Elements of Morals Part 18

=96. Division of social professions.=--It would be impossible to make a survey of all the professions society is composed of: it were an infinite labor. We must, therefore, bring the professions down to a certain number of types or cla.s.ses, which allow the reducing of the rules of _professional morality_ to a small number. Several philosophers have busied themselves in dividing and cla.s.sifying social occupations. We shall recall only the princ.i.p.al ones of these divisions.

Plato has reduced the different social functions to four cla.s.ses, namely: 1, _magistrates_; 2, _warriors_; 3, _farmers_; 4, _artisans_. The two first cla.s.ses are the governing cla.s.ses; the two others are the cla.s.ses governed. The two first apply themselves to moral things: education, science, the defense of the country; the others to material life. This cla.s.sification of Plato is somewhat too general for our modern societies, which comprise more varied and numerous elements: these divisions, nevertheless, are important, and should be taken account of in morals.

Since Plato, there is scarcely any but the socialist Saint-Simon who attempted to cla.s.sify the social careers. He reduces them to three groups: _industrials_, _artists_, and _scientists_ (savants). The meaning of this cla.s.sification is this: the object of human labor, according to Saint-Simon, is the cultivation of the globe--that is to say, the greatest possible production; but this is the object of productive labor; it is what is called _industry_. Now, the cultivation of nature requires a knowledge of nature's laws, namely, _science_. Science and invention are, then, the two great branches of social activity. According to Saint-Simon, work--that is to say, industry--must take the place of war; science, that of the laws. Hence no warriors, no magistrates; or, rather, the scientists (savants) should be the true magistrates. Science and industry, however, having only relation to material nature, Saint-Simon thought there was a part to be given to the moral order, to the _beautiful_ or the _good_; hence a third cla.s.s, which he now calls _artists_, now _moralists_ and _philosophers_, and to whom a sort of religious role is a.s.signed. It will be seen that this theory is absolutely artificial and utopian, that it has relation to an imaginary system, and not to the order of things as it is: it is an ingenious conception, but quite impracticable.

One of the greatest of modern moralists, the German philosopher Fichte, a.s.signed, in his _Practical Morality_, a part to the doctrine of _professional_ duties; and he began by giving a theory of the professions more complete and satisfactory than any of the preceding ones.

Fichte makes of the special professions two great divisions: 1, those which have for their object the keeping up of material life; 2, those which have for their object the keeping up of intellectual and moral life.

On the one side, _mechanical labor_; on the other, _intellectual_ and _moral labor_.

The object of mechanical labor is _production_, _manufacture_, and _exchange_ of produce; hence three functions: those of =producers=, =manufacturers=, and =merchants=.

The moral and spiritual labor has also three objects: 1, the administration of justice in the State; 2, the theoretic culture of intelligence; 3, the moral culture of the will. Hence three cla.s.ses: 1, =public functions=; 2, =science and instruction=; 3, =the Church and the clergy=. Lastly, there is in human nature a faculty which serves as a link between the theoretical and the practical faculties: it is the _esthetic sense_; the sense of the beautiful; hence a last cla.s.s, that of =artists=.

This theory is more scientific than that of the Saint-Simonians, but it is still somewhat defective; it is not clear, for example, in a moral point of view, that there is a great difference of duties between the producers, manufacturers, and merchants: they are economical rather than moral distinctions. Plato's division is better, when he puts the farmers in opposition to the artisans. It is certain that there are, especially in these days, interesting moral questions, which differ according as the workmen live in the city or in the country. We therefore prefer on this point Plato's division; and we will treat, on the one side, _industry_ and _commerce_, and on the other _agriculture_; and in each of these divisions we will distinguish those who direct or remunerate the work, namely, contractors, masters, proprietors, capitalists in some degree, and those who work with their hands and receive wages.

In characterizing the second cla.s.s of careers, those which have moral interests for their object, we will again borrow of Plato one of the names of his division, namely, _the defense of the State_. As to the administration of justice in the State, it is divided, as we have already said, into three powers: the _executive_, _legislative_, and _judicial_ powers. Hence three orders of functions: _administration_, _deputation_, and the _magistracy_, with which latter is connected the _bar_.

As to science, it is either _speculative_ or _practical_.

In the first case, it only concerns the individual; we have spoken of it under individual duties (ch. iv.). In the second case, it has for its object _application_, and bears either on _things_ or on _men_.

Applied to things, science is a.s.sociated with the industry we have already spoken of. Applied to men, it is _medicine_, in respect to bodies; _morality_ or _religion_, in respect to hearts and souls.

Lastly, along with the sciences which seek the true, there are the letters and the arts which treat of and produce the beautiful. Hence a last cla.s.s, namely, _poets_, _writers_, _artists_.

Such is about the outline of what a system of social professions might be.

A treatise of professional morality which would be in harmony with this outline, would be all one science, the elements of which scarcely exist, being dispersed in a mult.i.tude of works, or rather in the practice and interior life of each profession. We will content ourselves with a few general indications.

=97. I. Mechanical and industrial professions.=--1. _Employers and employees._--The professions which have for their object the material cultivation of the globe, and particularly _industry_ and _commerce_, are divided into two great cla.s.ses: 1, on one side, those who, having capital, _undertake_ and direct the works; 2, those who execute them with their arms and receive _wages_. The first are the _employers_; the second the _employees_. What are the respective duties of these two cla.s.ses?

=98. Duties of employers.=--The duties of all those who, by virtue of their capital legitimately acquired, or by virtue of their intelligence, command, direct and pay for the work done by men, are the following:

1. They should raise the wages of the workmen as high as the state of the market permits; and they should not wait to be compelled to it by strikes or threats of strikes. Conversely, they should not, from weakness or want of foresight, yield to every threat of the kind; for in raising the wages unreasonably high, one may disable himself from entering into foreign compet.i.tion, or may cause the ruin of the humbler manufacturers who have not sufficient capital.

2. Capitalists, employers and masters should obey strictly the laws established for the protection of childhood. They should employ the work of minors within proper limits, and according to the conditions fixed by the law.

3. Their task is not done when they have secured to the workmen and their children the share of work and wages which is their due, even when they are content to claim nothing beyond justice. They have yet to fulfill toward their subordinates the duties of protection and benevolence; they must a.s.sist them, relieve them, be it in accidents happening to them in the work they are engaged in, or in illness. They must spare them suspensions of work as much as possible; in short, they must, through all sorts of establishments--schools, mutual-help societies, workmen-cities (_cites ouvrieres_), etc.--encourage education, economy, property, yet without forcing upon them anything that would diminish their own responsibility or impair their personal dignity.

=99. Duties of workingmen.=--The duties of workingmen should correspond to those of the employers.

1. The workingmen owe it to themselves not to cherish in their hearts feelings of hatred, envy, covetousness, and revolt against the employers.

Division of work requires that in industrial matters some should direct and others be directed. Material exploitation requires capital; and those who bring this capital, the fruit of former work, are as necessary to the workingmen to utilize their work as these are to the first in utilizing their capital.

2. The workingmen owe their work to the establishment which pays them; it is as much their interest as their duty. The result of _laziness_ and _intemperance_ is _misery_. We cannot enough deplore the use of what is called the _Mondays_--a day of rest over and beyond the legitimate and necessary Sunday. It is certain that one day of rest in a week is absolutely a necessity. No man can nor ought (except in circ.u.mstances unavoidable) work without interruption the whole year through. But the week's day of rest once secure, all that is over and above that, is taken from what belongs to the family and the provisions against old age.

3. Supposing that, in consequence of the progress of industry, the number of hours of rest could be increased--that, for example, the hours of the day's work could be reduced--these hours of rest should then be devoted to the family, to the cultivation of the mind, and not to the fatal pleasures of intoxication.

The workingmen have certainly a right to ask, as far as they are worthy of it, equality of consideration and influence in society; and all our modern laws are so const.i.tuted as to insure them this equality. It rests with them, therefore, to render themselves worthy of this new equality by their morals and their education. To have their children educated; to educate themselves; to occupy their leisure with family interests, in reading, in innocent and elevating recreations (music, the theatre, gardening, if possible), it is by all such pursuits that the workingmen will reduce or entirely remove the inequality of manners and education which may still exist between them and their superiors.

4. Workingmen cannot be blamed for seeking to defend their interests and increase their comforts; in so doing they only do what all men should do.

They have also the right, in order to get satisfaction, to attach to their work such conditions as they may reasonably desire: it is the _law of demand_ and _supply_, common to all industries. In short, as an individual refusal to work is a means absolutely inefficacious to bring about an increase of wages, it must be admitted that the workingmen have a right to act in concert and collectively to refuse to work, and, collectively, to make their conditions; hence the right of strikes recognized to-day by the law. But this right, granted to the principle of the liberty of work, must not be turned against this principle. The workingmen who freely refuse to work should not stand in the way of those who, finding their demands ill-founded, persist in continuing to work under the existing conditions.

All violence, all threats to force into the strike him who is opposed thereto, is an injustice and a tyranny. This violence is condemned by law; but as it is easily disguised, it cannot always be reached; it is, therefore, through the morals one must act upon it--through persuasion and education. The workmen must gradually adopt the morals of liberty, must respect each other. For the same reason they should respect women's work; should not interdict to their wives and daughters the right of improving their condition by work. Unquestionably it is much to be desired that woman should become more and more centred in domestic duties, the care of her household and family. This is her princ.i.p.al part in the social work.

But as long as the imperfect condition of the laboring cla.s.ses does not permit this state of things, it may be said that the workmen work against themselves in trying to close the field of industry to women.

The tendency toward the equality of wages, as the ideal of the remuneration of work, is also to be condemned. Nothing is more contrary to the spirit of the times, which demands that every one be treated according to his work. Capacity, painstaking, personal efforts, are elements that demand to be proportionately remunerated. Let us add, that it is the duty of head masters, in the case of a good will, succ.u.mbing to physical inability, to conciliate benevolence and equity with justice; this, however, is only an exceptional case. But, as a principle, each one should be rewarded only for what he has done. Otherwise there would be an inducement to indifference and idleness.

=100. Workmen and farmers.=--Having considered workmen in their relations with their masters, let us consider them now on a line with farmers; for, according as one lives in the city or in the country, there is a great difference in manners, and consequently in duties. The workmen who live in the city are for that very reason more apt to acquire new ideas and general information; they have many more means of educating themselves; the very pleasures of the city afford them opportunities to cultivate their mind. Besides, living nearer to each other, they are more disposed to consider their common interests and turn them to account. Hence advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are, the superiority of intellectual culture, the greater apt.i.tude in conceiving general ideas, a stronger interest in public affairs; in all these respects, city-life presents advantages over country-life. But hence also arise great dangers.

The workingmen, quite ready to admit general ideas, but without sufficient information and political experience to control them, abandon themselves readily to utopian preachings and instigations to revolt. Further, very much preoccupied with their common interests, they are too much disposed to think only of their own cla.s.s, and to form, as it were, a cla.s.s apart in society and in the nation. Hence for the workmen a double duty: 1, to obtain enough information not to blindly follow all demagogues; 2, to learn to consider their interests as connected with all those of the other cla.s.ses and professions.

Farmers are indebted to the country-life for certain advantages, which carry with them, at the same time, certain disadvantages. The farmer is generally more attached to social stability than the more or less s.h.i.+fting inhabitants of the towns; he thinks much of property; he does not like to change in his manners and ideas. He is thereby a powerful support to conservatism and the spirit of tradition, without which society could not live and last. He has, moreover, had till now the great merit of not singling himself out, of not separating his interests from those of the country in general. Thus, on these two points--opposition to utopias, preservation of social unity--the countryman serves as a counterpoise to all the opposite tendencies in the workmen. But these very qualities are, perhaps, the result of certain defects: namely, the absence of information and enlightenment. The countryman sees not very much beyond his church-steeple; material life occupies and absorbs him wholly; individual and personal interests are absolutely predominant in him. He is but little disposed to give his children any education; and he is disposed to look upon them as so many instruments of work less expensive than others. The idea of a general country, general interests surpa.s.sing private interests, is more or less wanting in him. What it is necessary to persuade the countryman of, is the usefulness of education. He should be inspired with a taste for liberty, which is a security to him and his family, as well as to all the other cla.s.ses of society. The workman in becoming better informed, the farmer more informed, they will gradually blend with the middle cla.s.ses, and there will then be no longer those oppositions of cla.s.ses and interests so dangerous at the present day. (See Appendix.)

=101. II. Military duties.=--We have already considered military duties, as the duty of citizens toward the State; we have now to consider here military duties in themselves, as special duties, peculiar to a certain cla.s.s of citizens, to a certain social profession.

1. It is useless to say that the peculiar virtue and special duty of the military cla.s.s is _courage_. We have but to refer the reader to what will be said further on (ch. xiv.) touching the virtue of courage, in regard to the duties of man toward himself.

2. _Patriotism_ is a duty of all cla.s.ses and all professions; but it is particularly one with those who are commissioned to defend the country: it is, therefore, the military virtue _par excellence_.

3. _Fidelity to the flag._--This duty is implied in the two preceding ones. The duty of courage, in fact, implies that one should not flee before the enemy: it is the crime of _desertion_; that one should not pa.s.s over to the enemy: it is the crime of _defection_ or _treason_. This latter crime has become very rare, and has even wholly disappeared in modern France. Formerly there was seen a Conde, the great Conde fighting against the French at the head of Spanish troops; and so great a fault scarcely injured his reputation; in our days, a simple suspicion, and that an unjust one, blackened the whole life of a Marshal of France.[66]

4. _Obedience and discipline._ (See above, _Duties toward the State_, preceding chapter.)

=102. III. Public functions--Administration--Deputation--Magistracy--The Bar.=--The public functions are the divers acts which compose the government of a State. We even include the _elective_ functions (deputation, general councils, town councils, etc.), because, whilst they have their origin in election, they are, nevertheless, functions, the purpose of which is the _common weal_, _public interests_. For the same reason, though the bar is a free profession, it is so connected with magistracy, it is so necessary a dependency of the judicial power, that it is thereby itself a sort of public power.

=103. Functionaries.=--We call _functionaries_, more particularly, those who take part in the administration of the country and the execution of its laws. This admitted, the princ.i.p.al duties of functionaries are:

1. The _Knowledge of the laws_ they are commissioned to execute. Power is only legitimate as far as it is guaranteed by _competency_. Ignorance in public functions has for its results _injustice_, since arbitrariness takes then the place of the law; administrative _disorder_, since the law has precisely for its object to establish rules and maintain traditions; _negligence_, since ignorant of the principles by which affairs ought to be settled, conclusions are kept off as much as possible. But one must not defer obtaining administrative information till called to take a share in the administration. A general information should be acquired beforehand; for, once engaged in administrative affairs, there is then no longer time to acquire it.

_To go to work_ is, therefore, the first duty of those who would be prepared for public functions; and this duty of work continues with the functions; for after general information has been obtained, comes the special and technical information, where there is always something new to learn.

2. The second duty of functionaries of any degree, is _exact.i.tude_ and _a.s.siduity_. The most brilliant qualities, and the largest and amplest mind for public affairs, will render but inefficient service--at any rate, a service very inferior to what could be expected of them, if these qualities are counterbalanced and paralyzed by negligence, laziness, disorder, inexactness. One must not forget that all negligence in public affairs is a denial of justice to some one. An administrative decision, whatever it be, has always for its result to satisfy the just, or to deny the unjust, claims of some one. To r.e.t.a.r.d a case through negligence, may therefore deprive some one of what he has a right to. There are, of course, necessary delays which arise from the complication of affairs, and order itself requires that everything come in time; but delays occasioned by our own fault are a wrong toward others.

3. _Integrity_ and _discretion_ are also among the most important duties of functionaries. The first bears especially upon what concerns finances; but there are everywhere more or less opportunities to fail in probity.

For example, there is nothing more shameful than to sell one's influence; this is what is called _extortion_. An administrator given to extortion is the shame and ruin of the State. As to discretion, it is again a duty which depends on the nature of things. It is especially obligatory when persons are in question, and still more so in certain careers--as, for example, in _diplomacy_.

4. _Justice._--The strict duty of every administrator or functionary, is to have no other rule than the _law_; to avoid _arbitrariness_ and _favor_, to have no regard to persons. This duty, it must be said, whilst it is the most necessary, is also the most difficult to exercise, and one which requires most courage and will. Public opinion, unfortunately, encourages in this respect, the weaknesses of officials; it is convinced, and spreads everywhere this conviction, that all is due to _favoritism_, that it is not the most deserving that succeed, but the best recommended.

Everybody complains of it, and everybody helps toward it. There is unquestionably much exaggeration in these complaints. Favor is not everything in this world. It is too much the interest of administrators that they should have industrious and intelligent a.s.sistants, and that they should employ every means to choose them well; and in public affairs, the interests of the common weal always predominate in the end. It is, nevertheless, an evil that so unfavorable a prejudice should exist; and it is absolutely a duty with functionaries to uproot it, in showing it to be false.

=104. Elective functions--Deputation--Elective councils.=--There is a whole cla.s.s of functionaries, if it be permitted to say so, who owe their origin to election, and who are the mandataries of the people, either in munic.i.p.al councils, or in general councils, or in the great elective bodies of the State, the _Senate_ and _House of Representatives_. (See _Civil instruction_.) The principle of the sovereignty of the people requires that for all its interests, communal, departmental or national, the country have a deliberative voice by means of its representatives. The duties of these mandataries are generally the same in any degree of rank.

1. _Fidelity to the mandate._--The representative is the interpreter of certain opinions, of certain tendencies, and although the majority which have elected him comprise very diverse elements, there exists an average of opinions, and it is this average which the deputy represents, or should represent. He would, therefore, fail in his duty if, once elected, he pa.s.sed over to his opponents, or, if wis.h.i.+ng to do so, he did not tender his resignation. However, this fidelity to the mandate should not be carried so far as to accept what is called the _imperative mandate_, which is the negation of all liberty in the representative, and makes of him a simple voting machine. The representative is a representative precisely because he is empowered, on his own responsibility, to find the best means to carry out the wishes of his const.i.tuents.

2. _Independence._--The deputy, senator, munic.i.p.al, or departmental officer should be independent both in regard to the authorities and in regard to the electors. From the authorities he should receive no favors; he should not sell his vote in any interest whatsoever; from the electors he has to receive advice only, but no orders. Outside their office as electors, the electors are nothing but simple individuals. As such they may try to influence representatives, but they have otherwise no other t.i.tle before the representatives of the electoral corps. The representative should, above all, avoid making himself the servant of the electors, for the satisfaction of their private interests and pa.s.sions. It is often thought that independence only consists in resisting courts and princes; there is no less independence, and sometimes even is there more merit and courage required to resist the tyranny of the ma.s.ses, and especially that of popular leaders. The deputy should, we have said, be faithful to his trust--that is to say, to the general line of politics adopted by the political party to which he belongs; but within these general limits it is for him to a.s.sume the responsibility, for it is for this very reason that he is elected a representative. Let us, moreover, add that fidelity to opinions should not degenerate into party spirit, and that there is an interest which should supersede all others, namely, the interest of the country.

3. The spirit of _conciliation_ and the spirit of _discipline_.--Political liberty, more than any other political principle, requires the spirit of concession. If each, indeed, fortifies himself in his own opinions, without ever making a concession, all having the right to do the same, it is evident that no common conclusion can be arrived at. The consequence of the _liberum veto_,[67] pushed to excess, is paralysis of power or anarchy. Nothing is done; and in politics, when nothing is done, all becomes disorganized, dissolved. It is, therefore, necessary that whilst preserving their independence, the representatives sent forth by the electors should endeavor to render government possible; they should not overstep the limits of their trust by confounding legislative power with executive power; they should try to harmonize with the other bodies of the State--in short, they ought each to sacrifice the necessary amount of their individual opinion to bring about a common opinion. In a free government it is no more a duty to belong to the _majority_ than to the _opposition_, since the opposition may, in its turn, become majority; but whether belonging to the one or to the other, the representative should subordinate his particular views to the common interest; otherwise the parties scatter, which, in the long run, can only be profitable to despotism.

=105. Judicial power.--The magistracy and the bar.=--The judicial power is exercised by magistrates called _judges_: it is they who decide about quarrels between individuals: this is what is called _civil justice_; they also decide about the punishments inflicted on criminals who have made attempts upon a life or property; and this is _penal justice_. The duties of the magistrate are easily deduced from these obligations.