reason.

ory to practice. He admits the possibility, he is compelled by history to allow even the probability, that the most numerous popular assemblies, nay even whole nations, may at times be hurried away by the same passions, and under the dominion of a common error. This will of all is then of no more value, than the humors of any one individual; and must therefore be sacredly distinguished from the pure will which flows from universal To this point then I entreat the reader's particular at-‹ tention for in this distinction, established by Rousseau himself, between the volonté de tous and the volonté générale,—that is, between the collective will, and a casual overbalance of willsthe falsehood or nothingness of the whole system becomes manifest. For hence it follows, as an inevitable consequence, that all which is said in the Contrat Social of that sovereign will, to which the right of universal legislation appertains, applies to no one human being, to no society or assemblage of human beings, and least of all to the mixed multitude that makes up the people but entirely and exclusively to reason itself, which, it is true, dwells in every man potentially, but actually and in perfect purity is found in no man and in no body of men. This distinction the latter disciples of Rousseau chose completely to forget, and,—a far more melancholy case-the constituent legislators of France forgot it likewise. With a wretched parrotry they wrote and harangued without ceasing of the volonté générale— the inalienable sovereignty of the people and by these highsounding phrases led on the vain, ignorant, and intoxicated populace to wild excesses and wilder expectations, which entailing on them the bitterness of disappointment cleared the way for military despotism, for the Satanic government of horror under the Jacobins, and of terror under the Corsican.

Luther lived long enough to see the consequences of the doctrines into which indignant pity and abstract principles of right had hurried him-to see, to retract and to oppose them. If the same had been the lot of Rousseau, I doubt not, that his conduct I would have been the same. In his whole system there is beyond · controversy much that is true and well reasoned, if only its application be not extended farther than the nature of the case permits. But then we shall find that little or nothing is won by it for the institutions of society; and least of all for the constitution of governments, the theory of which it was his wish to ground

on it. Apply his principles to any case, in which the sacred and inviolable laws of morality are immediately interested, all becomes just and pertinent. No power on earth can oblige me to act against my conscience. No magistrate, no monarch, no legislature, can without tyranny compel me to do any thing which the acknowledged laws of God have forbidden me to do. So act that thou mayest be able, without involving any contradiction, to will that the maxim of thy conduct should be the law of all intelligent beings is the one universal and sufficient principle and guide of morality. And why? Because the object of morality is not the outward act, but the internal maxim of our actions. And so far it is infallible. But with what show of reason can we pretend, from a principle by which we are to determine the purity of our motives, to deduce the form and matter of a rightful government, the main office of which is to regulate the outward actions of particular bodies of men, according to their particular circumstances? Can we hope better of constitutions framed by ourselves, than of that which was given by Almighty Wisdom itself? The laws of the Hebrew commonwealth, which flowed from the pure reason, remain and 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, the particular circumstances of which 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 shown, 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 scarcely proceed a step in their declaration of rights, without some glaring inconsistency. Children are excluded from all political power;-are they not human *Kant's Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, pp. 46, 47. Leipsic, 1838. Am. Ed.

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, equally preventives of the development, equally impediments to the rightful exercise, of the reason, as childhood and early youth? Who would not rely on the judgment 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-humor, 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 in short 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 expediency.

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 limited 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 légal sous l'empire de l'évidence. The best statement of the theory thus modified, may be found in Mercier de la Rivière, l'ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés 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 favors 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 he now chooses 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 sæculorum, 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 everywhere holden up as the one thing needful; and the only duty of the citizen, in fulfilling 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 intrusted. Remove all the interferences of positive statutes, 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 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