"Well, are we wrong in reproaching economists2 with being dry and cold? What a picture of human nature! What! Is spoliation, then, to be regarded as an inevitable3, almost normal, force, assuming all forms, at work under all pretexts4, by law and without law, jobbing and abusing things the most sacred, working on feebleness and credulity by turns, and making progress just in proportion as these are prevalent! Is there in the world a more melancholy5 picture than this?"
The question is not whether the picture be melancholy, but whether it is true. History will tell us.
It is singular enough that those who decry6 political economy (or economisme, as they are pleased to call it), because that science studies man and the world as they are, are themselves much further advanced in pessimism7, at least as regards the past and the present, than the economists whom they disparage8. Open their books and their journals; and what do you find? Bitterness, hatred9 of society, carried to such a pitch that the very word civilization is in their eyes the synonym10 of injustice11, dis-order, and anarchy12. They go the length even of denouncing liberty, so little confidence have they in the development of the human race as the natural result of its organization. Liberty! it is liberty, as they think, which is impelling13 us nearer and nearer to ruin.
True, these writers are optimists14 in reference to the future. For if the human race, left to itself, has pursued a wrong road for six thousand years, a discoverer has appeared, who has pointed15 out the true way of safety; and however little the flock may regard the pastor's crook16, they will be infallibly led towards the promised land, where happiness, without any effort on their part, awaits them, and where order, security, and harmony are the cheap reward of improvidence17.
The human race have only to consent to these reformers changing (to use Rousseau's expression) its physical and moral constitution.
It is not the business of political economy to inquire what society might have become had God made man otherwise than He has been pleased to make him. It may perhaps be a subject of regret that in the beginning, Providence18 should have forgotten to call to its counsels some of our modern organisateurs. And as the celestial19 mechanism20 would have been very differently constructed had the Creator consulted Alphonsus the Wise, in the same way had He only taken the advice of Fourrier, the social order would have had no resemblance to that in which we are forced to breathe, live, and move. But since we are here—since in eo vivimus, movemur, et minus—all we have to do is to study and make ourselves acquainted with the laws of the social order in which we find ourselves, especially if its amelioration depends essentially22 on our knowledge of these laws.
We cannot prevent the human heart from being the seat of insatiable desires.
We cannot so order it that these desires should be satisfied without labour.
We cannot so order it that man should not have as much repugnance23 to labour as desire for enjoyment24.
We cannot so order it that from this organization there should not result a perpetual effort on the part of certain men to increase their own share of enjoyments25 at the expense of others; throwing over upon them, by force or cunning, the labour and exertion26 which are the necessary condition of such enjoyments being obtained.
It is not for us to go in the face of universal history, or stifle27 the voice of the past, which tells us that such has been the state of things from the beginning. We cannot deny that war, slavery, thraldom28, priestcraft, government abuses, privileges, frauds of every kind, and monopolies, have been the incontestable and terrible manifestations29 of these two sentiments combined in the heart of man—desire of enjoyments, and repugnance to fatigue30.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. Yes, but every one desires to have the greatest possible quantity of bread, with the least possible amount of sweat. Such is the testimony31 of history.
But let us be thankful that history also shows us that the diffusion32 of enjoyments and of efforts has a tendency to become more and more equal among men.
Unless we shut our eyes to the light of the sun, we must admit that society has in this respect made progress.
If this be so, there must be in society a natural and providential force, a law which repels33 more and more the principle of dishonesty, and realizes more and more the principle of justice.
We maintain that this force exists in society, and that God has placed it there. If it did not exist, we should be reduced, like Utopian dreamers, to seek for it in artificial arrangements, in arrangements which imply a previous alteration34 in the physical and moral constitution of man; or rather, we should conclude that the search was useless and vain, for the simple reason that we cannot understand the action of a lever without its fulcrum35.
Let us try, then, to describe the beneficent force which tends gradually to surmount36 the mischievous37 and injurious force to which we have given the name of spoliation, and the presence of which is only too well explained by reasoning, and established by experience.
Every injurious or hurtful act has necessarily two terms: the point whence it comes, and the point to which it tends—the terminus a quo, and the terminus ad quern—the man who acts, and the man acted upon; or, in the language of the schoolmen, the agent and the patient.
We may be protected, then, from an injurious act in two ways: by the voluntary abstention of the agent; or by the resistance of the patient.
These two moral principles, far from running counter to each other, concur38 in their action, namely, the religious or philosophical39 moral principle, and the moral principle which I shall venture to term economic.
The religious moral principle, in order to ensure the suppression of an injurious act, addresses its author, addresses man in his capacity of agent, and says to him: "Amend40 your life; purify your conduct; cease to do evil; learn to do well; subdue41 your passions; sacrifice self-interest; oppress not your neighbour, whom it is your duty to love and assist; first of all, be just, and be charitable afterwards." This species of moral principle will always be esteemed43 the most beautiful and touching44, that which best displays the human race in its native majesty45, which will be most extolled46 by the eloquent47, and call forth48 the greatest amount of admiration49 and sympathy.
The economic moral principle aspires50 at attaining51 the same result; but addresses man more especially in the capacity of patient. It points out to him the effects of human actions, and by that simple explanation, stimulates52 him to react against those who injure him, and honour those who are useful to him. It strives to disseminate53 among the oppressed masses enough of good sense, information, and well-founded distrust, to render oppression more and more difficult and dangerous.
We must remark, too, that the economic principle of morality does not fail to act likewise on the oppressor. An injurious act is productive of both good and evil; evil for the man who is subject to it, and good for the man who avails himself of it; without which indeed it would not have been thought of. But the good and the evil are far from compensating54 each other. The sum total of evil always and necessarily preponderates55 over the good; because the very fact that oppression is present entails56 a loss of power, creates dangers, provokes reprisals57, and renders, costly58 precautions necessary. The simple explanation of these effects, then, not only provokes reaction on the part of the oppressed, but brings over to the side of justice all whose hearts are not perverted59, and disturbs the security of the oppressors themselves.
But it is easy to understand that this economic principle of morality, which is rather virtual than formal; which is only, after all, a scientific demonstration60, which would lose its efficacy if it changed its character; which addresses itself not to the heart, but to the intellect; which aims at convincing rather than persuading; which does not give advice, but furnishes proofs; whose mission is not to touch the feelings, but enlighten the judgment61, which obtains over vice21 no other victory than that of depriving it of support; it is easy, I say, to understand why this principle of morality should be accused of being dry and prosaic62.
The reproach is well founded in itself, without being just in its application. It just amounts to saying that political economy does not discuss everything, that it does not comprehend everything—that it is not, in short, universal science. But who ever claimed for it this character, or put forward on its behalf so exorbitant63 a pretension64?
The accusation65 would be well founded only if political economy presented its processes as exclusive, and had the presumption66, if we may so speak, to deny to philosophy and religion their own proper and peculiar67 means of working for the cultivation68 and improvement of man.
Let us admit, then, the simultaneous action of morality, properly so called, and of political economy; the one branding the injurious act in its motive69, and exposing its unseemliness, the other discrediting70 it in our judgment, by a picture of its effects.
Let us admit even that the triumph of the religious moralist, when achieved, is more beautiful, more consoling, more fundamental But we must at the same time acknowledge that the triumph of the economist1 is more easy and more certain.
In a few lines, which are worth many large volumes, J. B. Say has said that, to put an end to the disorder71 introduced into an honourable72 family by hypocrisy73 there are only two alternatives: to reform Tartuffe, or sharpen the wits of Orgon. Molière, that great painter of the human heart, appears constantly to have regarded the second of these processes as the more efficacious.
It is the same thing in real life, and on the stage of the world.
Tell me what C?sar did, and I will tell you what the character was of the Romans of his time.
Tell me what modern diplomacy74 accomplishes, and I will tell you what is the moral condition of the nations among whom it is exercised.
We should not be paying nearly two milliards [￡80,000,000 sterling] of taxes, if we did not empower those who live upon them to vote them.
We should not have been landed in all the difficulties and charges to which the African question has given rise, had we had our eyes open to the fact that two and two make four, in political economy, as well as in arithmetic.
M. Guizot would not have felt himself authorized75 to say that France is rich enough to pay for her glory, if France had never been smitten77 with the love of false glory.
The same statesman would never have ventured to say that liberty is too precious a thing for France to stand higgling about its price, had France only reflected that a heavy budget and liberty are incompatible78.
It is not by monopolists, but by their victims, that monopolies are maintained.
In the matter of elections, it is not because there are parties who offer bribes79 that there are parties open to receive them, but the contrary; and the proof of this is, that it is the parties who receive the bribes who, in the long run, defray the cost of corruption80. Is it not their business to put an end to the practice?
Let the religious principle of morality, if it can, touch the hearts of the Tartuffes, the C?sars, the planters of colonies, the sinecurists, the monopolists, etc. The clear duty of political economy is to enlighten their dupes.
Of these two processes, which exercises the more efficacious influence on social progress? I feel it almost unnecessary to say, that I believe it is the second; and I fear we can never exempt81 mankind from the necessity of learning first of all defensive82 morality.
After all I have heard and read and observed, I have never yet met with an instance of an abuse which had been in operation on a somewhat extensive scale, put an end to by the voluntary renunciation of those who profit by it.
On the other hand, I have seen many abuses put down by the determined83 resistance of those who suffered from them.
To expose the effects of abuses, then, is the surest means of putting an end to them. And this holds especially true of abuses like the policy of restriction84, which, whilst inflicting85 real evils on the masses, are productive of nothing to those who imagine they profit by them but illusion and deception86!
After all, can the kind of morality we are advocating of itself enable us to realize all that social perfection which the sympathetic nature of the soul of man and its noble faculties87 authorize76 us to look forward to and hope for? I am far from saying so. Assume the complete diffusion of defensive morality, it resolves itself simply into the conviction that men's interests, rightly understood, are always in accord with justice and general utility. Such a society, although certainly well ordered, would not be very attractive. There would be fewer cheats simply because there would be fewer dupes. Vice always lurking88 in the background, and starved, so to speak, for want of support, would revive the moment that support was restored to it.
The prudence89 of each would be enforced by the vigilance of all; and reform, confining itself to the regulation of external acts, and never going deeper than the skin, would fail to penetrate90 men's hearts and consciences. Such a society would remind us of one of those exact, rigorous, and just men, who are ready to resent the slightest invasion of their rights, and to defend themselves on all sides from attacks. You esteem42 them; you perhaps admire them; you would elect them as deputies; but you would never make them your friends.
But the two principles of morality I have described, instead of running counter to each other, work in concert, attacking vice from opposite directions. Whilst the economists are doing their part, sharpening the wits of the Orgons, eradicating91 prejudices, exciting just and necessary distrust, studying and explaining the true nature of things and of actions, let the religious moralist accomplish on his side his more attractive, although more difficult, labours. Let him attack dishonesty in a hand-to-hand fight; let him pursue it into the most secret recesses92 of the heart; let him paint in glowing colours the charms of beneficence, of self-sacrifice, of devotion; let him open up the fountains of virtue93, where we can only dry up the fountains of vice. This is his duty, and a noble duty it is. But why should he contest the utility of the duty which has devolved upon us?
In a society which, without being personally and individually virtuous94, would nevertheless be well ordered through the action of the economic principle of morality (which means a knowledge of the economy of the social body), would not an opening be made for the work of the religious moralist?
Habit, it is said, is a second nature.
A country might still be unhappy, although for a long time each man may have been unused to injustice through the continued resistance of an enlightened public. But such a country, it seems to me, would be well prepared to receive a system of teaching more pure and elevated. We get a considerable way on the road to good, when we become unused to evil. Men can never remain stationary95. Diverted from the path of vice, feeling that it leads only to infamy96, they would feel so much the more sensibly the attractions of virtue.
Society must perhaps pass through this prosaic state of transition, in which men practise virtue from motives97 of prudence, in order to rise afterwards to that fairer and more poetic98 region where such calculating motives are no longer wanted.
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1
economist
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| n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人 | |
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economists
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| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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pretexts
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| n.借口，托辞( pretext的名词复数 ) | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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decry
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| v.危难，谴责 | |
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pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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disparage
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| v.贬抑，轻蔑 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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synonym
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| n.同义词，换喻词 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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impelling
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| adj.迫使性的，强有力的v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的现在分词 ) | |
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optimists
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| n.乐观主义者( optimist的名词复数 ) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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improvidence
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| n.目光短浅 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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repugnance
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| n.嫌恶 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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stifle
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| vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止 | |
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thraldom
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| n.奴隶的身份，奴役，束缚 | |
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manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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diffusion
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| n.流布；普及；散漫 | |
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repels
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| v.击退( repel的第三人称单数 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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fulcrum
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| n.杠杆支点 | |
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surmount
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| vt.克服；置于…顶上 | |
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mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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concur
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| v.同意，意见一致，互助，同时发生 | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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amend
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| vt.修改，修订，改进；n.[pl.]赔罪，赔偿 | |
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subdue
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| vt.制服，使顺从，征服；抑制，克制 | |
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esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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extolled
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| v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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aspires
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的第三人称单数 ) | |
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attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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stimulates
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| v.刺激( stimulate的第三人称单数 )；激励；使兴奋；起兴奋作用，起刺激作用，起促进作用 | |
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disseminate
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| v.散布；传播 | |
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compensating
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| 补偿，补助，修正 | |
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preponderates
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| v.超过，胜过( preponderate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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entails
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| 使…成为必要( entail的第三人称单数 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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reprisals
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| n.报复（行为）( reprisal的名词复数 ) | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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exorbitant
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| adj.过分的；过度的 | |
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pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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discrediting
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| 使不相信( discredit的现在分词 )； 使怀疑； 败坏…的名声； 拒绝相信 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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authorized
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| a.委任的，许可的 | |
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authorize
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| v.授权，委任；批准，认可 | |
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smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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bribes
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| n.贿赂( bribe的名词复数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂v.贿赂( bribe的第三人称单数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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inflicting
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的现在分词 ) | |
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deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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eradicating
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| 摧毁，完全根除( eradicate的现在分词 ) | |
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recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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