{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_27368/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_27368","id":"gutenberg_27368","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27368","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Democracy","France -- Politics and government","Mental efficiency"],"text":"Produced by Gerard Arthus, Meredith Bach and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  +-----------------------------------------------------------------+\n  | Transcriber's Note:                                             |\n  |                                                                 |\n  | All Greek words have been transliterated into English, and are  |\n  | contained within { } brackets.                                  |\n  +-----------------------------------------------------------------+\n\n\n\n\n             THE CULT OF INCOMPETENCE\n\n\n\n\n          FIRST EDITION       November, 1911.\n          SECOND EDITION      July, 1912.\n\n\n\n\n             THE CULT OF INCOMPETENCE\n\n\n                  By EMILE FAGUET\n\n              _Of the French Academy_\n\n           TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY\n                  BEATRICE BARSTOW\n\n              WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY\n                   THOMAS MACKAY\n\n                     NEW YORK:\n              E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n                       1912\n\n\n\n\n                     CONTENTS.\n\n\n\n                                                   PAGE\n\n  INTRODUCTION                                        1\n\n  CHAPTER\n\n    I. THE PRINCIPLES OF FORMS OF GOVERNMENT         12\n\n   II. CONFUSION OF FUNCTIONS                        37\n\n  III. THE REFUGES OF EFFICIENCY                     59\n\n   IV. THE COMPETENT LEGISLATOR                      66\n\n    V. LAWS UNDER DEMOCRACY                          82\n\n   VI. THE INCOMPETENCE OF GOVERNMENT                92\n\n  VII. JUDICIAL INCOMPETENCE                         96\n\n VIII. EXAMPLES OF INCOMPETENCE                     123\n\n   IX. MANNERS                                      156\n\n    X. PROFESSIONAL CUSTOMS                         162\n\n   XI. ATTEMPTED REMEDIES                           172\n\n  XII. THE DREAM                                    216\n\n       INDEX                                        237\n\n\n\n\nTHE CULT OF INCOMPETENCE.\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThough it may not have been possible in the following pages to reproduce\nthe elegant and incisive style of a master of French prose, not even the\ninadequacies of a translation can obscure the force of his argument. The\nonly introduction, therefore, that seems possible must take the form of\na request to the reader to study M. Faguet's criticism of modern\ndemocracy with the daily paper in his hand. He will then see, taking\nchapter by chapter, how in some aspects the phenomena of English\ndemocracy are identical with those described in the text, and how in\nothers our English worship of incompetence, moral and technical, differs\nconsiderably from that which prevails in France. It might have been\npossible, as a part of the scheme of this volume, to note on each page,\nby way of illustration, instances from contemporary English practice,\nbut an adequate execution of this plan would have overloaded the text,\nor even required an additional volume. Such a volume, impartially worked\nout with instances drawn from the programme of all political parties,\nwould be an interesting commentary on current political controversy, and\nit is to be hoped that M. Faguet's suggestive pages will inspire some\ncompetent hand to undertake the task.\n\nIf M. Faguet had chosen to refer to England, he might, perhaps, have\ncited the constitution of this country, as it existed some seventy years\nago, as an example of a \"demophil aristocracy,\" raised to power by an\n\"aristocracy-respecting democracy.\" It is not perhaps wise in political\ncontroversy to compromise our liberty of action in respect of the\nproblems of the present time, by too deferential a reference to a golden\nage which probably, like Lycurgus in the text, p. 73, never existed at\nall, but it has been often stated, and undoubtedly with a certain amount\nof truth, that the years between 1832 and 1866 were the only period in\nEnglish history during which philosophical principles were allowed an\nimportant, we cannot say a paramount, authority over English\nlegislation. The characteristic features of the period were a\ndetermination to abolish the privileges of the few, which, however,\ninvolved no desire to embark on the impossible and inequitable task of\ncreating privileges for the many; a deliberate attempt to extirpate the\nservile dependence of the old poor law, and a definite abandonment of\nthe plan of distributing economic advantages by eleemosynary state\naction. This policy was based on the conviction that personal liberty\nand freedom of private enterprise were the adequate, constructive\ninfluences of a progressive civilisation. Too much importance has\nperhaps been attached to the relatively unimportant question of the\nfreedom of international trade, for this was only part of a general\npolicy of emancipation which had a much more far-reaching scope. Rightly\nunderstood the political philosophy of that time, put forward by the\ncompetent statesmen who were then trusted by the democracy, proclaimed\nthe principle of liberty and freedom of exchange as the true solvents of\nthe economic problems of the day. This policy remained in force during\nthe ministry of Sir R. Peel and lasted right down to the time of the\ngreat budgets of Mr. Gladstone.\n\nIf we might venture, therefore, to add another to the definitions of\nMontesquieu, we might say that the principle animating a liberal\nconstitutional government was liberty, and that this involved a definite\nplan for enlarging the sphere of liberty as the organising principle of\ncivil society. To what then are we to impute the decadence from this\ntype into which parliamentary government seems now to have fallen? Can\nwe attribute this to neglect or to exaggeration of its animating\nprinciple, as suggested in the formula of Montesquieu? It is a question\nwhich the reader may find leisure to investigate; we confine ourselves\nto marking what seem to be some of the stages of decay.\n\nWhen the forces of destructive radicalism had done their legitimate\nwork, it seemed a time for rest and patience, for administration rather\nthan for fresh legislation and for a pause during which the principles\nof liberty and free exchange might have been left to organise the\nequitable distribution of the inevitably increasing wealth of the\ncountry. The patience and the conviction which were needed to allow of\nsuch a development, rightly or wrongly, were not forthcoming, and\npoliticians and parties have not been wanting to give effect to\nremedies hastily suggested to and adopted by the people. Political\nleaders soon came to realise that recent enfranchisements had added a\nnew electorate for whom philosophical principles had no charm. At a\nlater date also, Mr. Gladstone, yielding to a powerful and not\nover-scrupulous political agitation, suddenly determined to attempt a\ngreat constitutional change in the relations between the United Kingdom\nand Ireland. Whether the transference of the misgovernment of Ireland\nfrom London to Dublin would have had results as disastrous or as\nbeneficial as disputants have asserted, may be matter for doubt, but the\nmanner in which the proposal was made certainly had one unfortunate\nconsequence. Mr. Gladstone's action struck a blow at the independence\nand self-respect, or as M. Faguet terms it, the moral competence of our\nparliamentary representation from which it has never recovered. Men were\ncalled on to abandon, in the course of a few hours, opinions which they\nhad professed for a lifetime and this not as the result of conviction\nbut on the pressure of party discipline. Political feeling ran high.\nThe \"Caucus\" was called into more active operation. Political parties\nbegan to invent programmes to capture the groundlings. The conservative\nparty, relinquishing its useful function of critic, revived the old\npolicy of eleemosynary doles, and, in an unlucky moment for its future,\nhas encumbered itself with an advocacy of the policy of protection. For\nstrangely enough the democracy, the bestower of power, though developing\nsymptoms of fiscal tyranny and a hatred of liberty in other directions\nclings tenaciously to freedom of international trade--for the present at\nleast--and it would seem that the electioneering caucus has, in this\ninstance, failed to understand its own business. The doles of the new\nState-charity were to be given to meet contributions from the\nbeneficiaries, but as the class which for one reason or another is ever\nin a destitute condition, could not or would not contribute, the only\nway in which the benevolent purpose of the agitation could be carried\nout was by bestowing the dole gratuitously. The flood gates, therefore,\nhad to be opened wider, and we have been and still are exposed to a rush\nof philanthropic legislation which is gradually transferring all the\nresponsibilities of life from the individual to the state. Free trade\nfor the moment remains, and it is supposed to be strongly entrenched in\nthe convictions of the liberal party. Its position, however, is\nobviously very precarious in view of the demands made by the militant\ntrade unions. These, in their various spheres, claim a monopoly of\nemployment for their members, to the exclusion of those who do not\nbelong to their associations. Logic has something, perhaps not much, to\ndo with political action, and it is almost inconceivable that a party\ncan go on for long holding these two contradictory opinions. Which of\nthem will be abandoned, the future only can tell.\n\nThe result of all this is a growing disinclination on the part of the\npeople to limit their responsibilities to their means of discharging\nthem, the creation of a proletariate which in search of maintenance\ndrifts along the line of least resistance, dependence on the government\ndole. In the end too it must bring about the impoverishment of the\nstate, which is ever being called on to undertake new burdens; for the\nindividual, thus released from obligation to discharge, is still left\nfree to create responsibilities, for which it is now the business of the\nState to make provision. Under such a system the ability to pay as well\nas the number of the solvent citizens must continuously decline.\n\nThe proper reply to this legislation which we describe as predatory in\nthe sense that we describe the benevolent habits of Robin Hood as\npredatory, cannot be made by the official opposition which was itself\nthe first to step on the down grade, and which only waits the chances of\nparty warfare to take its turn in providing _panem et circenses_ at the\ncharge of the public exchequer. In this way, progress is brought to a\nstandstill by the chronic unwillingness of the rate- and tax-payers\nto find the money. A truer policy, based on the voluntary action of\ncitizens and capable of indefinite and continuous expansion, finds no\nsupport among politicians, for all political parties seem to be held in\nthe grip of the moral and technical incompetence which M. Faguet has so\nwittily described. The only reply to a government bent on such courses\nis that which above has been imputed--perhaps without sufficient\njustification--to the governments of the period 1832-1866; and that\nreply democracy, as at present advised, will allow no political party to\nmake.\n\nThere does not appear, therefore, to be much difference between the\nsituation here and in France, and it is very interesting to notice how\nin various details there is a very close parallelism between events in\nthis country and those which M. Faguet has described. The position of\nour Lord Chancellor, who has been bitterly attacked by his own party, in\nrespect of his appointment of magistrates, is very similar to that of M.\nBarthou, quoted on p. 118. Our judicial system has hitherto been\nconsidered free from political partisanship, but very recently and for\nthe first time a minister in his place in parliament, has rightly or\nwrongly seen fit to call in question the impartiality of our judicial\nbench, and the suspicion, if, as appears to be the case, it is widely\nentertained by persons heated in political strife, will probably lead to\nappointments calculated to ensure reprisals. Astute politicians do not\ncommit themselves to an attack on a venerated institution, till they\nthink they know that that institution is becoming unpopular with the\nfollowers who direct their policy. Criminal verdicts also, especially\non the eve of an election, are now made liable to revision by ministers\nscouring the gaols of the country in search of picturesque malefactors\nwhom, with an accompaniment of much philanthropic speech, they proceed\nto set at liberty. Even the first principles of equity, as ordinarily\nunderstood, seem to have lost their authority, when weighed in the\nbalance against the vote of the majority. Very recently the members of\nan honourable and useful profession represented to a minister that his\nextension of a scheme of more or less gratuitous relief to a class which\nhitherto had been able and willing to pay its way, was likely to deprive\nthem of their livelihood. His reply, _inter alia_, contained the\nargument that the class in question was very numerous and had many\nvotes, and that he doubted whether any one would venture to propose its\nexclusion except perhaps a member for a university; as a matter of fact\nsome such proposal had been made by one of the university members whose\nconstituents were affected by the proposal. The minister further\ndeclared that he did not think that such an amendment could obtain a\nseconder. The argument seems to impute to our national representatives a\ncynical disregard of equity, and a blind worship of numbers, which if\ntrue, is an instance of moral incompetence quite as remarkable as\nanything contained in M. Faguet's narrative.\n\nIf readers of this volume will take the trouble to annotate their copies\nwith a record of the relevant incidents which meet them every day of\ntheir lives, they cannot fail to acknowledge how terribly inevitable is\nthe rise of incompetence to political power. The tragedy is all the more\ndreadful, when we recognise, as we all must, the high character and\nability of the statesmen and politicians who lie under the thrall of\nthis compelling necessity.\n\nThis systematic corruption of the best threatens to assume the\nproportions of a national disaster. It is the system, not the actors in\nit, which M. Faguet analyses and invites us to deplore.\n\n                                                             T. MACKAY.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE PRINCIPLES OF FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.\n\n\nThe question has often been asked, what is the animating principle of\ndifferent forms of government, for each, it is assumed, has its own\nprinciple. In other words, what is the general idea which inspires each\npolitical system?\n\nMontesquieu, for instance, proved that the _principle_ of monarchy is\n_honour_, the principle of despotism _fear_, the principle of a republic\n_virtue_ or patriotism, and he added with much justice that governments\ndecline and fall as often by carrying their principle to excess, as by\nneglecting it altogether.\n\nAnd this, though a paradox, is true. At first sight it may not be\nobvious how a despotism can fall by inspiring too much fear, or a\nconstitutional monarchy by developing too highly the sentiment of\nhonour, or a republic by having too much virtue. It is nevertheless\ntrue.\n\nTo make too common a use of fear is to destroy its efficacy. As Edgar\nQuinet happily puts it: \"If we want to make use of fear we must be\ncertain that we can use it always.\" We cannot have too much honour, but\nwhen we can appeal to this sentiment only and when distinctions,\ndecorations, orders, ribbons--in a word _honours_--are multiplied,\ninasmuch as we cannot increase such things indefinitely, those who have\nnone become as discontented as those who, having some, want more.\n\nFinally we cannot, of course, have too much virtue, and naturally here\ngovernments will fall not by exaggerating but by abandoning their\nguiding principle. Yet is it not sometimes true that by demanding from\ncitizens too great a devotion to their country, we end by exhausting\nhuman powers of endurance and sacrifice? This is what happened in the\ncase of Napoleon, who, perhaps unwittingly, required too much from\nFrance, for the building up of a 'Greater France.'\n\nBut that, some one will object, was not a republic!\n\nFrom the point of view of the sacrifices required from the citizen, it\nwas a republic, similar to the Roman Republic and to the French Republic\nof 1792. All the talk was 'for the glory of our country,' 'heroism,\nheroism, nothing but heroism'! If too much is required of it, civic\nvirtue can be exhausted.\n\nIt is, then, very true that governments perish just as much from an\nexcess as from a neglect of their appropriate principle. Montesquieu\nwithout doubt borrowed his general idea from Aristotle, who remarks not\nwithout humour, \"Those, who think that they have discovered the basis of\ngood government, are apt to push the consequences of their new found\nprinciple too far. They do not remember that disproportion in such\nmatters is fatal. They forget that a nose which varies slightly from the\nideal line of beauty appropriate for noses, tending slightly towards\nbecoming a hook or a snub, may still be of fair shape and not\ndisagreeable to the eye, but if the excess be very great, all symmetry\nis lost, and the nose at last ceases to be a nose at all.\" This law of\nproportion holds good with regard to every form of government.\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\nStarting from these general ideas, I have often wondered what principle\ndemocrats have adopted for the form of government which they favour,\nand it has not required a great effort on my part to arrive at the\nconclusion that the principle in question is the worship and\ncultivation, or, briefly 'the cult' of incompetence or inefficiency.\n\nLet us examine any well-managed and successful business firm or factory.\nEvery employee does the work he knows and does best, the skilled\nworkman, the accountant, the manager and the secretary, each in his\nplace. No one would dream of making the accountant change places with a\ncommercial traveller or a mechanic.\n\nLook too at the animal world. The higher we go in the scale of organic\nexistence, the greater the division of labour, the more marked the\nspecialisation of physiological function. One organ thinks, another\nacts, one digests, another breathes. Now is there such a thing as an\nanimal with only one organ, or rather is there any animal, consisting of\nonly one organ, which breathes and thinks and digests all at the same\ntime? Yes, there is. It is called the amoeba, and the amoeba is the\nvery lowest thing in the animal world, very inferior even to a\nvegetable.\n\nIn the same way, without doubt, in a well constituted society, each\norgan has its definite function, that is to say, administration is\ncarried on by those who have learnt how to administer, legislation and\nthe amendment of laws by those who have learnt how to legislate, justice\nby those who have studied jurisprudence, and the functions of a country\npostman are not given to a paralytic. Society should model itself on\nnature, whose plan is specialisation. \"For,\" as Aristotle says, \"she is\nnot niggardly, like the Delphian smiths whose knives have to serve for\nmany purposes, she makes each thing for a single purpose, and the best\ninstrument is that which serves one and not many uses.\" Elsewhere he\nsays, \"At Carthage it is thought an honour to hold many offices, but a\nman only does one thing well. The legislator should see to this, and\nprevent the same man from being set to make shoes and play the flute.\" A\nwell-constituted society, we may sum up, is one where every function is\nnot confided to every one, where the crowd itself, the whole body\nsocial, is not told: \"It is your business to govern, to administer, to\nmake the laws, &c.\" A society, where things are so arranged, is an\namoebic society.\n\nThat society, therefore, stands highest in the scale, where the division\nof labour is greatest, where specialisation is most definite, and where\nthe distribution of functions according to efficiency is most thoroughly\ncarried out.\n\n                *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow democracies, far from sharing this view, are inclined to take the\nopposite view. At Athens there was a great tribunal composed of men\nlearned in, and competent to interpret, the law. The people could not\ntolerate such an institution, so laboured to destroy it and to usurp its\nfunctions. The crowd reasoned thus. \"We can interpret and carry out\nlaws, because we make them.\" The conclusion was right, but the minor\npremise was disputable. The retort can be made: \"True, you can interpret\nand carry out laws because you make them, but perhaps you have no\nbusiness to be making laws.\" Be that as it may, the Athenian people not\nonly interpreted and applied its own laws, but it insisted on being paid\nfor so doing. The result was that the poorest citizens sat judging all\nday long, as all others were unwilling to sacrifice their whole time for\na payment of six drachmas. This plebeian tribunal continued for many\nyears. Its most celebrated feat was the judgment which condemned\nSocrates to death. This was perhaps matter for regret, but the great\nprinciple, the sovereignty of incompetence, was vindicated.\n\nModern democracies seem to have adopted the same principle, in form they\nare essentially amoebic. A democracy, well-known to us all, has been\nevolved in the following manner.\n\nIt began with this idea; king and people, democratic royalty, royal\ndemocracy. The people makes, the king carries out, the law; the people\nlegislates, the king governs, retaining, however, a certain control over\nthe law, for he can suspend the carrying out of a new law when he\nconsiders that it tends to obstruct the function of government. Here\nthen was a sort of specialisation of functions. The same person, or\ncollective body of persons, did not both legislate and govern.\n\nThis did not last long. The king was suppressed. Democracy remained, but\na certain amount of respect for efficiency remained too. The people, the\nmasses, did not, every single man of them, claim the right to govern and\nto legislate directly.\n\nIt did not even claim the right to nominate the legislature directly. It\nadopted indirect election, _a deux degres_, that is, it nominated\nelectors who in turn nominated the legislature. It thus left two\naristocracies above itself, the first electors and the elected\nlegislature. This was still far removed from democracy on the Athenian\nmodel which did everything itself.\n\nThis does not mean that much attention was paid to efficiency. The\nelectors were not chosen because they were particularly fitted to elect\na legislature, nor was the legislature itself elected with any reference\nto its legislative capacity. Still there was a certain pretence of a\ndesire for efficiency, a double pseudo-efficiency. The crowd, or rather\nthe constitution, assumed that legislators elected by the delegates of\nthe crowd were more competent to make laws than the crowd itself.\n\nThis somewhat curious form of efficiency I have called _competence par\ncollation_, efficiency or competence conferred by this form of\nselection. There is absolutely nothing to show that so-and-so has the\nslightest legislative or juridical faculty, so I confer on him a\ncertificate of efficiency by the confidence I repose in him when\nnominating him for the office, or rather I show my confidence in the\nelectors and they confer a certificate of efficiency on those whom they\nnominate for the legislature.\n\nThis, of course, is devoid of all common sense, but appearances, and\neven something more, are in its favour.\n\nIt is not common sense for it involves something being made out of\nnothing, inefficiency producing efficiency and zero extracting 'one' out\nof itself. This form of selection, though it does not appeal to me under\nany circumstances, is legitimate enough when it is exercised by a\ncompetent body. A university can confer a degree upon a distinguished\nman because it can judge whether his degreeless condition is due to\naccident or not. It would, however, be highly ridiculous and paradoxical\nif the general public were to confer mathematical degrees. A degree of\nefficiency conferred by an inefficient body is contrary to common sense.\n\nThere is, however, some plausibility and indeed a little more than\nplausibility in favour of this plan. Degrees in literature and in\ndramatic art are conferred, given by 'collation,' by incompetent people,\nthat is by the public. We can say to the public: \"You know nothing of\nliterary and dramatic art.\" It will retort: \"True, I know nothing, but\ncertain things move me and I confer the degree on those who evoke my\nemotions.\" In this it is not altogether wrong. In the same way the\ndegree of doctor of political science is conferred by the people on\nthose who stir its emotions and who express most forcibly its own\npassions. These doctors of political science are the empassioned\nrepresentatives of its own passions.\n\n--In other words, the worst legislators!--\n\nYes, very nearly so, but not quite. It is very useful that we should\nhave an exponent of popular passion at the crest of the social wave, to\ntell us not indeed what the crowd is thinking, for the crowd never\nthinks, but what the crowd is feeling, in order that we may not cross it\ntoo violently or obey it too obsequiously. An engineer would call it the\nscience of the strength of materials.\n\nA medium assures me that he had a conversation with Louis XIV, who said\nto him: \"Universal suffrage is an excellent thing in a monarchy. It is a\nsource of information. When it recommends a certain course of action it\nshows us that this is a thing which we must not do. If I could have\nconsulted it over the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, it would have\ngiven me a clear mandate for that Revocation and I should have known\nwhat to do, and that Edict would not have been revoked. I acted as I\ndid, because I was advised by ministers whom I considered experienced\nstatesmen. Had I been aware of the state of public opinion I should have\nknown that France was tired of wars and new palaces and extravagance.\nBut this was not an expression of passion and prejudice, but a cry of\nsuffering. As far as passion and prejudice are concerned we must go\nright in the teeth of public opinion, and universal suffrage will tell\nyou what that is. On the other hand we must pay heed, serious heed to\nevery cry of pain, and here too universal suffrage will come to our aid.\nUniversal suffrage is necessary to a monarchy as a source of\ninformation.\"\n\nThis, I am told, is Louis XIV's present opinion on the subject.\n\nAs far as legislation therefore is concerned, the attempt to secure\ncompetence by 'collation' is an absurdity. Yet it is an inverted sort\nof competence useful for indicating the state of a nation's temper. From\nthis it follows that this system is as mischievous in a republic as it\nwould be wholesome in a monarchy. It is not therefore altogether bad.\n\nThe democracy which we have in view, after having been governed by the\nrepresentatives of its representatives for ten years, submitted for the\nnext fifteen years to the rule of one representative and took no\nparticular advantage therefrom.\n\nThen for thirty years it adopted a scheme which aimed at a certain\nmeasure of efficiency. It assumed that the electors of the legislature\nought not to be nominated, but marked out by their social position, that\nis their fortune. Those who possessed so many drachmas were to be\nelectors.\n\nWhat sort of a basis for efficiency is this? It is a basis but certainly\na somewhat narrow one.\n\nIt is a basis, first, because a man who owns a certain fortune has a\ngreater interest than others in a sound management of public business,\nand self-interest opens and quickens the eye; and again a man who has\nmoney and does not lose it cannot be altogether a fool.\n\nOn the other hand it is a narrow basis, because the possession of money\nis of itself no guarantee of political ability, and the system leads to\nthe very questionable proposition that every rich man is a competent\nsocial reformer. It is, however, a sort of competence, but a competence\nvery precariously established and on a very narrow basis.\n\nThis system disappeared and our democracy, after a short interregnum,\nrepeated its previous experiment and submitted for eighteen years to the\nrule of one delegate with no great cause to congratulate itself on the\nresult.\n\nIt then adopted democracy in a form almost pure and simple. I say\nalmost, for the democratic system pure and simple involves the direct\ngovernment of the people without any intervening representatives, by\nmeans of a continuous plebiscite. Our democracy then set up and still\nmaintains a democratic system almost pure and simple, that is to say, it\nestablished government of the nation by delegates whom it itself elected\nand by these delegates strictly and exclusively. This time we have\nreached an apotheosis of incompetence that is well nigh absolute.\n\nThis, our present system, purports to be the rule of efficiency chosen\nby the arbitrary form of selection which has been described. Just as the\nbishop in the story, addressing a haunch of venison, exclaimed: \"I\nbaptise thee carp,\" so the people says to its representatives: \"I\nbaptise you masters of law, I baptise you statesmen, I baptise you\nsocial reformers.\" We shall see later on that this baptism goes very\nmuch further than this.\n\nIf the people were capable of judging of the legal and psychological\nknowledge possessed by those who present themselves for election, this\nform of selection need not be prohibitive of efficiency and might even\nbe satisfactory; but in the first place, the electors are not capable of\njudging, and secondly, even if they were, nothing would be gained.\n\nNothing would be gained, because the people never places itself at this\npoint of view. Emphatically never! It looks at the qualifications of the\ncandidate not from a scientific but from a moral point of view.\n\n--Well that surely is something, and, in a way, a guarantee of\nefficiency. The legislators are not capable of making laws, it is true;\nbut at least they are honest men. This guarantee of moral efficiency,\nsome critic will say, gives me much satisfaction.\n\nPlease be careful, I reply, we should never think of giving the\nmanagement of a railway station to the most honest man, but to an honest\nman who, besides, understood thoroughly railway administration. So we\nmust put into our laws not only honest intentions, but just principles\nof law, politics, and society.\n\nSecondly, if the candidates are considered from the point of view of\ntheir moral worth it is in a peculiar fashion. High morality is imputed\nto those who share the dominant passions of the people and who express\nthemselves thereon more violently than others. Ah! these are our honest\nmen, it cries, and I do not say that the men of its choice are\ndishonest, I only say that by this criterion they are not infallibly\nmarked out even as honest.\n\n--Still, some one replies, they are probably disinterested, for they\nfollow popular prejudices, and not their own particular, individual\nwishes.\n\nYes, that is just what the masses believe, while they forget that there\nis nothing easier than to simulate popular passion in order to win\npopular confidence and become a political personage. If\ndisinterestedness is really so essential to the people, only those\nshould be elected who oppose the popular will and who show thereby that\nthey do not want to be elected. Or better still only those who do not\nstand for election should be elected, since not to stand is the\nundeniable sign of disinterestedness. But this is never done. That which\nshould always be done is never done.\n\n--But, some one will say, your public bodies which recruit their numbers\nby co-optation, Academies and learned societies, do not elect their\nmembers in this way.--\n\nQuite so, and they are right. Such bodies do not want their members to\nbe disinterested but scientific. They have no reason to prefer an\nunwilling member to one who is eager to be elected. Their point of view\nis entirely different. The people, which pretends to set store by high\nmoral character, should exclude from power those who are ambitious of\npower, or at least those who covet it with a keenness that suggests\nother than disinterested motives.\n\nThese considerations show us what the crowd understands by the moral\nworth of a man. The moral worth of a man consists, as far as the crowd\nis concerned, in his entertaining or pretending to entertain the same\nsentiments as itself, and it is just for this reason that the\nrepresentatives of the multitude are excellent as documents for\ninformation, but detestable, or at least, useless, and therefore\ndetestable, as legislators.\n\nMontesquieu, who is seldom wrong, errs in my opinion when he says, \"The\npeople is well-fitted to choose its own magistrates.\" He, it is true,\ndid not live under a democracy. For consider, how could the people be\nfitted to choose its own magistrates and legislators, when Montesquieu\nhimself, this time with ample justification, lays down as one of his\nprinciples that morals should correct climate, and that law should\ncorrect morals, and the people, as we know, only thinks of choosing as\nits delegates men who share, in every particular, its own manner of\nthinking? Climate can be partially resisted by the people; but if the\nlaw should correct morals, legislators should be chosen who have taken\nup an attitude of reaction against current morality. It would be very\ncurious if such a choice were ever made, and not only is it never made\nbut the contrary invariably happens.\n\nTo sum it all up, it is intellectual incompetence, nay moral\nincompetence which is sought instinctively in the people's choice.\n\n              *       *       *       *       *\n\nIf possible, it is more than this. The people favours incompetence, not\nonly because it is no judge of intellectual competence and because it\nlooks on moral competence from a wrong point of view, but because it\ndesires before everything, as indeed is very natural, that its\nrepresentatives should resemble itself. This it does for two reasons.\n\nFirst, as a matter of sentiment, the people desires, as we have seen,\nthat its representatives should share its feelings and prejudices. These\nrepresentatives can share its prejudices and yet not absolutely resemble\nit in morals, habits, manners and appearance; but naturally the people\nnever feels so certain that a man shares its prejudices and is not\nmerely pretending to do so, as when the man resembles it feature by\nfeature. It is a sign and a guarantee. The people is instinctively\nimpelled therefore to elect men of the same habits, manners and even\neducation as itself, or shall we say of an education slightly superior,\nthe education of a man who can talk, but only superior in a very slight\ndegree.\n\nIn addition to this sentimental reason, there is another, which is\nextremely important, for it goes to the very root of the democratic\nidea. What is the people's one desire, when once it has been stung by\nthe democratic tarantula? It is that all men should be equal, and in\nconsequence that all inequalities natural as well as artificial should\ndisappear. It will not have artificial inequalities, nobility of birth,\nroyal favours, inherited wealth, and so it is ready to abolish nobility,\nroyalty, and inheritance. Nor does it like natural inequalities, that is\nto say a man more intelligent, more active, more courageous, more\nskilful than his neighbours. It cannot destroy these inequalities, for\nthey are natural, but it can neutralise them, strike them with impotence\nby excluding them from the employments under its control. Democracy is\nthus led quite naturally, irresistibly one may say, to exclude the\ncompetent precisely because they are competent, or if the phrase\npleases better and as the popular advocate would put it, not because\nthey are competent but because they are unequal, or, as he would\nprobably go on to say, if he wished to excuse such action, not because\nthey are unequal, but because being unequal they are suspected of being\nopponents of equality. So it all comes to the same thing. This it is\nthat made Aristotle say that where merit is despised, there is\ndemocracy. He does not say so in so many words, but he wrote: \"Where\nmerit is not esteemed before everything else, it is not possible to have\na firmly established aristocracy,\" and that amounts to saying that where\nmerit is not esteemed, we enter at once on a democratic regime and never\nescape from it.\n\nThe chance, then, of efficiency coming to the front in this state of\naffairs is indeed deplorable.\n\nFirst and last, democracy--and it is natural enough--_wishes to do\neverything itself_, it is the enemy of all specialisation of functions,\nparticularly it wishes to govern, without delegates or intermediaries.\nIts ideal is direct government as it existed at Athens, its ideal is\n\"democracy,\" in the terminology of Rousseau, who applied the word to\ndirect government and to direct government only.\n\nForced by historical events and perhaps by necessity to govern by\ndelegates, how could democracy still contrive to govern directly or\nnearly so, although continuing to govern through delegates?\n\nIts first alternative is, perhaps, to impose on its delegates an\nimperative mandate. Delegates under this condition become mere agents of\nthe people. They attend the legislative assembly to register the will of\nthe people just as they receive it, and the people in reality governs\ndirectly. This is what is meant by the imperative mandate.\n\nDemocracy has often considered it, but never with persistence. Herein it\nshows good sense. It has a shrewd suspicion that the imperative mandate\nis never more than a snare and a delusion. Representatives of the people\nmeet and discuss, the interests of party become defined. Henceforward\nthey are the prey of the goddess Opportunity, the Greek {Kairos}.\nThen it happens one day that to vote according to their mandate would be\nvery unfavourable to the interest of their party. They are therefore\nobliged to be faithless to their party by reason of their fidelity to\ntheir mandate, or disobedient to their mandate by reason of their\nobedience to their party; and in any case to have betrayed their mandate\nwith this very praiseworthy and excellent intention is a thing for which\nthey can take credit or at least obtain excuse with the electors--and on\nsuch a matter it will be very difficult to refute them.\n\nThe imperative mandate is therefore a very clumsy instrument for work of\na very delicate character. The democracy, instinctively, knows this very\nwell, and sets no great store by the imperative mandate.\n\nWhat other alternative is there for it? Something very much finer, the\nsubstance instead of the shadow. It can elect men who resemble it\nclosely, who follow its sentiments closely, who are in fact so nearly\nidentical with itself that they may be trusted to do surely,\ninstinctively, almost mechanically that which it would itself do, if it\nwere itself an immense legislative assembly. They would vote, without\ndoubt, according to circumstances, but also as their electors would vote\nif they were governing directly. In this way democracy preserves its\nlegislative power. It makes the law, and this is the only way it can\nmake it.\n\nDemocracy, therefore, has the greatest inducement to elect\nrepresentatives who are representative, who, in the first place,\nresemble it as closely as possible, who, in the second place, have no\nindividuality of their own, who finally, having no fortune of their own,\nhave no sort of independence.\n\nWe deplore that democracy surrenders itself to politicians, but from its\nown point of view, a point of view which it cannot avoid taking up, it\nis absolutely right. What is a politician? He is a man who, in respect\nof his personal opinions, is a nullity, in respect of education, a\nmediocrity, he shares the general sentiments and passions of the crowd,\nhis sole occupation is politics, and if that career were closed to him,\nhe would die of starvation.\n\nHe is precisely the thing of which the democracy has need.\n\nHe will never be led away by his education to develop ideas of his own;\nand having no ideas of his own, he will not allow them to enter into\nconflict with his prejudices. His prejudices will be, at first by a\nfeeble sort of conviction, afterwards by reason of his own interest,\nidentical with those of the crowd; and lastly, his poverty and the\nimpossibility of his getting a living outside of politics make it\ncertain that he will never break out of the narrow circle where his\npolitical employers have confined him; his imperative mandate is the\nmaterial necessity which obliges him to obey; his imperative mandate is\nhis inability to quarrel with his bread and butter.\n\nDemocracy obviously has need of politicians, has need of nothing else\nbut politicians, and has need indeed that there shall be in politics\nnothing else but politicians.\n\nIts enemy, or rather the man whom democracy dreads because he means to\ngovern and does not intend to allow the mob to govern through him, is\nthe man who succeeds in getting elected for some constituency or other,\neither by the influence of his wealth or by the prestige of his talent\nand notoriety. Such a man is not dependent on democracy. If a\nlegislative assembly were entirely or by a majority composed of rich\nmen, men of superior intelligence, men who had an interest in attending\nto the trades or professions in which they had succeeded rather than in\nplaying at politics, they would vote according to their own ideas, and\nthen--what would happen? Why then democracy would be simply suppressed.\nIt would no longer legislate and govern; there would be, to speak\nexactly, an aristocracy, not very permanently established perhaps, but\nstill an aristocracy which would eliminate the influence of the people\nfrom public affairs.\n\nClearly it is almost impossible for the democracy, if it means to\nsurvive, to encourage efficiency, nay it is almost impossible for it to\nrefrain from attempting to destroy efficiency.\n\nThus, we may sum up, only those are elected as the representatives of\nthe people, who are its exact counterparts and constant dependents.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nCONFUSION OF FUNCTIONS.\n\n\nAnd what is the result of all this? The result, which is very logical,\nvery just from the democratic point of view, and precisely that which\nthe democracy desires and cannot do otherwise than desire, is that the\nnational representatives do exactly what the people would wish them to\ndo, and what the people would do itself if it undertook to govern\ndirectly itself. _The representative government wishes to do everything\nitself_, just as the people would like to do, if it were itself\nexercising the functions of government directly, just as it did in olden\ntimes on the Pnyx at Athens.\n\nMontesquieu realised this fully, though naturally he had no experience\nof how the theory worked under a representative and parliamentary\nsystem. The principle of it all is at bottom the same, and only the\nchange of a single phrase is needed to make the following quotation\nstrictly applicable. \"The principle of democracy,\" he says, \"is\nperverted not only when it loses the spirit of equality, but still more\n_when it carries the spirit of equality to an extreme, and when every\none wishes to be the equal of those whom he chooses to govern him_. For\nthen the people, not being able to tolerate the authority which it has\ncreated, _wishes to do everything itself_, to deliberate for the Senate,\nto act for the magistrates, and to usurp the functions of the judges.\nThe people wishes to exclude the magistrates from their functions, and\nthe magistrates naturally are no longer respected. The deliberations of\nthe Senate are allowed to have no weight, and senators naturally fall\ninto contempt.\"\n\nLet us translate the foregoing passage into the language of to-day.\nUnder democratic parliamentary government the representatives of the\npeople are determined to do everything themselves. They must be equal to\nthose whom they choose for their rulers. They cannot tolerate the\nauthority which they have entrusted to the Government. They must\nthemselves govern in the place of the Government, administer in the\nplace of the executive staff, substitute their own authority for that\nof all the bench of judges, perform the duties of magistrates, and, in a\nword, throw off all regard and respect for persons and things.\n\nThis is the true inwardness of the popular spirit, the will of the\npeople which wishes to do everything itself, or what is the same thing,\nthrough its representatives, its faithful and servile creatures.\n\nFrom this point onwards efficiency is hunted and exterminated in every\ndirection; just as it was excluded in the election of representatives,\nso the representatives laboriously and continuously exclude it from\nevery sort of office and employment under the public service.\n\nThe Government, to begin our analysis of functional confusion at the\ntop, ought to be watched and advised by the national representatives,\nbut it ought to be independent of the national representatives, at least\nit ought not to be inextricably mixed up with them, in other words the\nnational representatives ought not to govern. Under democracy this is\nprecisely what they want to do. They elect the Government, a privilege\nwhich need not be denied them; but, \"not being able to tolerate the\nauthority which they have created,\" as soon as they have set it up, they\nput pressure on it and insist on governing continuously in its place.\nThe assembly of national representatives is not a body which makes laws,\nbut a body which, by a never ending string of questions and\ninterruptions, _dictates_ from day to day to the Government what it\nought to do, that is to say, it is a body which governs.\n\nThe country is governed, literally, by the Chamber of Deputies. _This is\nabsolutely necessary_ if, as the true spirit of the system requires, the\npeople is to be governed by no one but itself, if there is to be no will\nat work other than the will of the people, emanating from itself and\nbringing back a sort of harvest of executive acts. Again, I repeat, this\nis absolutely necessary, in order that there shall be nothing, not even\noriginating with the people, which, for a single moment and within the\nmost narrowly defined limits, shall exercise the functions of\nsovereignty over the sovereign people.\n\nThis is all very well, but government is an art and we assume that there\nis a science of government, and here we have the people governed by\npersons who have neither science nor art, and who are chosen precisely\nbecause they have not these qualifications and on the guarantee that\nthey have none of them!\n\nAgain, in a democracy of this kind, if there exist, as a result of\ntradition or of some necessity arising out of foreign relations, an\nauthority, independent for a certain term of years of the legislative\nassembly, which has no accounts to render to it and which cannot be\nquestioned or constitutionally overthrown, that authority is so strange,\nand, if the phrase may pass, so monstrous an anomaly, that it dares not\nexercise its power, and dreads the scandal which it would raise by\nacting on its rights, and seems as it were paralysed with terror at the\nvery thought of its own existence.\n\nAnd its attitude is right; for if it exercised its powers, or even lent\nitself to any appearance of so doing, there at once would be an act of\nwill which was not an act of the popular will, a theory altogether\ncontrary to the spirit of this system. For in this system the chief of\nthe state can only be the nominal chief of the state. A will of his own\nwould be an abuse of power, an idea of his own would be an\nencroachment, and a word of his own would be an act of high treason.\n\nIt follows that, if the constitution has formally conferred these\npowers, the constitution on these points is a dead letter, because it\ncontravenes an unwritten constitution of higher authority, viz., the\ninner inspiration of the political institution.\n\nOne of these honorary chiefs of the state has said: \"During all my term\nas president, I was constitutionally silent.\" This is not correct, for\nthe constitution gave him leave to speak and even to act. At bottom it\nwas true, for the constitution, in allowing him to act and speak, was\nacting unconstitutionally. In speaking he would have been\nconstitutional, in holding his tongue he was _institutional_. He had\nbeen in fact _institutionally_ silent. He disobeyed the letter of the\nconstitution, but he had admirably extracted its meaning from it, and\nunderstood and respected its spirit.\n\nUnder democracy, then, the national representatives govern as directly\nand as really as possible, dictating a policy to the executive and\nneutralising the supreme chief of the executive to whom it is not able\nto dictate.\n\nThe national representatives are not content with governing, they wish\nto administer. Now consider how it would be if the permanent officials\nof finance, justice and police, etc., depended solely on their\nparliamentary chiefs, who are ministers only because they are the\ncreatures of the popular assembly, liable to instant and frequent\ndismissal; surely then, these officials, more permanent than their\nchiefs, would form an aristocracy, and would administer the state\nindependently of the popular will and according to their own ideas.\n\nThis, of course, must not be allowed to happen. There must not be any\nwill but the people's will, no other power, however limited, but its\nown.\n\nThis causes a dilemma which is sufficiently remarkable. Here we seem to\nhave contrary results from the same cause. Since the popular assembly\ngoverns ministers, and frequently dismisses them, they are not able to\ngovern their subordinates as did Colbert and Louvois, and these\nsubordinates accordingly are very independent; so it comes about that\nthe greater the authority which the popular assembly wields over\nministers, the more it is likely to lose in its control over the\nsubordinates of ministers, and in destroying one rival power it creates\nanother.\n\nThe dilemma, however, is avoided easily enough. No public official is\nappointed without receiving its _visa_, and it contrives even to elect\nthe administrative officials. In the first place, the national\nrepresentatives, in their corporate capacity, and in the central offices\nof government, watch most attentively the appointment of the permanent\nstaff, and further each single member of the representative government\nin his province, in his department, in his _arrondissement_ picks and\nchooses the candidates and really appoints the permanent staff. This is,\nof course, necessary, if the national will is to be paramount here as\nwell as elsewhere, and if the people is to secure servants of its own\ntype, if it is \"to choose its own magistrates,\" as Montesquieu said.\n\nThe people, then, chooses its servants through the intervention of its\nrepresentatives; and consider, to return to our point, how absolutely\nnecessary it is for it to secure representatives who are intellectually\nthe exact image and imitation of itself. Everything dovetails neatly\ntogether.\n\nHere then we have the people interfering influentially in the\nappointment of the civil service. It continues \"to do everything\nitself.\" Complaints are raised on all sides of this confusion of\npolitics with the business of administration, and indeed we hear\ncontinually that politics pervade everything. But what is the reason of\nthis? It is the principle of the national sovereignty asserting itself.\nPolitics, political power, means the will of the majority of the nation,\nand is it not fitting that the will of the majority should make itself\nfelt--indeed need we be surprised that it insists on making itself\nfelt--in the details of public business, as administered by the\npermanent staff, as well as elsewhere? The ideal of democracy is that\nthe people should elect its own rulers, or, if this is not its ideal, it\nis its idea, and this is what it does under a parliamentary democracy\nthrough the intervention of its representatives.\n\nThis is all very well, but efficiency has been dealt another blow. For\nhow is a candidate to recommend himself for an office to which\nappointment is made by the people and its representatives? By his merit?\nHis chiefs and his fellow civil servants might be good judges of that;\nbut the people or its representatives are much less capable of judging.\n\n\"The people is admirably fitted to choose those to whom it has to\nentrust some part of its authority\"; so Montesquieu; we must now examine\nthis saying a little more closely. What reasons does the philosopher\ngive? \"The people can only be guided by things of which it cannot be\nignorant, and which fall, so to speak, within its own observation. It\nknows very well that a man has experience in war, and that he has had\nsuch and such successes; it is therefore quite capable of electing a\ngeneral. It knows that a judge is industrious, that many of those who\nare litigants in his court go away satisfied, and that he has never been\nconvicted of bribery, and this is enough to warrant it in appointing to\nany judicial office. It has been impressed by the magnificence or riches\nof some citizen, and this fits it for appointing an aedile. All these\nthings are matters of fact about which the man in the street has better\nknowledge than the king in his palace.\"\n\nThis passage, I confess, does not appear to be convincing. Why should\nnot a king in his palace know of the riches of a financier, the\nreputation of a judge or the success of a colonel just as well as the\nman in the street? There is no difficulty in getting information about\nsuch things. The people knows that such an one was always a good judge\nand such another always an excellent officer. Therefore it is qualified\nto appoint a general or a high-court judge or other officer of the law.\nSo be it, but for the selection of a young judge or a young and untried\nofficer what special source of information has the people? I cannot find\nthat it has any. In this very argument, Montesquieu limits the\ncompetence of the people to the election of the great chiefs, and of the\nmost exalted magistrates, and indeed further confines the popular\nprerogative in this matter to assigning an office and career to one who\nhas already given proof of his capacity. But for putting the competent\nman for the first time in the place where he is wanted, how has the\npeople any special instinct or information? Montesquieu shows that the\npeople can recognise ability when it has been proved, but he says\nnothing to show that it recognises readily nascent, unproved talent. The\nargument of Montesquieu is not here conclusive.\n\nHe has been led astray, it seems to me, by his desire to present his\nargument antithetically (using the term in its logical sense). What he\nreally wished to prove was not so much the truth of the proposition that\nhe was then advancing, but the falsity of quite another proposition. The\nquestion for him, the question which he had in his mind, was as follows:\nIs the people capable of governing the state, of taking measures\nbeforehand, and of understanding and solving the difficulties of home\nand foreign affairs? By no means. Then is it fit to elect its own\nmagistrates? Well, it might do that. Thus he had been led away by this\nantithesis so far as to say: Able to govern?--Certainly not! Able to\nelect its own magistrates? Admirably! The explanation of the whole\nparagraph which I have just quoted lies in the conclusion, which runs as\nfollows: \"All these things are matters of fact about which the man in\nthe street has better knowledge than the king in his palace. _But_ can\nthe people pursue a policy and know how to avail itself of the places,\noccasions, and times when action will be profitable? No! certainly\nnot.\"\n\nThe truth is that the people is a little better fitted to choose a\nmagistrate than to undertake a policy for the gradual humbling of the\nHouse of Austria. But not very much so, as it is only a little more\ndifficult to humble the House of Austria, than it is to discover the man\nwho is able to do it.\n\nThe masses are particularly incapable of making initial appointments and\nof giving promotion in the early stages of a career to those who deserve\nit. Yet in a democracy this is what they are constantly doing.\n\nAgain, by what means has the candidate for civil service employment, who\nis favoured by the people and its representatives, earned their\napproval? By his merit, of which the people and its representatives are\nvery bad judges? No! By what then? By his conformity to the general\nviews of the people; that is, by the subserviency of his political\nopinions. The political opinions of a candidate for civil service\nemployment are the only things which mark him out to the popular choice\nbecause they are the only subjects on which the people is a good judge.\n\nYes, but the subserviency of his political opinions may be combined\nwith real merit. True, but this is a mere matter of chance. The people\nis not, perhaps, in this particular matter consciously hostile to\nefficiency, rather it is indifferent, or ignores the qualification\naltogether. Indeed, there is no great compliment paid to efficiency in\nsuch transactions.\n\nHere is what inevitably happens. The candidate for a permanent\nappointment who is not conscious of possessing any particular merit is\nnot slow to realise that it is by his political opinions that he will\nsucceed, and he naturally professes those which are wanted. The\ncandidate who is conscious of merit, very often knowing very well what\nless meritorious competitors are about, and not wishing to be beaten,\nalso professes the same useful opinions. There we have that \"infection\nof evil,\" which M. Renouvier has explained so admirably in his _Science\nde la Morale_.\n\nFirst, then, we see how most of the candidates chosen by the mandatories\nof the people are incapable; others who are chosen in spite of their\ncapacity are men of indifferent character; and character, we must admit,\nin all or nearly all public careers is a necessary part of efficiency.\n\nThere remains a small number of meritorious persons who have never\nidentified themselves with current political opinions, and who have\nslipped into public employment, thanks to some brief moment of\ninattention on the part of the politicians. These intruders sometimes\nget on by the mere force of circumstances, but they never reach the\nhighest posts which are always reserved, as indeed is proper and\nfitting, for those in whom the people has put its trust.\n\nThis is how the people administers as well as governs through the\nintervention of the representative system, dictating to ministers the\npolicy and the details of government.\n\n--I realise, some one here will object, that administrators are\nnominated by the people, but I do not see how the affairs of the country\nare actually administered by the people.--\n\nWell, I will tell you. In the first place, by nominating officials it is\nalready far on the road to controlling them, for it infuses into the\nbody of the permanent civil service the spirit of the people to the\nexclusion of every other source of inspiration, and effectually prevents\nthe civil service from becoming an aristocracy as otherwise it has\nalways a tendency to do. Next, the people does not confine itself to\nelecting its administrators, it watches and spies on them, keeps them in\nleading strings, and just as the popular representatives dictate to\nministers the details of government, so also they dictate to\nadministrators the details of administration.\n\nA _prefet_, a _procureur-general_, an engineer-in-chief under democratic\nrule is a much harassed man. He has to play his own hand against his\nministerial chief and the deputies of his district. He ought to obey the\nminister, but he has also to obey the deputies of the district which he\nadministers. In this connection curious points arise and situations not\na little complicated. The _prefet_ owes obedience to the deputies and to\nthe minister, and the minister obeys the deputies, and it might\ntherefore have been supposed that there was only one will, the will\nwhich the _prefet_ obeyed. But what the minister has to obey is the\ngeneral will of the popular representatives, and it is this will that he\ntransmits for the allegiance of the _prefet_; but then the _prefet_\nfinds himself colliding against the individual wills of the deputies of\nhis district. The result is what we may call conflicts of obedience\nwhich have extraordinary interest for the psychologist, but which are\nless agreeable for the _prefet_, the engineer-in-chief, or the\n_procureur-general_.\n\nWe note then, in the first place, how everything concurs to make the\nrepresentative of the popular will as incompetent as he is omnipotent.\nIncompetent he undoubtedly is, as we have already seen, to start with,\nand _if he were not so already_, he would certainly become so by reason\nof the trade or rather of the miscellaneous assortment of trades which\nare thrust upon him. The surest way of making a man incompetent is to\nmake him Jack-of-all-trades, for then he will be master of none. In the\nnext place, the representative of the popular will and spirit, besides\nhis trade of legislator, has to cross-examine ministers and to dictate\nto them the details of their duty, that is to say, he has to busy\nhimself in all home and foreign politics. He has also to administer, by\nchoosing and watching administrators and by controlling and inspiring\ntheir actions. Without saying anything of the small individual services\nwhich it is his interest to render to his constituents and which his\nconstituents are by no means backward in demanding, he looks on himself\nas responsible for the conduct of things in general. He becomes a sort\nof universal foreman, not a man, but a man-orchestra, a busybody, so\nbusy that he can apply himself to nothing. He cannot study, or think, or\ninvestigate, or, to speak accurately, acquire any sense at all.\n\nIf he be efficient in some particular subject, when he enters on his\npublic career, he becomes hopelessly inefficient in all subjects after a\nfew years of public life, and then, void of all individuality, he\nremains nothing but a public man, that is, a man representing the\npopular will and never thinking, or able to think, of anything but how\nto make that will prevail.\n\nAnd, to press the point again, this is all that is wanted of him; for\ncan you conceive a representative of the popular will, who had somehow\npreserved a measure of competence in financial or judicial\nadministration, who would prefer, before other candidates, not a\npolitical partisan but a man of merit, knowledge and aptitude, and who\nwould even approve in an administrator not acts of political partiality\nbut acts that are just and in conformity with the interests of the\nstate? Why! Such a man would be a detestable servant in the eyes of\ndemocracy.\n\nYes, and I have known such a man. He was not wanting in intelligence or\nwit and he was honest. A lawyer, he was naturally interested in\npolitics. For local reasons he had failed to be elected as deputy or as\nsenator. Tired of fighting, he obtained a judicial appointment by the\ninfluence of his political friends. He became president of court. A case\nwas brought before him where the accused, a person not perhaps of\naltogether blameless life, was clearly not guilty of any indictable\noffence. The accused, however, a former _prefet_, appointed by a\ngovernment now become very unpopular, and known as a reactionary and an\naristocrat, was pursued by the animosity of the whole democratic\npopulation of the town and province. The president, in the face of\nopenly expressed hostility in court, acquitted him. In the evening the\npresident remarked, not without a touch of humour: \"There, that serves\nthem right for not making me a senator!\" In other words: \"If they had\naccepted me as a politician, they would have made me a fool, or at\nleast paralysed my efficiency. But they would not have it; so here I am,\na man who knows the law and applies it. So much the worse for them!\"\n\n\"By making a man a slave Zeus took from him half his soul.\" So Homer. By\nmaking a man a politician, Demos takes from him his whole soul, and in\nomitting to make him a politician, it is foolish enough to leave him his\nsoul.\n\nThis is why Demos hates a permanent civil service. An irremovable\nmagistrate or functionary is a man whom the constitution sets free from\nthe grip of the populace. An irremovable official is a man enfranchised,\na free man. Demos does not love free men.\n\nThis will explain why in every nation where it is paramount, democracy\nsuspends from time to time the irremovable independent official element\nwherever it is found. The object is nominally to clarify and filter the\n_personnel_ of the official world; but really it is intended to teach\nthe officials whom it spares, that their permanence is only very\nrelative and that, like every one else, they have to reckon with the\nsovereignty of the people which will turn and rend them if they\nventure to be too independent.\n\nAccording to the constitution of 1873 there were irremovable senators in\nFrance. In the interest of good government, this was perhaps a sound\narrangement. The irremovable senators, in the scheme of the\nconstitution, were intended to be, and in fact were, political and\nadministrative veterans from whose knowledge, efficiency and experience\ntheir colleagues were to profit. The plan, from this point of view,\nmight have worked well if the irremovable senators had not been elected\nby their colleagues but had become so by right; for example every former\nPresident of the Republic, every former president of the _Cour de\nCassation_, every former president of the Court of Appeal, every\nadmiral, every archbishop might _ex officio_ have been raised to the\nrank of senator for life. From the democratic point of view, however, it\nwas regarded as a positive outrage that there should exist a\nrepresentative of the people who had not to render account to the\npeople, a representative of the people who had nothing to fear from the\naccidents of re-election, no risk of failing to secure re-election, in\nother words that a man should be elected for his supposed efficiency,\nin no sense representing the people but himself alone.\n\nPermanent senators were abolished. Obviously they constituted a\npolitical aristocracy, founded on the pretence of services rendered, and\nthe Senate which elected them also fell under the taint of aristocratic\nleanings since at that time it recruited its members by co-optation.\nThis of course could not be tolerated.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE REFUGES OF EFFICIENCY.\n\n\nWill efficiency then, you may well ask, when driven out of all public\nemployment, find refuge somewhere? Certainly it will. In private\nemployments and in employments paid by public companies. Barristers,\nsolicitors, doctors, business men, manufacturers and authors are not\npaid by the state, nor are engineers, mechanics, railway employees; and\nso far from their efficiency being a bar to their employment, it is\ntheir most valuable asset. When a man consults his lawyer or his medical\nadviser he obviously has no interest in their politics, and when a\nrailway company chooses an engineer, it enquires into his qualifications\nand ability and is quite indifferent as to whether his political views\ncoincide with the general mentality of the people.\n\nIt is for this reason, or at least partly for this reason, that\ndemocracy tries to nationalise all employment, as a step in the\ndirection of the nationalisation of everything. For instance it can\npartly nationalise the medical profession by establishing appointments\nfor doctors, at relief offices, schools, and _lycees_. It can also\npartly nationalise the legal profession by appointing state-paid\nprofessors of law.\n\nAlready the State has considerable control over this class of person,\nfor most of them have relations in government employment, whom they do\nnot wish to bring into bad odour by seeming hostile to the opinions of\nthe majority. The State, however, wants to hold them in still tighter\ncontrol by seizing every opportunity of nationalising and socialising\nthem more completely.\n\nThe State wants also to destroy all large associations, and to absorb\ntheir activities. The state purchase of a railway, for instance, is, in\nthe first place, a means of exploiting the company; for there is always\na hope that the State will be able to filch something out of the\ntransaction; but its chief recommendation lies in the fact that it\nsuppresses a whole army of the company's officials and employees, who\nwere under no obligation to please the Government, and who had no other\ninterest but to do their work properly. The State will thus transform\nthis free population into government employees, whose primary duty is to\nbe docile and subservient.\n\nUnder the extreme form and under the complete form of this regime, that\nis to say under socialism, everyone will be a government official.\n\nConsequently, say the Socialist theorists, all the alleged drawbacks\nabove mentioned will disappear. The State, the democracy, the dominant\nparty, whatever you choose to call it, will no longer be obliged to\nselect its servants, as you say it does, by reason of their subservience\nand their incompetence, because every citizen will be an official. Thus\ntoo will disappear that dual social system, under which half the\npopulation lives on the State, while the other half is independent, and\nprides itself on its superiority in character, in intelligence and in\nefficiency. Socialism solves the problem.\n\nI do not agree. Under socialism, the electoral system, and, therefore,\nthe party system will still exist. The citizens will choose the\nlegislators, the legislators will choose the Government, and the\nGovernment will choose the directors of labour and the distributors of\nthe means of subsistence. Parties, that is, combinations of interests,\nwill still exist, and each party will want to capture the legislature in\norder to secure the election, from its own number, of the directors of\nlabour and the distributors of the means of subsistence. These directors\nand distributors will be the new aristocrats of socialism, and they will\nbe expected to arrange \"soft jobs\" and ampler rations for the members of\ntheir own group or party.\n\nExcept that wealth and the last vestiges of liberty have been\nsuppressed, nothing has been changed, and all the objections above\nmentioned still hold. There is no solution here.\n\nIf it were a solution, then the socialist government could not long\nremain elective. It would have to reign by divine right, like the\nJesuits in Paraguay. It would have to be a despotism, not only in its\npolicy but in its origin, in fact a monarchy. No intelligent king has\nany inducement to choose incompetent men as his officials. His interest\nwould lead him to do exactly the opposite. You will say that an\nintelligent king is a very rare, even an abnormal thing. I readily\nagree. Except in a very few instances, which history records with\namazement, a king has exactly the same reasons as the people for\nselecting as his favourites men who will not eclipse nor contradict him,\nand who consequently seldom turn out to be the best of citizens either\nin respect of intelligence or character. Elective socialism and despotic\nsocialism have the same faults as democracy as we understand the term.\n\nBesides, in truth, the drift of democracy towards socialism is nothing\nbut a reversion to despotism. If socialism were established, it would\nbegin by being elective, and as every elective system lives and breathes\nand has its being in the party system, the dominant party would elect\nthe legislature, consequently it would constitute the Government and\nwould extort from that Government, simply because it has the power to\nextort it, every conceivable form of privilege. Exploitation of the\ncountry by the majority would result, as in every country where elective\ngovernment prevails.\n\nA socialist government therefore is primarily an oligarchy of directors\nof labour and distributors of subsistence. It is a very close oligarchy,\nfor those beneath it are quite defenceless, levelled down to an\nequality of poverty and misery. It is a form of government very\ndifficult to replace, for it holds in its hands the threads of such an\nintricate organisation that it must be protected against crude attempts\nto change it, and so it tends to be a permanent oligarchy. It would\ntherefore concentrate very quickly round a leader, or at any rate,\nrelegate to the second rank the national representatives and the\nelectorate.\n\nSuch a course of events would be very similar to what occurred under the\nFirst Empire in France, when the military caste eclipsed and domineered\nover everything. It became continuously necessary to the State, and\nthough that necessity passed away, it was soon recalled. The caste then\nclosed its ranks round the leader who gave it unity, and the strength of\nunity.\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo under socialism, more slowly and perhaps after the lapse of a\ngeneration, the directors of labour and the distributors of food,\npeaceful Janissaries of the new order, would form themselves into a\ncaste, very close, very coherent, and (unlike legislators for whom an\nexecutive council can always be substituted), quite indispensable, and\nwould close their ranks round a chief who would give them unity and the\nstrength of unity.\n\nBefore we knew socialism, we used to say that democracy tended naturally\nto despotism. The situation seems somewhat changed, and we might now say\nthat it tends to socialism: really nothing has changed. For in tending\ntowards socialism it is towards despotism that it tends. Socialism is\nnot conscious of this, for it imagines that it is journeying towards\nequality, but out of these utopias of equality it is ever despotism that\nemerges.\n\nBut this is a digression which refers to the future; let us return to\nthe matter in hand.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE COMPETENT LEGISLATOR.\n\n\nDemocracy, in its modern form, encroaches first upon the executive and\nthen upon the administrative authorities, and reduces them to subjection\nby means of its delegates, the legislators, whom it chooses in its own\nimage, that is to say, because they are incompetent and governed by\npassion, just as in the words of Montesquieu, though he perhaps\ncontradicts himself a little: \"The people is moved only by its\npassions.\"\n\nWhat ought then the character of the legislator to be? The very\nopposite, it seems to me, of the democratic legislator, for he ought to\nbe well informed and entirely devoid of prejudice.\n\nHe ought to be well informed, but his information should not consist\nonly of book learning, although an extensive legal knowledge is of the\ngreatest use, as it will prevent him from doing, as so often happens,\nthe exact opposite of what he intends to do. He should also understand\nintimately the temperament and character of the people for whom he\nlegislates.\n\nFor a nation should only be given the laws and commandments that it can\ntolerate, as Solon said: \"I have given them the best laws that they\ncould endure,\" and the God of Israel said to the Jews: \"I have given you\nprecepts which are not good,\" that is to say, they have only the\ngoodness which your wickedness will tolerate. \"This is the sponge,\" says\nMontesquieu, \"which wipes out all the difficulties that can be raised\nagainst the laws of Moses.\"\n\nThe legislator, then, ought to understand the temperament and genius of\nthe people because he has to frame its laws. As the Germans say, he\nought to be an expert on the psychology of races. Further, he ought to\nunderstand the temperament, peculiarities and character of the people,\nwithout sharing its temperament himself. For where the passions and\ninclinations are concerned, experience is not knowledge. On the\ncontrary, experience prevents us from really knowing; and indeed one of\nthe conditions of knowledge is absence of an experience which may be\nanother word for bias.\n\nThe ideal legislator, or indeed any legislator worthy of the name, ought\nto understand the general tendencies of his people, but he ought to be\nable to view them from a position of detachment and to be able to\ncontrol them, because it is his business partly to satisfy and partly to\ncombat these tendencies.\n\n_He has partly to satisfy them_, or at least, to consider them, because\na law which outraged the national temperament would be like Roland's\nmare, which had every conceivable good quality with this one serious\ndefect, that she was dead, and born dead. Suppose the Romans had been\ngiven an international law decreeing respect for conquered peoples, it\nwould have been a dead letter, and by a sort of contagion it would have\nled to the neglect of other laws. Suppose the French were given a\nliberal law, a law prescribing respect for the individual rights of the\nman and the citizen. Liberty, the object of such a law, is for the\nFrench, as Baron Joannes has remarked: \"The right of each man to do what\nhe likes and to prevent other men from doing what they like.\" In France\nsuch a law would never obtain any but a very grudging allegiance, and it\nwould certainly lead to the neglect of other laws.\n\nThe legislator ought therefore to understand the natural idiosyncrasies\nof his people in order to know how far he dare venture to oppose them.\n\n_Partly he must combat them_, because law should be to a nation, or\notherwise it is merely a police regulation, what the moral law is to an\nindividual. Law should be a restraint imposed continuously in the hope\nof future improvements. It should be a curb on dangerous passions and\ninjurious desires. It should aid the warfare of enlightened selfishness\nagainst the selfishness of which all are ashamed. That is what\nMontesquieu meant when he said that morals should correct climate, and\nlaws should correct morals.\n\nThe law, therefore, to a certain extent should correct national\ntendencies, it should be loved a little because it is felt to be just,\nfeared a little because it is severe, hated a little because it is to a\ncertain degree out of sympathy with the prevalent temper of the day, and\nrespected because it is felt to be necessary.\n\nThis is the law that the legislator has to frame, and therefore he ought\nto have expert knowledge of the genius of the people for whom he\nlegislates. He must understand both those tendencies which will resist\nand those which will welcome him. He must know how far he can go\nunopposed and how much he can venture without forfeiting his authority.\n\nThis is the principal and essential qualification for the legislator.\n\nThe second, as we said before, is that he must be impartial. The very\nessence of the legislator is that he should have moderation, that virtue\non which Cicero set so high a value, which is so rare, if we look to its\nreal meaning, _the perfect balance of soul and mind_. \"It seems to me,\"\nsaid Montesquieu: \"_and I have written this book solely to prove it_,\nthat the spirit of moderation is essential in a legislator, for\npolitical, as well as moral right, lies between two extremes.\"\n\nNothing is more difficult for a man than to control his passions, or\nmore difficult for a legislator than to control the passions of the\npeople of whom he forms a part, to say nothing of his own. \"Aristotle,\"\nsays Montesquieu, \"wanted to gratify, first, his jealousy of Plato and\nthen his love for Alexander. Plato was horrified at the tyranny of the\nAthenians. Machiavel was full of his idol, the Duke of Valentinois.\nThomas More, who was wont to speak of what he had read rather than of\nwhat he had thought, wanted to govern every state upon the model of a\nGreek city. Harrington could think of nothing but an English republic,\nwhile hosts of writers thought confusion must reign wherever there was\nno monarchy. Laws are always in contact with the passions and prejudices\nof the legislator, whether these are his alone, or common to him and to\nhis people. Sometimes they pass through and merely take colour from the\nprejudice of the day, sometimes they succumb to it and make it part of\nthemselves.\"\n\nThis is just the opposite of what should be. The legislator should be to\nthe people what conscience is to the heart of the individual. He should\nunderstand its besetting passions in all their bearings and not be\ndeceived by subterfuge or hypocrisy. Sometimes he must attack them\nboldly, sometimes play off one against another, or favour one at the\nexpense of another which is less influential, now yielding ground, now\nrecovering it, but he must ever be skilful and impartial and never be\nintimidated, diverted from his purpose, nor deceived by his natural\nenemies.\n\nHe should be, so to speak, more conscientious than conscience itself,\nbecause he must never forget that he has to obey to-morrow the law which\nhe makes to-day--_semel jussit semper paruit_. He must, therefore, be\nabsolutely disinterested, a thing most difficult for him, but for which\nconscience requires no effort.\n\nNot only must he be without passion, but he must have trained himself to\nbe impervious to passion, which is much more. We must conceive of him as\na conscience that has risen from the ashes of passion.\n\nAs Rousseau said, \"to discover the perfect ruler for human society we\nmust find a superior intelligence who has seen all the passions of man\nbut has experienced none of them, who has had no sort of relations with\nour nature but who knows it to the core, whose happiness is not\ndependent on us, but who wishes to promote our welfare, in a word, one\nwho aims at a distant renown, in a remote future, and who is content to\nlabour in one age and to enjoy in another.\"\n\nThis is why the ingenious Greeks imagined certain legislators going into\nexile to some remote and unknown retreat, as soon as they had made the\npeople adopt and swear obedience to their laws until their return. It\nmay have been to bind the citizens by this oath, but is it not equally\nprobable that they wished to escape from the laws which they themselves\nhad made? Possibly they felt that they could make them all the stricter\nwith the prospect of being able to evade obedience of them by flight.\n\nProudhon said: \"I dream of a republic so liberal that in it I shall be\nguillotined as a reactionary.\" Lycurgus was perhaps like Proudhon, in\nthat he founded so severe a republic that he knew he could not live\nunder it and resolved to leave it as soon as it was established. Solon\nand Sylla remained in the states to which they had given laws; we must\ntherefore place them higher than Lycurgus who has perhaps this excuse\nfor himself that in all probability he never existed at all.\n\nBut the legend remains to show that the legislator should be so\nsuperior to his own passions and to the passions of his people, that, as\nlegislator, he should make laws before which, as a man, he should stand\nin awe.\n\nThis moderation, in the sense in which we use the term, has sometimes\nled the legislator to suggest or insinuate laws rather than impose them.\nThis is not always possible, but it is so occasionally. Montesquieu\ntells us the following of St. Louis: \"Seeing the manifold abuses of\njustice in his time he endeavoured to make them unpopular. He made many\nregulations for the courts in his own domain, and in those of his\nbarons, and he was so successful, that only a short time after his death\nhis methods were adopted in the courts by many of his nobles. Thus this\nprince attained his object, although his regulations were not\npromulgated as a general law for the whole kingdom, but merely as an\nexample which any one might follow in his own interest. He got rid of an\nevil by making patent the better way. When men saw in his courts and in\nthose of his nobles more reasonable and natural forms of procedure, more\nconformable to religion and morality, more favourable to public\ntranquillity and to the security of persons and property, they adopted\nthe substance and abandoned the shadow. _To suggest where you cannot\ncompel, to guide where you cannot demand, that is the supreme form of\nskill._\"\n\nMontesquieu adds with some optimism though no doubt the idea is\nencouraging: \"Reason has a natural empire, we resist it, but it triumphs\nover our resistance; we persist in error for a time but we always have\nto return to it.\"\n\nThe instance above quoted is very remote, and can hardly be applied to\nanything in our day. But consider, for instance, the law of Sunday\nobservance which has been revived from the ecclesiastical law. It was a\nmistake to include it in the Code because it was antagonistic to many\nFrench customs, and, in many ways, to the national temperament. The\nresult is what might have been expected, namely, that it has only been\ncarried out in rare instances, and with an infinity of trouble. It might\nhave been made the subject of an edict without being included in the\nCode. The State might have given a holiday on Sunday to all its\nofficials, employees and workmen. It might have been made quite clear\nsimply by a circular from the Minister of Justice that a workman would\nnot be punished for breach of contract by refusing to work on a Sunday.\nThe law of a weekly day of rest would then have existed, without being\nformally promulgated, and would have been limited precisely where it\nshould be, by agreement between masters and men who would submit to\nworking on Sundays when they saw that it was necessary and inevitable.\nMoreover this law would be strong enough to modify without destroying\nthe ancient customs of the people.\n\nHere is another instance which occurs within the law laid down by the\nCode, where the legislator makes use of a method of suggestion and\nrecommendation. Early in the nineteenth century the legislator\nconsidered that it was seemly for a husband who surprised his wife in\nadultery to kill both her and her accomplice. The sentiment is perhaps\nquestionable, but at all events, it was current. Was it given legal\nsanction? No, not precisely. It is inserted in the law in the form of an\ninsinuation, a discreet recommendation and affectionate encouragement.\nThe legislator wrote these words: \"In _flagrante delicto_ murder is\nexcusable.\" I am not approving the sentiment, but only this manner of\nindicating rather than enforcing the law and what is thought to be a\nwholesome practice, and in other instances I should think it excellent.\n\nFinally, one of the essential qualities of the legislator is to show\ndiscretion in changing existing laws, and for this purpose he should be\nimmune from the passions of men or at all events complete master of\nthose which beset him. For law has no real authority unless it is\nancient. Where a law is merely a custom which has become law, it is\ninvested with considerable authority from the first, because it gains\nstrength by the antiquity of the original custom. When on the other hand\na law is not an old custom but runs counter to custom, then, before it\ncan have any authority, it must grow old and become a custom itself.\n\nIn both cases it is on its antiquity that the law must depend for its\nstrength. The law is like a tree, at first it is a tender sapling, then\nit grows up, its bark hardens, and its roots go deep into the ground and\ncling to the rock.\n\nWe ought to consider carefully before we venture to replace the forest\ntree by the young sapling. \"Most legislators,\" said Usbek to Rhedi,[A]\n\"have been men of limited abilities, owing their position to a stroke of\nfortune, and consulting nothing but their own whims and prejudices. They\nhave often abolished established laws quite unnecessarily, and plunged\nnations into the chaos that is inseparable from change. It is true that,\nowing to some odd chance arising out of the nature rather than out of\nthe intelligence of mankind, it is sometimes necessary to alter laws,\nbut the case is very rare and when it does arise it should be handled\nwith a reverent touch. When it is a question of changing the law, much\nceremony should be observed, and many precautions taken, in order that\nthe people may be naturally persuaded that laws are sacred things, and\nthat many formalities must precede any attempt to alter them.\"\n\nIn this passage, as so often elsewhere, Montesquieu is quite\nAristotelian, for Aristotle wrote: \"It is evident that at times certain\nlaws must be changed, but this requires great circumspection for, when\nthere is little to be gained thereby, inasmuch as it is dangerous that\ncitizens should be accustomed to find it easy to change the law, it is\nbetter to leave a few errors in our magisterial and legislative\narrangements than to accustom the people to constant change. The\ndisadvantage of having constant changes in the law is greater than any\nrisk that we run of contracting a habit of disobedience to the law.\" For\nthe law assuredly will be disobeyed, if we regard it as ephemeral,\nunstable, and always on the point of being changed.\n\nSome knowledge of the laws of the most important nations, a profound\nknowledge of the temperament, character, sentiments, passions, opinions,\nprejudices and customs of the nation to which he belongs, moderation of\nheart and mind, judgment, impartiality, coolness, nay even a measure of\nstolidity, these are the attributes of the ideal legislator. Rather they\nare the necessary qualifications of every man who purposes to frame a\ngood law; they are, indeed, the elementary attributes of a legislator.\n\nWe have seen that it is the very opposite quality that democracy likes\nand expects of its legislators. It selects incompetent and almost\ninvariably ignorant men, I have explained why; and its nominees are of a\ndouble distilled incompetence in that their passions would certainly\nneutralise their efficiency if they possessed any.\n\nFurther we have to observe this curious fact. So entirely does democracy\nchoose its legislators, because they are dominated by passion, and not\nin spite of the fact, chooses them indeed precisely for the reasons for\nwhich it ought to reject them, that any moderate, clear-headed,\npractical man who wants to be elected and make use of his powers, has to\nstart by dissembling his moderation, and by making a noisy display of\nfactious violence. If he wants to be nominated to a post where it will\nbe his business to defend and guarantee public security, he has to begin\nby advocating civil war: to become a peacemaker he must first pose as a\nrebel.\n\nEvery popular favourite passes through these two phases, and has to\ncomplete one stage before he starts on the next. Is it not better, you\nwill ask, that a man's whole career should be spent in defence of law\nand order rather than the latter part of it? Not at all, because you\ncannot exercise any influence as a friend of law and order unless you\nhave begun as an anarchist.\n\nThese changes of opinion occur so frequently that they merely raise a\nsmile. They have, however, this drawback, that the friend of law and\norder, with a seditious past, never has an undisputed authority, and he\nspends half his time explaining the reasons for his defection, and this\nis a sore let and hindrance to his subsequent career.\n\nThe people always elects men swayed by real or simulated passion. These\nwill either always remain in a state of frenzied excitement, and they\nare the great majority, or they will become moderate men, largely\ndisqualified and handicapped, as we have above shown, for their new\ncareer. The vast majority of these sentimentalists rush into politics\ninstead of studying them with deliberation, judgment and wisdom. The\ncanons of good government as above set out are entirely subverted. The\nlaw does not control and restrain the passions of the populace.\nLegislation becomes little more than an expression of their frenzy, a\nseries of party measures levelled by one faction against the other. The\nintroduction of a bill is a challenge; the passing of an act is a\nvictory; definitions which at once damn the legislator, and convict the\nsystem.\n\n\n[A] Characters in Montesquieu's _Lettres Persanes_. Letter\ncxxix.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nLAWS UNDER DEMOCRACY.\n\n\nThe truth of my contention is proved by the fact that nowadays all our\nlaws are emergency laws, a thing that no law should ever be. Montesquieu\nadvised people to be very chary and to think twice before they destroyed\nold laws or pulled down an old house to run up a tent, but his advice is\ncompletely ignored. New laws are made for every change in the weather,\nfor every little daily incident in politics. We are getting used to this\nhand-to-mouth legislation. Like the barbarian warrior, of whom\nDemosthenes tells us, who always protected that portion of his person\nwhich had just received a blow, holding his shield up to his shoulder,\nwhen his shoulder had been struck, down again to his thigh when the blow\nfell there, the dominant faction only makes laws to protect itself\nagainst an adversary who is, or is thought to be, already in the field,\nor it introduces a hurried, ill-digested reform under the pressure of an\nalleged scandal.\n\nIf an aspirant to the tyranny, as they used to say in Athens, is\nnominated deputy in too many constituencies, instantly a law is passed\nprohibiting multiple candidatures. For the same reason, for fear of the\nsame man, _scrutin de liste_ is hurriedly replaced by _scrutin\nd'arrondissement_.[B]\n\nIf an accused woman is supposed to have been ill-treated at her\nexamination, taken too abruptly before the interrogatory of the\npresident, or if the counts are ineptly set out by the public\nprosecutor, instantly the whole of the criminal procedure is radically\nreformed.\n\nIt is the same everywhere. The legislative workshops turn out only \"the\nlatest novelties\" of the season. Or perhaps a newspaper would be a still\nbetter simile. First there is the 'interpellation,'[C] once at least\nevery day; that corresponds to the leading article. Then there are\nquestions for ministers on this, that and the other trivial occurrence;\nthat is the serial or short story. Then there is a bill brought in about\nsomething that happened the night before, that is the special article.\nThen some deputy assaults his neighbour, this is the general news\ncolumn.\n\nYou could not have a more faithful representation of the country.\nEverything that happens in the morning is dealt with in the evening as\nit might be in the village pot-house. The legislative chamber is an\nexaggerated reflection of the gossiping public. Now it ought not to be a\ncopy of the country, it ought to be its soul and brain. But when a\nnational representative assembly represents only the passions of the\npopulace it cannot be otherwise than what it is.\n\nIn other words modern democracy _is not governed by laws_ but by\ndecrees, for emergency laws are no better than decrees. A law is an\nancient heritage, consecrated by long usage, which men obey without\nstopping to think whether it be law or custom. It forms part of a\ncoherent, harmonious and logical whole. A law improvised for an\nemergency is merely a decree. This is one of the things that Aristotle\nsaw better than any one. He comments frequently upon the essential and\nfundamental distinction between the two, and explains how it is as\ndangerous to misunderstand as to ignore it. I quote the passage in which\nhe brings this out most forcibly: \"A fifth form of democracy is that in\nwhich not the law but the multitude has the supreme power, and\nsupersedes the law by its decrees. This is a state of affairs brought\nabout by the demagogues. For in democracies which are subject to the\nlaw, the best citizens hold the first place and there are no demagogues;\nbut where the laws are not supreme, there demagogues spring up. For the\npeople becomes a monarch and is many in one; and the many have the power\nin their hands, not as individuals but collectively.... And the people,\nwho is now a monarch, and no longer under the control of law, seeks to\nexercise monarchical sway, and grows into a despot; the flatterer is\nheld in honour; this sort of democracy being relatively to other\ndemocracies what tyranny is to other forms of monarchy.\n\n\"The spirit of both is the same, and they alike exercise a despotic rule\nover the better citizens. The decrees of the Demos correspond to the\nedicts of the tyrant, and the demagogue is to the one what the flatterer\nis to the other. Both have great power--the flatterer with the tyrant,\nthe demagogue with democracies of the kind which we are describing. The\ndemagogues make the decrees of the people override the laws, and refer\nall things to the popular assembly. And therefore they grow great,\nbecause the people has all things in its hands and they hold in their\nhands the votes of the people, who is too ready to listen to them. Such\na democracy is fairly open to the objection that it is not a\nconstitution at all; for _where the laws have no authority there is no\nconstitution_. The law ought to be supreme over all. So that if\ndemocracy be a real form of government, _the sort of constitution in\nwhich all things are regulated by decrees is clearly not a democracy in\nthe true sense of the word_, for decrees relate only to particulars.\"\n\nThis distinction between true law, that is to say, venerable law, framed\nto endure, part of a co-ordinate scheme of legislation, and an emergency\nlaw which is merely a decree like the wishes of a tyrant, constitutes\nthe whole difference, if we could realise it, between the sociologists\nof antiquity and those of to-day. By the term Law, the ancient and the\nmodern sociologists mean two different things and this is the reason for\nso many misunderstandings. When he speaks of law, the modern sociologist\nmeans the expression of the general will at such and such a date, 1910\nfor instance. The ancient sociologist would consider that the expression\nof the general will in the second year of the 73rd Olympiad was not law\nat all, but a decree. A law to him would be a paragraph of the\nlegislation of Solon, Lycurgus or Charondas. Whenever in a Greek or\nRoman political treatise we meet the expression--\"a State governed by\nlaws,\" the only way to translate it is--\"a State governed by a very\nancient and immutable legislation.\" This gives the true meaning to the\nfamous personification of laws in the Phaedo, which would be quite\nmeaningless if the Greeks had understood what we do by the term. Are\nlaws the expression of the general will of the people? If so why should\nSocrates have respected them, he who despised the people to the day he\nwas condemned? It would be absurd. These laws which Socrates respected\nwere not the decrees of the people contemporary with Socrates; they were\nthe ancient gods of the city, which had protected it from the earliest\ndays.\n\nThese laws may err in that they seemed to sanction the verdict that\ncondemned Socrates to death, but they were honourable, venerable and\ninviolate, because they had been the guardians of the city for\ncenturies, and guardians of Socrates himself until the day when they\nwere misapplied against him.\n\nA \"constitution,\" therefore, to adopt Aristotle's terminology, is a\nState which obeys laws, that is to say, laws framed by its ancestors.\n\nIt is, then, an aristocracy, for it is even more aristocratic to obey\nour ancestors themselves by obeying the thoughts which they embedded in\nlegislation, five centuries ago, than to obey the inheritors of their\ntradition, the aristocrats of to-day. For aristocrats of to-day belong\nonly partly to tradition, in that they live in the present. Whereas a\nfifteenth century law belongs to the fifteenth century and to no other\nperiod. To obey law as understood by the ancient sociologists, did not\nmean obeying Scipio who has just passed us on the _Via Sacra_. It meant\nto obey his grandfather's great grandfather! All this is\nultra-aristocratic.\n\nPrecisely! _Law is an aristocratic thing;_ only _the emergency law_, the\n_decree_, is democratic. For this reason Montesquieu always speaks of a\nmonarchy as being limited, and, at the same time, maintained by its law.\nWhat did this mean in his day, when there was no \"expression of the\ngeneral will\" to limit monarchy, and when royalty possessed legislative\npower, and could at will make and remake laws? It could only mean one\nthing, namely, that Montesquieu's conception of law was the same as that\nof the ancient sociologists,--law far older than his time, \"fundamental\nlaws\" as he calls them, of the ancient monarchy, which still bind and\nought so to bind the monarch, whose rule without them would be despotism\nor anarchy. Law is essentially aristocratic. It ordains that rulers\nshould govern the people, and that the dead should govern the rulers.\nThe very essence of aristocracy is the rule of those who have lived over\nthose who live, for the benefit of those who shall live hereafter.\nAristocracy, properly so called, is an aristocracy in the flesh. Law is\na spiritual aristocracy. Aristocracy, as represented by the aristocrats\nof to-day, only represents the dead by tradition, inheritance,\neducation, physiological heredity of temperament and characteristics.\nLaw does not represent the dead, it is the dead themselves, it is their\nvery thought perpetuated in immutable script.\n\nA nation is aristocratic both in form and spirit which preserves its old\naristocracy and maintains its vitality by careful infusions of new\nblood. Still more is that nation aristocratic which maintains its old\nlegislation inviolate, adding to it, reverently and discreetly, new laws\nwhich combine something of the modern spirit with the spirit of the old.\n_Homines novi, novae res. Homo novus_ means the man without ancestors who\nis worthy to be added to the ranks of the nobly born. _Novae res_ are\nthings without antecedents, nay revolution itself. _Novae res_ should\nonly be introduced partially gradually, insensibly and progressively\ninto ancient things, as \"new men\" into the community of the old\nnobility. Law is more aristocratic than aristocracy itself, hence\ndemocracy is the natural enemy of laws and can only tolerate decrees.\n\nOur examination of modern democracy has brought us to the following\nconclusions. The representation of the country is reserved for the\nincompetent and also for those biassed by passion, who are doubly\nincompetent. The representatives of the people want to do everything\nthemselves. They do everything badly and infect the government and the\nadministration with their passion and incompetence.\n\n\n[B] See _France_, by J. E. C. Bodley, 1899, pp. 334, 335. Under\n_Scrutin de liste_ \"the department is the electoral unit, each having\nits complement of deputies allotted to it in proportion to its\npopulation, and each elector having as many votes as there are seats\nascribed to his department, without, however, the power to cumulate.\"\n_Scrutin d'arrondissement_ is election by single-member constituencies.\nThe _arrondissement_ is the electoral unit.\n\n[C] This is a question put to a minister by a deputy. \"The\neffect ... is somewhat similar to a motion to adjourn the house in the\nEnglish Parliament.\" Bodley, p. 445.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE INCOMPETENCE OF GOVERNMENT.\n\n\nThis is not all. The law of incompetence spreads still further, either\nby some process of logical necessity or by a sort of contagion. It has\noften been made the subject of merriment, for, like all tragedy, when we\nregard it with good humour the matter has its comic side, that it is\nvery rare for any high office to be given to a man who is competent for\nthe post. Generally the Minister of Education is a lawyer; the Minister\nof Commerce, an author; the War Minister, a doctor; the Minister for the\nNavy, a journalist. Beaumarchais' epigram \"The post required a\nmathematician--it was given to a dancing master!\" strikes the keynote\nmuch more of a democracy than of an absolute monarchy.\n\nThe matter is so generally recognised that it has a sort of retroactive\neffect upon the historical ideas of the masses. Three Frenchmen out of\nevery four are convinced that Carnot was a civilian, and the statement\nhas often appeared in print. Why? because it is inconceivable that under\na democracy the War Minister could possibly be a soldier, or, that the\nmembers of the Convention could possibly have given the War Office to a\nsoldier. This appeared too paradoxical to be true.\n\nAt first sight this extraordinary method of making incompetent men into\nministers seems merely a joke, merely the subtle and entertaining\nvagaries of the goddess Incompetence. Partly it is so but not entirely.\nThe man whose business it is to appoint ministers has to divide the\nchoicest plums of office among the various groups of the majority which\nsupports him. As all of these groups do not contain specialists, the\nhighest offices are disposed of on political grounds, and not on grounds\nof professional aptitude. I have shown what the result is; the only\nministerial appointment which is made in a rational manner is that which\nthe President of the Council reserves for himself, and even in this case\nin order to conciliate some important political personage he very often\ngives it up and takes some post for which he is not so well suited.\n\nSee what follows: each department is directed by an incompetent man,\nwho, if he be conscientious, sets himself to learn the work in which he\nought to be a fully trained expert, or, if he be not conscientious, and\nbe pressed for time, as he always is, he directs his department\naccording to his general political theories and not according to\npractical common sense--a double distillation of incompetence.\n\nWe know the kind of speech a new Minister of Agriculture makes to his\nstaff. He harangues them on the principles of the revolution of 1789.\n\nMoreover, in a highly centralised country, the minister does everything\nin his own department. He has to do everything under the pressure, it is\ntrue, of the national representatives; but still his is the supreme\nauthority. It is easy to see what sort of decisions he will make. They\nare often very little supported by law, and sometimes are even contrary\nto law, and then they remain a dead letter from the first. Ministerial\ncirculars often have a remarkable character for illegality. In that case\nthey fall and are forgotten, but not always before they have introduced\na vast amount of trouble throughout the entire administration.\n\nAs to appointments, they are made, as I have said, by political\ninfluence, and even when they are flagrantly improper and corrupt, there\nis no chance of their being corrected by the competence of a minister,\nwho, holding enlightened views on the business and subordinates of his\noffice, is able to put his foot down and say \"No! this will not do, we\nmust draw the line somewhere.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nJUDICIAL INCOMPETENCE.\n\n\nHere we find incompetence spreading its influence by the logical\nnecessity of the case. There are other quarters in which it grows by a\nsort of contagion. Have you ever noticed that the _ancien regime_, in\nspite of grievous shortcomings, by a sort of historical tradition,\nmaintained a certain respect for efficiency in its different forms? For\ninstance in matters of jurisdiction, there were seignorial,\necclesiastical and military courts. These were not founded as the result\nof argument and profound consideration, but by the natural course of\nevents, by history itself, and they were maintained and approved by a\nmonarchy which was verging on despotism.\n\nSeignorial jurisdiction, without much rational justification, was none\nthe less of considerable utility; it bound, or was capable of binding,\nthe noble to his land, it prevented him from losing sight of his\nvassals, and his vassals from losing sight of him, and was in fact a\nconservative force in the aristocratic constitution of the kingdom. I\nsubmit that if this jurisdiction had been properly defined, limited and\nmodified, which was never done, it would have been consonant with the\nlaw of competence. There are various local matters which come quite\nproperly within the province of the noble, who in those days took the\nplace of the magistrate. All that was wanted was that such matters\nshould have been defined with precision and that in every case appeal\nshould have been allowed.\n\nEcclesiastical jurisdiction was perfectly reasonable, as offences\ncommitted by ecclesiastics have a special character of which\necclesiastics alone can judge. This seems strange to modern ideas,\nalthough nowadays there are commercial courts and conciliation boards,\nbecause litigation between men of business, between workmen and women\nworkers, and between employers and employed, can only be decided by men\nwho have technical knowledge of the subject in dispute. Appeal,\nmoreover, to a higher court is always allowed.\n\nFinally, in the old days there used to be military jurisdiction for\nprecisely the same reason.\n\nAll these exceptional jurisdictions are objects of the liveliest\napprehension to democracy, because they infringe the rule of uniformity,\nwhich is the image and often the caricature of equality, and also\nbecause they are a stronghold of efficiency.\n\nDemocracy of course demolished aristocratic courts together with the\naristocracy itself, and ecclesiastical courts together with the Church\nwhen it ceased to be an estate of the realm. Any special jurisdictions\nwhich still remain are looked upon as instruments of aristocracy;\ncourts-martial are held in abhorrence because they have ideas of their\nown in respect of military honour and duty, and military offences.\nTherein lies their efficiency, a thing absolutely necessary, if we are\nto maintain military spirit and discipline in a strong army. The private\nsoldier or officer, who is only judged and punished as a civilian, will\nnot be well judged nor adequately punished, considering the special\nduties and services which are required of the army. This is a question\nof moral as well as technical efficiency and to this the democracy pays\nno heed, because it is convinced that no special efficiency is necessary\nand that common sense is all that is required. Common sense, however, is\nlike wit; it is useful in every walk of life, but is not sufficient in\nany one of them. This is just what democracy cannot or will not\nunderstand.\n\nIt makes just as great a mistake in its civil and criminal jurisdiction,\nthough it has, up to now, so far departed from its principles as to\nappoint qualified jurists to civil judgeships. No one denies that this\nbody of men is efficient. Those who act as judges know their law. There\nis, however, as I have often had occasion to point out, a moral as well\nas a technical efficiency, and in limiting the independence that is\nessential to moral efficiency, democracy neutralises the technical\nefficiency of its servants. Let me explain my meaning further.\n\nFormerly the magistracy was a recognised and autonomous branch of the\npublic service, and as a result, save as it was affected by revolution\nand in normal times by the fear of revolution, enjoyed an absolute\nindependence. This gave, or rather preserved intact, its moral\nefficiency. For moral efficiency consists in an ability to act\naccording to the dictates of conscience, and is equivalent to a sort of\nmoral independence.\n\nNow, the magistrates form a department of the administration and are a\nbody of officials. The State appoints, promotes or refuses to promote\nand pays them. In short the State has them at its mercy, just as\nmilitary officers are controlled by the War Office, or tax-collectors by\nthe Treasury. Hence they are deprived of their independence and moral\nefficiency, for they are always tempted to give judgment as the\nGovernment would wish.\n\nThere is, it is true, a guarantee for their independence in the\npermanence of their appointments, but this only applies to those who\nhave reached the summit of their profession, or are on the point of\nretiring, or have no further interest in promotion. The young magistrate\nwho wants to get on, a perfectly legitimate ambition, is by no means\nindependent, for if he does not give satisfaction, he may enjoy a\npeculiar kind of permanence, the permanence of standing still at the\nstarting point. The only independent judges, to whom justice is the sole\ninterest, are either those who have served for forty years or the\nPresident of the _Cour de Cassation_. I may add also the man of\nindependent means who is indifferent to promotion and content to spend\nall his time at the place of his first appointment. He is exactly like\nthe magistrates in old days, but he and his kind get rarer every year.\n\nAt best, moreover, this permanence, of which so much is thought, is an\nillusory guarantee, for it is often suspended by one Government or\nanother, and the magistrates are constantly at the mercy of political\ncrises. Their moral efficiency is indeed sorely tried.\n\nI affirm, therefore, that this diminution of moral efficiency affects\ntechnical efficiency, because magistrates dare not insist on technical\nexactitude when cases arise between the State and individuals, or\nbetween those who are protected by Government and those who are not.\nThough cases in which the State is a party do not occur very often,\nthose in which friends of the Government are involved are of daily\noccurrence in a country where Government is a faction waging incessant\nwarfare against all other factions.\n\nIt has been said with much reason that parliamentary government on a\nbasis of universal suffrage is legalised and continuous civil war. It is\nusually a bloodless civil war, but its weapons are insults,\nprovocations, calumnies, personalities, libel actions. These go on from\none year's end to the other. In a country where such a state of affairs\nis prevalent, the magistracy ought to be absolutely independent in order\nto be impartial. Yet it is precisely in a country like this that the\nmagistracy, not being independent and autonomous, is obliged to avoid\noffending the party in office which, moreover, is extremely exacting,\nfor it lives in constant fear that it may be turned out of power.\n\n--Is there nothing to be done? Would you advocate a return to the\npractice of purchasing judicial appointments?--\n\nIn the first place, this would not be anything so very terrible, and\nsecondly, it might be quite possible to secure all the advantages of\npurchase without its actual practice.\n\nI can show you that it is not so very terrible, for the case is parallel\nwith that of the exceptional jurisdictions, the mention of which filled\nyou with horror till you remembered the commercial courts and the\ncouncils of experts, all excellent institutions. We are appalled at the\nidea of a magistrate purchasing his office, and yet we employ advocates\nand solicitors and other legal officials and trust them with our most\nprecious interests, yet they have, many of them, either bought or\ninherited their practice. Under a system of purchase, we should be\njudged by lawyers of whom we required more extensive legal knowledge\nthan is at present required of the profession. We should be judged in\nfact by solicitors and advocates of a superior order. There is nothing\nvery alarming about that.\n\nMontesquieu was in favour of a system of purchase. Voltaire opposed it\nstrongly. They were both right and were indeed agreed on general\nprinciples. Montesquieu says: \"Venality,--the purchase system,--is a\ngood thing under a monarchical form of government, because work which\nwould not be done from mere civic virtue is then undertaken as a family\nbusiness. Each man's duty is laid down for him, and the orders of the\nState are given greater permanence. Suidas says very aptly of Anastasius\nthat he turned the Empire into an aristocracy by selling magisterial\noffices.\"\n\nVoltaire replies: \"Is it as a matter of civic virtue that in England a\njudge of the King's Bench accepts his appointment?\" (It is either a\nmatter of civic virtue or of profit and interest, and if it is not\nprofit, it certainly must require considerable civic virtue.) \"What! can\nwe not find men in France willing to judge if we bestow their\nappointments upon them gratuitously?\" (We certainly can: but they might\nbe too grateful!) \"Can the work of administering justice, disposing of\nthe lives and fortunes of men, become a family business?\" (Well, the\nbusiness of bearing arms and disposing of men's lives and fortunes in\ncivil war was in 1760 a family business. So too the business of being\nking, and you do not protest against that!) \"It is a pity that\nMontesquieu should dishonour his work by such paradoxes, but we must\nforgive him; his uncle purchased a provincial magistrate's office and\nleft it to him. Human nature comes in everywhere. None of us is without\nweaknesses.\"\n\nMontesquieu thinks aristocratic bodies are good things. Voltaire is in\nfavour of absolute power. Montesquieu would like the judicature to be a\nfamily office, that is to say hereditary like the profession of a\nsoldier; this would make the judicial profession permanent like other\nprofessions. He demonstrates, as does Suidas, that the purchase system\ncreates an aristocracy. Voltaire, like Napoleon I., would make his\nsoldiers, his priests, and his judges, king's men. They should all\nbelong to the king, body and soul.\n\nMontesquieu had a greater antagonist than Voltaire in Plato. Plato wrote\nin his Republic, referring to all judicial offices: \"It is as if on\nboard ship a man were made a pilot for his wealth. Can it be that such a\nrule is bad in every other calling, and good only in respect of the\ngoverning of a republic?\"\n\nMontesquieu answers Plato (and in anticipation Voltaire) very wittily:\n\"Plato is speaking of a virtuous republic and I of a mere monarchy.\nUnder a monarchy if offices were not sold by rule, the poverty and greed\nof courtiers would sell them all the same, and chance after all will\ngive a better result than the choice of a prince.\"\n\nTo sum up, Montesquieu wants the magistracy to be partly hereditary, and\npartly recruited from the wealthy classes, an independent, aristocratic\nbody analogous to the army or the clergy, administering justice with\nthat technical efficiency which university standards can guarantee, and\nwith the moral efficiency which is founded on independence, dignity,\npublic spirit and impartiality.\n\nI said above that venality, or the system of purchase, was not necessary\nto obtain these results. The principle is this, that the magistracy must\nbe independent, and to be independent it must have a proprietary right\nin its duties. This can only be obtained if it hold its office by\ninheritance or purchase as was done under the _ancien regime_; or, if it\nwere somehow contrived that magistrates should not be chosen by the\nGovernment. The purchase or inheritance plan is not popular, then the\nonly alternative is that the magistrates should be chosen by some body\nother than the Government. By whom then? The people? Then the judges\nwould be dependent upon the people and the electors.\n\n--That would be better, or less bad.--\n\nNot at all. If the judges were chosen by the electors, they would be\neven less impartial than if they were elected by the Government. The\njudge then would think of nothing but of being re-elected. He would\nalways give judgment in favour of the party which had elected him.\nWould you care to be judged before a court composed of the deputies of\nyour department? Certainly not, if you belong to the weaker party. Yes,\nif you belong to the majority, but then only if you are certain that\nyour adversary belongs to the minority, or, if he belong to your own\nparty, that he is a less influential elector than yourself. To sum up,\nthere is no guarantee of impartiality if the judges are elected.\n\nFurther, if the system of electing judges by those liable to their\njurisdiction were adopted, there would be an extensive and, I might add,\na most entertaining variety of justice. Judges, who were elected by a\n\"blue\" or republican majority, and who were anxious for re-election,\nwould always deliver judgment in favour of the blues. The same thing\nwould happen in the \"white\" or royalists districts. \"Justice has her\nepochs,\" Pascal said ironically, and in this case justice would have her\ndistricts. It would not be the same in the _Alpes-Maritimes_ as in the\n_Cotes-du-Nord_. The Court of Appeal, if it attempted to be impartial,\nwould spend its time sending cases back from a blue district to be\nrevised in a white, and the decisions delivered in a white country to\nbe revised in a blue. There would be judicial and legal anarchy.\n\n--If the bench is not to be inherited, nor bought, nor chosen by the\nGovernment, nor elected by the people, by whom is it to be nominated?--\n\nBy itself; I see no other solution.\n\nFor instance I can suggest one good method, though there may be several.\nAll the doctors of law in France could choose the judges of appeal and\nthe judges of appeal could choose and promote all the judges. This is an\naristocratic-democratic scheme on a very broad basis.\n\nOr else the judges alone might choose the judges of appeal, and the\njudges of appeal might appoint and promote the judges. That is an\noligarchical method.\n\nOr again, here is a plan for passing from the system that is, to that\nwhich ought to be. For the first time the doctors of law might choose\nthe _Cour de Cassation_, and it could choose the judges. Afterwards the\njudges could fill the vacancies in the _Cour de Cassation_, which would\nnominate and promote the judges.\n\nThe Government would still go on, and continue to nominate the persons\neligible to serve as magistrates.\n\nUnder all these systems the judges would form an autonomous,\nself-creative body, dependent upon and responsible to themselves alone,\nand by reason of their absolute independence, strictly impartial.\n\n--But they would form a caste!--\n\nThey would form a caste. I am sorry for it, but it is the case. You will\nnever be well judged until you have a judicial caste, which is neither\nthe Government, nor the world at large. For the Government cannot judge\nproperly when it is both judge and party to the suit. Further, if it be\nlitigious; it will never be out of court. Again, the world at large\ncannot judge properly, because, in practice, the world at large means\nthe majority, and the majority is a party, and by definition a party can\nhardly be impartial.\n\nBut democracy does not want to be judged by a caste. In the first place\nbecause it abhors castes, and secondly because it does not care about\nimpartial justice. Do not exclaim at the paradox. Democracy does want to\nbe judged impartially in little every-day cases, but in all important\ncases in which a political question is involved and in which one of the\nmajority is opposed to one of the minority, the verdict then has to be\nfor the stronger side.\n\nIt says to the judicial bench what a simple-minded deputy said to the\nPresident of the Chamber: \"It is your duty to protect the majority.\"\n\nThis is why democracy clings to its official magistracy, which contains\nsome good elements though its members cannot always be impartial. They\nwere condemned by the mouth of one of their highest dignitaries who\nanswered when questioned about some illegal proceeding: \"There are\nreasons of high State policy,\" thus throwing both the law and the judges\nat the feet of the Government. On another occasion, with the very best\nintentions, in order to put an end to an interminable affair, they\nturned and twisted the law and set a bad example; for by not applying\nthe law correctly, they laid themselves open to endless and justifiable\nattacks upon their decision; they did not procure the longed-for\nsettlement, and, instead, left the matter open to interminable dispute.\nThey have knowledge, good sense and intelligence, but as their want of\nindependence, in other words their moral inefficiency, neutralises\ntheir technical efficiency, they do not and cannot possess authority.\n\nDemocracy will inevitably go further along the road towards its ideal,\nwhich is direct government. It will want to elect the judges.\n\nAlready it chooses them remotely in the third degree; for it chooses the\ndeputies who choose the Government, which chooses the judges; and to\nsome extent, in the second degree, for it chooses the deputies who bring\npressure to bear upon the nomination of the judges and interfere with\ntheir promotion and their decisions. This also is remote.\n\nAnd, as by this constitution, or, rather by this practice, recognition\nis given to the principle that it is the people who really appoints the\njudges through its intermediaries, democracy, always logical and matter\nof fact, would like to see the principle applied without concealment,\nand the people making the appointments directly.\n\nThen endless questions will arise about the best way of voting and\nelecting. If unipersonal ballot is adopted, the canton will nominate its\n_juge de paix_, the district its tribunal, the region its Court, and the\nwhole country the Court of Appeal. In this arrangement there will be\nthe double drawback mentioned above; that is, varying interpretations of\njustice according to districts, and no impartiality.\n\nIf, on the other hand, _scrutin de liste_ is adopted, the whole country\nwill choose all the magistrates and they will belong to the majority. In\nthis case there would be uniformity of justice but no impartiality. Any\nintermediate system would combine the disadvantage of both plans. For\ninstance, if nominations are made in each division, all the magistrates\nin Brittany will be white partisans, while in Provence they will be blue\npartisans. In both cases they will be biassed, and such diversity as\nthere is will be merely a diversity of partiality and bias.\n\nWe are talking of the future, though not perhaps of a very distant one.\nLet us deal with the present. The jury is still with us. Now the jury\ncombines absolute moral competence with absolute technical incompetence.\nDemocracy must always have incompetence in one form or another. A jury\nis independent of everybody, both of the Government and of the people,\nand in the best possible way, because it is the agent of the people\nwithout being elected. It does not seek re-election and is rather vexed\nthan otherwise at being summoned to perform a disagreeable duty. On the\nother hand it always vacillates between two emotions, between pity and\nself-preservation, between feelings of humanity and the necessity for\nsocial protection; it is equally sensitive to the eloquence of the\ndefending advocate, and the summing up of the prosecutor, and as these\ntwo influences balance each other it is in a perfect moral condition for\ndelivering an equitable verdict.\n\nFor this reason the jury is of ancient origin, and has always been an\ninstitution in the land. At Athens the tribunal of the Heliasts formed a\nkind of jury, too numerous indeed and more like a public meeting, but\nstill a sort of jury.\n\nAt Rome, a better regulated republic, there were certain citizens chosen\nby the praetor who settled questions of fact, that is to say, decided\nwhether an act had or had not been committed, whether a sum of money had\nor had not been paid; and the question of law was reserved for the\ncentumvirs.\n\nIn England the jury still exists and has existed for centuries.\n\nThese various peoples have considered very properly that juries are\nexcellently adapted for forming equitable decisions, since they possess\na greater moral competence for this particular function, than is to be\nfound elsewhere.\n\nThis is true; but on the other hand a jury has no intelligence. In\nNovember 1909, a jury in the Cote d'Or before whom a murderer was being\ntried, declared (1) that this man did not strike the blows, (2) that the\nblows which he struck resulted in death. Thereupon the man was\nacquitted, although his violence, which never took place, had a\nmurderous result.\n\nIn the Steinheil case in the same month and year, the jury's verdict\ninvolved (1) that no one had been assassinated in the Steinheils' house,\nand (2) that Mme Steinheil was not the daughter of Mme Japy. If a\nverdict were a judgment this would have put an end to all attempts to\ndiscover the assassins of M. Steinheil and Mme Japy, and on the other\nhand there would have been terrible social complications.\n\nBut the verdict of a jury is not a judgment. Why? Because the legislator\nforesaw the alarming absurdity of verdicts. It is presumed in law that\nall juries' verdicts are absurd, and experience proves that this is\noften the case. Juries' verdicts always seem to have been decided by lot\nlike those of the famous judge in Rabelais, and it is proverbial at the\nlaw courts that it is impossible to foresee the issue of any case that\ncomes before a jury. It looks as if the jury reasoned thus: \"I am a\nchance judge, and it is only right that my judgment should be dictated\nby chance.\"\n\nVoltaire was in favour of the jury system, principally because he had\nsuch a very low opinion of the magistrates of his day, whom he used to\ncompare to Busiris. But, with his usual inconsequence, he takes no pains\nto conceal the fact that the populations of Abbeville and its\nneighbourhood were unanimously exasperated against La Barre and\nD'Etalonde, and the people of Toulouse against Calas, and all of them\nwould have been condemned by juries summoned from those districts as\nsurely as they were by the magisterial Busiris.\n\nThe jury system is nothing but a refined example of the cult of\nincompetence. Society, having to defend itself against thieves and\nmurderers, lays the duty of defending it on some of its citizens, and\narms them with the weapon of the law. Unfortunately it chooses for the\npurpose citizens who do not know how to use the weapon. It then fondly\nimagines that it is adequately protected. The jury is like an unskilled\ngladiator entangled in the meshes of his own net.\n\nI need hardly say that democracy with its usual pertinacity is now\ntrying to reduce the jury a step lower, and draw it from the lower\ninstead of the lower middle classes. I see no harm in this myself, for\nin the matter of law the ignorance and inexperience of the lower middle\nclass and the ignorance of the working class are much the same. I have\nonly mentioned it to show the tendency of democracy towards what is\npresumably greater incompetence.\n\nNow comes the turn of the _juges de paix_. At present we still have\n_juges de paix_. Here we have a most interesting example of the way\ndemocracy strives after incompetence in matters judicial.\n\nOwing to the expense entailed by an appeal the jurisdiction of a _juge\nde paix_ is very often final. He ought to be an instructed person with\nsome knowledge of law and jurisprudence. He is therefore usually chosen\nfrom men who have a degree in law or from lawyers' clerks who have a\ncertificate of ability. To be quite honest this is but a feeble\nguarantee.\n\nBy the law of July 12th, 1905, the French Senate, anxious to find men of\nstill grosser incompetence, decided that _juges de paix_ might be\nnominated from those, who, not having the required degree or\ncertificate, had occupied the posts of mayor, deputy-mayor or councillor\nfor ten years.\n\nThe object of this decision was the very honest and legitimate one of\ngiving senators and deputies the opportunity of rewarding the electoral\nservices of the village mayors and their assistants. And remember\nsenators especially are nominated by these officials. Further it was an\nopportunity not to be missed for applying our principle--and our\nprinciple is this: we ask, where is absolute incompetence to be found,\nfor to him who can lay indisputable claim to it we must confide\nauthority.\n\nNow mayors and their assistants answer this description exactly. They\nmust be able to sign their names, but they are not obliged to know how\nto read, and eighty per cent. of them are totally illiterate. Their work\nis done for them very usually by the local schoolmaster. The Senate,\ntherefore, was quite sure of finding among them men absolutely\nincompetent for the post of _juge de paix_, and it has found what it\nwanted. Incompetence so colossal deserved an appointment, and an\nappointment has been given to it.\n\nThe magistrature and the powers that be, seem to have been somewhat\ndisturbed by certain consequences of this highly democratic institution.\nM. Barthou, the Minister of Justice, complained bitterly of the work\nwhich this new institution caused him. He made the following speech in\nthe Chamber of Deputies: \"We are here to tell each other the truth, and,\nwith all the due moderation and prudence that is fitting, I feel it my\nduty to warn the chamber against the results of the law of 1905. At the\npresent moment I am besieged with applications for the post of _juge de\npaix_. I need hardly mention that there are some 9,000 of them in my\noffice, because a certain number are not eligible for consideration, but\nthere are in round numbers 5,500 applications which are recommended and\nexamined.\" (What he means to say is, that these are examined because\nthey have been recommended, for, as is only right, those that are not\nbacked by some political personage are not looked at.) \"As the average\nannual number of vacancies is a hundred and eighty, you will readily see\nwhat a quandary I am in. Some of these applications are made with the\nmost extraordinary persistency, I might even call it ferocity, and these\ninvariably come from men who have held the office of mayor or\ndeputy-mayor for ten years, often in the most insignificant places.\"\n\nThe Minister of Justice then read a report made on the subject by a\n_procureur-general_.\n\n\"In this department there are forty-seven _juges de paix_, twenty of\nwhom, as I learn from an enquiry, were mayors at the time of their\nappointment. It is not to be wondered at that the number of provincial\nmagnates who aspire to the post is on the increase, for it seems to be\ngenerally recognised in this department that elective office\nirrespective of all professional aptitude is the normal means of access\nto a paid appointment, more especially to that of _juge de paix_. Once\nthey are appointed, the mayors combine both their municipal and judicial\nduties, and their interests lie far more in the commune which they\nadminister than in the district in which they dispense justice and\nwhich, without permission, they should never leave. Sometimes these\ndistrict magistrates will go to any length to obtain moral support from\nthe politicians of the neighbourhood. They extort this as a sort of\nblackmail given in exchange for the electoral influence which they can\nbring to bear in their municipal capacity. They attach far less\nimportance to being quashed by the bench, than to the eventual support\nof the deputy. Those who come into their courts are the unfortunate\nvictims of these compromising arrangements which are giving the\nRepublican system a bad name.\"\n\nI think the Minister of Justice and his _procureur-general_ have very\nlittle ground for these lamentations. After all the minister only\ncomplains of having 9,000 applications for office. It would surely be\nquite easy for him, in compliance with the generally recognised\nprinciple, to choose those whose incompetence seems to be most thorough,\nor those who are most influentially supported, according to the\nprevailing custom.\n\nAs for the _procureur-general's_ sarcasms, which he thinks so witty,\nthey are quite delightfully diverting and ingenuous. \"It seems to be\ngenerally recognised that elective office, irrespective of all\nprofessional aptitude, is the normal means of access to a paid\nappointment.\" What else does he expect? It is eminently democratic that\nthe marked absence of professional capacity should single a man out for\nemployment. That is the very spirit of democracy. He surely does not\nthink that a man is an elector by reason of his legislative and\nadministrative capacity?\n\nIt is likewise essentially democratic that elective office should lead\nto paid appointments, for the democratic theory is that all office, paid\nand unpaid, should be elective. Why, this _procureur-general_ must be an\naristocrat!\n\nAs for the mutual services rendered by the justice, as mayor, to the\ndeputy, and by the deputy to the justice, this is democracy pure and\nsimple. The deputies distribute favours that they may be returned to\npower; the influential electors put all their interest, both personal\nand official, at the service of the deputies in order to obtain those\nfavours. They are hand in glove with each other, and form a solid\nunion of interests.\n\nWhat more does the _procureur-general_ want? Does he want a different\nsystem? If he wants another system, whatever else it may be, it will not\nbe democracy, or at least it will not be a democratic democracy. Nor\nhave I any idea what he means when he says the Republican system will\nget a bad name. The good name of the Republic depends upon its putting\ninto practice every democratic principle; and democratic principles have\ncertainly never been more precisely realised than in the preceding\nexample, which I have had great pleasure in rescuing from oblivion and\npresenting to the notice of sociologists.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nEXAMPLES OF INCOMPETENCE.\n\n\nI have already compared this, our desire to worship incompetence, to an\ninfectious disease. It has attacked the State at the very core, in its\nconstitution, and it is not surprising that it is spreading rapidly to\nthe customs and to the morals of the country.\n\nThe stage, we know, is an imitation of life. Life also, to perhaps an\neven greater extent, is an imitation of the stage. Similarly laws spring\nfrom morals, and morals spring from law. \"Men are governed by many\nthings,\" said Montesquieu, \"by climate, religion, laws, precept,\nexample, morals and manners, which act and react upon each other and all\ncombine to form a general temperament.\"\n\nMorals, more often than not, determine the nature of our laws,\nparticularly in a democracy, which is deplorable, but Montesquieu was\nright in saying: \"Morals take their colour from laws, and manners from\nmorals,\" for laws certainly \"help to form morals, manners\" and even\n\"national character.\" For instance in Rome under the Empire the code of\nmorals was to some extent the result of arbitrary power, as to-day the\nmoral character of the English is to some extent due to the laws and\nconstitution of their country.\n\nWe know that by his laws Peter the Great changed if not the character at\nleast the manners and customs of his people.\n\nCustom is the offspring of law, and morals are the offspring of custom.\nNational character is not really changed, for character, I believe, is a\nthing incapable of change, but it appears to be changed, and it\ncertainly undergoes some modifications; one set of tendencies is\nchecked, while others are encouraged.\n\nThe law abolishing the right of primogeniture has obviously affected\nnational morals, though it has not otherwise altered national character.\nFor a peculiar mental attitude is evolved by the constant domination of\nan elder brother, whose birthright gives him precedence and authority\nsecond only to that of the father. In countries where the right of\nunrestricted testamentary bequests is still maintained, family morals\nare very different from those which obtain where the child is\nconsidered a joint proprietor of the patrimony.\n\nSince the passing of the law permitting divorce, a sad but necessary\nevil, there have been far more applications for divorce than there ever\nwere for separation. Can this be accounted for solely by the fact that\nformerly it seemed hardly worth while to take steps to obtain the\nqualified freedom of separation? I think not. For when a yoke is\nunbearable, efforts to relax it would naturally be quite as strenuous\nand as unremitting as efforts to get rid of it altogether.\n\nThe truth is, I think, that when both civil and ecclesiastical law\nagreed in prohibiting divorce, people held a different view of marriage;\nit was looked upon as something sacred, as a tie that it was shameful to\nbreak, and that could not be broken except as a last resource and then\nalmost under pain of death. The law permitting divorce was what our\nforefathers would have called a \"legal indiscretion.\" It has abolished\nthe feeling of shame. Except where there is strong religious feeling,\nthere is now no scruple nor shame in seeking divorce. The old order has\npassed away; modesty has been superseded by a desire for liberty, or for\nanother union. This change has been brought about by a law which was the\nresult of a new moral code; but the law itself has helped to enlarge and\nexpand the code.\n\nThus democracy extends that love of incompetence which is its most\nimperious characteristic. Greek philosophers used to delight in\nimagining what morals, especially domestic morals, would be like under a\ndemocracy. They all vied with Aristophanes. One of Xenophon's characters\nsays: \"I am pleased with myself, because I am poor. When I was rich I\nhad to pay court to my calumniators, who knew full well that they could\nharm me more than I could them. Then the Republic was always imposing\nfresh taxes and I could not escape. Now that I am poor, I am invested\nwith authority; no one threatens me. I threaten others. I am free to\ncome and go as I choose. The rich rise at my approach and give me place.\nI was a slave, now I am a king; I used to pay tribute, now the State\nfeeds me. I no longer fear misfortunes, and I hope to acquire wealth.\"\n\nPlato too is quietly humorous at democracy's expense. \"This form of\ngovernment certainly seems the most beautiful of all, and the great\nvariety of types has an excellent effect. At first sight does it not\nappear a privilege most delightful and convenient that we cannot be\nforced to accept any public office however eligible we may be, that we\nneed not submit to authority and that every one of us can become a judge\nor magistrate as our fancy dictates? Is there not something delightful\nin the benevolence shown to criminals? Have you ever noticed how, in\nsuch a State as this, men condemned to death or exile remain in the\ncountry and walk abroad with the demeanour of heroes? See with what\ncondescension and tolerance democrats despise the maxims which we have\nbeen brought up from childhood to revere and associate with the welfare\nof the Republic. We believe that unless a man is born virtuous, he will\nnever acquire virtue, unless he has always lived in an environment of\nhonesty and probity and given it his earnest attention. See with what\ncontempt democrats trample these doctrines under foot and never stop to\nask what training a man has had for public office. On the contrary,\nanyone who merely professes zeal in the public interests is welcomed\nwith open arms. It is instantly assumed that he is quite disinterested.\n\n\"These are only a few of the many advantages of democracy. It is a\npleasant form of government _in which equality reigns among unequal as\nwell as among equal things_. Moreover, when a democratic State, athirst\nfor liberty, is controlled by unprincipled cupbearers, who give it to\ndrink of the pure wine of liberty and allow it to drink till it is\ndrunken, then if its rulers do not show themselves complaisant and allow\nit to drink its fill, they are accused and overthrown under the pretext\nthat they are traitors aspiring to an oligarchy; for the people prides\nitself on and loves the equality that confuses and will not distinguish\nbetween those who should rule and those who should obey. Is it any\nwonder that the spirit of licence, insubordination, and anarchy should\ninvade everything, even the institution of the family? Fathers learn to\ntreat their children as equals and are half afraid of them, while\nchildren neither fear nor respect their parents. All the citizens and\nresidents and even strangers aspire to equal rights of citizenship.\n\n\"Masters stand in awe of their disciples and treat them with the\ngreatest consideration and are jeered at for their pains. Young men want\nto be on the same terms as their elders and betters, and old men ape the\nmanners of the young, for fear of being thought morose and dictatorial.\nObserve too to what lengths of liberty and equality the relations\nbetween the sexes are carried. You would hardly believe how much freer\ndomestic animals are there than elsewhere. It is proverbial that little\nlap-dogs are on the same footing as their mistresses, or as horses and\nasses; they walk about with their noses in the air and get out of\nnobody's way.\"\n\nAristotle, faithless at this point to his favourite method of always\ncontradicting Plato, has no particular liking, as we have said, for\ndemocracy. He does not spare it though he does not imitate Plato's\nscathing sarcasm.\n\nIn the first place, Aristotle is frankly in favour of slavery, as was\nevery ancient philosopher except perhaps Seneca; but he is more\ninsistent on this point than anyone else, for he looks upon slavery, not\nas one of many foundations, but as the very foundation of society.\n\nHe considers artisans as belonging to a higher estate but still as a\nclass of \"half-slaves.\" He asserts as an historical fact that only\nextreme and decadent democracies gave them rights of citizenship, and\ntheoretically he maintains that no sound government would give them the\nfranchise of the city. \"Hence in ancient times, and among some nations,\nthe working classes had no share in the government--a privilege which\nthey only acquired under the extreme democracy.... Doubtless in ancient\ntimes and among some nations the artisan class were slaves or\nforeigners, and therefore the majority of them are so now. The best form\nof State will not admit them to citizenship....\"\n\nHe admits that democracy may be considered as a form of government (\"...\nif democracy be a real form of government....\"), and he admits too\nthat \"... multitudes, of which each individual is but an ordinary\nperson, when they meet together, may very likely be better than the few\ngood, if regarded not individually but collectively.... Hence the many\nare better judges than a single man of music and poetry; for some\nunderstand one part, and some another, and among them they understand\nthe whole. [Observe that he is still speaking of a democracy in which\nslaves and artisans are not citizens.] Doubtless too democracy is the\nmost tolerable of perverted governments, and Plato has already made\nthese distinctions, but his point of view is not the same as mine. For\nhe lays down the principle that of all good constitutions democracy is\nthe worst, but the best of bad ones.\" But still Aristotle cannot help\nthinking that democracy is a sociological mistake \"... It must be\nadmitted that we cannot raise to the rank of citizens all those, even\nthe most useful, who are necessary to the existence of the State.\"\n\nDemocracy has this drawback that it cannot constitutionally retain\nwithin itself and encourage eminent men. In a democracy \"if there be\nsome one person or more than one, although not enough to make up the\nwhole complement of a State, whose virtue is so pre-eminent that the\nvirtues or the capacity of all the rest admit of no comparison with his\nor theirs, he or they can be no longer regarded as part of a State; for\njustice will not be done to the superior, if he is reckoned only as the\nequal of those who are so far inferior to him in virtue and in political\ncapacity. Such an one may truly be deemed a God among men. Hence we see\nthat legislation is necessarily concerned only with those who are equal\nin birth and in power; and that for men of pre-eminent virtue there is\nno law--they are themselves a law. Anyone would be ridiculous who\nattempted to make laws for them: they would probably retort what, in the\nfable of Antisthenes, the lions said to the hares--'where are your\nclaws?'--when in the council of the beasts the latter began haranguing\nand claiming equality for all. And for this reason democratic States\nhave instituted ostracism; equality is above all things their aim, and\ntherefore they ostracise and banish from the city for a time those who\nseem to predominate too much through their wealth, or the number of\ntheir friends, or through any other political influence. Mythology tells\nus that the Argonauts left Heracles behind for a similar reason; the\nship Argo would not take him because she feared that he would have been\ntoo much for the rest of the crew.\"\n\nThrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus, asked Periander, the tyrant of\nCorinth, one of the seven sages of Greece, for advice on the art of\ngovernment. Periander made no reply but proceeded to bring a field of\ncorn to a level by cutting off the tallest ears. \"This is a policy not\nonly expedient for tyrants or in practice confined to them, but equally\nnecessary in oligarchies and democracies. Ostracism is a measure of the\nsame kind, which acts by disabling and banishing the most prominent\ncitizens.\"\n\nThis is what we may call a constitutional necessity for the democracy.\n\nTo be quite honest, it is not always obliged to cut off the ears of\ncorn. It has a simpler method. It can systematically prevent any man who\nbetrays any superiority whatsoever, either of birth, fortune, virtue or\ntalent, from obtaining any authority or social responsibility. It can\n\"send to Coventry.\" I have often pointed out that under the first\ndemocracy Louis XVI was guillotined for having wished to leave the\ncountry, while under the third democracy his great-nephews were exiled\nfor wishing to remain in it. Ostracism is, in these instances, still\nfeeling its way, and its action is contradictory because it has not made\nup its mind. This will continue till it has been reduced to a science,\nwhen it will contrive to level, by one method or another, every\nindividual eminence, great and small, that dares to vary by the merest\nfraction from the regulation standards. This is ostracism, and\nostracism, so to speak, is a physiological organ of democracy. Democracy\nby using it mutilates the nation, without it democracy would mutilate\nitself.\n\nAristotle often tries to solve the problem of the eminent man. \"Good\nmen,\" he says, \"differ from any individual of the many, as the beautiful\nare said to differ from those who are not beautiful, and works of art\nfrom realities, because in them the scattered elements are combined....\nWhether this principle can apply to every democracy and to all bodies of\nmen is not clear.... But there may be bodies of men about whom our\nstatement is nevertheless true. And if so, the difficulty which has been\nalready raised--viz., what power should be assigned to the mass of\nfreemen and citizens--is solved. There is still a danger in allowing\nthem to share the great offices of State, for their folly will lead them\ninto error and their dishonesty into crime. But there is a danger also\nin not letting them share, for a State in which many poor men are\nexcluded from office will necessarily be full of enemies. The only way\nof escape is to assign to them some deliberative and judicial\nfunctions.... But each individual left to himself, forms an imperfect\njudgment.\"\n\nIt is not only the eminent man that is the thorn in the flesh of\ndemocracies, but every form of superiority, whether individual or\ncollective, which exists outside the State and the Government.\n\nIf we recollect that Aristotle coupled extreme democracy with tyranny,\nit will be interesting to recall his summary of the \"ancient\nprescriptions for the preservation of a tyranny....\" \"The tyrant should\nlop off those who are too high; he must put to death men of spirit: he\nmust not allow common meals, clubs, education and the like; he must be\nupon his guard against anything which is likely to inspire either\ncourage or confidence among his subjects; he must prohibit literary\nassemblies or other meetings for discussion, and he must take every\nmeans to prevent people from knowing one another (for acquaintance\nbegets mutual confidence).\" Aristotle's conclusions are subjectively\naristocratic: \"In the perfect State there would be great doubts about\nthe use of ostracism, not when applied to excess in strength, wealth,\npopularity or the like, but when used against some one who is\npre-eminent in virtue. What is to be done with him? Mankind will not say\nthat such an one is to be expelled and exiled; on the other hand he\nought not to be a subject, that would be as if men should claim to rule\nover Zeus on the principle of rotation of office. The only alternative\nis that all should joyfully obey such a rule, according to what seems to\nbe the order of nature, and that men like him should be kings in their\nState for life.\" But when he speaks objectively, Aristotle comes to\nanother conclusion, which we shall have occasion to mention later on.\n\nAmong moderns, Rousseau declared that he was not a democrat, and he was\nright, because by democracy he meant the Athenian system of direct\ngovernment, of which he did not for an instant approve. In the \"Social\nContract\" he has drawn up a most detailed scheme, which, in spite of\nsome contradictions and obscure passages, is an exact description of\ndemocracy as we understand the word; but still we cannot tell if he is\nactually a democrat, because we do not know what he means by \"citizens,\"\nwhether he means everybody or only one class, though that a numerous\none. Rousseau has written more fully than anyone else, not so much of\nthe influence of democracy on morals, as of the _coincidence_ between\ndemocracy and good morals. Equality, frugality and simplicity can all be\nfound, according to Rousseau, in States where there is neither royalty\nnor aristocracy nor plutocracy. As I understand it, his meaning is that\nthe same virtue which makes certain nations love equality, frugality and\nsimplicity is also productive of a form of government which excludes\naristocracy, plutocracy and royalty. If you have simplicity, frugality\nand equality, you will probably live in a republic that is democratic or\nvirtually democratic. This is, I think, the clearest and most impartial\nsummary that we can make of Rousseau's doctrine, which, though set forth\nin rigid formulae, is still extremely vague.\n\nIn this he is a far more faithful follower of Montesquieu than he will\nallow. All that I have quoted is to be found literally in Montesquieu's\nchapters on democracy. Even his famous saying, \"the ruling principle of\ndemocracy is virtue,\" means, when he uses it in one sense, no more than\nthat it is the synthesis of these three perfections, equality,\nsimplicity and frugality. For Montesquieu sometimes uses \"virtue\" in a\nnarrow, and sometimes in a broad sense, sometimes in the sense of\npolitical and civic virtue or patriotism, sometimes in the sense of\nvirtue properly speaking (simplicity, frugality, thrift, equality). In\nthis latter case he and Rousseau are absolutely agreed.\n\nMontesquieu only considers democracy in decadence, as his custom is in\nrespect of other forms of government, and though he does not actually\ncite Plato, he really gives the substance of what we have already\nquoted. \"When the people wishes to do the work of the magistrates, the\ndignity of the office disappears and when the deliberations of the\nSenate carry no weight, neither senators nor old men are treated with\nrespect. When old men do not receive respect, fathers cannot expect it\nfrom their children, husbands from their wives, nor masters from their\nmen. At length everyone will learn to rejoice in this untrammelled\nliberty, and will grow as weary of commanding as of obeying. Women,\nchildren and slaves will submit to no authority. There will be an end of\nmorals, no more love of order, no more virtue.\"\n\nNow as to this transition, this passage from the public morals of a\ndemocracy to the private, domestic, personal morals which exist under\nthat form of government, have you observed what is the common root of\nour failings both public and private? The common root of both is\nmisunderstanding, forgetfulness and contempt of competence. If pupils\ndespise their masters, young men despise old men, if wives do not\nrespect their husbands and the unenfranchised do not respect the\ncitizens, if the condemned do not stand in awe of their judges, nor sons\nin awe of their parents, the principle of efficiency has vanished.\nPupils no longer admit the scientific superiority of their teachers,\nyoung men have no regard for the experience of the old, women will not\nrecognise the supremacy of their husbands in practical matters, the\nunenfranchised have no sense of the superiority of the citizens from the\npoint of view of national tradition, the condemned do not feel the moral\nsupremacy of their judges, and sons do not realise the scientific,\npractical, civic and moral superiority of their fathers.\n\nIndeed, why should they? How could we expect these feelings to be of\nanything but the most transient description since the State itself is\norganised on a basis of contempt for competence, or of what is even\nworse, a reverence for incompetence, and an insatiable craving for the\nguidance and government of the incompetent?\n\nThus public morals have a great influence on private morals; and\ngradually into family and social life there comes that laxity in the\ndaily relations of the citizens which Plato has wittily termed,\n\"equality between things that are equal and those that are not.\"\n\nThe first innovation which democracy brings into family life is the\nequality of the sexes, and this is followed by woman's disrespect for\nman. This idea, be it admitted, is substantially correct, it only ceases\nto be true when it is viewed relatively to the varying competences of\nthe two sexes. Woman is man's equal in cerebral capacity, and in\ncivilised societies, where intellect is the only thing that matters, the\nwoman is the equal of the man. She should be admitted to the same\nemployments as men in society, and under the same conditions of capacity\nand education, but in family life the same rules should apply as in\nevery other enterprise; (1) division of labour according to the\ncompetence of each; (2) recognition of a leader according to the\ncompetence of each. This is the law which women are constantly led to\nmisunderstand in a democracy. They will not admit the principle of the\ndivision of labour either in the world at large or in the domestic\ncircle. They try to encroach upon men's work, which perhaps they might\ndo very successfully, if they were obliged to do it and had nothing else\nat all to do; but which they really spoil by undertaking when they have\nother obvious duties to perform. They will not admit that men should be\nat the head of affairs; they aspire to be not only partners but managing\ndirectors. This implies a contemptuous rejection of that form of social\ncompetence which comes from the acceptance of convention or contract. No\ndoubt a woman would be just as good a tax-collector as her husband, but\nsince they have entered into partnership, the one to administer the\ncollection of taxes, the other to look after the house, it is just as\nbad for the one whose business it is to keep house to begin collecting\ntaxes, as it is for the tax-collector to interfere with the\nhousekeeping. It is necessary to respect the efficiency that arises out\nof the observance of convention and contract. This, with practice and\nexperience, will quickly become a very real and a very valuable\nefficiency, but if thwarted from outside will lead to friction,\ninsecurity and disorganisation.\n\nIt is particularly by their contempt, which they are at no pains to\ndisguise, for the competence that comes from contract and later from\nhabit, by their refusal to recognise the position of the head of the\nfamily, that women every day and in every minute particular are training\ntheir children to despise their father. Democracy seems bent on bringing\nup its children to despise their parents. No other construction can be\nput upon the facts, however good and innocent the motives. Just sum up\nthe facts. In the first place democracy denies that the living can be\nguided by the dead; it is one of its fundamental axioms that no\ngeneration should be tied and bound by its predecessor. What inference\ncan children be expected to draw from this except that they owe no\nobedience to their father and mother?\n\nChildren have naturally only too great a tendency to look down on their\nparents. They are proud of their physical superiority; they know that\ntheir star is rising while that of their parents is setting. They are\nimbued with the universal prejudice of modern humanity that _progress is\nconstant_ and that therefore whatever is of yesterday is _ex hypothesi_\ninferior to that which is of to-day. They are driven also, as I am\nconstrained to believe, by a sort of Nemesis inspired by fear lest human\nscience and power should hurry forward too fast if the children were\ncontent to pick up the burden of life where their parents left it, and\nsimply followed their fathers and did not insist on effacing all that\ntheir fathers had done and beginning again--with the result that the\nedifice never rises far above its foundations, and that children for\nthis and other reasons have a natural inclination to treat their parents\nas Cassandras. Then, as it were to clench the argument, democracy is\nready with its teaching that each generation is independent of the\nother, and that the dead have no lesson to impart to the living.\n\nIn the second place, democracy, applying the principle still further and\nproclaiming the doctrine that the State is master of all, withdraws the\nchild from the family, as often and as completely as it can.\n\"Democracy,\" said Socrates, in one of his humorous dialogues, \"is a\nmountebank, a kidnapper of children. It snatches the child from its\nfamily while he is playing, takes him far away, allows him no more to\nsee his family, teaches him many strange languages, drills him till his\njoints are supple, paints his face and dresses him in ridiculous\nclothes, and imparts to him all the mysteries of the acrobat's trade\nuntil he is sufficiently dexterous to appear in public and amuse the\ncompany by his tricks.\"\n\nAt all events democracy is determined to take the child away from his\nfamily, to give him the education which it has chosen and not that which\nthe parents have chosen, and to teach him that he must not believe what\nhis parents teach him. It denies the competence of parents to rear their\nchildren and puts forward its own competence, asserting that it is only\nits own that has any value.\n\nThis is one of the principal causes of the divisions between fathers\nand children in a democracy.\n\nYou may retort that democracy does not always succeed in its efforts to\nseparate children from their parents, because there is nothing to\nprevent the children extending the contempt, which for such excellent\nreasons they have been taught to entertain for their parents, to their\nState-appointed teachers.\n\nThis is a most pertinent observation, for the general maxims of\ndemocracy are just as likely to make pupils despise their masters as to\nmake sons despise their fathers. The master, too, represents in the eyes\nof his pupil that past which has no connection with the present and\nwhich by the law of progress is very inferior to the present. This is\ntrue; but the end of all is that between the school which counteracts\nthe influence of the parents and the home which counteracts the\ninfluence of the school, the child becomes a personage who is never\neducated at all. He is in like case with a child who in the family\nitself receives lessons, and what is more important, example, from a\nmother who is religious and from a father who is an atheist. He is not\neducated, he has had no sort of education. The only real education,\nthat is to say, the only transmission to the children of the ideas of\ntheir parents consists of an education at home which is reinforced by\nthe instruction of masters chosen by the parents in accordance with\ntheir own views. This is precisely the form of education to which\ndemocracy refuses to be reconciled.\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a still more cogent reason why old men are neither respected\nnor honoured in a democracy. Here is yet another efficiency formally\ndenied and formally set aside. An interesting treatise might be written\non the rise and fall of old men. Civilization has not been kind to them.\nIn primitive times, as among savage races to-day, old men were kings.\nGerontocracy, that is, government by the aged, is the most ancient form\nof government. It is easy to understand why this should be. In primitive\nages, all knowledge was experience and the old men possessed all the\nhistorical, social and political experience of the State. They were held\nin great honour and listened to with the profoundest respect and\nveneration, in fact with an almost superstitious reverence. Nietzsche\nwas thinking of those days when he said: \"Respect for the aged is the\nsymbol of aristocracy,\" and when he added: \"Respect for the aged is\nrespect for tradition,\" he was thinking of the reason for this\nassumption. That the dead should rule the living was accepted\ninstinctively, and it was their nearness to death which evoked honour\nfor the aged.\n\nAt a later stage the old man shared in the civil government with\nmonarchy, aristocracy or oligarchy, and retained an almost complete\ncontrol of judicial affairs. His moral and technical efficiency were\nstill appreciated. His moral efficiency to his contemporaries consisted\nin the fact that his passions were deadened and his judgment as\ndisinterested as was humanly possible. Even his obstinacy is rather an\nadvantage than otherwise. He is not liable to whims and fancies and\nsudden gusts of temper or to external influence. His technical\nefficiency is considerable, because he has seen and remembered much and\nhis mind has unconsciously drawn up a reference book of cases. As\nhistory repeats itself with very slight alterations, every fresh case\nwhich arises is already well known to him; it does not take him by\nsurprise and he has a solution at hand which only requires very slight\nmodification.\n\nAll this, however, is very ancient history. That which undermined the\nauthority of old men was the book. Books contain all science, equity,\njurisprudence and history better, it must be confessed, than the\nmemories of old men. One fine day the young men said: \"The old men were\nour books; now that we have books we have no further need for old men.\"\n\nThis was a mistake; the knowledge which is accumulated in books can\nnever be anything but the handmaiden of living science, the science\nwhich is being constantly remodelled and corrected by living thought. A\nbook is a wise man paralysed; the wise man is a book which still thinks\nand writes.\n\nThese ideas did not hold; the book superseded the old man, and the old\nman no longer was a library to the nation.\n\nLater still, for various reasons, the old men drifted from a position of\nrespect to one of ridicule. Undoubtedly they lend themselves to this;\nthey are obstinate, foolish, prosy, boring, crotchety and unpleasant to\nlook upon. Comic writers poked fun at these failings which are only too\nself-evident and showered ridicule upon them. Then as the majority of\naudiences is composed of young men, first of all because there are more\nyoung men than old, and secondly because old men do not often go to the\ntheatre, authors of comic plays were certain of raising a laugh by\nturning old men into ridicule, or rather by exposing only their\nridiculous characteristics.\n\nAt Athens and at Rome and probably elsewhere, the old man was one of the\nprincipal grotesque characters. These things, as Rousseau pointed out,\nhave a great effect upon morals. Once the old man became a recognised\ntraditional stage-butt, his social authority had come to an end. In the\n_de Senectute_ it is obvious that Cicero is running counter to the\nstream in seeking to restore to favour a character about whom the public\nis indifferent and for whom all he can do is to plead extenuating\ncircumstances.\n\nIt is a remarkable fact that even in mediaeval epics, Charlemagne\nhimself, the emperor of the flowing beard, often plays a comic part. The\nepic is invaded by the atmosphere of the fable.\n\nDuring the Renaissance, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the\nold man is generally, though not invariably, held up to ridicule.\n\nMoliere takes his lead from Aristophanes and Plautus rather than from\nTerence and is the scourge of old age as well as \"the scourge of the\nridiculous\"; he pursues the old as a hound his prey and never leaves\nthem in peace either in his poetry or his prose.\n\nWe must do this much justice to Rousseau that both he and his child, the\nRevolution, tried to restore the old man to his former glory; he makes\nhonourable mention of him in his writings, and she gives him important\nposts in public ceremonies and national fetes. Therein were received the\nancient memories of Lacedaemon and of early Rome, combined with a form of\nreaction against the days of Louis XIV and Louis XV.\n\nBut with the triumph of democracy the old man was finally banished to\nthe limbo of discredited things. Montesquieu's advice was quite\nforgotten (see the context Laws, v, 8). He said that _in a democracy_\n\"nothing kept the standard of morals so high as that young men should\nvenerate the old. Both profit by it, the young because they respect the\nold, and the old because they are confirmed in their respect for\nthemselves\" (for the respect of the young is an assistance to the\nself-respect of the aged).\n\nDemocracy has forgotten this advice, because it no longer believes in\ntradition and believes too much in progress. Old men are the natural\nupholders of tradition, and we must confess that an enthusiastic faith\nin the value of what we call progress is not commonly their failing. For\nthis very reason their influence would be a most wholesome corrective to\nthe system, or rather to the attitude of mind, which despises the past\nand sees in every change a step in the path of progress. But democracy\nwill not allow that it needs a corrective, and the old man, to it, is\nonly an enemy. The old man upholds tradition and has no enthusiasm for\nprogress, but beyond this he appeals for respect, first for himself,\nthen for religion, for glory, for his country and for the history of his\nnation. Democracy is indifferent to the sentiment of respect, or rather\nit lives in constant fear that the sentiment may be applied elsewhere.\n\nThen what does democracy want for itself?\n\nNot respect, but adoration, passion, devotion. We all like to see our\nown sentiments as to ourselves repeated in the minds of others. The\ncrowd never respects, it loves, it yields to passion, enthusiasm,\nfanaticism. It never respects even that which it loves.\n\nIt is quite natural that the masses should not care for old men. The\nmasses are young. How aptly does Horace's description of the young man\napply to the people!\n\n\n  _Imberbis juvenis, tandem custode remoto\n  Gaudet equis, canibusque et aprici gramine campi;\n  Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper,\n  Utilium tardus provisor, prodigus aeris,\n  Sublimis, cupidusque et amata relinquere pernix._\n\n\n\"Once free from the control of his tutors, the young man thinks of\nnothing but horses, dogs and the Campus Martius, impressionable as wax\nto every temptation, impatient of correction, unthrifty, extravagant,\npresumptuous and light of love.\"\n\nAt all events respect has no meaning for the crowd, and when it rules,\nwe cannot from its example learn the lessons of respect. Democracy has\nno love for the old; and it is interesting to note that the word\ngerontocracy to which the ancients attached the most honourable meaning\nis now only a term of ridicule, and is applied only to a government\nwhich, because it is in the hands of old men, is therefore grotesque.\n\n              *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis disappearance of respect, noted as we have seen by Plato, Aristotle\nand Montesquieu as a morbid system, is, regard it how we will, a fact of\nthe gravest import. Kant has asked the question, what must we obey? What\ncriterion is there to tell us what to obey? What is there within us\nwhich commands respect, which does not ask for love or fear, but for\nrespect alone? He has given us the answer. The feeling of respect is the\nonly thing that we can trust, and that will never fail us.\n\nIn society the only feelings we obey are those which win our respect,\nand the men to whom we listen, and whom we honour, are those who inspire\nrespect. This is the only criterion which enables us to gauge correctly\nthe men and things to whom we owe, if not absolute obedience, at least\nattention and deference. Old men are the nation's conscience, and it is\na conscience at times severe, morose, tiresome, obstinate,\nover-scrupulous, dictatorial, and it repeats for ever the same old saws;\nin other words a conscience; but conscience it is.\n\nThe comparison might be carried further with results that would be\nadvantageous as well as curious. We degrade and finally vitiate our\nconscience if we do not respect its behests. Conscience then itself\nbecomes small and timid and humble, shamefaced, and at length a mere\nwhisper. Absolutely silent it can never be made.\n\nIt becomes sophisticated, it begins to employ the language of passion,\nnot of the vilest passions of our nature, but still the voice of\npassion; it ceases to use the categoric imperative and tries to be\npersuasive. It no longer raises the finger of command, but it seeks to\ncajole with caressing hand.\n\nThen it falls still lower, it affects indifference and scepticism and it\nputs on the air of the trifler in order to insinuate a word of wisdom\ninto the seductive talk that is heard around it, and it holds language\nsomewhat as follows: \"Probably everything has its good points and there\nis something to be said for both vice and virtue, crime and honesty, sin\nand innocence, rudeness and politeness, licence and purity. These are\nall simply different forms of an activity which cannot be wholly wrong\nin any of its manifestations; and it is precisely because every one of\nthese has its value that there may be nothing to lose in being honest,\nnay, perhaps something to gain.\"\n\nNevertheless, a nation that does not respect its old men changes their\nnature and despoils them of their beauty and integrity. How true is\nMontesquieu's saying that the respect paid them by the young helps old\nmen to respect themselves! Old men who are not respected take no\ninterest in their natural duties; they cease to advise, or else they\nonly venture to advise indirectly, as though they were apologising for\ntheir wisdom, or they affect a laxity of morals to enable them to\ninsinuate a surreptitious dose of worldly wisdom;--and worst of all in\nview of the insignificant part assigned to them in society, old men will\nnowadays decline to be old.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nMANNERS.\n\n\nIf the worship of incompetence reverberates with a jarring note through\nour domestic morals, it has an effect hardly less harmful on the social\nrelations of men in the wider theatre of public life. We often ask why\npoliteness is out of date, and everyone replies with a smile: \"This is\ndemocratic.\" So it is, but why should it be? Montesquieu remarks that\n\"to cast off the conventions of civility is to seek a method for putting\nour faults at their ease.\" He adds the rather subtle distinction that\n\"politeness flatters the vices of others, and civility prevents us from\ndisplaying our own. It is a barrier raised by men to prevent them from\ncorrupting each other.\" That which flatters vice can hardly be called\npoliteness, but is rather adulation. Civility and politeness are only\nslightly different in degree; civility is cold and very respectful,\npoliteness has a suggestion of flattery. It graciously draws into\nevidence the good qualities of our neighbour, not his failings, much\nless his vices.\n\nThere is no doubt that civility and politeness are a delicate means of\nshowing respect to our fellow-men, and of communicating a wish to be\nrespected in turn. These things then are barriers, but barriers from\nwhich we derive support, which separate and strengthen us, but which,\nthough holding us apart, do not keep us estranged from our neighbours.\n\nIt is also very true that if we release ourselves from these rules,\nwhether they are civility or politeness, we set our faults at liberty.\nThe basis of civility and politeness is respect for others and respect\nfor ourselves. As Abbe Barthelemy has very justly remarked: \"In the\nfirst class of citizens is to be found a spirit of decorum which makes\nit evident that men respect themselves, and a spirit of politeness which\nmakes it evident that they also respect others.\" This is what Pascal\nmeant by saying that respect is our own inconvenience, and he explains\nit thus, that to stand when our neighbour is seated, to remove our hat\nwhen he is covered, though trifling acts of courtesy, are tokens of the\nefforts we would willingly make on his behalf if an opportunity of being\nreally serviceable to him presented itself.\n\nPoliteness is a mark of respect and a promise of devotion.\n\nAll this is anti-democratic, because democracy does not recognise any\nsuperiority, and therefore has no sympathy with respect and personal\ndevotion. Respect to others involves a recognition from us that we are\nof less importance than they, and politeness to an equal requires from\nus a courteous affectation that we consider him as our superior. This is\nentirely contrary to the democratic ideal, which asserts that there is\nno superiority anywhere. As for pretending to treat your equal as though\nhe were your superior, that involves a double hypocrisy, because it\nrequires a reciprocal hypocrisy on the part of your neighbour. You\npraise his wit, only in order that he may return the compliment.\n\nWithout, however, insisting on this point, democracy will argue that\npoliteness is to be deprecated, because it not only recognises but\nactually creates superiority. It treats an equal as a superior, as\nthough there were not enough discrepancies already without inventing\nany more. It seems to imply that if inequality did not exist, it would\nbe necessary to invent it. It is tantamount to proclaiming that there\ncannot be too much aristocracy. That is an opinion which democracy\ncannot endure.\n\nConsidered as a promise of future devotion, politeness is equally\nanti-democratic. The citizen owes no devotion to any person, he owes it\nonly to the community. It is no small matter to style yourself \"your\nmost humble servant\"; it means that you single out one man from among\nmany others and promise to serve him; it means that you acknowledge in\nhim some natural or social superiority, and according to democracy there\nare no superiorities, social or natural, and if there were such a thing\nas natural superiority, nature has no business to allow it. This is\ntantamount to proclaiming a form of vassalage--a thing which is not to\nbe tolerated.\n\nAs to the absence of politeness considered as \"a means of giving free\nplay to one's feelings,\" we recognise that in one sense this also is\nessentially democratic. The democrat is not proud of or pleased with his\nfaults; not at all; only _ex hypothesi_ he does not believe in their\nexistence. A failing is an inferiority of one man in relation to\nanother; the word itself implies it; it means that something is lacking,\nthat one man has a thing which another has not. But all men are equal,\ntherefore, argues the democrat, I have no failing; therefore I need not\ntry to conceal and control my alleged failings, as they are at worst\nmerely mannerisms, and are possibly virtues.\n\nThe democrat, in fact, like young men, like most women, and like all\nhuman beings who have begun to think but do not think very profoundly,\nknows his failings and assumes that they are virtues. This is very\nnatural, for our faults are the most conspicuous parts of our character,\nand when we are still at the self-satisfied stage it is our faults that\nwe cherish and admire. Consequently, politeness, in that it consists in\nconcealing our faults, is intolerable to a man who is impatient to\ndisplay qualities that to him appear commendable and worthy. The usual\nreason why we do not correct our faults is that we mistake them for\nqualities, and think that any practice which requires their concealment\nmust be quite absurdly tyrannical.\n\nThe democrat is therefore profoundly convinced of two things; first,\nthat all men are equal and that there is no such thing as inferiority or\nfailing, and secondly, that what men call faults are really natural\ncharacteristics of great interest. He believes that faults are popular\nprejudices invented by intriguers, priests, nobles and rulers, for their\nown base purposes to inspire the poor with humility. He looks upon this\nsense of inferiority as a curb on the people's power, all the more\npotent that it works from within and has a paralysing effect on its\nenergy. He is persuaded that, from this point of view, politeness is an\naristocratic instrument of tyranny.\n\nThis explains why, when the wave of democracy swept over France, it\nbrought with it a perfect frenzy of rudeness, all the more curious in a\nnation remarkable for courtesy. It was an affirmation that, appearances\nnotwithstanding, neither superiorities nor excellences of human\ncharacter had any real existence.\n\nRudeness is democratic.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nPROFESSIONAL CUSTOMS.\n\n\nThe contempt for efficiency is carried far even in the liberal\nprofessions and in professional customs. We all know the story, perhaps\na mythical one, of the judge who said to an earnest young barrister who\nwas conscientiously elaborating a question of law: \"Now, Mr. So and So,\nwe are not here to discuss questions of law but to settle this\nbusiness.\" He did not say this by way of jest; he wished to say: \"The\ncourts no longer deliver judgment on the merits of a case according to\nlaw, but according to equity and common sense. The intricacies of the\nlaw are left to professors, so please when conducting a case do not\nbehave like a professor of law.\" This theory, which even in this mild\nform would have horrified the ancients, is very prevalent nowadays in\nlegal circles. It has crept in as an infiltration, as one might call it,\nfrom the democratic system.\n\nA magistrate, nowadays, whatever remnant of the ancient feeling of caste\nhe may have retained, certainly does not consider himself bound by the\nletter of the law, or by jurisprudence, the written tradition; when he\nis anything more than a subordinate with no other idea of duty than\nsubservience to the Government, he is a democratic magistrate, a Heliast\nof Athens; he delivers judgment according to the dictates of his\nindividual conscience; he does not consider himself as a member of a\nlearned body, bound to apply the decisions of that body, but as an\nindependent exponent of the truth.\n\nAn eccentric, but in truth very significant, example of the new attitude\nof mind is to be found in the judge, who formally attributed to himself\nthe right to make law and who in his judgments made references, not to\nexisting laws, but to such vague generalities as appealed to him, or to\ndoctrines which he prophesied would _later on_ be embodied in the law.\nHis Code was the Code of the future.\n\nThe mere existence of such a man is of no particular importance, but the\nfact that many people, even those partially enlightened, took him\nseriously, that he was popular, and that a considerable faction thought\nhim a good judge, is most significant.\n\nThere is another much commoner sign of the times. The worst form of\nincompetence is perhaps that which allows a man to be competent without\nrealising it, and, in criminal cases at least, this seems to be the\nnormal attitude of the majority of our magistrates.\n\nWe should read on this point a very curious pamphlet called _Le Pli\nProfessionnel_ (1909), by Marcel Lestranger, a provincial magistrate. It\nis very pertinent to our subject. It shows plainly that the magistracy\nnowadays, both the qualified stipendiaries and the bench of magistrates,\nhas lost all confidence in itself and is terrified of public opinion as\nrepresented by newspapers, associations, political clubs and the man in\nthe street; the magistrate knows too, or thinks he knows, that promotion\ndepends, not on a reputation for severity as it used to do, but on a\nreputation for indulgence.\n\nHe is confronted in the execution of his duty by forces which are always\nin coalition against him; the public, almost always favourable to the\naccused, the press, both local and Parisian, the so-called science of\njudicial medicine, which is almost always disposed to consider the\naccused as persons not responsible for their actions. He lives, too, in\nconstant terror of being mixed up in a miscarriage of justice, for\nmiscarriage of justice is now a sort of craze, and with a considerable\nsection of the public every conviction is a miscarriage of justice. And\nso the magistrate of first instance never dares to sum up severely, and\nthe stipendiary never dares press his interrogations with firmness.\n\nThere are exceptions of course; but these exceptions, by the\nastonishment which they excite, and by the reaction to which they give\nrise, show sufficiently, indeed conclusively, that they are abnormal,\noutside the new order of things, outside the new habits of the people.\n\nMore often than not the subordinate magistrate, whose business it is to\ncommit the prisoner for trial, acts with timidity and reserve,\napologetically attenuating the crime; he leaves loopholes of escape,\nappeals in audible asides for indulgence, dwells on the uncertainty of\nevidence. He demands indeed the prisoner's head but lives in terror lest\nhe obtain it.\n\nThe fact is what both he and the stipendiary desire is that the affair\nshould be settled by an acquittal, for an affair settled by an\nacquittal is an affair buried. Stone-dead has no fellow; it is consigned\nto oblivion. It can never be made the sort of affair which someone is\nsure to declare is a miscarriage of justice, or which someone, animated\nby private and political spite or merely for the sake of a jest, can\nmake into a ghost to haunt for ten or even fifteen years the unfortunate\nmagistrate who had to deal with it.\n\nM. Lestranger tells a story which, from all the information I can glean\nand from what I can remember hearing at the time, is absolutely true and\na perfect illustration of thousands of similar cases.\n\nA poacher, aged nineteen, first outraged and then strangled in the woods\na peasant woman, the mother of a family. On this occasion there could be\nno question of a miscarriage of justice or even of any suggestion of\nsuch a thing, because the prisoner pleaded guilty. That is a great\npoint. In France every conviction that is not based upon the prisoner's\nconfession is a miscarriage of justice; but when the prisoner pleads\nguilty there can be no incriminations of this sort, although there might\nbe, for false confessions are not unknown, but nothing of the sort is\never put forward, and the case seemed to be quite straightforward.\n\nBut the magistrates were terrified that the prisoner would be condemned\nto death. The crime was horrible, particularly in the eyes of a village\njury, whose wives and daughters were often obliged to work some distance\nfrom the village. Moreover, there was a tiresome man, the widower of the\nvictim, thirsting for vengeance, who sang the praises of his wife and\nbrought his weeping son into court while he gave his evidence. The\npresident and the public prosecutor were in despair.\n\n\"I have done all I can,\" said the president to the public prosecutor. \"I\nhave made the most of his youth. I have repeated 'only nineteen years of\nage.' I have indeed done all I can.\"\n\n\"I have done all I can,\" said the public prosecutor to the president. \"I\nhave not said a word about the punishment. I merely accused. I could not\nplead for the defence. I have done my best.\"\n\nAt the close of the hearing the chief constable was very reassuring to\nthese gentlemen. \"He is under twenty and he looked so respectable at\nthe enquiry. It is quite impossible that he should be condemned to death\nin this quiet village. You will see, he will not be sentenced to capital\npunishment.\"\n\nHe was not. The jury brought in a verdict of guilty with extenuating\ncircumstances. The magistrates recovered their tranquillity.\n\nM. Lestranger's facts are supported by figures. Those who commit crimes\nwhich excite pity, such as infanticide and abortion, are less and less\nlikely to be prosecuted, and if they are, they are frequently let off,\nhowever flagrant the offence. The average number of acquittals during\nthe last twelve years is twenty-six per cent. A magistrate nowadays is a\nSt. Francis of Assize.\n\nEither the magistrate does not believe in his own efficiency, or he\nsacrifices it to his peace of mind, and he cares more for his own peace\nof mind than for the public safety. The magistracy will soon be no more\nthan a _facade_, still imposing but not at all alarming.\n\nThere is already a very serious symptom of how little confidence the\ncrowd has in the wholesome severities of justice; the criminal caught in\nthe act is often lynched or almost lynched, because it is well known\nthat if he is not punished immediately, he is very likely to escape\npunishment altogether.\n\n--Yet this same crowd, in the form of a jury, is often, almost always,\nvery indulgent.--True, and that is because between the crime and the\nassizes there is often an interval of six months. At the date of the\ncrime it is the misfortune of the victim that excites the crowd, at the\ndate of the assize it is the misfortune of the accused. Be this as it\nmay, the practice of lynching amounts to a formal accusation that both\nmagistrates and juries are over indulgent.\n\n                *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe clergy even, who are more tenacious of tradition than any other\norder in the State, are gradually becoming democratic to this extent,\nthat though by profession teachers of dogmas and mysteries, they now\nteach only morality. In this way they try to get into closer touch with\nthe poor, and so have a greater hold upon them. Evidently they are not\naltogether to blame. Only, when they cease to teach dogma and interpret\nmysteries, they cease to be a learned body or to have the prestige of a\nlearned body. On the other hand they sink to the level of any other\nphilosophy, which teaches and explains morality, and illustrates it by\nsacred examples just as well as any priesthood. The result is that the\npeople say to themselves \"What need have we of priests? Moral\nphilosophers are good enough for us.\"\n\nThis Americanism is not very dangerous, in fact it does not matter, in\nAmerica, where there are very few lay moral philosophers; but it is a\nvery great danger in France, Italy and Belgium where their name is\nlegion.\n\n                *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn every profession, to sum it all up, the root of the evil is this,\nthat we believe that mere dexterity and cunning are incomparably\nsuperior to knowledge and that cleverness is infinitely more valuable\nthan sound learning. Those who follow professions believe this, and the\nlay public that employs the professions is not dismayed by this attitude\nof the professional class; and so things tend to that equality of\ncharlatanry to which democracy instinctively tends. Democracy does not\nrespect efficiency, but it soon will have no opportunity to respect it;\nfor efficiency is being destroyed and before long will have disappeared\naltogether. There will soon be no difference between the judge and the\nsuitor, between the layman and the priest, the sick man and the\nphysician. The contempt which is felt for efficiency destroys it little\nby little, and efficiency, accepting the situation, outruns the contempt\nthat is felt for it. The end will be that we shall all be only too much\nof one opinion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nATTEMPTED REMEDIES.\n\n\nWe have sought very conscientiously, and democrats themselves have\nsought very conscientiously, to find remedies for this constitutional\ndisease of democracy. We have preserved certain bodies, relatively\naristocratic, as refuges, we would fain believe, of efficiency. We have\npreserved for instance a Senate, elected by universal suffrage, not\ndirectly, but in the second degree. We have preserved also a Parliament\n(a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies), a floating aristocracy which is\ncontinually being renewed. This is, however, in a sense an aristocracy\ninasmuch as it stands between us and a direct and immediate government\nof the people by the people.\n\nThese remedies are by no means to be despised, but we recognise that\nthey are very feeble, for the reason that democracy always eludes them.\nBy the care it takes to exclude efficiency, it has made the Chamber of\nDeputies (with some few exceptions) a body resembling itself with\nabsolute fidelity both in respect of the superficial character of its\nknowledge and the violence of its prejudices; with the result in my\nopinion that the crowd might just as well govern directly and, without\nthe intervention of representatives, by means of the plebiscite.\n\nThe same thing applies to the Senate, though perhaps in a more direct\nfashion. The Senate is chosen by the delegates of universal suffrage.\nThese delegates, however, are not chosen by a general universal suffrage\nwhere each department would choose four or five hundred delegates, but\nby the town councillors of each commune or parish. In these communes,\nespecially in the rural communes, the municipal councillors who are by\nfar the most numerous and, with regard to elections, the most\ninfluential, are more or less completely dependent on the _prefets_. The\nresult is that the Senate is, practically, chosen by the _prefets_, that\nis, by the Government, as used to be the case under the First and Second\nEmpire. The maker of the constitution made this arrangement for the\nbenefit of his own party, for he upheld authority; and he wanted the\nCentral Government to control the elections of the Senate. It has not\nturned out as he intended. _Vos non vobis_, others have profited by his\ndevice, as the following considerations will show.\n\nIt is well known that in France a deputy belonging to the opposition,\nthough sure of his constituents, and certain to be re-elected\nindefinitely, who for private reasons wishes to be a senator, is obliged\nto be civil to the Government in power, to abate his opposition, and to\nmake himself pleasant, if he wishes to avoid failure in his new\nambition. It is very inconvenient to have a strong and active opposition\nin the Senate.\n\nIt comes back again to this, that we have a Senate not far removed from\none elected by universal suffrage.\n\nUniversal suffrage elects the Chamber of Deputies, the Chamber elects\nthe Government, and the Government elects the Senate. The Senate is\ntherefore an extremely feeble anti-democratic remedy, and if it were\nintended as a check on democracy, it has not been a striking success.\n\nIf we really wish to have an upper chamber as competent as possible,\nindependent of the central authority, and relatively independent of\nuniversal suffrage, we must establish a chamber elected by the great\nconstituent bodies of the nation, and also in my opinion, by universal\nsuffrage, but with modifications somewhat as follows. The whole nation,\ndivided for practical purposes into five or six large districts, should\nelect five or six thousand delegates who in turn should elect three\nhundred senators. There would then be no pressure from Government nor\nany manufacture by the crowd of a representation fashioned in its own\nimage, and we should have a really select body composed of as much\ncompetence as could be got in the country.\n\nIt is, however, exactly the opposite of this that is done, and the\nFrench Senate is an extremely feeble, anti-democratic remedy.\n\nIt represents the rural democracy, arbitrarily guided and governed by\nthe democratic Government.\n\n               *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnother remedy which has been given an equally conscientious trial is\nthe system of competitive examination, which is supposed to be a\nguarantee for the ability of those who seek admission into government\nservice. The object of these examinations, which are extremely detailed\nand complicated, is to test the ability of the candidate in every\nparticular, to give employment to merit and to exclude favouritism.\n\n--You call that an anti-democratic remedy! It is as democratic as well\ncan be!--\n\nNay, pardon! It would be anti-monarchical if we lived under a monarchy,\nanti-aristocratic if we lived under an aristocracy, and it is\nanti-democratic because our lot is cast in a democracy. Competition for\npublic offices is a sort of co-optation. In fact it is co-optation pure\nand simple. When I suggested that the magistracy should be chosen by the\nmagistrates, that is, the _Cour de Cassation_ by the magistrates and the\nmagistrates in turn by the _Cour de Cassation_, I was of course accused\nof being paradoxical, as is always the case, when one suggests\nsomething contrary to the usual custom. I was, however, only carrying a\nlittle further the principle which is already applied to officials. In a\ncertain sense and to a large extent officials recruit their numbers by\nco-optation.\n\nIt is true, they do not actually choose the officials, but they\neliminate the candidates whom they do not wish to have. Examination is\nostracism of the inefficient. The Government, of course, has to decide\nwho may be candidates, but its selection for employment is limited to\nthose of whom other officials (the officials who conduct the\nexamination) can approve. It is in fact co-optation.\n\nThe committee of examiners which admits a candidate to St. Cyr appoints\nan officer. The committee which admits a candidate to the _Ecole\nPolytechnique_ appoints an officer or an engineer. A committee also\nwhich refuses a candidate at either of these places is encroaching on\nthe National Sovereignty, because it is forbidding the National\nSovereignty to make of this young man an officer or an engineer. This is\nco-optation. This is a guarantee of efficiency. Here a wall is raised\nagainst incompetence, and against the jobbery under which incompetence\nwould profit.\n\nIt is hardly necessary for me to add that this co-optation is limited to\na very narrow field of operation. It is confined in fact to the\nthreshold of a man's career. Once the candidate has been consecrated\nofficial, by a board of examining officials, he belongs, both as regards\nadvancement, promotion and the reverse, to the central authority alone,\nexcept in certain cases. The co-optation of officials is merely a\nco-optation by elimination. The elimination is made once and for all,\nand the non-eliminated (_i.e._, the successful candidate) steps at once\ninto the toils of the Government, that is, into the toils of popular\nelectioneering and party politics, when all the abuses which I have\nenumerated can and do arise. To be fair I had of course to point out\nthat we had tried to invent some slight barriers against the omnipotence\nof incompetence, which prevent it being absolutely supreme.\n\nUnfortunately these prophylactic measures are very badly organised, and,\nfar from being capable of amendment, ought to be completely\nrevolutionised.\n\nThe examination system in our country is founded on a misconception, I\nmean on the confusion between knowledge and competence. We search\nconscientiously for competence or efficiency, and we believe that we\nhave found it when we find knowledge, but that is an error. An\nexamination requires from a candidate that he shall know, and\ncompetition demands that he shall know more than the others, but\nthat is almost all that examination and competition require of him.\nTherefrom results one of the most painful open sores of our\ncivilisation,--preparation for examinations.\n\nPreparation for examination is responsible for intellectual indigestion,\nfor minds overloaded with useless information, and for a system of\ncramming, which at once takes the heart out of men, perhaps with good\nability, just at the age when their mental activity is most keen; which,\nfurther, as the result of this surfeit, disgusts for the rest of his\nlife and renders impotent for all intellectual effort, the unfortunate\npatient who has been condemned to undergo this treatment for five,\neight, and sometimes ten years of his youth.\n\nI am satisfied, if I may be allowed to speak of myself in order to\nsupport my argument by an instance well known to me, that, if I have\nbeen able to work from the age of twenty-five to that of sixty-three, it\nis because I have never succeeded except very moderately, and I am proud\nof it, in competitive examinations. Being of a curious turn of mind I\nhave been interested in the subject set in the syllabus, but in other\nmatters also, and the syllabus has been neglected. I sometimes passed,\nmore often I failed, with the result that at twenty-six I was behind my\ncontemporaries, but I was not overworked, broken down, and utterly sick\nof all intellectual effort. I admit that some of my contemporaries who\nnever failed in an examination, and who passed them all with great\nbrilliance, have worked as hard as I have up to sixty, but they are\nextremely few.\n\nThe curious thing is that the results, not perhaps disastrous, but\nobviously very unsatisfactory, of this examination system do not lead us\nto abandon it (that perhaps would be an extreme measure), but make us\naggravate and complicate it. Legal and medical examinations are much\n\"stiffer\" than they used to be, and they require a greater physical\neffort, but without requiring or obtaining any greater intellectual\nvalue. In truth, one might say, examination is nothing more than a test\nof good health, and it is a very searching test, for it often succeeds\nin destroying it.\n\nHere is an example which I know well. It is necessary, if a man desire\nto gain distinction as a professor of secondary education, that he\nshould be a bachelor, a licentiate, an _agrege_ or a doctor. This is a\nqualification that counts, and it means ten examinations or\ncompetitions, two for the first half of the bachelor's degree, two for\nthe second, two for the licentiate, two for _agrege_, two for the\ndoctor's degree. This, moreover, does not appear to be enough. Between\nthe second part of the bachelor's degree and the licentiate's degree\nthere is normally an interval of two years; between the licentiate and\nthe _agregation_ two years, and between the _agregation_ and the\ndoctor's degree there is generally three or four years. You perceive the\ndanger! Between the _licence_ and the _agregation_, to go no further at\npresent, the future professor has two whole years to himself. That is to\nsay, that during the first of these two years he will work alone. He can\nwork freely, he can study in what direction he pleases, without thinking\nof an examination at the end of twelve months; he has escaped for the\nmoment from the servitude of the syllabus. The prospect makes us shudder\nwith apprehension. It is sadly to be feared that the young man may take\na rest and draw breath, or worse still he may be carried into some\nextraneous study by his personal aptitudes or tastes. The personality of\nthe candidate has here an opening, a moment at which it has a\npossibility of asserting itself. That must be stopped at all costs.\n\nThe authorities, therefore, have put in an intermediate examination\nbetween the _licence_ and the _agregation_. The examination, it is true,\nis on a subject chosen by the candidate himself; so much it is only fair\nto admit. The subject chosen, however, must be submitted to the\nprofessors. Their advice and indeed assistance must be invited. The\nresult, if not the object, of this examination is to prevent the\ncandidate, during this perilous year of liberty, from developing\noriginal ideas of his own and acting on them.\n\n_One examination every year for ten years_--that is the ideal of the\nmodern professor for the future professors who are in course of being\ntrained. Between the second part of the bachelor's degree and the\nlicentiate, as there is there an interval of two years, they will\npresently perceive that there ought to be an examination at the end of\nthe first year, and we shall have certificates of study in\nintermediate, secondary, higher subjects. Between the _agregation_ and\nthe _doctorat_, there are four years, and naturally we shall want three\nexaminations just to see how the future professor is getting on with his\ntheses, to encumber him with assistance and to prevent him doing them\nalone; first examination called the _Bibliography of the Theses for the\nDoctorat_, second examination called the _Methodology of the Doctorat_,\nthird examination called the _Preparation for the Sustaining of the\nThesis_, and then the examination for the doctor's degree itself.\n\nIn this way the desired object is attained. Between the ages of\nseventeen and twenty-seven or thirty the examinee will have had to\nundergo sixteen examinations. He will never have worked alone. He will\nalways have worked, for periods of twelve months, on a syllabus, for an\nexamination, with a view of pleasing such and such professors, modelling\nhimself on their views, their conceptions, their general ideas, their\neccentricities, aided by them, influenced by them, never knowing, and\nfeeling he ought not to know, not wishing to know, and running a great\nrisk if he did know, and forming habits for his whole life so that he\nmay never know what he thinks himself, what he imagines himself, what he\nseeks and would like to seek of his own motion, or what he ought himself\nto try to be. He will take up all this after he is thirty.\n\nNot a vestige of personality or original thought till the moment when it\nis too late for it to appear, that is the maxim!\n\nWhence comes this frenzy, this _examino mania_? When one comes to think\nof it, it seems to be a simple case of _Dandino-mania_. Dandin says with\ngreat determination \"I mean to go and judge.\" The professor of a certain\nage means to go and examine. He no longer loves to profess, he loves to\nbe always examining. This is very natural. Professing, he is judged;\nexamining, he judges. The one is always much pleasanter than the other.\nFor a professor, to sweat in harness, to feel oneself being examined,\nthat is, criticised, discussed, held up to judgment, and chaffed by an\naudience of students and amateurs, ceases at a certain age to be\naltogether pleasant; on the other hand to examine, to sit on the throne\nwith all the majesty of a judge, to have only to criticise and not to\nproduce, to intervene only when the victim stumbles, and to let him\nknow that he has made a slip, to hold the student for the whole year\nunder the salutary terror of an approaching examination, to remind him\nthat he may need help and must by no means displease his professor--all\nthis is very agreeable and makes up for many of the worries of the\nteaching profession. The examination mania proceeds partly from the\nterror of being oneself examined, and partly from the pleasure of\nexamining others.\n\nAll this is true, but there is more than this. The precocious\ndevelopment of early talent and originality is the thing which strangely\nterrifies these examination-maniacs. They have a horror of the man who\nteaches himself. They have a horror of any one who ventures to think for\nhimself and to enquire for himself at twenty-five years of age. They\nwant, like an old hen, to mother the young mind as long as possible.\nThey will not let it find its own feet, till very late, and till, as the\nscoffer might well say, its limbs are absolutely atrophied. I do not say\nthat they are wrong. The man who has taught himself is apt to be a vain,\nconceited fellow who takes pleasure in thinking for himself, and has\nan absolute delight in despising the thoughts of others. It is, however,\nno less the fact, that it is among these self-taught men that we find\nthose vigorous spirits who venture boldly beyond the domain of human\nscience and extend its frontier. The question then is which is best, to\nfavour all these troublesome self-taught people in the hope of finding\nsome good ones among them, or by crossing and worrying them to run the\nrisk of destroying the good as well as the bad. I am myself strongly in\nfavour of the first of these alternatives. It is better to let all go\ntheir own way, even though pretenders to originality come to grief, a\nthing that matters very little. Minds that are truly original will\ndevelop themselves and find room for the expansion of all their powers.\n\nBut here,--take note how the democratic spirit comes in everywhere--the\nquestion of numbers is raised. Ten times more numerous, I am told, are\nthe pretenders to originality whom we save from themselves by discipline\nthan the true geniuses whose wings we clip.\n\nI reply that, in matters intellectual, questions of figures do not\ncount. An original spirit strangled is a loss which is not compensated\nby the rescue of ten fools from worse excesses of folly. An original\nspirit left free to be himself is worth more than ten fools whose folly\nis partially restrained.\n\nNietzsche has well said: \"Modern education consists in smothering the\nexceptional in favour of the normal. It consists in directing the mind\naway from the exceptional into the channel of the average.\" This ought\nnot to be. I do not say that education should do the opposite of all\nthis. Oh no, far from that. It is not the business of education to look\nfor exceptional genius, or to help in its creation. Exceptional genius\nis born of itself and it has no need of such assistance. But even less\nis it the business of education to regard the exceptional with terror,\nand to take every means possible, even the most barbarous and most\ndetailed, to prevent it as long as possible from coming to the light.\n\nEducation ought to draw all that it can out of mediocrity, and to\nrespect originality as much as it can. It ought never to attempt to turn\nmediocrity into originality, nor to reduce originality to the level of\nmediocrity.\n\nAnd how can all this be done? By an intervention that is always\ndiscreet, and sometimes by non-intervention.\n\nAt the present moment its policy is equally distant from\nnon-intervention and from an intervention that is discreet.\n\nIt is in this way that the very institution which we have invented to\nsafeguard efficiency contributes not a little to the triumph of its\nopposite. These victims of examination are competent in respect of\nknowledge, instruction and technical proficiency. They are incompetent\nin respect of intellectual value, often, though perhaps not so often as\nformerly, in respect of moral value.\n\nAs far as their intellectual value is concerned, they have very\nfrequently no mental initiative. It has been cramped, hidden away, and\ntrampled down. If it ever existed, it exists now no longer. They are all\ntheir days merely instruments. They have been taught many things,\nespecially intellectual obedience. They continue to obey intellectually,\ntheir brain acts like well made and well lubricated machinery. \"The\ndifference between the novel and the play,\" said Brunetiere, \"is that in\nthe play the characters act, in the novel they are acted.\" I do not\nknow if this be true, but of the functionary we might say as often as\nnot, he does not think, he is thought.\n\nThe official also is incompetent, though less and less often, in respect\nof moral worth. By the exercise of intellectual obedience, he has been\ntrained to moral obedience also and he is little disposed to assert his\nindependence. Observe how everything tends to this end. This method of\nco-opting officials by means of elimination, as I have said, operates\nonly, as I have also shown, at the outset of the official's career. From\nthis moment onwards the functionary must depend on the Government only,\nhis whole preparation during ten years of education has been calculated\nto ensure his absolute dependence on his official directors. So far\ngood, perhaps a little too good. It would have been well if the\neducation of the functionary had left him, together with a little\noriginality of mind, a little originality of character as well.\n\n             *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe have sought, very conscientiously also, and, I may even say, with an\nadmirable enthusiasm, yet another remedy for the faults of democracy,\nanother remedy for its incompetence. It is said: \"The crowd is\nincompetent, so be it, it is necessary to enlighten it. Primary\neducation, spread broadcast, is the solution of every difficulty, and\nprovides an answer to every question.\"\n\nFrom this argument aristocrats have derived some little amusement. \"How\nis this?\" they exclaimed, \"what is the meaning of this paradox? You are\ndemocrats and that means that you attribute political excellence,\n'political virtue,' as we used to say, to the crowd, that is to\nignorance. Why then do you wish to enlighten the crowd, that is to\ndestroy the very virtue which, on your own showing, is the cause of its\nsuperiority?\" The democrats reply that the crowd, even as it is, is\nalready very preferable to aristocracy, and that it will be still more\nso when it has received instruction. They resolve the apparent\ncontradiction by the argument _a fortiori_.\n\nAt all events, the democrats set to work most vigorously on the\neducation of the people. The result is that the people is much better\neducated than formerly, and I am one of those who regard this result as\nexcellent; but the further result is, that the people is saturated\nwith false ideas, and this is less comforting.\n\nAncient republics had their demagogues, their orators, who inflamed the\nevil qualities of the people, by bestowing on them high-sounding names\nand by flattery. The great democracy of modern times has its demagogues.\nThese are its elementary school teachers. They come of the people, are\nproud to belong to it, for which of course no one can blame them, they\ndistrust everything that is not the people, they are all the more of the\npeople because among the people they are intellectually in the first\nrank while elsewhere they are of secondary importance; and what men love\nis not the group of which they form a part, but the group of which they\nare the chief. They are, therefore, profoundly democratic.\n\nSo far nothing could be better. But it is a narrow form of democratic\nsentiment which they hold, for they are only half-educated, or rather\n(for who is completely educated or even well educated?), because they\nhave only received a rudimentary education. Rudimentary education may\nperhaps make us capable of having one idea, it certainly renders us\nincapable of having two. The man of rudimentary education is always the\nman of one single idea and of one fixed idea. He has few doubts. Now the\nwise man doubts often, the ignorant man seldom, the fool never. The man\nof one idea is more or less impermeable to any process of reasoning that\nis foreign to this idea. An Indian author has said: \"You can convince\nthe wise; you can convince, with more difficulty, the ignorant; the\nhalf-educated, never.\"\n\nNow no one ever convinces the elementary schoolmaster. He is confirmed\nin his convictions by defending, and still more by discussing them. He\nis the slave of his opinion. He does not possess it always quite\nclearly, but it possesses him. He loves it with all his soul, as a\npriest his religion, because it is the truth, because it is beautiful,\nbecause it has been persecuted, and because it means the salvation of\nthe world. He would enjoy its triumph but he yearns still more to be a\nmartyr in its cause.\n\nHe is a convinced democrat and a sentimental democrat. His conviction\nforms a solid basis for his sentiment, and his sentiment kindles to a\nwhite heat his conviction. His conviction makes him turn a deaf ear to\nevery objection, his sentiment inspires him with hatred for his\nadversary. For him the man who is not a democrat is wrong, and further,\nto him an object of hatred. In his eyes the distance between himself and\nthe aristocrat is as the distance between truth and error, nay between\ngood and evil, between honour and dishonour. The schoolmaster is the\nfanatic vassal of democracy.\n\nThen, as he is a man of one idea, he is single-minded, narrowly logical,\nand logical to the utmost extreme. He goes straight forward where his\nargument leads. An idea which admits neither qualification nor question\ncan go far in a very short space of time. And the schoolmaster drives\nall his democratic principles to their natural and logical conclusion.\n\nHe develops these principles and all that they imply by the sheer force\nof what he calls his \"reasoning reason,\" and it appears to him to be not\nonly natural but salutary to seek their realisation. Everything of which\nthe principle is good is good itself, and no one but Montesquieu could\never believe that an institution could be ruined by the excess of the\nprinciple in which its merit consists.\n\nThe schoolmaster, therefore, deduces their logical consequences from the\ntwo great democratic principles, the sovereignty of the nation, and\nequality; he deduces them rigorously, and arrives at the following\nconclusions.\n\nThe people alone is sovereign. Therefore, though there can be individual\nliberty and liberty of association, there ought to be only such\nindividual liberty and liberty of association as the people permits.\nLiberty cannot be and ought not to be anything more than a thing\ntolerated by the sovereign people. The individual may think, speak,\nwrite, and act as he pleases, but only so far as the people will allow\nhim; for if he can do these things with absolute freedom, or even with\nlimitations which are not imposed by the people, he becomes the\nsovereign power, or the power which fixed the limits of his freedom\nbecomes the sovereign, and the sovereignty of the people disappears.\n\nThis brings us back to the simple definition that liberty is the right\nto do what we please within the limits of the law. And who makes the\nlaw? The people. Liberty is then the right to do everything which the\npeople permits us to do. Nothing more; if we attempt to go beyond this,\nthe sovereignty of the individual begins, and the sovereignty of the\npeople disappears.\n\n--But to have liberty to do only what the people permits, this is to be\nfree as we were under Louis XIV.--and that is not to be free at all!\n\nSo be it. There will indeed be no liberty unless the law permit it.\nSurely you do not wish to be free in opposition to the law?\n\n--The law may be tyrannical. It is tyrannical if it is unjust.--\n\nThe law has the right to be unjust. Otherwise the sovereignty of the\npeople would be limited and this must not be.\n\n--Fundamental and constitutional laws might be devised to limit this\nsovereignty of the people in order to guarantee such and such of the\nliberties for the individual.--\n\nAnd the people would then be tied! The sovereignty of the people would\nbe suppressed! No, the people cannot be tied. The sovereignty of the\npeople is fundamental and must be left intact.\n\n--Then there will be no individual liberty?--\n\nOnly such a measure as the people will tolerate.\n\n--Then there will be no liberty of association?\n\nStill less; for an association is in itself a limitation of the\nsovereignty of the nation. It has its own laws, which from a democratic\npoint of view is an absurd and monstrous incongruity. The right of\nassociation limits the national sovereignty, just as would a free town\nor sanctuary of refuge. It limits the nation, and pulls it up short in\nface of its closed doors. It is a State within a State; where there is\nassociation, there arises at once a source of organisation other than\nthe great organism of the popular will. It is like an animal which lives\nsome sort of independent life within another animal larger than itself\nand which, living on that other animal, is still independent of it. In\nfact there can be only one association, the association of the nation,\notherwise the sovereignty of the nation is limited, that is, destroyed.\nNo liberty of association can then exist.\n\nAssociations of course will exist which the people will tolerate, but\ntheir right of existence is always revocable and they are always liable\nto be dissolved and destroyed. Otherwise the national sovereignty would\nbe held to abdicate and it can never abdicate.\n\n--Ah! but there is one association, at least, which to some extent is\nsacred, and which the sovereignty of the people is bound to respect. I\nmean the family. The father is the head of the family, he educates his\nchildren and brings them up as he thinks best, till they come to man's\nestate.--\n\nNay, that will not pass! For here again we have a limitation of the\nsovereignty of the nation. The child does not belong to his father. If\nthis were so, at the threshold of each home the sovereignty of the\npeople would be arrested, which means that it would cease to exist\nanywhere. The child, like the man, belongs to the people. He belongs to\nit, in the sense that he must not be a member of an association which\nmight dare to think differently from the people, or perhaps even harbour\nideas in contradiction to the thought of the people. It would indeed be\ndangerous to leave our future citizens for twenty years outside the\nnational thought, which is the same thing as being outside the\ncommunity. Imagine five or six bees brought up apart, outside the laws,\nregulations, and constitution of the hive; imagine further that of these\ngroups of bees there were several hundreds in the hive. The result would\nbe the destruction of the hive.\n\nIt is _above all things_ in the family that the sovereignty of the\npeople ought to prevail. It ought above all things to refuse to\nrecognise the association of the family, and to wage war against it\nwherever it finds it. It should leave to parents the right of embracing\ntheir children, but nothing more. The right to educate them in ideas\nperhaps contrary to those of their parents belongs to the people, which,\nhere as well as elsewhere, perhaps even more than elsewhere for the\ninterests at stake are more important, must be absolutely sovereign.\n\nThis, then, is what the schoolmaster, with a relentless logic which\nappears to me to be irresistible, deduces from the principle of the\nnational sovereignty.\n\nFrom the principle of equality he deduces another point. \"All men are\nequal by nature and before the law.\" That is to say, if there were\njustice, all men ought to have been equal by nature, and further, if\nthere is to be justice, all men ought to be equal before the law.\n\nVery obviously, however, all men are not equal before the law, and they\nare not equal by nature. Very well then, we must make them so.\n\nThey are not equal before the law. They appear to be so, but they are\nnot. The rich man, even supposing that the magistrates are perfectly and\nstrictly honest, by reason of the fact that he can remunerate the best\nsolicitors, advocates, and witnesses, by reason further of the fact that\nhe intimidates by his influence all those who could appear against him,\nis not in every respect the equal of the poor man before the law.\n\nEven less does this equality exist in the presence of that union of\nconstituted social forces which we call society. In this respect the\nrich man will be the \"influential man\"; the \"man well connected,\" the\nman on whom no one depends, but whom no one likes to cross or to\ncontradict. There is, between the rich and the poor man, however equal\nwe may pretend them to be before the law, the difference between the man\nwho gives orders and the man who is obliged to obey. _Real_ equality,\nin society, in presence of society and even in presence of the law,\nonly exists where there is neither rich nor poor.\n\nBut there will always be rich and poor, as long as the institution of\ninheritance remains. Abolish inheritance therefore!\n\nBut, even with inheritance abolished, there will still be rich and poor.\nThe man who can make his fortune rapidly will be a strong man relatively\nto the man who can not make a fortune, and, I would have you note it,\neven when we have abolished inheritance, the son of the strong man,\nduring the life of his father, will be strong himself, so that even if\nwe abolish inheritance, a privilege, namely, the privilege of birth will\nstill exist and equality will not exist.\n\nThere is only one state of affairs under which equality is possible,\nthat is when no one possesses and no one can acquire anything. The only\nsocial policy so devised that no one can possess and no one can acquire\nanything is the policy of a community of goods, that is Communism or\nCollectivism. Collectivism is nothing very wonderful. Collectivism is\nequality; and equality is collectivism, otherwise our equality will be\nnothing but a phantom and an hypocrisy. Every one who is a convinced and\nsincere _egalitarian_, and who takes the trouble to think, is forced to\nbe a collectivist. Bonald asked very wittily: \"Do you know what is a\ndeist? It is a man who has not lived long enough to be an atheist.\" We\nin our turn ask: \"Do you know what is an anti-collectivist democrat? It\nis a man who has not lived long enough to be a collectivist, or who,\nhaving lived long enough, has never taken the trouble to think, and to\nperceive what are the necessary consequences of his own principles.\"\n\nBut surely collectivism is a chimaera, an utopia, a thing impossible.\nCertainly it is impossible in the sense that in the country which adopts\nit the source of all initiative will be destroyed. No man will make an\neffort to improve his position, since it must never be improved. The\nwhole country will become one of those stagnant pools to which one of\nour ministers lately referred. Everyone having become an official,\neveryone will realise the ideal of the official which the Goncourts have\nvery neatly described. \"The good official,\" they say, \"is the man who\ncombines laziness with extreme accuracy.\" It is a definitive\ndefinition. The country that reformed itself in this way would be\nconquered at the end of ten years by some neighbouring people more or\nless ambitious.\n\nThat admits of no question; but what does it prove? That collectivism is\nonly impossible because it is only possible if established in every\ncountry at once. Very well, and in order to establish it in every\ncountry at once, only one thing is needful, namely, that there shall no\nlonger be distinct and separate countries and no longer any\nnationalities. It surely will not answer to establish collectivism\nbefore the abolition of nationalities, since, once established, it will\nserve no purpose except to bring into prominent relief the vast\nsuperiority of countries which have not adopted collectivism. We must,\ntherefore, take our problems in order and abolish nationalities before\nwe can establish collectivism.\n\nNow if nations organise themselves against nature (the nature that, the\nschoolmaster assumes, makes all men equal), if instinctively they\norganise themselves in a hierarchy which is aristocratic, if they have\ntheir leaders and their subordinates, their stronger and their weaker\nmembers, it is because this arrangement is necessary in a camp, and each\nnation feels that it is a camp. If each feels that it is a camp, it is\nsimply because there are other nations round it, because it feels and\nknows that there are others round it. When there are no longer other\nnations, each nation will organise itself no longer against nature, but\nnaturally, that is to say on _egalitarian_ principles. Nature perhaps\nstrictly speaking is not _egalitarian_, but it tends towards equality in\nthe sense that it produces many more, indeed infinitely more,\nmediocrities than superior intelligences.\n\nThus equality demands the abolition of inheritance, and the equality of\npossessions. Equality of possessions necessitates collectivism, and\ncollectivism requires the abolition of nationalities. We are\n_egalitarians_, then collectivists, and by logical consequence\nanti-patriots.\n\nSo argue the great majority of school teachers, with an absolute logic,\nin my opinion, irrefutable, with the logic which takes no account of\nfacts, and which only takes account of its own principle and of itself.\nSo they will all argue to-morrow, if they continue, as it is probable\nthey will continue, to be very excellent dialecticians.\n\nWill they go back to the premises and say, that if the sovereignty of\nthe people and equality lead logically and imperatively to these\nconclusions, it is perhaps because the sovereignty of the people and\nequality are false ideas, and because these conclusions prove them to be\nfalse? This is a course not likely to be taken, for the sovereignty of\nthe people and the principle of equality are something more than general\nideas, they are sentiments.\n\nThey are sentiments which have become ideas, as is the case doubtless\nwith all general ideas, and they are sentiments of great strength. The\nsovereignty of the people is the truth for him who believes in it,\nbecause it ought to be true, because it is a thing as full of majesty\nfor him as was Caesar in all his pomp for the ancient Roman, or Louis\nXIV. in all his glory for the man of the seventeenth century.\n\nEquality is truth for him who believes, because it ought to be true,\nbecause it is justice, and because it would be infamous if justice and\ntruth were not one. For the democrat, the world has ever been rising\ngradually, since its creation, towards the sovereignty of the people and\nthe doctrine of equality; the latter contains the former, the former is\ndestined to found the latter and has this mission for its purpose in\nlife; together they constitute civilisation, and if they are not\nattained, there is a relapse into barbarism.\n\nThey are dogmas of faith. A dogma is an overmastering sentiment which\nhas found expression in a formula. From these two dogmas everything that\ncan be deduced without breach of logic is truth which it is our right\nand duty to proclaim.\n\nWe must add that the schoolmaster is urged in this same direction by\nsentiments of a less general character, which nevertheless have an\ninfluence of their own. He is placed in his commune in direct opposition\nto the priest, the only person very often who is, like himself, in that\nplace a man of some little education. Hence rivalry and a struggle for\ninfluence. Now the priest, by a series of historical incidents, is a\nmore or less warm partisan sometimes of monarchy but almost always of\naristocracy. He is a member of a body that once was an estate of the\nrealm, and he is persuaded that his corporation is still an estate of\nthe realm, notwithstanding all that has happened. If the existing order\nis regulated by the _concordat_, the existing order recognises his\ncorporation as a body legitimatised by the State, since it treats it on\nthe same terms as the magistracy and the army. If the existing order is\none based on the separation of State and Church, his corporation appears\nto him still more to be an estate of the realm, because being forced\ninto an attitude of solid organisation, and recognising no limitations\nof frontier, it becomes a collective personage which, not without peril,\nbut also not without a certain measure of success, has often ventured to\ncross swords with the State itself.\n\nAs the priest then belongs to an order endowed with an historic\nauthority which is nevertheless distinct from, and in no wise a\ndelegation from, the authority of the people, the priest cannot fail\nmore or less definitely and consciously to adopt an attitude of mind\nfavourable to aristocracy.\n\nThe school teacher, his rival, is thrown then all the more inevitably\ntowards the adoption of democratic principles, and he embraces them with\na fervour into which enters jealousy quite as much as conviction. They\nmean more to him than even to an eighteenth century philosopher, because\nhe has a much greater personal interest in believing them, the interest\nof personal dislike and animosity; for it is his belief that everything\ntaught by the priest is the pure invention of ingenious oppressors who\nwish to enslave the people in order to consolidate their own tyranny;\nand that is his reason for professing philosophical ideas resuscitated\nfrom the teaching of Diderot, and Holbach. For the school teacher it is\nalmost inconceivable that the priest should be anything but a rascal.\n\n\"Atheism is aristocratic,\" said Robespierre, thinking of Rousseau.\nAtheism is democratic, say our present-day school teachers. Whence comes\nthis difference of opinion? First because it was fashionable among the\ngreat lords of the eighteenth century to be libertines and\nfree-thinkers, but among the people the belief in God was unanimous.\nSecondly, because the priests of our day, for the reasons which I have\ngiven and from remembrance of the persecutions suffered by their Church\nat the date of the first triumphs of democracy, have remained\naristocrats or have become so even more firmly than they ever were\nbefore. Atheism then has become democratic as a weapon against the\ndeists who are generally aristocrats.\n\nBesides, atheism fits in very well, whatever Robespierre may have\nthought, with the general sentiments of the baser demagogy. To be\nrestrained by nothing, to be limited by nothing, that is the dominant\nidea of the people, or rather it is the dominant idea of the democrat\nfor the people, that it should be restrained by nothing and limited by\nnothing in its sovereign power. Now God is a limit, God is a restraint.\nAnd just as the democrat will not admit of a secular constitution which\nthe people could not destroy and which would prevent him from making bad\nlaws; just as the democrat will not submit--if we may adopt the\nterminology of Aristotle--to being governed by _laws_, to be governed\nthat is by an ancient body of law which would check the people and\nobstruct it in its daily fabrication of _decrees_; so just in the same\nspirit the democrat does not admit of a God Who has issued His\ncommandments, Who has issued His body of laws, anterior and superior to\nall the laws and all the decrees of men, and Who sets His limit on the\nlegislative eccentricities of the people, on its capricious omnipotence,\nin a word, on the sovereignty of the people.\n\nAfter Sedan, Bismarck was asked: \"Now that Napoleon has fallen, on whom\ndo you make war?\" He replied: \"On Louis XIV.\" So the democrat questioned\non his atheism could reply: \"I am warring against Moses.\"\n\nThis is the origin of the atheism of democrats and schoolmasters. This\nis the origin of the formula: \"Neither God nor Master,\" which for the\nanarchist requires no correction nor supplement, which for the democrat\nhas only to be modified: \"Neither God nor Master, save the People.\"\n\nAt the end of one of his great political speeches in 1849 or 1850,\nVictor Hugo said: \"In the future there will only be two powers; the\nPeople and God.\" The modern democrat has persuaded himself that if there\nbe a God, the sovereignty of the people is infringed, if he believe in\nHim.\n\nLastly, the school teacher is confirmed in his democratic sentiments, in\nall his democratic sentiments, by the political position which has been\nmade for him in France. It is a strange thing, a disconcerting anomaly,\nthat the Governments of the nineteenth century (especially, we must do\nit this justice, the present Government), have very handsomely respected\nthe liberty of professors of higher education, and of secondary\neducation, and have not in the very slightest degree respected the\nliberty of the teachers of elementary education. The professor of higher\neducation, especially since 1870, can teach exactly what he pleases,\nexcept immorality and contempt of our country and its laws. He can even\ndiscuss our laws, provided always that he maintains the principle that,\nsuch as they are, they ought to be obeyed till they are repealed. His\nliberty as to his opinions political, social and religious is complete.\nIt is only occasionally constrained by the disorderly demonstrations of\nhis students. The professor of secondary education enjoys a liberty\nalmost equally wide. He is subject, but only in an extremely liberal\nfashion, to a programme or syllabus of studies. As to the spirit in\nwhich he conducts his work he is practically never molested. He is\ngiven a free hand.\n\nNor has it ever occurred to any Government to ask a professor of higher\nand secondary education how he votes at political elections, still less\nto require him to canvass in favour of the candidates agreeable to the\nGovernment.\n\nWhen, however, we pass to elementary education we see everything is\nchanged. The elementary teacher is not appointed by his natural chief,\nthe _recteur_ or Minister of Public Education, he is appointed by the\n_prefet_, that is by the Minister of the Interior, the political head of\nthe Government. In other words, this is the same process as the\nappointment of officials by the people, described a few pages back, but\nwith one intermediary the less. It is pre-eminently the Minister of the\nInterior who represents the political will of the nation at any given\ndate. And it is the Minister of the Interior who through his _prefets_\nappoints the elementary school teacher. It is then the political will of\nthe nation which chooses the school teachers. It would be impossible to\nconvey to them more clearly (which is only fair, for people should be\nmade to understand their duties) that they are chosen for\nconsiderations of politics and that they ought to consider themselves as\npolitical agents.\n\nAnd indeed they are nothing else, or perhaps we should say they are\nsomething else but above all they are politicians. The schoolteachers\ndepend on the _prefets_ and the _prefets_ depend much on the deputies,\nyet it is not the deputies who appoint them, but it is they who can\nremove them, who can get them promoted or disgraced, who by constant\nremovals can reduce them to destitution. Surely, every candid person\nwill exclaim, given the difficult and scandalous situation in which they\nare put by the hand which appoints them, they ought at least to have the\nguarantee and assurance, very relative and ineffectual though it be, of\nirremovability. But they have not got it. The professors of higher\neducation who do not require it have got it, the professors of secondary\neducation have it to all intents and purposes. The elementary school\nteacher has it not.\n\nHe is, therefore, delivered over to the politicians who make of him an\nelectioneering agent, who reckon him as such, and who would never pardon\nhim if he failed them.\n\nThe result is that the majority of school teachers are demagogues\nbecause they like it, and with magnificent enthusiasm and passion. The\nminority who have no turn for demagogy are demagogues though they do not\nlike it, and because they are forced by necessity.\n\nEven those who have no disposition that way become demagogues in the\nend, for that is the way of the world. \"In the heat of the _melee_,\"\nsaid Augier, \"there are no mercenaries.\" Our school teachers, thrown,\nsometimes against their will, into the battle, forced at least to appear\nto be fighting, receive knocks and when they have received them, they\nbecome attached to the cause on whose behalf they have suffered. We\nalways end by having the opinions which are attributed to us, and being\ntaken for a demagogue the moment he arrives at his village, the young\nschool teacher, not daring to say anything to the contrary, and being\nvery ill received by all other parties, naturally becomes a demagogue\nwith some show of conviction the very next year.\n\n             *       *       *       *       *\n\nSo the democracy receives no instruction that does not confirm and\nstrengthen it in its errors.\n\nFor its good some one ought to teach it not to believe itself\nomnipotent, to have scruples as to its omnipotence, and to believe that\nthis omnipotence should have defined limits; it is taught without\nreserve the dogma of the unlimited sovereignty of the people.\n\nFor its good it should believe that equality is so contrary to nature\nthat we have no right to torture nature in order to establish real\nequality among men, and that the people which has established such a\nstate of things, which is quite possible, must succumb to the fate of\nthose who try to live exactly in opposition to the laws of nature.\nInstead, it is taught, and it is true enough, that equality is not\npossible, if it is not complete, if it is not thorough, that it ought to\nbe applied to differences of fortune, social position, intelligence,\nperhaps even to our stature and personal appearance, and that no effort\nshould be spared to bring all things to one absolute level.\n\nFor its good, since it is natural enough that it should dislike heavy\ntaxation, sentiments of patriotism should be reinforced; it is taught on\nthe contrary that military service is a painful legacy left by a hateful\nand barbarous past, and that it ought to disappear very soon before the\nwarming rays of a peaceful civilisation.\n\nIn a word, to use again the language of Aristotle, the pure wine of\ndemocracy is poured out to the people as it was by the demagogues to the\nAthenians; and from the quarter whence a remedy might have been expected\nthere come only incitements to deeper intoxication.\n\nAristotle has made yet another wise and profound observation on the\nquestion of equality: \"_We must establish equality_,\" he said, \"_in the\npassions rather than in the fortunes of men._\" And he adds: \"And this\nequality can only be the fruit of education derived from the influence\nof good laws.\" That is indeed the point. Education should have but one\nobject; to reduce the passions to equality, or rather to _equanimity_,\nand to a certain equilibrium of mind. The education given to modern\ndemocracy does not lead to this, but leads in the opposite direction.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE DREAM.\n\n\nWhat remedies can we apply to this modern disease, the worship of\nintellectual and moral incompetence? What is, as M. Fouillee puts it,\nthe best way of avoiding the hidden rocks which threaten democracies? It\nis hard to say, for we have to do with an evil which can only be cured\nby itself, with an evil which is more than content with itself.\n\nM. Fouillee (in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of November, 1909) proposes\nan aristocratic Upper Chamber, that is to say, one that would represent\nall the competence of the country, inasmuch as it would be appointed by\neverything which is based on some particular form of excellence, the\nmagistracy, the army, the university, the chambers of commerce, and so\non.\n\nNothing could be better; but the consent of the democracy would be\nnecessary, and it is precisely these incorporations of efficiency that\nthe democracy cannot abide, looking on them, not without reason, as\nbeing in a sense aristocracies.\n\nHe proposes also an energetic intervention on the part of the State to\nrestore public morality, action for the suppression of alcoholism,\ngambling and pornography.\n\nBeyond the fact that his argument savours of reaction, for it recalls to\nus the programme of \"moral order\" of 1873, we must remark, as indeed M.\nFouillee himself acknowledges, that the democratic State can hardly\nafford to kill the thing which enables it to live, to destroy its\nprincipal source of revenue. Democracy, as its most authoritative\nrepresentatives have admitted, is not a cheap form of government. It has\nalways been instituted with the hope, and partly with the expressed\ndesign, of being an economical government, and it has always been\nruinous, because it requires a much larger number of partisans than\nother forms of government, and a smaller number of malcontents than\nother forms of government, and these partisans have to be remunerated in\none fashion or another and the malcontents have to be silenced and\nbought in one way or another.\n\nDemocracy, whether ancient or modern, lives always in terror of tyrants\nwho are always imminent or thought by it to be imminent. Against this\npossible tyrant who would govern with an energetic minority, the\ndemocracy requires an immense majority which it has to bind to it by the\ngrant of many favours; it has also to detach from this tyrant the\nmalcontents who would be his supporters if it did not disarm them by a\nstill more lavish distribution of favours.\n\nDemocracy requires therefore plenty of money. It will find this by\ndespoiling the wealthy as much as possible; but this is a very limited\nsource of revenue, for the wealthy are not a numerous class. It will\nfind it more easily, more abundantly also, by exploiting the vices of\nall, for all is a very numerous group. Hence the complaisance shown to\ndrinking shops, which, as M. Fouillee remarks, it would be more\ndangerous for the Government to close than to close the churches. As the\nneeds of the Government increase, as M. Fouillee predicts, without much\ndoubt it will claim a monopoly in houses of ill-fame and in the\npublication of indecent literature; enterprises in which there would be\nmoney. And after all, tolerating such things for the profit of certain\ntraders and annexing them to be worked for the profit of the State, is\nsurely much the same thing from a moral point of view. And the financial\noperation would be much more beneficent in the second case than in the\nfirst.\n\nM. Fouillee also argues that reform must come \"from above and not from\nbelow,\" and that \"the movement for regeneration can come from above and\nnot from below.\"\n\nI ask nothing better, but I ask also how is it going to be done?\nInasmuch as everything depends upon the people, who, what, can influence\nthe people except the people itself? Everything depends on the people,\nby what then can it be moved except by a force that is innate. We are\nhere confronted--we are talking to a philosopher and can make use of\nscientific terms--with a {Kinetes akinetos} with a motive force\nwhich causes but does not receive motives.\n\nA principle has disappeared, a prejudice if you like to call it so, the\nprejudice in favour of competence. We no longer think that the man who\nunderstands how to do a thing ought to be doing that thing, or ought to\nbe chosen to do it. Hence, not only is everything mismanaged, but it\nseems impossible by any device to handle the matter effectually. We see\nno solution.\n\nNietzsche really has a horror of democracy; only like all energetic\npessimists, who are not mere triflers, he used to say from time to time:\n\"There are pessimists who are resigned and cowardly. We do not wish to\nbe like them.\" When he would not take this view he persuaded himself to\nlook at democracy through rose-coloured spectacles.\n\nAt times, looking at the matter from an aesthetic point of view, he used\nto say: \"Intercourse with the people is as indispensable and refreshing\nas the contemplation of vigorous and healthy vegetation,\" and although\nthis is in flagrant contradiction to all he has elsewhere said of the\n\"bestial flock\" and the \"inhabitants of the swamp,\" the thought has a\ncertain amount of sense in it. It signifies that instinct is a force,\nand that every force must be interesting to study; and further that, as\nsuch, it contains an active virtue, a principle of life, a nucleus of\ngrowth.\n\nThis, though vaguely expressed, is very possible. After all the crowd\nis only powerful by reason of numbers, and because it has been decided\nthat numbers shall decide. It is an expedient; but an expedient cannot\nimpart force to a thing that had it not before. Motive power,\ninitiative, belongs to the man who has a plan, who makes his combination\nto achieve it, who perseveres and is patient and does not relinquish\npursuit. If he is eliminated and reduced to impotence or to a minimum of\nusefulness, one does not see how the crowd, without him, can obtain its\npower of initiation. Further explanation is needed.\n\nAt another time, Nietzsche asks whether we ought not to respect the\nright, which after all belongs to the multitude, to direct itself\naccording to an ideal--there are of course many ideals--and according to\nthe ideal which is its own. Ought we to refuse to the masses the right\nto search out truth for themselves, the right to believe that they have\nfound it when they come upon a faith that seems to them vital, a faith\nthat is to them as their very life? The masses are the foundation on\nwhich all humanity rests, the basis of all culture. Deprived of them,\nwhat would become of the masters? It is to their interest that the\nmasses should be happy. Let us be patient; let us grant to our insurgent\nslaves, our masters for the moment, the enjoyment of illusions which\nseem favourable to them.\n\nSo Nietzsche argues, but more often, for he returns on various occasions\nto this idea, led thereto by his customary aristocratic leanings, he\nspeaks of democracy as of a form of decadence, as a necessary prelude to\nan aristocracy of the future. \"A high civilisation can only be built\nupon a wide expanse of territory, upon a healthy and firmly consolidated\nmediocrity.\" [So he wrote in 1887. Ten years earlier he held that\nslavery had been the necessary condition of the high civilisation of\nGreece and Rome.] The only end, therefore, which at present,\nprovisionally of course but still for a long time to come, we have to\nexpect, must be the decadence of mankind--general decadence to a level\nmediocrity, for it is necessary to have a wide foundation on which a\nrace of strong men can be reared. \"The decadence of the European is the\ngreat process which we cannot hinder, which we ought rather to\naccelerate. It is the active cause at work which gives us hope of\nseeing the rise of a stronger race, a race which will possess in\nabundance those same qualities which are lacking to the degenerate\nvanishing species, strength of will, responsibility, self-reliance, the\npower of concentration....\"\n\nBut how, out of this mediocrity of the crowd, a mediocrity which, as\nNietzsche says, is always increasing, by what process natural or\nartificial can a new and superior race be created? Nietzsche seems to be\nrecalling the theory, very disrespectful and very devoid of filial\npiety, by which Renan sought to explain his own genius. \"A long line of\nobscure ancestors,\" he says, \"has economised for me a store of\nintellectual energy,\" and he jots down in his note book certain\nsuggestions, a little immature but still emitting a ray of light. \"It is\nabsurd,\" he says, \"to imagine that this victory or survival of values\n(that is low values, values, that is, that seem to be mediocrity) can be\nantibiological: we must look for an explanation in the fact that they\nare probably of some vital importance to the maintenance of the type\n'man' in the event of its being threatened by a preponderance of the\nfeeble-minded and degenerate. Perhaps if things went otherwise, man\nwould now be an extinct animal. The elevation of type is dangerous for\nthe preservation of the species. Why? _Strong races are wasteful, we\nfind ourselves here confronted with a problem of economy._\"\n\nWe perceive, in this train of reasoning, some inkling of what Nietzsche\nis trying to formulate as his solution of the difficulty. What is needed\nmust be a natural process, a _vis medicatrix naturae_. In the process of\ndeclining and falling, races practise a sort of thrift; they save and\nthey economise. Then, if we may suppose that the quantity of energy of\nintellectual and moral power, _i.e._, of \"human values\" at the disposal\nof the race is constant, the races that so act are creating in\nthemselves a reserve which one day will irresistibly take shape in a\nchosen class. They are creating in their own bosom an _elite_ which will\none day emerge, they have conceived all unconsciously an aristocracy\nwhich will one day be born to be their ruler.\n\nWe always find in Nietzsche the theory of Schopenhauer, the theory of\nthe great deceiver who leads the human race by the nose and who makes\nit do and, as if it liked it, that which it would never do if it knew\nwhere it was being led. It is very possible; still it remains that\neconomy carried to an extreme, though it can lead to a reserve of force,\nmay also lead, and perhaps much more surely, to a condition of anaemia;\nthe annihilation of one set of competent people in order to prepare the\nway for races of competent people in the future, I do not know if this\nis a game inspired by the great deceiver, but it is a game which to me\nappears dangerous. We ought to be sure (and who is sure?) that the great\ndeceiver does not abandon those who abandon themselves.\n\nI have often said, without thinking of any metaphysical mythology,\nthinking indeed of the ambitious people whom we meet everywhere, and\nthinking only of giving them some good advice: \"The best way to get\nthere is to come down.\" Nothing could be more philosophical, Nietzsche\nwould reply; it is even more true of peoples than of individuals: the\nbest way for peoples to become one day great is to begin by growing\nsmaller. I rather doubt it. There is no really solid reason to support\nthe theory that feebleness cultivated with perseverance results in\nstrength. Neither Greece nor Rome supply examples, nor did the\ndemocratic republic of Athens nor the democratic Caesarism of Rome ever\nsucceed in giving birth to an aristocracy of competence by a prolonged\neconomy of values.\n\n\n--They did not have the time.--\n\nAh yes, there is always that to be said.\n\n\nIt would perhaps be better to try to put the brake on democracy than to\nencourage this process of degeneration on the chance of a favourable\nresurrection. At least this is the course which presents itself most\nnaturally to our mind, and which seems most consonant with duty.\n\nWhen I say put the brake on democracy, it must be understood that I mean\nthat it should put the brake on itself, for nothing else can stop it,\nwhen once it has made up its mind. It must be persuaded or left alone,\nand even persuasion is a rash experiment, for it dislikes being\npersuaded of anything but of its own omnipotence. It must be persuaded\nor left alone, for every other method would be still more useless.\n\nIt must be reminded that forms of government perish from the abandonment\nand also from the exaggeration of the principle from which their merit\nis derived, though this is a very superannuated maxim; that they perish\nby an abandonment of their principle because that principle is the\nhistorical reason of their coming into existence, and they perish by\ncarrying their principle to excess, because there is no such thing as a\nprinciple that is absolutely good and sufficient in itself for\nregulating the complexity of the social machine.\n\nWhat do we understand by the principle of a government? It is not that\nwhich makes it be such and such a thing, but that \"which makes it act\"\nin a particular way, as Montesquieu has remarked; that is, \"the human\npassions which supply the motive forces of life.\" It is clear then that\nthe passion for sovereignty, for equality, for incompetence, is not\nsufficient to give to a government a life which is at once complete and\nstrong.\n\nIt is necessary to give to competence its part, or rather it is\nnecessary to give competence one part, for I do not wish to argue that\nthere is any question of right involved, I only affirm that it is a\nsocial necessity. It is necessary that competence, technical,\nintellectual, moral competence should be assigned its part to play, even\nthough the sovereignty of the people should be limited and the principle\nof equality be somewhat abridged thereby.\n\nA democratic element is essentially necessary to a people, an\naristocratic element also is essentially necessary to a people.\n\nA democratic element is essentially necessary to a people in order that\nthe people should not feel itself to be a mere onlooker, but should\nrealise that it is a part and an important part of the body social, and\nthat the words \"You are the nation, defend it,\" have a meaning.\nOtherwise the argument of the anti-patriot demagogues would be just.\n\"What is the good of fighting for one set of masters against another\nset, since it will make no difference, only a change of masters?\"\n\nA democratic element is required in the government of a people, because\nit is very dangerous that the people should be an enigma. It is\nnecessary to know what it thinks, what it feels, what it suffers, what\nit desires, what it fears, and what it hopes, and as this can only be\nlearnt from the people itself, it is necessary that it should have a\nvoice which can make itself heard.\n\nThis should be done in one way or another, either by a Chamber of its\nown which should be endowed with great authority, or by the presence in\na single chamber of a considerable number of representatives of the\npeople, or by plebiscites constitutionally instituted as necessary for\nthe revision of the constitution and for laws of universal interest, or\nby the liberty of the press and the liberty of association and public\nmeeting. This would not perhaps be enough, but it would be almost\nenough. It is necessary that the people should be able to make known its\nwants, and to influence the decisions of the Government, in a word its\nvoice should be heard and considered.\n\nAn aristocratic element is also necessary in a nation and in the\ngovernment of a nation so that all that admits of precision shall not be\nsmothered by that which is confused; so that what is exact shall not be\nobscured by what is vague, and so that its firm resolves shall not be\nshaken by vacillating and incoherent caprice.\n\nSometimes history itself makes an aristocracy--a fortunate circumstance\nfor a nation! This forms a caste more or less exclusive, it has\ntraditions, traditions more conservative of the laws than the laws\nthemselves, and it embodies in itself all that there is of life, and\nenergy and growth in the soul of a people. Sometimes history has failed\nto give us an aristocracy or that which history has made has\ndisappeared. It is then that the people ought to draw one out of itself,\nit is then its duty to appropriate and preserve the high qualities to be\nfound in men who have rendered service to the State or whose ancestors\nhave rendered service to the State, who have special qualifications for\neach particular office and a moral efficiency for every form of public\nservice.\n\nThese qualities constitute the acquired aptitude of an aristocracy for\ntaking a part in the government; these qualities constitute its\nadaptation to its social environment, and to its special function in our\nsocial machinery and organisation. One might say that it is by these\nqualities that _it enters into and becomes part of the organism of which\nit is the material_. As John Stuart Mill has justly remarked, there\ncannot be an expert, well-managed democracy if democracy will not allow\nthe expert to do the work which he alone can do.\n\nWhat is wanted then and will always be wanted, even under socialism\nwhere, as I pointed out, there will still be an aristocracy though a\nmore numerous one, is a blending of democracy and aristocracy; and here,\nthough he wrote a long time ago, we shall find Aristotle is always right\nfor he studied in a scientific spirit some hundred and fifty different\nconstitutions.\n\nHe is an aristocrat, without concealment, as we have seen, but his final\nconclusions, whether he is speaking of Lacedaemon, which he did not like,\nor of Carthage, or in general terms, have always been in favour of mixed\nconstitutions as ever the best. \"There is,\" he says, \"a manner of\ncombining democracy and aristocracy--which consists in so arranging\nmatters that both the distinguished citizens and the masses have what\nthey want. The right of every man to aspire to magisterial appointments\nis a democratic principle, but the admission of distinguished citizens\nonly is an aristocratic principle.\"\n\nThis blending of democracy and aristocracy makes a good constitution,\nbut the union must not be one of mere juxtaposition which would serve\nonly to put hostile elements within striking distance. I said a\n\"blending\" but the blending must be a real fusion. Our need is that in\nthe management of public business aristocracy and democracy should be\ncombined.\n\nHow? Well for many years I have been saying it and I hope I may live for\nmany years longer to say it again. A healthy nation is one in which the\naristocracy is \"_demophil_,\" that is a lover of the people, and where\nthe people is aristocratic in its leanings. Every people where the\naristocracy is aristocratic and where the democracy is democratic is a\npeople destined to perish promptly, because it does not understand what\na people is, it has not got beyond the stage of knowing what is a class\nand perhaps not even as far as that.\n\nMontesquieu praises highly the Athenians and the Romans for the\nfollowing reason. \"At Rome, although the people had the right of\nelevating plebeians to office, it could never bring itself to elect\nthem; and although at Athens, it could by the law of Aristides, choose\nmagistrates from all classes, it never happened according to Xenophon,\nthat the lower people demanded the election of rulers who could injure\nits safety and its glory. The two instances are identical; only, as far\nas Athens is concerned, it signifies nothing, for at Athens everything\nwas decided by plebiscite and in consequence the real rulers of Athens\nwere the orators, in whom the people trusted, who enforced their\ndecisions and really governed the city. At Rome the fact is of great\nimportance for it was the elected magistrates who governed.\"\n\nRepublican Rome was indeed a country aristocratically governed which\nhad, however, a democratic element in its constitution, and this\ndemocratic element, up to the time of the civil wars, was itself\nprofoundly aristocratic, just as the aristocracy which was always open\nto an accession of members from the plebs was profoundly \"demophil.\"\n\nThe institution of patron and client, even in the state of degeneracy\nwhich overtook it, is a phenomenon which I believe is well-nigh unique.\nIt shows to what extent two classes felt the social necessity, the\npatriotic necessity of mutual support and of a recognition of an\nidentity of interest.\n\nA nation whose people is aristocratic and whose aristocracy is\n\"demophil\" is a healthy nation. Rome succeeded in the world because for\nfive hundred years she enjoyed this social health.\n\nAn aristocratic people and a people-loving aristocracy. I had long\nbelieved the formula was of my own invention. I have just discovered,\nand I am in no way surprised, that Aristotle was before me. He quotes\nthe oath which oligarchs take in certain cities. \"I swear to be always\nthe enemy of the people and never to counsel any thing that I do not\nknow to be injurious to them.\" \"This,\" he continues, \"is the very\nopposite of what they ought to do or to pretend to do ... It is a\npolitical fault which is often committed in oligarchies as well as in\ndemocracies, and where the multitude has control of the laws, the\ndemagogues make this mistake. In their combat against the rich, they\nalways divide the State into two opposing parties. _In a democracy, on\nthe contrary, the Government should profess to speak for the rich, and\nin oligarchies it should profess to speak in favour of the people._\"\n\nIt is a Machiavelian counsel. Aristotle seems convinced that democrats\ncan only _profess_ to speak for the rich and that all we can expect from\noligarchs is an appearance of speaking in favour of the people.\nNevertheless he recognises clearly that for the peace and well-being of\nthe commonwealth such should be their attitude.\n\nThere is something more profound than this. Aristocrats ought not only\nto appear but to be verily favourable to the demos, if they understand\nthe interests of aristocracy itself, for aristocracy requires a base.\nDemocrats also ought not only to appear but to be aristocratic if they\nunderstand the interests of democracy which requires a guide.\n\nThis reciprocity of good offices, this reciprocity of devotion, and this\ncombination of effort are as necessary in modern as they were in ancient\nrepublics. It is, and we must coin a word to express it, a social\n\"synergy\" that is wanted. A union of all the vitalizing elements is as\nnecessary in society as in the family. Every family that is divided must\nperish, every kingdom that is divided must perish.\n\nI have said little of royalty which only indirectly concerns my subject.\nIf we have seen instances of the institution of royalty firmly\nestablished, it is where the sentiment of royalty, appealing at once\nboth to the aristocracy and to the people, has realised that \"synergy\"\nof the whole community of which we speak; it is where both, being united\nin devotion to one object, are led to be devoted to each other by reason\nof this convergence of their wills. _Eadem velle, eadem nolle amicitia\nest._\n\nThere is no need of royalty for this. Royalty is our country itself\npersonified in one man. In the identification of country and kingdom, we\ncan and must arrive at this same union of the separate vitalities of the\nnation, at this same community and convergence of will. The humble must\nlove their country in loving the great and the great must love their\ncountry in loving the humble; and so all classes must be at one in their\nhopes and in their fears. _Amicitia sit!_\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n Abbeville, 115\n\n Abolition of Inheritance, 200, 203\n\n Academies, 27\n\n America, 170\n\n Amoeba, 15 _et seq._\n\n Antisthenes, 132\n\n Aristides, law of, 232\n\n Aristocracy, 36, 90, 137, 159\n   ---- aptitude for government, 230\n   ---- constitution which obeys laws, 88\n   ---- demophil, 2, 232, 233\n   ---- education under, 190\n   ---- and examination system, 176\n   ---- fusion with democracy, 231-233\n   ---- impossible without merit, 31\n   ---- old men under, 147\n   ---- of Parliament, 172\n   ---- permanent senators form, 58\n   ---- and religion, 205, 207\n   ---- result of indirect election, 19\n   ----- and special jurisdictions, 98\n\n Aristophanes, 126, 150\n\n Aristotle, 14, 16, 31, 70, 78, 85, 88, 129, 131, 134-136, 153, 208, 215,\n   231, 234, 235\n\n _Arrondissement_, 44\n   ---- _scrutin d'_, 83\n\n Atheism, 207, 208\n\n Athens, 17, 31, 37, 83, 113, 149, 163, 226, 232\n\n Augier, 213\n\n Austria, 49\n\n\n Barthelemy, Abbe, 157\n\n Barthou, M., 9, 118\n\n Belgium, 170\n\n Bismarck, 209\n\n Bonald, 201\n\n Brunetiere, 188\n\n Busiris, 115\n\n\n Calas, 115\n\n Carnot, 93\n\n Carthage, 16, 231\n\n Caucus, 6\n\n Chamber of Deputies, 44, 118, 172-174\n\n Charlemagne, 149\n\n Charondas, 87\n\n Church, the, 98, 206\n\n Cicero, 70\n   ---- _de Senectute_, 149\n\n Civility, 156 _et seq._\n\n Civil Service, the, appointments to, 45-51\n   ---- examinations for, 176 _et seq._\n\n Clergy, the, 169\n\n Code, the, 75, 76, 163\n\n Colbert, 43\n\n Collectivism, 200-203\n\n Communism, 200\n\n _Competence par collation_, 19, 22\n\n Competitive examination, 175 _et seq._\n\n Conciliation Boards, 97\n\n _Concordat_, 206\n\n Constitution of 1873, 57\n   ---- mixed, 231\n\n Co-optation, 176\n\n _Cour de Cassation_, 57, 101, 108, 176\n\n Court of Appeal, 57, 107\n\n Courts, ecclesiastical, 98\n   ---- martial, 98\n\n Criminal procedure, 83\n   ---- jurisdiction, 99\n\n\n Dandin, 184\n\n _Dandino-mania_, 184\n\n Decadence, 222, 223\n\n Decrees, 84, 91, 208, 209\n\n Demagogues, 85, 191, 213\n\n Democracy, Aristotle on, 129-136\n   ---- Athenian, 17\n   ---- children under, 142-146\n   ---- and direct government, 37 _et seq._\n\n Democracy, encouragement of incompetence under, 30, 92, 126\n   ---- English, 170\n   ---- evolution of a modern, 18 _et seq._\n   ---- fusion with aristocracy, 231-235\n   ---- governed by decrees, 34, 91\n   ---- and imperative mandate, 32\n   ---- lack of respect under, 158-161\n   ---- legislation under, 66, 79-81\n   ---- magistrature, 110-122\n   ---- Montesquieu on, 137-139\n   ---- morality under, 139\n   ---- Nietzsche on, 220-226\n   ---- old men under, 146-153\n   ---- Plato on, 127-129\n   ---- and politicians, 34, 36\n   ---- position of women under, 140-142\n   ---- principle of, 14, 15\n   ---- and private enterprise, 59-61\n   ---- and reform, 216-219\n   ---- Rousseau on, 136, 137\n   ---- and schoolmasters, 191-215\n   ---- and socialism, 61-65\n   ---- and special jurisdictions, 98, 99\n\n Demos, 56, 86\n\n Demosthenes, 82\n\n Deputy, 55, 174\n   ---- mayors, 119\n\n Despotism, principle of, 12\n   ---- tendency of democracy towards, 62, 65, 96\n\n D'Etalonde, 115\n\n Diderot, 207\n\n Division of labour, 15\n   ---- ---- in domestic life, 141\n\n Divorce, 125\n\n\n Germans, 67\n\n Gerontocracy, 146, 153\n\n Gladstone, Mr., 3, 5\n\n Goncourt, 201\n\n Greece, 222, 226\n\n Greeks, 71, 73, 87\n\n Greek philosophers, 126\n\n\n Holbach, 207\n\n Homer, 56\n\n Horace, 152\n\n Hugo, Victor, 209\n\n\n Ideal legislator, the, 79\n\n Imperative mandate, 32, 33\n\n Indirect election, 19\n\n Inequalities, artificial and natural, 30\n\n Interpellation, 83\n\n Italy, 170\n\n\n Japy, Mme., 114\n\n Jesuits in Paraguay, 62\n\n Joannes, Baron, 68\n\n Judges, appointment of, 46, 100-112\n   ---- interpretation of the law, 163\n\n _Juge de paix_, 111, 116 _et seq._\n\n Jurisdiction, criminal, 99\n   ---- ecclesiastical, 97\n   ---- military, 97\n   ---- seignorial, 97\n\n Jury, the 112-115, 168, 169\n\n\n Kant, 153\n\n\n La Barre, 115\n\n Lacedaemon, 150, 231\n\n Law, abolishing primogeniture, 124\n   ---- abuse of, 110\n   ---- of competence, 97\n   ---- and decrees, 84-91\n   ---- degree in, 116\n   ---- doctors of, 108\n   ---- ecclesiastical, 125\n   ---- emergency, 82-89\n   ---- fundamental, 89\n   ---- governs men, 121\n   ---- of July 12th, 1905, 117\n   ---- made by the ideal legislator, 67-74\n   ---- made by the people, 17, 18, 25, 40, 194-196, 234\n   ---- must be ancient and unchanged, 77-79\n   ---- not the same for rich and poor, 199\n   ---- permitting divorce, 125\n   ---- of proportion, 14\n   ---- questions of, 113, 162\n   ---- of Sunday observance, 75, 76\n   ---- and tradition, 230\n\n Legal profession, the, 60\n\n Legislation, ancient, 87\n   ---- English, 2, 4\n   ---- party, 81-82\n   ---- philanthropic, 6\n   ---- predatory, 8\n   ---- requires special knowledge, 18, 67\n\n Legislator, essential qualifications for, 66-81\n   ---- Greek, 73\n\n Lestranger, M. Marcel, 164, 166\n\n Liberty of association, 194, 196\n\n Louis XIV, 21, 22, 150, 195, 204, 209\n   ----    XV, 150\n   ----    XVI, 133\n\n Louvois, 43\n\n Lycurgus, 2, 73, 87\n\n Lynching, 168, 169\n\n\n Machiavel, 71\n\n Machiavelian counsel, 234\n\n Magistracy, hereditary system advocated for, 105, 163, 168\n\n Magistrates, election of, 48, 100-112\n   ---- incompetence of, 164-168\n   ---- subservience to government, 163\n\n Mayors, 117\n\n Medical examinations, 180\n   ---- profession, 60\n\n Mill, John Stuart, 230\n\n Minister of Agriculture, 94\n   ---- of Commerce, 92\n   ---- of Education, 92, 211\n\n Minister of Interior, 211\n   ---- of Justice, 76, 118-120\n   ---- of Navy, 92\n   ---- of War, 92, 93\n\n Miscarriage of justice, 165\n\n Monarchy, old men under, 147\n   ---- principle of, 12, 62, 96\n\n Montesquieu, 4, 12, 14, 28, 37, 44-47, 66-70, 74-89, 103-105, 123, 137,\n 138, 150-156, 193, 227, 232\n\n Moral effect of law, 125\n   ---- order, 217\n\n Morals, high standard of, 150\n   ---- laxity of, 155\n   ---- private, 139, 140\n   ---- public, 123, 124, 139\n\n More, Thomas, 71\n\n Moses, 67, 209\n\n\n Napoleon, 13, 105, 209\n\n Nationalisation, 60\n\n Nietzsche, 147, 187, 220-225\n\n\n Oligarchy, 63, 128, 147\n\n Olympiad, 87\n\n Ostracism, 133\n\n\n Paraguay, 62\n\n Parental authority, 143\n\n Parliament, 172\n\n Party system under Socialism, 61\n\n Pascal, 107, 157\n\n Patriotism, 12, 214\n\n Peel, Sir R., 3\n\n Periander, 132\n\n Peter the Great, 124\n\n Phaedo, personification of laws in, 87\n\n Plato, 71, 105, 126-129, 138, 140, 153\n\n Plautus, 150\n\n Plebiscite, 24, 173\n\n _Pli Professionnel, Le_, 164\n\n Pnyx, the, 37\n\n Politeness, 156 _et seq._\n\n Politician, definition of, 34\n   ---- democracy's need of, 35, 51\n   ---- as schoolmaster, 212\n\n _Prefet_, 62-55, 173, 212\n\n President of the Chamber, 110\n   ---- of the Council, 93\n   ---- of the Republic, 42, 57\n\n Primogeniture, 124\n\n _Procureur-general_, 52, 53, 119-122\n\n Proudhon, 73\n\n Public officials, appointment of, 43-51\n   ---- under Socialism, 201\n\n Purchase system, the, 103\n\n\n Quinet, Edgar, 13\n\n\n Rabelais, 115\n\n Republic, 12, 13, 73\n\n Renaissance, 149\n\n Renan, 223\n\n Renouvier, 50\n\n Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 22\n\n Rhedi, 78\n\n Robespierre, 207, 208\n\n Roman Republic, 13, 113, 204, 233\n\n Romans, the, 68, 87, 232\n\n Rome, 124, 149, 222, 226, 232-234\n\n Rousseau, 32, 72, 136-138, 149, 150, 207, 208\n\n Royalty, 137, 286\n   ---- democratic, 18\n\n\n St. Cyr, 177\n\n St. Louis, 74\n\n Schopenhauer, 224\n\n _Scrutin de liste_, 83, 112, and note\n   ---- _d'arrondissement_, 83\n\n Senate, 38, 58, 117, 118, 172-175\n\n Senators, 55, 172-175\n   ---- irremovable, 57\n\n Seneca, 129\n\n Socialism, 61-65, 231\n\n Socrates, 18, 88\n   ---- on democracy, 144\n\n Solon, 67, 73\n\n Sovereignty of the People, 40, 45, 56, 177, 194-198, 204-209, 214\n\n Specialisation of functions, 15-18, 31\n\n Special jurisdictions, 97, 98\n\n State control of children, 144\n   ---- ---- of magistrates, 100,101\n   ---- ---- of private enterprise, 60-61\n   ---- danger of eminent man to, 131-137\n   ---- intervention to restore public morality, 217-219\n\n State policy, 110\n   ---- services rendered to, 230\n   ---- within a State, 196\n\n Steinheil case, 114\n\n Suidas, 103, 105\n\n Sunday observance, 75\n\n Sylla, 73\n\n Synergy, 235, 236\n\n\n Terence, 150\n\n Thrasybulus, 132\n\n Toulouse, 115\n\n Tyranny, 135\n\n\n Universal suffrage, 21, 173-175\n\n University degrees, 20, 181-183\n\n Upper chamber, suggestions for strong, 174\n\n Usbek, 78\n\n\n Virtue, civic, 14, 103, 104\n   ---- the principle of a republic, 12, 13\n\n Voltaire, 103-105, 116\n\n\n Women, their position in a democracy, 140-143\n\n\n Xenophon, 126, 233\n\n\n Young man, Horace's description of, 152\n\n\n\n\n_Printed by Sherratt & Hughes, London and Manchester._","title":"The cult of incompetence","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":46266}