"Thereby it asked, in less general terms, what was the cause of the social evil, and what was its remedy? You admitted that yourselves, gentlemen when your committee reported that the competitors had enumerated with exactness the immediate and particular causes of suicide, as well as the means of preventing each of them; but that from this enumeration, chronicled with more or less skill, no positive information had been gained, either as to the primary cause of the evil, or as to its remedy.
"In 1839, your programme, always original and varied in its academical expression, became more exact.The investigations of 1838 had pointed out, as the causes or rather as the symptoms of the social malady, the neglect of the principles of religion and morality, the desire for wealth, the passion for enjoyment, and political disturbances.All these data were embodied by you in a single proposition: THE UTILITY OF THE CELEBRATION OF SUNDAY ASREGARDS HYGIENE, MORALITY, AND SOCIAL AND POLITICAL RELATION_.
"In a Christian tongue you asked, gentlemen, what was the true system of society.A competitor dared to maintain, and believed that he had proved, that the institution of a day of rest at weekly intervals is inseparably bound up with a political system based on the equality of conditions; that without equality this institution is an anomaly and an impossibility: that equality alone can revive this ancient and mysterious keeping of the seventh day.This argument did not meet with your approbation, since, without denying the relation pointed out by the competitor, you judged, and rightly gentlemen, that the principle of equality of conditions not being demonstrated, the ideas of the author were nothing more than hypotheses.
"The Utility of the Celebration of Sunday," &c.By P.J.
Proudhon.Besancon, 1839, 12mo; 2d edition, Paris, 1841, 18mo.
"Finally, gentlemen, this fundamental principle of equality you presented for competition in the following terms: THEECONOMICAL AND MORAL CONSEQUENCES IN FRANCE UP TO THE PRESENTTIME, AND THOSE WHICH SEEM LIKELY TO APPEAR IN FUTURE, OF THE LAWCONCERNING THE EQUAL DIVISION OF HEREDITARY PROPERTY BETWEEN THECHILDREN.
"Instead of confining one to common places without breadth or significance, it seems to me that your question should be developed as follows:--"If the law has been able to render the right of heredity common to all the children of one father, can it not render it equal for all his grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
"If the law no longer heeds the age of any member of the family, can it not, by the right of heredity, cease to heed it in the race, in the tribe, in the nation?
"Can equality, by the right of succession, be preserved between citizens, as well as between cousins and brothers? In a word, can the principle of succession become a principle of equality?
"To sum up all these ideas in one inclusive question: What is the principle of heredity? What are the foundations of inequality? What is property?
"Such, gentlemen, is the object of the memoir that I offer you to day.
"If I have rightly grasped the object of your thought; if Isucceed in bringing to light a truth which is indisputable, but, from causes which I am bold enough to claim to have explained, has always been misunderstood; if by an infallible method of investigation, I establish the dogma of equality of conditions;if I determine the principle of civil law, the essence of justice, and the form of society; if I annihilate property forever,--to you, gentlemen, will redound all the glory, for it is to your aid and your inspiration that I owe it.
"My purpose in this work is the application of method to the problems of philosophy; every other intention is foreign to and even abusive of it.
"I have spoken lightly of jurisprudence: I had the right; but Ishould be unjust did I not distinguish between this pretended science and the men who practise it.Devoted to studies both laborious and severe, entitled in all respects to the esteem of their fellow-citizens by their knowledge and eloquence our legists deserve but one reproach, that of an excessive deference to arbitrary laws.
"I have been pitiless in my criticism of the economists: for them I confess that, in general, I have no liking.The arrogance and the emptiness of their writings, their impertinent pride and their unwarranted blunders, have disgusted me.Whoever, knowing them, pardons them, may read them.
"I have severely blamed the learned Christian Church: it was my duty.This blame results from the facts which I call attention to: why has the Church decreed concerning things which it does not understand? The Church has erred in dogma and in morals;physics and mathematics testify against her.It may be wrong for me to say it, but surely it is unfortunate for Christianity that it is true.To restore religion, gentlemen, it is necessary to condemn the Church.
"Perhaps you will regret, gentlemen, that, in giving all my attention to method and evidence, I have too much neglected form and style: in vain should I have tried to do better.Literary hope and faith I have none.The nineteenth century is, in my eyes, a genesic era, in which new principles are elaborated, but in which nothing that is written shall endure.That is the reason, in my opinion, why, among so many men of talent, France to-day counts not one great writer.In a society like ours, to seek for literary glory seems to me an anachronism.Of what use is it to invoke an ancient sibyl when a muse is on the eve of birth? Pitiable actors in a tragedy nearing its end, that which it behooves us to do is to precipitate the catastrophe.The most deserving among us is he who plays best this part.Well, I no longer aspire to this sad success!
