INDIVIDUAL VARIATIONS OF CHARACTER IN TIME OF REVOLUTION1.Transformations of Personality.
I have dwelt at length elsewhere upon a certain theory of character, without which it is absolutely impossible to understand divers transformations or inconsistencies of conduct which occur at certain moments, notably in time of revolution.
Here are the principal points of this theory:
Every individual possesses, besides his habitual mentality, which, when the environment does not alter, is almost constant, various possibilities of character which may be evoked by passing events.
The people who surround us are the creatures of certain circumstances, but not of all circumstances.Our ego consists of the association of innumerable cellular egos, the residues of ancestral personalities.By their combination they form an equilibrium which is fairly permanent when the social environment does not vary.As soon as this environment is considerably modified, as in time of insurrection, this equilibrium is broken, and the dissociated elements constitute, by a fresh aggregation, a new personality, which is manifested by ideas, feelings, and actions very different from those formerly observed in the same individual.Thus it is that during the Terror we see honest bourgeois and peaceful magistrates who were noted for their kindness turned into bloodthirsty fanatics.
Under the influence of environment the old personality may therefore give place to one entirely new.For this reason the actors in great religious and political crises often seem of a different essence to ourselves; yet they do not differ from us;the repetition of the same events would bring back the same men.
Napoleon perfectly understood these possibilities of character when he said, in Saint Helena:--``It is because I know just how great a part chance plays in our political decisions, that I have always been without prejudices, and very indulgent as to the part men have taken during our disturbances....In time of revolution one can only say what one has done; it would not be wise to say that one could not have done otherwise....Men are difficult to understand if we want to be just....Do they know themselves? Do they account for themselves very clearly? There are virtues and vices of circumstance.''
When the normal personality has been disaggregated under the influence of certain events, how does the new personality form itself? By several means, the most active of which is the acquisition of a strong belief.This orientates all the elements of the understanding, as the magnet collects into regular curves the filings of a magnetic metal.
Thus were formed the personalities observed in times of great crises: the Crusades, the Reformation, the Revolution notably.
At normal times the environment varies little, so that as a rule we see only a single personality in the individuals that surround us.Sometimes, however, it happens that we observe several, which in certain circumstances may replace one another.
These personalities may be contradictory and even inimical.This phenomenon, exceptional under normal conditions, is considerably accentuated in certain pathological conditions.Morbid psychology has recorded several examples of multiple personality in a single subject, such as the cases cited by Morton Prince and Pierre Janet.
In all these variations of personality it is not the intelligence which is modified, but the feelings, whose association forms the character.
2.Elements of Character Predominant in Time of Revolution.
During revolution we see several sentiments developed which are commonly repressed, but to which the destruction of social constraints gives a free vent.
These constraints, consisting of the law, morality, and tradition, are not always completely broken.Some survive the upheaval and serve to some extent to damp the explosion of dangerous sentiments.
The most powerful of these restraints is the soul of the race.
This determines a manner of seeing, feeling, and willing common to the majority of the individuals of the same people; it constitutes a hereditary custom, and nothing is more powerful than the ties of custom.
This racial influence limits the variations of a people and determines its destiny within certain limits in spite of all superficial changes.
For example, to take only the instances of history, it would seem that the mentality of France must have varied enormously during a single century.In a few years it passed from the Revolution to Caesarism, returned to the monarchy, effected another Revolution, and then summoned a new Caesar.In reality only the outsides of things had changed.
We cannot insist further here on the limits of national variability, but must now consider the influence of certain affective elements, whose development during revolution contributes to modify individual or collective personalities.In particular I will mention hatred, fear, ambition, jealousy or envy, vanity, and enthusiasm.We observe their influence during several of the upheavals of history, notably during the course of the French Revolution, which will furnish us with most of our examples.
Hatred.--The hatred of persons, institutions, and things which animated the men of the Revolution is one of these affective phenomena which are the more striking the more one studies their psychology.They detested, not only their enemies, but the members of their own party.``If one were to accept unreservedly,'' said a recent writer, ``the judgments which they expressed of one another, we should have to conclude that they were all traitors and boasters, all incapable and corrupt, all assassins or tyrants.'' We know with what hatred, scarcely appeased by the death of their enemies, men persecuted the Girondists, Dantonists, Hebertists, Robespierrists, &c.
