Lectures on the true, the beautiful and the good Part 18

5. Let us again signalize one of the necessary consequences of the doctrine of interest.

A free being, in possession of the sacred rule of justice, cannot violate it, knowing that he should and may follow it, without immediately recognizing that he merits punishment. The idea of punishment is not an artificial idea, borrowed from the profound calculations of legislators; legislations rest upon the natural idea of punishment. This idea, corresponding to that of liberty and justice, is necessarily wanting where the former two do not exist. Does he who obeys, and fatally obeys his desires, by the attraction of pleasure and happiness, supposing that, without any other motive than that of interest, he does an act conformed, externally at least, to the rule of justice, merit any thing by doing such an action? Not the least in the world. Conscience attributes to him no merit, and no one owes him thanks or recompense, for he only thinks of himself. On the other hand, if he injures others in wis.h.i.+ng to serve himself, he does not feel culpable, and no one can say to him that he has merited punishment. A free being who wills what he does, who has a law, and can conform to it, or break it, is alone responsible for his acts. But what responsibility can there be in the absence of liberty and a recognized and accepted rule of justice? The man of sensation and desire tends to his own good under the law of interest, as the stone is drawn towards the centre of the earth under the law of gravitation, as the needle points to the pole. Man may err in the pursuit of his interest. In this case, what is to be done!

As it seems, to put him again in the right way. Instead of that, he is punished. And for what, I pray you? For being deceived. But error merits advice, not punishment. Punishment has, in the system of interest, no more the sanction of moral sense than recompense. Punishment is only an act of personal defence on the part of society; it is an example which it gives, in order to inspire a salutary terror. These motives are excellent, if it be added that this punishment is just in itself, that it is merited, and that it is legitimately applied to the action committed. Omit that, and the other motives lose their authority, and there remains only an exercise of force, dest.i.tute of all morality. Then the culprit is not punished; he is smitten, or even put to death, as the animal that injures instead of serving is put to death without scruple.

The condemned does not bow his head to the wholesome reparation due to justice, but to the weight of irons or the stroke of the axe. The chastis.e.m.e.nt is not a legitimate satisfaction, an expiation which, comprehended by the culprit, reconciles him in his own eyes with the order that he has violated. It is a storm that he could not escape; it is the thunder-bolt that falls upon him; it is a force more powerful than his own, which compa.s.ses and overthrows him. The appearance of public chastis.e.m.e.nts acts, without doubt, upon the imagination of peoples; but it does not enlighten their reason and speak to their conscience; it intimidates them, perhaps; it does not soften them. So recompense is only an additional attraction, added to all the others.

As, properly speaking, there is no merit, recompense is simply an advantage that one desires, that is striven for and obtained without attaching to it any moral idea. Thus is degraded and effaced the great inst.i.tution, natural and divine, of the recompense of virtue by happiness, and of reparation for a fault by proportionate suffering.[197]

We may then draw the conclusion, without fear of its being contradicted either by a.n.a.lysis or dialectics, that the doctrine of interest is incompatible with the most certain facts, with the strongest convictions of humanity. Let us add, that this doctrine is not less incompatible with the hope of another world, where the principle of justice will be better realized than in this.

I will not seek whether the sensualistic metaphysics can arrive at an infinite being, author of the universe and man. I am well persuaded that it cannot. For every proof of the existence of G.o.d supposes in the human mind principles of which sensation renders no account,--for example, the universal and necessary principle of causality, without which I should have no need of seeking, no power of finding the cause of whatever exists.[198] All that I wish to establish here is, that in the system of interest, man, not possessing any truly moral attribute, has no right to put in G.o.d that of which he finds no trace either in the world or in himself. The G.o.d of the ethics of interest must be a.n.a.logous to the man of these same ethics. How could they attribute to him the justice and the love--I mean disinterested love--of which they cannot have the least idea? The G.o.d that they can admit loves himself, and loves only himself.

And reciprocally, not considering him as the supreme principle of charity and justice, we can neither love nor honor him, and the only wors.h.i.+p that we can render him, is that of the fear with which his omnipotence inspires us.

What holy hope could we then found upon such a G.o.d? And we who have some time grovelled upon this earth, thinking only of ourselves, seeking only pleasure and a pitiable happiness, what sufferings n.o.bly borne for justice, what generous efforts to maintain and develop the dignity of our soul, what virtuous affections for other souls, can we offer to the Father of humanity as t.i.tles to his merciful justice? The principle that most persuades the human race of the immortality of the soul is still the necessary principle of merit and demerit, which, not finding here below its exact satisfaction, and yet under the necessity of finding it, inspires us to call upon G.o.d for its satisfaction, who has not put in our hearts the law of justice to violate it himself in regard to us.[199] Now, we have just seen that the ethics of interest destroy the principle of merit and demerit, both in this world, and above all, in the world to come. Accordingly, there is no regard beyond this world,--no recourse to an all-powerful judge, wholly just and wholly good, against the sports of fortune and the imperfections of human justice. Every thing is completed for man between birth and death, in spite of the instincts and presentiments of his heart, and even the principles of his reason.

The disciples of Helvetius will, perhaps, claim the glory of having freed humanity from the fears and hopes that turn it aside from its true interests. It is a service which mankind will appreciate. But since they confine our whole destiny to this world, let us demand of them what lot so worthy of envy they have in reserve for us here, what social order they charge with our good fortune, what politics, in fine, are derived from their ethics.[200]

You already know. We have demonstrated that the philosophy of sensation knows neither true liberty nor true right. What, in fact, is will for this philosophy? It is desire. What, then, is right? The power of satisfying desires. On this score, man is not free, and right is might.

Once more, nothing pertains less to man than desire. Desire comes of need which man does not make, which he submits to. He submits in the same way to desire. To reduce will to desire is to annihilate liberty; it is worse still, it is to put it where it is not; it is to create a mendacious liberty that becomes an instrument of crime and misery. To call man to such a liberty is to open his soul to infinite desires, which it is impossible for him to satisfy. Desire is in its nature without limits, and our power is very limited. If we were alone in this world, we should even then be much troubled to satisfy our desires. But we press against each other with immense desires, and limited, diverse, and unequal powers. When right is the force that is in each of us, equality of rights is a chimera,--all rights are unequal, since all forces are unequal and can never cease to be so. It is, therefore, necessary to renounce equality as well as liberty; or if one invents a false equality as well as a false liberty, he puts humanity in pursuit of a phantom.

Such are the social elements that the ethics of interest give to politics. From such elements I defy all the politics of the school of sensation and interest to produce a single day of liberty and happiness for the human race.

When right is might, the natural state of men among themselves, is war.

All desiring the same things, they are all necessarily enemies; and in this war, woe to the feeble, to the feeble in body and the feeble in mind! The stronger are the masters by perfect right. Since right is might, the feeble may complain of nature that has not made them strong, and not complain of the strong man who uses his right in oppressing them. The feeble then call deception to their aid; and it is in this strife between cunning and force that humanity combats with itself.

Yes, if there are only needs, desires, pa.s.sions, interests, with different forces pitted against each other, war, a war sometimes declared and b.l.o.o.d.y, sometimes silent and full of meannesses, is in the nature of things. No social art can change this nature,--it may be more or less covered; it always reappears, overcomes and rends the veil with which a mendacious legislation envelops it. Dream, then, of liberty for beings that are not free, of equality between beings that are essentially different, of respect for rights where there is no right, and of the establishment of justice on an indestructible foundation of inimical pa.s.sions! From such a foundation can spring only endless troubles or oppression, or rather all these evils together in a necessary circle.

This fatal circle can be broken only by the aid of principles which all the metamorphoses of sensation do not engender, and for which interest cannot account, which none the less subsist to the honor and for the safety of humanity. These principles are those that time has little by little drawn from Christianity in order to give them for the guidance of modern societies. You will find them written in the glorious declaration of rights that forever broke the monarchy of Louis XV., and prepared the const.i.tutional monarchy. They are in the charter that governs us, in our laws, in our inst.i.tutions, in our manners, in the air that we breathe.

They serve at once as foundations for our society and the new philosophy necessary to a new order.[201]

Perhaps you will ask me how, in the eighteenth century, so many distinguished, so many honest souls could let themselves be seduced by a system that must have been revolting to all their sentiments. I will answer by reminding you that the eighteenth century was an immoderate reaction against the faults into which had sadly fallen the old age of a great century and a great king, that is to say, the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the persecution of all free and elevated philosophy, a narrow and suspicious devotion, and intolerance, with its usual companion, hypocrisy. These excesses must have produced opposite excesses. Mme. de Maintenon opened the route to Mme. de Pompadour. After the mode of devotion comes that of license; it takes every thing by storm. It descends from the court to the n.o.bility, to the clergy even, and accordingly to the people. It carried away the best spirits, even genius itself. It put a foreign philosophy in the place of the national philosophy, culpable, persecuted as it had been, for not being irreconcilable with Christianity. A disciple of Locke, whom Locke had discarded, Condillac, took the place of Descartes, as the author of _Candide_ and _la Pucelle_ had taken the place of Corneille and Bossuet, as Boucher and Vanloo had taken the place of Lesueur and Poussin. The ethics of pleasure and interest were the necessary ethics of that epoch.

It must not be supposed from this that all souls were corrupt. Men, says M. Royer-Collard, are neither as good nor as bad as their principles[202]. No stoic has been as austere as stoicism, no epicurean as enervated as epicureanism. Human weakness practically baffles virtuous theories; in return, thank G.o.d, the instinct of the heart condemns to inconsistency the honest man who errs in bad theories.

Accordingly, in the eighteenth century, the most generous and most disinterested sentiments often shone forth under the reign of the philosophy of sensation and the ethics of interest. But it is none the less true, that the philosophy of sensation is false, and the ethics of interest destructive of all morality.

I should perhaps make an apology for so long a lecture; but it was necessary to combat seriously a doctrine of morality radically incompatible with that which I would make penetrate your minds and your souls. It was especially necessary for me to strip the ethics of interest of that false appearance of liberty which they usurp in vain. I maintain, on the contrary, that they are the ethics of slaves, and send them back to the time when they ruled. Now, the principle of interest being destroyed, I propose to examine other principles also, less false without doubt, but still defective, exclusive, and incomplete, upon which celebrated systems have pretended to found ethics. I will successively combat these principles taken in themselves, and will then bring them together, reduced to their just value, in a theory large enough to contain all the true elements of morality, in order to express faithfully common sense and entire human consciousness.

FOOTNOTES:

[190] On the ethics of interest, to this lecture may be joined those of vol. iii. of the 1st Series, on the doctrine of Helvetius and St.

Lambert.

[191] The word _bonheur_, which has no exact English equivalent, which M. Cousin uses in his ethical discussions in the precise sense of the definition given above, we have sometimes translated happiness, sometimes good fortune, sometimes prosperity, sometimes fortune. When one has in mind the thing, he will not be troubled by the more or less exact word that indicates it:--all language, at best, is only symbolic; it bears the same relation to thought as the forms of nature do to the laws that produce and govern them. The true reader never mistakes the symbol for the thing symbolized, the shadow for the reality.

[192] On the danger of seeking unity before all, see in the 3d Series, _Fragments Philosophiques_, vol. iv., our _Examination of the Lectures of M. Laromeguiere_.

[193] On the difference between desire, intelligence, and will, see the _Examination_, already cited, _of the Lectures of M. Laromeguiere_.

[194] 1st Series, vol. iii., p. 193: "In the doctrine of interest, every man seeks the useful, but he is not sure of attaining it. He may, by dint of prudence and profound combinations, increase in his favor the chances of success; it is impossible that there should not remain some chances against him; he never pursues, then, any thing but a probable result. On the contrary, in the doctrine of duty, I am always sure of obtaining the last end that I propose to myself, moral good. I risk my life to save my fellow; if, through mischance, I miss this end, there is another which does not, which cannot, escape me,--I have aimed at the good, I have been successful. Moral good, being especially in the virtuous intention, is always in my power and within my reach; as to the material good that can result from the action itself, Providence alone disposes of it. Let us felicitate ourselves that Providence has placed our moral destiny in our own hands, by making it depend upon the good and not upon the useful. The will, in order to act in the sad trials of life, has need of being sustained by certainty. Who would be disposed to give his blood for an uncertain end? Success is a complicated problem, that, in order to be solved, exacts all the power of the calculus of probabilities. What labor and what uncertainties does such a calculus involve! Doubt is a very sad preparation for action. But when one proposes before all to do his duty, he acts without any perplexity. Do what you ought, let come what may, is a motto that does not deceive.

With such an end, we are sure of never pursuing it in vain."

[195] See the development of the idea of right, lectures 14 and 15.

[196] See lecture 14, Theory of liberty.

[197] See the preceding lecture, and lectures 14 and 15.

[198] 1st part, lecture 1.

[199] See lecture 16.

[200] On the politics that are derived from the philosophy of sensation, see the four lectures that we devoted to the exposition and refutation of the doctrine of Hobbes, vol. iii. of the 1st Series.

[201] These words sufficiently mark the generous epoch in which we p.r.o.nounce them, without wounding the authority and the applauses of a n.o.ble youth, when M. de Chateaubriand covered the Restoration with his own glory, when M. Royer-Collard presided over public instruction, M.

Pasquier, M. Laine, M. de Serre over justice and the interior, Marshal St. Cyr over war, and the Duke de Richelieu over foreign affairs, when the Duke de Broglie prepared the true legislation of the press, and M.

Decazes, the author of the wise and courageous ordinance of September 5, 1816, was at the head of the councils of the crown; when finally, Louis XVIII. separated himself, like Henry IV., from his oldest servants in order to be the king of the whole nation.

[202] _Oeuvres de Reid_, vol. iv., p. 297: "Men are neither as good nor as bad as their principles; and, as there is no skeptic in the street, so I am sure there is no disinterested spectator of human actions who is not compelled to discern them as just and unjust.

Skepticism has no light that does not pale before the splendor of that vivid internal light that lightens the objects of moral perception, as the light of day lightens the objects of sensible perception."

LECTURE XIII.

OTHER DEFECTIVE PRINCIPLES.

The ethics of sentiment.--The ethics founded on the principle of the interest of the greatest number.--The ethics founded on the will of G.o.d alone.--The ethics founded on the punishments and rewards of another life.

Against the ethics of interest, all generous souls take refuge in the ethics of sentiment. The following are some of the facts on which these ethics are supported, and by which they seem to be authorized.

When we have done a good action, is it not certain that we experience a pleasure of a certain nature, which is to us the reward of this action?

This pleasure does not come from the senses--it has neither its principle nor its measure in an impression made upon our organs. Neither is it confounded with the joy of satisfied personal interest,--we are not moved in the same manner, in thinking that we have succeeded, and in thinking that we have been honest. The pleasure attached to the testimony of a good conscience is pure; other pleasures are much alloyed. It is durable, whilst the others quickly pa.s.s away. Finally, it is always within our reach. Even in the midst of misfortune, man bears in himself a permanent source of exquisite joys, for he always has the power of doing right, whilst success, dependent upon a thousand circ.u.mstances of which we are not the masters, can give only an occasional and precarious pleasure.

As virtue has its joys, so crime has its pains. The suffering that follows a fault is the just recompense for the pleasure that we have found in it, and is often born with it. It poisons culpable joys and the successes that are not legitimate. It wounds, rends, bites, thus to speak, and thereby receives its name.[203] To be man, is sufficient to understand this suffering,--it is remorse.

Here are other facts equally incontestable:

I perceive a man whose face bears the marks of distress and misery.

There is nothing in this that reaches and injures me; nevertheless, without reflection or calculation, the sight alone of this suffering man makes me suffer. This sentiment is pity, compa.s.sion, whose general principle is sympathy.

The sadness of one of my fellow-men inspires me with sadness, and a glad face disposes me to joy:

Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adflent Humani vultus.

The joy of others has an echo in our souls, and their sufferings, even their physical sufferings, communicate themselves to us almost physically. Not as exaggerated as it has been supposed was that expression of Mme. de Sevigne to her sick daughter: I have a pain in your breast.

Our soul feels the need of putting itself in unison, and, as it were, in equilibrium with that of others. Hence those electric movements, thus to speak, that run through large a.s.semblies. One receives the counter-stroke of the sentiments of his neighbors,--admiration and enthusiasm are contagious, as well as pleasantry and ridicule. Hence again the sentiment with which the author of a virtuous action inspires us. We feel a pleasure a.n.a.logous to that which he feels himself. But are we witnesses of a bad action? our souls refuse to partic.i.p.ate in the sentiments that animate the culpable man,--they have for him a true aversion, what is called antipathy.

We do not forget a third order of facts that pertain to the preceding, but differ from them.