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are immutable; but the Regulations dictated by Prudence, though by the Divine Prudence, and though given in thunder from the Mount, have passed away; and while they lasted, were binding only for that one State whose particular Circumstances rendered them expedient.

Rousseau indeed asserts, that there is an inalienable Sovereignty inherent in every human being possessed of Reason and from this the Framers of the Constitution of 1791 deduce, that the People itself is its' own sole rightful Legislator, and at most dare only recede so far from its right as to delegate to chosen Deputies the Power of representing and declaring the general Will. But this is wholly without proof; for it has already been fully shewn, that according to the Principle out of which this consequence is attempted to be drawn, it is not the actual Man, but the abstract Reason alone, that is the sovereign and rightful Lawgiver. The confusion of two things so different is so gross an Error, that the Constituent Assembly could scarce proceed a step in their Declaration of Rights, without some glaring inconsistency. Children are excluded from all political Power-are they not human beings in whom the faculty of Reason resides? Yes? but in them the faculty is not yet adequately developed. But are not gross Ignorance, inveterate Superstition, and the habitual Tyranny of Passion and Sensuality, equal Preventives of the developement, equal impediments to the rightful exercise of the Reason, as Childhood and early Youth? Who would not rely on the judgement of a well-educated English Lad, bred in a virtuous and enlightened Family, in preference to that of a brutal Russian, who believes that he can scourge his wooden Idol into good humour, or attributes to himself the merit of perpetual Prayer, when he has fastened the Petitions, which his Priest has written for him, on the wings of a Windmill? Again: Women are likewise. excluded a full half, and that assuredly the most innocent, the most amiable half, of the whole human Race, is excluded, and this too by a Constitution which boasts to have no other foundations but those of universal Reason! Is Reason then an affair of Sex? No! But Women are commonly in a state of dependence, and are not likely to exercise their Reason with freedom. Well! and does not this ground of exclusion apply with equal or greater

force to the Poor, to the Infirm, to Men in embarrassed Circumstances, to all short in whose maintenance, be it scanty or be it ample, depends on the Will of others? How far are we to go? Where must we stop? What Classes should we admit? Whom must we disfranchise? The objects, concerning whom we are to determine these Questions, are all Human Beings and differenced from each other by degrees only, these degrees too oftentimes changing. Yet the Principle on which the whole System rests is, that Reason is not susceptible of degree. Nothing therefore, which subsists wholly in degrees, the changes of which do not obey any necessary Law, can be Subjects of pure Science, or determinable by mere Reason. For these things we must rely on our Understandings, enlightened by past experience and immediate Observation, and determining our choice by comparisons of Expedi

ency.

It is therefore altogether a mistaken notion, that the Theory which would deduce the social Rights of Man and the sole rightful form of Government from principles of Reason, involves a necessary preference of the democratic, or even the representative, Constitutions. Accordingly, several of the French Economists, although Devotees of Rousseau and the physiocratic System, and assuredly not the least respectable of their Party either in Morals or in Intellect; and these too Men, who lived and wrote under the unlimited Monarchy of France, and who were therefore well acquainted with the evils connected with that System: did yet declare themselves for a pure Monarchy in preference to the aristocratic, the popular, or the mixed form. These Men argued, that no other Laws being allowable but those which are demonstrably just, and founded in the simplest ideas of Reason, and of which every Man's Reason is the competent judge, it is indifferent whether one Man, or one or more Assemblies of men, give form and publicity to them. For being matters of pure and simple Science, they require no experience in order to see their Truth, and among an enlightened People, by whom this System had been once solemnly adopted, no Sovereign would dare to make other Laws than those of Reason. They further contend, that if the People were not enlightened, a purely popular Government could not co-exist with this System of absolute Justice and if it were adequately enlightened, the

influence of public Opinion would supply the place of formal Representation, while the form of the Government would be in harmony with the unity and simplicity of its Principles. This they entitle le Despotisme legal sous l'Empire de l'Evidence. (The best statement of the Theory thus modified, may be found in Mercier de la Riviere, l'ordre naturel et essentiel des societés politiques.) From the proofs adduced in the preceding paragraph, to which many others might be added, I have no hesitation in affirming that this latter Party are the more consistent Reasoners.

It is worthy of remark, that the influence of these Writings contributed greatly, not indeed to raise the present Emperor, but certainly to reconcile a numerous class of Politicians to his unlimited Authority: and as far as his lawless Passion for War and Conquest allows him to govern according to any Principles, he favours those of the physiocratic Philosophers. His early education must have given him a predilection for a Theory conducted throughout with mathematical precision; its very simplicity promised the readiest and most commodious Machine for Despotism, for it moulds a Nation into as calculable a Power as an Army; while the stern and seeming greatness of the whole and its mock-elevation above human feelings, flattered his Pride, hardened his Conscience, and aided the efforts of Self-delusion. REASON is the sole Sovereign, the only rightful Legislator: but Reason to act on Man must be impersonated. The Providence which had so marvellously raised and supported him, had marked HIM out for the Representative of Reason, and had armed him with irresistible force, in order to realize its Laws. In Him therefore MIGHT becomes RIGHT, and HIS Cause and that of Destiny (or as the Wretch now chuses to word it, exchanging blind. Nonsense for staring Blasphemy) HIS Cause and the Cause of God are one and the same. Excellent Postulate for a Choleric and self-willed Tyrant! What avails the impoverishment of a few thousand Merchants and Manufacturers? What even the general Wretchedness of millions of perishable men, for a short generation? Should these stand in the way of the chosen Conqueror, the “Innovator Mundi, et Stupor Saeculorum," or prevent a constitution of Things, which erected on intellectual and

perfect foundations, groweth not old," but like the eternal Justice, of which it is the living Image,

"may despise

"The strokes of Fate and see the World's last hour!" For Justice, austere unrelenting Justice, is every where held up as the one Thing needful: and the only Duty of the Citizen, in fulfiling which he obeys all the Laws, is not to encroach on another's sphere of Action. The greatest possible Happiness of a People is not, according to this System, the object of a Governor; but to preserve the Freedom of all by coercing within the requisite bounds the Freedom of each. Whatever a Government does more than this, comes of Evil: and its' best employment is the repeal of Laws and Regulations, not the Establishment of them. Each Man is the best judge of his own Happiness, and to himself must it therefore be entrusted. Remove all the interferences of positive Statues, all Monopoly, all Bounties, all Prohibitions, and all Encouragements of Importation and Exportation, of particular growth and particular manufactures: let the Revenues of the State be taken at once from the Produce of the Soil; and all things will then find their level, all irregularities will correct each other, and an indestructible Cycle of harmonious motions take place in the moral equally as in the natural World. The business of the Governor is to watch incessantly, that the State shall remain composed of Individuals acting as Individuals, by which alone the Freedom of all can be secured. Its Duty is to take care, that itself remain the sole collective power, and that all the Citizens should enjoy the same Rights, and without distinction be subject to the same Duties.

Splendid Promises! Can any thing appear more equitable than the last Proposition, the equality of Rights and Duties? Can any thing be conceived more simple in the idea? But the execution? let the four or five quarto Volumes of the Conscript Code be the Comment! But as briefly as possible I shall prove, that this System, as an exclusive Total, is under any form impracticable ; and that if it were realized, and as far as it were realized, it would necessarily lead to general Barbarism and the most grinding Oppression; and that the final result of a general attempt to introduce it, must be a military Des potism inconsistent with the Peace and Safety of Man.

kind. That Reason should be our Guide and Governor is an undeniable Truth, and all our notion of Right and Wrong is built thereon for the whole moral Nature of Man originated and subsists in his Reason. From Reason alone can we derive the Principles which our Understandings are to apply, the Ideal to which by means of our Understandings we should endeavour to approximate. This however gives no proof, that Reason alone ought to govern and direct human beings, either as Individuals or as States. It ought not to do this, because it cannot. The Laws of Reason are unable to satisfy the first conditions of Human Society. We will admit that the shortest Code of Law is the best, and that the Citizen finds himself most at ease where the Government least intermeddles with his affairs, and confines its efforts to the preservation of public tranquillity-we will suffer this to pass at present undisputed, though the examples of England, and before the late Events, of Holland and Switzerland, (surely the three happiest Nations of the World) to which perhaps we might add the major part of the former German free Towns, furnish stubborn facts in presumption of the contrary-yet still the proof is wanting that the first and most general applications and exertions of the power of Man can be definitely regulated by Reason unaided by the positive and conventional Laws in the formation of which the Understanding must be our Guide, and which become just because they happen to be expedient.

The chief object, for which Men first formed themselves into a State was not the protection of their Lives but of their Property: For where the nature of the Soil and Climate precludes all Property but personal, and permits that only in its simplest forms, as in Greenland, men remain in the domestic State and form Neighbourhoods, but not Governments. And in North America the Chiefs appear to exercise Government in those Tribes only which possess individual landed Property: among the rest the Chief is their General only, and Government is exercised only in Families by the Fathers of Families. But where individual landed Property exists, there must be inequality of Property: the nature of the Earth and the nature of the Mind unite to make the contrary impossible. But to suppose the Land the Property of the State and the Labour and the Produce to be equally divided among all the Members of the State, involves more than one contradic.

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