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the origins of contemporary france-3-第4部分

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renders the fool and the ignoramus unconscious of their

insignificance。 They have deemed themselves capable of anything;

because the law granted public functions merely to capacity。 There has

appeared in front of one and all an ambitious perspective; the soldier

thinks only of displacing his captain; the captain of becoming

general; the clerk of supplanting the chief of his department; the

new…fledged attorney of being admitted to the high court; the curé of

being ordained a bishop; the shallow scribbler of seating himself on

the legislative bench。 Offices and professions vacated by the

appointment of so many upstarts afford in their turn a vast field for

the ambition of the lower classes。〃  Thus; step by step; owing to

the reversal of social positions; is brought about a general

intellectual fever。



 〃France is transformed into a gaming…table; where; alongside of the

discontented citizen offering his stakes; sits; bold; blustering; and

with fermenting brain; the pretentious subaltern rattling his dice…

box。 。 。  At the sight of a public official rising from nowhere;  even

the soul of a bootblack will  bound with emulation。〃    He has

merely to push himself ahead and elbow his way to secure a ticket  〃in

this immense lottery of popular luck; of preferment without merit; of

success without talent; of apotheoses without virtues; of an infinity

of places distributed by the people wholesale; and enjoyed by the

people in detail。〃    Political charlatans flock thither from every

quarters; those taking the lead who; being most in earnest; believe in

the virtue of their nostrum; and need power to impose its recipe on

the community; all being saviors; all places belong to them; and

especially the highest。 They lay siege to these conscientiously and

philanthropically ; if necessary; they will take them by assault; hold

them through force; and; forcibly or otherwise; administer their cure…

all to the human species。







III。



Psychology of the Jacobin。  His intellectual method。  Tyranny of

formulae and suppression of facts。  Mental balance disturbed。 

Signs of this in the revolutionary language。  Scope and expression

of the Jacobin intellect。  In what respect his method is

mischievous。  How it is successful。  Illusions produced by it。



Such are our Jacobins; born out of social decomposition like mushrooms

out of compost。 Let us consider their inner organization; for they

have one as formerly the Puritans; we have only to follow their dogma

down to its depths; as with a sounding…line; to reach the

psychological stratum in which the normal balance of faculty and

sentiment is overthrown。



When a statesman; who is not wholly unworthy of that great name; finds

an abstract principle in his way; as; for instance; that of popular

sovereignty; he accepts it; if he accepts it at all; according to his

conception of its practical bearings。 He begins; accordingly; by

imagining it applied and in operation。 From personal recollections and

such information as he can obtain; he forms an idea of some village or

town; some community of moderate size in the north; in the south; or

in the center of the country; for which he has to make laws。 He then

imagines its inhabitants acting according to his principle; that is to

say; voting; mounting guard; levying taxes; and administering their

own affairs。 Familiar with ten or a dozen groups of this sort; which

he regards as examples; he concludes by analogy as to others and the

rest on the territory。 Evidently it is a difficult and uncertain

process; to be exact; or nearly so; requires rare powers of

observation and; at each step; a great deal of tact; for a nice

calculation has to be made on given quantities imperfectly ascertained

and imperfectly noted!'15'  Any political leader who does this

successfully; does it through the ripest experience associated with

genius。 And even then he keeps his hand on the check…rein in pushing

his innovation or reform; he is almost always tentative; he applies

his law only in part; gradually and provisionally; he wishes to

ascertain its effect; he is always ready to stay its operation; amend

it; or modify it; according to the good or ill results of experiment;

the state of the human material he has to deal with is never clear to

his mind; even when superior; until after many and repeated gropings。

 Now the Jacobin pursues just the opposite course。 His principle is

an axiom of political geometry; which always carries its own proof

along with it; for; like the axioms of common geometry; it is formed

out of the combination of a few simple ideas; and its evidence imposes

itself at once on all minds capable of embracing in one conception the

two terms of which it is the aggregate expression。 Man in general; the

rights of Man; the social contract; liberty; equality; reason; nature;

the people; tyrants; are examples of these basic concepts: whether

precise or not; they fill the brain of the new sectarian。 Often these

terms are merely vague and grandiose words; but that makes no

difference; as soon as they meet in his brain an axiom springs out of

them that can be instantly and absolutely applied on every occasion

and to excess。  Mankind as it is does not concern him。 He does not

observe them; he does not require to observe them; with closed eyes he

imposes a pattern of his own on the human substance manipulated by

him; the idea never enters his head of forming any previous conception

of this complex; multiform; swaying material … contemporary peasants;

artisans; townspeople; curés and nobles; behind their plows; in their

homes; in their shops; in their parsonages; in their mansions; with

their inveterate beliefs; persistent inclinations; and powerful wills。

Nothing of this enters into or lodges in his mind; all its avenues are

stopped by the abstract principle which flourishes there and fills it

completely。 Should actual experience through the eye or ear plant some

unwelcome truth forcibly in his mind; it cannot subsist there; however

noisy and relentless it may be; the abstract principle drives it

out;'16' if need be it will distort and strangle it; considering it a

slanderer since it refutes a principle which is true and undeniable in

itself。 Obviously; a mind of this kind is not sound; of the two

faculties which should pull together harmoniously; one is degenerated

and the other overgrown; facts cannot turn the scale against the

theory。 Charged on one side and empty on the other; the Jacobin mind

turns violently over on that side to which it leans; and such is its

incurable infirmity。



Consider; indeed; the authentic monuments of Jacobin thought; the

〃Journal des Amis de la Constitution;〃 the gazettes of Loustalot;

Desmoulins; Brissot; Condorcet; Fréron and Marat; Robespierre's; and

St。 Just's pamphlets and speeches; the debates in the Legislative

Assembly and in the Convention; the harangues; addresses and reports

of the Girondins and Montagnards; in brief; the forty volumes of

extracts compiled by Buchez and Roux。 Never has so much been said to

so little purpose; all the truth that is uttered is drowned in the

monotony and  inflation of empty verbiage and vociferous bombast。 One

experience in this direction is sufficient。'17'  The historian who

resorts this mass of rubbish for accurate information finds none of

any account; in vain will he read kilometers of it: hardly will he

there meet one fact; one instructive detail; one document which brings

before his eyes a distinct personality; which shows him the real

sentiments of a villager or of a gentleman; which vividly portrays the

interior of a h?tel…de…ville; of a soldier's barracks; of a municipal

chamber; or the character of an insurrection。 To define fifteen or

twenty types and situations which sum up the history of the period; we

have been and shall be obliged to seek them elsewhere … in the

correspondence of local administrators; in affidavits on criminal

records; in confidential reports of the police;'18' and in the

narratives of foreigners;'19' who; prepared for it by a different

education; look behind words for things; and see France beyond the

〃Contrat Social。〃 This teeming France; this grand tragedy which

twenty…six millions of players are performing on a stage of 26 000

square leagues; is lost to the Jacobin。 His literature; as well as his

brain; contain only insubstantial generalizations like those above

cited; rolling out in a mere play of ideas; sometimes in concise terms

when the writer happens to be a professional reasoner like Condorcet;

but most frequently in a tangled; knotty style full of loose and

disconnected meshes when the spokesman happens to be an improvised

politician or a philosophic tyro like the ordinary deputies of the

Assembly and the speakers of the clubs。 It is a pedantic scholasticism

set forth with fanatical rant。 Its entire vocabulary consists of about

a hundred words; while all ideas are reduced to one; that of man in

himself: human units; all alike equal and independent; contracting

together for the first time。 This is their concept of society。 None

could be briefer; for; to arrive at it; man had to be reduced to a

minimum。 Never were political brains so willfully dried up。 For it is

the attempt to systematize and to simplify which causes their

impoverishment。 In that respect they go by the methods of their time

and in the track of Jean…Jacques Rousseau: their outlook on life is

the classic view;  which; already narrow in the late philosophers; has

now become even more narrow and hardened。 The best representatives of

the type are Condorcet;'20' among the Girondins; and Robespierre;

among the Montagnards; both mere dogmatists and pure logicians; the

latter the most remarkable and with a perfection of intellectual

sterility never surpassed。  Unquestionably; as far as the

formulation of durable laws is concerned; i。e。 adapting the social

machinery
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