I.
Reactionary concept of the State. - Analogy between this idea of the State and that of antiquity. - Difference between antique and modern society. - Changed circumstances.
The Jacobin theory can then be summarized in the following points:
* The speculative creation of a curtailed type of human being.
* An effort to adapt the living man to this type.
* The interference of public authority in every branch of public endeavor.
* Constraints put upon labor, trade and property, upon the family and education, upon worship, habits, customs and sentiments.
* The sacrifice of the individual to the community.
* The omnipotence of the State.
No theory could be more reactionary since it moves modern man back to a type of society which he, eighteen centuries ago, had already passed through and left behind.
During the historical era proceeding our own, and especially in the old Greek or Latin cities, in Rome or Sparta, which the Jacobins take for their models,[1] human society was shaped after the pattern of an army or convent. In a convent as in an army, one idea, absorbing and unique, predominates:
* The aim of the monk is to please God at any sacrifice.
* The soldier makes every sacrifice to obtain a victory.
Accordingly, each renounces every other desire and entirely abandons himself, the monk to his rules and the soldier to his drill. In like manner, in the antique world, two preoccupations were of supreme importance. In the first place, the city had its gods who were both its founders and protectors: it was therefore obliged to worship these in the most reverent and particular manner; otherwise, they abandoned it. The neglect of any insignificant rite might offend them and ruin it. In the second place, there was incessant warfare, and the spoils of war were atrocious; on a city being taken every citizen might expect to be killed or maimed, or sold at auction, and see his children and wife sold to the highest bidder.[2] In short, the antique city, with its acropolis of temples and its fortified citadel surrounded by implacable and threatening enemies, resembles for us the institution of the Knights of St. John on their rocks at Rhodes or Malta, a religious and military confraternity encamped around a church. - Liberty, under such conditions, is out of the question:
public convictions are too imperious; public danger is too great.
With this pressure upon him, and thus hampered, the individual gives himself up to the community, which takes full possession of him, because, to maintain its own existence, it needs the whole man.
Henceforth, no one may develop apart and for himself; no one may act or think except within fixed lines. The type of Man is distinctly and clearly marked out, if not logically at least traditionally; each life, as well as each portion of each life must conform to this type;otherwise public security is compromised: any falling off in gymnastic education weakens the army; passing the images of the gods and neglecting the usual libation draws down celestial vengeance on the city. Consequently, to prevent all deviations, the State, absolute master, exercises unlimited jurisdiction; no freedom whatever is left to the individual, no portion of himself is reserved to himself, no sheltered corner against the strong hand of public force, neither his possessions, his children, his personality, his opinions or his conscience.[3] If, on voting days, he shares in the sovereignty, he is subject all the rest of the year, even to his private sentiments.
Rome, to serve these ends, had two censors. One of the archons of Athens was inquisitor of the faith. Socrates was put to death for not believing in the gods in which the city believed.[4] - In reality, not only in Greece and in Rome, but in Egypt, in China, in India, in Persia, in Judea, in Mexico, in Peru, during the first stages of civilization,[5] the principle of human communities is still that of gregarious animals: the individual belongs to his community the same as the bee to its hive and the ant to its ant-hill; he is simply an organ within an organism. Under a variety of structures and in diverse applications authoritative socialism alone prevails.
Just the opposite in modern society; what was once the rule has now become the exception; the antique system survives only in temporary associations, like that of an army, or in special associations, as in a convent. Gradually, the individual has liberated himself, and century after century, he has extended his domain and the two chains which once bound him fast to the community, have snapped or been lightened.
In the first place, public power has ceased to consist of a militia protecting a cult. In the beginning, through the institution of Christianity, civil society and religious society have become two distinct empires, Christ himself having separated the two jurisdictions;"Render unto C?sar the things which are C?sar's, and unto God the things that are God's."Additionally, through the rise of Protestantism, the great Church is split into numerous sects which, unable to destroy each other, have been so compelled to live together and the State, even when preferring one of them, has found it necessary to tolerate the others. Finally, through the development of Protestantism, philosophy and the sciences, speculative beliefs have multiplied. There are almost as many faiths now-a-days as there are thinking men, and, as thinking men are becoming daily more numerous, opinions are daily becoming more numerous. So should the State try to impose any one of these on society, this would excite opposition from an infinity of others;hence the wisdom in governing is found, first, in remaining neutral, and, next, in acknowledging that it is not qualified to interfere.
