第86章

One would find it hard to credit them did they assure us that they were consumed by an intense passion for altruism.One might more readily admit that apart from a narrow religious mentality the hope of being remarked by the mighty ones of the day, or of creating a profitable popularity, is the only possible explanation of the violence recommended in their written propaganda.

I have already, in one of my preceding works, cited some passages from a book written by a professor at the College of France, in which the author incites the people to seize upon the riches of the bourgeoisie, whom he furiously abuses, and have arrived at the conclusion that a new revolution would readily find among the authors of such books the Marats, Robespierres, and Carriers whom it might require.

The Jacobin religion--above all in its Socialist form--has all the power of the ancient faiths over feeble minds Blinded by their faith, they believe that reason is their guide, but are really actuated solely by their passions and their dreams.

The evolution of democratic ideas has thus produced not only the political results already mentioned, but also a considerable effect upon the mentality of modern men.

If the ancient dogmas have long ago exhausted their power, the theories of democracy are far from having lost theirs, and we see their consequences increasing daily.One of the chief results has been the general hatred of superiority.

This hatred of whatever passes the average in social fortune or intelligence is to-day general in all classes, from the working-classes to the upper strata of the bourgeoisie.The results are envy, detraction, and a love of attack, of raillery, of persecution, and a habit of attributing all actions to low motives, of refusing to believe in probity, disinterestedness, and intelligence.

Conversation, among the people as among the most cultivated Frenchmen, is stamped with the craze for abasing and abusing everything and everyone.Even the greatest of the dead do not escape this tendency.Never were so many books written to depreciate the merit of famous men, men who were formerly regarded as the most precious patrimony of their country.

Envy and hatred seem from all time to have been inseparable from democratic theories, but the spread of these sentiments has never been so great as to-day.It strikes all observers.

``There is a low demagogic instinct,'' writes M.Bourdeau, ``without any moral inspiration, which dreams of pulling humanity down to the lowest level, and for which any superiority, even of culture, is an offence to society...it is the sentiment of ignoble equality which animated the Jacobin butchers when they struck off the head of a Lavoisier or a Chenier.

This hatred of superiority, the most prominent element in the modern progress of Socialism, is not the only characteristic of the new spirit created by democratic ideas.

Other consequences, although indirect, are not less profound.

Such, for example, are the progress of ``statism,'' the diminution of the power of the bourgeoisie, the increasing activity of financiers, the conflict of the classes, the vanishing of the old social constraints, and the degradation of morality.

All these effects are displayed in a general insubordination and anarchy.The son revolts against the father, the employee against his patron, the soldier against his officers.

Discontent, hatred, and envy reign throughout.

A social movement which continues is necessarily like a machine in movement which accelerates its motion.We shall therefore find that the results of this mentality will become yet more important.It is betrayed from time to time by incidents whose gravity is daily increasing--railway strikes, postmen's strikes, explosions on board ironclads, &c.A propos of the destruction of the Liberte, which cost more than two million pounds and slew two hundred men in the space of a minute, an ex-Minister of Marine, M.de Lanessan, expresses himself as follows:--''The evil that is gnawing at our fleet is the same as that which is devouring our army, our public administrations, our parliamentary system, our governmental system, and the whole fabric of our society.This evil is anarchy--that is to say, such a disorder of minds and things that nothing is done as reason would dictate, and no one behaves as his professional or moral duty should require him to behave.''

On the subject of the catastrophe of the Liberte, which followed that of the Iena, M.Felix Roussel said, in a speech delivered as president of the municipal council of Paris:--``The causes of the evil are not peculiar to our day.The evil is more general, and bears a triple name: irresponsibility, indiscipline, and anarchy.''

These quotations, which state facts with which everyone is familiar, show that the staunchest upholders of the republican system themselves recognise the progress of social disorganisation.[12] Everyone sees it, while he is conscious of his own impotence to change anything.It results, in fact, from mental influences whose power is greater than that of our wills.

[12] This disorder is the same in all the Government departments Interesting examples will be found in a report of M.Dausset to the Municipal Council:--``The service of the public highways, which ought above all to be noted for its rapid execution, is, on the contrary, the very type of red-tape, bureaucratic, and ink-slinging administration, possessing men and money and wasting both in tasks which are often useless, for lack of order, initiative, and method--in a word, of organisation.