that the Constitution 
 of '93 was only put before men's imagination; it was never 
 used as the basis of government. 
 
SUMMARY. 123 
 
 marked by methods increasingly at variance with the 
 revolutionary doctrines. With the fall of the Gironde 
 and the development of the policy of terror, the princi- 
 ples which instigated revolution lose their meaning and 
 are constantly disputed by practice. Tyranny in order 
 to liberty is not a principle of revolution but a practice; 
 when that practice was inaugurated, the revolutionary 
 principles had been finally expressed and the reaction 
 had set in. 
 
 The social growth which characterized France dur- 
 ing the century preceding the Eevolution has now been 
 reviewed, in an attempt to show an unfolding-process 
 that developed a new social theory. The facts in sum- 
 mary are these: Two important influences of the 
 eighteenth century collaborated in the growth of a new 
 type of social thought : On the one hand, a new philos- 
 ophy gradually penetrated the current opinion; on the 
 other hand, an unqualified need of a material reorder- 
 ing of the national life came to give a final character 
 and emphasis to the intellectual change. A group of 
 thinkers raised a literary revolt against much that was 
 held to be unalterable usage; their ideas became the 
 first mediums to disseminate a new sentiment. The 
 complete break-up of the machinery of government and 
 the incapacity of the single hand to which, at the end 
 ■ of the century, the guidance of the political machine 
 was left, cleared the way by which the disciples of this 
 new critical philosophy were able to give popularity to 
 their creed. The vital fact at the end of the century 
 was the important role played by one class of the na- 
 tion, a class whose development seems always to have 
 influenced the growth of the whole nation. At the 
 
124 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 close of the eighteenth century, the whole energies of 
 the Third Estate seemed to center finally on an irre- 
 pressible struggle for political independence. Certain 
 peculiarities of life and manners in the metropolis of 
 the nation determined and precipitated the action of 
 this class, and of that still disfranchised class whose 
 aid it managed to secure. Finally, certain factions 
 within this class met in a struggle, a struggle which 
 ended in the domination of that section of the Third 
 Estate which held the most extreme views. Thus gen- 
 eral and particular influences developed and modified 
 social thinking, until it effectually settled upon the 
 principles of the Eevolution. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER II. 
 
 Alger. Glimpses of the Revolution, ed. Sampson, Low, 
 Marston & Co., London, 1894. — Babeau. La vie rurale dans 
 I'ancienne France, ed. Emile Perrin, Paris, 1885 ; Le Village 
 sous I'ancien Regime, Didicr et Cie., Paris, 1882; La ville sous 
 I'aneien regime, Didier et Cie., Paris, 1884; Paris en 1789; ed. 
 Firmin, Didier et Cie., Paris, 1891. — Bailly. Memoirs, ed. 
 Baudouin frfires, Paris, 1827. — Barbaroux. Mgmoires, ed. 
 Baudouin fr^res, Paris, 1827. — Blanc. Histoire de la RSvolu- 
 tion frangaise, ed. Furne et Cie., Paris, 1869. — Belloc. Dan- 
 ton, ed. Scribner's Sons, 1899. — Beaumarchais. Mgmoircs, ed. 
 Laplace, Paris, 1876. — Bire. Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris 
 pendant la Terreur. Perrin, Paris, 1898. — Boiteau. Etat de 
 la France en 1789, ed. Guillaumin et Cie., Paris, 1889. — Buohez 
 et Roius. Histoire Parlementaire de la Revolution francaise, 
 ed. Picard et fils, 1834-38. — Burke. Reflections on the French 
 Revolution. — Brunetidre. Le Paysan sous I'ancien rggime, in 
 Histoire et littgrature, Paris, 1893. — Campan. Mgmoires, ed. 
 Baudouin frgres, Paris, 1826. — Ca/rlyle. French Revolution, 
 ed. Chas. Scribner's Sons. — Cherest. La Chute de I'Aneien 
 Regime, ed. Hachette, Paris, 1884. — Clery. Journal de ce qui 
 s'est passe a la Tour du Temple, ed. Michaud, Paris, 1823. — 
 
BIBLIOGRAPBT FOR CHAPTER II. 125 
 
 Christie. Letters on the French Revolution, ed. London, 1791. 
 
 — CMruel. Dietionnaire des Institutions de la France, ed. 
 Hachette, Paris, 1880. — De Gonoourt. (Edmond et Jules) La 
 Soeietg frangaise pendant la Revolution, ed. Dentu, Paris, 1854. 
 
 — De Tocqueville. L'Ancien RSgime et la Revolution. Michel 
 L6vy, Paris, 1857. — Dumont. Recollections of Mirabeau, ed. 
 London, Edwin Bull, 1832. — Dumouriee. MSmoires, Baudouin 
 frfres, Paris, 1823. — DesmouUns. Vieux Cordelier, reprint by 
 Baudouin fr&res, Paris, 1825. — Desnoiresterres. Voltaire et 
 la Societe au XVIIIe si6cle, Didier et Cie., Paris, 1871-76. — 
 Droz. Histoire du R6gne de Louis XVI. Renouard, Paris, 
 1860. — Ferridres. Mgmoires, ed. Baudouin fr6res, Paris, 1822. 
 — ■ Gaudet. Les Girondins, ed. Perrin & Cie., Paris, 1889. — 
 jSamel. Vie de Robespierre, ed. Lacroix Verboeckhoven & Cie., 
 Paris, 1895. — HSUe. Les Constitutions de la France, ed. Mar- 
 escaine, Paris, 1875. — Houssaye. La Revolution, ed. Bib. 
 Charpentier, Paris, 1891. — Jobez. La France sous Louis XVI, 
 Didier et Cie., Paris, 1877. — Lamartine. Histoire des Giron- 
 dins, in CEuvres, ed. de I'auteur, Paris, 1861. — Laurent. La 
 Revolution Frangaise, in Etudes sur I'histoire de I'Humanite, 
 ed. Meline, Cans & Cie., Bruxelles, 1861. — Lavergne. Les As- 
 semblees Provincalea sous Louis XVI, ed. Caiman L6vy, Paris, 
 1879. — Lecky. England in the eighteenth century. Vols. V-VI, 
 ed. Appleton, N. Y., 1882.— Lewes. Life of Robespierre, Lon- 
 don, Chapman & Hall, 1849.— Lomenie. Beaumarchais, et son 
 temps, Eng. ed., Harper, 1857. — Louvet. Memoires, ed. Bau- 
 douin fr6res, Paris, 1823. — Lowell. The Eve of the Revolu- 
 tion, ed. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893. — Martin. Histoire de 
 France, ed. Fume, Paris, 1865, Vols. XIV, XV, XVI.— Micfc- 
 elet. La Revolution frangaise, ed. Lacroix & Cie., Paris, 1877. 
 
 — Mignet. La Revolution frangaise, Eng. edition. — Morse- 
 Stephens. The French Revolution, ed. Scribner's Sons, 1886. — 
 Memoires de Mirabeau. Par lui-m6me, par son p6re, son oncle 
 et son fils adoptif, precedes d'une etude de Mirabeau par Vic- 
 tor Hugo, ed. Meline, Bruxelles, 1834. — Olivier. La France 
 avant la Revolution, Guillaumin & Cie., Paris, 1889. — Perkins. 
 France under the Regency, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 
 1896; France under Louis XV, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boa- 
 ton, 1897. — Quinet. La Revolution, Lacroix, Verboeckhoven 
 & Cie., Paris, 1865. — Rocquain. L'Esprit revolutionnaire avant 
 la Revolution, Plon & Cie., Paris, 1878. — Roland. (Madame) 
 Memoires, ed. Baudouin fr6res, Paris, 1821. — SaMit Simon. 
 L. de Rouvroy, de. Memoires, ed. 1856-58. — Sorel. L'Europe 
 et la Revolution frangaise, Plon, Nourrit et Cie., Paris, 1897. 
 
 — Taine. Les Origines de la France Cbntemporaine, ed. Hach- 
 ette & Cie., Paris, 1899.— Thiers. Histoire de la Revolution 
 frangaise, ed. Furnes, Jouvet & Cie., Paris. 1872. — Thierry. 
 EBsai sur la formation et le progrfis du Tlers-Etat, ed. Fume, 
 
126 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 1868. — Von Bybel. French Revolution, Eng. ed., Murray, Lon- 
 don, 1867. — Vat el. Charlotte Corday et les Girondins, Plon 
 et Cie., Paris, 1864-72. — Von Hoist. The French Revolution 
 tested by Mirabeau's career. Callaghan & Co., Chicago, 1894. 
 — Wachsmuth. Geschiehte der Europaischen Staaten, ed. 
 Hamburg, 1840. — Welschinger. Les Almanachs de la Revolu- 
 tion, Librarie des Bibliophiles, Paris, 1884. — Weber. Mgm- 
 oires, Baudouin frSres, 1822. — Young. Travels in France. 
 George Bell & Sons, London, 1890. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 I. The Inclusive Character of the Revolutionart Pein- 
 
 CIPI/ES. 
 
 II. Fundamental Conceptions. 
 
 III. The Rights op Man. 
 
 IV. The State and the Individual. 
 
 With regard to the theories whose immediate causes 
 have now been considered, it is plain, first of all, that 
 they are principles put forward in a spirit of vital and 
 radical change. The disposition of mind, now gener- 
 ally called the Voltairean, growing through the eigh- 
 teenth century, penetrated deep and with cumulative 
 force into the social mind; by the end of the cen- 
 tury nothing was sacred. It was not merely question 
 of changing the form of government. The attack 
 struck at the very fundamentals of national thought. 
 The religious doctrine impugned, men asked over again 
 and sought replies to questions which, it had been sup- 
 posed, religion had settled finally. During the progress 
 of the Revolution, as during the preceding century, all 
 the problems of life were turned over and new theories 
 were advanced concerning the origin of man, and the 
 reasons for his existence, both as an individual and 
 as a member of society; above all, concerning the ques- 
 tion underlying all others, the question as to what is 
 the end of both man and society, and what is the pur- 
 9 139 
 
130 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 pose of the universe. From the weightiest problems 
 which can present themselves to human thinking, down 
 to the most trivial queries of every-day life, all as- 
 pects of social existence were called into question and 
 pronounced upon. The principles of the Eevolution 
 are synonymous with an attempt to reorder, not merely 
 the positive law of the country, but the positive moral- 
 ity which slowly works changes in positive law. The 
 French Eevolution was a remarkable instance where a 
 number of men dreamed of taking upon themselves the 
 gigantic task of modifying by concerted action, finally 
 and certainly, both the positive morality and the code 
 of laws; they planned to rebuild not only the social 
 structure but also the foundation upon which it stood. 
 The absence of economic theory in the principles 
 of the Eevolution scarcely needs more than assertion. 
 The crisis was a political crisis, and, if there was an 
 economic cause at the bottom, nobody discerned it. 
 It is safe to say that wherever economic principles 
 played any part in the French Eevolution, such prin- 
 ciples were the philosophical theories of the Physio- 
 crats. If wealth was desired, it was in order to an in- 
 creased happiness; if production, more especially agri- 
 culture was to be encouraged, it was because this was 
 held to be the means, and the only means, to add to 
 the national wealth. And all this is the physiocratic 
 doctrine. As for the relation of government in indus- 
 try, the principle of laissez-faire, another principle 
 made current by the Physiocrats, theoretically domi- 
 nated the Eevolution. All these notions can hardly be 
 called principles of political economy; they are rathet 
 philosophy and polities in a jumble. Eeading, at the 
 
fFBEIR POLITICAL OEARAGTEB. \^l 
 
 various legislative bodies and at the clubs, those 
 speeches which touched upon questions of practical 
 finance and taxation, a doubt occurs as to whether 
 there was, in the minds of the speakers, any particular 
 appreciation of the existence of a special set of prob- 
 lems called economic. The question turned rather 
 upon the state policy in relation to the individual as 
 an agent in industrial life. It would almost be af- 
 fectation to try to formulate any theory of economics 
 from the passing phrases which might be found here 
 and there. The Revolution was a political movement, 
 and its fundamental principles form a political phil- 
 osophy. 
 
 The special character of these principles of the Eevo- 
 lution will then be sufficiently defined if the hypo- 
 thesis concerning the ultimate nature of the universe, 
 and the theories with regard to man and society be 
 stated, along with the most fundamental of the politi- 
 cal principles. The Law of Nature {Loi nature!), th6 
 doctrine of the social contract, the theory of Natural 
 Eights {Droits naturels) and such derivative political 
 principles as the doctrine of popular sovereignty, the 
 right of social supremacy in conducting the affairs of 
 the national life, make up the essential parts of the 
 political and social faith of the time; these principles 
 have, therefore, been selected for exposition. 
 
 II. 
 
 One important fact needs emphasis in regard to the 
 primary conceptions of the Eevolution. Throughout 
 the period the fundamental notions did not change. 
 In 1789 the theories of man and of society are the 
 
132 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 same as those of 1793. Clermont-Tonnerre, Sieyes, 
 Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Saint Just, Marat, each held a 
 fundamental hypothesis which differed hut slightly. 
 All, consciously or instinctively, started from the no- 
 tion of a divine plan, whose end was human happiness; 
 all were equally loyal to the Rights of Man and the 
 Social Contract. As will be seen, it is the application 
 of these conceptions, it is those ideas belonging most 
 specifically to the theory of politics which are not the 
 same during the period in question. The principle of 
 republicanism is not the dominant idea in '89 — far 
 from it. A more or less recognized spirit of compro- 
 mise, a sense of the value of gradual change checked 
 legislative reform at constitutional monarchy in '91, 
 but that theory of government went down altogether 
 before the rage for democracy which gave power to 
 the constitution-makers of '93. However, the tem- 
 perate politician of '91 and the frenzied democrat of 
 '93 held to the same fundamental conceptions. One 
 set of primary notions controlled the whole movement. 
 It is these conceptions which are now to be stated. 
 
 The principles of the Revolution were, as a whole, 
 theories having to do with the conditions of a mun- 
 dane existence; they were a new code of morality and 
 politics, not metaphysical or religious principles in 
 any real sense. The whole doctrine implies faith in 
 the power of the untrammeled human will to bring 
 about permanently harmonious social relations. Like 
 the eighteenth century philosophy which bred it, the 
 tevolutionary theory posited the individual will but 
 took small account of its possible beginnings." Yet 
 
LAW OF NATURE. I33 
 
 there was some attempt at an explanation of final 
 causes. The foundation of the revolutionary faith 
 was flimsy, but there was such a foundation — the doc- 
 trine of natural or rational religion. No longer will- 
 ing to listen to theologians, no longer recognizing an 
 external authority, the revolutionists appealed from a 
 ruling church or a self-revealing God, to an inner con- 
 science which stood ready to tell the same truth to each 
 man who looked within himself. The revolutionists of 
 '89 and '93 turned to Nature as the only positive au- 
 thority, and set at naught deductions based upon cus- 
 toms or upon principles framed by any constituted 
 power. 
 
 In studying the debates of the period, it is at first 
 difficult to find any real denial of the old principles 
 which recognized the infallible dogma of a dominant 
 church. In the Constituent Assembly, a somewhat 
 sophistical desire to preserve the Catholic cult,^ strip- 
 
 1 It is of interest to remember the attitude of the Assembly 
 in regard to Catholicism. One scene will serve as type of any 
 of the earlier ones. At the stance of April 13, 1791 (Choix 
 de Rapports II, p. 102), Dom Gerle proposed to decree the 
 Catholic religion as the state religion; a heated debate fol- 
 lowed, in which some of the good Bishops and Abbfis lost 
 their tempers, and Mirabeau cited the Saint Bartholomew mas- 
 sacre with crushing effect. The assembly eventually agreed 
 upon this decree : " Whereas, the Assembly has not, nor ever 
 can have, any power over consciences or religious opinions; 
 whereas, the majesty of religion and the profound respect due 
 to it, does not permit that it become subject of deliberation ; 
 whereas, the attachment of the National Assembly to the 
 Catholic cult could not be doubted at a moment when this 
 cult was being placed by it in first rank of public expenses ; 
 and, whereas, a unanimous movement of respect has expressed 
 opinion in the only manner which can comport with the dig- 
 nity of the religion and the character of the Assembly," etc. 
 Comp. also, Moniteur, sgance of February 14, 1790, III, p. 
 
5^34 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 ping it of its temporal power only, is plainly evident. 
 In the later assemblies, there was, of course, a candidly 
 avowed intention to do away with all Christian cults.^ 
 But whether the speaker was outward conformist or 
 philosopher, the notion of final causes which each en- 
 tertain really differed but slightly. 
 
 What may be called the first principle in all the revo- 
 lutionary philosophy defined a plan and purpose un- 
 derlying the universe. The revolutionary theory 
 started from the belief in an absolute and directed 
 tendency in phenomena. Perhaps the majority con- 
 tinued to believe that the universe was the work of 
 an anthropomorphic divinity surrounded by a host of 
 worshipful satellites; the philosophy of that minority 
 who worked the change in the social organization be- 
 gan more and more avowedly with the idea of a bene- 
 ficent First Cause, God or Nature,' concerning whose 
 origin and personality it would be futile to wonder. 
 The prevailing attitude among the leaders was thab 
 which Pope expresses when he apostrophizes a 
 
 " Great First Cause, least understood. 
 Who all my sense combined. 
 To know but this, that Thou art good 
 And that myself am blind." 
 
 Even in '93 and '94 deity was officially recognized.* 
 Translated and popularized by Voltaire, the Deism of 
 
 363. Comp. also, Camus, sgance of June 1, 1790. "Nous 
 pouvons changer la religion, mais nous ne voulons pas." 
 
 2 Comp. Aulard, Le Culte de la Ealson et le Culte de I'Etre 
 Supreme. 
 
 3 Nature is used in the widest sense, as the underlying prin- 
 ciple at the root of all time and space phenomena. 
 
 *As for example, when BarSre, in August, 1793, in his re- 
 port on the state of the republic, speaks of the statue of the 
 
LAW OF NATURE. 135 
 
 Pope and Bolingbroke had come to ask first place as a 
 national religion. 
 
 On the question of a cosmogony, the difference of 
 opinion between the older cults and the doctrine of 
 the Eevolution is not vital. In both cases, the original 
 power was thought of as having conceived and ordained 
 upon an unalterable plan and in a spirit of extreme 
 beneficence, a vast scheme of inorganic and organic 
 life; all believed that this great creative work had 
 been done solely to promote the well-being of man. In 
 both cases, the original Cause was believed to have re- 
 mained entirely outside the creation which was his 
 work. God or Nature had made the universe, had fixed 
 its workings, had set man at the head of it; man him- 
 self must discover the proper use of it. Christian 
 prelates or Deists, conformists or disciples of Natural 
 religion in any of its forms, each and all alike ren- 
 dered homage to a power external to the earth they 
 inhabited, — a Power which had given them being and 
 endowed them with the right and duty to make the 
 best possible use of the land and its bounties. 
 
 The revolutionary deism set out then with the same 
 primary idea as did orthodoxy; but, following the lead 
 of the philosophers, it soon definitely rejected external 
 authority as the sanction to personal or social conduct, 
 and opposed a belief in earthly happiness to the 
 Church's idea of waiting patiently for the joys of the 
 hereafter. First, as to the separation of opinion re- 
 
 republie, which is to be created, " Sous les regards du LSgis- 
 lateur Eternal." Morse-Stephens. Orators of the Revolu- 
 tion, II, p. ii. Compare also Aulard, Le Culte de la Eaison 
 et le Culte de I'Etre Suprgme, chapters iii, iv, vii and viii. 
 
l^Q PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH RETOLVTION. 
 
 garding the origin of man's knowledge concerning 
 fundamental truth. 
 
 Throughout the eighteenth century orthodoz doc- 
 trine had rested or professed to rest on revelation. Men 
 had believed that, if they knew the purpose of the uni- 
 verse, it was because at some time there had been di- 
 rect communication between the prime Cause of all 
 things and some favored few among the dwellers upon 
 earth, and they held that the whole law contained in 
 such communication had been vested in an organized 
 ecclesiastical authority which had the sole right to form 
 and to watch over men's consciences and acts. The 
 doctrine of the Eevolution, on the contrary, rejected all 
 revelation as a "harmful creed" {croyance funeste).^ 
 For these rationalists, the truths which men arrived at 
 by reason were the only "revelation;" absolute knowl- 
 edge with regard to the secrets of the universe was ac- 
 cessible to the reason and to the reason alone. Faith 
 in rational principles almost entirely took the place of 
 faith in mystic notions or in canons of theology; the 
 final criterion, whether for personal or social conduct, 
 was the human intelligence. The final authority — 
 and before it revealed religion and popish infallibility 
 had no force — was the instinct which Nature had 
 given each man, and which his reason alone could 
 interpret. 
 
 As to the existence possible during an earthly career, 
 the difference is likewise radical. The doctrine of 
 
 B Comp. Volney. Cat6chisme de citoyen frangais ( published 
 1793), p. 177. See also, Bonneville and Blanchard, whose 
 ideas are given in Laurent, La Revolution frangaise, II, pp. 
 492-498, 
 
LAW OF NATURE. I37 
 
 revelation conceived of post-mundane life as the only 
 consolation for the vexations and miseries of an 
 earthly life. The new creed, thrilling with the idea 
 of an original earthly paradise, believed it was per- 
 fectly possible for the concerted action of man to re- 
 store those happy conditions which had originally been 
 arranged for the first human inhabitants of this planet, 
 and it believed that it was eminently necessary to do 
 this. Whether the supporters of the new thinking ex- 
 pressed their theory by a worship of the supernatural, 
 the natural or the combination of these two which he 
 conceived man to be; whether the divinity was a Su- 
 preme Being, Nature or Man, the avowed or tacit con- 
 ception from which all later principles derived, was 
 this one of a purpose in the universe, and that purpose 
 the ultimate contentment of all humanity. Since 
 Providence, or more usually Nature, had arranged by 
 immutable and unerring though not inscrutable laws, 
 a contented existence for man, the wise man was he 
 who studied to discover these laws and so to insure 
 the fulfillment of the original plan. The first duty of 
 the philosopher, and yet more of the legislator, was to 
 seek out what had been the normal conditions, and 
 then to restore those conditions to a world which had 
 been disastrously deprived of them, It rested alto- 
 gether within man's competence to do this; the affairs 
 of this world were entirely subject to the free will of 
 the individual. If man respected the leading prin- 
 ciples which his reason could make clear to him, an 
 end to all unhappiness here below might confidently 
 be expected. By the highway of reason, with virtue as 
 guide, it was possible to discover and., realize terrestrial 
 
138 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLVTION. 
 
 happiness.® All social unrest, it was believed, was the 
 result of misunderstanding this truth. When legisla- 
 tors could be taught to keep this doctrine permanently 
 and intelligently before them, social happiness might 
 soon be expected. Men now combined the utilitarian 
 doctrine of the Encyclopedists and the Physiocrats 
 with the sentimental teachings of Eousseau, and pro- 
 claimed the happiness of humanity to be the end of all 
 association. 
 
 This, the doctrine of Natural Law, was the current 
 and admired theory all through the Eevolutionary 
 period. It was this theory which, accepted in its full 
 meaning, altered the whole complexion of social ac- 
 tivity. When it was denied that life here below was 
 merely a preparation for another world; when it was 
 declared that, on the contrary, it was a strictly mun- 
 dane business, having to do with the best possible ar- 
 rangement of individual and social relations here, 
 revolutionary action received its inspiration and justifi- 
 cation. 
 
 All other ideas of the Eevolution rested upon this 
 belief in a Natural Law making for terrestrial con- 
 tent. The first principles of the revolutionary philo- 
 sophy center about the faith in a propensity in all 
 creation, a propensity which was believed to tend al- 
 ways to the happiness of man. 
 
 When we come to the question of the original con- 
 dition of man and the beginnings of society, we do 
 
 6 Comp. Boissy d'Anglas — Voulez-vous detruire le fanatisme 
 et la superstition? Oflfrez a Thomme des lumiSres. Voulez- 
 vous le disposer a recevoir des lumifires. Sachez le rendre 
 heureux et libre. Cited in Laurent, op. eit., II, p. 457. 
 
LAW OP NATURE. I39 
 
 not find the same unity of opinion that prevailed con- 
 cerning the Law of Nature. On this point there is an 
 evident separation of theory. Two conceptions are cur- 
 rent: the one, that idea of the providentially happy 
 original man, which Kousseau had popularized; the 
 other, the idea of an original savage. Both theories 
 of the primitive man had a certain support among 
 those leaders who, in a sense, forced the new principles 
 upon the nation. 
 
 It is certain that during the Eevolution, and for a 
 long time after, the idea of a "natural man" had 
 precedence as a popular notion. Probably the majority 
 of the lawmakers of the Eevolution started their civil 
 and political code with the image from which our 
 own time has by no means entirely freed itself — the 
 image of an ideal primeval man, free from prejudices, 
 free from vicious desires, or unhealthy notions of self- 
 denial which he miscalled virtues. Over and over in 
 the three successive legislatures, it is implied or stated 
 that, in a primitive period of terrestrial life, man lived 
 in greatest happiness because he had complete liberty.'' 
 Each man came from the hands of a beneficent Nature 
 endowed with entire freedom; his sole duty, the pursuit 
 of happiness ; his only law, the preservation of his being. 
 Moreover, each man was endowed by Nature with the 
 right to precisely the same amount of pleasure as any 
 
 7 Comp. Robespierre's speech on property, S6ance of April 
 24, 1793. Vergniaud, speech of Oct. 25, 1791, on the Emigres; 
 Claude Fauchet, in Blanc, Histoire de la Rgvolution fran- 
 caise, V, p. 121 : Jeanbon de Saint Andrg, " Je sais qu'il y a, 
 dans le eoeur de I'homme une tendance a la v6rit6," etc., s6ance 
 May 8, 1793. Choix de Rapports, XI, 295-296. 
 
14.0 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH RETOLVTION. 
 
 other man; each was equal to his fellow.* That each 
 man had the natural and inalienable right to come and 
 go as he pleased; to enjoy whatever he could make his 
 own and to remain in unmolested possession of it, were 
 so many corollaries of the original proposition of a free 
 and happy primitive man.® Anterior to society, there 
 had only been faultless human beings, each having the 
 eternal right to liberty, to equality, and to the posses- 
 sion of his own goods; and this natural man, free and 
 contented, was the ideal for the social man to strive 
 after. 
 
 In opposition to this notion of a "natural" man 
 stood the idea of a primeval savage, who depended for 
 his development upon that which association with 
 others brought to him. Even among the leaders of 
 radicalism, there were men who energetically rejected 
 the idea made current by Eousseau's love of paradox. 
 In parliamentary debates, the primeval savage, pain- 
 fully and unceasingly struggling for his daily nutri- 
 ment, plays a less prominent, but none the less a fre- 
 quent part, in discussions. An appreciable number of 
 persons, whose ideas got a following among the stronger 
 men of the time, held to the theory of social develop- 
 ment suggested by Turgot, and made current during 
 the Eevolution by Condorcet^" and many of the 
 Gironde. 
 
 8 Comp. Declaration of Eights of '93, art. 3. 
 
 9 Comp. Declaration of Rights of '89. Especially art. 2, 
 title I, of Constitution of 1791 ; and arts. 2-7 and 18 of the 
 Declaration of '93. 
 
 10 Esquisse d'Un Tableau Historique des progrfis de I'Esprit 
 Humain. Published 1793. Volney (Catfichisme de Citoyen 
 
PRIMITIVE SOCIETY. 141 
 
 One debate might be cited^^ to show how the differ- 
 ence of opinion on the matter stood. The question 
 turned upon the first article of the Declaration of 
 Eights. As first given out, the article read thus : " The 
 natural, civil and political rights of men are liberty, 
 equality, security, property, the social guarantee and re- 
 sistance to oppression." A deputy^^ at once arose and 
 protested. " I don't well understand what the Commit- 
 tee desired to say by these words, natural right. In the 
 state of pure nature, no rights exist unless those of 
 force; in the state of nature, man has a right to that 
 which he may get at, and this right is only limited by 
 possibility; this right he abandons from the moment 
 that he enters into society," etc. Another^^ follows him 
 with a protest that man is innately social, that " the 
 social state is the veritable natural state of man." Verg- 
 niaud proposed a compromise, and, the majority of the 
 Convention consenting, the article is changed so that it 
 reads, "The Eights of Man in society."" Thus, al- 
 though there had been a committee who held to the 
 theory of a natural man, with his inalienable natural 
 rights, it is clear that by 1793 the dominant opinion in 
 the legislative body recognized only the Eights of Man 
 in society, and thus denied the " bon sauvage." 
 
 However, whether founded on the doctrine of a natu- 
 ral or a social man, whether held to originate anterior 
 to society or to begin with social organization, the 
 
 frangais) scouts the idea of the original happy savage (bon 
 sauvage). 
 
 11 seance of April 17, 1793. 
 
 12 Lasouroe. 
 
 13 Garran-Coulon. 
 
 MChoix de Rapports, XII, pp. 286 et sq. 
 
14:2 PRINCIPLES OF FHENCB REVOLUTION. 
 
 theory of inalienable individual rights was universally 
 accredited during the Eevolution. The later opinion, 
 just instanced, resulted from an enlarged conception of 
 the social right as against the individual right; it did 
 not, any more than the theory it opposed, deny certain 
 " natural " and reserved rights to each individual. The 
 conception of Natural Eights and of their relation to 
 the association of men played then a most important 
 part in this new political theory. Men differed in re- 
 gard to the social guarantee of these rights; they rarely 
 denied their real and important political bearing. The 
 theory was too good a weapon against the old authorities 
 for it to have been neglected by the practical men of 
 the Eevolution, even though some of them may have 
 had little faith in its philosophical truth. The doctrine 
 of " Droits naturels " usually derived from the meta- 
 physical conception of a Law of Nature — a conception 
 that, in its turn, has been seen to be practically the ap- 
 peal from an organized social sanction to an individual 
 power and right of judgment — is the conspicuous 
 principle in the new cned. 
 
 Before explaining how the more notable Natural 
 Eights in society were regarded during the Eevolu- 
 tion, it remains, in this summary explanation of basic 
 conceptions, to show how the revolutionists imagined 
 political society to have originated. The revolutionists 
 for the most part adopted Eousseau's fallacy of the 
 Social Contract, by which Eights were conceived to 
 have been protected by a partial surrender of most of 
 them. 
 
 Under the prevailing notions of the Eevolution, as 
 under those of the eighteenth century, all association 
 was the result of a conscious act, an act which had 
 
SOCIAL CONTRAO't. 143 
 
 been instigated by the purely self-interested and utili- 
 tarian motive of a more comfortable conservation of 
 natural rights. Current theory held that, in a non- 
 social state, each man would seek his own happi- 
 ness, irrespective of that of others; that, in an ir- 
 regulated association of man with his fellows, a con- 
 dition of things so intolerable had come about that the 
 necessity for some device by which peace might be at- 
 tained, had grown always more apparent to each man, 
 and so in every instance, agreement to a social 
 arrangement of some sort had become imperative. A 
 compact voluntarily entered upon by all members of 
 the association had been the fundamental fact of or- 
 ganized association. The same utter blindness to psy- 
 chological differences in men which characterized the 
 thought of the century, continues to be the mode dur- 
 ing the Revolution. Only a minority, and these 
 not the leaders, recognized that association began 
 in the necessities of man's instinct and the fact of 
 individual usurpation;^® men who realized that dif- 
 ferences of endowment and strength make leaders of 
 some, and more or less willing followers of others, were 
 not those whose opinion carried weight at this time. 
 The fundamental dogma concerning the origin of soci- 
 ety, most popular at the time now under discussion held 
 that, at some period antecedent to the existence of so- 
 ciety,^^ men had come together, and, in order to have 
 
 15 There was an a/ppreeiable minority who, like Volney, took 
 this position. 
 
 16 Or again at any given period of social change. When 
 the Convention was called; the idea was stated in so many 
 words. Couthon rises to declare that the deputies had been 
 
144 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCE REVOLUTION. 
 
 peace and the means for fullest enjoyment, had by 
 a voluntary act resigned a certain part of their indi- 
 vidual will in favor of the general will. 
 
 Men were supposed to have entered into the Social 
 Contract for reasons purely egotistical; but the revolu- 
 tionists, as Eousseau had done, laid most emphasis upon 
 the idea that, in the interests of that peace for which 
 the contract was made, men must be ready to make 
 a personal submission to a general will. It was usual 
 to urge that what though the original reason for giv- 
 ing up the full exercise of the individual will had been 
 purely utilitarian, it was now a moral duty so to sub- 
 mit the particular to the general will.-''' The end in 
 which the social contract was made, could only be 
 accomplished when each should fulfill this sacred duty. 
 By the terms of the social contract then, men recog- 
 nized that it was necessarily the primary duty of so- 
 ciety "to disarm the oppression which might follow 
 from the play of natural inequality."^* The end of 
 association is to oppose to the possible tyranny of the 
 one, the force which results from the association of all. 
 Thus, under the ideas which grew out of the notion of 
 the social contract, the sovereignty of the individual 
 becomes the sovereignty of the whole association — a 
 
 " called together from all parts of the empire to draw up a 
 plan of social contract." (Moniteur, XIV, p. 6.) 
 
 17 Comp. resolutions of the Due d'Aiguillon and the Due 
 de Noailles on the night of August 4, 1789. — " L'AssemblSe 
 Nationale considfrant que le premier et le plus sacrg de ses 
 devoirs est de faire e6d6r les intSrets particuliera et person- 
 nels a 1 interet genfirale," etc. (Moniteur, I, p. 280.) 
 
 18 The reasoning is Robespierre's ( comp. Blanc, op. cit., 
 VII, p. 265); comp. also Declaration of '89. art. 1-2; also 
 Vergniaud in speech on Emigres, October 25, 1791. 
 
SOCIAL CONTRACT. 145 
 
 sovereignty in which each separate will has the undis- 
 puted right to express itself freely, hut the equally 
 certain duty of finally submitting to the will of the 
 majority. 
 
 The idea that government derives from this volun- 
 tary social organization, was as much the ruling idea 
 of the Eevolution as it had been a prominent part of 
 the radical thought of the preceding century. Social 
 control, it was said, cannot be exercised except by 
 means of certain prearranged forms, whence govern- 
 ment, "a set of determined instruments for the exer- 
 cise of this force," is a necessity.^* The direction for 
 the affairs of the whole society must, by an act of the 
 general will, be placed in the hands of some organized 
 power. Polity arises in the course of human asso- 
 ciation from the necessity for the protection of the 
 interests of all, against the private interests of each. 
 
 Political Society then was held to be a voluntary act 
 deriving from a voluntary resignation made by each 
 member of the body politic. Polity rests on, and is al- 
 ways subject, both for its existence and its form, to 
 the same consent which was the original source of the 
 association. Thus, always, as the final pivot on which 
 the equilibrium of the social structure depends, we have 
 the individual will of the several members of the body 
 politic. Under the doctrine of the Eevolution, the in- 
 dividual is at once the governor and the governed. 
 Whichever role he plays, he is held to play it by his 
 voluntary act. 
 
 19 Robespierre in Lettres a ses Conim«ttants. (Blanc, op. 
 cit., Vol. VII, p. 265.) 
 10 
 
146 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLVTION. 
 
 The social contract is in fact the final term of a series 
 of principles having to do with man and society, a series 
 of principles whose sura is a genuine apotheosis of the 
 individual. All social life, its beginning, its char- 
 acter and its conclusion, rests upon the free will of man. 
 The world is for man's enjoyment, and the duty and 
 .right of each individual is to partake of its gifts. 
 Each man, as man, has an equal right to the sum of 
 pleasures which the original plan massed up in the 
 universe. Each man had become a member of so- 
 ciety with these rights as his original possession, along 
 with the gift of his existence. Whatever subtraction he 
 had made from these rights, had been made by a vol- 
 untary act. Political society is the invention of man. 
 Free will and the instinct for peace and happiness are 
 the original terms of a proposition whose conclusion 
 is the social contract. 
 
 This general character of the revolutionary philos- 
 ophy has been admirably summarized by a recent 
 French writer. " The Eevolution, Cartesian, and opti- 
 mist," says M. Michel, " has exalted the human will 
 and proclaimed the supreme power of method. The 
 arrangement of political power seemed a problem of 
 mechanics or of algebra. To state this problem 
 well, to treat it according to correct methods, was to 
 make certain of solving it. Know how to take thyself, 
 the Eevolution had said to man. Weigh with care the 
 terms of the contract to which you subscribe, to which 
 your fellow-citizens like yourself subscribe, and you 
 will infallibly form a state where all will be for the 
 best, where justice and virtue will rule. You are by 
 
BI0ET8 OF MAN. I4.7 
 
 your very essence free and reasonable; you possess rigMa 
 anterior to all convention, anterior to the social state 
 itself. Society could not have other aim than to guar- 
 antee to all its members the exercise of their rights. 
 Leave the past, which is dead. Occupy yourself with 
 the future, which germinates in the present. Trust 
 in your thought and the creative force which belongs 
 to it."^* The whole responsibility for social well- 
 being rested finally, in theory at least, upon the indi- 
 vidual act. Every preconception of the Eevolution 
 made for the encouragement of a revolt against organ- 
 ized thought. All the primary conceptions of the 
 time, the Law of Nature, the idea of Natural Eights 
 and the doctrine of the Social Contract, were built upon 
 this positive belief in the validity and sanctity of 
 individual judgment. 
 
 III. 
 
 . It has been said that, in the two phases of the Revolu- 
 tion, there was no change in primary conceptions; the 
 same cannot be said of the doctrine of Natural Rights; 
 the alteration lay in the theory of applied politics, and 
 this because what happened in the first years of the 
 Eevolution produce a change in men's minds. 
 
 The swift rush of events which hurried France from 
 the despotism of a well-intentioned if incapable mon- 
 arch and his advisers to the despotism of a self-inter- 
 ested and theory-mad faction, and so worked the tran- 
 sition from absolutism to ochlocracy, had, as direct 
 
 20-21 L'ldfie de I'Etat. p. 166. 
 
148 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 cause, a psychological change. As the years moved 
 on, an appreciable number of men, who began their 
 effort for social reconstruction in the belief that liberty, 
 equality and fraternity were ideals to be slowly striven 
 for, were encouraged by the progress of events to feel a 
 feverish certainty that the ideal might at once be made 
 the real. A conviction that the highest ideal of which 
 they could dream was capable of formal and immediate 
 expression, seized those in power, and history has there- 
 fore, now, as always, to record a revolution and a re- 
 action. That the thoughts of the individual can read- 
 ily outstrip the social thought, is one of those great 
 truths which the wisest of men realize slowly, and 
 men of narrow, or little-developed minds, not at all. 
 Indifference to this truth is at the bottom of all social 
 convulsions with their doubtful benefits. That a reign 
 of terror resulted from the principles of revolution 
 is at least partly attributable to this ill-advised faith 
 of a comparatively small number of persons in the 
 possibility of a complete and instantaneous social recon- 
 struction. 
 
 As a consequence of the rapid transition to radical- 
 ism, two very distinct periods are discernible in 
 the theories which have to do with the application of 
 the theory of Eights of Man to the conditions of po- 
 litical society. The idea had not the same force, or at 
 least, the same interpretation, in '93 that it had up to 
 '91. No theory took such hold of the early revolution- 
 ists as did the idea of the Natural Eights of the 
 individual. The individualistic current swept France 
 with a greater and more lasting intensity, because 
 
BIGHTS OF MAN. 149 
 
 the minds of men had been for so long the slaves 
 of a theological and monarchic polity which took no 
 account of persons. In '89, the' talk was of individual 
 rights and the state as guarantor of such individual 
 rights. In '93, it is rational social rights, rather than 
 natural individual rights, which get defense and guar- 
 antee in the laws.^* Although the rights of the citizen 
 are proclaimed in '89, it is the Eights of Man that are 
 of first importance during the second period. At this 
 latter time, a state determined to defend the rights of 
 all men makes singular inroads upon the rights of 
 each man ; even the rights of Man are talked of far less 
 than the rights of the poor and the unfortunate. How- 
 ever, although opinions did alter as to how far the vol- 
 untarily created social right finally took precedence of 
 the original individual right, the doctrine of the natural 
 rights of each individual was never specifically denied 
 throughout the whole time in question. 
 
 To draw up a declaration of rights was the first 
 desire of an overwrought assembly.^^ The idea of 
 putting the Eights of Man into an instrument of posi- 
 tive law may have been directly inspired by Lafayette 
 and the others who had fought in America and returned 
 full of enthusiasm for the legal document by which a 
 
 22 The two phases of the Revolution may be separated thus: 
 The first, from '89 to '91 ; the second, corresponding roughly 
 with the flight of the king to Varennes and finishing with the 
 fall of Robespierre. 
 
 23 See Moniteur, I, pp. 143-148. When Lafayette brings 
 forward his plans for a declaration, he claims that they " ren- 
 fcrme les premiers principes de toute constitution, les pr6- 
 miers elements de toute legislation." Comp. also Bailly. 
 Memoires, I, p. 304, 
 
150 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 new democracy proclaimed its independence. Pos- 
 sibly, the idea of giving them legal form was taken 
 from the Cahiers, in which a demand for the declara- 
 tion of rights can be found.^ However suggested, 
 whether the result of either or both of these influences, 
 the notion of such a declaration took precedence of 
 all others in the Assembly, and for weeks men who had 
 the nation's well-being in charge busied themselves 
 with drawing up a purely theoretical preface to the 
 constitutional law. 
 
 The fact is often forgotten that a certain minority 
 opposed drawing up a declaration of rights. Promi- 
 nent men like Malouet, Grandin, the Bishop of Langres 
 and of Auxerre, objected to making a set of metaphy- 
 sical principles into positive law. The act they argued 
 "was useless," and "apt to mislead the ignorant, be- 
 cause abstract and one-sided."^ In a remarkably sane 
 speech, whose general tenor was to urge that the con- 
 stitution be framed first, and the rights later, Malouet 
 pleads that the laws were only the "result and ex- 
 pression of natural rights and duties," and that there 
 was " no natural right which did not find itself modi- 
 fied by natural law; therefore, if you indicate no re- 
 striction, why present to men in all their plenitude 
 rights which they may only use with just limitations P"^^ 
 The same speaker further objects that always, and of 
 necessity, metaphysical discussions consume much time, 
 
 24 See e. g. the Oahiers of the nobles at Nantes, of the Third 
 Estate of Eennes, and those of Paris, both noblesse and Third 
 (Cherest, op. cit., II, pp. 466 et seq.). 
 
 25 Moniteur, I, pp. 257 et seq. 
 
 26 Ibid, p. 263. 
 
BIGHTS OF MAN. 151 
 
 and begs that, in the present ease, the greatest possible 
 haste be used in getting to the actual law making.*^ 
 The minority were even sufficiently sane to object that 
 however much reason dictated a declaration of rights, 
 prudence suggested that to formulate such rights was 
 to put a heavy strain upon the controlling power of 
 government, since these rights "were of no use with- 
 out force ; " and how would it be, they asked, if the peo- 
 ple rose to use force in order to realize them entirely? 
 In spite of this clear-headed minority, who under- 
 stood the danger involved in the formal presentation 
 of a series of natural rights to a nation entirely inex- 
 perienced in self-government, it was decreed to draw 
 up the declaration. The desirability of the form had 
 caught the imagination of the majority. When such 
 leaders as Mirabeau,^ Cheniere, Target,^ de Castellane, 
 Barnave, and even Malouet, resigning himself to the 
 
 2T Moniteur, Vol. I, p. 263. Bailly in his Mfimoires, Vol. I, 
 pp. 300-301, i8 of this opinion. While he avows that the idea 
 of expressing these rights was "une id6e trSs belle et tr63 
 philosophique ", he says " ces idges metaphysiques egarent plus 
 qu'elles n'Iclairent la multitude." 
 
 28Mirabeau was on the whole reluctant to have the rights 
 formulated until the constitution had been framed and ac- 
 cepted, (Choix de Kapports, I, p. 230.) but he yielded to 
 the weight of opinion, and put the force of his arguments on 
 the side of the declaration. He was one of the committee of 
 five who drew it up. How completely he finally indorsed the 
 idea can be judged from his words in reporting the plans of 
 the committee. The rights are to be simple and popular, he 
 said, " c'est ainsi que les AmSricains ont fait leur declara- 
 tion des droits; ils en ont a dessein gcartS la science; ils ont 
 pr6sent§ les veritfis politiques qu'il s'agissait de fixer sous 
 une forme qui put devenir facilement celle du peuple, a qui 
 seul la liberte importe et qui aeul peut la maintenir." 
 
 29 See his enthusiastic and interesting speech in Choix de 
 Rapports, I, p. 223 et seq. 
 
152 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 current of opinion, all in the same meeting spoke in 
 favor of the declaration as preface to the constitution, 
 a few counter arguments, were they ever so wise, were 
 not likely to prevail. The majority echoed and ap- 
 plauded the statement that " the rights of man in so- 
 ciety are eternal," and that "no sanction is necessary 
 to recognize them * * * they are invariable as 
 justice, eternal as reason; applicable to all ages and 
 to all countries."^" If thirty years later men could 
 still write as Cousin did, that the " Droits de I'Homme 
 et du Citoyen " were " the greatest, the most holy, the 
 most beneficial which have appeared since the Evan- 
 gele," it is not astonishing that, filled with apostolic 
 enthusiasm, the men of '89 felt that the formulation 
 of these new-found rights was of first importance. 
 
 Many urged that there be a careful statement of them 
 as a preventive measure, as a lasting safeguard against 
 tyranny. To declare the Eights of Man, said one, the 
 Comte d'Estraigne, is, for Frenchmen, "indispensable, 
 in order that should Heaven again visit them with the 
 punishment of despotism, they might at least be able 
 to show to the tyrant the injustice of his pretentions, 
 his duties, and the rights of the people."** Or again,'* 
 it was shown that the Declaration of Eights would guide 
 the mind as the complement of the legislation about to 
 be undertaken. Legislators could not foresee all cases; 
 the Eights of Man would serve as the National Cate- 
 chism. Extremists went so far as to propose to call 
 
 30-Speeeh of Due de Montmorency,' August 1, 1889. Moni- 
 teur, I, p. 26. 
 
 31 Blanc, op. cit.. Ill, p. 42. 
 
 32 B^irnave, Moniteur, I, p. 262, 
 
BIGBI'8 OF MAS. 153 
 
 these articles the constitution. It was contended that 
 the constitution of the people was the " establishment 
 of those natural and imprescriptible rights anterior to 
 laws, which latter establish only relative and positive 
 rights. All nations have then the same constitution, 
 since they all have the same rights." Modern consti- 
 tutions, it was objected, confounded constitutions with 
 the institutions which were created by the laws based on 
 the fundamental constitution. The constitution gave 
 existence to the political bodies; the institutions ar- 
 ranged for their preservation; whence the Declaration 
 of Eights was the true constitution.^* This discourse, 
 " covered with plaudits " says the Moniteur, is but one 
 example of many such speeches, so many successive proofs 
 of how enthusiasm for theory completely overshadowed 
 the statesmanlike anxiety of a few to get to the formula- 
 tion of such law as might bring order out of the daily 
 increasing anarchy. The whole assembly, as is well 
 known, finally adopted a Declaration of Eights pre- 
 sented by Mirabeau, in the name of the sixth bureau^* — 
 a declaration which, the spokesman said, was intended 
 to recall to the people, "not what they had studied in 
 books, nor in abstract meditation, but what they them- 
 selves had felt, so that it * * * mi^ht rather be 
 the language which they would use had they the habit 
 of expressing their ideas."*^ 
 
 33 See whole speech by Crenifires, in Moniteur, I, pp. 259, 
 260. 
 
 34 The first committee to prepare a draft of the declaration 
 was appointed July 14, 1789; it was not until August 26, 
 1789, that the final draft was received and accepted. 
 
 35 Many other reports had been offered and the strongly 
 Kousseauist character of the Assembly is nowhere better evi- 
 
154 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 As for the Declaration of Eights which heads the 
 constitution of '93, the Convention demanded it, be- 
 cause of the "incoherence and inconsistency of the 
 declaration of '89."*® The plan for it, drawn up hy 
 Heraiilt de Sechelles, who, like Mirabeau and the Con- 
 vention of '89, aimed "to imitate the simplicity and 
 clearness of the Americans,"*'' was read amid the ap- 
 plause of the Convention. After two or three seasons 
 for discussion, the draft was adopted with little altera- 
 tion. The marked changes from the declaration of '89 
 will appear in what follows. The general diiferenee 
 lies in a greater directness of style and a greater single- 
 ness of purpose. The idea of individual right comes 
 forward more clearly. Though the state is less ac- 
 cented, its powers and duties are larger and more in- 
 clusive than in the earlier document. There is, too, a 
 tendency to break over national borders and to proclaim 
 a world polity rather than one merely national. 
 
 All this makes it clear that, though there was a vig- 
 orous protest against the intrusion of the abstract into 
 positive law, metaphysical thought and phraseology 
 had come to be a predominant part of the general 
 sentiment. The majority held it to be of first im- 
 portance to legalize the new creed of individual right. 
 
 denced than in some of them. See especially those of Lafay- 
 ette, Si6yes, Mounier and the declaration presented by Ser- 
 van (Moniteur, I, p. 243), which read like abstracts from 
 the "Contrat Social." 
 
 36 See Bargre's speech, in which he says the declaration of 
 '89, " a le mgrite bien reconnu d'gtre concise ; mais aussi elle 
 a le vice figalement reconnu d'Stre incoherente" (Choix de 
 Rapports, XII, p. 286). 
 
 37 Moniteur, XVII, p. 728. S6ance June 26, 1793. 
 
RIGHT TO LIBERTY. 155 
 
 For this reason, the Eights of Man found their way 
 into the positive law of France as portentous preface 
 to the constitution of '91 and that of '93. In these 
 two declarations, and in each additional testimony as 
 is furnished by the Cahiers of the States-General, and 
 the debates, which in the Assembly and at the Jacobin 
 Club, made these questions their chief concern, the 
 revolutionary opinions concerning these rights can be 
 gathered. 
 
 The chief interest of the eighteenth century, as has 
 been seen, was to prove the freedom of the individ- 
 ual, to break the shackles which bound the physical, 
 and, more particularly, the intellectual man. The first, 
 most important of rights, was liberty. No more bar- 
 riers to progress, no more check upon religious or secu- 
 lar opinion; civil, political, religious liberty was the 
 single aim to which all others were accessory; all ac- 
 tion of government should be in the end of making the 
 sanctity of the sphere of the individual, certain and 
 complete. 
 
 This is particularly the spirit of the first half of the 
 Eevolution. The Constituent Assembly has often been 
 called a gathering of men liberty-mad, so entirely did 
 the accent fall upon this individual right; but though 
 the succeeding years saw the sphere of the individual 
 narrowed because of a more pronounced idea of the 
 greater claim of collective well-being, as against individ- 
 ual well-being, the theoretical idea of liberty changed 
 less during the Revolution than did the idea concern- 
 ing any other right. From the beginning, liberty was 
 held to be the power which belongs to man to do 8.11 
 
156 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 that which does not injure the rights of others.^* Later, 
 the same idea gets an important addition. Though 
 Nature, it is said, is the principle of liberty, yet justice 
 is its rule, and law is made in order to protect the lib- 
 erty of all; the maxim, "do not do to another that 
 which you would not wish him to do to you," is the 
 moral limitation of the right of liberty.^* Here is 
 a notable alteration which makes all liberty referable 
 to that of others in a sense which asks for a fraternal 
 spirit of -self-denial. Of course, all parties alike held 
 liberty to be a " natural right." " The law," it was 
 said, " is not a master who accords his benefits gratui- 
 tously; of itself, liberty embraces all that which does 
 not belong to others; the law is only there to prevent it 
 from losing its way; it is only a protective institution 
 formed by the same liberty which is anterior to all, and 
 for which all in the social order exists."** But the 
 law must "prevent it from losing its way." In asso- 
 ciation, "liberty supposes discipline,"*^ and each un- 
 der the social contract loses a certain liberty by his vol- 
 untary act. With only this reservation, that the law 
 must " mark in the natural free actions of each indi- 
 vidual the point beyond which they (these actions) be- 
 come hurtful to the rights of others,"** all men were 
 held to be always free. 
 
 Freedom of person was to be insured first. No man 
 might deprive himself, much less be deprived, of his 
 
 38 Art. 4, Declaration of '89; art. 6, Declaration of '93. 
 
 39 See art. 6, Declaration of '93. 
 
 40 Sieyes in speech on the liberty of the press, Choiz d« 
 Rapports, II, pp. 351 et seq. 
 
 41 Mirabeau. Moniteur, I, p. 42. 
 42,Si6yes. Choix de Kapports, II, p. 352. 
 
RWET TO LIBERTY. ]^57 
 
 personal freedom;*^ this was mandatory. Liberty to 
 come and go, freedom from arrest, except for a stated 
 cause expressed by a law previously made;** the right 
 to assemble peaceably*^ and to employ one's labor power 
 in whatsoever form of labor, commerce or culture was 
 considered desirable;*^ these were so many corollaries 
 to the original propositions that liberty was a primeval 
 right of man, and that the conservation of this liberty 
 of action was a necessity for the development and well- 
 being of social man. 
 
 Following on the liberty of act was the liberty of 
 thought, " the most sacred of all rights," a right which 
 " escapes the empire of men."*^ Each of those par- 
 ticular rights which sum up under the general head of 
 liberty of thought, that is, the right to express one's 
 opinion as one may desire, whether by spoken or written 
 words, whether publicly or privately; the liberty to wor- 
 ship whatever God in whatever manner one pleased; 
 each of these rights was striven for as resolutely in the 
 Assembly as in the Convention. But, in 1789, they 
 are laid down with qualifications; they are absolutely 
 guaranteed in the Declaration of '93.** " I do not come 
 to preach tolerance," says Mirabeau, in the Constituent 
 Assembly;*^ "the most unlimited liberty of religion is 
 in my eyes a right so sacred that the word tolerance, 
 
 43 Art. 18, Dec. of '93. 
 
 44 Ibid, arts. 10, 11, 12 and 14. 
 
 45 Ibid, art. 7. 
 
 46 Ibid, art. 17. 
 
 47Rabaud de St. Etienne. Choix de Rapports, I, pp. 241 
 et seq. 
 
 48 Dec. of '93, art. 7. 
 
 49 Choix de Rapports, I, p. 23S. 
 
158 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH RETOWflOJJ. 
 
 which would wish to express it, seems to me in some 
 sort itself tyrannical, since the existence of authority 
 which has the power to tolerate, menaces liberty of 
 thought just in this, that it tolerates, and that thus it 
 might not tolerate." In Mirabeau's idea, — and in the 
 Assembly, his was the controlling one, — the law should 
 be absolutely silent with regard to religion. Rulings 
 concerning man's relation with God had no place among 
 the laws of men. "As well," he cried, " decree that 
 the sun was the only sun which they would accept for 
 light as decree that the Catholic religion was the law 
 of the land."'''' This was the characteristic attitude of 
 all the leaders of the Eevolution up to the period when 
 tyranny, in order to liberty, became the unfortunate 
 practice. Equally unqualified are the arguments in fa- 
 vor of liberty of the press. " The public expresses it- 
 self badly," says Sieyes, " when it asks for a law to give 
 freedom of the press. It is not in virtue of the law 
 that the citizens think, speak, write and publish their 
 thoughts; it is in virtue of their natural rights which 
 men brought into the association, and for the main- 
 tenance of which they have established the law itself 
 and all the public methods which serve them.""*^ 
 " There is no law," says another, " to be made on the 
 liberty of the press ; this means of communicating one's 
 thought can no more be enchained than the thought 
 itself."'^ Even when the Convention framed the de- 
 crees which punished the writing of seditious pamphlets 
 with death, the debates which prefaced these decrees 
 
 50 Choix de Rapports, Vol. I, p. 238 et seq. 
 
 51 Choix de Rapports, II, -p. 251. 
 
 82 Speech of Chapelier. Choix de Rapports, V, p. 219. 
 
RIGET TO LIBERTY. 159 
 
 were so many glowing tributes to the eternal and in- 
 alienable liberty of the press.^^ 
 
 To sum up, in the earlier period, it was held that so- 
 ciety should have no direct share in looking after the 
 individual interest, nor in shaping the morality of the 
 nation. The regulation of his private tastes and occu- 
 pations, and the practice of his religion was to be left 
 entirely to each individual. The duty of society was 
 to protect all individuals and all cults equally. Lib- 
 erty of person and of thought was to be reserved by the 
 law to each member of society, with only the limita- 
 tion respecting the same rights in others. But pas- 
 sionate as was the love for liberty and the desire for 
 personal freedom during the Eevolution, the principle 
 that the well-being of the whole social body took prece- 
 dence of the individual well-being, gradually got the 
 upper hand. Even in theory, the idea of liberty for 
 each went swiftly to the wall after '91, as against the 
 struggle for a certain kind of liberty for all. After 
 '98, only one part of the individual natural right re- 
 mained in full possession to each individual. The 
 right of each to express his will in the affairs of the 
 nation, a right affirmed, but not granted, in '89, and 
 both affirmed and granted in '93, remains a natural and 
 inalienable right, though in practice, at least, that also 
 disappears after '93. However, it was in the name of the 
 theory of the sovereignty of the nation that individual 
 rights were overshadowed and a tyranny was finally set 
 Tip, than which modern history tells of few greater. 
 
 B3In Choix de Rapports, Vol. XI, pp. 303, 304, the reader 
 will find interesting evidence of how far these Conventionnels 
 were checked by their own theories when those who attacked 
 them were to be dealt with. 
 
160 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH RBTOLUTION. 
 
 The enthusiasm for the idea of liberty had only 
 slight precedence over the enthusiasm for that of 
 equality.'* Even before the two higher Estates had 
 yielded to the Third and the Constituent Assembly 
 had been actually organized, these two rights, now so 
 intimately associated with the Eevolution, were de- 
 manded together, as the imperative need of the time.''* 
 It is a prevailing thought that " liberty and equality are 
 the supreme possession" of the French people, that 
 equality must be " the base of the Constitution.'"" 
 
 Equality is a broad term, and carries with it different 
 concepts, according to the development of the man who 
 uses it. As a principle of government, it has covered 
 all manner of ideals. On the one hand, those who 
 preach equality have in view carefully supervised com- 
 munities where groups of men are to be brought up 
 to eat, dress, act and think alike, using unequal pow- 
 ers for the single end of the general well-being, and 
 taking no special account of personal enjoyment; on 
 the other hand, there is that conception of equality 
 which interprets the word to mean equal freedom from 
 impediments in a race where the spoils shall be to the 
 nimblest. 
 
 During the first part of the Eevolution, the claims 
 for equality were really put forward under the influence 
 of this latter, the physiocratic, idea of equality. Mere 
 
 MLa libertg et I'figalite sont leurs biens suprfemes; il sac- 
 rifieront tout pour les conserver. Koland. S6ance of Septem- 
 ber 23, 1793. Choix de Rapports, X, p. 24. 
 
 55 See, in particular, Mirabeau's famous speech of June 15, 
 1789, in Moniteur, I, p. 351. 
 
 56 Speech of Charles de Lameth, June 19, 1790. Choix 
 de Rapports, II, p. 115. 
 
RIGHT TO EQUALITY. 161 
 
 liberty of opportunity, the principle of laissez-faire, 
 was all the equality asked or desired. Mirabeau slur- 
 ringly spoke of any other idea of equality as " only 
 a violent fit of revolutionary fever,""^ which, because 
 of the inborn vanity of man, could not endure. Each 
 speech of the early days in the Assembly begins and 
 ends with the claim for every man's right to an equal 
 chance in the struggle for existence; that is, for the 
 right to equal legislation, and equal territorial rights 
 in each administrative unit in the kingdom, as well as 
 for the abolition of all special privilege."* It was 
 usually asserted that this sort of equality was dependent 
 upon an eqiial protection of each individual by the state, 
 and could only be insured by laws alike for all.®* The 
 successive assemblies delegated to make the laws con- 
 cerning " the establishment, the formation, the organ- 
 ization, the functions, the mode of acting, the limits of 
 all social power,"'" aimed first of all at securing liberty 
 and equality to the nation; they strove valiantly to- 
 ward equality by abolishing all heredity in office, or all 
 long tenure of office, on the ground which later ex- 
 perience has shown to be so debatable — the ground that 
 no man was specially endowed to serve his country, 
 but that all were equally able to conduct the simple du- 
 ties of government. The same theory, of course, was 
 behind the law making which decreed that each citizen 
 was eligible to any place under the government. All 
 
 57 Correspondence with La Marck. I, p. 351. 
 
 B8 See speech on Due d'Ai^illon, Moniteur, Vol. I, p. 279. 
 
 B9 Blanc, op. cit.. Ill, p. 407. 
 
 80 Condorcet in report on the projected Constitution of '93, 
 one of the most political speeches of the Revolution. Choix 
 de Rapports, XII, p. 279. 
 11 
 
162 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH RETOLVTION. 
 
 men were made equal before the common law, when 
 feudal privilege was destroyed and the Church reduced 
 to a civil institution; when the contributions for the 
 state support were drawn equally from all men and 
 from all sections of the country. The political and civil 
 laws of the Eevolution had always in view the pro- 
 vincial, municipal and personal equalization of the 
 national life. 
 
 After 1791, when visionaries held the reins of gov- 
 ernment, and the lawmakers were in such desperate 
 haste to realize the rational, there was a distinct difEer- 
 ence in the interpretation of the right of equality. Al- 
 though the principle is couched in about the same terms, 
 although equality was still demanded, in order that 
 each " shall enjoy the same rights,""^ in reality the prin- 
 ciple is changed. Equality comes to be a doctrine mak- 
 ing for the leveling-down of all to a certain standard. 
 The notion of equality now takes legal form as a de- 
 mand for the support of the poor by the rich. There 
 are distinct governmental efforts to bring about a more 
 equal division of fortunes by making the superfluous 
 useless to him who possesses it, or by turning it to the 
 advantage of him who is without it, and thus, in either 
 case, ordering it to the profit of society at large.®* The 
 idea of equality comes to take precedence of the idea 
 of liberty. The earlier notion was absolute liberty 
 and the greatest possible equality; the later doctrine was 
 
 61 Dec. of April, '93. Choix de Rapports, XII. 
 
 82 See Chronique de Paris No. 19, January, 1793. (Cited in 
 Sudre. Histoire de Communisme, p. 258.) Comp. also 
 Sagnac. La Legislation Civile de la Revolution Frangaise, 
 especially pp. 246-276. 
 
RIQET TO EQUALITY. j^63 
 
 more nearly absolute equality, to the end of the great- 
 est possible liberty. The dream of solving for all time 
 the problem of alimentation by limiting or equalizing 
 consumption, all to the end of bringing about social 
 justice, got the upper hand, and the doctrine of equality 
 came to sound like something very near to communistic 
 similarity. 
 
 The principle of equality, then, like the doctrine of 
 liberty, changed its aspect during the Eevolution. Al- 
 though it is the individualistic interpretation of equal- 
 ity which has been handed on with most persistence, as 
 having been a principle of Eevolution, the communis- 
 tic idea of equality had undoubted currency for a con- 
 siderable period. The equality which in later French 
 history has been announced as the " revolutionary prin- 
 ciple of equality," has meant equal right to protection 
 from the government, and otherwise equal freedom to 
 follow where individual interests might lead; but under 
 the most distinctive period of the Eevolution, equality 
 meant the nearest possible approach to similarity of 
 possession, of habits and of opportunities for culture 
 and enjoyment. 
 
 Because of the wholesale appropriation of property 
 which went on during its course, the whole revolution 
 has sometimes been called a socialistic movement, un- 
 der the interpretation of socialism which takes the 
 theory to include all social movements made in favor of 
 state action directed toward the equalization of prop- 
 erty-holding.*' Whenever modern political theorists 
 
 63 See e. g. Espinas — La PhilosopMe Soeiale, au XVIII« 
 si6ele et la Rgyolution. 
 
164 Principles op pbencb retolvtion. 
 
 so interpret the property doctrine of the Eevolution, 
 they then hold that the revolutionary theory of prop- 
 erty-right started with the idea of state as possessor. 
 On the other hand, because of what is contained in both 
 declarations of rights, others have asserted that the 
 principle which controlled the whole revolutionary 
 thinking concerning property was that individualistic 
 theory which holds the state to be the only guarantor of 
 an original and inalienable natural right. Probably it 
 is most correct to say that, so far as practice was con- 
 cerned, the principle which was behind the acts of legis- 
 lation was what has been recently called the " appro- 
 priationist "** principle, a principle by which one " ex- 
 propriates first and then apportions again to the best 
 of one's ability." Throughout the Eevolution the idea 
 was not so much to discredit the right of individual 
 land-holding as it was to establish the state's right to 
 regulate the character of that holding. 
 
 Two currents of opinion are plainly discernible when 
 account is taken of those principles concerning private 
 holding which the leaders of the new movement laid 
 down in the course of the frequent debates upon ques- 
 tions of property that took place during the four years 
 under discussion. The prevailing opinions group under 
 two heads: There was one theory which contended 
 that property was a right anterior to society, a right 
 resting on labor, and that the state was only the 
 
 «* E. Faguet in La Grande Revue for May, 1899. Art. " Le 
 Socialisme dans la Revolution Frangaise," p. 371. The French 
 verb " approprier," it will be remembered, means to apportion, 
 requiring the reflexive form before it gets our meaning of 
 " appropriate." 
 
RIGHT TO PROPERTY. 165 
 
 guardian of that right; there was another which re- 
 garded personal holdings as a right deriving from so- 
 ciety. In the latter view, society was held to be the 
 depositary of all rights, and thus, by the terms of 
 an original arrangement, ha4* always the final power 
 to decide upon the right of each and all to retain per- 
 sonal possession. It seems to have been pretty gen- 
 erally admitted by all factions, until 1791, that the 
 natural man needed property in order to fulfill his des- 
 tiny of earthly happiness, and, in the interests of such 
 a need, had retained that right on entering society. 
 After 1791, it was not usual to hear any one of the 
 leaders urge that a primitive right took precedence of 
 a social claim at least to arbitrate upon all property, 
 but the idea of the state as the protector of all personal 
 property had preference during the first half of the 
 Eevolution.®" 
 
 In support of the theory of absolute individual con- 
 trol of all possessions, it was contended that property 
 rests on a law anterior to all constitutions. " Each en- 
 ters into the social compact, bringing with him his 
 property, and the protection of his possessions is the 
 sole object of the social contract; therefore, it is sacred^ 
 unless the nation should dispose of it for the general 
 good, and in return for a just and preliminary indem- 
 nity."^® All those who stand for inviolability of prop- 
 erty admit this final qualifying clause,®^ but men of all 
 
 65 So prominent a man as Mirabeau was, however, a dis- 
 senter from it. 
 
 66 Lasource in the Convention. Moniteur, XVI, p. 7. 
 
 67 See the debates of Au^st 4, 1789 (Moniteur, I, pp. 
 270 et seq.), and other debates on property cited elsewhere. 
 
IQQ FKINVIFLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 factions, Constitutionalists, Monarchists, Feuillants and 
 Girondists agreed that, unless the right deriving from 
 the condition antecedent to society was to be protected 
 and preserved by society, the right should not be sur- 
 rendered. It was held thg,t unless the individual prop- 
 erty-right was respected* "liberty itself would disap- 
 pear * * * industry would be made tributary to 
 stupidity, activity to laziness, economy to dissipation; 
 over the laborious, intelligent and economic man, the 
 tyranny of ignorance, idleness and debauchery would 
 be set up."** Even opportunists like Danton^® de- 
 manded that the laws should declare "all properties, 
 territorial, individual and industrial, eternally invio- 
 lable."'''' Though his motion received the applause of 
 the majority, it was criticised by Cambon, who reminded 
 the Assembly that property, like everything else, was 
 subject to the will of the people. Here is the keynote 
 of the other theory which holds property to be a social 
 right, not one inherent in the individual. 
 
 The right of property, as deriving from the consent 
 of the whole nation, which is thus made the original 
 possessor, was the theory of property which, surviving 
 from the century preceding, chiefly influenced the 
 thought and act of the Eevolution. The most interest- 
 ing and best-known exponent of this theory is Mirabeau, 
 who, it is well known, held property to be a social, not 
 
 68Vergniaud on property, cited in Sudre, op. cit., pp. 263, 
 264. 
 
 69 The word " opportunist " is here taken to mean nothing 
 derogatory. It implies one who is ready to use any means 
 which he believes will bring about the well-being of the coun- 
 try he holds dear. 
 
 TOMoniteur, XVI. p. 7. 
 
RIGHT TO PROPERTY. IQI 
 
 a natirral right, and the proprietor simply a govern- 
 ment official. " I know but three ways of existing in 
 society," says Mirabeau; " one must be beggar, thief or 
 wage-earner (salarie)." The proprietor is himself 
 only the first of wage-earners; that which is vulgarly 
 called property is nothing but the price which society 
 pays to its proprietors for the distribution which he 
 is charged to make to the other individuals by his con- 
 sumption and his expenses. " Les proprietaires sont 
 les agents, les economes de corps social;"''^ and when 
 circumstances make it necessary for state to assert this 
 property-right, proprietors cannot justly deny the pre- 
 eminent right of society to claim its own. Mirabeau 
 was not alone in this opinion. Not so often in the con- 
 ventions of state, perhaps, but in all the club reunions 
 and in the papers and pamphlets of the time, this doc- 
 trine finds untiring support.^^ Sometimes, it goes 
 along with the suggestion of communism, ^^ but no one 
 seriously broached the idea of communistic or coUect- 
 ivist property-holding.''* It is true that, pursuant to 
 
 n See the whole very suggestive speech in sSance of August 
 10, 1789. Moniteur, I, p. 327; comp. also his speech on 
 succession in direct line, " la societe qui avait er6e le droit 
 de proprifte, pouvait a son grg lui limiter." (Comp. also Tron- 
 chet and Camus; speeches on occasion of debates on the in- 
 heritance laws, April, 1791.) 
 
 72 Comp. Robespierre on property, Moniteur, XVI, p. ,213. 
 Dubois de Crancfi, discours, February, 1793 (cited in Lichten- 
 berger, Le Socialisme et la Revolution Frangaise, p. 117); 
 also the major part of the speeches of Chabot, Billaud-Varen- 
 nes, Fauchet. The most important debates on property were 
 those of August 4, 1789, and the day or two succeeding; the 
 month of August, 1790; the 3-6 of July, 1791, and August 
 14, 1792. 
 
 73 As, for instance in the doctrines of Pere Duchesne and 
 Claude Fauchet. 
 
 74 Communistic ideals had no real force in the Revolution. 
 
168 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 this right, it was considered the duty of the represen- 
 tatives of the sovereign to decide whether in the last 
 resort an individual was entitled to possess property/" 
 and also to determine what amount each should pos- 
 sessJ^ Thus property might be appropriated on 
 grounds of crimes against the sovereign people; the 
 popular will should assert itself, on the question 
 of how much a man might bequeath to his heirs 
 and what part the amount of his property should play 
 in determining his share of the contribution to state 
 support. The corollaries of the principle of the state's 
 final right to property were thus laws of confiscation — 
 laws limiting the size of fortunes, inheritance laws, and 
 a progressive tax. But however much such laws may 
 smack of communistic or socialistic theories, they did 
 not result in a social system which resembled any type 
 of socialistic society; not even when the idea behind 
 such interference with the personal right was the con- 
 
 Although the Convention listened with attention to a discourse 
 (Carra. Stance of 25 February, '93. Choix de Bapports, XI, 
 p. 304 et seq.) in which the question of appropriating for- 
 tunes gained in an illicit fashion was discussed, and it was 
 pleaded that such appropriation be decreed, because " partout 
 oH le peuple retrouve son bien, il a le droit de le prendre; 
 e'est un axiome incontestable, non seulement de sa sou- 
 verain6t6, mais de la justice, de la raison et de la politique 
 universelle," the motion was rejected as tending to encour- 
 age a popular expectation of an agrarian law. On motion of 
 Bar6re, arch time-server, the Convention voted " la peine de 
 mort contre quiconque proposera une loi agraire ou toute 
 autre, subversive des proprieties territoriales, commerciales 
 et industrielles." (Choix de Rapports, XI, p. 318.) 
 
 78 See laws on confiscation of goods of the aristocrats e. g. 
 in act establishing Revolutionary Tribunal, Choix de Rap- 
 ports, XII. 
 
 76 gee laws on limitation of large fortune. Saguac, op. cit., 
 pp. 217-243. 
 
RIGHT TO PROPERTY. iQg 
 
 ception of state as rightful possessor of all the sources 
 and means of production. 
 
 The reason for this is important and not far to seek. 
 The root principle hehind either idea of property was 
 one entirely individualistic. It was helieved, that in 
 order to fulfill the end for which the greater number 
 had been given the controlling power, that is, in order 
 to best further the common happiness by means of in- 
 dividual freedom, the state must proceed by way of 
 the segregation, not the aggregation, of possessions. 
 The social duty, from which the social right over prop- 
 erty derived, was the equitable division of property, in 
 order to insure his share of happiness to each member 
 of society. Even when it was held that the state had 
 the right to take away from one citizen, it was only 
 desired that it should do so in order that it might carry 
 out completely its service of giving to another who was 
 more deserving of possession. In all eases, the ideal 
 was only state control of the partition of property, not 
 state ownership of property. If the sovereign seques- 
 trated, whether on the grounds of being the real pos- 
 sessor, as was sometimes urged, or on the grounds of 
 social utility, it was not in order to retain control of 
 the property, but in order to an immediate redistribu- 
 tion on a basis which it conceived to be more nearly in 
 consonance with those principles of freedom and equity 
 that it had been created to preserve. During the Eevo- 
 lution, this theory that the state finally controlled prop- 
 erty expressed itself in a minute partition of the land, 
 because it went along with, and was in a sense sec- 
 ondary to, a theory that the individual was, by natural 
 
170 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH RETOLVTION. 
 
 law, free, and was best left free to seek the satisfac- 
 tion of his own wants for himself. The whole aim of 
 the Eevolution was a new distribution of political 
 power; the new distribution of property came in the 
 minds of the revolutionary parties merely as a neces- 
 sary measure in the course of such a repartition of the 
 government control. When the power of the Church 
 was to be diminished; when the defection of the nobles 
 was to be punished and the ecclesiastical and manorial 
 properties were expropriated by the state, the grounds 
 of such confiscation were oftenest that it was the state 
 duty to appropriate property wherever the individual 
 had failed in his duty to the state. The estates of 
 the guilds, of the suspects, of persons condemned to 
 the death penalty, these and any of the quasi-public or 
 private domains which were eventually alienated, were 
 always adjudged to the state on grounds of public util- 
 ity, whether state right or state duty was the final 
 argument which sanctioned the appropriation. 
 
 To sum up, the theory of property current during 
 the Eevolution shows an interesting separation of 
 opinion as to the right of property. Along with the 
 doctrine of the sacredness and inviolability of individ- 
 ual property on grounds of a natural right, deriving 
 from labor, it gave conspicuous importance to the prin- 
 ciple that the final and real proprietor was always the 
 state. Both parties were, however, so influenced by a 
 belief in the intimate connection between the develop- 
 ment of the individual and his inherent right to seek 
 and hold any means he deemed most needful for his 
 personal happiness, that there was no tendency to talk 
 
RIGHT TO PROPERTY. ^Yl 
 
 of state ownership of land. In regard to property, the 
 principle which emerges most positively from the Eevo- 
 lution is the idea of the state as arbiter concerning all 
 questions of property. State appropriations were al- 
 ways made on grounds of social utility, whether in the 
 name of a state right or a state duty. Whenever such 
 appropriations were made, the public necessity was al- 
 ways urged, in accordance with the requirements of 
 the articles of both declarations," even when the "in- 
 demnity " they also provided for was not forthcoming. 
 The ideas of property prevailing during the Eevolution 
 may be said to have focused, not so much to a unity of 
 opinion concerning the source of the right of property, 
 but rather to a uniformity of opinion which served 
 greatly to widen the sphere of state activity. 
 
 One important general fact derives from this review 
 of the revolutionary opinion concerning natural rights. 
 It must have been observed that, whether in regard to 
 the physical or mental freedom of the individual, his 
 social status, or his property, always the revolutionary 
 tendency was to accent increasingly the state's right 
 to arbitrate concerning the share of each individual in 
 such rights. While it is never to be forgotten that, in 
 the eyes of the revolutionists, social institutions were 
 only conceived to exist for the sake of the individual, 
 just because the individual interests were held to need 
 social institutions, this problem of the state and its du- 
 ties grew to be of increasing importance. The whole 
 political problem really resolved finally into this one of 
 
 77 Declaration of '89, art. XVII; Beclaration of '93, arts. 
 XVI and XIX. 
 
172 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REYOLVTION. 
 
 finding an answer for the question as to what were the 
 powers and duties of the state. Here, as at later 
 periods, the question was, how far collective action must 
 aid moral and physical well-being; in a word, what was 
 the relation of the state to the individual? To find 
 the reply which the Revolution gave to this question is 
 to find the revolutionary answer to the pivotal political 
 prohlem of that or any time. In this summary state- 
 ment of the revolutionary principles, it remains then 
 to discuss the position of the revolutionists on two 
 fundamental political principles. It must be clearly 
 understood what the state, or sovereign, was conceived 
 to be, and what was supposed to be the relation of the 
 sovereign to each individual in the nation. The least 
 skilled of political theorists who remembers that the 
 spirit of '93 was one of logical completeness, can work 
 out the Constitution of '93, if the revolutionary idea 
 of sovereignty and of relation between the state and 
 the individual is made clear. 
 
 IT. 
 
 Under the influence of the prevailing moral and 
 social ideas, the theory concerning the source of politi- 
 cal power took an entirely new aspect during the Eevo- 
 lution. A political philosophy that had grown in gen- 
 eral favor was now applied to practical politics. The 
 sovereignty which had been so long held to be vested 
 in one person, whose power, derived from a providential 
 source, now became the whole nation whose right 
 could be traced to the will of man. The revolutionary 
 doctrine replaced the absolute monarchy by the abso- 
 
80VERl!lGNTr. 1^3 
 
 lute majority. Supreme political power was now given 
 as unreservedly to the ISTation as it had formerly been 
 given to a single man.™ " Sovereignty resides in the 
 people," says the declaration of '93;^^ "it is one, in- 
 divisible, imprescriptible and inalienable," and this 
 theory, stated plainly in the previous declaration, and 
 held to be axiomatic in the Cahiers, has been the most 
 lasting dogma which the Eevolution has bequeathed to 
 later political theory. 
 
 It was, of course, the theory of the social contract 
 by which it was proven that the general will was to 
 control the particular will.®" Eousseau's contention 
 that the original voluntary contract had finally given 
 the ultimate right of decision to the majority, reap- 
 pears without reservation. " A first, unanimous con- 
 sent, founded upon the evidence of an absolute neces- 
 sity, submits the minority of the citizens to the desires 
 of the majority, and the will of the greatest number 
 becomes really the will of all."** "Each part of so- 
 ciety is subject; the sovereignty resides only in all 
 parts united," says a man so conservative as Lally-Tol- 
 lendal.®^ There is practically no dissent from the as- 
 sertion that since, by Natural Law, power derives from 
 
 T8 Comp. Robespierre's demand for universal suffrage, Aug. 
 9, 1792, cited in Blanc, La Revolution frangaise, VII, p. 36. 
 
 79 Art. 25 ; comp. also art. 1, Dec. of '89. 
 
 80 " Toute espSce de puissance individuelle qui tendrait t 
 restreindre les droits du peuple et blesserait les principles de 
 I'ggalite " are to be condemned. " Jurons tons la souve- 
 rainfite du peuple, sa souveraingtS enti6re". (Couthon on 
 duty of Convention. Moniteur, XIV, p. 6.) 
 
 81 Condorcet. Stance of Aug. 9, 1792. Choix de Rapports, 
 IX, p. 281. 
 
 82 Moniteur, I, p. 132. Comp. also almost any- one of 
 Robespierre's speeches; for e. g. that on the abolition of capi- 
 
174 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 the consent of the greater part of those persons who 
 entered into a social relation, it necessarily follows that 
 absolutely free and equal share in the law making and 
 the law-administering belongs to each member of the 
 social body, for it is only in this way that the social 
 man can remain his own master. Social happiness was 
 held to depend upon the universal recognition of this 
 principle that the law, " a just and useful intention ex- 
 pressed by a supreme will,"®* should be always the 
 " free and solemn expression of the general will."** 
 
 Eight of resistance, which played such a noteworthy 
 part in the revolutionary theory, means nothing more 
 than the right to insist upon and to preserve this in- 
 terpretation of sovereignty. Thff much-vaunted right 
 of resistance was only the sanction to the theory of 
 popular sovereignty. Any attempt to alter the prin- 
 ciple which vested social control in the general will 
 was to be regarded as a betrayal of the terms of asso- 
 ciation. Whosoever, by an attempt to make his indi- 
 vidual will the controlling will, dared to menace the 
 principle of popular sovereignty, merited immediate 
 death at the hands of the general association.*^ For it 
 was contended that the association not only bound itself 
 
 tal punishment: comp. Vergniaud, Moniteur, Vol. XV, p. 11. 
 seance of Dec. 31st, 1791. 
 
 83 Malouet. Moniteur, I, p. 77. 
 
 84 First clause of art. 4, Dec. of '93; comp. also Boyer- 
 Fonfrede, " J'ai le coeur trop haut; j'ai I'ame trop figre pour 
 reconnattre d'autre souveraine que le peuple." Choix de Rap- 
 ports, XXII, p. 18. 
 
 85 See Vergniaud. Speech on the Emigrgs, Oct. 26, 1791. 
 "Je conaens d'etre puni de mort si j'attente a la votre" 
 (surety). Comp. also speech of St. Just on the Constitution 
 of '93, ■ Choix de Rapports, XII, pp. 269 et seq. 
 
SOTEREIONTT. 1Y5 
 
 to permit each person to exercise his will as much as 
 was compatible with the freedom of the other members 
 of the nation; it likewise contracted to protect the 
 right of all against the possible encroachment of each. 
 Every member of the association had the right of insur- 
 rection if the association failed to perform this service^ 
 The doctrine meant not so much right of resistance to 
 the popular will as a right to resist the illegal acts of 
 the organs of that will. "When this right of resistance 
 was said to be the most sacred of all rights,®® what was 
 meant was resistance to incursions upon the right of 
 the sovereign people, not resistance to that final sover- 
 eignty. Where there was oppression of a single mem- 
 ber such that the sovereignty of all was threatened, re- 
 sistance became at once a right and a duty.®^ 
 
 It is interesting, if a little beside the point, to note 
 how this interpretation of sovereignty finally got ex- 
 pression in the fundamental law. When the question 
 of committing political powers into the hands of dep- 
 uiies came up for discussion, it was generally agreed 
 that as little power as possible must be unreservedly 
 delegated, lest the servant become the master. Not 
 only were the most limited powers to be intrusted to a 
 portion of the nation, but also, whatever power was 
 delegated, was to be divided as little as might be. By 
 '93 there was no more of that enthusiastic support of 
 the principle of the separation of powers which had 
 been one of the pet theories in '89. In place of the Con- 
 
 86 Dec. of '93, arts. 33, 34 and 35. 
 
 STComp. Robespierre's speech (Moniteur, I, p. 182). 
 "Y-a-t il rien de plus legitime que de se soulever centre 
 une conjuration horrible formge pour perdre la nation?" 
 
176 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 stitutionalists and Feuillants, who put so much stress 
 upon the principle; instead of Mirabeau defending 
 " cette grande locution des trois pouvoirs/'^ and a 
 majority eagerly advocating a separate executive, legis- 
 lative and judiciary, as the "powers which concur in 
 the establishment of the society,"** there is an entirely 
 different point of view. In '89, the Declaration of 
 Rights consecrated the separation of powers as the sole 
 valid guarantee of individual rights.*" In the Conven- 
 tion, the majority went with Ducos, who called the no- 
 tion of the distribution of powers " that chimera accred- 
 ited by the example of England, and by the authority of 
 several writers otherwise very estimable."®^ It was 
 held that a true democracy did not divide power; it 
 chose a few representatives to plan and to act for it, 
 and reserved for itself all rights of final decision. The 
 desire to have the active consent of the whole people in 
 all matters of law making, led the Jacobins to draw 
 up a constitution which it is permissible to believe could 
 never have been worked. But that constitution®^ re- 
 mains as the proof of the political ideal of the 
 Eevolution. The constitution provided for man- 
 hood suffrage and for the most democratic principle of 
 representation;®^ arranged for an obligatory referen- 
 
 88 Moniteur, I, p. 76. 
 
 89 De Virieu. Choix de Rapports, I, p. 62; eomp. also 
 Vergniaud (s6ance Dec 30, 1793), who declaims against 
 " cette cumulation de pouvoirs • * » est si effrayante 
 que * * * si elle se r§produit, ellc *nous conduirait aveo 
 rapidite a la tyrannic." Moniteur, Vol. XV, p. 11. 
 
 90 Dec. of '89, art. 16. 
 
 »iSee s6anee of April 17, 1793. Choix de Rapports, XII, 
 p. 285. 
 
 92 Con. of '93, art. 4. 
 
 83 Ibid, arts. 22, 23, 24 and 27. 
 
FUNCTIONS OF STATE. ^77 
 
 dum,** and placed the delegated power thus limited in 
 the hands of one legislative body,®^ which held for only 
 a year and had only administrative power*® to be ac- 
 tually exercised by means of an executive council which 
 was little more than a sort of ministry.®^ Such a con- 
 stitution certainly renders unqualified homage to the 
 idea of a Sovereign Nation; its provisions demonstrate 
 the will to vest all political power in the people, the 
 desire to make them the state and to constitute all dep- 
 uties as mere functionaries of the popular authority. 
 All but ordinance-making power was reserved to the 
 people ;** thus, the nation was to be, in fact as in theory, 
 the final depositary of political power. The Constitu- 
 tion of '93 stands as the monument of how the Eevo- 
 lution tried to give immediate reality to the new dream 
 of absolute popular sovereignty. 
 
 It has been seen how the theory of Natural Eights 
 defined certain limitations upon the ruling power, since 
 that theory outlined a sphere of activity as large as 
 possible to be reserved to the individual. It has also 
 been seen that the doctrine of the Eevolution stood for 
 the absolute sovereignty of the People, the supreme 
 political right which was held to belong to the majority 
 of the nation, exclusive of persons feminine, aristo- 
 cratic, in service or criminal.®^ Thus, in a sense, the 
 theory with regard to the relation between state and 
 
 94 Constitution of '93, arts. 56, 57, 58. 
 85 Ibid, art. 39. 
 «6Art8. 55 and 59. 
 
 87 Art. 62. 
 
 88 Arts. 56, 57. 58 and 115. 
 88 Art. 4, Con. of '93. 
 
1Y8 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH RETOLVTION. 
 
 individual has been implied. But, in order to com- 
 plete the statement of the important principles of the 
 Eevolution, it seems desirable to define explicitly the 
 theory that prevailed concerning the relation between 
 the collective society and the individual. 
 
 If one is predisposed to accept the idea still gen- 
 erally received, that the political principles of the 
 Eevolution were predominantly individualistic, the re- 
 sults of a study of the current conceptions concerning 
 the functions of the state are somewhat surprising. The 
 absolutely individualistic point of view, that attitude 
 which limits all concerted action to the exercise of 
 such power as shall enable functionaries of the sover- 
 eign to insure the peace and to collect the means to 
 carry on the administration, has no sanction in the law 
 nor in the arguments of any person whose opinions had 
 an appreciable influence. Throughout the Eevolution, 
 the twofold function of the government, government 
 as protector, and government as public philanthropist 
 and educator, is fully developed in theory; later doc- 
 trine came to lay formidable stress upon the second as- 
 pect of this function. 
 
 The doctrine of government as protector is, of 
 course, universally accented and indorsed. In the 
 Declaration of Eights, and in the constitutions, govern- 
 ment is undoubtedly conceived of, in the first instance, 
 as an institution, or rather a set of persons into whose 
 hands the sovereign intrusts the function of maintain- 
 ing order in the nation.^ The definition of the sev- 
 eral rights of equality, liberty and property clearly pre- 
 
 1 Dee. of '89, art. 2; Dee. of '93, art. 1. 
 
FUNCTIONS OF STATE. ^79 
 
 scribe that the sovereign depute this service to govern- 
 ment.* Whatever the exact character of the organs 
 of control created by the sovereign^ the primary reason 
 for giving such organs power is to insure order and sta- 
 bility to the whole association.* The duty of the en- 
 voys of the sovereign, that is, the duty of government, 
 was first of all to clear the way so that each individual 
 might have the fullest possible exercise of his rights. 
 In 1789, the Declaration of Eights included a demand 
 that government be supplied with a force sufficient to 
 carry out this important service. Of course, govern- 
 ment was to " reign by the laws " not " over the laws."* 
 All fundamental law was to be made by the sovereign, 
 and government was held to be the watch-dog of this 
 constitutional law, as well as the creator of such addi- 
 tional law as should make the observation of the pri- 
 mary law certain. 
 
 As to the further function of government it was not, 
 as has sometimes been stated, solely the practice of the 
 Jacobin government which introduced the idea of a 
 state activity wider than that of mere guardianship. 
 As has already been seen, the assembly, when discussing 
 natural rights, upheld the ideal of state as final arbi- 
 ter. The very idea of popular sovereignty includes the 
 notion of a collective will acting as a powerful, undi- 
 vided force, which in the last resort shall decide upon 
 
 2 See beside art. already cited, the interesting definition in 
 the Declaration decreed April, '93, and afterwards abrogated 
 in favor of the June Declaration. Note especially arts. 2, 5, 
 9, 17, 18, 24. 
 
 3 Comp. e. g. Condoreet, plan of Constitution, stance 15th 
 of Feb., '93. Choix de Rapports, XII, p. 228. 
 
 4 Abbe GrSgoire. Choix de Rapports, I, p. 37, 
 
180 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 all rights of the individual. Government was to secure 
 to each man " the free and entire exercise of his facul- 
 ties, physical and moral/'* and a yet wider sphere is sug- 
 gested in Title I of the Constitution of '91. It was in 
 reply to the appeal of leaders like Target,** Malouet/ 
 Servan, and perhaps more than half the leaders of the 
 Assembly/ that this title contained the clauses creating 
 establishments for public charity, for foundlings, for the 
 infirm poor, and for furnishing work for those who are 
 unable to find it; it was this same title which made gov- 
 ernment the power to organize free public instruction. 
 The difference between these provisions and those of 
 '93 is a difference in position of the doctrine® and in the 
 manner of utterance.^" It would be to press the point 
 under discussion too far to insist that the idea of state 
 activity was quite the sam-e in both periods. No doubt 
 the dominant note of the Assembly was government as 
 the power to maintain liberty; admittedly the guiding 
 rule of the Convention was government as the medium 
 for the maintenance of social justice. However, in the 
 whole period there was an undoubted undercurrent of 
 similarity when it is question of the work to be under- 
 taken by the state. In 1791, as in 1793, Eobespierre 
 
 BMounier. S6anee of July 27, 1789. Comp. art. 2 of the 
 Dec. of 1789. 
 
 6 seance of Aug. 3, 1789. Cited in Michel. L'ldSe de 
 I'Etat, p. 91. 
 
 7 Ibid. 
 
 8 Comp. also the projects of Declarations by Thouriet, 
 Rabaud de St. Etienne, Sifeyes, etc., already noted. 
 
 9 In the theories of '93, the same clauses have been placed 
 among the Kights. 
 
 10 Note the fervent mention of the " dette sacrSe " which 
 society, according to the Dec. of '93, owes to each unfortu- 
 nate or suifer«r. See arts. 21 and 22, Dec, '93. 
 
FUNCTIONS OF STATE. ISl 
 
 held that the duty of the legislator was to preserve and 
 to form the public morals, source of all liberty and of all 
 social happiness^^ and to provide each person who could 
 not procure himself work with the necessities of life.^^ 
 Eeading the debates of the first months of the Constitu- 
 ent Assembly, and then those of the Convention,^^ one 
 gets convincing evidence that this doctrine of Robe- 
 spierre was the general belief during the whole Revolu- 
 tion.^* If the practice of '93 and thereafter seemed to 
 put most weight upon the second part of the state duty, 
 it was rather because special events gave power to a few 
 fanatic young men, like Robespierre, Saint Just and 
 Couthon, who were bent on realizing immediately and 
 for all time their dreams of a centralized republic. 
 Yet even these extremists were not at odds with the 
 general theory of the period; they only expressed it 
 more fervidly and believed more unhesitatingly that it 
 might be realized. At all periods, the revolutionary 
 theorists put their whole faith in the rationality of the 
 Sovereign People, and its power to became the active 
 political agent to social progress. 
 
 "Robespierre. Speech of May 30, 1791. 
 
 12 Choix de Rapports, XII, p. 393. Though he was far 
 from practicing it, Robespierre's idea of the end of govern- 
 ment is a very fair expression of the revolutionary ideal on the 
 same subject. The problem of government, he says, is solved 
 by giving it such force that it shall bring the " individual to obey 
 the general will and yet deprive it of the means to itself sub- 
 jugate the individual." The whole service expected of gov- 
 ernment is to protect the weak against the strong. (See 
 Lettre a ses CommSttants. Blanc, op. cit., VII, pp. 264r-266.) 
 
 13 Especially during the months of April and June, 1793. 
 
 14 See e. g. Talleyrand's remarks in his speech on Church 
 Property. Choix de Rapports, I, pp. 90 et seq. In this he 
 contends at length for the final power of the state to adjust 
 the social conditions which shall surround the individual. 
 
182 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 In urging that it was the duty of the government to 
 secure and aid the many against the few, the leaders of 
 the Assembly Convention were only returning to the 
 same principle of the relation of the state to the indi- 
 vidual, which has always controlled the political theory 
 of France. The various more or less enlightened des- 
 potisms which had gone along with the growth of the 
 French nation had deeply rooted in the French temper- 
 ament the idea of paternalism, as we now call state 
 control. Neither in the eighteenth century nor in the 
 Eevolution, or in modern times has France really aban- 
 doned this principle. The idea that the final right and 
 duty of the state is to shape the individual and collec- 
 tive life of a nation, had held throughout French his- 
 tory, and it was not abandoned during the Eevolution. 
 However much the revolutionists rooted out the old in- 
 stitutions, they did not get away from the doctrine that 
 the state was the rehabilitating and developing agent. 
 The notion as to where the final power rested, had 
 changed; the- mastership was clearly and definitely 
 transferred to the people; this was the new principle 
 which the Eevolution brought. That exaggerated be- 
 lief in the value and sanctity of each individual, which 
 developed the still-surviving insistence upon the theory 
 that government may only proceed by way of restriction 
 and injunction, is a belief which came later. This 
 dogma, purporting also to derive from Eousseau, is, so 
 far as the writer is able to see, not discernible in the 
 political principles of the Eevolution, nor in those po- 
 litical writings of Eousseau which inspired the Eevolu- 
 tion. As has been shown, the revolutionary principles 
 stood for the final right of individual judgment, and the 
 
FUNCTIONS OF STATE. 183 
 
 whole Eevolution was made in the name of that princi- 
 ple. Yet, after all, it was only the individual judgment 
 united to that of his fellows, it was only the judgment 
 of the social will (moi commun) which was ever really 
 recognized by the political principles of the Eevolu- 
 tion. There is no evidence that any of the revolution- 
 ists realized that the logical conclusion of the doc- 
 trine of individual rights was the theory of anarchy. 
 The idea of absence of government played no real part 
 in the revolutionary principles. On the contrary, all 
 truly revolutionary principles advocated a strong and 
 widespreading manifestation of the activity of the col- 
 lective will in order to the best interests of the individ- 
 ual and the general well-being. 
 
 In fact, the strong national predisposition for central- 
 ization is never better evidenced than during the Eevo- 
 lution. ISTot only did the accepted idea of state make it 
 both the right and duty of the government to act for 
 the moral as well as the physical protection of the com- 
 muity; it was held, moreover, that in order to fulfill this 
 double service, the government must be independent 
 and dominant. Neither church nor privileged classes,*® 
 neither small nor large groups within the nation*^ were 
 to have any but an entirely subordinate and equal rela- 
 tion to the government. Spiritual authority was to 
 play no part in social control;" the state was ethical, 
 not theological and permitted of neither direction nor 
 cooperation from any theological or lesser organization. 
 
 16 Decrees of Aug. 4, 1789; of ISTov. 5, 1789. (Cited in 
 Sagnac, La Legislation civile de la Revolution frangaise, p. 38.) 
 
 16 Decrees of Sept. 11, 1790; June 17, 1791. 
 
 17 Established by Civil Constitution of the Clergy, Dec. 26, 
 1790. Enforced by decree against non-juror priests, Nov. 
 29, 1791, 
 
184 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 All citizens, all territorial divisions held equal relation 
 to the state; for all citizens in all parts of the nation, 
 the will of the state was the law against which there was 
 no appeal. 
 
 During the entire epoch, the men most eager to create 
 absolutely new institutions never got away from the 
 traditional notion that the state, the real and final power 
 for individual and social progress, must have dominant 
 control. The statutes of the Convention came to be 
 so many witnesses to this theory of government. 
 "When legislation comes to be chiefly laws for the 
 regulation of social customs and even opinions, these 
 acts prove how an historic tendency will survive in face 
 of an imported theory which found currency because 
 it had immediate usefulness. The belief in a central- 
 ized and controlling government outlasts the newly 
 discovered sanctity and political value of the individual. 
 
 In conclusion, it may be said that the most important 
 contributions of the Eevolution to the political theory 
 of the new century were the popularization of the doc- 
 trine of Natural Eights and the clear formulation of 
 the idea of popular sovereignty. These conceptions sug- 
 gest a certain antinomy between state and individual. 
 On the one hand, revolutionary theory maintained the 
 sanctity of the sphere of individual activity and judg- 
 ment; on the other, it stood for the validity and force 
 of the general will, when expressed in government. 
 The general will was to serve as the final arbiter, and 
 was to decide how much free play might be given to the 
 particular will. The idea of the individual implied an 
 independent, self-sufficing unit in society, blessed with 
 innate and inalienable capacities for happiness and good 
 
CONCLUSION. 185 
 
 judgment, able to be the personification of self-help, if 
 only the state will see to it that every one else stands 
 aside and gives him a fair chance at the possibilities of 
 civilized life. The idea of the sovereign throughout 
 the Revolution was, in the last analysis, that of a final 
 and independent power, acting alone and unchecked by 
 any intermediary force for the direct benefit and protec- 
 tion of each and every member of the community. The 
 present has not yet rid itself of this contradiction which 
 was the most notable contribution of the revolutionary 
 period to our time. 
 
 The statement of the more important principles of the 
 Revolution is now completed. These principles were 
 first of all principles of revolt, designed to establish what 
 seemed a social order more propitious than that which 
 had been conducted by the long-established but now 
 discredited authorities. Their guiding principles were 
 not deductions from the history of man, but from rea- 
 son. Reason discerned a divine plan whose end was an 
 eternal tendency to harmony. This same reason, an 
 internal authority against which there was no tangible 
 standard of argument, made out society and the social 
 order to have been formed by a voluntary act and in 
 self -protection; it held that both society and a given 
 social order might justly continue only where it was 
 fully recognized that each member of the association 
 had a natural and equal share in the privileges of asso- 
 ciation. By the terms of association it was held to be 
 the duty of the associated will to protect all members 
 of society against some few whose, physical or mental 
 make-up might lead them to infringe upon the natural 
 rights of others in a selfish seeking after a fuller satis- 
 
186 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 faction of their own desires. Thus the individual had 
 always to do with the predominant and infallible ma- 
 jority voice, and the fact that he lived in society and 
 had the advantages of such a life made it obligatory 
 upon each individual to renounce his personal rights 
 whenever that majority voice believed that these en- 
 croached upon the rights of the greatest number. The 
 revolutionary principles stood for national freedom; 
 they sought to give to each individual the largest pos- 
 sible measure of political justice, to insure as complete 
 a share as possible of peace, security, freedom and 
 property to every member of the nation. But in spite 
 of the keen appreciation of the existence and equal 
 value of each individual, the whole tenor of the revolu- 
 tionary doctrine and practice was less to stimulate an 
 individualistic movement than to arouse a sentiment in 
 favor of a sense of social duty, a sense of fraternity.** 
 The theory laid down clearly enough that society was 
 for man, not man for society; but the revolutionary prin- 
 ciple also held to the right of the majority as the pre- 
 eminent right, and in so doing neglected man for Man, 
 Having adopted the doctrine of majority rule, with their 
 usual logical completeness French theorists subordi- 
 nated the right of the individual to the right of the 
 greatest number of individuals; they tended toward the 
 theory which deprecates individual progress wherever 
 this acted as a check upon social progress. After all 
 
 18 The doctrine of fraternity was never preached in precise 
 terms except at the Cercle Social, and in the " Bouche de 
 Fer," the organ of that club; but the idea of social duties 
 came up in the Assembly (Si^ance Aug. 14, 1789. Moniteur, 
 Vol. I, p. 277), and Robespierre and his followers always 
 preached it in an international spirit. Comp. Moniteur, Vol. 
 XVI, p. 214. " Les hommes de tous les pays sont frfires," etc. 
 
CONCLUSION. 187 
 
 then, it would seem that the revolutionary principles 
 underlie a movement which holds that the single indi- 
 vidual must give place to the united social will. The 
 Eights of Man, the individualistic part of the theory, 
 was the cry of revolt, the weapon of demolition; the 
 idea of popular sovereignty and its corollary of the 
 rule of the majority was the constructive part of the 
 new doctrine and was the principle which persisted 
 with most force in the doctrines of a later time. The 
 revolutionary theory on the whole, does not assert any 
 doctrine of progress; but, arguing on the ground of 
 rational sanction, it sets up, as basic principles for or- 
 ganized society, the doctrine of centralized democracy, 
 of a civil and political liberty as complete as the well- 
 being of the whole community will permit, and the 
 creed of entire individual freedom in the industrial 
 domain. 
 
 The first part of the research here undertaken is now 
 completed. It has been briefly shown how Frenchmen 
 of the eighteenth century came to be at odds with the 
 creeds of an old social order, and how this quarrel with 
 the old institutions bred a new set of theories which 
 came to be counted fundamental truths; finally, the gen- 
 eral character of these new beliefs has been described. 
 The discussion must now pass to the next century, there 
 to follow another series of progressive changes resulting 
 in another body of principles leveled against the ac- 
 cepted social order. The second part of this study un- 
 dertakes to show those immediate influences which have 
 developed French Socialism to a specific doctrine, and 
 to state the character of that doctrine at the present 
 time. 
 
1S8 PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER III. 
 
 The bibliography of Chapter II, of course, furnishes in part 
 the material for Chapter III, but in addition the following 
 books are of value: 
 
 Aulard. La Soci6t6 des Jacobins, Paris, 1889-98 ; Le Oulte 
 de la Raison et le Culte de I'Etre Suprgme. ed. Fglix Alcan, 
 Paris, 1892. — Buchez et Bouae. Histoire parlementaire de la 
 Revolution frangaise. Picard et fils, Paris, 1834-1838. — 
 Choias de Rapports, Opinions et Discours. Ed. Eymery, Paris, 
 1823. — Condorcet. Esquisse d'une histoire des progrgs de 
 I'esprit humain. ed. Paris, 1795. — Lichtenberger. Le Social- 
 isme et la Revolution frangaise. Felix Alcan, Paris, 1899. — 
 Moniteur. Reprint by Plon & Cie., Paris, 1870. — Morse-Ste- 
 phens. Orators of the Revolution, ed. Clarendon Press, Ox- 
 ford, 1892. — Miraheau. CEuvres. ed. Didier, Paris, 183.5.— 
 Sagnao. La Legislation civile de la Revolution frangaise. Ed. 
 Hachette et Cie., Paris, 1898. — Yolney. CEuvres. ed. Wahlen, 
 Bruxelles, 1822. 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE DOCTRINES OF MODERN FRENCH 
 SOCIALISM. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE IMMEDIATE ANTECEDENTS OF 
 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 THE IMMEDIATE ANTECEDENTS OF MODERN FRENCH 
 SOCIALISM. 
 
 I. The Beginnings of Modern Fbench Socialism. 
 II. Ideas Which French Idealistic Socialism Had in 
 Common with All Socialistic Thinking. 
 III. Characteristics or This Early Socialism Which 
 
 Abe New to Socialistic Theory. 
 rv. Influence of the French Idealistic Geoitp. 
 
 When, in ages to come, men shall write the philosophi- 
 cal history of the nineteenth century, the final develop- 
 ment of the idea of nationality will perhaps be accounted 
 the most striking fact of political history. And yet, 
 the story of the century's growth must also include 
 the tale of discoveries which have given to each social 
 group, growing more and more well-defined within its 
 borders, the means for an intercourse swifter and more 
 important than any hitherto known to men. It must 
 tell that, in spite of the fact that national pride and na- 
 tional distinctions have, in the nineteenth century, 
 grown greater than ever before, . certain important so- 
 cial movements have been notably international. 
 
 This fact is particularly true of socialism. Since the 
 incoming of the century, the socialistic movement has 
 been a marked phenomenon in all the most civilized 
 nations of Europe, and since the second half of the cen- 
 tury it has been a movement essentially international. 
 France, England,- Germany, Italy have each one in turn 
 13 193 
 
]^94 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 seen the rise of factions urging in some way the prin- 
 ciple of association as a theory of government. 
 
 The growth and development of the theory in France 
 is here the only socialistic movement in question. 
 Neither the specifically economic rising for self-asser- 
 tion among the English wage-earners nor the meta- 
 physical and political movement in Germany is to be 
 taken into account, except as each concerns the de- 
 velopment of modern French socialism. 
 
 The socialistic movement as such began in France, 
 and has steadily grown there as the result of specific in- 
 fluences. Modern French socialism represents, as did 
 the principles of the Eevolution, the latest stage in a 
 process which has been made up of the progress of a 
 radical social philosophy and certain social facts acting 
 to give that philosophy a particular character. First 
 of the influences upon the character of the French so- 
 cialism of our day is a certain type of social philosophy 
 which early acquired the name of socialism.^ Certain 
 aspects of the national growth of France modified that 
 philosophy, and became in a way the final and deter- 
 mining influence upon the doctrine. 
 
 The history of the theory of socialism in France^ dur- 
 ing the nineteenth century separates into two sharply 
 distinguished periods, during one of which the doctrine 
 
 1 The origin of the word socialism is variously given. 
 French authorities attribute it either to Eeybaud (so does 
 Ely, French and Grerman Socialism, p. 29) or say that Le- 
 roux invented it and Reybaud vulgarized it. (see e. g. Villey, 
 Le Socialisme Contemporain, p. I, Pref.) Kirkup (Hfetory of 
 Socialism, p. 1 ) claims an English origin for it. 
 
 2 The same is true of course elsewhere, but it is always to 
 be remembered that it is only French socialism which is here 
 the subject of discussion. 
 
LEADING EARLt SOCIALiST^. ±2^ 
 
 is entirely French, is idealistic and evangelical and usu- 
 ally ready to compromise with the prevailing social in- 
 stitutions. During the other period, the theories be- 
 come predominatingly foreign and scientific, propagan- 
 dist and uncompromising in regard to the social order. 
 The socialism of the first period expressed itself in a 
 series of somewhat revolutionary movements, each stim- 
 ulated by men who had been greatly influenced by the 
 strictly Eousseau side of the Revolution. The names 
 and the doctrines of those who represent this Idealistic 
 socialism in Prance, are, most of them, familiar to every 
 student of socialism. More or less careful studies of 
 Babeuf, Cabet,^ Proudhon,* Saint Simon, Fourier and 
 Louis Blanc appear in every history of socialism. Pec- 
 
 3 Cabet and his " learia " had little lasting influence. 
 Cabet's theory aspires toward individual comfort and luxury; 
 but although he thus theoretically recognizes the rights of 
 the individual, Oabet's paramount object is an uncompromis- 
 ing equality leading to a strictly communal life. The lib- 
 erty of the individual to develop depends upon the liberty of 
 all to develop; there shall be enjoyment, but only equal en- 
 joyment. Liberty is said to be supremely desirable, but, 
 under a definition which makes liberty " the right to do every- 
 thing which is not forbidden by nature, reason and society, 
 and to abstain from everything which is not ordered by them " 
 (Voyage en Icarie, p. 404), the customary idea of liberty may 
 fairly be said to be lost. With Cabet, the state is to think, 
 act and desire; the individual is to obey, to serve and enjoy 
 what is justly his. All of this is the social principle at the 
 root of communism ; Cabet with his " Vrai Christianisme " 
 and his " Voyage en Icarie " is rather a successor to Plato, 
 to Ramsay, to Mably, than a predecessor of Rgnard or 
 Deville. 
 
 * Proudhon's place among the predecessors of Modern So- 
 cialism may be and has been subject to question; yet it would 
 seem that, rightly understood, Proudhon's " anarchy " is very 
 like later French Socialism. Proudhon's state disappears in 
 an industrial organization exactly as does that of Deville or 
 
196 MODERN FBENCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 queur and'Vidal, Buchez and Leroux are less com- 
 monly discussed -by English writers. The relation of 
 each of these socialists to the latest form of the doc- 
 trine they preached differs in degree, yet all alike had 
 some share in stimulating the movement and shaping 
 its principles. Interpreting variously the principles of 
 the Eevolution, differing sharply among themselves on 
 questions of metaphysics and administration, they yet 
 so far agreed on certain general lines that it is quite 
 possible to find a number of similar doctrines which 
 might be called the leading principles of the French 
 idealistic socialists. Taken together, these principles 
 constitute the first and most lasting literary influences 
 behind the present socialistic doctrine in France. 
 
 These early socialists are called idealistic socialists 
 because each of them had an ideal of social harmony, 
 and protested against the social order as an erro- 
 neous social arrangement which did not express this 
 harmony. They all believed also that, through a wise 
 social supervision, an association of men was pos- 
 sible where justice could prevail and each man be in- 
 sured happiness. Each one felt that the immediate 
 way to transform an unpropitious social order to one 
 which might represent peace and justice, was to begin 
 an active social movement for a general education which 
 should better men's moral standards and then teach 
 them the necessity of leaving all productive property 
 to the control of society. Then too, unlike those who 
 
 his master, Marx. On fundamental questions, the diflferenee 
 between Proudhon and these later reformers lies in the closer 
 reasoning and greater precision of statement of the Marxists 
 rather than in any real difference of doctrine. 
 
CEARACTERISTIC THEORIES. 197 
 
 wove ideals similar to these into Utopian commonwealtlis 
 which they never expected to see realized, every one of 
 these agitators set out with a fierce determination to 
 conquer the reality to their aims. Each one of them 
 appealed to facts of the existence they knew, in order to 
 justify their claim. In fact, all may be said to have had 
 a practical aim and to have tried to adopt a scientific 
 method. All preached, in a more or less defined way, 
 the doctrine of progress, and asserted that the change 
 in institutions which they desijed was in the direct line 
 of social progress. All had. very nearly the same ob- 
 jections to the industrial oi^Sanization they knew, and 
 in general lines asked for the same first steps toward 
 final remedy. 
 
 Some of these characteristics of the group, for exam- 
 ple, their ideal of social harmony, their belief in indi- 
 vidual happiness and social justice, their accent upon 
 the value of education as means to reform and their at- 
 tack upon accepted property forms, are doctrines which 
 have been those of all Utopian and communistic thinkers 
 since Plato wrote his Eepublic or the clerical and Ana- 
 baptist societies of Germany or Holland drew away into 
 little groups. 
 
 On the other hand, the practical and scientific method 
 which these idealistic socialists try to put into their doc- 
 trines, their idea of progress and the important social 
 bearing they attach to the relation between the state 
 and industry are the contributions of this earlier social- 
 ism to modem socialistic thinking. These characteris- 
 tics, old and new, of the Idealistic French socialism, are 
 of sufficient interest to require that each of them be 
 stated with some precision. 
 
198 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 II. 
 
 A pessimistic view of the present is the first essential 
 to the making of a socialist, but this alone will not suf- 
 fice. This spirit will produce the man who dreams of 
 " Cities of the Sun," but it will not lead him to expect 
 to see them realized. To be a socialist, a second charac- 
 teristic is equally essential. Along with a pessimistic 
 attitude in regard to the present, there must go an un- 
 quenchable hopefulness in regard to some better future 
 to be realized here on earth. Such hopefulness seems 
 to have been a special privilege of our time. It has 
 been well said that the main trend of thought in our 
 age has been the conscious pursuit of social well-being.^ 
 This is undoubtedly true. It is probable that, during 
 this century, more persons than ever before have ad- 
 vanced theories which set out to solve the essential 
 problem of social philosophy and develop rapidly a reign 
 of justice. The writers now under discussion express 
 this appeal for a better and more nearly perfect order 
 with a vigor and positiveness new to this particular 
 kind of crusade against the social order. The utopist, 
 the communist, is gone. The socialistic thinker, such 
 as Mably or Morelly, is equally a thing of the past. 
 The socialist, as such, begins to write. 
 
 The socialistic writings under discussion, as all social- 
 istic writing from Grecian to modern, express a shad- 
 owy preconception of a fore-ordained plan which ar- 
 ranged an eternal harmony for nature and man. These 
 modem critics of society were chiefly interested, of 
 course, to find the way to realize the prearranged ter- 
 
 8 Reybaud. Etudes sur lea Rfeformateurs contemporains ou 
 Socialisme moderne. 
 
IDEAL OF SOCIAL BARMONY. 199 
 
 restrial harmony. Men do not necessarily renounce the 
 idea of a supreme happiness transcending the possibili- 
 ties of human happiness because they believe that har- 
 mony and content could and should be the order here ; 
 and these socialists, as well as another, often nursed 
 their " larger hope." 
 
 It is an important distinguishing characteristic of 
 these idealistic socialists that, although each touches 
 but lightly upon metaphysical or religious doctrine, 
 none of them is dogmatically materialistic or insist- 
 ently rationalistic. There is a current use of the word 
 God, employed in the deistie or pantheistic rather than 
 in the theological interpretation. However, it is so 
 much their chief interest to point the many evident di- 
 vergences in reality from the prearranged plan dis- 
 cerned that, where the name of Deity is used, it is as an 
 accepted premise and not as a matter of debate. They 
 were content to hold the metaphysical subordinate and 
 to center all their interest upon social problems. 
 
 Fourier's point of view in this regard is fairly indica- 
 tive of that common to all the group. After a some- 
 what elaborate exposition of a cosmogony where a be- 
 neficent Deity was to conduct to an ultimate harmony, a 
 world of which he was at once essence and director; a 
 cosmogony where both the past and the extreme future 
 life of this planet are determined and the most remote 
 plans of the Deity discerned; where the fate of the soul 
 before and after death is elaborated from a standpoint 
 which makes its real happiness dependent upon a 
 rounded personal existence for both incarnated soul and 
 planetary soul, Fourier exclaims, " But what matter are 
 these accessories to the question of chief importance. 
 
200 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 which is the art of organizing combined industry whence 
 will be born the quadruple product, good morals, accord 
 of the three classes, rich, middle and poor; forgetful- 
 ness of the quarrels of parties, the cessation of pests, of 
 revolution, of fiscal penury; and universal unity."® 
 Saint Simon, perhaps, accepts Christianity, especially 
 when he hoped to further his schemes by winning the 
 suffrage of its supporters ;'' Proudhon is full of re- 
 proaches to a God who has failed to do his duty;* Louis 
 Blanc is a deist of the school of Eousseau,® but all are 
 alike in this ; they content themselves with some person- 
 ally worked-out or authoritatively accepted theory of 
 first causes, and hurry on to the mundane arrangements 
 which seem to them of first importance. 
 
 6 Fourier completely lost his bearings and wasted his best 
 talent in the elaboration of a psychology of men and nations, 
 a theory which led him to rest his final hope of social regen- 
 eration upon the "' law of passional attraction " which this 
 study revealed. Fourier held that when fully understood and 
 made the moral basis of society, this law which he believed 
 himself to have discovered was to give equilibrium to the 
 rational world as the law of gravitation keeps the forces of 
 Nature in just poise. Undoubtedly, this earnest and sincere 
 thinker, who looked upon himself as a modern Columbus dis- 
 covering a new social world for a skeptical and ungrateful 
 public, set himself apart by this " law " in • a niche where 
 originality is the only virtue for which honor is due him. 
 Yet mixed with the faulty psychology on which he himself lays 
 so much regrettable stress, there is a scheme for social reform 
 which includes many of the elements of modern socialism. 
 On Fourier, comp. Michel (a most interesting study), op. 
 eit., pp. 375 et seq. ; Eeybaud, op. cit.. Vol. I; Godin, Social 
 Solutions. 
 
 7 Saint Simon. (Euvres, (Du Syst6me Industriel), XXII, p. 
 232, ed. Dentu. 
 
 8 See notably many phrases in SystSmes des Contradiction 
 economiques. 
 
 9 Note for e. g. in Histoire de la Revolution frangaise, I, 
 388 et seq. 
 
IDEAL OF SOCIAL HARMONY. 201 
 
 As to the world about us, these socialists begin, as 
 all socialists do, with a courageous denial of necessary 
 evil. Society and the individual are inherently good, 
 not bad. Taking their cue from the eighteenth cen- 
 tury philosophy, the French socialists of the first half 
 of the nineteenth century are optimists with regard to 
 the natural propensities of mankind. Therefore, they 
 deny that egotism is a normal instinct of human nature ; 
 they assert, on the contrary, the innate goodness and 
 unselfishness of the individual. This socialism begins 
 that exaltation of the individual which is the distinctive 
 characteristic of the nineteenth century socialism. No 
 longer a plan for the service of humanity in general, 
 most socialism becomes a special remedial movement 
 with the development and happiness of the individual 
 as its ultimate aim. 
 
 Also, this class of thinkers generally believe that men, 
 though by nature well-meaning, are dependent upon 
 guidance. This is, in fact, the controlling idea of these 
 socialists and of all socialists — the idea that individual 
 virtue is finally dependent upon the direction and in- 
 spiration of society. Social creeds make or mar men; 
 social direction develops them from brutes or degrades 
 them to something worse than beasts. It is the generic 
 principle of socialistic philosophy as opposed to indi- 
 vidualistic, that the social guarantee is finally the mak- 
 ing and salvation of the individual. Arguing thus, it 
 is but natural that, for such thinkers, it seems of first 
 importance to find a social organization which shall jus- 
 tify itself by securing to every individual happiness 
 and the means to develop. 
 
202 MODERN FRENCS SOCIALISM. 
 
 The doctrine of Eights promulgated during the Eevo- 
 lution is clearly and universally reasserted by all of 
 these radical writers. We are told, as we were told by 
 the Eevolutionists, that men have a natural right to hap- 
 piness and to liberty and equality/" in order that they 
 may develop, hut we are also told that this right to hap- 
 piness and development is not without its limits. Like 
 the men who made the Declaration of Eights, these 
 men believe that the individual may have only the great- 
 est possible happiness, and like these predecessors they 
 find the limit to that happiness in the happiness of 
 others. They repeat with conviction that doctrine of 
 the rights of the majority which the Convention prac- 
 ticed. 
 
 Only Babeuf pushed this doctrine of the rights of the 
 greatest number to logical completeness. The conspi- 
 racy of " Les Egaux " was really the culmination of the 
 feverish demand for equality, which, in certain circles, 
 grew to be a fixed idea during the years of the Conven- 
 tion.*^ The idea of social uniformity is a fundamental 
 note of Babouvism. It represents a dream of establish- 
 ing content by way of a state control which should arbi- 
 trarily eliminate all inequalities of capacity and of hold- 
 
 10 Saint Simon in this, as in many other things, is an ex- 
 ception. He states plainly that rights do not derive from 
 natural claims, but from expediency. " Les droits de ohaque 
 associg ne peuvent 6tre fondfis que sur les facultgs qu'il pos- 
 s6de, pour eoncourir au but commun." CEuvres, (SystSme 
 Industrie^) Vol. XXII, p. 193; also in CEuvres, (L'Organis- 
 ateur) XX, p. 145. 
 
 11 Note how the " Conspiration " indorsed the Constitution 
 of '93 and the doctrines concerning the natural right of equal- 
 ity which had so much vogue during 1793 and 1794. The Con- 
 spiration, as has been before suggested, is to be traced to Claude 
 Fauchet and the Cercle Social rather than to the Jacobins. 
 
INDIVIDUAL BAPPINE88. 203 
 
 ing — a dream that has no part among the beliefs of the 
 most influential thinkers along modern socialistic lines. 
 Babouvism asks for a society where laws, democratically 
 made, it is true, shall maintain a strict level in culture 
 and pleasure, in possession and the use of such posses- 
 sions. Equality, as understood by Babeuf rests upon 
 principles which involve an absolute neglect of the facts 
 of individual dissimilarity and a complete subordina- 
 tion of the individual to the state. When Babouvism 
 prescribes a set of arbitrary measures to eliminate and 
 prevent all personal differences of temperament or ca- 
 pacity, it thus separates itself entirely from all the more 
 important predecessors of modern Trench socialism. 
 For this reason, notwithstanding its creed of democracy 
 and its practical and nationalistic character, Babouvism 
 is to be counted of secondary importance among the 
 antecedents of the current French socialism. ^^ 
 
 It has been said that, contending for the individual's 
 rights, these socialists no longer grant the thesis that 
 the individual is to merge his personality in society. 
 The belief that the end is social growth, irrespective of 
 the destiny of the particular members of society, is not 
 usual. Buchez and Leroux, the one teaching a religion 
 of progress, the other, a religion of humanity, are the 
 noteworthy exceptions. They represent the extreme 
 idealization of society as opposed to the many who, at 
 the time, neglected society to take account of the indi- 
 vidual man alone. 
 
 12 There is a most interesting study of Batbeuf in Espinas. 
 La Philosophie Sociale au XVIIIe siSele et la Revolution, pp. 
 195-412; comp. also Eeybaud, op. cit., II, pp. 358-387, 
 
204 
 
 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 According to Buehez or Leroux, it is the individual 
 who is made by and for society, not society which is 
 the result of individual activity.^^. For both, the sin- 
 gle aim, whether of the individual, the nation or of 
 humanity, was the establishment of the moral law as 
 revelation shows it to man; for both, the individual is 
 always subordinate to humanity,^* and the duties of 
 the individual take precedence of any particular claim 
 for the individual right. Under the theory of modern 
 socialism, society in the last resort is for the service of 
 the individual, and whatever sacrifice of personal tastes 
 the individual must make is only in the end of an ulti- 
 mate fuller personal satisfaction ; there is no idea of any 
 but a utilitarian and finally egotistical self-denial. With 
 this real and constant inconsistency of all specifically 
 socialistic teaching of our day, neither Buehez nor Le- 
 roux have anything in common. The ideal of each is 
 happiness by way of poverty, simplicity of wants, sacri- 
 fice and devotion to humanity;^" the individual disap- 
 
 13 Buehez. Traite de Politique, t. I, pp. 360, 361 (cited in 
 Michel, p. 217). Leroux. De I'HumanitS, I, p. 18, and Mal- 
 thus et lea Economistes, p. 136. (Comp. Michel, op. cit., p. 
 223.) 
 
 1* Buehez. Traite de politique, I, p. 61. " L'homme con- 
 siderg individuellement, n'a lui-mgme de valeur que par le 
 but qui I'anime." See, also, Hist, parlementaire. Vol. XXIII, 
 pref., p. XV. For Leroux on the same point, see De I'Human- 
 ite. Vol. I, p. 248. (Cited in Michel, p. 222.) 
 
 15 Comp. Buehez, " Le premier en dignitS social sera celui 
 qui aura voulu 6tre le dernier en jouissance materielles '' 
 (eited in Michel, p. 216). See, also. Hist, parlementaire. Vol. 
 XXIII, pref., p. XX, where he declares that when " la pau- 
 vr6t6 sera en haut et la richesse en bas," then only will the 
 French Revolution really be accomplished. Leroux. See " De 
 I'Egalite, 2e partie, chap, iv (cited in Michel, p. 223). The 
 doctrines of Leroux, especially in this connection, get an artis- 
 tic and fervid expression in the work of George Sand. Ses 
 
SOCIAL JUSTICE. 205 
 
 pears before society; the ideal of charity is replaced by 
 that of solidarity as a duty.^' Add to this, that Buchez 
 and Leroux advocated a policy which, in fundamentals 
 at least, represents a despotic central control that 
 absorbs and modifies the individual initiative in a fash- 
 ion entirely outside the aims of any modem socialistic 
 scheme, and it will be evident that, while they may 
 have done something to strengthen the modern social- 
 ist's idea of the organic relation between society and 
 the individual, they had no wide influence on the gen- 
 eral doctrines of modern collectivism. 
 
 The term " social justice " best describes the idea of 
 justice which prompts the doctrine of rights urged by 
 most of the French idealistic socialists. Justice was 
 not with any of them an absolute conception ; the word, 
 on the contrary, was used as a relative term and waited 
 the decision of society for its content." The aim of 
 any social organization is the realization of social jus- 
 tice where social justice is taken to mean the expression 
 in institutions of the desires and needs of the major 
 part of society. 
 
 What is claimed to be the moral justification of this 
 conception of justice runs somewhat as follows. Indi- 
 vidual happiness, both as a means and as an end, means 
 
 e. g. " Compagnon du tour de France " or of the " Lettre de ' 
 Philon a Ignace Joseph Martinowiez " at the end of the 
 " Comtesse de Rudolstadt." 
 
 16 Buchez. Hist, parlementaire, t. XL, pref ., p. vi ( cited 
 in Michel, op. eit., p. 215 ) . Leroux. De l-Humanite, t. I, pp. 
 189-191. (Cited in Michel, p. 224.) 
 
 17 See e. g. Proudhon. What is property? p. 234, 1st mem., 
 Eng. ed. ; Id6e ggnfirale de la Revolution au XIXe Si6cle, p. 274. 
 Saint Simon. CEuvres (De I'lndustrie), XIX, p. 30 et seq. 
 Louis Blanc. Questions d'aujourd'hui et de demain. Vol. Ill, 
 pp. 144 et seq. 
 
206 MODERN FBENOB SOCIALISM. 
 
 freedom. If there is to be any hope of individual per- 
 fection, there must be absolutely free play of the nat- 
 ural propensities of man. The passions, it was said, 
 are the justifiable regulators of individual acts and only 
 need full and equal exercise in order that a perfectly 
 harmonious individual development may result; the in- 
 tellectual life is only the increment of thfe physical Ufa, 
 and the quality and effectiveness of that intellectual life 
 depend upon the kind of physical development which 
 the individual has been able to get. The happiness of 
 man is secured when he is given the greatest possible 
 freedom in the matter of physical and mental develop- 
 ment. Saint Simon's rule, " Fais chacun aussi libre que 
 tu veux etre ; voici toute la morale " expressed his 
 idea and that of all the others. Since happiness is a 
 necessity of man's being and he depends for such hap- 
 piness upon his complete physical development, every 
 man must of course be as far as possible free to develop, 
 that he may in the sum of social activity be best able 
 to bring his special capacities to the general social 
 work.** But the physical and mental inequalities 
 among men are such that, unless some power be found 
 to equalize these differences, certain members of society 
 will be able to prey upon others and no one will be 
 really happy. The conquerors, few in number, get 
 false notions of happiness born of the vices which their 
 unjust domination breeds and the dominated grow in- 
 creasingly and infinitely miserable. There is evidently 
 no real well-being until the desires of all or of the great- 
 est possible number are equally satisfied. In the eyes 
 
 isOEuvres, XXIII, p. 81. 
 
SOCIAL JU8TICM. 20*7 
 
 of this group of socialistic thinkers — though they are 
 not usually conscious of it — the real end for which 
 society is established seems to be social, not individual 
 well-being. 
 
 But in the minds of the idealistic socialists, individ- 
 ual happiness does not really wait upon an entirely 
 realized social happiness. ITothing better demonstrates 
 the strongly idealistic bent of these men than their be- 
 lief that the individual must and will find his real hap- 
 piness in the happiness of all. In this way they bcr 
 lieve it possible to obviate the seeming inconsistency 
 between the idea of complete individual happiness and 
 that of social happiness. Most of them have faith in 
 what later times calls the altruistic tendencies of human 
 nature,^® and thus they reconcile the ideal of complete 
 individual happiness with that of social justice. As has 
 been said, every theory in question posits the notion 
 that the developed man is never entirely egotistical 
 and argue from this that those more fully endowed 
 whether in mental or material possessions, will always 
 find happiness in putting some of their larger holding 
 at the disposal of the less capable or the less wealthy. 
 The universal tendency among these writers to regulate 
 society for the benefit of the laboring-classes does not 
 begin only in the desire to exalt labor, — though this 
 plays a noteworthy part in forming that idea. The 
 tendency resulted rather from a profound conviction 
 that talent and capital should and will, in response to 
 
 19 This is particularly true of Fourier and Louis Blanc. 
 Comp. the whole " passional " doctrine of the former in the 
 " Thgorie des Quatre Mouvements " and the Revolution fran- 
 caise of the other; in particular, I, pp. 9, 10; II, p. 492. 
 
208 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 the best impulses of hiiinaii nature, abdicate some of 
 their privileges in favor of their poorer fellows. Eecog- 
 nizing fully the rights of the whole race to enjoyment, 
 it is believed that it will always be the impulse of 
 higher thinking to recognize and strive for the rights 
 of the poor.^ "When the few, wisely taught, shall be 
 willing to abdicate their superfluity for. the benefit of 
 the many, when they shall know that they will find a 
 better individual happiness in such abdication, social 
 justice will be synonymous with abstract justice. It is 
 again to be repeated that, with the exceptions already 
 noted, no one of these idealistic socialists specifically 
 taught self-abnegation; no one of them ever failed to 
 urge the just precedence of the individual right, but 
 all of them ask for a certain renunciation on the part 
 of those who have, in the name of what might be called 
 a higher egotism. 
 
 A universal happiness is then the real objective point 
 of all this group. Individual happiness is the end and 
 social leadership the means. Wherever such individ- 
 ual happiness is not, there, in their idea, social direc- 
 tion stands convicted of bad faith or incapacity. The 
 first and most imperative duty of society is to secure 
 social content,^* not in the interests of its own well- 
 being nor as a matter of expediency, but strictly in the 
 performance of the function for which it was originally 
 established. Per contra, all blame for social discon- 
 
 20 Least evident in Proudhon. 
 
 21 Saint Simon's words express the general sentiment. 
 " L'objet capital des travaux des publicistes doit 6tre aujour- 
 d'hui de fixer les idSes sur la direction de prospSritfi et de la 
 determiner a prendre cette direction." (Euvres (L'Organisa- 
 teur), XX, p. 191. 
 
SOCIAL JUSTICE. 209 
 
 tent necessarily rests upon society. Whatever is wrong 
 in the individual is due to certain conditions for which 
 society is responsihle. It does not seem to have oc- 
 curred to these socialists as it does to many who read 
 them, that the social significance of the individual is 
 seriously doubted if it be contended that society, and 
 not the members of it, is answerable for the existing 
 social unrest, for the doctrine often goes the step far- 
 ther where the individual becomes the victim and his 
 personal responsibility for wrong-doing is akin to that 
 of a child whose parent neglects his duty. 
 
 That the idealistic socialists did not see this incon- 
 sistency in their doctrine is not surprising. They were 
 deeply impressed with two principles which they had 
 not learned to reconcile, the principle of association 
 and the principle of individualism. On the one hand, 
 most of them cherished an ideal of association resting 
 on one form or another of the eighteenth century doc- 
 trine concerning a central authority and its power for 
 good; on the other hand, they all shared the revolu- 
 tionary respect for the intrinsic value of each individ- 
 ual. They had not learned, for we have scarcely 
 learned yet, how different are the benefits deriving 
 from an associated effort which is the result of the 
 voluntary acts of individuals as compared with that 
 which is enforced by a central authority however demo- 
 cratically constituted. Having most of them adopted 
 the idea of law as the more or less directly expressed 
 will of the majority of the nation, they felt secure of 
 the state's power to maintain the individual's rights and 
 14 
 
210 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 constituted without fear some form of extreme social 
 control. 
 
 As to the duties of society, since all the theorists in 
 question hold that the innate nature of man is good, 
 they logically define it as the first duty of society in 
 the performance of its function as director, to develop 
 the natural right-mindedness of its members. Prob- 
 ably all socialistic thought up to the present time, in- 
 cluding the writers now under discussion, felt that the 
 first, most valuable, social service was education. When 
 by means of able and enlightened teachers, there had 
 been duly disseminated a correct appreciation of where 
 the evil in the socialistic organization lay, and the 
 young had been taught how social misery might be 
 remedied, a valuable and fruitful alteration in public 
 morality might, it was thought, be expected. Like all 
 socialistic philosophy that preceded theirs, this radical 
 writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century ex- 
 presses a belief that the permanence and reality of any 
 reform depended upon some fundamental change in 
 the methods and subject matter of education. The cur- 
 riculum which was to accomplish the moral uplift 
 varied from Saint Simon's idea of a training chiefly 
 scientific and industrial*^ to that recommended by 
 Louis Blanc of a purely latitudinarian nature; but 
 the end is always the same. The social regeneration 
 was to be worked out by way of a social reconciliation 
 which education alone could effect. Through a true cul- 
 ture of each and all of the community, the individual 
 is to awaken to the realization of his higher self and to 
 
 22 Saint Simon's claim is best expressed in the Systems In- 
 dustrie! (CEuvres, XXII, p. 215 et seq.) and in the Parabola. 
 
EDUCATION. 211 
 
 his larger duties which include the preservation of so- 
 ciety as well as self-preservation. 
 
 As to the definite evils which the state should be 
 recommended to do away with, there is of course a di- 
 vergence of opinion. One social institution, however, 
 comes under the ban now, as it always has come under 
 the ban of him who seeks a cure-all for social misery. 
 There arises again in this early nineteenth century doc- 
 trine, the old question as to the merits of the institution 
 of property. These early socialists continue to regard 
 it as inimical to social contentment. The relation of 
 the sexes, the family and family life, the commercial 
 relations of individuals, and religious creeds are all 
 differently regarded and all or some one of these social 
 interests are likewise assailed; but howsoever the other 
 Bocial facts are looked upon, there is always some ob- 
 jection to property-forms. The socialistic movement 
 of our time has this in common with all utopian and 
 communistic movements that go before; it has as a 
 basis for active reform some scheme to alter the social 
 creed concerning property. Each movement led by 
 some one of the French idealistic group was primarily 
 an effort to solve the problem of alimentation by some 
 arbitrary separation of the individual from the soil. 
 The old tone which ascribes every moral and physical 
 evil to facts of property-holding is not entirely gone; 
 there are still echoes, more or less conscious, of the bit- 
 ter cries of the Mesliers and Morellys of the eighteenth 
 century, but on the whole, the nineteenth century has 
 seen socialistic theory leave mere moralistic complain- 
 ing about the evil effects of a wrong interpretation of 
 
212 MODERN FRENCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 the relation between the individual and the sources of 
 production. Ethical objections to property fall into 
 the background. Property is now most often defined 
 as a political abuse. Personal control of productive 
 property is now as it has always been by this class of 
 radicals, criticised because it is held that such control 
 interferes in a specific way with the largest possible en- 
 joyment, but the attack upon private property is now 
 more specifically an attack upon private ownership of 
 the sources and means of production. The objection 
 to all forms of personal property gives way to a criti- 
 cism of the prevailing methods of production and dis- 
 tribution,^* and that criticism ends in the doctrine that 
 nothing better than the present social order can be ex- 
 
 23-24 Proudhon, despite his " property is robbery ", is less of 
 an exception to this conclusion than is generally supposed. 
 The bitterness and unqualified character of Proudhon's attack 
 upon property make him in seeming the most positive op- 
 ponent of the institution of property in whatsoever form, but 
 even he admits that " the right to product is exclusive ; the 
 right to means is common." (Qu'est ce que la Propri6t6? 
 •1st memoir, p. 107, Eng. ed.). Though Louis Blanc held to 
 the Revolutionary idea of '93, and so contended that the right 
 of each was subordinate to the right of the community to 
 everything (comp. Histoire de Dix Ans, II, pp. 173, 181, 
 182 [foot-note] ) , yet he never thought of acknowledging an 
 equality which cheeked the personal appropriation of con- 
 sumption property. Saint Simon and Fourier posited pro- 
 ductive property in the hands of society, but undoubtedly ad- 
 mitted personal property. (Comp. St. Simon. (Euvres 
 (L'Industrie), XIX, pp. 82-89. Fourier, Pecquer and Vidal 
 clearly distinguished that it was only such collective capital 
 as could be used collectively that ought to be collective hold- 
 ing. (See Pecquer, Thgorie Nouvelle, pp. 554, 555; Vidal, 
 De la repartition des riehesse, pp. 390 et seq., cited in Michel.) 
 In one form or another with varying insistence as the sub- 
 ject formed a major part of their theory, all of the early so- 
 cialists held the control of productive property to be the real 
 objective point of state administration. Babeuf, of course, 
 
PRODUCTIVE PROPERTY ATTACKED. 213 
 
 pected until all productive property is held collectively 
 and is subject to state control. In fine, it may be said 
 that, in relation to property, the idealistic school does 
 not exactly desire its elimination. Eather, the purpose 
 is to redistribute private property, reserving always the 
 final direction of it to society, that is, to the sum of the 
 individual wills of tlie community. To effect such a 
 redistribution as soon as possible is the very essence of 
 their reform movement. 
 
 In brief summary then, the interests of these early 
 French Socialists, as of all socialists at any time, cen- 
 ter about the affairs of this world rather than those of 
 another, in most cases exclusively, in all cases at least 
 chiefly. As to this world, the group under discussion 
 are emphatically certain that it is possible for every 
 individual to be happy here on earth and that strife 
 can and will ultimately disappear from all social rela- 
 tions. Finallj', without exception, these men rest their 
 hope for the consummation of their ideals upon the 
 efficacy of social control and contend that a social guar- 
 antee of well-being to each individual is the first law 
 of social organization. The means to bring about the 
 desired social content and the way to maintain it when 
 secured, is in general held to be a liberal education 
 which an enlightened society can and should furnish 
 to its members. The prevailing social order is usually 
 called a glaring error,^ and the fundamental miseon- 
 
 counts property as the key to social and individual misery 
 and looks to government to do away first of all with this 
 " curse of society." ( Comp. art. 6 of the " Declaration des 
 Principes." ) 
 ?B Saint Simon of coiirse excepted, 
 
214 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 ception is said to be the theory concerning private 
 property. All social morality in any absolute sense of 
 the word is made to depend upon the final eradication 
 of the present property laws from the social scheme. 
 It is in the plans that they offer for a redistribution of 
 property that the doctrines of these men take on a 
 really distinctive character, for their doctriiles have 
 a distinctive character. The early French socialists 
 did more than repeat, with certain variations, senti- 
 ments which have been those of the socialistic tem- 
 perament at all periods of history. They ingrafted 
 beside upon socialistic thought some theories new to 
 it, and these represent their real contribution to later 
 socialistic thinking. 
 
 III. 
 
 First among such characteristics is the well-defined 
 intention already suggested to leave speculative moral 
 philosophy and to create a social and political move- 
 ment. Earlier writers show a tendency to cope with 
 reality, but it is rarely more than a tendency. Not until 
 the Eevolution was past did the influence of the new 
 hopeful spirit become strong enough directly to affect 
 socialistic theory. The undoubted share of the Eevolu- 
 tion in working this change in socialistic doctrine needs 
 no accent. The dramatic incidents of the Eevolution 
 and the swift sweep of its many changes has been the 
 inspiration for many revolutionary socialistic move- 
 ments since they created the " Conspiration des 
 Egaux." Babeuf was only the first among many whom 
 the Eevolution has tempted to dream of a radical and 
 
PRACTICAL AIM. 215 
 
 instantaneous social reorganization. He was first to 
 bring into the theory of social reform that note of prac- 
 ticability which is so distinguishing a mark of the mod- 
 ern doctrine; he abandons moralizing for action and 
 leaves the idea of communal experiment for that of 
 national reorganization. Babeuf lived during the Eev- 
 olution. Thus it is the beginning of the century which 
 marks the socialist's transition from the philosopher's 
 study to the uneasy and stirring life of the politician. 
 The writers here in question were idealists because they 
 worked from somewhat fixed preconceptions, called the 
 received social order an error, and carefully defined that 
 which the future ought to develop. They were how- 
 ever, less idealistic than the radical writers who had 
 preceded them, for every one of them was bent on ac- 
 complishing practical results. Unlike most of the 
 eighteenth century writers, each of these men acted 
 as well as wrote; most of them tried to take an active 
 part in the political and social life of the nation. All 
 the French socialistic theory of the first part of 
 the century is in the end of proving not only that 
 a social reform is needed, but that a given social reform 
 can and should be carried out immediately. With the 
 incoming of the present century, the kind of specula- 
 tion now in question seems, in its dominant form at 
 least, to be definitely passing from that type which lays 
 the whole stress upon the ultimate end and altogether 
 neglects the means, to become the type of an opposite 
 character where the means are of first importance 
 though the end continues to be carefully outlined. The 
 early French socialists were one and all firmly con- 
 
216 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 vinced that they had found an entirely practicable 
 short cut to the solution of the problem of evil, and 
 they were eagerly bent upon leading humanity at once 
 along their newly-discovered road. 
 
 There is another fact evidently distinctive of the 
 whole group. Their doctrine as we get it in the nine- 
 teenth century, seeks to prove its case, not by abstract 
 reasoning, but by at least a pretense at scientific meth- 
 ods. All the writers here taken into account claim 
 that the principles they lay down are derived from a 
 study of terrestrial conditions rather than from the dic- 
 tates of their inner consciousness. The influence of 
 the century of scientific beginnings which lay behind 
 them is plainly evident. It has now become at least 
 the aim, even though not yet in reality the practice, to 
 count as valid only such conclusions as were derived 
 from the study of the facts of Nature, of history, and 
 of the character of man. Though this last is taken 
 into account least of all, though the variations of race 
 and the facts of historical development are really much 
 aeglected, yet in a way, the philosophers who, at 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century were seeking 
 to reform the association of men, did get beyond the 
 philosophical generalizations which had satisfied their 
 predecessors. In all the thinking under discussion, 
 practice to the contrary notwithstanding, the phrase 
 runs, " from the real to the ideal." These early social- 
 ists seek to prove that the philosophical doctrine they 
 advance is not mere abstract reasoning, not the dictates 
 of the moral sense alone, biit is above all a demonstra- 
 ble, positive doctrine derived from a just analysis of the 
 
SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 217 
 
 physical and mental traits of men and a careful appre- 
 ciation of causal social data. 
 
 It need hardly be said that the scientific method for 
 which so much was claimed, was on the whole, mere 
 pretension. No one of these writers really held to a 
 scientific method, though all alike coquetted with the 
 idea of so doing. Any one of them argued his propo- 
 sitions from the facts of society and then coordinated 
 his data with a show of scientific accuracy, but when 
 they went to collect these facts, one and all really de- 
 sired to prove preconceptions. Every one of the group 
 was looking for evidence to support theories which the 
 temperament of each had led him to adopt; no one of 
 them has a real claim to be classified as a scientific stu- 
 dent of social progress. 
 
 Saint Simon^® comes nearest to being really scien- 
 tific. At the hands of his school, the doctrine of this 
 remarkable man underwent modifications so radical 
 that the original doctrine is not always rightly under- 
 stood. The Saint Simonians, more particularly d'En- 
 fantin and his section, introduced into the doctrine 
 Saint Simon bequeathed to them, a sensual and human- 
 itarian communism of which there is little or no trace 
 in the master's work. There is no communism in Saint 
 Simon — on the contrary, there is a very decided social- 
 ism; there is little humanitarianism, rather an uncer- 
 tain deism. There is none of the passional and evan- 
 
 26 On Saint Simon, see in addition to general studies, Janet. 
 St. Simon et St. Simonisme; Booth, St. Simon and the St. 
 Simonians; Michel, L'ldfe de L'Etat, pp. 172-212; Reybaud, 
 Les R6formateurs eontemporains, I, and an interesting chap- 
 ter in Louis Blanc's Histoire de Dix Ans. 
 
218 
 
 MODERN mmcB SOCIALISM. 
 
 gelical character which the Saint Simonians gave to 
 his doctrine, but instead, the philosophy of Saint Simon 
 is an attempt to apply to social conditions, philosophi- 
 cal deductions which their author claimed to have veri- 
 fied by data collected dispassionately.^^ Little as he 
 succeeded in his aim, it is none the less true that Saint 
 Simon set out to employ scientific method in carrying 
 out the task he set himself, the task of finding a solu- 
 tion to the problem of social organization. When mod- 
 ern socialism vrorks on scientific lines, it only follows 
 the route which Saint Simon never wearied of indi- 
 cating as the only road to truth. 
 
 Out of this tentative use of the scientific method 
 much that is radically new comes into the theory of 
 the writers now under discussion. First of all, the 
 group adopts the conception of movement in history. 
 The idea of progress, deduced from that scientific view 
 of history which was slowly coming to regard the life 
 of men and of societies as a process, comes to be an ac- 
 cepted doctrine with them. Man is no longer regarded 
 as perfect nor yet as fallen from perfection, but as de- 
 veloping toward an individual perfection which is the 
 whole end of existence. 
 
 The idea of social progress was elaborated though not 
 originated by one of the socialists under discussion. He 
 
 27 He says of his system ( (Euvres, Nouveau Christianisme, 
 XXIII, p. 175) that " il se trouve appuy6 maintenant k la 
 fois sur des considerations philosophiques de I'ordre des sci- 
 ences, des beaux-arts et de I'industrie, et sur le sentiment 
 religieux repandu dans le monde civilisg." He calls it " un 
 resultat forc6 de la marche que civilization a suivie depuis 
 sept a huit sigcles; compare also CEuvres (L'Organisateur), 
 XX, p. 63. 
 
IDEA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS. 219 
 
 adopted and adapted to his principles, the theory that 
 Voltaire dimly saw, that Turgot and Condorcet clearly 
 announced, the theory that the mental and moral 
 growth of society underlies and in a sense originates 
 its outward expression in institutions. It was Saint 
 Simon^ who first developed the idea to which Auguste 
 Comte afterwards gave such additional force, the idea 
 that there was social progress and that such progress is 
 by way of stages, alternately negative and positive, 
 
 In fact, what is now called the materialistic doctrine 
 of history is all but completed by Saint Simon. 
 The idea that all forward movement of society is by 
 way of alternate negative and positive periods, and that 
 each social system holds in itself the germ of another,^® 
 the decay of "the one system keeping pace with the 
 growth of the other, all this is very definitely set forth 
 by Saint Simon. It is Saint Simon who explains and 
 even elaborates the principle that history is in spite of 
 man's will, not a result of it;^" that the course of his- 
 tory is a process of necessary social growth ;^i that so- 
 cial growth rests upon a development of the physical 
 and mental faculties of man in a process where the ma- 
 
 28 Saint Simon can in fact hardly be called an idealistic 
 socialist if the word idealistic be given the meaning which 
 socialists now usually attach to itj if it be taken to mean one 
 who appealed from a social order which he considered an er- 
 ror to another which his moral sense told him was better. 
 The really original part of Saint Simon's doctrine is neither 
 idealistic nor communistic; it is socialistic in a modern sense. 
 
 29CEuvres (L'Organisateur), XX, p. 80; also CEuvres 
 (L'Industrie), XIX, pp. 22-27. 
 
 30 Comp. Du systeme Industrie! in CEuvres, XXI, pp. 87, 88. 
 
 31 See CEuvres (L'Organisatesir) Vol. XX, p. 73. 
 
220 MODERN FRENCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 terial development underlies the niental,^^ although the 
 quality of the mental development determines the stage 
 of social growth.^^ This is certainly the later doctrine 
 as the more distinctively French branch of the present 
 socialism in France now advances it; it only needs to 
 put some more dialectic into it and make economic con- 
 ditions causal to all other institutions in order for it to 
 be the Marxian theory .of social growth. When all that 
 he has written is considered, it .seems right to believe 
 that Saint Simon held to the theory that the social 
 movement has a moral end and moves forward in ac- 
 cordance with the psychological development of man,** 
 but he can be found asserting, as Marxian socialism 
 does, that the initiative force in social progress is not 
 the individual, but " the law of progress."*^ The theory 
 
 32 See (Euvres (L'Organisateur), XX, p. 192. "On ne 
 saurait trop le r^pgter, il n'y a d'action utile exercfie par 
 I'homme que celle de I'homme sur les choses. L'action de 
 I'homme sur rhomme est toujours nuisible H l'esp6ce," etc. 
 
 33CEuvres (L'Organisateur), XX, p. 182; also (Euvres (L'ln- 
 dustrie), XIX, p. 23. "Que tout rSgime social est une ap- 
 plication d'un syst&me et que, par consequent, il est impossible 
 d'instituer un regime nouveau, sans avoir auparavant €tabli 
 le nouveau systSme philosophique auquel il doit correspondrc." 
 
 34 (Euvres (L'Industrie), XIX, p. 30. "La politique n'est 
 autre chose que la science de celle entre ces rfegles de la morale 
 qui sent assez iraportantes pour qu'il soit utile de lea or- 
 ganizer et en m6me temps assez claires, assez universellement 
 adoptees, pour que I'organisation en soit possible." 
 
 ss " La loi supfrieure des progrfes de I'esprit humain en- 
 traine et domine tout; les hommes ne sont pour elle que des 
 instruments. Quoique cette force dgrivc de nous, il n'est pas 
 plus en notre pouvoir de nous soustraire a son influence ou 
 de maitriser son action que de changer a notre grg, I'impulsion 
 primitive qui fait cireuler notre plan6te autour du soleil." 
 (Euvres (L'Organisateur), XX, p. 119; also, in (Euvres (Du 
 Systeme Industriel), XXII, pp. 226-237. "II n'y a qu'une 
 impulsion a donner; le reste I'efTectuera de soi-mSme par la 
 seule force des choses," 
 
IDEA OP SOCiAL PR0GM8S. 221 
 
 of Saint Simon does not merge the individual into 
 society, Ijut it reduces the opposition between the two 
 to a minimum and puts the responsibility for individual 
 development upon the social organization. The Saint 
 Simonian interpretation of history not only set moving 
 most of those " positivist " and " scientific " interpreta- 
 tions of history which men not socialists, offer as phi- 
 losophies of history at the present day; it was the in- 
 spiration to the modern socialistic arguments for a 
 social reorganization which should insure individual 
 happiness. 
 
 It is Saint Simon who first points out that social re- 
 generation is being prepared by a painful negative 
 period, — it is thus he calls his own time, — a period 
 wherein the principle of growth is antagonism.^* The 
 others took up the idea but in the spirit of criticism, 
 not of analysis, declaring the period of antagonism in 
 which they lived to be one peculiarly unfortunate and 
 unnecessary. They pronounce against it because of 
 what their moral sense tells them. Though most of 
 them adopt the terminology of Saint Simon*'' thev do 
 not use his more dispassionate method. 
 
 This notion of a social evolution where struggle is 
 the basis of all movement, was however sharply marked 
 ofP from the theory of the later half of the century, by 
 the fact that each of the writers under discussion, Pec- 
 quer and Vidal "possibly excepted, looked to a system 
 
 36 OEuvres. (Du Syst6rae Industriel), XXII, pp. 60 ct seq.) 
 
 37 Comp. Fourier. Theories des Quatre Mouvements, p. 94 
 (cited in Michel, op. cit., p. 382) ; Louis Blanc means the 
 same thing when he "says, " Trois grands principles se par- 
 tagent le monde et I'histoire; I'autoritg, I'individualisme et la 
 fraternitg," etc. Comp. Revolution frangaise, I, p. 9. 
 
222 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 which he proposed, as a means to terminate finally the 
 unfortunate disharmony which separated men and stim- 
 ulated their worst impulses. In this, the idealistic 
 character of the school shows itself. Unconsciously 
 or consciously. Saint Simon, Proudhon or any of the 
 other writers in question, dreamed of an end to social 
 disharmony, a social equilibrium secured by the meas- 
 ure they so ardently worked for. 
 
 The adoption of the idea of progress led to the doc- 
 trine which refused to believe in simple life as means 
 to happiness. On the contrary, these reformers all de- 
 clared for a highly organized society^^ as the best 
 means for individual development and content. Saint 
 Simon says first, and all the others may be found say- 
 ing or implying the same thing, that the true economy 
 of a state " does not consist in spending little, but in 
 spending well."^^ It was decided early that all progress 
 rests upon industrial progress, and so the economic con- 
 ditions of the present society — conditions which did not 
 seem to them to insure such progress, — became the real 
 subject of attack. It is since the beginning of the cen- 
 tury that the industrial side of civilization becomes the 
 central point of discussion for socialists. Saint Simon 
 was only the first who put all his' faith in the power of 
 science socially expressed as Industrialism, to banish 
 the present unrest; the others took up and urged a like 
 claim. He is first to state with precision that only a new 
 
 38 Fourier, it is true, scorned civilization as he interpreted 
 the word^ but the " garantisme " ( see Thgorie des Quatre 
 Mouvements ) , which he wished to substitute, was a more com- 
 plex social order, and thus corresponds to our idea of civiliza- 
 tion, which covers everything not primitive life. 
 
 39 Saint Simon. CEuvres (SystSme Industriel), XXII, p. 171. 
 
IDEA OF SOCIAL PROGRESS. 223 
 
 economic arrangement of society can work improve- 
 ment in deplorable conditions, but afterwards all the 
 others are as specific concerning the causes of the social 
 evils. It is with these men that things not men become 
 the object of reproach.*" While all, from Saint Simon 
 to Blanc, look on property as the key-stone to the qual- 
 ity and strength of the social structure, they yet have 
 in mind that kind of property which is used as a factor 
 in production. All are of Saint Simon's opinion that 
 exploitation of the globe by associated effort is the only 
 true means to the fullest physical and mental develop- 
 ment. In fact, the works of two of these writers, Pec- 
 quer and Vidal,*^ are little more than a critical discus- 
 sion of this one question. Both Pecquer and Vidal 
 discuss only the current economic doctrines regarding 
 industry; they are solely concerned with what they re- 
 gard as the mistaken ideas regarding the methods of 
 production and distribution; they are chiefly interested 
 in pointing the weakness of the "laissez-faire" doc- 
 trine. They make the same distinction between the 
 capitalist and Capital which the latest socialists do, and 
 expatiate upon the value of the one and the uselessness 
 of the other. In order that theirs should be the doc- 
 trine of the latest French socialism, there is nothing 
 lacking to their arguments concerning the capitalist 
 except the idea of historical movement which makes 
 the present theory regard him as transitional, a medium 
 to the time when a general association of workers shall 
 
 *o Comp. Louis Blanc. " The fault is not in men, but in 
 things." History of Ten Years, II, p. 6.52. (Eng. edition.) 
 
 41 On Pecquer, see Michel, op. cit., pp. 242-245 ; also, Malon, 
 Precis de Socialisme, ' eh. xi. On Vidal, comp. Michel, op. 
 cit. pp. 245-248; also, Malon, op, eit,, ch. xi. 
 
224 MODEM FRMOM socialism. 
 
 control capital. Though they ask for this associated 
 production in the name of a moral claim rather than as 
 an historical necessity, Pecquer and Vidal make a spe- 
 cific demand for a government which shall control in- 
 dustrial operations, and thus kill forever all competi- 
 tive production. 
 
 As sequel to this point of view regarding the cause 
 of present discontent, class lines are now drawn not 
 according to status but according to possession. Differ- 
 ences between men are attributed to badly-adjusted 
 industrial relations.** All that later theory has defined 
 concerning the theory of class-struggle is noted and 
 accented, though not so logically stated, by each of these 
 theorists. For Saint Simon, the classes are the pro- 
 ducers and the non-producers;** Proudhon** has found 
 the modern terms of proletaire and the bourgeois; 
 Louis Blanc's " peuple "^ is only another word for pro- 
 letaire, and his "bourgeoisie" is an economically as 
 well as a politically triumphant class. 
 
 The result of this insistent criticism of the industrial 
 organization and of industrial methods is an attack 
 upon the art of government as taught by the control- 
 ling economic theory. Government methods because 
 they omit to take account of and to control the indus- 
 
 42Proudhon's statement is typical. He defines the Revolu- 
 tion as " the substitution of real right for personal right ; that 
 is to say, in the days of feudalism, the value of property de- 
 pended upon the standing of the proprietor, while, after the 
 Revolution, the regard for the man was proportional to his 
 property." Comp. What is property? Second Mem., p. 357. 
 (Eng. ed., Tuokerman.) 
 
 43(Buvres (L'lndustrie), XIX, p. 74. 
 
 4* Contradictions des systfemes economiques, passim. 
 
 45 History of Ten Years, II, p. 648. ' 
 
INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION VRlTWlStlU. 225 
 
 trial operations of every member of society** are held 
 to be wrong and unsuccessful. What is specifically at- 
 tacked is the doctrine of non-interference; free compe- 
 tition gets no quarter. It is held to be responsible for 
 all the moral and material misery of society. Having 
 laid it down repeatedly that society depends fqr its 
 progress on the greatest possible production, competi- 
 tion is shown to check such production. It is 
 argued that social contentment depends upon bring- 
 ing the physical and mental powers of each unit of 
 society into the best possible relation to nature and to 
 each other. No one intellect, it is said can find the 
 way if left free, and unguided by anything but the in- 
 stinct of self-preservation; the united ingenuity of the 
 most developed members of society is needed for ef- 
 fective leadership. Therefore, instead of that combat 
 of individual interests which the doctrine holds compe- 
 tition to be, a social consensus of opinion is asked for 
 as the first requisite to intelligent and successful pro- 
 duction. Thus the principle of association is opposed 
 to that of competition. On the other hand, the doc- 
 trine exalts socially-conducted industry where division 
 of labor recognizes special capacity in each member of 
 the community and gives to each capacity its best op- 
 portunity; on the other, it execrates an industrial or- 
 ganization where industry has a false relation to the 
 
 ^SNo special citations seem requisite here. It will only be 
 necessary to turn over the pages of Saint Simon's " Syst6me 
 Industrielle," Fourier's "Th§orie des Quatre Mouvements," 
 Proudhon's " SystSmes des Contradictions Economiques " or 
 Blanc's " Questions d'aujourd'hui et de demain " in order to 
 find ample verification of the above statements. 
 
 15 
 
226 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 state because it is free from state interference instead 
 of being the first and most important subject of the 
 laws. 
 
 The essence of the special theory these thinkers rep- 
 resent is involved in this doctrine of' association. It 
 is the root principle of their constructive theory that 
 men are to associate themselves together if they would 
 attain their best development. Theirs is not yet the 
 theory later developed which holds all men to be parts 
 of a great social organism and believes that immutable 
 laws make it necessary that they work together in some 
 cooperative way.*'' The theory they advance is rather 
 that individualistic one which takes society to be the 
 aggregate of all the individuals who compose it and, 
 making the wants of these individuals the final gauge 
 of social progress, declares that men are to associate in 
 order to the best possible industrial activity. As a re- 
 sult of associated effort they look to see the needs of all 
 the community satisfied and the best and most general 
 could, by some sort of association, get the fullest oppor- 
 development assured. It is argued that if the majority 
 tunity to labor, a large product would insure a larger 
 enjoyment and thus the desired end, the most universal 
 happiness, would be obtained. It is further argued 
 that it is absurd to think that the wants of the whole 
 community could not be supplied. Every one of these 
 socialists plans some kind of organization by which all 
 society shall become a cooperating army of laborers, 
 and each one believes that, if realized, the organization 
 he suggests would make it perfectly possible to supply 
 all needs. In every case, whatever the detail of the 
 
 « The exception of Buchez and Leroux haa been noted, 
 
INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION CRITICISED. 22 Y 
 
 plan, two general changes are urged; labor must be 
 properly respected and the whole social body must con- 
 trol all labor. 
 
 It is claimed that, under any of the industrial or- 
 ganizations which these early socialists propose, the po- 
 sition of labor would be no longer the ignoble role it 
 plays under the competitive system. From Babeuf to 
 Louis Blanc, the doctrine of the right to labor and of 
 the duty of the state to enforce such a right was more 
 and more positively put forward, and labor of body and - 
 mind is exalted as the developing force. As has been 
 said, any one of the theories sharply divides society into 
 two classes, the rich and the poor, where the poor 
 means the laboring-class, and all of dignity and worth 
 is attached to the workers. Their misery and depriva- 
 tion is a constant theme for pity and sympathy, but 
 they have meanwhile the supreme respect of these so- 
 cialists who are confident that social salvation will come 
 through their efforts.*^ Hearts go out to the poor in 
 this period just as they did in Eousseau's time, but, 
 since these later writers scoffed at returning to a sim- 
 ple life, they see other ways than those suggested by 
 Eousseau for diminishing the miseries of persons they 
 pity. Two things are pointed out as at present inter- 
 fering ^dth the happiness of the poor. In the first 
 place, the odium which attaches to labor, and in the 
 second place, the lack of a proper return to that labor. 
 The remedy for both evils is always held to lie in mak- 
 ing every one labor. In that way, the odium which 
 
 *8 Compare Saint Simon. .Addressing the " Industriels," 
 he says, " Sans doute, messieurs, les forces temporelles et 
 permanente de la soci6t6 resident en vous, uniquement en 
 vous." CEuvres (Systems Industriel), XXII, p. 16. 
 
228 MODERN FRENOB SOCIALISM. 
 
 now attaches to all industrial pursuits would disappear 
 andj as all the available productive force of the com- 
 munity is gradually made use of, a proper production 
 would insure enough to make a satisfactory distribution. 
 
 What is urged in relation to the working class is an 
 argument at once moralistic and utilitarian. On the 
 one hand, it is claimed that it is society's undoubted 
 duty to see that all the community are occupied in in- 
 dustry; it is, on the other hand, suggested that it is 
 also expedient that all should be so employed. The 
 poor, when employed, will be lifted from their enforced 
 and at present inevitable degradation; the poor, if em- 
 ployed, will be able to add to every one's enjoyment as 
 well as to their own and all will be enabled to satisfy 
 wants that need not be limited. It is expected that, 
 if the state, controlling industrial operations, shall en- 
 force the substitution of the associated efEort of the en- 
 tire community for competitive labor, the shame and 
 the burden of the poverty-stricken will disappear. The 
 laborer is held to be the real means to economic ad- 
 vancement and so the actual savior of society. Thus 
 these early socialists begin that earnest fight for the 
 position of the laborer, that eager claim for the right 
 and dignity of the proletariat which is the most notable 
 characteristic of the later movement. 
 
 The details concerning the way in which the state 
 shall conduct industry differ, but the general plan of 
 political organization is about the same in all the theo- 
 ries. The principles of democracy are so universally 
 adopted that they are usually treated as though axi- 
 omatic. All the plans ask for some kind of social re- 
 
INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION CRITICISED. 229 
 
 organization on an economic tasis; all except the 
 plans of Saint Simon, nay even his at times, as for 
 political decentralization and a highly centralized 
 industrial system. Saint Simon with his strong his- 
 toric sense, leaned to entirely centralized methods of 
 government, hut most of the others, under the influ- 
 ence of the individualistic sentiment so strong in their 
 time, advocated a series of communes with large pow- 
 ers of local government, small associations to be 
 banded together and usually to be made subject to a 
 central control whose chief concern should be oversee- 
 ing production. No matter what particular distribu- 
 tion of power was advocated, the idea holds throughout 
 that the chief object of the central administration was 
 to be the industrial activity of the community. 
 
 In summary, it is evident that the doctrines which 
 represent the progress of the theoretical socialistic 
 movement in France up to 1848, show a marked devel- 
 opment in socialism, both as to the expansion of the 
 ideal it involves and with regard to the increase in the 
 intensity and reach of its aims. While the movement 
 remained idealistic in theory, it yet looked to make its 
 ideals present realities. A tendency to scientific 
 method and a set intention to point means as well as 
 end, marks a change of method. As to theory, the idea 
 of a social evolution, even the term itself is now first 
 introduced into socialistic doctrine and thus individual 
 happiness is to be looked for at a point farther on in 
 human history rather than in a return to any prime- 
 vally perfect past. Civilization, made synonymous 
 with a highly developed economic society, is now the 
 sine qua non for man's development, instead of being 
 
230 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 regarded as it formerly had been as a curse to him, and, 
 in civilized association, the greatest possible liberty is 
 said to be the means to that individual development 
 which is the end of all social activity. In their criti- 
 cism of existing society, all agree that the impediment 
 to social harmony is misdirected production with its in- 
 evitable struggle between rich and poor, between idlers 
 and producers, a struggle bred of the false industrial 
 relations which mistaken economic principles encour- 
 age. Some form of social control of productive wealth 
 is generally urged as the immediate means to ameliorate 
 the social conditions. Larger material enjoyment, fol- 
 lowing upon a more equitable distribution of labor and 
 the fruits of that labor, is expected to give higher and 
 better living for all. Though moral regeneration is 
 still the primary aim, the idea of the means has altered; 
 it is now shown that in order to make men morally 
 better, the end of all education as of all legislation, must 
 be to teach them how to bring about a better produc- 
 tion. In this philosophy which lays such stress upon 
 the economic facts of social life as the key to social har- 
 mony, we find naturally enough, a new appreciation 
 of the role of the worker. The tendency is to exalt 
 the laborer and the class to which he belongs, as one 
 who plays the really determinative part in the affairs 
 of humanity. Finally, we are told that, when social 
 control of industry shall have secured an association 
 where all men shall be properly graded for purposes of 
 production and distribution, then there will result a 
 greater output of industrial product, the poor as such 
 will disappear and all will be assured an increased en- 
 joyment of the pleasures and intellectaal opportunities 
 of life. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY SOCIALISTS. 231 
 
 IT. 
 
 This new and subversive theory which, in the prog- 
 ress of the years, came to play a more and more active 
 part in the civil and political life of France had no im- 
 mediate practical effect. No alteration in institutions 
 came from the several movements which these doctrines 
 set on foot in the end of establishing the rights of the 
 down-trodden. Until 1848, the various social leaders 
 and their small number of adherents never took any 
 really active part in the political movements of the 
 national life. The pitiful, almost disgraceful finale of 
 the little group at Menilmontant who called themselves 
 Saint Simonians, seemed to end completely the move- 
 ment to make reality of Saint Simon's theory. Fou- 
 rierism, in spite of the valiant efforts of such able advo- 
 catesas Considerant, Godin and others, never got be- 
 yond a communal existence and a growing discredit. 
 Buchez and Leroux were early read out of socialism 
 because of their mysticism; Proudhon came in chiefly 
 for obloquy, both from the government and other sects 
 of socialists; Pecquer and Vidal played a small political 
 role in the Eevolution of 1848, and along with Louis 
 Blanc, they are identified with those National Work- 
 shops which are synonymous in socialistic history with 
 failure. This revolution of 1848, with its complete 
 fiasco in the Napoleonic empire a few years later, 
 seemed altogether to discredit everything that the so- 
 cialism of the time had held to be most practicable and 
 helpful. The failure of the National workshops was 
 taken to be the negation of the much praised and 
 valued Eight to labor which had been the very core of 
 
232 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 the socialistic agitation, and with that defeat, an end 
 seemed to have come momentarily to socialistic en- 
 deavor. 
 
 But though the labor and enthusiasm of these men 
 were ' empty of palpable results in institutions, there 
 seems little question that theirs was a notable work of 
 stimulation in quarters best adapted to give real force 
 to their revolt against accepted forms. The work of 
 arousing men to the conception of the rights of the 
 poor, of deepening the breach between economic classes 
 and discrediting an individualistic state was begun at 
 the Jacobins and at the Cercle Social, but only in the 
 mouths of these socialists of the nineteenth century 
 did this effort take a defined and broadly political 
 rather than a merely factional tone. Though the doc- 
 trines which have been set down, got only a section'al 
 following, they all aimed at a national regeneration by 
 way of a national enlightenment; their appeal was to tho . 
 whole community. It is certain that if social condi- 
 tions took on no different aspect because of what these 
 men preached, their doctrine did none the less stimu- 
 late men of a certain temperament to convey to another 
 period such ideas as were distinctive of the theories 
 now reviewed. They served to arouse many persons 
 to the fact that there was a social question clamoring 
 for solution, a question in which the happiness of the 
 greater part of the nation seemed involved. 
 
 It is probable however that the most tangible result 
 of the idealistic movement was its effect upon the work- 
 ing classes. The group of writers whose leading prin- 
 ciples have here been explained seem certainly to have 
 done an important work in awakening to self-conscious- 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY SOCIALISTS. 233 
 
 ness, the class that is coming more and more to be 
 called the Fourth Estate. The steady defense by all 
 the group of the poor against the rich, their unremit- 
 ting claims for reforms that should relieve the under- 
 valued workers, may have been without practical result, 
 but they had at least one efEect; the Fourth Estate 
 aroused to a conception of itself as a class with a class 
 struggle to be fought out on political lines. For the 
 general reader, the chief note in the socialism just ex- 
 amined, was after all, and still is, a more or less heated 
 attack upon a selfish government said to be carried on 
 in the interests of a single class, the bourgeoisie, and 
 this way of thinking accented by contrast, the position 
 of that other class whose oppression was supposed to 
 give social supremacy to the bourgeoisie. Undoubt- 
 edly, as is presently to be shown, the Fourth Estate 
 came to a new notion of itself and its rights when 
 machinery, displacing labor, brought at certain intervals 
 inevitable and tragic transition-periods of misery and 
 want; when free competition and a factory-system 
 played curiously cruel pranks with the happiness of 
 the many. Industrialism gave the laboring classes ac- 
 tual demonstration of larger possibilities and of their 
 own limited opportunity; the idealistic socialists gave 
 the out-of-pocket and the unemployed a point of attack 
 and a language for expressing that attack. Without 
 doubt, the agitation of this group is greatly responsible 
 for the present unfortunate habit of the working-classes 
 to consider their interests as apart from those of their 
 employers. The steady repetition by each of those 
 writers, of the belief that the rich exploited the poor, 
 aroused to rebellion that poor whose condition was 
 
234 UODEBTH FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 really improvingj else it would not have come to this 
 point of self-assertion. Much of the most popular fic- 
 tion of the first half of the century fell in with some 
 form of the socialistic theory, more particularly in this 
 regard.*® There seems every reason to believe that, 
 while such circumstances as the growth of science, the 
 greater economic opportunity, the sufErage-right, in 
 short, those social facts which are to be the subject of 
 the next chapter, aided to develop the laborer beyond 
 the merely brute stage of inert endurance, these facts 
 did not give the whole impetus. The teachings of the 
 idealistic socialists, first stirred the laborer's emotions 
 and then taught him to think. The easy and simple 
 formulae which he has since written upon the banners 
 of his party, he first learned from the writings of the 
 ancestors of modern French socialism. 
 
 Thus it would seem that the chief results of the 
 French idealistic socialism are psychological not tangi- 
 ble changes. The French idealistic movement may be 
 said to have awakened France to the fact of a new sort 
 of social question to be worked out by changes in social 
 institutions. On the one hand, the movement taught 
 
 49 This cooperation, which the best known of the novelist<! 
 of the day gave to -the current socialism, might be added to 
 the more definite causes of the progress of socialism. When 
 George Sand attacked state and social institutions in her ro- 
 mances, or when in her inimitable pastorals she pleaded the 
 cause of the peasant to a public which up to that time only 
 knew him in the generalizations of Rousseau and his imitators, 
 she was aiding the cause of the proletaire in a way that 
 neither Saint Simon nor Proudhon could do it. Eugene Sue's 
 brilliant powers of invention, which caught and held the 
 reader's interest, centered that interest upon the proletarian, 
 and what, though his ponderous studies of "le peuple" repel, 
 rather than attract, to-day, their influence upon the imagina- 
 tion of the time was certainly as great as, if not greater than, 
 that of Fourier, 'whose disciple he was. 
 
INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY SOCIALISTS. 235 
 
 many of the upper classes that all demands for radical 
 social reforms had not been satisfied by the Revolution, 
 and on the other, it had a pronounced share in the final 
 and complete awakening of the working classes to a 
 social and political consciousness. 
 
 It is not however, only because idealistic socialists 
 were slowly but surely able to find some following for 
 their social teaching, that we have a militant socialist 
 doctrine to-day. A theoretical lineage is not, as has been 
 said, sufiicient explanation for the character and social 
 force of any doctrine. Circumstances of social growth 
 aided to shape the theories just explained and helped 
 to make way for them; they have beside had much to 
 do with making modern French socialism what it now 
 is, an active materialistic claim for place as the prac- 
 ticable basis on which to conduct society. The more 
 conspicuous of these social facts require some discussion 
 in this statement of the determining causes of the pres- 
 ent socialistic theory in France. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I. General Studies of Socialism: 
 
 Booth. Saint Simon and the Saint Simonians, Longmans, 
 London, 1871. — Bliss. Hand-book of Socialism, ed. Funk & 
 Wagnalls, N. Y., 1897. — Duhring. Kritische Geschichte der 
 Nationalokonomie und der Socialismus, ed. Geilben, Berlin, 
 1871. — Ely. French and German Socialism, ed. London, Trflb- 
 ner & Co., 1882; Socialism and Social Reforms, ed. Crowell, 
 N. Y. 1894. — Espinas. La Philosophic Sociale au XVIIIe 
 siecle,'ed. Fglix Alcan, Paris, 1898. — Oraham. History of So- 
 cialism, ed. Paul, French, Triibner & Co., London, 1891. — Janet. 
 Les origines du Socialisme Contemporain. ed. F6lix Alcan, 
 Paris, 1896; Saint Simon et Saint Simonianism Felix Alcan, 
 Paris. — Kaufmann. Utopias. Kegan, Paul & Co., London, 
 J879. — Kirkup. History of Socialism. Longmans, Green _& 
 Co., London, 1888. — Laveleye. Le Socialisme Contemporain, 
 ed Felix Alcan, Paris, \i%5.— Leroy-BeoMUeu. La Collectiv- 
 
236 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 isme, ed. Guillaumin & Cie., Paris, 1885 ; La Repartition de la 
 Bichesse, ed. Gruillaumin & Cie., Paris, 1888. — Leaky. Democ- 
 racy and Liberty, ed. Longmans, Green & Co., 1896. — Michel. 
 L'ldfie de I'Etat, ed. Hachette, Paris, 1896. — Rae. Contempo- 
 rary Socialism, ed. Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 1891. — Reybaud. 
 Etudes sur les rgformateurs contemporains ou Socialisme 
 moderne, ed. Guillaumin et Cie., Paris, 1848. — Somhart. Le 
 Socialisme et le mouvement social au XIXe si&cle, ed. Giard 
 et Bri6re, Paris, 1898. — Stein. Socialismus und Communis- 
 mus des heutigen Frankreiehs, Leipzig, 1848, ed. Wigaud. — 
 Sudre. Histoire de Communisms, ed. Guillaumin & Cie., Paris, 
 1856. — Velley. Le Socialisme Contemporain, ed. Guillaumin 
 & Cie., Paris, 1895. — Woolsey. Communism and socialism in 
 their history and theory, N. Y., Scribner's Sons, 1880. 
 
 French Idealistic Socialists. 
 
 Babeuf. CEuvres divers, Paris, 1786-1797. — Buohez. Histoire 
 parlementaire de la Revolution frangaise, ed. Picard et fils, 
 Paris, 1834-1838. — Blanc. Question d'aujourd'hui et de demain, 
 ed. Dentu, Paris, 1873-1884; Histoire de Dix Ans, ed. Pagnerre, 
 Paris, 1849 ; Histoire de la Revolution frangaise, ed. Fumes et 
 Cie., Paris, 1869; Rgvglations Historique, ed. Leipzig, 1859. — 
 Gabet. Voyage en Icarie, ed. Paris, 1848 ; Le vrai christianisme 
 suivant Jgsus-Christ, ed. Au Bureau du Populaire, Paris, 1848. 
 — Fourier. ThSorie des Quatre Mouvements, ed. Paris, 1846 
 (CEuvres, Vol. I) ; ThSorie de I'assoeiation domestique et ag- 
 ricole, ed. Paris, 1822. — Lerouse. De L'HumanitS ed. Perro- 
 tin, Paris, 1840. — Pecquer. Des ameliorations materielles 
 dans leur rapports avee la libertS ed. Gosselin, Paris, 1840; 
 Theorie nouvelle d'economie sociale, ou I'etude sur I'organiza- 
 tion de la soeigte, ed. Capelle, Paris, 1842. — Prottdhon. Uti- 
 lite de la celebration de Dimanche, ed. Lacroix et Cie., Paris, 
 1868; Qu'est ce que la Propriete? 1st and 2d Memoirs, ed. 
 Tuckerman; Avertissement aux proprietaires, ed. Paris, 1868; 
 Systeme des Contradictions Economiques, ou la Philosophic de 
 la Misfire, ed. Lacroix et Cie., Paris, 1867 ; Idee general de la 
 Revolution, ed. Lacroix et Cie., Paris, 1868. — Saint Simon. 
 CEuvres de Saint Simon et D'Enfantin, ed. Dentu, especially 
 De rindustrie; L'Organizateur ; Du Systfime Industriel; Nou- 
 veau Christianisme. — Vidal. De la Repartition de la Richesse, 
 ou la justice distributive en eeonomie sociale, ed. Capelle, 
 Paris, 1846; Vivres en travaillant, projets, voies et moyens de 
 reformes sociales, ed. Capelle, Paris, 1848. 
 
 Imaginative writers who express sentiments similar to those 
 of Idealistic Socialists: 
 
 George Sand. La Comtesse de Rudolstadt; Compagnon du 
 tour de France; Le Peeh6 de M. Antoine. — Eugene Sue. Les 
 Mysteres du Peuple, etc. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SOCIAL FACTS WHICH HAVE 
 SHAPED AND DEVELOPED MODERN 
 FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE SOCIAL FACTS WHICH HAVE SHAPED AND 
 DEVELOPED MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 I. The Altered Standing of Socialism in France To-day. 
 II. Alterations in General Standards Which Have Af- 
 fected THE Doctrine and Position of Pkesent-Day 
 Socialism. 
 
 III. Economic Changes Aid to Develop a Fourth Estate. 
 
 IV. The Final Influence Which Defined the Character 
 
 OF the Present French Socialism. 
 
 Socialism is to-day a prominent social question in 
 France. N"owhere more than in that country has the 
 change during this century in regard to the indorse- 
 ment of the socialistic theory been more rapid and more 
 noteworthy. In place of the support of a few enthusi- 
 asts which was all that it could get in the early part 
 of the century, rreneh^sacialism is to-day the ethical 
 and political laWj almost the religion, of a very respect- 
 able number of persons who are active sharers in the 
 political and economic life of the nation. 
 
 Nothing is more marked in the recent development 
 of the socialistic movement in France, than the pro- 
 nounced difference in the attitude of scholars and poli- 
 ticians toward it. A scholastic world which once 
 scoffed and smiled at the doctrine, has come to treat it 
 with an attention which varies from the apprehensive 
 to the sympathetic; a practical world has passed from 
 regarding it as an aberration of a few exalted minds to 
 239 
 
240 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 recognizing that the theory is that of a militant and 
 conspicuous party. When, some years ago, men of let- 
 ters not adherents of the party made studies of social- 
 ism, the ideas which its advocates put forward were 
 treated with scorn or at best, with regret.* The 
 aims of the movement were looked upon as something 
 very like the chimera of a sick_brain; the kindest critics 
 stopped at a genial recognition of the good intentions 
 which lay behind the movement. To-day, even the 
 least sympathetic recognize that the subject is to be 
 taken seriously.^ Eancorous attack has largely disap- 
 peared, and the theory gets a considerate even sympa- 
 thetic exposition from many of the leaders of the or- 
 thodox thought of the day.^ Professors and littera- 
 teurs alike watch the movement with increasing inter- 
 est. So in politics, liberal and radical politicians have 
 come to making overtures to the party; at present, one 
 of its number is a member of the ministry of France;* 
 its speakers in the Chamber are listened to with grow- 
 ing respect; the newspaper which represents its inter- 
 ests,® increases its circulation. In fine, it may be said 
 that for any well-informed student at the present time, 
 the word socialism suggests a social movement entirely 
 rid of the Utopian or catastrophic characteristics which 
 
 1 Comp. e. g. Sudre, op. cit., or Eeybaud. Etudes sur lea 
 R6£ormateurs contemporains. 
 
 2 As for example, in the two books of M. Paul Leroy-Beau- 
 lieu. " Le Colleetivisme " and " La Repartition de la Richesse." 
 
 3 See e. g. Janet : Les Origines du soeialisme eontemporain ; 
 Espinas, La philosophie sociale du XVIIIe si6cle et la revolu- 
 tion ; or, Lichtenberger, Le Soeialisme avant la Revolution ; 
 Le Soeialisme et la Revolution frangaise. 
 
 4 Millerand. 
 
 6 La Petite Republique. 
 
ALTERED STANDING OF SOCIALISM. 241 
 
 were wont to cling about it in early appreciations of it. 
 Whether they regard its principles with hopefulness 
 or apprehension, scholars and statesmen alike recognize 
 the doctrines of socialism as something worthy of re- 
 spectful attention. Socialism has secured for itself at 
 the hands of chair and tribune, a growing respect which 
 saves it from social ostracism and sometimes wins sup- 
 port for it in unexpected quarters. 
 
 This tolerance however is of slight importance to the 
 movement compared with the increased suffrage it con- 
 tinues to gain from the nation, and this support is 
 chiefly the support of the workingman. There are 
 many small officials in the movement; there is even a 
 certain sprinkling of university men, but the rank and 
 file of the party comes from the working-classes. 
 It is the operative in the manufacturing districts 
 and in the cities, who has given 37 municipalities 
 to socialistic direction and by the strength of his vote 
 has made the party so formidable an opponent to the 
 Progressive Eepublicans. In France to-day, socialism 
 is a militant party whose spokesmen are men of letters 
 or disaffected politicians, but whose backbone is the 
 working-class. 
 
 Certain facts of modern French life and institutions 
 seem to have made this progress of the doctrine possible, 
 while at the same time they have given it the particu- 
 lar aspect it now assumes in France. 
 
 It has been shown that, in the eighteenth century, 
 the revolutionary principles were the result of the grad- 
 ual focusing of doctrines which, arising in a disorgan- 
 ized way as new social theories, finally found in the 
 
 16 
 
242 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 society whence they arose, the necessary impulse which 
 made them effective principles. It was seen that dis- 
 satisfaction with a weak government which failed to 
 recognize the new claims, gradually fanned a popular 
 discontent; it was noted that a powerful class in the 
 nation, adopting new ideas and rebelling against an ar- 
 bitrary government grew to another conception of its 
 rights; and lastly, it was shown that these claims got 
 undue force and bitterness because government neg- 
 lected or opposed the claims that this class urged in 
 the name of the nation. 
 
 It will not do to press too far the parallel between 
 the eighteenth century influences and those of the nine- 
 teenth, but when the chief changes in French social 
 life during the nineteenth century are considered, it 
 seems possible to find a certain similarity of causes. In 
 view of the earnest attention which it has just been 
 shown is now accorded the socialist theory, recollecting 
 the increased respect now paid to its adherents, the 
 neglect of claims long urged may be dismissed from 
 among the influences bearing upon the development 
 of modem French socialism. Otherwise, in general, the 
 facts are not dissimilar. In the nineteenth century, 
 as in the eighteenth, there can be noted in French life 
 the rise and spread of new standards, more particularly 
 the development of a new method of investigation, of 
 a new ideal of government and of a widened sense of 
 social responsibility. There can be seen too, in this 
 century as in the last, an unstable government which 
 neither absolutely suppresses nor yet upholds these 
 new ideals; there can also be found altered social con- 
 
NEW METHODS OF INVESTIGATION. 243 
 
 ditions which, along with the changed standards, have 
 made more directly for the rise of another class, again 
 impressed with its false position in society, again filled 
 with a new appreciation of its own value and a new 
 and pronounced desire for a better standard of living. 
 Each of these influences seems to have played a deter- 
 minative part in developing the character and enlarg- 
 ing the reach of modern French socialism. 
 
 II. 
 
 To begin with the change of opinion in regard to 
 fundamental theories, and first of all with the new at- 
 titude toward scientific research. 
 
 To make anything beyond a general statement con- 
 cerning the innovations in thought which science has 
 effected, would be singularly unnecessary at the close 
 of a century wherein an almost complete thought-revo- 
 lution has taken place because of what scientific re- 
 search has revealed. To-day science has practically 
 won its fight. Carried into the present age by the 
 same wave of superficial materialism which swept the 
 doctrines of the French Eevolution into the century, 
 the right of scientific research is now keenly respected 
 in France, in spite of contending creeds and dogmas, 
 superstitions and ignorant conservatism. To-day, the 
 nation pays a new reverence to the old object of its ad- 
 miration, the laws of nature, now finally understood to 
 be revealed by scientific research and only by scien- 
 tific research. Positivism has made a deep impression 
 in France, even though it has not been entirely ac- 
 
244 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 cepted there. The school of philosophy founded by 
 Auguste Comte, the school which, whatever its faults, 
 has undoubtedly been the inspiration for all modern 
 study of history and society, has deeply influenced all 
 the strongest thinkers in the nation which saw its be- 
 ginnings; the positivism of Comte may be said to have 
 had a share in shaping the national thought. Every 
 department of letters gives evidence that men are ap- 
 preciating more and more the value of the patient re- 
 search which slowly but surely makes clear the relation 
 between the parts of inorganic and organic life, the re- 
 lation of each of these to the other and of man to both. 
 The most accredited French theory to-day recognizes 
 the great truth that any law, social or political, in 
 order to have real value, must rest, not on the sanction 
 of innate consciousness, nor the abstract deductions of 
 any one mind, but upon the certainty of scientific 
 demonstration. With the rest of the enlightened 
 world. Prance has practically adopted the empiri- 
 cal method as the safest guide to the study of 
 the problems of man and society. Every branch of 
 national literature shows the influence of this new sen- 
 timent which holds that the validity of any law is rela- 
 tive to its possibilities for verification by some of the 
 facts of reality. 
 
 The new popularity of science has everywhere ef- 
 fected an important modification in socialistic theory. 
 The changed position of science has made an even more 
 marked alteration in the dogmas of the latest French 
 socialism. Because scientific method has now come so 
 entirely into favor, we have in France a new kind of 
 
NEW METHODS OF INVESTIGATION. 245 
 
 socialism and a greater readiness to listen to the doc- 
 trines it preaches. 
 
 When regarded as the particular influence .which 
 has reacted upon the latest socialistic thought, science 
 has had results not altogether beneficial perhaps. 
 Under the influence of the new method that science 
 teaches, that which in the past was predominatingly 
 an evangelical and idealistic philosophy has now be- 
 come uncompromising and materialistic. Catching at 
 the nearest teachings of science, many French socialists 
 became " scientifically convinced " materialists. The 
 first effect of scientific research even in the eighteenth 
 century was to bring about a sharp reaction against 
 theology. The mass of doctrine which had been put 
 forward by all Christian cults as so much final and re- 
 vealed truth, was rejected in toto by extremists when 
 some of it stood disproved by the positive demonstra- 
 tion of science. 
 
 In this first reaction, theology went so completely to 
 the wall, that whatever it contained of truth went with 
 it. Since bj^ his very nature, the socialist is before any 
 other an extremist, he most of all, threw over the old 
 beliefs; whether an apostle or disciple, it was he who 
 took most kindly to a creed which some scientists were 
 putting forward. Soon, socialists were first among 
 those who denied any existence other than that of this 
 world. Though they disavowed the doctrine of an- 
 other life and the other tenets of the old creed with as 
 much narrowness as the theologians had formerly as- 
 serted them, they called their theories of first causes 
 " scientific." If French socialism has in great part 
 
246 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 adopted a materialistic tone, it is because it believes it 
 can prove its hypotheses scientifically. 
 
 On the other hand, if the socialism under discussion 
 has ceased to neglect history and has come to take ac- 
 count of a physiological and psychological variation in 
 men, it is as well because of its newly-acquired respect 
 for the findings of science. Science has made socialism 
 materialistic, but it has also brought it out of Utopia 
 to at least a partial appreciation of the facts of reality. 
 
 Lastly, it can easily be seen how the spread of a scien- 
 tific spirit has probably aided socialism to find disciples. 
 Socialism, as has been said, has taught society a new 
 method and has taught it materialism, and these new 
 characteristics go for much in convincing many who 
 have come to respect everything " scientific," that there 
 is a reality worthy of attention in the doctrines of so- 
 cialism. The development of a critical and scientific 
 spirit likewise aided to discredit that habit of the past 
 which left education in the hands of the theologians 
 vowed to a revealed cosmogony. The way was thus 
 made easy for the introduction of the new ideas during 
 the educational period of men's lives. Under the grow- 
 ing spirit of tolerance, bred by the scientific spirit, so- 
 cialism has made its way even into scholastic teaching; 
 in academic circles, this subversive theory of society has 
 found a hearing and has not always been rejected. It 
 is, too, the indirect influence of science which enables 
 the French radical to prove as he was never before able 
 to prove, his long-cherished creed that, by the exercise 
 of theii; natural gifts, men can reshape the universe so 
 as to secure for themselves the greatest possible happi- 
 
NEW METHODS OF INTESTI6ATI0N. 247 
 
 ness. Socialists can now point to the countless me- 
 chanical contrivances which scientific knowledge has 
 made part of our daily life and by these can demonstrate 
 how swift and important changes in possession and posi- 
 tion can be accomplished. And the lesson they thus 
 teach is no mean ally for winning disciples to social- 
 ism. Again, new methods of transportation and com- 
 munication, brought about by the teaching of science, 
 now make it possible for a new idea to present itself 
 daily through the press to men in every walk in life. 
 So, too, some of these gifts of science enable teachers 
 of a new theory to travel about with a rapidity incon- 
 ceivable to a past generation, while, by wire and rapid 
 post, they can keep up a concerted and united effort 
 among themselves. The French socialist has not been 
 behind other teachers and preachers in taking advan- 
 tage of and reaping results from these new opportuni- 
 ties; he, as well as another, nay in France better than 
 any other, has learned to print his pamphlets and send 
 them to the most remote corners of the nation, to es- 
 tablish his central committee and spread his network 
 of propagandists all over the country, even while, with 
 post and wire, he keeps them a compact group acting 
 with a definitely arranged plan. 
 
 It may then be said that science has not only mate- 
 rially altered the character of socialistic theory, but even 
 more than this, making as it does for a social sanction 
 to freedom of thought or for the swift and constant 
 spread of that thought by means of telegraph, news- 
 paper, pamphlet or the rapid transfer of the lecturer 
 from point to point, it has indirectly prepared the way 
 for the spread of socialism. 
 
248 MODERN FRENCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 Even more vital to the subject of investigation is 
 the part played in French life and institutions by the 
 doctrine of democracy. It seems fairly demonstrable 
 that socialism has found such ready acceptance in France 
 and assumed whatever specific character it has acquired 
 there, because the social dissatisfaction in that country 
 is political and ethical rather than economic. The 
 syllogistic arguments in the economic theory of the 
 controlling socialism would have had little weight if 
 they were not after all merely so many proofs that a 
 change of government is desirable. French national 
 life all through the century has been greatly modified 
 because of the popularity of the cherished, century-old 
 ideal of pure democracy. It is because democracy as 
 a method of government has been the insistent demand 
 of an appreciable and powerful part of the nation that 
 nineteenth-century history in France is notable for the 
 lack of a political concensus and for a general faith in 
 revolutionary methods as a means to social change. To 
 this instability of government and this consequent readi- 
 ness to undertake radical changes in the fundamental 
 law, add the natural predisposition of the nation to a 
 highly-organized administrative government and the 
 pronounced tendency since the Eevolution to a doctrine 
 of intervention in the behalf of other nations, and it is 
 easy to see how these facts have shaped and supple- 
 mented the old arguments of socialism and laid the chief 
 stress of the agitation in France upon political changes. 
 
 In its action upon any society, democracy may be 
 said to affect radically the character of each of the social 
 interests. Whether political, humanitarian, esthetic, re- 
 ligious or economic, each social institution is modified as 
 
PRINCIPLE OF DEMOORAOT. £49 
 
 the democratic idea gradually develops. When it is 
 socially agreed that government is for the benefit of the 
 governed; that government is only the agent and repre- 
 sentative of the governed who are the final power from 
 which all social rule derives, then political institutions 
 become, at least in men's minds, the direct organ for 
 carrying out the will of the nation. So too, when the 
 idea presses always to the front that externals are a false 
 gauge of the real value of the individual, art and letters 
 are slowly penetrated with the consciousness that all 
 men have rights, and that, in capacity for suffering and 
 happiness, all men are on a level. When this idea that 
 each and all are equally valuable and equally able to 
 battle for life and happiness if only left free to do it, 
 is accepted without qualification, even theology rejects 
 the idea of an external force as final arbiter of man's 
 fate, and substitutes for it one altogether subjective. 
 Lastly, when democracy seeks to sweep aside all forms 
 and ceremonies, all distinctions of dress and privilege, 
 and leaves no line of demarcation except that one which 
 begins and ends in men's capacity to wrest their well- 
 being from Nature, then democracy makes for reducing 
 all the various separations of men's interests to one sepa- 
 ration upon purely economic lines. Democracy, carry- 
 ing with it these results, has in a way penetrated into 
 each of the institutions of French life. To-day, in spite 
 of her Latin law and her traditions of paternalism, 
 France pleases herself with the thought that she has 
 been the apostle of democracy for modern Europe. 
 And in a sense this is true. 
 
 The service of France to the modem world, a ser- 
 vice whose benefits are open to discussion, has been the 
 
250 
 
 MoDEM fRMCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 formulation of the ideal of democracy. While in the 
 England of the eighteenth century, the indiTidualistic 
 instinct of the Anglo-Saxon race was stubbornly main- 
 taining that the rights of the government rested upon 
 the rights of the governed, and in particular insisting 
 upon the right of the governed to control the tax; 
 while public opinion was doggedly pressing the right 
 to a system of justice separate from the powers of gov- 
 ernment, and the right to absolute publicity for all ju- 
 dicial acts along with the universal use of jury trial; 
 and all this, with very little talk of , democracy and 
 much accent upon the " divine right of kings," a very 
 different kind of democratic feeling, as has been seen, 
 took hold of France. It has been noted that French- 
 men of the eighteenth century derived their enthusiasm 
 for the ideal of democracy from an admiring study of 
 the governments of that nature which the history of 
 Greece and Eome had preserved for them; as a theory 
 of applied politics, they copied it from an Anglo-Saxon 
 people. The wave of democratic opinion which brought 
 in the American republic and swept onward as the 
 French Eevolution, also made democracy a political 
 ideal for modern France and modern Europe. Though' 
 the government it tried to set up disappeared as soon 
 as it was formulated, crushed down by the Terrorists 
 and the Bonapartist despotism, the dramatic entrance 
 of the principle of democracy into French politics was 
 none the less the first enunciation of a principle which 
 has since stood for much. The ideas inspired by democ- 
 racy have given the impetus which many times during 
 the century has stirred a goodly quota of French citi- 
 zens to something very near madness; finally, it has 
 
PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY. 251 
 
 predisposed them to regard favorably any theory which 
 rests upon the democratic ideal. 
 
 Thus, in France, the socialistic movement* is first of 
 all a democratic movement, hoth in answer to the qual- 
 ity of mind of the agitator in that country and because 
 of the temperamental propensities of those who are to 
 be aroused. The great popularity of the democratic 
 ideal of government has both done a conspicuous work 
 in giving a somewhat special form to the doctrine of 
 modern French socialism and increased the chances 
 of the doctrine for getting a hearing in a nation pre- 
 disposed to democracy. It will be remembered that the 
 French socialism of the early part of the century was 
 first among the theories of the time to indorse without 
 qualification this conception of political relations which 
 has since grown to be the leading social and political 
 ideal of the century. 
 
 French socialism stands now as always for democracy, 
 and adopts each of the social prejudices which deduce 
 from it ; it has unfalteringly maintained the idea of per- 
 sonal right both in relation to government and to all ac- 
 cessory social interests, and the most French form of it 
 still maintains the idea of personal duty and self-abnega- 
 tion in relation to social control. This point of view of 
 the socialist is an open sesame in many quarters in a na- 
 tion where the dream of pure democracy by way of Lib- 
 
 6 Socialism is, of course, not everywhere primarily demo- 
 cratic. In Germany, the accent falls much more upon econ- 
 omic questions; possible government forms barely come into 
 the foreground. In England, it is progressive administrative 
 measures which have chief place as remedy for present griev- 
 ances; it is unusual to find an exact ideal of government set 
 down. 
 
252 
 
 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 erty, Equality and Fraternity still carries great force. 
 To that part of France which has been bred in a sort of 
 worship of the Eevolution and is to-day alive to the glar- 
 ing disparity between the presence of the revolutionary 
 motto upon the public buildings and the absence of 
 it in the civil law of the land, socialism offers a 
 new hope for the realization of the old shibboleth. 
 The idea of solidarity stands for fraternity; equality 
 figures as equality of opportunity in a reorganized in- 
 dustrial state, and together, this equality of opportun- 
 ity and solidarity are the means to insure real liberty, 
 which is economic liberty. 
 
 Again, the democratic ideal, modifying the character 
 of the French government, has stamped a particular 
 tone upon French socialistic doctrine in relation to the 
 idea of a change of government and the desirability 
 of immediate change. 
 
 Throughout the century, the lack of political concen- 
 sus in France has been so pronounced that, except at 
 brief intervals, what has been happily called a " state 
 of permanent instability"^ has characterized the gov- 
 ernment. The weak and changeable character of the 
 administration, consequent upon a continuous disagree- 
 ment among the ruling factions, has greatly discredited 
 the parliamentary republic, and, what is more to the 
 point, has greatly increased the number of malcontents. 
 Now, the first note in socialistic theory, as the first 
 requisite for conversion to socialism, is discontent. Be- 
 cause of the well-defined disappointment in the present 
 
 Tliowell, GoTernments and Parties in Continental Europe, 
 I, p. 84. 
 
PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCBAOT. 253 
 
 form of government, socialism, a social philosophy 
 which arraigns that government, finds a greater toler- 
 ance and a larger support- than it could otherwise have 
 hoped for. 
 
 Finally, these democratic ideals have hrought the 
 frequent changes of government which this century 
 has seen. The French malcontent is almost al- 
 ways a radical, or at any rate malcontents who 
 look to radical change make themselves numeri- 
 cally as well as dramatically more evident in France 
 than elsewhere. The history of the past century 
 has accented this predisposition. A nation which 
 has looked on at four radical changes of government 
 in a century, certainly offers a fair field for propagating 
 the teachings of a mildly revolutionary movement. 
 There are to-day in France many persons who listen 
 with a tolerance almost impossible for the Anglo-Saxon 
 to the socialistic idea of an imminent and complete re 
 ordering of society. Evolutionary socialism has come 
 to France by way of revolutionary socialism and the 
 notion of revolution is rather reluctantly relinquished.^ 
 There can be little doubt that the trust in revolution- 
 ary methods which temperament and tradition have be- 
 queathed to the Frenchman, has played no inconspicu- 
 ous part in giving a certain special character to 
 French socialism, as it has also added to the ranks of 
 the socialistic party. 
 
 Thus, in answer to the question as to the direct in- 
 fluence of the democratic ideas upon the theory and 
 progress of French socialism, it seems evident that the 
 
 8 See e. g. Deville. Principes Soeialistes, pp. 1-91 ; also, 
 Jaurfis, Evolution ou Revolution. 
 
254 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 influence was important and extended. Every part of 
 socialistic theory will be found to take some- color from 
 the doctrine of democracy, and the wide popularity of 
 the democratic doctrines has in turn been a further ar- 
 gument for the progress of socialism. 
 
 Finally nothing among prevailing notions of political 
 theory helped better to shape and give vogue to the so- 
 cialistic dogma, than the national predisposition to de- 
 mand the very increase of government initiative and to 
 preach the same universalistic trend which socialism has 
 always implied. 
 
 Just as tradition speaks to the present generation in 
 favor of a theory which suggests rapid and radical 
 changes, such as those by which they believe themselves 
 to have profited in the past, so French history accredits 
 the socialistic notion of a more highly centralized gov- 
 ernment. As has already been pointed out. Frenchmen 
 have always looked to government for the initiative; 
 they have always welcomed a strong and far-reaching 
 administrative interference in their affairs. In spite of 
 the individualistic theory of government which was im- 
 ported into their country during the last century, their 
 system rests to-day upon the lines of the bureaucratic 
 and paternal government of Napoleon I, and that very 
 government is especially dear to many of the French, 
 particularly those of the peasant class. It will be re- 
 membered that this idea of the need for a centralized 
 power which directs society appears in the theory 
 of the early socialists. All the glory of the past 
 of France rests upon periods of highly-organized central 
 administration. The additional government interfer- 
 
PRIifCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY. 255 
 
 ence which socialism suggests, instead of shocking the 
 native tendencies of Frenchmen, falls rather in line 
 with the personal inclination and national propensities 
 of many among them. By instinct and training, the 
 Frenchman is much more of a socialist than he is a par- 
 ticularist.® So too, since the revolutionists declared 
 themselves the apostles of liberty for all Europe, it has 
 been the fashion for all French radicalism to believe 
 in a universal bond between nations, and to stand for 
 the right and duty of mutual relief and aid. French 
 radicalism is thus " international " in spirit, even when 
 it is not avowedly socialistic, and the " international- 
 ism "^^ of modern socialism seems at once a natural re- 
 sult of a revolutionary theory and an answer to a senti- 
 ment dear to many Frenchmen. 
 
 Democratic institutions have aided to emphasize 
 the political doctrine of socialism and to give it popu- 
 larity. The same democratic institutions have given 
 added force to that sense of responsibility for the well- 
 being of society which has already been shown to have 
 been always the first cause of socialistic thinking. 
 
 Democratic institutions are first the effect of the in- 
 dividualistic instinct, and in turn become the cause of 
 the spread of that instinct. Where the spirit of self- 
 assertion has not innate strength, there democracy can 
 find no stable footing; where the presence of such a 
 spirit gives democracy a permanent share in the social 
 growth of the nation, there the very spirit of self-asser- 
 
 9 Compare the somewhat pessimistic, but interesting, book of 
 M. Edmond Demolins. A quoi tient la supSriorite anglo- 
 saxonne. 
 
 10 See infra, p. 281, foot-note. 
 
256 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 tion which created democracy now keeps alive and de- 
 velops to an additional force that same particularistic 
 trait from which it springs. In this way, democracy 
 makes for the development of an efEective self-con- 
 sciousness, and in turn this same consciousness of self 
 comes to expand into a consciousness of a duty toward 
 others. For under democratic institutions, the individ- 
 ual is taught to suhmit to the will of the majority; to 
 look upon his neighbor as one whose rights are identical 
 with his own; to understand that an integral part of 
 his duty is to help maintain a general well-being. Thus 
 democracy teaches men to include in a resolute insist- 
 ence upon personal well-being, an additional claim for 
 social well-being; it obliges them to put alongside their 
 strengthened individual consciousness, a gradually de- 
 veloping social consciousness. Some such alteration in 
 the notions of individual and social duty has come about 
 in France and has had a share in furthering the spread 
 of socialistic doctrine. 
 
 A broadened idea of what constitutes personal duty 
 has with the progress of the past two centuries slowly 
 but certainly developed a wider 'social consciousness. 
 Two centuries ago, French philosophy tended to awaken 
 only an individual consciousness. Descartes and Pascal 
 put such accent upon the individual responsibility that 
 the teaching of their individualism almost entirely lost 
 sight of the social duty of each person; but in the next 
 century, as has been seen, Eousseau aroused that sense 
 of personal duty which includes not only individual but 
 social well-being. The idea that social duties were in- 
 volved in individual rights has been supported since 
 
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 257 
 
 the introduction of democracy. In the early days of 
 the Constituent Assembly, when the formulation of the 
 Declaration of Eights was under discussion, it was pro- 
 posed^i that the articles about to be drawn up be called a 
 Declaration of Eights and Duties. ^^ It was urged that 
 " The word citizen announces a correlation with other 
 citizens and this correlation engenders duties,"^* and 
 that it was essentially necessary " to make a declara- 
 tion of Duties in order to retain them (the citizens) 
 within the limits of their rights." Although Mirabeau 
 dismissed the whole debate as " arguties peu digne 
 d'une assemblee politique," the idea came up often, 
 and the duty as well as the right of citizenship was 
 accented throughout the Eevolution." During our own 
 century, whether in theological or laic theory, the same 
 idea has strengthened and gone abroad. The spirit of 
 the age is as strong in France as elsewhere. Many have 
 come to see their relations to each other in a new light. 
 N'ot only the prevailing political principles but the 
 ethical call as well, has, 'throughout the century, more 
 and more insistently asked for something besides a per- 
 il Sgance of August 4. Moniteur, Vol. I, p. 277. 
 
 12 Gri-ggoire makes the plea. See his remarkable speech ; 
 also, that of the Bishop of Chartres who prophetically says 
 that, without a statement of duties, " On court risque d'eveiller 
 rggoisme et I'orgueil." 
 
 13 Clermont-LadSve — Choix de Rapports, Vol. I, p. 228. 
 
 1* See, for instance, Robespierre's remarks when the com- 
 mittee of '93, on a Declaration of Rights, brought in its re- 
 port (Moniteur, Vol. XVI, p. 214), or Vergniaud, " Prgtendre 
 que la nation seule doit s'obliger envers la nation, c'est firiger 
 en principe I'ingratitude et I'injustice." He declares that so- 
 ciety rests on the idea of mutual obligations and that the 
 duties of the individual toward society are "non moins re- 
 spectable que les droits de I'homme " ( Speech on " Emigres " ) . 
 
 17 
 
258 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 sonal struggle toward higher things. Modern social 
 theories of all sorts, modern political principles, as 
 well as modern ethics, whether in the name of happi- 
 ness or perfection, ask that each take an effective share 
 in a concerted social struggle toward a higher social 
 harmony. 
 
 In addition to the stimulus which democracy and 
 ethical teaching have given to the development of so- 
 cial consciousness, two other important facts of social 
 growth, the reawakening of a strong national feeling 
 and an increased importance of town life have in- 
 fluenced in the same direction. It need hardly be in- 
 sisted that the consciousness of a national bond draws 
 men closer to one another; the spirit of patriotism 
 lives only so long as a certain social consciousness is 
 alive in each member of the community. In spite of 
 the many and formidable tumults, to which their na- 
 tional life has been subjected, the French love of coun- 
 try has remained a conspicuous fact of their history 
 during the century. In this century, too, France, like 
 the other nations of the world, has seen the develop- 
 ment of its towns, and, along with less happy results, 
 town-life has, in France as elsewhere, had an appreciable 
 influence in widening and deepening fellow-feeling and 
 increasing the sense of a personal responsibility for the 
 general happiness. Especially among the working- 
 classes, town-life has made for a growing consciousness 
 of the needs of all and for impressing upon each the 
 value of mutual aid in the struggle for a living. 
 
 Thus, under the stimulus of cultural instruction or 
 social conditions, there has grown up what, in the hap- 
 
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS. ^59 
 
 pily situated is called the spirit of philanthropy, and 
 what in those who must wrestle with circumstances, 
 might be called the consciousness of the need of each 
 other. This sentiment, in either case, is a form of so- 
 cial consciousness which has had a marked influence 
 in the development of social theory. 
 
 This social consciousness is, and has always been, 
 fundamental to socialism and to the making of a so- 
 cialist. Socialism is only philanthropy, armed with a 
 philosophy and a political system calculated to cure all 
 social diseases. Socialists are only philanthropists who 
 think they have found a way to root out the causes of so- 
 cial misery. The philanthropists, they sneeringly assert, 
 are stupidly wasting their time tinkering at effects 
 which the same causes, still left uneradicated, will con- 
 tinue to produce. Given then, along with the radical 
 temperament, which is the first requisite to a socialist, 
 this increasing social consciousness, and socialism as a 
 doctrine gets a new impulse and a greatly improved 
 chance for a hearing. 
 
 On the whole, it may fairly be urged that in France, 
 whether in lettered or political circles, it has been these 
 ethical and political causes, rather than economic un- 
 rest, which have predisposed so many persons to social- 
 ism. It is not so much the hope of socializing indus- 
 try which attracts adherents to the new cause as it is 
 the hope of a better political order. But the hope of 
 socializing industry is in France, as in other countries, 
 coming to denote the content of the idea of a better 
 political order; and this hope, steadily planted a,nd 
 nourished, is now no mean second to the dream of a 
 democratic government and a democratic society. 
 
260 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 III. 
 
 It has been said that the political doctrine of so- 
 cialism means more to the Frenchmen than do its 
 economic arguments. This is not, however, to say that 
 there have not been important economic changes in 
 French life, and that these have not brought appreciable 
 and important results. It is true mechanical production 
 in France is in no such advanced state as it is in Eng- 
 land, or even in Germany. The French economic situa- 
 tion is materially modified by the natural predisposition 
 of the laborer to individualistic production. The 
 French workman, by temperament, shuns the life of 
 the factoryhand. Excepting, perhaps, the Parisians 
 and the Lyonnese, who are each sui generis, Frenchmen 
 of the working class are easily contented, have compara- 
 tively modest ideas concerning their economic and 
 political rights, are slow to organize, and give them- 
 selves reluctantly to highly-organized industrial enter- 
 prises.i® A future which promises the position of an 
 entrepreneur, or membership in a corporation, has small 
 charms for the typical French laborer, as compared 
 with the independence and ease which the position of 
 small master or small shopkeeper suggests to him as 
 the reward for a youth of labor. In a word, industrial- 
 ism, in practice and idea, is in a slightly back- 
 ward condition in France. 
 
 Yet even though that remarkable growth and al- 
 teration of economic activity which have characterized 
 the century, has touched France and French workmen 
 in a lesser degree than some other nations, French 
 life has, by no means, failed to experience the results 
 
 IB See Belloc, Danton, p. 19. 
 
INCREASING INTERDEPENDENCE. £61 
 
 of contemporary changes in mechanical production. 
 Even though, in a slightly less advanced stage than Eng- 
 land, or perhaps even Germany, industrialism has come 
 to France as to all progressive nations, to increase the 
 interdependence of the elements of labor, to develop 
 a more compact organization among the workers and to 
 stir in the whole nation an unrest born of a more 
 pronounced desire for material possessions. 
 
 At the root of the economic evolution, which is the 
 characteristic fact of the nineteenth century in every 
 progressive country of the world, is the prodigious al- 
 teration in the magnitude and methods of production, a 
 change which came with relative swiftness, as men dis- 
 covei-ed how to make the forces of Nature replace human 
 effort. The beginnings of mechanical production be- 
 long to the second half of the eighteenth century; the 
 development and results of such method of production 
 go to make the most original contribution of the rdne- 
 teenth century to the history of civilization. Mechani- 
 cal production, the gift of the eighteenth to the nine- 
 teenth, has come to be the social influence from which 
 most of what is distinctive of the nineteenth century 
 takes its rise. "What the slow work of the hands did a 
 century ago, the swift forces of Nature, guided by hu- 
 man thought, are in great part doing to-day. 
 
 Before everything else the machine, wherever it has 
 been introduced, has brought a complete revolution in 
 the life of the individual worker. It is common knowl- 
 edge that, in relation to each laborer, the marked 
 economic fact of the century has been the transfer of 
 the center of social production from the household to 
 
262 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 the factory. The peasant workman, whose industrial 
 labors were carried on along with his agricultural and 
 even household duties, and who, himself, brought his 
 wares to market, is fast disappearing before the opera- 
 tive or farmhand who brings for exchange, not the 
 product of his labor, but the labor itself. The contrast 
 has often been drawn between the artisan of the past, 
 who used hand and implement as his own intellectual 
 development dictated, and the operative of to-day who 
 watches a wheel or adjusts a crank; the sharp dis- 
 similarity in the two pictures has as often excited the 
 most opposite commentaries. We owe it to the machine 
 that the artisan has almost entirely given way to the 
 operative, and that the separation of function in the 
 work of production has become always greater. Not 
 only does the subdivision of trades regularly increase, 
 not only has the separation of tasks within each of these 
 trades grown continuously more minute; in each trade 
 and all trades a general division, as of an industrial 
 arm, has come about. Capitalist, captain of industry, 
 and the descending grades of those who form the mass 
 in the work of the production, separate to-day into 
 something like regiments. Each graded group is doing 
 a distinct and limited work. Under the influence of the 
 new methods of production, the cleavage in industrial 
 society is rather vertical than horizontal. In short, be- 
 fore there can be produced any one of the countless 
 articles which the world's market sets forth to-day, the 
 division in quantity and quality of labor, which has gone 
 before, is almost as iniinite as the quantity produced. 
 In regard to the more important departments of pro- 
 
INCREASING INTERDEPENDENCE. 263 
 
 ductive effort, the factory has replaced the older meth- 
 ods of manufacture, with the result of organizing the 
 greater part of industrial activity upon a large scale 
 and markedly specializing the occupation of each 
 worker. 
 
 That this specialization and extended and intensified 
 organization has, of necessity, tremendously increased 
 the interdependence of the various factors in this in- 
 dustrial domain, is patent enough at first glance. The 
 workman, entrepreneur or capitalist, each by himself, is 
 practically impotent to complete the production of any 
 article. Also, it needs no proof that the more special- 
 ized the kind of labor which the worker brings to the 
 work of production, the more dependent he is upon 
 finding a place ready for himself in order that he may 
 earn his living. Labor takes on varying grades of de- 
 pendence and interdependence, according to the kind 
 of work done and the relation of the laborer to the ma- 
 chine; according to the social condition prevailing in 
 the country in which laborers find themselves, or ac- 
 cording to their own standard of comfort. But no mat- 
 ter what the variation of other conditions, the fact is 
 undoubted that, with only a difference in intensity, 
 there has been a universally increasing interdependence 
 of all the factors in production. 
 
 As machinery has developed and altered the produc- 
 tive power of each community, and increased the inter- 
 dependence of each individual and each group, so it is 
 machinery which has made production international 
 and added thus to the interdependence of workers and 
 the interdependence of nations. Nations are to-day 
 
264 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 special agents for the production of special commodities 
 in the world-market, as, in times past, the individual 
 performed the like function for a national demand. 
 More and more fully mastered, steam and electricity 
 have given us those means for swift transportation 
 which have made the Indies and America, Australia and 
 England, as near each other for purposes of communi- 
 cation as the city of Boston was to that of Philadelphia 
 a century ago. Commercial expansion has been the 
 means of more efficient, cheaper and greater individual 
 and national production, has helped to increase and 
 vary the supply in each market, and, what is most to 
 -the point, has made the character of all national pro- 
 duction closely dependent upon a fairly unobstructed 
 international exchange. It is due to the power of ma- 
 chinery that men are now accustomed to expect that 
 the gifts of Nature be shifted about from the various 
 -parts of the world to that place where they find their 
 highest social efficiency. It is due to this progress of 
 mechanical production that all great nations suffer to a 
 certain extent when famine or war strikes any one of 
 them. 
 
 This increased dependence and interdependence in 
 economic activity is to the point here, not so much be- 
 cause it is one of the important results of mechanical 
 production, but because it is the fact upon which so- 
 cialism dwells most in its argument for an economic or- 
 ganization of society. If the dissatisfied workmen and 
 their leaders insist that now the whole heritage of the 
 laborer is to be " Lord of his Hands," and that, in order 
 to the use of even this slight inheritance, he is largely 
 
VALVE OF CONCERTED ACTION. 265 
 
 at the mercy of a shifting market and the law of supply 
 and demand; it is because, in the tenets of socialism, 
 the many are held to have become dependent upon the 
 few, through this great alteration in production. Social- 
 ism of to-day, in France, as in other countries, begins its 
 attack upon prevailing institutions by accenting the de- 
 pendence and interdependence which the machine has 
 certainly brought to the elements of labor; the whole 
 socialistic agitation concerning equality of opportunity 
 begins with this interdependence for which the machine 
 is responsible. The advent of mechanical production 
 has changed the socialistic attack upon society from a 
 generalized moralistic complaining to a special, direct 
 onslaught upon mechanical production. 
 
 Along with an additional interdependence among 
 workers, mechanical production has brought a closer 
 organization, and thus a more real and effective solidar- 
 ity, among the laboring classes, and this solidarity has 
 been very nearly as powerful a weapon for the French 
 socialists as it has been for socialists in other countries. 
 
 The trades-union shows best how the laborer has 
 learned to believe in organized effort and organized 
 production. Trades-union history in France differs 
 from that in England only in that trades-unionism in 
 the former country has been even less successful. There 
 have been, however, for more than a half century, regu- 
 lar organizations of workers, which have offered a more 
 or less able resistance to the capitalist. In France, as 
 in other countries, the workman's sense of dependence 
 has developed the modern trades-union; the recent fail- 
 ure of these unions to cope with the great monopolies 
 
266 
 
 MODERN FRENGB SOCIALISM. 
 
 has made the workers more amenable to socialistic argu- 
 ments. A few words to expand this idea. 
 
 It is a fact, applicable to every nation, that whatever 
 bitterness the artisan once felt for the machine has 
 now been transferred, as a general fact, to the owner of 
 the machine. The progress of the century has seen the 
 intelligent workman, in France as elsewhere, change 
 from the bitter enemy of mechanical contrivances to 
 the most ardent advocate of highly-developed forms of 
 meclianical production. Because they realize the su- 
 perior value of using the forces of Nature, the laboring 
 classes now aim to get the full benefit which the use 
 of those forces gives to society. Almost instinctively, 
 workmen banded together for this end, and through 
 the trades-unions thus developed, the laboring-classes 
 have learned the value of organizing themselves on 
 democratic principles in order to strive for the best in- 
 terests of each workman. From this growing compre- 
 hension of the value of collective action, the laborer, 
 along with a new hope, got a new idea of his relation to 
 his fellow. 
 
 It may be said that trades-unions, established, have 
 given the workmen a new kind of class feeling. The 
 self-respecting operative, eagerly aiming at the uplift 
 of his class, is the new type of mechanic which our 
 times has developed. Even in France, the best work- 
 men of the day is usually the trades-unionist, who, 
 generally speaking, is far less anxious to enter another 
 industrial grade than he is to make secure the full 
 strength of his class as a party in a bargaining process, 
 where capital buys and labor sells. The final dream 
 of the most radical wage-earner, who is not a Socialist, 
 
YALVE OF CONCERTED ACTION. 267 
 
 is to regulate the conditions surrounding the bargain 
 he seeks to make, so that certain fixed ideas with regard 
 to the worker shall limit the blind play of the " higgling 
 of the market." If this is the case, if workmen are not 
 so much eager to escape from the class to which they 
 belong as they are anxious to establish a right ad- 
 justment of the relation between that class and the 
 class on which they depend for employment, it is by 
 reason of what the history of trades-unions teaches 
 them. The present solidarity of the workman, in all 
 manufacturing centers, less accented in France than in 
 England, yet clearly evident there too, begins with 
 a belief in the necessity of concerted class action. 
 Trades-unionism has been an educational medium which 
 has taught him how valuable such action is, as a means 
 to limit the power which may act against his interests. 
 The French workman of a century ago was part of a 
 heterogeneous mass; the trades-unions, slowly establish- 
 ing themselves in spite of his prejudices,^® have given 
 him the conception of the power that comes from the 
 consciousness of numbers and unity of opinion. 
 
 To see how this new feeling of solidarity and a new 
 conception of its worth as a defensive weapon might 
 help socialistic theory, it is only necessary to recall 
 what the actual economic results of trades-unionism 
 have been. In the progress of the century these so- 
 cieties have often been able to oppose to the capitalist a 
 power as strong as his own, both in monetary equipment 
 and in singleness of purpose. But on the whole, the 
 strongest trades-unions of France have not been able 
 to cope with a strong capitalistic monopoly; and now 
 
 18 See " Compagnon du Tour de France," of George Sand. 
 
268 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 the frequent failure of the greatest trades.-unions of 
 England, when face to face with the big trusts or a rail- 
 road system, is making a formidable argument for so- 
 cialistic propaganda. Trade-unionists, even when not 
 entirely successful, have learned to believe in the idea 
 which prompts the unions. They have learned to pin 
 all their hopes for a decent living wage upon the power 
 that a class can exert by acting collectively. "When 
 the form of .collective action on which they depend 
 leads to nothing, they listen more readily to schemes 
 which propose as immediate policy nothing more than 
 the extension of their particular methods of action to 
 the whole of the economic field, and promise finally to 
 remove entirely all necessity for any defensive move- 
 ment. In this way, even in France, where they 
 have had least force, it seems fair to argue that 
 trades-unions have indirectly been an effective aid to 
 socialism. Mechanical production, making for the 
 necessity of trades-unionism, has developed a solidarity 
 of the working classes and an appreciation of the ex- 
 pediency of solidarity, out of which socialism has not 
 been slow to make capital. ^^ In France, increasing 
 numbers of trades-unionists, who are usually last of 
 all workmen to become at odds with the social order, 
 are yearly going over to the socialistic party .^® 
 
 The last fact to be accented in this attempt to trace 
 the relation between the development of mechanical pro- 
 duction and the character and progress of socialistic 
 theory in France, is the psychological result of changed 
 industrial conditions. Beside increasing the dependence 
 
 IT Comp. Deville, op. cit. pp. 187 et seq. 
 isComp. Coubertin: FraHce under the Third Republic, p. 
 398, and pp. 400-402, 
 
STIMVLATUD DE8IBS. ^Qg 
 
 of the laborer and making him more conscious of that 
 dependence; industrialism has aided to develop the 
 unrest which is prerequisite to socialism, while at the 
 same time it has altered the ideal of socialists. 
 
 In France, as in the rest of the civilized world, the 
 saving and division of labor, which the machine has 
 made possible, is a parallel fact to the gigantic increase 
 in the power of production which it has also brought; 
 as a result of mechanical production we have to-day a 
 world-market, teeming with what seems to be an un- 
 limited supply of consumption goods. It is a striking 
 proof of the social force of the machine that the nine- 
 teenth century is the age of production on a large scale, 
 with a consequent increase in the numerical output of 
 each kind of product and the enormously developed 
 power for stimulating the social desire. And it is this 
 intensified social desire which is here the important 
 point. 
 
 It is of first importance, in tracing the material 
 causes of socialism in France, to note the effect of an 
 enlarged supply upon the individual and social demand. 
 Wherever it has become part of the national life of a 
 country, the machine, with its remarkable consequences, 
 has not only enabled producers to supply a demand more 
 readily; what is most to the point, it has enabled them 
 to create a demand. Kew methods of production have 
 intensified and extended the needs of each and every 
 member of society. Each of those additional wares 
 which the market now offers has created a want as often 
 as it has supplied one. The word necessaries includes 
 more and finer things than it did in the days when 
 Montesquieu and Eousseau used it. The frame of mind 
 
270 MODERN FRENCH SOClALtSU. 
 
 which comes to count these necessaries essential to con- 
 tentment is one which, under the influence of a demo- 
 cratic environment, reaches daily to wider and wider 
 circles. What has been aptly called the " principle of 
 conspicuous waste "^® has, during the century, had fuller 
 play than ever before. And the influence has been all 
 along the line. No fact is more striking to the econo- 
 mist than the extension in the scale of wants, not only 
 in the wants of the well-to-do, but more particularly 
 in those of the laboring classes. New conceptions of 
 comfort, new desires, have awakened in the laborer as 
 in the rest of the world. The workman or his family 
 at the present time needs only to pass the shop-windows 
 or to glance at the newspaper, filled with flaring prom- 
 ises of cheap and varied commodities, in order to have 
 new desires start to life. When one recalls the addi- 
 tional possibilities for development which modern life 
 offers even in the working classes; when it is remem- 
 bered how easy is the access to what the rostrum, litera- 
 ture and even travel may teach, it is not surprising that 
 the worker, as well as the leisured member of society, 
 has come to have, if not a higher, at any rate a different 
 standard of life. The complete alteration in the ex- 
 tent and intensity of demand which have resulted from 
 the change in mechanical production seems undoubted. 
 This widened demand has undoubtedly tended to add 
 to the individual ind social unrest. Prance, like other 
 nations, represents to-day a people of more pronounced 
 materialistic ideals than those of the generation which 
 preceded it; and in France, as elsewhere, old activities 
 
 i9Veblin: Theory of the Leisure Classes, ed. Macmillan, 
 1899, eh iv, especially pp. 97 et seq. 
 
STIMULATED DE8IR11. 271 
 
 have given place to new. Since Louis Philippe's reign 
 brought power into the hands of the bourgeoisie, a com- 
 mercial spirit, and all it brings with it, has become part 
 of the general sentiment. On account of the native 
 conservatism of the provincial Frenchman, the convic- 
 tion that many utilities formerly undreamed of are es- 
 sential to a refined or even respectable life, has not 
 penetrated so swiftly into the mass of French life as it 
 has in some other countries, but in France too, men 
 have now come to strive towards ideals different from 
 those which prompted the efforts of the past. The na- 
 tional ideal of glory increased by conquest and acces- 
 sion of territory slowly but surely yields place to the 
 ideal of commercial supremacy, just as the individual 
 idea of honor by way of birth and territorial possession 
 has so often given place to the desire to amass vast 
 fortunes and play a prominent part in the manipulation 
 of the money market. A certain class of Frenchmen 
 cling fondly to the " art ideal " and to past notions of 
 honor and conscience, but the spirit of the age has in 
 no way left France untouched. The Frenchman is " in- 
 dustrially awakened " in spite of his temperament. The 
 struggle for mere existence, whether in its purely brute 
 aspect, or in its military phase, has long since given 
 place to the struggle to shape existence on a given plane 
 of physical ease and enjoyment, and that plane, under 
 modifying influences, is steadily moving upward to a 
 higher level. It may safely be asserted that in France, 
 as in other parts of Europe, more and more persons 
 have learned to count earthly possessions as the means 
 to position and happiness, and thus to make the sum 
 of living an unending and ugly fight for such holdings. 
 
2*72 MODERif FnENGE SOCIALISM. 
 
 The conceptions which go along with the word " happi- 
 ness" have everywhere, during this century, come to 
 be more and more dependent upon a large material 
 holding. 
 
 In the necessities of human nature, some must fail 
 to find satisfaction for this newly awakened and multi- 
 form desire. Because of incapacity, physical or mental, 
 because of misfortune, environment, or any other of the 
 numerous checks which come to prevent the equal de- 
 velopment and activity of each member of a community, 
 there are many for whom the new possibilities mean 
 only a widened sense of deprivation or an accented dis- 
 content consequent to non-possession. On the other 
 hand, because of the permanence of the temperament 
 which is particularly sensitive to the idea of equity, a 
 temperament always especially evident in France, the 
 larger enjoyment of the successful seems to make deeper 
 and darker the gulf into which the laggard or the un- 
 fortunate has fallen. The increased product made pos- 
 sible -by mechanical improvements has brought about a 
 marked social unrest by way of a widened and intensi- 
 fied belief in the power of material things to bring hap- 
 piness. The result of this has been to increase the feel- 
 ing of the discontented and to intensify the acrimony 
 of those who believe in social equality. Either one of 
 these results has had an effect and has argued for the 
 acceptation of the doctrines of socialism. 
 
 In the first place, socialistic theories always get their 
 inspiration from times of social unrest. An appreciable 
 socialistic movement is, in a way, conditioned by some 
 sort of social discontent. If it be true that mechani- 
 cal production has been able in France, as elsewhere, 
 to discredit the old standard which held that a man 
 
STIMULATED DESIRE. 273 
 
 should not strive for what he has not; if mechanical 
 production has taught men to scout those who depre- 
 cate as mistaken all such efforts as would lift the clod 
 above the soil on which he was born, then mechanical 
 production, like democracy, has certainly made for the 
 growth of socialistic theory in some form. So, too, if 
 industrialism has centered the general opinion upon the 
 idea of larger possessions as a prerequisite to happiness, 
 it has made for ideals which count happiness to be con- 
 ditioned by material possessions, and this is the point 
 of view that modern French Socialism has adopted un- 
 der the direct influence of industrialism. 
 
 Industrialism has been then a real influence in putting 
 a distinctive character upon the nineteenth century stand- 
 ards, even in France, where the keen interest in political 
 theory and practice, and the natural tendency to be 
 " doctrinaire " has modified its influence in comparison 
 with other countries. Because of the labor relations it 
 has created, because of the stronger class-feeling it has 
 engendered and the keener desire for worldly prosperity 
 it has stimulated, industrialism has sensibly changed 
 the character of public opinion. It has evidently most 
 directly affected the working-classes, whom it has made 
 more conscious of their economic dependence, more 
 alive to the power they might have if they could become 
 entirely united among themselves, and has finally made 
 them more eager to win entire political power in order 
 that they may enjoy that vastly increased store of com- 
 modities which the productive facilities of the nation 
 can now supply. 
 
 18 
 
274 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 Eeviewing thus rapidly, the leading facts of the cen- 
 tury's history in France, we find that a new sentiment in 
 regard to all existence arose in response to the impulse 
 given by the new place accorded to science and its teach- 
 ings; that the political ideal of democracy bequeathed 
 by an earlier theory has both acted as a stimulus to 
 rebellion against the established and somewhat inef- 
 fective methods of government, and has made for a 
 readiness to catch at other plans for government which, 
 though in line with the ideal, are yet in a radical, 
 not a reactionary spirit, opposed to the existing govern- 
 ment. We note further that the economic evolution 
 has touched France, too, with a Midas touch, and that 
 there has arisen in response to it a class of which an 
 appreciable portion asks, in no unequivocal terms, for 
 a radical alteration in social relations. Finally these 
 changes in social institutions and in general stand- 
 ards have helped to give a specific character to 
 modern French socialism and to prepare many minds 
 for the reception and propagation of its doctrines. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The final impulse, which developed and strength- 
 ened these early socialistic theories, that were fos- 
 tered by facts of social growth, came from another 
 country than France. In this r6sum6 of the facts of 
 social life, which have had a bearing upon the character 
 of socialism in France, a word must be said regarding the 
 well-known fact of an international movement led by 
 men who were remarkable politicians as well as strong 
 thinkers. 
 
MARX AND ElfGELS. 2l5 
 
 After the Eevolution of 1848, in face of the failure 
 of the national workshops and the severe legislation 
 which, for many years, ISTapoleon III directed against 
 all social agitation, socialism as an active movement 
 drops out of sight in France. The theory as well 
 seemed of so little importance, that Gambetta con- 
 sidered himself to be stating a truth when he declared 
 that in the France of his time there was no social ques- 
 tion. When, however, the amnesty of 1879 permitted 
 the banished communists to return, it was found that 
 socialism had gathered a force greater than ever be- 
 fore. No longer a philosophy or a cult upheld by a few 
 enthusiasts, who, in the hope of realizing their ideal, 
 formed themselves into small communities or, at best, 
 had joined in the political fight of the most radical 
 party of the times, socialism had rapidly become a 
 political party standing by itself, a party whose aims 
 were grounded upon a combative social philosophy. 
 And this was true largely because the banished com- 
 munists had come home full of enthusiasm for the ten- 
 ets of Marxism. 
 
 If the fact most distinctive of the later history of 
 nineteenth century socialism all over the world is 
 a swift and steady growth toward unity of aim and 
 action, accompanied by an appreciable increase in the 
 number of adherents to the doctrine, this fact is fairly 
 attributable to the men who first inspired the modern 
 German movement. The history of the rise and fall 
 of the International and of the development of those 
 workingmen's congresses, which, meeting every few 
 years since 1847, have taken on an increasingly social- 
 istic and corporative character, is really the tale of the 
 
276 MODERN FRmCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 gradual spread of a single social theory, not entirely 
 new by any means, but given an altered form by two 
 men, Karl Marx and Friedfieh Engels. The slow, but 
 sure, acceptance of the doctrine first put forward by 
 these able tacticians, who rapidly became the chiefs of 
 an international movement, marks the turning-point 
 of all modern socialistic theory and practice. It is 
 due in great jjart to the brains and strategic capacity 
 of Marx and Engels^" that the spirit of revolt against 
 the accepted social order is no longer in any country, 
 at least as regards its more pronounced forms, a segre- 
 gated communal movement, but is rather a political 
 organization which sends out its branches to the four 
 corners of the earth. Marxism, for so the theory 
 adopted under the infliience of these two men is gen- 
 erally called, has been well named the centripetal force 
 of socialistic theory.^' Whatever of disrepute may 
 JTistljr, and with cumulatively 'onvincing evidence have 
 fallen upon the social philosophy and especially upon 
 the economic theory of Marx, the history of socialism 
 during the past fifty years has established beyond dis- 
 pute his force and capacity as a leader of men. As a 
 
 20 It seems certain that Ferdinand Lassalle, influential for 
 the cause of socialism though he was in his own country, has 
 had little or no influence in France. Lassalle led a national, 
 not an international, movement; the real aim of his life and 
 teachings was the political emancipation of the German ar- 
 tisan. (Comp. Russell, German Social Democracy, ed. 1897, 
 p. 41 et seq.) His writings have, therefore, a sectional and 
 special bearing, and to-day get comparatively no notice from the 
 French Marxists. For this reason, Lassalle's name is omitted 
 here; not because his share in the beginnings of the German 
 movement is forgotten or underestimated. 
 
 21 Werner-Sombart. Le Socialisme et le Mouvement social 
 au XIXb eiSele, p. 83, ed. Paris, 1898. 
 
MABX. AND ENGELS. £77 
 
 power to concentrate and organize an international so- 
 cialistic movement, the writings of Marx have been of 
 first importance. 
 
 Above everything else, the Marxian movement was 
 characterized by an unswerving effort in a single di- 
 rection. After the first statement of their creed in the 
 celebrated Manifesto of 1847, Marx and Engels always 
 held firmly to one theory, a theory that subordinates 
 the national claim and elevates the individual and class 
 right to first place; and this fact, taken together with 
 their masterly appreciation of the value of dialectic, and 
 their capacity to adapt the older socialistic moral phi- 
 losophy with cleverness and dispatch to the scientific 
 nfethods adopted in their time, has been the chief rea- 
 son why they have meant so much to their cause. Both 
 men use their brilliant powers as writers and their un- 
 doubted talent in argument to draw from the facts of 
 reality such data as would seem to prove the most popu- 
 lar of the propositions of the early French socialists, 
 and though they claim much for dispassionate analytic 
 method, neither logic nor positive fact has been so 
 strictly observed, but that a bitter indignation at exist- 
 ing circumstances and a passionate espousal of the 
 cause of the proletarian, makes itself plain for those to 
 whom such feelings mean more than syllogism or 
 scientific data. This firm support of a single theory 
 and clear appreciation of the power of class-feeling as 
 against national feeling, together with an ardent sym- 
 pathy for the laborer and the unemployed, have un- 
 doubtedly been the distinctive qualities which have won 
 and kept for Marx and Engels the place they hold to- 
 day among most classes of socialists. From these two 
 
278 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 men came the movement which has strengthened social- 
 ism by way of unifying it. 
 
 If, then, French socialism has taken on an undoubt- 
 edly militant aspect, the fact is in great part directly 
 due to the rise and spread of the doctrines of Karl Marx 
 and rriedrich Engels. Nowhere, outside its native land, 
 has the " dazzling scientific pathos " of the Marxian 
 theory found wider or more entire acceptance than in 
 modern France. This is the case with so little qualifi- 
 cation that the most effective branch of th-e French so- 
 cialistic movement of the day, calls itself impartially 
 " Scientific Socialism " or " Marxism," and the theory 
 that it puts forward in polemic and pamphlet is only 
 Marx diluted and popularized. Though a section hi 
 French socialism, as will presently be shown, follows in 
 method and theory, the line of French tradition, the 
 more prominent part of the current doctrine claims to 
 be only an exposition of the principles of Marx and 
 Engels. At the hands of French disciples, these theories 
 undergo certain modifications, but, in intention at least, 
 much of French socialism is to-day imported doctrine. 
 The exact character of the theory which Marxism seeks 
 to imitate need not be discussed to any extent here; it 
 would be beside the point to give the doctrines of Karl 
 Marx, except as they are interpreted in France. In this 
 connection, it is only of moment to remember that the 
 French movement derives whatever of political activity 
 it represents to-day in great part from the international 
 movement led by Marx and Engels. 
 
 Finally, a few words regarding the present politi- 
 cal organization of the party. It is the custom in 
 French socialistic circles to date the beginnings of the 
 
PARTY ORGANIZATION OF TO-DAT. 279 
 
 latest movement in France, the so-called "proletarian 
 movement," from March, 1871, the date of that memor- 
 able and bloody encounter known as the rise of the 
 Paris Commune, an uprising so variously reported by 
 the several political factions of France. But though 
 this may be the date at which the numbers holding to 
 socialistic theory again demonstrated themselves, the 
 movement did not become a real political organization 
 until several years later. The third French republic 
 was fairly established before the new socialism began 
 to make itself evident as a factor of French political 
 life. 
 
 In 1879, the socialists effected a political organiiiation, 
 and contemporary French socialism became a fixed doc- 
 trine. ^^ In that year, two enthusiastic Marxists, Paul 
 Lafargue and Jules Guesde, presented a coUectivist 
 Program to the Workingman's Congress which met at 
 Marseilles. After a bitter contest, which, however, con- 
 cluded in a vote of 73 to 37, the Congress accepted the 
 Program, which has since, with slight variation, been 
 that of the party.** 
 
 Since 1879, each succeeding congress has seen some 
 subdivision of the party into factions, which take issue 
 with certain articles of the program. The differences 
 seem to be for the most part on questions of tactics. In 
 1880, the separation was into two factions, the "Pos- 
 sibilists," and the " Guesdists " or " Parti Ouvrier So- 
 
 22 It was not until 1893 that the French socialists became 
 a distinct political party. Comp. Coubertin. France under 
 the third Republic, p. 396. 
 
 23 For a Chronological history of the movement, see " Le 
 socialisme et le mouvement social au XIXe siScle," Werner- 
 Sombart, p. 168 et seq. Paris, 1898. 
 
280 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 cialiste Eevolutionnaire ; " in 1881, at the Congress of 
 St. Etienne, the Possibilists again split into the Brous- 
 sists, Marxists, Blanquists and the AUemanists. At 
 present^* the sections of the party are " la Confederation 
 des Socialistes Independants," of whom Janres, Lahus- 
 quiere and De Pressense are the best known among the 
 leaders; "la Federation des travailleurs socialistes de 
 France," who recognize Paul Brousse as Director; the 
 Parti Ouvrier frangais, with Guesde and Grabriel Ber- 
 trand at its head; "the Parti ouvrier socialiste revolu- 
 tionnaire," of whom Allemane is still the accredited 
 chief, and the " Parti Socialiste revolutionnaire," of 
 • whom Vaillant is the most conspicuous representative. 
 The names of the groups suggest the character of their 
 sejiaration ; all, except the " Socialistes Independants," 
 are practically agreed as to the fundamental Marxian 
 principles, and may, without inaccuracy, be compre- 
 hended under the name of scientific socialists. 
 
 The so-called " Integral Socialism," which is the kind 
 advocated by the " Socialistes Independants," dates 
 from 1885, when Benoit Malon founded the " Societe 
 d'Economie Sociale," a society that at once became the. 
 center of Independent or Integral socialism. The as- 
 sociation formulated a program which professed to 
 broaden and humanize Marx. The pretension of the 
 group gave great offense to the rest of the party, and 
 the new society was, for a long time, the cause of much 
 contention. By the Scientific Socialists, Integral So- 
 cialism was brushed aside as good enough for Free- 
 masons and spiritualists; it is even yet sometimes as- 
 
 24 March 19, 1899. See "La Petite Rfipublique,'' of that 
 date. 
 
PARTY PROGRAM. 281 
 
 serted more energetically than elegantly, that, in as- 
 piring to found a school to perfect Marxism, Malon " a 
 voulu eternuer plus haut que le nez."^ But, as has 
 been said, the two schools are not now politically an- 
 tagonistic. The Independent Socialists know how to 
 forget domestic differences in face of an opposing politi- 
 cal majority; and to-day, it may safely be said, that, 
 separated though they may be on questions of funda- 
 mental theory, these two groups are willing to work har- 
 moniously for a party program which fairly embodies 
 the immediate aims of all. 
 
 The party program of the present day stands, on the 
 whole, for peaceful measures, but for unswerving politi- 
 cal and propagandist activity in the pursuit of their 
 ends. The socialism that the party advocates is said 
 to be evolutionary; it is only revolutionary under a 
 definition which holds revolution to be " the character- 
 istic crisis that terminates effectively a period of evolu- 
 tion;" it is "a rupture with the established order."^^ 
 Although the distinction between this and ordinary 
 definitions of revolt is a little hard to make out, it 
 seems that the present intentions are really pacific. It 
 is believed that the social movement must progress to 
 its goal by a period of conscious preparation. This 
 means that there is to be a political struggle, and those 
 who make the struggle are, above all, to organize the 
 lower classes for mutual enlightenment as to the end of 
 the agitation they are making, and the best means for 
 attaining that end. This effort is called developing the 
 
 25 Comp. Deville, op. cit. p. xxiv (Preface), where, in the 
 pages that follow, the objections of the Marxists to Malon 
 are pretty well summed up. 
 
 26Deviile. Principes Sooialistes, pp. 73, 74. 
 
2g2 MODERN fREIfCB SOCtALtm. 
 
 spirit of " solidarity," and one of the chief aids to the 
 growth of this necessary sentiment is said to be inter- 
 nationalism.^ The " political machine " is indicated aa 
 the first object for attack, and the aim is to get pos- 
 session of it as soon as legitimate means will permit. 
 The " mot d'ordre " is " political expropriation in order 
 to economic expropriation."^^ According to the party 
 program it has been resolved " energetically to maintain- 
 legality within the nation and peace without, but just 
 as energetically is it decided not to tolerate the least 
 deviation from the present situation."^ The party has 
 settled upon the following demands, which, gradually 
 obtained for a public growing steadily more intelligent, 
 shall on the one hand do away with the old order, and 
 on the other, inaugurate the new. The articles are 
 separated into political and economic demands. 
 
 Political changes asked for at once, include demands 
 for fuller individual rights,^" for the disavowal of re- 
 
 27 It is always insisted that Internationalism does not mean 
 anti-nationalism (Comp. e. g. Jaur6a, Patriotisme et Inter- 
 nationalisme, passim; also, Deville, op. cit. pp. 79-81). Inter- 
 nationalism is held to mean peace and concurrence of effort be- 
 tween nations, not the disappearance of nations. Internation- 
 alism is counted as an important means for a general coopera- 
 tion of the productive classes. One socialist ( Renard, " Regime 
 socialiste," in Revue socialiste, tome 26, p. 524) defines four 
 kinds of Internationalism, making either negatively or posi- 
 tively for socialism : ( 1 ) Black internationalism, or that of 
 the priesthood; (2) Red internationalism, or that of the 
 proletaire; (3) Yellow internationalism, or that of finan- 
 ciers ; ( 4 ) White internationalism, or that of intellect. 
 
 28 Program du Parti Ouvrier, 1894, 
 
 29 Ibid. See, also, Deville. 
 
 30 Perfect freedom of the press ; freedom of association ; 
 greater mobility of labor with which the livret and necessity 
 of reference is now said to interfere; perfect equality before 
 the law, not only for men, but the same law for men and 
 women. 
 
PARTY PROGRAM. 283 
 
 ligion by the state/^ for state seizure of church lands/^ 
 for the abolition of the public debt,*^ and for the in- 
 auguration of local self-government.^* Under the head 
 of economic changes, there is a long list of moderately 
 radical articles. Immediate legislation is asked for con- 
 cerning labor-time,^ child-labor,^® wages,^'' obligatory 
 provisions for minors,*® and for all the old and inca- 
 pable. Legislation to protect the interests of the work- 
 ing classes is, of course, of particular moment. For in- 
 stance, it is asked that a law be at once enacted by 
 which employers shall be made responsible for accidents 
 to workmen, and that, as surety against such accidents, 
 each employer shall be obliged to place in the work- 
 ing-men's bank, a deposit proportionate to the number 
 of workmen he employs and to the dangers which the in- 
 dustry represents. Finally a new tax law is asked for, 
 which shall make provision for the abolition of all indi- 
 
 31 The state religion is to be abolished ; the excuse for the 
 budget of cults is said to have long since passed away. 
 
 32 This is the first step, it is said, to the appropriation of 
 capital. 
 
 33 The public debt is said to give unproductive wealth the 
 power to grow without undergoing the risks and difficulties 
 inseparable from its industrial use, and hence it should be 
 abolished. 
 
 34 It is asked that each commune be made entirely mistress 
 of its administration and its police. 
 
 35 Law to interdict more than six days' labor per week, and 
 to establish an eight-hour labor day. 
 
 36 Children under fourteen to be forbidden to labor, and 
 minors between fourteen and sixteen to be allowed to labor 
 only six hours. 
 
 37 Asks for an annual commission of labor statistics, to de- 
 termine the legal minimum wage, and, further, that the law 
 forbid the employment of foreign labor at a salary below that 
 given to French workmen; law to insure to all laborers, irre- 
 spective of sex, equal salary for equal labor. 
 
 38 Scientific and professional training free for all minors. 
 
284 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 rect taxes and the transformation of all direct taxes to a 
 progressive income tax on incomes over 30,000 francs. 
 In sum, the program presents little variation from the 
 programs of the German^^ or any other of the national 
 Socialistic parties. 
 
 According to the latest election returns, the party 
 now numbers two millions, but two million votes will 
 not secure the majority in the legislative body, and to 
 win such a majority all the strategic energy of the so- 
 cialist leaders is turned to-day. But the same agrarian 
 question which puzzles the Germans at present blocks 
 in an even more formidable way the progress of the 
 French movement. It so happens that the conquest of 
 the peasant is the chief interest of contemporary French 
 Socialism, and to win this peasant is not an easy task. 
 
 The Frenchman who represents the agricultural in- 
 terests of the nation is aggressively individualistic, es- 
 pecially in his well-known eagerness for a personal hold- 
 ing of even a tiny piece of land. His general indiffer- 
 ence to politics has been a thorn in the side of the 
 whole republican movement; his education, or lack of 
 it, inclines him to a timid conservatism; except in 
 face of great misery, he is content to go mildly about 
 his daily labors on his tiny holding with what often 
 seems a brutish cheeriness. The thrift that makes him 
 the object of general admiration at the same time nar- 
 rows his ambition to a dream of the " comfortable," 
 and the idea of what that word comfortable means in- 
 cludes even to-day, in the majority of eases, an astonish- 
 ingly modest scale of wants. Proverbially the most 
 
 ssComp. ProtokoU ttber die Verhandlungen des Parteitagea 
 der sozialdemokratisclien Partei DeutscWands, Oct. 1896. 
 
PARTY PBOORAM. 283 
 
 well-to-do of European peasants, there is little to rouse 
 him at present from his stolid content in his small hold- 
 ing and limited earnings but undoubted savings. The 
 socialistic movement then meets with a difficult prob- 
 lem when it seeks to increase its following beyond the 
 factory towns. In the eyes of those who believe that all 
 compromise with the " petite Industrie " is a menace to 
 the proletarian movement, the French peasant now 
 really stands in the way of the movement. The nu- 
 merical strength of the ballot is in the agricultural dis- 
 tricts, where the small farmer and the artisan, as dis- 
 tinguished from the factory-hand, are still the dominant 
 types of industrial life. Wow the success of the social 
 movement requires the vote of these persons; and yet, 
 before they will give to the movement any sympathy 
 such as will insure the suffrage, the very compromise 
 in the doctrine of property-holding, which has been so 
 much dreaded, has been found necessary and has been 
 made. Instead of an uncompromising demand for col- 
 lective ownership of land, French Socialists now make 
 a careful distinction and ask, not for the unqualified 
 collective ownership of land, but for " such collective 
 holding of land as shall insure to the collectivity what- 
 ever property can be used only in groups."*" The dis- 
 cussions that go along with these modifications drop the 
 Marxian point of view in relation to the development 
 of production on a large scale, and suggest that only 
 industry, and not agriculture, follows the law of con- 
 centration of capital, and that small farm lands are not, 
 therefore, to be socialized. The socialistic party hope 
 
 40 See the Programme du Parti ouvrier, p. 89, ed. Lille. 
 1894, Cf., also Coubertin, op. cit., p. 401. 
 
286 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 thus gradually to win the peasant to the proletarian 
 movement, as he sees held out to him, along with the 
 possibility of continuing to hold his small plot of land, 
 the prospect of a more direct and wide-reaching share 
 in the direction of communal affairs and an increased 
 probability of personal enjoyment. 
 
 The fact that the present socialistic movement is so 
 well developed as a political party, makes the principles 
 which are behind the socialistic agitation take on a 
 more definite interest. As has been said, there are two 
 schools to be discussed, the Marxian or Scientific So- 
 cialists, and the Independent or Integral Socialists. 
 The group which adheres to " scientific socialism " as- 
 serts that the Marxian doctrine is the " correct inter- 
 pretation of social life, regarded in its material founda- 
 tions and in the diversity of its manifestations vrithout 
 neglecting any one of them."*^ Marxism is said to be 
 " the only socialism which counts."*^ Though the fact 
 of a well-recognized group of socialists who reject Marx 
 hardly justifies this pretension at supremacy on the part 
 of the Marxists, the greatest force of agitation un- 
 doubtedly comes from them, and it is the principles of 
 their party which are possibly the best known. How- 
 ever, notwithstanding the superior capacity of the 
 Marxists for making a noise in the world, the doctrines 
 of the other, the Integral Socialists, have a greater in- 
 terest, for they are more truly French and less baldly 
 materialistic. In the chapter which follows, more at- 
 tention has, therefore, been given to Integral Socialism, 
 even though the predominating political force of Marx- 
 ism is recognized. 
 
 41 Dfiville. Prlncipea socialistes, pref. p. xiii, ed. Paris, 1896, 
 *2lbid, pref. p. viii. 
 
BIBLIOQS.APEY FOR CHAPTER T. £87 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER V. 
 Adorns. Democracy and Monarchy in France, ed. Henry 
 Holt & Co., N. Y., 1875. — Blanc. Histoire de Dix Ana., ed. 
 Pagnerre, Paris, 1849. — Bodley. France, ed. Macmillan, 1898. 
 — Coubertin. France under the third republic, ed. Crowell 
 & Co., N. Y., 1897. — Cunningham. Growth of English In- 
 dustry and Commerce, ed. Cambridge, 1892. — Lebon. France, 
 ed. Putnam's Sons, 1898. — Levasseur. Histoire des classes 
 ouvrifires depuis 1789, ed. Paris, 1867. — Levasseur. L'Ouv- 
 rier Amgricain, ed. Larose, Paris, 1892. — ■ Leroy-Beaulieu. La 
 question ouvrigre au XIXe sifele, ed. Paris, 1872. — Lowell. 
 Governments and parties in Continental Europe, ed. Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin & Co., 1896. — Vehlin. The theory of the Leisure 
 Classes. Macmillan, 1899. — Wehh. Industrial Democracy, ed. 
 Longmans, Green & Co., 1897. 
 
 German Socialism. — Bebel. Die Frau und der Sozialis- 
 mus, ed. Diek, Stuttgart, 1897. Bohm-Bawerh. Karl Marx 
 and the close of his system. Eng. trans. Macmillan & Co., 
 N. Y., 1898. — Engels. Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang 
 der klassisehen deutsehen Philosophie, ed. Stuttgart, 1895. — 
 Engels. Socialism, Utopian and scientific, Swan, Sonnen- 
 sehein & Co., 1892. — Kautsky. Das Erfurter Programm, ed. 
 Diek, Stuttgart, 1892. — Lassalle. Reden und Schriften, ed. 
 Bernstein, Berlin, 189.3. — Lavollee. Les classes ouvriSres en 
 Europe, eh. vi, ed. Guillaumin & Cie., Paris, 1884. — Marx. 
 MisSre de la philosophie, ed. Giard et Bri6re, Paris, 1896; Das 
 Kapital. ed. Meissner, Hamburg, 1883-1884; Dix-huit Bru- 
 maire, ed. Lille, 1891 ; Revolution and Counter-Revolution, 
 Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1896. — Marx and Engels. 
 Manifesto ( 1 847 ) , ed. New York, 1888. Protokol uber der ver- 
 handlung des sozialdemokratischen Parteitages, ed. Vorwarts, 
 Berlin, 1896. — Russell. German Social Democracy, Longmans, 
 Green & Co., London, 1896. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF MODERN FRENCH 
 SOCIALISM. 
 19 
 
CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OP MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 I. SciKNTmc Socialism. 
 II. Integral Socialism. 
 III. Summary of the Principles of the Two Schools. 
 
 The so-ealled " Scientific Socialism " is a type of so- 
 cialistic theory entirely contemporary with the second 
 half of this century. Up to the present time, socialism 
 was never a system, so much as a dream of one or a 
 few persons; a voice or a few voices raised against the 
 world from time to time in accents of criticism or in- 
 dignation; voices which urged remedies often inconsist- 
 ent and fantastic, based on conceptions of men as pure 
 spirits and of society entirely cut away from history or 
 the soil on which it stood. Now, on the contrary, so- 
 cialism lays claim to be a social system deduced from 
 truths revealed by that kind of search into social con- 
 ditions which science demands as the guarantee of sound 
 doctrine. Socialism now claims to be " an historic dis- 
 covery." This " Scientific Socialism," or " Marxism," 
 might be called an attempt to give a materialistic an- 
 swer to the perpetually and universally debated prob- 
 lem of evil. In the eyes of the party who makes its 
 principles their platform, the new French socialism is 
 not a social philosophy, not a reform movement. " So- 
 cialism is not a system of any reformer whatever," 
 vv rites Lafargue; " it is the doctrine of those who believe 
 that the existing system is on the eve of fatal economic 
 evolution, which will establish collective ownership of 
 
292 MODERN PRMCH SOCtALlSU. 
 
 land in the hands of organizations of workers instead 
 of the individual ownership of capital. Socialism is in 
 the character of an historical discovery."^ Says an- 
 other, " Socialism is the theoretic expression of the 
 present economic phase of human evolution."^ 
 
 This pretension at being positive theory, the doctrine 
 fails to carry out. It has alreadj;, been noted that in 
 spite of its announced disdain for sentiment and its 
 claim to be non-partisan, scientific theory, compassion 
 and wrath at the condition of the working classes, and 
 a hope of clearing the way to a fundamental cure of 
 all social misery, was at once the impetus that shaped 
 the movement and the reason for the enthusiastic sup- 
 port it still receives. Marxism means unbounded faith 
 in pure democracy; that is, faith in the rule- of the ab- 
 solute majority and the right of the individual to de- 
 velop by way of liberty; as it is usually interpreted, it 
 represents a dream of an ultimate social harmony as 
 much as any other socialistic scheme for the reorganiza- 
 tion of society.^ But " Scientific Socialism " is so much 
 more scientific in its method, so much less impassioned 
 in its style than any preceding socialism, and it has be- 
 side, an aim so much more practical, that, even though 
 it is an interpretation of history worked out under the 
 undoubted influence of preconceptions, it is yet rela- 
 tively at least, nearer to being a scientific socialism than 
 
 1 In " Figaro," 1896, of. ; also, Jaurgs, Socialisme et Paysan, 
 p. 116. 
 
 ZDeville. Prineipes Socialistes, p. 1, ed. 1896. 
 
 3 Marx himself may not be justly accused of promising more 
 than the amelioration of the present condition of the working 
 classes. However, no such uncertainty as to the final solution 
 of the problem of social discontent is to be found in the French 
 Marxism. 
 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 293 
 
 any theory of its kind that has ever been put forward. 
 In comparison with any socialism antecedent to it, there 
 is some justification for the great stress which all its 
 adherents put upon the scientific character of the pres- 
 ent movement; it is when the theory is taken by itself, 
 that the claim can hardly be said to rest upon fact. 
 
 The doctrines of 'Scientific Socialism reduce to two 
 of chief importance, the one, usually called the mate- 
 rialistic conception of history, with its important de- 
 duction of class struggle as the primary cause of social 
 progress; and the other, that interpretation of the pres- 
 ent social order, which holds it to be essentially an 
 age of capitalistic production with its inevitable ac- 
 companiment, surplus labor or surplus value. The 
 arguments that support these two theories make clear 
 all that is essential to a fair understanding of the doc- 
 trine. 
 
 In relation to the materialistic conception of his- 
 tory, it must be noted, first of all, that with their Gallic 
 love of logic and completeness, the French have made 
 the doctrine of Marx more assailable. It is no longer 
 as in Marx* only the progress of society, which sums 
 up in a series of class struggles, each conditioned by the 
 economic background. In the Scientific Socialism the 
 theory is, logically enough, transferred to the subjective 
 life and man's development, as well as society's, is de- 
 
 4 Labriola. Essai sur la Conception MatSrialiate de I'his- 
 tolre, Paris, 1897, seems to be held by French socialists to 
 be the most complete statement of the doctrine of progress. 
 This author only pretends to be a popular version of Marx, 
 but the additions noted in the text are in his essays. The same 
 theory can be found in briefer form, in the pamphlets of 
 Deville, Guesde and Lafargue, 
 
294 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 pendent upon the material conditions which he finds 
 about him. Thus, the fundamental postulate of 
 Scientific Socialism holds that all matter and mind de- 
 velop by a necessary evolutionary process where the 
 principle of confiict is the cause of the successive phases 
 of growth. Using this postulate and applying it to his- 
 tory, Marxism discerns that man is the direct agent to 
 the development of society, but man is dependent for 
 his development upon matter; therefore, society and 
 man alike are finally forced to wait on the development 
 of material conditions before either can progress. Proof 
 of the three propositions into which this statement can 
 be divided, runs somewhat as follows. 
 
 First to prove that man is dependent upon matter for 
 his development, it is argued that Nature, " one, free 
 and sovereign," is at once "matter and spirit;"® she 
 is the necessity that is behind all that is material, and 
 there is nothing but that which is material. Thus man 
 is said to be primarily a non-intellectual being, and 
 his intelligence depends for its growth upon his sur- 
 roundings, since no man can develop psychologically 
 until his surroundings can satisfy his animal needs. 
 " The mind has the power to elaborate the elements 
 drawn from the environment just as the digestive ap- 
 paratus has the faculty of digesting; "® but unless man 
 is free to get at these elements, his mind can no more 
 thrive than his stomach can get along without food. 
 The individual moves from the animal to the intel- 
 lectual condition only so fast as his environment frees 
 
 s Comp. Le second oommandement de la Nature divine; 
 also, Lafargue, in " Id6alisme et Matfirialisme." 
 6 Deville, op. cit., p. 167. 
 
MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HISTORY. £95 
 
 him from the physiological necessity of a fierce struggle 
 for existence. " The substratum of will and action is 
 the co-ordination and subordination of needs."'^ "When 
 the imperative necessity that forces a man to devote 
 all of life to supplying his physical wants is removed, 
 then and then only, it is argued, can his true cerebral 
 development begin.* The character and development 
 of the individual are held to be finally conditioned by 
 his relation to the forces of Nature about him. 
 
 Second, to show that social development is condi- 
 tioned by man's development, it is posited that society 
 only begins in the necessity for man to satisfy his im- 
 perative physical needs, and that society only progresses 
 to a state properly so-called as these needs are increas- 
 ingly ministered to. The cause of society is the " cere- 
 bral activity exercising itself upon the materials fur- 
 nished by the external surroundings and developing it- 
 self in proportion as it exercises itself, and the materials 
 at its disposition are more numerous and more com- 
 plex."* Thus it is held to be fairly proved, and it is 
 proved, if the first proposition be granted, that the be- 
 ginnings of society depend upon the development of 
 man. 
 
 Finally, to prove that all social progress is, in the last 
 instance, unalterably dependent upon the economic en- 
 vironment, it needs only to recall that it is held to be 
 proven that man's development is conditioned by his 
 economic environment, and that social development de- 
 pends upon man's development; thus it necessarily fol- 
 
 TLabriola, op. cit., p. 121, ed. 1897. 
 SDeville, op. cit., p. 166i 
 9 Ibid, pp. 166, 167. 
 
296 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 lows that social development depends upon the eco- 
 nomic environment. It is a watchword of Scientific 
 Socialism that " the inventions and not the intentions 
 of men have been the cause of progress."*" Social 
 growth is made out to be a necessary evolutionary pro- 
 cess in which the changes are wrought out and deter- 
 mined primarily by changes in the economic categories. 
 
 This necessary historical movement is said to express 
 itself in a succession of class struggles which work out 
 on the basis of various kinds of property-holding; each 
 property form is, at any given period, the final determi- 
 nant of a characteristic economic order. It is not so- 
 cialists alone who have thought to solve social prob- 
 lems by an unnecessary and undesirable isolation of the 
 economic phenomena and have treated man as though 
 he were always and only a creature of economic im- 
 pulses. It is, however, only the socialists, and they are 
 never tired of saying so, who have looked upon all his- 
 tory as summed up in the progress of this class of 
 phenomena. The argument by which French socialists 
 undertake to prove this doubtful theory is only that of 
 Marx, and is too well-known to need more than a brief 
 statement. 
 
 Accepting the formula of evolutionary science which 
 derives all forward movement from the struggle for ex- 
 istence and the survival of the fittest, Scientific So- 
 cialism holds that society also is subject to such a' blind 
 e\ olutionary process, and claims that in society the neces- 
 sary conflict is not an individual, but a class struggle. 
 /. conflict in one social order, it is said, produces the 
 movement that, by developing another, goes to make 
 
 10 Deville, op. cit., p. 169. 
 
MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF BISTORT. 297 
 
 history; "the history of man is the history, of class 
 struggle, generated by economic conditions."^! All hu- 
 man history "is discerned to be a movement in which 
 each phase presents, as a dual aspect, a tendency to decay 
 and a tendency to develop. These two tendencies are 
 always expressed in social life by two sharply-defined 
 classes which constantly clash one with the other, to 
 the final extermination of the one and the ultimate su- 
 premacy of the other as a causal factor in a new social 
 arrangement. 
 
 In the theory under discussion, as has been noted, the 
 struggle of classes is not thought of as a primary cause; 
 it is itself looked upon as an effect of given economic 
 conditions, chief among which is the property form re- 
 quired by the economic order. The Scientific Socialist 
 undertakes to sketch out a history of property which 
 makes communal property coincident with tribal life, 
 individual property the expression of the manner of 
 satisfying wants in the feudal times, and what is called 
 " corporative property," the type of land-holding which 
 belongs to the present era.^^ These property forms are 
 held to come about, not as a result of any particular 
 
 11 Deville, p. 172. Comp. Marx. Mis6re de la Philosophie, 
 p. 114; Manifesto, p. 7. 
 
 12 It is to be noted that this conception of history includes 
 all the ideas of Saint Simon, with regard to the relativity of 
 historical periods and their germinal relation, one to the 
 other; repeats the Saint Simonian doctrine of the relativity 
 of social conditions to certain basic institutions of the society, 
 but differs to the advantage of Saint Simon, at the very foun- 
 dation, in the idea concerning the source of development. For 
 Saint Simon, the " law of progress," acting upon men, and 
 not upon economic or any other material conditions, is at the 
 bottom of the sequence of events that make history, and it is 
 the thought stages, not economic phases, which are the real 
 tests of change. 
 
298 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 ruling theory in regard to the property right, but he- 
 cause of the mere necessities that arise from the suc- 
 cessive methods of satisfying wants.^^ The French ex- 
 ponents of the Marxian theory are not altogether free 
 from the old tendencies to show how the individualistic 
 form of property-holding is at the root of the manifesta- 
 tion of the worst passions of human nature j^* the most 
 approved custom is, however, to treat the subject as 
 Mark himself did.^^ Thus it is not the habit to call in- 
 dividualistic or corporative property, as the early so- 
 cialist writers did, or as the Integral Socialists still do, 
 a deplorable mistake, to be consciously rectified when 
 men shall come to understand the true answer to the 
 difficult problem involved in the word justice. Scientific 
 Socialism fully recognizes that individual property 
 rights are legal rights. The school teaches, however, 
 that a given form of property right,*^ as well as the 
 state that creates the right, derives from an historical 
 process, in which the manner of appropriating material 
 things is the final determinant of all the rest, and holds 
 that no one form is always best and most efficient. 
 
 The character of the relation of the laborer to the em- 
 ployer is likewise shown to represent a series of histori- 
 cal phases where the laborer has always given a great 
 and scarcely diminishing share of his labor in quot^ 
 return for a diminishing share of subsistence. This 
 quantity of labor which the workman gives, Scientific 
 
 13 Comp. Deville, op. cit., pp. 160-165. 
 
 14 Ibid, p. 166. 
 
 15 Marx's idea is best expressed in " Misgre de la Philoso- 
 phie," pp. 214 et seq., ed. Paris, 1896. 
 
 16 Deville, op. cit., p. 163; also, pp. 181-183. 
 
MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF EI8T0B7. 299 
 
 Socialism calls " Surplus labor/' and the theory seeks 
 to show that " Surplus labor " is a permanent fact in 
 the relation between employed and employer. It is 
 energetically insisted that this " surplus labor " is, like 
 all other economic conditions, an historical category; 
 it " was not invented by the capitalist " nor by the so- 
 cialist.^^ It is asserted that in the ancient times, a 
 certain portion of work was given in return for food, 
 clothing and housing, so that at that time, too, there 
 was really a subsistence wage. Under serfage, the dis- 
 tinction between the two kinds of labor is said to be 
 clear; but in modern industry, the form effaces all trace 
 of demarcation between paid and unpaid labor; The 
 change that takes place during the progress of society 
 is not the disappearance of the fact itself. The differ- 
 ence lies in this, that in each successive era, surplus 
 labor grows increasingly hard to discern. 
 
 The materialistic conception of history sums up then 
 as a doctrine which sees in social growth a necessary 
 development of society, a development conditioned by 
 changes in the economic environment and carried for- 
 ward by means of a series of class struggles. 
 
 Eegarded as a sociological theory, the Marxian doc- 
 trine is certainly at fault. Since the school purports 
 to be a social science, not a social philosophy, it has 
 erred first of all in method; for, when it sets up the doc- 
 trine of necessity, it has aimed to answer problems be- 
 hind social laws of causation, problems behind all ma- 
 terial phenomena, inorganic, organic or social. It has 
 thus set up a social philosophy, not a social science. 
 Unless upon the authority of faith, a perfectly Justifi- 
 
 liDeville, op. cit., pp. 121-123. 
 
300 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 able, but not scientific ground, it can certainly not be 
 asserted with authority that the laws of nature and 
 society must of necessity follow the course they now 
 seem to take. The scientist can state with certainty 
 that the laws pertaining to terrestrial conditions act 
 and react as he has observed them to do, but he knows 
 nothing to prove that they must act in that way. To 
 posit necessity as the undoubted power which controls 
 all things here below is to start from a preconception 
 quite as unscientific as that of a divine plan. It is to 
 leave the scientific altogether. Thus in supporting the 
 doctrine of necessity, Marxism loses the right to claim 
 for itself the position of a scientific socialism. 
 
 The other proposition, that economic institutions de- 
 termine the character of all other social institutions, 
 undoubtedly involves an interesting point of view to 
 which many facts of history seem to bear witness. 
 There are, however, a number of marked social changes 
 in which no economic question can be said to have 
 played a motive part.^* Alterations in the habit of 
 thought of a social group seem a necessary antecedent 
 to changes in all social phenomena, and the cause of 
 such changes of thought cannot, even in primary phases 
 of existence, fairly be regarded as solely economic. If 
 man were not a social animal, a political animal and a 
 speaking animal, as well as a tool-making animal, the 
 economic impulse might be regarded as the single and 
 primary cause of social progress. But even the tool- 
 is The Civil War in the U. S. may be noted as one example ; 
 feudalism fell before the idea of equality rather than because 
 of economic causes; the determining power of the Catholio 
 church waned when it became an economic rather than an 
 ethical influence. It was only in the latter role that it acted 
 as a factor for progress. 
 
MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HI8T0R7. 3OI 
 
 making process is the result of changes in habits 
 of thought. Social changes have undoubtedly been 
 brought about by economic changes, but sympathy, in- 
 vention, intelligence, imitative faculties and power of 
 reasoning are the primary instincts which, acting in 
 the primitive man, drive him to association, enlarge the 
 horizon of his desires and wants, and finally develop 
 economic changes and economic society. Even without 
 undertaking to refute absolutely the doctrine of prog- 
 ress by way of economic changes, it seems perfectly 
 justifiable to insist that, in isolating the economic cate- 
 gories and making them the unique basis of movement 
 in history, Marxism has been betrayed into one of those 
 generalizations so tempting to the thinker, but so rarely 
 justified by the facts of reality. The generalization in 
 question is at best not proved. Viewed in the light of 
 any dispassionate survey of history, it seems to give an 
 unwarranted predominance to one among the compli- 
 cated factors of social progress, while at the same time 
 it neglects unwarrantably the determinative part taken 
 by the instincts of men in any and every phase of so- 
 cial growth. 
 
 The philosophy of history which has just been given 
 was really worked out to answer a question in the minds 
 of men who rebelled against the social order they saw 
 about them. This theory, which makes all historical 
 movement depend upon a single current and limits its 
 source to the appetites of men, is really a philosophy 
 in the interests of the "most numerous and most op- 
 pressed class " exactly as were the philosophies dis- 
 cussed in a previous chapter. And this is only n^-tural. 
 
302 MODERN FBENCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 for, though they are not ready to admit it, though they 
 try to exclude justice and replace it by necessity, Marx- 
 ists, like all other reformers, saw first of all a social ar- 
 rangement that went against their sense of justice, and 
 their first effort was to find an explanation for the pres- 
 ent which would demonstrate this inequitable relation 
 between man and man, and between man and those ma- 
 terial things on which their theory based his well-being. 
 The conception of history which has just been given 
 was worked out to aid in answering this problem. 
 
 But oddly enough, and, of course, without intention, 
 the logical teaching of the materialistic conception of 
 history as applied to action is something dangerously 
 near to Quietism. When all social relations are shown 
 to be the result of the unconscious action of " imper- 
 sonal active forces " and man is regarded as the almost 
 impassive recipient of the play of these f orces,^^ the na- 
 tural impulse of one who adopted the theory would be 
 to let the necessary course of things work itself out; the 
 part of the individual would be to watch the struggle 
 with hope and await the moment when he was caught 
 by the forward movement. In reality, however, Marx 
 and his followers are far from believing in any such 
 inaction; the writers of that burning Manifesto aimed 
 at rousing and stimulating active effort. Neither is 
 there quietism in French Marxism, but rather some- 
 thing more nearly resembling a revolutionary spirit. 
 
 19 See e. g. Marx. Le dix-huit Brmnaire de Louis Bona- 
 parte, ed. Lille, 1891, p. 11. " Les hommes font leur propre 
 hiatoire, mais ils,ne la font pas d'aprgs leur arbitre dans des 
 eirconstances choisis par eux," etc. Comp. Deville, op. cit., 
 p. 168. 
 
SURPLUS VALUE. 303 
 
 Consciously or unconsciously, the Marxian reformer 
 is most of all bent on showing the oppressed part of 
 society the direction of the social current so that those 
 interested may not ofEer an unintentional opposition 
 which shall delay the desired progress of events. It is 
 in this end that scientific socialists have so carefully 
 analyzed present social conditions. The laborer is 
 "scientifically" shown his wrongs; is, also "scientifi- 
 cally," shown how these very wrongs are bringing him 
 a better future and finally it is demonstrated to him 
 how he can help to prepare for that future. The 
 teaching of all Marxian doctrine, especially when di- 
 rected to interpreting our own time, seeks always to 
 add to the unrest of the laborer and to give him a hope 
 which shall change that unrest to active and organized 
 agitation. While the fatality that is pushing toward the 
 next social stage is always recognized, it is none the less 
 carefully pointed out to the workman, that by making 
 himself the conscious ally of this fatality, he can aid 
 and even hasten the transition.^" 
 
 The analysis of the present society as given in the 
 French teaching of Marxism, scarcely shows even such 
 slight variation from the original theory as was to be 
 found in that part of the theory just given. The state- 
 ment of present conditions, as the French Marxists give 
 it, is only a repetition of the now well-known fallacies 
 of Marx and Engels. In the French statement, more 
 
 20 All the French arguments in this connection seem based 
 on the argument as Engels gives it in " Ludwig Feuerbach 
 und der Ausgang der Klassisehen deutschen Philosophie." 
 Comp. e. g. Deville, op. eit., p. 168, and Lafargue in " Idealisme 
 et Mat§rialisme/' ed. 1895, Paris. 
 
304 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 of bitterness and less of statistic marks the difEerence 
 between the temperament of the master and that of his 
 disciples. In the political speeches of the publiCj as 
 one catches them in pamphlet or newspaper, whether 
 they are addresses in the chamber or " conferences " at 
 the sections, dispassionate exposition often disappears in 
 vituperative attack upon current institutions; most of- 
 ten it is expressed in anti-clericalism, anti-functionar- 
 ism and the like. However, the few books that at- 
 tempt a complete statement of the doctrine, if quite 
 unoriginal in principle and as entirely vitiated by false 
 reasoning as is the German theory, at least offer their 
 critical study of the present in a spirit that is compara- 
 tively unemotional. 
 
 Since, in the Marxist conception, history shows that 
 all progress is by way of fundamental economic changes, 
 it is, of course, only in its economic aspect that the 
 present era is considered.^^ All other institutions are 
 looked upon as so many accessories to this fundamental 
 social activity. The present society, as all society, is 
 discerned to derive from the economic activity of man 
 and the present social development, like all social 
 growth which history can show, has had as final cause, 
 the gradual change of economic conditions. Political 
 changes, changes in manner and religion, are said to be 
 now as always, only so many results of the alteration 
 in industrial operations. Following this line of argu- 
 ment, Marxists name the present, the era of Capitalis- 
 tic Production, and, looking for the characteristic dis- 
 harmony which their theory attaches to each economic 
 
 aiDeville, op. cit., pp. 24, 25; also, p. 216. 
 
SURPLUS VALUE. 305 
 
 period, they find that it centers at present about " cor- 
 porative " or productive property. Because a minor 
 part of the community, the Capitalists, stand possessed 
 of the " social capital," that is, the source and means 
 of production, the other economic class, the proletariat, 
 cannot, they say, except on most unsatisfactory terms, 
 gain access to such capital. The capitalist thus gets 
 an advantage, and he gets it because the progress of me- 
 chanical science has made the industrial appliances of 
 the present day both too costly and too cumbrous to be 
 owned or used individually. Thus social development 
 has brought it about that a few individuals who con- 
 trol the productive wealth of the community, have the 
 proletaire, the man who brings only his hands and his 
 brains to market, at a complete disadvantage. Pos- 
 sessed of a labor-force which distinguishes itself from 
 its function, labor, " as the power of walking distin- 
 guishes itself from its function, walking," the laborer 
 is forced, if he would not starve, to accept the hard 
 bargain which capital drives. The utter impotence of 
 the proletaire to get at productive wealth enables the 
 capitalist to buy labor-power in the open market at a 
 price often below, and rarely above, the actual cost of 
 maintaining labor-force, and to secure in return the 
 full time of the laborer. 
 
 Now, the situation, it is held, might not bring about 
 a social conflict, if it were not true, that this labor which 
 the privileged few, by reason of the facts already de- 
 scribed, have been able to get from the proletarian, is, 
 after all, that element of production which makes all 
 commodities marketable. There might not be this 
 misery if the capitalist were not able to force the prole- 
 30 
 
306 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 taire's labor from him at a mere subsistence price and 
 then appropriate to himself all but a tiny portion of 
 the value that labor creates.^^ French Marxism spends 
 no time in elaboration of this labor-value theory; it 
 rather asserts than argues it, with a faith in it, which 
 is possibly all the greater because the terms of the ar- 
 gument are not expanded.^^ That labor is value is 
 held to be the fundamental reason why the proletaire 
 has an undoubted claim to a share in the profits of 
 which an ill-ordered society now deprives him.^* 
 
 22 Comp. Deville, p. 104 et seq., op. cit. 
 
 23 Marx, it will be remembered, asserted that all commodities 
 are primarily manufactured to satisfy a need; but in this con- 
 nection, as use-valueSj he contends that commodities are non- 
 social facts. He holds it to follow that utility has nothing 
 to do with true value, which is value in exchange. Exchange 
 only arises with the idea of equating non-use values to each 
 other. (Das Kapital, p. 76.) And it is as quantitative, not 
 as qualitative, objects that goods are said to be put upon the 
 exchange market. Now their value in that market is deter- 
 mined by the labor they have involved; for, since a commodity 
 represents a utility, plus labor, and since utility plays no 
 part in exchanges, it must be the only remaining attribute, 
 that is, labor, that gives exchange value to it. The value of 
 a commodity then is the " Objective form of the social labor 
 expended in its production " ( Kapital, p. 545 ) , and the meas- 
 ure of that value is the labor time socially necessary for its 
 production. 
 
 24 The question of what is value, is a rock on which political 
 economists will split so long as value, or any other of the 
 principles of economic theory, is held to be a purely logical 
 category, capable of being isolated from other social institu- 
 tions, and logically and for all time determined. Value can 
 certainly not be regarded as a, constant. In order to any 
 successful analysis of it, value must be looked upon as a vari- 
 able, into which changing factors enter as the conditions of 
 society alter. It is then easy to assert the falsity of the 
 Marxian formula, which errs first of all in making labor 
 metaphysically and eternally the source of value and is beside 
 even under any given economic order, a formula worked put 
 
CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL. 30Y 
 
 Scientific Socialism finds, by this sort of analysis of 
 value, a clue to the deprivation of the proletariat; it 
 regards rent, profit, interest and wages darkly, as so 
 many delusive names for that surplus labor which is 
 surplus value, retained because the capitalist makes an 
 outrageous use of his opportunities. The proletarian 
 is thus shown that he has good cause for a fierce class- 
 struggle; by the surplus value theory, it is made evi- 
 dent to him that he is caught at a disadvantage and 
 then robbed of all but a bare subsistence. But the law 
 of Concentration of Capital is given to him as the rock 
 of his salvation. 
 
 In the French statement of Marxism, there is only 
 a somewhat nebulous assertion of this theory of the 
 concentration of capital, a theory that formed a pivotal 
 part of Marx's doctrine. The principle is, however, 
 used as the basis by which to demonstrate, with plenty 
 of elaboration, that the capitalistic era is developing 
 the essential elements of its own overthrow. In spite 
 of, in fact because of, the seeming triumph of the sys- 
 tem, the capitalistic order is said to be in an advanced 
 
 by the arbitrary and utterly unjustifiable omission of the 
 part utility plays in any exchange. It is not so easy to set 
 down finally and for all time what value is. Under present 
 economic conditions, it can, however, be readily proven that 
 labor is ordinarily only a lesser element of value, and desira- 
 bility and scarcity usually play a larger part than labor in 
 determining the market value of a commodity. If labor is 
 not value, then the surplus value theory is likewise discred- 
 ited, for it rests partly on this formula of labor as value, and 
 partly on an equally fallacious doctrine, the " iron law of 
 wages." It has been again and again proven that only under 
 special conditions is labor forced to remain at a bare sub- 
 sistence wage ; the " iron law of wages " is, at most, a par- 
 ticular, never a universal, law. 
 
308 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 stage of its existence. Capital is represented as the 
 " character which the means of production have as- 
 sumed under determined social conditions which these 
 can lose without being the least in the world harmed 
 by their existence/'^^ and capital itself is said to be gen- 
 erating the elements which will annihilate it. It is 
 held demonstrated that economic conditions are to-day 
 developing the forces which shall annihilate individual 
 property just as economic processes in the past created 
 that form of property. The theory would show that 
 Capitalistic production progresses by way of the law of 
 concentration of capital, sometimes called the law of so- 
 cialization of capital, and that by the immutable work- 
 ing of this law, the capitalists grow fewer and the ranks 
 of the proletariat larger. The increase of corporations 
 and trusts is taken to be evidence that the proprietary 
 class is disappearing. What is nominally private prop- 
 erty has already passed chiefly into the hands of share- 
 holders; the capitalistic class, properly so-called, be- 
 comes always less numerous, more disintegrated and 
 more superfluous. On the other hand, the number of 
 proletarians is said to be increasing and to be develop- 
 ing a tendency to concentrated and fraternal action as 
 a result of that necessary co-operation which identity 
 of interests creates. It is pointed out that division of 
 labor, adding to the skill of the few, really creates an 
 identity of misery for the many, and in both cases 
 heightens the class feeling. Collectively, the class be- 
 
 26Deville, p. 177. The full statement of this doctrine can 
 be found in any of the books of the party. See e. g. Devllle, 
 op. eit., pp. 28-31; Programme du parti ouvrier, pp. 14-16; 
 Guesde, Probl&me et Solution, p. 11 et seq. 
 
CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL. 309 
 
 comes more and more conscious of its power and posi- 
 tion. Capitalists, it is said, are inclined to retire to 
 mere enjoyment of their gains; the direction of enter- 
 prises is thus left to the workers. An intellectual elite 
 is so developed whose strength, yearly increasing, will 
 mean the final overthrow of the capitalist.^* The law 
 of concentration of capital, diminishing the proprietary 
 class in numbers and oppressing it with the weight of 
 its enormous gains, will finally force the proprietor to 
 yield up the means of production which he now holds 
 to the undoing of the laborer.^'^. 
 
 Thus Marxism asserts that the present society repre- 
 sents an advanced stage in the struggle of classes. It 
 is held to be easily discernible that class differences are 
 everywhere narrowing to the class antagonism of two 
 strongly opposed economic factions. A terrible, though 
 partially hidden contest is said to be going on between 
 the ruling and the ruled in the economic order, and 
 government, in the Marxian interpretation of the term, 
 
 28 As to the basis in fact of this idea of the necessary so- 
 cialization of all capital, it has been noted already (see supra, 
 p. 285) that French Marxists have themselves admitted it is 
 not an universal fact. Even while its dogma continues to as- 
 sert the unqualified Marxian law, the school has recognized in 
 its political tactics that agriculture is not likely to be sub- 
 ject to this law. They have been forced to see that which 
 Marx did not see, that while the history of the century has 
 indisputably shown a steadily-increasing concentration of cap- 
 ital in all mechanical industry, wherever agriculture is car- 
 ried on in highly organized centers, the work of production 
 has as yet shown little tendency to socialize. Nowhere better 
 than in Prance is it demonstrable that intensity of cultivation 
 demands a limitation in the extension of a cultivation, such 
 that the possibility or advisability of agriculture on a large 
 scale diminishes, rather than increases. 
 
 27 See Guesde. Catfichisme Socialiste, pp. 72-79 ; also Lecot, 
 Andre, " Qu'est-ce que Dieu?" 
 
310 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 -V 
 
 is at present only an accessory to the continued domi- 
 nation of the controlling minority. The salvation of 
 the oppressed majority is at hand if they will only com- 
 prehend and aid, not oppose, the march of progress. 
 If the consciousness of their wrongs penetrates as it 
 should, the whole of the oppressed class, a moment is 
 triumphantly prophesied when, unable to cope with the 
 organized force of the majority, the minority will have 
 to give way and the new synthesis will appear. 
 
 As to the other social interests, devotional, sexual, es- 
 thetic, the prevailing conceptions concerning each of 
 these are usually sneered at; they are held to be only 
 so many false notions resting on a primary misconcep- 
 tion; when that unstable foundation is removed the 
 wrong prejudices regarding these other social institu- 
 tions are also expected to disappear. Eeligion as it 
 is now understood, is shown, to be only an aid to the 
 domination of the militant state; the family and present 
 ideas of sex relations only so many concomitants of the 
 present property laws.**® The social principle bred by 
 the present order, stigmatized as essentially a hideous 
 spirit of distrust, the painful imperviousness to the 
 beauties of Nature and the generally false standards of 
 art that accompany this leading principle — these, it is 
 affirmed, are all derived from the system which rests 
 upon down-trodden routine lives for the mass of 
 humanity. 
 
 Finally, the present political form of society is held 
 to be as ephemeral as are the other aspects. French 
 Marxists deny the name of state to society politically 
 
 28 Guesde. " Le CoUectivisme au College de France," p. 47 
 et scq. 
 
THEORY OF STATE. 3II 
 
 organized. They rest their doctrine that state is noth- 
 ing but the government, the deputed power, on bare as- 
 sertion, but firmly hold to it.^^ The state is therefore 
 defined as " the public power for coercion, which divis- 
 ion of classes creates and maintains, and which, dispos- 
 ing of the force, makes the laws and levies the taxes."^" 
 Further, there is a general tendency to insist that even 
 this sort of state will eventually disappear entirely. 
 There may be those who are ready to recognize the in- 
 evitable continuity of some kind of organized power^^ 
 properly to be called the state, but the general position 
 is that cited, a position possibly taken with a view of 
 meeting the prejudices of anarchists and " mutualists." 
 The state is usually called the police force, and in this 
 capacity it is held to be only a temporary necessity 
 which will disappear with the vanishing of the classes 
 that have successively created some form of it for self- 
 protection. Quite oblivious to the inconsistency of sug- 
 gesting the possibility of an association of men in which 
 some kind of coercive force is not present, forgetting 
 that social organization connotes coercion of some sort, 
 the socialists of France assert and reassert the immi- 
 nent disappearance of state as they define it. In fact, 
 
 29 Thus the present state is said to be the creation, organ 
 and sanction of the proprietary class. Comp. on this whole 
 subject of the socialist's view of the state, Deville, op. cit., 
 pp. 1.51-173. 
 
 30 Deville, p. 153, op. cit. 
 
 31 See e. g. Guesde, who, in a long speech in the Chamber of 
 Deputies, says, " Je ne sais pas ce que c'est I'Etat; I'Etat, 
 c'etait Louis XIV au dix-septi6me sifecle; I'Etat, c'est vous 
 aujourd'hui; I'Etat, ce sera autre chose demain." Double 
 Reponse de Jules Guesde a MM. De Mun et Paul Deschanel, 
 Sgance des 15 et 24 Juin, 1896, p. 14, 
 
312 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 in the eyes of the most of the socialists of France,, there 
 is nothing more to be desired than this disappearance 
 of the " state." As has already been shown, the pro- 
 gram of the party insists that the existing state is the 
 chief impediment to that change in social conditions 
 which they so much desire. Unequal property rights, 
 religious intolerance, matrimonial slavery, perverted so- 
 cial instincts and stunted senses, all these, abnormal 
 facts must continue to exist so long as the present state 
 which fosters them exists. The solution of the whole 
 trouble will come when the proletariat shall get social 
 control. 
 
 This stated somewhat summarily, is the Scientific So- 
 cialist's analysis of the present social order. In regard 
 to the materialistic conception of history, the claim 
 that the doctrine is a dispassionate examination of his- 
 tory might almost be admitted, but when the study 
 of present social conditions is in question, it is certainly 
 mere pretension. Suspected of being so before, " Scien- 
 tific Socialism " seems without doubt partisan when its 
 statements with regard to existing moral and political 
 institutions are considered. This class-struggle, which 
 is mixed up with property forms and rests upon them 
 and surplus value, has not really been derived, as it is 
 claimed, only from the facts of human existence. 
 After a consideration of the Scientific Socialist's analy- 
 sis of modern society, the dangerously simple half- 
 truths advanced by Marxism are plainly the result of a 
 desire to make clear the injustice to which it is thought 
 the society of to-day subjects the laborer. As eco- 
 nomic theory, Marxism becomes a protest against the 
 
SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM. 3^3 
 
 distributive justice of the present society and a claim 
 for another kind of justice said to be proven valid by a 
 sound study of social growth. But unfortunately the 
 protest and the claim have staked their demand for a 
 better distributive justice upon a false theory of value 
 and an exaggeration of the spread and necessity of pro- 
 duction on a large scale. 
 
 In fact, while it has seemed proper to suggest in a 
 cursory way some of the more striking weaknesses of 
 the doctrine of Scientific Socialism, it must be confessed 
 that, after all, the very groundwork of the theory being 
 false, it is not at all necessary to dwell upon the rest. 
 Marxism fails to win acceptance iirst of all, because 
 it represents a narrow and partial view of social prog- 
 ress, an unfortunate blending of truth and untruth. 
 Any theory that offers a single remedy for social 
 diseases, any theory that neglects the countless varia- 
 tions of subjective and objective influences in favor 
 of any one particular influence and holds that a single 
 alteration in society is the key to a permanent solution 
 of social destitution and misery, discredits itself at the 
 outset by so doing. Add to this, that the theory by its 
 doctrine of necessity destroys for the ordinary mind 
 the idea of human responsibility; add too, that it 
 preaches association and talks of its merits as against 
 competition, yet asks men to associate in a struggle 
 where hate is the social motive and self-interest the 
 individual motive. A theory which talks about com- 
 munity of interests and co-operation for the common 
 good, yet seeks to attain these ends by stirring men's 
 meanest passions and reducing all aims to those that 
 end in self, is barely consistent and certainly not in- 
 
314 MODERN FRENCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 Spiring to that better, wider sympathy which is at the 
 root of all social progress. Students of social conditions 
 grow increasingly certain that it needs perhaps much 
 that the Marxists claim, but much more beside and some 
 of the other things first, before any change in undoubt- 
 edly deplorable conditions can be hoped for. While 
 the best informed seem justified in believing that there 
 is less, not more, misery now than in the past, no one 
 doubts there is misery and poverty, plenty and to spare, 
 and that men are certainly only too often driven by cir- 
 cumstances over the border-line which separates the 
 poor from the destitute, but it is permissible to believe 
 that he who expects, by any change in social arrange- 
 ments, to do away with regrettable social conditions is 
 one who has forgotten that astounding variable, man, 
 and the all-powerful role which his passions and habits 
 play in shaping the quality of the social fabric. 
 
 Such an expectation is, however, as has been seen, 
 back of the doctrines of Scientific Socialism now ex- 
 plained. With even more of hopefulness, but in a dif- 
 ferent spirit, the Integral Socialists also look to a cer- 
 tain fundamental change to bring all other changes in 
 its train. 
 
 II. 
 
 It has already been noted that the militant French so- 
 cialism of the day represents the partial fusion of two 
 distinct schools of thought. The two theories exist 
 side by side in a sort of tolerance one of the other ;'^ 
 except for political purposes, they have not united on 
 a common doctrine. A real divergence from the theory 
 
 32 At present (Oct., 1900) the newspapers reporting the 
 Congress at Paris, report serious rupture between the two 
 groups. 
 
INTEGRAL SOCIALISM. 315 
 
 of the Marxists, makes a separate statement of the 
 doctrine of the Integral Socialists seem necessary even 
 though that statement may involve some repetition. 
 
 As compared to the school whose doctrine has just 
 been given, the most striking fact with regard to the 
 Integral theory is its return, in formula at least, to the 
 individualistic thesis. The individual is restored to a 
 directing role in determining the trend of society. No 
 longer held to be merely an atomic part of a great and 
 necessary evolution that is primarily economic, each 
 person is now held to be a social unit, upon whose com- 
 plete opportunity to develop the movement and direc- 
 tion of social progress depend. 
 
 From the very beginning of theoretical statement, at 
 the point of definition, this separation between the 
 schools is clear. Socialism is not now defined as " The 
 theoretic expression of the present phase of economic 
 evolution; "^^ it is, instead, said to be " a state of supe- 
 rior civilization, where, except for an easy task, all men 
 will have the advantages of life by the practice of solid- 
 arity,"^* or again, socialism is " humanity marching 
 toward a superior civilization and carrying in the vast 
 folds of its starry mantle, with all the hopes of libera- 
 tion and justice for the oppressed and the exploited, all 
 the high mental and esthetic aspirations of the soul."^ 
 These definitions show at once the character of the dif- 
 ference between the two schools and how radical it is. 
 
 33Deville, op. cit., p. 1. 
 
 34 Bertrand. Qu'est ce que le socialisme? p. 2. 
 35Malon. Prgois de Socialisme, p. 178, ed. Felix Alcan, 
 Paris, 1892. 
 
316 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 When there is talk of the aspirations of the soul and of 
 the superior state of civilization the new social order ia 
 to bring, it is evident, not only that all pretense of be- 
 ing a scientific study of society has been abandoned, but 
 that a materialistic socialist philosophy is discredited 
 for one that recognizes ideals. 
 
 And this is, in fact, the fundamental difference be- 
 tween the two schools. Integral Socialism denies that 
 nothing exists except that of which the senses can take 
 account; that all that exists and happens, exists and 
 happens necessarily, and that the leading principle of 
 all organic being, whether purely brute or human, is 
 self-preservation in a struggle for existence which is 
 generated by the unavoidable desire for the satisfaction 
 of hunger, thirst and the sexual instinct. Socialism, 
 say the Independent Socialists, "is not necessary, as 
 Marxists contend, but it is just." Holding, without 
 any particular elaboration of the fact, to an animistic 
 theory of creation, holding often to the old idea of a 
 plan which arranged this world as a means for the 
 development of perfectible human nature,*® Integral 
 Socialism regards the future . happiness of man as de- 
 pendent upon the correct comprehension of the right 
 ideal, rather than upon a just interpretation of the 
 past or present. It is declared that Marxism is wrong 
 
 36 For an exact repetition of the old theory, see an inter- 
 esting pamphlet called " Le Second Commandement de la Na- 
 ture Divine ou le Travail Obligatoire," par un Travailleur 
 (A la Biblioth&que Socialiste populaire, Paris), which con- 
 tains such statements as " Le problfeme social consiste £1 
 mettre le lois humaines en harmonic avec les droits que nous 
 tenons d'elle (la nature) et avec les devoirs qu'elle nous 
 impose." 
 
OBIOIN OF SOCIETY. 317 
 
 " to project the past into the future and wish to regu- 
 late what will be by what has been."" Integral So- 
 cialism believes that not the past, but the ideal which 
 the mind of man can formulate is to be the guide in a 
 conscious struggle for the well-being of humanity. The 
 only way to determine the future they say, is to order 
 the present carefully on the basis of a sound ideal. 
 Consequently, the whole aim of this social philosophy is 
 to rouse, not class hatred, but a strong moral senti- 
 ment, that shall finally demand an arrangement of so- 
 ciety on the lines of the social philosophy which the 
 school advocates. Legitimate inheritors of the radi- 
 cal thinking of their own country in the past genera- 
 tion, we find this school of socialists, repeating in terms 
 of the present time the old faith in the power of an 
 ideal to insure the moral development and thus the so- 
 cial happiness of man.** The doctrine thus proves the 
 superiority of its ethics to that of Marxism; at least it 
 takes human nature into its calculations, realizing the 
 power of ideals as stimulus and uplift; recognizing that 
 thoughts underlie things and men, institutions. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that the theorists of the 
 school center their inquiry about social problems. The 
 origin and aim of society, and the relation between 
 society and the individual, more particularly as that 
 relation concerns the political apd economic interests — 
 
 37Malon, op. cit., p. 142. 
 
 38 " Montrer I'ldgale, c'est d'abord crSer une tendance & le 
 rgaliser; c'est fournir a eeux dont la pouasigre de combat 
 peut troubler et gSner la vision, le seul moyen pratique de 
 discerner si telle ou telle mesure proposge est bien orienter 
 dans le sens de I'avenir." Renard, Le Rggime BOoialiste, p. 
 23 (in "Revue Socialiste," Tome 27). 
 
318 MODEM FRBNCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 these are the all-important problems that the school 
 undertakes to solve. To explain fully their point of 
 view in regard to these two undoubtedly vital ques- 
 tions, will give sufficient insight into the doctrine of 
 the party.*® 
 
 The theory of Integral Socialism, coneerniag the 
 origin and aim of society, runs fairly parallel with the 
 more generally accepted contemporary theories of so- 
 cial growth. In insisting that social progress, in a 
 causal sequence, is a self-evident truth,*" the theory 
 seems to fall in with the Marxian doctrine. But social 
 progress, as the Independent Socialists understand it, 
 is different, for it rests not upon " necessity," but upon 
 a " desire for the realization of justice." The first re- 
 quisite to progress is said to be the psychological de- 
 velopment of man; and this development, it is con- 
 tended, is an inherent necessity of man's being. Eco- 
 nomic conditions, like other conditions, are only the 
 result and affirmation of the ideas which are the mo- 
 tive forces to all facts of reality past and present. In- 
 tegral Socialism holds, with most of the received opin- 
 ion of the day, that " one cannot transform manners 
 and laws radically, without first changing minds and 
 
 39 While the works of Malon, Jaures, Bertrand and most 
 of those who write for the " Revue Socialiste " stand for the 
 Integral rather than the purely Marxian theory, the most 
 recent exposition of the doctrine under discussion, as given 
 by M. Georges Eenard, seems so much the most orderly and 
 complete statement of this most characteristically French 
 part of the modern socialistic theory, that the succeeding 
 pages have been chiefly based upon the works of M. Eenard, 
 professor at Lausanne and an ardent disciple of Malon. 
 
 *o Eenard, p. 657, op. cit.. Revue Socialiste, Tome 26, "La 
 Boei6t§ future existe a l'6tat embryonnaire au sein de la so- 
 ciSte prgsente." 
 
SOCIAL TEBOm. 3j^9 
 
 hearts, while waiting till in their turn, these shall 
 again be modified by the new social order."** Along 
 with most social science of the time. Integral Socialism 
 offers the conclusion that social development rests upon 
 man's psychological development. They only depart 
 from the strictly scientific point of view when they as- 
 sert, as a positive fact, that this social development 
 and psychological development are both the result of 
 an inherent need in each individual for the realization 
 of the ideal of social justice. Thus, the idea of neces- 
 sity, if it has any place in the Integral theory, finds 
 shape as the inherent necessity for the realization of 
 justice which, along with other instincts, has led men 
 to come together in organized groups. Man, it is as- 
 serted, was not only created that he might attain a high 
 degree of physical development ; he is here for the com- 
 plete and harmonious development of all his faculties, 
 physical, mental and moral. Whatever the creative 
 force is held to be, it is usually counted as entirely 
 apart from any participation in the work of develop- 
 ment. Society is looked upon as the means for finally 
 bringing about universal social harmony. Defined as 
 the " ensemble solidaire de tous les individus qui la 
 composent,"*^ it is made the condition and means to 
 man's development. In sum, the cause of society 
 is thought to be the nature of man, who is a " social 
 being; " that is, " one who lives in society and is obliged 
 so to live,"** and those same instincts which the Phy- 
 siocrats gave their "Natural Man," the instincts of 
 
 41 Renard. Programme de la Revue Socialiste, 1896. 
 42Renard, op. cit., p. 399, Tome 26. 
 « Ibid, p. 387. 
 
320 MODERN FRENCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 well-being and of sociability, now severally called the 
 instinct for the " satisfaction of the individual needs " 
 and the " sexual instinct," again come forward as the 
 forces that draw men together. 
 
 The doctrine is plainly that which holds society to 
 be an organism and the individual only an organic 
 part, and, in a sense, a product of that organism. 
 Great stress is laid upon two principles, "the struggle 
 for existence and the coalition for existence;"** prin- 
 ciples which, generated by the instincts of man, be- 
 come the motive forces behind all true association. 
 The first, the struggle for existence, is defined as that 
 struggle for existence among individuals which grows 
 out of the innate need for personal development; it is 
 competition, the stimulant to energy, to individual 
 initiative and self-culture. The second, the coalition 
 for existence, grows out of the individual need for pro- 
 tection and sympathy; it is the result of man's in- 
 stinctive perception of the fact that an easier and fuller 
 satisfaction of his wants comes from cooperation of ef- 
 fort and division of labor. This second principle makes 
 for solidarity, and solidarity is the sole means by which 
 individual happiness can finally be secured. According 
 to this theory, social forces, generated by the slow or- 
 ganization of human effort, represent the really domi- 
 nating influence in individual development. All the 
 weight of argument goes to show the creative power 
 of the distinctly social instincts,*"* and the individual is 
 regarded as a complex of the social facts these in- 
 
 **Renard, op. cit., p. 388. 
 
 4B JaurSs. IdSalisme et Matgrialisme, p. 9. 
 
SOCIAL THEORY. 
 
 321 
 
 stincts finally generate. Though it is admitted that 
 man himself is a moral being, who can consciously di- 
 rect and shape the further character of the social forces, 
 yet, man, as he finds himself on coming to self-con- 
 sciousness, is held to be essentially a social product, 
 the result .of certain continually developing forces of 
 organized society. 
 
 Society is then the medium to individual develop- 
 ment; all association is in this end. Society is always 
 for the service of the individual. If, in the end of the 
 best possible social organization, each person is called 
 upon to make a certain subtraction from his entire 
 liberty and content, all such denial is pointed out to 
 be in the end of an enlightened self-interest. If the 
 leadership of society is to be desired, it is because it is 
 held to be the surest means to an end, that end not 
 individual liberty, but individual development.*® Pam- 
 phletary exposition of what is said to be the truly social 
 regime, usually accents the greater individual liberty 
 to be expected under that regime, and leaves the idea 
 of social authority as much as possible in abeyance, 
 but the best studies in Integral Socialism make no 
 such concession to popular prejudice; it is clear to 
 them, and they are interested to show, that the end 
 is the best possible development of each individual in 
 society. Since society is held to be the determining 
 force, it is believed that the difficult and vital point 
 to be settled is the relation between the social author- 
 ity and the individual autonomy.*'^ 
 
 •46 Comp. Kenard, op. cit., chap. 1, passim. 
 47 Ibid, p. 392, 
 
 21 
 
322 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 Whatever of weakness and inconsistency there is in 
 Integral Socialism stands out most clearly when the 
 terms of the solution they offer to the difBeult prob- 
 lem of the relation between the Individual and the 
 State are understood. The first principles of their so- 
 cial philosophy are scarcely assailable. The doctrine 
 recognizes that the mainsprings of society are not 
 things but men; that in the scale of human destiny, 
 brain not brawn is the final determinant, and it like- 
 wise recognizes that the character and growth of each 
 individual life does and always will determine the 
 whole social growth; and that, therefore, a sense of 
 his own significance, a sense of duty to his kind and of 
 personal responsibility for the advancement of all so- 
 cial life, is a necessity to social well-being. It accepts 
 and states clearly the doctrine that Progress is the 
 strengthening of the social bond, and in all this it may 
 be said to have adopted the best teachings of our time. 
 But the same can hardly be said of the polity proposed 
 by the doctrine. 
 
 First of all, viewed as a political theory, the method 
 of the doctrine seems open to criticism. Even while 
 the school condemns the earlier methods of abstract 
 reasoning, even while they seem to realize that the 
 problems of politics can least of all be answered by 
 mere rational deduction, they have, none the less, set 
 out with a system of logical demonstration and have 
 almost entirely neglected the empirical method. In- 
 tegral Socialists, just as Morelly or Rousseau did,*® pose 
 
 ■*8Comp. Code de'la Nature, p. 14. "Trcmver une situa- 
 tion dans laquelle il soit presque impossible que I'homme soit 
 d6prav§ Qu meehant; " also Rousseau, (Contrat Social, Bk. I, 
 
INDIVIDUAL RIQETS. 323 
 
 the social question as follows : " To find a social or- 
 ganization such that each human being may develop as 
 completely as possible, without harming and even while 
 aiding the development of others."*^ This is clearly to 
 adopt an a priori method for the solution of political 
 problems, and it is this method which dominates 
 throughout the theory. It remains to show the diffi- 
 culties which result from following such a course. 
 
 The theory has in view the protection of the in- 
 dividual initiative, and its first aim, therefore, is to 
 formulate the rights of the individual. These rights 
 of man are not put forward as Natural Eights, though 
 it might be said, without injustice, that they are really 
 so regarded.''* It is laid down that men are alike in 
 kind but different in development, and that, therefore, 
 any organization formed with justice as the end, will 
 give each member of the community opportunity to 
 develop integrally; that is, unequally .^^ Transferring 
 the basis of argument from the realization of justice to 
 that of general utility, it is asserted that even in the 
 ends of a successful social life, any social organization 
 must seek to insure to each member of the collectivity 
 the greatest possible liberty, so that as many individuals 
 as may be, shall be enabled to satisfy their wants and 
 develop integrally. It sounds like Herbert Spencer, 
 
 ch. vi ) , " Trouver une forme d'assoeiation qui d§f ende et qui 
 protege de toute la force commune, la personne et les biens de 
 chaque associg et par laquelle chacun s'unissant 3, tous, n'obeir 
 pourtant qu'd lui-mgme." 
 
 49Renard, p. 392. 
 
 50 Comp. discussion of rights, Benard, op. clt., pp. 400-482, 
 Tome 26. 
 
 61 Ibid, pp. 380-391. 
 
324 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 rather than a socialistic theory, to find it laid down 
 that the ultimate aim of all organization is " the pro- 
 gressive substitution of individual autonomy for all 
 regulation imposed from without."*^ Independent So- 
 cialists reiterate always that the end of association is 
 individual development, and, to that end, the fullest 
 possible liberty is necessary. When, however, liberty 
 is defined as "the rights reserved to the individual by 
 the law,"^^ and it is further said that each person is 
 to have as much liberty as is consonant with the rights 
 of others, it is evident that these definitions, and even 
 the formulation of rights that follows, give nothing 
 beyond a very general suggestion of the amount and 
 character of liberty to be expected under a socialistic 
 regime. After all, the test of the individual rights is 
 held to be that very elastic term, the well-being of so- 
 ciety.^* The socialistic idea of social justice is a widely 
 different thing from the idea of justice that usually 
 goes along with the idea of individual rights, for it in- 
 cludes the conception of entire socialistic control of 
 industrial life. It seems almost farcical to elaborate a 
 declaration of individual rights and then make such 
 a social justice the ultimate and final arbiter concern- 
 ing how much right to develop shall be accorded to 
 each individual within the association. 
 
 In fairness, it must be said of the Integral theory, 
 that the intention, if not their perception of practical 
 truths, seems honest enough. The love of personal 
 liberty is strong in the Independent Socialist, and the 
 rights which he categorically claims as inalienably 
 
 52 Renard, op. cit., p. 403. 
 B3 Ibid, p. 394. 
 64 Ibid, p. 518. 
 
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 325 
 
 those of every member of society, are even more nu- 
 merous than those an individualistic society asks for. 
 The Integral Socialists claim that the individual should 
 have reserved to him as his right,^^ perfect freedom in 
 the domain of conscience; right to fair play, to jus- 
 tice; right to choose his own country ;^^ right to se- 
 curity of life, person and property; right to free ex- 
 pression of opinion, whether by voice or by pen; right 
 to physical development and education; right to free 
 choice of a mate and to perfect freedom in sexual rela- 
 tions except in the case of a family.'''' Here are un- 
 doubtedly rights enough, more than any system of 
 positive law has ever been able to grant. But, as 
 has been said, to enumerate a series of rights is one 
 thing; to find a government which can insure them is 
 quite another. To debate the advisability of an un- 
 qualified adoption of the whole bill of rights formu- 
 lated above would be beside the point. What is here 
 
 55 For the discussion of the whole subject of rights, see 
 Renard, op. cit., pp. cit., pp. 400-417 ; also pp. 513-517. 
 
 56 The demand for this kind of freedom is evidently a re- 
 sult of the new international or anti-national feeling so preva- 
 lent in current socialism. 
 
 67 The only reservation to th3 unqualified enjoyment of 
 this right is said to be the right of society to fix the age of 
 nubility. After that, men and women shall be allowed to con- 
 trol their own destinies. Laws may only forbid marriage of 
 too close relationship and register the free contract under- 
 taken by two persons desiring to form a family. The only 
 reason which the family has for existence is the development 
 of the child. When society, doing its duty, shall replace the 
 parent in the care of the young of the community, the family 
 will have no further reason for existence. Thus Integral 
 Socialism indorses the short-sighted objections to the mar- 
 riage contract and the family which have been the regularly 
 recurring weakness of all radicals of their class. (See the 
 idealistic but interesting discussion in Renard, op. cit., pp. 
 515-517, Revue Socialiste, Tome 26.) 
 
326 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 in question is a study of the principles of Integral So- 
 cialism. It is sufficient to find how far the system of 
 social orga;nization, mapped out by Integral Socialists, 
 seems calculated to insure any such extended liberty 
 as their own fundamental principles claim as the right 
 of each individual. Before answering this question, it 
 is of first moment, in justice to the reader and to the 
 school itself, to state the carefully worked-out theory 
 regarding the functions of state, especially as these con- 
 cern the relation between the state and the individual. 
 
 In order that the rights of each member of so- 
 ciety shall be respected as fully as possible, Integral So- 
 cialists conceive that, as a general proposition, social 
 authority must be much occupied. All of the func- 
 tions usually assigned to the state^* are conceived to be- 
 long to it; it is the state that must attend to the estab- 
 lishment and regulation of public defenses, the mainte- 
 nance of public order, the regulation of the relations 
 with foreign nations and the organization of public 
 education. 
 
 The Integral Socialist's view concerning the nature 
 of these, the functions of state that give security to 
 person and property, evidence each one, a certain ap- 
 preciation of the essential weaknesses of society at the 
 present time, and a consuming desire to see them all 
 done away with. Social authority is thought of as 
 arbiter and stimulator, the peacemaker and educator for 
 the individual who creates such authority. There is 
 no part of the social fabric in which the state is not 
 
 58 The state is always called society, in pursuit of an evi- 
 dently fixed intention to avoid the word state, which is such 
 a bugbear in the eyes of all socialists. 
 
INDIVIDUAL BI&HTS. 327 
 
 believed to have of right an interest.'*® Integral So- 
 cialists, in spite of their "individualism," are entirely 
 socialists in this, that wherever they discern social evils 
 they look to remedying them by means of social inter- 
 vention. The state, as head of the public defenses, is 
 gradually to abolish militarism, for armies are regarded 
 as an evil to be dispensed with as soon as possible. It 
 follows that arbitration is the ideal for diplomatic re- 
 lations. All discussions which threaten to bring about 
 quarrels between nations are to be settled by courts of 
 arbitration.'''' The state, as preserver of the internal 
 peace of the nation, is to make justice swift and sure; 
 codes of law and judicial procedure are to be simplified 
 and the execution of the law is to aim at preventive 
 even more than curative measures. Penologists, for in- 
 stance, are recommended to guide themselves by such 
 enlightened maxims as that one which describes the 
 criminal as a " dangerous sick person," against whom 
 it is necessary to protect the rest of society, but whom 
 it is above all requisite to cure if possible by enlighten- 
 ing his intelligence and strengthening his will."^^ The 
 extreme importance and difficulty of the state function 
 as public educator is fully recognized, and the general 
 plan®^ aims most of all at establishing freedom of opin- 
 
 B» Best statement of the socialistic view of tlie function of 
 society is to be found in Kenard, op. cit., pp. 517-542, Revue 
 Socialiste, Tome 26. 
 
 60 Renard, op. cit., pp. 528, 529. 
 
 61 Ibid., p. 533. 
 
 62 Ibid, p. 535. The following are put forward as leading 
 principles for an educational system. Every child is to have 
 a similar training in the elements of education, and all edu- 
 cation is to be free. To meet the undoubted inequity of an 
 entirely free higher education supported by the whole state, 
 
328 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 ion and fullest opportunity for the special development 
 of each particular kind of capacity and talent. 
 
 These suggestive general principles might be of real 
 value, for they are those of any enlightened social 
 theory, if only Integral Socialists were better able to 
 bridge that difficult and treacherous gulf between gen- 
 eral truths and specific laws. If Integral Socialism 
 were a philosophy, not a political theory asking for the 
 earliest possible application, there would be only ap- 
 plause for these principles which it advocates, but the 
 doctrine asks for the nearly instantaneous and universal 
 
 a plan that seema really to increase the inequality of the pres- 
 ent method is proposed. Higher education is not only to be 
 unpaid for, but every minor is to be supported by the govern- 
 ment throughout the period of education, so that none may 
 lose the advantages of enlightenment on account of economic 
 disability. When it is reflected how the present system of free 
 higher education is of doubtful equity because the poor must 
 give toward the support of schools of which only the well- 
 to-do as a class get the advantages, it scarcely seems a solu- 
 tion of the question to make the government give not only 
 free education but support as well to all persons desiring 
 higher education. Unless human intelligence shall change 
 markedly, it will be the majority who will pay and the mi- 
 nority who will reap the advantage. As to the character of 
 the higher education, society is to see that each and every 
 kind of doctrine has free field; that each student be free to 
 place himself under whomsoever he please and at examina- 
 tion shall never be judged by the doctrines he advances, but 
 only by his manner of presenting them. Departing thus 
 widely from many previous socialistic schemes for education, 
 the plan is arranged in the end of extreme tolerance of all 
 opinions, and the hope for public well-being is not, as in the 
 past, based upon the general dissemination of any one set of 
 doctrines (comp. schemes of Morelly, Babeuf, and even Louis 
 Blanc ) , but upon a belief of the broadening and strengthening 
 influences of fraternity and widest culture. For full explana- 
 tion of the educational ideas, see Renard, op. cit., pp. 535- 
 542; also Paul Robin, Une manuel d'gducation Integral, Revue 
 Socialiste, Oct., 1895; or Boulard, Philoaophie et pratique du 
 Spcifilisme Integral, pp. 137, 138, 
 
TEEOBY OF GOVERNMENT. 329 
 
 realization of a pure democracy, which, in addition to 
 the powers already noted as those belonging to the 
 central authority, shall have as first and most important 
 service the duty of controlling the economic affairs 
 of the community. 
 
 It is held to be axiomatic that each individual should 
 be part of the sovereign body which makes the funda- 
 mental law and so determines the character of all asso- 
 ciation. In theory, the political autonomy of the in- 
 dividual is regarded as entire, and in practice it is to 
 be as great as possible, for it is argued that the full 
 expansion of the individual character can only be 
 brought about by a polity which recognizes this truth. 
 The system aims to give every member of the nation 
 an equal share in government, and it is, therefore, based' 
 upon universal suffrage, by which is meant a suffrage 
 irrespective of sex. The political form by which In- 
 tegral Socialism expects to accomplish its ends mayl 
 be briefly described as a democratic federation where 
 there is no administrative centralization except for the 
 purpose of organizing industry.®* Like most French 
 radicals of the century, like most contemporary so- 
 cialists, they declare that the watchword is political 
 decentralization.^ The country is to be divided into 
 small local units; these are to be coordinated and fed- 
 erated and are to be practically autonomous except, as 
 
 63 The political system of the Integral Socialists, as out- 
 lined by M. Renard, is in the Regime Soeialiste, pp. 646-652, 
 Reme Soeialiste, Tome 26. It closely follows Malon. See 
 e. g. Precis de Socialisrae, chaps. XXIX and XXX, ed. 1892. 
 
 64 Comp. e. g. the idea of the least partisan of English so- 
 cialists as expressed in the Fabian Essays, pp. 189 et seq. ; 
 also pp. 231, 232, Am. ed. 1891. 
 
330 MODERN FBENOB SOCIALISM. 
 
 has been said, for matters eoneerning the industrial 
 activity of the nation, cooperating otherwise only when 
 it is necessary to make the fundamental national law. 
 Government as an institution gets the same interpreta- 
 tion that Eousseau gave to it; it is mere executive. 
 The functionaries who are to compose it are to be 
 selected by direct election, and need to have no qualifi- 
 cation beyond being native born and twenty-one years 
 of age, unless the office asks for special equipment, when 
 there is to be a competitive examination. Eepresenta- 
 tive government is frowned upon exactly as Eousseau 
 frowned upon it; it is called "a wretched expedient 
 which makes the happiness of the nation dependent 
 upon the strength of a few men."® It is to be done away 
 with as soon as possible. Meanwhile, as long as the 
 " expedient " continues necessary, men should at least 
 seek to establish a representative government accord- 
 ing to principles, not according to personality. A 
 trust in the rationality of men and the probity of party 
 leaders scarcely warranted by anything that party 
 politics can show in the past or present, impels these 
 theorists to propose that, in order to commence the 
 better order of things, it would be best to begin by 
 voting on programs put forward by contending parties, 
 leaving to the persons supporting each program the se- 
 lection of the men who will most effectively represent 
 the successful program. Men are to vote " less and less 
 concerning men and more and more concerning 
 things." The whole scheme rests upon unlimited faith 
 in the educational power of the franchise. It is be- 
 lieved that a general and frequent participation of each 
 
 65 Cf . Rousseau. Contrat Social, Bk. Ill, ch. i. 
 
THEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 
 
 331 
 
 indiyidual in the law-making power, by means of a 
 constant use of the referendum and popular initiative 
 for everything except local ordinances, will finally make 
 the social authority what it really should be, " the or- 
 gan charged to assure to all members of society, liberty, 
 security and the satisfaction of economic needs." 
 
 Integral Socialism seems thus' to rest in plain terms, 
 as Marxism does by inference, upon an entire accept- 
 ance of the unqualified and universal value of democ- 
 racy. Now, democracy starts with the belief that the 
 rule of the general will is always for the benefit of each 
 and every individual. Men who are ready to commit 
 to the collective will the control of their standard of 
 comfort, and thus the development of their esthetic 
 and intellectual life must have great faith in human 
 nature, and especially in the efficacy of its collective 
 expression. They must believe that the general will 
 is at any given time the best guide for the conduct of 
 social affairs; that the general will can be counted upon 
 to express itself; that it is always able to express itself, 
 and that when that general will is expressed, it can 
 and will be always carried out by the functionaries 
 deputed to execute it. They must believe that in most 
 men there is a permanently active desire to see justice 
 realized not only in regard to themselves, but in re- 
 gard to others, whence it follows that each individual 
 is thought to be really ready to work toward a more 
 general content by sacrificing a share of his individual 
 well-being whenever such abnegation seems necessary 
 for the good of his neighbor. It has been too often 
 and too overwhelmingly shown, in the mass of accn- 
 
332 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 mulated experience, that the contrary of all this is more 
 likely to be the fact. Ochlocracy has usually resulted 
 wherever the theory of pure and decentralized democ- 
 racy has found a sanction in the laws of any nation 
 whose life is at all complex. Thoughtful persons thus 
 hesitate to see applied politics rest upon an unreserved 
 acceptation of the entire validity of popular judgment 
 and the undoubted efficacy of its control. Modern 
 French socialists, however, as their general principle 
 of a universally applied pure democracy makes clear, 
 do believe in the soundness of such entire faith in hu- 
 man unselfishness and judgment, and the theory they 
 advance is then, in so far, idealistic, rather than scien- 
 tific. Likewise, in that the concept of pure democracy 
 is a logical rather than an historical or practic- 
 able form of government. Integral Socialism, when 
 it advocates that form, seems thus again to repre- 
 sent a reversion to an idealistic social philosophy. 
 Upholding an ideal of government that is looked 
 upon as fit for all peoples; failing to recognize 
 the value of that form of government which 
 natural propensities and traditions have developed in 
 a given nation. Integral Socialism supports a move- 
 ment for the universal adoption of one single type of 
 government, and thus lays itself open to the challenge 
 of having neglected the fundamental principle of any 
 well-grounded political theory. 
 
 It is not the intention to deny that democracy, un- 
 der specific conditions, might be practicable and ad- 
 visable. The contention is that, as the means to con- 
 duct a large highly-organiggd DEitional life, such e^s In- 
 
TBEORY OF GOVERNMENT. 333 
 
 tegral Socialism suggests, pure democracy with the 
 accent on local government seems utterly impracticable 
 in the light of all human experience. Pure democracy, 
 with a popular initiative and referendum used as pro- 
 posed, would always make for a slowness of legislation 
 and an uncertainty of policy that would militate 
 greatly against any general well-being, not to mention 
 the constant interference with personal pursuits which 
 would be increasingly inevitable and irksome under the 
 frequent necessity of taking a hand in lawmaking. It 
 is an interesting question how far the complete politi- 
 cal freedom that is implied in the entire use of the 
 referendum and initiative, is consonant with a general 
 social freedom. The greatly increased leisure of each 
 member of society that is promised under the socialist 
 regime seems, on any serious thought, much in jeopardy 
 in consideration of the numerous political services 
 which would be entailed by the conscientious perform- 
 ance of the civic duties it would impose. If it be ar- 
 gued that under the democratic system which the school 
 advances, it is not intended to leave large areas to demo- 
 cratic control; that by accenting the communal life the 
 intention is to reduce the political unit to the size tra- 
 ditionally held necessary for the successful conduct of 
 democratic government, it might then be fairly replied 
 that the whole success of highly-developed civilized life, 
 such as large cities have, rightly or wrongly, taught 
 men to consider necessary for their best development 
 and enjoyment; that is, a civilized life such as Integral 
 Socialism itself indorses, requires communal units 
 which shall be composed of not less than 500,000 per- 
 
334 MODERn FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 sons. Unless the separate groups be of at least this 
 size, the pecuniary support which advance civilization 
 must ask of each individual in the interests of the sani- 
 tary and moral efficiency of a collective life, would bear 
 too heavily upon each individual. Modern communi- 
 ties demand then that which, relative to the question in 
 hand, is a large number of persons; large groups of 
 persons have never yet been successfully controlled on 
 purely democratic lines, such as the Integral scheme de- 
 mands, nor does the outlook seem to promise anything 
 different in any near future. Unless then, along with 
 an alteration in political institutions, the new social 
 theory can promise to give to Man, not some men, the 
 as yet unrealized power to see and act swiftly for the 
 general good, unless it can promise to give to collective 
 man the power to resist his apparently innate tendency 
 to fall under personal leadership, and finally can pledge 
 itself to give him the willingness to be unselfishly first 
 and almost absorbingly a citizen, unless this scarcely 
 thinkable psychological change can be effected through- 
 out the social fabric, it does not seem probable that a 
 decentralized democracy, such as Integral Socialism 
 plans, can get a permanent place as a reliable and help- 
 ful medium for such social direction and cooperation 
 as is necessary for any highly organized society. 
 
 It would seem then that the political form at which 
 Integral Socialism aims, by no means makes absolutely 
 certain those individual rights which the system in- 
 tends to protect and foster. On the contrary, there 
 seems attendant upon the plan the real danger of a 
 constant and fretting uncertainty as to the national 
 
PROBLEM OF PROPERTY. 335 
 
 policy and a wearing interference with personal pur- 
 suits, along with, an all-pervading danger of an insuffi- 
 cient or an arbitrary and despotic social control, which 
 can do so much to weaken or degenerate the individual 
 character, and to oppress in no uncertain way an ap- 
 preciable part of the community. This is true with ad- 
 ditional force when the plea for vesting in society the 
 control of the industrial life is considered. 
 
 The immediate aim of this social philosophy is 
 of course to invest society with the controlling power in 
 relation to the industrial domain. It is this function 
 of society which, being held at once most important 
 and most novel, gets most attention and most justifica- 
 tion. Integral Socialists recognize that their plan for 
 the economic organization of society rests upon some 
 principles which represent an important separation 
 from recognized theory. They know that they are mak- 
 ing assertions which are at least open to argument 
 when they hold that it is just and beneficial for society 
 to own all its productive property; when they contend 
 that each man must give of his labor where he can, 
 and must receive the support of society where he is in- 
 capable of earning his own living; or when, finally, they 
 assert that the labor which each man gives toward social 
 production is that which at once gives value to the ar- 
 ticle he creates and establishes the measure of his share 
 in the whole product. It is these three propositions 
 which are chief in the eyes of the school; these estab- 
 lished, they believe the social direction of the industrial 
 domain to be justified both from the ethical and the util- 
 itarian point of view. 
 
336 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 But there is one thing they feel called upon to do 
 preliminary to proving the validity of these claims. 
 Since Integral Socialists have it most at heart to demon- 
 strate the equity of their aims, it is of first interest to 
 them to show why society and not the individual has 
 the right to the deciding voice in the adjustment of all 
 economic relations. 
 
 Integral philosophy says truly enough that the indi- 
 vidual comes into the world with an enormous debt to 
 past ages, a debt accumulated for him in the mass of 
 stored-up knowledge which society puts at his disposal, 
 especially the knowledge of how to satisfy his wants 
 readily. His original share in knowing how to produce 
 or in the actual work of production is said to be infini- 
 tesimal compared to the share of society; his right to 
 the initiative in question of production is therefore held 
 to be comparatively small. The fact is altogether re- 
 jected that such arguments apply with additional force 
 to the political sphere. The debt of the individual to 
 society is indisputable, but surely no other debt is sec- 
 ondary to that which he owes the public authority that 
 has given him the security without which there could 
 have been no development of the productive facilities 
 whereby he has benefited so much. Following this ar- 
 gument of the Integral school, the individual could as 
 well be denied his initiative in political affairs as in 
 those purely economic. If social interference with ab- 
 solute economic freedom could find no better argument 
 than this, it would surely have no right to be rationally 
 considered. 
 
 However, Integral Socialism, as has been shown, 
 
PROBLEM OF PROPERTY. 337 
 
 leaves the individual entirely free in the political do- 
 main, but bravely contends with no sounder argument 
 than the one just given, that in his industrial activity, 
 justice demands that he be denied a position of inde- 
 pendence. The right and duty of social control in the 
 economic domain is taken as a premise of the whole 
 Integral Socialistic theory. The school next under- 
 takes to show how, in order to fulfill effectively its func- 
 tion of directing industrial activity, society must hold 
 all land and other fixed means of production. 
 
 Clearly realizing that, in assuming collective control 
 of land and the other means of production, they are 
 assuming that which needs defense, M. Kenard and 
 those who agree with him are at great pains to prove 
 that social ownership of the source and means of pro- 
 duction is both " just and beneficial " for the individ- 
 ual.®* The arguments advanced are not new in the so- 
 cialistic theory. There is less than the wonted modem 
 tendency to treat the question of property as a purely 
 economic question instead of keeping it where it rightly 
 belongs in the legal or ethical field. Integral Socialists 
 are above all anxious to prove that it is just for society 
 to hold property, and on this point the grounds of the 
 arguments adopted are entirely ethical; there is, how- 
 ever, a weak additional claim for the beneficial results 
 of such property-holding where beneficial is meant in 
 an economic sense. 
 
 ssThe problem of property is discussed in full by Renard, 
 in " Le Regime Socialiste," p. 396 and pp. 405-417, Revue So- 
 cialiste, Tome 26. Comp. also an article Propri6t6 individuelle 
 et Propriete sociale" by De Potter in the Revue Socialiste, 
 Jan., 1898, p. 70. 
 
338 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 To show the justice of making productive property 
 collective, the arguments start from the "fruits of 
 labor " axiom. It is held proven, as it has been con- 
 tended by socialists for a century, that what a man earns 
 by his own labor belongs to him, but that that which is 
 made by no man, as land, or that which is the result 
 of social eilort, as productive capital, can rightfully be- 
 long to none but the collectivity. Under modern con- 
 ditions it is asserted, all labor is of necessity collective 
 labor; and this, connoting collective means of labor, con- 
 notes as well social ownership of everything but con- 
 sumption goods. More, it is insisted that men have 
 only a right to whatever they may earn during their 
 lifetime, for it is considered plain that individual prop- 
 erty becomes collective property whenever it ceases to 
 be the result of individual earnings. It is besides 
 urged, as it has often been before, that in leaving to 
 society whatever they may have amassed, men are only 
 paying to society a portion of the debt they owe it for 
 their own development. The state is then held to be 
 the only rightful owner and inheritor of collective prop- 
 erty. The old hope stirs again to do away with the 
 " domination of money, one of the greatest slaveries that 
 ever existed," and this change is looked for when the 
 ownership of productive property is where it ought to 
 be, in the hands of the collectivity. 
 
 All of this might be ethically sound enough if the 
 right to the fruits of labor was as axiomatic as it is 
 taken to be. Independent Socialists themselves say, 
 that right rests with the law; that it is the law made by 
 society that constitutes social justice. Where then, does 
 
PROBLEM OF PROPERTY. 339 
 
 a " right to the fruits of labor " come from until society 
 has made it? Why a right to fruits of labor any more 
 than a right to unlimited leisure or the like? If there 
 be fundamental rights external to society which can 
 intrude as subversive to a given social order, the su- 
 preme value of social control seems doubtful. If all 
 rights exist only as society grants them, then the 
 " right to the fruits of labor " must be socially con- 
 sented to, before it can be " just " that it shall become 
 the basis for a new partition of property. Wherever 
 society shall, by modern methods of concurrence, con- 
 sent to such an arrangement, it is probable that it will 
 come about; it will then certainly be just. Until such 
 a time the " right to the fruits of labor " seems an un- 
 certain foundation for an ethical or legal plea. 
 
 It is curious, that while M. Eenard and the 
 rest of the school assert the injustice of the present 
 private property form, they recognize national property. 
 It is certain that national property is usually derived 
 from spoliation or usurpation. Is that just for society 
 which is inequitable for the individual? Unless the 
 force which gained national territory be called labor, 
 which, of course, subverts the whole theory, national 
 property seems as iniquitous as private property. To 
 an ordinary. mind, there seems as little justification for 
 asking the individual who holds large shares of col- 
 lective capital to give it up, as there would be to ask 
 the American nation to move off and give up the land 
 to the aborigines who were certainly rather forcibly 
 dispossessed of it. 
 
 Integral Socialists are possibly uncertain themselves 
 regarding the soundness of their purely " just " claims. 
 
340 MODERN FRENCH SOClALISU. 
 
 for they are at even greater pains to show that, jiist or 
 unjust, as a mere question of better production of 
 wealth, it is at present best for the community to hold 
 all production property. The various arguments*'' that 
 are brought forward to show how much more effective 
 social production would be under this form of land- 
 holding, all aim to demonstrate that this method of con- 
 ducting production would not impair the quality and 
 usefulness of the individual initiative whose influence 
 on the final results of industrial activity is not denied. 
 Men are supposed to have sufficient spur to self-inter- 
 ested activity when they can foresee as they are said 
 to be able to foresee under the system proposed, that the 
 uet, and so the greater the sum of pleasures which will 
 larger their personal effort, the greater will be the prod- 
 result for each member of society. On the other hand, 
 it is believed that no diminution in product will really 
 result from a possibly diminished interest in gain, 
 whether that interest has been an egotistic or an altru- 
 istic one. If it has been the egotist who has made 
 money, it has also been the egotist who has wasted that 
 which he has never made. Under the land tenure pro- 
 posed, it is expected that the equilibrium will be re- 
 stored by making both kinds of persons work. Or, 
 again, if men have labored for their children, those 
 children, benefited thus beyond their deserts or their 
 higher real need, have not been as helpful to the com- 
 munity as they would be under a social arrangement 
 that would equip them for a life-work and then make 
 them masters of their own fate. Thus again, an equi- 
 librium would be established; if the parent's labor be 
 6T Compare Renard, op. cit., pp. 406-409. 
 
PROBLEM OF PROPERTY. 341 
 
 diminished, that of the child will perforce increase, and 
 each will really be benefited. " The social evil comes 
 above all from the hereditary transmission of unlimited 
 property, a result which the triumph of individualism 
 produces and perpetrates,"^ and the benefits which will 
 accrue from the abolition of private bequests are 
 thought to be tenfold greater than those which the in- 
 dividual or society now gains from the perpetuation of 
 the custom in any of its forms. 
 
 It is not only the Integral Socialist who has recog- 
 nized the evils of unrestrained accumulation of produc- 
 tive property, and the contention that a certain social 
 interference with the right of bequest is beneficial and 
 necessary, has not waited until now for recognition. 
 But there is a great distinction between the gradual 
 checking of an unwarranted accumulation of wealth, 
 with the power for good or ill that it brings, and the 
 immediate and entire concentration of all productive 
 property in the hands of society. Even granting the 
 highly improbable supposition that the individual can 
 escape the baneful results of the administrative awk- 
 wardness and political corruption which almost of ne- 
 cessity are, one or both, attendant upon a democratic 
 government, there remains to be considered, as against 
 the benefits detailed, the probable check to the develop- 
 ment of the individual which would come of necessity, 
 when all social service was consciously turned ove? to 
 the state. A consciousness of social efiiciency, a 
 knowledge of the duty of actually working for others, 
 
 ssAlaville. De la liberty Individuelle par le coUectivisme, 
 Bevue Sociftliste, Tome 26, p. 442, 
 
342 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 has also a determining part in shaping the final results 
 of a nation's industry. The sort of individual initia- 
 tive which might remain effective even when the stimu- 
 lant to the satisfaction of the animal wants was re- 
 moved, is not the only kind of initiative that counts, 
 even in the purely economic sense. Economists as 
 well as others, recognize that the greed for wealth is 
 not in itself the only impulse to an effective share in 
 production, and so, even granting that the primitive 
 spur to action be left unimpaired or eounterhalanced, the 
 social benefits of common holding do not seem entirely 
 proven. To abruptly and entirely separate the individ- 
 ual from all productive property and to give to society 
 a scarcely limited responsibility for the material well- 
 being of the nation, would be to destroy the individual's 
 sense of personal responsibility, to check too suddenly 
 the spur to that development of his sympathetic impulses 
 which results from a voluntary service rendered to soci- 
 ety, or a part of society. Without this means to highest 
 culture, men are cut away from the chief source of in- 
 dividual benevolence and self-sacrifice, and such an ar- 
 rangement would menace the social well-being in a way 
 that would probably diminish even the social product. 
 All past experiment in common land-holding suggests 
 an effect upon human nature which is anything but 
 "beneficial," whether the term have reference to the 
 ethical or economic character of the community. If 
 in that past, such social arrangements have ended in 
 stunting character, there seems much reason for weigh- 
 ing carefully before adopting such a form of land ten- 
 ure in the future. There is no intention to deny that 
 
SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 343 
 
 with the progress of the race, a wider social control of 
 property may not come about as a higher expression of 
 the property idea; the objection is rather to an arbitrary 
 and wholesale arrangement of all contemporary society 
 under any such system. To make social control of pro- 
 ductive property the means to individual development 
 seems unjustifiable; to count it as a possible property- 
 form which shall develop as the ultimate result of an al- 
 tered and elevated type of the individual and society, is 
 undertaking a work of forecasting that is outside the 
 province of the sociologist, and need not therefore be 
 debated. It can fairly be asserted that this plan for 
 the summary appropriation of all productive property 
 by the state, with the expectation of thus establishing 
 a better means for the development of the individuals 
 of the community, seems a plan which, in view of the 
 existing facts regarding the psychological development 
 of the peoples of the earth, would be directly contrary 
 to the very ends it has in view. 
 
 Those who aim at a new social regime, to be 
 brought about as soon as possible, are so certain that the 
 state functioning as a controlling influence in the eco- 
 nomic domain will be of the greatest immediate benefit, 
 that the most desirable method of exercising that office 
 is outlined with some detail and much hopefulness. On 
 the question of property, it has been seen that there is 
 a real inconsistency in the plans of the socialists. The 
 failing continues throughout the system. 
 
 It has been said that the new social regime beside 
 asking as a general principle for the collective holding 
 of productive property, would ask also for a universal 
 
544 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 obligation to labor.®® We are not informed as to 
 whether this word universal, when applied here, means, 
 as in relation to suffrage, a universality irrespective of 
 sex; it is only insisted that it is just and beneficial that 
 each adult member of the community give a share of 
 labor toward the satisfaction of his own and the whole 
 Social Demand. This obligation to labor is not con- 
 ceded to be in any way a menace to the independent 
 action of each individual. Individual freedom, it is 
 contended, is no more threatened by an obligatory labor 
 service than it is by jury duty or military duty, and the 
 duty of labor has beside, it is argued, this advantage of 
 a direct personal return and a larger satisfaction of per- 
 sonal tastes, since each man is to be free to follow his 
 own inclination. The socialistic phrases of the past are 
 not wanting. We are told that when idlers and para- 
 sites, whether rich or poor, shall be forced to work, 
 there will be an increased product, a more equal effort, 
 and a larger enjoyment for the greatest number. There 
 is so little that is new in this idea of imposing a duty 
 of labor upon every member of society and the weak- 
 nesses of the principle have so often been pointed out, 
 that it would need only a passing mention did it not 
 underlie a somewhat novel plan for carrying on the 
 work of production. The whole aim of the regime 
 proposed, it is to be remembered, is a better develop- 
 ment of the individual, and therefore the desire for 
 changes in present industrial relations. To give the 
 outlines of the plan will be enough to suggest how little 
 
 69Comp. Renard, op. cit., p. 401, Tome 26, Revue Socialiste; 
 also pp. 664 et seq. 
 
BtJPPLf AiTD bUMAifb. 345 
 
 the changes desired seem really calculated to accom- 
 plish what is intended. In brief, the scheme for fur- 
 thering a larger individual development is as follows :™ 
 The nation, for purposes of production and distribu- 
 tion, is to be suffered to divide itself according to per- 
 sonal inclination, into three economic groups, corporate 
 groups, semi-corporate and semi-administrative groups, 
 and finally, a Bureau of Statistics. By corporate 
 groups are really meant a series of trades-unions, which 
 shall organize autonomously, except where their inter- 
 ests touch those of all society; the semi-corporative, 
 semi-administrative groups are to be made up of per- 
 sons who are to carry out the public will. As has been 
 already noted, these public functionaries are to be 
 chosen first by competitive examination and then by 
 general election from the list of those who have success- 
 fully passed such examination. The members of the 
 Bureau of Statistics receive office in the same way. The 
 duty of this bureau is to collect all necessary data from 
 the records of the various trades and to be able to ren- 
 der to the nation an annual account of the social reve- 
 nue; to control the allotment of tasks and to determine 
 from the whole product the personal revenue of each 
 workman. Passing over the numerous objections that 
 might occur to any practical mind, the doubt as to the 
 likelihood that the unions could organize automatically 
 or as to the particular permanent value of the proposed 
 method of choosing public functionaries, the question 
 arises as to how the equilibrium in the various trades 
 is to be preserved. 
 
 70 This plan for the organization of production will be found 
 in Renard, op. cit., pp. 648-666. 
 
346 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 Those who advocate this plan of economic organiza- 
 tion meet fairly the argument that under the entire 
 freedom in the choice of kind of labor implied by the 
 scheme, tastes might drift predominatingly in one di- 
 rection, and certain trades be entirely neglectedJ^ It 
 is conceded that there is a variation in the agreeable- 
 ness and intensity of all labor such that, if no arrange- 
 ment to the contrary is made, certain trades would be 
 over-filled and others left empty. To offset this and to ar- 
 range for a certain automatic equilibrium in the supply 
 of each trade on lines which recognize individual initia- 
 tive, it is to be provided that in each occupation the 
 amount of work to be done shall be divided by the num- 
 ber of workers applying, and the quotient thus obtained 
 shall be used as a coefiBeient to modify the normal labor- 
 time of each laborer. It is then believed that since, in 
 much sought-after trades, there will be less work per 
 capita and the remuneration therefore less, young per- 
 sons entering the labor field, naturally apt to want high 
 returns, will be likely to enter the less crowded pro- 
 fessions. Continued progress in mechanical appliances, 
 coupled with the higher education of the workman, 
 will, it is thought, make for the greatest possible mo- 
 bility of labor, so that, if changes of profession be 
 necessary, such changes will bring no misery, as they 
 do to-day. In the liberal professions, whenever it be- 
 comes necessary to equilibrate the supply and de- 
 mand, it will only be requisite to raise the standard 
 of requirements. As to certain trades whose offices 
 no one might wish to perform, these, it is suggested, 
 
 Ti R«nard, op. cit., pp. 10-16 (in Revue Socialiste, Tome 
 27). 
 
SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 347 
 
 could perhaps be made attractive by special re- 
 muneration which would tempt offers of service, or 
 else regulations similar to those which now enforce 
 military or jury duty could arrange that such tasks 
 be equitably distributed^^ With the exception of the 
 last provision, which hardly meets the general in- 
 tention of an increased independence of choice, the dif- 
 ferent types of labor, the variety of service necessary to 
 supply a social demand seem somewhat ingeniously ar- 
 ranged for. But after all, equilibrating the labor sup- 
 ply is a secondary consideration. In an economic or- 
 ganization which aims at the development of the indi- 
 vidual by way of the greatest possible liberty, the vital 
 economic question is the manner in which the individ- 
 ual's wants are to be satisfied. It is then this part of 
 the Integral scheme which it is of first interest to un- 
 derstand. 
 
 The method suggested is of the simplest.''^ The Sta- 
 tistical Bureau, as has been noted, is to collect all nec- 
 essary figures for the calculation of the individual and 
 social need. In this regard, its work is to consist in 
 making up a budget of the labor that must be done in 
 order to satisfy all real wants. It is not, however, the 
 Statistical Bureau that determines the " Social De- 
 sires." It is the whole society, acting on information 
 furnished by the Statistical Bureau, that will settle 
 what social needs shall be satisfied by the Social Labor. 
 
 T2 What a store of altruism one must have ready when sum- 
 moned to take one's turn at carting the city refuse, or serv- 
 ing as a stoker! 
 
 73 The plan is given in full in Renard, op. cit., pp. 669-678 ; 
 also pp. 13-16, Tome 27, Revue Socialiste. 
 
348 MODERN FRENCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 Starting with the classification of wants as relative 
 and absolute wants, both as regards the individual and 
 the social want, reckoning absolute wants of the indi- 
 vidual as food, clothing, certain furnishings and heat- 
 ing; and social necessities as those means required for 
 maintaining public service, those required to maintain 
 the social capital, and certain additional moneys neces- 
 sary for national exchange, the sum of these personal 
 and social wants is said to be that whole Social Desire 
 which it is imperative to supply annually. The theo- 
 rist who advances this view of needs, seems oblivious to 
 the fact that either the individual or the social wants 
 as stated are capable of extension in each category 
 named, until they cover pretty well everything called 
 luxuries, and that, therefore, in restricting the classifi- 
 cation of wants after this fashion, nothing very real 
 has been said. The supposition, on the contrary, seems 
 to be that the problem of necessary wants has been set- 
 tled. These absolute wants of society and the individ- 
 ual, a sum of social labor must annually supply. All 
 additional wants are to be supplied at the will of the 
 collectivity, which shall vote an increase in the scale of 
 wants as fast as it desires, possibly, Eenard suggests, by 
 formulating a "New Declaration of the Political and 
 Economic Eights of Man and of the Citizen."''* 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable point in this social sys- 
 tem, which sets out to arrange for a larger individual 
 freedom, enjoyment and development for each member 
 of society is the fact that it creates a regulated Social 
 Desire. To regulate by a majority vote the satisfaction 
 
 T4 Comp. Eenard, op. cit., p. 21, Kevue Socialiste, Tome 27. 
 
SUPPLY AND DEMAND. ■ 349 
 
 of the social, and thus of the individual desire, seems 
 curiously at odds with any justified expectation of an 
 individual development by way of complete individual 
 freedom. This new regime intends that each individual 
 must wait upon the pleasure of the community before 
 he can be supplied with much beyond the necessaries 
 of life. According to their own theory, the quality, 
 and strength of men's lives are said to wait upon the 
 quality and quantity of the supply of commodities, and 
 the way in which these commodities are distributed. 
 Yet under the plan proposed, the individual will be 
 able to satisfy these higher needs only as fast as the 
 majority voice of the community shall permit. The im- 
 mediate satisfaction of the real wants of the greatest 
 number may perhaps be expected from such an arrange- 
 ment, but the integral development of each and all 
 seems doubtful. Thus without actively opposing in- 
 tellectual superiority, even though aiming to encourage 
 it, this plan of social organization seems certain to mili- 
 tate against it both because of the leveling probabilities 
 just suggested, and for another reason. A daily quota 
 of effort is to be exacted from each member of the col- 
 lectivity; but if machines are certain to be provided, and 
 the laws of the industrial organization arrange that each 
 one knows for a certainty that a place will be found 
 for him, it seems more than probable that all this will 
 of necessity reduce to zero what little intellectual ef- 
 fort is now necessary to carry on mechanical production. 
 The lot of most persons must be the mere tending of 
 a machine, and that lot has little to be said for it as a 
 means to intellectual development. The road to intel- 
 
350 MODERN FttmCE SOCIALISM. 
 
 lectual growth seems always to have been by way of the 
 stimulus that comes from necessity for struggle. Re- 
 move this impetus to effort and there seems every likeli- 
 hood that a serious impediment would arise to that 
 very integral development which Integral Socialism is 
 so eager to maintain as the prime end of all social or- 
 ganization. This fact has not seemed to strike Integral 
 socialists at all, and this because what they have in real- 
 ity at heart is not the individual's interest, but rather 
 the interests of the greatest number. Although claim- 
 ing so much for the individual, it is really social justice 
 that Integral socialistic theory seeks to establish. The 
 disharmony between a conception of social justice which 
 would control even the play of personal tastes, and any 
 real integral development of the individual, seems ob- 
 vious. Nothing that either past or present can show 
 suggests that the idea of social justice means much more 
 than the liberty of the greatest number to force their 
 will upon the minority, and nothing in the past or pres- 
 ent seems to warrant the expectation that the individual 
 or society can develop unless society leave to the indi- 
 vidual the spur of some strong personal incentive to 
 effort, unless it leaves to him the sense of a personal 
 responsibility for his own and the community's well- 
 being. It is precisely this vital force to progress that 
 the plan of the Integral socialist seems seriously to 
 menace. 
 
 This scheme for the "integral development of the 
 individual " has a final argument to be noted. It aims 
 to make the labor hour the unit of value both for dis- 
 tribution of product and as a medium of exchange. 
 
SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 351 
 
 The method by which to determine the share of the 
 Social Product belonging to each individual is of the 
 simplest. The general formula for distribution runs 
 "to each according to his labor; to each according to 
 his needs."''^ The whole number of hours required to 
 satisfy the social desire having been divided by the 
 number of laborers offering themselves, the average 
 number of hours required of each laborer will be deter- 
 mined. Since the average Labor Hour is regarded as 
 the unit of value/* the average number of hours required 
 of each laborer can be used both as the determinant of 
 the share of labor he owes to the collectivity and as the 
 measure of his share of the reward. To apportion the 
 separate shares in the whole product, the Statistical 
 Bureau has only to go through a simple process of addi- 
 tion and subtraction. After the whole product is gath- 
 ered together, in order to give to each laborer the just 
 share of the return which is the whole aim of the 
 economic part of the system, calculation is to be made 
 of the social revenue in agriculture and manufactures. 
 From this total the dividends of each person can be 
 computed. Before calculating the dividends of the in- 
 dividual, a subtraction is to be made of (1) a quantity 
 of product to belong to the nation and to be set aside 
 in case of drought, famine, etc.; (2) a certain quantity 
 of product to be reserved for international exchange; 
 (3) a certain amount of product to be devoted to the 
 support of persons unable to work, to the maintenance 
 of children and of persons whose labors produce no 
 
 75 Comp. the formulae of Saint Simon and Blanc. 
 
 76 See infra, p. 357. 
 
352 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 measurable result." Such deduction made, it will only 
 be necessary to divide the remaining sum of products 
 by the sums of hours which was required to produce 
 them, and the average dividend of each individual will 
 be foundJ* 
 
 As to the question of the manner of exchanging the 
 product which shall have been created by the collectiv- 
 ity, M. Eenard passes it over lightly, as a question so 
 relative that it may largely be left to the future. It is, 
 however, held to be probable that exchange will be ef- 
 fected by means of social shares corresponding to the 
 number of the shares apportioned to each laborer. 
 These shares, non-transferable and good for a lifetime 
 only, will serve as the money necessary to purchase that 
 which the individual may desire. Such commodities 
 as he may wish for will be found in large national and 
 communal'storehouses, like the department store of the 
 present day. 
 
 As must be evident, tlie whole claim for the equity 
 of this plan of distribution, according to labor time, 
 rests upon the theory that Labor is Value. It is, of 
 course, the Labor Value theory which the Integral So- 
 cialists, as well as the Marxists, advance, but the argu- 
 ment is not quite the same as that of the Scientific 
 
 77 Officials, artists, scientists and the like are thus to be 
 under public protection. Compare Renard, op. cit., p. 670. 
 
 TSRenard, op. cit., p. 660. M. Renard is careful to antici- 
 pate any eritlcism that might arise concerning the probable 
 small share which such a progress of distribution would give 
 to each member of society. He points out with some elabora- 
 tion that the personal revenue of each member of the col- 
 lectivity will be of two kinds: (1) a sum of collective enjoy- 
 ments furnished by the collectivity; (2) a sum of personal 
 enjoyment, the result of his own efforts, and that, therefore, 
 the second category need not represent a very large amount. 
 
THEORY OF VALUE. 353 
 
 Socialist." In the argument of the school under dis- 
 cussion, utility is not excluded from value, when value 
 as the result of a personal transaction is in question. 
 It is admitted that to have value a thing must satisfy 
 a desire, that is, it must have utility as well as be the 
 result of a certain amount of labor. Value is said to 
 be " the relation between two variable quantities, the 
 intensity of desire and the sum of labor necessary to 
 satisfy it."^ Value always functions as need of the 
 consumer, and as labor of the producer. In a word, 
 Integral socialism reasons soundly enough and recog- 
 nizes that value in an exchange between persons is a 
 fact of distribution rather than one of production. 
 However, the school makes a sharp distinction between 
 value in a bargain between two persons and the value 
 of an article produced and marketed by associated 
 workers. The measure in society, it is said, cannot be 
 furnished by the individual taste. The value of a com- 
 modity in society is claimed to be the " Social average 
 which results from the different valuations and condi- 
 tions between buyer and seller, and it is therefore ar- 
 gued that to measure value, it must first be socialized.** 
 When this has been done, it is found that social desire 
 and social labor continue to be the opposing elements 
 of value. But social desire will be a constant, because 
 under the new regime, it is to be determined; it can 
 thus be excluded and Social Labor will be left as the 
 only real determinant of Social value. The sum of so- 
 
 79 Discussion of the Value theory is in Kenard, op. cit., 
 pp. 1-16, Revue Socialiste, Tome 27. 
 
 80 Ibid, p. 3. 
 
 81 Ibid, p. 5. 
 
554 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 cial labor, " valuable according to the progress of agri- 
 culture and of industrial appliances, in its turn makes 
 value vary, and so permits that value to be measured." 
 Intensity of labor being only indirectly measurable, it 
 is not held to be a reliable basis for measurement, and 
 60 the other element of labor, the time, is taken as a 
 measure of value. Thus the method to be followed by 
 the Statistical Bureau of totalizing the number of 
 hours required to produce a given quantity of similar 
 things and dividing this number of things produced, 
 will, it is said, give a quotient which is the equitable 
 reward accruing to each laborer who has had a share 
 in the creation of the values. In this way, it is claimed 
 that a given commodity may equitably be said to be 
 worth so many hours of social labor. For this reason, 
 the average labor hour is the unit of value, and all dis- 
 tribution and exchange will take place on the basis of 
 such a unit of value. 
 
 In view of reasoning just set down, the difference 
 between this and the Marxian argument will at once ap- 
 pear. When the doctrine of labor as value starts from 
 a special industrial system, arbitrarily controlled by 
 the collective will, the reasoning is sound enough. It 
 is entirely possible under a controlled demand to make 
 value a fact of production, and the value of an article 
 equal to its cost of production. Given a monopoly 
 product and the social desire annually determined by 
 the authorities and the rest might easily follow. It is 
 difficult to follow the intricacies of calculation neces- 
 sary for estimating justly the whole social labor in- 
 volved in production. All the social forces cooperating 
 
THEORY OF VALUE. 355, 
 
 to a given product, those indirect agents for the secur- 
 ity that permits production, as well as the direct and 
 multiform industrial factors, ought in justice to be sev- 
 erally reckoned, yet it seems doubtful if in the new- 
 regime they could or would be taken into account. 
 There seems a further and evident injustice both to 
 the individual and to society in neglecting to consider 
 the difference in intensity and quality of labor. The 
 plan seems then full of pitfalls for him who, like the 
 Integral socialists, aims first of all at entire justice; but 
 if this consideration be set aside, there is nothing to 
 prevent value becoming, under the system proposed, a 
 fact of production and being measured by the Social 
 labor time, where this latter means the social cost of 
 production. 
 
 With regard to the Integral School then, the ques- 
 tion does not turn upon the validity of their theory of 
 value, which, be it noted in passing, is not used here 
 in the way the Marxists use it, as a means to stir rancor, 
 but only as a justification for the new scheme of distri- 
 bution. Instead of discussing their theory of value, a 
 theory which could only hold good if a different kind of 
 economic ©rganization were established, it is rather of 
 interest to discuss the advisability and consistency of 
 the whole system. Such a system as has been seen, asks 
 for two noteworthy and arbitrary alterations in accepted 
 social arrangements, the collective control of land and 
 other means of production and a regulated social desire. 
 It has been sufficiently pointed out how contrary these 
 plans seem to the end in view. This scheme for dis- 
 tribution which rests upon absolute democracy, which 
 
g56 MODERN FBENCB SOCIALISM. 
 
 deprives the individual of a deciding voice in the supply 
 of his economic wants, which makes a given quota of 
 labor obligatory and neglects in that labor its quality 
 to give precedence to its mere quantity, seems one 
 which at every point menaces the stimulus to individual 
 capacity which is so inseparable from any real progress, 
 individual or social. Every one of the important propo- 
 sitions of the scheme would seem to obstruct seriously 
 that which the leading principle of the plan aims to 
 preserve, protect and foster most carefully. It is hardly 
 disputable that a democratic industrial organization 
 such as the one planned by the Integral socialists would 
 at best threaten each man with a slavery to society 
 greater than ever, a slavery both in his political service 
 and his personal needs, and would be more than likely 
 to do away with a fruitful source of that inventiveness 
 and individual energy which all thinkers agree are at 
 the root of the growth of society. As time works 
 its mysterious changes, it may be that the essential qual- 
 ity of such changes will bring a greater social control 
 over certain departments of individual life. After each 
 member of society has, up to the point where it be- 
 comes instinct, slowly learned the lesson of his direct 
 responsibility for the social institutions under which he 
 lives, just as he now knows instinctively his responsi- 
 bility for the best possible individual and domestic 
 well-being, he may be able to act oftener on a collective 
 rather than a purely personal initiative. Men may 
 slowly come to work as instinctively for a sound social 
 life, as they now do for the best preservation of them- 
 selves and their families, but scarce the first pages of 
 
SUMMARY OF INTEGRAL SOCIALISM. 357 
 
 the lesson have as yet been learned. Perhaps through 
 the stumbling and mistakes attendant upon experiment 
 in institutions, the new type of individual is to be de- 
 veloped; but it seems eminently desirable that the ex- 
 periment shall not, for a long time, at any rate, be in 
 the direction toward which Integral socialism would 
 lead. 
 
 III. 
 
 In this study of the principles of modern French 
 Socialism, it remains to sum up briefly the general char- 
 acter of that doctrine. 
 
 When all is said the chief differences between the in- 
 dependent school and the Marxists is a philosophical 
 one, but that difference is so fundamental to all others 
 that it gives an altered tone to the whole doctrine. In- 
 dependent Socialists have adopted a strong and admir- 
 able theory of social progress. They express as nearly 
 as we know them, what seem to be fundamental truths 
 concerning the relation of man to man and man to so- 
 ciety. They do not deny that man is " master of his 
 fate ; " they would only show his extreme dependence 
 upon society for his development and mental force. 
 They do not reduce all aims to those that end in self, 
 nor do they make a bitter class struggle the sole means 
 to progress. Theirs is a socialism which seeks to in- 
 crease cooperation and community of interests, sym- 
 pathy and growth of the individual by sympathy. Their 
 schemes for social reform aim to give to both the hand 
 and the brain of every member of the community a 
 noble and fitting work, and to both a larger share than 
 heretofore in the wealth they must together create. 
 
358 MODERN FRENCH SOCIALISM. 
 
 It would be to decry the best teachings of our day 
 to criticise the Independent Socialist in his doctrine 
 of social progress, but it would be a fundamental mis- 
 take to say that because his primary principles are 
 sound, his whole doctrine is therefore valid. The 
 school fails when it seeks to apply its principles, when 
 it tries to cope with reality. When it would probe too 
 far into the future, and would demonstrate what a just 
 and beneficial regime should be, it falls short, as has 
 been suflBciently shown. 
 
 In summary, it is interesting to note that after all 
 it is only on this doctrine of progress that the two 
 schools separate. Both schools stand clearly for the 
 idea of progress, differing only as to whether such prog- 
 ress is the result of physiological or psychological 
 causes. Both stand without separation of doctrine for 
 individual rights, for decentralized and unqualified 
 democracy, and for that interpretation of economic 
 freedom which holds it necessary that each individual be 
 socially controlled in his industrial activity exactly as 
 he must, for the general well-being, be checked in the 
 entire exercise of his civil and political liberty. These 
 then are the fundamental principles of modern French 
 Socialism. ' 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOB CHAPTER TI. 359 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Contemporary French Sooialistic Pamphlets and Books: 
 Bertrand. Qu'est — ce que le Socialiame; La Co-opfiration, 
 Paris editions, 1896. — Brissao. R6sum6 populaire du Social- 
 isme; Socialisme CoUeotiviste ; Leurs Arguments Anti-colleeti- 
 vistes, Paris editions { undated ) . — BotUard. Philosophie et 
 Pratique du Collectivisme Integral rgvolutionnaire, ed. Lib. 
 Socialiste, Paris, 1897. — Deville. Principes Soeialistes, ed. 
 Giard et Briere, Paris, 1896. — Guesde. Collectivisme au Col- 
 lege de France, ed. Derveaux, Paris, 1886; Collectivisme au 
 Palais Bourbon, ed. Lille, 1894; Probl6me et Solution, ed. 
 Lille, 1894; Double rgponse a MM. de Mun et Paul Deschanel, 
 Paris, 1896. — Guesde et Laf argue. — Program du Parti Ouv- 
 rier, ed. Lille, 1894. — Jaurks. Patriotisme et International- 
 isme, ed. Lille, 1895 ; Socialisme et Paysan, Paris, 1897. — 
 Jaurds et Laf argue. Idealisms et matSrialisme dans la concep- 
 tion de I'histoire, ed. Paris, 1895. — Ldbriola. Essais sur la 
 conception matfirialiste de I'histoire, ed. Giard et Brigre, Paris, 
 1897. — Laf argue. Evolution of Property, ed. Swan, Sonnen- 
 sehein, London, 1890. — Laveleye. De la Proprietg et ses 
 formes primitives, Eng. ed., Macmillan, 1878. — Uaillard. Au 
 proletaire frangaise, ed. de I'auteur, Paris, 1894. — Malon. 
 Etudes completes de Malon. Derveaux, Paris, 1883 ; Prgcis de 
 socialisme, ed. Felix Alcan, Paris, 1892. — Renard. Le Rggime 
 Socialiste (in Revue Socialiste, Tomes 26 and 27, 1898) ; Let- 
 tres soeialistes, Giard et Brigre, Paris, 1897. — "La Petite R4- 
 publique" (the official organ of the socialistic party). — "La 
 Revue Socialiste" (the monthly organ of the Integral group). 
 
PART III. 
 
 COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF THE TWO 
 DOCTRINES. 
 
COMPARATIVE REVIEW OP TWO DOCTRINES. 
 
 COMPABISON OF THE TWO THEORIES. 
 
 Two sets of principles, their origin and general char- 
 acter, have been the subject of this study. It has been 
 explained how the eighteenth-century philosophy and 
 the material conditions in the France of that time, de- 
 veloped new social principles, and the more important 
 of those principles have been stated. It has further been 
 shown how certain conceptions of social reform in the 
 nineteenth century, taking impulse from certain radical 
 alterations in social conditions, have given rise to a mili- 
 tant political program which is called Socialism. It re- 
 mains in closing, to bring the two doctrines more nearly 
 together, to show briefly how far the aims and the social 
 and political principles of each are similar and where 
 they diverge, and to make evident whatever is additional 
 in the later doctrine. 
 
 These two theories which have grown up almost one 
 hundred years apart, are strikingly alike in their gen- 
 eral character. With only an occasional change of 
 terminology, much of one doctrine is almost a repetition 
 of the other. They represent two strong and well-de- 
 fined pleas for the right of happiness, for association as' 
 the general means to that happiness, and pure democ- 
 racy as the specific means. They differ scarcely at all 
 in their aim or their political theory; it is their theory 
 of man and society which marks them as separate doc- 
 trines. 
 
 863 
 
364 COMPARATIVE REVIEW. 
 
 Compare first the idea of a right to happiness. Both 
 theories hold that there is such a right, but differ as to 
 its origin. The right to happiness under the later theory 
 does not derive, as it does in the dominant thinking of 
 the Eevolution, from a natural right, but is deduced 
 from a conception of progress that makes man's develop- 
 ment, for which read increasing power of enjoyment, 
 the condition to any sound social evolution, but both 
 theories affirm a universal right to happiness. The 
 whole difference between them lies in the more clearly- 
 defined notion of the modern theory as to what happi- 
 ness is and whence it derives. 
 
 As has been seen, modern French Socialism seema 
 to have adopted the revolutionary idea of happiness 
 with a greater narrowing of the content of the word 
 until it seems to start, as it did with the Physiocrats, 
 from the possession of wealth. It is the dogma of mod- 
 em French Socialism, more or less frankly expressed, 
 that happiness for man depends upon the unchecked 
 satisfaction of the needs of his physical being, and the 
 theory attempts to show that all the higher needs of 
 man are mere increments of these material needs. The 
 whole well-being, and so the contented existence of any 
 man, is held to be unavoidably dependent upon the 
 material conditions which surround him. Men are per- 
 fected and thus made happier, as their opportunities for 
 the enjoyment of the products of economic activity in- 
 crease. All this, it will be remembered, was, in less set 
 terms, also the revolutionary idea of happiness. In the 
 modem doctrine the idea is merely more unequivocally 
 stated. 
 
BAPPTIfESS. g65 
 
 Happiness, by way of completest liberty to enjoy, was 
 the demand of the Revolutionist at the end of the eigh- 
 teenth century, as it is the demand of the socialist at 
 the close of the nineteenth. But the later doctrine 
 makes more clear the entirely materialistic note in both. 
 The more characteristic French Socialism, Independent 
 Socialism, has included in the idea of individual hap- 
 piness, a claim that, since social life gives abounding 
 proof of the complete dependence of each on all, no 
 true happiness ought to include the consciousness of the 
 unhappiness of others. Therefore this socialism asks 
 that each man's demand for happiness shall be a claim 
 not merely personal, but universal. The idea is wider 
 and broader than that which the particularism of the 
 first half of our century called the revolutionary doc- 
 trine, that is, the dictum that, if every man looked after 
 his own happiness, it would follow that all would be 
 happy. A need have no concern as to B's happiness; 
 he had only to see to it that he and his were provided 
 for, and it would follow that if each was happy, all would 
 be happy. The individual right being respected, the 
 rest was to be left to the citizen. But neither the Eevo- 
 lution nor modern French Socialism countenanced this 
 kind of individualism. Both were individualistic, if 
 that word describes one who believes that A must be 
 free to secure his own happiness, but both urged beside 
 that A must not be merely content to be happy himself. 
 "What the Eevolution called fraternity and socialists 
 call solidarity, was to be the check upon a merely self- 
 regarding idea of happiness. On the other hand, 
 neither socialism nor the Revolutionary principles 
 countenanced the idea that A's business was solely to 
 
366 COMPARATITE REVIEW. 
 
 look after B. Both concluded that A's first duty i8 
 toward himself, but he must realize, and the accent on 
 this point is heaviest in modern socialism, he must first 
 realize that, if he would get the highest development 
 of which he is capable, he must aid in securing the hap- 
 piness of all. 
 
 It will be remembered that even Marxism asserts that 
 because economic conditions have bred class differences 
 and class differences have bred class antagonisms, there- 
 fore the individual, in order to save his own skin, must 
 join his fellows in a struggle for a more general happi- 
 ness. Marxism lays bare the fact that the whole fight 
 is of necessity self -regarding ; that it is merely a spirit 
 of self-preservation which, impelling men to strive for 
 the best they can get, bids them unite with those of 
 similar interests, since organized effort is most likely to 
 bring the desired result. Marxism, then, as well as 
 Integral Socialism, affirms a universal right to happi- 
 ness, and, except that it makes the motive more coldly 
 self-regarding, it teaches the value of association in 
 order to such happiness, just as the Eevolutionary prin- 
 ciples or Integral Socialism teaches it. 
 
 The revolutionists, in spite of their faith in frater- 
 nity, had not quite escaped from the eighteenth cen- 
 tury's dubious attitude toward society; they were often 
 inclined to think social life an inevitable but doubtful 
 situation; the socialist unhesitatingly acknowledges it 
 as the means, and the only means, to intellectual life 
 and progress. In the Eevolutionary theory, association 
 was most often held to originate in a contract deliber- 
 ately undertaken at a period preceding society properly 
 so-called, a period that had succeeded one wherein men 
 
POLITICAL THEORIES. 357 
 
 had been rather happier than they ever could be in the 
 unrest of civilized life. The theory of French social- 
 ists has imanimously adopted the biological and histori- 
 cal theory of the origin of society. But both Revolution- 
 ist and Socialist agree that society, whether a necessary 
 evil or a great good, is to-day the prerequisite to man's 
 satisfactory existence. Both agree, in fact, that the vital 
 conditions to an association which shall justify itself 
 in the happiness of its members, is some kind of social 
 organization to be governed by a body of rules which 
 shall maintain for the feeble the opportunity which Na- 
 ture unfairly puts into the hands of the strong. 
 
 Beside asking then for a happiness more general than 
 that they see about them, a happiness to be obtained 
 by a greater association, or as the phrases severally go 
 by a greater fraternity or solidarity, both doctrines be- 
 lieve that the greatest possible individual freedom is an 
 absolute necessity in order to accomplish this end. 
 Both theories posit the general principle of. democ- 
 racy; both hold that all organized power should rest 
 on the active participation in public affairs of all self- 
 supporting, law-abiding persons. Both contend that 
 there is no function of government so imperative and 
 important as that of establishing law to insure each indi- 
 vidual in the free exercise of rights which give him 
 the opportunity to develop. These propositions are 
 the basis on which the remainder of the political 
 theory rests. It will be remembered how nearly the 
 theories concerning the structure of government resem- 
 ble each other, and how it is on the question of function 
 of government, not form of government, that they 
 diverge. 
 
368 COMPARATIVE REVIEW. 
 
 In both theories, the right of the state takes prece- 
 dence of individual right, for, in both cases, the " state " 
 represents the organized means for maintaining social 
 justice. Neither doctrine puts faith in the justice 
 which a cultured and disinterested minority might for- 
 mulate, nor does either to any extent take account of 
 any absolute standard of justice. Both agree that the 
 purpose for which organization exists is the mainte- 
 nance of the prevalent common-sense morality. 
 
 Government, according to both theories, is a mere 
 expedient; in both doctrines the present limitation of 
 man's intelligence is the chief reason, practically the only 
 reason why part of the nation is given power to super- 
 vise the rest. An established group of persons, empow- 
 ered to regulate the association of men is not in either 
 theory exactly desirable or necessary so much as, for 
 the present at least, expedient in order to an advisable 
 peace and justice in the relations of men. Whether, 
 as the Eevolutionists claim, the weaknesses of men are 
 the result of improper social influences, or whether, as 
 according to modern socialism, they are held to be the 
 surviving instincts of the primitive brute, in either 
 case, government which is to hold those weaknesses in 
 check, is regarded as only an historical, not a logical 
 and permanent, category of human association. Either 
 theory holds that the controlling power in the commu- 
 nity is the mere envoy of the whole sovereignty, the 
 executive medium by which the too cumbrous legisla- 
 tive, that is, the sovereign nation, carries out its will. 
 The idea of popular sovereignty to be expressed by pure 
 democracy, was the ideal and aim of the Eevolution, 
 
POLITICAL THEORIES. 369 
 
 as it is that of modern socialism. Each theory recog- 
 nizes with equal emphasis the right of the individual 
 to a directing share in the afEairs of organized associa- 
 tion. The separation of opinion, if any, on this 
 point of rights, concerns the origin of the individ- 
 ual right. The revolutionary doctrine is most often 
 accredited with the claim for natural rights; socialism 
 admits that individual rights are legal, not natural, 
 rights. Since, however, as has been seen, an appre- 
 ciahle body of doctrine at the time of the Eevolution 
 denied natural rights, and since, on the other hand, 
 there is a pronounced tendency in the most characteris- 
 tic form of French Socialism, the Independent Social- 
 ism, to treat certain rights as axiomatic, it seems justi- 
 fiable to say, that even upon this point, there is practi- 
 cally a coincidence of opinion. 
 
 As has been said, the real and tangible line of sepa- 
 ration between the two political theories is on the ques- 
 tion of administration of government. On the border- 
 line between the theory and the practice of politics, 
 when deciding what measures the state shall adopt to 
 maintain social justice, the two doctrines part company. 
 
 The state, under the socialistic theory, is given a 
 widened sphere of action, such as the revolutionary 
 theory never conceded to the collective will. The so- 
 cialist would wish to extend the functions of state un- 
 til they should include the entire superintendence of 
 the industrial activity of the nation. The Eevolution- 
 ists, on the contrary, held to the theory of laissez-faire 
 in all matters of industry. Socialism adds to the other 
 rights of the individual, " the right to the satisfaction 
 
 24 
 
370 COMPARATIVE REVIEW. 
 
 of his economic wants," and so imposes upon collective 
 action the duty of organizing and controlling the eco- 
 nomic system. The marked distinction 'between the 
 Kevolutionist's and the Socialist's political doctrine ap- 
 pears when the former says that true freedom is se- 
 cured to each individual if he have political equality, 
 while the other urges that not merely political equality 
 but economic equality before the law is imperative in 
 order to secure to each individual his free development. 
 Socialism denies that a really equal distribution of 
 political power can exist until there be social control 
 of production. Socialism contends that the Eevolution- 
 ist, and every other who argues with the Eevolutionist, 
 is wrong to think that men are really politically free un- 
 til they are economically free. 
 
 This view, of course, involves first of all a separa- 
 tion on the question of property, although it must be 
 evident from what has gone before, that, in their views 
 concerning the origin of wealth in the hands of some 
 possessor, the two theories are not so far apart as it is 
 usual to suppose. It is in the application of the doc- 
 trine of property, that the difference occurs in the pre- 
 vailing sum of opinion on each side. It has been seen 
 that the Eevolution recognized, as controlling doctrines," 
 first those which derive property from labor and make 
 it a strictly personal affair, toward which the state 
 acted the same protecting part that it acted toward 
 other natural rights; and, secondly, those which held 
 the state to be the possessor for all time and the in- 
 dividual only the deputed agent who, if he fail to use 
 his privileges properly, could at any time be justifiably 
 
DOCTRINE OF PROPERTY. 371 
 
 deprived of them. It will be recalled too, that the 
 latter doctrine was the one most often advocated dur- 
 ing the Revolution. It will be further remembered 
 that Modern Socialism, in spite of its different way of 
 wording its theory, holds only that which the greater 
 part of the Eevolutionary theory also held, namely, 
 that it is both just and expedient to consider all prop- 
 erty as ultimately subject to state control. The funda- 
 mental principle regarding property seems then to be 
 the same in both theories; as has been said, it is the 
 application of this principle which marks the differ- 
 ence between the two doctrines. It is true that, like 
 modern French Socialism, the Revolutionary theories 
 started with the assumption that the source of power 
 was the real possessor of all property, a principle de- 
 rived from the dominant theory, and practice of all 
 the preceding national life of France. The Revolu- 
 tionists did not however advocate state administration 
 of property; French Socialists make their most char- 
 acteristic claim for this very thing. At the time of the 
 Revolution, theories more fundamental than the idea 
 of property held that social utility argued against state 
 control of property. The Revolutionist, believing in 
 individual initiative never went in theory beyond an 
 active state supervision of property and industry. The 
 aim was to exercise a minimum check upon production, 
 but there was little thought of controlling distribution.^ 
 Modern French Socialism believes that public well- 
 being, and so individual well-being, is really best sub- 
 
 1 Laws enacted during the Terror are not here tak«n into 
 account. 
 
372 COMPARATIVE REVIEW. 
 
 served when collective action obtains a controlling in- 
 fluence upon the distribution of wealth. Thus, al- 
 though the Eevolutionary theory usually agreed vnth 
 Modern Socialism as to the fundamental relation of 
 the state to property, though it held, as the contempo- 
 rary socialism of France does, that the state was pos- 
 sessor, yet the sharp divergence on a determining point 
 of social theory made for a different conclusion. The 
 theory of the Eevolution held that the state should 
 use its right to appropriate, only as a means to a new 
 apportionment. Socialism, on the other hand, would 
 exercise the right to appropriation, but would wish to 
 see it followed by state retention in order to a state 
 direction which should insure to every individual his 
 right to the economic satisfaction of his wants. No- 
 where is it more evident than in the character of this 
 separation upon the property question, that the de- 
 termining character of Modern Socialism does not 
 really rest upon a theory of property-holding, but upon 
 some principle behind the theory. 
 
 The Eevolutionary theory that predominated de- 
 cided to eliminate the state wherever the satisfaction 
 of specifically material wants was involved; socialism 
 holds that the state, that is, organized society, should 
 have the deciding voice, as in the other activities of 
 social life. 
 
 The specific part of the doctrine of socialism proves 
 to be its belief that in order to true individual happi- 
 ness, organized society must exercise an equalizing in- 
 fluence on the production and distribution of wealth; 
 that the individual is no more justifiably free from a 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 373 
 
 certain state supervision as industrial agent than he is 
 in any other role. Both theories expect much from 
 associated action; both theories exact that the state 
 secure the well-being of every individual in the com- 
 munity; neither regards organized society as a mere 
 protector. But under socialism, organized society is 
 to preserve, protect and cultivate the individual to a 
 far greater degree than the earlier theory required or 
 wished. It is the real claim of the socialist that each 
 man has a right to expect from the state, not only the 
 mere existence which the Eevolutionary theory would 
 guarantee him, but also and most of all, a right to 
 have provided for him the means for an enlightened 
 existence. Society acting collectively, that is, the state, 
 should see that each member of society has always the 
 possibility for intellectual growth during his existence. 
 Socialism is then a theory which would insist that each 
 man should by right be freed through state interven- 
 tion from the necessity of a struggle for existence and 
 thus be enabled to undertake a personal struggle to 
 enjoy existence. Neglectful of the well-recognized 
 truth that man's well-being is essentially menaced if the 
 right to enjoy be given him too freely or too abruptly, 
 socialistic theory asks that the state insure just this 
 gift to each man at the earliest practicable time. It 
 is this which makes it at once a new theory and a weak 
 theory. 
 
 Scarcely new in its general principles, rather the 
 lineal descendant of a long line of thought, socialism 
 yet differs so far from the Eevolutionary or any pre- 
 vious radicalism in method and in a determining prin- 
 
3Y4 COMPARATIVE REVIEW. 
 
 ciple of politics, that it brings many minds to a new 
 point of view in regard to an old claim in the name 
 of humanity. Its power lies here. Any thoughtful 
 mind lends itself with sympathy and interest to the 
 general claims of the school. There are many socialists 
 to-day, if to be a socialist is to hope that the generations 
 of the future will learn the concerted unselfishness that 
 will frown with the force of legalized public opinion 
 upon our system of distributing and permitting to re- 
 main distributed among the few, privileges which act 
 as a dead hand upon later generations. The end of 
 the century is largely socialistic, if it be socialistic to 
 regard as morally hideous the selfish accumulation of 
 money extorted by tricks of combination and specu- 
 lation. But modern French Socialism, as all socialism, 
 is something more than moral indignation; it is a po- 
 litical system based upon a philosophy which denies in- 
 dividual responsibility and puts the onus of public and 
 private well-being upon collective action. The weak- 
 ness of a system that starts from such a principle has 
 perhaps been sufiiciently accented. 
 
 Even though the Independent Socialism be taken as 
 the typical French Socialism, and so the objections to 
 a materialistic and one-sided conception of history be 
 waived, even then both doctrines are weaker than the 
 Revolutionary theory, for they would wish to create a 
 social system which depends, at every point in its con- 
 struction, upon the individual's unselfishness and sense 
 of personal responsibility, yet they argue from prem- 
 ises which almost entirely neglect the significance of 
 the individual. The doctrine is weak in that, claim- 
 
MODERN SOCIALISM. 3^5 
 
 ing to aim at the elevation and development of indi- 
 vidual capacity, it rests its strongest hope, not upon 
 universal education, although it indorses this, not upon 
 a larger and freer use of political privilege, though it 
 urges the desirability of this, but chiefly and primarily 
 upon an increased physical energy to be gained for each 
 individual by a more or less arbitrary distribution of 
 the national product. It is vs^eakest in that it centers 
 men's aims upon the raising of their standard of life, 
 while it likewise throws the whole responsibility for 
 physical and moral weakness upon a social system. To 
 teach men that systems make human nature and not 
 human nature systems, is to belittle the effectiveness 
 of each individual in a way which seriously menaces 
 any society, most of all a society which is to be cast in 
 the democratic mold. The Eevolutionary principles 
 were scarcely guilty of this inconsistency. They can 
 hardly be accused of dulling men's spiritual life by 
 making it seem bound up in the mere satisfaction of 
 physical needs; they counted the signiiicance of the 
 individual so high that their first immediate influence 
 was to make that individual almost a fetich. 
 
 Socialism itself has aided us to understand the fault 
 of the mere particularism which was one interpretation 
 of the revolutionary doctrine just as sound individual- 
 ism has aided toward the understanding of a more 
 valuable truth than that taught by this socialistic 
 doctrine. It seems to-day undeniable that the in- 
 dividual and society are inextricably parts of a 
 whole, each dependent for life and character upon 
 the other, but the social forces which are so vital to 
 
376 COMPARATIVE REVIEW. 
 
 the life of the individual are in a last analysis depend- 
 ent upon the instincts and capacities which each mem- 
 ber of the community brings to that association. The 
 content of a given subjective life to-day may be largely 
 the accumulation of social experiences; but those social 
 experiences, those social facts are the garnered legacy 
 of the thoughts of individuals. Each of the doctrines 
 discussed has a value and a meaning. The one taught 
 by its very over-accenting of " rational sanction/' the 
 value of the individual; the other, in attributing so 
 much to the connection between the collective action 
 and the individual well-being has surely pointed for all 
 of us the moral obligation to recognize more fully the 
 value and duty of associated action. 
 
 It is not improbable that the future is bringing a 
 time when we shall demonstrate in institutions greater 
 socialized effort. But any organized experiment, based 
 upon conscious social service, will depend for its suc- 
 cess upon the stage of development reached by that 
 fundamental and decisive factor, the individual. Past 
 experiences of social growth have had to do with a 
 mass of humanity, of whom the greater part knew only 
 elementary subjective life. If Protestantism, regarded 
 as a method of training, rather than as a religion, to- 
 gether with the public school and universal suffrage, 
 shall develop a new type of man and citizen, who can 
 say what will be the results of collective action, when in 
 the future it directs its attention to industry, as it has 
 in the past aided to foster the growth of other social 
 institutions? But such state superintendence must 
 come about strictly in the line of historical develop- 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE FVfXJRE. 37^ 
 
 ment, and not as an agitation fanned to an unnatural 
 heat by ill-advised enthusiasts. Society must grow 
 slowly to the exercise of the ijew functions; there 
 must be the gradual alteration in the atoms which 
 make up a body before that body itself can successfully 
 assume and keep a new form. If, instead of being set 
 up in advance, as the means of individual development, 
 collective action shall come about as the result of a real 
 growth in individuality, who will deny its possibilities 
 as a means to better and more vigorous life? 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 TABULAR COMPARISON OF THE TWO THEORIES. 
 Social Theoby. 
 
 MODEBN FeENCH liOOIALISM. FEENCH REVOLUTION. 
 
 End of Association. 
 
 Individual development by 
 way of greatest possible lib- 
 erty and equality. 
 
 Means to end: Solidarity. 
 
 Origin of Association. 
 
 So. 8oc. — Innate need of 
 man for physical develop- 
 ment, by means of fuller sat- 
 isfaction of wants. 
 
 Int. Soc. — Innate need of 
 man for physical, mental and 
 moral development; thus, the 
 demand of man's nature, as 
 a " social being." 
 
 Result of Association. 
 
 8c. Soc. — Physiological de- 
 velopment until environment 
 frees him from fierce strug- 
 gle for existence; then cere- 
 bral development, whence So- 
 cial Progress. 
 
 Int. 800. — Realization of 
 justice by the physiological 
 and psychological develop- 
 ment of man. 
 
 Vital Conditions for OMy So- 
 cial Order to Fulfill its end. 
 Social organization which 
 shall insure economic, as well 
 as political, equality to each 
 individual in order to his free 
 development. 
 
 End of Association. 
 General happiness. 
 Means to end: Individual 
 freedom. 
 
 Origin of Association. 
 Instinct of man, or, again 
 and most frequently, the de- 
 sire of man for peace. 
 
 Result of Association. 
 Loss of individual indepen- 
 dence, but gain of justice and 
 morality. 
 
 Vital Conditions for any So- 
 cial Order to Fulfill its end. 
 
 Political organization which 
 shall insure to each individ- 
 ual equal freedom to seek His 
 own happiness. 
 
 3&1 
 
382 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Political Theoet. 
 
 MoDEBN French Socialism. 
 Origin of Polity. 
 Individual property-holding. 
 
 General Principles for Main- 
 taining Equality. 
 
 Control by collectivity of 
 all that -which in civilization 
 is clearly social, therefore, 
 collective holding of land and 
 all social means of produc- 
 tion. Thus, collective, not in- 
 dividual, action necessary to 
 insure social well-being. 
 
 End of Government 
 Well-being of collectivity. 
 
 Form of Government. 
 Democracy. 
 
 Principle of Democracy. 
 
 Government rest on active 
 participation in public affairs 
 of all self-supporting law- 
 abiding persona, whence Pop- 
 ular Sovereignty. 
 
 Laws Necessary to Preserve 
 Democracy. 
 I. Legal Recognition of 
 Natural Rights and exercise 
 of Social Duties. 
 
 Individual Rights. — Freedom 
 of thought,' right to justice, to 
 choose one's country, to se- 
 curity of life and property, to 
 free expression of opinion, to 
 freedom of sexual relations, 
 except in case of a family, to 
 the satisfaction of economic 
 wants. 
 
 FeENCH REVOLrTION. 
 
 Origin of Polity. 
 Individual property-holding. 
 
 General Principles for Main- 
 taining Equality. 
 Simplicity of wants; small 
 holdings and production on a 
 small scale, to be insured by 
 Legislation, whence govern- 
 ment the final means to social 
 content. 
 
 End of Government. 
 To insure liberty, equality 
 and fraternity to individuals. 
 
 Form of Government. 
 Democracy. 
 
 Principle of Democracy. 
 
 General will is the only 
 just sanction to authority, 
 whence Sovereignty of the 
 People, one and indivisible. 
 
 Laws Necessary to Preserve 
 Democracy. 
 
 I. Legal Recognition of 
 Natural Rights and exercise 
 of Social Duties. 
 
 Individual Bights. — Liberty, 
 security, property, public debt' 
 religious freedom, right of 
 general education, of public 
 assistance, of liberty of press 
 of assembly, of petition, of 
 participation in affairs of gov- 
 ernment, right of insurrec- 
 tion. 
 
TABULAR COMPARISON. 
 
 383 
 
 Modern French Socialism. 
 Social Duties. 
 
 Social Duties. — 1. To or- 
 ganize economic system. 
 
 2. To establish and regu- 
 late public defense. 
 
 3. To regulate foreign rela- 
 tions. 
 
 4. To maintain public or- 
 der by means of civil and 
 penal j'isliee. 
 
 5. To maintain a system of 
 Public edueation. 
 
 French Rbvoltttign. 
 Social Duties. 
 Social Duties. — 1. To main- 
 tain national honor at home 
 and abroad. 
 
 2. To maintain public or- 
 der and the rights of man, by 
 civil and penal laws, and 
 covirts to interpret these laws. 
 
 3. To maintain a system of 
 Public Education. 
 
 II. Popular Power for Leg- 
 islation. 
 
 Universal Suffrage, irre- 
 spective' of sex; 
 
 Ballot, Ballotage, Majority 
 Decisions to insure that the 
 general will be expressed. 
 
 Popular Initiative and Ref- 
 erendum to be constantly 
 used in order to the nearest 
 possible approach to Direct 
 Legislation by the people. 
 
 II. Popular Power for Leg- 
 islation. 
 
 Universal, direct Suffrage 
 as Basis of Legislation; 
 
 Ballotage and Decisions by 
 absolute majority. 
 
 Popular Initiative granted 
 for Constitutional Amendment 
 on demand of one-tenth of 
 Regular Primary Assemblies 
 in majority of Departments. 
 
 Obligatory Referendum. 
 
 If forty days from time of 
 promulgation, in majority of 
 depts., one-tenth of primaries 
 have not protested, bill be- 
 comes a law; thus veto with 
 the people. 
 
 Government Planned under 
 these Principles. 
 
 Legislative. — People to be 
 the Legislative. 
 
 No Parliamentary govern- 
 ment, all representative gov- 
 ernment a regrettable expedi- 
 ent to disappear with the ad« 
 vent of Socialism. 
 
 Government Planned . under 
 these Principles. 
 
 Legislative. — Deputies. 
 Principles of Rep. — Popu- 
 lation (1 to 40,000). 
 Qualifications. — Citizensihip. 
 Term, — One year. 
 
384: 
 
 APPENOnL 
 
 MoDEBN French Socialism. 
 Legislative. 
 
 Executive and Judicial. 
 
 Functionaries to be ap- 
 pointed to exercise these pow- 
 ers. 
 
 Source. — Always universal, 
 direct elections. Voting to be 
 always on programs, not on 
 persons. 
 
 Principles of Representa- 
 tion. — Territorial. 
 
 Qualifications. — ^Citizenship, 
 exoept where special mental 
 powers are required; then an 
 examination. 
 
 French Revolution. 
 
 Legislative. 
 
 Powers. — All residual leg- 
 islative and executive power. 
 
 International Orga/nimation. 
 ^- Session of a year ( in 2 
 periods). Public sessions. 
 Quorum, 1/2 members plus 
 one. Decision by absolute 
 majority. 
 
 Executive and Judicial, 
 
 Executive Council, a sort of 
 minority; 24 members. 
 
 Source. — Legislative Body 
 chosen from a list sent by 
 dep'ts. 
 
 Qualifications. — Citizenship. 
 
 Terms. — Brief. 
 
 Powers. — Minimum al- 
 
 ways; Clearly defined and al- 
 ways checked. 
 
 A uniform Civil and Penal 
 Code. 
 
 Term. — One year, chang- 
 ing by halves. 
 
 Bights. — Bight to speak in 
 Legislature. 
 
 Duties. — Responsible to 
 Legislative. 
 
 Powers. — Management and 
 supervision of administration, 
 under control of Legislative. 
 
 A uniform Civil and Penal 
 Code. 
 
 Tenure. — Direct or indirect 
 vote of people. 
 
 Judiciary. 
 Justices of Peace, direct. 
 Higher Courts, indirect. 
 
TABULAR OOUPABISON. 
 
 385 
 
 Modern French Socialism. 
 General Principles of Admin- 
 istration. 
 No standing army. Admin- 
 istrative law to favor polit- 
 ical decentralization. Coun- 
 try to be divided into small, 
 co-ordinated sections, inde- 
 pendent for deliberative pur- 
 poses. 
 
 French Revolution. 
 General Principles of Admin- 
 istration. 
 
 No standing army. 
 
 Aim — Political Decentral- 
 ization, but all departments 
 primarily controlled by Legis- 
 lative. Officials of Depart- 
 ments, district and commune 
 locally elected, but finally 
 controlled by Legislative. 
 
Il^DEX. 
 
 ABSOLUTE monarchy, its fall fol- 
 lows that of spiritual absolut- 
 ism, 67. 
 despotic rule of, causes its down- 
 fall, ibid. 
 Absolutism, decay of, in France dur- 
 ing 18th century, 66, 67. 
 Agrarian problem, in French Social- 
 ism to-day, 284, 885. 
 Agriculture, its condition in time of 
 
 Louis XV, 69. 
 Alaville, on evils of inheritance, 341. 
 AleAbert, D', leader of new thought, 
 
 8. 
 Almanachs, role of, during the Kevo- 
 
 lution. Iff!'. 
 Altruism, Idealistic Socialists' faith 
 in, 207. 
 Integral Socialists' belief in, 337. 
 America, influence of, on French 
 
 revolutionary principles, 76. 
 Anarchy, of France in 1789-1791, 116- 
 
 118. 
 Appropriationist theory of French 
 
 Revolution, 169. 
 Argenson. See D'Argenson. 
 Artisan, under Louis XVI, 84. 
 may be classed with peasant of 
 Revolution, 85n. 
 Assemblies. See Provincial Assem- 
 blies. 
 Assembly, Constituent. See Con- 
 stituent Assembly. 
 Association, principle of, taught by 
 Idealistic Socialists. 226. 
 Integral Socialism on, 317-820. 
 Aulard, cited, 134», 135n. 
 
 BABEAU, cited, 70m, 84m. 
 abeuf, belongs among predeces- 
 sors of socialism, 195. 
 the principle advocated by, 202, 203. 
 on property, 212». 
 Babouvism, begins at " Cercle So- 
 cial^^^ 99. 
 its doctrines, 202. 
 
 marks the beginning of practical 
 character of modern socialism, 
 214. Cf. Babeuf . 
 Bailly, in policy of Louis XVI, 71«. 
 on oath of the Tennis Court, 74m. 
 on clubs, 97m. 
 
 on Declaration of Rights, 149>i, ISln. 
 BarSre, on religion, 134m. 
 on Rights of Man, 154m. 
 Barnave, at Jacobin Club, 99. 
 
 on Rights of Man, 158. 
 Beauharnais, Madame de, her salon 
 
 in 1789, 95. 
 Beggars, in Paris, 1791, 109. 
 Belloc, cited, 84n, 86m, 91m, 860n. 
 Bertrand, on definition of socialism, 
 
 315. 
 Bishops, of France, as a rule belong 
 
 to the nobility, 79m. 
 Blanc, on newspapers of the Revolu- 
 tion, 105m. 
 on Claude Fauchet, 139m. 
 on the Rights of Man, 152}i. 
 on equality, 16lm. 
 on Robespierre, 181. 
 his deism, 200. 
 
 his belief in social justice, 205. 
 is an altruist, 807. 
 on education, 210. 
 
 387 
 
388 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Blanc, on property, 212n. 
 
 on Saint Simonians, S,\7n. 
 
 on methods of production, 223. 
 
 position of, toward labor, 227. 
 
 influence on later socialism, 231. 
 Boileau, suggests tho change of feel- 
 ing in Louis ZVI's time, 7. 
 Boisguillebert, plans for reform, 7. 
 Boiteau, cited, Sin. 
 Booth, cited, 217m.. 
 Bourgeoisie. See Third Estate. 
 Boyer-FonfrSde, on popular sov- 
 ereignty, 174. 
 Broussists, socialist faction, 280. 
 Brunetigre, cited, 707i, 84ji. 
 Buchez, his religion of progress, 204. 
 
 his influence on modern French 
 socialism, 231. 
 
 CABET, not really a socialist, 195«.. 
 afS de Foi, its position during the 
 Revolution, 102. 
 Caffis, a social force in 1789, 100. 
 become party headquarters, ibid. 
 character of debates at, 102. 
 Cahiers, of 1615, 88. 
 of 1789, suggest formulation of 
 
 Rights of Man, 150. 
 endorse popular sovereignty, 173. 
 Cambon, on property, 166. 
 Camus, on religion, 134n. 
 
 on property, 167». 
 Capital, Pecquer and Vidal on, 223. 
 Scientific Socialism on relation of, 
 
 to labor, 297, 304. 
 law of concentration of, 807. 
 socialistic definition of, 307. 
 how far concentration of, true, 
 309™. 
 Capitalistic production, era of, as 
 discerned by Scientific Social- 
 ism, 308. 
 Catholicism, its ofllcials unwittingly 
 aid revolt, 11. 
 its code of ethics opposed, 16. 
 attitude of Assembly toward, 133n. 
 
 " Cercle Social," club of the masses, 
 98. 
 wins them to revolutionary princi- 
 ples, 99. 
 Centralization, endorsed by the 
 Revolution, 184. 
 French respect for, helps popular- 
 ize socialism, 254. 
 opposed as a political principle by 
 Integral Socialism, 328. 
 Chambras. Madame de, holds reac- 
 tionary salon in 1789, 95. 
 Chapelier, on liberty of the press, 158. 
 Chenier, M.-J., influence of his 
 
 " Charles IX, "103.. 
 Cherest, cited, 73n, lOlji, 106n, 150m. 
 Church of France. See Galilean 
 
 Church. 
 Civil law under Louis XV, 67. 
 
 under Louis XVI, 72. 
 Civil liberty. See Liberty. 
 Civilization, scorned by Rousseau, 
 22 sq. 
 Idealistic Socialists on, 222. 
 Scientific Socialists on, 292. 
 Integral Socialism on, 318 sq. 
 Class struggle, Ide;)listic Socialists 
 advance the idea of, 224. 
 doctrine of , in Scientific Socialism, 
 295, 296. 
 Clergy, French, in 1789, unlikely to 
 lead revolt, because of disunity, 
 79. 
 upper clergy conservative, 80. 
 lower clergy radical, ibid. 
 disaffected during Revolution by 
 civil constitution of, 19571. 
 Clubs, develop rapidly in 1789, 97. 
 their influence as schools of poli- 
 tics, ibid. 
 Jacobin, the leading influence, 98, 
 
 99. 
 a power as means to get at the 
 masses, 99. 
 •' Club dea Enrages," its radical influ- 
 ence, 100. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 389 
 
 Comte, Auguste, on social progress, 
 219. 
 his school aud its influence, 244. 
 Concentration of capital. See Capi- 
 tal. 
 Condillac, an influence for new 
 
 methods of study, 8. 
 Condorcet, his power of abstract 
 reasoning, 119. 
 advocated doctrine of social prog 
 
 ress, 140. 
 on equality, 161. 
 on popular sovereignty, 173. 
 on function of state, 173™. 
 Constituent Assembly, marks first 
 sta^e toward expression of revo- 
 lutionary principles, 110. 
 draws up Eights of Man, 111. 
 its general character. 111. 
 its Rousseauist attitude, 153n. 
 Constitution of 1791, its provisions. 
 
 112, 113. 
 Constitution of 1793, its character, 
 122. 
 reasons for holding it to be the ex- 
 pression of the revolutionary 
 principles, 123. 
 embodies the idea of popular sov- 
 ereignty, 177. 
 Co-operation, a means to social con- 
 tentment, 226. 
 mechanical production teaches 
 
 value of, 265. 
 trades-unions accent, 295, 296. 
 Cordeliers, in 1789, 98. 
 acts as power to win popularity 
 for the revolutionary principles, 
 99. 
 Comeille, belonged to Third Estate, 
 
 89. 
 Coubertin, cited, 268m, 279?!, 286m. 
 Cousin, on Rights of Man, 1S2. 
 Couthon, on social contract, 143n. 
 
 on popular sovereignty, 173«.. 
 CreniSres, on Rights of Man, 153. 
 Cur^s, during Revolution, 79, 80. i 
 
 D ANTON, at Cordeliers, 99. 
 on property, 166. 
 D'Argeuson, doctrine of happiness, 
 22. 
 on liberty, 34n. 
 on property, 49. 
 
 foretells the Revolution, 62,63, 68n. 
 Declaration of Rights, of 1789, 149-153. 
 
 of 1793, 164. 
 Deism, of Voltaire, 12. 
 of Rousseau, 13. 
 of the "philosophes," 12. 
 of the Revolution, 134 sq. 
 Democracy, taught by Rousseau, 35. 
 by revolutionary theory, 173. 
 popularity of, in France, during 
 
 19th century, 248. 
 influence of, 264 sq, 
 ideal of, formulated by France, 250. 
 in English history, 260. 
 Americans and, 250. 
 French love of, creates political 
 
 instability, 253. 
 inclines public to listen to radical 
 
 theories, 253. 
 Scientific Socialists' belief in, 291. 
 Integral Socialism on, 329 sq. 
 critical discussion of, 330 sq. 
 Revolutionists and Socialists on, 
 363 sq. 
 Demolin, cited, 25Sn. 
 Descartes, of the Third Estate, 89. 
 Desmoulins, at " CTm6 des Enragds," 
 100. 
 his " FraTice Libre" 107. 
 Determinism, economic, in Scientific 
 
 Socialism, 303 sq. 
 De Tocqueville, cited, 71tc, 82m, 83n, 
 
 87m. 
 Deville, on revolution and evolution 
 in socialism, 253m. 
 on strilces, 268n. 
 
 on socialistic definition of revolu- 
 tion, 281. 
 on Marxism, 286. 
 definition of socialism, 292. 
 
390 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Deville, on the development of the 
 
 individual, 293. 
 
 on social progress, 294, 395, 396. 
 
 on property, 297. 
 
 on surplus labor, 298. 
 
 on individuaPs share in social 
 progress, 302. 
 
 on capital, 808. 
 
 on the state, 311. 
 Diderot, begins new philosophy, 8. 
 
 attitude concerning progress, 15. 
 
 definition of happiness. 21. 
 
 on equality, 43. 
 Distribution of power, theory of, 
 
 during the Revolution, 175. 
 Dom Gerle, on Catholic cult, 133. 
 Ducos, on separation of powers of 
 
 government, 176. 
 Dumont, cited, 111. 
 Dupont de Nemours, aids in founding 
 
 modern political economy, 8. 
 Duties, social, asked for in 1789, 257. 
 
 ECONOMIC determinism. See De- 
 terminism. 
 Economists. See Physiocrats. 
 Education, Idealistic Socialists on, 
 210, 211. 
 Integral Socialism on, 327»i. 
 Ely, cited, 194. 
 
 Encyclopedists, on means to secure 
 happiness, 21. 
 hold equality as an ideal, 43. 
 on property, 47. 
 
 tendency of their teachings, ibid. 
 their special influence, 53. 
 Engels, influence, on socialism, 276. 
 on share of the individual in social 
 progress, 234. 
 EngUsh influences, on French life and 
 
 thought, 75 sq. 
 Equality, popularity of the idea of, 
 in France during 18th century, 38. 
 reasons for popularity, 39 sq. 
 usual attitude of political writers 
 toward, 41. 
 
 Equality, Montesquieu on, 41. 
 Economists on, 42. 
 Mably on, ibid. 
 
 Voltaire and Encyclopedists on, 43. 
 Bousseau's theories on, 44 sq. 
 possible interpretations of, 160. 
 revolutionary doctrine concern- 
 ing, 160 sq. 
 alteration in revolutionary theory 
 of, 162. 
 Estate, Third. See Third Estate. 
 Esplnas, cited, 163m, 803», 240». 
 Estraigne, Comte d', on Rights of 
 
 Man, 152. 
 Ethics, 18th century doctrine of, 16. 
 Idealistic Socialists on, 206. 
 of 19th century, develop social con- 
 sciousness, 257. 
 Integral Socialism on, 316. 
 Etienne Marcel, asks for social re- 
 forms, 88. 
 Eugene Sue, an influence for social- 
 ism, 234. 
 
 FACTIONS, socialists, of to-day, 
 380. 
 Faguet, cited, 164w. 
 Family, Scientiflc Socialism on, 310. 
 Fauchet, Claude, teaches Rousseau 
 at " Cercle Social," 99. 
 on Natural Man, 139. 
 Feuillants, club of the Revolution, 
 
 98. 
 Fleury, his ministry marks the last 
 effort at enlightened despotism, 
 67. 
 Flore, caf6, where men seek in vain 
 
 to be non-partisan, 101. 
 Fourier, early socialist, 19S. 
 recognizes a divine power, 199. 
 his belief in altruism, 207. 
 on property, 312™. 
 position toward civilization, 383. 
 his influence, 931. 
 Franklin, invents the phrase " ya 
 ira," 77n. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 391 
 
 Fraternity, doctrine of, during the 
 
 Revolution, 186»i. 
 Freedom ot thought, revolutionary 
 
 theories concerning, 157, 158. 
 
 GALLICAN CHURCH, degeneracy 
 of, during the 18th century, 65. 
 Gaudet, Gironde orator, 119. 
 
 cited, 119™. 
 Genlis, Madame de, her salon, in 1789, 
 
 96. 
 George Sand, cited, 204. 
 
 her efforts for socialism, 234n, 267?i. 
 Girondins, oppose Jacobins, 119. 
 history and characterization of, in 
 
 brief, ibid. 
 final struggle with Jacobins, 121. 
 Goncourt, Edmond and Jules, de, 
 
 cited, 77», 9rn., 102«, 105n., 106n. 
 Government, held to be a necessary 
 evU, 145. 
 revolutionary theory of, 178, 183, 
 
 184. 
 Scientific Socialism on, 309. 
 Integral Socialism on, .328-330. 
 Revolutionists and Socialists on, 
 .364. 
 Grfigoire, AbbS, on government, 179. 
 Growth of revolt under the Regency 
 
 and Louis XV, 63 sq. 
 Guesde, founds "Parti ouvrier," 279. 
 on concentration of capital, 308. 
 on religion and the family, 310. 
 on the state, 310. 
 Guesdists, 279. 
 
 HAPPINESS, the end of existence, 
 1.3. 
 
 secured by following Nature, 16. 
 
 three 18th century definitions of, 
 17. 
 
 means to secure, according to 
 18th century philosophy, 18 sq. 
 
 revolutionary theory of, 182. 
 
 Idealistic Socialists make, their ob- 
 jective point, 208. 
 
 Happiness, idea of what constitutes, 
 becomes more materialistic, 271. 
 revolutionary and socialistic theo- 
 ries of, 363, 364. 
 Helvetius, shares in rousing new 
 
 feeling, 8. 
 Helvetius, Madame d', salon of, 95. 
 Higgs, cited, 19». 
 Holbach, d', his teachings, 8. 
 
 IDEALISTIC Socialists, recognize 
 Deity, 199. 
 
 are optimistic as regards human 
 nature, 201. 
 
 argue for social responsibility, 201. 
 
 reassert revolutionary doctrine of 
 Rights, 202 sq. 
 
 advocate " social justice," 205. 
 
 on education, 210. 
 
 on property, 211. 
 
 summary of their primary concep- 
 tions, 213. 
 
 doctrine of, has a practical aim, 214. 
 
 profess scientific method, 216. 
 
 teach social progress, 218. 
 
 on state control of industry, 223 sq. 
 
 immediate changes desired by, 
 226, 
 
 position on labor, 227 sq. 
 
 summary of characteristic doc- 
 trines, 229. 
 
 their immediate influence, 231 sq. 
 Independent SociaUsm. See Integral 
 
 Socialism. 
 Industrial conditions during the reign 
 of Louis XV, 69. 
 
 under Louis XVI, 72. 
 Industrialism, becomes the central 
 interest for socialists with Saint 
 Simon, 222. 
 
 said to cause class differences, HM. 
 
 in a comparatively backward state 
 in modern France, 260. 
 
 brings increasing interdependence, 
 262-265. 
 
 stimulates class feeling, 265-268. 
 
392 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Industrialism, ini:ensifles social un- 
 rest, 268. 
 Individualism, of 18th century, 11. 
 
 in revolutionary principles, 146. 
 
 extreme, not apparent until after 
 the Eevolution, 188. 
 Integral Socialism, its origin, S80. 
 
 its definition of socialism, 314. 
 
 fundamental distinction from Sci- 
 entific Socialism, 315. 
 
 on origin of society, 317 sq. 
 
 on end of society, 330. 
 
 on the political problem, 321. 
 
 on the relation between society and 
 the individual, 383. 
 
 definition of liberty, 383. 
 
 on individual rights, 384. 
 
 functions of state, 385 sq. 
 
 political theory of, 388. 
 
 on decentralization, 389. 
 
 on government, 329. 
 
 critical discussion of government 
 theory, 330 sq. 
 
 demand for social control of indus- 
 try, 334. 
 
 argues justice of social control, 335. 
 
 on social control of productive 
 property, 836-340. 
 
 criticism of this theory, 340-348. 
 
 asljs universal obligation to labor, 
 343. 
 
 plan tor production, 344 sq. 
 
 critical discussion of this plan, 347 
 sq. 
 
 on distribution, 349. 
 
 on exchange, 351. 
 
 on value, 351 sq. 
 Intellectual liberty, demand for it, 
 
 during 18th century, 28 sq. 
 Irreconcilables, French, of 1793, pref . 
 
 V. 
 
 of to-day, pref. y. 
 Isnard, 119. 
 
 JACOBIN CLUB, its great influence 
 on revolutionary thinking, 98, 99. 
 
 Jacobin party, its character, 115. 
 
 reasons for its coming to power, 115. 
 
 anarchy of France aids it, 118. 
 
 methods of, 121. 
 
 overthrow Gironde, Vl^. 
 
 make constitution of 1798, Udd. 
 Janet, cited, 217n., 840?i. 
 Jansenism, causes schism in Gallican 
 Church, 66. 
 
 offshoot of Third Estate, 89. 
 Jaurds, on evolution and revolution 
 in socialism, S53n. 
 
 on Internationalism, 882». 
 
 definition of socialism, 891. 
 
 on origin of society, 3SCf. 
 Jean de Troyes, asks for reform, 88. 
 Jesuits, quarrel with Jansenists dur- 
 ing the 18th century, 66. 
 Jobez, cited, 71n. 
 
 Justice, Idealistic Socialists' concep- 
 tion of, 805 sq. 
 
 KIEKUP, on origin of word social- 
 ism, 194n. 
 
 LABOE, effects of mechanical pro- 
 duction upon, 861. 
 
 increased interdependence of, 861 
 sq. 
 
 Scientific Socialism on, 897 sq. 
 
 relation to capital, 304. 
 
 as value, 306. 
 
 under Integral Socialism, 343. 
 Laboring classes, sympathy of the 
 18th century tor, 58. 
 
 Idealistic Socialists begin modern 
 tendency to exalt, 207. 
 
 Idealistic Socialists' plea for, 828. 
 
 affected by teachings of early 
 socialism, 838. 
 
 French, inclined to individualistic 
 production, 860. 
 
 Scientific Socialism on, 811. 
 
 Cf. also Artisan and Peasant. 
 Labriola, on materialistic concep- 
 tion of history, 293ji. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 393 
 
 Labriola, on individual and social 
 
 prop^'ess, 895. 
 La Bruyfire, voices the awakening 
 
 unrest of his time, 7. 
 Lafargue, helps found Scientific 
 Sociahsm, 879. 
 definition of socialism, 291. 
 on development of the individual, 
 
 893. 
 on social progress, ibid. 
 on individual's share in social 
 progress, 894. 
 Lafayette, draws up Bights of Man, 
 149, 14971. 
 his plan, 154n. 
 Lally-Tollendal, infinenced by Amer- 
 ica, 77. 
 advocates popular sovereignty, 173. 
 Lamartine, cited, 119)i. 
 Lameth, Charles de, on equality, 160. 
 La Petite Eipublique Sodaliste, 
 
 cited, 240TO. 
 La Eoehefoucauld, cited, 89. 
 Lasource, on origin of society, 141. 
 
 on property, 165. 
 Lassalle, not an influence in French 
 
 socialism, 276?i. 
 Lavergne, cited, 78n, Q(ki. 
 Laurent, cited, lS6n, 138?i. 
 Law, Mississippi scheme, and its 
 
 effects, 90. 
 Law-courts, their bad condition 
 
 under old regime, 67. 
 Lecotainfi, cited, 308n. 
 Leroux, his religion of humanity, 
 803,204. 
 his influence on later socialism, 231 . 
 Leroy-Beaulieu, cited, 840ji. 
 Lesage, his works express the criti- 
 cal spirit of his time, 27. 
 Letter-patent of 1788, its terms and 
 
 their result, 73. 
 Liberty, demand for, in France dur- 
 ing 18th century, 85. 
 demand passes through three 
 phases, 86, 87. 
 
 Liberty, liberty of thought and 
 speech, 87. 
 
 Montesquieu's definition of, 88. 
 Voltaire on intellectual, 89. 
 on civil, 30. 
 
 Montesquieu on civil, 31 sq. 
 Economists on civil, 33. 
 Kousseau on political, 34. 
 Economists on political, 36, 
 Montesquieu on political, 37. 
 Voltaire on political, 37. 
 right to, claimed by revolutionary 
 
 doctrine, 155. 
 revolutionary definition of, 156. 
 of person, during Revolution, 156, 
 
 157. 
 of thought, 157. 
 
 summary of revolutionary doc- 
 trine of, 159. 
 Lichtenberger, cited, pref. v, 6k, 
 15m, 20m, 82m, 49jt, 50m, 106m, 840m. 
 Linguet, political reformer of 18th 
 
 century, 8. 
 Louis XII, establishes Pariement, 88. 
 Louis XIV, phases in literary history 
 of his reign, 6. 
 political and social decay during 
 reign of, 64. 
 Louis XV, seems consciously to work 
 for social upheaval, 67. 
 his mistaken methods of govern- 
 ment, 67-69. 
 Louis XVI, his vacillating policy 
 fans the rising revolt, 69, sq 
 prosperity Increases during his 
 
 reign, 70. 
 civil law under, 78. 
 the prey of factions, 74, 74m. 
 Lowell, cited, 852. 
 
 MABLT, political reformer of 
 18th century, 8. 
 on theory of Natural Man, 15m. 
 on happiness, 80. 
 on social responsibility, 83. 
 on liberty, 34m. 
 
394 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Mably, on equality, 48. 
 Majority rule, taught by Bousseau, 35. 
 revolutionists on, 173, 187. 
 advocated by Idealistic Socialists, 
 202. 
 Malon, on Fecquer and Vidal, 223. 
 founds " 8ociit6 d' iconomie so- 
 
 dale," 280. 
 definition of socialism, 314. 
 on ideals in socialism, 316. 
 Malouet, on popular sovereignty, 174. 
 Manifesto of 1847, first expression of 
 
 Marxian doctrine, 277. 
 Marivaux, novelist of manners, 6. 
 expresses the critical spirit of his 
 times, 27. 
 Martin, cited, 88«, 68b. 
 Marx, makes socialism a political 
 ■ and international movement, 275. 
 his theories unify socialism, 1^6. 
 popularit.y of, in France, 277 sq. 
 his great power as a leader, ibid. 
 does not promise a final solution of 
 
 social discontent, 291. 
 on movement in history, 296. 
 on property forms, 297. 
 on value, 306». 
 
 criticism of theory of value of, 306»i. 
 
 Marxism. See Scientific Socialism. 
 
 Materialistic conception of history, 
 
 suggested in Saint Simon, 220. 
 
 as given by Scientific Socialism, 
 
 298-898. 
 comparison of Saint Simon and 
 
 Marxism on, 297n. 
 is unscientific, 299. 
 is not supported by history, 300. 
 is inspired by rebellion against 
 
 established conditions, 301. 
 tends unintentionally to quietism, 
 303. 
 Mechanical production, its effects 
 upon the workman, 861. 
 increases the interdependence of 
 
 workers, 263 nq. 
 and of nations, 863. 
 
 Mechanical production, gives social- 
 ism a specific complaint, 865. 
 
 changes standard of living, 268. 
 Mereier, one of the founders of 
 modern political economy, 8. 
 
 on happiness, 21. 
 MSricourt', Mile, de, her salon, 96. 
 Meslier, among earliest reformers of 
 18th century, 8. 
 
 on progress, 15n. 
 
 definition of happiness, 21. 
 
 his " Testament " and its influence 
 26n. 
 
 on liberty, 34 
 
 on equality, 41. 
 
 on property, 48. 
 Michel, cited, 146 sq., ISOn, 804™, 205n, 
 
 212», 217n, 223m.. 
 Michel de THopital, asks for social 
 
 reform, 88. 
 Michelet, cited, 97n. 
 Minorities, apt to rule, 118. 
 
 control during Eevolution, 118. 
 Mirabeau, on Louis XVI, 74»i. 
 
 at Jacobin Club, 99. 
 
 controls Constituent Assembly, 112, 
 
 great popularity of, 116. 
 
 on Bights of Man, 151, 151n. 
 
 presents Rights of Man to Assem- 
 bly, 158. 
 
 on liberty, 156. 
 
 on religious liberty, 157, 168. 
 
 on equality, 160. 
 
 on property, 166. 
 Montagnards. See Jacobin Party. 
 Montesquieu, leading political theo- 
 rist, 8. 
 
 his theory of first causes, 12. 
 
 on progress, 15n. 
 
 doctrine of relativity of all laws, 16. 
 
 on means to happiness, 20. 
 
 definition of liberty, 28. 
 
 on civil liberty, 31 sq. 
 
 on English constitution, 32?t. 
 
 on political liberty, 37. 
 
 on property, 47. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 395 
 
 Montesquieu, his influence on the 
 
 revolutionary doctrines, 63. 
 Montmorency, Duo de, on the Rights 
 
 of Man, 152. 
 Morelly, his place in poUtical reform, 
 8. 
 doctrine of progress, 15n. 
 on happiness, 21. 
 on equality, 41. 
 Morley, cited, 13«, 35m. 
 Morse-Stephens, cited, 79«, 119«, 
 
 135?i. 
 Mounter, on Rights of Man, 154n. 
 on function of state, 180. 
 
 VTATIONAL workshops, effect of 
 I^ their failure upon socialism, 231. 
 Natural Man, theory developed in 
 18th century, 14. 
 taught during Revolution, 139. 
 controlling theory of the Revolu- 
 tion, 141. 
 Natural religion, in- revolutionary 
 theory, 133 sq. 
 foundation principle of Revolution, 
 138. 
 Natural Rights. See Rights of Man. 
 Nature, Physiocrats appeal to, 19. 
 Revolution calls it final authority, 
 
 133. 
 said to he the guide to happiness, 
 137. 
 Necessity, doctrine of, supported by 
 Marxism, 294. 
 unscientific character of, 299. 
 Necker, writes concerning political 
 
 reform, 8. 
 Necker, Madame, her salon in 1789, 
 
 95. 
 Newspapers, come to France, during 
 the Revolution, 105. 
 have a marked share in spreading 
 revolutionary principles, 105. 
 Noblesse, its prejudices make it 
 politically inactive, 80. 
 equality within the caste, 81. 
 
 Noblesse, loses wealth from 12th to 
 18th century, 81. 
 under Louis XVI, 82-84. 
 
 OLD REGIME, its decay under 
 Louis XIV, 6, 64. 
 under Louis XV, 68-69. 
 final downfall under Louis XVI, 
 69-75. 
 Oath of the Tennis Court, 74. 
 
 PAMPHLETS, of Revolution, great 
 numbers of them, 106. 
 more important, preach doctrines 
 
 strongly radical, 106. 
 " Q«' est ce que le Tiers-Etat ? " of 
 
 Siftyes, 107. 
 important writers of, 10771. 
 Palais Royal, center of radicalism, in 
 
 1789, 100. 
 Paris, its influence in shaping revo- 
 lutionary principles, 94 sq. 
 Parties of the Revolution, succeed 
 each other rapidly, 115. 
 two chief, 119, 120. 
 Party, modern socialist, in France, 
 beginnings of, 2i'8 sg. 
 factions of, 279 sq. 
 program of, 281-284. 
 Pascal, his attitude toward reason, 
 12. 
 of Third Estate, 89. 
 Peasants, of old regime, 84, 84»i, 8.5. 
 prosperous among them sympa- 
 thize with new principles, 85. 
 of to-day, and socialism, 284 sq. 
 Pecquer, on property, 212n.. 
 on accepted methods of production, 
 
 283. 
 influence on later socialism, 231. 
 " Philosophes," the general tenor of 
 their teachings, 8. 
 artistic gifts of, 9. 
 iconoclastic influence of, 10. 
 Philosophy, English, becomes French 
 doctrine, 76. 
 
396 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Physiocrats, doctrine of origin of 
 society, 15. 
 definition of happiness, 19. 
 chief members of the school, 19ji. 
 definition of liberty, S8. 
 on civil liberty, 32, 33. 
 on political liberty, 36. 
 teach equality of opportunity, 48. 
 their influence on revolutionary 
 
 theory, 53. 
 appeal to Third Estate, 92. 
 their doctrine during the Revolu- 
 tion, 130. 
 Political concensus, lack of, in 
 
 France, 252 sq. 
 Political Liberty. See Liberty. 
 Political theory, of England, serves 
 
 for French model, 75, 76. 
 Pope, his influence on the ''^philoso- 
 phea," 23. 
 during the Revolution, 134. 
 Populace of Paris, force the doctrine 
 
 of democracy on France, 114. 
 Popular Sovereignty. See Sover- 
 eignty. 
 Possibilists, faction of modem French 
 
 socialism, 279. 
 Potter, De, on Property, 337. 
 Power, Distribution of. See Distri- 
 bution of Power. 
 Principles of the Revolution, three 
 stages to their final expression, 
 110-116. 
 their radical and inclusive charac- 
 ter, 129. 
 absence of economic theory in, 130. 
 fundamental doctrine does not 
 change during the Revolution, 132. 
 explanation of final causes, 133 sq. 
 recognize Deity, 185. 
 rejects authority, 136. 
 on mundane happiness, 137. 
 on origin of society, 139. 
 on "Natural Man," 140, 141. 
 on social progress, ibid. 
 on social contract, 142 sq. 
 
 Principles of the Revolution, theory 
 
 of government, 145. 
 
 individualism of, 146. 
 
 why include Rights of Man, 149-154. 
 
 doctrine of liberty of person, 156. 
 
 of liberty of thought, 157. 
 
 doctrine of equality, 160-163. 
 
 theories of property, 165-169. 
 
 sovereignty, 170. 
 
 right of resistance, 174. 
 
 function of state, 178. 
 
 summary of, 185. 
 Production, modern methods of, 
 criticised by Idealistic Socialists, 
 212 sq. 
 
 bring great changes, 261 sq. 
 
 under Integral Socialism, 344-349. 
 
 Cf. Mechanical Production and 
 Capitalistic Production. 
 Progress, Social. See Social Progress.- 
 Proletariat. See Labor. 
 Property, doctrines of 18th century in 
 regard to, 46-52. 
 
 orthodox theory concerning, 46. 
 
 Voltaire, Montesquieu and the En- 
 cyclopedists on, 46, 47. 
 
 Physiocratic doctrine of, 48. 
 
 18th century communistic and so- 
 cialistic theories of, 48 sq. 
 
 Rousseau on, 50. 
 
 revolutionary doctrine of, 163. 
 
 revolutionary theory of the state as 
 protector of, 165. 
 
 theory of the state as possessor of, 
 166. 
 
 appropriationlst theory of, 169. 
 
 Idealistic Socialists' theory of, 211 
 sq. 
 
 Proudhon on, 212ft. 
 
 Saint Simon on, 212n. 
 
 Fourier on, 212»i. 
 
 Blanc on, 212n. 
 
 Pecquer on, 212tc. 
 
 Babeuf on, 2I2n. 
 
 Scientific Socialism on, 29S, 297. 
 
 Mars on, 297. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 397 
 
 Property, Deville on, 297. 
 
 Integral Socialism on, 336 sq. 
 
 Revolution and Socialism on, 366. 
 Prosperity, increase of, during Louis 
 
 XVI's reign, 70. 
 Proudhon, not strictly a socialist, yet 
 an influence for socialism, 195». 
 
 recognizes Deity, 200. 
 
 on social justice, 205. 
 
 on property, 21271. 
 
 on classes, 224. 
 
 influence on later socialism, 231. 
 Provincial Assemblies, Louis XVI's 
 plan for them, 71. _ 
 
 their character, 72. 
 
 their efi^ect, ibid. 
 
 QUESNAT, helps lay foundation of 
 science of political economy, 8. 
 leader of a section of the Physio- 
 crats, 19n. 
 Quietism, Marxism logically tends 
 toward, 302. 
 
 RABAUD DE SAINT ETIENNE, his 
 pamphlet, 10771. 
 on religious liberty, 157. 
 Bacine, urges reforms, 7. 
 national method of 18th century, 
 11. 
 of the Revolution, 136. 
 Raynal, philosopher and political re- 
 former, 8. 
 Reason, worship of, during the Revo- 
 lution, 135, 136)1. 
 Referendum, in revolutionary theory, 
 176. 
 advocated by Integral Socialism, 
 329. 
 Religion, Scieutiflc Socialism on, 310. 
 Renard, on internationalism, 282». 
 on value of ideals, 317™. 
 best exponent of Integral Social 
 
 ism, 318m. 
 definition of society, 319. 
 QD causes of association, 330. 
 
 Renard, on relation between society 
 and the individual, 321. 
 on rights of the individual, 323-325. 
 on functions of state, 326. 
 on property, 337 sq. 
 on production under the socialistic 
 
 regime, 343 sq. 
 on distribution, 349. 
 on value, 852. 
 R6tif de la Bretonne, school of Rous- 
 seau, 22. 
 Revelation, denied by the Revolution- 
 ists, 136. 
 Revolutionary Principles. See Prin- 
 ciples of the Revolution. 
 Reybaud, cited, 194», 198, 203n, 217», 
 
 240n. 
 Right to fruits of labor. Integral So- 
 cialism urges, 337. 
 Right to Equality. See Equality. 
 Right to Happiness. See Happiness. 
 Right to Liberty. See Liberty. 
 Right to liberty of thought, 157, 158. 
 Right to Property. See Property. 
 Right of Resistance, derived by Revo- 
 lutionists from popular sover- 
 eignty, 174. 
 Right to security, 166, 157. 
 Rights of Man, discussed in salons, 
 96. 
 proclamation of, creates anarchy, 
 
 116. 
 chief doctrine of the Revolution, 
 
 131. 
 deduced from theory of Natural 
 
 Man, 140. 
 two interpretations of, during 
 
 Revolution, 148, 149. 
 history of embodiment of, in 
 
 French constitutional law, 149. 
 formulation of, opposed by a, 
 
 minority, 150 sq. 
 right to security, 166, 1B7. 
 right to liberty of thought, 167, 
 
 158. 
 right to equality, 160-163. 
 
398 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bights of Man, right of resistance, 174. 
 served as weapon of revolt, 187. 
 reasserted hy Idealistic Socialists, 
 
 803. 
 Integral Socialism on, 328-324. 
 Robespierre, at Jacobin Club, 99. 
 on Natural Kights, 139)i. 
 on social contract, 144. 
 on government, 145. 
 on property, 167. 
 on popular sovereignty, 173. 
 on right of resistance, 175. 
 on function of state, 181. 
 Rocquain, cited, 62ji, 637i. 
 Boland, his patriotism, 119. 
 
 on equality, 160n. 
 Roland, Madame, cited, 119n. 
 Rousseau, as scientist, 8. 
 his deism, 13. 
 on Natural Man, 15. 
 on means for individual and social 
 
 happiness, 82 sq. 
 definition of liberty, 28. 
 theory of social contract, 35. 
 begins the demand for majority 
 
 rule, 35. 
 contradictory position on civil lib- 
 erty, 36?i. 
 varying point of view on equality, 
 
 44. 
 positive influence in regard to 
 
 equality, 46. 
 dual effect of his teachings, 45n. 
 on property, 50. 
 influence of, on the revolutionary 
 
 thinlsing, 54. 
 appeal of Third Estate to, 92. 
 political problem posed by, 821. 
 on government, 330. 
 Russell, cited, 276n,. 
 
 SABRAN, MADAME DE, holds re- 
 actionary salon in 1789, 95. 
 Bagnac, cited, 162n,, 183?i. 
 Saint Andr6, Jean Bon de, on Natural 
 Man, 139n. 
 
 Saint Etienne, Rabaud de. See Ba- 
 
 baud de Saint Etienne. 
 Saint Just, on popular sovereignty, 
 
 174m. 
 Saint Pierre, his idea of happiness, 
 
 22. 
 Saint Simon (L. de Rouvroy, Due de)^ 
 
 cited, 89. 
 Saint Simon (Comte de), accepts 
 
 Christianity, 200. 
 advocates legal not natural rights, 
 
 202n. 
 on social justice, 205, 206. 
 on social content, 208. 
 on education, 310. 
 on proi)erty, 218re. 
 aims to use scientific methods, 217. 
 on social progress, 219 sq. 
 not in true sense an Idealistic 
 
 Socialist, 819?i. 
 originates matertalistic conception 
 
 of history, 820. 
 centers interest on industrialism, 
 
 822. 
 on classes, 224. 
 position toward labor, 287n. 
 his influence, 231. 
 Salons, of the 18th century, 95. 
 of 1789, aid. 
 
 their political character, ihid. 
 emphasize and concentrate new 
 
 opinion, 96. 
 Science, its influence on progress of 
 
 socialism, 243 aq. 
 brings materialism into socialistic 
 
 theory, 245. 
 destroys Utopian character of so- 
 cialism, 246. 
 aids to make socialism popular, 
 
 246 33. 
 Scientific method. Idealistic Socialists 
 
 aim to use it, 197. 
 Scientific Socialism, its beginnings, 
 
 2?9. 
 definitions of, 291 sq. 
 its general character, 292. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 399 
 
 Scientific Socialism, only relatively 
 scieutific, 2it:2. 
 its theory of individual and social 
 
 progress, 293-297. 
 on property, 297, 298. 
 on labor and capital, 398, 299. 
 analysis of present social condi- 
 tions, 303-312. 
 on surplus value, 307. 
 on concentration of capital, 307 sg. 
 on government, 310. 
 on religion, ibid. 
 on family, ibid. 
 on state, 310 sq. 
 weakness of, 313 sq. 
 Sechelles, Herault de, presents Con- 
 stitution of 1793, 122, 154. 
 Servan, on Rights of Man, 154?i. 
 S6vign6, Madame de, cited, 90. 
 Sieyes, his " QiC est ce que le Tiers- 
 Etatf ■' 107. 
 advocates the elective principle, 115. 
 his plan for Eights of Man, 154n. 
 on liberty, 156. 
 on freedom of the press, 158, 
 on function of government, 180. 
 Social consciousness, developed by 
 democracy, 256. 
 by Rousseau's teachings, 256. 
 by ethical standards of the 19th 
 
 century, 257. 
 by nationalism, 258. 
 by town-life, ibid. 
 aids to spread socialistic theory, 259. 
 Social Contract, given to France by 
 Rousseau, 34n. 
 the doctrine of, 35. 
 during the Revolution, 142 sg. 
 Social Justice. See Justice. 
 Social progress, Idealistic Socialists 
 adopt the theory, 218. 
 carefully elaborated by Saint Si- 
 mon. 219. 
 Idealistic Socialists foresaw the 
 
 completion of, 221. 
 Scientific Socialism on, 293 sq. 
 
 Social progress, man's share in bring- 
 ing about, 302. 
 
 Integral Socialism on, 317 sq. 
 Socialism, becomes an international 
 movement during the 19th cen- 
 tury, 193. 
 
 origin of word, 194n. 
 
 two periods in development of, 194. 
 
 prominence of, in France to-day, 
 239. 
 
 new attitude of scholars and states- 
 men toward, 239 sq. 
 
 present political status of, 241 sq. 
 
 is a democratic movement, 251. 
 
 gains currency because of increas- 
 ing social consciousness, 255. 
 
 becomes a specific attack as me- 
 chanical production creates inter- 
 dependence, 264. 
 
 seems annihilated in France after 
 1848, 275. 
 
 return of exiles revives, 275. 
 
 influence of Marx and Engels on, 
 276 sq. 
 
 Scientific, Ch. VI, § I, passim. 
 
 Integral, Ch. VI, § II, passim. 
 
 principles of modern French, 
 357, 358. 
 
 the distinctive part of the theory, 
 369 sq. 
 Socialism, Integral. See Integral 
 
 Socialism. 
 Socialism, Scientific. See Scientific 
 
 Socialism . 
 Socialists, Idealistic. See Idealistic 
 
 Socialism. 
 Society, Rousseau on origin of, 35. 
 
 Revolutionists on origin of, 139 sq. 
 
 origin of, according to Marxism, 
 293 sq. 
 
 origin of, according to Integral 
 Socialism, S17 sq. 
 
 Integral Socialists' definition of, 318. 
 
 Integral Socialism on development 
 of, 320. 
 
 Integral Socialism on end of, 320. 
 
-100 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Society, Revolution and modern 
 
 French socialism on, 364. 
 Sovereignty, doctrine of popular, 35. 
 
 Revolutionists on, 173 
 Standard of life, alters with new me- 
 chanical processes, 368 sq. 
 brings greater social unrest, 271 sq. 
 effects of this on socialism, 372 sq. 
 State, French political theory on, 
 responsibility of, 23, 254. 
 18th century theories as to func- 
 tion of, 34 sq. 
 revolutionary doctrines as to func- 
 tion of, 178 sq, 188. 
 Idealistic Socialists on responsi- 
 bility of, 308, 309. 
 first duty of, according to Idealis- 
 tic Socialists, 310. 
 Idealistic Socialists on control of 
 
 industry by, 335. 
 their method for such control, 
 
 338. 
 Scientific Socialism on, 309. 
 Integral Socialists' definition of, 
 
 319. 
 Integral Socialism on function of, 
 
 SS6 sq. 
 Integral Socialism on justice of 
 
 control of industry by, 335. 
 Revolutionists and Socialists on 
 function of, 365. 
 States-General, of 1789, arrange for, 
 73. 
 of 16'5, 88. 
 Statistical bureau, planned by In- 
 tegral Sociahsm, 346. 
 Sudre, cited, 162, 166. 
 Surplus Labor, 399. 
 Surplus Value, 307. 
 
 TAINE, cited, 83™, 8»n,, 84», 85n, 90n., 
 llln. 
 Talleyrand, on function of the state, 
 
 181. 
 Talma, Madame, her salon during 
 the Revolution, 96. 
 
 Target, on function of government, 
 
 180. 
 Taxation, under old regime, causes 
 discontent, 68. 
 effect of, on Third Estate, 91, 92. 
 Theatres, of the Revolution, active 
 share of, in spreading new opin- 
 ion, 108 sq. 
 Thierry, cited, 81n, 86n, 87n, 88n, 89n, 
 
 91n, 
 Thiers, cited, 121m. 
 Third Estate, medium to express 
 principles of the Revolution, 78. 
 causes of its preSminence in 1789, 86. 
 radical tendency of, 87. 
 becomes distinct as a class, ibid. 
 grows to power, 87, 88. 
 position of, during reign of Louis 
 
 XIV, 89. 
 during 18th century, 90. 
 grows indifferent to political rights, 
 
 ibid. 
 increasing wealth of, arouses other 
 
 ambitions, ibid. 
 rebellion of, against code of eti- 
 quette, 91, 
 finally undertakes leadership in 
 spreading the revolutionary doc- 
 trine, 92. 
 Tocqueville, De. See De Tocqueville, 
 Town-life, develops social conscious- 
 ness, 258. 
 Trades unions, make for stronger 
 class feeling, 266. 
 how aid socialism, 267. 
 Tronchet, on property, 167. 
 Turgot, one of first political econo- 
 ihists, 8. 
 his plan of reform, 71. 
 suggests theory of social progress, 
 140. 
 
 VACILLATING policy of Louis XV] 
 stirs revolt, 69-75. 
 Value, Scientific Socialism on, 306 sq. 
 Marx on, 306n. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 401 
 
 Value, critical discusMon of Marxian 
 
 theory of, 806m. 
 
 Integral Socialism on, 352 sg. 
 
 discussion of Integral Socialists' 
 theory of, 354 sq. 
 Vatel, cited, 119. 
 Vauban, plans for reform, 7. 
 Veblin, cited, 270. 
 Vergniaud, at Jacobin Club, 99. 
 
 his eloquence, 119. 
 
 on Natural Man, 189m. 
 
 on social contract, 144. 
 
 on property, 166m. 
 
 on popular sovereignty, 174. 
 
 on right of resistance, 174)i. 
 
 on separation of powers, 176m. 
 Vidal, on productive property, 212m. 
 
 on methods of production and dis- 
 tribution, 828. 
 
 influence on later socialism, 281. 
 Villey, cited, 194m. 
 
 Volney, on revelation, 136. 
 
 on primitive man, 140m, 148n. 
 Voltaire, as scientist, 8. 
 
 on first causes, 12. 
 
 on means to happiness, 20. 
 
 general standards of, 89. 
 
 on intellectual liberty, 29. 
 
 on civil liberty, 30. 
 
 on political liberty, 87. 
 
 on equality, 43. 
 
 on property, 47. 
 
 nature of influence of, 53. 
 Von Hoist, cited, 10m, 71m, 91m, 109n, 
 
 • 116m. 
 
 WELSCHINGEE, cited, 108m. 
 Werner-Sombart, cited, 276m, S79m. 
 
 YOUNG, AKTHUE, cited, 83m, 84m, 
 111m. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 
 
 ADAMS, CHARLES KENDALL. 
 Democracy and Monarchy in 
 France. Henry Holt & Co., 1875, 18. 
 Alembert, Jean Baptiste le Bond d\ 
 
 CEuvres. Paris, 1831-22, 8. 
 Alger, J. Q. Glimpses of the Revo- 
 lution. Sampson Low, Marston 
 & Co., London, 1894. 
 Argenson, RenS Louis Voyer d'. 
 Mfimoires. Baudouin frfires, 
 Paris, 1825, 34, 49. 
 Aulard, F.-A. La SociStS des Ja- 
 cobins. Paris, 1889-1898, 98, 135. 
 Le Culte de la Raison et le Culte de 
 I'etre Supreme. Feliz Alcan, 
 Paris, 1885, 134, 135. 
 
 BABEAU, ALBERT. La vie rurale 
 dans I'ancienne France. Emile 
 Perrin et cie., Paris, 1885. 
 Le Tillage sous Tanoien regime. 
 
 Dldier et cie., Paris, 1882. 
 La ville sous I'ancien rggime. 
 
 Didier et cie., Paris, 1884. 
 Paris en 1789. Firmin, Didier et 
 cie., Paris, 1891, 70. 
 Babeuf, Frangois Noel (Gracchus). 
 CEuvres divers. Published chieily 
 at Paris, 1786-1797, 202. 
 Bailly, Jean Sylvain. Mfimoires. 
 Baudouin frfires, Paris, 1827, 74, 
 149, 151. 
 Barbaroux, Charles Jean Marie. 
 M6moires. Baudouin frdres, 
 Paris, 1872. 
 Barras, Paul Jean Frangois Nicolas, 
 ComteDe. Memoirs. Eng. trans. 
 Harper Brothers, N. Y., 1895. 
 
 Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin 
 Caron De. Comedies. Lemerre, 
 Paris, 1873. 
 M6moires. Laplace, Paris, 1876. 
 
 Bebel, Ferdinand August. Die Frau 
 und der Socialismus. Diet, Stutt- 
 gart, 1897. 
 
 Belloc, Hilaire. Danton. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, N. Y., 1899, 84, 86, 
 91. 
 
 Bertrand, Louis. Qu'est ce que le So- 
 cialisme? La Coop6ration. (Un- 
 dated publications of the Socialist 
 press.) 315. 
 
 Eire, Edraond. Journal d'un bour- 
 geois de Paris pendant la Terreur. 
 Gervais, Paris, 1884. 
 
 Blanc, Louis. Histoire de la Revolu- 
 tion, frangaise. Furne et cie., 
 Paris, 1869. 
 Histoire de Dix Ans. Pagnerre, 
 
 Paris, 1849. 
 R6v61atioDs historiques. Leipzig, 
 
 1859. 
 Questions d'aujourd'hui et de de- 
 main. Dentu, Paris, 1873-1884, 
 105, 173, 307, 313, 217, 321. 
 
 Bliss, W. Dwight Porter. Handbook 
 of Socialism. Funk & Wagnalls, 
 N. Y . 1897. 
 
 Bodley, J. E. Courtenay. France. 
 Macmillan & Co., N. Y., 1898. 
 
 Bohm-Bawerk, Eugen von. Karl 
 Marx and the Close of his System. 
 Eng. trans. Macmillan & Co., 1898. 
 
 Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas. Satires. 
 Librairie des Bibliophiles, Paris, 
 1876, 5. 
 
 403 
 
404 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 
 
 Boisguillebert. Detail de la France 
 sous, Louis Xrv, 7. 
 
 Bolteau, Paul. Etat de la France en 
 1789. Guillaumin et cie., Paris, 
 1889, 87. 
 
 Booth, Arthui' John. Saint Simon 
 and the Saint Simonians. Long- 
 man, London, 1871, 217. 
 
 Boulard, Edward. Pbilosophie et 
 pratique du CoUectivisme Int6- 
 grale R6volutionnaire. Librairie 
 Socialiste, Paris, 1897, 328. 
 
 Brissac, Henri. Socialisme eollecti- 
 viste. R?sum6 populaire du So- 
 cialisme. (Undated publications 
 of the Socialist press of Paris.) 
 
 BrunetiSre, Ferdinand. Histoire et 
 Littftrature. Paris, 1893, 70, 84. 
 
 Bruydre. CaractSres. 7. 
 
 Burke, Edmund. Eeflections on the 
 French Revolution. 
 
 Buchez et Rous. Histoire parlemen- 
 taire de la Revolution frangaise. 
 Picard et flls, Paris, 1833-1888, 204. 
 
 CABET, ]5TIENNE. Voyage en 
 Icarie. Paris, 1848, 195. 
 Le vrai Christianisme suivant J6- 
 sus Christ. Au Bureau de Popu- 
 laire, Paris, 1848. 
 
 Campan, Madame De. M6moires. 
 Baudouin fr^res. Paris, 1826. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas. French Revolution. 
 Charles Scribner^s Sons, N. Y., 
 1899. 
 
 Cherest, Aim6. La Chute de Tancien 
 r6gime. Hachette et cie., Paris, 
 1864, 73, 94, lOS, 150. 
 
 Cherbel, Adolph. Dictionnaire des 
 Institutions de la France. Hach- 
 ette et cie., Paris, 1880. 
 
 Dhoix De Rapports, Opinions, et Dis- 
 cours. Eymery, Paris, 1823, 133. 
 
 Christie, Thomas. Letters on the 
 French Revolution. London, 
 1791. 
 
 Clfiry, Jean Baptiste. Journal de ce 
 qui s'est pass6 & la Tour du Tem- 
 ple. Michaud, Paris, 1823. 
 
 Concourts, De. La Soci6t6 frangaise 
 pendant la Revolution, 77. 
 
 Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nico- 
 las Caritat , Marquis de. Esquisse 
 d'une histoire des progrfis ' de 
 I'esprit humain. Paris, 1795. 
 
 Cunningham, W. Growth of English 
 Industry and Commerce. Cam- 
 bridge, 1892. 
 
 D»ALAIS,VAEIASSE. Histoire de 
 Souveralnetfis. Paris, 1677, 6. 
 Delisle. Arlequln Sauvage. 1721, 7. 
 
 Timon le Misanthrope. 1722, 7. 
 Demolins, Edmond. A qui tientla 
 
 superiorite Anglo-Saxonne, 255. 
 DesmouUns, Benolt Camilla. Yieux 
 
 Cordeliers. Reprint by Baudouin 
 
 frSres, Paris, 1835, 107. 
 Desnoiresterres, Gustavo. Voltaire 
 
 et la Societg au XVllle sidcle. 
 
 Didier et cie., Paris, 1871-76. 
 De Tocqueville. ' L 'Ancien Regime 
 
 et la Revolution. Michel Levy. 
 
 1857, 82, 83, 85, 87. 
 Deville, Gabriel. Principes Social- 
 
 istes. Giard et BriSre, Paris, 1896, 
 
 281, 282, 295, 297. 
 Diderot, Denis. CEuvres. Gamier 
 
 frSres, Paris, 1875, 43. 
 Droz, Prangois Xavier Joseph. His- 
 toire du R^gne de Louis XVI. 
 
 Renouard, Paris, 1860. 
 Dilhring, Eugeil Karl. Kritische 
 
 Geschichte der Nationalfikonomie 
 
 und der Socialismus. Geilben^ 
 
 Beriin, 1871. 
 Dumont, :^tienne. Recollections of 
 
 Mirabeau. Edwin BuU, London, 
 
 1832, 111. 
 Dumouriez, Charles Frangois. Mfi- 
 
 moires. Baudouin frSres, Paris, 
 
 1825. 
 
BIBLIOQRAPBICAL INDEX. 
 
 406 
 
 ELY, RICHARD T. Socialism and 
 Social Eetorm. T. Y. Crowell 
 &Co.,N. Y., 1804, 194». 
 French and German Socialism. 
 Harper Brothers, New York. 
 Engels, Friedrich. Ludwig Feuer- 
 bach und der Ausgang der klas- 
 sischen deutschea Philosophie, 
 Stuttgart, 1895. 
 Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. 
 Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., Lon- 
 don, 1892. 
 Espinas, Alfred. La Philosophie so- 
 ciale au XVHIe siScle et la R6to- 
 lution. Ffilix Alcan, Paris, 1898, 
 163, 803. 
 
 FfiNELON. T616maqu6,6. 
 errieres, Sauveboeuf Comte de. 
 Mfimoires. Baudouin frSres, 
 Paris, 1882. 
 Fourier, Frangois Marie Charles. 
 Th^orie des Quatre Mouvements. 
 Paris. 1846. 
 Th6orie de ^'association domes- 
 tique et agricole. Paris, 1828, 223, 
 285. 
 
 GARAT. M€moires historiques sur 
 le XVille siScle, 20. 
 Gaudet. Les Qirondins, 119. 
 George Sand. La Comtesse de Ru- 
 dolstadt. 
 Compagnon du Tour de France, 
 
 204. 
 Le Pi^chiS de M. Antoine. 
 Goncourt, Edmond et Jules de. La 
 Soci6t6 frangaise pendant la 
 Revolution. ■ Dentu, Paris, 1854, 
 95, 97, 102, 106. 
 Graham, W. History of Socialism. 
 Paul French. Trubner & Co., 
 London, 1891. 
 Gronlund, Laurence, ^aira, or Dan- 
 ton in the French Revolution. 
 Lee & Shepard, Boston, 1895. 
 
 Guesde, Jules. Le Collectivisme au 
 College de France. Derveaux, 
 Paris, 1886. 
 
 Le Collectivisme au Palais Bour- 
 bon. Lille, 1894. 
 
 Problfime et Solution. Lille, 1894. 
 
 Double r^ponse 8, MM. de Munn et 
 Paul Desohanel. Paris, 1896, 308, 
 309, 310. 
 Guesde et Lafargue. Program du 
 parti ouvrier. Lille, 1894, 898. 
 
 HAMEL, EARNEST. Vie de Robes- 
 pierre. Lacroix, Verboeckho- 
 ven et cie., Paris, 1895. 
 H61ie, Faustine Adolphe. Les Consti- 
 tutions de la France. Marescaine 
 
 Paris, 1875. 
 Helvetius, Claude Adrien. De I'Es- 
 
 prit. Paris, 1845. 
 Higgs, Henry. The Physiocrats. 
 
 Macmillan & Co., 1897, 19. 
 Holbacb, Pierre Henri Thierry D'. 
 
 Systdme de la Nature. London, 
 
 1771, 8. 
 Houssaye, Arsdne. La Revolution. 
 
 BibliothSque Charpentier, Paris, 
 
 1891. 
 
 JANET, PAUL, Histoire de la Sci- 
 ence Politique. Paris, 1897. F. 
 Alcan, Paris, 240. 
 Les OriginesduSocialisme conteni- 
 porain. FSlix Alcan, Paris, 1896. 
 Saint Simon et les Saint Simoni- 
 ennes. F61ix Alcan, 240. 
 JaurSs, Jean. Patriotisme et Social- 
 isme. Lille, 1895. 
 Socialisme et Paysan. Paris, 1897, 
 853, 282, 292. 
 Jaurfis et Lafargue. IdSalisme et Ma- 
 t6rialisme dans la conception 
 matferialiste de Thistoire. Giard 
 et BriSre, Paris, 1897, 291. 
 Jobez, Alphonse. La France sous 
 Louis XVI. Didier et cie., Paris, 
 1877, 71. 
 
4:06 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 
 
 KAUFMANN,M. Utopias. Kegan. 
 Paul & Co., London, 1879. 
 Kautsky, Karl. Das Brturter Pro- 
 gramme. Diek, Stuttgart, 1893. 
 Kirkup, T. Inquiry into Socialism. 
 Longmans, Green & Co., London, 
 1888, 194. 
 
 LABRIOLA, ANTONIO. Essais sur 
 la conception mat6rialiste de 
 rhistoire. Giard et BriSre, Paris, 
 ,1897, 293, 295. 
 La BruySre, Jean De. Caractdres. 
 
 Firmin, Didot Fr6res, Fils et 
 
 cie., Paris, 1869, 7. 
 Lafargue, Paul. Evolution of Prop- 
 erty. Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 
 
 London, 1890, 293, 294. 
 Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis. 
 
 Les Girondins. Edition de I'au- 
 
 teur, Paris, 1861, 119. 
 La Petite Rfepublique Sooialiste. 
 
 (Daily paper of the Socialist 
 
 party.) 240. 
 LaEfivueSocialiste. (Monthly organ 
 
 of the Integral Socialists.) 
 Lassalle, Ferdinand. Reden und 
 
 Sohriften. Bernstein, Berlin, 
 
 1893, 276. 
 Laurent, Frangois. Etudes sur rhis- 
 toire de rhumanitfi. Meline, Cau- 
 
 set et cie. Bruxelles, 1861, 39. 
 Laveleye, fimile Louis "Victor De. Le 
 
 Socialisme contemporain. FSlix 
 
 Alcan, Paris, 1885. 
 De la propriety et ses formes primi- 
 tives. Macmillan &Co., 1878. 
 Lavergne, Leonce de, Les Econo- 
 
 mistes au XVIIIe sidcle. Paris, 
 
 1870. 
 Les assemblies provinciales sous 
 
 Louis SVI. Caiman Levy. Paris, 
 
 1879, 72, 90. 
 Lavoll6e, Ren6. Les classes ouvrifires 
 
 en Europe. GuiUaumin et cie., 
 
 Paris, 1884. 
 
 Leeky, William Hartpole. England 
 in the Eighteenth Century. Ap- 
 pleton & Co., N. Y., 1882. 
 Democracy and Liberty. Long- 
 mans, Green & Co., London, 1896. 
 
 Lecot, Andre. France. Putnam's 
 Sons, N. T., 1898, 809. 
 
 Leroux, Pierre. De rHumanit6. 
 Perrotin, Paris, 1840, 304. 
 
 Leroy-Beaulieu, Pierre Paul. La col- 
 lectivisme. GuiUaumin et cie., 
 Paris, 1885. 
 La Repartition de la Richesse. 
 
 GuiUaumin et cie., Paris, 1888. 
 La Question ouvridre au XIXe si8- 
 cle. Paris, 1872, 240. 
 
 Lesage, Alain Ren6. Gil Bias. Le- 
 merre, Paris, 1877, 27. 
 
 Levasseur, ]i!mile. Histoire des 
 classes ouvrifires depuis 1789. 
 1867. 
 L'Ouvrier Americain. Larose, 
 Paris, 1892. 
 
 Lewes, George Henry. Life of Robes- 
 pierre. Chapman, Hall & Co., 
 London, 1849. 
 
 Lichtenberger, Andr6. Le Socialisme 
 au XVIIIe siSele. P61ix Alcan, 
 Paris, 1896. 
 Le Socialisme et la Revolution tran- 
 gaise. P61ix Alcan, Paris, 1899, 
 6, 106, 167. 
 
 Lomenie, Louis Leonard de. Beau- 
 marchais et son Temps. Eug. 
 trans. Harper Brothers, N. Y., 
 1857. 
 
 Louvet De Couvray, Jean Baptists. 
 M6inoires. Baudouin frfires, 
 Paris, 1833. 
 
 Lowell, A. Lawrence. Governments 
 and Parties in Continental Eu- 
 rope. Houghton, MiflHin & Co., 
 Boston, 1896, 252. 
 
 Lowell, Edward J. Eve of the Revo- 
 lution. Houghton, MifSin & Co., 
 Boston, 1893. 
 
BIBLIOQBAPHIGAL INDEX. 
 
 407 
 
 MABLY, GABRIEL BONNOT. En- 
 tretden de Phocion. Amster- 
 dam, 1768. 
 Droits et Devoirs du Citoyen. Paris, 
 1789, 21, 23, 50. 
 Malllard, J. T. Au ProlStaire fran- 
 gaise. Edition de I'auteur. Paris, 
 1887. 
 Malon, Benott, CEuvres completes 
 Derveaux, Paris, 1883. 
 Precis de Socialisme. P611x Alcan, 
 Paris, 1892, 315, 317. 
 Marivaux, Pierre Carlet De Chamber- 
 lain De. Le Paysan Parvenu. 
 La Vie de Marianne, 6. 
 La Vie de Marianne. Ed. Gamier 
 frSres. (Undated.) 
 Martin, Henri. Histoire de France. 
 Fume et cie , Paris, 1866, 7, 63, 
 68. 
 Marx, Karl. Misfire de la Philosopliie. 
 Giard et BriSre, Paris, 1896. 
 Das Kapital. Meissner. Hamburg, 
 
 1883-94. 
 Dix-huit Brumaire. Lille, 1891. 
 Revolution and Counter Revolu- 
 tion. Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 
 London, 1896, 306. 
 Marx and Engels. Manifesto of 1847. 
 
 N. Y., 1888, 277. 
 Mercier, S6bastien. Tableau de Paris. 
 Nouvelle Edition. Amsterdam, 
 1753, 
 L'An 2440. Paris, An VH, 8, 21. 
 Meslier, Jean. Le Testament de Jean 
 Meslier. R. Charles, Amsterdam, 
 1864, 15, 26. 
 Michel, Henri. L'IdSe de I'Etat. 
 Hachette et cie., 1896, 180, 200, 317. 
 Michelet, Jules. Histoire de la RSvo- 
 lution frau{?aise. Lacroix, Ver- 
 •boeclthoven et cie., Paris, 1877, 
 97. 
 Mignet, Fran9ois Auguste Marie, 
 La R6volution frangaise. Eng, 
 ed. 
 
 Mirabeau, Gabriel HonorS Eiquetti, 
 Comte De. MSmoires par lui- 
 meme, par son p6re, son oncle et 
 son flls adoptif, prfic6dfe d'une 
 6tude de Mirabeau par Victor 
 Hugo. M61ine, Bruxelles, 1834, 
 74, 156. 
 CEuvres completes. Didier, Paris, 
 1835. 
 
 Vlolidre. Tartufle, 7. 
 
 Moniteur Universelle. Reprint by 
 Plon et cie., Paris, 1870. 
 
 Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, 
 Baron De La Brede Et De. CEu- 
 vres, Paris, 1820, 13, 15, 30, 38, 31, 
 32, 41, 47. 
 
 Morelly. Code de la Nature, Paris, 
 1841. 
 Basiliade, Paris, 1841, 15, 41, 49. 
 
 Morley, John. Diderot and the En- 
 cyclopedists. Scribner, N. Y., 
 1878. 
 Voltaire. Appleton & Co., 1872. 
 Rousseau. Macmillan & Co., N. Y., 
 1888, 13, 36. 
 
 Morse-Stephens. French Revolution 
 Scribner's Sons, N. Y., 1886, 79, 
 119, 135. 
 
 VTECKER, JACQUES. SurlaLggis- 
 _Ll lation et la Commerce des 
 
 Grains, in CEuvres. Edition De 
 
 Stael, Paris, 1820, 8. 
 
 OLIVIER, EDOUARD. La France 
 avant la Revolution. Guillau- 
 min et cie., Paris, 1889. 
 
 PECQUER, J. B. Des ameliorations 
 matSrielles dans leurs rapports 
 avec la libertS. Gosselin, Paris, 
 1840. 
 ThSorie nouvelle d^6conomie so- 
 ciale, ou Pfitude sur Torganiza- 
 tion de la soci6t6. Capelle, Paris, 
 1842, 212. 
 Pope. Essay on Man,23. 
 
408 
 
 BtBLIOGRAPHIOAL INDEX. 
 
 Protokol ijber Der Verhandlung Des 
 Sozial Demokratischen Partei- 
 tages. Vorwarts, Berlin, 1896, 
 284. 
 Proudhon, Pierre Joseph. UtilitS de 
 la calibration de dimanche. La- 
 croix, Verboeckhoven et cie., 
 Paris, 1868, 205. 
 
 Qu'est ce que la PropriStS? 1st 
 and 2d Memoirs. Tuokerman edi- 
 tion. 
 
 Avertissement aux propriAtaires. 
 Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et cie., 
 Paris, 1868. 
 
 SystSmes des Contradictions 6cono- 
 miques, ou la philosophie de la 
 Mis&re. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven 
 et cie., Paris, 1867. 
 
 Id6e g6n6ra]e de la R6volution. La- 
 croix, Verboeckhoven et cie., 
 Paris, 1868, 205, 224. 
 
 QIIESNA.T, FBANgoiS. CEuvres. 
 Onoken, Paris, 1888, 8. 
 Qui net, Edgar. La Efivolution. La- 
 croix, Verboeckhoven et cie., 
 Paris, 1865. 
 
 RAE, JOHN. Contemporary So- 
 cialism. Swan, Sonnenschein & 
 
 Co., 1891. 
 Beinach, Joseph. Diderot. Hachette 
 
 et cie., Paris, 1894. 
 Renard, Georges. Le Efigime Social- 
 
 iste. (In Eevue Socialiste, Tome 
 
 26,27.) 282. 
 Lettres socialistes. Giard et BriSre, 
 
 Paris, 1897, 317, 325. 
 Reybaud, Marie Roch Louis. Etudes 
 
 sur les rfiformateurs contempo- 
 
 rains ou le Socialisme moderne. 
 
 Guillaumin et cie., Paris, 1848, 
 
 198. 
 Roland De La PlatiSre, Madame 
 
 (Marie Jean Phlipon). M6moires. 
 
 Baudouin frSres, Pai-is, 1821, 119. 
 
 Rocquain, Ffflix. L'Esprit rSvolu- 
 tionnaire avant la Rfivolution. 
 Plon et cie., Paris, 1878, 12, 62. 
 
 Rousseau, Jean Jacques. (Euvres. 
 GenSve, 1782, 13, 15, 22, 35, 36, 40, 
 44, 51. 
 
 Russell, B. German Social De- 
 mocracy. Longmans, Green & 
 Co., London, 1896, 876. 
 
 SAGNACPH. La legislation civile 
 de la Revolution frangaise. 
 Hachette et cie., 1899, 162, 183. 
 Saint Simon, L. De Rouvroy, DucDe. 
 
 MSmoires, 1886, 89. 
 Saint Simon, Claude Henri, Comte 
 
 De. CEuvres de Saint Simon et 
 
 d'Entantin. Dentu, Paris, 200, 
 
 205, 206, 808, 810, 218, 218, 219, 
 
 880. 
 Saint Pierre, Abb6 de. CEuvres. 
 
 Aims Martin, Paris, 1818, 22. 
 Sallier. Annates frangaises, 101. 
 Scherer, Edmond Henri Adolphe. 
 
 Diderot. Calmann Levy, Paris, 
 
 1880. 
 Sorel, Albert. Montesquieu. Hach- 
 ette et cie., Paris, 1887. 
 L'Europe et la Revolution fran- 
 
 gaise. Plon, Nourrit et cie., 
 
 Paris, 1897. 
 Stein, L. SocialismusundCommunis- 
 
 nius des heutigen Frankreich. 
 
 Wigand, Leipzig, 1848. 
 Stephens, H. Morse. History oi: the 
 
 French Revolution. Charles 
 
 Seribner's Sons, N. T., 1886- 
 
 1891. 
 Stephens, W. Walker. Life and 
 
 Writings of Turgot. Longmans, 
 
 Green & Co., London, 1895. 
 Sudre, Alfred. Histoire de Com- 
 
 munisme. Guillaumin et cie., 
 
 Paris, 1856, 162. 
 Sue, EugSne. Les MystSres du Peu- 
 
 ple, 834. 
 
BIBLLOQBAPmC'AL INDEX. 
 
 409 
 
 TAINE, HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE. 
 Les Origines de la France con- 
 temporaine. Hachette et oie., 
 Paris, 1899, 66, 78, 83, 83, 84, 85,90, 
 
 in. 
 
 Thierry, Jacques Nicolas Augustin. 
 Essai BUT la forraatioQ et le pro- 
 gr6s du Tiers- Etat. Fume et 
 oie., Paris, 1868, 81,86, 87,88,89,91. 
 
 Thiers, Louis Adolphe. Histoire de 
 la ESvolution traneaise. Fume, 
 Jouvet etcie., Paris, 1873, 131. 
 
 Turgot, Anne Robert Jacques. ES- 
 flexions sur la formation et la 
 distribution des richesses. Eng. 
 trans. Macmillan & Co., N. Y., 
 1898, 8, 140. 
 
 YATEL, CHARLES. Charlotte Cor- 
 day et les Girondins. Plon etcie., 
 
 Paris, 1864-72, 119. 
 Vauban. Projet de Dime Royal, 7. 
 Veblin, Thorstein. Theory of the 
 
 Leisure Classes. Macmillan & Co., 
 
 N.Y., 1899,119. 
 Villey, Edmond. Le Socialisme con- 
 
 temporain. Guillaumin et cie., 
 
 Paris, 1895, 194. 
 Vian, Louis. Histoire de la vie et 
 
 des OuTrages de Montesquieu, 
 
 Didier et cie., Paris, 1878. 
 Vidal, Pierre. De la repartition de la 
 
 Eiehesse, ou la j ustice distributive 
 
 en 6couomie socile. Capelle, 1846. 
 Vivre en travalliant, projets, voies 
 
 et moyens de r6formes sociales. 
 
 Capelle, Paris, 1848, 313. 
 
 Volney. Constantin Frangois de Chas- 
 seboeuf De. CEuvres. Wahlen, 
 Bruxelles, 1833, 136, 140. 
 
 Voltaire, Frangois Marie Arouet De. 
 CEuvres. Paris, 1875, 7, 30, 43, 
 47. 
 
 Von Hoist, Hermann Eduard. French 
 Revolution tested by Mirabeau's 
 career. Callaglmn & Co., Chi- 
 cago, 1894. 10, 91, 109, 116. 
 
 Von Sybel, Heinrioh. French Revo- 
 lution. Eng. trans. Murray, Lon- 
 don, 1867. 
 
 WACHSMUTH, WILHELM. Qe- 
 schichte der Europaischen 
 Staaten. Hamburg, 1840. 
 
 Welschinger. Les Almanachs de la 
 R6volution. Librairie des Biblio- 
 philes, Paris, 1884, 108. , 
 
 Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. Indus- 
 trial Democracy. Longmans, 
 Green & Co , London, 1897. 
 
 Weber, Johann Georg. M^moires. 
 Baudouln frSres, Paris, 1833. 
 
 Woolsey, Theodore Dwight. Com- 
 munism and Socialism in their 
 history and theory. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, N. Y., 1880. 
 
 Wemer-Sombart. Le Socialisme et 
 le Mouvement sociale au XUe 
 siScle, Paris, 1898, 376, 379. 
 
 Y 
 
 OUNG, ARTHUR. Travels in 
 France. George Bell & Sons, 
 London, 1890, 83, 84, 94, 111.