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diff --git a/78218-0.txt b/78218-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ea11ef --- /dev/null +++ b/78218-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5939 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78218 *** + + The Great Betrayal + + (La Trahison des Clercs) + + + By + Julien Benda + + + Translated by + Richard Aldington + + + London + George Routledge & Sons, Ltd. + Broadway House, Carter Lane, E.C. + 1928. + + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY + STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, LTD., HERTFORD. + + + + + _Contents_ + + Translator’s Note + Author’s Foreword + I - The Modern Perfecting of Political Passions + II - Significance of this Movement--Nature of Political Passions + III - The ‘Clerks’--The Great Betrayal + IV - Summary--Predictions + Notes + [Footnotes] + [Transcriber’s Notes] + + + + +_Translator’s Note_ + + +The title of M. Benda’s book is _La Trahison des Clercs_. The word +‘Clercs’, which occurs throughout the book, is defined by M. Benda’s +as ‘all those who speak to the world in a transcendental manner’. I +do not know the English word for ‘all those who speak to the world +in a transcendental manner’. But in Chaucer’s time the word ‘clerk’ +(‘a clerke of Oxenforde’) meant anyone who was not a ‘layman’, a word +employed by M. Benda as the antithesis to ‘clerk’. We still use the +word in this sense when we speak of a ‘clerk in holy orders’ and retain +its root in ‘cleric’. A ‘cleric’ is the person described by M. Benda as +‘pre-eminently a clerk’. If the words ‘in holy orders’ are subtracted +from ‘a clerk in holy orders’, the remaining ‘clerk’ is roughly what M. +Benda means, though he also uses ‘clerk’ to include ‘a clerk in holy +orders’. Nowadays a clerk is a person who performs sedentary labour in +an office, and the word in England is pronounced ‘clark’. In America a +clerk (pronounced ‘clurrk’) is what the English call a shop-assistant. +In order to avoid a misleading title I have called this translation +_The Great Betrayal_, giving M. Benda’s title in brackets afterwards. +Where the word ‘clerk’ first occurs in the book, I have added the words +‘in the medieval sense’, and throughout the text I have invariably +written the word in inverted commas, ‘clerk’, to avoid any possible +misunderstanding. + +I should add that the words ‘real’ and ‘realism’ are nearly always +used in this book as the antithesis to ‘ideal’ and ‘idealism’. Other +abstract words are used in a rather special sense which I hope will be +plain from the context. + + R. A. + + + + + ‘The world is suffering from lack of faith + in a transcendental truth.’ + + _Renouvier._ + + + + +_Author’s Foreword_ + + +Tolstoi relates that when he was in the Army he saw one of his brother +officers strike a man who fell out from the ranks during a march. +Tolstoi said to him:-- + +‘Are you not ashamed to treat a fellow human being in this way? Have +you not read the Gospels?’ + +The other officer replied:-- + +‘And have you not read Army Orders?’ + +This retort will always be thrown back at the spiritual man who tries +to take the direction of the material. To me it seems a very wise one. +Those who lead men to the conquest of material things have no need of +justice and charity. + +Nevertheless I think it important that there should be men--even if +they are scorned--who urge their fellow beings to other religions than +the religion of the material. Now, those who should play this part +(to whom I have given the name of ‘clerks’ in the medieval sense of +the word) have not only ceased to do so, but are playing an exactly +contrary part. Most of the influential moralists of the past fifty +years in Europe, particularly the men of letters in France, call upon +mankind to sneer at the Gospel and to read Army Orders. + +This new teaching seems to me all the more deserving of serious +attention because it is addressed to a humanity which of its own +volition is now established in materialism with a decisiveness hitherto +unknown. And I shall begin by showing this to be true. + + + + +I + +_The Modern Perfecting of Political Passions_ + + +We are to consider those passions termed political, owing to which men +rise up against other men, the chief of which are racial passions, +class passions and national passions. Those persons who are most +determined to believe in the inevitable progress of the human species, +especially in its indispensable movement towards more peace and +love, cannot deny that during the past century these passions have +attained--and day by day increasingly so--in several most important +directions, a degree of perfection hitherto unknown in history. + +In the first place they affect a large number of men they never before +affected. When, for example, we study the civil wars which convulsed +France in the sixteenth century, and even those at the end of the +eighteenth century, we are struck by the small number of persons +whose minds were really disturbed by these events. While history, up +to the nineteenth century, is filled with long European wars which +left the great majority of people completely indifferent, apart from +the material losses they themselves suffered,[1] it may be said that +to-day there is scarcely a mind in Europe which is not affected--or +thinks itself affected--by a racial or class or national passion, and +most often by all three. The same progress seems to have taken place +in the New World, while immense bodies of men in the Far East, who +seemed to be free from these impulses, are awakening to social hatred, +the party system, and the national spirit insofar as it implies the +will to humiliate other men. To-day political passions have attained a +_universality_ never before known. + +They have also attained _coherence_. Thanks to the progress of +communication and, still more, to the group spirit, it is clear +that the holders of the same political hatred now form a compact +impassioned mass, every individual of which feels himself in touch +with the infinite numbers of others, whereas a century ago such +people were comparatively out of touch with each other and hated in +a ‘scattered’ way. This is singularly striking with respect to the +working classes who, even in the middle of the nineteenth century, +felt only a scattered hostility for the opposing class, attempted only +dispersed efforts at war (such as striking in one town, or one union), +whereas to-day they form a closely-woven fabric of hatred from one +end of Europe to the other. It may be asserted that these coherences +will tend to develop still further, for the will to group is one of +the most profound characteristics of the modern world, which even in +the most unexpected domains (for instance, the domain of thought) +is more and more becoming the world of leagues, of ‘unions’ and of +‘groups’. Is it necessary to say that the passion of the individual +is strengthened by feeling itself in proximity to these thousands +of similar passions? Let me add that the individual bestows a mystic +personality on the association of which he feels himself a member, and +gives it a religious adoration, which is simply the deification of his +own passion, and no small stimulus to its intensity. + +The coherence just described might be called a surface coherence, +but there is added to it a coherence of essence. For the very reason +that the holders of the same political passion form a more compact, +impassioned group, they also form a more _homogeneous_, impassioned +group, in which individual ways of feeling disappear and the zeal of +each member more and more takes on the colour of the others. In France, +for instance, one cannot but be struck by the fact that the enemies +of the democratic system (I am speaking of the mass, not the highest +points) display a passion which has little variety, shows very slight +differences in different persons. How little this mass of hatred is +weakened by personal and original manners of hating--one might almost +say that this passion itself is obedient to ‘democratic levelling +down’! How much more uniformity is shown now than a hundred years ago +by the emotions known as anti-Semitism, anti-Clericalism and Socialism, +in spite of the immense number of varieties in the last-named! And do +not those who are subject to these emotions now all tend _to say the +same thing_? Political passions, as passions, seem to have attained the +habit of discipline; they seem to obey a word of command even in the +manner they are felt. It is easy to see what increase of strength they +acquire thereby. + +With some of these passions the increase in homogeneousness is +accompanied by an increased _precision_. For instance, we all know that +a hundred years ago Socialism was a strong but vague passion with the +great mass of its supporters. But to-day Socialism has more closely +defined the object it wishes to attain, has determined the exact point +where it means to strike its adversary and the movement it intends to +create in order to succeed. The same progress may be observed in the +anti-democratic movement. And we all know that hatred becomes stronger +by becoming more precise. + +There is another sort of perfecting of political passions. Throughout +history until our own days I see these passions acting intermittently, +blazing up and then subsiding. I see that the undoubtedly terrible and +numerous explosions of class and race hatred were followed by long +periods of calm, or at least of somnolence. Wars between nations lasted +for years, but not hatred--even if we may say that it existed. To-day +we have only to look every morning at any daily paper and we shall see +that political hatreds do not cease for a single day. At best some +of them are silent a moment for the benefit of one among them which +suddenly claims all the subject’s strength. This is the period of +‘national unions’, which do not in the very least herald in the reign +of love, but merely of a general hatred which for the moment dominates +partial hatreds. To-day political passions have acquired _continuity_, +which is so rare a quality in all feelings. + +Let us consider a moment the impulse which causes partial hatreds to +abdicate in favour of another, more general hatred, which derives a +new religion of itself and hence a new strength, from the feeling of +its generality. Perhaps it has not been sufficiently observed that +this sort of impulse is one of the essential characteristics of the +nineteenth century. Twice during the nineteenth century, in Germany and +in Italy, the age-old hatreds of petty States disappeared in favour +of a great national passion. In the same period (more precisely, +at the end of the eighteenth century) in France, the mutual hatred +of the Court nobles and the country nobles was extinguished in the +greater hatred of both parties for all who were not nobles; the hatred +between the military and legal nobles disappeared in the same impulse; +the hatred between the upper and lower ranks of the clergy vanished +in their common hatred of laicality; the hatred between clergy and +nobility expired to the profit of their mutual hatred for the commons. +And in our times the hatred between the three orders has melted into +one hatred, that of the possessing classes for the working class. The +condensation of political passions into a small number of very simple +hatreds, springing from the deepest roots of the human heart, is a +conquest of modern times.[2] + +I also believe that I see a great progress in political passions to-day +in their relation to other passions in the same person. Political +passions undoubtedly occupied more of the attention of a bourgeois +of ancient France than is usually supposed, but less than the love +of money and pleasure, family feeling and the calls of vanity; while +the least we can say of his modern equivalent is that when political +passions take possession of him, they do so to the same extent as +the other passions. Compare, for instance, the tiny place occupied +by political passions in the French bourgeois as he appears in the +Fabliaux, in medieval drama, the novels of Scarron, Furetière and +Charles Sorel,[3] with the same bourgeois as drawn by Balzac, Stendhal, +Anatole France, Abel Hermant and Paul Bourget. (Of course, I am not +speaking of times of crisis, like the Ligue and the Fronde, when +political passions occupied the whole individual as soon as they +touched him at all.) The truth is that to-day political passions are +invading most of the other passions in the bourgeoisie, and weakening +the latter to their own profit. Everyone knows that in our own days +family rivalries, commercial enmities, ambitions and the competition +for public honours are all tainted with political passion. An apostle +of the modern mind clamours for ‘politics first’. He might have +observed that nowadays it is politics everywhere, politics always and +nothing but politics.[4] We have only to open our eyes to see when an +increase of power is acquired by political passion when combined with +other passions, so numerous, so constant and so strong themselves. +Coming to the man of the people, we can measure the increase of his +political passions in relation to his other passions in modern times +by considering, as Stendhal puts it, how long his whole passion was +limited to wishing (_a_) Not to be killed, (_b_) For a good warm coat. +And then we may recollect that when a little less misery permitted him +a few general ideas, how long it was before his vague desire for social +changes were transformed into a passion, i.e. showing the two essential +characteristics of passion: The fixed idea, and the need to put it +into action.[5] I think it may be said that political passions in all +classes to-day have attained a degree of _preponderance over all other +passions_ in those affected such as hitherto had been unknown. + +The reader will already have perceived an all-important factor in +the impulses I have been describing. Political passions rendered +universal, coherent, homogeneous, permanent, preponderant--everyone can +recognize there to a great extent the work of the cheap daily political +newspaper. One cannot help reflecting and wondering whether it may not +be that inter-human wars are only just beginning, when one thinks of +this instrument for developing their own passions which men have just +invented, or at least brought to a degree of power never seen before, +to which they abandon themselves with all the expansion of their hearts +every morning as soon as they are awake. + +I have now showed what might be called the perfecting of political +passions on the surface, in their more or less exterior aspects. But +they have also become strangely perfected in depth and inner strength. + +In the first place they have made an immense advance in consciousness +of themselves. Here again, largely owing to the influence of the +newspaper, it is clear that the mind affected by political hatred +to-day becomes conscious of its own passion, formulates it, sees it, +with an accuracy unknown to the same sort of mind fifty years ago. +There is no need to say how much the passion is intensified by this. +And while I am on this subject I should like to point to two passions, +which have certainly not come to birth in our times but have attained +consciousness of themselves, self-assertion, a pride in themselves. + +The first is what I shall call a certain _Jewish nationalism_. In the +past, when the Jews were accused in various countries of forming an +inferior race, or at any rate a peculiar people not to be assimilated, +they replied by denying their peculiarity, by trying to get rid of all +appearance of peculiarity, and by refusing to admit the reality of +race. But in the last few years we see some of them labouring to assert +this peculiarity, to define its characteristics--or what they think +such--taking a pride in it, and condemning every effort at assimilation +with their opponents (see the works of Israel Zangwill, of André Spire, +and the _Revue Juive_). Here I am not trying to discover whether the +impulse of these Jews is or is not nobler than the efforts of so many +others to have their origin pardoned them; I am simply pointing out to +those interested in the progress of peace in the world that our age has +added one more arrogance to those which set men against each other, at +least to the extent that it is conscious and proud of itself.[6] + +The other impulse I am thinking of is ‘_bourgeoisism_’, by which I +mean the passion of the bourgeois class in asserting itself against +the class by which it is threatened. It may be said that until our +own times, ‘class hatred’, as a conscious hatred proud of itself, was +chiefly the hatred of the labourer for the bourgeois. The reciprocal +hatred was much less clearly confessed. Ashamed of an egotism they +thought peculiar to their own caste, the bourgeois temporized with this +egotism, would not admit even to themselves that it existed, tried to +convince themselves and others that it was a form of interest in the +common good.[7] The bourgeois replied to the dogma of the class war by +denying that there really are any classes, thereby showing that while +they felt an inalterable opposition to the adverse party, they were +unwilling to admit that they felt it. To-day we have only to think of +Italian ‘Fascism’, of a certain ‘Eloge du Bourgeois Français’, and +numerous other manifestations of the same kind,[8] and we shall see +that the bourgeoisie are becoming fully conscious of their specific +egotisms, are proclaiming and venerating them as such and as though +these egotisms were bound up with the supreme interests of the human +race, that they are proud of this veneration and of setting up these +egotisms against those which are trying to destroy the bourgeoisie. In +our time there has been created the ‘mysticism’ of bourgeois passion in +its opposition to the passions of the other class.[9] Here again our +age enters in the balance-sheet of humanity the arrival of yet one more +passion at full possession of itself. + +The progress of political passions in depth during the past century +seems to me most remarkable in the case of national passions. + +First of all, owing to the fact that they are experienced to-day by +large masses of men, these passions have become _far more purely +passionate_. When the national feeling was practically confined to +Kings or their Ministers, it consisted chiefly in attachment to some +_interest_ (desire for territorial expansion, search for commercial +advantages and profitable alliances), whereas to-day when this national +feeling is continually experienced by common minds, it consists chiefly +in the exercise of _pride_. Everyone will agree that nationalist +passion in the modern citizen is far less founded on a comprehensive +knowledge of the national interests (he has an imperfect perception +of these interests, he lacks the information necessary and does not +try to acquire it, for he is indifferent to questions of foreign +policy) than on the pride he feels in his nation, on his will to feel +himself one with the nation, to react to the honours and insults he +thinks are bestowed on it. No doubt he wants his nation to acquire +territories, to be prosperous and to have powerful allies; but he wants +all this far less on account of the material results which will accrue +to the nation (how much is he conscious of these results?) than on +account of the glory, the prestige which the nation will acquire. By +becoming popular, national feeling has become national pride, national +susceptibility.[10] To measure how much more purely passionate it has +become, how much more perfectly irrational (and therefore stronger) +one has only to think of Jingoism, the form of patriotism specially +invented by democracies. If, in accordance with current opinion, you +think that pride is a weaker passion than self-interest, you may be +convinced to the contrary by observing how commonly men let themselves +be killed on account of a wound to their pride, and how infrequently +for some infraction of their interests. + +The susceptibility developed by national sentiment as it has become +popular makes the possibility of wars far greater to-day than in the +past. Obviously, with the peoples and with the aptitude of these new +‘sovereigns’ to rise up in a rage as soon as they think they are +insulted, peace runs an additional danger which did not exist when it +depended only upon Kings and their Ministers, who were far more purely +practical persons, fully self-controlled, and quite willing to put up +with insults when they did not think themselves the stronger party.[11] +And, in fact, how many times during the last hundred years has the +world almost flamed up in war solely because some nation thought its +honour had been wounded?[12] To this must be added the fact that this +national susceptibility provides the leaders of nations with a new and +most effective method of starting the wars they need, whether it is +employed at home or abroad. They have not failed to see this, which +is amply proved by the example of Bismarck and the means by which he +provoked war with Austria and with France. From this point of view +it seems to me quite correct to say with the French monarchists that +‘democracy is war’, provided that by democracy is meant the attainment +of national susceptibility by the masses, and provided that it is +recognized that no change in the system of government would destroy +this phenomenon.[13] + +Another considerable deepening of national passions comes from the fact +that the nations are now conscious of themselves not only as regards +their material existence, their military power, their territorial +possessions, and their economic wealth, but as regards their _moral_ +existence. With a hitherto unknown consciousness (prodigiously fanned +by authors) every nation now hugs itself and sets itself up against all +other nations as superior in language, art, literature, philosophy, +civilization, ‘culture’. Patriotism to-day is the assertion of one +form of mind against other forms of mind.[14] We know how much this +passion increases its inner strength in this way and that the wars +it determines are fiercer than those waged by the Kings, who merely +desired the same piece of territory. The prophecy of the old Saxon bard +is completely fulfilled: ‘In those days countries will be something +they have not yet become--they will be persons. They will feel hatred, +and these hatreds will cause wars more terrible than any that have yet +been seen.’[15] + +It is impossible to over-stress the novelty of this form of patriotism +in history. It is obviously bound up with the adoption of this passion +by the masses of the populace, and seems to have been inaugurated +in 1813 by Germany, who is apparently the real teacher of humanity +in the matter of democratic patriotism, if by this word is meant the +determination of a nation to oppose others in the name of its most +fundamental characteristics.[16] (The France of the Revolution and the +Empire never dreamed of setting itself up against other nations in the +name of its language or of its literature.) This form of patriotism was +so little known to preceding ages that there are countless examples +of nations adopting the cultures of other nations, even of those with +whom they were at war, and in addition reverencing the culture adopted. +Shall I refer to the profound respect of Rome for the genius of Greece, +though Rome had felt it necessary to crush Greece politically? To the +respect of the conquerors of Rome, such as Ataulf and Theodoric, for +Roman genius? And, nearer to ourselves, shall I mention Louis XIV +annexing Alsace and not for one moment thinking of forbidding the +German language?[17] In the past, nations displayed their sympathy for +the culture of other nations with whom they were at war, or invited +them to adopt their own. The Duke of Alba took measures to protect the +learned men in the towns of Holland, against which he was directing his +army; in the eighteenth century, the small German States, allied with +Frederick the Great against the French, adopted more freely than ever +French ideas, French fashions, French[18] literature; in the midst of +the struggle with England, the Convention sent a deputation there to +urge the English to adopt the French metric system.[19] The notion that +political warfare involves a war of cultures is entirely an invention +of modern times, and confers upon them a conspicuous place in the moral +history of humanity. + +Another strengthening of national passions comes from the determination +of the peoples to be conscious of _their past_, more precisely to +be conscious of their ambitions as going back to their ancestors, +and to vibrate with ‘centuries-old’ aspirations, with attachments to +‘historical’ rights. This Romantic patriotism is also a characteristic +of patriotism as practised by popular minds (by ‘popular’ I here mean +all minds governed by the imagination, that is, in the first place, +society people and men of letters). I have an idea that when Hugues de +Lionne desired for the nation the conquest of Flanders or when Sieyès +wanted the Low Countries, they did not think they felt the soul of +ancient Gauls reviving in them, any more than Bismarck thought (I am +not talking of what he said) of reviving the Teutonic Knights when he +coveted the Danish Duchies.[20] + +Those who wish to estimate the increase of violence given to national +passion by this solemnizing of its desires have only to observe what +has happened to this feeling among the Germans, with their claim to +be carrying on the spirit of the Holy Roman Empire, and among the +Italians since they have set up their aspirations as the revival of +those of the Roman Empire.[21] There once again the leaders of the +State find in popular sentimentality a new and excellent instrument for +carrying out their practical designs, an instrument they well know how +to use. To mention only one recent example--think of the result the +Italian government was able to obtain from the amazing aptitude of its +compatriots to wake up one fine morning and discover that the claim to +Fiume was a ‘centuries-old’ claim. + +Speaking generally, it may be said that national passions, owing to +the fact that they are now exerted by plebeian minds, assume the +character of _mysticism_, of a religious adoration almost unknown +in these passions in the practical minds of the great nobles. It is +unnecessary to add that this makes these passions deeper and stronger. +Here once more this plebeian form of patriotism is adopted by all who +practise this passion, even when they are the noisiest champions of +the aristocracy of the mind. M. Maurras talks of the ‘goddess France’, +just as Victor Hugo does. Let me add that this mystical adoration +of the nation is not only to be explained by the nature of those who +adore, but also by the changes which have taken place in the adored +object. There is first of all the spectacle of the military force and +organization of modern States, which is something far more imposing +than of old. And when these States are seen to make war for an +indefinite period after they have no more men, and go on subsisting +for long years after they have no more money, it is easy to understand +why a man who has some tincture of religion in his mind may be led to +believe that these States are of an essence different from that of +ordinary natural beings. + +I shall point out another great increase of power in national sentiment +which has occurred in the last half-century. I mean that several +very powerful political passions, which were originally independent +of nationalist feeling, have now become incorporated with it. These +passions are: (_a_) The movement against the Jews; (_b_) the movement +of the possessing classes against the proletariat; (_c_) the movement +of the champions of authority against the democrats. To-day each one of +these passions is identified with national feeling and declares that +its adversary implies the negation of nationalism. I may add that when +a person is affected by one of these passions he is generally affected +by all three; consequently nationalist passion is usually swelled by +the addition of all three. Moreover this increase is reciprocal, and +it may be said that to-day capitalism, anti-semitism and the party +of authority have all received new strength from their union with +nationalism. (For additional proof of the strength of these unions, see +Note C at the end of this book.) + +I cannot drop the subject of the modern perfecting of political +passions without mentioning one more characteristic: In all nations the +number of persons who feel a direct interest in belonging to a powerful +nation is incomparably greater now than in the past. In all the great +States to-day I observe that not only the world of industry and big +business but a considerable number of small tradesmen, small bourgeois, +doctors, lawyers, and even writers and artists, and working men too, +feel that for the sake of the prosperity of their own occupations it +is essential for them to belong to a powerful group which can make +itself feared. Those who are in a position to give an opinion on +this sort of change agree that the feeling did not exist, at least +in the same clearly defined way as to-day, thirty years ago among +the small tradesmen of France, for instance. It seems an even newer +thing among the men who belong to the so-called liberal professions; +it is certainly something new to hear artists constantly girding at +the government of their country because it ‘does not give the nation +enough prestige to impose their art on foreigners’. The feeling that +from a professional point of view they have an interest in belonging +to a powerful nation is also very recent among the working classes. +The party of ‘Nationalist Socialists’, which seems to exist everywhere +except in France, is a quite modern political development. Among the +masters of industry the new development is, not that they feel how +much it is to their interest that their nation should be powerful, +but that the feeling is to-day transformed into action, into formal +pressure on their governments.[22] This extension of patriotism based +on interest certainly does not prevent this sort of patriotism (as I +said above) from being much less wide-spread than the patriotism[23] +based on pride; nevertheless it brings another increase of strength to +nationalist passions. + +I shall now point out a last important perfecting of all political +passions to-day, whether of race, class, party or nation. When I +observe these passions in the past, I see them consisting in purely +passionate impulses, natural explosions of instinct, devoid of all +extension of themselves in ideas and systems--at least among the +majority. The revolt of the workers in the fifteenth century against +the possessing classes was apparently not accompanied by any sort +of teaching about the origin of property or the nature of capital. +Those who massacred the Ghettos seem to have had no views on the +philosophical values of their action. And when the troops of Charles V +attacked the defenders of Mezières, it does not appear that the assault +was enlivened by a theory about the predestination of the Germanic race +and the moral baseness of the Latin world. To-day I notice that every +political passion is furnished with a whole network of strongly woven +doctrines, the sole object of which is to show the supreme value of +its action from every point of view, while the result is a redoubling +of its strength as a passion. We must look at the system of ideology +of German nationalism known as ‘Pangermanism’ and at the similar +ideology of the French Monarchists, if we wish to realize the point +of perfection to which our age has carried these systems, with what +tenacity each passion has built up in every direction the theories apt +to satisfy it, with what precision these theories have been adapted to +this satisfaction, with what opulence of research, what labour, what +profound investigation they have been carried on in all directions. Our +age is indeed the age of the _intellectual organization of political +hatreds_. It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral +history of humanity. + +Ever since these systems have been in existence, they have consisted +in establishing for each passion that it is the agent of good in the +world and that its enemy is the genius of evil. But to-day these +passions desire to establish this not only politically, but morally, +intellectually and aesthetically. Anti-semitism, Pangermanism, French +Monarchism, Socialism are not only political manifestations; they +defend a particular form of morality, of intelligence, of sensibility, +of literature, of philosophy and of artistic conceptions. Our age has +introduced two novelties into the theorizing of political passions, by +which they have been remarkably intensified. The first is that everyone +to-day claims that his movement is in line with ‘the development of +evolution’ and ‘the profound unrolling of history’. All these passions +of to-day, whether they derive from Marx, from M. Maurras or from +Houston Chamberlain, have discovered a ‘historical law’, according to +which their movement is merely carrying out the spirit of history and +must therefore necessarily triumph, while the opposing party is running +counter to this spirit and can enjoy only a transitory triumph. That +is merely the old desire to have Fate on one’s side, but it is put +forth in a scientific shape. And this brings us to the second novelty: +To-day all political ideologies claim to be founded on science, to +be the result of a ‘precise observation of facts’. We all know what +self-assurance, what rigidity, what inhumanity (comparatively new +traits in the history of political passions, of which modern French +monarchism is a good example) are given to these passions to-day by +this claim. + +To summarize: To-day political passions show a degree of universality, +of coherence, of homogeneousness, of precision, of continuity, of +preponderance, in relation to other passions, unknown until our +times. They have become conscious of themselves to an extent never +seen before. Some of them, hitherto scarcely avowed, have awakened to +consciousness and have joined the old passions. Others have become more +purely passionate than ever, possess men’s hearts in moral regions +they never before reached, and have acquired a mystic character which +had disappeared for centuries. All are furnished with an apparatus of +ideology whereby, in the name of science, they proclaim the supreme +value of their action and its historical necessity. On the surface +and in the depths, in spatial values and in inner strength, political +passions have to-day reached a point of perfection never before known +in history. The present age is essentially the age of politics. + + + + +II + +_Significance of this Movement--Nature of Political Passions_ + + +What is the significance of this movement? Of what simple and profound +human tendency does it show the progress and triumph? The question +comes down to inquiring what is the nature of political passions, +of what more general and more essential state of mind are they the +expression, what--as the schools say--is their psychological foundation? + +It seems to me that these passions can be reduced to two fundamental +desires: (_a_) The will of a group of men to get hold of (or to retain +a hold on) some _material_ advantage, such as territories, comfort, +political power and all its material advantages; and (_b_) the will +of a group of men to become conscious of themselves as _individuals_, +insofar as they are _distinct_ in relation to other men. It may also +be said that these passions can be reduced to two desires, one of +which seeks the satisfaction of an _interest_, the other of a _pride_ +or self-esteem. These two desires enter into political passions in +very different proportions, according to which passion is involved. It +appears that racial passion, insofar as it is not one with national +passion, is chiefly based on the will of a group of men to set +themselves up as distinct from others; the same thing may be said of +religious passion, if we consider it in its pure state. On the other +hand, class passion, at least as we see it in the working classes, +apparently consists solely in the will to obtain possession of material +advantages. The desire to feel himself distinct, which George Sand and +the apostles of 1848 had begun to inculcate in the working man, now +seems to be abandoned by him, at least in his utterances. National +passion contains both factors. The patriot wants to obtain material +advantages and he wants to set himself up as distinct from others. This +is the secret of the evident superiority in strength of this passion +(when it is really a passion) over all other passions, especially over +Socialism. A passion whose sole motive is interest is too weak to +contend with another which combines interest and pride. This too is one +of the weaknesses of Socialism when opposed to class passion as exerted +by the bourgeoisie, for the bourgeois wants both to possess material +advantages and to feel himself distinct from others. I shall add to +this that in my opinion the relative strengths of these two passions +(one based on interest and the other on pride or self-esteem) are very +unequal, and that the more powerful of the two is not that which tries +to satisfy interest. + +Now, when I come to ask what is signified in their turn by these +fundamental desires of political passions, I find they appear to me +as the two essential composites of man’s will to situate himself _in +real life_. To want real life is to want (_a_) To possess some material +advantages, and (_b_) to be conscious of oneself as an individual. +Every life which despises these two desires, every life which pursues +only spiritual advantage or sincerely asserts itself in the universal, +situates itself _outside the real_. Political passions, especially +national passions insofar as they unite the two desires mentioned, seem +to me essentially _realist_ passions. + +Here many persons will protest: ‘Yes,’ they will say, ‘the desires +which make up political passions are realist desires, but the +individual shifts these desires from himself to the group of which +he is a part. The working man wants to obtain possession of material +advantages for his class, not for his own limited person. The patriot +wants to possess territories for his nation, not for his own narrow +ego; he wants to be distinct from other men through his nation. Do you +apply the term “realist” to passions which imply such a transfer from +the individual to the collective body?’ Is it necessary to reply that +when the individual transfers these desires to the body of which he is +a part, he does not thereby alter their nature? And that all he does is +simply to increase their dimensions immeasureably? To wish to possess +material advantages _in one’s nation_, to want to feel distinct from +other men _in one’s nation_, is still the desire to possess material +advantages, still the desire to feel distinct from other men. It only +means that, if you are a Frenchman, you want to possess Brittany, +Provence, Guyenne, Algeria, Indo-China; and you want to feel yourself +distinct from other men in Jeanne d’Arc, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Racine, +Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Pasteur. Add to this that at the same time +you attach these desires, not to a transitory and precarious single +existence, but to an ‘eternal’ existence, and feel them in that way. +Not only does national egotism not cease to be egotism because it +is national, but it becomes ‘sacred’ egotism.[24] Let me complete +my definition by saying that political passions are realism of a +particular quality, which is an important element of strength in them: +They are _divinized_ realism.[25] + +If, therefore, we desire to express this perfecting of political +passions which I have described, in terms of a more profound and +essential order of things, we may say that men to-day are displaying, +with a hitherto unknown knowledge and consciousness, the desire to +situate themselves in the _real_ or practical manner of existence, in +opposition to the _disinterested_ or _metaphysical_ manner. Moreover, +it is remarkable to see how political passions to-day more and more +expressly assert their derivation from this realism and from it alone. +On the one hand we have a Socialism which constantly declares that it +has no interest in universal man, no interest in procuring justice for +him or any other ‘metaphysical phantom’, but solely desires to obtain +possession of material advantages for the benefit of its class. On the +other hand we have the nationalist mind which everywhere takes a pride +in being purely realistic. The French people who fought in the past to +carry to other nations a doctrine they believed would bring happiness +(I say the people, for its rulers never shared in that simple-minded +belief) would now blush to have it even suspected that they would fight +‘for principles’.[26] Is it not suggestive to observe that the only +wars of the past which, to some extent, brought into play passions +that were a little disinterested--the wars of religion--are the only +wars from which humanity has freed itself?[27] And that immense +idealistic upheavals like the crusades (idealistic at least with humble +people) should now be something which makes the modern man smile, like +the spectacle of children at play? Is it not also significant that the +national passions (which I have shown are the most perfectly realist of +all political passions) should be those which I have been able to point +out have most absorbed all other passions?[28] Let me add to this, +that these passions, insofar as they are the will of a group of men to +set themselves up as distinct from others, have attained a hitherto +unknown degree of consciousness.[29] Finally, the supreme attribute we +have discovered in political passions, i.e. the divinization of their +realism, is now openly admitted, with a plainness never seen before. +The State, Country, Class, are now frankly God; we may even say that +for many people (and some are proud of it) they alone are God.[30] +Humanity, by its present practice of political passions, thereby +declares that it has become more realist, more exclusively and more +religiously realist than it has ever been. + + + + +III + +_The ‘Clerks’--The Great Betrayal_ + +_‘I created him to be spiritual in his flesh; and now he has become +carnal even in the spirit.’_--(Bossuet, _Élévations_, VII, 3.) + + +In all that I have said hitherto I have been considering only masses, +whether bourgeois or proletarian, kings, ministers, political leaders, +all that portion of the human species which I shall call ‘the laymen’, +whose whole function consists essentially in the pursuit of material +interests, and who, by becoming more and more solely and systematically +realist, have in fact only done what might be expected of them. + +Side by side with this humanity whom the poet has described in a +phrase--‘O curvae in terram animae et celestium inanes’--there existed +until the last half century another, essentially distinct humanity, +which to a certain extent acted as a check upon the former. I mean +that class of men whom I shall designate ‘_the clerks_’, by which term +I mean all those whose activity essentially is _not_ the pursuit of +practical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice of an art +or a science or metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession +of non-material advantages, and hence in a certain manner say: ‘My +kingdom is not of this world.’ Indeed, throughout history, for more +than two thousand years until modern times, I see an uninterrupted +series of philosophers, men of religion, men of literature, artists, +men of learning (one might say almost all during this period), whose +influence, whose life, were in direct opposition to the realism of the +multitudes. To come down specifically to the political passions--the +‘clerks’ were in opposition to them in two ways. They were either +entirely indifferent to these passions, and, like Leonardo da Vinci, +Malebranche, Goethe, set an example of attachment to the purely +disinterested activity of the mind and created a belief in the +supreme value of this form of existence; or, gazing as moralists +upon the conflict of human egotisms, like Erasmus, Kant, Renan, they +preached, in the name of humanity or justice, the adoption of an +abstract principle superior to and directly opposed to these passions. +Although these ‘clerks’ founded the modern State to the extent that it +dominates individual egotisms, their activity undoubtedly was chiefly +theoretical, and they were unable to prevent the laymen from filling +all history with the noise of their hatreds and their slaughters; _but +the ‘clerks’ did prevent the laymen from setting up their actions as a +religion, they did prevent them from thinking themselves great men as +they carried out these activities_. It may be said that, thanks to the +‘clerks’, humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honoured good. +This contradiction was an honour to the human species, and formed the +rift whereby civilization slipped into the world. + +Now, at the end of the nineteenth century a fundamental change +occurred: _the ‘clerks’ began to play the game of political passions_. +The men who had acted as a check on the realism of the people began +to act as its stimulators. This upheaval in the moral behaviour of +humanity operated in several ways. + + +_First: The ‘clerks’ have adopted political passions_ + +First of all the ‘clerks’ have adopted political passions. No one will +deny that throughout Europe to-day the immense majority of men of +letters and artists, a considerable number of scholars, philosophers, +and ‘ministers’ of the divine, share in the chorus of hatreds among +races and political factions. Still less will it be denied that they +adopt national passions. Doubtless, the names of Dante, Petrarch, +d’Aubigné, certain apologists of Caboche or preachers of the Ligue +will suffice to show that certain ‘clerks’ did not wait for our era +to indulge in these passions with all the strength of their souls. +But, upon the whole, these ‘clerks’ of the forum were exceptions, at +least among the great ones. If, in addition to the great masters named +above, I evoke the phalanx of Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Galilei, +Rabelais, Montaigne, Descartes, Racine, Pascal, Leibniz, Kepler, +Huyghens, Newton, and even Voltaire, Buffon and Montesquieu (to mention +only a few) I think I may repeat that until our own days the men of +thought or the honest men remained strangers to political passions, +and said with Goethe: ‘Let us leave politics to the diplomats and the +soldiers.’ Or if, like Voltaire, they took these passions into account, +they adopted a critical attitude towards them, did not espouse them +as passions. Or if, like Rousseau, Maistre, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, +even Michelet, they did take these passions to heart, they did so with +a generalizing of feeling, a disdain for immediate results, which in +fact make the word ‘passions’ incorrect. To-day, if we mention Mommsen, +Treitschke, Ostwald, Brunetière, Barrès, Lemaître, Péguy, Maurras, +d’Annunzio, Kipling, we have to admit that the ‘clerks’ now exercise +political passions with all the characteristics of passion--the +tendency to action, the thirst for immediate results, the exclusive +preoccupation with the desired end, the scorn for argument, the excess, +the hatred, the fixed ideas. The modern ‘clerk’ has entirely ceased +to let the layman alone descend to the market place. The modern clerk +is determined to have the soul of a citizen and to make vigorous use +of it; he is proud of that soul; his literature is filled with his +contempt for the man who shuts himself up with art or science and +takes no interest in the passions of the State.[31] He is violently +on the side of Michaelangelo crying shame upon Leonardo da Vinci for +his indifference to the misfortunes of Florence, and against the +master of the Last Supper when he replied that indeed the study of +beauty occupied his whole heart. The time has long past by since Plato +demanded that the philosopher should be bound in chains in order to +compel him to take an interest in the State. To have as his function +the pursuit of eternal things and yet to believe that he becomes +greater by concerning himself with the State--that is the view of the +modern ‘clerk’. It is as natural as it is evident that this adhesion +of the ‘clerks’ to the passions of the laymen fortifies these passions +in the hearts of the latter. In the first place, it abolishes the +suggestive spectacle (which I mentioned above) of a race of men whose +interests are set outside the practical world. And then especially, +the ‘clerk’ by adopting political passions, brings them the tremendous +influence of his sensibility if he is an artist, of his persuasive +power if he is a thinker, and in either case his moral prestige.[32] + +Before proceeding any further, I feel I ought to make myself clear on +certain points:-- + +(_a_) I have been talking of the _whole_ of the men of thought anterior +to our own age. When I say that the ‘clerks’ in the past opposed +the realism of the laymen and that the ‘clerks’ of to-day are in +its service, I am considering each of these groups as a whole; I am +contrasting one general characteristic with another. This means that +I shall not feel myself contradicted by a reader who takes pains to +point out to me that so-and-so in the former group was a realist, +and that so-and-so in the second is not, so long as this reader is +obliged to admit that as a whole each of these groups does manifest the +characteristic I have indicated. And also, when I speak of a single +‘clerk’, I am thinking of his work in its chief characteristic, i.e. +in that part of his teaching which dominates all the rest, even if the +remainder sometimes contradicts this dominant teaching. This means that +I do not consider that I ought to refrain from looking upon Malebranche +as a master of liberal thought because a few lines of his ‘Morale’ seem +to be a justification of slavery, or upon Nietzsche as a moralist of +war because the end of ‘Zarathustra’ is a manifesto of fraternity which +outdoes the Gospels. And I see the less reason for doing so, since +Malebranche as a defender of slavery and Nietzsche as a humanitarian +have had no influence at all, and my subject is the influence which the +‘clerks’ have had in the world, and not what they were in themselves. + +(_b_) Some will object to me: ‘How can you treat men like Barrès +and Péguy as “clerks” and blame them for lacking the true spirit of +“clerks” when they are so openly men of action, with whom political +thought is obviously occupied solely with the needs of the present +hour, solely spurred on by the events of the day, while the former +scarcely ever gave expression to his political thought except in +newspaper articles?’ I reply, that this thought, which in truth is +practically nothing but a form of immediate action, is given out by its +authors as the fruits of the highest speculative intellectual activity, +the result of the most truly philosophical meditation. Barrès and +Péguy would never have consented to be looked upon as mere polemical +writers, even in their polemical works.[33] These men, who indeed are +not ‘clerks’, gave themselves out to be ‘clerks’ and were considered +as such, (Barrès gave himself out to be a thinker who condescended to +the arena), and it is precisely as such that they enjoy a particular +prestige among men of action. In this study my subject is not the +‘clerk’ such as he is, but the ‘clerk’ such as he is considered to be +and as he acts upon the world in that capacity. + +I shall make the same answer with regard to M. Maurras and the other +instructors of the _Action Française_, of whom it will be said even +more truly that they are men of action and that it is indefensible to +cite them as ‘clerks’. These men claim to carry out their action by +virtue of a doctrine derived from a wholly objective study of history, +from the exercise of the most purely scientific spirit. And they owe +the special attention with which they are listened to by men of action +entirely to this claim that they are _men of learning_, men who are +fighting for a truth discovered in the austerity of the laboratory. +They owe it to their pose as combative ‘clerks’, but essentially _as +‘clerks’_. + +(_c_) Finally I should like to define my views on another point and +to say that when the ‘clerk’ descends to the market place I only +consider that he is failing to perform his functions when he does so, +like those I have mentioned, for the purpose of securing the triumph +of a realist passion, whether of class, race or nation. When Gerson +entered the pulpit of Notre Dame to denounce the murderers of Louis +d’Orléans; when Spinoza, at the peril of his life, went and wrote the +words ‘Ultimi barbarorum’ on the gate of those who had murdered the de +Witts; when Voltaire fought for the Calas family; when Zola and Duclaux +came forward to take part in a celebrated lawsuit (Dreyfus affair); +all these ‘clerks’ were carrying out their functions as ‘clerks’ in +the fullest and noblest manner. They were the officiants of abstract +justice and were sullied with no passion for a worldly object.[34] +Moreover, there exists a certain criterion by which we may know whether +the ‘clerk’ who takes public action does so in conformity with his true +functions; and that is, that he is immediately reviled by the laymen, +whose interests he thwarts (Socrates, Jesus). We may say beforehand +that the ‘clerk’ who is praised by the laymen is a traitor to his +office. + +But let us return to the modern ‘clerk’s’ adhesion to political +passions. + +It is concerning national passions that this adhesion seems to me +particularly novel and big with results. Once again, of course humanity +did not have to wait for the present age to see the ‘clerks’ indulge +in this passion. Without mentioning the poets, whose tender hearts +have always sighed ‘Nescio qua natale dulcedine solum cunctos Ducit’; +and, as regards the philosophers, without going back to antiquity when +all, previous to the Stoics, were ardent patriots; we may yet observe +in history (since the coming of Christianity and long before our own +days) writers, men of learning, artists, moralists, even ministers +of the ‘Universal’ Church, who more or less explicitly displayed a +special attachment for the group to which they belonged. But this +affection among these men was based on reason; it showed itself +capable of judging its object, of denouncing its errors when they +believed such errors had been committed. Need I recall how Fénelon and +Massillon denounced certain wars of Louis XIV? How Voltaire condemned +the destruction of the Palatinate? How Renan denounced the violences +of Napoleon? Buckle, the intolerance of England towards the French +Revolution? And, in our own times, Nietzsche, the brutalities of +Germany towards France?[35] It was reserved for our own time to see men +of thought, or men giving themselves out as such, professing openly +that they would not submit their patriotism to any check on the part of +their judgment, proclaiming (like Barrès) that ‘even if the country is +wrong, we must think it in the right’, denouncing as ‘traitors to the +nation’ those of their compatriots who retain their liberty of mind, or +at least of speech, in regard to their country. In France we have not +forgotten how, during the last war, so many ‘thinkers’ attacked Renan +for the liberty of his judgments on the history of his country.[36] Nor +have we forgotten how, a little before that, a whole set of young men +(who claimed to share in the life of the spirit) bristled up against +one of their masters (Jacob) who tried to teach them a patriotism which +did not exclude all right of criticism. After the violation of Belgium +and other excesses of the Germans, in October, 1914, a German teacher +said: ‘There is nothing for which we need make excuses.’[37] Now, if +their own countries had been in a similar position, the same thing +would have been said by most of the spiritual leaders of that time; +by Barrès in France, by d’Annunzio in Italy, by Kipling in England, +if we may judge by his conduct during the attack of his nation upon +the Boers, and by William James in the United States, if we recall +his attitude when his compatriots seized the island of Cuba.[38] I am +quite ready to agree that this sort of blind patriotism makes powerful +nations, and that the patriotism of Fénelon or of Renan is not the sort +which secures empires. It remains to determine whether the function of +‘clerks’ is to secure empires. + +This adhesion of the ‘clerks’ to national passion is particularly +remarkable among those whom I shall call ‘pre-eminently clerks’; I mean +the Churchmen. In all European countries during the past fifty years, +the immense majority of these men have not only given their adhesion to +the national feeling[39] and therefore have ceased to provide the world +with the spectacle of hearts solely occupied with God--but they seem to +have adopted this feeling with the same passion as that I have pointed +out as existing among men of letters, and they too appear to be ready +to support their own countries in the most flagrant injustices. During +the last war this could be most clearly seen in the German clergy, from +whom no one could drag the shadow of a protest against the excesses +committed by their nation, and whose silence does not appear to have +been caused solely by prudence.[40] In contrast to this attitude I +refer the reader to that of the Spanish theologians of the sixteenth +century, to men like Bartholomew de las Casas and Vittoria, earnestly +denouncing the cruelties committed by their compatriots in the conquest +of America. I do not claim that similar behaviour was then the rule +among Churchmen, but I should like to ask whether there is a single +country to-day where they would do likewise, or where they would even +wish to be permitted to do so?[41] + +I shall point out another characteristic of patriotism in the modern +‘clerk’: xenophobia. The hatred of man for ‘the man from outside’ (the +_horsain_), his rejection of and scorn for everything which is not +‘from his own home’, all these impulses, so constant among peoples and +apparently necessary to their existence, have been adopted in our days +by the so-called men of thought, and adopted with a seriousness of +application, _an absence of simple-mindedness_, which go far towards +making this adoption worthy of notice. We know how systematically the +mass of German teachers in the past fifty years have announced the +decline of every civilization but that of their own race, and how in +France the admirers of Nietzsche or Wagner, even of Kant or Goethe, +were treated by Frenchmen who claimed to share in the life of the +spirit.[42] You may estimate how curiously new this form of patriotism +is among the men of thought in France by thinking of Lamartine, Victor +Hugo, Michelet, Proudhon, Renan, to name only patriotic ‘clerks’ in the +age immediately preceding that we are considering. Is it necessary to +say once again how much the ‘clerks’ have stimulated the passion of the +laymen by adopting this xenophobia? + +I shall be told that during the past fifty years, and especially +during the twenty years before the war, the attitude of foreigners to +France was such that the most violent national partiality was forced +upon all Frenchmen who wished to safeguard the nation, and that the +only true patriots were those who consented to this fanaticism. I say +nothing to the contrary; I only say that the ‘clerks’ who indulged +in this fanaticism betrayed their duty, which is precisely to set +up a corporation whose sole cult is that of justice and of truth, +in opposition to the peoples and the injustice to which they are +condemned by their religions of this earth. It is true indeed that +these new ‘clerks’ declare that they do not know what is meant by +justice, truth, and other ‘metaphysical fogs’, that for them the true +is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances. All these +things were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted +all the important thinkers of his time. + +It must be admitted that the German ‘clerks’ led the way in this +adhesion of the modern ‘clerk’ to patriotic fanaticism. The French +‘clerks’ were, and long remained, animated with the most perfect spirit +of justice towards foreign cultures (think of the cosmopolitanism +of the Romantics!), when already Lessing, Schlegel, Fichte, Goerres +were organizing in their hearts a violent adoration for ‘everything +German’, and a scorn for everything not German. The nationalist ‘clerk’ +is essentially a German invention. This, moreover, is a theme which +will frequently recur in this book, i.e. that most of the moral and +political attitudes adopted by the ‘clerks’ of Europe in the past fifty +years are of German origin, and that in the world of spiritual things +the victory of Germany is now complete. + +It may be said that Germany, by creating for herself the nationalist +‘clerk’ and thereby acquiring the additional strength we know she +has acquired, made this species of ‘clerk’ necessary to all other +countries. It is undeniable that from the moment when Germany had a +Mommsen, France especially was bound to have a Barrès, under penalty +of finding herself in a position of great inferiority in nationalist +fanaticism, and of seeing her existence seriously menaced. Every +Frenchman attached to the continuance of his nation must rejoice that +in the last half century France has possessed a fanatically nationalist +literature. Yet one would like this Frenchman to rise for a moment +superior to his interest, and, faithful in this to the honour of his +race, to think it sad that the course of events in the world should +force him to rejoice in such a thing. + +More generally, it may be admitted that a realist attitude has been +imposed on the modern ‘clerks’, chiefly the French ‘clerks’, by +exterior and interior political conditions which have arisen in their +nations. However serious this may be, it would be much less serious +if we found that the ‘clerks’ deplored it while they submitted to +it, if they felt how much their own value is diminished by it, how +greatly civilization is menaced by it, to what an extent the universe +is rendered ugly by it. But this is exactly what we do not see. On the +contrary, we see them joyfully carrying out this realism; we see them +believing that they are rendered greater by their nationalist fury, +that it is a service to civilization, an embellishment to humanity. +Then one feels that one is confronted by something different from +a function thwarted by the events of the moment, and faced with a +cataclysm of moral notions in those who educate the world. + +I should like to point out two other characteristics in the patriotism +of the modern ‘clerks’ which seem new to me, the second of which has +not failed to stimulate this passion greatly among the peoples. + +The first can best be brought out by contrast with the lines written by +an author of the fifteenth century, lines which are the more remarkable +since he who wrote them proved by his deeds how deep was his love for +his native country. ‘All cities,’ says Guicciardini, ‘all States, all +Kingdoms, are mortal; everything comes to an end, either by accident or +by the course of nature. That is why a citizen who witnesses the end of +his country cannot feel so distressed at her misfortune with so much +reason as he would lament his own ruin. His country has met the fate +which in every way she was bound to meet; the misfortune is wholly for +him whose unhappy lot has caused him to be born in a time when such a +disaster had to occur.’ One wonders whether there is a single modern +thinker, attached to his country as the author of that passage was to +his, who would dare to form, still less to express, a judgment of her +so extraordinarily free in its melancholy. And here we come upon one +of the great impieties of the moderns: The refusal to believe that +above their nations there exists a development of a superior kind, by +which they will be swept away like all other things. The ancients, +so completely the adorers of their States, nevertheless placed them +beneath Fate. The ancient City was under divine protection, but in no +wise believed that she herself was divine and necessarily eternal. All +the literature of the ancients shows us that, in their opinion, the +duration of their institutions was a precarious thing, solely due to +the favour of the Gods, who at any time might withdraw that favour.[43] +We have Thucydides contemplating the image of a world in which Athens +should have ceased to exist; we have Polybius showing us the conqueror +of Carthage meditating over the burning town: ‘And Rome too shall meet +her fatal hour.’ We have Virgil praising the peasant of the fields for +whom ‘res romanae et peritura regna’ are of no value. + +It was reserved for the moderns to make of their City a tower which +defies the heavens, and to do it with the aid of their ‘clerks’. + +The second characteristic of the patriotism of the modern ‘clerks’ +is a desire to relate the form of their own minds to a form of the +_national_ mind, which they naturally brandish against other national +forms of mind. We all know how, during the last fifty years, so many +men of learning on both banks of the Rhine have asserted their views in +the name of _French_ science, of _German_ science. We know how acridly +so many of our writers in the same period have vibrated with _French_ +sensibility, _French_ intelligence, _French_ philosophy. Some declare +that they are the incarnation of Aryan thought, Aryan painting, Aryan +music, to which others reply by discovering that a certain master had +a Jewish grandmother, and so venerate Semitic genius in him. Here it +is not a question of inquiring whether the form of mind of a scholar +or an artist is the signature of his nationality or his race and to +what extent, but of noting the desire of the modern ‘clerks’ that it +should be so, and noting how new a thing this is. Racine and La Bruyère +never dreamed of setting up their works before themselves and before +the world as manifestation of the French mind, nor did Goethe and +Wincklemann relate theirs to the genius of Germany.[44] Here, chiefly +among the artists, is a very remarkable fact. It is very remarkable to +see men whose activity consists, one might say professionally, in the +assertion of individuality, men who became so violently conscious of +this truth a century ago with the Romantic movement, now (as it were) +abdicating this sort of consciousness and trying to feel themselves +as the expression of some general existence, a manifestation of a +collective mind. It is true that this abdication of the individual in +favour of ‘a great impersonal and eternal Whole’ satisfies another +sort of Romanticism. It is true that this impulse of the artist may +also be explained by the desire (which Barrès does not conceal) to +increase the enjoyment of himself by himself, since the consciousness +of the individual ego is doubled in profundity by consciousness of +the national ego, while at the same time the artist finds new lyrical +themes in this second consciousness. It may also be admitted that +the artist is not blind to his own interest in calling himself the +expression of the genius of his nation, thereby inviting the whole race +to applaud itself in the work he put before it.[45] Whatever their +motives may have been, the great minds or the minds reputed such, by +relating the whole of their value so noisily to their nation, have +laboured in a direction contrary to that expected of them; they have +flattered the vanity of nations, they have fed full the arrogance +with which each nation flings its superiority in the face of its +neighbours.[46] + +I cannot better bring out all the novelty of this attitude of the +‘clerk’ than by quoting the remark of Renan, which would be signed +by all men of thought from Socrates onwards: ‘Man belongs neither to +his language nor to his race; he belongs only to himself, for he is +a free being, that is, a moral being.’ To this Barrès replies, amid +the applause of his compeers: ‘To be moral is _not to wish to be free +from one’s race_.’ Here, obviously, is an exaltation of the gregarious +spirit which the nations had heard little of before from the priests of +the spirit. + +The modern ‘clerks’ do better still. They declare that their thought +cannot be good, that it cannot bear good fruit, unless they remain on +their native soil, unless they are not ‘uprooted’ (‘_déracinés_’). They +congratulate A on working in _his_ Bearn, B in _his_ Berry, C in _his_ +Brittany. And they not only proclaim this law for the poets, but for +critics, moralists, philosophers, the servants of purely intellectual +activity. To declare the mind good to the extent of its refusal to +liberate itself from the earth is something which will make the modern +‘clerks’ certain of a conspicuous place in the annals of the spiritual +life. Obviously, the feelings of this class of men has changed since +Plutarch taught: ‘Man is not a plant created to be immobile and to have +his roots fixed in the soil where he was born,’ and since Antisthenes +replied to his colleagues who boasted that they were native to the +soil, that ‘they shared this honour with the slugs and grasshoppers’. + +Need I say that I am only denouncing this desire of the ‘clerk’ to +feel himself determined by his race and to remain fixed to his native +soil to the extent that it becomes in him a political attitude, a +nationalist provocation. The best way for me to define this is by +quoting this hymn of a modern ‘clerk’ to ‘his soil and his dead’, a +hymn completely void of political passion: + +‘And the old oak under which I am sitting speaks in its turn, and says +to me: + +‘“Read, read in my shadow those Gothic songs whose refrains I heard +in the past mingle with the rustling of my leaves. The souls of your +ancestors are in these songs that are older than I am. Learn to know +those humble ancestors, share their past joys and sorrows. Thus, O +transitory creature, shalt thou live long ages in a few years. Be +pious, venerate the soil of your country. Never take up a handful in +your hand without remembering that it is sacred. Love all those far-off +relatives whose dust mingled with earth has fed me for centuries, +whose minds have passed into you, their Benjamin, the child of better +days. Reproach not your ancestors with their ignorance, nor with the +feebleness of their thought, nor even with the illusions of fear which +sometimes rendered them cruel. As well reproach yourself for having +been a child. Remember that they laboured, that they suffered, that +they hoped for you, and that you owe everything to them!”’[47] + + +_Second: They bring their political passions into their activities as +‘clerks’._ + +The ‘clerks’ have not been content simply to adopt political passions, +if by this one means that they have made a place for these passions +side by side with the activities they are bound to carry on as +‘clerks’. They have introduced these passions into those activities. +They permit, they desire them to be mingled with their work as artists, +as men of learning, as philosophers, to colour the essence of their +work and to mark all its productions. And indeed never were there so +many political works among those which ought to be the mirror of the +disinterested intelligence. + +You may refuse to be surprised by this in the case of poetry. We must +not ask the poets to separate their works from their passions. The +latter are the substance of the former, and the only question to ask +is whether they write poems to express their passions or whether they +hunt for passions in order to write poems. In either case one does +not see why they should exclude national passion or the spirit of +party from their vibrant material. Our political poets, who are not +numerous however, have only followed the example of Virgil, Claudian, +Lucan, Dante, d’Aubigné, Ronsard, and Hugo. Yet we cannot deny that +political passion, as it is expressed by Claudel or d’Annunzio, a +conscious and organized passion _lacking all simplicity_, coldly +scornful of its adversary, a passion which in the second of these +poets displays itself as so precisely political, so cunningly adapted +to the profound cupidity of his compatriots and the exact point of +weakness in the foreigner--we cannot deny, I say, that this political +passion is something different from the eloquent generalities of the +‘Tragiques of the Année Terrible.’ A work like _La Nave_, with its +national plan as exact and practical as that of a Bismarck, wherein +the lyric gift is used to extol this practical character, seems to me +something new in the history of poetry, even of political poetry. The +result of this new departure on the minds of laymen may be judged by +the present state of mind of the Italian people.[48] But in our day +the most remarkable example of the poets’ applying their art to the +service of political passions is that literary form which may be called +‘lyrical philosophy’, the most brilliant symbol of which is the work of +Barrès. It begins by taking as its centres of vibration certain truly +philosophical states of mind (such as pantheism, a loftily sceptical +intellectualism) and then entirely devotes itself to serving racial +passion and national feeling. Here the action of the lyric spirit is +doubled by the prestige of the spirit of abstract thought (Barrès +admirably caught the appearance of that spirit--he stole the tool, a +philosopher has said of him), and in France as elsewhere the ‘clerks’ +have thereby stimulated political passions among the laymen, at least +in that very important section of them who read and believe they think. +Moreover, in regard to poets and especially the poet I have just named, +it is difficult to know whether the lyrical impulse lends its aid to a +genuine and pre-existing political passion, or whether on the contrary +this passion puts itself at the service of a lyrical impulse which is +seeking inspiration. Alius judex erit. + +But there are other ‘clerks’ who introduce political passion into +their works with a remarkable consciousness of what they are doing, in +whom this derogation seems more worthy of notice than in the poets. I +mean the novelists and dramatists, i.e. ‘clerks’ whose function is to +portray in as objective a manner as possible the emotions of the human +soul and their conflicts--a function which, as Shakespeare, Molière, +and Balzac have proved, may be carried out with all the purity I have +here assigned to it. One may show how this function has been more than +ever perverted by its subjection to political ends by the example of +many contemporary novelists, not because they scatter ‘tendencious’ +reflections throughout their narratives (Balzac constantly does so), +but because instead of making their heroes feel and act in conformity +with a true observation of human nature, they make them do so as the +passion of the authors requires. Shall I cite those novels where the +traditionalist, whatever his errors, always finally displays a noble +soul, whereas the character without religion inevitably, and in spite +of all his efforts, is capable of none but vile actions?[49] Or the +other novels where the man of the people possesses every virtue and +vileness is the exclusive portion of the bourgeois?[50] Or the novels +where the author displays his compatriots in contact with foreigners +and, more or less frankly, gives all moral superiority to his own +people?[51] There is a two-fold evil in this proceeding; not only does +it considerably inflame political passion in the breast of the reader, +but it deprives him of one of the most eminently civilizing effects of +all works of art, i.e. that self-examination to which every spectator +is impelled by a representation of human beings which he feels to be +true and solely pre-occupied with truth.[52] From the point of view +of the artist and of the value of his activity alone, this partiality +indicates a great degradation. The value of the artist, the thing +which makes him the world’s high ornament, is that he _plays_ human +passions instead of living them, and that he discovers in this ‘play’ +emotion the same source of desires, joys and sufferings as ordinary +men find in the pursuit of real things. Now, if this accomplished type +of exuberant activity places itself at the service of the nation or of +a class, if this fine flower of disinterestedness becomes utilitarian, +then I say with the poet of the ‘Vierge aux Rochers’ when the author of +_Siegfried_ exhales his last sigh: ‘The world has lost its import.’ + +I have pointed out that certain ‘clerks’ have put their activities as +‘clerks’ at the service of political passions. These are the poets, +the novelists, the dramatists, the artists, i.e. they are men who may +be permitted to give passion, even wilful passion, a predominant place +in their works. But there are other ‘clerks’ in whom this derogation +from the disinterested activity of the mind is far more shocking, +‘clerks’ whose influence on the laymen is much more profound by reason +of the prestige attached to their functions. I mean the historians. +Here, as with the poets, the phenomenon is a new one on account of +the point of perfection it has reached. Assuredly, humanity did not +await our age to see History putting itself at the service of the +spirit of party or of national passion. But I think I may assert that +it has never seen this done with the same methodical spirit, the same +intensity of consciousness which may be observed in German historians +of the past half century and in the French Monarchists of the past +twenty years. The case of the latter is the more remarkable since they +belong to a nation which has acquired eternal honour in the history +of human intelligence by explicitly condemning pragmatic history +and formulating, as it were, the charter of disinterested history, +through the works of Beaufort, Fréret, Voltaire, Thierry, Renan, +Fustel de Coulanges.[53] Yet the true novelty here is the admission of +this spirit of partiality, the expressed intention to employ it as a +legitimate method. ‘A true German historian,’ declares a German master, +‘should especially tell those facts which conduce to the grandeur of +Germany.’ The same scholar praises Mommsen (who himself boasted of it) +for having written a Roman history ‘which becomes a history of Germany +with Roman names’. Another (Treitschke) prided himself on his lack of +‘that anemic objectivity which is contrary to the historical sense’. +Another (Guisebrecht) teaches that ‘Science must not soar beyond the +frontiers, but be national, be German’. Our Monarchists do not lag +behind. Recently one of them, the author of a _History of France_, +which tried to show that the French Kings since Clovis were occupied in +trying to prevent the war of 1914, defended the historian who presents +the past from the point of view of the passions of his own time.[54] By +his determination in bringing this partiality to historical narrative +the modern ‘clerk’ most seriously derogates from his true function, +if I am right in saying that his function is to restrain the passions +of the laymen. Not only does he inflame the laymen’s passions more +cunningly than ever, not only does he deprive them of the suggestive +spectacle of a man solely occupied by the thirst for truth, but he +prevents the laymen from hearing speech different from that of the +market place, speech (Renan’s is perhaps the finest example) which, +coming from the heights, shows that the most opposite passions are +equally justified, equally necessary to the earthly State, and thereby +incites every reader who has any capacity for getting outside himself +to relax the severity of his passions, at least for a moment. + +Let me say, however, that indeed men like Treitschke and his French +equivalents are not historians; they are men of politics who make use +of history to support a cause whose triumph they desire. Hence, it +is natural that the master of their method should not be Lenain de +Tillemont but Louis XIV, who threatened to withdraw Mezeray’s pension +if the historian persisted in pointing out the abuses of the old +monarchy; or Napoleon, who ordered the chief of police to take measures +for the history of France to be written in a manner favourable to his +own throne. Nevertheless, the really cunning ones assume the mask of +disinterestedness.[55] + +I believe that many of those whom I am here accusing of betraying their +spiritual ministry, that disinterested activity which should be theirs +by the mere fact of their being historians, psychologists, moralists, +would reply to me as follows, if such a confession did not destroy +their influence: ‘We are not in the least the servants of spiritual +things; we are the servants of material things, of a political party, +of a nation. Only, instead of serving it with the sword, we serve it +with the pen. We are _the spiritual militia of the material_.’ + +Among those who ought to show the world an example of disinterested +intellectual activity and who nevertheless turn their function to +practical ends, I shall also mention the critics. Everyone knows that +innumerable critics to-day consider that a book is only good insofar +as it serves the party which is dear to them, or as it manifests ‘the +genius of the nation’, or as it illustrates a political doctrine in +harmony with their own political system, or for other reasons of the +like purity. The modern ‘clerks’, I said before, insist that the +just shall be determined by the useful. They also want the useful to +determine the beautiful, which is not one of their least originalities +in history. Nevertheless, here again those who adopt such a form +of criticism are not truly critics, but men of politics, who make +criticism serve their practical designs. Here is a perfecting of +political passion, the whole honour of which must be given to the +moderns. Neither Pius XIV nor Napoleon apparently thought of using +literary criticism in support of the social system in which they +believed.[56] This new departure has brought forth its fruits. For +instance, if you assert with the French Monarchists that the democratic +ideal is inevitably bound up with bad literature, you are dealing that +ideal a real blow in a country like France, which has a real devotion +to literature, at least among those who will consent to believe that +Victor Hugo and Lamartine were mere scribblers.[57] + +But the most remarkable thing about the modern ‘clerk’ in his desire +to bring political passion into his work, is that he has done so in +philosophy, more precisely, in metaphysics. It may be said that until +the nineteenth century metaphysics remained the inviolate citadel +of disinterested speculation. Among all forms of spiritual labour +metaphysics best deserved the admirable tribute which a mathematician +rendered the theory of numbers above all branches of mathematics, when +he said: ‘This is the really pure branch of our science, by which I +mean that it is unsullied by any contact with practical application.’ +In fact thinkers free from any sort of earthly preference, like +Plotinus, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, and even thinkers strongly +imbued with the superiority of their class or nation (like Plato +and Aristotle), never thought of directing their transcendental +speculations towards a demonstration of this superiority or the +necessity of this adoption by the whole world. It has been said +that the morality of the Greeks was national, but their metaphysics +were universal. The Church itself, so often favourable to class or +national interests in its morality, thinks only of God and Man in its +metaphysics. It was reserved for our own age to see metaphysicians of +the greatest eminence turning their speculations to the exaltation +of their own countries and to the depreciation of other countries, +fortifying the will to power of their compatriots with all the power +of abstractive genius. Fichte and Hegel made the triumph of the German +world the supreme and necessary end of the development of Being, +and history has showed whether the action of these ‘clerks’ had an +effect on the hearts of their laymen. Let me hasten to add that this +spectacle of patriotic metaphysics is provided by Germany alone. In +France, even in this age of nationalist ‘clerks’, we have not yet +seen any philosopher (at least one who is taken seriously) build up +a metaphysical system to the glory of France. Neither Auguste Comte +nor Renouvier nor Bergson ever thought of making a French hegemony +the necessary result of the world’s development. Need I add what a +degradation this has been for metaphysics, as it has been for art? +It will be the eternal shame of the German philosophers to have +transformed the patrician virgin who honoured the Gods into a harpy +engaged in shrieking the glory of her children. + + +_Third: The ‘clerks’ have played the game of political passions by +their doctrines_ + +But where the ‘clerks’ have most violently broken with their tradition +and resolutely played the game of the laymen in their eagerness to +place themselves in the real, is by their doctrines, by the scale +of values they have set up for the world. Those whose preaching for +twenty centuries had been to humiliate the realist passions in favour +of something transcendental, have set themselves (with a science and a +consciousness which will stupify history) to the task of making these +passions, and the impulses which ensure them, the highest of virtues, +while they cannot show too much scorn for the existence which in any +respect raises itself beyond the material. I shall now describe the +principal aspects of this phenomenon. + + +_A. The ‘clerks’ praise attachment to the particular and denounce the +feeling of the universal_ + +In the first place, the ‘clerks’ have set out to exalt the will of +men to feel conscious of themselves as distinct from others, and +to proclaim as contemptible every tendency to establish oneself in +a universal. With the exception of certain authors like Tolstoi +and Anatole France, whose teaching moreover is now looked on with +contempt by most of their colleagues, all the influential moralists of +Europe during the past fifty years, Bourget, Barrès, Maurras, Péguy, +d’Annunzio, Kipling, the immense majority of German thinkers, have +praised the efforts of men to feel conscious of themselves in their +nation and race, to the extent that this distinguishes them from +others and opposes them to others, and have made them ashamed of every +aspiration to feel conscious of themselves as men in the general +sense and in the sense of rising above ethnical aims. Those whose +activity since the time of the Stoics had been devoted to preaching +the extinction of national egotism in the interest of an abstract and +eternal entity, set out to denounce every feeling of this kind and to +proclaim the lofty morality of that egotism. In our age the descendants +of Erasmus, Montaigne, Voltaire, have denounced humanitarianism as a +moral degeneration, nay, as an intellectual degeneration, in that it +implies ‘a total absence of practical common sense’; for practical +common sense has become the measure of intellectual values with these +strange ‘clerks’. + +I should like to draw a distinction between humanitarianism as I mean +it here--a sensitiveness to the abstract quality of what is human, to +Montaigne’s ‘whole form of human condition’--and the feeling which is +usually called humanitarianism, by which is meant the love for human +beings existing in the concrete. The former impulse (which would more +accurately be called humanism) is the attachment to a concept. It is a +pure passion of the intelligence, implying no terrestrial love. It is +quite easy to conceive of a person plunging into the concept of what +is human without having the least desire even to see a man. This is +the form assumed by love of humanity in the great patricians of the +mind like Erasmus, Malebranche, Spinoza, Goethe, who all were men, it +appears, not very anxious to throw themselves into the arms of their +neighbours. The second humanitarianism is a state of the heart and +therefore the portion of plebeian souls. It occurs among moralists +in periods when lofty intellectual discipline disappears among them +and gives way to sentimental exaltation, I mean in the eighteenth +century (chiefly with Diderot) and above all in the nineteenth century, +with Michelet, Quinet, Proudhon, Romain Rolland, Georges Duhamel. +This sentimental form of humanitarianism and forgetfulness of its +conceptual form explain the unpopularity of this doctrine with so many +distinguished minds, who discover two equally repulsive commonplaces in +the arsenal of political ideology. One of them is ‘the patriotic bore’ +and the other ‘the universal embrace’.[58] + +The humanitarianism which holds in honour the abstract quality of what +is human, is the only one which allows us to love _all_ men. Obviously, +as soon as we look at men in the concrete, we inevitably find that this +quality is distributed in different quantities, and we have to say with +Renan: ‘In reality one is _more or less_ a man, _more or less_ the son +of God ... I see no reason why a Papuan should be immortal.’ Modern +equalitarians, by failing to understand that there can be no equality +except in the abstract and that inequality is the essence of the +concrete, have merely displayed the extraordinary vulgarity of their +minds as well as their amazing political clumsiness.[59] + +Humanism, as I have defined it, has nothing to do with +internationalism. Internationalism is a protest against national +egotism, not on behalf of a spiritual passion, but on behalf of another +egotism, another earthly passion. It is the impulse of a certain +category of men--labourers, bankers, industrialists--who unite across +frontiers in the name of private and practical interests, and who only +oppose the national spirit because it thwarts them in satisfying those +interests.[60] + +In comparison with such impulses, national passion appears an +idealistic and disinterested impulse. In short, humanism is also +something entirely different from cosmopolitanism, which is the simple +desire to enjoy the advantages of all nations and all their cultures, +and is generally exempt from all moral dogmatism.[61] But let us come +back to this movement of the ‘clerks’ exhorting the peoples to feel +conscious of themselves in what makes them distinct from others. + +What will especially amaze history in this movement of the ‘clerks’ +is the perfection with which they have carried it out. They have +exhorted the peoples to feel conscious of themselves in what makes them +_the most distinct_ from others, in their poets rather than in their +scientists, in their legends rather than in their philosophies, since +poetry (as they perfectly well perceived) is infinitely more national, +more separating than the products of pure intelligence.[62] They have +exhorted the peoples to honour their poets’ characteristics insofar +as they are peculiar to them and are not universal. Recently a young +Italian writer praised his language because it is only used in Italy, +and poured scorn on French because it is employed universally.[63] +They have exhorted the peoples to feel conscious of themselves in +_everything_ which makes them distinct from others, not only in their +language, art, and literature, but in their dress, houses, furniture, +and food. During the past half century it has been a common experience +to see serious writers (to go no further than France) exhorting +their compatriots to remain faithful to French fashions, French +hair-dressing, French dining rooms, French cooking, French cars. They +have exhorted the peoples to feel themselves distinct even in their +vices. The German historians, says Fustel de Coulanges, urge their +nation to be intoxicated with its personality, even to its barbarity. +The French moralist does not lag behind and desires his compatriots +to accept their ‘national determinism’ in its ‘indivisible totality’, +with its injustices as well as its wisdom, with its fanaticism as +well as its enlightenment, its pettiness as well as its grandeur. +Another, (Maurras) declares: ‘Good or bad, our tastes are ours and +it is always permissible to take ourselves as the sole judges and +models of our lives’. Once again, the remarkable thing here is not +that such things should be said, but that they should be said by the +‘clerks’, by a class of men whose purpose hitherto has been to urge +their fellow-citizens to feel conscious of themselves in what is common +to all men, that they should be said in France by the descendants of +Montaigne, Pascal, Voltaire, and Renan. + +This glorifying of national particularism, so unexpected among +all ‘clerks’ is especially so among those whom I described as +‘pre-eminently clerks’--the Churchmen. Those who for centuries have +exhorted men, at least theoretically, to deaden the feeling of their +differences in order to take cognizance of each other in the divine +essence which brings all men together, have now come to praise them, +according to where the sermon is given, for their ‘fidelity to the +French soul’, for ‘the immutability of their German consciousness’, +for the ‘fervour of their Italian hearts’.[64] The sight is indeed +surprising and remarkable! What would be thought by him who, by the +mouth of his apostle, declared: ‘There is neither Greek nor Jew nor +barbarian, but Christ is in all things,’ if to-day he entered one of +his churches and saw offered to the veneration of his faithful, a +national heroine with a sword on her thigh and a flag in her hand?[65] + +This glorification of national particularisms, at least with the +precision observable to-day, is undoubtedly something new in the +history of the Church. It is not necessary to go back as far as +Saint Augustine, who preached the extinction of all patriotisms in +the embrace of ‘the City of God’; nor even to Bossuet, who shows us +the indignation of Jesus at observing ‘that because we are separated +by a few rivers or mountains, we seem to have forgotten that we are +all of one nature’. So recently as 1849 a lofty assembly of prelates +asserted that ‘this movement of nationalities is a relic of paganism, +differences of language are a consequence of sin and the fall of man’. +Certainly this declaration was an interested one, since it was provoked +by the Most Catholic Francis Joseph to check the separatist tendencies +among the peoples of his Empire; but I dare to assert that the Church +would no longer make such a declaration, even for motives of interest. +I shall be told that even if the Church wished to do so, she could +only do it under penalty of delivering up her ministers to a terrible +unpopularity among their respective peoples. As if the ‘clerk’s’ +function were not to tell the laymen truths which are displeasing to +them, and to pay the price at the expense of his own peace! + +I do not ask so much. Is there a single prelate in any pulpit of Europe +who would now dare to pronounce: ‘The Christian is both a cosmopolitan +and a patriot. These two qualities are not incompatible. The world +indeed is one common fatherland, or, to speak in more Christian terms, +one common exile.’ (Pastoral letter ‘On the pretended philosophy of +modern infidels,’ by Le Franc de Pompignon, Bishop of Puy, 1763. +The ‘infidels’ here are those who refuse the Church the right to be +cosmopolitan.) + +Some ‘clerks’ do better, and assert that by extolling national +particularisms they are in complete harmony with the fundamental spirit +of the Church, especially with the teaching of the great Doctors of +the Middle Ages. (This is the thesis which opposes Catholicism to +Christianity.) Need I recall the fact that the most national of these +Doctors limited themselves to considering national particularisms as an +inevitable condition of an earthly and inferior world, which must be +respected like everything else which is the will of God? Or that they +never exhorted men to intensify this feeling in their hearts, still +less did they ever think of putting this intensification before them as +an exercise in moral self-perfection? + +When the Church in past times did approve of something in patriotism, +it was fraternity among fellow-citizens, like love of man for other +men, but not his opposition to other men. She approved of patriotism as +an extension of human love, and not as a limitation of it.[66] + +But the most remarkable thing in all this is that recently--precisely +since the time when Benedict XV was reproached during the last war for +not having denounced the arrogance of German nationalism--there has +arisen a school in the bosom of the Church which tries to prove that +by acting in this way the Holy Father had simply obeyed the teaching +of his Divine Master, who is supposed to have preached explicitly the +love of a man for his own nation. Could anything better symbolize the +determination of the modern ‘clerks’ to place their credit and their +activities at the service of lay passions than these Churchmen making +Jesus an apostle of nationalism? + +These strange Christians express themselves thus: + +‘Jesus does not look beyond the frontiers of his own country with the +idea of bestowing his benefactions upon other nations. He declares to +the Canaanitish woman, whose daughter he heals against his own wish, +that “his mission is only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” +(Matt. xv, 24). He sent his first disciples among the Israelites. And +notice how he insists that they shall not go elsewhere. “Go not on the +paths of the Gentiles, and enter not the cities of the Samaritans, but +go first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matt. x, 6.) Later +on, it will be time enough to announce the good news to foreigners, +but first of all we must bring it to our own people. This is what he +means by the words, so full of patriotic meaning and love: “the house +of Israel.” A group of human beings possessing the same blood, the same +language, the same religion, the same tradition, form “a house”. These +particularities are so many dividing walls.’[67] + +They also say: + +‘The most striking thing about Jesus when he consents to pay tribute +to Caesar and refuses the crown which the people offer him in the +desert, is not so much his prudence and his disinterestedness, as his +patriotism ... One of the most important characteristics of Jesus’s +teaching is its absolutely national character....’[68] + +If the reader desires, he will himself go and find out the solidity +of the proofs on which these teachers base their thesis (one of these +proofs is that Jesus was strongly attached to the institutions of his +nation, which he showed by accepting circumcision eight days after he +was born). The point I wish to insist on is the eagerness of these +Christians to make their Master a supporter of national egotism, at +least at one period of his life. + +These views on the attitude of the Church towards nationalism seem to +me to remain unmodified by the recent declarations of the Holy See +concerning a certain type of French nationalism, for these declarations +only condemn an openly anti-Christian nationalism (hence a very +exceptional form of nationalism) and do not utter a word of blame for +the desire of the peoples to set themselves up as distinct from others +and to reject universalism. Moreover, this is how a universalist is +answered by a publication which is to some extent the official organ of +Pontifical views: + +‘Yes, all men are sons of one Father; but they were divided in the +beginning and have never been brought together again. The family was +broken up and never joined up again. On the contrary. Certainly, I am +glad to recognize the fraternity of all living beings; but are all +the dead our fathers? Have they all loved us? Have they all suffered +and laboured for us? Some lived on the other side of the globe, and, +so to speak, in another world. Some laboured against us, or, if +they supported our ancestors, it was in the hope of safeguarding or +enriching their own bequest to others, not to us. Where is the debt? +If the home is open to all comers, it is no longer a home but an +inn.’[69] + +It appears that we must look among those who have left the Church, +to find Christian ministers who proclaim the true teaching of their +Master, and who declare with no beating about the bush: ‘The Gospel of +Jesus does not imply any country, but obliterates the fatherland.’[70] + +The modern ‘clerk’ denounces the feeling of universalism, not only +for the profit of the nation, but for that of a class. Our age has +beheld moralists who have declared to the bourgeois world (or to the +working classes) that, far from trying to check the feeling of their +differences from others and to feel conscious of their common human +nature, they should on the contrary try to feel conscious of this +difference in all its profundity and irreducibleness, and that this +effort is fine and noble, whereas every desire for union is here a +sign of baseness and cowardice, and also of weakness of mind. This, +as everyone knows, is the thesis of the ‘Reflections on Violence’, +which has been praised by a whole galaxy of apostles of the modern +soul. There is certainly something more novel in this attitude of +the ‘clerks’ to class differences than in their attitude towards +national differences. To discover the results of this teaching and the +additional hatred (hitherto unknown) which it has given to either class +in doing violence to its adversary, you have only to look at Italian +Fascism for the bourgeois class, and at Russian Bolshevism for the +working class.[71] + +Here again we see realism trying to shelter under cover of the Church. +We see certain Catholic teachers striving to prove that, by encouraging +the bourgeois class, _in the name of morality_, to feel conscious of +themselves as distinct from the opposing class, to plunge religiously +into consciousness of the characteristics which are proper to their +own class, and especially (Johannet) to _intensify their feeling of +property_, these teachers are merely acting in conformity with the +teaching of the Church.[72] + +It is easy to point out the equivocation upon which this claim is +based. The Church does indeed admit class distinctions. She exhorts the +faithful to recognize and even to respect them, as something imposed +by God upon a fallen world. She also exhorts the privileged to accept +their situation, to carry out the activities it implies, and to +perform ‘the duties of their state of life’. She even tells them that +by performing these duties they are pleasing God and ‘making an act of +prayer’. But the Church never exhorted them to glorify in themselves +the feeling of this distinction, still less did she ever do so in the +name of morality. On the contrary, she exhorted them in the name of +morality to extinguish (beneath this privileged life) all belief in +a particularity of essence in their persons, and told them to feel +conscious of themselves in that humanity which is common to all men +beneath the inequality of ranks and states of life.[73] Jesus Christ, +the Church states explicitly and constantly, _only accepts the man who +is reconciled_, i.e. the man who has obliterated from his heart every +feeling of difference between himself and other men. (See Bossuet’s +_Sermon on Reconciliation_.) It seems unnecessary to insist further on +the unimpeachable character of this Christian teaching--I am speaking +of teaching, not of practice. But one cannot meditate too much on the +eagerness of so many modern Church teachers to try to find some means +of sanctifying bourgeois egotism through the words of the Gospels.[74] + +Let me point out another and remarkable form of this extolling of +particularism by the ‘clerks’: the extolling of particular systems +of morality and the scorn for universal morality. During the past +half century a whole school, not only of men of action but of serious +philosophers, has taught that a people should form a conception of its +rights and duties from a study of its particular genius, its history, +its geographical position, the particular circumstances in which it +happens to be, and not from the commands of a so-called conscience of +man in all times and places. Moreover, this same school teaches that +a class should construct a scale of good and evil, determined by an +inquiry into its particular needs, its particular aims, the particular +conditions surrounding it, and should cease to encumber itself with +such sensibilities as ‘justice in itself’, ‘humanity in itself’ and +other ‘rags and tatters’ of general morality. To-day with Barrès, +Maurras, Sorel, even Durckheim[75] we are witnessing the complete +bankruptcy among the ‘clerks’ of that form of soul which, from Plato +to Kant, looked for the notion of good in the heart of eternal and +disinterested man. The example of Germany in 1914 shows the results of +this teaching which exhorts a group of men to set themselves up as the +sole judges of the morality of their actions, shows what deification of +their appetites it leads to, what codification of their violence, what +tranquillity in carrying out their plans. One day perhaps we shall see +the same thing throughout Europe exemplified by the bourgeois class, +unless the doctrines of that class are turned against itself and we see +it exemplified by the working classes.[76] + +I dare to say that the indignation of certain French moralists at +the action of Germany in 1914 surprises me, when I reflect that some +sixteen years earlier, during the famous ‘affair’ which I have already +mentioned, these moralists preached to their compatriots exactly the +same doctrines, urging them to reject the concept of absolute justice, +and to desire only a form of justice ‘adapted to France’, to its +particular genius, its particular history, its particular, eternal, and +present needs.[77] For the honour of these thinkers--I mean for the +honour of their consistency--one likes to think that their indignation +in 1914 was not the result of any moral conviction, but only of the +desire to place the enemy of their nation in the wrong with a naïve +universe. + +This last-named activity of the ‘clerks’ seems to me one of those +which best display their determination and skill in serving the +passions of the laymen. If a man exhorts his compatriots to recognize +only a personal morality and to reject all universal morality, he is +showing himself a master of the art of encouraging them to want to be +distinct from all other men, i.e. of the art of perfecting national +passion in them, at least in one of its aspects. The desire to take +none but oneself as a judge of one’s actions and to scorn every opinion +of other people is undoubtedly a source of strength to a nation, as +every exertion of pride is a source of strength to an institution, +whose fundamental principle--whatever may be said to the contrary--is +the assertion of an ego against a non-ego. What ruined Germany in the +last war was not its ‘irritating arrogance’, as is asserted by certain +visionaries who have made up their minds that malevolence of soul +must be an element of weakness in practical life, but the fact that +its material strength was not equal to its arrogance. When arrogance +finds an equivalent material power at its disposal, it is very far from +ruining nations; witness Rome and the Prussia of Bismarck. The ‘clerks’ +who, thirty years ago, exhorted France to make herself the sole judge +of her own actions and to despise eternal morality, showed that +they possessed in the highest degree the perception of the national +interest, insofar as that interest is wholly realist and has nothing +to do with disinterested passion. It remains to be seen, once more, +whether the function of the ‘clerks’ is to serve this sort of interests. + +But the modern ‘clerks’ have held up universal truth to the scorn +of mankind, as well as universal morality. Here the ‘clerks’ have +positively shown genius in their effort to serve the passions of the +laymen. It is obvious that truth is a great impediment to those who +wish to set themselves up as distinct; from the very moment when they +accept truth, it condemns them to be conscious of themselves in a +universal. What a joy for them to learn that this universal is a mere +phantom, that there exist only particular truths, ‘Lorrain truths, +Provençal truths, Britanny truths, the harmony of which in the course +of centuries constitutes what is beneficial, respectable, _true in +France_’[78] (the neighbour similarly speaks of what is _true in +Germany_), that in other words Pascal had the mind of a clown, and that +what is true on one side of the Pyrenees may perfectly well be error +on the other side! Humanity hears the same teaching about the classes +and learns that there is a bourgeois truth and a working-class truth; +better still, that the functioning of our minds should be different +according to whether we are working men or bourgeois. The source of +your troubles (Sorel teaches the working classes) is that you do not +think in the mental way suited to your class. His disciple, Johannet, +says the same thing to the capitalist class. Perhaps we shall soon see +the results of this truly supreme art of the ‘clerks’ in exasperating +the feeling in their differences among the classes. + +The cult for the particular and the scorn for the universal is a +reversal of values quite generally characteristic of the teaching +of the modern ‘clerks’, who proclaim them in a far higher sphere of +thought than politics. The metaphysics adopted in the last twenty +years by almost all those who think or pretend to think, set up as the +supreme state of human consciousness that state--‘duration’--where we +succeed in taking cognizance of ourselves in what is most individual, +most distinct from everything not ourselves, and in freeing ourselves +from those forms of thought (concept, reason, habits of speech) through +which we can only become conscious of ourselves in what is common to +us and others. These metaphysics put forward as a superior form of +cognizance of the world that which grasps each thing by what is unique +in it, distinct from every other, and is full of scorn for the mind +which seeks to discover general states of being. Our age has seen a +fact hitherto unknown, at least from my point of view; and this in +metaphysics preaching adoration for the contingent, and scorn for the +eternal.[79] Nothing could show better how profound is the modern +‘clerk’s’ desire to exalt the real, the practical side of existence, +and to degrade the ideal, the truly metaphysical side. In the history +of philosophy this veneration for the individual comes from the German +thinkers (Schlegel, Nietzsche, Lotze), while the metaphysical cult of +the universal (added to a certain contempt for the experimental) is +pre-eminently a legacy of Greece to the human mind. So here again, and +moreover in its profoundest part, the teaching of the modern ‘clerks’ +shows the triumph of Germanic values and the bankruptcy of Hellenism. + +I should like to point out another form, not the least remarkable, +which this preaching of particularism assumes among the ‘clerks’. I +mean their exhortations to consider everything only as it exists _in +time_, that is as it constitutes a succession of particular states, a +‘becoming’, a ‘history’, and never as it presents a state of permanence +beyond time under this succession of distinct cases. I mean especially +their assertion that this view of things in their historical aspect is +the only serious and philosophical view, and that the need to look at +them in their eternal aspect is a form of the child’s taste for ghosts, +and should be merely smiled at. Need I point out that this conception +inspires the whole of modern thought? It exists among a whole group +of literary critics, who, on their own showing, inquire far less +whether a work is beautiful than whether it expresses ‘the present’ +aspirations of ‘the contemporary soul’.[80] It may be seen in a whole +school of moralist-historians who admire a doctrine, not because it +is just or good, but because it embodies the morality _of its time_, +the scientific spirit _of its time_. (This is the principal reason why +Sorel admires Bergsonism and why Nietzsche admires the philosophy of +Nicolas de Cuse.) It may be seen especially in all our metaphysicians. +Whether they put forward _Entwickelung_ or _Duration_ or _Creative +Evolution_ or _Pluralism_ or _Integral Experience_ or the _Concrete +Universal_, they all teach that the absolute is developed _in time_, +in the circumstantial, and proclaim the decadence of that form of +mind which, from Plato to Kant, hallows existence as conceived beyond +change.[81] If, with Pythagoras, we assume that the Cosmos is the place +of regulated and uniform existence, and the Ouranos the place of the +becoming and the moving, we may say that all modern metaphysics place +the Ouranos at the top of their scale of values and hold the Cosmos in +very slight esteem. Is it not remarkable to see the ‘clerks’, even in +the lofty function of metaphysicians, teaching the laymen that the real +alone is worthy of consideration, and that the supersensible is only +worthy of derisive laughter?[82] + + +(_B_) _The ‘clerks’ praise attachment to the practical, and denounce +love of the spiritual_ + +But the ‘clerks’ with their doctrines have inflamed the realism of the +laymen in other ways besides praising the particular and denouncing the +universal. At the very top of the scale of moral values they place the +possession of concrete advantages, of material power and the means by +which they are procured; and they hold up to scorn the pursuit of truly +spiritual advantages, of non-practical or disinterested values. + +This they have done, first of all, as regards the State. For twenty +centuries the ‘clerks’ preached to the world that the State should be +just; now they proclaim that the State should be strong and should +care nothing about being just. (Remember the attitude of the chief +French teachers during the Dreyfus affair.) Convinced that the strength +of the State depends upon authority, they defend autocratic systems, +arbitrary government, the reason of State, the religions which teach +blind submission to authority, and they cannot sufficiently denounce +all institutions based on liberty and discussion.[83] This denunciation +of liberalism, notably by the vast majority of contemporary men of +letters, will be one of the things in this age most astonishing to +History, especially on the part of the French. With their eyes fixed +on the powerful State, they have praised the State disciplined in the +Prussian manner, where everyone has his post, and under orders from +above, labours for the greatness of the nation, without there being +any place left for particular wills.[84] Owing to their cult of the +powerful State (and also for other reasons I shall mention later), +they want the military element to preponderate in the State, they want +it to have a right to privileges and they want the civil element to +agree to this right. (See _L’Appel au Soldat_, and the declarations of +numerous writers during the Dreyfus affair.) It is certainly something +new to see men of thought preaching the abasement of the toga before +the sword, especially in the country of Montesquieu and Renan. And +then they preach that the State should be strong and contemptuous of +justice, above all in its relations with other States. To this end +they praise in the head of the State the will to aggrandisement, the +desire for ‘strong frontiers’, the effort to keep his neighbours under +his domination. And they glorify those means which to them seem likely +to attain these ends, i.e. sudden aggression, trickery, bad faith, +contempt for treaties. This apology for Machiavellianism has inspired +all the German historians for the past fifty years, and in France it is +professed by very influential teachers, who exhort France to venerate +her Kings because they are supposed to have been models of the purely +practical spirit, exempt from all respect for any silly justice in +their relations with their neighbours. + +The novelty of this attitude among the ‘clerks’ can best be displayed +by quoting the famous answer of Socrates to the realist in the +_Georgias_: + +‘In the persons of Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles, you praise men who +made their fellow citizens good cheer, by serving them with everything +they desired without caring to teach them what is good and right in +food. They have enlarged the State, cry the Athenians, but they do not +see that this enlargement is nothing but a swelling, a tumour filled +with corruption. This is all that has been achieved by these former +politicians by filling the city with ports, arsenals, walls, tributes, +and the like follies, and by not adding Temperance and Justice.’ + +Up to our own times, in theory at least (but it is with theories I +am dealing here) the supremacy of the spiritual proclaimed in those +words has been adopted by all those who, explicitly or otherwise, +have proposed a scale of values to the world, whether through the +Church, or the Renaissance, or the eighteenth century. One can guess +the derisive laughter of a Barrès or any Italian moralist (to speak +only of the Latin races) at this disdain of power for the benefit of +justice, and their severity for the manner in which this son of Athens +judges those who made his city materially powerful. For Socrates, in +this respect the perfect model of the ‘clerk’ who is faithful to his +essential function, ports, arsenals, walls are ‘follies’, and the +serious things are justice and temperance. Those who to-day should +perform the duties of a Socrates consider that it is justice which is a +folly--‘a cloud’--and the serious things are the arsenals, the walls. +To-day the ‘clerk’ has made himself Minister of War. Moreover, one of +the most revered modern moralists definitely approves of the judges who +condemned Socrates, as good guardians of worldly interests.[85] And +that is something which has not been seen among the educators of the +human soul since the evening when Crito closed his master’s eyelids. + +I say that the modern ‘clerks’ have _preached_ that the State should be +strong and care nothing about being just; and in fact the ‘clerks’ do +give this assertion the characteristic of preaching, of moral teaching. +I cannot insist too often that in this lies their great originality. +When Machiavelli advises the Prince to carry out the Machiavellian +scheme of action, he invests those actions with no sort of morality +or beauty. For him morality remains what it is for everyone else, +and does not cease to remain so because he observes (not without +melancholy) that it is incompatible with politics. ‘The Prince,’ says +Machiavelli, ‘must have an understanding always ready to do good, +but he must be able to enter into evil when he is forced to do so’; +thereby showing that for him evil, even if it aids politics, still +remains evil. The modern realists are the _moralists_ of realism. For +them, the act which makes the State strong is invested with a moral +character by the fact that it does so, and this whatever the act may +be. The evil which serves politics ceases to be evil and becomes +good. This position is evident in Hegel, in the Pangermanists and in +Barrès; it is no less evident among realists like M. Maurras and his +disciples, in spite of their insistence in declaring that they profess +no morality. Perhaps these teachers do not profess any morality, at +least expressly, in what concerns private life, but they very clearly +profess a morality in the political order of things, if by morality is +meant everything which puts forward a scale of good and evil. For them +as for Hegel, the practical in politics _is the moral_, and if what +the rest of the world calls moral is in opposition to the practical, +then _it is the immoral_. Such precisely is the perfectly moralist +meaning of the famous campaign of ‘false patriotism’. It seems as if +we might say that for M. Maurras the practical is the divine, and that +his ‘atheism’ consists less in denying God than in shifting Him to man +and his political work. I think I can describe the work of this writer +accurately by saying that it is the _divinizing of politics_.[86] This +displacement of morality is undoubtedly the most important achievement +of the modern ‘clerks’, and the most deserving of the historian’s +attention. It is a great turning-point in the history of man when those +who speak in the name of pondered thought come and tell him that his +political egotisms are divine, and that everything which labours to +relax them is degrading. The results of this teaching were shown by the +example of Germany a decade ago.[87] + +The extent to which the modern ‘clerks’ have made innovations may be +judged by the fact that up till our own times men had only received two +sorts of teaching in what concerns the relations between politics and +morality. One was Plato’s, and it said: ‘Morality decides politics’; +the other was Machiavelli’s, and it said: ‘Politics have nothing to +do with morality.’ To-day they receive a third. M. Maurras teaches: +‘Politics decide morality.’[88] However, the real departure is not +that this doctrine should be put before them, but that they should +accept it. Callicles asserted that force is the only morality; but the +thinking world despised him. Let me also mention that Machiavelli was +covered with insults by most of the moralists of his time, at least in +France. + +The modern world also hearkens to other moralists of realism, who are +not lacking in influence as such; I mean the statesmen. Here I shall +point to the same sort of change as above. Formerly, leaders of States +practised realism, but did not honour it; Louis XI, Charles the Fifth +of Spain, Richelieu, Louis XIV, did not claim that their actions were +moral. They saw morality where the Gospel had showed it to them, and +they did not attempt to displace it because they did not apply it.[89] +With them morality was violated, but moral notions remain intact; _and +that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb +civilization_. Signor Mussolini proclaims the morality of his politics +of force and the immorality of everything which opposes it. Like the +writer, the man of government, who formerly was merely a realist, is +now the _apostle_ of realism; and the majesty of his function--if not +of his person--gives weight to his apostleship. + +The modern governor, owing to the fact that he addresses crowds, is +compelled to be a moralist, and to present his acts as bound up with +a system of morality, a metaphysics, a mysticism. Richelieu, who need +account only to his King, is able to talk only of the practical, and +leaves visions of the eternal to others. Mussolini, Bethmann-Hollweg, +Herriot, are condemned to these heights.[90] Moreover, this shows how +great to-day is the number of those whom I can call ‘clerks’, since by +that word I mean all those who speak to the world in a transcendental +manner. Consequently, I have a right to demand that they give an +account of their acts _as ‘clerks’_. + +The preachers of political realism often claim to base themselves +on the teaching of the Church, and call her a hypocrite when she +condemns their theses. This claim has little foundation as regards the +teaching of the Church before the nineteenth century, but has much more +foundation if we consider the present age. I doubt whether one could +now find from the pen of a modern theologian any passage so brutally +denunciatory of a war of aggression as the following:-- + +‘Glaringly unjust is the war of him who declares war only from ambition +and from the desire to extend his dominions beyond their legitimate +boundaries, from the desire to possess a more commodious country +in which to establish himself, from the fear of the great power of +a neighbouring prince with whom he is at peace, or from the desire +to despoil a rival solely because he is thought unworthy of the +possessions or States he holds or of a right which legitimately belongs +to him, because a ruler is inconvenienced by him and wants to get rid +of this inconvenience by force of arms.’[91] On the other hand, there +are an immense number of works to-day which need only a little twisting +to make them justify every attempt at conquest. For instance, the view +that a war is just ‘if it can invoke the necessity of safeguarding +the common good and public tranquillity, the recapture of things +unjustly carried off, the repression of rebels, the defence of the +innocent’.[92] And the view which asserts that ‘war is just when it +is necessary to a nation either to defend itself against invasion, or +_to overthrow the obstacles thwarting the exercise of its rights_.’[93] +At the beginning of the last century the Church still taught that war +could only be just for one of the two belligerents.[94] It is heavy +with consequences that she has now abandoned this position and to-day +asserts that war may be just on both sides at once, ‘from the moment +when each of the two adversaries, without being certain of its right, +considers it as simply probable after having taken the opinion of its +counsellors’.[95] Here is another serious thing: In the past, war +would only be declared just when it was against an adversary who had +committed an injury _accompanied by a moral intention_, whereas to-day +it may be declared just if it is directed against a material injury +caused without any malice,[96] for instance, an accidental violation of +frontier. It is certain that to-day Napoleon and Bismarck could find +in the teaching of the Church more justification than ever for their +incursions.[97] + +The modern ‘clerks’ have preached this realism to the classes as well +as to the nations. They say to the working class as well as to the +bourgeois class: ‘Organize yourselves, become the stronger, seize +on power or exert yourself to retain it if you already possess it; +laugh at all efforts to bring more charity, more justice or any other +“rot”[98] into your relations with the other class, you have been +cheated long enough by that sort of thing.’ And here again they do not +say: ‘Become so, because necessity demands it,’ they say, and that is +the novelty of it: ‘Become so, because morality, aesthetics demand it; +to wish to be powerful is the sign of an elevated soul, to wish to be +just the sign of a base soul.’ This is the teaching of Nietzsche,[99] +of Sorel, applauded by a whole thinking (so-called) Europe; this is +the enthusiasm of Europe, when it is attracted by Socialism, for the +doctrines of Marx, its scorn for the doctrines of Proudhon.[100] The +‘clerks’ have said the same thing to the parties contending within the +same nation. ‘Make yourself the stronger,’ they say to one or other, +according to their own passion, ‘and do away with everything which +obstructs you; free yourself from the foolish prejudice which exhorts +you to make allowances for your adversary, to establish with him a +system of justice and harmony.’ We all know the admiration professed by +a whole army of ‘thinkers’ in all countries for the Italian government, +which simply outlaws all citizens who do not approve of it. Until our +own times the educators of the human soul, disciples of Aristotle, +urged mankind to denounce as infamous any State which was an organized +faction. The pupils of Signor Mussolini and M. Maurras learn to +reverence such a State.[101] + +This extolling of the ‘strong State’ by the modern ‘clerks’ appears +also in certain teachings which, it may be asserted, would greatly have +amazed their ancestors, at least the great ones:-- + +(_a_) _The affirmation of the rights of custom, history, the past_ (to +the extent, be it understood, that they support the systems of force) +in opposition to the rights of reason. I say the affirmation of the +_rights_ of custom. The modern traditionalists do not simply teach, +like Descartes or Malebranche, that custom is upon the whole quite a +good thing, and that there is more wisdom in submitting to it than +opposing it. They teach that custom has a right, _the_ right, and +consequently that custom should be respected not only from the point +of view of interest, but of justice. The arguments in favour of the +‘historical right’ of Germany to Alsace, the ‘historical right’ of the +French monarchy, are not purely political positions, they are moral +positions. They claim to be accepted in the name of ‘true justice’, +of which (they say) their adversaries have a false conception.[102] +To determine what is just by the ‘accomplished fact’ is certainly a +new sort of teaching, especially among the peoples who for twenty +centuries derived their conception of what is just from the companions +of Socrates. Here again, the soul of Greece has given place to the soul +of Prussia among the educators of mankind. The spirit which speaks +here--and from all the teachers of Europe, Mediterranean as well as +Germanic--is the spirit of Hegel: ‘The history of the world is the +justice of the world.’ (_Weltgeschichte ist Weltgericht._) + +(_b_) The extolling of _policy founded on experience_--by which is +meant that a society should be governed on principles which have proved +that they can make it strong, and by ‘illusions’ which would tend to +make it just. It is in this narrowly practical sense that the cult +of experimental politics is a new thing among the ‘clerks’. For if +we mean by the phrase the respect for principles which have showed +that they are fitted to make a society not only strong but just, the +recommendation of such a policy in opposition to a purely rational +policy appeared in the thinking world long before the disciples of +Taine or Auguste Comte.[103] Long before our ‘organizing empiricists’ +Spinoza wanted political science to be an experimental science, and +desired that the conditions under which States endure should be sought +from observation at least as much as from reason. (See his attack +on the Utopians, _Treatise_, I, i.) But he believed he learned from +observation that these conditions do not solely consist in States +possessing good armies and obedient peoples, but in their respecting +the rights of citizens and even of neighbouring peoples.[104] The +cult of experimental politics to-day is accompanied in those who +adopt it by a posture which they evidently mean to be striking, and +which in fact is so. We all know with what fatalistic visages, what +scornful inflexibility, what dark certainty of grasping the absolute, +they declare that in matters of politics ‘they consider only the +facts’. Here, especially among the French thinkers, is a new kind of +Romanticism, which I shall call the _Romanticism of Positivism_, the +chief representatives of which will rise up in the imagination of my +readers without its being necessary for me to name them. Moreover, +this cult brings out a silliness of mind which to me seems wholly an +acquisition of the nineteenth century,[105] i.e. the belief that the +teachings to be drawn from the past (supposing that they exist) will +come straight out of an examination of the _facts_, viz. desires which +have been realized. As if the desires which have not been realized were +not as important, and perhaps more important, if you reflect that they +may quite well come to fill the world’s stage now.[106] Let me add that +this cult of fact also claims to be the sole discoverer of ‘the meaning +of history’ and ‘the philosophy of history’, which there again shows +a weakness of mind from which the preceding ages seem to have been +free. When Bossuet and Hegel built up philosophies of history they were +certainly no more metaphysicians than Taine or Comte or any of their +noisy disciples, but at least they knew that they were so, that they +could not be otherwise, and were not so naïve as to think themselves +‘pure scientists’. + +(_c_) The assertion that political forms should be adapted to ‘man +as he is and always will be’ (viz. unsocial and bloody, therefore +eternally needing systems of coercion and military institutions). +This effort of so many modern teachers to assert the imperfectability +of human nature appears as one of their strangest attitudes, if you +realize that it tends towards nothing less than asserting the complete +uselessness of their function, and proving that they have completely +ceased to realize its very essence. When we see moralists, educators, +professional providers of spiritual guidance, assert at the spectacle +of human barbarism that ‘man is thus’, that ‘he must be taken thus’, +that ‘you will never change him’, we are tempted to ask them what is +their reason for existing. And when we hear them reply that ‘they are +positive minds and not Utopians’, ‘that they are concerned with what +is, not with what might be’, we are staggered to see that they do not +know that the moralist is essentially a Utopian, and that the nature +of moral action is precisely that it creates its object by affirming +it. But we recover when we notice that they are in no wise ignorant +of this, and know perfectly well that by affirming it they will +create that eternity of barbarism necessary to the maintenance of the +institutions which are dear to them.[107] + +The dogma of the incurable wickedness of man has another root among +some who profess it. This is a Romantic pleasure in picturing the human +race as walled in by an inevitable and eternal woe. From this point +of view we may say that there has grown up among certain political +writers of our time a real _Romanticism of Pessimism_, as false in its +absoluteness as the Optimism of Rousseau and Michelet, in hatred of +whom it has arisen, while its haughty and so-called scientific attitude +is most impressive to simple souls.[108] This doctrine has undoubtedly +borne fruits outside the world of literature, and at its voice there +has arisen a humanity which believes in nothing but its egotisms and +merely laughs at the naïve persons who still think that it might become +better. The modern ‘clerk’ has accomplished a truly new work--he has +taught man to deny his divinity. The import of such a work is obvious. +The Stoics claimed that pain is abolished if it is denied; the thing +is disputable in the matter of pain, but it is absolutely true in the +matter of moral perfectability. + +I shall point out two more teachings inspired in the modern ‘clerks’, +by their preaching of the ‘strong State’, and it will not be necessary +to add that they are new in the ministers of the spiritual:-- + +The first is the teaching whereby they declare to Man that he is great +to the extent that he strives to act and to think as his ancestors, +his race, his environment thought, and ignores ‘individualism’. Thirty +years ago many of the French teachers hurled anathemas against the man +who ‘claimed to seek truth for himself’, to arrive at his own opinion, +instead of adopting the opinion of his nation which had been told what +it ought to think by its vigilant leaders. Our age has seen priests +of the mind teaching that the gregarious is the praiseworthy form of +thought, and that independent thought is contemptible. It is moreover +certain that a group which desires to be strong has no use for the man +who claims to think for himself.[109] + +The second is the teaching whereby they declare to men that the fact +that a group is numerous constitutes a right. This is the morality +which the over-populated nations hear from many of their thinkers, +while the other nations hear from many of theirs that if their low +birth-rate continues they will become the objects of a ‘legitimate’ +extermination. The rights of numerousness admitted by men who claim to +belong to the life of the mind--that is what modern humanity sees. But +it is certain that if a nation is to be strong, it must be numerous. + +This cult of the strong State and the moral methods which ensure it +have been preached to mankind by the ‘clerks’ far beyond the domain +of politics, and on a wholly general plane. This is the preaching of +_Pragmatism_ whose teaching during the past fifty years by nearly +all the influential moralists of Europe is one of the most remarkable +turning points in the moral history of the human species. It is +impossible to exaggerate the importance of a movement whereby those who +for twenty centuries taught Man that the criterion of the morality of +an act is its disinterestedness, that good is a decree of his reason +insofar as it is universal, that his will is only moral if it seeks +its law outside its objects, should begin to teach him that the moral +act is the act whereby he secures his existence against an environment +which disputes it, that his will is moral insofar as it is a will ‘to +power’, that the part of his soul which determines what is good is +its ‘will to live’ wherein it is most ‘hostile to all reason’, that +the morality of an act is measured by its adaptation to its end, and +that the only morality is the morality of circumstances. The educators +of the human mind now take sides with Callicles against Socrates, a +revolution which I dare to say seems to me more important than all +political upheavals.[110] + +I should like to point out certain particularly remarkable aspects of +this preaching, which are probably not sufficiently realized. + +I said that the modern ‘clerks’ teach man that his desires are moral +insofar as they tend to secure his existence at the expense of an +environment which disputes it. In particular they teach him that his +species is sacred insofar as it is able to assert its existence at the +expense of the surrounding world.[111] In other words, the old morality +told Man that he is divine to the extent that he becomes one with the +universe; the new morality tells him that he is divine to the extent +that he is in opposition to it. The former exhorted him not to set +himself in Nature ‘like an empire within an empire’; the latter exhorts +him to say with the fallen angels of Holy Writ, ‘We desire now to feel +conscious of ourselves in ourselves, and not in God.’ The former, +like the master of the _Contemplations_, said: ‘Believe, but not in +ourselves’; the latter replies with Nietzsche and Maurras: ‘Believe, +and believe in ourselves, only ourselves.’ + +Nevertheless, the real originality of Pragmatism is not in that. +Christianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so +in the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes: Pragmatism +exhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly +man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of +justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; to-day he is divine because +he has been able to create an equipment which makes him the master of +matter. (See the glorifications of the _homo faber_ by Nietzsche, +Sorel, Bergson.) + +Moreover, the modern ‘clerks’ extol Christianity insofar as it is +supposed to have been pre-eminently a school of practical, creative +virtues, adjusted to the support of the great human institutions. This +amazing deformation of a doctrine which in its precepts is so obviously +devoted to the love of the spiritual alone, is not only taught by +laymen, who are quite within their rights in trying to place their +practical desires under the patronage of the highest moral authorities; +it is also professed by the ministers of Jesus themselves. Pragmatist +Christianity, as I mean it here, is preached to-day from all Christian +pulpits.[112] + +This exhortation to concrete advantages and to that form of soul which +procures them, is expressed by the modern ‘clerk’ in another very +remarkable teaching: By praise of the military life and the feelings +which go with it, and by contempt for civil life and the morality it +implies. We know the doctrine preached in Europe during the past fifty +years by its most esteemed moralists, their apology for war ‘which +purifies’, their veneration for the man of arms ‘the archtype of moral +beauty’, their proclamation of the supreme morality of ‘violence’ or +of those who settle their differences by duels and not before a jury, +while they declare that respect for contracts is the ‘weapon of the +weak’, the need for justice the ‘characteristic of slaves’. It is +not betraying the disciples of Nietzsche or Sorel--that is, the great +majority of contemporary men of letters who attempt to set up a scale +of moral values for the world--to say that according to them Colleoni +is a far superior specimen of humanity to l’Hôpital. The estimates of +the _Voyage du Condottiere_ are not peculiar to the author of that +work. Here is an idealization of practical activity, which humanity had +never before heard from its educators, at least from those who speak +dogmatically. + +I shall be told that Nietzsche and his school do not extol the military +life because it procures material advantages, but on the contrary, +because it is the type of disinterested realism, and in opposition to +the realism which in their opinion is the characteristic of civilian +life. Yet it is none the less true that the way of life praised by +these moralists is in fact that which pre-eminently brings material +advantages. Whatever may be said by the author of _Reflections on +Violence_ and his disciples, war is more profitable than the counting +house; to take is more advantageous than to exchange; Colleoni +possesses more than Franklin. (Naturally, I am speaking of the +successful military man, since Nietzsche and Sorel never speak of the +merchant who goes bankrupt.) + +Moreover, no one will deny that the irrational activities, of which +the military instinct is only one aspect, are extolled by their great +modern apostles for their practical value. Their historian has put +it admirably: The Romanticism of Nietzsche, Sorel, and Bergson is a +_utilitarian_ Romanticism. + +Let me insist that what I am pointing to here, is not the modern +‘clerk’s’ extolling of the military spirit, but of the warlike +instinct. It is the cult of the warlike instinct, outside all social +spirit of discipline or sacrifice which is meant by the following +assertions of Nietzsche, glorified by a French moralist whom himself +has numerous followers:-- + +‘The values of the warrior aristocracy are founded on a powerful +bodily constitution, excellent health, without forgetting all that is +necessary to the upkeep of that overflowing vigour--war, adventure, +hunting, dancing, physical games and exercises, and in general +everything which implies a robust, free and joyous activity.’ + +‘That audacity of noble races, a mad, absurd, spontaneous audacity ... +their indifference and scorn for all safety of body, for life, comfort +...’ + +‘The superb blond beast wandering in search of prey and carnage ...’ + +‘The terrible gaiety and profound joy felt by heroes in all +destruction, in all the pleasures of victory and cruelty.’ + +The moralist who quotes those remarks (Sorel, _Reflexions sur la +Violence_, p. 360) adds, in order to leave no doubt about his +recommendation of them to his fellow human beings: ‘It is quite evident +that liberty would be seriously compromised if men came to look upon +the Homeric values’ (which, for him, are the values just praised by +Nietzsche) ‘as being characteristic of the barbarous peoples only.’ + +Is it necessary to observe how, here again, the moral presentation +dominant among the world’s educators is essentially Germanic, and +shows the bankruptcy of Graeco-Roman thought? Before our times you do +not find in France a single serious moralist (including de Maistre) +or even a poet (if you consider only the great ones) who praises the +‘pleasures of victory and cruelty’.[113] And it is the same for ancient +Rome, among the nations to whom war had given world supremacy. I do +not find a single passage which puts forward the instincts of prey +as the supreme form of human morality in Cicero, Seneca, or Tacitus, +or even in Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Claudian. On the other hand, I +find a great many which attribute this rank to the instincts on which +civil life is based.[114] Moreover, in primitive Greece, long before +the philosophers, the myths very soon give an important place to +civil morality. In a poem of Hesiod the tomb of Cycnus is engulfed +in the waters by Apollo’s command, because Cycnus was a brigand. The +defence of warlike instincts by Mediterranean moralists will be one +of the amazements of history. Some of them, moreover, seem uneasy +about it, and feel they ought to claim that the Homeric values (we +have seen what they mean by that) ‘are very close to the values of +Corneille’[115]--as if the French poet’s heroes, with all their sense +of devotion to duty and the State, had anything in common with lovers +of adventure, prey, and carnage! + +It will be observed that these passages from Nietzsche praise the +military life apart from any political aim.[116] And, in fact, the +modern ‘clerks’ teach men that war implies a morality _in itself_ +and should be exercised even apart from any utility. This thesis, so +familiar in Barrès, has been defended in its full splendour by a young +hero who is an educator of the soul for a whole French generation: + +‘In my country we love war and secretly desire it. We have always made +war. Not to conquer a province, not to exterminate a nation, not to +settle a conflict of interests.... We make war for the sake of making +war, with no other purpose.’[117] + +The old French moralists, even the soldiers (Vauvenargues, Vigny), +looked upon war as a sad necessity; their descendants recommend it as +a noble inutility. Yet, here again, the cult preached as apart from +the practical and as an art happens to be eminently favourable to the +practical--useless war is the best preparation for useful war. + +This teaching leads the modern ‘clerk’ (we have just seen it in +Nietzsche) to confer a _moral_ value upon physical exercise and to +proclaim _the morality of sport_--a most remarkable thing indeed among +those who for twenty centuries have exhorted man to situate good in +states of the mind. The moralists of sport, moreover, do not all +shuffle over the practical essence of their doctrine. Young people, +Barrès clearly teaches, should be trained in physical strength, for the +greatness of the country. The modern educator goes for his inspiration, +not to those who strolled in the Lyceum or to the solitaries of +Clairvaux, but to the founder of a little town in the Peloponnesus. +Moreover, our age has seen this new thing: Men who claim to belong +to the spiritual life teaching that the Greece to venerate is Sparta +with her gymnasiums, not the city of Plato or Praxiteles, while others +maintain that in antiquity we should honour Rome and not Greece. All +these things are perfectly consistent in those who desire to preach to +humanity nothing but strong constitutions and solid ramparts.[118] + +The preaching of realism leads the modern ‘Clerk’ to certain teachings, +whose novelty in his history is not sufficiently noticed, nor what a +break they form with the teaching which his class has given to men for +the past two thousand years. + +(_a_) _The extolling of courage_, or more precisely the exhortation to +make the supreme virtue Man’s aptitude to face death, while all other +virtues, however lofty, are placed below it. This teaching, openly the +teaching of Nietzsche, Sorel, Péguy, Barrès, was always the teaching +of poets and generals, but is entirely new among the ‘clerks’, I mean +among men who put before the world a scale of values in the name of +philosophical reflection, or who are willing to be considered as such. +From Socrates to Renan they had considered courage as a virtue, but +on a lower plane. All, more or less openly, teach with Plato: ‘In the +first rank of virtue are wisdom and temperance; courage only comes +afterwards.’[119] The impulses they exhort man to venerate are not +those whereby he strives to quench his thirst for placing himself in +the real, but those whereby he moderates it. It was reserved for our +time to see the priests of the spiritual placing in the first rank of +forms of soul that which is indispensable to man if he is to conquer +and to lay foundations.[120] However, this practical value of courage, +plainly expressed by Nietzsche and Sorel, is not equally so expressed +by all the modern moralists who praise this virtue. This brings another +of their teachings before us:-- + +(_b_) _The extolling of honour_, by which is meant all those impulses +which cause a man to risk his life for no practical interest--to be +precise, from desire of glory--_but which are an excellent school of +practical courage_, and were always extolled by those who lead men to +the conquest of material things. In this connection, let the reader +think of the respect in which the institution of the duel has always +been held in armies, in spite of certain repressions inspired solely by +practical considerations.[121] + +Here again, the position attributed to these impulses by so many modern +moralists is something new among them, especially in the country of +Montaigne, Pascal, La Bruyère, Montesquieu, Voltaire and Renan, who, +when they extol honour, mean something very different from man’s +cult of his own glory.[122] Nevertheless, the most remarkable thing +about all this is that the cult of man for his own glory is currently +preached by the Churchmen as a virtue which leads Man to God. Is it +not amazing to hear words like the following from a Christian pulpit? +‘The love of grandeurs is the path to God, and the heroic impulse which +fully coincides with the search for glories in their cause, permits +him who had forgotten God or who thought he knew not God to re-invent +Him, to discover this last summit after temporary ascents have rendered +him accustomed to the dizziness and air of altitudes.’[123] One cannot +forebear quoting the lesson given by a true disciple of Jesus to a +Christian teacher who had also strangely forgotten his Master’s word:-- + +‘Have you noticed that the eight Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, +the Gospels, the whole of primitive Christian literature, contain not +one word which sets military virtues among those which lead to the +Kingdom of Heaven?’ (Renan, _First Letter to Strauss_.)[124] + +Let me observe that I am not reproaching the Christian preacher for +giving their due to glory and other earthly passions, I am only +reproaching him for trying to pretend that he is in harmony with his +institution when he does so. We do not ask that the Christian shall not +violate the Christian law; we only ask him to know that he is breaking +it when he does break it. This seems to me admirably brought out by +the remark of Cardinal Lavigerie who was asked: ‘What would you do, +Eminence, if someone slapped your right cheek?’ and who replied, ‘I +know what I ought to do, but I do not know what I should do.’ _I know +what I ought to do_, and therefore what I ought to teach. A man who +speaks in that way may give way to every species of violence, and yet +maintain Christian morality. Here actions are nothing; the judgment on +the actions is everything. + +Must I repeat that I am not deploring the fact that the cults of honour +and courage should be preached to human beings; I am deploring the fact +that they are preached _by the ‘clerks’_. Civilization, I repeat, seems +to me possible only if humanity consents to a division of functions, if +side by side with those who carry out the lay passions and extol the +virtues serviceable to them there exists a class of men who depreciate +these passions and glorify the advantages which are beyond the +material. What I think serious is that this class of men should cease +to perform their office, and that those whose duty was to quench human +pride should extol the same impulses of soul as the leaders of armies. + +I shall be told that this preaching is imposed on the ‘clerks’, at +least in war-time, by the laymen, by the States, who to-day intend to +mobilize all the moral resources of the nation for their ends.[125] +But what amazes me is not so much that I see the ‘clerks’ preaching in +this manner, as to see them do it with such docility, such absence of +disgust, such enthusiasm, such joy.... The truth is that the ‘clerks’ +have become as much laymen as the laymen themselves. + +(_c_) _The extolling of harshness_ and the scorn for human love--pity, +charity, benevolence. Here again, the modern ‘clerks’ are the +_moralists_ of realism. They are not content to remind the world +that harshness is necessary in order ‘to succeed’ and that charity +is an encumbrance, nor have they limited themselves to preaching to +their nation or party what Zarathustra preached to his disciples: ‘Be +hard, be pitiless, and in this way dominate.’ They proclaim the moral +nobility of harshness and the ignominy of charity. This teaching, +which is the foundation of Nietzsche’s work, need not surprise one +in a country which has not provided the world with a single great +apostle,[126] but it is very remarkable in the land of Vincent de Paul +and the defender of the Calas. Lines like the following, which might be +an extract from the _Genealogy of Morals_, seem to me something wholly +new coming from the pen of a French moralist: ‘This perverted pity has +degraded love.[127] It has been given the name of charity, and the weak +have received its dew. Night after night the seed of this calamity has +been scattered. It conquers the earth. It fills the solitary places. In +whatever country you go, you cannot go about for a single day without +meeting this withered face with its commonplace gestures, inspired by +the sole desire of prolonging its shameful life.’[128] There again +we can observe how the modern realists have advanced beyond their +predecessors. When Machiavelli declares that ‘a Prince in order to +maintain his power is forced to govern in a manner contrary to charity +and humanity’, he is simply saying that to act contrary to charity +may be a practical necessity, but he does not in the least vouch that +charity is a degradation of the soul. This teaching is the contribution +of the nineteenth century to the moral education of mankind. + +Sometimes the modern ‘clerks’ claim that in preaching inhumanity +they are only continuing the teaching of their great ancestors, +particularly of Spinoza on account of his famous proposition: ‘Pity in +itself is bad and useless in a soul which lives according to reason.’ +Is it necessary to point out that here pity is depreciated, not to +the benefit of inhumanity, but to the benefit of humanity _guided by +reason_, because reason alone ‘enables us to give aid to others with +certainty’. And Spinoza, determined to stress the fact that for him +pity is only inferior to reasoned kindness, adds: ‘It must be fully +understood that I am here speaking of the man who lives by reason. For +if a man is never led by reason or by pity to go to the assistance +of others, then assuredly he deserves the name of inhuman, since he +retains no resemblance to a man.’ Let me add that the apostles of +harshness cannot claim either that they are supported by the fanatics +of justice (Michelet, Proudhon, Renouvier) who, by sacrificing love to +justice, do perhaps end up in harshness, but not in a joyous harshness +which is precisely the harshness preached by the modern realists, who +say--perhaps rightly--that it is the only fertile kind.[129] + +This extolling of harshness seems to me to have borne more fruit than +any other preaching by the modern ‘clerks’. It is a commonplace that +among the great majority of the (so-called) thinking young men, in +France for instance, harshness is to-day an object of respect, while +human love in all its forms is considered a rather laughable thing. +These young men have a cult for doctrines which respect nothing but +force, pay no attention to the lamentations of suffering and proclaim +the inevitability of war and slavery, while they despise those who are +revolted by such prospects and desire to alter them. I should like +these cults to be compared with the literary aesthetics of these young +men, their veneration for certain contemporary novelists and poets in +whom the absence of human sympathy reaches a rare pitch of perfection, +and whom they plainly venerate, especially for that characteristic. +And I should like you to observe the gloomy gravity and arrogance with +which these young men subscribe to these ‘iron’ doctrines. It seems +to me that the modern ‘clerks’ have created in so-called cultivated +society a positive _Romanticism of harshness_. + +They have also created a _Romanticism of contempt_, at least in France, +and notably with Barrès, and indeed since Flaubert and Baudelaire. +Nevertheless, it seems to me that in recent times contempt has been +practised in France for reasons quite other than aesthetic. These +peoples have come to see that by feeling contempt for others they are +not only obtaining the pleasure of a lofty attitude, but that when +they are really expert in expressing contempt they harm what they +despise, do it a real damage. And in fact the kind of contempt which +Barrès expresses for the Jews and which certain royalist teachers have +displayed for democratic institutions every morning for the past twenty +years, do really harm their victims, at least among those very numerous +artistic minds for whom a superbly executory gesture is as good as +an argument. The modern ‘clerks’ deserve a place of honour in the +history of realism; they have come to understand the practical value of +contempt. + +It may also be said that they have created a _cult for cruelty_. +Nietzsche proclaims that ‘every superior culture is built up on +cruelty’, a doctrine which is explicitly proclaimed in many places +by Barrès, author of _Du sang, de la volupté et de la mort_. +Nevertheless, the cult of cruelty, which may also be thought necessary +‘to succeed’[130] has remained limited to a few particularly artistic +sensibilities, at least in France. It is very far from becoming the +cult of a school, like harshness and contempt. Here again we may +notice how new this cult is in the land of those who said ‘Cowardice, +the mother of cruelty’ (Montaigne), or, to quote a military moralist, +‘a hero does not feel proud of carrying hunger and misery among +foreigners, but of enduring them for the State; nor of giving death, +but of risking it.’ (Vauvenargues).[131] + +(_d_) _The cult of success_, I mean the teaching which says that when a +will is successful that fact alone gives it a moral value, whereas the +will which fails is for that reason alone deserving of contempt. This +philosophy which is professed by many a modern teacher in political +life (it may be said, by all in Germany since Hegel, and by a large +number in France since de Maistre) is also professed in private life, +and has borne its fruits there. In the so-called thinking world to-day +there are innumerable people who think they are demonstrating their +aristocratic morality by declaring their systematic esteem for all +who ‘succeed’ and their scorn for all who fail. One moralist places +to the credit of Napoleon’s greatness of soul his contempt for ‘the +unlucky’; others do the same thing in regard to Mazarin, Vauban, +Mussolini. It cannot be denied that the ‘clerks’ are thereby keeping +an excellent school of realism, since the cult of success and the +contempt for misfortune are obviously admirable moral conditions for +obtaining material advantages. Nor can it be denied that this teaching +is entirely new among them, especially among the ‘clerks’ of the Latin +races, I mean those whose ancestors had taught mankind to honour merit +apart from its achievements, to honour Hector as much as Achilles, the +Curiatii more than their successful rivals.[132] + +We have just seen that the modern moralists extol the warrior at the +expense of the man of justice. They also extol him at the expense of +the man of learning and, there again, they preach to the world the +cult of practical activity in defiance of the disinterested life. We +all know Nietzsche’s hue and cry against the man of the study, the man +of erudition, ‘the mirror man,’ whose only passion is to understand. +And also Nietzsche’s esteem for the life of the mind solely insofar +as it is emotion, lyricism, action, partiality; his derisive laughter +at ‘objective’ methodical research devoted to ‘the horrible old woman +known as truth’. And we know Sorel’s denunciations of societies which +‘give a privileged place to the amateurs of _purely intellectual +things_’;[133] those of Barrès, Lemaître, Brunetière, thirty years ago, +intimating to the ‘intellectuals’ that they are a type of humanity +‘inferior to the soldier’; those of Péguy, who admires philosophies to +the extent that ‘they are good fighters’, and admires Descartes because +he was in the army, and the dialecticians of French monarchism solely +because they are ready to be killed for the sake of their views.[134] +I shall be told that most often this is the mere wild talk of men of +letters, the posturing of lyricists, to which it is unjust to attribute +a dogmatic meaning; that Nietzsche, Barrès and Péguy denounce the life +of study on account of their poetic temperaments, their aversion from +everything lacking in picturesqueness and the spirit of adventure, and +not their resolution to abase disinterestedness. To which I reply that +these poets give themselves out as serious thinkers (notice their tone, +_quite free from_ naiveté); that the immense majority of their readers +accept them as such; that, even if it were true that in depreciating +the man of study their motive is not to abase disinterestedness, it +is none the less true in fact that the manner of living they hold +up to the laughter of mankind happens to be the very type of the +disinterested life, while the life they extol at its expense is the +very type of practical activity (at least more practical than that +of the man of study, for it will be admitted that the activity of du +Guesclin and Napoleon is more likely to acquire material advantages +than the activity of Spinoza and Mabillon); that, moreover, what these +thinkers despise in the man of study is precisely the man who lays no +foundations, who does not conquer, who does not predicate the capture +of its environment by the species, or who, if he does predicate it, +as the scientist does by his discoveries, retains for himself only +the joy of knowledge and abandons the practical exploitation of his +discoveries to others. In Nietzsche, the scorn for the man of study to +the benefit of the warrior is only an episode in a desire which nobody +will deny inspires the whole of his work as well as the work of Sorel, +Barrès and Péguy: _The desire to abase the values of knowledge before +the values of action._[135] + +To-day this desire inspires not only the moralist, but another kind +of ‘clerk’ who speaks from much higher ground. I am referring to that +teaching of modern metaphysics which exhorts man to feel comparatively +little esteem for the truly thinking portion of himself and to honour +the active and _willing_ part of himself with all his devotion. The +theory of knowledge from which humanity has taken its values during +the past half century assigns a secondary rank to the mind which +proceeds by clear and distinct ideas, by categories, by words, and +places in the highest rank the mind which succeeds in liberating itself +from these intellectual habits and in becoming conscious of itself +insofar as it is a ‘pure tendency’, a ‘pure will’, a ‘pure activity’. +Philosophy which formerly raised man to feel conscious of himself +because he was a thinking being and to say, ‘I think, therefore I am’, +now raises him to say, ‘I am, therefore I think’, ‘I think, therefore +I am not’ (unless he takes thought into consideration only in that +humble region where it is confused with action). Formerly philosophy +taught him that his soul is divine insofar as it resembles the soul of +Pythagoras linking up concepts; now she informs him that his soul is +divine insofar as it resembles that of the small chicken breaking its +eggshell.[136] From his loftiest pulpit the modern ‘clerk’ assures man +that he is great in proportion as he is practical. + +During fifty years, especially in France (see Barrès and Bourget) +a whole literature has assiduously proclaimed the superiority of +instinct, the unconscious, intuition, the will (in the German sense, +i.e. as opposed to the intelligence) and has proclaimed it in the name +of the practical spirit, because the instinct and not the intelligence +knows what we ought to do--as individuals, as a nation, as a class--to +secure our own advantage. These writers have eagerly expatiated on +the example of the insect whose ‘instinct’ (it appears) teaches it +to strike its prey precisely in the spot which will paralyse it +without killing it, so that its offspring may feed on the living prey +and develop better.[137] Other teachers denounce this ‘barbarous’ +extolling of instinct in the name of ‘the French tradition’ and preach +‘the superiority of the intelligence’; but they preach it because +in their opinion it is the intelligence which shows us the actions +required by our interests, i.e. from exactly the same passion for the +practical. This brings us to one of the most remarkable and certainly +the most novel forms of this preaching of the practical by the modern +‘clerks’. + +I mean that teaching according to which _intellectual activity is +worthy of esteem to the extent that it is practical and to that extent +alone_. It may be said that since the Greeks the predominant attitude +of thinkers towards intellectual activity was to glorify it insofar as +(like aesthetic activity) it finds its satisfaction in itself, apart +from any attention to the advantages it may procure. Most thinkers +would have agreed with Plato’s famous hymn to geometry, where that +discipline is venerated more than all others because for him it +represents the type of speculative thought which brings in nothing +material; and with Renan’s verdict which declares that the man who +loves science for its fruits commits the worst of blasphemies against +that divinity.[138] By this standard of values the ‘clerks’ put before +the laymen the spectacle of a class of men for whom the value of life +lies in its disinterestedness, and they acted as a check on--or at +least shamed--the laymen’s practical passions. The modern ‘clerks’ +have violently torn up this charter. They proclaim that intellectual +functions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up +with the pursuit of a concrete advantage, and that the intelligence +which takes no interest in its objects is a contemptible activity. +They teach that the superior form of the intelligence is that which +thrusts its roots into ‘the vital urge’, occupied in discovering +what is most valuable in securing our existence. In historical[139] +science especially, they honour the intelligence which labours under +the guidance of political interests,[140] and they are completely +disdainful of all efforts towards ‘objectivity’. Elsewhere they +assert that the intelligence to be venerated is that which limits its +activities within the bounds of national interests and social order, +while the intelligence which allows itself to be guided by the desire +for truth alone, apart from any concern with the demands of society, is +merely a ‘savage and brutal’ activity, which ‘dishonours the highest +of human faculties.’[141] Let me also point out their devotion to +the doctrine (Bergson, Sorel) which says that science has a purely +utilitarian origin--the necessity of man to dominate matter, ‘knowledge +is adaptation’; and their scorn for the beautiful Greek conception +which made science bloom from the desire to play, the perfect type of +disinterested activity. And then they teach men that to accept an error +which is of service to them (the ‘myth’) is an undertaking which does +them honour, while it is shameful to admit a truth which harms them. In +other words, as Nietzsche, Barrès and Sorel plainly put it, sensibility +to truth in itself apart from any practical aim is a somewhat +contemptible form of mind.[142] Here the modern ‘clerk’ positively +displays genius in his defence of the material, since the material has +nothing to do with the truth, or rather to speak more truly--has no +worse enemy. The genius of Callicles in all its profundity lives again +in the great masters of the modern soul.[143] + +Then the modern ‘clerks’ have preached to men the religion of the +practical _by means of their theology_, through the image of God they +have set before them. First, they determined that God, who since the +Stoics has been infinite, should once more become finite, distinct, +endowed with a personality, that He should be the affirmation of a +_physical_ and not a _metaphysical_ existence. Anthropomorphism, which +in the poets from Prudentius to Victor Hugo existed mingled with +pantheism without troubling to define the frontiers between them, +since God was personal or indeterminate according to the direction of +the emotion and the needs of the lyric impulse, rose up in Péguy and +Claudel with the most violent consciousness of itself, the clearest +desire to be distinguished from its acolyte and to express contempt +for him. At the same time the political teachers attacked the religion +of the Infinite with a precision of hatred, a skill in depreciation, +unparalleled even in the Church, which consisted in denouncing this +religion precisely because it is not practical, because it saps away +the feelings which found the great earthly realities: the City and the +State.[144] But the modern ‘clerks’ have above all endowed God with +the attributes which secure practical advantages. It may be said that, +since the Old Testament, God was far more just than strong, or rather +that, as Plato thought, His strength was only a form of His justice; +and His power, as Malebranche and Spinoza put it, had nothing in common +with the power of kings and Empire-builders. The desire to increase was +implicitly excluded from His nature, as well as the moral attributes +necessary to the satisfaction of that desire--energy, will, the love +of effort, the attraction of triumph. This was an inevitable result +of His perfect and infinite state of being, which at once constituted +the whole of possible reality. Even in creation, the idea of which is +essentially inseparable from the ideas of power and increase, these +ideas were avoided--the world was far less a result of God’s power than +of His love; it came out of God as a ray comes out of the sun, without +God feeling any increase of Himself at the expense of anything else. +God, to speak in terms of the schools, was far less the transcendent +cause of the world than its immanent cause.[145] On the other hand, +for the modern teachers (Hegel, Schelling, Bergson, Péguy), God is +essentially something which increases; His law is ‘incessant change’, +‘incessant novelty’, ‘incessant[146] creation’; His principle is +essentially a principle of growth--Will, Tension, Vital Urge. If He is +Intelligence, as with Hegel, He is an intelligence which ‘develops’, +which ‘realizes itself’ more and more. The Being situated immediately +in all His perfection and knowing nothing of conquest is an object of +contempt; He represents (Bergson) an ‘eternity of death’.[147] So the +believers in an initial and single creation to-day strive to present +this act in its purely practical aspect. The Church condemns with a +hitherto unknown clearness every doctrine of immanence and preaches +transcendence in all its strictness.[148] God, in creating the world, +no longer witnesses an inevitable expansion of His nature; through +His power (some, to diminish the arbitrariness, say ‘through His +benevolence’) he sees the arising of something clearly distinct from +Himself, something on which He sets His hand. His act, whatever may be +said to the contrary, is the perfect model of material aggrandisement. +Like the prophet of Israel of old, the modern ‘clerk’ says to mankind: +‘Display your zeal for the Eternal, the God of battles.’ + +For half a century, such has been the attitude of men whose function is +to thwart the realism of nations, and who have laboured to excite it +with all their power and with complete decision of purpose. For this +reason I dare to call this attitude ‘The Great Betrayal’. If I look +for its causes, I see profound causes which forbid me to look upon +this movement as a mere fashion, to which the contrary movement might +succeed to-morrow. + +One of the principal causes is that the modern world has made the +‘clerk’ into a citizen, subject to all the responsibilities of a +citizen, and consequently to despise lay passions is far more difficult +for him than for his predecessors. If he is reproached for not looking +upon national quarrels with the noble serenity of Descartes and Goethe, +the ‘clerk’ may well retort that his nation claps a soldier’s pack +on his back if she is insulted, and crushes him with taxes even if +she is victorious. If shame is cried upon him because he does not +rise superior to social hatreds, he will point out that the day of +enlightened patronage is over, that to-day he has to earn his living, +and that it is not his fault if he is eager to support the class which +takes a pleasure in his productions. No doubt this explanation is +not valid for the true ‘clerk’, who submits to the laws of his State +without allowing them to injure his soul. He renders unto Caesar the +things that are Caesar’s, i.e. his life perhaps, but nothing more. +The true ‘clerk’ is Vauvenargues, Lamarck, Fresnel, who never imbibed +national patriotism although they perfectly performed their patriotic +duty; he is Spinoza, Schiller, Baudelaire, César Franck, who were never +diverted from single-hearted adoration of the Beautiful and the Divine +by the necessity of earning their daily bread. But such ‘clerks’ are +inevitably rare. So much contempt for suffering is not the law of human +nature even among the ‘clerks’; the law is that the living creature +condemned to struggle for life turns to practical passions, and +thence to the sanctifying of those passions. The ‘clerk’s’ new faith +is to a great extent a result of the social conditions imposed upon +him, and the real evil to deplore is perhaps not so much the ‘great +betrayal’ of the ‘clerks’ as the disappearance of the ‘clerks’, the +impossibility of leading the life of a ‘clerk’ in the world of to-day. +One of the gravest responsibilities of the modern State is that it has +not maintained (but could it do so?) a class of men exempt from civic +duties, men whose sole function is to maintain non-practical values. +Renan’s prophecy is verified; he foretold the inevitable degradation +of a society where every member was forced to discharge worldly tasks, +although Renan himself was the very type of those whom such servitude +would never have prevented--in the phrase of one of his peers--‘from +breathing only in the direction of Heaven’. + +It would be very unjust to explain the existence of national passion +in the modern ‘clerk’ by self-interest alone. This is also to be +explained, and in a more simple manner, by the love, the impulse which +naturally inspires every man to love the group from which he derives, +more than the other groups which share the earth. There again, it may +be argued that the ‘clerk’s’ new faith is caused by the changes of +the nineteenth century, which by giving national groups a consistency +hitherto unknown furnishes food to a passion which in many countries +before that period could have been little more than potential. +Obviously, attachment to the world of the spirit alone was easier for +those who were capable of it when there were no nations to love. And, +in fact, it is most suggestive to notice that the true appearance of +the ‘clerk’ coincides with the fall of the Roman Empire, i.e. with the +time when the great nation collapsed and the little nations had not yet +come into existence. It is equally suggestive to notice that the age of +the great lovers of spiritual things, the age of Thomas Aquinas, Roger +Bacon, Galilei, Erasmus, was the age when most of Europe was in a state +of chaos and the nations were unknown; that the regions where pure +speculation endured longest seem to be Germany and Italy,[149] i.e. +the regions which were the last to be nationalized; and practically +ceased to produce pure speculation from the moment when they became +nations. Of course, here again the vicissitudes of the world of sense +do not affect the true ‘clerk’. The misfortunes of their country, and +even its triumphs, did not prevent Einstein and Nietzsche from feeling +no passion but the passion for thought. When Jules Lemaître exclaimed +that the wound of Sedan made him lose his reason, Renan replied that he +perfectly retained his, and that a true priest of the mind could only +be wounded in other than earthly interests.[150] + +In the cases I have just mentioned, the ‘clerk’s’ devotion to his +nation or class is sincere, whether it is from interest or from love. +I admit I think this sincerity is infrequent. The practice of the life +of the spirit seems to me to lead inevitably to universalism, to the +feeling of the eternal, to a lack of vigour in the belief in worldly +conventions. The sincerity of national passion especially, in men of +letters particularly, seems to me to assume the virtue of naiveté, +which everyone will admit is not characteristic of this body of men, +apart from their own self-esteem. It will also be hard to convince +me that the motives of their public attitudes in artists are such +simple things as the desire to live and to eat. I therefore seek--and +find--other reasons for the realism of the modern ‘clerk’, and these, +although less natural, are none the less profound. They seem to me +particularly valid for men of letters, especially in France, the +country where the attitude of writers in the past half century differs +most from that of their fathers. + +First of all, I see the interests of their careers. It is an obvious +fact that during the past two centuries most of the men of letters who +have attained wide fame in France assumed a political attitude--for +instance, Voltaire, Diderot, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, +Anatole France, Barrès. With some of them, real fame dates from the +moment when they assumed that attitude. This law has not escaped the +attention of their descendants, and it may be said to-day that every +French writer who desires wide fame (which means every writer endowed +with the real temperament of a man of letters) also desires inevitably +to play a political part. This desire may arise from other motives. For +instance, in Barrès and d’Annunzio, from the desire ‘to act’, to be +something more than ‘men at a desk’, to lead a life like that of the +‘heroes’ and not like that of ‘scribes’; or, more ingenuously, as no +doubt happened with Renan when he stood as a Parliamentary candidate, +from the idea that he could perform a public service. Let me add that +the modern writer’s desire to be a political man is excused by the fact +that the position is to some extent offered him by public opinion, +whereas the compatriots of Racine and La Bruyère would have laughed +in their faces if they had thought of publishing their views on the +advisability of the war with Holland or the legality of Chambres de +réunion. There again, it was easier to be a true ‘clerk’ in the past +than to-day. + +These observations explain why the contemporary French writer so +frequently desires to assume a political attitude, but they do not +explain why this attitude is so inevitably in support of arbitrary +authority. Liberalism is also a political attitude; and the least +which can be said is that the modern French ‘clerk’ has very seldom +adopted it in the past twenty years. Another factor comes in here. That +is the practical writer’s desire to please the bourgeoisie, who are the +creators of fame and the source of honours. It may even be argued that +for this sort of writer the necessity to treat the passions of this +class with deference is greater than ever, if I may judge by the fate +of those who in recent times have dared to defy them, i.e. Zola, Romain +Rolland. Now, the bourgeoisie of to-day, terrified by the progress +of the opposing class, solely anxious to retain the privileges which +are left them, feel nothing but aversion from liberal dogmas; and the +man of letters who displays any political flag is bound to wave the +flag of ‘Order’ if he wishes to obtain favours. The case of Barrès +is particularly instructive from this point of view. He began as a +great intellectual sceptic, and his material star waxed a hundredfold +greater, at least in his own country, on the day when he made himself +the apostle of ‘necessary prejudices’. This sort of thing makes me +believe that the present political fashion of French writers is going +to last a long time. A phenomenon which is caused by the uneasiness of +the French bourgeoisie does not seem likely to disappear quickly.[151] + +I have mentioned the lot of those writers who in quite recent times +have dared to thwart the passions of the bourgeoisie. This is only one +aspect of a very general novelty, of supreme interest to the subject +I am discussing. I mean the consciousness of their sovereignty felt +by the herd of laymen, and the resolution they display to bring to +his senses any writer who dares to say anything but what they wish to +hear. This propensity of the layman appears not only in his relations +with his writers (and with his press--a newspaper which does not +supply its readers with the exact errors they cherish is immediately +dropped), but, which is far more remarkable, in his relations with +his truly ‘clerical’ teachers, whose voice speaks to him in the name +of the Divine. The pulpit-orator who really presumed to censure +nationalist passion, who really mortified bourgeois arrogance, would +soon (particularly in France) see his flock disperse. He can no +longer terrify such a gathering with the fear of punishment, and they +no longer believe in anything but the real; consequently they feel +stronger and more important than he, and only consent to listen to +his preaching on condition that he treats with deference--not to say +sanctifies--the egotisms they venerate.[152] Modern humanity is fully +determined that those who call themselves its teachers, shall be its +servants and not its guides. And most of the teachers understand this +admirably.[153] + +To come back to the modern writer and the causes for his political +attitude--I shall add that he is not only in the service of a +bourgeoisie which is in a state of anxiety, but that he himself has +become more and more of a bourgeois, endowed with all the social +position and respect which belong to that caste. The Bohemian man of +letters has practically disappeared, at least among those who engage +public interest. Consequently, he has more and more come to possess the +bourgeois form of soul, one of those most conspicuous characteristics +is an affectation of the political feelings of the aristocracy--an +attachment to systems of arbitrary authority, to military and priestly +institutions, a scorn for societies founded upon justice, upon civic +equality, a cult for the past, etc.... How many writers in France +during the past fifty years, men whose names are on everyone’s lips, +obviously think they are ennobling themselves by expressing disgust for +democratic institutions![154] In the same way I explain the adoption +by many of them of harshness and cruelty, which they think are also +attributes of the souls of the nobility. + +The reasons I have just mentioned for the new political attitude of +men of letters arise from the changes in their social status. Those I +am about to mention arise from changes in the structure of their minds, +in their literary desires, in their aesthetic cults, in their morality. +These reasons seem to me even more worthy of the historian’s attention +than those which have gone before. + +First of all, we have their Romanticism, taking that word to mean the +desire which arose in the writers of the nineteenth century (but which +has become greatly perfected in the last thirty years) to treat themes +which lend themselves in a literary manner to striking attitudes. About +1890 the men of letters, especially in France and Italy, realized with +astonishing astuteness that the doctrines of arbitrary authority, +discipline, tradition, contempt for the spirit of liberty, assertion +of the morality of war and slavery, were opportunities for haughty and +rigid poses infinitely more likely to strike the imagination of simple +souls than the sentimentalities of Liberalism and Humanitarianism. +And as a matter of fact, the so-called reactionary doctrines do lend +themselves to a pessimistic and contemptuous Romanticism which makes +a far deeper impression on the common herd than enthusiastic and +optimistic Romanticism. The pose of a Barrès or a d’Annunzio strikes +naïve persons far more than that of a Michelet or a Proudhon. Moreover, +these doctrines are to-day given forth as founded upon science, upon +‘pure experience’, and thereby permit a tone of calm inhumanity (the +Romanticism of Positivism) whose effect on the herd has not escaped +the sagacious eye of the man of letters. (Of course, I am only speaking +of the elegant herd; Romantic pessimism has no value whatsoever for the +people.) + +There is another transformation of the literary soul in men of letters, +wherein I think I see a cause of their new political creed. This is, +that recently the only one of their faculties they venerate is their +artistic sensibility, on which to some extent they base all their +judgments. Until the last thirty years it may be said that men of +letters, at least in Latin Europe, disciples in this of the Greeks, +were determined in their judgments--even their literary judgments--far +more by their sensibility to reason than by their artistic sensibility, +whereof moreover they were scarcely conscious as something distinct +from the former. This remark is true for the men of the Renaissance +and their direct descendants (the French writers of the seventeenth +and succeeding century) and, despite appearances, it is also true +of those who lived at the beginning of the nineteenth century. If +the weakening of sensibility to reason and, more generally, of lofty +intellectual discipline, is indisputably one of the characteristics of +the Romanticism of 1830, the contempt for this sensibility makes no +appearance. Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Michelet never prided themselves +on despising the values of reason in things in order to esteem only +their art values. Now, towards 1890, there occurred a revolution whose +influence cannot be exaggerated. Enlightened by philosophical analysis +(Bergsonism), the men of letters became conscious of the fundamental +difference between intellectual sensibility and artistic sensibility; +and ardently chose the latter. This is the epoch when they were heard +to assert that a book is great as soon as it achieves a literary and +artistic success, that its intellectual content is of no interest, +that all arguments are equally defensible, that error is no more false +than truth, etc.[155] This great change affected their political +attitudes. Obviously, as soon as we think things are good only +insofar as they content our artistic needs, the only good political +systems are those of arbitrary authority. Artistic sensibility is far +more gratified by a system which tends to the realization of force +and grandeur than by a system which tends to the establishment of +justice, for the characteristic of artistic sensibility is the love +of concrete realities and the repugnance for abstract conceptions and +conceptions of pure reason, the model of which is the idea of justice. +Artistic sensibility is especially flattered by the spectacle of a +mass of units which are subordinated to each other up to the final +head who dominates them all, whereas the spectacle of a democracy, +which is a mass of units _where no one is first_, deprives this +sensibility of one of its fundamental needs.[156] Add to this that +every doctrine which honours Man in the universal, in what is common +to all men, is a personal injury to the artist, whose characteristic +(at least since Romanticism)[157] is precisely to set himself up as an +exceptional being. Add also the sovereignty the artist now attributes +to his desires and their satisfaction (the ‘rights of genius’) and, +consequently, his natural hatred for systems which limit each person’s +liberty of action by that of others. And finally add the artist’s +aversion from everything which is general, everything which is only +the object of conception, not of sensation.[158] The determination of +men of letters to pass judgment only in accordance with their artistic +sensibility is only one aspect of their desire (since Romanticism) to +exalt feeling at the expense of thought, a desire which itself is one +among the thousand results of the decline of intellectual discipline +among them. The new political attitude of the ‘clerks’ seems to me to +be here the result of a serious modification of their state of mind. + +This attitude also seems to me to result from the decline of the +study of classical literature in the formation of their minds. The +humanities, as the word implies, have always taught the cult of +humanity in its universal aspect, at least since the time of the +Portico.[159] The decline of Graeco-Roman culture in Barrès and his +literary generation, in comparison with that of Taine, Renan, Hugo, +Michelet, even Anatole France and Bourget, is undeniable. Still less +will it be denied that this decline is considerably more noticeable +in Barrès’s successors. However, this decline does not prevent these +writers from extolling classical studies, but they do not do this +with the idea of reviving the cult for what is human in its universal +aspect, but on the contrary to strengthen the ‘French’ mind, or at +least the ‘Latin’ mind, in the grasp of its own roots, in consciousness +of itself as distinct from other minds. Notice that this decline of +classical culture in the French writers coincides with the discovery of +the great German realists, Hegel and especially Nietzsche, whose genius +had the more effect on these Frenchmen because their lack of classical +discipline deprived them of the one real barrier which can be opposed +to that genius.[160] + +Among the causes of this new attitude among men of letters I must point +to their thirst for sensations, their need to experience things, which +in recent times have grown stronger and have caused them to adopt a +political attitude which gave them emotions and sensations. Belphegor +is not the only star in the literary heavens. A French writer, who +was taken seriously as a thinker as early as 1890, was reproached for +having joined a party whose inconsistency will long be an amazement to +History; and he replied, ‘I followed Boulangism, as a man follows a +fanfare of trumpets.’ The same thinker gives us to understand that his +chief motive in ‘seeking contact with national minds’ was to ‘throw +more fuel under his sensibility, which was beginning to run down’.[161] +I do not think I am mistaken when I say that numbers of our moralists +who sneer at pacific civilization and extol a warlike life, do so +because the former seems a dull sort of a life to them and the latter +an opportunity for sensations.[162] You will recollect the remark of a +young thinker, quoted by Agathon in 1913: ‘Why not a war? It will be +amusing.’ I shall be told that this is the mere extravagant saying of +a young man. But what of this remark from a man of fifty, and what is +more, a scientist (R. Quinton), who saw the tragedy of 1914 coming, +and exclaimed: ‘We shall picnic on the grass!’? This scientist was +certainly a good soldier, but no more so than Fresnel and Lamarck, of +whom I dare to say that they may have approved of war, but not because +it satisfied their taste for the picturesque. All who frequented the +author of _Reflexions sur la Violence_ know that one of the greatest +attractions of any idea for him was that it was ‘amusing’ and likely +to exasperate so-called reasonable people. There are many thinkers of +the past fifty years whose ‘philosophy’ has one fundamental motive--the +pleasure of throwing off irritating paradoxes; while they are only +too happy if their rockets fall like swords and satisfy that need for +cruelty which they profess as the sign of noble minds. This prodigious +decline of morality, this sort of (very Germanic) intellectual sadism, +is usually and quite openly accompanied by a huge contempt for the true +‘clerk’, whose joy comes from the exercise of thought and who disdains +sensation, particularly the sensations of action. Here again the new +political cult of the men of letters is the result of a modification +in the most intimate part of their mind, the very same modification we +have been discussing, i.e. a decline of intellectual discipline, which +does not mean a decline in intelligence.[163] + +On their own showing, many modern ‘clerks’ have adopted these realist +doctrines because they want to have done with the moral disarray into +which they are thrown by the spectacle of philosophies, ‘none of which +bring certainty,’ and which all collapse upon each other as they cry +to heaven their contradictory absolutes. There again the ‘clerk’s’ +political attitude is the result of a great decline in his intellectual +discipline, whether we consider that this decline is shown by his +belief that any philosophy can bring certainty, or whether we think +that it lies in his inability to stand upright on the ruins of the +schools, devoting himself to reason, which is above all the schools, +and is their judge. + +I shall also admit as one other cause of realism in the modern ‘clerks’ +the irritation produced in them by the teaching of some of their +predecessors--I mean certain masters of the year 1848, with their +visionary idealism, their belief that justice and love were suddenly +about to become the essence of the soul of nations, an irritation +greatly increased by seeing the dreadful contrast between these idyllic +prophecies and the events which followed them. Nevertheless, the point +to remember is that the modern ‘clerks’ replied to these errors by +hurling anathemas at every sort of idealism, whether visionary or not, +thereby showing incapacity to distinguish between species, inability +to rise above passion to judgment. And this is but one other aspect of +their loss of the good manners of the mind. + +Let me recapitulate the causes for this change in the ‘clerks’: The +imposition of political interests on all men without any exception; +the growth of consistency in matters apt to feed realist passions; +the desire and the possibility for men of letters to play a political +part; the need in the interests of their own fame for them to play +the game of a class which is daily becoming more anxious; the +increasing tendency of the ‘clerks’ to become bourgeois and to take +on the vanities of that class; the perfecting of their Romanticism; +the decline of their knowledge of antiquity and of their intellectual +discipline. It will be seen that these causes arise from certain +phenomena which are most profoundly and generally characteristic of +the present age. The political realism of the ‘clerks’, far from being +a superficial fact due to the caprice of an order of men, seems to me +bound up with the very essence of the modern world. + + + + +IV + +_Summary--Predictions_ + + +To sum up: If I look at contemporary humanity from the point of +view of its moral state as revealed by its political life, I see +(_a_) A mass in whom realist passions in its two chief forms--class +passion, national passion--has attained a degree of consciousness and +organization hitherto unknown; (_b_) A body of men who used to be in +opposition to the realism of the masses, but who now, not only do not +oppose it, but adopt it, proclaim its grandeur and morality; in short, +a humanity which has abandoned itself to realism with a unanimity, +an absence of reserve, a sanctification of its passion unexampled in +history. + +This remark may be put in another form. Imagine an observer of the +twelfth century taking a bird’s-eye view of the Europe of his time. He +would see men groping in the obscurity of their minds and striving to +form themselves into nations (to mention only the most striking aspect +of the realist will); he would see them beginning to succeed; he would +see groups of men attaining consistency, determined to seize a portion +of the earth and tending to feel conscious of themselves as distinct +from the groups surrounding them. But at the same time he would see a +whole class of men, regarded with the greatest reverence, labouring +to thwart this movement. He would see men of learning, artists and +philosophers, displaying to the world a spirit which cared nothing for +nations, using a universal language among themselves. He would see +those who gave Europe its moral values preaching the cult of the human, +or at least of the Christian, and not of the national, he would see +them striving to found, in opposition to the nations, a great universal +empire on spiritual foundations. And so he might say to himself: +‘Which of these two currents will triumph? Will humanity be national +or spiritual? Will it depend on the will of the laymen or of the +“clerks”?’ And for long ages the realist cause will not be completely +victorious; the spiritual body will remain faithful to itself long +enough to our observer to be uncertain of the result. To-day the game +is over. Humanity is national. The layman has won. But his triumph +has gone beyond anything he could have expected. The ‘clerk’ is not +only conquered, he is assimilated. The man of science, the artist, the +philosopher are attached to their nations as much as the day-labourer +and the merchant. Those who make the world’s values, make them for +a nation; the Ministers of Jesus defend the national. All humanity +including the ‘clerks’, have become laymen. All Europe, including +Erasmus, has followed Luther. + +I said above that the humanity of the past, more precisely the humanity +of Europe in the Middle Ages, with the values imposed upon it by the +‘clerks’, acted ill but honoured the good. It may be said that modern +Europe with teachers who inform it that its realist instincts are +beautiful, acts ill and honours what is ill. Modern Europe is like +the brigand in one of Tolstoi’s stories, who made his confession to a +hermit, and the hermit said in amazement: ‘Others were at least ashamed +of being brigands; but what is to be done with this man, who is proud +of it?’ + +Indeed, if we ask ourselves what will happen to a humanity where +every group is striving more eagerly than ever to feel conscious of +its own particular interests, and makes its moralists tell it that it +is sublime to the extent that it knows no law but this interest--a +child can give the answer. This humanity is heading for the greatest +and most perfect war ever seen in the world, whether it is a war of +nations, or a war of classes. A race of which one group exalts one of +its masters (Barrès) to the skies because he teaches: ‘We must defend +the essential part of ourselves as sectarians,’ while a neighbouring +group acclaims a leader because, when he attacks a defenceless small +nation, he says, ‘Necessity knows no law’--such a race is ripe for the +zoological wars Renan talks about, which, he said, would be like the +life and death wars which occur among rodents and among the carnivora. +As regards the nation, think of Italy; as regards class, think of +Russia; and you will see the hitherto unknown point of perfection +attained by the spirit of hatred against what is ‘different’ among +a group of men, consciously realist and at last liberated from all +non-practical morality. And my predictions are not rendered less +probable by the fact that these two nations are hailed as models +throughout the world by those who desire either the grandeur of their +nation or the triumph of their class. + +These dark predictions do not seem to me to need as much modification +as some people think, on account of certain actions resolutely directed +against war, such as the setting up of a supernational institution +and the agreements recently made by the rival nations. Imposed upon +the nations by their Ministers rather than desired by them, dictated +solely by interest (the fear of war and its ravages) and not at all +by a change in public morality, these new institutions may perhaps +be opposed to war but leave intact the _spirit of war_, and nothing +leads us to suppose that a nation which only respects a contract for +practical reasons, will not break it as soon as breaking it appears +more profitable. Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the +fear of war but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining +from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.[164] In this sense +the most insignificant writer can serve peace where the most powerful +tribunals can do nothing. And moreover these tribunals leave untouched +the economic war between the nations and the class wars. + +Peace, it must be repeated after so many others have said this, is +only possible if men cease to place their happiness in the possession +of things ‘which cannot be shared’, and if they raise themselves to +a point where they adopt an abstract principle superior to their +egotisms. In other words, it can only be obtained by a betterment of +human morality. But, as I have pointed out above, not only do men +to-day steel themselves entirely against this, but the very first +condition of peace, which is to recognize the necessity for this +progress of the soul, is seriously menaced. A school arose in the +nineteenth century which told men to expect peace from enlightened +self-interest, from the belief that a war, even when victorious, is +disastrous, especially to economic transformations, to ‘the evolution +of production’, in a phrase, to factors totally foreign to their moral +improvement, from which, these thinkers say, it would be frivolous to +expect anything. So that humanity, even if it had any desire for peace, +is exhorted to neglect the one effort which might procure it, an effort +it is delighted not to make. The cause of peace, which is always +surrounded with adverse factors, in our days has one more against +it--the pacifism which pretends to be scientific.[165] + +I can point to other sorts of pacifism, whose chief result I dare to +say is to weaken the cause of peace, at least among serious-minded +persons:-- + +(_a_) First, there is the pacifism I shall call ‘vulgar’, meaning +thereby the pacifism which does nothing but denounce ‘the man who +kills’, and sneer at the prejudices of patriotism. When I see certain +teachers, even if they are Montaigne, Voltaire, and Anatole France, +whose whole case against war consists in saying that highwaymen are no +more criminal than leaders of armies, and in laughing at people who +kill each other because one party is dressed in yellow and the other in +blue, I feel inclined to desert a cause whose champions over-simplify +things to this extent, and I begin to feel some sympathy for the +impulses of profound humanity which created the nations and which are +thereby so grossly insulted.[166] + +(_b_) _Mystic pacifism_, by which I mean the pacifism which is solely +animated by a blind hatred of war and refuses to inquire whether +a war is just or not, whether those fighting are the attackers or +the defenders, whether they wanted war or only submit to it. This +pacifism is essentially the pacifism of the people (and that of all the +so-called pacifist newspapers) and was strikingly embodied in 1914 by +a French writer who, having to judge between two fighting nations one +of which had attacked the other contrary to all its pledges while the +other was only defending itself, could do nothing but intone ‘I have +a horror of war’ and condemned them both equally. It is impossible to +exaggerate the consequences of this behaviour, which showed mankind +that mystic pacifism, just like mystic militarism, may entirely +obliterate the feeling of justice in those who are smitten with it. + +I think I see another motive in the French writers who in 1914 adopted +the attitude of M. Romain Rolland--the fear that they would fall into +national partiality if they admitted that their nation was in the +right. It may be asserted that these writers would have warmly taken up +the cause of France, if France had not been their own country. Whereas +Barrès said, ‘I always maintain my country is right even if it is in +the wrong,’ these strange friends of justice are not unwilling to say: +‘I always maintain my country is in the wrong, even if it is right.’ +There again we see that the frenzy of impartiality, like any other +frenzy, leads to injustice. + +I have also a word to say about the severities of these ‘justiciaries’ +towards France’s attitude immediately after her victory, towards her +desire to force the enemy to make good the damage done to her, and to +seize on pledges if he refused. The motive which here animated these +moralists without their perceiving it, seems to me very remarkable; +it was the thought that the just person must inevitably be weak and +suffer, that he must be a victim. If the just man becomes strong and +comes to possess the means of enforcing justice towards himself, then +he ceases to be just to these thinkers. If Socrates and Jesus make +their persecutors disgorge, then they cease to embody justice; one step +more and the persecutors, having become victims, would embody right. +In this the cult of justice is replaced by the cult of misfortune, +a Christian Romanticism which is somewhat unexpected in a man like +Anatole France. No doubt the events of 1918 upset all the habits of the +advocates of right. Outraged right became the stronger, the assailed +toga triumphed over the sword, the Curiatii were victorious. Perhaps +some coolness of mind was needed to recognize that right remained +right, even when thus invested with force. The French pacifists failed +to remain cool. In short, their attitude in the past ten years has been +inspired by sentiment alone, and nothing could show better the degree +of weakness to which intellectual discipline has now fallen among our +‘princes of the mind’.[167] + +(_c_) _Pacifism claiming to be patriotic_, by which I mean the pacifism +which claims to exalt humanitarianism, to preach the abatement of the +militarist spirit and of national passion, and yet not to harm the +interests of the nation nor to compromise its power of resistance to +foreign nations. This attitude--which is that of all Parliamentary +pacifists--is the more antipathetic to upright minds in that it is +inevitably accompanied by the assertion (which is also nearly always +contrary to the truth) that the nation is not in the least threatened +and that the malevolence of neighbouring nations is a pure invention +of people who want war. But that is merely an aspect of a very general +fact, which is of supreme importance to the matter under discussion. + +By this I mean the ‘clerk’s’ determination to put forth his principles +as valid in the practical order of things, as reconcilable with the +safeguarding of the sword’s conquests. This determination, which has +affected the Church for twenty centuries and almost all the idealists +(give me the names of those since Jesus who have declared themselves +incompetent in the practical order of things), is the source of all the +‘clerk’s failures’. It may be said that the ‘clerk’s’ defeat begins +from the very moment when he claims to be practical. As soon as the +‘clerk’ claims that he does not disregard the interests of the nation +or of the established classes, he is inevitably beaten, for the very +good reason that it is impossible to preach the spiritual and the +universal without undermining the institutions whose foundations are +the possession of the material and the desire to feel distinct from +others. A true ‘clerk’ (Renan) says excellently: ‘The mother-country +is a worldly thing; the man who wants to play the angel will always +be a bad patriot.’ Thus we see that the ‘clerk’ who claims to secure +the works of the world has a choice between two consequences. Either +he secures them and transgresses all his principles, which is the case +with the Church supporting the nation and property; or he maintains +his principles and causes the ruin of the institutions he claimed he +was supporting, which is the case with the humanitarian who claims to +safeguard what is national. In the first case the ‘clerk’ is despised +by the just man, who denounces him as cunning and strikes him out of +the rank of ‘clerk’; and in the second case he collapses under the +hooting of the nations who call him inefficient, while he provokes a +violent and loudly acclaimed reaction on the part of the realist, which +is what is now happening in Italy. From all this it follows that the +‘clerk’ is only strong if he is clearly conscious of his essential +qualities and his true function, and shows mankind that he is clearly +conscious of them. In other words he declares to them that his kingdom +is not of this world, that _the grandeur of his teaching lies precisely +in this absence of practical value, and that the right morality for +the prosperity of the kingdoms which are of this world, is not his, but +Caesar’s_. When he takes up this position, the ‘clerk’ is crucified, +but he is respected, and his words haunt the memory of mankind.[168] +The need to remind the modern ‘clerks’ of these truths (for everyone of +them is angry at being called Utopian) is one of the most suggestive +observations in connection with our subject. It shows that the desire +to be practical has become general, that the claim to be so has now +become necessary in order to obtain an audience, and that the very +notion of ‘clerkdom’ has become obscured even in those who still tend +to exercise that function. + +It will be seen that I entirely dissociate myself from those who want +the ‘clerk’ to govern the world, and who wish with Renan for the ‘reign +of the philosophers’; for it seems to me that human affairs can only +adopt the religions of the true ‘clerk’ under penalty of becoming +divine, i.e. of perishing as human. This has been clearly seen by all +lovers of the divine who did not desire the destruction of what is +human. This is marvellously expressed by one of them when he makes +Jesus say so profoundly to His disciple: ‘My son, I must not give you a +clear idea of your substance ... for if you saw clearly what you are, +you could no longer remain so closely united to your body. You would +no longer watch over the preservation of your life.’[169] But though +I think it a bad thing that the ‘clerk’s’ religion should possess the +lay world, I think it still more to be dreaded that it should not be +preached to the layman at all, and that he should thus be allowed to +yield to his practical passions without the least shame or the least, +even hypocritical, desire to raise himself however slightly above them. +‘There are a few just men who prevent me from sleeping’--that was what +the realist said of the teachers of old. Nietzsche, Barrès, and Sorel +do not prevent any realist from sleeping; on the contrary. This is the +novelty I want to point out, which to me seems so serious. It seems to +me serious that a humanity, which is more than ever obsessed by the +passions of the world, should receive from its spiritual leaders the +command: ‘remain faithful to the earth.’ + +Is this adoption of ‘integral realism’ by the human species permanent, +or merely temporary? Are we, as some people think, witnessing the +beginning of a new Middle Ages (and one far more barbarous than the +former, for though it practised realism, it did not extol realism), +from which, however, will arise a new Renaissance, a new return to +the religion of disinterestedness? The elements we have discovered +as forming the new realism scarcely allow us to hope so. It is hard +to imagine the nations sincerely striving not to feel conscious of +themselves as distinct from others, or, if they do so, having any +other motive than that of concentrating inter-human hatred into that +of class. It is hard to imagine the clergy regaining a real moral sway +over the faithful and being able (supposing they desired to do so) to +tell them with impunity unpleasant truths. It is hard to imagine a +body of men of letters (for corporative action becomes more and more +important) attempting to withstand the bourgeois classes instead of +flattering them. It is still harder to imagine them turning against the +tide of their intellectual decadence and ceasing to think that they +display a lofty culture when they sneer at rational morality and fall +on their knees before history. Nevertheless one thinks of a humanity +of the future, weary of its ‘sacred egotisms’ and the slaughterings to +which they inevitably lead, coming as humanity came two thousand years +ago, to the acceptance of a good situated beyond itself, accepting it +even more ardently than before, with the knowledge of all the tears and +blood that have been shed through departing from that doctrine. Once +more Vauvenargues’ admirable saying would be verified. ‘The passions +have taught men reason.’ But such a thing only seems to me possible +after a long lapse of time, when war has caused far more woes than +have yet been endured. Men will not revise their values for wars which +only last fifty months and only kill a couple of million men in each +nation. One may even doubt whether war will ever become so terrible as +to discourage those who love it, the more so since they are not always +the men who have to fight. + +When I set this limit to my pessimistic outlook and admit that such +a Renaissance is possible, I mean no more than that it is just +possible. I cannot agree with those who say it is certain, either +because it happened once before, or because ‘civilization is due to +the human race’. Civilization as I understand it here--moral supremacy +conferred on the cult of the spiritual and on the feeling of the +universal--appears to me as a lucky accident in man’s development. It +blossomed three thousand years ago under a set of circumstances whose +contingent character was perfectly perceived by the historian who +called it ‘the Greek miracle’. It does not appear to me in the least to +be a thing due to the human race by virtue of the data of its nature. +It seems to me so little such a thing that I observe large portions +of the species (the Asiatic world in antiquity, the Germanic world in +modern times) who showed themselves incapable of it and quite likely +to remain so. And this means that if humanity loses this jewel, there +is not much chance of finding it again. On the contrary there is every +chance that humanity will not find it again, just as a man who should +find a precious stone in the sea and then drop it back in the water +would have little chance of ever seeing it again. Nothing seems to me +more doubtful than Aristotle’s remark that it is probable the arts +and philosophy have several times been discovered and several times +lost. The other position which maintains that civilization, despite +partial eclipses, is something which humanity cannot lose, seems to +me quite worthless except as an act of faith--though it is valuable +as a means of preserving the good we wish to keep. I should not think +it a serious objection to what I have said if someone should point +out that civilization, lost once with the fall of the ancient world, +nevertheless had its Renaissance. Everyone knows that the Graeco-Roman +form of mind was far from being wholly extinguished during the Middle +Ages and that the sixteenth century only brought to life what was not +dead; to which I add that even if that form of mind had been ‘reborn’ +_ex nihilo_, the fact that this is the only instance would make it +insufficient to reassure me, although the fact that it had occurred +would disturb me. + +Let me point out in this respect that insufficient attention is perhaps +paid to the fact that there are always only a very tiny number of +instances in history on which are built up a ‘law’, which claims to be +valid for the whole past and future evolution of humanity. Vico says +that history is a series of alternations between periods of progress +and periods of retrogression; and he gives _two_ examples. Saint-Simon +says history is a series of oscillations between organic epochs and +critical epochs; and he gives _two_ examples. Marx says history is a +series of economic systems, each of which casts out its predecessor by +means of violence; and he gives _one_ example! I shall be told that +these examples could not be more numerous, owing to the fact that +history, at least known history, is so short. The truth, implied by +this very reply, is that history has lasted too short a time for us +to be able to deduce laws from it to enable us to infer the future +from the past. Those who do so are like a mathematician who should +decide the nature of a curve from the form he finds it has at its +very beginning. True, a somewhat uncommon turn of mind is required to +confess that human history, after several thousands of years, is only +beginning. I cannot sufficiently admire the rare mental value displayed +by La Bruyère (in my opinion) when he wrote the following lines in a +century which was strongly inclined to think it was the topmost summit +of human development: ‘If the world lasts only a hundred million years, +it will still be in all its freshness and only beginning; we ourselves +are almost contemporary with the first men and the patriarchs, and who, +in those far-off ages, will be able to avoid confusing us with them? +But if we judge of the future from the past, what new things are we +ignorant of in the arts, in the sciences, in Nature, and, I dare say, +in history? What discoveries will be made! What different revolutions +will occur in our Empires all over the world! How ignorant we are! And +how slight is an experience of six or seven thousand years!’ + +I shall go further and say that even if an examination of the past +could lead to any valid prediction concerning man’s future, that +prediction would be the contrary of reassuring. People forget that +Hellenic rationalism only really enlightened the world during seven +hundred years, that it was then hidden (this _a minima_ verdict will +be granted me) for twelve centuries, and has begun to shine again for +barely four centuries; so that _the longest period of consecutive time +in human history on which we can found inductions is, upon the whole, +a period of intellectual and moral darkness_. Looking at history, we +may say in a more synthetic manner that, with the exception of two or +three very short, luminous epochs whose light, like that of certain +stars, lightens the world long after they are extinct, humanity lives +generally in darkness; while literatures live generally in a state of +decadence and the organism in disorder. And the disturbing thing is +that humanity does not seem to mind these long periods of cave-dwelling. + +To come back to the realism of my contemporaries and their contempt +for a disinterested existence, I must add that my mind is sometimes +haunted by a dreadful question. I wonder whether humanity, by adopting +this system to-day, has not discovered its true law of existence and +adopted the true scale of values demanded by its essence? The religion +of the spiritual, I said just now, seems to me a lucky accident in +man’s history. I shall go further, and say it seems to me a paradox. +The obvious law of human substance is the conquest of things and the +exaltation of the impulses which secure this conquest. Only through an +amazing abuse were a handful of men at desks able to succeed in making +humanity believe that the supreme values are the good things of the +spirit. To-day humanity has awakened from this dream, knows its true +nature and its real desires, and utters its war-cry against those who +for centuries have robbed it of itself. Instead of waxing indignant at +the ruin of their domination, would it not be more reasonable for these +usurpers (if there are any left) to wonder that it lasted so long? +Orpheus could not aspire to charm the wild beasts with his music until +the end of time. However, one could have hoped that Orpheus himself +would not become a wild beast. + +It is scarcely necessary to say my remarks on realist desires and +their violent perfecting do not blind me to the immense growth of +gentleness, justice, and love written to-day in our customs and laws, +which would certainly have amazed our most optimistic ancestors. +There is an immense improvement in the relations between man and man +within the groups which fight each other--especially within the nation +where security is the rule and injustice is a scandal. But to keep +more closely to our subject, perhaps we do not sufficiently realize +the incredible degree of civilization implied by the good treatment +of prisoners, and the care of enemy wounded in wars between nations, +and by the institution of public and private charity in the relations +between the classes. The denial of progress, the assertion that +barbarity of heart has never been worse, are natural themes for poets +and those who are discontented, and perhaps they are even necessary +to progress. But the historian, whether he looks at national or class +warfare, is amazed at the transformation of a species which only four +centuries ago roasted prisoners of war in baker’s ovens, and, only two +centuries ago forbade the workers to establish a pension fund for their +aged members. Nevertheless I must point out that these improvements +cannot be credited to the present age. They are the results of the +teaching of the eighteenth century, against which the ‘masters of +modern thought’ are in complete revolt. The establishment of war +ambulances, the wide development of State charities are the work of the +Second Empire, are connected with the ‘humanitarian clichés’ of Victor +Hugo and Michelet, which are immeasureably despised by the moralists +of the past half century. They exist to some extent _despite of_ these +moralists, not one of whom has conducted a truly humane campaign, while +the chief of them--Nietzsche, Barrès, Sorel--would blush to be able +to say like Voltaire: ‘I have done a little good, ’tis my best work.’ +I must add that these good works are now merely customs, i.e. actions +performed from habit, without the will taking any part in them, without +the mind reflecting on their meaning. And if the mind of our realists +ever came to think of them, I think there is every possibility that +it might prohibit them. I can well imagine a future war when a nation +would decide not to look after the enemy wounded, a strike where the +bourgeoisie would make up its mind not to support hospitals for the +benefit of a class which was ruining it and anxious to destroy it. I +can imagine both priding themselves on getting free from a ‘stupid +humanitarianism’, and finding disciples of Nietzsche and Sorel to +praise them for it. The attitude of the Italian Fascists and the +Russian Bolshevists towards their enemies is not calculated to give me +the lie here. The modern world still displays certain failures in pure +practicality, a few stains of idealism from which it might well cleanse +itself. + +I said above that the logical end of the ‘integral realism’ professed +by humanity to-day is the organized slaughter of nations or classes. +It is possible to conceive of a third, which would be their +reconciliation. The thing to possess would be the whole earth, and they +would finally come to realize that the only way to exploit it properly +is by union, while the desire to set themselves up as distinct from +others would be transferred from the nation to the species, arrogantly +drawn up against everything which is not itself. And, as a matter of +fact, such a movement does exist. Above classes and nations there +does exist a desire of the species to become the master of things, +and, when a human being flies from one end of the world to the other +in a few hours, the whole human race quivers with pride and adores +itself as distinct from all the rest of creation. At bottom, this +imperialism of the species is preached by all the great directors of +the modern conscience. It is Man, and not the nation or the class, +whom Nietzsche, Sorel, Bergson extoll in his genius for making himself +master of the world. It is humanity, and not any one section of it, +whom Auguste Comte exhorts to plunge into consciousness of itself +and to make itself the object of its adoration. Sometimes one may +feel that such an impulse will grow ever stronger, and that in this +way inter-human wars will come to an end. In this way humanity would +attain ‘universal fraternity’. But, far from being the abolition of the +national spirit with its appetites and its arrogance, this would simply +be its supreme form, the nation being called Man and the enemy God. +Thereafter, humanity would be unified in one immense army, one immense +factory, would be aware only of heroisms, disciplines, inventions, +would denounce all free and disinterested activity, would long cease +to situate the good outside the real world, would have no God but +itself and its desires, and would achieve great things; by which I mean +that it would attain to a really grandiose control over the matter +surrounding it, to a really joyous consciousness of its power and its +grandeur. And History will smile to think that this is the species for +which Socrates and Jesus Christ died. + +1924-1927. + + + + +_Notes_ + + +Note A (Page 1) + +_That political passions affect a large number of men they never before +affected ..._ + +It is very difficult to know to what extent crowds are moved by the +political events of their time (of course, I am leaving on one side all +truly popular movements). Crowds do not write their memoirs, and those +who write memoirs scarcely ever speak of the crowds. However, I do not +think my proposition will be seriously disputed. To limit ourselves to +France and the two examples I quoted--suppose we had another upheaval +like the Religious Wars, I do not think we should see the immense +majority of country districts possessed by no other passion than a +hatred for soldiers, whatever party they belonged to.[170] Nor should +we see cultivated bourgeois who keep diaries giving a couple of lines +to such events as Luther’s preaching, along with the thousand little +facts they relate.[171] Nor do I think that a month after an event like +the taking of the Bastille we should find a foreigner on his travels +in France, writing: ‘13th August, 1789. Before I leave Clermont I must +remark that I have dined or supped five times at the table d’hôte with +some twenty to thirty merchants and tradesmen, officers, etc.; and it +is not easy for me to express the insignificance--the inanity of the +conversation. Scarcely any politics, at a moment when every bosom ought +to beat with none but political sensations.’ (Arthur Young.)[172] + +The attitude of populations towards wars between States long seems to +have been that described by Voltaire in the following lines: ‘It is +indeed a deplorable evil that this multitude of soldiers should always +be kept up by all Princes. But, as we have pointed out, this evil +produces a good. The peoples take no part in the wars carried on by +their masters; the citizens of besieged towns often pass from the power +of one to another without having cost the life of a single inhabitant; +they are simply the prize of the King who possesses most soldiers, +cannons and money.’ (_Essai sur les Moeurs_, towards the end.) Again, +in 1870, a Prussian servant girl said to a French prisoner employed +on the farm where she was working: ‘When the war is over I will marry +you. Don’t be surprised at what I say, patriotism doesn’t mean much to +us, you know.’ I imagine that in 1914, many servant girls, Prussian or +otherwise, felt in their hearts and put into practice, this absence of +patriotism; but I dare to assert that very few would have formulated +it, even to themselves. The really new fact to-day is not perhaps that +the peoples feel political passions, but that they claim the right to +feel them. This claim is sufficient to make them act and therefore +furnishes a magnificent opportunity for their leaders to exploit them. + + +Note B (Page 15) + +_Louis XIV annexing Alsace and not for one moment thinking of +forbidding the German language ..._ + +It was not until 1768 that the Monarchy thought of setting up schools +in Alsace, ‘where French is to be taught’. Vidal de la Blanche, who +relates this (_La France de l’Est_, 1, vi) adds: ‘This indifference +(to the language question) must not shock us too much. Let us rather +learn a lesson from it. It raises us above the narrowly jealous +conceptions which since then have set nation against nation, under this +language pretext. It takes us into an age when another spirit presided +over human relations. There was then no language question. Fortunate +eighteenth century, when war bred no lasting hatred, when the poison of +national animosities was not inoculated and fostered by all the means +now at the disposal of the State, including the schools.’ The eminent +historian forgets that the State has these means at its disposal, _with +the consent of the peoples_. The peoples, or at least the cultivated +classes among them, at the bidding of their men of letters, during the +past century have set themselves up arrogantly against one another in +their languages and cultures, even though they one day come face to +face with the unexpected results of this attitude, as is happening +to-day to France in its difficulties with Alsace. + + +Note C (Page 19) + +_The Union of capitalism, anti-semitism, anti-democracy with +nationalism._ + +I am under no illusion concerning the solidity of certain among these +unions. Although the conservative passions fully comprehend their +immense interest in identifying themselves with national passion and +thereby benefiting by its popularity, although one may even admit +that they have been caught in their own net and have become sincere +in this feeling, yet it is none the less true that conservatism +(chiefly capitalism) is essentially something entirely different +from patriotism, and that this difference, whose manifestations in +the course of history have been innumerable (how many times have the +bourgeoisie treated with foreigners when they thought it was to their +interests!) may once again display itself. It is easy to imagine that +the French bourgeoisie would turn against France if they thought their +patrimony was being too seriously threatened by the legislation of +the Republic. This may already be seen in the case of families who, +in recent years, have exported their capital abroad. I may say the +same thing of monarchist passion. It is easy to imagine that certain +followers of that passion might one day decide to work against a nation +which decisively and finally rejects the system they propose. I think +I observe this when I see monarchist writers publishing that ‘from the +Spree to the Mekong, the whole world knows that France is in a state of +weakness bordering upon disintegration’. However, such things are still +exceptional, and those who are responsible for them would refuse to +admit--perhaps sincerely--that they meant to harm their nation. + +Moreover, the bourgeoisie have another interest in keeping up +nationalism and the fear of war. These feelings create a sort of +permanent military spirit in a nation. More precisely, they create in +the people a disposition to accept the existing hierarchy, to obey +orders, to recognize superiors, i.e. the very things required of +them by those who wish them to continue in a state of service. The +confused perception of this truth inspires the bourgeoisie with that +curious ill-humour they display towards every attempt at international +agreement, in whatever form this may be presented by the governments. +This ill-humour (they declare) arises from the fact that they consider +it simple-minded and imprudent to believe in the extinction of national +hatreds. At bottom, it arises from the fact that _they do not want this +extinction to occur_. They know that the maintenance of these hatreds +will cost the lives of their children, but they do not hesitate to +make the sacrifice, if by doing so they retain possession of their +property[173] and their power over their servants. Here is a grandeur +of egotism which is perhaps insufficiently appreciated. + + +Note D (Page 28) + +_On the attitude of the modern Catholics towards Catholicism when it is +in opposition to their nationalism._ + +A good example is the attitude of the German Catholics in the past +twenty years. It has been described with all desirable detail by +M. Edmond Bloud in his great study: _Le nouveau Centre et le +catholicisme_.[174] It will be seen that it strangely resembles the +attitude of many a non-German Catholic. + +The ‘Centre’ began by declaring itself ‘a political party which has +assumed as its duty the representation of the interests of the whole +nation in all domains of public life, in accordance with the principles +of Christian doctrine.’ (_Katholische Weltanschauung_: Catholic +conception of the world.) Soon they announced political action founded +on ‘a Christian basis’ (christliche Basis), the spirit of which is thus +defined by one of its apostles (Doctor Brauweiler, April, 1913): ‘In +the domain of practical action, _concepts are determined by the end +in view_. The formation of political concepts is comparable with the +formation of juridical concepts. The jurist forms his concepts _with +no other consideration than that of what is needed, in relation solely +to the required end_. But no one can say that the juridical concept +thus formed is a false one. In the same way, one may speak in politics +of Christianity or Christian doctrine.’ In 1914, Doctor Karl Bachem of +Cologne, published a pamphlet entitled: _Centre, Catholic Doctrine, +Practical Politics_, where he declares that the doctrine of ‘universal +Christianity’ is only a political formula intended to render possible +the collaboration of Catholics and Protestants, chiefly in Parliament; +that from the religious point of view this formula has only a negative +meaning, and only means the determination to struggle against +materialism, atheism and nihilism; that its positive content is defined +by the Prussian Constitution which in paragraphs 14 and 18 lays down +that ‘the Christian religion’ is the ‘foundation of the institutions of +the State’. + +Thus, as M. Edmond Bloud justly remarks, Doctor Bachem makes the +Prussian Constitution the Rule of Faith. Put ‘national interest’ in +place of ‘Prussian Constitution’ and you will have the state of mind of +many a modern French Catholic. + +The attitude of the German Catholics seems to me also representative of +a certain Catholicism common to-day to other nations, in declarations +of this sort: + +‘The Catholic members of the “Centre” remain Catholics individually, +_but the party, as a party, does not necessarily accept the Catholic +conception of the world_.’ + +And again: + +‘The Pope and the Bishops have authority in matters of religion, but +wherever political matters are concerned we shall not allow ourselves +to be influenced by the authority of the Pope or by that of the +Bishops.’ (M. Edmond Bloud alludes to a conversation reported in the +_Frankfurter Zeitung_, April, 1914, where one of the chief of the +‘syndicats mixtes’ declared that, ‘The German Catholics have had enough +of the Pope.’) + +What M. Bloud calls the ‘declericalization of the Centre’ is not a +thing peculiar to our neighbours, nor is the joy of the great German +nationalist organ (the Prussian Annals) when it observes that ‘the +Catholic idea of the State is ceasing to be ultramontain and is +becoming nationalist’.[175] + +The attitude common to German Catholics and to certain Catholics of +other nations seems to me well brought out by two protests which M. +Bloud quotes. + +The first is from Father Weiss: + +‘There exist,’ says the eminent theologian, ‘several kinds of political +Catholicism.... The worst of all consists in looking upon pure +politics, social politics, national politics, not only as something +wholly independent of religion, but _as being the standard by which we +should determine the degree to which Catholicism or Christianity may be +utilized in public life_.’ + +The other is from Cardinal Kopp (then Bishop of Fulda) in a letter +written in 1887: + +‘Unhappily a gust of madness is blowing over us. Formerly we held +to the principle: Faith first, politics afterwards. Now they say: +_Politics first!_ The Church and the Faith afterwards.’ + +Our Catholics of the _Action Française_ have not invented much. + + +Note E (Page 33) + +_The ‘clerk’, by adopting political passions, brings them the +tremendous influence of his sensibility if he is an artist, of his +persuasive power if he is a thinker, and in either case his moral +prestige._ + +This prestige itself is something new in history, at least from my +point of view. The results produced in France by the intervention +of the ‘intellectuals’ in the Dreyfus affair, and those produced by +the manifesto of the German Intellectuals in 1914, not only in their +own country but throughout the world, are things to which I find no +equivalent in the past. One cannot imagine the Roman Republic feeling +that the moral support of Terence and Varro was of value to it during +the war with Carthage, or the government of Louis XIV finding that +the approbation of Racine and Fermat, gave it additional strength in +the war with Holland. This increase of strength which a cause to-day +receives from the approbation of the men of thought (or those who are +considered such) does great honour to the modern world. It is an homage +to the mind hitherto unexampled in humanity. + +Naturally, this prestige has a double result. Though the modern ‘clerk’ +fortifies a cause by giving it his approbation he can also seriously +harm it by refusing his approbation. If in 1915 men like Ostwald and +Mach had refused to approve the acts of their nation, they would have +seriously harmed it. The ‘clerk’ who to-day condemns the realism of +the State to which he belongs does really harm that State.[176] Hence +it follows that the State, in the name of its practical interests, to +defend which is its function, has a right--perhaps a duty--to punish +them. This appears to me to be the true order of things: The ‘clerk’, +faithful to his essential duty, denounces the realism of States; +whereupon, the States, no less faithful to their duty, made him drink +the hemlock. The serious disorganization in the modern world is that +the ‘clerks’ do not denounce the realism of States, but on the contrary +approve of it; they no longer drink the hemlock.[177] + +Let me point to another disorganization. That is when the State does +not punish the ‘clerk’ for denouncing its realism. This occurred +in France during the Dreyfus affair. The order of things demanded +that the ‘clerks’ should demand abstract justice, as they did; but +perhaps it also demanded that the State, weakened in strength by their +idealism, should throw them into prison. When the ‘clerk’ performs the +layman’s task, the result is anarchy; but there is also anarchy when +the layman acts and speaks as a ‘clerk’, when those whose duty is to +defend the nation display their cult for the abolition of frontiers, +universal love, or other spiritual things.[178] When I see philosophers +concerning themselves with the safety of the State and Ministers +striving to bring about love among mankind, I think of what Dante says: +‘You turn to religion him who was born to wear the sword, you make a +King of one who was born to preach. Thus all your steps are out of the +true way.’ However, this second disorganization of orders has been +denounced by others, and it is not my function to combat it. + + +Note F (Page 37) + +_Think how willingly the ecclesiastics now accept military service._ + +I think this willingness is worthy of the historian’s attention. +Obviously, it implies some sincere attachment to their country in those +who display this willingness, although their law is to be dead to all +worldly attachments. Moreover, it appears that in the last war most of +the ministers of Jesus Christ able to bear arms were glad to defend +their country, whatever that country was, and whatever notion they +may have had of the justice of its cause. Here is a most suggestive +fact: Certain Belgian monastic orders (and others as well, I am told) +established abroad at the declaration of war, and authorized by the +government to remain abroad, insisted upon returning to the capital to +perform their military duties. True, the behaviour of these monks may +be explained, not on grounds of patriotism, but from the fear that they +would be severely criticized by their fellow-citizens if they acted +otherwise; for the modern ‘clerks’ have ceased to understand that the +sign of an attitude truly in harmony with their function is that it +should be unpopular with the laymen. + +But the most remarkable thing here for the historian, is that the +imposition of military service on ecclesiastics does not appear to +arouse any protest from the Church. Certain Church teachers even assert +(Mgr Battifol, _L’Eglise et le Droit de la guerre_): ‘There is no +further doubt about the legality of military service.’[179] It is also +curious to see in the _Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique_ +(Art. ‘Paix et Guerre’) the strenuous efforts of the author (Father de +la Brière) to prove that bearing arms, even by ‘clerks’ in holy orders, +is in no sense contrary to Christian law. However, the opinion of these +theologians does not seem to be shared, at least publicly, by the +higher ecclesiastical authorities; for every ‘clerk’ who bears arms is +laid under an interdict, as he was in the past--only the interdict is +taken off a few minutes after it has been declared. + +The modern laymen (Barrès for example) praise this patriotism of the +ecclesiastic and his willingness to fight. The laymen of the past tried +to make him ashamed of it, and liked to exhort him to sentiments which +they considered more in harmony with his sacred ministry. The warlike +ardours of John XII and Julius II were severely condemned by their +contemporaries. Apart from Erasmus--the type of the man of letters +fully aware of the ‘clerk’s’ high function, who was continually saying: +‘Their tonsure does not warn them that they ought to be free from all +the passions of this world and think only of the things of Heaven’--the +Italian Tizio wrote: ‘It is astonishing that the Pontiffs, whose part +is to be pacific and independent, should take part in the shedding of +Christian blood.’ The French poet Jean Bouchet shows the weeping Church +imploring Julius II to end the war (though it is true that Julius II +was fighting France): + + ‘Your patron is my Lord Saint Peter, + Who never warred for worldly goods.’ + +In _Le Songe du Verger_, a kind of summary of moral doctrines current +in France in the fourteenth century, there is a dialogue between a +Knight and a Clerk, when the Clerk claims for his caste the right to +make war, and the Knight tells him that ‘the arms of the “clerks” are +prayers and tears’. It is suggestive to see a soldier urging a minister +of the spiritual to perform his true function and seeming to think that +the performance of this function is necessary to the good order of the +world. Here is a feeling for ‘clerkdom’ and its social value which is +very seldom to be found among the modern laymen, even the non-military +ones--I nearly said, especially the non-military ones.[180] + + +Note G (Page 53) + +_That self-examination to which every spectator is impelled by a +representation of human beings which he feels to be true and solely +pre-occupied with truth._ + +Let me quote the following passage concerning the civilizing effects of +such representation:-- + +‘This spectacle of man offered to man has considerable moral effects. +First, a valuable exercise of the intelligence, an increase of +reflection, a widening of the view in every direction, result from the +habit thus set up of getting out of oneself and entering into others, +to understand their actions, to share in their passions, sympathize +with their sufferings, appreciate their motives. This faculty of the +artist communicated to the spectator or the listener, this faculty of +participation and assimilation, is something set up in opposition to +egotism and is a condition of tolerance and benevolence, frequently +even of justice. Then, lessons of virtue, frequently not the least +effective, are given to the spectator, from the very fact that he +is placed in a position to praise or condemn acts or thoughts which +are set before him relative to cases where his own interests are not +involved. He recognizes his own image in the actor of the epic, a man +like himself, a voluntary and impassioned agent, whose dangers though +perhaps magnified are not foreign to his own experience. Then the +essential phenomena which characterize conscious humanity and morality +occur in him who thus witnesses himself in the person of another, +i.e. disinterested objectivity of himself to himself, generalization +of passion, motive and maxim, judgment founded on the universal, +self-examination to arrive at what is duty, clear and defined sentiment +of the direction of the will. + +‘_But this must not lead us to think that the poet’s object is utility +or morality. If it were, he would be lacking in the true feeling of +art._ Teaching, moralizing--this object of the artist is indirect, i.e. +does not exist systematically for him. He must only attain it without +having sought it, and sometimes he attains it when he seems to have +departed from it. What he desires to do, is to touch the feelings, +to arouse emotions. But it happens that by doing so he elevates, +purifies, moralizes. The poet (I am especially speaking of him) does +indeed address himself to everyone. _That means he can only sing the +universal_, however curious such an assembly of words may appear. He +may indeed sing it under the form of the particular, without which +his fictions would be lacking in life, he none the less excludes the +pure, incomprehensible, inexplicable individual, shorn of all truth +if he does not express a relationship.[181] He generalizes passion, +therefore ennobles it and renders it at once the object of observation, +reflection and disinterested emotion. The listener, carried away from +his own relatively base private preoccupations and transported without +hope or fear (at least, too personal and too present hope and fear) +into the superior sphere of humanity’s common passion, feels the +benefit of an elevation of soul; his consciousness is temporarily freed +from egotism.’ (Renouvier, _Introduction à la philosophie analytique de +l’Histoire_, p. 354.) + + +Note H (Page 56) + +_... Napoleon, who ordered the chief of police to take measures for +the history of France to be written in a manner favourable to his own +throne._ + +Here are some portions of a note on this subject dictated by Napoleon +at Bordeaux in 1808. It promulgates the conception of history as +practised, mutatis mutandis, by many of our historians of the past:-- + +‘I do not approve the principles laid down in his note by the Minister +of the Interior. They were true twenty years ago, they will be true +sixty years hence, but they are not true to-day. Velly is the one +fairly detailed author who has written on the history of France. The +abridged chronology of the President Hénault is a good classical book. +It is useful to have them both continued. _It is of the greatest +importance to make certain of the spirit in which these continuations +are written._ I ordered the Minister of Police to look after the +continuation of Millot, and I desire the two Ministers will consult +over the continuation of Velly and the President Hénault.... + +‘They are to be just to Henri IV, Louis XIII, Louis XIV and Louis XV, +but without adulation. The September Massacres and the horrors of the +Revolution must be painted in the same colours as the Inquisition +and the massacres of the Sixteen. They must take care to avoid all +reaction in speaking of the Revolution, no man could have opposed it +successfully. No blame attaches either to those who perished or to +those who survived. There was no individual power capable of changing +the elements and foreseeing the events which arose from the nature of +things and circumstances. + +‘They are to point out the perpetual disorganization of the national +finances, the chaos of the provincial assemblies, the claims of the +Parlements, the lack of regulation and resort in the administration. +This checkered France, without unity of laws and administration, was +rather a union of twenty Kingdoms than a single State, so that one +breathes freely on coming to the period when the benefits of unity +of laws, administration and territory are enjoyed.... The opinion +expressed by the Minister, which, if followed, would result in +abandoning this task to private enterprise and the speculation of some +publisher, is wrong and could only produce regrettable results.’ + +Of course, the champions of authority are not the only persons who make +history serve their own interests. Condorcet (_Tableau historique_, +10^e Epoque) says that history should serve ‘to maintain an active +vigilance in recognizing and crushing under the weight of Reason the +first germs of superstition and tyranny, if they ever dare to appear +again.’ + + +Note I (Page 62) + +_Humanitarianism and Humanism._ + +Here, on this subject, is a curious passage from one of the ancients:-- + +‘Those who created the Latin language and those who spoke it well +do not give the word _humanitas_ the vulgar meaning which is +synonymous with the Greek word _philanthropia_, which means an +active kindness, a tender benevolence for all men. But they give +the word the meaning which the Greeks attach to _paideia_, which we +call education, knowledge of the fine arts. Those who show the most +taste and disposition for these studies are the most worthy to be +called _humanissimi_. For man alone among all living beings is able +to devote himself to cultivating a study which for that reason has +been called _humanitas_. Such is the meaning given to this by the +ancients, particularly by Varro and Cicero. Almost all their works +show examples, so I shall content myself with quoting one only. I +have chosen the opening of the first book of Varro “Concerning human +things”: “Praxiteles, qui propter artificium egregium nemini est paulum +modo humaniori ignotus (Praxiteles, whose excellent talent as an +artist has made him known to every man at all skilled in the arts)”. +Here _humanior_ does not bear the vulgar meaning of easy, tractable, +benevolent even though lacking in knowledge of letters. That meaning +would not express the author’s thought. It means an educated, a learned +man, one who is acquainted with Praxiteles through books and history.’ +(Aulus Gellius, _Noctes Atticae_, Book XIII, XVI.) + + +Note J (Page 82) + +_... they cannot sufficiently denounce all institutions based on +liberty and discussion._ + +Note that the novelty here lies in the passion, the fury with which +they condemn liberty of discussion. Otherwise, we see most of the +so-called liberal thinkers in history themselves recognize the +necessity for submission to the sovereign’s judgment. Spinoza declares +that ‘there is no possible government if every man makes himself the +defender of his own rights and the rights of others.’ The _Letters of +Descartes_ contain passages in favour of the ‘reason of State.’ + +It is perhaps not sufficiently noticed how frequently the old French +absolute monarchists say that justice is the chief function of the +sovereign. ‘The most important of the King’s rights,’ says one of +these theorists (Guy Coquille, _Institution du droit des Français_, +1608) ‘is to make _the laws and general statutes for the good order of +his Kingdom_.’ Another (Loyseau, _Des Seigneuries_, 1608) says: ‘The +usage of public _lordship must be regulated by justice_ ...’ Bossuet +(_Instruction à Louis XIV_) says: ‘When the King administers justice or +has it exactly administered in accordance with the laws, _which is his +principal function_ ...’ The modern absolute monarchists, even French, +seem to be inspired by the German theorist, who says: ‘The State has +two functions to perform: the administration of justice and the waging +of war. _But war is by far the principal._’ (Treitschke.) + +Note this famous passage from Bossuet (_Pol._, Book VIII, art. II, par. +I): + +‘It is one thing for it (the government) to be absolute, another for +it to be arbitrary. It is absolute in relation to constraint, there +being no power which is capable of compelling the sovereign, who in +this sense is independent of all human authority. But it does not +follow that government is arbitrary; because, apart from the fact that +all things are subject to God’s judgment (which applies also to the +government we have called arbitrary), there are laws in empires, and +everything which is done contrary to them is void of right.’ + +It will be seen that the defence of arbitrary government is a new thing +among French teachers, even in regard to Bossuet. (I am speaking of +Bossuet’s _doctrines_, not of his practical advice.) + + +Note K (Page 91) + +_This is the teaching of Nietzsche._ + +I must repeat that throughout this work I am considering the teaching +of Nietzsche (and Hegel’s too) insofar as it has become the pretext +for a great moral preaching, though I know perfectly well that in +reality this teaching is something far more complex. I shall quote +the following judicious observation, in connection with the fact +that certain philosophers have only themselves to blame for ‘the +misunderstanding of their true thought’: + +‘Nietzscheism has been subjected to the same test as Hegelianism. And +no doubt here and there philosophical themes have served especially as +pretexts to cover up a new offensive on the part of barbarism. _But +the fact that they have been utilized, the manner in which they have +been utilized, have a significance which must not be overlooked._ Is +it not the criterion of a philosophy which may be called rational +without reserve and equivocation, that it should remain incorruptibly +faithful to itself? On the other hand, _the systems which begin by +accepting contradictions, reserving the right to add that they are +capable of surmounting them or of “living” them, lodge their enemy in +their midst_. Their punishment is that their antithesis still resembles +them; and that is what has happened to Nietzsche.’ (L. Brunschvicg, _Le +Progrès de la Conscience dans la philosophie occidentale_, p. 431.) +This book contains an excellent exposition of ‘Hegelian themes’ and +‘Nietzschean themes’, precisely insofar as they have become political +breviaries. + + +Note L (Page 94) + +_Long before the disciples of Taine and Auguste Comte._ + +When this book appeared in a periodical, certain persons declared +that the whole of my attack on the modern ‘clerk’ went astray because +I did not give more space to the author of _Origines de la France +Contemporaine_. He, they said, was the ‘great realist “clerk” of the +past fifty years, while those I attacked were only his small change.’ +(This sudden contempt for the thought of Barrès and Maurras of the part +of certain people is certainly surprising.) + +There is here a manifest abuse of the word _realism_. Taine threw +light on the true nature of the real, or rather the political real, +and reminded the universalist that this domain is not under his +jurisdiction. He never _exalted_ this real at the expense of the +universal, which is the realism I am denouncing here. He plainly +taught, on the contrary, that the universalist who stays in his own +domain (see his admiration for Spinoza and Goethe) is the great human +model. Compare this with Maurras for whom the universalist, even +when non-political (the infinitist, the pantheist) is profoundly +contemptible. It is also difficult for me to see Taine as the godfather +of those who glorify the soldier at the expense of the man of justice +and the man of study,[182] who exhort the nations to cultivate their +prejudices where they are ‘totally foreign to reason’ (Barrès) and who +declare that the intelligence which cares nothing about what is social +is the activity of a savage. I think Taine would cheerfully say of +those who claim to derive from him the same thing that M. Bergson is +reported to have said of some of his ‘disciples’: ‘These gentlemen are +most original.’ + +Nevertheless, Taine seems to me to be the initiator of the modern +realists in two points. The first is his condemnation of individualism, +more exactly, of the moral liberty of the citizen (for this, at +bottom, is the meaning of his regret for the old corporations, and, +more generally, of his exhortation to form groups, which shape the +individual’s soul, instead of allowing it to be autonomous as against +the State); and the second, which is far more novel than the first +among French teachers, is his condemnation of idealist education. The +peroration of the ‘_Régime moderne_’ obviously establishes the whole +educational argument of the _Déracines_ and _L’Étape_:-- + +‘Sometimes when he is with his intimates, as bitter and as overfatigued +as he is, the young man is tempted to say to us: “By your education +you induced us to believe that the world is made in a certain way. +You deceived us. It is much uglier, stupider, dirtier, gloomier and +harsher, at least to our sensibility and our imagination. You think +they are over-excited and out of gear; well, if they are, it is your +fault. That is why we curse and despise the whole of your world, and +reject your pretended truths, which for us are lies, including those +elementary and primary truths which you say are evident to common +sense, and upon which you build your laws, your institutions, your +society, your philosophy, your sciences and your arts.” That is what +contemporary youth have been telling us aloud for fifteen years by +their tastes, their opinions, their inclinations in literature, the +arts and life.’ + +Against this manifesto in favour of a practical education, let me set +this protest of a true descendant of Montaigne, Pascal and Montesquieu: + +‘In his diatribe for the classical spirit and the primary truths of +reason and philosophy which direct literary education of all kinds, +Taine comes to use words similar to those of the adversaries of ancient +literature,[183] of the general ideas which are inseparable from them, +and of disinterested culture even. The only object would then be to +prepare persons for an empirical world,[184] people taught to know the +world as it is, and trained to make it continue as it now is. However, +the school laws are too recent for one to be able decently to blame +them for the evils of the age, and make them the cause of the hatred +and scorn poured on society by those who are bored, enervate and out of +their class. However, even if it were true that the comparison between +the general principles of reason, morality and beauty, and empirical +life engendered more disgust with the realities than it has done in +the past, it would be a sad paradox to ask that this danger should +be averted by banishing from education all elevated views and all +idealism.’ (Renouvier, _Philosophie analytique de l’Histoire_, tome iv, +p. 541.) + + +Note M (Page 95) + +_This cult brings out a silliness of mind which to me seems wholly an +acquisition of the nineteenth century._ + +This silliness of mind assumes another form, i.e. the belief (rigidly +formulated by Maurras) that in politics you can find laws of cause +and effect as certainly valid as those of weight or electricity. +(‘Politics are a _science_.’) This is the superstition of science, +held to be competent in all domains, including that of morality; a +superstition which, I repeat, is an acquisition of the nineteenth +century. It remains to discover whether those who brandish this +doctrine believe in it or whether they simply want to give the prestige +of a scientific appearance to the passions of their hearts, which they +perfectly well know are nothing but passions. It is to be noted that +the dogma that history is obedient to scientific laws is preached +especially by partisans of arbitrary authority. This is quite natural, +since it eliminates the two realities they most hate, i.e. human +liberty and the historical action of the individual. + + +Note N (Page 98) + +_Our age has seen priests of the mind teaching that the gregarious +is the praiseworthy form of thought, and that independent thought is +contemptible._ + +Note that what is new in this crusade against individualism (the great +apostle of which is M. Maurras) is not the recognition that ‘the +individual is only an abstraction’, that to a great extent, he is +formed by his race, his surroundings, his nation, a thousand things +which are not himself. The novelty is the cult for this servitude, the +order given to mankind to submit entirely to it, the contempt shown +for any attempt to get free from it. Once again this is the cult (so +strange in French thinkers) for the _inevitable_ part of the human +being, the hatred for its free part. + +Note that those who to-day preach obedience of the mind, not only +demand it from the uncultured masses but from the men of thought, +_especially_ from the men of thought. The anti-individualists of the +Dreyfus affair particularly opposed the independence of scientists, +writers, and philosophers--‘the mad vanity of a few intellectuals’. +Nevertheless, the most curious thing is not that they require this +obedience, but that they obtain it. When M. Maritain declares that +‘everyone cannot philosophize and that, for men, the essential thing +is to choose a master’, and when M. Maurras asserts that the function +of most minds is to be ‘servants’ and to reflect the thought of some +leader, these teachers find a number of men of thought to applaud and +abdicate their liberty of mind in their favour. The thinkers of the +eighteenth century said: ‘A religion is needed for the people.’ Those +of our age say: ‘A religion is needed for ourselves.’ What Barrès +wrote: ‘The part of the masters is to justify the habits and prejudices +of France, so as best to prepare our children to take their place in +the national procession,’ he certainly meant that he and his colleagues +were to walk in this procession. Here we again come upon that thirst +for discipline which I spoke of above and which seemed to me so worthy +of remark in the descendants of Montaigne and Renan. The cause, I said, +was their desire to belong to a ‘strong group’. In them it also arises +from a feeling for the artistic value of regimenting a collection of +men in a beautiful ‘procession’, and also from the joy felt by so many +souls in being governed, if not having to make the effort to think for +themselves--a most curious joy in so-called men of thought. + +The cult for the collective soul, with all its violation of human +consciousness, seems to me admirably denounced by a passage of Maine +de Biran, quoted by M. L. Brunschvicg (op. cit., _La Sociologie de +l’ordre_, p. 526):-- + +‘... According to M. Bonald, it is not the human mind, it is not +the individual understanding which is the seat, the true subject of +inherence of the nations or (universal) truths under discussion; but +it is society, which, gifted with a kind of collective understanding +different from that of individuals, was from its origin imbued with +them through the gift of speech and by virtue of a miraculous influence +exerted on the mass alone, independent of its parts. The individual, +the man, is nothing; society alone exists; society is the soul of +the moral world, it alone exists, while individual persons are only +phenomena. Let those who can, understand this social metaphysics. If +the author himself understands it clearly, then I am in the wrong. +Then we must cease to talk of philosophy and recognize the nothingness +of the science of intellectual and moral man, we must admit that all +psychology based on the primitive fact of consciousness is simply +false, and we must consider science itself as an illusion which +perpetually deceives and misleads us by showing us everything, even our +own existence, in a false and fantastic light.’ + +M. Brunschvicg very rightly adds: ‘The antithesis could not be stated +more clearly. Either the primary fact of consciousness, or the primary +fact of language; either Socrates or Bonald.’ + +Either Socrates or Bonald. Barrès and Maurras made their choice. + + +Note O (Page 118) + +_... Péguy who admires philosophies to the extent that ‘they are good +fighters.’_[185] + +This determination to praise philosophers for their virtues of action +rather than for their intellectual virtues is very frequent among +men of thought to-day. In his _Souvenirs concernant Lagneau_, Alain, +wishing to give as favourable a picture of his master as possible, +praises his energy and his resolution at least as much as his +intelligence. It is also very remarkable--although here literature +only is in question--to see a professor of moral science (M. Jacques +Bardoux) setting a special value on those French literary men who were +soldiers, i.e. Vauvenargues, Vigny, Péguy. As to the men of letters +themselves, I shall content myself with pointing out that one of +them who is most applauded by his own colleagues recently declared +that he chiefly admired d’Annunzio for his attitude as an officer, +and expressed regret that he had returned to literature.[186] The +Emperor Julian praised Aristotle for having said that he felt prouder +of being the author of his _Treatise on Theology_ than he would have +felt if he had destroyed the power of the Persians. One might still +find soldiers in France who would agree with this judgment, but very +few men of letters. Elsewhere (_Les Sentiments de Critias_, p. 206) +I have attempted to give the history and the explanation of this +desire (so curious in men of the pen) to exalt a warlike life and to +scorn a sedentary life. Note that this characteristic is to be seen in +contemporary writers long before the war of 1914, and that those who +talk most about a warlike life are not always those who lead it. + +The new thing, I repeat, is not that we see men of letters praising +an active life and scorning a sedentary life; it is _the absence of +naiveté, the dogmatic tone_. When Ronsard exclaims: ‘Good Gods, who +would praise those who let life go by bent over books’;[187] when +Bertrand de Born wishes that ‘no man of high lineage should have any +thought but cutting off heads and arms’; when Froissart sings the +glories of chivalry and casts his scorn in the faces of the bourgeois, +no one will take these candid lyre-players, who like noble poses and +do not even know that the word doctrine exists, for the ancestors of +our grave professors of belligerent aesthetics. Moreover, I doubt +whether the author of _Scenes and Doctrines of Nationalism_ would have +condescended to be a descendant of these simple-minded persons. + +I find scorn for the life of the mind clearly professed in a dogmatic +tone, in a writer of the seventeenth century who frequently reminds one +of certain modern authors by his efforts to humiliate the toga before +the sword. (It is true that this writer was a gentleman of the very +minor nobility.) + +‘Certainly, there is no better way of relaxing the vigour of men’s +courage than to occupy their minds with peaceful and sedentary +exercises, and idleness cannot enter civilized States in a more subtle +or dangerous disguise than that of literature. Lazy and idle persons +have in part ruined commerce and agriculture, which are the cause +of the weakness of our condition and the cowardice of our age.’ (J. +L. de Balzac, _Le Prince_, 1631. He then admits literature and the +sciences to the State insofar as ‘they strengthen and embellish the +Mother-country’.) + +On the other hand, a master from the great period of French literature +writes a eulogy of the life of the mind at the expense of the active +mind, which I hardly think would be accepted by many of the moderns who +venerate that period (I am especially thinking of those who admire the +thought of Georges Sorel). + +‘In France great strength of character and width of mind are needed if +a man is to reject offices and employments and thus consent to remain +at home and do nothing. Scarcely anyone possesses sufficient merit to +play this part with dignity, nor sufficient resources to fill up the +void of time without what the vulgar call “business”. But the wise +man’s idleness needs only a better name, and we ought to say that one +who meditates, talks, reads and is calm, is working.’ (La Bruyère, _Du +Mérite personnel_.) + + +Note P (Page 122) + +_The ‘Manifesto of the Party of Intelligence’ (Figaro, 19th July, +1919)._ + +This manifesto, signed by fifty-four French writers, several of whom +are among the teachers most respected by their fellow-citizens, is +of the greatest importance to the present inquiry. In addition to +the strange passage on the Church’s mission which I quoted above, it +contains things like this:-- + +‘Nationalism, which the conceptions of the intelligence impose +on political conduct as well as on the order of the world, is a +reasonable, humane system, and French in addition.’ + +And further on:-- + +‘When a literature becomes national does it not acquire a more +universal significance, a more humanly general interest?’ + +And again:-- + +‘We believe--and the world believes with us--that it is part of the +destiny of our race to defend the spiritual interests of humanity.... +We are solicitous for Europe and all the humanity remaining in the +world. French humanity is the sovereign protector of this.’ + +And above all:-- + +‘Victorious France means to take her place again in the order of the +mind, the only order whereby a legitimate domination may be exercised.’ + +Hence the desire to found (the manifesto itself underlines the words): +‘_The intellectual Federation of Europe and the world under the aegis +of victorious France, the guardian of civilization._’ + +Victory under arms conferring the right to command in the intellectual +order--that is professed to-day by French thinkers! One remembers the +Roman writers, from whom these thinkers claim descent, who took as the +leader of their minds Greece, which had been conquered by force of +arms; one also remembers the German teachers of 1871 who also claimed +intellectual hegemony for their ‘victorious’ nation, which they too +claimed as ‘the guardian of civilization’.[188] + +When this manifesto was published, somewhat similar reflections seem +to have occurred to the mind of one of our great writers. In a letter +concerning this document,[189] Marcel Proust deplores the proclamation +of ‘a kind of “Frankreich ueber alles”, the policeman of the literature +of all nations.’ As a true priest of the mind, he goes on: ‘Why take +this peremptory attitude towards other countries in such matters as +literature, where a man only reigns by persuasion?’ I am happy to take +this opportunity to do homage to this true ‘clerk’, and to say that I +know that there are still other writers in France beside those who only +believe in the virtue of cold steel. + + +Note Q (Page 138) + +_Those who base their judgments on their artistic sensibilities._ + +This artistic origin of the political attitudes of so many men of +letters has been pointed out with great ability by M. Daniel Halévy in +the case of M. Maurras. In an old article (_La Grande France_, 1902) M. +Halévy quotes this beautiful passage from M. Maurras’s _Anthinéa_ on +the walk of women carrying a clay pot balanced on their heads:-- + +‘The bosom swells and is modelled like a vase, it opens like a flower. +The neck settles, the loins strain nervously. Their walk becomes +graver and more supple, is measured with an inestimable sobriety; it +unrolls in the mind like a piece of music. This living pillar moves, +glides, advances, without being interrupted by any sudden jerk or any +break. It follows the undulations of the ground, adapts itself to the +slightest rises, and thus resembles the stem of a beautiful young tree +set free from its roots, moving over the ground without leaving it for +a fraction of an inch. An infinite multitude of half-pauses make the +jerks imperceptible, or one is only conscious of their succession, a +continual harmony which leaves its curves in the air....’ + +M. Daniel Halévy adds:-- + +‘I quote the whole passage because it gives the very idea of Charles +Maurras. For his classical way of thought, things are beautiful, not +from the shocks of feeling and passion, but from the form and rhythm +which give them continuity, or rather existence in the human sense of +the word. M. Charles Maurras applies this taste for form to the study +of history, and that is the whole of his “sociology”.’ + +There could be no better definition of the type of man for whom things +are good insofar as they satisfy his artistic sensibility. Let me place +in opposition to him the exactly contrary type, leaving the reader to +judge which of the two may claim to belong to ‘the intelligence’:-- + +‘... For the perfection of things should be measured by their nature +alone, and things are not more or less perfect because they flatter or +wound our senses.’ (Spinoza.) + + + + +_Footnotes_ + + +[1] See Note A at the end of this book. + +[2] It is to be noted that a little more than a century ago French +working-men from different provinces frequently engaged in desperate +fights among themselves. (See Martin Nadaud, _Mémoires de Léonard_, p. +93.) + +[3] See Petit de Julleville, _La Comédie et les Moeurs en France au +moyen age_, and André Le Breton, _Le Roman au XVIIe Siècle_. + +[4] The great novelty is that to-day people accept the position that +everything should be political, that they should proclaim it and take a +pride in it. Otherwise it is perfectly obvious that men, shopkeepers, +or poets, have not waited for the present time to try to get rid of a +rival by political means. Remember how La Fontaine’s rivals kept him +out of the Académie for ten years. + +[5] As de Tocqueville profoundly remarks, these only occurred when a +first improvement in his condition encouraged the man of the people to +want more; i.e. towards the end of the eighteenth century. + +[6] I am here speaking of Western Jews of the bourgeois class. The +Jewish proletariat did not await our time to plunge into the feeling of +its racial peculiarity. However, it does so without giving provocation. + +[7] This was the notion expressed by Benedict XV when he told the poor +‘to take delight in the prosperity of elevated persons and to expect +confidently their assistance’. + +[8] For example, M. Paul Bourget’s _La Barricade_, where the author, a +disciple of Georges Sorel, exhorts the bourgeoise not to leave to the +proletariat the monopoly of class passion and violence. See also André +Beaunier, _Les Devoirs de la Violence_ (quoted by Halperine-Kaminski +in the preface to Tolstoi’s book, _The Law of Love and the Law of +Violence_). + +[9] ‘The phrase, _the sublime bourgeois_, which would have caused +so much laughter twenty years ago, has now acquired for the French +bourgeoisie a mystic plenitude owing to its fusion with the highest +social and national values.’ (_Eloge du Bourgeois Français_, p. 284.) + +[10] Let me define more precisely what is new here. In the seventeenth +century the citizen already had the notion of national honour; Racine’s +Letters would be sufficient to prove it (see a significant page in +the _Mémoires_ of de Pontis, Book XIV); but he left it to the King to +decide what this honour demanded; indignation like Vauban’s against the +peace of Ryswick ‘which dishonours the King and the whole nation’, is +a very exceptional emotion under the old _régime_. The modern citizen +claims to feel for himself what is demanded by the national honour, and +he is ready to rise up against his leaders if they have a different +conception of it. This new development is not peculiar to the nations +living under democratic systems; in 1911 the citizens of the German +monarchy thought that the concessions made to their country by France +in exchange for German abstention in Morocco were insufficient, and +they were extremely angry with their Sovereign who had accepted these +conditions which, in their opinion, were an insult to German honour. It +may be asserted that the same thing would be true of France if she ever +became a monarchy again and if the King took it upon himself to feel +the interest of national honour in a different manner to his subjects. +Moreover, this actually happened throughout the reign of Louis-Philippe. + +[11] For example, the humiliation of Olmüts in 1805. It may be asserted +that no democracy would have endured it, at least with the philosophy +displayed by the King of Prussia and his government. On the other hand, +is it necessary to stress the other dangers to peace which existed +under the Kings? It is sufficient to quote Montesquieu’s remark: ‘The +spirit of the Monarchy is war and aggrandisement.’ + +[12] In 1886, the Schnaebele affair; in 1890, the incident in Paris +where the King of Spain in the uniform of a Colonel of Uhlans was +hooted; in 1891, the incident of the Empress of Germany passing through +Paris; in 1897, Fashoda; in 1904, the incident of the British trawlers +sunk by the Russian Fleet, etc. Of course, I do not claim that the +Kings only waged practical wars, although with them the allegation of +‘wounded honour’ was very often a mere pretext. Louis XIV obviously +did not make war on Holland because the Dutch struck a medal insulting +him. Moreover, I shall grant that from time to time the Kings indulged +in military invasions, a type of elegance which appears to be less and +less tempting to the democracies; one cannot now imagine the peace of +the world disturbed by excursions like those of Charles VIII into Italy +or Charles XII into the Ukraine. + +[13] Is it necessary to point out that wars started by public +passion against the will of the government have often occurred under +monarchies? And not only under constitutional monarchies, like the +war of France with Spain in 1823 and with Turkey in 1826, but under +absolute monarchies. For instance, the War of the Austrian Succession +imposed on Fleury by an uprising of public opinion; the War of American +Independence under Louis XVI; in 1806 the war of Prussia against +Napoleon. In 1813 the war of Saxony. It seems probable that in 1914 war +was imposed on absolute sovereigns like Nicholas II and Wilhelm II by +popular passions which they had been exciting for years and then found +themselves unable to restrain. + +[14] ‘But what is much more important than material facts is the soul +of nations. Among all races a kind of effervescence it to be noticed; +some defend certain principles, others the opposing principles. By +becoming members of the League of Nations, the different peoples do +not abandon their _national morality_.’ (Speech of the German Minister +for Foreign Affairs at Geneva, on the occasion of the entry of Germany +into the League of Nations, 10th September, 1926.) The orator went on: +‘Yet this should not result in raising up nation against nation.’ One +is surprised that he did not add: ‘On the contrary.’ How much nobler, +and at the same time more respectful of the truth, is the language +of Treitschke: ‘This consciousness of themselves which the nations +are acquiring and which can only be strengthened by culture, this +consciousness means that war will never disappear from the earth, in +spite of the closer linking up of interests, in spite of the growing +uniformity of customs and the exterior forms of life.’ (Quoted by +Charles Andler in _Les Origines du Pangermanisme_, p. 223.) + +[15] This is what Mirabeau seems to have foreseen when he announced +to the Constituent Assembly that the wars of the ‘free nations’ would +cause the wars of the Kings to be regretted. + +[16] The religion of the ‘national soul’ is obviously and logically +an emanation of the popular soul. Moreover, it has been sung by an +eminently democratic literature: Romanticism. It is to be observed that +the worst enemies of Romanticism and of Democracy have adopted it; it +is constantly to be found in the Action Française. To such an extent +is it now impossible to be a patriot without flattering democratic +passions. + +[17] See Note B at the end of the book. + +[18] See Brunot, _Histoire de la Langue Française_, t. v, liv. iii. + +[19] On this topic see some excellent remarks of Auguste Comte, _Cours +de Philosophie Positive_, 57^e leçon. + +[20] As a matter of fact, the peoples do not believe either that their +ambitions go back to their ancestors; they are ignorant of history and +do not believe it to be so even when it is true; they believe they +believe, or, more exactly, they want to believe that they believe. +However, that is enough to make them ferocious, perhaps more so than if +they really believed it. + +[21] France is here in a position of manifest inferiority in regard +to her neighbours. The modern French feel very slight inclinations to +claim that they reincarnate the ambitions of Charlemagne or even of +Louis XIV, despite the proclamations of certain men of letters. + +[22] For instance, the address of the ‘six great industrial and +agricultural associations of Germany’ to Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg in +May, 1914, which was not very different from that drawn up in 1815 +by the Prussian metallurgists to point out to their government what +annexations should be made in the interests of their industry. (See +Vidal de La Blache, _La France de l’Est_, chap. xix.) Moreover, some +Germans are urgent in boldly proclaiming the economic character of +their nationalism. ‘Let us not forget,’ says a well-known Pangermanist, +‘that the German Empire, which is generally considered abroad as a +purely military State, is in its origin (Zollverein) chiefly economic.’ +And again: ‘For us war is only the continuation of our commercial +activity in times of peace, with other means but the same methods.’ +(Naumann, _L’Europe Centrale_, pp. 112, 247; see the whole book.) +Germany seems to be not indeed the only country to practise commercial +patriotism (England has done so just as much and for a much longer +time) but the only country to boast of it. + +[23] And to build up a much less passionate patriotism. Think, for +instance, of the agreements with foreigners accepted by patriotism +based on interest (such as the Franco-German iron cartel), against +which the patriotism based on pride rises up in revolt. + +[24] ‘Love of country is a real love of oneself.’ (Saint-Evremond.) + +[25] The divinizing of realism, of which patriotism specially consists, +is expressed with all desirable candour in the ‘Addresses to the German +People’ (Eighth Address); Fichte attacks religion for its claim to +situate the superior life outside all interest in earthly matters: ‘It +is an abuse of religion to force it, as Christianity has so often done, +to extol complete indifference to the business of the State and the +nation as the true religious spirit. Men,’ he declares, ‘are determined +to find heaven on earth and to impregnate their earthly labours with +something durable.’ He then shows, with great warmth, that this desire +is the essence of patriotism, and it is evident that for him earthly +labours become divine by becoming durable. This, indeed, is the only +means men have discovered for divinizing their institutions. + +[26] It is necessary to recall that the United States did not enter the +last war ‘in defence of principles’, but with the very practical object +of safeguarding their prestige, which had been lowered by the facts +that the Germans had torpedoed three of their ships? Nevertheless, +their desire to pose as having been purely idealistic in this affair is +noteworthy. + +[27] It may be said that religious passions, at least in the West, only +exist as a reinforcement to national passions; in France, a man sets up +as a Catholic in order to pose as being ‘more French’; in Germany as a +Protestant in order to declare himself ‘more German’. + +[28] Here are two remarkable cases of idealistic passions which in the +past successfully opposed national passion and are now submissive to +it: (_a_) In France, the monarchic passion, which in 1792 was stronger +than national feeling in many people, whereas in 1914 it was completely +effaced by national feeling. (Everyone will agree that attachment to a +certain form of government, i.e. at bottom, the attachment to a certain +metaphysical conception, is an infinitely more idealistic passion than +nationalist passion; however, I do not claim that all the Emigrés were +inspired by this idealism.) (_b_) In Germany, the religious passion, +which only fifty years ago was stronger than national feeling in more +than fifty per cent of Germans, and to-day is entirely subject to +national feeling (in 1866 the German Catholics desired the defeat of +Germany; in 1914 they ardently desired it to be victorious). The Europe +of to-day, compared with the Europe of the past, seems to contain many +less chances of civil wars and many more chances of national wars; +nothing could show better how much Europe has lost in idealism. (See +Note D at the end of this book for additional matter on the attitude of +the modern Catholics towards Catholicism when it is in opposition to +their nationalism.) + +[29] For example, in words like the following, uttered at Venice on +the 11th December, 1926, by the Italian Minister of Education and +Fine Arts: ‘Artists must prepare themselves for the new imperialist +function which must be carried out by our art. Above everything, we +must categorically impose a principle of _Italianita_. Whoever copies +a foreigner is guilty of _lèse-nation_ (an insult to the nation) like +a spy who admits an enemy by a secret doorway.’ These words have to be +approved by every adept of ‘_integral_ nationalism’. Moreover, we hear +much the same thing in France from certain adversaries of Romanticism. + +[30] ‘Discipline from the lowest to the highest must be essential and +of a religious type.’ (Mussolini, 25th October, 1925.) This is new +language in the mouth of a statesman, even of the most realist kind; +it may be asserted that neither Richelieu nor Bismarck would have +applied the word ‘religious’ to an activity whose object is exclusively +materialistic. + +[31] Notably for Renan and ‘speculative a-moralism’. (H. Massis, +_Judgments_, i.) + +[32] See Note E at the end of this book for further information on this +prestige, and what is new about it in history. + +[33] In 1891 Barrès wrote to the editor of _La Plume_: ‘If these +books have any value, it is from the logic, the continuity of thought +I have put into them during five years.’ (‘These books’ included +his Boulangiste campaign.) And, in the preface to his collection of +articles entitled ‘Scènes et Documents du nationalisme’, he says: ‘I +think that if Doumic will examine it from a greater distance he will +find a development, and not contradictions, in my work.’ + +[34] I shall be told of ‘clerks’ who, apparently without degradation, +have at some time or other taken the part of a race or a nation, even +of their own race or nation. That is because they believed that the +cause of that race or nation coincided at that time with the cause of +abstract justice. + +[35] Similar occurrences may be observed among the ancients. For +instance, Cicero denounced his fellow-citizens for having destroyed +Corinth merely to avenge an insult to their ambassador (De off., I, xi). + +[36] Already in 1911, when a writer quoted this sentence: ‘It is +impossible to accept the situation that humanity should be bound +for indefinite centuries by the marriages, battles, treaties of the +narrow-minded, ignorant, egotistic creatures who during the middle +ages were at the head of affairs in this world,’ he felt it necessary +to add: ‘Fortunately these lines were written by Renan; one could not +write them to-day without being called an unpatriotic Frenchman.’ (G. +Guy-Grand, _La Philosophie Nationaliste_, p. 165.) Without being called +so _by the men of thought_--that is the curious part of it. + +[37] Quoted by Mgr. Chapon in his admirable study, ‘La France et +l’Allemagne devant la doctrine chrétienne.’ (_Correspondant_, of 15th +August, 1915.) + +[38] See his _Letters_, ii, p. 31. + +[39] Consider how willingly they now accept military service. See Note +F at the end of this book. + +[40] Here are the reasons given by a German Catholic for this attitude +among those of his religion: ‘(_a_) Their incomplete knowledge of the +facts and opinions in the belligerent and neutral countries; (_b_) +_Their patriotism, which could not be allowed to separate itself from +the union binding together the German people_; (_c_) The fear of a +second Kulturkampf, which would be doubly dangerous if the German +Catholics had even appeared to agree with the campaign carried on in +France against German methods of waging war.’ The second reason will +be noted, i.e. the desire to be at unity with the nation, whatever the +moral aspect of its cause. Here, at least, is one reason which Bossuet +did not allege when he screened the violences of Louis XIV. + +Let me recall that when, in 1914, the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg in +the Reichstag hinted at a sort of apology for the violation of Belgian +neutrality, he was sharply reproved by the Christian minister von +Harnack ‘for having tried to excuse what did not need excusing’. (See +A. Loisy, _Guerre et Religion_, p. 14.) + +[41] The clergy of the allied nations are eager to throw in the faces +of the German clergy their union with injustice in 1914. They abuse +their own good fortune in belonging to nations whose cause happened +to be just. When Italy, in 1923, at the time of the Corfu incident, +adopted towards Greece an attitude as unjust as that of Austria towards +Serbia in 1914, I am not aware that the Italian clergy expressed +indignation. Nor do I remember that in 1900, when a European army +intervened in Chinese affairs (the Boxer affair) and excesses were +committed by the soldiers, any strong protests were uttered by the +clergies of the respective nations. + +[42] A particularly remarkable attitude was that of the philosopher +Boutroux. You will find an admirable denunciation of it from the pen of +Charles Andler, _Les Origines du Pangermanisme_, p. viii. + +[43] This may be seen especially in the chorus of the Seven against +Thebes: ‘Gods of our City, let it not be destroyed with our houses and +our hearths.... O ye who have dwelt therein so long, will ye betray +this land?’ Six centuries later this may be seen in the ‘Aeneid’, where +the preservation of the Trojan City across the seas is plainly due +solely to the protection of Juno, and in no wise to any inward notion +of Trojan blood giving it an assurance of eternal duration. + +[44] Although the Germans appear to have been the inventors of the +passion I am denouncing, Lessing and Schlegel seem to have been the +first to brandish their poets as the expression of the national +soul, from a feeling of exasperation with the universalism of French +literature. The men of the French Pléiade (who will certainly be +brought up against me) wished to give their sensibility a national +mode of expression, a national language; they never claimed to give +a national character to that sensibility, to oppose it to other +national sensibilities. The systematic nationalization of the mind +is undoubtedly an invention of modern times. As regards the men of +learning, this nationalizing has undoubtedly been favoured by the +disappearance of Latin as the scientific language; and no one will ever +be able to say to what an extent this disappearance was an element of +arrest in civilisation. + +[45] In Nietzsche’s opinion, this was the case with Wagner, who, when +he gave himself out to his compatriots as the Messiah of German art, +saw that there was ‘a good vacant place to take’, while the whole +of his artistic formation as well as his profound philosophy, was +essentially universalist. (See _Ecce Homo_, p. 58. ‘What I have never +forgiven Wagner is his condescending to Germany.’) One wonders whether +the same might not be said of a certain apostle of ‘Lorrain genius’ or +of ‘Provençal genius’. + +[46] The nationalization of the mind sometimes has results whose savour +is not sufficiently enjoyed. In 1904, during the centenary celebrations +of Petrarch, the nations of Goethe and Shakespeare were not invited, +because they are not Latins; but the Roumanians were invited. We do not +know whether Uruguay was invited. + +[47] Anatole France, _La Vie Littéraire_, tome ii, p. 274. The +nationalist desires in French writers which I have been pointing out +have had other than political results; no one will ever be able to +say how many among them in the past fifty years have falsified their +talents, mistaken their true gifts in their endeavours to ‘feel in the +French manner’. A good example is the _Voyage de Sparte_, where so +many pages show what a beautiful piece of work it might have been if +the author had not _forced_ himself to feel his Lorrain soul under a +Greek sky. Here we come upon one of the most curious characteristics +in the writers of this age; the rejection of freedom of mind _for +themselves_, the thirst for ‘a discipline’ (the whole fortune of MM. +Maurras and Maritain comes from this), a thirst which in most of them +is the result of a fundamental intellectual nihilism. (On this nihilism +in Barrès, see Curtius, ‘Barrès and the intellectual foundations of +French nationalism,’ extracts in _Union pour la Vérité_, May, 1925; +in Maurras, see Guy-Grand, op. cit., p. 19; and L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans +d’Action Française_, p. 330: ‘I have never seen a more unhappy soul +than his.’) But the psychology of contemporary writers in itself and +apart from its political action is not my subject here. + +[48] I think it novel that a poet should give rise to a demonstration +so essentially practical as the address of the Naval League of Venice +to d’Annunzio after the publication of _La Nave_. ‘On the day when your +genius radiates with new splendour over the ancient ruler of “our sea”, +over Venice, to-day disarmed against Pola, the Naval League of Venice +thanks you with emotion, hoping that the third Italy may at last arm +the prow and set sail towards the world.’ (_Translator’s Note._--I have +rendered the French version as quoted; its meaning or lack of meaning +is no doubt inherent in the genius of the original, which I have not +before me.) + +[49] Compare with Balzac, who, though a Conservative, never hesitates +to show his Conservatives and particularly his Catholics in an +unfavourable light, if he thinks that the true light. See the examples +quoted by E. Seillière (_Balzac et la morale romantique_, pp. 27 +onwards, and 84 onwards), who sharply reproaches Balzac. + +[50] ‘_Resurrection_,’ ‘_Jean-Christophe_’ (derived in this respect +from the procedure of George Sand). On the other hand, I seem to find a +great deal of justice done the bourgeois in _Les Miserables_, which is +nevertheless a most ‘tendencious’ novel. + +[51] For instance, pre-war French novels showing the French in +Alsace-Lorraine. We may be quite certain that since 1918 the Germans +have written novels which are the exact counterpart to these. + +[52] See Note G at the end of this book. + +[53] See, for instance, Fustel de Coulanges’s study _De la manière +d’écrire l’histoire en France et en Allemagne_. It will be observed +that this author’s denunciation of the German historians exactly +applies to certain French historians of recent years, with this +difference: That the German alters history to exalt his nation and the +Frenchman to exalt a political system. In general it may be said that +the ‘tendencious’ philosophies of the Germans lead to national war, and +those of the French to civil war. Is it necessary to repeat, after so +many others, how much this proves the moral superiority of the latter? + +[54] _Revue Universelle_, 15th April, 1924. Here is that very curious +desire of the moderns to yield to subjectivism, whereas their elders +made every effort to combat it. + +[55] See Note H at the end of this book. + +[56] Yet the Jesuits thought of doing so to combat the Jansenists. (See +Racine, _Port-Royal_, pt. i.) + +[57] On the matter of the lack of literary sensibility which +accompanies this political criticism among its adepts, see a paragraph +of L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans d’Action Française_, p. 334. + +[58] The distinction between these two humanitarianisms is well +expressed by Goethe when he relates (Dichtung und Wahrheit) the +indifference of himself and his friends to the events of 1789. ‘In our +little circle, we took no notice of news and newspapers; our object +was to know Man; as for men, we left them to do as they chose.’ Need +I recall that the ‘humanities’, as instituted by the Jesuits in the +seventeenth century, the ‘studia humanitatis’, are ‘the study of what +is most essentially human’, in no sense altruistic exercises. See +further Note I at the end of this book for a curious quotation from one +of the ancients. + +[59] This the Church has understood so well, and the corollary to +this truth: That love between men can only be created by developing +in them the sensibility for abstract man, and by combatting in them +the interest for concrete man; by turning them towards metaphysical +meditation and away from the study of history (see Malebranche). This +is exactly the contrary direction to that of the modern ‘clerks’ but, +once again, these ‘clerks’ have not the slightest desire to create love +among men. + +[60] Thus they adopt the national spirit if it seems to serve their +interests; for instance, the party of ‘nationalist-socialists’. + +[61] Certain nationalists, desirous of honouring cosmopolitanism, +whose full value their intelligence perceives, and yet not wishing +to sacrifice nationalism, declare that cosmopolitanism represents +‘enlightened nationalism’. M. Paul Bourget, who gives this definition +(_Paris-Times_, June, 1924), quotes Goethe and Stendhal as examples, +‘the former of whom remained so profoundly German while striving +to understand the whole movement of French thought, and the +latter remained so profoundly French while he devoted himself to +understanding Italy.’ One wonders how these two masters showed the +least, even enlightened, ‘nationalism’ by remaining profoundly German +and profoundly French. Obviously M. Bourget confuses national and +nationalist. + +[62] Almost all works of national propaganda among the small nations +of Eastern Europe are anthologies of poetry. Very few are works of +thought. See the words uttered by E. Boutroux in August, 1915, to the +Committee of the Entente Cordiale, against the peoples who attach too +much importance to the intelligence, which ‘of itself tends to be one +and common to all beings capable of knowledge’. + +[63] _Les Nouvelles Littéraires_, 25th September, 1926. + +[64] Here is a specimen of the acrobatics which these teachers are +compelled to perform in order to conciliate Christian doctrine with +the preaching of national particularisms: ‘We wish to set the ideal of +universalism in positive relation to the contemporary reality of the +national form, which is that of all life, even the Christian life.’ +(Pastor Witte, quoted by A. Loisy, _Guerre et Religion_, p. 18.) Here +are minds for whom the squaring of the circle is obviously mere child’s +play. + +[65] Is it not suggestive to note that the Church in the last twenty +years has replaced the commandment ‘Homicide shalt thou not be, in fact +or by assent’ with ‘Homicide shalt thou not be, without right, nor +voluntarily’? + +[66] For example in this passage of Bossuet: ‘Since we are obliged to +love all men and since in truth no man is a foreigner to a Christian, +there is all the more reason for loving our fellow citizens. All the +love a man feels for himself, for his family, and for his friends is +united in the love he feels for his country....’ (_Politique tirée de +l’Ecriture Sainte_, I, vi. Notice the phrase ‘All the love a man feels +for himself....’ It wholly justifies Saint Evremond’s phrase: ‘Love +of country is really love of oneself.’) It appears that the Church +would prefer to go on presenting patriotism under this one aspect of +love (see the inquiry of ‘les Lettres’ on the Church and Nationalism, +1922-3), which would allow her to exalt this passion (as its +popularity requires) without violating the principles of Christianity. +Unfortunately for the Church, positive men come along and remind her +that patriotism is something more than love, and includes ‘hatred for +the foreigner’. (Maurras, _Dilemme de Marc Sangnier_.) Who will deliver +us from the truth-tellers? + +[67] A. Lugan, _La grande loi sociale de l’amour des hommes_, liv. ii, +chap. iii. + +[68] Père Ollivier, _Les Amitiés de Jesus_, p. 142. + +[69] _Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique_ (1919), in +the article headed ‘Patrie’. The reader will note the extraordinary +practical spirit of this article, and the desire to love only those who +have done something for us. + +[70] Loisy’s _Guerre et Religion_, p. 60. Nevertheless, a certain +number of practising clergy speak in the same way; see Guillot de +Givry, _Le Christ et la Patrie_, towards the end. + +[71] It is current knowledge that Italian Fascism and Russian +Bolshevism both derive from the author of _Reflections on Violence_. +He did, indeed, preach class egotism to some extent in a universal +manner, but without any explicit preference for the interest of one +class rather than that of another. In his preaching of egotism there +is a kind of impartiality which does not lack grandeur, a quality not +inherited by his disciples. + +[72] And even the teaching of Jesus Christ. R. Johannet says (op. cit., +p. 153), ‘I have tried to show what a vast amount of Christianity +is contained in the bourgeois type, when it is pure. To condemn the +bourgeois, because he is a bourgeois, in the name of Christ, seems to +me a somewhat daring paradox.’ But this author does not quote a single +text of the Gospels. He only quotes a few interpreters of Saint Thomas +Aquinas, whom he praises for their ‘extra-realist sense of affairs’, +and who apparently for him incarnate the thinking of Jesus Christ. This +work is one of the most perfect examples of the modern ‘clerk’s’ desire +to idealize the practical spirit. (On the subject of Christian doctrine +in the matter of property, see Father Thomassin, _Traité de l’aumône_.) + +[73] It might be said that in Christian theology the bourgeois state is +a _function_, and not a rank. + +[74] The essential position of the Church on this point (I say +essential; for, by close search, one can find texts supporting the +opposite thesis, but once more the curious thing is the fact that +this search should be made) seems to me defined in these lines: +‘Malebranche inclines, like Bossuet, to look upon social inequalities +and injustices as the results of sin, which must be endured as such, +and to which exterior conduct must conform.... We must not even attempt +to remedy these injustices except by charity, for we should simply +disturb the peace of the world, probably without any result. Only, _we +should not in our own souls attach any sort of importance to these +circumstances and conditions, for the true life is not there_’ (H. +Joly, _Malebranche_, p. 262). + +[75] On the relation between Durckheim’s theses and those of the French +traditionalists, see D. Parodi, _La Philosophie contemporaine en +France_, p. 148. + +[76] ‘Germany is the sole judge of her methods.’ (Major von Disfurth, +November, 1914.) The philosophy of national moralities seems +essentially German. Is it not very remarkable to see Hegel and Zeller +desiring at all costs to prove that Plato in his _Republic_ defined +a state of good which was only valid for the Greeks, and not for all +peoples? (See P. Janet, _Histoire des idées politiques_, tome 1, p. +140.) + +[77] Barrès wrote in 1898: ‘The professors are still arguing about +justice and truth, when every self-respecting man knows that he must +limit himself to inquiring if there is justice in the relations between +two given men, at a given time, under specified circumstances.’ That is +exactly what the Germany of 1914 said in answer to those who brought +accusations against her. Not a single moralist in France before +Barrès--not even de Maistre or Bonald--would have asserted that ‘every +self-respecting man’ can conceive of no justice but one specially +arranged for the circumstances. + +[78] _L’Appel au Soldat._ Compare this with the traditional French +teaching, of which Barrès claims to be the heir: ‘Whatever your country +may be, you should only believe what you would be disposed to believe +if you were in another country.’ (_Logique de Port-Royal_, iii, xx.) +It must not be thought that dogma of national truths aims only at +moral truth. Recently certain French thinkers waxed indignant that the +doctrines of Einstein were accepted by their compatriots without more +resistance. + +[79] The adoration of the contingent _for its own sake_; otherwise, +and as a step towards the eternal, the knowledge of ‘strange things’ +is highly recommended by Leibniz, and even by Spinoza. Renouvier, so +hostile to a certain kind of universalism, never bestows philosophical +value on a knowledge of what is ‘unique and inexpressible’ in the +object. (See G. Séailles, ‘Le Pluralisme de Renouvier,’ _Revue de +Métaphysique et de Morale_, 1925.) He would never have signed this +charter of modern metaphysics: ‘That the philosophers since Socrates +should have contended as to which should most scorn the knowledge of +the particular and should most adore knowledge of the general, is +something which passes understanding. For, after all, must not the most +honourable knowledge be the knowledge of the most valuable realities! +And is there a valuable reality which is not concrete and individual?’ +(William James.) + +[80] An important literary review recently reproached a critic +(M. Pierre Lasserre) for his supposed inaptitude to understand +‘contemporary literature’. + +[81] Curiously enough, these metaphysics of the historic may also be +found among the poets. We all know Claudel’s cult of ‘the present +minute’ (because it differs from all other minutes in that it is not +the extremity of the same quantity of the past); Rimbaud before this +said: ‘One must be absolutely modern.’ Moreover, for certain Christians +dogma is only valid _relative to a time_. There again particularism +seems to have been started by the Germans: ‘No exposition of morality +can be the same for all periods of the Christian Church; each possesses +full and complete value for a certain period only.’ (Scheiermacher.) On +the Germanism in this desire to see everything in its ‘becoming’, see +Parodi, _le Problème moral et la Pensée contemporaine_, p. 255. + +[82] These views on the modern cult of the particular do not seem to +me to be invalidated by the arrival of a recent school (Neo-Thomism) +which opposes the cult of Being to that of Becoming. According to the +leaders of this school, it is clear that, despite certain universalist +declarations, human Being really belongs only to them and their group, +although in this case the group is wider than the nation. One of them +would quite willingly say with a Christian of the second century: ‘We +are men; the rest are pigs and dogs.’ Nor do I think I need take into +account those particularisms which claim that by working for themselves +they are working for the universal, seeing that for them their own +group represents the universal. ‘I am Roman, I am human’ (Maurras). ‘I +am German, I am human’ (Fichte) and so on.... However, these claims +show the prestige of the universal in despite of doctrines. + +[83] See Note J at the end of this book. + +[84] On the cult of the ‘Prussian model’ even among the English +‘clerks’, see Elie Halévy, _Histoire du Peuple anglais_, Epilogue, +livre ii, ch. i. + +[85] Sorel, _Le procès de Socrate_. + +[86] This has been perfectly obvious to all those guardians of the +spiritual who have condemned it, whatever their motives may have been. +More precisely, Maurras’s work makes the passion of man to found the +State (or to strengthen it) an object of religious adoration; it +is really the worldly made transcendental. This displacing of the +transcendental is the secret of the great influence exerted by Maurras +on his contemporaries. These persons, especially in irreligious +France, were plainly eager for such a doctrine, if one may judge by +the outburst of gratitude with which they greeted it, and which seems +to say: ‘At last we are delivered from God; at last we are allowed to +adore ourselves in our will to be great, not in our will to be good; we +are shown the ideal in the real, on earth and not in heaven.’ In this +sense, Maurras’s work is the same as Nietzsche’s (‘be faithful to the +earth’), with this difference, that the German thinker deifies man in +his anarchic passions, and the Frenchman in his organising passions. +It is also the same as the work of Bergson and James, inasmuch as it +says like them: the real is the only ideal. This _secularizing of the +divine_ may be compared with the work of Luther. + +[87] Machiavellian morality is plainly proclaimed in the following +lines, where every open-minded person will recognize, except for the +tone, the teaching of _all_ the present teachers of realism, whatever +their nationality: ‘In his relations with other States, the Prince +should know neither law nor right, except the right of the strongest. +These relations place in his hands, under his responsibility, the +divine rights of the Destiny and government of the world, and raise +him above the precepts of individual morality into a higher moral +order, whose content is enshrined in the words: Salus populi suprema +lex esto.’ (Fichte, quoted by Andler, op. cit., p. 33.) The advance on +Machiavelli is obvious. + +[88] The teaching of this writer may be put in this form: ‘All that +is good from the point of view of politics is good; _and I know no +other criterion of good_.’ This enables him to say that he makes no +pronouncement in matters of private morality. + +[89] In Richelieu’s _Testament politique_ and the _Mémoires de Louis +XIV pour l’Instruction du Dauphin_, the catalogue of good and ill might +be signed by Saint Vincent de Paul. We read in them: ‘Kings should +take care in making treaties, but once the treaties are made, _they +must observe them religiously_. I know that many politicians teach the +contrary; but, without taking into consideration all that the Christian +Faith provides us with against these maxims, I maintain that since +the loss of honour is greater than the loss of life itself, a great +Prince should hazard his person and _even the interest of his State +rather than break his word_, which he cannot violate without losing his +reputation, and consequently _the greatest strength_ of a Sovereign.’ +(_Testament Politique_, part 2, ch. vi.) + +[90] Similarly with the writer--Machiavelli, who writes for his +peers, can allow himself the luxury of not being a moralist; Maurras +who writes for crowds cannot do so. No one writes with impunity in a +democracy. Moreover, a political activity which is supported by moral +activity proves that it understands the true conditions of its success. +A master in these matters says: ‘There can be no profound political +reform unless religion and morality are also reformed.’ (Hegel.) +Clearly the particular influence of the _Action Française_ among +all other conservative organs is due to the fact that its political +movement is supported by a moral teaching, although other interests +oblige it to deny this. + +[91] _Dictionnaire des Cas de Conscience_ (ed. 1712), article ‘Guerre’. +With such a morality the territorial formation of any European State +would become impossible. This is the type of non-practical teaching, +i.e. of what I mean by the true ‘clerk’. (See Note F at the end of +this book on the subject of the welcome given to this teaching by the +material world.) In the opinion of Vittoria as well, the extension of +empire is not a just cause. + +[92] This is the thesis of Alfonso Liguori which to-day prevails in the +Church’s teaching over that of Vittoria. + +[93] Cardinal Gousset (_Théologie morale_, 1845). + +[94] This is the Scholastic doctrine of war, formulated in all its +rigidity by Thomas Aquinas. According to this doctrine, the Prince +(or the people) who declares war, acts as a magistrate (minister Dei) +under whose jurisdiction a foreign nation falls, owing to an injustice +it has committed and which it refuses to repair. From this it follows, +in particular, that the Prince who has declared war ought solely +to punish the guilty, if he is victorious, and not to acquire any +personal benefit from his victory. This high moral doctrine is entirely +abandoned by the Church to-day. (See Vanderpol, _La Guerre devant le +Christianisme_, titre ix.) + +[95] Apparently this was the view adopted by the Holy See in 1914 +towards the Franco-German war, Germany benefiting by what theology +calls ‘invincible’ ignorance, i.e. implying that one has used all +the diligence of which a man is capable in trying to understand the +explanations of an adversary. Obviously, one may feel that some +goodwill was needed to think that Germany had a right to this benefit. + +[96] Like the thesis of war being just on both sides, this is the +doctrine of Molina, which in matters of law in war has entirely +replaced Scholastic doctrine in ecclesiastic teaching. + +[97] In the _Dictionnaire théologique_ of Vacant-Mangenot (1922, +article ‘Guerre’), I find the following passage, which I recommend to +all aggressors desirous of sheltering under a high moral authority: ‘It +is not only the right but the duty of the leader of a nation to adopt +this method (i.e. war) to safeguard the general interests committed to +his care. This right and duty apply not only to a strictly defensive +war, but also to an offensive war rendered necessary by the actions +of a neighbouring State whose ambitious intrigues constitute a real +danger.’ In the same article will be found a theory of colonial wars +identical to Kipling’s when he calls them: _the white man’s burden_. + +[98] This expression (i.e. ‘la blague’) is Sorel’s (see Julien Benda, +_Les Sentiments de Critias_, p. 258); and again (_Reflexions sur la +Violence_, ch. ii): ‘You cannot sufficiently execrate those who teach +the people that they should carry out some alleged superlatively +idealistic injunction of a justice moving towards the future.’ +Moreover, Sorel professes a similar hatred for those who preach this +injunction to the bourgeoisie. + +[99] See Note K at the end of the book. + +[100] See _Reflexions sur la Violence_, ch. vi: ‘The morality of +Violence.’ We shall be told that the justice denounced by Sorel is the +justice of tribunals, which according to him is a false justice, a +‘violence with a judicial mask’. There is no indication that a justice +which was a true justice would receive any more respect from him. + +[101] In this respect one cannot stress too much in certain political +teachers a defence of intolerance, carried out with a consciousness and +arrogance which hitherto had only appeared sometimes in the mandatories +of a revealed religion. A specimen is quoted by G. Guy-Grand (_La +Philosophie nationaliste_, p. 47). See also one of these defences in L. +Romier, _Nation et Civilisation_, p. 180. + +[102] ‘Modern science has established as the measure of truth, not the +deductive demands of its understanding, but the observed existence +of the fact.’ (Paul Bourget.) The ‘truth’ here is evidently moral +truth; for scientific truth the phrase would be a tautology. Once +more, here the ‘fact’ is solely the fact which happens to suit the +author’s passions. When M. d’Haussonville points out to M. Bourget that +democracy is a fact, and an unavoidable fact, he is told that this +belief is a ‘prejudice’ and one suddenly learns that ‘boats are made to +row against the stream’. This is exactly what revolutionaries say. + +[103] See Note L at the end of this book. + +[104] Another thinker to whom our empiricists are strangely ungrateful +is the author of these words: ‘Consider the danger of one stirring up +the enormous masses which form the French nation. Who could restrain +the disturbance set up, or foresee all the results it might produce? +Even if all the advantages of the new scheme should be indisputable, +what man of good sense would dare to undertake to abolish old customs, +to change old maxims, and to give a new form to a State other than that +it has reached after an existence of 1,300 years?’ (J. J. Rousseau.) + +[105] See Note M at the end of this book. + +[106] ‘A truly scientific mind,’ says one of these devotees of fact, +‘feels no need to justify a privilege which appears as an elementary +and irreducible datum of the social world.’ (Paul Bourget.) But this +same ‘truly scientific’ mind is scandalised at an _insurrection_ +against this privilege, which is also an ‘elementary and irreducible +datum of the social world’. I shall be told this that insurrection is +not a datum of the social world, but of the world of passion where it +is most anti-social. And that indeed is the position of this dogmatism: +It considers the social _independent of the passionate_, whether the +latter has been made social (by Catholic education), or has been +reduced to silence by force (school of Maurras) or by skill (school +of Bainville). The strangest part of it all is that those who argue +in this way about the social _in itself_ accuse their adversaries of +dealing in abstractions. + +[107] The position I am here denouncing has nothing in common with that +of a recent school of moralists (Rauh, Lévy-Bruhl) who also desire ‘to +take man as he is’, but in order to discover how he may be made better. + +[108] This pessimism, whatever some of its heralds may say, has nothing +in common with the pessimism of the masters of the seventeenth century. +La Fontaine and La Bruyère attribute nothing inevitable or eternal to +the ills they portray. Let me also point out that in their efforts +to discourage hope, the Romantics of Pessimism cannot claim (as M. +Georges Goyau has pointed out to them) that they are based on Catholic +tradition. + +[109] Such a group logically comes to declarations like the following, +which every supporter of ‘integral nationalism’ is bound to admire: +‘From to-night onwards let there be an end to the silly Utopia where +everyone thinks with his own head.’ (Impero, 4th November, 1926.) See +Note N at the end of this volume. + +[110] On Pragmatism, especially Nietzschean pragmatism, and the place +it holds (whether they confess it or not) in almost all the moral +and political teachings really characteristic of this time, see R. +Berthelot, _Un Romantisme Utilitaire_, tome i, page 28 onwards. I can +best show the novelty of the pragmatist attitude, especially among the +French moralists, by quoting a remark of Montaigne which they all, +before Barrès, would have ratified: ‘The honour and beauty of an action +cannot be argued from its utility.’ Let us not forget, however, that +Nietzsche, always unfaithful to his disciples, declares that ‘in the +long run, utility, like everything else, is simply a figment of our +imagination, and may well be the _fatal stupidity by which we shall one +day perish_’. + +[111] That it why Pragmatism is also called Humanism. (See F. Schiller, +_Protagoras or Plato_.) + +[112] We know how the two are reconciled. Jesus, they say, preached +the spirit of sacrifice, which is the basis of all human institutions. +As if Jesus preached the spirit of sacrifice which wins battles and +secures empires! + +[113] ‘The true warrior remains human in the midst of the blood he +sheds.’ (De Maistre.) + +[114] For example, when they make a soldier say in heaven: ‘You must +know, my friends, that among all things done upon earth, nothing +is more agreeable to the eyes of those who rule the universe than +societies of men founded upon respect for laws, which we call cities.’ +(Cicero, _Scipio’s Dream_.) + +[115] Sorel, loc. cit. + +[116] And from any patriotism. Nietzsche and Sorel prove that love of +war is something totally distinct from love of country, although most +often they coincide. + +[117] Ernest Psichari, _Terres de Soleil et de Sommeil_. And, in +_L’Appel des armes_, through the mouth of a character who obviously has +all the author’s sympathies; ‘I think it necessary that there should be +in the world a certain number of the men who are called soldiers and +who place their ideal in fighting, who have a taste for battle, not for +victory but for the contest, as hunters have a taste for hunting, not +for game!... The part we have to play, or otherwise we lose our reason +for existing and have no more meaning, is to maintain a military ideal, +not a nationally military ideal, but a militarily military ideal, if +I may so express it.’ The religion of this moralist is, according +to his own expression, _integral militarism_. ‘Big guns,’ he says, +‘are the most real realities which exist, the sole realities of the +modern world.’ And obviously these realities are divinities for this +‘spiritual’ person and his followers. + +[118] This depreciation of Greece, to be seen in many French +traditionalists since de Maistre, is constant among the Pangermanists. +(See notably Houston Chamberlain, _Genesis of the Nineteenth Century_, +tome i, page 57.) In a periodical with dogmatic claims (_Notre Temps_, +August, 1927), under the suggestive title ‘Towards a Practical +Idealism’, I read: ‘A young generation trained in this way, _more +sporting than ideological_, supports those who ask whether we are +not at the dawn of a great age.’ Here again the Churchmen do not +lag behind. In _La Vie Catholique_ (24th September, 1927) I find a +warm eulogy of a champion boxer. It is true that this eulogy ends up +with the words: ‘Finally, let us add that Tunney is a convinced and +practising Catholic, and that two of his sisters are nuns.’ + +[119] Laws, Book I. The exact text of Plato is: ‘In the order of +virtues, wisdom is first, temperance comes next, courage occupies the +last place.’ Plato here means by courage (see the context, notably the +passage about those soldiers who ‘though insolent, unjust, immoral, +know how to fight’) Man’s aptitude for facing death. It seems that he +would not have given the first place to the courage which is strength +of mind, a resistance to misfortune, as the Stoics afterwards did. +With him strength of mind always comes after justice--according to his +doctrine, it is a consequence of justice. Moreover, the courage placed +in the supreme rank by Barrès is not Stoic patience but the active +defiance of death. For Nietzsche and Sorel it is essential audacity, +where audacity is irrational--a form of courage depreciated by all +ancient moralists and their disciples. (See Plato, Laches; Aristotle, +Ethics, VIII; Spinoza, Ethics, IV, 69; even the poets--‘Our reason +which commands our fire,’ Ronsard.) + +It seems that facing death, even on behalf of justice, was not so much +the object of praise among the ancient philosophers as it is among the +moderns. In the Phaedo, Socrates is praised for his justice; he is not +very loudly praised because he died for justice. Moreover, the views +of the ancients on this point seem to me well expressed by Spinoza: +‘Death is a thing of which the free man thinks least of all,’ a thought +which does not imply much admiration for those who face death bravely. +One wonders whether the veneration of courage, at least among the +moralists, has not been created by Christianity, with the importance it +attaches to death, and the subsequent appearance before God. + +I cannot leave this point without recalling a passage where Saint-Simon +speaks of a nobility ‘accustomed to be good for nothing except to get +itself killed’, _Mémoires_, t. xi, page 427, ed. Cheruel. It may be +asserted that there is not one modern writer, even a Duke of France, +who would speak of courage in such a tone. + +[120] And to hold. + +[121] There will be found in Barrès (_Une Enquête aux pays du Levant_, +chap. vii: ‘Les derniers fidèles du Vieux de la Montagne’) a striking +example of admiration for the cult of honour inasmuch as this cult, +when ably exploited by an intelligent leader, gives practical results. + +[122] This is especially the case with Montaigne who, as everyone +knows, extols honour insofar as it is man’s sensitiveness to the +judgment of his conscience, but very little insofar as it is a desire +for glory--‘put off with other pleasures that which comes from the +approbation of others.’ Barrès believes he sees in that ‘a foreigner +who does not share our prejudices’. Barrès confuses the moralists and +the poets. Before him I do not know one French author with dogmatic +claims who has attributed a high moral value to the love of glory; the +French moralists before 1890 are very unmilitary, even the soldiers +like Vauvenargues and Vigny. (See the excellent study of G. Le Bidois, +_L’Honneur au miroir de nos lettres_, especially on Montesquieu.) + +[123] The Abbé Sertillanges, _L’Héroisme et la Gloire_. Compare this +with Bossuet’s two sermons on ‘The Honour of the World’. You can +measure the advance made by the Church during three centuries in its +concessions to lay passions. See also Nicole: ‘On the true idea of +valour.’ The sermons of the Abbé Sertillanges (‘la Vie Héroïque’) +should be read entire, as a monument of a Churchman’s enthusiasm for +warlike instincts. It is positively the manifesto of a helmed ‘clerk’. +You can find in them such emotions as the following which, mutatis +mutandis, might be an extract from the Regimental Orders of a Colonel +of the Death’s Head Hussars: ‘Behold Guynemer, the young hero, the +simple soul with the eagle glance, the slim Hercules, the Achilles who +does not retire to his tent, the Roland of the clouds and the Cid of +the French sky: was there ever a wilder and more furious paladin, more +careless of death, whether his own or that of an enemy? This “kid”, as +his comrades called him, only enjoyed the savage pleasure of attack, of +the hard fight, of the clear victory, and in him the arrogance of the +conqueror was at once charming and terrible.’ + +[124] Let me recall Thomas Aquinas’s definition of honour, which is not +exactly the definition of the honour extolled by the Abbé Sertillanges: +‘Honour is good (like the love of human glory) on condition that +charity is its principle, and the love of God or the good of one’s +neighbour as its object.’ + +[125] See the recent Bill to amend Martial Law, known as the Paul +Boncour Bill. + +[126] This suggestive remark is Lavisse’s, _Etudes d’Histoire de +Prusse_, page 30. See the whole passage. + +[127] Love here is obviously love for the superior species--to which +the preacher naturally belongs. Doubtless it is this love also which +permits of a pity which is not ‘perverted.’ + +[128] Charles Maurras, _Action Française_, tome iv, page 596. One +thinks of Nietzsche’s exclamation: ‘Humanity! Was there ever a more +horrible old woman among all horrible old women!’ and the German master +adds, always in agreement with many a French master as we shall see +later, ‘unless perhaps it is truth.’ + +[129] Their harshness has obviously nothing in common with the +harshness implied by these fine words: ‘The man of justice subordinates +passion to reason, which seems regrettable if his heart is cold, but +will appear sublime if he is capable of love’ (Renouvier). + +[130] This is the opinion of Machiavelli (chap. xviii) who, there +again, does not therefore consider cruelty as a proof of a high state +of culture. + +[131] I find this from the pen of a hero of the First Empire: ‘I was +afraid of feeling _pleasure_’ (the author himself underlines the word) +‘in killing with my own hand some of these scoundrels’ (he is speaking +of some Germans who murdered French prisoners after the battle of +Leipzic). ‘I therefore sheathed my sabre and left the extermination +of these assassins to the troopers.’ (_Memoirs of General Marbot_, +tome iii, page 344.) There is a condemnation of the joy of killing +which would be scorned by many a contemporary writer. In France the +glorification of warlike instincts is much less common among the +soldiers than among the authors. Marbot is far less bloody-minded than +Barrès. + +[132] ‘And the honour of virtue consists in contending, not in winning’ +(Montaigne). + +[133] _La Ruine du monde antique_, page 76. See also in _Les Illusions +du progrès_ (page 259) Sorel’s derisive amusement at a thinker who +said that the preponderance of intellectual emotions is the sign of +superior societies. We may take up Sainte-Beuve’s famous distinction +and say that modern thinkers extol _sword-intelligence_ at the expense +of _mirror-intelligence_. On their own showing it is the former they +admire in Nietzsche, Sorel, Péguy, and Maurras. (See R. Gillouin, +_Esquisses littéraires et morales_, page 52.) Let me observe that +contempt for ‘mirror-intelligence’ implies contempt for Aristotle, +Spinoza, Bacon, Goethe, and Renan. Nor does it seem to me that M. Paul +Valéry is exactly a ‘sword-intelligence’. + +[134] _Victor Marie, Comte Hugo_, towards the end. See Note O at the +end of this volume. + +[135] This it the only reason why Nietzsche extols art, and declares +(along with all modern moralism) the supremacy of the artist over the +philosopher, because art seems to him to possess the value of action. +Apart from this point of view, it seems just to say with one of his +critics: ‘At bottom Nietzsche despised art and artists.... In art he +condemns a feminine principle, the mimicry of the actor, the love of +dress and all that glitters.... Remember the eloquent page where he +praises Shakespeare, the greatest of poets, for having abased the +figure of the poet, whom he treats as a stage-player, before Caesar, +_that divine man_.’ (C. Schuwer, _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, +April, 1926.) For Sorel art is great because it is an anticipation of +intense production, as it tends to manifest itself more and more in our +society. + +[136] _Evolution Créatrice_, page 216. The true formula of Bergsonism +should be, ‘I grow, therefore I am.’ Notice also the tendency of modern +philosophy to make the practical character of thought its essential +characteristic and to make its consciousness of itself a secondary +characteristic: ‘Perhaps thought must be defined as the faculty of +combining means towards certain ends rather than by the sole property +of being clear to itself.’ (D. Roustan, _Leçons de Psychologie_, page +73.) + +[137] The Sphex. The example is given in _L’Evolution Créatrice_, and +has had an immense success in the literary world. (It is, moreover, +imaginary. See Marie Goldsmith, _Psychologie Comparée_, page 211.) The +defence of the practical value of instinct, with the same Romantic +contempt of the rationalist as in Barrès, existed with J. J. Rousseau: +‘Conscience never deceives us; it is to the soul what instinct is +to the body.... Modern philosophy, which only admits what can be +explained, takes care not to admit the obscure faculty called instinct +which, without acquired knowledge, seems to guide animals towards some +end.’ (_Confession de foi du vicaire savoyard._) + +[138] ‘If the utility which results from a man’s occupations determined +our praise, the inventor of the plough would deserve the praise of +being a great mind far more than Aristotle, Galilei, and M. Descartes.’ +(Bayle.) Fontenelle and Voltaire have pointed out the utility of +certain studies which were considered useless; they never meant that +those who cultivated these studies while they thought them useless were +therefore contemptible. + +[139] See above, page 54. + +[140] Or moral. Barrès denounces the ‘immorality’ of the scholar who +shows the part played by chance in history. Compare Michelet’s remark, +‘respect kills history.’ + +[141] As is well known, this is the argument of the ‘Avenir +de l’intelligence’. It allows followers to say (‘Manifeste de +l’Intelligence,’ _Figaro_, 19th July, 1919; on this manifesto, see Note +P at the end of this volume) that ‘one of the most obvious missions +of the Church during the ages has been to protect the intelligence +against its own errors’--an irrefutable saying from the moment that the +errors of the intelligence are everything it says without reference to +social order (whose basis is to be the teaching of the Church). This +practical conception of the intelligence leads to definitions of this +sort: ‘True logic is to be defined as the normal union of feelings, +images and signs, to inspire in us the conceptions suited to our moral, +intellectual and physical needs.’ (Maurras.) Compare this with the +tradition teaching of the French masters: ‘Logic is the art of guiding +reason properly in the knowledge of things.’ (_Logique de Port-Royal._) + +The wish to esteem intelligence according to its practical results +appears again in this astounding formula: ‘A critical mind is of value +_through the influence it exerts_ by means of the enlightenment it +bestows.’ (Maurras.) See also how severe is M. Massis (_Jugements_, i, +87) for Renan when he says: ‘The useful is what I abhor.’ Elsewhere +(_Jugements_, 107) the same thinker speaks of a spiritual freedom +‘whose disinterestedness is merely a refusal of the conditions of life, +of action, _and of thought_!’ + +[142] They add ‘and unscientific’, which is irrefutable as soon as +science means ‘practical’. ‘Bringing up children religiously,’ says M. +Paul Bourget, ‘is bringing them up scientifically’--a very defensible +saying as soon as ‘scientifically’ means (as the author here wants it +to mean) ‘in conformity with the national interest’. + +[143] The French traditionalists condemn the truth in itself in the +name of ‘social’ truth. This is the _glorification of prejudices_, +a new thing indeed in the descendants of Montaigne and Voltaire. It +may be said that certain contemporary French masters show a zeal in +defending the interests of society never seen before in those whose +business was to defend the interests of the mind. + +The condemnation of disinterested intellectual activity is plainly +laid down in this command of Barrès: ‘All questions must be solved in +relation to France,’ to which a German thinker replies in 1920, ‘All +the conquests of ancient and modern culture and of science are looked +at by us from the German point of view before everything.’ (Quoted by +C. Chabot, Preface to the French translation of _Speeches to the German +Nation_, page xix). For the cult of the ‘useful error’, see an amazing +page in the _Jardin de Bérénice_, quoted and commented on by Parodi. +(_Traditionalisme et Democratie_, page 136.) + +[144] Here M. Maurras separates from his Master, de Maistre, who speaks +of ‘the ocean which will one day welcome everything and everyone to +its bosom’. However, the author of the _Soirées de Saint-Petersbourg_ +quickly adds: ‘But I refrain from touching on personality, without +which immortality is nothing.’ + +[145] On the existence of this doctrine of immanence among almost all +Christian teachers until our own times, see Renouvier: ‘l’Idée de Dieu’ +(_Année Philosophique_, 1897), and also _Essai d’une Classification des +doctrines_, 3: _l’évolution_; _la création_. + +[146] According to Hegel, God constantly grows at the expense of His +opposite; His activity is essentially that of war and victory. + +[147] Let me note a keen protest against this conception in +‘Neo-Thomism’. + +[148] Compare, for instance, the condemnation of Rosmini with that of +Maître Eckart, where such propositions as ‘Nulla in Deo distinctio +esse aut intelligi potest’ and ‘Omnes creaturae sunt purum nihil’ +are declared to be, not heretical, but only ‘ill-sounding, rash and +suspected of heresy’. + +[149] Remember that in 1806, immediately after Jena, Hegel’s one +thought was to find a corner in which to philosophize. In 1813 +Schopenhauer was completely indifferent to the up-rising of Germany +against Napoleon. + +[150] ‘No one has the right to be indifferent to the disasters of his +country; but the philosopher, like the Christian, always has reasons +for living. The Kingdom of God knows neither conquerors nor conquered; +that Kingdom resides in the joys of the heart, the mind, and the +imagination, which the conquered enjoys more than the conqueror if he +is morally on a higher plane and has more mind. Your great Goethe, your +admirable Fichte have taught us, have they not, how to lead a noble and +consequently happy life, when our country is humiliated abroad.’ (First +Letter to Strauss.) + +Need I say that Nietzsche, who seems to me a bad ‘clerk’ from the +nature of his teaching, seems to me one of the finest from his entire +devotion to the passions of the spirit alone? + +[151] Of course, I am not doubting the sincerity of all the +‘right-thinking’ men of letters. Some persons are so fortunate that +the most profitable attitudes are precisely those which they adopt +sincerely. + +[152] This may be clearly seen by the ill-will displayed by the French +bourgeoisie towards the order of their ‘spiritual leader’ forbidding +them to read a publication whose doctrines they like. The change may be +estimated if you remember that when, a century ago, the Pope ordered +the French Catholics to accept the law against the Jesuits voted by the +government of Charles X, they all bowed to his will. + +[153] At the end of the War of the Spanish Succession when the north of +France was invaded, Fénelon delivered several sermons in which he told +the invaded population that their sufferings were the just punishment +for their sins. Imagine the reception of anyone who dared to preach +such a sermon to the French in August, 1914! For the manner in which +the ‘taught’ Church to-day treats the ‘teaching’ Church if the latter +does not say what it wants to hear, think of the reception thirty years +ago of Father Ollivier’s sermon on the victims of the fire at the +charity bazaar. + +[154] Similar observations may be made about the philosophers, most of +whom--and not the least famous--do not live to-day like Descartes and +Spinoza, but are married, have children, occupy posts, are ‘in daily +life’. All of which seems to me to have a relation with the ‘pragmatic’ +character of their teaching. (On this point, see my book: _Sur le +Succès du Bergsonisme_, page 207.) + +[155] This is the reign (which seems eternal in France) of the ‘wit’, +with his attribute so admirably denounced by Malebranche in this +delicious phrase: ‘The stupid person and the wit are equally blind to +truth; with this difference, that the stupid person respects truth +while the wit despises it.’ + +[156] The spectacle of democracies may satisfy another sort of artistic +sensibility, i.e. the sort which is moved, not by the spectacle of +order, but by the spectacle of an equilibrium between forces which +are naturally in opposition. (On this distinction, see the great book +by M. Hauriou, _Principes de droit public_, chap. i.) Nevertheless, +a sensibility to equilibrium is far more intellectual than truly +artistic. See Note Q at the end of this book. + +[157] More precisely, since the haughty Romanticism I mentioned above. +The artist’s desire to set himself up as an exceptional being dates +from Flaubert. Hugo and Lamartine never expressed it. + +[158] This aversion is particularly strong in Nietzsche. (See _Le +Gai sçavoir_, loc. cit., where generalization becomes a synonym for +platitude, superficiality, stupidity.) Like a true artist, Nietzsche +is incapable of understanding that the apperception of a common +characteristic may be an act of genius--for instance, the apperception +of the common characteristic between the movement of the planets and +the fall of an apple. + +[159] So much so that the true champions of ‘sacred egoism’ definitely +condemn them. Bismarck, Wilhelm II, Naumann, Houston Chamberlain, all +argue against classical teaching. + +[160] Remember that Nietzsche only truly esteems the thought of the +ancients up to Socrates, i.e. up to the time when it begins to teach +the universal. + +[161] This same Barrès is quoted as having said to a ‘Dreyfusist’ in +1898: ‘Why do you talk of justice and humanity to me! What do I care +for? A few pictures in Europe and a few cemeteries!’ Another of our +great political realists confessed one day to his fundamental necessity +to ‘enjoy’. Socrates long ago told Protagoras that the basis of his +doctrine was a thirst for sensation. + +[162] It seems to me difficult to deny that pacifism, humanitarianism, +and altruism are _boring_. No doubt, art, science, and philosophy offer +sufficient opportunities for ‘amusement’ without one asking of it +doctrines which set the world on fire. But that is the view of a man +who is not wildly eager for sensation. + +[163] The realists are not the only people to-day who find +opportunities for sensation in their political attitudes. It is certain +that the humanitarianism of Victor Hugo and Michelet is far from having +the pure intellectual resonance it had in Spinoza and Malebranche. (See +above, my distinction between humanitarianism and humanism.) + +[164] ‘Peace it not the absence of war, but a virtue born from strength +of soul.’ (Spinoza.) + +[165] Here is an example: ‘Universal peace will come about one day, not +because men will become better (one cannot hope for that) but because +a new order of things, new science, new economic needs, will impose a +state of peace on them, just as the very conditions of their existence +formerly placed and maintained them in a state of war.’ (Anatole +France, _Sur la Pierre blanche_.) Note the refusal, mentioned above, to +believe in any possible betterment of the human soul. + +[166] This observation applied to nearly all anti-militarist literature +up to our own times. We have to come to Renan and Renouvier (at least +among writers not of the Church) to find authors who speak of war and +national passions with the seriousness and respect due to such dramas. + +[167] I am not to say whether the claims of France after her victory +might have been _impolitic_, for the thinkers I am discussing here +only speak of what they consider their _immorality_. Notice that the +pacifism of the Church, at least among the great teachers, is not +at all inspired by sentimental considerations, but by pure moral +education. ‘What do we condemn in war?’ says Saint Augustin. ‘Is it +the fact that they kill men who have all one day to die? Only cowards, +not religious men, would bring this accusation against war. What we +condemn in war is the desire to do harm, an implacable soul, the fury +of reprisals, the passion for dominion.’ (This is taken up by Thomas +Aquinas in the _Summum_, 2, 2, xl, art. 1.) + +[168] I consider that ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ may be said by +all whose activity is not directed to practical ends: the artist, the +metaphysician, the scientist _insofar as he finds satisfaction in the +practice of science and not in its results_. Many will tell me that +they and not the Christians are the true ‘clerks’, for the Christian +accepts the ideas of justice and charity only for the sake of his +salvation. No one will deny, however, that men, even Christians, exist, +who accept this idea with no practical end in view. + +[169] Malebranche, _Méditations chrétiennes_ (ix, 19). + +[170] See Babeau, _Le village sous l’ancien régime_, iv, iii; L. +Gregoire, _La Ligue en Bretagne_, chap, vi; Roupnel, _La Ville et +la Campagne au xvii siècle_, i, 1. ‘The peasants,’ says M. Roumier, +‘were only really converted where it was to their interests to be +so, and especially where the local landlords put their influence at +the service of the new religion, and where the Catholic clergy had +completely deserted the parishes. We must be careful not to consider as +Protestants all the “rustics” who took part in pillaging the abbeys and +castles during the civil war’ (_La Royaume de Catherine de Médicis_, +tome ii, page 294). M. Romier quotes the remark of a contemporary: ‘The +whole of the Low Countries scarcely knows what this new doctrine is.’ + +[171] ‘Le livre de raison de M. Nicolas Versoris’ (_Mémoires de la +Société de l’Histoire de Paris_, tome xii). The author, avocat au +Parlement de Paris, similarly gives two lines to events like the +Connétable de Bourbon’s treachery, and the signing of the treaty of +Madrid. The same attitude exists in the _Journal d’un Bourgeois de +Paris_, 1515-1536; the public misfortunes sketched by the author leave +him completely indifferent. He makes no comment on the disaster of +Pavia. Apropos the treaty of Madrid, ‘it is to be noted,’ writes a +contemporary, ‘that there were no bonfires or rejoicings when the news +of the peace was published, because no one understood anything about +it.’ (Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, v, 49.) Contemporaries mention the +indifference of the people of Paris to the Peace of Westphalia, the +battle of Rossbach, even the battles of Valmy and Navarino. ‘The affair +at Valmy made very little stir at first.’ (Kellerman.) + +[172] Michelet relates that in his youth he questioned an old man on +the impressions left upon him by 1793, and the only answer he got was: +‘It was the bad paper year.’ + +[173] Admire the profundity of Machiavelli, when he advises his Prince: +‘Above everything, avoid taking your subjects’ property; _for men will +more easily forget the deaths of their fathers than the loss of their +patrimony_.’ + +[174] Inserted in the collection of studies entitled ‘L’Allemagne et +les Alliés devant la conscience chrétienne’. (Bloud et Gay, 1915.) + +[175] M. Edmond Bloud quotes this remark of a German nationalist, +which might have been made on the French side of the Rhine: ‘The +Catholic world must be nationalized to re-Catholicize it.’ He adds +that in Germany it is common to hear ‘German Catholicism’ spoken of in +opposition to Roman Catholicism. + +[176] And therefore it requires much more courage to do so now than in +the past. + +[177] Nevertheless, Zola, Romain Rolland, and Einstein have drunk the +hemlock. + +[178] When they allow themselves to be told, as Louis XVI was told by +Turgot: ‘Sire, your kingdom _is of this world_.’ There also exists ‘_a +betrayal of the laymen_’. + +[179] Mgr Battifol’s writings support my argument so beautifully that I +hesitate to quote an author who plays so perfectly into my hands. For +example, he spends much time in proving that the spirit of Christianity +‘has resulted, without contradicting itself, in a doctrine of the +morality of war’. + +[180] Here is a passage which, except for its violence, seems to me +to express the feelings of most modern laymen on the subject of the +patriotic loyalty of the priests: ‘The clergy of France is ardently +patriotic; it serves gallantly under fire; it absolves and glorifies +every action of the soldier; it regards the accusation of having +deserted military duty as infamous, and does it justice. It is not +for me to say whether it is in accord with the Gospels. We are simply +Frenchmen and patriots; we can only approve and admire the French +patriotic monks and priests. The French priest has no pardon for a +German, the German priest and pastor have no pardon for a Frenchman. +Mother-country first! Kill! Kill! In the name of the God of the +Christians, we absolve you, we glorify you for killing Christians!’ +(Urbain Gohier, ‘La Vieille France,’ quoted by Grillot de Givry, _Le +Christ et la Patrie_, page 12.) + +[181] This clearly shows in what sense Renouvier is an ‘individualist’. + +[182] See his hymn to the mathematician Franz Woepfke. + +[183] Jules Lemaître was explicitly this adversary. + +[184] ‘For an empirical France,’ say Barrès and Bourget. + +[185] ‘Note sur M. Bergson et la philosophie bergsonienne,’ Cahiers de +la Quinzaine. See my book, _Sur le Succès du Bergsonisme_, page 158. + +[186] The same thing is to be found in Lamartine when he says of Byron: +‘There is more true, imperishable poetry in the tent at Missolonghi +where he lies prostrate with fever, under arms, than in all his works.’ +(_Commentaire de la 2e Meditation._) This is precisely the teaching +adopted by Barrès, Suarès, Péguy (the last preached it by his example, +however), which comes down to saying: ‘There is more poetry in a heroic +death than in all the activities of the mind.’ Note that this position +is by no means common to all the Romantics. Hugo, Vigny, Michelet, felt +all the poetry of action, but they never appear to think it superior to +the poetry of the lofty forms of intellectual life. Hugo never thought +of sacrificing Homer or Galilei to Napoleon, or even to Hoche--to take +a disinterested hero such as Lamartine praises in Byron. + +[187] Note that Ronsard is the very type of the man ‘bent over books’. + +[188] ‘Germany is the protector and the support of European +civilization’ (Lamprecht.) ‘After the war Germany will again take up +her historic task, which is to be the heart of Europe and to prepare +European humanity.’ (Wilhelm II, _Temps_, 14th September, 1915.) + +[189] See Robert Dreyfus, _Souvenirs sur Marcel Proust_, page 336. + + + + +_Transcriber’s Notes_ + + +This transcription is based on the English edition of Aldington’s +translation. Some corrections have been applied in consultation with +both the French original (‘La trahison des clercs’, B. Grasset, 1927) +and the American edition of the same translation (‘The treason of the +intellectuals’, William Morrow & Company, 1928). Here are the main +revisions. + + • A text comparison with the American edition incorporated these + changes from that edition: + • page 28, footnote 28: ‘more idealistic passion than national[+ist] + passion’; + • page 44: ‘One wonders whether [+there is] a single modern + thinker’ (grammatically necessary); + • the fourth section, ‘Summary--Predictions’, is now correctly + numbered ‘IV’, not a duplicated ‘III’; + • The following changes were made with reference to the original + French: + • numerous instances of unbalanced quotation marks have been fixed; + • page 117: removed an unclosed parenthesis beginning ‘(those of’ + in favor of parallel phrases with semi-colons, as in the original + French; + • page 173: added balanced em-dashes after ‘Apart from Erasmus’ as + in the original, to clarify sentence structure; + • page 176: ‘the chaos of the provincial assembles → assemblies’ + (original: ‘le chaos des assemblées provinciales’); + • page 181, note 179: ‘with contradicting → without contradicting’ + (‘a abouti sans se déjuger à une doctrine de la moralité de la + guerre’); + • A simple table of contents has been added. + • The book cover image accompanying some versions of this text is + original and placed in the public domain. +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78218 *** |