{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_78218/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_78218","id":"gutenberg_78218","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78218","summary":null,"tags":["Intellectuals","Nationalism","Philosophy, Modern"],"text":"The Great Betrayal\n\n                        (La Trahison des Clercs)\n\n\n                                   By\n                              Julien Benda\n\n\n                             Translated by\n                           Richard Aldington\n\n\n                                 London\n                     George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.\n                   Broadway House, Carter Lane, E.C.\n                                 1928.\n\n\n                      PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY\n                STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, LTD., HERTFORD.\n\n\n\n\n                               _Contents_\n\n                           Translator\u2019s Note\n                           Author\u2019s Foreword\n            I - The Modern Perfecting of Political Passions\n    II - Significance of this Movement--Nature of Political Passions\n                 III - The \u2018Clerks\u2019--The Great Betrayal\n                       IV - Summary--Predictions\n                                 Notes\n                              [Footnotes]\n                         [Transcriber\u2019s Notes]\n\n\n\n\n_Translator\u2019s Note_\n\n\nThe title of M. Benda\u2019s book is _La Trahison des Clercs_. The word\n\u2018Clercs\u2019, which occurs throughout the book, is defined by M. Benda\u2019s\nas \u2018all those who speak to the world in a transcendental manner\u2019. I\ndo not know the English word for \u2018all those who speak to the world\nin a transcendental manner\u2019. But in Chaucer\u2019s time the word \u2018clerk\u2019\n(\u2018a clerke of Oxenforde\u2019) meant anyone who was not a \u2018layman\u2019, a word\nemployed by M. Benda as the antithesis to \u2018clerk\u2019. We still use the\nword in this sense when we speak of a \u2018clerk in holy orders\u2019 and retain\nits root in \u2018cleric\u2019. A \u2018cleric\u2019 is the person described by M. Benda as\n\u2018pre-eminently a clerk\u2019. If the words \u2018in holy orders\u2019 are subtracted\nfrom \u2018a clerk in holy orders\u2019, the remaining \u2018clerk\u2019 is roughly what M.\nBenda means, though he also uses \u2018clerk\u2019 to include \u2018a clerk in holy\norders\u2019. Nowadays a clerk is a person who performs sedentary labour in\nan office, and the word in England is pronounced \u2018clark\u2019. In America a\nclerk (pronounced \u2018clurrk\u2019) is what the English call a shop-assistant.\nIn order to avoid a misleading title I have called this translation\n_The Great Betrayal_, giving M. Benda\u2019s title in brackets afterwards.\nWhere the word \u2018clerk\u2019 first occurs in the book, I have added the words\n\u2018in the medieval sense\u2019, and throughout the text I have invariably\nwritten the word in inverted commas, \u2018clerk\u2019, to avoid any possible\nmisunderstanding.\n\nI should add that the words \u2018real\u2019 and \u2018realism\u2019 are nearly always\nused in this book as the antithesis to \u2018ideal\u2019 and \u2018idealism\u2019. Other\nabstract words are used in a rather special sense which I hope will be\nplain from the context.\n\n                                                                R. A.\n\n\n\n\n            \u2018The world is suffering from lack of faith\n                 in a transcendental truth.\u2019\n\n                                             _Renouvier._\n\n\n\n\n_Author\u2019s Foreword_\n\n\nTolstoi relates that when he was in the Army he saw one of his brother\nofficers strike a man who fell out from the ranks during a march.\nTolstoi said to him:--\n\n\u2018Are you not ashamed to treat a fellow human being in this way? Have\nyou not read the Gospels?\u2019\n\nThe other officer replied:--\n\n\u2018And have you not read Army Orders?\u2019\n\nThis retort will always be thrown back at the spiritual man who tries\nto take the direction of the material. To me it seems a very wise one.\nThose who lead men to the conquest of material things have no need of\njustice and charity.\n\nNevertheless I think it important that there should be men--even if\nthey are scorned--who urge their fellow beings to other religions than\nthe religion of the material. Now, those who should play this part\n(to whom I have given the name of \u2018clerks\u2019 in the medieval sense of\nthe word) have not only ceased to do so, but are playing an exactly\ncontrary part. Most of the influential moralists of the past fifty\nyears in Europe, particularly the men of letters in France, call upon\nmankind to sneer at the Gospel and to read Army Orders.\n\nThis new teaching seems to me all the more deserving of serious\nattention because it is addressed to a humanity which of its own\nvolition is now established in materialism with a decisiveness hitherto\nunknown. And I shall begin by showing this to be true.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n_The Modern Perfecting of Political Passions_\n\n\nWe are to consider those passions termed political, owing to which men\nrise up against other men, the chief of which are racial passions,\nclass passions and national passions. Those persons who are most\ndetermined to believe in the inevitable progress of the human species,\nespecially in its indispensable movement towards more peace and\nlove, cannot deny that during the past century these passions have\nattained--and day by day increasingly so--in several most important\ndirections, a degree of perfection hitherto unknown in history.\n\nIn the first place they affect a large number of men they never before\naffected. When, for example, we study the civil wars which convulsed\nFrance in the sixteenth century, and even those at the end of the\neighteenth century, we are struck by the small number of persons\nwhose minds were really disturbed by these events. While history, up\nto the nineteenth century, is filled with long European wars which\nleft the great majority of people completely indifferent, apart from\nthe material losses they themselves suffered,[1] it may be said that\nto-day there is scarcely a mind in Europe which is not affected--or\nthinks itself affected--by a racial or class or national passion, and\nmost often by all three. The same progress seems to have taken place\nin the New World, while immense bodies of men in the Far East, who\nseemed to be free from these impulses, are awakening to social hatred,\nthe party system, and the national spirit insofar as it implies the\nwill to humiliate other men. To-day political passions have attained a\n_universality_ never before known.\n\nThey have also attained _coherence_. Thanks to the progress of\ncommunication and, still more, to the group spirit, it is clear\nthat the holders of the same political hatred now form a compact\nimpassioned mass, every individual of which feels himself in touch\nwith the infinite numbers of others, whereas a century ago such\npeople were comparatively out of touch with each other and hated in\na \u2018scattered\u2019 way. This is singularly striking with respect to the\nworking classes who, even in the middle of the nineteenth century,\nfelt only a scattered hostility for the opposing class, attempted only\ndispersed efforts at war (such as striking in one town, or one union),\nwhereas to-day they form a closely-woven fabric of hatred from one\nend of Europe to the other. It may be asserted that these coherences\nwill tend to develop still further, for the will to group is one of\nthe most profound characteristics of the modern world, which even in\nthe most unexpected domains (for instance, the domain of thought)\nis more and more becoming the world of leagues, of \u2018unions\u2019 and of\n\u2018groups\u2019. Is it necessary to say that the passion of the individual\nis strengthened by feeling itself in proximity to these thousands\nof similar passions? Let me add that the individual bestows a mystic\npersonality on the association of which he feels himself a member, and\ngives it a religious adoration, which is simply the deification of his\nown passion, and no small stimulus to its intensity.\n\nThe coherence just described might be called a surface coherence,\nbut there is added to it a coherence of essence. For the very reason\nthat the holders of the same political passion form a more compact,\nimpassioned group, they also form a more _homogeneous_, impassioned\ngroup, in which individual ways of feeling disappear and the zeal of\neach member more and more takes on the colour of the others. In France,\nfor instance, one cannot but be struck by the fact that the enemies\nof the democratic system (I am speaking of the mass, not the highest\npoints) display a passion which has little variety, shows very slight\ndifferences in different persons. How little this mass of hatred is\nweakened by personal and original manners of hating--one might almost\nsay that this passion itself is obedient to \u2018democratic levelling\ndown\u2019! How much more uniformity is shown now than a hundred years ago\nby the emotions known as anti-Semitism, anti-Clericalism and Socialism,\nin spite of the immense number of varieties in the last-named! And do\nnot those who are subject to these emotions now all tend _to say the\nsame thing_? Political passions, as passions, seem to have attained the\nhabit of discipline; they seem to obey a word of command even in the\nmanner they are felt. It is easy to see what increase of strength they\nacquire thereby.\n\nWith some of these passions the increase in homogeneousness is\naccompanied by an increased _precision_. For instance, we all know that\na hundred years ago Socialism was a strong but vague passion with the\ngreat mass of its supporters. But to-day Socialism has more closely\ndefined the object it wishes to attain, has determined the exact point\nwhere it means to strike its adversary and the movement it intends to\ncreate in order to succeed. The same progress may be observed in the\nanti-democratic movement. And we all know that hatred becomes stronger\nby becoming more precise.\n\nThere is another sort of perfecting of political passions. Throughout\nhistory until our own days I see these passions acting intermittently,\nblazing up and then subsiding. I see that the undoubtedly terrible and\nnumerous explosions of class and race hatred were followed by long\nperiods of calm, or at least of somnolence. Wars between nations lasted\nfor years, but not hatred--even if we may say that it existed. To-day\nwe have only to look every morning at any daily paper and we shall see\nthat political hatreds do not cease for a single day. At best some\nof them are silent a moment for the benefit of one among them which\nsuddenly claims all the subject\u2019s strength. This is the period of\n\u2018national unions\u2019, which do not in the very least herald in the reign\nof love, but merely of a general hatred which for the moment dominates\npartial hatreds. To-day political passions have acquired _continuity_,\nwhich is so rare a quality in all feelings.\n\nLet us consider a moment the impulse which causes partial hatreds to\nabdicate in favour of another, more general hatred, which derives a\nnew religion of itself and hence a new strength, from the feeling of\nits generality. Perhaps it has not been sufficiently observed that\nthis sort of impulse is one of the essential characteristics of the\nnineteenth century. Twice during the nineteenth century, in Germany and\nin Italy, the age-old hatreds of petty States disappeared in favour\nof a great national passion. In the same period (more precisely,\nat the end of the eighteenth century) in France, the mutual hatred\nof the Court nobles and the country nobles was extinguished in the\ngreater hatred of both parties for all who were not nobles; the hatred\nbetween the military and legal nobles disappeared in the same impulse;\nthe hatred between the upper and lower ranks of the clergy vanished\nin their common hatred of laicality; the hatred between clergy and\nnobility expired to the profit of their mutual hatred for the commons.\nAnd in our times the hatred between the three orders has melted into\none hatred, that of the possessing classes for the working class. The\ncondensation of political passions into a small number of very simple\nhatreds, springing from the deepest roots of the human heart, is a\nconquest of modern times.[2]\n\nI also believe that I see a great progress in political passions to-day\nin their relation to other passions in the same person. Political\npassions undoubtedly occupied more of the attention of a bourgeois\nof ancient France than is usually supposed, but less than the love\nof money and pleasure, family feeling and the calls of vanity; while\nthe least we can say of his modern equivalent is that when political\npassions take possession of him, they do so to the same extent as\nthe other passions. Compare, for instance, the tiny place occupied\nby political passions in the French bourgeois as he appears in the\nFabliaux, in medieval drama, the novels of Scarron, Fureti\u00e8re and\nCharles Sorel,[3] with the same bourgeois as drawn by Balzac, Stendhal,\nAnatole France, Abel Hermant and Paul Bourget. (Of course, I am not\nspeaking of times of crisis, like the Ligue and the Fronde, when\npolitical passions occupied the whole individual as soon as they\ntouched him at all.) The truth is that to-day political passions are\ninvading most of the other passions in the bourgeoisie, and weakening\nthe latter to their own profit. Everyone knows that in our own days\nfamily rivalries, commercial enmities, ambitions and the competition\nfor public honours are all tainted with political passion. An apostle\nof the modern mind clamours for \u2018politics first\u2019. He might have\nobserved that nowadays it is politics everywhere, politics always and\nnothing but politics.[4] We have only to open our eyes to see when an\nincrease of power is acquired by political passion when combined with\nother passions, so numerous, so constant and so strong themselves.\nComing to the man of the people, we can measure the increase of his\npolitical passions in relation to his other passions in modern times\nby considering, as Stendhal puts it, how long his whole passion was\nlimited to wishing (_a_) Not to be killed, (_b_) For a good warm coat.\nAnd then we may recollect that when a little less misery permitted him\na few general ideas, how long it was before his vague desire for social\nchanges were transformed into a passion, i.e. showing the two essential\ncharacteristics of passion: The fixed idea, and the need to put it\ninto action.[5] I think it may be said that political passions in all\nclasses to-day have attained a degree of _preponderance over all other\npassions_ in those affected such as hitherto had been unknown.\n\nThe reader will already have perceived an all-important factor in\nthe impulses I have been describing. Political passions rendered\nuniversal, coherent, homogeneous, permanent, preponderant--everyone can\nrecognize there to a great extent the work of the cheap daily political\nnewspaper. One cannot help reflecting and wondering whether it may not\nbe that inter-human wars are only just beginning, when one thinks of\nthis instrument for developing their own passions which men have just\ninvented, or at least brought to a degree of power never seen before,\nto which they abandon themselves with all the expansion of their hearts\nevery morning as soon as they are awake.\n\nI have now showed what might be called the perfecting of political\npassions on the surface, in their more or less exterior aspects. But\nthey have also become strangely perfected in depth and inner strength.\n\nIn the first place they have made an immense advance in consciousness\nof themselves. Here again, largely owing to the influence of the\nnewspaper, it is clear that the mind affected by political hatred\nto-day becomes conscious of its own passion, formulates it, sees it,\nwith an accuracy unknown to the same sort of mind fifty years ago.\nThere is no need to say how much the passion is intensified by this.\nAnd while I am on this subject I should like to point to two passions,\nwhich have certainly not come to birth in our times but have attained\nconsciousness of themselves, self-assertion, a pride in themselves.\n\nThe first is what I shall call a certain _Jewish nationalism_. In the\npast, when the Jews were accused in various countries of forming an\ninferior race, or at any rate a peculiar people not to be assimilated,\nthey replied by denying their peculiarity, by trying to get rid of all\nappearance of peculiarity, and by refusing to admit the reality of\nrace. But in the last few years we see some of them labouring to assert\nthis peculiarity, to define its characteristics--or what they think\nsuch--taking a pride in it, and condemning every effort at assimilation\nwith their opponents (see the works of Israel Zangwill, of Andr\u00e9 Spire,\nand the _Revue Juive_). Here I am not trying to discover whether the\nimpulse of these Jews is or is not nobler than the efforts of so many\nothers to have their origin pardoned them; I am simply pointing out to\nthose interested in the progress of peace in the world that our age has\nadded one more arrogance to those which set men against each other, at\nleast to the extent that it is conscious and proud of itself.[6]\n\nThe other impulse I am thinking of is \u2018_bourgeoisism_\u2019, by which I\nmean the passion of the bourgeois class in asserting itself against\nthe class by which it is threatened. It may be said that until our\nown times, \u2018class hatred\u2019, as a conscious hatred proud of itself, was\nchiefly the hatred of the labourer for the bourgeois. The reciprocal\nhatred was much less clearly confessed. Ashamed of an egotism they\nthought peculiar to their own caste, the bourgeois temporized with this\negotism, would not admit even to themselves that it existed, tried to\nconvince themselves and others that it was a form of interest in the\ncommon good.[7] The bourgeois replied to the dogma of the class war by\ndenying that there really are any classes, thereby showing that while\nthey felt an inalterable opposition to the adverse party, they were\nunwilling to admit that they felt it. To-day we have only to think of\nItalian \u2018Fascism\u2019, of a certain \u2018Eloge du Bourgeois Fran\u00e7ais\u2019, and\nnumerous other manifestations of the same kind,[8] and we shall see\nthat the bourgeoisie are becoming fully conscious of their specific\negotisms, are proclaiming and venerating them as such and as though\nthese egotisms were bound up with the supreme interests of the human\nrace, that they are proud of this veneration and of setting up these\negotisms against those which are trying to destroy the bourgeoisie. In\nour time there has been created the \u2018mysticism\u2019 of bourgeois passion in\nits opposition to the passions of the other class.[9] Here again our\nage enters in the balance-sheet of humanity the arrival of yet one more\npassion at full possession of itself.\n\nThe progress of political passions in depth during the past century\nseems to me most remarkable in the case of national passions.\n\nFirst of all, owing to the fact that they are experienced to-day by\nlarge masses of men, these passions have become _far more purely\npassionate_. When the national feeling was practically confined to\nKings or their Ministers, it consisted chiefly in attachment to some\n_interest_ (desire for territorial expansion, search for commercial\nadvantages and profitable alliances), whereas to-day when this national\nfeeling is continually experienced by common minds, it consists chiefly\nin the exercise of _pride_. Everyone will agree that nationalist\npassion in the modern citizen is far less founded on a comprehensive\nknowledge of the national interests (he has an imperfect perception\nof these interests, he lacks the information necessary and does not\ntry to acquire it, for he is indifferent to questions of foreign\npolicy) than on the pride he feels in his nation, on his will to feel\nhimself one with the nation, to react to the honours and insults he\nthinks are bestowed on it. No doubt he wants his nation to acquire\nterritories, to be prosperous and to have powerful allies; but he wants\nall this far less on account of the material results which will accrue\nto the nation (how much is he conscious of these results?) than on\naccount of the glory, the prestige which the nation will acquire. By\nbecoming popular, national feeling has become national pride, national\nsusceptibility.[10] To measure how much more purely passionate it has\nbecome, how much more perfectly irrational (and therefore stronger)\none has only to think of Jingoism, the form of patriotism specially\ninvented by democracies. If, in accordance with current opinion, you\nthink that pride is a weaker passion than self-interest, you may be\nconvinced to the contrary by observing how commonly men let themselves\nbe killed on account of a wound to their pride, and how infrequently\nfor some infraction of their interests.\n\nThe susceptibility developed by national sentiment as it has become\npopular makes the possibility of wars far greater to-day than in the\npast. Obviously, with the peoples and with the aptitude of these new\n\u2018sovereigns\u2019 to rise up in a rage as soon as they think they are\ninsulted, peace runs an additional danger which did not exist when it\ndepended only upon Kings and their Ministers, who were far more purely\npractical persons, fully self-controlled, and quite willing to put up\nwith insults when they did not think themselves the stronger party.[11]\nAnd, in fact, how many times during the last hundred years has the\nworld almost flamed up in war solely because some nation thought its\nhonour had been wounded?[12] To this must be added the fact that this\nnational susceptibility provides the leaders of nations with a new and\nmost effective method of starting the wars they need, whether it is\nemployed at home or abroad. They have not failed to see this, which\nis amply proved by the example of Bismarck and the means by which he\nprovoked war with Austria and with France. From this point of view\nit seems to me quite correct to say with the French monarchists that\n\u2018democracy is war\u2019, provided that by democracy is meant the attainment\nof national susceptibility by the masses, and provided that it is\nrecognized that no change in the system of government would destroy\nthis phenomenon.[13]\n\nAnother considerable deepening of national passions comes from the fact\nthat the nations are now conscious of themselves not only as regards\ntheir material existence, their military power, their territorial\npossessions, and their economic wealth, but as regards their _moral_\nexistence. With a hitherto unknown consciousness (prodigiously fanned\nby authors) every nation now hugs itself and sets itself up against all\nother nations as superior in language, art, literature, philosophy,\ncivilization, \u2018culture\u2019. Patriotism to-day is the assertion of one\nform of mind against other forms of mind.[14] We know how much this\npassion increases its inner strength in this way and that the wars\nit determines are fiercer than those waged by the Kings, who merely\ndesired the same piece of territory. The prophecy of the old Saxon bard\nis completely fulfilled: \u2018In those days countries will be something\nthey have not yet become--they will be persons. They will feel hatred,\nand these hatreds will cause wars more terrible than any that have yet\nbeen seen.\u2019[15]\n\nIt is impossible to over-stress the novelty of this form of patriotism\nin history. It is obviously bound up with the adoption of this passion\nby the masses of the populace, and seems to have been inaugurated\nin 1813 by Germany, who is apparently the real teacher of humanity\nin the matter of democratic patriotism, if by this word is meant the\ndetermination of a nation to oppose others in the name of its most\nfundamental characteristics.[16] (The France of the Revolution and the\nEmpire never dreamed of setting itself up against other nations in the\nname of its language or of its literature.) This form of patriotism was\nso little known to preceding ages that there are countless examples\nof nations adopting the cultures of other nations, even of those with\nwhom they were at war, and in addition reverencing the culture adopted.\nShall I refer to the profound respect of Rome for the genius of Greece,\nthough Rome had felt it necessary to crush Greece politically? To the\nrespect of the conquerors of Rome, such as Ataulf and Theodoric, for\nRoman genius? And, nearer to ourselves, shall I mention Louis XIV\nannexing Alsace and not for one moment thinking of forbidding the\nGerman language?[17] In the past, nations displayed their sympathy for\nthe culture of other nations with whom they were at war, or invited\nthem to adopt their own. The Duke of Alba took measures to protect the\nlearned men in the towns of Holland, against which he was directing his\narmy; in the eighteenth century, the small German States, allied with\nFrederick the Great against the French, adopted more freely than ever\nFrench ideas, French fashions, French[18] literature; in the midst of\nthe struggle with England, the Convention sent a deputation there to\nurge the English to adopt the French metric system.[19] The notion that\npolitical warfare involves a war of cultures is entirely an invention\nof modern times, and confers upon them a conspicuous place in the moral\nhistory of humanity.\n\nAnother strengthening of national passions comes from the determination\nof the peoples to be conscious of _their past_, more precisely to\nbe conscious of their ambitions as going back to their ancestors,\nand to vibrate with \u2018centuries-old\u2019 aspirations, with attachments to\n\u2018historical\u2019 rights. This Romantic patriotism is also a characteristic\nof patriotism as practised by popular minds (by \u2018popular\u2019 I here mean\nall minds governed by the imagination, that is, in the first place,\nsociety people and men of letters). I have an idea that when Hugues de\nLionne desired for the nation the conquest of Flanders or when Siey\u00e8s\nwanted the Low Countries, they did not think they felt the soul of\nancient Gauls reviving in them, any more than Bismarck thought (I am\nnot talking of what he said) of reviving the Teutonic Knights when he\ncoveted the Danish Duchies.[20]\n\nThose who wish to estimate the increase of violence given to national\npassion by this solemnizing of its desires have only to observe what\nhas happened to this feeling among the Germans, with their claim to\nbe carrying on the spirit of the Holy Roman Empire, and among the\nItalians since they have set up their aspirations as the revival of\nthose of the Roman Empire.[21] There once again the leaders of the\nState find in popular sentimentality a new and excellent instrument for\ncarrying out their practical designs, an instrument they well know how\nto use. To mention only one recent example--think of the result the\nItalian government was able to obtain from the amazing aptitude of its\ncompatriots to wake up one fine morning and discover that the claim to\nFiume was a \u2018centuries-old\u2019 claim.\n\nSpeaking generally, it may be said that national passions, owing to\nthe fact that they are now exerted by plebeian minds, assume the\ncharacter of _mysticism_, of a religious adoration almost unknown\nin these passions in the practical minds of the great nobles. It is\nunnecessary to add that this makes these passions deeper and stronger.\nHere once more this plebeian form of patriotism is adopted by all who\npractise this passion, even when they are the noisiest champions of\nthe aristocracy of the mind. M. Maurras talks of the \u2018goddess France\u2019,\njust as Victor Hugo does. Let me add that this mystical adoration\nof the nation is not only to be explained by the nature of those who\nadore, but also by the changes which have taken place in the adored\nobject. There is first of all the spectacle of the military force and\norganization of modern States, which is something far more imposing\nthan of old. And when these States are seen to make war for an\nindefinite period after they have no more men, and go on subsisting\nfor long years after they have no more money, it is easy to understand\nwhy a man who has some tincture of religion in his mind may be led to\nbelieve that these States are of an essence different from that of\nordinary natural beings.\n\nI shall point out another great increase of power in national sentiment\nwhich has occurred in the last half-century. I mean that several\nvery powerful political passions, which were originally independent\nof nationalist feeling, have now become incorporated with it. These\npassions are: (_a_) The movement against the Jews; (_b_) the movement\nof the possessing classes against the proletariat; (_c_) the movement\nof the champions of authority against the democrats. To-day each one of\nthese passions is identified with national feeling and declares that\nits adversary implies the negation of nationalism. I may add that when\na person is affected by one of these passions he is generally affected\nby all three; consequently nationalist passion is usually swelled by\nthe addition of all three. Moreover this increase is reciprocal, and\nit may be said that to-day capitalism, anti-semitism and the party\nof authority have all received new strength from their union with\nnationalism. (For additional proof of the strength of these unions, see\nNote C at the end of this book.)\n\nI cannot drop the subject of the modern perfecting of political\npassions without mentioning one more characteristic: In all nations the\nnumber of persons who feel a direct interest in belonging to a powerful\nnation is incomparably greater now than in the past. In all the great\nStates to-day I observe that not only the world of industry and big\nbusiness but a considerable number of small tradesmen, small bourgeois,\ndoctors, lawyers, and even writers and artists, and working men too,\nfeel that for the sake of the prosperity of their own occupations it\nis essential for them to belong to a powerful group which can make\nitself feared. Those who are in a position to give an opinion on\nthis sort of change agree that the feeling did not exist, at least\nin the same clearly defined way as to-day, thirty years ago among\nthe small tradesmen of France, for instance. It seems an even newer\nthing among the men who belong to the so-called liberal professions;\nit is certainly something new to hear artists constantly girding at\nthe government of their country because it \u2018does not give the nation\nenough prestige to impose their art on foreigners\u2019. The feeling that\nfrom a professional point of view they have an interest in belonging\nto a powerful nation is also very recent among the working classes.\nThe party of \u2018Nationalist Socialists\u2019, which seems to exist everywhere\nexcept in France, is a quite modern political development. Among the\nmasters of industry the new development is, not that they feel how\nmuch it is to their interest that their nation should be powerful,\nbut that the feeling is to-day transformed into action, into formal\npressure on their governments.[22] This extension of patriotism based\non interest certainly does not prevent this sort of patriotism (as I\nsaid above) from being much less wide-spread than the patriotism[23]\nbased on pride; nevertheless it brings another increase of strength to\nnationalist passions.\n\nI shall now point out a last important perfecting of all political\npassions to-day, whether of race, class, party or nation. When I\nobserve these passions in the past, I see them consisting in purely\npassionate impulses, natural explosions of instinct, devoid of all\nextension of themselves in ideas and systems--at least among the\nmajority. The revolt of the workers in the fifteenth century against\nthe possessing classes was apparently not accompanied by any sort\nof teaching about the origin of property or the nature of capital.\nThose who massacred the Ghettos seem to have had no views on the\nphilosophical values of their action. And when the troops of Charles V\nattacked the defenders of Mezi\u00e8res, it does not appear that the assault\nwas enlivened by a theory about the predestination of the Germanic race\nand the moral baseness of the Latin world. To-day I notice that every\npolitical passion is furnished with a whole network of strongly woven\ndoctrines, the sole object of which is to show the supreme value of\nits action from every point of view, while the result is a redoubling\nof its strength as a passion. We must look at the system of ideology\nof German nationalism known as \u2018Pangermanism\u2019 and at the similar\nideology of the French Monarchists, if we wish to realize the point\nof perfection to which our age has carried these systems, with what\ntenacity each passion has built up in every direction the theories apt\nto satisfy it, with what precision these theories have been adapted to\nthis satisfaction, with what opulence of research, what labour, what\nprofound investigation they have been carried on in all directions. Our\nage is indeed the age of the _intellectual organization of political\nhatreds_. It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral\nhistory of humanity.\n\nEver since these systems have been in existence, they have consisted\nin establishing for each passion that it is the agent of good in the\nworld and that its enemy is the genius of evil. But to-day these\npassions desire to establish this not only politically, but morally,\nintellectually and aesthetically. Anti-semitism, Pangermanism, French\nMonarchism, Socialism are not only political manifestations; they\ndefend a particular form of morality, of intelligence, of sensibility,\nof literature, of philosophy and of artistic conceptions. Our age has\nintroduced two novelties into the theorizing of political passions, by\nwhich they have been remarkably intensified. The first is that everyone\nto-day claims that his movement is in line with \u2018the development of\nevolution\u2019 and \u2018the profound unrolling of history\u2019. All these passions\nof to-day, whether they derive from Marx, from M. Maurras or from\nHouston Chamberlain, have discovered a \u2018historical law\u2019, according to\nwhich their movement is merely carrying out the spirit of history and\nmust therefore necessarily triumph, while the opposing party is running\ncounter to this spirit and can enjoy only a transitory triumph. That\nis merely the old desire to have Fate on one\u2019s side, but it is put\nforth in a scientific shape. And this brings us to the second novelty:\nTo-day all political ideologies claim to be founded on science, to\nbe the result of a \u2018precise observation of facts\u2019. We all know what\nself-assurance, what rigidity, what inhumanity (comparatively new\ntraits in the history of political passions, of which modern French\nmonarchism is a good example) are given to these passions to-day by\nthis claim.\n\nTo summarize: To-day political passions show a degree of universality,\nof coherence, of homogeneousness, of precision, of continuity, of\npreponderance, in relation to other passions, unknown until our\ntimes. They have become conscious of themselves to an extent never\nseen before. Some of them, hitherto scarcely avowed, have awakened to\nconsciousness and have joined the old passions. Others have become more\npurely passionate than ever, possess men\u2019s hearts in moral regions\nthey never before reached, and have acquired a mystic character which\nhad disappeared for centuries. All are furnished with an apparatus of\nideology whereby, in the name of science, they proclaim the supreme\nvalue of their action and its historical necessity. On the surface\nand in the depths, in spatial values and in inner strength, political\npassions have to-day reached a point of perfection never before known\nin history. The present age is essentially the age of politics.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n_Significance of this Movement--Nature of Political Passions_\n\n\nWhat is the significance of this movement? Of what simple and profound\nhuman tendency does it show the progress and triumph? The question\ncomes down to inquiring what is the nature of political passions,\nof what more general and more essential state of mind are they the\nexpression, what--as the schools say--is their psychological foundation?\n\nIt seems to me that these passions can be reduced to two fundamental\ndesires: (_a_) The will of a group of men to get hold of (or to retain\na hold on) some _material_ advantage, such as territories, comfort,\npolitical power and all its material advantages; and (_b_) the will\nof a group of men to become conscious of themselves as _individuals_,\ninsofar as they are _distinct_ in relation to other men. It may also\nbe said that these passions can be reduced to two desires, one of\nwhich seeks the satisfaction of an _interest_, the other of a _pride_\nor self-esteem. These two desires enter into political passions in\nvery different proportions, according to which passion is involved. It\nappears that racial passion, insofar as it is not one with national\npassion, is chiefly based on the will of a group of men to set\nthemselves up as distinct from others; the same thing may be said of\nreligious passion, if we consider it in its pure state. On the other\nhand, class passion, at least as we see it in the working classes,\napparently consists solely in the will to obtain possession of material\nadvantages. The desire to feel himself distinct, which George Sand and\nthe apostles of 1848 had begun to inculcate in the working man, now\nseems to be abandoned by him, at least in his utterances. National\npassion contains both factors. The patriot wants to obtain material\nadvantages and he wants to set himself up as distinct from others. This\nis the secret of the evident superiority in strength of this passion\n(when it is really a passion) over all other passions, especially over\nSocialism. A passion whose sole motive is interest is too weak to\ncontend with another which combines interest and pride. This too is one\nof the weaknesses of Socialism when opposed to class passion as exerted\nby the bourgeoisie, for the bourgeois wants both to possess material\nadvantages and to feel himself distinct from others. I shall add to\nthis that in my opinion the relative strengths of these two passions\n(one based on interest and the other on pride or self-esteem) are very\nunequal, and that the more powerful of the two is not that which tries\nto satisfy interest.\n\nNow, when I come to ask what is signified in their turn by these\nfundamental desires of political passions, I find they appear to me\nas the two essential composites of man\u2019s will to situate himself _in\nreal life_. To want real life is to want (_a_) To possess some material\nadvantages, and (_b_) to be conscious of oneself as an individual.\nEvery life which despises these two desires, every life which pursues\nonly spiritual advantage or sincerely asserts itself in the universal,\nsituates itself _outside the real_. Political passions, especially\nnational passions insofar as they unite the two desires mentioned, seem\nto me essentially _realist_ passions.\n\nHere many persons will protest: \u2018Yes,\u2019 they will say, \u2018the desires\nwhich make up political passions are realist desires, but the\nindividual shifts these desires from himself to the group of which\nhe is a part. The working man wants to obtain possession of material\nadvantages for his class, not for his own limited person. The patriot\nwants to possess territories for his nation, not for his own narrow\nego; he wants to be distinct from other men through his nation. Do you\napply the term \u201crealist\u201d to passions which imply such a transfer from\nthe individual to the collective body?\u2019 Is it necessary to reply that\nwhen the individual transfers these desires to the body of which he is\na part, he does not thereby alter their nature? And that all he does is\nsimply to increase their dimensions immeasureably? To wish to possess\nmaterial advantages _in one\u2019s nation_, to want to feel distinct from\nother men _in one\u2019s nation_, is still the desire to possess material\nadvantages, still the desire to feel distinct from other men. It only\nmeans that, if you are a Frenchman, you want to possess Brittany,\nProvence, Guyenne, Algeria, Indo-China; and you want to feel yourself\ndistinct from other men in Jeanne d\u2019Arc, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Racine,\nVoltaire, Victor Hugo, Pasteur. Add to this that at the same time\nyou attach these desires, not to a transitory and precarious single\nexistence, but to an \u2018eternal\u2019 existence, and feel them in that way.\nNot only does national egotism not cease to be egotism because it\nis national, but it becomes \u2018sacred\u2019 egotism.[24] Let me complete\nmy definition by saying that political passions are realism of a\nparticular quality, which is an important element of strength in them:\nThey are _divinized_ realism.[25]\n\nIf, therefore, we desire to express this perfecting of political\npassions which I have described, in terms of a more profound and\nessential order of things, we may say that men to-day are displaying,\nwith a hitherto unknown knowledge and consciousness, the desire to\nsituate themselves in the _real_ or practical manner of existence, in\nopposition to the _disinterested_ or _metaphysical_ manner. Moreover,\nit is remarkable to see how political passions to-day more and more\nexpressly assert their derivation from this realism and from it alone.\nOn the one hand we have a Socialism which constantly declares that it\nhas no interest in universal man, no interest in procuring justice for\nhim or any other \u2018metaphysical phantom\u2019, but solely desires to obtain\npossession of material advantages for the benefit of its class. On the\nother hand we have the nationalist mind which everywhere takes a pride\nin being purely realistic. The French people who fought in the past to\ncarry to other nations a doctrine they believed would bring happiness\n(I say the people, for its rulers never shared in that simple-minded\nbelief) would now blush to have it even suspected that they would fight\n\u2018for principles\u2019.[26] Is it not suggestive to observe that the only\nwars of the past which, to some extent, brought into play passions\nthat were a little disinterested--the wars of religion--are the only\nwars from which humanity has freed itself?[27] And that immense\nidealistic upheavals like the crusades (idealistic at least with humble\npeople) should now be something which makes the modern man smile, like\nthe spectacle of children at play? Is it not also significant that the\nnational passions (which I have shown are the most perfectly realist of\nall political passions) should be those which I have been able to point\nout have most absorbed all other passions?[28] Let me add to this,\nthat these passions, insofar as they are the will of a group of men to\nset themselves up as distinct from others, have attained a hitherto\nunknown degree of consciousness.[29] Finally, the supreme attribute we\nhave discovered in political passions, i.e. the divinization of their\nrealism, is now openly admitted, with a plainness never seen before.\nThe State, Country, Class, are now frankly God; we may even say that\nfor many people (and some are proud of it) they alone are God.[30]\nHumanity, by its present practice of political passions, thereby\ndeclares that it has become more realist, more exclusively and more\nreligiously realist than it has ever been.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n_The \u2018Clerks\u2019--The Great Betrayal_\n\n_\u2018I created him to be spiritual in his flesh; and now he has become\ncarnal even in the spirit.\u2019_--(Bossuet, _\u00c9l\u00e9vations_, VII, 3.)\n\n\nIn all that I have said hitherto I have been considering only masses,\nwhether bourgeois or proletarian, kings, ministers, political leaders,\nall that portion of the human species which I shall call \u2018the laymen\u2019,\nwhose whole function consists essentially in the pursuit of material\ninterests, and who, by becoming more and more solely and systematically\nrealist, have in fact only done what might be expected of them.\n\nSide by side with this humanity whom the poet has described in a\nphrase--\u2018O curvae in terram animae et celestium inanes\u2019--there existed\nuntil the last half century another, essentially distinct humanity,\nwhich to a certain extent acted as a check upon the former. I mean\nthat class of men whom I shall designate \u2018_the clerks_\u2019, by which term\nI mean all those whose activity essentially is _not_ the pursuit of\npractical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice of an art\nor a science or metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession\nof non-material advantages, and hence in a certain manner say: \u2018My\nkingdom is not of this world.\u2019 Indeed, throughout history, for more\nthan two thousand years until modern times, I see an uninterrupted\nseries of philosophers, men of religion, men of literature, artists,\nmen of learning (one might say almost all during this period), whose\ninfluence, whose life, were in direct opposition to the realism of the\nmultitudes. To come down specifically to the political passions--the\n\u2018clerks\u2019 were in opposition to them in two ways. They were either\nentirely indifferent to these passions, and, like Leonardo da Vinci,\nMalebranche, Goethe, set an example of attachment to the purely\ndisinterested activity of the mind and created a belief in the\nsupreme value of this form of existence; or, gazing as moralists\nupon the conflict of human egotisms, like Erasmus, Kant, Renan, they\npreached, in the name of humanity or justice, the adoption of an\nabstract principle superior to and directly opposed to these passions.\nAlthough these \u2018clerks\u2019 founded the modern State to the extent that it\ndominates individual egotisms, their activity undoubtedly was chiefly\ntheoretical, and they were unable to prevent the laymen from filling\nall history with the noise of their hatreds and their slaughters; _but\nthe \u2018clerks\u2019 did prevent the laymen from setting up their actions as a\nreligion, they did prevent them from thinking themselves great men as\nthey carried out these activities_. It may be said that, thanks to the\n\u2018clerks\u2019, humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honoured good.\nThis contradiction was an honour to the human species, and formed the\nrift whereby civilization slipped into the world.\n\nNow, at the end of the nineteenth century a fundamental change\noccurred: _the \u2018clerks\u2019 began to play the game of political passions_.\nThe men who had acted as a check on the realism of the people began\nto act as its stimulators. This upheaval in the moral behaviour of\nhumanity operated in several ways.\n\n\n_First: The \u2018clerks\u2019 have adopted political passions_\n\nFirst of all the \u2018clerks\u2019 have adopted political passions. No one will\ndeny that throughout Europe to-day the immense majority of men of\nletters and artists, a considerable number of scholars, philosophers,\nand \u2018ministers\u2019 of the divine, share in the chorus of hatreds among\nraces and political factions. Still less will it be denied that they\nadopt national passions. Doubtless, the names of Dante, Petrarch,\nd\u2019Aubign\u00e9, certain apologists of Caboche or preachers of the Ligue\nwill suffice to show that certain \u2018clerks\u2019 did not wait for our era\nto indulge in these passions with all the strength of their souls.\nBut, upon the whole, these \u2018clerks\u2019 of the forum were exceptions, at\nleast among the great ones. If, in addition to the great masters named\nabove, I evoke the phalanx of Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Galilei,\nRabelais, Montaigne, Descartes, Racine, Pascal, Leibniz, Kepler,\nHuyghens, Newton, and even Voltaire, Buffon and Montesquieu (to mention\nonly a few) I think I may repeat that until our own days the men of\nthought or the honest men remained strangers to political passions,\nand said with Goethe: \u2018Let us leave politics to the diplomats and the\nsoldiers.\u2019 Or if, like Voltaire, they took these passions into account,\nthey adopted a critical attitude towards them, did not espouse them\nas passions. Or if, like Rousseau, Maistre, Chateaubriand, Lamartine,\neven Michelet, they did take these passions to heart, they did so with\na generalizing of feeling, a disdain for immediate results, which in\nfact make the word \u2018passions\u2019 incorrect. To-day, if we mention Mommsen,\nTreitschke, Ostwald, Bruneti\u00e8re, Barr\u00e8s, Lema\u00eetre, P\u00e9guy, Maurras,\nd\u2019Annunzio, Kipling, we have to admit that the \u2018clerks\u2019 now exercise\npolitical passions with all the characteristics of passion--the\ntendency to action, the thirst for immediate results, the exclusive\npreoccupation with the desired end, the scorn for argument, the excess,\nthe hatred, the fixed ideas. The modern \u2018clerk\u2019 has entirely ceased\nto let the layman alone descend to the market place. The modern clerk\nis determined to have the soul of a citizen and to make vigorous use\nof it; he is proud of that soul; his literature is filled with his\ncontempt for the man who shuts himself up with art or science and\ntakes no interest in the passions of the State.[31] He is violently\non the side of Michaelangelo crying shame upon Leonardo da Vinci for\nhis indifference to the misfortunes of Florence, and against the\nmaster of the Last Supper when he replied that indeed the study of\nbeauty occupied his whole heart. The time has long past by since Plato\ndemanded that the philosopher should be bound in chains in order to\ncompel him to take an interest in the State. To have as his function\nthe pursuit of eternal things and yet to believe that he becomes\ngreater by concerning himself with the State--that is the view of the\nmodern \u2018clerk\u2019. It is as natural as it is evident that this adhesion\nof the \u2018clerks\u2019 to the passions of the laymen fortifies these passions\nin the hearts of the latter. In the first place, it abolishes the\nsuggestive spectacle (which I mentioned above) of a race of men whose\ninterests are set outside the practical world. And then especially,\nthe \u2018clerk\u2019 by adopting political passions, brings them the tremendous\ninfluence of his sensibility if he is an artist, of his persuasive\npower if he is a thinker, and in either case his moral prestige.[32]\n\nBefore proceeding any further, I feel I ought to make myself clear on\ncertain points:--\n\n(_a_) I have been talking of the _whole_ of the men of thought anterior\nto our own age. When I say that the \u2018clerks\u2019 in the past opposed\nthe realism of the laymen and that the \u2018clerks\u2019 of to-day are in\nits service, I am considering each of these groups as a whole; I am\ncontrasting one general characteristic with another. This means that\nI shall not feel myself contradicted by a reader who takes pains to\npoint out to me that so-and-so in the former group was a realist,\nand that so-and-so in the second is not, so long as this reader is\nobliged to admit that as a whole each of these groups does manifest the\ncharacteristic I have indicated. And also, when I speak of a single\n\u2018clerk\u2019, I am thinking of his work in its chief characteristic, i.e.\nin that part of his teaching which dominates all the rest, even if the\nremainder sometimes contradicts this dominant teaching. This means that\nI do not consider that I ought to refrain from looking upon Malebranche\nas a master of liberal thought because a few lines of his \u2018Morale\u2019 seem\nto be a justification of slavery, or upon Nietzsche as a moralist of\nwar because the end of \u2018Zarathustra\u2019 is a manifesto of fraternity which\noutdoes the Gospels. And I see the less reason for doing so, since\nMalebranche as a defender of slavery and Nietzsche as a humanitarian\nhave had no influence at all, and my subject is the influence which the\n\u2018clerks\u2019 have had in the world, and not what they were in themselves.\n\n(_b_) Some will object to me: \u2018How can you treat men like Barr\u00e8s\nand P\u00e9guy as \u201cclerks\u201d and blame them for lacking the true spirit of\n\u201cclerks\u201d when they are so openly men of action, with whom political\nthought is obviously occupied solely with the needs of the present\nhour, solely spurred on by the events of the day, while the former\nscarcely ever gave expression to his political thought except in\nnewspaper articles?\u2019 I reply, that this thought, which in truth is\npractically nothing but a form of immediate action, is given out by its\nauthors as the fruits of the highest speculative intellectual activity,\nthe result of the most truly philosophical meditation. Barr\u00e8s and\nP\u00e9guy would never have consented to be looked upon as mere polemical\nwriters, even in their polemical works.[33] These men, who indeed are\nnot \u2018clerks\u2019, gave themselves out to be \u2018clerks\u2019 and were considered\nas such, (Barr\u00e8s gave himself out to be a thinker who condescended to\nthe arena), and it is precisely as such that they enjoy a particular\nprestige among men of action. In this study my subject is not the\n\u2018clerk\u2019 such as he is, but the \u2018clerk\u2019 such as he is considered to be\nand as he acts upon the world in that capacity.\n\nI shall make the same answer with regard to M. Maurras and the other\ninstructors of the _Action Fran\u00e7aise_, of whom it will be said even\nmore truly that they are men of action and that it is indefensible to\ncite them as \u2018clerks\u2019. These men claim to carry out their action by\nvirtue of a doctrine derived from a wholly objective study of history,\nfrom the exercise of the most purely scientific spirit. And they owe\nthe special attention with which they are listened to by men of action\nentirely to this claim that they are _men of learning_, men who are\nfighting for a truth discovered in the austerity of the laboratory.\nThey owe it to their pose as combative \u2018clerks\u2019, but essentially _as\n\u2018clerks\u2019_.\n\n(_c_) Finally I should like to define my views on another point and\nto say that when the \u2018clerk\u2019 descends to the market place I only\nconsider that he is failing to perform his functions when he does so,\nlike those I have mentioned, for the purpose of securing the triumph\nof a realist passion, whether of class, race or nation. When Gerson\nentered the pulpit of Notre Dame to denounce the murderers of Louis\nd\u2019Orl\u00e9ans; when Spinoza, at the peril of his life, went and wrote the\nwords \u2018Ultimi barbarorum\u2019 on the gate of those who had murdered the de\nWitts; when Voltaire fought for the Calas family; when Zola and Duclaux\ncame forward to take part in a celebrated lawsuit (Dreyfus affair);\nall these \u2018clerks\u2019 were carrying out their functions as \u2018clerks\u2019 in\nthe fullest and noblest manner. They were the officiants of abstract\njustice and were sullied with no passion for a worldly object.[34]\nMoreover, there exists a certain criterion by which we may know whether\nthe \u2018clerk\u2019 who takes public action does so in conformity with his true\nfunctions; and that is, that he is immediately reviled by the laymen,\nwhose interests he thwarts (Socrates, Jesus). We may say beforehand\nthat the \u2018clerk\u2019 who is praised by the laymen is a traitor to his\noffice.\n\nBut let us return to the modern \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 adhesion to political\npassions.\n\nIt is concerning national passions that this adhesion seems to me\nparticularly novel and big with results. Once again, of course humanity\ndid not have to wait for the present age to see the \u2018clerks\u2019 indulge\nin this passion. Without mentioning the poets, whose tender hearts\nhave always sighed \u2018Nescio qua natale dulcedine solum cunctos Ducit\u2019;\nand, as regards the philosophers, without going back to antiquity when\nall, previous to the Stoics, were ardent patriots; we may yet observe\nin history (since the coming of Christianity and long before our own\ndays) writers, men of learning, artists, moralists, even ministers\nof the \u2018Universal\u2019 Church, who more or less explicitly displayed a\nspecial attachment for the group to which they belonged. But this\naffection among these men was based on reason; it showed itself\ncapable of judging its object, of denouncing its errors when they\nbelieved such errors had been committed. Need I recall how F\u00e9nelon and\nMassillon denounced certain wars of Louis XIV? How Voltaire condemned\nthe destruction of the Palatinate? How Renan denounced the violences\nof Napoleon? Buckle, the intolerance of England towards the French\nRevolution? And, in our own times, Nietzsche, the brutalities of\nGermany towards France?[35] It was reserved for our own time to see men\nof thought, or men giving themselves out as such, professing openly\nthat they would not submit their patriotism to any check on the part of\ntheir judgment, proclaiming (like Barr\u00e8s) that \u2018even if the country is\nwrong, we must think it in the right\u2019, denouncing as \u2018traitors to the\nnation\u2019 those of their compatriots who retain their liberty of mind, or\nat least of speech, in regard to their country. In France we have not\nforgotten how, during the last war, so many \u2018thinkers\u2019 attacked Renan\nfor the liberty of his judgments on the history of his country.[36] Nor\nhave we forgotten how, a little before that, a whole set of young men\n(who claimed to share in the life of the spirit) bristled up against\none of their masters (Jacob) who tried to teach them a patriotism which\ndid not exclude all right of criticism. After the violation of Belgium\nand other excesses of the Germans, in October, 1914, a German teacher\nsaid: \u2018There is nothing for which we need make excuses.\u2019[37] Now, if\ntheir own countries had been in a similar position, the same thing\nwould have been said by most of the spiritual leaders of that time;\nby Barr\u00e8s in France, by d\u2019Annunzio in Italy, by Kipling in England,\nif we may judge by his conduct during the attack of his nation upon\nthe Boers, and by William James in the United States, if we recall\nhis attitude when his compatriots seized the island of Cuba.[38] I am\nquite ready to agree that this sort of blind patriotism makes powerful\nnations, and that the patriotism of F\u00e9nelon or of Renan is not the sort\nwhich secures empires. It remains to determine whether the function of\n\u2018clerks\u2019 is to secure empires.\n\nThis adhesion of the \u2018clerks\u2019 to national passion is particularly\nremarkable among those whom I shall call \u2018pre-eminently clerks\u2019; I mean\nthe Churchmen. In all European countries during the past fifty years,\nthe immense majority of these men have not only given their adhesion to\nthe national feeling[39] and therefore have ceased to provide the world\nwith the spectacle of hearts solely occupied with God--but they seem to\nhave adopted this feeling with the same passion as that I have pointed\nout as existing among men of letters, and they too appear to be ready\nto support their own countries in the most flagrant injustices. During\nthe last war this could be most clearly seen in the German clergy, from\nwhom no one could drag the shadow of a protest against the excesses\ncommitted by their nation, and whose silence does not appear to have\nbeen caused solely by prudence.[40] In contrast to this attitude I\nrefer the reader to that of the Spanish theologians of the sixteenth\ncentury, to men like Bartholomew de las Casas and Vittoria, earnestly\ndenouncing the cruelties committed by their compatriots in the conquest\nof America. I do not claim that similar behaviour was then the rule\namong Churchmen, but I should like to ask whether there is a single\ncountry to-day where they would do likewise, or where they would even\nwish to be permitted to do so?[41]\n\nI shall point out another characteristic of patriotism in the modern\n\u2018clerk\u2019: xenophobia. The hatred of man for \u2018the man from outside\u2019 (the\n_horsain_), his rejection of and scorn for everything which is not\n\u2018from his own home\u2019, all these impulses, so constant among peoples and\napparently necessary to their existence, have been adopted in our days\nby the so-called men of thought, and adopted with a seriousness of\napplication, _an absence of simple-mindedness_, which go far towards\nmaking this adoption worthy of notice. We know how systematically the\nmass of German teachers in the past fifty years have announced the\ndecline of every civilization but that of their own race, and how in\nFrance the admirers of Nietzsche or Wagner, even of Kant or Goethe,\nwere treated by Frenchmen who claimed to share in the life of the\nspirit.[42] You may estimate how curiously new this form of patriotism\nis among the men of thought in France by thinking of Lamartine, Victor\nHugo, Michelet, Proudhon, Renan, to name only patriotic \u2018clerks\u2019 in the\nage immediately preceding that we are considering. Is it necessary to\nsay once again how much the \u2018clerks\u2019 have stimulated the passion of the\nlaymen by adopting this xenophobia?\n\nI shall be told that during the past fifty years, and especially\nduring the twenty years before the war, the attitude of foreigners to\nFrance was such that the most violent national partiality was forced\nupon all Frenchmen who wished to safeguard the nation, and that the\nonly true patriots were those who consented to this fanaticism. I say\nnothing to the contrary; I only say that the \u2018clerks\u2019 who indulged\nin this fanaticism betrayed their duty, which is precisely to set\nup a corporation whose sole cult is that of justice and of truth,\nin opposition to the peoples and the injustice to which they are\ncondemned by their religions of this earth. It is true indeed that\nthese new \u2018clerks\u2019 declare that they do not know what is meant by\njustice, truth, and other \u2018metaphysical fogs\u2019, that for them the true\nis determined by the useful, the just by circumstances. All these\nthings were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted\nall the important thinkers of his time.\n\nIt must be admitted that the German \u2018clerks\u2019 led the way in this\nadhesion of the modern \u2018clerk\u2019 to patriotic fanaticism. The French\n\u2018clerks\u2019 were, and long remained, animated with the most perfect spirit\nof justice towards foreign cultures (think of the cosmopolitanism\nof the Romantics!), when already Lessing, Schlegel, Fichte, Goerres\nwere organizing in their hearts a violent adoration for \u2018everything\nGerman\u2019, and a scorn for everything not German. The nationalist \u2018clerk\u2019\nis essentially a German invention. This, moreover, is a theme which\nwill frequently recur in this book, i.e. that most of the moral and\npolitical attitudes adopted by the \u2018clerks\u2019 of Europe in the past fifty\nyears are of German origin, and that in the world of spiritual things\nthe victory of Germany is now complete.\n\nIt may be said that Germany, by creating for herself the nationalist\n\u2018clerk\u2019 and thereby acquiring the additional strength we know she\nhas acquired, made this species of \u2018clerk\u2019 necessary to all other\ncountries. It is undeniable that from the moment when Germany had a\nMommsen, France especially was bound to have a Barr\u00e8s, under penalty\nof finding herself in a position of great inferiority in nationalist\nfanaticism, and of seeing her existence seriously menaced. Every\nFrenchman attached to the continuance of his nation must rejoice that\nin the last half century France has possessed a fanatically nationalist\nliterature. Yet one would like this Frenchman to rise for a moment\nsuperior to his interest, and, faithful in this to the honour of his\nrace, to think it sad that the course of events in the world should\nforce him to rejoice in such a thing.\n\nMore generally, it may be admitted that a realist attitude has been\nimposed on the modern \u2018clerks\u2019, chiefly the French \u2018clerks\u2019, by\nexterior and interior political conditions which have arisen in their\nnations. However serious this may be, it would be much less serious\nif we found that the \u2018clerks\u2019 deplored it while they submitted to\nit, if they felt how much their own value is diminished by it, how\ngreatly civilization is menaced by it, to what an extent the universe\nis rendered ugly by it. But this is exactly what we do not see. On the\ncontrary, we see them joyfully carrying out this realism; we see them\nbelieving that they are rendered greater by their nationalist fury,\nthat it is a service to civilization, an embellishment to humanity.\nThen one feels that one is confronted by something different from\na function thwarted by the events of the moment, and faced with a\ncataclysm of moral notions in those who educate the world.\n\nI should like to point out two other characteristics in the patriotism\nof the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 which seem new to me, the second of which has\nnot failed to stimulate this passion greatly among the peoples.\n\nThe first can best be brought out by contrast with the lines written by\nan author of the fifteenth century, lines which are the more remarkable\nsince he who wrote them proved by his deeds how deep was his love for\nhis native country. \u2018All cities,\u2019 says Guicciardini, \u2018all States, all\nKingdoms, are mortal; everything comes to an end, either by accident or\nby the course of nature. That is why a citizen who witnesses the end of\nhis country cannot feel so distressed at her misfortune with so much\nreason as he would lament his own ruin. His country has met the fate\nwhich in every way she was bound to meet; the misfortune is wholly for\nhim whose unhappy lot has caused him to be born in a time when such a\ndisaster had to occur.\u2019 One wonders whether there is a single modern\nthinker, attached to his country as the author of that passage was to\nhis, who would dare to form, still less to express, a judgment of her\nso extraordinarily free in its melancholy. And here we come upon one\nof the great impieties of the moderns: The refusal to believe that\nabove their nations there exists a development of a superior kind, by\nwhich they will be swept away like all other things. The ancients,\nso completely the adorers of their States, nevertheless placed them\nbeneath Fate. The ancient City was under divine protection, but in no\nwise believed that she herself was divine and necessarily eternal. All\nthe literature of the ancients shows us that, in their opinion, the\nduration of their institutions was a precarious thing, solely due to\nthe favour of the Gods, who at any time might withdraw that favour.[43]\nWe have Thucydides contemplating the image of a world in which Athens\nshould have ceased to exist; we have Polybius showing us the conqueror\nof Carthage meditating over the burning town: \u2018And Rome too shall meet\nher fatal hour.\u2019 We have Virgil praising the peasant of the fields for\nwhom \u2018res romanae et peritura regna\u2019 are of no value.\n\nIt was reserved for the moderns to make of their City a tower which\ndefies the heavens, and to do it with the aid of their \u2018clerks\u2019.\n\nThe second characteristic of the patriotism of the modern \u2018clerks\u2019\nis a desire to relate the form of their own minds to a form of the\n_national_ mind, which they naturally brandish against other national\nforms of mind. We all know how, during the last fifty years, so many\nmen of learning on both banks of the Rhine have asserted their views in\nthe name of _French_ science, of _German_ science. We know how acridly\nso many of our writers in the same period have vibrated with _French_\nsensibility, _French_ intelligence, _French_ philosophy. Some declare\nthat they are the incarnation of Aryan thought, Aryan painting, Aryan\nmusic, to which others reply by discovering that a certain master had\na Jewish grandmother, and so venerate Semitic genius in him. Here it\nis not a question of inquiring whether the form of mind of a scholar\nor an artist is the signature of his nationality or his race and to\nwhat extent, but of noting the desire of the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 that it\nshould be so, and noting how new a thing this is. Racine and La Bruy\u00e8re\nnever dreamed of setting up their works before themselves and before\nthe world as manifestation of the French mind, nor did Goethe and\nWincklemann relate theirs to the genius of Germany.[44] Here, chiefly\namong the artists, is a very remarkable fact. It is very remarkable to\nsee men whose activity consists, one might say professionally, in the\nassertion of individuality, men who became so violently conscious of\nthis truth a century ago with the Romantic movement, now (as it were)\nabdicating this sort of consciousness and trying to feel themselves\nas the expression of some general existence, a manifestation of a\ncollective mind. It is true that this abdication of the individual in\nfavour of \u2018a great impersonal and eternal Whole\u2019 satisfies another\nsort of Romanticism. It is true that this impulse of the artist may\nalso be explained by the desire (which Barr\u00e8s does not conceal) to\nincrease the enjoyment of himself by himself, since the consciousness\nof the individual ego is doubled in profundity by consciousness of\nthe national ego, while at the same time the artist finds new lyrical\nthemes in this second consciousness. It may also be admitted that\nthe artist is not blind to his own interest in calling himself the\nexpression of the genius of his nation, thereby inviting the whole race\nto applaud itself in the work he put before it.[45] Whatever their\nmotives may have been, the great minds or the minds reputed such, by\nrelating the whole of their value so noisily to their nation, have\nlaboured in a direction contrary to that expected of them; they have\nflattered the vanity of nations, they have fed full the arrogance\nwith which each nation flings its superiority in the face of its\nneighbours.[46]\n\nI cannot better bring out all the novelty of this attitude of the\n\u2018clerk\u2019 than by quoting the remark of Renan, which would be signed\nby all men of thought from Socrates onwards: \u2018Man belongs neither to\nhis language nor to his race; he belongs only to himself, for he is\na free being, that is, a moral being.\u2019 To this Barr\u00e8s replies, amid\nthe applause of his compeers: \u2018To be moral is _not to wish to be free\nfrom one\u2019s race_.\u2019 Here, obviously, is an exaltation of the gregarious\nspirit which the nations had heard little of before from the priests of\nthe spirit.\n\nThe modern \u2018clerks\u2019 do better still. They declare that their thought\ncannot be good, that it cannot bear good fruit, unless they remain on\ntheir native soil, unless they are not \u2018uprooted\u2019 (\u2018_d\u00e9racin\u00e9s_\u2019). They\ncongratulate A on working in _his_ Bearn, B in _his_ Berry, C in _his_\nBrittany. And they not only proclaim this law for the poets, but for\ncritics, moralists, philosophers, the servants of purely intellectual\nactivity. To declare the mind good to the extent of its refusal to\nliberate itself from the earth is something which will make the modern\n\u2018clerks\u2019 certain of a conspicuous place in the annals of the spiritual\nlife. Obviously, the feelings of this class of men has changed since\nPlutarch taught: \u2018Man is not a plant created to be immobile and to have\nhis roots fixed in the soil where he was born,\u2019 and since Antisthenes\nreplied to his colleagues who boasted that they were native to the\nsoil, that \u2018they shared this honour with the slugs and grasshoppers\u2019.\n\nNeed I say that I am only denouncing this desire of the \u2018clerk\u2019 to\nfeel himself determined by his race and to remain fixed to his native\nsoil to the extent that it becomes in him a political attitude, a\nnationalist provocation. The best way for me to define this is by\nquoting this hymn of a modern \u2018clerk\u2019 to \u2018his soil and his dead\u2019, a\nhymn completely void of political passion:\n\n\u2018And the old oak under which I am sitting speaks in its turn, and says\nto me:\n\n\u2018\u201cRead, read in my shadow those Gothic songs whose refrains I heard\nin the past mingle with the rustling of my leaves. The souls of your\nancestors are in these songs that are older than I am. Learn to know\nthose humble ancestors, share their past joys and sorrows. Thus, O\ntransitory creature, shalt thou live long ages in a few years. Be\npious, venerate the soil of your country. Never take up a handful in\nyour hand without remembering that it is sacred. Love all those far-off\nrelatives whose dust mingled with earth has fed me for centuries,\nwhose minds have passed into you, their Benjamin, the child of better\ndays. Reproach not your ancestors with their ignorance, nor with the\nfeebleness of their thought, nor even with the illusions of fear which\nsometimes rendered them cruel. As well reproach yourself for having\nbeen a child. Remember that they laboured, that they suffered, that\nthey hoped for you, and that you owe everything to them!\u201d\u2019[47]\n\n\n_Second: They bring their political passions into their activities as\n\u2018clerks\u2019._\n\nThe \u2018clerks\u2019 have not been content simply to adopt political passions,\nif by this one means that they have made a place for these passions\nside by side with the activities they are bound to carry on as\n\u2018clerks\u2019. They have introduced these passions into those activities.\nThey permit, they desire them to be mingled with their work as artists,\nas men of learning, as philosophers, to colour the essence of their\nwork and to mark all its productions. And indeed never were there so\nmany political works among those which ought to be the mirror of the\ndisinterested intelligence.\n\nYou may refuse to be surprised by this in the case of poetry. We must\nnot ask the poets to separate their works from their passions. The\nlatter are the substance of the former, and the only question to ask\nis whether they write poems to express their passions or whether they\nhunt for passions in order to write poems. In either case one does\nnot see why they should exclude national passion or the spirit of\nparty from their vibrant material. Our political poets, who are not\nnumerous however, have only followed the example of Virgil, Claudian,\nLucan, Dante, d\u2019Aubign\u00e9, Ronsard, and Hugo. Yet we cannot deny that\npolitical passion, as it is expressed by Claudel or d\u2019Annunzio, a\nconscious and organized passion _lacking all simplicity_, coldly\nscornful of its adversary, a passion which in the second of these\npoets displays itself as so precisely political, so cunningly adapted\nto the profound cupidity of his compatriots and the exact point of\nweakness in the foreigner--we cannot deny, I say, that this political\npassion is something different from the eloquent generalities of the\n\u2018Tragiques of the Ann\u00e9e Terrible.\u2019 A work like _La Nave_, with its\nnational plan as exact and practical as that of a Bismarck, wherein\nthe lyric gift is used to extol this practical character, seems to me\nsomething new in the history of poetry, even of political poetry. The\nresult of this new departure on the minds of laymen may be judged by\nthe present state of mind of the Italian people.[48] But in our day\nthe most remarkable example of the poets\u2019 applying their art to the\nservice of political passions is that literary form which may be called\n\u2018lyrical philosophy\u2019, the most brilliant symbol of which is the work of\nBarr\u00e8s. It begins by taking as its centres of vibration certain truly\nphilosophical states of mind (such as pantheism, a loftily sceptical\nintellectualism) and then entirely devotes itself to serving racial\npassion and national feeling. Here the action of the lyric spirit is\ndoubled by the prestige of the spirit of abstract thought (Barr\u00e8s\nadmirably caught the appearance of that spirit--he stole the tool, a\nphilosopher has said of him), and in France as elsewhere the \u2018clerks\u2019\nhave thereby stimulated political passions among the laymen, at least\nin that very important section of them who read and believe they think.\nMoreover, in regard to poets and especially the poet I have just named,\nit is difficult to know whether the lyrical impulse lends its aid to a\ngenuine and pre-existing political passion, or whether on the contrary\nthis passion puts itself at the service of a lyrical impulse which is\nseeking inspiration. Alius judex erit.\n\nBut there are other \u2018clerks\u2019 who introduce political passion into\ntheir works with a remarkable consciousness of what they are doing, in\nwhom this derogation seems more worthy of notice than in the poets. I\nmean the novelists and dramatists, i.e. \u2018clerks\u2019 whose function is to\nportray in as objective a manner as possible the emotions of the human\nsoul and their conflicts--a function which, as Shakespeare, Moli\u00e8re,\nand Balzac have proved, may be carried out with all the purity I have\nhere assigned to it. One may show how this function has been more than\never perverted by its subjection to political ends by the example of\nmany contemporary novelists, not because they scatter \u2018tendencious\u2019\nreflections throughout their narratives (Balzac constantly does so),\nbut because instead of making their heroes feel and act in conformity\nwith a true observation of human nature, they make them do so as the\npassion of the authors requires. Shall I cite those novels where the\ntraditionalist, whatever his errors, always finally displays a noble\nsoul, whereas the character without religion inevitably, and in spite\nof all his efforts, is capable of none but vile actions?[49] Or the\nother novels where the man of the people possesses every virtue and\nvileness is the exclusive portion of the bourgeois?[50] Or the novels\nwhere the author displays his compatriots in contact with foreigners\nand, more or less frankly, gives all moral superiority to his own\npeople?[51] There is a two-fold evil in this proceeding; not only does\nit considerably inflame political passion in the breast of the reader,\nbut it deprives him of one of the most eminently civilizing effects of\nall works of art, i.e. that self-examination to which every spectator\nis impelled by a representation of human beings which he feels to be\ntrue and solely pre-occupied with truth.[52] From the point of view\nof the artist and of the value of his activity alone, this partiality\nindicates a great degradation. The value of the artist, the thing\nwhich makes him the world\u2019s high ornament, is that he _plays_ human\npassions instead of living them, and that he discovers in this \u2018play\u2019\nemotion the same source of desires, joys and sufferings as ordinary\nmen find in the pursuit of real things. Now, if this accomplished type\nof exuberant activity places itself at the service of the nation or of\na class, if this fine flower of disinterestedness becomes utilitarian,\nthen I say with the poet of the \u2018Vierge aux Rochers\u2019 when the author of\n_Siegfried_ exhales his last sigh: \u2018The world has lost its import.\u2019\n\nI have pointed out that certain \u2018clerks\u2019 have put their activities as\n\u2018clerks\u2019 at the service of political passions. These are the poets,\nthe novelists, the dramatists, the artists, i.e. they are men who may\nbe permitted to give passion, even wilful passion, a predominant place\nin their works. But there are other \u2018clerks\u2019 in whom this derogation\nfrom the disinterested activity of the mind is far more shocking,\n\u2018clerks\u2019 whose influence on the laymen is much more profound by reason\nof the prestige attached to their functions. I mean the historians.\nHere, as with the poets, the phenomenon is a new one on account of\nthe point of perfection it has reached. Assuredly, humanity did not\nawait our age to see History putting itself at the service of the\nspirit of party or of national passion. But I think I may assert that\nit has never seen this done with the same methodical spirit, the same\nintensity of consciousness which may be observed in German historians\nof the past half century and in the French Monarchists of the past\ntwenty years. The case of the latter is the more remarkable since they\nbelong to a nation which has acquired eternal honour in the history\nof human intelligence by explicitly condemning pragmatic history\nand formulating, as it were, the charter of disinterested history,\nthrough the works of Beaufort, Fr\u00e9ret, Voltaire, Thierry, Renan,\nFustel de Coulanges.[53] Yet the true novelty here is the admission of\nthis spirit of partiality, the expressed intention to employ it as a\nlegitimate method. \u2018A true German historian,\u2019 declares a German master,\n\u2018should especially tell those facts which conduce to the grandeur of\nGermany.\u2019 The same scholar praises Mommsen (who himself boasted of it)\nfor having written a Roman history \u2018which becomes a history of Germany\nwith Roman names\u2019. Another (Treitschke) prided himself on his lack of\n\u2018that anemic objectivity which is contrary to the historical sense\u2019.\nAnother (Guisebrecht) teaches that \u2018Science must not soar beyond the\nfrontiers, but be national, be German\u2019. Our Monarchists do not lag\nbehind. Recently one of them, the author of a _History of France_,\nwhich tried to show that the French Kings since Clovis were occupied in\ntrying to prevent the war of 1914, defended the historian who presents\nthe past from the point of view of the passions of his own time.[54] By\nhis determination in bringing this partiality to historical narrative\nthe modern \u2018clerk\u2019 most seriously derogates from his true function,\nif I am right in saying that his function is to restrain the passions\nof the laymen. Not only does he inflame the laymen\u2019s passions more\ncunningly than ever, not only does he deprive them of the suggestive\nspectacle of a man solely occupied by the thirst for truth, but he\nprevents the laymen from hearing speech different from that of the\nmarket place, speech (Renan\u2019s is perhaps the finest example) which,\ncoming from the heights, shows that the most opposite passions are\nequally justified, equally necessary to the earthly State, and thereby\nincites every reader who has any capacity for getting outside himself\nto relax the severity of his passions, at least for a moment.\n\nLet me say, however, that indeed men like Treitschke and his French\nequivalents are not historians; they are men of politics who make use\nof history to support a cause whose triumph they desire. Hence, it\nis natural that the master of their method should not be Lenain de\nTillemont but Louis XIV, who threatened to withdraw Mezeray\u2019s pension\nif the historian persisted in pointing out the abuses of the old\nmonarchy; or Napoleon, who ordered the chief of police to take measures\nfor the history of France to be written in a manner favourable to his\nown throne. Nevertheless, the really cunning ones assume the mask of\ndisinterestedness.[55]\n\nI believe that many of those whom I am here accusing of betraying their\nspiritual ministry, that disinterested activity which should be theirs\nby the mere fact of their being historians, psychologists, moralists,\nwould reply to me as follows, if such a confession did not destroy\ntheir influence: \u2018We are not in the least the servants of spiritual\nthings; we are the servants of material things, of a political party,\nof a nation. Only, instead of serving it with the sword, we serve it\nwith the pen. We are _the spiritual militia of the material_.\u2019\n\nAmong those who ought to show the world an example of disinterested\nintellectual activity and who nevertheless turn their function to\npractical ends, I shall also mention the critics. Everyone knows that\ninnumerable critics to-day consider that a book is only good insofar\nas it serves the party which is dear to them, or as it manifests \u2018the\ngenius of the nation\u2019, or as it illustrates a political doctrine in\nharmony with their own political system, or for other reasons of the\nlike purity. The modern \u2018clerks\u2019, I said before, insist that the\njust shall be determined by the useful. They also want the useful to\ndetermine the beautiful, which is not one of their least originalities\nin history. Nevertheless, here again those who adopt such a form\nof criticism are not truly critics, but men of politics, who make\ncriticism serve their practical designs. Here is a perfecting of\npolitical passion, the whole honour of which must be given to the\nmoderns. Neither Pius XIV nor Napoleon apparently thought of using\nliterary criticism in support of the social system in which they\nbelieved.[56] This new departure has brought forth its fruits. For\ninstance, if you assert with the French Monarchists that the democratic\nideal is inevitably bound up with bad literature, you are dealing that\nideal a real blow in a country like France, which has a real devotion\nto literature, at least among those who will consent to believe that\nVictor Hugo and Lamartine were mere scribblers.[57]\n\nBut the most remarkable thing about the modern \u2018clerk\u2019 in his desire\nto bring political passion into his work, is that he has done so in\nphilosophy, more precisely, in metaphysics. It may be said that until\nthe nineteenth century metaphysics remained the inviolate citadel\nof disinterested speculation. Among all forms of spiritual labour\nmetaphysics best deserved the admirable tribute which a mathematician\nrendered the theory of numbers above all branches of mathematics, when\nhe said: \u2018This is the really pure branch of our science, by which I\nmean that it is unsullied by any contact with practical application.\u2019\nIn fact thinkers free from any sort of earthly preference, like\nPlotinus, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, and even thinkers strongly\nimbued with the superiority of their class or nation (like Plato\nand Aristotle), never thought of directing their transcendental\nspeculations towards a demonstration of this superiority or the\nnecessity of this adoption by the whole world. It has been said\nthat the morality of the Greeks was national, but their metaphysics\nwere universal. The Church itself, so often favourable to class or\nnational interests in its morality, thinks only of God and Man in its\nmetaphysics. It was reserved for our own age to see metaphysicians of\nthe greatest eminence turning their speculations to the exaltation\nof their own countries and to the depreciation of other countries,\nfortifying the will to power of their compatriots with all the power\nof abstractive genius. Fichte and Hegel made the triumph of the German\nworld the supreme and necessary end of the development of Being,\nand history has showed whether the action of these \u2018clerks\u2019 had an\neffect on the hearts of their laymen. Let me hasten to add that this\nspectacle of patriotic metaphysics is provided by Germany alone. In\nFrance, even in this age of nationalist \u2018clerks\u2019, we have not yet\nseen any philosopher (at least one who is taken seriously) build up\na metaphysical system to the glory of France. Neither Auguste Comte\nnor Renouvier nor Bergson ever thought of making a French hegemony\nthe necessary result of the world\u2019s development. Need I add what a\ndegradation this has been for metaphysics, as it has been for art?\nIt will be the eternal shame of the German philosophers to have\ntransformed the patrician virgin who honoured the Gods into a harpy\nengaged in shrieking the glory of her children.\n\n\n_Third: The \u2018clerks\u2019 have played the game of political passions by\ntheir doctrines_\n\nBut where the \u2018clerks\u2019 have most violently broken with their tradition\nand resolutely played the game of the laymen in their eagerness to\nplace themselves in the real, is by their doctrines, by the scale\nof values they have set up for the world. Those whose preaching for\ntwenty centuries had been to humiliate the realist passions in favour\nof something transcendental, have set themselves (with a science and a\nconsciousness which will stupify history) to the task of making these\npassions, and the impulses which ensure them, the highest of virtues,\nwhile they cannot show too much scorn for the existence which in any\nrespect raises itself beyond the material. I shall now describe the\nprincipal aspects of this phenomenon.\n\n\n_A. The \u2018clerks\u2019 praise attachment to the particular and denounce the\nfeeling of the universal_\n\nIn the first place, the \u2018clerks\u2019 have set out to exalt the will of\nmen to feel conscious of themselves as distinct from others, and\nto proclaim as contemptible every tendency to establish oneself in\na universal. With the exception of certain authors like Tolstoi\nand Anatole France, whose teaching moreover is now looked on with\ncontempt by most of their colleagues, all the influential moralists of\nEurope during the past fifty years, Bourget, Barr\u00e8s, Maurras, P\u00e9guy,\nd\u2019Annunzio, Kipling, the immense majority of German thinkers, have\npraised the efforts of men to feel conscious of themselves in their\nnation and race, to the extent that this distinguishes them from\nothers and opposes them to others, and have made them ashamed of every\naspiration to feel conscious of themselves as men in the general\nsense and in the sense of rising above ethnical aims. Those whose\nactivity since the time of the Stoics had been devoted to preaching\nthe extinction of national egotism in the interest of an abstract and\neternal entity, set out to denounce every feeling of this kind and to\nproclaim the lofty morality of that egotism. In our age the descendants\nof Erasmus, Montaigne, Voltaire, have denounced humanitarianism as a\nmoral degeneration, nay, as an intellectual degeneration, in that it\nimplies \u2018a total absence of practical common sense\u2019; for practical\ncommon sense has become the measure of intellectual values with these\nstrange \u2018clerks\u2019.\n\nI should like to draw a distinction between humanitarianism as I mean\nit here--a sensitiveness to the abstract quality of what is human, to\nMontaigne\u2019s \u2018whole form of human condition\u2019--and the feeling which is\nusually called humanitarianism, by which is meant the love for human\nbeings existing in the concrete. The former impulse (which would more\naccurately be called humanism) is the attachment to a concept. It is a\npure passion of the intelligence, implying no terrestrial love. It is\nquite easy to conceive of a person plunging into the concept of what\nis human without having the least desire even to see a man. This is\nthe form assumed by love of humanity in the great patricians of the\nmind like Erasmus, Malebranche, Spinoza, Goethe, who all were men, it\nappears, not very anxious to throw themselves into the arms of their\nneighbours. The second humanitarianism is a state of the heart and\ntherefore the portion of plebeian souls. It occurs among moralists\nin periods when lofty intellectual discipline disappears among them\nand gives way to sentimental exaltation, I mean in the eighteenth\ncentury (chiefly with Diderot) and above all in the nineteenth century,\nwith Michelet, Quinet, Proudhon, Romain Rolland, Georges Duhamel.\nThis sentimental form of humanitarianism and forgetfulness of its\nconceptual form explain the unpopularity of this doctrine with so many\ndistinguished minds, who discover two equally repulsive commonplaces in\nthe arsenal of political ideology. One of them is \u2018the patriotic bore\u2019\nand the other \u2018the universal embrace\u2019.[58]\n\nThe humanitarianism which holds in honour the abstract quality of what\nis human, is the only one which allows us to love _all_ men. Obviously,\nas soon as we look at men in the concrete, we inevitably find that this\nquality is distributed in different quantities, and we have to say with\nRenan: \u2018In reality one is _more or less_ a man, _more or less_ the son\nof God ... I see no reason why a Papuan should be immortal.\u2019 Modern\nequalitarians, by failing to understand that there can be no equality\nexcept in the abstract and that inequality is the essence of the\nconcrete, have merely displayed the extraordinary vulgarity of their\nminds as well as their amazing political clumsiness.[59]\n\nHumanism, as I have defined it, has nothing to do with\ninternationalism. Internationalism is a protest against national\negotism, not on behalf of a spiritual passion, but on behalf of another\negotism, another earthly passion. It is the impulse of a certain\ncategory of men--labourers, bankers, industrialists--who unite across\nfrontiers in the name of private and practical interests, and who only\noppose the national spirit because it thwarts them in satisfying those\ninterests.[60]\n\nIn comparison with such impulses, national passion appears an\nidealistic and disinterested impulse. In short, humanism is also\nsomething entirely different from cosmopolitanism, which is the simple\ndesire to enjoy the advantages of all nations and all their cultures,\nand is generally exempt from all moral dogmatism.[61] But let us come\nback to this movement of the \u2018clerks\u2019 exhorting the peoples to feel\nconscious of themselves in what makes them distinct from others.\n\nWhat will especially amaze history in this movement of the \u2018clerks\u2019\nis the perfection with which they have carried it out. They have\nexhorted the peoples to feel conscious of themselves in what makes them\n_the most distinct_ from others, in their poets rather than in their\nscientists, in their legends rather than in their philosophies, since\npoetry (as they perfectly well perceived) is infinitely more national,\nmore separating than the products of pure intelligence.[62] They have\nexhorted the peoples to honour their poets\u2019 characteristics insofar\nas they are peculiar to them and are not universal. Recently a young\nItalian writer praised his language because it is only used in Italy,\nand poured scorn on French because it is employed universally.[63]\nThey have exhorted the peoples to feel conscious of themselves in\n_everything_ which makes them distinct from others, not only in their\nlanguage, art, and literature, but in their dress, houses, furniture,\nand food. During the past half century it has been a common experience\nto see serious writers (to go no further than France) exhorting\ntheir compatriots to remain faithful to French fashions, French\nhair-dressing, French dining rooms, French cooking, French cars. They\nhave exhorted the peoples to feel themselves distinct even in their\nvices. The German historians, says Fustel de Coulanges, urge their\nnation to be intoxicated with its personality, even to its barbarity.\nThe French moralist does not lag behind and desires his compatriots\nto accept their \u2018national determinism\u2019 in its \u2018indivisible totality\u2019,\nwith its injustices as well as its wisdom, with its fanaticism as\nwell as its enlightenment, its pettiness as well as its grandeur.\nAnother, (Maurras) declares: \u2018Good or bad, our tastes are ours and\nit is always permissible to take ourselves as the sole judges and\nmodels of our lives\u2019. Once again, the remarkable thing here is not\nthat such things should be said, but that they should be said by the\n\u2018clerks\u2019, by a class of men whose purpose hitherto has been to urge\ntheir fellow-citizens to feel conscious of themselves in what is common\nto all men, that they should be said in France by the descendants of\nMontaigne, Pascal, Voltaire, and Renan.\n\nThis glorifying of national particularism, so unexpected among\nall \u2018clerks\u2019 is especially so among those whom I described as\n\u2018pre-eminently clerks\u2019--the Churchmen. Those who for centuries have\nexhorted men, at least theoretically, to deaden the feeling of their\ndifferences in order to take cognizance of each other in the divine\nessence which brings all men together, have now come to praise them,\naccording to where the sermon is given, for their \u2018fidelity to the\nFrench soul\u2019, for \u2018the immutability of their German consciousness\u2019,\nfor the \u2018fervour of their Italian hearts\u2019.[64] The sight is indeed\nsurprising and remarkable! What would be thought by him who, by the\nmouth of his apostle, declared: \u2018There is neither Greek nor Jew nor\nbarbarian, but Christ is in all things,\u2019 if to-day he entered one of\nhis churches and saw offered to the veneration of his faithful, a\nnational heroine with a sword on her thigh and a flag in her hand?[65]\n\nThis glorification of national particularisms, at least with the\nprecision observable to-day, is undoubtedly something new in the\nhistory of the Church. It is not necessary to go back as far as\nSaint Augustine, who preached the extinction of all patriotisms in\nthe embrace of \u2018the City of God\u2019; nor even to Bossuet, who shows us\nthe indignation of Jesus at observing \u2018that because we are separated\nby a few rivers or mountains, we seem to have forgotten that we are\nall of one nature\u2019. So recently as 1849 a lofty assembly of prelates\nasserted that \u2018this movement of nationalities is a relic of paganism,\ndifferences of language are a consequence of sin and the fall of man\u2019.\nCertainly this declaration was an interested one, since it was provoked\nby the Most Catholic Francis Joseph to check the separatist tendencies\namong the peoples of his Empire; but I dare to assert that the Church\nwould no longer make such a declaration, even for motives of interest.\nI shall be told that even if the Church wished to do so, she could\nonly do it under penalty of delivering up her ministers to a terrible\nunpopularity among their respective peoples. As if the \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019\nfunction were not to tell the laymen truths which are displeasing to\nthem, and to pay the price at the expense of his own peace!\n\nI do not ask so much. Is there a single prelate in any pulpit of Europe\nwho would now dare to pronounce: \u2018The Christian is both a cosmopolitan\nand a patriot. These two qualities are not incompatible. The world\nindeed is one common fatherland, or, to speak in more Christian terms,\none common exile.\u2019 (Pastoral letter \u2018On the pretended philosophy of\nmodern infidels,\u2019 by Le Franc de Pompignon, Bishop of Puy, 1763.\nThe \u2018infidels\u2019 here are those who refuse the Church the right to be\ncosmopolitan.)\n\nSome \u2018clerks\u2019 do better, and assert that by extolling national\nparticularisms they are in complete harmony with the fundamental spirit\nof the Church, especially with the teaching of the great Doctors of\nthe Middle Ages. (This is the thesis which opposes Catholicism to\nChristianity.) Need I recall the fact that the most national of these\nDoctors limited themselves to considering national particularisms as an\ninevitable condition of an earthly and inferior world, which must be\nrespected like everything else which is the will of God? Or that they\nnever exhorted men to intensify this feeling in their hearts, still\nless did they ever think of putting this intensification before them as\nan exercise in moral self-perfection?\n\nWhen the Church in past times did approve of something in patriotism,\nit was fraternity among fellow-citizens, like love of man for other\nmen, but not his opposition to other men. She approved of patriotism as\nan extension of human love, and not as a limitation of it.[66]\n\nBut the most remarkable thing in all this is that recently--precisely\nsince the time when Benedict XV was reproached during the last war for\nnot having denounced the arrogance of German nationalism--there has\narisen a school in the bosom of the Church which tries to prove that\nby acting in this way the Holy Father had simply obeyed the teaching\nof his Divine Master, who is supposed to have preached explicitly the\nlove of a man for his own nation. Could anything better symbolize the\ndetermination of the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 to place their credit and their\nactivities at the service of lay passions than these Churchmen making\nJesus an apostle of nationalism?\n\nThese strange Christians express themselves thus:\n\n\u2018Jesus does not look beyond the frontiers of his own country with the\nidea of bestowing his benefactions upon other nations. He declares to\nthe Canaanitish woman, whose daughter he heals against his own wish,\nthat \u201chis mission is only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel\u201d\n(Matt. xv, 24). He sent his first disciples among the Israelites. And\nnotice how he insists that they shall not go elsewhere. \u201cGo not on the\npaths of the Gentiles, and enter not the cities of the Samaritans, but\ngo first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.\u201d (Matt. x, 6.) Later\non, it will be time enough to announce the good news to foreigners,\nbut first of all we must bring it to our own people. This is what he\nmeans by the words, so full of patriotic meaning and love: \u201cthe house\nof Israel.\u201d A group of human beings possessing the same blood, the same\nlanguage, the same religion, the same tradition, form \u201ca house\u201d. These\nparticularities are so many dividing walls.\u2019[67]\n\nThey also say:\n\n\u2018The most striking thing about Jesus when he consents to pay tribute\nto Caesar and refuses the crown which the people offer him in the\ndesert, is not so much his prudence and his disinterestedness, as his\npatriotism ... One of the most important characteristics of Jesus\u2019s\nteaching is its absolutely national character....\u2019[68]\n\nIf the reader desires, he will himself go and find out the solidity\nof the proofs on which these teachers base their thesis (one of these\nproofs is that Jesus was strongly attached to the institutions of his\nnation, which he showed by accepting circumcision eight days after he\nwas born). The point I wish to insist on is the eagerness of these\nChristians to make their Master a supporter of national egotism, at\nleast at one period of his life.\n\nThese views on the attitude of the Church towards nationalism seem to\nme to remain unmodified by the recent declarations of the Holy See\nconcerning a certain type of French nationalism, for these declarations\nonly condemn an openly anti-Christian nationalism (hence a very\nexceptional form of nationalism) and do not utter a word of blame for\nthe desire of the peoples to set themselves up as distinct from others\nand to reject universalism. Moreover, this is how a universalist is\nanswered by a publication which is to some extent the official organ of\nPontifical views:\n\n\u2018Yes, all men are sons of one Father; but they were divided in the\nbeginning and have never been brought together again. The family was\nbroken up and never joined up again. On the contrary. Certainly, I am\nglad to recognize the fraternity of all living beings; but are all\nthe dead our fathers? Have they all loved us? Have they all suffered\nand laboured for us? Some lived on the other side of the globe, and,\nso to speak, in another world. Some laboured against us, or, if\nthey supported our ancestors, it was in the hope of safeguarding or\nenriching their own bequest to others, not to us. Where is the debt?\nIf the home is open to all comers, it is no longer a home but an\ninn.\u2019[69]\n\nIt appears that we must look among those who have left the Church,\nto find Christian ministers who proclaim the true teaching of their\nMaster, and who declare with no beating about the bush: \u2018The Gospel of\nJesus does not imply any country, but obliterates the fatherland.\u2019[70]\n\nThe modern \u2018clerk\u2019 denounces the feeling of universalism, not only\nfor the profit of the nation, but for that of a class. Our age has\nbeheld moralists who have declared to the bourgeois world (or to the\nworking classes) that, far from trying to check the feeling of their\ndifferences from others and to feel conscious of their common human\nnature, they should on the contrary try to feel conscious of this\ndifference in all its profundity and irreducibleness, and that this\neffort is fine and noble, whereas every desire for union is here a\nsign of baseness and cowardice, and also of weakness of mind. This,\nas everyone knows, is the thesis of the \u2018Reflections on Violence\u2019,\nwhich has been praised by a whole galaxy of apostles of the modern\nsoul. There is certainly something more novel in this attitude of\nthe \u2018clerks\u2019 to class differences than in their attitude towards\nnational differences. To discover the results of this teaching and the\nadditional hatred (hitherto unknown) which it has given to either class\nin doing violence to its adversary, you have only to look at Italian\nFascism for the bourgeois class, and at Russian Bolshevism for the\nworking class.[71]\n\nHere again we see realism trying to shelter under cover of the Church.\nWe see certain Catholic teachers striving to prove that, by encouraging\nthe bourgeois class, _in the name of morality_, to feel conscious of\nthemselves as distinct from the opposing class, to plunge religiously\ninto consciousness of the characteristics which are proper to their\nown class, and especially (Johannet) to _intensify their feeling of\nproperty_, these teachers are merely acting in conformity with the\nteaching of the Church.[72]\n\nIt is easy to point out the equivocation upon which this claim is\nbased. The Church does indeed admit class distinctions. She exhorts the\nfaithful to recognize and even to respect them, as something imposed\nby God upon a fallen world. She also exhorts the privileged to accept\ntheir situation, to carry out the activities it implies, and to\nperform \u2018the duties of their state of life\u2019. She even tells them that\nby performing these duties they are pleasing God and \u2018making an act of\nprayer\u2019. But the Church never exhorted them to glorify in themselves\nthe feeling of this distinction, still less did she ever do so in the\nname of morality. On the contrary, she exhorted them in the name of\nmorality to extinguish (beneath this privileged life) all belief in\na particularity of essence in their persons, and told them to feel\nconscious of themselves in that humanity which is common to all men\nbeneath the inequality of ranks and states of life.[73] Jesus Christ,\nthe Church states explicitly and constantly, _only accepts the man who\nis reconciled_, i.e. the man who has obliterated from his heart every\nfeeling of difference between himself and other men. (See Bossuet\u2019s\n_Sermon on Reconciliation_.) It seems unnecessary to insist further on\nthe unimpeachable character of this Christian teaching--I am speaking\nof teaching, not of practice. But one cannot meditate too much on the\neagerness of so many modern Church teachers to try to find some means\nof sanctifying bourgeois egotism through the words of the Gospels.[74]\n\nLet me point out another and remarkable form of this extolling of\nparticularism by the \u2018clerks\u2019: the extolling of particular systems\nof morality and the scorn for universal morality. During the past\nhalf century a whole school, not only of men of action but of serious\nphilosophers, has taught that a people should form a conception of its\nrights and duties from a study of its particular genius, its history,\nits geographical position, the particular circumstances in which it\nhappens to be, and not from the commands of a so-called conscience of\nman in all times and places. Moreover, this same school teaches that\na class should construct a scale of good and evil, determined by an\ninquiry into its particular needs, its particular aims, the particular\nconditions surrounding it, and should cease to encumber itself with\nsuch sensibilities as \u2018justice in itself\u2019, \u2018humanity in itself\u2019 and\nother \u2018rags and tatters\u2019 of general morality. To-day with Barr\u00e8s,\nMaurras, Sorel, even Durckheim[75] we are witnessing the complete\nbankruptcy among the \u2018clerks\u2019 of that form of soul which, from Plato\nto Kant, looked for the notion of good in the heart of eternal and\ndisinterested man. The example of Germany in 1914 shows the results of\nthis teaching which exhorts a group of men to set themselves up as the\nsole judges of the morality of their actions, shows what deification of\ntheir appetites it leads to, what codification of their violence, what\ntranquillity in carrying out their plans. One day perhaps we shall see\nthe same thing throughout Europe exemplified by the bourgeois class,\nunless the doctrines of that class are turned against itself and we see\nit exemplified by the working classes.[76]\n\nI dare to say that the indignation of certain French moralists at\nthe action of Germany in 1914 surprises me, when I reflect that some\nsixteen years earlier, during the famous \u2018affair\u2019 which I have already\nmentioned, these moralists preached to their compatriots exactly the\nsame doctrines, urging them to reject the concept of absolute justice,\nand to desire only a form of justice \u2018adapted to France\u2019, to its\nparticular genius, its particular history, its particular, eternal, and\npresent needs.[77] For the honour of these thinkers--I mean for the\nhonour of their consistency--one likes to think that their indignation\nin 1914 was not the result of any moral conviction, but only of the\ndesire to place the enemy of their nation in the wrong with a na\u00efve\nuniverse.\n\nThis last-named activity of the \u2018clerks\u2019 seems to me one of those\nwhich best display their determination and skill in serving the\npassions of the laymen. If a man exhorts his compatriots to recognize\nonly a personal morality and to reject all universal morality, he is\nshowing himself a master of the art of encouraging them to want to be\ndistinct from all other men, i.e. of the art of perfecting national\npassion in them, at least in one of its aspects. The desire to take\nnone but oneself as a judge of one\u2019s actions and to scorn every opinion\nof other people is undoubtedly a source of strength to a nation, as\nevery exertion of pride is a source of strength to an institution,\nwhose fundamental principle--whatever may be said to the contrary--is\nthe assertion of an ego against a non-ego. What ruined Germany in the\nlast war was not its \u2018irritating arrogance\u2019, as is asserted by certain\nvisionaries who have made up their minds that malevolence of soul\nmust be an element of weakness in practical life, but the fact that\nits material strength was not equal to its arrogance. When arrogance\nfinds an equivalent material power at its disposal, it is very far from\nruining nations; witness Rome and the Prussia of Bismarck. The \u2018clerks\u2019\nwho, thirty years ago, exhorted France to make herself the sole judge\nof her own actions and to despise eternal morality, showed that\nthey possessed in the highest degree the perception of the national\ninterest, insofar as that interest is wholly realist and has nothing\nto do with disinterested passion. It remains to be seen, once more,\nwhether the function of the \u2018clerks\u2019 is to serve this sort of interests.\n\nBut the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 have held up universal truth to the scorn\nof mankind, as well as universal morality. Here the \u2018clerks\u2019 have\npositively shown genius in their effort to serve the passions of the\nlaymen. It is obvious that truth is a great impediment to those who\nwish to set themselves up as distinct; from the very moment when they\naccept truth, it condemns them to be conscious of themselves in a\nuniversal. What a joy for them to learn that this universal is a mere\nphantom, that there exist only particular truths, \u2018Lorrain truths,\nProven\u00e7al truths, Britanny truths, the harmony of which in the course\nof centuries constitutes what is beneficial, respectable, _true in\nFrance_\u2019[78] (the neighbour similarly speaks of what is _true in\nGermany_), that in other words Pascal had the mind of a clown, and that\nwhat is true on one side of the Pyrenees may perfectly well be error\non the other side! Humanity hears the same teaching about the classes\nand learns that there is a bourgeois truth and a working-class truth;\nbetter still, that the functioning of our minds should be different\naccording to whether we are working men or bourgeois. The source of\nyour troubles (Sorel teaches the working classes) is that you do not\nthink in the mental way suited to your class. His disciple, Johannet,\nsays the same thing to the capitalist class. Perhaps we shall soon see\nthe results of this truly supreme art of the \u2018clerks\u2019 in exasperating\nthe feeling in their differences among the classes.\n\nThe cult for the particular and the scorn for the universal is a\nreversal of values quite generally characteristic of the teaching\nof the modern \u2018clerks\u2019, who proclaim them in a far higher sphere of\nthought than politics. The metaphysics adopted in the last twenty\nyears by almost all those who think or pretend to think, set up as the\nsupreme state of human consciousness that state--\u2018duration\u2019--where we\nsucceed in taking cognizance of ourselves in what is most individual,\nmost distinct from everything not ourselves, and in freeing ourselves\nfrom those forms of thought (concept, reason, habits of speech) through\nwhich we can only become conscious of ourselves in what is common to\nus and others. These metaphysics put forward as a superior form of\ncognizance of the world that which grasps each thing by what is unique\nin it, distinct from every other, and is full of scorn for the mind\nwhich seeks to discover general states of being. Our age has seen a\nfact hitherto unknown, at least from my point of view; and this in\nmetaphysics preaching adoration for the contingent, and scorn for the\neternal.[79] Nothing could show better how profound is the modern\n\u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 desire to exalt the real, the practical side of existence,\nand to degrade the ideal, the truly metaphysical side. In the history\nof philosophy this veneration for the individual comes from the German\nthinkers (Schlegel, Nietzsche, Lotze), while the metaphysical cult of\nthe universal (added to a certain contempt for the experimental) is\npre-eminently a legacy of Greece to the human mind. So here again, and\nmoreover in its profoundest part, the teaching of the modern \u2018clerks\u2019\nshows the triumph of Germanic values and the bankruptcy of Hellenism.\n\nI should like to point out another form, not the least remarkable,\nwhich this preaching of particularism assumes among the \u2018clerks\u2019. I\nmean their exhortations to consider everything only as it exists _in\ntime_, that is as it constitutes a succession of particular states, a\n\u2018becoming\u2019, a \u2018history\u2019, and never as it presents a state of permanence\nbeyond time under this succession of distinct cases. I mean especially\ntheir assertion that this view of things in their historical aspect is\nthe only serious and philosophical view, and that the need to look at\nthem in their eternal aspect is a form of the child\u2019s taste for ghosts,\nand should be merely smiled at. Need I point out that this conception\ninspires the whole of modern thought? It exists among a whole group\nof literary critics, who, on their own showing, inquire far less\nwhether a work is beautiful than whether it expresses \u2018the present\u2019\naspirations of \u2018the contemporary soul\u2019.[80] It may be seen in a whole\nschool of moralist-historians who admire a doctrine, not because it\nis just or good, but because it embodies the morality _of its time_,\nthe scientific spirit _of its time_. (This is the principal reason why\nSorel admires Bergsonism and why Nietzsche admires the philosophy of\nNicolas de Cuse.) It may be seen especially in all our metaphysicians.\nWhether they put forward _Entwickelung_ or _Duration_ or _Creative\nEvolution_ or _Pluralism_ or _Integral Experience_ or the _Concrete\nUniversal_, they all teach that the absolute is developed _in time_,\nin the circumstantial, and proclaim the decadence of that form of\nmind which, from Plato to Kant, hallows existence as conceived beyond\nchange.[81] If, with Pythagoras, we assume that the Cosmos is the place\nof regulated and uniform existence, and the Ouranos the place of the\nbecoming and the moving, we may say that all modern metaphysics place\nthe Ouranos at the top of their scale of values and hold the Cosmos in\nvery slight esteem. Is it not remarkable to see the \u2018clerks\u2019, even in\nthe lofty function of metaphysicians, teaching the laymen that the real\nalone is worthy of consideration, and that the supersensible is only\nworthy of derisive laughter?[82]\n\n\n(_B_) _The \u2018clerks\u2019 praise attachment to the practical, and denounce\nlove of the spiritual_\n\nBut the \u2018clerks\u2019 with their doctrines have inflamed the realism of the\nlaymen in other ways besides praising the particular and denouncing the\nuniversal. At the very top of the scale of moral values they place the\npossession of concrete advantages, of material power and the means by\nwhich they are procured; and they hold up to scorn the pursuit of truly\nspiritual advantages, of non-practical or disinterested values.\n\nThis they have done, first of all, as regards the State. For twenty\ncenturies the \u2018clerks\u2019 preached to the world that the State should be\njust; now they proclaim that the State should be strong and should\ncare nothing about being just. (Remember the attitude of the chief\nFrench teachers during the Dreyfus affair.) Convinced that the strength\nof the State depends upon authority, they defend autocratic systems,\narbitrary government, the reason of State, the religions which teach\nblind submission to authority, and they cannot sufficiently denounce\nall institutions based on liberty and discussion.[83] This denunciation\nof liberalism, notably by the vast majority of contemporary men of\nletters, will be one of the things in this age most astonishing to\nHistory, especially on the part of the French. With their eyes fixed\non the powerful State, they have praised the State disciplined in the\nPrussian manner, where everyone has his post, and under orders from\nabove, labours for the greatness of the nation, without there being\nany place left for particular wills.[84] Owing to their cult of the\npowerful State (and also for other reasons I shall mention later),\nthey want the military element to preponderate in the State, they want\nit to have a right to privileges and they want the civil element to\nagree to this right. (See _L\u2019Appel au Soldat_, and the declarations of\nnumerous writers during the Dreyfus affair.) It is certainly something\nnew to see men of thought preaching the abasement of the toga before\nthe sword, especially in the country of Montesquieu and Renan. And\nthen they preach that the State should be strong and contemptuous of\njustice, above all in its relations with other States. To this end\nthey praise in the head of the State the will to aggrandisement, the\ndesire for \u2018strong frontiers\u2019, the effort to keep his neighbours under\nhis domination. And they glorify those means which to them seem likely\nto attain these ends, i.e. sudden aggression, trickery, bad faith,\ncontempt for treaties. This apology for Machiavellianism has inspired\nall the German historians for the past fifty years, and in France it is\nprofessed by very influential teachers, who exhort France to venerate\nher Kings because they are supposed to have been models of the purely\npractical spirit, exempt from all respect for any silly justice in\ntheir relations with their neighbours.\n\nThe novelty of this attitude among the \u2018clerks\u2019 can best be displayed\nby quoting the famous answer of Socrates to the realist in the\n_Georgias_:\n\n\u2018In the persons of Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles, you praise men who\nmade their fellow citizens good cheer, by serving them with everything\nthey desired without caring to teach them what is good and right in\nfood. They have enlarged the State, cry the Athenians, but they do not\nsee that this enlargement is nothing but a swelling, a tumour filled\nwith corruption. This is all that has been achieved by these former\npoliticians by filling the city with ports, arsenals, walls, tributes,\nand the like follies, and by not adding Temperance and Justice.\u2019\n\nUp to our own times, in theory at least (but it is with theories I\nam dealing here) the supremacy of the spiritual proclaimed in those\nwords has been adopted by all those who, explicitly or otherwise,\nhave proposed a scale of values to the world, whether through the\nChurch, or the Renaissance, or the eighteenth century. One can guess\nthe derisive laughter of a Barr\u00e8s or any Italian moralist (to speak\nonly of the Latin races) at this disdain of power for the benefit of\njustice, and their severity for the manner in which this son of Athens\njudges those who made his city materially powerful. For Socrates, in\nthis respect the perfect model of the \u2018clerk\u2019 who is faithful to his\nessential function, ports, arsenals, walls are \u2018follies\u2019, and the\nserious things are justice and temperance. Those who to-day should\nperform the duties of a Socrates consider that it is justice which is a\nfolly--\u2018a cloud\u2019--and the serious things are the arsenals, the walls.\nTo-day the \u2018clerk\u2019 has made himself Minister of War. Moreover, one of\nthe most revered modern moralists definitely approves of the judges who\ncondemned Socrates, as good guardians of worldly interests.[85] And\nthat is something which has not been seen among the educators of the\nhuman soul since the evening when Crito closed his master\u2019s eyelids.\n\nI say that the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 have _preached_ that the State should be\nstrong and care nothing about being just; and in fact the \u2018clerks\u2019 do\ngive this assertion the characteristic of preaching, of moral teaching.\nI cannot insist too often that in this lies their great originality.\nWhen Machiavelli advises the Prince to carry out the Machiavellian\nscheme of action, he invests those actions with no sort of morality\nor beauty. For him morality remains what it is for everyone else,\nand does not cease to remain so because he observes (not without\nmelancholy) that it is incompatible with politics. \u2018The Prince,\u2019 says\nMachiavelli, \u2018must have an understanding always ready to do good,\nbut he must be able to enter into evil when he is forced to do so\u2019;\nthereby showing that for him evil, even if it aids politics, still\nremains evil. The modern realists are the _moralists_ of realism. For\nthem, the act which makes the State strong is invested with a moral\ncharacter by the fact that it does so, and this whatever the act may\nbe. The evil which serves politics ceases to be evil and becomes\ngood. This position is evident in Hegel, in the Pangermanists and in\nBarr\u00e8s; it is no less evident among realists like M. Maurras and his\ndisciples, in spite of their insistence in declaring that they profess\nno morality. Perhaps these teachers do not profess any morality, at\nleast expressly, in what concerns private life, but they very clearly\nprofess a morality in the political order of things, if by morality is\nmeant everything which puts forward a scale of good and evil. For them\nas for Hegel, the practical in politics _is the moral_, and if what\nthe rest of the world calls moral is in opposition to the practical,\nthen _it is the immoral_. Such precisely is the perfectly moralist\nmeaning of the famous campaign of \u2018false patriotism\u2019. It seems as if\nwe might say that for M. Maurras the practical is the divine, and that\nhis \u2018atheism\u2019 consists less in denying God than in shifting Him to man\nand his political work. I think I can describe the work of this writer\naccurately by saying that it is the _divinizing of politics_.[86] This\ndisplacement of morality is undoubtedly the most important achievement\nof the modern \u2018clerks\u2019, and the most deserving of the historian\u2019s\nattention. It is a great turning-point in the history of man when those\nwho speak in the name of pondered thought come and tell him that his\npolitical egotisms are divine, and that everything which labours to\nrelax them is degrading. The results of this teaching were shown by the\nexample of Germany a decade ago.[87]\n\nThe extent to which the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 have made innovations may be\njudged by the fact that up till our own times men had only received two\nsorts of teaching in what concerns the relations between politics and\nmorality. One was Plato\u2019s, and it said: \u2018Morality decides politics\u2019;\nthe other was Machiavelli\u2019s, and it said: \u2018Politics have nothing to\ndo with morality.\u2019 To-day they receive a third. M. Maurras teaches:\n\u2018Politics decide morality.\u2019[88] However, the real departure is not\nthat this doctrine should be put before them, but that they should\naccept it. Callicles asserted that force is the only morality; but the\nthinking world despised him. Let me also mention that Machiavelli was\ncovered with insults by most of the moralists of his time, at least in\nFrance.\n\nThe modern world also hearkens to other moralists of realism, who are\nnot lacking in influence as such; I mean the statesmen. Here I shall\npoint to the same sort of change as above. Formerly, leaders of States\npractised realism, but did not honour it; Louis XI, Charles the Fifth\nof Spain, Richelieu, Louis XIV, did not claim that their actions were\nmoral. They saw morality where the Gospel had showed it to them, and\nthey did not attempt to displace it because they did not apply it.[89]\nWith them morality was violated, but moral notions remain intact; _and\nthat is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb\ncivilization_. Signor Mussolini proclaims the morality of his politics\nof force and the immorality of everything which opposes it. Like the\nwriter, the man of government, who formerly was merely a realist, is\nnow the _apostle_ of realism; and the majesty of his function--if not\nof his person--gives weight to his apostleship.\n\nThe modern governor, owing to the fact that he addresses crowds, is\ncompelled to be a moralist, and to present his acts as bound up with\na system of morality, a metaphysics, a mysticism. Richelieu, who need\naccount only to his King, is able to talk only of the practical, and\nleaves visions of the eternal to others. Mussolini, Bethmann-Hollweg,\nHerriot, are condemned to these heights.[90] Moreover, this shows how\ngreat to-day is the number of those whom I can call \u2018clerks\u2019, since by\nthat word I mean all those who speak to the world in a transcendental\nmanner. Consequently, I have a right to demand that they give an\naccount of their acts _as \u2018clerks\u2019_.\n\nThe preachers of political realism often claim to base themselves\non the teaching of the Church, and call her a hypocrite when she\ncondemns their theses. This claim has little foundation as regards the\nteaching of the Church before the nineteenth century, but has much more\nfoundation if we consider the present age. I doubt whether one could\nnow find from the pen of a modern theologian any passage so brutally\ndenunciatory of a war of aggression as the following:--\n\n\u2018Glaringly unjust is the war of him who declares war only from ambition\nand from the desire to extend his dominions beyond their legitimate\nboundaries, from the desire to possess a more commodious country\nin which to establish himself, from the fear of the great power of\na neighbouring prince with whom he is at peace, or from the desire\nto despoil a rival solely because he is thought unworthy of the\npossessions or States he holds or of a right which legitimately belongs\nto him, because a ruler is inconvenienced by him and wants to get rid\nof this inconvenience by force of arms.\u2019[91] On the other hand, there\nare an immense number of works to-day which need only a little twisting\nto make them justify every attempt at conquest. For instance, the view\nthat a war is just \u2018if it can invoke the necessity of safeguarding\nthe common good and public tranquillity, the recapture of things\nunjustly carried off, the repression of rebels, the defence of the\ninnocent\u2019.[92] And the view which asserts that \u2018war is just when it\nis necessary to a nation either to defend itself against invasion, or\n_to overthrow the obstacles thwarting the exercise of its rights_.\u2019[93]\nAt the beginning of the last century the Church still taught that war\ncould only be just for one of the two belligerents.[94] It is heavy\nwith consequences that she has now abandoned this position and to-day\nasserts that war may be just on both sides at once, \u2018from the moment\nwhen each of the two adversaries, without being certain of its right,\nconsiders it as simply probable after having taken the opinion of its\ncounsellors\u2019.[95] Here is another serious thing: In the past, war\nwould only be declared just when it was against an adversary who had\ncommitted an injury _accompanied by a moral intention_, whereas to-day\nit may be declared just if it is directed against a material injury\ncaused without any malice,[96] for instance, an accidental violation of\nfrontier. It is certain that to-day Napoleon and Bismarck could find\nin the teaching of the Church more justification than ever for their\nincursions.[97]\n\nThe modern \u2018clerks\u2019 have preached this realism to the classes as well\nas to the nations. They say to the working class as well as to the\nbourgeois class: \u2018Organize yourselves, become the stronger, seize\non power or exert yourself to retain it if you already possess it;\nlaugh at all efforts to bring more charity, more justice or any other\n\u201crot\u201d[98] into your relations with the other class, you have been\ncheated long enough by that sort of thing.\u2019 And here again they do not\nsay: \u2018Become so, because necessity demands it,\u2019 they say, and that is\nthe novelty of it: \u2018Become so, because morality, aesthetics demand it;\nto wish to be powerful is the sign of an elevated soul, to wish to be\njust the sign of a base soul.\u2019 This is the teaching of Nietzsche,[99]\nof Sorel, applauded by a whole thinking (so-called) Europe; this is\nthe enthusiasm of Europe, when it is attracted by Socialism, for the\ndoctrines of Marx, its scorn for the doctrines of Proudhon.[100] The\n\u2018clerks\u2019 have said the same thing to the parties contending within the\nsame nation. \u2018Make yourself the stronger,\u2019 they say to one or other,\naccording to their own passion, \u2018and do away with everything which\nobstructs you; free yourself from the foolish prejudice which exhorts\nyou to make allowances for your adversary, to establish with him a\nsystem of justice and harmony.\u2019 We all know the admiration professed by\na whole army of \u2018thinkers\u2019 in all countries for the Italian government,\nwhich simply outlaws all citizens who do not approve of it. Until our\nown times the educators of the human soul, disciples of Aristotle,\nurged mankind to denounce as infamous any State which was an organized\nfaction. The pupils of Signor Mussolini and M. Maurras learn to\nreverence such a State.[101]\n\nThis extolling of the \u2018strong State\u2019 by the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 appears\nalso in certain teachings which, it may be asserted, would greatly have\namazed their ancestors, at least the great ones:--\n\n(_a_) _The affirmation of the rights of custom, history, the past_ (to\nthe extent, be it understood, that they support the systems of force)\nin opposition to the rights of reason. I say the affirmation of the\n_rights_ of custom. The modern traditionalists do not simply teach,\nlike Descartes or Malebranche, that custom is upon the whole quite a\ngood thing, and that there is more wisdom in submitting to it than\nopposing it. They teach that custom has a right, _the_ right, and\nconsequently that custom should be respected not only from the point\nof view of interest, but of justice. The arguments in favour of the\n\u2018historical right\u2019 of Germany to Alsace, the \u2018historical right\u2019 of the\nFrench monarchy, are not purely political positions, they are moral\npositions. They claim to be accepted in the name of \u2018true justice\u2019,\nof which (they say) their adversaries have a false conception.[102]\nTo determine what is just by the \u2018accomplished fact\u2019 is certainly a\nnew sort of teaching, especially among the peoples who for twenty\ncenturies derived their conception of what is just from the companions\nof Socrates. Here again, the soul of Greece has given place to the soul\nof Prussia among the educators of mankind. The spirit which speaks\nhere--and from all the teachers of Europe, Mediterranean as well as\nGermanic--is the spirit of Hegel: \u2018The history of the world is the\njustice of the world.\u2019 (_Weltgeschichte ist Weltgericht._)\n\n(_b_) The extolling of _policy founded on experience_--by which is\nmeant that a society should be governed on principles which have proved\nthat they can make it strong, and by \u2018illusions\u2019 which would tend to\nmake it just. It is in this narrowly practical sense that the cult\nof experimental politics is a new thing among the \u2018clerks\u2019. For if\nwe mean by the phrase the respect for principles which have showed\nthat they are fitted to make a society not only strong but just, the\nrecommendation of such a policy in opposition to a purely rational\npolicy appeared in the thinking world long before the disciples of\nTaine or Auguste Comte.[103] Long before our \u2018organizing empiricists\u2019\nSpinoza wanted political science to be an experimental science, and\ndesired that the conditions under which States endure should be sought\nfrom observation at least as much as from reason. (See his attack\non the Utopians, _Treatise_, I, i.) But he believed he learned from\nobservation that these conditions do not solely consist in States\npossessing good armies and obedient peoples, but in their respecting\nthe rights of citizens and even of neighbouring peoples.[104] The\ncult of experimental politics to-day is accompanied in those who\nadopt it by a posture which they evidently mean to be striking, and\nwhich in fact is so. We all know with what fatalistic visages, what\nscornful inflexibility, what dark certainty of grasping the absolute,\nthey declare that in matters of politics \u2018they consider only the\nfacts\u2019. Here, especially among the French thinkers, is a new kind of\nRomanticism, which I shall call the _Romanticism of Positivism_, the\nchief representatives of which will rise up in the imagination of my\nreaders without its being necessary for me to name them. Moreover,\nthis cult brings out a silliness of mind which to me seems wholly an\nacquisition of the nineteenth century,[105] i.e. the belief that the\nteachings to be drawn from the past (supposing that they exist) will\ncome straight out of an examination of the _facts_, viz. desires which\nhave been realized. As if the desires which have not been realized were\nnot as important, and perhaps more important, if you reflect that they\nmay quite well come to fill the world\u2019s stage now.[106] Let me add that\nthis cult of fact also claims to be the sole discoverer of \u2018the meaning\nof history\u2019 and \u2018the philosophy of history\u2019, which there again shows\na weakness of mind from which the preceding ages seem to have been\nfree. When Bossuet and Hegel built up philosophies of history they were\ncertainly no more metaphysicians than Taine or Comte or any of their\nnoisy disciples, but at least they knew that they were so, that they\ncould not be otherwise, and were not so na\u00efve as to think themselves\n\u2018pure scientists\u2019.\n\n(_c_) The assertion that political forms should be adapted to \u2018man\nas he is and always will be\u2019 (viz. unsocial and bloody, therefore\neternally needing systems of coercion and military institutions).\nThis effort of so many modern teachers to assert the imperfectability\nof human nature appears as one of their strangest attitudes, if you\nrealize that it tends towards nothing less than asserting the complete\nuselessness of their function, and proving that they have completely\nceased to realize its very essence. When we see moralists, educators,\nprofessional providers of spiritual guidance, assert at the spectacle\nof human barbarism that \u2018man is thus\u2019, that \u2018he must be taken thus\u2019,\nthat \u2018you will never change him\u2019, we are tempted to ask them what is\ntheir reason for existing. And when we hear them reply that \u2018they are\npositive minds and not Utopians\u2019, \u2018that they are concerned with what\nis, not with what might be\u2019, we are staggered to see that they do not\nknow that the moralist is essentially a Utopian, and that the nature\nof moral action is precisely that it creates its object by affirming\nit. But we recover when we notice that they are in no wise ignorant\nof this, and know perfectly well that by affirming it they will\ncreate that eternity of barbarism necessary to the maintenance of the\ninstitutions which are dear to them.[107]\n\nThe dogma of the incurable wickedness of man has another root among\nsome who profess it. This is a Romantic pleasure in picturing the human\nrace as walled in by an inevitable and eternal woe. From this point\nof view we may say that there has grown up among certain political\nwriters of our time a real _Romanticism of Pessimism_, as false in its\nabsoluteness as the Optimism of Rousseau and Michelet, in hatred of\nwhom it has arisen, while its haughty and so-called scientific attitude\nis most impressive to simple souls.[108] This doctrine has undoubtedly\nborne fruits outside the world of literature, and at its voice there\nhas arisen a humanity which believes in nothing but its egotisms and\nmerely laughs at the na\u00efve persons who still think that it might become\nbetter. The modern \u2018clerk\u2019 has accomplished a truly new work--he has\ntaught man to deny his divinity. The import of such a work is obvious.\nThe Stoics claimed that pain is abolished if it is denied; the thing\nis disputable in the matter of pain, but it is absolutely true in the\nmatter of moral perfectability.\n\nI shall point out two more teachings inspired in the modern \u2018clerks\u2019,\nby their preaching of the \u2018strong State\u2019, and it will not be necessary\nto add that they are new in the ministers of the spiritual:--\n\nThe first is the teaching whereby they declare to Man that he is great\nto the extent that he strives to act and to think as his ancestors,\nhis race, his environment thought, and ignores \u2018individualism\u2019. Thirty\nyears ago many of the French teachers hurled anathemas against the man\nwho \u2018claimed to seek truth for himself\u2019, to arrive at his own opinion,\ninstead of adopting the opinion of his nation which had been told what\nit ought to think by its vigilant leaders. Our age has seen priests\nof the mind teaching that the gregarious is the praiseworthy form of\nthought, and that independent thought is contemptible. It is moreover\ncertain that a group which desires to be strong has no use for the man\nwho claims to think for himself.[109]\n\nThe second is the teaching whereby they declare to men that the fact\nthat a group is numerous constitutes a right. This is the morality\nwhich the over-populated nations hear from many of their thinkers,\nwhile the other nations hear from many of theirs that if their low\nbirth-rate continues they will become the objects of a \u2018legitimate\u2019\nextermination. The rights of numerousness admitted by men who claim to\nbelong to the life of the mind--that is what modern humanity sees. But\nit is certain that if a nation is to be strong, it must be numerous.\n\nThis cult of the strong State and the moral methods which ensure it\nhave been preached to mankind by the \u2018clerks\u2019 far beyond the domain\nof politics, and on a wholly general plane. This is the preaching of\n_Pragmatism_ whose teaching during the past fifty years by nearly\nall the influential moralists of Europe is one of the most remarkable\nturning points in the moral history of the human species. It is\nimpossible to exaggerate the importance of a movement whereby those who\nfor twenty centuries taught Man that the criterion of the morality of\nan act is its disinterestedness, that good is a decree of his reason\ninsofar as it is universal, that his will is only moral if it seeks\nits law outside its objects, should begin to teach him that the moral\nact is the act whereby he secures his existence against an environment\nwhich disputes it, that his will is moral insofar as it is a will \u2018to\npower\u2019, that the part of his soul which determines what is good is\nits \u2018will to live\u2019 wherein it is most \u2018hostile to all reason\u2019, that\nthe morality of an act is measured by its adaptation to its end, and\nthat the only morality is the morality of circumstances. The educators\nof the human mind now take sides with Callicles against Socrates, a\nrevolution which I dare to say seems to me more important than all\npolitical upheavals.[110]\n\nI should like to point out certain particularly remarkable aspects of\nthis preaching, which are probably not sufficiently realized.\n\nI said that the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 teach man that his desires are moral\ninsofar as they tend to secure his existence at the expense of an\nenvironment which disputes it. In particular they teach him that his\nspecies is sacred insofar as it is able to assert its existence at the\nexpense of the surrounding world.[111] In other words, the old morality\ntold Man that he is divine to the extent that he becomes one with the\nuniverse; the new morality tells him that he is divine to the extent\nthat he is in opposition to it. The former exhorted him not to set\nhimself in Nature \u2018like an empire within an empire\u2019; the latter exhorts\nhim to say with the fallen angels of Holy Writ, \u2018We desire now to feel\nconscious of ourselves in ourselves, and not in God.\u2019 The former,\nlike the master of the _Contemplations_, said: \u2018Believe, but not in\nourselves\u2019; the latter replies with Nietzsche and Maurras: \u2018Believe,\nand believe in ourselves, only ourselves.\u2019\n\nNevertheless, the real originality of Pragmatism is not in that.\nChristianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so\nin the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes: Pragmatism\nexhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly\nman was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of\njustice, the idea of law, the sense of God; to-day he is divine because\nhe has been able to create an equipment which makes him the master of\nmatter. (See the glorifications of the _homo faber_ by Nietzsche,\nSorel, Bergson.)\n\nMoreover, the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 extol Christianity insofar as it is\nsupposed to have been pre-eminently a school of practical, creative\nvirtues, adjusted to the support of the great human institutions. This\namazing deformation of a doctrine which in its precepts is so obviously\ndevoted to the love of the spiritual alone, is not only taught by\nlaymen, who are quite within their rights in trying to place their\npractical desires under the patronage of the highest moral authorities;\nit is also professed by the ministers of Jesus themselves. Pragmatist\nChristianity, as I mean it here, is preached to-day from all Christian\npulpits.[112]\n\nThis exhortation to concrete advantages and to that form of soul which\nprocures them, is expressed by the modern \u2018clerk\u2019 in another very\nremarkable teaching: By praise of the military life and the feelings\nwhich go with it, and by contempt for civil life and the morality it\nimplies. We know the doctrine preached in Europe during the past fifty\nyears by its most esteemed moralists, their apology for war \u2018which\npurifies\u2019, their veneration for the man of arms \u2018the archtype of moral\nbeauty\u2019, their proclamation of the supreme morality of \u2018violence\u2019 or\nof those who settle their differences by duels and not before a jury,\nwhile they declare that respect for contracts is the \u2018weapon of the\nweak\u2019, the need for justice the \u2018characteristic of slaves\u2019. It is\nnot betraying the disciples of Nietzsche or Sorel--that is, the great\nmajority of contemporary men of letters who attempt to set up a scale\nof moral values for the world--to say that according to them Colleoni\nis a far superior specimen of humanity to l\u2019H\u00f4pital. The estimates of\nthe _Voyage du Condottiere_ are not peculiar to the author of that\nwork. Here is an idealization of practical activity, which humanity had\nnever before heard from its educators, at least from those who speak\ndogmatically.\n\nI shall be told that Nietzsche and his school do not extol the military\nlife because it procures material advantages, but on the contrary,\nbecause it is the type of disinterested realism, and in opposition to\nthe realism which in their opinion is the characteristic of civilian\nlife. Yet it is none the less true that the way of life praised by\nthese moralists is in fact that which pre-eminently brings material\nadvantages. Whatever may be said by the author of _Reflections on\nViolence_ and his disciples, war is more profitable than the counting\nhouse; to take is more advantageous than to exchange; Colleoni\npossesses more than Franklin. (Naturally, I am speaking of the\nsuccessful military man, since Nietzsche and Sorel never speak of the\nmerchant who goes bankrupt.)\n\nMoreover, no one will deny that the irrational activities, of which\nthe military instinct is only one aspect, are extolled by their great\nmodern apostles for their practical value. Their historian has put\nit admirably: The Romanticism of Nietzsche, Sorel, and Bergson is a\n_utilitarian_ Romanticism.\n\nLet me insist that what I am pointing to here, is not the modern\n\u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 extolling of the military spirit, but of the warlike\ninstinct. It is the cult of the warlike instinct, outside all social\nspirit of discipline or sacrifice which is meant by the following\nassertions of Nietzsche, glorified by a French moralist whom himself\nhas numerous followers:--\n\n\u2018The values of the warrior aristocracy are founded on a powerful\nbodily constitution, excellent health, without forgetting all that is\nnecessary to the upkeep of that overflowing vigour--war, adventure,\nhunting, dancing, physical games and exercises, and in general\neverything which implies a robust, free and joyous activity.\u2019\n\n\u2018That audacity of noble races, a mad, absurd, spontaneous audacity ...\ntheir indifference and scorn for all safety of body, for life, comfort\n...\u2019\n\n\u2018The superb blond beast wandering in search of prey and carnage ...\u2019\n\n\u2018The terrible gaiety and profound joy felt by heroes in all\ndestruction, in all the pleasures of victory and cruelty.\u2019\n\nThe moralist who quotes those remarks (Sorel, _Reflexions sur la\nViolence_, p. 360) adds, in order to leave no doubt about his\nrecommendation of them to his fellow human beings: \u2018It is quite evident\nthat liberty would be seriously compromised if men came to look upon\nthe Homeric values\u2019 (which, for him, are the values just praised by\nNietzsche) \u2018as being characteristic of the barbarous peoples only.\u2019\n\nIs it necessary to observe how, here again, the moral presentation\ndominant among the world\u2019s educators is essentially Germanic, and\nshows the bankruptcy of Graeco-Roman thought? Before our times you do\nnot find in France a single serious moralist (including de Maistre)\nor even a poet (if you consider only the great ones) who praises the\n\u2018pleasures of victory and cruelty\u2019.[113] And it is the same for ancient\nRome, among the nations to whom war had given world supremacy. I do\nnot find a single passage which puts forward the instincts of prey\nas the supreme form of human morality in Cicero, Seneca, or Tacitus,\nor even in Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Claudian. On the other hand, I\nfind a great many which attribute this rank to the instincts on which\ncivil life is based.[114] Moreover, in primitive Greece, long before\nthe philosophers, the myths very soon give an important place to\ncivil morality. In a poem of Hesiod the tomb of Cycnus is engulfed\nin the waters by Apollo\u2019s command, because Cycnus was a brigand. The\ndefence of warlike instincts by Mediterranean moralists will be one\nof the amazements of history. Some of them, moreover, seem uneasy\nabout it, and feel they ought to claim that the Homeric values (we\nhave seen what they mean by that) \u2018are very close to the values of\nCorneille\u2019[115]--as if the French poet\u2019s heroes, with all their sense\nof devotion to duty and the State, had anything in common with lovers\nof adventure, prey, and carnage!\n\nIt will be observed that these passages from Nietzsche praise the\nmilitary life apart from any political aim.[116] And, in fact, the\nmodern \u2018clerks\u2019 teach men that war implies a morality _in itself_\nand should be exercised even apart from any utility. This thesis, so\nfamiliar in Barr\u00e8s, has been defended in its full splendour by a young\nhero who is an educator of the soul for a whole French generation:\n\n\u2018In my country we love war and secretly desire it. We have always made\nwar. Not to conquer a province, not to exterminate a nation, not to\nsettle a conflict of interests.... We make war for the sake of making\nwar, with no other purpose.\u2019[117]\n\nThe old French moralists, even the soldiers (Vauvenargues, Vigny),\nlooked upon war as a sad necessity; their descendants recommend it as\na noble inutility. Yet, here again, the cult preached as apart from\nthe practical and as an art happens to be eminently favourable to the\npractical--useless war is the best preparation for useful war.\n\nThis teaching leads the modern \u2018clerk\u2019 (we have just seen it in\nNietzsche) to confer a _moral_ value upon physical exercise and to\nproclaim _the morality of sport_--a most remarkable thing indeed among\nthose who for twenty centuries have exhorted man to situate good in\nstates of the mind. The moralists of sport, moreover, do not all\nshuffle over the practical essence of their doctrine. Young people,\nBarr\u00e8s clearly teaches, should be trained in physical strength, for the\ngreatness of the country. The modern educator goes for his inspiration,\nnot to those who strolled in the Lyceum or to the solitaries of\nClairvaux, but to the founder of a little town in the Peloponnesus.\nMoreover, our age has seen this new thing: Men who claim to belong\nto the spiritual life teaching that the Greece to venerate is Sparta\nwith her gymnasiums, not the city of Plato or Praxiteles, while others\nmaintain that in antiquity we should honour Rome and not Greece. All\nthese things are perfectly consistent in those who desire to preach to\nhumanity nothing but strong constitutions and solid ramparts.[118]\n\nThe preaching of realism leads the modern \u2018Clerk\u2019 to certain teachings,\nwhose novelty in his history is not sufficiently noticed, nor what a\nbreak they form with the teaching which his class has given to men for\nthe past two thousand years.\n\n(_a_) _The extolling of courage_, or more precisely the exhortation to\nmake the supreme virtue Man\u2019s aptitude to face death, while all other\nvirtues, however lofty, are placed below it. This teaching, openly the\nteaching of Nietzsche, Sorel, P\u00e9guy, Barr\u00e8s, was always the teaching\nof poets and generals, but is entirely new among the \u2018clerks\u2019, I mean\namong men who put before the world a scale of values in the name of\nphilosophical reflection, or who are willing to be considered as such.\nFrom Socrates to Renan they had considered courage as a virtue, but\non a lower plane. All, more or less openly, teach with Plato: \u2018In the\nfirst rank of virtue are wisdom and temperance; courage only comes\nafterwards.\u2019[119] The impulses they exhort man to venerate are not\nthose whereby he strives to quench his thirst for placing himself in\nthe real, but those whereby he moderates it. It was reserved for our\ntime to see the priests of the spiritual placing in the first rank of\nforms of soul that which is indispensable to man if he is to conquer\nand to lay foundations.[120] However, this practical value of courage,\nplainly expressed by Nietzsche and Sorel, is not equally so expressed\nby all the modern moralists who praise this virtue. This brings another\nof their teachings before us:--\n\n(_b_) _The extolling of honour_, by which is meant all those impulses\nwhich cause a man to risk his life for no practical interest--to be\nprecise, from desire of glory--_but which are an excellent school of\npractical courage_, and were always extolled by those who lead men to\nthe conquest of material things. In this connection, let the reader\nthink of the respect in which the institution of the duel has always\nbeen held in armies, in spite of certain repressions inspired solely by\npractical considerations.[121]\n\nHere again, the position attributed to these impulses by so many modern\nmoralists is something new among them, especially in the country of\nMontaigne, Pascal, La Bruy\u00e8re, Montesquieu, Voltaire and Renan, who,\nwhen they extol honour, mean something very different from man\u2019s\ncult of his own glory.[122] Nevertheless, the most remarkable thing\nabout all this is that the cult of man for his own glory is currently\npreached by the Churchmen as a virtue which leads Man to God. Is it\nnot amazing to hear words like the following from a Christian pulpit?\n\u2018The love of grandeurs is the path to God, and the heroic impulse which\nfully coincides with the search for glories in their cause, permits\nhim who had forgotten God or who thought he knew not God to re-invent\nHim, to discover this last summit after temporary ascents have rendered\nhim accustomed to the dizziness and air of altitudes.\u2019[123] One cannot\nforebear quoting the lesson given by a true disciple of Jesus to a\nChristian teacher who had also strangely forgotten his Master\u2019s word:--\n\n\u2018Have you noticed that the eight Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount,\nthe Gospels, the whole of primitive Christian literature, contain not\none word which sets military virtues among those which lead to the\nKingdom of Heaven?\u2019 (Renan, _First Letter to Strauss_.)[124]\n\nLet me observe that I am not reproaching the Christian preacher for\ngiving their due to glory and other earthly passions, I am only\nreproaching him for trying to pretend that he is in harmony with his\ninstitution when he does so. We do not ask that the Christian shall not\nviolate the Christian law; we only ask him to know that he is breaking\nit when he does break it. This seems to me admirably brought out by\nthe remark of Cardinal Lavigerie who was asked: \u2018What would you do,\nEminence, if someone slapped your right cheek?\u2019 and who replied, \u2018I\nknow what I ought to do, but I do not know what I should do.\u2019 _I know\nwhat I ought to do_, and therefore what I ought to teach. A man who\nspeaks in that way may give way to every species of violence, and yet\nmaintain Christian morality. Here actions are nothing; the judgment on\nthe actions is everything.\n\nMust I repeat that I am not deploring the fact that the cults of honour\nand courage should be preached to human beings; I am deploring the fact\nthat they are preached _by the \u2018clerks\u2019_. Civilization, I repeat, seems\nto me possible only if humanity consents to a division of functions, if\nside by side with those who carry out the lay passions and extol the\nvirtues serviceable to them there exists a class of men who depreciate\nthese passions and glorify the advantages which are beyond the\nmaterial. What I think serious is that this class of men should cease\nto perform their office, and that those whose duty was to quench human\npride should extol the same impulses of soul as the leaders of armies.\n\nI shall be told that this preaching is imposed on the \u2018clerks\u2019, at\nleast in war-time, by the laymen, by the States, who to-day intend to\nmobilize all the moral resources of the nation for their ends.[125]\nBut what amazes me is not so much that I see the \u2018clerks\u2019 preaching in\nthis manner, as to see them do it with such docility, such absence of\ndisgust, such enthusiasm, such joy.... The truth is that the \u2018clerks\u2019\nhave become as much laymen as the laymen themselves.\n\n(_c_) _The extolling of harshness_ and the scorn for human love--pity,\ncharity, benevolence. Here again, the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 are the\n_moralists_ of realism. They are not content to remind the world\nthat harshness is necessary in order \u2018to succeed\u2019 and that charity\nis an encumbrance, nor have they limited themselves to preaching to\ntheir nation or party what Zarathustra preached to his disciples: \u2018Be\nhard, be pitiless, and in this way dominate.\u2019 They proclaim the moral\nnobility of harshness and the ignominy of charity. This teaching,\nwhich is the foundation of Nietzsche\u2019s work, need not surprise one\nin a country which has not provided the world with a single great\napostle,[126] but it is very remarkable in the land of Vincent de Paul\nand the defender of the Calas. Lines like the following, which might be\nan extract from the _Genealogy of Morals_, seem to me something wholly\nnew coming from the pen of a French moralist: \u2018This perverted pity has\ndegraded love.[127] It has been given the name of charity, and the weak\nhave received its dew. Night after night the seed of this calamity has\nbeen scattered. It conquers the earth. It fills the solitary places. In\nwhatever country you go, you cannot go about for a single day without\nmeeting this withered face with its commonplace gestures, inspired by\nthe sole desire of prolonging its shameful life.\u2019[128] There again\nwe can observe how the modern realists have advanced beyond their\npredecessors. When Machiavelli declares that \u2018a Prince in order to\nmaintain his power is forced to govern in a manner contrary to charity\nand humanity\u2019, he is simply saying that to act contrary to charity\nmay be a practical necessity, but he does not in the least vouch that\ncharity is a degradation of the soul. This teaching is the contribution\nof the nineteenth century to the moral education of mankind.\n\nSometimes the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 claim that in preaching inhumanity\nthey are only continuing the teaching of their great ancestors,\nparticularly of Spinoza on account of his famous proposition: \u2018Pity in\nitself is bad and useless in a soul which lives according to reason.\u2019\nIs it necessary to point out that here pity is depreciated, not to\nthe benefit of inhumanity, but to the benefit of humanity _guided by\nreason_, because reason alone \u2018enables us to give aid to others with\ncertainty\u2019. And Spinoza, determined to stress the fact that for him\npity is only inferior to reasoned kindness, adds: \u2018It must be fully\nunderstood that I am here speaking of the man who lives by reason. For\nif a man is never led by reason or by pity to go to the assistance\nof others, then assuredly he deserves the name of inhuman, since he\nretains no resemblance to a man.\u2019 Let me add that the apostles of\nharshness cannot claim either that they are supported by the fanatics\nof justice (Michelet, Proudhon, Renouvier) who, by sacrificing love to\njustice, do perhaps end up in harshness, but not in a joyous harshness\nwhich is precisely the harshness preached by the modern realists, who\nsay--perhaps rightly--that it is the only fertile kind.[129]\n\nThis extolling of harshness seems to me to have borne more fruit than\nany other preaching by the modern \u2018clerks\u2019. It is a commonplace that\namong the great majority of the (so-called) thinking young men, in\nFrance for instance, harshness is to-day an object of respect, while\nhuman love in all its forms is considered a rather laughable thing.\nThese young men have a cult for doctrines which respect nothing but\nforce, pay no attention to the lamentations of suffering and proclaim\nthe inevitability of war and slavery, while they despise those who are\nrevolted by such prospects and desire to alter them. I should like\nthese cults to be compared with the literary aesthetics of these young\nmen, their veneration for certain contemporary novelists and poets in\nwhom the absence of human sympathy reaches a rare pitch of perfection,\nand whom they plainly venerate, especially for that characteristic.\nAnd I should like you to observe the gloomy gravity and arrogance with\nwhich these young men subscribe to these \u2018iron\u2019 doctrines. It seems\nto me that the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 have created in so-called cultivated\nsociety a positive _Romanticism of harshness_.\n\nThey have also created a _Romanticism of contempt_, at least in France,\nand notably with Barr\u00e8s, and indeed since Flaubert and Baudelaire.\nNevertheless, it seems to me that in recent times contempt has been\npractised in France for reasons quite other than aesthetic. These\npeoples have come to see that by feeling contempt for others they are\nnot only obtaining the pleasure of a lofty attitude, but that when\nthey are really expert in expressing contempt they harm what they\ndespise, do it a real damage. And in fact the kind of contempt which\nBarr\u00e8s expresses for the Jews and which certain royalist teachers have\ndisplayed for democratic institutions every morning for the past twenty\nyears, do really harm their victims, at least among those very numerous\nartistic minds for whom a superbly executory gesture is as good as\nan argument. The modern \u2018clerks\u2019 deserve a place of honour in the\nhistory of realism; they have come to understand the practical value of\ncontempt.\n\nIt may also be said that they have created a _cult for cruelty_.\nNietzsche proclaims that \u2018every superior culture is built up on\ncruelty\u2019, a doctrine which is explicitly proclaimed in many places\nby Barr\u00e8s, author of _Du sang, de la volupt\u00e9 et de la mort_.\nNevertheless, the cult of cruelty, which may also be thought necessary\n\u2018to succeed\u2019[130] has remained limited to a few particularly artistic\nsensibilities, at least in France. It is very far from becoming the\ncult of a school, like harshness and contempt. Here again we may\nnotice how new this cult is in the land of those who said \u2018Cowardice,\nthe mother of cruelty\u2019 (Montaigne), or, to quote a military moralist,\n\u2018a hero does not feel proud of carrying hunger and misery among\nforeigners, but of enduring them for the State; nor of giving death,\nbut of risking it.\u2019 (Vauvenargues).[131]\n\n(_d_) _The cult of success_, I mean the teaching which says that when a\nwill is successful that fact alone gives it a moral value, whereas the\nwill which fails is for that reason alone deserving of contempt. This\nphilosophy which is professed by many a modern teacher in political\nlife (it may be said, by all in Germany since Hegel, and by a large\nnumber in France since de Maistre) is also professed in private life,\nand has borne its fruits there. In the so-called thinking world to-day\nthere are innumerable people who think they are demonstrating their\naristocratic morality by declaring their systematic esteem for all\nwho \u2018succeed\u2019 and their scorn for all who fail. One moralist places\nto the credit of Napoleon\u2019s greatness of soul his contempt for \u2018the\nunlucky\u2019; others do the same thing in regard to Mazarin, Vauban,\nMussolini. It cannot be denied that the \u2018clerks\u2019 are thereby keeping\nan excellent school of realism, since the cult of success and the\ncontempt for misfortune are obviously admirable moral conditions for\nobtaining material advantages. Nor can it be denied that this teaching\nis entirely new among them, especially among the \u2018clerks\u2019 of the Latin\nraces, I mean those whose ancestors had taught mankind to honour merit\napart from its achievements, to honour Hector as much as Achilles, the\nCuriatii more than their successful rivals.[132]\n\nWe have just seen that the modern moralists extol the warrior at the\nexpense of the man of justice. They also extol him at the expense of\nthe man of learning and, there again, they preach to the world the\ncult of practical activity in defiance of the disinterested life. We\nall know Nietzsche\u2019s hue and cry against the man of the study, the man\nof erudition, \u2018the mirror man,\u2019 whose only passion is to understand.\nAnd also Nietzsche\u2019s esteem for the life of the mind solely insofar\nas it is emotion, lyricism, action, partiality; his derisive laughter\nat \u2018objective\u2019 methodical research devoted to \u2018the horrible old woman\nknown as truth\u2019. And we know Sorel\u2019s denunciations of societies which\n\u2018give a privileged place to the amateurs of _purely intellectual\nthings_\u2019;[133] those of Barr\u00e8s, Lema\u00eetre, Bruneti\u00e8re, thirty years ago,\nintimating to the \u2018intellectuals\u2019 that they are a type of humanity\n\u2018inferior to the soldier\u2019; those of P\u00e9guy, who admires philosophies to\nthe extent that \u2018they are good fighters\u2019, and admires Descartes because\nhe was in the army, and the dialecticians of French monarchism solely\nbecause they are ready to be killed for the sake of their views.[134]\nI shall be told that most often this is the mere wild talk of men of\nletters, the posturing of lyricists, to which it is unjust to attribute\na dogmatic meaning; that Nietzsche, Barr\u00e8s and P\u00e9guy denounce the life\nof study on account of their poetic temperaments, their aversion from\neverything lacking in picturesqueness and the spirit of adventure, and\nnot their resolution to abase disinterestedness. To which I reply that\nthese poets give themselves out as serious thinkers (notice their tone,\n_quite free from_ naivet\u00e9); that the immense majority of their readers\naccept them as such; that, even if it were true that in depreciating\nthe man of study their motive is not to abase disinterestedness, it\nis none the less true in fact that the manner of living they hold\nup to the laughter of mankind happens to be the very type of the\ndisinterested life, while the life they extol at its expense is the\nvery type of practical activity (at least more practical than that\nof the man of study, for it will be admitted that the activity of du\nGuesclin and Napoleon is more likely to acquire material advantages\nthan the activity of Spinoza and Mabillon); that, moreover, what these\nthinkers despise in the man of study is precisely the man who lays no\nfoundations, who does not conquer, who does not predicate the capture\nof its environment by the species, or who, if he does predicate it,\nas the scientist does by his discoveries, retains for himself only\nthe joy of knowledge and abandons the practical exploitation of his\ndiscoveries to others. In Nietzsche, the scorn for the man of study to\nthe benefit of the warrior is only an episode in a desire which nobody\nwill deny inspires the whole of his work as well as the work of Sorel,\nBarr\u00e8s and P\u00e9guy: _The desire to abase the values of knowledge before\nthe values of action._[135]\n\nTo-day this desire inspires not only the moralist, but another kind\nof \u2018clerk\u2019 who speaks from much higher ground. I am referring to that\nteaching of modern metaphysics which exhorts man to feel comparatively\nlittle esteem for the truly thinking portion of himself and to honour\nthe active and _willing_ part of himself with all his devotion. The\ntheory of knowledge from which humanity has taken its values during\nthe past half century assigns a secondary rank to the mind which\nproceeds by clear and distinct ideas, by categories, by words, and\nplaces in the highest rank the mind which succeeds in liberating itself\nfrom these intellectual habits and in becoming conscious of itself\ninsofar as it is a \u2018pure tendency\u2019, a \u2018pure will\u2019, a \u2018pure activity\u2019.\nPhilosophy which formerly raised man to feel conscious of himself\nbecause he was a thinking being and to say, \u2018I think, therefore I am\u2019,\nnow raises him to say, \u2018I am, therefore I think\u2019, \u2018I think, therefore\nI am not\u2019 (unless he takes thought into consideration only in that\nhumble region where it is confused with action). Formerly philosophy\ntaught him that his soul is divine insofar as it resembles the soul of\nPythagoras linking up concepts; now she informs him that his soul is\ndivine insofar as it resembles that of the small chicken breaking its\neggshell.[136] From his loftiest pulpit the modern \u2018clerk\u2019 assures man\nthat he is great in proportion as he is practical.\n\nDuring fifty years, especially in France (see Barr\u00e8s and Bourget)\na whole literature has assiduously proclaimed the superiority of\ninstinct, the unconscious, intuition, the will (in the German sense,\ni.e. as opposed to the intelligence) and has proclaimed it in the name\nof the practical spirit, because the instinct and not the intelligence\nknows what we ought to do--as individuals, as a nation, as a class--to\nsecure our own advantage. These writers have eagerly expatiated on\nthe example of the insect whose \u2018instinct\u2019 (it appears) teaches it\nto strike its prey precisely in the spot which will paralyse it\nwithout killing it, so that its offspring may feed on the living prey\nand develop better.[137] Other teachers denounce this \u2018barbarous\u2019\nextolling of instinct in the name of \u2018the French tradition\u2019 and preach\n\u2018the superiority of the intelligence\u2019; but they preach it because\nin their opinion it is the intelligence which shows us the actions\nrequired by our interests, i.e. from exactly the same passion for the\npractical. This brings us to one of the most remarkable and certainly\nthe most novel forms of this preaching of the practical by the modern\n\u2018clerks\u2019.\n\nI mean that teaching according to which _intellectual activity is\nworthy of esteem to the extent that it is practical and to that extent\nalone_. It may be said that since the Greeks the predominant attitude\nof thinkers towards intellectual activity was to glorify it insofar as\n(like aesthetic activity) it finds its satisfaction in itself, apart\nfrom any attention to the advantages it may procure. Most thinkers\nwould have agreed with Plato\u2019s famous hymn to geometry, where that\ndiscipline is venerated more than all others because for him it\nrepresents the type of speculative thought which brings in nothing\nmaterial; and with Renan\u2019s verdict which declares that the man who\nloves science for its fruits commits the worst of blasphemies against\nthat divinity.[138] By this standard of values the \u2018clerks\u2019 put before\nthe laymen the spectacle of a class of men for whom the value of life\nlies in its disinterestedness, and they acted as a check on--or at\nleast shamed--the laymen\u2019s practical passions. The modern \u2018clerks\u2019\nhave violently torn up this charter. They proclaim that intellectual\nfunctions are only respectable to the extent that they are bound up\nwith the pursuit of a concrete advantage, and that the intelligence\nwhich takes no interest in its objects is a contemptible activity.\nThey teach that the superior form of the intelligence is that which\nthrusts its roots into \u2018the vital urge\u2019, occupied in discovering\nwhat is most valuable in securing our existence. In historical[139]\nscience especially, they honour the intelligence which labours under\nthe guidance of political interests,[140] and they are completely\ndisdainful of all efforts towards \u2018objectivity\u2019. Elsewhere they\nassert that the intelligence to be venerated is that which limits its\nactivities within the bounds of national interests and social order,\nwhile the intelligence which allows itself to be guided by the desire\nfor truth alone, apart from any concern with the demands of society, is\nmerely a \u2018savage and brutal\u2019 activity, which \u2018dishonours the highest\nof human faculties.\u2019[141] Let me also point out their devotion to\nthe doctrine (Bergson, Sorel) which says that science has a purely\nutilitarian origin--the necessity of man to dominate matter, \u2018knowledge\nis adaptation\u2019; and their scorn for the beautiful Greek conception\nwhich made science bloom from the desire to play, the perfect type of\ndisinterested activity. And then they teach men that to accept an error\nwhich is of service to them (the \u2018myth\u2019) is an undertaking which does\nthem honour, while it is shameful to admit a truth which harms them. In\nother words, as Nietzsche, Barr\u00e8s and Sorel plainly put it, sensibility\nto truth in itself apart from any practical aim is a somewhat\ncontemptible form of mind.[142] Here the modern \u2018clerk\u2019 positively\ndisplays genius in his defence of the material, since the material has\nnothing to do with the truth, or rather to speak more truly--has no\nworse enemy. The genius of Callicles in all its profundity lives again\nin the great masters of the modern soul.[143]\n\nThen the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 have preached to men the religion of the\npractical _by means of their theology_, through the image of God they\nhave set before them. First, they determined that God, who since the\nStoics has been infinite, should once more become finite, distinct,\nendowed with a personality, that He should be the affirmation of a\n_physical_ and not a _metaphysical_ existence. Anthropomorphism, which\nin the poets from Prudentius to Victor Hugo existed mingled with\npantheism without troubling to define the frontiers between them,\nsince God was personal or indeterminate according to the direction of\nthe emotion and the needs of the lyric impulse, rose up in P\u00e9guy and\nClaudel with the most violent consciousness of itself, the clearest\ndesire to be distinguished from its acolyte and to express contempt\nfor him. At the same time the political teachers attacked the religion\nof the Infinite with a precision of hatred, a skill in depreciation,\nunparalleled even in the Church, which consisted in denouncing this\nreligion precisely because it is not practical, because it saps away\nthe feelings which found the great earthly realities: the City and the\nState.[144] But the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 have above all endowed God with\nthe attributes which secure practical advantages. It may be said that,\nsince the Old Testament, God was far more just than strong, or rather\nthat, as Plato thought, His strength was only a form of His justice;\nand His power, as Malebranche and Spinoza put it, had nothing in common\nwith the power of kings and Empire-builders. The desire to increase was\nimplicitly excluded from His nature, as well as the moral attributes\nnecessary to the satisfaction of that desire--energy, will, the love\nof effort, the attraction of triumph. This was an inevitable result\nof His perfect and infinite state of being, which at once constituted\nthe whole of possible reality. Even in creation, the idea of which is\nessentially inseparable from the ideas of power and increase, these\nideas were avoided--the world was far less a result of God\u2019s power than\nof His love; it came out of God as a ray comes out of the sun, without\nGod feeling any increase of Himself at the expense of anything else.\nGod, to speak in terms of the schools, was far less the transcendent\ncause of the world than its immanent cause.[145] On the other hand,\nfor the modern teachers (Hegel, Schelling, Bergson, P\u00e9guy), God is\nessentially something which increases; His law is \u2018incessant change\u2019,\n\u2018incessant novelty\u2019, \u2018incessant[146] creation\u2019; His principle is\nessentially a principle of growth--Will, Tension, Vital Urge. If He is\nIntelligence, as with Hegel, He is an intelligence which \u2018develops\u2019,\nwhich \u2018realizes itself\u2019 more and more. The Being situated immediately\nin all His perfection and knowing nothing of conquest is an object of\ncontempt; He represents (Bergson) an \u2018eternity of death\u2019.[147] So the\nbelievers in an initial and single creation to-day strive to present\nthis act in its purely practical aspect. The Church condemns with a\nhitherto unknown clearness every doctrine of immanence and preaches\ntranscendence in all its strictness.[148] God, in creating the world,\nno longer witnesses an inevitable expansion of His nature; through\nHis power (some, to diminish the arbitrariness, say \u2018through His\nbenevolence\u2019) he sees the arising of something clearly distinct from\nHimself, something on which He sets His hand. His act, whatever may be\nsaid to the contrary, is the perfect model of material aggrandisement.\nLike the prophet of Israel of old, the modern \u2018clerk\u2019 says to mankind:\n\u2018Display your zeal for the Eternal, the God of battles.\u2019\n\nFor half a century, such has been the attitude of men whose function is\nto thwart the realism of nations, and who have laboured to excite it\nwith all their power and with complete decision of purpose. For this\nreason I dare to call this attitude \u2018The Great Betrayal\u2019. If I look\nfor its causes, I see profound causes which forbid me to look upon\nthis movement as a mere fashion, to which the contrary movement might\nsucceed to-morrow.\n\nOne of the principal causes is that the modern world has made the\n\u2018clerk\u2019 into a citizen, subject to all the responsibilities of a\ncitizen, and consequently to despise lay passions is far more difficult\nfor him than for his predecessors. If he is reproached for not looking\nupon national quarrels with the noble serenity of Descartes and Goethe,\nthe \u2018clerk\u2019 may well retort that his nation claps a soldier\u2019s pack\non his back if she is insulted, and crushes him with taxes even if\nshe is victorious. If shame is cried upon him because he does not\nrise superior to social hatreds, he will point out that the day of\nenlightened patronage is over, that to-day he has to earn his living,\nand that it is not his fault if he is eager to support the class which\ntakes a pleasure in his productions. No doubt this explanation is\nnot valid for the true \u2018clerk\u2019, who submits to the laws of his State\nwithout allowing them to injure his soul. He renders unto Caesar the\nthings that are Caesar\u2019s, i.e. his life perhaps, but nothing more.\nThe true \u2018clerk\u2019 is Vauvenargues, Lamarck, Fresnel, who never imbibed\nnational patriotism although they perfectly performed their patriotic\nduty; he is Spinoza, Schiller, Baudelaire, C\u00e9sar Franck, who were never\ndiverted from single-hearted adoration of the Beautiful and the Divine\nby the necessity of earning their daily bread. But such \u2018clerks\u2019 are\ninevitably rare. So much contempt for suffering is not the law of human\nnature even among the \u2018clerks\u2019; the law is that the living creature\ncondemned to struggle for life turns to practical passions, and\nthence to the sanctifying of those passions. The \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 new faith\nis to a great extent a result of the social conditions imposed upon\nhim, and the real evil to deplore is perhaps not so much the \u2018great\nbetrayal\u2019 of the \u2018clerks\u2019 as the disappearance of the \u2018clerks\u2019, the\nimpossibility of leading the life of a \u2018clerk\u2019 in the world of to-day.\nOne of the gravest responsibilities of the modern State is that it has\nnot maintained (but could it do so?) a class of men exempt from civic\nduties, men whose sole function is to maintain non-practical values.\nRenan\u2019s prophecy is verified; he foretold the inevitable degradation\nof a society where every member was forced to discharge worldly tasks,\nalthough Renan himself was the very type of those whom such servitude\nwould never have prevented--in the phrase of one of his peers--\u2018from\nbreathing only in the direction of Heaven\u2019.\n\nIt would be very unjust to explain the existence of national passion\nin the modern \u2018clerk\u2019 by self-interest alone. This is also to be\nexplained, and in a more simple manner, by the love, the impulse which\nnaturally inspires every man to love the group from which he derives,\nmore than the other groups which share the earth. There again, it may\nbe argued that the \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 new faith is caused by the changes of\nthe nineteenth century, which by giving national groups a consistency\nhitherto unknown furnishes food to a passion which in many countries\nbefore that period could have been little more than potential.\nObviously, attachment to the world of the spirit alone was easier for\nthose who were capable of it when there were no nations to love. And,\nin fact, it is most suggestive to notice that the true appearance of\nthe \u2018clerk\u2019 coincides with the fall of the Roman Empire, i.e. with the\ntime when the great nation collapsed and the little nations had not yet\ncome into existence. It is equally suggestive to notice that the age of\nthe great lovers of spiritual things, the age of Thomas Aquinas, Roger\nBacon, Galilei, Erasmus, was the age when most of Europe was in a state\nof chaos and the nations were unknown; that the regions where pure\nspeculation endured longest seem to be Germany and Italy,[149] i.e.\nthe regions which were the last to be nationalized; and practically\nceased to produce pure speculation from the moment when they became\nnations. Of course, here again the vicissitudes of the world of sense\ndo not affect the true \u2018clerk\u2019. The misfortunes of their country, and\neven its triumphs, did not prevent Einstein and Nietzsche from feeling\nno passion but the passion for thought. When Jules Lema\u00eetre exclaimed\nthat the wound of Sedan made him lose his reason, Renan replied that he\nperfectly retained his, and that a true priest of the mind could only\nbe wounded in other than earthly interests.[150]\n\nIn the cases I have just mentioned, the \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 devotion to his\nnation or class is sincere, whether it is from interest or from love.\nI admit I think this sincerity is infrequent. The practice of the life\nof the spirit seems to me to lead inevitably to universalism, to the\nfeeling of the eternal, to a lack of vigour in the belief in worldly\nconventions. The sincerity of national passion especially, in men of\nletters particularly, seems to me to assume the virtue of naivet\u00e9,\nwhich everyone will admit is not characteristic of this body of men,\napart from their own self-esteem. It will also be hard to convince\nme that the motives of their public attitudes in artists are such\nsimple things as the desire to live and to eat. I therefore seek--and\nfind--other reasons for the realism of the modern \u2018clerk\u2019, and these,\nalthough less natural, are none the less profound. They seem to me\nparticularly valid for men of letters, especially in France, the\ncountry where the attitude of writers in the past half century differs\nmost from that of their fathers.\n\nFirst of all, I see the interests of their careers. It is an obvious\nfact that during the past two centuries most of the men of letters who\nhave attained wide fame in France assumed a political attitude--for\ninstance, Voltaire, Diderot, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo,\nAnatole France, Barr\u00e8s. With some of them, real fame dates from the\nmoment when they assumed that attitude. This law has not escaped the\nattention of their descendants, and it may be said to-day that every\nFrench writer who desires wide fame (which means every writer endowed\nwith the real temperament of a man of letters) also desires inevitably\nto play a political part. This desire may arise from other motives. For\ninstance, in Barr\u00e8s and d\u2019Annunzio, from the desire \u2018to act\u2019, to be\nsomething more than \u2018men at a desk\u2019, to lead a life like that of the\n\u2018heroes\u2019 and not like that of \u2018scribes\u2019; or, more ingenuously, as no\ndoubt happened with Renan when he stood as a Parliamentary candidate,\nfrom the idea that he could perform a public service. Let me add that\nthe modern writer\u2019s desire to be a political man is excused by the fact\nthat the position is to some extent offered him by public opinion,\nwhereas the compatriots of Racine and La Bruy\u00e8re would have laughed\nin their faces if they had thought of publishing their views on the\nadvisability of the war with Holland or the legality of Chambres de\nr\u00e9union. There again, it was easier to be a true \u2018clerk\u2019 in the past\nthan to-day.\n\nThese observations explain why the contemporary French writer so\nfrequently desires to assume a political attitude, but they do not\nexplain why this attitude is so inevitably in support of arbitrary\nauthority. Liberalism is also a political attitude; and the least\nwhich can be said is that the modern French \u2018clerk\u2019 has very seldom\nadopted it in the past twenty years. Another factor comes in here. That\nis the practical writer\u2019s desire to please the bourgeoisie, who are the\ncreators of fame and the source of honours. It may even be argued that\nfor this sort of writer the necessity to treat the passions of this\nclass with deference is greater than ever, if I may judge by the fate\nof those who in recent times have dared to defy them, i.e. Zola, Romain\nRolland. Now, the bourgeoisie of to-day, terrified by the progress\nof the opposing class, solely anxious to retain the privileges which\nare left them, feel nothing but aversion from liberal dogmas; and the\nman of letters who displays any political flag is bound to wave the\nflag of \u2018Order\u2019 if he wishes to obtain favours. The case of Barr\u00e8s\nis particularly instructive from this point of view. He began as a\ngreat intellectual sceptic, and his material star waxed a hundredfold\ngreater, at least in his own country, on the day when he made himself\nthe apostle of \u2018necessary prejudices\u2019. This sort of thing makes me\nbelieve that the present political fashion of French writers is going\nto last a long time. A phenomenon which is caused by the uneasiness of\nthe French bourgeoisie does not seem likely to disappear quickly.[151]\n\nI have mentioned the lot of those writers who in quite recent times\nhave dared to thwart the passions of the bourgeoisie. This is only one\naspect of a very general novelty, of supreme interest to the subject\nI am discussing. I mean the consciousness of their sovereignty felt\nby the herd of laymen, and the resolution they display to bring to\nhis senses any writer who dares to say anything but what they wish to\nhear. This propensity of the layman appears not only in his relations\nwith his writers (and with his press--a newspaper which does not\nsupply its readers with the exact errors they cherish is immediately\ndropped), but, which is far more remarkable, in his relations with\nhis truly \u2018clerical\u2019 teachers, whose voice speaks to him in the name\nof the Divine. The pulpit-orator who really presumed to censure\nnationalist passion, who really mortified bourgeois arrogance, would\nsoon (particularly in France) see his flock disperse. He can no\nlonger terrify such a gathering with the fear of punishment, and they\nno longer believe in anything but the real; consequently they feel\nstronger and more important than he, and only consent to listen to\nhis preaching on condition that he treats with deference--not to say\nsanctifies--the egotisms they venerate.[152] Modern humanity is fully\ndetermined that those who call themselves its teachers, shall be its\nservants and not its guides. And most of the teachers understand this\nadmirably.[153]\n\nTo come back to the modern writer and the causes for his political\nattitude--I shall add that he is not only in the service of a\nbourgeoisie which is in a state of anxiety, but that he himself has\nbecome more and more of a bourgeois, endowed with all the social\nposition and respect which belong to that caste. The Bohemian man of\nletters has practically disappeared, at least among those who engage\npublic interest. Consequently, he has more and more come to possess the\nbourgeois form of soul, one of those most conspicuous characteristics\nis an affectation of the political feelings of the aristocracy--an\nattachment to systems of arbitrary authority, to military and priestly\ninstitutions, a scorn for societies founded upon justice, upon civic\nequality, a cult for the past, etc.... How many writers in France\nduring the past fifty years, men whose names are on everyone\u2019s lips,\nobviously think they are ennobling themselves by expressing disgust for\ndemocratic institutions![154] In the same way I explain the adoption\nby many of them of harshness and cruelty, which they think are also\nattributes of the souls of the nobility.\n\nThe reasons I have just mentioned for the new political attitude of\nmen of letters arise from the changes in their social status. Those I\nam about to mention arise from changes in the structure of their minds,\nin their literary desires, in their aesthetic cults, in their morality.\nThese reasons seem to me even more worthy of the historian\u2019s attention\nthan those which have gone before.\n\nFirst of all, we have their Romanticism, taking that word to mean the\ndesire which arose in the writers of the nineteenth century (but which\nhas become greatly perfected in the last thirty years) to treat themes\nwhich lend themselves in a literary manner to striking attitudes. About\n1890 the men of letters, especially in France and Italy, realized with\nastonishing astuteness that the doctrines of arbitrary authority,\ndiscipline, tradition, contempt for the spirit of liberty, assertion\nof the morality of war and slavery, were opportunities for haughty and\nrigid poses infinitely more likely to strike the imagination of simple\nsouls than the sentimentalities of Liberalism and Humanitarianism.\nAnd as a matter of fact, the so-called reactionary doctrines do lend\nthemselves to a pessimistic and contemptuous Romanticism which makes\na far deeper impression on the common herd than enthusiastic and\noptimistic Romanticism. The pose of a Barr\u00e8s or a d\u2019Annunzio strikes\nna\u00efve persons far more than that of a Michelet or a Proudhon. Moreover,\nthese doctrines are to-day given forth as founded upon science, upon\n\u2018pure experience\u2019, and thereby permit a tone of calm inhumanity (the\nRomanticism of Positivism) whose effect on the herd has not escaped\nthe sagacious eye of the man of letters. (Of course, I am only speaking\nof the elegant herd; Romantic pessimism has no value whatsoever for the\npeople.)\n\nThere is another transformation of the literary soul in men of letters,\nwherein I think I see a cause of their new political creed. This is,\nthat recently the only one of their faculties they venerate is their\nartistic sensibility, on which to some extent they base all their\njudgments. Until the last thirty years it may be said that men of\nletters, at least in Latin Europe, disciples in this of the Greeks,\nwere determined in their judgments--even their literary judgments--far\nmore by their sensibility to reason than by their artistic sensibility,\nwhereof moreover they were scarcely conscious as something distinct\nfrom the former. This remark is true for the men of the Renaissance\nand their direct descendants (the French writers of the seventeenth\nand succeeding century) and, despite appearances, it is also true\nof those who lived at the beginning of the nineteenth century. If\nthe weakening of sensibility to reason and, more generally, of lofty\nintellectual discipline, is indisputably one of the characteristics of\nthe Romanticism of 1830, the contempt for this sensibility makes no\nappearance. Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Michelet never prided themselves\non despising the values of reason in things in order to esteem only\ntheir art values. Now, towards 1890, there occurred a revolution whose\ninfluence cannot be exaggerated. Enlightened by philosophical analysis\n(Bergsonism), the men of letters became conscious of the fundamental\ndifference between intellectual sensibility and artistic sensibility;\nand ardently chose the latter. This is the epoch when they were heard\nto assert that a book is great as soon as it achieves a literary and\nartistic success, that its intellectual content is of no interest,\nthat all arguments are equally defensible, that error is no more false\nthan truth, etc.[155] This great change affected their political\nattitudes. Obviously, as soon as we think things are good only\ninsofar as they content our artistic needs, the only good political\nsystems are those of arbitrary authority. Artistic sensibility is far\nmore gratified by a system which tends to the realization of force\nand grandeur than by a system which tends to the establishment of\njustice, for the characteristic of artistic sensibility is the love\nof concrete realities and the repugnance for abstract conceptions and\nconceptions of pure reason, the model of which is the idea of justice.\nArtistic sensibility is especially flattered by the spectacle of a\nmass of units which are subordinated to each other up to the final\nhead who dominates them all, whereas the spectacle of a democracy,\nwhich is a mass of units _where no one is first_, deprives this\nsensibility of one of its fundamental needs.[156] Add to this that\nevery doctrine which honours Man in the universal, in what is common\nto all men, is a personal injury to the artist, whose characteristic\n(at least since Romanticism)[157] is precisely to set himself up as an\nexceptional being. Add also the sovereignty the artist now attributes\nto his desires and their satisfaction (the \u2018rights of genius\u2019) and,\nconsequently, his natural hatred for systems which limit each person\u2019s\nliberty of action by that of others. And finally add the artist\u2019s\naversion from everything which is general, everything which is only\nthe object of conception, not of sensation.[158] The determination of\nmen of letters to pass judgment only in accordance with their artistic\nsensibility is only one aspect of their desire (since Romanticism) to\nexalt feeling at the expense of thought, a desire which itself is one\namong the thousand results of the decline of intellectual discipline\namong them. The new political attitude of the \u2018clerks\u2019 seems to me to\nbe here the result of a serious modification of their state of mind.\n\nThis attitude also seems to me to result from the decline of the\nstudy of classical literature in the formation of their minds. The\nhumanities, as the word implies, have always taught the cult of\nhumanity in its universal aspect, at least since the time of the\nPortico.[159] The decline of Graeco-Roman culture in Barr\u00e8s and his\nliterary generation, in comparison with that of Taine, Renan, Hugo,\nMichelet, even Anatole France and Bourget, is undeniable. Still less\nwill it be denied that this decline is considerably more noticeable\nin Barr\u00e8s\u2019s successors. However, this decline does not prevent these\nwriters from extolling classical studies, but they do not do this\nwith the idea of reviving the cult for what is human in its universal\naspect, but on the contrary to strengthen the \u2018French\u2019 mind, or at\nleast the \u2018Latin\u2019 mind, in the grasp of its own roots, in consciousness\nof itself as distinct from other minds. Notice that this decline of\nclassical culture in the French writers coincides with the discovery of\nthe great German realists, Hegel and especially Nietzsche, whose genius\nhad the more effect on these Frenchmen because their lack of classical\ndiscipline deprived them of the one real barrier which can be opposed\nto that genius.[160]\n\nAmong the causes of this new attitude among men of letters I must point\nto their thirst for sensations, their need to experience things, which\nin recent times have grown stronger and have caused them to adopt a\npolitical attitude which gave them emotions and sensations. Belphegor\nis not the only star in the literary heavens. A French writer, who\nwas taken seriously as a thinker as early as 1890, was reproached for\nhaving joined a party whose inconsistency will long be an amazement to\nHistory; and he replied, \u2018I followed Boulangism, as a man follows a\nfanfare of trumpets.\u2019 The same thinker gives us to understand that his\nchief motive in \u2018seeking contact with national minds\u2019 was to \u2018throw\nmore fuel under his sensibility, which was beginning to run down\u2019.[161]\nI do not think I am mistaken when I say that numbers of our moralists\nwho sneer at pacific civilization and extol a warlike life, do so\nbecause the former seems a dull sort of a life to them and the latter\nan opportunity for sensations.[162] You will recollect the remark of a\nyoung thinker, quoted by Agathon in 1913: \u2018Why not a war? It will be\namusing.\u2019 I shall be told that this is the mere extravagant saying of\na young man. But what of this remark from a man of fifty, and what is\nmore, a scientist (R. Quinton), who saw the tragedy of 1914 coming,\nand exclaimed: \u2018We shall picnic on the grass!\u2019? This scientist was\ncertainly a good soldier, but no more so than Fresnel and Lamarck, of\nwhom I dare to say that they may have approved of war, but not because\nit satisfied their taste for the picturesque. All who frequented the\nauthor of _Reflexions sur la Violence_ know that one of the greatest\nattractions of any idea for him was that it was \u2018amusing\u2019 and likely\nto exasperate so-called reasonable people. There are many thinkers of\nthe past fifty years whose \u2018philosophy\u2019 has one fundamental motive--the\npleasure of throwing off irritating paradoxes; while they are only\ntoo happy if their rockets fall like swords and satisfy that need for\ncruelty which they profess as the sign of noble minds. This prodigious\ndecline of morality, this sort of (very Germanic) intellectual sadism,\nis usually and quite openly accompanied by a huge contempt for the true\n\u2018clerk\u2019, whose joy comes from the exercise of thought and who disdains\nsensation, particularly the sensations of action. Here again the new\npolitical cult of the men of letters is the result of a modification\nin the most intimate part of their mind, the very same modification we\nhave been discussing, i.e. a decline of intellectual discipline, which\ndoes not mean a decline in intelligence.[163]\n\nOn their own showing, many modern \u2018clerks\u2019 have adopted these realist\ndoctrines because they want to have done with the moral disarray into\nwhich they are thrown by the spectacle of philosophies, \u2018none of which\nbring certainty,\u2019 and which all collapse upon each other as they cry\nto heaven their contradictory absolutes. There again the \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019\npolitical attitude is the result of a great decline in his intellectual\ndiscipline, whether we consider that this decline is shown by his\nbelief that any philosophy can bring certainty, or whether we think\nthat it lies in his inability to stand upright on the ruins of the\nschools, devoting himself to reason, which is above all the schools,\nand is their judge.\n\nI shall also admit as one other cause of realism in the modern \u2018clerks\u2019\nthe irritation produced in them by the teaching of some of their\npredecessors--I mean certain masters of the year 1848, with their\nvisionary idealism, their belief that justice and love were suddenly\nabout to become the essence of the soul of nations, an irritation\ngreatly increased by seeing the dreadful contrast between these idyllic\nprophecies and the events which followed them. Nevertheless, the point\nto remember is that the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 replied to these errors by\nhurling anathemas at every sort of idealism, whether visionary or not,\nthereby showing incapacity to distinguish between species, inability\nto rise above passion to judgment. And this is but one other aspect of\ntheir loss of the good manners of the mind.\n\nLet me recapitulate the causes for this change in the \u2018clerks\u2019: The\nimposition of political interests on all men without any exception;\nthe growth of consistency in matters apt to feed realist passions;\nthe desire and the possibility for men of letters to play a political\npart; the need in the interests of their own fame for them to play\nthe game of a class which is daily becoming more anxious; the\nincreasing tendency of the \u2018clerks\u2019 to become bourgeois and to take\non the vanities of that class; the perfecting of their Romanticism;\nthe decline of their knowledge of antiquity and of their intellectual\ndiscipline. It will be seen that these causes arise from certain\nphenomena which are most profoundly and generally characteristic of\nthe present age. The political realism of the \u2018clerks\u2019, far from being\na superficial fact due to the caprice of an order of men, seems to me\nbound up with the very essence of the modern world.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n_Summary--Predictions_\n\n\nTo sum up: If I look at contemporary humanity from the point of\nview of its moral state as revealed by its political life, I see\n(_a_) A mass in whom realist passions in its two chief forms--class\npassion, national passion--has attained a degree of consciousness and\norganization hitherto unknown; (_b_) A body of men who used to be in\nopposition to the realism of the masses, but who now, not only do not\noppose it, but adopt it, proclaim its grandeur and morality; in short,\na humanity which has abandoned itself to realism with a unanimity,\nan absence of reserve, a sanctification of its passion unexampled in\nhistory.\n\nThis remark may be put in another form. Imagine an observer of the\ntwelfth century taking a bird\u2019s-eye view of the Europe of his time. He\nwould see men groping in the obscurity of their minds and striving to\nform themselves into nations (to mention only the most striking aspect\nof the realist will); he would see them beginning to succeed; he would\nsee groups of men attaining consistency, determined to seize a portion\nof the earth and tending to feel conscious of themselves as distinct\nfrom the groups surrounding them. But at the same time he would see a\nwhole class of men, regarded with the greatest reverence, labouring\nto thwart this movement. He would see men of learning, artists and\nphilosophers, displaying to the world a spirit which cared nothing for\nnations, using a universal language among themselves. He would see\nthose who gave Europe its moral values preaching the cult of the human,\nor at least of the Christian, and not of the national, he would see\nthem striving to found, in opposition to the nations, a great universal\nempire on spiritual foundations. And so he might say to himself:\n\u2018Which of these two currents will triumph? Will humanity be national\nor spiritual? Will it depend on the will of the laymen or of the\n\u201cclerks\u201d?\u2019 And for long ages the realist cause will not be completely\nvictorious; the spiritual body will remain faithful to itself long\nenough to our observer to be uncertain of the result. To-day the game\nis over. Humanity is national. The layman has won. But his triumph\nhas gone beyond anything he could have expected. The \u2018clerk\u2019 is not\nonly conquered, he is assimilated. The man of science, the artist, the\nphilosopher are attached to their nations as much as the day-labourer\nand the merchant. Those who make the world\u2019s values, make them for\na nation; the Ministers of Jesus defend the national. All humanity\nincluding the \u2018clerks\u2019, have become laymen. All Europe, including\nErasmus, has followed Luther.\n\nI said above that the humanity of the past, more precisely the humanity\nof Europe in the Middle Ages, with the values imposed upon it by the\n\u2018clerks\u2019, acted ill but honoured the good. It may be said that modern\nEurope with teachers who inform it that its realist instincts are\nbeautiful, acts ill and honours what is ill. Modern Europe is like\nthe brigand in one of Tolstoi\u2019s stories, who made his confession to a\nhermit, and the hermit said in amazement: \u2018Others were at least ashamed\nof being brigands; but what is to be done with this man, who is proud\nof it?\u2019\n\nIndeed, if we ask ourselves what will happen to a humanity where\nevery group is striving more eagerly than ever to feel conscious of\nits own particular interests, and makes its moralists tell it that it\nis sublime to the extent that it knows no law but this interest--a\nchild can give the answer. This humanity is heading for the greatest\nand most perfect war ever seen in the world, whether it is a war of\nnations, or a war of classes. A race of which one group exalts one of\nits masters (Barr\u00e8s) to the skies because he teaches: \u2018We must defend\nthe essential part of ourselves as sectarians,\u2019 while a neighbouring\ngroup acclaims a leader because, when he attacks a defenceless small\nnation, he says, \u2018Necessity knows no law\u2019--such a race is ripe for the\nzoological wars Renan talks about, which, he said, would be like the\nlife and death wars which occur among rodents and among the carnivora.\nAs regards the nation, think of Italy; as regards class, think of\nRussia; and you will see the hitherto unknown point of perfection\nattained by the spirit of hatred against what is \u2018different\u2019 among\na group of men, consciously realist and at last liberated from all\nnon-practical morality. And my predictions are not rendered less\nprobable by the fact that these two nations are hailed as models\nthroughout the world by those who desire either the grandeur of their\nnation or the triumph of their class.\n\nThese dark predictions do not seem to me to need as much modification\nas some people think, on account of certain actions resolutely directed\nagainst war, such as the setting up of a supernational institution\nand the agreements recently made by the rival nations. Imposed upon\nthe nations by their Ministers rather than desired by them, dictated\nsolely by interest (the fear of war and its ravages) and not at all\nby a change in public morality, these new institutions may perhaps\nbe opposed to war but leave intact the _spirit of war_, and nothing\nleads us to suppose that a nation which only respects a contract for\npractical reasons, will not break it as soon as breaking it appears\nmore profitable. Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the\nfear of war but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining\nfrom an act, but the coming of a state of mind.[164] In this sense\nthe most insignificant writer can serve peace where the most powerful\ntribunals can do nothing. And moreover these tribunals leave untouched\nthe economic war between the nations and the class wars.\n\nPeace, it must be repeated after so many others have said this, is\nonly possible if men cease to place their happiness in the possession\nof things \u2018which cannot be shared\u2019, and if they raise themselves to\na point where they adopt an abstract principle superior to their\negotisms. In other words, it can only be obtained by a betterment of\nhuman morality. But, as I have pointed out above, not only do men\nto-day steel themselves entirely against this, but the very first\ncondition of peace, which is to recognize the necessity for this\nprogress of the soul, is seriously menaced. A school arose in the\nnineteenth century which told men to expect peace from enlightened\nself-interest, from the belief that a war, even when victorious, is\ndisastrous, especially to economic transformations, to \u2018the evolution\nof production\u2019, in a phrase, to factors totally foreign to their moral\nimprovement, from which, these thinkers say, it would be frivolous to\nexpect anything. So that humanity, even if it had any desire for peace,\nis exhorted to neglect the one effort which might procure it, an effort\nit is delighted not to make. The cause of peace, which is always\nsurrounded with adverse factors, in our days has one more against\nit--the pacifism which pretends to be scientific.[165]\n\nI can point to other sorts of pacifism, whose chief result I dare to\nsay is to weaken the cause of peace, at least among serious-minded\npersons:--\n\n(_a_) First, there is the pacifism I shall call \u2018vulgar\u2019, meaning\nthereby the pacifism which does nothing but denounce \u2018the man who\nkills\u2019, and sneer at the prejudices of patriotism. When I see certain\nteachers, even if they are Montaigne, Voltaire, and Anatole France,\nwhose whole case against war consists in saying that highwaymen are no\nmore criminal than leaders of armies, and in laughing at people who\nkill each other because one party is dressed in yellow and the other in\nblue, I feel inclined to desert a cause whose champions over-simplify\nthings to this extent, and I begin to feel some sympathy for the\nimpulses of profound humanity which created the nations and which are\nthereby so grossly insulted.[166]\n\n(_b_) _Mystic pacifism_, by which I mean the pacifism which is solely\nanimated by a blind hatred of war and refuses to inquire whether\na war is just or not, whether those fighting are the attackers or\nthe defenders, whether they wanted war or only submit to it. This\npacifism is essentially the pacifism of the people (and that of all the\nso-called pacifist newspapers) and was strikingly embodied in 1914 by\na French writer who, having to judge between two fighting nations one\nof which had attacked the other contrary to all its pledges while the\nother was only defending itself, could do nothing but intone \u2018I have\na horror of war\u2019 and condemned them both equally. It is impossible to\nexaggerate the consequences of this behaviour, which showed mankind\nthat mystic pacifism, just like mystic militarism, may entirely\nobliterate the feeling of justice in those who are smitten with it.\n\nI think I see another motive in the French writers who in 1914 adopted\nthe attitude of M. Romain Rolland--the fear that they would fall into\nnational partiality if they admitted that their nation was in the\nright. It may be asserted that these writers would have warmly taken up\nthe cause of France, if France had not been their own country. Whereas\nBarr\u00e8s said, \u2018I always maintain my country is right even if it is in\nthe wrong,\u2019 these strange friends of justice are not unwilling to say:\n\u2018I always maintain my country is in the wrong, even if it is right.\u2019\nThere again we see that the frenzy of impartiality, like any other\nfrenzy, leads to injustice.\n\nI have also a word to say about the severities of these \u2018justiciaries\u2019\ntowards France\u2019s attitude immediately after her victory, towards her\ndesire to force the enemy to make good the damage done to her, and to\nseize on pledges if he refused. The motive which here animated these\nmoralists without their perceiving it, seems to me very remarkable;\nit was the thought that the just person must inevitably be weak and\nsuffer, that he must be a victim. If the just man becomes strong and\ncomes to possess the means of enforcing justice towards himself, then\nhe ceases to be just to these thinkers. If Socrates and Jesus make\ntheir persecutors disgorge, then they cease to embody justice; one step\nmore and the persecutors, having become victims, would embody right.\nIn this the cult of justice is replaced by the cult of misfortune,\na Christian Romanticism which is somewhat unexpected in a man like\nAnatole France. No doubt the events of 1918 upset all the habits of the\nadvocates of right. Outraged right became the stronger, the assailed\ntoga triumphed over the sword, the Curiatii were victorious. Perhaps\nsome coolness of mind was needed to recognize that right remained\nright, even when thus invested with force. The French pacifists failed\nto remain cool. In short, their attitude in the past ten years has been\ninspired by sentiment alone, and nothing could show better the degree\nof weakness to which intellectual discipline has now fallen among our\n\u2018princes of the mind\u2019.[167]\n\n(_c_) _Pacifism claiming to be patriotic_, by which I mean the pacifism\nwhich claims to exalt humanitarianism, to preach the abatement of the\nmilitarist spirit and of national passion, and yet not to harm the\ninterests of the nation nor to compromise its power of resistance to\nforeign nations. This attitude--which is that of all Parliamentary\npacifists--is the more antipathetic to upright minds in that it is\ninevitably accompanied by the assertion (which is also nearly always\ncontrary to the truth) that the nation is not in the least threatened\nand that the malevolence of neighbouring nations is a pure invention\nof people who want war. But that is merely an aspect of a very general\nfact, which is of supreme importance to the matter under discussion.\n\nBy this I mean the \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 determination to put forth his principles\nas valid in the practical order of things, as reconcilable with the\nsafeguarding of the sword\u2019s conquests. This determination, which has\naffected the Church for twenty centuries and almost all the idealists\n(give me the names of those since Jesus who have declared themselves\nincompetent in the practical order of things), is the source of all the\n\u2018clerk\u2019s failures\u2019. It may be said that the \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 defeat begins\nfrom the very moment when he claims to be practical. As soon as the\n\u2018clerk\u2019 claims that he does not disregard the interests of the nation\nor of the established classes, he is inevitably beaten, for the very\ngood reason that it is impossible to preach the spiritual and the\nuniversal without undermining the institutions whose foundations are\nthe possession of the material and the desire to feel distinct from\nothers. A true \u2018clerk\u2019 (Renan) says excellently: \u2018The mother-country\nis a worldly thing; the man who wants to play the angel will always\nbe a bad patriot.\u2019 Thus we see that the \u2018clerk\u2019 who claims to secure\nthe works of the world has a choice between two consequences. Either\nhe secures them and transgresses all his principles, which is the case\nwith the Church supporting the nation and property; or he maintains\nhis principles and causes the ruin of the institutions he claimed he\nwas supporting, which is the case with the humanitarian who claims to\nsafeguard what is national. In the first case the \u2018clerk\u2019 is despised\nby the just man, who denounces him as cunning and strikes him out of\nthe rank of \u2018clerk\u2019; and in the second case he collapses under the\nhooting of the nations who call him inefficient, while he provokes a\nviolent and loudly acclaimed reaction on the part of the realist, which\nis what is now happening in Italy. From all this it follows that the\n\u2018clerk\u2019 is only strong if he is clearly conscious of his essential\nqualities and his true function, and shows mankind that he is clearly\nconscious of them. In other words he declares to them that his kingdom\nis not of this world, that _the grandeur of his teaching lies precisely\nin this absence of practical value, and that the right morality for\nthe prosperity of the kingdoms which are of this world, is not his, but\nCaesar\u2019s_. When he takes up this position, the \u2018clerk\u2019 is crucified,\nbut he is respected, and his words haunt the memory of mankind.[168]\nThe need to remind the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 of these truths (for everyone of\nthem is angry at being called Utopian) is one of the most suggestive\nobservations in connection with our subject. It shows that the desire\nto be practical has become general, that the claim to be so has now\nbecome necessary in order to obtain an audience, and that the very\nnotion of \u2018clerkdom\u2019 has become obscured even in those who still tend\nto exercise that function.\n\nIt will be seen that I entirely dissociate myself from those who want\nthe \u2018clerk\u2019 to govern the world, and who wish with Renan for the \u2018reign\nof the philosophers\u2019; for it seems to me that human affairs can only\nadopt the religions of the true \u2018clerk\u2019 under penalty of becoming\ndivine, i.e. of perishing as human. This has been clearly seen by all\nlovers of the divine who did not desire the destruction of what is\nhuman. This is marvellously expressed by one of them when he makes\nJesus say so profoundly to His disciple: \u2018My son, I must not give you a\nclear idea of your substance ... for if you saw clearly what you are,\nyou could no longer remain so closely united to your body. You would\nno longer watch over the preservation of your life.\u2019[169] But though\nI think it a bad thing that the \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 religion should possess the\nlay world, I think it still more to be dreaded that it should not be\npreached to the layman at all, and that he should thus be allowed to\nyield to his practical passions without the least shame or the least,\neven hypocritical, desire to raise himself however slightly above them.\n\u2018There are a few just men who prevent me from sleeping\u2019--that was what\nthe realist said of the teachers of old. Nietzsche, Barr\u00e8s, and Sorel\ndo not prevent any realist from sleeping; on the contrary. This is the\nnovelty I want to point out, which to me seems so serious. It seems to\nme serious that a humanity, which is more than ever obsessed by the\npassions of the world, should receive from its spiritual leaders the\ncommand: \u2018remain faithful to the earth.\u2019\n\nIs this adoption of \u2018integral realism\u2019 by the human species permanent,\nor merely temporary? Are we, as some people think, witnessing the\nbeginning of a new Middle Ages (and one far more barbarous than the\nformer, for though it practised realism, it did not extol realism),\nfrom which, however, will arise a new Renaissance, a new return to\nthe religion of disinterestedness? The elements we have discovered\nas forming the new realism scarcely allow us to hope so. It is hard\nto imagine the nations sincerely striving not to feel conscious of\nthemselves as distinct from others, or, if they do so, having any\nother motive than that of concentrating inter-human hatred into that\nof class. It is hard to imagine the clergy regaining a real moral sway\nover the faithful and being able (supposing they desired to do so) to\ntell them with impunity unpleasant truths. It is hard to imagine a\nbody of men of letters (for corporative action becomes more and more\nimportant) attempting to withstand the bourgeois classes instead of\nflattering them. It is still harder to imagine them turning against the\ntide of their intellectual decadence and ceasing to think that they\ndisplay a lofty culture when they sneer at rational morality and fall\non their knees before history. Nevertheless one thinks of a humanity\nof the future, weary of its \u2018sacred egotisms\u2019 and the slaughterings to\nwhich they inevitably lead, coming as humanity came two thousand years\nago, to the acceptance of a good situated beyond itself, accepting it\neven more ardently than before, with the knowledge of all the tears and\nblood that have been shed through departing from that doctrine. Once\nmore Vauvenargues\u2019 admirable saying would be verified. \u2018The passions\nhave taught men reason.\u2019 But such a thing only seems to me possible\nafter a long lapse of time, when war has caused far more woes than\nhave yet been endured. Men will not revise their values for wars which\nonly last fifty months and only kill a couple of million men in each\nnation. One may even doubt whether war will ever become so terrible as\nto discourage those who love it, the more so since they are not always\nthe men who have to fight.\n\nWhen I set this limit to my pessimistic outlook and admit that such\na Renaissance is possible, I mean no more than that it is just\npossible. I cannot agree with those who say it is certain, either\nbecause it happened once before, or because \u2018civilization is due to\nthe human race\u2019. Civilization as I understand it here--moral supremacy\nconferred on the cult of the spiritual and on the feeling of the\nuniversal--appears to me as a lucky accident in man\u2019s development. It\nblossomed three thousand years ago under a set of circumstances whose\ncontingent character was perfectly perceived by the historian who\ncalled it \u2018the Greek miracle\u2019. It does not appear to me in the least to\nbe a thing due to the human race by virtue of the data of its nature.\nIt seems to me so little such a thing that I observe large portions\nof the species (the Asiatic world in antiquity, the Germanic world in\nmodern times) who showed themselves incapable of it and quite likely\nto remain so. And this means that if humanity loses this jewel, there\nis not much chance of finding it again. On the contrary there is every\nchance that humanity will not find it again, just as a man who should\nfind a precious stone in the sea and then drop it back in the water\nwould have little chance of ever seeing it again. Nothing seems to me\nmore doubtful than Aristotle\u2019s remark that it is probable the arts\nand philosophy have several times been discovered and several times\nlost. The other position which maintains that civilization, despite\npartial eclipses, is something which humanity cannot lose, seems to\nme quite worthless except as an act of faith--though it is valuable\nas a means of preserving the good we wish to keep. I should not think\nit a serious objection to what I have said if someone should point\nout that civilization, lost once with the fall of the ancient world,\nnevertheless had its Renaissance. Everyone knows that the Graeco-Roman\nform of mind was far from being wholly extinguished during the Middle\nAges and that the sixteenth century only brought to life what was not\ndead; to which I add that even if that form of mind had been \u2018reborn\u2019\n_ex nihilo_, the fact that this is the only instance would make it\ninsufficient to reassure me, although the fact that it had occurred\nwould disturb me.\n\nLet me point out in this respect that insufficient attention is perhaps\npaid to the fact that there are always only a very tiny number of\ninstances in history on which are built up a \u2018law\u2019, which claims to be\nvalid for the whole past and future evolution of humanity. Vico says\nthat history is a series of alternations between periods of progress\nand periods of retrogression; and he gives _two_ examples. Saint-Simon\nsays history is a series of oscillations between organic epochs and\ncritical epochs; and he gives _two_ examples. Marx says history is a\nseries of economic systems, each of which casts out its predecessor by\nmeans of violence; and he gives _one_ example! I shall be told that\nthese examples could not be more numerous, owing to the fact that\nhistory, at least known history, is so short. The truth, implied by\nthis very reply, is that history has lasted too short a time for us\nto be able to deduce laws from it to enable us to infer the future\nfrom the past. Those who do so are like a mathematician who should\ndecide the nature of a curve from the form he finds it has at its\nvery beginning. True, a somewhat uncommon turn of mind is required to\nconfess that human history, after several thousands of years, is only\nbeginning. I cannot sufficiently admire the rare mental value displayed\nby La Bruy\u00e8re (in my opinion) when he wrote the following lines in a\ncentury which was strongly inclined to think it was the topmost summit\nof human development: \u2018If the world lasts only a hundred million years,\nit will still be in all its freshness and only beginning; we ourselves\nare almost contemporary with the first men and the patriarchs, and who,\nin those far-off ages, will be able to avoid confusing us with them?\nBut if we judge of the future from the past, what new things are we\nignorant of in the arts, in the sciences, in Nature, and, I dare say,\nin history? What discoveries will be made! What different revolutions\nwill occur in our Empires all over the world! How ignorant we are! And\nhow slight is an experience of six or seven thousand years!\u2019\n\nI shall go further and say that even if an examination of the past\ncould lead to any valid prediction concerning man\u2019s future, that\nprediction would be the contrary of reassuring. People forget that\nHellenic rationalism only really enlightened the world during seven\nhundred years, that it was then hidden (this _a minima_ verdict will\nbe granted me) for twelve centuries, and has begun to shine again for\nbarely four centuries; so that _the longest period of consecutive time\nin human history on which we can found inductions is, upon the whole,\na period of intellectual and moral darkness_. Looking at history, we\nmay say in a more synthetic manner that, with the exception of two or\nthree very short, luminous epochs whose light, like that of certain\nstars, lightens the world long after they are extinct, humanity lives\ngenerally in darkness; while literatures live generally in a state of\ndecadence and the organism in disorder. And the disturbing thing is\nthat humanity does not seem to mind these long periods of cave-dwelling.\n\nTo come back to the realism of my contemporaries and their contempt\nfor a disinterested existence, I must add that my mind is sometimes\nhaunted by a dreadful question. I wonder whether humanity, by adopting\nthis system to-day, has not discovered its true law of existence and\nadopted the true scale of values demanded by its essence? The religion\nof the spiritual, I said just now, seems to me a lucky accident in\nman\u2019s history. I shall go further, and say it seems to me a paradox.\nThe obvious law of human substance is the conquest of things and the\nexaltation of the impulses which secure this conquest. Only through an\namazing abuse were a handful of men at desks able to succeed in making\nhumanity believe that the supreme values are the good things of the\nspirit. To-day humanity has awakened from this dream, knows its true\nnature and its real desires, and utters its war-cry against those who\nfor centuries have robbed it of itself. Instead of waxing indignant at\nthe ruin of their domination, would it not be more reasonable for these\nusurpers (if there are any left) to wonder that it lasted so long?\nOrpheus could not aspire to charm the wild beasts with his music until\nthe end of time. However, one could have hoped that Orpheus himself\nwould not become a wild beast.\n\nIt is scarcely necessary to say my remarks on realist desires and\ntheir violent perfecting do not blind me to the immense growth of\ngentleness, justice, and love written to-day in our customs and laws,\nwhich would certainly have amazed our most optimistic ancestors.\nThere is an immense improvement in the relations between man and man\nwithin the groups which fight each other--especially within the nation\nwhere security is the rule and injustice is a scandal. But to keep\nmore closely to our subject, perhaps we do not sufficiently realize\nthe incredible degree of civilization implied by the good treatment\nof prisoners, and the care of enemy wounded in wars between nations,\nand by the institution of public and private charity in the relations\nbetween the classes. The denial of progress, the assertion that\nbarbarity of heart has never been worse, are natural themes for poets\nand those who are discontented, and perhaps they are even necessary\nto progress. But the historian, whether he looks at national or class\nwarfare, is amazed at the transformation of a species which only four\ncenturies ago roasted prisoners of war in baker\u2019s ovens, and, only two\ncenturies ago forbade the workers to establish a pension fund for their\naged members. Nevertheless I must point out that these improvements\ncannot be credited to the present age. They are the results of the\nteaching of the eighteenth century, against which the \u2018masters of\nmodern thought\u2019 are in complete revolt. The establishment of war\nambulances, the wide development of State charities are the work of the\nSecond Empire, are connected with the \u2018humanitarian clich\u00e9s\u2019 of Victor\nHugo and Michelet, which are immeasureably despised by the moralists\nof the past half century. They exist to some extent _despite of_ these\nmoralists, not one of whom has conducted a truly humane campaign, while\nthe chief of them--Nietzsche, Barr\u00e8s, Sorel--would blush to be able\nto say like Voltaire: \u2018I have done a little good, \u2019tis my best work.\u2019\nI must add that these good works are now merely customs, i.e. actions\nperformed from habit, without the will taking any part in them, without\nthe mind reflecting on their meaning. And if the mind of our realists\never came to think of them, I think there is every possibility that\nit might prohibit them. I can well imagine a future war when a nation\nwould decide not to look after the enemy wounded, a strike where the\nbourgeoisie would make up its mind not to support hospitals for the\nbenefit of a class which was ruining it and anxious to destroy it. I\ncan imagine both priding themselves on getting free from a \u2018stupid\nhumanitarianism\u2019, and finding disciples of Nietzsche and Sorel to\npraise them for it. The attitude of the Italian Fascists and the\nRussian Bolshevists towards their enemies is not calculated to give me\nthe lie here. The modern world still displays certain failures in pure\npracticality, a few stains of idealism from which it might well cleanse\nitself.\n\nI said above that the logical end of the \u2018integral realism\u2019 professed\nby humanity to-day is the organized slaughter of nations or classes.\nIt is possible to conceive of a third, which would be their\nreconciliation. The thing to possess would be the whole earth, and they\nwould finally come to realize that the only way to exploit it properly\nis by union, while the desire to set themselves up as distinct from\nothers would be transferred from the nation to the species, arrogantly\ndrawn up against everything which is not itself. And, as a matter of\nfact, such a movement does exist. Above classes and nations there\ndoes exist a desire of the species to become the master of things,\nand, when a human being flies from one end of the world to the other\nin a few hours, the whole human race quivers with pride and adores\nitself as distinct from all the rest of creation. At bottom, this\nimperialism of the species is preached by all the great directors of\nthe modern conscience. It is Man, and not the nation or the class,\nwhom Nietzsche, Sorel, Bergson extoll in his genius for making himself\nmaster of the world. It is humanity, and not any one section of it,\nwhom Auguste Comte exhorts to plunge into consciousness of itself\nand to make itself the object of its adoration. Sometimes one may\nfeel that such an impulse will grow ever stronger, and that in this\nway inter-human wars will come to an end. In this way humanity would\nattain \u2018universal fraternity\u2019. But, far from being the abolition of the\nnational spirit with its appetites and its arrogance, this would simply\nbe its supreme form, the nation being called Man and the enemy God.\nThereafter, humanity would be unified in one immense army, one immense\nfactory, would be aware only of heroisms, disciplines, inventions,\nwould denounce all free and disinterested activity, would long cease\nto situate the good outside the real world, would have no God but\nitself and its desires, and would achieve great things; by which I mean\nthat it would attain to a really grandiose control over the matter\nsurrounding it, to a really joyous consciousness of its power and its\ngrandeur. And History will smile to think that this is the species for\nwhich Socrates and Jesus Christ died.\n\n1924-1927.\n\n\n\n\n_Notes_\n\n\nNote A (Page 1)\n\n_That political passions affect a large number of men they never before\naffected ..._\n\nIt is very difficult to know to what extent crowds are moved by the\npolitical events of their time (of course, I am leaving on one side all\ntruly popular movements). Crowds do not write their memoirs, and those\nwho write memoirs scarcely ever speak of the crowds. However, I do not\nthink my proposition will be seriously disputed. To limit ourselves to\nFrance and the two examples I quoted--suppose we had another upheaval\nlike the Religious Wars, I do not think we should see the immense\nmajority of country districts possessed by no other passion than a\nhatred for soldiers, whatever party they belonged to.[170] Nor should\nwe see cultivated bourgeois who keep diaries giving a couple of lines\nto such events as Luther\u2019s preaching, along with the thousand little\nfacts they relate.[171] Nor do I think that a month after an event like\nthe taking of the Bastille we should find a foreigner on his travels\nin France, writing: \u201813th August, 1789. Before I leave Clermont I must\nremark that I have dined or supped five times at the table d\u2019h\u00f4te with\nsome twenty to thirty merchants and tradesmen, officers, etc.; and it\nis not easy for me to express the insignificance--the inanity of the\nconversation. Scarcely any politics, at a moment when every bosom ought\nto beat with none but political sensations.\u2019 (Arthur Young.)[172]\n\nThe attitude of populations towards wars between States long seems to\nhave been that described by Voltaire in the following lines: \u2018It is\nindeed a deplorable evil that this multitude of soldiers should always\nbe kept up by all Princes. But, as we have pointed out, this evil\nproduces a good. The peoples take no part in the wars carried on by\ntheir masters; the citizens of besieged towns often pass from the power\nof one to another without having cost the life of a single inhabitant;\nthey are simply the prize of the King who possesses most soldiers,\ncannons and money.\u2019 (_Essai sur les Moeurs_, towards the end.) Again,\nin 1870, a Prussian servant girl said to a French prisoner employed\non the farm where she was working: \u2018When the war is over I will marry\nyou. Don\u2019t be surprised at what I say, patriotism doesn\u2019t mean much to\nus, you know.\u2019 I imagine that in 1914, many servant girls, Prussian or\notherwise, felt in their hearts and put into practice, this absence of\npatriotism; but I dare to assert that very few would have formulated\nit, even to themselves. The really new fact to-day is not perhaps that\nthe peoples feel political passions, but that they claim the right to\nfeel them. This claim is sufficient to make them act and therefore\nfurnishes a magnificent opportunity for their leaders to exploit them.\n\n\nNote B (Page 15)\n\n_Louis XIV annexing Alsace and not for one moment thinking of\nforbidding the German language ..._\n\nIt was not until 1768 that the Monarchy thought of setting up schools\nin Alsace, \u2018where French is to be taught\u2019. Vidal de la Blanche, who\nrelates this (_La France de l\u2019Est_, 1, vi) adds: \u2018This indifference\n(to the language question) must not shock us too much. Let us rather\nlearn a lesson from it. It raises us above the narrowly jealous\nconceptions which since then have set nation against nation, under this\nlanguage pretext. It takes us into an age when another spirit presided\nover human relations. There was then no language question. Fortunate\neighteenth century, when war bred no lasting hatred, when the poison of\nnational animosities was not inoculated and fostered by all the means\nnow at the disposal of the State, including the schools.\u2019 The eminent\nhistorian forgets that the State has these means at its disposal, _with\nthe consent of the peoples_. The peoples, or at least the cultivated\nclasses among them, at the bidding of their men of letters, during the\npast century have set themselves up arrogantly against one another in\ntheir languages and cultures, even though they one day come face to\nface with the unexpected results of this attitude, as is happening\nto-day to France in its difficulties with Alsace.\n\n\nNote C (Page 19)\n\n_The Union of capitalism, anti-semitism, anti-democracy with\nnationalism._\n\nI am under no illusion concerning the solidity of certain among these\nunions. Although the conservative passions fully comprehend their\nimmense interest in identifying themselves with national passion and\nthereby benefiting by its popularity, although one may even admit\nthat they have been caught in their own net and have become sincere\nin this feeling, yet it is none the less true that conservatism\n(chiefly capitalism) is essentially something entirely different\nfrom patriotism, and that this difference, whose manifestations in\nthe course of history have been innumerable (how many times have the\nbourgeoisie treated with foreigners when they thought it was to their\ninterests!) may once again display itself. It is easy to imagine that\nthe French bourgeoisie would turn against France if they thought their\npatrimony was being too seriously threatened by the legislation of\nthe Republic. This may already be seen in the case of families who,\nin recent years, have exported their capital abroad. I may say the\nsame thing of monarchist passion. It is easy to imagine that certain\nfollowers of that passion might one day decide to work against a nation\nwhich decisively and finally rejects the system they propose. I think\nI observe this when I see monarchist writers publishing that \u2018from the\nSpree to the Mekong, the whole world knows that France is in a state of\nweakness bordering upon disintegration\u2019. However, such things are still\nexceptional, and those who are responsible for them would refuse to\nadmit--perhaps sincerely--that they meant to harm their nation.\n\nMoreover, the bourgeoisie have another interest in keeping up\nnationalism and the fear of war. These feelings create a sort of\npermanent military spirit in a nation. More precisely, they create in\nthe people a disposition to accept the existing hierarchy, to obey\norders, to recognize superiors, i.e. the very things required of\nthem by those who wish them to continue in a state of service. The\nconfused perception of this truth inspires the bourgeoisie with that\ncurious ill-humour they display towards every attempt at international\nagreement, in whatever form this may be presented by the governments.\nThis ill-humour (they declare) arises from the fact that they consider\nit simple-minded and imprudent to believe in the extinction of national\nhatreds. At bottom, it arises from the fact that _they do not want this\nextinction to occur_. They know that the maintenance of these hatreds\nwill cost the lives of their children, but they do not hesitate to\nmake the sacrifice, if by doing so they retain possession of their\nproperty[173] and their power over their servants. Here is a grandeur\nof egotism which is perhaps insufficiently appreciated.\n\n\nNote D (Page 28)\n\n_On the attitude of the modern Catholics towards Catholicism when it is\nin opposition to their nationalism._\n\nA good example is the attitude of the German Catholics in the past\ntwenty years. It has been described with all desirable detail by\nM. Edmond Bloud in his great study: _Le nouveau Centre et le\ncatholicisme_.[174] It will be seen that it strangely resembles the\nattitude of many a non-German Catholic.\n\nThe \u2018Centre\u2019 began by declaring itself \u2018a political party which has\nassumed as its duty the representation of the interests of the whole\nnation in all domains of public life, in accordance with the principles\nof Christian doctrine.\u2019 (_Katholische Weltanschauung_: Catholic\nconception of the world.) Soon they announced political action founded\non \u2018a Christian basis\u2019 (christliche Basis), the spirit of which is thus\ndefined by one of its apostles (Doctor Brauweiler, April, 1913): \u2018In\nthe domain of practical action, _concepts are determined by the end\nin view_. The formation of political concepts is comparable with the\nformation of juridical concepts. The jurist forms his concepts _with\nno other consideration than that of what is needed, in relation solely\nto the required end_. But no one can say that the juridical concept\nthus formed is a false one. In the same way, one may speak in politics\nof Christianity or Christian doctrine.\u2019 In 1914, Doctor Karl Bachem of\nCologne, published a pamphlet entitled: _Centre, Catholic Doctrine,\nPractical Politics_, where he declares that the doctrine of \u2018universal\nChristianity\u2019 is only a political formula intended to render possible\nthe collaboration of Catholics and Protestants, chiefly in Parliament;\nthat from the religious point of view this formula has only a negative\nmeaning, and only means the determination to struggle against\nmaterialism, atheism and nihilism; that its positive content is defined\nby the Prussian Constitution which in paragraphs 14 and 18 lays down\nthat \u2018the Christian religion\u2019 is the \u2018foundation of the institutions of\nthe State\u2019.\n\nThus, as M. Edmond Bloud justly remarks, Doctor Bachem makes the\nPrussian Constitution the Rule of Faith. Put \u2018national interest\u2019 in\nplace of \u2018Prussian Constitution\u2019 and you will have the state of mind of\nmany a modern French Catholic.\n\nThe attitude of the German Catholics seems to me also representative of\na certain Catholicism common to-day to other nations, in declarations\nof this sort:\n\n\u2018The Catholic members of the \u201cCentre\u201d remain Catholics individually,\n_but the party, as a party, does not necessarily accept the Catholic\nconception of the world_.\u2019\n\nAnd again:\n\n\u2018The Pope and the Bishops have authority in matters of religion, but\nwherever political matters are concerned we shall not allow ourselves\nto be influenced by the authority of the Pope or by that of the\nBishops.\u2019 (M. Edmond Bloud alludes to a conversation reported in the\n_Frankfurter Zeitung_, April, 1914, where one of the chief of the\n\u2018syndicats mixtes\u2019 declared that, \u2018The German Catholics have had enough\nof the Pope.\u2019)\n\nWhat M. Bloud calls the \u2018declericalization of the Centre\u2019 is not a\nthing peculiar to our neighbours, nor is the joy of the great German\nnationalist organ (the Prussian Annals) when it observes that \u2018the\nCatholic idea of the State is ceasing to be ultramontain and is\nbecoming nationalist\u2019.[175]\n\nThe attitude common to German Catholics and to certain Catholics of\nother nations seems to me well brought out by two protests which M.\nBloud quotes.\n\nThe first is from Father Weiss:\n\n\u2018There exist,\u2019 says the eminent theologian, \u2018several kinds of political\nCatholicism.... The worst of all consists in looking upon pure\npolitics, social politics, national politics, not only as something\nwholly independent of religion, but _as being the standard by which we\nshould determine the degree to which Catholicism or Christianity may be\nutilized in public life_.\u2019\n\nThe other is from Cardinal Kopp (then Bishop of Fulda) in a letter\nwritten in 1887:\n\n\u2018Unhappily a gust of madness is blowing over us. Formerly we held\nto the principle: Faith first, politics afterwards. Now they say:\n_Politics first!_ The Church and the Faith afterwards.\u2019\n\nOur Catholics of the _Action Fran\u00e7aise_ have not invented much.\n\n\nNote E (Page 33)\n\n_The \u2018clerk\u2019, by adopting political passions, brings them the\ntremendous influence of his sensibility if he is an artist, of his\npersuasive power if he is a thinker, and in either case his moral\nprestige._\n\nThis prestige itself is something new in history, at least from my\npoint of view. The results produced in France by the intervention\nof the \u2018intellectuals\u2019 in the Dreyfus affair, and those produced by\nthe manifesto of the German Intellectuals in 1914, not only in their\nown country but throughout the world, are things to which I find no\nequivalent in the past. One cannot imagine the Roman Republic feeling\nthat the moral support of Terence and Varro was of value to it during\nthe war with Carthage, or the government of Louis XIV finding that\nthe approbation of Racine and Fermat, gave it additional strength in\nthe war with Holland. This increase of strength which a cause to-day\nreceives from the approbation of the men of thought (or those who are\nconsidered such) does great honour to the modern world. It is an homage\nto the mind hitherto unexampled in humanity.\n\nNaturally, this prestige has a double result. Though the modern \u2018clerk\u2019\nfortifies a cause by giving it his approbation he can also seriously\nharm it by refusing his approbation. If in 1915 men like Ostwald and\nMach had refused to approve the acts of their nation, they would have\nseriously harmed it. The \u2018clerk\u2019 who to-day condemns the realism of\nthe State to which he belongs does really harm that State.[176] Hence\nit follows that the State, in the name of its practical interests, to\ndefend which is its function, has a right--perhaps a duty--to punish\nthem. This appears to me to be the true order of things: The \u2018clerk\u2019,\nfaithful to his essential duty, denounces the realism of States;\nwhereupon, the States, no less faithful to their duty, made him drink\nthe hemlock. The serious disorganization in the modern world is that\nthe \u2018clerks\u2019 do not denounce the realism of States, but on the contrary\napprove of it; they no longer drink the hemlock.[177]\n\nLet me point to another disorganization. That is when the State does\nnot punish the \u2018clerk\u2019 for denouncing its realism. This occurred\nin France during the Dreyfus affair. The order of things demanded\nthat the \u2018clerks\u2019 should demand abstract justice, as they did; but\nperhaps it also demanded that the State, weakened in strength by their\nidealism, should throw them into prison. When the \u2018clerk\u2019 performs the\nlayman\u2019s task, the result is anarchy; but there is also anarchy when\nthe layman acts and speaks as a \u2018clerk\u2019, when those whose duty is to\ndefend the nation display their cult for the abolition of frontiers,\nuniversal love, or other spiritual things.[178] When I see philosophers\nconcerning themselves with the safety of the State and Ministers\nstriving to bring about love among mankind, I think of what Dante says:\n\u2018You turn to religion him who was born to wear the sword, you make a\nKing of one who was born to preach. Thus all your steps are out of the\ntrue way.\u2019 However, this second disorganization of orders has been\ndenounced by others, and it is not my function to combat it.\n\n\nNote F (Page 37)\n\n_Think how willingly the ecclesiastics now accept military service._\n\nI think this willingness is worthy of the historian\u2019s attention.\nObviously, it implies some sincere attachment to their country in those\nwho display this willingness, although their law is to be dead to all\nworldly attachments. Moreover, it appears that in the last war most of\nthe ministers of Jesus Christ able to bear arms were glad to defend\ntheir country, whatever that country was, and whatever notion they\nmay have had of the justice of its cause. Here is a most suggestive\nfact: Certain Belgian monastic orders (and others as well, I am told)\nestablished abroad at the declaration of war, and authorized by the\ngovernment to remain abroad, insisted upon returning to the capital to\nperform their military duties. True, the behaviour of these monks may\nbe explained, not on grounds of patriotism, but from the fear that they\nwould be severely criticized by their fellow-citizens if they acted\notherwise; for the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 have ceased to understand that the\nsign of an attitude truly in harmony with their function is that it\nshould be unpopular with the laymen.\n\nBut the most remarkable thing here for the historian, is that the\nimposition of military service on ecclesiastics does not appear to\narouse any protest from the Church. Certain Church teachers even assert\n(Mgr Battifol, _L\u2019Eglise et le Droit de la guerre_): \u2018There is no\nfurther doubt about the legality of military service.\u2019[179] It is also\ncurious to see in the _Dictionnaire apolog\u00e9tique de la foi catholique_\n(Art. \u2018Paix et Guerre\u2019) the strenuous efforts of the author (Father de\nla Bri\u00e8re) to prove that bearing arms, even by \u2018clerks\u2019 in holy orders,\nis in no sense contrary to Christian law. However, the opinion of these\ntheologians does not seem to be shared, at least publicly, by the\nhigher ecclesiastical authorities; for every \u2018clerk\u2019 who bears arms is\nlaid under an interdict, as he was in the past--only the interdict is\ntaken off a few minutes after it has been declared.\n\nThe modern laymen (Barr\u00e8s for example) praise this patriotism of the\necclesiastic and his willingness to fight. The laymen of the past tried\nto make him ashamed of it, and liked to exhort him to sentiments which\nthey considered more in harmony with his sacred ministry. The warlike\nardours of John XII and Julius II were severely condemned by their\ncontemporaries. Apart from Erasmus--the type of the man of letters\nfully aware of the \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 high function, who was continually saying:\n\u2018Their tonsure does not warn them that they ought to be free from all\nthe passions of this world and think only of the things of Heaven\u2019--the\nItalian Tizio wrote: \u2018It is astonishing that the Pontiffs, whose part\nis to be pacific and independent, should take part in the shedding of\nChristian blood.\u2019 The French poet Jean Bouchet shows the weeping Church\nimploring Julius II to end the war (though it is true that Julius II\nwas fighting France):\n\n  \u2018Your patron is my Lord Saint Peter,\n  Who never warred for worldly goods.\u2019\n\nIn _Le Songe du Verger_, a kind of summary of moral doctrines current\nin France in the fourteenth century, there is a dialogue between a\nKnight and a Clerk, when the Clerk claims for his caste the right to\nmake war, and the Knight tells him that \u2018the arms of the \u201cclerks\u201d are\nprayers and tears\u2019. It is suggestive to see a soldier urging a minister\nof the spiritual to perform his true function and seeming to think that\nthe performance of this function is necessary to the good order of the\nworld. Here is a feeling for \u2018clerkdom\u2019 and its social value which is\nvery seldom to be found among the modern laymen, even the non-military\nones--I nearly said, especially the non-military ones.[180]\n\n\nNote G (Page 53)\n\n_That self-examination to which every spectator is impelled by a\nrepresentation of human beings which he feels to be true and solely\npre-occupied with truth._\n\nLet me quote the following passage concerning the civilizing effects of\nsuch representation:--\n\n\u2018This spectacle of man offered to man has considerable moral effects.\nFirst, a valuable exercise of the intelligence, an increase of\nreflection, a widening of the view in every direction, result from the\nhabit thus set up of getting out of oneself and entering into others,\nto understand their actions, to share in their passions, sympathize\nwith their sufferings, appreciate their motives. This faculty of the\nartist communicated to the spectator or the listener, this faculty of\nparticipation and assimilation, is something set up in opposition to\negotism and is a condition of tolerance and benevolence, frequently\neven of justice. Then, lessons of virtue, frequently not the least\neffective, are given to the spectator, from the very fact that he\nis placed in a position to praise or condemn acts or thoughts which\nare set before him relative to cases where his own interests are not\ninvolved. He recognizes his own image in the actor of the epic, a man\nlike himself, a voluntary and impassioned agent, whose dangers though\nperhaps magnified are not foreign to his own experience. Then the\nessential phenomena which characterize conscious humanity and morality\noccur in him who thus witnesses himself in the person of another,\ni.e. disinterested objectivity of himself to himself, generalization\nof passion, motive and maxim, judgment founded on the universal,\nself-examination to arrive at what is duty, clear and defined sentiment\nof the direction of the will.\n\n\u2018_But this must not lead us to think that the poet\u2019s object is utility\nor morality. If it were, he would be lacking in the true feeling of\nart._ Teaching, moralizing--this object of the artist is indirect, i.e.\ndoes not exist systematically for him. He must only attain it without\nhaving sought it, and sometimes he attains it when he seems to have\ndeparted from it. What he desires to do, is to touch the feelings,\nto arouse emotions. But it happens that by doing so he elevates,\npurifies, moralizes. The poet (I am especially speaking of him) does\nindeed address himself to everyone. _That means he can only sing the\nuniversal_, however curious such an assembly of words may appear. He\nmay indeed sing it under the form of the particular, without which\nhis fictions would be lacking in life, he none the less excludes the\npure, incomprehensible, inexplicable individual, shorn of all truth\nif he does not express a relationship.[181] He generalizes passion,\ntherefore ennobles it and renders it at once the object of observation,\nreflection and disinterested emotion. The listener, carried away from\nhis own relatively base private preoccupations and transported without\nhope or fear (at least, too personal and too present hope and fear)\ninto the superior sphere of humanity\u2019s common passion, feels the\nbenefit of an elevation of soul; his consciousness is temporarily freed\nfrom egotism.\u2019 (Renouvier, _Introduction \u00e0 la philosophie analytique de\nl\u2019Histoire_, p. 354.)\n\n\nNote H (Page 56)\n\n_... Napoleon, who ordered the chief of police to take measures for\nthe history of France to be written in a manner favourable to his own\nthrone._\n\nHere are some portions of a note on this subject dictated by Napoleon\nat Bordeaux in 1808. It promulgates the conception of history as\npractised, mutatis mutandis, by many of our historians of the past:--\n\n\u2018I do not approve the principles laid down in his note by the Minister\nof the Interior. They were true twenty years ago, they will be true\nsixty years hence, but they are not true to-day. Velly is the one\nfairly detailed author who has written on the history of France. The\nabridged chronology of the President H\u00e9nault is a good classical book.\nIt is useful to have them both continued. _It is of the greatest\nimportance to make certain of the spirit in which these continuations\nare written._ I ordered the Minister of Police to look after the\ncontinuation of Millot, and I desire the two Ministers will consult\nover the continuation of Velly and the President H\u00e9nault....\n\n\u2018They are to be just to Henri IV, Louis XIII, Louis XIV and Louis XV,\nbut without adulation. The September Massacres and the horrors of the\nRevolution must be painted in the same colours as the Inquisition\nand the massacres of the Sixteen. They must take care to avoid all\nreaction in speaking of the Revolution, no man could have opposed it\nsuccessfully. No blame attaches either to those who perished or to\nthose who survived. There was no individual power capable of changing\nthe elements and foreseeing the events which arose from the nature of\nthings and circumstances.\n\n\u2018They are to point out the perpetual disorganization of the national\nfinances, the chaos of the provincial assemblies, the claims of the\nParlements, the lack of regulation and resort in the administration.\nThis checkered France, without unity of laws and administration, was\nrather a union of twenty Kingdoms than a single State, so that one\nbreathes freely on coming to the period when the benefits of unity\nof laws, administration and territory are enjoyed.... The opinion\nexpressed by the Minister, which, if followed, would result in\nabandoning this task to private enterprise and the speculation of some\npublisher, is wrong and could only produce regrettable results.\u2019\n\nOf course, the champions of authority are not the only persons who make\nhistory serve their own interests. Condorcet (_Tableau historique_,\n10^e Epoque) says that history should serve \u2018to maintain an active\nvigilance in recognizing and crushing under the weight of Reason the\nfirst germs of superstition and tyranny, if they ever dare to appear\nagain.\u2019\n\n\nNote I (Page 62)\n\n_Humanitarianism and Humanism._\n\nHere, on this subject, is a curious passage from one of the ancients:--\n\n\u2018Those who created the Latin language and those who spoke it well\ndo not give the word _humanitas_ the vulgar meaning which is\nsynonymous with the Greek word _philanthropia_, which means an\nactive kindness, a tender benevolence for all men. But they give\nthe word the meaning which the Greeks attach to _paideia_, which we\ncall education, knowledge of the fine arts. Those who show the most\ntaste and disposition for these studies are the most worthy to be\ncalled _humanissimi_. For man alone among all living beings is able\nto devote himself to cultivating a study which for that reason has\nbeen called _humanitas_. Such is the meaning given to this by the\nancients, particularly by Varro and Cicero. Almost all their works\nshow examples, so I shall content myself with quoting one only. I\nhave chosen the opening of the first book of Varro \u201cConcerning human\nthings\u201d: \u201cPraxiteles, qui propter artificium egregium nemini est paulum\nmodo humaniori ignotus (Praxiteles, whose excellent talent as an\nartist has made him known to every man at all skilled in the arts)\u201d.\nHere _humanior_ does not bear the vulgar meaning of easy, tractable,\nbenevolent even though lacking in knowledge of letters. That meaning\nwould not express the author\u2019s thought. It means an educated, a learned\nman, one who is acquainted with Praxiteles through books and history.\u2019\n(Aulus Gellius, _Noctes Atticae_, Book XIII, XVI.)\n\n\nNote J (Page 82)\n\n_... they cannot sufficiently denounce all institutions based on\nliberty and discussion._\n\nNote that the novelty here lies in the passion, the fury with which\nthey condemn liberty of discussion. Otherwise, we see most of the\nso-called liberal thinkers in history themselves recognize the\nnecessity for submission to the sovereign\u2019s judgment. Spinoza declares\nthat \u2018there is no possible government if every man makes himself the\ndefender of his own rights and the rights of others.\u2019 The _Letters of\nDescartes_ contain passages in favour of the \u2018reason of State.\u2019\n\nIt is perhaps not sufficiently noticed how frequently the old French\nabsolute monarchists say that justice is the chief function of the\nsovereign. \u2018The most important of the King\u2019s rights,\u2019 says one of\nthese theorists (Guy Coquille, _Institution du droit des Fran\u00e7ais_,\n1608) \u2018is to make _the laws and general statutes for the good order of\nhis Kingdom_.\u2019 Another (Loyseau, _Des Seigneuries_, 1608) says: \u2018The\nusage of public _lordship must be regulated by justice_ ...\u2019 Bossuet\n(_Instruction \u00e0 Louis XIV_) says: \u2018When the King administers justice or\nhas it exactly administered in accordance with the laws, _which is his\nprincipal function_ ...\u2019 The modern absolute monarchists, even French,\nseem to be inspired by the German theorist, who says: \u2018The State has\ntwo functions to perform: the administration of justice and the waging\nof war. _But war is by far the principal._\u2019 (Treitschke.)\n\nNote this famous passage from Bossuet (_Pol._, Book VIII, art. II, par.\nI):\n\n\u2018It is one thing for it (the government) to be absolute, another for\nit to be arbitrary. It is absolute in relation to constraint, there\nbeing no power which is capable of compelling the sovereign, who in\nthis sense is independent of all human authority. But it does not\nfollow that government is arbitrary; because, apart from the fact that\nall things are subject to God\u2019s judgment (which applies also to the\ngovernment we have called arbitrary), there are laws in empires, and\neverything which is done contrary to them is void of right.\u2019\n\nIt will be seen that the defence of arbitrary government is a new thing\namong French teachers, even in regard to Bossuet. (I am speaking of\nBossuet\u2019s _doctrines_, not of his practical advice.)\n\n\nNote K (Page 91)\n\n_This is the teaching of Nietzsche._\n\nI must repeat that throughout this work I am considering the teaching\nof Nietzsche (and Hegel\u2019s too) insofar as it has become the pretext\nfor a great moral preaching, though I know perfectly well that in\nreality this teaching is something far more complex. I shall quote\nthe following judicious observation, in connection with the fact\nthat certain philosophers have only themselves to blame for \u2018the\nmisunderstanding of their true thought\u2019:\n\n\u2018Nietzscheism has been subjected to the same test as Hegelianism. And\nno doubt here and there philosophical themes have served especially as\npretexts to cover up a new offensive on the part of barbarism. _But\nthe fact that they have been utilized, the manner in which they have\nbeen utilized, have a significance which must not be overlooked._ Is\nit not the criterion of a philosophy which may be called rational\nwithout reserve and equivocation, that it should remain incorruptibly\nfaithful to itself? On the other hand, _the systems which begin by\naccepting contradictions, reserving the right to add that they are\ncapable of surmounting them or of \u201cliving\u201d them, lodge their enemy in\ntheir midst_. Their punishment is that their antithesis still resembles\nthem; and that is what has happened to Nietzsche.\u2019 (L. Brunschvicg, _Le\nProgr\u00e8s de la Conscience dans la philosophie occidentale_, p. 431.)\nThis book contains an excellent exposition of \u2018Hegelian themes\u2019 and\n\u2018Nietzschean themes\u2019, precisely insofar as they have become political\nbreviaries.\n\n\nNote L (Page 94)\n\n_Long before the disciples of Taine and Auguste Comte._\n\nWhen this book appeared in a periodical, certain persons declared\nthat the whole of my attack on the modern \u2018clerk\u2019 went astray because\nI did not give more space to the author of _Origines de la France\nContemporaine_. He, they said, was the \u2018great realist \u201cclerk\u201d of the\npast fifty years, while those I attacked were only his small change.\u2019\n(This sudden contempt for the thought of Barr\u00e8s and Maurras of the part\nof certain people is certainly surprising.)\n\nThere is here a manifest abuse of the word _realism_. Taine threw\nlight on the true nature of the real, or rather the political real,\nand reminded the universalist that this domain is not under his\njurisdiction. He never _exalted_ this real at the expense of the\nuniversal, which is the realism I am denouncing here. He plainly\ntaught, on the contrary, that the universalist who stays in his own\ndomain (see his admiration for Spinoza and Goethe) is the great human\nmodel. Compare this with Maurras for whom the universalist, even\nwhen non-political (the infinitist, the pantheist) is profoundly\ncontemptible. It is also difficult for me to see Taine as the godfather\nof those who glorify the soldier at the expense of the man of justice\nand the man of study,[182] who exhort the nations to cultivate their\nprejudices where they are \u2018totally foreign to reason\u2019 (Barr\u00e8s) and who\ndeclare that the intelligence which cares nothing about what is social\nis the activity of a savage. I think Taine would cheerfully say of\nthose who claim to derive from him the same thing that M. Bergson is\nreported to have said of some of his \u2018disciples\u2019: \u2018These gentlemen are\nmost original.\u2019\n\nNevertheless, Taine seems to me to be the initiator of the modern\nrealists in two points. The first is his condemnation of individualism,\nmore exactly, of the moral liberty of the citizen (for this, at\nbottom, is the meaning of his regret for the old corporations, and,\nmore generally, of his exhortation to form groups, which shape the\nindividual\u2019s soul, instead of allowing it to be autonomous as against\nthe State); and the second, which is far more novel than the first\namong French teachers, is his condemnation of idealist education. The\nperoration of the \u2018_R\u00e9gime moderne_\u2019 obviously establishes the whole\neducational argument of the _D\u00e9racines_ and _L\u2019\u00c9tape_:--\n\n\u2018Sometimes when he is with his intimates, as bitter and as overfatigued\nas he is, the young man is tempted to say to us: \u201cBy your education\nyou induced us to believe that the world is made in a certain way.\nYou deceived us. It is much uglier, stupider, dirtier, gloomier and\nharsher, at least to our sensibility and our imagination. You think\nthey are over-excited and out of gear; well, if they are, it is your\nfault. That is why we curse and despise the whole of your world, and\nreject your pretended truths, which for us are lies, including those\nelementary and primary truths which you say are evident to common\nsense, and upon which you build your laws, your institutions, your\nsociety, your philosophy, your sciences and your arts.\u201d That is what\ncontemporary youth have been telling us aloud for fifteen years by\ntheir tastes, their opinions, their inclinations in literature, the\narts and life.\u2019\n\nAgainst this manifesto in favour of a practical education, let me set\nthis protest of a true descendant of Montaigne, Pascal and Montesquieu:\n\n\u2018In his diatribe for the classical spirit and the primary truths of\nreason and philosophy which direct literary education of all kinds,\nTaine comes to use words similar to those of the adversaries of ancient\nliterature,[183] of the general ideas which are inseparable from them,\nand of disinterested culture even. The only object would then be to\nprepare persons for an empirical world,[184] people taught to know the\nworld as it is, and trained to make it continue as it now is. However,\nthe school laws are too recent for one to be able decently to blame\nthem for the evils of the age, and make them the cause of the hatred\nand scorn poured on society by those who are bored, enervate and out of\ntheir class. However, even if it were true that the comparison between\nthe general principles of reason, morality and beauty, and empirical\nlife engendered more disgust with the realities than it has done in\nthe past, it would be a sad paradox to ask that this danger should\nbe averted by banishing from education all elevated views and all\nidealism.\u2019 (Renouvier, _Philosophie analytique de l\u2019Histoire_, tome iv,\np. 541.)\n\n\nNote M (Page 95)\n\n_This cult brings out a silliness of mind which to me seems wholly an\nacquisition of the nineteenth century._\n\nThis silliness of mind assumes another form, i.e. the belief (rigidly\nformulated by Maurras) that in politics you can find laws of cause\nand effect as certainly valid as those of weight or electricity.\n(\u2018Politics are a _science_.\u2019) This is the superstition of science,\nheld to be competent in all domains, including that of morality; a\nsuperstition which, I repeat, is an acquisition of the nineteenth\ncentury. It remains to discover whether those who brandish this\ndoctrine believe in it or whether they simply want to give the prestige\nof a scientific appearance to the passions of their hearts, which they\nperfectly well know are nothing but passions. It is to be noted that\nthe dogma that history is obedient to scientific laws is preached\nespecially by partisans of arbitrary authority. This is quite natural,\nsince it eliminates the two realities they most hate, i.e. human\nliberty and the historical action of the individual.\n\n\nNote N (Page 98)\n\n_Our age has seen priests of the mind teaching that the gregarious\nis the praiseworthy form of thought, and that independent thought is\ncontemptible._\n\nNote that what is new in this crusade against individualism (the great\napostle of which is M. Maurras) is not the recognition that \u2018the\nindividual is only an abstraction\u2019, that to a great extent, he is\nformed by his race, his surroundings, his nation, a thousand things\nwhich are not himself. The novelty is the cult for this servitude, the\norder given to mankind to submit entirely to it, the contempt shown\nfor any attempt to get free from it. Once again this is the cult (so\nstrange in French thinkers) for the _inevitable_ part of the human\nbeing, the hatred for its free part.\n\nNote that those who to-day preach obedience of the mind, not only\ndemand it from the uncultured masses but from the men of thought,\n_especially_ from the men of thought. The anti-individualists of the\nDreyfus affair particularly opposed the independence of scientists,\nwriters, and philosophers--\u2018the mad vanity of a few intellectuals\u2019.\nNevertheless, the most curious thing is not that they require this\nobedience, but that they obtain it. When M. Maritain declares that\n\u2018everyone cannot philosophize and that, for men, the essential thing\nis to choose a master\u2019, and when M. Maurras asserts that the function\nof most minds is to be \u2018servants\u2019 and to reflect the thought of some\nleader, these teachers find a number of men of thought to applaud and\nabdicate their liberty of mind in their favour. The thinkers of the\neighteenth century said: \u2018A religion is needed for the people.\u2019 Those\nof our age say: \u2018A religion is needed for ourselves.\u2019 What Barr\u00e8s\nwrote: \u2018The part of the masters is to justify the habits and prejudices\nof France, so as best to prepare our children to take their place in\nthe national procession,\u2019 he certainly meant that he and his colleagues\nwere to walk in this procession. Here we again come upon that thirst\nfor discipline which I spoke of above and which seemed to me so worthy\nof remark in the descendants of Montaigne and Renan. The cause, I said,\nwas their desire to belong to a \u2018strong group\u2019. In them it also arises\nfrom a feeling for the artistic value of regimenting a collection of\nmen in a beautiful \u2018procession\u2019, and also from the joy felt by so many\nsouls in being governed, if not having to make the effort to think for\nthemselves--a most curious joy in so-called men of thought.\n\nThe cult for the collective soul, with all its violation of human\nconsciousness, seems to me admirably denounced by a passage of Maine\nde Biran, quoted by M. L. Brunschvicg (op. cit., _La Sociologie de\nl\u2019ordre_, p. 526):--\n\n\u2018... According to M. Bonald, it is not the human mind, it is not\nthe individual understanding which is the seat, the true subject of\ninherence of the nations or (universal) truths under discussion; but\nit is society, which, gifted with a kind of collective understanding\ndifferent from that of individuals, was from its origin imbued with\nthem through the gift of speech and by virtue of a miraculous influence\nexerted on the mass alone, independent of its parts. The individual,\nthe man, is nothing; society alone exists; society is the soul of\nthe moral world, it alone exists, while individual persons are only\nphenomena. Let those who can, understand this social metaphysics. If\nthe author himself understands it clearly, then I am in the wrong.\nThen we must cease to talk of philosophy and recognize the nothingness\nof the science of intellectual and moral man, we must admit that all\npsychology based on the primitive fact of consciousness is simply\nfalse, and we must consider science itself as an illusion which\nperpetually deceives and misleads us by showing us everything, even our\nown existence, in a false and fantastic light.\u2019\n\nM. Brunschvicg very rightly adds: \u2018The antithesis could not be stated\nmore clearly. Either the primary fact of consciousness, or the primary\nfact of language; either Socrates or Bonald.\u2019\n\nEither Socrates or Bonald. Barr\u00e8s and Maurras made their choice.\n\n\nNote O (Page 118)\n\n_... P\u00e9guy who admires philosophies to the extent that \u2018they are good\nfighters.\u2019_[185]\n\nThis determination to praise philosophers for their virtues of action\nrather than for their intellectual virtues is very frequent among\nmen of thought to-day. In his _Souvenirs concernant Lagneau_, Alain,\nwishing to give as favourable a picture of his master as possible,\npraises his energy and his resolution at least as much as his\nintelligence. It is also very remarkable--although here literature\nonly is in question--to see a professor of moral science (M. Jacques\nBardoux) setting a special value on those French literary men who were\nsoldiers, i.e. Vauvenargues, Vigny, P\u00e9guy. As to the men of letters\nthemselves, I shall content myself with pointing out that one of\nthem who is most applauded by his own colleagues recently declared\nthat he chiefly admired d\u2019Annunzio for his attitude as an officer,\nand expressed regret that he had returned to literature.[186] The\nEmperor Julian praised Aristotle for having said that he felt prouder\nof being the author of his _Treatise on Theology_ than he would have\nfelt if he had destroyed the power of the Persians. One might still\nfind soldiers in France who would agree with this judgment, but very\nfew men of letters. Elsewhere (_Les Sentiments de Critias_, p. 206)\nI have attempted to give the history and the explanation of this\ndesire (so curious in men of the pen) to exalt a warlike life and to\nscorn a sedentary life. Note that this characteristic is to be seen in\ncontemporary writers long before the war of 1914, and that those who\ntalk most about a warlike life are not always those who lead it.\n\nThe new thing, I repeat, is not that we see men of letters praising\nan active life and scorning a sedentary life; it is _the absence of\nnaivet\u00e9, the dogmatic tone_. When Ronsard exclaims: \u2018Good Gods, who\nwould praise those who let life go by bent over books\u2019;[187] when\nBertrand de Born wishes that \u2018no man of high lineage should have any\nthought but cutting off heads and arms\u2019; when Froissart sings the\nglories of chivalry and casts his scorn in the faces of the bourgeois,\nno one will take these candid lyre-players, who like noble poses and\ndo not even know that the word doctrine exists, for the ancestors of\nour grave professors of belligerent aesthetics. Moreover, I doubt\nwhether the author of _Scenes and Doctrines of Nationalism_ would have\ncondescended to be a descendant of these simple-minded persons.\n\nI find scorn for the life of the mind clearly professed in a dogmatic\ntone, in a writer of the seventeenth century who frequently reminds one\nof certain modern authors by his efforts to humiliate the toga before\nthe sword. (It is true that this writer was a gentleman of the very\nminor nobility.)\n\n\u2018Certainly, there is no better way of relaxing the vigour of men\u2019s\ncourage than to occupy their minds with peaceful and sedentary\nexercises, and idleness cannot enter civilized States in a more subtle\nor dangerous disguise than that of literature. Lazy and idle persons\nhave in part ruined commerce and agriculture, which are the cause\nof the weakness of our condition and the cowardice of our age.\u2019 (J.\nL. de Balzac, _Le Prince_, 1631. He then admits literature and the\nsciences to the State insofar as \u2018they strengthen and embellish the\nMother-country\u2019.)\n\nOn the other hand, a master from the great period of French literature\nwrites a eulogy of the life of the mind at the expense of the active\nmind, which I hardly think would be accepted by many of the moderns who\nvenerate that period (I am especially thinking of those who admire the\nthought of Georges Sorel).\n\n\u2018In France great strength of character and width of mind are needed if\na man is to reject offices and employments and thus consent to remain\nat home and do nothing. Scarcely anyone possesses sufficient merit to\nplay this part with dignity, nor sufficient resources to fill up the\nvoid of time without what the vulgar call \u201cbusiness\u201d. But the wise\nman\u2019s idleness needs only a better name, and we ought to say that one\nwho meditates, talks, reads and is calm, is working.\u2019 (La Bruy\u00e8re, _Du\nM\u00e9rite personnel_.)\n\n\nNote P (Page 122)\n\n_The \u2018Manifesto of the Party of Intelligence\u2019 (Figaro, 19th July,\n1919)._\n\nThis manifesto, signed by fifty-four French writers, several of whom\nare among the teachers most respected by their fellow-citizens, is\nof the greatest importance to the present inquiry. In addition to\nthe strange passage on the Church\u2019s mission which I quoted above, it\ncontains things like this:--\n\n\u2018Nationalism, which the conceptions of the intelligence impose\non political conduct as well as on the order of the world, is a\nreasonable, humane system, and French in addition.\u2019\n\nAnd further on:--\n\n\u2018When a literature becomes national does it not acquire a more\nuniversal significance, a more humanly general interest?\u2019\n\nAnd again:--\n\n\u2018We believe--and the world believes with us--that it is part of the\ndestiny of our race to defend the spiritual interests of humanity....\nWe are solicitous for Europe and all the humanity remaining in the\nworld. French humanity is the sovereign protector of this.\u2019\n\nAnd above all:--\n\n\u2018Victorious France means to take her place again in the order of the\nmind, the only order whereby a legitimate domination may be exercised.\u2019\n\nHence the desire to found (the manifesto itself underlines the words):\n\u2018_The intellectual Federation of Europe and the world under the aegis\nof victorious France, the guardian of civilization._\u2019\n\nVictory under arms conferring the right to command in the intellectual\norder--that is professed to-day by French thinkers! One remembers the\nRoman writers, from whom these thinkers claim descent, who took as the\nleader of their minds Greece, which had been conquered by force of\narms; one also remembers the German teachers of 1871 who also claimed\nintellectual hegemony for their \u2018victorious\u2019 nation, which they too\nclaimed as \u2018the guardian of civilization\u2019.[188]\n\nWhen this manifesto was published, somewhat similar reflections seem\nto have occurred to the mind of one of our great writers. In a letter\nconcerning this document,[189] Marcel Proust deplores the proclamation\nof \u2018a kind of \u201cFrankreich ueber alles\u201d, the policeman of the literature\nof all nations.\u2019 As a true priest of the mind, he goes on: \u2018Why take\nthis peremptory attitude towards other countries in such matters as\nliterature, where a man only reigns by persuasion?\u2019 I am happy to take\nthis opportunity to do homage to this true \u2018clerk\u2019, and to say that I\nknow that there are still other writers in France beside those who only\nbelieve in the virtue of cold steel.\n\n\nNote Q (Page 138)\n\n_Those who base their judgments on their artistic sensibilities._\n\nThis artistic origin of the political attitudes of so many men of\nletters has been pointed out with great ability by M. Daniel Hal\u00e9vy in\nthe case of M. Maurras. In an old article (_La Grande France_, 1902) M.\nHal\u00e9vy quotes this beautiful passage from M. Maurras\u2019s _Anthin\u00e9a_ on\nthe walk of women carrying a clay pot balanced on their heads:--\n\n\u2018The bosom swells and is modelled like a vase, it opens like a flower.\nThe neck settles, the loins strain nervously. Their walk becomes\ngraver and more supple, is measured with an inestimable sobriety; it\nunrolls in the mind like a piece of music. This living pillar moves,\nglides, advances, without being interrupted by any sudden jerk or any\nbreak. It follows the undulations of the ground, adapts itself to the\nslightest rises, and thus resembles the stem of a beautiful young tree\nset free from its roots, moving over the ground without leaving it for\na fraction of an inch. An infinite multitude of half-pauses make the\njerks imperceptible, or one is only conscious of their succession, a\ncontinual harmony which leaves its curves in the air....\u2019\n\nM. Daniel Hal\u00e9vy adds:--\n\n\u2018I quote the whole passage because it gives the very idea of Charles\nMaurras. For his classical way of thought, things are beautiful, not\nfrom the shocks of feeling and passion, but from the form and rhythm\nwhich give them continuity, or rather existence in the human sense of\nthe word. M. Charles Maurras applies this taste for form to the study\nof history, and that is the whole of his \u201csociology\u201d.\u2019\n\nThere could be no better definition of the type of man for whom things\nare good insofar as they satisfy his artistic sensibility. Let me place\nin opposition to him the exactly contrary type, leaving the reader to\njudge which of the two may claim to belong to \u2018the intelligence\u2019:--\n\n\u2018... For the perfection of things should be measured by their nature\nalone, and things are not more or less perfect because they flatter or\nwound our senses.\u2019 (Spinoza.)\n\n\n\n\n_Footnotes_\n\n\n[1] See Note A at the end of this book.\n\n[2] It is to be noted that a little more than a century ago French\nworking-men from different provinces frequently engaged in desperate\nfights among themselves. (See Martin Nadaud, _M\u00e9moires de L\u00e9onard_, p.\n93.)\n\n[3] See Petit de Julleville, _La Com\u00e9die et les Moeurs en France au\nmoyen age_, and Andr\u00e9 Le Breton, _Le Roman au XVIIe Si\u00e8cle_.\n\n[4] The great novelty is that to-day people accept the position that\neverything should be political, that they should proclaim it and take a\npride in it. Otherwise it is perfectly obvious that men, shopkeepers,\nor poets, have not waited for the present time to try to get rid of a\nrival by political means. Remember how La Fontaine\u2019s rivals kept him\nout of the Acad\u00e9mie for ten years.\n\n[5] As de Tocqueville profoundly remarks, these only occurred when a\nfirst improvement in his condition encouraged the man of the people to\nwant more; i.e. towards the end of the eighteenth century.\n\n[6] I am here speaking of Western Jews of the bourgeois class. The\nJewish proletariat did not await our time to plunge into the feeling of\nits racial peculiarity. However, it does so without giving provocation.\n\n[7] This was the notion expressed by Benedict XV when he told the poor\n\u2018to take delight in the prosperity of elevated persons and to expect\nconfidently their assistance\u2019.\n\n[8] For example, M. Paul Bourget\u2019s _La Barricade_, where the author, a\ndisciple of Georges Sorel, exhorts the bourgeoise not to leave to the\nproletariat the monopoly of class passion and violence. See also Andr\u00e9\nBeaunier, _Les Devoirs de la Violence_ (quoted by Halperine-Kaminski\nin the preface to Tolstoi\u2019s book, _The Law of Love and the Law of\nViolence_).\n\n[9] \u2018The phrase, _the sublime bourgeois_, which would have caused\nso much laughter twenty years ago, has now acquired for the French\nbourgeoisie a mystic plenitude owing to its fusion with the highest\nsocial and national values.\u2019 (_Eloge du Bourgeois Fran\u00e7ais_, p. 284.)\n\n[10] Let me define more precisely what is new here. In the seventeenth\ncentury the citizen already had the notion of national honour; Racine\u2019s\nLetters would be sufficient to prove it (see a significant page in\nthe _M\u00e9moires_ of de Pontis, Book XIV); but he left it to the King to\ndecide what this honour demanded; indignation like Vauban\u2019s against the\npeace of Ryswick \u2018which dishonours the King and the whole nation\u2019, is\na very exceptional emotion under the old _r\u00e9gime_. The modern citizen\nclaims to feel for himself what is demanded by the national honour, and\nhe is ready to rise up against his leaders if they have a different\nconception of it. This new development is not peculiar to the nations\nliving under democratic systems; in 1911 the citizens of the German\nmonarchy thought that the concessions made to their country by France\nin exchange for German abstention in Morocco were insufficient, and\nthey were extremely angry with their Sovereign who had accepted these\nconditions which, in their opinion, were an insult to German honour. It\nmay be asserted that the same thing would be true of France if she ever\nbecame a monarchy again and if the King took it upon himself to feel\nthe interest of national honour in a different manner to his subjects.\nMoreover, this actually happened throughout the reign of Louis-Philippe.\n\n[11] For example, the humiliation of Olm\u00fcts in 1805. It may be asserted\nthat no democracy would have endured it, at least with the philosophy\ndisplayed by the King of Prussia and his government. On the other hand,\nis it necessary to stress the other dangers to peace which existed\nunder the Kings? It is sufficient to quote Montesquieu\u2019s remark: \u2018The\nspirit of the Monarchy is war and aggrandisement.\u2019\n\n[12] In 1886, the Schnaebele affair; in 1890, the incident in Paris\nwhere the King of Spain in the uniform of a Colonel of Uhlans was\nhooted; in 1891, the incident of the Empress of Germany passing through\nParis; in 1897, Fashoda; in 1904, the incident of the British trawlers\nsunk by the Russian Fleet, etc. Of course, I do not claim that the\nKings only waged practical wars, although with them the allegation of\n\u2018wounded honour\u2019 was very often a mere pretext. Louis XIV obviously\ndid not make war on Holland because the Dutch struck a medal insulting\nhim. Moreover, I shall grant that from time to time the Kings indulged\nin military invasions, a type of elegance which appears to be less and\nless tempting to the democracies; one cannot now imagine the peace of\nthe world disturbed by excursions like those of Charles VIII into Italy\nor Charles XII into the Ukraine.\n\n[13] Is it necessary to point out that wars started by public\npassion against the will of the government have often occurred under\nmonarchies? And not only under constitutional monarchies, like the\nwar of France with Spain in 1823 and with Turkey in 1826, but under\nabsolute monarchies. For instance, the War of the Austrian Succession\nimposed on Fleury by an uprising of public opinion; the War of American\nIndependence under Louis XVI; in 1806 the war of Prussia against\nNapoleon. In 1813 the war of Saxony. It seems probable that in 1914 war\nwas imposed on absolute sovereigns like Nicholas II and Wilhelm II by\npopular passions which they had been exciting for years and then found\nthemselves unable to restrain.\n\n[14] \u2018But what is much more important than material facts is the soul\nof nations. Among all races a kind of effervescence it to be noticed;\nsome defend certain principles, others the opposing principles. By\nbecoming members of the League of Nations, the different peoples do\nnot abandon their _national morality_.\u2019 (Speech of the German Minister\nfor Foreign Affairs at Geneva, on the occasion of the entry of Germany\ninto the League of Nations, 10th September, 1926.) The orator went on:\n\u2018Yet this should not result in raising up nation against nation.\u2019 One\nis surprised that he did not add: \u2018On the contrary.\u2019 How much nobler,\nand at the same time more respectful of the truth, is the language\nof Treitschke: \u2018This consciousness of themselves which the nations\nare acquiring and which can only be strengthened by culture, this\nconsciousness means that war will never disappear from the earth, in\nspite of the closer linking up of interests, in spite of the growing\nuniformity of customs and the exterior forms of life.\u2019 (Quoted by\nCharles Andler in _Les Origines du Pangermanisme_, p. 223.)\n\n[15] This is what Mirabeau seems to have foreseen when he announced\nto the Constituent Assembly that the wars of the \u2018free nations\u2019 would\ncause the wars of the Kings to be regretted.\n\n[16] The religion of the \u2018national soul\u2019 is obviously and logically\nan emanation of the popular soul. Moreover, it has been sung by an\neminently democratic literature: Romanticism. It is to be observed that\nthe worst enemies of Romanticism and of Democracy have adopted it; it\nis constantly to be found in the Action Fran\u00e7aise. To such an extent\nis it now impossible to be a patriot without flattering democratic\npassions.\n\n[17] See Note B at the end of the book.\n\n[18] See Brunot, _Histoire de la Langue Fran\u00e7aise_, t. v, liv. iii.\n\n[19] On this topic see some excellent remarks of Auguste Comte, _Cours\nde Philosophie Positive_, 57^e le\u00e7on.\n\n[20] As a matter of fact, the peoples do not believe either that their\nambitions go back to their ancestors; they are ignorant of history and\ndo not believe it to be so even when it is true; they believe they\nbelieve, or, more exactly, they want to believe that they believe.\nHowever, that is enough to make them ferocious, perhaps more so than if\nthey really believed it.\n\n[21] France is here in a position of manifest inferiority in regard\nto her neighbours. The modern French feel very slight inclinations to\nclaim that they reincarnate the ambitions of Charlemagne or even of\nLouis XIV, despite the proclamations of certain men of letters.\n\n[22] For instance, the address of the \u2018six great industrial and\nagricultural associations of Germany\u2019 to Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg in\nMay, 1914, which was not very different from that drawn up in 1815\nby the Prussian metallurgists to point out to their government what\nannexations should be made in the interests of their industry. (See\nVidal de La Blache, _La France de l\u2019Est_, chap. xix.) Moreover, some\nGermans are urgent in boldly proclaiming the economic character of\ntheir nationalism. \u2018Let us not forget,\u2019 says a well-known Pangermanist,\n\u2018that the German Empire, which is generally considered abroad as a\npurely military State, is in its origin (Zollverein) chiefly economic.\u2019\nAnd again: \u2018For us war is only the continuation of our commercial\nactivity in times of peace, with other means but the same methods.\u2019\n(Naumann, _L\u2019Europe Centrale_, pp. 112, 247; see the whole book.)\nGermany seems to be not indeed the only country to practise commercial\npatriotism (England has done so just as much and for a much longer\ntime) but the only country to boast of it.\n\n[23] And to build up a much less passionate patriotism. Think, for\ninstance, of the agreements with foreigners accepted by patriotism\nbased on interest (such as the Franco-German iron cartel), against\nwhich the patriotism based on pride rises up in revolt.\n\n[24] \u2018Love of country is a real love of oneself.\u2019 (Saint-Evremond.)\n\n[25] The divinizing of realism, of which patriotism specially consists,\nis expressed with all desirable candour in the \u2018Addresses to the German\nPeople\u2019 (Eighth Address); Fichte attacks religion for its claim to\nsituate the superior life outside all interest in earthly matters: \u2018It\nis an abuse of religion to force it, as Christianity has so often done,\nto extol complete indifference to the business of the State and the\nnation as the true religious spirit. Men,\u2019 he declares, \u2018are determined\nto find heaven on earth and to impregnate their earthly labours with\nsomething durable.\u2019 He then shows, with great warmth, that this desire\nis the essence of patriotism, and it is evident that for him earthly\nlabours become divine by becoming durable. This, indeed, is the only\nmeans men have discovered for divinizing their institutions.\n\n[26] It is necessary to recall that the United States did not enter the\nlast war \u2018in defence of principles\u2019, but with the very practical object\nof safeguarding their prestige, which had been lowered by the facts\nthat the Germans had torpedoed three of their ships? Nevertheless,\ntheir desire to pose as having been purely idealistic in this affair is\nnoteworthy.\n\n[27] It may be said that religious passions, at least in the West, only\nexist as a reinforcement to national passions; in France, a man sets up\nas a Catholic in order to pose as being \u2018more French\u2019; in Germany as a\nProtestant in order to declare himself \u2018more German\u2019.\n\n[28] Here are two remarkable cases of idealistic passions which in the\npast successfully opposed national passion and are now submissive to\nit: (_a_) In France, the monarchic passion, which in 1792 was stronger\nthan national feeling in many people, whereas in 1914 it was completely\neffaced by national feeling. (Everyone will agree that attachment to a\ncertain form of government, i.e. at bottom, the attachment to a certain\nmetaphysical conception, is an infinitely more idealistic passion than\nnationalist passion; however, I do not claim that all the Emigr\u00e9s were\ninspired by this idealism.) (_b_) In Germany, the religious passion,\nwhich only fifty years ago was stronger than national feeling in more\nthan fifty per cent of Germans, and to-day is entirely subject to\nnational feeling (in 1866 the German Catholics desired the defeat of\nGermany; in 1914 they ardently desired it to be victorious). The Europe\nof to-day, compared with the Europe of the past, seems to contain many\nless chances of civil wars and many more chances of national wars;\nnothing could show better how much Europe has lost in idealism. (See\nNote D at the end of this book for additional matter on the attitude of\nthe modern Catholics towards Catholicism when it is in opposition to\ntheir nationalism.)\n\n[29] For example, in words like the following, uttered at Venice on\nthe 11th December, 1926, by the Italian Minister of Education and\nFine Arts: \u2018Artists must prepare themselves for the new imperialist\nfunction which must be carried out by our art. Above everything, we\nmust categorically impose a principle of _Italianita_. Whoever copies\na foreigner is guilty of _l\u00e8se-nation_ (an insult to the nation) like\na spy who admits an enemy by a secret doorway.\u2019 These words have to be\napproved by every adept of \u2018_integral_ nationalism\u2019. Moreover, we hear\nmuch the same thing in France from certain adversaries of Romanticism.\n\n[30] \u2018Discipline from the lowest to the highest must be essential and\nof a religious type.\u2019 (Mussolini, 25th October, 1925.) This is new\nlanguage in the mouth of a statesman, even of the most realist kind;\nit may be asserted that neither Richelieu nor Bismarck would have\napplied the word \u2018religious\u2019 to an activity whose object is exclusively\nmaterialistic.\n\n[31] Notably for Renan and \u2018speculative a-moralism\u2019. (H. Massis,\n_Judgments_, i.)\n\n[32] See Note E at the end of this book for further information on this\nprestige, and what is new about it in history.\n\n[33] In 1891 Barr\u00e8s wrote to the editor of _La Plume_: \u2018If these\nbooks have any value, it is from the logic, the continuity of thought\nI have put into them during five years.\u2019 (\u2018These books\u2019 included\nhis Boulangiste campaign.) And, in the preface to his collection of\narticles entitled \u2018Sc\u00e8nes et Documents du nationalisme\u2019, he says: \u2018I\nthink that if Doumic will examine it from a greater distance he will\nfind a development, and not contradictions, in my work.\u2019\n\n[34] I shall be told of \u2018clerks\u2019 who, apparently without degradation,\nhave at some time or other taken the part of a race or a nation, even\nof their own race or nation. That is because they believed that the\ncause of that race or nation coincided at that time with the cause of\nabstract justice.\n\n[35] Similar occurrences may be observed among the ancients. For\ninstance, Cicero denounced his fellow-citizens for having destroyed\nCorinth merely to avenge an insult to their ambassador (De off., I, xi).\n\n[36] Already in 1911, when a writer quoted this sentence: \u2018It is\nimpossible to accept the situation that humanity should be bound\nfor indefinite centuries by the marriages, battles, treaties of the\nnarrow-minded, ignorant, egotistic creatures who during the middle\nages were at the head of affairs in this world,\u2019 he felt it necessary\nto add: \u2018Fortunately these lines were written by Renan; one could not\nwrite them to-day without being called an unpatriotic Frenchman.\u2019 (G.\nGuy-Grand, _La Philosophie Nationaliste_, p. 165.) Without being called\nso _by the men of thought_--that is the curious part of it.\n\n[37] Quoted by Mgr. Chapon in his admirable study, \u2018La France et\nl\u2019Allemagne devant la doctrine chr\u00e9tienne.\u2019 (_Correspondant_, of 15th\nAugust, 1915.)\n\n[38] See his _Letters_, ii, p. 31.\n\n[39] Consider how willingly they now accept military service. See Note\nF at the end of this book.\n\n[40] Here are the reasons given by a German Catholic for this attitude\namong those of his religion: \u2018(_a_) Their incomplete knowledge of the\nfacts and opinions in the belligerent and neutral countries; (_b_)\n_Their patriotism, which could not be allowed to separate itself from\nthe union binding together the German people_; (_c_) The fear of a\nsecond Kulturkampf, which would be doubly dangerous if the German\nCatholics had even appeared to agree with the campaign carried on in\nFrance against German methods of waging war.\u2019 The second reason will\nbe noted, i.e. the desire to be at unity with the nation, whatever the\nmoral aspect of its cause. Here, at least, is one reason which Bossuet\ndid not allege when he screened the violences of Louis XIV.\n\nLet me recall that when, in 1914, the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg in\nthe Reichstag hinted at a sort of apology for the violation of Belgian\nneutrality, he was sharply reproved by the Christian minister von\nHarnack \u2018for having tried to excuse what did not need excusing\u2019. (See\nA. Loisy, _Guerre et Religion_, p. 14.)\n\n[41] The clergy of the allied nations are eager to throw in the faces\nof the German clergy their union with injustice in 1914. They abuse\ntheir own good fortune in belonging to nations whose cause happened\nto be just. When Italy, in 1923, at the time of the Corfu incident,\nadopted towards Greece an attitude as unjust as that of Austria towards\nSerbia in 1914, I am not aware that the Italian clergy expressed\nindignation. Nor do I remember that in 1900, when a European army\nintervened in Chinese affairs (the Boxer affair) and excesses were\ncommitted by the soldiers, any strong protests were uttered by the\nclergies of the respective nations.\n\n[42] A particularly remarkable attitude was that of the philosopher\nBoutroux. You will find an admirable denunciation of it from the pen of\nCharles Andler, _Les Origines du Pangermanisme_, p. viii.\n\n[43] This may be seen especially in the chorus of the Seven against\nThebes: \u2018Gods of our City, let it not be destroyed with our houses and\nour hearths.... O ye who have dwelt therein so long, will ye betray\nthis land?\u2019 Six centuries later this may be seen in the \u2018Aeneid\u2019, where\nthe preservation of the Trojan City across the seas is plainly due\nsolely to the protection of Juno, and in no wise to any inward notion\nof Trojan blood giving it an assurance of eternal duration.\n\n[44] Although the Germans appear to have been the inventors of the\npassion I am denouncing, Lessing and Schlegel seem to have been the\nfirst to brandish their poets as the expression of the national\nsoul, from a feeling of exasperation with the universalism of French\nliterature. The men of the French Pl\u00e9iade (who will certainly be\nbrought up against me) wished to give their sensibility a national\nmode of expression, a national language; they never claimed to give\na national character to that sensibility, to oppose it to other\nnational sensibilities. The systematic nationalization of the mind\nis undoubtedly an invention of modern times. As regards the men of\nlearning, this nationalizing has undoubtedly been favoured by the\ndisappearance of Latin as the scientific language; and no one will ever\nbe able to say to what an extent this disappearance was an element of\narrest in civilisation.\n\n[45] In Nietzsche\u2019s opinion, this was the case with Wagner, who, when\nhe gave himself out to his compatriots as the Messiah of German art,\nsaw that there was \u2018a good vacant place to take\u2019, while the whole\nof his artistic formation as well as his profound philosophy, was\nessentially universalist. (See _Ecce Homo_, p. 58. \u2018What I have never\nforgiven Wagner is his condescending to Germany.\u2019) One wonders whether\nthe same might not be said of a certain apostle of \u2018Lorrain genius\u2019 or\nof \u2018Proven\u00e7al genius\u2019.\n\n[46] The nationalization of the mind sometimes has results whose savour\nis not sufficiently enjoyed. In 1904, during the centenary celebrations\nof Petrarch, the nations of Goethe and Shakespeare were not invited,\nbecause they are not Latins; but the Roumanians were invited. We do not\nknow whether Uruguay was invited.\n\n[47] Anatole France, _La Vie Litt\u00e9raire_, tome ii, p. 274. The\nnationalist desires in French writers which I have been pointing out\nhave had other than political results; no one will ever be able to\nsay how many among them in the past fifty years have falsified their\ntalents, mistaken their true gifts in their endeavours to \u2018feel in the\nFrench manner\u2019. A good example is the _Voyage de Sparte_, where so\nmany pages show what a beautiful piece of work it might have been if\nthe author had not _forced_ himself to feel his Lorrain soul under a\nGreek sky. Here we come upon one of the most curious characteristics\nin the writers of this age; the rejection of freedom of mind _for\nthemselves_, the thirst for \u2018a discipline\u2019 (the whole fortune of MM.\nMaurras and Maritain comes from this), a thirst which in most of them\nis the result of a fundamental intellectual nihilism. (On this nihilism\nin Barr\u00e8s, see Curtius, \u2018Barr\u00e8s and the intellectual foundations of\nFrench nationalism,\u2019 extracts in _Union pour la V\u00e9rit\u00e9_, May, 1925;\nin Maurras, see Guy-Grand, op. cit., p. 19; and L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans\nd\u2019Action Fran\u00e7aise_, p. 330: \u2018I have never seen a more unhappy soul\nthan his.\u2019) But the psychology of contemporary writers in itself and\napart from its political action is not my subject here.\n\n[48] I think it novel that a poet should give rise to a demonstration\nso essentially practical as the address of the Naval League of Venice\nto d\u2019Annunzio after the publication of _La Nave_. \u2018On the day when your\ngenius radiates with new splendour over the ancient ruler of \u201cour sea\u201d,\nover Venice, to-day disarmed against Pola, the Naval League of Venice\nthanks you with emotion, hoping that the third Italy may at last arm\nthe prow and set sail towards the world.\u2019 (_Translator\u2019s Note._--I have\nrendered the French version as quoted; its meaning or lack of meaning\nis no doubt inherent in the genius of the original, which I have not\nbefore me.)\n\n[49] Compare with Balzac, who, though a Conservative, never hesitates\nto show his Conservatives and particularly his Catholics in an\nunfavourable light, if he thinks that the true light. See the examples\nquoted by E. Seilli\u00e8re (_Balzac et la morale romantique_, pp. 27\nonwards, and 84 onwards), who sharply reproaches Balzac.\n\n[50] \u2018_Resurrection_,\u2019 \u2018_Jean-Christophe_\u2019 (derived in this respect\nfrom the procedure of George Sand). On the other hand, I seem to find a\ngreat deal of justice done the bourgeois in _Les Miserables_, which is\nnevertheless a most \u2018tendencious\u2019 novel.\n\n[51] For instance, pre-war French novels showing the French in\nAlsace-Lorraine. We may be quite certain that since 1918 the Germans\nhave written novels which are the exact counterpart to these.\n\n[52] See Note G at the end of this book.\n\n[53] See, for instance, Fustel de Coulanges\u2019s study _De la mani\u00e8re\nd\u2019\u00e9crire l\u2019histoire en France et en Allemagne_. It will be observed\nthat this author\u2019s denunciation of the German historians exactly\napplies to certain French historians of recent years, with this\ndifference: That the German alters history to exalt his nation and the\nFrenchman to exalt a political system. In general it may be said that\nthe \u2018tendencious\u2019 philosophies of the Germans lead to national war, and\nthose of the French to civil war. Is it necessary to repeat, after so\nmany others, how much this proves the moral superiority of the latter?\n\n[54] _Revue Universelle_, 15th April, 1924. Here is that very curious\ndesire of the moderns to yield to subjectivism, whereas their elders\nmade every effort to combat it.\n\n[55] See Note H at the end of this book.\n\n[56] Yet the Jesuits thought of doing so to combat the Jansenists. (See\nRacine, _Port-Royal_, pt. i.)\n\n[57] On the matter of the lack of literary sensibility which\naccompanies this political criticism among its adepts, see a paragraph\nof L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans d\u2019Action Fran\u00e7aise_, p. 334.\n\n[58] The distinction between these two humanitarianisms is well\nexpressed by Goethe when he relates (Dichtung und Wahrheit) the\nindifference of himself and his friends to the events of 1789. \u2018In our\nlittle circle, we took no notice of news and newspapers; our object\nwas to know Man; as for men, we left them to do as they chose.\u2019 Need\nI recall that the \u2018humanities\u2019, as instituted by the Jesuits in the\nseventeenth century, the \u2018studia humanitatis\u2019, are \u2018the study of what\nis most essentially human\u2019, in no sense altruistic exercises. See\nfurther Note I at the end of this book for a curious quotation from one\nof the ancients.\n\n[59] This the Church has understood so well, and the corollary to\nthis truth: That love between men can only be created by developing\nin them the sensibility for abstract man, and by combatting in them\nthe interest for concrete man; by turning them towards metaphysical\nmeditation and away from the study of history (see Malebranche). This\nis exactly the contrary direction to that of the modern \u2018clerks\u2019 but,\nonce again, these \u2018clerks\u2019 have not the slightest desire to create love\namong men.\n\n[60] Thus they adopt the national spirit if it seems to serve their\ninterests; for instance, the party of \u2018nationalist-socialists\u2019.\n\n[61] Certain nationalists, desirous of honouring cosmopolitanism,\nwhose full value their intelligence perceives, and yet not wishing\nto sacrifice nationalism, declare that cosmopolitanism represents\n\u2018enlightened nationalism\u2019. M. Paul Bourget, who gives this definition\n(_Paris-Times_, June, 1924), quotes Goethe and Stendhal as examples,\n\u2018the former of whom remained so profoundly German while striving\nto understand the whole movement of French thought, and the\nlatter remained so profoundly French while he devoted himself to\nunderstanding Italy.\u2019 One wonders how these two masters showed the\nleast, even enlightened, \u2018nationalism\u2019 by remaining profoundly German\nand profoundly French. Obviously M. Bourget confuses national and\nnationalist.\n\n[62] Almost all works of national propaganda among the small nations\nof Eastern Europe are anthologies of poetry. Very few are works of\nthought. See the words uttered by E. Boutroux in August, 1915, to the\nCommittee of the Entente Cordiale, against the peoples who attach too\nmuch importance to the intelligence, which \u2018of itself tends to be one\nand common to all beings capable of knowledge\u2019.\n\n[63] _Les Nouvelles Litt\u00e9raires_, 25th September, 1926.\n\n[64] Here is a specimen of the acrobatics which these teachers are\ncompelled to perform in order to conciliate Christian doctrine with\nthe preaching of national particularisms: \u2018We wish to set the ideal of\nuniversalism in positive relation to the contemporary reality of the\nnational form, which is that of all life, even the Christian life.\u2019\n(Pastor Witte, quoted by A. Loisy, _Guerre et Religion_, p. 18.) Here\nare minds for whom the squaring of the circle is obviously mere child\u2019s\nplay.\n\n[65] Is it not suggestive to note that the Church in the last twenty\nyears has replaced the commandment \u2018Homicide shalt thou not be, in fact\nor by assent\u2019 with \u2018Homicide shalt thou not be, without right, nor\nvoluntarily\u2019?\n\n[66] For example in this passage of Bossuet: \u2018Since we are obliged to\nlove all men and since in truth no man is a foreigner to a Christian,\nthere is all the more reason for loving our fellow citizens. All the\nlove a man feels for himself, for his family, and for his friends is\nunited in the love he feels for his country....\u2019 (_Politique tir\u00e9e de\nl\u2019Ecriture Sainte_, I, vi. Notice the phrase \u2018All the love a man feels\nfor himself....\u2019 It wholly justifies Saint Evremond\u2019s phrase: \u2018Love\nof country is really love of oneself.\u2019) It appears that the Church\nwould prefer to go on presenting patriotism under this one aspect of\nlove (see the inquiry of \u2018les Lettres\u2019 on the Church and Nationalism,\n1922-3), which would allow her to exalt this passion (as its\npopularity requires) without violating the principles of Christianity.\nUnfortunately for the Church, positive men come along and remind her\nthat patriotism is something more than love, and includes \u2018hatred for\nthe foreigner\u2019. (Maurras, _Dilemme de Marc Sangnier_.) Who will deliver\nus from the truth-tellers?\n\n[67] A. Lugan, _La grande loi sociale de l\u2019amour des hommes_, liv. ii,\nchap. iii.\n\n[68] P\u00e8re Ollivier, _Les Amiti\u00e9s de Jesus_, p. 142.\n\n[69] _Dictionnaire apolog\u00e9tique de la foi catholique_ (1919), in\nthe article headed \u2018Patrie\u2019. The reader will note the extraordinary\npractical spirit of this article, and the desire to love only those who\nhave done something for us.\n\n[70] Loisy\u2019s _Guerre et Religion_, p. 60. Nevertheless, a certain\nnumber of practising clergy speak in the same way; see Guillot de\nGivry, _Le Christ et la Patrie_, towards the end.\n\n[71] It is current knowledge that Italian Fascism and Russian\nBolshevism both derive from the author of _Reflections on Violence_.\nHe did, indeed, preach class egotism to some extent in a universal\nmanner, but without any explicit preference for the interest of one\nclass rather than that of another. In his preaching of egotism there\nis a kind of impartiality which does not lack grandeur, a quality not\ninherited by his disciples.\n\n[72] And even the teaching of Jesus Christ. R. Johannet says (op. cit.,\np. 153), \u2018I have tried to show what a vast amount of Christianity\nis contained in the bourgeois type, when it is pure. To condemn the\nbourgeois, because he is a bourgeois, in the name of Christ, seems to\nme a somewhat daring paradox.\u2019 But this author does not quote a single\ntext of the Gospels. He only quotes a few interpreters of Saint Thomas\nAquinas, whom he praises for their \u2018extra-realist sense of affairs\u2019,\nand who apparently for him incarnate the thinking of Jesus Christ. This\nwork is one of the most perfect examples of the modern \u2018clerk\u2019s\u2019 desire\nto idealize the practical spirit. (On the subject of Christian doctrine\nin the matter of property, see Father Thomassin, _Trait\u00e9 de l\u2019aum\u00f4ne_.)\n\n[73] It might be said that in Christian theology the bourgeois state is\na _function_, and not a rank.\n\n[74] The essential position of the Church on this point (I say\nessential; for, by close search, one can find texts supporting the\nopposite thesis, but once more the curious thing is the fact that\nthis search should be made) seems to me defined in these lines:\n\u2018Malebranche inclines, like Bossuet, to look upon social inequalities\nand injustices as the results of sin, which must be endured as such,\nand to which exterior conduct must conform.... We must not even attempt\nto remedy these injustices except by charity, for we should simply\ndisturb the peace of the world, probably without any result. Only, _we\nshould not in our own souls attach any sort of importance to these\ncircumstances and conditions, for the true life is not there_\u2019 (H.\nJoly, _Malebranche_, p. 262).\n\n[75] On the relation between Durckheim\u2019s theses and those of the French\ntraditionalists, see D. Parodi, _La Philosophie contemporaine en\nFrance_, p. 148.\n\n[76] \u2018Germany is the sole judge of her methods.\u2019 (Major von Disfurth,\nNovember, 1914.) The philosophy of national moralities seems\nessentially German. Is it not very remarkable to see Hegel and Zeller\ndesiring at all costs to prove that Plato in his _Republic_ defined\na state of good which was only valid for the Greeks, and not for all\npeoples? (See P. Janet, _Histoire des id\u00e9es politiques_, tome 1, p.\n140.)\n\n[77] Barr\u00e8s wrote in 1898: \u2018The professors are still arguing about\njustice and truth, when every self-respecting man knows that he must\nlimit himself to inquiring if there is justice in the relations between\ntwo given men, at a given time, under specified circumstances.\u2019 That is\nexactly what the Germany of 1914 said in answer to those who brought\naccusations against her. Not a single moralist in France before\nBarr\u00e8s--not even de Maistre or Bonald--would have asserted that \u2018every\nself-respecting man\u2019 can conceive of no justice but one specially\narranged for the circumstances.\n\n[78] _L\u2019Appel au Soldat._ Compare this with the traditional French\nteaching, of which Barr\u00e8s claims to be the heir: \u2018Whatever your country\nmay be, you should only believe what you would be disposed to believe\nif you were in another country.\u2019 (_Logique de Port-Royal_, iii, xx.)\nIt must not be thought that dogma of national truths aims only at\nmoral truth. Recently certain French thinkers waxed indignant that the\ndoctrines of Einstein were accepted by their compatriots without more\nresistance.\n\n[79] The adoration of the contingent _for its own sake_; otherwise,\nand as a step towards the eternal, the knowledge of \u2018strange things\u2019\nis highly recommended by Leibniz, and even by Spinoza. Renouvier, so\nhostile to a certain kind of universalism, never bestows philosophical\nvalue on a knowledge of what is \u2018unique and inexpressible\u2019 in the\nobject. (See G. S\u00e9ailles, \u2018Le Pluralisme de Renouvier,\u2019 _Revue de\nM\u00e9taphysique et de Morale_, 1925.) He would never have signed this\ncharter of modern metaphysics: \u2018That the philosophers since Socrates\nshould have contended as to which should most scorn the knowledge of\nthe particular and should most adore knowledge of the general, is\nsomething which passes understanding. For, after all, must not the most\nhonourable knowledge be the knowledge of the most valuable realities!\nAnd is there a valuable reality which is not concrete and individual?\u2019\n(William James.)\n\n[80] An important literary review recently reproached a critic\n(M. Pierre Lasserre) for his supposed inaptitude to understand\n\u2018contemporary literature\u2019.\n\n[81] Curiously enough, these metaphysics of the historic may also be\nfound among the poets. We all know Claudel\u2019s cult of \u2018the present\nminute\u2019 (because it differs from all other minutes in that it is not\nthe extremity of the same quantity of the past); Rimbaud before this\nsaid: \u2018One must be absolutely modern.\u2019 Moreover, for certain Christians\ndogma is only valid _relative to a time_. There again particularism\nseems to have been started by the Germans: \u2018No exposition of morality\ncan be the same for all periods of the Christian Church; each possesses\nfull and complete value for a certain period only.\u2019 (Scheiermacher.) On\nthe Germanism in this desire to see everything in its \u2018becoming\u2019, see\nParodi, _le Probl\u00e8me moral et la Pens\u00e9e contemporaine_, p. 255.\n\n[82] These views on the modern cult of the particular do not seem to\nme to be invalidated by the arrival of a recent school (Neo-Thomism)\nwhich opposes the cult of Being to that of Becoming. According to the\nleaders of this school, it is clear that, despite certain universalist\ndeclarations, human Being really belongs only to them and their group,\nalthough in this case the group is wider than the nation. One of them\nwould quite willingly say with a Christian of the second century: \u2018We\nare men; the rest are pigs and dogs.\u2019 Nor do I think I need take into\naccount those particularisms which claim that by working for themselves\nthey are working for the universal, seeing that for them their own\ngroup represents the universal. \u2018I am Roman, I am human\u2019 (Maurras). \u2018I\nam German, I am human\u2019 (Fichte) and so on.... However, these claims\nshow the prestige of the universal in despite of doctrines.\n\n[83] See Note J at the end of this book.\n\n[84] On the cult of the \u2018Prussian model\u2019 even among the English\n\u2018clerks\u2019, see Elie Hal\u00e9vy, _Histoire du Peuple anglais_, Epilogue,\nlivre ii, ch. i.\n\n[85] Sorel, _Le proc\u00e8s de Socrate_.\n\n[86] This has been perfectly obvious to all those guardians of the\nspiritual who have condemned it, whatever their motives may have been.\nMore precisely, Maurras\u2019s work makes the passion of man to found the\nState (or to strengthen it) an object of religious adoration; it\nis really the worldly made transcendental. This displacing of the\ntranscendental is the secret of the great influence exerted by Maurras\non his contemporaries. These persons, especially in irreligious\nFrance, were plainly eager for such a doctrine, if one may judge by\nthe outburst of gratitude with which they greeted it, and which seems\nto say: \u2018At last we are delivered from God; at last we are allowed to\nadore ourselves in our will to be great, not in our will to be good; we\nare shown the ideal in the real, on earth and not in heaven.\u2019 In this\nsense, Maurras\u2019s work is the same as Nietzsche\u2019s (\u2018be faithful to the\nearth\u2019), with this difference, that the German thinker deifies man in\nhis anarchic passions, and the Frenchman in his organising passions.\nIt is also the same as the work of Bergson and James, inasmuch as it\nsays like them: the real is the only ideal. This _secularizing of the\ndivine_ may be compared with the work of Luther.\n\n[87] Machiavellian morality is plainly proclaimed in the following\nlines, where every open-minded person will recognize, except for the\ntone, the teaching of _all_ the present teachers of realism, whatever\ntheir nationality: \u2018In his relations with other States, the Prince\nshould know neither law nor right, except the right of the strongest.\nThese relations place in his hands, under his responsibility, the\ndivine rights of the Destiny and government of the world, and raise\nhim above the precepts of individual morality into a higher moral\norder, whose content is enshrined in the words: Salus populi suprema\nlex esto.\u2019 (Fichte, quoted by Andler, op. cit., p. 33.) The advance on\nMachiavelli is obvious.\n\n[88] The teaching of this writer may be put in this form: \u2018All that\nis good from the point of view of politics is good; _and I know no\nother criterion of good_.\u2019 This enables him to say that he makes no\npronouncement in matters of private morality.\n\n[89] In Richelieu\u2019s _Testament politique_ and the _M\u00e9moires de Louis\nXIV pour l\u2019Instruction du Dauphin_, the catalogue of good and ill might\nbe signed by Saint Vincent de Paul. We read in them: \u2018Kings should\ntake care in making treaties, but once the treaties are made, _they\nmust observe them religiously_. I know that many politicians teach the\ncontrary; but, without taking into consideration all that the Christian\nFaith provides us with against these maxims, I maintain that since\nthe loss of honour is greater than the loss of life itself, a great\nPrince should hazard his person and _even the interest of his State\nrather than break his word_, which he cannot violate without losing his\nreputation, and consequently _the greatest strength_ of a Sovereign.\u2019\n(_Testament Politique_, part 2, ch. vi.)\n\n[90] Similarly with the writer--Machiavelli, who writes for his\npeers, can allow himself the luxury of not being a moralist; Maurras\nwho writes for crowds cannot do so. No one writes with impunity in a\ndemocracy. Moreover, a political activity which is supported by moral\nactivity proves that it understands the true conditions of its success.\nA master in these matters says: \u2018There can be no profound political\nreform unless religion and morality are also reformed.\u2019 (Hegel.)\nClearly the particular influence of the _Action Fran\u00e7aise_ among\nall other conservative organs is due to the fact that its political\nmovement is supported by a moral teaching, although other interests\noblige it to deny this.\n\n[91] _Dictionnaire des Cas de Conscience_ (ed. 1712), article \u2018Guerre\u2019.\nWith such a morality the territorial formation of any European State\nwould become impossible. This is the type of non-practical teaching,\ni.e. of what I mean by the true \u2018clerk\u2019. (See Note F at the end of\nthis book on the subject of the welcome given to this teaching by the\nmaterial world.) In the opinion of Vittoria as well, the extension of\nempire is not a just cause.\n\n[92] This is the thesis of Alfonso Liguori which to-day prevails in the\nChurch\u2019s teaching over that of Vittoria.\n\n[93] Cardinal Gousset (_Th\u00e9ologie morale_, 1845).\n\n[94] This is the Scholastic doctrine of war, formulated in all its\nrigidity by Thomas Aquinas. According to this doctrine, the Prince\n(or the people) who declares war, acts as a magistrate (minister Dei)\nunder whose jurisdiction a foreign nation falls, owing to an injustice\nit has committed and which it refuses to repair. From this it follows,\nin particular, that the Prince who has declared war ought solely\nto punish the guilty, if he is victorious, and not to acquire any\npersonal benefit from his victory. This high moral doctrine is entirely\nabandoned by the Church to-day. (See Vanderpol, _La Guerre devant le\nChristianisme_, titre ix.)\n\n[95] Apparently this was the view adopted by the Holy See in 1914\ntowards the Franco-German war, Germany benefiting by what theology\ncalls \u2018invincible\u2019 ignorance, i.e. implying that one has used all\nthe diligence of which a man is capable in trying to understand the\nexplanations of an adversary. Obviously, one may feel that some\ngoodwill was needed to think that Germany had a right to this benefit.\n\n[96] Like the thesis of war being just on both sides, this is the\ndoctrine of Molina, which in matters of law in war has entirely\nreplaced Scholastic doctrine in ecclesiastic teaching.\n\n[97] In the _Dictionnaire th\u00e9ologique_ of Vacant-Mangenot (1922,\narticle \u2018Guerre\u2019), I find the following passage, which I recommend to\nall aggressors desirous of sheltering under a high moral authority: \u2018It\nis not only the right but the duty of the leader of a nation to adopt\nthis method (i.e. war) to safeguard the general interests committed to\nhis care. This right and duty apply not only to a strictly defensive\nwar, but also to an offensive war rendered necessary by the actions\nof a neighbouring State whose ambitious intrigues constitute a real\ndanger.\u2019 In the same article will be found a theory of colonial wars\nidentical to Kipling\u2019s when he calls them: _the white man\u2019s burden_.\n\n[98] This expression (i.e. \u2018la blague\u2019) is Sorel\u2019s (see Julien Benda,\n_Les Sentiments de Critias_, p. 258); and again (_Reflexions sur la\nViolence_, ch. ii): \u2018You cannot sufficiently execrate those who teach\nthe people that they should carry out some alleged superlatively\nidealistic injunction of a justice moving towards the future.\u2019\nMoreover, Sorel professes a similar hatred for those who preach this\ninjunction to the bourgeoisie.\n\n[99] See Note K at the end of the book.\n\n[100] See _Reflexions sur la Violence_, ch. vi: \u2018The morality of\nViolence.\u2019 We shall be told that the justice denounced by Sorel is the\njustice of tribunals, which according to him is a false justice, a\n\u2018violence with a judicial mask\u2019. There is no indication that a justice\nwhich was a true justice would receive any more respect from him.\n\n[101] In this respect one cannot stress too much in certain political\nteachers a defence of intolerance, carried out with a consciousness and\narrogance which hitherto had only appeared sometimes in the mandatories\nof a revealed religion. A specimen is quoted by G. Guy-Grand (_La\nPhilosophie nationaliste_, p. 47). See also one of these defences in L.\nRomier, _Nation et Civilisation_, p. 180.\n\n[102] \u2018Modern science has established as the measure of truth, not the\ndeductive demands of its understanding, but the observed existence\nof the fact.\u2019 (Paul Bourget.) The \u2018truth\u2019 here is evidently moral\ntruth; for scientific truth the phrase would be a tautology. Once\nmore, here the \u2018fact\u2019 is solely the fact which happens to suit the\nauthor\u2019s passions. When M. d\u2019Haussonville points out to M. Bourget that\ndemocracy is a fact, and an unavoidable fact, he is told that this\nbelief is a \u2018prejudice\u2019 and one suddenly learns that \u2018boats are made to\nrow against the stream\u2019. This is exactly what revolutionaries say.\n\n[103] See Note L at the end of this book.\n\n[104] Another thinker to whom our empiricists are strangely ungrateful\nis the author of these words: \u2018Consider the danger of one stirring up\nthe enormous masses which form the French nation. Who could restrain\nthe disturbance set up, or foresee all the results it might produce?\nEven if all the advantages of the new scheme should be indisputable,\nwhat man of good sense would dare to undertake to abolish old customs,\nto change old maxims, and to give a new form to a State other than that\nit has reached after an existence of 1,300 years?\u2019 (J. J. Rousseau.)\n\n[105] See Note M at the end of this book.\n\n[106] \u2018A truly scientific mind,\u2019 says one of these devotees of fact,\n\u2018feels no need to justify a privilege which appears as an elementary\nand irreducible datum of the social world.\u2019 (Paul Bourget.) But this\nsame \u2018truly scientific\u2019 mind is scandalised at an _insurrection_\nagainst this privilege, which is also an \u2018elementary and irreducible\ndatum of the social world\u2019. I shall be told this that insurrection is\nnot a datum of the social world, but of the world of passion where it\nis most anti-social. And that indeed is the position of this dogmatism:\nIt considers the social _independent of the passionate_, whether the\nlatter has been made social (by Catholic education), or has been\nreduced to silence by force (school of Maurras) or by skill (school\nof Bainville). The strangest part of it all is that those who argue\nin this way about the social _in itself_ accuse their adversaries of\ndealing in abstractions.\n\n[107] The position I am here denouncing has nothing in common with that\nof a recent school of moralists (Rauh, L\u00e9vy-Bruhl) who also desire \u2018to\ntake man as he is\u2019, but in order to discover how he may be made better.\n\n[108] This pessimism, whatever some of its heralds may say, has nothing\nin common with the pessimism of the masters of the seventeenth century.\nLa Fontaine and La Bruy\u00e8re attribute nothing inevitable or eternal to\nthe ills they portray. Let me also point out that in their efforts\nto discourage hope, the Romantics of Pessimism cannot claim (as M.\nGeorges Goyau has pointed out to them) that they are based on Catholic\ntradition.\n\n[109] Such a group logically comes to declarations like the following,\nwhich every supporter of \u2018integral nationalism\u2019 is bound to admire:\n\u2018From to-night onwards let there be an end to the silly Utopia where\neveryone thinks with his own head.\u2019 (Impero, 4th November, 1926.) See\nNote N at the end of this volume.\n\n[110] On Pragmatism, especially Nietzschean pragmatism, and the place\nit holds (whether they confess it or not) in almost all the moral\nand political teachings really characteristic of this time, see R.\nBerthelot, _Un Romantisme Utilitaire_, tome i, page 28 onwards. I can\nbest show the novelty of the pragmatist attitude, especially among the\nFrench moralists, by quoting a remark of Montaigne which they all,\nbefore Barr\u00e8s, would have ratified: \u2018The honour and beauty of an action\ncannot be argued from its utility.\u2019 Let us not forget, however, that\nNietzsche, always unfaithful to his disciples, declares that \u2018in the\nlong run, utility, like everything else, is simply a figment of our\nimagination, and may well be the _fatal stupidity by which we shall one\nday perish_\u2019.\n\n[111] That it why Pragmatism is also called Humanism. (See F. Schiller,\n_Protagoras or Plato_.)\n\n[112] We know how the two are reconciled. Jesus, they say, preached\nthe spirit of sacrifice, which is the basis of all human institutions.\nAs if Jesus preached the spirit of sacrifice which wins battles and\nsecures empires!\n\n[113] \u2018The true warrior remains human in the midst of the blood he\nsheds.\u2019 (De Maistre.)\n\n[114] For example, when they make a soldier say in heaven: \u2018You must\nknow, my friends, that among all things done upon earth, nothing\nis more agreeable to the eyes of those who rule the universe than\nsocieties of men founded upon respect for laws, which we call cities.\u2019\n(Cicero, _Scipio\u2019s Dream_.)\n\n[115] Sorel, loc. cit.\n\n[116] And from any patriotism. Nietzsche and Sorel prove that love of\nwar is something totally distinct from love of country, although most\noften they coincide.\n\n[117] Ernest Psichari, _Terres de Soleil et de Sommeil_. And, in\n_L\u2019Appel des armes_, through the mouth of a character who obviously has\nall the author\u2019s sympathies; \u2018I think it necessary that there should be\nin the world a certain number of the men who are called soldiers and\nwho place their ideal in fighting, who have a taste for battle, not for\nvictory but for the contest, as hunters have a taste for hunting, not\nfor game!... The part we have to play, or otherwise we lose our reason\nfor existing and have no more meaning, is to maintain a military ideal,\nnot a nationally military ideal, but a militarily military ideal, if\nI may so express it.\u2019 The religion of this moralist is, according\nto his own expression, _integral militarism_. \u2018Big guns,\u2019 he says,\n\u2018are the most real realities which exist, the sole realities of the\nmodern world.\u2019 And obviously these realities are divinities for this\n\u2018spiritual\u2019 person and his followers.\n\n[118] This depreciation of Greece, to be seen in many French\ntraditionalists since de Maistre, is constant among the Pangermanists.\n(See notably Houston Chamberlain, _Genesis of the Nineteenth Century_,\ntome i, page 57.) In a periodical with dogmatic claims (_Notre Temps_,\nAugust, 1927), under the suggestive title \u2018Towards a Practical\nIdealism\u2019, I read: \u2018A young generation trained in this way, _more\nsporting than ideological_, supports those who ask whether we are\nnot at the dawn of a great age.\u2019 Here again the Churchmen do not\nlag behind. In _La Vie Catholique_ (24th September, 1927) I find a\nwarm eulogy of a champion boxer. It is true that this eulogy ends up\nwith the words: \u2018Finally, let us add that Tunney is a convinced and\npractising Catholic, and that two of his sisters are nuns.\u2019\n\n[119] Laws, Book I. The exact text of Plato is: \u2018In the order of\nvirtues, wisdom is first, temperance comes next, courage occupies the\nlast place.\u2019 Plato here means by courage (see the context, notably the\npassage about those soldiers who \u2018though insolent, unjust, immoral,\nknow how to fight\u2019) Man\u2019s aptitude for facing death. It seems that he\nwould not have given the first place to the courage which is strength\nof mind, a resistance to misfortune, as the Stoics afterwards did.\nWith him strength of mind always comes after justice--according to his\ndoctrine, it is a consequence of justice. Moreover, the courage placed\nin the supreme rank by Barr\u00e8s is not Stoic patience but the active\ndefiance of death. For Nietzsche and Sorel it is essential audacity,\nwhere audacity is irrational--a form of courage depreciated by all\nancient moralists and their disciples. (See Plato, Laches; Aristotle,\nEthics, VIII; Spinoza, Ethics, IV, 69; even the poets--\u2018Our reason\nwhich commands our fire,\u2019 Ronsard.)\n\nIt seems that facing death, even on behalf of justice, was not so much\nthe object of praise among the ancient philosophers as it is among the\nmoderns. In the Phaedo, Socrates is praised for his justice; he is not\nvery loudly praised because he died for justice. Moreover, the views\nof the ancients on this point seem to me well expressed by Spinoza:\n\u2018Death is a thing of which the free man thinks least of all,\u2019 a thought\nwhich does not imply much admiration for those who face death bravely.\nOne wonders whether the veneration of courage, at least among the\nmoralists, has not been created by Christianity, with the importance it\nattaches to death, and the subsequent appearance before God.\n\nI cannot leave this point without recalling a passage where Saint-Simon\nspeaks of a nobility \u2018accustomed to be good for nothing except to get\nitself killed\u2019, _M\u00e9moires_, t. xi, page 427, ed. Cheruel. It may be\nasserted that there is not one modern writer, even a Duke of France,\nwho would speak of courage in such a tone.\n\n[120] And to hold.\n\n[121] There will be found in Barr\u00e8s (_Une Enqu\u00eate aux pays du Levant_,\nchap. vii: \u2018Les derniers fid\u00e8les du Vieux de la Montagne\u2019) a striking\nexample of admiration for the cult of honour inasmuch as this cult,\nwhen ably exploited by an intelligent leader, gives practical results.\n\n[122] This is especially the case with Montaigne who, as everyone\nknows, extols honour insofar as it is man\u2019s sensitiveness to the\njudgment of his conscience, but very little insofar as it is a desire\nfor glory--\u2018put off with other pleasures that which comes from the\napprobation of others.\u2019 Barr\u00e8s believes he sees in that \u2018a foreigner\nwho does not share our prejudices\u2019. Barr\u00e8s confuses the moralists and\nthe poets. Before him I do not know one French author with dogmatic\nclaims who has attributed a high moral value to the love of glory; the\nFrench moralists before 1890 are very unmilitary, even the soldiers\nlike Vauvenargues and Vigny. (See the excellent study of G. Le Bidois,\n_L\u2019Honneur au miroir de nos lettres_, especially on Montesquieu.)\n\n[123] The Abb\u00e9 Sertillanges, _L\u2019H\u00e9roisme et la Gloire_. Compare this\nwith Bossuet\u2019s two sermons on \u2018The Honour of the World\u2019. You can\nmeasure the advance made by the Church during three centuries in its\nconcessions to lay passions. See also Nicole: \u2018On the true idea of\nvalour.\u2019 The sermons of the Abb\u00e9 Sertillanges (\u2018la Vie H\u00e9ro\u00efque\u2019)\nshould be read entire, as a monument of a Churchman\u2019s enthusiasm for\nwarlike instincts. It is positively the manifesto of a helmed \u2018clerk\u2019.\nYou can find in them such emotions as the following which, mutatis\nmutandis, might be an extract from the Regimental Orders of a Colonel\nof the Death\u2019s Head Hussars: \u2018Behold Guynemer, the young hero, the\nsimple soul with the eagle glance, the slim Hercules, the Achilles who\ndoes not retire to his tent, the Roland of the clouds and the Cid of\nthe French sky: was there ever a wilder and more furious paladin, more\ncareless of death, whether his own or that of an enemy? This \u201ckid\u201d, as\nhis comrades called him, only enjoyed the savage pleasure of attack, of\nthe hard fight, of the clear victory, and in him the arrogance of the\nconqueror was at once charming and terrible.\u2019\n\n[124] Let me recall Thomas Aquinas\u2019s definition of honour, which is not\nexactly the definition of the honour extolled by the Abb\u00e9 Sertillanges:\n\u2018Honour is good (like the love of human glory) on condition that\ncharity is its principle, and the love of God or the good of one\u2019s\nneighbour as its object.\u2019\n\n[125] See the recent Bill to amend Martial Law, known as the Paul\nBoncour Bill.\n\n[126] This suggestive remark is Lavisse\u2019s, _Etudes d\u2019Histoire de\nPrusse_, page 30. See the whole passage.\n\n[127] Love here is obviously love for the superior species--to which\nthe preacher naturally belongs. Doubtless it is this love also which\npermits of a pity which is not \u2018perverted.\u2019\n\n[128] Charles Maurras, _Action Fran\u00e7aise_, tome iv, page 596. One\nthinks of Nietzsche\u2019s exclamation: \u2018Humanity! Was there ever a more\nhorrible old woman among all horrible old women!\u2019 and the German master\nadds, always in agreement with many a French master as we shall see\nlater, \u2018unless perhaps it is truth.\u2019\n\n[129] Their harshness has obviously nothing in common with the\nharshness implied by these fine words: \u2018The man of justice subordinates\npassion to reason, which seems regrettable if his heart is cold, but\nwill appear sublime if he is capable of love\u2019 (Renouvier).\n\n[130] This is the opinion of Machiavelli (chap. xviii) who, there\nagain, does not therefore consider cruelty as a proof of a high state\nof culture.\n\n[131] I find this from the pen of a hero of the First Empire: \u2018I was\nafraid of feeling _pleasure_\u2019 (the author himself underlines the word)\n\u2018in killing with my own hand some of these scoundrels\u2019 (he is speaking\nof some Germans who murdered French prisoners after the battle of\nLeipzic). \u2018I therefore sheathed my sabre and left the extermination\nof these assassins to the troopers.\u2019 (_Memoirs of General Marbot_,\ntome iii, page 344.) There is a condemnation of the joy of killing\nwhich would be scorned by many a contemporary writer. In France the\nglorification of warlike instincts is much less common among the\nsoldiers than among the authors. Marbot is far less bloody-minded than\nBarr\u00e8s.\n\n[132] \u2018And the honour of virtue consists in contending, not in winning\u2019\n(Montaigne).\n\n[133] _La Ruine du monde antique_, page 76. See also in _Les Illusions\ndu progr\u00e8s_ (page 259) Sorel\u2019s derisive amusement at a thinker who\nsaid that the preponderance of intellectual emotions is the sign of\nsuperior societies. We may take up Sainte-Beuve\u2019s famous distinction\nand say that modern thinkers extol _sword-intelligence_ at the expense\nof _mirror-intelligence_. On their own showing it is the former they\nadmire in Nietzsche, Sorel, P\u00e9guy, and Maurras. (See R. Gillouin,\n_Esquisses litt\u00e9raires et morales_, page 52.) Let me observe that\ncontempt for \u2018mirror-intelligence\u2019 implies contempt for Aristotle,\nSpinoza, Bacon, Goethe, and Renan. Nor does it seem to me that M. Paul\nVal\u00e9ry is exactly a \u2018sword-intelligence\u2019.\n\n[134] _Victor Marie, Comte Hugo_, towards the end. See Note O at the\nend of this volume.\n\n[135] This it the only reason why Nietzsche extols art, and declares\n(along with all modern moralism) the supremacy of the artist over the\nphilosopher, because art seems to him to possess the value of action.\nApart from this point of view, it seems just to say with one of his\ncritics: \u2018At bottom Nietzsche despised art and artists.... In art he\ncondemns a feminine principle, the mimicry of the actor, the love of\ndress and all that glitters.... Remember the eloquent page where he\npraises Shakespeare, the greatest of poets, for having abased the\nfigure of the poet, whom he treats as a stage-player, before Caesar,\n_that divine man_.\u2019 (C. Schuwer, _Revue de M\u00e9taphysique et de Morale_,\nApril, 1926.) For Sorel art is great because it is an anticipation of\nintense production, as it tends to manifest itself more and more in our\nsociety.\n\n[136] _Evolution Cr\u00e9atrice_, page 216. The true formula of Bergsonism\nshould be, \u2018I grow, therefore I am.\u2019 Notice also the tendency of modern\nphilosophy to make the practical character of thought its essential\ncharacteristic and to make its consciousness of itself a secondary\ncharacteristic: \u2018Perhaps thought must be defined as the faculty of\ncombining means towards certain ends rather than by the sole property\nof being clear to itself.\u2019 (D. Roustan, _Le\u00e7ons de Psychologie_, page\n73.)\n\n[137] The Sphex. The example is given in _L\u2019Evolution Cr\u00e9atrice_, and\nhas had an immense success in the literary world. (It is, moreover,\nimaginary. See Marie Goldsmith, _Psychologie Compar\u00e9e_, page 211.) The\ndefence of the practical value of instinct, with the same Romantic\ncontempt of the rationalist as in Barr\u00e8s, existed with J. J. Rousseau:\n\u2018Conscience never deceives us; it is to the soul what instinct is\nto the body.... Modern philosophy, which only admits what can be\nexplained, takes care not to admit the obscure faculty called instinct\nwhich, without acquired knowledge, seems to guide animals towards some\nend.\u2019 (_Confession de foi du vicaire savoyard._)\n\n[138] \u2018If the utility which results from a man\u2019s occupations determined\nour praise, the inventor of the plough would deserve the praise of\nbeing a great mind far more than Aristotle, Galilei, and M. Descartes.\u2019\n(Bayle.) Fontenelle and Voltaire have pointed out the utility of\ncertain studies which were considered useless; they never meant that\nthose who cultivated these studies while they thought them useless were\ntherefore contemptible.\n\n[139] See above, page 54.\n\n[140] Or moral. Barr\u00e8s denounces the \u2018immorality\u2019 of the scholar who\nshows the part played by chance in history. Compare Michelet\u2019s remark,\n\u2018respect kills history.\u2019\n\n[141] As is well known, this is the argument of the \u2018Avenir\nde l\u2019intelligence\u2019. It allows followers to say (\u2018Manifeste de\nl\u2019Intelligence,\u2019 _Figaro_, 19th July, 1919; on this manifesto, see Note\nP at the end of this volume) that \u2018one of the most obvious missions\nof the Church during the ages has been to protect the intelligence\nagainst its own errors\u2019--an irrefutable saying from the moment that the\nerrors of the intelligence are everything it says without reference to\nsocial order (whose basis is to be the teaching of the Church). This\npractical conception of the intelligence leads to definitions of this\nsort: \u2018True logic is to be defined as the normal union of feelings,\nimages and signs, to inspire in us the conceptions suited to our moral,\nintellectual and physical needs.\u2019 (Maurras.) Compare this with the\ntradition teaching of the French masters: \u2018Logic is the art of guiding\nreason properly in the knowledge of things.\u2019 (_Logique de Port-Royal._)\n\nThe wish to esteem intelligence according to its practical results\nappears again in this astounding formula: \u2018A critical mind is of value\n_through the influence it exerts_ by means of the enlightenment it\nbestows.\u2019 (Maurras.) See also how severe is M. Massis (_Jugements_, i,\n87) for Renan when he says: \u2018The useful is what I abhor.\u2019 Elsewhere\n(_Jugements_, 107) the same thinker speaks of a spiritual freedom\n\u2018whose disinterestedness is merely a refusal of the conditions of life,\nof action, _and of thought_!\u2019\n\n[142] They add \u2018and unscientific\u2019, which is irrefutable as soon as\nscience means \u2018practical\u2019. \u2018Bringing up children religiously,\u2019 says M.\nPaul Bourget, \u2018is bringing them up scientifically\u2019--a very defensible\nsaying as soon as \u2018scientifically\u2019 means (as the author here wants it\nto mean) \u2018in conformity with the national interest\u2019.\n\n[143] The French traditionalists condemn the truth in itself in the\nname of \u2018social\u2019 truth. This is the _glorification of prejudices_,\na new thing indeed in the descendants of Montaigne and Voltaire. It\nmay be said that certain contemporary French masters show a zeal in\ndefending the interests of society never seen before in those whose\nbusiness was to defend the interests of the mind.\n\nThe condemnation of disinterested intellectual activity is plainly\nlaid down in this command of Barr\u00e8s: \u2018All questions must be solved in\nrelation to France,\u2019 to which a German thinker replies in 1920, \u2018All\nthe conquests of ancient and modern culture and of science are looked\nat by us from the German point of view before everything.\u2019 (Quoted by\nC. Chabot, Preface to the French translation of _Speeches to the German\nNation_, page xix). For the cult of the \u2018useful error\u2019, see an amazing\npage in the _Jardin de B\u00e9r\u00e9nice_, quoted and commented on by Parodi.\n(_Traditionalisme et Democratie_, page 136.)\n\n[144] Here M. Maurras separates from his Master, de Maistre, who speaks\nof \u2018the ocean which will one day welcome everything and everyone to\nits bosom\u2019. However, the author of the _Soir\u00e9es de Saint-Petersbourg_\nquickly adds: \u2018But I refrain from touching on personality, without\nwhich immortality is nothing.\u2019\n\n[145] On the existence of this doctrine of immanence among almost all\nChristian teachers until our own times, see Renouvier: \u2018l\u2019Id\u00e9e de Dieu\u2019\n(_Ann\u00e9e Philosophique_, 1897), and also _Essai d\u2019une Classification des\ndoctrines_, 3: _l\u2019\u00e9volution_; _la cr\u00e9ation_.\n\n[146] According to Hegel, God constantly grows at the expense of His\nopposite; His activity is essentially that of war and victory.\n\n[147] Let me note a keen protest against this conception in\n\u2018Neo-Thomism\u2019.\n\n[148] Compare, for instance, the condemnation of Rosmini with that of\nMa\u00eetre Eckart, where such propositions as \u2018Nulla in Deo distinctio\nesse aut intelligi potest\u2019 and \u2018Omnes creaturae sunt purum nihil\u2019\nare declared to be, not heretical, but only \u2018ill-sounding, rash and\nsuspected of heresy\u2019.\n\n[149] Remember that in 1806, immediately after Jena, Hegel\u2019s one\nthought was to find a corner in which to philosophize. In 1813\nSchopenhauer was completely indifferent to the up-rising of Germany\nagainst Napoleon.\n\n[150] \u2018No one has the right to be indifferent to the disasters of his\ncountry; but the philosopher, like the Christian, always has reasons\nfor living. The Kingdom of God knows neither conquerors nor conquered;\nthat Kingdom resides in the joys of the heart, the mind, and the\nimagination, which the conquered enjoys more than the conqueror if he\nis morally on a higher plane and has more mind. Your great Goethe, your\nadmirable Fichte have taught us, have they not, how to lead a noble and\nconsequently happy life, when our country is humiliated abroad.\u2019 (First\nLetter to Strauss.)\n\nNeed I say that Nietzsche, who seems to me a bad \u2018clerk\u2019 from the\nnature of his teaching, seems to me one of the finest from his entire\ndevotion to the passions of the spirit alone?\n\n[151] Of course, I am not doubting the sincerity of all the\n\u2018right-thinking\u2019 men of letters. Some persons are so fortunate that\nthe most profitable attitudes are precisely those which they adopt\nsincerely.\n\n[152] This may be clearly seen by the ill-will displayed by the French\nbourgeoisie towards the order of their \u2018spiritual leader\u2019 forbidding\nthem to read a publication whose doctrines they like. The change may be\nestimated if you remember that when, a century ago, the Pope ordered\nthe French Catholics to accept the law against the Jesuits voted by the\ngovernment of Charles X, they all bowed to his will.\n\n[153] At the end of the War of the Spanish Succession when the north of\nFrance was invaded, F\u00e9nelon delivered several sermons in which he told\nthe invaded population that their sufferings were the just punishment\nfor their sins. Imagine the reception of anyone who dared to preach\nsuch a sermon to the French in August, 1914! For the manner in which\nthe \u2018taught\u2019 Church to-day treats the \u2018teaching\u2019 Church if the latter\ndoes not say what it wants to hear, think of the reception thirty years\nago of Father Ollivier\u2019s sermon on the victims of the fire at the\ncharity bazaar.\n\n[154] Similar observations may be made about the philosophers, most of\nwhom--and not the least famous--do not live to-day like Descartes and\nSpinoza, but are married, have children, occupy posts, are \u2018in daily\nlife\u2019. All of which seems to me to have a relation with the \u2018pragmatic\u2019\ncharacter of their teaching. (On this point, see my book: _Sur le\nSucc\u00e8s du Bergsonisme_, page 207.)\n\n[155] This is the reign (which seems eternal in France) of the \u2018wit\u2019,\nwith his attribute so admirably denounced by Malebranche in this\ndelicious phrase: \u2018The stupid person and the wit are equally blind to\ntruth; with this difference, that the stupid person respects truth\nwhile the wit despises it.\u2019\n\n[156] The spectacle of democracies may satisfy another sort of artistic\nsensibility, i.e. the sort which is moved, not by the spectacle of\norder, but by the spectacle of an equilibrium between forces which\nare naturally in opposition. (On this distinction, see the great book\nby M. Hauriou, _Principes de droit public_, chap. i.) Nevertheless,\na sensibility to equilibrium is far more intellectual than truly\nartistic. See Note Q at the end of this book.\n\n[157] More precisely, since the haughty Romanticism I mentioned above.\nThe artist\u2019s desire to set himself up as an exceptional being dates\nfrom Flaubert. Hugo and Lamartine never expressed it.\n\n[158] This aversion is particularly strong in Nietzsche. (See _Le\nGai s\u00e7avoir_, loc. cit., where generalization becomes a synonym for\nplatitude, superficiality, stupidity.) Like a true artist, Nietzsche\nis incapable of understanding that the apperception of a common\ncharacteristic may be an act of genius--for instance, the apperception\nof the common characteristic between the movement of the planets and\nthe fall of an apple.\n\n[159] So much so that the true champions of \u2018sacred egoism\u2019 definitely\ncondemn them. Bismarck, Wilhelm II, Naumann, Houston Chamberlain, all\nargue against classical teaching.\n\n[160] Remember that Nietzsche only truly esteems the thought of the\nancients up to Socrates, i.e. up to the time when it begins to teach\nthe universal.\n\n[161] This same Barr\u00e8s is quoted as having said to a \u2018Dreyfusist\u2019 in\n1898: \u2018Why do you talk of justice and humanity to me! What do I care\nfor? A few pictures in Europe and a few cemeteries!\u2019 Another of our\ngreat political realists confessed one day to his fundamental necessity\nto \u2018enjoy\u2019. Socrates long ago told Protagoras that the basis of his\ndoctrine was a thirst for sensation.\n\n[162] It seems to me difficult to deny that pacifism, humanitarianism,\nand altruism are _boring_. No doubt, art, science, and philosophy offer\nsufficient opportunities for \u2018amusement\u2019 without one asking of it\ndoctrines which set the world on fire. But that is the view of a man\nwho is not wildly eager for sensation.\n\n[163] The realists are not the only people to-day who find\nopportunities for sensation in their political attitudes. It is certain\nthat the humanitarianism of Victor Hugo and Michelet is far from having\nthe pure intellectual resonance it had in Spinoza and Malebranche. (See\nabove, my distinction between humanitarianism and humanism.)\n\n[164] \u2018Peace it not the absence of war, but a virtue born from strength\nof soul.\u2019 (Spinoza.)\n\n[165] Here is an example: \u2018Universal peace will come about one day, not\nbecause men will become better (one cannot hope for that) but because\na new order of things, new science, new economic needs, will impose a\nstate of peace on them, just as the very conditions of their existence\nformerly placed and maintained them in a state of war.\u2019 (Anatole\nFrance, _Sur la Pierre blanche_.) Note the refusal, mentioned above, to\nbelieve in any possible betterment of the human soul.\n\n[166] This observation applied to nearly all anti-militarist literature\nup to our own times. We have to come to Renan and Renouvier (at least\namong writers not of the Church) to find authors who speak of war and\nnational passions with the seriousness and respect due to such dramas.\n\n[167] I am not to say whether the claims of France after her victory\nmight have been _impolitic_, for the thinkers I am discussing here\nonly speak of what they consider their _immorality_. Notice that the\npacifism of the Church, at least among the great teachers, is not\nat all inspired by sentimental considerations, but by pure moral\neducation. \u2018What do we condemn in war?\u2019 says Saint Augustin. \u2018Is it\nthe fact that they kill men who have all one day to die? Only cowards,\nnot religious men, would bring this accusation against war. What we\ncondemn in war is the desire to do harm, an implacable soul, the fury\nof reprisals, the passion for dominion.\u2019 (This is taken up by Thomas\nAquinas in the _Summum_, 2, 2, xl, art. 1.)\n\n[168] I consider that \u2018My kingdom is not of this world\u2019 may be said by\nall whose activity is not directed to practical ends: the artist, the\nmetaphysician, the scientist _insofar as he finds satisfaction in the\npractice of science and not in its results_. Many will tell me that\nthey and not the Christians are the true \u2018clerks\u2019, for the Christian\naccepts the ideas of justice and charity only for the sake of his\nsalvation. No one will deny, however, that men, even Christians, exist,\nwho accept this idea with no practical end in view.\n\n[169] Malebranche, _M\u00e9ditations chr\u00e9tiennes_ (ix, 19).\n\n[170] See Babeau, _Le village sous l\u2019ancien r\u00e9gime_, iv, iii; L.\nGregoire, _La Ligue en Bretagne_, chap, vi; Roupnel, _La Ville et\nla Campagne au xvii si\u00e8cle_, i, 1. \u2018The peasants,\u2019 says M. Roumier,\n\u2018were only really converted where it was to their interests to be\nso, and especially where the local landlords put their influence at\nthe service of the new religion, and where the Catholic clergy had\ncompletely deserted the parishes. We must be careful not to consider as\nProtestants all the \u201crustics\u201d who took part in pillaging the abbeys and\ncastles during the civil war\u2019 (_La Royaume de Catherine de M\u00e9dicis_,\ntome ii, page 294). M. Romier quotes the remark of a contemporary: \u2018The\nwhole of the Low Countries scarcely knows what this new doctrine is.\u2019\n\n[171] \u2018Le livre de raison de M. Nicolas Versoris\u2019 (_M\u00e9moires de la\nSoci\u00e9t\u00e9 de l\u2019Histoire de Paris_, tome xii). The author, avocat au\nParlement de Paris, similarly gives two lines to events like the\nConn\u00e9table de Bourbon\u2019s treachery, and the signing of the treaty of\nMadrid. The same attitude exists in the _Journal d\u2019un Bourgeois de\nParis_, 1515-1536; the public misfortunes sketched by the author leave\nhim completely indifferent. He makes no comment on the disaster of\nPavia. Apropos the treaty of Madrid, \u2018it is to be noted,\u2019 writes a\ncontemporary, \u2018that there were no bonfires or rejoicings when the news\nof the peace was published, because no one understood anything about\nit.\u2019 (Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, v, 49.) Contemporaries mention the\nindifference of the people of Paris to the Peace of Westphalia, the\nbattle of Rossbach, even the battles of Valmy and Navarino. \u2018The affair\nat Valmy made very little stir at first.\u2019 (Kellerman.)\n\n[172] Michelet relates that in his youth he questioned an old man on\nthe impressions left upon him by 1793, and the only answer he got was:\n\u2018It was the bad paper year.\u2019\n\n[173] Admire the profundity of Machiavelli, when he advises his Prince:\n\u2018Above everything, avoid taking your subjects\u2019 property; _for men will\nmore easily forget the deaths of their fathers than the loss of their\npatrimony_.\u2019\n\n[174] Inserted in the collection of studies entitled \u2018L\u2019Allemagne et\nles Alli\u00e9s devant la conscience chr\u00e9tienne\u2019. (Bloud et Gay, 1915.)\n\n[175] M. Edmond Bloud quotes this remark of a German nationalist,\nwhich might have been made on the French side of the Rhine: \u2018The\nCatholic world must be nationalized to re-Catholicize it.\u2019 He adds\nthat in Germany it is common to hear \u2018German Catholicism\u2019 spoken of in\nopposition to Roman Catholicism.\n\n[176] And therefore it requires much more courage to do so now than in\nthe past.\n\n[177] Nevertheless, Zola, Romain Rolland, and Einstein have drunk the\nhemlock.\n\n[178] When they allow themselves to be told, as Louis XVI was told by\nTurgot: \u2018Sire, your kingdom _is of this world_.\u2019 There also exists \u2018_a\nbetrayal of the laymen_\u2019.\n\n[179] Mgr Battifol\u2019s writings support my argument so beautifully that I\nhesitate to quote an author who plays so perfectly into my hands. For\nexample, he spends much time in proving that the spirit of Christianity\n\u2018has resulted, without contradicting itself, in a doctrine of the\nmorality of war\u2019.\n\n[180] Here is a passage which, except for its violence, seems to me\nto express the feelings of most modern laymen on the subject of the\npatriotic loyalty of the priests: \u2018The clergy of France is ardently\npatriotic; it serves gallantly under fire; it absolves and glorifies\nevery action of the soldier; it regards the accusation of having\ndeserted military duty as infamous, and does it justice. It is not\nfor me to say whether it is in accord with the Gospels. We are simply\nFrenchmen and patriots; we can only approve and admire the French\npatriotic monks and priests. The French priest has no pardon for a\nGerman, the German priest and pastor have no pardon for a Frenchman.\nMother-country first! Kill! Kill! In the name of the God of the\nChristians, we absolve you, we glorify you for killing Christians!\u2019\n(Urbain Gohier, \u2018La Vieille France,\u2019 quoted by Grillot de Givry, _Le\nChrist et la Patrie_, page 12.)\n\n[181] This clearly shows in what sense Renouvier is an \u2018individualist\u2019.\n\n[182] See his hymn to the mathematician Franz Woepfke.\n\n[183] Jules Lema\u00eetre was explicitly this adversary.\n\n[184] \u2018For an empirical France,\u2019 say Barr\u00e8s and Bourget.\n\n[185] \u2018Note sur M. Bergson et la philosophie bergsonienne,\u2019 Cahiers de\nla Quinzaine. See my book, _Sur le Succ\u00e8s du Bergsonisme_, page 158.\n\n[186] The same thing is to be found in Lamartine when he says of Byron:\n\u2018There is more true, imperishable poetry in the tent at Missolonghi\nwhere he lies prostrate with fever, under arms, than in all his works.\u2019\n(_Commentaire de la 2e Meditation._) This is precisely the teaching\nadopted by Barr\u00e8s, Suar\u00e8s, P\u00e9guy (the last preached it by his example,\nhowever), which comes down to saying: \u2018There is more poetry in a heroic\ndeath than in all the activities of the mind.\u2019 Note that this position\nis by no means common to all the Romantics. Hugo, Vigny, Michelet, felt\nall the poetry of action, but they never appear to think it superior to\nthe poetry of the lofty forms of intellectual life. Hugo never thought\nof sacrificing Homer or Galilei to Napoleon, or even to Hoche--to take\na disinterested hero such as Lamartine praises in Byron.\n\n[187] Note that Ronsard is the very type of the man \u2018bent over books\u2019.\n\n[188] \u2018Germany is the protector and the support of European\ncivilization\u2019 (Lamprecht.) \u2018After the war Germany will again take up\nher historic task, which is to be the heart of Europe and to prepare\nEuropean humanity.\u2019 (Wilhelm II, _Temps_, 14th September, 1915.)\n\n[189] See Robert Dreyfus, _Souvenirs sur Marcel Proust_, page 336.\n\n\n\n\n_Transcriber\u2019s Notes_\n\n\nThis transcription is based on the English edition of Aldington\u2019s\ntranslation. Some corrections have been applied in consultation with\nboth the French original (\u2018La trahison des clercs\u2019, B. Grasset, 1927)\nand the American edition of the same translation (\u2018The treason of the\nintellectuals\u2019, William Morrow & Company, 1928). Here are the main\nrevisions.\n\n \u2022 A text comparison with the American edition incorporated these\n   changes from that edition:\n   \u2022 page 28, footnote 28: \u2018more idealistic passion than national[+ist]\n     passion\u2019;\n   \u2022 page 44: \u2018One wonders whether [+there is] a single modern\n     thinker\u2019 (grammatically necessary);\n   \u2022 the fourth section, \u2018Summary--Predictions\u2019, is now correctly\n     numbered \u2018IV\u2019, not a duplicated \u2018III\u2019;\n \u2022 The following changes were made with reference to the original\n   French:\n   \u2022 numerous instances of unbalanced quotation marks have been fixed;\n   \u2022 page 117: removed an unclosed parenthesis beginning \u2018(those of\u2019\n     in favor of parallel phrases with semi-colons, as in the original\n     French;\n   \u2022 page 173: added balanced em-dashes after \u2018Apart from Erasmus\u2019 as\n     in the original, to clarify sentence structure;\n   \u2022 page 176: \u2018the chaos of the provincial assembles \u2192 assemblies\u2019\n     (original: \u2018le chaos des assembl\u00e9es provinciales\u2019);\n   \u2022 page 181, note 179: \u2018with contradicting \u2192 without contradicting\u2019\n     (\u2018a abouti sans se d\u00e9juger \u00e0 une doctrine de la moralit\u00e9 de la\n     guerre\u2019);\n \u2022 A simple table of contents has been added.\n \u2022 The book cover image accompanying some versions of this text is\n   original and placed in the public domain.","title":"The great betrayal (La trahison des clercs)","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":59114}