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852 «ri> * &**&**? J ' [Saturday, —. ._^...
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PROUDHON ON REACTION AND REVOLUTION. Ide...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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That The Catholic Church Should Be A Per...
the secret of most paradoxes . How many neglected . geniuses would willingly emulate that youth " fired the Ephesjan dome" upon the chance of being seen in the light of their incendiarism ! France has no lack of such men—eager for ed'H it tuny cost . This week we hear of one , M . LeoK de Montbeillaed , who has published a work on Spinoza . If that glorious Jew has one character istic more eminent than another , it is commonly supposed to be the geometric precision and exactitude of his logical demonstrations . To say that Spinoza , was a rigorous logician is like saying that Shakspeare was dramatic and Milton
imaginative—a platitude unworthy of an original mind , a truism beneath notice . M . Montbeillaed declines to walk in such a beaten path . He denies Spinoza ' s logical merit . Spinoza a logician ; fi done 1 Read this treatise and learn better . What all the world has hitherto supposed to be severe
deductive logic , only to be escaped by a refusal to accept the premisses , is here shown to be nothing but a pedantic array of pretended axioms and theorems , which are attacked and overturned by this adventurous author avec une assez grande facilitL We have not seen the work , but we have not a doubt of the facility !
852 «Ri> * &**&**? J ' [Saturday, —. ._^...
852 « ri > * &**&**? J ' [ Saturday , — . . _^^_ . _ ^—
Proudhon On Reaction And Revolution. Ide...
PROUDHON ON REACTION AND REVOLUTION . Idee GenSrale de la Revolution , Au XIX Siecle . Choir < TEludes sur la Pratique llevolutionnaire et Indusirielle . Par . P . J Proudhon . W . Jeffs . After Comte there is no one in France to compare with Proudhon for power , originality , daring , and coherence . His name is a name of terror . He is of no party , no sect . Like Ishmael , his hand is raised against every one , and his blows are crushing . In some respects he reminds us of
Carlyle : there is the same relentless scorn for his adversaries , the same vehement indignation against error , the same domineering personality , the same preference for crude energy of statement , the same power of sarcasm ; but . there is none of the abounding poetry which is in Carlyle , none of the the genius ; and there is an excess of dialectics such as Carlyle would turn aside from . If Carlyle is the Prophet of Democracy , Proudhon is its Logician and Economist .
Proudhon loves to startle . It suits his own vehement , combative nature . We do not think he does it from calculation so much as from instinct ; he does not fire a musket in the air that its noise may call attention to him , but from sheer sympathy with musket shots . Whatever way he the motive , the result is unquestionable : attention is attracted and fixed . A treatise on the gradual disintegration of property would have met with few readers ; but his Quest ce a tie la I ' ropriele , opening such a
terrific cannonade with the . startling war-cry , La Proprii ' tv . e ' est ie vol , could not but rouse the most lethargic . And so of all his works ; no matter how arid the subject , his style makes it startling , interesting . If he were , like many of his countrymen , merely a stylist , and could only startle , the Knglish reader would resent his paradoxical artifices ; but no one can read twenty pages without perceiving that there is terrible earnest beneath these deliberate exaggerations . In his firnt Memoir on Property , for example , there 13 this
passage : — " What form of government uluill we prefer ? How can you awk ? replica one of my young readers ; ofcour . se you arc ? Republican ! . Republican , ym ; but , that word defines nothing . Ilrsptiblica , i . s the public object ; and whoever deHire . s a public object , under whatever Inrni of government , may cull himself republican . Kings are republican . Well , then , you are 11 Democrat I No . What ! can you be a Monarclii . st ? No . < -OMstitutionaliist , ? Heaven forbid ! Aristocrat , ? Not , in the least . Do you w ivji for a mixed government ? Still lens . What arc \ ou then ? / am . an Anarchist .. "
For a grave writer this is " Nturlling , " is il not r A man deliberately proclaiming unurclnj to be his aim , bin ideal ! Do not , however , take him at bis word . llo no inon : hiwiiih to preach " disorder , " than ]> y his definition of property he , moans to preach brigandage ; . Hy " anarchy , " he . means jio more than what our udminible friend Herbert Spencer m ; Lh forth as the goal to which civilization ih irresistibly tending , viz , the final disappearance of Government , become unnecessary because men will have learned ho to control themselves sih to m-t-d no external coercion . On tlnH point we shall Imv « KoineUiiug to nay which nuiy clear up the
ambiguities and reconcile discrepancies ; but we postpone doing so until we arrive at the subject in our analysis of Proudhon ' s last work , which now lies before us , and to which we propose devoting a much larger space than is customary , partly because of the interest attached to Proudhon ' s name , and partly because the work not being translated will be beyond the reach of many readers . It consists of seven etudes or chapters : —1 . Reactions determine revolutions . 2 . Is there sufficient reason for a revolution in the nineteeuth century ? 3 . On the Principle of Association . 4 . On the Principle of Authority . 5 . Social liquidation . 6 . Organization of ceconomic forces . 7 . Dissolution of
Government in the ceconomic organization . The plan it will be seen is comprehensive ; the execution has all Proudhon ' s peculiarities . We shall consider each section in succession , merely premising that , unlike almost all revolutionary writers , instead of dedicating his work to the Pro Jetaires he dedicates it to the Bourgeoisie , declaring that the Middle Classes have from time immemorial been the most intrepid and most adroit of revolutionists . " What will Louis Blanc say to that ?
Proudhon opens his first section with a refutation of the error current equally among the Party of Resistance and the Party of Movement , that a Revolution can in its early stages be arrested , driven back , avoided , or transformed . He says , we believe truly , that a revolution is a force against which all human strength is powerless ; it grows and is fortified by the very resistance it encounters . Indeed , whoever looks at revolution as the growth of society , must see that it is irresistible , if life continue : the seed will burst , the bud will blossom ! But , as Proudhon says , a revolution may be directed , moderated , retarded—it may be slow and peaceful instead of being spasmodic and vehement . Give the ship sea-room , that is all .
Every revolution at first assumes the position of an accusation against a vicious condition of society , which the poor suffer most from—it is a complaint on the part of the People . It is not in the nature of the masses to revolt , unless against suffering . Is that to be repressed , persecuted ? No ; a Government whose policy consists in eluding the wish of the masses , and repressing their outcries , denounces its own incompetence . The nation is ill .
unhappy . Attend to it , listen to its sorrows , study the causes of its discontent , allow if you will for the necessary exaggeration of ignorance and suffering ; but be . sure there is something wrong . Do that honestly and the revolution will accomplish itself peaceably . Avoid it , repress the cries , deny the evil , call the whole false and factious because exaggeration has mis-stated some part , do this and . !
There are two causes noted by Proudhon as opposing the regular peaceable development of revolutions : established interests , and pride of the Government . These are always together . What is a complaint hut the signification that established interests are not identical with national interestsand the signification that Government has mismanaged its work ? Proudhon therefore undertakes
to point out the share which Reaction has in deter mutiny the course of a revolution . " If the revolution did not exist , be sure of this , the reaction would invent it . The Idea conceived vaguely under the impulse of want , becomes clear and decisive under contradiction , and grows into a right . And as all rights are reciprocal , as you cannot deny one without , at , the same time sacrificing them all , the result in that a reactionary Government i . s led away by the phantom which it pursues , and by dint of wishing to save . society from a revolution , it interest ;* the entire society in that revolution . It was thus the ancient monarchy first dismissed Turgot , then Necker ; opposed all reforms , discontented the tiers elat , parliaments , clergy , nobility , and created the revolution . "
» So it , ih . Men are scared by phantoms in broad daylight ; La Spectre Itoiu / e , the phantom of their own fears , makes them desert the Truth , desert Justice , abjure Reason , and ily i , o Force—blind , brutal , stupid , suicidal Force , rather than listen to the complaints of the masses , and study their disease ; and when exasperated suffering breaks forth into Violence , then we hear of the wicked
press which misled the manses , and taught them to revolt , ol " dangerouH demagogues " who deceived them by lying promises of getting their woes lightened . Surely the way t , o disarm the preHS of its power , the demagogue of his influence , is not to gag the one and imprison the other , but to examine honestly and truce to its nource , that injustice which gave writer and orator their subject ?
Doubtless , to many Whig minds it appears , that Government has thoroughly fulfilled its f unction and has lent benign attention to the " complain ts ^ which rise to it from out the sorrowing masses ; nor can any impartial observer deny that , compared with other nations , England has had the advantage of fur greater attention given to the " cond ition of the People question" by the indirect labours of philanthropists , noble and gentle . Hence , much of our superior security . But that England , or any other country , is free from the charge Proudhon brings of eluding and repressing by al l practicable means the deep-voiced protests of some social malady , we unequivocally deny . It will , however , first be necessary to settle the nature of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century .
The Revolution of ' 89 was Political : the Revolution of ' 48 was Social . In the first the struggle was for The Rights of Man ; in the second the struggle was for The Eights of Labour . Before ' 89 the People were politically no more than things ; they conquered their existence as men and citizens by a fearful and gigantic combat . Their political existence thus secured , they had then to conquer their social existence . They had been slaves to Privilege ; they were now slaves to Capital . They found citizenship a vain distinction without Socialism . They cared less for a Republic than for the Organization of Labour .
Such , reduced to its ultimate terms , we believe to be the Revolution of the Nineteenth Century ; such is the Idea animating it ; and the admirable instinct of the populace , persisting in the formula of a " Republic democratic and social" ( solittle understood by the vulgar Republicans of the Provisional Government and elsewhere , who only aped the Revolution of ' 89 ) , unequivocally points that way . If this be so , we ask , whether any Government has opened its ears to this universal Labour cry ? Has it directed itself to the Organization of Labour ?
Has it studied the subject , fostered experiments , given countenance , invited discussion ? No ; it has done what it always does—avoided or suppressed the question . Even in free-spoken England—although the right of discussion cannot be taken away —what has been the treatment of those who directed themselves to the Labour question ? Has Government solicited their advice ? has it appointed any competent body to examine the question ? Has it not been content to fling the word Socialism as an outrage , and to ignore the matter as much as possible ? As to France , let
Proudhon speak : — "In 1818 , the proletariat , suddenly interposing in the quarrel between ihe middle class and the Crown , made its cry of misery heard . What w « s the cause of that misery ? Want of work was the answer . The People , therefore , demanded work : its protest went no further . Those who had just proclaimed the Republic in the name of the People , having le ardentlembraced
promised to find work , the Peop y the republican cause . la default of a more positive interest , the People accepted a bill on the Republic . That was a euflieient cause for it to take the Republic under its protection . Who could have supposed trial those who signed the schedule would have no thougiu but for its destruction ? ' Work and Urcart ior Work , ' such was in 1848 the petition of the worJungclasses : such was the immovable basis given by tneiu
to the Republic , such was the revolution . The proclamation of the Republic , act ol n more or lens intelligent , of a more or less usurping minority , on the 25 th of February , 1848 , was there fore , 0110 thing ; and the revolutionary question ^ 1 labour , which made this Republic an object ot mtcrcb ^ and alone ^ ave it a real value in the e yes ol masses , wiih another . No : the llepubiic of l ' ^ . ^ in not the revolution , it i , s the pledge of the revo « - lion , it has been no fault of those who nn ^ governed Unit Republic , from the highcht to the 1 <> - e . st , if the pledge hau not perched : the Peop le »» ; now to decide on what condiiioiiH they nhall ni iui be intrusted with itH gunrdian . ship .
' At first , this demand for work did not app « ' « the lea . st exorbitant to the new leaders , none ot vv ^ had hitherto htudiisd political ( economy . ,, ; ,, „ . contrary , it was a wubjeet for mutual eongratula What a People was that which , in its day <>< umph , sicked neiihcr for bread nor ainuH < . '" »«? niN the Roman People had done—panem ct ( Urceniief > , only work ! What a guarantee for the moralriy , , discipline , the dot ility of the labouring < : ' » ? . discipline , me uoiimy <> i <¦'"' i » n »»»*'" -r > . jj Uoverniricnt
What a pledge of nccurity for a . . ^ nuiKt be oonlenHed that it wua with the bent 11 " the world and the mowt praiseworthy neiitui 1 - that the . Provisional ( . ovemmont proclaimed "" ' •' to labour . Tlu-Ho wohIh doubilcBH betruyed ignota - ^ but the munition was there . And what cii" »«' j m done with the French People by the mam esui 1 . of intentioim ? There wan no bourgeois , now - ^ quariolHome , who was not at thut moment l
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 6, 1851, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06091851/page/16/
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