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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24492-0.txt b/24492-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd83013 --- /dev/null +++ b/24492-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2872 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), by John Morley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) + Essay 3: Condorcet + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: February 2, 2008 [EBook #24492] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, René Anderson Benitz and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +Note: + +Transliterations of Greek words/phrases in the text are surrounded by +braces, e.g., {transliteration}. + + + + +CRITICAL MISCELLANIES + + +BY + +JOHN MORLEY + + +VOL. II. + +Essay 3: Condorcet + + + + +London +MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited +New York: The MacMillan Company +1905 + + + + + + +CONDORCET. + + + + +Condorcet's peculiar position and characteristics 163 + +Birth, instruction, and early sensibility 166 + +Friendship with Voltaire and with Turgot 170, 171 + +Compared with these two great men 172 + +Currents of French opinion and circumstance in 1774 177 + +Condorcet's principles drawn from two sources 180 + +His view of the two English Revolutions 181 + +His life up to the convocation of the States-General 183 + +Energetic interest in the elections 189 + +Want of prevision 191 + +His participation in political activity down to the + end of 1792 193 + +Chosen one of the secretaries of the Legislative Assembly 198 + +Elected to the Convention 200 + +Resistance to the Jacobins, proscription, and death 201 + +Condorcet's tenacious interest in human welfare 210 + +Two currents of thought in France at the middle of + the eighteenth century 215 + +Quesnay and the Physiocrats 216 + +Montesquieu 219 + +Turgot completed Montesquieu's historical conception 222 + +Kant's idea of a Universal or Cosmo-Political History 226 + +Condorcet fuses the conceptions of the two previous + sets of thinkers 229 + +Account of his _Tableau des Progrès_ 230 + +Omits to consider history of moral improvement 233 + +And misinterprets the religious element 234 + +His view of Mahometanism 238 + +Of Protestantism 240 + +And of philosophic propagandism 241 + +Various acute remarks in his sketch 243 + +His boundless hopes for the future 244 + +Three directions which our anticipations may take:-- + (1) International equality 246 + (2) Internal equality 247 + (3) Substantial perfecting of nature and society 248 + +Natural view of the formation of character 252 + +Central idea of all his aspirations 253 + + + + +CONDORCET. + + +Of the illustrious thinkers and writers who for two generations had been +actively scattering the seed of revolution in France, only Condorcet +survived to behold the first bitter ingathering of the harvest. Those +who had sown the wind were no more; he only was left to see the reaping +of the whirlwind, and to be swiftly and cruelly swept away by it. +Voltaire and Diderot, Rousseau and Helvétius, had vanished, but +Condorcet both assisted at the Encyclopædia and sat in the Convention; +the one eminent man of those who had tended the tree, who also came in +due season to partake of its fruit; at once a precursor, and a sharer in +the fulfilment. In neither character has he attracted the goodwill of +any of those considerable sections and schools into which criticism of +the Revolution has been mainly divided. As a thinker he is roughly +classed as an Economist, and as a practical politician he figured first +in the Legislative Assembly, and then in the Convention. Now, as a rule, +the political parties that have most admired the Convention have had +least sympathy with the Economists, and the historians who are most +favourable to Turgot and his followers, are usually most hostile to the +actions and associations of the great revolutionary chamber successively +swayed by a Vergniaud, a Danton, a Robespierre. Between the two, +Condorcet's name has been allowed to lie hidden for the most part in a +certain obscurity, or else has been covered with those taunts and +innuendoes, which partisans are wont to lavish on men of whom they do +not know exactly whether they are with or against them. + +Generally the men of the Revolution are criticised in blocks and +sections, and Condorcet cannot be accurately placed under any of these +received schools. He was an Economist, but he was something more; for +the most characteristic article in his creed was a passionate belief in +the infinite perfectibility of human nature. He was more of a Girondin +than a Jacobin, yet he did not always act, any more than he always +thought, with the Girondins, and he did not fall when they fell, but was +proscribed by a decree specially levelled at himself. Isolation of this +kind is assuredly no merit in political action, but it explains the +coldness with which Condorcet's memory has been treated; it flowed from +some marked singularities both of character and opinion which are of the +highest interest, if we consider the position of the man and the lustre +of that ever-memorable time. 'Condorcet,' said D'Alembert, 'is a volcano +covered with snow.' Said another, less picturesquely: 'He is a sheep in +a passion.' 'You may say of the intelligence of Condorcet in relation +to his person,' wrote Madame Roland, 'that it is a subtle essence soaked +in cotton.' The curious mixture disclosed by sayings like these, of warm +impulse and fine purpose with immovable reserve, only shows that he of +whom they were spoken belonged to the class of natures which may be +called non-conducting. They are not effective, because without this +effluence of power and feeling from within, the hearer or onlooker is +stirred by no sympathetic thrill. They cannot be the happiest, because +consciousness of the inequality between expression and meaning, between +the influence intended and the impression conveyed, must be as +tormenting as to one who dreams is the vain effort to strike a blow. If +to be of this non-conducting temperament is impossible in the really +greatest characters, like St. Paul, St. Bernard, or Luther, at least it +is no proper object of blame, for it is constantly the companion of +lofty and generous aspiration. It was perhaps unfortunate that Condorcet +should have permitted himself to be drawn into a position where his want +of that magical quality by which even Marat could gain the sympathies of +men, should be so conspicuously made visible. The character of +Condorcet, unlike so many of his contemporaries, offers nothing to the +theatrical instinct. None the less on this account should we be willing +to weigh the contributions which he made to the stock of science and +social speculation, and recognise the fine elevation of his sentiments, +his noble solicitude for human wellbeing, his eager and resolute belief +in its indefinite expansion, and the devotion which sealed his faith by +a destiny that was as tragical as any in those bloody and most tragical +days. + + + + +I. + + +Until the outbreak of the Revolution, the circumstances of Condorcet's +life were as little externally disturbed or specially remarkable as +those of any other geometer and thinker of the time. He was born at a +small town in Picardy, in the year 1743. His father was a cavalry +officer, but as he died when his son was only three years old, he could +have exerted no influence upon the future philosopher, save such as +comes of transmission through blood and tissue. Condillac was his uncle, +but there is no record of any intercourse between them. His mother was a +devout and trembling soul, who dedicated her child to the Holy Virgin, +and for eight years or more made him wear the dress of a little girl, by +way of sheltering him against the temptations and unbelief of a vile +world. So long as women are held by opinion and usage in a state of +educational and political subjection, which prevents the growth of a +large intelligence made healthy and energetic by knowledge and by +activity, we may expect pious extravagances of this kind. Condorcet was +weakened physically by much confinement and the constraint of cumbrous +clothing; and not even his dedication to the Holy Virgin prevented him +from growing up the most ardent of the admirers of Voltaire. His +earliest instructors, as happened to most of the sceptical philosophers, +were the Jesuits, then within a few years of their fall. That these +adroit men, armed with all the arts and traditions which their order had +acquired in three centuries, and with the training of the nation almost +exclusively in their hands, should still have been unable to shield +their persons from proscription and their creed from hatred, is a +remarkable instance how little it avails ecclesiastical bodies to have a +monopoly of official education, if the spirit of their teaching be out +of harmony with those most potent agencies which we sum up as the spirit +of the time. The Jesuits were the great official instructors of France +for the first half of the eighteenth century. In 1764 the order was +thrust forth from the country, and they left behind them an army of the +bitterest enemies that Christianity has ever had. To do them justice, +they were destroyed by weapons which they had themselves supplied. The +intelligence which they had developed and sharpened, turned inevitably +against the incurable faults in their own system. They were admirable +teachers of mathematics. Condorcet, instructed by the Jesuits at Rheims, +was able when he was only fifteen years old to go through such +performances in analysis as to win especial applause from illustrious +judges like D'Alembert and Clairaut. It was impossible, however, for +Jesuits, as it has ever been for all enemies of movement, to constrain +within prescribed limits the activity which has once been effectively +stirred. Mathematics has always been in the eyes of the Church a +harmless branch of knowledge, but the mental energy that mathematics +first touched is sure to turn itself by and by to more complex and +dangerous subjects in the scientific hierarchy. + +At any rate, Condorcet's curiosity was very speedily drawn to problems +beyond those which geometry and algebra pretend to solve. 'For thirty +years,' he wrote in 1790, 'I have hardly ever passed a single day +without meditating on the political sciences.'[1] Thus, when only +seventeen, when the ardour of even the choicest spirits is usually most +purely intellectual, moral and social feeling was rising in Condorcet to +that supremacy which it afterwards attained in him to so admirable a +degree. He wrote essays on integral calculus, but he was already +beginning to reflect upon the laws of human societies and the conditions +of moral obligation. At the root of Condorcet's nature was a profound +sensibility of constitution. One of his biographers explains his early +enthusiasm for virtue and human welfare as the conclusion of a kind of +syllogism. It is possible that the syllogism was only the later shape +into which an instinctive impulse threw itself by way of rational +entrenchment. His sensibility caused Condorcet to abandon the barbarous +pleasures of the chase, which had at first powerfully attracted him.[2] +To derive delight from what inflicts pain on any sentient creature +revolted his conscience and offended his reason, because he perceived +that the character which does not shrink from associating its own joy +with the anguish of another, is either found or left mortally blunted to +the finest impressions of humanity. + +It is thus assured that from the beginning Condorcet was unable to +satisfy himself with the mere knowledge of the specialist, but felt the +necessity of placing social aims at the head and front of his life, and +of subordinating to them all other pursuits. That he values knowledge +only as a means to social action, is one of the highest titles to our +esteem that any philosopher can have. Such a temper of mind has +penetrated no man more fully than Condorcet, though there are other +thinkers to whom time and chance have been more favourable in making +that temper permanently productive. There is a fine significance in his +words, after the dismissal of the great and virtuous Turgot from office: +'We have had a delightful dream, but it was too brief. Now I mean to +apply myself to geometry. It is terribly cold to be for the future +labouring only for the _gloriole_, after flattering oneself for a while +that one was working for the public weal.' It is true that a geometer, +too, works for the public weal; but the process is tardier, and we may +well pardon an impatience that sprung of reasoned zeal for the happiness +of mankind. There is something much more attractive about Condorcet's +undisguised disappointment at having to exchange active public labour +for geometrical problems, than in the affected satisfaction +conventionally professed by statesmen when driven from place to their +books. His correspondence shows that, even when his mind seemed to be +most concentrated upon his special studies, he was incessantly on the +alert for every new idea, book, transaction, that was likely to +stimulate the love of virtue in individuals, or to increase the strength +of justice in society. It would have been in one sense more fortunate +for him to have cared less for high social interests, if we remember the +contention of his latter days and the catastrophe which brought them to +a frightful close. But Condorcet was not one of those natures who can +think it happiness to look passively out from the tranquil literary +watch-tower upon the mortal struggles of a society in revolution. In +measuring other men of science--as his two volumes of _Éloges_ +abundantly show--one cannot help being struck by the eagerness with +which he seizes on any trait of zeal for social improvement, any signal +of anxiety that the lives and characters of our fellows should be better +worth having. He was himself too absolutely possessed by this social +spirit to have flinched from his career, even if he had foreseen the +martyrdom which was to consummate it. 'You are very happy,' he once +wrote to Turgot, 'in your passion for the public good and your power to +satisfy it; it is a great consolation, and of an order very superior to +that of study.'[3] + +In 1769, at the age of six-and-twenty, Condorcet became connected with +the Academy, to the mortification of his relations, who hardly pardoned +him for not being a captain of horse as his father had been before him. +About the same time, or a little later, he performed a pilgrimage of a +kind that could hardly help making a mark upon a character so deeply +impressible. In company with D'Alembert he went to Ferney and saw +Voltaire.[4] To the position of Voltaire in Europe in 1770 there has +never been any other man's position in any age wholly comparable. It is +true that there had been one or two of the great popes, and a great +ecclesiastic like St. Bernard, who had exercised a spiritual authority, +pretty universally submitted to, or even spontaneously invoked, +throughout western Europe. But these were the representatives of a +powerful organisation and an accepted system. Voltaire filled a place +before men's eyes in the eighteenth century as conspicuous and as +authoritative as that of St. Bernard in the twelfth. The difference was +that Voltaire's place was absolutely unofficial in its origin, and +indebted to no system nor organisation for its maintenance. Again, there +have been others, like Bacon or Descartes, destined to make a far more +permanent contribution to the ideas which have extended the powers and +elevated the happiness of men; but these great spirits for the most part +laboured for the generation that followed them, and won comparatively +slight recognition from their own age. Voltaire during his life enjoyed +to the full not only the admiration that belongs to the poet, but +something of the veneration that is paid to the thinker, and even +something of the glory usually reserved for captains and conquerors of +renown. No other man before or since ever hit so exactly the mark of his +time on every side, so precisely met the conditions of fame for the +moment, nor so thoroughly dazzled and reigned over the foremost men and +women who were his contemporaries. Wherever else intellectual fame has +approached the fame of Voltaire, it has been posthumous. With him it was +immediate and splendid. Into the secret of this extraordinary +circumstance we need not here particularly inquire. He was an +unsurpassed master of the art of literary expression in a country where +that art is more highly prized than anywhere else; he was the most +brilliant of wits among a people whose relish for wit is a supreme +passion; he won the admiration of the lighter souls by his plays, of the +learned by his interest in science, of the men of letters by his +never-ceasing flow of essays, criticisms, and articles, not one of which +lacks vigour and freshness and sparkle; he was the most active, bitter, +and telling foe of what was then the most justly abhorred of all +institutions--the Church. Add to these remarkable titles to honour and +popularity that he was no mere declaimer against oppression and +injustice in the abstract, but the strenuous, persevering, and +absolutely indefatigable champion of every victim of oppression or +injustice whose case was once brought under his eye. + +It is not difficult to perceive the fascination which Voltaire, with +this character and this unrivalled splendour of public position, would +have for a man like Condorcet. He conceived the warmest attachment to +Voltaire, and Voltaire in turn the highest respect for him. Their +correspondence (1770-1778) is perhaps as interesting as any letters of +that period that we possess: Voltaire is always bright, playful, and +affectionate; Condorcet more declamatory and less graceful, but full of +reverence and loyalty for his 'dear and illustrious' master, and of his +own peculiar eagerness for good causes and animosity against the +defenders of evil ones. Condorcet was younger than the patriarch of +Ferney by nearly half a century, but this did not prevent him from loyal +remonstrances on more than one occasion against conduct on Voltaire's +part in this matter or that, which he held to be unworthy of his +character and reputation. He went so far as actually to decline to print +in the _Mercure_ a letter in which the writer in some fit of spleen +placed Montesquieu below D'Aguesseau. 'My attachment,' he says, 'bids me +say what will be best for you, and not what might please you most. If I +loved you less, I should not have the courage to thwart you. I am aware +of your grievances against Montesquieu; it is worthy of you to forget +them.' There was perhaps as much moral courage in doing this as in +defying the Men of the Mountain in the days of the Terror. It dispels +some false impressions of Voltaire's supposed intolerance of criticism, +to find him thanking Condorcet for one of these friendly protests. He +showed himself worthy of such courageous conduct. 'One sees things ill,' +he writes, 'when one sees them from too far off. After all, we ought +never to blush to go to school if we are as old as Methuselah. I repeat +my acknowledgments to you.'[5] Condorcet did not conceive that either to +be blind to a man's errors or to compromise them is to prove yourself +his friend. There is an integrity of friendship as in public concerns, +and he adhered to it as manfully in one as in the other. Throughout his +intercourse with intimate friends there is that happy and frank play of +direct personal allusion, which is as distinct from flattery when it is +about another, as it is from egoism when it refers to the writer +himself. + +Perhaps we see him most characteristically in his correspondence with +Turgot. What Turgot loved in Condorcet was his 'simplicity of +character.'[6] Turgot was almost as much less vivacious than Condorcet, +as Condorcet was less vivacious than Voltaire. They belonged to quite +distinct types of character, but this may be a condition of the most +perfect forms of sympathy. Each gives support where the other is most +conscious of needing it. Turgot was one of those serene, capacious, and +sure intelligences whose aspirations do not become low nor narrow by +being watchfully held under the control of reason; whose ideas are no +less vigorous or exuberant because they move in a steady and ordered +train; and who, in their most fervent reactions against abuses or +crimes, resist that vehement temptation to excess which is the besetting +infirmity of generous natures. Condorcet was very different from this. +Whatever he wished he wished unrestrainedly. As with most men of the +epoch, the habit of making allowances was not his. We observe something +theological in his hatred of theologians. Even in his letters the +distant ground-swell of repressed passion sounds in the ear, and at +every mention of false opinion or evil-doing a sombre and angry shadow +seems to fall upon the page. Both he and Turgot clung to the doctrine of +the infinite perfectibility of human nature, and the correspondingly +infinite augmentation of human happiness; but Condorcet's +ever-smouldering impetuosity would be content with nothing less than the +arrival of at least a considerable instalment of this infinite quantity +now and instantly. He went so far as to insist that by and by men would +acquire the art of prolonging their lives for several generations, +instead of being confined within the fatal span of threescore years and +ten. He was impatient of any frittering away of life in scruple, +tremors, and hesitations. 'For the most part,' he once wrote to Turgot, +'people abounding in scruple are not fit for great things: a Christian +will throw away in subduing the darts of the flesh the time which he +might have employed on things of use to mankind; or he will lack courage +to rise against a tyrant for fear of his judgment being too hastily +formed.'[7] Turgot's reply may illustrate the difference between the two +men: 'No virtue, in whatever sense you take the word, dispenses with +justice; and I think no more of the people who do great things--as you +say--at the expense of justice, than of poets who fancy they produce +great beauties of imagination without regularity. I know that excessive +exactitude tends slightly to deaden the fire alike of composition and of +action; but there is a mean in everything. It has never been a question +in our controversy of a capuchin who throws away his time in quenching +the darts of the flesh (though by the way, in the total of time thrown +away the term that expresses the time lost in satisfying these lusts is +most likely far greater); no more is it a question of a fool who is +afraid of rising against tyrants for fear of forming a rash +judgment.'[8] + +This ability to conceive a mean case between two extremes was not among +Condorcet's gifts. His mind dwelt too much in the region of excess, +alike when he measured the possibilities of the good, and coloured the +motives and the situation of those whom he counted the bad. A Christian +was one who wasted his days in merely resisting the flesh; anybody who +declined to rise against a tyrant was the victim of a slavish +scrupulosity. He rather sympathises with a scientific traveller, to whom +the especial charm of natural history resides in the buffets which, at +each step that it takes, it inflicts upon Moses.[9] Well, this temper +is not the richest nor the highest, but it often exists in alliance with +rich and high qualities. It was so with Condorcet. And we are +particularly bound to remember that with him a harsh and impatient +humour was not, as is so often the case, the veil for an indolent +reluctance to form painstaking judgments. Few workers have been so +conscientious as he was, in the labour that he bestowed upon subjects +which he held to be worthy of deliberate scrutiny and consideration. His +defect was in finding too few of such subjects, and in having too many +foregone conclusions. Turgot and Montesquieu are perhaps the only two +eminent men in France during this part of the century, of whom the same +defect might not be alleged. Again, Condorcet's impatience of underlying +temperament did not prevent him from filling his compositions with +solid, sober, and profound reflections, the products of grave and +sustained meditation upon an experience, much of which must have been +severely trying and repugnant to a man of his constitution. While +recognising this trait, then, let us not overstate either it or its +consequences. + +The main currents of opinion and circumstance in France, when Condorcet +came to take his place among her workers, are now well understood. The +third quarter of the century was just closing. Lewis XV. died in 1774; +and though his death was of little intrinsic consequence, except as the +removal of every corrupt heart is of consequence, it is justly taken to +mark the date of the beginning of the French Revolution. It was the +accidental shifting of position which served to disclose that the +existing system was smitten with a mortal paralysis. It is often said +that what destroyed the French kingdom was despotism. A sounder +explanation discovers the causes less in despotism than in +anarchy--anarchy in every department where it could be most ruinous. No +substantial reconstruction was possible, because all the evils came from +the sinister interests of the nobles, the clergy, or the financiers; and +these classes, informally bound together against the common weal, were +too strong for either the sovereign or the ablest minister to thrust +them aside. The material condition of France was one of supreme +embarrassment and disorder, only curable by remedies which the political +and social condition of the country made it impossible to employ. + +This would explain why a change of some sort was inevitable. But why was +the change which actually took place in that direction rather than +another? Why did not France sink under her economical disorders, as +greater empires than France had done? Why, instead of sinking and +falling asunder, did the French people advance with a singleness of +impulse unknown before in their history to their own deliverance? How +was it that they overthrew the system that was crushing them, and purged +themselves with fire and sword of those who administered and maintained +it, defying the hopes of the nation; and then successfully encountered +the giant's task of beating back reactionary Europe with one arm, and +reconstructing the fabric of their own society with the other? The +answer to this question is found in the moral and spiritual condition of +France. A generation aroused by the great social ideas of the eighteenth +century, looking round to survey its own social state, found itself in +the midst of the ruin and disorder of the disintegrated system of the +twelfth century. The life was gone out of the ancient organisation of +Catholicism and Feudalism, and it seemed as if nothing but corruption +remained. What enabled the leaders of the nation to discern the horror +and despair of this anarchic dissolution of the worn-out old, and what +inspired them with hope and energy when they thought of the possible +new, was the spiritual preparation that had been in swift progress since +the third decade of the century. The forms and methods of this +preparation were various, as the temperaments that came beneath its +influence. But the school of Voltaire, the school of Rousseau, and the +schools of Quesnay and Montesquieu, different as they were at the roots, +all alike energetically familiarised the public mind with a firm belief +in human reason, and the idea of the natural rights of man. They +impregnated it with a growing enthusiasm for social justice. It is true +that we find Voltaire complaining towards the close of his days, of the +century being satiated and weary, _un siècle dégouté_, not knowing well +what it wanted. 'The public,' he said, 'has been eighty years at table, +and now it drinks a little bad cognac at the end of its meal.'[10] In +literature and art this was true; going deeper than these, the public +was eager and sensitive with a freshness far more vital and more +fruitful than it had known eighty years back. Sitting down with a keen +appetite for taste, erudition, and literary knowledge, men had now risen +up from a dazzling and palling board, with a new hunger and thirst after +social righteousness. This was the noble faith that saved France, by +this sign she was victorious. A people once saturated with a passionate +conception of justice is not likely to fall into a Byzantine stage. That +destiny only awaits nations where the spiritual power is rigorously +confined in the hands of castes and official churches, which +systematically and of their very constitution bury justice under the +sterile accumulations of a fixed superstition. + +Condorcet's principles were deeply coloured by ideas drawn from two +sources. He was a Voltairean in the intensity of his antipathies to the +Church, and in the depth and energy of his humanity. But while Voltaire +flourished, the destructive movement only reached theology, and +Voltaire, though he had more to do than anybody else with the original +impulse, joined in no attack upon the State. It was from the economical +writers and from Montesquieu that Condorcet learned to look upon +societies with a scientific eye, to perceive the influence of +institutions upon men, and that there are laws, susceptible of +modification in practice, which regulate their growth. It was natural, +therefore, that he should join with eagerness in the reforming movement +which set in with such irrestrainable velocity after the death of Lewis +XV. He was bitter and destructive with the bitterness of Voltaire; he +was hopeful for the future with the faith of Turgot; and he was urgent, +heated, impetuous, with a heavy vehemence all his own. In a word, he was +the incarnation of the revolutionary spirit, as the revolutionary spirit +existed in geometers and Encyclopædists; at once too reasonable and too +little reasonable; too precise and scientific and too vague; too +rigorously logical on the one hand and too abundantly passionate on the +other. Perhaps there is no more fatal combination in politics than the +deductive method worked by passion. When applied to the delicate and +complex affairs of society, such machinery with such motive force is of +ruinous potency. + +Condorcet's peculiarities of political antipathy and preference can +hardly be better illustrated than by his view of the two great +revolutions in English history. The first was religious, and therefore +he hated it; the second was accompanied by much argument, and had no +religion about it, and therefore he extolled it. It is scientific +knowledge, he said, which explains why efforts after liberty in +unenlightened centuries are so fleeting, and so deeply stained by +bloodshed. 'Compare these with the happy efforts of America and France; +observe even in the same century, but at different epochs, the two +revolutions of England fanatical and England enlightened. We see on the +one side contemporaries of Prynne and Knox, while crying out that they +are fighting for heaven and liberty, cover their unhappy country with +blood in order to cement the tyranny of the hypocrite Cromwell; on the +other, the contemporaries of Boyle and Newton establish with pacific +wisdom the freest constitution in the world.'[11] It is not wonderful +that his own revolution was misunderstood by one who thus loved English +Whigs, but hated English Republicans; who could forgive an aristocratic +faction grasping power for their order, but who could not sympathise +with a nation rising and smiting its oppressor, where they smote in the +name of the Lord and of Gideon, nor with a ruler who used his power with +noble simplicity in the interests of his people, and established in the +heart of the nation a respect for itself such as she has never known +since, simply because this ruler knew nothing about _principes_ or the +Rights of Man. However, Nemesis comes. By and by Condorcet found himself +writing a piece to show that our Revolution of 1688 was very inferior in +lawfulness to the French Revolution of the Tenth of August.[12] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Å’uv. de Condorcet_ (12 vols. 1847-49), ix. 489. + +[2] _Ib._ i. 220. + +[3] _Å’uv._ i. 201. See Turgot's wise reply, p. 202. + +[4] Sept. 1770. Voltaire's _Corr._ vol. lxxi. p. 147. + +[5] _Å’uv._ i. 41. + +[6] _Å’uv. de Turgot_, ii. 817. + +[7] _Å’uv._ i. 228. + +[8] _Ib._ i. 232. + +[9] _Å’uv._ i. 29. + +[10] Letters to Condorcet (1774). _Å’uv._ i. 35. + +[11] _Éloge de Franklin_, iii. 422. + +[12] _Réflexions sur la Rév. de 1688, et sur celle du 10 Août_, xii. +197. + + + + +II. + + +The course of events after 1774 is in its larger features well known to +every reader. Turgot, after a month of office at the Admiralty, was in +August made Controller-General of Finance. With his accession to power, +the reforming ideas of the century became practical. He nominated +Condorcet to be Inspector of Coinage, an offer which Condorcet +deprecated in these words: 'It is said of you in certain quarters that +money costs you nothing when there is any question of obliging your +friends. I should be bitterly ashamed of giving any semblance of +foundation to these absurd speeches. I pray you, do nothing for me just +now. Though not rich, I am not pressed for money. Entrust to me some +important task--the reduction of measures for instance; then wait till +my labours have really earned some reward.'[13] In this patriotic spirit +he undertook, along with two other eminent men of science, the task of +examining certain projects for canals which engaged the attention of the +minister. 'People will tell you,' he wrote, 'that I have got an office +worth two hundred and forty pounds. Utterly untrue. We undertook it out +of friendship for M. Turgot; but we refused the payment that was +offered.'[14] We may profitably contrast this devotion to the public +interest with the rapacity of the clergy and nobles, who drove Turgot +from office because he talked of taxing them like their neighbours, and +declined to glut their insatiable craving for place and plunder. + +Turgot was dismissed (May 1776), and presently Necker was installed in +his place. Condorcet had defended with much vigour and some asperity +the policy of free internal trade in corn against Necker, who was for +the maintenance of the restrictions on commercial intercourse between +the different provinces of the kingdom. Consequently, when the new +minister came into office, Condorcet wrote to Maurepas resigning his +post. 'I have,' he said, 'declared too decidedly what I think about both +M. Necker and his works, to be able to keep any place that depends upon +him.'[15] This was not the first taste that Maurepas had had of +Condorcet's resolute self-respect. The Duke de la Vrillière, one of the +most scandalous persons of the century, was an honorary member of the +Academy, and he was the brother-in-law of Maurepas. It was expected from +the perpetual secretary that he should compose a eulogy upon the +occasion of his death, and Condorcet was warned by friends, who seldom +reflect that a man above the common quality owes something more to +himself than mere prudence, not to irritate the powerful minister by a +slight upon his relation. He was inflexible. 'Would you rather have me +persecuted,' he asked, 'for a wrong than for something just and moral? +Think, too, that they will pardon my silence much more readily than they +would pardon my words, for my mind is fixed not to betray the +truth.'[16] + +In 1782 Condorcet was elected into the Academy. His competitor was +Bailly, over whom he had a majority of one. The true contest lay less +between the two candidates than between D'Alembert and Buffon, who on +this occasion are said to have fought one of the greatest battles in the +not peaceful history of the Academy, for mighty anger burns even in +celestial minds. D'Alembert is said to have exclaimed, we may hope with +some exaggeration, that he was better pleased at winning that victory +than he would have been to find out the squaring of the circle.[17] +Destiny, which had so pitiful a doom in store for the two candidates of +that day, soon closed D'Alembert's share in these struggles of the +learned and in all others. He died in the following year, and by his +last act testified to his trust in the generous character of Condorcet. +Having by the benevolence of a lifetime left himself on his deathbed +without resources, he confided to his friend's care two old and faithful +servants, for whom he was unable to make provision. This charge the +philosopher accepted cheerfully, and fulfilled to the end with pious +scrupulosity. The affection between Condorcet and D'Alembert had been +warm and close as that of some famous pairs of antiquity; a natural +attraction of character had clothed community of pursuit and interest +with the grace of the highest kind of friendship. Even Condorcet's too +declamatory manner only adds a certain dignity to the pathetic passage +with which he closes the noble _éloge_ on his lost friend.[18] Voltaire +had been dead these five years, and Turgot, too, was gone. Society +offered the survivor no recompense. He found the great world tiresome +and frivolous, and he described its pursuits in phrases that are still +too faithful to the fact, as 'dissipation without pleasure, vanity +without meaning, and idleness without repose.' It was perhaps to soften +the oppression of these cruel and tender regrets that in 1786 Condorcet +married.[19] + +Events were now very close at hand, in comparison with which even the +most critical private transactions of Condorcet's life were pale and +insignificant. In the tranquil seasons of history, when the steady +currents of circumstance bear men along noiseless, the importance of the +relations which we contract seems superlative; in times of storm and +social wreck these petty fortunes and private chances are engulfed and +lost to sight. The ferment was now rapidly rising to its intensest +height, and Condorcet was the last man in France to remain cold to the +burning agitations of the time. We have already seen how decidedly ten +years ago he expressed his preference for political activity over the +meditative labours of the student. He now threw himself into the +Revolution with all the force of an ardent character imbued with fixed +and unalterable convictions. We may well imagine him deploring that the +great ones whom he had known, the immortal Voltaire, the lofty-souled +Turgot, had been carried away by the unkind gods, before their eyes had +seen the restoration of their natural rights to men, and the reign of +justice on the earth. The gods after all were kinder than he knew, for +they veiled from the sight of the enthusiast of '89 the spectres of '93. +History might possibly miss most of its striking episodes, if every +actor could know the work to which he was putting his hand; and even +Condorcet's faith might have wavered if he had known that between him +and the fulfilment of his desires there was to intrude a long and +deplorable period of despotism and corruption. Still, the vision which +then presented itself to the eyes of good men was sublime; and just as, +when some noble and devoted character has been taken away from us, it is +a consolation to remember that we had the happiness of his friendship, +so too when a generation awakes from one of these inspiring social +dreams, the wreck of the aspiration is not total nor unrecompensed. The +next best thing to the achievement of high and generous aims is to have +sought them. + +During the winter of '88 and '89, while all France was astir with +elections and preparation for elections for that meeting of the +States-General, which was looked to as the nearing dawn after a long +night of blackness and misery, Condorcet thought he could best serve +the movement by calling the minds of the electors to certain sides of +their duty which they might be in some danger of overlooking. One of the +subjects, for example, on which he felt most strongly, but on which his +countrymen have not shown any particular sensibility, was slavery and +the slave trade.[20] With a terseness and force not always +characteristic of his writings, he appealed to the electors, while they +were reclaiming their own rights in the name of justice, not to forget +the half-million blacks, whose rights had been still more shamefully +torn away from them, and whose need of justice was more urgent than +their own. In the same spirit he published a vehement and ingenious +protest against the admission of representatives from the St. Domingo +plantations to the National Assembly, showing how grossly inconsistent +it was with every idea of a free and popular chamber that men should sit +as representatives of others who had never chosen them, and that they +should invoke natural rights in their own favour, when at the same +instant they were violating the most elementary and undisputed natural +rights of mankind in their own country.[21] + +Of general precepts he never tired; one series of them followed another. +To us many of them may seem commonplace; but we should reflect that the +election of representatives was an amazing novelty in France, and +Condorcet knew men well enough to be aware of the hazards of political +inexperience. Beware of choosing a clever knave, he said, because he +will follow his own interest and not yours; but at the same time beware +of choosing a man for no better reason than that he is honest, because +you need ability quite as much as you need probity. Do not choose a man +who has ever taken sides against the liberty of any portion of mankind; +nor one whose principles were never known until he found out that he +wanted your votes. Be careful not to mistake heat of head for heat of +soul; because what you want is not heat but force, not violence but +steadfastness. Be careful, too, to separate a man's actions from the +accidents of his life; for one may be the enemy or the victim of a +tyrant without being the friend of liberty. Do not be carried away by a +candidate's solicitations; but at the same time, make allowance for the +existing effervescence of spirits. Prefer those who have decided +opinions to those who are always inventing plans of conciliation; those +who are zealous for the rights of man to those who only profess pity for +the misfortunes of the people; those who speak of justice and reason, to +those who speak of political interests and of the prosperity of +commerce. Distrust those who appeal to sentiment in matters that can be +decided by reason; prefer light to eloquence; and pass over those who +declare themselves ready to die for liberty, in favour of those who know +in what liberty consists.[22] + +In another piece he drew up a list of the rights which the nation had a +claim to have recognised, such as the right to make laws, to exact +responsibility from the ministers of the crown, to the protection of +personal liberty, and to the legal administration of justice by regular +judges. These rights he declared it to be the first duty of the Assembly +to draw up in a chart that should be the chief corner-stone of the new +constitution. Then he proceeded to define the various tasks to which he +conceived that the legislative body should forthwith apply itself; and +among them, be it said, is no mention of any of those projects of +confiscation which circumstances so speedily forced upon the Assembly +when it met.[23] + +Though many of these precepts designed to guide the electors in their +choice of men are sagacious and admirable, they smack strongly of that +absolute and abstract spirit which can never become powerful in politics +without danger. It is certain that in the spring of '89, Condorcet held +hereditary monarchy to be most suitable to 'the wealth, the population, +the extent of France, and to the political system of Europe.'[24] Yet +the reasons which he gives for thinking this are not very cogent, and +he can hardly have felt them to be so. It is significant, however, of +the little distance which all the most uncompromising and most +thoughtful revolutionists saw in front of them, that even Condorcet +should, so late as the eve of the assembly of the States-General, have +talked about attachment to the forms of monarchy and respect for the +royal person and prerogative; and should have represented the notion of +the property of the Church undergoing any confiscation, as an invention +of the enemies of freedom.[25] Before the year was out, the property of +the Church had undergone confiscation; before two years had gone he was +an ardent Republican; and in less than twelve months after that he had +voted the guilt of the king. + +It is worth while to cite here a still more pointed example of the want +of prevision, so common and so intelligible at that time. Writing in +July 1791, he confutes those who asserted that an established and +limited monarchy was a safeguard against a usurper, whose power is only +limited by his own audacity and address, by pointing out that the extent +of France, its divisions into departments, the separation between the +various branches of the administration, the freedom of the press, the +multitude of the public prints, were all so many insurmountable barriers +against a French Cromwell. 'To anybody who has read with attention the +history of the usurpation of Cromwell, it is clear that a single +newspaper would have been enough to stop his success. It is clear that +if the people of England had known how to read other books beside their +Bible, the hypocritical tyrant, unmasked from his first step, would soon +have ceased to be dangerous.' Again, is the nation to be cajoled by some +ambitious general, gratifying its desire to be an empire-race? 'Is this +what is asked by true friends of liberty, those who only seek that +reason and right should have empire over men? _What provinces, conquered +by a French general, will he despoil to buy our suffrages? Will he +promise our soldiers, as the consuls promised the citizens of Rome, the +pillage of Spain or of Syria?_ No, assuredly; it is because we cannot be +an empire-nation that we shall remain a free nation.'[26] How few years, +alas, between this conclusive reasoning, and the pillage of Italy, the +campaign in Syria, the seizure of Spain! + +Condorcet was not a member of the Assembly in whose formation and +composition he had taken so vivid and practical an interest. The first +political functions which he was invited to undertake were those of a +member of the municipality of Paris. In the tremendous drama of which +the scenes were now opening, the Town-hall of Paris was to prove itself +far more truly the centre of movement and action than the Constituent +Assembly. The efforts of the Constituent Assembly to build up were tardy +and ineffectual. The activity of the municipality of Paris in pulling +down was after a time ceaseless, and it was thoroughly successful. The +first mayor was the astronomer Bailly, Condorcet's defeated competitor +at the Academy. With the fall of the Bastille, summary hangings at the +nearest lantern-post, October insurrection of women, and triumphant and +bloody compulsion of king, queen, and Assembly to Paris from Versailles, +the two rivals, now colleagues, must have felt that the contests for +them were indeed no longer academic. The astronomy of the one and the +geometry of the other were for ever done with; and Condorcet's longing +for active political life in preference to mere study was gratified to +the very full. + +Unhappily or not, the movement was beyond the control of anybody who, +like Condorcet, had no other force than that of disciplined reason and +principle. The Bastille no sooner fell, than the Revolution set in with +oceanic violence, in the face of which patriotic intention and +irrefragable arguments, even when both intention and arguments were +loyally revolutionary, were powerless to save the State. In crises of +this overwhelming kind, power of reasoning does not tell and mere +goodwill does not tell. Exaltation reaches a pitch at which the physical +sensibilities are so quickened as to be supreme over the rest of the +nature; and in these moods it is the man gifted with the physical +quality, as mysterious and indescribable as it is resistless, of a +Marat, to take a bad example, or a Danton, to take a good one, who can +'ride the whirlwind and direct the storm.' Of this quality Condorcet +had nothing. His personal presence inspired a decent respect, but no +strong emotion either of fear or admiration or physical sympathy. His +voice was feeble, his utterance indistinct; and he never got over that +nervous apprehension which the spectacle of large and turbulent crowds +naturally rouses in the student. In a revolution after the manner of +Lord Somers he would have been invaluable. He thoroughly understood his +own principles, and he was a master of the art, so useful in its place +and time and so respectable in all places and times, of considering +political projects point by point with reference to a definite framework +of rational ideas. But this was no time for such an art; this was not a +revolution to be guided by reason, not even reason like Condorcet's, +streaked with jacobinical fibre. The national ideas in which it had +arisen had transformed themselves into tumultuous passion, and from this +into frenzied action. + +Every politician of real eminence as a reformer possesses one of three +elements. One class of men is inspired by an intellectual attachment to +certain ideas of justice and right reason: another is moved by a deep +pity for the hard lot of the mass of every society: while the third, +such men as Richelieu for example, have an instinctive appreciation and +passion for wise and orderly government. The great and typical ruler is +moved in varying degrees by all three in modern times, when the claims +of the poor, the rank and file of the social army, have been raised to +the permanent place that belongs to them. Each of the three types has +its own peculiar conditions of success, and there are circumstances in +which some one of the three is more able to grapple with the obstacles +to order than either of the other two. It soon became very clear that +the intellectual quality was not the element likely to quell the tempest +that had arisen now. + +Let it be said, however, that Condorcet showed himself no pedantic nor +fastidious trifler with the tremendous movement which he had contributed +to set afoot. The same practical spirit which drove him into the strife, +guided him in the midst of it. He never wrung his hands, nor wept, nor +bewailed the unreason of the multitudes to whom in vain he preached +reason. Unlike the typical man of letters--for he was without vanity--he +did not abandon the cause of the Revolution because his suggestions were +often repulsed. 'It would be better,' he said to the Girondins, 'if you +cared less for personal matters and attended only to public interests.' +Years ago, in his _éloge_ on L'Hôpital, he had praised the famous +Chancellor for incurring the hostility of both of the two envenomed +factions, the League and the Huguenots, and for disregarding the +approbation or disapprobation of the people. 'What operation,' he asked, +'capable of producing any durable good, can be understood by the people? +How should they know to what extent good is possible? How judge of the +means of producing it? It must ever be easier for a charlatan to mislead +the people, than for a man of genius to save it.'[27] Remembering this +law, he never lost patience. He was cool and intrepid, if his +intrepidity was of the logical sort rather than physical; and he was +steadfast to one or two simple aims, if he was on some occasions too +rapid in changing his attitude as to special measures. He was never +afraid of the spectre, as the incompetent revolutionist is. On the +contrary, he understood its whole internal history; he knew what had +raised it, what passion and what weakness gave to it substance, and he +knew that presently reason would banish it and restore men to a right +mind. The scientific spirit implanted in such a character as +Condorcet's, and made robust by social meditation, builds up an +impregnable fortitude in the face of incessant rebuffs and +discouragements. Let us then picture Condorcet as surveying the terrific +welter from the summer of 1789 to the summer of 1793, from the taking of +the Bastille to the fall of the Girondins, with something of the +firmness and self-possession of a Roman Cato. + +After the flight of the king in June, and his return in what was +virtually captivity to Paris, Condorcet was one of the party, very small +in numbers and entirely discountenanced by public opinion, then passing +through the monarchical and constitutional stage, who boldly gave up the +idea of a monarchy and proclaimed the idea of a republic. In July (1791) +he published a piece strongly arguing for a negative answer to the +question whether a king is necessary for the preservation of +liberty.[28] In one sense, this composition is favourable to Condorcet's +foresight; it was not every one who saw with him that the destruction of +the monarchy was inevitable after the royal flight. This want of +preparation in the public mind for every great change as it came, is one +of the most striking circumstances of the Revolution, and it explains +the violent, confused, and inadequate manner in which nearly every one +of these changes was made. It was proposed at that time to appoint +Condorcet to be governor to the young dauphin. But Condorcet in this +piece took such pains to make his sentiments upon royalty known, that in +the constitutional frame of mind in which the Assembly then was, the +idea had to be abandoned. It was hardly likely that a man should be +chosen for such an office, who had just declared the public will to be +'that the uselessness of a king, the needfulness of seeking means of +displacing a power founded on illusions, should be one of the first +truths offered to his reason; the obligation of concurring in this +himself, one of the first of his moral duties; and the desire not to be +freed from the yoke of law by an insulting inviolability, the first +sentiment of his heart. People are well aware that at this moment the +object is much less how to mould a king, than to teach him not to wish +to be one.'[29] As all France was then bent on the new constitution, a +king included, Condorcet's republican assurance was hardly warranted, +and it was by no means well received. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] _Å’uv._ i. 71. + +[14] _Ib._ i. 73, 74. + +[15] _Å’uv._ i. 296. + +[16] _Ib._ i. 78. + +[17] _Å’uv._ i. 89. Condorcet had 16 votes, and Bailly 15. '_Jamais +aucune élection_,' says La Harpe, who was all for Buffon, '_n'avait +offert ni ce nombre ni ce partage_.'--_Philos. du 18ième Siècle_, i. 77. +A full account of the election, and of Condorcet's reception, in Grimm's +_Corr. Lit._ xi. 50-56. + +[18] _Å’uv._ iii. 109, 110. + +[19] His wife, said to be one of the most beautiful women of her time, +was twenty-three years younger than himself, and survived until 1822. +Cabanis married another sister, and Marshal Grouchy was her brother. +Madame Condorcet wrote nothing of her own, except some notes to a +translation which she made of Adam Smith's _Theory of Moral Sentiments_. + +[20] Montesquieu, Raynal, and one or two other writers, had attacked +slavery long before, and Condorcet published a very effective piece +against it in 1781 (_Réflexions sur l'Esclavage des Nègres_; _Å’uv._ +vii. 63), with an epistle dedicated to the enslaved blacks. About the +same time an Abolition Society was formed in France, following the +example set in England. + +[21] _Au Corps Electoral, contre l'Esclavage des Noirs._ 3 Fév. 1789. +_Sur l'Admission des Députés des Planteurs de Saint Domingue._ 1789. ix. +469-485. + +[22] _Lettres d'un Gentilhomme aux Messieurs du Tiers Etat_, ix. +255-259. + +[23] _Réflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions à donner par les +Provinces à leurs Députés aux Etats-Généraux_, ix. 263, 283. + +[24] _Ib._ ix. 266. + +[25] _Réflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions à donner par les +Provinces à leurs Députés aux Etats-Généraux_, ix. 264. + +[26] _Réflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions à donner par les +Provinces à leurs Députés aux Etats-Généraux_, xii. 228, 229, 234. + +[27] _Å’uv._ iii. 533. As this was written in 1777, Condorcet was +perhaps thinking of Turgot and Necker. Of the latter, his daughter tells +us repeatedly, without any consciousness that she is recording a most +ignominious trait, that public approbation was the very breath of his +nostrils, the thing for which he lived, the thing without which he was +wretched.--See vol. i. of _Madame de Staël's Considerations_. + +[28] _Å’uv._ iii. 227. It was followed by a letter, nominally by a young +mechanic, offering to construct an automaton sovereign, like Kempel's +chess-player, who would answer all constitutional purposes +perfectly.--_Ib._ 239-241. + +[29] _Å’uv._ xii. 236. + + + + +III. + + +When the Constitution was accepted and the Legislative Assembly came to +be chosen, Condorcet proved to have made so good an impression as a +municipal officer, that the Parisians returned him for one of their +deputies. The Declaration of Pilnitz in August 1791 had mitigated the +loyalty that had even withstood the trial of the king's flight. When the +Legislative Assembly met, it was found to contain an unmistakable +element of republicanism of marked strength. Condorcet was chosen one of +the secretaries, and he composed most of those multitudinous addresses +in which this most unfortunate and least honoured of all parliamentary +chambers tried to prove to the French people that it was actually in +existence and at work. Condorcet was officially to the Legislative what +Barère afterwards was to the Convention. But his addresses are turgid, +labouring, and not effective for their purpose. They have neither the +hard force of Napoleon's proclamations, nor the flowery eloquence of +the Anacreon of the Guillotine. To compose such pieces well under such +circumstances as those of the Assembly, a man must have much imagination +and perhaps a slightly elastic conscience. Condorcet had neither one nor +the other, but only reason--a hard anvil, out of which he laboriously +struck flashes and single sounds. + +Perhaps, after all, nobody else could have done better. The situation of +the Assembly, between a hostile court and a suspicious and distrustful +nation, and unable by its very nature to break the bonds, was from the +beginning desperate. In December 1791 the Legislative through its +secretary informs France of the frankness and loyalty of the king's +measures in the face of the menaces of foreign war.[30] Within eight +months, when the king's person was in captivity and his power suspended, +the same secretary has to avow that from the very beginning the king had +treated the Assembly with dissimulation, and had been in virtual league +with the national enemies. The documents issued by the Assembly after +the violent events of the Tenth of August 1792 are not edifying, and +imply in Condorcet, who composed them, a certain want of eye for +revolutionary methods. They mark the beginning of that short but most +momentous period in the history of the Revolution, when formulas, as Mr. +Carlyle says, had to be stretched out until they cracked--a process +truly called, 'especially in times of swift change, one of the +sorrowfullest tasks poor humanity has.' You might read the _Exposition +of the Motives from which the National Assembly have proclaimed the +Convention, and suspended the Executive Power of the King_,[31] without +dreaming that it is an account of a revolution which arose out of +distrust or contempt for the Assembly, which had driven the king away +from his palace and from power, and which had finally annihilated the +very chamber that was thus professing to expound its motives for doing +what the violence of Paris had really done in defiance of it. The power, +in fact, was all outside the chamber, in Danton and the Commune. Under +such circumstance it is of no interest to men to learn that 'in the +midst of these disasters the National Assembly, afflicted but calm, took +its oath to maintain equality and liberty, or to die at its post; took +the oath to save France, and looked about for means.'[32] Still more +impotent and hollow, because still more pompous, is the address of six +days later.[33] A few days after this, occurred the massacres of +prisoners in September--scenes very nearly, if not quite, as bloody and +iniquitous as those which attended the suppression of the rebellion in +Ireland six years afterwards by English troops. + +When the Convention was chosen, the electors of Paris rejected +Condorcet. He was elected, however (Sept. 6), for the department of the +Aisne, having among his colleagues in the deputation Tom Paine, and--a +much more important personage--the youthful Saint-Just, who was so soon +to stupefy the Convention by exclaiming, with mellow voice and face set +immovable as bronze: 'An individual has no right to be either virtuous +or celebrated in your eyes. A free people and a national assembly are +not made to admire anybody.' The electors of the department of the Aisne +had unconsciously sent two typical revolutionists: the man of +intellectual ideas, and the man of passion heated as in the pit. In +their persons the Encyclopædia and the Guillotine met. Condorcet, who +had been extreme in the Legislative, but found himself a moderate in the +Convention, gave wise counsel as to the true policy towards the new +members: 'Better try to moderate them than quarrel.' But in this case, +not even in their ruin, were fire and water reconciled. + +On the first great question that the Convention had to decide--the fate +of the king--Condorcet voted on the two main issues very much as a wise +man would have voted, knowing the event as we know it. He voted that the +king was guilty of conspiring against liberty, and he voted for the +punishment of exile in preference to that of death. On the intermediate +issue, whether the decision of the Convention should be final, or should +be submitted to the people for ratification, he voted as a wise man +should not have done, in favour of an appeal to the people. Such an +appeal must inevitably have led to violent and bloody local struggles, +and laid France open to the enemy. It is a striking circumstance that, +though Condorcet thus voted that the king was guilty, he had previously +laid before the Convention a most careful argument to show that they +were neither morally nor legally competent to try the king at all. How, +he asked, without violating every principle of jurisprudence, can you +act at the same time as legislators constituting the crime, as accusers, +and as judges? His proposal was that Lewis XVI. should be tried by a +tribunal whose jury and judges should be named by the electoral body of +the departments.[34] With true respect for Condorcet's honourable +anxiety that the conditions of justice should be rigorously +observed--for, as he well said, 'there is no liberty in a country where +positive law is not the single rule of judicial proceedings'--it is +difficult to see why the Convention, coming as it did fresh from the +electoral bodies, who must have had the question what was to be done +with the imprisoned king foremost in their minds, why the members of the +Convention should not form as legitimate a tribunal as any body whose +composition and authority they had themselves defined and created, and +which would be chosen by the very same persons who less than a month +before had invested them with their own offices. Reading this most +scrupulous and juristic composition, we might believe the writer to have +forgotten that France lay mad and frenzied outside the hall where he +stood, and that in political action the question what is possible is at +least as important as what is compatible with the maxims of scientific +jurisprudence. It was to Condorcet's honour as a jurisconsult that he +should have had so many scruples; it is as much to his credit as a +politician that he laid them aside and tried the king after all. + +It is highly characteristic of Condorcet's tenacity of his own view of +the Revolution and of its methods, that on the Saturday (January 19, +1793) when the king's fate was decided against Condorcet's conviction +and against his vote--the execution taking place on the Monday +morning--he should have appealed to the Convention, at all events to do +their best to neutralise the effect of their verdict upon Europe, by +instantly initiating a series of humane reforms in the law among them, +including the abolition of the punishment of death. 'The English +ministers,' he cried, 'are now seeking to excite that nation against us. +Do you suppose that they will venture to continue their calumnious +declamations, when you can say to them: "We have abolished the penalty +of death, while you still preserve it for the theft of a few shillings? +You hand over debtors to the greed or spite of their creditors; our +laws, wiser and more humane, know how to respect poverty and misfortune. +Judge between us and you, and see to which of the two peoples the +reproach of inhumanity may be addressed with most justice."'[35] This +was the eve of the Terror. Well may Comte distinguish Condorcet as the +one philosopher who pursued in the midst of the tempest his regenerating +meditations. + +But let us banish the notion that the history of the Convention is only +the history of the guillotine. No chamber in the whole annals of +governing assemblies ever displayed so much alertness, energy, and +capacity, in the face of difficulties that might well have crushed them. +Besides their efforts, justly held incomparable, to hurl back the enemy +from the frontiers, they at once in the spirit of Condorcet's speech, +made at so strange a season, set vigorously about the not less noble +task of legal reforms and political reorganisation. The unrivalled +ingenuity and fertility of the French character in all the arts of +compact and geometric construction never showed itself so supreme. The +civil code was drawn up in a month.[36] Constitutions abounded. Cynical +historians laugh at the eagerness of the nation, during the months that +followed the deposition of the king, to have a constitution; and, so far +as they believed or hoped that a constitution would remedy all ills, +their faith was assuredly not according to knowledge. It shows, however, +the fundamental and seemingly ineradicable respect for authority which +their history has engendered in the French, that even in this, their +most chaotic hour, they craved order and its symbols. + +Condorcet, along with Tom Paine, Sièyes, and others, was a member of +the first committee for framing a constitution. They laboured +assiduously from September to February 1793, when the project was laid +upon the table, prefaced by an elaborate dissertation of Condorcet's +composition.[37] The time was inauspicious. The animosities between the +Girondins and the Mountain were becoming every day more furious and +deadly. In the midst of this appalling storm of rage and hate and +terror, Condorcet--at one moment wounding the Girondins by reproaches +against their egotism and personalities, at another exasperating the +Mountain by declaring of Robespierre that he had neither an idea in his +head nor a feeling in his heart--still pertinaciously kept crying out +for the acceptance of his constitution. It was of no avail. The +revolution of the second of June came, and swept the Girondins out of +the Chamber. Condorcet was not among them, but his political days were +numbered. 'What did you do all that time?' somebody once asked of a +member of the Convention, during the period which was now beginning and +which lasted until Thermidor in 1794. 'I lived,' was the reply. +Condorcet was of another temper. He cared as little for his life as +Danton or Saint-Just cared for theirs. Instead of cowering down among +the men of the Plain or the frogs of the Marsh, he withstood the +Mountain to the face. + +Hérault de Séchelles, at the head of another committee, brought in a new +constitution which was finally adopted and decreed (June 24, 1793). Of +this, Sièyes said privately, that it was 'a bad table of contents.' +Condorcet denounced it publicly, and, with a courage hardly excelled, he +declared in so many words that the arrest of the Girondins had destroyed +the integrity of the national representation. The Bill he handled with a +severity that inflicted the keenest smarts on the self-love of its +designers. A few days later, the Capucin Chabot, one of those weak and +excitable natures that in ordinary times divert men by the intensity, +multiplicity, and brevity of their enthusiasms, but to whom the fiercer +air of such an event as the Revolution is a real poison, rose and in the +name of the Committee of General Security called the attention of the +Chamber to what he styled a sequel of the Girondist Brissot. This was no +more nor less than Condorcet's document criticising the new +constitution. 'This man,' said Chabot, 'has sought to raise the +department of the Aisne against you, imagining that, because he has +happened to sit by the side of a handful of _savants_ of the Academy, +it is his duty to give laws to the French Republic.'[38] So a decree +was passed putting Condorcet under arrest. His name was included in the +list of those who were tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal on the +Third of October for conspiring against the unity and indivisibility of +the Republic. He was condemned in his absence, and declared to be _hors +la loi_. + +This, then, was the calamitous close of his aspirations from boyhood +upwards to be permitted to partake in doing something for the common +weal. He had still the work to perform by which posterity will best +remember his name, though only a few months intervened between his +flight and his most cruel end. When the decree against him was enacted +he fled. Friends found a refuge for him in the house of a Madame Vernet, +a widow in moderate circumstances, who let lodgings to students, and one +of those beneficent characters that show us how high humanity can reach. +'Is he an honest and virtuous man?' she asked; 'in that case let him +come, and lose not a moment. Even while we talk he may be seized.' The +same night Condorcet intrusted his life to her keeping, and for nine +months he remained in hiding under her roof. When he heard of the +execution of the Girondins condemned on the same day with himself, he +perceived the risk to which he was subjecting his protectress, and made +up his mind to flee. 'I am an outlaw,' he said, 'and if I am discovered +you will be dragged to the same death.' 'The Convention,' Madame Vernet +answered, with something of the heroism of more notable women of that +time, 'may put you out of the law; it has not the power to put you out +of humanity. You stay.' This was no speech of the theatre. The whole +household kept the most vigorous watch over the prisoner thus generously +detained, and for many months Madame Vernet's humane firmness was +successful in preventing his escape. This time--his soul grievously +burdened by anxiety as to the fate of his wife and child, and by a +restless eagerness not to compromise his benefactress, a bloody death +staring him every moment in the face--Condorcet spent in the +composition, without the aid of a single book, of his memorable work on +the progress of the human mind. Among the many wonders of an epoch of +portents, this feat of intellectual abstraction is not the least +amazing. + +When his task was accomplished, Condorcet felt with more keenness than +ever the deadly peril in which his presence placed Madame Vernet. He was +aware that to leave her house was to seek death, but he did not fear. He +drew up a paper of directions to be given one day to his little +daughter, when she should be of years to understand and follow them. +They are written with minute care, and though tender and solicitous, +they show perfect composure. His daughter is above all things to banish +from her mind every revengeful sentiment against her father's enemies; +to distrust her filial sensibility, and to make this sacrifice for her +father's own sake. This done, he marched downstairs, and having by an +artful stratagem thrown Madame Vernet off her guard, he went out at ten +o'clock in the morning imperfectly disguised into the street. This was +the fifth of April 1794. By three in the afternoon, exhausted by fatigue +which his strict confinement for nine months made excessive, he reached +the house of a friend in the country, and prayed for a night's shelter. +His presence excited less pity than alarm. The people gave him +refreshment, and he borrowed a little pocket copy of Horace, with which +he went forth into the loneliness of the night. He promised himself +shelter amid the stone quarries of Clamart. What he suffered during this +night, the whole day of the sixth of April, the night, and again the +next day, there is no one to tell. + +The door of the house in the Rue Servandoni was left on the latch night +and day for a whole week. But Madame Vernet's generous hope was in vain; +while she still hoped and watched, the end had come. On the evening of +the seventh, Condorcet, with one of his legs torn or broken, his +garments in rags, with visage gaunt and hunger-stricken, entered an inn +in the hamlet of Clamart, and called for an omelette. Asked how many +eggs he would have in it, the famishing man answered a dozen. +Carpenters, for such he had given himself to be, do not have a dozen +eggs in their omelettes. Suspicion was aroused, his hands were not the +hands of a workman, and he had no papers to show, but only the pocket +Horace. The villagers seized him and hastened to drag him, bound hand +and foot, to Bourg-la-Reine, then called for a season Bourg-l'Égalité. +On the road he fainted, and they set him on a horse offered by a pitying +wayfarer. When they reached the prison, Condorcet, starving, bleeding, +way-worn, was flung into his cell. On the morrow, when the gaolers came +to seek him, they found him stretched upon the ground, dead and stark. +So he perished--of hunger and weariness, say some; of poison ever +carried by him in a ring, say others.[39] So, to the last revolving +supreme cares, this high spirit was overtaken by annihilation. His +memory is left to us, the fruit of his ideas, and the impression of his +character. + + * * * * * + +An eminent man, who escaped by one accident from the hatchets of the +Septembriseurs, and by another from the guillotine of the Terror, while +in hiding and in momentary expectation of capture and death, wrote thus +in condemnation of suicide, 'the one crime which leaves no possibility +of return to virtue.' 'Even at this incomprehensible moment'--the spring +of 1793--'when morality, enlightenment, energetic love of country, only +render death at the prison-wicket or on the scaffold more inevitable; +when it might be allowable to choose among the ways of leaving a life +that can no longer be preserved, and to rob tigers in human form of the +accursed pleasure of dragging you forth and drinking your blood; yes, on +the fatal tumbril itself, with nothing free but voice, I could still +cry, _Take care_, to a child that should come too near the wheel: +perhaps he may owe his life to me, perhaps the country shall one day owe +its salvation to him.'[40] + +More than one career in those days, famous or obscure, was marked by +this noble tenacity to lofty public ideas even in the final moments of +existence. Its general acceptance as a binding duty, exorcising the +mournful and insignificant egotisms that haunt and wearily fret and make +waste the remnants of so many lives, will produce the profoundest of all +possible improvements in men's knowledge of the sublime art of the +happiness of their kind. The closing words of Condorcet's last +composition show the solace which perseverance in taking thought for +mankind brought to him in the depths of personal calamity. He had +concluded his survey of the past history of the race, and had drawn what +seemed in his eyes a moderate and reasonable picture of its future. 'How +this picture,' he exclaims, with the knell of his own doom sounding full +in the ear while he wrote, 'this picture of the human race freed from +all its fetters, withdrawn from the empire of chance, as from that of +the enemies of progress, and walking with firm and assured step in the +way of truth, of virtue, and happiness, presents to the philosopher a +sight that consoles him for the errors, the crimes, the injustice, with +which the earth is yet stained, and of which he is not seldom the +victim! It is in the contemplation of this picture that he receives the +reward of his efforts for the progress of reason, for the defence of +liberty. He ventures to link them with the eternal chain of the +destinies of man: it is there that he finds the true recompense of +virtue, the pleasure of having done a lasting good. Fate can no longer +undo it by any disastrous compensation that shall restore prejudice and +bondage. This contemplation is for him a refuge, into which the +recollection of his persecutors can never follow him; in which, living +in thought with man reinstated in the rights and the dignity of his +nature, he forgets man tormented and corrupted by greed, by base fear, +by envy; it is here that he truly abides with his fellows, in an elysium +that his reason has known how to create for itself, and that his love +for humanity adorns with all purest delights.'[41] + +It has long been the fashion among the followers of that reaction which +Coleridge led and Carlyle has spread and popularised, to dwell +exclusively on the coldness and hardness, the excess of scepticism and +the defect of enthusiasm, that are supposed to have characterised the +eighteenth century. Because the official religion of the century both in +England and France was lifeless and mechanical, it has been taken for +granted that the level of thought and feeling was a low one universally; +as if the highest moods of every era necessarily clothed themselves in +religious forms. The truth is that, working in such natures as +Condorcet's, the principles of the eighteenth century, its homage to +reason and rational methods, its exaltation of the happiness of men, not +excluding their material wellbeing, into the highest place, its passion +for justice and law, its large illumination, all engendered a fervour as +truly religious as that of Catholicism or of Calvinism at their best, +while its sentiment was infinitely less interested and personal. The +passage just quoted is as little mechanical, as little material, as the +most rapturous ejaculations of the Christian saints and confessors. Read +in connection with the circumstances of its composition, it may show +that the eighteenth century was able at any rate to inspire its sons +with a faith that could rob death of its sting and the grave of its +victory, as effectually as if it had rested on a mystery instead of on +reason, and been supported by the sanctions of eternal pain and eternal +bliss, instead of moving from a confident devotion to humanity. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[30] _Déclaration de l'Assemblée Nationale_, 29 Déc. 1791. _Å’uv._ xii. +25. + +[31] 13th August 1792. _Å’uv._ x. 547. + +[32] _Ib._ x. 560. + +[33] 19th August. _Ib._ x. 565. + +[34] _Opinion sur le Jugement de Louis XVI._ Nov. 1792 _Å’uv._ xii. +267-303. + +[35] 19th Jan. 1793. _Å’uv._ xii. 311. + +[36] See M. Edgar Quinet's remarks on this achievement. _La Révolution_, +ii. 110. + +[37] _Å’uv._ xii. 333, 417. M. Louis Blanc has contrasted the principles +laid down as the basis of this project with Robespierre's rival +Declaration of the Rights of Man, printing the two side by side in +parallel columns. '_Les voilà donc face à face, après leur commune +victoire sur le principe d'autorité, ces deux principes d'individualisme +et de fraternité, entre lesquels, aujourd'hui même, le monde balance, +invinciblement ému! D'un côté la philosophie du rationalisme pur, qui +divise; d'un autre côté la philosophie du sentiment, qui rapproche et +réunit. Ici Voltaire et Condorcet, là J. J. Rousseau et Robespierre._' +_Hist. de la Révol. Fran._ bk. ix. ch. v. + +[38] _Extrait du Moniteur._ _Å’uv._ xii. 677. + +[39] The Abbé Morellet, in his narrative of the death of Condorcet +(_Mémoires_, c. xxiv.), says that he died of poison, a mixture of +stramonium and opium. He adds that the surgeon described death as due to +apoplexy. See Musset-Pathay's _J. J. Rousseau_, ii. 42. + +[40] Dupont de Nemours. _Les Physiocrates_, i. 326. + +[41] _Progrès de l'Esprit Humain._ _Å’uv._ vi. 276. + + + + +IV. + + +The shape of Condorcet's ideas upon history arose from the twofold +necessity which his character imposed upon him, at once of appeasing his +aspirations on behalf of mankind, and of satisfying a disciplined and +scientific intelligence. He was of too robust an understanding to find +adequate gratification in the artificial construction of hypothetical +utopias. Conviction was as indispensable as hope; and distinct grounds +for the faith that was in him, as essential as the faith itself. The +result of this fact of mental constitution, the intellectual conditions +of the time being what they were, was the rise in his mind of the great +and central conception of there being a law in the succession of social +states, to be ascertained by an examination of the collective phenomena +of past history. The merit of this admirable effort, and of the work in +which it found expression, is very easily underrated, because the effort +was insufficient and merely preparatory, while modern thought has +already carried us far beyond it, and at least into sight of the more +complete truths to which this effort only pointed the way. Let us +remember, however, that it did point the way distinctly and +unmistakably. A very brief survey of the state of history as a subject +of systematic study enables us to appreciate with precision what service +it was that Condorcet rendered; for it carries us back from the present +comparatively advanced condition of the science of society to a time +before his memorable attempt, when conceptions now become so familiar +were not in existence, and when even the most instructed students of +human affairs no more felt the need of a scientific theory of the manner +in which social effects follow social causes, than the least instructed +portion of the literary public feels such a need in our own time. It is +difficult after a subject has been separated from the nebulous mass of +unclassified knowledge, after it has taken independent shape, and begun +to move in lines of its own, to realise the process by which all this +was effected, or the way in which before all this the facts concerned +presented themselves to the thinker's mind. That we should overcome the +difficulty is one of the conditions of our being able to do justice to +the great army of the precursors. + +Two movements of thought went on in France during the middle of the +eighteenth century, which have been comparatively little dwelt upon by +historians; their main anxiety has been to justify the foregone +conclusion, so gratifying alike to the partisans of the social reaction +and to the disciples of modern transcendentalism in its many disguises, +that the eighteenth century was almost exclusively negative, critical, +and destructive. Each of these two currents was positive in the highest +degree, and their influence undeniably constructive, if we consider that +it was from their union into a common channel, a work fully accomplished +first in the mind of Condorcet, that the notion of the scientific +treatment of history and society took its earliest start. + +The first of the two movements, and that which has been most +unaccountably neglected, consisted in the remarkable attempts of Quesnay +and his immediate followers to withdraw the organisation of society from +the sphere of empiricism, and to substitute for the vulgar conception +of arbitrary and artificial institutions as the sole foundation of this +organisation, the idea that there is a certain Natural Order, conformity +to which in all social arrangements is the essential condition of their +being advantageous to the members of the social union. Natural Order in +the minds of this school was no metaphysical figment evolved from +uninstructed consciousness, but a set of circumstances to be discovered +by continuous and methodical observation. It consisted of physical law +and moral law. Physical law is the regulated course of every physical +circumstance in the order evidently most advantageous to the human race. +Moral law is the rule of every human action in the moral order, +conformed to the physical order evidently most advantageous to the human +race. This order is the base of the most perfect government, and the +fundamental rule of all positive laws; for positive laws are only such +laws as are required to keep up and maintain the natural order that is +evidently most advantageous to the race.[42] + +Towards the close of the reign of Lewis XIV. the frightful +impoverishment of the realm attracted the attention of one or two +enlightened observers, and among them of Boisguillebert and Vauban. They +had exposed, the former of them with especial force and amplitude, the +absurdity of the general system of administration, which seemed to have +been devised for the express purpose of paralysing both agriculture and +commerce, and exhausting all the sources of the national wealth.[43] +But these speculations had been mainly of a fiscal kind, and pointed not +much further than to a readjustment of taxation and an improvement in +the modes of its collection. The disciples of the New Science, as it was +called, the Physiocrats, or believers in the supremacy of Natural Order, +went much beyond this, and in theory sought to lay open the whole ground +of the fabric of society. Practically they dealt with scarcely any but +the economic circumstances of societies, though some of them mix up with +their reasonings upon commerce and agriculture crude and incomplete +hints upon forms of government and other questions that belong not to +the economical but to the political side of social science.[44] +Quesnay's famous _Maxims_ open with a declaration in favour of the unity +of the sovereign authority, and against the system of counterbalancing +forces in government. Almost immediately he passes on to the ground of +political economy, and elaborates the conditions of material prosperity +in an agricultural realm. With the correctness of the definitions and +principles of economic science as laid down by these writers, we have +here nothing to do. Their peculiar distinction in the present connection +is the grasp which they had of the principle of there being a natural, +and therefore a scientific, order in the conditions of a society; that +order being natural in the sense that they attached to the term, which +from the circumstances of the case is most beneficial to the race. From +this point of view they approach some of the problems of what is now +classified as social statics; and they assume, without any consciousness +of another aspect being possible, that the society which they are +discussing is in a state of equilibrium. + +It is evident that with this restriction of the speculative horizon, +they were and must remain wholly unable to emerge into the full light of +the completely constituted science of society, with laws of movement as +well as laws of equilibrium, with definite methods of interpreting past +and predicting future states. They could account for and describe the +genesis of the social union, as Plato and Aristotle had in different +ways been able to do many centuries before; and they could prescribe +some of the conditions of its being maintained in vigour and +compactness. Some of them could even see in a vague way the +interdependence of peoples and the community of the real interests of +different nations, each nation, as De la Rivière expressed it, being +only a province of the vast kingdom of nature, a branch from the same +trunk as the rest.[45] What they could not see was the great fact of +social evolution; and here too, in the succession of social states, +there has been a natural and observable order. In a word, they tried to +understand society without the aid of history. Consequently they laid +down the truths which they discovered as absolute and fixed, when they +were no more than conditional and relative. + +Fortunately inquirers in another field had set a movement afoot, which +was destined to furnish the supplement of their own speculation. This +was the remarkable development of the conception of history, which +Montesquieu's two memorable books first made conspicuous. Bossuet's +well-known discourse on universal history, teeming as it does with +religious prejudice, just as Condorcet's sketch teems with prejudice +against religion, and egregiously imperfect in execution as it must be +pronounced when judged from even the meanest historical standard, had +perhaps partially introduced the spirit of Universality, as Comte says, +into the study of history. But it was impossible from the nature of the +case for any theologian to know fully what this spirit means; and it was +not until the very middle of the following century that any effective +approach was made to that universality which Bossuet did little more +than talk about. Then it came not from theology, but from the much more +hopeful sources of a rational philosophy. Before Montesquieu no single +stone of the foundation of scientific history can be said to have been +laid. Of course, far earlier writers had sought after the circumstances +which brought about a given transaction. Thucydides, for example, had +attributed the cause of the Peloponnesian war to the alarm of the +Lacedæmonians at the greatness of the power of Athens.[46] It is this +sense of the need of explanation, however rudimentary it may be, which +distinguishes the great historian from the chronicler, even from a very +superior chronicler like Livy, who in his account of even so great an +event as the Second Punic War plunges straightway into narrative of what +happened, without concerning himself why it happened. Tacitus had begun +his _Histories_ with remarks upon the condition of Rome, the feeling of +the various armies, the attitude of the provinces, so that, as he says, +'_non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed +ratio etiam causæque noscantur_.'[47] But these and the like instances +in historical literature were only political explanations, more or less +adequate, of particular transactions; they were no more than the +sagacious remarks of men with statesmanlike minds, upon the origin of +some single set of circumstances. + +The rise from this to the high degree of generality which marks the +speculations of Montesquieu, empirical as they are, was as great as the +rise from the mere maxims of worldly wisdom to the widest principles of +ethical philosophy. Polybius, indeed, in the remarkable chapters with +which his _Histories_ open, uses expressions that are so modern as +almost to startle us. 'People who study history,' he says, 'in separate +and detached portions, without reference to one another, and suppose +that from them they acquire a knowledge of the whole, are like a man +who in looking on the severed members of what had once been an animated +and comely creature, should think that this was enough to give him an +idea of its beauty and force when alive. The empire of Rome was what by +its extent in Italy, Africa, Asia, Greece, brought history into the +condition of being organic (σωματοειδής {sômatoeidês}).' His object was +to examine the general and collective ordering of events; when it came +into existence; whence it had its source; how it had this special +completion and fulfilment--the universal empire of Rome.[48] Striking as +this is, and admirable as it is, there is not in it any real trace of +the abstract conception of social history. Polybius recognises the unity +of history, so far as that could be understood in the second century +before Christ, but he treats his subject in the concrete, describing the +chain of events, but not attempting to seek their law. It was +Montesquieu who first applied the comparative method to social +institutions; who first considered physical conditions in connection +with the laws of a country; who first perceived and illustrated how that +natural order which the Physiocrats only considered in relation to the +phenomena of wealth and its production, really extended over its +political phenomena as well; who first set the example of viewing a +great number of social facts all over the world in groups and classes; +and who first definitely and systematically inquired into the causes of +a set of complex historical events and institutions, as being both +discoverable and intelligible. This was a very marked advance upon both +of the ideas, by one or other of which men had previously been content +to explain to themselves the course of circumstances in the world; +either the inscrutable decrees of an inhuman providence, or the +fortuitous vagaries of an eyeless destiny. + +It was Turgot, however, who completed the historical conception of +Montesquieu, in a piece written in 1750, two years after the appearance +of the _Esprit des Lois_, and in one or two other fragmentary +compositions of about the same time, which are not the less remarkable +because the writer was only twenty-three years old when these advanced +ideas presented themselves to his intelligence. Vico in Italy had +insisted on the doctrine that the course of human affairs is in a cycle, +and that they move in a constant and self-repeating orbit.[49] Turgot, +on the contrary, with more wisdom, at the opening of his subject is +careful to distinguish the ever-varying spectacle of the succession of +men from generation to generation, from the circle of identical +revolutions in which the phenomena of nature are enclosed. In the one +case time only restores at each instant the image of what it has just +caused to disappear; in the other, the reason and the passions are ever +incessantly producing new events. 'All the ages are linked together by +a succession of causes and effects which bind the state of the world to +all the states that have gone before. The multiplied signs of speech and +writing, in supplying men with the means of an assured possession of +their thoughts and of communicating them to one another, have formed a +common treasure that one generation transmits to another, as an +inheritance constantly augmented by the discoveries of each generation; +and the human race, looked at from its origin, appears in the eyes of +the philosopher one immense whole, which, just as in the case of each +individual, has its infancy and its growth.'[50] + +Pascal and others in ancient and modern times[51] had compared in casual +and unfruitful remarks the history of the race to the history of the +individual, but Turgot was able in some sort to see the full meaning and +extent of the analogy, as well as the limitations proper to it, and to +draw from it some of the larger principles which the idea involved. The +first proposition in the passage just quoted, that a chain of causes and +effects unites each age with every other age that has gone before, is +one of the most memorable sentences in the history of thought. And +Turgot not only saw that there is a relation of cause and effect between +successive states of society; he had glimpses into some of the +conditions of that relation. To a generation that stands on loftier +heights his attempts seem rudimentary and strangely simple, but it was +these attempts which cut the steps for our ascent. How is it, he asked, +for instance, that the succession of social states is not uniform? that +they follow with unequal step along the track marked out for them? He +found the answer in the inequality of natural advantages, and he was +able to discern the necessity of including in these advantages the +presence, apparently accidental, in some communities and not in others +of men of especial genius or capacity in some important direction.[52] +Again, he saw that just as in one way natural advantages accelerate the +progress of a society, in another natural obstacles also accelerate it, +by stimulating men to the efforts necessary to overcome them: _le besoin +perfectionne l'instrument_.[53] The importance of following the march of +the human mind over all the grooves along which it travels to further +knowledge, was fully present to him, and he dwells repeatedly on the +constant play going on between discoveries in one science and those in +another. In no writer is there a fuller and more distinct sense of the +essential unity and integrity of the history of mankind, nor of the +multitude of the mansions into which this vast house is divided, and the +many keys which he must possess that would open and enter in. + +Even in empirical explanations Turgot shows a breadth and accuracy of +vision truly surprising, considering his own youth and what we may +venture to call the youth of his subject. The reader will be able to +appreciate this, and to discern at the same time the arbitrary nature of +Montesquieu's method, if he will contrast, for example, the remarks of +this writer upon polygamy with the far wider and more sagacious +explanation of the circumstances of such an institution given by +Turgot.[54] Unfortunately, he has left us only short and fragmentary +pieces, but they suggest more than many large and complete works. That +they had a very powerful and direct influence upon Condorcet there is no +doubt, as well from the similarity of general conception between him and +Turgot, as from the nearly perfect identity of leading passages in their +writings. Let us add that in Turgot's fragments we have what is +unhappily not a characteristic of Condorcet, the peculiar satisfaction +and delight in scientific history of a style which states a fact in such +phrases as serve also to reveal its origin, bearings, significance, in +which every successive piece of description is so worded as to be +self-evidently a link in the chain of explanation, an ordered term in a +series of social conditions. + +Before returning to Condorcet we ought to glance at the remarkable +piece, written in 1784, in which Kant propounded his idea of a +universal or cosmo-political history, which contemplating the agency of +the human will upon a large scale should unfold to our view a regular +stream of tendency in the great succession of events.[55] The will +metaphysically considered, Kant said, is free, but its manifestations, +that is to say, human actions, 'are as much under the control of +universal laws of nature as any other physical phenomena.' + +The very same course of incidents, which taken separately and +individually would have seemed perplexed and incoherent, 'yet viewed in +their connection and as the action of the human _species_ and not of +independent beings, never fail to observe a steady and continuous, +though slow, development of certain great predispositions in our +nature.' As it is impossible to presume in the human race any _rational_ +purpose of its own, we must seek to observe some _natural_ purpose in +the current of human actions. Thus a history of creatures with no plan +of their own, may yet admit a systematic form as a history of creatures +blindly pursuing a plan of nature. Now we know that all predispositions +are destined to develop themselves according to their final purpose. +Man's rational predispositions are destined to develop themselves in the +species and not in the individual. History then is the progress of the +development of all the tendencies laid in man by nature. The method of +development is the antagonism of these tendencies in the social state, +and its source the _unsocial sociality_ of man--a tendency to enter the +social state, combined with a perpetual resistance to that tendency, +which is ever threatening to dissolve it. The play of these two +tendencies unfolds talents of every kind, and by gradual increase of +light a preparation is made for such a mode of thinking as is capable of +'exalting a social concert that had been _pathologically_ extorted from +the mere necessities of situation, into a _moral_ union founded on the +reasonable choice.' Hence the highest problem for man is the +establishment of a universal civil society, founded on the empire of +political justice; and 'the history of the human species as a whole may +be regarded as the unravelling of a hidden plan of nature for +accomplishing a perfect state of civil constitution for society in its +internal relations (and, as the condition of that, in its external +relations also), as the sole state of society in which the tendencies of +human nature can be all and fully developed.' Nor is this all. We shall +not only be able to unravel the intricate web of past affairs, but shall +also find a clue for the guidance of future statesmen in the art of +political prediction. Nay more, this clue 'will open a consolatory +prospect into futurity, in which at a remote distance we shall observe +the human species seated upon an eminence won by infinite toil, where +all the germs are unfolded which nature has implanted within it, and +its destination on this earth accomplished.' + +That this conception involves an assumption about tendencies and final +purposes which reverses the true method of history, and moreover reduces +what ought to be a scientific inquiry to be a foregone justification of +nature or providence, should not prevent us from appreciating its signal +merits in insisting on a systematic presentation of the collective +activity of the race, and in pointing out, however cursorily, the use of +such an elucidation of the past in furnishing the grounds of practical +guidance in dealing with the future and in preparing it. Considering the +brevity of this little tract, its pregnancy and suggestiveness have not +often been equalled. We have seen enough of it here to enable us to +realise the differences between this and the French school. We miss the +wholesome objectivity, resulting from the stage which had been reached +in France by the physical sciences. Condorcet's series of _éloges_ shows +unmistakably how deep an impression the history of physical discovery +had made upon him, and how clearly he understood the value of its +methods. The peculiar study which their composition had occasioned him +is of itself almost enough to account for the fact that a conception +which had long been preparing in the superior minds of the time, should +fully develop itself in him rather than in anybody else. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[42] Quesnay; _Droit Naturel_, ch. v. _Les Physiocrates_, i. 52. + +[43] _Economistes Financiers du 18ième Siècle._ Vauban's _Projet d'une +Dime Royale_ (p. 33), and Boisguillebert's _Factum de la France_, etc. +(p. 248 _et seq._) + +[44] De la Rivière, for instance, very notably. Cf. his _Ordre Naturel +des Sociétés Politiques_. _Physiocrates_, ii. 469, 636, etc. See also +Baudeau on the superiority of the Economic Monarchy _Ib._ pp. 783-791. + +[45] _Ordre Nat. des Soc. Pol._ p. 526. + +[46] Bk. i. 23. + +[47] _Hist._ i. 4. + +[48] Polyb. _Hist._ I. iii. 4; iv. 3, 7. + +[49] The well-known words of Thucydides may contain the germ of the same +idea, when he speaks of the future as being likely to represent again, +after the fashion of human things, 'if not the very image, yet the near +resemblance of the past.' Bk. i. 22, 4. + +[50] _Discours en Sorbonne._ _Å’uv. de Turgot_, ii. 597. (Ed. of 1844). + +[51] Cf. Sir G. C. Lewis's _Methods of Observation in Politics_, ii. +439, note. + +[52] _Å’uv. de Turgot_, ii. 599, 645, etc. + +[53] _Ib._ ii. 601. + +[54] _Esprit des Lois_, xvi. cc. 2-4. And _Discours sur l'Histoire +Universelle_, in Turgot's Works, ii. 640, 641. For a further account of +Turgot's speculations, see article "Turgot" in the present volume. + +[55] _Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmo-Political Plan._ It was +translated by De Quincey, and is to be found in vol. xiii. of his +collected works, pp. 133-152. + + + + +V. + + +The Physiocrats, as we have seen, had introduced the idea of there being +a natural order in social circumstances, that order being natural which +is most advantageous to mankind. Turgot had declared that one age is +bound to another by a chain of causation. Condorcet fused these two +conceptions. He viewed the history of the ages as a whole, and found in +their succession a natural order; an order which, when uninterrupted and +undisturbed, tended to accumulate untold advantages upon the human race, +which was every day becoming more plain to the vision of men, and +therefore every day more and more assured from disturbance by ignorant +prejudice and sinister interests. There is an order at once among the +circumstances of a given generation, and among the successive sets of +circumstances of successive generations. 'If we consider the development +of human faculties in its results, so far as they relate to the +individuals who exist at the same time on a given space, and if we +follow that development from generation to generation, then we have +before us the picture of the progress of the human mind. This progress +is subject to the same general laws that are to be observed in the +development of the faculties of individuals, for it is the result of +that development, considered at the same time in a great number of +individuals united in society. But the result that presents itself at +any one instant depends upon that which was offered by the instants +preceding; in turn it influences the result in times still to follow.' + +This picture will be of a historical character, inasmuch as being +subject to perpetual variations it is formed by the observation in due +order of different human societies in different epochs through which +they have passed. It will expose the order of the various changes, the +influence exercised by each period over the next, and thus will show in +the modifications impressed upon the race, ever renewing itself in the +immensity of the ages, the track that it has followed, and the exact +steps that it has taken towards truth and happiness. Such observation of +what man has been and of what he is, will then lead us to means proper +for assuring and accelerating the fresh progress that his nature allows +us to anticipate still further.[56] + +'If a man is able to predict with nearly perfect confidence, phenomena +with whose laws he is acquainted; if, even when they are unknown to him, +he is able, in accordance with the experience of the past, to foresee +with a large degree of probability the events of the future, why should +we treat it as a chimerical enterprise, to trace with some +verisimilitude the picture of the future destinies of the human race in +accordance with the results of its history? The only foundation of +belief in the natural sciences is this idea, that the general laws, +known or unknown, which regulate the phenomena of the universe are +necessary and constant; and why should this principle be less true for +the development of the moral and intellectual faculties of man than for +other natural operations? In short, opinions grounded on past experience +in objects of the same order being the single rule of conduct for even +the wisest men, why should the philosopher be forbidden to rest his +conjectures on the same base, provided that he never attributes to them +a degree of certainty beyond what is warranted by the number, the +constancy, and the accuracy of his observations?'[57] + +Thus Condorcet's purpose was not to justify nature, as it had been with +Kant, but to search in the past for rational grounds of a belief in the +unbounded splendour of men's future destinies. His view of the character +of the relations among the circumstances of the social union, either at +a given moment or in a succession of periods, was both accurate and +far-sighted. When he came actually to execute his own great idea, and to +specify the manner in which those relations arose and operated, he +instantly diverged from the right path. Progress in his mind is +exclusively produced by improvement in intelligence. It is the necessary +result of man's activity in the face of that disproportion ever existing +between what he knows and what he desires and feels the necessity to +know.[58] Hence the most fatal of the errors of Condorcet's sketch. He +measures only the contributions made by nations and eras to what we +know; leaving out of sight their failures and successes in the +elevation of moral standards and ideals, and in the purification of +human passions. + +Now even if we hold the intellectual principle only to be progressive, +and the moral elements to be fixed, being coloured and shaped and +quickened by the surrounding intellectual conditions, still, inasmuch as +the manner of this shaping and colouring is continually changing and +leading to the most important transformations of human activity and +sentiment, it must obviously be a radical deficiency in any picture of +social progress to leave out the development of ethics, whether it be a +derivative or an independent and spontaneous development. One seeks in +vain in Condorcet's sketch for any account of the natural history of +western morals, or for any sign of consciousness on his part that the +difference in ethical discipline and feeling between the most ferocious +of primitive tribes and the most enlightened eighteenth-century +Frenchmen, was a result of evolution that needed historical explanation, +quite as much as the difference between the astrolatry of one age and +the astronomy of another. We find no recognition of the propriety of +recounting the various steps of that long process by which, to use +Kant's pregnant phrase, the relations born of pathological necessity +were metamorphosed into those of moral union. The grave and lofty +feeling, for example, which inspired the last words of the +_Tableau_--whence came it? Of what long-drawn chain of causes in the +past was it the last effect? It is not enough to refer us generally to +previous advances in knowledge and intellectual emancipation, because +even supposing the successive modifications of our moral sensibilities +to be fundamentally due to the progress of intellectual enlightenment, +we still want to know in the first place something about the influences +which harness one process to the other, and in the second place, +something about the particular directions which these modifications of +moral constitution have taken. + +If this is one very radical omission in Condorcet's scheme, his angry +and vehement aversion for the various religions of the world (with +perhaps one exception) is a sin of commission still more damaging to its +completeness. That he should detest the corrupt and oppressive forms of +religion of his own century was neither surprising nor blamable. An +unfavourable view of the influences upon human development of the +Christian belief, even in its least corrupt forms, was not by any means +untenable. Nay, he was at liberty to go further than this, and to depict +religion as a natural infirmity of the human mind in its immature +stages, just as there are specific disorders incident in childhood to +the human body. Even on this theory, he was bound to handle it with the +same calmness which he would have expected to find in a pathological +treatise by a physician. Who would write of the sweating sickness with +indignation, or describe zymotic diseases with resentment? Condorcet's +pertinacious anger against theology is just as irrational as this would +be, from the scientific point of view which he pretends to have assumed. +Theology, in fact, was partly avenged of her assailants, for she had in +the struggle contrived to infect them with the bitter contagion of her +own traditional spirit. + +From the earliest times to the latest it is all one story according to +Condorcet. He can speak with respect of philosophies even when, as in +the case of the Scotch school of the last century, he dislikes and +condemns them.[59] Of religion his contempt and hatred only vary +slightly in degree. Barbarous tribes have sorcerers, trading on the +gross superstitions of their dupes: so in other guise and with different +names have civilised nations to-day. As other arts progressed, +superstition, too, became less rude; priestly families kept all +knowledge in their own hands, and thus preserved their hypocritical and +tyrannical assumptions from detection. They disclosed nothing to the +people without some supernatural admixture, the better to maintain their +personal pretensions. They had two doctrines, one for themselves, and +the other for the people. Sometimes, as they were divided into several +orders, each of them reserved to itself certain mysteries. Thus all the +inferior orders were at once rogues and dupes, and the great system of +hypocrisy was only known in all its completeness to a few adepts. +Christianity belonged to the same class. Its priests, we must admit, 'in +spite of their knaveries and their vices, were enthusiasts ready to +perish for their doctrines.' In vain did Julian endeavour to deliver the +empire from the scourge. Its triumph was the signal for the incurable +decay of all art and knowledge. The Church may seem to have done some +good in things where her interests did not happen to clash with the +interests of Europe, as in helping to abolish slavery, for instance; but +after all 'circumstances and manners' would have produced the result +necessarily and of themselves. Morality, which was taught by the priests +only, contained those universal principles that have been unknown to no +sect; but it created a host of purely religious duties, and of imaginary +sins. These duties were more rigorously enjoined than those of nature, +and actions that were indifferent, legitimate, or even virtuous, were +more severely rebuked and punished than real crimes. Yet, on the other +hand, a moment of repentance, consecrated by the absolution of a priest, +opened the gates of heaven to the worst miscreants.[60] + +In the opening of the last of these remarks there is much justice. So +there is in the striking suggestion made in another place, that we +should not bless erroneous systems for their utility, simply because +they help to repair some small part of the mischief of which they have +themselves been the principal cause.[61] But on the whole it is obvious +that Condorcet was unfitted by his temper, and that of the school to +which he most belonged, from accepting religion as a fact in the +history of the human mind that must have some positive explanation. To +look at it in this way as the creation of a handful of selfish impostors +in each community, was to show a radical incompetence to carry out the +scheme which had been so scientifically projected. The picture is ruined +by the angry caricature of what ought to have been one of the most +important figures in it. To this place the Christian Church is +undeniably entitled, however we may be disposed to strike the balance +between the undoubted injuries and the undoubted advantages which it has +been the means of dealing to the civilisation of the west. Never perhaps +was there so thorough an inversion of the true view of the comparative +elevation of different parts of human character, as is implied in +Condorcet's strange hint that Cromwell's satellites would have been much +better men if they had carried instead of the Bible at their saddle-bows +some merry book of the stamp of Voltaire's _Pucelle_.[62] + +Apart from the misreading of history in explaining religion by the folly +of the many and the frauds of a few, Condorcet's interpretation involved +the profoundest infidelity to his own doctrine of the intrinsic purity +and exaltation of human nature. This doctrine ought in all reason to +have led him to look for the secret of the popular acceptance of beliefs +that to him seemed most outrageous, in some possibly finer side which +they might possess for others, appealing not to the lower but to the +higher qualities of a nature with instincts of perfection. Take his +account of Purgatory, for instance. The priests, he says, drew up so +minute and comprehensive a table of sins that nobody could hope to +escape from censure. Here you come upon one of the most lucrative +branches of the sacerdotal trafficking; people were taught to imagine a +hell of limited duration, which the priests only had the power to +abridge; and this grace they sold, first to the living, then to the +kinsmen and friends of the dead.[63] Now it was surely more worthy of a +belief in the natural depravity than in the natural perfectibility of +the sons of Adam, thus to assume without parley or proviso a base +mercenariness on the one hand, and grovelling terror on the other, as +the origin of a doctrine which was obviously susceptible of a kinder +explanation. Would it not have been more consistent with belief in human +goodness to refer the doctrine to a merciful and affectionate and truly +humanising anxiety to assuage the horrors of what is perhaps the most +frightful idea that has ever corroded human character, the idea of +eternal punishment? We could in part have pardoned Condorcet if he had +striven to invent ever so fanciful origins for opinions and belief in +his solicitude for the credit of humanity. As it is, he distorts the +history of religion only to humanity's discredit. How, if the people +were always predisposed to virtue, were priests, sprung of the same +people and bred in the same traditions, so invariably and incurably +devoted to baseness and hypocrisy? Was the nature of a priest absolutely +devoid of what physicians call recuperative force, restoring him to a +sound mind, in spite of professional perversion? In fine, if man had +been so grossly enslaved in moral nature from the beginning of the world +down to the year 1789 or thereabouts, how was it possible that +notwithstanding the admitted slowness of civilising processes, he should +suddenly spring forth the very perfectible and nearly perfected being +that Condorcet passionately imagined him to be?[64] + +It has already been hinted that there was one partial exception to +Condorcet's otherwise all-embracing animosity against religion. This was +Mahometanism. Towards this his attitude is fully appreciative, though of +course he deplores the superstitions which mixed themselves up with the +Arabian prophet's efforts for the purification of the men of his nation. +After the seven vials of fiery wrath have been poured out upon the creed +of Palestine, it is refreshing to find the creed of Arabia almost +patronised and praised. The writer who could not have found in his heart +to think Gregory the Great or Hildebrand other than a mercenary +impostor, nor Cromwell other than an ambitious hypocrite, admits with +exquisite blandness of Mahomet that he had the art of employing all the +means of subjugating men _avec adresse, mais avec grandeur_.[65] Another +reason, no doubt, besides his hatred of the Church, lay at the bottom of +Condorcet's tolerance or more towards Mahometanism. The Arabian +superstition was not fatal to knowledge, Arabian activity in algebra, +chemistry, optics, and astronomy, atoned in Condorcet's eyes for the +Koran. + +It is fair to add further, that Condorcet showed a more just +appreciation of the effects of Protestantism upon western development +than has been common among French thinkers. He recognises that men who +had learnt, however imperfectly, to submit their religious prejudices to +rational examination, would naturally be likely to extend the process to +political prejudices also. Moreover, if the reformed churches refused to +render to reason all its rights, still they agreed that its prison +should be less narrow; the chain was not broken, but it ceased to be +either so heavy or so short as it had been. And in countries where what +was by the dominant sect insolently styled tolerance succeeded in +establishing itself, it was possible to maintain the tolerated doctrines +with a more or less complete freedom. So there arose in Europe a sort +of freedom of thought, not for men, but for Christians; and, 'if we +except France, it is only for Christians that it exists anywhere else at +the present day,' a limitation which has now fortunately ceased to be +altogether exact.[66] + +If we have smiled at the ease with which what is rank craftiness in a +Christian is toned down into address in a Mahometan, we may be amused +too at the leniency that describes some of the propagandist methods of +the eighteenth century. Condorcet becomes rapturous as he tells in a +paragraph of fine sustention with what admixture of the wisdom of the +serpent the humane philosophers of his century 'covered the truth with a +veil that prevented it from hurting too weak sight, and left the +pleasure of conjecturing it; caressing prejudices with address, to deal +them the more certain blows; scarcely ever threatening them, nor ever +more than one at once, nor even one in its integrity; sometimes +consoling the enemies of reason by pretending to desire no more than a +half-tolerance in religion and half-liberty in politics; conciliating +despotism while they combated the absurdities of religion, and religion +when they rose against despotism; attacking these two scourges in their +principle, even when they seemed only to bear ill-will to revolting or +ridiculous abuses, and striking these poisonous trees in their very +roots, while they appeared to be doing no more than pruning crooked +branches.'[67] Imagine the holy rage with which such acts would have +been attacked, if Condorcet had happened to be writing about the +Jesuits. Alas! the stern and serene composure of the historical +conscience was as unknown to him as it is always to orthodox apologists. +It is to be said, moreover, that he had less excuse for being without +it, for he rested on the goodness of men, and not, as theologians rest, +on their vileness. It is a most interesting thing, we may notice in +passing, to consider what was the effect upon the Revolution of this +artfulness or prudence with which its theoretic precursors sowed the +seed. Was it as truly wise as Condorcet supposed? Or did it weaken, +almost corrupt, the very roots? Was it the secret of the thoroughness +with which the work of demolition was done? Was it, too, the secret of +the many and disastrous failures in the task of reconstruction?[68] + +There are one or two detached remarks suggested by Condorcet's picture, +which it may be worth while to make. He is fully alive, for example, to +the importance to mankind of the appearance among them of one of those +men of creative genius, like Archimedes or like Newton, whose lives +constitute an epoch in human history. Their very existence he saw to be +among the greatest benefits conferred on the race by Nature. He hardly +seems to have been struck, on the other hand, with the appalling and +incessant waste of these benefits that goes on; with the number of men +of Newtonian capacity who are undoubtedly born into the world only to +chronicle small beer; with the hosts of high and worthy souls who labour +and flit away like shadows, perishing in the accomplishment of minor and +subordinate ends. We may suspect that the notion of all this +immeasurable profusion of priceless treasures, its position as one of +the laws of the condition of man on the globe, would be unspeakably hard +of endurance to one holding Condorcet's peculiar form of optimism. + +Again, if we had space, it would be worth while to examine some of the +acute and ingenious hints which Condorcet throws out by the way. It +would be interesting to consider, as he suggests, the influence upon +the progress of the human mind of the change from writing on such +subjects as science, philosophy, and jurisprudence in Latin, to the +usual language of each country. That change rendered the sciences more +popular, but it increased the trouble of the scientific men in following +the general march of knowledge. It caused a book to be read in one +country by more men of inferior competence, but less read throughout +Europe by men of superior light. And though it relieves men who have no +leisure for extensive study from the trouble of learning Latin, it +imposes upon profounder persons the necessity of learning a variety of +modern languages.[69] Again, ground is broken for the most important +reflection, in the remark that men preserve the prejudices of their +childhood, their country, and their age, long after they have recognised +all the truths necessary to destroy them.[70] Perhaps most instructive +and most tranquillising of all is this, that the progress of physical +knowledge is constantly destroying in silence erroneous opinions which +had never seemed to be attacked.[71] And in reading history, how much +ignorance and misinterpretation would have been avoided, if the student +had but been careful to remember that 'the law as written and the law as +administered; the principles of those in power, and the modification of +their action by the sentiments of the governed; an institution as it +emanates from those who form it, and the same institution realised; the +religion of books, and that of the people; the apparent universality of +a prejudice, and the substantial adhesion that it receives; these may +all differ in such a way that the effects absolutely cease to answer to +the public and recognised causes.'[72] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[56] _Tableau des Progrès de l'Esprit Humain._ _Å’uv._ vi. 12, 13. + +[57] _Å’uv._ vi. 236. + +[58] _Ib._ vi. 21. + +[59] _Å’uv._ vi. 186. + +[60] _Å’uv._ vi. pp. 35, 55, 101, 102, 111, 117, 118, etc. + +[61] _Dissertation sur cette question: S'il est utile aux hommes d'être +trompés?_--one of the best of Condorcet's writings. _Å’uv._ v. 360. + +[62] See Condorcet's vindication of the _Pucelle_ in his Life of +Voltaire. _Å’uv._ iv. 88, 89. See also Comte's _Phil. Pos._ v. 450. + +[63] _Å’uv._ vi. 118. + +[64] As M. Comte says in his remarks on Condorcet (_Phil. Pos._ iv. +185-193): '_Le progrès total finalement accompli ne peut être sans doute +que le résultat général de l'accumulation spontanée des divers progrès +partiels successivement réalisés depuis l'origine de la civilisation, en +vertu de la marche successivement lente et graduelle de la nature +humaine;_' so that Condorcet's picture presents a standing miracle, '_où +l'on s'est même interdit d'abord la ressource vulgaire de la +Providence._' Comte's criticism, however, seems to leave out of sight +what full justice Condorcet did to the various partial advances in the +intellectual order. + +[65] _Å’uv._ vi. 120-123. + +[66] _Å’uv._ vi. 149, 153. + +[67] _Ib._ 187-189. + +[68] It is worth while to quote on this subject a passage from Condorcet +as historically instructive as it is morally dangerous. '_La nécessité +de mentir pour désavouer un ouvrage est une extrémité qui répugne +également à la conscience et à la noblesse du caractère; mais le crime +est pour les hommes injustes qui rendent ce désaveu nécessaire à la +sûreté de celui qu'ils y forcent. Si vous avez érigé en crime ce qui +n'en est pas un, si vous avez porté atteinte, par des lois absurdes ou +par des lois arbitraires, au droit naturel qu'ont tous les hommes, non +seulement d'avoir une opinion, mais de la rendre publique, alors vous +méritez de perdre celui qu'a chaque homme d'entendre la vérité de la +bouche d'un autre, droit qui fonde seul l'obligation rigoureuse de ne +pas mentir. S'il n'est pas permis de tromper, c'est parceque tromper +quelqu'un, c'est lui faire un tort, ou s'exposer à lui en faire un; mais +le tort suppose un droit, et personne n'a celui de cherche, à s'assurer +les moyens de commettre une injustice._' _Vie de Voltaire_; _Å’uv._ iv. +33, 34. Condorcet might have found some countenance for his sophisms in +Plato (Republ. ii. 383); but even Plato restricted the privilege of +lying to statesmen (iii. 389). He was in a wiser mood when he declared +(_Å’uv._ v. 384) that it is better to be imprudent than a +hypocrite,--though for that matter these are hardly the only +alternatives. + +[69] _Å’uv._ vi. 163. + +[70] _Ib._ vi. 22. + +[71] _Ib._ p. 220. + +[72] _Å’uv._ p. 234. + + + + +VI. + + +We have now seen something of Condorcet's ideas of the past, and of his +conception of what he was perhaps the first to call the Science of Man. +Let us turn to his hopes for the future, and one or two of the details +to which his study of the science of man conducted him. It is well to +perceive at the outset that Condorcet's views of the Tenth Epoch, as he +counts the period extending from the French Revolution to the era of the +indefinite perfection of man, were in truth not the result of any +scientific processes whatever, properly so called. He saw, and this is +his merit, that such processes were applicable to the affairs of +society; and that, as he put it, all political and moral errors rest +upon error in philosophy, which in turn is bound up with erroneous +methods in physical science.[73] But in the execution of his plan he +does not succeed in showing the nature of the relations of these +connected forces; still less does he practise the scientific duty, for +illustrating which he gives such well-deserved glory to Newton,[74] of +not only accounting for phenomena, but also of measuring the _quantity_ +of forces. His conception, therefore, of future progress, however near +conjecture may possibly have brought him to the truth, is yet no more +than conjecture. The root of it is found in nothing more precise, +definite, or quantified than a general notion gathered from history, +that some portions of the race had made perceptible advances in freedom +and enlightenment, and that we might therefore confidently expect still +further advances to be made in the same direction with an accelerated +rapidity, and with certain advantageous effects upon the happiness of +the whole mass of the human race. In short, the end of the speculation +is a confirmed and heightened conviction of the indefinite +perfectibility of the species, with certain foreshadowings of the +direction which this perfectibility would ultimately follow. The same +rebellion against the disorder and misery of the century, which drove +some thinkers and politicians into fierce yearnings for an imaginary +state of nature, and others into an extravagant admiration for the +ancient republics, caused a third school, and Condorcet among them, to +turn their eyes with equally boundless confidence and yearning towards +an imaginary future. It was at all events the least desperate error of +the three. + +Our expectations for the future, Condorcet held, may be reduced to these +three points: the destruction of inequality among nations; the progress +of equality among the people of any given nation; and, finally the +substantial perfecting (_perfectionnement réel_) of man. + +I. With reference to the first of these great aspirations, it will be +brought about by the abandonment by European peoples of their commercial +monopolies, their treacherous practices, their mischievous and +extravagant proselytising, and their sanguinary contempt for those of +another colour or another creed. Vast countries, now a prey to barbarism +and violence, will present in one region numerous populations only +waiting to receive the means and instruments of civilisation from us, +and as soon as they find brothers in the Europeans, will joyfully become +their friends and pupils; and in another region, nations enslaved under +the yoke of despots or conquerors, crying aloud for so many ages for +liberators. In yet other regions, it is true, there are tribes almost +savage, cut off by the harshness of their climate from a perfected +civilisation, or else conquering hordes, ignorant of every law but +violence and every trade but brigandage. The progress of these last two +descriptions of people will naturally be more tardy, and attended by +more storm and convulsion. It is possible even, that reduced in number, +in proportion as they see themselves repulsed by civilised nations, they +will end by insensibly disappearing.[75] It is perhaps a little hard to +expect Esquimaux or the barbaric marauders of the sandy expanses of +Central Asia insensibly to disappear, lest by their cheerless presence +they should destroy the unity and harmony of the transformation scene in +the great drama of Perfectibility. + +II. The principal causes of the inequality that unfortunately exists +among the people of the same community are three in number:--inequality +in wealth; inequality of condition between the man whose means of +subsistence are both assured and transmissible, and him for whom these +means depend upon the duration of his working life; thirdly, inequality +of instruction. How are we to establish a continual tendency in these +three sources of inequality to diminish in activity and power? To +lessen, though not to demolish, inequalities in wealth, it will be +necessary for all artificial restrictions and exclusive advantages to be +removed from fiscal or other legal arrangements, by which property is +either acquired or accumulated: and among social changes tending in this +direction will be the banishment by public opinion of an avaricious or +mercenary spirit from marriage. Again, inequality between permanent and +precarious incomes will be radically modified by the development of the +application of the calculation of probabilities to life. The extension +of annuities and insurance will not only benefit many individuals, but +will benefit society at large by putting an end to that periodical ruin +of a large number of families, which is such an ever-renewing source of +misery and degradation. Another means to the same end will be found in +discovering, by the same doctrine of probabilities, some other equally +solid base for credit instead of a large capital, and for rendering the +progress of industry and the activity of commerce more independent of +the existence of great capitalists. Something approaching to equality of +instruction, even for those who can only spare a few of their early +years for study, and in after times only a few hours of leisure, will +become more attainable by improved selection of subjects, and improved +methods of teaching them. The dwellers in one country will cease to be +distinguished by the use of a rude or of a refined dialect; and this, it +may be said in passing, has actually been the result of the school +system in the United States. One portion of them will no longer be +dependent upon any other for guidance in the smallest affairs. We cannot +obliterate nor ignore natural differences of capacity, but after public +instruction has been properly developed, 'the difference will be between +men of superior enlightenment, and men of an upright character who feel +the value of light without being dazzled by it; between talent or +genius, and that good sense which knows how to appreciate and to enjoy +both. Even if this difference were greater than has been said, if we +compare the force and extent of faculty, it would become none the less +insensible, if we compare their respective effects upon the relations of +men among themselves, upon all that affects their independence and their +happiness.'[76] + +III. What are the changes that we may expect from the substantial +perfecting of human nature and society? If, before making this forecast, +we reflect with what feeble means the race has arrived at its present +knowledge of useful and important truths, we shall not fear the reproach +of temerity in our anticipations for a time when the force of all these +means shall have been indefinitely increased. The progress of +agricultural science will make the same land more productive, and the +same labour more efficient. Nay, who shall predict what the art of +converting elementary substances into food for our use may one day +become? The constant tendency of population to advance to the limits of +the means of subsistence thus amplified, will be checked by a rising +consciousness in men, that if they have obligations in respect of +creatures still unborn, these obligations consist in giving them, not +existence but happiness, in adding to the wellbeing of the family, and +not cumbering the earth with useless and unfortunate beings. This +changed view upon population will partly follow from the substitution of +rational ideas for those prejudices which have penetrated morals with an +austerity that is corrupting and degrading.[77] The movement will be +further aided by one of the most important steps in human progress--the +destruction, namely, of the prejudices that have established inequality +of rights between the two sexes, and which are so mischievous even to +the sex that seems to be most favoured.[78] We seek in vain for any +justification of such an inequality in difference of physical +organisation, in force of intelligence, or in moral sensibility. It has +no other origin than abuse of strength, and it is to no purpose that +attempts are made to excuse it by sophisms. The destruction of the +usages springing from this custom will render common those domestic +virtues which are the foundation of all others, and will encourage +education as well as make it more general, both because instruction +would be imparted to both sexes with more equality, and because it +cannot become general even for males without the aid of the mother of +the family.[79] + +Among other improvements under our third head will be the attainment of +greater perfection in language, leading at once to increased accuracy +and increased concision. Laws and institutions, following the progress +of knowledge, will be constantly undergoing modifications tending to +identify individual with collective interests. Wars will grow less +frequent with the extinction of those ideas of hereditary and dynastic +rights, that have occasioned so many bloody contests. The art of +learning will be facilitated by the institution of a Universal Language; +and the art of teaching by resort to Technical Methods, or systems which +unite in orderly arrangement a great number of different objects, so +that their relations are perceived at a single glance.[80] + +Finally, progress in medicine, the use of more wholesome food and +healthy houses, the diminution of the two most active causes of +deterioration, namely, misery and excessive wealth, must prolong the +average duration of life, as well as raise the tone of health while it +lasts. The force of transmissable diseases will be gradually weakened, +until their quality of transmission vanishes. May we then not hope for +the arrival of a time when death will cease to be anything but the +effect either of extraordinary accidents, or of the destruction, ever +slower and slower, of the vital forces? May we not believe that the +duration of the middle interval between birth and this destruction has +no assignable term? Man will never become immortal, but is it a mere +chimera to hold that the term fixed to his years is slowly and +perpetually receding further and further from the moment at which his +existence begins?[81] + + * * * * * + +The rapidity and the necessary incompleteness with which Condorcet threw +out in isolated hints his ideas of the future state of society, impart +to his conception a certain mechanical aspect, which conveys an +incorrect impression of his notion of the sources whence social change +must flow. His admirable and most careful remarks upon the moral +training of children prove him to have been as far removed as possible +from any of those theories of the formation of character which merely +prescribe the imposition of moulds and casts from without, instead of +carefully tending the many spontaneous and sensitive processes of growth +within.[82] Nobody has shown a finer appreciation of the delicacy of +the material out of which character is to be made, and of the +susceptibility of its elementary structure; nor of the fact that +education consists in such a discipline of the primitive impulses as +shall lead men to do right, not by the constraint of mechanical external +sanctions, but by an instant, spontaneous, and almost inarticulate +repugnance to cowardice, cruelty, apathy, self-indulgence, and the other +great roots and centres of wrong-doing. It was to a society composed of +men and women whose characters had been shaped on this principle, that +Condorcet looked for the realisation of his exalted hopes for +humanity.[83] + +With machinery and organisation, in truth, Condorcet did not greatly +concern himself; probably too little rather than too much. The central +idea of all his aspirations was to procure the emancipation of reason, +free and ample room for its exercise, and improved competence among men +in the use of it. The subjugation of the modern intelligence beneath the +disembodied fancies of the grotesque and sombre imagination of the +Middle Ages, did not offend him more than the idea of any fixed +organisation of the spiritual power, or any final and settled and +universally accepted solution of belief and order would have done. With +De Maistre and Comte the problem was the organised and systematic +reconstruction of an anarchic society. With Condorcet it was how to +persuade men to exert the individual reason methodically and +independently, not without co-operation, but without anything like +official or other subordination. + +His cardinal belief and precept was, as with Socrates, that the βίος +ἀνεξÎταστος {bios anexetastos} is not to be lived by man. As we have +seen, the freedom of the reason was so dear to him, that he counted it +an abuse for a parent to instil his own convictions into the defenceless +minds of his young children. This was the natural outcome of Condorcet's +mode of viewing history as the record of intellectual emancipation, +while to Comte its deepest interest was as a record of moral and +emotional cultivation. If we value in one type of thinker the +intellectual conscientiousness, which refrains from perplexing men by +propounding problems unless the solution can be set forth also, perhaps +we owe no less honour in the thinker of another type to that +intellectual self-denial which makes him very careful lest the too rigid +projection of his own specific conclusions should by any means obstruct +the access of a single ray of fertilising light. This religious +scrupulosity, which made him abhor all interference with the freedom and +openness of the understanding as the worst kind of sacrilege, was +Condorcet's eminent distinction. If, as some think, the world will +gradually transform its fear or love of unknowable gods into a devout +reverence for those who have stirred in men a sense of the dignity of +their own nature and of its large and multitudinous possibilities, then +will his name not fail of deep and perpetual recollection. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[73] _Ib._ p. 223. + +[74] _Ib._ p. 206. + +[75] _Å’uv._ pp. 239-244. + +[76] _Å’uv._ pp. 244-251. + +[77] _Å’uv._ pp. 257, 258. + +[78] Condorcet had already assailed the prejudices that keep women in +subjection in an excellent tract, published in 1790; _Sur l'Admission +des Femmes au Droit de Cité._ _Å’uv._ x. 121-130. + +[79] _Å’uv._ p. 264. The rest of the passage is not perfectly +intelligible to me, so I give it as it stands. '_Cet hommage trop +tardif, rendu enfin à l'équité et au bon sens, ne tarirait-il pas une +source trop féconde d'injustices, de cruautés et de crimes, en faisant +disparaître une opposition si dangereuse entre le penchant naturel le +plus vif, le plus difficile à réprimer, et les devoirs de l'homme ou les +intérêts de la société? Ne produirait-il pas, enfin, des mÅ“urs +nationales douces et pures, formées non de privations orgueilleuses, +d'apparences hypocrites, de réserves imposées par la crainte de la honte +ou les terreurs religieuses, mais d'habitudes librement contractées, +inspirées par la nature, avouées par la raison?_' Can these habitudes be +the habitudes of Free Love, or what are they? Condorcet, we know, +thought the indissolubility of marriage a monstrously bad thing, but the +grounds which he gives for his thinking so would certainly lead to the +infinite dissolubility of society. See a truly astounding passage in the +_Fragment on the Tenth Epoch_, vi. 523-526. See also some curious words +in a letter to Turgot, i. 221, 222. + +[80] _Å’uv._ pp. 269-272. + +[81] _Å’uv._ pp. 272-275. Also p. 618. + +[82] See _Fragment de l'Histoire de la Xe Epoque._ '_Il ne faut pas +leur dire, mais les accoutumer à croire, à trouver au dedans +a'eux-mêmes, que la bonté et la justice sont nécessaires au bonheur, +comme une respiration facile et libre l'est à la santé._' Of books for +the young: '_Il faut qu'ils n'excédent jamais l'étendue ou la +délicatesse de la sensibilité._' '_Il faut renoncer à l'idée de parler +aux enfans de ce que ni leur esprit ni leur âme ne peuvent encore +comprendre; ne pas leur faire admirer une constitution et réciter par +cÅ“ur les droits politiques de l'homme quand ils ont à peine une idée +nette de leurs relations avec leur famille et leurs camarades._' + +Still more objectionable, we may be sure, would he have found the +practice of drilling little children by the hearth or at the school-desk +in creeds, catechisms, and the like repositories of mysteries baleful to +the growing intelligence. '_Aidons le développement des facultés +humaines pendant la faiblesse de l'enfance_,' he said admirably, '_mais +n'abusons pas de cette faiblesse pour les mouler au gré de nos opinions +de nos intérêts, ou de notre orgueil._'--_Å’uv._ vi. 543-554. + +Cf. also v. 363-365, where there are some deserved strictures on the +malpractice of teaching children as truth what the parents themselves +believe to be superstition or even falsehood. + +The reader may remember the speech of the Patriarch, in Lessing's play, +against the Jew: + + _Der mit Gewalt ein armes Christenkind + Dem Bunde seiner Tauf' entreisst! Denn ist + Nicht alles, was man Kindern thut, Gewalt? + Zu sagen: ausgenommen, was die Kirch', + An Kindern thut._ + +[83] His _Mémoires sur l'Instruction Publique_, written in 1791-1792, +and printed in the seventh volume of the works, are still very well +worth turning to. + + +Transcribers' Notes: + +Minor printer errors (omitted or incorrect punctuation) have been +amended without note. Other errors have been amended and are listed +below. + +List of Amendments: + +Page 201: colleages amended to colleagues; "... among his colleagues in +the deputation ..." + +Page 240: added missing footnote anchor [66] to paragraph ending "... +ceased to be altogether exact." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + +***** This file should be named 24492-0.txt or 24492-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/4/9/24492/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, René Anderson Benitz and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/24492-0.zip b/24492-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5bc3e98 --- /dev/null +++ b/24492-0.zip diff --git a/24492-8.txt b/24492-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37b00a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/24492-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2871 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), by John Morley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) + Essay 3: Condorcet + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: February 2, 2008 [EBook #24492] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, René Anderson Benitz and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +Note: + +Greek words/phrases in the text are noted as +Greek text+. +OE/oe ligatures have not been retained in this version. + + + + +CRITICAL MISCELLANIES + + +BY + +JOHN MORLEY + + +VOL. II. + +Essay 3: Condorcet + + + + +London +MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited +New York: The MacMillan Company +1905 + + + + + + +CONDORCET. + + + + +Condorcet's peculiar position and characteristics 163 + +Birth, instruction, and early sensibility 166 + +Friendship with Voltaire and with Turgot 170, 171 + +Compared with these two great men 172 + +Currents of French opinion and circumstance in 1774 177 + +Condorcet's principles drawn from two sources 180 + +His view of the two English Revolutions 181 + +His life up to the convocation of the States-General 183 + +Energetic interest in the elections 189 + +Want of prevision 191 + +His participation in political activity down to the + end of 1792 193 + +Chosen one of the secretaries of the Legislative Assembly 198 + +Elected to the Convention 200 + +Resistance to the Jacobins, proscription, and death 201 + +Condorcet's tenacious interest in human welfare 210 + +Two currents of thought in France at the middle of + the eighteenth century 215 + +Quesnay and the Physiocrats 216 + +Montesquieu 219 + +Turgot completed Montesquieu's historical conception 222 + +Kant's idea of a Universal or Cosmo-Political History 226 + +Condorcet fuses the conceptions of the two previous + sets of thinkers 229 + +Account of his _Tableau des Progrès_ 230 + +Omits to consider history of moral improvement 233 + +And misinterprets the religious element 234 + +His view of Mahometanism 238 + +Of Protestantism 240 + +And of philosophic propagandism 241 + +Various acute remarks in his sketch 243 + +His boundless hopes for the future 244 + +Three directions which our anticipations may take:-- + (1) International equality 246 + (2) Internal equality 247 + (3) Substantial perfecting of nature and society 248 + +Natural view of the formation of character 252 + +Central idea of all his aspirations 253 + + + + +CONDORCET. + + +Of the illustrious thinkers and writers who for two generations had been +actively scattering the seed of revolution in France, only Condorcet +survived to behold the first bitter ingathering of the harvest. Those +who had sown the wind were no more; he only was left to see the reaping +of the whirlwind, and to be swiftly and cruelly swept away by it. +Voltaire and Diderot, Rousseau and Helvétius, had vanished, but +Condorcet both assisted at the Encyclopædia and sat in the Convention; +the one eminent man of those who had tended the tree, who also came in +due season to partake of its fruit; at once a precursor, and a sharer in +the fulfilment. In neither character has he attracted the goodwill of +any of those considerable sections and schools into which criticism of +the Revolution has been mainly divided. As a thinker he is roughly +classed as an Economist, and as a practical politician he figured first +in the Legislative Assembly, and then in the Convention. Now, as a rule, +the political parties that have most admired the Convention have had +least sympathy with the Economists, and the historians who are most +favourable to Turgot and his followers, are usually most hostile to the +actions and associations of the great revolutionary chamber successively +swayed by a Vergniaud, a Danton, a Robespierre. Between the two, +Condorcet's name has been allowed to lie hidden for the most part in a +certain obscurity, or else has been covered with those taunts and +innuendoes, which partisans are wont to lavish on men of whom they do +not know exactly whether they are with or against them. + +Generally the men of the Revolution are criticised in blocks and +sections, and Condorcet cannot be accurately placed under any of these +received schools. He was an Economist, but he was something more; for +the most characteristic article in his creed was a passionate belief in +the infinite perfectibility of human nature. He was more of a Girondin +than a Jacobin, yet he did not always act, any more than he always +thought, with the Girondins, and he did not fall when they fell, but was +proscribed by a decree specially levelled at himself. Isolation of this +kind is assuredly no merit in political action, but it explains the +coldness with which Condorcet's memory has been treated; it flowed from +some marked singularities both of character and opinion which are of the +highest interest, if we consider the position of the man and the lustre +of that ever-memorable time. 'Condorcet,' said D'Alembert, 'is a volcano +covered with snow.' Said another, less picturesquely: 'He is a sheep in +a passion.' 'You may say of the intelligence of Condorcet in relation +to his person,' wrote Madame Roland, 'that it is a subtle essence soaked +in cotton.' The curious mixture disclosed by sayings like these, of warm +impulse and fine purpose with immovable reserve, only shows that he of +whom they were spoken belonged to the class of natures which may be +called non-conducting. They are not effective, because without this +effluence of power and feeling from within, the hearer or onlooker is +stirred by no sympathetic thrill. They cannot be the happiest, because +consciousness of the inequality between expression and meaning, between +the influence intended and the impression conveyed, must be as +tormenting as to one who dreams is the vain effort to strike a blow. If +to be of this non-conducting temperament is impossible in the really +greatest characters, like St. Paul, St. Bernard, or Luther, at least it +is no proper object of blame, for it is constantly the companion of +lofty and generous aspiration. It was perhaps unfortunate that Condorcet +should have permitted himself to be drawn into a position where his want +of that magical quality by which even Marat could gain the sympathies of +men, should be so conspicuously made visible. The character of +Condorcet, unlike so many of his contemporaries, offers nothing to the +theatrical instinct. None the less on this account should we be willing +to weigh the contributions which he made to the stock of science and +social speculation, and recognise the fine elevation of his sentiments, +his noble solicitude for human wellbeing, his eager and resolute belief +in its indefinite expansion, and the devotion which sealed his faith by +a destiny that was as tragical as any in those bloody and most tragical +days. + + + + +I. + + +Until the outbreak of the Revolution, the circumstances of Condorcet's +life were as little externally disturbed or specially remarkable as +those of any other geometer and thinker of the time. He was born at a +small town in Picardy, in the year 1743. His father was a cavalry +officer, but as he died when his son was only three years old, he could +have exerted no influence upon the future philosopher, save such as +comes of transmission through blood and tissue. Condillac was his uncle, +but there is no record of any intercourse between them. His mother was a +devout and trembling soul, who dedicated her child to the Holy Virgin, +and for eight years or more made him wear the dress of a little girl, by +way of sheltering him against the temptations and unbelief of a vile +world. So long as women are held by opinion and usage in a state of +educational and political subjection, which prevents the growth of a +large intelligence made healthy and energetic by knowledge and by +activity, we may expect pious extravagances of this kind. Condorcet was +weakened physically by much confinement and the constraint of cumbrous +clothing; and not even his dedication to the Holy Virgin prevented him +from growing up the most ardent of the admirers of Voltaire. His +earliest instructors, as happened to most of the sceptical philosophers, +were the Jesuits, then within a few years of their fall. That these +adroit men, armed with all the arts and traditions which their order had +acquired in three centuries, and with the training of the nation almost +exclusively in their hands, should still have been unable to shield +their persons from proscription and their creed from hatred, is a +remarkable instance how little it avails ecclesiastical bodies to have a +monopoly of official education, if the spirit of their teaching be out +of harmony with those most potent agencies which we sum up as the spirit +of the time. The Jesuits were the great official instructors of France +for the first half of the eighteenth century. In 1764 the order was +thrust forth from the country, and they left behind them an army of the +bitterest enemies that Christianity has ever had. To do them justice, +they were destroyed by weapons which they had themselves supplied. The +intelligence which they had developed and sharpened, turned inevitably +against the incurable faults in their own system. They were admirable +teachers of mathematics. Condorcet, instructed by the Jesuits at Rheims, +was able when he was only fifteen years old to go through such +performances in analysis as to win especial applause from illustrious +judges like D'Alembert and Clairaut. It was impossible, however, for +Jesuits, as it has ever been for all enemies of movement, to constrain +within prescribed limits the activity which has once been effectively +stirred. Mathematics has always been in the eyes of the Church a +harmless branch of knowledge, but the mental energy that mathematics +first touched is sure to turn itself by and by to more complex and +dangerous subjects in the scientific hierarchy. + +At any rate, Condorcet's curiosity was very speedily drawn to problems +beyond those which geometry and algebra pretend to solve. 'For thirty +years,' he wrote in 1790, 'I have hardly ever passed a single day +without meditating on the political sciences.'[1] Thus, when only +seventeen, when the ardour of even the choicest spirits is usually most +purely intellectual, moral and social feeling was rising in Condorcet to +that supremacy which it afterwards attained in him to so admirable a +degree. He wrote essays on integral calculus, but he was already +beginning to reflect upon the laws of human societies and the conditions +of moral obligation. At the root of Condorcet's nature was a profound +sensibility of constitution. One of his biographers explains his early +enthusiasm for virtue and human welfare as the conclusion of a kind of +syllogism. It is possible that the syllogism was only the later shape +into which an instinctive impulse threw itself by way of rational +entrenchment. His sensibility caused Condorcet to abandon the barbarous +pleasures of the chase, which had at first powerfully attracted him.[2] +To derive delight from what inflicts pain on any sentient creature +revolted his conscience and offended his reason, because he perceived +that the character which does not shrink from associating its own joy +with the anguish of another, is either found or left mortally blunted to +the finest impressions of humanity. + +It is thus assured that from the beginning Condorcet was unable to +satisfy himself with the mere knowledge of the specialist, but felt the +necessity of placing social aims at the head and front of his life, and +of subordinating to them all other pursuits. That he values knowledge +only as a means to social action, is one of the highest titles to our +esteem that any philosopher can have. Such a temper of mind has +penetrated no man more fully than Condorcet, though there are other +thinkers to whom time and chance have been more favourable in making +that temper permanently productive. There is a fine significance in his +words, after the dismissal of the great and virtuous Turgot from office: +'We have had a delightful dream, but it was too brief. Now I mean to +apply myself to geometry. It is terribly cold to be for the future +labouring only for the _gloriole_, after flattering oneself for a while +that one was working for the public weal.' It is true that a geometer, +too, works for the public weal; but the process is tardier, and we may +well pardon an impatience that sprung of reasoned zeal for the happiness +of mankind. There is something much more attractive about Condorcet's +undisguised disappointment at having to exchange active public labour +for geometrical problems, than in the affected satisfaction +conventionally professed by statesmen when driven from place to their +books. His correspondence shows that, even when his mind seemed to be +most concentrated upon his special studies, he was incessantly on the +alert for every new idea, book, transaction, that was likely to +stimulate the love of virtue in individuals, or to increase the strength +of justice in society. It would have been in one sense more fortunate +for him to have cared less for high social interests, if we remember the +contention of his latter days and the catastrophe which brought them to +a frightful close. But Condorcet was not one of those natures who can +think it happiness to look passively out from the tranquil literary +watch-tower upon the mortal struggles of a society in revolution. In +measuring other men of science--as his two volumes of _Éloges_ +abundantly show--one cannot help being struck by the eagerness with +which he seizes on any trait of zeal for social improvement, any signal +of anxiety that the lives and characters of our fellows should be better +worth having. He was himself too absolutely possessed by this social +spirit to have flinched from his career, even if he had foreseen the +martyrdom which was to consummate it. 'You are very happy,' he once +wrote to Turgot, 'in your passion for the public good and your power to +satisfy it; it is a great consolation, and of an order very superior to +that of study.'[3] + +In 1769, at the age of six-and-twenty, Condorcet became connected with +the Academy, to the mortification of his relations, who hardly pardoned +him for not being a captain of horse as his father had been before him. +About the same time, or a little later, he performed a pilgrimage of a +kind that could hardly help making a mark upon a character so deeply +impressible. In company with D'Alembert he went to Ferney and saw +Voltaire.[4] To the position of Voltaire in Europe in 1770 there has +never been any other man's position in any age wholly comparable. It is +true that there had been one or two of the great popes, and a great +ecclesiastic like St. Bernard, who had exercised a spiritual authority, +pretty universally submitted to, or even spontaneously invoked, +throughout western Europe. But these were the representatives of a +powerful organisation and an accepted system. Voltaire filled a place +before men's eyes in the eighteenth century as conspicuous and as +authoritative as that of St. Bernard in the twelfth. The difference was +that Voltaire's place was absolutely unofficial in its origin, and +indebted to no system nor organisation for its maintenance. Again, there +have been others, like Bacon or Descartes, destined to make a far more +permanent contribution to the ideas which have extended the powers and +elevated the happiness of men; but these great spirits for the most part +laboured for the generation that followed them, and won comparatively +slight recognition from their own age. Voltaire during his life enjoyed +to the full not only the admiration that belongs to the poet, but +something of the veneration that is paid to the thinker, and even +something of the glory usually reserved for captains and conquerors of +renown. No other man before or since ever hit so exactly the mark of his +time on every side, so precisely met the conditions of fame for the +moment, nor so thoroughly dazzled and reigned over the foremost men and +women who were his contemporaries. Wherever else intellectual fame has +approached the fame of Voltaire, it has been posthumous. With him it was +immediate and splendid. Into the secret of this extraordinary +circumstance we need not here particularly inquire. He was an +unsurpassed master of the art of literary expression in a country where +that art is more highly prized than anywhere else; he was the most +brilliant of wits among a people whose relish for wit is a supreme +passion; he won the admiration of the lighter souls by his plays, of the +learned by his interest in science, of the men of letters by his +never-ceasing flow of essays, criticisms, and articles, not one of which +lacks vigour and freshness and sparkle; he was the most active, bitter, +and telling foe of what was then the most justly abhorred of all +institutions--the Church. Add to these remarkable titles to honour and +popularity that he was no mere declaimer against oppression and +injustice in the abstract, but the strenuous, persevering, and +absolutely indefatigable champion of every victim of oppression or +injustice whose case was once brought under his eye. + +It is not difficult to perceive the fascination which Voltaire, with +this character and this unrivalled splendour of public position, would +have for a man like Condorcet. He conceived the warmest attachment to +Voltaire, and Voltaire in turn the highest respect for him. Their +correspondence (1770-1778) is perhaps as interesting as any letters of +that period that we possess: Voltaire is always bright, playful, and +affectionate; Condorcet more declamatory and less graceful, but full of +reverence and loyalty for his 'dear and illustrious' master, and of his +own peculiar eagerness for good causes and animosity against the +defenders of evil ones. Condorcet was younger than the patriarch of +Ferney by nearly half a century, but this did not prevent him from loyal +remonstrances on more than one occasion against conduct on Voltaire's +part in this matter or that, which he held to be unworthy of his +character and reputation. He went so far as actually to decline to print +in the _Mercure_ a letter in which the writer in some fit of spleen +placed Montesquieu below D'Aguesseau. 'My attachment,' he says, 'bids me +say what will be best for you, and not what might please you most. If I +loved you less, I should not have the courage to thwart you. I am aware +of your grievances against Montesquieu; it is worthy of you to forget +them.' There was perhaps as much moral courage in doing this as in +defying the Men of the Mountain in the days of the Terror. It dispels +some false impressions of Voltaire's supposed intolerance of criticism, +to find him thanking Condorcet for one of these friendly protests. He +showed himself worthy of such courageous conduct. 'One sees things ill,' +he writes, 'when one sees them from too far off. After all, we ought +never to blush to go to school if we are as old as Methuselah. I repeat +my acknowledgments to you.'[5] Condorcet did not conceive that either to +be blind to a man's errors or to compromise them is to prove yourself +his friend. There is an integrity of friendship as in public concerns, +and he adhered to it as manfully in one as in the other. Throughout his +intercourse with intimate friends there is that happy and frank play of +direct personal allusion, which is as distinct from flattery when it is +about another, as it is from egoism when it refers to the writer +himself. + +Perhaps we see him most characteristically in his correspondence with +Turgot. What Turgot loved in Condorcet was his 'simplicity of +character.'[6] Turgot was almost as much less vivacious than Condorcet, +as Condorcet was less vivacious than Voltaire. They belonged to quite +distinct types of character, but this may be a condition of the most +perfect forms of sympathy. Each gives support where the other is most +conscious of needing it. Turgot was one of those serene, capacious, and +sure intelligences whose aspirations do not become low nor narrow by +being watchfully held under the control of reason; whose ideas are no +less vigorous or exuberant because they move in a steady and ordered +train; and who, in their most fervent reactions against abuses or +crimes, resist that vehement temptation to excess which is the besetting +infirmity of generous natures. Condorcet was very different from this. +Whatever he wished he wished unrestrainedly. As with most men of the +epoch, the habit of making allowances was not his. We observe something +theological in his hatred of theologians. Even in his letters the +distant ground-swell of repressed passion sounds in the ear, and at +every mention of false opinion or evil-doing a sombre and angry shadow +seems to fall upon the page. Both he and Turgot clung to the doctrine of +the infinite perfectibility of human nature, and the correspondingly +infinite augmentation of human happiness; but Condorcet's +ever-smouldering impetuosity would be content with nothing less than the +arrival of at least a considerable instalment of this infinite quantity +now and instantly. He went so far as to insist that by and by men would +acquire the art of prolonging their lives for several generations, +instead of being confined within the fatal span of threescore years and +ten. He was impatient of any frittering away of life in scruple, +tremors, and hesitations. 'For the most part,' he once wrote to Turgot, +'people abounding in scruple are not fit for great things: a Christian +will throw away in subduing the darts of the flesh the time which he +might have employed on things of use to mankind; or he will lack courage +to rise against a tyrant for fear of his judgment being too hastily +formed.'[7] Turgot's reply may illustrate the difference between the two +men: 'No virtue, in whatever sense you take the word, dispenses with +justice; and I think no more of the people who do great things--as you +say--at the expense of justice, than of poets who fancy they produce +great beauties of imagination without regularity. I know that excessive +exactitude tends slightly to deaden the fire alike of composition and of +action; but there is a mean in everything. It has never been a question +in our controversy of a capuchin who throws away his time in quenching +the darts of the flesh (though by the way, in the total of time thrown +away the term that expresses the time lost in satisfying these lusts is +most likely far greater); no more is it a question of a fool who is +afraid of rising against tyrants for fear of forming a rash +judgment.'[8] + +This ability to conceive a mean case between two extremes was not among +Condorcet's gifts. His mind dwelt too much in the region of excess, +alike when he measured the possibilities of the good, and coloured the +motives and the situation of those whom he counted the bad. A Christian +was one who wasted his days in merely resisting the flesh; anybody who +declined to rise against a tyrant was the victim of a slavish +scrupulosity. He rather sympathises with a scientific traveller, to whom +the especial charm of natural history resides in the buffets which, at +each step that it takes, it inflicts upon Moses.[9] Well, this temper +is not the richest nor the highest, but it often exists in alliance with +rich and high qualities. It was so with Condorcet. And we are +particularly bound to remember that with him a harsh and impatient +humour was not, as is so often the case, the veil for an indolent +reluctance to form painstaking judgments. Few workers have been so +conscientious as he was, in the labour that he bestowed upon subjects +which he held to be worthy of deliberate scrutiny and consideration. His +defect was in finding too few of such subjects, and in having too many +foregone conclusions. Turgot and Montesquieu are perhaps the only two +eminent men in France during this part of the century, of whom the same +defect might not be alleged. Again, Condorcet's impatience of underlying +temperament did not prevent him from filling his compositions with +solid, sober, and profound reflections, the products of grave and +sustained meditation upon an experience, much of which must have been +severely trying and repugnant to a man of his constitution. While +recognising this trait, then, let us not overstate either it or its +consequences. + +The main currents of opinion and circumstance in France, when Condorcet +came to take his place among her workers, are now well understood. The +third quarter of the century was just closing. Lewis XV. died in 1774; +and though his death was of little intrinsic consequence, except as the +removal of every corrupt heart is of consequence, it is justly taken to +mark the date of the beginning of the French Revolution. It was the +accidental shifting of position which served to disclose that the +existing system was smitten with a mortal paralysis. It is often said +that what destroyed the French kingdom was despotism. A sounder +explanation discovers the causes less in despotism than in +anarchy--anarchy in every department where it could be most ruinous. No +substantial reconstruction was possible, because all the evils came from +the sinister interests of the nobles, the clergy, or the financiers; and +these classes, informally bound together against the common weal, were +too strong for either the sovereign or the ablest minister to thrust +them aside. The material condition of France was one of supreme +embarrassment and disorder, only curable by remedies which the political +and social condition of the country made it impossible to employ. + +This would explain why a change of some sort was inevitable. But why was +the change which actually took place in that direction rather than +another? Why did not France sink under her economical disorders, as +greater empires than France had done? Why, instead of sinking and +falling asunder, did the French people advance with a singleness of +impulse unknown before in their history to their own deliverance? How +was it that they overthrew the system that was crushing them, and purged +themselves with fire and sword of those who administered and maintained +it, defying the hopes of the nation; and then successfully encountered +the giant's task of beating back reactionary Europe with one arm, and +reconstructing the fabric of their own society with the other? The +answer to this question is found in the moral and spiritual condition of +France. A generation aroused by the great social ideas of the eighteenth +century, looking round to survey its own social state, found itself in +the midst of the ruin and disorder of the disintegrated system of the +twelfth century. The life was gone out of the ancient organisation of +Catholicism and Feudalism, and it seemed as if nothing but corruption +remained. What enabled the leaders of the nation to discern the horror +and despair of this anarchic dissolution of the worn-out old, and what +inspired them with hope and energy when they thought of the possible +new, was the spiritual preparation that had been in swift progress since +the third decade of the century. The forms and methods of this +preparation were various, as the temperaments that came beneath its +influence. But the school of Voltaire, the school of Rousseau, and the +schools of Quesnay and Montesquieu, different as they were at the roots, +all alike energetically familiarised the public mind with a firm belief +in human reason, and the idea of the natural rights of man. They +impregnated it with a growing enthusiasm for social justice. It is true +that we find Voltaire complaining towards the close of his days, of the +century being satiated and weary, _un siècle dégouté_, not knowing well +what it wanted. 'The public,' he said, 'has been eighty years at table, +and now it drinks a little bad cognac at the end of its meal.'[10] In +literature and art this was true; going deeper than these, the public +was eager and sensitive with a freshness far more vital and more +fruitful than it had known eighty years back. Sitting down with a keen +appetite for taste, erudition, and literary knowledge, men had now risen +up from a dazzling and palling board, with a new hunger and thirst after +social righteousness. This was the noble faith that saved France, by +this sign she was victorious. A people once saturated with a passionate +conception of justice is not likely to fall into a Byzantine stage. That +destiny only awaits nations where the spiritual power is rigorously +confined in the hands of castes and official churches, which +systematically and of their very constitution bury justice under the +sterile accumulations of a fixed superstition. + +Condorcet's principles were deeply coloured by ideas drawn from two +sources. He was a Voltairean in the intensity of his antipathies to the +Church, and in the depth and energy of his humanity. But while Voltaire +flourished, the destructive movement only reached theology, and +Voltaire, though he had more to do than anybody else with the original +impulse, joined in no attack upon the State. It was from the economical +writers and from Montesquieu that Condorcet learned to look upon +societies with a scientific eye, to perceive the influence of +institutions upon men, and that there are laws, susceptible of +modification in practice, which regulate their growth. It was natural, +therefore, that he should join with eagerness in the reforming movement +which set in with such irrestrainable velocity after the death of Lewis +XV. He was bitter and destructive with the bitterness of Voltaire; he +was hopeful for the future with the faith of Turgot; and he was urgent, +heated, impetuous, with a heavy vehemence all his own. In a word, he was +the incarnation of the revolutionary spirit, as the revolutionary spirit +existed in geometers and Encyclopædists; at once too reasonable and too +little reasonable; too precise and scientific and too vague; too +rigorously logical on the one hand and too abundantly passionate on the +other. Perhaps there is no more fatal combination in politics than the +deductive method worked by passion. When applied to the delicate and +complex affairs of society, such machinery with such motive force is of +ruinous potency. + +Condorcet's peculiarities of political antipathy and preference can +hardly be better illustrated than by his view of the two great +revolutions in English history. The first was religious, and therefore +he hated it; the second was accompanied by much argument, and had no +religion about it, and therefore he extolled it. It is scientific +knowledge, he said, which explains why efforts after liberty in +unenlightened centuries are so fleeting, and so deeply stained by +bloodshed. 'Compare these with the happy efforts of America and France; +observe even in the same century, but at different epochs, the two +revolutions of England fanatical and England enlightened. We see on the +one side contemporaries of Prynne and Knox, while crying out that they +are fighting for heaven and liberty, cover their unhappy country with +blood in order to cement the tyranny of the hypocrite Cromwell; on the +other, the contemporaries of Boyle and Newton establish with pacific +wisdom the freest constitution in the world.'[11] It is not wonderful +that his own revolution was misunderstood by one who thus loved English +Whigs, but hated English Republicans; who could forgive an aristocratic +faction grasping power for their order, but who could not sympathise +with a nation rising and smiting its oppressor, where they smote in the +name of the Lord and of Gideon, nor with a ruler who used his power with +noble simplicity in the interests of his people, and established in the +heart of the nation a respect for itself such as she has never known +since, simply because this ruler knew nothing about _principes_ or the +Rights of Man. However, Nemesis comes. By and by Condorcet found himself +writing a piece to show that our Revolution of 1688 was very inferior in +lawfulness to the French Revolution of the Tenth of August.[12] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Oeuv. de Condorcet_ (12 vols. 1847-49), ix. 489. + +[2] _Ib._ i. 220. + +[3] _Oeuv._ i. 201. See Turgot's wise reply, p. 202. + +[4] Sept. 1770. Voltaire's _Corr._ vol. lxxi. p. 147. + +[5] _Oeuv._ i. 41. + +[6] _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 817. + +[7] _Oeuv._ i. 228. + +[8] _Ib._ i. 232. + +[9] _Oeuv._ i. 29. + +[10] Letters to Condorcet (1774). _Oeuv._ i. 35. + +[11] _Éloge de Franklin_, iii. 422. + +[12] _Réflexions sur la Rév. de 1688, et sur celle du 10 Août_, xii. +197. + + + + +II. + + +The course of events after 1774 is in its larger features well known to +every reader. Turgot, after a month of office at the Admiralty, was in +August made Controller-General of Finance. With his accession to power, +the reforming ideas of the century became practical. He nominated +Condorcet to be Inspector of Coinage, an offer which Condorcet +deprecated in these words: 'It is said of you in certain quarters that +money costs you nothing when there is any question of obliging your +friends. I should be bitterly ashamed of giving any semblance of +foundation to these absurd speeches. I pray you, do nothing for me just +now. Though not rich, I am not pressed for money. Entrust to me some +important task--the reduction of measures for instance; then wait till +my labours have really earned some reward.'[13] In this patriotic spirit +he undertook, along with two other eminent men of science, the task of +examining certain projects for canals which engaged the attention of the +minister. 'People will tell you,' he wrote, 'that I have got an office +worth two hundred and forty pounds. Utterly untrue. We undertook it out +of friendship for M. Turgot; but we refused the payment that was +offered.'[14] We may profitably contrast this devotion to the public +interest with the rapacity of the clergy and nobles, who drove Turgot +from office because he talked of taxing them like their neighbours, and +declined to glut their insatiable craving for place and plunder. + +Turgot was dismissed (May 1776), and presently Necker was installed in +his place. Condorcet had defended with much vigour and some asperity +the policy of free internal trade in corn against Necker, who was for +the maintenance of the restrictions on commercial intercourse between +the different provinces of the kingdom. Consequently, when the new +minister came into office, Condorcet wrote to Maurepas resigning his +post. 'I have,' he said, 'declared too decidedly what I think about both +M. Necker and his works, to be able to keep any place that depends upon +him.'[15] This was not the first taste that Maurepas had had of +Condorcet's resolute self-respect. The Duke de la Vrillière, one of the +most scandalous persons of the century, was an honorary member of the +Academy, and he was the brother-in-law of Maurepas. It was expected from +the perpetual secretary that he should compose a eulogy upon the +occasion of his death, and Condorcet was warned by friends, who seldom +reflect that a man above the common quality owes something more to +himself than mere prudence, not to irritate the powerful minister by a +slight upon his relation. He was inflexible. 'Would you rather have me +persecuted,' he asked, 'for a wrong than for something just and moral? +Think, too, that they will pardon my silence much more readily than they +would pardon my words, for my mind is fixed not to betray the +truth.'[16] + +In 1782 Condorcet was elected into the Academy. His competitor was +Bailly, over whom he had a majority of one. The true contest lay less +between the two candidates than between D'Alembert and Buffon, who on +this occasion are said to have fought one of the greatest battles in the +not peaceful history of the Academy, for mighty anger burns even in +celestial minds. D'Alembert is said to have exclaimed, we may hope with +some exaggeration, that he was better pleased at winning that victory +than he would have been to find out the squaring of the circle.[17] +Destiny, which had so pitiful a doom in store for the two candidates of +that day, soon closed D'Alembert's share in these struggles of the +learned and in all others. He died in the following year, and by his +last act testified to his trust in the generous character of Condorcet. +Having by the benevolence of a lifetime left himself on his deathbed +without resources, he confided to his friend's care two old and faithful +servants, for whom he was unable to make provision. This charge the +philosopher accepted cheerfully, and fulfilled to the end with pious +scrupulosity. The affection between Condorcet and D'Alembert had been +warm and close as that of some famous pairs of antiquity; a natural +attraction of character had clothed community of pursuit and interest +with the grace of the highest kind of friendship. Even Condorcet's too +declamatory manner only adds a certain dignity to the pathetic passage +with which he closes the noble _éloge_ on his lost friend.[18] Voltaire +had been dead these five years, and Turgot, too, was gone. Society +offered the survivor no recompense. He found the great world tiresome +and frivolous, and he described its pursuits in phrases that are still +too faithful to the fact, as 'dissipation without pleasure, vanity +without meaning, and idleness without repose.' It was perhaps to soften +the oppression of these cruel and tender regrets that in 1786 Condorcet +married.[19] + +Events were now very close at hand, in comparison with which even the +most critical private transactions of Condorcet's life were pale and +insignificant. In the tranquil seasons of history, when the steady +currents of circumstance bear men along noiseless, the importance of the +relations which we contract seems superlative; in times of storm and +social wreck these petty fortunes and private chances are engulfed and +lost to sight. The ferment was now rapidly rising to its intensest +height, and Condorcet was the last man in France to remain cold to the +burning agitations of the time. We have already seen how decidedly ten +years ago he expressed his preference for political activity over the +meditative labours of the student. He now threw himself into the +Revolution with all the force of an ardent character imbued with fixed +and unalterable convictions. We may well imagine him deploring that the +great ones whom he had known, the immortal Voltaire, the lofty-souled +Turgot, had been carried away by the unkind gods, before their eyes had +seen the restoration of their natural rights to men, and the reign of +justice on the earth. The gods after all were kinder than he knew, for +they veiled from the sight of the enthusiast of '89 the spectres of '93. +History might possibly miss most of its striking episodes, if every +actor could know the work to which he was putting his hand; and even +Condorcet's faith might have wavered if he had known that between him +and the fulfilment of his desires there was to intrude a long and +deplorable period of despotism and corruption. Still, the vision which +then presented itself to the eyes of good men was sublime; and just as, +when some noble and devoted character has been taken away from us, it is +a consolation to remember that we had the happiness of his friendship, +so too when a generation awakes from one of these inspiring social +dreams, the wreck of the aspiration is not total nor unrecompensed. The +next best thing to the achievement of high and generous aims is to have +sought them. + +During the winter of '88 and '89, while all France was astir with +elections and preparation for elections for that meeting of the +States-General, which was looked to as the nearing dawn after a long +night of blackness and misery, Condorcet thought he could best serve +the movement by calling the minds of the electors to certain sides of +their duty which they might be in some danger of overlooking. One of the +subjects, for example, on which he felt most strongly, but on which his +countrymen have not shown any particular sensibility, was slavery and +the slave trade.[20] With a terseness and force not always +characteristic of his writings, he appealed to the electors, while they +were reclaiming their own rights in the name of justice, not to forget +the half-million blacks, whose rights had been still more shamefully +torn away from them, and whose need of justice was more urgent than +their own. In the same spirit he published a vehement and ingenious +protest against the admission of representatives from the St. Domingo +plantations to the National Assembly, showing how grossly inconsistent +it was with every idea of a free and popular chamber that men should sit +as representatives of others who had never chosen them, and that they +should invoke natural rights in their own favour, when at the same +instant they were violating the most elementary and undisputed natural +rights of mankind in their own country.[21] + +Of general precepts he never tired; one series of them followed another. +To us many of them may seem commonplace; but we should reflect that the +election of representatives was an amazing novelty in France, and +Condorcet knew men well enough to be aware of the hazards of political +inexperience. Beware of choosing a clever knave, he said, because he +will follow his own interest and not yours; but at the same time beware +of choosing a man for no better reason than that he is honest, because +you need ability quite as much as you need probity. Do not choose a man +who has ever taken sides against the liberty of any portion of mankind; +nor one whose principles were never known until he found out that he +wanted your votes. Be careful not to mistake heat of head for heat of +soul; because what you want is not heat but force, not violence but +steadfastness. Be careful, too, to separate a man's actions from the +accidents of his life; for one may be the enemy or the victim of a +tyrant without being the friend of liberty. Do not be carried away by a +candidate's solicitations; but at the same time, make allowance for the +existing effervescence of spirits. Prefer those who have decided +opinions to those who are always inventing plans of conciliation; those +who are zealous for the rights of man to those who only profess pity for +the misfortunes of the people; those who speak of justice and reason, to +those who speak of political interests and of the prosperity of +commerce. Distrust those who appeal to sentiment in matters that can be +decided by reason; prefer light to eloquence; and pass over those who +declare themselves ready to die for liberty, in favour of those who know +in what liberty consists.[22] + +In another piece he drew up a list of the rights which the nation had a +claim to have recognised, such as the right to make laws, to exact +responsibility from the ministers of the crown, to the protection of +personal liberty, and to the legal administration of justice by regular +judges. These rights he declared it to be the first duty of the Assembly +to draw up in a chart that should be the chief corner-stone of the new +constitution. Then he proceeded to define the various tasks to which he +conceived that the legislative body should forthwith apply itself; and +among them, be it said, is no mention of any of those projects of +confiscation which circumstances so speedily forced upon the Assembly +when it met.[23] + +Though many of these precepts designed to guide the electors in their +choice of men are sagacious and admirable, they smack strongly of that +absolute and abstract spirit which can never become powerful in politics +without danger. It is certain that in the spring of '89, Condorcet held +hereditary monarchy to be most suitable to 'the wealth, the population, +the extent of France, and to the political system of Europe.'[24] Yet +the reasons which he gives for thinking this are not very cogent, and +he can hardly have felt them to be so. It is significant, however, of +the little distance which all the most uncompromising and most +thoughtful revolutionists saw in front of them, that even Condorcet +should, so late as the eve of the assembly of the States-General, have +talked about attachment to the forms of monarchy and respect for the +royal person and prerogative; and should have represented the notion of +the property of the Church undergoing any confiscation, as an invention +of the enemies of freedom.[25] Before the year was out, the property of +the Church had undergone confiscation; before two years had gone he was +an ardent Republican; and in less than twelve months after that he had +voted the guilt of the king. + +It is worth while to cite here a still more pointed example of the want +of prevision, so common and so intelligible at that time. Writing in +July 1791, he confutes those who asserted that an established and +limited monarchy was a safeguard against a usurper, whose power is only +limited by his own audacity and address, by pointing out that the extent +of France, its divisions into departments, the separation between the +various branches of the administration, the freedom of the press, the +multitude of the public prints, were all so many insurmountable barriers +against a French Cromwell. 'To anybody who has read with attention the +history of the usurpation of Cromwell, it is clear that a single +newspaper would have been enough to stop his success. It is clear that +if the people of England had known how to read other books beside their +Bible, the hypocritical tyrant, unmasked from his first step, would soon +have ceased to be dangerous.' Again, is the nation to be cajoled by some +ambitious general, gratifying its desire to be an empire-race? 'Is this +what is asked by true friends of liberty, those who only seek that +reason and right should have empire over men? _What provinces, conquered +by a French general, will he despoil to buy our suffrages? Will he +promise our soldiers, as the consuls promised the citizens of Rome, the +pillage of Spain or of Syria?_ No, assuredly; it is because we cannot be +an empire-nation that we shall remain a free nation.'[26] How few years, +alas, between this conclusive reasoning, and the pillage of Italy, the +campaign in Syria, the seizure of Spain! + +Condorcet was not a member of the Assembly in whose formation and +composition he had taken so vivid and practical an interest. The first +political functions which he was invited to undertake were those of a +member of the municipality of Paris. In the tremendous drama of which +the scenes were now opening, the Town-hall of Paris was to prove itself +far more truly the centre of movement and action than the Constituent +Assembly. The efforts of the Constituent Assembly to build up were tardy +and ineffectual. The activity of the municipality of Paris in pulling +down was after a time ceaseless, and it was thoroughly successful. The +first mayor was the astronomer Bailly, Condorcet's defeated competitor +at the Academy. With the fall of the Bastille, summary hangings at the +nearest lantern-post, October insurrection of women, and triumphant and +bloody compulsion of king, queen, and Assembly to Paris from Versailles, +the two rivals, now colleagues, must have felt that the contests for +them were indeed no longer academic. The astronomy of the one and the +geometry of the other were for ever done with; and Condorcet's longing +for active political life in preference to mere study was gratified to +the very full. + +Unhappily or not, the movement was beyond the control of anybody who, +like Condorcet, had no other force than that of disciplined reason and +principle. The Bastille no sooner fell, than the Revolution set in with +oceanic violence, in the face of which patriotic intention and +irrefragable arguments, even when both intention and arguments were +loyally revolutionary, were powerless to save the State. In crises of +this overwhelming kind, power of reasoning does not tell and mere +goodwill does not tell. Exaltation reaches a pitch at which the physical +sensibilities are so quickened as to be supreme over the rest of the +nature; and in these moods it is the man gifted with the physical +quality, as mysterious and indescribable as it is resistless, of a +Marat, to take a bad example, or a Danton, to take a good one, who can +'ride the whirlwind and direct the storm.' Of this quality Condorcet +had nothing. His personal presence inspired a decent respect, but no +strong emotion either of fear or admiration or physical sympathy. His +voice was feeble, his utterance indistinct; and he never got over that +nervous apprehension which the spectacle of large and turbulent crowds +naturally rouses in the student. In a revolution after the manner of +Lord Somers he would have been invaluable. He thoroughly understood his +own principles, and he was a master of the art, so useful in its place +and time and so respectable in all places and times, of considering +political projects point by point with reference to a definite framework +of rational ideas. But this was no time for such an art; this was not a +revolution to be guided by reason, not even reason like Condorcet's, +streaked with jacobinical fibre. The national ideas in which it had +arisen had transformed themselves into tumultuous passion, and from this +into frenzied action. + +Every politician of real eminence as a reformer possesses one of three +elements. One class of men is inspired by an intellectual attachment to +certain ideas of justice and right reason: another is moved by a deep +pity for the hard lot of the mass of every society: while the third, +such men as Richelieu for example, have an instinctive appreciation and +passion for wise and orderly government. The great and typical ruler is +moved in varying degrees by all three in modern times, when the claims +of the poor, the rank and file of the social army, have been raised to +the permanent place that belongs to them. Each of the three types has +its own peculiar conditions of success, and there are circumstances in +which some one of the three is more able to grapple with the obstacles +to order than either of the other two. It soon became very clear that +the intellectual quality was not the element likely to quell the tempest +that had arisen now. + +Let it be said, however, that Condorcet showed himself no pedantic nor +fastidious trifler with the tremendous movement which he had contributed +to set afoot. The same practical spirit which drove him into the strife, +guided him in the midst of it. He never wrung his hands, nor wept, nor +bewailed the unreason of the multitudes to whom in vain he preached +reason. Unlike the typical man of letters--for he was without vanity--he +did not abandon the cause of the Revolution because his suggestions were +often repulsed. 'It would be better,' he said to the Girondins, 'if you +cared less for personal matters and attended only to public interests.' +Years ago, in his _éloge_ on L'Hôpital, he had praised the famous +Chancellor for incurring the hostility of both of the two envenomed +factions, the League and the Huguenots, and for disregarding the +approbation or disapprobation of the people. 'What operation,' he asked, +'capable of producing any durable good, can be understood by the people? +How should they know to what extent good is possible? How judge of the +means of producing it? It must ever be easier for a charlatan to mislead +the people, than for a man of genius to save it.'[27] Remembering this +law, he never lost patience. He was cool and intrepid, if his +intrepidity was of the logical sort rather than physical; and he was +steadfast to one or two simple aims, if he was on some occasions too +rapid in changing his attitude as to special measures. He was never +afraid of the spectre, as the incompetent revolutionist is. On the +contrary, he understood its whole internal history; he knew what had +raised it, what passion and what weakness gave to it substance, and he +knew that presently reason would banish it and restore men to a right +mind. The scientific spirit implanted in such a character as +Condorcet's, and made robust by social meditation, builds up an +impregnable fortitude in the face of incessant rebuffs and +discouragements. Let us then picture Condorcet as surveying the terrific +welter from the summer of 1789 to the summer of 1793, from the taking of +the Bastille to the fall of the Girondins, with something of the +firmness and self-possession of a Roman Cato. + +After the flight of the king in June, and his return in what was +virtually captivity to Paris, Condorcet was one of the party, very small +in numbers and entirely discountenanced by public opinion, then passing +through the monarchical and constitutional stage, who boldly gave up the +idea of a monarchy and proclaimed the idea of a republic. In July (1791) +he published a piece strongly arguing for a negative answer to the +question whether a king is necessary for the preservation of +liberty.[28] In one sense, this composition is favourable to Condorcet's +foresight; it was not every one who saw with him that the destruction of +the monarchy was inevitable after the royal flight. This want of +preparation in the public mind for every great change as it came, is one +of the most striking circumstances of the Revolution, and it explains +the violent, confused, and inadequate manner in which nearly every one +of these changes was made. It was proposed at that time to appoint +Condorcet to be governor to the young dauphin. But Condorcet in this +piece took such pains to make his sentiments upon royalty known, that in +the constitutional frame of mind in which the Assembly then was, the +idea had to be abandoned. It was hardly likely that a man should be +chosen for such an office, who had just declared the public will to be +'that the uselessness of a king, the needfulness of seeking means of +displacing a power founded on illusions, should be one of the first +truths offered to his reason; the obligation of concurring in this +himself, one of the first of his moral duties; and the desire not to be +freed from the yoke of law by an insulting inviolability, the first +sentiment of his heart. People are well aware that at this moment the +object is much less how to mould a king, than to teach him not to wish +to be one.'[29] As all France was then bent on the new constitution, a +king included, Condorcet's republican assurance was hardly warranted, +and it was by no means well received. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] _Oeuv._ i. 71. + +[14] _Ib._ i. 73, 74. + +[15] _Oeuv._ i. 296. + +[16] _Ib._ i. 78. + +[17] _Oeuv._ i. 89. Condorcet had 16 votes, and Bailly 15. '_Jamais +aucune élection_,' says La Harpe, who was all for Buffon, '_n'avait +offert ni ce nombre ni ce partage_.'--_Philos. du 18ième Siècle_, i. 77. +A full account of the election, and of Condorcet's reception, in Grimm's +_Corr. Lit._ xi. 50-56. + +[18] _Oeuv._ iii. 109, 110. + +[19] His wife, said to be one of the most beautiful women of her time, +was twenty-three years younger than himself, and survived until 1822. +Cabanis married another sister, and Marshal Grouchy was her brother. +Madame Condorcet wrote nothing of her own, except some notes to a +translation which she made of Adam Smith's _Theory of Moral Sentiments_. + +[20] Montesquieu, Raynal, and one or two other writers, had attacked +slavery long before, and Condorcet published a very effective piece +against it in 1781 (_Réflexions sur l'Esclavage des Nègres_; _Oeuv._ +vii. 63), with an epistle dedicated to the enslaved blacks. About the +same time an Abolition Society was formed in France, following the +example set in England. + +[21] _Au Corps Electoral, contre l'Esclavage des Noirs._ 3 Fév. 1789. +_Sur l'Admission des Députés des Planteurs de Saint Domingue._ 1789. ix. +469-485. + +[22] _Lettres d'un Gentilhomme aux Messieurs du Tiers Etat_, ix. +255-259. + +[23] _Réflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions à donner par les +Provinces à leurs Députés aux Etats-Généraux_, ix. 263, 283. + +[24] _Ib._ ix. 266. + +[25] _Réflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions à donner par les +Provinces à leurs Députés aux Etats-Généraux_, ix. 264. + +[26] _Réflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions à donner par les +Provinces à leurs Députés aux Etats-Généraux_, xii. 228, 229, 234. + +[27] _Oeuv._ iii. 533. As this was written in 1777, Condorcet was +perhaps thinking of Turgot and Necker. Of the latter, his daughter tells +us repeatedly, without any consciousness that she is recording a most +ignominious trait, that public approbation was the very breath of his +nostrils, the thing for which he lived, the thing without which he was +wretched.--See vol. i. of _Madame de Staël's Considerations_. + +[28] _Oeuv._ iii. 227. It was followed by a letter, nominally by a young +mechanic, offering to construct an automaton sovereign, like Kempel's +chess-player, who would answer all constitutional purposes +perfectly.--_Ib._ 239-241. + +[29] _Oeuv._ xii. 236. + + + + +III. + + +When the Constitution was accepted and the Legislative Assembly came to +be chosen, Condorcet proved to have made so good an impression as a +municipal officer, that the Parisians returned him for one of their +deputies. The Declaration of Pilnitz in August 1791 had mitigated the +loyalty that had even withstood the trial of the king's flight. When the +Legislative Assembly met, it was found to contain an unmistakable +element of republicanism of marked strength. Condorcet was chosen one of +the secretaries, and he composed most of those multitudinous addresses +in which this most unfortunate and least honoured of all parliamentary +chambers tried to prove to the French people that it was actually in +existence and at work. Condorcet was officially to the Legislative what +Barère afterwards was to the Convention. But his addresses are turgid, +labouring, and not effective for their purpose. They have neither the +hard force of Napoleon's proclamations, nor the flowery eloquence of +the Anacreon of the Guillotine. To compose such pieces well under such +circumstances as those of the Assembly, a man must have much imagination +and perhaps a slightly elastic conscience. Condorcet had neither one nor +the other, but only reason--a hard anvil, out of which he laboriously +struck flashes and single sounds. + +Perhaps, after all, nobody else could have done better. The situation of +the Assembly, between a hostile court and a suspicious and distrustful +nation, and unable by its very nature to break the bonds, was from the +beginning desperate. In December 1791 the Legislative through its +secretary informs France of the frankness and loyalty of the king's +measures in the face of the menaces of foreign war.[30] Within eight +months, when the king's person was in captivity and his power suspended, +the same secretary has to avow that from the very beginning the king had +treated the Assembly with dissimulation, and had been in virtual league +with the national enemies. The documents issued by the Assembly after +the violent events of the Tenth of August 1792 are not edifying, and +imply in Condorcet, who composed them, a certain want of eye for +revolutionary methods. They mark the beginning of that short but most +momentous period in the history of the Revolution, when formulas, as Mr. +Carlyle says, had to be stretched out until they cracked--a process +truly called, 'especially in times of swift change, one of the +sorrowfullest tasks poor humanity has.' You might read the _Exposition +of the Motives from which the National Assembly have proclaimed the +Convention, and suspended the Executive Power of the King_,[31] without +dreaming that it is an account of a revolution which arose out of +distrust or contempt for the Assembly, which had driven the king away +from his palace and from power, and which had finally annihilated the +very chamber that was thus professing to expound its motives for doing +what the violence of Paris had really done in defiance of it. The power, +in fact, was all outside the chamber, in Danton and the Commune. Under +such circumstance it is of no interest to men to learn that 'in the +midst of these disasters the National Assembly, afflicted but calm, took +its oath to maintain equality and liberty, or to die at its post; took +the oath to save France, and looked about for means.'[32] Still more +impotent and hollow, because still more pompous, is the address of six +days later.[33] A few days after this, occurred the massacres of +prisoners in September--scenes very nearly, if not quite, as bloody and +iniquitous as those which attended the suppression of the rebellion in +Ireland six years afterwards by English troops. + +When the Convention was chosen, the electors of Paris rejected +Condorcet. He was elected, however (Sept. 6), for the department of the +Aisne, having among his colleagues in the deputation Tom Paine, and--a +much more important personage--the youthful Saint-Just, who was so soon +to stupefy the Convention by exclaiming, with mellow voice and face set +immovable as bronze: 'An individual has no right to be either virtuous +or celebrated in your eyes. A free people and a national assembly are +not made to admire anybody.' The electors of the department of the Aisne +had unconsciously sent two typical revolutionists: the man of +intellectual ideas, and the man of passion heated as in the pit. In +their persons the Encyclopædia and the Guillotine met. Condorcet, who +had been extreme in the Legislative, but found himself a moderate in the +Convention, gave wise counsel as to the true policy towards the new +members: 'Better try to moderate them than quarrel.' But in this case, +not even in their ruin, were fire and water reconciled. + +On the first great question that the Convention had to decide--the fate +of the king--Condorcet voted on the two main issues very much as a wise +man would have voted, knowing the event as we know it. He voted that the +king was guilty of conspiring against liberty, and he voted for the +punishment of exile in preference to that of death. On the intermediate +issue, whether the decision of the Convention should be final, or should +be submitted to the people for ratification, he voted as a wise man +should not have done, in favour of an appeal to the people. Such an +appeal must inevitably have led to violent and bloody local struggles, +and laid France open to the enemy. It is a striking circumstance that, +though Condorcet thus voted that the king was guilty, he had previously +laid before the Convention a most careful argument to show that they +were neither morally nor legally competent to try the king at all. How, +he asked, without violating every principle of jurisprudence, can you +act at the same time as legislators constituting the crime, as accusers, +and as judges? His proposal was that Lewis XVI. should be tried by a +tribunal whose jury and judges should be named by the electoral body of +the departments.[34] With true respect for Condorcet's honourable +anxiety that the conditions of justice should be rigorously +observed--for, as he well said, 'there is no liberty in a country where +positive law is not the single rule of judicial proceedings'--it is +difficult to see why the Convention, coming as it did fresh from the +electoral bodies, who must have had the question what was to be done +with the imprisoned king foremost in their minds, why the members of the +Convention should not form as legitimate a tribunal as any body whose +composition and authority they had themselves defined and created, and +which would be chosen by the very same persons who less than a month +before had invested them with their own offices. Reading this most +scrupulous and juristic composition, we might believe the writer to have +forgotten that France lay mad and frenzied outside the hall where he +stood, and that in political action the question what is possible is at +least as important as what is compatible with the maxims of scientific +jurisprudence. It was to Condorcet's honour as a jurisconsult that he +should have had so many scruples; it is as much to his credit as a +politician that he laid them aside and tried the king after all. + +It is highly characteristic of Condorcet's tenacity of his own view of +the Revolution and of its methods, that on the Saturday (January 19, +1793) when the king's fate was decided against Condorcet's conviction +and against his vote--the execution taking place on the Monday +morning--he should have appealed to the Convention, at all events to do +their best to neutralise the effect of their verdict upon Europe, by +instantly initiating a series of humane reforms in the law among them, +including the abolition of the punishment of death. 'The English +ministers,' he cried, 'are now seeking to excite that nation against us. +Do you suppose that they will venture to continue their calumnious +declamations, when you can say to them: "We have abolished the penalty +of death, while you still preserve it for the theft of a few shillings? +You hand over debtors to the greed or spite of their creditors; our +laws, wiser and more humane, know how to respect poverty and misfortune. +Judge between us and you, and see to which of the two peoples the +reproach of inhumanity may be addressed with most justice."'[35] This +was the eve of the Terror. Well may Comte distinguish Condorcet as the +one philosopher who pursued in the midst of the tempest his regenerating +meditations. + +But let us banish the notion that the history of the Convention is only +the history of the guillotine. No chamber in the whole annals of +governing assemblies ever displayed so much alertness, energy, and +capacity, in the face of difficulties that might well have crushed them. +Besides their efforts, justly held incomparable, to hurl back the enemy +from the frontiers, they at once in the spirit of Condorcet's speech, +made at so strange a season, set vigorously about the not less noble +task of legal reforms and political reorganisation. The unrivalled +ingenuity and fertility of the French character in all the arts of +compact and geometric construction never showed itself so supreme. The +civil code was drawn up in a month.[36] Constitutions abounded. Cynical +historians laugh at the eagerness of the nation, during the months that +followed the deposition of the king, to have a constitution; and, so far +as they believed or hoped that a constitution would remedy all ills, +their faith was assuredly not according to knowledge. It shows, however, +the fundamental and seemingly ineradicable respect for authority which +their history has engendered in the French, that even in this, their +most chaotic hour, they craved order and its symbols. + +Condorcet, along with Tom Paine, Sièyes, and others, was a member of +the first committee for framing a constitution. They laboured +assiduously from September to February 1793, when the project was laid +upon the table, prefaced by an elaborate dissertation of Condorcet's +composition.[37] The time was inauspicious. The animosities between the +Girondins and the Mountain were becoming every day more furious and +deadly. In the midst of this appalling storm of rage and hate and +terror, Condorcet--at one moment wounding the Girondins by reproaches +against their egotism and personalities, at another exasperating the +Mountain by declaring of Robespierre that he had neither an idea in his +head nor a feeling in his heart--still pertinaciously kept crying out +for the acceptance of his constitution. It was of no avail. The +revolution of the second of June came, and swept the Girondins out of +the Chamber. Condorcet was not among them, but his political days were +numbered. 'What did you do all that time?' somebody once asked of a +member of the Convention, during the period which was now beginning and +which lasted until Thermidor in 1794. 'I lived,' was the reply. +Condorcet was of another temper. He cared as little for his life as +Danton or Saint-Just cared for theirs. Instead of cowering down among +the men of the Plain or the frogs of the Marsh, he withstood the +Mountain to the face. + +Hérault de Séchelles, at the head of another committee, brought in a new +constitution which was finally adopted and decreed (June 24, 1793). Of +this, Sièyes said privately, that it was 'a bad table of contents.' +Condorcet denounced it publicly, and, with a courage hardly excelled, he +declared in so many words that the arrest of the Girondins had destroyed +the integrity of the national representation. The Bill he handled with a +severity that inflicted the keenest smarts on the self-love of its +designers. A few days later, the Capucin Chabot, one of those weak and +excitable natures that in ordinary times divert men by the intensity, +multiplicity, and brevity of their enthusiasms, but to whom the fiercer +air of such an event as the Revolution is a real poison, rose and in the +name of the Committee of General Security called the attention of the +Chamber to what he styled a sequel of the Girondist Brissot. This was no +more nor less than Condorcet's document criticising the new +constitution. 'This man,' said Chabot, 'has sought to raise the +department of the Aisne against you, imagining that, because he has +happened to sit by the side of a handful of _savants_ of the Academy, +it is his duty to give laws to the French Republic.'[38] So a decree +was passed putting Condorcet under arrest. His name was included in the +list of those who were tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal on the +Third of October for conspiring against the unity and indivisibility of +the Republic. He was condemned in his absence, and declared to be _hors +la loi_. + +This, then, was the calamitous close of his aspirations from boyhood +upwards to be permitted to partake in doing something for the common +weal. He had still the work to perform by which posterity will best +remember his name, though only a few months intervened between his +flight and his most cruel end. When the decree against him was enacted +he fled. Friends found a refuge for him in the house of a Madame Vernet, +a widow in moderate circumstances, who let lodgings to students, and one +of those beneficent characters that show us how high humanity can reach. +'Is he an honest and virtuous man?' she asked; 'in that case let him +come, and lose not a moment. Even while we talk he may be seized.' The +same night Condorcet intrusted his life to her keeping, and for nine +months he remained in hiding under her roof. When he heard of the +execution of the Girondins condemned on the same day with himself, he +perceived the risk to which he was subjecting his protectress, and made +up his mind to flee. 'I am an outlaw,' he said, 'and if I am discovered +you will be dragged to the same death.' 'The Convention,' Madame Vernet +answered, with something of the heroism of more notable women of that +time, 'may put you out of the law; it has not the power to put you out +of humanity. You stay.' This was no speech of the theatre. The whole +household kept the most vigorous watch over the prisoner thus generously +detained, and for many months Madame Vernet's humane firmness was +successful in preventing his escape. This time--his soul grievously +burdened by anxiety as to the fate of his wife and child, and by a +restless eagerness not to compromise his benefactress, a bloody death +staring him every moment in the face--Condorcet spent in the +composition, without the aid of a single book, of his memorable work on +the progress of the human mind. Among the many wonders of an epoch of +portents, this feat of intellectual abstraction is not the least +amazing. + +When his task was accomplished, Condorcet felt with more keenness than +ever the deadly peril in which his presence placed Madame Vernet. He was +aware that to leave her house was to seek death, but he did not fear. He +drew up a paper of directions to be given one day to his little +daughter, when she should be of years to understand and follow them. +They are written with minute care, and though tender and solicitous, +they show perfect composure. His daughter is above all things to banish +from her mind every revengeful sentiment against her father's enemies; +to distrust her filial sensibility, and to make this sacrifice for her +father's own sake. This done, he marched downstairs, and having by an +artful stratagem thrown Madame Vernet off her guard, he went out at ten +o'clock in the morning imperfectly disguised into the street. This was +the fifth of April 1794. By three in the afternoon, exhausted by fatigue +which his strict confinement for nine months made excessive, he reached +the house of a friend in the country, and prayed for a night's shelter. +His presence excited less pity than alarm. The people gave him +refreshment, and he borrowed a little pocket copy of Horace, with which +he went forth into the loneliness of the night. He promised himself +shelter amid the stone quarries of Clamart. What he suffered during this +night, the whole day of the sixth of April, the night, and again the +next day, there is no one to tell. + +The door of the house in the Rue Servandoni was left on the latch night +and day for a whole week. But Madame Vernet's generous hope was in vain; +while she still hoped and watched, the end had come. On the evening of +the seventh, Condorcet, with one of his legs torn or broken, his +garments in rags, with visage gaunt and hunger-stricken, entered an inn +in the hamlet of Clamart, and called for an omelette. Asked how many +eggs he would have in it, the famishing man answered a dozen. +Carpenters, for such he had given himself to be, do not have a dozen +eggs in their omelettes. Suspicion was aroused, his hands were not the +hands of a workman, and he had no papers to show, but only the pocket +Horace. The villagers seized him and hastened to drag him, bound hand +and foot, to Bourg-la-Reine, then called for a season Bourg-l'Égalité. +On the road he fainted, and they set him on a horse offered by a pitying +wayfarer. When they reached the prison, Condorcet, starving, bleeding, +way-worn, was flung into his cell. On the morrow, when the gaolers came +to seek him, they found him stretched upon the ground, dead and stark. +So he perished--of hunger and weariness, say some; of poison ever +carried by him in a ring, say others.[39] So, to the last revolving +supreme cares, this high spirit was overtaken by annihilation. His +memory is left to us, the fruit of his ideas, and the impression of his +character. + + * * * * * + +An eminent man, who escaped by one accident from the hatchets of the +Septembriseurs, and by another from the guillotine of the Terror, while +in hiding and in momentary expectation of capture and death, wrote thus +in condemnation of suicide, 'the one crime which leaves no possibility +of return to virtue.' 'Even at this incomprehensible moment'--the spring +of 1793--'when morality, enlightenment, energetic love of country, only +render death at the prison-wicket or on the scaffold more inevitable; +when it might be allowable to choose among the ways of leaving a life +that can no longer be preserved, and to rob tigers in human form of the +accursed pleasure of dragging you forth and drinking your blood; yes, on +the fatal tumbril itself, with nothing free but voice, I could still +cry, _Take care_, to a child that should come too near the wheel: +perhaps he may owe his life to me, perhaps the country shall one day owe +its salvation to him.'[40] + +More than one career in those days, famous or obscure, was marked by +this noble tenacity to lofty public ideas even in the final moments of +existence. Its general acceptance as a binding duty, exorcising the +mournful and insignificant egotisms that haunt and wearily fret and make +waste the remnants of so many lives, will produce the profoundest of all +possible improvements in men's knowledge of the sublime art of the +happiness of their kind. The closing words of Condorcet's last +composition show the solace which perseverance in taking thought for +mankind brought to him in the depths of personal calamity. He had +concluded his survey of the past history of the race, and had drawn what +seemed in his eyes a moderate and reasonable picture of its future. 'How +this picture,' he exclaims, with the knell of his own doom sounding full +in the ear while he wrote, 'this picture of the human race freed from +all its fetters, withdrawn from the empire of chance, as from that of +the enemies of progress, and walking with firm and assured step in the +way of truth, of virtue, and happiness, presents to the philosopher a +sight that consoles him for the errors, the crimes, the injustice, with +which the earth is yet stained, and of which he is not seldom the +victim! It is in the contemplation of this picture that he receives the +reward of his efforts for the progress of reason, for the defence of +liberty. He ventures to link them with the eternal chain of the +destinies of man: it is there that he finds the true recompense of +virtue, the pleasure of having done a lasting good. Fate can no longer +undo it by any disastrous compensation that shall restore prejudice and +bondage. This contemplation is for him a refuge, into which the +recollection of his persecutors can never follow him; in which, living +in thought with man reinstated in the rights and the dignity of his +nature, he forgets man tormented and corrupted by greed, by base fear, +by envy; it is here that he truly abides with his fellows, in an elysium +that his reason has known how to create for itself, and that his love +for humanity adorns with all purest delights.'[41] + +It has long been the fashion among the followers of that reaction which +Coleridge led and Carlyle has spread and popularised, to dwell +exclusively on the coldness and hardness, the excess of scepticism and +the defect of enthusiasm, that are supposed to have characterised the +eighteenth century. Because the official religion of the century both in +England and France was lifeless and mechanical, it has been taken for +granted that the level of thought and feeling was a low one universally; +as if the highest moods of every era necessarily clothed themselves in +religious forms. The truth is that, working in such natures as +Condorcet's, the principles of the eighteenth century, its homage to +reason and rational methods, its exaltation of the happiness of men, not +excluding their material wellbeing, into the highest place, its passion +for justice and law, its large illumination, all engendered a fervour as +truly religious as that of Catholicism or of Calvinism at their best, +while its sentiment was infinitely less interested and personal. The +passage just quoted is as little mechanical, as little material, as the +most rapturous ejaculations of the Christian saints and confessors. Read +in connection with the circumstances of its composition, it may show +that the eighteenth century was able at any rate to inspire its sons +with a faith that could rob death of its sting and the grave of its +victory, as effectually as if it had rested on a mystery instead of on +reason, and been supported by the sanctions of eternal pain and eternal +bliss, instead of moving from a confident devotion to humanity. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[30] _Déclaration de l'Assemblée Nationale_, 29 Déc. 1791. _Oeuv._ xii. +25. + +[31] 13th August 1792. _Oeuv._ x. 547. + +[32] _Ib._ x. 560. + +[33] 19th August. _Ib._ x. 565. + +[34] _Opinion sur le Jugement de Louis XVI._ Nov. 1792 _Oeuv._ xii. +267-303. + +[35] 19th Jan. 1793. _Oeuv._ xii. 311. + +[36] See M. Edgar Quinet's remarks on this achievement. _La Révolution_, +ii. 110. + +[37] _Oeuv._ xii. 333, 417. M. Louis Blanc has contrasted the principles +laid down as the basis of this project with Robespierre's rival +Declaration of the Rights of Man, printing the two side by side in +parallel columns. '_Les voilà donc face à face, après leur commune +victoire sur le principe d'autorité, ces deux principes d'individualisme +et de fraternité, entre lesquels, aujourd'hui même, le monde balance, +invinciblement ému! D'un côté la philosophie du rationalisme pur, qui +divise; d'un autre côté la philosophie du sentiment, qui rapproche et +réunit. Ici Voltaire et Condorcet, là J. J. Rousseau et Robespierre._' +_Hist. de la Révol. Fran._ bk. ix. ch. v. + +[38] _Extrait du Moniteur._ _Oeuv._ xii. 677. + +[39] The Abbé Morellet, in his narrative of the death of Condorcet +(_Mémoires_, c. xxiv.), says that he died of poison, a mixture of +stramonium and opium. He adds that the surgeon described death as due to +apoplexy. See Musset-Pathay's _J. J. Rousseau_, ii. 42. + +[40] Dupont de Nemours. _Les Physiocrates_, i. 326. + +[41] _Progrès de l'Esprit Humain._ _Oeuv._ vi. 276. + + + + +IV. + + +The shape of Condorcet's ideas upon history arose from the twofold +necessity which his character imposed upon him, at once of appeasing his +aspirations on behalf of mankind, and of satisfying a disciplined and +scientific intelligence. He was of too robust an understanding to find +adequate gratification in the artificial construction of hypothetical +utopias. Conviction was as indispensable as hope; and distinct grounds +for the faith that was in him, as essential as the faith itself. The +result of this fact of mental constitution, the intellectual conditions +of the time being what they were, was the rise in his mind of the great +and central conception of there being a law in the succession of social +states, to be ascertained by an examination of the collective phenomena +of past history. The merit of this admirable effort, and of the work in +which it found expression, is very easily underrated, because the effort +was insufficient and merely preparatory, while modern thought has +already carried us far beyond it, and at least into sight of the more +complete truths to which this effort only pointed the way. Let us +remember, however, that it did point the way distinctly and +unmistakably. A very brief survey of the state of history as a subject +of systematic study enables us to appreciate with precision what service +it was that Condorcet rendered; for it carries us back from the present +comparatively advanced condition of the science of society to a time +before his memorable attempt, when conceptions now become so familiar +were not in existence, and when even the most instructed students of +human affairs no more felt the need of a scientific theory of the manner +in which social effects follow social causes, than the least instructed +portion of the literary public feels such a need in our own time. It is +difficult after a subject has been separated from the nebulous mass of +unclassified knowledge, after it has taken independent shape, and begun +to move in lines of its own, to realise the process by which all this +was effected, or the way in which before all this the facts concerned +presented themselves to the thinker's mind. That we should overcome the +difficulty is one of the conditions of our being able to do justice to +the great army of the precursors. + +Two movements of thought went on in France during the middle of the +eighteenth century, which have been comparatively little dwelt upon by +historians; their main anxiety has been to justify the foregone +conclusion, so gratifying alike to the partisans of the social reaction +and to the disciples of modern transcendentalism in its many disguises, +that the eighteenth century was almost exclusively negative, critical, +and destructive. Each of these two currents was positive in the highest +degree, and their influence undeniably constructive, if we consider that +it was from their union into a common channel, a work fully accomplished +first in the mind of Condorcet, that the notion of the scientific +treatment of history and society took its earliest start. + +The first of the two movements, and that which has been most +unaccountably neglected, consisted in the remarkable attempts of Quesnay +and his immediate followers to withdraw the organisation of society from +the sphere of empiricism, and to substitute for the vulgar conception +of arbitrary and artificial institutions as the sole foundation of this +organisation, the idea that there is a certain Natural Order, conformity +to which in all social arrangements is the essential condition of their +being advantageous to the members of the social union. Natural Order in +the minds of this school was no metaphysical figment evolved from +uninstructed consciousness, but a set of circumstances to be discovered +by continuous and methodical observation. It consisted of physical law +and moral law. Physical law is the regulated course of every physical +circumstance in the order evidently most advantageous to the human race. +Moral law is the rule of every human action in the moral order, +conformed to the physical order evidently most advantageous to the human +race. This order is the base of the most perfect government, and the +fundamental rule of all positive laws; for positive laws are only such +laws as are required to keep up and maintain the natural order that is +evidently most advantageous to the race.[42] + +Towards the close of the reign of Lewis XIV. the frightful +impoverishment of the realm attracted the attention of one or two +enlightened observers, and among them of Boisguillebert and Vauban. They +had exposed, the former of them with especial force and amplitude, the +absurdity of the general system of administration, which seemed to have +been devised for the express purpose of paralysing both agriculture and +commerce, and exhausting all the sources of the national wealth.[43] +But these speculations had been mainly of a fiscal kind, and pointed not +much further than to a readjustment of taxation and an improvement in +the modes of its collection. The disciples of the New Science, as it was +called, the Physiocrats, or believers in the supremacy of Natural Order, +went much beyond this, and in theory sought to lay open the whole ground +of the fabric of society. Practically they dealt with scarcely any but +the economic circumstances of societies, though some of them mix up with +their reasonings upon commerce and agriculture crude and incomplete +hints upon forms of government and other questions that belong not to +the economical but to the political side of social science.[44] +Quesnay's famous _Maxims_ open with a declaration in favour of the unity +of the sovereign authority, and against the system of counterbalancing +forces in government. Almost immediately he passes on to the ground of +political economy, and elaborates the conditions of material prosperity +in an agricultural realm. With the correctness of the definitions and +principles of economic science as laid down by these writers, we have +here nothing to do. Their peculiar distinction in the present connection +is the grasp which they had of the principle of there being a natural, +and therefore a scientific, order in the conditions of a society; that +order being natural in the sense that they attached to the term, which +from the circumstances of the case is most beneficial to the race. From +this point of view they approach some of the problems of what is now +classified as social statics; and they assume, without any consciousness +of another aspect being possible, that the society which they are +discussing is in a state of equilibrium. + +It is evident that with this restriction of the speculative horizon, +they were and must remain wholly unable to emerge into the full light of +the completely constituted science of society, with laws of movement as +well as laws of equilibrium, with definite methods of interpreting past +and predicting future states. They could account for and describe the +genesis of the social union, as Plato and Aristotle had in different +ways been able to do many centuries before; and they could prescribe +some of the conditions of its being maintained in vigour and +compactness. Some of them could even see in a vague way the +interdependence of peoples and the community of the real interests of +different nations, each nation, as De la Rivière expressed it, being +only a province of the vast kingdom of nature, a branch from the same +trunk as the rest.[45] What they could not see was the great fact of +social evolution; and here too, in the succession of social states, +there has been a natural and observable order. In a word, they tried to +understand society without the aid of history. Consequently they laid +down the truths which they discovered as absolute and fixed, when they +were no more than conditional and relative. + +Fortunately inquirers in another field had set a movement afoot, which +was destined to furnish the supplement of their own speculation. This +was the remarkable development of the conception of history, which +Montesquieu's two memorable books first made conspicuous. Bossuet's +well-known discourse on universal history, teeming as it does with +religious prejudice, just as Condorcet's sketch teems with prejudice +against religion, and egregiously imperfect in execution as it must be +pronounced when judged from even the meanest historical standard, had +perhaps partially introduced the spirit of Universality, as Comte says, +into the study of history. But it was impossible from the nature of the +case for any theologian to know fully what this spirit means; and it was +not until the very middle of the following century that any effective +approach was made to that universality which Bossuet did little more +than talk about. Then it came not from theology, but from the much more +hopeful sources of a rational philosophy. Before Montesquieu no single +stone of the foundation of scientific history can be said to have been +laid. Of course, far earlier writers had sought after the circumstances +which brought about a given transaction. Thucydides, for example, had +attributed the cause of the Peloponnesian war to the alarm of the +Lacedæmonians at the greatness of the power of Athens.[46] It is this +sense of the need of explanation, however rudimentary it may be, which +distinguishes the great historian from the chronicler, even from a very +superior chronicler like Livy, who in his account of even so great an +event as the Second Punic War plunges straightway into narrative of what +happened, without concerning himself why it happened. Tacitus had begun +his _Histories_ with remarks upon the condition of Rome, the feeling of +the various armies, the attitude of the provinces, so that, as he says, +'_non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed +ratio etiam causæque noscantur_.'[47] But these and the like instances +in historical literature were only political explanations, more or less +adequate, of particular transactions; they were no more than the +sagacious remarks of men with statesmanlike minds, upon the origin of +some single set of circumstances. + +The rise from this to the high degree of generality which marks the +speculations of Montesquieu, empirical as they are, was as great as the +rise from the mere maxims of worldly wisdom to the widest principles of +ethical philosophy. Polybius, indeed, in the remarkable chapters with +which his _Histories_ open, uses expressions that are so modern as +almost to startle us. 'People who study history,' he says, 'in separate +and detached portions, without reference to one another, and suppose +that from them they acquire a knowledge of the whole, are like a man +who in looking on the severed members of what had once been an animated +and comely creature, should think that this was enough to give him an +idea of its beauty and force when alive. The empire of Rome was what by +its extent in Italy, Africa, Asia, Greece, brought history into the +condition of being organic (+sômatoeidês+).' His object was to examine +the general and collective ordering of events; when it came into +existence; whence it had its source; how it had this special completion +and fulfilment--the universal empire of Rome.[48] Striking as this is, +and admirable as it is, there is not in it any real trace of the +abstract conception of social history. Polybius recognises the unity of +history, so far as that could be understood in the second century before +Christ, but he treats his subject in the concrete, describing the chain +of events, but not attempting to seek their law. It was Montesquieu who +first applied the comparative method to social institutions; who first +considered physical conditions in connection with the laws of a country; +who first perceived and illustrated how that natural order which the +Physiocrats only considered in relation to the phenomena of wealth and +its production, really extended over its political phenomena as well; +who first set the example of viewing a great number of social facts all +over the world in groups and classes; and who first definitely and +systematically inquired into the causes of a set of complex historical +events and institutions, as being both discoverable and intelligible. +This was a very marked advance upon both of the ideas, by one or other +of which men had previously been content to explain to themselves the +course of circumstances in the world; either the inscrutable decrees of +an inhuman providence, or the fortuitous vagaries of an eyeless destiny. + +It was Turgot, however, who completed the historical conception of +Montesquieu, in a piece written in 1750, two years after the appearance +of the _Esprit des Lois_, and in one or two other fragmentary +compositions of about the same time, which are not the less remarkable +because the writer was only twenty-three years old when these advanced +ideas presented themselves to his intelligence. Vico in Italy had +insisted on the doctrine that the course of human affairs is in a cycle, +and that they move in a constant and self-repeating orbit.[49] Turgot, +on the contrary, with more wisdom, at the opening of his subject is +careful to distinguish the ever-varying spectacle of the succession of +men from generation to generation, from the circle of identical +revolutions in which the phenomena of nature are enclosed. In the one +case time only restores at each instant the image of what it has just +caused to disappear; in the other, the reason and the passions are ever +incessantly producing new events. 'All the ages are linked together by +a succession of causes and effects which bind the state of the world to +all the states that have gone before. The multiplied signs of speech and +writing, in supplying men with the means of an assured possession of +their thoughts and of communicating them to one another, have formed a +common treasure that one generation transmits to another, as an +inheritance constantly augmented by the discoveries of each generation; +and the human race, looked at from its origin, appears in the eyes of +the philosopher one immense whole, which, just as in the case of each +individual, has its infancy and its growth.'[50] + +Pascal and others in ancient and modern times[51] had compared in casual +and unfruitful remarks the history of the race to the history of the +individual, but Turgot was able in some sort to see the full meaning and +extent of the analogy, as well as the limitations proper to it, and to +draw from it some of the larger principles which the idea involved. The +first proposition in the passage just quoted, that a chain of causes and +effects unites each age with every other age that has gone before, is +one of the most memorable sentences in the history of thought. And +Turgot not only saw that there is a relation of cause and effect between +successive states of society; he had glimpses into some of the +conditions of that relation. To a generation that stands on loftier +heights his attempts seem rudimentary and strangely simple, but it was +these attempts which cut the steps for our ascent. How is it, he asked, +for instance, that the succession of social states is not uniform? that +they follow with unequal step along the track marked out for them? He +found the answer in the inequality of natural advantages, and he was +able to discern the necessity of including in these advantages the +presence, apparently accidental, in some communities and not in others +of men of especial genius or capacity in some important direction.[52] +Again, he saw that just as in one way natural advantages accelerate the +progress of a society, in another natural obstacles also accelerate it, +by stimulating men to the efforts necessary to overcome them: _le besoin +perfectionne l'instrument_.[53] The importance of following the march of +the human mind over all the grooves along which it travels to further +knowledge, was fully present to him, and he dwells repeatedly on the +constant play going on between discoveries in one science and those in +another. In no writer is there a fuller and more distinct sense of the +essential unity and integrity of the history of mankind, nor of the +multitude of the mansions into which this vast house is divided, and the +many keys which he must possess that would open and enter in. + +Even in empirical explanations Turgot shows a breadth and accuracy of +vision truly surprising, considering his own youth and what we may +venture to call the youth of his subject. The reader will be able to +appreciate this, and to discern at the same time the arbitrary nature of +Montesquieu's method, if he will contrast, for example, the remarks of +this writer upon polygamy with the far wider and more sagacious +explanation of the circumstances of such an institution given by +Turgot.[54] Unfortunately, he has left us only short and fragmentary +pieces, but they suggest more than many large and complete works. That +they had a very powerful and direct influence upon Condorcet there is no +doubt, as well from the similarity of general conception between him and +Turgot, as from the nearly perfect identity of leading passages in their +writings. Let us add that in Turgot's fragments we have what is +unhappily not a characteristic of Condorcet, the peculiar satisfaction +and delight in scientific history of a style which states a fact in such +phrases as serve also to reveal its origin, bearings, significance, in +which every successive piece of description is so worded as to be +self-evidently a link in the chain of explanation, an ordered term in a +series of social conditions. + +Before returning to Condorcet we ought to glance at the remarkable +piece, written in 1784, in which Kant propounded his idea of a +universal or cosmo-political history, which contemplating the agency of +the human will upon a large scale should unfold to our view a regular +stream of tendency in the great succession of events.[55] The will +metaphysically considered, Kant said, is free, but its manifestations, +that is to say, human actions, 'are as much under the control of +universal laws of nature as any other physical phenomena.' + +The very same course of incidents, which taken separately and +individually would have seemed perplexed and incoherent, 'yet viewed in +their connection and as the action of the human _species_ and not of +independent beings, never fail to observe a steady and continuous, +though slow, development of certain great predispositions in our +nature.' As it is impossible to presume in the human race any _rational_ +purpose of its own, we must seek to observe some _natural_ purpose in +the current of human actions. Thus a history of creatures with no plan +of their own, may yet admit a systematic form as a history of creatures +blindly pursuing a plan of nature. Now we know that all predispositions +are destined to develop themselves according to their final purpose. +Man's rational predispositions are destined to develop themselves in the +species and not in the individual. History then is the progress of the +development of all the tendencies laid in man by nature. The method of +development is the antagonism of these tendencies in the social state, +and its source the _unsocial sociality_ of man--a tendency to enter the +social state, combined with a perpetual resistance to that tendency, +which is ever threatening to dissolve it. The play of these two +tendencies unfolds talents of every kind, and by gradual increase of +light a preparation is made for such a mode of thinking as is capable of +'exalting a social concert that had been _pathologically_ extorted from +the mere necessities of situation, into a _moral_ union founded on the +reasonable choice.' Hence the highest problem for man is the +establishment of a universal civil society, founded on the empire of +political justice; and 'the history of the human species as a whole may +be regarded as the unravelling of a hidden plan of nature for +accomplishing a perfect state of civil constitution for society in its +internal relations (and, as the condition of that, in its external +relations also), as the sole state of society in which the tendencies of +human nature can be all and fully developed.' Nor is this all. We shall +not only be able to unravel the intricate web of past affairs, but shall +also find a clue for the guidance of future statesmen in the art of +political prediction. Nay more, this clue 'will open a consolatory +prospect into futurity, in which at a remote distance we shall observe +the human species seated upon an eminence won by infinite toil, where +all the germs are unfolded which nature has implanted within it, and +its destination on this earth accomplished.' + +That this conception involves an assumption about tendencies and final +purposes which reverses the true method of history, and moreover reduces +what ought to be a scientific inquiry to be a foregone justification of +nature or providence, should not prevent us from appreciating its signal +merits in insisting on a systematic presentation of the collective +activity of the race, and in pointing out, however cursorily, the use of +such an elucidation of the past in furnishing the grounds of practical +guidance in dealing with the future and in preparing it. Considering the +brevity of this little tract, its pregnancy and suggestiveness have not +often been equalled. We have seen enough of it here to enable us to +realise the differences between this and the French school. We miss the +wholesome objectivity, resulting from the stage which had been reached +in France by the physical sciences. Condorcet's series of _éloges_ shows +unmistakably how deep an impression the history of physical discovery +had made upon him, and how clearly he understood the value of its +methods. The peculiar study which their composition had occasioned him +is of itself almost enough to account for the fact that a conception +which had long been preparing in the superior minds of the time, should +fully develop itself in him rather than in anybody else. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[42] Quesnay; _Droit Naturel_, ch. v. _Les Physiocrates_, i. 52. + +[43] _Economistes Financiers du 18ième Siècle._ Vauban's _Projet d'une +Dime Royale_ (p. 33), and Boisguillebert's _Factum de la France_, etc. +(p. 248 _et seq._) + +[44] De la Rivière, for instance, very notably. Cf. his _Ordre Naturel +des Sociétés Politiques_. _Physiocrates_, ii. 469, 636, etc. See also +Baudeau on the superiority of the Economic Monarchy _Ib._ pp. 783-791. + +[45] _Ordre Nat. des Soc. Pol._ p. 526. + +[46] Bk. i. 23. + +[47] _Hist._ i. 4. + +[48] Polyb. _Hist._ I. iii. 4; iv. 3, 7. + +[49] The well-known words of Thucydides may contain the germ of the same +idea, when he speaks of the future as being likely to represent again, +after the fashion of human things, 'if not the very image, yet the near +resemblance of the past.' Bk. i. 22, 4. + +[50] _Discours en Sorbonne._ _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 597. (Ed. of 1844). + +[51] Cf. Sir G. C. Lewis's _Methods of Observation in Politics_, ii. +439, note. + +[52] _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 599, 645, etc. + +[53] _Ib._ ii. 601. + +[54] _Esprit des Lois_, xvi. cc. 2-4. And _Discours sur l'Histoire +Universelle_, in Turgot's Works, ii. 640, 641. For a further account of +Turgot's speculations, see article "Turgot" in the present volume. + +[55] _Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmo-Political Plan._ It was +translated by De Quincey, and is to be found in vol. xiii. of his +collected works, pp. 133-152. + + + + +V. + + +The Physiocrats, as we have seen, had introduced the idea of there being +a natural order in social circumstances, that order being natural which +is most advantageous to mankind. Turgot had declared that one age is +bound to another by a chain of causation. Condorcet fused these two +conceptions. He viewed the history of the ages as a whole, and found in +their succession a natural order; an order which, when uninterrupted and +undisturbed, tended to accumulate untold advantages upon the human race, +which was every day becoming more plain to the vision of men, and +therefore every day more and more assured from disturbance by ignorant +prejudice and sinister interests. There is an order at once among the +circumstances of a given generation, and among the successive sets of +circumstances of successive generations. 'If we consider the development +of human faculties in its results, so far as they relate to the +individuals who exist at the same time on a given space, and if we +follow that development from generation to generation, then we have +before us the picture of the progress of the human mind. This progress +is subject to the same general laws that are to be observed in the +development of the faculties of individuals, for it is the result of +that development, considered at the same time in a great number of +individuals united in society. But the result that presents itself at +any one instant depends upon that which was offered by the instants +preceding; in turn it influences the result in times still to follow.' + +This picture will be of a historical character, inasmuch as being +subject to perpetual variations it is formed by the observation in due +order of different human societies in different epochs through which +they have passed. It will expose the order of the various changes, the +influence exercised by each period over the next, and thus will show in +the modifications impressed upon the race, ever renewing itself in the +immensity of the ages, the track that it has followed, and the exact +steps that it has taken towards truth and happiness. Such observation of +what man has been and of what he is, will then lead us to means proper +for assuring and accelerating the fresh progress that his nature allows +us to anticipate still further.[56] + +'If a man is able to predict with nearly perfect confidence, phenomena +with whose laws he is acquainted; if, even when they are unknown to him, +he is able, in accordance with the experience of the past, to foresee +with a large degree of probability the events of the future, why should +we treat it as a chimerical enterprise, to trace with some +verisimilitude the picture of the future destinies of the human race in +accordance with the results of its history? The only foundation of +belief in the natural sciences is this idea, that the general laws, +known or unknown, which regulate the phenomena of the universe are +necessary and constant; and why should this principle be less true for +the development of the moral and intellectual faculties of man than for +other natural operations? In short, opinions grounded on past experience +in objects of the same order being the single rule of conduct for even +the wisest men, why should the philosopher be forbidden to rest his +conjectures on the same base, provided that he never attributes to them +a degree of certainty beyond what is warranted by the number, the +constancy, and the accuracy of his observations?'[57] + +Thus Condorcet's purpose was not to justify nature, as it had been with +Kant, but to search in the past for rational grounds of a belief in the +unbounded splendour of men's future destinies. His view of the character +of the relations among the circumstances of the social union, either at +a given moment or in a succession of periods, was both accurate and +far-sighted. When he came actually to execute his own great idea, and to +specify the manner in which those relations arose and operated, he +instantly diverged from the right path. Progress in his mind is +exclusively produced by improvement in intelligence. It is the necessary +result of man's activity in the face of that disproportion ever existing +between what he knows and what he desires and feels the necessity to +know.[58] Hence the most fatal of the errors of Condorcet's sketch. He +measures only the contributions made by nations and eras to what we +know; leaving out of sight their failures and successes in the +elevation of moral standards and ideals, and in the purification of +human passions. + +Now even if we hold the intellectual principle only to be progressive, +and the moral elements to be fixed, being coloured and shaped and +quickened by the surrounding intellectual conditions, still, inasmuch as +the manner of this shaping and colouring is continually changing and +leading to the most important transformations of human activity and +sentiment, it must obviously be a radical deficiency in any picture of +social progress to leave out the development of ethics, whether it be a +derivative or an independent and spontaneous development. One seeks in +vain in Condorcet's sketch for any account of the natural history of +western morals, or for any sign of consciousness on his part that the +difference in ethical discipline and feeling between the most ferocious +of primitive tribes and the most enlightened eighteenth-century +Frenchmen, was a result of evolution that needed historical explanation, +quite as much as the difference between the astrolatry of one age and +the astronomy of another. We find no recognition of the propriety of +recounting the various steps of that long process by which, to use +Kant's pregnant phrase, the relations born of pathological necessity +were metamorphosed into those of moral union. The grave and lofty +feeling, for example, which inspired the last words of the +_Tableau_--whence came it? Of what long-drawn chain of causes in the +past was it the last effect? It is not enough to refer us generally to +previous advances in knowledge and intellectual emancipation, because +even supposing the successive modifications of our moral sensibilities +to be fundamentally due to the progress of intellectual enlightenment, +we still want to know in the first place something about the influences +which harness one process to the other, and in the second place, +something about the particular directions which these modifications of +moral constitution have taken. + +If this is one very radical omission in Condorcet's scheme, his angry +and vehement aversion for the various religions of the world (with +perhaps one exception) is a sin of commission still more damaging to its +completeness. That he should detest the corrupt and oppressive forms of +religion of his own century was neither surprising nor blamable. An +unfavourable view of the influences upon human development of the +Christian belief, even in its least corrupt forms, was not by any means +untenable. Nay, he was at liberty to go further than this, and to depict +religion as a natural infirmity of the human mind in its immature +stages, just as there are specific disorders incident in childhood to +the human body. Even on this theory, he was bound to handle it with the +same calmness which he would have expected to find in a pathological +treatise by a physician. Who would write of the sweating sickness with +indignation, or describe zymotic diseases with resentment? Condorcet's +pertinacious anger against theology is just as irrational as this would +be, from the scientific point of view which he pretends to have assumed. +Theology, in fact, was partly avenged of her assailants, for she had in +the struggle contrived to infect them with the bitter contagion of her +own traditional spirit. + +From the earliest times to the latest it is all one story according to +Condorcet. He can speak with respect of philosophies even when, as in +the case of the Scotch school of the last century, he dislikes and +condemns them.[59] Of religion his contempt and hatred only vary +slightly in degree. Barbarous tribes have sorcerers, trading on the +gross superstitions of their dupes: so in other guise and with different +names have civilised nations to-day. As other arts progressed, +superstition, too, became less rude; priestly families kept all +knowledge in their own hands, and thus preserved their hypocritical and +tyrannical assumptions from detection. They disclosed nothing to the +people without some supernatural admixture, the better to maintain their +personal pretensions. They had two doctrines, one for themselves, and +the other for the people. Sometimes, as they were divided into several +orders, each of them reserved to itself certain mysteries. Thus all the +inferior orders were at once rogues and dupes, and the great system of +hypocrisy was only known in all its completeness to a few adepts. +Christianity belonged to the same class. Its priests, we must admit, 'in +spite of their knaveries and their vices, were enthusiasts ready to +perish for their doctrines.' In vain did Julian endeavour to deliver the +empire from the scourge. Its triumph was the signal for the incurable +decay of all art and knowledge. The Church may seem to have done some +good in things where her interests did not happen to clash with the +interests of Europe, as in helping to abolish slavery, for instance; but +after all 'circumstances and manners' would have produced the result +necessarily and of themselves. Morality, which was taught by the priests +only, contained those universal principles that have been unknown to no +sect; but it created a host of purely religious duties, and of imaginary +sins. These duties were more rigorously enjoined than those of nature, +and actions that were indifferent, legitimate, or even virtuous, were +more severely rebuked and punished than real crimes. Yet, on the other +hand, a moment of repentance, consecrated by the absolution of a priest, +opened the gates of heaven to the worst miscreants.[60] + +In the opening of the last of these remarks there is much justice. So +there is in the striking suggestion made in another place, that we +should not bless erroneous systems for their utility, simply because +they help to repair some small part of the mischief of which they have +themselves been the principal cause.[61] But on the whole it is obvious +that Condorcet was unfitted by his temper, and that of the school to +which he most belonged, from accepting religion as a fact in the +history of the human mind that must have some positive explanation. To +look at it in this way as the creation of a handful of selfish impostors +in each community, was to show a radical incompetence to carry out the +scheme which had been so scientifically projected. The picture is ruined +by the angry caricature of what ought to have been one of the most +important figures in it. To this place the Christian Church is +undeniably entitled, however we may be disposed to strike the balance +between the undoubted injuries and the undoubted advantages which it has +been the means of dealing to the civilisation of the west. Never perhaps +was there so thorough an inversion of the true view of the comparative +elevation of different parts of human character, as is implied in +Condorcet's strange hint that Cromwell's satellites would have been much +better men if they had carried instead of the Bible at their saddle-bows +some merry book of the stamp of Voltaire's _Pucelle_.[62] + +Apart from the misreading of history in explaining religion by the folly +of the many and the frauds of a few, Condorcet's interpretation involved +the profoundest infidelity to his own doctrine of the intrinsic purity +and exaltation of human nature. This doctrine ought in all reason to +have led him to look for the secret of the popular acceptance of beliefs +that to him seemed most outrageous, in some possibly finer side which +they might possess for others, appealing not to the lower but to the +higher qualities of a nature with instincts of perfection. Take his +account of Purgatory, for instance. The priests, he says, drew up so +minute and comprehensive a table of sins that nobody could hope to +escape from censure. Here you come upon one of the most lucrative +branches of the sacerdotal trafficking; people were taught to imagine a +hell of limited duration, which the priests only had the power to +abridge; and this grace they sold, first to the living, then to the +kinsmen and friends of the dead.[63] Now it was surely more worthy of a +belief in the natural depravity than in the natural perfectibility of +the sons of Adam, thus to assume without parley or proviso a base +mercenariness on the one hand, and grovelling terror on the other, as +the origin of a doctrine which was obviously susceptible of a kinder +explanation. Would it not have been more consistent with belief in human +goodness to refer the doctrine to a merciful and affectionate and truly +humanising anxiety to assuage the horrors of what is perhaps the most +frightful idea that has ever corroded human character, the idea of +eternal punishment? We could in part have pardoned Condorcet if he had +striven to invent ever so fanciful origins for opinions and belief in +his solicitude for the credit of humanity. As it is, he distorts the +history of religion only to humanity's discredit. How, if the people +were always predisposed to virtue, were priests, sprung of the same +people and bred in the same traditions, so invariably and incurably +devoted to baseness and hypocrisy? Was the nature of a priest absolutely +devoid of what physicians call recuperative force, restoring him to a +sound mind, in spite of professional perversion? In fine, if man had +been so grossly enslaved in moral nature from the beginning of the world +down to the year 1789 or thereabouts, how was it possible that +notwithstanding the admitted slowness of civilising processes, he should +suddenly spring forth the very perfectible and nearly perfected being +that Condorcet passionately imagined him to be?[64] + +It has already been hinted that there was one partial exception to +Condorcet's otherwise all-embracing animosity against religion. This was +Mahometanism. Towards this his attitude is fully appreciative, though of +course he deplores the superstitions which mixed themselves up with the +Arabian prophet's efforts for the purification of the men of his nation. +After the seven vials of fiery wrath have been poured out upon the creed +of Palestine, it is refreshing to find the creed of Arabia almost +patronised and praised. The writer who could not have found in his heart +to think Gregory the Great or Hildebrand other than a mercenary +impostor, nor Cromwell other than an ambitious hypocrite, admits with +exquisite blandness of Mahomet that he had the art of employing all the +means of subjugating men _avec adresse, mais avec grandeur_.[65] Another +reason, no doubt, besides his hatred of the Church, lay at the bottom of +Condorcet's tolerance or more towards Mahometanism. The Arabian +superstition was not fatal to knowledge, Arabian activity in algebra, +chemistry, optics, and astronomy, atoned in Condorcet's eyes for the +Koran. + +It is fair to add further, that Condorcet showed a more just +appreciation of the effects of Protestantism upon western development +than has been common among French thinkers. He recognises that men who +had learnt, however imperfectly, to submit their religious prejudices to +rational examination, would naturally be likely to extend the process to +political prejudices also. Moreover, if the reformed churches refused to +render to reason all its rights, still they agreed that its prison +should be less narrow; the chain was not broken, but it ceased to be +either so heavy or so short as it had been. And in countries where what +was by the dominant sect insolently styled tolerance succeeded in +establishing itself, it was possible to maintain the tolerated doctrines +with a more or less complete freedom. So there arose in Europe a sort +of freedom of thought, not for men, but for Christians; and, 'if we +except France, it is only for Christians that it exists anywhere else at +the present day,' a limitation which has now fortunately ceased to be +altogether exact.[66] + +If we have smiled at the ease with which what is rank craftiness in a +Christian is toned down into address in a Mahometan, we may be amused +too at the leniency that describes some of the propagandist methods of +the eighteenth century. Condorcet becomes rapturous as he tells in a +paragraph of fine sustention with what admixture of the wisdom of the +serpent the humane philosophers of his century 'covered the truth with a +veil that prevented it from hurting too weak sight, and left the +pleasure of conjecturing it; caressing prejudices with address, to deal +them the more certain blows; scarcely ever threatening them, nor ever +more than one at once, nor even one in its integrity; sometimes +consoling the enemies of reason by pretending to desire no more than a +half-tolerance in religion and half-liberty in politics; conciliating +despotism while they combated the absurdities of religion, and religion +when they rose against despotism; attacking these two scourges in their +principle, even when they seemed only to bear ill-will to revolting or +ridiculous abuses, and striking these poisonous trees in their very +roots, while they appeared to be doing no more than pruning crooked +branches.'[67] Imagine the holy rage with which such acts would have +been attacked, if Condorcet had happened to be writing about the +Jesuits. Alas! the stern and serene composure of the historical +conscience was as unknown to him as it is always to orthodox apologists. +It is to be said, moreover, that he had less excuse for being without +it, for he rested on the goodness of men, and not, as theologians rest, +on their vileness. It is a most interesting thing, we may notice in +passing, to consider what was the effect upon the Revolution of this +artfulness or prudence with which its theoretic precursors sowed the +seed. Was it as truly wise as Condorcet supposed? Or did it weaken, +almost corrupt, the very roots? Was it the secret of the thoroughness +with which the work of demolition was done? Was it, too, the secret of +the many and disastrous failures in the task of reconstruction?[68] + +There are one or two detached remarks suggested by Condorcet's picture, +which it may be worth while to make. He is fully alive, for example, to +the importance to mankind of the appearance among them of one of those +men of creative genius, like Archimedes or like Newton, whose lives +constitute an epoch in human history. Their very existence he saw to be +among the greatest benefits conferred on the race by Nature. He hardly +seems to have been struck, on the other hand, with the appalling and +incessant waste of these benefits that goes on; with the number of men +of Newtonian capacity who are undoubtedly born into the world only to +chronicle small beer; with the hosts of high and worthy souls who labour +and flit away like shadows, perishing in the accomplishment of minor and +subordinate ends. We may suspect that the notion of all this +immeasurable profusion of priceless treasures, its position as one of +the laws of the condition of man on the globe, would be unspeakably hard +of endurance to one holding Condorcet's peculiar form of optimism. + +Again, if we had space, it would be worth while to examine some of the +acute and ingenious hints which Condorcet throws out by the way. It +would be interesting to consider, as he suggests, the influence upon +the progress of the human mind of the change from writing on such +subjects as science, philosophy, and jurisprudence in Latin, to the +usual language of each country. That change rendered the sciences more +popular, but it increased the trouble of the scientific men in following +the general march of knowledge. It caused a book to be read in one +country by more men of inferior competence, but less read throughout +Europe by men of superior light. And though it relieves men who have no +leisure for extensive study from the trouble of learning Latin, it +imposes upon profounder persons the necessity of learning a variety of +modern languages.[69] Again, ground is broken for the most important +reflection, in the remark that men preserve the prejudices of their +childhood, their country, and their age, long after they have recognised +all the truths necessary to destroy them.[70] Perhaps most instructive +and most tranquillising of all is this, that the progress of physical +knowledge is constantly destroying in silence erroneous opinions which +had never seemed to be attacked.[71] And in reading history, how much +ignorance and misinterpretation would have been avoided, if the student +had but been careful to remember that 'the law as written and the law as +administered; the principles of those in power, and the modification of +their action by the sentiments of the governed; an institution as it +emanates from those who form it, and the same institution realised; the +religion of books, and that of the people; the apparent universality of +a prejudice, and the substantial adhesion that it receives; these may +all differ in such a way that the effects absolutely cease to answer to +the public and recognised causes.'[72] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[56] _Tableau des Progrès de l'Esprit Humain._ _Oeuv._ vi. 12, 13. + +[57] _Oeuv._ vi. 236. + +[58] _Ib._ vi. 21. + +[59] _Oeuv._ vi. 186. + +[60] _Oeuv._ vi. pp. 35, 55, 101, 102, 111, 117, 118, etc. + +[61] _Dissertation sur cette question: S'il est utile aux hommes d'être +trompés?_--one of the best of Condorcet's writings. _Oeuv._ v. 360. + +[62] See Condorcet's vindication of the _Pucelle_ in his Life of +Voltaire. _Oeuv._ iv. 88, 89. See also Comte's _Phil. Pos._ v. 450. + +[63] _Oeuv._ vi. 118. + +[64] As M. Comte says in his remarks on Condorcet (_Phil. Pos._ iv. +185-193): '_Le progrès total finalement accompli ne peut être sans doute +que le résultat général de l'accumulation spontanée des divers progrès +partiels successivement réalisés depuis l'origine de la civilisation, en +vertu de la marche successivement lente et graduelle de la nature +humaine;_' so that Condorcet's picture presents a standing miracle, '_où +l'on s'est même interdit d'abord la ressource vulgaire de la +Providence._' Comte's criticism, however, seems to leave out of sight +what full justice Condorcet did to the various partial advances in the +intellectual order. + +[65] _Oeuv._ vi. 120-123. + +[66] _Oeuv._ vi. 149, 153. + +[67] _Ib._ 187-189. + +[68] It is worth while to quote on this subject a passage from Condorcet +as historically instructive as it is morally dangerous. '_La nécessité +de mentir pour désavouer un ouvrage est une extrémité qui répugne +également à la conscience et à la noblesse du caractère; mais le crime +est pour les hommes injustes qui rendent ce désaveu nécessaire à la +sûreté de celui qu'ils y forcent. Si vous avez érigé en crime ce qui +n'en est pas un, si vous avez porté atteinte, par des lois absurdes ou +par des lois arbitraires, au droit naturel qu'ont tous les hommes, non +seulement d'avoir une opinion, mais de la rendre publique, alors vous +méritez de perdre celui qu'a chaque homme d'entendre la vérité de la +bouche d'un autre, droit qui fonde seul l'obligation rigoureuse de ne +pas mentir. S'il n'est pas permis de tromper, c'est parceque tromper +quelqu'un, c'est lui faire un tort, ou s'exposer à lui en faire un; mais +le tort suppose un droit, et personne n'a celui de cherche, à s'assurer +les moyens de commettre une injustice._' _Vie de Voltaire_; _Oeuv._ iv. +33, 34. Condorcet might have found some countenance for his sophisms in +Plato (Republ. ii. 383); but even Plato restricted the privilege of +lying to statesmen (iii. 389). He was in a wiser mood when he declared +(_Oeuv._ v. 384) that it is better to be imprudent than a +hypocrite,--though for that matter these are hardly the only +alternatives. + +[69] _Oeuv._ vi. 163. + +[70] _Ib._ vi. 22. + +[71] _Ib._ p. 220. + +[72] _Oeuv._ p. 234. + + + + +VI. + + +We have now seen something of Condorcet's ideas of the past, and of his +conception of what he was perhaps the first to call the Science of Man. +Let us turn to his hopes for the future, and one or two of the details +to which his study of the science of man conducted him. It is well to +perceive at the outset that Condorcet's views of the Tenth Epoch, as he +counts the period extending from the French Revolution to the era of the +indefinite perfection of man, were in truth not the result of any +scientific processes whatever, properly so called. He saw, and this is +his merit, that such processes were applicable to the affairs of +society; and that, as he put it, all political and moral errors rest +upon error in philosophy, which in turn is bound up with erroneous +methods in physical science.[73] But in the execution of his plan he +does not succeed in showing the nature of the relations of these +connected forces; still less does he practise the scientific duty, for +illustrating which he gives such well-deserved glory to Newton,[74] of +not only accounting for phenomena, but also of measuring the _quantity_ +of forces. His conception, therefore, of future progress, however near +conjecture may possibly have brought him to the truth, is yet no more +than conjecture. The root of it is found in nothing more precise, +definite, or quantified than a general notion gathered from history, +that some portions of the race had made perceptible advances in freedom +and enlightenment, and that we might therefore confidently expect still +further advances to be made in the same direction with an accelerated +rapidity, and with certain advantageous effects upon the happiness of +the whole mass of the human race. In short, the end of the speculation +is a confirmed and heightened conviction of the indefinite +perfectibility of the species, with certain foreshadowings of the +direction which this perfectibility would ultimately follow. The same +rebellion against the disorder and misery of the century, which drove +some thinkers and politicians into fierce yearnings for an imaginary +state of nature, and others into an extravagant admiration for the +ancient republics, caused a third school, and Condorcet among them, to +turn their eyes with equally boundless confidence and yearning towards +an imaginary future. It was at all events the least desperate error of +the three. + +Our expectations for the future, Condorcet held, may be reduced to these +three points: the destruction of inequality among nations; the progress +of equality among the people of any given nation; and, finally the +substantial perfecting (_perfectionnement réel_) of man. + +I. With reference to the first of these great aspirations, it will be +brought about by the abandonment by European peoples of their commercial +monopolies, their treacherous practices, their mischievous and +extravagant proselytising, and their sanguinary contempt for those of +another colour or another creed. Vast countries, now a prey to barbarism +and violence, will present in one region numerous populations only +waiting to receive the means and instruments of civilisation from us, +and as soon as they find brothers in the Europeans, will joyfully become +their friends and pupils; and in another region, nations enslaved under +the yoke of despots or conquerors, crying aloud for so many ages for +liberators. In yet other regions, it is true, there are tribes almost +savage, cut off by the harshness of their climate from a perfected +civilisation, or else conquering hordes, ignorant of every law but +violence and every trade but brigandage. The progress of these last two +descriptions of people will naturally be more tardy, and attended by +more storm and convulsion. It is possible even, that reduced in number, +in proportion as they see themselves repulsed by civilised nations, they +will end by insensibly disappearing.[75] It is perhaps a little hard to +expect Esquimaux or the barbaric marauders of the sandy expanses of +Central Asia insensibly to disappear, lest by their cheerless presence +they should destroy the unity and harmony of the transformation scene in +the great drama of Perfectibility. + +II. The principal causes of the inequality that unfortunately exists +among the people of the same community are three in number:--inequality +in wealth; inequality of condition between the man whose means of +subsistence are both assured and transmissible, and him for whom these +means depend upon the duration of his working life; thirdly, inequality +of instruction. How are we to establish a continual tendency in these +three sources of inequality to diminish in activity and power? To +lessen, though not to demolish, inequalities in wealth, it will be +necessary for all artificial restrictions and exclusive advantages to be +removed from fiscal or other legal arrangements, by which property is +either acquired or accumulated: and among social changes tending in this +direction will be the banishment by public opinion of an avaricious or +mercenary spirit from marriage. Again, inequality between permanent and +precarious incomes will be radically modified by the development of the +application of the calculation of probabilities to life. The extension +of annuities and insurance will not only benefit many individuals, but +will benefit society at large by putting an end to that periodical ruin +of a large number of families, which is such an ever-renewing source of +misery and degradation. Another means to the same end will be found in +discovering, by the same doctrine of probabilities, some other equally +solid base for credit instead of a large capital, and for rendering the +progress of industry and the activity of commerce more independent of +the existence of great capitalists. Something approaching to equality of +instruction, even for those who can only spare a few of their early +years for study, and in after times only a few hours of leisure, will +become more attainable by improved selection of subjects, and improved +methods of teaching them. The dwellers in one country will cease to be +distinguished by the use of a rude or of a refined dialect; and this, it +may be said in passing, has actually been the result of the school +system in the United States. One portion of them will no longer be +dependent upon any other for guidance in the smallest affairs. We cannot +obliterate nor ignore natural differences of capacity, but after public +instruction has been properly developed, 'the difference will be between +men of superior enlightenment, and men of an upright character who feel +the value of light without being dazzled by it; between talent or +genius, and that good sense which knows how to appreciate and to enjoy +both. Even if this difference were greater than has been said, if we +compare the force and extent of faculty, it would become none the less +insensible, if we compare their respective effects upon the relations of +men among themselves, upon all that affects their independence and their +happiness.'[76] + +III. What are the changes that we may expect from the substantial +perfecting of human nature and society? If, before making this forecast, +we reflect with what feeble means the race has arrived at its present +knowledge of useful and important truths, we shall not fear the reproach +of temerity in our anticipations for a time when the force of all these +means shall have been indefinitely increased. The progress of +agricultural science will make the same land more productive, and the +same labour more efficient. Nay, who shall predict what the art of +converting elementary substances into food for our use may one day +become? The constant tendency of population to advance to the limits of +the means of subsistence thus amplified, will be checked by a rising +consciousness in men, that if they have obligations in respect of +creatures still unborn, these obligations consist in giving them, not +existence but happiness, in adding to the wellbeing of the family, and +not cumbering the earth with useless and unfortunate beings. This +changed view upon population will partly follow from the substitution of +rational ideas for those prejudices which have penetrated morals with an +austerity that is corrupting and degrading.[77] The movement will be +further aided by one of the most important steps in human progress--the +destruction, namely, of the prejudices that have established inequality +of rights between the two sexes, and which are so mischievous even to +the sex that seems to be most favoured.[78] We seek in vain for any +justification of such an inequality in difference of physical +organisation, in force of intelligence, or in moral sensibility. It has +no other origin than abuse of strength, and it is to no purpose that +attempts are made to excuse it by sophisms. The destruction of the +usages springing from this custom will render common those domestic +virtues which are the foundation of all others, and will encourage +education as well as make it more general, both because instruction +would be imparted to both sexes with more equality, and because it +cannot become general even for males without the aid of the mother of +the family.[79] + +Among other improvements under our third head will be the attainment of +greater perfection in language, leading at once to increased accuracy +and increased concision. Laws and institutions, following the progress +of knowledge, will be constantly undergoing modifications tending to +identify individual with collective interests. Wars will grow less +frequent with the extinction of those ideas of hereditary and dynastic +rights, that have occasioned so many bloody contests. The art of +learning will be facilitated by the institution of a Universal Language; +and the art of teaching by resort to Technical Methods, or systems which +unite in orderly arrangement a great number of different objects, so +that their relations are perceived at a single glance.[80] + +Finally, progress in medicine, the use of more wholesome food and +healthy houses, the diminution of the two most active causes of +deterioration, namely, misery and excessive wealth, must prolong the +average duration of life, as well as raise the tone of health while it +lasts. The force of transmissable diseases will be gradually weakened, +until their quality of transmission vanishes. May we then not hope for +the arrival of a time when death will cease to be anything but the +effect either of extraordinary accidents, or of the destruction, ever +slower and slower, of the vital forces? May we not believe that the +duration of the middle interval between birth and this destruction has +no assignable term? Man will never become immortal, but is it a mere +chimera to hold that the term fixed to his years is slowly and +perpetually receding further and further from the moment at which his +existence begins?[81] + + * * * * * + +The rapidity and the necessary incompleteness with which Condorcet threw +out in isolated hints his ideas of the future state of society, impart +to his conception a certain mechanical aspect, which conveys an +incorrect impression of his notion of the sources whence social change +must flow. His admirable and most careful remarks upon the moral +training of children prove him to have been as far removed as possible +from any of those theories of the formation of character which merely +prescribe the imposition of moulds and casts from without, instead of +carefully tending the many spontaneous and sensitive processes of growth +within.[82] Nobody has shown a finer appreciation of the delicacy of +the material out of which character is to be made, and of the +susceptibility of its elementary structure; nor of the fact that +education consists in such a discipline of the primitive impulses as +shall lead men to do right, not by the constraint of mechanical external +sanctions, but by an instant, spontaneous, and almost inarticulate +repugnance to cowardice, cruelty, apathy, self-indulgence, and the other +great roots and centres of wrong-doing. It was to a society composed of +men and women whose characters had been shaped on this principle, that +Condorcet looked for the realisation of his exalted hopes for +humanity.[83] + +With machinery and organisation, in truth, Condorcet did not greatly +concern himself; probably too little rather than too much. The central +idea of all his aspirations was to procure the emancipation of reason, +free and ample room for its exercise, and improved competence among men +in the use of it. The subjugation of the modern intelligence beneath the +disembodied fancies of the grotesque and sombre imagination of the +Middle Ages, did not offend him more than the idea of any fixed +organisation of the spiritual power, or any final and settled and +universally accepted solution of belief and order would have done. With +De Maistre and Comte the problem was the organised and systematic +reconstruction of an anarchic society. With Condorcet it was how to +persuade men to exert the individual reason methodically and +independently, not without co-operation, but without anything like +official or other subordination. + +His cardinal belief and precept was, as with Socrates, that the +bios +anexetastos+ is not to be lived by man. As we have seen, the freedom of +the reason was so dear to him, that he counted it an abuse for a parent +to instil his own convictions into the defenceless minds of his young +children. This was the natural outcome of Condorcet's mode of viewing +history as the record of intellectual emancipation, while to Comte its +deepest interest was as a record of moral and emotional cultivation. If +we value in one type of thinker the intellectual conscientiousness, +which refrains from perplexing men by propounding problems unless the +solution can be set forth also, perhaps we owe no less honour in the +thinker of another type to that intellectual self-denial which makes him +very careful lest the too rigid projection of his own specific +conclusions should by any means obstruct the access of a single ray of +fertilising light. This religious scrupulosity, which made him abhor all +interference with the freedom and openness of the understanding as the +worst kind of sacrilege, was Condorcet's eminent distinction. If, as +some think, the world will gradually transform its fear or love of +unknowable gods into a devout reverence for those who have stirred in +men a sense of the dignity of their own nature and of its large and +multitudinous possibilities, then will his name not fail of deep and +perpetual recollection. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[73] _Ib._ p. 223. + +[74] _Ib._ p. 206. + +[75] _Oeuv._ pp. 239-244. + +[76] _Oeuv._ pp. 244-251. + +[77] _Oeuv._ pp. 257, 258. + +[78] Condorcet had already assailed the prejudices that keep women in +subjection in an excellent tract, published in 1790; _Sur l'Admission +des Femmes au Droit de Cité._ _Oeuv._ x. 121-130. + +[79] _Oeuv._ p. 264. The rest of the passage is not perfectly +intelligible to me, so I give it as it stands. '_Cet hommage trop +tardif, rendu enfin à l'équité et au bon sens, ne tarirait-il pas une +source trop féconde d'injustices, de cruautés et de crimes, en faisant +disparaître une opposition si dangereuse entre le penchant naturel le +plus vif, le plus difficile à réprimer, et les devoirs de l'homme ou les +intérêts de la société? Ne produirait-il pas, enfin, des moeurs +nationales douces et pures, formées non de privations orgueilleuses, +d'apparences hypocrites, de réserves imposées par la crainte de la honte +ou les terreurs religieuses, mais d'habitudes librement contractées, +inspirées par la nature, avouées par la raison?_' Can these habitudes be +the habitudes of Free Love, or what are they? Condorcet, we know, +thought the indissolubility of marriage a monstrously bad thing, but the +grounds which he gives for his thinking so would certainly lead to the +infinite dissolubility of society. See a truly astounding passage in the +_Fragment on the Tenth Epoch_, vi. 523-526. See also some curious words +in a letter to Turgot, i. 221, 222. + +[80] _Oeuv._ pp. 269-272. + +[81] _Oeuv._ pp. 272-275. Also p. 618. + +[82] See _Fragment de l'Histoire de la Xe Epoque._ '_Il ne faut pas +leur dire, mais les accoutumer à croire, à trouver au dedans +a'eux-mêmes, que la bonté et la justice sont nécessaires au bonheur, +comme une respiration facile et libre l'est à la santé._' Of books for +the young: '_Il faut qu'ils n'excédent jamais l'étendue ou la +délicatesse de la sensibilité._' '_Il faut renoncer à l'idée de parler +aux enfans de ce que ni leur esprit ni leur âme ne peuvent encore +comprendre; ne pas leur faire admirer une constitution et réciter par +coeur les droits politiques de l'homme quand ils ont à peine une idée +nette de leurs relations avec leur famille et leurs camarades._' + +Still more objectionable, we may be sure, would he have found the +practice of drilling little children by the hearth or at the school-desk +in creeds, catechisms, and the like repositories of mysteries baleful to +the growing intelligence. '_Aidons le développement des facultés +humaines pendant la faiblesse de l'enfance_,' he said admirably, '_mais +n'abusons pas de cette faiblesse pour les mouler au gré de nos opinions +de nos intérêts, ou de notre orgueil._'--_Oeuv._ vi. 543-554. + +Cf. also v. 363-365, where there are some deserved strictures on the +malpractice of teaching children as truth what the parents themselves +believe to be superstition or even falsehood. + +The reader may remember the speech of the Patriarch, in Lessing's play, +against the Jew: + + _Der mit Gewalt ein armes Christenkind + Dem Bunde seiner Tauf' entreisst! Denn ist + Nicht alles, was man Kindern thut, Gewalt? + Zu sagen: ausgenommen, was die Kirch', + An Kindern thut._ + +[83] His _Mémoires sur l'Instruction Publique_, written in 1791-1792, +and printed in the seventh volume of the works, are still very well +worth turning to. + + +Transcribers' Notes: + +Minor printer errors (omitted or incorrect punctuation) have been +amended without note. Other errors have been amended and are listed +below. + +List of Amendments: + +Page 201: colleages amended to colleagues; "... among his colleagues in +the deputation ..." + +Page 240: added missing footnote anchor [66] to paragraph ending "... +ceased to be altogether exact." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + +***** This file should be named 24492-8.txt or 24492-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/4/9/24492/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, René Anderson Benitz and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) + Essay 3: Condorcet + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: February 2, 2008 [EBook #24492] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, René Anderson Benitz and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="hovernote"> +This book contains two occurrences of Greek. Each is underlined with a +dotted line to indicate a <span class="hoverbox" title=" transliteration ">mouse-hover popup</span> containing its +transliteration.</p> + + +<h1><br />CRITICAL</h1> +<h1>MISCELLANIES</h1> + +<h5>BY</h5> + +<h2>JOHN MORLEY<br /></h2> + +<h4><br />VOL. II.<br /></h4> + +<h3>Essay 3: Condorcet<br /><br /><br /></h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="london">London</span></p> +<p class="center">MACMILLAN AND CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">new york: the macmillan company</span></p> +<p class="center">1905<br /></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONDORCET" id="CONDORCET"></a>CONDORCET.</h2> + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="75%" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Condorcet’s peculiar position and characteristics</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_163'>163</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Birth, instruction, and early sensibility</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_166'>166</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Friendship with Voltaire and with Turgot</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Compared with these two great men</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_172'>172</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Currents of French opinion and circumstance in 1774</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_177'>177</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Condorcet’s principles drawn from two sources</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_180'>180</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>His view of the two English Revolutions</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_181'>181</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>His life up to the convocation of the States-General</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_183'>183</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Energetic interest in the elections</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_189'>189</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Want of prevision</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_191'>191</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>His participation in political activity down to the end of 1792</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_193'>193</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Chosen one of the secretaries of the Legislative Assembly</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_198'>198</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Elected to the Convention</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_200'>200</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Resistance to the Jacobins, proscription, and death</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_201'>201</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Condorcet’s tenacious interest in human welfare</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_210'>210</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Two currents of thought in France at the middle of the eighteenth century</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_215'>215</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Quesnay and the Physiocrats</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_216'>216</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Montesquieu</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Turgot completed Montesquieu’s historical conception</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_222'>222</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Kant’s idea of a Universal or Cosmo-Political History</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_226'>226</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Condorcet fuses the conceptions of the two previous sets of thinkers</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_229'>229</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Account of his <i>Tableau des Progrès</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Omits to consider history of moral improvement</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_233'>233</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>And misinterprets the religious element</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_234'>234</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>His view of Mahometanism</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_238'>238</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Of Protestantism</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_240'>240</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>And of philosophic propagandism</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_241'>241</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Various acute remarks in his sketch</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_243'>243</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>His boundless hopes for the future</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_244'>244</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Three directions which our anticipations may take:—</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">(1) International equality</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_246'>246</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">(2) Internal equality</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_247'>247</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">(3) Substantial perfecting of nature and society</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_248'>248</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Natural view of the formation of character</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_252'>252</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>Central idea of all his aspirations</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_253'>253</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">- 163 -</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONDORCET.</h2> + + +<p>Of the illustrious thinkers and writers who for two generations had been +actively scattering the seed of revolution in France, only Condorcet +survived to behold the first bitter ingathering of the harvest. Those +who had sown the wind were no more; he only was left to see the reaping +of the whirlwind, and to be swiftly and cruelly swept away by it. +Voltaire and Diderot, Rousseau and Helvétius, had vanished, but +Condorcet both assisted at the Encyclopædia and sat in the Convention; +the one eminent man of those who had tended the tree, who also came in +due season to partake of its fruit; at once a precursor, and a sharer in +the fulfilment. In neither character has he attracted the goodwill of +any of those considerable sections and schools into which criticism of +the Revolution has been mainly divided. As a thinker he is roughly +classed as an Economist, and as a practical politician he figured first +in the Legislative Assembly, and then in the Convention. Now, as a rule, +the political parties that have most admired the Convention have had +least sympathy with the Economists, and the historians who are most +favour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">- 164 -</a></span>able to Turgot and his followers, are usually most hostile to the +actions and associations of the great revolutionary chamber successively +swayed by a Vergniaud, a Danton, a Robespierre. Between the two, +Condorcet’s name has been allowed to lie hidden for the most part in a +certain obscurity, or else has been covered with those taunts and +innuendoes, which partisans are wont to lavish on men of whom they do +not know exactly whether they are with or against them.</p> + +<p>Generally the men of the Revolution are criticised in blocks and +sections, and Condorcet cannot be accurately placed under any of these +received schools. He was an Economist, but he was something more; for +the most characteristic article in his creed was a passionate belief in +the infinite perfectibility of human nature. He was more of a Girondin +than a Jacobin, yet he did not always act, any more than he always +thought, with the Girondins, and he did not fall when they fell, but was +proscribed by a decree specially levelled at himself. Isolation of this +kind is assuredly no merit in political action, but it explains the +coldness with which Condorcet’s memory has been treated; it flowed from +some marked singularities both of character and opinion which are of the +highest interest, if we consider the position of the man and the lustre +of that ever-memorable time. ‘Condorcet,’ said D’Alembert, ‘is a volcano +covered with snow.’ Said another, less picturesquely: ‘He is a sheep in +a passion.’ ‘You may say of the intelligence of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">- 165 -</a></span> Condorcet in relation +to his person,’ wrote Madame Roland, ‘that it is a subtle essence soaked +in cotton.’ The curious mixture disclosed by sayings like these, of warm +impulse and fine purpose with immovable reserve, only shows that he of +whom they were spoken belonged to the class of natures which may be +called non-conducting. They are not effective, because without this +effluence of power and feeling from within, the hearer or onlooker is +stirred by no sympathetic thrill. They cannot be the happiest, because +consciousness of the inequality between expression and meaning, between +the influence intended and the impression conveyed, must be as +tormenting as to one who dreams is the vain effort to strike a blow. If +to be of this non-conducting temperament is impossible in the really +greatest characters, like St. Paul, St. Bernard, or Luther, at least it +is no proper object of blame, for it is constantly the companion of +lofty and generous aspiration. It was perhaps unfortunate that Condorcet +should have permitted himself to be drawn into a position where his want +of that magical quality by which even Marat could gain the sympathies of +men, should be so conspicuously made visible. The character of +Condorcet, unlike so many of his contemporaries, offers nothing to the +theatrical instinct. None the less on this account should we be willing +to weigh the contributions which he made to the stock of science and +social speculation, and recognise the fine elevation of his sentiments, +his noble solicitude for human well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">- 166 -</a></span>being, his eager and resolute belief +in its indefinite expansion, and the devotion which sealed his faith by +a destiny that was as tragical as any in those bloody and most tragical +days.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.</h2> + + +<p>Until the outbreak of the Revolution, the circumstances of Condorcet’s +life were as little externally disturbed or specially remarkable as +those of any other geometer and thinker of the time. He was born at a +small town in Picardy, in the year 1743. His father was a cavalry +officer, but as he died when his son was only three years old, he could +have exerted no influence upon the future philosopher, save such as +comes of transmission through blood and tissue. Condillac was his uncle, +but there is no record of any intercourse between them. His mother was a +devout and trembling soul, who dedicated her child to the Holy Virgin, +and for eight years or more made him wear the dress of a little girl, by +way of sheltering him against the temptations and unbelief of a vile +world. So long as women are held by opinion and usage in a state of +educational and political subjection, which prevents the growth of a +large intelligence made healthy and energetic by knowledge and by +activity, we may expect pious extravagances of this kind. Condorcet was +weakened physically by much confinement and the constraint of cumbrous +clothing; and not even his dedication to the Holy Virgin prevented him +from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">- 167 -</a></span> growing up the most ardent of the admirers of Voltaire. His +earliest instructors, as happened to most of the sceptical philosophers, +were the Jesuits, then within a few years of their fall. That these +adroit men, armed with all the arts and traditions which their order had +acquired in three centuries, and with the training of the nation almost +exclusively in their hands, should still have been unable to shield +their persons from proscription and their creed from hatred, is a +remarkable instance how little it avails ecclesiastical bodies to have a +monopoly of official education, if the spirit of their teaching be out +of harmony with those most potent agencies which we sum up as the spirit +of the time. The Jesuits were the great official instructors of France +for the first half of the eighteenth century. In 1764 the order was +thrust forth from the country, and they left behind them an army of the +bitterest enemies that Christianity has ever had. To do them justice, +they were destroyed by weapons which they had themselves supplied. The +intelligence which they had developed and sharpened, turned inevitably +against the incurable faults in their own system. They were admirable +teachers of mathematics. Condorcet, instructed by the Jesuits at Rheims, +was able when he was only fifteen years old to go through such +performances in analysis as to win especial applause from illustrious +judges like D’Alembert and Clairaut. It was impossible, however, for +Jesuits, as it has ever been for all enemies of movement, to constrain +within prescribed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">- 168 -</a></span> limits the activity which has once been effectively +stirred. Mathematics has always been in the eyes of the Church a +harmless branch of knowledge, but the mental energy that mathematics +first touched is sure to turn itself by and by to more complex and +dangerous subjects in the scientific hierarchy.</p> + +<p>At any rate, Condorcet’s curiosity was very speedily drawn to problems +beyond those which geometry and algebra pretend to solve. ‘For thirty +years,’ he wrote in 1790, ‘I have hardly ever passed a single day +without meditating on the political sciences.’<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Thus, when only +seventeen, when the ardour of even the choicest spirits is usually most +purely intellectual, moral and social feeling was rising in Condorcet to +that supremacy which it afterwards attained in him to so admirable a +degree. He wrote essays on integral calculus, but he was already +beginning to reflect upon the laws of human societies and the conditions +of moral obligation. At the root of Condorcet’s nature was a profound +sensibility of constitution. One of his biographers explains his early +enthusiasm for virtue and human welfare as the conclusion of a kind of +syllogism. It is possible that the syllogism was only the later shape +into which an instinctive impulse threw itself by way of rational +entrenchment. His sensibility caused Condorcet to abandon the barbarous +pleasures of the chase, which had at first powerfully attracted him.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +To derive delight from what inflicts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">- 169 -</a></span> pain on any sentient creature +revolted his conscience and offended his reason, because he perceived +that the character which does not shrink from associating its own joy +with the anguish of another, is either found or left mortally blunted to +the finest impressions of humanity.</p> + +<p>It is thus assured that from the beginning Condorcet was unable to +satisfy himself with the mere knowledge of the specialist, but felt the +necessity of placing social aims at the head and front of his life, and +of subordinating to them all other pursuits. That he values knowledge +only as a means to social action, is one of the highest titles to our +esteem that any philosopher can have. Such a temper of mind has +penetrated no man more fully than Condorcet, though there are other +thinkers to whom time and chance have been more favourable in making +that temper permanently productive. There is a fine significance in his +words, after the dismissal of the great and virtuous Turgot from office: +‘We have had a delightful dream, but it was too brief. Now I mean to +apply myself to geometry. It is terribly cold to be for the future +labouring only for the <i>gloriole</i>, after flattering oneself for a while +that one was working for the public weal.’ It is true that a geometer, +too, works for the public weal; but the process is tardier, and we may +well pardon an impatience that sprung of reasoned zeal for the happiness +of mankind. There is something much more attractive about Condorcet’s +undisguised disappointment at having to exchange<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">- 170 -</a></span> active public labour +for geometrical problems, than in the affected satisfaction +conventionally professed by statesmen when driven from place to their +books. His correspondence shows that, even when his mind seemed to be +most concentrated upon his special studies, he was incessantly on the +alert for every new idea, book, transaction, that was likely to +stimulate the love of virtue in individuals, or to increase the strength +of justice in society. It would have been in one sense more fortunate +for him to have cared less for high social interests, if we remember the +contention of his latter days and the catastrophe which brought them to +a frightful close. But Condorcet was not one of those natures who can +think it happiness to look passively out from the tranquil literary +watch-tower upon the mortal struggles of a society in revolution. In +measuring other men of science—as his two volumes of <i>Éloges</i> +abundantly show—one cannot help being struck by the eagerness with +which he seizes on any trait of zeal for social improvement, any signal +of anxiety that the lives and characters of our fellows should be better +worth having. He was himself too absolutely possessed by this social +spirit to have flinched from his career, even if he had foreseen the +martyrdom which was to consummate it. ‘You are very happy,’ he once +wrote to Turgot, ‘in your passion for the public good and your power to +satisfy it; it is a great consolation, and of an order very superior to +that of study.’<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">- 171 -</a></span></p> + +<p>In 1769, at the age of six-and-twenty, Condorcet became connected with +the Academy, to the mortification of his relations, who hardly pardoned +him for not being a captain of horse as his father had been before him. +About the same time, or a little later, he performed a pilgrimage of a +kind that could hardly help making a mark upon a character so deeply +impressible. In company with D’Alembert he went to Ferney and saw +Voltaire.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> To the position of Voltaire in Europe in 1770 there has +never been any other man’s position in any age wholly comparable. It is +true that there had been one or two of the great popes, and a great +ecclesiastic like St. Bernard, who had exercised a spiritual authority, +pretty universally submitted to, or even spontaneously invoked, +throughout western Europe. But these were the representatives of a +powerful organisation and an accepted system. Voltaire filled a place +before men’s eyes in the eighteenth century as conspicuous and as +authoritative as that of St. Bernard in the twelfth. The difference was +that Voltaire’s place was absolutely unofficial in its origin, and +indebted to no system nor organisation for its maintenance. Again, there +have been others, like Bacon or Descartes, destined to make a far more +permanent contribution to the ideas which have extended the powers and +elevated the happiness of men; but these great spirits for the most part +laboured for the generation that followed them, and won comparatively +slight recognition from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">- 172 -</a></span> their own age. Voltaire during his life enjoyed +to the full not only the admiration that belongs to the poet, but +something of the veneration that is paid to the thinker, and even +something of the glory usually reserved for captains and conquerors of +renown. No other man before or since ever hit so exactly the mark of his +time on every side, so precisely met the conditions of fame for the +moment, nor so thoroughly dazzled and reigned over the foremost men and +women who were his contemporaries. Wherever else intellectual fame has +approached the fame of Voltaire, it has been posthumous. With him it was +immediate and splendid. Into the secret of this extraordinary +circumstance we need not here particularly inquire. He was an +unsurpassed master of the art of literary expression in a country where +that art is more highly prized than anywhere else; he was the most +brilliant of wits among a people whose relish for wit is a supreme +passion; he won the admiration of the lighter souls by his plays, of the +learned by his interest in science, of the men of letters by his +never-ceasing flow of essays, criticisms, and articles, not one of which +lacks vigour and freshness and sparkle; he was the most active, bitter, +and telling foe of what was then the most justly abhorred of all +institutions—the Church. Add to these remarkable titles to honour and +popularity that he was no mere declaimer against oppression and +injustice in the abstract, but the strenuous, persevering, and +absolutely indefatigable champion of every victim of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">- 173 -</a></span> oppression or +injustice whose case was once brought under his eye.</p> + +<p>It is not difficult to perceive the fascination which Voltaire, with +this character and this unrivalled splendour of public position, would +have for a man like Condorcet. He conceived the warmest attachment to +Voltaire, and Voltaire in turn the highest respect for him. Their +correspondence (1770-1778) is perhaps as interesting as any letters of +that period that we possess: Voltaire is always bright, playful, and +affectionate; Condorcet more declamatory and less graceful, but full of +reverence and loyalty for his ‘dear and illustrious’ master, and of his +own peculiar eagerness for good causes and animosity against the +defenders of evil ones. Condorcet was younger than the patriarch of +Ferney by nearly half a century, but this did not prevent him from loyal +remonstrances on more than one occasion against conduct on Voltaire’s +part in this matter or that, which he held to be unworthy of his +character and reputation. He went so far as actually to decline to print +in the <i>Mercure</i> a letter in which the writer in some fit of spleen +placed Montesquieu below D’Aguesseau. ‘My attachment,’ he says, ‘bids me +say what will be best for you, and not what might please you most. If I +loved you less, I should not have the courage to thwart you. I am aware +of your grievances against Montesquieu; it is worthy of you to forget +them.’ There was perhaps as much moral courage in doing this as in +defying the Men of the Mountain in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">- 174 -</a></span> days of the Terror. It dispels +some false impressions of Voltaire’s supposed intolerance of criticism, +to find him thanking Condorcet for one of these friendly protests. He +showed himself worthy of such courageous conduct. ‘One sees things ill,’ +he writes, ‘when one sees them from too far off. After all, we ought +never to blush to go to school if we are as old as Methuselah. I repeat +my acknowledgments to you.’<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Condorcet did not conceive that either to +be blind to a man’s errors or to compromise them is to prove yourself +his friend. There is an integrity of friendship as in public concerns, +and he adhered to it as manfully in one as in the other. Throughout his +intercourse with intimate friends there is that happy and frank play of +direct personal allusion, which is as distinct from flattery when it is +about another, as it is from egoism when it refers to the writer +himself.</p> + +<p>Perhaps we see him most characteristically in his correspondence with +Turgot. What Turgot loved in Condorcet was his ‘simplicity of +character.’<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Turgot was almost as much less vivacious than Condorcet, +as Condorcet was less vivacious than Voltaire. They belonged to quite +distinct types of character, but this may be a condition of the most +perfect forms of sympathy. Each gives support where the other is most +conscious of needing it. Turgot was one of those serene, capacious, and +sure intelligences whose aspirations do not become low nor narrow by +being watchfully held under the control of reason; whose ideas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">- 175 -</a></span> are no +less vigorous or exuberant because they move in a steady and ordered +train; and who, in their most fervent reactions against abuses or +crimes, resist that vehement temptation to excess which is the besetting +infirmity of generous natures. Condorcet was very different from this. +Whatever he wished he wished unrestrainedly. As with most men of the +epoch, the habit of making allowances was not his. We observe something +theological in his hatred of theologians. Even in his letters the +distant ground-swell of repressed passion sounds in the ear, and at +every mention of false opinion or evil-doing a sombre and angry shadow +seems to fall upon the page. Both he and Turgot clung to the doctrine of +the infinite perfectibility of human nature, and the correspondingly +infinite augmentation of human happiness; but Condorcet’s +ever-smouldering impetuosity would be content with nothing less than the +arrival of at least a considerable instalment of this infinite quantity +now and instantly. He went so far as to insist that by and by men would +acquire the art of prolonging their lives for several generations, +instead of being confined within the fatal span of threescore years and +ten. He was impatient of any frittering away of life in scruple, +tremors, and hesitations. ‘For the most part,’ he once wrote to Turgot, +‘people abounding in scruple are not fit for great things: a Christian +will throw away in subduing the darts of the flesh the time which he +might have employed on things of use to mankind; or he will lack courage +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">- 176 -</a></span> rise against a tyrant for fear of his judgment being too hastily +formed.’<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Turgot’s reply may illustrate the difference between the two +men: ‘No virtue, in whatever sense you take the word, dispenses with +justice; and I think no more of the people who do great things—as you +say—at the expense of justice, than of poets who fancy they produce +great beauties of imagination without regularity. I know that excessive +exactitude tends slightly to deaden the fire alike of composition and of +action; but there is a mean in everything. It has never been a question +in our controversy of a capuchin who throws away his time in quenching +the darts of the flesh (though by the way, in the total of time thrown +away the term that expresses the time lost in satisfying these lusts is +most likely far greater); no more is it a question of a fool who is +afraid of rising against tyrants for fear of forming a rash +judgment.’<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>This ability to conceive a mean case between two extremes was not among +Condorcet’s gifts. His mind dwelt too much in the region of excess, +alike when he measured the possibilities of the good, and coloured the +motives and the situation of those whom he counted the bad. A Christian +was one who wasted his days in merely resisting the flesh; anybody who +declined to rise against a tyrant was the victim of a slavish +scrupulosity. He rather sympathises with a scientific traveller, to whom +the especial charm of natural history resides in the buffets which, at +each step that it takes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">- 177 -</a></span> it inflicts upon Moses.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> Well, this temper +is not the richest nor the highest, but it often exists in alliance with +rich and high qualities. It was so with Condorcet. And we are +particularly bound to remember that with him a harsh and impatient +humour was not, as is so often the case, the veil for an indolent +reluctance to form painstaking judgments. Few workers have been so +conscientious as he was, in the labour that he bestowed upon subjects +which he held to be worthy of deliberate scrutiny and consideration. His +defect was in finding too few of such subjects, and in having too many +foregone conclusions. Turgot and Montesquieu are perhaps the only two +eminent men in France during this part of the century, of whom the same +defect might not be alleged. Again, Condorcet’s impatience of underlying +temperament did not prevent him from filling his compositions with +solid, sober, and profound reflections, the products of grave and +sustained meditation upon an experience, much of which must have been +severely trying and repugnant to a man of his constitution. While +recognising this trait, then, let us not overstate either it or its +consequences.</p> + +<p>The main currents of opinion and circumstance in France, when Condorcet +came to take his place among her workers, are now well understood. The +third quarter of the century was just closing. Lewis <span class="smcap">xv</span>. died in 1774; +and though his death was of little intrinsic consequence, except as the +removal of every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">- 178 -</a></span> corrupt heart is of consequence, it is justly taken to +mark the date of the beginning of the French Revolution. It was the +accidental shifting of position which served to disclose that the +existing system was smitten with a mortal paralysis. It is often said +that what destroyed the French kingdom was despotism. A sounder +explanation discovers the causes less in despotism than in +anarchy—anarchy in every department where it could be most ruinous. No +substantial reconstruction was possible, because all the evils came from +the sinister interests of the nobles, the clergy, or the financiers; and +these classes, informally bound together against the common weal, were +too strong for either the sovereign or the ablest minister to thrust +them aside. The material condition of France was one of supreme +embarrassment and disorder, only curable by remedies which the political +and social condition of the country made it impossible to employ.</p> + +<p>This would explain why a change of some sort was inevitable. But why was +the change which actually took place in that direction rather than +another? Why did not France sink under her economical disorders, as +greater empires than France had done? Why, instead of sinking and +falling asunder, did the French people advance with a singleness of +impulse unknown before in their history to their own deliverance? How +was it that they overthrew the system that was crushing them, and purged +themselves with fire and sword of those who administered and maintained +it, defying the hopes of the nation; and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">- 179 -</a></span> successfully encountered +the giant’s task of beating back reactionary Europe with one arm, and +reconstructing the fabric of their own society with the other? The +answer to this question is found in the moral and spiritual condition of +France. A generation aroused by the great social ideas of the eighteenth +century, looking round to survey its own social state, found itself in +the midst of the ruin and disorder of the disintegrated system of the +twelfth century. The life was gone out of the ancient organisation of +Catholicism and Feudalism, and it seemed as if nothing but corruption +remained. What enabled the leaders of the nation to discern the horror +and despair of this anarchic dissolution of the worn-out old, and what +inspired them with hope and energy when they thought of the possible +new, was the spiritual preparation that had been in swift progress since +the third decade of the century. The forms and methods of this +preparation were various, as the temperaments that came beneath its +influence. But the school of Voltaire, the school of Rousseau, and the +schools of Quesnay and Montesquieu, different as they were at the roots, +all alike energetically familiarised the public mind with a firm belief +in human reason, and the idea of the natural rights of man. They +impregnated it with a growing enthusiasm for social justice. It is true +that we find Voltaire complaining towards the close of his days, of the +century being satiated and weary, <i>un siècle dégouté</i>, not knowing well +what it wanted. ‘The public,’ he said, ‘has been eighty years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">- 180 -</a></span> at table, +and now it drinks a little bad cognac at the end of its meal.’<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> In +literature and art this was true; going deeper than these, the public +was eager and sensitive with a freshness far more vital and more +fruitful than it had known eighty years back. Sitting down with a keen +appetite for taste, erudition, and literary knowledge, men had now risen +up from a dazzling and palling board, with a new hunger and thirst after +social righteousness. This was the noble faith that saved France, by +this sign she was victorious. A people once saturated with a passionate +conception of justice is not likely to fall into a Byzantine stage. That +destiny only awaits nations where the spiritual power is rigorously +confined in the hands of castes and official churches, which +systematically and of their very constitution bury justice under the +sterile accumulations of a fixed superstition.</p> + +<p>Condorcet’s principles were deeply coloured by ideas drawn from two +sources. He was a Voltairean in the intensity of his antipathies to the +Church, and in the depth and energy of his humanity. But while Voltaire +flourished, the destructive movement only reached theology, and +Voltaire, though he had more to do than anybody else with the original +impulse, joined in no attack upon the State. It was from the economical +writers and from Montesquieu that Condorcet learned to look upon +societies with a scientific eye, to perceive the influence of +institutions upon men, and that there are laws, susceptible of +modifica<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">- 181 -</a></span>tion in practice, which regulate their growth. It was natural, +therefore, that he should join with eagerness in the reforming movement +which set in with such irrestrainable velocity after the death of Lewis +<span class="smcap">xv</span>. He was bitter and destructive with the bitterness of Voltaire; he +was hopeful for the future with the faith of Turgot; and he was urgent, +heated, impetuous, with a heavy vehemence all his own. In a word, he was +the incarnation of the revolutionary spirit, as the revolutionary spirit +existed in geometers and Encyclopædists; at once too reasonable and too +little reasonable; too precise and scientific and too vague; too +rigorously logical on the one hand and too abundantly passionate on the +other. Perhaps there is no more fatal combination in politics than the +deductive method worked by passion. When applied to the delicate and +complex affairs of society, such machinery with such motive force is of +ruinous potency.</p> + +<p>Condorcet’s peculiarities of political antipathy and preference can +hardly be better illustrated than by his view of the two great +revolutions in English history. The first was religious, and therefore +he hated it; the second was accompanied by much argument, and had no +religion about it, and therefore he extolled it. It is scientific +knowledge, he said, which explains why efforts after liberty in +unenlightened centuries are so fleeting, and so deeply stained by +bloodshed. ‘Compare these with the happy efforts of America and France; +observe even in the same century, but at different epochs, the two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">- 182 -</a></span> +revolutions of England fanatical and England enlightened. We see on the +one side contemporaries of Prynne and Knox, while crying out that they +are fighting for heaven and liberty, cover their unhappy country with +blood in order to cement the tyranny of the hypocrite Cromwell; on the +other, the contemporaries of Boyle and Newton establish with pacific +wisdom the freest constitution in the world.’<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> It is not wonderful +that his own revolution was misunderstood by one who thus loved English +Whigs, but hated English Republicans; who could forgive an aristocratic +faction grasping power for their order, but who could not sympathise +with a nation rising and smiting its oppressor, where they smote in the +name of the Lord and of Gideon, nor with a ruler who used his power with +noble simplicity in the interests of his people, and established in the +heart of the nation a respect for itself such as she has never known +since, simply because this ruler knew nothing about <i>principes</i> or the +Rights of Man. However, Nemesis comes. By and by Condorcet found himself +writing a piece to show that our Revolution of 1688 was very inferior in +lawfulness to the French Revolution of the Tenth of August.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.</h2> + + +<p>The course of events after 1774 is in its larger features well known to +every reader. Turgot, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">- 183 -</a></span> a month of office at the Admiralty, was in +August made Controller-General of Finance. With his accession to power, +the reforming ideas of the century became practical. He nominated +Condorcet to be Inspector of Coinage, an offer which Condorcet +deprecated in these words: ‘It is said of you in certain quarters that +money costs you nothing when there is any question of obliging your +friends. I should be bitterly ashamed of giving any semblance of +foundation to these absurd speeches. I pray you, do nothing for me just +now. Though not rich, I am not pressed for money. Entrust to me some +important task—the reduction of measures for instance; then wait till +my labours have really earned some reward.’<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> In this patriotic spirit +he undertook, along with two other eminent men of science, the task of +examining certain projects for canals which engaged the attention of the +minister. ‘People will tell you,’ he wrote, ‘that I have got an office +worth two hundred and forty pounds. Utterly untrue. We undertook it out +of friendship for M. Turgot; but we refused the payment that was +offered.’<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> We may profitably contrast this devotion to the public +interest with the rapacity of the clergy and nobles, who drove Turgot +from office because he talked of taxing them like their neighbours, and +declined to glut their insatiable craving for place and plunder.</p> + +<p>Turgot was dismissed (May 1776), and presently Necker was installed in +his place. Condorcet had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">- 184 -</a></span> defended with much vigour and some asperity +the policy of free internal trade in corn against Necker, who was for +the maintenance of the restrictions on commercial intercourse between +the different provinces of the kingdom. Consequently, when the new +minister came into office, Condorcet wrote to Maurepas resigning his +post. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘declared too decidedly what I think about both +M. Necker and his works, to be able to keep any place that depends upon +him.’<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> This was not the first taste that Maurepas had had of +Condorcet’s resolute self-respect. The Duke de la Vrillière, one of the +most scandalous persons of the century, was an honorary member of the +Academy, and he was the brother-in-law of Maurepas. It was expected from +the perpetual secretary that he should compose a eulogy upon the +occasion of his death, and Condorcet was warned by friends, who seldom +reflect that a man above the common quality owes something more to +himself than mere prudence, not to irritate the powerful minister by a +slight upon his relation. He was inflexible. ‘Would you rather have me +persecuted,’ he asked, ‘for a wrong than for something just and moral? +Think, too, that they will pardon my silence much more readily than they +would pardon my words, for my mind is fixed not to betray the +truth.’<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>In 1782 Condorcet was elected into the Academy. His competitor was +Bailly, over whom he had a majority of one. The true contest lay less +between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">- 185 -</a></span> the two candidates than between D’Alembert and Buffon, who on +this occasion are said to have fought one of the greatest battles in the +not peaceful history of the Academy, for mighty anger burns even in +celestial minds. D’Alembert is said to have exclaimed, we may hope with +some exaggeration, that he was better pleased at winning that victory +than he would have been to find out the squaring of the circle.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> +Destiny, which had so pitiful a doom in store for the two candidates of +that day, soon closed D’Alembert’s share in these struggles of the +learned and in all others. He died in the following year, and by his +last act testified to his trust in the generous character of Condorcet. +Having by the benevolence of a lifetime left himself on his deathbed +without resources, he confided to his friend’s care two old and faithful +servants, for whom he was unable to make provision. This charge the +philosopher accepted cheerfully, and fulfilled to the end with pious +scrupulosity. The affection between Condorcet and D’Alembert had been +warm and close as that of some famous pairs of antiquity; a natural +attraction of character had clothed community of pursuit and interest +with the grace of the highest kind of friendship. Even Condorcet’s too +declamatory manner only adds a certain dignity to the pathetic passage +with which he closes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">- 186 -</a></span> the noble <i>éloge</i> on his lost friend.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Voltaire +had been dead these five years, and Turgot, too, was gone. Society +offered the survivor no recompense. He found the great world tiresome +and frivolous, and he described its pursuits in phrases that are still +too faithful to the fact, as ‘dissipation without pleasure, vanity +without meaning, and idleness without repose.’ It was perhaps to soften +the oppression of these cruel and tender regrets that in 1786 Condorcet +married.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>Events were now very close at hand, in comparison with which even the +most critical private transactions of Condorcet’s life were pale and +insignificant. In the tranquil seasons of history, when the steady +currents of circumstance bear men along noiseless, the importance of the +relations which we contract seems superlative; in times of storm and +social wreck these petty fortunes and private chances are engulfed and +lost to sight. The ferment was now rapidly rising to its intensest +height, and Condorcet was the last man in France to remain cold to the +burning agitations of the time. We have already seen how decidedly ten +years ago he expressed his preference for political activity over the +meditative labours of the student. He now threw himself into the +Revolution with all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">- 187 -</a></span> force of an ardent character imbued with fixed +and unalterable convictions. We may well imagine him deploring that the +great ones whom he had known, the immortal Voltaire, the lofty-souled +Turgot, had been carried away by the unkind gods, before their eyes had +seen the restoration of their natural rights to men, and the reign of +justice on the earth. The gods after all were kinder than he knew, for +they veiled from the sight of the enthusiast of ’89 the spectres of ’93. +History might possibly miss most of its striking episodes, if every +actor could know the work to which he was putting his hand; and even +Condorcet’s faith might have wavered if he had known that between him +and the fulfilment of his desires there was to intrude a long and +deplorable period of despotism and corruption. Still, the vision which +then presented itself to the eyes of good men was sublime; and just as, +when some noble and devoted character has been taken away from us, it is +a consolation to remember that we had the happiness of his friendship, +so too when a generation awakes from one of these inspiring social +dreams, the wreck of the aspiration is not total nor unrecompensed. The +next best thing to the achievement of high and generous aims is to have +sought them.</p> + +<p>During the winter of ’88 and ’89, while all France was astir with +elections and preparation for elections for that meeting of the +States-General, which was looked to as the nearing dawn after a long +night of blackness and misery, Condorcet thought he could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">- 188 -</a></span> best serve +the movement by calling the minds of the electors to certain sides of +their duty which they might be in some danger of overlooking. One of the +subjects, for example, on which he felt most strongly, but on which his +countrymen have not shown any particular sensibility, was slavery and +the slave trade.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> With a terseness and force not always +characteristic of his writings, he appealed to the electors, while they +were reclaiming their own rights in the name of justice, not to forget +the half-million blacks, whose rights had been still more shamefully +torn away from them, and whose need of justice was more urgent than +their own. In the same spirit he published a vehement and ingenious +protest against the admission of representatives from the St. Domingo +plantations to the National Assembly, showing how grossly inconsistent +it was with every idea of a free and popular chamber that men should sit +as representatives of others who had never chosen them, and that they +should invoke natural rights in their own favour, when at the same +instant they were violating the most elementary and undisputed natural +rights of mankind in their own country.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">- 189 -</a></span></p> + +<p>Of general precepts he never tired; one series of them followed another. +To us many of them may seem commonplace; but we should reflect that the +election of representatives was an amazing novelty in France, and +Condorcet knew men well enough to be aware of the hazards of political +inexperience. Beware of choosing a clever knave, he said, because he +will follow his own interest and not yours; but at the same time beware +of choosing a man for no better reason than that he is honest, because +you need ability quite as much as you need probity. Do not choose a man +who has ever taken sides against the liberty of any portion of mankind; +nor one whose principles were never known until he found out that he +wanted your votes. Be careful not to mistake heat of head for heat of +soul; because what you want is not heat but force, not violence but +steadfastness. Be careful, too, to separate a man’s actions from the +accidents of his life; for one may be the enemy or the victim of a +tyrant without being the friend of liberty. Do not be carried away by a +candidate’s solicitations; but at the same time, make allowance for the +existing effervescence of spirits. Prefer those who have decided +opinions to those who are always inventing plans of conciliation; those +who are zealous for the rights of man to those who only profess pity for +the misfortunes of the people; those who speak of justice and reason, to +those who speak of political interests and of the prosperity of +commerce. Distrust those who appeal to sentiment in matters that can be +decided by reason;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">- 190 -</a></span> prefer light to eloquence; and pass over those who +declare themselves ready to die for liberty, in favour of those who know +in what liberty consists.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>In another piece he drew up a list of the rights which the nation had a +claim to have recognised, such as the right to make laws, to exact +responsibility from the ministers of the crown, to the protection of +personal liberty, and to the legal administration of justice by regular +judges. These rights he declared it to be the first duty of the Assembly +to draw up in a chart that should be the chief corner-stone of the new +constitution. Then he proceeded to define the various tasks to which he +conceived that the legislative body should forthwith apply itself; and +among them, be it said, is no mention of any of those projects of +confiscation which circumstances so speedily forced upon the Assembly +when it met.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>Though many of these precepts designed to guide the electors in their +choice of men are sagacious and admirable, they smack strongly of that +absolute and abstract spirit which can never become powerful in politics +without danger. It is certain that in the spring of ’89, Condorcet held +hereditary monarchy to be most suitable to ‘the wealth, the population, +the extent of France, and to the political system of Europe.’<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Yet +the reasons which he gives for thinking this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">- 191 -</a></span> are not very cogent, and +he can hardly have felt them to be so. It is significant, however, of +the little distance which all the most uncompromising and most +thoughtful revolutionists saw in front of them, that even Condorcet +should, so late as the eve of the assembly of the States-General, have +talked about attachment to the forms of monarchy and respect for the +royal person and prerogative; and should have represented the notion of +the property of the Church undergoing any confiscation, as an invention +of the enemies of freedom.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Before the year was out, the property of +the Church had undergone confiscation; before two years had gone he was +an ardent Republican; and in less than twelve months after that he had +voted the guilt of the king.</p> + +<p>It is worth while to cite here a still more pointed example of the want +of prevision, so common and so intelligible at that time. Writing in +July 1791, he confutes those who asserted that an established and +limited monarchy was a safeguard against a usurper, whose power is only +limited by his own audacity and address, by pointing out that the extent +of France, its divisions into departments, the separation between the +various branches of the administration, the freedom of the press, the +multitude of the public prints, were all so many insurmountable barriers +against a French Cromwell. ‘To anybody who has read with attention the +history of the usurpation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">- 192 -</a></span> Cromwell, it is clear that a single +newspaper would have been enough to stop his success. It is clear that +if the people of England had known how to read other books beside their +Bible, the hypocritical tyrant, unmasked from his first step, would soon +have ceased to be dangerous.’ Again, is the nation to be cajoled by some +ambitious general, gratifying its desire to be an empire-race? ‘Is this +what is asked by true friends of liberty, those who only seek that +reason and right should have empire over men? <i>What provinces, conquered +by a French general, will he despoil to buy our suffrages? Will he +promise our soldiers, as the consuls promised the citizens of Rome, the +pillage of Spain or of Syria?</i> No, assuredly; it is because we cannot be +an empire-nation that we shall remain a free nation.’<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> How few years, +alas, between this conclusive reasoning, and the pillage of Italy, the +campaign in Syria, the seizure of Spain!</p> + +<p>Condorcet was not a member of the Assembly in whose formation and +composition he had taken so vivid and practical an interest. The first +political functions which he was invited to undertake were those of a +member of the municipality of Paris. In the tremendous drama of which +the scenes were now opening, the Town-hall of Paris was to prove itself +far more truly the centre of movement and action than the Constituent +Assembly. The efforts of the Constituent Assembly to build up were tardy +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">- 193 -</a></span> ineffectual. The activity of the municipality of Paris in pulling +down was after a time ceaseless, and it was thoroughly successful. The +first mayor was the astronomer Bailly, Condorcet’s defeated competitor +at the Academy. With the fall of the Bastille, summary hangings at the +nearest lantern-post, October insurrection of women, and triumphant and +bloody compulsion of king, queen, and Assembly to Paris from Versailles, +the two rivals, now colleagues, must have felt that the contests for +them were indeed no longer academic. The astronomy of the one and the +geometry of the other were for ever done with; and Condorcet’s longing +for active political life in preference to mere study was gratified to +the very full.</p> + +<p>Unhappily or not, the movement was beyond the control of anybody who, +like Condorcet, had no other force than that of disciplined reason and +principle. The Bastille no sooner fell, than the Revolution set in with +oceanic violence, in the face of which patriotic intention and +irrefragable arguments, even when both intention and arguments were +loyally revolutionary, were powerless to save the State. In crises of +this overwhelming kind, power of reasoning does not tell and mere +goodwill does not tell. Exaltation reaches a pitch at which the physical +sensibilities are so quickened as to be supreme over the rest of the +nature; and in these moods it is the man gifted with the physical +quality, as mysterious and indescribable as it is resistless, of a +Marat, to take a bad example, or a Danton, to take a good one, who can +‘ride the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">- 194 -</a></span> whirlwind and direct the storm.’ Of this quality Condorcet +had nothing. His personal presence inspired a decent respect, but no +strong emotion either of fear or admiration or physical sympathy. His +voice was feeble, his utterance indistinct; and he never got over that +nervous apprehension which the spectacle of large and turbulent crowds +naturally rouses in the student. In a revolution after the manner of +Lord Somers he would have been invaluable. He thoroughly understood his +own principles, and he was a master of the art, so useful in its place +and time and so respectable in all places and times, of considering +political projects point by point with reference to a definite framework +of rational ideas. But this was no time for such an art; this was not a +revolution to be guided by reason, not even reason like Condorcet’s, +streaked with jacobinical fibre. The national ideas in which it had +arisen had transformed themselves into tumultuous passion, and from this +into frenzied action.</p> + +<p>Every politician of real eminence as a reformer possesses one of three +elements. One class of men is inspired by an intellectual attachment to +certain ideas of justice and right reason: another is moved by a deep +pity for the hard lot of the mass of every society: while the third, +such men as Richelieu for example, have an instinctive appreciation and +passion for wise and orderly government. The great and typical ruler is +moved in varying degrees by all three in modern times, when the claims +of the poor, the rank and file<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">- 195 -</a></span> of the social army, have been raised to +the permanent place that belongs to them. Each of the three types has +its own peculiar conditions of success, and there are circumstances in +which some one of the three is more able to grapple with the obstacles +to order than either of the other two. It soon became very clear that +the intellectual quality was not the element likely to quell the tempest +that had arisen now.</p> + +<p>Let it be said, however, that Condorcet showed himself no pedantic nor +fastidious trifler with the tremendous movement which he had contributed +to set afoot. The same practical spirit which drove him into the strife, +guided him in the midst of it. He never wrung his hands, nor wept, nor +bewailed the unreason of the multitudes to whom in vain he preached +reason. Unlike the typical man of letters—for he was without vanity—he +did not abandon the cause of the Revolution because his suggestions were +often repulsed. ‘It would be better,’ he said to the Girondins, ‘if you +cared less for personal matters and attended only to public interests.’ +Years ago, in his <i>éloge</i> on L’Hôpital, he had praised the famous +Chancellor for incurring the hostility of both of the two envenomed +factions, the League and the Huguenots, and for disregarding the +approbation or disapprobation of the people. ‘What operation,’ he asked, +‘capable of producing any durable good, can be understood by the people? +How should they know to what extent good is possible? How judge of the +means of producing it? It must ever be easier for a charlatan to mislead +the people, than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">- 196 -</a></span> for a man of genius to save it.’<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Remembering this +law, he never lost patience. He was cool and intrepid, if his +intrepidity was of the logical sort rather than physical; and he was +steadfast to one or two simple aims, if he was on some occasions too +rapid in changing his attitude as to special measures. He was never +afraid of the spectre, as the incompetent revolutionist is. On the +contrary, he understood its whole internal history; he knew what had +raised it, what passion and what weakness gave to it substance, and he +knew that presently reason would banish it and restore men to a right +mind. The scientific spirit implanted in such a character as +Condorcet’s, and made robust by social meditation, builds up an +impregnable fortitude in the face of incessant rebuffs and +discouragements. Let us then picture Condorcet as surveying the terrific +welter from the summer of 1789 to the summer of 1793, from the taking of +the Bastille to the fall of the Girondins, with something of the +firmness and self-possession of a Roman Cato.</p> + +<p>After the flight of the king in June, and his return in what was +virtually captivity to Paris, Condorcet was one of the party, very small +in numbers and entirely discountenanced by public opinion, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">- 197 -</a></span> passing +through the monarchical and constitutional stage, who boldly gave up the +idea of a monarchy and proclaimed the idea of a republic. In July (1791) +he published a piece strongly arguing for a negative answer to the +question whether a king is necessary for the preservation of +liberty.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> In one sense, this composition is favourable to Condorcet’s +foresight; it was not every one who saw with him that the destruction of +the monarchy was inevitable after the royal flight. This want of +preparation in the public mind for every great change as it came, is one +of the most striking circumstances of the Revolution, and it explains +the violent, confused, and inadequate manner in which nearly every one +of these changes was made. It was proposed at that time to appoint +Condorcet to be governor to the young dauphin. But Condorcet in this +piece took such pains to make his sentiments upon royalty known, that in +the constitutional frame of mind in which the Assembly then was, the +idea had to be abandoned. It was hardly likely that a man should be +chosen for such an office, who had just declared the public will to be +‘that the uselessness of a king, the needfulness of seeking means of +displacing a power founded on illusions, should be one of the first +truths offered to his reason; the obligation of concurring in this +himself, one of the first of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">- 198 -</a></span> moral duties; and the desire not to be +freed from the yoke of law by an insulting inviolability, the first +sentiment of his heart. People are well aware that at this moment the +object is much less how to mould a king, than to teach him not to wish +to be one.’<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> As all France was then bent on the new constitution, a +king included, Condorcet’s republican assurance was hardly warranted, +and it was by no means well received.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.</h2> + + +<p>When the Constitution was accepted and the Legislative Assembly came to +be chosen, Condorcet proved to have made so good an impression as a +municipal officer, that the Parisians returned him for one of their +deputies. The Declaration of Pilnitz in August 1791 had mitigated the +loyalty that had even withstood the trial of the king’s flight. When the +Legislative Assembly met, it was found to contain an unmistakable +element of republicanism of marked strength. Condorcet was chosen one of +the secretaries, and he composed most of those multitudinous addresses +in which this most unfortunate and least honoured of all parliamentary +chambers tried to prove to the French people that it was actually in +existence and at work. Condorcet was officially to the Legislative what +Barère afterwards was to the Convention. But his addresses are turgid, +labouring, and not effective for their purpose. They have neither the +hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">- 199 -</a></span> force of Napoleon’s proclamations, nor the flowery eloquence of +the Anacreon of the Guillotine. To compose such pieces well under such +circumstances as those of the Assembly, a man must have much imagination +and perhaps a slightly elastic conscience. Condorcet had neither one nor +the other, but only reason—a hard anvil, out of which he laboriously +struck flashes and single sounds.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, after all, nobody else could have done better. The situation of +the Assembly, between a hostile court and a suspicious and distrustful +nation, and unable by its very nature to break the bonds, was from the +beginning desperate. In December 1791 the Legislative through its +secretary informs France of the frankness and loyalty of the king’s +measures in the face of the menaces of foreign war.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Within eight +months, when the king’s person was in captivity and his power suspended, +the same secretary has to avow that from the very beginning the king had +treated the Assembly with dissimulation, and had been in virtual league +with the national enemies. The documents issued by the Assembly after +the violent events of the Tenth of August 1792 are not edifying, and +imply in Condorcet, who composed them, a certain want of eye for +revolutionary methods. They mark the beginning of that short but most +momentous period in the history of the Revolution, when formulas, as Mr. +Carlyle says, had to be stretched out until they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">- 200 -</a></span> cracked—a process +truly called, ‘especially in times of swift change, one of the +sorrowfullest tasks poor humanity has.’ You might read the <i>Exposition +of the Motives from which the National Assembly have proclaimed the +Convention, and suspended the Executive Power of the King</i>,<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> without +dreaming that it is an account of a revolution which arose out of +distrust or contempt for the Assembly, which had driven the king away +from his palace and from power, and which had finally annihilated the +very chamber that was thus professing to expound its motives for doing +what the violence of Paris had really done in defiance of it. The power, +in fact, was all outside the chamber, in Danton and the Commune. Under +such circumstance it is of no interest to men to learn that ‘in the +midst of these disasters the National Assembly, afflicted but calm, took +its oath to maintain equality and liberty, or to die at its post; took +the oath to save France, and looked about for means.’<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Still more +impotent and hollow, because still more pompous, is the address of six +days later.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> A few days after this, occurred the massacres of +prisoners in September—scenes very nearly, if not quite, as bloody and +iniquitous as those which attended the suppression of the rebellion in +Ireland six years afterwards by English troops.</p> + +<p>When the Convention was chosen, the electors of Paris rejected +Condorcet. He was elected, however (Sept. 6), for the department of the +Aisne, having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">- 201 -</a></span> among his colleagues in the deputation Tom Paine, and—a +much more important personage—the youthful Saint-Just, who was so soon +to stupefy the Convention by exclaiming, with mellow voice and face set +immovable as bronze: ‘An individual has no right to be either virtuous +or celebrated in your eyes. A free people and a national assembly are +not made to admire anybody.’ The electors of the department of the Aisne +had unconsciously sent two typical revolutionists: the man of +intellectual ideas, and the man of passion heated as in the pit. In +their persons the Encyclopædia and the Guillotine met. Condorcet, who +had been extreme in the Legislative, but found himself a moderate in the +Convention, gave wise counsel as to the true policy towards the new +members: ‘Better try to moderate them than quarrel.’ But in this case, +not even in their ruin, were fire and water reconciled.</p> + +<p>On the first great question that the Convention had to decide—the fate +of the king—Condorcet voted on the two main issues very much as a wise +man would have voted, knowing the event as we know it. He voted that the +king was guilty of conspiring against liberty, and he voted for the +punishment of exile in preference to that of death. On the intermediate +issue, whether the decision of the Convention should be final, or should +be submitted to the people for ratification, he voted as a wise man +should not have done, in favour of an appeal to the people. Such an +appeal must inevitably have led to violent and bloody local struggles, +and laid France open to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">- 202 -</a></span> enemy. It is a striking circumstance that, +though Condorcet thus voted that the king was guilty, he had previously +laid before the Convention a most careful argument to show that they +were neither morally nor legally competent to try the king at all. How, +he asked, without violating every principle of jurisprudence, can you +act at the same time as legislators constituting the crime, as accusers, +and as judges? His proposal was that Lewis <span class="smcap">xvi</span>. should be tried by a +tribunal whose jury and judges should be named by the electoral body of +the departments.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> With true respect for Condorcet’s honourable +anxiety that the conditions of justice should be rigorously +observed—for, as he well said, ‘there is no liberty in a country where +positive law is not the single rule of judicial proceedings’—it is +difficult to see why the Convention, coming as it did fresh from the +electoral bodies, who must have had the question what was to be done +with the imprisoned king foremost in their minds, why the members of the +Convention should not form as legitimate a tribunal as any body whose +composition and authority they had themselves defined and created, and +which would be chosen by the very same persons who less than a month +before had invested them with their own offices. Reading this most +scrupulous and juristic composition, we might believe the writer to have +forgotten that France lay mad and frenzied outside the hall where he +stood, and that in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">- 203 -</a></span> political action the question what is possible is at +least as important as what is compatible with the maxims of scientific +jurisprudence. It was to Condorcet’s honour as a jurisconsult that he +should have had so many scruples; it is as much to his credit as a +politician that he laid them aside and tried the king after all.</p> + +<p>It is highly characteristic of Condorcet’s tenacity of his own view of +the Revolution and of its methods, that on the Saturday (January 19, +1793) when the king’s fate was decided against Condorcet’s conviction +and against his vote—the execution taking place on the Monday +morning—he should have appealed to the Convention, at all events to do +their best to neutralise the effect of their verdict upon Europe, by +instantly initiating a series of humane reforms in the law among them, +including the abolition of the punishment of death. ‘The English +ministers,’ he cried, ‘are now seeking to excite that nation against us. +Do you suppose that they will venture to continue their calumnious +declamations, when you can say to them: “We have abolished the penalty +of death, while you still preserve it for the theft of a few shillings? +You hand over debtors to the greed or spite of their creditors; our +laws, wiser and more humane, know how to respect poverty and misfortune. +Judge between us and you, and see to which of the two peoples the +reproach of inhumanity may be addressed with most justice.”’<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> This +was the eve of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">- 204 -</a></span> the Terror. Well may Comte distinguish Condorcet as the +one philosopher who pursued in the midst of the tempest his regenerating +meditations.</p> + +<p>But let us banish the notion that the history of the Convention is only +the history of the guillotine. No chamber in the whole annals of +governing assemblies ever displayed so much alertness, energy, and +capacity, in the face of difficulties that might well have crushed them. +Besides their efforts, justly held incomparable, to hurl back the enemy +from the frontiers, they at once in the spirit of Condorcet’s speech, +made at so strange a season, set vigorously about the not less noble +task of legal reforms and political reorganisation. The unrivalled +ingenuity and fertility of the French character in all the arts of +compact and geometric construction never showed itself so supreme. The +civil code was drawn up in a month.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Constitutions abounded. Cynical +historians laugh at the eagerness of the nation, during the months that +followed the deposition of the king, to have a constitution; and, so far +as they believed or hoped that a constitution would remedy all ills, +their faith was assuredly not according to knowledge. It shows, however, +the fundamental and seemingly ineradicable respect for authority which +their history has engendered in the French, that even in this, their +most chaotic hour, they craved order and its symbols.</p> + +<p>Condorcet, along with Tom Paine, Sièyes, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">- 205 -</a></span> others, was a member of +the first committee for framing a constitution. They laboured +assiduously from September to February 1793, when the project was laid +upon the table, prefaced by an elaborate dissertation of Condorcet’s +composition.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> The time was inauspicious. The animosities between the +Girondins and the Mountain were becoming every day more furious and +deadly. In the midst of this appalling storm of rage and hate and +terror, Condorcet—at one moment wounding the Girondins by reproaches +against their egotism and personalities, at another exasperating the +Mountain by declaring of Robespierre that he had neither an idea in his +head nor a feeling in his heart—still pertinaciously kept crying out +for the acceptance of his constitution. It was of no avail. The +revolution of the second of June came, and swept the Girondins out of +the Chamber. Condorcet was not among them, but his political days were +numbered. ‘What did you do all that time?’ somebody once asked of a +member of the Convention, during the period which was now begin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">- 206 -</a></span>ning and +which lasted until Thermidor in 1794. ‘I lived,’ was the reply. +Condorcet was of another temper. He cared as little for his life as +Danton or Saint-Just cared for theirs. Instead of cowering down among +the men of the Plain or the frogs of the Marsh, he withstood the +Mountain to the face.</p> + +<p>Hérault de Séchelles, at the head of another committee, brought in a new +constitution which was finally adopted and decreed (June 24, 1793). Of +this, Sièyes said privately, that it was ‘a bad table of contents.’ +Condorcet denounced it publicly, and, with a courage hardly excelled, he +declared in so many words that the arrest of the Girondins had destroyed +the integrity of the national representation. The Bill he handled with a +severity that inflicted the keenest smarts on the self-love of its +designers. A few days later, the Capucin Chabot, one of those weak and +excitable natures that in ordinary times divert men by the intensity, +multiplicity, and brevity of their enthusiasms, but to whom the fiercer +air of such an event as the Revolution is a real poison, rose and in the +name of the Committee of General Security called the attention of the +Chamber to what he styled a sequel of the Girondist Brissot. This was no +more nor less than Condorcet’s document criticising the new +constitution. ‘This man,’ said Chabot, ‘has sought to raise the +department of the Aisne against you, imagining that, because he has +happened to sit by the side of a handful of <i>savants</i> of the Academy, +it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">- 207 -</a></span> is his duty to give laws to the French Republic.’<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> So a decree +was passed putting Condorcet under arrest. His name was included in the +list of those who were tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal on the +Third of October for conspiring against the unity and indivisibility of +the Republic. He was condemned in his absence, and declared to be <i>hors +la loi</i>.</p> + +<p>This, then, was the calamitous close of his aspirations from boyhood +upwards to be permitted to partake in doing something for the common +weal. He had still the work to perform by which posterity will best +remember his name, though only a few months intervened between his +flight and his most cruel end. When the decree against him was enacted +he fled. Friends found a refuge for him in the house of a Madame Vernet, +a widow in moderate circumstances, who let lodgings to students, and one +of those beneficent characters that show us how high humanity can reach. +‘Is he an honest and virtuous man?’ she asked; ‘in that case let him +come, and lose not a moment. Even while we talk he may be seized.’ The +same night Condorcet intrusted his life to her keeping, and for nine +months he remained in hiding under her roof. When he heard of the +execution of the Girondins condemned on the same day with himself, he +perceived the risk to which he was subjecting his protectress, and made +up his mind to flee. ‘I am an outlaw,’ he said, ‘and if I am discovered +you will be dragged to the same death.’ ‘The Convention,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">- 208 -</a></span>’ Madame Vernet +answered, with something of the heroism of more notable women of that +time, ‘may put you out of the law; it has not the power to put you out +of humanity. You stay.’ This was no speech of the theatre. The whole +household kept the most vigorous watch over the prisoner thus generously +detained, and for many months Madame Vernet’s humane firmness was +successful in preventing his escape. This time—his soul grievously +burdened by anxiety as to the fate of his wife and child, and by a +restless eagerness not to compromise his benefactress, a bloody death +staring him every moment in the face—Condorcet spent in the +composition, without the aid of a single book, of his memorable work on +the progress of the human mind. Among the many wonders of an epoch of +portents, this feat of intellectual abstraction is not the least +amazing.</p> + +<p>When his task was accomplished, Condorcet felt with more keenness than +ever the deadly peril in which his presence placed Madame Vernet. He was +aware that to leave her house was to seek death, but he did not fear. He +drew up a paper of directions to be given one day to his little +daughter, when she should be of years to understand and follow them. +They are written with minute care, and though tender and solicitous, +they show perfect composure. His daughter is above all things to banish +from her mind every revengeful sentiment against her father’s enemies; +to distrust her filial sensibility, and to make this sacrifice for her +father’s own sake. This done, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">- 209 -</a></span> marched downstairs, and having by an +artful stratagem thrown Madame Vernet off her guard, he went out at ten +o’clock in the morning imperfectly disguised into the street. This was +the fifth of April 1794. By three in the afternoon, exhausted by fatigue +which his strict confinement for nine months made excessive, he reached +the house of a friend in the country, and prayed for a night’s shelter. +His presence excited less pity than alarm. The people gave him +refreshment, and he borrowed a little pocket copy of Horace, with which +he went forth into the loneliness of the night. He promised himself +shelter amid the stone quarries of Clamart. What he suffered during this +night, the whole day of the sixth of April, the night, and again the +next day, there is no one to tell.</p> + +<p>The door of the house in the Rue Servandoni was left on the latch night +and day for a whole week. But Madame Vernet’s generous hope was in vain; +while she still hoped and watched, the end had come. On the evening of +the seventh, Condorcet, with one of his legs torn or broken, his +garments in rags, with visage gaunt and hunger-stricken, entered an inn +in the hamlet of Clamart, and called for an omelette. Asked how many +eggs he would have in it, the famishing man answered a dozen. +Carpenters, for such he had given himself to be, do not have a dozen +eggs in their omelettes. Suspicion was aroused, his hands were not the +hands of a workman, and he had no papers to show, but only the pocket +Horace. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">- 210 -</a></span> villagers seized him and hastened to drag him, bound hand +and foot, to Bourg-la-Reine, then called for a season Bourg-l’Égalité. +On the road he fainted, and they set him on a horse offered by a pitying +wayfarer. When they reached the prison, Condorcet, starving, bleeding, +way-worn, was flung into his cell. On the morrow, when the gaolers came +to seek him, they found him stretched upon the ground, dead and stark. +So he perished—of hunger and weariness, say some; of poison ever +carried by him in a ring, say others.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> So, to the last revolving +supreme cares, this high spirit was overtaken by annihilation. His +memory is left to us, the fruit of his ideas, and the impression of his +character.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>An eminent man, who escaped by one accident from the hatchets of the +Septembriseurs, and by another from the guillotine of the Terror, while +in hiding and in momentary expectation of capture and death, wrote thus +in condemnation of suicide, ‘the one crime which leaves no possibility +of return to virtue.’ ‘Even at this incomprehensible moment’—the spring +of 1793—‘when morality, enlightenment, energetic love of country, only +render death at the prison-wicket or on the scaffold more inevitable; +when it might be allowable to choose among the ways<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">- 211 -</a></span> of leaving a life +that can no longer be preserved, and to rob tigers in human form of the +accursed pleasure of dragging you forth and drinking your blood; yes, on +the fatal tumbril itself, with nothing free but voice, I could still +cry, <i>Take care</i>, to a child that should come too near the wheel: +perhaps he may owe his life to me, perhaps the country shall one day owe +its salvation to him.’<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>More than one career in those days, famous or obscure, was marked by +this noble tenacity to lofty public ideas even in the final moments of +existence. Its general acceptance as a binding duty, exorcising the +mournful and insignificant egotisms that haunt and wearily fret and make +waste the remnants of so many lives, will produce the profoundest of all +possible improvements in men’s knowledge of the sublime art of the +happiness of their kind. The closing words of Condorcet’s last +composition show the solace which perseverance in taking thought for +mankind brought to him in the depths of personal calamity. He had +concluded his survey of the past history of the race, and had drawn what +seemed in his eyes a moderate and reasonable picture of its future. ‘How +this picture,’ he exclaims, with the knell of his own doom sounding full +in the ear while he wrote, ‘this picture of the human race freed from +all its fetters, withdrawn from the empire of chance, as from that of +the enemies of progress, and walking with firm and assured step in the +way of truth, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">- 212 -</a></span> virtue, and happiness, presents to the philosopher a +sight that consoles him for the errors, the crimes, the injustice, with +which the earth is yet stained, and of which he is not seldom the +victim! It is in the contemplation of this picture that he receives the +reward of his efforts for the progress of reason, for the defence of +liberty. He ventures to link them with the eternal chain of the +destinies of man: it is there that he finds the true recompense of +virtue, the pleasure of having done a lasting good. Fate can no longer +undo it by any disastrous compensation that shall restore prejudice and +bondage. This contemplation is for him a refuge, into which the +recollection of his persecutors can never follow him; in which, living +in thought with man reinstated in the rights and the dignity of his +nature, he forgets man tormented and corrupted by greed, by base fear, +by envy; it is here that he truly abides with his fellows, in an elysium +that his reason has known how to create for itself, and that his love +for humanity adorns with all purest delights.’<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p> + +<p>It has long been the fashion among the followers of that reaction which +Coleridge led and Carlyle has spread and popularised, to dwell +exclusively on the coldness and hardness, the excess of scepticism and +the defect of enthusiasm, that are supposed to have characterised the +eighteenth century. Because the official religion of the century both in +England and France was lifeless and mechanical, it has been taken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">- 213 -</a></span> for +granted that the level of thought and feeling was a low one universally; +as if the highest moods of every era necessarily clothed themselves in +religious forms. The truth is that, working in such natures as +Condorcet’s, the principles of the eighteenth century, its homage to +reason and rational methods, its exaltation of the happiness of men, not +excluding their material wellbeing, into the highest place, its passion +for justice and law, its large illumination, all engendered a fervour as +truly religious as that of Catholicism or of Calvinism at their best, +while its sentiment was infinitely less interested and personal. The +passage just quoted is as little mechanical, as little material, as the +most rapturous ejaculations of the Christian saints and confessors. Read +in connection with the circumstances of its composition, it may show +that the eighteenth century was able at any rate to inspire its sons +with a faith that could rob death of its sting and the grave of its +victory, as effectually as if it had rested on a mystery instead of on +reason, and been supported by the sanctions of eternal pain and eternal +bliss, instead of moving from a confident devotion to humanity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.</h2> + + +<p>The shape of Condorcet’s ideas upon history arose from the twofold +necessity which his character imposed upon him, at once of appeasing his +aspirations on behalf of mankind, and of satisfying a disciplined<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">- 214 -</a></span> and +scientific intelligence. He was of too robust an understanding to find +adequate gratification in the artificial construction of hypothetical +utopias. Conviction was as indispensable as hope; and distinct grounds +for the faith that was in him, as essential as the faith itself. The +result of this fact of mental constitution, the intellectual conditions +of the time being what they were, was the rise in his mind of the great +and central conception of there being a law in the succession of social +states, to be ascertained by an examination of the collective phenomena +of past history. The merit of this admirable effort, and of the work in +which it found expression, is very easily underrated, because the effort +was insufficient and merely preparatory, while modern thought has +already carried us far beyond it, and at least into sight of the more +complete truths to which this effort only pointed the way. Let us +remember, however, that it did point the way distinctly and +unmistakably. A very brief survey of the state of history as a subject +of systematic study enables us to appreciate with precision what service +it was that Condorcet rendered; for it carries us back from the present +comparatively advanced condition of the science of society to a time +before his memorable attempt, when conceptions now become so familiar +were not in existence, and when even the most instructed students of +human affairs no more felt the need of a scientific theory of the manner +in which social effects follow social causes, than the least instructed +portion of the literary public feels<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">- 215 -</a></span> such a need in our own time. It is +difficult after a subject has been separated from the nebulous mass of +unclassified knowledge, after it has taken independent shape, and begun +to move in lines of its own, to realise the process by which all this +was effected, or the way in which before all this the facts concerned +presented themselves to the thinker’s mind. That we should overcome the +difficulty is one of the conditions of our being able to do justice to +the great army of the precursors.</p> + +<p>Two movements of thought went on in France during the middle of the +eighteenth century, which have been comparatively little dwelt upon by +historians; their main anxiety has been to justify the foregone +conclusion, so gratifying alike to the partisans of the social reaction +and to the disciples of modern transcendentalism in its many disguises, +that the eighteenth century was almost exclusively negative, critical, +and destructive. Each of these two currents was positive in the highest +degree, and their influence undeniably constructive, if we consider that +it was from their union into a common channel, a work fully accomplished +first in the mind of Condorcet, that the notion of the scientific +treatment of history and society took its earliest start.</p> + +<p>The first of the two movements, and that which has been most +unaccountably neglected, consisted in the remarkable attempts of Quesnay +and his immediate followers to withdraw the organisation of society from +the sphere of empiricism, and to substitute for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">- 216 -</a></span> vulgar conception +of arbitrary and artificial institutions as the sole foundation of this +organisation, the idea that there is a certain Natural Order, conformity +to which in all social arrangements is the essential condition of their +being advantageous to the members of the social union. Natural Order in +the minds of this school was no metaphysical figment evolved from +uninstructed consciousness, but a set of circumstances to be discovered +by continuous and methodical observation. It consisted of physical law +and moral law. Physical law is the regulated course of every physical +circumstance in the order evidently most advantageous to the human race. +Moral law is the rule of every human action in the moral order, +conformed to the physical order evidently most advantageous to the human +race. This order is the base of the most perfect government, and the +fundamental rule of all positive laws; for positive laws are only such +laws as are required to keep up and maintain the natural order that is +evidently most advantageous to the race.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<p>Towards the close of the reign of Lewis <span class="smcap">xiv</span>. the frightful +impoverishment of the realm attracted the attention of one or two +enlightened observers, and among them of Boisguillebert and Vauban. They +had exposed, the former of them with especial force and amplitude, the +absurdity of the general system of administration, which seemed to have +been devised for the express purpose of paralysing both agriculture and +commerce, and exhausting all the sources of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">- 217 -</a></span> national wealth.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> +But these speculations had been mainly of a fiscal kind, and pointed not +much further than to a readjustment of taxation and an improvement in +the modes of its collection. The disciples of the New Science, as it was +called, the Physiocrats, or believers in the supremacy of Natural Order, +went much beyond this, and in theory sought to lay open the whole ground +of the fabric of society. Practically they dealt with scarcely any but +the economic circumstances of societies, though some of them mix up with +their reasonings upon commerce and agriculture crude and incomplete +hints upon forms of government and other questions that belong not to +the economical but to the political side of social science.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> +Quesnay’s famous <i>Maxims</i> open with a declaration in favour of the unity +of the sovereign authority, and against the system of counterbalancing +forces in government. Almost immediately he passes on to the ground of +political economy, and elaborates the conditions of material prosperity +in an agricultural realm. With the correctness of the definitions and +principles of economic science as laid down by these writers, we have +here nothing to do. Their peculiar distinction in the present connection +is the grasp which they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">- 218 -</a></span> had of the principle of there being a natural, +and therefore a scientific, order in the conditions of a society; that +order being natural in the sense that they attached to the term, which +from the circumstances of the case is most beneficial to the race. From +this point of view they approach some of the problems of what is now +classified as social statics; and they assume, without any consciousness +of another aspect being possible, that the society which they are +discussing is in a state of equilibrium.</p> + +<p>It is evident that with this restriction of the speculative horizon, +they were and must remain wholly unable to emerge into the full light of +the completely constituted science of society, with laws of movement as +well as laws of equilibrium, with definite methods of interpreting past +and predicting future states. They could account for and describe the +genesis of the social union, as Plato and Aristotle had in different +ways been able to do many centuries before; and they could prescribe +some of the conditions of its being maintained in vigour and +compactness. Some of them could even see in a vague way the +interdependence of peoples and the community of the real interests of +different nations, each nation, as De la Rivière expressed it, being +only a province of the vast kingdom of nature, a branch from the same +trunk as the rest.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> What they could not see was the great fact of +social evolution; and here too, in the succession of social states, +there has been a natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">- 219 -</a></span> and observable order. In a word, they tried to +understand society without the aid of history. Consequently they laid +down the truths which they discovered as absolute and fixed, when they +were no more than conditional and relative.</p> + +<p>Fortunately inquirers in another field had set a movement afoot, which +was destined to furnish the supplement of their own speculation. This +was the remarkable development of the conception of history, which +Montesquieu’s two memorable books first made conspicuous. Bossuet’s +well-known discourse on universal history, teeming as it does with +religious prejudice, just as Condorcet’s sketch teems with prejudice +against religion, and egregiously imperfect in execution as it must be +pronounced when judged from even the meanest historical standard, had +perhaps partially introduced the spirit of Universality, as Comte says, +into the study of history. But it was impossible from the nature of the +case for any theologian to know fully what this spirit means; and it was +not until the very middle of the following century that any effective +approach was made to that universality which Bossuet did little more +than talk about. Then it came not from theology, but from the much more +hopeful sources of a rational philosophy. Before Montesquieu no single +stone of the foundation of scientific history can be said to have been +laid. Of course, far earlier writers had sought after the circumstances +which brought about a given transaction. Thucydides, for example, had +attributed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">- 220 -</a></span> cause of the Peloponnesian war to the alarm of the +Lacedæmonians at the greatness of the power of Athens.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> It is this +sense of the need of explanation, however rudimentary it may be, which +distinguishes the great historian from the chronicler, even from a very +superior chronicler like Livy, who in his account of even so great an +event as the Second Punic War plunges straightway into narrative of what +happened, without concerning himself why it happened. Tacitus had begun +his <i>Histories</i> with remarks upon the condition of Rome, the feeling of +the various armies, the attitude of the provinces, so that, as he says, +‘<i>non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed +ratio etiam causæque noscantur</i>.’<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> But these and the like instances +in historical literature were only political explanations, more or less +adequate, of particular transactions; they were no more than the +sagacious remarks of men with statesmanlike minds, upon the origin of +some single set of circumstances.</p> + +<p>The rise from this to the high degree of generality which marks the +speculations of Montesquieu, empirical as they are, was as great as the +rise from the mere maxims of worldly wisdom to the widest principles of +ethical philosophy. Polybius, indeed, in the remarkable chapters with +which his <i>Histories</i> open, uses expressions that are so modern as +almost to startle us. ‘People who study history,’ he says, ‘in separate +and detached portions, without reference to one another, and suppose +that from them they acquire a knowledge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">- 221 -</a></span> of the whole, are like a man +who in looking on the severed members of what had once been an animated +and comely creature, should think that this was enough to give him an +idea of its beauty and force when alive. The empire of Rome was what by +its extent in Italy, Africa, Asia, Greece, brought history into the +condition of being organic (<span title=" sômatoeidês " class="hoverbox">σωματοειδής</span>).’ His object was +to examine the general and collective ordering of events; when it came +into existence; whence it had its source; how it had this special +completion and fulfilment—the universal empire of Rome.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> Striking as +this is, and admirable as it is, there is not in it any real trace of +the abstract conception of social history. Polybius recognises the unity +of history, so far as that could be understood in the second century +before Christ, but he treats his subject in the concrete, describing the +chain of events, but not attempting to seek their law. It was +Montesquieu who first applied the comparative method to social +institutions; who first considered physical conditions in connection +with the laws of a country; who first perceived and illustrated how that +natural order which the Physiocrats only considered in relation to the +phenomena of wealth and its production, really extended over its +political phenomena as well; who first set the example of viewing a +great number of social facts all over the world in groups and classes; +and who first definitely and systematically inquired into the causes of +a set of complex historical events<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">- 222 -</a></span> and institutions, as being both +discoverable and intelligible. This was a very marked advance upon both +of the ideas, by one or other of which men had previously been content +to explain to themselves the course of circumstances in the world; +either the inscrutable decrees of an inhuman providence, or the +fortuitous vagaries of an eyeless destiny.</p> + +<p>It was Turgot, however, who completed the historical conception of +Montesquieu, in a piece written in 1750, two years after the appearance +of the <i>Esprit des Lois</i>, and in one or two other fragmentary +compositions of about the same time, which are not the less remarkable +because the writer was only twenty-three years old when these advanced +ideas presented themselves to his intelligence. Vico in Italy had +insisted on the doctrine that the course of human affairs is in a cycle, +and that they move in a constant and self-repeating orbit.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> Turgot, +on the contrary, with more wisdom, at the opening of his subject is +careful to distinguish the ever-varying spectacle of the succession of +men from generation to generation, from the circle of identical +revolutions in which the phenomena of nature are enclosed. In the one +case time only restores at each instant the image of what it has just +caused to disappear; in the other, the reason and the passions are ever +incessantly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">- 223 -</a></span> producing new events. ‘All the ages are linked together by +a succession of causes and effects which bind the state of the world to +all the states that have gone before. The multiplied signs of speech and +writing, in supplying men with the means of an assured possession of +their thoughts and of communicating them to one another, have formed a +common treasure that one generation transmits to another, as an +inheritance constantly augmented by the discoveries of each generation; +and the human race, looked at from its origin, appears in the eyes of +the philosopher one immense whole, which, just as in the case of each +individual, has its infancy and its growth.’<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a></p> + +<p>Pascal and others in ancient and modern times<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> had compared in casual +and unfruitful remarks the history of the race to the history of the +individual, but Turgot was able in some sort to see the full meaning and +extent of the analogy, as well as the limitations proper to it, and to +draw from it some of the larger principles which the idea involved. The +first proposition in the passage just quoted, that a chain of causes and +effects unites each age with every other age that has gone before, is +one of the most memorable sentences in the history of thought. And +Turgot not only saw that there is a relation of cause and effect between +successive states of society; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">- 224 -</a></span> had glimpses into some of the +conditions of that relation. To a generation that stands on loftier +heights his attempts seem rudimentary and strangely simple, but it was +these attempts which cut the steps for our ascent. How is it, he asked, +for instance, that the succession of social states is not uniform? that +they follow with unequal step along the track marked out for them? He +found the answer in the inequality of natural advantages, and he was +able to discern the necessity of including in these advantages the +presence, apparently accidental, in some communities and not in others +of men of especial genius or capacity in some important direction.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> +Again, he saw that just as in one way natural advantages accelerate the +progress of a society, in another natural obstacles also accelerate it, +by stimulating men to the efforts necessary to overcome them: <i>le besoin +perfectionne l’instrument</i>.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> The importance of following the march of +the human mind over all the grooves along which it travels to further +knowledge, was fully present to him, and he dwells repeatedly on the +constant play going on between discoveries in one science and those in +another. In no writer is there a fuller and more distinct sense of the +essential unity and integrity of the history of mankind, nor of the +multitude of the mansions into which this vast house is divided, and the +many keys which he must possess that would open and enter in.</p> + +<p>Even in empirical explanations Turgot shows a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">- 225 -</a></span> breadth and accuracy of +vision truly surprising, considering his own youth and what we may +venture to call the youth of his subject. The reader will be able to +appreciate this, and to discern at the same time the arbitrary nature of +Montesquieu’s method, if he will contrast, for example, the remarks of +this writer upon polygamy with the far wider and more sagacious +explanation of the circumstances of such an institution given by +Turgot.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> Unfortunately, he has left us only short and fragmentary +pieces, but they suggest more than many large and complete works. That +they had a very powerful and direct influence upon Condorcet there is no +doubt, as well from the similarity of general conception between him and +Turgot, as from the nearly perfect identity of leading passages in their +writings. Let us add that in Turgot’s fragments we have what is +unhappily not a characteristic of Condorcet, the peculiar satisfaction +and delight in scientific history of a style which states a fact in such +phrases as serve also to reveal its origin, bearings, significance, in +which every successive piece of description is so worded as to be +self-evidently a link in the chain of explanation, an ordered term in a +series of social conditions.</p> + +<p>Before returning to Condorcet we ought to glance at the remarkable +piece, written in 1784, in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">- 226 -</a></span> Kant propounded his idea of a +universal or cosmo-political history, which contemplating the agency of +the human will upon a large scale should unfold to our view a regular +stream of tendency in the great succession of events.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> The will +metaphysically considered, Kant said, is free, but its manifestations, +that is to say, human actions, ‘are as much under the control of +universal laws of nature as any other physical phenomena.’</p> + +<p>The very same course of incidents, which taken separately and +individually would have seemed perplexed and incoherent, ‘yet viewed in +their connection and as the action of the human <i>species</i> and not of +independent beings, never fail to observe a steady and continuous, +though slow, development of certain great predispositions in our +nature.’ As it is impossible to presume in the human race any <i>rational</i> +purpose of its own, we must seek to observe some <i>natural</i> purpose in +the current of human actions. Thus a history of creatures with no plan +of their own, may yet admit a systematic form as a history of creatures +blindly pursuing a plan of nature. Now we know that all predispositions +are destined to develop themselves according to their final purpose. +Man’s rational predispositions are destined to develop themselves in the +species and not in the individual. History then is the progress of the +development of all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">- 227 -</a></span> tendencies laid in man by nature. The method of +development is the antagonism of these tendencies in the social state, +and its source the <i>unsocial sociality</i> of man—a tendency to enter the +social state, combined with a perpetual resistance to that tendency, +which is ever threatening to dissolve it. The play of these two +tendencies unfolds talents of every kind, and by gradual increase of +light a preparation is made for such a mode of thinking as is capable of +‘exalting a social concert that had been <i>pathologically</i> extorted from +the mere necessities of situation, into a <i>moral</i> union founded on the +reasonable choice.’ Hence the highest problem for man is the +establishment of a universal civil society, founded on the empire of +political justice; and ‘the history of the human species as a whole may +be regarded as the unravelling of a hidden plan of nature for +accomplishing a perfect state of civil constitution for society in its +internal relations (and, as the condition of that, in its external +relations also), as the sole state of society in which the tendencies of +human nature can be all and fully developed.’ Nor is this all. We shall +not only be able to unravel the intricate web of past affairs, but shall +also find a clue for the guidance of future statesmen in the art of +political prediction. Nay more, this clue ‘will open a consolatory +prospect into futurity, in which at a remote distance we shall observe +the human species seated upon an eminence won by infinite toil, where +all the germs are unfolded which nature has implanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">- 228 -</a></span> within it, and +its destination on this earth accomplished.’</p> + +<p>That this conception involves an assumption about tendencies and final +purposes which reverses the true method of history, and moreover reduces +what ought to be a scientific inquiry to be a foregone justification of +nature or providence, should not prevent us from appreciating its signal +merits in insisting on a systematic presentation of the collective +activity of the race, and in pointing out, however cursorily, the use of +such an elucidation of the past in furnishing the grounds of practical +guidance in dealing with the future and in preparing it. Considering the +brevity of this little tract, its pregnancy and suggestiveness have not +often been equalled. We have seen enough of it here to enable us to +realise the differences between this and the French school. We miss the +wholesome objectivity, resulting from the stage which had been reached +in France by the physical sciences. Condorcet’s series of <i>éloges</i> shows +unmistakably how deep an impression the history of physical discovery +had made upon him, and how clearly he understood the value of its +methods. The peculiar study which their composition had occasioned him +is of itself almost enough to account for the fact that a conception +which had long been preparing in the superior minds of the time, should +fully develop itself in him rather than in anybody else.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">- 229 -</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V.</h2> + + +<p>The Physiocrats, as we have seen, had introduced the idea of there being +a natural order in social circumstances, that order being natural which +is most advantageous to mankind. Turgot had declared that one age is +bound to another by a chain of causation. Condorcet fused these two +conceptions. He viewed the history of the ages as a whole, and found in +their succession a natural order; an order which, when uninterrupted and +undisturbed, tended to accumulate untold advantages upon the human race, +which was every day becoming more plain to the vision of men, and +therefore every day more and more assured from disturbance by ignorant +prejudice and sinister interests. There is an order at once among the +circumstances of a given generation, and among the successive sets of +circumstances of successive generations. ‘If we consider the development +of human faculties in its results, so far as they relate to the +individuals who exist at the same time on a given space, and if we +follow that development from generation to generation, then we have +before us the picture of the progress of the human mind. This progress +is subject to the same general laws that are to be observed in the +development of the faculties of individuals, for it is the result of +that development, considered at the same time in a great number of +individuals united in society. But the result that presents itself at +any one instant depends upon that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">- 230 -</a></span> which was offered by the instants +preceding; in turn it influences the result in times still to follow.’</p> + +<p>This picture will be of a historical character, inasmuch as being +subject to perpetual variations it is formed by the observation in due +order of different human societies in different epochs through which +they have passed. It will expose the order of the various changes, the +influence exercised by each period over the next, and thus will show in +the modifications impressed upon the race, ever renewing itself in the +immensity of the ages, the track that it has followed, and the exact +steps that it has taken towards truth and happiness. Such observation of +what man has been and of what he is, will then lead us to means proper +for assuring and accelerating the fresh progress that his nature allows +us to anticipate still further.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p> + +<p>‘If a man is able to predict with nearly perfect confidence, phenomena +with whose laws he is acquainted; if, even when they are unknown to him, +he is able, in accordance with the experience of the past, to foresee +with a large degree of probability the events of the future, why should +we treat it as a chimerical enterprise, to trace with some +verisimilitude the picture of the future destinies of the human race in +accordance with the results of its history? The only foundation of +belief in the natural sciences is this idea, that the general laws, +known or unknown, which regulate the phenomena of the universe are +necessary and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">- 231 -</a></span> constant; and why should this principle be less true for +the development of the moral and intellectual faculties of man than for +other natural operations? In short, opinions grounded on past experience +in objects of the same order being the single rule of conduct for even +the wisest men, why should the philosopher be forbidden to rest his +conjectures on the same base, provided that he never attributes to them +a degree of certainty beyond what is warranted by the number, the +constancy, and the accuracy of his observations?’<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p> + +<p>Thus Condorcet’s purpose was not to justify nature, as it had been with +Kant, but to search in the past for rational grounds of a belief in the +unbounded splendour of men’s future destinies. His view of the character +of the relations among the circumstances of the social union, either at +a given moment or in a succession of periods, was both accurate and +far-sighted. When he came actually to execute his own great idea, and to +specify the manner in which those relations arose and operated, he +instantly diverged from the right path. Progress in his mind is +exclusively produced by improvement in intelligence. It is the necessary +result of man’s activity in the face of that disproportion ever existing +between what he knows and what he desires and feels the necessity to +know.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> Hence the most fatal of the errors of Condorcet’s sketch. He +measures only the contributions made by nations and eras to what we +know; leaving out of sight their failures and successes in the +eleva<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">- 232 -</a></span>tion of moral standards and ideals, and in the purification of +human passions.</p> + +<p>Now even if we hold the intellectual principle only to be progressive, +and the moral elements to be fixed, being coloured and shaped and +quickened by the surrounding intellectual conditions, still, inasmuch as +the manner of this shaping and colouring is continually changing and +leading to the most important transformations of human activity and +sentiment, it must obviously be a radical deficiency in any picture of +social progress to leave out the development of ethics, whether it be a +derivative or an independent and spontaneous development. One seeks in +vain in Condorcet’s sketch for any account of the natural history of +western morals, or for any sign of consciousness on his part that the +difference in ethical discipline and feeling between the most ferocious +of primitive tribes and the most enlightened eighteenth-century +Frenchmen, was a result of evolution that needed historical explanation, +quite as much as the difference between the astrolatry of one age and +the astronomy of another. We find no recognition of the propriety of +recounting the various steps of that long process by which, to use +Kant’s pregnant phrase, the relations born of pathological necessity +were metamorphosed into those of moral union. The grave and lofty +feeling, for example, which inspired the last words of the +<i>Tableau</i>—whence came it? Of what long-drawn chain of causes in the +past was it the last effect? It is not enough to refer us generally to +previous advances in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">- 233 -</a></span> knowledge and intellectual emancipation, because +even supposing the successive modifications of our moral sensibilities +to be fundamentally due to the progress of intellectual enlightenment, +we still want to know in the first place something about the influences +which harness one process to the other, and in the second place, +something about the particular directions which these modifications of +moral constitution have taken.</p> + +<p>If this is one very radical omission in Condorcet’s scheme, his angry +and vehement aversion for the various religions of the world (with +perhaps one exception) is a sin of commission still more damaging to its +completeness. That he should detest the corrupt and oppressive forms of +religion of his own century was neither surprising nor blamable. An +unfavourable view of the influences upon human development of the +Christian belief, even in its least corrupt forms, was not by any means +untenable. Nay, he was at liberty to go further than this, and to depict +religion as a natural infirmity of the human mind in its immature +stages, just as there are specific disorders incident in childhood to +the human body. Even on this theory, he was bound to handle it with the +same calmness which he would have expected to find in a pathological +treatise by a physician. Who would write of the sweating sickness with +indignation, or describe zymotic diseases with resentment? Condorcet’s +pertinacious anger against theology is just as irrational as this would +be, from the scientific point of view which he pretends to have assumed. +Theology,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">- 234 -</a></span> in fact, was partly avenged of her assailants, for she had in +the struggle contrived to infect them with the bitter contagion of her +own traditional spirit.</p> + +<p>From the earliest times to the latest it is all one story according to +Condorcet. He can speak with respect of philosophies even when, as in +the case of the Scotch school of the last century, he dislikes and +condemns them.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> Of religion his contempt and hatred only vary +slightly in degree. Barbarous tribes have sorcerers, trading on the +gross superstitions of their dupes: so in other guise and with different +names have civilised nations to-day. As other arts progressed, +superstition, too, became less rude; priestly families kept all +knowledge in their own hands, and thus preserved their hypocritical and +tyrannical assumptions from detection. They disclosed nothing to the +people without some supernatural admixture, the better to maintain their +personal pretensions. They had two doctrines, one for themselves, and +the other for the people. Sometimes, as they were divided into several +orders, each of them reserved to itself certain mysteries. Thus all the +inferior orders were at once rogues and dupes, and the great system of +hypocrisy was only known in all its completeness to a few adepts. +Christianity belonged to the same class. Its priests, we must admit, ‘in +spite of their knaveries and their vices, were enthusiasts ready to +perish for their doctrines.’ In vain did Julian endeavour to deliver the +empire from the scourge. Its triumph was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">- 235 -</a></span> signal for the incurable +decay of all art and knowledge. The Church may seem to have done some +good in things where her interests did not happen to clash with the +interests of Europe, as in helping to abolish slavery, for instance; but +after all ‘circumstances and manners’ would have produced the result +necessarily and of themselves. Morality, which was taught by the priests +only, contained those universal principles that have been unknown to no +sect; but it created a host of purely religious duties, and of imaginary +sins. These duties were more rigorously enjoined than those of nature, +and actions that were indifferent, legitimate, or even virtuous, were +more severely rebuked and punished than real crimes. Yet, on the other +hand, a moment of repentance, consecrated by the absolution of a priest, +opened the gates of heaven to the worst miscreants.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<p>In the opening of the last of these remarks there is much justice. So +there is in the striking suggestion made in another place, that we +should not bless erroneous systems for their utility, simply because +they help to repair some small part of the mischief of which they have +themselves been the principal cause.<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> But on the whole it is obvious +that Condorcet was unfitted by his temper, and that of the school to +which he most belonged, from accepting religion as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">- 236 -</a></span> fact in the +history of the human mind that must have some positive explanation. To +look at it in this way as the creation of a handful of selfish impostors +in each community, was to show a radical incompetence to carry out the +scheme which had been so scientifically projected. The picture is ruined +by the angry caricature of what ought to have been one of the most +important figures in it. To this place the Christian Church is +undeniably entitled, however we may be disposed to strike the balance +between the undoubted injuries and the undoubted advantages which it has +been the means of dealing to the civilisation of the west. Never perhaps +was there so thorough an inversion of the true view of the comparative +elevation of different parts of human character, as is implied in +Condorcet’s strange hint that Cromwell’s satellites would have been much +better men if they had carried instead of the Bible at their saddle-bows +some merry book of the stamp of Voltaire’s <i>Pucelle</i>.<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> + +<p>Apart from the misreading of history in explaining religion by the folly +of the many and the frauds of a few, Condorcet’s interpretation involved +the profoundest infidelity to his own doctrine of the intrinsic purity +and exaltation of human nature. This doctrine ought in all reason to +have led him to look for the secret of the popular acceptance of beliefs +that to him seemed most outrageous, in some pos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">- 237 -</a></span>sibly finer side which +they might possess for others, appealing not to the lower but to the +higher qualities of a nature with instincts of perfection. Take his +account of Purgatory, for instance. The priests, he says, drew up so +minute and comprehensive a table of sins that nobody could hope to +escape from censure. Here you come upon one of the most lucrative +branches of the sacerdotal trafficking; people were taught to imagine a +hell of limited duration, which the priests only had the power to +abridge; and this grace they sold, first to the living, then to the +kinsmen and friends of the dead.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> Now it was surely more worthy of a +belief in the natural depravity than in the natural perfectibility of +the sons of Adam, thus to assume without parley or proviso a base +mercenariness on the one hand, and grovelling terror on the other, as +the origin of a doctrine which was obviously susceptible of a kinder +explanation. Would it not have been more consistent with belief in human +goodness to refer the doctrine to a merciful and affectionate and truly +humanising anxiety to assuage the horrors of what is perhaps the most +frightful idea that has ever corroded human character, the idea of +eternal punishment? We could in part have pardoned Condorcet if he had +striven to invent ever so fanciful origins for opinions and belief in +his solicitude for the credit of humanity. As it is, he distorts the +history of religion only to humanity’s discredit. How, if the people +were always predis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">- 238 -</a></span>posed to virtue, were priests, sprung of the same +people and bred in the same traditions, so invariably and incurably +devoted to baseness and hypocrisy? Was the nature of a priest absolutely +devoid of what physicians call recuperative force, restoring him to a +sound mind, in spite of professional perversion? In fine, if man had +been so grossly enslaved in moral nature from the beginning of the world +down to the year 1789 or thereabouts, how was it possible that +notwithstanding the admitted slowness of civilising processes, he should +suddenly spring forth the very perfectible and nearly perfected being +that Condorcet passionately imagined him to be?<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p> + +<p>It has already been hinted that there was one partial exception to +Condorcet’s otherwise all-embracing animosity against religion. This was +Mahometanism. Towards this his attitude is fully appreciative, though of +course he deplores the superstitions which mixed themselves up with the +Arabian prophet’s efforts for the purification of the men of his nation. +After the seven vials of fiery wrath have been poured out upon the creed +of Palestine, it is refreshing to find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">- 239 -</a></span> the creed of Arabia almost +patronised and praised. The writer who could not have found in his heart +to think Gregory the Great or Hildebrand other than a mercenary +impostor, nor Cromwell other than an ambitious hypocrite, admits with +exquisite blandness of Mahomet that he had the art of employing all the +means of subjugating men <i>avec adresse, mais avec grandeur</i>.<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Another +reason, no doubt, besides his hatred of the Church, lay at the bottom of +Condorcet’s tolerance or more towards Mahometanism. The Arabian +superstition was not fatal to knowledge, Arabian activity in algebra, +chemistry, optics, and astronomy, atoned in Condorcet’s eyes for the +Koran.</p> + +<p>It is fair to add further, that Condorcet showed a more just +appreciation of the effects of Protestantism upon western development +than has been common among French thinkers. He recognises that men who +had learnt, however imperfectly, to submit their religious prejudices to +rational examination, would naturally be likely to extend the process to +political prejudices also. Moreover, if the reformed churches refused to +render to reason all its rights, still they agreed that its prison +should be less narrow; the chain was not broken, but it ceased to be +either so heavy or so short as it had been. And in countries where what +was by the dominant sect insolently styled tolerance succeeded in +establishing itself, it was possible to maintain the tolerated doctrines +with a more or less complete freedom. So there arose in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">- 240 -</a></span> Europe a sort +of freedom of thought, not for men, but for Christians; and, ‘if we +except France, it is only for Christians that it exists anywhere else at +the present day,’ a limitation which has now fortunately ceased to be +altogether exact.<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p> + +<p>If we have smiled at the ease with which what is rank craftiness in a +Christian is toned down into address in a Mahometan, we may be amused +too at the leniency that describes some of the propagandist methods of +the eighteenth century. Condorcet becomes rapturous as he tells in a +paragraph of fine sustention with what admixture of the wisdom of the +serpent the humane philosophers of his century ‘covered the truth with a +veil that prevented it from hurting too weak sight, and left the +pleasure of conjecturing it; caressing prejudices with address, to deal +them the more certain blows; scarcely ever threatening them, nor ever +more than one at once, nor even one in its integrity; sometimes +consoling the enemies of reason by pretending to desire no more than a +half-tolerance in religion and half-liberty in politics; conciliating +despotism while they combated the absurdities of religion, and religion +when they rose against despotism; attacking these two scourges in their +principle, even when they seemed only to bear ill-will to revolting or +ridiculous abuses, and striking these poisonous trees in their very +roots, while they appeared to be doing no more than pruning crooked +branches.’<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> Imagine the holy rage with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">- 241 -</a></span> which such acts would have +been attacked, if Condorcet had happened to be writing about the +Jesuits. Alas! the stern and serene composure of the historical +conscience was as unknown to him as it is always to orthodox apologists. +It is to be said, moreover, that he had less excuse for being without +it, for he rested on the goodness of men, and not, as theologians rest, +on their vileness. It is a most interesting thing, we may notice in +passing, to consider what was the effect upon the Revolution of this +artfulness or prudence with which its theoretic precursors sowed the +seed. Was it as truly wise as Condorcet supposed? Or did it weaken, +almost corrupt, the very roots? Was it the secret of the thoroughness +with which the work of demolition was done? Was it, too, the secret of +the many and disastrous failures in the task of reconstruction?<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">- 242 -</a></span></p> + +<p>There are one or two detached remarks suggested by Condorcet’s picture, +which it may be worth while to make. He is fully alive, for example, to +the importance to mankind of the appearance among them of one of those +men of creative genius, like Archimedes or like Newton, whose lives +constitute an epoch in human history. Their very existence he saw to be +among the greatest benefits conferred on the race by Nature. He hardly +seems to have been struck, on the other hand, with the appalling and +incessant waste of these benefits that goes on; with the number of men +of Newtonian capacity who are undoubtedly born into the world only to +chronicle small beer; with the hosts of high and worthy souls who labour +and flit away like shadows, perishing in the accomplishment of minor and +subordinate ends. We may suspect that the notion of all this +immeasurable profusion of priceless treasures, its position as one of +the laws of the condition of man on the globe, would be unspeakably hard +of endurance to one holding Condorcet’s peculiar form of optimism.</p> + +<p>Again, if we had space, it would be worth while to examine some of the +acute and ingenious hints which Condorcet throws out by the way. It +would be interesting to consider, as he suggests, the influence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">- 243 -</a></span> upon +the progress of the human mind of the change from writing on such +subjects as science, philosophy, and jurisprudence in Latin, to the +usual language of each country. That change rendered the sciences more +popular, but it increased the trouble of the scientific men in following +the general march of knowledge. It caused a book to be read in one +country by more men of inferior competence, but less read throughout +Europe by men of superior light. And though it relieves men who have no +leisure for extensive study from the trouble of learning Latin, it +imposes upon profounder persons the necessity of learning a variety of +modern languages.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> Again, ground is broken for the most important +reflection, in the remark that men preserve the prejudices of their +childhood, their country, and their age, long after they have recognised +all the truths necessary to destroy them.<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> Perhaps most instructive +and most tranquillising of all is this, that the progress of physical +knowledge is constantly destroying in silence erroneous opinions which +had never seemed to be attacked.<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> And in reading history, how much +ignorance and misinterpretation would have been avoided, if the student +had but been careful to remember that ‘the law as written and the law as +administered; the principles of those in power, and the modification of +their action by the sentiments of the governed; an institution as it +emanates from those who form it, and the same institution realised; the +religion of books,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">- 244 -</a></span> and that of the people; the apparent universality of +a prejudice, and the substantial adhesion that it receives; these may +all differ in such a way that the effects absolutely cease to answer to +the public and recognised causes.’<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI.</h2> + + +<p>We have now seen something of Condorcet’s ideas of the past, and of his +conception of what he was perhaps the first to call the Science of Man. +Let us turn to his hopes for the future, and one or two of the details +to which his study of the science of man conducted him. It is well to +perceive at the outset that Condorcet’s views of the Tenth Epoch, as he +counts the period extending from the French Revolution to the era of the +indefinite perfection of man, were in truth not the result of any +scientific processes whatever, properly so called. He saw, and this is +his merit, that such processes were applicable to the affairs of +society; and that, as he put it, all political and moral errors rest +upon error in philosophy, which in turn is bound up with erroneous +methods in physical science.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> But in the execution of his plan he +does not succeed in showing the nature of the relations of these +connected forces; still less does he practise the scientific duty, for +illustrating which he gives such well-deserved glory to Newton,<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> of +not only accounting for phenomena, but also of measuring the <i>quantity</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">- 245 -</a></span> +of forces. His conception, therefore, of future progress, however near +conjecture may possibly have brought him to the truth, is yet no more +than conjecture. The root of it is found in nothing more precise, +definite, or quantified than a general notion gathered from history, +that some portions of the race had made perceptible advances in freedom +and enlightenment, and that we might therefore confidently expect still +further advances to be made in the same direction with an accelerated +rapidity, and with certain advantageous effects upon the happiness of +the whole mass of the human race. In short, the end of the speculation +is a confirmed and heightened conviction of the indefinite +perfectibility of the species, with certain foreshadowings of the +direction which this perfectibility would ultimately follow. The same +rebellion against the disorder and misery of the century, which drove +some thinkers and politicians into fierce yearnings for an imaginary +state of nature, and others into an extravagant admiration for the +ancient republics, caused a third school, and Condorcet among them, to +turn their eyes with equally boundless confidence and yearning towards +an imaginary future. It was at all events the least desperate error of +the three.</p> + +<p>Our expectations for the future, Condorcet held, may be reduced to these +three points: the destruction of inequality among nations; the progress +of equality among the people of any given nation; and, finally the +substantial perfecting <i>(perfectionnement réel)</i> of man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">- 246 -</a></span></p> + +<p>I. With reference to the first of these great aspirations, it will be +brought about by the abandonment by European peoples of their commercial +monopolies, their treacherous practices, their mischievous and +extravagant proselytising, and their sanguinary contempt for those of +another colour or another creed. Vast countries, now a prey to barbarism +and violence, will present in one region numerous populations only +waiting to receive the means and instruments of civilisation from us, +and as soon as they find brothers in the Europeans, will joyfully become +their friends and pupils; and in another region, nations enslaved under +the yoke of despots or conquerors, crying aloud for so many ages for +liberators. In yet other regions, it is true, there are tribes almost +savage, cut off by the harshness of their climate from a perfected +civilisation, or else conquering hordes, ignorant of every law but +violence and every trade but brigandage. The progress of these last two +descriptions of people will naturally be more tardy, and attended by +more storm and convulsion. It is possible even, that reduced in number, +in proportion as they see themselves repulsed by civilised nations, they +will end by insensibly disappearing.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> It is perhaps a little hard to +expect Esquimaux or the barbaric marauders of the sandy expanses of +Central Asia insensibly to disappear, lest by their cheerless presence +they should destroy the unity and harmony of the transformation scene in +the great drama of Perfectibility.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">- 247 -</a></span></p> + +<p>II. The principal causes of the inequality that unfortunately exists +among the people of the same community are three in number:—inequality +in wealth; inequality of condition between the man whose means of +subsistence are both assured and transmissible, and him for whom these +means depend upon the duration of his working life; thirdly, inequality +of instruction. How are we to establish a continual tendency in these +three sources of inequality to diminish in activity and power? To +lessen, though not to demolish, inequalities in wealth, it will be +necessary for all artificial restrictions and exclusive advantages to be +removed from fiscal or other legal arrangements, by which property is +either acquired or accumulated: and among social changes tending in this +direction will be the banishment by public opinion of an avaricious or +mercenary spirit from marriage. Again, inequality between permanent and +precarious incomes will be radically modified by the development of the +application of the calculation of probabilities to life. The extension +of annuities and insurance will not only benefit many individuals, but +will benefit society at large by putting an end to that periodical ruin +of a large number of families, which is such an ever-renewing source of +misery and degradation. Another means to the same end will be found in +discovering, by the same doctrine of probabilities, some other equally +solid base for credit instead of a large capital, and for rendering the +progress of industry and the activity of commerce more inde<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">- 248 -</a></span>pendent of +the existence of great capitalists. Something approaching to equality of +instruction, even for those who can only spare a few of their early +years for study, and in after times only a few hours of leisure, will +become more attainable by improved selection of subjects, and improved +methods of teaching them. The dwellers in one country will cease to be +distinguished by the use of a rude or of a refined dialect; and this, it +may be said in passing, has actually been the result of the school +system in the United States. One portion of them will no longer be +dependent upon any other for guidance in the smallest affairs. We cannot +obliterate nor ignore natural differences of capacity, but after public +instruction has been properly developed, ‘the difference will be between +men of superior enlightenment, and men of an upright character who feel +the value of light without being dazzled by it; between talent or +genius, and that good sense which knows how to appreciate and to enjoy +both. Even if this difference were greater than has been said, if we +compare the force and extent of faculty, it would become none the less +insensible, if we compare their respective effects upon the relations of +men among themselves, upon all that affects their independence and their +happiness.’<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p> + +<p>III. What are the changes that we may expect from the substantial +perfecting of human nature and society? If, before making this forecast, +we reflect with what feeble means the race has arrived at its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">- 249 -</a></span> present +knowledge of useful and important truths, we shall not fear the reproach +of temerity in our anticipations for a time when the force of all these +means shall have been indefinitely increased. The progress of +agricultural science will make the same land more productive, and the +same labour more efficient. Nay, who shall predict what the art of +converting elementary substances into food for our use may one day +become? The constant tendency of population to advance to the limits of +the means of subsistence thus amplified, will be checked by a rising +consciousness in men, that if they have obligations in respect of +creatures still unborn, these obligations consist in giving them, not +existence but happiness, in adding to the wellbeing of the family, and +not cumbering the earth with useless and unfortunate beings. This +changed view upon population will partly follow from the substitution of +rational ideas for those prejudices which have penetrated morals with an +austerity that is corrupting and degrading.<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> The movement will be +further aided by one of the most important steps in human progress—the +destruction, namely, of the prejudices that have established inequality +of rights between the two sexes, and which are so mischievous even to +the sex that seems to be most favoured.<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">- 250 -</a></span> seek in vain for any +justification of such an inequality in difference of physical +organisation, in force of intelligence, or in moral sensibility. It has +no other origin than abuse of strength, and it is to no purpose that +attempts are made to excuse it by sophisms. The destruction of the +usages springing from this custom will render common those domestic +virtues which are the foundation of all others, and will encourage +education as well as make it more general, both because instruction +would be imparted to both sexes with more equality, and because it +cannot become general even for males without the aid of the mother of +the family.<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a></p> + +<p>Among other improvements under our third head will be the attainment of +greater perfection in language,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">- 251 -</a></span> leading at once to increased accuracy +and increased concision. Laws and institutions, following the progress +of knowledge, will be constantly undergoing modifications tending to +identify individual with collective interests. Wars will grow less +frequent with the extinction of those ideas of hereditary and dynastic +rights, that have occasioned so many bloody contests. The art of +learning will be facilitated by the institution of a Universal Language; +and the art of teaching by resort to Technical Methods, or systems which +unite in orderly arrangement a great number of different objects, so +that their relations are perceived at a single glance.<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p> + +<p>Finally, progress in medicine, the use of more wholesome food and +healthy houses, the diminution of the two most active causes of +deterioration, namely, misery and excessive wealth, must prolong the +average duration of life, as well as raise the tone of health while it +lasts. The force of transmissable diseases will be gradually weakened, +until their quality of transmission vanishes. May we then not hope for +the arrival of a time when death will cease to be anything but the +effect either of extraordinary accidents, or of the destruction, ever +slower and slower, of the vital forces? May we not believe that the +duration of the middle interval between birth and this destruction has +no assignable term? Man will never become immortal, but is it a mere +chimera to hold that the term fixed to his years is slowly and +perpetually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">- 252 -</a></span> receding further and further from the moment at which his +existence begins?<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The rapidity and the necessary incompleteness with which Condorcet threw +out in isolated hints his ideas of the future state of society, impart +to his conception a certain mechanical aspect, which conveys an +incorrect impression of his notion of the sources whence social change +must flow. His admirable and most careful remarks upon the moral +training of children prove him to have been as far removed as possible +from any of those theories of the formation of character which merely +prescribe the imposition of moulds and casts from without, instead of +carefully tending the many spontaneous and sensitive processes of growth +within.<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> Nobody has shown a finer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">- 253 -</a></span> appreciation of the delicacy of +the material out of which character is to be made, and of the +susceptibility of its elementary structure; nor of the fact that +education consists in such a discipline of the primitive impulses as +shall lead men to do right, not by the constraint of mechanical external +sanctions, but by an instant, spontaneous, and almost inarticulate +repugnance to cowardice, cruelty, apathy, self-indulgence, and the other +great roots and centres of wrong-doing. It was to a society composed of +men and women whose characters had been shaped on this principle, that +Condorcet looked for the realisation of his exalted hopes for +humanity.<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p> + +<p>With machinery and organisation, in truth, Condorcet did not greatly +concern himself; probably too little rather than too much. The central +idea of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">- 254 -</a></span> his aspirations was to procure the emancipation of reason, +free and ample room for its exercise, and improved competence among men +in the use of it. The subjugation of the modern intelligence beneath the +disembodied fancies of the grotesque and sombre imagination of the +Middle Ages, did not offend him more than the idea of any fixed +organisation of the spiritual power, or any final and settled and +universally accepted solution of belief and order would have done. With +De Maistre and Comte the problem was the organised and systematic +reconstruction of an anarchic society. With Condorcet it was how to +persuade men to exert the individual reason methodically and +independently, not without co-operation, but without anything like +official or other subordination.</p> + +<p>His cardinal belief and precept was, as with Socrates, that the +<span title=" bios anexetastos " class="hoverbox">βίος ἀνεξέταστος</span> is not to be lived by man. As we have +seen, the freedom of the reason was so dear to him, that he counted it +an abuse for a parent to instil his own convictions into the defenceless +minds of his young children. This was the natural outcome of Condorcet’s +mode of viewing history as the record of intellectual emancipation, +while to Comte its deepest interest was as a record of moral and +emotional cultivation. If we value in one type of thinker the +intellectual conscientiousness, which refrains from perplexing men by +propounding problems unless the solution can be set forth also, perhaps +we owe no less honour in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">- 255 -</a></span> thinker of another type to that +intellectual self-denial which makes him very careful lest the too rigid +projection of his own specific conclusions should by any means obstruct +the access of a single ray of fertilising light. This religious +scrupulosity, which made him abhor all interference with the freedom and +openness of the understanding as the worst kind of sacrilege, was +Condorcet’s eminent distinction. If, as some think, the world will +gradually transform its fear or love of unknowable gods into a devout +reverence for those who have stirred in men a sense of the dignity of +their own nature and of its large and multitudinous possibilities, then +will his name not fail of deep and perpetual recollection.<br /><br /><br /></p> + + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Œuv. de Condorcet</i> (12 vols. 1847-49), ix. 489.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> i. 220.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 201. See Turgot’s wise reply, p. 202.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Sept. 1770. Voltaire’s <i>Corr.</i> vol. lxxi. p. 147.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 41.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> <i>Œuv. de Turgot</i>, ii. 817.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 228.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> i. 232.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Letters to Condorcet (1774). <i>Œuv.</i> i. 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Éloge de Franklin</i>, iii. 422.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>Réflexions sur la Rév. de 1688, et sur celle du 10 Août</i>, +xii. 197.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 71.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> i. 73, 74.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 296.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> i. 78.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> i. 89. Condorcet had 16 votes, and Bailly 15. +‘<i>Jamais aucune élection</i>,’ says La Harpe, who was all for Buffon, +‘<i>n’avait offert ni ce nombre ni ce partage</i>.’—<i>Philos. du 18ième +Siècle</i>, i. 77. A full account of the election, and of Condorcet’s +reception, in Grimm’s <i>Corr. Lit.</i> xi. 50-56.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> iii. 109, 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> His wife, said to be one of the most beautiful women of +her time, was twenty-three years younger than himself, and survived +until 1822. Cabanis married another sister, and Marshal Grouchy was her +brother. Madame Condorcet wrote nothing of her own, except some notes to +a translation which she made of Adam Smith’s <i>Theory of Moral +Sentiments</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Montesquieu, Raynal, and one or two other writers, had +attacked slavery long before, and Condorcet published a very effective +piece against it in 1781 (<i>Réflexions sur l’Esclavage des Nègres;</i> +<i>Œuv.</i> vii. 63), with an epistle dedicated to the enslaved blacks. +About the same time an Abolition Society was formed in France, following +the example set in England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> <i>Au Corps Electoral, contre l’Esclavage des Noirs.</i> 3 Fév. +1789. <i>Sur l’Admission des Députés des Planteurs de Saint Domingue.</i> +1789. ix. 469-485.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> <i>Lettres d’un Gentilhomme aux Messieurs du Tiers Etat</i>, +ix. 255-259.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Réflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions à donner par +les Provinces à leurs Députés aux Etats-Généraux</i>, ix. 263, 283.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> ix. 266.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> <i>Réflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions à donner par +les Provinces à leurs Députés aux Etats-Généraux</i>, ix. 264.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> <i>Réflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions à donner par +les Provinces à leurs Députés aux Etats-Généraux</i>, xii. 228, 229, 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> iii. 533. As this was written in 1777, Condorcet +was perhaps thinking of Turgot and Necker. Of the latter, his daughter +tells us repeatedly, without any consciousness that she is recording a +most ignominious trait, that public approbation was the very breath of +his nostrils, the thing for which he lived, the thing without which he +was wretched.—See vol. i. of <i>Madame de Staël’s Considerations</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> iii. 227. It was followed by a letter, nominally +by a young mechanic, offering to construct an automaton sovereign, like +Kempel’s chess-player, who would answer all constitutional purposes +perfectly.—<i>Ib.</i> 239-241.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> xii. 236.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> <i>Déclaration de l’Assemblée Nationale</i>, 29 Déc. 1791. +<i>Œuv.</i> xii. 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> 13th August 1792. <i>Œuv.</i> x. 547.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> x. 560.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> 19th August. <i>Ib.</i> x. 565.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> <i>Opinion sur le Jugement de Louis XVI.</i> Nov. 1792 +<i>Œuv.</i> xii. 267-303.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> 19th Jan. 1793. <i>Œuv.</i> xii. 311.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> See M. Edgar Quinet’s remarks on this achievement. <i>La +Révolution</i>, ii. 110.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> xii. 333, 417. M. Louis Blanc has contrasted the +principles laid down as the basis of this project with Robespierre’s +rival Declaration of the Rights of Man, printing the two side by side in +parallel columns. ‘<i>Les voilà donc face à face, après leur commune +victoire sur le principe d’autorité, ces deux principes d’individualisme +et de fraternité, entre lesquels, aujourd’hui même, le monde balance, +invinciblement ému! D’un côté la philosophie du rationalisme pur, qui +divise; d’un autre côté la philosophie du sentiment, qui rapproche et +réunit. Ici Voltaire et Condorcet, là J. J. Rousseau et Robespierre.</i>’ +<i>Hist. de la Révol. Fran.</i> bk. ix. ch. v.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> <i>Extrait du Moniteur.</i> <i>Œuv.</i> xii. 677.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> The Abbé Morellet, in his narrative of the death of +Condorcet (<i>Mémoires</i>, c. xxiv.), says that he died of poison, a mixture +of stramonium and opium. He adds that the surgeon described death as due +to apoplexy. See Musset-Pathay’s <i>J. J. Rousseau</i>, ii. 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Dupont de Nemours. <i>Les Physiocrates</i>, i. 326.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> <i>Progrès de l’Esprit Humain.</i> <i>Œuv.</i> vi. 276.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Quesnay; <i>Droit Naturel</i>, ch. v. <i>Les Physiocrates</i>, i. +52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> <i>Economistes Financiers du 18ième Siècle.</i> Vauban’s +<i>Projet d’une Dime Royale</i> (p. 33), and Boisguillebert’s <i>Factum de la +France</i>, etc. (p. 248 <i>et seq.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> De la Rivière, for instance, very notably. Cf. his <i>Ordre +Naturel des Sociétés Politiques</i>. <i>Physiocrates</i>, ii. 469, 636, etc. See +also Baudeau on the superiority of the Economic Monarchy <i>Ib.</i> pp. +783-791.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> <i>Ordre Nat. des Soc. Pol.</i> p. 526.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Bk. i. 23.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> <i>Hist.</i> i. 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Polyb. <i>Hist.</i> I. iii. 4; iv. 3, 7.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> The well-known words of Thucydides may contain the germ of +the same idea, when he speaks of the future as being likely to represent +again, after the fashion of human things, ‘if not the very image, yet +the near resemblance of the past.’ Bk. i. 22, 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> <i>Discours en Sorbonne.</i> <i>Œuv. de Turgot</i>, ii. 597. (Ed. +of 1844).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Cf. Sir G. C. Lewis’s <i>Methods of Observation in +Politics</i>, ii. 439, note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <i>Œuv. de Turgot</i>, ii. 599, 645, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> ii. 601.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> <i>Esprit des Lois</i>, xvi. cc. 2-4. And <i>Discours sur +l’Histoire Universelle</i>, in Turgot’s Works, ii. 640, 641. For a further +account of Turgot’s speculations, see article “Turgot” in the present +volume.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> <i>Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmo-Political Plan.</i> +It was translated by De Quincey, and is to be found in vol. xiii. of his +collected works, pp. 133-152.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> <i>Tableau des Progrès de l’Esprit Humain.</i> <i>Œuv.</i> vi. +12, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> vi. 236.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> vi. 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> vi. 186.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> vi. pp. 35, 55, 101, 102, 111, 117, 118, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> <i>Dissertation sur cette question: S’il est utile aux +hommes d’être trompés?</i>—one of the best of Condorcet’s writings. +<i>Œuv.</i> v. 360.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> See Condorcet’s vindication of the <i>Pucelle</i> in his Life +of Voltaire. <i>Œuv.</i> iv. 88, 89. See also Comte’s <i>Phil. Pos.</i> v. +450.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> vi. 118.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> As M. Comte says in his remarks on Condorcet (<i>Phil. Pos.</i> +iv. 185-193): ‘<i>Le progrès total finalement accompli ne peut être sans +doute que le résultat général de l’accumulation spontanée des divers +progrès partiels successivement réalisés depuis l’origine de la +civilisation, en vertu de la marche successivement lente et graduelle de +la nature humaine;</i>’ so that Condorcet’s picture presents a standing +miracle, ‘<i>où l’on s’est même interdit d’abord la ressource vulgaire de +la Providence.</i>’ Comte’s criticism, however, seems to leave out of sight +what full justice Condorcet did to the various partial advances in the +intellectual order.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> vi. 120-123.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> vi. 149, 153.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> 187-189.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> It is worth while to quote on this subject a passage from +Condorcet as historically instructive as it is morally dangerous. ‘<i>La +nécessité de mentir pour désavouer un ouvrage est une extrémité qui +répugne également à la conscience et à la noblesse du caractère; mais le +crime est pour les hommes injustes qui rendent ce désaveu nécessaire à +la sûreté de celui qu’ils y forcent. Si vous avez érigé en crime ce qui +n’en est pas un, si vous avez porté atteinte, par des lois absurdes ou +par des lois arbitraires, au droit naturel qu’ont tous les hommes, non +seulement d’avoir une opinion, mais de la rendre publique, alors vous +méritez de perdre celui qu’a chaque homme d’entendre la vérité de la +bouche d’un autre, droit qui fonde seul l’obligation rigoureuse de ne +pas mentir. S’il n’est pas permis de tromper, c’est parceque tromper +quelqu’un, c’est lui faire un tort, ou s’exposer à lui en faire un; mais +le tort suppose un droit, et personne n’a celui de cherche, à s’assurer +les moyens de commettre une injustice.</i>’ <i>Vie de Voltaire; Œuv.</i> +iv. 33, 34. Condorcet might have found some countenance for his sophisms +in Plato (Republ. ii. 383); but even Plato restricted the privilege of +lying to statesmen (iii. 389). He was in a wiser mood when he declared +(<i>Œuv.</i> v. 384) that it is better to be imprudent than a +hypocrite,—though for that matter these are hardly the only +alternatives.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> vi. 163.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> vi. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> p. 220.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> p. 234.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> p. 223.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> <i>Ib.</i> p. 206.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> pp. 239-244.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> pp. 244-251.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> pp. 257, 258.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Condorcet had already assailed the prejudices that keep +women in subjection in an excellent tract, published in 1790; <i>Sur +l’Admission des Femmes au Droit de Cité.</i> <i>Œuv.</i> x. 121-130.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> p. 264. The rest of the passage is not perfectly +intelligible to me, so I give it as it stands. ‘<i>Cet hommage trop +tardif, rendu enfin à l’équité et au bon sens, ne tarirait-il pas une +source trop féconde d’injustices, de cruautés et de crimes, en faisant +disparaître une opposition si dangereuse entre le penchant naturel le +plus vif, le plus difficile à réprimer, et les devoirs de l’homme ou les +intérêts de la société? Ne produirait-il pas, enfin, des mœurs +nationales douces et pures, formées non de privations orgueilleuses, +d’apparences hypocrites, de réserves imposées par la crainte de la honte +ou les terreurs religieuses, mais d’habitudes librement contractées, +inspirées par la nature, avouées par la raison?</i>’ Can these habitudes be +the habitudes of Free Love, or what are they? Condorcet, we know, +thought the indissolubility of marriage a monstrously bad thing, but the +grounds which he gives for his thinking so would certainly lead to the +infinite dissolubility of society. See a truly astounding passage in the +<i>Fragment on the Tenth Epoch</i>, vi. 523-526. See also some curious words +in a letter to Turgot, i. 221, 222.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> pp. 269-272.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> <i>Œuv.</i> pp. 272-275. Also p. 618.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> See <i>Fragment de l’Histoire de la X<span class="supscr">e</span> Epoque.</i> ‘<i>Il ne +faut pas leur dire, mais les accoutumer à croire, à trouver au dedans +a’eux-mêmes, que la bonté et la justice sont nécessaires au bonheur, +comme une respiration facile et libre l’est à la santé.</i>’ Of books for +the young: ‘<i>Il faut qu’ils n’excédent jamais l’étendue ou la +délicatesse de la sensibilité.</i>’ ‘<i>Il faut renoncer à l’idée de parler +aux enfans de ce que ni leur esprit ni leur âme ne peuvent encore +comprendre; ne pas leur faire admirer une constitution et réciter par +cœur les droits politiques de l’homme quand ils ont à peine une idée +nette de leurs relations avec leur famille et leurs camarades.</i>’ +</p><p> +Still more objectionable, we may be sure, would he have found the +practice of drilling little children by the hearth or at the school-desk +in creeds, catechisms, and the like repositories of mysteries baleful to +the growing intelligence. ‘<i>Aidons le développement des facultés +humaines pendant la faiblesse de l’enfance</i>,’ he said admirably, +‘<i>mais n’abusons pas de cette faiblesse pour les mouler au gré de nos +opinions de nos intérêts, ou de notre orgueil.</i>’—<i>Œuv.</i> vi. 543-554. +</p><p> +Cf. also v. 363-365, where there are some deserved strictures on the +malpractice of teaching children as truth what the parents themselves +believe to be superstition or even falsehood. +</p><p> +The reader may remember the speech of the Patriarch, in Lessing’s play, +against the Jew: +</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0"><i>Der mit Gewalt ein armes Christenkind</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Dem Bunde seiner Tauf’ entreisst! Denn ist</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Nicht alles, was man Kindern thut, Gewalt?</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Zu sagen: ausgenommen, was die Kirch’,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>An Kindern thut.</i><br /></span> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> His <i>Mémoires sur l’Instruction Publique</i>, written in +1791-1792, and printed in the seventh volume of the works, are still +very well worth turning to.</p></div></div> + +<p>Transcribers’ Notes:</p> + +<p>Minor printer errors (omitted or incorrect punctuation) have been +amended without note. Other errors have been amended and are listed +below.</p> + + +<p>List of Amendments:</p> + +<p><a href='#Page_201'>Page 201</a>: colleages amended to colleagues; “... among his colleagues in +the deputation ...”</p> + +<p><a href='#Page_240'>Page 240</a>: added missing footnote anchor [66] to paragraph ending “... +ceased to be altogether exact.”</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + +***** This file should be named 24492-h.htm or 24492-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/4/9/24492/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, René Anderson Benitz and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) + Essay 3: Condorcet + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: February 2, 2008 [EBook #24492] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Rene Anderson Benitz and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +Note: + +Greek words/phrases in the text are noted as +Greek text+. +OE/oe ligatures have not been retained in this version. + + + + +CRITICAL MISCELLANIES + + +BY + +JOHN MORLEY + + +VOL. II. + +Essay 3: Condorcet + + + + +London +MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited +New York: The MacMillan Company +1905 + + + + + + +CONDORCET. + + + + +Condorcet's peculiar position and characteristics 163 + +Birth, instruction, and early sensibility 166 + +Friendship with Voltaire and with Turgot 170, 171 + +Compared with these two great men 172 + +Currents of French opinion and circumstance in 1774 177 + +Condorcet's principles drawn from two sources 180 + +His view of the two English Revolutions 181 + +His life up to the convocation of the States-General 183 + +Energetic interest in the elections 189 + +Want of prevision 191 + +His participation in political activity down to the + end of 1792 193 + +Chosen one of the secretaries of the Legislative Assembly 198 + +Elected to the Convention 200 + +Resistance to the Jacobins, proscription, and death 201 + +Condorcet's tenacious interest in human welfare 210 + +Two currents of thought in France at the middle of + the eighteenth century 215 + +Quesnay and the Physiocrats 216 + +Montesquieu 219 + +Turgot completed Montesquieu's historical conception 222 + +Kant's idea of a Universal or Cosmo-Political History 226 + +Condorcet fuses the conceptions of the two previous + sets of thinkers 229 + +Account of his _Tableau des Progres_ 230 + +Omits to consider history of moral improvement 233 + +And misinterprets the religious element 234 + +His view of Mahometanism 238 + +Of Protestantism 240 + +And of philosophic propagandism 241 + +Various acute remarks in his sketch 243 + +His boundless hopes for the future 244 + +Three directions which our anticipations may take:-- + (1) International equality 246 + (2) Internal equality 247 + (3) Substantial perfecting of nature and society 248 + +Natural view of the formation of character 252 + +Central idea of all his aspirations 253 + + + + +CONDORCET. + + +Of the illustrious thinkers and writers who for two generations had been +actively scattering the seed of revolution in France, only Condorcet +survived to behold the first bitter ingathering of the harvest. Those +who had sown the wind were no more; he only was left to see the reaping +of the whirlwind, and to be swiftly and cruelly swept away by it. +Voltaire and Diderot, Rousseau and Helvetius, had vanished, but +Condorcet both assisted at the Encyclopaedia and sat in the Convention; +the one eminent man of those who had tended the tree, who also came in +due season to partake of its fruit; at once a precursor, and a sharer in +the fulfilment. In neither character has he attracted the goodwill of +any of those considerable sections and schools into which criticism of +the Revolution has been mainly divided. As a thinker he is roughly +classed as an Economist, and as a practical politician he figured first +in the Legislative Assembly, and then in the Convention. Now, as a rule, +the political parties that have most admired the Convention have had +least sympathy with the Economists, and the historians who are most +favourable to Turgot and his followers, are usually most hostile to the +actions and associations of the great revolutionary chamber successively +swayed by a Vergniaud, a Danton, a Robespierre. Between the two, +Condorcet's name has been allowed to lie hidden for the most part in a +certain obscurity, or else has been covered with those taunts and +innuendoes, which partisans are wont to lavish on men of whom they do +not know exactly whether they are with or against them. + +Generally the men of the Revolution are criticised in blocks and +sections, and Condorcet cannot be accurately placed under any of these +received schools. He was an Economist, but he was something more; for +the most characteristic article in his creed was a passionate belief in +the infinite perfectibility of human nature. He was more of a Girondin +than a Jacobin, yet he did not always act, any more than he always +thought, with the Girondins, and he did not fall when they fell, but was +proscribed by a decree specially levelled at himself. Isolation of this +kind is assuredly no merit in political action, but it explains the +coldness with which Condorcet's memory has been treated; it flowed from +some marked singularities both of character and opinion which are of the +highest interest, if we consider the position of the man and the lustre +of that ever-memorable time. 'Condorcet,' said D'Alembert, 'is a volcano +covered with snow.' Said another, less picturesquely: 'He is a sheep in +a passion.' 'You may say of the intelligence of Condorcet in relation +to his person,' wrote Madame Roland, 'that it is a subtle essence soaked +in cotton.' The curious mixture disclosed by sayings like these, of warm +impulse and fine purpose with immovable reserve, only shows that he of +whom they were spoken belonged to the class of natures which may be +called non-conducting. They are not effective, because without this +effluence of power and feeling from within, the hearer or onlooker is +stirred by no sympathetic thrill. They cannot be the happiest, because +consciousness of the inequality between expression and meaning, between +the influence intended and the impression conveyed, must be as +tormenting as to one who dreams is the vain effort to strike a blow. If +to be of this non-conducting temperament is impossible in the really +greatest characters, like St. Paul, St. Bernard, or Luther, at least it +is no proper object of blame, for it is constantly the companion of +lofty and generous aspiration. It was perhaps unfortunate that Condorcet +should have permitted himself to be drawn into a position where his want +of that magical quality by which even Marat could gain the sympathies of +men, should be so conspicuously made visible. The character of +Condorcet, unlike so many of his contemporaries, offers nothing to the +theatrical instinct. None the less on this account should we be willing +to weigh the contributions which he made to the stock of science and +social speculation, and recognise the fine elevation of his sentiments, +his noble solicitude for human wellbeing, his eager and resolute belief +in its indefinite expansion, and the devotion which sealed his faith by +a destiny that was as tragical as any in those bloody and most tragical +days. + + + + +I. + + +Until the outbreak of the Revolution, the circumstances of Condorcet's +life were as little externally disturbed or specially remarkable as +those of any other geometer and thinker of the time. He was born at a +small town in Picardy, in the year 1743. His father was a cavalry +officer, but as he died when his son was only three years old, he could +have exerted no influence upon the future philosopher, save such as +comes of transmission through blood and tissue. Condillac was his uncle, +but there is no record of any intercourse between them. His mother was a +devout and trembling soul, who dedicated her child to the Holy Virgin, +and for eight years or more made him wear the dress of a little girl, by +way of sheltering him against the temptations and unbelief of a vile +world. So long as women are held by opinion and usage in a state of +educational and political subjection, which prevents the growth of a +large intelligence made healthy and energetic by knowledge and by +activity, we may expect pious extravagances of this kind. Condorcet was +weakened physically by much confinement and the constraint of cumbrous +clothing; and not even his dedication to the Holy Virgin prevented him +from growing up the most ardent of the admirers of Voltaire. His +earliest instructors, as happened to most of the sceptical philosophers, +were the Jesuits, then within a few years of their fall. That these +adroit men, armed with all the arts and traditions which their order had +acquired in three centuries, and with the training of the nation almost +exclusively in their hands, should still have been unable to shield +their persons from proscription and their creed from hatred, is a +remarkable instance how little it avails ecclesiastical bodies to have a +monopoly of official education, if the spirit of their teaching be out +of harmony with those most potent agencies which we sum up as the spirit +of the time. The Jesuits were the great official instructors of France +for the first half of the eighteenth century. In 1764 the order was +thrust forth from the country, and they left behind them an army of the +bitterest enemies that Christianity has ever had. To do them justice, +they were destroyed by weapons which they had themselves supplied. The +intelligence which they had developed and sharpened, turned inevitably +against the incurable faults in their own system. They were admirable +teachers of mathematics. Condorcet, instructed by the Jesuits at Rheims, +was able when he was only fifteen years old to go through such +performances in analysis as to win especial applause from illustrious +judges like D'Alembert and Clairaut. It was impossible, however, for +Jesuits, as it has ever been for all enemies of movement, to constrain +within prescribed limits the activity which has once been effectively +stirred. Mathematics has always been in the eyes of the Church a +harmless branch of knowledge, but the mental energy that mathematics +first touched is sure to turn itself by and by to more complex and +dangerous subjects in the scientific hierarchy. + +At any rate, Condorcet's curiosity was very speedily drawn to problems +beyond those which geometry and algebra pretend to solve. 'For thirty +years,' he wrote in 1790, 'I have hardly ever passed a single day +without meditating on the political sciences.'[1] Thus, when only +seventeen, when the ardour of even the choicest spirits is usually most +purely intellectual, moral and social feeling was rising in Condorcet to +that supremacy which it afterwards attained in him to so admirable a +degree. He wrote essays on integral calculus, but he was already +beginning to reflect upon the laws of human societies and the conditions +of moral obligation. At the root of Condorcet's nature was a profound +sensibility of constitution. One of his biographers explains his early +enthusiasm for virtue and human welfare as the conclusion of a kind of +syllogism. It is possible that the syllogism was only the later shape +into which an instinctive impulse threw itself by way of rational +entrenchment. His sensibility caused Condorcet to abandon the barbarous +pleasures of the chase, which had at first powerfully attracted him.[2] +To derive delight from what inflicts pain on any sentient creature +revolted his conscience and offended his reason, because he perceived +that the character which does not shrink from associating its own joy +with the anguish of another, is either found or left mortally blunted to +the finest impressions of humanity. + +It is thus assured that from the beginning Condorcet was unable to +satisfy himself with the mere knowledge of the specialist, but felt the +necessity of placing social aims at the head and front of his life, and +of subordinating to them all other pursuits. That he values knowledge +only as a means to social action, is one of the highest titles to our +esteem that any philosopher can have. Such a temper of mind has +penetrated no man more fully than Condorcet, though there are other +thinkers to whom time and chance have been more favourable in making +that temper permanently productive. There is a fine significance in his +words, after the dismissal of the great and virtuous Turgot from office: +'We have had a delightful dream, but it was too brief. Now I mean to +apply myself to geometry. It is terribly cold to be for the future +labouring only for the _gloriole_, after flattering oneself for a while +that one was working for the public weal.' It is true that a geometer, +too, works for the public weal; but the process is tardier, and we may +well pardon an impatience that sprung of reasoned zeal for the happiness +of mankind. There is something much more attractive about Condorcet's +undisguised disappointment at having to exchange active public labour +for geometrical problems, than in the affected satisfaction +conventionally professed by statesmen when driven from place to their +books. His correspondence shows that, even when his mind seemed to be +most concentrated upon his special studies, he was incessantly on the +alert for every new idea, book, transaction, that was likely to +stimulate the love of virtue in individuals, or to increase the strength +of justice in society. It would have been in one sense more fortunate +for him to have cared less for high social interests, if we remember the +contention of his latter days and the catastrophe which brought them to +a frightful close. But Condorcet was not one of those natures who can +think it happiness to look passively out from the tranquil literary +watch-tower upon the mortal struggles of a society in revolution. In +measuring other men of science--as his two volumes of _Eloges_ +abundantly show--one cannot help being struck by the eagerness with +which he seizes on any trait of zeal for social improvement, any signal +of anxiety that the lives and characters of our fellows should be better +worth having. He was himself too absolutely possessed by this social +spirit to have flinched from his career, even if he had foreseen the +martyrdom which was to consummate it. 'You are very happy,' he once +wrote to Turgot, 'in your passion for the public good and your power to +satisfy it; it is a great consolation, and of an order very superior to +that of study.'[3] + +In 1769, at the age of six-and-twenty, Condorcet became connected with +the Academy, to the mortification of his relations, who hardly pardoned +him for not being a captain of horse as his father had been before him. +About the same time, or a little later, he performed a pilgrimage of a +kind that could hardly help making a mark upon a character so deeply +impressible. In company with D'Alembert he went to Ferney and saw +Voltaire.[4] To the position of Voltaire in Europe in 1770 there has +never been any other man's position in any age wholly comparable. It is +true that there had been one or two of the great popes, and a great +ecclesiastic like St. Bernard, who had exercised a spiritual authority, +pretty universally submitted to, or even spontaneously invoked, +throughout western Europe. But these were the representatives of a +powerful organisation and an accepted system. Voltaire filled a place +before men's eyes in the eighteenth century as conspicuous and as +authoritative as that of St. Bernard in the twelfth. The difference was +that Voltaire's place was absolutely unofficial in its origin, and +indebted to no system nor organisation for its maintenance. Again, there +have been others, like Bacon or Descartes, destined to make a far more +permanent contribution to the ideas which have extended the powers and +elevated the happiness of men; but these great spirits for the most part +laboured for the generation that followed them, and won comparatively +slight recognition from their own age. Voltaire during his life enjoyed +to the full not only the admiration that belongs to the poet, but +something of the veneration that is paid to the thinker, and even +something of the glory usually reserved for captains and conquerors of +renown. No other man before or since ever hit so exactly the mark of his +time on every side, so precisely met the conditions of fame for the +moment, nor so thoroughly dazzled and reigned over the foremost men and +women who were his contemporaries. Wherever else intellectual fame has +approached the fame of Voltaire, it has been posthumous. With him it was +immediate and splendid. Into the secret of this extraordinary +circumstance we need not here particularly inquire. He was an +unsurpassed master of the art of literary expression in a country where +that art is more highly prized than anywhere else; he was the most +brilliant of wits among a people whose relish for wit is a supreme +passion; he won the admiration of the lighter souls by his plays, of the +learned by his interest in science, of the men of letters by his +never-ceasing flow of essays, criticisms, and articles, not one of which +lacks vigour and freshness and sparkle; he was the most active, bitter, +and telling foe of what was then the most justly abhorred of all +institutions--the Church. Add to these remarkable titles to honour and +popularity that he was no mere declaimer against oppression and +injustice in the abstract, but the strenuous, persevering, and +absolutely indefatigable champion of every victim of oppression or +injustice whose case was once brought under his eye. + +It is not difficult to perceive the fascination which Voltaire, with +this character and this unrivalled splendour of public position, would +have for a man like Condorcet. He conceived the warmest attachment to +Voltaire, and Voltaire in turn the highest respect for him. Their +correspondence (1770-1778) is perhaps as interesting as any letters of +that period that we possess: Voltaire is always bright, playful, and +affectionate; Condorcet more declamatory and less graceful, but full of +reverence and loyalty for his 'dear and illustrious' master, and of his +own peculiar eagerness for good causes and animosity against the +defenders of evil ones. Condorcet was younger than the patriarch of +Ferney by nearly half a century, but this did not prevent him from loyal +remonstrances on more than one occasion against conduct on Voltaire's +part in this matter or that, which he held to be unworthy of his +character and reputation. He went so far as actually to decline to print +in the _Mercure_ a letter in which the writer in some fit of spleen +placed Montesquieu below D'Aguesseau. 'My attachment,' he says, 'bids me +say what will be best for you, and not what might please you most. If I +loved you less, I should not have the courage to thwart you. I am aware +of your grievances against Montesquieu; it is worthy of you to forget +them.' There was perhaps as much moral courage in doing this as in +defying the Men of the Mountain in the days of the Terror. It dispels +some false impressions of Voltaire's supposed intolerance of criticism, +to find him thanking Condorcet for one of these friendly protests. He +showed himself worthy of such courageous conduct. 'One sees things ill,' +he writes, 'when one sees them from too far off. After all, we ought +never to blush to go to school if we are as old as Methuselah. I repeat +my acknowledgments to you.'[5] Condorcet did not conceive that either to +be blind to a man's errors or to compromise them is to prove yourself +his friend. There is an integrity of friendship as in public concerns, +and he adhered to it as manfully in one as in the other. Throughout his +intercourse with intimate friends there is that happy and frank play of +direct personal allusion, which is as distinct from flattery when it is +about another, as it is from egoism when it refers to the writer +himself. + +Perhaps we see him most characteristically in his correspondence with +Turgot. What Turgot loved in Condorcet was his 'simplicity of +character.'[6] Turgot was almost as much less vivacious than Condorcet, +as Condorcet was less vivacious than Voltaire. They belonged to quite +distinct types of character, but this may be a condition of the most +perfect forms of sympathy. Each gives support where the other is most +conscious of needing it. Turgot was one of those serene, capacious, and +sure intelligences whose aspirations do not become low nor narrow by +being watchfully held under the control of reason; whose ideas are no +less vigorous or exuberant because they move in a steady and ordered +train; and who, in their most fervent reactions against abuses or +crimes, resist that vehement temptation to excess which is the besetting +infirmity of generous natures. Condorcet was very different from this. +Whatever he wished he wished unrestrainedly. As with most men of the +epoch, the habit of making allowances was not his. We observe something +theological in his hatred of theologians. Even in his letters the +distant ground-swell of repressed passion sounds in the ear, and at +every mention of false opinion or evil-doing a sombre and angry shadow +seems to fall upon the page. Both he and Turgot clung to the doctrine of +the infinite perfectibility of human nature, and the correspondingly +infinite augmentation of human happiness; but Condorcet's +ever-smouldering impetuosity would be content with nothing less than the +arrival of at least a considerable instalment of this infinite quantity +now and instantly. He went so far as to insist that by and by men would +acquire the art of prolonging their lives for several generations, +instead of being confined within the fatal span of threescore years and +ten. He was impatient of any frittering away of life in scruple, +tremors, and hesitations. 'For the most part,' he once wrote to Turgot, +'people abounding in scruple are not fit for great things: a Christian +will throw away in subduing the darts of the flesh the time which he +might have employed on things of use to mankind; or he will lack courage +to rise against a tyrant for fear of his judgment being too hastily +formed.'[7] Turgot's reply may illustrate the difference between the two +men: 'No virtue, in whatever sense you take the word, dispenses with +justice; and I think no more of the people who do great things--as you +say--at the expense of justice, than of poets who fancy they produce +great beauties of imagination without regularity. I know that excessive +exactitude tends slightly to deaden the fire alike of composition and of +action; but there is a mean in everything. It has never been a question +in our controversy of a capuchin who throws away his time in quenching +the darts of the flesh (though by the way, in the total of time thrown +away the term that expresses the time lost in satisfying these lusts is +most likely far greater); no more is it a question of a fool who is +afraid of rising against tyrants for fear of forming a rash +judgment.'[8] + +This ability to conceive a mean case between two extremes was not among +Condorcet's gifts. His mind dwelt too much in the region of excess, +alike when he measured the possibilities of the good, and coloured the +motives and the situation of those whom he counted the bad. A Christian +was one who wasted his days in merely resisting the flesh; anybody who +declined to rise against a tyrant was the victim of a slavish +scrupulosity. He rather sympathises with a scientific traveller, to whom +the especial charm of natural history resides in the buffets which, at +each step that it takes, it inflicts upon Moses.[9] Well, this temper +is not the richest nor the highest, but it often exists in alliance with +rich and high qualities. It was so with Condorcet. And we are +particularly bound to remember that with him a harsh and impatient +humour was not, as is so often the case, the veil for an indolent +reluctance to form painstaking judgments. Few workers have been so +conscientious as he was, in the labour that he bestowed upon subjects +which he held to be worthy of deliberate scrutiny and consideration. His +defect was in finding too few of such subjects, and in having too many +foregone conclusions. Turgot and Montesquieu are perhaps the only two +eminent men in France during this part of the century, of whom the same +defect might not be alleged. Again, Condorcet's impatience of underlying +temperament did not prevent him from filling his compositions with +solid, sober, and profound reflections, the products of grave and +sustained meditation upon an experience, much of which must have been +severely trying and repugnant to a man of his constitution. While +recognising this trait, then, let us not overstate either it or its +consequences. + +The main currents of opinion and circumstance in France, when Condorcet +came to take his place among her workers, are now well understood. The +third quarter of the century was just closing. Lewis XV. died in 1774; +and though his death was of little intrinsic consequence, except as the +removal of every corrupt heart is of consequence, it is justly taken to +mark the date of the beginning of the French Revolution. It was the +accidental shifting of position which served to disclose that the +existing system was smitten with a mortal paralysis. It is often said +that what destroyed the French kingdom was despotism. A sounder +explanation discovers the causes less in despotism than in +anarchy--anarchy in every department where it could be most ruinous. No +substantial reconstruction was possible, because all the evils came from +the sinister interests of the nobles, the clergy, or the financiers; and +these classes, informally bound together against the common weal, were +too strong for either the sovereign or the ablest minister to thrust +them aside. The material condition of France was one of supreme +embarrassment and disorder, only curable by remedies which the political +and social condition of the country made it impossible to employ. + +This would explain why a change of some sort was inevitable. But why was +the change which actually took place in that direction rather than +another? Why did not France sink under her economical disorders, as +greater empires than France had done? Why, instead of sinking and +falling asunder, did the French people advance with a singleness of +impulse unknown before in their history to their own deliverance? How +was it that they overthrew the system that was crushing them, and purged +themselves with fire and sword of those who administered and maintained +it, defying the hopes of the nation; and then successfully encountered +the giant's task of beating back reactionary Europe with one arm, and +reconstructing the fabric of their own society with the other? The +answer to this question is found in the moral and spiritual condition of +France. A generation aroused by the great social ideas of the eighteenth +century, looking round to survey its own social state, found itself in +the midst of the ruin and disorder of the disintegrated system of the +twelfth century. The life was gone out of the ancient organisation of +Catholicism and Feudalism, and it seemed as if nothing but corruption +remained. What enabled the leaders of the nation to discern the horror +and despair of this anarchic dissolution of the worn-out old, and what +inspired them with hope and energy when they thought of the possible +new, was the spiritual preparation that had been in swift progress since +the third decade of the century. The forms and methods of this +preparation were various, as the temperaments that came beneath its +influence. But the school of Voltaire, the school of Rousseau, and the +schools of Quesnay and Montesquieu, different as they were at the roots, +all alike energetically familiarised the public mind with a firm belief +in human reason, and the idea of the natural rights of man. They +impregnated it with a growing enthusiasm for social justice. It is true +that we find Voltaire complaining towards the close of his days, of the +century being satiated and weary, _un siecle degoute_, not knowing well +what it wanted. 'The public,' he said, 'has been eighty years at table, +and now it drinks a little bad cognac at the end of its meal.'[10] In +literature and art this was true; going deeper than these, the public +was eager and sensitive with a freshness far more vital and more +fruitful than it had known eighty years back. Sitting down with a keen +appetite for taste, erudition, and literary knowledge, men had now risen +up from a dazzling and palling board, with a new hunger and thirst after +social righteousness. This was the noble faith that saved France, by +this sign she was victorious. A people once saturated with a passionate +conception of justice is not likely to fall into a Byzantine stage. That +destiny only awaits nations where the spiritual power is rigorously +confined in the hands of castes and official churches, which +systematically and of their very constitution bury justice under the +sterile accumulations of a fixed superstition. + +Condorcet's principles were deeply coloured by ideas drawn from two +sources. He was a Voltairean in the intensity of his antipathies to the +Church, and in the depth and energy of his humanity. But while Voltaire +flourished, the destructive movement only reached theology, and +Voltaire, though he had more to do than anybody else with the original +impulse, joined in no attack upon the State. It was from the economical +writers and from Montesquieu that Condorcet learned to look upon +societies with a scientific eye, to perceive the influence of +institutions upon men, and that there are laws, susceptible of +modification in practice, which regulate their growth. It was natural, +therefore, that he should join with eagerness in the reforming movement +which set in with such irrestrainable velocity after the death of Lewis +XV. He was bitter and destructive with the bitterness of Voltaire; he +was hopeful for the future with the faith of Turgot; and he was urgent, +heated, impetuous, with a heavy vehemence all his own. In a word, he was +the incarnation of the revolutionary spirit, as the revolutionary spirit +existed in geometers and Encyclopaedists; at once too reasonable and too +little reasonable; too precise and scientific and too vague; too +rigorously logical on the one hand and too abundantly passionate on the +other. Perhaps there is no more fatal combination in politics than the +deductive method worked by passion. When applied to the delicate and +complex affairs of society, such machinery with such motive force is of +ruinous potency. + +Condorcet's peculiarities of political antipathy and preference can +hardly be better illustrated than by his view of the two great +revolutions in English history. The first was religious, and therefore +he hated it; the second was accompanied by much argument, and had no +religion about it, and therefore he extolled it. It is scientific +knowledge, he said, which explains why efforts after liberty in +unenlightened centuries are so fleeting, and so deeply stained by +bloodshed. 'Compare these with the happy efforts of America and France; +observe even in the same century, but at different epochs, the two +revolutions of England fanatical and England enlightened. We see on the +one side contemporaries of Prynne and Knox, while crying out that they +are fighting for heaven and liberty, cover their unhappy country with +blood in order to cement the tyranny of the hypocrite Cromwell; on the +other, the contemporaries of Boyle and Newton establish with pacific +wisdom the freest constitution in the world.'[11] It is not wonderful +that his own revolution was misunderstood by one who thus loved English +Whigs, but hated English Republicans; who could forgive an aristocratic +faction grasping power for their order, but who could not sympathise +with a nation rising and smiting its oppressor, where they smote in the +name of the Lord and of Gideon, nor with a ruler who used his power with +noble simplicity in the interests of his people, and established in the +heart of the nation a respect for itself such as she has never known +since, simply because this ruler knew nothing about _principes_ or the +Rights of Man. However, Nemesis comes. By and by Condorcet found himself +writing a piece to show that our Revolution of 1688 was very inferior in +lawfulness to the French Revolution of the Tenth of August.[12] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Oeuv. de Condorcet_ (12 vols. 1847-49), ix. 489. + +[2] _Ib._ i. 220. + +[3] _Oeuv._ i. 201. See Turgot's wise reply, p. 202. + +[4] Sept. 1770. Voltaire's _Corr._ vol. lxxi. p. 147. + +[5] _Oeuv._ i. 41. + +[6] _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 817. + +[7] _Oeuv._ i. 228. + +[8] _Ib._ i. 232. + +[9] _Oeuv._ i. 29. + +[10] Letters to Condorcet (1774). _Oeuv._ i. 35. + +[11] _Eloge de Franklin_, iii. 422. + +[12] _Reflexions sur la Rev. de 1688, et sur celle du 10 Aout_, xii. +197. + + + + +II. + + +The course of events after 1774 is in its larger features well known to +every reader. Turgot, after a month of office at the Admiralty, was in +August made Controller-General of Finance. With his accession to power, +the reforming ideas of the century became practical. He nominated +Condorcet to be Inspector of Coinage, an offer which Condorcet +deprecated in these words: 'It is said of you in certain quarters that +money costs you nothing when there is any question of obliging your +friends. I should be bitterly ashamed of giving any semblance of +foundation to these absurd speeches. I pray you, do nothing for me just +now. Though not rich, I am not pressed for money. Entrust to me some +important task--the reduction of measures for instance; then wait till +my labours have really earned some reward.'[13] In this patriotic spirit +he undertook, along with two other eminent men of science, the task of +examining certain projects for canals which engaged the attention of the +minister. 'People will tell you,' he wrote, 'that I have got an office +worth two hundred and forty pounds. Utterly untrue. We undertook it out +of friendship for M. Turgot; but we refused the payment that was +offered.'[14] We may profitably contrast this devotion to the public +interest with the rapacity of the clergy and nobles, who drove Turgot +from office because he talked of taxing them like their neighbours, and +declined to glut their insatiable craving for place and plunder. + +Turgot was dismissed (May 1776), and presently Necker was installed in +his place. Condorcet had defended with much vigour and some asperity +the policy of free internal trade in corn against Necker, who was for +the maintenance of the restrictions on commercial intercourse between +the different provinces of the kingdom. Consequently, when the new +minister came into office, Condorcet wrote to Maurepas resigning his +post. 'I have,' he said, 'declared too decidedly what I think about both +M. Necker and his works, to be able to keep any place that depends upon +him.'[15] This was not the first taste that Maurepas had had of +Condorcet's resolute self-respect. The Duke de la Vrilliere, one of the +most scandalous persons of the century, was an honorary member of the +Academy, and he was the brother-in-law of Maurepas. It was expected from +the perpetual secretary that he should compose a eulogy upon the +occasion of his death, and Condorcet was warned by friends, who seldom +reflect that a man above the common quality owes something more to +himself than mere prudence, not to irritate the powerful minister by a +slight upon his relation. He was inflexible. 'Would you rather have me +persecuted,' he asked, 'for a wrong than for something just and moral? +Think, too, that they will pardon my silence much more readily than they +would pardon my words, for my mind is fixed not to betray the +truth.'[16] + +In 1782 Condorcet was elected into the Academy. His competitor was +Bailly, over whom he had a majority of one. The true contest lay less +between the two candidates than between D'Alembert and Buffon, who on +this occasion are said to have fought one of the greatest battles in the +not peaceful history of the Academy, for mighty anger burns even in +celestial minds. D'Alembert is said to have exclaimed, we may hope with +some exaggeration, that he was better pleased at winning that victory +than he would have been to find out the squaring of the circle.[17] +Destiny, which had so pitiful a doom in store for the two candidates of +that day, soon closed D'Alembert's share in these struggles of the +learned and in all others. He died in the following year, and by his +last act testified to his trust in the generous character of Condorcet. +Having by the benevolence of a lifetime left himself on his deathbed +without resources, he confided to his friend's care two old and faithful +servants, for whom he was unable to make provision. This charge the +philosopher accepted cheerfully, and fulfilled to the end with pious +scrupulosity. The affection between Condorcet and D'Alembert had been +warm and close as that of some famous pairs of antiquity; a natural +attraction of character had clothed community of pursuit and interest +with the grace of the highest kind of friendship. Even Condorcet's too +declamatory manner only adds a certain dignity to the pathetic passage +with which he closes the noble _eloge_ on his lost friend.[18] Voltaire +had been dead these five years, and Turgot, too, was gone. Society +offered the survivor no recompense. He found the great world tiresome +and frivolous, and he described its pursuits in phrases that are still +too faithful to the fact, as 'dissipation without pleasure, vanity +without meaning, and idleness without repose.' It was perhaps to soften +the oppression of these cruel and tender regrets that in 1786 Condorcet +married.[19] + +Events were now very close at hand, in comparison with which even the +most critical private transactions of Condorcet's life were pale and +insignificant. In the tranquil seasons of history, when the steady +currents of circumstance bear men along noiseless, the importance of the +relations which we contract seems superlative; in times of storm and +social wreck these petty fortunes and private chances are engulfed and +lost to sight. The ferment was now rapidly rising to its intensest +height, and Condorcet was the last man in France to remain cold to the +burning agitations of the time. We have already seen how decidedly ten +years ago he expressed his preference for political activity over the +meditative labours of the student. He now threw himself into the +Revolution with all the force of an ardent character imbued with fixed +and unalterable convictions. We may well imagine him deploring that the +great ones whom he had known, the immortal Voltaire, the lofty-souled +Turgot, had been carried away by the unkind gods, before their eyes had +seen the restoration of their natural rights to men, and the reign of +justice on the earth. The gods after all were kinder than he knew, for +they veiled from the sight of the enthusiast of '89 the spectres of '93. +History might possibly miss most of its striking episodes, if every +actor could know the work to which he was putting his hand; and even +Condorcet's faith might have wavered if he had known that between him +and the fulfilment of his desires there was to intrude a long and +deplorable period of despotism and corruption. Still, the vision which +then presented itself to the eyes of good men was sublime; and just as, +when some noble and devoted character has been taken away from us, it is +a consolation to remember that we had the happiness of his friendship, +so too when a generation awakes from one of these inspiring social +dreams, the wreck of the aspiration is not total nor unrecompensed. The +next best thing to the achievement of high and generous aims is to have +sought them. + +During the winter of '88 and '89, while all France was astir with +elections and preparation for elections for that meeting of the +States-General, which was looked to as the nearing dawn after a long +night of blackness and misery, Condorcet thought he could best serve +the movement by calling the minds of the electors to certain sides of +their duty which they might be in some danger of overlooking. One of the +subjects, for example, on which he felt most strongly, but on which his +countrymen have not shown any particular sensibility, was slavery and +the slave trade.[20] With a terseness and force not always +characteristic of his writings, he appealed to the electors, while they +were reclaiming their own rights in the name of justice, not to forget +the half-million blacks, whose rights had been still more shamefully +torn away from them, and whose need of justice was more urgent than +their own. In the same spirit he published a vehement and ingenious +protest against the admission of representatives from the St. Domingo +plantations to the National Assembly, showing how grossly inconsistent +it was with every idea of a free and popular chamber that men should sit +as representatives of others who had never chosen them, and that they +should invoke natural rights in their own favour, when at the same +instant they were violating the most elementary and undisputed natural +rights of mankind in their own country.[21] + +Of general precepts he never tired; one series of them followed another. +To us many of them may seem commonplace; but we should reflect that the +election of representatives was an amazing novelty in France, and +Condorcet knew men well enough to be aware of the hazards of political +inexperience. Beware of choosing a clever knave, he said, because he +will follow his own interest and not yours; but at the same time beware +of choosing a man for no better reason than that he is honest, because +you need ability quite as much as you need probity. Do not choose a man +who has ever taken sides against the liberty of any portion of mankind; +nor one whose principles were never known until he found out that he +wanted your votes. Be careful not to mistake heat of head for heat of +soul; because what you want is not heat but force, not violence but +steadfastness. Be careful, too, to separate a man's actions from the +accidents of his life; for one may be the enemy or the victim of a +tyrant without being the friend of liberty. Do not be carried away by a +candidate's solicitations; but at the same time, make allowance for the +existing effervescence of spirits. Prefer those who have decided +opinions to those who are always inventing plans of conciliation; those +who are zealous for the rights of man to those who only profess pity for +the misfortunes of the people; those who speak of justice and reason, to +those who speak of political interests and of the prosperity of +commerce. Distrust those who appeal to sentiment in matters that can be +decided by reason; prefer light to eloquence; and pass over those who +declare themselves ready to die for liberty, in favour of those who know +in what liberty consists.[22] + +In another piece he drew up a list of the rights which the nation had a +claim to have recognised, such as the right to make laws, to exact +responsibility from the ministers of the crown, to the protection of +personal liberty, and to the legal administration of justice by regular +judges. These rights he declared it to be the first duty of the Assembly +to draw up in a chart that should be the chief corner-stone of the new +constitution. Then he proceeded to define the various tasks to which he +conceived that the legislative body should forthwith apply itself; and +among them, be it said, is no mention of any of those projects of +confiscation which circumstances so speedily forced upon the Assembly +when it met.[23] + +Though many of these precepts designed to guide the electors in their +choice of men are sagacious and admirable, they smack strongly of that +absolute and abstract spirit which can never become powerful in politics +without danger. It is certain that in the spring of '89, Condorcet held +hereditary monarchy to be most suitable to 'the wealth, the population, +the extent of France, and to the political system of Europe.'[24] Yet +the reasons which he gives for thinking this are not very cogent, and +he can hardly have felt them to be so. It is significant, however, of +the little distance which all the most uncompromising and most +thoughtful revolutionists saw in front of them, that even Condorcet +should, so late as the eve of the assembly of the States-General, have +talked about attachment to the forms of monarchy and respect for the +royal person and prerogative; and should have represented the notion of +the property of the Church undergoing any confiscation, as an invention +of the enemies of freedom.[25] Before the year was out, the property of +the Church had undergone confiscation; before two years had gone he was +an ardent Republican; and in less than twelve months after that he had +voted the guilt of the king. + +It is worth while to cite here a still more pointed example of the want +of prevision, so common and so intelligible at that time. Writing in +July 1791, he confutes those who asserted that an established and +limited monarchy was a safeguard against a usurper, whose power is only +limited by his own audacity and address, by pointing out that the extent +of France, its divisions into departments, the separation between the +various branches of the administration, the freedom of the press, the +multitude of the public prints, were all so many insurmountable barriers +against a French Cromwell. 'To anybody who has read with attention the +history of the usurpation of Cromwell, it is clear that a single +newspaper would have been enough to stop his success. It is clear that +if the people of England had known how to read other books beside their +Bible, the hypocritical tyrant, unmasked from his first step, would soon +have ceased to be dangerous.' Again, is the nation to be cajoled by some +ambitious general, gratifying its desire to be an empire-race? 'Is this +what is asked by true friends of liberty, those who only seek that +reason and right should have empire over men? _What provinces, conquered +by a French general, will he despoil to buy our suffrages? Will he +promise our soldiers, as the consuls promised the citizens of Rome, the +pillage of Spain or of Syria?_ No, assuredly; it is because we cannot be +an empire-nation that we shall remain a free nation.'[26] How few years, +alas, between this conclusive reasoning, and the pillage of Italy, the +campaign in Syria, the seizure of Spain! + +Condorcet was not a member of the Assembly in whose formation and +composition he had taken so vivid and practical an interest. The first +political functions which he was invited to undertake were those of a +member of the municipality of Paris. In the tremendous drama of which +the scenes were now opening, the Town-hall of Paris was to prove itself +far more truly the centre of movement and action than the Constituent +Assembly. The efforts of the Constituent Assembly to build up were tardy +and ineffectual. The activity of the municipality of Paris in pulling +down was after a time ceaseless, and it was thoroughly successful. The +first mayor was the astronomer Bailly, Condorcet's defeated competitor +at the Academy. With the fall of the Bastille, summary hangings at the +nearest lantern-post, October insurrection of women, and triumphant and +bloody compulsion of king, queen, and Assembly to Paris from Versailles, +the two rivals, now colleagues, must have felt that the contests for +them were indeed no longer academic. The astronomy of the one and the +geometry of the other were for ever done with; and Condorcet's longing +for active political life in preference to mere study was gratified to +the very full. + +Unhappily or not, the movement was beyond the control of anybody who, +like Condorcet, had no other force than that of disciplined reason and +principle. The Bastille no sooner fell, than the Revolution set in with +oceanic violence, in the face of which patriotic intention and +irrefragable arguments, even when both intention and arguments were +loyally revolutionary, were powerless to save the State. In crises of +this overwhelming kind, power of reasoning does not tell and mere +goodwill does not tell. Exaltation reaches a pitch at which the physical +sensibilities are so quickened as to be supreme over the rest of the +nature; and in these moods it is the man gifted with the physical +quality, as mysterious and indescribable as it is resistless, of a +Marat, to take a bad example, or a Danton, to take a good one, who can +'ride the whirlwind and direct the storm.' Of this quality Condorcet +had nothing. His personal presence inspired a decent respect, but no +strong emotion either of fear or admiration or physical sympathy. His +voice was feeble, his utterance indistinct; and he never got over that +nervous apprehension which the spectacle of large and turbulent crowds +naturally rouses in the student. In a revolution after the manner of +Lord Somers he would have been invaluable. He thoroughly understood his +own principles, and he was a master of the art, so useful in its place +and time and so respectable in all places and times, of considering +political projects point by point with reference to a definite framework +of rational ideas. But this was no time for such an art; this was not a +revolution to be guided by reason, not even reason like Condorcet's, +streaked with jacobinical fibre. The national ideas in which it had +arisen had transformed themselves into tumultuous passion, and from this +into frenzied action. + +Every politician of real eminence as a reformer possesses one of three +elements. One class of men is inspired by an intellectual attachment to +certain ideas of justice and right reason: another is moved by a deep +pity for the hard lot of the mass of every society: while the third, +such men as Richelieu for example, have an instinctive appreciation and +passion for wise and orderly government. The great and typical ruler is +moved in varying degrees by all three in modern times, when the claims +of the poor, the rank and file of the social army, have been raised to +the permanent place that belongs to them. Each of the three types has +its own peculiar conditions of success, and there are circumstances in +which some one of the three is more able to grapple with the obstacles +to order than either of the other two. It soon became very clear that +the intellectual quality was not the element likely to quell the tempest +that had arisen now. + +Let it be said, however, that Condorcet showed himself no pedantic nor +fastidious trifler with the tremendous movement which he had contributed +to set afoot. The same practical spirit which drove him into the strife, +guided him in the midst of it. He never wrung his hands, nor wept, nor +bewailed the unreason of the multitudes to whom in vain he preached +reason. Unlike the typical man of letters--for he was without vanity--he +did not abandon the cause of the Revolution because his suggestions were +often repulsed. 'It would be better,' he said to the Girondins, 'if you +cared less for personal matters and attended only to public interests.' +Years ago, in his _eloge_ on L'Hopital, he had praised the famous +Chancellor for incurring the hostility of both of the two envenomed +factions, the League and the Huguenots, and for disregarding the +approbation or disapprobation of the people. 'What operation,' he asked, +'capable of producing any durable good, can be understood by the people? +How should they know to what extent good is possible? How judge of the +means of producing it? It must ever be easier for a charlatan to mislead +the people, than for a man of genius to save it.'[27] Remembering this +law, he never lost patience. He was cool and intrepid, if his +intrepidity was of the logical sort rather than physical; and he was +steadfast to one or two simple aims, if he was on some occasions too +rapid in changing his attitude as to special measures. He was never +afraid of the spectre, as the incompetent revolutionist is. On the +contrary, he understood its whole internal history; he knew what had +raised it, what passion and what weakness gave to it substance, and he +knew that presently reason would banish it and restore men to a right +mind. The scientific spirit implanted in such a character as +Condorcet's, and made robust by social meditation, builds up an +impregnable fortitude in the face of incessant rebuffs and +discouragements. Let us then picture Condorcet as surveying the terrific +welter from the summer of 1789 to the summer of 1793, from the taking of +the Bastille to the fall of the Girondins, with something of the +firmness and self-possession of a Roman Cato. + +After the flight of the king in June, and his return in what was +virtually captivity to Paris, Condorcet was one of the party, very small +in numbers and entirely discountenanced by public opinion, then passing +through the monarchical and constitutional stage, who boldly gave up the +idea of a monarchy and proclaimed the idea of a republic. In July (1791) +he published a piece strongly arguing for a negative answer to the +question whether a king is necessary for the preservation of +liberty.[28] In one sense, this composition is favourable to Condorcet's +foresight; it was not every one who saw with him that the destruction of +the monarchy was inevitable after the royal flight. This want of +preparation in the public mind for every great change as it came, is one +of the most striking circumstances of the Revolution, and it explains +the violent, confused, and inadequate manner in which nearly every one +of these changes was made. It was proposed at that time to appoint +Condorcet to be governor to the young dauphin. But Condorcet in this +piece took such pains to make his sentiments upon royalty known, that in +the constitutional frame of mind in which the Assembly then was, the +idea had to be abandoned. It was hardly likely that a man should be +chosen for such an office, who had just declared the public will to be +'that the uselessness of a king, the needfulness of seeking means of +displacing a power founded on illusions, should be one of the first +truths offered to his reason; the obligation of concurring in this +himself, one of the first of his moral duties; and the desire not to be +freed from the yoke of law by an insulting inviolability, the first +sentiment of his heart. People are well aware that at this moment the +object is much less how to mould a king, than to teach him not to wish +to be one.'[29] As all France was then bent on the new constitution, a +king included, Condorcet's republican assurance was hardly warranted, +and it was by no means well received. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] _Oeuv._ i. 71. + +[14] _Ib._ i. 73, 74. + +[15] _Oeuv._ i. 296. + +[16] _Ib._ i. 78. + +[17] _Oeuv._ i. 89. Condorcet had 16 votes, and Bailly 15. '_Jamais +aucune election_,' says La Harpe, who was all for Buffon, '_n'avait +offert ni ce nombre ni ce partage_.'--_Philos. du 18ieme Siecle_, i. 77. +A full account of the election, and of Condorcet's reception, in Grimm's +_Corr. Lit._ xi. 50-56. + +[18] _Oeuv._ iii. 109, 110. + +[19] His wife, said to be one of the most beautiful women of her time, +was twenty-three years younger than himself, and survived until 1822. +Cabanis married another sister, and Marshal Grouchy was her brother. +Madame Condorcet wrote nothing of her own, except some notes to a +translation which she made of Adam Smith's _Theory of Moral Sentiments_. + +[20] Montesquieu, Raynal, and one or two other writers, had attacked +slavery long before, and Condorcet published a very effective piece +against it in 1781 (_Reflexions sur l'Esclavage des Negres_; _Oeuv._ +vii. 63), with an epistle dedicated to the enslaved blacks. About the +same time an Abolition Society was formed in France, following the +example set in England. + +[21] _Au Corps Electoral, contre l'Esclavage des Noirs._ 3 Fev. 1789. +_Sur l'Admission des Deputes des Planteurs de Saint Domingue._ 1789. ix. +469-485. + +[22] _Lettres d'un Gentilhomme aux Messieurs du Tiers Etat_, ix. +255-259. + +[23] _Reflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions a donner par les +Provinces a leurs Deputes aux Etats-Generaux_, ix. 263, 283. + +[24] _Ib._ ix. 266. + +[25] _Reflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions a donner par les +Provinces a leurs Deputes aux Etats-Generaux_, ix. 264. + +[26] _Reflexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions a donner par les +Provinces a leurs Deputes aux Etats-Generaux_, xii. 228, 229, 234. + +[27] _Oeuv._ iii. 533. As this was written in 1777, Condorcet was +perhaps thinking of Turgot and Necker. Of the latter, his daughter tells +us repeatedly, without any consciousness that she is recording a most +ignominious trait, that public approbation was the very breath of his +nostrils, the thing for which he lived, the thing without which he was +wretched.--See vol. i. of _Madame de Stael's Considerations_. + +[28] _Oeuv._ iii. 227. It was followed by a letter, nominally by a young +mechanic, offering to construct an automaton sovereign, like Kempel's +chess-player, who would answer all constitutional purposes +perfectly.--_Ib._ 239-241. + +[29] _Oeuv._ xii. 236. + + + + +III. + + +When the Constitution was accepted and the Legislative Assembly came to +be chosen, Condorcet proved to have made so good an impression as a +municipal officer, that the Parisians returned him for one of their +deputies. The Declaration of Pilnitz in August 1791 had mitigated the +loyalty that had even withstood the trial of the king's flight. When the +Legislative Assembly met, it was found to contain an unmistakable +element of republicanism of marked strength. Condorcet was chosen one of +the secretaries, and he composed most of those multitudinous addresses +in which this most unfortunate and least honoured of all parliamentary +chambers tried to prove to the French people that it was actually in +existence and at work. Condorcet was officially to the Legislative what +Barere afterwards was to the Convention. But his addresses are turgid, +labouring, and not effective for their purpose. They have neither the +hard force of Napoleon's proclamations, nor the flowery eloquence of +the Anacreon of the Guillotine. To compose such pieces well under such +circumstances as those of the Assembly, a man must have much imagination +and perhaps a slightly elastic conscience. Condorcet had neither one nor +the other, but only reason--a hard anvil, out of which he laboriously +struck flashes and single sounds. + +Perhaps, after all, nobody else could have done better. The situation of +the Assembly, between a hostile court and a suspicious and distrustful +nation, and unable by its very nature to break the bonds, was from the +beginning desperate. In December 1791 the Legislative through its +secretary informs France of the frankness and loyalty of the king's +measures in the face of the menaces of foreign war.[30] Within eight +months, when the king's person was in captivity and his power suspended, +the same secretary has to avow that from the very beginning the king had +treated the Assembly with dissimulation, and had been in virtual league +with the national enemies. The documents issued by the Assembly after +the violent events of the Tenth of August 1792 are not edifying, and +imply in Condorcet, who composed them, a certain want of eye for +revolutionary methods. They mark the beginning of that short but most +momentous period in the history of the Revolution, when formulas, as Mr. +Carlyle says, had to be stretched out until they cracked--a process +truly called, 'especially in times of swift change, one of the +sorrowfullest tasks poor humanity has.' You might read the _Exposition +of the Motives from which the National Assembly have proclaimed the +Convention, and suspended the Executive Power of the King_,[31] without +dreaming that it is an account of a revolution which arose out of +distrust or contempt for the Assembly, which had driven the king away +from his palace and from power, and which had finally annihilated the +very chamber that was thus professing to expound its motives for doing +what the violence of Paris had really done in defiance of it. The power, +in fact, was all outside the chamber, in Danton and the Commune. Under +such circumstance it is of no interest to men to learn that 'in the +midst of these disasters the National Assembly, afflicted but calm, took +its oath to maintain equality and liberty, or to die at its post; took +the oath to save France, and looked about for means.'[32] Still more +impotent and hollow, because still more pompous, is the address of six +days later.[33] A few days after this, occurred the massacres of +prisoners in September--scenes very nearly, if not quite, as bloody and +iniquitous as those which attended the suppression of the rebellion in +Ireland six years afterwards by English troops. + +When the Convention was chosen, the electors of Paris rejected +Condorcet. He was elected, however (Sept. 6), for the department of the +Aisne, having among his colleagues in the deputation Tom Paine, and--a +much more important personage--the youthful Saint-Just, who was so soon +to stupefy the Convention by exclaiming, with mellow voice and face set +immovable as bronze: 'An individual has no right to be either virtuous +or celebrated in your eyes. A free people and a national assembly are +not made to admire anybody.' The electors of the department of the Aisne +had unconsciously sent two typical revolutionists: the man of +intellectual ideas, and the man of passion heated as in the pit. In +their persons the Encyclopaedia and the Guillotine met. Condorcet, who +had been extreme in the Legislative, but found himself a moderate in the +Convention, gave wise counsel as to the true policy towards the new +members: 'Better try to moderate them than quarrel.' But in this case, +not even in their ruin, were fire and water reconciled. + +On the first great question that the Convention had to decide--the fate +of the king--Condorcet voted on the two main issues very much as a wise +man would have voted, knowing the event as we know it. He voted that the +king was guilty of conspiring against liberty, and he voted for the +punishment of exile in preference to that of death. On the intermediate +issue, whether the decision of the Convention should be final, or should +be submitted to the people for ratification, he voted as a wise man +should not have done, in favour of an appeal to the people. Such an +appeal must inevitably have led to violent and bloody local struggles, +and laid France open to the enemy. It is a striking circumstance that, +though Condorcet thus voted that the king was guilty, he had previously +laid before the Convention a most careful argument to show that they +were neither morally nor legally competent to try the king at all. How, +he asked, without violating every principle of jurisprudence, can you +act at the same time as legislators constituting the crime, as accusers, +and as judges? His proposal was that Lewis XVI. should be tried by a +tribunal whose jury and judges should be named by the electoral body of +the departments.[34] With true respect for Condorcet's honourable +anxiety that the conditions of justice should be rigorously +observed--for, as he well said, 'there is no liberty in a country where +positive law is not the single rule of judicial proceedings'--it is +difficult to see why the Convention, coming as it did fresh from the +electoral bodies, who must have had the question what was to be done +with the imprisoned king foremost in their minds, why the members of the +Convention should not form as legitimate a tribunal as any body whose +composition and authority they had themselves defined and created, and +which would be chosen by the very same persons who less than a month +before had invested them with their own offices. Reading this most +scrupulous and juristic composition, we might believe the writer to have +forgotten that France lay mad and frenzied outside the hall where he +stood, and that in political action the question what is possible is at +least as important as what is compatible with the maxims of scientific +jurisprudence. It was to Condorcet's honour as a jurisconsult that he +should have had so many scruples; it is as much to his credit as a +politician that he laid them aside and tried the king after all. + +It is highly characteristic of Condorcet's tenacity of his own view of +the Revolution and of its methods, that on the Saturday (January 19, +1793) when the king's fate was decided against Condorcet's conviction +and against his vote--the execution taking place on the Monday +morning--he should have appealed to the Convention, at all events to do +their best to neutralise the effect of their verdict upon Europe, by +instantly initiating a series of humane reforms in the law among them, +including the abolition of the punishment of death. 'The English +ministers,' he cried, 'are now seeking to excite that nation against us. +Do you suppose that they will venture to continue their calumnious +declamations, when you can say to them: "We have abolished the penalty +of death, while you still preserve it for the theft of a few shillings? +You hand over debtors to the greed or spite of their creditors; our +laws, wiser and more humane, know how to respect poverty and misfortune. +Judge between us and you, and see to which of the two peoples the +reproach of inhumanity may be addressed with most justice."'[35] This +was the eve of the Terror. Well may Comte distinguish Condorcet as the +one philosopher who pursued in the midst of the tempest his regenerating +meditations. + +But let us banish the notion that the history of the Convention is only +the history of the guillotine. No chamber in the whole annals of +governing assemblies ever displayed so much alertness, energy, and +capacity, in the face of difficulties that might well have crushed them. +Besides their efforts, justly held incomparable, to hurl back the enemy +from the frontiers, they at once in the spirit of Condorcet's speech, +made at so strange a season, set vigorously about the not less noble +task of legal reforms and political reorganisation. The unrivalled +ingenuity and fertility of the French character in all the arts of +compact and geometric construction never showed itself so supreme. The +civil code was drawn up in a month.[36] Constitutions abounded. Cynical +historians laugh at the eagerness of the nation, during the months that +followed the deposition of the king, to have a constitution; and, so far +as they believed or hoped that a constitution would remedy all ills, +their faith was assuredly not according to knowledge. It shows, however, +the fundamental and seemingly ineradicable respect for authority which +their history has engendered in the French, that even in this, their +most chaotic hour, they craved order and its symbols. + +Condorcet, along with Tom Paine, Sieyes, and others, was a member of +the first committee for framing a constitution. They laboured +assiduously from September to February 1793, when the project was laid +upon the table, prefaced by an elaborate dissertation of Condorcet's +composition.[37] The time was inauspicious. The animosities between the +Girondins and the Mountain were becoming every day more furious and +deadly. In the midst of this appalling storm of rage and hate and +terror, Condorcet--at one moment wounding the Girondins by reproaches +against their egotism and personalities, at another exasperating the +Mountain by declaring of Robespierre that he had neither an idea in his +head nor a feeling in his heart--still pertinaciously kept crying out +for the acceptance of his constitution. It was of no avail. The +revolution of the second of June came, and swept the Girondins out of +the Chamber. Condorcet was not among them, but his political days were +numbered. 'What did you do all that time?' somebody once asked of a +member of the Convention, during the period which was now beginning and +which lasted until Thermidor in 1794. 'I lived,' was the reply. +Condorcet was of another temper. He cared as little for his life as +Danton or Saint-Just cared for theirs. Instead of cowering down among +the men of the Plain or the frogs of the Marsh, he withstood the +Mountain to the face. + +Herault de Sechelles, at the head of another committee, brought in a new +constitution which was finally adopted and decreed (June 24, 1793). Of +this, Sieyes said privately, that it was 'a bad table of contents.' +Condorcet denounced it publicly, and, with a courage hardly excelled, he +declared in so many words that the arrest of the Girondins had destroyed +the integrity of the national representation. The Bill he handled with a +severity that inflicted the keenest smarts on the self-love of its +designers. A few days later, the Capucin Chabot, one of those weak and +excitable natures that in ordinary times divert men by the intensity, +multiplicity, and brevity of their enthusiasms, but to whom the fiercer +air of such an event as the Revolution is a real poison, rose and in the +name of the Committee of General Security called the attention of the +Chamber to what he styled a sequel of the Girondist Brissot. This was no +more nor less than Condorcet's document criticising the new +constitution. 'This man,' said Chabot, 'has sought to raise the +department of the Aisne against you, imagining that, because he has +happened to sit by the side of a handful of _savants_ of the Academy, +it is his duty to give laws to the French Republic.'[38] So a decree +was passed putting Condorcet under arrest. His name was included in the +list of those who were tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal on the +Third of October for conspiring against the unity and indivisibility of +the Republic. He was condemned in his absence, and declared to be _hors +la loi_. + +This, then, was the calamitous close of his aspirations from boyhood +upwards to be permitted to partake in doing something for the common +weal. He had still the work to perform by which posterity will best +remember his name, though only a few months intervened between his +flight and his most cruel end. When the decree against him was enacted +he fled. Friends found a refuge for him in the house of a Madame Vernet, +a widow in moderate circumstances, who let lodgings to students, and one +of those beneficent characters that show us how high humanity can reach. +'Is he an honest and virtuous man?' she asked; 'in that case let him +come, and lose not a moment. Even while we talk he may be seized.' The +same night Condorcet intrusted his life to her keeping, and for nine +months he remained in hiding under her roof. When he heard of the +execution of the Girondins condemned on the same day with himself, he +perceived the risk to which he was subjecting his protectress, and made +up his mind to flee. 'I am an outlaw,' he said, 'and if I am discovered +you will be dragged to the same death.' 'The Convention,' Madame Vernet +answered, with something of the heroism of more notable women of that +time, 'may put you out of the law; it has not the power to put you out +of humanity. You stay.' This was no speech of the theatre. The whole +household kept the most vigorous watch over the prisoner thus generously +detained, and for many months Madame Vernet's humane firmness was +successful in preventing his escape. This time--his soul grievously +burdened by anxiety as to the fate of his wife and child, and by a +restless eagerness not to compromise his benefactress, a bloody death +staring him every moment in the face--Condorcet spent in the +composition, without the aid of a single book, of his memorable work on +the progress of the human mind. Among the many wonders of an epoch of +portents, this feat of intellectual abstraction is not the least +amazing. + +When his task was accomplished, Condorcet felt with more keenness than +ever the deadly peril in which his presence placed Madame Vernet. He was +aware that to leave her house was to seek death, but he did not fear. He +drew up a paper of directions to be given one day to his little +daughter, when she should be of years to understand and follow them. +They are written with minute care, and though tender and solicitous, +they show perfect composure. His daughter is above all things to banish +from her mind every revengeful sentiment against her father's enemies; +to distrust her filial sensibility, and to make this sacrifice for her +father's own sake. This done, he marched downstairs, and having by an +artful stratagem thrown Madame Vernet off her guard, he went out at ten +o'clock in the morning imperfectly disguised into the street. This was +the fifth of April 1794. By three in the afternoon, exhausted by fatigue +which his strict confinement for nine months made excessive, he reached +the house of a friend in the country, and prayed for a night's shelter. +His presence excited less pity than alarm. The people gave him +refreshment, and he borrowed a little pocket copy of Horace, with which +he went forth into the loneliness of the night. He promised himself +shelter amid the stone quarries of Clamart. What he suffered during this +night, the whole day of the sixth of April, the night, and again the +next day, there is no one to tell. + +The door of the house in the Rue Servandoni was left on the latch night +and day for a whole week. But Madame Vernet's generous hope was in vain; +while she still hoped and watched, the end had come. On the evening of +the seventh, Condorcet, with one of his legs torn or broken, his +garments in rags, with visage gaunt and hunger-stricken, entered an inn +in the hamlet of Clamart, and called for an omelette. Asked how many +eggs he would have in it, the famishing man answered a dozen. +Carpenters, for such he had given himself to be, do not have a dozen +eggs in their omelettes. Suspicion was aroused, his hands were not the +hands of a workman, and he had no papers to show, but only the pocket +Horace. The villagers seized him and hastened to drag him, bound hand +and foot, to Bourg-la-Reine, then called for a season Bourg-l'Egalite. +On the road he fainted, and they set him on a horse offered by a pitying +wayfarer. When they reached the prison, Condorcet, starving, bleeding, +way-worn, was flung into his cell. On the morrow, when the gaolers came +to seek him, they found him stretched upon the ground, dead and stark. +So he perished--of hunger and weariness, say some; of poison ever +carried by him in a ring, say others.[39] So, to the last revolving +supreme cares, this high spirit was overtaken by annihilation. His +memory is left to us, the fruit of his ideas, and the impression of his +character. + + * * * * * + +An eminent man, who escaped by one accident from the hatchets of the +Septembriseurs, and by another from the guillotine of the Terror, while +in hiding and in momentary expectation of capture and death, wrote thus +in condemnation of suicide, 'the one crime which leaves no possibility +of return to virtue.' 'Even at this incomprehensible moment'--the spring +of 1793--'when morality, enlightenment, energetic love of country, only +render death at the prison-wicket or on the scaffold more inevitable; +when it might be allowable to choose among the ways of leaving a life +that can no longer be preserved, and to rob tigers in human form of the +accursed pleasure of dragging you forth and drinking your blood; yes, on +the fatal tumbril itself, with nothing free but voice, I could still +cry, _Take care_, to a child that should come too near the wheel: +perhaps he may owe his life to me, perhaps the country shall one day owe +its salvation to him.'[40] + +More than one career in those days, famous or obscure, was marked by +this noble tenacity to lofty public ideas even in the final moments of +existence. Its general acceptance as a binding duty, exorcising the +mournful and insignificant egotisms that haunt and wearily fret and make +waste the remnants of so many lives, will produce the profoundest of all +possible improvements in men's knowledge of the sublime art of the +happiness of their kind. The closing words of Condorcet's last +composition show the solace which perseverance in taking thought for +mankind brought to him in the depths of personal calamity. He had +concluded his survey of the past history of the race, and had drawn what +seemed in his eyes a moderate and reasonable picture of its future. 'How +this picture,' he exclaims, with the knell of his own doom sounding full +in the ear while he wrote, 'this picture of the human race freed from +all its fetters, withdrawn from the empire of chance, as from that of +the enemies of progress, and walking with firm and assured step in the +way of truth, of virtue, and happiness, presents to the philosopher a +sight that consoles him for the errors, the crimes, the injustice, with +which the earth is yet stained, and of which he is not seldom the +victim! It is in the contemplation of this picture that he receives the +reward of his efforts for the progress of reason, for the defence of +liberty. He ventures to link them with the eternal chain of the +destinies of man: it is there that he finds the true recompense of +virtue, the pleasure of having done a lasting good. Fate can no longer +undo it by any disastrous compensation that shall restore prejudice and +bondage. This contemplation is for him a refuge, into which the +recollection of his persecutors can never follow him; in which, living +in thought with man reinstated in the rights and the dignity of his +nature, he forgets man tormented and corrupted by greed, by base fear, +by envy; it is here that he truly abides with his fellows, in an elysium +that his reason has known how to create for itself, and that his love +for humanity adorns with all purest delights.'[41] + +It has long been the fashion among the followers of that reaction which +Coleridge led and Carlyle has spread and popularised, to dwell +exclusively on the coldness and hardness, the excess of scepticism and +the defect of enthusiasm, that are supposed to have characterised the +eighteenth century. Because the official religion of the century both in +England and France was lifeless and mechanical, it has been taken for +granted that the level of thought and feeling was a low one universally; +as if the highest moods of every era necessarily clothed themselves in +religious forms. The truth is that, working in such natures as +Condorcet's, the principles of the eighteenth century, its homage to +reason and rational methods, its exaltation of the happiness of men, not +excluding their material wellbeing, into the highest place, its passion +for justice and law, its large illumination, all engendered a fervour as +truly religious as that of Catholicism or of Calvinism at their best, +while its sentiment was infinitely less interested and personal. The +passage just quoted is as little mechanical, as little material, as the +most rapturous ejaculations of the Christian saints and confessors. Read +in connection with the circumstances of its composition, it may show +that the eighteenth century was able at any rate to inspire its sons +with a faith that could rob death of its sting and the grave of its +victory, as effectually as if it had rested on a mystery instead of on +reason, and been supported by the sanctions of eternal pain and eternal +bliss, instead of moving from a confident devotion to humanity. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[30] _Declaration de l'Assemblee Nationale_, 29 Dec. 1791. _Oeuv._ xii. +25. + +[31] 13th August 1792. _Oeuv._ x. 547. + +[32] _Ib._ x. 560. + +[33] 19th August. _Ib._ x. 565. + +[34] _Opinion sur le Jugement de Louis XVI._ Nov. 1792 _Oeuv._ xii. +267-303. + +[35] 19th Jan. 1793. _Oeuv._ xii. 311. + +[36] See M. Edgar Quinet's remarks on this achievement. _La Revolution_, +ii. 110. + +[37] _Oeuv._ xii. 333, 417. M. Louis Blanc has contrasted the principles +laid down as the basis of this project with Robespierre's rival +Declaration of the Rights of Man, printing the two side by side in +parallel columns. '_Les voila donc face a face, apres leur commune +victoire sur le principe d'autorite, ces deux principes d'individualisme +et de fraternite, entre lesquels, aujourd'hui meme, le monde balance, +invinciblement emu! D'un cote la philosophie du rationalisme pur, qui +divise; d'un autre cote la philosophie du sentiment, qui rapproche et +reunit. Ici Voltaire et Condorcet, la J. J. Rousseau et Robespierre._' +_Hist. de la Revol. Fran._ bk. ix. ch. v. + +[38] _Extrait du Moniteur._ _Oeuv._ xii. 677. + +[39] The Abbe Morellet, in his narrative of the death of Condorcet +(_Memoires_, c. xxiv.), says that he died of poison, a mixture of +stramonium and opium. He adds that the surgeon described death as due to +apoplexy. See Musset-Pathay's _J. J. Rousseau_, ii. 42. + +[40] Dupont de Nemours. _Les Physiocrates_, i. 326. + +[41] _Progres de l'Esprit Humain._ _Oeuv._ vi. 276. + + + + +IV. + + +The shape of Condorcet's ideas upon history arose from the twofold +necessity which his character imposed upon him, at once of appeasing his +aspirations on behalf of mankind, and of satisfying a disciplined and +scientific intelligence. He was of too robust an understanding to find +adequate gratification in the artificial construction of hypothetical +utopias. Conviction was as indispensable as hope; and distinct grounds +for the faith that was in him, as essential as the faith itself. The +result of this fact of mental constitution, the intellectual conditions +of the time being what they were, was the rise in his mind of the great +and central conception of there being a law in the succession of social +states, to be ascertained by an examination of the collective phenomena +of past history. The merit of this admirable effort, and of the work in +which it found expression, is very easily underrated, because the effort +was insufficient and merely preparatory, while modern thought has +already carried us far beyond it, and at least into sight of the more +complete truths to which this effort only pointed the way. Let us +remember, however, that it did point the way distinctly and +unmistakably. A very brief survey of the state of history as a subject +of systematic study enables us to appreciate with precision what service +it was that Condorcet rendered; for it carries us back from the present +comparatively advanced condition of the science of society to a time +before his memorable attempt, when conceptions now become so familiar +were not in existence, and when even the most instructed students of +human affairs no more felt the need of a scientific theory of the manner +in which social effects follow social causes, than the least instructed +portion of the literary public feels such a need in our own time. It is +difficult after a subject has been separated from the nebulous mass of +unclassified knowledge, after it has taken independent shape, and begun +to move in lines of its own, to realise the process by which all this +was effected, or the way in which before all this the facts concerned +presented themselves to the thinker's mind. That we should overcome the +difficulty is one of the conditions of our being able to do justice to +the great army of the precursors. + +Two movements of thought went on in France during the middle of the +eighteenth century, which have been comparatively little dwelt upon by +historians; their main anxiety has been to justify the foregone +conclusion, so gratifying alike to the partisans of the social reaction +and to the disciples of modern transcendentalism in its many disguises, +that the eighteenth century was almost exclusively negative, critical, +and destructive. Each of these two currents was positive in the highest +degree, and their influence undeniably constructive, if we consider that +it was from their union into a common channel, a work fully accomplished +first in the mind of Condorcet, that the notion of the scientific +treatment of history and society took its earliest start. + +The first of the two movements, and that which has been most +unaccountably neglected, consisted in the remarkable attempts of Quesnay +and his immediate followers to withdraw the organisation of society from +the sphere of empiricism, and to substitute for the vulgar conception +of arbitrary and artificial institutions as the sole foundation of this +organisation, the idea that there is a certain Natural Order, conformity +to which in all social arrangements is the essential condition of their +being advantageous to the members of the social union. Natural Order in +the minds of this school was no metaphysical figment evolved from +uninstructed consciousness, but a set of circumstances to be discovered +by continuous and methodical observation. It consisted of physical law +and moral law. Physical law is the regulated course of every physical +circumstance in the order evidently most advantageous to the human race. +Moral law is the rule of every human action in the moral order, +conformed to the physical order evidently most advantageous to the human +race. This order is the base of the most perfect government, and the +fundamental rule of all positive laws; for positive laws are only such +laws as are required to keep up and maintain the natural order that is +evidently most advantageous to the race.[42] + +Towards the close of the reign of Lewis XIV. the frightful +impoverishment of the realm attracted the attention of one or two +enlightened observers, and among them of Boisguillebert and Vauban. They +had exposed, the former of them with especial force and amplitude, the +absurdity of the general system of administration, which seemed to have +been devised for the express purpose of paralysing both agriculture and +commerce, and exhausting all the sources of the national wealth.[43] +But these speculations had been mainly of a fiscal kind, and pointed not +much further than to a readjustment of taxation and an improvement in +the modes of its collection. The disciples of the New Science, as it was +called, the Physiocrats, or believers in the supremacy of Natural Order, +went much beyond this, and in theory sought to lay open the whole ground +of the fabric of society. Practically they dealt with scarcely any but +the economic circumstances of societies, though some of them mix up with +their reasonings upon commerce and agriculture crude and incomplete +hints upon forms of government and other questions that belong not to +the economical but to the political side of social science.[44] +Quesnay's famous _Maxims_ open with a declaration in favour of the unity +of the sovereign authority, and against the system of counterbalancing +forces in government. Almost immediately he passes on to the ground of +political economy, and elaborates the conditions of material prosperity +in an agricultural realm. With the correctness of the definitions and +principles of economic science as laid down by these writers, we have +here nothing to do. Their peculiar distinction in the present connection +is the grasp which they had of the principle of there being a natural, +and therefore a scientific, order in the conditions of a society; that +order being natural in the sense that they attached to the term, which +from the circumstances of the case is most beneficial to the race. From +this point of view they approach some of the problems of what is now +classified as social statics; and they assume, without any consciousness +of another aspect being possible, that the society which they are +discussing is in a state of equilibrium. + +It is evident that with this restriction of the speculative horizon, +they were and must remain wholly unable to emerge into the full light of +the completely constituted science of society, with laws of movement as +well as laws of equilibrium, with definite methods of interpreting past +and predicting future states. They could account for and describe the +genesis of the social union, as Plato and Aristotle had in different +ways been able to do many centuries before; and they could prescribe +some of the conditions of its being maintained in vigour and +compactness. Some of them could even see in a vague way the +interdependence of peoples and the community of the real interests of +different nations, each nation, as De la Riviere expressed it, being +only a province of the vast kingdom of nature, a branch from the same +trunk as the rest.[45] What they could not see was the great fact of +social evolution; and here too, in the succession of social states, +there has been a natural and observable order. In a word, they tried to +understand society without the aid of history. Consequently they laid +down the truths which they discovered as absolute and fixed, when they +were no more than conditional and relative. + +Fortunately inquirers in another field had set a movement afoot, which +was destined to furnish the supplement of their own speculation. This +was the remarkable development of the conception of history, which +Montesquieu's two memorable books first made conspicuous. Bossuet's +well-known discourse on universal history, teeming as it does with +religious prejudice, just as Condorcet's sketch teems with prejudice +against religion, and egregiously imperfect in execution as it must be +pronounced when judged from even the meanest historical standard, had +perhaps partially introduced the spirit of Universality, as Comte says, +into the study of history. But it was impossible from the nature of the +case for any theologian to know fully what this spirit means; and it was +not until the very middle of the following century that any effective +approach was made to that universality which Bossuet did little more +than talk about. Then it came not from theology, but from the much more +hopeful sources of a rational philosophy. Before Montesquieu no single +stone of the foundation of scientific history can be said to have been +laid. Of course, far earlier writers had sought after the circumstances +which brought about a given transaction. Thucydides, for example, had +attributed the cause of the Peloponnesian war to the alarm of the +Lacedaemonians at the greatness of the power of Athens.[46] It is this +sense of the need of explanation, however rudimentary it may be, which +distinguishes the great historian from the chronicler, even from a very +superior chronicler like Livy, who in his account of even so great an +event as the Second Punic War plunges straightway into narrative of what +happened, without concerning himself why it happened. Tacitus had begun +his _Histories_ with remarks upon the condition of Rome, the feeling of +the various armies, the attitude of the provinces, so that, as he says, +'_non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed +ratio etiam causaeque noscantur_.'[47] But these and the like instances +in historical literature were only political explanations, more or less +adequate, of particular transactions; they were no more than the +sagacious remarks of men with statesmanlike minds, upon the origin of +some single set of circumstances. + +The rise from this to the high degree of generality which marks the +speculations of Montesquieu, empirical as they are, was as great as the +rise from the mere maxims of worldly wisdom to the widest principles of +ethical philosophy. Polybius, indeed, in the remarkable chapters with +which his _Histories_ open, uses expressions that are so modern as +almost to startle us. 'People who study history,' he says, 'in separate +and detached portions, without reference to one another, and suppose +that from them they acquire a knowledge of the whole, are like a man +who in looking on the severed members of what had once been an animated +and comely creature, should think that this was enough to give him an +idea of its beauty and force when alive. The empire of Rome was what by +its extent in Italy, Africa, Asia, Greece, brought history into the +condition of being organic (+somatoeides+).' His object was to examine +the general and collective ordering of events; when it came into +existence; whence it had its source; how it had this special completion +and fulfilment--the universal empire of Rome.[48] Striking as this is, +and admirable as it is, there is not in it any real trace of the +abstract conception of social history. Polybius recognises the unity of +history, so far as that could be understood in the second century before +Christ, but he treats his subject in the concrete, describing the chain +of events, but not attempting to seek their law. It was Montesquieu who +first applied the comparative method to social institutions; who first +considered physical conditions in connection with the laws of a country; +who first perceived and illustrated how that natural order which the +Physiocrats only considered in relation to the phenomena of wealth and +its production, really extended over its political phenomena as well; +who first set the example of viewing a great number of social facts all +over the world in groups and classes; and who first definitely and +systematically inquired into the causes of a set of complex historical +events and institutions, as being both discoverable and intelligible. +This was a very marked advance upon both of the ideas, by one or other +of which men had previously been content to explain to themselves the +course of circumstances in the world; either the inscrutable decrees of +an inhuman providence, or the fortuitous vagaries of an eyeless destiny. + +It was Turgot, however, who completed the historical conception of +Montesquieu, in a piece written in 1750, two years after the appearance +of the _Esprit des Lois_, and in one or two other fragmentary +compositions of about the same time, which are not the less remarkable +because the writer was only twenty-three years old when these advanced +ideas presented themselves to his intelligence. Vico in Italy had +insisted on the doctrine that the course of human affairs is in a cycle, +and that they move in a constant and self-repeating orbit.[49] Turgot, +on the contrary, with more wisdom, at the opening of his subject is +careful to distinguish the ever-varying spectacle of the succession of +men from generation to generation, from the circle of identical +revolutions in which the phenomena of nature are enclosed. In the one +case time only restores at each instant the image of what it has just +caused to disappear; in the other, the reason and the passions are ever +incessantly producing new events. 'All the ages are linked together by +a succession of causes and effects which bind the state of the world to +all the states that have gone before. The multiplied signs of speech and +writing, in supplying men with the means of an assured possession of +their thoughts and of communicating them to one another, have formed a +common treasure that one generation transmits to another, as an +inheritance constantly augmented by the discoveries of each generation; +and the human race, looked at from its origin, appears in the eyes of +the philosopher one immense whole, which, just as in the case of each +individual, has its infancy and its growth.'[50] + +Pascal and others in ancient and modern times[51] had compared in casual +and unfruitful remarks the history of the race to the history of the +individual, but Turgot was able in some sort to see the full meaning and +extent of the analogy, as well as the limitations proper to it, and to +draw from it some of the larger principles which the idea involved. The +first proposition in the passage just quoted, that a chain of causes and +effects unites each age with every other age that has gone before, is +one of the most memorable sentences in the history of thought. And +Turgot not only saw that there is a relation of cause and effect between +successive states of society; he had glimpses into some of the +conditions of that relation. To a generation that stands on loftier +heights his attempts seem rudimentary and strangely simple, but it was +these attempts which cut the steps for our ascent. How is it, he asked, +for instance, that the succession of social states is not uniform? that +they follow with unequal step along the track marked out for them? He +found the answer in the inequality of natural advantages, and he was +able to discern the necessity of including in these advantages the +presence, apparently accidental, in some communities and not in others +of men of especial genius or capacity in some important direction.[52] +Again, he saw that just as in one way natural advantages accelerate the +progress of a society, in another natural obstacles also accelerate it, +by stimulating men to the efforts necessary to overcome them: _le besoin +perfectionne l'instrument_.[53] The importance of following the march of +the human mind over all the grooves along which it travels to further +knowledge, was fully present to him, and he dwells repeatedly on the +constant play going on between discoveries in one science and those in +another. In no writer is there a fuller and more distinct sense of the +essential unity and integrity of the history of mankind, nor of the +multitude of the mansions into which this vast house is divided, and the +many keys which he must possess that would open and enter in. + +Even in empirical explanations Turgot shows a breadth and accuracy of +vision truly surprising, considering his own youth and what we may +venture to call the youth of his subject. The reader will be able to +appreciate this, and to discern at the same time the arbitrary nature of +Montesquieu's method, if he will contrast, for example, the remarks of +this writer upon polygamy with the far wider and more sagacious +explanation of the circumstances of such an institution given by +Turgot.[54] Unfortunately, he has left us only short and fragmentary +pieces, but they suggest more than many large and complete works. That +they had a very powerful and direct influence upon Condorcet there is no +doubt, as well from the similarity of general conception between him and +Turgot, as from the nearly perfect identity of leading passages in their +writings. Let us add that in Turgot's fragments we have what is +unhappily not a characteristic of Condorcet, the peculiar satisfaction +and delight in scientific history of a style which states a fact in such +phrases as serve also to reveal its origin, bearings, significance, in +which every successive piece of description is so worded as to be +self-evidently a link in the chain of explanation, an ordered term in a +series of social conditions. + +Before returning to Condorcet we ought to glance at the remarkable +piece, written in 1784, in which Kant propounded his idea of a +universal or cosmo-political history, which contemplating the agency of +the human will upon a large scale should unfold to our view a regular +stream of tendency in the great succession of events.[55] The will +metaphysically considered, Kant said, is free, but its manifestations, +that is to say, human actions, 'are as much under the control of +universal laws of nature as any other physical phenomena.' + +The very same course of incidents, which taken separately and +individually would have seemed perplexed and incoherent, 'yet viewed in +their connection and as the action of the human _species_ and not of +independent beings, never fail to observe a steady and continuous, +though slow, development of certain great predispositions in our +nature.' As it is impossible to presume in the human race any _rational_ +purpose of its own, we must seek to observe some _natural_ purpose in +the current of human actions. Thus a history of creatures with no plan +of their own, may yet admit a systematic form as a history of creatures +blindly pursuing a plan of nature. Now we know that all predispositions +are destined to develop themselves according to their final purpose. +Man's rational predispositions are destined to develop themselves in the +species and not in the individual. History then is the progress of the +development of all the tendencies laid in man by nature. The method of +development is the antagonism of these tendencies in the social state, +and its source the _unsocial sociality_ of man--a tendency to enter the +social state, combined with a perpetual resistance to that tendency, +which is ever threatening to dissolve it. The play of these two +tendencies unfolds talents of every kind, and by gradual increase of +light a preparation is made for such a mode of thinking as is capable of +'exalting a social concert that had been _pathologically_ extorted from +the mere necessities of situation, into a _moral_ union founded on the +reasonable choice.' Hence the highest problem for man is the +establishment of a universal civil society, founded on the empire of +political justice; and 'the history of the human species as a whole may +be regarded as the unravelling of a hidden plan of nature for +accomplishing a perfect state of civil constitution for society in its +internal relations (and, as the condition of that, in its external +relations also), as the sole state of society in which the tendencies of +human nature can be all and fully developed.' Nor is this all. We shall +not only be able to unravel the intricate web of past affairs, but shall +also find a clue for the guidance of future statesmen in the art of +political prediction. Nay more, this clue 'will open a consolatory +prospect into futurity, in which at a remote distance we shall observe +the human species seated upon an eminence won by infinite toil, where +all the germs are unfolded which nature has implanted within it, and +its destination on this earth accomplished.' + +That this conception involves an assumption about tendencies and final +purposes which reverses the true method of history, and moreover reduces +what ought to be a scientific inquiry to be a foregone justification of +nature or providence, should not prevent us from appreciating its signal +merits in insisting on a systematic presentation of the collective +activity of the race, and in pointing out, however cursorily, the use of +such an elucidation of the past in furnishing the grounds of practical +guidance in dealing with the future and in preparing it. Considering the +brevity of this little tract, its pregnancy and suggestiveness have not +often been equalled. We have seen enough of it here to enable us to +realise the differences between this and the French school. We miss the +wholesome objectivity, resulting from the stage which had been reached +in France by the physical sciences. Condorcet's series of _eloges_ shows +unmistakably how deep an impression the history of physical discovery +had made upon him, and how clearly he understood the value of its +methods. The peculiar study which their composition had occasioned him +is of itself almost enough to account for the fact that a conception +which had long been preparing in the superior minds of the time, should +fully develop itself in him rather than in anybody else. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[42] Quesnay; _Droit Naturel_, ch. v. _Les Physiocrates_, i. 52. + +[43] _Economistes Financiers du 18ieme Siecle._ Vauban's _Projet d'une +Dime Royale_ (p. 33), and Boisguillebert's _Factum de la France_, etc. +(p. 248 _et seq._) + +[44] De la Riviere, for instance, very notably. Cf. his _Ordre Naturel +des Societes Politiques_. _Physiocrates_, ii. 469, 636, etc. See also +Baudeau on the superiority of the Economic Monarchy _Ib._ pp. 783-791. + +[45] _Ordre Nat. des Soc. Pol._ p. 526. + +[46] Bk. i. 23. + +[47] _Hist._ i. 4. + +[48] Polyb. _Hist._ I. iii. 4; iv. 3, 7. + +[49] The well-known words of Thucydides may contain the germ of the same +idea, when he speaks of the future as being likely to represent again, +after the fashion of human things, 'if not the very image, yet the near +resemblance of the past.' Bk. i. 22, 4. + +[50] _Discours en Sorbonne._ _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 597. (Ed. of 1844). + +[51] Cf. Sir G. C. Lewis's _Methods of Observation in Politics_, ii. +439, note. + +[52] _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 599, 645, etc. + +[53] _Ib._ ii. 601. + +[54] _Esprit des Lois_, xvi. cc. 2-4. And _Discours sur l'Histoire +Universelle_, in Turgot's Works, ii. 640, 641. For a further account of +Turgot's speculations, see article "Turgot" in the present volume. + +[55] _Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmo-Political Plan._ It was +translated by De Quincey, and is to be found in vol. xiii. of his +collected works, pp. 133-152. + + + + +V. + + +The Physiocrats, as we have seen, had introduced the idea of there being +a natural order in social circumstances, that order being natural which +is most advantageous to mankind. Turgot had declared that one age is +bound to another by a chain of causation. Condorcet fused these two +conceptions. He viewed the history of the ages as a whole, and found in +their succession a natural order; an order which, when uninterrupted and +undisturbed, tended to accumulate untold advantages upon the human race, +which was every day becoming more plain to the vision of men, and +therefore every day more and more assured from disturbance by ignorant +prejudice and sinister interests. There is an order at once among the +circumstances of a given generation, and among the successive sets of +circumstances of successive generations. 'If we consider the development +of human faculties in its results, so far as they relate to the +individuals who exist at the same time on a given space, and if we +follow that development from generation to generation, then we have +before us the picture of the progress of the human mind. This progress +is subject to the same general laws that are to be observed in the +development of the faculties of individuals, for it is the result of +that development, considered at the same time in a great number of +individuals united in society. But the result that presents itself at +any one instant depends upon that which was offered by the instants +preceding; in turn it influences the result in times still to follow.' + +This picture will be of a historical character, inasmuch as being +subject to perpetual variations it is formed by the observation in due +order of different human societies in different epochs through which +they have passed. It will expose the order of the various changes, the +influence exercised by each period over the next, and thus will show in +the modifications impressed upon the race, ever renewing itself in the +immensity of the ages, the track that it has followed, and the exact +steps that it has taken towards truth and happiness. Such observation of +what man has been and of what he is, will then lead us to means proper +for assuring and accelerating the fresh progress that his nature allows +us to anticipate still further.[56] + +'If a man is able to predict with nearly perfect confidence, phenomena +with whose laws he is acquainted; if, even when they are unknown to him, +he is able, in accordance with the experience of the past, to foresee +with a large degree of probability the events of the future, why should +we treat it as a chimerical enterprise, to trace with some +verisimilitude the picture of the future destinies of the human race in +accordance with the results of its history? The only foundation of +belief in the natural sciences is this idea, that the general laws, +known or unknown, which regulate the phenomena of the universe are +necessary and constant; and why should this principle be less true for +the development of the moral and intellectual faculties of man than for +other natural operations? In short, opinions grounded on past experience +in objects of the same order being the single rule of conduct for even +the wisest men, why should the philosopher be forbidden to rest his +conjectures on the same base, provided that he never attributes to them +a degree of certainty beyond what is warranted by the number, the +constancy, and the accuracy of his observations?'[57] + +Thus Condorcet's purpose was not to justify nature, as it had been with +Kant, but to search in the past for rational grounds of a belief in the +unbounded splendour of men's future destinies. His view of the character +of the relations among the circumstances of the social union, either at +a given moment or in a succession of periods, was both accurate and +far-sighted. When he came actually to execute his own great idea, and to +specify the manner in which those relations arose and operated, he +instantly diverged from the right path. Progress in his mind is +exclusively produced by improvement in intelligence. It is the necessary +result of man's activity in the face of that disproportion ever existing +between what he knows and what he desires and feels the necessity to +know.[58] Hence the most fatal of the errors of Condorcet's sketch. He +measures only the contributions made by nations and eras to what we +know; leaving out of sight their failures and successes in the +elevation of moral standards and ideals, and in the purification of +human passions. + +Now even if we hold the intellectual principle only to be progressive, +and the moral elements to be fixed, being coloured and shaped and +quickened by the surrounding intellectual conditions, still, inasmuch as +the manner of this shaping and colouring is continually changing and +leading to the most important transformations of human activity and +sentiment, it must obviously be a radical deficiency in any picture of +social progress to leave out the development of ethics, whether it be a +derivative or an independent and spontaneous development. One seeks in +vain in Condorcet's sketch for any account of the natural history of +western morals, or for any sign of consciousness on his part that the +difference in ethical discipline and feeling between the most ferocious +of primitive tribes and the most enlightened eighteenth-century +Frenchmen, was a result of evolution that needed historical explanation, +quite as much as the difference between the astrolatry of one age and +the astronomy of another. We find no recognition of the propriety of +recounting the various steps of that long process by which, to use +Kant's pregnant phrase, the relations born of pathological necessity +were metamorphosed into those of moral union. The grave and lofty +feeling, for example, which inspired the last words of the +_Tableau_--whence came it? Of what long-drawn chain of causes in the +past was it the last effect? It is not enough to refer us generally to +previous advances in knowledge and intellectual emancipation, because +even supposing the successive modifications of our moral sensibilities +to be fundamentally due to the progress of intellectual enlightenment, +we still want to know in the first place something about the influences +which harness one process to the other, and in the second place, +something about the particular directions which these modifications of +moral constitution have taken. + +If this is one very radical omission in Condorcet's scheme, his angry +and vehement aversion for the various religions of the world (with +perhaps one exception) is a sin of commission still more damaging to its +completeness. That he should detest the corrupt and oppressive forms of +religion of his own century was neither surprising nor blamable. An +unfavourable view of the influences upon human development of the +Christian belief, even in its least corrupt forms, was not by any means +untenable. Nay, he was at liberty to go further than this, and to depict +religion as a natural infirmity of the human mind in its immature +stages, just as there are specific disorders incident in childhood to +the human body. Even on this theory, he was bound to handle it with the +same calmness which he would have expected to find in a pathological +treatise by a physician. Who would write of the sweating sickness with +indignation, or describe zymotic diseases with resentment? Condorcet's +pertinacious anger against theology is just as irrational as this would +be, from the scientific point of view which he pretends to have assumed. +Theology, in fact, was partly avenged of her assailants, for she had in +the struggle contrived to infect them with the bitter contagion of her +own traditional spirit. + +From the earliest times to the latest it is all one story according to +Condorcet. He can speak with respect of philosophies even when, as in +the case of the Scotch school of the last century, he dislikes and +condemns them.[59] Of religion his contempt and hatred only vary +slightly in degree. Barbarous tribes have sorcerers, trading on the +gross superstitions of their dupes: so in other guise and with different +names have civilised nations to-day. As other arts progressed, +superstition, too, became less rude; priestly families kept all +knowledge in their own hands, and thus preserved their hypocritical and +tyrannical assumptions from detection. They disclosed nothing to the +people without some supernatural admixture, the better to maintain their +personal pretensions. They had two doctrines, one for themselves, and +the other for the people. Sometimes, as they were divided into several +orders, each of them reserved to itself certain mysteries. Thus all the +inferior orders were at once rogues and dupes, and the great system of +hypocrisy was only known in all its completeness to a few adepts. +Christianity belonged to the same class. Its priests, we must admit, 'in +spite of their knaveries and their vices, were enthusiasts ready to +perish for their doctrines.' In vain did Julian endeavour to deliver the +empire from the scourge. Its triumph was the signal for the incurable +decay of all art and knowledge. The Church may seem to have done some +good in things where her interests did not happen to clash with the +interests of Europe, as in helping to abolish slavery, for instance; but +after all 'circumstances and manners' would have produced the result +necessarily and of themselves. Morality, which was taught by the priests +only, contained those universal principles that have been unknown to no +sect; but it created a host of purely religious duties, and of imaginary +sins. These duties were more rigorously enjoined than those of nature, +and actions that were indifferent, legitimate, or even virtuous, were +more severely rebuked and punished than real crimes. Yet, on the other +hand, a moment of repentance, consecrated by the absolution of a priest, +opened the gates of heaven to the worst miscreants.[60] + +In the opening of the last of these remarks there is much justice. So +there is in the striking suggestion made in another place, that we +should not bless erroneous systems for their utility, simply because +they help to repair some small part of the mischief of which they have +themselves been the principal cause.[61] But on the whole it is obvious +that Condorcet was unfitted by his temper, and that of the school to +which he most belonged, from accepting religion as a fact in the +history of the human mind that must have some positive explanation. To +look at it in this way as the creation of a handful of selfish impostors +in each community, was to show a radical incompetence to carry out the +scheme which had been so scientifically projected. The picture is ruined +by the angry caricature of what ought to have been one of the most +important figures in it. To this place the Christian Church is +undeniably entitled, however we may be disposed to strike the balance +between the undoubted injuries and the undoubted advantages which it has +been the means of dealing to the civilisation of the west. Never perhaps +was there so thorough an inversion of the true view of the comparative +elevation of different parts of human character, as is implied in +Condorcet's strange hint that Cromwell's satellites would have been much +better men if they had carried instead of the Bible at their saddle-bows +some merry book of the stamp of Voltaire's _Pucelle_.[62] + +Apart from the misreading of history in explaining religion by the folly +of the many and the frauds of a few, Condorcet's interpretation involved +the profoundest infidelity to his own doctrine of the intrinsic purity +and exaltation of human nature. This doctrine ought in all reason to +have led him to look for the secret of the popular acceptance of beliefs +that to him seemed most outrageous, in some possibly finer side which +they might possess for others, appealing not to the lower but to the +higher qualities of a nature with instincts of perfection. Take his +account of Purgatory, for instance. The priests, he says, drew up so +minute and comprehensive a table of sins that nobody could hope to +escape from censure. Here you come upon one of the most lucrative +branches of the sacerdotal trafficking; people were taught to imagine a +hell of limited duration, which the priests only had the power to +abridge; and this grace they sold, first to the living, then to the +kinsmen and friends of the dead.[63] Now it was surely more worthy of a +belief in the natural depravity than in the natural perfectibility of +the sons of Adam, thus to assume without parley or proviso a base +mercenariness on the one hand, and grovelling terror on the other, as +the origin of a doctrine which was obviously susceptible of a kinder +explanation. Would it not have been more consistent with belief in human +goodness to refer the doctrine to a merciful and affectionate and truly +humanising anxiety to assuage the horrors of what is perhaps the most +frightful idea that has ever corroded human character, the idea of +eternal punishment? We could in part have pardoned Condorcet if he had +striven to invent ever so fanciful origins for opinions and belief in +his solicitude for the credit of humanity. As it is, he distorts the +history of religion only to humanity's discredit. How, if the people +were always predisposed to virtue, were priests, sprung of the same +people and bred in the same traditions, so invariably and incurably +devoted to baseness and hypocrisy? Was the nature of a priest absolutely +devoid of what physicians call recuperative force, restoring him to a +sound mind, in spite of professional perversion? In fine, if man had +been so grossly enslaved in moral nature from the beginning of the world +down to the year 1789 or thereabouts, how was it possible that +notwithstanding the admitted slowness of civilising processes, he should +suddenly spring forth the very perfectible and nearly perfected being +that Condorcet passionately imagined him to be?[64] + +It has already been hinted that there was one partial exception to +Condorcet's otherwise all-embracing animosity against religion. This was +Mahometanism. Towards this his attitude is fully appreciative, though of +course he deplores the superstitions which mixed themselves up with the +Arabian prophet's efforts for the purification of the men of his nation. +After the seven vials of fiery wrath have been poured out upon the creed +of Palestine, it is refreshing to find the creed of Arabia almost +patronised and praised. The writer who could not have found in his heart +to think Gregory the Great or Hildebrand other than a mercenary +impostor, nor Cromwell other than an ambitious hypocrite, admits with +exquisite blandness of Mahomet that he had the art of employing all the +means of subjugating men _avec adresse, mais avec grandeur_.[65] Another +reason, no doubt, besides his hatred of the Church, lay at the bottom of +Condorcet's tolerance or more towards Mahometanism. The Arabian +superstition was not fatal to knowledge, Arabian activity in algebra, +chemistry, optics, and astronomy, atoned in Condorcet's eyes for the +Koran. + +It is fair to add further, that Condorcet showed a more just +appreciation of the effects of Protestantism upon western development +than has been common among French thinkers. He recognises that men who +had learnt, however imperfectly, to submit their religious prejudices to +rational examination, would naturally be likely to extend the process to +political prejudices also. Moreover, if the reformed churches refused to +render to reason all its rights, still they agreed that its prison +should be less narrow; the chain was not broken, but it ceased to be +either so heavy or so short as it had been. And in countries where what +was by the dominant sect insolently styled tolerance succeeded in +establishing itself, it was possible to maintain the tolerated doctrines +with a more or less complete freedom. So there arose in Europe a sort +of freedom of thought, not for men, but for Christians; and, 'if we +except France, it is only for Christians that it exists anywhere else at +the present day,' a limitation which has now fortunately ceased to be +altogether exact.[66] + +If we have smiled at the ease with which what is rank craftiness in a +Christian is toned down into address in a Mahometan, we may be amused +too at the leniency that describes some of the propagandist methods of +the eighteenth century. Condorcet becomes rapturous as he tells in a +paragraph of fine sustention with what admixture of the wisdom of the +serpent the humane philosophers of his century 'covered the truth with a +veil that prevented it from hurting too weak sight, and left the +pleasure of conjecturing it; caressing prejudices with address, to deal +them the more certain blows; scarcely ever threatening them, nor ever +more than one at once, nor even one in its integrity; sometimes +consoling the enemies of reason by pretending to desire no more than a +half-tolerance in religion and half-liberty in politics; conciliating +despotism while they combated the absurdities of religion, and religion +when they rose against despotism; attacking these two scourges in their +principle, even when they seemed only to bear ill-will to revolting or +ridiculous abuses, and striking these poisonous trees in their very +roots, while they appeared to be doing no more than pruning crooked +branches.'[67] Imagine the holy rage with which such acts would have +been attacked, if Condorcet had happened to be writing about the +Jesuits. Alas! the stern and serene composure of the historical +conscience was as unknown to him as it is always to orthodox apologists. +It is to be said, moreover, that he had less excuse for being without +it, for he rested on the goodness of men, and not, as theologians rest, +on their vileness. It is a most interesting thing, we may notice in +passing, to consider what was the effect upon the Revolution of this +artfulness or prudence with which its theoretic precursors sowed the +seed. Was it as truly wise as Condorcet supposed? Or did it weaken, +almost corrupt, the very roots? Was it the secret of the thoroughness +with which the work of demolition was done? Was it, too, the secret of +the many and disastrous failures in the task of reconstruction?[68] + +There are one or two detached remarks suggested by Condorcet's picture, +which it may be worth while to make. He is fully alive, for example, to +the importance to mankind of the appearance among them of one of those +men of creative genius, like Archimedes or like Newton, whose lives +constitute an epoch in human history. Their very existence he saw to be +among the greatest benefits conferred on the race by Nature. He hardly +seems to have been struck, on the other hand, with the appalling and +incessant waste of these benefits that goes on; with the number of men +of Newtonian capacity who are undoubtedly born into the world only to +chronicle small beer; with the hosts of high and worthy souls who labour +and flit away like shadows, perishing in the accomplishment of minor and +subordinate ends. We may suspect that the notion of all this +immeasurable profusion of priceless treasures, its position as one of +the laws of the condition of man on the globe, would be unspeakably hard +of endurance to one holding Condorcet's peculiar form of optimism. + +Again, if we had space, it would be worth while to examine some of the +acute and ingenious hints which Condorcet throws out by the way. It +would be interesting to consider, as he suggests, the influence upon +the progress of the human mind of the change from writing on such +subjects as science, philosophy, and jurisprudence in Latin, to the +usual language of each country. That change rendered the sciences more +popular, but it increased the trouble of the scientific men in following +the general march of knowledge. It caused a book to be read in one +country by more men of inferior competence, but less read throughout +Europe by men of superior light. And though it relieves men who have no +leisure for extensive study from the trouble of learning Latin, it +imposes upon profounder persons the necessity of learning a variety of +modern languages.[69] Again, ground is broken for the most important +reflection, in the remark that men preserve the prejudices of their +childhood, their country, and their age, long after they have recognised +all the truths necessary to destroy them.[70] Perhaps most instructive +and most tranquillising of all is this, that the progress of physical +knowledge is constantly destroying in silence erroneous opinions which +had never seemed to be attacked.[71] And in reading history, how much +ignorance and misinterpretation would have been avoided, if the student +had but been careful to remember that 'the law as written and the law as +administered; the principles of those in power, and the modification of +their action by the sentiments of the governed; an institution as it +emanates from those who form it, and the same institution realised; the +religion of books, and that of the people; the apparent universality of +a prejudice, and the substantial adhesion that it receives; these may +all differ in such a way that the effects absolutely cease to answer to +the public and recognised causes.'[72] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[56] _Tableau des Progres de l'Esprit Humain._ _Oeuv._ vi. 12, 13. + +[57] _Oeuv._ vi. 236. + +[58] _Ib._ vi. 21. + +[59] _Oeuv._ vi. 186. + +[60] _Oeuv._ vi. pp. 35, 55, 101, 102, 111, 117, 118, etc. + +[61] _Dissertation sur cette question: S'il est utile aux hommes d'etre +trompes?_--one of the best of Condorcet's writings. _Oeuv._ v. 360. + +[62] See Condorcet's vindication of the _Pucelle_ in his Life of +Voltaire. _Oeuv._ iv. 88, 89. See also Comte's _Phil. Pos._ v. 450. + +[63] _Oeuv._ vi. 118. + +[64] As M. Comte says in his remarks on Condorcet (_Phil. Pos._ iv. +185-193): '_Le progres total finalement accompli ne peut etre sans doute +que le resultat general de l'accumulation spontanee des divers progres +partiels successivement realises depuis l'origine de la civilisation, en +vertu de la marche successivement lente et graduelle de la nature +humaine;_' so that Condorcet's picture presents a standing miracle, '_ou +l'on s'est meme interdit d'abord la ressource vulgaire de la +Providence._' Comte's criticism, however, seems to leave out of sight +what full justice Condorcet did to the various partial advances in the +intellectual order. + +[65] _Oeuv._ vi. 120-123. + +[66] _Oeuv._ vi. 149, 153. + +[67] _Ib._ 187-189. + +[68] It is worth while to quote on this subject a passage from Condorcet +as historically instructive as it is morally dangerous. '_La necessite +de mentir pour desavouer un ouvrage est une extremite qui repugne +egalement a la conscience et a la noblesse du caractere; mais le crime +est pour les hommes injustes qui rendent ce desaveu necessaire a la +surete de celui qu'ils y forcent. Si vous avez erige en crime ce qui +n'en est pas un, si vous avez porte atteinte, par des lois absurdes ou +par des lois arbitraires, au droit naturel qu'ont tous les hommes, non +seulement d'avoir une opinion, mais de la rendre publique, alors vous +meritez de perdre celui qu'a chaque homme d'entendre la verite de la +bouche d'un autre, droit qui fonde seul l'obligation rigoureuse de ne +pas mentir. S'il n'est pas permis de tromper, c'est parceque tromper +quelqu'un, c'est lui faire un tort, ou s'exposer a lui en faire un; mais +le tort suppose un droit, et personne n'a celui de cherche, a s'assurer +les moyens de commettre une injustice._' _Vie de Voltaire_; _Oeuv._ iv. +33, 34. Condorcet might have found some countenance for his sophisms in +Plato (Republ. ii. 383); but even Plato restricted the privilege of +lying to statesmen (iii. 389). He was in a wiser mood when he declared +(_Oeuv._ v. 384) that it is better to be imprudent than a +hypocrite,--though for that matter these are hardly the only +alternatives. + +[69] _Oeuv._ vi. 163. + +[70] _Ib._ vi. 22. + +[71] _Ib._ p. 220. + +[72] _Oeuv._ p. 234. + + + + +VI. + + +We have now seen something of Condorcet's ideas of the past, and of his +conception of what he was perhaps the first to call the Science of Man. +Let us turn to his hopes for the future, and one or two of the details +to which his study of the science of man conducted him. It is well to +perceive at the outset that Condorcet's views of the Tenth Epoch, as he +counts the period extending from the French Revolution to the era of the +indefinite perfection of man, were in truth not the result of any +scientific processes whatever, properly so called. He saw, and this is +his merit, that such processes were applicable to the affairs of +society; and that, as he put it, all political and moral errors rest +upon error in philosophy, which in turn is bound up with erroneous +methods in physical science.[73] But in the execution of his plan he +does not succeed in showing the nature of the relations of these +connected forces; still less does he practise the scientific duty, for +illustrating which he gives such well-deserved glory to Newton,[74] of +not only accounting for phenomena, but also of measuring the _quantity_ +of forces. His conception, therefore, of future progress, however near +conjecture may possibly have brought him to the truth, is yet no more +than conjecture. The root of it is found in nothing more precise, +definite, or quantified than a general notion gathered from history, +that some portions of the race had made perceptible advances in freedom +and enlightenment, and that we might therefore confidently expect still +further advances to be made in the same direction with an accelerated +rapidity, and with certain advantageous effects upon the happiness of +the whole mass of the human race. In short, the end of the speculation +is a confirmed and heightened conviction of the indefinite +perfectibility of the species, with certain foreshadowings of the +direction which this perfectibility would ultimately follow. The same +rebellion against the disorder and misery of the century, which drove +some thinkers and politicians into fierce yearnings for an imaginary +state of nature, and others into an extravagant admiration for the +ancient republics, caused a third school, and Condorcet among them, to +turn their eyes with equally boundless confidence and yearning towards +an imaginary future. It was at all events the least desperate error of +the three. + +Our expectations for the future, Condorcet held, may be reduced to these +three points: the destruction of inequality among nations; the progress +of equality among the people of any given nation; and, finally the +substantial perfecting (_perfectionnement reel_) of man. + +I. With reference to the first of these great aspirations, it will be +brought about by the abandonment by European peoples of their commercial +monopolies, their treacherous practices, their mischievous and +extravagant proselytising, and their sanguinary contempt for those of +another colour or another creed. Vast countries, now a prey to barbarism +and violence, will present in one region numerous populations only +waiting to receive the means and instruments of civilisation from us, +and as soon as they find brothers in the Europeans, will joyfully become +their friends and pupils; and in another region, nations enslaved under +the yoke of despots or conquerors, crying aloud for so many ages for +liberators. In yet other regions, it is true, there are tribes almost +savage, cut off by the harshness of their climate from a perfected +civilisation, or else conquering hordes, ignorant of every law but +violence and every trade but brigandage. The progress of these last two +descriptions of people will naturally be more tardy, and attended by +more storm and convulsion. It is possible even, that reduced in number, +in proportion as they see themselves repulsed by civilised nations, they +will end by insensibly disappearing.[75] It is perhaps a little hard to +expect Esquimaux or the barbaric marauders of the sandy expanses of +Central Asia insensibly to disappear, lest by their cheerless presence +they should destroy the unity and harmony of the transformation scene in +the great drama of Perfectibility. + +II. The principal causes of the inequality that unfortunately exists +among the people of the same community are three in number:--inequality +in wealth; inequality of condition between the man whose means of +subsistence are both assured and transmissible, and him for whom these +means depend upon the duration of his working life; thirdly, inequality +of instruction. How are we to establish a continual tendency in these +three sources of inequality to diminish in activity and power? To +lessen, though not to demolish, inequalities in wealth, it will be +necessary for all artificial restrictions and exclusive advantages to be +removed from fiscal or other legal arrangements, by which property is +either acquired or accumulated: and among social changes tending in this +direction will be the banishment by public opinion of an avaricious or +mercenary spirit from marriage. Again, inequality between permanent and +precarious incomes will be radically modified by the development of the +application of the calculation of probabilities to life. The extension +of annuities and insurance will not only benefit many individuals, but +will benefit society at large by putting an end to that periodical ruin +of a large number of families, which is such an ever-renewing source of +misery and degradation. Another means to the same end will be found in +discovering, by the same doctrine of probabilities, some other equally +solid base for credit instead of a large capital, and for rendering the +progress of industry and the activity of commerce more independent of +the existence of great capitalists. Something approaching to equality of +instruction, even for those who can only spare a few of their early +years for study, and in after times only a few hours of leisure, will +become more attainable by improved selection of subjects, and improved +methods of teaching them. The dwellers in one country will cease to be +distinguished by the use of a rude or of a refined dialect; and this, it +may be said in passing, has actually been the result of the school +system in the United States. One portion of them will no longer be +dependent upon any other for guidance in the smallest affairs. We cannot +obliterate nor ignore natural differences of capacity, but after public +instruction has been properly developed, 'the difference will be between +men of superior enlightenment, and men of an upright character who feel +the value of light without being dazzled by it; between talent or +genius, and that good sense which knows how to appreciate and to enjoy +both. Even if this difference were greater than has been said, if we +compare the force and extent of faculty, it would become none the less +insensible, if we compare their respective effects upon the relations of +men among themselves, upon all that affects their independence and their +happiness.'[76] + +III. What are the changes that we may expect from the substantial +perfecting of human nature and society? If, before making this forecast, +we reflect with what feeble means the race has arrived at its present +knowledge of useful and important truths, we shall not fear the reproach +of temerity in our anticipations for a time when the force of all these +means shall have been indefinitely increased. The progress of +agricultural science will make the same land more productive, and the +same labour more efficient. Nay, who shall predict what the art of +converting elementary substances into food for our use may one day +become? The constant tendency of population to advance to the limits of +the means of subsistence thus amplified, will be checked by a rising +consciousness in men, that if they have obligations in respect of +creatures still unborn, these obligations consist in giving them, not +existence but happiness, in adding to the wellbeing of the family, and +not cumbering the earth with useless and unfortunate beings. This +changed view upon population will partly follow from the substitution of +rational ideas for those prejudices which have penetrated morals with an +austerity that is corrupting and degrading.[77] The movement will be +further aided by one of the most important steps in human progress--the +destruction, namely, of the prejudices that have established inequality +of rights between the two sexes, and which are so mischievous even to +the sex that seems to be most favoured.[78] We seek in vain for any +justification of such an inequality in difference of physical +organisation, in force of intelligence, or in moral sensibility. It has +no other origin than abuse of strength, and it is to no purpose that +attempts are made to excuse it by sophisms. The destruction of the +usages springing from this custom will render common those domestic +virtues which are the foundation of all others, and will encourage +education as well as make it more general, both because instruction +would be imparted to both sexes with more equality, and because it +cannot become general even for males without the aid of the mother of +the family.[79] + +Among other improvements under our third head will be the attainment of +greater perfection in language, leading at once to increased accuracy +and increased concision. Laws and institutions, following the progress +of knowledge, will be constantly undergoing modifications tending to +identify individual with collective interests. Wars will grow less +frequent with the extinction of those ideas of hereditary and dynastic +rights, that have occasioned so many bloody contests. The art of +learning will be facilitated by the institution of a Universal Language; +and the art of teaching by resort to Technical Methods, or systems which +unite in orderly arrangement a great number of different objects, so +that their relations are perceived at a single glance.[80] + +Finally, progress in medicine, the use of more wholesome food and +healthy houses, the diminution of the two most active causes of +deterioration, namely, misery and excessive wealth, must prolong the +average duration of life, as well as raise the tone of health while it +lasts. The force of transmissable diseases will be gradually weakened, +until their quality of transmission vanishes. May we then not hope for +the arrival of a time when death will cease to be anything but the +effect either of extraordinary accidents, or of the destruction, ever +slower and slower, of the vital forces? May we not believe that the +duration of the middle interval between birth and this destruction has +no assignable term? Man will never become immortal, but is it a mere +chimera to hold that the term fixed to his years is slowly and +perpetually receding further and further from the moment at which his +existence begins?[81] + + * * * * * + +The rapidity and the necessary incompleteness with which Condorcet threw +out in isolated hints his ideas of the future state of society, impart +to his conception a certain mechanical aspect, which conveys an +incorrect impression of his notion of the sources whence social change +must flow. His admirable and most careful remarks upon the moral +training of children prove him to have been as far removed as possible +from any of those theories of the formation of character which merely +prescribe the imposition of moulds and casts from without, instead of +carefully tending the many spontaneous and sensitive processes of growth +within.[82] Nobody has shown a finer appreciation of the delicacy of +the material out of which character is to be made, and of the +susceptibility of its elementary structure; nor of the fact that +education consists in such a discipline of the primitive impulses as +shall lead men to do right, not by the constraint of mechanical external +sanctions, but by an instant, spontaneous, and almost inarticulate +repugnance to cowardice, cruelty, apathy, self-indulgence, and the other +great roots and centres of wrong-doing. It was to a society composed of +men and women whose characters had been shaped on this principle, that +Condorcet looked for the realisation of his exalted hopes for +humanity.[83] + +With machinery and organisation, in truth, Condorcet did not greatly +concern himself; probably too little rather than too much. The central +idea of all his aspirations was to procure the emancipation of reason, +free and ample room for its exercise, and improved competence among men +in the use of it. The subjugation of the modern intelligence beneath the +disembodied fancies of the grotesque and sombre imagination of the +Middle Ages, did not offend him more than the idea of any fixed +organisation of the spiritual power, or any final and settled and +universally accepted solution of belief and order would have done. With +De Maistre and Comte the problem was the organised and systematic +reconstruction of an anarchic society. With Condorcet it was how to +persuade men to exert the individual reason methodically and +independently, not without co-operation, but without anything like +official or other subordination. + +His cardinal belief and precept was, as with Socrates, that the +bios +anexetastos+ is not to be lived by man. As we have seen, the freedom of +the reason was so dear to him, that he counted it an abuse for a parent +to instil his own convictions into the defenceless minds of his young +children. This was the natural outcome of Condorcet's mode of viewing +history as the record of intellectual emancipation, while to Comte its +deepest interest was as a record of moral and emotional cultivation. If +we value in one type of thinker the intellectual conscientiousness, +which refrains from perplexing men by propounding problems unless the +solution can be set forth also, perhaps we owe no less honour in the +thinker of another type to that intellectual self-denial which makes him +very careful lest the too rigid projection of his own specific +conclusions should by any means obstruct the access of a single ray of +fertilising light. This religious scrupulosity, which made him abhor all +interference with the freedom and openness of the understanding as the +worst kind of sacrilege, was Condorcet's eminent distinction. If, as +some think, the world will gradually transform its fear or love of +unknowable gods into a devout reverence for those who have stirred in +men a sense of the dignity of their own nature and of its large and +multitudinous possibilities, then will his name not fail of deep and +perpetual recollection. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[73] _Ib._ p. 223. + +[74] _Ib._ p. 206. + +[75] _Oeuv._ pp. 239-244. + +[76] _Oeuv._ pp. 244-251. + +[77] _Oeuv._ pp. 257, 258. + +[78] Condorcet had already assailed the prejudices that keep women in +subjection in an excellent tract, published in 1790; _Sur l'Admission +des Femmes au Droit de Cite._ _Oeuv._ x. 121-130. + +[79] _Oeuv._ p. 264. The rest of the passage is not perfectly +intelligible to me, so I give it as it stands. '_Cet hommage trop +tardif, rendu enfin a l'equite et au bon sens, ne tarirait-il pas une +source trop feconde d'injustices, de cruautes et de crimes, en faisant +disparaitre une opposition si dangereuse entre le penchant naturel le +plus vif, le plus difficile a reprimer, et les devoirs de l'homme ou les +interets de la societe? Ne produirait-il pas, enfin, des moeurs +nationales douces et pures, formees non de privations orgueilleuses, +d'apparences hypocrites, de reserves imposees par la crainte de la honte +ou les terreurs religieuses, mais d'habitudes librement contractees, +inspirees par la nature, avouees par la raison?_' Can these habitudes be +the habitudes of Free Love, or what are they? Condorcet, we know, +thought the indissolubility of marriage a monstrously bad thing, but the +grounds which he gives for his thinking so would certainly lead to the +infinite dissolubility of society. See a truly astounding passage in the +_Fragment on the Tenth Epoch_, vi. 523-526. See also some curious words +in a letter to Turgot, i. 221, 222. + +[80] _Oeuv._ pp. 269-272. + +[81] _Oeuv._ pp. 272-275. Also p. 618. + +[82] See _Fragment de l'Histoire de la Xe Epoque._ '_Il ne faut pas +leur dire, mais les accoutumer a croire, a trouver au dedans +a'eux-memes, que la bonte et la justice sont necessaires au bonheur, +comme une respiration facile et libre l'est a la sante._' Of books for +the young: '_Il faut qu'ils n'excedent jamais l'etendue ou la +delicatesse de la sensibilite._' '_Il faut renoncer a l'idee de parler +aux enfans de ce que ni leur esprit ni leur ame ne peuvent encore +comprendre; ne pas leur faire admirer une constitution et reciter par +coeur les droits politiques de l'homme quand ils ont a peine une idee +nette de leurs relations avec leur famille et leurs camarades._' + +Still more objectionable, we may be sure, would he have found the +practice of drilling little children by the hearth or at the school-desk +in creeds, catechisms, and the like repositories of mysteries baleful to +the growing intelligence. '_Aidons le developpement des facultes +humaines pendant la faiblesse de l'enfance_,' he said admirably, '_mais +n'abusons pas de cette faiblesse pour les mouler au gre de nos opinions +de nos interets, ou de notre orgueil._'--_Oeuv._ vi. 543-554. + +Cf. also v. 363-365, where there are some deserved strictures on the +malpractice of teaching children as truth what the parents themselves +believe to be superstition or even falsehood. + +The reader may remember the speech of the Patriarch, in Lessing's play, +against the Jew: + + _Der mit Gewalt ein armes Christenkind + Dem Bunde seiner Tauf' entreisst! Denn ist + Nicht alles, was man Kindern thut, Gewalt? + Zu sagen: ausgenommen, was die Kirch', + An Kindern thut._ + +[83] His _Memoires sur l'Instruction Publique_, written in 1791-1792, +and printed in the seventh volume of the works, are still very well +worth turning to. + + +Transcribers' Notes: + +Minor printer errors (omitted or incorrect punctuation) have been +amended without note. Other errors have been amended and are listed +below. + +List of Amendments: + +Page 201: colleages amended to colleagues; "... among his colleagues in +the deputation ..." + +Page 240: added missing footnote anchor [66] to paragraph ending "... +ceased to be altogether exact." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + +***** This file should be named 24492.txt or 24492.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/4/9/24492/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Rene Anderson Benitz and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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