Chapter IV: Summary--Predictions (2)

‘They are to be just to Henri IV, Louis XIII, Louis XIV and Louis XV, but without adulation. The September Massacres and the horrors of the Revolution must be painted in the same colours as the Inquisition and the massacres of the Sixteen. They must take care to avoid all reaction in speaking of the Revolution, no man could have opposed it successfully. No blame attaches either to those who perished or to those who survived. There was no individual power capable of changing the elements and foreseeing the events which arose from the nature of things and circumstances.

‘They are to point out the perpetual disorganization of the national finances, the chaos of the provincial assemblies, the claims of the Parlements, the lack of regulation and resort in the administration. This checkered France, without unity of laws and administration, was rather a union of twenty Kingdoms than a single State, so that one breathes freely on coming to the period when the benefits of unity of laws, administration and territory are enjoyed.... The opinion expressed by the Minister, which, if followed, would result in abandoning this task to private enterprise and the speculation of some publisher, is wrong and could only produce regrettable results.’

Of course, the champions of authority are not the only persons who make history serve their own interests. Condorcet (_Tableau historique_, 10^e Epoque) says that history should serve ‘to maintain an active vigilance in recognizing and crushing under the weight of Reason the first germs of superstition and tyranny, if they ever dare to appear again.’

Note I (Page 62)

_Humanitarianism and Humanism._

Here, on this subject, is a curious passage from one of the ancients:--

‘Those who created the Latin language and those who spoke it well do not give the word _humanitas_ the vulgar meaning which is synonymous with the Greek word _philanthropia_, which means an active kindness, a tender benevolence for all men. But they give the word the meaning which the Greeks attach to _paideia_, which we call education, knowledge of the fine arts. Those who show the most taste and disposition for these studies are the most worthy to be called _humanissimi_. For man alone among all living beings is able to devote himself to cultivating a study which for that reason has been called _humanitas_. Such is the meaning given to this by the ancients, particularly by Varro and Cicero. Almost all their works show examples, so I shall content myself with quoting one only. I have chosen the opening of the first book of Varro “Concerning human things”: “Praxiteles, qui propter artificium egregium nemini est paulum modo humaniori ignotus (Praxiteles, whose excellent talent as an artist has made him known to every man at all skilled in the arts)”. Here _humanior_ does not bear the vulgar meaning of easy, tractable, benevolent even though lacking in knowledge of letters. That meaning would not express the author’s thought. It means an educated, a learned man, one who is acquainted with Praxiteles through books and history.’ (Aulus Gellius, _Noctes Atticae_, Book XIII, XVI.)

Note J (Page 82)

_... they cannot sufficiently denounce all institutions based on liberty and discussion._

Note that the novelty here lies in the passion, the fury with which they condemn liberty of discussion. Otherwise, we see most of the so-called liberal thinkers in history themselves recognize the necessity for submission to the sovereign’s judgment. Spinoza declares that ‘there is no possible government if every man makes himself the defender of his own rights and the rights of others.’ The _Letters of Descartes_ contain passages in favour of the ‘reason of State.’

It is perhaps not sufficiently noticed how frequently the old French absolute monarchists say that justice is the chief function of the sovereign. ‘The most important of the King’s rights,’ says one of these theorists (Guy Coquille, _Institution du droit des Français_, 1608) ‘is to make _the laws and general statutes for the good order of his Kingdom_.’ Another (Loyseau, _Des Seigneuries_, 1608) says: ‘The usage of public _lordship must be regulated by justice_ ...’ Bossuet (_Instruction à Louis XIV_) says: ‘When the King administers justice or has it exactly administered in accordance with the laws, _which is his principal function_ ...’ The modern absolute monarchists, even French, seem to be inspired by the German theorist, who says: ‘The State has two functions to perform: the administration of justice and the waging of war. _But war is by far the principal._’ (Treitschke.)

Note this famous passage from Bossuet (_Pol._, Book VIII, art. II, par. I):

‘It is one thing for it (the government) to be absolute, another for it to be arbitrary. It is absolute in relation to constraint, there being no power which is capable of compelling the sovereign, who in this sense is independent of all human authority. But it does not follow that government is arbitrary; because, apart from the fact that all things are subject to God’s judgment (which applies also to the government we have called arbitrary), there are laws in empires, and everything which is done contrary to them is void of right.’

It will be seen that the defence of arbitrary government is a new thing among French teachers, even in regard to Bossuet. (I am speaking of Bossuet’s _doctrines_, not of his practical advice.)

Note K (Page 91)

_This is the teaching of Nietzsche._

I must repeat that throughout this work I am considering the teaching of Nietzsche (and Hegel’s too) insofar as it has become the pretext for a great moral preaching, though I know perfectly well that in reality this teaching is something far more complex. I shall quote the following judicious observation, in connection with the fact that certain philosophers have only themselves to blame for ‘the misunderstanding of their true thought’:

‘Nietzscheism has been subjected to the same test as Hegelianism. And no doubt here and there philosophical themes have served especially as pretexts to cover up a new offensive on the part of barbarism. _But the fact that they have been utilized, the manner in which they have been utilized, have a significance which must not be overlooked._ Is it not the criterion of a philosophy which may be called rational without reserve and equivocation, that it should remain incorruptibly faithful to itself? On the other hand, _the systems which begin by accepting contradictions, reserving the right to add that they are capable of surmounting them or of “living” them, lodge their enemy in their midst_. Their punishment is that their antithesis still resembles them; and that is what has happened to Nietzsche.’ (L. Brunschvicg, _Le Progrès de la Conscience dans la philosophie occidentale_, p. 431.) This book contains an excellent exposition of ‘Hegelian themes’ and ‘Nietzschean themes’, precisely insofar as they have become political breviaries.

Note L (Page 94)

_Long before the disciples of Taine and Auguste Comte._

When this book appeared in a periodical, certain persons declared that the whole of my attack on the modern ‘clerk’ went astray because I did not give more space to the author of _Origines de la France Contemporaine_. He, they said, was the ‘great realist “clerk” of the past fifty years, while those I attacked were only his small change.’ (This sudden contempt for the thought of Barrès and Maurras of the part of certain people is certainly surprising.)

There is here a manifest abuse of the word _realism_. Taine threw light on the true nature of the real, or rather the political real, and reminded the universalist that this domain is not under his jurisdiction. He never _exalted_ this real at the expense of the universal, which is the realism I am denouncing here. He plainly taught, on the contrary, that the universalist who stays in his own domain (see his admiration for Spinoza and Goethe) is the great human model. Compare this with Maurras for whom the universalist, even when non-political (the infinitist, the pantheist) is profoundly contemptible. It is also difficult for me to see Taine as the godfather of those who glorify the soldier at the expense of the man of justice and the man of study,[182] who exhort the nations to cultivate their prejudices where they are ‘totally foreign to reason’ (Barrès) and who declare that the intelligence which cares nothing about what is social is the activity of a savage. I think Taine would cheerfully say of those who claim to derive from him the same thing that M. Bergson is reported to have said of some of his ‘disciples’: ‘These gentlemen are most original.’

Nevertheless, Taine seems to me to be the initiator of the modern realists in two points. The first is his condemnation of individualism, more exactly, of the moral liberty of the citizen (for this, at bottom, is the meaning of his regret for the old corporations, and, more generally, of his exhortation to form groups, which shape the individual’s soul, instead of allowing it to be autonomous as against the State); and the second, which is far more novel than the first among French teachers, is his condemnation of idealist education. The peroration of the ‘_Régime moderne_’ obviously establishes the whole educational argument of the _Déracines_ and _L’Étape_:--

‘Sometimes when he is with his intimates, as bitter and as overfatigued as he is, the young man is tempted to say to us: “By your education you induced us to believe that the world is made in a certain way. You deceived us. It is much uglier, stupider, dirtier, gloomier and harsher, at least to our sensibility and our imagination. You think they are over-excited and out of gear; well, if they are, it is your fault. That is why we curse and despise the whole of your world, and reject your pretended truths, which for us are lies, including those elementary and primary truths which you say are evident to common sense, and upon which you build your laws, your institutions, your society, your philosophy, your sciences and your arts.” That is what contemporary youth have been telling us aloud for fifteen years by their tastes, their opinions, their inclinations in literature, the arts and life.’

Against this manifesto in favour of a practical education, let me set this protest of a true descendant of Montaigne, Pascal and Montesquieu:

‘In his diatribe for the classical spirit and the primary truths of reason and philosophy which direct literary education of all kinds, Taine comes to use words similar to those of the adversaries of ancient literature,[183] of the general ideas which are inseparable from them, and of disinterested culture even. The only object would then be to prepare persons for an empirical world,[184] people taught to know the world as it is, and trained to make it continue as it now is. However, the school laws are too recent for one to be able decently to blame them for the evils of the age, and make them the cause of the hatred and scorn poured on society by those who are bored, enervate and out of their class. However, even if it were true that the comparison between the general principles of reason, morality and beauty, and empirical life engendered more disgust with the realities than it has done in the past, it would be a sad paradox to ask that this danger should be averted by banishing from education all elevated views and all idealism.’ (Renouvier, _Philosophie analytique de l’Histoire_, tome iv, p. 541.)

Note M (Page 95)

_This cult brings out a silliness of mind which to me seems wholly an acquisition of the nineteenth century._

This silliness of mind assumes another form, i.e. the belief (rigidly formulated by Maurras) that in politics you can find laws of cause and effect as certainly valid as those of weight or electricity. (‘Politics are a _science_.’) This is the superstition of science, held to be competent in all domains, including that of morality; a superstition which, I repeat, is an acquisition of the nineteenth century. It remains to discover whether those who brandish this doctrine believe in it or whether they simply want to give the prestige of a scientific appearance to the passions of their hearts, which they perfectly well know are nothing but passions. It is to be noted that the dogma that history is obedient to scientific laws is preached especially by partisans of arbitrary authority. This is quite natural, since it eliminates the two realities they most hate, i.e. human liberty and the historical action of the individual.

Note N (Page 98)

_Our age has seen priests of the mind teaching that the gregarious is the praiseworthy form of thought, and that independent thought is contemptible._

Note that what is new in this crusade against individualism (the great apostle of which is M. Maurras) is not the recognition that ‘the individual is only an abstraction’, that to a great extent, he is formed by his race, his surroundings, his nation, a thousand things which are not himself. The novelty is the cult for this servitude, the order given to mankind to submit entirely to it, the contempt shown for any attempt to get free from it. Once again this is the cult (so strange in French thinkers) for the _inevitable_ part of the human being, the hatred for its free part.

Note that those who to-day preach obedience of the mind, not only demand it from the uncultured masses but from the men of thought, _especially_ from the men of thought. The anti-individualists of the Dreyfus affair particularly opposed the independence of scientists, writers, and philosophers--‘the mad vanity of a few intellectuals’. Nevertheless, the most curious thing is not that they require this obedience, but that they obtain it. When M. Maritain declares that ‘everyone cannot philosophize and that, for men, the essential thing is to choose a master’, and when M. Maurras asserts that the function of most minds is to be ‘servants’ and to reflect the thought of some leader, these teachers find a number of men of thought to applaud and abdicate their liberty of mind in their favour. The thinkers of the eighteenth century said: ‘A religion is needed for the people.’ Those of our age say: ‘A religion is needed for ourselves.’ What Barrès wrote: ‘The part of the masters is to justify the habits and prejudices of France, so as best to prepare our children to take their place in the national procession,’ he certainly meant that he and his colleagues were to walk in this procession. Here we again come upon that thirst for discipline which I spoke of above and which seemed to me so worthy of remark in the descendants of Montaigne and Renan. The cause, I said, was their desire to belong to a ‘strong group’. In them it also arises from a feeling for the artistic value of regimenting a collection of men in a beautiful ‘procession’, and also from the joy felt by so many souls in being governed, if not having to make the effort to think for themselves--a most curious joy in so-called men of thought.

The cult for the collective soul, with all its violation of human consciousness, seems to me admirably denounced by a passage of Maine de Biran, quoted by M. L. Brunschvicg (op. cit., _La Sociologie de l’ordre_, p. 526):--

‘... According to M. Bonald, it is not the human mind, it is not the individual understanding which is the seat, the true subject of inherence of the nations or (universal) truths under discussion; but it is society, which, gifted with a kind of collective understanding different from that of individuals, was from its origin imbued with them through the gift of speech and by virtue of a miraculous influence exerted on the mass alone, independent of its parts. The individual, the man, is nothing; society alone exists; society is the soul of the moral world, it alone exists, while individual persons are only phenomena. Let those who can, understand this social metaphysics. If the author himself understands it clearly, then I am in the wrong. Then we must cease to talk of philosophy and recognize the nothingness of the science of intellectual and moral man, we must admit that all psychology based on the primitive fact of consciousness is simply false, and we must consider science itself as an illusion which perpetually deceives and misleads us by showing us everything, even our own existence, in a false and fantastic light.’

M. Brunschvicg very rightly adds: ‘The antithesis could not be stated more clearly. Either the primary fact of consciousness, or the primary fact of language; either Socrates or Bonald.’

Either Socrates or Bonald. Barrès and Maurras made their choice.

Note O (Page 118)

_... Péguy who admires philosophies to the extent that ‘they are good fighters.’_[185]

This determination to praise philosophers for their virtues of action rather than for their intellectual virtues is very frequent among men of thought to-day. In his _Souvenirs concernant Lagneau_, Alain, wishing to give as favourable a picture of his master as possible, praises his energy and his resolution at least as much as his intelligence. It is also very remarkable--although here literature only is in question--to see a professor of moral science (M. Jacques Bardoux) setting a special value on those French literary men who were soldiers, i.e. Vauvenargues, Vigny, Péguy. As to the men of letters themselves, I shall content myself with pointing out that one of them who is most applauded by his own colleagues recently declared that he chiefly admired d’Annunzio for his attitude as an officer, and expressed regret that he had returned to literature.[186] The Emperor Julian praised Aristotle for having said that he felt prouder of being the author of his _Treatise on Theology_ than he would have felt if he had destroyed the power of the Persians. One might still find soldiers in France who would agree with this judgment, but very few men of letters. Elsewhere (_Les Sentiments de Critias_, p. 206) I have attempted to give the history and the explanation of this desire (so curious in men of the pen) to exalt a warlike life and to scorn a sedentary life. Note that this characteristic is to be seen in contemporary writers long before the war of 1914, and that those who talk most about a warlike life are not always those who lead it.

The new thing, I repeat, is not that we see men of letters praising an active life and scorning a sedentary life; it is _the absence of naiveté, the dogmatic tone_. When Ronsard exclaims: ‘Good Gods, who would praise those who let life go by bent over books’;[187] when Bertrand de Born wishes that ‘no man of high lineage should have any thought but cutting off heads and arms’; when Froissart sings the glories of chivalry and casts his scorn in the faces of the bourgeois, no one will take these candid lyre-players, who like noble poses and do not even know that the word doctrine exists, for the ancestors of our grave professors of belligerent aesthetics. Moreover, I doubt whether the author of _Scenes and Doctrines of Nationalism_ would have condescended to be a descendant of these simple-minded persons.

I find scorn for the life of the mind clearly professed in a dogmatic tone, in a writer of the seventeenth century who frequently reminds one of certain modern authors by his efforts to humiliate the toga before the sword. (It is true that this writer was a gentleman of the very minor nobility.)

‘Certainly, there is no better way of relaxing the vigour of men’s courage than to occupy their minds with peaceful and sedentary exercises, and idleness cannot enter civilized States in a more subtle or dangerous disguise than that of literature. Lazy and idle persons have in part ruined commerce and agriculture, which are the cause of the weakness of our condition and the cowardice of our age.’ (J. L. de Balzac, _Le Prince_, 1631. He then admits literature and the sciences to the State insofar as ‘they strengthen and embellish the Mother-country’.)

On the other hand, a master from the great period of French literature writes a eulogy of the life of the mind at the expense of the active mind, which I hardly think would be accepted by many of the moderns who venerate that period (I am especially thinking of those who admire the thought of Georges Sorel).

‘In France great strength of character and width of mind are needed if a man is to reject offices and employments and thus consent to remain at home and do nothing. Scarcely anyone possesses sufficient merit to play this part with dignity, nor sufficient resources to fill up the void of time without what the vulgar call “business”. But the wise man’s idleness needs only a better name, and we ought to say that one who meditates, talks, reads and is calm, is working.’ (La Bruyère, _Du Mérite personnel_.)

Note P (Page 122)

_The ‘Manifesto of the Party of Intelligence’ (Figaro, 19th July, 1919)._

This manifesto, signed by fifty-four French writers, several of whom are among the teachers most respected by their fellow-citizens, is of the greatest importance to the present inquiry. In addition to the strange passage on the Church’s mission which I quoted above, it contains things like this:--

‘Nationalism, which the conceptions of the intelligence impose on political conduct as well as on the order of the world, is a reasonable, humane system, and French in addition.’

And further on:--

‘When a literature becomes national does it not acquire a more universal significance, a more humanly general interest?’

And again:--

‘We believe--and the world believes with us--that it is part of the destiny of our race to defend the spiritual interests of humanity.... We are solicitous for Europe and all the humanity remaining in the world. French humanity is the sovereign protector of this.’

And above all:--

‘Victorious France means to take her place again in the order of the mind, the only order whereby a legitimate domination may be exercised.’

Hence the desire to found (the manifesto itself underlines the words): ‘_The intellectual Federation of Europe and the world under the aegis of victorious France, the guardian of civilization._’

Victory under arms conferring the right to command in the intellectual order--that is professed to-day by French thinkers! One remembers the Roman writers, from whom these thinkers claim descent, who took as the leader of their minds Greece, which had been conquered by force of arms; one also remembers the German teachers of 1871 who also claimed intellectual hegemony for their ‘victorious’ nation, which they too claimed as ‘the guardian of civilization’.[188]

When this manifesto was published, somewhat similar reflections seem to have occurred to the mind of one of our great writers. In a letter concerning this document,[189] Marcel Proust deplores the proclamation of ‘a kind of “Frankreich ueber alles”, the policeman of the literature of all nations.’ As a true priest of the mind, he goes on: ‘Why take this peremptory attitude towards other countries in such matters as literature, where a man only reigns by persuasion?’ I am happy to take this opportunity to do homage to this true ‘clerk’, and to say that I know that there are still other writers in France beside those who only believe in the virtue of cold steel.

Note Q (Page 138)

_Those who base their judgments on their artistic sensibilities._

This artistic origin of the political attitudes of so many men of letters has been pointed out with great ability by M. Daniel Halévy in the case of M. Maurras. In an old article (_La Grande France_, 1902) M. Halévy quotes this beautiful passage from M. Maurras’s _Anthinéa_ on the walk of women carrying a clay pot balanced on their heads:--

‘The bosom swells and is modelled like a vase, it opens like a flower. The neck settles, the loins strain nervously. Their walk becomes graver and more supple, is measured with an inestimable sobriety; it unrolls in the mind like a piece of music. This living pillar moves, glides, advances, without being interrupted by any sudden jerk or any break. It follows the undulations of the ground, adapts itself to the slightest rises, and thus resembles the stem of a beautiful young tree set free from its roots, moving over the ground without leaving it for a fraction of an inch. An infinite multitude of half-pauses make the jerks imperceptible, or one is only conscious of their succession, a continual harmony which leaves its curves in the air....’

M. Daniel Halévy adds:--

‘I quote the whole passage because it gives the very idea of Charles Maurras. For his classical way of thought, things are beautiful, not from the shocks of feeling and passion, but from the form and rhythm which give them continuity, or rather existence in the human sense of the word. M. Charles Maurras applies this taste for form to the study of history, and that is the whole of his “sociology”.’

There could be no better definition of the type of man for whom things are good insofar as they satisfy his artistic sensibility. Let me place in opposition to him the exactly contrary type, leaving the reader to judge which of the two may claim to belong to ‘the intelligence’:--

‘... For the perfection of things should be measured by their nature alone, and things are not more or less perfect because they flatter or wound our senses.’ (Spinoza.)

_Footnotes_

[1] See Note A at the end of this book.

[2] It is to be noted that a little more than a century ago French working-men from different provinces frequently engaged in desperate fights among themselves. (See Martin Nadaud, _Mémoires de Léonard_, p. 93.)

[3] See Petit de Julleville, _La Comédie et les Moeurs en France au moyen age_, and André Le Breton, _Le Roman au XVIIe Siècle_.

[4] The great novelty is that to-day people accept the position that everything should be political, that they should proclaim it and take a pride in it. Otherwise it is perfectly obvious that men, shopkeepers, or poets, have not waited for the present time to try to get rid of a rival by political means. Remember how La Fontaine’s rivals kept him out of the Académie for ten years.

[5] As de Tocqueville profoundly remarks, these only occurred when a first improvement in his condition encouraged the man of the people to want more; i.e. towards the end of the eighteenth century.

[6] I am here speaking of Western Jews of the bourgeois class. The Jewish proletariat did not await our time to plunge into the feeling of its racial peculiarity. However, it does so without giving provocation.

[7] This was the notion expressed by Benedict XV when he told the poor ‘to take delight in the prosperity of elevated persons and to expect confidently their assistance’.

[8] For example, M. Paul Bourget’s _La Barricade_, where the author, a disciple of Georges Sorel, exhorts the bourgeoise not to leave to the proletariat the monopoly of class passion and violence. See also André Beaunier, _Les Devoirs de la Violence_ (quoted by Halperine-Kaminski in the preface to Tolstoi’s book, _The Law of Love and the Law of Violence_).

[9] ‘The phrase, _the sublime bourgeois_, which would have caused so much laughter twenty years ago, has now acquired for the French bourgeoisie a mystic plenitude owing to its fusion with the highest social and national values.’ (_Eloge du Bourgeois Français_, p. 284.)

[10] Let me define more precisely what is new here. In the seventeenth century the citizen already had the notion of national honour; Racine’s Letters would be sufficient to prove it (see a significant page in the _Mémoires_ of de Pontis, Book XIV); but he left it to the King to decide what this honour demanded; indignation like Vauban’s against the peace of Ryswick ‘which dishonours the King and the whole nation’, is a very exceptional emotion under the old _régime_. The modern citizen claims to feel for himself what is demanded by the national honour, and he is ready to rise up against his leaders if they have a different conception of it. This new development is not peculiar to the nations living under democratic systems; in 1911 the citizens of the German monarchy thought that the concessions made to their country by France in exchange for German abstention in Morocco were insufficient, and they were extremely angry with their Sovereign who had accepted these conditions which, in their opinion, were an insult to German honour. It may be asserted that the same thing would be true of France if she ever became a monarchy again and if the King took it upon himself to feel the interest of national honour in a different manner to his subjects. Moreover, this actually happened throughout the reign of Louis-Philippe.

[11] For example, the humiliation of Olmüts in 1805. It may be asserted that no democracy would have endured it, at least with the philosophy displayed by the King of Prussia and his government. On the other hand, is it necessary to stress the other dangers to peace which existed under the Kings? It is sufficient to quote Montesquieu’s remark: ‘The spirit of the Monarchy is war and aggrandisement.’

[12] In 1886, the Schnaebele affair; in 1890, the incident in Paris where the King of Spain in the uniform of a Colonel of Uhlans was hooted; in 1891, the incident of the Empress of Germany passing through Paris; in 1897, Fashoda; in 1904, the incident of the British trawlers sunk by the Russian Fleet, etc. Of course, I do not claim that the Kings only waged practical wars, although with them the allegation of ‘wounded honour’ was very often a mere pretext. Louis XIV obviously did not make war on Holland because the Dutch struck a medal insulting him. Moreover, I shall grant that from time to time the Kings indulged in military invasions, a type of elegance which appears to be less and less tempting to the democracies; one cannot now imagine the peace of the world disturbed by excursions like those of Charles VIII into Italy or Charles XII into the Ukraine.

[13] Is it necessary to point out that wars started by public passion against the will of the government have often occurred under monarchies? And not only under constitutional monarchies, like the war of France with Spain in 1823 and with Turkey in 1826, but under absolute monarchies. For instance, the War of the Austrian Succession imposed on Fleury by an uprising of public opinion; the War of American Independence under Louis XVI; in 1806 the war of Prussia against Napoleon. In 1813 the war of Saxony. It seems probable that in 1914 war was imposed on absolute sovereigns like Nicholas II and Wilhelm II by popular passions which they had been exciting for years and then found themselves unable to restrain.

[14] ‘But what is much more important than material facts is the soul of nations. Among all races a kind of effervescence it to be noticed; some defend certain principles, others the opposing principles. By becoming members of the League of Nations, the different peoples do not abandon their _national morality_.’ (Speech of the German Minister for Foreign Affairs at Geneva, on the occasion of the entry of Germany into the League of Nations, 10th September, 1926.) The orator went on: ‘Yet this should not result in raising up nation against nation.’ One is surprised that he did not add: ‘On the contrary.’ How much nobler, and at the same time more respectful of the truth, is the language of Treitschke: ‘This consciousness of themselves which the nations are acquiring and which can only be strengthened by culture, this consciousness means that war will never disappear from the earth, in spite of the closer linking up of interests, in spite of the growing uniformity of customs and the exterior forms of life.’ (Quoted by Charles Andler in _Les Origines du Pangermanisme_, p. 223.)

[15] This is what Mirabeau seems to have foreseen when he announced to the Constituent Assembly that the wars of the ‘free nations’ would cause the wars of the Kings to be regretted.

[16] The religion of the ‘national soul’ is obviously and logically an emanation of the popular soul. Moreover, it has been sung by an eminently democratic literature: Romanticism. It is to be observed that the worst enemies of Romanticism and of Democracy have adopted it; it is constantly to be found in the Action Française. To such an extent is it now impossible to be a patriot without flattering democratic passions.

[17] See Note B at the end of the book.

[18] See Brunot, _Histoire de la Langue Française_, t. v, liv. iii.

[19] On this topic see some excellent remarks of Auguste Comte, _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, 57^e leçon.

[20] As a matter of fact, the peoples do not believe either that their ambitions go back to their ancestors; they are ignorant of history and do not believe it to be so even when it is true; they believe they believe, or, more exactly, they want to believe that they believe. However, that is enough to make them ferocious, perhaps more so than if they really believed it.

[21] France is here in a position of manifest inferiority in regard to her neighbours. The modern French feel very slight inclinations to claim that they reincarnate the ambitions of Charlemagne or even of Louis XIV, despite the proclamations of certain men of letters.

[22] For instance, the address of the ‘six great industrial and agricultural associations of Germany’ to Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg in May, 1914, which was not very different from that drawn up in 1815 by the Prussian metallurgists to point out to their government what annexations should be made in the interests of their industry. (See Vidal de La Blache, _La France de l’Est_, chap. xix.) Moreover, some Germans are urgent in boldly proclaiming the economic character of their nationalism. ‘Let us not forget,’ says a well-known Pangermanist, ‘that the German Empire, which is generally considered abroad as a purely military State, is in its origin (Zollverein) chiefly economic.’ And again: ‘For us war is only the continuation of our commercial activity in times of peace, with other means but the same methods.’ (Naumann, _L’Europe Centrale_, pp. 112, 247; see the whole book.) Germany seems to be not indeed the only country to practise commercial patriotism (England has done so just as much and for a much longer time) but the only country to boast of it.

[23] And to build up a much less passionate patriotism. Think, for instance, of the agreements with foreigners accepted by patriotism based on interest (such as the Franco-German iron cartel), against which the patriotism based on pride rises up in revolt.

[24] ‘Love of country is a real love of oneself.’ (Saint-Evremond.)

[25] The divinizing of realism, of which patriotism specially consists, is expressed with all desirable candour in the ‘Addresses to the German People’ (Eighth Address); Fichte attacks religion for its claim to situate the superior life outside all interest in earthly matters: ‘It is an abuse of religion to force it, as Christianity has so often done, to extol complete indifference to the business of the State and the nation as the true religious spirit. Men,’ he declares, ‘are determined to find heaven on earth and to impregnate their earthly labours with something durable.’ He then shows, with great warmth, that this desire is the essence of patriotism, and it is evident that for him earthly labours become divine by becoming durable. This, indeed, is the only means men have discovered for divinizing their institutions.

[26] It is necessary to recall that the United States did not enter the last war ‘in defence of principles’, but with the very practical object of safeguarding their prestige, which had been lowered by the facts that the Germans had torpedoed three of their ships? Nevertheless, their desire to pose as having been purely idealistic in this affair is noteworthy.

[27] It may be said that religious passions, at least in the West, only exist as a reinforcement to national passions; in France, a man sets up as a Catholic in order to pose as being ‘more French’; in Germany as a Protestant in order to declare himself ‘more German’.

[28] Here are two remarkable cases of idealistic passions which in the past successfully opposed national passion and are now submissive to it: (_a_) In France, the monarchic passion, which in 1792 was stronger than national feeling in many people, whereas in 1914 it was completely effaced by national feeling. (Everyone will agree that attachment to a certain form of government, i.e. at bottom, the attachment to a certain metaphysical conception, is an infinitely more idealistic passion than nationalist passion; however, I do not claim that all the Emigrés were inspired by this idealism.) (_b_) In Germany, the religious passion, which only fifty years ago was stronger than national feeling in more than fifty per cent of Germans, and to-day is entirely subject to national feeling (in 1866 the German Catholics desired the defeat of Germany; in 1914 they ardently desired it to be victorious). The Europe of to-day, compared with the Europe of the past, seems to contain many less chances of civil wars and many more chances of national wars; nothing could show better how much Europe has lost in idealism. (See Note D at the end of this book for additional matter on the attitude of the modern Catholics towards Catholicism when it is in opposition to their nationalism.)

[29] For example, in words like the following, uttered at Venice on the 11th December, 1926, by the Italian Minister of Education and Fine Arts: ‘Artists must prepare themselves for the new imperialist function which must be carried out by our art. Above everything, we must categorically impose a principle of _Italianita_. Whoever copies a foreigner is guilty of _lèse-nation_ (an insult to the nation) like a spy who admits an enemy by a secret doorway.’ These words have to be approved by every adept of ‘_integral_ nationalism’. Moreover, we hear much the same thing in France from certain adversaries of Romanticism.

[30] ‘Discipline from the lowest to the highest must be essential and of a religious type.’ (Mussolini, 25th October, 1925.) This is new language in the mouth of a statesman, even of the most realist kind; it may be asserted that neither Richelieu nor Bismarck would have applied the word ‘religious’ to an activity whose object is exclusively materialistic.

[31] Notably for Renan and ‘speculative a-moralism’. (H. Massis, _Judgments_, i.)

[32] See Note E at the end of this book for further information on this prestige, and what is new about it in history.

[33] In 1891 Barrès wrote to the editor of _La Plume_: ‘If these books have any value, it is from the logic, the continuity of thought I have put into them during five years.’ (‘These books’ included his Boulangiste campaign.) And, in the preface to his collection of articles entitled ‘Scènes et Documents du nationalisme’, he says: ‘I think that if Doumic will examine it from a greater distance he will find a development, and not contradictions, in my work.’

[34] I shall be told of ‘clerks’ who, apparently without degradation, have at some time or other taken the part of a race or a nation, even of their own race or nation. That is because they believed that the cause of that race or nation coincided at that time with the cause of abstract justice.

[35] Similar occurrences may be observed among the ancients. For instance, Cicero denounced his fellow-citizens for having destroyed Corinth merely to avenge an insult to their ambassador (De off., I, xi).

[36] Already in 1911, when a writer quoted this sentence: ‘It is impossible to accept the situation that humanity should be bound for indefinite centuries by the marriages, battles, treaties of the narrow-minded, ignorant, egotistic creatures who during the middle ages were at the head of affairs in this world,’ he felt it necessary to add: ‘Fortunately these lines were written by Renan; one could not write them to-day without being called an unpatriotic Frenchman.’ (G. Guy-Grand, _La Philosophie Nationaliste_, p. 165.) Without being called so _by the men of thought_--that is the curious part of it.

[37] Quoted by Mgr. Chapon in his admirable study, ‘La France et l’Allemagne devant la doctrine chrétienne.’ (_Correspondant_, of 15th August, 1915.)

[38] See his _Letters_, ii, p. 31.

[39] Consider how willingly they now accept military service. See Note F at the end of this book.

[40] Here are the reasons given by a German Catholic for this attitude among those of his religion: ‘(_a_) Their incomplete knowledge of the facts and opinions in the belligerent and neutral countries; (_b_) _Their patriotism, which could not be allowed to separate itself from the union binding together the German people_; (_c_) The fear of a second Kulturkampf, which would be doubly dangerous if the German Catholics had even appeared to agree with the campaign carried on in France against German methods of waging war.’ The second reason will be noted, i.e. the desire to be at unity with the nation, whatever the moral aspect of its cause. Here, at least, is one reason which Bossuet did not allege when he screened the violences of Louis XIV.

Let me recall that when, in 1914, the Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg in the Reichstag hinted at a sort of apology for the violation of Belgian neutrality, he was sharply reproved by the Christian minister von Harnack ‘for having tried to excuse what did not need excusing’. (See A. Loisy, _Guerre et Religion_, p. 14.)

[41] The clergy of the allied nations are eager to throw in the faces of the German clergy their union with injustice in 1914. They abuse their own good fortune in belonging to nations whose cause happened to be just. When Italy, in 1923, at the time of the Corfu incident, adopted towards Greece an attitude as unjust as that of Austria towards Serbia in 1914, I am not aware that the Italian clergy expressed indignation. Nor do I remember that in 1900, when a European army intervened in Chinese affairs (the Boxer affair) and excesses were committed by the soldiers, any strong protests were uttered by the clergies of the respective nations.

[42] A particularly remarkable attitude was that of the philosopher Boutroux. You will find an admirable denunciation of it from the pen of Charles Andler, _Les Origines du Pangermanisme_, p. viii.

[43] This may be seen especially in the chorus of the Seven against Thebes: ‘Gods of our City, let it not be destroyed with our houses and our hearths.... O ye who have dwelt therein so long, will ye betray this land?’ Six centuries later this may be seen in the ‘Aeneid’, where the preservation of the Trojan City across the seas is plainly due solely to the protection of Juno, and in no wise to any inward notion of Trojan blood giving it an assurance of eternal duration.

[44] Although the Germans appear to have been the inventors of the passion I am denouncing, Lessing and Schlegel seem to have been the first to brandish their poets as the expression of the national soul, from a feeling of exasperation with the universalism of French literature. The men of the French Pléiade (who will certainly be brought up against me) wished to give their sensibility a national mode of expression, a national language; they never claimed to give a national character to that sensibility, to oppose it to other national sensibilities. The systematic nationalization of the mind is undoubtedly an invention of modern times. As regards the men of learning, this nationalizing has undoubtedly been favoured by the disappearance of Latin as the scientific language; and no one will ever be able to say to what an extent this disappearance was an element of arrest in civilisation.

[45] In Nietzsche’s opinion, this was the case with Wagner, who, when he gave himself out to his compatriots as the Messiah of German art, saw that there was ‘a good vacant place to take’, while the whole of his artistic formation as well as his profound philosophy, was essentially universalist. (See _Ecce Homo_, p. 58. ‘What I have never forgiven Wagner is his condescending to Germany.’) One wonders whether the same might not be said of a certain apostle of ‘Lorrain genius’ or of ‘Provençal genius’.

[46] The nationalization of the mind sometimes has results whose savour is not sufficiently enjoyed. In 1904, during the centenary celebrations of Petrarch, the nations of Goethe and Shakespeare were not invited, because they are not Latins; but the Roumanians were invited. We do not know whether Uruguay was invited.

[47] Anatole France, _La Vie Littéraire_, tome ii, p. 274. The nationalist desires in French writers which I have been pointing out have had other than political results; no one will ever be able to say how many among them in the past fifty years have falsified their talents, mistaken their true gifts in their endeavours to ‘feel in the French manner’. A good example is the _Voyage de Sparte_, where so many pages show what a beautiful piece of work it might have been if the author had not _forced_ himself to feel his Lorrain soul under a Greek sky. Here we come upon one of the most curious characteristics in the writers of this age; the rejection of freedom of mind _for themselves_, the thirst for ‘a discipline’ (the whole fortune of MM. Maurras and Maritain comes from this), a thirst which in most of them is the result of a fundamental intellectual nihilism. (On this nihilism in Barrès, see Curtius, ‘Barrès and the intellectual foundations of French nationalism,’ extracts in _Union pour la Vérité_, May, 1925; in Maurras, see Guy-Grand, op. cit., p. 19; and L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans d’Action Française_, p. 330: ‘I have never seen a more unhappy soul than his.’) But the psychology of contemporary writers in itself and apart from its political action is not my subject here.

[48] I think it novel that a poet should give rise to a demonstration so essentially practical as the address of the Naval League of Venice to d’Annunzio after the publication of _La Nave_. ‘On the day when your genius radiates with new splendour over the ancient ruler of “our sea”, over Venice, to-day disarmed against Pola, the Naval League of Venice thanks you with emotion, hoping that the third Italy may at last arm the prow and set sail towards the world.’ (_Translator’s Note._--I have rendered the French version as quoted; its meaning or lack of meaning is no doubt inherent in the genius of the original, which I have not before me.)

[49] Compare with Balzac, who, though a Conservative, never hesitates to show his Conservatives and particularly his Catholics in an unfavourable light, if he thinks that the true light. See the examples quoted by E. Seillière (_Balzac et la morale romantique_, pp. 27 onwards, and 84 onwards), who sharply reproaches Balzac.

[50] ‘_Resurrection_,’ ‘_Jean-Christophe_’ (derived in this respect from the procedure of George Sand). On the other hand, I seem to find a great deal of justice done the bourgeois in _Les Miserables_, which is nevertheless a most ‘tendencious’ novel.

[51] For instance, pre-war French novels showing the French in Alsace-Lorraine. We may be quite certain that since 1918 the Germans have written novels which are the exact counterpart to these.

[52] See Note G at the end of this book.

[53] See, for instance, Fustel de Coulanges’s study _De la manière d’écrire l’histoire en France et en Allemagne_. It will be observed that this author’s denunciation of the German historians exactly applies to certain French historians of recent years, with this difference: That the German alters history to exalt his nation and the Frenchman to exalt a political system. In general it may be said that the ‘tendencious’ philosophies of the Germans lead to national war, and those of the French to civil war. Is it necessary to repeat, after so many others, how much this proves the moral superiority of the latter?

[54] _Revue Universelle_, 15th April, 1924. Here is that very curious desire of the moderns to yield to subjectivism, whereas their elders made every effort to combat it.

[55] See Note H at the end of this book.

[56] Yet the Jesuits thought of doing so to combat the Jansenists. (See Racine, _Port-Royal_, pt. i.)

[57] On the matter of the lack of literary sensibility which accompanies this political criticism among its adepts, see a paragraph of L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans d’Action Française_, p. 334.

[58] The distinction between these two humanitarianisms is well expressed by Goethe when he relates (Dichtung und Wahrheit) the indifference of himself and his friends to the events of 1789. ‘In our little circle, we took no notice of news and newspapers; our object was to know Man; as for men, we left them to do as they chose.’ Need I recall that the ‘humanities’, as instituted by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, the ‘studia humanitatis’, are ‘the study of what is most essentially human’, in no sense altruistic exercises. See further Note I at the end of this book for a curious quotation from one of the ancients.

[59] This the Church has understood so well, and the corollary to this truth: That love between men can only be created by developing in them the sensibility for abstract man, and by combatting in them the interest for concrete man; by turning them towards metaphysical meditation and away from the study of history (see Malebranche). This is exactly the contrary direction to that of the modern ‘clerks’ but, once again, these ‘clerks’ have not the slightest desire to create love among men.

[60] Thus they adopt the national spirit if it seems to serve their interests; for instance, the party of ‘nationalist-socialists’.

[61] Certain nationalists, desirous of honouring cosmopolitanism, whose full value their intelligence perceives, and yet not wishing to sacrifice nationalism, declare that cosmopolitanism represents ‘enlightened nationalism’. M. Paul Bourget, who gives this definition (_Paris-Times_, June, 1924), quotes Goethe and Stendhal as examples, ‘the former of whom remained so profoundly German while striving to understand the whole movement of French thought, and the latter remained so profoundly French while he devoted himself to understanding Italy.’ One wonders how these two masters showed the least, even enlightened, ‘nationalism’ by remaining profoundly German and profoundly French. Obviously M. Bourget confuses national and nationalist.

[62] Almost all works of national propaganda among the small nations of Eastern Europe are anthologies of poetry. Very few are works of thought. See the words uttered by E. Boutroux in August, 1915, to the Committee of the Entente Cordiale, against the peoples who attach too much importance to the intelligence, which ‘of itself tends to be one and common to all beings capable of knowledge’.

[63] _Les Nouvelles Littéraires_, 25th September, 1926.

[64] Here is a specimen of the acrobatics which these teachers are compelled to perform in order to conciliate Christian doctrine with the preaching of national particularisms: ‘We wish to set the ideal of universalism in positive relation to the contemporary reality of the national form, which is that of all life, even the Christian life.’ (Pastor Witte, quoted by A. Loisy, _Guerre et Religion_, p. 18.) Here are minds for whom the squaring of the circle is obviously mere child’s play.

[65] Is it not suggestive to note that the Church in the last twenty years has replaced the commandment ‘Homicide shalt thou not be, in fact or by assent’ with ‘Homicide shalt thou not be, without right, nor voluntarily’?

[66] For example in this passage of Bossuet: ‘Since we are obliged to love all men and since in truth no man is a foreigner to a Christian, there is all the more reason for loving our fellow citizens. All the love a man feels for himself, for his family, and for his friends is united in the love he feels for his country....’ (_Politique tirée de l’Ecriture Sainte_, I, vi. Notice the phrase ‘All the love a man feels for himself....’ It wholly justifies Saint Evremond’s phrase: ‘Love of country is really love of oneself.’) It appears that the Church would prefer to go on presenting patriotism under this one aspect of love (see the inquiry of ‘les Lettres’ on the Church and Nationalism, 1922-3), which would allow her to exalt this passion (as its popularity requires) without violating the principles of Christianity. Unfortunately for the Church, positive men come along and remind her that patriotism is something more than love, and includes ‘hatred for the foreigner’. (Maurras, _Dilemme de Marc Sangnier_.) Who will deliver us from the truth-tellers?

[67] A. Lugan, _La grande loi sociale de l’amour des hommes_, liv. ii, chap. iii.

[68] Père Ollivier, _Les Amitiés de Jesus_, p. 142.

[69] _Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique_ (1919), in the article headed ‘Patrie’. The reader will note the extraordinary practical spirit of this article, and the desire to love only those who have done something for us.

[70] Loisy’s _Guerre et Religion_, p. 60. Nevertheless, a certain number of practising clergy speak in the same way; see Guillot de Givry, _Le Christ et la Patrie_, towards the end.