{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24492/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24492","id":"gutenberg_24492","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24492","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: French Literature","Category: History - European","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de, 1743-1794"],"text":"Produced by Paul Murray, Ren\u00e9 Anderson Benitz and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNote:\n\nGreek words/phrases in the text are noted as +Greek text+.\nOE/oe ligatures have not been retained in this version.\n\n\n\n\nCRITICAL MISCELLANIES\n\n\nBY\n\nJOHN MORLEY\n\n\nVOL. II.\n\nEssay 3: Condorcet\n\n\n\n\nLondon\nMACMILLAN AND CO., Limited\nNew York: The MacMillan Company\n1905\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONDORCET.\n\n\n\n\nCondorcet's peculiar position and characteristics             163\n\nBirth, instruction, and early sensibility                     166\n\nFriendship with Voltaire and with Turgot                 170, 171\n\nCompared with these two great men                             172\n\nCurrents of French opinion and circumstance in 1774           177\n\nCondorcet's principles drawn from two sources                 180\n\nHis view of the two English Revolutions                       181\n\nHis life up to the convocation of the States-General          183\n\nEnergetic interest in the elections                           189\n\nWant of prevision                                             191\n\nHis participation in political activity down to the\n  end of 1792                                                 193\n\nChosen one of the secretaries of the Legislative Assembly     198\n\nElected to the Convention                                     200\n\nResistance to the Jacobins, proscription, and death           201\n\nCondorcet's tenacious interest in human welfare               210\n\nTwo currents of thought in France at the middle of\n  the eighteenth century                                      215\n\nQuesnay and the Physiocrats                                   216\n\nMontesquieu                                                   219\n\nTurgot completed Montesquieu's historical conception          222\n\nKant's idea of a Universal or Cosmo-Political History         226\n\nCondorcet fuses the conceptions of the two previous\n  sets of thinkers                                            229\n\nAccount of his _Tableau des Progr\u00e8s_                          230\n\nOmits to consider history of moral improvement                233\n\nAnd misinterprets the religious element                       234\n\nHis view of Mahometanism                                      238\n\nOf Protestantism                                              240\n\nAnd of philosophic propagandism                               241\n\nVarious acute remarks in his sketch                           243\n\nHis boundless hopes for the future                            244\n\nThree directions which our anticipations may take:--\n  (1) International equality                                  246\n  (2) Internal equality                                       247\n  (3) Substantial perfecting of nature and society            248\n\nNatural view of the formation of character                    252\n\nCentral idea of all his aspirations                           253\n\n\n\n\nCONDORCET.\n\n\nOf the illustrious thinkers and writers who for two generations had been\nactively scattering the seed of revolution in France, only Condorcet\nsurvived to behold the first bitter ingathering of the harvest. Those\nwho had sown the wind were no more; he only was left to see the reaping\nof the whirlwind, and to be swiftly and cruelly swept away by it.\nVoltaire and Diderot, Rousseau and Helv\u00e9tius, had vanished, but\nCondorcet both assisted at the Encyclop\u00e6dia and sat in the Convention;\nthe one eminent man of those who had tended the tree, who also came in\ndue season to partake of its fruit; at once a precursor, and a sharer in\nthe fulfilment. In neither character has he attracted the goodwill of\nany of those considerable sections and schools into which criticism of\nthe Revolution has been mainly divided. As a thinker he is roughly\nclassed as an Economist, and as a practical politician he figured first\nin the Legislative Assembly, and then in the Convention. Now, as a rule,\nthe political parties that have most admired the Convention have had\nleast sympathy with the Economists, and the historians who are most\nfavourable to Turgot and his followers, are usually most hostile to the\nactions and associations of the great revolutionary chamber successively\nswayed by a Vergniaud, a Danton, a Robespierre. Between the two,\nCondorcet's name has been allowed to lie hidden for the most part in a\ncertain obscurity, or else has been covered with those taunts and\ninnuendoes, which partisans are wont to lavish on men of whom they do\nnot know exactly whether they are with or against them.\n\nGenerally the men of the Revolution are criticised in blocks and\nsections, and Condorcet cannot be accurately placed under any of these\nreceived schools. He was an Economist, but he was something more; for\nthe most characteristic article in his creed was a passionate belief in\nthe infinite perfectibility of human nature. He was more of a Girondin\nthan a Jacobin, yet he did not always act, any more than he always\nthought, with the Girondins, and he did not fall when they fell, but was\nproscribed by a decree specially levelled at himself. Isolation of this\nkind is assuredly no merit in political action, but it explains the\ncoldness with which Condorcet's memory has been treated; it flowed from\nsome marked singularities both of character and opinion which are of the\nhighest interest, if we consider the position of the man and the lustre\nof that ever-memorable time. 'Condorcet,' said D'Alembert, 'is a volcano\ncovered with snow.' Said another, less picturesquely: 'He is a sheep in\na passion.' 'You may say of the intelligence of Condorcet in relation\nto his person,' wrote Madame Roland, 'that it is a subtle essence soaked\nin cotton.' The curious mixture disclosed by sayings like these, of warm\nimpulse and fine purpose with immovable reserve, only shows that he of\nwhom they were spoken belonged to the class of natures which may be\ncalled non-conducting. They are not effective, because without this\neffluence of power and feeling from within, the hearer or onlooker is\nstirred by no sympathetic thrill. They cannot be the happiest, because\nconsciousness of the inequality between expression and meaning, between\nthe influence intended and the impression conveyed, must be as\ntormenting as to one who dreams is the vain effort to strike a blow. If\nto be of this non-conducting temperament is impossible in the really\ngreatest characters, like St. Paul, St. Bernard, or Luther, at least it\nis no proper object of blame, for it is constantly the companion of\nlofty and generous aspiration. It was perhaps unfortunate that Condorcet\nshould have permitted himself to be drawn into a position where his want\nof that magical quality by which even Marat could gain the sympathies of\nmen, should be so conspicuously made visible. The character of\nCondorcet, unlike so many of his contemporaries, offers nothing to the\ntheatrical instinct. None the less on this account should we be willing\nto weigh the contributions which he made to the stock of science and\nsocial speculation, and recognise the fine elevation of his sentiments,\nhis noble solicitude for human wellbeing, his eager and resolute belief\nin its indefinite expansion, and the devotion which sealed his faith by\na destiny that was as tragical as any in those bloody and most tragical\ndays.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nUntil the outbreak of the Revolution, the circumstances of Condorcet's\nlife were as little externally disturbed or specially remarkable as\nthose of any other geometer and thinker of the time. He was born at a\nsmall town in Picardy, in the year 1743. His father was a cavalry\nofficer, but as he died when his son was only three years old, he could\nhave exerted no influence upon the future philosopher, save such as\ncomes of transmission through blood and tissue. Condillac was his uncle,\nbut there is no record of any intercourse between them. His mother was a\ndevout and trembling soul, who dedicated her child to the Holy Virgin,\nand for eight years or more made him wear the dress of a little girl, by\nway of sheltering him against the temptations and unbelief of a vile\nworld. So long as women are held by opinion and usage in a state of\neducational and political subjection, which prevents the growth of a\nlarge intelligence made healthy and energetic by knowledge and by\nactivity, we may expect pious extravagances of this kind. Condorcet was\nweakened physically by much confinement and the constraint of cumbrous\nclothing; and not even his dedication to the Holy Virgin prevented him\nfrom growing up the most ardent of the admirers of Voltaire. His\nearliest instructors, as happened to most of the sceptical philosophers,\nwere the Jesuits, then within a few years of their fall. That these\nadroit men, armed with all the arts and traditions which their order had\nacquired in three centuries, and with the training of the nation almost\nexclusively in their hands, should still have been unable to shield\ntheir persons from proscription and their creed from hatred, is a\nremarkable instance how little it avails ecclesiastical bodies to have a\nmonopoly of official education, if the spirit of their teaching be out\nof harmony with those most potent agencies which we sum up as the spirit\nof the time. The Jesuits were the great official instructors of France\nfor the first half of the eighteenth century. In 1764 the order was\nthrust forth from the country, and they left behind them an army of the\nbitterest enemies that Christianity has ever had. To do them justice,\nthey were destroyed by weapons which they had themselves supplied. The\nintelligence which they had developed and sharpened, turned inevitably\nagainst the incurable faults in their own system. They were admirable\nteachers of mathematics. Condorcet, instructed by the Jesuits at Rheims,\nwas able when he was only fifteen years old to go through such\nperformances in analysis as to win especial applause from illustrious\njudges like D'Alembert and Clairaut. It was impossible, however, for\nJesuits, as it has ever been for all enemies of movement, to constrain\nwithin prescribed limits the activity which has once been effectively\nstirred. Mathematics has always been in the eyes of the Church a\nharmless branch of knowledge, but the mental energy that mathematics\nfirst touched is sure to turn itself by and by to more complex and\ndangerous subjects in the scientific hierarchy.\n\nAt any rate, Condorcet's curiosity was very speedily drawn to problems\nbeyond those which geometry and algebra pretend to solve. 'For thirty\nyears,' he wrote in 1790, 'I have hardly ever passed a single day\nwithout meditating on the political sciences.'[1] Thus, when only\nseventeen, when the ardour of even the choicest spirits is usually most\npurely intellectual, moral and social feeling was rising in Condorcet to\nthat supremacy which it afterwards attained in him to so admirable a\ndegree. He wrote essays on integral calculus, but he was already\nbeginning to reflect upon the laws of human societies and the conditions\nof moral obligation. At the root of Condorcet's nature was a profound\nsensibility of constitution. One of his biographers explains his early\nenthusiasm for virtue and human welfare as the conclusion of a kind of\nsyllogism. It is possible that the syllogism was only the later shape\ninto which an instinctive impulse threw itself by way of rational\nentrenchment. His sensibility caused Condorcet to abandon the barbarous\npleasures of the chase, which had at first powerfully attracted him.[2]\nTo derive delight from what inflicts pain on any sentient creature\nrevolted his conscience and offended his reason, because he perceived\nthat the character which does not shrink from associating its own joy\nwith the anguish of another, is either found or left mortally blunted to\nthe finest impressions of humanity.\n\nIt is thus assured that from the beginning Condorcet was unable to\nsatisfy himself with the mere knowledge of the specialist, but felt the\nnecessity of placing social aims at the head and front of his life, and\nof subordinating to them all other pursuits. That he values knowledge\nonly as a means to social action, is one of the highest titles to our\nesteem that any philosopher can have. Such a temper of mind has\npenetrated no man more fully than Condorcet, though there are other\nthinkers to whom time and chance have been more favourable in making\nthat temper permanently productive. There is a fine significance in his\nwords, after the dismissal of the great and virtuous Turgot from office:\n'We have had a delightful dream, but it was too brief. Now I mean to\napply myself to geometry. It is terribly cold to be for the future\nlabouring only for the _gloriole_, after flattering oneself for a while\nthat one was working for the public weal.' It is true that a geometer,\ntoo, works for the public weal; but the process is tardier, and we may\nwell pardon an impatience that sprung of reasoned zeal for the happiness\nof mankind. There is something much more attractive about Condorcet's\nundisguised disappointment at having to exchange active public labour\nfor geometrical problems, than in the affected satisfaction\nconventionally professed by statesmen when driven from place to their\nbooks. His correspondence shows that, even when his mind seemed to be\nmost concentrated upon his special studies, he was incessantly on the\nalert for every new idea, book, transaction, that was likely to\nstimulate the love of virtue in individuals, or to increase the strength\nof justice in society. It would have been in one sense more fortunate\nfor him to have cared less for high social interests, if we remember the\ncontention of his latter days and the catastrophe which brought them to\na frightful close. But Condorcet was not one of those natures who can\nthink it happiness to look passively out from the tranquil literary\nwatch-tower upon the mortal struggles of a society in revolution. In\nmeasuring other men of science--as his two volumes of _\u00c9loges_\nabundantly show--one cannot help being struck by the eagerness with\nwhich he seizes on any trait of zeal for social improvement, any signal\nof anxiety that the lives and characters of our fellows should be better\nworth having. He was himself too absolutely possessed by this social\nspirit to have flinched from his career, even if he had foreseen the\nmartyrdom which was to consummate it. 'You are very happy,' he once\nwrote to Turgot, 'in your passion for the public good and your power to\nsatisfy it; it is a great consolation, and of an order very superior to\nthat of study.'[3]\n\nIn 1769, at the age of six-and-twenty, Condorcet became connected with\nthe Academy, to the mortification of his relations, who hardly pardoned\nhim for not being a captain of horse as his father had been before him.\nAbout the same time, or a little later, he performed a pilgrimage of a\nkind that could hardly help making a mark upon a character so deeply\nimpressible. In company with D'Alembert he went to Ferney and saw\nVoltaire.[4] To the position of Voltaire in Europe in 1770 there has\nnever been any other man's position in any age wholly comparable. It is\ntrue that there had been one or two of the great popes, and a great\necclesiastic like St. Bernard, who had exercised a spiritual authority,\npretty universally submitted to, or even spontaneously invoked,\nthroughout western Europe. But these were the representatives of a\npowerful organisation and an accepted system. Voltaire filled a place\nbefore men's eyes in the eighteenth century as conspicuous and as\nauthoritative as that of St. Bernard in the twelfth. The difference was\nthat Voltaire's place was absolutely unofficial in its origin, and\nindebted to no system nor organisation for its maintenance. Again, there\nhave been others, like Bacon or Descartes, destined to make a far more\npermanent contribution to the ideas which have extended the powers and\nelevated the happiness of men; but these great spirits for the most part\nlaboured for the generation that followed them, and won comparatively\nslight recognition from their own age. Voltaire during his life enjoyed\nto the full not only the admiration that belongs to the poet, but\nsomething of the veneration that is paid to the thinker, and even\nsomething of the glory usually reserved for captains and conquerors of\nrenown. No other man before or since ever hit so exactly the mark of his\ntime on every side, so precisely met the conditions of fame for the\nmoment, nor so thoroughly dazzled and reigned over the foremost men and\nwomen who were his contemporaries. Wherever else intellectual fame has\napproached the fame of Voltaire, it has been posthumous. With him it was\nimmediate and splendid. Into the secret of this extraordinary\ncircumstance we need not here particularly inquire. He was an\nunsurpassed master of the art of literary expression in a country where\nthat art is more highly prized than anywhere else; he was the most\nbrilliant of wits among a people whose relish for wit is a supreme\npassion; he won the admiration of the lighter souls by his plays, of the\nlearned by his interest in science, of the men of letters by his\nnever-ceasing flow of essays, criticisms, and articles, not one of which\nlacks vigour and freshness and sparkle; he was the most active, bitter,\nand telling foe of what was then the most justly abhorred of all\ninstitutions--the Church. Add to these remarkable titles to honour and\npopularity that he was no mere declaimer against oppression and\ninjustice in the abstract, but the strenuous, persevering, and\nabsolutely indefatigable champion of every victim of oppression or\ninjustice whose case was once brought under his eye.\n\nIt is not difficult to perceive the fascination which Voltaire, with\nthis character and this unrivalled splendour of public position, would\nhave for a man like Condorcet. He conceived the warmest attachment to\nVoltaire, and Voltaire in turn the highest respect for him. Their\ncorrespondence (1770-1778) is perhaps as interesting as any letters of\nthat period that we possess: Voltaire is always bright, playful, and\naffectionate; Condorcet more declamatory and less graceful, but full of\nreverence and loyalty for his 'dear and illustrious' master, and of his\nown peculiar eagerness for good causes and animosity against the\ndefenders of evil ones. Condorcet was younger than the patriarch of\nFerney by nearly half a century, but this did not prevent him from loyal\nremonstrances on more than one occasion against conduct on Voltaire's\npart in this matter or that, which he held to be unworthy of his\ncharacter and reputation. He went so far as actually to decline to print\nin the _Mercure_ a letter in which the writer in some fit of spleen\nplaced Montesquieu below D'Aguesseau. 'My attachment,' he says, 'bids me\nsay what will be best for you, and not what might please you most. If I\nloved you less, I should not have the courage to thwart you. I am aware\nof your grievances against Montesquieu; it is worthy of you to forget\nthem.' There was perhaps as much moral courage in doing this as in\ndefying the Men of the Mountain in the days of the Terror. It dispels\nsome false impressions of Voltaire's supposed intolerance of criticism,\nto find him thanking Condorcet for one of these friendly protests. He\nshowed himself worthy of such courageous conduct. 'One sees things ill,'\nhe writes, 'when one sees them from too far off. After all, we ought\nnever to blush to go to school if we are as old as Methuselah. I repeat\nmy acknowledgments to you.'[5] Condorcet did not conceive that either to\nbe blind to a man's errors or to compromise them is to prove yourself\nhis friend. There is an integrity of friendship as in public concerns,\nand he adhered to it as manfully in one as in the other. Throughout his\nintercourse with intimate friends there is that happy and frank play of\ndirect personal allusion, which is as distinct from flattery when it is\nabout another, as it is from egoism when it refers to the writer\nhimself.\n\nPerhaps we see him most characteristically in his correspondence with\nTurgot. What Turgot loved in Condorcet was his 'simplicity of\ncharacter.'[6] Turgot was almost as much less vivacious than Condorcet,\nas Condorcet was less vivacious than Voltaire. They belonged to quite\ndistinct types of character, but this may be a condition of the most\nperfect forms of sympathy. Each gives support where the other is most\nconscious of needing it. Turgot was one of those serene, capacious, and\nsure intelligences whose aspirations do not become low nor narrow by\nbeing watchfully held under the control of reason; whose ideas are no\nless vigorous or exuberant because they move in a steady and ordered\ntrain; and who, in their most fervent reactions against abuses or\ncrimes, resist that vehement temptation to excess which is the besetting\ninfirmity of generous natures. Condorcet was very different from this.\nWhatever he wished he wished unrestrainedly. As with most men of the\nepoch, the habit of making allowances was not his. We observe something\ntheological in his hatred of theologians. Even in his letters the\ndistant ground-swell of repressed passion sounds in the ear, and at\nevery mention of false opinion or evil-doing a sombre and angry shadow\nseems to fall upon the page. Both he and Turgot clung to the doctrine of\nthe infinite perfectibility of human nature, and the correspondingly\ninfinite augmentation of human happiness; but Condorcet's\never-smouldering impetuosity would be content with nothing less than the\narrival of at least a considerable instalment of this infinite quantity\nnow and instantly. He went so far as to insist that by and by men would\nacquire the art of prolonging their lives for several generations,\ninstead of being confined within the fatal span of threescore years and\nten. He was impatient of any frittering away of life in scruple,\ntremors, and hesitations. 'For the most part,' he once wrote to Turgot,\n'people abounding in scruple are not fit for great things: a Christian\nwill throw away in subduing the darts of the flesh the time which he\nmight have employed on things of use to mankind; or he will lack courage\nto rise against a tyrant for fear of his judgment being too hastily\nformed.'[7] Turgot's reply may illustrate the difference between the two\nmen: 'No virtue, in whatever sense you take the word, dispenses with\njustice; and I think no more of the people who do great things--as you\nsay--at the expense of justice, than of poets who fancy they produce\ngreat beauties of imagination without regularity. I know that excessive\nexactitude tends slightly to deaden the fire alike of composition and of\naction; but there is a mean in everything. It has never been a question\nin our controversy of a capuchin who throws away his time in quenching\nthe darts of the flesh (though by the way, in the total of time thrown\naway the term that expresses the time lost in satisfying these lusts is\nmost likely far greater); no more is it a question of a fool who is\nafraid of rising against tyrants for fear of forming a rash\njudgment.'[8]\n\nThis ability to conceive a mean case between two extremes was not among\nCondorcet's gifts. His mind dwelt too much in the region of excess,\nalike when he measured the possibilities of the good, and coloured the\nmotives and the situation of those whom he counted the bad. A Christian\nwas one who wasted his days in merely resisting the flesh; anybody who\ndeclined to rise against a tyrant was the victim of a slavish\nscrupulosity. He rather sympathises with a scientific traveller, to whom\nthe especial charm of natural history resides in the buffets which, at\neach step that it takes, it inflicts upon Moses.[9] Well, this temper\nis not the richest nor the highest, but it often exists in alliance with\nrich and high qualities. It was so with Condorcet. And we are\nparticularly bound to remember that with him a harsh and impatient\nhumour was not, as is so often the case, the veil for an indolent\nreluctance to form painstaking judgments. Few workers have been so\nconscientious as he was, in the labour that he bestowed upon subjects\nwhich he held to be worthy of deliberate scrutiny and consideration. His\ndefect was in finding too few of such subjects, and in having too many\nforegone conclusions. Turgot and Montesquieu are perhaps the only two\neminent men in France during this part of the century, of whom the same\ndefect might not be alleged. Again, Condorcet's impatience of underlying\ntemperament did not prevent him from filling his compositions with\nsolid, sober, and profound reflections, the products of grave and\nsustained meditation upon an experience, much of which must have been\nseverely trying and repugnant to a man of his constitution. While\nrecognising this trait, then, let us not overstate either it or its\nconsequences.\n\nThe main currents of opinion and circumstance in France, when Condorcet\ncame to take his place among her workers, are now well understood. The\nthird quarter of the century was just closing. Lewis XV. died in 1774;\nand though his death was of little intrinsic consequence, except as the\nremoval of every corrupt heart is of consequence, it is justly taken to\nmark the date of the beginning of the French Revolution. It was the\naccidental shifting of position which served to disclose that the\nexisting system was smitten with a mortal paralysis. It is often said\nthat what destroyed the French kingdom was despotism. A sounder\nexplanation discovers the causes less in despotism than in\nanarchy--anarchy in every department where it could be most ruinous. No\nsubstantial reconstruction was possible, because all the evils came from\nthe sinister interests of the nobles, the clergy, or the financiers; and\nthese classes, informally bound together against the common weal, were\ntoo strong for either the sovereign or the ablest minister to thrust\nthem aside. The material condition of France was one of supreme\nembarrassment and disorder, only curable by remedies which the political\nand social condition of the country made it impossible to employ.\n\nThis would explain why a change of some sort was inevitable. But why was\nthe change which actually took place in that direction rather than\nanother? Why did not France sink under her economical disorders, as\ngreater empires than France had done? Why, instead of sinking and\nfalling asunder, did the French people advance with a singleness of\nimpulse unknown before in their history to their own deliverance? How\nwas it that they overthrew the system that was crushing them, and purged\nthemselves with fire and sword of those who administered and maintained\nit, defying the hopes of the nation; and then successfully encountered\nthe giant's task of beating back reactionary Europe with one arm, and\nreconstructing the fabric of their own society with the other? The\nanswer to this question is found in the moral and spiritual condition of\nFrance. A generation aroused by the great social ideas of the eighteenth\ncentury, looking round to survey its own social state, found itself in\nthe midst of the ruin and disorder of the disintegrated system of the\ntwelfth century. The life was gone out of the ancient organisation of\nCatholicism and Feudalism, and it seemed as if nothing but corruption\nremained. What enabled the leaders of the nation to discern the horror\nand despair of this anarchic dissolution of the worn-out old, and what\ninspired them with hope and energy when they thought of the possible\nnew, was the spiritual preparation that had been in swift progress since\nthe third decade of the century. The forms and methods of this\npreparation were various, as the temperaments that came beneath its\ninfluence. But the school of Voltaire, the school of Rousseau, and the\nschools of Quesnay and Montesquieu, different as they were at the roots,\nall alike energetically familiarised the public mind with a firm belief\nin human reason, and the idea of the natural rights of man. They\nimpregnated it with a growing enthusiasm for social justice. It is true\nthat we find Voltaire complaining towards the close of his days, of the\ncentury being satiated and weary, _un si\u00e8cle d\u00e9gout\u00e9_, not knowing well\nwhat it wanted. 'The public,' he said, 'has been eighty years at table,\nand now it drinks a little bad cognac at the end of its meal.'[10] In\nliterature and art this was true; going deeper than these, the public\nwas eager and sensitive with a freshness far more vital and more\nfruitful than it had known eighty years back. Sitting down with a keen\nappetite for taste, erudition, and literary knowledge, men had now risen\nup from a dazzling and palling board, with a new hunger and thirst after\nsocial righteousness. This was the noble faith that saved France, by\nthis sign she was victorious. A people once saturated with a passionate\nconception of justice is not likely to fall into a Byzantine stage. That\ndestiny only awaits nations where the spiritual power is rigorously\nconfined in the hands of castes and official churches, which\nsystematically and of their very constitution bury justice under the\nsterile accumulations of a fixed superstition.\n\nCondorcet's principles were deeply coloured by ideas drawn from two\nsources. He was a Voltairean in the intensity of his antipathies to the\nChurch, and in the depth and energy of his humanity. But while Voltaire\nflourished, the destructive movement only reached theology, and\nVoltaire, though he had more to do than anybody else with the original\nimpulse, joined in no attack upon the State. It was from the economical\nwriters and from Montesquieu that Condorcet learned to look upon\nsocieties with a scientific eye, to perceive the influence of\ninstitutions upon men, and that there are laws, susceptible of\nmodification in practice, which regulate their growth. It was natural,\ntherefore, that he should join with eagerness in the reforming movement\nwhich set in with such irrestrainable velocity after the death of Lewis\nXV. He was bitter and destructive with the bitterness of Voltaire; he\nwas hopeful for the future with the faith of Turgot; and he was urgent,\nheated, impetuous, with a heavy vehemence all his own. In a word, he was\nthe incarnation of the revolutionary spirit, as the revolutionary spirit\nexisted in geometers and Encyclop\u00e6dists; at once too reasonable and too\nlittle reasonable; too precise and scientific and too vague; too\nrigorously logical on the one hand and too abundantly passionate on the\nother. Perhaps there is no more fatal combination in politics than the\ndeductive method worked by passion. When applied to the delicate and\ncomplex affairs of society, such machinery with such motive force is of\nruinous potency.\n\nCondorcet's peculiarities of political antipathy and preference can\nhardly be better illustrated than by his view of the two great\nrevolutions in English history. The first was religious, and therefore\nhe hated it; the second was accompanied by much argument, and had no\nreligion about it, and therefore he extolled it. It is scientific\nknowledge, he said, which explains why efforts after liberty in\nunenlightened centuries are so fleeting, and so deeply stained by\nbloodshed. 'Compare these with the happy efforts of America and France;\nobserve even in the same century, but at different epochs, the two\nrevolutions of England fanatical and England enlightened. We see on the\none side contemporaries of Prynne and Knox, while crying out that they\nare fighting for heaven and liberty, cover their unhappy country with\nblood in order to cement the tyranny of the hypocrite Cromwell; on the\nother, the contemporaries of Boyle and Newton establish with pacific\nwisdom the freest constitution in the world.'[11] It is not wonderful\nthat his own revolution was misunderstood by one who thus loved English\nWhigs, but hated English Republicans; who could forgive an aristocratic\nfaction grasping power for their order, but who could not sympathise\nwith a nation rising and smiting its oppressor, where they smote in the\nname of the Lord and of Gideon, nor with a ruler who used his power with\nnoble simplicity in the interests of his people, and established in the\nheart of the nation a respect for itself such as she has never known\nsince, simply because this ruler knew nothing about _principes_ or the\nRights of Man. However, Nemesis comes. By and by Condorcet found himself\nwriting a piece to show that our Revolution of 1688 was very inferior in\nlawfulness to the French Revolution of the Tenth of August.[12]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] _Oeuv. de Condorcet_ (12 vols. 1847-49), ix. 489.\n\n[2] _Ib._ i. 220.\n\n[3] _Oeuv._ i. 201. See Turgot's wise reply, p. 202.\n\n[4] Sept. 1770. Voltaire's _Corr._ vol. lxxi. p. 147.\n\n[5] _Oeuv._ i. 41.\n\n[6] _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 817.\n\n[7] _Oeuv._ i. 228.\n\n[8] _Ib._ i. 232.\n\n[9] _Oeuv._ i. 29.\n\n[10] Letters to Condorcet (1774). _Oeuv._ i. 35.\n\n[11] _\u00c9loge de Franklin_, iii. 422.\n\n[12] _R\u00e9flexions sur la R\u00e9v. de 1688, et sur celle du 10 Ao\u00fbt_, xii.\n197.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nThe course of events after 1774 is in its larger features well known to\nevery reader. Turgot, after a month of office at the Admiralty, was in\nAugust made Controller-General of Finance. With his accession to power,\nthe reforming ideas of the century became practical. He nominated\nCondorcet to be Inspector of Coinage, an offer which Condorcet\ndeprecated in these words: 'It is said of you in certain quarters that\nmoney costs you nothing when there is any question of obliging your\nfriends. I should be bitterly ashamed of giving any semblance of\nfoundation to these absurd speeches. I pray you, do nothing for me just\nnow. Though not rich, I am not pressed for money. Entrust to me some\nimportant task--the reduction of measures for instance; then wait till\nmy labours have really earned some reward.'[13] In this patriotic spirit\nhe undertook, along with two other eminent men of science, the task of\nexamining certain projects for canals which engaged the attention of the\nminister. 'People will tell you,' he wrote, 'that I have got an office\nworth two hundred and forty pounds. Utterly untrue. We undertook it out\nof friendship for M. Turgot; but we refused the payment that was\noffered.'[14] We may profitably contrast this devotion to the public\ninterest with the rapacity of the clergy and nobles, who drove Turgot\nfrom office because he talked of taxing them like their neighbours, and\ndeclined to glut their insatiable craving for place and plunder.\n\nTurgot was dismissed (May 1776), and presently Necker was installed in\nhis place. Condorcet had defended with much vigour and some asperity\nthe policy of free internal trade in corn against Necker, who was for\nthe maintenance of the restrictions on commercial intercourse between\nthe different provinces of the kingdom. Consequently, when the new\nminister came into office, Condorcet wrote to Maurepas resigning his\npost. 'I have,' he said, 'declared too decidedly what I think about both\nM. Necker and his works, to be able to keep any place that depends upon\nhim.'[15] This was not the first taste that Maurepas had had of\nCondorcet's resolute self-respect. The Duke de la Vrilli\u00e8re, one of the\nmost scandalous persons of the century, was an honorary member of the\nAcademy, and he was the brother-in-law of Maurepas. It was expected from\nthe perpetual secretary that he should compose a eulogy upon the\noccasion of his death, and Condorcet was warned by friends, who seldom\nreflect that a man above the common quality owes something more to\nhimself than mere prudence, not to irritate the powerful minister by a\nslight upon his relation. He was inflexible. 'Would you rather have me\npersecuted,' he asked, 'for a wrong than for something just and moral?\nThink, too, that they will pardon my silence much more readily than they\nwould pardon my words, for my mind is fixed not to betray the\ntruth.'[16]\n\nIn 1782 Condorcet was elected into the Academy. His competitor was\nBailly, over whom he had a majority of one. The true contest lay less\nbetween the two candidates than between D'Alembert and Buffon, who on\nthis occasion are said to have fought one of the greatest battles in the\nnot peaceful history of the Academy, for mighty anger burns even in\ncelestial minds. D'Alembert is said to have exclaimed, we may hope with\nsome exaggeration, that he was better pleased at winning that victory\nthan he would have been to find out the squaring of the circle.[17]\nDestiny, which had so pitiful a doom in store for the two candidates of\nthat day, soon closed D'Alembert's share in these struggles of the\nlearned and in all others. He died in the following year, and by his\nlast act testified to his trust in the generous character of Condorcet.\nHaving by the benevolence of a lifetime left himself on his deathbed\nwithout resources, he confided to his friend's care two old and faithful\nservants, for whom he was unable to make provision. This charge the\nphilosopher accepted cheerfully, and fulfilled to the end with pious\nscrupulosity. The affection between Condorcet and D'Alembert had been\nwarm and close as that of some famous pairs of antiquity; a natural\nattraction of character had clothed community of pursuit and interest\nwith the grace of the highest kind of friendship. Even Condorcet's too\ndeclamatory manner only adds a certain dignity to the pathetic passage\nwith which he closes the noble _\u00e9loge_ on his lost friend.[18] Voltaire\nhad been dead these five years, and Turgot, too, was gone. Society\noffered the survivor no recompense. He found the great world tiresome\nand frivolous, and he described its pursuits in phrases that are still\ntoo faithful to the fact, as 'dissipation without pleasure, vanity\nwithout meaning, and idleness without repose.' It was perhaps to soften\nthe oppression of these cruel and tender regrets that in 1786 Condorcet\nmarried.[19]\n\nEvents were now very close at hand, in comparison with which even the\nmost critical private transactions of Condorcet's life were pale and\ninsignificant. In the tranquil seasons of history, when the steady\ncurrents of circumstance bear men along noiseless, the importance of the\nrelations which we contract seems superlative; in times of storm and\nsocial wreck these petty fortunes and private chances are engulfed and\nlost to sight. The ferment was now rapidly rising to its intensest\nheight, and Condorcet was the last man in France to remain cold to the\nburning agitations of the time. We have already seen how decidedly ten\nyears ago he expressed his preference for political activity over the\nmeditative labours of the student. He now threw himself into the\nRevolution with all the force of an ardent character imbued with fixed\nand unalterable convictions. We may well imagine him deploring that the\ngreat ones whom he had known, the immortal Voltaire, the lofty-souled\nTurgot, had been carried away by the unkind gods, before their eyes had\nseen the restoration of their natural rights to men, and the reign of\njustice on the earth. The gods after all were kinder than he knew, for\nthey veiled from the sight of the enthusiast of '89 the spectres of '93.\nHistory might possibly miss most of its striking episodes, if every\nactor could know the work to which he was putting his hand; and even\nCondorcet's faith might have wavered if he had known that between him\nand the fulfilment of his desires there was to intrude a long and\ndeplorable period of despotism and corruption. Still, the vision which\nthen presented itself to the eyes of good men was sublime; and just as,\nwhen some noble and devoted character has been taken away from us, it is\na consolation to remember that we had the happiness of his friendship,\nso too when a generation awakes from one of these inspiring social\ndreams, the wreck of the aspiration is not total nor unrecompensed. The\nnext best thing to the achievement of high and generous aims is to have\nsought them.\n\nDuring the winter of '88 and '89, while all France was astir with\nelections and preparation for elections for that meeting of the\nStates-General, which was looked to as the nearing dawn after a long\nnight of blackness and misery, Condorcet thought he could best serve\nthe movement by calling the minds of the electors to certain sides of\ntheir duty which they might be in some danger of overlooking. One of the\nsubjects, for example, on which he felt most strongly, but on which his\ncountrymen have not shown any particular sensibility, was slavery and\nthe slave trade.[20] With a terseness and force not always\ncharacteristic of his writings, he appealed to the electors, while they\nwere reclaiming their own rights in the name of justice, not to forget\nthe half-million blacks, whose rights had been still more shamefully\ntorn away from them, and whose need of justice was more urgent than\ntheir own. In the same spirit he published a vehement and ingenious\nprotest against the admission of representatives from the St. Domingo\nplantations to the National Assembly, showing how grossly inconsistent\nit was with every idea of a free and popular chamber that men should sit\nas representatives of others who had never chosen them, and that they\nshould invoke natural rights in their own favour, when at the same\ninstant they were violating the most elementary and undisputed natural\nrights of mankind in their own country.[21]\n\nOf general precepts he never tired; one series of them followed another.\nTo us many of them may seem commonplace; but we should reflect that the\nelection of representatives was an amazing novelty in France, and\nCondorcet knew men well enough to be aware of the hazards of political\ninexperience. Beware of choosing a clever knave, he said, because he\nwill follow his own interest and not yours; but at the same time beware\nof choosing a man for no better reason than that he is honest, because\nyou need ability quite as much as you need probity. Do not choose a man\nwho has ever taken sides against the liberty of any portion of mankind;\nnor one whose principles were never known until he found out that he\nwanted your votes. Be careful not to mistake heat of head for heat of\nsoul; because what you want is not heat but force, not violence but\nsteadfastness. Be careful, too, to separate a man's actions from the\naccidents of his life; for one may be the enemy or the victim of a\ntyrant without being the friend of liberty. Do not be carried away by a\ncandidate's solicitations; but at the same time, make allowance for the\nexisting effervescence of spirits. Prefer those who have decided\nopinions to those who are always inventing plans of conciliation; those\nwho are zealous for the rights of man to those who only profess pity for\nthe misfortunes of the people; those who speak of justice and reason, to\nthose who speak of political interests and of the prosperity of\ncommerce. Distrust those who appeal to sentiment in matters that can be\ndecided by reason; prefer light to eloquence; and pass over those who\ndeclare themselves ready to die for liberty, in favour of those who know\nin what liberty consists.[22]\n\nIn another piece he drew up a list of the rights which the nation had a\nclaim to have recognised, such as the right to make laws, to exact\nresponsibility from the ministers of the crown, to the protection of\npersonal liberty, and to the legal administration of justice by regular\njudges. These rights he declared it to be the first duty of the Assembly\nto draw up in a chart that should be the chief corner-stone of the new\nconstitution. Then he proceeded to define the various tasks to which he\nconceived that the legislative body should forthwith apply itself; and\namong them, be it said, is no mention of any of those projects of\nconfiscation which circumstances so speedily forced upon the Assembly\nwhen it met.[23]\n\nThough many of these precepts designed to guide the electors in their\nchoice of men are sagacious and admirable, they smack strongly of that\nabsolute and abstract spirit which can never become powerful in politics\nwithout danger. It is certain that in the spring of '89, Condorcet held\nhereditary monarchy to be most suitable to 'the wealth, the population,\nthe extent of France, and to the political system of Europe.'[24] Yet\nthe reasons which he gives for thinking this are not very cogent, and\nhe can hardly have felt them to be so. It is significant, however, of\nthe little distance which all the most uncompromising and most\nthoughtful revolutionists saw in front of them, that even Condorcet\nshould, so late as the eve of the assembly of the States-General, have\ntalked about attachment to the forms of monarchy and respect for the\nroyal person and prerogative; and should have represented the notion of\nthe property of the Church undergoing any confiscation, as an invention\nof the enemies of freedom.[25] Before the year was out, the property of\nthe Church had undergone confiscation; before two years had gone he was\nan ardent Republican; and in less than twelve months after that he had\nvoted the guilt of the king.\n\nIt is worth while to cite here a still more pointed example of the want\nof prevision, so common and so intelligible at that time. Writing in\nJuly 1791, he confutes those who asserted that an established and\nlimited monarchy was a safeguard against a usurper, whose power is only\nlimited by his own audacity and address, by pointing out that the extent\nof France, its divisions into departments, the separation between the\nvarious branches of the administration, the freedom of the press, the\nmultitude of the public prints, were all so many insurmountable barriers\nagainst a French Cromwell. 'To anybody who has read with attention the\nhistory of the usurpation of Cromwell, it is clear that a single\nnewspaper would have been enough to stop his success. It is clear that\nif the people of England had known how to read other books beside their\nBible, the hypocritical tyrant, unmasked from his first step, would soon\nhave ceased to be dangerous.' Again, is the nation to be cajoled by some\nambitious general, gratifying its desire to be an empire-race? 'Is this\nwhat is asked by true friends of liberty, those who only seek that\nreason and right should have empire over men? _What provinces, conquered\nby a French general, will he despoil to buy our suffrages? Will he\npromise our soldiers, as the consuls promised the citizens of Rome, the\npillage of Spain or of Syria?_ No, assuredly; it is because we cannot be\nan empire-nation that we shall remain a free nation.'[26] How few years,\nalas, between this conclusive reasoning, and the pillage of Italy, the\ncampaign in Syria, the seizure of Spain!\n\nCondorcet was not a member of the Assembly in whose formation and\ncomposition he had taken so vivid and practical an interest. The first\npolitical functions which he was invited to undertake were those of a\nmember of the municipality of Paris. In the tremendous drama of which\nthe scenes were now opening, the Town-hall of Paris was to prove itself\nfar more truly the centre of movement and action than the Constituent\nAssembly. The efforts of the Constituent Assembly to build up were tardy\nand ineffectual. The activity of the municipality of Paris in pulling\ndown was after a time ceaseless, and it was thoroughly successful. The\nfirst mayor was the astronomer Bailly, Condorcet's defeated competitor\nat the Academy. With the fall of the Bastille, summary hangings at the\nnearest lantern-post, October insurrection of women, and triumphant and\nbloody compulsion of king, queen, and Assembly to Paris from Versailles,\nthe two rivals, now colleagues, must have felt that the contests for\nthem were indeed no longer academic. The astronomy of the one and the\ngeometry of the other were for ever done with; and Condorcet's longing\nfor active political life in preference to mere study was gratified to\nthe very full.\n\nUnhappily or not, the movement was beyond the control of anybody who,\nlike Condorcet, had no other force than that of disciplined reason and\nprinciple. The Bastille no sooner fell, than the Revolution set in with\noceanic violence, in the face of which patriotic intention and\nirrefragable arguments, even when both intention and arguments were\nloyally revolutionary, were powerless to save the State. In crises of\nthis overwhelming kind, power of reasoning does not tell and mere\ngoodwill does not tell. Exaltation reaches a pitch at which the physical\nsensibilities are so quickened as to be supreme over the rest of the\nnature; and in these moods it is the man gifted with the physical\nquality, as mysterious and indescribable as it is resistless, of a\nMarat, to take a bad example, or a Danton, to take a good one, who can\n'ride the whirlwind and direct the storm.' Of this quality Condorcet\nhad nothing. His personal presence inspired a decent respect, but no\nstrong emotion either of fear or admiration or physical sympathy. His\nvoice was feeble, his utterance indistinct; and he never got over that\nnervous apprehension which the spectacle of large and turbulent crowds\nnaturally rouses in the student. In a revolution after the manner of\nLord Somers he would have been invaluable. He thoroughly understood his\nown principles, and he was a master of the art, so useful in its place\nand time and so respectable in all places and times, of considering\npolitical projects point by point with reference to a definite framework\nof rational ideas. But this was no time for such an art; this was not a\nrevolution to be guided by reason, not even reason like Condorcet's,\nstreaked with jacobinical fibre. The national ideas in which it had\narisen had transformed themselves into tumultuous passion, and from this\ninto frenzied action.\n\nEvery politician of real eminence as a reformer possesses one of three\nelements. One class of men is inspired by an intellectual attachment to\ncertain ideas of justice and right reason: another is moved by a deep\npity for the hard lot of the mass of every society: while the third,\nsuch men as Richelieu for example, have an instinctive appreciation and\npassion for wise and orderly government. The great and typical ruler is\nmoved in varying degrees by all three in modern times, when the claims\nof the poor, the rank and file of the social army, have been raised to\nthe permanent place that belongs to them. Each of the three types has\nits own peculiar conditions of success, and there are circumstances in\nwhich some one of the three is more able to grapple with the obstacles\nto order than either of the other two. It soon became very clear that\nthe intellectual quality was not the element likely to quell the tempest\nthat had arisen now.\n\nLet it be said, however, that Condorcet showed himself no pedantic nor\nfastidious trifler with the tremendous movement which he had contributed\nto set afoot. The same practical spirit which drove him into the strife,\nguided him in the midst of it. He never wrung his hands, nor wept, nor\nbewailed the unreason of the multitudes to whom in vain he preached\nreason. Unlike the typical man of letters--for he was without vanity--he\ndid not abandon the cause of the Revolution because his suggestions were\noften repulsed. 'It would be better,' he said to the Girondins, 'if you\ncared less for personal matters and attended only to public interests.'\nYears ago, in his _\u00e9loge_ on L'H\u00f4pital, he had praised the famous\nChancellor for incurring the hostility of both of the two envenomed\nfactions, the League and the Huguenots, and for disregarding the\napprobation or disapprobation of the people. 'What operation,' he asked,\n'capable of producing any durable good, can be understood by the people?\nHow should they know to what extent good is possible? How judge of the\nmeans of producing it? It must ever be easier for a charlatan to mislead\nthe people, than for a man of genius to save it.'[27] Remembering this\nlaw, he never lost patience. He was cool and intrepid, if his\nintrepidity was of the logical sort rather than physical; and he was\nsteadfast to one or two simple aims, if he was on some occasions too\nrapid in changing his attitude as to special measures. He was never\nafraid of the spectre, as the incompetent revolutionist is. On the\ncontrary, he understood its whole internal history; he knew what had\nraised it, what passion and what weakness gave to it substance, and he\nknew that presently reason would banish it and restore men to a right\nmind. The scientific spirit implanted in such a character as\nCondorcet's, and made robust by social meditation, builds up an\nimpregnable fortitude in the face of incessant rebuffs and\ndiscouragements. Let us then picture Condorcet as surveying the terrific\nwelter from the summer of 1789 to the summer of 1793, from the taking of\nthe Bastille to the fall of the Girondins, with something of the\nfirmness and self-possession of a Roman Cato.\n\nAfter the flight of the king in June, and his return in what was\nvirtually captivity to Paris, Condorcet was one of the party, very small\nin numbers and entirely discountenanced by public opinion, then passing\nthrough the monarchical and constitutional stage, who boldly gave up the\nidea of a monarchy and proclaimed the idea of a republic. In July (1791)\nhe published a piece strongly arguing for a negative answer to the\nquestion whether a king is necessary for the preservation of\nliberty.[28] In one sense, this composition is favourable to Condorcet's\nforesight; it was not every one who saw with him that the destruction of\nthe monarchy was inevitable after the royal flight. This want of\npreparation in the public mind for every great change as it came, is one\nof the most striking circumstances of the Revolution, and it explains\nthe violent, confused, and inadequate manner in which nearly every one\nof these changes was made. It was proposed at that time to appoint\nCondorcet to be governor to the young dauphin. But Condorcet in this\npiece took such pains to make his sentiments upon royalty known, that in\nthe constitutional frame of mind in which the Assembly then was, the\nidea had to be abandoned. It was hardly likely that a man should be\nchosen for such an office, who had just declared the public will to be\n'that the uselessness of a king, the needfulness of seeking means of\ndisplacing a power founded on illusions, should be one of the first\ntruths offered to his reason; the obligation of concurring in this\nhimself, one of the first of his moral duties; and the desire not to be\nfreed from the yoke of law by an insulting inviolability, the first\nsentiment of his heart. People are well aware that at this moment the\nobject is much less how to mould a king, than to teach him not to wish\nto be one.'[29] As all France was then bent on the new constitution, a\nking included, Condorcet's republican assurance was hardly warranted,\nand it was by no means well received.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[13] _Oeuv._ i. 71.\n\n[14] _Ib._ i. 73, 74.\n\n[15] _Oeuv._ i. 296.\n\n[16] _Ib._ i. 78.\n\n[17] _Oeuv._ i. 89. Condorcet had 16 votes, and Bailly 15. '_Jamais\naucune \u00e9lection_,' says La Harpe, who was all for Buffon, '_n'avait\noffert ni ce nombre ni ce partage_.'--_Philos. du 18i\u00e8me Si\u00e8cle_, i. 77.\nA full account of the election, and of Condorcet's reception, in Grimm's\n_Corr. Lit._ xi. 50-56.\n\n[18] _Oeuv._ iii. 109, 110.\n\n[19] His wife, said to be one of the most beautiful women of her time,\nwas twenty-three years younger than himself, and survived until 1822.\nCabanis married another sister, and Marshal Grouchy was her brother.\nMadame Condorcet wrote nothing of her own, except some notes to a\ntranslation which she made of Adam Smith's _Theory of Moral Sentiments_.\n\n[20] Montesquieu, Raynal, and one or two other writers, had attacked\nslavery long before, and Condorcet published a very effective piece\nagainst it in 1781 (_R\u00e9flexions sur l'Esclavage des N\u00e8gres_; _Oeuv._\nvii. 63), with an epistle dedicated to the enslaved blacks. About the\nsame time an Abolition Society was formed in France, following the\nexample set in England.\n\n[21] _Au Corps Electoral, contre l'Esclavage des Noirs._ 3 F\u00e9v. 1789.\n_Sur l'Admission des D\u00e9put\u00e9s des Planteurs de Saint Domingue._ 1789. ix.\n469-485.\n\n[22] _Lettres d'un Gentilhomme aux Messieurs du Tiers Etat_, ix.\n255-259.\n\n[23] _R\u00e9flexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions \u00e0 donner par les\nProvinces \u00e0 leurs D\u00e9put\u00e9s aux Etats-G\u00e9n\u00e9raux_, ix. 263, 283.\n\n[24] _Ib._ ix. 266.\n\n[25] _R\u00e9flexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions \u00e0 donner par les\nProvinces \u00e0 leurs D\u00e9put\u00e9s aux Etats-G\u00e9n\u00e9raux_, ix. 264.\n\n[26] _R\u00e9flexions sur les Pouvoirs et Instructions \u00e0 donner par les\nProvinces \u00e0 leurs D\u00e9put\u00e9s aux Etats-G\u00e9n\u00e9raux_, xii. 228, 229, 234.\n\n[27] _Oeuv._ iii. 533. As this was written in 1777, Condorcet was\nperhaps thinking of Turgot and Necker. Of the latter, his daughter tells\nus repeatedly, without any consciousness that she is recording a most\nignominious trait, that public approbation was the very breath of his\nnostrils, the thing for which he lived, the thing without which he was\nwretched.--See vol. i. of _Madame de Sta\u00ebl's Considerations_.\n\n[28] _Oeuv._ iii. 227. It was followed by a letter, nominally by a young\nmechanic, offering to construct an automaton sovereign, like Kempel's\nchess-player, who would answer all constitutional purposes\nperfectly.--_Ib._ 239-241.\n\n[29] _Oeuv._ xii. 236.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nWhen the Constitution was accepted and the Legislative Assembly came to\nbe chosen, Condorcet proved to have made so good an impression as a\nmunicipal officer, that the Parisians returned him for one of their\ndeputies. The Declaration of Pilnitz in August 1791 had mitigated the\nloyalty that had even withstood the trial of the king's flight. When the\nLegislative Assembly met, it was found to contain an unmistakable\nelement of republicanism of marked strength. Condorcet was chosen one of\nthe secretaries, and he composed most of those multitudinous addresses\nin which this most unfortunate and least honoured of all parliamentary\nchambers tried to prove to the French people that it was actually in\nexistence and at work. Condorcet was officially to the Legislative what\nBar\u00e8re afterwards was to the Convention. But his addresses are turgid,\nlabouring, and not effective for their purpose. They have neither the\nhard force of Napoleon's proclamations, nor the flowery eloquence of\nthe Anacreon of the Guillotine. To compose such pieces well under such\ncircumstances as those of the Assembly, a man must have much imagination\nand perhaps a slightly elastic conscience. Condorcet had neither one nor\nthe other, but only reason--a hard anvil, out of which he laboriously\nstruck flashes and single sounds.\n\nPerhaps, after all, nobody else could have done better. The situation of\nthe Assembly, between a hostile court and a suspicious and distrustful\nnation, and unable by its very nature to break the bonds, was from the\nbeginning desperate. In December 1791 the Legislative through its\nsecretary informs France of the frankness and loyalty of the king's\nmeasures in the face of the menaces of foreign war.[30] Within eight\nmonths, when the king's person was in captivity and his power suspended,\nthe same secretary has to avow that from the very beginning the king had\ntreated the Assembly with dissimulation, and had been in virtual league\nwith the national enemies. The documents issued by the Assembly after\nthe violent events of the Tenth of August 1792 are not edifying, and\nimply in Condorcet, who composed them, a certain want of eye for\nrevolutionary methods. They mark the beginning of that short but most\nmomentous period in the history of the Revolution, when formulas, as Mr.\nCarlyle says, had to be stretched out until they cracked--a process\ntruly called, 'especially in times of swift change, one of the\nsorrowfullest tasks poor humanity has.' You might read the _Exposition\nof the Motives from which the National Assembly have proclaimed the\nConvention, and suspended the Executive Power of the King_,[31] without\ndreaming that it is an account of a revolution which arose out of\ndistrust or contempt for the Assembly, which had driven the king away\nfrom his palace and from power, and which had finally annihilated the\nvery chamber that was thus professing to expound its motives for doing\nwhat the violence of Paris had really done in defiance of it. The power,\nin fact, was all outside the chamber, in Danton and the Commune. Under\nsuch circumstance it is of no interest to men to learn that 'in the\nmidst of these disasters the National Assembly, afflicted but calm, took\nits oath to maintain equality and liberty, or to die at its post; took\nthe oath to save France, and looked about for means.'[32] Still more\nimpotent and hollow, because still more pompous, is the address of six\ndays later.[33] A few days after this, occurred the massacres of\nprisoners in September--scenes very nearly, if not quite, as bloody and\niniquitous as those which attended the suppression of the rebellion in\nIreland six years afterwards by English troops.\n\nWhen the Convention was chosen, the electors of Paris rejected\nCondorcet. He was elected, however (Sept. 6), for the department of the\nAisne, having among his colleagues in the deputation Tom Paine, and--a\nmuch more important personage--the youthful Saint-Just, who was so soon\nto stupefy the Convention by exclaiming, with mellow voice and face set\nimmovable as bronze: 'An individual has no right to be either virtuous\nor celebrated in your eyes. A free people and a national assembly are\nnot made to admire anybody.' The electors of the department of the Aisne\nhad unconsciously sent two typical revolutionists: the man of\nintellectual ideas, and the man of passion heated as in the pit. In\ntheir persons the Encyclop\u00e6dia and the Guillotine met. Condorcet, who\nhad been extreme in the Legislative, but found himself a moderate in the\nConvention, gave wise counsel as to the true policy towards the new\nmembers: 'Better try to moderate them than quarrel.' But in this case,\nnot even in their ruin, were fire and water reconciled.\n\nOn the first great question that the Convention had to decide--the fate\nof the king--Condorcet voted on the two main issues very much as a wise\nman would have voted, knowing the event as we know it. He voted that the\nking was guilty of conspiring against liberty, and he voted for the\npunishment of exile in preference to that of death. On the intermediate\nissue, whether the decision of the Convention should be final, or should\nbe submitted to the people for ratification, he voted as a wise man\nshould not have done, in favour of an appeal to the people. Such an\nappeal must inevitably have led to violent and bloody local struggles,\nand laid France open to the enemy. It is a striking circumstance that,\nthough Condorcet thus voted that the king was guilty, he had previously\nlaid before the Convention a most careful argument to show that they\nwere neither morally nor legally competent to try the king at all. How,\nhe asked, without violating every principle of jurisprudence, can you\nact at the same time as legislators constituting the crime, as accusers,\nand as judges? His proposal was that Lewis XVI. should be tried by a\ntribunal whose jury and judges should be named by the electoral body of\nthe departments.[34] With true respect for Condorcet's honourable\nanxiety that the conditions of justice should be rigorously\nobserved--for, as he well said, 'there is no liberty in a country where\npositive law is not the single rule of judicial proceedings'--it is\ndifficult to see why the Convention, coming as it did fresh from the\nelectoral bodies, who must have had the question what was to be done\nwith the imprisoned king foremost in their minds, why the members of the\nConvention should not form as legitimate a tribunal as any body whose\ncomposition and authority they had themselves defined and created, and\nwhich would be chosen by the very same persons who less than a month\nbefore had invested them with their own offices. Reading this most\nscrupulous and juristic composition, we might believe the writer to have\nforgotten that France lay mad and frenzied outside the hall where he\nstood, and that in political action the question what is possible is at\nleast as important as what is compatible with the maxims of scientific\njurisprudence. It was to Condorcet's honour as a jurisconsult that he\nshould have had so many scruples; it is as much to his credit as a\npolitician that he laid them aside and tried the king after all.\n\nIt is highly characteristic of Condorcet's tenacity of his own view of\nthe Revolution and of its methods, that on the Saturday (January 19,\n1793) when the king's fate was decided against Condorcet's conviction\nand against his vote--the execution taking place on the Monday\nmorning--he should have appealed to the Convention, at all events to do\ntheir best to neutralise the effect of their verdict upon Europe, by\ninstantly initiating a series of humane reforms in the law among them,\nincluding the abolition of the punishment of death. 'The English\nministers,' he cried, 'are now seeking to excite that nation against us.\nDo you suppose that they will venture to continue their calumnious\ndeclamations, when you can say to them: \"We have abolished the penalty\nof death, while you still preserve it for the theft of a few shillings?\nYou hand over debtors to the greed or spite of their creditors; our\nlaws, wiser and more humane, know how to respect poverty and misfortune.\nJudge between us and you, and see to which of the two peoples the\nreproach of inhumanity may be addressed with most justice.\"'[35] This\nwas the eve of the Terror. Well may Comte distinguish Condorcet as the\none philosopher who pursued in the midst of the tempest his regenerating\nmeditations.\n\nBut let us banish the notion that the history of the Convention is only\nthe history of the guillotine. No chamber in the whole annals of\ngoverning assemblies ever displayed so much alertness, energy, and\ncapacity, in the face of difficulties that might well have crushed them.\nBesides their efforts, justly held incomparable, to hurl back the enemy\nfrom the frontiers, they at once in the spirit of Condorcet's speech,\nmade at so strange a season, set vigorously about the not less noble\ntask of legal reforms and political reorganisation. The unrivalled\ningenuity and fertility of the French character in all the arts of\ncompact and geometric construction never showed itself so supreme. The\ncivil code was drawn up in a month.[36] Constitutions abounded. Cynical\nhistorians laugh at the eagerness of the nation, during the months that\nfollowed the deposition of the king, to have a constitution; and, so far\nas they believed or hoped that a constitution would remedy all ills,\ntheir faith was assuredly not according to knowledge. It shows, however,\nthe fundamental and seemingly ineradicable respect for authority which\ntheir history has engendered in the French, that even in this, their\nmost chaotic hour, they craved order and its symbols.\n\nCondorcet, along with Tom Paine, Si\u00e8yes, and others, was a member of\nthe first committee for framing a constitution. They laboured\nassiduously from September to February 1793, when the project was laid\nupon the table, prefaced by an elaborate dissertation of Condorcet's\ncomposition.[37] The time was inauspicious. The animosities between the\nGirondins and the Mountain were becoming every day more furious and\ndeadly. In the midst of this appalling storm of rage and hate and\nterror, Condorcet--at one moment wounding the Girondins by reproaches\nagainst their egotism and personalities, at another exasperating the\nMountain by declaring of Robespierre that he had neither an idea in his\nhead nor a feeling in his heart--still pertinaciously kept crying out\nfor the acceptance of his constitution. It was of no avail. The\nrevolution of the second of June came, and swept the Girondins out of\nthe Chamber. Condorcet was not among them, but his political days were\nnumbered. 'What did you do all that time?' somebody once asked of a\nmember of the Convention, during the period which was now beginning and\nwhich lasted until Thermidor in 1794. 'I lived,' was the reply.\nCondorcet was of another temper. He cared as little for his life as\nDanton or Saint-Just cared for theirs. Instead of cowering down among\nthe men of the Plain or the frogs of the Marsh, he withstood the\nMountain to the face.\n\nH\u00e9rault de S\u00e9chelles, at the head of another committee, brought in a new\nconstitution which was finally adopted and decreed (June 24, 1793). Of\nthis, Si\u00e8yes said privately, that it was 'a bad table of contents.'\nCondorcet denounced it publicly, and, with a courage hardly excelled, he\ndeclared in so many words that the arrest of the Girondins had destroyed\nthe integrity of the national representation. The Bill he handled with a\nseverity that inflicted the keenest smarts on the self-love of its\ndesigners. A few days later, the Capucin Chabot, one of those weak and\nexcitable natures that in ordinary times divert men by the intensity,\nmultiplicity, and brevity of their enthusiasms, but to whom the fiercer\nair of such an event as the Revolution is a real poison, rose and in the\nname of the Committee of General Security called the attention of the\nChamber to what he styled a sequel of the Girondist Brissot. This was no\nmore nor less than Condorcet's document criticising the new\nconstitution. 'This man,' said Chabot, 'has sought to raise the\ndepartment of the Aisne against you, imagining that, because he has\nhappened to sit by the side of a handful of _savants_ of the Academy,\nit is his duty to give laws to the French Republic.'[38] So a decree\nwas passed putting Condorcet under arrest. His name was included in the\nlist of those who were tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal on the\nThird of October for conspiring against the unity and indivisibility of\nthe Republic. He was condemned in his absence, and declared to be _hors\nla loi_.\n\nThis, then, was the calamitous close of his aspirations from boyhood\nupwards to be permitted to partake in doing something for the common\nweal. He had still the work to perform by which posterity will best\nremember his name, though only a few months intervened between his\nflight and his most cruel end. When the decree against him was enacted\nhe fled. Friends found a refuge for him in the house of a Madame Vernet,\na widow in moderate circumstances, who let lodgings to students, and one\nof those beneficent characters that show us how high humanity can reach.\n'Is he an honest and virtuous man?' she asked; 'in that case let him\ncome, and lose not a moment. Even while we talk he may be seized.' The\nsame night Condorcet intrusted his life to her keeping, and for nine\nmonths he remained in hiding under her roof. When he heard of the\nexecution of the Girondins condemned on the same day with himself, he\nperceived the risk to which he was subjecting his protectress, and made\nup his mind to flee. 'I am an outlaw,' he said, 'and if I am discovered\nyou will be dragged to the same death.' 'The Convention,' Madame Vernet\nanswered, with something of the heroism of more notable women of that\ntime, 'may put you out of the law; it has not the power to put you out\nof humanity. You stay.' This was no speech of the theatre. The whole\nhousehold kept the most vigorous watch over the prisoner thus generously\ndetained, and for many months Madame Vernet's humane firmness was\nsuccessful in preventing his escape. This time--his soul grievously\nburdened by anxiety as to the fate of his wife and child, and by a\nrestless eagerness not to compromise his benefactress, a bloody death\nstaring him every moment in the face--Condorcet spent in the\ncomposition, without the aid of a single book, of his memorable work on\nthe progress of the human mind. Among the many wonders of an epoch of\nportents, this feat of intellectual abstraction is not the least\namazing.\n\nWhen his task was accomplished, Condorcet felt with more keenness than\never the deadly peril in which his presence placed Madame Vernet. He was\naware that to leave her house was to seek death, but he did not fear. He\ndrew up a paper of directions to be given one day to his little\ndaughter, when she should be of years to understand and follow them.\nThey are written with minute care, and though tender and solicitous,\nthey show perfect composure. His daughter is above all things to banish\nfrom her mind every revengeful sentiment against her father's enemies;\nto distrust her filial sensibility, and to make this sacrifice for her\nfather's own sake. This done, he marched downstairs, and having by an\nartful stratagem thrown Madame Vernet off her guard, he went out at ten\no'clock in the morning imperfectly disguised into the street. This was\nthe fifth of April 1794. By three in the afternoon, exhausted by fatigue\nwhich his strict confinement for nine months made excessive, he reached\nthe house of a friend in the country, and prayed for a night's shelter.\nHis presence excited less pity than alarm. The people gave him\nrefreshment, and he borrowed a little pocket copy of Horace, with which\nhe went forth into the loneliness of the night. He promised himself\nshelter amid the stone quarries of Clamart. What he suffered during this\nnight, the whole day of the sixth of April, the night, and again the\nnext day, there is no one to tell.\n\nThe door of the house in the Rue Servandoni was left on the latch night\nand day for a whole week. But Madame Vernet's generous hope was in vain;\nwhile she still hoped and watched, the end had come. On the evening of\nthe seventh, Condorcet, with one of his legs torn or broken, his\ngarments in rags, with visage gaunt and hunger-stricken, entered an inn\nin the hamlet of Clamart, and called for an omelette. Asked how many\neggs he would have in it, the famishing man answered a dozen.\nCarpenters, for such he had given himself to be, do not have a dozen\neggs in their omelettes. Suspicion was aroused, his hands were not the\nhands of a workman, and he had no papers to show, but only the pocket\nHorace. The villagers seized him and hastened to drag him, bound hand\nand foot, to Bourg-la-Reine, then called for a season Bourg-l'\u00c9galit\u00e9.\nOn the road he fainted, and they set him on a horse offered by a pitying\nwayfarer. When they reached the prison, Condorcet, starving, bleeding,\nway-worn, was flung into his cell. On the morrow, when the gaolers came\nto seek him, they found him stretched upon the ground, dead and stark.\nSo he perished--of hunger and weariness, say some; of poison ever\ncarried by him in a ring, say others.[39] So, to the last revolving\nsupreme cares, this high spirit was overtaken by annihilation. His\nmemory is left to us, the fruit of his ideas, and the impression of his\ncharacter.\n\n       *     *     *     *     *\n\nAn eminent man, who escaped by one accident from the hatchets of the\nSeptembriseurs, and by another from the guillotine of the Terror, while\nin hiding and in momentary expectation of capture and death, wrote thus\nin condemnation of suicide, 'the one crime which leaves no possibility\nof return to virtue.' 'Even at this incomprehensible moment'--the spring\nof 1793--'when morality, enlightenment, energetic love of country, only\nrender death at the prison-wicket or on the scaffold more inevitable;\nwhen it might be allowable to choose among the ways of leaving a life\nthat can no longer be preserved, and to rob tigers in human form of the\naccursed pleasure of dragging you forth and drinking your blood; yes, on\nthe fatal tumbril itself, with nothing free but voice, I could still\ncry, _Take care_, to a child that should come too near the wheel:\nperhaps he may owe his life to me, perhaps the country shall one day owe\nits salvation to him.'[40]\n\nMore than one career in those days, famous or obscure, was marked by\nthis noble tenacity to lofty public ideas even in the final moments of\nexistence. Its general acceptance as a binding duty, exorcising the\nmournful and insignificant egotisms that haunt and wearily fret and make\nwaste the remnants of so many lives, will produce the profoundest of all\npossible improvements in men's knowledge of the sublime art of the\nhappiness of their kind. The closing words of Condorcet's last\ncomposition show the solace which perseverance in taking thought for\nmankind brought to him in the depths of personal calamity. He had\nconcluded his survey of the past history of the race, and had drawn what\nseemed in his eyes a moderate and reasonable picture of its future. 'How\nthis picture,' he exclaims, with the knell of his own doom sounding full\nin the ear while he wrote, 'this picture of the human race freed from\nall its fetters, withdrawn from the empire of chance, as from that of\nthe enemies of progress, and walking with firm and assured step in the\nway of truth, of virtue, and happiness, presents to the philosopher a\nsight that consoles him for the errors, the crimes, the injustice, with\nwhich the earth is yet stained, and of which he is not seldom the\nvictim! It is in the contemplation of this picture that he receives the\nreward of his efforts for the progress of reason, for the defence of\nliberty. He ventures to link them with the eternal chain of the\ndestinies of man: it is there that he finds the true recompense of\nvirtue, the pleasure of having done a lasting good. Fate can no longer\nundo it by any disastrous compensation that shall restore prejudice and\nbondage. This contemplation is for him a refuge, into which the\nrecollection of his persecutors can never follow him; in which, living\nin thought with man reinstated in the rights and the dignity of his\nnature, he forgets man tormented and corrupted by greed, by base fear,\nby envy; it is here that he truly abides with his fellows, in an elysium\nthat his reason has known how to create for itself, and that his love\nfor humanity adorns with all purest delights.'[41]\n\nIt has long been the fashion among the followers of that reaction which\nColeridge led and Carlyle has spread and popularised, to dwell\nexclusively on the coldness and hardness, the excess of scepticism and\nthe defect of enthusiasm, that are supposed to have characterised the\neighteenth century. Because the official religion of the century both in\nEngland and France was lifeless and mechanical, it has been taken for\ngranted that the level of thought and feeling was a low one universally;\nas if the highest moods of every era necessarily clothed themselves in\nreligious forms. The truth is that, working in such natures as\nCondorcet's, the principles of the eighteenth century, its homage to\nreason and rational methods, its exaltation of the happiness of men, not\nexcluding their material wellbeing, into the highest place, its passion\nfor justice and law, its large illumination, all engendered a fervour as\ntruly religious as that of Catholicism or of Calvinism at their best,\nwhile its sentiment was infinitely less interested and personal. The\npassage just quoted is as little mechanical, as little material, as the\nmost rapturous ejaculations of the Christian saints and confessors. Read\nin connection with the circumstances of its composition, it may show\nthat the eighteenth century was able at any rate to inspire its sons\nwith a faith that could rob death of its sting and the grave of its\nvictory, as effectually as if it had rested on a mystery instead of on\nreason, and been supported by the sanctions of eternal pain and eternal\nbliss, instead of moving from a confident devotion to humanity.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[30] _D\u00e9claration de l'Assembl\u00e9e Nationale_, 29 D\u00e9c. 1791. _Oeuv._ xii.\n25.\n\n[31] 13th August 1792. _Oeuv._ x. 547.\n\n[32] _Ib._ x. 560.\n\n[33] 19th August. _Ib._ x. 565.\n\n[34] _Opinion sur le Jugement de Louis XVI._ Nov. 1792 _Oeuv._ xii.\n267-303.\n\n[35] 19th Jan. 1793. _Oeuv._ xii. 311.\n\n[36] See M. Edgar Quinet's remarks on this achievement. _La R\u00e9volution_,\nii. 110.\n\n[37] _Oeuv._ xii. 333, 417. M. Louis Blanc has contrasted the principles\nlaid down as the basis of this project with Robespierre's rival\nDeclaration of the Rights of Man, printing the two side by side in\nparallel columns. '_Les voil\u00e0 donc face \u00e0 face, apr\u00e8s leur commune\nvictoire sur le principe d'autorit\u00e9, ces deux principes d'individualisme\net de fraternit\u00e9, entre lesquels, aujourd'hui m\u00eame, le monde balance,\ninvinciblement \u00e9mu! D'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 la philosophie du rationalisme pur, qui\ndivise; d'un autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 la philosophie du sentiment, qui rapproche et\nr\u00e9unit. Ici Voltaire et Condorcet, l\u00e0 J. J. Rousseau et Robespierre._'\n_Hist. de la R\u00e9vol. Fran._ bk. ix. ch. v.\n\n[38] _Extrait du Moniteur._ _Oeuv._ xii. 677.\n\n[39] The Abb\u00e9 Morellet, in his narrative of the death of Condorcet\n(_M\u00e9moires_, c. xxiv.), says that he died of poison, a mixture of\nstramonium and opium. He adds that the surgeon described death as due to\napoplexy. See Musset-Pathay's _J. J. Rousseau_, ii. 42.\n\n[40] Dupont de Nemours. _Les Physiocrates_, i. 326.\n\n[41] _Progr\u00e8s de l'Esprit Humain._ _Oeuv._ vi. 276.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nThe shape of Condorcet's ideas upon history arose from the twofold\nnecessity which his character imposed upon him, at once of appeasing his\naspirations on behalf of mankind, and of satisfying a disciplined and\nscientific intelligence. He was of too robust an understanding to find\nadequate gratification in the artificial construction of hypothetical\nutopias. Conviction was as indispensable as hope; and distinct grounds\nfor the faith that was in him, as essential as the faith itself. The\nresult of this fact of mental constitution, the intellectual conditions\nof the time being what they were, was the rise in his mind of the great\nand central conception of there being a law in the succession of social\nstates, to be ascertained by an examination of the collective phenomena\nof past history. The merit of this admirable effort, and of the work in\nwhich it found expression, is very easily underrated, because the effort\nwas insufficient and merely preparatory, while modern thought has\nalready carried us far beyond it, and at least into sight of the more\ncomplete truths to which this effort only pointed the way. Let us\nremember, however, that it did point the way distinctly and\nunmistakably. A very brief survey of the state of history as a subject\nof systematic study enables us to appreciate with precision what service\nit was that Condorcet rendered; for it carries us back from the present\ncomparatively advanced condition of the science of society to a time\nbefore his memorable attempt, when conceptions now become so familiar\nwere not in existence, and when even the most instructed students of\nhuman affairs no more felt the need of a scientific theory of the manner\nin which social effects follow social causes, than the least instructed\nportion of the literary public feels such a need in our own time. It is\ndifficult after a subject has been separated from the nebulous mass of\nunclassified knowledge, after it has taken independent shape, and begun\nto move in lines of its own, to realise the process by which all this\nwas effected, or the way in which before all this the facts concerned\npresented themselves to the thinker's mind. That we should overcome the\ndifficulty is one of the conditions of our being able to do justice to\nthe great army of the precursors.\n\nTwo movements of thought went on in France during the middle of the\neighteenth century, which have been comparatively little dwelt upon by\nhistorians; their main anxiety has been to justify the foregone\nconclusion, so gratifying alike to the partisans of the social reaction\nand to the disciples of modern transcendentalism in its many disguises,\nthat the eighteenth century was almost exclusively negative, critical,\nand destructive. Each of these two currents was positive in the highest\ndegree, and their influence undeniably constructive, if we consider that\nit was from their union into a common channel, a work fully accomplished\nfirst in the mind of Condorcet, that the notion of the scientific\ntreatment of history and society took its earliest start.\n\nThe first of the two movements, and that which has been most\nunaccountably neglected, consisted in the remarkable attempts of Quesnay\nand his immediate followers to withdraw the organisation of society from\nthe sphere of empiricism, and to substitute for the vulgar conception\nof arbitrary and artificial institutions as the sole foundation of this\norganisation, the idea that there is a certain Natural Order, conformity\nto which in all social arrangements is the essential condition of their\nbeing advantageous to the members of the social union. Natural Order in\nthe minds of this school was no metaphysical figment evolved from\nuninstructed consciousness, but a set of circumstances to be discovered\nby continuous and methodical observation. It consisted of physical law\nand moral law. Physical law is the regulated course of every physical\ncircumstance in the order evidently most advantageous to the human race.\nMoral law is the rule of every human action in the moral order,\nconformed to the physical order evidently most advantageous to the human\nrace. This order is the base of the most perfect government, and the\nfundamental rule of all positive laws; for positive laws are only such\nlaws as are required to keep up and maintain the natural order that is\nevidently most advantageous to the race.[42]\n\nTowards the close of the reign of Lewis XIV. the frightful\nimpoverishment of the realm attracted the attention of one or two\nenlightened observers, and among them of Boisguillebert and Vauban. They\nhad exposed, the former of them with especial force and amplitude, the\nabsurdity of the general system of administration, which seemed to have\nbeen devised for the express purpose of paralysing both agriculture and\ncommerce, and exhausting all the sources of the national wealth.[43]\nBut these speculations had been mainly of a fiscal kind, and pointed not\nmuch further than to a readjustment of taxation and an improvement in\nthe modes of its collection. The disciples of the New Science, as it was\ncalled, the Physiocrats, or believers in the supremacy of Natural Order,\nwent much beyond this, and in theory sought to lay open the whole ground\nof the fabric of society. Practically they dealt with scarcely any but\nthe economic circumstances of societies, though some of them mix up with\ntheir reasonings upon commerce and agriculture crude and incomplete\nhints upon forms of government and other questions that belong not to\nthe economical but to the political side of social science.[44]\nQuesnay's famous _Maxims_ open with a declaration in favour of the unity\nof the sovereign authority, and against the system of counterbalancing\nforces in government. Almost immediately he passes on to the ground of\npolitical economy, and elaborates the conditions of material prosperity\nin an agricultural realm. With the correctness of the definitions and\nprinciples of economic science as laid down by these writers, we have\nhere nothing to do. Their peculiar distinction in the present connection\nis the grasp which they had of the principle of there being a natural,\nand therefore a scientific, order in the conditions of a society; that\norder being natural in the sense that they attached to the term, which\nfrom the circumstances of the case is most beneficial to the race. From\nthis point of view they approach some of the problems of what is now\nclassified as social statics; and they assume, without any consciousness\nof another aspect being possible, that the society which they are\ndiscussing is in a state of equilibrium.\n\nIt is evident that with this restriction of the speculative horizon,\nthey were and must remain wholly unable to emerge into the full light of\nthe completely constituted science of society, with laws of movement as\nwell as laws of equilibrium, with definite methods of interpreting past\nand predicting future states. They could account for and describe the\ngenesis of the social union, as Plato and Aristotle had in different\nways been able to do many centuries before; and they could prescribe\nsome of the conditions of its being maintained in vigour and\ncompactness. Some of them could even see in a vague way the\ninterdependence of peoples and the community of the real interests of\ndifferent nations, each nation, as De la Rivi\u00e8re expressed it, being\nonly a province of the vast kingdom of nature, a branch from the same\ntrunk as the rest.[45] What they could not see was the great fact of\nsocial evolution; and here too, in the succession of social states,\nthere has been a natural and observable order. In a word, they tried to\nunderstand society without the aid of history. Consequently they laid\ndown the truths which they discovered as absolute and fixed, when they\nwere no more than conditional and relative.\n\nFortunately inquirers in another field had set a movement afoot, which\nwas destined to furnish the supplement of their own speculation. This\nwas the remarkable development of the conception of history, which\nMontesquieu's two memorable books first made conspicuous. Bossuet's\nwell-known discourse on universal history, teeming as it does with\nreligious prejudice, just as Condorcet's sketch teems with prejudice\nagainst religion, and egregiously imperfect in execution as it must be\npronounced when judged from even the meanest historical standard, had\nperhaps partially introduced the spirit of Universality, as Comte says,\ninto the study of history. But it was impossible from the nature of the\ncase for any theologian to know fully what this spirit means; and it was\nnot until the very middle of the following century that any effective\napproach was made to that universality which Bossuet did little more\nthan talk about. Then it came not from theology, but from the much more\nhopeful sources of a rational philosophy. Before Montesquieu no single\nstone of the foundation of scientific history can be said to have been\nlaid. Of course, far earlier writers had sought after the circumstances\nwhich brought about a given transaction. Thucydides, for example, had\nattributed the cause of the Peloponnesian war to the alarm of the\nLaced\u00e6monians at the greatness of the power of Athens.[46] It is this\nsense of the need of explanation, however rudimentary it may be, which\ndistinguishes the great historian from the chronicler, even from a very\nsuperior chronicler like Livy, who in his account of even so great an\nevent as the Second Punic War plunges straightway into narrative of what\nhappened, without concerning himself why it happened. Tacitus had begun\nhis _Histories_ with remarks upon the condition of Rome, the feeling of\nthe various armies, the attitude of the provinces, so that, as he says,\n'_non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed\nratio etiam caus\u00e6que noscantur_.'[47] But these and the like instances\nin historical literature were only political explanations, more or less\nadequate, of particular transactions; they were no more than the\nsagacious remarks of men with statesmanlike minds, upon the origin of\nsome single set of circumstances.\n\nThe rise from this to the high degree of generality which marks the\nspeculations of Montesquieu, empirical as they are, was as great as the\nrise from the mere maxims of worldly wisdom to the widest principles of\nethical philosophy. Polybius, indeed, in the remarkable chapters with\nwhich his _Histories_ open, uses expressions that are so modern as\nalmost to startle us. 'People who study history,' he says, 'in separate\nand detached portions, without reference to one another, and suppose\nthat from them they acquire a knowledge of the whole, are like a man\nwho in looking on the severed members of what had once been an animated\nand comely creature, should think that this was enough to give him an\nidea of its beauty and force when alive. The empire of Rome was what by\nits extent in Italy, Africa, Asia, Greece, brought history into the\ncondition of being organic (+s\u00f4matoeid\u00eas+).' His object was to examine\nthe general and collective ordering of events; when it came into\nexistence; whence it had its source; how it had this special completion\nand fulfilment--the universal empire of Rome.[48] Striking as this is,\nand admirable as it is, there is not in it any real trace of the\nabstract conception of social history. Polybius recognises the unity of\nhistory, so far as that could be understood in the second century before\nChrist, but he treats his subject in the concrete, describing the chain\nof events, but not attempting to seek their law. It was Montesquieu who\nfirst applied the comparative method to social institutions; who first\nconsidered physical conditions in connection with the laws of a country;\nwho first perceived and illustrated how that natural order which the\nPhysiocrats only considered in relation to the phenomena of wealth and\nits production, really extended over its political phenomena as well;\nwho first set the example of viewing a great number of social facts all\nover the world in groups and classes; and who first definitely and\nsystematically inquired into the causes of a set of complex historical\nevents and institutions, as being both discoverable and intelligible.\nThis was a very marked advance upon both of the ideas, by one or other\nof which men had previously been content to explain to themselves the\ncourse of circumstances in the world; either the inscrutable decrees of\nan inhuman providence, or the fortuitous vagaries of an eyeless destiny.\n\nIt was Turgot, however, who completed the historical conception of\nMontesquieu, in a piece written in 1750, two years after the appearance\nof the _Esprit des Lois_, and in one or two other fragmentary\ncompositions of about the same time, which are not the less remarkable\nbecause the writer was only twenty-three years old when these advanced\nideas presented themselves to his intelligence. Vico in Italy had\ninsisted on the doctrine that the course of human affairs is in a cycle,\nand that they move in a constant and self-repeating orbit.[49] Turgot,\non the contrary, with more wisdom, at the opening of his subject is\ncareful to distinguish the ever-varying spectacle of the succession of\nmen from generation to generation, from the circle of identical\nrevolutions in which the phenomena of nature are enclosed. In the one\ncase time only restores at each instant the image of what it has just\ncaused to disappear; in the other, the reason and the passions are ever\nincessantly producing new events. 'All the ages are linked together by\na succession of causes and effects which bind the state of the world to\nall the states that have gone before. The multiplied signs of speech and\nwriting, in supplying men with the means of an assured possession of\ntheir thoughts and of communicating them to one another, have formed a\ncommon treasure that one generation transmits to another, as an\ninheritance constantly augmented by the discoveries of each generation;\nand the human race, looked at from its origin, appears in the eyes of\nthe philosopher one immense whole, which, just as in the case of each\nindividual, has its infancy and its growth.'[50]\n\nPascal and others in ancient and modern times[51] had compared in casual\nand unfruitful remarks the history of the race to the history of the\nindividual, but Turgot was able in some sort to see the full meaning and\nextent of the analogy, as well as the limitations proper to it, and to\ndraw from it some of the larger principles which the idea involved. The\nfirst proposition in the passage just quoted, that a chain of causes and\neffects unites each age with every other age that has gone before, is\none of the most memorable sentences in the history of thought. And\nTurgot not only saw that there is a relation of cause and effect between\nsuccessive states of society; he had glimpses into some of the\nconditions of that relation. To a generation that stands on loftier\nheights his attempts seem rudimentary and strangely simple, but it was\nthese attempts which cut the steps for our ascent. How is it, he asked,\nfor instance, that the succession of social states is not uniform? that\nthey follow with unequal step along the track marked out for them? He\nfound the answer in the inequality of natural advantages, and he was\nable to discern the necessity of including in these advantages the\npresence, apparently accidental, in some communities and not in others\nof men of especial genius or capacity in some important direction.[52]\nAgain, he saw that just as in one way natural advantages accelerate the\nprogress of a society, in another natural obstacles also accelerate it,\nby stimulating men to the efforts necessary to overcome them: _le besoin\nperfectionne l'instrument_.[53] The importance of following the march of\nthe human mind over all the grooves along which it travels to further\nknowledge, was fully present to him, and he dwells repeatedly on the\nconstant play going on between discoveries in one science and those in\nanother. In no writer is there a fuller and more distinct sense of the\nessential unity and integrity of the history of mankind, nor of the\nmultitude of the mansions into which this vast house is divided, and the\nmany keys which he must possess that would open and enter in.\n\nEven in empirical explanations Turgot shows a breadth and accuracy of\nvision truly surprising, considering his own youth and what we may\nventure to call the youth of his subject. The reader will be able to\nappreciate this, and to discern at the same time the arbitrary nature of\nMontesquieu's method, if he will contrast, for example, the remarks of\nthis writer upon polygamy with the far wider and more sagacious\nexplanation of the circumstances of such an institution given by\nTurgot.[54] Unfortunately, he has left us only short and fragmentary\npieces, but they suggest more than many large and complete works. That\nthey had a very powerful and direct influence upon Condorcet there is no\ndoubt, as well from the similarity of general conception between him and\nTurgot, as from the nearly perfect identity of leading passages in their\nwritings. Let us add that in Turgot's fragments we have what is\nunhappily not a characteristic of Condorcet, the peculiar satisfaction\nand delight in scientific history of a style which states a fact in such\nphrases as serve also to reveal its origin, bearings, significance, in\nwhich every successive piece of description is so worded as to be\nself-evidently a link in the chain of explanation, an ordered term in a\nseries of social conditions.\n\nBefore returning to Condorcet we ought to glance at the remarkable\npiece, written in 1784, in which Kant propounded his idea of a\nuniversal or cosmo-political history, which contemplating the agency of\nthe human will upon a large scale should unfold to our view a regular\nstream of tendency in the great succession of events.[55] The will\nmetaphysically considered, Kant said, is free, but its manifestations,\nthat is to say, human actions, 'are as much under the control of\nuniversal laws of nature as any other physical phenomena.'\n\nThe very same course of incidents, which taken separately and\nindividually would have seemed perplexed and incoherent, 'yet viewed in\ntheir connection and as the action of the human _species_ and not of\nindependent beings, never fail to observe a steady and continuous,\nthough slow, development of certain great predispositions in our\nnature.' As it is impossible to presume in the human race any _rational_\npurpose of its own, we must seek to observe some _natural_ purpose in\nthe current of human actions. Thus a history of creatures with no plan\nof their own, may yet admit a systematic form as a history of creatures\nblindly pursuing a plan of nature. Now we know that all predispositions\nare destined to develop themselves according to their final purpose.\nMan's rational predispositions are destined to develop themselves in the\nspecies and not in the individual. History then is the progress of the\ndevelopment of all the tendencies laid in man by nature. The method of\ndevelopment is the antagonism of these tendencies in the social state,\nand its source the _unsocial sociality_ of man--a tendency to enter the\nsocial state, combined with a perpetual resistance to that tendency,\nwhich is ever threatening to dissolve it. The play of these two\ntendencies unfolds talents of every kind, and by gradual increase of\nlight a preparation is made for such a mode of thinking as is capable of\n'exalting a social concert that had been _pathologically_ extorted from\nthe mere necessities of situation, into a _moral_ union founded on the\nreasonable choice.' Hence the highest problem for man is the\nestablishment of a universal civil society, founded on the empire of\npolitical justice; and 'the history of the human species as a whole may\nbe regarded as the unravelling of a hidden plan of nature for\naccomplishing a perfect state of civil constitution for society in its\ninternal relations (and, as the condition of that, in its external\nrelations also), as the sole state of society in which the tendencies of\nhuman nature can be all and fully developed.' Nor is this all. We shall\nnot only be able to unravel the intricate web of past affairs, but shall\nalso find a clue for the guidance of future statesmen in the art of\npolitical prediction. Nay more, this clue 'will open a consolatory\nprospect into futurity, in which at a remote distance we shall observe\nthe human species seated upon an eminence won by infinite toil, where\nall the germs are unfolded which nature has implanted within it, and\nits destination on this earth accomplished.'\n\nThat this conception involves an assumption about tendencies and final\npurposes which reverses the true method of history, and moreover reduces\nwhat ought to be a scientific inquiry to be a foregone justification of\nnature or providence, should not prevent us from appreciating its signal\nmerits in insisting on a systematic presentation of the collective\nactivity of the race, and in pointing out, however cursorily, the use of\nsuch an elucidation of the past in furnishing the grounds of practical\nguidance in dealing with the future and in preparing it. Considering the\nbrevity of this little tract, its pregnancy and suggestiveness have not\noften been equalled. We have seen enough of it here to enable us to\nrealise the differences between this and the French school. We miss the\nwholesome objectivity, resulting from the stage which had been reached\nin France by the physical sciences. Condorcet's series of _\u00e9loges_ shows\nunmistakably how deep an impression the history of physical discovery\nhad made upon him, and how clearly he understood the value of its\nmethods. The peculiar study which their composition had occasioned him\nis of itself almost enough to account for the fact that a conception\nwhich had long been preparing in the superior minds of the time, should\nfully develop itself in him rather than in anybody else.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[42] Quesnay; _Droit Naturel_, ch. v. _Les Physiocrates_, i. 52.\n\n[43] _Economistes Financiers du 18i\u00e8me Si\u00e8cle._ Vauban's _Projet d'une\nDime Royale_ (p. 33), and Boisguillebert's _Factum de la France_, etc.\n(p. 248 _et seq._)\n\n[44] De la Rivi\u00e8re, for instance, very notably. Cf. his _Ordre Naturel\ndes Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s Politiques_. _Physiocrates_, ii. 469, 636, etc. See also\nBaudeau on the superiority of the Economic Monarchy _Ib._ pp. 783-791.\n\n[45] _Ordre Nat. des Soc. Pol._ p. 526.\n\n[46] Bk. i. 23.\n\n[47] _Hist._ i. 4.\n\n[48] Polyb. _Hist._ I. iii. 4; iv. 3, 7.\n\n[49] The well-known words of Thucydides may contain the germ of the same\nidea, when he speaks of the future as being likely to represent again,\nafter the fashion of human things, 'if not the very image, yet the near\nresemblance of the past.' Bk. i. 22, 4.\n\n[50] _Discours en Sorbonne._ _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 597. (Ed. of 1844).\n\n[51] Cf. Sir G. C. Lewis's _Methods of Observation in Politics_, ii.\n439, note.\n\n[52] _Oeuv. de Turgot_, ii. 599, 645, etc.\n\n[53] _Ib._ ii. 601.\n\n[54] _Esprit des Lois_, xvi. cc. 2-4. And _Discours sur l'Histoire\nUniverselle_, in Turgot's Works, ii. 640, 641. For a further account of\nTurgot's speculations, see article \"Turgot\" in the present volume.\n\n[55] _Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmo-Political Plan._ It was\ntranslated by De Quincey, and is to be found in vol. xiii. of his\ncollected works, pp. 133-152.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\nThe Physiocrats, as we have seen, had introduced the idea of there being\na natural order in social circumstances, that order being natural which\nis most advantageous to mankind. Turgot had declared that one age is\nbound to another by a chain of causation. Condorcet fused these two\nconceptions. He viewed the history of the ages as a whole, and found in\ntheir succession a natural order; an order which, when uninterrupted and\nundisturbed, tended to accumulate untold advantages upon the human race,\nwhich was every day becoming more plain to the vision of men, and\ntherefore every day more and more assured from disturbance by ignorant\nprejudice and sinister interests. There is an order at once among the\ncircumstances of a given generation, and among the successive sets of\ncircumstances of successive generations. 'If we consider the development\nof human faculties in its results, so far as they relate to the\nindividuals who exist at the same time on a given space, and if we\nfollow that development from generation to generation, then we have\nbefore us the picture of the progress of the human mind. This progress\nis subject to the same general laws that are to be observed in the\ndevelopment of the faculties of individuals, for it is the result of\nthat development, considered at the same time in a great number of\nindividuals united in society. But the result that presents itself at\nany one instant depends upon that which was offered by the instants\npreceding; in turn it influences the result in times still to follow.'\n\nThis picture will be of a historical character, inasmuch as being\nsubject to perpetual variations it is formed by the observation in due\norder of different human societies in different epochs through which\nthey have passed. It will expose the order of the various changes, the\ninfluence exercised by each period over the next, and thus will show in\nthe modifications impressed upon the race, ever renewing itself in the\nimmensity of the ages, the track that it has followed, and the exact\nsteps that it has taken towards truth and happiness. Such observation of\nwhat man has been and of what he is, will then lead us to means proper\nfor assuring and accelerating the fresh progress that his nature allows\nus to anticipate still further.[56]\n\n'If a man is able to predict with nearly perfect confidence, phenomena\nwith whose laws he is acquainted; if, even when they are unknown to him,\nhe is able, in accordance with the experience of the past, to foresee\nwith a large degree of probability the events of the future, why should\nwe treat it as a chimerical enterprise, to trace with some\nverisimilitude the picture of the future destinies of the human race in\naccordance with the results of its history? The only foundation of\nbelief in the natural sciences is this idea, that the general laws,\nknown or unknown, which regulate the phenomena of the universe are\nnecessary and constant; and why should this principle be less true for\nthe development of the moral and intellectual faculties of man than for\nother natural operations? In short, opinions grounded on past experience\nin objects of the same order being the single rule of conduct for even\nthe wisest men, why should the philosopher be forbidden to rest his\nconjectures on the same base, provided that he never attributes to them\na degree of certainty beyond what is warranted by the number, the\nconstancy, and the accuracy of his observations?'[57]\n\nThus Condorcet's purpose was not to justify nature, as it had been with\nKant, but to search in the past for rational grounds of a belief in the\nunbounded splendour of men's future destinies. His view of the character\nof the relations among the circumstances of the social union, either at\na given moment or in a succession of periods, was both accurate and\nfar-sighted. When he came actually to execute his own great idea, and to\nspecify the manner in which those relations arose and operated, he\ninstantly diverged from the right path. Progress in his mind is\nexclusively produced by improvement in intelligence. It is the necessary\nresult of man's activity in the face of that disproportion ever existing\nbetween what he knows and what he desires and feels the necessity to\nknow.[58] Hence the most fatal of the errors of Condorcet's sketch. He\nmeasures only the contributions made by nations and eras to what we\nknow; leaving out of sight their failures and successes in the\nelevation of moral standards and ideals, and in the purification of\nhuman passions.\n\nNow even if we hold the intellectual principle only to be progressive,\nand the moral elements to be fixed, being coloured and shaped and\nquickened by the surrounding intellectual conditions, still, inasmuch as\nthe manner of this shaping and colouring is continually changing and\nleading to the most important transformations of human activity and\nsentiment, it must obviously be a radical deficiency in any picture of\nsocial progress to leave out the development of ethics, whether it be a\nderivative or an independent and spontaneous development. One seeks in\nvain in Condorcet's sketch for any account of the natural history of\nwestern morals, or for any sign of consciousness on his part that the\ndifference in ethical discipline and feeling between the most ferocious\nof primitive tribes and the most enlightened eighteenth-century\nFrenchmen, was a result of evolution that needed historical explanation,\nquite as much as the difference between the astrolatry of one age and\nthe astronomy of another. We find no recognition of the propriety of\nrecounting the various steps of that long process by which, to use\nKant's pregnant phrase, the relations born of pathological necessity\nwere metamorphosed into those of moral union. The grave and lofty\nfeeling, for example, which inspired the last words of the\n_Tableau_--whence came it? Of what long-drawn chain of causes in the\npast was it the last effect? It is not enough to refer us generally to\nprevious advances in knowledge and intellectual emancipation, because\neven supposing the successive modifications of our moral sensibilities\nto be fundamentally due to the progress of intellectual enlightenment,\nwe still want to know in the first place something about the influences\nwhich harness one process to the other, and in the second place,\nsomething about the particular directions which these modifications of\nmoral constitution have taken.\n\nIf this is one very radical omission in Condorcet's scheme, his angry\nand vehement aversion for the various religions of the world (with\nperhaps one exception) is a sin of commission still more damaging to its\ncompleteness. That he should detest the corrupt and oppressive forms of\nreligion of his own century was neither surprising nor blamable. An\nunfavourable view of the influences upon human development of the\nChristian belief, even in its least corrupt forms, was not by any means\nuntenable. Nay, he was at liberty to go further than this, and to depict\nreligion as a natural infirmity of the human mind in its immature\nstages, just as there are specific disorders incident in childhood to\nthe human body. Even on this theory, he was bound to handle it with the\nsame calmness which he would have expected to find in a pathological\ntreatise by a physician. Who would write of the sweating sickness with\nindignation, or describe zymotic diseases with resentment? Condorcet's\npertinacious anger against theology is just as irrational as this would\nbe, from the scientific point of view which he pretends to have assumed.\nTheology, in fact, was partly avenged of her assailants, for she had in\nthe struggle contrived to infect them with the bitter contagion of her\nown traditional spirit.\n\nFrom the earliest times to the latest it is all one story according to\nCondorcet. He can speak with respect of philosophies even when, as in\nthe case of the Scotch school of the last century, he dislikes and\ncondemns them.[59] Of religion his contempt and hatred only vary\nslightly in degree. Barbarous tribes have sorcerers, trading on the\ngross superstitions of their dupes: so in other guise and with different\nnames have civilised nations to-day. As other arts progressed,\nsuperstition, too, became less rude; priestly families kept all\nknowledge in their own hands, and thus preserved their hypocritical and\ntyrannical assumptions from detection. They disclosed nothing to the\npeople without some supernatural admixture, the better to maintain their\npersonal pretensions. They had two doctrines, one for themselves, and\nthe other for the people. Sometimes, as they were divided into several\norders, each of them reserved to itself certain mysteries. Thus all the\ninferior orders were at once rogues and dupes, and the great system of\nhypocrisy was only known in all its completeness to a few adepts.\nChristianity belonged to the same class. Its priests, we must admit, 'in\nspite of their knaveries and their vices, were enthusiasts ready to\nperish for their doctrines.' In vain did Julian endeavour to deliver the\nempire from the scourge. Its triumph was the signal for the incurable\ndecay of all art and knowledge. The Church may seem to have done some\ngood in things where her interests did not happen to clash with the\ninterests of Europe, as in helping to abolish slavery, for instance; but\nafter all 'circumstances and manners' would have produced the result\nnecessarily and of themselves. Morality, which was taught by the priests\nonly, contained those universal principles that have been unknown to no\nsect; but it created a host of purely religious duties, and of imaginary\nsins. These duties were more rigorously enjoined than those of nature,\nand actions that were indifferent, legitimate, or even virtuous, were\nmore severely rebuked and punished than real crimes. Yet, on the other\nhand, a moment of repentance, consecrated by the absolution of a priest,\nopened the gates of heaven to the worst miscreants.[60]\n\nIn the opening of the last of these remarks there is much justice. So\nthere is in the striking suggestion made in another place, that we\nshould not bless erroneous systems for their utility, simply because\nthey help to repair some small part of the mischief of which they have\nthemselves been the principal cause.[61] But on the whole it is obvious\nthat Condorcet was unfitted by his temper, and that of the school to\nwhich he most belonged, from accepting religion as a fact in the\nhistory of the human mind that must have some positive explanation. To\nlook at it in this way as the creation of a handful of selfish impostors\nin each community, was to show a radical incompetence to carry out the\nscheme which had been so scientifically projected. The picture is ruined\nby the angry caricature of what ought to have been one of the most\nimportant figures in it. To this place the Christian Church is\nundeniably entitled, however we may be disposed to strike the balance\nbetween the undoubted injuries and the undoubted advantages which it has\nbeen the means of dealing to the civilisation of the west. Never perhaps\nwas there so thorough an inversion of the true view of the comparative\nelevation of different parts of human character, as is implied in\nCondorcet's strange hint that Cromwell's satellites would have been much\nbetter men if they had carried instead of the Bible at their saddle-bows\nsome merry book of the stamp of Voltaire's _Pucelle_.[62]\n\nApart from the misreading of history in explaining religion by the folly\nof the many and the frauds of a few, Condorcet's interpretation involved\nthe profoundest infidelity to his own doctrine of the intrinsic purity\nand exaltation of human nature. This doctrine ought in all reason to\nhave led him to look for the secret of the popular acceptance of beliefs\nthat to him seemed most outrageous, in some possibly finer side which\nthey might possess for others, appealing not to the lower but to the\nhigher qualities of a nature with instincts of perfection. Take his\naccount of Purgatory, for instance. The priests, he says, drew up so\nminute and comprehensive a table of sins that nobody could hope to\nescape from censure. Here you come upon one of the most lucrative\nbranches of the sacerdotal trafficking; people were taught to imagine a\nhell of limited duration, which the priests only had the power to\nabridge; and this grace they sold, first to the living, then to the\nkinsmen and friends of the dead.[63] Now it was surely more worthy of a\nbelief in the natural depravity than in the natural perfectibility of\nthe sons of Adam, thus to assume without parley or proviso a base\nmercenariness on the one hand, and grovelling terror on the other, as\nthe origin of a doctrine which was obviously susceptible of a kinder\nexplanation. Would it not have been more consistent with belief in human\ngoodness to refer the doctrine to a merciful and affectionate and truly\nhumanising anxiety to assuage the horrors of what is perhaps the most\nfrightful idea that has ever corroded human character, the idea of\neternal punishment? We could in part have pardoned Condorcet if he had\nstriven to invent ever so fanciful origins for opinions and belief in\nhis solicitude for the credit of humanity. As it is, he distorts the\nhistory of religion only to humanity's discredit. How, if the people\nwere always predisposed to virtue, were priests, sprung of the same\npeople and bred in the same traditions, so invariably and incurably\ndevoted to baseness and hypocrisy? Was the nature of a priest absolutely\ndevoid of what physicians call recuperative force, restoring him to a\nsound mind, in spite of professional perversion? In fine, if man had\nbeen so grossly enslaved in moral nature from the beginning of the world\ndown to the year 1789 or thereabouts, how was it possible that\nnotwithstanding the admitted slowness of civilising processes, he should\nsuddenly spring forth the very perfectible and nearly perfected being\nthat Condorcet passionately imagined him to be?[64]\n\nIt has already been hinted that there was one partial exception to\nCondorcet's otherwise all-embracing animosity against religion. This was\nMahometanism. Towards this his attitude is fully appreciative, though of\ncourse he deplores the superstitions which mixed themselves up with the\nArabian prophet's efforts for the purification of the men of his nation.\nAfter the seven vials of fiery wrath have been poured out upon the creed\nof Palestine, it is refreshing to find the creed of Arabia almost\npatronised and praised. The writer who could not have found in his heart\nto think Gregory the Great or Hildebrand other than a mercenary\nimpostor, nor Cromwell other than an ambitious hypocrite, admits with\nexquisite blandness of Mahomet that he had the art of employing all the\nmeans of subjugating men _avec adresse, mais avec grandeur_.[65] Another\nreason, no doubt, besides his hatred of the Church, lay at the bottom of\nCondorcet's tolerance or more towards Mahometanism. The Arabian\nsuperstition was not fatal to knowledge, Arabian activity in algebra,\nchemistry, optics, and astronomy, atoned in Condorcet's eyes for the\nKoran.\n\nIt is fair to add further, that Condorcet showed a more just\nappreciation of the effects of Protestantism upon western development\nthan has been common among French thinkers. He recognises that men who\nhad learnt, however imperfectly, to submit their religious prejudices to\nrational examination, would naturally be likely to extend the process to\npolitical prejudices also. Moreover, if the reformed churches refused to\nrender to reason all its rights, still they agreed that its prison\nshould be less narrow; the chain was not broken, but it ceased to be\neither so heavy or so short as it had been. And in countries where what\nwas by the dominant sect insolently styled tolerance succeeded in\nestablishing itself, it was possible to maintain the tolerated doctrines\nwith a more or less complete freedom. So there arose in Europe a sort\nof freedom of thought, not for men, but for Christians; and, 'if we\nexcept France, it is only for Christians that it exists anywhere else at\nthe present day,' a limitation which has now fortunately ceased to be\naltogether exact.[66]\n\nIf we have smiled at the ease with which what is rank craftiness in a\nChristian is toned down into address in a Mahometan, we may be amused\ntoo at the leniency that describes some of the propagandist methods of\nthe eighteenth century. Condorcet becomes rapturous as he tells in a\nparagraph of fine sustention with what admixture of the wisdom of the\nserpent the humane philosophers of his century 'covered the truth with a\nveil that prevented it from hurting too weak sight, and left the\npleasure of conjecturing it; caressing prejudices with address, to deal\nthem the more certain blows; scarcely ever threatening them, nor ever\nmore than one at once, nor even one in its integrity; sometimes\nconsoling the enemies of reason by pretending to desire no more than a\nhalf-tolerance in religion and half-liberty in politics; conciliating\ndespotism while they combated the absurdities of religion, and religion\nwhen they rose against despotism; attacking these two scourges in their\nprinciple, even when they seemed only to bear ill-will to revolting or\nridiculous abuses, and striking these poisonous trees in their very\nroots, while they appeared to be doing no more than pruning crooked\nbranches.'[67] Imagine the holy rage with which such acts would have\nbeen attacked, if Condorcet had happened to be writing about the\nJesuits. Alas! the stern and serene composure of the historical\nconscience was as unknown to him as it is always to orthodox apologists.\nIt is to be said, moreover, that he had less excuse for being without\nit, for he rested on the goodness of men, and not, as theologians rest,\non their vileness. It is a most interesting thing, we may notice in\npassing, to consider what was the effect upon the Revolution of this\nartfulness or prudence with which its theoretic precursors sowed the\nseed. Was it as truly wise as Condorcet supposed? Or did it weaken,\nalmost corrupt, the very roots? Was it the secret of the thoroughness\nwith which the work of demolition was done? Was it, too, the secret of\nthe many and disastrous failures in the task of reconstruction?[68]\n\nThere are one or two detached remarks suggested by Condorcet's picture,\nwhich it may be worth while to make. He is fully alive, for example, to\nthe importance to mankind of the appearance among them of one of those\nmen of creative genius, like Archimedes or like Newton, whose lives\nconstitute an epoch in human history. Their very existence he saw to be\namong the greatest benefits conferred on the race by Nature. He hardly\nseems to have been struck, on the other hand, with the appalling and\nincessant waste of these benefits that goes on; with the number of men\nof Newtonian capacity who are undoubtedly born into the world only to\nchronicle small beer; with the hosts of high and worthy souls who labour\nand flit away like shadows, perishing in the accomplishment of minor and\nsubordinate ends. We may suspect that the notion of all this\nimmeasurable profusion of priceless treasures, its position as one of\nthe laws of the condition of man on the globe, would be unspeakably hard\nof endurance to one holding Condorcet's peculiar form of optimism.\n\nAgain, if we had space, it would be worth while to examine some of the\nacute and ingenious hints which Condorcet throws out by the way. It\nwould be interesting to consider, as he suggests, the influence upon\nthe progress of the human mind of the change from writing on such\nsubjects as science, philosophy, and jurisprudence in Latin, to the\nusual language of each country. That change rendered the sciences more\npopular, but it increased the trouble of the scientific men in following\nthe general march of knowledge. It caused a book to be read in one\ncountry by more men of inferior competence, but less read throughout\nEurope by men of superior light. And though it relieves men who have no\nleisure for extensive study from the trouble of learning Latin, it\nimposes upon profounder persons the necessity of learning a variety of\nmodern languages.[69] Again, ground is broken for the most important\nreflection, in the remark that men preserve the prejudices of their\nchildhood, their country, and their age, long after they have recognised\nall the truths necessary to destroy them.[70] Perhaps most instructive\nand most tranquillising of all is this, that the progress of physical\nknowledge is constantly destroying in silence erroneous opinions which\nhad never seemed to be attacked.[71] And in reading history, how much\nignorance and misinterpretation would have been avoided, if the student\nhad but been careful to remember that 'the law as written and the law as\nadministered; the principles of those in power, and the modification of\ntheir action by the sentiments of the governed; an institution as it\nemanates from those who form it, and the same institution realised; the\nreligion of books, and that of the people; the apparent universality of\na prejudice, and the substantial adhesion that it receives; these may\nall differ in such a way that the effects absolutely cease to answer to\nthe public and recognised causes.'[72]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[56] _Tableau des Progr\u00e8s de l'Esprit Humain._ _Oeuv._ vi. 12, 13.\n\n[57] _Oeuv._ vi. 236.\n\n[58] _Ib._ vi. 21.\n\n[59] _Oeuv._ vi. 186.\n\n[60] _Oeuv._ vi. pp. 35, 55, 101, 102, 111, 117, 118, etc.\n\n[61] _Dissertation sur cette question: S'il est utile aux hommes d'\u00eatre\ntromp\u00e9s?_--one of the best of Condorcet's writings. _Oeuv._ v. 360.\n\n[62] See Condorcet's vindication of the _Pucelle_ in his Life of\nVoltaire. _Oeuv._ iv. 88, 89. See also Comte's _Phil. Pos._ v. 450.\n\n[63] _Oeuv._ vi. 118.\n\n[64] As M. Comte says in his remarks on Condorcet (_Phil. Pos._ iv.\n185-193): '_Le progr\u00e8s total finalement accompli ne peut \u00eatre sans doute\nque le r\u00e9sultat g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de l'accumulation spontan\u00e9e des divers progr\u00e8s\npartiels successivement r\u00e9alis\u00e9s depuis l'origine de la civilisation, en\nvertu de la marche successivement lente et graduelle de la nature\nhumaine;_' so that Condorcet's picture presents a standing miracle, '_o\u00f9\nl'on s'est m\u00eame interdit d'abord la ressource vulgaire de la\nProvidence._' Comte's criticism, however, seems to leave out of sight\nwhat full justice Condorcet did to the various partial advances in the\nintellectual order.\n\n[65] _Oeuv._ vi. 120-123.\n\n[66] _Oeuv._ vi. 149, 153.\n\n[67] _Ib._ 187-189.\n\n[68] It is worth while to quote on this subject a passage from Condorcet\nas historically instructive as it is morally dangerous. '_La n\u00e9cessit\u00e9\nde mentir pour d\u00e9savouer un ouvrage est une extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 qui r\u00e9pugne\n\u00e9galement \u00e0 la conscience et \u00e0 la noblesse du caract\u00e8re; mais le crime\nest pour les hommes injustes qui rendent ce d\u00e9saveu n\u00e9cessaire \u00e0 la\ns\u00fbret\u00e9 de celui qu'ils y forcent. Si vous avez \u00e9rig\u00e9 en crime ce qui\nn'en est pas un, si vous avez port\u00e9 atteinte, par des lois absurdes ou\npar des lois arbitraires, au droit naturel qu'ont tous les hommes, non\nseulement d'avoir une opinion, mais de la rendre publique, alors vous\nm\u00e9ritez de perdre celui qu'a chaque homme d'entendre la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de la\nbouche d'un autre, droit qui fonde seul l'obligation rigoureuse de ne\npas mentir. S'il n'est pas permis de tromper, c'est parceque tromper\nquelqu'un, c'est lui faire un tort, ou s'exposer \u00e0 lui en faire un; mais\nle tort suppose un droit, et personne n'a celui de cherche, \u00e0 s'assurer\nles moyens de commettre une injustice._' _Vie de Voltaire_; _Oeuv._ iv.\n33, 34. Condorcet might have found some countenance for his sophisms in\nPlato (Republ. ii. 383); but even Plato restricted the privilege of\nlying to statesmen (iii. 389). He was in a wiser mood when he declared\n(_Oeuv._ v. 384) that it is better to be imprudent than a\nhypocrite,--though for that matter these are hardly the only\nalternatives.\n\n[69] _Oeuv._ vi. 163.\n\n[70] _Ib._ vi. 22.\n\n[71] _Ib._ p. 220.\n\n[72] _Oeuv._ p. 234.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\nWe have now seen something of Condorcet's ideas of the past, and of his\nconception of what he was perhaps the first to call the Science of Man.\nLet us turn to his hopes for the future, and one or two of the details\nto which his study of the science of man conducted him. It is well to\nperceive at the outset that Condorcet's views of the Tenth Epoch, as he\ncounts the period extending from the French Revolution to the era of the\nindefinite perfection of man, were in truth not the result of any\nscientific processes whatever, properly so called. He saw, and this is\nhis merit, that such processes were applicable to the affairs of\nsociety; and that, as he put it, all political and moral errors rest\nupon error in philosophy, which in turn is bound up with erroneous\nmethods in physical science.[73] But in the execution of his plan he\ndoes not succeed in showing the nature of the relations of these\nconnected forces; still less does he practise the scientific duty, for\nillustrating which he gives such well-deserved glory to Newton,[74] of\nnot only accounting for phenomena, but also of measuring the _quantity_\nof forces. His conception, therefore, of future progress, however near\nconjecture may possibly have brought him to the truth, is yet no more\nthan conjecture. The root of it is found in nothing more precise,\ndefinite, or quantified than a general notion gathered from history,\nthat some portions of the race had made perceptible advances in freedom\nand enlightenment, and that we might therefore confidently expect still\nfurther advances to be made in the same direction with an accelerated\nrapidity, and with certain advantageous effects upon the happiness of\nthe whole mass of the human race. In short, the end of the speculation\nis a confirmed and heightened conviction of the indefinite\nperfectibility of the species, with certain foreshadowings of the\ndirection which this perfectibility would ultimately follow. The same\nrebellion against the disorder and misery of the century, which drove\nsome thinkers and politicians into fierce yearnings for an imaginary\nstate of nature, and others into an extravagant admiration for the\nancient republics, caused a third school, and Condorcet among them, to\nturn their eyes with equally boundless confidence and yearning towards\nan imaginary future. It was at all events the least desperate error of\nthe three.\n\nOur expectations for the future, Condorcet held, may be reduced to these\nthree points: the destruction of inequality among nations; the progress\nof equality among the people of any given nation; and, finally the\nsubstantial perfecting (_perfectionnement r\u00e9el_) of man.\n\nI. With reference to the first of these great aspirations, it will be\nbrought about by the abandonment by European peoples of their commercial\nmonopolies, their treacherous practices, their mischievous and\nextravagant proselytising, and their sanguinary contempt for those of\nanother colour or another creed. Vast countries, now a prey to barbarism\nand violence, will present in one region numerous populations only\nwaiting to receive the means and instruments of civilisation from us,\nand as soon as they find brothers in the Europeans, will joyfully become\ntheir friends and pupils; and in another region, nations enslaved under\nthe yoke of despots or conquerors, crying aloud for so many ages for\nliberators. In yet other regions, it is true, there are tribes almost\nsavage, cut off by the harshness of their climate from a perfected\ncivilisation, or else conquering hordes, ignorant of every law but\nviolence and every trade but brigandage. The progress of these last two\ndescriptions of people will naturally be more tardy, and attended by\nmore storm and convulsion. It is possible even, that reduced in number,\nin proportion as they see themselves repulsed by civilised nations, they\nwill end by insensibly disappearing.[75] It is perhaps a little hard to\nexpect Esquimaux or the barbaric marauders of the sandy expanses of\nCentral Asia insensibly to disappear, lest by their cheerless presence\nthey should destroy the unity and harmony of the transformation scene in\nthe great drama of Perfectibility.\n\nII. The principal causes of the inequality that unfortunately exists\namong the people of the same community are three in number:--inequality\nin wealth; inequality of condition between the man whose means of\nsubsistence are both assured and transmissible, and him for whom these\nmeans depend upon the duration of his working life; thirdly, inequality\nof instruction. How are we to establish a continual tendency in these\nthree sources of inequality to diminish in activity and power? To\nlessen, though not to demolish, inequalities in wealth, it will be\nnecessary for all artificial restrictions and exclusive advantages to be\nremoved from fiscal or other legal arrangements, by which property is\neither acquired or accumulated: and among social changes tending in this\ndirection will be the banishment by public opinion of an avaricious or\nmercenary spirit from marriage. Again, inequality between permanent and\nprecarious incomes will be radically modified by the development of the\napplication of the calculation of probabilities to life. The extension\nof annuities and insurance will not only benefit many individuals, but\nwill benefit society at large by putting an end to that periodical ruin\nof a large number of families, which is such an ever-renewing source of\nmisery and degradation. Another means to the same end will be found in\ndiscovering, by the same doctrine of probabilities, some other equally\nsolid base for credit instead of a large capital, and for rendering the\nprogress of industry and the activity of commerce more independent of\nthe existence of great capitalists. Something approaching to equality of\ninstruction, even for those who can only spare a few of their early\nyears for study, and in after times only a few hours of leisure, will\nbecome more attainable by improved selection of subjects, and improved\nmethods of teaching them. The dwellers in one country will cease to be\ndistinguished by the use of a rude or of a refined dialect; and this, it\nmay be said in passing, has actually been the result of the school\nsystem in the United States. One portion of them will no longer be\ndependent upon any other for guidance in the smallest affairs. We cannot\nobliterate nor ignore natural differences of capacity, but after public\ninstruction has been properly developed, 'the difference will be between\nmen of superior enlightenment, and men of an upright character who feel\nthe value of light without being dazzled by it; between talent or\ngenius, and that good sense which knows how to appreciate and to enjoy\nboth. Even if this difference were greater than has been said, if we\ncompare the force and extent of faculty, it would become none the less\ninsensible, if we compare their respective effects upon the relations of\nmen among themselves, upon all that affects their independence and their\nhappiness.'[76]\n\nIII. What are the changes that we may expect from the substantial\nperfecting of human nature and society? If, before making this forecast,\nwe reflect with what feeble means the race has arrived at its present\nknowledge of useful and important truths, we shall not fear the reproach\nof temerity in our anticipations for a time when the force of all these\nmeans shall have been indefinitely increased. The progress of\nagricultural science will make the same land more productive, and the\nsame labour more efficient. Nay, who shall predict what the art of\nconverting elementary substances into food for our use may one day\nbecome? The constant tendency of population to advance to the limits of\nthe means of subsistence thus amplified, will be checked by a rising\nconsciousness in men, that if they have obligations in respect of\ncreatures still unborn, these obligations consist in giving them, not\nexistence but happiness, in adding to the wellbeing of the family, and\nnot cumbering the earth with useless and unfortunate beings. This\nchanged view upon population will partly follow from the substitution of\nrational ideas for those prejudices which have penetrated morals with an\nausterity that is corrupting and degrading.[77] The movement will be\nfurther aided by one of the most important steps in human progress--the\ndestruction, namely, of the prejudices that have established inequality\nof rights between the two sexes, and which are so mischievous even to\nthe sex that seems to be most favoured.[78] We seek in vain for any\njustification of such an inequality in difference of physical\norganisation, in force of intelligence, or in moral sensibility. It has\nno other origin than abuse of strength, and it is to no purpose that\nattempts are made to excuse it by sophisms. The destruction of the\nusages springing from this custom will render common those domestic\nvirtues which are the foundation of all others, and will encourage\neducation as well as make it more general, both because instruction\nwould be imparted to both sexes with more equality, and because it\ncannot become general even for males without the aid of the mother of\nthe family.[79]\n\nAmong other improvements under our third head will be the attainment of\ngreater perfection in language, leading at once to increased accuracy\nand increased concision. Laws and institutions, following the progress\nof knowledge, will be constantly undergoing modifications tending to\nidentify individual with collective interests. Wars will grow less\nfrequent with the extinction of those ideas of hereditary and dynastic\nrights, that have occasioned so many bloody contests. The art of\nlearning will be facilitated by the institution of a Universal Language;\nand the art of teaching by resort to Technical Methods, or systems which\nunite in orderly arrangement a great number of different objects, so\nthat their relations are perceived at a single glance.[80]\n\nFinally, progress in medicine, the use of more wholesome food and\nhealthy houses, the diminution of the two most active causes of\ndeterioration, namely, misery and excessive wealth, must prolong the\naverage duration of life, as well as raise the tone of health while it\nlasts. The force of transmissable diseases will be gradually weakened,\nuntil their quality of transmission vanishes. May we then not hope for\nthe arrival of a time when death will cease to be anything but the\neffect either of extraordinary accidents, or of the destruction, ever\nslower and slower, of the vital forces? May we not believe that the\nduration of the middle interval between birth and this destruction has\nno assignable term? Man will never become immortal, but is it a mere\nchimera to hold that the term fixed to his years is slowly and\nperpetually receding further and further from the moment at which his\nexistence begins?[81]\n\n       *     *     *     *     *\n\nThe rapidity and the necessary incompleteness with which Condorcet threw\nout in isolated hints his ideas of the future state of society, impart\nto his conception a certain mechanical aspect, which conveys an\nincorrect impression of his notion of the sources whence social change\nmust flow. His admirable and most careful remarks upon the moral\ntraining of children prove him to have been as far removed as possible\nfrom any of those theories of the formation of character which merely\nprescribe the imposition of moulds and casts from without, instead of\ncarefully tending the many spontaneous and sensitive processes of growth\nwithin.[82] Nobody has shown a finer appreciation of the delicacy of\nthe material out of which character is to be made, and of the\nsusceptibility of its elementary structure; nor of the fact that\neducation consists in such a discipline of the primitive impulses as\nshall lead men to do right, not by the constraint of mechanical external\nsanctions, but by an instant, spontaneous, and almost inarticulate\nrepugnance to cowardice, cruelty, apathy, self-indulgence, and the other\ngreat roots and centres of wrong-doing. It was to a society composed of\nmen and women whose characters had been shaped on this principle, that\nCondorcet looked for the realisation of his exalted hopes for\nhumanity.[83]\n\nWith machinery and organisation, in truth, Condorcet did not greatly\nconcern himself; probably too little rather than too much. The central\nidea of all his aspirations was to procure the emancipation of reason,\nfree and ample room for its exercise, and improved competence among men\nin the use of it. The subjugation of the modern intelligence beneath the\ndisembodied fancies of the grotesque and sombre imagination of the\nMiddle Ages, did not offend him more than the idea of any fixed\norganisation of the spiritual power, or any final and settled and\nuniversally accepted solution of belief and order would have done. With\nDe Maistre and Comte the problem was the organised and systematic\nreconstruction of an anarchic society. With Condorcet it was how to\npersuade men to exert the individual reason methodically and\nindependently, not without co-operation, but without anything like\nofficial or other subordination.\n\nHis cardinal belief and precept was, as with Socrates, that the +bios\nanexetastos+ is not to be lived by man. As we have seen, the freedom of\nthe reason was so dear to him, that he counted it an abuse for a parent\nto instil his own convictions into the defenceless minds of his young\nchildren. This was the natural outcome of Condorcet's mode of viewing\nhistory as the record of intellectual emancipation, while to Comte its\ndeepest interest was as a record of moral and emotional cultivation. If\nwe value in one type of thinker the intellectual conscientiousness,\nwhich refrains from perplexing men by propounding problems unless the\nsolution can be set forth also, perhaps we owe no less honour in the\nthinker of another type to that intellectual self-denial which makes him\nvery careful lest the too rigid projection of his own specific\nconclusions should by any means obstruct the access of a single ray of\nfertilising light. This religious scrupulosity, which made him abhor all\ninterference with the freedom and openness of the understanding as the\nworst kind of sacrilege, was Condorcet's eminent distinction. If, as\nsome think, the world will gradually transform its fear or love of\nunknowable gods into a devout reverence for those who have stirred in\nmen a sense of the dignity of their own nature and of its large and\nmultitudinous possibilities, then will his name not fail of deep and\nperpetual recollection.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[73] _Ib._ p. 223.\n\n[74] _Ib._ p. 206.\n\n[75] _Oeuv._ pp. 239-244.\n\n[76] _Oeuv._ pp. 244-251.\n\n[77] _Oeuv._ pp. 257, 258.\n\n[78] Condorcet had already assailed the prejudices that keep women in\nsubjection in an excellent tract, published in 1790; _Sur l'Admission\ndes Femmes au Droit de Cit\u00e9._ _Oeuv._ x. 121-130.\n\n[79] _Oeuv._ p. 264. The rest of the passage is not perfectly\nintelligible to me, so I give it as it stands. '_Cet hommage trop\ntardif, rendu enfin \u00e0 l'\u00e9quit\u00e9 et au bon sens, ne tarirait-il pas une\nsource trop f\u00e9conde d'injustices, de cruaut\u00e9s et de crimes, en faisant\ndispara\u00eetre une opposition si dangereuse entre le penchant naturel le\nplus vif, le plus difficile \u00e0 r\u00e9primer, et les devoirs de l'homme ou les\nint\u00e9r\u00eats de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9? Ne produirait-il pas, enfin, des moeurs\nnationales douces et pures, form\u00e9es non de privations orgueilleuses,\nd'apparences hypocrites, de r\u00e9serves impos\u00e9es par la crainte de la honte\nou les terreurs religieuses, mais d'habitudes librement contract\u00e9es,\ninspir\u00e9es par la nature, avou\u00e9es par la raison?_' Can these habitudes be\nthe habitudes of Free Love, or what are they? Condorcet, we know,\nthought the indissolubility of marriage a monstrously bad thing, but the\ngrounds which he gives for his thinking so would certainly lead to the\ninfinite dissolubility of society. See a truly astounding passage in the\n_Fragment on the Tenth Epoch_, vi. 523-526. See also some curious words\nin a letter to Turgot, i. 221, 222.\n\n[80] _Oeuv._ pp. 269-272.\n\n[81] _Oeuv._ pp. 272-275. Also p. 618.\n\n[82] See _Fragment de l'Histoire de la Xe Epoque._ '_Il ne faut pas\nleur dire, mais les accoutumer \u00e0 croire, \u00e0 trouver au dedans\na'eux-m\u00eames, que la bont\u00e9 et la justice sont n\u00e9cessaires au bonheur,\ncomme une respiration facile et libre l'est \u00e0 la sant\u00e9._' Of books for\nthe young: '_Il faut qu'ils n'exc\u00e9dent jamais l'\u00e9tendue ou la\nd\u00e9licatesse de la sensibilit\u00e9._' '_Il faut renoncer \u00e0 l'id\u00e9e de parler\naux enfans de ce que ni leur esprit ni leur \u00e2me ne peuvent encore\ncomprendre; ne pas leur faire admirer une constitution et r\u00e9citer par\ncoeur les droits politiques de l'homme quand ils ont \u00e0 peine une id\u00e9e\nnette de leurs relations avec leur famille et leurs camarades._'\n\nStill more objectionable, we may be sure, would he have found the\npractice of drilling little children by the hearth or at the school-desk\nin creeds, catechisms, and the like repositories of mysteries baleful to\nthe growing intelligence. '_Aidons le d\u00e9veloppement des facult\u00e9s\nhumaines pendant la faiblesse de l'enfance_,' he said admirably, '_mais\nn'abusons pas de cette faiblesse pour les mouler au gr\u00e9 de nos opinions\nde nos int\u00e9r\u00eats, ou de notre orgueil._'--_Oeuv._ vi. 543-554.\n\nCf. also v. 363-365, where there are some deserved strictures on the\nmalpractice of teaching children as truth what the parents themselves\nbelieve to be superstition or even falsehood.\n\nThe reader may remember the speech of the Patriarch, in Lessing's play,\nagainst the Jew:\n\n    _Der mit Gewalt ein armes Christenkind\n    Dem Bunde seiner Tauf' entreisst!  Denn ist\n    Nicht alles, was man Kindern thut, Gewalt?\n    Zu sagen: ausgenommen, was die Kirch',\n    An Kindern thut._\n\n[83] His _M\u00e9moires sur l'Instruction Publique_, written in 1791-1792,\nand printed in the seventh volume of the works, are still very well\nworth turning to.\n\n\nTranscribers' Notes:\n\nMinor printer errors (omitted or incorrect punctuation) have been\namended without note. Other errors have been amended and are listed\nbelow.\n\nList of Amendments:\n\nPage 201: colleages amended to colleagues; \"... among his colleagues in\nthe deputation ...\"\n\nPage 240: added missing footnote anchor [66] to paragraph ending \"...\nceased to be altogether exact.\"","title":"Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), Essay 3: Condorcet","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":24400}