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07 - The Law - Frederic Bastiat · Logic Library

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  Section seven. Saint just the legislator commands the future, and as for him
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  to will for the good of mankind, it is for him to make men
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  what he wishes them to be. Perrubs Pierre, the function of government is
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  to direct the physical and moral powers of the nation towards the object of its
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  institution Bilow varennes A. People who are to be restored to liberty must be
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  formed anew. Ancient prejudices must be destroyed, antiquated customs changed, depraved affections
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  corrected, and venerate vices eradicated. For this, a strong force and a
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  vehement impulse will be necessary. Citizens. The inflexible austerity of Lycurgus created the
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  firm basis of the Spartan republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Salon plunged
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  Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the whole science of government. Le Pelletier,
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  considering the extent of human degradation, I am convinced of the necessity of
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  effecting an entire regeneration of the race, and if I may so express myself,
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  of creating a new people. Men therefore are nothing but raw material.
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  It is not for them to will their own improvement. They are not capable
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  of it. According to Saint just it is only the legislator who is Men
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  are merely to be what he wills that they should be. According to Robespierre,
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  who copies Rousseau literally, the legislature is to begin by assigning the aim
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  of the institutions of the nation. After this, the government has only to
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  direct all its physical and moral forces towards this end. All this time,
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  the nation itself is to remain perfectly passive, and Billovaine would teach us that
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  it ought to have no prejudices, affections, nor wants, but such as
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  are authorized by the legislator. He even goes so far as to say that
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  the inflexible austerity of a man is the basis of a republic. We have
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  seen that in cases where the evil is so great that the ordinary magistrates are
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  unable to remedy, it maybly recommends a dictatorship to promote virtue. Havevery course,
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  says he, to an extraordinary magistracy, whose time shall be short and
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  is power considerable. The imagination of the people requires to be impressed. This
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  doctrine has not been neglected. Listened to Robespierre, the principle of the republican
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  government is a virtue, and the means to be adopted during its establishment as
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  terror. We want to substitute in our country morality for self indulgence, probity
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  for honor, principles for customs, duties for decorum, the empire of reason
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  for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of misfortune, pride
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  for insolence, greatness of soul for vanity, love of glory for love of
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  money, good people for good company, merit for intrigue, genius for wit,
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  truth for glitter, the charm of happiness for the weariness of pleasure,
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  the greatness of man for the littleness of the great, a magnanimous, powerful,
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  happy people for one that is easy, frivolous, degraded. That is
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  to say, we would substitute all the virtues and miracles of a republic for
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  all the vices and absurdities of monarchy. As what a vast height above the
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  rest of mankind? Does Robespierre place himself here and observe the arrogance with which
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  he speaks. He is not content with expressing a desire for a great renovation
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  of the human heart. He does not even expect such a result from a
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  regular government. No, he intends to affect it himself, and by means
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  of terror. The object of the discourse from which this puerile and laborious mass
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  of antithesis is extracted, was to exhibit the principles of morality that ought to
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  direct a revolutionary government. Moreover, when Robespierre asks for a dictatorship, is
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  not merely for the purpose of repelling a foreign enemy or of putting down factions.
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  It is that he may establish, by means of terror, and as
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  a preliminary to the operation of the Constitution, his own principles of morality.
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  He pretends to nothing short of extirpating from the country by means of terror,
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  self interest, honor, customs, to decorum, fashion, vanity, the
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  love of money, good company, intrigue, wit, luxury, and misery.
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  It is not until after he rose Pierre shall have accomplished these miracles,
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  as he rightly calls them, that he will allow the law to regain her
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  empire. Truly, it would be well if these visionaries, who think so
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  much of themselves and so little of mankind, who want to renew everything,
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  would only be content with trying to reform themselves, the task would be arduous
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  enough for them. In general, however, these gentlemen, the reformers,
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  legislators and politicians, do not desire to exercise an immediate despotism over mankind.
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  No, they are too moderate and too philanthropic for that. They only contend
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  for the despotism, the absolutism, the omnipotence of the law. They aspire
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  only to make the law. To show how universal this strange disposition has been
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  in France, I had need not only to have copied the whole of the
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  works of Maybli, ray nall Rousseau Fenelon, and to have made long extracts
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  from Beussuays and Montesquieu, but to have given the entire transactions of the sittings
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  of the Convention. I shall do no such thing, however, but merely
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  refer the reader to them. No wonder, this idea suited Buonaparte so well.
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  He embraced it with ardor and put it in practice with energy, playing
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  the part of a chemist. Europe was to him the material for his experiments,
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  but this material reacted against him. More than half undeceived. Bonaparte at
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  Saint Helena seemed to admit that there is an initiative in every people, and
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  he became less hostile to liberty. Yet this did not prevent him from giving
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  this lesson to his son. In his will to govern is to diffuse morality,
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  education and well being. After all this I highly need show by Festudi's
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  quotations, the opinions of Morelli, babeuf Owen, Saint Simon, and Fourier.
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  I shall confine myself to a few extracts from Louis Blanc's book on the
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  Organization of labor. In our project, society receives the impulse of power.
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  In what does the impulse that power gives to society consist imposing upon it?
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  The project of mister Louis Blanc. On the other hand, society is the
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  human race. The human race, then, is to receive its impulse from
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  mister Louis Blanc. It is at liberty to do so or not. It
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  will be said, of course, the human race is at liberty to take
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  advice from anybody, whoever it may be. But this is not the way
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  in which mister Louis Blanc understands a thing. He means that his project should
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  be converted into law, and consequently forcibly imposed by power. In our project,
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  the state has only to give a legislation to labor, by means of
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  which the industrial movement may and ought to be accomplished. In all liberty it
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  the state merely places society on an incline. That is all that it may
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  descend when once it is placed there by the mere force of things and by
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  the natural course of the established mechanism. But what is this incline one indicated
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  by mister Louis Blanc? Does it not lead to an abyss, no,
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  to happiness? Why then does not society go there of itself? Because it
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  does not know what it wants, and it requires an impulse. What is
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  to give it this impulse power? And who is to give the impulse to
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  power? The inventor of the machine, mister Louis Blanc, We shall never
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  get out of the circle mankind passive in a great man moving it by the
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  intervention of the law. Once on this incline will society enjoy something like liberty
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  without a doubt? And what is liberty? Once? For all? Liberty
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  consists not only in the right granted, but in the power given to man
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  to exercise, to develop his faculties under the empire of justice and under the
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  protection of the law. And this is no vain distinction. There is a
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  deep meaning in it, and its consequence quince are imponderable. For when once
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  it is admitted that man, to be truly free must have the power to
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  exercise and develop his faculties, it follows that every member of society has a
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  claim upon it for such education as shall enable his faculties to display themselves,
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  and for the tools of labor, without which human activity can find no scope.
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  Now by whose intervention is society to give to each of its members the
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  requisite education and the necessary tools of labor? Unless by that of the state.
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  Thus liberty is power. In what does this power consist in possessing education
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  and tools of labor? Who is to give education and tools of labor society
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  who owes them? By whose intervention is society to give tools of labor to
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  those who do not possess them by the intervention of the state. From whom
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  is a state to obtain them? It is for the reader to answer this
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  question and to notice whither all this tends. End of Section seven