PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLUSIONS RESPECTING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION1.Illusions respecting Primitive Man, the Return to a State of Nature, and the Psychology of the People.
We have already repeated, and shall again repeat, that the errors of a doctrine do not hinder its propagation, so that all we have to consider here is its influence upon men's minds.
But although the criticism of erroneous doctrines is seldom of practical utility, it is extremely interesting from a psychological point of view.The philosopher who wishes to understand the working of men's minds should always carefully consider the illusions which they live with.Never, perhaps, in the course of history have these illusions appeared so profound and so numerous as during the Revolution.
One of the most prominent was the singular conception of the nature of our first ancestors and primitive societies.
Anthropology not having as yet revealed the conditions of our remoter forbears, men supposed, being influenced by the legends of the Bible, that man had issued perfect from the hands of the Creator.The first societies were models which were afterwards ruined by civilisation, but to which mankind must return.
The return to the state of nature was very soon the general cry.
``The fundamental principle of all morality, of which I have treated in my writings,'' said Rousseau, ``is that man is a being naturally good, loving justice and order.''
Modern science, by determining, from the surviving remnants, the conditions of life of our first ancestors, has long ago shown the error of this doctrine.Primitive man has become an ignorant and ferocious brute, as ignorant as the modern savage of goodness, morality, and pity.Governed only by his instinctive impulses, he throws himself on his prey when hunger drives him from his cave, and falls upon his enemy the moment he is aroused by hatred.Reason, not being born, could have no hold over his instincts.
The aim of civilisation, contrary to all revolutionary beliefs, has been not to return to the state of nature but to escape from it.It was precisely because the Jacobins led mankind back to the primitive condition by destroying all the social restraints without which no civilisation can exist that they transformed a political society into a barbarian horde.
The ideas of these theorists concerning the nature of man were about as valuable as those of a Roman general concerning the power of omens.Yet their influence as motives of action was considerable.The Convention was always inspired by such ideas.
The errors concerning our primitive ancestors were excusable enough, since before modern discoveries had shown us the real conditions of their existence these were absolutely unknown.But the absolute ignorance of human psychology displayed by the men of the Revolution is far less easy to understand.
It would really seem as though the philosophers and writers of the eighteenth century must have been totally deficient in the smallest faculty of observation.They lived amidst their contemporaries without seeing them and without understanding them.Above all, they had not a suspicion of the true nature of the popular mind.The man of the people always appeared to them in the likeness of the chimerical model created by their dreams.
As ignorant of psychology as of the teachings of history, they considered the plebeian man as naturally good, affectionate, grateful, and always ready to listen to reason.
The speeches delivered by members of the Assembly show how profound were these illusions.When the peasants began to burn the chateaux they were greatly astonished, and addressed them in sentimental harangues, praying them to cease, in order not to ``give pain to their good king,'' and adjured them ``to surprise him by their virtues.''
2.Illusions respecting the Possibility of separating Man from his Past and the Power of Transformation attributed to the Law.
One of the principles which served as a foundation for the revolutionary institutions was that man may readily be cut off from his past, and that a society may be re-made in all its parts by means of institutions.Persuaded in the light of reason that, except for the primitive ages which were to serve as models, the past represented an inheritance of errors and superstitions, the legislators of the day resolved to break entirely with that past.
The better to emphasise their intention, they founded a new era, transformed the calendar, and changed the names of the months and seasons.
Supposing all men to be alike, they thought they could legislate for the human race.Condorcet imagined that he was expressing an evident truth when he said: ``A good law must be good for all men, just as a geometrical proposition is true for all.''
The theorists of the Revolution never perceived, behind the world of visible things, the secret springs which moved them.Acentury of biological progress was needed to show how grievous were their mistakes, and how wholly a being of whatever species depends on its past.
With the influence of the past, the reformers of the Revolution were always clashing, without ever understanding it.They wanted to annihilate it, but were annihilated by it instead.
The faith of law-makers in the absolute power of laws and institutions, rudely shaken by the end of the Revolution, was absolute at its outbreak.Gregoire said from the tribune of the Constituent Assembly, without provoking the least astonishment: ``We could if we would change religion, but we do not want to.'' We know that they did want to later, and we know how miserably their attempt failed.
Yet the Jacobins had in their hands all the elements of success.
