VII: The Lost Children.

     The lost children of the philosophic party.—Naigeon,
     Sylvain Maréchal, Mably, Morelly.—The entire discredit of
     traditions and institutions derived from it.

We stop here. It is pointless to follow the lost children of the party, Naigeon and Sylvain Maréchal, Mably and Morelly, the fanatics that set atheism up as an obligatory dogma and a superior duty; the socialists who, to suppress egoism, propose a community of property, and who found a republic in which any man that proposes to re-establish "detestable ownership" shall be declared an enemy of humanity, treated as a "raging maniac" and shut up in a dungeon for life. It is sufficient to have studied the operations of large armies and of great campaigns.—With different gadgets and opposite tactics, the various attacks have all had the same results, all the institutions have been undermined from below. The governing ideology has withdrawn all authority from custom, from religion, from the State. Not only is it assumed that tradition in itself is false, but again that it is harmful through its works, that it builds up injustice on error, and that by rendering man blind it leads him to oppress. Henceforth it is outlawed. Let this "loathsome thing" with its supporters be crushed out. It is the great evil of the human species, and, when suppressed, only goodness will remain.

"The time will then come3342 when the sun will shine only on free men recognizing no other master than Reason; when tyrants and slaves, and priests with their senseless or hypocritical instruments will exist only in history and on the stage; when attention will no longer be bestowed on them except to pity their victims and their dupes, keeping oneself vigilant and useful through horror of their excesses, and able to recognize and extinguish by the force of Reason the first germs of superstition and of tyranny, should they ever venture to reappear."

The millennium is dawning and it is once more Reason, which should set it up. In this way we shall owe everything to its salutary authority, the foundation of the new order of things as well as the destruction of the old one.

3301 (return)
[ "Discours de la Methode."]

3302 (return)
[ This is evident with Descartes in the second step he takes. (The theory of pure spirit, the idea of God, the proof of his existence, the veracity of our intelligence demonstrated the veracity of God, etc.)]

3303 (return)
[ See Pascal, "Pensées" (on the origin of property and rank). The "Provinciales" (on homicide and the right to kill).—Nicole, "Deuxième traité de la charité, et de l'amour-propre" (on the natural man and the object of society). Bossuet, "Politique tirée de l'Ecriture sainte." La Bruyère, "Des Esprits forts."]

3304 (return)
[ Cf. Sir. John Lubbock, "Origine de la Civilisation."—Gerand-Teulon, "Les Origines de la famille."]

3305 (return)
[ The principle of caste in India; we see this in the contrast between the Aryans and the aborigines, the Soudras and the Pariahs.]

3306 (return)
[ In accordance with this principle the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands passed a law forbidding the sale of liquor to the natives and allowing it to Europeans. (De Varigny, "Quatorze ans aux iles Sandwich.")]

3307 (return)
[ Cf. Le Play, "De l'Organization de la famille," (the history of a domain in the Pyrenees.)]

3308 (return)
[ See, especially, in Brahmin literature the great metaphysical poems and the Puranas.]

3309 (return)
[ Montaigne (1533-92) apparently also had 'sympathetic imagination' when he wrote: "I am most tenderly symphathetic towards the afflictions of others," ("On Cruelty"). (SR.)]

3310 (return)
[ Voltaire, "Dic. Phil." the article on Punishments.]

3311 (return)
[ "Resumé des cahiers," by Prud'homme, preface, 1789.]

3312 (return)
[ Voltaire, Dialogues, Entretiens entre A. B. C.]

3313 (return)
[ Voltaire, "Dict.Phil.," the article on Religion. "If there is a hamlet to be governed it must have a religion."]

3314 (return)
[ "Le rêve de d'Alembert," by Diderot, passim.]

3315 (return)
[ "If a misanthrope (a hater of mankind) had proposed to himself to injure humanity what could he have invented better than faith in an incomprehensible being, about which men never could come to any agreement, and to which they would attach more importance than to their own existence?" Diderot, "Entretien d'un philosophe avec la Maréchale de....." (And that is just what our Marxist sociologist, psychologists etc have done in inventing a human being bereft of those emotions which in other animals force them to give in to their maternal, paternal and leadership instincts thereby making them happy in the process.. SR.)]

3316 (return)
[ Cf. "Catéchisme Universel," by Saint-Lambert, and the "Loi naturelle ou Catéchisme du citoyen français," by Volney.]

3317 (return)
[ "Supplément au voyage de Bougainville."]

3318 (return)
[ Cf. "Mémoires de Mm. D'Epinay," a conversation with Duclos and Saint-Lambert at the house of Mlle. Quinault.—Rousseau's "Confessions," part I, book V. These are the same principles taught by M. de la Tavel to Mme. De Warens.]

3319 (return)
[ "Suite du rêve de d'Alembert." "Entretien entre Mlls. de Lespinasse et Bordeu."—"Mémoires de Diderot," a letter to Mlle. Volant, III. 66.]

3320 (return)
[ Cf. his admirable tales, "Entretiens d'un père avec ses enfants," and "Le neveu de Rameau."]

3321 (return)
[ Volney, ibid. "The natural law. . . consists wholly of events whose repetition may be observed through the senses and which create a science as precise and accurate as geometry and mathematics."]

3322 (return)
[ Helvétius, "De l'Esprit." passim.]

3323 (return)
[ Volney, ibid. Chap. III. Saint-Lambert, ibid. The first dialogue.]

3324 (return)
[ D'Holbach, "Systeme de la Nature," II. 408 493.]

3325 (return)
[ D'Holbach, "Système de la nature," I. 347.]

3326 (return)
[ Diderot, "Supplément au voyage de Bougainville."]

3327 (return)
[ Diderot, "Les Eleuthéromanes."

     Et ses mains, ourdissant les entrailles du prêtre,
     En feraient un cordon pour le dernier des rois.

Brissot: "Necessity being the sole title to property the result is that when a want is satisfied man is no longer a property owner. . . . Two prime necessities are due to the animal constitution, food and waste . . . . May men nourish themselves on their fallen creatures? (Yes for) all beings may justly nourish themselves on any material calculated to supply their wants. . . Man of nature, fulfill your desire, give heed to your cravings, your sole masters and your only guide. Do you feel your veins throbbing with inward fires at the sight of a charming creature? She is yours, your caresses are innocent and your kisses pure. Love alone entitles to enjoyment as hunger is the warrant for property." (An essay published in 1780, and reprinted in 1782 in the "Bibliothèque du Législateur," quoted by Roux and Buchez "Histoire parlementaire," XIII, 431.]

3328 (return)
[ The words of Rousseau himself ("Rousseau juge de Jan-Jacques," third dialogue, p 193): From whence may the painter and apologist of nature, now so disfigured and so calumniated, derive his model if not from his own heart?]

3329 (return)
[ "Confessions," Book I. p.1, and the end of the fifth book.—First letter to M. de Malesherbes: "I know my great faults, and am profoundly sensible of my vices. Even so I shall die with the conviction that of all the men I have encountered no one was better than myself".—To Madame B—, March 16, 1770, he writes: "You have awarded me esteem for my writings; your esteem would be yet greater for my life if it were open to you inspection, and still greater for my heart if it were exposed to your view. Never was there a better one, a heart more tender or more just.... My misfortunes are all due to my virtues."—To Madame de la Tour, "Whoever is not enthusiastic in my behalf in unworthy of me."]

3330 (return)
[ Letter to M. de Beaumont. p.24.—Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques, troisième entretien, 193.]

3331 (return)
[ "Emile," book I, and the letter to M. de Beaumont, passim.]

3332 (return)
[ Article I. "All Frenchmen shall be virtuous." Article II. "All Frenchmen shall be happy." Draft of a constitution found among the papers of Sismondi, at that time in school. (My French dictionary writes: "SISMONDI, (Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de) Genève, 1773—id. 1842, Swiss historian and economist of Italian origin. He was a forerunner of dirigisme and had influenced Marx with his book: "Nouveaux principes d'économie politique.1819. SR.)]

3333 (return)
[ "Confessions," part 2, book IX. 368. "I cannot comprehend how any one can converse in a circle. . . . I stammer out a few words, with no meaning in them, as quickly as I can, very glad if they convey no sense. . . . I should be as fond of society as anybody if I were not certain of appearing not merely to disadvantage but wholly different from what I really am."—Cf. in the "Nouvelle Héloise," 2nd part, the letter of Saint-Preux on Paris. Also in "Emilie," the end of book IV.]

3334 (return)
[ "Confessions," part 2, IX. 361. "I was so weary of drawing-rooms, of jets of water, of bowers, of flower-beds and of those that showed them to me; I was so overwhelmed with pamphlets, harpsichords, games, knots, stupid witticisms, simpering looks, petty story-tellers and heavy suppers, that when I spied out a corner in a hedge, a bush, a barn, a meadow, or when, on passing through a hamlet, I caught the smell of a good parsley omelet. . I sent to the devil all the rouge, frills, flounces and perfumery, and, regretting a plain dinner and common wine, I would gladly have closed the mouth of both the head cook and the butler who forced me to dine when I generally sup, and to sup when a generally go to bed, but, especially the lackeys that envied me every morsel I ate and who, at the risk of my dying with thirst, sold me the drugged wine of their master at ten times the price I would have to pay for a better wine at a tavern."]

3335 (return)
[ "Discours sur l'influence des sciences et des arts"—The letter to d'Alembert on theatrical performances.]

3336 (return)
[ Does it not read like a declaration of intent for forming a Kibbutz? (SR.)]

3337 (return)
[ "The high society (La societé) is as natural to the human species as decrepitude to the individual. The people require arts, laws, and governments, as old men require crutches." See the letter M. Philopolis, p. 248.]

3338 (return)
[ See the discourse on the "Origine de l'Inégalite," passim.]

3339 (return)
[ "Emile," book IV. Rousseau's narrative. P. 13.]

3340 (return)
[ "Discours sur l'économie politique," 326.]

3341 (return)
[ "Discours sur l'Origine de l'Inégalité," 178, "Contrat Social," I. ch. IV.]

3342 (return)
[ Condorcet, "Tableau des progrès de l'esprit humain," the tenth epoch.]