eric voegelin - from enlightenment to revolution

Eric Toegelin

FROM ENLIGHTtr}TMtrNT

TO RtrVOLTJTION

Edited by John H. Hallowell

Duke University Press Durham, North Carolina Lg7 s

O 1975, Duke University Press

L.C.C. card no. 74-81864

ISBN 0-8223-0326-4

ISBN 0-8223-0487 -3 (pbk)

Third printing, 1982

P R I N T E D I N T H E U N I T E DSTATES OF AMERICA

CONITENTS

Editor's Pref ace vii

I. The Emergence of Secularized History: Bossuet and

Voltaire 3

II. Helv6tius and the Genealogy of Passions 35

ilI. Helvdtius and the Heritage of Pascal 53

IV. Positivism and Its Antecedents 7 4

V. The Conflict Between Progress and Political Existence AfterTurgot 110

VI. The Apocalypse of Man: Comte f 36

VII. The Religion of Humanity and the French Revolution

VI[. Revolutionary Existence: Bakunin 195

IX. Bakunin: The Anarchist 2L7

X. Marx: Inverted Dialectics 24O

XI. Marx: The Genesis of Gnostic Socialism 273

Index 305

r60

EDITOR'S PREFACE

The present volume consists of a portion of an unpublished history ofpolitiial ideas which Eric Voegelin wrote in the nineteen forties andiarly fifties. His reluctance to publish the history at the time it waswriiten stemmed in part from a growing conviction that such a history,however well-conceived and executed, could not penetrate the depths ofconsciousness from which such a history emerges. Too often the historyof political ideas is presented as an on-going argument about commonlypeiceived problems of social order; it thus assumes a continuity ofargument and a universal community of discourse which in fact does notexist. The sentiments, passions and experiences of which ideas are thecrystallization tend to be ignored and arguments are generated aboutthe validity of ideas as though the ideas had a life and a reality of theirown. It is the experiences which give rise to ideas which should engageour attention if we want to understand both the human promise and thehuman predicament.

Accordingly Professor Voegelin put aside the history of political ideasand embarked upon a much more ambitious undertaking. He becamemore and more convinced that it was societies and not ideas that werethe real entities and that societies express thennselves in history througha variety of complex symbols. More and more he has turned his atten-tion to the role of myth in history and to the relationships between myth,philosophy and revelation. He was invited to give the Walgreen Lec-tures at the University of Chicago in 1951 and these lechrres werepublished the following year under the title The New Science of Politics.He examined in these lectures the Christian symbolism by means ofwhich the Western world sought to understand itself and focused at-tention upon the distortion of this symbolism in various forms ofGnosticism-religious, intellechral and political. He showed. how theChristian promise of salvation beyond history became in its Gnosticderailment the promise of perfection both of man and of society inhistory.t

1. He elaborated upon the phenomenon of Gnosticism in Wissenschaft, Politikund Gnosis (Munich, 1959). This work has been published in English underthe title Science, Politics and Gnosticism (Chicagon Henry Regnery Co., 1968).The temptation to transmute the Christian promise of salvation beyond historyinto the promise of perfection upon earth in time is not, he shows here, peculiarto the Christian experience and faith but the same phenomenon can be found inJewish, Islamic and Hellenic cultures. "The temptation to fall from a spiritualheight that brings the element of uncertainty into final clarrty down into themore solid certainty of world-immanent, sensible fulfillment . . . $eems to be ageneral human problem' (Op. cit., p. ll4).

a a a

vllt FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

In abbreviated form The New Science of Politics anticipated thepresent work in which he is engaged and a portion of which has alreadyaPPeared in three volumes, namely Order and History.TJire first volumeIsrael an"d Rmelation appeared in 1956, followed in L957 by two ad-ditional volumes, The World of the Polis and Plato and Arist;otle. Twomore volumes will appear under the titles In Search of Order and TheEcumenic Agt. This remarkable intellectual achievement, which maywell become a landmark of twentieth-century scholarship, invites byits broad scope and profound insights comparison with the work ofsuch men as Hegel, Spengler and Toynbee. While it shares withthese works an attempt to elucidate a philosophy of history, it re-spects the ultimate mystery of human existence and claims to havefound but one constant in history, *the constancy of a process that leavesa trail of equivalent symbols in time and space.D Professor Voegelintsphilosophy it, perhaps, best summarized in the Platonic experience oftension. He explains it by saying:

Existence has the structure of the In-Between, of the PlatonicmetaxA, and if anything is constant in the history of mankind it isthe language of tension between life and death, immortality andmortality, perfection and imperfection, time and timelessness, b.-tween order and disorder, truth and untruth, sense and senseless-ness of existencel between amor Dei and amor sui, Pdme ouaerteand Pdme close; between the virtues of openness toward the groundof being such as faith, hope and love and the vices of infoldirgclosure such as hybris and revolt; between the moods of joy anddespair; and between alienation in its double meaning of alienationfrom the world and alienation from God. If we split these pairs ofsymbols, and hypostatize the poles of the tension as independent enti-ties, we destroy the reality of existence as it has been experiencedby the creators of the tensional symbolisms; we lose consciousnessand intellect; we deform our humanity and reduce ourselves to astate of quiet despair or activist conformity to the "ugrtt, of drugaddiction or television watching, of hedonistic stupor or murderouspossession of truth, of suffering from the absurdity of existence orindulgence in any divertissement ( in Pascal's sense ) that promisesto substitute as a ttvaluet for reality lost. In the language of Hera-clitus and Plato: Dream life usurps the place of wake life.t

2. "Equivalences of Experience and Symbolization in Historyr' unpublished rnst.,P. 23.

3. Ibid., p. 7. For an introduction to Professor Voegelin, the man and thescholar, the reader is referred to William C, Havard, "The Changing Pattqrn of

EDIToRts PREFACE ix

Although these words represent Professor Voegelin's most recent ex-pression of the experience of tension in existence the same insight, ff notthe same words, is to be found in the detailed analysis of the ideas ofthe men whom we shall encounter in the pages of this book. Dream lifeusurpiog the place of wake life is the theme of this volume when reasontorn loose from its moorings in the ground of being seeks to create man-made constructions of reality in place of the mysterious reality of God'screation. It is for some, perhaps, a comforting but nevertheless dan-gerous illusion of the modern world that man can create a reality moreto his liking and a human "naturett unflawed by the defects which anearlier tradition assumed it was necessary to live with. With increasingemphasis upon the self, and what some have praised as the t'liberation"

of selfish passions and desires from noetic control and restraint, the self-proclaimed autonomy of reason ends in the enslavement of reason topassion.

'What starts out in the so-called Age of Enlightenment as noth-

itg more formidable than a dream, even an absurd dream, turns out intG twentieth century to be a living nightmare. Professor Voegelin inthe pages which follow traces step by step through a detailed analysisof the works of a number of representative thinkers of the modern agehow this eighteenth-century dream of immanent progress turns into theGnostic political mass movements of contemporary times. What manyregard as the political crisis of our times is shown to be a deeply rootedspiritual crisis that challenges the very substance of our humanity. Withfaithful attention to the texts themselves Professor Voegelin uncoverssentiments that previous analysts of the same texts have sometimes over-looked. He rejects the conventional interpretations of these thinkerswhen those interpretations are simply not borne out by

" careful reading

of their own work. He refuses, quite rightly, to assume that the ideasto be found in these works have some kind of existence or authenticityapart from the sentiments and experiences which generated them.

It was the editor's hope in persuading Professor Voegelin to releasethese manuscripts for publication that they would be helpful not only inshedding new light on some well-known thinkers of the modern age buthelpful to the reader who wants better to understand the path whichProfessor Voegelin has followed to his present undertaking.

Voegelin's Conception of Historyno. 1 (January, l97I ), 49-67.Voegelin's Political Theorlr" The30-73.

JoHN H. Hnr,rowELL

and Consciousnessrt' The Southem Reviea4 7See also Ellis Sandoz, "fhe Foundations ofPolitical Science Reaieaner, I (Fall, lg7l ),

FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

I . THE EMERGENCE OF SECULARIZED HIS.TORY: BOSSUET AND VOLTAIRE

The eighteenth century has been variously characterized as the cen-ttrry of Enlightenment and Revolution or alternatively as the Ag_e ofReason. Whatever the merit of these designations, they embody adenial of cognitive value to spiritual experiences, attest to the atrophyof Christian transcendental experiences and seek to enthrone the New-tonian method of science as the only valid methotl of arriving at truth.The apostatic revolt, for such it was, released a movement of ideaswhich would shape decisively the political structure of the West. Withthe formal abolition of Christiariity as the authoritatively unifyingspiritual substance of mankind, the particular community substancescould move into the vacuum. The mystical bodies of the nations whichhad been growing ever since the high Midille Ages had achieved bythe eighteenth century a considerable coherence and articulation andnow they could begin to substitute with increasing effectiveness for themystical body of Christ.

Increasingly in the eighteenth centuy the sentiment grows that oneage has come to its close and that a new age of

'Western eivilization is

about to be born. We might well characterize this sentiment as a newconsciousness of epoch. frre consciousness of epoch itself, however, isnot a new phenomenon in Western history-it does not suddenly makeitself felt after 1700. We encounter it for the first time at the height ofimperial Christianity in the thirteenth centurf, notably in the writ-ings of Joachim of Flora. The consciousness of epoch was vivid enoughin Joachim to crystallize in the idea of a Third Realm of the Spiritthat would follow the Realms of the Father and the Son. This idearepudiated the Augustinian conception of the saeculum as a time ofwaiting for the second coming of Christ and envisaged a new era ofmeaning in sacred history. The idea was strong enough to engenderamong the Franciscans the belief in a corpus rnysticum Francisci butultimately it remained ineffectual and clid not break through to thelevel of a rnass movement.

While the eighteenth+entuqy's consciousness of epoch is a continua-tion of the movement that started in the thirteenth century, it is dis-tinguished from the earlier phases of this process by its increased in-tensity, by a comprehensiveness which embraces all aspects of humanexistence, above all, by its broad social effectiveness which results inthe final disruption of the medieval sentiments of the Western com-

rRoM tNrlcnrExMnNr to iq,tvorurroN

munity and paves the way for new t1ryes of schismatic political move-ments. After 1300 the new intramundane forces revealed their strengthin a multitude of minor sectarian movements, in the English and Bo-hemian pre-Reformation, in the movement of German mysticism, in thereorganization of the Church and in the trend towards the sovereign,absolute state. A world of sentiments, institutions and ideas was grow-iog and hollowing out the structure of imperial Christianity, but theshell of Church and Empire did not break for another two centuries.The break did occur only in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,when the Church split under the impact of the Reformation and when,after the Thirty Years

'War, the constitution of the Empire became an

appendix to an international treaty.The time from Joachim of Flora to Luther we may characterize as a

period of social incubation. The actual disruption oi medieval institu-tions, which occurred with the Reformation, created the new socialfacts of a plurality of churches as well as of a plurality of sovereigtgtates. These new social facts became the material with which themovement of ideas had to cope. The institutional unity of Christianmankind had broken down irrevocably and the plurality of parochialinstitutions which express the diversified field of intramundane socialforces had become an established fact. With the Peace of Utrecht of1713, the balance of power is accepted as the political constitution ofWestern mankind; with the renunciation by Habsburg and France ofthe effort to dominate Europe by dominating Spain, the medieval ten-sion between the Empire and the states separating from it is broughtto an end.

The elimination of Church and Empire as public powers was ac-companied by a growth of new communiry substances which, func-tionally, tended to substitute for the dissolving substance of Christianmankind. Within the sovereigr national states, the intensity of nationalconsciousness was noticeably increasing. The English Revolution ofthe seventeenth century revealed for the first time the strength of thenew demonic parochialism; it revealed the faith in the nation as thechosen people as well as the universalist claim that the parochial civili-zation rePresents Civilization written large. On the international scalea variety of ideas tried to cope with the new situation: an idea ofmankind which assumed a nature of man equal for all; an idea of theChristianitas as the Western civilizational unit, in opposition to non-Western civilizations; ideas concerning the relations between Christianrepublics; and ideas concerning intercivilizational relations. And,finally, the search for a nature of man beyond the strife of the con-fessions expressed itself in the attempt to use the Stoic idea of nature

SECULARIZED HISTORY: BOSSUET AND VOLTAIRE

as the basis for speculations on natural law, in the influence of the idea

of nature that *ur developed in the mathematized sciences of the ex-

ternal world on the interpretation of man, and in the use of the new

psychology of passions foi determining the generic nature of man.-

The tiind iowards a new order of substances, thus, has a con-

siderable breadth and momentum. Nevertheless we do not find before

I T00 a comprehensive interpretation of man in society and history

that would take into account the constituent factors of the new litua-

tion, that is: the breakdown of the Church as the universal institution

of itrristian mankind, the plurality of sovereign states as ultimate politi'

cal units, the discovery of the New World and the more intimate &c'

quaintance with Asiatit civilizations, the idea of a non-Christian nature

oi tnun as the foundation for speculation on law and ethics, the demon-

ism of the parochial, national communities and the idea of the passions

as motivating forces of man. Only after 1700 does the cumulative

effect of these various factors make itself felt in the acute consciousnes$l

that, in the aggregate, an epoch has come to an end and that the new

situation requires a gigantic effort of interpretation in order to recover

for the existlnce of man in society and history a meaning which could

substitute for the lost meaning of Christian existence.This problem is, indeed, of such a magnitude that even today i1 is

not realized in all its dimensions. But in the eighteenth century we find

at least the first clear consciousness of its outlines and the first effortsat its formulation. We can approach it perhaps best by studying thereasons which induced Vottaire to write his Essai sur les rnoeurE forhis hostess and friend, the Marquise du Ch0telet-Lorraine.

The Marquise du Chf,telet was a woman whose charms were equalledby her intellectual powers. She had enjoyed the pleasures of life underthe Regency, and was now, in her riper years, participating actively inthe development of mathematics and of the sciences of her age. ThisVenus Newtonia, as Frederick the Great named her, experienced theurge to enlarge her horizon beyond the arts and the nahral sciences intothe field of history, and for that pu{pose she studied Bossuet's Ascourssur lhistaire uniBerselle. The illustrious lady was not amused, by theDiscours. Voltaire reports two of her marginal notes. On d" page ofBossuetts chapter on Israel she wrote: "One may talk much of thispeople in theology, but it merits little space in history.D And in thesection on the Roman Empire she wrote: "Why does the author saythat Rome engulfed all the empires of the universe? Russia alone isbigger than all the Roman Empire.o

The two notes touch the crucial problems of the Discours. Boszuettstreatise consists of a chronological survey of events from Adam to

FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

9ltltmagne_ (part I ), followed by the two discursive parts on the un-folding of- religion and on the empires. The conception of history and

f_. grgalization of materials is Jtiil that of St. Arrg.rstine. Th; sD-fgl{ing.of religion, presented in part2rcorresponds to ihe sacred historyof St. Augustine's Ciuitas Dei, the revolution of the empires, presentedin part 3, to the profane history of Orosius. For Bossuit in tire seven-teenth, &s for St. Augustine il the fifth century, the universality ofhistory lies in the providential guidance of mankind toward the ttotreligion. The-history of fsrael, the appearance of Christ, and the historyof the Church are the meaningful history of mankind, while profanlhistor_y with its revolutions of empire has only the function of providingthe educative tribulations for Israel and the Church preparatory to th;ultimate triumph.l The Discours, published in 1681, shows that atthis late date a universal interpretation of history had still to use thepatristic pattern, although the monographic profane history had de-veloped richly following the example of the humanists of the sixteenthcentury. In spite of the inroads of profane history on the traditionalhistorical accounts, however, no historian would have dared to chal-lenge the Christian idea of universality in the face of the reawakenedreligious sentiments of Reformation and Counter-Reformation.z

Secularized history

The notes of the Marquise du Chf,telet frankly challenge the Chris-tian universality by the ?ppeal to a profane principle of universality.The note on the relative importance of Israel bppos.r history to theol-ogy. "History'_ is in this remark a realm independent of the providentialplan; its meaning and order, if any, cannot be derived from the dramaof fall and salvatiorl._The people of Israel may have a unique impor-tance in the sacred drama, but they have little importance in a fieldwhose structure is determined by the rise and fall of political powers.This aspect of the note, however, would not yet be so very revolution-

- 1. See particularly Pt. 3: ttAinsi tous les grands empires que nous avons vu surla terre ont co_ncourru par divers moyens ail bien- de ia relii{on et i Ia gloiie-JeDie^u, comme Dieu m6me I'a d6clar6 par ses prophEtes" (Bissuet, Te*ei Choisiset Commentes par H. Bremond. [Paris-, Iglg]; e, p.58).

2. The only pajor attempt at a world history before l7OO, from a humanisticpoint of. view, is the Enneades ( 1498-1504 ) df Sabellicus. An incipient human-istic universalism makes itself felt, however, only in the extensio^n of Bruni'smethods to a subject matter that usually was dealf with in sacred history. Other-wise no constructive ideas are introduied. See on this question Eduard Fueter,Geschichte der neueren His_tortographie, 3rd ed. (Muenchen, Berlin, 1996), pp.33ff. on the Ennead,es, 3ttd.PP. 2-8-gf. on the absence of any nontheologicai ;ir-proach to the problem of universal history before the eighteenth centuryl


ary; Bossuet might even agree with the Marquise on this Plint and

insist that precisely for this reason he had dealt with Israel in the

Suite de la'religion and not in the part on the empires. The note be-

comes revolutionary by its implication that the sacred history' tlt

"theology;' is unimporiant and that profane history has the monoPoly

of determining tht relevance of peoples and events. The center of

universality iJ shifted from the sacred to the profane level, and. this

shift impfiLs the turning of the tables: that the construction of history

will, in- the future, not be subordinated to the spiritual drama ofhumanity, but that Christianity will be understood as an event in his-

tory. Through this shift of 'the center of interpretation the dualism of

sasred and profane history disappears. The profane history is profaneonly as long as sacred history is accepted as the absolute frame ofrefirence and when this position is abandoned, the two histories mergeon the level of secularized history. By secularization we mean the at-,titude in which history, including the Christian religious phenomena'is conceived as an innerworldly chain of human events, while, at thesame time, there is retained the Christian belief in a universal, mean-

ingful order of human history.-The second note, on the relative importance of Russia and Rome, is

quite as revolutionary as the first, for it introduces the category of

quantity as a standard and attacks thereby the function of Rome as aconstituent factor of Western universality. The relevance of Rome isnot a question of her bigness. Western civilization, as it emerges fromthe Middle Ages, rests on the unique and precarious balance betweenthe elements of ancient civilizations tha,t were merged in it: Hellenicrationalism, Israelite spiritualism, and the Roman jurisdictional ordergoverning the private wills and public offices. The koine of Hellenisticcivilization, the universality of the Roman imperium and the catholicityof the Church are continued, on a new ethnical basis, in the Christianimperial merger of the Middle Ages. The myth of the universality ofthe Empire can dominate the sentiments so long as the plurality ofother worlds does not intrude itself too strongly. In the Roman periodthe sentiment of universality apparently could be maintained by amagnificent forgetfulness abou,t the Sassanian Empire and still moreabout the remoter parts of the Eurasian continent and Africa. Through-out the Middle Ages the sentiment could be held against Islam by thecnrsading expansiveness which put the Mohammedans into ,the positionof a temporary infidel nuisance that would be ultimately overcome.With the Turkish and Mongol advances, however, with the discoveryof America, the increased knorrledge of China and India, and theemergence of Russia, ntr uneasiness would have inevitably to beset

8 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT To REvoLUTIoN

the sentimen't of medieval universality. If the existence of mankind inhistory had a universal rneaning at ail, it would have to rest on sorr€-tli$ different from the myth provided by the dissolving institutionsof Church_and Empire. The remark of td,t Marquise du Chdtelet, ofcourse' did not start a revolution, it rather ptotio,rnced a revolutionwhich had in fact already taken place. An intelligent woman couldstate with the innocence of the ctiita who saw th; emperor withoutclothes what the foremost thinkers of the seventeenth century would stillhave shuddered to admit.

Voltaire w?s receptive to the criticisms of the Marquise. She com-plained that in his universal history Bossuet had forgotten nothingless than the universe, and Voltaire undertook in his Essai to supple--ment the missing parts. He recognized the value of Bossuetts Discoursfor the history of antiquity, though not without severe strictures forinaccuracies and the favoritism shown to fsrael, and restricted his taskto the addition of studies on China, India, Persia and the fslam, and toa continuation of the Discours from the time of Charlemagne to LouisX[I. This supplementary character of the Essai implies itt. idea thatuniversality in historioqlaphy can be achieved by completeness, andinsofar as the Essai impligs thls identification it rathrt op*s than solvesthe _ problem of universality. By completeness one can achieve an €r-:It-loPedia, but not automaticaily a unity of meaning. It is true thatVoltaire's Essai in its final form has the distinction if being the firstuniversal history3 in the sense that it embraces the whole of-*unkind,as it was known at the time in historical literature. But it is also truethat it reveals the weakness of alt universal histories since Voltaire:!h. impossibility oj finding a meaning that could substitute, on thelarggr scene' for the providential m.*ing of Western history underthe Christiut- interpretation. The ]lganing, of course, cannot be found,since a meaningful construction of history from a secular, intramundaneposition PresuPPoses that history is known as a whole. Since history is

3. On the hislgry.of pu-blication, exte3ding from I74S to L7SS, and on therelations of the Essai sur les tnoeurs et -tespfit des niti;;r-et sur les principauxfain de l'histoire, de,Puis^Charletnagne iusqu'd, Louis XIII, to the other historicalworks of Volt}tt, the- SiEcle de Louis XIV and the ,Sid cti it io"i XV, see the!*^t*SSPhical note in Fueter's Geschichte dt, neueren Uxtoioir"inir, pp.349ff' The

ftsai Y.?.s published in 1753 under the title of AbrisiTi'fnistuireunitterselle. The edition used is that of Oeuvres -ComplEtes d,e V6ttai* CfigC),vols. 16-21. For the motivation of Voltaire and the criticisms of the Marquise-d,iChitelet see the Yemarques pour seruir^de I_u!?lement d l,Essai, Oeurres, vol. 21,particularly the PrerniEre \emarque. On Voitiire's view of Borsuet see further-more the Avan!'Pr9po-s to the {_sc ai, Oe_u11et_ 16, pp. SOOf+ and Le pvrrhonismede tHistoire, ch. 2, Oeuvre,:, pl, pp. 13ff. Vottiii.i lived it Cltry,

"t'tn, guest

of the M"ryoise du ch0telet, from- iTga to L749.

Sf,CULARTZTO HTSTORY: BOSSUET AND VOLTAIRE

known only for the past, all secular meaning must !t derived from the

present perspective of the author. Even a limited persP€ctivist con-

itruction, h6wever, would presuppose the empirical existence of a

recognizable structure of human history, though in fact no such struc-

ture, comprising the major civilizations of mankind beyooq the West-

ern, is tJ.ogniiable. The Christian construction of the Augustinian

type can be iruly universal because it embraces the '\rhole" of history

in-the anticipation of the second coming of Christ as the end of history.

When this irunrcendental universalism disintegrates under the impact

of profane materials which cannot be related, however tenuously, to the

ro.itg of sacred history, the universality of meaning has to degenerate

into the ideal of empirical completeness.The ideal of empirical completeness, however, cannot be more than

a transitory positiott itt the movement of ideas. As soon ag the question

is raised why on. should know with any degree of completeness what-

ever has happened in the existence of mankind in time, the curio_sity

shop is trulul.d as senseless. Encyclopedic knowlgdg., collected in

handbooks, has to be moved into the functional position of a collection

of materials which ultimately might become of importance for a releaant

interpretation of history. And when historians do not entertain the idea

of such ultimate use of their inquiries, historical research develops into

a practice of vocational asceticism-it ceases to have a meaning -f9rhistory, altogether, and becomes a discipline for the life of the his-

torian.

The uesprit humainn as the obiect of history

The ideal of completeness is, indeed, tro more than an incidental

factor in the Essai sur les moeurs. Voltaire embarks on a reconstruc-

tion of historical meaning and the pattern resulting from his efrorts

has become the standard of secularist reconstruction for more than a

century. The object of the Essai is *the history of the human spirit andnot th; detail of facts which are usually distorted anyway"; there is nosense in explorirg the family history of some medieval feudatory whomade war against the king of France; \pe rather have to see by whatsteps we have advanced from the barbarian rusticity of his time to thepoliteness of ours.Da The struggle between the spiritual and temporalpowers is the guiding principle for the understanding of Western Chris-tian history. But these powers are powers of "opinion.D When the

"opinionst ,are purified, that is when people cease to believe in the

4, Rem&rques de I'Essd, II, Oeutnes, 21, P. 264.

10 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

claims of popes and emperors, we enter a new period of increasing truthand reason. The evolution of "opinionD is the principle that rnrbf.s thehistorian t'o order and select the events which utr illustrative of thismeaningfll development. What is the cause of this fortunate change ofogilig? On this point the argument is somewhat hazy, as so frequlntlywith Voltaire when a serious question has to be

"o#.red. When hd-

tgty' saYl Voltaire, is conceived in the terms just indicated, we canobserve the spectacle of errors and prejudices foilowing each other and{*uritg truth and reason. fn timC men will enlight; themselves bythis record of their misfortunes and stupidities, Jocieties will rectifitheir ideas'and man will begin to think. Obviously Voltaire is beggingthe questiolL T!. Prcture of errors and prejudices is the picture that heis painting _in the Essai for the first time; the enlightriittg, however,must have- begun at some earlier time for now we are ultriiy well ontheJuy of_Ploqress; we are on this way, to be precise, since the timeof Henry fV. With Voltaire, we have to glide gracefully over thisc-entury and a half with i,ts problem of .u,rsution i" order io arrive atthe conclusion that now, in the Essai, the purpose is not to assemble amass of facts but 'to make a selection that will enable the reader toju{Se the extinotion, the renaissance and the progress of the humanspirit (lesprit humain).' For this is the only mitftJa appropriate for ageneral history.u

These remarks of Voltaire touch on the principal categories thathave to be used in the secularistic construction of history uni thry con-tain by implication the rules which have to be observei for their suc-cessful use. The esprit humain and its changes have become the objecto,f Sgneral history. The transcenden_tal pneomu of Christ is replacra Uythe intramundane spirit of man, and th; change of heart by the changlo'f opinion. The carpus mysticurn Christi fraJgiven way 6 the corpusmysticuern humanitatis. The meaning of history on thii intramundanelevel is constructed as an T{ogue to the Christian meaning so closelythat we can'trace the parallelism step by step. In any constiuction of ameaningful universal history, in the-firit place the o"bject that shows arneaningful structure has to be constituted as a whole. ln the Christiansystem, t!. whole is constituted through the idea of creation and thedescent of mankind from Adam; in the secularistic construction, thervhole is evoked as a totality of empirical knowledge. The ideal ofu^TPitical complete_ness which appeur"d as a degenerative substitute forChristian universality, of no more than transitoly importance, becomesthe secularistic analogue of the divine creation of mankind if it iscoupled with a new construction of historical meaning,.

S.Remarques, In, ibid., pp. 266fr.

SECULARIZND HISTORY: BOSSUET AND VOLTAIRE

Since human history has no recognizable structure of meanins, thehistorian has to remrt to an ingenuous device, for which Voltaire hasset the model: the historian selects a partial structure of meaning, de-clares it to be the total, and arranges the rest of the historical materialsrnore or less elegantly around this preferred center of meaning. Theconstruction is a repetition of the Christian division into sacred andprofane history, wirth the difrerence, however, that the new sacred his-tory has no transcendental implications; the partial history selected, assacred gains its preferential status because it serves 'as ,the expressionof a new intraworldly religiousness. The operation is rationally un-tenable and the constnrctions are shortlived because they have to followclosely the rapidly changing intraworldly sentiments of the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries. Nevertheless, they are of decisive importancein the history of political ideas because thry are genuine evocations ofnew communities which tend to replace the Christian corpus mysticrrrn.

In the analysis of the construction we have to distinguish betweenthe categories of meaning and the historical materials to which theyare applied. The categories of meaning are again Christian analogues.Voltaire speaks of the extinction, renaissance and progress of the hu-man spirit. The extinction corresponds to the Fall, the renaissance tofie Redemption, the progress to a Third Realm of spiritual perfection.The materials entering into the system are the Middle Ages (extinc-tion), the era of beginnirg toleration since Henry IV (renaissance)and Voltairets own age (progress). The categorization is not analogousto the Augustinian with its sae culum senescens but rather to the trini-tarian of Joachim of Flora. Voltaire resumes the rearticulation of historyat the point where the thinkers of the thirteenth century had to abandonit in face of the orthodox resistance-with the fundamental change ofsubstance, however, that the spirit of the Third Realm is not the spiritof the autonomous Christian personulity but the spirit of the autono-mous intellectual. While the constnrction is not thoroughly elaborated,it clearly foreshadows the later construction of Saint-Simon and Comtewith its *lawt of the three phases: the religious, the metaphysical andthe Po_sitive-scientific. Since the content which enters the categories is

1n independent variable, it foreshadows, furtherrnore, the possibilitythat new materials mly enter the categorical patternr 8!r has actualtyhappened in the Marxist and National-Socialist constnrctions.

The structure of intrarnundane history

The insight inlo lh. typ" of seculanistic construction created by

Y"t?ire P.ermits the for,mulation of a few rules for the interpretatioo ofthe historico-political conceptions that have arisen in its wake. A his-

t 1

L2 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R.EVOLUTION

torical conception like the Voltairian, Comtistrr or Marxian is uiloc-ceptable at its face value. Its claim to offer a valid interpretation ofuniversal history or, in the nineteenth century, of a sociological t'lawrt

is untenable. In our analysis of these conceptions we shall have todistinguish between the following levels of construction. First, theycontain a "thesis of generality": that the sequence of evolutionaryphases, selected as "sacrd. history," is the general patterrr of the his-tory of mankind into which all empirical materials can b,e fitted in asatisfactory manner.

'While this "thesis of generalitf inevit;ably is false

for the reasons given above, it still has its importance as a clue to theparticular ttmodeltt that has been ttgeneralized.tt The particular 'tnodeltt

rnarks. the second level in the construction to which we h:lve to Pene-trate. Comtets law of the three phases is no more a law of universalhistory than the Marxian scientific conception of an evolurtion tendingtoward ultimate communism or Voltaire's three phases of enlight€r-ment. But the general thesis is based on a particular meaningful struc-ture of history which may have been observed correctly. 'Voltaire hascorrectly seen the struggle between the spiritual and temporal Powersas decisive for the Middle Ages, and Comte's analysis of the MiddleAges is a great achievement in his time; moreover, both thinkers haveseen correctly that with the rise of the autonomous critical intellect anepoch is marked in Western history. Hence the model construction canrank very high as an empirical analysis of a particular phase of historyin spite of the fact that the model is used as a secularirstic *sacred

history.t Thirdly and finally, w€ have to penetrate beyoncl the modelinto the sentiments which cause its imaginative transformation into a"general pattern of history. On this level we have to observe the shiftfrom the transcendental faith in the spirit of Christ to Voltaire's intra-mundane faith in the esprit hurnain and furtherrnore the shifts ofintramundane faith from Voltaire's esprit to ,Comtets faith in the or-ganizing and engineering intellect, to the Marxian faith in the Pro-letarian as the true man and the proletariat as the chosen people, andfurther on to the various beliefs in chosen nations and chosr:n races. Ofthe various strata of the historical construction, the upPer levels whichcontain the tnodelo and the "thesis of generalityo are Do rrlor€ than anephemeral dogm,atic surface over the basic movement of intramundanereligious senti,ments which descends from the deification of reason andintellect to the deification of the animal basis of existence. If we mayuse Scheltingts term somewhat freely, we may designate this basicmovement of religious sentiments as the theogonic process.

The trinitarian conception of secularistic history is closelly related tothe Joachitic. This relation, however, has hardly ever become overtly

SECULARIZED HISTORY: BOSSUET AND VOLTAIRE 13

conscious because the creators of the various secularistic, historicalconstructions have in most instances interpreted their own ideas asconstituting a break with Christianity. They supposed that the cor'tinuity was internrpted and that a new beginniog was made whenReason and Science ( capitalized ) defea,ted the dogmatism of theChurches. The precediog analysis has shown, however, that the trini'tarian pattern of the secular construction evolves in close ,analogy withthe Christian trinitarian pattern of history. The selected umodelso ofVoltaire's and Comte's histories have, by virtue of the *thesis ofgeneralityr" the same function in the secularistic context as the ttsacred

history" in the Christian conception. We have now to show that theparailLfism is not accidental but that a continuity of problems leadsfrom the earlier conception to the later, and we have to inquire Par-ticularly into the intellectual operations and the changes of sentimentwhich result in the "break'of continuity.

A key to the problem of continuity is offered by the development ofsecularistic history after Voltaire. Below the surface of dogmatic s)rm-bols we observed the movement of intramundane religious sentiments,pressing the interpretation of history and politics downward from thespirit to the animal basis of existence. Neither the "model' of ,the

secular osacred history," nor the dogmatic symbols on the level of the"thesis of generalityt' remain constant; they change continuously inaccordance with the stratu,m of human nature that commands the at-tention of the time and becomes the object of the process of deification.The rapid descent frorn reason, through technical and planning intel-lect, to the economic, psychological and biological levels of humannature, BS the dominants in the image of man, is a strong contrast tothe imposing stability of the Christian anthropology through eighteencenturies. Once the tr,anscendental anchorage is surrendered, the de-scent from the rational to the animal naturer so it seems, is inevitable.The instability of the intramundane "sacred historieso is the character-istic trait of the new age: the great dogmatisms after Voltaire hardlyoutlast the generation in which they were created. Where does thiscurious instability of sentiment originate? What are the antecedents ofthe religious disorientation which expresses itself in the frantic creationof new gods?

Bossuet's Histoire des variations des dglises protestantes

The answers to these questions were given by Bossuet. The in-stability of the secularistic historical constructions continues an insta-bility that begins with the schisms of the Reformation in the sixteenth

l 4 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

century. Bossuet observed the phenomenon of religious disorientation

; and of the consequent instability of sentiment and dogma at the time

: when the rapid variation still took place within the general framework

I S of Christiai doctrine. In the hiistoire des pariations des 1glises^ *" protestentes ( 1688 ), he surveyed the Protestant variations of Lutheran-s -Jn ism, Zwinglianism and Calvinism and in the preface to the Histoire be

G f furnished some suggestions concerning the dynamics of heresies. The

t * succession of Protestant variations seemed to him comparable to the

i -6" succession of heresies in the early Christian period and he based, there-

e.?g- f'fore, his own view of the proble. on u ,.*"ik by Tertullian concerning

+ j F the early variations: "The heretics, says Tertullian, change their rules,

: -*

$ ttrat is their confessions of faith; everyone of them believes hi'mself en-

+4. 5 titled to change and modify the tradition by his own light (esprit), f.ot

1..f -

it ir by his own light that the author of the sect has formed the tradi-5- g tion; heresy remains true to its nature if it does not cease to innovate,

g I andits prog"rs is similar to its origin. What is permitted to Valentinus,

, f is peruritted to the Valentinians; the Marcionites have the same right

F *

as -Marcion;

and the authors of a sect have no rnore right to innovale

F than their sectarian followers.ffi The instabilif, t!"1, is the consequence

So. : of the initial break; once the authority of the tradition is broken by the

S. i individual innovator, the style of individual innovation determines thel q further course of variationt..Itt th" words of Chrysostom: "Avoid the

S novelties in your discourse, for matters will not rest there: one novelty

i produces another; and we deviate without end, once we have begun todeviate.u

Bossuet's own attitude is that of the ecclesiastical statesman. The un-

stable course of heresies, and their tendency to beget new heresies, iscaused by the nature of the esprit humain, which cannot cease to ctavefor the sweetness of novelty once it has tasted of it. And it is, further-more, caused by the difierence befweeir a perfect truth revealed by Godand the weak production of the human mind. This second argument'however, has a peculiar sociological flavor in Bossuetts context, forBossuet does not rely so much on the contrast between the truth of

faith and the falsehood of heresy, but rather on the circumstance that

the truth of faith is to be found in the collective wisdom of the Church

and of the Fathers, while the innovation is a source of falsehood be-

cause it is the product of an indiviclual. The individual will not be

capable of anticipating clearly all the implications of an innovation, andthi inconveniences appearing on second thought will compel correc-

6. Bossuet, Histoire des tariations des 'glises protestantes, ttPrefacertt p. iii.

7. Quoted in ibid., P. Yi.

SECULARIZED HISTORY: BOSSUET AND VOLTAIRE 1 5

tions ,and, thereby further deviation from the truth. The intellectual

powers of the individual cannot substitute for the accumulated wisdorn

bf the collectivity.t In these reflections Bossuet has touched uPon a

fund.amental problem of the function of ideas in modern history: tle

impossibility of creating a spiritual substance and an intellectual :tytefoi a community under the iondition of free comp€tition between indi-

vidual intellectuals. The problem appeared to him still under the

special form of the tension between the authority of the Church and.

the individualism of the reformers, This special form, however, is the

first instance of the general phenomenon: that established community

substances, or incipient communities, are continuously dissolved and

broken by the competition of new found.ations until the chaotic multi-

plicity of sects, schools, parties, factions, movements, grouPin$S, as-

sociaiions, communes, is reached which characterized the European

social situation before the outbreak of violence in our time.e The con-

tinuity of the problem will appear more clearly if we comPare Bossuet's

remarks with a passage from a modern ecclesiastical statesman who had

to deal with the problem of heresy; he found the following features

characteristic of the heretics: "a disdainful attitude toward theory and

an inclination toward eclecticism; disrespect for the tradition of theirown organization; anxiety for personal 'independence' at the expense of

anxiety for objective truth; nervousness instead of consistency; readinessto jump from one position to another; lack of understanding of revolu-

tionary centralism and hostility toward it; and finally, inclination tosubstitute clique ties and personal relationships for party discipline."o

It has been said of Bossuet that he was a Gallican in order to be aCatholic, and a Catholic in order to be a Christian." Christianity out-side the one, visible Church was inconceivable to him. This attitudewould not be noteworthy if it were simply a manifestation of Catholicadherence to the Symbolon and the dogma. It is of importance herebecause it expresses Bossuetts concern about Christianity as a historicalphenomenon. The Church preserves and develops the Christian tradi-tion; if the authority of the Church is questioned, the living continuity

8. Bossuet, ibid., p. vii. For modern formulations of this problem, see the vol-nme on Foi et "mEstiqu,es" humaines, Etudes Carmfllitaines, 22e Annfle, vol. I(Paris: April, 1937); see in this volume particularly Etienne de Greeff, "Ledrame humain et la psychologie des tnystiques' humainesrt pp. IO5-155.

9. For this question see Karl Mannheim, Man and SocietE in a.n Age ofReconstruction (New York, 1960), particularly pt. 2 on "Social Causes of theContemporary Crisis in Culture.tt

1O. Leon Trotsky, A Pettg-BourgeoisParty, December 15, 1939; reprinted in(New York, L942), P. 43.

I l. G. Lapson , Bossuet ( Paris, 189 t ) t

Opposition in the Socialist WorhersLeon Trotsky, In Def erce of Morxism

p. 365,

l 6 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R.EVOLUTION

of Christianity is broken. One must not question the tradition at anypoint for such questioning inevitably will lead to the ultimate question-ing of Christianity as a whole: what guarantee do we have of thesacredness of Scripture unless we receive it on the authority of theChurch-this is Bossuetts decisive argument. His concern was not thecontent of heresies but the fact of schism and its origin in the libreercffinen. The critical enquiry into tradition and Scripture must lead tothe disintegration of Christianity. That the Christian sources can beinterpreted in more than one w&1rr Bossuet does not deny; on the con-trary, he stresses the point in order to show where the rrariations ofinterpretation have led the Protestant reform. Hence he is inclined toaccentuate the claims of the majority against the rebelliours individual."'What pride is it to believe that one can understand the word of Godbetter than the rest of the Church; in that event there will be as manyreligions as there are heads.ttt' He has a clear conception of the conse-quences of independence and the authority of critical reason. He isnot so much afraid of Protestantism as a new religion as of tche principleof historical critique introduced by the reversion to an original meaningof Christianity. The Catholic historians of his time, Dupin and Simon,who organized critical editions of, and commentaries to, the Patristicliterature, the Old and New Testaments, also induce him to controversiesand countermeasures. Worse than a Protestant heresy, which at leasttakes Christianity seriourly, is the indifference of historical and philo-logical investigation, for Christianity LS B. divine evocation in history isexPosed to atrophy and destruction if it is submitted to rational critiqueand psychological investigation as a myth. "Lfnder the pretext that weshould admit only what we can understand clearly-a proporsition that isvery true within certain limits-everybody grants himself the freedomto say: I understand this, and I don't understand that; and on thisbasis he approves or rejects whatever he wants . . . . Under this pre-text a freedom of judgment is introduced which encourages one to ad-vance whatever one thinks, without regard to tradition.ttrs In Protes-tantism and historical critique Bossuet did not see primariily a dangerto the Catholic Church but a danger to Christianity. In the free j.rdg-ment and independent interpretation he anticipated the national dG-solution of the Christian mystery through the eighteenth-centurymovement toward deism and atheism.la

12. Bossuet, R€cit de Ia conf 1rence arec M.13. Bossuet, Letters, 27, p. 22L.14, See on this question Lanson, Bos sttet,

Claude, Bremond, 2, p. 252.

ch. 7, particularly pp. 353-378,


Bossuet's Conf6rence avec M. Claude

L7

The decisive point of transition from schismatic,Protestantism to thehistorization of Christianity was touched upon by Bossuet incidentallyin his religious colloquy with M. Claude, the Huguenot minister ofCharenton.'F Bossuet pressed the question of the authority of the Churchand Claude maintained the necessity of independent judgment. Finally'Claude introduced the instance of the Synagogue who condemnedChrist and declared that He was not the Messiah promised by theprophets. Would Bossuet maintain in this case that the individual thatfollowed Christ against the decision of the Synagogue had actedwrongly? In this case obviously the individual, acting independently,had done rightly what Bossuet wished to deny Christians in the future.Bossuet rose to the occasioll. He pointed out to his oPponent that hedenied by implication that God had no other external means (moyen

extdrieur) to dissipate the doubts of the ignorant but the authority ofthe Church. In order to support this argument, one would have to as-sume that at the time no authority existed on which the faithful couldrely. "But, sir, when Jesus Christ Himself was on earth, when the Tru,thitself appeared visibly among mankind, who would have said that?"His authority certainly was contested, as is the authority of the Churchtoday; still His authority was infallible.'u

According to Bossuetts account, Claude was at a loss for an answer.On the level of this argument, he obviously was faced by a dilemma:either he would have to deny the convincingly visible presence of theTruth in Christ or he would have to attribute to the founders of thereformed Churches a visible presence of the Truth. The first assump-tion would have made of the Incarnation a historical human opinionabout the nature of Christ with which other men might disagree. Thesecond assumption would have perverted the meaning of the Reformand elevated the Reformers into paracletical figures. Claude was notwilling to make either one of these assumptions. He remained in thepeculiar suspense of early Protestantism: of interpreting a step, whichlike every historical step is a step forward, as a step backward to theorigins. The forward character of the step, as sensed by Bossuet, reveals

15. Bossuet, Rdcit de Xa confdrence av)ec M. Claude, Ministre de Charenton, surIa matiEre de l'eglise. The occasion for the Conference was furnished by the desireof Mlle de Durras, the niece of Turenne, to have herself informed on the Catholicand Protestant positions, preparatory to her conversion to Catholicism. The Con-ference took place in Paris in 1678.

16. Bossuet, Conf 6rence, Bremond, 2, pp. 254ff.

18 FRoM ENLTcHTENMENT To REvoLUTToN

itself f"lly only in the following centuries when, under the pressure of

historical critique and liberal theologJr, Protestantism ,ooin., formswhich are "Plogtesgive" to the point nit Christianity is thiinned out toa code of social ethics and Christ has become one of the great teachersof mankind together with Confucius, and others of similar stahlre. Theactive religious forces, on the other hand, proceed to the evocation ofthe new realms and their leaders. We observed the hesitation of Vol-taire in tH1 respect: he was an advocate of Enlightenment but he didnot declare himself the Light. Comte and Marx i.tr less restnained inthis respect and the later mass movements have evolved into newcorpora mystica-a. fact that is veiled only thinly by their heritage ofantireligious ideology.t'

The dynamics of secularization

Tlt 3re-ce$ing an'alysis has shown the continuity of the process inwhich Christianity becomes historized and history r..,rlarized. rc havea sufficient foundation now for a few general rlmarks concerning thedylamics of the Procgss. The eighteenth century has to be characterized* 4. age in which the dissocia[ion of the three European universalismsreaches the stage of critical consciousness. The harmoniours balance ofspirit, r_eason and imperium could be maintained only as long as theactual dissociation did not surpass a certain degree. The firsi of thethree component factors to brea[ loose from the .o*Uination was the im-perium. With the fragmentation and particularization of ttre imperiumthrough the national realms a substitute order had to be found lo, theworld of Western political units, and we see it in formation with therise of international law by the time of Grotius. The establishment ofa secularized, autonomous sphere of politics outside the spiritual-tem-PoTl unity of Christian mankind has moved the spirituat oiraer into thepositiol of the Church in the modern sens€, of the ieligious organizationias distinguished from the autonomous political or[anizati|n of thestate. The second comPonent factor to move away flom the combina-

17. f have analysed.the conflict ofr and the continuity between Christian and.intrawolldly problems T thu context of French devefop*d"ib.r"ose in France theconfict between Catholicism on the one. side, Protei'tantism

"od $;lightenment

on the otherrrl"*ptlt:{ a clearer consciousness of the issues than tf; p"tJiridevelopment in Engll$ where the Catholic position had piactic"fiv oo f.rt ctionin the movement of ideas. The transition froin Protest"rrt'""tio""iii;;" seculardeism in Englanq is_ gradual and compromising; neith." tftr Christian nor thef"ol* position: h$ protagonisg like Bossuet--and Voltaire. For th; E"gnrhSto"y t9g-Sit Leslie Steplien,-Hist_ory ?f English Thouiit in tneE;shteenthQentlrV ( f 876 )'lti ed. (t ondon, 1902 ); see particularl/ vol. l, ,rh. U- oo *TheStarting-Point of Deisn'

SECULARIZED HISTORY: BOSSUET AND VOLTAIRE 1 9

tion was reason. The tendency became noticeable in the nominalism andAverroism of the Middle Ages. It received its social support from theincreasing numbers of lawyers, royal administrators, philosophers andscientists outside the ecclesiastical order, and it reached the stage ofautonomous secular reason in the natural science and natural law ofthe seventeenth century.

The derelictions obviously faced the Church with the problem of itsown spirituality. The ascendency of the spiritual power in the MiddleAges was not dependent on its spirituality alone, but to an equal degreeon its strength as the superior civilizing force of Christian mankind. Itcould exert this civilizirg function by virtue of the inheritance which ithad acquired through the compromise with Roman-Hellenistic civiliza-tion. Both the civilizing function and the inheritance which made itsexertion possible become by the twelfth century the sources of the fric-tions which accompany the process of dissociation. When, firstly, theciviliziog work of the Church had been successful to the point that thegrowing Western communities in the cities and the realms could con-tinue it with their own forces, this new situation would have required avoluntary withdrawal of the Church from its material position as thegreatest economic power, which could be justified earlier by the actualcivilizirg performance. The Church, however, did not liquidate itseconomic and political position voluntarily. When, secondly, an inde-pendent, secular civilization began to grow, a conflict between the colt-tents of this new civilization and the ecclesiastic inheritance fromantiquity was bound to ensue. This new situation would have requireda voluntary surrender on the part of the Church of those of its ancientcivilization elements which proved incompatible with the new Westerncivilization, and would have made necessary a new civilizational compro-mise similar to that which the early Church concluded with Roman-Hellenistic civilization. Again the Church proved hesitant in adjustiogadequately and in time.

These necessities and failures of adjustment are the causes of fric-tions in the process of dissociation. Its principal phases, determined bythe character of the predominant friction, are roughly three, makingallowances for overlapping. The first phase extends from 1300 to 1500.It is the time in whicfr tnJdissociation of the imperium reaches its acutestage. The refusal of the Church to reduce its economic and financialpower position in the emerging nation-states leads to the Anglicanismof the fourteenth and the Gallicanism of the fifteenth centuries, andfinally to the Reformation with its vast confiscations of Church property. As far as hypothetical propositions can be entertained in history atall, those scholars are probably right who believe that the schism of the

20 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO RBVOLUTION

Reformation could have been avoided by the Church if it had judi-ciously reduced the property holdings which it lost by force. The setondPlale extends from l50O to 1700. Astronomy and physics develop, andthe heliocentric conception clashes with the Babyionian cosmolosy ofthe Old Testament; it is the time of the calrses cdldbres, of GiordanoBruno and of Galilei. The aftermath of this type of friction reaches intothe nineteenth cenhrry with the conflict over bvolution. The third phaseextends from 1700 to the present. ft is the age of historical sciencl andof the higher criticism with its clash between a critical treatment ofsacred texts, of Church history and history of the dogma, and the ec-clesiastic interpretation of the truth of faiih. *,;::

The sequence of these frictions, which invariably culminate in thevictory of the civilizational forces dissociating from the merlieval com-pound, has left deep scars in the spiritual and intellectual structure ofthe

'West. The adventures of imperial and rational autonorrry have not

Ieft simply a spiritual Church as the resid,ue. The frictions and mal-adjustments have worked a profound spiritual destruction in the autono-mous secular sphere and have severely impaired the cirvilizationalposition of the Church. The first type of friitions resulted. in a far-reaching exProPriation of the Church, but the confiscation of Church

ProPgly alone would not have endangered the spiritual substance ofthe Church. The decisive consequence of the struggle between thespiritual and temporal powers over this question, going as JFar back asthe fnvestiture Struggle, was the political tension between rthe Churchand the state in the course of which the spiritual institution was finallyrelegated to !h9 private sphere, while the autonomous politiical institu-tions achieved the monopoly of publicity. This privatization of the spiritIeft the field oPen for a respiritualization of the public sphere from oih.tsources, in the forms of nationalism, humanitarianism,-econgmism bothliberal and socialist, biologism, and psychologism. The growth of aplula-lity^of counter spirits and counter churches to the traditional spiri-tual institutions is the most fateful consequence of the fai.lure of theChurch to find a comPromise with the new pluralistic world of politics.

The tension o{gin-ating in the problems of the first phase was ag-gravated by the frictions caused by the advancement of science. Thissecond failure of adjustment left the Church with the stiE;ma of ob-scurantism, and the stigma of a force which opposes the }reedom ofscientific inquiry attaches to it in popular opinion even today, after theChurch has made its peace with science. Again, the clash did not simplydrive science into an autonomous development. Such a developmentwould not have constituted a danger to the spiritual substanc. ofChristianity. More fateful was the spiritual devastation unought by

SECULARIZED HISTORY: BOSSUET AND VOLTAIRE 2L

the wide-spread conviction that the rational-scientific approach could

be a substitute for the spiritual integration of personality. The effectof the scientistic creed is, very similar to the effect of autonomy in the

political sphere, the openness of the individual to respiritualization fromnon-Chrislian sourceJ. On the side of the Church thereby a problem

comes more clearly into view than was present even in the first phrye

and witl dominate more seriously the third phase: the problem that the

Church is losing its leadership, not only the leadership of the civiliza-

tional process itielf, but the leadership of the spirit. The futile opposi-

tion to the civilization process engenders an increasing oPPosition among

its bearers against the claim of the Church to be the institution that

preserves auihoritatively the Western spiritual tradition. Hence the

inadequacy and belatedness of the civilizational compromise becomes

of groruing importance as a, cause of de-Christianization and non-

Christian respiritualization.The gravert problem for the spiritual substance of Christianity arises,

in the t[ird phase, from the conflict between Christian symbolism and

its rational, historical critique. The symbolic language in which the

truth of Christianity is expiessed stems from Hebrew and Hellenisticsources. The mythical language was, at the time of its original em-

ployment, the precise instrum.nt for expressing the irruptio:r of tran-

icendental reality, its incarnation and its operation in man. In the age

of Christ and the centuries of early Christianity, this language was not

a "myth' but the exact terminology for the designation of religious

phenomena. It has become a *mythtt as a consequence of the penetra-iioo of our world by a rationalism which destroys the transcendentalmeanings of syrnbols taken from the world of the senses. In the courseof this "dedivinization" (Entgdtterung) of the world, sensual symbols

have lost their transparency for transcendental reality; they have be-come opaque and are no longer revelatory of the immersion of thefinite world in the transcendent. Christianity has become historizedin the sense that a universe of symbols that belongs to the age of themyth is seen in the perspective of categories which belong to an ageof rationalism. In this perspective only, when symbols and dogmas areseen in a *literal,' disenchanted opaqueness from the outside, do theyacquire the "irrationality" which brings them into conflict with logic,with biology, historlr etc. For a modern man who has grown up outside,Christian traditions and institutions, it is extremely difficult to regainthe original meaning of ancient symbolisms, be they Hellenic or Chris-tian, but he can gain an understanding of the problem when he observesthe symbolisms of modern spiritual perversions which are quite as farbeyond the sphere of rational critique as are the ancient symbolisms.


statesmanshiP, 51. Paul's identification of the three commurnity forcesof his time ( the Pagan, the Hebrew, and the Christian ) with tire threelaws ( natural law, Hebrew external law, Christian law of the heart ) ,has not been duplicated in our time. The Pauline translation of thetriad of forces into Progressively higher levels of spirituality made thehistorical situation for his contemporaries meaningful and :intelligible.If we formulate the deepest sentiment that causes the spiritual tensionsof the West since the I'Iiddle Ages somewhat drastically, we might say:that the bearers of Western civilization do not want io be a JenselessaPPendix to the history of antiquiryt they want to understand theircivilizational existence as meaningful. If the Church is not able to seethe hand of God in the history of mankind, men will not remainsatisfied but will go out in search of gods who take some interest in


their civilizational efforts. The Church has abandoned its spiritualleadership insofar as it has left postmedieval man without guidance inhis endeavors to find meaning in a complex civilization which differsprofoundly in its horizons of reason, nature and history from the ancientthat was absorbed and penetrated by the early Church. In the face ofthis abandonlnent of the magisterium it is futile when Christian think-ers accuse the superbia of modern man who will not submit to theauthority of the Church. There is always enough superbia in man tobolster the accusation plausibly, but the complaint dodges the realissue: that man in search of authority cannot find it in the Church,through no fault of his own. From the dissatisfaction of being engagedin a. civilizational process without meaning there are engendered at-tempts, beginning with Voltaire, at a reconstruction of meaning throughthe evocation of a new "sacred history." And with Voltaire begins alsothe concerted attack on Christian symbols and the attempt at evokingan image of man in the cosmos under the guidance of intraworldlyreason.

'We have to turn now to this highly effective attack, which ad-

vanced the apostatic movement within a generation from the deism ofDescartes and Locke to the atheism of Holbach and La Mettrie.

V oltaire's attack,

Voltaire was not a systematic thinker. He did not elaborate a systemof concepts and axioms that would have served as the basis for hisattack on Christian symbols and particularly on the concepts of aChristian anthropology. His attack took the ,form of pamphlets onpersecution affairs, of aphoristic articles, apergus, malicious witticisms,sallies d propos, sarcasms and satires. The principles of the attack areimplied in the critical and publicistic work and th.y have to be dis-engaged from a wealth of fiterary pieces. A comprehensive presenta-tion of Voltaire's position would have to take into account practicallythe whole of his production. fn spite of interesting variations andnuances, a good deal of this work, however, is repetitious. For mostof the questions relevant in our context one can penetrate to the core ofhis position by means of the articles in the Dictionnnire Philosophique.

The form of the attack is intimately related to its content. A sys-tematic elaboration of problems is unnecessary for Voltaire because heis sufficiently equipped with convictions. He inaugurates the type ofman who is at the height of an age that conceives of itself as bding atthe height of human civilization. He surveys the horizon of mankindnot only historically and geographically; he possesses as well a sur-prisingly solid smattering of knowledge with regard to physics, phi-

24 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R.EVOLUTION

losophy, public affairs and even religious questions. He h:rs developed

his intellectual and moral faculties to the point where they can becomethe standard for others: if Voltaire does not understand Leibniz, the

philosopher obviously has written something that he did not understandirimself-. From the apex of his reason and humanity he can see the

evil in the world that is caused by obscurantism and malice; with thefire of tolerance he witl attack superstition and persecution, frequently

with great courage and at a personal risk. The full consciousness of

his superiority does not impair, however, his humility: far:ed with the

mysteries of religion he will frankly admit that he does not understandthbm and that, therefore, they have to be eliminated fronn the publicscene. The light of reason should fall into every corner of the humanmind, and if it falls on a substance that is solid enough not to be dis-solved by its rays, the obstacle should be destroyed because it is a

scandal to enlightened man.

The Elemens de Philosophie de Newton

What is reason? and when is man enlightened?-the ans,wer to these

questions cannot be simple. The reason of Voltaire is n9t a philosophicalidea like the reason of Kant's Critique. It is a complex of sentimentsand knowledge that has been collected from widely different sources

and we can understand it only by surveyitg the constitrrent factors.

One of the most important factors for our problem is the identification

of a rational view of the world with the philosophy of Neurton. During

his residence in England, Voltaire was profoundly impressed by the

philosophy of Locke and the physics of Newton. He studied the Leibniz-

Clarke controversy with great care and he wrote later, after his rehrrnto France, a presentation of the Newtonian system for the generalreader.18 The Elemens de Philosophie de N ewton is not as detailed in

the attack as the articles of the Dictionnaire Philosophiqu,e and of the

Questions sur fEncyclop1die, but it ur-akes the foundations of the attack

more clearly visible than the later works. Hence an analysis of the

Elemens will be the best introduction to Voltaire's position.The problem raised by the Elemens can be formulated briefly as

follows: The Christian doctrinal symbols concerning the human soul,

the transcendental reality and the relations between them are not a

body of empirically verifiable propositions to be accepted as true afterdue examination. They receive their meaning as exPressions of the

spiritual process in which the soul responds with caritas to the suPer-

18. Voltaire, Elemens de Philosophie de Newton ( 1738), Oeutwes, vols. 38,

39 ( 1785 ) .


natural aid of the gratia; in this response is constituted the fides caritateformata which opens the possibilities of reaching out understandinglyinto the supernatural; it develops the faculties of the cognitio fidei, thecognition by faith, concerning matters which are not accessible tonatural reason.'n Without the actuality of this spiritual process thetheologoumena and the anthropology become empty shells. The profes-sional theological occupation with them will tend to degenerate, if thesubstance is lost, in the dubious controversies of the seventeenth cen-tury, both Catholic and Protestant, which have made scholasticism abyword. When not only the substance is lost, but when also the activecenter of intellectual life has shifted to the plane of our knowledg. ofthe external world, the symbols expressive of Christian spiritual lifeacquire the opaqueness which we discussed above. The symbols willeither be abandoned entirely because they have become inelevant orrwhen the sentiments of tradition are still strong, they will be submittedto rational simplification, psychological interpretation and utilitarianjustification. That last position, the combination of opaqueness of thesymbols with traditional reverence for them, is the position of Newtonand Voltaire.

When we now turn to the Elemens itself, we have to observe thatthe spiritual li,fe of the soul in the Christian sense has disappearedand with it the cognitio fidei. The knowledge of the external world,particularly in astronomy and physics, sets the standard for what canbe considered as knowledge. Hence the discussion concerning Christiansymbols cannot open with the analysis of a spiritual process; rather ithas to open with a formula indicating the acceptance of God as abiographical fact in the life of Newton: "Newton was intimately per-suaded of the existence of a God.tt The source of the persuasion re-mains for the moment obscure and the next step is a definition: *He

understood by this word not only an infinite, omnipotent being, eternaland creator, but a master Who has established a relation betweenHimself and His creatures.' The definition then is followed by thettreasontt for the assumption that a personal relation exists betweenGod and His creature: "Without that relation the knowledge of a Godis a sterile idea inviting to crime by the hope of impuniti, for everyraisonneur is born Perverse.-o These opening sentences of the Elemmst.! the style for the new attitude towards Christian symbols. Theexistence of God has become a human persuasion whiCh has to befilled with a certain content in order to make it useful. The personalrelationship between God and His creatures has to be postulated be-

19. See St. Thomas Aquinas, _Summa contra Gentiles, pt. 3, chs. l5l, !SZ.2O. Elernens, Oeuvres, 38, p. 25.

26 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R.EVOLUTTON

cause otherwise the trespasser would not be deterred by fear of P11i+-ment. The line is indicated which leads from fire-and-brin:rstone Chris-

tianity to the utilitarian pleasurelain calculus. And the concluding

tr*"tk offers one of the occasiottal profundities of Voltaire: that the

man who reasons ( the raisonneur) is perverse and needs the fear of

punishment because his life is no longer transcendentally oriented by

grace and love.v Once these principles are established, the treatment of the sub-

problenu is logicatly *ot. or less compuls9ry.Tht *persuasiono of the

existence of Cla is due to a reasoning which draws from the order of

the ,universe, as revealed in physics, the conclusion that it ought to be

due to an artificer who created it. The Christian uedo ut intelligaffi,

which presupposes the substance of faith, is reversed into an intelligo

ut creio*.The existence of God is the object of an hypothesis with a

high degree of probability. There has disappear_ed., furtherrnore, the

baiis of thristian theologl, the analogia entis, and with it the possibil-

ity of speculation on the attributes of God. *Philosophl_.ul Prove that

there iJ a God; but it is incapable of teaching what He is, what He

does.z1 The article on "God" in the Dictionnaire Philosophique sup-

plements this position by pragmatic arguments concerning'the useless-

ir.rs of mrtaphysical speculation: if I know that God is a Spirit,

trould I be more just? would I be a better husband, father, master,

citizen?t *[ do not want to be a philosopher, I want to be a man.22

The soul has to share the fate of God. The spiritual lprocess, that

is the experiential reality which is designated by the symbol "soul,'has ceased to exist. For Voltaire there exists no Augustinian anima

animi from which man reaches out in the intentio into the transcend.ent,

the human personality has lost the integrating spiritual center with its

phenomena of love, iaith, hope, contrition, penitel.., rerrovation and

acquiescence. The only human faculty that is left is thought \ltpeiser) -and do we trave to assume a soul in order to expluh the

iunction of thought? Would it not be possible that thought is a function

of matter like gravitation? *Can reason alone give you sufficient light

to conclude, without supernatural aid, that you have a soul?* We

cannot experience a soul, and if we had one we could not penetrate

2L. Eletnetu, pfi,. 1, ch. 1.ZZ. Article bieu in Dictionnaire Philosophiquc. T'lte edition used is the Flarn-

marion reprint of the first edition of L764. The volumes bearing Jtr- title Dic-

tioi,r*;rt irhitosophique in the Oewsres of, 1785 contain the-original- Dictionnaire

"ait.a and fused'with the articles of the Encyclop€die, the Lettres Anglaises and

;th;;; *i"ot pi"..r. The editors have mutilated the text frequently at their dis-

cretion.23. Article Ame in Dictionnaire Philoeophique.


to its essence, for "God has given you und,erstand.ing in order that youcan conduct yourself well, but not in order to penetrate the essenceof the things which He has created."'n The freedom of the soul isdisposed of in the same manner. Whether the soul is free to will ornot, we do not know and it does not matter. In practice we act fft nwe were free;'u beyond that point speculation is senseless, whateverwe think: *the wheels which move the machine of the universe arealways the same.t'u

The foundation of ethics

The spiritual obscurantism of Voltaire makes it impossible for himto center a philosophy of morals in the idea of the spiritually integratedpersonality. The problems of ethics are dealt with under the title of"natural religion": "I understand by natural religion the principles ofmorals which are common to the human species.tot Such common rulesare supposed to exist because they have their sour€e in the biologicalstructure of man and serve the purpose of making possible life insociety. The fundamental rule is, therefore, a collectivized version ofthe Golden Rule: that you should act towards others as you wouldwish them to act toward you. The rule is not founded on the assump-tion of a spiritual person or of the recognition of the spiritual personin fellowman; rather it is founded on the utility for society of a conductin accordance with the rule. *fn every society one calls by the name ofvirtue that which is useful to society.'28 Voltaire denies expressly thelegitim acy of a personalistic ethics. "\Mhat does it mean to me thatyou are temperate? It is a rule of health which you observe; you willfare better with it and I wish you well. You have faith and hope andI wish you well still more: they will secure for you the eternal life.Your theological virtues are gifts from heaven; your cardinal virtuesare excellent qualities which help you in your conduct; but they arenot virtues with regard to your neighbors. The prudent will do goodto himself, the virtuous to other men.tt The saint is neither good norbad; he is nothing to lls. 6(Virtue among men is a commerce of gooddeeds; who has no part in this commerce should not be counted.*These passages grant perhaps the clearest insight into the intraworldly

24. Loc. cit.l see also Elemens, pt. 1, ch. 7, on25. Elemens, pt. l, ch. 4, in fine.26. Ibid., pt. I, ch. 5, sec 15; see also article

ophique.27. Elemens, pt. l, ch. 6.28. Ibid., p. 63.29. Article Vertu in Dictionnaire Philosophigue.

Newtonts ideas.

Libert| in Dictionnaire Phitos-

28 FROM NNLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

relignous sentiment as well as into the ideas of man and morality detgr-mined by it. The uanscendental constitution of mankind through the

pneuma of Ctrrist is replaced by faith in the intraworldly constitutionof mankind through tompassion." On this point Voltaire follows New-ton closely. *Newton thought that the disposition which we have toIive in society is the foundation of natural law." The disposition of

compassion in man is as general as his other instincts. sNewton has

cultivated this sentiment of humanity and he extended it even to theanimals.' 'oThis compassion which he had for animals turned" intotrue charity with regard to man. Indeed, without humanity, the virtuewhich comprises all virtues, a man hardly merits the name of philoso-pher.t'o Elements of Stoicism and Averroism obviously have enteredthe belief in humanity as a rarefied biological instinct which serves the

. i..* existence of the animal tribe. The chattering discourse of Voltaire,

V^ , fl}#torthermore, betrays more openly than the more carefully considered

{1" ""-',-formulations of later thinkers the relations between humanitarian{hL ur'f tribalism and certain other phenomena. The attack on the saint as a

Jfrrnt prudent person who takes care of himself and forgets the neighbor is

\ - I 1 . { on principle already the Communist and National Socialist attack on

bild\.|: the'freedim and tire achievements of the spirit, as well as on the' spiritual formation of personality, as socially useless and perhaps even

dangerous private concerns. The sphere of the socially valuable isrestricted to the procurement of animal comforts and to scientific dis-coveries which may serve this purpose.s' Behind the phrase ,that a manwho is not socially useful in this restricted sense does not count loomsthe virtuous terreur of Robespierre and the massacres by the laterhumanitarians whose hearts are filled with compassion to the pointthat they are willing to slaughter one half of mankind in order to makethe other half happy. The complacent assumption that charitable com-passion is a general dispgsition of man abandons 'the healthy Christian' 'wh" r:j; ^a,i {,n^*i

3O. Elemctu, Pt. 1, ch. 6.31. See the piaise of the Royal Society, founded in 1660, for itg '\rseful arrd

ailmirable invCntions" in Lettres Anglaises (L734rt Lettre XXfV, (Sur lesacad6mies." See particularly the following passage in this letter: "Je suis bienloin d'inf6rer tle Ii qu'il faille s'en tenir seulement I une pratique aveugle; maisil serait heureux que les physiciens et les g6omEtres joignissent, autant qu'il estpossible, la pratique i la ipEculation. Faut-il que ce qui fait de plus d'honneur Iitesprit humain soit souveni ce qui est le moins utile? Un homme, avec_le_s quatrerEgies dtarithm6tique, et du bon s-ens, devient un Jacques Coeur, un Delmet, unBe"rnard; tandis qri'un pauvre atg6briste passe sa vie i chercher dans les nombregdes rapports et ?ks piopri6t€s

-6tonnantes, mais sans usage,- et qui ne lui ap-

prendr'oit pas ce que-ctest que le change. Tous les erts sont i peu pr6s dans ce^cast il y a'un poirit pass6 leque_l les recherches-ne- sont pJus que pgur_la curiosit€.

Ces v6rites inE6nieuies et inutiles ressemblent i des €toileg quir plac6es trop lolnde nous, oe a6us doauent point de clart6"t


cynicism which is aware of the precarious ascendancy of the spirit overthe passions and takes its precautions. The identification of the goodryith the socially useful foreshadows the compulsory goodness of thesocial planner as well as the idea of revolutionary justice, with its as-sumption that right is what serves the proletariat, the nation or thechosen race.

The meaning of reason

We must not fall into the mistake, however, of laying the evils ofthe future at the doorstep of Voltaire. Man can bend any religion,transcendental no less than intraworldly, to the purpose of war andpersecution, and Voltaire would have raised his voice against intra-worldly religious persecutions probably qui'te ,as vehemently as againstthe Christian of his age. We have to return to the more immediateproblems of Voltaire. Reason, as used by Voltaire, is a symbol designat-ing a complex of sentiments and ideas. The fundamental sentiment isthe intraworldly faith in a society which finds its coherence throughcompassion and humanity. Humanity is a general disposition in manarising out of his biological structure. l.Tegatively, the reasonable at-titude is characterized by the absence of immediate spiritual experi-ences. As a consequence of this deficienclr the symbolic expressions ofspiritual experiences become opaque and are misunderstood as depend-ing for their validity on their resistance to rational critique. Themonopoly of legitimate orientation in the world is arrogated, on princi-ple, to the methods of natural science. The remnants of Christian orien-tation towards the transcendent have to be justified, like the existenceof God, in terms of a hypothesis based on the order of nature as re-*aled in physics, or like the belief in supernatural punishment, on itspragmatic usefulness. The spiritual orientation and integration of per-sonality is ignored as a problem, the principles of ethics are severedfrom their spiritual roots, and the rules of conduct are determined bythe standard of social utility.

The implications of this complex designated by the name of Reasoncannot be fully understood, however, unless one takes into accountVoltaire's opinion concerning its social function. In spite of the factthat Voltaire was a professional publicist, he seems to have been con-vinced that his ideas were relevant only to a comparatively small socialcircle and that they would not, and perhaps should not, penetrate intothe consciousness of the masses. Voltairets attitude bears some resem-blance to that of Averroes and the Latin Averroists: the cultivation ofReason shquld be confined to a sect of intellectuals, while society at


large, the people as well as the rulers, should remain in the orthodoxfaith.t'He deviated, however, in his conduct from the Averroist counselof abstinence insofar as he intervened with intense aggressiveness inpublic affairs involvitg the orthodox faith. His interverrtion in thepersecution affairs gave to his work a public resonance which he dis-claimed for it on principle. This peculiar tension between an esotericsentiment and aggressive intervention pervades the whole work ofVoltaire and makes it frequently difficult to judge whether a particulardeclaration in favor of revealed religion is a political device to protecthimself against unpleasant consequences or a sincere protestation ofhis respect for a religious sphere which he considers necessary, for theorderly functioning of society. Public effectiveness on the Europeanscale has become the predominant characteristic of Voltaire's work butthe esotericism as an undercument, and perhaps the original sentiment,must not be lost sight of. The problem deserves some atterntiotr, for inVoltaire's tension nwe have to recognize the late phase in t,he evolutionof intraworldly intellectualism of which the early phase is representedby the Averroist sectarianism of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.In the Lettres Anglaises of L7 34 Voltaire still expressed the opinionthat no philosophical sentiment would ever hurt the religion of acountry. The objects of Reason and Faith are different, and no Christianwill cease to respect the mysteries of his religion because they are inconflict with reason. *The philosophers will never become a religioussect.t's Why? Because they don't write for the ,people and trecause theyhave no enthusiasm. The number of men who know the name of aLocke is small, only v'ery few of thern read at all, and those who read.prefer novels to philosophi,cal studies. 'oThe number of those who thinkis excessively small; and they have no intention of bc,therirg theworld.'* Nevertheless, he was clear about the sectarian r:haracter ofthe new philosophical movement. fn the Letter on Socinianism hespeaks of the small English sect, consisting of a few cle:rgymen andsavants, who do not call themselves Arians or Socinians but who donot at all agree with the Athanasian creed and who place the Fatherhigher than the Son. Whatever one calls them, there is a distinct revivalof Arianism in England, Holland and Poland. Newton expressed him-

32. See particularly the revealing TroisiEme Entretien of th,e CatechismeChinois in the Dictionnaire Philosophique; see also the conclusion of sec. 3 ofthe article Ame in the Dictionnaire Philosophique in the Oeuores, vol. 47, of1785.

33. One should read this passage rather as tta successful religious sect.D ThatVoltaire considered the philosophers, indeed, to be a sect will appear presently inthe text.

34. LeE,tres Anglaises, no. XIII, *Sur Locke,"


self favorably on it; "and the firmest advocate of Arian doctrine is theillustrious Clarke.' The admiring characterization of Clarke seems toreflect Voltaire's own preferences: "This man is of a rigid virtue anda sweet character, more enamored with his beliefs than impassionedto make proselytes, exclusively occupied with calculations and demon-strations, blind and deaf for everything else, a veritable reasoninsmachine." The Arian revival, however, has chosen its time badly forthe age is preoccupied with sectarian disputes. The new sect is too smallto obtain the freedom of public assembly, but it will obtain it if it everbecomes more numerous. Still, this is not the age *to succeed with anew or a revived religion." "Is it not a nice qtatgyof things that Luther,Calvin and Zwingli, all writers whom one ffiot read, have foundedsects rrho divide Europe among them, that'thb ignorant Mohammedhas given a religion to Asia and Africa, and that Newton, Clarke,Locke, Leclerc, the greatest philosophers and best pens of their time,have hardly been able to collect a small troupe of followers.t"o

These passages illustrate the ambiguity of Voltaire's attitude. Onthe one hand, the philosophers are a small group and they do not wantto bother the public; on the other hand., he hopes that they will have,public meetings when their sect becomes more numerous, and thecomparison with the Reformers and Mohammed leaves hardly a doubtthat he looks with some envy on the mass success of other religiousmovements. His remarks also betray the sources of the ambiguity:Voltaire's understanding of his own position was limited. He saw inthe philosophers' ideas a deviation from orthodox Christianity and heclassified it in dogmatic terms as a unitarian heresy, but he did notrecognize the new intraworldly religiousness as the force behind thedogmatic innovation. He even denied the enthusiasm without whichthe movement would be inexplicable. The old faith was lost and thenew faith had not yet reached the level of a conscious, responsible willto order the world of man and society anew. We have observed earliera haziness in Voltaire's reconstruction of the historical pattern: theesprit humain advanced somehow from rnedieval darkness to modernenlightenment, while the motive force of the advancement remainedobscure. Voltaire did not see himself as the spiritual substance bymeans of which history advances; he was not a revolutionary spiritualfounder, rather he remained in suspense before the revolution.

The state of prerevolutionary suspense is perhaps the most intimateVoltarian sentiment. From this center we can gain an understanding ofthe connection between personallty traits which otherwise would ap-

35. Ibid., no. VII, ttSur les sociniens, ou ariens, ou anti-trinitaires.t

3 l

32 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

pear confusingly unrelated. We have to beware in the case of Voltaire

of fuUing into the extremes of partisan judgments. Voltaire was neither

superficial nor was he a great positive or negative force. One can make

a long list of his more reprehensible qualities. He was deficient in

spiritual substance and he was vulgarly irreverent. His surprising range

of solid knowledge was coupled with an equally surprising ignoranceconcerning the more intricate questions of philosoPhy and religion; as

a result his judgment \Mas frequently superficial, though delivered withauthority. He has set the style for brilliantly precise misinformation,as well as for the second-raterts smart detraction of the better man.

He was ever ready to sacrifice intellectual solidity to a clever witticism.He introduced to the European scene the unhappy persuiasion that a

good writer can talk about everythitg, that every unsound utterance[as to be considered an opinion, and that irresponsibility of thought is

synonymous with freedom of thought. In short: he has done more thananybody else to make the darkness of enlightened reason descend onth; Wistern world. But all this does not add up to a demonic force

of evil. If we subtract Voltaire's vitality, literary qualities and intel-

lectual temperament, there become visible in the distancr: rather the

Homard of Flaubert's Madame Boaary or the exasperating Bouvard

and Pecuchet who have to try their hands at everything. On the posi-

tive side we are in a similar difficulty. There we find the achievementsof the poet, the histori&D, the 'essayist, the conespondent, the reportgr

on England, the excellent popularizer of Newtonian physics and the

effective publicist. They certainly make Voltaire one of the greatest

men of letters, but the range and quality of the performance can never

quite anaesthetize the awareness of the ultimate defect of substance.Still, Voltaire is not superficial. There is in him a quality which is

praised in such terms as his spirit of tolerance, his common sense, his

indignation at scholastic obscurantism. and at bigotryr his hatred of

oppression and persecution, his advocacy of freedom of speech and

thought. The praise is merited, indeed. Voltaire's strength lies in this

twilight zone of procedural virtues which are peculiar to a man who

has lost the old faith sufficiently to see its shortcomings as an outsider

and. to attack them without compunction, and who has not enough

substance of the new faith to create its law as the master but enough

to fight with skill and courage for its establishment. This intermediate

posiiion is the soil for the style of gritiql: and attack, of prosglytizingand defense, sarcasm and satire, which Voltaire has developed to Per-fection. ft is a realm not of the spirit, but between the spirits, where

man can live for a moment in the illusion that he can, by discarding

the old spirit, free himself of the evil which inevitably arises from the


life of the spirit in the world, and that the new one will create a worldwithout evil. The protest against the world and the cry for the lightare futile if we expect to find the light in the world, but even thisfutility and illusion are still ennobled by the contemptus mundi, by aglimpse of the light and a sincere desire for deliverance from the evil.The child-of-the-world's dream of a terrestrial paradise of compassionand humanity is only a shadow of the heavenly city, but still it is ashadow cast by the eternal light.

The paradise of compassion

And, finally, we have to consider that Voltaire could dream of aparadise of compassion and humanity because he experienced thesequalities as active in his person. However dubious his anthropology mayapPear as a systematic achievement, there can be no doubt that hiscompassion with the suffering creature was sincere. The religious warsof the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the innumerable individualpersecutions perpetrated by the Catholic as well as the Protestantchurches of all persuasions, were a stark reality. "Only the ignorantwill scoff at the sacred and pious ring which the words: Natural Reli-gion, Enlightenment, Tolerance and Humanity had for the men of thosedays. Th.y express a sigh of relief in a world that was on the point ofsuccumbing to the oppression of the confessions.tttu The human situa-tion will appear perhaps more clearly if we relate a simple case. In1596, a'poor artisan was tried in Amsterdam because his strugglewith the Bible, in the two original languages, had led him to the beliefthat Jesus was a man only. Peter van Hooft, the Mayor of Amsterdam,said in his defense speech: *I hear that he has been excommunicatedbecause of his opinions. The Church should content itself with theexcommunication and proceed not further against the poor man. It iscertain that a man who frequently visited his house, saw his wife andhis children on their knees in prayer before the meals. And that provesthat he has brought them up in the fear of the Lord according to his

36. Wilhelm Dilthey, Das natiirliche System der Geistesuisseruchaften im 77.Jahrhundert, in Gesammelte Schriften (Leipzig, Berlin, lg14), 2, p. gd. On theproplery and the histgty of persecutions see-W. E. H. Lecky, Hist;oiy of the Riseand Influence of -the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, rev. ed. (New York, 1882),+. I .Pt. -lr "The Antecedents of Persecution,tt pt. 2, *The History of Pers"",r-tion.tt ttfndeedr

,even at the close of the seventeenth century, Bossuei was able tomaintain that the right of the civil magistrate to punish ieligious error was oneof th9 p!,ints on which both churchqs -aS.reed; and he addedlthat he knew onlytwo bodies of Christians who denied lt, Thry were the Socinians and th;Anabaptists" (Lecky, p. 60).

34 FROM ENLTGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

lights. I believe that the life of a man should not depend on the sub'

tlities of scholars.nt' The elements of the situation have not changed

by the time of Voltaire; as far as the dogmatic question is concerned,

a'Newton or Clarke might stand in the place of the artisan. There we

see on the one side a poor fellow in his spiritual troubles, exerting lli*-

self to the extent of itudying Greek and Hebrew, and finerlly arrivingat a heretical christologiial view. On the other side: the institutionalmachinery of church and state with its threats of excornmunicationand death penalty. And then the reaction of compassion: :it cannot bethe purpose of Christianity to persecute such a man, to kill him and

to inflicl infinite misery on his wife and children. The ecclesiastics whoare responsible for the persecution appear no longer as clefenders ofthe spiiit but as intellectuals who bring human sacrifices to dogmaticsubleties which should be of secondary importance as comPared withthe substance of the faith. The inability of the Churches to coPe withthe problems of postmedieval history which we discurssed earlierreaclies the breaking point when compassion turns against them andthreatens to throw the spirit overboard together with the degenerativeexcrescences. The compassion with the suffering creatune which is

trampled underfoot by historical forces beyond its undersrfanding andcontrol is the great positive quality in Voltaire. And if his comPassionhad been less passionate and more spiritual, one might almorst recognizea Franciscan in him. In the thirteenth century the mute creation hadto be discovered and to be drawn into the orbit of spiritual sympathy;in the eighteenth century, man in society and history had to be recog-nized as part of the God-willed creation and to be acceptedl in comPas-sion. It may be considered unfortunate that the institutions of the spirithad sunk so low at the time that a Voltaire had. to devot,e himself tothe task and to act with authority as the defender of man in historicalsociety, but one cannot deny that he acted with grandeur the role of adefensor humanitatis against the professionals of the faith.

37. Dilth€yr p. 101; the original source is G. Brandt, History of the Ref orrna-tion in the Low-Countrins, 4 vols. (London, L72F23), vol. 1.

II. HELVE,TIUS AND THE GEI'{EALOGY OFPASSIONS

It is difficult, if not impossible, even today to achieve a balanced viewof the person and work of Helvdtius. There is more than one reasonfor this difficulty. Helv6tius (t215-1 77L) lived in the age of Mon-tesquieu and Voltaire, of Hume and Rousseau. His figure, though quiterespectable, does not measure up to the stature of these dominatingfigures of the Agr of Enlightenment and as a conseguence his work hasneyer received the same careful, detailed attention as the work of hisgreater contemporaries. Moreover, his work is expressive of the move-ment of enlightenment to such & degree that its typical features wereseen more clearly than its far more important and peculiarly personalones. Helvdtius belonged intimately to the circle of the encyclopddistesthough he himself never contributed to the Encgclopddie. One may sayof his first great work, De lEspnt (1758), that it focussed in the formof a systematic treatise the political views which, it the articles of theEncyclopddic, appear in the form of a, wide spectrum of divergentopinions of several authors. This relation of the Esprit to the Encyclo-p€die was strongly sensed at the time when the treatise appeared. TheParlement de Paris, in L7 59, when it ordered the burning of the Esprit,ordered at the same time an inquiry into the orthodoxy of the Encyclo-p6die. As a consequence, the permission for the publication of theEncyclop1die, of which seven volumes had appeared between 1751and L7 57, was withdrawn and publication could be resumed only inL765. Quite as much as by a too close association with the Encyclo-pddie, the personal achievement of Helv6tius has been obscured byits being related too closely to the evolution of English utilitarianism.What is perhaps best known today about Helvdtius is his dependenceupon Locke and his influence on Bentham. One may sey, indeed, thatHelvdtius did what Locke failed to do, that is to apply the principlesof the Essay concerning Human Understanding to the problems ofpolitics, and there is no doubt that certain formulations of the Espritsuggested the principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest numberboth to Beccaria and Bentham. This historical function of Helvdtiusas the transmittor from Locke to Bentham should by no means beslighted; nevertheless, there was more substance to the French thinkerthan can be absorbed by this view. ft was this substance that Nietzsche


had in mind when he described the work of Helv6tius as 'the last greatevent in morals.ttt

The heritage of Locke

There does exist, indeed, a relation between Helvdtius's method andthe ideas of Locke's Essay. Helvdtius insists on the point with pride.zNevertheless, the relationship does not have the simple form of anadoption of certain ideas of Locke. Locke's Essay had :lppeared in1690; sixty-five years later, at the time when Helvdtius was writing hisEsprit, conventional assumptions had developed concerning virhat Locketsideas were, and these assumptions moved sometimes at a r:onsiderabledistance from the original meaning of Locke's Essay. This latitude ofinterpretation was inevitably caused by the fact that Locke's theory ofmorals itself was an agglomeration of assumptions, hardly consistentwith each other. The attack on innate ideas in the field of morals r€-sulted in the assumption that a desire for happiness and an aversionto misery are the fundamental appetites determining human conduct."Good and evil are nothing but pleasure and pain, or that which oc-casions or procures pleasure or pain to us.ttt For every mclral rule of-fered to us we have to demand proof of its reasonablene,ss, and theappeal lies ultimately to this principle. This crude formula, if takenseriourly, could lead to interesting results; sorne of them can be seenin Mandeville's Fable of the Bees (L723 ). Locke himself would nothave accepted this malicious and delightful play with virtue,s and vices.To him right and wrong were beyond doubt and morality uras "capableof demonstration as well as mathematics.ttn But where do we find theoperatirg rules for this mathematics of morality? Bentharn's lateranswer was the principle of the greatest happiness of the greatestnumber. For Locke, the ultimate standard is the "law of God,' extend-ing the pleasure-pain principle into the beyond, for virtuo'us or sinfulconduct will procure for man "huppiness or misery from the hands of

1. Nietzsche, Unuer}ffentlichtes aus der Urnuterthungszeit, no. ':248 (Werhe,13, p. I07). See also Menschliches, Allzumenschlisches, no. 2L6 (Werhe, 3, p.3 1 6 ) .

2. See De l'Homme, ttConclusion G6n6raler" the first chapterr or (Ltanalogie

de mes opinions avec celles de Locker" Oeuores (Paris, L795), 4, _'.p.413ff. See,furthermore, the passage on Locke in the poem ttBonheurrtt C'hant Second,Oeuares (Paris, L795 ), 5 r p. 26; another version of the same passage in Oeuores(London, L776), 2, P. L26.

3. Locke, Essa.y, bk. 2, ch.28, sec. 51 see also bk. 2, ch. 2O, sec. 2, arrrd bk. 2,ch. 2L, sec. 42.

4. Ibid., bk. 4, ch. L2, sec. 8; see also bk. 4, ch. 3, secs. 18-20, and ch. 4,sec. 7.

HELVfT IUS AND THE GENEALOGY OF PASSIONS 37

the Almighty.ttu But how can we be assured of this ttonly true touch-stone of moral rectitudet'? Through revelation? This assumption wouldlead, as it did, into the movement of theological utilitarianism, and ulti-mately to the positions of Tucker and Paley.u Again, however, Lockewould not approve. He was convinced that the Gospel was a true codeof morality, but he was equally convinced that the discovery of thiscode did not require a revelation. How then could the true code befound? At this point, Locke's argument petered out inconclusively, andthe field remained wide open for the reconstruction of a philosophy ofrnorals. The net result of Lockets speculation, thus, is not a new phi-losophy of morals but a thorough devastation on which nobody couldbuild anythin'g. The assertion that the position of a moralist is in-fluenced by Locke can be received, therefore, only with caution.?

5. Ibid., bk. 2, ch.28, sec. 8.6. Abraham Tucker ( 1705-74), Light of Nature pursued bA Edu. Search

( 1768-78'h William Paley (L743-I805 ), Principles of Moral and PoliticalPhiloso?hv ( 1785 ).

7. The interpretation of Locke in this paragraph follows closely Leslie Stephen,History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1876), 2,ch. 9, "The Utilitarians.tt There is one point, however, that is somewhat obscuredby the genteel, Victorian smoothness of Stephen. I hope to have brought it outmore clearly: the destructiveness of Locke's habits of philosophizitg. The pointdeserves more attention than it has received, just as Voltairets irresponsibilitiesand ineverences, because these habits set a style for the treatment of intellectualproblems. Locke's demolition of the assumption of innate ideas may be quitemeritorious in itself, but it becomes a somewhat dubious achievement if we con-sider that he has nothing to offer in its place. The pleasant game of demolishingan opponent is relatively, but only relatively, innocuous as long as the fundamentalcreed which has found an untenable expression is itself beyond doubt. The pur-pose of criticism is, of course, not to prove a proposition wrong and to let it goat that, but to clarify, by means of criticism, the insight into the problem thathas found an unsatisfactory formulation. If no better insight into the problem isoffered, and Locke does not offer it, the result of criticism is the "'Waste Land"of enlightenment. Moreover, one should observe the method used by Locke in hisattack because it has grown into a pattern for the next century and a half.Throughout his critical analysis of innate ideas, Locke does not give a singleconcrete reference to a philosopher who has maintained any of the propositionswhich he criticizes. In the absence of such references it has to remain at leastdoubtful whether any philosopher was ever asinine enough to maintaino withoutappropriate qualifications, the propositions criticised by Locke. This technique ofpressing a theory into absurd consequences which were not intended by theauthor, while ignoring the very serious problems which induced the formulationof the theoryr becomes one of the fundamental devices of enlightened philos-ophizing. It accounts for a good deal of the exasperating tone of intellectualsuperiority which distinguishes so many enlightened persons.

'When these de-

vices and mannerisms pass on to the lesser lights, and when with a, grave faceintellectual victories are gained over some nonsense which nobody has ever main-tained or ever will maintain, the procedure, as sometimes in the case of JamesMill, acquires a touch of the burlesque. These devices and mannefs become evenmore deStructive in the course of the nineteenth and trventieth centuries, whenthey are transferred from the criticism of anonymous ideas to the criticism of

38 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R]EVOLUTION

What Helvdtius owes to Locke can best be gathered from his formu-lation of what he considered Locke's theory: "Our ideas,' sals Locke,"come to us from the senses; and from this principle, as from mine,one may conclude that the espnt in us is nothing but an acquisition.ttThe esprit is an, assemblage of ideas, directly or indirectly derived fromsense impressions. The nature of man is basically a physica,l sensibility(sensibilite physique). "The physical sensibility is man himself, andthe principle of all that he is.D All differences between men are due tothe differences of the educational process to which the sensibititaphysique ( which is neutrally receptive at birth ) is submitted in thecourse of life. This radical formulation of Helv6tius's position, how-ever, is rather to be found in the later De lHomme ( published post-humously in L772) than in the earlier De l'Esprit. The prirrciple seemsto have crystallized more clearly with the years and Helv6tius admits:*fn man all is physical sensation. Perhaps I have not developed thistruth sufficiently in my book De lEsprit.n'o'We see emergirrg an imageof man of impressive simplicity. The content of the mind is a transfor-mation of sense impressions and a complicated structure is conceived asreducible to one explanatory principle, to physical sensibility. And thissensibility is not a faculty of man, but is man himself. Ob'riously, thisis not Locke's conception of the mind, for Locke recognizes two sourcesof experience-sensation and reflection. The sentence: "Nil est in in-tellectu, quod non fuerit in sensnr' is not applicable to his conceptionunless at least we qualify the word sensu by the adjectives interno etexterno. The experiences given to the internal sense of reflection-suchas perceiving, thinkins, doubtins, believirg, knowing, willing-consti-tute for Locke a class of experiences independent of sense impressions.The elimination of reflection and the systematic reductiorr of the in-ternal experiences to sense impressions which we find in Helv6tius israther the conception of the mind that was developed by (Condillac inhis Traitd des Sensations (f Z 54). To Condillac rather thirn to Lockeis due the attempt to interpret the structure of the mind geneticallyand to explain the internal experiences as sensations transf o,,rm1es.

About the motives of this radical genetic conception there is nodoubt: a science of morals should be constnrcted "like e,xperimental

concrete political ideas of concrete persons. The atrocious polenrrical mannerswhich characterize the Communist and National Socialist literature are the last-let us hope_ it is the last-transformation of the polemical manners created byLocke and Voltaire.

8. De PHornme, *Conclusion Gdndralern Oeuvres (f795), 4, p. 413.9. Ibid., p. 4L7.10, Ibid.l B€c. 2, ch, L, Oeu,wes (f795), 3, p. l1O,

HELVfTIUS AND THE GENEALOGY OF PASSIONS 39

physics.tll Into the moral universe, as into the physical, God has in-jected no more than one principle. Everything else is "necessary devel-opment." The principle of matter is force and submission to the lawsof motion; out of initial chaos, after many miscarriages, the elementsarrange themselves in the balanced, ordered universe that we seetoday. The principle of man is his physical sensibility, submissive tothe laws of pleasure and pain; after initial confusion and many errors,the thoughts and actions of man will achieve the order and balance ofhappiness in the moral world.t' The analogy of physics dominates theconstruction. This desire for fashionable construction is stronger thanall critical thought. The reader may have wondered by what miraclewe have achieved the transition from a sensualist theory of knowledgeto a theory of morals. It was achieved quite simpll, through the formulathat man is under the direction of pleasure and pain: *the one and theother guard and direct his thoughts, his actions.t"t The ttthoughtstt(pensdes ) generously include cognitive functions as well as valuejudgments and emotions. Or, in another formulation: *Man is animatedby a principle of life. This principle is his physical sensibility. Whatdoes this sensibility produce in him? a sentiment of love for pleasure,and of hatred for pain.to4 It seems almost unbelievable that such c&va.,lier pieces of verbiage should be the foundation of a system of moralsin emulation of physics. But, as a matter of fact, that is all there is.

This uncritical construction, again, is not Lockean. It is an ingredientthat has entered the style of speculation in the course of the two genera-tions after the publication of the Essay. Locke was quite explicit onthe point that we have no experience of a causal connection betweensense impressions and the feelings of pleasure and pain. *What cer-tainty of knowledge can anyone have, that some perceptions, such ?s,v. g. pleasure and pain, should not be in some bodies themselves, aftera certain manner modified and moved, &s well as that they should bein an immaterial substance, upon the motions of the parts of body?Bdy, as far as we can conceive, being able only to strike and affectbody; and motion, according to the utmost reach of our Ideas, beingable to produce nothing but motion; so that when we allow it toproduce pleasure or pain, or the ldea of a colour, or soundr we are fainto quit_our reason, So beyond our ldeas, and attribute it wholly to thegood pleasure of our Maker.t"u The ontic realms of mind and matter

11. De l'Esprit, ttPr6face.t

L2. De l'Esprit, Oeuvres (L776), 1, PP.13. Ibid., p. 423.L4. De PHommer sec. 4,15. Essag, bk, 4, ch. 3,

c}l.. 22, Oeuwes"Of the Extent

422ff.

( 1795 ) n 3, p. 384.of Human Knowledger' sec. 6.

40 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO R I IVOLUT ION

are carefully kept apart and any attempt to reduce the phenomena ofthe one to phenomena of the other is rejected. And the same holds truewhen Locke introduces the ideas of pleasure and pain. Th.y are classi-fied as *simple' ideas, irreducible to others, and they may arise eitherfrom sensation or reflection. Pleasure and pain can, but need not be,the accompaniment of "bare" sensations or reflections. They can neitherbe describid nor defined, but are accessible to knowledge bnly throughimmediate experience.tu Pleasure, pain and the passions are for Lockean imeducible complex of ideas. In the face of such discrepancies be-tween the actual theories of Locke and the theories of Helvdtius whichclaim Lockean ancestry we have to say that, by the time of the Esprit,Locke had become a venerable symbol, lending ra certain eruthority toany attempt at founding a philosophy of morals on the operations ofpleasure, pain and passions.

In Helvdtius this relationship with Locke is already strongly over-laid by physicism. Its meaning can be seen perhaps more clearly in theearlier reference of Vauvenargues (I7L5-47) to Locke. fn his Introduction d la connaissance de Pesprit humain (I7 46 ) , Vauvenarguesquotes Locke almost verbatim to the effect that all our passions turnon pleasure and pain.tt Moreover, he still preserves the Lockean dis-tinction between sensation and reflection. Pleasure and pain as inducedby sensation are immediate and undefinable; the passions, which origi-nate in reflection, are explicable because they are rooted in the experi-ences of perfection and imperfection of existence.tt The shift away fromLocke is much slighter than in Helv6tius, and the motive of the shiftis revealed more clearly. Locke's undefinable pleasures and pains donot originate as sense impressions only. "By pleasure and pain, I mustbe und.erstood to mean of body or mind as they are commonly distin-guished; though in truth they be only different constitut:ions of themind, sometimes occasioned by disorder in the body, sornetimes bythoughts of the mind.tot The simple, undefinable pleasures and pains,thus, may arise originally from operations of the mind, such as *of

rational conversation with a friend, or of well directed study in thesearch and discovery of truth.tt2' And even those which are t',occasionedo

by sensation belong to the "constitution of the mind." And because theybelong to the "constitution of the mind" and not of the bocly they can

16. Ibid., bk. 2r,ch, 20,'10f Modes of Pleasure and Painrtt sec. l.17, Vauvenargues, De I'Esprit Humaif,, 2, p. 22. Compare Locken .Bssag, bk. 2,

ch. 20, sec. 3: ttPleasure and paln, and that which causes them, good and evil,are the hinges on which our passions turn.tt

18. Vauvenargues, loc. cit.19. Locke, Essryrbk. 2, ch.2O, sec. 2.20. Ibid., sec. 18.

HELVfTIUS AND THE GENEALOGY OF PASSIONS 4L

produce further experiences of the mind, which Locke calls "internalsensations."t These ttinternal sensationstt are the passions; they result*!.n -simPle pleasures and pains are submitted to consideruiion byreflection. Here we can luy a finger on the point where Locke himselfceases to be a sensualist and treats the "constitution of the mindtt as anautonomous unit, independent of the cognitive functions of the sensa-tions. The sensualist epistemology has no bearing on the internal di-mensions of human existence in which are placed the dynamic relationsbetween pleasures, pains, passions, good and evil. In spite of theterminology of sensations which seems to anchor the world of moralsfirmly in_ experiences of the external world, the actual analysis throwsus back into an atmosphere of internal balances and. tensions. We donot know of any good and evil in itself, but only call good and evilthat which we associate with pleasures and pains. But ih.tr is some-how an objective good and evil which has iftr peculiar character ofcausing in us pleasure and pain. Is there, aftei all, a prestabilizedharmony between objective good and evil and subjective pl.urnrr andpain? Lockets .Ess aA, as we have seen, does not offer an answer to thequestion; Locke never elaborated a philosophy of human existence,although he came near the problem through his concept of the "consti-tution of the mind." This, question, left open by Locke, is the questionwhich occupies the French moralistes of the eighteenth century. WhrttVauvenargues takes uP the Lockean categories of sensatior and re-flection, he narrows the meaning of sensation to the meaning of animpression that comes through the senses-and then discarJs it asuninteresting; and he makes reflection the organ by which we penetratethe structure of human existence. From 'the expirience of o,r beingttwe derive the ideas of ttgrandeur, pleasure, po*eittl from the experi.ni.of *the imperfection of our being" we derive the ideas of "sriallness,subjection, mise_ry":_"ooild toutes nos passions."' Pleasure and pain areno longer irreducible, s-imple ideas; they refer to something morefundamental in the constitution of the mind: beyond pleasure uia pain( and, incidentally, beyond good and evil ) lies tire experience of being,with its precarious balance of power and subjection, of perfection undimperfection, of existence under the threat of annihilation. The shiftlwuy from Locke reveals its meaning as the attempt to penetrateb_tl_o"d pleasure and P{n to the foundations of being and to rebuild aphilosophy of morals within the framework of a philosophy of existence.The Preoccupation with a genetic construction of the moral universereveals its meaning as the attempt to find the existential foundation of

21. Ibid., sec. 3.22. Y auvenargues, loc. cit.

42 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO RE,VOLUTION

morals at a time when the traditional Christian and humanistic founda-

tions had broken down.

The neu) philosoPhA of existence

The Lockeanism of Helv6tius, thus, is a somewhat confused pattern

of symbols with convergent meanings. From Locke directly stems the

aveision against innate moral ideas, and consequently the :necessity t9

search for * n.w basis of morals. When the immediate spiritual experi-

ences have dried up, and when the tradition of faith and morals has

lost its hold, the tifo,rndation of morals is dominated by the symbolof an inversion of direction. The orientation toward a transcendentalreality is inverted and a new foundation is sought in the direction of

the somatic basis of existence. What specific symbols are used for this

purpose is not so very important; it is anybody" choice whether he

wisl.s to interpret Helv6tius as a materialist because of his insistence

on the sensibitite physique as the essence of man, or as a sensualist

because the subjective sense impressions are declared to b,e the basis

on which the structure of the mind is erected, or p€rhaps a$ a hedonist

because the pleasures of the senses play an important directive role in

developing standards of conduct. All these symbols are present in the

work of tt.tvetius but none of them is decisive for the concrete analysis

of passions. They have an influence on the ideas of Helvdtius only as

dislurbing factors inasmuch as the concessions to these symbols fre-

quently deflect the main line of the argument. The concessions to the

symboi of happiness as a good in itself vitiate the otherwitg _ quite

admirable analysis of the operations of passions." Setting aside the

disturbing and deflecting effects, the various symbols have the com-

mon purpose of directing the analysis toward the fundamental experl

enc.Jof Lxistence and of developing the phenomena of the moral world

as transformations of elemental forces. To this isolation of the funda-

mental forces and the analysis of passions we shall now turn.

Zg. The hedonistic disturbance in Helv6tius has been criticised lry Nietzsche,Der Wille zur Macht, no, 75L, Werke, 16, p. 194. The hedonistic aspect -ofHelv6tius's ideas, important as it is, has been overemphasized because it was the

aspect that fascinatei Bentham. See for instance the presentation of Helv6tius in

ttJtrru SidEwick's Outlines of the History of Ethici ( 1886 ) , enlarged ed. by

efU"i G. "Widg"ty ( London, 1931 ) , pp. 267ff. On the unte-nability of this

ft.Jo"istic injeciioir into the analysis of moral plrenomgna the literature is

."o*o"r. Sel for instance Henry-Sidgwick, The Methods of Etthics, sth ed.(London, lgg3), bk, I, ch.4, "Pleasuie and Desire'and the whole of bk. 2,

"ni"irm'i; G."rs 9i*p9lr -4!"!*"fq lf db Moralutisseruchafi (Berlin, 1892)'

flH.-Z ,,Die Gliickseligtiit"; Nicolai Hartrnann, Ethik (Berlin,l*ipzig, I926)'

pt. l, soc. 3.

HELVfTIUS AND THE GENEALOGY OF PASEIONS 43

Inertia and ennui

The constituent forces of existence, as they are given to our experi-ence, are on the one hand the forces which make for inertness, on theother hand the forces which counteract inertness and drive man intoaction. The force which malies for passivity'or inertness Helvdtius callsparesse; we shall use for it the English term inertia. Inertness or pas-sivity is natural to man; attention fatigues and man gravitates towarda state of inertness like a body toward its center. And man wouldremain in this state of inertia unless he were pushed out of it by thecounteraction of other forces, forces which Helv6tius calls ennui andpassionJn Ennui is defined as the uneasiness (inqui6tude) which be-falls us when we do not have an active awareness of our existencethrough pleasure.* The ennui is a minor but constant pain (douleur).The stronger pleasures of life are necessarily separated by intervals,and we experience the desire to fill these intervals by minor sensations.By a constant stream of new impressions we wish ttto be made awareof every moment of our existence.'26 This desire to be agitated, and theuneasiness produced by the absence of impressions, contain, in part,"the principle of the inconstancy and perfectibility of the humanmind.n This principle compels the mind to agitate itself in all directionsand it is the source of the gradual perfection of the arts and sciences andultimately of the "ddcad,ence du gout."" The uneasiness of the ennui,however, is normally no more than the continuous undertone of exist-ence. It will drive a man into activities that will procure minor pleas-ures, but it is not the strong passion which produces a Lycurgus, aHomer or Milton, a Caesar or Cromwell. At best it may produce amilitary figure like Charles XII. Nevertheless, its importance shouldnot be underrated. Whether the ennui is the driving force of action isdetermined in the concrete situation to a considerable extent by thegeneral state of society and the form of goyernment. In times whenthe great passions are chained by custom or a form of government thatis unfavorable to their display, as for instance despotism, the ennuihas the field for itself alone and under certain social conditions it maybecome the "mobile universel." The atmosphere of the French court

24, De PEsprif, sec. 3, ch. 5, Oeuv,res (L776), l, pp. 380f.25. Exarnen des critiques du lhtres intitul| De ltEsprit,, Oeuores ( 1795 ) ,

5, pp. 245ff.: "Nous 'dprouvons continuellement le besoin d.'appercevoir notreexistence par le plaisir.'

26.De P0sprit, sec. 3, ch. 5, p. 3gl,27.Ibid., pp. 381f.

44 FRoM ENLIGHTENMENT To REvoLUTToN

of.the eighteenth century i: for Helv6tius the great example of the situ-ation in which ennui combined with feeble ambition are sufficient toexplain the conduct of most men. Outside such special situations, thecombined operation of ennui and inertia is responsiLle for a wide-spreadstate of mind with vast social consequences. Fo, in submission to thesetwo forces, man wants to be agitated to escape the ennui, but not toomuch so as not to be fatigued: "for that reason we want to know every-thing withorlt lh. P{ns_ of penetrating it." Men are inclined to acceptas true a traditional body of lbelief because an independent rgxaminationwould be too much trouble; hence arguments which might disturb thebelief are , t:ld]ll rejected as insufficiint. Helv6tius, whin speaking ofaccepted belief, has his eye_ specifically on Christianity.r' But hiJ re-marks on t!. subject _are of $eneral importance as an approach to aclass of muclr neglected phenomena which constitute the gt.rnd-textureof all social life: the phenomena of conservative belief, ciecluli y, semi-education, enlightened stupidity, resistance to knowledge, tievertypreserved ignorance' for which our awareness has been .i*tprned bycontemporary events.

The role of the passions

From inertia and ennui alone, however, there would never arise themoral universe as embodied in history and society. A stronger force isneeded to drive man into the more fatiguing u.iion, and this force issupplied by the passions. The passionr- are to the moral 'world whatmovement t: to the physical; they create and annihilate, conserve andanimate and without them, there would be general death. Nl'ot all typesoj Passion will supply such moving force e[uaily; for the g;reat effectsthere are needed the passions which Helvdtius .alis the passions f ortes.A passion forte "is u passion of which the object is so necerrsary to ourhappiness that life becomes unbearable without its possession., Oolypassions of this strength can produce the great actions and induce mento brave danger, pain and even death,

"nt to defy heaven,, The great

passions are "le gerrne productif d,e Pesprit"; they ,nt.rt"in the p.r$tr*tfermentation of ideas and 9^aTy man through tire hardships of physicaland intellechral adventure.2e Great passion makes the great man. Greatpassion is the source of that active intelligence which enables a man

28' A footnote in ibid., pp. 385- 388r brings, under the disgjrise of a Tonkinese:tlyt}' a ferocious attack bn christi""ity ;; ;i;;"i'H;;"ture. Notes of thiskind, whose disguise could easily be peietrated, *.r, t"ilbry irra .""r, of thestorm aroused by the treatise,

'

29. Ibid., ch. 6.


to distinguish between the extraordinary and the impossible. Theabsence of great passion, on the other hand, characterizes the sensibleman (fhomrne sensible ), that is the mediocrity. On the man of passiondepends the advancement of the human mind.to The sensible man fol-lows the beaten path, and he will do good not to leave it because hewould get lost. He is the man in whom inertia dominates; he does notpossess the activeness of soul which opens new perspectives and sowsin the present the seeds of the future. Only the man of passion iscapable of bearing the fatigue of continued meditation which enableshim to see the concatenation of causes and effects stretchitg into thefuture. *It is the eagle-eye of passion which penetrates the dark abyssof the future: indifference is born blind and stupid." In social practicethis differentiation of human types has the consequence that the "gdnie6leo6 r" which discovers in the little good of the present the greater evilof the future, is treated as a public enemy. In this treatment of thegenius virtue seems to punish vice while mediocrity sneers at thespirit.tt

The genealogA of passions

Not all the passions are of the same type and between the severaltypes there exists a genetical order; one passion is directly rooted inthe structure of existence, all others are transformations of this funda-mental passion. This relation between the several passions permitsHelv6tius to develop the idea of a G1ndalogie des Passions.t' We arealready acquainted with the lowermost fanks of this genealogy of pas-sions. Th.y are the principle of physical sensibility and the sentimentsof love of pleasure and hatred. of pain engendered by this principle. Wehave now to follow the genealogy beyond these first two ranks. Fromthe operation of the love of pleasure and the hatred of pain arises thearnour de soi. The &mour de soi engenders the desire for happiness,the desire for happiness the desire for power, and the desire for powergives rise to the "factitioust passions of envy, avarice and ambitiotrr'bhich all are, under different names, the love of power in disguiseand applied to diverse means of obtainirg it.'*

The genealogy of passions is Helvdtius's most fruitful systematicidea and, at the same time, his most disappointing in execution. We

30. Ibid., ch. 7, p. 4O5.31. Ibid., ch. 7.32. See the chapter bearing this title in De I'Homme, sec. 4, ch. 22. Nietzsche's

title Gercalogie der Moral is perhaps more than a coincidence.33. De lHomme, sec. 4, ch. 22, "G6ndalogie des Passionsrtt pp. 384f.

46 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R:EVOLUTION

already had occasion to reflect on the flimsiness of the idea of physicalsensibility as the essence of man; almost no elaboration is to be foundin the work of Helv6tius beyond the bare statement of the proposition.We now have to say the same with regard to the further ranks of thegenealogy. The cause of this unsatisfactory thinness of the constructionls clear: Helvdtius tried to combine a genetic construction which wemay call materialistic or sensualistic with a genetic constnrction thatrelies on the existential experiences of inertia, ennui and prassion, andthe rungs of the two ladders simply do not coincide. The '"genealogy"

which we have just presented reveals the dilemma. Helv6tius wants tointerpret the gamut of passions as a series of variations of one funda-mental passion, that is of the passion which he calls the desir dupouvoir. Assuming that the idea could be carried out successfully inthe concrete analysis, this attempt would fit into the set of his primaryassumptions concerning inertia, ennui and passion. The desir du pouvoirwould be in this triad of concepts the basic passion which unfolds, incertain social situations and under the pressure of biograph.ical circum-stances, into the several t'factitioustt passions. It would be ttre elementalforce which overcomes inertia and assuages the uneasiness of ennuiby creating through action an acute awareness of existence. lthis course,of interpreting the will to power as the elemental force of ,existence inexpansive action, was later taken by Nietzsche. With He,lvdtius thisinterpretation is thwarted by the attempt to fit the sense impressionsand the pleasure-pain mechanism into the analysis of passion. Hencewe find in the g1n1alogie the desire of happiness engendering the desirdu pouvoir. The passion for power loses thereby its function as theelemental force and becomes an instrument for procurirg happiness.This perversion of the fleeting accompaniment of action into its purposewould bring Helvdtius face to face with the necessity of expllining whatkind of pleasure is procured by incurring death-for we rerrnember hisdefinition of the passion forte as the passion which braves danger andmakes man risk his life. Passion in existence is not a mertter of lifeonly, it is a matter of life and death. An exploration of this problemwould have compelled Helvdtius to revise his genealogy of passions.He escapes this necessity simply by not exploring it.

The amour de soi

The strangest item in the g1n1alogie, however, is the rank of thearnour de soi. Again the amou,r de soi is placed in an instrurnental posi-tion with regard to pleasure and pain. The amour de soi as a permanentsentiment is the guarantee that pleasures are procured and pains are


avoided; we may say that the ego is integrated when the arnout de snis developed as the permanent control which steers the ego in the direc-tion of pleasure and thereby keeps it in existence. This amour de soiis the Augustinian emor sui. In Christian psychology the arnor sui isthe passion of existence which prevents man from realizing his creaturelyfiniteness. The amor suihas to be broken by the arnof Dei which directsman towards his divine origin and fulfiltment, but this breaking of thealnor sui is not entirely within the power of man; it requires assistanceby the grace of God, and whether it really is broken is the mystery ofChristian existence inaccessible to empirical diagnosis. Helvdtius hasthe concept of the a.mor szi but not of the a,mor Dei, and. this isolationof the amor sui profoundly changes its meaning as well as its systematicfunction. When the amor sui is used as a category of immanent exist-ence, without regard to its Christian implications, it is difficult to seehow it can be distinguished from the desir du pouvoir as the funda-mental passion of existence. At best the term would emphasize thefact that human existence has as one of its important forming elementsthe ego, and that the desir du pouvoir operates in the form of actionsof the ego. In the gdn1alogie, however, Helv6tius separates the a,mou,rde soi completely from the passions. Why this strange construction?By its very strangeness the construction gives us at last the k.y to theunderstanding of a group of concepts which otherwise might appearas an undigested agglomeration of traditional elements. The arnor suiis not set by Helv6tius into opposition to the arnor Dei, but it retainsfrom the Christian context a sector of its meaning, that is: its negativevalue accent. The amour de soi which steers man toward his personalhappiness is not of itself conducive to virtue; the moral good can bercalized only by actions which go beyond the procurement of personalpleasure and have for their aim, incidental to personal pleasure, theachievement of a general interest. This moral qualification of the amou,rde soi introduces a new dimension into the construction, beyond thepleasure-pain psychology and bey,ond the analysis of existential experi-ences. In a strict analysis of existence, beyond good and evil, neitherthe amou,r de soi nor the desir du pouuoir should have moral accentslin a strict psychology of the pleasure-pain mechanism, the love of pleas-ure and the hatred of pain should zubstitute for all moral .onsidera-tions. l.[ow we are faced by standards of good and evil, and the wholegdndalogie des {tassions is moved thereby into the function of an instru-ment which can be used for the achievement of good or of evil, whichmay be put to the service of virtue or vice. The curious interlockingof concepts which alternately belong to the pleasure-pain-happinessgroup or the inertia-ennui-passion group makes sense if it is under-

48 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO RIIVOLUTION

stood as a manageable means-end concatenation which can be bent toulterior purposes by a legislator or educator who is in possession ofthe absolute standards of value. We are not surprised, therefore, tofind that Helv6tius considers the structure of existence as an acquiredstructure, with the exception of the sensibilitl physique and thepleasure-pain mechanism. Even the amour de soi is an ttarcquisition.tt

"One learns to love oneself; to be human or inhum&il, 'virtuous orvicious. Moral man is altogether education and imitation.ttsn

The peculiarities of Helvdtius's gdndalagie thus find their explanationin the instrumentalization of existence. The &mour de soi can be de-veloped, tempered or deflected through the conditioning rcf attitudesby educational rewards of pleasure and punishments of pain. Thedesire for happiness can be influenced with regard to the morality ofits content by the previous formation of the ego. The desir du pouvoirwill be determined in its direction by the type of happiness which ithas to serve, and the factitious passions can be developed i:n the direc-tion of antisocial vices, or of virtues serving the general interest, inaccordance with the rewards or punishments held out by the structureof society in which they operate. The most significant detail in thisprocess of instrumentalization is the transformation of the arnor suifrom a fundamental passion of existence into an acquirecl character.If we remember the Augustinian origin of the concept, we might saythat in the Christian context the breaking of the amor sui is the com-bined work of human effort and the grace of God, while in the contextof Helv6tius the educator takes the place of God: where the grace ofGod has failed, the educator may achieve results by a judicious applica-tion of the psychology of conditioned reflexes. With the :implicationsof this divinization of the educational process we shall have to deallater on in more detail.

For the present, let us consider briefly the influence which theinstrumentalization of the structure of existence has on the analysis ofpower. The fundamental passion, from which all other passiions derive,is the desire for power. In the concrete analysis the desire for power isrepresented by the desire to find oneself in a position of command, ifpossible in the role of a despot. The desire to be a despot is rooted inthe love of pleasure and consequently in the nature of man. Everybodywants to be huppy, and hence everybody wants to have the power tocommand other people to contribute to his happiness. The rule overpeople can either be a rule accordirg to law or a rule by arbitrarywill. In the first case, the power to command is limited and in order

34. Ibid., sec. 4, ch. 22, p. 384.

HELVET IUS AND THE GENEALOGY OF PASSIONS 49

to exploit the position of cornmand most effectively for the productionof happiness, the ruler will have to study the laws and frnd the legalmeans for achieving his purposes. Such study is fatiguing and inertiamakes itself felt as the counterforce to action. In order to satisfy hisinertia, everyone will strive, if possible, for absolute power, which willavoid the fatigue of studying the law and put men slavishly at his will."Voild Far quel motif chacun aeut |tre despote.""'Since everybody is adespot by desire, if not in fact, social power is held in high esteem.*One hates the powerful, one does not despise him. . . .

'Whatever we

may say: one does not really despise'what one does not dare to despiseface to face. . . . The respect paid to virtue is transitory, the respectpaid to force is eternal."36 This state of things is most propitious fromthe point of view of the educator and legislator. If virtue were a partof the organization of the individual, or a consequence of divine grace,there would be no honest men except those who are organized hon-estly by nature, or predestined to be virtuous by heaven. Good or badlaws in this case, or forms of government, would not influence any-body. If, howev€r, virtue can be made the effect of the desire forpower, the legislator can confer the prizes of esteem, wealth andpower on virtuous conduct. Thus "under a good legislation only thefools would be vicious."*' That all men are inspired by the love of:power is the most precious gift of heaven. What does it matter whethermen are born virtuous, if only they are born with a passion whichmakes them virtuous if skilfully managed?'8

The flaw in this analysis of power as the fundamental passion isobvious: the desire for powerr os presented by Helvdtius, is not funda-mental at all, nor is it much of a passion; it is no more than the attemptto procure happiness, understood. in a hedonistic sense, through com-mand over services and commodities. This was the flaw in Helv6tiustspsychology of passions against which Nietzsche directed his criticism:the idea of an Alexander or Caesar striving for power in order to behuppy is preposterous beyond discussion. Helvdtius, however, was nofool, and the flaw in his analysis requires explanation. That Helvdtiushad a keen understanding of the psychology of passions is beyond doubtto the reader of the extended, brilliant discussions of various passionsin the Esprit Behind this flaw in the analysis there is a definite willto see the phenomenon of power in a certain light; we have indicatedthis problem when we introduced the concept of instrumentalization

35, De lEsprity s€c. 3, ch. 17, pp. 497ff.36, De I'Homme, sec, 4, ch. 12, p. 343,37. De f Esprit, sec. 3, ch. L7 .38. De l'Homme, sec. 4, ch. 12, p. 349.

50 FROM ENLIGH' IENMENT TO REVOLUTION

into our interpretation. Now we have to explore a bit farther the motivesas they become apparent from Helv6tius's analysis.

There is one element in the motivation of Helvdtius which is typicalfor the period of Enlightenment, as well as for theorists of the nine-teenth century who were inspired by the pattern of enlightened theory:it is the substitution of a correct empirical observation for the naturarerurn E*pirically we find, indeed, hedonists who strive for a posi-tion of power in order to enjoy the concomitant material benefits, andwe also find among those who hold a position of power by circumstance,without striving for it, men whose relation to their position is purely'hedonistic. The French court of the eighteenth century crculd supplyHelv6tius with ample material in support of his analysis. The elevationof the empirically correct observation into a general theory of power,however, belongs to the same class of phenomena as the Voltairianidentification of ecclesiastical abuses of the time with the essence ofthe Church, or the Marxian identification of the misuse of religion asan opium for the people with the essence of religion. In an earlierchapter we discussed this problem under the aspect of Voltaire's spirit-ual obscurantism. Now, ir Helvdtius, another aspect of the problembecomes visible: the willingness to mistake the abuse for the essencein order to continue the abuse, with the best of surface intentions, for adifferent purpose.

The great temptation in recognizing the abusive instrurnentalizationof passion as the meaning of passion lies in the possibility :for the ana-lyst who makes the mistake to misuse the instrument for his own pur-poses. In Helvdtius's analysis of power we can discern ttre origin ofphenomena which pervade modern politics and are still increasing inimportance, the origin of the artificiality of modern politics as engen-dered through propaganda, education, reeducation, and enfrorced politi-cal myth, as well as through the general treatment of humarn beings asfunctional units in private enterprise and public planning. The actualdecadence of

'Western society which occupied the thinkers of the

eighteenth century has become the model of social and political prac-tice. The disorder which expresses itself empirically in spiritual ob-scurantism and the instrumentalization of the life of passionr is acceptedas the nature of man by the analyst-for others. fn Helvdtius's analysiswe meet a classical instance of the destruction of the integral humanperson by positing as normal the disorder of the person while denyingto man the remedial powers which might restore the order, The possi-bility of spiritual regeneration of the person, the existence of man incommunion with God, the possibility of the renoaatio eaangelica in theChristian sense, are denied. The function of regeneration is transferred

HELVfTIUS AND THE GENEALOGY OF PASSIONS

to the analyst in the role of the organizing legislator who will create

externally ifte social situation which in its turn will induce the external

confor*uor. of conduct to moral standards by . play on the psychologi-

cal mechanism of disordered man. It is the dream of escaPe from the

mystery of iniquity that has been expressed by T. S. Eliot in the verses:

Thty constantly try to escaPe _Frorir the darkness outside and withinBy dreamitg of systerys so perfect that no one

will need to be good.

Helv6tius has dreamt the dream with radical perfection: in most in-

stances the thinker of this type is satisfied with a Pelagian assumption

about the goodness of man, but Helv6tius conceives man as a morally

neutral force, neither good nor bad. Man is emptied of moral substance,and the forces of good and evil are transferred in their entirety to the

analystJegislator.3e

Saluation a,s a social process

The attitude of Helv6tius is an early instance of political attitudes

which unfold more completely in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.As always in the early cases, the spiritual processes which lead to the

new attilude are more clearly visible than in the later period when the

structure of sentiments has settled into conventional patterns. Today wetake it more or less for granted that our society is swarrning withleaders, left and right, who supply substance to the human automaton.The enormity of the attitude can no longer be sensed so sharply as in

the case of Helv6tius where it appeared in direct conflict with a living

ffadition. 'What

happens is, in brief, that the analyst-legislator arrogatesto himself the possession of the substance of good in society while deny-irg it to the rest of mankind. Mankind is split into the mass of pleasure-pain mechanisms and the One who will manipulate the mechanisms foritre good of society. The nature of man, by a kind of division of labor,is disributed among masses and leaders so that only society as a wholeis integral man. Moreover the operations of the legislator on the rr€rl-bers of society substitute, as we have seen, for grace and predestina-tion. Society has become a totally closed universe with an immanentprocess of salvatioll.

The insight into the spiritual process that occurs in Helvdtius willshed some tight on the significance of genetic, sensualist psychology, &s

39. ff we translate the construction into Platonic termsr we would have to saythat Helv6tius dreams of a Politeia without Eros.

51

52 FRoM ENLIGHTENMENT To Rnvot ,urroN

well as on the complex of philosophical assumptions attache:d to it, forthe political evolution of Western society. The tenacity of faith in thiscomplex of ideas is certainly lot caused by its merits as an adequateinterpretation of man and society. The inadequacy of a pleasure-painP:y:lology, tlt poverty of utilitarian ethics, the imposrifiUty of .*-plaining moral phenomena by the pursuit of happiness, the ,rr.6.snessof the greatest hap_piness of the greatest numbei us u principrle of socialethics-all these have been demonstrated over and over again in avoluminous literature. Nevertheless, even today this complei of ideasholds a fascination for a not inconsiderable number of 1i.nrons. Thisfascination will be more intelligible if we see the complr* of sensualismand utilitarianism not as number of verifiable proporitions but as thedogma of a religion of socially immanent ialvation. Enlightenedutilitarianism is but the first in a series of totalitarian, sectarriai move-ments to be followed later by Positivism, Communism and NationalSocialism.

I I I . HELVE,TIUS AI\TD THE HERITAGE OFPASCAL

As far as the intellectual ancestry of Helvdtius is concerned, we havedealt so far only with Locke and with the transformation which theideas of the Essay concerning Human Understanding underwent in thefollowing two generations. In Helvdtius's analysis of existence, however,we encountered a group of concepts which does not stem from theEnglish traditiotr, forces which make for passivity or ennui whichHelv€tius calls paresse. In his ,analysis of existence in these termsHelv6tius moves in the tradition of the French moralisles and particu-Iarly of Pascal. A comparison with the ideas of Pascal will bring intoview further aspects of the new theory of power. This comparison,however, will be confined strictly to the few concepts of Pascal whichhave a direct bearing upon the analysis of Helv6tius.

For Helvdtius the forces of existence which overcome the tendencytoward inertness are ennui and passion. This initial situation for ananalysis of existence is taken from Pascal. The dynamic of existenceis determined, for Pascal, by the impossibility of a state of completequiet or rest (repos) . "Nothiog is as unbearable for man as to be com-pletely at rest, without passion, without business, without distraction,without application to something.o fn such a state of rest man becomesaware of "his nothingness, his forsakenness, his insufficiency, his de-pendence, his impotence, his emptiness.tt Incontinently there springsfrom the depth of his soul "the ennui, the blackness, the tristesse, thechagrin, the spite, the despair."' What Pascal tries to describe by thisarray of terms denoting the facets of a fundamental mood is what iscalled in modern philosophy of existence since Kierkegaard the (anxiety

of existence.D The intoxication of activity beclouds the reality of humanexistence. When passion subsides, the experience of a fundamentalemptiness and metaphysical forlornness emerges unobscured, the anx-iety of existence springs up crying to be assuaged, and the ordinarymethod of assuaging anxiety is diversion by new activity. Pascal sug-gests that *we never are in search of things, but always in search ofthe search,- because back of all specific miseries of human life liesthe fundamental misery of our t\veak and mortal state.tt This state isso miserable "that nothing can comfort us if we think of it closely.t

1. Pascal, Pensdes, ed. Brunschvicg (Paris, 1904), no. 131.2. Ibid., no. 135.

54 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO R I IVOLUT ION

This anxiety of existence has no specific cause. If man felt safe inevery respect, still the ennui would rise on its own account from thedepth of the heart since the free-rising, causeless ennui is due to theconstitution of mants existence (par l6tat propre de sa, coimplexton).s

The ressentiment against this continual misery drives man awayfrom himself into external occupations, into the iiaertisserments, Th;assuaging effect, however, can never be more than temporary. Thereis no such thing as a happiness in which man can t.rt fuecause theoccuPation itself diverts, not its achievement. Nevertheless, the futilityof the effort does not deter men from its renewal. "All rrlren, withoutexception, strive for happiness; whatever means they emprloy, this isalways the aim. . . This is the motive of all u.iions gf

- all men,

even of fut-. who go and hang themselves.o Th.y pursue happinessin spite of the fact that nobody has ever reached i[. "W]hat a; thisavidity Td this impotence betray if not that formerly man knew atrue hTPYess of which he has today nothing but the marks and emptytraces?" The desire for _a happiness which never can be satisfied

-bi

finite aims points toward the infinite good which alone ca:n give truesatisfaction, toward God.o The pursuit of intramundane h.appiness isthe *disease of pride" which detracts man from God, a disease whichcan be cured_only by the Grace uniting man with God-ulltimately indeath.s The happiness in finite action is the shadow of the infinitefelicity in the Grace of God, and the memory of "the gran6eur of ourfirst naturet' transforms the finite aim of such action into the mirage ofan infinite aim which, if achieved, would give eternal rest.

frgtgh the pursuit of happiness is futile, it is part of hruman exist-ence. Pascal does not roundly condemn the diuertissements of the lifeof passion' It would be unjust to blame men: "Their fault is not thatthey seek the turmoil, if only they would seek it as a dirrersion; theevil is that the_y seek it ,as if the possession of the things which th.yseek would make them truly huppy." But men do not admit the escapistcharacter of their divertissements and thereby they demonstrate thatthey do not know themselves.u The fleeting consolation that iis furnishedby the diaertissements thus becomes the greatest of our miseries, forit is Precisely this consolation which hinders us from thinking aboutourselves and hence advances us on the road to perdition. ttWithoutit we would be in the ennui, and the ennui would drive us to seek amore solid means to emerge from it. But the diversions am'use us, and

3. Ibid.1 Do. I39.4. Ibid.1 Do. 425.5. Ibid.1 Do. 430.6. Ibid., no. 139.

HELVfTIUS AND THE HERITAGE OF PASCALP P

t 5

carry us on insensibly to death."? In the worldly dynamic of sentiment,man is thus caught between despair when he visualizes his corruptionand weakness, and pride of achievement when he visualizes his possi-bilities and considers his nature uncorrupt.t The way out of this dilemmais pointed by the realization of the supernatural status of the soul inits relation to God. Sentiments of this class, however, cannot be treatedin a psychology of passions. The dynamic of these sentiments is tran-scendental. "The first thing which God inspires in the soul which Hechooses to touch truly, is a quite extraordinary knowledge and view byvirtue of which the soul considers the things and itself in an entirelynew manner.)te This ttnew light" changes the appearance of the di-aertissements, the perishable aims appear as perishable, even asperished, and in this light the world of passion is annihilated as arealm of true happiness. The anxiety at the core of existence (lacrainte) also takes on a new dimension. The soul experiences its ownultimate nothingness and in penetrating to the abyss of this nothingnessit finds itself in its creatureliness in relation to the infinity of God,the Creator.'o As a result of this rcalization the soul will 'be possessedof a sacred humility which God lets outgrow the pride and it willembark on the search of the true supreme good, which is God.tt

In the perspective of the existence that has been touched by God,the natural ego with its passions will appear as hateful. "Le moi esthaissable" is Pascalts doctrine with regard to the worldly ego.* Theego is hateful because it is unjust, and it is unjust to the structure ofexistence because, under the pressure of the experience of death, iterects itself into a *world-all,' a total of meaning which blots out themeaning of everything else in the world. "Everybody is an all to him-self, for when he is dead, all is dead to him. And hence it comes thateverybody considers himself all to ,all."* This fundamental injusticecan be tempered superficially through a diversion of passion intopublic service. But the system of ethics and the moral conduct result-irg from such diversion is ua false image of true charity." Pride hasassumed in virtuous social conduct a new form; it is not extirpated.At bottom, there is still the hatred with which man hates the other

7. Ibid., no. 181.8. Ibid., no. 435.9. Pascal, ,Szr la corwersion du p1cheur, Oewsres ComplEtes (Paris, 1904,-14),

2, p. 37.lO. Ibid., p. 39.11. Ibid., p. 38.12. Pascal, Pensfias, no. 455.13. Ibid. l Do. 457.


man's ego as the rival to his own world-filling ego.tn One does not hatein the ego only its potential dangerousness, but the fundamental in-justice which is only covered by just conduct. "Every ego rernains theenemy and. would like to be the tyrant of all others.Dls

The ideas of Pascal are of relevance in the present context becausethey show the origin of the concepts of Helv6tius and because, at thesame time, they contain the critique of the use which Helvdtius madeof them. Pascal's analysis is deeply embedded in the Christian tradi-tion, but it also contains a decisive step beyond the Chrisrtian traditioninsofar as it recognizes, as a new phenomenon of mass relevance, theman who is obsessed by the pursuit of happiness to the point of beingblind to his creaturely finiteness. The extended analysis of passion ap-pears in Pascal for the same reason for which it appearerC in the con-temporary work of Hobbes: in France as in England, the mass ap-pearance of men who are passionately engaged in intramundane actionand have lost the sense of their creaturely existence engages the at-tention of thinkers. The Christian contemptus mundi is on the pointof being forgotten and action in the world becomes the absorbirg pas-sion of man. In Pascal, even more than in Hobbes, thrg analysis ofpassion implies the condemnation of the new type; but the analysis ismade nevertheless, and later thinkers who do not condemn may usethe analysis in a positive way for their own purposes. lfhis peculiarcritical position of Pascal anticipates the later analysis of passion andreveals its faultiness. Pascal recognizes, as Helvdtius did later, theuneasiness of existence, the ennui, as the mood which drives man intodjverting action. But, unlike Helv6tius, he recognizes rfhe divertingcharacter of action and he knows that the ennui may be overcome bysearching in another direction than that of the release of passion. Th;return into the creatureliness of existence in order to meet the Grace ofGod is the Christian answer to the anxiety of existence; the life ofpassion which blots out this possibility becomes the source of miseryand is hateful. From the Christian position of Pascal, th,e analysis ofpassion and of the pleasure-pain mechanism in the tradition of Lockeand Condillac touches only one half of the problem of existence, andit touches precisely the half which is destructive of the true self if itis taken for the whole.

The two selves

Helv6tius was well acquainted with the work of Pascal and especiallywith this problem. His method of coping with it will let us gain perhaps

14. Ibid., nos. 451, 453.15. Ibid.l llo. 455.

HELVfTIUS AND THE HERITAGE OF PASCAL 57

the profoundest insight into the new type of anti-Christian religiousnesswhich inspires a new approach to politics. The problem becomes topicalin the Esprit when Helvdtius suddenly experiences the necessity ofpenetrating "Jusques dans labyme du coeur humain."tu After havingexplained that passions are morally indifferent and that it depends onthe form of government whether they serve virtue or vice, he finds thatthere is a residual phenomenon requiring explanation: the phenomenonthat even under the best form of government men of most reliablevirtue show flaws of conduct. Brutus and Cato are for Helv6tius modelsof virtue, but even Brutus once used his political influence to gain afavor for a member of his family, and even Cato, otr one occasiotr,seems to have used government funds for pocket money. Even if mostproperly directed toward virtuous action, the heart of man seems toremain a battlefield for virtue and vice. In order to solve this moralproblem "we have to search the cause of the alternate states of unrestand quiet of conscience, of these confused and variegated movementsof the soul, of these internal struggles which the tragic poet presentswith so much success on the stage because the spectators have experi-enced similar ones themselvesttl in brief: t\me have to ask what arethese two selves which Pascal and some Hindu philosophers have recog-nized in man."t?

At first sight, the reader might suspect some grotesque misunder-standing. What have the deux moi of Pascal to do with the civic honestyof the two Roman models of virtue? And we have to ask this questionparticularly because under the title of "the other self" Pascal has dealtwith the problem raised by Helvdtius. We are not satisfied, says Pascal,with "the life that we have in us and. in our true being: we want tolive an imaginary life in the minds of others, and for that reason weforce ourselves into appearance. We work incessantly to embellish andconserve our imaginary being and we neglect the real one. If we arepossessed of tranquillitlr or generosity, or loyalty, we endeavor to makeit known in order to attach these virtues to our other self, and we re-move them even from our true self in order to join them to our otherself: we would readily commit an act of cowardice in order to acquirethe reputation of being courageous. This characterizes the nothingnessof the true self that we are not satisfied by the one without the other,and that frequently we even exchanEe the one for the other! For aman who would not die to conserve his honor would be infamous.trsThe problem of virtuous action belongs to the process of building theimaginarlr ,other self. The misdemeanors of Brutus and Cato, which

16, De PEsprit, sec. 3, ch. 16, p. 482.17. Ibid., p. 486.18. Pascal, Perufleal no. L47,

5B FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO XTEVOLUTION

aroused the misgivings of Helv€tius, are a problem insofar as the publicimage of the self is disturbed. From the perspective of Pascal, themisdemeanors would quite possibly be the onlf instances in the livesof the two gentlemen when for once they had forgotten their stage-actof Roman virtue, when for once they had been loyal to their true self.

Helvdtius, however, has not misunderstood Pascal at all. He con-tinues his remark on the deux moi by u reference to the parallel insightin Hindu mysticism, and he expl'ains carefully that he ls referriog tothe two principles of Vedanta philosophy. The-positive pri:nciple is ihatof the true self, the negative principle is that of tfte *oyrr, of thr veilof appearance. Wisdom consists in deliverance from the maua throughreturn into the infinite, divine ground of the true self.tn He does notmisunderstand the meaning but deliberately projects the meaning intothe universe of passionate action. Hence lft. guestion why .u.n themost virtuous men are not without their flaws has to be unsw.red byexploring the mechanism of passions. If man were possessred by a soli-tary passion only, such as the amour de gloire, his actipns could bedirected uniformly toward virtuous aims. Since he is posisessed, how-ever, by u plurality of passions, a virtuous man has to be defined as aman in whoy the passion leaditg toward virtuous results is predomin,antwhile the other passions are comparatively weak in their ehects.m Andthis virtuous man is only possible concritely if the &rTto,lrr d,e gloire,the desire for social esteem, can find its satisfaction in actions whichserve the public interest. "It is the huppy conformance between ourpersonal interest and the public interest, the conformanc€: which ordi-narily is produced by the,.desi , which produces tendersentiments for other men an periences their affection as a sufficientreward.tot If this confo irce is not provided for by the soc:ial structure,there will be no vi ous men. "The virtuous man is not the man whosacrifices his r

so close conform-"ance*Wlj["_Lfrsith the nub,lig-iulcrc$Lthat practically , always he is compelled

; -J : * f f i A- - , L^ - - - r r ^ ' - r r , , i l rAto be virtuous.to' And how can this lucky conformance be proc,rted?Again we are referred to the legislator as the s,avior.

We can now formulate the problem more clearly. Helv6tius agreeswith Pascal on th. general principles of the interpretation of pasr-ionr.The life of passlon builds, for Pascal, the imaginary self for the publiceYe; it weaves, for Helvdtius, the veil of ma,Aa, using as :its forces the

19. De fEsprif,, sec. 3, ch. 16, p. 486.20. Ibid., p. 488.21. Ibid., p. 489.?z,Ibid., pp. 490f.

HELVfTTUS AND THE HERITAGE OF PASCAL 59

amotff de soi and the arnour de glotre. For Pascal this texture of pridecan be torn only by a radical change of direction toward creaturelynothingness and the building of the true life, without passion, in open-ness to the Grace of God. For Helv6tius, man cannot change his course,the life of passion is his fate, and all one can do is to provide a socialsituation in which the results of passionate action are virtuous. Thelegislator has the function of entangling man in the veil of rnaVa insuch a manner that the fabric shows a surface iridescence of virtue.Man is left in the life of appearance but, by means which remind us ofHegel's List der Vernunft, the appearance is overlaid by a further ap-pearance of virtue. As the spider in the web of appearances sits themanaging legislator-the intramundane counterforce to God-guidingthe spectacle of the struggle which has so much success with the audi-ence because everybody recognizes in it his own struggle." This trulySatanic vision reveals the extent of the catastrophe of the

'Western

spirit even in the eighteenth century. Helv6tius, as we have said, didnot misunderstand Pascal, h. simply was dead to the possibility of aChristian existence. The problems of Pascal are retained, but the newreligiousness of the closed intramundane person determines a newimage of man and a new interpretation of the old problems. Helvdtiuswas neither a great thinker, nor a great soul. He could advance hisposition with comparative unawareness of its implications. The c'ata-strophic end of this new religiousness which severs the relations withthe realissimum we shall see, a century later, in Nietzsche.

f'rom this excursion into the Satanic depths of happiness and virtue,let us now return to the surface problems of politics whch tempt thechildren of the world.

Happiness and virtue

A spider is a purposeful little anim'al: it does not want to weave anet only, it also wants to catch the fly. Catchirg the fly is the greatlust both of the thinker and the man of action who want to create the

23. After I had written this sentence I found that my imagination cannot out-run reality. Bentham, in the Panopticon, praises as the great advantage of hisplan for the perfect prison 'the apparent omnipresence of the inspector ( ifdivines will allow me the expression ) , combined with the extreme facility of hisreal presence" (Panopticon: ort The Inspection House, Works, ed. Bowring[Edinburgh, 1843], 4, p. 45). The Panopticon is one of the most fascinatingdocuments for the pneumapathology of the eighteenth century. It should be readin comparison with novels of Franz Kafka: the dream-like situations which thepoet uses as his instmment for expressing the anxiety of existence have becomeieality in the life and work of Bentham. The reader of the Panopti.con is hauntedby thl suspicion that Bentham is a figure that has escaped from a novel of Kafka.

60 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO FI .EVOLUTION

happiness of man in society. We remember Pascalts remarks on thefalse image of true charity, and on the ego that would like to be the ty-rant of all others. Let us first get our bearings on this subject matterthrough a famous passage of Bentham's, reflecting the influence ofHelvdtius: "If one could find a method of becoming master of ev€ry-thing which might happen to a certain number of men, to arrangeeverything around them so as to produce on them the impression thatone wishes to produce, to make sure of their actions, of their con-nections, and of all the circumstances of their lives, so that nothingcould escape, nor could oppose the desired effect, it canno'! be doubtedthat a method of this kind would be a yery powerful and a very usefulinstrument which governments might apply to various objects of theutmost importance.tzo The passage is so rich that it could serve as thetext for a sermon of book length. We shall only note the Gestapo dreamof complete physical and mental control over a group of human beings,the suggestive association of powerful and useful, and thre suppresseddesire to lay one's hands on a government in order to apply the instru-ment *to various objects of the utmost importance.tt Bentham was borna hundred years too early-a century later, circumstances would provemore favorable for the rcalization of his dream. On the eve of the Rus-sian Revolution, Lenin evoked the vision of the huppy sterte when themajority of the people will rule the exploiters and operater the govern-ment as a vast institution of accounting and control: tTVhen the ma-iority of the people begin everywhere to keep such accounts and main-tain such control over the capitalists ( now converted into employees )and over the intellectual gentry, who still retain capitalist habits, thiscontrol will really become universal, general, national; and there willbe no way of getting away from it, there will be 'nowhere to go.t-The whole of society will have become one office and one 1Factory, withequal work and equal pay.-u fn Lenin, as in Benthoh, wo see at workthe sadistic imagination devising circumstances that will leave to thevictim only the choice between submission and suicide. The legislatorexpects the victims to get "accustomed" to the conditions and ultlmatelyto feel free in their network; at the latest, the next generation, ttreared

24. Jlr6mie Bentham, Trait€s de L*gislation Ciuile et Pbnale, €d. Dumont(Parisr_An X tI8O2l),9, p.209. Tt-t. passage quoted is the opening paragraphof the M1moire on the Panoptique, of 1791. The-formulation iJDumont's, 6uf itryas approved by Bentham. Ttt" passage continues: ttl,t6ducation, par exemple,tl.:! que _le r6sultat de toutes les circonstances auxquelles un enfernl est expos6.Veiller i lt6ducation dtun homme, ctest veiller i toutes ses actions: ctest le p-lacerdans une position of on puisse influer sur lui comme on le veut, par le choix desobjets dont on I'entoure et des id6es qu'on lui fait naitre."

25. Lenin, State and Rerolution (Collected Works, 21, p. 23O; SochineniEa,21 , p . 4&) .

HELVf,TIUS AND THE HERITAGE OF PASCAL 61

under new and free social conditions' ( Engels ) will acquire the habitof feeling unoppressed and huPPy in the new world.'u

The greatest happiness princiQle

We have marked out the general path of happiness and virflre atthe beginnirg of which we find the ideas of Helvdtius. His fundamentalthesis for practical politics is the moral neutrality of man; men areneither good nor bad, they follow their interest. "The cries of themoralists will not change this motive force (ressort) of the moraluniverse. One should not complain of the badness of man but of theignorance of legislators who have always put private interest into opposi-tion to the general interest.'2t The excellence of laws is the condition ofvirtuous conduct. And when are the laws good? \Alhen they are consist-ent among themselves, and they are consistent only when they areanimated by u single, simple principle, as for instance by the principleof public usefulness (utilit| public) , that is of usefulness "to the great-esfnumber of men under one governmental organization.tt This princi-ple contains in nucleus ttall morals and legislation.tt'8 These ProPositionshave their practical importance because man by nature is made to bevirtuous. This virfuousness "by naturett is not a contradiction to theearlier assumption of moral neutrality since "by naturett means that mas-sive force is on the side of justice. The principle of the greatest numberis not to be understood as a mathematics of happiness in the sense thatthe majority should be huppy rather than the minority. Rather, it in-volves the recognition that 'the greatest number" is a political force.

"If we consider that the power essentially resides in the greatest num-ber, and that justice consists in the practice of actions useful to thegreatest number, then it is evident that justi'ce, by nature, is alwaysequipped with the necessary power to suppress vice and to compel mento be virtuous.tot If justice is in harmony with power, whl then isjustice not realized in the concrete society of the day? Because themass of the people is held in ignorance with regard to this truth bythe ruling minori y, that is by Church and Court. The critique ofcontemporary society given by Helv6tius is extensive but cautious inthe decisive formulations. He takes pains to avoid a direct attack onKing and Church, and rather concentrates on the obviously abusive

26. Ibid. (Collected Worksr 2I, p. 214; SochineniEar 2l, p. 426).27. De I'EsPrif, sec. 2, ch' 5, pp. 96ff.28. Ibid., sec. 2, ch.. 17, p. 228. Another formulation is to be found in sec. 2,

ch.23, pp.291f.: t'the public interest, that is the interest of the greatest number,on which always ought to be based the principles of good rnorals,"

29, Ibid.1 s€c. 2) ch, 24, PP. SOOf.


part of the minority whom he calls the "fanatiques" and the odemi-

politiques,n the religious fanatics who indulge in persecutions and theparasitical hangers-on who prevent the enlightenment of the people.toThe next question would have to be: how did the minority wnicfi op-Poses the interest of the people ever gain its ascendancy? The answerto this question can only be furnished by a theory of the historicalevolution of society.

The historical evolution of society

Helv6tius's theory of social evolution is of considerable importancein the history of political ideas as well as for the understanding ofcertain systematic issues in later theories of politics. As far as thehistory of ideas is concerned, Helv6tius has seen clearly :for the firsttime that a philosoPhy of social justice has to rely on the historicalevolution of economic institutions as its basis, if and when the insightinto spiritual values is lost. As far as the systematic issue is con.rtnid,we find in Helv6tius the problem of the happiness of the greatest num-ber still connected with the concrete issues of social r.uoiution. In thelater development of systematic ethics the greatest-happiness principlelost this connection with the concrete issue that had gi"en it meaningand it was advanced and criticized as an abstract principle of morality.With Helv6tius, the greatest number whose happiness is supposed iobe the standard of social justice is not a mathematical maxi*,r* butquite concretely the "people,t that is the middle class, the preasants andthe workers. And the smaller number whose happiness oruy be neg-lected is not a group of idiosyncratic individuals on the frirnge of massn9rm3li,I, but quite concretely the ruling class of France. fn its origins,with Helvdtius, the greatest-happiness principle is clearly related to thedifferentiation of economic classes and to the problem of clarss struegle.English utilitarianism and Marxism are both off-shoots fro:m the origi-nal position of Helv6tius, the one stressing the middle class as thegreatest number whose happiness has to be secured, the other theproletariat.

In De l'Esprit and De lHomme, Helvdtius has formulated his theoryof social evolution more than once. We have to distinguish two mainvariants of the theory. fn one of the accounts, the emphasis lies on theissue of nationalism or internationalism: should the Ereatest number bethe majority within a nation or the majority of mankind? In a secondaccount, the emphasis lies on the issue of the class strmggle: whospecifically are the greatest number and wherein does theirr happiness

30. Ibid., ch. 23. T'he later De l'Homme is more outspoken in the critique.

} IELVf ,T IUS AND

consist? We shall

THE HERITAGE OF PASCAL 63

deal first with the account that emphasizes the issueof nationalism or internationalism.

The question of social evolution arises with the problem why justiceshould be defined in terms of the general interest. The physical sensibil-ity and the pleasure-pain mechanism are the only principles admissiblein the interpretation of man; we have to ask, therefore, how the generalinterest can be explained as a transformation of individual interest. Aslong as this question is not answered, the demand addressed to thelegislator that he should, by his laws, produce conformance betweenprivate and public interest, hangs in the air, and we may ask legiti-mately why there should be a conformance of this kind. The theory ofsocial evolution has the purpose of showing that genetically the generalinterest is an outgrowth of private interest; the state of predominantprivate interest is a primitive social state and evolution toward thegeneral interest marks the advancement of the social state. The phasesof this evolution are the followitg: ( I ) we have to assume an initialstage of isolated families who provide for their necessities of life; (2)population increase produces neighborhood relations in which rivalriesfor food and women will result in quarrels and combat; ( 3 ) life inperpetual fear will induce agreements and the creation of magistratesfor their enforcement; ( 4 ) up to this point the development has takenplace under the economic conditions of forest life, and of a huntingand fishing civilization; further increase of population and scarcity offood supplies will compel the transition to cattle-raising and nomadism;( 5 ) the same factors will produce in due course agriculture and thedevelopment of landed property; ( 6 ) the necessities of a barter economywill result in the creation of money, and with this invention the primaryequality is broken; society is on its path toward stratification into therich and the poor; (7 ) since wealth procures pleasure, the desire tobelong to the economic upper class produces the factitious passionsand, genera[y, the texture of sentiment which characterizes civilizedsociety. Society has become a body of men who are bound together bytheir economic interdependence; the destruction of this body would rC-sult in misery for all, hence its preservation is everybody's privateinterest. LInder these circumstances, a differentiation of interests thatwould result in cleavages in the social body along class lines has to beavoided; the pursuit of the "general interest" means therefore the crea-tion of social attitudes, in the concrete society of the eighteenth century,that will forestall a revolutionary disintegration of the nation, with theinevitably ensuing misery for all.u

The "general interestD thus is the stable balance of the private in-

31. Ibid., sec. 3, ch. 9, pp. 423ff.


terests of the members of a socie ty," This stable balance can be createdonly by law and its effective enforcement. If the magistrates are notequipped with the necessary powers of enforcement, the gneatest num-ber of men witl violate the law, and in this case it would be violatedjustly by the single individuil in pursuit of his private intr:rest. A lawthat is not enforced is useless, and with its uselessness it loses itsvalidity." The questions of the greatest number and the gerreral interestare closely bound up with the existence of an organized body politicand the economic interdependence of its members. The insight into thisconnection determines Helv6tius's analysis of the question whether theprinciple of the greatest number and their general interest can be €x-tended beyond the national state into international relationsi, This ques-tion cannot be answered by u simple yes or no. The international com-munity is no more a fit object for wishful thinking than is the nationalcommunity; both are stages in the scale of evolution. The princiPle ofthe general interest is applicable to the national state because thenational state exists historically. Whether it is applicable to the inter-national community of mankind depends on whether this communityexists. As a matter of fact, it exists only in a very rudimr:ntary form,as evidenced by the fact that acts of violence in international relationsare not considered dishonorable in the same degree as violent actswithin the national body politic. The nations have hardly reached intheir relations the stage of conventions; they have not even guaranteedeach other their possessions as have the individuals within the state.And they have not done it because, hitherto, they had no pressinginterest to do it; they are able to coexist without a legal order and arnachinery of enforcement. The Church and the kings 'permit slavetrade and the same Christian who condemns a disturbance of familylife at home gives his blessings to the merchant who breaks up nativefamilies and purchases their members in exchange for W'estern prod-ucts. These facts indicate that in public opinion the relations betweenpeoples are still governed by nothing but force and cunning. Even when,in single instances, the stage of conventions is reached, the treaties havethe character of a truce for they are always concluded w'ith the tacitunderstanding of the clausula rebus sic stantibus. The actual state ofbrigandage among nations will not cease until the majority of themwitl have entered into general conventions and until a federal leagueis concluded between them, with powers of enforcement, followingsuch plans as those of Henri IV and the Abbd de Saint-Pierre. Only

32. Ibid., ch. 4, p. 364: ttltintdr6t commun, ctest-d-dire, Itassernblage de tousles int6r€ts particuliers.tt

33. Ibid., P. 363.

HELVfTIUS AND THE HERITAGE OF' PASCAL 65

when the international community exists in fact, and that means as anorgani zed body with enforcement of its order, can speculation con-cerning the greatest number and their interest be extended beyond thenational scene.tn

The class struggle

In his late work, De I'Homffil, Helv6tius has given the second ac-count of evolution, which emphasizes the problems of class struggle.The outline of phases, on the whole, is the same as in the Esprit Thenew elements are introduced into the analysis at the stage where societyhas increased to the size of a nation on a considerable territory, wheneconomic interdependence is highly developed through division of labor,and when the differentiation of social strata is expressing itself in thegrowth of towns and particularly of a capital city which overshadowsthe rest of the country by its splendor; in brief : the situation in France.At this stage, the single member of the community has ceased to bean active citizen, and he can participate in politics only throughorepresentativesttl the economic man separates from the political man;politics becomes a differentiated social function and with it enters thepossibility of abuse. For the people are now divided into economicclasses and it is not possible that the interests of the various classesshould always be in harmony. Nothing, for instance, is more contraryto the national interest than a great number of men without property.They are so many secret enemies whom a despot might arm at hisdiscretion against the property owners. The business community, onthe other hand, has an interest in great numbers of poor people; theneedier they are) the less a businessman will have to pay in wages.The interest of the business community thus is opposed to the publicinterest, and a business community (un corps de n|gocians) is fre-quently a power in trading nations because it is the great employer.When a people thus is composed of a plurality of peoples with con-flicting interests, there will be no uniform national interest on whichall are ready to agree. The ruling "representatives" can play off thevarious groups aqainst each other, and in the general confusion theywill increase their power and wealth until it equals the power andwealth of the nation. The country is split into the rulers and theruled; the people have lost their power over the t'representativest andcan hardly hold their own against them. For wealth has a tendency toaccumulate in an ever smaller number of hands of the ruling class,

34. Ibid., ch. 4, pp. 365-368,

66 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO N|.EVOLUTION

and the number of independent proprietors, the mainstay of liberty,will decrease. The end is an economic despotism of a srnall minoritywhich rules the people for its private interest. This evolution has beenthe cause of the fall of many empires in history.

What can the legislator do to prevent a similar misfortune in theconcrete case under discussion? Helvdtius suggests a number of meas-ures for a solution of the problem, such as abolition of inheritance forgreat fortunes and redistribution of accumulated wealth on the deathof the owner, or a progressive land-tax which for land holdings over acertain acreage will be higher than the profit. These measures, however,do not have the purpose of equalizing wealth-economic inequality carr-not and should not be abolished, only excess accumulatio,n should bepreyented in order to preserve the political stability of the nation.35

The Jesuit Order

Our survey of the politics of Helvdtius is drawing to its close. Atthe end, Iet us return to the beginning, to the legislator who bends menand their passions toward the general interest. In his capacity as thepresumptive legislator, Helvdtius is strongly disturbed by the existenceof 'a Soup of men who have organized themselves effectively for theoperations of bending men to their will. The previously described dif-ferentiation of society into economic classes with conflicting interests isa grave danger to the general interest. This danger, ho'wever, palesbefore the danger presented by a particular interest group which hasorganized itself as what we would call today "a state withiin the state,Dand which uses its efficient organization for the purpose of establishingitself as a ruling class against the general interest. This efficient or-ganization is the Jesuit Order. Helvdtius is deeply interested in themeans by which the Jesuit Order achieves its success. This 'tnasterpiece

of politics" combines the advantages of monarchical and republicangovernment. It depends equally on secrecy and promptitude of execu-tion, and on an ardent love for the grandeur of the Order. At the headof the organization is an enlightened despot, who at the sanne time is anelective officer. This chief is carefully chosen from a number ofprospective, well-trained candidates. He is under the same rules asthe rank and. fiIe, has made the same vows, has renounrled, like hisbrethretr, aII dignities and all bonds of love and friendship. He hasno other interest than the grandeur and power of the Chder and inhis subjects he has the perfect instrument of execution. His independ-

35. De PHomme, sec. 6.

HELVfTIUS AND THE HERITAGE OF PASCAL 67

ence from temporal powers is secured through his residence at Rome.From his cell, "like the spider from the center of its web,t' he instructshis sons in all Europe, and there he receives from them the intelligenceof what is going on in the capitals of the world. His peculiar power andthe terror which he inspires is not due to his principles (which are, onthe whole, not different from those of the Church ) , but to the perfectionof his governmental organization.so The members of the Order arechosen with equal care among fanatics. In the monastic environment,surrounded by other fanatics, the sentiments of the recruits are formedin the proper direction. Enthusiasm, as Shaftesbury said, is a com-municable disease. Among all religious Orders that of the Jesuits is"at the same time the most powerful, the most enlightened and themost enthusiastic.tt No other Order could exert a similar fascinationover the imagination of a fanatic. The esprit de corps gives each mem-ber a feeling of security and, consequently, full freedom of the mindto concentrate on the task at hand.tt

Helvdtius hates the Jesuit Order. He analyzes its organization be-cause it is the most dangerous enemy to the general interest and herejoices in its fall. Nevertheless, throughout these chapters on theJesuits there is an undertone of admiration and envy. *The true crimeof the Jesuits was the excellence of their government. Its excellencewas altogether destructive to public happiness." Still: excellence wasthe crime. And could such excellence not be used some day for virtuouspurposes? *We must admit that the Jesuits have been the most cruelscourge of the nations; but without them we would never have gaineda full insight into the power which a body of laws inspired by onepurpose can have over men.tt "No legislation has ever realized with solittle means so perfectly the great object of power and wealth." Re-grettably, no people has a legislation of comparable excelleilce; and inorder to create it ttone would have to found a new empire like Romulus.ttUnfortunately, the legislator is rarely in this situation; "and in anyother situation it is perhaps impossible to give an excellent legislation.t'u8Helvdtius ends on a melancholy note. His dream of excellence couldnot be dreamed into history in the eighteenth century. Still, he had theright instinct: the political cadre has become the great instrument formaking the greatest number as happy as only the leaders of such cadrescan make them."n

36. Ibid., sec. 7, ch. 5.37. Ibid., ch, lO.38. fbid., ch. 11.39. Comparg tlt"_p*allel attitude in Bentham. In the Panopticon, in the chap-

ter on toSchoolsrt Bentham discusses the arguments against the merits of in


Conclusion

The historian of ideas has to do more than to report the doctrinesadvanced by a thinker or to give an account of a few great systems.He has to explore the growth of sentiments which crystalliz:e into ideas,and he has to show the connection between ideas and the matrix ofsentiments in which they are rooted. The idea has to be studied, notas a concept, but as a symbol which draws its life from sentiments;the idea grows and dies with the sentiments which engernder its for-mulation and, with the great thinkers, its integration into a system ofthought approximating the asymptote of rationality. Only insofar asthe idea is understood as the approximately rational expression of thelife of sentiments can we understand it as a historical enttity. For theinterpretation of ideas in this process of historical growth, the minorthinkers sometimes may be more important than the great ones inwhose systems the motivation of ideas through sentiment is coveredby the exigencies of immanent logical consistency. Helv6tius was athinker whose awareness of systematic exigencies was strong enoughto make him face the major problems raised by his approach to politics,but his desire to elaborate a system of politics was not so strong that itabolished the essentially aphoristic style of his work. Aphoristic stylemeans, os was later clarified by Nietzsche who used it deliberately, thatthe author preserves in the presentation of his ideas the connection withthe experiences and sentiments which produce the ideas. This aphoristiccharacter of the work of Helv6tius makes it unusually valuable for thehistorian of ideas because here he will find ideas, which irr themselvesare elaborated more clearly and consistently in later systems, at thepoint where they begin to separate as symbols from the matrix of senti-ments and. where the motives which animate their creation are stillvisible. We now have to summarize briefly the rich aggregate of senti-ments and motivations which determines a considerable sec;tor of politi-cal thought in the period of Enlightenment and the subsequent crisisof the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

ttinspection-school." The opponent might raise such questions as: t\rhether theliberal spirit and energy of a free citizen would not be exchanged for the mechan-ical discipline of a soldier, or the austerity of a monk?-and whether the resultof this high-wrought contrivance might not be constructing a set of machinesunder the similitude of men?" Bentham's answer to such questions would have torecur to the end of education: "Would happiness be most likely to be increasedor diminished by this discipline?-Call them soldiers, call them monks, call themmachines: so they were but h"ppy ones, I should not care" (Panoltticon, Works,ed. Bowring [Edinburgh, 1843]' 4, p. 64).


t" The structure of sentiments which appears in Helvdtius can be char-

acterized generally by the term of intramundane religiousness. In the

conflict wiih the Christian tradition the new religiousness expresses it-

self through the inversion of the direction in which the realissimum of

existen.. ir to be sought. The new attitude had become visible by the

time of Hobbes when the orientation toward a summurn bonum was

replaced by the flight from the su,mrnu,rn malum of death in civil war.

The inversion of direction becomes now established, under the title

of genealogy, as the principal instrument for interpreting the internal

order of human nat,rri. Whether it be the materialistic, the sensualistic,

or the hedonistic variants-the strata of human nature are interpreted

genetically as derivatives of a physical or biological substance at the

bottom of existence. The internal structure of man is no longer ordered

toward a transcendental aim but is to be explained by the operations of

physical sensibility or of a pleasure-pain mechanism. This inversion of

direction becomes from now on the symbol of the anti-Christian an-

thropollgy in politics-whether it assumes the form of economic mate-

riafilm, ol of biologism, or of psychologism. With the most important

inversion, the inversion of Hegelts idealism by Marx, we shall have to

deal in some detail in a later context.The inversion of direction is accompanied by the perversion of the

idea of order: the disorder of passions is accepted as the normal order

of the human soul. The problem of perversion as such is of long stand.-

ing. As far back as in the Policraticus of John of SalisburY, one can

obierve an incipient psychology of the homo politicus, the man of

secular passion, as the normal type of man. The problem is realizedin its full importance in the seventeenth century by Hobbes and Pascal.To the madness of the inflated ego Hobbes finds the practical answerof crushing the proud by the Leviathan; Pascal tries to awaken theinsight into the life of passion as diuertissement and counsels the r€-turn to a life in communion with God. Both analysts of the disorderof passion still recognize the disorder as such-though in Hobbes wealready see the dangerous attempt to replace the spiritual process ofcontrition by the external process of submission to governmental power.Helv6tius resumes the analysis of passion but in his treatment thepassions have lost their character as a source of disorder in the souland have become the fundamental force on which all order in theconduct of man has to rely. The return to the ground of existence andto the experience of creaturely nothingness have lost their function inthe order of the soul.

The perversion of the idea of order is intimately connected with theproblem that we designated as the instrumentalization of man. Man is


no longer an entity that has its existential center within itself; he hasbecorne a mechanism of pleasure, pain and passions which can beharnessed by another man, the t'legislator,tt for purposes of his own.Instnrmentalization proved to be a peculiarly rich complex of sentimentsand ideas. First of all, the ground of existence in the Pas;calian senseis denied to man. Here we are at the kry point of the anti-Christianattack on the existence of man. Only when tire spiritual center of man,through which man is open to the transcendental realissimum, is de-stroyed can the disorderly aggregate of passions be used as an in-strument by the legislator. The Kantian, rational-Christian, ethicalrule, that every man must be considered an end in himsellf and not aninstrument for ulterior purposes, is perverted into its opposite throughthe thesis: man is no end in himself but merely an instrument to beused by the legislator. This is the new basic thesis for collectivism inall its variants, down to the contemporary forms of totalitarianism.

Once the disorder of the soul is established as the nature of man,and order can be instilled into this blind field of psychic forces onlyfrom an actitg center outside of man, that aspect of instrurnen talizationcomes to the fore which we designated by the term of antificiality inpolitics. The growth of the soul through an internal procBSS which isnourished through communication with transcendental reality is re-placed by the formation of conduct through external management. Hereis the origin of the managing and organizing interference lvith the soulof man which, from the position of a spiritual morality', is equallyreprehensible in all its variants: whether it is the propagandizin$ foi-mation of conduct and opinion through such political movements asthe Communist or National Socialist or an educational process whichrelies on the psychology of conditioned reflexes and forms patterns ofsocial conformance without raising the question of the morality ofthe pattern or of the morality of conformance. This procesis of generaleducation for the Purpose of forming the useful member of iociety,while neglecting or even deliberately destroying the life oll the soul, isaccepted as an institution of our modern society so fully that the aware-ness of the demonism of such interference with the life of the soulon a social mass scale, and of the inevitably following dr:struction ofthe spiritual substance of society, is practically dead. Only when theinstrument is used for the inculcation of patterns which rliffer widelyfrom the survivals of Christian traditioil, and when the success ofsuch use has demonstrated the previous destruction of the soul withoutwhich such success would be impossible, a sudden wave of alarm andindignation springs up. But even then ( we are speaking of the con-temporary situation ) the indignation is not directed against the meth-

HELVfTIUS AND THE HERITAGE OF PASCAL 7L

ods which destroy the life of the soul but against the new patterns ofconduct inculcated by political movements. The remedy against thepattern of which we disapprove is the use of the same destnrctivemethod for a different purpose, under the ominous symbol of "re-education.tt

Artificiality in politics means that the leadership of Western politi-cal units has to rely increasingly on the mechanism of passions andinterests of the social group as the source of power and policy; it canno longer rely with assurance on engaging as a source of power a spirit-ual substance that would be living in a socially relevant stratum ofthe body politic. An aggregate of passions and interests, however, isan ephemeral force; it needs constant watching and the leaders of themoment have to beware that a skillful reshuffier of passions and in-terests will not, in a surprisingly short time, create a differently shapedaggregate for his own purposes. Once the spiritual destruction hasachieved a certain degree of success, the structure of political senti-ments in a society is in a precarious balance that can be destroyed byany untoward event, as for instance an economic crisis. The strugglebetween political leaders for the shaping and for the control of thelabile aggregate of passions and interests will become the content ofpolitics. This aspect of the problem of leadership appears in Helvdtiusunder the title of the t'legislator.tt The legislator, as we have seen, Pro-vides in his person the directive center of which the soul of the manof passion and interest has been deprived. The leader becomes the newcenter of human life when God has been abolished. The spiritual dramaof salvation which takes place in the Christian soul has become ex-ternalized in the drama of a society under the leadership of a "leEisla-tor." At this point we should note a certain difficulty of terminology.The new attitude which appears in Helv6tius is usually termed socialimmanentism. There are reasons to use the term but we must be awarethat what actually takes place is the externalization of processes of thesoul and their enactment on the stage of society. The religious life ofman is not abolished ( as is so fondly believed by even such a notablefigure as the author of The Future of an lllusion); rather, the life ofthe soul has become perverted and the religious symbols which expressthe perversion dominate the scene.

The religion of social Satanism expresses itself in certain symbols.Some of these symbols were developed by Helv6tius at least in theiroutline. Let us mention first the new aspect of the idea of equality.The idea of equality as such has absorbed more than one componentof sentiment. In earlier contexts we have seen the roots of equality inthe matriarchal idea of the sons who are all born equally from the same

72 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO RHVOLUTION

mother, as well as in the patriarchal idea of the spiritual sons of thesame father; and we have seen further components of Western equalitywhich stem from the aristocratic spiritualism of the high Middle Ageswith its generous extension of the idea of the spiritually mature personto all men. We now have to observe a further component which be-comes of increasing political importance in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies: the idea of the equal pleasure-pain mechanisms who all areengaged equally in the pursuit of happiness. This new coxnponent ofequality is intimately connected with a second symbol, the symbol ofthe elite who set the standard of the happiness that is to be-pursuedby the mass of the equal automata. The egalitarian and elitarian ideasof political order can be conceived as mutually exclusive if we concen-trate our attention on those components of the idea of equality whichstem from the Christian and medieval aristocratic tradition. They donot at all exclude but, on the contrary, require each other if and whenthe equality of passions, interest and happiness in the sense of Helvdtiuscomes to be the component which is experienced as the decisive one ina_ socially relevant degree. Helv6tius understood this connection veryclearly when he warned of the dangers of accumulation of wealth andof the corresponding impoverishment of the people; for in this situa-tion the happiness of the greatest number who are all equal in theirlack of property could be satisfied by a despot who a-bolishes the\4/estern structure of society. The social mechanism by which Na-Plleon III rose to power gave Europe the first object lesson in the pos-sibilities of plebiscitarian dictatorship which Helvdtius had seen on thesocial horizon. This rise of Napoleon III released the great critiqueof parliamentary democracy and of universal suffrage in the second halfof the nineteenth century and the predictions concerning the end ofliberalism and the emergence of the age of the masses.

And, finally, -ye have to recall the symbol of social evolution. Syr-tematicllly the idea of social evolution had to supply for Helvdtius ittestandard of the happiness of the greatest number. 'ifte dangers to thestability of French political society which arose from the dilferentiationof class interests were to be averted by the standard of a heroic middle-cfary lepublic. This idea was revolutionary insofar as it implied theabolition of the aristocratic and financial ruling class; it was c,onservativeinsofar as it wanted to stabilize the revolution on the level of the middle-class republic and to prevent its progress toward a plebiscitarian dicta-torship. This is the conservative French republican idea which wasbroken by the successive waves of Napoleonism, by the emotionalleadership in the first decades of the Third Republic, and by theDreyfus afrair. The structure of sentiments which animate the idea,


however, has an importance far beyond the immediate French prob-

lems. The symbol of evolution creates a new ontology as the basis for

the meaning of human existence in society. The Christian order of thesoul as the standard of meaning is abolished but it is replaced by anexternal order of objective evolution of civilization through populationpressure and scarcity of goods. Human existence under the new dis-pensation finds its meaning through the conformance of private interestio the general interest that has evolved objectively at the time. Themeaning of life has been transformed from the internal growth of thesoul in orientation toward the transcendental realissimum, into theexternal harmony of the private interest with the historically objectivefact of the general interest. Obviously this construction raises seriousquestions: what will happen if evolution goes on? if a new situation offact arises? if the greatest number develops interests far different fromthe standard envisaged by Helvdtius? In this case do we have to reviseour ideas of what constitutes the happiness obligatory for everybody?At this point Helv6tius, like every radical social Satanist after him, hasto take his leap into eschatology. One answer to these questions wouldbe the relativistic drifting with evolution that has become an importantcharacteristic of the movement of historicism: any situation of fact isas acceptable as the previous one because the standards of value andmeaning are surrendered. A personality of the strength of Helv6tiustscannot be satisfied with this escape. We have seen his awareness ofthe dangers of plebiscitarian despotism and his will to stabilize evolu-tion at an earlier point. This idea of stabilizing evolution at a givenpoint will inevitably occur to a man who takes seriously his functionas the social savior of his benighted fellowmen. Evolution has reacheda certain point, but now society must cease to evolve, The presentsituation of fact has arisen objectively through evolution and draws itsauthority from this objectivity, but no future different situation mustarise; history has to stop. The eschatology of stopping history, of alast historical phase that will not be superseded by an entirely differentone, has become one of the great symbols of politics after Helvdtius.In our time this Satanic mirage has become one of the great paralyzingforces in

'Western politics in the form of the idea that democraclr at

the phase which it has reached historically, can be stabilized andperpetuated by sstopping" this or that-for instance, a Hitler or aStalin. The symbol has found its classical formulation in the Marxistidea that social evolution up to the present is "prehistorfrtt and that afterthe revolutionary stabilization of a situation of fact t'real history,t with-out further profound changes, will begin.

IV. POSITIVISM AI\TD ITS AI.TTECEDEI\TTS

What is sometimes referred to as the crisis of Western civilization isnot an event that occurs at a definite point in time. It is a process whichextends- by now over more than a century and a half una which, forall we know, may be protracted for rnotir.r century. The crisis doesnot belong to !h. past, it is a living present. Every duy pdds to ourexperience of its extent and profoundners, and in the iigrtt of theseexperiences we are comPelled, if we want to understand it,:to revaluatethe past phases of the crisis. Events which seemed to be irrelevantaccidents or momentary outbursts in their time appear, in the light ofcontemPorary experiences, as prefigurations of latei horrors. Ideas *tri.ttseemed to be side issues, exaggerations, idiosyncrasies or absurdities,now reveal their full leaning when they become concretizr:d in politi-cal actions and institutions. Men who seemed to have a somelvhat timiteaimportance grow into sinister giants who cast their shadc,w ovei thepresent and into the future. This revaluation proceeds, and will con-tinue to proceed, with our expanding experirirrc of the r:risis itself.

Auguste Comte ( l79B-18 57 ) is the fiist great figure of the \Mest-ern crisis. Comte belongs to our historical piesent ir the same sensein which Marx, Lenin and Hitler belong to it. While we cannot knowthe ultimate form which the course of t[e crisis will assume, we knowmuch more about it than Comte and his contemporaries

"nd, *. know

a good deal more than even the generation which preceded us. Weknow above all that the Western crisis is not a brief episo,ile that willreach its end within a few decades. This belief, in *fti.fn Comte in-dulged in the 1840's, will hardly be entertained by anySody today.Moreover' we know todll that the crisis is not a politicaf clist,rrbuncl,in the restricted sense of power_p_olitics, which .un be settled by warsand subsequent Peace treaties. We know that it is essentially ; crisisof the spirit and we u-tg acquaint.-d today with some of the atlempts ata solution of _thi_s problem through political religions such as NaiionalSocialism and Marxism.

Although Comte misjudged the duration of the crisis, he neithermisjudged its scale nor its nature. While his attempt at a solution wasas abortive as the contemPorary ones, at least one important cause ofthe failure was the close relationship between Comteis ideas and thetotalitarian practice of our times. After a century of misunderstandingwe are aPProaching ,o_dry, on the basis of more recent experiences, amole adequate view of Comte in his quality as an astute

-and perspi-

cacious philosopher of history as well as in iris more sinister qruiity;s

POSITIVISM AND ITS ANTECEDENTS 75

a spiritual dictator of mankind. The history of the misunderstandingof Comte and of the gradual dissolution of these misunderstandings is,at the same time, the history of our growing insight into the meaningof the Western crisis.

Positivism, as it was formed through the person and work of AugusteComte, has its effectiveness as a European movement because it hadabsorbed a rich tradition of sentiments and ideas. The pseudo-propheticpersonality of Comte was necessary to achieve the fusion and to pene-trate it with religious enthusiasm, but the elements which entered intothe composition of the system had accumulated in the course of a processwhich had started more than a century before Comte shapid thePolitique Positiae as the keystone of his thought. Hence the nature ofPositivism and its broad appeal cannot be properly understood withouta survey of its prehistory. Without this prehistory the momentumwould be inexplicable. Such a survey, however, has its difficulties be-cause of the volume of tradition that crystallized in the system ofComte and it would have to encompass an appreciable sector of theintellectual history of a century. fn order to reduce the problem to man-ageable proportions we shall endeavor to assemble some of the moreimportant elements which have entered the Comtean edifice of ideas.Among these elements was the idea of the eighteenth-century FrenchEncyclop1die as developed by d'Alembert in his Discours Prdliminaire.L

D' AI e mb ertl s Discours Prdliminaire

The Discour.s was originally published as the editorst preface to thefirst volume of the Encyclop1die in 1751. It soon gained prominence,independent of this functiotr, as the classic expression of the encyclo-paedist spirit as well as of the idea of the Encyclop1die. It was maderequired reading in the educational institutions of France and in-fluenced several generations of young Frenchmen, among them AugusteComte.' T'he purpose of the Discours was to inform the readers of theEncgclopddie about the principles underltrng the great work. It wassuPPosed to be a systematic collection of human knowledge (connais-sances humaines) in the sciences, the liberal arts and technology. Thecollection was not to be indiscriminate but would embody only ielevantand valid knowledge. The execution of this program required criteriaof relevance and completeness and the Discours endeavored to furnish

l. DtAlembert, Discours Pr1liminaire de PEncEclopfidie, €d. F, Picavet (Paris,l8g4 ) .

2, See on this point Picavetts (fntroduction," ibid., p, rlvii.

76 FRoM ENLIcHTENMENT To R:EvolurroN

the criteria. This attempt at a theoretical clarification of the issues in-volved gave the Discours its importance beyond that of a preface.

It was, as a matter of fact, the revolutionary manifesto of a newattitude towards man and society. ft was inspired by the pathos of thescientist, and more specifically, of the mathematical scientist, who triesto orient man in society and the universe by means of the methodswhich have shown their value in the mathematical and physical sci-ences. This pathos expressed the momentum which science had gainedin the century of Descartes and Pascal, of Huyghens and Newton, ofBoyle and Locke, of Leibniz and of d'Alembert himself. In the cor-sciousness of this revolutionary expansion of the horizon of knowledge,the enterprise could be conceived as surveying systematically thepresent state of knowledge, using as ordinates of relevanc,e and com-pleteness the methods of science which were considered valid at themoment. In this perspective, the Encyclop1die is the modern counter-Part of the medieval ,Ser rnrna. The Summa of the type that was fixed bySt. Thomas embraced systematically what appeared as relevant knowl-edge within the categories of the Christian view of man in tlhe universe;the Encyclop1die, at least in the original conception of d'Alembertand Diderot, attempted the equivalent organization of relevant knowl-edge within the categories of the new anthropology that had becomefixed by the middle of the eighteenth century. Within ttre naruowerperspective of French intellectual historyr we may say that the Discoursof dtAlembert is the sequel to the Cartesian Discours de ,la m6thode.The principles developed by Descartes have unfolded in the advance-ment of science, and the Discours of d'Alembert amplifies these princi-ples by applying them encyclopedically to the whole body of humanknowledge.

The principles of the Encyclop6die

The principles used by dtAlembert for securing relevance and corr-pleteness are, on the whole, &tr elaboration of Helv6tius's irdeas of thegenealogy of passions and of social evolution; they reappear in d'Alem-bert as the genealogy of knowledge and the history of the progress ofthe human mind. The genealogy of knowledge is constructed, in sub-stance, in the same manner as the genealogy of Helvdtius. The directexperiences of human existence and of the external world are the foun-dation; all other knowledge is interpreted as the product of :reflection ontheir basis. The construction in the form of the genealogy is supposedto furnish the reliably complete register of the connaissanct?s, from theimmediate experiences to the reflective derivatives. For the purposes of


the Encyclopddie, the resulting table of connaissances is rearranged,accordiog to subject matters, as an arbre gdndalogique or encgclo-pddique. The titles in the alphabetic order of the Encyclopddie are re-

lerred to the arbre gdndalogique so that the reader of the resPective

article is clear about the position of the subject matter in the system of

science. The history of ttre progress of the human mind, in its turn, has

the same function as Helvdtius's theory of social evolution. The historyof intellectual progress carries with it the authority of its facticity. Thata certain stage is reached at present de facta endows this stage with anauthority by which it is superior to previous phases in the intellectualhistory of mankind. When the idea of a creative, transcendental realitypales, the idea of the authoritative present takes its place. These twoide*s, the genealogy and the history, determine the organization of theDiscours in its two parts. And, by anticipatiotr, we may say that thesetwo cornerstones of the Positivistic edifice will reappear in the system ofComte as his two great conceptions of the hierarchy of the sciences andof the law of the three stages in the progress of the rnind.

Let us now examine the two ideas in order, first the idea of genealogy.The actual genealogy and the resulting arbre encyclop1dique are of nointerest to us. In thecourse of their development, however, there aP-pear certain problems which are symptomatic of the complex of Pos-itivism and are relevant for the understanding of the later history ofpolitical ideas.

The first of these points concerns the derivation of the ideas of justice

and of moral good and evil. For d'Alembert the idea of justice is Pro-voked through a situation of oppression. His assumption seems to bethat the equal somatic constitution of men induces the idea of equalityof men as a ttreasonablet idea and that the violation of a. ttreasonablet

state of equality through the stronger arouses resentment and r€-sistance. *From there stems the notion of the unjust, and consequentlyof moral good and evil, of which so many philosophers have searchedthe principle, and which the cry of nature, echoing in every man, makesunderstood by all people, even the most savage." DtAlembert makes theattempt to derive the idea of good and evil from the fundamental €x-perience of revolt against oppression and rejects a religious or meta-physical foundation of morals. The value of this derivation for a theoryof morals is not very great. But we find in it the expression of a sen-timent that has appeared earlier in French history of political ideas, inLa Boetiets Sentitude Volontaire, a sentiment that gains considerablepopular acceptance in the later history of Anarchism and Syndicalism:

3. Ibid.r p. 2O.

78 FROh{ ENL IGHTENMENT TO R .EVOLUTION

namelyr the sentiment of revolt in the sense of an immediate, violentreaction against a social state that is experienced as oppressive. We haveseen that d'Alembert has no direct access to the id.a of justice; theprimary experience is that of oppression. The idea of an urrjust state ofthings Precedes that of a just one. The sentiment of revolt rJvershad.owsthe idea of order much more strongly than in Voltaire, whose indigna-tion at injustice was oriented towards a clear code of secular, utilita;ianmorality. At the same time, the derivation is a consistent attempt togain an idea of justice within a philosophy of existence which ieliesfor its construction on the symbol of the genealogy. D'Alembert cer-tainly face_s the problem of ethics more seriously th-an did Locke withhis inconclusive drifting in the surviving tradition of Christianity, orHelvdtius with his transfer of the moral substance of man to the legisla-tor' This seriousness of the attempt holds its appeal for later thinkerswho on the one hand adopt an anthropology b*ed on the symbol ofgengaJogy' but who, on the other hand, are neither willing to accept atraditional morality without foundation, nor without qualms to iub-scribe to an idea of collectivist salvation which denies the, rnoral sub-stance of man. This sentiment of revolt has found its radical expressionin Bakunin. For Bakunin the experience of revolt is an irredu.ibl. fac-tor in human existence, independent of the somatic basis which providesthe dynamic of revolution. This instance is of particular interest becauseBakunin favors, side by side with the idea of revolt, the incompatibleidea of collective salvation through a revolutionary leader. Here wefind fully developed in the same person both of the principal solutionswhich can be given to the problem of ethics within the framework ofthe Positivistic creed.

The disappearance of the bios theoretikos

A second point that invites attention is dAlembert's Clerivation ofthat tyPe of knowledge which is not of a strictly utilitariarr nature. Hedifferentiates between knowledge which serves the satisfaction of hu-man needs, and knowledge which , 7t least at the time of its discoverlrhas no practicality. The acquisition of useful knowledge is consideredquite intelligible, but why should men devote their energir:s to the ac-quisition of useless knowledge? The answer is to be found in a generaldisquietude, expressing itself in curiosity, which casts around forescape from a not quite satisfactory situation. The satisfaction ofcuriosity is in itself a pleasure and to this pleasure we owe the dis-covery of useless knowledge. Since sometimes useless knowledge laterturns out to be useful, w€ continue to satisfy our curiosity through

POSIT IV ISM AND ITS ANTECEDENTS 79

systematic scientific research in the hope that ultimately it may serve auseful purpose.n Again, the derivation itself is of little value for a theoryof knowledge. But in the frankness of its statement, it reveals moreclearly than the later conventionalized expressions of the same idea thesentiments which underlie the Positivist creed. D'Alernbert, apparentl],has never experienced either the desire for, or the obligation to pursue,that life of contemplation which Aristotle describes as the bios the-oretihos, He ignores the fact, or does not know, that the life of mandoes not exhaust its meaning on the level of utilitarian desires andneeds, and that the life of contemplation, resulting in the understand-ing of man himself and of his place in the universe, is a fundamentalspiritual obligation quite independent of its contribution to "useful" ac-tivities.

fnsofar as the origin and the obligation of the bios theoretihos, andwith it the meaning of humanistic civilization, are unintelligible fromthe pragmatic perspective of utilitarian values, w€ find in the attitude ofd'Alembert an indication of the profound antihumanism underlying theEnlightenment and the Positivist creed.. This important component ofPositivism is frequently underrated or overlooked entirely, perhaps be-cause the attempts to stabilize the remnants of tradition at the level ofdisintegration which they had reached at the moment disguised theradical incompatibility of the new attitude with the values of classicaland Christian civilization. As a result, the deceptive picture of a pro-gressive civilization arose in which the advancement of science seemedto compensate amply for the atrophy of other civilizational values.When the breaking point in this process of undermining the centralvalues of civilization has been reached, as it has in our ag€, the im-pression is widespread that entirely new ideas are in revolt against thetraditions of progressive Western civilization, but in fact the wreckingoperations of the present only consummate a work of destruction thathas been going on for the last four centuries. It is a serious misunder-standing of historical forces to believe that a handful of men can destroya civilization before it has committed suicide, to use the phrase ofToynbee.

Toanards a new pouvoir spirituel

D'Alembert's attitude towards Christianity and religious cults is thethird point which needs our attention. Since the experience of thebios theoretikos is missing in d'Alembert, it is not surprising that with

4. Ibid., pp, 23f.


regard to religious experiences he shares the spiritual obscurantism ofVoltaire. DtAlembert accepts, like Voltaire, certain unotions purementintellectuellesr" such as vice and virtue, the necessity of laws, thespirituality of the soul, the existence of God, and the obligations of acult. For the rest, he refers the reader to revealed religion which in-structs man concerning subject matters of which he has no naturalknowledge. This instruction, however, does not amount to much; it isconfined to "a few truths of faith,t and "a small number of practicalprecepts." A spiritual penetration of the problems of faith, d'Alemberthas never attempted.s

This somewhat vague attitude of 175f crystallized, in d'Alembert'slater years, into more precise ideas. In a letter to Frederic II ( Novem-ber 30, l77O), dAlembert wrote that Christianity was originally apure deism, and Jesus "a sort of philosopher.D Jesus hated persecutionand priests, he taught goodwill and justice, and reduced the law to thelove of fellowman and the adoration of God. This simple religion waschanged by St. Paul, the Fathers and the Councils. "One would do agreat service to mankind if one could make men forget the dogmas; ifone would simply preach them a God Who rewards and punishes and\AIho frowns on superstition, Who detests intolerance and expects noother cult of man than mutual love and support.ttu The K.ing was notquite convinced by d'Alembert's idea since he thought that the peoplewould want something more than a merely reasonable religion. D'Alem-bert answered (letter of February lst, L77L) that he would ask theKing, if the Treaty of Westphalia permitted a fourth relligion in theEmpire, to erect "a very plain templett in Berlin or Potsdam uwhere

God would be honored in a manner worthy of Him, where nothingwould be preached but humanity and justice.o If the masses would notflock to this temple in a few y.urc, onty then would he admit that theKing was right.t

These passages from the letters indicate certain trends in Positivismwhich later unfold prodigiously. In itself the deistic creed of d'Alembertis rather conventional for its time. More unusual is the idea that deismis not a rational progressive transformation of Christianitl', but that itrepresents a return to original Christianity before its corruption by St.Paul, the Fathers and the Councils. This conception implies that deismis a ttreformtt of Christianity, more radical than the Protestant becauseit goes back to the origins even before St. Paul. Nevertheless, this "re-formt does not imply a renotntio erangelica. It does not ha.ve its source

5. Ibid., pp. 21f., 35. Cf. n. 25, 26 by Picavet.6. Picavet, (Introductionrt ibid., p. xv,7, Ibid,

POSTTIVISM AND ITS ANTECEDENTS 8 1

in a mystical experience and it implies no more than a rationalistpurification of Christian symbols, including the divinity of Christ, sothat in the end Jesus appears as a *sort of philosophern who counselsmutual love and support without any intelligible authority or founda-tion for such counsels. We can observe here in formation the highlyimportant merger of spiritual obscurantism with the apprehension thata religious substitute for Christianity might be necessarlr and that thesubstitute would even have to include a cult. In the suggestion toFrederick II to build a temple in Berlin or Potsdam for the purposes ofa worthy cult to the rationally purified God, we see prefigured the cultsof the Revolution, and in particular Robespierre's cult of the EtreSupr?rne; and foreshadowed in the farther distance are Saint-Simon'sNouueau Christianisme and Comte's cult of the Grand-Etre. Side byside with the pathos of positive scientisffi, the idea that the new Pos-itivist civilization needs a pouvoir spirituel that will take the place ofthe medieval-Christian is beginnitg to take shape. With Comte theidea of the new pouaoir spirituel becomes the center of the Positivistcreed, and ever since Comte it has remained the kry problem of the newpolitical movements until the pouvoir spirituel is joined with thetemporal power of the state in the foundations of Lenin and Hitler.

The fourth and last point on which we have to touch is d'Alembert'sattitude towards the problem of a moral code. We have seen that hissource for the idea of justice, or rather injustice, was the experience ofrevolt; and we remarked that with d'Alembert this experience is notbalanced, as with Voltaire, by a positive code of morals. Moreover, wehave seen that an ethics of the Aristotelian type ( with a scale of valuesoriented toward the bios theoretikos) , or a spiritual morality of theChristian type ( determined by the experience of the common ground ina transcendental reality ) , are beyond his reach. On the other hand,d'Alembert took very seriously the problem that faced him: of find-ing sources for a moral code other than the theoretical or spiritualsources. His hope to reach this aim was supported by a revealing mis-understanding of the foundations of Greek and Roman ethics, a mis-understanding that has continued on a socially relevant scale to this d"y.The idea of an autonomous ethics, without religious or metaphysicalfoundation, strikes d'Alembert as a possibility because in his opinionsuch a code of ethics was realized once among the ttpug"ns.ttt Rules ofethics existed before Christianity, and since religion is for him synon-ymous with Christianity, the dreeks had an .thi.. without religiousfoundation. Explicitly or through traditioil, this misunderstanding has

8. Picavet, ttfntroductionrtt ibid., p. xxx.

82 FRoM ENLIGHTENMENT To RnvolurroN

survived, and we can recognize the effectiveness of this iderrtification ofChristianity- with religion even today in the widespread resistance toadmit the character of modern political movements as ne'w collectivereligions, as well as in the difficulty of explaining to the nayman thatradical atheism mal bt anti-Christian, but ihut it I not un untireligiousattitude, that, on the contrary, it expresses another type of re5fious-ness. InTir_ed by this misunderstanding, d'Alembert was gt.uity in-terested in developing an autonomous code of ethics.

The idea of a catdchisme de morale occupied. him even in his lateryearsr but he never wrote one and for excellent reasons. These reasonshe discussed in his correspondence with Frederic If. In a letter to theKing on January 2L, L770, he wrote that the source of morals andhappiness was the harmony between enlightened self-interest and thefulfillment of duties. D'Alembert is ptagued by u question he finds diffi-cult to answerr namely: "There are those who have nothing, who giveeverything to society and to whom society refuses rurtything, *ftohardly_:ul feed a numerous family by their work and pertrapr oot feedit at all. Can these people have another rule of conduit than the law?and how could one persuade them that it is their true interest to bevirtuous, if, without fear of punishment, they could not be virtuous?"'Tf I had found a satisfactory solution to this questioil, I would havew_ritten my catechism of morals long ago.t' In subsequent letters, ofMarch and Apqil of the same year, d'Alembert elaborates his point.The fear of the law and the hope for charity may restrain the indigent.But what happens when there is no hope and when the ind.igent sees apossibility to take part secretly of the abundance of a rich man for hisown subsistence? "I ask you: what should he do in this case? Can he, oreven should he, Iet himself and his family die from starvation?" "fn thecase of absolute necessity, theft is permitted, and even an act of justice."It is not wise to put such a doctrine into a catechism of morals becausegreed or paresse might misuse it. "That is the reason why it is impos-sible to make a catechism of morals that would be equally valid for allmembers of society." The root of the evil is that "the dir;tribution ofwealth is monstrously unequal, that it is atrocious as well as absurd tosee some people gorging themselves in abundance and others lackingthe necessities of life.t*

There is only a step from d'Alembert's "theft is an act c,f justice" toProudhonts ttproperty is theft.' We can now understand rnore clearlythe meaning of the *oppressiono against which dtAlembert experiencesrevolt. In part it is religious intolerance and persecution, as with

g. Ibid.


Voltaire, but more decisively it is the oppression which stems from anexcessive inequality of wealth. The principle of utilitarian ethics, inorder to be applicable concretely, requires a certain degree of economichomogeneity in a society. Even if the indigent should be a minority sothat, indeed, the greatest number would be h"ppy, the presence of theindigent minority would mean that the code of utilitarian morals is notequally applicable to all members of society. The distance fromHelv6tius is not very great, but we should note the difference of accents.For Helv6tius, the minority which aroused misgivings was still theruling class of France; once the iniquity of the minority would beabolished, the happiness of the greatest number would be secured inthe form of a middle-class republic of small property owners. Ford'Alembert, the accent has shifted to the indigent whose lot would notbe changed, on principle, by the abolition of the ruling minority and theestablishment of a middle-class republic. The component of utilitarian-ism becomes more clearly discernible which leads to the demands for aredistribution of wealth and ultimately to the idea of a socialist, plannedsociety in order to make society a homogeneous field for the applicationof one principle of ethics for everybody. This component becomesdominant during the Revolution in Babeuf; we see it continued stronglyin Saint-Simon and Comte and ultimately victorious in Proudhon andthe Anarchist and Syndicalist sequels.

The idea of prosress and the scauthoritatiae presentn

The second principal doctrine of d'Alembert concerns the progress ofthe human mind. We have indicated earlier why this doctrine forms anindispensable part of the Positivist creed. When the intellectual andspiritual sources of order in human and social life dry up, there is notmuch left as a source of order except the historically factual situation.

When, however, a situation of fact is to be used as a source of order,the situation has to be surrounded by a body of doctrine which en-dowes it with a specific legitimacy. Hence, one of the typically recurrentideas in this contingency is the assumption that the iituaiion of themoment, or a situation which is envisaged as immediately impending, issuperior in value to any prior historical situation of fait. The idea ofprogress through several phases of history, supported by an array ofmaterials which show the increase in value through tt. successivephases, furnished the basis for this first necessary assumption. The idea9f ptggress' however, creates legitimacy for the present bnly insofar asit evokes its superiority over the past. Hence, typically in the doctrin€, Bsecond idea recurs which is destined to protect the present against in-


validation by the future. With Helv6tius, this desire for protectionagainst the future took the form of "the leap into eschatologyn: thePresent is considered the last phase of human history; no situation of thefuture ought to differ in substance from the situati.on envisaged as thedesirable present. This element of ('stopping" or "freezing" history intoa PerPehral present is usually overlooked in the analysis of the idea ofprogress beCause it is in overt contradiction with th; idea of progressitself. This contradiction, however, that a situation cannot be static andProgressive at the same time, lies only on the surface. 'llhe idea ofprogress is, indeed, the idea of a static situation insofar as it envisagesthe future as *an addition to,n or "an elaboration oftt the present. Theidea that possibly the values of modern Western civilization might besuperseded in due course by a civilization with a value structure asdifferent from the present Western as is the Hellenic from the Chinese,does not enter these speculations on progress. Insofar as the future canbring nothing but a perfection of the values embodied in presentcivilization, and as the open future of man in history is transformed intoa present aim projected into the future, the idea of progress is static.From this static element in the idea of progress stems the :reactionarfrparalyzed attitude of progressives in the face of new developments (notenvisaged in a project which, in substance, is rooted in the eighteenthcentury ) as well as the wrathful impotence of the progressive intellec-tual to answer with a positive, ordering will the disintegration ofWestern civilization. Thus the historical situation of fact, in order tobecome a source of order, has to be safeguarded against the future aswell as against the past. The idea of progress fulfills both these func-tions. The peculiar character of the situation which is created by thesedoctrinal means we shall designate by the term *authoritati've present.DThrough this analysis and through the introduction of this term wehave gained a position from which we can see the problem of progressin its correct perspective: the idea of progress in general does not implya scientific proposition which can be submitted to verificatiron; it is anelement in a doctrinal complex which purports to evoke the idea of anauthoritative present. This idea, in turn, is needed for the a;dequate ex-pression of intramundane religiousness in politics. A merely empiricalpresent is a brute fact without superior authority in comparison withany past or future present. When the critical standards of civilizationalvalues which stem from the bios thearetikos and the life of tlhe spirit areabandoned, when the empirical process itself has to furnish the stand-ards, then a special doctrine is needed to bestow grace on the presentand to heighten an otherwise irrelevant situation of fact into a standardby which the past and the future can be measured, This act of grace,


bestowed by the intellectual leaders of Enlightenment on themselvesand on their age, is the source of the genuine revolutionary pathos thatanimates the idea of progress, as well as of its plight when the by nomeans negligible values of utilitarian scientism have run their course.This end seems to have come in our time, when the ttrevolutionsD arebecoming "reactions' and spiritual regeneration is the burning problemof the age.

Security against the Prct

Into this outline of the theoretical problem we now have to fill thematerials which d'Alembert uses for the construction of his doctrine.The progress of the mind (les progrds de | €sprit) begins with theRenaissance.to It has moved through three distinct phases. The firstphase was the new erudition of the humanists, the second phase was therevival of the arts and the third was the advancement of philosophy.The sequence is determined by historical necessity. When man emergedfrom the acenturies of ignorance,t when he was jolted out of *bar-

barisrn" by the fall of Constantinople and the penetration of Easternknowledge into the West, he found himself in a state of infancy.Languages and facts had to be regained and ideas had to be ac-cumulated, while the systematic organization of knowledge laggedbehind. This period of predominant erudition, without the balance oftheory, employed chiefly the faculty of memory. Next, imagination wasaroused through the aesthetic appeal of ancient literature and art, withthe consequent Western revival of art. And only in the end could reasonembark on the labor of organizing systematically the newly gainedknowledge. This systematic organization of knowledge d'Alembert callsphilosophy, including under the term the sciences. PhilosophJr, in itsbeginning, was severely hampered by the survival of prejudices. t'Scho-

lastic philosophy, which exhausted the sham science (science prdten-due) of the centuries of ignorance, still hampered the progress of true

l_0. Ibid.r p. 76. T\e reason for starting the history of progress at this par-ticular point is given briefly by the phrase: "Pou,r ni poiit monter trop hiut.nThe reader should note._this phrase because it is characteristic of the style ofenlightened theori'l ng. Llnfortunately we do not yet possess a monograph 6n thetypical -phraggs of progressive intellectuals by which they dispose

- of those

millennia of history which do not fit into the construction of their doctrine. Withd'Al_eryle-rtr-a phras_e 9f this kind can still be considered to be used in objectivegood faith; he could sincerely believe that he need not bother about some 1500ye-ars o-f Christian history ald se-veral centuries of Hellenism. Similar phrases,yhen thgy are used in ogr time, have the less laudable function of covelring aninexcusable illiteracy on the part of their authors.

8 6 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R:EVOLUTION

philosoPhy in this first century of light."ll In reflectiog on the motivesof prejudiced resistance d'Alembert achieved one of the finest, involun-ta-ry revelations of the progressive mind, by projecting it into the past,when he r,vrote: *Many people who are born and confirmed in error byeducation believe themselves most sincerely on the path of truth becausethere never has occurred to them the slightest doubt on this point."t'The resistance, however, has been broken and with Bacon begins theadvancement of philosophy in the sciences.

Security against the future

The present, thus, is secured against the past. The "very imperfectphilosoPhytt of the ancients has become obsolete, the "centuries ofignorancett can be passed over in silence, the revival of the esprit isculminating, today, in the systematic organization of knowledge. Buthow can this present be secured against the future? The basic sentimentwhich inspires this second part of doctrinal construction is expressed inthe passage quoted above: there is no doubt that we are on the path oftruth. We are not in the future to which this path will lead, but we areright on the path and we definitely know its direction. fn this spirit theidea of the Encyclopddie is conceived and its function unde:rstood. Therealm of the sciences and arts is rich in discoveries but the: reports onthem are sometimes unreliable. The Encyclopddie has to inform thereader reliably of the true discoveries and to warn him of the errors; ithas to fix a starting point in order "to facilitate the search for what re-mains to be found.'* The present state of knowledge has to be as-certained in order to gain a clear view of the means for its perfection.When the Encyclop1die shall have attained this aim "then the bonsesprits will no longer occupy themselves with searching whart one knewbefore them.ttto This sentence is the classic formulation of the progres-sive dream: the state of human knowledge will be incorporated in atextbook of gigantic proportions and nobody will have to rezrd anythirgthat was published prior to the encyclopaedic textbook. All we have todo in the future is to make new editions which incorporate the ttcon-

tributions" which have accumulated since the last one. Mankind willhave behind it the Encyclopddie and ahead of it the path determined byit. This determination, furthermore, is austere. To a critic of theEncgclop1die d'Alembert answered with a defiant justificartion of his

11. Ibid., p. 88.12. Ibid.13. Ibid., p.14. Ibid., p.

139.I40.


principles of the one and only truth. If people are astonished, he wrote,to find articles on philosophers but none on Church Fathers, the answeris that philosophers are creators of opinions while the Fathers, who onlypreserved a tradition, had nothing to teach mankind. If nothirg is to befound on the saints, on the genealogy of princes, or on the conquerorswho have devastated the earth, the Encyclop1die compensates by thespace which it gives to the genealogy of science and to the immortalgeniuses who have enlightened mankind. "The Encyclop1die oweseverything to talent, nothing to titles; it is the history of the mind, notof the vanity of man."15 This highly elastic categofization of esprit andaanitd makes it possible to project the future as a directed developmentof the present. If anything should actually interfere with this futurecourse, it would not belong to the progress of the espnt but would haveto be classified as a disturbance by vanity, or a relapse into barbarism.A passage from Diderot will be the best summary for this part of thedoctrine: we are, says Diderot, the spectators and historians of theProgress of the sciences and arts; we transmit them to posterity. Muyposterity, in opening our Dictionarlr say that this was the state ofscience and art in our time. Muy it add its own discoveries to thosewhich we have registered so that the history of the human mind and of

lts productions may go on and on to the most remote ages. Muy theEncyclop1die become the sanctuary where the knowledge of *in issheltered against time and revolutions. What could flatter us more thanto have laid the foundation for this development?l.

The role af technologg

One detail of the doctrine has to be enlarged upon because it hasbecome a rather persistent part of the later Poiitivisl creed: that is theoveremphasis on technology. This accentuation has to follow inevitablywhen the bios theoretikos as a standard is abandoned. In this case, th;criteria of value have to be found on the utilitarian level. And there canbe no doubt that technical inventions are more useful to mankind thanthe exPressions of the contemplative intellect. D'Alembert attacks force-fully the overrating of theoretical science and of scientists. Whatevert_"pgtiority the liberal arts TuI have over the mechanical by virhre ofthe labors of the intellect and of the difficulties to excel in them, is amplycompensated by the superior utility of the latter." The discovery of inl

15. Picavet, (fntroductionrtt ibid., p. xlv.

16. Fro- .!fg Prospectus of the EncEclopdd,ie, written by Diderot and incor-polujtg. ly d'Alembert into the .Dis couri Prdliminaire, ibid.,"p . Lils.

17. Ibid.r p. 53.


comPass is not less profitable to mankind than the expla:nation of themagnetic phenomenon would be to physics.ts The underrating of themechanical arts has brought neglect even to the inventors. "The namesof these benefactors of mankind are almost all unknown while thehistory of its destroyers, that is of the conquerors, is kno'wn by every-body.'ot Why should the inventors of the mechanism of a watch be heldin less esteem than the thinkers who have perfected algeb,r a?^ Diderotis even more aggressive when he writes that the superior:ity which weaccord to the liberal arts is a prejudice which tends to fill the cities withproud talkers and useless contemplators and the countryside withignorant, lazy and haughty petty-tyrants.u We need not; linger on amelody which rings in our ears every duy. The breakdown of Hellenicanthropology is as complete as that of the Christian.

The historism of Turgot

The movement of Positivism has absorbed a highlty diversifiedaggregate of sentiments and ideas. The scientistic radicalism of d'Alem-bert is no more than one strain in the texture of the whole. A secondstrain, of equal importance, is to be found in the historisrn of Turgot.The principal sources for Turgotts ideas are the two Discourses whichhe delivered at the opening and closing sessions of the Sorbonne in1750, when he was 23 years of age. To these have to be added hisfragments of the Discourses on Uniaersal History of the same period;and, perhaps the richest in ideas, the project of a Political GeograPhry.The theory of knowledge which Turgot implied in these works he setforth in a formal manner in the article Existence in the Encyclopddie."

Let us begin with that idea of Turgot's which has becorne the center-piece of Comte's philosophy of history under the title of the law of thethree stages. Turgot was concerned about the different rate of progress

18. Ibid.t p. 54.19. Ibid., p. 54.20. Ibid., p. 55.21. The passage from Diderot quoted by _Picavet in n. 40' ibidt,, P. 2L4.22. Discours sur les aaantages que Pdtablissement du christianisme a procurds

au genre humain (July 3, f 75O); Discours sur les progrEs successifs de _ltesprithuiain (December If , fZSO); the fragments of the project on Universal History

consist of ( t ) Id6e de Plntroduction, (2) Plan du premier discours, sur Ia for-mation du gowentetnent et le mfllange des nations, ( 3 ) Plan du siecond discorl'ry,

d,ont trobiel sera les progre:s de Pesprit humain, and various minor flagmenls; th9fragmenis on political geograpfry consist of ( r ) Iddes g1n€rales ?nd (2)

Esf,uisse d,run it*, de saosiaphte- politique. All of these piecesr_as- well as the

t.piittt of Existence, are to be found in Oeuares de TurgoL €d. Daire and Dus-

sard, vol. 2 (Paris, 1844).


in the various sciences, particularly of mathematics and physics. Thedevelopment of mathematics begins earlier and its advancement is morerapid than that of physics. What is the cause of this difference? Insearch of an explanation Turgot goes back to Locke's theory of knowl-edge, in the radicalized, monistic form which it had assumrd in France.All knowledge starts with sensation; all ideas are derived reflectivelyfrom sensation. Mathematics and physics have different rates of prog-ress because in mathematics, reason has to operate with ideas onty,while in physics the symbols of science refer t; events in the externalworld. In physics we search for the causes of events which impressthemselves on our senses. We try to ascend from effects to causes, iro*the senses to bodies, from the present to the past, from visible to in-visible bodies, from the world to the Divinity.u In this search we do notcombine un-d comPare ideas as in mathemaiicsr w€ try to ascertain thestructure of corporeal existence. Emors are inevitabft and correctionsare slow. Among the various sources of error, one is of specific relevancebecause it determines a style of hypothesis which stands at the begin-nins of our interpretation of the extirnal world, and can only slowlli beovercome in the history of science; that is the penchant for analogicaltfli$in$: In searching for the causes of effeas, th. first hypotfiesiswhich offers itself is the assump_tion of intelligent, invisible

^beings,

similar to ourselves, who cause ift. events whiih impress us. Eorbithing that happens and that cannot be attributed to ; human agencymust be due to a god who is conceived analogically to man. For thi;first phase oJ interpretation Turgot himself has not coined a term; it hasbeen termed successively the fetishistic, or animistic phase of thinkingbut closest Turgot's meaning would be the term anthropomorphiclThe second phase of interpretaiion is characterized by a critical, phil-osophical attitude' The anthropomorphic interpretation of natural forcesis abandoned in favor of ttabstract expressio^ns,tt such as essences orfaculties, "expressions which explain nothing and about which onespeculated T if tlty were beingsf nrw divinities substituted for the oldones'" Only in a last phase were the mechanical interactions of bodiesProPerly gPterved uttd irrterpreted in such a manner that they could beexPressed in mathematical terms and verified by experi ence.*'

Turgot and Comte

This sequeng. lf phases is in substance the sequence whichin the system of Comte as the progress of the human intellect

23. Histoire universelle, oetnres d.e Turgot, 2, p.649.24.lbid., p, 656.

appearsfrom its

90 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO :REVOLUTION

theological, through its metaphysical, to its positive phase. The fact initself is well known, but not until quite recently have historians begunto draw the inevitable consequences for the interPretation of the Pos-itivist movement. In the older interpretation, the great achievements of

Comte were considered to be his ideas of the hierarchy of sciences and

of the law of the three stages. By now we have seen that these prin-cipal doctrines go back to d'Alembert and Turgot; Comte may- beaccorded the merit of having elaborated them, but certainly the icleas

themselves were not created by him. They are fully developed and

fixed by the middle of the eighteenth century. A firm insistence on this

point is necessary in order to bring into focus the real significance of-Comte in the hislory of the

'Western crisis. This significance does not

consist in the reiteration and elaboration of the ideas of tl'Alembert ancl

Turgot but in his creativeness as a religious personality. Com19 would

be alather insignificant figure in the history of political ideas if he were

not the Fonilatiur de ta riligion unhterselle and the first high priest of

the new religion. Pseudo-prophetic charisma is the strength of Comte'

and while his church was not much of a success, his religious en-

thusiasm was strong enough to endow a body of ideas, although of

dubious scientific value, with the glow of a revelation on whose ac-

ceptance depends the salvation of mankind. Comte has not addeil much

as^a thinkeito the complex of Positivist ideas; he has atlded to them in

his capacity as a religious founder by shifting them to the level of a

dogmatic religion.the law ofthe three stages was transposed by Comte from the con-

text of a primari$ scientific study as we find it in the Discourses of

Turgot, to the "otrt"*t

of a new Koran-for, indeed, that is the char-

actei oi the main work of Comte, just as it was the character of the

Institutes of Calvin. Through this transposition much of the original

flavor of Turgot's idea was lost, and the original ry"ntlq is of con-

siderably g"."t"t interest for the further history of political science

than the riligious-dogmatic meaning of Comte. The misplacement of

emphasis on ih" contlnt of Comte's law of the three stages, instead of

on it, dog-atic character, not only has distorted the picture of Comte,

it also hai obscured the original problem of a philosophy of history that

was raised by Turgot. A complete exposition of Turgot's ideas- concern-

ing a philosdphy of history cannot be given here, but we shall indicate

at least the princiPal Problems.

Definition of Progress

First of all, the sequence developed by Turgot is not a general law

of history but'rlefinitely a series of phases through which our interpreta-

POSITIVISM AND ITS ANTECEDENTS

tion of the external world passes. The question whether there are threeor more phases is quite irrelevant; the crucial point is that the math-ematized science of the external world disengages itself historicallyfrom a context of anthropomorphical symbols which in themselves maybe at various stages of rationalization. The critical purification of sciencefrom anthropomorphisms is the problem. Turgot designates this processof purification as progress. This designation is valuable in various re-spects: ( I ) it attributes to the term progress a clear meanitrg, Q) itfixes the empirical core of the idea of progress and ( 3 ) by this fixationit enables us to distinguish the political, evocative meanings of progressfrom this by no means unimportant but politically not very exciting core.In particular, the clearness of Turgot gives us a precise criterion forthe political misuse of the idea. This misuse can assume two mainforms: ( I ) when the idea of purification from anthropomorphisms istransferred indiscriminately as a criterion of value from the realm ofmathematical physics to other spheres of intellectual and spiritual ex-pressiox, and (2) when the evolution of mathematical physiCs, howevervaluable and progressive in itself, is uncritically used as the criterion ofthe value or progress of a civilization.

The political, evocative amplification of the idea is not absent fromthe work of Turgot, but the amplification of the sequence is carefullydistinguished from its basic meaning. The distinction must be a graveproblem for a conscientious thinker because, taken in itself, the emer-gence of mathematized science has no connection with the problem ofmeaning in history. What are the considerations which wout,l ittauce athinker to make this specific process a symbol for historical meaning?The title of the fragments: Discours su,r l'Histoire (Jniuerselle, containsthe_\ty to Turgot's considerations, for the title resumes consciously theproblem of Bossuet's Discours. Turgot grapples with the problem ofmeaning in.history _after the Christian meaning is lost. In this respecthe is the rival of Voltaire, though he far surpasses Voltaire in hispenetrating, theoretical analysis of t\. problem. He knows that encyclo-paedic compfeteness is no substitute foi the universality of the Christiandrama of fall and redemption and the profoundness of his historicalfl"yledge does not permit him to relegate the whole history of man-kind into some prehistoric abyss and to let meaning begin with theRenaissance. The thinker who tries to fin{ meaning it himan historyfrom an intramundane position must, in the first plu.r, establish thatthere is such a thing as mankind at all, that the Jr....rsion of humangenerations in time has a discernible structure which possibly couldlend itself to a construction of meaning. Turgot thinks that he can seesuch a structure by which the succession of rnen in time is integratedinto a whole that can be called mankind. fn nonhuman nature he finds

9 I


the cycles of growth and decay as the fundamental structure. The suc-cessive generations of vegetables and animals reproduce ttre same stateover and over again and there is no structure overlapping the singlegenerations. In the succession of human generations we do not seerepetition but infinite variety by virtue of the operations of reason, thepassions and freedom. This infinite variety, furthermore, is not a dis-continuous variety but is held together in time by the chain of causeand effect which links every present generation to all past ones. And,finally, the chain is not a simple continuum, for the intr:llectual andspiritual life of previous generations is preserved through language andscript in the life of the later generations. A "trdsor cornrnun" LC-cumulates that is transmitted from one generation to the next andpassed otr, with new increments, as a heritage which grorvs from cen-tury to century. The unity of mankind, thus, is constituted throughthree principles: ( I ) the historic individuality of every rnan, the sub-stance out of which the whole can be built; (2) continuity through thechain of cause and effect linking the generations and ( 3 ) :lccumulationof substance through the collective memory in language and script.25

The masse totale as the Carcier of Meaning

The continuously accumulating substance is mankind itself and thismankind is conceived as a carrier of meaning. But does this Process ofaccumulation have a meaning as a whole? The meaning of the whole,however, is inaccessible to the intraworldly thinker because he is livingin the finite present and the whole, extending into an infinite future, is

unknown to him. The meaning of the whole is an unsolvable problemfrom the intraworldly perspective. Hence Turgot can do no more thansearch for finite lines of meaning which may have becorne visible in

the known history of the arts and sciences, of morals and politics. Suchlines of meaning can be found in great numbers-lines of growth, of

decay and of recuperation. But are there any lines which run through

the whole body of known history up to the present? Are there lines of

growth, not of dec ay? Turgot thinks that he can discern such lines and

[r ru*es them as the softeniog of the mores, the enlighte:nment of the

mind, and the intensified commerce between formerly isolated nations to

the point of global intercourse.* These lines do not run an even coursethrolgh history. They suffer frequent interruptions and not all men

participate equally in this meaningful increase of human substance.

25. Second Discours en Sorbonne, Oeuvres de Turgot, 2, PP. 597fr.26. Ibid., p. 598.


But in spite of all retardations of the process, in spite of interruptions,and in spite of the distribution of the process over a multitude of civili-zations and nations who do not all move at the same speed, while somedo not move at all-in spite of all this ula masse totale" of mankindmarches towards an ever increasing perfection.2?

The considerations of Turgot offer the rare opportunity to watch aprogressive philosophy of history in statu nascendi. We are not facedyet by a fina1 dogma, ns in Comte, and we can trace the motives andthe means of construction. The decisive instruments in the constructionare the lines of meaning which run through the whole process of knownhistory and the idea of the rnasse totale. The process of history in itsfull broadness has no meanins, not even a finite one; that much Turgotadmits. The lacunae in time through the interruptions in positive growthof substance, and the restriction of the growth to a tiny trickle of menas its bearers while the vast majority participate in progress only at aresPectful distance, reduce the field of actual progress to a comparativelysmall area in the total flux of human history. One has to look very hardindeed in order to find in this rather turgid flux "le fil des progrEs" at all.And if we have found such a 'thread," of which the critical purificationof physics is an instance, what have we gained? Of what concern can itbe to a man, who lives and dies in his finite present, whether mankindhas Progressed in the past or will progress in the future, if he himselfIeads a miserable life in an unenlightened, isolated community wherethe mores are restrictive? Turgotts answer is the rnasse totale. Theffiumphant brutality of the answer is unsurpassable. History has nomeaning for man. What does it matter? It has meaning for the rncrssetotale.

The loss of the Christian meaning of history

This answer is heavily fraught with implications. Let us first seewhat has happened to the problem of meaning in history. fn the Chris-tian philosophy of history, &s it was still represented 6y Bossuet, theproblem of meaning is solved by means of the dichoiomy betweensacred and profane history. Profane history has no autonomous meaninguld the-problem of meanjng is concentrated in sacred history. Sacrelhistory has meaning insofar as it is a spiritual drama, begintrittg withthe creation of man and ending with the second coming of Chtisi. Thedrama is known from the first to the last act and for this reason it is atrue line of universal meaning'. The drama of salvation has a meaning

27.lbid.


of human relevance because involved in it is the spiritual destiny ofevery single human being. Precisely because it has this bearing on everysingle human destiny, because it is not the drama of a manise totale, iesee certain thorny questions of doctrine arise in the history of Chris-tianity, such as: what happens to men who lived before Christ, whathappens to those who lived after Christ but have never heard of him,what happens to those who have heard of him but resist the Evangel,what happens to those who are called but not elected? The sacred line ofmeaning which runs through history is inseparable from the meaningwhich it has for the individual person. Without meani:ng for man,understood as the concrete person, there is no meaning; in history.Turgot transposes the Christian dichotomy of sacred and profane historyinto the context of intramundane thought through his dichotomy of the*thread of progress" and the vast ballast of historical uprs and downswhich have no meaning in themselves. However, he carnnot extractfrom the "sacred" thread of progress a meaning for the spiritual destinyof the concrete person. At this point, therefore, the evocative amplifica-tions have to be introduced. Since the finite lines of meaning, which canbe found in the civilizational process, can have no meaninrg for man asa spiritual person, man and his concrete problems have to be brushedaside. Since concrete man cannot be the subject for whom history has ameaning, the subject has to be changed-man is replaced lby the ma,ssetotale. The rnasse totale, however, has no concrete existence, nor is thema,sse given to human experience. It is the evocation of a carrier ofmeaning, of a new divinity, into which a man who has lost his open-ness towards transcendental Being has projected his desire :For salvation.The masse totale is not a reality in the experiential sense, rather it is thetentative evocation of a new worldly divinity. In Comte we shall seethe new god finally enthroned as the Grand-Etre, together '"vith a clergyand a rite.

The /oss of the Christian idea of rnan

Let us now consider what happened to man through the creation ofthe masse totale. The reader witt have noticed that in tlhe precediogparagraph we did not speak simply of man, but several ti:mes used theterm ttconcrete man.tt The necessity for such usage, in order to makeclear the intended sense of the word ttman,D illustrates best theterminological difficulties which have been created through the Pos-itivist dogmatism and its uncritical acceptance. It ought to be a matter-of-course that the term 'tnan,n when used in a philosophical or politicaldiscourse, should denote the ttconcrete man,tt th4t is the concrete human


person in the fullness of his dimensions, including the intellectual and

ipiritual. Unfortunately, this is no longer a matterof-course. The

thinkers of the eighteinth century have mutilated the idea of man

beyond recognition. In the case of d'Alembert, for instance, we haverritt that man was deprived of his bios theoretikos and reduced in

essence to the utilitarian level of a homo faber.In Voltaire we have seen

the fierce attack on the life of the spirit and its elimination from the

"true' idea of man. Diderot has spoken of the *useless contemplator.ttBentham has excluded from his political speculation the "ascetict tyPeas a repulsive abnormality which ought to be neglected by the phi-losopher. Turgot, in his capacity as Prior of the Sorbonne, delivered a

discourse on the ominous subject of the "profitsD which mankind hasderived from the establishment of Christianity, and the editor candidlynotes that the Discours originally contained an opening paragraPh inwhich the author disagreed with those who believe that Christianity is

"useful" only for the other life.8 This reduction of man and his life tothe level of utilitarian existence is the symptom of the critical break-down of Western civilization through the atrophy of the intellectual andspiritual substance of man. In the progressive, Positivist movementsince the middle of the eighteenth centuryr as well as with the followersof the rnovement, the term man no longer designates the mature manof the humanist and Christian traditioil, but only the crippled, utilitar-ian fragment.

The /oss of the Christian idea of mankind

A crippled. man, however, does not cease to be a man. Spiritual ob-scurantists, or antihumanistic utilitarians, are not animals; they con-tinue to function as humans. Still, they can no longer solve humanproblems rationllly, or on the basis of the spiritual experiences thepossession of which characterizes mature man. Hence there appear thecurious transpositions of the problems of mature Western civilization tothe new level of utilitarian immaturity. There arises the necessity ofsubstituting for transcendental reality an intraworldly evocation whichis supposed to fulfill the functions of transcendental reality for theimmature type of man. As a consequence, not only the idea of man butalso the idea of mankind has changed its meaning. The Christian ideaof mankind is the idea of a community whose substance consists of theSpirit in which the members participate; the homonoia of. the members,their likemindedness through the Spirit that has become flesh in all and

28. Ibid., p. 586.


each of them, welds them into a universal community of mankind. Thisbond of the spirit is timeless. The Spirit is not more present today thanit was yesterduy and it will not be more present tomorrow than it istoday. Only because the Spirit is transcendentally out of time can it beuniversally present in time, living in each man equally, irrespective ofthe age or place in which the man lives. Only because the source of thecommunity is out of time is mankind a universal comm'unity withinhistorical time. Turgotts evocation of the mutse totale transposes theChristian idea of mankind into the utilitarian k.y. Man is no longer aspiritual center but a mere link in the chain of generations. The spiritwhich welds the plurality of men into the unity of mankind is no longera transcendental reality to be experienced by every individual soul buthas become a thread of meanitg to be touched at one point by

" man if

he is fortunate but beyond the reach of the vast rnajority of mankind.And the eternal presence of the Spirit to every soul that winfingly opensitself is transposed into a precarious, fleeting meaning which can beascertained only with some difficulty by scholars who know a good dealabout the problems of mathematized science. At first sight, this wholetransposition looks so much like an infantile insult to the dignity of manthat the mass appeal, which the idea undoubtedly has to this day, ishardly intelligible.

The appeal to utilitarian immaturitg

Let us consider therefore, finally, the conditions under which thisidea of man can appeal to men. Obviously it can have no appeal to amature humanist and Christian, and whenever Positivist ideas spreadin a socially menacing form, the clash with the traditions of Westernhigh-civilization is inevitable. With equal obviousness the mass appealexists. In quest of its conditions we have only to summ arize various re-marks whilh we had to make incidental to the previous analysis. Theidea of being in substance a member of a rnclsse totale can only appealto a man who has not much substance of his own. His personality mustbe sufficiently underdeveloped, that is to say it must be deficient inspiritual org anization and balance to such a degree, that ttre anxiety ofeiistence cannot be controlled and absorbed by the normal processes ofthe mature, meditative life. As a consequence he will be plagued byinsecurities, frustrations, fears, aggressiveness, paranoic obsessions anduncontrollable hatreds. The great escape for the man who cannotextricate himself from this state through the personal solution hasalways been, and will always be, to zubmerge himself in a collectivepersonatity which he either will find ready at hand in his environment,


or which he can evoke for the occasion. Tribalism is the answer toimmaturity because it permits man to remain immature with the- .;rsanctiou of his group. _J#fry"u odl

A man who is not much of a person can still be quite a useful fn:*l *r,,- Jdividual. Hence a tribe of immature utilitarians can be a highly -' ,lefficient and very powerful community and at the same time a verydangerous one if its insecurities, its provincialism, its xenophobia andparanoia ttrrn, for one reason or another, aggressively towards others.The tribes which emerge in the crisis of a civilization can display aconsiderable political efrectiveness while they last. Immaturity is noargument against political power. The political effectiveness and sur-vival value of a tribalist movement not only arld to its appeal but makeit possible as a form of political existence, of appreciable duration, forthe masses of men who, in increasing numbers, are set free for re-organization in new political forms in an age where the institutions of ahigh civilization begin to break down, as they diil in the eighteenthcentury. The conditions for a zuccessful tribalist evocation are present:there is given the type of man which exists at all times in large num-bers; there is given the situation of a civilizational breakdown in whichmasses of this type are ready to respond to a new appeal (the internalproletariat, to use Toynbee's term); and, finally, there is given an ideawhich has the twin merit ( 1) of being close enough to the tradition(because it is a transposition of traclitional ideas) to deceive the not sodiscerning, anil (2) of supplying a collective personality to those whowant to padclle through life with that minimum of efrort that goes bythe respectable name of usefulness.

The tribalism of mankinil

We have surveyed the general conditions which make a tribalistidea attractive to the members of a community and which ofrer a certainguarantee of durable political existence.

'We have not yet, however,

exhausted the particular charms of a tribalism of mankind. Tribalismas such exhales a bad odor in a civilization which is still permeated bytraditions of Christian universalism. The various tribalist movementswhich have sprung up in the period of the crisis have run into conflictswith Western tradition. But not all of them have developed conflicts ofthe same severity. The difrerences in the violence of tension are causedby the difrerent contents of the tribal evocations in the several totali-tarian movements. A combination of nationalism with racialism. of thetype in which the National Socialist movement indulged, is apt toarouse considerable tensions, as it actually did, because the vast major-

98 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO FI .EVOLUTION

ity of mankind cannot acquire membership in the mcnse totale. Theuniversalist aspiration, combined with the restrictive content of the idea,must result in the extinction of the evocation when the tr:ibe that wasconstituted by the idea meets defeat in an armed clash. The Communisttribal evocation is in a much more favorable position. The tribe also isrestricted in principle, but it is restricted to "toilers.' And toilers existin great number in every society on earth. Moreover, nontoilers can beconverted into toilers by the simple device of taking away their posses-sions. The universal aspirations of the Communist idea can be imple-mented oin the fleshtt through changes in the economic structure ofsociety and through the application of the great clyster which purgesthe rnasse totale of unassimilable elements by their liquidation. The endof Western civilization through diarrhoea is so much ,i,vider in itsappeal than the end through gas-chambers and incinerators because thenumber of those who are made happy by the process can lre envisagedat some date to be coextensive with the number of those who survive.The progressive, Positivist evocation, finally, is obviously in the mostfavorable position because it can use the symbol 'tnant for the designa-tion of membership in the rnasse totale. The difficulty of distinguishingbetween tribalism and universalism, which is serious even in the case ofthe Communist idea, is practically unsurrnountable for a progressiveintellectual (who himself belongs to the masse) when the tribe is co-extensive with mankind at any given point of time.

The appeal of the ma,sse for the common man, in the progressiveversion of Turgot, Iies in the possibility of obtaining the benefits ofmankind without incurring its obligations. All he has to do is to makehimself useful to the extent of earning a living; for the rest, he can feelhimself on top of the historical world by identifying himself with theprogress of the masse. This is the appeal for the ordinary member ofthe movement. For the leaders, the idea holds the added appeal whichwe studied in detail in the chapter on Helv6tius. The thinkers whoevoke the idea, and the group of men who represent progress actively,are the measure of meaning in history, The ma,sse totale isi in progressas a whole because select individuals and groups are actil'ely in prog-ress. If intramundane mankind as a whole is the new real,issimum, itsstandard-bearers are the god-men. The mutse totale holds g;reat tempta-tion for the active elements since they can place themselves at a com-fortable rank in the hierarchy. Turgot does not go to the extreme ofComte, that is of making himself the Messiah and the Pope rolled intoone; nevertheless, the clerical pride cannot be overlooked. The mass ofmankind certainly does not progress at an even speed. Some groups areleading, some are lagging behind, still others are in the most primitive

POSTTTVISM AND TTS ANTECEDNNTS 99

stages of barbarism. "The pres_ent state of the universe contains at the

same time on earth all the rhud.. of barbarism and civilization; at one

glance we can see all the monuments and traces of all the steps of the

human mind, at one glance the picture of all the grades through which

it has passed, &t one glutt.e the history of all the ages.D' By no means

do Turgot and the Flench nation hold the most insignificant place in

the simultaneous picture of the chronological stages. As a matter of

fact, they are the iuthoritative present and consequently ,q summit of

the hierarchy. Bacon and Galilei, Kepler and Descartes, Newton and

Leibniz receive their due as the beareis of the torch, but the climax is

France. The second, Discours en Sorbonne closes with the apotheosis of

the King and. the praise: uThy huppy people has become the center of

civilization (potil;s.se ) ."'o Td. ida; of the rnasse totale blends with

nationalism. What might be the innocuous pastime of an exultant in-

tellectual becomes a potitical force because it gains, on the international

scene, the momentum of a powerful state if it can capture the nation to

the degree that the nationul mass identifies itself with the leader:ftip of

mankiid. In its outline we see the idea of mankind dominated by a

chosen people which embodies the progressive essence of humanity. In

historicat aituality that would mean a totalitarian organization of man-

kind in which th; dominating power would beat down in the name of

mankind and freedom everybody who does not conform to its standards.

Profane history :oersus sacred history

There is evil in Turgot as in every totalitarian but in him it is not

yet more than a spark. Turgot was much loo deeply imbued with the

spirit of Bossuet to fall naively into the radicalism of a new salvation.The "thread of progress," that is the new sacred history, is certainly

his dominating idea, and the rna,sse totale is his obsession.tt However,this aspect of Turgot's historicism is balanced by a wideness of the

historiCal horizon, as well as by a surprising penetration of historicalforms, which is peculiarly his own. A good deal of this historical open-ness has become the precious heritage of Comte but most of it waslost to the later development of progressivism, and it was not only lost

to progressivism. We must say quite generally that, setting aside such

29. Ibid., p. 599.30. Ibid., P' 611.3I. Besides the passage on the rnutse totale quoted before, the reader should

also compare the passage on the same subject, ls we]l as its context, _ in theDiscours-sur lhistoire uniperselle, op. cit., p. 633, in order to appreciate that theidea is the backbone of Turgot's philosoPhy of history.


landmarks as Hegel, Burckhardt, Spengler and Toynbee, there is notmuch in the average occupation with problems of politics and historythat can equal in breadth of conception or flair for problems the workof Turgot. This richness of Turgot's historical peispective is due tothe momentum, not yet exhausted, of Bossuetts treatment of profanehistory.

We have hitherto neglected the profane section of the Christian phi-losophy of history. We have dealt only with the particular line ofmeaning which assumed for Turgot the function of sacred history,and we have not yet dealt with the problem that such a:finite line ofmeaning could be found at all and that its discovery did not create asensation. It did not create a sensation because the traditi,orsl profanehistory abounded in finite lines of meaning. The problem, for Turgotwas not to discover such a line for the first time; rather, his problemwas to discover a line that would cut across the plurality' of lines al-ready known in such a manner that history could be interpreted as ameaningful whole from its beginnings to the present, We have in-sisted repeatedly that the meaning of history as a whole is inaccessiblefrom the intramundane position but from this inaccessibility it does notfollow that history does not have a finite structure of meaniog, that is,that it does not have a recognizable meaningful articulation into thefinite histories of civilizations and peoples. This finite meaning, since itis not a universal meaning, cannot touch the whole of human existence,but it touches very strongly the finite existence in commu:nity, as wellas the civilizational values of which the community is the carrier. Theunderstanding of this finite meaning, the insight into the order whichprevails in it ( if such an order should be discoverable empirically ) , isa human concern because it enables man to orient himself in his ownhistorical situation and by virtue of this positive orientatfion to gainalso the proper distance to the realm of civilizational values, that is:the Christian contemptus mundi.

The structure of histofy, however, can become a human concern inthis sense only if it is understood as the structure of profane history, asa realm of finite meaning. As soon as any part of the profane structureis hypostatized into a process of universal meaning, the finite structureis falsified and orientation becomes impossible. This consecluence of anintramundane construction of sacred history is rarely uppreciated in itsfull importance. Once a strand of history is isolated and endowed witha sacred meaning, the tendency is irresistible to neglect all other struc-tural elements of history as irrelevant. The "sacred historytt becomes arestrictive principle of selection for historical materials. Within thePositivist movement we have to observe, therefore, a iharacteristic

POSITIVISM AND ITS ANTECEDENTS r0r

swelling and sinking of historical understanding. With Turgot, at thebeginning of the movement, the view of history is still surprisingly fulland well balanced, on the whole. The "thread of progress' is singledout from a historical manifold which for its greater part is not progres-sive at all. With Comte tJre construction has already become rigid-thewealth of materials is still considerable but the materials fit with asuspicious willingness into the sweeping course of progress. With thelater Positivists the construction degenerates into a progressivism sothoroughly selective that selection becomes indistinguishable from ig-norance. A movement which originates as a reinterpretation of historyends in the dogmatic destruction of history. Moreover, the tendencytowards the desEuction of contemplative history is not confinecl to thePositivist movement. In the course of the nineteenth century it prevailsgenerally where ever history is written with a view to legitimate anauthoritative present. The Whiggist misconstruction of English con-stitutional history is a match for the nationalist misconsffuctions ofGerman history. The nonsense written about the medieval emperorswho betrayed the German national interest through their hankeringafter Rome is the counterpart to the nonsense written about the MagnaCarta. And the nationalist and progressive misconstructions are evensurpassed by the nightmare of Marxist and National Socialist historicalwriting. Towards the end of the nineteenth centurfr this writing ofselective history with a view to support a contemporary political interestwas even theorizecl through a logic of historiography chiefly through theefrorts of German methodologists. In this movement, the writing ofhistory was considered to be a selection of materials in orientation to-wards a taluet (Wertausatahl) and, correspondingly it was consideredto be the function of the historian to impose meaning on history(Sinngebung). The immanent logic of this attitude could hardly leailto any other conclusion than the postulate that history has to be re-written in every generation to suit the new political developments.

The resulting anarchy of liberal and racist, of progressive and Marx-ist history, and, in addition, of as many nationalist histories as therewere nations, spelled the end of history as a science. Or, rather, itwould have spelled the end unless remedial forces harl been at workwhich tended towards a restoration of contemplative history. Theawareness of this problem had never died completely. Ranke helcl fastto the principle that all periods of history are equal in their immediacy ) rto God, and Burct:hardt knew that all civilization is not worth the death lt'1v'gof a single human being. In the twentieth century the restorative tend-encies became strongly visible, particularly through their first greatsummary in Toynbee's Study of History. Nevertheless, there is not yet

r02 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

much cause to rejoice. The restorative movement is a comparativelythin trickle of little effectiveness. In areas in which an intramundanepolitical religion has become institutionalized as the state church, &sfor instance in the Soviet Union, history as a contemplartive sciencecannot live in the person of even a single individual becau,se the body-killing governmental terror would be immediately used against it. In asociety like the American the chances of development are slim in theface of the soul-killing social pressure of the progressive, creed, andwhether the remnants of the European national societies ciln resist theadvancing civilizational destruction is a question which only the futurecan answer. Still, the restorative movement exists for the time beingand the problem of a science of profane history has been reopened. Asa consequence of this curious course of historical science, we have re-turned today to approximately the point where Turgot began to departfrom the classical treatment of profane history. To be sure, our knowl-edge of historical facts has increased greatly in the two centuries whichhave passed, but the categories of interpretation have not changeddecisively. A few reflections on Turgot's principles of historiographyhave, therefore, the double function ( I ) of showing the statg of theproblem at the time when profane history begins to separate from itstraditional, Christian context, and (2) of showing in what respects theproblem has changed in the present.

Turgot's categories of history

Let us survey first the basic stock of categories employe,l by Turgotin the classification of historico-political phenomena. This stock of cate-gories is drawn from a number of sources which are still clearly dis-tinguishable in the analyses. The principal ones are: ( I ) the Christiantradition, (2) the Graeco-Roman traditionr ( 3 ) the events of the mi-gration period, (4) some knowledge of the origin of governmentthrough the conquest of sedentary tribes by nomadic tribes,, ( 5 ) specu-lation about the stagnation of Far Eastern civilizations, ( t5 ) the com-plex of problems which arises through the assumption of a "thread ofprogress.t A few examples will illustrate these sources.

From the tradition of Augustine-Orosius stems the genreral view ofthe ups and downs in history, that is of the rise and fall o'f empire, ofthe succession of laws and forms of government and of the retardationsand accelerations of the arts and sciences.t' The metathesis, the transferof empire from one people to the next, in such a manner ttrat the great

32, Second Discours en Sorbonrc, op. cit., P. 598.


periods of history are characterized by the succession of imperial peo-ples, is the first category determining the structure of history. In hisuse of the metathesis Turgot emphasizes the cultural domination whichaccompanies political domination more strongly than does the tradition,but his use of the category does not So, on the whole, beyond thepractice that had been established by Machiavelli's idea of a wanderingof the uirtil, from one leading nation to another. It is the pattern ofhistory which we still find in Hegel. fn one decisive point, however,Turgot's use of the metathesis differs from that of Orosius or Hegel:for him the rise and fall of empire is not the exhaustive structuralprinciple of profane history. History is not organized as a strict se-quence of no more than four empires like the Orosian, nor as a strictsequence of 'korlds" like the Hegelian. The category of empire is nolonger the focus as it was under the impression of the world-fillingimportance of the Roman Empire, and the category of the civilization( Chinese, Hellenic, Roman, Western ) which determines the Hegelianspeculation is not yet developed. The rise and fall of the political unitsis an open movement with an average of progress running through theups and downs. Moreover, other structural features overlap with thestructure of dominating peoples.

One of these overlapping features is the rhythm of political formwithin any of the nations which in succession may characterize one ofthe great historical epochs. This category of the internal rhythm stemsfrom the Graeco-Roman tradition, though it is possible that the historyof the Italian city-states has had some influence on its formation. Theproblem of internal rhythm is formulated on one occasion in such amanner that obviously the history of the Hellenic polis from theprimordial kingship to Alexander, or of Rome from the first kings tothe principate, is the model. On this occasion Turgot speaks of *the

flux and reflux of power" from the prince to the multitude and backfrom the multitude to the prince, with the result of a more stable situa-tion because in the course of flux and reflux the smaller political unitsare replaced by an empire which enforces peace within its borders.ttOn another occasion Turgot analyses the internal rhythm specificallyfor the case of the city-state. The sequence of governmental forms be-gins with kingship. This form is unstable because abuse of power inthe small confines of a town will be easily detected and resented and,in due course, will engender a revolution. The resulting aristocraticrepublic again will be unstable and tend towards democracy becausethe tyranny of a republican oligarchy is even more unbearable than

33. Ibid., p. 599.


that of a king, and it is more unbearable because the aburle of Powerthrough a group will always assume the disguise of virtue and thus

add insult io injury.'n The explanation of causes difrers from the Pla-

tonic discussion ol the same typical sequence but the sequence itself,

from kingship to democracy, and to a final despotic lroll&rchy, is

substantially the same.The combination of the metathesis with the internal rhrythm alone

would result in a picture of the structure of history both ri,cher in con-tent and empirically more adequate than the later progressivist con-

structions, for this tombination permits the assumption of a thread ofprogress running through the sequence of the larger historical units( empires or civilizations ) , while it does not neglect the rhythms ofgrowth and decay within the units. Turgot's combination makes atheory of progress compatible with a theory of civilizational cycles. Acivilization may decay, and still mankind may advance. Turgot, at least,would not run into the emotional impasse of contemporary intellectualswho howl with anxiety that civilization is at stake when our particularWestern civilization will have reached the end of its course. But he addsfurther factors to the combination which build the periotls of decayinto a theory of historical dynamics. We have seen that the flux andreflux of power from the prince to the multitude and back to the princedoes not produce a neutral sequence of governmental forms,, but that inthe course of the process the smaller units are absorbed i:nto a largerimperial unit which enforces peace. The process is a rather bloody one'but from the struggle of the smaller units emerges the peaceful orderof the larger unit-a progress for Turgot, though it would not be con-sidered one, for instance, by Burckhardt. The violent upheaval (les

bouleaersernents) becomes in Turgotts speculation the vehicle of prog-ress. No advance is possible without decadence and destruction. Theforests of America are the model of the historical process: trees growand fall in the virgin forest and their decay fertilizes the soil for newgrowth. In the same manner, on the surface of the earth, governmentssucceed each other and empires rise on the ruins of emrpires. Onlythrough bloody revolution has despotism learned to moderate andliberty to regulate itself. "And thus, by alternatives of agitation andcalm, of good and evil, the mclsse totale of mankind is marctring steadilytowards perfection.tttu Here again the rnanse totale makes its ominousappearance-as if it were a satisfaction to the victims of an upheaval( for instance to those who were cremated in Auschwitz ) to be the

34. Discours sur Phistoire uriaerselle, ibid., p. 635.35. Ibid., p. 633.


fertilizer for the progress of mankind. But the progressivist is huppybecause ttno upheaval has ever occuned which has not produced someadvantage.tt Nevertheless, w€ must stress the importance of the ",rp-heaval" as an empirical category for the interpretation of political his-tory. While the upheaval does not result in progress, it certainly resultsin the destruction of old political forms and the growth of new ones.And the dynamics of disintegration and growth are a problem in con-templative history quite independent of the question of whether a lineof meaning runs through the succession of political forms.

With regard to this problem, Turgot has laid foundations which canbe improved upon in detail but hardly in the essentials. Under the titleof. m1lange des nations he has classified the processes in which existingcommunities break up and new ones are formed. The classic instanceof such formation is the growth of the Western nations from them1lange of the original settlers and the Germanic conquerors. Bothelements of the symbiosis lose their former identity and a new politicalentity, the nation, emerges from the mixture. These processes arenoticed and remembered only when they occur on the level of civilizedgroups with written records. The principle, though, has to be appliedgenerally to the dynamics of communal growth. Hence Turgot ex-trapolates the process from the migration case into more primitivesocial relations and develops the theory that differences of economy arethe first incentive towards the mdlange. Nomadic and agriculturaltribes are differentiated by their ability to move: sedentary populationsare by nature not conquerors; nomadic tribes are ready to move, andcompelled to move if pasture is exhausted, and are inclined to descend.on agricultural communities for plunder. Hence the permanent tensionsbetween these two types in which the nomads have the role of aggres-sors and conquerors. The agricultural ecorofirlr on the other hand,creates more wealth and gives rise to towns with their technologicaland commercial civilization, so that the war potential of agriculturalcommunities is comparatively high if they are pressed on the path ofdefense and defensive expansion. From the clashes result conquestswith subsequent symbiosis of the warring elements, amalgamation oflarger populations on larger territories, diffusion of culture and the in-corporation of slaves and lower-class populations.s In brief: Turgotoutlines a complex of problems which later was elaborated in Gobineautstheory of

'Western civilization as the symbiosis of sedentary with

conquering populations, in Franz Oppenheimer's theory of the origin ofthe state through conquest and, more recently, in Toynbeets compre-

36. Ibid., pp. 63If.

I06 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

hensive analysis of "upheavaltt through the internal and external Pro-letariat.

The enlargement of the historical horizon beyond the Mediterranean

area to the Far East has introduced into the speculation on Progress a

problem for which Turgot does not find a quite satisfactory solution.

Still, he recognized it and did not evade it. Even under the assumption

of the *otti totale as the subject of progress, the overalll picture is

somewhat marred. by the fact that the great Asiatic civilizations, in

particular the Chineie, do not seem to participate in what we fondly

ionsider our progress. The Asiatic "stagnation,' which is the form of

existence for a vast part of mankind, does not fit easily into a picture

of progressing mankind and at least requires some explanation-. Turgot

rrrgg.rtr thai in China, India and Egypt the earliness of r:ivilizational

u.ttiiuement is the very cause of stagnation. The respecr[ which the

nascent philosophies commanded tended to perpetuate thre first opin-

ions. "Pride is nourished by ignorance; the less one knows, the less one

doubts; the less one has discovered, the less one sees what remains to

be discovered.t As a further retardirg factor he considers the govern-

mental regulation of studies, particularly in China, and the integration

of an early, comparatively high state of science, into the political in-

stitutions-which inevitabty makes for mediocrity. We ma)r agree with

Turgot's excellent common sense suggestions and still not be quite

satisfied with the explanation. Nevertheless we have to acknowledgeTurgot's merit in having tackled a problem which even today we have

not penetrated sufficiently. This is not the occasion to ofiier our own

solutlon; may we only suggest that the first step towards a, solution of

the very real problem of differences in civilizational structure between

East and West lies in the recognition that the "stagnation" of the East

is quite as unfounded an idea as the "progresst' of the West. If we drop

thJ category of Western "progress,tt the category of Eastrern ttstagna-

tion" will disappear automatically.Systematically of the greatest interest are, finally, thos'e categories

of Turgot which support the assumption of progress itself. That prog-

ress seems to be possible only in the masse totale but not uniformly

throughout mankind is, after all, disquieting. Could this inequality of "progress perhaps be caused by inequ-alitr:s between the I'arious com-

*nniti.r or beiween single individuals? Turgot rejects inequality be-

tween communities or races, but admits inequalities between indi-

viduals. The esprit humain is uniformly endowed with the possibilities

of progress throughout mankind, but nature has given an abundance

of lalent to some which it has refused to others. Circur:nstances de-

velop talents or leave them in obscurity and from the inlinite variety


of circumstances derive the differences of progress in the severalsocieties. This principle implies that primitive conditions put approxi-mately the same type of obstacles in the way of everybody. "A state ofbarbarism equalizes all men."' Only when the first steps of progress inthe face of the general obstacles have been taken and when the changeswrought in the environment by these first steps have created circum-stances more favorable to the unfolding of talents can differences ofprogress appear as the result of a more accelerated or more retardedaccumulation of such steps.

Again we have to praise Turgot's rare honesty in facing a problemand his skill in offering a methodologically clean solution. Inequalityat some point has to be assumed in order to explain the panorama ofcivilizational inequality which lies before our eyes. Sirrce a clear rela-tion between natural factors and civilizational differences cannot befound, the source of inequality must lie in man himself even if wereduce this inequality to small initial differences between men and ex-plain major civilizational differences as the result of retarded or ac-celerated accumulation.

'We are driven back to inequalities between

men-a formidable problem metaphysically as well as empirically.

"Genius is distributed among mankind approximately like gold in amine. The more mineral you take out, the more metal you have gained.The more men you take, the more great men you will take.ttts Whatthen makes the great man? First, natural differences may be a factorin human quality i a lucky arrangement of the cells in the brain,strength or delicacy of the senses or of memory, or differences of bloodpressure. Beyond these natural factors, which are too rough-hewn to beused in explanation of the nuances of human differences, lie the strengthand character of the soul. And the souls "have a real inequality thecauses of which will always be unknown to us, and can never be theobject of our reasoning.ttun

This is the finest early exposition of the problem of human in-equality in civilizational action. If we make the implications explicit,we would have to render them in the following manner: ( I ) humancivilization is not uniform throughout mankind but shows empiricallyvarious degrees of differentiation in the several communities, (2) thenatural environment is a factor in the differentiation but the factor doesnot suffice to explain exhaustively the actual differences, ( 3 ) the ex-planation through inequalities between human groups is inadmissiblebecause the human groups are not constants- mdlange is the principle

37. Second, Discours en Sorbonne) op. cit., p. 599.38, Di$cours sur l'histoire univer$ellet op. cit.2 p. 645.39. Ibid.

108 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R,EVOLUTION

of historical dynamics, ( 4 ) the source of the differences must lie ul-timately in inequalities between single human individuals, ( 5 ) thissource must not be sought in a radical inequality between men whichwould touch the equality of spiritual substance in the Christian sense,( 6 ) it may be found in part in physiological inequalities-a slightlyhigher reaction speed, as we would say today, may affect the course ofa human life and be the cause of differences between mediocrity andbrilliance, (7 ) all this still leaves an irreducible residuum whichTurgot characterizes as tttalents, or t'strength and charactertt of thesoul. The recognition of this last factor, however insulficiently de-scribed, is the methodological masterpiece. It does not abolish thespiritual equality of men but it recognizes as an irreduciblte factor thestratum in the nature of man which is characterized by such functionsas imaginatiotr, sensitiveness for minute differences of value, loyalty towork, intellectual energy, ability to concentrate and to give form to anidea, the ability to have "good ideasn and to grasp thenr when theycome. In the possession of this stratum, of course, all men are equai,but it is a stratum which has a considerable amplitude of degrees-andin this amplitude is room for such difrerences as dullness anrd 6rilliance,mediocrity and greatness.

Turgot's dilemma

fn recognizing this irreducible stratum as the source of aivilizationaldifferentiation, Turgot has gone almost to the limit of invralidating his*_.!uPhysi9g of progress in history. The assumption of superior talentswhich at all times are distributed lmong mankind in approximately thesame proportions and which, therefore, constitute the pirpetual fenrnentof progress excludes from progress man himself. Howevit *uch civili-zation Progressesr man does not progress. The social environment maychange in such a manner that it favors the unfolding and effectiu.n.r,of talents, but the talents do not change. (Tf Racine had been born_among th. Hurons in Canada, or in the Europe of the eleventh centurl,he would never have unfolded his genius.Ds But, though he could ,rn-fold it in the seventeenth century, his peculiar gifts ai the later pointdid not differ from those which he would have had at the earlier point.The nature of man remains constant, including its amplitude of higherand lower endowment. Thus the locus of progress is the objiective struc-ture of civilization with its works of art and science, its tei:hnology, itsmores, its organizational knowledge in economics and proliticr.

- T'fu.

40. Ibid., p. 646.

POSITIVISM AND ITS ANTECEDENTS I09

problem of man is the same, whether he is placed in the civilization ofan African native tribe or in that of a modern Western nation. A higherdegree of differentiation in the objective structure does not mean thatthe men who are born into it have a superior ability for grappling withits problems. On the contrary, the differentiation may become so com-plicated that the "talents" in the society are no longer sufficient topenetrate it and to develop it further. A crisis of this kind is apt toissue in a social upheaval in the course of which the great "simplifiers"( to use Burckhardt's term ) destroy the complicated civilizational struc-hue and make room for a fresh and simpler start. The possibility thatthe complications of the civilizational structure might outrun the humanability to deal with it does not seem to have occurred to Turgot al-though in the eighteenth century it was a concern of such thinkers asRousseau and Ferguson.

V. THE COI\TFLICT BETWEEb{ PROGRESSA}.{D POLITICAL EXISTENCE AFTE,RTURGOT

Turgot presses his analysis far enough to make it clear that the centralproblem of history and politics is always man in society. On the otherhand, he makes the objective content of civilization the center of hisphilosophy of history. Both problems must concern the theorist ofpolitics but Turgot did not achieve their integration into a system. Theemphasis on civilizational content to the neglect of the existence of manin society is characteristic of progressivism in all its variants. The em-phasis on political existence to the neglect of civilizational content hasbecome characteristic of various countermovements to prog:ressivism.

Let us restate the problem. The "thread of progresst' is concernedwith the meaningful differentiation of a civilizational content, especiallywith the rationalization of our view of the external worldl. Assumingthe description of the thread to be empirically correct, nothing wouldfollow from the existence of the thread for the healthy starte of a con-crete society at any period of history. A highly developed system ofmathematical physics means nothing to people who do not; understandit and for societies who can master it and translate it into technology itmay become a factor contributing to social disintegration. The problemsof a concrete political society can be strongly affected by the "threadof progress,' favorably as well as unfavorably, but their course has,nevertheless, a high degree of autonomy. In the more extreme variantsof progressivism ( which command mass appeal in our tinne ) this au-tonomy of the course of a political society is so strongly neglected thatthe historical process assumes the character of an automation which canbe depended upon to deliver ever further installments of progress. Whenthe concrete societies follow their own course and disturb the dream ofautomatic progress, the reaction is indignant surprise, expressed, forinstance, in the formula: it is outrageous that such things should h"p-pen in the twentieth century-for the twentieth century is, of course,better than the nineteenth as the nineteenth is better than the eight-eenth. Back of this attitude lies the identification of the uthread ofprogress" with the state of the concrete society. That this identificationis inadmissible did not remain hidden from the more discerning think-ers, not even from the progressivists. Saint-Simon and Comte under-stood well that the progress of science and industry is no substitute forthe order of society. To prevent the disintegration of Western society,a danger which was felt to be imminent, it would be necessary to devise

PROGRESS AND POLITICAL BXISTENCE

new institutions with an authority equivalent to the authority of thedecaying institutions. This was the purpose they wanted to serve withtheir idea of a new pouuoir spirituel. The internal coherence of societythrough leadership and hierarchy thus became the absorbing problemeven within the Positivist movement itself. Later political events in-creased the awareness of the problem, and after 1848 we have toobserve an intensive occupation with the questions of political existence,resulting in such expositions as Mosca's and Pareto's theory of the rul-ing class and of the circulation of elites, and, in our time, in Toynbee'sbroad survey of the functions of a *creative minority" in the course ofa civilization.

The analyses of Mosca, Pareto and Toynbee are the principal in-stances of a theoretical penetration of the problem that was neglectedby Turgot. At the same time, however, the question received increasingattention on the part of political activists who sensed the decay both ofthe old institutions and of the minorities supporting them, and experi-enced the call to supply a new elite, and therewith a new coherence, tosociety. Helv6tius had cast envious looks on the Jesuit Order as themodel of a new elite. Saint-Simon and Comte attempted to create anew hierarchy and after 1815 this creation of new elites becomes apermanent occupation among political intellectuals. There is a con-tinuum of elitarian formations running from the political clubs of theeighteenth century, through the clubs of the French Revolution, theconspiratorial organizations of Italy, the progressivist, nationalist, and.internationalist groupings of the nineteenth centuryr to the twentieth-century organizations of elites in the Communist, Fascist and NationalSocialist movements. In appraising the meaning of this continuum,however, we have to beware of the temptation to project into the be-ginnings the meaning which ultimately emerged and to avoid labelingthese formations indiscriminately as Fascist. In spite of the close rela-tions between certain ideas of litanqui and Rousseau, or of Mussoliniand Mazzini, or of Hitler and Fichte, or of Lenin and the Frenchphilosophers of Enlightenment, it will be advisable to use a neutralterm for designating this phenomenon and as such a neutral term weshall use ttthe short-circuit evocation of elites.tt By this term we meanto say that the persons engaged in the evocation of elites are agreed. inthe insight that the traditional "creative minorities' ( Toynbee ) can nolonger cope adequately with the complications of an industrializedWestetrn societl, that they have become ( to use Toynbeets term again )"dominantD minorities devoid of competence and authority, that theWestern societies depend for their continued existence and internalcohesion on the formation of new creative minorities and that, more-over, in their judgment concerning the traditional social structure of

I I I

r12 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

Western society and its survival value, the political actirrists are allpessimists. By characterizing the attempts at creating new elitesthrough the adjective "short-circuit,' we mean to say that, on the basisof an analysis which in itself is fundamentally correct, rthe politicalactivists rush into the formation of elites with a blissful ignoranceconcerning the difficulties of the enterprise. This ignorance, of course,has degrees. Bakunin, for instance, was acutely aware that the forma-tion of a new elite without a profound spiritual renovation was senseless.Marx, at least in his younger years, knew quite well that a change ofeconomic order without a change of heart was no remedy :for the evilsof the capitalist system, and even Lenin was aware of this point, thoughhe assumed naively that one could start on a communiist order ofsociety organizationally and that the spiritual reform would take careof itself in the course of time. Nevertheless, the political activists, onthe whole, did not sense clearly that a renovation of society through anew elite would have to rest on deeper foundations than any of themwere able to lay. The readiness to embark on the task of formitg a newelite, without properly gauging its magnitude, is what we designate bythe t'short-circuitD character of the attempts.

Emphasis an political existence

The cross pattern of civilizational progress and of the autonomouscourse of political society in history, of theoretical penetration of theproblem and of political action for its practical solution, has resulted ina curious interlocking of ideas. Today unfortunately this relationshipis rather obscured by interpretations in partisan terminology. Let ustry to clarify the main outlines of these relations.

Turgot's analysis has led to the point where the confiLict betweenan emphasis on progress and the autonomous problems of politicalexistence became clearly visible. One course to be taken in this situationwould have been to drop the emphasis on progress and to cope withthe problem of political existence. This was the course taken by thecontemplative critics of Western civilization who discerned the dis-integration of society behind the facade of progress. The short-circuitevocations by political activists, on the other hand, are characterized bythe attempt to solve the problem of political existence and at the sametime not to surrender the amenities of progress. It is still too littlerealized that the great elitarian movements of Communism, Fascismand National Socialism have a factor in common which, moreover, theyshare with the variants of progressivism: that is their adoration ofscience, of the industrial system and of the values of technology. How-ever widely they may difrer with regard to the solutions which they

PROGRESS AND POLITICAL EXISTNI. ICE 113

offer for the problem of political existence, they all agree that the in-dustrial system has to be developed to the limits of its potentialities asthe basis of the welfare of the people. This is the factor through whichthe modern political mass movements are the heirs of the progressivismand positivism of Saint-Simon and Comte.

In other respects, however, there persists a hysterical enmity betweenthe various activist movements. The optimism of the progressivistcreed is in conflict with the civilizational pessimism which lies at thebasis of the elitarian movements. From this conflict stems the hatred ofprogressivists, not only against the elitarian activists, but against thethinkers who inquire into the problems of political existence. Everypolitical scientist or historian who recognizes that there exist suchproblems as the cohesion of society through a ruling class or creativeminority, or who considers the question that a society may be in fulldecline in spite of the advancement of science, or who indulges in thesupreme insolence of recognizing that Communist Russia owes itscoherence to an elitarian ruling class just as much as did NationalSocialist Germany, becomes the target of calumniations as ttFascisftt-

whether he be Paretor or Mosca, or Nietzsche, or Spengler.t In suchjudgments we reach the point where selectiveness in historical in-terpretation shades off into plain ignorance: when progressivists fly intoindignation at the mere mention of the name of Spengler. They simplydo not know that Spengler has not discovered the decline of the West,but that the topic has been under continuous discussion for the last twocenturies. On the other hand, we have to observe the political activistswho claim-_eagerly that their courses of action are justified by thecritics of Western civilization. \4lhen the critics are still alive,- suchclaims may lead to tensions and disappointments for the activists, suchas the National Socialists experienced with Stefan George, ErnstJuenger and Oswald Spengler. When they are dead, the game is easier:Renan could not defend himself against the title of prefascista bestowedon him by Mussolini, and Nietzsche is defenseless against NationalSocialists in search of ancestry.

Emphasis on progress

In the face of Turgotts dilemma, one course that was open, as wesaid, was to drop the emphasis on progress and to concentrate the in-quiry on the problems of political existence. There is, however, anothercourse oPen: to take Turgot's "thread of progress" seriously and to

- I. Tgynbeg \"d !h9 good luck that his ,Sla da of HistorE began to appear at atime when National Socialism was well on its way to power."Oth.t*irl h. alsowould have been classified as a "cause of Fascismb likd Nietzsche and Spengler.


explore its meaning without hypostatizing it into a total meaning ofhuman history or making it the dogma of a religion of the Comteantype. At first sight this seems to be a quite sober suggestion. The dis-solution of the anthropomorphic interpretation of the external world,and the substitution of a rational view, is a historical procesis which canbe observed empirically. It would be a finite line of meaning amongothers and, divested of the progressive emphasis, reveals itself as a lineof meaning of some importance, &t least for Western civili:zation if notfor the history of mankind. Unfortunately, a closer inspection does notrender such a comparatively innocuous result. Turgotts "thread ofprogress" is not as simple a sequence of phases as it seems to be in hisDiscours and neither does the sequence of phases in the Comteanversion have the simplicity which it seems to have before analysis.

Let us turn to Turgot's text in order to establish'precisely the prob-lem involved in the "thread of progress.tt The first phase of our inter-pretation of the external world, the anthropomorphic phase, is char-acterized by Turgot in the followirg terms: "before one knew theinterrelation of physical effects, there was nothing more na1;ural than tosuppose that they were produced by intelligent beings, invisible andsimilar to us.tt We can omit the second, transitional phase as irrelevantto our problem. In the third phase "the mechanical interactions of bodieswere observed" and only then "hypotheses were evolved which could beformulated by mathematicians.t" Comte's formulation of the law of thethree phases is more polished, but does not add anything to the sub-stance of Turgot's idea. Nevertheless, it will be good to hiave the textbefore us: "fn whatever way we study the general development of thehuman intellect, whether according to the rational methorC or empiri-cally, we discover, despite all seeming irregularities, a fundamentalLaw to which its progress is necessarily and invariably subjected. Thecontent of this Law is that the intellectual system of man, consideredin all its aspects, had to assume successively three distinct characters:the theological, the metaphysical and, finally, the positive or scientific(physique) character. Thus man began by conceiving phenomena ofevery kind as due to the direct and continuous influence of supernaturalagents; he next regarded them as products of various absitract forces,inherent in the bodies, but distinct and heterogeneous; and, finally, herestricts himself to viewing them as subject to a certain nurnber of in-variable natural laws which are nothing but the expression in generalterms of relations observed in their development.ttg

2. Turgot, Discours sur fhistoire universelle, Oerntres de Turgot, 2, p. 656.3. Comte, Consid4rations philosophiques sur les sciences et les saaants ( No-

vember, 1825), reprinted in the appendix of SgsuEme de Politique Positioer 4th

PROGRESS AND POLITICAL EXISTENCE 1r5

In spite of slight variants between the texts of Turgot and Comte,there can be no doubt about the intention of the theory. The esprithumain, or human intellect, is the subject for which a certain necessaryevolution is predicated. The title "progress" given to this evolution im-plies a positive evaluation but it adds nothing to the content of thelaw itself, and the human intellect is not defined in any other terms butthose of the characteristic phases through which it passes. Hence wemust concentrate the analysis on the description of the phases them-selves. Vflhen, however, we try to trace the identity of the intellectualfunctions through the three phases, we discover that the functions whichare supposed to assume three successive characteristics are not identicalin the three phases. Since the functions are not identical, or, since thereis no identical subject of which successive characteristics could be &s-serted, there are no three phases-progressive or otherwise. The evolu-tion described by Turgot and Comte is not an evolution of the humanintellect in general at all, but rather the evolution of a very specificproblem that is well known to us, that is, the problem of phenomenal-ism. The transition from the anthropomorphic to the positive phasedoes not mark a progress in our understanding of the external world;it is the transition from speculation on substance to the science ofphenomena. In the anthropomorphic phase the knowledge of phenomenais still embedded in the knowledge of substances; in the positive phasethe knowledge of phenomena is differentiated into the critical system ofmathematized science. This development in itself certainly is an ad-vance of our knowledge of phenomena, but it is not a progress of thehuman intellect. On the contrary, insofar as the knowledge of the uni-verse is now restricted to the knowledge of phenomena, the knowledgeof substance is lost. As far as the development of the integral functionsof the intellect and spirit is concerned, the transition is distinctly aretrogression. This was the problem of Giordano Bruno in his attackon a science of the ttaccidences of the accidences,tt it was the issue inthe debate between Kepler and Fludd, and in the Kantian distinctionbetween noumena and phenotrr€n&; it is the problem to which Schellitggave the solution of the Potenzenlehre and the philosophy of the un-conscious.

Hence a serious occupation with Turgotts and Comtets idea ofprogress can lead nowhere but to a dissolution into its component parts.On the one hand, we can isolate the advances of our knowledge ofphenomena, and this results in the flourishing discipline of the history

ed. (Paris, 1912), 4, p. 137. ForSocial PhilosoqhA, ed. Hutton and

an English edition see Comte, EarlE Essags onHarrison (LondoDi r.d.), p.218.

t 16 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R]BVOLUTION

of science. On the other hand, we can isolate the speculation on thesubstance of the universe. This isolatioil, in the wake olF Schelling,results in the philosophy of history. This latter developme:nt deservesour attention because it forms an increasingly important strand in thefabric of modern political ideas. In spite of its confusion, the law ofthe three stages touches upon a very serious problem in the philosophyof history. The construction of Turgot-Comte was defective because inthe concept of the third stage the problem of substance was not shownin a further phase of development, but was simply excluded fromconsideration. If we do not exclude it, but conscientiously continue theline of thought initiated in the description of the first phase, the ques-tion will arise: what becomes of the problem of substance once it haspassed beyond the stage of anthropomorphic symbolism? We knowthe answer given by Schelling in his philosophy of the theogonic processand in the new roles assigned to the protodialectic experienc,es and theirdialectical elaboration. But we also know Schelling's ultim'ate dissatis-faction with a type of philosophical speculation that is a poor substitutefor the forceful imagery of mythology, a dissatisfaction thart leads himto expound the necessity for a new myth of nature. When it comes tothe symbolization of substances, the myth is a more adequate mode ofexpression than a critical concept which can only clarify our experiencebut cannot incarnate the substance itself. Through the critical dis-integration of the myth, both pagan and Christian, a universe of sym-bols has been destroyed, the kwne in which communities of men couldexpress the identity of the ground in themselves with the ground in theuniverse. The weakening and destruction of the myth is at the sametime the weakening and destruction of the sacramental bond betweenmen who hold it in common. The answer to this destruction of themyth, to the dedivinization (Entgdtterung) of the world, isr again two-fold, as it was to the problem of political existence-it is either con-templative or activist.

The contemplative response to the disintegration of the rnyth is con-tained in Schelling's Philosophie der Mythologie und der O'ffenba.rung.The spiritual process in which the symbols of myth and dogma arecreated is recovered from the unconscious through anamesiis (recollec-tion ), and the symbols actually created in the course of hurman historyare interpreted as meaningful phases of the theogonic process, manifest-ing itself in history on rising levels of spiritual consciousness. In thiscontemplative attitude the myth of the past need not be atrandoned asthe abenation of an undeveloped intellect but can be understood. asa necessary step in the expression of spiritual reality. ft can be super-seded historically but not invalidated in its own place by subsequent

PROGRESS AND POLITICAL EXISTENCE 117

fuller and more differentiated symbolic expressions. This was themethod already employed in principle by St. Paul when he interpretedthe Natural, the Hebrew and the New Laws as successive phases ofdivine revelation. Schellirg draws into the orbit of his interpretation avast historical material, includirg the pagan myth, Oriental symbolisms,and the Catholic and Protestant Churches, and the further enlargementof this orbit, particularly through the inclusion of primitive s)rm-bolisms and of the Oriental civilizations, is the principal problem fora philosophic history of the spirit after Schelliog. Of more recent at-tempts in this direction I mention only Bergson's Deux sources de lamorale et de la religion, written strongly under the influence of Schel-ling. Bergsonts treatise has become of special interest because Toynbee,in his Study of Historg, has drawn considerably on Bergson's principlesfor his own construction of historical evolution.

The activist response, as we have seen, begins in the Positivistmovement itself through the religious foundations of Saint-Simon andComte. The speculation on substance, which was eliminated from thethird of the Three Phases, is reintroduced in the integral system ofComte in the form of an evocation of a new pouvoir spintuel. Thefoundation of Comte, as well as the later activist attempts to solve thespiritual problem through the foundation of political religions, are inci-dental to the previously surveyed attempts at solving the problem ofpolitical elites and they share with them their "short-circuitt character.This question of the spiritual "short-circuit" forms part of the generalproblem of the pneumapathology of the crisis.

In this context we shall touch only on the political tensions whichdevelop between the "short-circuit" political religions and the new phi-losophy of the spirit in history and politics which is represented bySchelling. The political fronts determined by this issue differ somewhatfrom the fronts determined by the issue of political existence. Concern-ing this latter issue, the progressive activist (with the exceptions statedabove ) will not be inclined to recognize the problem of the creativeminority and he will even condemn the mere contemplative occupationwith it Lecause of its pessimistic implications. The activist of the Fascistor National Socialist type will be in sympathy with the thinkers whorecognize the problem-though the sympathy will not always be re-ciprocal. Besides the various types of activists will be at odds with eachother. Concerning the spiritual issue, the political front follows a muchsimpler line: the cshort-circuit" activists are all agreed on the intra-mundane character of the new divinities-whether it be the progressivesttribalist idea of mankind, or the nation, or the race, or the proletariat;moreover, they are all agreed that under no circumstance can the t'inner

118 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTIOI ' I

return" ( in Schelling's sense ) to the sources of spirituality lre tolerated.As a consequence the spiritualist is faced implacably by the united frontof liberal progressives, Fascists, Communists and National Socialists.With regard to their antispiritualism, the great activist movements areagain in harmorrlr in the same manner as they are with regard to theirinsistence on preserving the amenities of industrialism hovt'ever widelythey may differ in their elitarian solutions.

T he Gdographie Politique

We have analysed Turgot's categories of profane history as well asthe thread of progress which marks the sacred line of mearring, but wehave not yet seen how these various conceptual instrumentsr are appliedto the concrete historical materials in the building of an integrated viewof world history. Such a view Turgot has unfolded in his fragmentsconcerning a G1ographie Politique rather than in his br:tter knownDiscours. We have indicated previously that these fragments are par-ticularly rich in ideas. For our purpose we have to select only one ortwo leading ideas which have a direct bearing on the 'problems ofPositivist history and politics.

The title of the fragments, with its amalgamation of geography andpolitics, indicates the basic idea which Turgot employs in his construc-tion of history. We have touched on this idea before, when we dealtwith Turgot's criteria of progress. The line of progress from anthropo-morphism to science is only one of the strands in the "thrr:ad of prog-ress" running through history, namely the line which Turgot calledthe enlightenment of the mind. The other two lines were the softenirgof the mores and the intensified commerce between formerly isolatednations to the point of global intercourse. This problem of global inter-course, drawitg all mankind into the actual unit of enlightenment, isnow coming to the fore in the construction of a positive plhilosophy ofhistory. The magnitude of the problem may easily escape the modernreadei and that is probably the riason why this part of Turgiot's specula-tion has received scant attention. Today we have become so thoroughlyaccustomed to such terms as world economlr world governrment, globalpolitics and global warfare that the awareness of the formidable meta-physical problem involved in this terminology is all but dead. Againthe work of Turgot has its extraordinary importance because here wecan catch the problem in statu nascendi. It is a problem urhich had toemerge, like the "sacredt' line of enlightenment, at the juncture whenthe Christian philosophy of history was disintegrating and the Christianproblems had to be transposed into the secular k.y. The problem of

PROGRESS AND POLITICAL EXISTENCE 1 1 9

geography in politics, down to its modern crystallization in geopolitics,can become intelligible only when it is understood as the secular varia-tion on a Christian theme that was transmitted to Turgot by Bossuet.It is the problem of the function which the earth has in the existenceof man in society.

In the Christian view of the world, the earth is the symbol of thesubstance from which we come and to which we return bodily. In birthand death it binds and frees the soul, and the brief interval of earthlylife is passed in the mysteriously ordained tension between the twoduties of keeping soul and body together physically and of Preservingthe integrity of the soul against the spiritual temptations of the earth.In the Christian hierarchy of existence, the earth is, furthermore, itits morphological features as well as in the realms of being which itcarries, the gift of God to man as the field of his sustenance and of hiscivilizational achievement. In the eighteenth centurlr with the atrophyof Christianity and the growth of the intramundane ideas of man andmankind, this problem of the earth does not disappear but assumes acorresponding intramundane form. The substitution of the thread ofprogress for the drama of salvation is paralleled by the substitution ofpolitical geography for the Christian mystery of the physical creationas the scene of the pneumatic drama. The tribe of mankind now hasthe globe for its habitat, the globe understood as a physical objectamong others of which we wish to give a description as it would begiven "by an observer from the moon with good telescopes"o- rien quela terre. The intramundane progress of the rnasse totale means the in-crease of knowledge concerning this habitat and its increased technologi-cal exploitation. The abysmal mystery of creation has become the Phe-nomenal rnastery of a spherical surface and its resources. The historyof mankind would have to proceed, therefore, from "the nations isolatedby their ignorance in the middle of other nations," to the contemporarysituation of general commerce between all men.s The dogma of progressis supplemented by the correlations of ignorance and isolatioil, of en-lightenment and global intercourse.

In spite of the concentratecl form of the fragments, there is againclearly discernible Turgot's oscillation between a contemplative historyin the tradition of Bossuet's profane history and the intramundanemeaning of the whole which corresponds to the Christian sacred history.The oscillation expresses itself through a variety of suggestions forthe organization of the subject matter and in some hesitation concern-irg the course which should be taken ultimately. \Mell within the range

4. G1ographie Politiqus, op. cit., p. 614.5. Ibid.

I20 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

of contemplative history is a first series of suggestions concerning thetopics to be included, such as: ( I ) the morphological features of theearth in their relation to the distribution of peoples, the geographicalfacilities for, and obstacles to, the formation of larger political units;(2) the natural resources of the various nations and the elTect of theirdistribution on commercial relations; ( 3 ) the facilities of communica-tion ( rivers, oceans ) , their effect on the friendly or hostile relationsbetween peoples, and on the type of commerce that can be carried on;(4) geography in its relation to the national character, its genius,courage and industry. The last point stems from the tradition of thePtolemaic theory of climates and from Bodin. Turgot qua,lifies it cau-tiously by the suggestion that we separate the *moral causestt fromthe physical and inquire whether and how the physical causes have apart in this question at all.u

Climatic conditions, natural resources and means of cornmunicationare factors which have to be taken into account in history and politicsas empirical sciences. Physical factors of this type have their effects onthe technological possibilities, the wealth and the historical course ofpolitical societies, but not much can follorv from them for those centralproblems of a philosophy of history that are concerned with the humanfactor. The difficulties of Turgot begin when he tries to go beyond theanalysis of physical factors and their effects and to construct thewhole of human history as a function of the geographical factors. Forhe attempts, indeed, to establish a g1ographie politique as an inde-pendent science. This science will consist of two parts: of a theoreticalg1ographie politique and of a positive or historical g1ographie politique.The theoretical part is supposed to deal with the relations of the artof government to physical geography. But a misgiving arises: *Since

the earth is the theatre of all human actions, this part wrculd includepractically the whole art of government; in order not to iinclude it inthis part totally, one would often have to do violence to the systematicdevelopment of ideas." After this admission, Turgot quite rightly askshimself why a treatise on government should be disguised under thestrange name of political geography. "lVould it not be bettr:r to presentthe part under the name of the whole than the whole under the nameof the part, however important the part may be?" We have to agreewith Turgot: *hy, indeed, should one resort to this strane;e device? Itis the same question that we would have to ask with regardl to the laterdevelopment of geopolitics. But Turgot does not answer his questionexplicitly. We can only assume that the subsequent development of the

6. Ibid., pp. 61lf .

PROGRESS AND POL IT ICAL EX ISTENCE t2I

Positive political geography is supposed to explain his insistence on thestrange course.?

The positive political geography is subdivided into two parts: thepresent and the past. By the present Turgot means "l'6tat actuel dumond,e politiqu€ r" that ir, the manifold of national forces under theirphysical, moral, and political aspects. A national force has to be ex-pressed in terms of population, the wealth of a state, the character ofits inhabitants, the ease or difficulty of aggrandizement arising fromthe nature of the government. In the relations between nations we haveto observe the national commerce, the respective pretentions, the trueor false national interests, the policies which the nations pursue at themoment and their direction towards further progress or towards deca-dence.t The political unit in the field, thus, is a national force on a giventerritory and the political problem is the potential of aggrandizement.At this point, Turgot reveals the function of his g1ographie politiqueas a source of advice to governments concerning the question of ag-grandizement. This does not mean, however, that Turgot favored apolicy of national aggrandizement. On the contraryr his standard ofright policy was the coincidence of territorial expanse with "nn corpsde nation." Acquisition of provinces beyond the national territory heconsidered ttunnatural.D His ttnatural ordertt is the balance of nationalpowers, and his criticism is directed against the principles of publiclaw which rely on succession treaties for the establishment of ord,er.fn clarifying this point, he uses as his conceptual instrument the distinc-tion between state (6tat) and power (puissance) . Charles V had apower but not a state, and Spain remained a power until Philip V."The King of Prussia is a power; the King of France has a state.D Apower becomes a state when it reduces itself to the limits which naturehas assigned to it. Political geography has drawn the limits of thestate, public law forms the powers; but in the long run politicalgeography is stronger than public law, "because always in the long runnature is itronger than the laws." Political geography, thus, is a norma-tive science which establishes the natural law that the long-range orderof Europe is the division into national territorial states of the Frenchtype. At least one of the reasons for the overemphasis on the geo-graphical aspects of politics is Turgot's interest in the territorial re-organization of Europe accorditg to the national principle. The politi-cal principle determining the "present" ought to be the organization ofthe nation, and the nation covers a delimited area on the surface of the

7. Ibid., p, 613.g. Ibid.


globe. Principles of politics which disregard, the territorial settlement ofthe nation, that is principles which lead to the formation of' a puissancewithout regard to territorial limitations, should be abollished.t Thestandard example for the disregard of the national principrle is the at-tempt of Spain and Austria to maintain the possession of the LowLands. The political acumen of Turgot shows itself more clearly inthe prediction (in 1750) of the inevitabitity of American independ-ence.to And he is acutely aware, as we have seen, of the peculiar Prus-sian problem as a puissance which has not yet become a state-leavingopen the question whether the state of the Prussian puissance has tobe achieved by reduction, like the Spanish, or by further expansion.The political front of Turgot is turned against the past with. its distribu-tion of power according to the dynastic principle; his "present" is domi-nated by the idea of the nation as determining the territo:rial division.But in principle his argument opens the way for any colXectivist ideawhich may supersede the nation as the unit which occupies a territory.

The absorbing interest in the geography of the "pres,ent" inducesTurgotts fascinating construction of the ttpastD as a series of *presentstt

leading up to the actual present. This construction is perhltps the mostconvincing document for the devastating consequences of the assump-tion of an ttauthoritative present.D Turgot is aware, of cc)urse, that ageography as the tableau du prdsent is a somewhat ephemeral affairbecause tomorrow the present is past and the new present would requirea new political geography. But he is not to be deterred. "All that ispast has been a present; history, which is a recital of the past, shouldconsequently be a sequence of the tableaux of world-history at eachmoment.t' Human existence in society has two dimensionsi: space andtime. Geography in the present tense is the spatial dimensic'n: historicalchronology is the temporal dimension. Geography and chronology placemen at their distances in a system of ordinates: "The one expresses theordinate of space, the other the ordinate of time.t' Both together deter-mine the *situation.t' "Voild, Phistoire untuerselle." *Each moment hasits peculiar political geography; and this title is especially appropriateto the description of the actual present in which terminate of necessitythe various courses of events.ttll In this conception we see the meta-physics of t'current eventstt fully developed. The historicity of existenceis abolished-all events are "currentD in space-time, history is a filmof such events which are current in their place and the substantiallyeternal presence before God is replaced by the phenomerrally current

9. Ibid., p. 625.10, Dis cours en Sorbonne, op. cit., p, 602.IL, G€ogra,phie Politiqu?r op. cit., p. 613.

PROGRESS AND POLITICAL EXISTENCE L23

present before the photographer or ttobserver.tt Not even the fine nuanceis missing in the formulation of Turgot that the actual present is alittle more present than the presents which are already relegated tothe limbo of the past.

Religion and political geography

The Esquisse d'un plan de g1ographie politique itself we shall notanalyse. We shall extract from it only one idea: that of the impact ofreligions on the problems of political geography. Religions, in theopinion of Turgot, have not always had a bearing on political geog-raphy. fn the age of polytheism the gods and their cults were compatiblewith each other; the gods were different, the religion was the same.There may have been an occasional war for religious reasons, like thesacred wars of the Phoenicians, but such wars were intended to takerevenge for a particular injury done to a sacred place. "The peoplesfought for their gods like our knights for their ladies." Political prob-lems make themselves felt only with the rise of exclusive religions. Ifan exclusive religion was confined to one people, like the Hebrew, thepolitical consequences were still not great since they would consistmainly in separation. Only when the object of religions becomes truth,"as in some philosophical sects,t' and when, in addition, the truth didnot remain sectarian but was propagated with the intention to embraceall men and nations, do the political problems begin. To claim posses-sion of truth is "a sort of injury to the rest of mankind" and the attemptat conversion cuts politically across the national organization. Suchreligions are Christianity and fslam."

The problem presented by the rise of the universal religions is initself well observed. The consensus of the faithful as a new type ofcommunity in politics has become the topic of one of the more con-vincing chapters in Spengler's Decline of the West, under the title ofthe Magian nations, and the function of the universal church as the*chrysalis" of a new civilization has been clarified by Toynbee. Therise of the universal religions in the epoch between two "generationstt( Toynbee ) of civilizations it, indeed, one of the great morphologicalfeatures of world history. Though he recognizes its importance, Turgotregards it with clear disfavor as a disturbance of the clean geographicalaffairs of history. The religions sfro uld not exert an influence in politicalgeography because they disturb the territorial political order. If severalreligions with equal universal claims find adherents in the same nation,

12. Ibid., p. 62I.


the stronger will suppress the weaker and wars for the freedom ofconscience will result. The persecuted subjects of one prince will formalliances with neighboring princes who are their coreli;gionists andunder such conditions a nation cannot live in peace on its territory. Thesolution for such evils is unconditional tolerance on the part of thestate, including the freedom of worship. "Only then will religions ceaseto be a factor in political geography; if for no other reason, because astate governed by the principle of tolerance will be wealthier and morepopulated than any other.'os The principle of the unive,rsal Churchmust be abandoned, just as the dynastic principle, because it interfereswith the existence of the organized nation. What Christianjity has givento the world should not be belittled, but the best it has given was "toinspire and propagate natural religion.t' The characteristics of this es-sence of true Christianity are ttsweetness and charity" uzhich permitthe nation to live in peace, without mutual persecutions of its citizens.tnAnd what will the nation do when it lives in peace? The lbture is fullof promise. Hitherto we have lived on the globe like savages, exploitingthe fertility of the soil. This was possible because there was enoughfertile soil for the comparatively small number of men. fn the futuie,however, mankind will increase, and the increased mankind. will have touse its ingenuity on lands which have been hitherto uncultivated. Thereis no reason to despair of this future; the technology of s;oil improve-ment and the technical rneans of artificial water-supply are well de-veloped. Mankind faces a rich and meaningful existence thrrough artifi-cial fertilizers and irrigation projects.t6

The three strands in the thread of progress, that is ( I ) tlhe enlighten-ment of the mind, (2) the intensification of global intercou:rse, and ( S )the softenitg of the mores, thus, are intertwined in the authoritativeknot of the present. In spite of the nearness to Bossuet,, in spite ofTurgot's conscientiousness, and in spite of the impasses and honesthesitations, the intramundane sentiment predominates arnd the anti-Christian dogmatism outweighs the contemplative elernents. Still,Turgot is so close to the Christian tradition that the lines ,of derivationthrough which the Positivist creed is connected with \trIestern highcivilization become visible in every detail. The creed is fully developedas an intellectual position but it has not yet acquired the characterisiicsof a conscious religious movement. Nevertheless, just as dtAlemberttsradical progressivisffi, the variant of Turgot represents a definite phasein Positivism which has its historical importance independent of the

13. fbid., p. 623.14. Lettres sur Ia tol1rance, op. cit., p. 687.L5. Gdographie Politiqu€r op. cit., p, 626,


Comtean additions. In Turgot's speculation, the creed of enlightenment,despiritualized morality and technology has entered into the momentouscombination with nationalism. The national state of the Western typeis supposed to be, and to remain, the vessel of progressive civilization.This particular evocative aggregate of ideas has profoundly influencedthe course of Western political history insofar as it has become one ofthe great obstacles in adjusting political forms to the necessities of anindustrialized society. Toynbee has given a thorough analysis of theproblem which arises when democracy and industrialism, both of whichrequire larger political units for their functioning, have to functionwithin the unsuitable framework of the European national state. Theamalgamation of the Positivist aggregate of ideas with nationalism hasan aggravating, parallel effect on the resistence of national politicalunits against their blending into larger communities.

Condorcet and the gospel of progress

When we turn to an analysis of Condorcet's Esq uisse we are gettingdeeper and deeper into a class of literature which has little value ascontemplative science or spiritual expression, but which nevertheless isof great historical importance because it contains a naive political dog-matism of broad social effectiveness. Turgotts evocation of the massetotale in progress does not remain an ephemeral idea: the ma.sse gainsflesh through the penetration of human minds with ideas propagatedby a vast publicist literature. This, of course, does not mean that themasse is engaged in anything which remotely resembles a progress.On the contrary, penetration by the idea of progress means the ideologi-cal destruction of the intellectual and spiritual personality. The actualevocation of the ma,sse creates the social state which we call the crisisof Western civilization. Condorcetts Esquisse holds a kty position forthe understanding of this process because, on the one hand, it presentsa new step in the fixation of the dogma for mass coRsumption, while,on the other hand, it takes the step deliberately, with a clear insightinto the atrocities of vulgarization. The Esquiss'e is consciously a workof the progressivist apostolate, a work which tries to create the rnasseby carrying the message into it. It certainly is not the first work withapostolic intentions; a good deal of the political literature of the eight-eenth century serves the apostolate of enlightenment. But it holds aplace in the Positivist movement which may be compared to that of agospel of the Johannine type in the Christian evangelical literature. Itis an authoritative summary of the creed for the community, a testa-ment in more than one sense, for it was written by Condorcet while he

L26 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

was hiding as a fugitive from justicer os his last service to mankind,in the expectation of the guillotine.tu

To carry the progressivist idea to the masses is Condorcet's greatdesire. The gulf has to be bridged between the few who ar:tively carrythe progress of mankind and ttt. vast majority who participaie in itonly slightly. This bridging of the gulf has already begun. fn hissurvey of the progress of mankind, Condorcet pays particular attentionto the decisive historical epoch when progress ceases to be tthe privilegeof an active elite and is brought within the reach of the common man."Hitherto we have shown the progress of philosophy only in the menwho have cultivated, deepened and perfected it; now we harre to observethe effects on the opinion gdndrale.' Reason not only has purified ourmethods of knowledge and guarded us against the error$ into whichwe were led t'by respect for authority,' it also has destr,oyed, in themasse gdn1rale of men, the prejudices which for so long have corruptedthe human species. At last the right has been recognized to use onetsreason as the sole criterion of truth and no longer to rely on the wordof another man. *The abasement of reason before the drelirium of asupernatural faith disappeared from society, &s it has disap,peared fromphilosophy.'tr' The social instrument for bringing about this huppy statewas a new class of men uwho were less interested in the discovery oftruth than in its propagation; who pursued the prejudirces into therecesses where the clergy, the schools, the governments and the oldcorporations had amassed and protected them; who set their priderather in destroying popular errors than in pushing farther back thelimits of human knowledge; who developed this indirecl; manner ofserving progress, which was not the least perilous nor the least useful.ttt*

With a few masterful strokes Condorcet has sketched the new typeof intellectual parasite whose zeal to teach others is stronger than hiswillingness to submit to intellectual discipline, who thrives on the fallacythat truth is to be found in the solutions of problems rather than intheir discovery, who believes that truth can be dispensed ia.s a body ofdoctrine, who transfers the characteristics of revealed truth to the finitehuman search for knowledge; who consequently, through vulgarizingproblematical knowledge into dogmatic results, can make the innocent

16. Condorcet (L743-94) wrote the Esquisse while he was irr refuge withMme. Vernet. The manuscript was completed by October 1793. It was publishedfor the first time An III. For a brief life of Condorcet and the qurestion of MSSand publication see the ttlntroduction" and ttAvertissementtt by C). H. Prior inhis edition of the Esquisse (Paris, 1933).

L7. Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Progrds de l'Espfi Humain. Outsrageposthume de Condorcet (n.p., L795), p. 242,

18. Ibid.r p. 243,

IPROGRESS AND POLITICAL EXISTENCE L27

believe that thry enter into the truth if they accept faithfully as dogmaa proposition which no conscientious thinker would accept without far-reaching qualifications, who create in their victims the belief thatinstruction is education, who destroy intellectual honesty through theirseparation of results from the critical processes which lead up to them,who build up in the masses the unshakable brutality of ignorant con-viction and who, for their murderous work of destruction, want to beapplauded because it is "not the least perilous, nor the least usefulttto society.

The techniques employed by these men are described by Condorcetwith the competence of first-hand knowledge. They employ "all thearrns which erudition, philosophl, brilliance and literary talent can putat the disposition of reason; they assume all the tones, use all theforms, from pleasantry to the touchins, from a vast and scholarlycompilation to the novel or pamphlet; they cover truth with a veil inorder not to frighten the weak, and to leave the pleasure of surmise;they are skillful in catering to prejudices in order to deal even moreeffective blows; they neither attack them all at the same time, nor onequite thoroughly; sometimes they give comfort to the enemies of reasonby pretending that in religion they do not want more than semi-tolerance, or in politics more than semi-liberty; they are moderate to-wards despotism when they fight the absurdities of religion, and towardsthe cult when they rise against tyranny; they attack the two scourges onprinciple when they seem to castigate only some revolting or ridiculousabuses; and they strike the tree at the roots when they seem to trimonly some rank branches.ttu The passage sounds as if it came from aninstruction sheet, issued to his staff by * National Socialist Minister forthe Enlightenment of the People. We should note the tone of implacablehatred; the radical will to strike at the root of institutions, even whenthe overt criticism extends only to reformable abuses; the technique ofapparent compromise by which the propagandist whittles down iesist-ance step by step until he can deal the final blow; the intentional dis-honesty of "veiling," that is of half-truth which may tempt the urr-critical mind; the playing of sentiments against each other until theinstitutions are equally engulfed in a social catastrophe; in brief: thecatalogue of techniques, which we all know too well, employed by thepolitical intellectual in undermining the authority of institutions and intransforming bewildered individuals into a disoriented mass.ro

19. Ibid., pp. 243f.2O. The force of hatred in Condorcet is significantly revealed in a discourse

celebrating the destruction of papers relating to the hiitory of noble families ofFrance: toTo-day Reason burns the innumerable volumes which attest the vanity

I28 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

The effective use of these means is conditioned by the invention ofprinting. This invention marks for Condorcet one of the great epoch-making events in the history of mankind because it has placed in thehands of the intellectual the instrument by which he can a.pproach theindividual directly, circumventing the educational institutions whichare in the hands of the vested interests. However rigid th.e control ofthe schools may br, and however watchful governmental interferencewith the circulation of subversive literature, governments are ultimatelypowerless against the dissemination of ideas through boohs and pam-phlets. This observation of Condorcet is correct to the point of triviality.Nevertheless, it should be stressed in the face of the contemporarywidespread, erroneous opinion that people get their ideasi in schools,that, for instance, political attitudes in pre-Nazi German'y originatedin schools and can be eradicated through *reform" of the schools andthe revision of school-books. The totalitarians, like Condorcet and hisrnodern successors, have a better insight into the helplessnerss of schoolsin combating the influences which press upon the individuall from muchmore powerful sources in the environment.2l Hence, when totalitarianscapture a government, quite consistently they supplement the controlof schools by a system of licensing writing for publication and by thephysical control of all printing establishrnents and of the paper supply.

In order to be effective, the techniques must be employed with apurpose; in the network of deceit, veilings, fake compromises theremust be a point of integrity. This point is for Condorcet "the independ-ence of reison and th; freedom fo write'-here lies the .fundamental"right and the welfare of mankind.' With indefatigable energy theintellectual has to rise t'against all crimes of fanaticism and tyrannyrtand uhe will take for his war{ry: reason, tolerance, huma:.nity.*'Ani-

of a caste. Other vestiges remain in public and private libraries. 'fhry must beinvolved in a common destruction" ( I owe this quotation to F. A. von Hayek, thettCounter-Revolution of Science,tt Economica [Februar]r May, Arugust, 1941J,p. 13 ). This is not the place to go into details of this kind. But the riader shouldbe aware that this instance of burning documents and books is not the only pointof contact between Progressivism and more recent totalitarian movetnents. A tare-ful ponographic study _would reveal that there is not much in the techniques ofintellectual and moral destruction of human beings, and of mobilizring the dregsof vulgarity and the basest of sentiments, which today we associate with Na-tional Socialism and Communism, which does not stem from the arsenal ofProgressivism.

2I. Op. cit., pp. 180ff. The argument of Condorcet has to be clualified, how-ever, on one point. White the art of printing has greatly increased the leverage ofsocial influence for the intellectual, mass movements could be influenced decisivelythrough literature even in the time of manuscripts.

22. Ib id. , p. 245.

PROGRESS AND POLITICAL EXISTENCE t29

mated by "universal philanthropy" the intellectuals spread the knowl-edge of the natural rights of man, of the freedoms to think and towrite, of commerce and industry, of the welfare of the people, of theabolition of torture and cruel punishment; they foment the indifferenceto religion which at last is placed among the superstitions, the hatredof tyranny and fanaticism and the Contempt of prejudice. Thanks tothe incessant propaganda of the last generations there has been formedby now a fairly general opinion publique in some countries, and thispublic opinion has gained sufficient prestige so that even the masse dupeuple seems to be ready to let itself be led by it and to obey it." Thepassages are a locus classiczrs for the welter of genuine social grievances,of moral indignation and justified demands for reform, of compassionfor human rnisery and sincere social idealism, of ressentiment andhatred of the System ( Goebbels ) , of the contradictions of universalphilanthropy and murderous intentions against the enemy, of contemptof prejudice and fostering of still worse ones, of common sense indetails and obscurantism in fundamentals, of the fanatical attack onfanaticism, of bigotry in the name of tolerance, of freedom of thoughtthrough suppressing the thought of the enemy, of independence ofreason through hammering the masse du peuPle into a dazed obedienceto a public opinion which itself is produced by the propaganda barrageof dubious intellectuals-that ir, for the welter from which rises thesanguinary confusion of Condorcetts time and of our own.

Condorcet was a mathematician and his special interest was the re-cently developed calculus of probability and its application to socialmass phenomena.'o The problem of the progressive masse totale inthe meaning of Turgot blends for Condorcet with the problem ofsociety as a mathematical mass with calculable and predictable fea-tures. Hence the historical survey of the progress of mankind culmi-nates in the tableau des esp€rances for the progress of future genera-tions which seems assured through the constancy of nature. We haveto understand that nature has created an unbreakable bond between"the progress of light and that of freedom, virtue and the respect forthe natural rights of man." Once this bond is understood and has be-come a reality "in the whole class of enlightened men,tt then proEressis assured through the concerted and well-directed efforts of the friendsof humanity for its perfection and happiness.'u Progress will no longerbe a line of meaning to be discovered by the historistr, it will be a

23. Ibid., pp. 25Of.24. On this point see the works and passages of Condorcet quoted in F. A. von

Hayek'1 "Counter-Revolution of Scieneertt pp. Lzf.25. Cond,orcet, Esquis$?r p. 14.

130 FRoM ENLTcHTENMENT To REvoLUTToN

direction in the process of mankind, intelligently accelerated. by theenlightened elite.

In the analysis of d'Alembert's Discours Prdliminaire we have foundthe idea of the authoritative present already well developed, securingthe model value of the present against the past as well as against thefuture. The attempt to secure the present against the future did not,however, go beyond the comparatively mild form of org;anizing theEncyclop1die as the monumental source of obligatory kn,owledge forthe future. The attempt certainly shows the characteristicsr of megalo-maniac aggressiveness which is typical for the enlightened intellectual.Nevertheless, all a healthy human being had to do in defr:nse againstthis attempt at intellectual terrorization was to shrug his shroulders andignore the Encyclopddie. In Condorcet the idea of security against thefuture has gained a new activist momenfum. We see the idea of adirectorate of mankind emerging, fixing the standards of the goodsociety and formulating a policy for its accelerated realization.

The basis for such directive action is the predictability of conse-quences which will result from actions of the directorate. If the exist-ence of man in society contained an element of contingency rvhich wouldfrustrate the policies of long-range management, the idea of directionwould break down. Condorcet's argument for predictability has becomethe staple of the progressivist creed. We can predict in the naturalsciences-why should we not be able to predict with regard to socialphenomena? "The only basis for our faith in the natural sciences isthe idea that the general laws, known or unknowtr, which rule theP-hengmena in the universe, are necessary and constant; by what reasonshould this principle be less true for the development of the intellectualand moral faculties of man than for the other operations of nature?muOn this argument rests the idea of directing the destiny ,cf mankind.The naivet6 is breath-taking. To the question by what reason historyis not a field of prediction in the same manner as inorganic nature, th.historian is tempted to answer on the same intellectual lerrel: becauseit ain't so. It is worth noting that the idea of directing history on thebasis of a foreknowledge of its course is fully developed in Condorcet.The Marxist idea of direction has only changed the basis from thenatural laws to the laws of dialectical materialism.

After this brilliant foundation, Condorcet begins to develop hisprogra*. ,ft consists of three points: ( I ) the destruction of inequalitybetween the nations, (2) the progress of eguality within each nation,

26. Ibid., pp. 309f.

PROGRESS AND POLITICAL EXISTENCE t3 r

( 3 ) the substantial perfection of man (le perf ectionnement rdel dePhomme)."

Condorcet's exposition of the first point, the destruction of inequalityamong the nations, is one of the most illuminating contributions 1o theproblem of equality. By equality between the nations Condorcet doesnot mean that the nations should respect each other and treat eachother on a footitg of equality, and by the destruction of inequality hedoes not mean that the stronger ones should leave the others alone.Inequality means the differences of wealth and enlightenment betweenthe various nations as well as between the classes in each nation. Andthe destruction of inequality means the raising of the backward peoplesto the level of the progressive ones, whether they like it or not. "Willall the nations some duy approach the state of civilization which hasbeen reached by the peoples who are most enlightened, most free, andmost liberated from prejudice, such as the French and the Anglo-Americans? Will the immense distance disappear which separates thesepeoples from the servitude of nations under kings, from the barbarismof African tribes, from the ignorance of the savages? Should therereally be on the globe countries whose inhabitants nature has con-demned never to enjoy freedom, never to use their reason?)ns No, saysCondorcet, we have no reason to entertain this distressing view. Span-iards, Germans and Swedes, Bantus, Patagonians and Eskimos-ih.yall will rise some day to the Anglo-French level. We can discern alreadyhopeful signs. The principles of the French revolutionary constitutionare accepted by enlightened Persons all over Europe and no efforts oftyrants and priests can prevent their rcalization on a European scale.,nMoreoverr we can hope that soon all the European colonies in theNew World will be independent; and "then, as the European popula-tion in these immense territories increases rapidly, will il not iiuiti".or cause the disappearance, without conquest, of the savage nationswhich still occuPy vast stretches of lanfl2rrao And, finally, wJ can hopefo-t I huppy solution in Africa and Asia. The present oppressive regimeof the rapacious trading companies will disappear, th; Europeans willconfine themselves to free commerce; t'they will be too enlighiened con-cerning thei.- oyn rights to make_ fight of those of other peoples; theywill lespegt their independence which hitherto they have viotated auda-ciously.' The establishments will be maintained but "the offices of

27.Ibid., p. 310.28. Ibid., pp. 3lof.29. Ibid., p. 313.30. Ibid., p. 314.


brigands will become colonies of citizens who will spread throughoutAfrica and Asia the principles and the example of the f:reedom, thelight and the reason of Europe.' The natives will find brothers in theEuropeans and become their friends and pupils. Of cours€r occasionalfriction may develop with savages and nomads; progress will be slowerin these cases and accompanied by some trouble. "Perhaps such nativeswill be reduced to a small number; and, by and by, when they seethemselves pushed back by the civilized nations, they will errd by disap-pearing insensibly, or they will lose themselves in their nnidst." Thiswill be the inevitable consequence of progress in Europe and of thefreedom of commerce which the French and North American republicshave the interest and power to establish.sl

This program of Condorcet seems to be the first systerrratic projectelaborated by a Western totalitarian for the radical destruction of allcivilizations of mankind, the high civilizations as well as the less dif-ferentiated native civilizations, and to transform the surface of theglobe into the habitat of a standardized mankind which isi formed bythe ideology of a handful of megalomaniac intellectuals. There ishardly any discernible difference on this point between the totalitarianProgressivist and his Communist and National Socialist successors.Who will not be reminded, in reading the exposition of equality, ofMr. Orwell's quip: All animals are equal-but some animarls are moreequal than others? Who will not recognize in the elevation of backwardmankind to the Anglo-French level the National Socialist Gleichschal-tung, or Stalin's judicious solution given to the problem of nationalities:"National in form, socialist in substance"? Who will not recognize inthe alternative, advanced with brutal equanimity, of civilize yourselfor perish, perceptibly or imperceptibly, the National Socialist slogan:uWo gehobelt wird, da fl,iegen Spahne?" And who would not recognizein the colonies of "citizens" who replace the t'brigands,tt thrg Gauleitersand Commissars?

On the second point, the progress of equality within each nation,we can be briefer. The reforms suggested by Condorcet do not touchon the principles of a positivist philosophy of history and politics. Theybelong rather to the general trend for the abolition of certain socialinjustices, and they stem from the insight into the political instabilityof a society having too deep a cleavage between the rich and the poor.Condorcet distinguishes between the formal equality of citizens underthe constitution and the real equality of economic and educational status.The disregard for this problem was the principal cause of the destruc-

3I. Ibid., pp. 316-318.

PROGRESS AND POLITICAL EXISTENCE r33

tion of freedom in the ancient republics and for their surrender toforeign tyrants. The three points of attack are: ( I ) the inequality ofwealth, (2) the inequality between the man who can operate with aninherited capital and the man who depends for his sustenance on hiswork alone, and ( 3 ) the inequality of instruction. Of the various sug-gestions for remedying these causes of social disturbance, we shouldmention especially the plans for compulsory life insurance, compulsorysavings for the equipment of sons coming of age with a small capital,annuities fqr widows and children at the death of husband or father,and the creation of banks which extend loans to the small entrepreneurs.The basis for the operation of such institutions would be the calculus ofprobability. The institutions themselves could be founded au norn de lapuissance sociale, but there is no reason why private capital should notengage in such enterprises, once the principles of operation are established and tested..3z

The third point of the program, however, the substantial perfection-ing of man, brings an important new development. A lengthy surveyof the well-founded hopes for a general progress of mankind withregard to science, technology, health, the arts, welfare, security, virtueand happiness, is followed by

" few concluding pages on the perfectihil

ity of human nature itself. These reflections introduce a new elementinto the system of Positivist ideas and they change fundamentally theproblem of history as it presented itself to Turgot. Turgotts specula-tion on progress ended, &s we have seen, in the impasse of the tensionbetween a progressing civilizational content and an unchanging prob-Iem of human existence. One solution to this problem would be theassumption that human nature does not remain unchanged but itselfprogresses indefinitely along with progress in the civilizational content.The assumption is absurd to the Christian humanist but it is bound toarise in the context of directing the destiny of mankind. If the intel-lectual is able to create in himself the model combination of reason andvirtue, if he can destroy the civilization of mankind as it has grownhistorically, if he can create a new mankind in his image throughpropaganda and brutality and if he can direct the calculable courseof mankind indefinitely on the path determined by his model qualities-why should his directive efforts not result in the creation of a sub-stantially new man as the bearer of the perfect society? Up to thispoint Condorcet had assumed in his speculation that his direction wouldhave to operate with the imperfect human raw material delivered tohim by nature. Now he envisages the possibility of creating a new

32. Ibid., pp. 322-325; see also pp. 305, 3OZ.

r34 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

substance himself : the creation of man by God, which wari eliminatedas a superstition, now returns as the creation of the superman through

Condoriet. The intramundane hubris of self-salvation culminates logi-

cally ( by the logique du coeur) in the improvement on God through

the'crruiion of a man who does not need salvation. The Spirit has be-

come reason, the Savior has become the enlightened director of man-kind, the Father has become the creator of the superman--the Trinityhas become intramundane in the intellectual'

The perfectibility of man is absolutely indefinite and can never beretrogressive. "If man can predict, almost with certainty', those aP-

pearances of which he understands the laws; if, even when the laws are

unknown to him, experience of the past enables him to foresee, withconsiderable probability, future appearances: whyr" Condorcet asks,

"should we suppose it a chimerical undertaking to delineate, with somedegree of truth, the picture of the future destiny of mankind from theresults of its history? The only foundation of faith in the natural sciencesis the principte that the general laws, known or unknown, which regu-late the phenomena of the universe, are regular and constant; and whyshould this principle, applicable to the other operations of nature, beless true when applied to the development of the intellectua,l and moralfaculties of man?tt* And as the human race marches inexora.bly towardsthe goal of perfection, it may not, Condorcet believes, be unreasonableto expect that death itself may be postponed indefinitely. Is it un-t.uronable, he asks, "to suppose that a period must one d"y arrivewhen death will be nothing more than the effect either of extraordinaryaccidents, or of the slow and gradual decay of the vital powers; andthat the duration of the middle space, of the interval between the birthof man and his decay, will itself have no assignable limits?"o

It is this dream of mankind marching towards wisdom and im-mortality like gods, this picture of mankind liberated llrom all itschains, beyond the reach of accident and chance, beyond the reach ofthe enemies of progress, that consoles the philosopher for the errors,the crimes, the injustices that still disfigure the earth and of which hehimself is often the victim.

It is in the contemplation of this picture . . that he finds histrue recompense for virtue. The contemplation of this 'picture isan asylum in which the memory of his persecutors does not fol-low him, an asylum in which, living in imagination with mankindreestablished in its rights and in its true nature, he can forget

33. Ibid., p. 358.34. Ibid., p. 361.


mankind corrupted and tormented by greed, fear, envy. It is inthis asylum that he truly lives with his fellows, in a heaven whichhis reason has created, and which his love of humanity embellisheswith the purest joyt.tu

A note of melancholy creeps into the idea of progress as the philosopherseeks the consolation of a vision that will obscure the reality of a "man-kind corrupted and tormented by greed, fear, envy.tt

35. Ibid., irP. 369ff.

VI. THE APOCALYPSE OF MAN: COMTE

After a century of misunderstanding we are approaching today, on thebasis of more recent experiences, a more adequate understanding ofComte both in his quality as an astute philosopher of hirstory and inhis more sinister quality as a spiritual dictator of mankind. The historyof the misunderstanding of Comte and of the gradual dissolution ofthese misunderstandings is, at the same time, the history of our grow-ing insight into the Western crisis. Auguste Comte ( 17g8.-I 857 ) *utwell aware of the fact that Western civilization faced a crisis and whilehe misjudged the duration of the crisis he neither misjudiged its scalenor its nature. While his attempt at a solution was as ab,crtive as thecontemPorary ones, at least one important cause of the failure was theclose relationship between Comte's ideas and the totalitarian practiceof our times. We might say that our historical understanding G catch-

il$ up today with the insight of Comte and our political praitice withhis projected solution.

The split in the life of Comte

If we set aside for a moment the important monographic studies onComte which have been published in recent years, we may say thatthe picture of Comte is still determined bv the incision in his fife thatyu. d!9p enough to make Comte himself speak of his "firstD andt'second" life. The crowning achievement of the ttfirsttt life is the Coursde Philosophie Positiae (0 vols., l8 SA-AD; in his "secondiu life Comteinstitutes the Religion of Humanity through his Systdme d,e PolitiquePositiue, ou Trait| de Sociologie instituant la Religion de lHumanit7(+ vols', 1851-54). Between the two periods lies the "incomparableyear" of his relation with Clotilde de Vaux in 1845. In the firsf periodhe was the theorist of Positivism and the founder of the science towhich he gave the name, sociology; in the second period he was theFondateur and Grand-Prltre of the new religion. Until qurite recently,this articulation of Comte's life and work has remained the guidingprinciPle for the critical interpretation of the thinker. Comte the pori-tivist and founder of sociology was accepted while Comte the founderof the Religion of Humanity was rejected. For England irn particularthis pattern was set by John Stuart Mill's study on Comte, hrst pub-lished in the Westminster Reaiew.l Part f of this study de,als wittr the

1. John Stuart.Villr Auguste Comte and Positivisnts Reprinted from the West-minster Retieu, (London 1865).

APOCALYPSE OF MAN: COMTI , L37

Cours and, within the limits of Mill's abilities, gives a fair, criticalappreciation of the work; Part II deals with "The Later Speculations of

M, Comte" and gives a somewhat indignant account of the curiositiesthat are to be found in this later work and which, we agree, do notmake sense to common sense. Mill concludes his account with thesentence: "Others may laugh, but we would far rather weeP at thismelancholy decadence of a great intellect.tt"

Mill's cbncluding sentence conveys two implications. First, it implies

that there was a deep incision in the life and thought of Comte and that

Comte's t'two livest' self-interpretation should be accepted as correct;

second, it implies that the incision has the nature of a "decadence,tt of

something lilie a mental disturbance. Let us consider this second point

first, for this assumption of a mental disturbance and decadence has

been for more than one critic the reason which justified his rejection of

the t'second.tt Comte. The assumption of the mental disturbance orig-

inated in 185I when Comte greeted with satisfaction the coup d'6tat

of Louis Napoleon as a step toward the establishment of the Occidental

Republic in which the Positivists would function as the pouvoir spir-

ilu;|. A note, entitled Esso r empirique du rlpublicanisme frangais and

dated June L7 , Lg 52, gives a fairly clear idea of Comte's political con-

ception at this time; it outlines the phases of development toward the

final Republic:

( l ) The French Government should be republican and not

monarchial. (Crisis of February 1848 ).(2) The French republic should be social and not political.

( Crisis of June 1848 ) .( g ) The social republic should be dictatorial and not parlia-

mentary. (Crisis of December l85I ).(4) The dictatorial republic should be temporal and not spirit-

ual, in the sense of a complete freedom of exposition, and even ofdiscussion.

( 5 ) Decisive arrival of the systematic triumvirate, character-izing the temporal dictatorship which Positivism has announcedsince LB47 , as the preparatory government that will facilitate theorganic transition.t

This conception of the coup d'6tat as the step that would lead to thedictatorial '.systematicD republic, which in its turn would prepare the

2. Ibid., p. 199.3. This note is embodied in the text of Comte's letter to Tsar Nicolas f, of

December 2O, 1852. The letter is reprinted in the preface to vol. 3 of the SUstEme( 1853 ) .


final Occidental Republic of all Europe with Positivism as its state-religion and with Comte and his successors as the new High Priests-all that was too much for the liberals among Comte's followers. Fromthis time dates the distinction between the unconditional Po,sitivists and.the others whom Comte styled the "intellectual Positivists.?' Among theliberals who left the Soci1td Positiaiste in December, IB5I. was EmileLittr6. ft seems that to him is due more than to others the new attihrdeof loyally accepting the first part of Comte's work and of justifying therejection of the second part by the charge of mental derangement. fnhis biography of Comte, Littr6 undertook to *split" his subject, and ina later work he suggested that "the absurdities ( in Comte's late work )are more pathological than philosophical."n In support of the thesis, herecalled Comtets "crise cdrdbrale" of L826, which incapacitated him fortwo years, and the charge received publicity when Mme. Comte de-manded the annulment of the testament of the Grand-Pr|tre *because

of insanity of mind."As a matter of fact, Comte was about as sane as anybody. The fa-

mous ucrise cdr1brale" of 1826, as far as one can deterrrrine on thebasis of insufficient reports, seems to have been what today we wouldcall a *nervous breakdownrtt caused by the unfortunate coincidence ofruthless overwork and domestic troubles; the recovery seems to havebeen complete. The seceding liberals did not find any insan:ity in Comtebefore the "incomparable year." Considering this situation, it will beworthwhile to examine the diagnosis and to see at precisely what pointa man becomes insane in the eyes of a liberal, intellectual Positivist. Wefind the answer to this question in Littr6's biography of Comte, ir thechapter on "Retour d l6tat th6ologique." Littr6 first describes theunormaltt state of mind which is the t'positive' state. In this state thehuman mind conceives of phenomena as governed by immanent laws.There is no sense in addressing prayers to them or in adoring them.Man must approach them by intelligence; he must get acquainted withthem and submit to them in order to achieve by these means an in-creasing dominion over nature and over himself ,

uce qui est le tout de lacioilization.l'u This state of mind is the essential, mature state which isreached historically after the mind has passed through the nonessential,transitory, theological and metaphysical states. In his first period, Comtehas developed this theory of the mind and Littr6 accepts it fully. In his

4. See the preface of Emile Littr6, Augwte Cotnte et Io Pilosophie Positive(Pa4s' 1863), as well as his Auguste Comte et Stuart Mill, published first inthe Revue des deuc mondes ( 1866 ); later in book foryr, together with Wyrou-boPs Stuart Mill et la philosophie positioe (Paris, 1867).

5. Littr6, Auguste Comte, 2nd ed. ( 1864), p. 57O.

THE APOCALYPSE OF MAN: COMTE 1 3 9

second phase, however, Comte reverts to the theological type; he createsnew divinities and, what is worse, he creates a trinity of supreme gods.This leads us to suspect the Catholic influences of his early youth, andwe know that such influences, however quiescent they seem to havebecome, *sometimes will reawaken, not without force , &t the decline oflife.'* Moreover, this relapse into theologl, as into a kind of secondchildhood, is not an inconsequential weakness. The return to the theo-logical state is a matter of principle for Comte. When the mind hasreached the height of its evolution,'when its attitude toward phenomenahas become positive, then on Comtets view it must return to its fetish-istic beginnings and superimpose on the universe of laws a, world of"fictions" which give free expression to the affective and volitional partof the human soul. This part of Comte's philosophy is for the liberalLittr6 the great fall. The order of the mind can be preserved only if theaffective part is under the guidance of reason, for the "hearttt and ttlovet'

can generate heat but no light. And if it is accepted that the mindcannot do without the belief in divine entities, endowed with will andsentiments, then the whole system of positive philosophy comes crash-ing down. Positivism rests on the assumption that the theological andmetaphysical phases of the mind are transitory and not necessary. If,however, the return to the theological state is considered the end ofevolution and progress, if the mind is necessarily theological, then thestruggle against this necessity would be as foolish as the struggleagainst the laws which govern the phenomena of the external world.If the end is the return to the theological state, then we might as wellstay in the theological state in which we were before the advent ofPositivism. Moreover, if that is the end, how can such dty fictions asthose of Comte enter into competition "with the theology which ema-nates from the depth of history and is enhanced by the grandeur of itsinstitutions and rituals?ttt

The criterion of integral sanity is the acceptance of Positivism in itsfirst stage. The criteria of decadence or decline are ( I ) a faith intranscendental reality, whether it expresses itself in the Christian formor in that of a substitute religion, (2) the assumption that all humanfaculties have a legitimate urge for public expression in a civilization,and ( 3 ) the assumption that love can be a legitimate guiding principleof action, taking precedence before reason. This diagnosis of mentaldeficiency is of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated. It isnot the isolated diagnosis of Littr6; it is rather the tfpical attitude

6. Ibid.r p. 576.7. Ibid., p. 578,


toward the values of Western civilization which has conti:nued among

"intellectual positivists' from the time of Mill and Littr6 down to theneo-Positivistic schools of the Viennese type. Moreover, it; has not re-mained confined to the schools but has found popular acceptance tosuch a degree that this variant of Positivism is today one of the mostimportant mass movements. It is impossible to understand the grave-ness of the Western crisis unless we realize that the cultivation of valuesbeyond Littr6's formula of civilization as the dominion of man overnature and himself by means of science is considered by broad sectorsof Western society to be a kind of mental deficiency.

As far as the interpretation of Comte is concerned, it took a con-siderable time until the fable of his mental derangement was overcomeoutside the restricted circle of Comtean sectarians. The decisive publi-cation is the monograph by George Dumas on the Psycholagie de DeuxMessies.s Dumas does not burden himself with the problern of the twolives of Comte; Saint-Simon has only one, but in this one life he isquite capable of developing the same messianic characteristics as Comte.Dumas, furthermore, dispells the atmosphere of strangeness, whichdisturbed Littr6 and Mill, by placing the two prophets into the spiritualsituation of their time. The critique of the eighteenth century hadmined the prestige of Catholicism and monarchy; the Revolution hadmarked the end of a religious as well as of a political :r6gime. Thecontemporaries were too near to the catastrophe to see how much wasleft standing of the old civilization in spite of the general destruction.Thty believed that nothing survived, that the future had to be madeanew, and enthusiasts in great numbers felt the call tor preach themoral and political gospel for the new age. Saint-Simon was only thefirst of them, through his Lettres ilun habitant de GenEae of 1803,but he was soon followed by Fourier, Comte, d'Enfantin, Bazard and ahost of minor Saint-Simonians. *They took themselves seriously for menof destiny, marked by a fatal sign on their forehead.ro Saint-Simon er-titles himself the scientific pope of humanity and vicar of Clod on earth;he acts as the successor to Moses, Socrates and Christ and he ad,-monishes the princes to listen to the voice of God that speaks throughhis mouth. Enfantin divinizes Saint-Simon and sees himsetf in the roleof the new fsaac, new Jesus and new Gregory VII. Inr a letter toDuveyrier he writes: *When you believe to speak to Moses, Jesus andSaint-Simon, Bazard and I shall receive your words. Have you wellconsidered that Bazard and I have nobody above ourselvesi except Him

8. George flumas, Psgchologie de Deucc lllessies Positivilstes Saint-Simon etAuguste Comte (Paris, 1905).

9. Dumas, p. 2.

THE APOCALYPSE OF MAN: COMTE 141

who is always tranquil because He is eternal love.' Comte releasedin 1851 the "decisive" Proclamation by which he "took over" the leader-ship of the Western world: 'Tn the name of the past and the future, thetheoretical servants and the practical servants of Humanity assumebefittingly the general leadership of the affairs of the earth in order toconstruct, at last, the true providence, moral, intellectual and material;they irrevocably exclude from political supremacy all the various slavesof God, Catholics, Protestants, or Deists, since th.y are retrogrades aswell as perturbators."o Dumas, finally, draws attention to the greatmodel of the messianic figures on the historical scene as well as incontemporary literature, that is to Napoleon. His influence is visible, invarious degrees, in most of the historical and literary figures of thistype, and it is visible in particular in Comte. Not that Comte was hisfollower; on the contrary, he execrated him as the "retrograde genius.tBut Napoleon was nevertheless for Comte the concretization of themessiah, though of a rival messiah. The sentiment of rivalry was sointense that Comte considered it one of the foremost symbolic acts ofthe coming Occidental Republic to destroy the monument on the PlaceVend0me and to replace it by a monument for the true founder of theOccident whose work Comte wanted to continu€, that is of Charle-magne.tt Saint-Simon and Comte, thus, were no more extravagant orstrange than any number of their contemporaries. Thty were twoinstances of a species "that was rather widespread between 1800 and1848 and of which one cannot say that it ever disappears completely,although in the great social revolutions it will without doubt find theoccasion and the special reasons for its development.t*

The work of Dumas has disposed of Comte's mental derangement.The disposal leads us back to the problem of Littr6. If there was nodecline in Comte's later years, if as a messiah he was a typical figure,one of many in his ege, the question arises: What actually did h"p-pen? Did anything happen at all? Or did not perhaps the nsecond" life,in spite of the "incomparable year,' quite intelligibly continue the"first" one? And is not the great break perhaps an invention of Littr6's?

IO. T'he text of the Comtean Proclamation is reprinted on the first page of theCatdchisme Positiaiste (Paris, 1852), as well as in the Systdme, 4, pp. 532f,.For the other sources see the preface of Dumas.

11. For Comte's evaluation of Napoleon see his long characteristic in theCoursr 6, pp. 315ff. (All page references to the Cours are to the third edition.)The passage on the destruction of Napoleon's monument is in SystEme, 4, pp.397ff. The suggestion in Dumas, p. 5, that Comte wanted to replace the monu-ment of Napoleon by his own, must be due to a misreading of Comtets text.

12. Dumas, p. 6. See also J. L. Talmon, Palitical Messi,anisrn: The RomanticPha^se (New York, 1960).


We shall have to deal with the problem of continuity in Comte's life

presently but for the moment we shall anticipate the result and statethat there was no break in continuity. The messianism of Comte is nota second phase in his life; it is present from the beginnitg, that is fromapproximately 1820. The idea of the new pouuoir spirituel of whichhe will be the founder is fully developed by L822. If anything is char-acteristic of Comte's life it is the peculiar "plan" which it :follows fromthe mid-twenties to his death in 1857. Moreover, this "plan,t'as weshall see, was no secret, since several times in the course of its gradualrealization it was published in print for everybody to read. The greattheoretical work, the Cours, was never intended as anything but thebasis for the later religious work, and anyone who cared to informhimself could know it.

If we realize this situation clearly, the withdrawal of Littr6, as wellas the indignation of Mill, appear in a new light. For the interpretationof this phenomenon, Dumas has given the clue. The contemporaries ofthe great revolutionary upheaval were too near to the catastrophe to seehow much of the old structure of sentiments and institutirons was leftstanding. Hence the crowdirg of the prophets and messiahis of the newage. By the middle of the century, in spite of unpleasant reminders thatall might not be well (such as the revolutions of fB30 arrd IB48 andthe coup d1tat of Louis Napoldon ) , the structure of the liberal bour-geois society begins to emerge with the appearance of stability. Comteis a late comer. His messianism reaches in its origins into the un-settlement of the Revolution and it comes to its full flowering preciselyat the opening of the temporary stabilization of the Western crisis inthe second half of the nineteenth century.tt That part of Comtets theo-retical work that serves the destruction of the ancien r|gime, that at-tacks Christianity and establishes the scientistic creed, is ilcceptable tothe generation of the mid-century; th€i part that serves the foundationof the new religion and the institutionalization of a new srociety is un-acceptable to the liberals who feel comfortable precisely in the frag-mentary civilization which Littr6 has so succinctly formullted as to itssubstance and which he calls "le tout de la civilization.'We have heard,furtherrnore, Littr6's heart-felt complaint: for what purpose have wedestroyed the unreasonable, nonpragmatic values of Western civiliza-tion, if now we must cultivate the same type of values ag;ain in a notso glorious imitation?

13. This is the thesis which Henri Gouhier develops in his La Jeunessed'Augwte Comte et Ia Formation du Positivisrnet in the introduction to vol. 1:Soas le signe de la libertd (Paris, 1933).

THE APOCALYPSE OF MAN: COMTE r43

A diagnosis of Littr€s liberalism

In this conflict between Comte and Littr6, we can luy our finger onthe principal structural problem of the Western crisis. Its structure isthat of a gradual decomposition of civilizational values, consummatedhistorically by repeated upheavals which destroy, or intend to destroy,the social bearers of the condemned values. Between the upheavals wefind periods of stabilization at the respective levels of destruction. Theattitudes toward this structure of the crisis may differ. In the case ofComte we see the great, intramundane eschatologist who underesti-mates the length of time which such a process of destruction needs, whoanticipates its end, and who t'planstt the new age. On the other side wesee the liberal Littr6 who is satisfied by the amount of destructionworked up to this point and who is ready to settle down in the ruins.The two types are brothers under the skin though the virtues and vicesare variously distributed among them. The Comtean type is vitiated bythe megalomania that an individual man can grasp and "plano thecourse of history and impose his *plantt on mankind. He is distin-guished, however, from the other type by his profound insight into thenature and dimensions of the crisis. He knows that destruction is notan end in itself but the prelude to regeneration, and when he attacksthe spiritual authority of the Church he does it in order to replace it bythe church that lives by his own spiritual authority. Littr6's typerepresents the peculiar mixture of destructiveness and. conservatismthat is an important component in the complex of sentiments and ideaswhich we call "liberal." He is willing to participate in revolution untilcivilization is destroyed to the point which corresponds to his ownfragmentary personuiity. He is not literate enough io understand thatChristianity is one thing, and the corruption of a Church quite another;hence, he is ready to eliminate Christianity from history because, quiteunderstandably, he does not like the state of the Church. He is notintelligent enough to understand the problem of the institutionalizationof the_ spirit. Since he lives in the illusion that one can ruin the prestigeof a Church or abolish it, and that then matters will be settled, he 1sgreatly surprised and frightened when a new variant of the spirit raisesits head, one that he likes even less than Christianity, and clamorsfor institutionalization in place of the Church of which he has just gotrid. He cannot understand these problemS, because as a man he has notsubstance enough to be sensitive to spiritual problems and to cope withthem adgguatelY. On the other hand, he is only a mild megalomaniac;he certainly believes that this is the best of all worlds when it is ruined


enough to correspond to his limitations, but at least he does not believethat he is a demiurge who can form men in his image. On the contrary,there is left in him from the Christian and humanistic periods a certainself+espect and respect for the personality of others, a sturdy sense ofindependence which distinguishes French republicanism in its goodperiod, before it was finally broken by the mob hystericsr during theDreyfus affair. By virtue of these qualities, the liberal of this type ishighly sensitive to movements which are apt to endanger his inde-pendence economically or politically. Since the process of decompositiondoes not stop, he is pressed more and more into a conservaltive position,until, in our time, the few survivirg specimens of ther genus arelabelled as reactionary. The break of Littr6 with Comte is due to hisfright in face of the dictatorial spectre, though he was blind to the innerlogic of Comtets movement from t'intellectual Positivism" to its religiousform. In spite of our weighirg of virtues and vices there is not muchto choose 6etween them. Tft. Iiberal Positivist red.uces the meaning ofhumanity to the dominion, by science, over nature ancl man, andthereby deprives man of his spiritual life and freedom; thre dictatorialeschatologist collects the castrates and grafts his own spirit on them.The one plays into the hands of the other and through their interplrythe crisis goes its accelerating course.

We have stressed that Comte never made a secret of his plan. If acontemporary did not have enough imagination to visualize the endtoward which theoretical Positivism must lead, he could inl[orm himselfabout the continuity of Comte's intention and about the aim towardwhich it was moving from the ample expositions of Comte lhimself. Theenigmatic element in this situation receives some light from a passagein Gouhierts treatise on Comte, where the author deals with the strangeblindness. As Gouhier points out: "ft is easy for the independent his-torian to believe in the unity of Comte's thought; that does not obligehim to anything. He must place himself, however, in thr: position ofLittr6 and Professor Ch. Robin, before he says that they have notunderstood or, as certain positivists have suggested, that they were notinterested to understand. For them, let us not forget, it was a questionof conceding to a high priest the right to marry them and to baptizetheir infants; they ran the risk of being appointed triumvirs and, onoccasion of their funeral, to be judged in public with an outspokennessof which the unfortunate Blainville had experienced the severity, thoughhe was associated with Lamarck in the new calendar. 'lfhat the tin-

tellectual positivists', as Comte said, have mutilated tl[e authenticdoctrine, is certain; our historical reconstruction of the system, howevercorrect it may b., does not authorize us, however, to neg;lect the factthat, beginning from a certain moment, eminent and since,re men have

THE APOCALYPSE OF MAN: COMTE L45

no longer recognized the philosophy which study and their life hadrendered them familiar.t"n Gouhier has touched the decisive point: the"eminent and sincere mentt are willing to accept Positivism as long as itis an irresponsible intellectual attitude but they no longer recognize itwhen the necessity for order in their lives obliges them to practice itsprinciples in every d*y life. Gouhier's book was published in 1933.A few years later, he might have recognwed in the "eminent andsincere men" the forerunners of the good Germans who got emotionallydrunk on the harangues of the savior as long as their intellectual stupordid not oblige them to anythin$, and who shrank back in horror whenthe program, about which they were perfectly well informed, wastranslated into political action. Littr6 and his contemporaries had thegood fortune to live at a time when they could withdraw when thecrucial moment came; their modern successors could barely murrnur"so haben wir es nicht gemeint" before they were caught and silencedby the machinery of the new Golden Age.

The continuity in the life of Comte

The question of continuity in Comte's ideas, thus, has dissolved intothe question of the split between integral Positivists and intellectualPositivists. A generation later, when the animosities among the livinghad died, agreement on the continuity is achieved.. The work of L6vy-Bruhl on Comte is representative of the new atmosphere.tu Nevertheless,with this agreement we have not reached the end of the affair. Weremember that the seceding intellectuals could support their charges byComte's own insistence on the great incision of 1845. Hence the lovefor Clotilde de Vaux and the bearing which it had on the developmentof Comte needs some clarification. Moreover, the word *continuity't

raises a question rather than answering one. As a matter of fact, thequestion of what precisely the continuous element in the various phasesof Comtets work consists turns out to be rather thorny. fn endeavoringto answer this question we receive considerable help from the studieson Comte by Gouhier and Ducass6, but even these studies, rnasterfulas they are, can hardly be the last word, for they are inclined to neglectwhat is most important, that it, the character of Comte as an intra-mundane eschatologist.tu

14. Henri Gouhier, op. cit., I, p. 26.15. L. L6vy-Bruhl, La Philosaphie dtAuguste Comte (Paris, lgOO ) . For

further literature that represents the new attitude see Gouhier, op. cit., l, p. ZO.16. Henri Gouhier, La Jeunesse ilAuguste Comte et la Forhation d,u' Posi-

tivisme, 3 vols.: vol. 1, op: cit., vol. 2, Saint-Simon jusqu'd Ia restauration (Paris,1936 ) r vol 3r Auguste Camte et Saint-Simon ( Paris, 1941 ) . Pierre Ducass6,

146 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO N:EVOLUTION

We shall approach the problem through the intellec:tual autobi-ography which Comte has given, under the title Prdface Pe'rsonnelle, inthe last volume of the Cours. The story is somewhat stylised but sub-stantially correct. Comte came from a family of southern France,strongly Catholic and monarchical. He received his first education inone of the lyc1es which Napoleon had created for the restoration of theold "theologico-metaphysical' educational r6gime. At the age of four-teen he had already gone through the essential phases oli the revolu-tionary spirit and had experienced the need for a'trniversal regenera-tion" that would be both philosophical and political,, The latereducation at the Ecole Polytechnique made him see the only intellectualpath that would lead to this '6great renovation": the metho,ils of sciencewhich are used in mathematics and physics must be applied not onlyto inorganic phenomena but to organic and social phenomena as well.During the period in which he acquired a knowledge of biology andhistory, the idea of the true "encyclopedic hierar.hy" of the sciencesbegan to develop. And at the same time there was growin,g in him theinstinct of a "final harmonyt' between his intellectual ilnd politicaltendencies. These beginnings, which were influenced by Condorcet,were thrown into some confusion, on leaving the Ecole, through hisassociation with Saint-Simon. The older man had also unrderstood theneed for a ttsocial regenerationtt based on a *mental rerlrov&tiontt andthis coincidence had a disturbing influence because it interrupted thephilosophical work of Comte and turned his interests towarril a regenera-tion through "futile attempts at direct political action.' By' L822, how-ever, he had recovered his equilibrium, and at the age ol' twenty-fourhe made the fundamental discovery of the law of the three phaseswhich produced in him the "true mental and even social unity." Sucha ttphilosophical harmoilI,tt however, could not be truly '(constitutedtt

before the actual elaboration of the new positive philosophy. In 1842,this task is finished and the reader now has in his hands the "finalsystem atization" of this philosophy that had been in formation sinceDescartes and Bacon.

In the closing pages of the PrEf ace Personnelle, Comte reveals somedetails of the technique which he employed in the conscious "operation"of producing his own *unity.' He reflects that the phlilosophers ofantiquity were in a more favorable position than the moderns becausetheir 'tneditation" was not disturbed by reading vast quantities ofliterature; perrnanent irritation through reading affects the "originality"

M*thode et intuition chez Augwte Comte (Paris, 1939); Essai sur les originesintuitives du positivisme (Paris, 1939); La m4thode positive et llintuition com-tienne, Bibliogra.Phie ( Paris, 1939 ) .


of a meditation as well as its "homogeneity." Comte protected himselfagainst this disturbance in the following manner. In his early youth heamassed the materials which seemed to him necessary for his greatplan of founding the final positive philosophy and "for the last twentyyears" ( this date would carry us back to the great discovery of L822)he had imposed on himself a hygiine c1r|brale. In order not to confusethe "esprit fondamenta|' of his work, he denied himself the reading ofany literature which had a bearirg on the subject-matter on which hewas working. When he approached the second part of the Cours, thatis the volumes on sociology, he went further and stopped reading anyphilosophical and political periodicals, dailies or monthlies. With regardto the sociological volumes, moreover, he reduced his preparatory read-ing and he prides himself on never having read Vico, Kant, Herder orHegel in any language, though he is willing now to learn German inorder to compare his "new mental unitytt with the German systematicefforts. To this hygiEne he attributes the "precision, energy and con-sistencytt of his conceptions.

At the end of volume 6 of the Cours, finally, Comte views in retro-spect what has happened during the "operationD of writing the sixvolumes. The Cours resumes "the philosophical impulse of Bacon andDescartes." This impulse was exhausted with the preliminaries of creat-ing the inorganic sciences in the spirit of '(rational positivity." Throughthe Revolution, the human mind was compelled to face the problem of*final renovation" in this spirit. At first this problem was only seen in aconfused manner but now we know that a ttsituation without precedentDrequired "philosophical intervention" in order to dispel imminent an-archy and to transform the revolutionary agitation into organic activity.The Cours is this philosophic intervention in the troubles of the age. Itis not, however, *direct actiont' in the Saint-Simonian sense; rather, it isthe concrete process in which a mants intelligence reproduces "person-ally" the principal successive phases of modern mental evolution. As aconsequence, the intelligence of Comte has disengaged itself at the endof this work completely from metaphysics and theology and arrived atthe "full positive state." And by virtue of this substantial transformationit will now hopefully exert such a fascination on all energetic thinkersas will induce them to collaborate with him in the syst?matisation finalede la raison moderne. The ttspontaneous reproduction,D in the sense ofDescartes, of modern evolution in the Cours which has elevated thereader and himself to the "positive state," must now be followed bythe detailed elaboration of the various sciences in the spirit of the *new

philosophical unity.' This explanation is followed by the enumerationof the works through which he will participate in the systematization.

148 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R|.EVOLUTION

The most important of these works will be the Philosophie Politique,projected as a treatise of four volumes. Since the present Cours hasculminated in the "universal mental preponderance" of the social pointof view, conceived logically and scientifically, one cannot cooperatebetter toward. the "final installationD of the new philosophy than byelaborating the *normal statett of the corresponding politir:al science.tt

The phases in Comte)s worh

The self-interpretation of L842 can be corroborated b)r later utter-ances of Comte; we shall confine ourselves, however, to the presentsummary as the basis for further discussion because the autobiographyof the Cours lies before the critical year 1845 and hence cannot besuspected of hindsight with regard to the problem of conrtinuity. Theforegoirg passages cast light on several aspects of this prroblem. Weshall consider them successively. The first will be the sequence of thephases of Comtets work that emerges from his own account.

The first phase is the period of the initial intuition, centering in the*great discovery" of 1822. The works of this period vi'hich in theopinion of Comte merited permanent attention were republished by himas the Appendice Gdndral of Volume 4 of the Systdme. Besides twominor works, this appendix contains the Plan de travaux scientifiquesndcessaires pour reorgeniser la soci6t6. This is the work of L822 inwhich Comte developed the law of the three phases. It wasi republishedin L824 under the title Sgstdme de politique positive. Connte appropri-ated this title later for his second main work, and assigned to the minorwork the new title in the appendix. The Plan is followed by the Con-siddrations philosophiques su,r les sciences et les sm:ants (1825) andthe Considdrations sur le powoir spirituel (1826). These three workstogether contain, indeed, &s Comte maintained, the subsitance of hisIater elaboration. The second phase is the period in v,'hich Comteelaborates his positive theory, first orally, then in literary form. Theresult is the Cours de Philosophie Positiae, published IESO-4?. Thethird phase is that of the Occidental Republic and the writings whichinstitute its religion and its spiritual power. The main work is theSystEme de Politique Positive, 1851-54. Other writings which are ofspecific importance for the history of political ideas are the Discourssur Pensemble du positraisme (1848), later incorporated as DiscoursPrdliminaire in Volume I of the Systdme; the Appel au, public occi-dental (f 8AB); the manifesto for the Positivist Society (1848): Le

L7. Coursr 6, pp. 6-9, 34-35, 765-77L.

THE APOCALYPSE OF MAN: COMTE I49

Fondateur de la Socieft positiuiste, d. quiconque ddsire s'A incorporerlsthe Calendrier positiaiste of 1849;1e the Cat1chisme Positiuiste, ouSommaire exposition de la religion uniaerselle en onze entretienssyst1matiques entre une femme et un pr?tre de PHumanitd (1852);and, finally, the Appel au conseruateurs (1S55), destined to fulfill forthe Occidental statesmen the function which the Cathdchisme fulfillsfor "proletarians and women.tt The fourth and last phase we may callthat of the Global Republic. The main work of this period is theSynthEse Subiective, ou Systdme untaersel des conceptions propres Al'6tat norrnal de fHumanit|. Of this work only the first volume,,systEmede Logique Positiae, ou Trait| de philosophie mathdmatique ( 1856 ),was published. In L857 Comte died. This last work is written alreadywithin the new age and it is destined for use by the educational au-thorities of the new republic.* The work was planned in three parts.The first part, the only one published, contains the philosophy ofmathematics, the second part was to contain the Systdme de MoralePositive, the last part was to be the SystEme dlndustrie Positiae. Wehave designated this last phase as that of the Global Republic becausein the 1850's Comte's imagination began to range beyond the OccidentalRepublic and to include the non-Western civilizations into his gteatplan. The documents for this final development are the letter A SaMajestd le tzar Nicolas (December 2O, 1852) and the letter A SonExcellence Reschid-Pascha, ancien grand vizir de l'Empire Ottoman(February 4, 1853), which must be considered as diplomatic ap-proaches for a federation of Russia and the Islamic world with theOccidental Republic.o In the Sgnthdse, finally, w€ find indications thatthe religious system of the Republic was to be enlarged in such a man-ner that it could absorb African and Chinese forms of religiousness.

Meditation and personal renouation

The phases of Comte's work are no more than the skeleton of hismental development. Even the brief characterization of this skeletotr,

18. Reprinted in Robinet, Notice sur l'oeunre et srrr la pie d'|Auguste Comte(Paris, 1860), pp. 44L448.

19. The Calendrier experienced several editions and revisions; the final formpublished by Comte is to be found in vol. 4 of the Sgstdme; a last form, in-corporatitg- ms. corrections of Comte, is attached to the No tice of Robineto p. 448.

2O. Sgnthdse, t?r6face du tome premierrtt p. vii: ttsuivant cette destination, cetome est directement ecrit pour -dgt maitrei synthEtiques dirigeant des 6lives.sJnth6tiq"9:, dans les 6colei positives normalement annex6"s

"ao* temples de

ItHumanitd.tt21. The texts of these letters are reprinted in the preface of vol. 3 of the

Sgst}me.

t50 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

however, confirms the interpretation which Comte himself has put onthe process of his meditation. Let us turn now to this proce$s itself. Theworks of Comte are not simply a series of treatises on various subjecttnatters. They are connected with each other as the ttelabonationtt of aninitial "intuition." Moreover, elaboration is not the systemal;ic amplifica-tion of a "good idea,t' or the carrying out of a "project.t While the termt'elaborationtt certainly contains the element of conscious direction or ofa oplan,tt this *operationtt is conceived as the ttrenovationtt of a person,ur its substantiai transformation to the point where it has reached thestate of "positive rationality.t' The initial intuition is the '"risionary an-ticipation of this final state and the meditative process ( which precipi-tates in the literary work ) is the means by which this state is reached.The insight into the character of the work as a precipitate of a medita-tion is the first requirement for understanding Comte's per:uliar modusoperandi. The encyclopedic survey of the sciences from mathematicsto sociology in the Cours is not meant as an introduction to these sci-ences. It is meant, first, as the disengagement of the positive methodfrom the actual state of the sciences in which it was previously €fir-ployed, secondly, as the extension of this method to the science of manin society ( which for this purpose had to be ueated ) and thirdly, bymeans of this extension to clarify the true place of man in society insuch a manner that in the thinker who has engaged in this meditationthere will be created the disposition toward *a way of life' in conformitywith this insight. Since the meditation is a spiritual practic,e, and not atall primarily a scientific exploration of the world, the quesrtion whetherComtets Cours renders faithfully the actual state of science, or thequestion of obsolescence, cannot legitimately be raised. Comte defendshimself in the Pr1face Personnelle against criticisms of tlhis kind pre-cisely by the argument that the changing state of science has no bearingon the spirit which characterizes the positive method. The famoushygi1ne cdr€brale, which aroused Mill is therefore entirel'f appropriateto Comtets ttoperationtt: once the initial orientation and vision are given,the accumulation of new materials and the opinions of others can onlydisturb a process of which the end is known at the beginning.'

22. Tbe problem is well formulated by Pierre Ducass6 in hris Mdthode etintuition chez Auguste Comte (Paris, 1939), p. 2L: "L'ascEse encyclop6diquene consiste pas e juxtaposer des faits ni m6me des proc6d6s de raisonnement.C'est la contr6le, par la filitsre des contraintes rationnelles, d'une intuition di-rectement unifiante. L'appel aux m6thodes de la science ne sarurait donc passimuler, pil leur appareil objectif, une unit6 fictive; cacher, sours I'impartialit6apparente des attitudes abstraites, une determinante prdoccupation subjectiveindiff6rente aux contradictions exp6rimentales. Car I'unit6 v6ritable, celle quiimpose la loi de sa sinc6rit6, est ant6rieure et d'un autre ordre. C'est essentiefie-ment la volont6 d'objectiver complErnent un sch6ma de liason."

THE APOCALYPSE OF MAN: COMTE r5r

Intensention and social re generation

Thus far we have considered the meditative process only in thesolitary existence of the thinker. The Comtean operation, however,gains a further dimension through the relation between personal ttreno-

vationt and social ttregeneration.tt We have seen that Comte char-acterized the state which the "great discovery" produced in him as astate of 'tnental and even social unity." The personal intuition has theconsequence of integrating the thinker into society because the law ofthe three phases is a law of personal evolution as well as of social evolu-tion. If we use a later biological terminology, we may say that the lawis valid for the ontogenesis as well as for the phylogenesis. Comtepasses from the early Catholicism of his home, through the revolution-ary spirit of eighteenth century metaphysics, to the positive intuitiotr,and correspondingly mankind passes from the theological, through themetaphysiial, to the positivisiic stage. The conver[.n.. of th; twoevolutions, however, is not automatic. Mankind does not pass fromcontemporary anarchy to the positive order without a personal effort.The social regeneration requires an active, personal intervention. A manof vision must come and realize the meaning of the critical epoch. Hemust produce in himself the transition to the positive state and throughthe fascination of his personal renovation inspire the regeneration ofmankind. Correspondingly, his spiritual authority in this social opera-tion will derive from the fact that the transformation which he producesin himself personally is the very transformation which it is the destinyof mankind to undergo at this crucial hour of its history. The man whoinitiates the social regeneration through his personal renovation thus be-comes the chosen instrument by means of which the esprit humainoperates its own progress to the new and final level of positive order.

The interlocking of the personal and the social processes in the onehistorical movement of mankind sometimes assumes curious forrns inthe routine of daily life. In the Prdface Personnelle, Comte explains thereasons why volume 2 of the Cours appeared only in 1834, that is fouryears after the publication of the first volume, though it had been pro-jected for a much earlier date. The reason was the upheaval of 1830which compelled Comte to find a new publisher. The point is that thedelay was not due to the fact that a finished manuscript could not go topress but that Comte would not even start to write the second volumebefore he had the guarantee that it would be printed as soon as he hadfinished the last sentence. *My nature and my habits,' he tells us, madeit impossible ever to write a book *unless it is written in view of im-


mediate publication.tt The personal meditative process ha.s to streamover immediately into the social process of regeneration. This is notan accidental trait in Comte's character; it is a fundarnental trait in hisstyle of communication. It accounts for the interminable length ofsentences, paragraphs, chapters and volumes which is not necessitatedby the requirement of clear presentation of the subject matter, but bythe desire for relentless communication of every intellectual shade ofthe precious meditation. It accounts in particular for the monomanicuse of adjectives and adverbs which characterize and quarlify nothingbut incessantly convey the sense of fatality of the urgent operation inwhich the author is engaged and in which the reader through hisperusal is supposed to participate. These are "les adaerbes, les innom-brables, les assonmants adaerbesl|23 such as assurdment, r,adicalement,ddcisivement, sQontandment, pleinement, directement, suffisament,n€cessairement, irc?aocablement, certainement, exclusivement, princi-palement, irresistiblement, and so forth. These adverbs ( of which wehave gr'ven the crop of two pages ) , a corresponding series of adjectives,and the deadly host of adverbial appositions, swamp the nucleus ofmeaning so effectively that only with a continuous effort can it bedisengaged from the steady stream of words. This does not mean thatComte's writing is confused; on the contrary, the construrction of thesentences is logically and grammatically impeccable, and the organiza-tion of the subject matter is superbly clear. Comte's style is a phe-nomenon sui generis for which Ducass6 has found the formula of acomplete explicitation of the meditative existence of the thinker. Noth-itg remains unsaid.; every nook and corner of Comtets thought, everyswerve and every side path of this priceless operation must be com-municated to the public.

Comte seems to have been a man without privacy. His style is onlyone symptom of the conscious and radical transformation of his personallife into a part of the public, historical life of mankind. Nrcthing is toointimate to escape this monumentalization. The details of his relationwith Clotilde de Vaux, the most intimate movements of h:is soul, havebeen spread before the public in a manner that could not be calledanything but tactless and repulsive, unless this publicity is understoodas the eternal embodiment into the memory of mankind of a spiritualevent that is of greater importance than the birth of Christ. Theprinciple of "Vivre au grand iour" does not respect even the dignity ofdeath. Those who have entered into the body of positive mankind live

23. Alphonse Aulard, Etudes et legons sur la Reaolution Francaise, SecondeSdrie ( Paris, 1902 ) , p. 11 in the study "Auguste Comte et la Rdvolutionfrangaise.tt


in it forever "subjectively't in commemoration. This memory of man-kind must be both public and just; hence it is incumbent on the HighPriest of Humanity to fix the just image of the deceased forever, anawhat occasion could be more fit for fixing this image than a speech atthe grave? In fulfillment of this obligation, Comte delivered a host in-sulting appreciation of Blainville on the occasion of his funeral. He wasnot in the least abashed by the scandal which he created. He reprintedthe speech in the apPendix to volume I of the Systdme and he even

{de{ a postscript in which he reports how various public dignitariesleft the ceremony when Comte disturbed it by his outrageous per-formance: t'fn order to understand this discourse better, one must notethat its opening determined the brusque departure of all the officialrePresentatives of the various decadent classes, both theological andacademic. That the field was left in this manner to the espriis positifsindicates sufficiently where the reputation of Blainville will find itspermanent home.'nn

Let us, findly, record the monumentalization of troubles and triviali-ties of his personal life. A man of this character, as one can imagine,does not fit too well into social institutions and public functions. Theprofessorship which he expected as his due never materialized and hewas finally discharged even of his secondary functions. The details ofthis struggle with the educational authorities again were communicatedto the public in long hagiographic accounts. And when Comte wasultimately without an income, he solved the problem by public sub-scriptions from Positivists sectarians. He issued annual itbudget mes-sages" to the subscribers in which he formulated his requirernents forthe coming year and accounted for the expenditures of the revenuereceived during the last year. These Circulaires were also communicated

in qlnt because they were public documents in which the High Priest,besides the _budget of the sacerdotal power, also reported tht progresswhich the Church had made in the spreading of membership

-*d ad-

rninistration of sacraments during the past year as well as ttte projectsfor the future.'E The monumentalizing, hagiographic obsession goes tosuch extremes that we are informed about the relation betwJen themeditative Progress of Comte and his consumption of stimulants. Onthe occasion of the crisis of I 826 he gave up to6acco, on the occasion ofaminor crisis in 1838 he gave up coffee, and on the occasion of Clotilde

24. SgstEme, l, p. 746.25. Some of the Circulaires can be found in the volumes of the SEstEme. A

cSmpleje .collection is. Siven b;r R-obinet in his Notice, pp. 4OL-526. -Th;t

;;the -prin-cipal source foi the development of the Comieii cult to the de"th ofits founder.


de Var.rx he gave up wine-a sacrifice which reduced materially his

personal expenditures, as he assured the subscribers in the Circulaires.If he had survived his death, he certainly would have informed man-kind that now he had given up everything. As a matter of :[act, even indeath he did not give up everything for through his Testarnent he tookcare at least of his "subjective' survival. His apartment ( 10, rueMonsieur-le-Prince ) wilt be the Holy See of the Religion of Humanity.It will belong to the successor in the pontificate on the sarne conditionsas it belonged to Comte: that its content, and everything that will beadded to it, will belong to the future pontiffs in the succession. Only oneexception is made. The successor must respect all the reliques of Clotildede Vaux as belongirg to the sacred treasure of the universal Church.Particular veneration is due to *the red chair, enveloped in a greencover, and marked on its front board with *y initials in recl wax." Thisis the chair on which Clotilde de Vaux has sat during her sacred visitson Wednesdays. ttl have erected it, even during her life-time, and stillmore so after her death, into a domestic altar; I have ne\rer sat on itexcept for religious ceremonies.tt It must serve no other fun,ction so longas it lasts.'u

The diuinizntion of utoman

What influence did the relation with Clotilde de Vaux have on thedevelopment of Comte's ideas? While the relationship did not influencethe theoretical content of Comte's philosophy it strongly affectedComte's aie sentimentale. The daily prayers which Comte ofrered toClotilde are illustrative. In the Pridre du Matin we find Comte saying:

"It is only you, my saint Clotilde, to whom I am obliged t"hat I do notleave this life without having experienced the best emotions of humannature. An incomparable year made spontaneously surge up the onlylove, pure and profound, that was destined for me. The excellence ofthe adored being allows me in my maturi,y, more favored than my

youth, to glimpse in all its fullness true human felicity ", Vivre pour

a.ntrtr,i."'7 In the Commdmoration Gdndrale, which comprises a Repue

Chronologique de tous nos souvenirs essentiels d'aprEs les passages

correspondants de nos lettres, w€ find, under the hea,iling Uniond|finitn,e, the quotation: "In order to become a perfect philosopher Ineeded a passion, profound and pure, that would make me aPpreciatethe affective part of human nature.t' The letter from which this Passageis taken continues: "fts explicit consideration, no more than implied in

26.Testament ilAuguste Comter 2nd ed. (Paris, 1896)' P. 19"27. PriEres Quotidiennes, reprinted in the Testament, 2nd, ed., pp. 8lff.


my first great work, will now dominate my second one. This finalevolution, even more indispensable for me today than eight or ten yearsago, was the decisive upsurge of my aesthetic tastes.tzs The PriEre duSoir continues this reflectiont "By virtue of your powerful invocation,the most painful crisis of my intimate life has finally improved me inevery respect, for I was able, though I was alone, to develop the sacredseeds of which the belated but decisive evolution I owe to you. The ageof private passions had terminated for me. . . . From then on I sur-rendered myself exclusively to the eminent passion which, since myadolescence, has consecrated my life to the fundamental service ofHumanity. . . The systematic preponderance of universal love,gradually emanating from my philosophl, would not have become suf-ficiently familiar to me without you, in spite of the hupPy preparationwhich resulted from the spontaneous upsurge of my aesthetic tastes.tt

"LInder your various images, in spite of the catastrophe, yol will alwaysrecall to me that my final situation surpasses everythitg I could havehoped for, or even dreamt of, before you. The more this harmony with-out example between my private and my public life develops (which

I owe to you ) , the more you incorporate yourself, in the eyes of my truedisciples, into every mode of my existence.t'

Without the transformation of the affective life of Comte through

Clotilde there would have been a positive political theory which wouldhave even postulated the preponderance of sentiment over intellect, butthe faith would have lacked its existential concreteness. The religious-ness of Comte that was released through the experience of f 845 hascertain characteristics which merit attention. The concrete unity ofComte's existence is reached through the incorporation of Clotilde Sntoevery mode of his existence.tt Comtets love, for which he has inventedthe term altruism, is not an arnor Dei that would orient the soul towardtranscendental reality. The place of God has been taken by social en-tities ( by family, country and mankind ) and more particularly bywoman as the integrating, harmonizing principle. Woman in generaland Clotilde concretely as the representative of the principle has becomethe unifying power for the soul of man; hence the cult of Clotilde is anessential part of the Comtean religious foundation. In the PriEres wefind a section A genoux deuant lautel recouaert (that is, the famous redchair ) , with the followitg litany:

(A mon €ternelle comPagne) . .Amem te plus quam ffi€, nec me nisi propter te!

28.Letter of March 11, 1846' Testament, p- 551.


(A fHumanitd dans son temple, devant son.grand autel)Amem te plus quam h€, nec me nisi propter te!

(A ma noble patronne, comme personnifiant ltHumarritd)Vergine-madre, Figlia del tuo figli.o,Amem te plus quam ffi€, nec me nisi propter te!

Tre dolci nome hat in te raccoltiSposa, madre, e figliuola!

( Petrarca )

To the new uergine-madre is transferred the Christian A'mern te plusqua.rn ffi€t nec me nisi propter te!

The historicity of the mind

The pages of the Discours Prdliminaire reveal Comte's conceptionof the historicity of the mind. The mind has a constant intellectual-affective structure. The possibility and necessity of historical evolutionenters this structure because the two component factors rc&r stand invarious relations to each other. The history of the mind begins withan excessive preponderance of the affective and volitional life. Thispreponderant experience is projected into the environment and theevents in nature are interpreted as actions which emanate from entitiesendowed with a will and affects. The evolution of the intellect is sec-ondary. It has an ttinsunectionaltt aspect because its function is to dis-solve the false interpretation of the world that has been created by theaffective component. Nevertheless, the volitional and afl:ective inter-pretation is not altogether false. Once the domain of the intellect hasbeen extended far enough to bring the order of the universe, and theplace of man in it, into full view, the "insurrectional" furrction of theintellect must come to an end. The terminal point for the expansion ofthe intellect is reached when all sciences of the world content, that isthe inorganic, organic and social sciences, are fully del'eloped. Thelaws which govern this world are all that man can knorv and oughtto know. Once he has become acquainted with this ordler, he mustsubmit to it. He must fit his life into it and embrace it with affection.The advancement of science abolishes the excesses of the theologicalstate but it does not abolish religiousness and the affective, life. On thecontraryr without the guidance of the affections the worl< of intellectwould be aimless. The supreme affection of altruism :must be theguiding principle of social life, providitg the aims; the function ofscience can only be the increasing knowledge of the means by whichthe aims can be realized. Ducass6 remarks rightly: *W,e must com-pletely reverse the pejorative appreciation that is sometinnes extended


to the utilitarianism of Comte. If we charge the word 'utility' with itstrue affective, spirituallst and charitable intentions, we must say: Pre-cisely because of the immediate connection which it institutes betweenthe experience of mathematical invention and the exigencies of charity( that is of the desire of spiritual utility among men ) , is the Comteanform of inspiration new and superior.De Comte has compressed theseprinciples of the constitution of the mind in the formula: uL'Amour

pour principe et l'Ordre pour base, le Progres pour bu,t.n In his lastwork, the Synthiserhe expresses the subordination of the intellect to theheart in the Christian formula: "Omnis ratio, et naturalis inaestigatio

fidem sequi, debet, non precedere, nec infringere.nNevertheless, the Christian assonances, the magic of zuch words as

ttcharityrtt t'lovertt ttspiritualitytt and ufaith" must not deceive us. WhenDucassd stresses the spirituality of Comte's utilitarianism, ht certainlyis right; but such spirituality is not at all reassuring. A consistentutilitarian who believes that the problems of life are solved when thestandard of living is rising is a comparatively innocuous fellow. Aspiritual utilitarian is a much more dangerous person for he speakswith the authority of spirit and for this reason his claims may gain asemblance of legitimacy. He does not merely insist that you makeyourself "useful" (which would be bad enough in itself), he demandsthat you conform your personality to his faith-and the nature of hisfaith may not be to your liking. That there is such a thing as an evilspirit has never occurred to Comte, nor does it seem to have occurredto Ducass6, who is a convinced Comtean sectarian. Once such termsas *lovett or "faith' can be used at all, no further problems of thespirit seem to exist. We also must beware of such formulations asThomas Huxley's that Positivism is "Catholicism minus Christianity.'The formula is brilliant but senseless. That the Comtean Religion ofHumanity is not Christian, we may agree. That Comte has been in-spired in his dogmatic formulations as well as in his ecclesiasticalprojects by Catholic forhs, we may also agree. What Huxley's formuladoes not convey is the positive substance of Comte's religiousness whichhas to be expressed in such terms as the apocalypse of man, as intra-mundane eschatology, as divinization of world-immanent entities.

Hence Littr6's complaint about Comte's r1tour A Pdtat th1ologiquemust be taken with a grain of salt. Comte returns, indeed, to the 6tatth1ologique of his conception but he does not return to the religiousnessof Christianity as it has existed, and still does exist, historically. Andhe cannot return to a Christian religiousness because he never had an

29. Piene Ducass6, Mlthode et intuition chez Auguste Cornte (Paris, 1939),p. 9.

r58 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R.EVOLUTION

adequate conception of it in the first place. Comte's conception of themental constitution of man is monadic. To be sure, the Enind evolveshistorically; but the historical evolution of the mind is immanent toits constitution; the component factors of the mind are the only forceswhich determine this evolution. The mind is a monad with an immanenthistory; at no point can this prison be broken. Religiousnessi, for Comte,is not a participation in transcendental reality ) a communication inwhich the spirituality of man is constituted as the autonomous, organiz-ing center of his personality; rather, religiousness is a movement of theaie sentimentale which results in a more or less true intenpretation ofthe world. The fallacy of Comtets position can be put in on€ sentencelReligion is theology, and theology is an interpretation of rthe world incompetition with science. This demonic closure of the monad is thebasis of Comtets speculation. The historical world of Connte does notbegin with an 6tat th1ologique; it begins with Comte's "intuition." fnso-far as this intuition has absorbed a certain amount of historical knowl-edge, this knowledge can be projected on a time scale arnd be calledthe evolution of the esprit humain, and since Comte's historical knowl-edge was considerable, the projection will even have a certain degreeof empirical adequacy. Nevertheless, &il adequate philosophy of historycan never result from an ttintuitiontt which is itself notJhring but anevent in history, for the problem of hurnan history is precisely thetension between the historiial existence of man and t ir transcendentaldestination. The speculation of Comte begins with a comparct "intuitionoand is followed by its t'explication,tt ttelaborationrtt and *concretizationtt

quite legitimately supported by the hygidne cdr|brale. The elaboration,therefore, can follow a "plan' and it can be directed from the beginningto the foreknown end. We should pay attention in particulerr to Comtetsfavorite word for this process, nam.ly, the word "operation.D The wordawakens the association of the alchemystic opus operatuffi, of the suc-cessful liberation of the spirit from matter through a hurnan agency.

The personal ttrenovationtt of Comte merges with social "regenera-tiontt into the one process of progressing mankind. The life of theGrand Etre, of Divine Humanity, streams through the tilte of Comte.Every phase of this life is a divine manifestation since in this life isrevealed the new, positivist phase of the Grand Etre. Thris revelationis not a personal event but the public, historical coming of the new a.g€,overflowing from the focal point of the revelation into e'ver-wideningcircles of humanity. The life of Comte is a true apocalypse in the reli-gious sense of the word. Only if we recognize the apocalyprtic characterof Comte can we understand his actions in the political phase afterL845. The Third Realm of the positive spirit has come? its spiritual

THE APOCALYPSE OF MAN: COMTE r59

power institutionalized in the Pontifex Maximus who functions and ad-ministers sacraments. The Occidental Republic is founded in substanceand in a few years it will have created institutions devised by the manwho signs himself as Fondateur de la Religion de l'Humanit6. By hisauthority as the High Priest of the Occidental Republic he sends diplo-matic notes to the non-Western powers. And finally he sends an am-bassador to the General of the Jesuit Order suggesting that he associatehimself with Comte in a demand to the Pope that the ecclesiastic budgetsbe abolished. The abolition of state support for the Catholic Churchwould advance the free coming of the new spirituality, while the oldspiritual power "would gain the independence and morality that isnecessary for its positive transformation or its dignified extinction.tts0

In the present state of the crisis, we cannot know whether Comte isa forerunner of the apocalyptic founders of new realms whom we havewitnessed in our time and of more formidable ones who will appear inthe future, or whether the contemporary apocalyptic figures are thelast ones of a breed of which Comte is by intellect and personal stylethe most grandiose specimen. \Mhatever the answer of the future willbe, there can be no doubt even now that Comte belongs, with Marx,Lenin, and Hitler, to the series of men who would save mankind andthemselves by diviniziog their particular existence and impositg itslaw as the new order of society. The satanic Apocalypse of Man beginswith Comte and has become the signature of the Western crisis.

30. Robinet, Notice, p. 276,

VII. THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY ANDTHE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Comte's intuition, which culminated in the foundation of the Religionof Humanity, was so strange and scandalous to the liberals of the mid-nineteenth century that it appeared to them as a mental derangement.One cause of this appearance of strangeness was the fact that by thistime the continuum of politico-religious movements to w,hich Comte'sreligion of humanity belongs had already been pressed below the levelof social consciousness. This continuum, however, should not have beenobscure, for Comte had been explicit about it in his intellectual bi-ography.

We have seen that Comte derives his ancestry, as far ars the positivemethod is concerned, from Bacon and Descartes, and that he mentionsCondorcet repeatedly as the forerunner whose conception he is resumingand completing. Moreover, he has expressed himself literally in wholevolumes on the problem of the positive era and of his place in it. Thegreat event that marks the beginning of the epoch is the storming ofthe Bastille. With this event begins the "provisional" positivist era,the era of transition to the final, positive realm. The complete establish-ment of this realm Comte expects a century after the epochal events,i.e. in 1889. This "siEcle exceptionelle" (in the history of mankindthe equivalent to his personal annde scrns pareille) connprises threegenerations and the third of them is going to see the foundation of thenew spiritual power and the transition to the final realm. The year ofthe foundation Comte has fixed at 1855, exactly two generations, of33 years each, after 1789 (it is the year following the c,ompletion ofhis religious institutes, that is of the Systdme) . Once the transition iscompleted, the government of the Occidental Republic will change the

"provisional" era that Comte had let begin with 1789 into the "definite"era that will begin with the year 1855.1

Comte was never shy in fixing his true importance in the history ofmankind. As the author of the Cours he saw himself in the role of theAristotle of the new ege, as the author of the SystEme he was the newSaint Paul, organizing the Church; and in his relations with Clotilde,

l. On the question of the era see the various editions of the CalendrierPositiuiste, and- the SgstEme, vol. 4, chs. 2, 5,

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY I 6 1

inevitably he was Dante with his Beatri ce.2 The construction of thenew era is his most unabashed stroke. The "provisionalt era in itselfwould not be so surprising; it is simply a reiumption of the Frenchrevolutionary era, shifting only its beginning, with iome historical justi-fication, from L792 to 1789. What is breathtaking, however, i; thearticulation of the sidcle exceptionelle and the fixation of the "definite'era with 1855. This is the first time in Western history that a man

lut arrogated to himself personally the place of Christ as the epochalfigure which divides the ages. Comte goes even farther. His Catindriercommemorates the great men who belong to the Prdparation Humainethat leads up to the positive age. The religious founders are accorded,their places in it: Zorcaster, Buddha, Confucius, Moses, Abraham,Saint-Paul, Mohammed; only one name is omitted, that of Jesus. Hisname shall not be remembered in the age of Comte. The attitude isparticularly_ curious because, at the same time, the Calendrier providesfor an ample commemoration of Christianity through the Evangelists,Fathers and medieval Saints, and because in his catalogue of positivistbooks Comte has included such items as the Bible, the Civitas Dei, theDivina Commedia and the Imitatio Christi.s Christianity as a *sociologi-

calD phase in the history of mankind is not suppressed at all; on thecontrary, Comte has an acute und.erstanding of the civilizational andinstitutional achievements of medieval Christianity. The rejection ofJesus is a personal affair.

The Grand-Etre and the fiction of Christ

The problem is fundamental for the understanding of Comte's politicsas the culmination of a development whichr Quite correctly, he tracesback to the French Revolution. In the person and work of Comte wefind the first, considered creation of an immanent, sociological God andComte was intelligent enough to understand the inevitabl; conflict withthe God who has become flesh. Simple prophets, like Mohammed, arebearable for Comte; they- speak in the name of God, and nothing issimpler than to interpret their symbolic language *sociologicallyt

"r "nimmature ttrypothesiitt concerning the world. Tfr. God that has become

2. Comte seems to have had no awareness at all of the possibility that Dante'ss-1'nrbglization of the ecclesia spiritualis through Beatric.'i, th; ;bportir of hisdivinization of a woman.

3. See the Btbliot_equq Positiviste, a list of l5O volumes for the education ofthe Positivist. The list is attached io vol. 4 of the Systdme, It ir

"onsiaered to

h. nto"igional; later it should be reduced to Io0 voluines. This tur*r L be theorigin of the fad of the one hundred great books,

I 62 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

flesh poses a problem of a different kind, for in this case the reality ofGod is historically present. The conflict between Comte's Grand-Etreand Christ is a struggle between two historical Gods. A transcendentalreality has to remain in its transcendence so that the faith can be inter-preted as a human illusion; the transcendental God whc, walks Per-sonally on earth breaks the rules of the game.

Comte has dealt with this awkward affair on various occasions. Involume I of the SystEme he elaborates the dogma of the Grand-Etre.He compares the new divinity with the Christian idea of God ( or atleast what he believes it to be ) . The Christian conception of God ist'contradictory and consequently only temporary." The ideer of an abso-lute, omnipotent God is incompatible with the attributes of infinite in-telligence and infinite goodness. It is incompatible with the assumptionof infinite intelligence because *our true meditations are no more thanthe prolongation of our observations." Only where observation is in-sufficient to supply the required information, do we stzrrt to think;thought supplies the insufficiency of observation. "If we could placeourselves always under the most favorable circumstances :for research,we would have no use for intelligence, and we could appreciate thingsby simple inspection.tt *Hence omnipotence excludes omniscience.o Stiltmore obvious is the incompatibility with infinite goodness. All oursentiments and plans refer to obstacles, either in order t,o adapt our-selves to them or to remove them. The plans of an omnipotent beingcould, therefore, be nothing but pure caprices; they woulcl not involveany true wisdom, which is always the submission to an external neces-sity in appropriating means to an end.a The Grand-Etre as devised byComte has none of these drawbacks, for the Grand-Etre isr mankind asit comes gradually into existence with every succeeding generation.The advantage of this conception is the coincidence of divinity withthe real extent of our sociological knowledge. We are parts of thisGrand-Etre and insofar dependent on it, but its supremacy is strictlyrelative to our research and our needs. We could indulge, perhaps, inthe fantasy that on some other planet an even more glo:rious Grand-Etre than our mankind exists. *But, in view of the fact that we cannotknow anything about it, this question will remain forever meaningless

4. SEstdrne, l, pp. 408f. I should like to stress that the summary in the textis exhaustive, The arenrment is so insolently superficial and stupid that it isalmost unbelievable. The reader is invited to verify it. Nevertheless, the arp-ment contains formulations of the greatest importance for the understanding ofcertain puzzling phenomena in the intellectual life of our time. In particular theformula that ttrnder the most favorable circumstances for resea.rch we wouldhave no use for intelligence" has become an ideal to which reality is closelyconformiog.

THE RBLIGION OF HUMANITY I 63

and unapproachable, because such a being would in no way affect ourdestinies." We can be satisfied with the Grand-Etre that is known tous, and only on its existence as it is known to us empirically do we feelour destinies dependent. This ttrestriction of powert' is the true sourceof superiority of the rule of Humanity over the rule of God. The har-mony of this supreme existence with the men over whom it rules doesnot require any explanation, for it results from its very composition.Moreover, its preponderance in this harmonious relation will reveal it-self to the reflection of even the proudest subjects. Physically and morallyman depends on the existence of this Grand-Etre. Personal forces canprevail against it only within the narrowest limits. Still more impressiveis its intellectual and moral superiority. For Humanity does not consist

of the indifferent agglomeration of all individuals and grouPs who everhave lived, live and will live. A true whole can only result from as-

sociable elements. Hence the Grand-Etre forms itself, in time and

space, through those human existences which are assimilable, whileif excludes those who would be nothing but a burden for the species.

Hence in its vast majority it is composed of the dead who are the only

ones who can be truly judged. The living are admitted on probationonly and the whole of their lives will prove whether lhl will be

permanently incorporated into it or rejected. Hence the Positivist dogma

of u divine being provides "the indispensable combination of homogene-

ity and Frepondeiance" which the Catholic dogma attempted clumsily

through "the insufficient fiction of Christ.ttuTh; topic of the "fiction of Christ" is continued in volume 2 of the

Syst1mr.r'C, diain mddiateurn was a symptom of the growing tendency

of humanity to draw out of itself its supreme providence. This tendencyhas expresied itself in the followirg phases. The human type has fur-

nished the basis even of fetishiSffir though on this level only the voli-

tional and affective constitution of man was projected into the outside

world, without personifying it. The type asserted itself more clearly in

polytheism when imagination endowed the directing forces with theattributes of an idealized human nature. Catholicism goes still fartherwhen it concentrates the attributes in one supreme unit in which thetwo natures are combined though not confused. Now we are approach-ing the final phase: "Such a progression must finally lead to the com-plete elimination of the fictitious being; in this state the real being willhave acquired sufficient grandeur and consistence to replace entirelyits necessary predecessor.ffi

5. Ibid., pp. 409-41I.6. Ibid., 2, p. IO8.


'We have assembled the essentials of the issue. The $enerous etc-

plicitation of Comte reveals a good deal of his religious motivation.Above all, we get a glimpse of his profound anxiety as well as of hisspecial fears. Comte is afraid of God-of his omnipotence, of hisomniscience and of his goodness. The phrase t'restriction ,of powert isa betrayal. He wants a God, if a God it has to br, who at least is notan ttabsolute unitytt but rather ttrelative and composite.t't He growshistorically and he consists of individuals with who* one .un dealsingly. Even so the aggregate of the Grand-Etre has a growing andrather overpowering effect, but the effect of this power is, red,t..d bythe consciousness that the individual, to the exient of his p.tronulexistence, is part of this power and consubstantial with it. Th; resultof these various reducing measures is a transformation of God into anoPen field of social relations, both intellectual and affective.

The second question would concern the means by which this reduc-tion is achieved. An indication of the means is given in Comtets treat-ment of the possibility of other Grand-Etres on lther planets. The re-action to this Problem is of admirable simplicity; Comie arlvises: don,task idle questionsl This brilliant handling^of th. questions which arisespontaneously in the soul of man with regard to the nature and mean-in$ of the whole of existence is a principle with Comte. fn the firstlecture of the Cours Comte describes "the fundamental character ofthe positive. phitosoPhy." Its principle is: "to regard all phenomena assubject to invariable natural laws." The discovery of tliese laws andtheir reduction to the smallest possible number is its sole aim. ,,Itconsiders it absolutely inaccessible and senseless for us t,0 search forwhat is called the cau,ses, be they primary or final causers.rt Man haspassed through the theological and metaphysical phases in order toarrive at the Present state in which he "consiirrc nothing lrut the factsthemselvest as well as tttheir normal relations of succesriott and simili-tude.D The establishrnent of facts and laws is what we call the explana-tion- of phenomelli questions with regard to causes do not belong inpositive science. The kty to this whole exposition is contained in thesentence: "Our intellectual activity is suffiliently excited by the hop.of discovering the laws of phenomena, by the simple de,sire of con-firming or invalidating a !h9ory.D In brief: the ptobh*r of the spiritand of the interpretation of the universe through i metaph),sical systemyill disapp:*t- if you forget about them. Comie's positive irhilosophy isin its most intimate essence an invitation, and ru.i a demand, to iorgetthe life of the spirit and the bios theoretikos. And why should we for[etto:|, experiences as f"lq and grace, as contrition and prenitence, asguilt and redemption? Why should we forget such questions as those

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY r65

of Leibniz: *V[Ihy is there something, why not nothing?" and "Vlrhy isthis somethitg as it is?" We should forget them because Comte is aman whose intellectual desires do not go beyond confirmation or in-validation of a theory, and more profoundly, because he is afraid ofhaving desires beyond this restricted field. If he ventured beyond thesmall circle of a theory of phenomena, he would have to face the \AIhyof existence and he could no longer hide himself before the mystery inthe prison of his meditative operation. A deep-seated impotence com-pels him to enclose himself within the walls of phenomena and to denyhimself the' least curiosity with regard to the freedom beyond thewalls of this prison.

If Comte had done nothing but lock himself up in his own existenceas in a prison, he would not have become a figure of historical impor-tance. His impotence, however, was accompanied by a tremendouswill to power. He did not want to leave his prison, but he wanted todominate the world outside. The two desires apparently cannot bothbe satisfied at the same time. Nevertheless, Comte found the solution:mankind itself must be locked up in the prison, too, and since a normalgrowth would not fit into such confinement, man must cripple himselfin the same manner as Comte, and when he has acquired the impotenceof Comte but not his will to power, he will be fit to enter the positive,age as his follower. It ir, on principle, the type of fantasy that beganto raise its head in the middle of the eighteenth century and in thisrespect, the speculation of Comte lies on a line with the prison fantasiesfrom Helv6tius and Bentham to Lenin. We could observe the law ofthe three stages in its double function as the order in the biography ofComte and as the order of mankind in history. We have discussed themonadic character of Comte's meditation and the enlargement of themonadic process to reduce the history of mankind to an immanentevolution of the monad of Humanity. Once Humanity is caught in thisprison, we see Comte further at work in judging mankind and deter-mining who belongs truly in it and who has to be cast out into thelimbo of eternal oblivion; and we see him creating the institutions thatwill for all time prevent religious and metaphysical miscreants fromdisturbing the anxieties and opposing the will to power of Comte andhis clergy.

This boundless ressentiment culminates, finally, in the abolition ofChrist. We can understand now the mechanism of the operation. Thehorizon of man is strictly walled in by the facts and laws of the phe-nomena; the course of history itself is the immanent evolution of themonadic mind. If gods exist, they certainly are not permitted to partici-pate in history or society. The gods who seem to appear are figments of


the mind and only the figments have reality and a history. HenceChristianity has existed, but not Jesus. Christianity is a s)rstem of fig-ments which characterizes an important phase in the development ofthe mind and as such a system it has historical reality. Jesus, the in-carnation of the spirit, however, cannot have existed; the Christ is afiction of Christianity. Comte is therefore quite consistent when heexcludes Jesus from the commemoration of the Calmdrier,, Only SaintPaul, the Fathers and the Saints can be included, for they are the menwho have produced the fiction. Moreover, this fiction is the symptom ofa trend; the mind is moving toward the complete elirnination of thefictional elements until the one and exclusive reality, that is the mind ofman, has become visible in its grandeur, and this great event-manvisible in his fullness-has come to pass in lB55 in Comte.

On the surface, this operation is a consistent but nevertheless some-what superficial theory.

'We must remember, however, the abyss under-

neath-the impotence, the ressentiment, the will to power. 'We

wouldmiss the demonic character of the construction if we forget that Comteknows that there is a reality outside the prison, a reality' behind thet'fictions." ft is because he knoars that there is such a reality that he sofervently prohibits the question of the Why. The whole theory of thefictions would be pointless if it did not serve the purpose of cutting offthe quest for reality. Comte declares as illegitimate all questions thatcannot be answered by the sciences of the phenomena. He can refusethe answers, but since he cannot abolish the questions he must let themfall flat against his wall of phenomena. If we consider this structure ofthe Comtean situatioil, we arrive at the core of his attempt: it is themurder of God. This is the great problem which in the ne:rt generationoccupied Nietzsche. The Nietzschean formula "God is deadt is not asimple statement concerning the historical fact that in the age of crisisthe Christian faith is suffering from social atrophy. It implies that Godhas lived and that now he is dead because he was murde:red by man.Nietzsche, who was a thinker of a different stature, knelv what hup-pened; he probed the motivations and he suffered under the fate thatmade him participate in the assassination. But he neithe:r planned itnor committed it. In the ttoperationtt of Comter we see tnre murdererhimself committing the deed, and installirg himself as thre successor.

France and the Occidentol Republic

The murder of God and the institution of the sociolatrie is for Comtethe epochal event that opens the age of Positivism. At the $ame time,

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY L67

however, it is the culmination of a preparatory period which Comtedates from the "provisionalt era of 1789. Through CharlemagnetFrance is the original founder of the Occidental Republic, cornPrisingthe five nations; after the disintegration of the medieval unit, Francehas again taken the lead, through the Revolution, in the spiritual andtemporal unification of the West into the final, positivistic OccidentalRepublic. The degree to which the primacy of France, and in particularof Paris, was an obsession with Comte can be gleaned from his wor-ries about Ih. dangers which threatened it in the future. He observedthat his Positivism found less recognition in France than in foreign

countries, as for instance in England or Holland. There was the dangerthat other countries might press ahead in the Positivistic movement andimpair the supremacy of Paris. He counselled restraint in the foreign

movement in order to prevent this disaster. This concern of Comte is

the direct continuation of an attitude which developed in the revolu-

tionary and Napoleonic period. The 'Western

world should be €r-

lightened, all nations should be on an equal footing in the new e9€,

but the spiritual and civilizational level on which they would all be equal

would G determined by the spirit of the French Revolution. It is a

principle which much later was to find expression in Stalin's formulaaNational in form, socialist in substance.tt We have seen the princiPle

at work in Condorcet's project for the destruction of all historical civili-

zations and the standardization of mankind accorditg to the pattern

of the Paris intellectual. This element of destruction is inevitably in-

herent in the program of an imperialistic generalization of a local,

historical development. It is, on the level of power politics, the locking

up of the world in a prison, that we could observe, on the level of

historical speculation, in Comte's imprisonment of the history of man-

kind in the pattern of his intuition. Comte has gone even further than

Condorcet and has drawn the consequences of this program of destruc-tion. Since the civilizational substance will be homogeneous throughouthis Occidental Republic, the political form of the national state as thevessel of the historical nations becomes irrevelant. He proPoses, there-fore, quite consistently that the national states should be carved uPinto political units of an optimal economic and administrative size. Forthe former territory of France he projected L7 such new political units,and the principle of this reorganization should be extended "altx autresca,s occidentaux.'n It is the resumption and expansion of the revolu-tionary departmentalization of France which destroyed the historical

7. See his *Tableau des dix-sept Intendances frangaisest in ibid., &, pp. 421fr'

I 6 8 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

provinces. The revolutionary, so-called rationalism is deeply rooted inthe eschatological furor of establishing the final realm on earth.s

Napoleon and the Occidental Republic

More specifically, the political program of Comte is related to theideas of Napoleon. This is a question on which Comte isr reticent, forNapoleon appears in his work only in order to be condemned as the"gdnie rdtrograde," Nevertheless, the relation exists. In particularComte's conception of the Occident is hardly conceivable before theconsolidation of the Occidental idea through Napoleon's struggle withthe new Orient, that is with Russia. Let us recall a few utterances ofNapoleon: "There are only two nations in the world. 'llhe one livesin the Orient, the other occupies the Occident. The Eng;lish, French,Germans, Italians, and so oD, are governed by the same civil law, thesame mores, the same habits and almost the same religion. Thry areall members of one family; and the men who want to start war amongthem, want a civil war.ro The means for abolishing this rstate of Occi-dental civil war would be the political unification of the West. "Therewill be no peace in Europe except under a sole chief, under an emperorwho has liings as his officers and distributes kingdoms to his

- lieu-

tenants.'oo The political should be followed by the institutional andcivilizational unification. "All the united countries must be like France;and if you unite them to the Pillars of Hercules and to Karnchatka, thelaws of France must extend everywhere.nt And in retrospect: tTllhy

did my Code Napol1on not serve as the basis for a Code europden, andwhy my Uniaersitd imperiale not as the model for an Uniaersit|europ'6enne. In this manner we would have formed in Europe one andthe same family. Everybody, when travellirg, would have found him-self at home.w This Occident is a unit because of its internal historyand coherence, but it is forced toward a still more intense unificationbecause of its defensive position vis e vis Russia. Nupoleon elaboratesthis problem on the occasion of the Russian plans wiith regard toTurkey. The ideas of the Tsar revolved around the conquest of Turkey.

8. The readiness to carv€ up the map of Europ€, however, is not peculiar toComte; we find the same inclination in Fichte and Mazzini.

9. This and the following quotations are taken from the collection Napoleon,Vues Politiques, Avant-Propos de Adrien Dansette, in the edition of Amdrii-Edit.(Rio de Janeiro, n.d.). The original edition is Paris, 1839. The passage quotedis from September, 1802, p. 340.

lO. L Miot de MAlito, 1803, ibid., p. 340.LL. Au Conseil d'Etat, Juillet 1805, ibid., p, 34L.L2. A Las Cases, Sainte Hdldne, ibid.

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 1 6 9

*We discussed several times the possibility and eventuality of its parti-tion, and the effect on Europe. At first sight the proposiiion attractedme. I considered that the partition would extend the progress ofcivilization. However, when I considered the consequences more coolly,when I saw the immense power that Russia would gain, the greatnumber of Greeks in the provinces now subject to the Sultan who thenwould join a Power which is already colossal, I refused roundly to havea part in it." The principal difficulty was Russia's design on Con-stantinople for "Constantinople, c'est l'Empire du rnonde! It was ob-vious that France, "even if she possessed Egypt, Syria and India, wouldbe nothing in comparison to what these new possessions would makeof Russia. The barbarians of the North were already much too power-ful; after this partition they could overrun all Europe. I believe thisstill."lu fn another mood he sees this danger present even now. "If Rus-sia finds an Emperor who is courageous, impetuous, capable, in brief:a tsar who has beard on the chin, then Europe is his. He can beginhis operations on German soil itself, at a hundred leagues from Berlinand Vienna whose sovereigns are the only obstacles. He enforces thealliance of the one, and. with his help he will defeat the other. Fromthis moment he is in the heart of Germany." At this junction, Napoleonputs himself in the place of the conqueror, and continues: "Certainly,if I were in this situation, I would arrive at Calais according to time-table in moderate marches; and there I would find myself master andarbiter of Europe.tt Then, in the conversation, the dream of the con-quest of the Occident separates from the Russian problem. He is nowhimself the conqueror who is master and arbiter of Europe. And headdresses his interlocutor: ttPerhaps, my friend, Iou are tempted toask il€, like the minister of Pyrrhus asked his master: And what isall this good for? I answer you: For founding a new society and forthe prevention of great disasters. Europe waits for this relieving deedand solicits it: the old system is finished, and the new one is not yetestablished, and it will not be established without long and violentconvulsions.tttn Let us, finally, recall that Napoleon also dreamed ofmaking Paris the seat of the spiritual power of the Occident as wellas of its temporal power. With the Pope in Paris, the city would havebecome "the capital of the Christian world, and I would have directedboth the religious _world and the political. . . . I would have had myreligious sessions like my legislative sessions; my councils would havebeen the representation of Christianity; the popes would have been only

L3. A O'Meara, Sainte HdlEne, ibid., pp. gggf.14. A Las Cases, Saint HdlEnq ibid., Fp. gSZf.

170 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO ITEVOLUTION

its presidents; I would have opened and closed these assemblies, ap-

proved and published their decisions, as it had been done by Constantine

and Charlernagne.ttls

The heritage of the French Reaolution

In spite of Comte's emphasis on the continuity of his ideas with those

of the Revolution and in spite of their obvious relation lvith those of

Napoleon, the problem of this continuity has remained obscure until

quiie recently. The great treatise by Gouhier on the J eune,s'se il Auguste

Comte is the first attempt to place this problem in its proPer context:

"Positivism is the religious answer to a religious problem that wasposed by the Revolution."u Comte was well acquainted with the re-ligious problems of the Revolution, he knew and distingurished clearlythe various attempts at their solution, and he expressed his opinionson the Culte de la Raison and the cult of the Etre suprlm,e, as well ason Theophilanthropism and the Napoleonic solution of the Concordat.The Culte de la Raison held his particular attention. In the SystEmehe writes: "It was necessary to found the true religion by rallying oursentiments, thoughts and actions toward a unique center,, both publicand private.t' Danton and his followers were the only group who hadtruly understood this need. Their attempt offers "a notable progressinsofar as it ceases to adore the external world in order to make thetApe humain prevail." This substitution, however, was still too meta-physical. They "were incapable of elevating themselves to the spectacleof society, and were compelled to inaugurate the human attribute thatis most individual ( that is: reason ) .t" Positivism is a movement whichrenews the Dantonian problem but gives it a new social solution.ts Comtehas received the heritage of the Revolution as a living tradition throughSaint-Simon. This transmission forms the second part of the thesis ofGouhier: 6(A son of the anticlerical and liberal Revolution, AugusteComte has received, through the medium of Saint-Simon,, an impulsewhich stems from the religious and Jacobin Revolution.tue

What is the reason for the earlier suppression of this relation inhistorical consciousness and for its recent recognition? fhe reason isthat in the era of secularistic historiography the history of the spirit

15. Ibid., pp. 18lf,16. Op. cit., l, p. 10.17. Sgstdrne, 3, pp. 6OIf.18. On the relation between Comte and Danton see also the e$say by Aulard

on Auguste Cornte et la Rhtolution frangaise.19. Gouhier, op. cit., p. 18.


was taboo. In this period, the French Revolution was *antireligious.t

That "politics" and "religiont are not an antithesis, that the Revolutionwas more than a series of constitutions or of factional phases in astruggle for power, that it was not exhausted by such forms as constitu-tional monar.hy, republic, directory, consulate and empire, that it wasa movement which struggled with spiritual and intellectual problemsin continuity with the preceding and successive periods and thatprecisely the spiritual and intellectual aspects of this politico-religiousmovement were the essential ones-all this could not be acknowledgedas long as the religious aspects of the Revolution were considered ir-relevant incidents in a process of secular politics. Only toward the endof the nineteenth century is a more serious study of the French Revolu-tion undertaken and, as a consequence, our picture of the intellectualhistory of the Revolution has changed completely. The historians whohave contributed most to this change are Aulard and Mathi ez.N

The present context is not the place for a survey, however brief, ofthe religious history of the Revolution. The reader who is interestedmay refer to the monographs just cited. We must confine ourselvesto a statement of the issues which emerge from these richly docu-mented studies. In the first place, the misconception has been clearedup that the spirit of the French Revolution was antireligious in thesense that it inclined toward a separation of church and state. Thesecular state was not an ideal of the Revolution. The Revolution wasanti-Christian and tended toward the establishment of a caesaro-papisticr6gime of a non-Christian religion. This tendency, moreover, did notarise within the Revolution itself but was present already in the worksof the philosophes before 1789. Rousseau's idea of the r1ligion ciuileis perhaps the most famous expression of this tendency. Less famousbut even more symptomatic of the trend is the attitude of Raynal. Inthe Histoire philosophique des Deux-Indes, the Abb6 Raynal writes:

The state is not made for religion, but religion is made for thestate. First principle.

The general interest is the rule governirg everything thatshould exist in the state. Second principle.

20. F. -A. Aulard, Le Culte de la Raison et le culte de Pdtre su?rEme(1793-94') (Paris, 1892). Aulard incorporated the results of his study in theHistoire Politique de la R?aolution frangaise (Paris, lgol). The principai studiesby Albert Mathiez are La Theophilanthropie et Ia Culte Dficadaire 1796-1801( Paris, 1903 ) ; Les Origines des Cultes R€volutionnaires ( Paris, 19O4 ) ; C on-tributions A I'histoire religieuse de Ia R?polution frangaise ( Paris, f 9O7 ) ; LaRhtolution et f6glise, Etudes critiques et docurnenta,tres (Paris, I91O); Autourde Robespiene (Paris, 1925).

L72 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO ]REVOLUTION

The people, or its representative authoritf, has the exclusiveright of judging the conformance of any institution whateverwith the general interest. Third principle.

This authority of the people has the right to examine the dogma anddiscipline of the churches. The dogma in particular must be examinedwith regard to its compatibility with common sense, frlr dangeroustroubles might arise "if the ideas of a future felicity are complicated bythe zeal for the glory of God and the submission to a truth which isregarded as revealed.tt

This authority, and this authority alone, can therefore proscribean established cult, adopt a new one, or do without one if that ismore convenient.

There is no other council than the assembty of the ministers ofthe sovereigr. When the administrators of the state are assem-bled, the church is assembled. When the state has pronounceditself, the church has nothing more to say.

No other apostles than the legislator and his magistrates.No other sacred books than those which they have recognized

as such.No divine right but that of the weal of the Republic.*

The idea of the state as a theocraclr with the legislators as theecclesiastical authority, with the law as the divine manifestation, andwith the commonweal as the substance, thus, is fully developed beforethe Revolution. The religious attempts of the Revolution pursued atorhrous path toward the realization of totalitarian theocracy. Thetransformation of the Catholic Church in France into a national churchwas the first attempt to bolster the events in the sphere of the strugglefor power with a spiritual authority. When the attempt began to showunmistakable signs of failure, the non-Christian substitute attemptspressed to the fore.

'We have enumerated them already: the Culte de

Ia Raison of the Dantonists, the cult of the Etre SuprEme of'Robespierre,and finally the establishment of the Culte ddcadaire, that iis of the statereligion of the Directoire, under the pontificate of La RdvelliBre. Ofmany such attempts the Theophilanthropy of Chemin-DupontEs was theonly one successful at founding a new religious sect, which by its €x-pansion seriously worried the Catholic Church and which rivalled withthe Culte ddcadaire to become the state religion.

We can be briefer on the second point. The spiritual history of the

21. Raynal , Histoire philosophique des Deu-r-Indes, bk. 4, pp. 533fr. (Qpotedin Aulard, Le Culte de la Raisonr pp. 8-1O.)

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY L7 3

Revolution had been neglected for the further reason that the variousmovements and establishments which we have identified were consideredephemeral extravagancies of a few fanatics. Our contemporary experi-ences with political mass religions have shown us convincingly that theproblem is of a different magnitude. The studies of Aulard and Mathiezhave brought the rich documentary evidence that even at the time ofthe French Revolution one could not found state-religions by the decreeof a few fanatics. The disposition to accept these state religions had tobe present in the people. As a matter of fact, there was even more thana mere disposition to accept the religious ideas of the intellectuals. Thestudies of Mathiez show that in a spontaneous upsurge of the peoplea new state religion was created before any governmental authoritystarted the first proddings in this direction. The establishments thatwere directed from the revolutionary upper-stratum could have thesuccess which they had because they could harness the spontaneousemotions of the people toward a cult of the revolutionary-republicanspirit. And this religious upsurge did not stop at the borders of France.The French Revolution, while starting with the chosen people, wasconsidered the Revolution of Humanity. The religious sentiments origi-nated in the experience of a national collectivity, but they were €x-panded immediately into the vision of a church of mankind. We findcompletely preformed the Comtean "operationD of expanding the par-ticular existential upsurge universally over mankind and history bysubmitting mankind and history to the law of this upsurge. A symptomof this basic universalism are the decrees of the Legislative Assemblywhich extended French citizenship to foreigners in order to rewardthem for "having labored outside of France at the work of regenera-tion.roz Recipients of this dignity were, among others, Paine, JosephPriestly, Bentham,'Washington, Klopstock, and Schiller."

Revolution, re storation and crisis

We have traced the continuum between Comte's foundation of theReligion of Humanity and the religious foundations of the FrenchRevolution. Important as the line of this continuum is, we must beaware that it is no more than one thread that runs through a rich

22. AJfurt M_athiez, \es- Origines des cultes rdvolutionnaires, p. 25.23. For the details of the.popular movement we must refer ihe reader again

to the monogtaphs, in particular to Albert Mathiez, Les Origines des ciltesr*oolutionnaires, In the qst part of this study, Mathiez gives a careful accountof the movement of the Fflddratioru in the siisle towns ana of the ritual formsdeveloped for the festivals' _ commemorationsr- and religious ceremonies beforethe *alters of the fatherlandrt etc.

L74 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

historical fabric. The ideas of Comte certainly continue the ideas ofthe Revolution, in their liberal as well as in their Jacobin and Napo-leonic aspects, but they certainly also go far beyond the Revolution andbelong to the general movement of Restoration which intends to termi-nate'the Revolution. The meaning of neither Revolution nor Restora-tion is exhausted by their functions as a movement and its countermovement, for both blend into each other in the enveloping movementof the Crisis. In approaching this larger context, into which the ideasof Comte must be placed, we encounter even greater difficulties thanwe met in the analysis of the preceding problem. The interpreta-tion of the French Revolution is far from complete, but at least con-siderable advances have been made in recent years. The interpretationof the Restoration, however, is still at a stage where we cannot evenbe sure of the categories that have to be used in the undertaking.The situation is illuminated by the fact that Gouhier, the author of theJeunesse de Comte, has seen his problem unfolding, in the course ofthe eight years that lie between the first and the third volumes of hisgreat work, in a manner that he had probably not anticipated at thebeginning; for the third volume is preceded by an introduction whichdeals precisely with the methodological problem of Revolution andRestoration, an introduction which might as well have preceded thefirst volume. Moreover, this introduction is entitled Programme pourune 6tude historique d.e la Restauration cornrne problErne philosophique,a title which seems to indicate that the author intends to elaboratethis program in further studies, independent of the specifically Comteanproblems. Our remarks in this section are based on the Prograrnme of.Gouhier, in particular with regard to the selection of materials andtheir classification. With regard to the principles of interpretation weare following the suggestions of Gouhier, but we venture to go some-what beyond his explicit propositions in an attempt to clarify further therelation between the problems of Revolution and Restoration on theone side, and of the Crisis on the other side.u

The relation between Revolution and Restoration becomes problemati-cal as soon as we realize that this pcriodization refers conventionallyto events on the level of pragmatic history but not necessarily to eventson the level of the history of political ideas. By Revolution we meanprimarily the period which extends from the convocation of the GeneralEstates of France in 1789 to the abdication of Napoleon in 1814; byRestoration we mean correspondingly the period of the restored. mon-

24. For Gouhierts Prograrnme see hls Jeunesse ilAuguste (iornte, vol.Auguste Cornte et Saint'Simon (Paris, 1941)' PP. 5-60.


archy from l8l4 to the July Revolution of 1830. The meaning ofRestoration on this level is determined primarily by the reinstatementof the Bourbon dynasty after the revolutionary interlude. Insofar asthe dynastic principle is through centuries one of the great factors inWestern political history, the periodization doubtless has its impor-tance. Precis.ly, however, when we approach the period of the crisisthe importance diminishes, for one of the characteristic traits of thecrisis is the weakening and gradual elimination of the dynasties as afactor in politics. The mere fact that the Revolution occurred and thatthe Restoration was brief indicates that the great determinants of thehistorical process have to be sought elsewhere. Hence, in a first ap-proach to the problem, Gouhier shifts the meaning of Restoration fromthe reinstitution of the Bourbons to the larger problem of terminatingthe Revolution. The restoration of the monarchy is not the first attemptat such a termination. The series of these attempts begins with theThermidor, and the sequence of Directory, Consulate, Empire, Con-stitutional Monarchy of 1814, and the liberal Bonapartism of theHundred Days marks so many abortive restorations. The return ofLouis XVIII in 1815 would be the sixth attempt in this series, andGouhier seems to be content that it is the last one. Whether it was thelast one, indeed, seems to us doubtful, but we shall defer the considera-tion of this question until we have reflected on another aspect of theproblem of Restoration.

When the meaning of Restoration has shifted from the restorationof a dynasty to the termination of the Revolution, the question arises:what does the Restoration restore? The answer would have to be thatit restores the order of the polity that has been disrupted by therevolutionary events with their culmination in the Terror. Inevitably,this answer raises the further question: what kind of an order shouldbe the object of restoration? Should it be the order of the ancien rdgimebefore 1789, should it be the order of the liberal constitutional mon-archy from 1789-1 792, or should it be the republican order of L792-1793? The Restoration of 1BI4 and the following years contains allthree of the tendencies indicated by these questions. The ultras, withtheir tendency to return to the prerevolutionary order, made them-selves felt in the Restoration of 18 14 to such a degree that theywrecked the attempt and prepared the return of Napoleon from Elba,and the ultra ministries of Charles X sealed the fate of the Bourbondynasty. The liberal tendency manifested itself in the policy ofLouis XVIII, in the Charte constitutionnelle of. 1814, and in the timelyessay of Benjamin Constant on constitutional principles which maneu-vered the interpretation of the C harte in the direction of Bnglish

1 7 6 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO ITEVOLUTION

constitutionalism.'u The antiroyalist tendency revealed iitself in theepisode of the Hundred Days as well as in the abortive attempt at arepublic under the presidency of Lafayette in 1830.

When we survey these tendencies, we see that Re''irolution andRestoration are not two periods which follow each other in time, buttwo processes which interlock and overlap chronologically. We maydistinguish in the revolutionary process itself ( I ) the anlliclerical andantifeudal liberal phase, (2) the antimonarchical, republican phase,and ( 3 ) the phase of the sectarian church-state culminating in theTerror. If we relate the restorative process to these phases, its varioustendencies and attempts will appear as ambivalent-with the exceptionof the ultra tendenci.s. The piebiscitarian emperorship of Napoieon,for instance, belongs as much to the Restoration as it belongs to theRevolution. The constitutional liberalism of Louis XVIII resumes theRevolution approximately at its phase of L7 gL-92; hence it is asrevolutionary with regard to the ancien r€gime as it is restorative withregard to the later phases of the Revolution. The Second and ThirdRepublics resume the antimonarchical phase of the Revolution, butthey are still restorative with regard to the revolutionary church-state;and so forth. This fundamental ambivalence which besets; French his-tory from the Thermidor to the present is due to the l[act that theRevolution has run within four years the course from the ancien rdgimeto the totalitarian church-state and terror. The meaning oJ[ the Revolu-tion cannot be elicited by any partial political formula, such as theissues of feudalism and democreclr of monarchy and republic, ofparliamentarism and dictatorship, of bourgeois society and proletarianmovement. All these issues are contained in the Revolution and theirperiodical reappearance marks the oscillations of Frenchr politics be-tween ( I ) radical populist revolution, (2) dictatorial order and ( g )moderate repubJic, which have been so excellently analysed bySeignobos. All these partial issues, however, are overshadlowed by th.fundamental spiritual issue which the Revolution has revealed for thefirst time in full clearness, namely, that the apocalypse of man is driv-itg, by the logic of sentiment, toward the deification of intramundanesociety. The Revolution has been carried by its momentum beyondthe peripheral questions of governmental form to the very heait ofthe crisis, that is to the destruction of Western Christian civilizationand to the tentative creation of a non-Christian society. AnrI the restora-tive attempts consequently are affected by the necessity of grappling

25. Benjamin Constant, R*flertons sur les Constitutions, lo diistribution despouvoirs et les garanties dans une monarchie constitutionnelle (Paris, l8l4 ) .


with the spiritual problem of the crisis that had been posed by theRevolution.

Hence Revolution and Restoration, in the French case, cannot bedistinguished as a political and social upheaval which overshoots theaim that can be realized at the moment, and a counter movement whichterminates the Revolution and stabilizes its results at a level that cor-responds to the actual strength of the contending political forces. Suchan interpretation would rather fit the English upheaval of the seven-teenth century with its termination by the Glorious Revolution and theAct of Settlement. In the French case Revolution and Restoration areinterlocked to the point of becoming indistinguishable because bothmovements penetrate to the spiritual core of the crisis. The situationis illuminated by the struggle between Robespierre and the H6bertists.On the level of power politics, it is a struggle between the Committeeof Public Safety ( represented by Robespierre ) and the Commune ofParis ( represented by Hdbert ) ; on the level of the spiritual crisis it isthe struggle between H6bert's Culte de Ia Raison and Robespierre'scult of the Etre Supr?me. Here, in the very heart of the Revolution, weare faced by Robespierre's attempt to stabilize the Revolution spirituallysomewhere near the Deism of the philosophes and his attack on theCulte de la Raison as an atheistic ad.venture that goes too far. Doesthis attempt of Robespierrer &s some historians have suggested, alreadybelong to the history of the Restoration? The question is of importancefor the interpretation of Comtets position, for Comte, &s we have seen,recognizes in the Culte de la Raison a step in the right directiotr, thatis in the direction of his own cult of the Grand-Etre. According to thisself-interpretation, Comte's political religion would continue the Revolu-tion and lead it to the logical conclusion that was forestalled byRobespierre; on the other hand, Comte is clear on the point that hisReligion of Humanity will terminate the disorder of the Revolution,that it will be a restoration of order. Restoration becomes identicalwith completion of the Revolution.

The contradiction can be solved if we acknowledge that Revolutionand Restoration meet in the problem of the Crisis. If we define thetwo concepts on the level of deposition and reinstitution of a dynasty,they will signify two successive periods in pragmatic history. If we de-fine them as a movement of political forces and the reestablishment oforder in accordance with a new balance of forces, then they will signifyprocesses which overlap in time. If we extend their meaning to includethe problem of spiritual order in society, then they will merge in theprocess of the Crisis. The question at which level we should fix themeaning is not one for arbitrary decision. The inclusion of the spiritual

178 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO ]REVOLUTION

problem is a theoretical postulate, for man as a whole is engaged in

itte historical process, and we have no right to define our concepts on

the basis of a fragmentary anthropology. If we neglect this postulate,

the historical process becomes unintelligible and we ar(3 reduced to

acceptirg the self-interpretations of the political movements at their

face-valu1. Since the course of the crisis consists in the conflicts and

spiritual failures of these movements, we could not overcome the dis-

older of the crisis through its interpretation by the order of the spirit

but would permit the disorder to invade the historiographic attemptat finding its meaning. Our interpretation of Comte would have to sink,in this case, to the level of Littrd and John Stuart Mill, while our inter-

pretation of intellectual history would sink to the level of Comte'sd.monic monadism; our interpretation of Marx would sink to the levelof those who see in him nothing but the threat of proletarian revolutionand communism, while our conception of "ideology" would sink to thelevel of Marx. Our interpretation of constitutionalism and liberty wouldsink to the Fascist level, while our conception of }.{ational Socialismwould sink to the level of progressive intellectuals who see in it nothingbut a reactionary political movement.

The inclusion of the spiritual problem of the crisis into the conceptsof Revolution and Restoration does not mean, however, that the con-cepts have become superfluous. Within the general process of the crisis,Revolution, Restoration and their international ramifications remain adistinguishable phase. The movement of 1789 with its rarpid evolutioninto the terroristic church-state is still its well marked beginning, andthe reassertion of the forces that survived the furor of this outburst stillmark the Restoration. A problem of delimitation will arise only withregard to the formal end that should be assigned to the: Restoration.As a matter of fact, the Restoration peters out with the generation ofmen who lived through the Revolution and tried to establish the post-Napoleonic order with the political forces and ideas that emerged fromit. Whether one wishes to attribute a special symbolic significance tothe year 1830 when the last brother of Louis XVI disa;ppeared fromthe scene and Lafayette made his last appearance, or to tlhe year 1832which marks the end of the ancien rd gime in England, or to the year1848 which removed Metternich-is a matter of choice and it will bedecided differently by the historians of the various nations. Certainis that with the 1840's, that is with the generation of Bakunin and.Marx, we have entered a new intellectual climate. The pnoblem of thecrisis has not changed, but the dimensions of the catastrophe have be-come clearer, the eschatological consciousness has sharpened, and theillusion has dissolved that after the Revolution a stable order had beenrestored by the arsenal of contemPorary remedies.


Comte and his work have a peculiar place with regard to this periodi-zation. The ultimate elaboration of Comte's ideas through the institutionof the Religion of Humanity falls in the 1850's. His Sgstdme is writtenand published after the Communist Manifesto. The original intuitiotr,on the other hand, occurs in the 1820's; it draws its inspiration froman intellectual environment that is determined by Condorcet and Saint-Simon, by Danton and Robespierre, by Napoleon and Louis XVIU, byJean-Baptist Suy and Lafitte, by Bonald and de Maistre. The elabora-tion and publication of his ideas coincides with Victorian liberalismand the opening decades of Communism and Anarchism; the intellectualmeans with which he meets the crisis belong to the Restoration. Weshall now briefly survey the principal elements of the intellectual en-vironment in which Comte formed his intuitioll.

The permanent reaolution of the liberals

A first answer to the problem of the crisis is given by the liberalswho wish to transform the violent rhythm of Revolution and Restora-tion into a gentle undulation of progressive reform. This idea was de-veloped in the liberal periodical Le Censeu,r by its editors Charles Comteand Charles Dunoyer, in 1815. Revolution is recognized as a necessityinsofar as it is required by the light of reason, but there are other revo-lutions which are motivated by pride and ambition. The revolutionwhich resulted in the liberal *otiutchy of 1791 was commanded byreason while the Republic, the Consulate, as well as the movementswhich tend to restore the ancien r6gime, belonged to the second type.There are two states which are equally bad for a society: completestagnation and prolonged, anarchical disorder. "The one clings toostrongly even to its most puerile customs, and to its most superstitiouspractices; the other indulges in the disorderly movement of passions.tBesides, the one state produces the other. Anarchical revolution isinevitable when a regime insists on its continuation against reason andhistory, while the reactionary despotism of a Bonaparte will rise fomanarchy. "There is only one means for nations to prevent the greatrevolutions; that is, to put themselves into a state of perrnanent andwisely regulated revolution." When a nation is guided intelligently itis protected against all revolution, or rather its revolution is (tperma-

nent, but slorv and progressive, so that it follows without jolts theprogress of reason.tt'6

26. Charles Dunoyer, *Des r6volutions en g6n6ral et des r6volutionnairestt;Charles Comte, ttDu systBme r6presentatiflt; Charles Comte, ttDe ltautorit6l6gislatif." lfhese articles were published in Le Censeur, vols. g, 4, Quotationsfrom Gouhier, op. cit., p. L7.

180 FROIVI ENLIGHTENMENT TO ]REVOLUTION

The articles of Charles Comte and Dunoyer have their importancebecause the Censeur represents the liberal restoration at it;s intellectualbest. We see here developing an attitude toward the crirsis which re-mains typical in later liberalism and we can observe in its origins thegrowth of an escapist clich6. The rhythm of Revolution and Restora-tion is considered a stupid exaggeration of the process of siocial reform,the violent swings of the pendulum ought to be toned d.own-underthe title of "permanent revolutiontt-to the gentle process that today iscalled "peaceful change.D The problem of the crisis itself disappearsand is swallowed up by the category of progress under the guidance ofreason. We have characterized this attitude as escapist be'cause it skill-fully dodges the real issues of the crisis. A society is by definition ina state of crisis when its remedial forces, while perhaps present, aresocially ineffective. The social problems which urgently require a solu-tion cannot be solved because the spiritual and moral strength for thetask is lacking in the ruling group. In this situationr the counsel todo what is not done because it cannot be done is obviousrly vain. Andthe counsel is not only vain, it even adds to the gravity of the crisisbecause it detracts attention from a true alternative. The progressivecounsel of Charles Comte and Dunoyer ( and this has remained aconstant factor in the aggravation of the Western crisis ) poses thealternative of stagnation in the solution of social probtemi and in-telligent gradual reform. This alternative does not exist concretely;the fact of the tardiness in the solution of explosive sor:ial problemsis proof that on the level of pragmatic politics the alternative of in-telligent gradualism does not exist. The true alternative would be therestoration of spiritual substance in the ruling groups of a society,with the consequent restoration of the moral strength iin creating ajust social order. The problem of the crisis must be state:d in the pta-tonic terms of spirit and power. The pragmatic value of this alternative,as exPerience has shown, is not very high. The appearance of Plato didnot change the course of the Hellenic crisis, the case of lt[ietzsche didnot serve as a warning example for Germany nor did the appearanceof Dostoievsky make a dent in the tsarist system. NevertlLreleis, this isthe true alternative; and we must be clear on the point that a propa-ganda for gradualism which ignores and obscures the brue issue fiasbecome a serious factor in the aggravation of the crisis.

The idea which emerges from the articles of the Censttur is so par-ticularly glave in its consequences because it implies the frurther faliacythat the abolition of a social injustice will automaticall.y result in asatisfactory stable order. The revolutionary abolition of j, regime thatis experienced as oPPressive by a powerful stratum of so.irtv will

THE RELIGION OF I {UMANITY I 8 l

certainly satisfy the successful revolutionary group, but it is not atall a guarantee that the new group will be more fit than the old oneto discharge the obligations of rulership competently. Spiritual dis-order is not the privilege of a ruling class; the revolutionary class whichdisplaces it may be quite as deficient in this point, and even more so.The spiritual and moral incompetence of the bourgeoisie in handlingproblems posed by the industrial proletariat and the growing lowermiddle class was certainly a match for the incompetence of the pre-revolutionary aristocracy in handling the problem posed by the risingbourgeoisie. The record of the German lower middle class in the Na-tional Socialist revolution is no more edifying. The worst problem inthe dynamic of the Western crisis is the fact that the resistance of theruling class of the moment against t'peaceful changett can derive adegree of spiritual legitimacy from the qualities of the revolutionarygroups. The liberal and progressive idea of the t'permanent revolutionttof the editors of the Censeur ignores this whole class of problems, andit must ignore them because the spiritual problem of the crisis isobscured for them by the enlightenment clich6 of "reason.' But thelight of reason is a dubious guide in the night of the spirit.

Intemationalism

The profounder problems of the crisis, however, did not escape thethinkers of the Restoration. Th.y were forced upon them inevitablyby the international aspects of the Revolution. The Napoleonic warsfrom Spain to Russia would bring home to everybody that the Revolu-tion was more than a problem of French constitutional reform. Andthe Act of the Congress of Vienna, of 1815, was more than a simplepeace treaty between former belligerents; it was a settlement ofEuropean order, comparable to the Treaties of Munster and Osnabruckwhich had concluded the international upheaval of the Thirty Years'War.

The events on the pragmatic level alone would make clear theEuropean scale of the problem. The actual internationalism of theperiod, however, was nourished from a considerable number of othersources. We have already noted the international pathos of the Revolu-tion itself, in the enlargement of the French upsurge into the idea of aWestern civilization in conformance with the French spirit, as well asin the ideas of Napoleon. This revolutionary pathos even appears inAmerica; in a letter to Lafayette, Washington writes: *We have sowna seed of Liberty and Union that will germinate by and by over thewhole earth. Some d"y the United States of Europe will be constituted,modelled after the United States of America. The United States will be

1 8 2 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO ITEVOLUTION

the legislator of all nations.tt2T And this pathos is no fii,or€ than theculmination of the internationalism of thr eighteenth century whichcrystallized in the projects for perpetual peace of the Abbd Saint-Pierre,of Rousseau and of Kant, and which crystallized in such formulationsas the "European Republictt (Rousseau) or the "Assemblee des na-tionsn (Volnay).

The internationalism of the enlightened, humanitarian type precedesthe Revolution and becomes only intensified in its early years. Withthe Revolution itself new sources of internationalism are opened by thecourse of events. The French emigration played an important role. Thecourt society, like every closed group of this type, had a comparativelynarrow horizon; the emigration was the discovery of the w,crld, throughthe acquaintance with foreign national civilizations, and in particularthrough the discovery of the living medieval tradition of t;he Europeanculture.'* The horizon is enlarged beyond the period of the absolutenational state and the common foundation of Western Christian civiliza-tion through Charlemagne comes into view. The experience of the Rev-olution had a similar effect on the French clergy. fn the sitruggle withthe revolutionary government, Gallicanism receives a blour from whichit has never recovered, the international, European charactrer of Catholi-cism gains a new weight, and the importance of the sp:iritual powerwhich must not be too closely allied with a national g()vernment isrediscovered. Beyond these concrete occasions for remembering thetemporal and spiritual sources of Western unity, the g,en€ral lessonof this second conflagration following the first one of the religiouswars was not lost on the contemporaries. The Revolution was under-stood as the second act in the drama of Western decomposition ofwhich the Reforrnation had been the first act. And the quest for unityinevjtably turned toward Christianity as the spiritual foice which hadproduced the unity that now was vi'sibly going to pieces. This aware-ness of the Christian unity of the past, and of the spiritual problemwhich it poses for the present, finds expression in a considterable litera-ture. Let us mention only the works of de Bonald: the Th1orie dupouaoir politique dans la sociltd ciuile (L796 ) , and thre subsequentEssai analytique s?tr les lois naturelles de lordre social ( 1800) andLdgislation primitiae considdrde dans les dernier temps F,ar les seuleslumiEres de la raison ( t A 02); Novalis's Christenheit ,oder Europa( 1799); and the works of de Maistre: Considdrations sur la France(L7 96 ) , the Essai su,r le principe gdndrateur des corwtitutions poti-

27. Quoted, by Gouhier, op. cit., p. 22,28. Fernand Baldensperger, Le mouaement des i"d€es dans Pdmi.gration fran-

gaise (1789-1815 ) (Paris, L924), vol. 2, pp. l5l-L52. Gouhier, op. cit., p. 24.


Pape ( 1819), and thehis death in 182I, Les

tiques (1809), the systematic main work Duwork which he left incomplete at the time ofSoir€es de Saint-P1tersbourg.

De Maistre

A few formulations taken from these works will illuminate the in-tellechral climate in which Comte grew up. According to de Bonald,Europe could be considered a "single family" up to the sixteenth cerl-tury; its foundation goes back to Charlemagne, "le f ondateur et lehdros de la soci*t| ciuile"; this huppy family was troubled on occasionby the passions of its members, but always reunited "po, la m?mereligion publiquen; the Reformation has torn apart this ChristianEurope and by this blow has also "divided the political Europe."' Inhis Considdrations sur Ia France, de Maistre resumes this problem onprinciple. "All imaginable institutions rest on a religious idea. . . .They are strong and durable in the measure in which they are divinized.. . . Human reason ( or what one calls philosophy without knowingwhat one does ) is no substitute for this basis ( which one has calledsuperstitious, again without knowing what one does ) ; philosophy, onthe contrary is an essentially disorganizing force.tto This sentence couldhave been written by Comter &s well as the followitg: "It seems to methat every true philosopher should make his choice between two hy-potheses: either a new religion is about to be formed, or Christianitywill rejuvenate itself in an extraordinary manner. We have to makeour choice between these two suppositions, according to our stand onthe truth of Christianity."" De Maistre decides for Christianity, Comtefor the new religion, but on the principle they are in agreement.

The area of agreement between de Maistre and Comte is even largerthan their alternative choices of Christianity and the Religion of Hu-manity would suggest, for the Christian solution of de Maistre stronglypartakes of the organizational, projective character which is peculiarto Comte. Let us consider, for instance, a passage from a letter ofde Maistre to Blacas ( f g L4): "Recall frequently this chain of reason-irg: No public morality or national character without religion, noEuropean religion without Christianity, no Christianity without Catholi-cism, no Catholicism without the Pope, no Pope without the supremacythat is due to him."32 This type of argumentation which leads de Maistre

29. The passages are from the Thdorie du pouaoir; Gouhierr op. cit., p. 26.30. De Maistre, Considflrati,ons sur lo France (1855), p. 67.31. Ibid., p. 73.32. Quoted by Gouhier, op. cit., p. 25.


to the supremacy of the Pope, is the same type which leads Comte tocreate himself the High Pontiff of the new religion of thre OccidentalRepublic. Both thinkers are right insofar as they have diagnosed theproblem of spiritual unity in Western civilization, and both are rightinsofar as they take the problem of an institutionalization of the spiritseriously. Both in common are astonishingly blind to the magnitudeof the problem. If we assume that de Maistre did not consider hisliterary work a vain exercise, we must also assume that he seriouslybelieved he could change the course of Western history by a clearanalysis of the problem of the crisis and by suggesting the only organi-zational solution that seemed to make sense. That the crit,ical situationof a whole civilization, which had been in the making I'or centuries,cannot be transformed into a harmonious order over night by an act ofinsight and by an agreement between intelligent people, or that some-thing might be profoundly wrong not only outside Catholicism butwithin the Church itself, was not sufficiently clear to him, just as itwas inconceivable to Comte that he could not restore th,e order of acivilization by his personal renovation or that anything could be wrongwith his Religion of Humanity. In de Maistre as in Comte we sensethe touch of enlightened reason that blinds the working of the spirit.Moreover this impression is strengthened when we see de Maistre, inDu Pape, indulgitg in the'same far-reaching projectiorns as Comteand including Russia and the orthodox Church in his rellections on arestored Europe under Papal supremacy.*

In the last work of de Maistre, the Soir1es de Saint-P1tersbourg, astrong apocalyptic tone makes itself felt that is even closer to thetemper of Comte. *We must keep prepared for an immense event inthe divine order toward which we are marchirg with an acceleratingspeed that should strike every observer. There is no longer any religionon earth: mankind cannot remain in this state.t' Catholiic as well asProtestant writers find in the Retelation of Saint John the announce-ment of the impending event. Some even believe that iit has begunalready "and that the French nation will be the great instrument of thegreatest of revolutions.tt *There is perhaps not one truly religious manin Europe ( t am speaking of the educated class ) who does not, atthis moment, expect somethiog extraordinary. And, do you believethat this agreement of all men can be mistaken?tt For eviclence observethe march of science and see where it leads us. From Nernrton the waygoes to Pythagoras. Once the natural affinity between religion and

33. See in Du PaPe, in bk. 3, the chapters on Russia; and the lvhole of bk. 4zttDu Pape son rapport avec les dglises nomm6es schismatiques.tt


science will have become concrete *in the head of one single man ofgenius,' then the eighteenth century will truly have come to its end.The apparition of this man is not far off; "perhaps he lives already.tDe Maistre concludes these reflections with a speculation on the func-tion of the mystical number Three in history. "God has spoken thefirst time to man on Mount Sinai; and this revelation was restrictedfor reasons, which we do not know, to the narrow limits of a singlepeople and a single country.tt ttAfter fifteen centuries, a second revela-tion addressed itself to all men without distinction . . . i but still theuniversalrty of its action was infinitely restricted by circumstances oftime and space." Fifteen centuries uguin have lapsed and America wasdiscovered; the whole earth and all mankind now is drawn into a unityand we must expect "a third explosion of the omnipotent goodness infavor of mankind.tt ttEverything announces . . . I do not know whatgreat unity toward which we are marching rapidly."*

The vision of a third revelation, the expectation of a new messianicfigure, the unity of science and religion-all this is so close to Comtethat further elaboration is unnecessary. How close it is can be gatheredfrom the fact that the rival movement to Comte's Positivism, that is theSaint-Simonism of Enfantin and Bazard, appropriated the propheticexpectation of de Maistre as an announcement of the Savior who hadcome in Saint-Simon: t'Let us keep prepared, as says de Maistre, foran immense event in the divine order toward which we march with anaccelerating speed that ought to strike all observers; there is no longerany religion on earth, mankind cannot remain in this state; but, hup-pier than de Maistre, we no longer wait for the man of genius whomhe announced and who, according to him, should imminently reveal tothe world the natural affinity of religion and science: SAINT-SIMONhas appeared.ttt5

The Holy Alliance

"ft is impossible that mundane forces balance each other; only athird element, which is mundane and transmund.ane at the same time,can solve this task."tu This sentiment-that the postrevolutionary ordercannot be achieved as a balance of secular powers-pervades the Resto-

34. De Maistre, Les Soirdes de Saint-P1tersbourg, llth ed. (1854), pp. Z7U285.

ann4e, 1829, edition by

Schrtften, ed. J. Minor

35. Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Exposition, PremiEreBougl6 _and Hal6vy (Paris, L924), pp. 418f.

36. Novalis, Die Christenheit odei Europa ( ITgg ) ,(Jena, 1923), 3, p. 42,

1 8 6 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

ration; it has found its public, political e{pression in the document thatsprang from the curious relationship between Tsar Alexander I andthe Baroness von Kruedener, that is the Holy Allinnce of September 26,1815. The popular misunderstandings concerning this dc,cument havebeen dispelled by now; nevertheless it may be worthwhile repeatingthat the Holy Alliance must not be confused with the Quadruple Al-liance and that its intentions must not be identified with the reactionarypolicies of the era Metternich. The Holy Alliance seems to have hadits origin in the more or less accidental intersection of the two life-linesof Mme. de Kruedener and the Tsar. The Livonian Baroness (L7 64-L824) experienced a conversion in 1804 and from then on her life wasa colorful series of associations with the various pietistic groups of theage: with the Moravians at Herrenhut, with the circle of HeinrichJung-Stilling at Karlsruhe, with Fontaines in the Alsace, rvith Wegelinin Strassburg, and with Jean Fr6d6ric Oberlin ( after whom OberlinCollege is named ) in Waldbach. Of special interest for us is the as-sociation with Jung-Stilling and the Court of Baden because the Em-Press Elizabeth of Russia, as well as the wife of Gustavus Adolphus IVof Sweden, were Princesses of Baden, belonging to this pietistic groupihere we touch on the international social basis for the pietistic elem.ntin the Restoration in Russia and Germanl, as well as for the fact thatMme. de Kruedener could find access to the Tsar. Through the mediumof parsons and other mystical personalities, Pietism had c:reated a com-mylity of sentiments and ideas which linked, socially, the peasantrywith the courts and, geographically, West Germany with Russia. Po-litically this community was strongly imbued wittr, chilirastic ideas inwhichNapoleon figured as the Anti-Christ and the hopes were directedtoward a savior from the North, otr the basis of the piophecy of Isaiah4L:25: "Here is one I have raised from the north, I tia''ite called himby name from the east; he shall trample rulers down like mortar, likea potter treading clay.tttz Alexander I, who seemed most eminently a

37. Cf. E. Muhlenbeck, Etude sur les origines de Ia Sainte-tllliance Cpurir,1909 ) . The-full weight of these chiliastic expectations, however, can be under-stood only if qe_ seParate the chiliastic symbolism from its acciclental historicalcontent. That .{apoleon and Alexander I would seem to fill threse symbols ishistorically.accidental to the first decades of the nineteenth centurl'. The chiliasticmovement itself goes back to the period of the Reformation. It jis based on thePiblic_al _ propfrecleg of !h" Isaiah passage quoted in the text, as well as onDaniel lI (the king of the northJ, Jerbmiih 4:5 (the lion from the north),Jeremiah 5O:9, 4L44 (the people from the north). This complex of Biblicailuggestions crysfl-lized into a firm symbolisln in the so-called Prophecy ofParacelsus' probably to be dated l54l: The Prophecy announces the'"Loi-enTon Mittemacht" who after a great -struggle will lemove the cla'ws of the eaglefrom the Empire. fn the seventeenth cenfury this Prophecy had a great career


savior from the north, was a soul in anguish, burdened with the guiltof patricide; his search for the peace of his soul, which induced hiscontacts with representatives of various sectarian movements, did notcome to an end before his strange disappearance from the throne inL825 and (which seems at present the most probable assumption) hiswithdrawal to Siberia. In 18 15 he had used the opportunity of thecampaigr for seeking this peace in an interview with Jung-Stilling inKarlsruhe; the attempt failed. In June, l8I5 he had his headquartersat Heilbronn, not far from a village where Mme. de Kruedener wasengaged in persuading some peasants to sell their property and to fleefrom the impending eschatological catastrophe. This was the chance ofher lifetime for the lady; she obtained an interview with the Tsar, andin several hours of preaching she broke the sobbing man to the pointthat he "found peace"-at least for a while. At his request she followedthe Tsar to Paris and they were in daily contact at prayer-meetings.Overnight the lady had become a political force of European impor-tance, and at her religious sdances assembled such persons as Chateau-briand, Benjamin Constant and Mme. R6camier. From this associationemerged, in September 18I5, the Holy Alliance.

The Holy Alliance was published in the names of the sovereigns ofAustria, Prussia and Russia.us The three monarchs confess to beingimpressed by the events of the last three years. Divine Providence hasshowered its blessings on the states which have placed their confidenceon it alone. And the monarchs are convinced that the mutual relationsof the powers must be based on the sublime truths which are taughtby the eternal religion of the Savior God. Hence they declare now, "d la

face de fUnhters," that they will adopt as their rule of conduct theprinciples of Justice, Charity and Peace, in domestic as well as inforeign relations. These principles are not applicable to private lifeonly, but must exert a direct influence on the actions of princes. Onlywhen these principles guide all their steps will human institutions beconsolidated and their imperfections remedied. Scripture commands allmen to consider each other as brethren. The three monarchs will remain

when it was applied to Gustavus Adolphus, as the "Lion from the North," in hisstruggle against the Emperor. The consciousness of this symbolism never died,but was continued in a rich mystical, Rosicrucian and alchemystic literature.The history of this symbolism is finely treated in Johan Nordstriim, Lejonet frannorden ( Upsala, 1934 ) . The Prophecy of Paracelsus is reprinted in the ap-pendix to Nordstriim's study. A reprint in modern German is found in HansKayser's edition of Schriften Theophrast's ron Hohenheim (Leipzig, L924), no.297.

38. The text of the HolE Alliance is to be found in Recueil Martensr 2 (Goet-tingen, 1818), tro. 6O, pp. 630ff.

1 8 8 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO FI .EVOLUTION

united by the bond of a true and indissoluble fraternity. Thry willconsider each other as compatriots. They will consider themselves andtheir peoples as members of one Christian nation; the three princesregard themselves as delegated by Providence to govern three branchesof one and the same family and they recognize as their cornmon Sover-eign no other than Him, to Whom all power truly belongs, that is God,our divine Savior Jesus Christ, the Word of the Most High, the Wordof Life. In relation to their subjects and armies they will regard them-selves as fathers of families and will guide them, in the spirit of brother-hood, to protect Religiotr, Peace and Justice. Force betwergn them willbe used only for the purpose of rendering reciprocal service. The mon-archs recommend to their peoples that they fortify themselves dailymore and more in the principles and duties which the Savior hastaught, for this will be the only means to enjoy the durable peace thatarises from good conscience. And the other Powers are invited to joinin this agreement for the happiness of nations who have been agitatedtoo long, so that from now on these truths will exercise rtheir due in-fluence over the destinies of men.

The interpretation of this document has been obscured by the factthat it is couched in the form of an international treaty. I[f it is takenat the face value of its legal form, then it can be discarded as "in-nocuoustt or ttirrelevant,tt as is done by pragmatic historiarns. The con-temporaries who were invited to sign it, and actually did sign it outof deference for the Tsar, were under no illusion about itsr imelevance.The monarchs of Austria and Prussia did not sign it willing;ly. Francis Iremarked that, when it came to its implementation, he would have toconsult with his chancellor with regard to temporal matters and withhis confessor with regard to spiritual matters. The prin,cs regent ofEngland assured the monarchs that he would always endeavor toregulate his conduct by these sacred maxims, but refusecl to sign be-cause his signature was without value without the countersignature ofa minister. Metternich spoke of it contemptuously as a loud-soundingnothing. Nevertheless, in the history of ideas one cannot dispose of ru.f,documents with Castlereagh's dictum z "a piece of sublime mysticismand nonsense.tt We have experienced in our own time two statesmen,who were otherwise quite intelligent, promising *freedom from wantand fear" to the world at large, also in the form of an internationalagreement. In spite of its legal irrelevance the phenomernon requiresattention,

Once we have discounted the legal form, and have reduc:ed the docu-ment to its proper status by referring it to the encounter between Mme.de Kruedener and the Tsar, we have no difficulty in its characteriza-


tion. We have to see in it the protestant-chiliastic response to the prob-lem of the crisis, just as we have to see in de Maistre's work a catholic-chiliastic response. In the pietistic program of spiritual restoration wemust, of course, not expect projects for an institutional organization ofthe spiritual power with a de Maistrean Pope or a Comtean High Priestat itJ apex; we must expect the transfer of the spirit of brotherhood that

anima6d the pietist communities to the international scale, and that is

precisely whaf we do find. All men are brethren, and the monarchs willbe brethren, too. The nations in their separate political existence will

be abolished and transformed into members of the one Christian nation.

The rulers themselves will cease to be sovereigns and be transformedinto family heads under the sovereignty of Christ, and so forth. Overnight we have entered the millennium of Peace, Charity and Justice

,tnder Divine Providence. Such force as may still be necessary will

serve only purposes of reciprocal assistance against miscreants; and,

quite coniistenlly, the document is not submitted to such unbrotherly

inndek as the Sultan and the Pope. In this projection of the pietistic

community on the European scale, we recognize the same procedure as

in the enlargement of ttre French revolutionary humanitarianism into

the new order of mankind, or in Comtets enlargement of his personal

intgition into the order of the Occidental Republic. Under this aspect

the legal form of an international agreement finds its place in the p-u!-

tern, lhr public formalization partakes of the magic operation by which

Comte brings salvation to a society in crisis through the publication of

a book. It G a type of magic that survives today in certain intellectual

circles where political problems are approached by 'high resolvest

and. declarations of "lofty principles." For the rest, the Holy Alliance

was not without pragmatic consequences in the environment in whichit originated. The intervention of Nicholas I, in 1849, in breaking lheHungarian revolution, was inspired by the idea of *reciprocal assist-anceti to the Austrian ttbroth€r,tt and the rescript of Nicholas II, in

f 898, which initiated the First Hague Peace Conference, drew partof its inspiration from this source-though another part has to besought rather in the financial difficulties of keeping up the arrnamentrace.

Saint-Simon

The intellectual climate of the Restoration exerted its influence onComte most strongly through the medium of Saint-Simon ( 1760-1825 ) , during the years of association between the two men, that isin the years I8f7-24. For the details of this relationship the reader


should refer to the monographic literature, in particular the volumesof Gouhier. The association was so close that even now iit is difficultto decide concretely what belongs to Comte and what to Saint-Simon ina complex of ideas that was formed in the years of collaboration.Fortunately, the question is not as important as the task of separationis delicate and complicated. Neither Saint-Simon nor Comrfe have theirplace in history because of the originality of their ideas or tlhe profound-ness of their systematic thought; their ideas were a common possessionof the age, and their achievement in systematic penetration is at bestdilettantic. They hold their distinguished place because of their keensensitivity to the critical character of the epoch and because of theirability for embodying the apocalyptic atmosphere in blazing symbols ofdoom and salvation. While it is certain that Saint-Sirrron was forComte a most important mediator of ideas, it would be di:fficult to saywith precision what ideas Comte has received from Saintl-Simon thathe could not have received from elsewhere. Once the details of this re-lationship have been cleared up completely and the debatr: has settleddown, we shall probably amive at the conclusion that most importantin the relationship between the two men was the fact that there weretwo of them. The assurance which springs from the mutual confirma-tion of minds which move in the same direction was perhaps the mostprecious gift of Saint-Simon to Comte. Nevertheless, the very like-mindedness of their intellectual movement permits us to name at leasttwo great complexes in which the mutual confirmation or influencemust have been strongest, that is ( I ) the scientistic creed, and (2) theinsight into the social consequences of the Industrial Revolrution. In thefolfowing remarks on Saint-Simon, we shall concentrate on 1lhese aspectsof his ideas.*n

A few months before his death, in a conversation urith OlindeRodrigues, Saint-Simon summarized the intentions of his profuse work:"Like all the world, I wanted to system atize the philosoptry of God. Iwanted to descend successively from the phenomena of the universe tothe phenomena of the solar system, further on to the terrestrial phe-nomena' and finally to the study of the species considered as a iub-division of sublunar phenomena; from this study I wantred to derivethe laws o{ sgcial org anization, the original and essential object of myenquiry.t' Saint-Simon confesses a dream that was inspired by New-tonian physics, the dream of expandirg the type of science that had

39. For the materials of this section we rely mostly on the prresentation ofSaint-Simon in vols. 2 and 3 of Gouhier. For iracing ihe line oi the scientisticcreed we draw mostly on the study of F. A. von Hayeko ttThe Counter-Revolutjonof Sciencertt Economica (Februarl, May, August, l94t;,

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY t 9 l

evolved in mathematical physics to embrace systematically the wholeworld, including human society. It is the dream that uiro inspiredComtets Cours de Phitosophie Positiue. The dream came to noughtbecause it proved impossible to extend Newton's fundamental taw tothe other fields of enquiry Td thus to realize the aim which today goesby the name of funified science.tt Saint-Simon continues his summary,as rePorted by Rodrigues: ttBut I became aware, in due course, of theimpossibility-of e19r establishing the positive and coordinating law ofthis philosoPhy." He abandoned the idea about 1813. But th; hw ofgravitation still haunts the first lecture of Comte's Cours, and Comteexchanged the name of physique sociale for the name of soc iologie onlyat the beginning of volume 4 of the Cours-not without a nasty remurkabout Quetelet who had appropriated the name physique sociaie for hisstatistical work. Comte's solution for Saint-Simon's problem was thesubstitution of the positiv e method as the unifying agen.y for the unify-ing substantine principle of gravitation.

The failure in realizing a unified Newtonian science of society in-duced Saint-Simon to change his approach. In his remarks to Rodtign.the continues: t'I turned toward the general science of man; here onedoes not consider the sciences directly, but rather the scientists; notphilosoPhY, but rather the philosophers, under the positive aspect oftheir functions in human society." Saint-Simon has not aband.oned the"original and essential aim" of ttit inquiry-his aim is still the explora-tion of the "organizntion sociale." But he will no longer p,rrru. this

{m by se3rching for a social law of gravitation, rather, n. will pursueit by the development o! blueprints for a society in the age of Newtonianscience, technology Ttd industry. Scientists and philosophers have the"positive' function of developinsi the systematic U6ay of knowledge that*lll guarantee human domination over nature. The social otg"nirationwill abolish the old domination of man over man and. rephle it by agovernment of scientists, engineers and industrialists whb secure andincrease the domination of man over nature for the benefit of society atlarge. Politically, the advancement of science turns into the ,,counter-revolution of science' ( as Bonald has called this d,evelopment ) , withthe vision of a totalitarian society dominated by theoreticaf and practicaltechnocrats. It is importTt! d isolate this iactor in the thought ofSaint-Simonr &s von Hayek has done it in the above quoted stud'y, be-cause this factor can amalgarnate with widely differing political'ideasand movements. Indeed, it has remained one of the great constants inpolitical thinkTq- to this d"y. We find it as a component in the mana-gerial t'industrialismt' of Saint-Simon and Comte, in the conception ofthe cr1dit mobilier banking institutes for the purpose of financirg in-

L92 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

dustrial expansion, ir the socialism of Marx and Engels, in the

conceptions of government by management, &s well as in the

sive interventionism of the welfare state.s

modern

Progres-

We cannot enter here into the details of the voluminous work of

Saint-Simon. 'We

shall restrict ourselves to the bare enumeration of the

principat political symbols that emer_ged in its course and remained ef-

iective in the work of Comte as well as in later history. The earliest

work is the Lettres ilun habitant de GenEae A ses contemporains

( I g O2). We may characterize its atmosphere as transitional from

the eighteenth to ine nineteenth century. From the eightetoq century

it retains in full vigor the Voltairian cult of Newton; to tlne nineteenth

century belongs ttre project of a totalitarian organization of society.

Saint-Sittton, itt the Letires, is in search of financial bar:kers for the

project of a Council of Newton for which the subscribers will nominate

in. members from the mathematicians, physicists, chemists, physiolo-

gists, writers, painters and musicians of the age. Thr: Council of

twenty-one, elected thus by "*ankind,tt will meet under the chairman-

ship of th; mathematician who has received the highest number of

votls. It wilt represent God on earth; it will abolish the _Il-apacy which

has not undersiood the divine science that one duy wiill create the

terrestrial paradise. It will subdivide the world into regions with local

Councils oi Newton, with worship, research and instruction centered

in the Temples of Newton. The revelation comes from the Lord Him-

self, who has Newton by His side as the logas that will enlighten the

world and Saint-Simon is his prophet. In brief : here we have the third

typr of apocalyptic vision, that is the scientistic by thr: side of the

Catholic and the Pietistic.The project contains certain details which unfold lglly o$y in the

later works of Saint-Simon. The social structure which he implies at

this stage involves a stratification into scientists ( and liberal intellectuals

genera y I , property-owning industrialists and proPertyless_ workers.

[fir projlct has lor its pntpose, among other things, the avoidance of a

class stiuggle that otherwise would be inevitable. The new society wit!

be permeutia by the ethos of work. Alt men will work; "the arrns of

the poor will continue to sustain the rich, but the rich will be ordered

to let their brain work; and if their brains are not fit to work, they will

soon be obliged to work with their arrns; for Newton will certainly not

leave on thG planet ( which is so close to the sun ) workers who are

voluntarily orihs in the shops." All men will regard rLhemselves as

40. The summary of Saint-Simon is to be found in Otin{e Rodrigues'

Henri Saint-.Sirnon ift Producteur, vol. 3 ) , 1826; quoted in Gouhier, 3, P.

De61.

rHE REL IG ION OF HUMANITY r93

laborers attached to one workshop, and their work will be directed bythe Council of Newton. It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the im-portance of this concentrate of ideas. Here we can luy our finger on thepoint where the enlightened utilitarianism and scieniism of d'Alembertand Condorcet acquires the industrial society as its institutional bodyand blossoms out into the vision of the totalitarian workshop withoulescape. Even the ferociousness of branding and treating the dissrtrtersas subhumans is already developed, for anybody who does not obeyorders '\Mill be treated by the others as a quadruped.'n'

The Lettres contains in germinal form the substance of Saint-Simontslater thought, as far as it is of interest in this context. Let us mentiononly a few variants and developments. In the Introduction au,x travartxscientifiques du XIXe siicle (1807-8) he envisages, in place of theformer Council of Newton, an editorial committee for a new Encyclo-pddie that will unify all science from the point of view of physicism.This physicism is a new phase of human religiousness, following theearlier phases of polytheism and monotheism. The new encyclopedicwork is necessary because the work of the eighteenth-century intel-lectuals was merely destructive and not yet positive. We can discernin these reflections the germ of Comtets later charac tefization of thettnetaphysical" stage as merely transitory and critical, as well as thedevelopment of physicism into the new religion with a "physicistclergy.tt We find in the Introduction, furthermore, the typical cate-gories of Restoration politics: the "soci€td europ1enne" founded byCharlemagne, broken in its spiritual unity by "le d7froqud Luther," butnevertheless still forming a civilizational unit of the five nations, lack-ing today nothing but a federative religious bond. This stock of con-ceptions of the Restoration, however, is now combined with the ideathat the solution will come through the formation of a new temporalpower, consisting of the proprietary class, and a new spiritual power,consisting of scientists and intellectuals.a2 The Memoire sur la sciencede Phomme ( 18 t 3 ) again stresses the necessity of a unified, positive

41. For the Lettres see Gouhier, Jeunesse, vol. 2, and von Hayek, op. cit., pp.26ff.

42. See von Hayekr-op. 9it., pp. 29fr.; Gouhier, 3, pp. 67ff. The conceptions ofSaint-Simon were at this time stlongly influenced by-Napoleon's corporalive con-stitution for the Kingdom of Italy. In- this constitutibn the electorate was dividedinto the three g'roups of landowners, merchants and scientists, and clerics. Saint-Simon expected a reconstruction of Europe through a reorganization of allnations along these lines, and a union under the d-mpetor. The working classdid not receive any rePresentation; this feature has iemained constant

-in the

work of Saint-Simo!; his cglception of the industrial society was that of awelfare state with industriaf ists and scientists as the temporal and spiritualruling class.


science of society, and brings, ir this connection, a new variant of the

three phases: the first or preliminary epoch ended with $ocrates, the

s..ood. or conjectural lastJ to the present, and the third and positive

is about to begin.Let us, finally, select two ideas from the late work of Saint-Simon

which indicate the transition to the post-Restoration phase of the crisis.

In the Systdme Ind,ustriel ( 1820 -22) , Saint-Simon gives a new pregi-

sion to the class structure of society. The new society will not only

have to dispose of the old feudal and clerical aristocracy, it also will

have to eliminate the "second class,' consisting of people living on

their rents, of the military, the magistrates and all personsr occupied in

useless work. In the Cat;1chisme Industriel (1823-24) tre assigns to

this class the name "bourgeois" and includes in it all property owners

who are not industrialists; the temporal ruling class thus is circum-scribed precisely as consisting of persons who combine ownership with

managerial work. The French Revolution is the work of the bourgeois,not of the industrialists. The second idea, also contafined in the

Catdchisme Industnel, is that of the new freedom: the exploitation ofman by man will be succeeded by the exploitation of nature by mlnlthe military or governmental regime will be replaced by the industrialor administrative regime. At this point, we may salr occ,urs the splitbetween the Restoration proper and the later revolutionary socialism.In the Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Bazard and Enfantin still follow theirmaster in this point.€ In the Saint-Simonian Globe of 1831, howeverthe position is already reversed: 'Tt is not a question only of administer-ing things, but of governing men, a difficult, immense and saintly task."The revolutionary idea of Saint-Simon that government will disappear,and the administration of things will take its place, on the other hand,is resumed by Engels in the Anti-Diihring ( 1877): "The governmentover persons is replaced by the administration of things. The state willnot be abolished, it withers away.t The Saint-Simonians and Comtestill have an appreciation of the historical governmental order; with thegeneration of Bakunin and Marx the eschatological fever has corrodedthis element of the traditiotr, too.#

43. Doctrine de Saint-Simonr P. 162.44. On the formula of the "administration of thingsrt its origin and fate, see

the illuminating note of Bougld and llal6vy in ibid., PP. 162ff.

VIII. REVOLUTIONARY EXISTENCE:BAKUNIN

In the life of Michael Bakunin (1814-76) depths of Satanism andnihilism become visible which in the lile and work of other great figuresof the Western crisis are covered over by remnants of traditional orderand by veils of futuristic planning. Comte wanted to extirpate Chris-tianity and metaphysics from

'Western civilization but his will to

destruction was buried und.er the program of scientism anrl the dreamof the Occidental Republic. In the case of Bakunin all traditional andfuturistic scaffolds are consumed by the lust of destruction: in thepresent the past must be destroyed to its very roots and the future mustnot even be imagined by men who are still tainted by the past. InBakunin the destructive existence of the revolutionary appears in itsnakedness.

Reaction and, retsolution

We gain some access to the operations of the revolutionary mindthrough Bakunints early article on sReaction in Germany," a study onthe nature of freedom and democracy and on the obstacles to theirrealization in history.l

The great enemy of the principles of democratic revolution is forBakunin the reactionary party which began to form in the period ofRestoration all over Europe. He sees it manifesting itself in conservatismin politics, in the historical school in law, and in the positive philosophyin speculation. This reactionary party he does not consider a historical *accident. History is not a field of contingencies; it is a free and, there- ,rfore, necessary evolution of the spirit. The democratic creed, foundedas it is in the freedom of the spirit, would be served badly if the as-sumption of contingencies were admitted in explaining the course ofhistory. The democratic party can be victorious only, if and when ittransforms its enthusiasm and the vagueness of its fantasies into anexistential insight into the process of history. Its difficulties are not

l. 6Die Reaktioa in Deutschland: Ein Fragment von einem Franzosen.t' pub-lished in Arnold_Ruge's Deutsche Jahrbuzchei fiir wissenschaft und Kzasf, nos.247-251 (Dresden, October 17-21, 1842), pp. 98&-lo0l. pseudoaym: JulesElysard. we quote from tbe reprint h Michazl-Bakunin, zuei schriftin aus den4oer Jahren des xIX Jalvhunderts (Internationale Bibliotheh fiir philosophic,vol. 2, no. 1rl12 [Prague, 1936]). T\e Bibliothe,[ and these two publications ofBakunin are edited, with valuable notes, by Boris Jakoweoko.

196 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO NIEVOLUTION

caused by the opposition of obscurantism but arise "from the fullness

of the toiality of hn*un nature which cannot be exhausted by.lbstract,

theoretical ptopo*itions." There will be no hope of victory until democ-

racy .*.tgfuu iro* its present difficulties through the understanding

thai the erimy is not outside but within, and that first it has to conquel

the internal *.*y. The revolutionaries will first have to understand

that democracy does not consist only in opposing the gorvernment of

the hour, nor in a particular constitutional reorganization, nor in a

politico-economic change, *but that it announces a total reversal of the'

state of the world," that it is an "original, new life that has not existed

in history before.' They will have to understand that "detmocracy is a

religion,; and by this knowledge they will have to become religious

themselves; they will have to be penetrated by their principles, so that

they express them not in thought and reasoning only "but truthfully in

their concrete life, into its minutest manifestations.tt'Bakunin, thus, is concerned with the metanoia of the person: intel-

lectual propositions concerning democracy are meaningless unless ,h9y

are rooted in the truly transformed personality of the revolutionary. 'We

are moving in the iension between a phenomenal realm of political

theorizing and acting and a substantial "truth" in the ground of exist-

ence. Hence the contest between reaction and revolution is not primarilyconcerned with forms of government. As a matter of fact, :revolutionarydemocraclr as we shall see later, will have to resort to dictatorial meansof government, while a bourgeois republic cannot be considered a

democracy simply because it has universal suffrage. If rlemocracy is

to be realized truly, it must be born from true existence. lfhe princiPleof democracy is historically stilt at the stage of opposition tro the existingpolitical state. As a mere negation *it necessarily has the rarhole fullnessof life outside itself"; it exists only as a party which, &s a partlr pre-supposes the existence of its reaction; it does not yet exist affirmatively.In this "bad form' it will have to perish together with thre reaction inorder to be reborn "from its free ground.tt And this change of thedemocratic party will not occur as a quantitative increase of its present*bad existence,tt but as a qualitative transformation, as "iv. new, livingand vivifying revelation, a new heaven and a new earth.D 3(A mereexpansion would mean a flattening out of the whole w<lrld, and theresult of the whole story would be absolute worthlessness (Nichtig'

heit) . t t

It is not necess ary to dwell at length on the fact that B,akunin's idea

of revolutionaryr democratic existence clearly bears the traces of the

2. Ibid., p. 5.3. Ibid.r p. 6.

REVOLUTIONARY EXISTENCE: BAKUNIN L97

Christian past from which it emerges. The *total reversal of the stateof the world" stems from the Old Testament *turning of the tables";the "living and vivifying revelation which brings a new heaven and anew earth" belongs to the complex of messianic annunciations; thedistinction between intellectual lip-service to an idea and its truthfulrcalization in "concrete life" reflects the Christian change of heart; thettoriginal, new lifett we know as the renovatio Eaangelica. The wholeatmosphere of an impending new dispensation is strongly reminiscentof English sectarian expectations that "God. will come skipping overthe mountains' and establish His kingdom on earth.

Beyond this formal structure of Christian eschatology, however,there is noticeable in Bakunin's ideas a continuity with the Christianpast. The "freedom of the spirit" which he evokes is supposed to be anultimate rcalization of Christian spirit. Bakunin sees the struggle forfreedom inherent in Catholic Christianity from its beginnings. Theprinciple of freedom is "the source of all heresies'; without it, Catholi-cism would have been immovable and, hence, "it was the principle ofits aliveness as long as it was contained as a mere moment in its total-ity." Freedom is the source of the victorious heresy of Protestantismwhich also was inherent in Catholicism from its Pauline beginningsuntil it became an independent principle.n And, in general, liberation ofthe essentially free spirit from its fetters of unfreedom is the meaningof history. At present we have arrived at a new, critical epoch thatopens a future beyond Catholicism and Protestantism. "The oppositionof freedom and unfreedom has been driven to its last and highestculmination in our present which is so similar to the periods of dis-solution of the pagan world.' "The mysterious and terrible wordstLibert6, Egalit/ and Fraternit| suggest *the complete annihilation' ofthe existing political and social world. Has not Napoleon, this sup-posed tamer of democraclr spread the levelling principles victoriouslythrough Europe? Do not Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel representthe same levellins, revolutionary principle in the intellectual world? Theautonomy of the spirit is the new principle of order, and it stands inhighest opposition to all past religions and churches.u

If his opponents should answer that the conflicts have been solvedand appeased politically in the France of Louis Philippe, and intellect-ually through Schellitg, he would have to refer them to the spectacleof the present. What is still living of the old Catholic and Protestantworlds? And where is intellectual harmony in the face of the works of

4. Ibid., pp. L7f ,5. Ibid., pp. 18f.

r98 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO ITEVOLUTION

Strauss, Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer? There is a state of utter confusionand disharmony and such a state cannot last. "You knowrt Bakunin ad-dresses the reader, "that mankind in accordance with its ultimate destinycan only find peace and quiet in a universal-practical principle whichpowerfulty forces together the thousandfold manifestations of spirituallife-and where is this principle?" Is it to be found in Protestantism?But the world of Protestantism is a prey to the anarchy of its sects.Schellirg had said that without a great enthusiasm only sects canexist, no public opinion. And the Protestant world is not penetrated bya great enthusiasm, it is the soberest world one can itnagine. AndCatholicism? Its old glory is gone; from its rule over the world it hassunk to the level of an instrument for a foreign, immoral. policy. Andthe State? The state is involved in the profoundest internal contradictionsbecause a state without religion, without a strong public sentiment(allgemeine Gesinnung) is impossible. "Look into yourself and tell metruthfully: are you satisfied with yourself and can you be satisfied?-are you not all sad and bedraggled manifestations of a sad and be-draggled time?-are you not full of contradictions?-are you wholemen?-do you believe in anything really?-do you know what youwant, and can you want anything at all?-has modern reflection, theepidemic of our time, left a single living part in you; and are you notpenetrated by reflection through and through, paralyzed and broken?Indeed you will have to confess that ours is a sad eg€, &nd that we allare its still sadder children." "All peoples, all men, are filled with acertain premonition, and everybody whose vital organs are not com-pletely paralysed looks with shuddering apprehension into the approach-ing future that will speak the word of salvation.D (That isr why we callto our blinded brethren: Repent! Repent! The Kingdom of the Lord isnear!" "Let us trust the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilatesonly because it is the unfathomable and eternally creative source of alllife. The joyful passion (Lust) of destruction is a creative passion.ft

Bakunin's historical perspective leaves no doubt about his role as anew St. John the Baptist who announces, after Catholicism andProtestantism, the Third Realm of the ultimately free spirit. As faras the dialectical technique of the perspective is concerned, there ishardly a difference between Bakunin's speculation and Hegel's dialecti-cal unfolding of freedom in history, or Schelling's specurlation on thethree Christianities. Under this aspect, his eschatology appears as alate derivation of Christian experiences, mediated through the Germanmetaphysic of freedom and reason, and by virtue of this rnediation con-

6. Ibid., pp. 2O-2L,

REVOLUTIONARY EXISTENCE: BAKUNIN 199

nected with European mystical traditioll. At this point, however, abreak occurs between the derivative Christianity of Hegel and Schelliogon the one side, and the revolutionary speculation of Bakunin. Hegel'sand Schelling's interpretations of history were contemplative in the

sense that the understanding of history was for them the most important

cathartic exercise in clarifyins and solidifyitg their own existence.

However far their ideas diverged from orthodox, dogmatic Christianity'however far they went in the direction of Gnosis, they still remained

substantially Ctrristian thinkers and were concerned about the order

of their souls. Bakunints pronunciamenta breathes an entirely difrerent

spirit. The consciousness of crisis is strongly alive in him, and he uses

the historical perspective sensibly, though not impeccably, f9t its ex-

pression. I{evertheless, history is now more than the cathartic means

iot clarifyiog a man's position in his world; under the influence of

Feuerbach, il has become the legitimating basis for action. The con-

sciousness of crisis moved Schellirg to his "inner refitrn,D toward the

ground in the soul in which the identity of freedom and necessity is to

be found. The same consciousness moves Bakunin toward revolutionary

action, &tr action which like Schelling's inner return is supposed to pro-

duce the identity of freedom and necessity-but freedom understood as

political and eionomic freedom, and necessity understood as the in-

ixorable revolutionary pressure of the masses.Bakunin, indeed, ud*onishes us to direct our attention to t'the poor

class which, without doubt, is the vast majority of mankind" in order

to identify, if possible, our freedom with their necesst_ry.. At present,

this poor'class- is condemned to factual slavery through ip iqnorance

and. iack of property. This class '\rhich is the real peopleo becomes

menacins uri blgins to demand the enjoyment of the righ'ts which

everybody grants them theoretically.' The social Pry:otditions are

gro*ing ioithe realization of the new realm througt "direct action' in

i"fti.n h.t*ur freedom does not find its identity with God's necessiry,

but with the material power that can be supplied by an enraged mass

of people. Such action iannot form the soul, but will be directed against

th; pfesent political institutions as the vessels of the old spirit. No

.o*ptomise is possible with them. *The revolutionary Propaganda is

in iG deepest nature the negation of the existing conditions of govern-

ment; foi in its innermost nature it has no other program than the

destruction of what exists.o8 "And how could possibly that of which the

7. Ibid.r p. 2O'8. Ibid.;

'p. 6. This sentence seems to be a quotation from Die europiiische

pentarchie '(Leipzig,

1839 ) , pubtished anonFnously-, - attributed to Goldmann( 1798-1863 ). On ihis point see n. 2 by Jakowenko, ibid., p. 46,

200 FROM ENLTGHTENMENT TO R.EVOLUTION

whole life is destruction come to an external compromisie with thatwhich, according to its innermost nature, it must destroy?"t

We have assembled the elements from Bakunin's article that wiltpermit us now to appraise the new phase which the Western crisis hasreached in him. His revolutionary politics is eschatological in nature;it belongs to the type of speculations on the Third Realm that we findestablished in the medieval sectarian movements. Within this generaltyPe, it belongs to the variety of activist mysticism which producesParacletes as the founders of the Realm of the Spirit. Within the activisttype, it must be distinguished from the genuine, Christian Paracletictype ( as instanced by Jan van Leyden ) through the humanization andimman entization of the spirit. Bakunin is not a Paraclete in whom thelogos has become flesh-all traces of Christian transcend,entalism aregone. His spirit is immanent to history and to man who makes history;in this respect, Bakunints ideas are founded on Feuerbach''s anthropol-o_gy. Not tle_spirit of God, but the spirit of man, and quitr: specificattythe spirit of Bakunin, wilt bring salvation in immanent historiial action.In this respect, the eschatological politics of Bakunin is closely relatedto the Apocalypse of Man which we noted in the case of Comte. Thesedeterminations enable us, finally, to isolate the elements in Bakunintscomplex of ideas which are specifically his own; we find them ( I ) inthe radical absence of a positive idea of order, (2) in the identificationof freedom with the 'Joyful passion of destruction"-which in Bakunin'sexistence seems to be as much the cause for the absence o,f an idea oforder, as its- consequence-and ( 3 ) in the discovery of the *masses"as the historical agent that will provide the brute force for the work ofdestruction.

The isolation of these three elements which we may conrsider specifi-cally B_akunin's will permit us to clarify the relationrftip between himand Marx. The publication in 1932 of Marx's m"n,i.cript on Na-tionaliikonomie und Philosophie ( 1844 ) has put it practi,,rily beyonddoubt that the formation of Marx's ideas was strongly irrfluln..i byBakunin's article on Die Reaktion in Deutschland ( t gag ) . We muyformulate the relation between the ideas of the two men irr the follow-ing terms: the fundamental position of Marx is the same as Bakunin's.We find the same consciousness of crisis, as well as the same back-ground of Feuerbachian anthropology and immanentization of the spirit.Moreover' we find Marx in agreement with Bakunin on the metanoiaas the essence of revolution, and consequently in agreemenrt concerningthe externality of mere political and economic revolution. For Marx-,

9. Ibid., p. 6.

RIVOLUTIONARY EXISTENCE: BAKUNIN 20r

no more than for Bakunin, would the abolition of capitalism and the

establishment of a communist property order without a change of heartresult in the creation of a free society. And, finally, we find Marx in

agreement with Bakunin in the discovery of the "masses" as the mas-

siu., historical force that will lead to a successful revolution which

otherwise would be confined to the ineffectual rantings of intellectuals.

Again, the determination of this area of agreement will permit us to

fix the point at which Marx departs from Bakunin. Marx does not

share the primordial lust of destruction with his rival, nor the absence

of any idea of order. He is willing to guide the revolution by providing

it wiin a "scientific" system of social theory and a "philosophy" of his-

tory. In this respect, the organizing will of Marx, his dictatorial in-

teliectualism, ir ielated to that of Comte. Bakunin, on the other hand,

heartily detests both Marx and Comte because their "authoritarianism"would

-limit his lusty passion for destruction by visions of responsible,

ordering action. Moreover, Marx goes beyond Bakunin in defining the,,proletariattt as the specific agent of the revolution instead of the vague

"ioor classesrtt ttmasses'and ttreal people.tt In the 1860ts, when Marx is

.trguged in taying the groundwork for an international organization of

th; pioletariai, Bakunin still indulges in romantic pamqhl-etq glorifyils

the hussian robber. Nevertheless, while at the end of their lives the

scientistic, authoritarian socialism of Marx and the anarchistic revolu-

tionary existence of Bakunin have moved far apart, we should be aware

of the common beginnings. The Marxian line of revolution was success-

ful because of the elements that were missing in Bakunin, but the sys-

tem of Marx would never have been written and never exerted its in-

fluence unless it had originated in the genuine pathos of revolutionary

existence that we find in its purity in Bakunin.l

Bakunin's Confession

In 1849 Bakunin was arrested and tried by the Saxon authorities forhis participation in the uprising of Dresden and in 1850 he was sen-tenced to death. The sentence, however, was not executed because theSaxon authorities agreed to surrender him to the Austrians, who soughthim for his participation in the Czech revolt of 1848. Again he wastried, and in 1851 sentenced to death. This time the sentence was com-muted to imprisonment for life. The commutation was a formality forit had been decided in advance that on the duy of the sentence he wouldbe transported to the Russian border and handed over to the Russianauthorities. In Russia, it L844, Bakunin had already been sentencedin absentia to loss of the privileges of nobility and to hard labor for life


in Siberia when he refused to obey an order to return to Russia. Hencein t85I Bakunin was not tried by the Russian authorities but simplyimprisoned in the Peter-Paul's fortress in execution of the eatli.isentence.

In the fortress at first nothing happened. and Bakunin waited in vainfor his deportation to Siberia. After two months the doon of his cellopened to admit Count Orlov, aidede-camp to the Tsar ilnd chief ofthe Third Section. The caller informed Bakunin that he was sent bythe Tsar Personally, and was ordered to invite him to write a confessionof his sins to the Tsar. uTell him," the Tsar had orderr:d., "that heshall write to me like a spiritual son to his spiritual fathe,r." Bakuninaccepted the invitation and the result is the Confession.to

To write a confession of onets sins to the Tsar is not consid,ered goodform among revolutionaries. The biographers of Bakunin, whJ areeither revolutionaries themselves or at least have sufficient sympathyfor the revolutionary code dhonneur to feel apologetic about

-their

hero, have worked hard to minimize the horror. Sorrp of their argu-ments point quite aptly to the circumstances of the confessi,on. Bakuninyut a pioneer and the code of conduct for revolutionaries had not yetbecome standardized. Moreover, Bakunin was a noblenran and anofficer, and for a man in his social position it was not exlLravagant tocommunicate with men of his own ilass. Beyond this point, however,there is not much to go on. What some of thl biograplt.tr have to sayabout the psychological motivations of Bakunin una the still *orlfascin*inS occurrences in the soul of Nicholas I is mostly literaryfancy.tt

Besides the Confession itself, there are only two immedliate sourceswhich could be of help in understanding it. The first source is the letterto Herzen q"gltg above. Bakunin tellr ln this letter that in an ordinarytrial he would have pursued the same course as in his Saxon andAustrian hearings where he confessed to his principles but did notreveal any information whatsoever. "But within fbur *illr, i,n the power

lO. The source for the visit of Count Orlov is a letter from Bakunin to Herzen,in Michail Bakunin's sozial-politischer Briefwechsel mit Alexand,er Iw. Herzenund Ogariout,

"q. Dragomanov (Stuttgart, 1895), p. ss. The confession was

pybt-ighed Jrom the Archives of the Thfid Section iri V. A. poto"rty io oot. I ofhis Materiali dlEa biografii M. A. Bahunino (Mosc"ow, lg2i). Th; text used isMichael Bakunins Beichte aeat der Peter-Parlt-Ftttuis sn-Zar Nikolarrc I, ed.Kurt Kersten, *it! a_prefacg by w. polonski (Berli"r-rgeo).

11. On Bakunin's Confession see Polonski in the pt.fu.. to Michael BahunintsBeichte; H6lEne Iswolski, La pie de Bakounine (Plris, rg3o); E. yaroslavski,History of Anarchism in Russia (New York, lgsTj; and"G"y A. Aldred,Bokunin (ClPqoY, 1940). The excellent work by E. H. Carr, Metinae:l Bahunin(London, 1937), is adequate, but brief in its account.


of the bear,tt he might relax and write a sort of confession, in the man-ner of Dichtung und Wahrheit. Besides, his actions had been quiteopen anyway and he had nothing to hide. He only took care not to men-tion any names of persons who might be compromised by him. "Inthe consciousness of my apparently helpless situation and consideringthe energetic character of Nicholas, my letter was very decided andbold-and that is why he liked it."o

The other source is a secret letter which he smuggled into the handsof members of his family when they were permitted to visit him. Herehe details his physical decay as well as his fear of approaching mentaldeterioration brought on by solitary confinement for a period of twoyears. He assures his relatives that his former convictions have notchanged but have become more burning and unconditioned. Atl that isleft to him is comprised in the one word "Freedom!" This is not a

desire for freedom from imprisonment only, but the desire to act againas a revolutionary. "Give mi the possibility to act. It seems to me that I

have never had so many ideas, never sensed such a burning urge for

movement and action. I am not yet quite dead; and precisely this life of

the soul which has through concentration become profounder and more

powerful, now demands more than ever to express itself, now has be-

iome for me the inexhaustible source of sufferings which I do not even

attempt to describe. You will never understand what it means to be

buried alive, to say to oneself every minute of the duy and nighl: I am a

slave, I am annihilated, I have become helpless the body still living.'

To hear the echo of the great struggle, and to be condemned to silence!

Rich in ideas, and unable to realize a single one! "To feel love in the

heart, yes, love in spite of the walls around, and not to be able to give

it away for something or somebody. To feel oneself full of selfdenial,and. rubo heroism, to iervr a thousandfold holy idea-and to see all this

striving broken by the four naked walls, my only witnesses, my only

confidants.tffiThe two sources, together with a few other indications which we

shall introduce presently, provide an understanding for Bakunin'ssituation which makes all speculation superfluous. There is, first of all,the plain, vital horror of physical and mental decay; any step thatwould bring relief in this respect, such as the hard labor requested asan act of grace by Bakunin, would seem justified as long as other Per-

12. Letter to Herzen from Irkutsk, December 8, 1860; in Sozh.l-?olitischerBriefatechsel, pp. 35f. In weighing the vdue_ of this letter one will have toconsider that ii was written almost ten years after the Confession.

13. Text of the letter in Michael Bakunins Beichte, *Introduction" by KurtKersten, pp. xiiif. This letter is approximately contemporary with the Confession.


sons are not endangered by the Confession. On the spirituerl level, how-ever, the situation is more complex. There seems to be a contradictionbetween the secret letter and iertain formulations of the Confession.In the secret letter Bakunin admits freely that still there is firm in hisheart the hope "to begin anew where I had to stop the work that broughtme here, only with greater tenacity, perhaps with greater circumspec-tion.tt The Confession, on the other hand, concludes with the formula:ttthe sincerely repentant sinner M. B.tt

The contradiction is obvious but not simple, for the formula is nota straight lie. The formula of repentance in its turn is contradicted bythe whole content of the Confession itself in which Bakunjin frequentlyexPresses his repentance in such terms that his nonrepent:lnce is clear.Towards the beginning Bakunin begs the Tsar not to arik of him tobecome a traitor and to confess the sins of others. "Even in your owneyesr Emperor, I would rather appear as a political crimirral deservirgthe severest punishment than as a rascal.ttta The Tsar, who was of thestuff of which inquisitors are made, noted on the margirr: "By thesewords already he destroys all confidence; if he feels the full weight ofhis sins, only a complete confession, not a conditioned one can beconsidered a confession.tt A few pages later Bakunin speaks of hisphilosophical and political disease which has brought him into hispresent condition, ttand I do not know even now whethen I am com-pletely healed.tt Note of the Tsar: ttN.B.ltt15 Further on Bakunin ad-dresses the Tsar: "Emperor, I shall not talk to you of my' late repent-alce: Repentance in my situation is as useless as the repentance of asinner after death." The Tsar did not fall for the trickl; he noted:uWrong; repentance of eve_ry sinner can bring salvation if only it comesfloAa Pule heart.Dtu The Confession thus is not an attempt at deceivingthe Tsar. What then do the assurances of repentanc. *rurr, if by theirvery formulation lhty defeat the purpose of moving the Tsar bf u sin-cere repentance? There seems to be only one answer to the question:the moods of Bakunin are complex, and while the secret letter rftows therebellious mood, in the Confession Bakunin worked himself into sucha state of sincerity and repentance as is revealed in his words that hecould stand before the Tsar to a degree at Ieast as a repe:ntant sinner.

How was that possible? A k.y is perhaps offered by certain reflec-tions of Bakunin in his early article on Re action in Geiman7. In L842Bakunin distinguished between two types of reactionarir:s: the con-sistent and the mediating. The mediating type has his full contempt,

L4. Michael Bahunins Beichte, pp. Zff.15. Ibid., p. 5.16. Ibid.r p. 16.


but not so the consistent. "In our bad and conscienceless aS€, when somany try to hide before themselves the strict consequences of their ownprinciples out of sheer cowardice, in order to escape the danger of be-ing disturbed in the artificial and weak shell of their supposed con-victions, we are greatly obliged to these men. They are sincere andhonest; they want to be whole men. . . Thry are honest and wholemen, or rather they want to be honest and whole men; and they hateevery halfheartedness, just as we do, because they know that only awhole man can be good and that halfheartedness is the foul source ofall wickedness.t"t *The source of their striving is almost alwayshonest.tos There is more in common between Bakunin and a consistentreactionary than between him and a man who wants to compromisebetween traditions and the necessities of reform. The Tsar was a corl-sistent reactionary in this sense, and the letter to Herzen referring tothe energetic character of Nicholas I seems to indicate a genuine respectfor the enemy. Imponderables may have intensified this attitude, suchas the fact that the Tsar was not the secular nrler only, but indeedBakunin's spiritual head, as well as memories of the officer school andthe enthusiasm of the young cadet for the Tsar on which the Confes-sion dwells at length. To measure himself with this intimate andrespected enemy was certainly a temptation.

A further stratum of the soul is touched in the passages of the secretletter in which Bakunin expresses his despair that his self-denying andheroic love breaks in vain against the walls of the prison. This love ofBakunin, his political eros, does not only embrace the 'holy idea" of therevolution in a partisan fashion. It embraces also the opposing actors inthe drama of freedom. The article of L842 is again revealing. Bakuninasks himself whether the revolutionary should return in kind the hatredof the reactionaries. His answer: ttNo, that would not be wotthy of thegood cause of which we are the organs.' By its very existence a partisanonesidedness presupposes the existence of another onesidedness. Therevolutionary as a human being will be filled in the struggle with "evilpassiors," he will be partial and hateful. But that cannot be the lastword, for in this case the revolution would not be any better than thereaction. To be a revolutionary partisan in politics can be justified onlyif othe onesided, merely political existence is perpetually overcome(auf gehoben) in the religion of the comprehensive and allsided princi-ple.tt The revolutionary has to recognize in his reactionary opponentthat his opponent really wills the good and that only "by an incompre-

17. Bakunin, Die Reaktion in Deutschland,, p. 7.18. Ibid., p. 9.

206 FRoM ENLIGHTENMENT To R.EvoLUTIoN

hensible misfortune' has he been distracted from his true destiny. "Tous alone, who are called the enemies of the Christian religion, is it re-served and even made our highest duty to practice love concretely evenin the hottest struggle, this highest command of Christ and. this only es-sence of true Christianity.-e The love that recognizes in the enemy abrother who also wills the good, and is perhaps even a secret partner inthe common struggle, is a strong trait running throughout Bakunintslife. In the Russian legend Christ kisses Judas for his betrayal: beforethe face of God both have their roles in the drama of salvation; the onehas to betray so that the other can redeem as the victim of the betrayal.That kiss is given again by Christ to the Great Inquisitor in the Broth-ers Kara,mazw.

Finally, we have to consider another t'confessiontt of Bakunin, madea few years earlier in a letter to Annenkov.* Bakunin tenb his friendthat his life had been determined by almost involuntary turns, inde-pendent of his own plans. "God knows where it wilt lead nxe. I only feelthat I shall never retrace my steps and never shall be disloyal to my con-victions. In this lies the whole strength and dignity; in this lies thewhole reality and the whole truth of my life; in this lies my faith and myduty; for the rest I care little. This is my confession." If this shouldsound like mysticism, he continues-well, who is not a mystic? Is thereany life without mysticism? "Life is only where there is a s,ev€r€, unlim-ited and therefore somewhat mystical horizon. Indeed we know almostnothing; we live in a living sphere, surrounded by miracles and vitalforces; and everyone of our steps can bring them 1o light without ourknowledge and frequently even without our will.tt The ttsevere and un-limited horizon" is the perfect symbol of a force that feels direction butsees no aim. The most unexpected contingencies in the sers€ of the for-tuna secunda et ad:uersa may arise to a force which can acknowledge noother standard but loyalty to its demonic urge. And who could say whatmight happen when the Tsar reads the Confession? The demonic ad-venture of throwittg the Confession into time, as a potential crystallizirgpoint for unknowable happenings, has to be taken into account in un-derstanding Bakunints act of confession.

The Confession itself is one of the best literary piecers written byBakunin. It surveys his life from his youth in the officer school, anddwells at length on his revolutionary activities in the fortir:s in France,Prussia, Saxony and Austria. Because of this content it is, together withhis other writings of the late forties, &tr important source for under-

19. Ibid., p. 8.2O. Letter to Annenkov, Brussels, December 28, 1847; in Sozial-politischer

Briefuechsel, p. 7.


standing the revolutionary events of 1848 and 1849. The problems ofpolitical history, however, are not our primary concern. We have to ex-plore rather the elements of the Confession which contribute to the un-derstanding of Bakunin's revolutionary existence in the amplitude ofcrime and repentance. We have to ask, therefore, of what precisely didBakunin repent and what were the motives of his repentance?

Disillusionment and re p entanc e

Bakunin did not repent for a moment his revolutionary existence assuch. He repented its futility. And he repented because his observationof the revolutionary events in Paris and Berlin, in Frankfurt, Baden,Dresden and Prague had filled him with a disgust for the freedom-loving republicans who betrayed their revolution as soon as they felttheir property interests at stake and were only too glad to rehrn to thefold of conservative power. His revolutionary experiences produced inBakunin a profound contempt for the West, especially of Germany.Correspondingly his Russian national sentiments became warmer thanthey were before, and, while he was not at all blind to the Russian evils,he discovered that Russia was not quite so bad as the West. He recog-nized the consistently reactionary Tsar as a figure of quality comparedwith the European monarchs who trembled abjectly in the face of therevolts of f 848. "In spite of my democratic convictions, I have wor-shipped you profoundly in the last year, as it were against my will. NotI alone but many others, Poles and Europeans in general, have under-stood like myself that you are the only one among the ruling heads ofthe time who has preserved his faith in his imperial calling.%

The disillusionment and repentance of Bakunin are closely connectedwith his attitude towards communism and the communist sects and se-cret societies of the forties. From the point of view of his revolutionaryexistence, Bakunin does not envisage a communist property order as thedirect aim of a revolution determined to abolish the evils of society. Amere change of property order without a *real,t democratic revolutionwould not interest him. Communism would inevitably be incidental tothe revolution but it would not be its purpose. Hence the communistmovement is a symptom of social decay; it does not open a road to salva-tion. Bakunin insists in the Confession that he never was a communist,though he followed the movement with great interest because he saw init "the natural, necessary and inevitable result of the economic and po-litical development of Western Europe.t The social order of the West is

21, Michael Bakuniru Beichter p. 25,


corrupt and can be maintained only with the greatest effo:rt. This state

is the only explanation for "the panic terror" which in I84B gripped theWestern countries with the exception of England. "Wherever one turnsin Western Europe one sees decadence, unbelief and conuption, a cor-ruption which has its roots in unbelief. From the uppermost social lev-eG down, no person, ro privileged class, has the faith in its calling uldright.t' Privileges are maintained by egoism and habit only. "This is in

my opinion the essence and. the strength of communism . . . ! com-munism had and has its starting point at least as much fr<lm the toP asfrom below; below in the masses it grows and lives as an unclear butenergetic demand, as the instinct of revolt; in the upper classes it appearsas the instinct of a threatening and deserved disaster, as an iindeterminateand helpless anxiety caused. by their own weakness and bacl conscience.ttThis anxiety has contributed more to its spreading than th,e proPagandaof the communists. "I believe that this indeterminate, invisible, intangi-ble, but omnipresent communism, which under various fot'ms but with-out exception is alive everywhere, is a thousand times rrl0r€ dangerousthan the exact, system atized variety which is preached only in a few se-cret and public societies.tt In 1848, these societies have revealed theirimpotence in England, France and Belgium; moreover, their program isso impractical that they could not survive three days of success. Foronce Bakunin and the Tsar are in hearty agreement, and tlhe analysis ofa Western society that is plagued by its bad conscience is annotated byNicholas I with such remarks as t'Righttt and *A pertinent truth.tt"

The change of the economic order would interest Bakunin only asthe inevitable accompaniment of a genuine Western revolution. But fora real revolution the West is not ripe, as the events of 1848 haveshown. With this disillusionment and with the despair caused by a fu-tile life, we touch the core of Bakunin's revolutionary attitude, and notof Bakunin's only but generally of the Russian revolutio,naries of thenineteenth century. Bakunin was forced into revolutionary existence be-cause only in a revolutionized Russia could a man of his energy andquality find an adequate field of action. The revolution in the West wasof vital importance for him because he hoped that it would be the signalfor the revolution in Russia, and the Russian revolution would enablehim to go home and play an active role in the politics of his country.The Russian intelligentsia of the nineteenth century grows into a classoutside the classes because the social and political order ( in which evenpraise of the government was considered a subversive inrsolence ) doesnot leave room for constructive action within the order to men of intel-

22. Tbid., pp. 7f.


ligence, temperament, education, mature personality and the moral willto reform. It has become a commonplace in the analysis of revolutionthat a government is in danger when the intellectuals are in oppositionto it. As a surface description the commonplace contains a truth. But itdoes not bring out the underlying problem that intellectuals oppose thegovernment because in their society they can find nothing better andmore dignified to do. A social order reaches its critical phase when menof intellectual and moral integrity have to debase themselves if theywant to participate in public life. The gravest insult to human person-ality is the denial of opportunity to let qualities of high value become anactive force in society. When a society has reached the stage of corrup-tion where its most valuable members are simply shoved aside the con-sequence will b., according to personality types, the withdrawal intocontemplation or the active resistance to the point of revolutionary de-struction and criminality.

The Russian social order of the time of Bakunin had d.eveloped a de-gree of repression which produced as its counterpart the extreme formsof nihilism. In his time, &il educated Russian in his social position hadthe choice of sitting on his property and exploiting serfs, or of enteringan administrative service in which he would have to submit to the rulesof conduct of a depraved bureaucracy, or of becoming an officer in thearmy with a life of dull routine in out-of-the world places in the com-pany of uninspiring comrades." In the generation after Bakunin whenthe problem of an intellectually mature and active life had spread to themiddle class, the situation became aggravated because the lower-classintellectuals did not even have the career chances of a Bakunin. In acountry without a public life of the people, wedged in between the gov-ernmental organization of an upper class which they despised and apeasant people with whom they had no contact, the intellectuals stood

23. A forceful outbreak of the sentiment of repression is to be found inBakunin's speech on the anniversary of the Polish- revolution in L847: "Nousaussi nous sommes gouvern6s pg une main 6trangEre, par un souverain dtorigineallemande -qui ne comprendra jamais ni les besoins ni le caractEre du pe[plerusse, et dont le- gouvernernent, mdlange singulier de brutalit6 mongole

- et

-de

p6dantisme prussien, exclut complEtement l'6lement national. De sorte {ue, priv6sde tous droits politiques, nous n'avons pas -m6me cette libert6, patriartale, pourainsi dire, dont jouissent les pe_uples les moins civilis6s et qui peimet du moins elhomme de reposer son coeur dans un milieu indigdne_ et de sLbandonner pleine-ment aux instincts de sa race. Nous ntavons rien de tout cela: aucun gestenaturelr aucun mouvement libre ne nous est permis. Il nous est presque d6f[ndude viwe, car toute vie implique une certaine ind6pendance, et nous

-ne sommes

que lgt rouages inanim6s de cette monstrueuse -

machine d'oppression et deconqu6te qu'on appelle I'empire russe." (The speech was published in La Ri.-forme, December L4, L847; we quote from fhe reprint

-in Sozial-politischer

Briefwechsel, pp. 279f ,)


before a blank wall of nothingness and nihilism to the point where ter-roristic murder became a sensible means of expression beczruse for someof them it was the only one at their disposal. The prison walls againstwhich the love of Bakunin broke were only the ultimate physical em-bodiment of the prison walls of society against which an active intelli-gence hammered until it was exhausted and broken. In this light wehave to read the touching confession of Bakunin: ..I would have sub-ordinated myself to anybody if I had recognized in him ttre ability, themeans and the firm will to serve the principles which I held as absolutetruths. I would have followed him joyfully and would have subordi-nated myself to him with pleasure, because I have always respected andloued discipline that rests on conaiction and fatth." And then he turnshis great problem even into a personal vice t "My nature had always adeep-rooted vice: my love for phantastical, for unusual, unheard-of ad-ventures which open unlimited horizons. In an everyday and quiet circleI felt I had to suffocate. Usually men are in search of quiet and see in itthe highest good. But to me quiet brought despair; my soul was in in-cessant excitement; it demanded action, movement and .life. I shouldhave been born somewhere among western colonists in the Americanwoods, where civilization is only about to blossom forth, where life isstill an incessant struggle against wild men and against a wild nature,not in a wellordered bourgeois society.tt%

Faith under wiU

The pu{pose of Bakunin's revolutionary activity is the hope of re-turning to Russia, to a Russia that will hav-e room fbr him in public life.*To my life in Russia I could return only on a revolutionaryr criminalpath.ts But how could such a revolution be effected? The answer of theConfession goes in its implications far beyond the immediate occasion:it reveals a characteristic of Bakunin's life that breaks through againand again in the enterprises of his later years; it goes far to explain thepersonal fascination which Bakunin had for everybody 'who met himand it goes even beyond Bakunin's personal existence ilnd reveals asource of strength which carries the revolution to success. The answer:"I had only one confederate: Faith! I told myself that faith moves moun-tains, overcomes obstacles, defeats the invincible and makes possible theirnpossible; faith alone is one half of victorlr one half of success; com-plemented by powerful will it creates circumstances, makes men ripe,collects and unites them. . . . In one word: I wanted to believe, I

24. Beichte, pp. 47f.95. Ibid.r p. L4.

REVOLUTIONARY EXISTENCE: BAKUNIN 2tL

wanted others to believe.tt This is perhaps the most perfect descriptione-ver given of the magic of evil, of creating a reality out of nothing. It isthe opposition of the demonic faith under will to ihe Christian *itt urr-der faith. This "faith under will" manifests itself later in Bakunin in

th: prodigious invention of nonexisting revolutionary societies and theinjection of such figments of imagination into reality with quite tangibleresults. The faith and imagination of an isolated will bieak into thecourse of historY, create indeed the circumstances, and produce the mostincredible effects among bewildered contemporari.s who cannot believethat such things can happen. It is the first appearance of the blackmagic of the isolated will which later recurs in-Nietzsche's "rnagic ofthe extremerD in Lenin's persistence through hopeless years ,rniil hegrasPed his kairos, and in Hitler's staying power and "ViCtory of Faith.DIn the mood of the Confession, however, Bakunin is sensitive to theforced character of the "faith under will." He admits that it was notwithout great effort that he "achieved this hypocritical, artificial, violentfaith," that he was tormented by doubts "about the morality and possi-bility of his enterprise" and that he "heard. voices of inner ,.prduch,tetc.% The experiential source of the doubt seems to have been Bakunintsrevolutionary activity itself. In political practice a man is likety to en-counter ananke,thefate of being caught in a network of obligations andnecessities which determine the course of action so narrowly that notmuch room is left for choice. Bakunin confesses that he has understood"one truth fully and thoroughly": that the business of ruling is difficultand requires exPerience, "that in the life of states and peoples there arehigher conditions and laws, not to be measured by everyday standards,and that in politics much is determined by u necessity that in private lifeseems unjust, oPPressive and cruel.tt ttHistory has its own, secretcourse,tt and rarely has a private individual, thowever sincere, honestand sacred his convictions may be,' the vocation "to raise his rebelliousthought and his impotent hand against the inscrutable forces of des-tiny.w

The tension between faith and repentance in the Confession is only$e strongest manifestation of a tension which is permanently present inBakunints existence. We have noted the earlier manifestation ln the re-spect for the consistent reactionary and the love of the enemy. Even inhis most destructive moods Bakunin always preserves the awareness ofmystery in the historical drama and of an inscrutable fate that has &s-signed their roles to the actors. We never find in Bakunin the Marxian

26. Ibid., p. 38.27.Ibid., p. 43.

2L2 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

confusion of attributing to the individual enemy as a personal guilt therole which is determined by biographical accidents and social and eco-nomic circumstances. There is evil in Bakunin, and in his later yearscriminality and open Satanisffi, but there is at no time in h,im the meanstreak of the little beast that coops itself up in righteouslress and spitspoison at the enemy. We have to stress this trait in Bakunints existencebecause in contrast with it we gain a clearer understanding of the forceswhich determine the politically successful line of Western revolutionand crisis: of the forces of spite, hatred and defamation. In this mainline we have to observe the crescendo in the moral decomp,osition of theWest: from the Voltairean vulgarities of enlightenment through thehatred, moral hypocrisy and technique of defamation of the middle-classintellectual Marx ( which becomes a force in history through the move-ment of Marxism ) to the final decomposition of Western r;ociety in thetwentieth century with the mutual defamations of the Western middleclasses. The most important factor shaping the political and civiliza-tional destiny of the West in this period is hatred of the middle classes.

P an-S lanic imp ertalism

Bakunin envisages the Russian revolution as part of a pan-Slavicrevolution. The first aim is the destruction of tsaristic power. The aboli-tion of the monarchical form of government, however, should not bemore than the opening of the great Slavic liberation. A. free Russiashould take the lead of the Slavic peoples in wars against ltustria, Prus-sia and Turkey, and if necessary against Germany and }Iungary, forthe liberation of the Slavs from foreign domination. "HaL[ of PrussianSilesia, the greatest part of West and East Prussia, that is all Slavic andPolish speaking territories, should be separated from Ge:rmany.t' In afurther sweep also Hungary, the Moldavians, Rumaniansi and Greeksshould be induced to join the Slavic Federation so that a united, free,Eastern Empire would emerge, as a new Eastern world power againstthe \4/est, with the capital in Constantinople." The revolutionary re-

28. Ibid., p. 45. For details of the Slavic Federation, with atrtonomy of themember nations and a common military and foreign policy, see Bakunin'sStatuten der neuen slaaischen Politih, and the Grundziige der sla,uischen Fddera-tion, of 1848, in Sozial-politi,scher Briefwechsel, pp. 285-289, For an even fur-ther extension of the revolution see the ABBeI aulc peuples slaves par un patrioterusse: ttEn ddclarant la guerre aux oppresseurs, la r6volution pror:lamait donc Ieremaniement, le bouleversement de tout le Nord, de tout la partie Oriental deItEurope, Itemancipation de ltltalie, et, comme but final: la f6deration universelledes rdpubliques Europ6enes!" The Appel was published for the first time inJosef Pfitzner, Bahuninstudien (Prague, 1932 ). The Appel is the first draft,considerably more radical in content, of the Aufruf an die Slan,en, Von einem

REVOLUTIONARY EX ISTENCE: BAKUNIN 2 1 3

public would not be built upon the foundations of Western liberalism.It would not be representative, constitutional, or parliamentarian and itwould have no balance of powers. Democracy cannot be realizedthrough parliamentary representation in a country where the vast massof the people is not politically articulate and cannot form its own repre-sentation. A parliament of aristocrats and bourgeoisie, however, wouldonly continue the oppression. "For Russia, there is necessary a strongdictatorial power which concerns itself exclusively with the elevationand enlightenment of the masses; a power which is free in tendencyand spirit but without parliamentary form; a power which prints booksof a free content without introducing the freedom of the press; apower which is surrounded, advised, supported by the free cooperationof likeminded men but which is not limited by anybody or anything.'The only difference between dictatorial and monarchical power wouldbe the tendency of the former to make itself superfluous as rapidly aspossible through education of the people, while the monarchical tries toperpetuate its existence by keeping the people in unchanged childhood.'n

Rep'olt of the soul aersus Marxian necessity

It is unnecessary to elaborate the significance of Bakunints programin the light of the twentieth century. The development that leads fromBakunin to Lenin and Stalin is clear. It is more important to accentuatethe difference between his conception of revolution and that of Marx.The difference becomes acute over the question: how should such arevolution be made and by whom? On this point Bakunin reveals theabsence of concrete ideas. He assures the Tsar that he certainly had nopersonal ambition to become the dictator of Russia. On the contrary, heis convinced that he would perish in the struggle. His generation iscalled to destroy, not to build; "the building will be done by others who

russischen Patrioten. Published in December, 1848, by E. K. Keil in Leipzig,Lgaring on the title page the designation, "Koethen, Selbstverlag des Verfasiersl'The Aufruf is reprinted and annotated by Boris Jakowenko in Michael Bakunin,Zanei Schriften au{t den 4Oer Jahren des XIX Jahrhunderts (Internati,onaleBibliotheh, fiir Philosophie, vol. 2, no. LL/L?, Prague, 1936).

29. Ibid:' P. 76: Tb" idea of the_bgnevolent, 'fr_rovisional, iron dictatorship"recurs in Bakunin's Siberian years. Bakunin formed a close friendship with thegovernor of East Siberia, a cousin on his motherts side, the General-Muraviov-Amurski. The -empire-builder and the revolutionary apparently found much com-mon ground, for in the letter to Herzen from Irkutsk, November L7, 1860,Bakunin praises at length the merits of Muraviov, the true democrat and '\rn-c-onditiol4ly one of us.tt He seems to have contemplated with some seriousnessthe _ possibilities of a Russian revolution and a pan-Slavic liberation under theleadership of a liberal dictator like Muraviov. (The letter to Herzen in Sozial-politischer Briefutechsel, pp. l1-29. )

2L4 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO R.EVOLUTION

are better, cleverer and fresher than we are.* And if one should ask

how he could plan the horror of a Russian revolution without having aclear idea of what should become of the enterprise, he would. have toadmit that he himself was trembling when he envisaged the conse-quences. Revolutionary Russian peasants are bestial in their cruelty,and he remembered Pushkin's word: "Deliver us, oh Lord, from theRussian revolt which knows no sense nor mercy!" Partly hre had hopedthat the drunken wildness of the masses could be restrained, partly he

comforted himself with the thought that at certain times a t,errible disas-ter is necessary.tt

This attitude towards the process of revolution is not a passitg moodwith Bakunin. The willingness to start the revolt, in the trope that outof terror wholesome forces witl emerge and build the nevr society, r€-mains throughout his lifetime. fn a pamphlet of 1871, Bahunin formu-lates the question on principle. He insists that human digniity in nationsand peoples manifests.itself only in "the instinct of freedom, in the ha-tred of oppression, and by the force of revolting against evr:rything thathas the character of exploitation and domination in the world."" Withthis "firm conviction" that the instinct of freedom is the source of revoltand the essence of human dignity, that the revolt of the soul is the pri-mary moving factor of history, and that the realm of freedom somehowwill emerge, without botherirg too much about techniques,, once the re-volt has started, Bakunin puts himself into opposition to the Marxianidea of revolution. The school of ttGerman authoritarian communists,tthe continues, has developed the materialistic principle that human his-tory *even in the ideal manifestations of the collective arrd individuallife of mankind, in its intellectual and moral, religious, rnetaphysical,scientific, artistic, political, juridical and social developments" is noth-ing but the reflex of economic facts. "This principle is profoundly trueif considered from a relative point of view; but if it is take,n absolutely,as the only basis and first source of all'other principles, it trecomes com-pletely wrong.t33 The materialistic conception of history contains forBakunin a relative truth insofar as he too assumes that the social world,and the specifically human manifestations of the spirit, rest on the ani-mal basis of man, and the animal basis in its turn on ma:fter. Spirit isthe culmination of the evolution of matter. But it can be the culmination

30. Ibid., p. 48.31. Ibid., p. 49.32. Bakunin, L'Empire Knouto-Germanique et la Revolution ss6:iale, in Michel

BakouninC, Oeunres, ed. James Guillaume (Paris, 1907), 2, P. 4t15.33. Sop hismes historiques de PEcole doctrinaire des cotnrnuni;stes allemands,

Oeupres (Paris, I9O8)' 3, PP. 9-18.

REVOLUTIONARY EX ISTENCE: BAKUNIN 215

of matter only because matter is not inorganic but contains spirit. Therise of matter to humanity means the release from matter of the inde-pendent principles of thought and revolt. The negation of mere animal-iry, the blossoming out of matter into the revolt of tfte soul, is the newindependent factor forming history.'n The opposition between the prin-ciples of the free, independent soul in revott ana of the determinati6n ofthought through the economic situation, as well as the ensuing opposi-tion between the two revolutionary tactics, has remained the iss"e be-tween Bakuninists and Marxists to this duy. On the one side there is thefaith in personality and the ability of free men to produce order out ofrevolutionary likemindedness without authoritarian leadership, on theother side the belief in the necessary march of history that progressesthrough the action of not too revolutionary souls under the urrihoritarianleadership of the executors of the historical will.'u

The revolutionary will, untrammeled by doctrinaire conceptions ofhistorical necessi,y, allowed Bakunin a considerable latitude of potiticalimagination. In the Confession he reveals that at one time, il 1848,when the pan-Slavic hatred against everything German was roused toilt !?ght by the Frankfurt Parliament, he had thought of appealing tothe Tsar himself to assume the leadership of the pan-SlaviC liberation.Not only the Poles, but all the Slavs of Prussia and Austria would havefollowed at this time, in Bakunin's opinion, a call of the Tsar to a waragainst Germany and all Western Europe. He had drafted the appealbut destroyed it because he considered the attempt futile. The Tsar, in-deed, was not enthusiastic about the idea. Bakunints assurance that allSlavs would have followed his call for liberation, he annotated on themargin: (T do not doubt it; and I would have stood at the head of arevolution of a Slavic Masaniello; tro, thank you!"'6

As far as Bakunints fate was concerned, the immediate effect of theConfession was nil. He remained in the Peter-Paults fortress. Over hislater life, the Confession seems to have hung like a shadow. During thePolish resurrection of 1863, Bakunin was in Stockholm participatingin the movement. The Third Section prepared at this time a pamphletcontaining the Confession and a few other documents. This pumpfttetwas never printed. Bakunin, however, suddenly broke his relations withthe Poles and left Stockholm. In I B 70 Bakunin participated in the up-rising of Lyons; again a similar pamphlet was prepared and uguit

34. Bakunin, Dieu et fEtat, Oeuaresr S, pp. I8ff.35. For a. good. comParison of the tryo_ positions see a modern Bakuninist,

Erwin Rholfs, in the preface to vol. I of Bikunin, Gesammelte Werke (nerfin,l g 2 r ) .

36. Beichte, p. 53.


Bakunin withdrew from the scene. Authors who wish to pile all nefari-

ousness on the tsarist regime assume a connection between the threat-

ened publication and Bakunints withdrawals. There is, however, no

proof of such pressure and there were other reasons suffici,ent to justify

a withdrawal."t 'Whatever

went on behind the scenes, the Russian gov-

ernment never made public use of the Confession although its publica-tion would have discredited Bakunin in revolutionary circ.les.

32. On these events in Bakunin's life see Kurt Kersten in the introduction toibid., p. xvi.

IX. BAKUNII{ : THE ANARCHIST

In 1861 Bakunin escaped from Siberia and came, by way of America,to England. The years between his escape and his death in tBZ6 arefilled with a maze of events of such comptication that even a short ac-count cannot be attempted here. For the biographical details the readershould refer to the excellent presentation of Bakunin's life by E. H.Carr.l In the Present context we shall confine ourselves to an analysis ofthe transformation which Bakunin's revolutionary existence undirwentin his later years.

The revolutionary existence of Bakunin crystallized, in his lateryears' into what is cgmmonly called his anarchism. Today, unfortu-nalely, the term anarchism is obscured by its application to a variety ofs_ubphenomena. Before turning to an analysis bf Bakunints anarchir*,therefore' it may be helpful to clarify the meaning of the term.

9losely associated with anarchism in the popular usage of the termis the use of terroristic tactics such as bomb-ihrowing und. assasination,that is the so-called propaganda of deed. But the 6J of violence is notspecifically anarchistic. Some anarchists have used violent acts for thePromotion of revolutionary ends and some have not. Some anarchistshave condemned such tactics and such methods have been used. by revo-lutionary groups who were not anarchists. On a deeper level than thePragmatic, however, the problem of terrorism is of relevance because itreveals a dimension of revolutionary existence which is found in Baku-nin although he never himself resorted to acts of terror.

The reader will recall our earlier discussion concerning the impassein which an active intelligence finds itself in a social ordei when legiti-mate channels for constructive action are barred. The experirn.r ofguilt for the misery and evil in a society, coupled with thi will to r€-forming action and with the experience of impotence, can issue in aperson of high moral sensitivity the desire foi self-sacrifice. The ter-ioristic act ohers the _gppottuniiy for sacrifice in a double sense: first,the terrorist risks his life physically for he will be executed when he iscaught; second, and more important, in committing murder the terroristsacrifices his moral personality. To overcome the profound abhorrenceof murder and to annihilate oneself morally in committing murder, per-haps of innocent people, is the supreme sacrifice. To the man whobreaks under the consciousness of social guilt because he is frustratedin actiotrr this sacrifice remains the only pioof that he is indeed capable

1. E. H. Carr, Michael Bahunin (London, I9ST).

2r8 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLUTION

of ,,doiogt somethingt it is his ultimate justification. This suPreme act,

howevrt, r.ueals thJ pneumapathological state of the Person who com-

mits it. It is not an u.t of love but rather an act of sellF-assertion by

which the man who brings the sacrifice claims for himself an exceP-

tional status in comparison with other men and the rr€nr to whom he

brings the sacrifice ur. misused as the audience for his own justifica-

tion.z Moreover the sacrifice is spiritually vain because the sacrificial

act, if understood as a model of ionduct, would implicitly deny moral

personality to the men for whom it is brought. A man has no right to

r,rgg.st the sacrifice of moral personality to others, nor has he a right

to -place

them in a position whJre his own sacrifice of moral personality

**ta appear as requested by them for their benefit. The terroristic act

as a *oiutistic model is a symptom of the disease in which evil assumes

the form of spirituality.u

Kropothin

A second aspect of anarchism appears in the work of' Prince Peter

Kropotkin (.}}LZ-L921 ). The general pattern of a revolution, followed

by u realm of freedom, is shared by Kropgtkin with Bakurnin. The pres-

rtrt institutions, economic as well as political and ecclesiastical, have to

be destroyed in order to release the inherent forces of cooperlltujness in

man for itt. building of a new society that will be free of evil. Political

and economic instiiutions have created the dependence of man and

thereby have become the source of evil; only their^destruction in a social

upheaval will make possible the rebuilding of society through volultary

activity. While the gen.tul pattern of the course of events is similar to

Bakunir's, the sentiments ,rnderlying the ideas are very dirfferent. There

is much more of Rousseau's critique of civilization in Kropotkin than of

Bakunints dialectic of reaction and revolution. The revolutionary con-

ception shows the impact of Bakunin as well as of the Marxist analysis

of economic institutions, but there is nothing left in Kropotkin of the

mysticism of freedom in history. The "leap" into the nerv realm is not

conditioned by an internal renovation of man, he does not have to be

penetrated by a new "principle," all that will happen is the external

smashing of existing inJtitutions and by this act the good nature of man

2. The pneumapatholog'y of the (exceptional mantt returns asi a fundamental

problem in Nietzsche.'-;-i; ttrl

"""iyrir "f terrorism we follow the excellent- prese*."t1-".1 by Karl

Niitzel in his treatise on Die soziale Bewegung in Russland. Ein Ei'nfiihrungsuer-

iitli ""f

Grund, der russischen Gesellschifrcfehre ( Stuttgart, 1923) , PP. 2]4ff.,

and passim.

BAKUNIN : THE ANARCHIST 2L9

which is present even now will have the opportunity of unfolding, ur-warped by the evil of compulsion. This aito is a theology of history,though not Bakunin's; it is rather the reversal of the Christian idea ofthe necessity of institutions. In the Christian idea the Fall has coruPtedthe nature of man and in the corrupt state he is unfit to govern himselfand to live with others at peace without external control. In Kropotkin'sidea the institutions are the Fall and with the elimination of the FalI thelife without sin will be restored. In the Christian idea the necessity ofinstitutions is explained by the Fall; in Kropotkin's idea the Fall is ex-plained by the institutions. Both ideas are concerned with evil in societyand the necessity of institutions but in the Christian interpretation arealistic anthropology is used which recognizes the reality of evil inman, while Kropotkin, in the phrase of Schelling, "is not suflficiently ac-

quainted with man in himself and outside himself" and operates with ananthropology which commits the cardinal mistake of projecting the evilin man into his environment. In spite of the relation to Bakunin, wehave to understand, therefore, Kropotkints anarchism as the extremeconsequence of ideas which are to be found as a pervasive tendency inthe age of enlightenment and crisis, of the anti-Christian idea of thefundamental goodness of man and of the denial of radical evil. It is atrend of ideas which manifests itself in such variegated phenomena asRousseauts return to nature, the praise of the innocent savage who haspreserved his natural goodness untainted by civilization, in the liberalProtestant theology of the nineteenth century which abolishes originalsin and therewith Christ as the Redeemer, and in that strain in the ideaof democracy which assumes that what the people wills is always good.In Kropotkin's anarchism this idea has been radically isolated andmade the basis of an interpretation of politics. If the goodness of man istaken seriourly, evil must have a source external to man and with therevolutionary removal of the external source mankind. can enter theparadise of its own good nature.

Tolstoi

A third perspective on anarchism is found in the work of Count LeoTolstoi ( 1B2B-I910). What Tolstoi has in common with Bakunin andKropotkin is the assumption that the state and property are the sourcesof evil in society. What separates him from both is the condemnation offorce as the instrument for removitg the present state of evil andcreating the good society. He founded his anarchism on an evangelicalChristian ethics, and he was clear on the point that salvation cannotcome from a change of institutions. For Tolstoi the devising of new in-


stitutions is no substitute for the metanoia, for the change of heart. Re-form cannot be brought about by conspiratorial activities and by re-volts; it has to be effected by enlightenment and persuasion, by arousingthe conscience, by

" model conduct of life, and if necessary by pussive

resistance to un-Christian commands of the state. On the surface, hisattitude strongly resembles the Christian call to repentance and innerreturn and. Tolstoi understood his position as a return to Christian ethicsbased directly on the Gospel. His followers understand him in the samesense and his interpreters are frequently inclined to accept the thesisand to classify his ideas as Christian anarchism. But substantially Tol-stoi's attitude is quite as anti-Christian as that of Bakunin or Kropotkinand as a phenomenon in the history of the

'Western crisis it is an &r-

archistic form of the pneumatic disease. The anti-Christianity of Tol-stoi consists precisely in what he considers his Christianity, that is inthe acceptance of a Christian code of ethics. The problem of Tolstoi inthis respect is similar to that of Kropotkin. Accepting the ethics ofChristianity and rejecting the spiritual substance is a trend that has be-come increasingly marked since the Ag. of Enlightenment. Tolstoi doesno more than radicalize and isolate an idea which is present as an in-gredient in previous attempts at establishing an autonomous system ofethics without founding it on the spiritual experience that is its source.For Kropotkin we stressed the ancestry of Rousseau's critique of civili-zation; for Tolstoi we now must stress the roots of his idea in the ethicsof enlightenment and particularly in the commonsense morality of Vol-taire. The conception of Christ as a "progressive" moral thinker, thesecularization of Christianity and its reduction to a code o:f ethics, is ageneral Western movement that has deeply corroded Christian sectarianlife. The typical consequences of such despiritualization are to be foundin Tolstoi. Christian ethics without Christian love is prone to producerighteousness and critique of the sinner. We have to recall that theSermon on the Mounr is not a code for the life in the "wor:ldt; it is ad-dressed to men who live between the worlds in eschatological expecta-tion. In historical existence, entangled in the network of srocial obliga-tions, man has to pay his debt to nature and is obliged to commit actsin violation of the Serman.If he is struck on the right cheeh, he will notturn his left, but hit back in defense of his life, his family and his com-munity. But in hitting back, he will do good, as a Christian, to remem-ber the Sermon, and to be aware that in defense he is involved in guiltand that the man who struck him may have had quite as excellent*worldly' reasons for the attack as he has for the defense. Both are in-volved in a common guilt, both are engulfed in the inscrutable mysteryof evil in the world, and in their enmity both have to respect in eachother the secret of the heart that is known only to God.

BAKUNIN: THE ANARCHIST 22L

This Christian attitude is not the attitude of Tolstoi. He falls into theseries of fallacies which a revolutionary of the nineteenth century doesnot seem able to avoid: ( 1 ) the concrete evil in social relations and in-stitutions is not accepted as emanating from the nature of man, to beremedied as far as possible in concrete instances but not to be abolishedon principle , (2) the concrete evil is generalized, in a next step, into anabstract evil that attaches to institutions, not to man, and,, in a last stepr( 3 ) the abstract evil attaching to institutions is attributed as a personalguilt to those men who by biographical circumstance happen to be thebearers of the institutions. In his political tracts Tolstoi points his &c-cusing finger at the evil of governmental institutions and at the menwho are responsible for it and he presents the evils so vividly that hisaccusations could be taken over by the radical, violent anarchist groupsfor their propaganda-pamphlets inciting to revolt. Tolstoi's admonitionsto practice upardoning love" are in vain in face of the unpardoning, criti-cal content of his writings, and in vain are his assertions that the use ofhis writings for revolutionary purposes would be like setting a villageon fire by means of a gospel-book. As Ntitzel in his fine analysis remarksaptly: the difference between the gospel-book and Tolstoi's writings isthat the gospel-book contains nothing that would justify incendiaryaction.a

His Christianity is in substance an extreme form of enlightened Puri-tanism. Tolstoi occupies a most conveniently situated island of right-eousness: it is close enough to the '\rorldtt to hurl his accusations ofguilt at it, but far enough from the *world" to deny responsibility forhis acts as acts in the t\uorld.t He is no St. Francis who conformed withChrist and left the institutions alone, rather he despiritualizes the Ser-rnon by transforming it into a code of Christian ethics governing humanconduct in the world and creates for himself an "exceptionalo position,like the terrorists, that permits him to indulge in action in the worldwithout the responsibility of the world. If we compare his position withBakunin's, we would have to say that the latter, in his spiritual striving,has deeply penetrated the mystery of evil in spite of the fact that his dis-eased existence ended in the willing recognition of its Satanic character,while Tolstoi, though not less diseased, escaped the consequences ofBakunin by virtue of his enlightened superficiality.

Gandhi

A word has to be added on certain phenomena which are closely re-Iated with the anarchism of the nineteenth century, that is on the non-

4. Karl Niitzel, op. cit., pp. 180fr.

222 FROM ENL IGHTENMENT TO REVOLU ' I ION

resistance trends in English politics. Towards the end of the centurythe spreading of Russian anarchistic literature, particularly of theworks of Tolstoi, had created in the West an atmosphere of generalknowledge of civil disobedience and passive resistance as political weap-ons in the struggle against governmental authorities. Out of this at-mosphere emerge at the beginning of the twentieth century the suffra-gette incidents in England with their civil disobedience and their hun-ger strikes, and in their wake the fateful incorporation of these weaponsinto the political arsenal of Gandhi ( 1869-1948 ).u The technique ofpassive resistance was practiced by Gandhi first in the 'Iransvaal in1907 in protest against the Asiatic registration bill of ttre Transvaalgovernment, and after the general war it was continued in India begin-ning with the noncooperation campaign of 1920. fn the course of thiscampaign the same problems arose for Gandhi that had worried Tolstoi.Gandhi insisted on nonviolent action, and the result was tlhe temoristicoutbreaks and peasant uprisings of 1921. Faced with such incendiaryviolence as a consequence of his nonviolent propaganda, Gandhi re-sorted to vigorous denunciation of violence towards the end of I92L andthe result was the Chauri Chaura affair of L922, where a mob of in-surgent peasants stormed the police station and killed the policemen.The affair compelled him to order the immediate suspension of civil dis-obedience and noncooperation. The experience of violent outbreaks wasrepeated in the second civil disobedience campaigr of 1930. The posi-tion of Gandhi is on principle the same as that of Tolstoi: an eschato-logical ethic is introduced as a political weapon into the struggle of theworld. The not so important difference is that Tolstoi coulcl rest his an-archism on the prestige of the Gospel, while Gandhi successfully de-veloped a halo of Eastern saintliness.

Founding the neu) realm

If we compare the later period of Bakunints revolutionilry existencewith his earlier one, before his imprisonment, we might say that in the1840's he participated in various revolts as the opportunity offered it-self, while after Siberia he embarked on his own work of revolutionaryorganization. fn the earlier years he was drawn into revolutions, in thelater years he was active in preparing the revolutionary siituation thatultimately would issue in the foundation of a new realm. In these yearshe organized and influenced groups of revolutionary worliers in Swit-zerland, Italy and Spain, and in these years he engaged in the struggle

5. On the personal relations between Tolstoi and Gandhi see Ernest J. Sim-mons? Leo Tolstoy (Boston, 1946), pp. 722f ,

BAKUNIN : THE ANARCHIST 223

with Marx for the International Workingmen's Association ( the FirstInternational ) . His organizational activities left their imprint on theworkers' movement in Italy and Spain until they were obliterated, atleast for the time being, by the Fascist and Falangist revolutions of thetwentieth century. To a minor degree his influence extended over all ofEurope and into anarchist circles in America. His struggle with Marxfor the control of the International was not successful but it compelledMarx, after the Congress in The Hague, of L872, to transfer the Gen-eral Council from London to New York in order to withdraw it fromBakuninist influence, and it ended in the demise of the First Interna-tional.

The activity of Bakunin expressed itself in the prodigious creation ofrevolutionary societies. To what extent these organizations existed insocial reality or only in Bakunin's imagination cannot always be clearlydetermined. This point, however, is of less importance for us than theprinciple on which they were conceived. An insight into Bakunin's or-ganizational ideas is offered by the most effective of his creations, theInternational Social-Democratic Alliance of 1868.

T he International S ocial-Democratic Alliance

Bakunin founded the Alliance as an instrument for wedging his wayinto a leading position in Marx's International Workingments Associa-tion and it existed after a fashion. But the question might be asked, forwhat purpose should an organization be founded which seemed merelyto duplicate Marx's organization with unlikely revolutionary success?In his Rapport sur P Alliance, of I8 71, Bakunin revealed part of his an-swer to this question.G It should be the policy of the Alliance to form asmaller nucleus of ardent revolutionaries within the International ofMarx. The operation through the general assemblies of the sectionsseemed to defeat the purpose of the International and Bakunin preferredsmaller meetings of 20 to 40 members selected from the various sec-tions with an eye to their devotion to the principles of the International.The Alliance should not develop principles and programs but rather"character, unity, solidary action and mutual confidence among seriouswills; in brief, it wanted to form propagandists, apostles and ultimatelyorganizers.ttt The general assemblies were to be used for formal occa-sions and for representative support but preparation for the publicmeetings would be the responsibility of the smaller meetings; the selectmembers would have to influence the majorities of the assemblies and

6. Bakunin, Rapport sur l'Alliance, Oeuvres, vol. 6 (Paris, 1913).7. Ibid., pp. 245f..


make them understand the meaning of the questions submitted for their

decision.s The larger assemblies would be restricted in their discussion

since many questiotrs cannot be aired in public and more senious-mindedmemb*s tunnot participate in debates which are conduct,ed on a low

level. Hence the usr.mbiies are not sufficient for the triumph of revolu-

tionary principles and for a serious organization of the International.e

Up- to a certain point there is nothing extraordinary |" Bakunin's

idea. One cannot operate an organization through general assemblies'

Democracy needs the gradation by which the will of the ptlople, for the

pu{pose oi action, is filtered down to a. small executive by means of

p"t[i.r, conventions, caucuses, steering committees, etc. T'he problems

arise rather from the nature of revolutionary foundation. Above all

there was the conflict with the International: Bakunin warrted the Alli-

ance to become, under his leadership, the general staff of the Interna-

tional. Naturally Marx and his friends of the General Council in Lon-

don were of the opinion that they were quite capable of being thegeneral staff themselves. Beyond this conflict opens the genuine revolu-iionary problem which Bakunin had in common with Marx. It is one

thing io filter down the wilt of an existing people, ns for instance the

English, from the millions to a Cabinet through the processes of elec-

tions, caucuses, party seniori,y, etc.l it is quite another thing to performthis filtering operation in a vacuum. The workers are not rl people, and

to org anize an international workerst revolution implies the creation ofa people outside the Western nations. We have to distinguish betweenthe problem of political articulation for the vast infra-bourgeois massesfor {tre purpose of integration into the national body politic and of par-ticipation in constitutional governmert-a purpose which is served bythe self-organization of workers in trade unions, syndicates, labor Par-ties, etc.-and the idea of an international revolution which envisagesthe destruction of the nations as determining forces in history and thecreation of a new, supra-national community. Neither Bakunin nor

Marx wanted to form national labor parties. They wanted rather to in-spire a revolutionary movement for men without a country and bymeans of revolutionary org anization they wanted to create a country forthese homeless People.

The rnan without a country

The creation of a new community through a movement, however,

raises delicate problems. The leadership cannot rise from the people be-

8. Ibid., P. 246.9. Ibid., p. 247.


cause the people does not exist, and the human raw material that couldbe molded into a new community has some difficulty in molding itselfin the absence of an articulated existence which produces nututul lead-ers. In this peculiar situation are rooted the traits of the internationalrevolution which beset it into the period of its contemporary successes.The idea of the man without a country who finds his latheiland in therevolution does not arise among the workers, it is rather a projectioninto the workers of the attitude of the homeless intellectual *ho be-comes the leader of masses which for various reasons are ready to beformed.to As a matter of fact, workers are not quite as much without acountry as the homeless intellectuals who try to persuade them that theyare. The discrepancy between the intellectuals' idea of an internationalrevolution and the social reality of the workers-and still more of thepeasants-results in various ttsurprises,tt such as the national alignmentof the workers of the Second fnternational in 1914 and the drift intonationalism of the Russian revolution of 1917. The second featureoriginating in this situation is the impossibility of organizing the revolu-tion democratically. An international revolution is not a party in whichan existing community organizes itself for action; it is a movement inwhich a nonexisting community is created from the top. It requires in-evitably u concentration of leadership in the hands of a few revolution-ary activists who rarely are workers themselves. As a social form, themovement is centralized in a nucleus of leadership from which emanatethe founditg influences in their two modes of apostolate and institg-tionalization. The insight into this problem is common to all the greatfigures of the revolution but the accents shift with personal abilities andinclinations and with the requirements of the unfolding revolutionarydrama. The historic function of Marx was the creation of a formidablesystem of doctrine that could serve as the Sacred Writing for the apos-

10. On the situation of Central European intellectuals at the time of Marx seethe s^urv9l io Karl Ldwith's Von-Hegel-bi$ Nietzsche (Zurich, New York, lg4l),PP.: ?l:98. Most of the men who led the critique of society were socially ,de-railed" in one Yay or another: Feuerblch, RrS., Bruno Bau6r, Stirner, Diihriig,Marx, Sglropenfrauel, I(ierkega_ard, Nietzsche.- The self-expatriation of the Rui-sian intellectuals of the peribd is well known. On the ievolution as the newfatherland see Bakunin's

-Progra,rnrne et objet de I'Organisation R7volutionnaire

des FrEres Internationau,ccr sec, 8: ttl,a rdvolution devant se faire partout par lepeuPlgr et la s-qPrem-9 direction devant en rester _toujoury dans le piuple orfu"ireen f6d6ration libre d'associations agricoles et industrielles-l'Etat'r6volutioinaireet nouveau s'organisant de bas en haut par voie de d6l6gation r6volutionnaire etembrassant lous lgt puys insurg6s au ndm des m€mes piincipes sans 6gard pourles vieilles frontiEres et pour-les diffdrences de natiinafitis, aura $* 6Ui.tI'administration de services publics et qon_le gouvernement des peupfes. Il

"do-stitnera Ia rcqoelle patrie, fAthance de la Rduitution (Jniuerselle iontte I'Alliancede toutes les RdactioDg.'


tolate and this function overshadows by far his performances as an or-ganizer. Lenin was able to evolve the doctrine still further, but hispeculiar achievement is the ruthlessness of centralizing organization,leading to the uncompromising breaks with former assoc:iates. More-over he is the great statesman who saw his moment and 'used it deci-sively, though in order to use it he had to graft the international work-erst revolution onto the strength of a Russian peasant rebelliotl. WithStalin emerges the General Secretary of the movement as the organizerwho builds the international revolution into the body of a people -aprocess which is sometimes interpreted in a mistaken an,alogy as thettThermidort' of the Russian revolution. As an international movementthis branch of the revolution has come to its end and the, Communistparties in the Western countries are no longer the ferments of an inter-national revolution but instruments of Russian state politic,s. What hassurvived in Russia is the apostolic and organizational cenbralism of theoriginal movement, now built into the Soviet Constitution. The line ofpolitical success from Marx to Stalin is the line away fromr the originalrevolutionary impulse towards a dictatorial organization of power withan inflexible doctrine. The movement began as a revolt against the na-tion, against the state, against the church and bourgeois ideologies; itended. in Russian imperialism, in the power of the Soviet state and inthe monopoly of indoctrination. This end was sensed by Bakunin evenin Marx. Beyond the conflict of personal ambitions lies the profound.antagonism between the authoritarianism of Marx and Bakunin's trulyrevolutionary existence. The importance of Bakunin for the understand-ing of the revolution lies precisely in those elements of his existencewhich prevented a durable political success. The insight inrto the neces-sities of apostolate and organi zatian is present, but in the executionBakunin relies primarily on the contagiousness of the charrisma whichhe possessed in the highest degree. His action, even when in conceptionit is dictatorial and centralistic, operates always through a:rousing revo-lutionary sentiments in his fellowmen, through the intendecl transforma-tion of personality. Moreover the organizations conceived. by him arenever envisaged as a (state within the statet' destined to, become thenucleus of state power after a successful coup; they are strictly meantas instruments for the destruction of existing institutions and wouldhave to give way when success is obtained to the free federal life that issupposed to rise from the new revolutionary people.

ln the absence of a will to create permun.nt institutions, the activitiesof Bakunin move in an atmosphere of the fantastic. This has sometimesaroused the sense of humor of his biographers, sometimes their scornat his political naivet6, and it has led to the characterization of Baku-nin as the Poet of the Revolution. Such sentiments and phraseologyr

BAKUNIN: THE ANARCHIST 227

pardonable as they are considering the facts, do not contribute much to

understanding.The element of the fantastic is rooted deeply in the disease of the

spirit which constitutes the revolutionary crisis and it is related to theearlier discussed "magic of the extreme." In healthy spiritual existence

the action on others receives its limits and its style through the spiritual

substance that is to be communicated and, by such communication, to

be transformed from a potentially to an actually common substance. In

Plato's Republic the idea of the polis rests on assumptions with regard

to the receptiveness of men for a mystical insight and in Plato's attempts

at actual foundation the limits of action dwindle rapidly from the un-

successful search for a philosopher-king to the narrow confines of theAcademy. In Bakunin's state of pneumatic disease the style is deter-mined by the striving of the radical, particular will to exist as if it were

spiritual. Since, however, the communicable, limiting substance is miss-ing, the attempts of the as if existence can be piled tP without respon-

sibitity into a fantastic pyramid of foundations without substance.The A[iance of 1868 was such an attempt, piling a further organiza-

tion on top of the International without its distinctive purpose ever be-

coming particularly clear. But this excrescence was not all. In the fall

of 1868 Bakunin invited the French socialist Charles Perron, whom hescarcely knew, to join the Alliance, and when Perron agreed he told him

that even the Alliance might be contaminated by men who were not

genuine revolutionaries and that there should be formed back of the

Alliance a more restricted circle, the International Brothers. Perron was

willing to become an International Brother if it had to be. But a few

days later Bakunin suggested to him that even the International Broth-

ers were too large a group and that back of them should be formed a

Directorate of Three, of whom Perron should be one. And, of coursetback of the Directorate there would rise into the revolutionary strato-sphere the person of Bakunin himself." The style of fantastic pyramid-ing is most clearly visible in Bakunin because there is lacking in himthe limiting effect of the striving for a stable power org anization whichcharacterizes the revolutionary line from Marx to Stalin. Neverthelessthe element of piling is a component in the successful line, too, stem-ming from the initial revolutionary situatiolr. We can recognize it stillin the pyramid of : ( I ) the mass of reactionary mankind which is goodfor nothing; (2\ the select part of mankind, the "toilers,o who are thesalt of the earth; ( 3 ) the industrial workers who are the most advancedgroup of the toilers; (4) the Communist Party which is the vanguardof the proletariat; ( 5 ) the inner circle of leaders within the partfr cul-

I I. E. H. Cart, Michacl Bakunin, PP, 348f.


minating in the Polit Bureau; ( 6 ) the stratosphere of the fathers andfounders, that is of Marx and Lenin. The fantastic elenrent deservesserious attention because the categories of the phantasma have on theone hand become the great obstacle to an adequate understanding of thereal process of the revolution, particularly in Russia, while on the otherhand their style is a formative force in the course of events.

The Nechaieu afair

The phantasma of foundation reached its climax in the Nechaievaffair.t' Sergei Nechaiev was a Russian student who came to Geneva in1869, at the age of 2L. He presented himself to Bakunin as the leaderand delegate of a revolutionary movement of students, with a CentralCommittee in Petersburg and affiliations throughout the country. Thernovement was imaginary. Bakunin took an immediate )liking to theyoung man. Here was the young generation of Russia, represented by uman who resembled himself much in type, with an ardent :revolutionarywill and with the iron resolve to perform the work of destruction.ttBakunin matched Nechaiev's imagin ary movement by creating for hisbenefit the World Revolutionarv Alliance, consisting of a seal, and is-sued to Nechaiev a membership card for the Russian section, bearingthe No. 277L, while Bakunin himself acted as the Central Committeeof the European Revolutionary Alliance. Having thus established andallied their respective movements, the two men proceeded to producesome literature for them. The results were Some Words to the ToungBrethren in Russia, Hoat the Reuolutionary Question Presents ltself,the Principles of Rnolution, An Appeal to the Officers of the RussianArmy, &tr Appeal to the Russian Nobility, and the Cate,ehism of theReaolutionarg.ta

The Principles of Revolution

Of special importance for us are the Principles of Reaol'"ution In thePrinciples the authors advance the thesis that revolution means the

12. Concerning the Nechaiev affair, see ibid., ch, ZB,13. Bakunin characterized Nechaiev in a letter of April 13, 1869, to James

Guillaume in the following terms: "J'ai maintenant ici un spdcimen de cesjeunes fanatiques qui ne doutent de rien et qui ne craignent rieni et qui ont pos6Pour principe. qu'{ en doit p6rir sous la- main du- gouvernement^ beaucoup,be.aucolPr flralt q,t'ol n:- se repo_sera pas un instant juslu'n ce que le peuple ;;soit soulev6n'1 James Guillaume, L'Internationale, Dociments et Simenifs ( igOa-78 ) (Paris, l9O5 ), 1, p. L47.

L4. Michael Bakunin's Sozial-politischer Briefutechsel ( Stuttgart, l8g5 ), pp.3441 349, 359, 364, 369, 371.


radical substihrtion of new forms for all contemporary forms of Euro-pean life. Orly from complete "amorphism" can healthy forms arise. Ifelements of old forms are retained, they would poison the new life; apartial revolution is no revolution ,8.t all, as the events of 1848 haveshown. *No genuine revolution has happened as yet; and if it happensit can only start in one state, but then it will have to spread to allcountries.tt The personnel of the revolution is not to be found amongthose who are in leadirg positions in the present institutions. The newmen have to live among the people and they have to be the mediatinglink between the masses so that the movement is given uniform direc-tion, spirit and character. uThis is the one and only meaning of leadinga secret, preparatory organization.tt The leaders of a real popular revo-lution show themselves in action as soon as life has prepared them andthey close their ranks in the course of the revolution itself. The long,subterranean work, devoid of real action, has brought an infiltration ofmen who fall back under the pressure of circumstances, but when thereal popular movement comes nearer ttthe schism between thought andaction becomes rarer.tt As the critical time approaches some revolu-tionaries will not be able to restrain their destructive rage and resort toindividual action. High-placed persons who are representative of thegovernmental and economic corruption will be "annihilated.H ttThis isthe natural way": from individual action to an epidemic of violence, andfinally to the great revolt. *We have to finish with that idealism whichprevents action according to deserts; it has to be replaced by cruel,cold, ruthless consistency.tt

The revolution has a beginning and an end, that is it unfolds in thetwo phases of destruction and reconstruction. The true revolutionaryhas no plans for reconstruction. "All noble and holy men who wereanimated by the idea of a new life and who attempted to give theexisting institutions a better form in a peaceful *uy, were persecutedand banned." Now the time for the cold, embittered fight has come;*our aim is the complete destruction of all fettering bonds.tt Since thepresent generation is itself under the influence of the abominable condi-tions which it has to destrolr reconstruction is not its task; this task isreserved for purer forces which will rise in the days of renovation. *The

abominations of contemporary civilization in which we have grown uphave deprived us of the ability to erect the paradisical structure offuture life; of this future life we can form only nebulous ideas byimagining the opposite of the existing, revolting shrff.D To the revolu-tionary, atl contemplation of the nebulous future is criminal; it wouldonly put obstacles in the course of destruction, and thereby make thefuture more remote. ttfn a practical cause this would be a uselesg


desecration of the spirit.' We have to submit to necessity and justice,and to dedicate ourselves to permanent, relentless destruc;tion up to acrescendo in which no existing social form is left to be destroyed.Conspiracy is not the task of the present generation but actual fightfrom the first step. "They will call it terrorism!- But we must remainindifferent to all this howling and not enter into compromises withthose who are destined to perish!"

These pages of the Principles are perhaps the most important docu-ment for understanding the explosiveness of a pneumatically diseasedexistence. They are revealing because the description is sufficientlyclose to traditional philosophical language to make the cause of theexplosiveness intelligible. The contraction of existence into an explosiveshell of destruction is due to the diminution and ultimate disappearanceof the tension between contemplation and action. The biost thearetikos,as well as the life of the spirit, have vanished to the point that theplanning of action and its ultimate orientation by the order of spiritbecome impossible. The particular will without orientation cannot ex-press itself in purposeful action; it can express itself only in the negationof order without positive imagination of new order. The contraction ofexistence moreover is linked historically with the decadence of civiliza-tion, its destructiveness results from the concrete experience of the nega-tive civilization against which it directs its action and it is not a nega-tivism for its own sake. It is clearly understood as a criprpled type ofexistence, which, nevertheless, has its historic function in p,roducing thetransition from the old world to the future paradise. Again the conscioussacrifice of personality appears that we noted earlier as an ingredient interrorism. Hence the man who submits to the contraction is not acriminal but a "noble .und

holy man,' the contraction is it feat of thespirit, and any expansion towards contemplation would irr its turn becriminal and a desecration of the spiritual act. This consistency andclearness about the structure of revolutionary existence is peculiar toBakunin and Nechaiev and it constitutes their genuine supreriority overother revolutionaries-for even in evil there are degrees of profound-ness.

S e lf-annihilation- the my stic al ule ap'

Bakunin has sounded the depth of negative existence and understoodthe mystical leap from the world into paradise. The total destruction tothe point of amorphism is the intramundane counterpart to the spiritual"death to the world" and to the sanctification of life in preparation forthe redeeming grace in death, The intramundane annihilation, however,


does not do away only with the world that is to be destroyed; it alsoengulfs the personality of the revolutionary himself. For the revolu-tionary his action means his death to the life in the old world, but,unlike the Christian, he will not see the paradise of the future. Hencethe question imposes itself : to what purpose does the revolutionarybring the sacrifice of his existence, if it does not serve, like the Christiansanctification, the catharsis and salvation of the soul? The answer willhave to be: that in the revolutionary contraction we must recognizethe self-defeating climax of the intramundane search for immortalitythrough survival in posterity. The radical revolutionary does not simplylive in posterity through his fame like a Renaissance statesman or manof letters; he rather moves into the role of the Savior who reverses theFall and redeems of evil. And he does not assume the role of the Son onlybut even that of the Father. For Bakunin does not promise the Kingdomof God in the beyond, he promises the earthly paradise: God has drivenman from paradise, Bakunin through his action will lead him back.

The mysticism of the contracted existence reappears in diluted formin revolutionary movements generally. Bakunin's prohibition, for in-stance, to contemplate the future life follows consistently from the in-sight into the nature of the "leap." But we find it also, in the Marxistmovement, in the prohibition of discussion concerning the postrevolu-tionary society, although neither Marx nor Lenin envisaged their revolu-tionary action as the sacrifice of their personality. And we find the samehesitation to describe the future state in the National Socialist movement

with its concentration on the ttseizure of power,' although the ttseizure

of powert contradicts the nihilism of a radical revolutionary existence.In both movements the hesitation with regard to a program stems fromthe initial mystical impulse; but this impulse is diluted by the com-promise with the exigencies of establishing a permanent power struc-ture. The intersection of the mystical with the worldly plane results,in Russia, in the conflict between a social reality that is bound to gothe way of all institutionalization, and the idea of a classless andstateless societlr an idea which inevitably has to evaporate; in NationalSocialism there resulted from the same interaction the catastrophic con-flict between the unlimited expansiveness of the mystical will and theopposing power-reality of the surrounding world.

Bakunin the mystic has understood clearly that the revolutionary be-longs to the world which he intends to destroy and that he will not seethe paradise; he cannot even imagine it, and the place of such imagina-tion is taken by the indulgence in opposites to the existing institutions.This insight into the character of radical revolutionary imagination isagain peculiar to Bakunin. If the mysticism of imaginitg opposites is


misunderstood, and if the attempt is made to elaborate positively thenature of future man and society, the results are grotesque. This at-tempt was made by Nietzsche. The sector is Nietzsche's work whichprojects the mysticism of the will to power into the syrnbool of thesuPerman corresponds functionally to the "nebulous futuret of Bakunin.The symbol of the superman is the opposite of the despiritualizedmiddle-class society which Nietzsche despised; it is the &s xt creationof a new order without spiritual substance. In this respect-but not inothers-Bakunin is superior to Nietzsche; the self-sacrifice in destructiveaction is evil but it is profound; the rivalry with God in negative con-templation is mer.ly absurd.

The mysterA of evil in historical existence

Finally, these pages open a general insight into the nature andfunction of destructiveness in society. The life of mankind in historicalexistence is not a life of sweet reason and sensible adjustment. In thelives of nations and civilizations, situations arise in which through delayof adjustment to changed circumstances the ruling groups become .vilto the point that the accumulated hatreds of the victims b:reak the im-passe through violence. We are faced by the mystery of evi,l in history:by--the my_stery that evil sometimes can be remedied only by opposingevil; that destructive outbreak of evil supplies the force for breakittg atunjust order and substituting an order of superior justice. It is with anawareness of this mystery that we have to read Bakunints praise ofcriminality and of the Russian "robberdom.t'* The Russian robber is apeasant who escaPes governmental oppression by taking tg t'the life ofthe woods.tt *The robberdom is one of the most honorable forms ofRussian political life." It is the desperate protest of the people againstthe social order. Who does not sympathize with robberdom has noheart for the immeasurable suffering of the people. Robberdom is crueland merciless, t'but it is not more merciless and cruel than the govern-mental power which by its nefariousness has produced robberdom."The end of robberdom in Russia would mean either the final death ofthe people or its total liberation. *The robber is the only genuinerevolutionary in Russia.tt When the robber and the peasant unite, theresult will be the people's revolution. And Bakunin cbncludes with theappeal: t'Let us throw ourselves into the people, into the rnovement ofthe people, into the revolt of the robbers and peasants. Let us unite the

L5. How the Reaolutionory Question Presents ltself, pp. s49ff.


isolated explosions of the peasants into a well-considered, but mercilessrevolution!t

With the progress of civilization the revolutionary symbolism changesand the industrial worker takes the place of the robber as the vanguardof the suffering people, but the principle of mobilizing the hatreds ofthe oppressed for the establishment of the new order remains a constantin the dynamics of revolution. In order to gain an adequate perspectiveof the problem we have to distinguish between the permanent problemof evil in revolution and the nelv factor that has entered the situationthrough Bakunin. Ignoble sentiments and interests are the firm cementof every order of man in the world, even of the most sublime; and arevolution which has to break the ignoble cement of an establishedorder and. supply new cement for the establishment of its own orderneeds a particularly strong dose of this ingredient. Man cannot escapenature, and one can discern the component of cruelty in the spiritualhardness even of Jesus and St. Francis. The storm of revolution, withits horrors and moral confusion, is by an inscrutable fate the darknessthrough which man has to wander in order to find the light of a newjustice. We have to face the problem that on the level of historicalexistence on which the life of mankind in community is enacted, theman who assumes consciously the responsibility for releasing the stormis perhaps moved deeper by the sense of justice than the man whoresists it because he wishes to preserve the values of the existing order;and that even the rascal who uses the upheaval for his personal profit,and who is dull to its moral and spiritual issues, may have a positivefunction in the establishment of the new order which is denied to theman who has to stand aside because he cannot sacrifice his integrity.The new factor that becomes manifest in Bakunin is the contraction ofexistence into a spiritual will to destrof, without the guidance of aspiritual will to order. This new absoluteness of evil, however, is notintroduced into the situation by the revolutionary; it is the reflex of theactual despiritualization of the society from which the revolutionaryemerges. The revolutionary crisis of our age is distinguished fromearlier revolutions by the fact that the spiritual substance of \Mesternsociety has diminished to the vanishing point, and that the vacuum doesnot show any signs of refilling from new sources. Bakunin understoodhis own situation thoroughly; in his anarchism he consciously realizedone half of the revolution, the half which he called the "beginning"; heknew that with success the other half would claim its rights. This otherhalf has not been forthcoming yet in the successful line of the revolu-tion, and the crisis of the spirit which manifested itself in Bakunin's


mysticism of evil lingers on. It lingers on in Russia in spite of the factthat an element of Western enlightened humanism is preserved in theMarxian conception of the worker as the true man.

The late utork of Bakunin

In the decade of 1863-73, Bakunin produced a considerable body ofwritten work which in one way or another contributes to the clarifica-tion of his late anarchistic ideas.tu The fraction of the corpus that isof systematic relevance is suprisingly small, however. The discrepancybetween quantity and substance is due partly to the occasional char-acter of the writings, partly to certain peculiarities of exposition. Wehave to indicate, therefore, the principles of elimination rather than ofselection which will permit us to isolate the relevant nucleus.

A first section of the work of this period can be eliminated becauseits consists of memoranda and lectures for congresses and workerstaudiences; the author is restricted in these pieces to a dog;matic state-ment of his position and cannot enter into a critical elaboration of hisideas. Other pieces of this section have the form of polernics againstpolitical opponents and again do not lend themselves to systematic ex-position. And the more voluminous writings of this class trave the dis-concerting habit of starting as a letter to a friend, then growing into anarticle on some question which arrested Bakunints attent:lon, and ex-panding finally into a volume of which the unit is created. rather by achain of associations than by the organization of problems. This cir-cumstantial and associational character of Bakunints writi:ng producesa vast amount of repetition without an increase of penetration. A secondsection of the work can be eliminated because Bakunin had acquiredthe stylistic idiosyncrasies of a positivistic dogmatist. He was in pos-session of the truth and did not have to worry too much about thecritical foundation of his problems. As in the case of Comte, a largeproportion of Bakunin's writing is elaboration of detail which stands orfalls with the validity of the fundamental assumptions. The foundationsof a social science were laid for Bakunin by Auguste Comte and hisphilosophie positiue; all Bakunin had to do was to draw the conse-quences, or at best to expunge some of the obscurantist elements of thegreat thinker." This profuse application again can be neglected.

Not entirely to be eliminated are the references to the future state of

16, Michel Bakounine, Oeuvre,s, 6 vols. (Paris, 1907-13).L7, L'Antith€ologisme, Oeuvres, Ir P. 7L,


society, though we can dispose of them briefly. Bakunin knew, as wehave seen, about the t'nebulousnesstt of perspectives into the future, andhe understood that a futuristic imagination would have to proceed bythe creation of opposites to the present state. Nevertheless, he indulgedoccasionally in the enunciation of such negations-much to the frightof a not too large bourgeois public. Religion is an instrument of dtg-radation-therefore away with religion; private property is the instru-ment of exploitation-therefore away with private property in theinstruments of production; bureaucracy is an instrument of oPPression-therefore away with the salariaf,' the state is the source of evil com-pulsion-therefore away with the state; all authority in general is aiestraint on liberty-therefore away with theology, with institutional-ized, science ( against Comte ) , and with any form of institutionalizedpolitical leadership ( against Mazzini )

In these futuriJtic indulgences there appear only a few points which

merit attention because they are related to concrete experiences of the

present state. One of them is Bakunints insistence on federalization from

ift. bottom to the top as the structural law of future society. Federaliza-

tion is again an opposite to the centralized state, but it is not a mere

negation; it has a- positive content insofar as this pair of opposites is

*od.tled on the contrast between American federalism and French

revolutionary centralism: "It should be clear to all who really wish the

emancipation of Europe that we have to reject the politics of the French

revolution ( while preserving our sympathies for its great socialist and

humanitarian ideai ) and to adopt resolutely the politics of freedom of

the North Americans."'8 It may be doubted that Bakunints insight into

the nature and problems of American federalism was profound; never-

theless, the imige of the American federal democracy has exerted a

vague guiding influence not only on Bakunin, but generally on the

federalistic visions of anti-state revolutionaries.A second touch of reality makes itself felt in a passage which reveals

what is perhaps the profoundest experiential reason for Bakunints anti-

statism. In tha course of his polemic against Mazzini, Bakunin reflects

on the nature of man: if you give man the possibility of doing evil, that

is if you nourish his vanity, his ambitiotr, his cupidity at the exPense of

otheis, he will do evil. *We certainly are sincere socialists and revolu-

tionaries, but: if we would be given power and could preserve it only afew months, we would not be what we are today. As socialists we are

LB. Proposition Motiv1e au Comit€ Qentral de la Ligue de la Paix et de laLibert6, Oeuores, I, p. I3.


convinced, you and I, that the social environment, the position, theconditions of existence are stronger than the will and the intelligence ofthe strongest and most energetic individual. And precisely for thisreason we do not demand natural but social equality of all men as thecondition of justice and the basis of morality. And that is why we de-test Power, all Power, &s the people detests it.'ot This passage is ofimportance for the understanding of the revolutionary mirrd because itshows in operation the fallacy which assumes the "social r:nvironmentttas an independent factor and neglects the interaction betureen environ-ment and man. Bakunin is aware that the opportunities of the environ-ment can be a temptation; he seems not to be aware that the funda-mental structure of any social environment has something to do withthe nature of man which creates it. In this passage, if rye take it inisolatiotr, Bakunin gives the appearance of having never thought of thepossibility that on the morning of the revolution human nature will setto work to create a new environment with opportunities for doing evil,which perhaps will not be precisely the same as the ones jrust abolishedbut still will be a comparable substitute. For many revolurdonaries thisf-altacy it, indeed, the fundamental dogma which inspires and justifiestheir attack on the shortcomings of society. As far as Bakunin is con-cerned, the irnpasse_ is broken ln the main line of his thought by thefaith in a mystically renovated human nature which produces thecataclysm of destruction. Nevertheless, the passage itself iJ not qualifiedin the context by a reminder of the mystical renora,tio; ancl it tfiereforeshows instructively_ the transition from a mystical revolutionary exist-ence as rePrese_nted by Bakunin in his clearer moments to the vulgarrevolutionary d9g*1 that the nature of man changes automatica'llywith a change of institutions. In the total evolution of ihe dogma we candistinguish, therefore, the followirg three phases: ( I ) at ihe mysticalcenter is the radical eschatological sentiment which expresses itselfconsistently in the demand of the renovatio as the primatyiondition for

1 gerfgc! state of society, (2) a transitional ptrur. ir marked byBakunints assumption in the passage under discussion: that the natureof man will not change and that, therefore, compulsory institutionswith their temptations have to be abolished; ( 3 ) tfie final form is thermlgarian dogma which animates the successful line of revolution: thatwith the deposing of a ruling group the new rulers will have achanged nature so that with the successful ttseizure of powert the newsociety can move towards perfection without a radicat revolution in-volving the eschatological change of heart.

L9. Circulaire a rnes amis tltalie, oeuores, 6, pp. 343ff.

B A K U N I N : T H E A N A R C H I S T 237

Satanism and materialism

What remains after these eliminations and corollaries are a fewsystematic ideas, best formulated in the study on Dieu et l0tat and inthe appendix on the Fantime Diain.'o

The first idea to be disengaged from this body of writing is theSatanic inversion of the Fall. Bakunin narrates the story of Genesiswith the prohibition to eat from the Tree of Knowledge: "God wantedto deprive man of the consciousness of self; He wanted him eternallyto remain an animal, on its four paws before the eternal God, hisCreator and Master. But then comes Satan, the eternally revolted, thefirst libre penseur and emancipator of the world. He shames man forhis ignorance and his bestial obedience; he emancipates him and presseson his forehead the seal of freedom and humanity by persuading himto disobry and to eat from the fruit of knowledge (science).no Bakuninthen continues to explain what he considers to be the true meaning ofthe myth: 'Man is emancipated, he has left his animality and hasconstituted himself as man. He has begun his history; the specificallyhuman development started from disobedience and knowledge ( sci-ence) , that is from revolt and thought."'z In this act of emancipationoriginates the historical nahrre of man with its three strata of animality,thought and revolt; and the three strata of human nature manifest them-selves socially in the creation of the three realms of social and privateeconomy, of science, and of freedom.

Having used the myth as a starting point, Bakunin drops its symbol-ism and proceeds to give to his conception of the nature of man a basisof materialistic metaphysic. The materialism of Bakunin is "genuinet'in the sense of Lucretian materialism as opposed to a phenomenalist ma-terialism. In its development Bakunin displays considerable criticalacumen. He is careful not to deny the autonomy of moral and intel-lectual phenomena; he does not attempt to explain them as epiphe-nomena of matter. He distinguishes between the aile matiEre of theidealists who project the most important content of matter into God sothat nothing remains but a caput mortuurn deprived of its spiritualcontent, and the matter of the materialist who conceives matter as

20. T'he sludy o"_Pitu et Pdtat forms part _of the long manuscript which bearsthe title L'EmByg Knouto-Germanique ei la Rdaolutioi sociale; it was published*paralely by Eligge Rgclus and Cafiero in 1882; the appendix has

- the title

Consid€rotions philosophiques sur le Fantdme Dioin, sur -Ii

Monde r1el et snrfHomme. Both manuscripts are unfinished. Oetnres, vol. z.

21. Ibid., pp. 2off.22.Ibid.r p. 23.


containing the forces of life and intelligence, to be manifested in thecourse of progressive evolution. Bakunints matter is not matter in oP-position to mind; it is not the matter of inorganic nature; it is rather thefundamental force of the universe which manifests itself in the dif-ferentiated realms of being-in the inorganic as well as in the organicand in the moral and intellectual realms. As a consequence of theseassumptions, the materialism of Bakunin would appear to be ratherclose to the metaphysical conceptions of Nietzsche, of Val6ry andSantayana.

The genuine rnaterialistic construction in Bakunin is broken, horv-ever, by a line of thought which announces itself in the designation ofthe specifically human element as "revolt.tt Existence in the mode ofrevolt precludes existence in the inner dimension in wtlich the soulopens itself towards its own ground. Freedom cannot be for Bakunin,as it is for Schelling, the identity with inner necessity. Freedom ist'domination over external things, founded on the respectful observationof the laws of nature.D'3 The science of phenomena, not the cognitio

fidei, is the road to freedom. There is submission in Bakunin, too, but asubmission to the experience of the senses, not of the soul. *Wherein

consists everybodyts experience? In the experience of his senses, di-rected by his intelligence. I, for my part, do not accept anything that Ihave not encountered materially, that I have not seen, hreard and, ifnecessarlr touched with my fingers. For me personally ittut is the onlymeans of assuring myself of a thing.n* Experience of phen,omena alone,however, does supply knowledge of means; it does not supply guidancefor action.

'What then is the source of guiding principles? Quite con-

sistently, Bakunin again appeals to the laws of nature. Freedom isdomination over nature, founded on submission to nature. [t is domina-tion over nature insofar as the knowledge of naturets laws provides uswith the knowledge of means for the realization of ends; it is submissionto nature insofar as the ends themselves are to be found in nature. Butwhere in nature do we find the ends?

At this point the problem of freedom merges for Bakunin with theproblem of social organization. Even if we know the ends of nature andare willing to submit to them, the submission becomes irmpossible ifconflicting ends are imposed on man by social authority. The will tosubmit to nature has to be secured in its freedom against social inter-vention. Bakunin proclaims, therefore, as the negative criterion of free-dom, t'the independence from pretentious and despotic acts of other

23. Ibid., p. 246,24.lbid., pp. 318ff.


men.tt But how do we know whether an act is pretentious and despoticor not? This question has to be decided ultimately by the authority of"political revolt." What arouses revolt is despotism. Freedom can besecured only by the creation of a social environment which does notincite to revolt, and such an environment can be created only by theorganization or society in conformity with the laws of nature *which areinherent in all soicety."" This seems to be a circle insofar as society,in order to provide the conditions of freedom, will have to be organizedin accordance with the laws of nature which are inherent in all societyanyway. And setting aside the problem that society should be organizedin accordance with its own laws, we still do not know what preciselythese inherent laws are. As a solution for both probleffis, Bakunin offersthe practical advice "to model onets spirit and heart as often as possibleafter the spirit and the real interests of the masses.tt'u To the end,Bakunin shrinks back from an articulated idea of society; the laws arenever defined. The right order is determined dynamically through apermanently renewed accordance of the individual soul in revolt withthe sentiments of the masses. Freedom remains an existential tensionbetween revolt against authority and immersion into the people. fn thelate work, Bakunin frequently has recourse to the flux of nature as theimage most adequately expressing his existential feelings: mankind inhistory is a sea in movement, and man is a wave crest, curling up for amoment, to be dissolved forever. In the mysticism of the flux, in thisultimate balance of revolt by immersion in the natural stream of human-i,y, it is perhaps permitted to recognize the specifically Russian com-ponent in Bakunin-though one should always be cautious with suchsurmises. This last word of Bakunin, assuming the form of systematicmaterialism, is substantially the same as his first in L842: the innerreturn is to be replaced by the political revolt; the spiritual orientationby the orientation towards the t'real interests" of the masses; and therenovation of the soul by the immersion into the revolution of thepeople.

25. Ibid., p. 246.26. R1porrse d. l'UnhA ltulinna, Oeuures, 6, p. 299.

X. MARX: INVERTED DIALECTICS

In discussing Comte we reflected on the difficulties that beset the in-terpretation of a thinker whose ideas form part of the contemporarycrisis. A good deal of what we had to say there is also valid in the caseof Karl Marx (1818-83). All major works of Comte were publishedduring his lifetime and in the struggle between integral and intellectualPositivists it was at least possible to appeal to Comte hirnself. In thecase of Marx, however, the struggle of the partisans has even affectedthe accessibility of his work. Since the Marxists considered them un-important, a considerable body of manuscripts remained unpublisheduntil the volumes of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe began to appearin the years L927-32. Within the Marxist movement of the first gen-eration there had arisen the legend of an early, philosophic:rl Marx who,circa 1845,'broke through to his true insights in economiics, sociologyand philosophy of history. Hence, accordirg to this lege:nd the earlywork was not worth reading. As a consequence, for the wider publicMarx became the author of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital,the founder of the First International and, in a wider sense, of theCommunist movement; he became the Marx of the Mar:rists and theFather of the Russian Revolution. Practically in his lifetime the his-torical Marx disappeared behind the mythical ancestor of the movementthat bears his name. The transfiguration was so thorough that thequestion of the t'realt Marx became the question whethen he was theMarx of Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, or the Marx of Rosa Luxemburgand Lenin. The question whether the claims of diadochi and epigoniwere not altogether doubtful was never raised seriously.' 'This impasseopened only when, after the First World War and the Russian Revolu-tion, the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute in Moscow began publishing theworks of the patres as a matter of ecclesiastical duty, and when, at thesame time, German Social Democrats began to take some interest in themanuscript treasures in their party archives. As a consequence of this

I' I am giving 1845 as the approximate legendary date because Lenin (in hisencyclopedia article of 1914 on*The Teachings of Karl Marx") assumes that bythis time the 'tnaterialism" of Marx had found its definite shape.

2. Even today the situation is so heated and confused that it w:ill not be quiteunnecessary to stress that we do not raise this question in order to establish attealt or tttrue' Marx in our turn. It is a question that arises as a matter ofhistorical analysis. Our attempt at presenting the ideas of Marx does neitherintend to save him from the Marxists, nor to create a "truett Marx in rivalry withothers; our analysis has the purpose of establishing a critically tenable picture ofMarxts ideas and, at the same time, of explaining how Marxism cotrld develop outof them.

MARX: INVERTED DIALECTTCS 24L

curious development, a serious interpretation of Marxian ideas gotunder way only after I932.3

Behind this story of misinterpretation and rediscovery lies the tragedyof an activist mystic. fn the fundamental structure of his activist mysti-cism, Marx conforms to the well-known pattern. He was aware of thecrisis of his age and his awareness was intense to the degree of anacute consciousness of epoch. He experienced the age as "a partingasunder of the times," the old world of corruption and iniquity to befollowed by a new world of freedom. The contemporary bourgeoissociety "closed the prehistory of human society" and after an epochalupheaval the real history of society will begin.* The transition from theold to the new world will not be achieved by a simple change of in-stitutions, but like Bakunin, Marx assumes a metanoia, a change ofheart, as 'the decisive event that will inaugurate the new epoch. Forits production, Marx relies on the experience of the revolution itself.t'For the mass creation of communist consciousness, as well as for theachievement of the object itself, a mass change of man is necessarywhich can occur only during a practical movement, that is during arevolution Hence, the t.uolr.rtion is necessary not only because theruling class cannot be overthrown in any other walr but also becauseonly through a revolution can the oaerthrowing class reach the pointwhere it gets rid of the old filth (Dreck) and becomes capable of anew foundation of society.ttu The revolution, thus, is conceived as anintramundane Process with two main functions: ( I ) the function of aninstitutional overthrow, and (2) the function of purification.

The fundamental structure is conventional and the tragedy of theidea is foreknown: if the predicted revolution should ever take place, theheart of man will not change and the new world will be exactly as pre-historical and iniquitous as the otd world. Nevertheless, even on thislevel of general structure the idea contains a peculiarity that was apt

3. One of the _best, tho-ugh brie{, 1na-lyses of the early thought of Marx is theintroduction -!y S.. Landshut and J. P. Mayer to their

"iition 6f Kutl Marx , Der

Historische Materiali.smus. Die Fruehschriften, 2 vols. (Leiprig, IgS2). Of greatvalue are the sections on Marx in Karl Loewith, Von Heiel 7'X Nieizschr"(Zu-rich, New York, I94f ). Of. special interest for the philosophical anthropology ;fMarx is the section "Feuerbach et I'illusion religeuiett in Henri de Lubacr"$.J.,Le Drame de l'Humanisme Ath€e,Srd ed. (Paiis, t94t): Th; Edlirlt readeiwill find a repo-r! ol t\g content of Marx's writings up to L847 in H] P. Adams,Karl Marx in his Earlier Writings (London, l9Z0). Unfortunately ttre author,whillleqol$ng tle co_ntents, has refrained from analysing the probllms of Marx.

4. Karl Marx, Zur Kritih der Politischen Oekonomib ( rbsg ),'.d. 11";i K"J;[t;2nd, enlarged ed. (Stuttgart, lgOT), p. lvi.

5- Deutsche ldeologie ( f845-46)r- 5, p. 60. (All references, unless markedotherwise, are to the respective volumel of the Marx-Engels-Geswrntausgabe.Erste Abteilung.)


to have, and actually did have, far-reaching political con$equences be-fore the misery had run its course. We are speaking of the doublefunction of the revolution. Marx did not, like earlier sectarians, firstcreate a '?eople of God" with changed hearts and then lead the Peopleinto a revolution. He wanted the revolution to happen first and then letthe '?eople of God" spring from the experience of the revolution. Whilefor Marx personally the overthrow of the bourgeoisie was senselessunless the revolution produced the change of heart, the historical proofthat the overthrow was not the proper method for producing such a'change would only come after the revolution had occurred. Thepneumapathological nonsense of the idea could not break on the rockof reality before the damage had been done. In the meantime a tre-mendous amount of disturbance and destruction could be engineered,animated by the pathos of eschatological heroism and inspired by thevision of a terrestial paradise.

Even this peculiarity of the Marxian idea, however, might not havehad the historical consequences which we already know unless a furtherfactor had entered the structure of the idea. The Marxian double func-tion of the revolution in itself does not differ substantially from Ba-kunints idea. Nevertheless, Bakunin's conception of a total destructionout of which mysteriously a young and beautiful world would be bornwas a bit too vague for the average man, who wants to have at leastsorne idea where the revolution will lead him. The factorr that makesthe Marxian idea effective to a degree which Bakunirr's ineffectualanarchism could never have achieved is the content whiclh Marx givesto his vision of the new world. We must therefore examine the back-ground and nature of Marxts vision.

The vision-the realms of necessity and freedom

Marx is distinguished among the revolutionaries of his generation byhis superior intellectual powers. As a mystic he could evoke a newworld, but as a shrewd thinker he would not fall into the various trapswhich beset the path of eschatological speculation. Frotn his insightinto the evils of the industrial system he would not jrr*p to the con-clusion that the industrial system ought to be abolished nor would heindulge in the type of socialist fantasies which he stigmatized as "uto-pian.t' In particular, he would never countenance the idea that theremedy for industrialized society could be found in a return to moreprimitive forms of production. Whatever the new world would bring, itcertainly would have an industrialized society like the ol,il world, only

MARX: INVERTED DIALECTICS 243

more so. Moreover, not for a moment would he entertain the Comtean

metamorphosis of French-Catholic traditions with its priesthood of po_si:

tivistic inteltectuals and its temporal power consisting of the managerial

class. Through Hegel and the young Hegelians he was steeped in the

traditions of intellectualized Lutheran Protestantism, hence his new

world. would have to be a "true democracf,t' that is a society in which

the new spirit would be realized in the concrete existence of every single

man. Marx, thus, envisages a new world in which mankind operates an

elaborate industrial apparatus for the satisfaction of its wants, while

spiritually men have entered a new realm of freedom through thet'emancipating" e*perience of the revolution.

We liave drawn the general outline of his vision and we shall now

turn to the account that Marx himself gives of it. For this Purpose we

shall not use the formulations of the early works but rather the last

account in order to put it beyond doubt that the vision of Marx was not

a peculiarity of his "philosophical" youth, but was the motivation of his

thought to the end of his life.In volume 3 of the Kapital, Marx reflects on the advantages of the

capitalist system of production. As compared with more primitive forms

of production, the capitalist system permits a more rapid expansion of

productivity so that, with a minimum of sacrifice, an increasing popula-iiott can be provided with an increasing amount of goods. This ex-

cellent system must be maintained after the revolution for it alone makes

possible the reduction of the workday and the corresponding creation of

ieisure time for the broad masses of mankind. "The shortening of the

working-day is the fundamental condition." "The realm of freedom be-

gins only where work that is determined by need and external aims

ends; in the nature of the case, it lies beyond the sphere of materialproduction in the strict sense.tt Civilized man, just as primitive man,must struggle with nature in order to satisfy his wants; no form ofproduction and no revolution can abolish the human condition. This&realm of natural necessity" will even expand with advancing civiliza-tion for wants will multiply and increase. As far as there is any freedomin this realm at all, it will consist in the "rational regulation of thismetabolism with nature.tt "socialized mantt (der aergesellschafteteMensch) , that is "the associated producers" will bring the metabolismunder their "communal control" instead of being dominated by it as bya blind power; they will dispose of it with a minimum of effort andunder conditions that will satisfy the dignity of human nature. fn spiteof all such improvements, it "still will be a realm of necessity.' Onlybeyond such necessity "begins the unfolditg of human forces that can


the true realm ofrealm of necessity

be considered an end in itself"; only here "beginsfreedom-which however can only blossom out ol theas its basis.t8

These Passages are probably the clearest formulation which Marxhas ever given of his vision. He distinguishes between ttre realms ofnatural necessity and human freedorn. The realm of necessity comprisesthg system of economic production in which the dependrn.,L of humanexistence on nature manifests itself. The precise exient of this realm isessential for the understanding of Marx's vision. The realm of economicProduction does not cease to be the realm of natural necessity when ithas undergone the revolutionary change from private prope,rt1r to scom-munal control.'The abolition of private propeity is not utr .na in itselfand communal control is of interest only- insofar as it will reducedrudgery and working hours for the broad masses and leave them withmore leisure time. These newly gained hours, free of necessity, are thesoil in which the "true realm of freedom" will grow and hernci it wouldbe of interest to know uhat Marx envisaged ai growing in these hoursof leisure. On this point, however, little is to be found in his wholework. In the pages which we analyse at present we find onllr the remarktha! capitalist society is characterized "by pure loafing of or. part ofsociety.D fhis may be a clue. Most probably Marx aia :not plun anepochal revolution in order to democratize the art of loafing; und mostprobably he would have considered as bourgeois loafing most of thettentertainmentrtt ttamusementrtt ttrecreationrtt and (pla/rtt in which ourworking contemporaries indulge in their leisure houis. If "loafing" isruled out, what then did he mean by the realm of freedorn? We onlyknow for certain that he meant some kind of action which he defined as"an unfolding of human forces that can be considered an end in itself.ttConsidering his backgtound of classical scholarship, he may havethought of something like an Aristotelian bios theoritikos and schole.But we should n_ot Press |hit point too far. Let us stress only thatcommunal control of the industrial instruments of production is notthe ultimate purPose of the revolution; the ultimate puipose is the realmof freedom. Communal control will only furnish the rnaterial basis andthe freedom that will blossom out into a realm does not stem from thematerial basis but from the experience of the revolution. Let us em-phasize_again that this was the idea of Marx not only in his early years,but in his last period when he was working on the thircl noirr*. ofKapital.

6. Dos Kapital. Kritih,der .politischen Oehonornie, Herausgegeben von Fried-rich Engels (Hambug, 1894), pp. 354ff.


The analysis of Marxts vision will enable us now to understand theinterlocking of the following problems: ( I ) the derailment of Marx inhis later yers; (2) the derailment of his ideas in the Marxist movementthat followed from it; ( 3 ) the legend of a "philosophical" early Marx;(4) the miscarriage of Marxism as far as the realization of Marxtsvision is concerned; and ( 5 ) the political success of Marxism in a formthat would cause Marx, if he could see it, to pronounce his favoritefourJetter word.

The derailment

Marx devoted the work of his early years, that is roughly of thedecade from 1837 to 1847, to the elaboration of the idea of which wehave studied a late expression. A good deal of this earlv work was neverpublished, and was not even cast into form for publication, because ithad served its purpose in clarifying his thought. And once the visionwas clear, revolutionary action would have been in order, not furtherwriting or talking. As a matter of fact, not much writing or talkingabout the vision was done by Marx in his later years. The concoction ofutopian programs was ruled out. The realm of necessity would be anindustrial society minus the bourgeoisie. Organizational details werenot so important since administrative control in the new world wouldhave no political implications because of the change of heart. And therealm of freedom had to grow; it could not be planned. At this point,when Marx seemed to be faced with the alternative of sinking intorevolutionary existence in the manner of Bakunin or of lapsing intosilence, the grandiose possibility for writing and acting opened thatfilled the rest of his life: it was the preparation of the revolution.

This possibility was rooted in the structure of his idea. If Marx hadbeen obliged by his idea to create the realm of freedom as to its sub-stance, if he had been obliged to produce a revolutionary renoaatio inhis fellowmen through his spiritual authority, not much would have fol-Iowed except his personal tragedy. But no such obligation was imposedon him. Freedom would be the result of the revolution and the rCvolu-tion itself would be enacted within the realm of necessity. In order toenginee_r the revolution, Marx did not have to appeal to the spirit; itwas sufficient to move the Acheronta in man. In his idea Marx wantedto save and ultimately secure the dignity of man; in his action he couldindulge in his contempt of man. Moreover, the revolution in the realmof necessity had a clearly circumscribed content, that is the overthrowof the bouigeoisie. Henct preparitg the revolution meant the well cir-cumscribed task of ( I ) critically analysing the factors in capitalist so-

246 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO IREVOLUTION

ciety that of necessity would disintegrate the system to the point wherethe proletarian revolution would be both inevitable and successful, and(2) forging the proletarian organization that in the decisive hour wouldstrike the blow. In brief: the maieutic work within the realm of neces-sity could, and did, become for Marx an occupation in itself. He did notbecome the leader of a revolution; instead he wrote the CommunistManifesto-the call, not for a revolution, but for the organization of theforces that would execute the inevitable revolution. He di,il not write atreatise on the future communist society, instead he wrote the Kapital,the analysis of the moribund society. In the first half of tlrre 1840's, w€may saf, the mood of Marx was still close to the mood of Bakunin'srevolutionary existence; from then otrr the emphasis of his life and workshifts increasingly to the midwifery of the revolution. This shift frommaking to preparirg a revolution is what we call the derailment ofMarx. The immenseness of the preparatory work in the realm of neces-sity completely overshadowed the eschatological experience which hadmotivated the revolutionary vision as well as the ultimate purpose of therevolution, that is the realization of the realm of freedom.

T he Marxist mov e ment -Revisionism

In the life of Marx, the derailment into maieutic opr:rations over-shadowed experience and idea but it never broke the revolutionary ten-sion. However deeply Marx was immersed in his intellectual andorganizational preparations, he never lost his eschatol,ogical vision.When it descended to the level of the movement, the derailment hadfar-reaching consequences. The penchant for preparing the revolutioncould be followed by men who never had the experience in which theMarxian ideas originated. Marx had actually experienceCl the death ofthe spirit through Hegel, and his' existence moved in ttre tension be-tween this experience and the hope for renovation of the spirit in a newworld after the revolution. The Marxists of the movement for the mostpart were men who could not experience the death of the spirit becausethey were dead souls themselves and consequently the l\{arxian visionof freedom meant little, if anything, to them. Nevertheless, while theycould not experience the tension of spiritual death and freedom, theystill could experience the tension between the present, grievous stateof the working class and a future state with a shorter u'orkday and ahigher standard of living. If the revolution could not bring the changeof heart and the realm of freedom, it still could bring a vestly improvedrealm of necessity and the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.

With increasing distance from the original Marxian tension, the


immanent logic of the derailment asserted itself more strongly. prepar-ing the revolution intellectually through the writing of irhcles andbooks and preparing. it organizationalylhrough part/work and parlia-mentary representation became an occupation in which one couid liveand die without ever coming near a reiolution. Famous dicta becamepossible, like Bernstein's "what is commonly called the ultimate endof socialism is nothing to me, the movemeni is everythingr" or KarlKautsky's "The socialist party is a revolutionary party, li is not arwolution-making party." such dicta indicate that *i'itt th" lengtheningof the preparatory period, the revolution itserf was being tran"sformelinto an evolutionary process. This trend was inevitable if lhe purpose ofthe revolution could be exhausted by occurrences in the realm of neces-sity. tf the aims of the shorter wo"kday, of higher wages and of com-munal control of the industrial apparatus could be achieved within areasonable-time "by means of economic, legislative and moral pressuret(K. Kautsky) there was no point in muking a revolution. In ttre de-railmentr the existential change of heart had flattened out into a grad-ual improlement of the workers'lot through an appeal to social moral-ity. The Revisionist wing of the derailment had become in substancea movement for social reform.

In the realm of ideas Marxist problems are of a rather petty nature.since in actual history however, Marxism is of immense importance(at least for the time being) it is excusable if we add a noti on thecontext from which the dictum of Karl Kautsky is taken. The sentenceqrroted above occurs in an article by Kautsky in ttre Neue zeit of lg93( it is reprinted in Karl Kautsky, Eier weg iur Macht [Berlin, r 9 r 0] ) .- we quoted the sentence in order to show the evolutionary trend in

the process of derailment -but Kautsky, on the contrary, advances his

dictum in order to show that he is an ardent revolutionary. As he ex-plains it: "we know that our aims can be accomplished Jnly througha revolution but we also know that it is no more iir our po*""" to makethis revolution than it is-in the-power of our opponents to prevent it.Hence we do not even think of instigating a revoiution or of preparing1"7. This ap_parent nonsense finds it1 soiirtion through Kautik/s con--viction that because the revolution must occur as a matter of historicalnecessity-_(as proven by Marx), all the revorutionary has to do is toy"it TIil bourge_ois sociery has sufficientry disintegrated (*ti.t i,inevitable) and then take over. As long "as disinf,gration has notproceeded far enough, revolutions are dJomed to failure. The *truerevolutionary'will keep his discipline and wait; it is only the utopian

7. Der Weg zur Macht (Berlin, lgtO), p. 52.

248 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO REVOLTITION

who will rush into adventures before the time is ripe. -I.n-us, by defini-tion, a revolutionary is one who knows that the proletarian revolution is

inevitable and who iin.s in pleasant anticipation of that event, hasteningit, perhaps, with a bit of "pressure" of the indicated kind. The interest-ing poini about Kautsky'J position is the fact that he can support it

by quoting from the sacred texts of Marx and Engels.The derailment which in Kautsky assumed somewhat comic ProPor-

tions originated in the period 1848-50. Up to the Febru,ary revolutionof 1848, w€ might suy, Marx lived in eschatological t;ension in thesense that he expected the epochal revolution to occur in the very nearfuture, h. expected the realm of freedom to be established in a matterof a few years. The Communist Manif esto ( section 4) still breathesthis spirit: "The communists turn their attention chiefly to GermanY,because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that isbound to be carried out under more advanced conditions of Europeancivilization, and with a much more developed proletariat, than that ofEngland was in the seventeenth and of France in the eighteenth centurlrand because the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the preludeto an immediately following proletarian revolution." When the revolu-tion, however, miscarried, a lot of explaining was necessary. Marxexplained the first phase of the miscarriage in Die Klassenkampfe inFrankreich (1850), the second phase (after the coup d'6tat of Napo-leon) in Der Achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Napoleon (tg 52). Buttheoretical explanations were not enough; members of the League ofCommunists had to be told what would happen next. This duty Marxdischarged in his Ansprache der ZentalbehArde an den ,Bund ( tg50).In this tract Marx developed for the first time what later came to becalled the "tactic" of the class struggle while waiting for the actualrevolution, and it was here that he coined the new slogan: Die Reuolu'tion in Permanenz. The permanence lasted for quite a long time. Onthe next major occasioil, after the miscarriage of the Pilris Commune,an explanation was due again and it appeared in the llorm of an ad-dress on Der Bilrgerkrieg in Frankreich ( 187L). After the death ofMarx, Engels took over. In a study Zur Geschichte des B.undes derKommunisten ( f g B 5 ) he still saw the revolution just around the cor-ner. He based his prediction on the "rule" that revolutions throughoutthe nineteenth century had occurred at intervals of fiftreen to eighteenyears.s Since the last revolution had occurred in 1B 70, the next, accord-ing to Engels, was due in about three years. The last utterance of

8. Engels's Geschichte is reprinted in Karl Marx, Enthiillungen iiber denKommunistenprozess zu Kiiln, ed. Mehring (Berlin, 1914). 'fhe prediction isfound on p. 45.


Fng:h. on the subject, which occurs shortly before his death, appearsin his introduction to the reissue of the Kiassenhiimpfe in Frankleichof 1895. Engels dwells on the irony that revolutionaries thrive muchbetter on legal than on illegal meihods. In the expansion of socialDemocracy, measured in terms of electoral support, it. ."., an under-mining of society comparable to that of the undirmining of the RomanEmpire by the christians. He smesses with gusto the fact that withina generation of Diocletian's great persecution of the Christians in sOs,constantine made christianity the official religion of the Empire. Heexpects a similar _h"ppy solution within a generation of the perslcutionsof 1\e socialists 9y ttr" German Diocletian, Bismarck. Karr Kautskycould claim, in view of all this, that he was carrying on the torch oipermanence which was lighted by Marx after the eschatological expecta-tions had been discouraged by the events of 1848. Tracing this con-tinurty permits us to fix the beginning of Marx's derailmenl at aboutr850.

T he Marxist rnorernent-C ommunism

The derailment which led to the communist revolution seems atfirst sight to be what it claims to be, that is a return to the ,truetMarx. And the claim is justified, indeed, insofar as the radicars whobegan to stir in the 1890's did not accept evolutionary reformism as asubstitute for revolution. Lenin's attitude toward ttre Kautsky wingof social Democracy resembles very closely that of Marx toward theEnglish trade-union movement. The rejection of democratic coopera-tion, the rejection of sluggish socialist mass parties, the shaping of an6lite, disciplined organization of professional revolutionaries

-in the

form of the Bolshevik (later communist) Party, the concentration onthe seizure of power, the deep distrust of, and contempt for, the broadmasses who can be "brihed'by lqmedilte advantages into the betrayalof the revolution-all this_certainly indicates the return to a genuinerevolutionary_ tension. -\{a.L we compare Lenin's Geneva "speech(1908) on zessans of the commune with Engel's Introd.uctiin, oL1895, to the class struggles in France, we feel a new breeze. Engels,fascinated ty the -two million German social Democratic voters, ac-centuates the possibilities of peaceful advance toward the hour of deci-sion. He considers the German bloc the "shock troops" of the inter-n_"liolulproletarian arrny, a force not to be frittered away in preliminary:firT]r\.:-_Nolhing co'ld_ha]t the development of this force except abloodbath like that of the Paris commune of rgzl, hence he urged theavoidance of imprudent revolts as the first duty of the movement."Lenin,


still fresh with memories of the Russian Revolulion of 1905' stresses

the violent aspects of the Commune as its most valuable lesson. The

Commune failed because it was still encumbered with dreams of

establishing justice and did not ruthlessly expropriate the expropriators,

because itlndulged in magnanimity toward its enemies and tried to

influence them morally instead of killing them, and because it diil not

fully grasp the importance of purely military action i1 civiJ war and'

through ifs hesitations gave the enemy time to rally. Nevertheless, the

Commune did fight, it demonstrated the value of civil war and thereby

taught the proletariat "how to handle concretely' the problems,of revolu-

tiori The h,ussian insurrection of December, 1905 showed that the

lesson had been learned. The "soviets of workers' and soldiers' deputies'

symbolize the double aspect of the revolution. There is a time for using

placeful weapons in preparing the revolution, but there comes a time

when the proletariat must destroy its enemies in open battle. An insur-

rection that fails is worth the sacrifice because it keeps alive the con-

sciousness that revolution means imminent civil war and violence.The revolutionary tension, thus, is regained at least on the level of

action in the realm of necessity. Whether the Marxian vision of the

realm of freedom, however, was seriously recaptured at any time is

doubtful. Certainly a shadow of that vision aPPears in the work of

Lenin, and this is prolonged into the very formulations of the Soviet

Constitution of 1936 in the recognition that the successful socialistrevolution has so far not produced. the genuine communist realm in

which the state will wither away and men will work to the best of

their ability without the incentive of compensation according to per-formance. The distinction between socialist and communist societyentered into the style of the Soviet Union as a union of sacialist sovietrepublics that would be guided to the perfect state by a communistparty.n It must be doubted, however, that even before the Revolution of

9. The distinction goes back to Karl Marx, Zur Kritik des sozialdemokratischenParteiprograrnms 1875, This critique of the Gotha Program was reprinted byHermann Duncker in his edition oi Marx-Engels, KritiEen der sozialdemohrat-ischen Progranrm-Entwii,rfe wn 1875 und 1891 (Berlin, 1928). As the editorindicates in his fore*ord this republication from the Communist side servecl the

special purpose of reminding agiin of the revolutionary nucleus of Marxism inoippositiin t'o the reformism Jt th-=e Social Democratic Party. In the foreword to the

sicond eilition of 1930, the eclitor recommends Lenin's article on Marr as an.,excellent supplernent' io the Kritih. We shall turn to Lenin's article presently inthe text. ILn'the Kritik, Marx distinguishes between a communist society as it

emerEes from the revolution still tainteal by marks of its origin, aad a "highernhasi of communist society.' The worst mark of the lower phase is compensationif work according to qua;tity and quality of performance._ In the higher -ph_as-ework no loneer vrill bi a 'tneans foi lifi, but rather the foremost want in life(Lebembeititfnis)." when this stage is reached, incentives for work will no


l9l7 too much importance attached to this strand in Lenin's ideas.Lenin resumed it because he found it in Marxts critical notes on theGotha Program and it was an excellent weapon for distinguishingorthodox Marxism from the reformist type of derailment. NevJrthelesiprecisely this "tactical' context of Marils distinction should remind, otthat the ultimate end of communism was characterized in this mannerin order to make it clear that the more immediate phase of communismwas somethi$ vastly different. The ultimate phase is remote (Marxcounted its distance in decades, Lenin in ..nt,rries ); the immediatephase will be the reality following a successful revolution. Hence weshould consider the distinction less a recapture of the original visionthan one of the famous "explanations" of Marx by which hi proved tothe Marxists' satisfaction that the miscarriage of ihe millenium was aninevitable tactical step toward its realization.t

That even Lenin did not regain the original vision is made mostprobable by his previously mentioned .nryclopedia article , Karl Marx( I9l4). The article oPens with a brief biograpfricat introduction. Thenit explains the doctrine of '?hilosophic nnateiialism," mostly based. onthe crude naturalism of Engels's Anti-Diihring, the doctrine of ,,Dia-lecticrt_ again based on Engels and Feurerbu-h, avoiding Marx, andthe "Materialist Conception of History," based on the farious page inKritik der Politischen Oekonomie, avoiding the voluminous rutiy''writ-ings of Marx on the zubject. The article thin proceeds to ,,Class Strug-glett and "Economic Doctrine." The subseqn.nt section on ,,socialismttdwells on the inevitability of socialism as evolving out of capitalism,based on Passages from Marx, while for the vision of the future Leninrelies again on Engels.tl The article comes to a close with a section on

longer be necessarY,-u"1^1*,t:i1:iqk of society will be: "From each accordingto his ability, to each according_to-his needs." "Duncker's footnote (p. 27) indi-cates that the formula originate$ wjth Enfantin in I8Sf,

""a received the word-il$ which Marx uses t\rough-Louis Blanc in lBSg. fnr distinction of the twophases Yas resumed pl Leoin in his ,Sratu and, Reaolution (lg L7) and from thenon remained one of the semantic icons in Russian communism.

lO. After the First World War the "explanations" and. ,.tactics" of theMarxist movement became a joke to non-Ma"iirtr. On the occasion of repeatedllIong p-redictions and masterful explanations of the tactician Otto Bauer, KarIKrausr_ the Austrian satirist, coined ih" term ,tic-tac-tic.tt

11' Lenin quotes the f|*oyt p-a:l1qe frory n-"s".!, Herrn Eugen DiihringsUmzaiilzung der Wissenschraft ( rszs") , rgth ed,.o f st-"iigatrr lg lg ) , p. so2z"The Proletariat seizes state pjwgl urd at first transforri. the instruments ofproduction into,state property.

-In this_ ac!, howev_er, it abolishes itself as proletar-iat, abolishes all class differ-ences and class conflictr; ;il ;h;-,.|;-;lr; abolishesthe state as state. . . . The first lct, wherein ttre state appears as the realrepresentative of the whole society-the'taking over of the insfruments of produc-tion in the name of society-is af the same tiire i; hJ-i;dA"ndent act as state.

252 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO TTEVOLUTION

"Tactics.t Nowhere in the whole essay do we find a single word on the

realm of freedom and the precariousness of its realization.

With regard to the tudirul wing of the derailment we come, there-

fore, to th; conclusion that the revolutionary tensiol was regained on

the level of necessity but not on the level of freedom. 'Through the

mere lapse of time, the derailment made it necessary 3- cover more

and more historical events with the categories of tactics. This extension

of tactical explanations, finally, had to toutr the revolution itself, and

not only the revolution but ulro the historical events followitg the

revolution. Into this latter class belong the Marxist debates on the

question whether the Russian Revolulion of 1917 was really 'h.t

Revol,rtion or only its beginnirg, whether the Revolutircn in Russia

had to be expanded, throufh the Lo**nnist International., into a world

revolution; whether the dussian Revolution was safe so long as the

Revolution had not occurred. throughout the world, or whether one

could settle d.own, for the time being, with socialism in one country;

how long it would. take for the state to wither aw&f, - hoy long ll.dictatotrttip of the proletariat would have to last; what the dictatorship

of the proletariat could mean when there were no nonproletarians left

to whom one could. dictate; whether this dictatorship u'ould have to

last as a defense precaution until the revolution had engulfed the rest

of the world, etc.This game of tactics, however, ran into an interesting difficulty,

again thlough the mere lapse of time. Once the revolution had been

successful ii Russia, and thr Pentecostal miracle of freedom through

revolutionary experience did not occur, the people began to get restive.

The game of tactics can sustain in tension those who are actively en-

gug.i in it in a leading role but apparently the averagle man is not

iuiiting to live by tactfts alone. The Revolution had happened, the

worldlshaking importance of the event was being hammered into

everybody, Uut ten, fifteen, twenty years elapsed, the state did not

wither away, the revolution still went olr. At this juncture, a substitute

of a more tlngible nature had to be found for the receding millenium,

and it was foind in the "fatherland," the revival of Russian traditions

and a *Soviet Patriotism.tt

The intervention of state power in social relations will becom-e strperfluous in one

nria *ftrt the other and *itt gradually ceas e (schliift ein) . Th_e government over

;;;;; *il q" replaced blihe administration of things and rthe managernent

of processes ;-p;;ilction. rn" state will not be 'abolishl d,' it dies ofr (er stirbt

; i.fift;ir ,"1*oo.r rtot" !h. o{giqal idea precisely tlre point rthat had worried

It "

yood:" Marx *ort, b.i*" ,hg derailm"itt, the point that the mechanics of

exprop'auon- f"i*t l qot produce th9 realm of freedom at all brnt an even more

hideous rendition" of the iorrupt society which this measure intends to overcome'


If we interpret the injection of a new patriotism into Russian com-munism as determined by the Iogic of the original vision, if we under-stand it as a substitute apocalypse for masses who cannot live perma-nently in eschatological tension, we shall at the same time be ratherhesitant about seeing in it a fundamental change in the history of theMarxist derailment. The tactics of the derailment have not been aban-doned because a tactical sop has been thrown to the people. up to thistime, there is no shadow of an indication that in the iuling-stratumof the Marxist movement the revolutionary tension has relaxelrl. we donot think, therefore, that the Marxist derailment has come to itshistorical end, to which indeed it would have come if the revolutionarytension had dissolved into a aconservative' national policy, howeverimperialistic. The sources show no more than a tactiial inclusion ofthe forces of soviet nationalism into the revolutionary drive that iscarried on by the leaders in the upper stratum of the'Marxist move-1nent. A retarding effect becomes visible only insofar as the success ofthe revolution in a very powerful country inCvitably imparts an intensecolor of national imperialism to the tactics of world- revolution andah:$y- may arouse national resistance even among those groups onwhich the tacticians of the movements count for thJir zupport..

we have followed the problem of the movement to lts systematic,though not to its historical end and we can now summarize tire results.

The Marxist movement is connected in continuity with the Marxianidea through the derailment that has occurred in'Marx at the latestafter the experience of the February Revolution of rg4g. The derail-ment we have defined as the shift of emphasis from the ultimate endof the revolution to the tactics of its preparation. This shift of emphasiswas possible because the enrl of the revolution, that is the establishmentof the realm of freedom, was conceived as resulting from the experienceof the revolution itself. The ultimate end of the Revolution wai, there-fore_, beyond preparation. what could be prepared was the revolutionin the realm of necessity; for this purpose no change of heart is neces-ftyj- Th" lppeal is made to such sintiments as moral indignation,idealism, pity, compassion, the 'trumanitariant calcurus that" minorsufferings will be compen_sated by great bliss for the greatest number,ressen'timent, envy, hatred, the moderate desire to improve oners posi-tion, greed, lust of destruction, lust of terrorism ancl domination, andplain lust of killing. The combination of this appeal with the premiumof morality, fight for freedom, eschatological- ireroism and historicaldestiny is a psychologically appealing mixiure. The only serious draw-

12. A serious case of tlis kind, even within the panslavic area, has occurred inthe Yugoslav resistance against Russian domination, u"g"n io-igag.-'-'


back which the recipe could have from the Marxist point of view is the

possibility that it cin be imitated and used by others-as the Marxists

? Unt unfbrtunately not only the Marxists ) found to their grief whCn

the National Socialists used it and improved upon it.

In the derailment we can hitherto dGtinguish the followitg historical

phases:I ( I ) The derailment in Marx himself, as it becomes rnranifest after

the February Revolution of 1848.(2) The derailment on the level of German Revisionism. The threat

to overthrow the bourgeoisie became the lpater le bourgeois of revolu-

tionary language, rn'hiL the actual policy became that of a Progressivereform puJy. iVittrout the First World War and the Russian Revolu-

tion, this might have been the end of Marxism through tranlfgt*ation

of the *or.itent into labor parties within the national polities. The

rad.ical revolutionaries would. have become an innocucfus sectarian

grouP.v t d I The derailment on the level of Russian Communisim. The Rus-

sian Revolution of 1917 has reversed the trend toward atn euthanasia

of Marxism. With the Communist seizure of power in a rnajor country

( more by way of a coup d'6tat than of an actual revolutio:nary deve]op-

ment; , the revolution was put to the test of fulfillment. Since no fulfilt-

ment in terms of a realm of freedom was forthcoming, the distinction

of the two phases of connmunism ( of which the first, actrual one could

run indefinilely into the future ) , as well as the substitute apocalyPse of

Soviet patriotism, had to be incorporated into the tactics of the move-

ment.( 4 ) The derailment on the level of Russian imperialism. With the

end of the Second World War, the problem that had already plagued

the comintern between the wars became intensified with the increasing

identification of the Communist movement with Russian imperialism.

Just as the failure of the revolution within Russia could be partially

overcome through Soviet patriotism, this difficulty could be overcome

in the Eastern- and Cential-European area, at least in part, through

mobilizing Panslavic sentiments which, after a fashion, cover up the

absence of freedom after "liberation.t For the expansion farther West

no new tactical cover-devices have yet appeared, with the exception of

the symbol "fascism' for the designation of all governments and politi-

cal groups which resist Soviet imperialism.From the survey of the phases it appears that the derailment draws

its continued strength from wars and revolutions that are not of its

making. While the movement does not in itself seem to have uly t-ttt:

ous revolutionary power, it is excellently equipped ( through its "tactics'

MARX: INVERTED DIALECTICS 2 5 5

:lll1qllf 1"_:"lT"d.lechnique of politicat struggle) with the abilityot grasping__opportunities that are ofrered by thJparalysis and disinte-gration of western society. Hitherto the movement could revitalize itsrevolutionary tension, and aloi{ facjng the probrem of the recedingm]llelym' thqough events which origiiated outside the movement it-self. since this source for revitalizition is still richly no*1og, th"further course of the derailment is unpredictable.

l

That the derailment was made poisibre through the loEic of theidea, however, is not a sufficient exiranation fo" tie p;;.id;; appearof the idea in the crucial moments oi western disinteiration. In orderto secure its success the i$ea not-only had to rest oi a subsiantiallysound analysis of the actual state of lvestern society; it also t ua to u" upart of the crisis itself. only because the idea *u, ii,. maniiesiation ofa profound spiritual diseasl, only because it carried the disease to anew extreme, could it fascinate the masses of a diseased society. weshall now turn to the genesis of the idea and the nature of the diseasewhich produced it.

Inoerted dialectics'we

can best arrive at an understanding of the Marxian diseaseIpygl an analysis of its central

:y-ptoT, i,t i"t go". Uyifr. name of"dialectical materialism." The dialectics of matter is a conscious inver_sion of the Hegelian diarectics of the idea. we have dealt with the prob-lem of inversion severar times in the course of this *a"ay. ii1.-a mode9f thgqgat which occurs in the rast sophistic periods oi u airin."g.ut-ing civilization. we encounter it for the first time in rrarenic, sophisticpolitics, and it reappears in a decisive manner i, th. E;iigh;rirn"n, u,\Me saw in the case of Herv€tius. we noticed it again in tfi"

"nupt , onBakunin.

The case of Marx i-* o"y similar in its structure to that of Bakunin,and in itself it would hardiy merit an anarysis. rr *" gi*-r"tJsive at-tention to it neverth"t.jj:,*t:- * admiryqly.a concessio"n to the potiticalimportance of the Marxist movement. If rs also a concession to thepresent deplorable state of political science and of pouti"ur aircussionin general. Dialectical matiriarism has found wide sociar ".""pr"n""under the more conventionar name of 'historicut -"t"iiuti.ir," *aeven more so under the distinctly respectabre laber

"f th;

-""*nomic

interpretatiol"_of politics and history, und it has found .*h "*p,"n""r,rot_9nly with Marxists but generariy in the

"nui"on*nt-or "o-aoa","intellectuals who have absorbed psychoanaly.ir. w;--h;;""r"l5t ra a"situation where every day *" .n"ooot.t tt c assertion that nobody has


a right to talk about politics who has not understood, and is able to

"npt}, the profound insights stemming.-from Marx' The ptilosoPltit4

ailitiuntir"i, and sometiries the plain s1liness, of the theories involved,

frur p"oo"a no obstacle to their niass influence. In view of this situation,

the iresent analysis of Marxian dialectics may be excused'.

lfre term "dialectical materialismt poses a problem insofar as it is a

contradictio in ad.iecto.Dialectics, whatever other qualifications one may

introduce into the definition, is an intelligible movement of ideas' The

concept may be applietl nol only to a Process in the mind but also to

other'realms of being, and in the extreme case dialectics may be used

as a principle of gn6stic interpretation fot the whole of the universe,

under th" "rsompiion

that t"ulity is intelligible because it is,the mani-

festation of an idlea. Hegel could interpret history dialectically because

he assumed the /ogos tJ be incarnate in history. l{ft"l reality is not

conceived. as the incarnation of the logos, the talk of a dialectic of

reality becomes senseless. while the term in question, thus, contains a

contradictio in ad.iecto, the train of thought which has led to the sense-

less formula may still be intelligible. we cannot dismiss the problem

out of hand but must inquire inti its origin. Nevertheless' as a point of

sociological interest, we'should be aware that the senselessness of the

formuli has never disturbed a Marxist, and in the Russian abbrevia-

tion of d.iamat it has become one of the sacred symbols of communist

doctrine.Marx himself has given the most mature formulation of his theory

of dialectics in the F6reword to the second edition of the Kapital, in

1873. There he says: "In its foundations my dialectical methotl <loes

not onty difier from the Hegelian, lgt is jts direct-opposite." when in

the firsl edition he declared himself a disciple of the great thinker,

he did so rather out of spite against mediocrities who treated Hegel as

a ,,dead dog." In opposiiion to such epigoni he wanted to stress that

H"g"l afte; ail *ur itr" first thinker who presented -the movement of

diiectics in a comprehensive and. consciouJmanner. Nevertheless, "for

Hegel the thought-process (which even he transforms into an autono-

mois subject ott-d." th" name of Idea) is the demiurge of the,real which

i. ""fy

its external garment. With me, on the contrary' the ideal is

nothirig but the maierial transformed and translated in the heacl of

man.t "He then distinguishes between the 'tnystified" and' the -4rational"

forms of dialectics. Iln its mystified, Hegelian form it glorified what-

ever exists. In its rational, Marxian form it is obnoxious to the bour-

geoisie "because in understanding the existing P-ositively, ft i\o implies

ihe understanding of its negatlon, that is of its inevitable perish-


ing." Rational dialectics understands "every form of becoming in theflux of movementtl it is (not impressed by anything; it is essentiallycritical and revolutionary.m

The passage is brief, but rich in implications. Above all, we cansee that the Marxian intention of "turning Hegel upside down'(umstiilpen) in order to put dialectics on its feet, is rooted in a funda-mental misunderstanding of Hegel's metaphysics. The Idea is forHegel, of course, not the demiurge of the "real" in the sense in whichMarx understands the term, that is in the sense of empirical reality.Rather, it is the demiurge of the "real' only insofar as reality is tlierevelation of the Idea. Empirical reality contains for Hegel a good dealthat is not the unfolding of the Idea. It is precisely because empiricalreality and the reality of the Idea are not identical that the problemof the Idea arises, or, to formulate it more fundamentally: Hegel wasa philosopher and in this capacity he was concerned with the most basicphilosophical problem, namely, with the nature of reality. Empiricalreality could either be a disorderly flux of events (which it is not) orit could have a discernible order; in the latter case, this peculiar struc-ture of reality inevitably becomes a problem for the philosopher andhe must distinguish between the source of order and the source ofthe elements which do not fit into that order. Hence, when Marx saysthat his rational dialectics stands Hegelian dialectics on its feet, iredoes not correctly describe what he is doing. Before the actual inversionbegins, he has done something much more fatal: he has abolishedHgSelg problem of reality. And since only the answer to this problem(the dialectic of the Idea) is specifically Hegelian, while the problemitself is a general philosophical one, he has by this act abolished thephilosophical approach to the problem of reality on principle. TheMarxian position is not anti-Hegelian, it is antiphilosophical; Marx doesnot put Hegel's dialectics on its feet, he refuses to theorize.

Inevitably at this point certain questions arise, such as: Did Marxknow what he was doing? How can one theorize, as Marx seems to doin voluminous works, without theorizing? The questions are thorny,and the answers will require lengthy exposition. Let us approach thefirst question concerning the sincerity of Marx and the self-consciousnessof his undertaking.

In the previously quoted Foreword Marx refers to his critical studv ofHegelian dialectics which he had given ,,almost thirty y.ut,

"go.i' If

we turn to this early work, we find that Marx had an excellent under-

_ 13.Karl_Marz, Das Kopital,4th ed., ed. Friedrich Engels (Hamburg, lggo),I, pp. xviif.


standing of Hegel's problem of reality but preferred to ignore it.tn He

criticized Hegel's concepts of idea and reality not by showing that

they were uncritically formed or inconsistently used, but by measuringthem against his own concePt of reality antl by condemning them be-

cause they did not conform with it. Since the reality of Marx was not

the reality of Hegel, we cannot be surprised when Marx shows con-

vincingly-that, indeed, on every single point Hegel's theory of politicalrealityii in conflict with his own. What must surprise us is that Marx

should consider this demonstration a refutation of Hegel's philosophy.It would have been a refutation if Marx had given a critical foundation

to his own concept of reality, for in that case the demonstration of non-

agreement would have shown that Hegel's concepts were untenable in

terms of Marxian critical standards. Marx, however, never attemptedsuch a critical foundation for his theory of reality. As the editors of

Marx's early writings have formulated it: "He tacitly argg9s from a

position that is unphilosophical on principle"-and the justifigtion of

ihis position ,,is simply issumed.' *T'he position from rvhich Marx

undeitakes his critique is a plain, not explicitly discussed negation of

the philosophical position as such. By simply referring -to what in

common pailance is called reality, the philosophical question concern-

ing the nature of reality is cut off.nu

14. Of the study on Hegel's dialectics only a small P-{ !a$-b.een publisAedunder the title zu; Kritib der Hegelschen Rebhtsphilosophie. Einleitung ( 1843 ) .The main boily, the Kritib des Hegelschen Staatsrechts, Tmained in manuscript.Both the Einliiiung and the Kritih *e now published in' Gesamtntsgabe,

15. S. Landshut and J. P. Mayer, introduction (Karl Marx, Der HistorischeMateriali*mus [Leipzig, 1932], vol. I), p. uii.,The- key pass-age which putsMarxts position beyond doubt is to be found, in the Kritit, i1 th9- notes on sec.262 of ileEel's Reihtsphilosophi.e: "Das uirkliche Verhiiltnis ist: 'dass die Zutei-luns des Siaatsmaterials am Einzelnen durch die Unrstiinde, die Willkiir uad dieeiEine Wahl seiner Bestimmung vermittelt ist.' Diese Tatsache, dies wirklicheVZrhiiltnis wird von der Spekulation als Erscheinung, als Phiinomefu ausges-prochen. Diese umstiinde,

-diese willkiir, diese wahl der Bestimmung,_ die_se

iolrpurn, vermittlung sind bloss die Erscheinung einer vermittlung, welche die*ittti"h" Idee mit siih selbst vornimmt, und welche hinter der Gardine vorgehl.Di" Witkli.hkeit wird nicht als sie selbst, sondern als eine anilere Wirklichkeitaussesprochen. Die Sewdhnliche Empirie hat nicht ihren eigenen Geist, sondern

"ioJo f""-d"tt zum Gesetz, wogeEen-die wirkliche Idee nicht eine aus ibr selbst

iotri.t.tt" wirklichkeit, ionaern aie gewiihnliche Empirie zum Dagein hat. Dieiai. *i"a versubjektiviert. Das wirhlici,e Verh[ltnis von Familie untl btirgerliche.rGesellschaft zurn Staat wird ats ihte innere imagtniire Tetigkeit gefasst. Familieund biireerliche Gesellschaft sind die Voraussetzungen des Staats; sie sind dieeisentlicf, Tltigen, aber in der Spekulation wird es umgekehrt. Wenn aber dieId?e versubiekiiviert wirtl, werdin hier die wirklichen Subjekte' biirgerlicheGesellschaft, Familie, umst[nde, WillHtr, etc.', zu umttirklich-en, anderesbeiteut""a"d objektivin Momenten cler Iclee" (vol._ l, p. 1p6).This-method of

""iti"i.- did not appear in Mar: for the first time in his discussion of Hegel. In

nis stuaies for his' dissertation (Jeber ilie Differet* iler ilemohritischen utd

MARX: INVERTED DIALECTICS

Logophobia or the Fragesverbot

259

The procedure is disconcerting. The question whether Marx wasunable to understand Hegel's problem muit definitely be answered inthe negative; Marx understood Hegel perfectly weli. What purpose,then, did he Pursue in writing an elaborate commentary on Hegel'sRechtsphilosophie which proved nothing but that the *oild view of acritical philosopher is not identical with the precritical, prephilosophicalworld view of the average man? In performing this feat, with the im-gli.ed undelstanding that it demolished the Hegelian system, was Marxbeing intellectually dishonest? When he *.uJrred Hegel's concept ofreality

-against his own, did he deliberately misrepresent Hegelis in-tention? To this last question the answer cinnot be unhesitatiig. Thedilemma becomes manifest in the sentence in which Marx's iditorsgrapPle with the question: 'Marx-if we may express ourselves in thismanner-misundersto_o{ Hegel as-it-were deliberately.t"u They do notdare outrightly_ call Marx an intellectual faker, bui they u* not sosure that the solution of the puzzle is not found in this directiol.

Tempting as the suggestion is, we cannot follow it. The affair cer-tainly suggests intellectual dishonesty but, after all, Marx was not acommon swindler. Nevertheless, in interpreting his procedure we arein a real difficulty. On the level of rational discourse we come to thedead end of the question just raised. Lfnless we want to give up atthis p_oint, we must transfer the problem to the level of pnei*upuinot-ogy. Marx was spiritually diseased and we have localized the mostglaring llmptom of his disease, that ir, his fear of critical conceptsand of philosophy in general. Marx refuses to express himself in ;yother terms than p_recritical, unanalysed conceptsi The deeper causesof this fear we shall discuss later. For the present we have to charac-terize the symptom and since pneumapathological terminology isna$!Y develoPed, we shall coin the ttrm "lGophobla" for this symptom.

We can even go a bit beyond the nurto* aennition of logopftoUiu asfear of critical concepts, for Engels, in his Anti-Diihringl fr", fortu-epikurlischen Naturphilosophie (1840), Mar* h1| expres_sed his grievance againstphilosoprtl gq principle in the sentence: "AlIe Phtt;;til; haben die priidikateselbst zu Subjekten gemacht" (vol. l,p. Ilg). Mar" ti"r-.orr..tfy observed that3Jl philosophers are given to the vice of tu*p.tiog with

"rality. They just will notleave it alone and accept order as an

"grc.ible, unproblemuti.ufbyfiriao"t of themess of realitY

^*^jr^"lPelf to the common mali ir,rt"aa ;i i.;i,i#;sence inits homely PIa99 as .a predicate of reality, they have tfr" t usty _habil of pullingit out and making it ; subject. We ma-y say, therefoi",

-tlr"i M;; iu, quiteconscious, when he attacked-Hegel, that tt. *!r attacking phii;;pht

v'

16. Loc. cit.


nately supplied us with the larger context of the sJmPtom ryhen he

elaboiated the antiphilosophical position of Marx. Engels refl_ects on

the new, materialiitic s.ience of the nineteenth centut'y. *Modern

rnaterialism" recognizes history as the evolutionary process of man-

kind and tries to dir.ourt the laws of its movement. Mor,eover' it has

abandoned the static concept of nature that was still held by Newton

and Linn6, and also t..ogtrizes nature as process and evolution under

discoverable laws. With iegard to history as well as nature, t'modern

materialism" is "essentially dialectic and, no longer needs a philosoPhy

above the other sciences." This is for Engels the decisive point: when

science is occupied with the discovery of the laws of proce$s Td evolu-

tion, philosoptry becomes superfluoui. Why this curious result should

follow does noi become quiie clear. Engels insists: "As sioon as each

particular science is upprouched with the demand to becomr: clear about

itr porition in the totaf context (Gesamtzusa,rnmenhang) of things and

of knowledge of things, a particular science of the total conrlext becomes

superflrro.rJ' All that reinains of philosophy as_ we kncrw it is the,,sJience of thinking and its laws-that is formal logic and dialectics.",,Everything else G dissolved in the positive science of nature and

history.""An interminable series of questions could be raised with regard -to

these sentences. Why does philorophy become superfluous when the

sciences of history una natuie recognire the evolutionary character of

reality? Why, for instance, is philoioply less necessary in ,l: age of

Dar#in than in that of Linn6? Is it perhaps because a new philosophy

of reality has superseded the old one? But in this case, would we not

have a new philosophy rather than none at all? Or is it the philosop,h.t

who becom6 rop.rh.tbos when every scientist does his own philosophiz-

ing? Is it not strange to call such a socioloqigul shift an abolition of

ptiitorophy? Has Engels perhaps subsumed philosophy under the name

of science?But it is useless to subject this hash of uncritical language to critical

questioning. We can *uk. no sense of these sentences of Engels unless

*. consid6r them as symptoms of a spiritual disease. A.s a disease,

however, they make excellent sense for, with great intensily' they

disp laythesymptomSof logophobia, .now-_qui teoutsprrkenlydespeiate fear utta hatred of philosophy. We even find named the

,p.iinc object of fear and hatred: it is "the total context of things uttg

oi kno*ledg. of things." Engels, like Marx, is afraid that the recogni-

IZ. Friedrich Engels , Herm Eugen Diihrings Umaftilzung der Wissenschaft

( 1878), lgth ed. (Stuttgart, 1919), PP. lof '

MARX: INVERTED DIALECTICS 26L

tion of critical conceptual analysis might lead to the recognition of a'total context,t of an order of being and perhaps even of cosmic order,to which their particular existences would be iubordinate. If we mayuse the language of Marx: a total context must not exist as an auton(>mous subject of which Marx and Engels are insignificant predicates; ifit exists at all, it must exist only as a predicate of the autdnomous sub-jects Marx and Engels. o-ur analysis his carried us closer to the deeperstratum of the Marxian disease, that is the revolt against God.'8 In ihesurface stratum of theory that we are analysing aipresent, the mean-ing of logophobia now comes more clearly irrto"oi"*. It is not the fearof a particular critical concept, like Hegil's Idea, it is rather the fearof .critical analysis in general. submission to critical argument at anypoint might lead to the recognition of an order of the /ogos, of a consti-tution of being, and the recognition of such an order -igtrt reveal therev_olutionary idea of Marx, the idea of establishing u r.ul- of freedom *and of changing the nature of man through revohition, as the blasphe-fmous and futile nonsense which it is.

since Marx refuses to move in a universe of rational discourse, sincecritical c_oncepts_-are barred from his argument, we must firsi gaingor.n9 und3lstanding of-the language symbols which he actually isesin his writings. only after we have estiblished the nature of thi svm-bols can we arrive at conclusions with regard to the content of Marxiandialectics itself.

- M"T, and Engels, have created a specific medium of expression forthemselves: whenever a critical point arrives at which ultimate clarifi-cation would be required, their discourse blossoms out into metaphori-cal language which forces relations between undefined terms. Take asan example the previously quoted sentence from Marx's Foreword:"with me the Ideal is nothing but the Material transformed and trans-lated in the head of man.me rhe sentence sounds excellent and. carriesa vivid impression; it would have to be considered brilliant if it werean occasional, rhetorical flourish that metaphorically expresses whathas been set forth with critical thoroughn..r in

"noih." context. The

mouble is that the other context in whiih this metaphor would receive18. The connection is formulated in so many words b-y-Leni, (encyclopedia

article on Marx) when fg .uygj iMarx decidetity "";"_"t"d

ia-""-iir-, r]tiays con-nected in some way with r-eligion.' The sentince" r"u"-r-l-q"Lt"ii"n fromEngels's - Fez erbach,' where, the"author-;h*;;;;;; -il;;ffi,

ul-i'i.in, *fro9,::l::: th1!,spirit. exists before nature and the"efo"e

"sso-e-;h";"tlr:;;dd wascreateo' wnue matenalists afe persons who regard Datufe as primary. Lenin addsthat anv other philosoohical uiage of the terfis ia""ti.r" ,"{'-ii"ftJir* *""rabe "only confusling., '

19. "Bei -{ i:J umgekehrt das Ideelle nichts andres als das im Menschenkopfumgesetzte und tibersetzte Materiellet ("Vorwortrr p. xvii).

\rury\oo

l: 'fui\

,L S,l-si ''\ \ Un

p* I'ot'


I its critical meaning does not exist in the collected works of Marx. The

I metaphorical sentence is all that we have. We are faced with anI "Ideal" and a "Material' without knowing what these terms signify.'We

are told that the Ideal is the same as the Material but n'transformed

and translatedtt and we are left to ponder what the terms t'transformt

and "translatet' in this relation might conceivably mean. And, finally,i we learn that the locale of this mysterious process is the 'head of man'

and we wonder whether Marx means a miracle of brain physiology ora mental activity, whether he thinks of cognitive acts of some specificman or of a cosmic process under the collective skull of mankind. Never-theless, to the kind of reader who swallows that sentence hook, line andsinker, it conveys an awe-inspiring picture of an intellectual giant who

, performs such wonderful metaphorical feats as "turning dialectics up-I side down,' and putting it "on its feet'while formerly (it stood on itsl*head."

The nature of this technique of expression will become even clearerwhen we consider not a single sentence, but a series of sentences inwhich the thought of Marx moves from more concrete problems to anultimate general formulation. As an example we shall use the famouspassage from the Kritih der Politischen Oehonomie which is consideredMar:r's authoritative formulation of his materialistic interpretation ofhistory. The passage begins: "In the social production of their means ofexistence men enter into definite, necessary relations which are inde-pendent of their will, productive relationships which correspond to adefinite stage of development of their material productive forces." Withthis sentence we are, on the whole, on safe ground. All necessary ex-planations of terms are given by Marx in other contexts.2' The begin-ning of the next sentence is a definition: "The aggregate of these pro-ductive relationships constitutes the economic structure of society." Weare still on safe ground. Then Marx goes on: 4The economic structureof society is the real basis on which a juridical and political superstruc-ture arises and to which definite forms of social consciousness cor-respond."'Here we may begin to question: Why is the economic struc-ture the t'real basis' and why are other structures in society, such as thepolitical, a superstructure? What is a'osocial form of consciousness" andwhat does it do when it "correspondsn to the "real basis"? In part thesequestions are answered by the next sentence: "The mode of production

20. KdPital, I' p. 45.21. ,3Die Gesaritheit dieser Produktionsverh6ltnisse bildet die iikonomische

Struktur der Gesellschaft, die feale Basis, worauf sich ein juristischer undpolitischer Ueberbau erhebt, und welcher bestimmte gesellschaftliche Bewusst-ieinsformen entsprechent (kitih der Politischen Oehonomie' p. lv)'


of the material means of existence conditions the whole process of social,political, and intellectual life.t" But this answer shows that we arealready runnitg off into intangible metaphors. That economic structureis basic and all other structures are superstructures is now justified, in-deed, insofar as the basic structure t'conditionsD the other ones. Butwhat does "conditioning" mean? The term is hardly clarified by anearlier formulation that political forms are "rootedn in material rela-tions.2t Now, when critical clarification is urgently required, comes thetypical Marxian climax: "It is not the consciousness of men that de-termines their being; it is, on the contraryr their social being that de-termines their .ons.iousness.tt24 We have arrived at terms hk; t'beingrtt'social beingtt and t'consciousnesstt at large and the relation betweenthem is no longer one of "conditioningtt but of ttdetermining."

This classical passage of Marx admirably illustrates the sweep fromconcrete problems of economics and sociology to grandiose ranting withuncritical symbols. Again, let us emphasize that the climactic sentence,while devoid of theoretical meanins, is brimmirg with revolutionarypathos and certainly aPt to make the unwary and uncritical readeibelieve that now a solution has been found for all social problems. Butagain let us stress that the collected works of Marx contain nothingthat would be of any help in establishing the precise meaning of ruclterms as ttbeing' and ttconsciousness." The great formula is not thebeginning of a discussion, it is the dictatorial instrument which cutsoff all discussion on principle. The reader will now understand moreclearly why a critical analysis of Marxian doctrine is impossible. Toput it bluntly: A Marxian theory of historical materialism does notexist.

P s eudolo gical spe culation

Even if there is no theoretical content in the so-called theory of his-torical materialism, obviously there is something in it. What Marx hasto say is not theory, but it is not unintelligible nonsense. We mustreturn to our paradoxical question: How can one theorize withouttheorizing? We encounter again certain terminological difficulties sincespiritual disease has never been made the object of systematic inquiryand no suitable vocabulury has been developed for its description. I;

22. "Die Produktionsweise des materiellen Lebens bedingt den sozialen, po-litischen und geiqtigen Lebensprozess tiberhaupt" ( ibid. ) .

'i

23. "Rechtsverhiiltnisse wie- Staatsf ormen . -.

. rlurzeln, etc.rr ( ibid., p. Iiv ) .24.'!Bs ist nicht das Bewusstsein der Menschen, das ihr Sein, sondern

umgekehrt ihr gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr Bewusstsein bestimrnt" (ibid.;P . l v ) .


order to speak with convenience of theorizing in the nontheoreticalmedium that we have just analyzed, we shall coin the term "pseudo-logical speculation." Into the meaning of this term will enter the fol-lowing elements: (1) that speculation of this kind is theory in ap-pearance only, not in reality; (2) that in the intention of the thinkerwho indulges in it, it is meant as genuine theoretical speculation; ( 3 )that historically it presupposes the existence of a genuine philosophyof the /agos which furnishes the subject matter that can be translatedinto the pseudological form.

Equippeil with this new term, we can now aPProach the next stepin the Marxian inversion, that is the pseudological transformation ofHegel's speculation. The importance of this step will easily be over-looked by those who rely blindly on such Marxian metaphors as the

i\}atr f (.

, *turning of dialectics upside down" and "putting dialectics on its feet."

d;q jt'1'".^tdsven when it is turned upside down the Hegelian gnosis of history is

\^;,ht tr i{till present in the fullness of its amplitude, including the movement ofI,.^.i.lo*", the idea. Marx, like Hegel, develops a philosophy of the idea. One can-

not even say that he has inverted the dynamics between idea and reality,for neither is his "material" Hegel's reality, nor is his "ideal" Hegel'sidea. This erroneous impression certainly has been fostered by theMarxian metaphors but it would nevertheless be unfair to adopt thevulgarian misunderstanding of historical materialism as the profoundinsight that human beings are endowed. with the gift of finding goodreasons for advancing their material (economic and political) interests.If we assumed that such wisdom is the substance of Marxism and its

denial the substance of Hegelian dialectics, the excitement aroused byMarxism and its revolutionary effectiveness would become enigmatic.Marx is not as simple minderl as that. And Hegel was not unacquaintedwith such elementary psychological mechanisms, nor did he ever deny

them. The Hegelian gnosis is retained by Marx and history is still therealization of the realm of freedom.

The pseudological transformation of Hegel's gnosis can best be

studied in certain passages of the more discursive Engelsi. In order to

transform this gnosis, Engels must first accept its problern. He PraisesHegel because he has occupied himself with the intelligible order of

history. In his system, history was no longer a senseless series of deeds

of violence best forgotten, rather it was the evolutionary process of

mankind, and it became the task of thinking to demonstrate an order

behind the apparent accidents. Although Hegel failed to solve this task,

he still has the "epochal meritD of havitg set it. His system failed be-

cause it sufrered from an internal contradiction. On the one hand, it

viewed history as an evolutionary process "which by its nature cannot

MARX: INVERTED DIALECTICS 26s

find its intellectual conclusion through the discovery of a so-calledabsolute truth.tt On the other hand, it insisted "that it was the total(Inbegriff) of this absolute truth." "An all-comprehensive, once andfor all conclusive system of knowledge of nature and history is incontradiction with the fundamental law of dialectical thinking; this,however, does not exclude, but on the contrary implies, that the sys-tematic knowledge of our whole external world can advance with giantstrides from generation to generation.tt'u

The passage is a fine example of the intellectual confusion in whichpseudological speculation alone can thrive. Engels rightly attacks Hegelfor his attempt to interpret history as the unfolding of an Idea that hasreached its conclusion in the present. The total meaning of historycan be construed only as a transcendental drama, not as a mundanedrama that comes to its close within empirical time. This is the fallacyof historical gnosis which inevitably comes to grief through the factthat history continues. From both the theoretical fallacy and the em-pirical failure of gnostic interpretation, one should properly advance tothe insight that the empirical course of history must not be interpretedas the unfolding of an fdea.

This, however, is not the argument of Engels. First of all, he mis-interprets Hegel when he argues that the process of history, by itsnature, cannot find its intellectual conclusion through the discovery ofan absolute truth. On the contrary, this is the only way in which it canfind its intellectual conclusion but because ( 1) this is the only wuy,and (2) the empirical stream of history is not closed, "absolute truthDmust remain transcendental. The fallacy of gnosis consists in the im-manentization of transcendental truth. Correctly, Engels would havehad to say that the immanentist intellectual conclusion does not stopthe stream of history and, hence, must not be used for its interpreta-tion. What, then, does Engels gain bv his misformulation? The secondpart of his argument shows the gain: it is an empirical reality whichhas meaning as tf it were the unfolding of an idea but it is not bur-dened with the conclusion of the unfolding. Theoretically, of course,this is nonsense, for meaning is not meaning unless it is concluded,at least in imaginative anticipation. Nevertheless, this is the purpose ofthe argument: Hegel's reality of the unfolding Idea is abolished andempirical reality has become meaningful as if it were an fdea. Withthis result we also touch on the deeper motive of the ttas-it-were de-liberate" misunderstanding 9f Hegel's problem of reality in the earlyMarx: by substituting empirical reality for the reality of the Idea,

25. Eneels, Hercn Eugen Diihrings . . . , pp. gf.


Marx and Engels can draw the meaning of the Idea into :reality with-

out encountering the problem of a metaphysic of the Idea.The summuriring masterpiece of this confusion is the proPosition

that a conclusive, all-comprehensive system of knowledge is in contra-

diction with the fundamental law of dialectical thinking. tsy means of

the confusion between empirical reality and. the Hegelian reality of the

Idea, the dialectics of the idea has now been drawn into empiricalreality. Since empirical reality is an open stream, dialectics must be

open, too. The philosopher is left standing like a schoolboy who in-

dulges in the amusing idea that systems of dialectical meaning mustbe closed. We have at last arrived at the bottom of the confusionwhich has produced the contradictio in adiecto of "dialecti.cal material-ism.t'At the same time, this confusion misrepresents a system of meta-physics as a system of empirical knowledge. And Engels, quite con-sistent in his confusion, concludes his argument with the assurance thatthe abolition of metaphysical conclusiveness does not make an advanc-irg systematic knowledge in the empirical sense impossible. On thecontrary, this system will advance with giant strides irr the future.

At this juncture, the reader might well ask whether Engels has notproved too much, whether his argument does not defeat its purpose.He certainly has got rid of Hegel and metaphysics, but tre also seemsto have arrived at the simple idea of a progressing science which indue course will make the Marxian system obsolete. Certainly, thiscould not be Engelts intention. But the reader need not rvorry. In theconfusion in which Engels moves, difficulties of this kind can be over-come by simply forgetting about them. When Engels takes up histrain of thought again ( about a hundred pages later ) , we are in themiddle of a pseudological speculation on the dialectics of empiricalreality. The course of history is the realization of freedorn. Hegel wasthe first to understand the relation between freedom and necessitycorrectly. He knew that freedom is insight into necessity. t'Necessity

is blind only as long as it is not conceptually understood (beyriffen) .nShould history after all be the realization of the logos in the Hegeliansense? But Engels does not return to metaphysics. His logos is theknowledge of the laws of nature and the possibility, based on suchknowledge, of "letting them operate according to plan for definiteaims.t By laws of nature are not meant only those of errternal naturebut also those ttof the bodily and mental existence of rnan.tt ttHence

freedom of the will means nothing but the ability of making decisionsbased on expert knowledge (Sachkenntnis ) ." This formula would re-duce the logos to the rationality of the means-end relation and it wouldleave open the question of substantive reason, of the ends themselves.


Jhis_ problem of ends is solved by a theory of the convergence offreedom and necessity. ('The

freei the judgment of a man*is withregard to a certain question, the greater will be the necessity whichdetermines the content of the judgment.D Insecurity of decision has itssource in lack of knowledge; freedom of choice'is truly unfreedom 1/because in such indecision man is dominated by the object which n" Aought to dominate in his turn. "Freedom, thus, ionsists in the domina-tion of man over himself and externar nature that is based on hisknowledge of natural necessity.D. The freedom of man advances withtechnological discoveries. At the beginning of human history therestands the- discovery of the production of fire through friction; at theend of evolution there stands the steam engine, the gieat representativesymbol of the_productive forces that alon"e will mike po..lbl" a stateof society without classes and without concern about the means ofsubsistence. 1]re steam engine is the promise of true human freedom,of an existence in harmony with the known raws of nature.D The in-carnation of the /ogos has become the advancement of pragmatic knowl-gds" to the poinl where it has absorbed into its systeir, and dissolved,the mystery of human existence. christ the Redlemer is replaced bythe steam engine as the promise of the realm to come.

The speculation of Engels is of particular interest because the author'sutter lack of intellectual discipline allows him associatively to weavevarious trends of western disintegration into it, thus revialing theirinner connection.

( I ) Let us frst clarify the line of pseudological speculation. Theattack on the conclusiveness of the Hegelian system pioved, after all,to be an d?* on philosophy as such. As soon as bngels had sub_merged his dialectics in empirical reality, he embarked on an intellectualconclusion of his own. The empirical itream of history does not moveindefinitely toward an uncertain future, it moves toward its end inthe convergence of freedom and necessity. As far as the factor of "in-tellectual conclusion' is concernett, th; Marx-Engels gnosis difiersfrom the Hegelian cnly by shoving the inteilectual end oT the world abit farther into the future in order to make room for their revolutionarvupheaval.

(2) since, however, only the form of tntellectual conclusion' istaken from Hegel and not its substance (that is, the movement of thelogos), pragmatic intellect becomes the carrier of the movement. rnthe execution of his pseudological speculation, Engels shows an ad-mirable consistency. Marx solves the problem of frJedom through his

26. Ibid., pp. r12f.

Y

s


idea of a revolutionary "leapo into the changed nature o,f man. ThisMarxian strain, as we shall see, is not quite absent from the meander-ings of Engels either, but in Engels it is tucked away in another con-text. In the present context, Engels undertakes quite seriously to solvethe problem of human existence on the pragmatic level. In this respecthe brings certain tendencies that we observed in dtAlembertts andDiderot's Dis cours to their logical conclusion. The life of the spirit and.the bias theoretikos are not merely pushed into the ba.ckground byEngels, they are definitely eliminated. Man will be free when he hasachieved perfect knowledge of the external world and with perfectknowledge the problem of purpose, which causes indecislon, will havedisappeared. Again quite consistentlyr Engels achieves this position bysubsumirg all knowledge of man under knowledge of the externalworld (p. Il2f ). Spiritual experience is abolished as an autonomoussource of order; it is absorbed into ('external,tt empirical knowledge.Lenin (who relies frequently on Engels rather than Marx) has seenthe importance of this point and in the encyclopedia arlticle on Marxhe praises Engels for this transformation of the unknown but knowableKantian Ding-an-sich, of the "thing-in-itself,' into a "thirng-for-us," ofthe substance of things into ttphenomena.tt The destruction of thesubstance of man becomes the declared program as a last consequenceof the scandal of the Encyclopddisfes.

( 3 ) In spite of the intellectual conclusion which Errgels gives tohis pseudological speculation, he does not renounce the pleasures ofanticipating the wide-open spaces of progress. Though the end, isforeknown, we have an advancement of science in gian't strides fromgeneration to generation. We also can locate the sper:ific origin ofEngelsts indulgence. fn the formula that freedom consists in the domina-tion of man over himself and nature, the reader will have recognizedthe formula by which Littrd define s Ie tout de la ciailization. There is astrong dose of Saint-Simon and Comte in the complex of Marx-Engels,and more specifically we find in Engels a penchant for the liberal-intellectual type of Positivism that is represented by Mill and Littr6.Just as the encyclopddiste background ( which emerges strongly notonly in Engels but also in Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism)must not be neglected in the understanding of the Mar:dst movement,so the liberal and positivist sources deserve attention. As we explainedat length in discussing the internal development of Positivism, anavalanche of destruction cannot be stopped at will by those who havereleased it when enough destruction is worked to make them huppy;the avalanche rolls on,


Again the reader may find that Engels, in spite of his pseudologicalgnosis, has watered dorvn the ttintellectual conclusiontt ioo *rr.h byempirical Progress. We know the end, but before it arrives an indefinitlperiod of nonrevolutionary progress seems to intervene. And againthe reader need not worry, for there is enough space between the coversof a book writtel by Engels to take care of such problems. In spite ofthe fact that in his main line of pseudological spiculation he has dis-solved the existence of man into a system of pragmatic knowledge, onanother occasion Engels is concerned about the problems of ethiCs. Hespeaks of various moral systems which have arisen on the basis ofdifferent economic systems. We have a Christian-feudal system ofmoraliry, a modern bourgeois system, and the proletarian morality ofthe future' At least these three theories of morals coexist in contempo-t$_y soliety and their existence proves that no absolute ethics is pbs-sible. "We reject the suggestion that any moral dogma be impos.d onus as an eternal, ultimate, immovable moral law, under the pretext thatthe moral world has permanent principles which are higher than historyand the differences of nations."it

This blast seems to dispose of moral truth altogether. Nevertheless,while Engels cannot see an ultimate moral truth, he has criteria ofpreference between moral systems. He can gain such criteria becausehe understands the 'trltim acy" (Endgiiltigkeit) of a moral system asits historical survival in the end. The system which contains more ele-ments with "the promise of duration" is preferable and that system isthe proletarian because in the present it represents the revolution ofthe present into the future. Even proletarian morality, however, isimperfgct because it reflects the class situation of the pioletariat. Onlyafter the revolution, when the classes, and with them the proletariai,h-ave disappeared will _"a truly human morality" be possible, beyondclass antagonism and beyond even the memory of it. We are tton theeve of this social revolution" and in this situation it is particularlyfoolish to advocate one or the other systems of class morality for theyare all destined to be s-wept uyuy tomorrow by the truly human moralityto be ushered ]" by the revolution. Thus, while enjoying the immensePerspectives of progress, we are nevertheless on the ruJof the revolu-tion that will Put an end_ to progress by realizing its aim. In this phaseof his thought, Engels has recaptured the revolotionary fervor 6f hisgnosis. He also has ple_asantly slipped in a morality

-which seemed

superfluous in the pseudological speculation proper. The only factor

27. Tlre discussion of good and evil is to be found in Engels, ibid., pp. 8g-g9.


that is missing ( and we never findthat, perhaps, on the morrow of thenot have occurred.

it in Engels ) is the fear of Marxrevolution the change of heart will

Irntersion

We can be brief on the problem of inversion proper. Our analysis

has shown that the so-called inversion of Hegelian dialectics through

Marx is a complicated operation. We have, first, isolarted the anti-

phitosophical atiack which results in the establishment of an empirical

ptug*atic reality as the object of further investigation as well as of a

rp.Ji* hnguistic medium for its expression. This first phase of the

op.tution i; not an inversion of dialectics but the logophobic destruc-

tion of philosophical problems in general. Within the rr€:w medium of

expresrion, t oihitrg G inverted; the Hegelian gnosis is trranslated as a

whole into pseudJogical speculation. The inversion in the technical

sense o.c.rrJ itr a third phase in which the result of the first two oPera-

tions is construed as un ittterpretation of the realms of being from the

bottom of the ontological hierarchy. On this third phase, howeYer, we

can be brief, because Marx has said next to nothing abrout it beyond

assuring us that this was indeed his intention.The ,*..,rtion of his plan would have involved a phil,osophy of cul-

ture. First, he would have had to explain the nature of cultural Phe-nomena; secondly, it would have been necessary for him to show that

these pheno*.n. could be interpreted from whatever he lvould consider

the bolttom of existence, as for instance, matter; and, firrally, it would

have been necessary to explain what this bottom of e>rdstence is' Of

this whole plan, as far as principles are concerned, nothing exists but

the previo.trty analysed formula of the consciousness that is conditioned

by existence.Beyond this formulation of the princip-t:, we have a fe'w meagre pas-

sages concerning the sphere of culture which he designates !y tttt term.,ideology.' The most important of these passages appeaT in the con-

text of ihe Kritih d,er Politischen Oekonomie ( pp. lvf . ) . Marx speaks of

social revolutions which begin in the economic sphere and draw after

them the corresponding revolution in the sphere of the "supe,rstructure.tt,,In observing such revblutions we must always distinguish between the

material t.uil.ttion in the economic conditions of production ( which

can be observed truly scientifically ) and the juridical, political, reli-

gious, artistic or philosgphicaf.in brief ideological forms,, in which men

become conscio,6 of th; conflict and fight it out.tt As far as one can

extract anythirg from this sentence, it seems to imply that the content

MARX: INVERTED DIALECTICS 27L

of culture is nothing but a fight over conflicts which arise in the eco-nomic -sphere. To this proposition one can an$ver nothing but: it isnot so.a

. wi-,h regard to the bottom of existence, the most interesting passageis a footnote in the

{!?itol, on the problem of technolod.t IVI"xregrets that no critic-al history of technology exists. The hisiory of theproductive organs of man in society *ould'deserve at least the atten-tion which Darwin devoted to the iristory of plant and animal organ-isms, because these h*T organs are tht maierial basis of all spe-cificorganization of society.'Besides, it would be much easier to write thanthe corresponding history jor plgtg and animals since, .,as vico says,'the history of man is distinguished from the history of nature insofaras we have made the one and not the other. Technology *reveals theactive behavior of man toward nature, the immediate prdlction processof his life, and therewith of the social relations of tris Hre as weil as oftfe

ry31a1 co-nceptions (geistigen Vorstellungen) springing from.ft:-." Up p this point, the note is mainly a difierent ;ord"i"t of thebeing-consciousness principle; only the -curious appearance of

-vico in

the ancestry of-historical materia[ism is of someliterest. Beyond thispoint the note becomes polemical. "Even a history of religions whichabstracts from this material basis, is uncritical. It is much ealier throughanalysis to find the earthly core of the nebulous figments of religioln,than to go the opposite way and to develop thl celestified forms(verhimmelten Formen) out of the respectivi real relations of life.The latter way is the truly materialistic and therefore scientific method.The defects of an abstract naturalistic materialism (naturzabsenschaft-lichen Materialismzs) that excludes the historical process can be recog-nized even in the abstract a_nd- ideorogical conceptio'ns of its protagoniJsasroon as they dare extend themselves beyoniltheit nurroi speiialty."what Marx seems to criticize is a psychorogizing history which'e*plainsreligions by revealing their %arthryt motivis. Fiom such abstract mate-rialism he distinguishes his historital materialism, the only truly scien-tific method, that would make rerigions intelrigibre ur uiirin* out ofeconomic conditions- The formulation is of inlerest as a cl#ficationof intentions but no step is taken toward an execution of the piog"am.

28' In Engels, Anti'Diihringr.p- g3, -we--ffn{ trre phrase: thesocial reratioas,the legal and political forms with aeir iae* supeist-ructure of phirosophy, re-ligion, art, etc.t'Engels se-ems_to include legJ;i fJitur rlr-rt*jti"l.ooorni"relatious in the "structure' and to confine tf;" l r"p"irt*cture' to philosophy, art,religion, "etc.'whether he soriously meart to aiher rrom M; il;;tpoint isdoubtful. In view of the general miss, howev""Jil, h;;di;;r;h iliit, to io-vestigate such reffnementJof inaccuracv.

29. Dac Kapital, l, pp. 335f., n. g9.


Let us, finally, quote a passage from Engels which makes at least

a gesture toward a metaphysical formulation of the inversion. In the

entni)hring Engels says: "The unity of the world does not consist in

its being. . . The real unity of the world consists in its materiality;

and this materiality is proven o . . through a. long and arduous de-

velopment of philosophy and science" ( p. 3I ) . With some goodwill onemight extract from this sentence the insight that historical. materialisffi,in order to become a system, would need a theoretical foundation in a

principle.- These are the ideas that shake the world.

XI. MARX: THE GENESIS OF GNOSTICSOCIALISM

The starting point for the. independent movement of Marxts thoughtseems t9 b9 a gnostic position which he inherited from Hegel. speJifi-cally, the Marxian gnosis expresses itself in the conviction that ttremovement of the intellect in the consciousness of the empirical self isthe ultimate source of knowledge for the understanding of'the universe.Faith and the life of the spirit are expressly excluded a"s an independentsource of order in the soul. Moreovei, this'conviction is from thi begin-ning.accompanied by an attitude of revolt against "religion' u, u ,pi.r"which recognizes the existence of a rearissimum bevond human con-sciousness. This is the Marxian position as it appears in his doctoraldissertation of 1840-41.1

In the preface to the dissertation Marx attacks the ,theologizingintellect" of Plutarch who dares to criticize a philosopher like Epiiurus-.Again_sl-s-uch presumption, Marx defends th6 ,,soveieigntyD of pttitoro-phy. "Philosophy does not make a secret of it. Th; confession ofPrometheus: 'rn one word, I hate all the god.s,'is its very own confes-sion, its own sentence against all heavenly and earthly gois who refuseto recognize human self-consciousness (das mensciltrh, selbstbe-wttsstsein) -as the supreme divinity. And none shall be held by its side."Human self-consciousness is the god for the philosopher Lnd ?ro-metheus is the foremost saint and martyr in th; philosophicalcalendar."

The subject is elaborated in a note on the existence of God." Demon-strations of the existence of God are logically worthless and besides,they miss the point. All Gods, whether Greek-or christian, have reallyexisted insofar as they were "a real force" in the life of man. If Godsare imagined as real they will be effective, indeed, in the minds of thebelievers. Neverthelesr, jh.I_ are subjective ideas, and they are inef-fective where the- subjective idea is noi entertained. ,,Bring pup"r-*orr"yinto a country where the use oj paper is unknown,

"na Juityuody wiil

laugh about your subjective idea. Come with your Gods in a country

l. Karl Marx, Uber die DifferenzN aturphilos ophie, G e samtaus gabi, vol.

2. Ib id. , p. lO.3. This is a note to the appendix

plutarchischen Polemik gegen -Epikurs

The note in op. cit., pp. -80f. '

der demakritischen und epikureischenl .

of the dissertation, entitled ,,Kritik derTheologie." The appendix itself is lost.

274 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO ]REVOLUTION

where other Gods are believed, and people will demonstrate to you that

vou are sufiering from imaginationi and abstractions." "What a Par-

f"Uu, "o"ntry

if for particular Gods from abroad, the country of rea-

,on i. to" Godon principle; it is a region where He ceases to exist." The

implicatiorr. of this ultimacy of reasonable self-consciousness become

cle'ar"r through the use to which, in the opinion of Marx, demonstra-

tions of the eiistence of God can be put. If ihey cannot demonstrate the

"*irt n"" of God, at least they will demonstrate the existence of human

self+onsciousness. In fact they are "logical explicationst -of conscious-

n.rs. In the ontological proof, ior instance, the being !!at i1 given in it6

immediacy as the iurce of the idea of Gott is not God but the very self-

con."ioorn.ss. In this sense, all proofs for the existence of Gotl are in

iact proofs of his nonexistence. -Correctly

such demonstrations would

have'to be formulated: "Because nature is badly organized, God must

exist,t or .Because the worlcl is unreasonable, God must exist." But

whai can be the meaning of such formulations unless they mean that

"God exists for a man for whom the world is unreasonable, and who

therefore himself is unreasonable?" Marx summarizes the result of these

reflections in the sentence: "lun-reason is the existence of God.*

The sovereignty of consciousness and the antitheistic revolt are Pres-ent in his thoulht from the very beginning. They enter as motives into

the reflectioo.lf M"r* on the philosophical situation that had been

created by the system of Hegel. Thefe ale system_s like the Hegelian

and Arisiotelian in which pfiilosophy "closes itself into a completed,

total world"; they are "nodal pointi" in philosophy which interrupt ad-

vancement in a straight line. A further perfection of the system is im-

possible in contemplation and the successors will turn toward a philo-

sophical practice and critique of the age. "It is a psychological law that

the theoretical mind, when it has become free in itself, is transformed

into practical energy, and as urill turns against^the-mundane reality

which exists independent of it.'u The spectacle of such half+ontempla-

tion and half-action is not edifying in either the post-Aristotelian or the

post-Hegelian"curriculum vitae" of philosophy. But while the perform-

arrc" of ih" epigoni is depressing, the situation as such is inescapable.u

Once human self'consciousness has become completely "concretized" in

4.Ibid.' p. 81.5. Ibid.' PP. 64' l3l.b. ttt"

'.itiri." of the subject for the dissertation was determinetl by this in-

-i"ht.-M;; was interestett in post-Aristotelian philosophy because of .the -parallili,iitft'ftii-"*" joriff"g"tiu" situatiott. The point is lxpressly mentioned, ibid',

p. t3r.

MARX: THE GENESIS OF GNOSTIC SOCIALISM 275

a system of this kind, one cannot go back to the unreason of faith.? onecan only.advance, beyond the half-hearted epigonic compromise be-tween philosophy_ and world, toward a complete-surrender' of philoso,phy and a radical "critique" of the world. ,iwhen Athens was threat-ened by devastation, Themistocles induced the Athenians to leave thecity entirely, and to found a new Athens on the sea, as on a new ele-m€nt.'B The precise nature of this step apparently iiad been clear toMarx even earlier than at the time of the

^dissertation. At least, in the

letter to his father of November r0th, lgg7, we find indications that anold faith had been shattered and that ,,new gods, had to be placed onthe altar. From idealistic philosophr, Marx f,ad turned (at tire age ofnineteen) toward "searching the idea in reality itself."'rotm.rti tt.Gods had lived above the earth, now they have lecome its center."

The attitude of revolt becomes historilally efiective through the fas-cinating program of incarnating _the /ogos in the world. by'means ofrevolutionary human action. Foi Hegel,-the logos (reason) was incar-nating ilyf in yality, and because re"ron was-in reality its manifesta-tion could be discovered through the reflection of the philosopher. Hisphilosophy,of history was a_contemp-lation of the actual unfolcling of therdea in r9{ity. Never could the unfolding of the Idea be made the in-tention of human action. we should be ariare in particular that Hegeltsdefinition of the great historical figure

"r " p.rso^n whose actions are in

conformance with the movement of the Idea is not a recipe for becoming1g-reat historical figure by producing this conformance at will. Never-theless, this is precisely the perversion in which Marx indulged. Hegel'sgnosis was contemp_lative. Instead of abandoning gnosis aicl restoiingtrue contemplation, Marx abandoned contemplatioriand translated gno"-sis into action.

we have encountered this spiritual disease before in the late-medievaland Renaissance Paracletes, and in its full modern development in the9,"Tr..uo Apocalypsg of Man. Neither the fact that the irg^ in th.christian sense had been thinned out in Hegel to the lde" nir the ver-

7. Marx characterizes.the religious culture of the Mitldle Ages as ..the age ofr.ealized unreason" (ibid..,. p, 9I. l_n tti. ago-;ntilr -th;?;f"""

li Marx,Ethought. when philosoo-hiclal specuration rrJ r""-o-" "o-fi"tar'-;1";;rerized,,,that is when it lias reaihea-tni i*p"r."

"f; ,;-a-i-"';'ri'ii;fiJildfiation orthe universe like Heeel's, the onry' tlins, spiritual"reilist

"un do'iJ'to a"opgnosis and return to"the'.*igin"iio"""&

"fi"a."-i" tn"-io,if irr""i"i, to trr"gxperiences of faith. The-'bec"essity'] under wnich Ma,* i"rria.ria-rri-r"u to uuburdened does not stem from- ttre ptritosoftri"J-.ir""u*, ffi-idiiieiact trrathe was in demonic revolt against dod.8. Ibid., p. lg2.9. Editioi of Landshut and Mayer, l, p. 7.


bose antireligiousness of Marx should obscure the fact that Marx was aParaclete in the best medieval, sectarian style, a man in whom the logoshad become incarnate and through whose action in the world mankindat large would become the vessel of the logos.

This characterization must be qualified, however, insofar as Marxdoes not conceive the logos as a transcendental spirit descending intoman, but as a true essence of man which comes into its own through theprocess of history. Man, that is the true man, must be ",emancipatedttfrom historical encumbrances which still hold him in fetters in order toachieve his completely free existence in society. The trtte essence ofman, his divine self-consciousness, is present in the world as the fermentwhich drives history forward in a meaningful manner. At some point,this essence will break through-first in one man, then in a few, untilthe great revolution will bring the full social rcalization of true man.The conception of this breakthrough is substantially the same as inComte's realization of the positive mind in one individuan through theprocess of his meditation and the expansion of this persorral renovationinto social regeneration. The Marxian spiritual disease, thus, like theComteatr, consists in the self-divinization and self-salvatio,n of man; anintramundan e logos of human consciousness is substituted for the tran-scendental logos. What appeared on the level of s)tmptorns as antiphi-losophism and logophobia, must etiologically be understood as the re-volt of immanent consciousness against the spiritual order of theworld.to

The Theses on Feuerbach- the new materialism

This is the core of the Marxian idea. This core itself has been elabo-rated frequently and voluminously by Marx, and bey,cnd this corestretch the even more voluminous ramifications of detail. We shall re-strict ourselves to the presentation of a few documents in which theformulations are most strongly concentrated. Let us first consider theTheses on Feuerbach.n

The Theses on Feuerbach are important for us principally as a con-cise dictionary that permits us to relate the Marxian terminology to tra-ditional philosophical terms. On the fundamental problem of the conflictbetween philosophy and the new nonphilosophy, Thesis 11 informs us:

10. fncidentally, this should make it clear why "discussion" with a Marxist orPositivist is setri.iess. One cannot enter into iational discourse with a t'case"

whose disease consists in the denial of the order of the logos.11. Under this name go two pages of a notebook of Marx, containing eleven

theses "ad Feuerbach,n They are published in Gesamtarngabe, ,5, pp. 533-535.


'the philosophers have only interpreted the world in their various ways;thepoint, however, is to chongc it." This sentence is the key to iheunder-standip of th9 aggregate of theses. If the opposition of (interpre-

tation'and "change'were related to the traditionaj Aristotelian divisionof theory and practice, there would be no point in the antithesis. phi-losophers, of course, interpret the world, for that precisery is the func-tion of the bios theoretikos; to deprecate this function by p-ointing to therelevance (es kdmmt darauf an) of changing the world would be sense-less, for nobody maintains that contemplation is a substitute for prac-tice, or vice versa. Moreover, one cannol ttchange the worldrr as one can(interpret the world'; one can only act utithin the world. This curiousterminology, however, reveals the intention of Marx of embodying into(practiceD

the attitude toward the worrd that is possible only ", "oo-templation. The 'lractice" of Marx can change the "worldr" betause the

world is understood as a stream of existencJwithin which the idea, orreason, moves concretely. The /ogos is not an unchangeable order of thesoul and the world, to be discovered in contemplativJ detachment fromthe world, it is instead a dialectically moving idia within the world, andwe can-come_to grips withthis moving idea only by embedding our-selves through practice into its historically concr"ie motion. The Marx-ian "practicer" we may say, is a pseudologicar practice, corresponding tothe.pseudolo-g_t:4 speculation that we discussed previously.

'

The "world" is the concrete stream of historyi The life of man is es-sentiallysocial,a part of the life of mankind in iristory. Man has no des-tiny of the soul in the religious sense, apart from'the destinv of thesocial, historical world of mankind. From this position, Marx iriticizesFeuerbach because the latter has dissolved religion psychologically asan illusio_nary construction of man but still has Ieft rtunaing tie natureof individual man as the originator of the illusion. Accordiig to Feuer-bach, God is an imaginar-y- subject, projected by the min<l

"of man, to

which are attributed the.highest human values. @The absolute being,the God of man, is the being of man itserf.D God is the tninor of -a,i";lnb 9$ TT hu! projected "his highest thoughts and his purest feel-hq*'t God, therefore, is the essence of man.r-The great tuining pointof history will come when'tnan becomes conscious tiat the onlv God ofman is man himself." n&omo homini Deusln "The spectre of dod mustbe laid, and man must take back what he has throrin away by project-ing it into a divine, supernatural existence.ru With all this, I\iarx is inhearty agreement, He is not satisfied, however, with what he calls

12. on the views of Feuerbach see Henri de Lubac, Le Drame de lHumanirmeAthle, pp. 23fr.

278 FROM ENLIGHTENMENT TO I(EVOLUTION

Feuerbachts dissolution of ttthe religious essence into hunnan essencet'(Thesis 6). Such human essence, the "religious mind" of thre individual,

is a nonexisting abstract (O and 7) . Feuerbach assumes an "isolated'individual as the creator of the religious illusion. The individual, how-

ever, has no "human essencett; in its reality it is 'the whole of social re-

lationships" ( 6 ) . The "religious mindo in itself is a social product andan individual feels religiously because it "belongs to a specific social

form' (T). Feuerbach has correctly seen the "fact of rr:ligious self-

alienationD in the creation of a supernatural divine existence, and, in its

wake, "the duplication of the world into a religious and a mundane

world.t He hai, indeed, "reduced the religious world to its mundane

basis.tt But he has not seen the most important problem: that there must

be a reason why "the mundane basis distinguishes itself from itself, and

fixes for itself an independent realm in the clouds." This peculiar Proc-ess can be explained only through "a schism and self-,contradiction

within the mundane basis." Feuerbachts analysis does not go far

enough. The contradiction in the mundane basis itself must be "theo-retic;lly understood and practically revolutionizedn (Thesis 4).

We must read a summarizing sentence like, *Social life is essentially

practical' (Thesis B ), with these clarifications of the meaning of prac-

ii.r in mind. 'We

should not misunderstand the practice of social life as

a basis for a life of meditation in solitude. The attributes rnean that all

life is social, that it has no dimension of solitude, and ttrat all life is

practical, that it has no legitimate dimension of contemplation in the

i ristotelian sense. Hence, t'all mysteries that might indur:e mysticism

in theory, will find their rational solution in human practice and in un-

derstatrding this practice' ( S ) . fn his zeal for closing tlhe stream of

existential practice hermetically against all deviations into contemPla-

tion, Marx ."pt.ssly condemn$ any attempt at producing r;ocial change

through education. Such an attempt would overlook the fact that the

educaiors must be educated themselves; it would split society into two

parts of which one is superior_to the rest in a miraculous manner. Cir-

cumstances can be changed only through human action and this change

and action coincide so that in fact a change of circumstances is a self-

transformation. This self-transformation is the very process that must

be understood as urevolutionary practice" (Thesis 3 ) . The idea of a

subject of cognition and morals as distinguished from objr:cf of cogni-

tive and. rttoril action must be abolished and the subject itself must be

conceived as "objectional" (gegensttindlich) and human,activity as "ob-

jectional activity.o Realityr on the other hand, must not be conceived as

lblect for a subject, but as *sensuoxsly human activity" - (sinnlich men-

,rirlirh, Tdtisiert) (Thesis 7). In terms of philosophical traditiotrr


revolutionary Practice is thus defined as an existential stream in whichthe subject is objectified and the object subjectified. This is the positionwhich Marx calls his "new materialism." it is the position of ih,rrrrunsociety- or social humanity'' as distinguished from ittr position whichrecognizes individual man and bourgeois (btirgerliche) society (Theses9 and 70).u

critique of heapen and critique of the earth

The Marxian critical practice starts with the critique of religion andit proceeds to the critiqge of politics and economics. fn. probleir of thiss_ystgmatically second phase has been formulated by Mar* in the Kritihder Hegelschen Rechtsphitosophie.'o "The critique lf religion ends withthe insight that man is the-highest being for *un; this iriplies the cate-gorical imperative to overthrow all relutionships in whictiman is a hu-miliated, oPpressed, neglected,

_despised bein!."tu "The critique of re-ligion is the PresuPposition of all ciitique.D In the illusionary reality ofheaven, man *has looked for the superrnantt; instead he found the re-flection of himself. Now he realizes that he himself is the superrnan andhe will no longer be satisfied with recognizing himself as 11ig *non-man(Unmensch) " that he formerly believed himillf to be. 'Man makes re-ligion, not religion man.'! "neHgion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of a man who either has not yet found himself, or who has losthimself _again.' This man, however ( directed against Feuerbach! ) , isnot an abstract being outside the world. "Man is iire world of manr, tiratis state and socrety. This social world produces religion "as a pervertedconsciousness of the world because it iJ a perverted Turrkrhrte\ world..tReligion is the_ ugeneral theoryl_gJ u p.{erted world. It gives ,,imagi-nary reality to human essence (Wesei,1 because human essence has notrue- reality.' "The struggl. against religion is the struggle against thatworld of which reliqion_ is the spiritual aroma.', Religi;';s *iirry is themanifestation of real misery, and at the same time u-prot.rt against it.Religion is the cry of oppressed creatures-"it is tttr opiuri of thepeople.-'

The destruction of religion is tlre beginning of the revolution, not itsend. The "illusionary happiness of the peoplef,*,rrt now be replaced by

13' For aq entirely difrerent interpretatio_n of the Theses on Feuerbvch, thereader should refer to Sidney Hook,^Froi itiit to u"ii Jr,o"a;il i9s6 ) , pp.272-307.14. Karl Marx, Kritik 4t: Hegelsehen Rechtsphilosophier,.Einleitung' ( lg4g),Gesarntafgabe, l, p. 6o2ff.15. Ibid., pp. Ol4f.16. Ibid., p. OOZ.


"its real happiness.t The "imaginary flowers on the chaint,have not been

torn off in'oider that mankin-il *oold have to wear an 'trnimaginative

chain without consolationt; on the contrarfr man should now throw

u*uy o" chain and break the living flower.i' Disilusioned man should

oow"eg"io his reason, and "move-around himself as around his real

sun.'Niw that the nbeyond of truth'has disappeared, it-is "the task of

histo4r" to establish uthe truth of this world.t 'uThe critique of heaven

"ft*S'.r into a critique of the earth,t the critique of religion and theol-

ogy into the "critique of law ancl politics.ruWhen Marx embarks on his cfitique of law and politics, however, he

does not criticize actual institutionsi instead, he criticizes Hegel's Pfti-

iosophg of Lau.In justifying this procedure, he has made a conuibu-

tion'to the understu"aing oi G"t*ut politics and of its conflict with'Western political culture that even today is well worth reading as a

whole. Inihe present context, however, wl must confine ourselves to his

frinciple of interpretation. Marx has observecl the time lag in -Pglitic{h"u"lop-"ttt betlieen Germany and the'West. The English and French

,.oolotiot. have abolished the ancien r|girne in their areas and estab-

lished the modern national state as the expression and instrument of

bourgeois society (blirgerliche Gesellschaft). The revolutions wefe car-

"i.a io success 6y u

"Ltt but they were experienced as representative

revolutions of the nation. A revolution of this kind cannot always be

made with success since certain conditions must be fulfilled. That "a

part of society emancipates itself and_ obtains general rule" is possible

fnly if the revolutionary class can undertak. "th9 g-eneral emancipation

of Jociety from its particular position-n The political em_ancipation from

the feud'al regime ian be experienced as gen-erally lalid only when the

new values of economic and educational privilegei become accessible to

evervbodv-at least on principle. In faci, this will hardly ever be the

""r.] H.tt"", ,tro class o1 society can play this role without evoking a

moment (ein Mornene) of enthusiasm in itself and in tlte masses' a mo-

ment in which it fraternizes and flows together with society at large, in

which it can be taken for society and be experienced and recognized as

its general representatne." nonly in the name of universal rights -of.o"iiW can a particular class vindicate general rule for itself." "Revolu-

,i"r-+ "n"tgy

and spiritual pathoq (Setbstgeftihl)" are not -suffi.cientioi oUi"i"i"fini*

"*"ocipator:y positiol. In order to achieve this ncoin-

"ia"o"" of a"national revolution-with the emancipation of a particular

;i;;;,; another class must exist which is -ex-perienc"g u:. the "social

6hg; of the notorious crime against the whole of society," so that the

tT.Ibid..pp.6o7f.Tbesimileofthe"imaginatyflowersont.hechain,' 'etc.,is*"^u"di"'iilJf".itii,ir""-"ti"" of the Rosiiruciin symbolism of Hegel.^

t8. r6iil., p. 608.

MARX: THE GENESIS OF GNOSTIC SOCIALISM 28L

Iiberation from this crass can appear as the general riberation. The"negative-generaln importance of tire French ooEitity and clergy condi-tioned the. "positive-ginerar" importance

"i ,fi:;#;;;d."isie asthe emancipating class.

In all these respects, German political deveropment is behind thetimes. No revolutio'ns have o""orr.d ,nJ un anachrinist ic ancien r\gimecontinues to exist. And there is no prospect of a revolution in trr" west-ern sense' for neither has Germany " "t*r

of such .;;A; lnd ruth-Iessness' that it coul! p.nea: *pi "negative_rep*"nt"riui;o? society,nor does it have an estati of sufficient breadth of the soul' and *revo-lutionarv audacitv" that even t}'e momentary identification with thelout

oi the peopie" would u. porriu-t*-iTn G."*uny the reration be-tween the various spheres of soiiety is not dramatic, it is epil." As aconsequence, every sphere of German society "experiences its defeat,before it can celebrati a victory," deverops its" narriwn"r. t"io"" it canunfold its generosity, is invorved in its^struggre with the n"rt lorr"class when it-begins its struggle a,gainst the h'ilher "tu*.

;rrr" princesare engaged in a struggle against kingship, thJbor""rr"i"trlE"io.t tfr"nobility, the bourgeoisie agJnst them"ail, ivhrp lr,. Ii"il uriui, "rr.uayenter into_their struggle against the bourgeoisie.ne

^- Ln.: lttr"rence.of poriticar deveropment-in the western national statesanc rn Li€rmany has important consequences. The western revorutionsare not the end of history. The modern state in it, p.rr""tio'ius liber-ated man insofar as difierences of religion ,and. property no -foog."

a"_termine differences of poriticar status ior the inaioia.rui. "The perfectpolitic.al*.it.-t*y itsnature the generic rife of man h;p";iri"n to hismaterial life." The *|r91." struchire of .egoistic fif"," fri*"u.i, i, ,"-tained as social life outside the-sphere of the _state. In the perfect poriti-cal state, man leads a doubre life: in poriticar.oro*,rniyi.liir, *itr,his generic being,-in society he rives is a private inaiui.iuai. il" "o*-plete liberation through.complete socialtation or *"n'-ir-not yetachieved' ?olitical emancipation is a great progress'; nevertheress *it isnot the last form of human emancipition"'bui

""li 4h" l;ri'1o",o orhuman emancipationaithin-thep""r"rrt wortd orderl* in c.k".ry, onthe other hand, not even poriticai emancipation has been achieved. Butprecisely because the German poriticar situation is an"chronirti., crr-man poriticar specuration could abstract from this ,;"firy ;;"instead,through H",gg, develop "the idea of the modern state' into its last con-sequences. *The Germans have thought in poritics, *h;tiil;er na-tions have done' Germany was theii theoretrcal conscience., The in-

19. Ibid., pp. 612fi.2O.Karl iliarx, Bruno Bauer: Die Juilenfrage (lg43), op. cit., l, pp. 5g4fi.


completeness of human emancipation thrgugi thi P9]litical state has

.orrr. to consciousness in German political thought. The question is:

can Germany achieve a practice, that is a revolution, d. la hauteur des

principles,liiting it not only "to the officiat letel of modern nations, but

to thehuman nilgnt that will be the next future of these nations?m

In this opposition of Germany antl the 'Western

nations, and in par-

ticular in thi question just raised, Marx is closest to being a German

national thinker. He was seriously concerned about the place of Ger-

many among the nations. He saw the political misery-that seemed to

cut ofi all hipe for a historical role of importance but he also saw the

splendid inteliectual achievement. He regarded himself as a thinker who

could draw the practical consequences of th" Hegelian philosophy of festate but he was in doubt as to whether the German people could be-

come the carrier of the ultimate revolution for the liberation of man-

kincl. Germany has not scaled "the micldle steps of political-emancipa-

tion togethet i"ittt the modern nations.t It has not reached in practice

the steis which in theory it has passecl. How should the "salto mmtale'

of the -,,radical

revolutiont be possible? Much more probable seems to

be another end: 'One morning, Germany wilt find herself on the level

of European decadence (VerfiU), before she has ever reached the level

of Euroiean emancipation.ry This prophetic vision, however, is rejected

by Marx. He does not consirler a political revolution in the 'Western

."nr" "

possibility for Germany, buthe still believes in the possibility of

the revolution. uNot the radical revolution is a utopian dream for Ger-

-Dy, not the general human emancipation, but ra$er- the partial revo-

lution'that is oily political.% The German emancipation -will-never be

achieved piecemeal'by particular classes of society, as in-the West, but

it can be achieved at onl stroke by a class which is part of the bourgeois

societv and at the same time not part of it, that is by the proletariat.z

Thl proletariat is "an estate which is the dissolution of all estates,'*a sociai sphere which has universal character through its universal suf-

feringt; iihas no particular claim because no particular injustice, but

inju#ce as such iJcommitted against it; it has no historical title, it has

oothittg but the human title; it ii a social sphere nwlich 9an1ot- emanci-

pate itielf without emancipating all other spheres of society";.it is sthe

complete loss of man, and, therefore, cannot regain itself without fe-

gaining man completely.t *The proletariat is the dissolution of society

i" fo"ti of a particular estate.t \Mhen the proletariat announces the clis-

solution of the present order of the world, it only reveals the secret of

21. 6Einleitung,' pp. 613f.22.Ibial.' p. 616.23. Ibid., p. 617.24.Ibial.' pP. 619f.


its existence, for it is in fact the dissolution of this order of the world.'The proletariat, thus, will be the material weapon of philosophy, whilein philosophy it finds its spiritual weapons. When the lightning ofthought has struck into this soil of the people, the emancipation of theGerman into Man will be accomplished. *The head of this emancipationis philosophy, its heart is the proletariat. Philosophy cannot becomereality without abolishing the proletariat, the proletariat cannot abolishitself without realizing philosophy.",u

This faith in the translation of philosophy into reality through theGerman proletariat is supported by a historical reflection on th; Ger-man Reformation. The faith in a revolution that starts with speculationmakes sense in the light of the German past. t'Germanyts r.uolutionarypast is theoretical, it is the Reformation. At that time it was the *onE,now it is the philosopher, in whose brain the revolution begins." Lu-therts Reformation was the first step of a German revolution. He brokethe faith in authori,y, but he put in its place the authority of faith. Heliberated man from external religiousness but he made religiousness thesubstance of man. Protestantism, thus, has not brought the true solu-tion, but it has revealed the true task, that is: the struggle against thepriest. The struggle of the layman with the priest outside himself hadbeen wonl now the struggle has to be continued against the priestwithin man, against the priestly substance of man. "The most radicalfact of German historyrt' the Peasant War, broke against the wall ofthe new Protestant theology. Today, when this theology itself has bro-ken down, the anachronistic, political state will be broken by the newphilosoPhy.* These Passages show that Marx was perfectly aware ofthe connection between his own thought and German Protestantism.There is, indeed, an intelligible line of meaning nrnning from Luther'sdestruction of ecclesiastical authori,y, through the desiruction of dog-matic symbols in the generation of Strauss, Bruno Bauer, and Feuer-bach, to the destruction of "all the gods,' that is of all authoritativeorder, in Marx.

'While it would be incorrect to say that the way of Prot-

estantism leads with _a_ny inner necessity from -Luther

to Fiegel andMarx, it is true that Marxism is the final product of disintegration inone branch of German, liberal Protestantism.

Emancipation and alienation

_ Emancipation is the general category under which Marx conceivesthe advancement of man to his compl_ete freedom. "All emancipation isreduction of the human world, of relationships, to man himsllS." Re-

25.Ibid., pp. 619-62I.26. Ibid.r p. 615.


ligious emancipation is the reduction of religion to the religion-makiogconsciousness of man, as accomplished by Feuerbach. "Political eman-cipation is the reduction of man, oD the one hand to a member of bour-geois society, that is to the egoisticrindependent individual, on the otherhand to the citizen, that is to the moral person.tt This schism of manmust be overcome through the next and last step in emanci'pation. Onlywhen *the real, individual man takes back the abstract citizen,tt onlywhen as individual man he has become generic being (Gattungswesen)

"in his empirical life, in his individual work, in his individual relation-ships,tt only when man tthas recognized his 'forces propresl as socialforces and organized as such,tt only when, as a consequence, he ttno

longer separates social force from himself in form of. political force," ishuman emancipation completed.'? The overcoming of the state is a his-torical problem which resembles in its structure the overcoming of re-ligion. "The political constitution was hitherto the religious sphere, thereligion of. a people's life, it was the heaven of its generality in opposi-tion to the earthly emstence of its reality. . . . Political life in themodern sense is the scholasticism of a peoplets life.""

The course of past history has been the t'alienationtt of man, the taskof future history is his toemancipation.tt In alienation, or se,lf-alienation,man loses himself to the beyond of religion and social institutions,through emancipation he draws these objectified sectors o:[ his essenceback into his existence. We have arrived at the core of the lMarxian phi-losophy of history. The history of emancipation ( fro:m religious,through political, to ultimate social emancipation ) is the reversal of theprocess of alienation. In order to arrive at the critical solution, the revo-lutionary thinker must have a critical understanding of the genesis ofthe evil. The contemporary evil has its origin in the relation betweenman and nature; it can be overcome only through bringing nahre underthe control of man so that freedom beyond nature can unfotrd. The vicis-situdes of mants relation with nature are the subject matter of history.We must trace the history of man from its most primitive beginnings,when man emerges from his animal condition. We must follow itthrough the various phases in which man becomes ever more deeply in-volved in the process of production, to the point of complete self-aliena-tion. We must, further, study the possibilities of emanci'pation whichgrow parallel with increasing alienation and we must, finally, conceivethe idea of the revolutionary overthrow of the order of alienation and itsreplacement by the order of freedom.

27. Zur Judenfra,ge, oP. cit., p. 599.29. Kritih der HegelsChen Re'chtsphilosophie, ad sec. 279, oP. cit., p. 436.

MARX: THE GENESIS OF GNOSTIC SOCIAL ISM 285

Substance and process of history

All critical history must start with certain "presuppositions.' Th.ymust, however, not be of a dogmatic nature; they must be "real presup-positions.tt They are "the real individuals, their actions and materialconditions of life." The first presupposition is "the existence of livinghuman individuals" with a bodily organization and the relation to therest of nature which is conditioned by this organization.s Man distin-guishes himself from animal as soon as he starts producing his meansof life; in such production men indirectly produce their material life.Their way of production becomes their way of life (Lebensweise),From this starting point, Marx traces the differentiation of productionfrom sexual reproduction and division of labor on the level of the fam-ily, through further differentiation on the tribal and other local levels,to the system of production and division of labor under the conditionsof modern national societies and their interrelation in a world market.Parallel with this differentiation of production goes the development ofideas in politics, law, morals, religion and metaphysics in close correla-tion with the process of material production of life. ttConsciousness cannever be anything but conscious being (Bewusstsein, bnaussfe.s Sein),and the being of man is his real life-process.tt "fdeologiestt have no his-tory of their own; they are a by-product of the material process. 'Not

consciousness determines life; it is life that determines consciousness.DWith the development of critical history, "philosophy loses its mediumof existence.tt It can be replaced, at best, ttby a summary of general re-sults that can be abstracted from the study of the historical developmentof mankind.tt Such abstractions, however, are worthless if they are sepa-rated from real history. They can only facilitate the ordering of histori-cal materials-in the manner in which Marx is doing it.*

The "material process of production" and its differentiation throughdivision of labor are established as the irreducible substance of history.This process of differentiation contains an inevitable conflict of i;-creasing acerb_ity, tlat is the conflict between the interest of the workingindividual and the interest of the larger group of individuals who

"tiengaged in production thrgugh division of labor and exchange of prod-ucts. "As soon as labor is divided, a definite, exclusive range of activityis assigngd to everybody; this lange is imposed on him, he Cannot escapeit; he is hunter, fisher or herdsm&tr, or critical critic, and he must re-

29. Deutsche ldeologie (184445), Gesarntatngabe, S, p. lo,30. Ibid., pp. lO-17,


main it unless he wants to lose his means of life.ttt While under moreprimitive technological conditions such dependence on specialized ac-tivity is still bearable because even specialization on this level leaves abroad field for diversified human work, the situation becomes disastrousunder conditions of industrial production for a world market. "The fixa-tion of social activity, the consolidation of our own product into an ob-jective power (sachliche Gewalt) dominating us, growing out of con-trol, crossing our expectations, destroying our calculations, is one of theprincipal factors in historical evolution."t' "The more wealth he pro-duces, and the more his production gains in power and volume, thepoorer becomes the worker.n "Work does not produce commodities only;it produces itself and the worker as a commodity." "The realization ofwork is its objectification." "The worker puts his life into the object; butthen his life is no longer his but the object's." "What the product of hiswork is, he is not.t' "The life that he has given to the object, opposeshim as inimical and alien." "The worker becomes the serf of his ob-ject.D "His work is external to his being.t *He does not affirm, he ne-gates himself in his work.t "Only outside his work the worker is withhimself, in his work he is outside himself." "He is at home when he doesnot work, and when he works he is not at home.tt *Hence his work isnot voluntary but compulsory, it is compulsory labor. It is not a satis-faction of his wants, but only a means for satisfying wants outside hiswork." "The result is that the working man can feel himself free onlyin his animal functions of eating, drinking and procreating, and perhapsin his housing, ornaments, etc., while in his specifically human func-tions he is only an animal.t t'Eating, drinking and procreating certainlyare genuine human functions, too. But in the abstraction which sepa-rates them from the wider range of human activity and makes themultimate and sole aims, they are beastly (tierisch) ." Man is distin-guished from animal through the universality of his relation with na-ture; he does not produce for necessity alone, but can give form to hismaterial existence through science and beauty. This whole range ofproductive activity which distinguishes human life is degraded to thelevel of a means of life. The productive, free existence of man "becomesa means for his physical existence.tt This "alienationtt of human produc-tivity is inhereni in the division of labor; it has nothing to do withhigher or lower wages. A rise in wages would be nothing "but a bettersalary for slaves; it would not for the worker and his work recover theirhuman destiny and dignity.t "Even an equality of incoffi€, as demanded

3I. Ibid., p, 22.32. Ibid., pp. 22f.


by Proudhon, changes only the relation of the worker to his work intothat of all men to their work. Society would then become the Capitalistin the abstract.ttt The conditions of existence in modern society havebecome an accident for the worker over which he has no control andttover which no .soc ial otganization can give him control.tt*

The last sentences should destroy the assumption ( which is fre-quently made ) that Marx was impressed by the actual misery of theworker in his time, and that with the material improvement of theworkerts lot the causes of the revolution would disappear. Social reformis not a remedy for the evil which Marx has in mind. This evil is thegrowth of the economic structure of modern society into an t'objective

powert to which man must submit by threat of starvation. The princi-pal characteristic features which appear on and off in the descriptionsof Marx can now be summarized:

( I ) The separation of the worker from his tools. This characteristicis determined by industrial technology. No man can individually ownand operate the tools of modern industrial production. The 'factoryt or,generally, the oplace of workrt cannot be the "home.t

(2) Job dependence. This characteristic has the same determiningcause. No man can earn a living in an industrial system unless he findsa job in some 3'enterprise' which assembles the tools for production andmarkets the product.

( 3 ) Division of labor. No man can produce any whole product. Theprocess of production must be centrally planned, and the single workeris confined to the phase in the process assigned to him. Marx was verymuch aware of the supreme insult to human dignity which lies in thefact that at the end of his life, when a man summarizes what he hasaccomplished, he may have to say: all my life I have spent in cooper-ating in the production of a certain type of Grand Rapids furniture andthereby degraded humanity in myself and others.

(4) Specialization. This characteristic is intimately connected withthe preceditg one. Even if the total product is not an insult to humandignity, the productivity of man has no appreciable range for unfoldingif his work is confined to a small sector of production on which as awhole he has no influence.

( 5 ) Economic interdependence. No man can live a whole life if hisexistence is Permanently threatened, not by natural catastrophies as inthe case of a Peasant, buj bpr social actions beyond his control-be theynew inventions, or the closing of a market through a tariff, or miscai-

33. Oekonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte ( 1844) , Gesarntausgabe, g, pp.82-93.

34, Deutsche ldeologier op. cit., p. 66.


culation of management, or change in customerst taste, or a general eco-nomic crisis.

Socialistic ma,n

All of these characteristics are connected with the industrial systemof production. Since Marx does not wish to abolish the industrial sys-tem, and in particular since he is fully aware that no change in socialorganization, &s for instance public ownership of the instruments of pro-duction, can abolish these evils, the question arises: what precisely doeshe want to achieve by a Communist revolution? This is the crucial pointof the Marxian system of thought and it is the point which ordinarily isneglected. Marx has not said much about it, but he has said enough tomake his intentions clear beyond a doubt. Wild as it may sound, hewanted to retain the industrial system of production with its inevitabletechnological differentiation of work, but he wanted to abolish humanspecialization. Man was supposed to emerge from the revolution as anintegrally productive being that at his will would work one duy at amachine, the next day in an office, and the third duy as a litterateur. Aprimitive, but unmisiakable formulation of the idea occurs on the oeca-sion of his complaints that division of labor produces such occuPationalfixations as hunter, fisher, etc. This evil will be overcome in *Commu-

nist society, where nobody has an exclusive range of activity, but every-body can train himself in every branch; where society regulates generalproduction and thereby makes it possible for me to do one thing todayand another thing tomorrow, to hunt in the mornins, to fish in the after-noon, to be a husbandman in the evening, and to indulge in criticalwork after supper, 8s it pleases me, without any necessity for me everto become a hunter, fisherm&Dr husbandman or critic.tttu

Again, incredible as it may sound, this is the vision which Marxtransfers to the situation of the modern industrial system. The revolu-tion in face of "alienation" is necessary in order that men can regaintheir "self-activity" ( Se/&s tbetiitigung) as well as in order to securetheir existence. It will assume the form of "an appropriation of the exist-ing totality of productive forces." ffnder international division of labor,

thise forcis exist in the form of a universal, world-wide system of inter-

dependence. ttThe appropriation, therefore, must have a universal char-u.i.t which corresponds to the universality of productive forces and

commerce. The appropriation of these forces is in itself nothitg but the

development of individual faculties in correspondence with the material

35. Ibid,, p. 22.

MARX: THE GENESIS OF GNOSTIC SOCIAL ISM 289

instruments_of pr_oduction. Hence, the appropriation of a totality of in-sJ*p9lf_of production is the development of a totality of faculties inthe individuals." rn order to achieve a human revorution of this kind, acertain- type of individual is needed. only the proletarians are capableof performils the feat because their individual existence is no longerbound.up w.ith a special type of property that would limit the interistof their activity. All former revolutions were limite d, (bomiert), be-cause the self-activity of the revolutionary class was limited by its.spe-cific kindof.private prop"1ty. The proletaiian without prop"ttli it tne ntagent to bring a mass of productive instruments uunder-eadh indiviil-ual,t and to "subsume property under all.t' Moreover, the method of therevolution is determined by the universal character of the industrial sys-tem._ only a universal association of proletarians on a world scale canbreak the power of the present econoinic and sociar structure and onlvsuch a universal revolution will develop the universal character anil thlenerry that are necessary to execute the appropriation. only after thisrevolution will "self-activity coincide with mat""i"t life." only then ,,areindividuals developed into total individuars,'"work will haie changedinto self-activity," and the 'hitherto conditioned commerce will h-avechanged into the commerce of individuals as such.r rhe division oflabor cannot be abolished by forgetting about it; the (individuals

mustryb*T" the objective fories under ihemselves and thereby abolish(aufheben) division of labor. This is impossible without coiomunity.pnly in community with others does the individual have the means athis disposition to develop his faculties in all directions.w

The'total individualt or (in other contexts) ,,socialistic manD is the3im of history. Man must regain himself compietely from his alienationin order to become the- perfictly free and indepenhent being wtrich inessence he is. The liberation from prope.tyt' i. the last ict of thisdrama. Let us now turn to a passage in irtti"tt Marx has concisely for-mulated the connection between hls idea of social revolution and hisoriginal rev-olt against God. "A being is independent only when it stanilson its own feet; and it stands on its own feet only when it o*.s its erist-ence to n_obody but itserf.'A man who rives by grace of somebody erse,is dependent; and I live mo.st compretely by theirac" or ro-.tody elsewhen he shas created my life,t when the source"of my life lies outside

36. Ibid., pp. 57f.. 63f. The reader should alsp compare Kapital, l, pp. 42_46. The thou-eht is -eubstantialty

ttt" *-" -as-

that in' tne o"iiiiie 'Ideorogic.

There occur, however, such fa;ous-rot-.ir"ti"nr as the .,Fetis chcharahter derWaren'tett" (p. se)..S" yury I"dr.J;;ilgp"l "l A;-;;ffi;tionaryindustrial socicw with the situ"ation ;aTlh'" ;i:;idrd r{di;; ip."iiil'*a ,r,"Ipflg"tlop on ctiistianity r tne iqe"r"gi."i.i"i*".ent in which the idea of thelimited intlividual thrivris fpg. aSi.l.

-'


myself. CreatioD, Marx reflects sadly, is an idea that is rather deeplyrooted in the consciousness of man. The being-through-itself of natureand man is inconceivable to him because it contradicts all tangible €x-periences (Handgreiflichkeiten) of practical life. Man knows himselfas a link in the chain of being, and of necessity he will ask: where is

this chain suspended? And what can we answer to the inopportunequestioner? Marx gives the same answer as Comte: dontt ask such ql:t-tlons; they are t'abstractions"l they make *no sense'; stick to the realityof being and becoming!" As in the case of Comte, &t the critical mo-ment we are faced by the demand not to ask idle questions. The man

who does not ask such questions is, by definition, "socialistic man''s

Crttde cotnmunism and trtte contrnunism

For socialistic man the uwhole so-called history of the world" is noth-ing but the production of man through the work of man. In this processhe has under his eyes "the irresistible proof of his birth: Through him-self, of his genetic process.'The essentiality (Wesenhaftigkeit) of manin nature is given to sensual intuition and in the face of this experiencethe quest for an alien being beyond nature and man becomes a practicalimpossibility. "Atheism, as the denial of this nonessentiality (Unwe-

sentlichkeit) , no longer makes sense, for atheism is a negation of Godand through this negation posits the ertstence of tnan.' Socialism needsno such mediation. It starts immediately with the sensuous conscious-ness of man in nature as true essence. It is positive self-consciousnessof man, not mediated through the denial of religion. And in the samemanner, *true life" is the positive reality of man, not mediated throughabolition of private propert], that is through communism. For the next

phase in hisiory, communism is positive as "negation of the negatignto%ut communism as such is not the aim of human development,-it isnot the form of human society.tttn Communism, like atheism, it a coun-

ter idea to a historical state that must be overcome. Marx, like Bakunin,is aware of the danger that lies in facile attempts to give content to thevision of the fuhre by elaborating a catalogue of concrete demandswhich can be nothirg but negatives of present evils. Communism is notan institutional reforrn; it is, rather, a change in the nature of man.

With this danger in view, Marx has distinguished carefully betweenttcrude communismtt (roher Kommunismus ) and true communismt orsocialism. Crude communism is the "positive expression' of abolishedprivate property; it establishes "general private propertyn which is only

37. Oehonomisch-phitosophische Manushripte ( 1844 ) ' 3, PP. L24f ,38. Ibid.r p. L25, ll. I8ff.39. Ibid., pp. L25f.

MARX: THE GENESIS OF GNOSTIC SOCTALISM 29L

a *generalization and perfection of private property.o The dominationof the property in things is so enormous that crude communism wantsto annihilate everything that cannot be owned as private property byeverybody. It considers physical, immediate ownership the only PurPoseof life. The worker's existence is not abolished, but extended to every-body; it wants to destroy all distinguishing talent by violence, etc. Thenature of this ty?e of communism becomes particularly clear in its ideaof a communalization of women. "We may say that the idea of a com-munity of women reveals the secret of this crude and thoughtless com-munismt: woman leaves marriage and enters into general prostitution;the world of wealth leaves private property and enters into general pros-titution with the community. Such communism, "it its radical negationof the personality of man,tt is a continuation of the former private prop-erty. "The general envA which constitutes itself as power is only ahidden form in which aaarice restores itself and satsifies itself under adifferent form." Competition under conditions of private property isenvy and desire of levelling, turned against greater private property.The crude communist manifests the perfection of this desire for lev-elling from the position of an imagined minimum. Such abolition of pri-vate property is not its true appropriation; it negates civilization in itsreturn to an unnatural simplicity of poor people who are not beyond pri-vate property but have not yet arrived at it. Hence, the community ofcrude communism is nothing but a community of work and of equalityof income paid out by the community as the general capitalist. "Crudecommunism, thus, is only a manifestation of the rascality (Nieder-tracht) of private property that wants to establish itself as a positivecommunity.ru

The nature of true communism we have discussed already. Let us, inconclusion, add a few formulations from the present passage. True com-munism is the return of man to himself as social man t'within the wholewealth of human development up to this point." It is a completed hu-manistic naturalism, ttthe true solution of the conflict between man andnature." "It is the solved riddle of history and knows itself as the solu-tion." Communist society "is the true resurrection of nature, the realizednaturalism of man and the realized humanism of nature.'*t

The Manifesto

The genesis of the idea is substantially completed with its appear-ance on the world scene in the form of the Communist Manifesto (De-

4'o. Ibid., pp. Ill-113.41. Ibid., pp. II4 116.


cember L$[7-January 1848 ) .* As far as the ideas of historlr revolu-tion and communism are concerned, the Manifesto contains nothingthat is new; on the contrary it contains considerabty less than the resultof our preceding analysis, as is inevitable in a document which does notpursue theoretical intentions but serves a propaganda purpose. Never-theless, w€ must briefly dwell on the formulations. The Manifesto is amasterpiece of political rhetoric. After a century, its formulae have lostnothing of their revolutionary pathos and their effectiveness on the po-litical scene.

In the Preamble the authors fix the scale of importance for their pro-nunciamento. Communism is recognized as a force by atl Europeanpowers. It is a spectre that haunts Europe. The pope and the tsar, Met-ternich and Guizot, French radicals and German policemen have alliedthemselves in a "holy alliancet' to exorcise this spectre. Such recognitionby the old powers creates an obligation for the Communists to clarifytheir views and to submit them to the public. The new world forceenters the lists against the powers of the old world.

The first section of the Nlanifesto develops the historical perspectiveof Communism. "The history of all society up to the present is the his-toly of class struggles.t' There have always been classes and estates,oPPressors and oppressed. Modern society, however, is distinguishedfrom all earlier periods through the simplicity of the pattern. "Ourwhole society is splitting more and more into two great hostile camps,into two great classes facing each other-Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.ttThe appealiog pattern of Manichaean simplicity is set; there are onlytwo forces, good and evil, and anyone who is not on the good side is in-evitably on the bad side. The Manifesto, then, follows this pattern anddeals, first, with the rise of the bourgeoisie and second, with the pro-letariat.

The bourgeoisie has risen from the serfs of the Middle Ages to be-come the operator of modern industry and commerce, spannirg theglobe. As its political instrument it has created the modern representa-tive state. "The bourgeoisie has a most revolutionary role in history.ttThe description of thi revolutionary role begins wittr, such remarks us:the bourgeoisie 'has destroyed all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relation-ships." But the derogatory beginnings soon change into a praise of theachievements of the bourgeoisie as no enlightened progressivist has everwritten. The bourgeoisie thas accomplished much greater miracles thanEgyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts and Gothic cathedrals." It hasmade "production and consumption of all countries cosmopolitan," it has

42. Manifest der Komrnunistischen Partei, Gesamtausgabe, 6, pp. 523fr.

I


*drawn away the national soil from under the feet of industry." The old

"local and national self-sufficiency and exclusiveness" has been replacedby a general interdependence of all nations. And what it has done formaterial it has done for intellectual production. t'National onesidednessand limitation becomes more and more impossible, and from the manynational and local literatures, there rises a world literature.tt Throughimprovement of communications t'even the most barbaric nations aredrawn into civilization." All nations must adopt bourgeois methqds ofproduction, unless they want to perish. t'fn one word, it has created aworld in its own image.t' It has created our great cities, and tttorn anappreciable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.t' ..It hasmade the countryside dependent on the city, the barbaric or half-barbaric countries on the civilized ones, the peasant nations on the bour-geois nations, the Orient on the Occident.tt "fn its class rule of barely acentury the bourgeoisie has created more massive and colossal forces ofproduction than all preceding generations together." fn brief: we hearthe authentic tones of a Condorcet, with the massive pride in the ex-pected complete destruction of all historical civilizations and the trans-formation of all mankind into a universal bourgeois society.

The splendor of the bourgeoisie, however, is transitory like every-thing in the world except Communism. The bourgeoisie must go and itsachievements will be inherited by the successor that has grown underits rule, by the proletariat, i.e. ttthe class of modern workers who liveonly as long as they can find work.tt The characterization of proletarianexistence contains nothing new. Of interest, however, is the descriptionof the phases in the struggle. *Its struggle against the bourgeoisie be-gins with its existence." At the beginning we have no more than indi-vidual and local struggles against individual and local oppression. Withthe expansion of industry, the masses of proletarians grow and, theircornmon sihration becomes more visible to them. Coalitions and associa-tions are formed and local revolts break out. Momentary victories arefollowed by defeats; the real result is nation-wide coalition and the cen-tralization of the class struggle. The proletariat is on its way towardorganization as a class and party. The progressive proletarization ofever larger groups in society throws educated people into the prole-tariat. And the disintegration of the old society induces small groups ofthe ruling class to become renegade and to join the revolutionary classwhich has the future in its hands. "As formerly a part of the nobilitywent over to the bourgeoisie, so now a part of the bourgeoisie goes overto the proletariat, and in particular a part of the bourgeois-ideologistswho have worked themselves through to an understanding of the his-torical movement." Thus, we have finally arrived at Marx and Engels


themselves, the bourgeois-ideologists who can tell the proletarians whatthe historical process is all about and provide intellectual leadership intheir capacity as organizers of the Communist party.

The second section of the Manifesto deals with the relation betweenproletarians and Communists. Here we find a new set of ideas concern-ing the function of Communist leadership in the proletarian struggleagainst the bourgeoisie. The opening sentences are of particular im-portance because they contain the principles which later were developedinto the idea of Communism as the universal church of the proletariat.The section begins humbly enough: "The Communists are not a sepa-rate party in opposition (gegeniiber) to other workerst parties.' But thenext sentence turns this rejection of rivalry into a universalist claim:"They have no interests separate from those of the proletariat as awhole.t'The implications are far-reaching, for this sentence is neither astatement of fact that would be open to verification, nor is it; a program;it is the fundamental dogma which declares the spirit of the proletariatas a whole to be residing in the Communist party. Aty programmaticintention is explicitly rejected by the following sentence: "They do notset up principles of their own by which they want to shape the prole-tarian movement.il The Communists are not distinguished from otherproletarian groups by principles and programs but by the universal levelof their practice. "In the various national struggles of proletarians, theyemphasize, and put to the fore, the common interests of the proletariatas a whole, independent of nationality"; and: *In the various successivestages through which the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisiemust pass, they always represent the interests of the movement as awhole." Beyond regional and temporal diversification of the struggle,there looms the central leadership of the Communists. And, indeed, thenext paragraph formulates the vanguard principle: t'In their practice,the Communists are the most resolute, ever forward pushing, section inthe workers' parties of all countries; in their theory, they have the ad-vantage over the great mass of the proletariat through their insight intoconditions, course, and general results of the proletarian movement.DIn their immediate aims, for the rest, the Communists do not differ fromother proletarian parties; these aims are: *Formation of the proletariatinto a class, overthrow of bourgeois rule, conquest of political powerthrough the proletariat.D

The remainder of the second section deals with exposition and de-fense of the ultimate aims of Communism.

The authors stress the nonprogrammatic character of these aims.*The theoretical theses of Communists are in no way based on ideas orprinciples that have been invented or discovered by this or that world-


reformer (W eltaerbesserer ) .t *Th.y are no more than general expres-sions of actual relationships in a real class struggle, in a historical move-ment that goes on under our very eyes.tt Communist theses, thus, mustnot be misunderstood as programmatic demands for changing an actualstate of things; on the contrary, they reveal the actual state of thingsand suggest that the tenden.i.r, attualty inherent in the historicalprocess, are carried to their full rcalization. Hence, the accusationslevelled against Communism are unfounded. The opponents charge theCommunists with the intention of abolishing private property. TheManifesto agrees that this is the substance of Co*muniit theory. Butwhat does this abolition mean in face of the fact that the sbciallyrelevant private property is capitalist property and the great mass ofthe people has no such property anyway? And if it is takln from thosewho already have it, is that really expropriation? No, for "Capital is acollective product and can be set into motion only through the commonactivity of T"ly m_embers of society, and in last resort onty through thecommon activity of all members of society. Capital, therefore, is not apersonal, it is asocial powert; and to be a capiialist'means "to hold nota purely personal, but a social position in production.t *If, therefore,capital it converted into communal property, belonging to all membersof society, such conversion does not transforrn peisonal property intosocial Property. Only the social character of proprrty is transformed. ftloses its class character." The so-called r*ptopriation, thus, only trans-forms an actual situation into_ a principle of public order. The same typeof argument is, then, applied to the charges against abolition of bour-geois marria$e, of nationality, of religion and of "eternal truths, likefreedom, justice, etc.t

The theses of Communism lift the march of history into conscious-ness. Th.y lt. not a program for interference with an established order;lh.y utg an insight into an order that is coming into being, that is grow-ing under the disintegrating order of the old society. th. Communistsand their followers can feel themselves the executors of the law of his-t9ty. Again we must note the strong touch of Condorcet in this concep-tion of the Communists as the directorate of mankind on its marchtoward the realm of freedom. (We cannot stress often enough that thereis no fundamental conflict between enlightened progressivism and Com-munism. ) Nevertheless, history does not *ut.h all by itself; the direc-torate must lend a helping hand. The raw material ior the realizationof the aim is present, that is: the proletarians as a class outside society,without Prgperty and without nationality ( "The workers have nocountry" ) . But this material must be shapid through the awakening ofclass-consciousness, and then the revolution itself irust be undertaken.


The conquest of power will be a prolonged process; between bourgeoisrule and free society there will be interposed the transitional period ofthe dictatorship of the proletariat.s The first step will be the elevationof the proletariat to the place of the ruling class in democracy. Thepolitical domination will then be used "gradually to wrest all capitalfrom the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in thelrands of the state, i..., the proletariat organized as ruling class, and asrapidly as possible to increase the total of productive forces." This canUe aone oriy "through despotic interventions in the right of propertyand bourgeois conditions of productiontt; such measures may apPear asindefensible by economic standards but they are inevitable for the Pur-pose of revolutionizing the whole method of production. In the course ofthis development, class differences will disappear, production will beconcentrated in the hands of the associated individuals, public Powerwill lose its political character because it is no longer an instrument ofclass rule and, finally, the old society will be replaced by "an associationin which everybody's free development is the condition for the freedevelopment of all." The Manif esto ends with the famous call to revolu-tionary association: "The proletarians have nothing to lose in it but

their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries,unite!tt

Tactics

The Manifesto was published in February 1848. In the same monththe revolution in Paris broke out. In f850, when it was clear that thetime for a proletarian world-revolution had not yet come, the escha-tological excitement of the Manifesto subsided and the problems ofrevolutionary tactics came to the fore. We may conclude this study ofthe genesis of the Marxian idea with a few passages on tactics fromthe Address to the Bund der Kommunisten of March 1850"

The immediate problem for Communists was no longer the seizureof power in a democratic revolution. The democrats who were capableof winning a revolution were not Communists. The immediate problemwas the alliance with revolutionary democratic groups wherever theystarted moving, and the ruthless fight against the allies on the morningafter the common victory. It was already substantially the situation thatwe experienced in the Popular Front politics of the 1930's and the re-sumption of the fight against democracy after the Second World War.Marx informs his listeners that ttthe democratic petty-bourgeoisie want to

43. The term is not yet used in the Menifesto, though the subject matter isdiscussed.


conclude the revolution as fast as possiblet' as soon as they have takencare of their own interests. But "it is our interest and our task to makethe revolution permanent until all more or less propertied classes areremoved from power, until state power is conquered by the proletariatand until the association of proletarians has advanced not only in onecountry but in all important countries of the world to the point whererivalry between proletarians in different countries has ceased and atleast the decisive productive forces are concentrated in their hands. Weare not interested in a change in private property but only in its an-nihilation, not in conciliation of class antagonisms but in the abolitionof classes, not in reforms of present society but in the foundation of anew one.t* fn order to carry on the fight, as far as possible a stabiliza-tion of the political situation must be prevented. During the conflict aswell as immediately afterward, the proletarians must counteract allattempts at calming down the revolutionary excitement. The democraticparties must be held to their most radical promises and their most ter-roristic threats. Mob violence should not be prevented or even onlytolerated, it should be fostered and organized by the Communists inorder to compromise the democrats.nb In the special German case, theCommunists must oppose any attempt at a federative construction of theconstitution. "LInder no circumstances must it be tolerated that everyvillage, city and province can oppose revolutionary activity which mustproceed from a center in order to be most effective.tK When a constitu-tional settlement is reached at last, the Communists must top everylegislative reform measure proposed by the democrats by u more revolu-tionary demand of their own. "When the petty-bourgeois propose thepurchase of railroads and factories, the workers must demand that theserailroads and factories should be confiscated by the government withoutcompensation because they are property of reactionaries. When thedemocrats propose a proportional tax, the workers demand a progressiveon€; when the democrats propose a moderately progressive one, theworkers insist on a tax which rises so fast in the upper brackets that bigcapital will be ruined. When the democrats propose a regulation of thepublic debt, the workers demand a declaration of public bankruptcy.Hence, the demands of the workers must always be guided by the con-cessions and measures of the democrats.ttnt

The details of the advice will change with the situation. The pattern

44. Ansprache der Zentralbehiirde an den Bund, reprinted in Karl l\farx,Enthilllungen iiber den Kommunistenprozess zn Kiiln (Berlin, 1914), p. lgo.

45. Ibid., p. 132.46. Ibid., p. I35.47.Ibid., p. L37.

u$:\,\


us: it is the systematic disruption ofsuch disorder that the Communist

is clear and well-known to all ofsociety in the hope of creatingminority can rise to victory.

Conclusion

While presenting the genesis of the Marxian idea, we have refrainedas much as possible from critical commentary. In conclusion, a fewevaluating remarks will be useful in order to balance the parts of thdsystem against each other, as well as to estimate their historical rele-vance-which, of course, ir not identical with the relevance attributedto them by Marx.

At the root of the Marxian idea we find the spiritual disease, thegnostic revolt. Not much need be said about it. The disease shows thecharacteristics that we have observed in the case of Comte and theComtean characteristics, in their turn, belong to the larger pattern ofthe scientistic, antireligious disease that preceded him. The soul ofMarx is demonically closed against transcendental reality. In the criti-cal, post-Hegelian situation he cannot extricate himself from the diffi-

culties by returning to the freedom of the spirit. His spiritual impotenceleaves no way open but derailment into gnostic activism. Again we see

the characteristic combination of spiritual impotence with the mundanelust for power, resulting in a grandiose mysticism of Paracletic exist-ence. And again u'e see the conflict with reason, almost literally in the

same form as in Comte, in the dictatorial prohibition of metaphysical

questions concerning the ground of being, questions that might disturb

the magic creation of a new world behind the prison walls of the revolt.

Marx, like Comte, does not permit a rational discussion of his principles-you have to be a Marxist or shut .up. We see again confirmed the

correlation between spiritual impotenCe and antirationalism; one cannot

deny God and retain reason.Spiritual impotence destroys the order of the soul. Man is locked up

in ttre prison of his particular existence. It does not, however, destroy

the vitality of intellectual operations within the prison. The Theses on

Feuerbach, whatever we may think of them in other respects, are an

unsurpassed masterpiece of mystical speculation on the level of ^

demonically closed existence. Marx knew that he was a gocl creating a

world. He -did

not want to be a creature. He did not want to see the

world in the perspective of creaturely existence-though he admitted

that man has difficulties in getting out of the rut. He rejected the great

diremptions of being that are given in experience, thg diremptions of

man and world, of immanent being and transcendental reatity, of man


and Gd, subject and object, action and contemplation, the diremptionswhich point to the mystery of creation. He wanted to see the world fromthe point of the coincidentia oppositorum, that is from the position ofGod. He achieved this view in the T heses through the consiruction ofthe hermetically sealed stream of existence in which the opposites aretransformed into each other. He created the symbol of the closed worldin which subjects are objects and objects a subjective activity; wherethings are what they are, and at the same time are their opposites. Inbrief: in describing his stream of existence he used the methods ofspeculation which mystics use in translating the experience of God intoworld-immanent language. By standards of mystical speculation, theconstruction is impeccable. ft is probably the best world fetish ever con-structed by a man who wanted to be God.

We must realize the full seriousness of this undertaking. The spec-tacle of a man who indulges in such demonic extravagances m"i beIoathsome' but the loathsome and perhaps comic mp.itr of the'prr-formance make it no less socially dang.rous. There *t. a good n,r*brrof men who want to be gods. While Marx was quite justified in hispessimism with regard to the abilities of the averige man for pullingh]lself up to-divinity !y ftit own boot straps, the

"u.tuge man i-s quitl

able to run after a self-created superrnan who promises to make him asupermotr, too, at low cost.

The effectiveness of the Marxian idea, however, does not rest in thegt_renglh and intellectual consistency of his antitheistic revolt alone.Marx has laid his finger on the sore spot of rnodern industrial society,on the cause of serious trouble ( even il the trouble should not take theform of a general communist revolution ) , that is the growth of eco-nomic institutions into a power of such overwhelming iifluence on thelife of every_ single man, that in the face of such po*.t all talk abouthuman freedom becomes futile. With socially irreievant exceptions, inan industrialized society man is not the murirt of his ..ono*i. exist-ence. Marx has treated the problem under the title of "alienationt andwe have quoted at length from his inexhaustible variations of the theme.His model case was the fate of the industrial worker, but it is a fatewhich is engulfing_ practically our whole society. How far the diseasehas advanced we know through the dire experience of the NationalSocialist revolution in which thi carriers of th; movement were not theindustrial workers but the lower middle class-very much to the dismayof orthodox Marxists who believe that industrial workers have a rDo-nopoly on the misery of economic insecurity and of threatening uD-employment, and consequently a monopoly on revolution.

Though Marx has erred with rrg"rd to the extent of the evil, he has


not erred with regard to its nature. Marx is the only thinker of staturein the nineteenth century ( and none has followed him ) who attempteda philosophy of human labor as well as a critical analysis of the in-stitutions of industrial society from his philosophical position. His mainwork, Das Kapital, is not an economic theory like that of Adam Smith,or Ricardo, or John Stuart Mill and one cannot dispose of it by showingthe defects of the Marxian theories of value, of interest, of the accumu-lation of capital, etc., all of which are certainly defective. It is, as itssubtitle stateS, I critique of political economli it is an attempt to revealthe social myth that is contained in the concepts of economic theory, andto penetrate to the core of the matter, that is to the relation of man tonature and to a philosophy of this relation, that is of labor. That noeconomic theorist after Marx was sufficiently interested in the philo-sophical foundations of his science to explore this problem further, thatno modern school of economic theory exists that would understand anddevelop the very important beginnings of Marx, casts a significant tighton this whole branch of science.

The result of the Marxian attempt, as we have seen, is dubious. Theidea of the "total individual' that will "appropriate" the working range

of an industrial system into its "self-activityD like a Robinson Crusoewho does his chores, is empirically unrealizable; and the eschatologicalpart of the solution, the change in the nature of man through the €x-perience of the revolution that will make the feat possible, is a piegeof drtailed intramundane mysticism. Nevertheless, the diagnosis of theevil is on the whole sound. The industrial system in present societylooks empirically like a human impasse, threatened by a communistrevolution whenlver the stop-gap remedy of buying off the revolutionthrough "prosperity" and the "rising standard of living" should fail for

any appreciable length of time. And what this communism most ptob"-

bli wo,rta look like Marx has described in his impressive charactefiza-tion of ttcrude communism.'

While *crude communismn intakable ingredient in the social

its most horrible form is an unmis-revolution spreaditg westward from

Russia, and while we must consider it a possibility that it will generally

mark the next phase in the decadence of Western society, this course

is not an historical necessity. In his constmction of historfr Marx has

conceived the development of economic forms as occurring in an abstract

mankind with an appendix of ideologies. In fact, the development oc-

curs in historical soCieties and the ideological appendix is nothing less

than the spiritual tife and the civilization of these societies. The for-

midable eJonomic problem has a noneconomic setting, considered by

MARX: THE GENESIS OF GNOSTIC SOCIAL ISM 30 I

Marx as a quadit| n1gligeable, and the eristence of this noneconomicenvironment makes it impossible to predict what means may be foundto alleviate the worst consequences of "alienationt and generally tograpple with the problems of industrialized society.

Let us, finally, consider the most interesting practical question thatis raised by the antirationalism of the Marxian idea. We have seen thatMarx can maintain his philosophizing on the level of spiritual revoltonly by prohibiting unpleasant questions. What havoc the perversion oft]*ory into pseudological speculation must work in the life of the in-tellect we could observe in the burlesque of Engels and the low comedyof the German, Revisionist Social Democrats. A climax of grotesquenonsense is Lenin's idea that the dialectics of history is concerned withtransforming the Kantian Ding an sich into phenomena. When theMarxian idea becomes a public creed, obviously such dilettantism and Udi Wedownright stupidity can be protected against ridicule on$ by a radical s,.11 1a,.sLprohibition of philosophy. What consequences a prohibition of philos- J. L,^ li, *ophy will have for a society on the industrial level of production, which

' - Y ' ' '' f'for its survival depends on strict standards of rationality in the sciences,only the future can show. Incidents which are reported. from Russia,such as the Lysenko afrair, seem to indicate that irrationalism to thedegree of mountebankery has made inroads even in the natural sciences.Russian "philosophicalD articles which have been published in Americanjournals live up to our worst expectations. We cannot exclude it as apossibility that a society in which Marxism is enforced as the officialcreed will commit suicide through intellectual dishonesty.

Epilogue

The expansion of the will t6 power from the realm 6f phenomena tothat of substance or the attempt to operate in the realm of substancepragmatically as if it were the realm of phenomena-that is the defini-vfra:ction of magic. The interrelation of science and power and the conse-quent cancerous growth of the utilitarian segment of existence have in-jected a strong element of magic culture into modern civilization, Thetendency to narrow the field of human experience to the area of reason,science and pragmatic action, the tendency to overvalue this area in re-lation to the bios theoretihos and the life of the spirit, the tendency tomake it the exclusive preoccupation of man, the tendency to make itsocially preponderant through economic pressure in the so-called freesocieties and through violence in totalitarian states-all these tendenciesare part of a cultural process that is dominated by the idea of operating

{ad

I


on the substance of man through the instrumentality of pragrnaticallyplanning will. The climax of this is the magic dream of creating theSuperman, the man-made Being that will succeed the sorry creature ofGod's making. This is the great dream that first appeared imaginativelyin the works of Condorcet, Comte, Marx and Nietzsche and later Prag-matically in the Communist and National Socialist movements.

Ib{DEX

Alexander I, Tsar, 186-187Anarchism, 77-78, 83Arianism, 30-31Averroism, 19, 29-30

Babeuf, 83Bakunin: and Alliance of 1868, 225,

227; and American federalism, 2SS;and anarchism, 2L7-239; andComte, 234; his Conf essionr 2Ol-2I2; faith under will, 2LO-2I2; onfreedom and democraclt I95-I9B;on God and the State, 257-2Sg; andHegel, 198-199; and Marx, 200-20f , 2L3-2L4, 224-228; hismaterialism, 237-238; and Nechaievaffair, 228; and Nietzsche, 252; andPrinciples of Revolution, 228-2SO;and problem of evil, 2SZ-ZS4

Bentham, 34, 59n, 6O, 67n, 95Bergson, LL7Bernsteh, E., 247Bios theoretikos, 78-79, 84, g0lBodin, L2OBook burning, L27nBossuet, 3, 13-18, 91, gg-100, I l9;

on Protestantism, 13-14Burckhardt, I04, I0g

Castlereagh, I88Cato, 57Chrysostom, L4Civil religion, I70-L7SClotilde de Vaux, 136, l4S, LSZ,

153-156Communism, 52, 601 70, 98, IOl,

1ll, LLz, L32, 2g0-g0l; crudecommunism ys. true communism,290-291, 300

Communist Manif esto, Z4g, ZgL-ZggComte, L2, L1r 74-75, 83, 8g-go, 94,

gg, 113, 1I4,-116, 1L7r 2ggr 3o2;and Clotilde de Vaux, IgO, LfiS, LSZ,153-156, 16O-16I; and deMaiestre, L79, 18S-l8S; anddivinization of woman, LS4-IS6;and French Revolution, 16l, L67-,l?O-173; and the Grand-Etre,191-166; 3nd his iEs:iine c6r6brate,149-147, I5O; and Napoleon, t4t,168-17O; and the OccidentalRepublic, ISZ, 149, lS9, 166-lZ0,

189; and Saint-Simon, Ig9-194;and Turgot, 89-gO, 9g, Il4,-tl6

Condillac, 38, 56Condorcet, L2S-LSS, 146, ZgS, SO2Congress of Vienna, l8lConstant, Benjamin, 175-1 76, Lgl

D'Alembert, 7S-94, gS, L24{e ponald, L79,182-IgS, lg tDeism in England, I8n, dSde Maistre, L7g, I8S-I85ppcartes, 99, 146, L47, 160Dialectical materialism, ZSS-27ODiderot, 76, BZ-BB, 95Dilthey, Wilhelm, 3SnDumas, George, 140- L4Z

Eliot, T. S., SIEncgclop1die, 35, 7S-79, g6_gzEngefs, tr'., 6I, Lg4, 249', 2Sl-252,

2 5 9-26 L, 264*27 2; on,,ad.ministra-tion of things," 194; on morality,269

P"Slry\ Revolution of 1688, 4Ennui (paresse), 4545, Sd-SaEquality, 7 L-72, 132-lSS

Felgrpach, Ludwig, 276-280, ZgS_284

Flaubert, 32French Revolution, lI l, IZO-lg3

Gandhi, LTL-ZZIGenealogy of passions , 44*.SLGeography and politics, Ilg-122George, Stefan, IlsGouhier, Henri, L42, LAS, L74

H"gg_I, 5_9, I0g , Lg7, lgg-tgg, 25S_27O, 275-276; and Rosicruiiuosymbolism, 28On

Helv6tius, 84; and_Augustine, 474g;and class struggle, 65-66; and.genealogy of pission s, 44*SI; andthe Jesuitsr_ 6_6-67; and Locke, 96_!?, 56; and Pascal, iS-59; andPlato, 5ln

Heresy, l5nHobbes, 56, 69Holy Alliance, 185-l8gHuxley, Thomas, LS7


Metanoia, and Bakunin, 196-197; andMarx, 116-I L7 , 24L

Metternich, 186Mill, J. s., 136-137, L42Mosca, I l f- I I3Muraviov, 213n

Napoleon, 141, 168-170, I75' 193n'r97

Napoleon III' 72National Socialism, 52, 7Or 97-98'

lo1, 111-113, 117, L27, L32, L45"178, 18Lr 23Lr 299, 3O2

Nechaiev, Sergei, 228Newton, 24-26, 3L-32, 99, 184t

l9o-191, 192-193Nicholas I, Tsar, 2O2-2OgNietzsche, 35-36, 42n, 45n, 461 49,

59, 68, 113, 166, r8O, 2321 3O2

Pareto, 1l l-1I3Pascal, 53-59Perron, Charles, 337Plato, viii, 51n, IBO, 227Positivism, 117' L24-L25, 133'

136-194Progtess, and the 'sauthoritative

piesent,' 77, 83-85, 89-94; Con-iorcet's idea of, 134'-135; Turgoton, 89-94, IO2-109, L23-L24

Protestantism, 13-14' L7-23, 283Proudhon, 82-831 287Pseudological speculation, 263-272

Raynal, Abb6, L7L:172Reiigion of humanity, 160-194Renan, E., I13Restoration, period of ( 1814,-1830 ) '

173-182, r93-r94Robespierre, 8L, L72, L77Roman Catholic Church, 15-23, L82-

184Rosicrucianism, I86n, 28OnRousseau, 1O9r I11, 171Russia, Soviet, 113 ,249-250, 253

St. Paul, 22, 1I7Saint-Simon, 83, 117, 140' I4l' 146'

l7o, r85, 189-194Schell ing, 115, 116-117' L97, 198-

r99Science, 20, 2L26r 39' 76' 85-86,

L34, L47, 15r , 156Secularization, meaning of, I l-13'

r8-23Sidgwick, HenrY, 42n

International Social-DemocraticAlliance, 223-224

International Workingmen'sAssociation, 222-223

Jesuits, 66-67' I59Joachim of Flora, L, 4, 11-12John of Salisbury' 69Juenger, Ernst, I13

Kafka, Franz, 59Kanto I15' 3OIKautsky, Karl, 24O, 247-249Kierkegaard' 53Kropotkin, Prince Petet, 218-219IkGdener' Mme. de, 186-187

La Boetie, 77Lenin, 60' 81' 111, 159, 165' 21t,

24O, 249-252, 2681 301; article onMarx, 25L-252

Liberalism, 143-145' L7 5, L7 7-180'2L3, 268

Littr€, Bmit, 138-140, L4L-L44, L57;break with Comte, L43-L44

Locke, 3O-31' 34' 36-42' 89Luther, 31, 283

Machiavelli, 103Magic, definition of, 30IMdt, L2, 621 zOO-zOL, 2L3-2L4,

224 1228; and alienation of man'284; and Bakunin, 2OO-201 , 2L3-2L4:, 224-228, 255, 290;Communist Manifesto, 248, 29L-298; and Comte, 298; crudecommunism Ys. true communism,2gH29l; and the derailment, 245-246; and dialectical materialism,255-258; and division of laborr 285-287; earlY writings, 24O-24L, 27 3-274; and'HeBel, iss-zlo, 27 5-276;on industrial sYstem' 288-290,299; and inver-sion of Hegeliandialectics, 27 0-272; his logophobia,259-263; meaning of theorY in,263-27O; and meianoia, 24I; andrealm of freedorrrr 242-244; Theseson Feuerbachr 2T0-280

Marxism, 246 -25 5, 296-298; histori-cal phases of derailment, 254-255;the

-revisionist movement, 246-249;

revolutionarY tactics, 25L-252,296-298; aid Russian imPerialism,253 ,254

Mazzini' 111' 168n, 235

INDEX

Social Democrats, German, 246-249,301

Social evolution, 62-64, 72-73Spengler, Oswald, I13, L23Stalin, L67, 226, 227

Tertullian, L4Tolstoi, Count Leo, 2L9-22OToynbee, Arnold J., 97, I0l, IO5-

106, l l1 , 113n, I l7 , I23, L25Treaty of Westphalia, 80Trotsky, lSnTurgot, 88-94, 98-125, L29, I33; on

307

Asiatic "stagnationrt IO6; andComte, 89-90, 98, II4'--116; andCondorcet, L25, L29; definition ofprogress, 9O-91; his G1ographiePolitique, lI8-125; and Gobineau,r05

Vauvenargues, fiC-4LVico, 27LVoltaire, 8-13,23-34, BO-81, 91, gsvon Hayek, L27n, l90n

Washington, George, I8I-lg2

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