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SECOND MEMOIR. 343
tury, the wealthy families had incomes of no less than two
millions: some possessed as many as twenty thousand slaves.
All the authors who have written upon the causes of the fall
of the Roman republic concur. M. Giraud of Aix quotes
the testimony of Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Olympiodorus, and
Photius. Under Vespasian and Titus, Pliny, the naturalist,
exclaimed: “Large estates have ruined Italy, and are ruining
the provinces.”
But it never has been understood that the extension of
property was effected then, as it is to-day, under the aegis
of the law, and by virtue of the constitution. When the
Senate sold captured lands at auction, it was in the interest
of the treasury and of public welfare. When the patricians
bought up possessions and property, they realized the purpose
of the Senate's decrees; when they lent at high rates of in-
terest, they took advantage of a legal privilege. “Property,”
said the lender, “is the right to enjoy even to the extent of
abuse, jus utendi et abutendi; that is, the right to lend at
interest, — to lease, to acquire, and then to lease and lend
again.” But property is also the right to exchange, to trans-
fer, and to sell. If, then, the social condition is such that the
proprietor, ruined by usury, may be compelled to sell his pos-
session, the means of his subsistence, he will sell it; and,
thanks to the law, accumulated property—devouring and
anthropophagous property — will be established.”
* “Inquiries concerning Property among the Romans.”
* “Its acquisitive nature works rapidly in the sleep of the law. It is ready,
at the word, to absorb every thing. Witness the famous equivocation about
the ox-hide which, when cut up into thongs, was large enough to enclose the
site of Carthage. . . The legend has reappeared several times since Dido.
. . Such is the love of man for the land. Limited by tombs, measured by the
members of the human body, by the thumb, the foot, and the arm, it harmonizes,
as far as possible, with the very proportions of man. Nor is he satisfied yet : he
* =
- >
344 WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
The immediate and secondary cause of the decline of the
Romans was, then, the internaf dissensions between the two
orders of the republic, -- the patricians and the plebeians, –
dissensions which gave rise to civil wars, proscriptions, and
loss of liberty, and finally led to the empire; but the primary
and mediate cause of their decline was the establishment by
Numa of the institution of property.
I end with an extract from a work which I have quoted
several times already, and which has recently received a prize
from the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences: —
“The concentration of property,’” says M. Laboulaye, “while causing
extreme poverty, forced the emperors to feed and amuse the people, that
they might forget their misery. Panem et circenses: that was the Roman
law in regard to the poor; a dire and perhaps a necessary evil wherever
a landed aristocracy exists. e *
“To feed these hungry mouths, grain was brought from Africa and
the provinces, and distributed gratuitously among the needy. In the
time of Caesar, three hundred and twenty thousand people were thus fed.
Augustus saw that such a measure led directly to the destruction of hus-
bandry; but to abolish these distributions was to put a weapon within
the reach of the first aspirant for power. The emperor shrank at the
thought.
“While grain was gratuitous, agriculture was impossible. Tillage gave
way to pasturage, another cause of depopulation, even among slaves.
“Finally, luxury, carried further and further every day, covered the
soil of Italy with elegant villas, which occupied whole cantons. Gardens
and groves replaced the fields, and the free population fled to the towns.
Husbandry disappeared almost entirely, and with husbandry the husband-
man. Africa furnished the wheat, and Greece the wine. Tiberius com-
plained bitterly of this evil, which placed the lives of the Roman people
at the mercy of the winds and waves: that was his anxiety. One day
calls Heaven to witness that it is his ; he tries to orient his land, to give it the
form ºf heaven. . . . In his titanic intoxication, he describes property in the very
terms which he employs in describing the Almighty — fundus optimus maximus.
. . . He shall make it his couch, and they shall be separated no more, – Kat
eatyvvvro fixotmri.” — Michelet: Origin of French Zaw.
SECOND MEMOIR. 345
later, and three hundred thousand starving men walked the streets of
Rome : that was a revolution.
“This decline of Italy and the provinces did not stop After the
reign of Nero, depopulation commenced in towns as noted as Antium
and Tarentum. Under the reign of Perºnax, there was so much desert
land that the emperor abandoned it, even that which belonged to the
treasury, to whoever would cultivate it, besides exempting the farmers
from taxation for a period of ten years. Senators were compelled to
invest one-third of their fortunes in real estate in Italy; but this measure
served only to increase the evil which they wished to cure. To force the
rich to possess in Italy was to increase the large estates which had ruined
the country. And must I say, finally, that Aurelian wished to send the
-captives into the desert lands of Etruria, and that Valentinian was forced
to settle the Alamanni on the fertile banks of the Po P’’
If the reader, in running through this book, should com-
plain of meeting with nothing but quotations from other
works, extracts from journals and public lectures, comments
upon laws, and interpretations of them, I would remind him
that the very object of this memoir is to establish the con-
formity of my opinion concerning property with that univer-
sally held; that, far from aiming at a paradox, it has been my
main study to follow the advice of the world; and, finally,
that my sole pretension is to clearly formulate the general
belief. I cannot repeat it too often, – and I confess it with
pride, – I teach absolutely nothing that is new ; and I should
regard the doctrine which I advocate as radically erroneous,
if a single witness should testify against it.
Let us now trace the revolutions in property among the
Barbarians.
As long as the German tribes dwelt in their forests, it did
not occur to them to divide and appropriate the soil. The
land was held in common : each individual could plow, sow,
and reap. But, when the empire was once invaded, they be-
thought themselves of sharing the land, just as they shared
346 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
spoils after a victory. “Hence,” says M. Laboulaye, “the ex-
pressions sortes Burgundiorum Gothorum and k\mpot Ovavöt-
Xov ; hence the German words allod, allodium, and loos, lot.
which are used in all modern languages to designate the
gifts of chance.”
Allodial property, at least with the mass of coparceners,
was originally held, then, in equal shares; for all of the prizes
were equal, or, at least, equivalent. This property, like that
of the Romans, was wholly individual, independent, exclusive, .
transferable, and consequently susceptible of accumulation
and invasion. But, instead of its being, as was the case
among the Romans, the large estate which, through increase
and usury, subordinated and absorbed the small one, among
the Barbarians—fonder of war than of wealth, more eager to
dispose of persons than to appropriate things — it was the
warrior who, through superiority of arms, enslaved his adver-
sary. The Roman wanted matter ; the Barbarian wanted
man. Consequently, in the feudal ages, rents were almost
nothing, — simply a hare, a partridge, a pie, a few pints of
wine brought by a little girl, or a Maypole set up within the
suzerain's reach. In return, the vassal or incumbent had to
follow the seignior to battle (a thing which happened almost
every day), and equip and feed himself at his own expense.
“This spirit of the German tribes—this spirit of companion-
ship and association — governed the territory as it governed.
individuals. The lands, like the men, were secured to a chief
or seignior by a bond of mutual protection and fidelity. This
subjection was the labor of the German epoch which gave
birth to feudalism. By fair means or foul, every proprietor
who could not be a chief was forced to be a vassal.”. (Labou-
Jaye: History of Property.)
By fair means or foul, every mechanic who cannot be a
SECOND MEMOIR. 347
master has to be a journeyman; every proprietor who is not
an invader will be invaded ; every producer who cannot, by
the exploitation of other men, furnish products at less than
their proper value, will lose his labor. Corporations and
masterships, which are hated so bitterly, but which will re-
appear if we are not careful, are the necessary results of the
principle of competition which is inherent in property; their
organization was patterned formerly after that of the feudal
Hierarchy, which was the result of the subordination of men
and possessions.
The times which paved the way for the advent of feudal-
ism and the reappearance of large proprietors were times of
carnage and the most frightful anarchy. Never before had
murder and violence made such havoc with the human race.
The tenth century, among others, if my memory serves me
rightly, was called the century of iron. His property, his
life, and the honor of his wife and children always in danger,
the small proprietor made haste to do homage to his seignior,
and to bestow something on the church of his freehold, that
he might receive protection and security.
“Both facts and laws bear witness that from the sixth to the tenth
century the proprietors of small freeholds were gradually plundered, or
reduced by the encroachments of large proprietors and counts to the
condition of either vassals or tributaries. The Capitularies are full of
repressive provisions; but the incessant reiteration of these threats only
shows the perseverance of the evil and the impotency of the government.
Oppression, moreover, varies but little in its methods. The complaints
of the free proprietors, and the groans of the plebeians at the time of the
Gracchi, were one and the same. It is said that, whenever a poor man
refused to give his estate to the bishop, the curate, the count, the judge,
or the centurion, these immediately sought an opportunity to ruin him.
They made him serve in the army until, completely ruined, he was in-
duced, by fair means or foul, to give up his freehold.”— Laboulaye: His-
Atory of Property.
348 whAT IS PROPERTY
How many small proprietors and manufacturers have not
been ruined by large ones through chicanery, law-suits, and
competition ? Strategy, violence, and usury, — such are the
proprietor's methods of plundering the laborer.
Thus we see property, at all ages and in all its forms,
oscillating by virtue of its principle between two opposite
terms, – extreme division and extreme accumulation.
Property, at its first term, is almost null. Reduced to per-
sonal exploitation, it is property only potentially. At its
second term, it exists in its perfection; then it is truly
property.
When property is widely distributed, society thrives, pro-
gresses, grows, and rises quickly to the zenith of its power.
Thus, the Jews, after leaving Babylon with Esdras and Nehe-
miah, soon became richer and more powerful than they had
been under their kings. Sparta was in a strong and pros-
perous condition during the two or three centuries which
followed the death of Lycurgus. The best days of Athens
were those of the Persian war; Rome, whose inhabitants.
were divided from the beginning into two classes, –the ex-
ploiters and the exploited,—knew no such thing as peace.
When property is concentrated, society, abusing itself,
polluted, so to speak, grows corrupt, wears itself out—how
shall I express this horrible idea 2–plunges into long-con-
tinued and fatal luxury.
When feudalism was established, society had to die of the
same disease which killed it under the Caesars, – I mean
accumulated property. But humanity, created for an immor-
tal destiny, is deathless; the revolutions which disturb it are
purifying crises, invariably followed by more vigorous health.
In the fifth century, the invasion of the Barbarians partially
restored the world to a state of natural equality. In the
SECOND MEMOIR. 349
twelfth century, a new spirit pervading all society gave the
slave his rights, and through justice breathed new life into
the heart of nations. It has been said, and often repeated,
that Christianity regenerated the world. That is true; but
it seems to me that there is a mistake in the date. Chris-
tianity had no influence upon Roman society; when the
Barbarians came, that society had disappeared. For such is
God's curse upon property; every political organization based
upon the exploitation of man shall perish : slave-labor is
death to the race of tyrants. The patrician families became
extinct, as the feudal families did, and as all aristocracies
must.
It was in the middle ages, when a reactionary movement
was beginning to secretly undermine accumulated property,
that the influence of Christianity was first exercised to its
full extent. The destruction of feudalism, the conversion of
the serf into the commoner, the emancipation of the com-
munes, and the admission of the Third Estate to political
power, were deeds accomplished by Christianity exclusively.
I say Christianity, not ecclesiasticism ; for the priests and
bishops were themselves large proprietors, and as such often
persecuted the villeins. Without the Christianity of the
middle ages, the existence of modern society could not be
explained, and would not be possible. The truth of this
assertion is shown by the very facts which M. Laboulaye
quotes, although this author inclines to the opposite opinion.”
1 M. Guizot denies that Christianity alone is entitled to the glory of the
abolition of slavery. “To this end,” he says, “many causes were necessary, -
the evolution of other ideas and other principles of civilization.” So general
an assertion cannot be refuted. Some of these ideas and causes should have
been pointed out, that we might judge whether their source was not wholly
Christian, or whether at least the Christian spirit had not penetrated and thus
350 WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
1. Slavery among the Romans. – “The Roman slave was, in the eyes
of the law, only a thing, —no more than an ox or a horse. He had
meither property, family, nor personality; he was defenceless against his
master's cruelty, folly, or cupidity. ‘Sell your oxen that are past use,’
said Cato, ‘sell your calves, your lambs, your wool, your hides, your old
ploughs, your old iron, your old slave, and your sick slave, and all that is
of no use to you.’ When no market could be found for the slaves that
were worn out by sickness or old age, they were abandoned to starvation.
Claudius was the first defender of this shameful practice.”
“Discharge your old workman,” says the economist of the
proprietary school; “turn off that sick domestic, that tooth-
less and worn-out servant. Put away the unserviceable
beauty; to the hospital with the useless mouths' "
“The condition of these wretched beings improved but little under
the emperors; and the best that can be said of the goodness of Anto
ninus is that he prohibited intolerable cruelty, as an abuse of property.
Axpedit enim reißublicae me gui's re sua male utatur, says Gaius.
“As soon as the Church met in council, it launched an anathema
against the masters who had exercised over their slaves this terrible
right of life and death. Were not the slaves, thanks to the right of
sanctuary and to their poverty, the dearest protégés of religion ? Con-
stantine, who embodied in the laws the grand ideas of Christianity,
valued the life of a slave as highly as that of a freeman, and declared
the master, who had intentionally brought death upon his slave, guilty of
murder. Between this law and that of Antoninus there is a complete
revolution in moral ideas: the slave was a thing; religion has made him
a man.”
Note the last words: “Between the law of the Gospel and
that of Antoninus there is a complete revolution in moral
ideas: the slave was a thing; religion has made him a man.”
The moral revolution which transformed the slave into a
fructified them. Most of the emancipation charters begin with these words s
“For the love of God and the salvation of my soul.” Now, we did not com-
mence to love God and to think of our salvation until after the promulgation of
the Gospel.
SECOND MEMOIR. 35 ſ
citizen was effected, then, by Christianity before the Bar-
barians set foot upon the soil of the empire. We have only
to trace the progress of this moral revolution in the personnel
of society. “But,” M. Laboulaye rightly says, “it did not
change the condition of men in a moment, any more than
that of things; between slavery and liberty there was an
abyss which could not be filled in a day; the transitional
step was servitude.”
Now, what was servitude 2 In what did it differ from
Roman slavery, and whence came this difference 2 Let the
same author answer.
2. Of Servitude. —“I see, in the lord's manor, slaves charged with
domestic duties. Some are employed in the personal service of the
master; others are charged with household cares. The women spin the
wool; the men grind the grain, make the bread, or practise, in the inter-
est of the seignior, what little they know of the industrial arts. The
master punishes them when he chooses, kills them with impunity, and
sells them and theirs like so many cattle. The slave has no personality,
and consequently no wehrgeld” peculiar to himself: he is a thing. The
wehrgeld belongs to the master as a compensation for the loss of his
property. Whether the slave is killed or stolen, the indemnity does not
change, for the injury is the same ; but the indemnity increases or dimin-
ishes according to the value of the serf. In all these particulars Ger-
manic slavery and Roman servitude are alike.”
This similarity is worthy of notice. Slavery is always the
same, whether in a Roman villa or on a Barbarian farm. The
man, like the ox and the ass, is a part of the live-stock; a
price is set upon his head; he is a tool without a conscience,
a chattel without personality, an impeccable, irresponsible
being, who has neither rights nor duties.
1 Weregild, – the fine paid for the murder of a man. So much for a count,
so much for a baron, so much for a freeman, so much for a priest; for a slave,
nothing. His value was restored to the proprietor.
354 WHAT IS PROPERTYP
Way did his condition improve 2
“In good season . . .” [when PJ “the serf began to be regarded as a
man; and, as such, the law of the Visigoths, under the influence of
Christian ideas, punished with fine or banishment any one who maimed
or killed him.”
Always Christianity, always religion, though we should
like to speak of the laws only. Did the philanthropy of the
Visigoths make its first appearance before or after the preach-
ing of the Gospel This point must be cleared up.
“After the conquest, the serfs were scattered over the large estates of
the Barbarians, each having his house, his lot, and his peculium, in return
for which he paid rent and performed service. They were rarely sepa-
rated from their homes when their land was sold; they and all that they
had became the property of the purchaser. The law favored this reali-.
zation of the serf, in not allowing him to be sold out of the country.”
What inspired this law, destructive not only of slavery, but
of property itself? For, if the master cannot drive from his,
domain the slave whom he has once established there, it fol-
lows that the slave is proprietor, as well as the master.
“The Barbarians,” again says M. Laboulaye, “were the first to recog-
nize the slave's rights of family and property, —two rights which are:
incompatible with slavery.”
JBut was this recognition the necessary result of the mode-
of servitude in vogue among the Germanic nations previous
to their conversion to Christianity, or was it the immediate
effect of that spirit of justice infused with religion, by which
the seignior was forced to respect in the serf a soul equal to
his own, a brother in Jesus Christ, purified by the same bap-
tism, and redeemed by the same sacrifice of the Son of God
in the form of man 2 For we must not close our eyes to the
fact that, though the Barbarian morals and the ignorance
SECS)ND MEMOIR, 353.
and carelessness of the seigniors, who busied themselves
mainly with wars and battles, paying little or no attention to
agriculture, may have been great aids in the emancipation of
the serfs, still the vital principle of this emancipation was
essentially Christian. Suppose that the Barbarians had re-
inained Pagans in the midst of a Pagan world. As they did
not change the Gospel, so they would not have changed the
polytheistic customs; slavery would have remained what
it was ; they would have continued to kill the slaves who
were desirous of liberty, family, and property; whole nations
would have been reduced to the condition of Helots; nothing
would have changed upon the terrestrial stage, except the
actors. The Barbarians were less selfish, less imperious, less
dissolute, and less cruel than the Romans. Such was the
nature upon which, after the fall of the empire and the reno-
vation of society, Christianity was to act. But this nature,
grounded as in former times upon slavery and war, would, by
its own energy, have produced nothing but war and slavery.
“Gradually, the serfs obtained the privilege of being judged by the
same standard as their masters. . . .”
When, how, and by what title did they obtain this priv-
ilege 2 g”
“Gradually, their duties were regulated.”
Whence came the regulations 2 Who had the authority to
introduce them 2
“The master took a part of the labor of the serf, -three days, for
instance, — and left the rest to him. As for Sunday, that belonged to
God.”
And what established Sunday, if not religion ? Whence
I infer, that the same power which took it upon itself to sus-
pend hostilities and to lighten the duties of the serf was also
354 WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
that which regulated the judiciary and created a sort of law
for the slave.
But this law itself, on what did it bear 2—what was its prin-
ciple 2–what was the philosophy of the councils and popes
with reference to this matter? The reply to all these ques-
tions, coming from me alone, would be distrusted. The au
thority of M. Laboulaye shall give credence to my words
This holy philosophy, to which the slaves were indebted for
every thing, this invocation of the Gospel, was an anathema.
against property.
The proprietors of small freeholds, that is, the freemen of
the middle class, had fallen, in consequence of the tyranny
of the nobles, into a worse condition than that of the tenants
and serfs. “The expenses of war weighed less heavily upon
the serf than upon the freeman ; and, as for legal protection,
the seigniorial court, where the serf was judged by his peers,
was far preferable to the cantonal assembly. It was better to
have a noble for a seignior than for a judge.”
So it is better to-day to have a man of large capital for an
associate than for a rival. The honest tenant—the laborer
who earns weekly a moderate but constant salary—is more
to be envied than the independent but small farmer, or the
poor licensed mechanic.
At that time, all were either seigniors or serfs, oppressors
or oppressed. “Then, under the protection of convents, or
of the seigniorial turret, new societies were formed, which
silently spread over the soil made fertile by their hands, and
which derived their power from the annihilation of the free
classes whom they enlisted in their behalf. As tenants, these
men acquired, from generation to generation, sacred rights
over the soil which they cultivated in the interest of lazy and
pillaging masters. As fast as the social tempest abated, it
SECOND MEMOIR. 355
**
became necessary to respect the union and heritage of these
villeins, who by their labor had truly prescribed the soil for
their own profit.”
I ask how prescription could take effect where a contrary
title and possession already existed 2 M. Laboulaye is a law-
yer. Where, then, did he ever see the labor of the slave and
the cultivation by the tenant prescribe the soil for their own
profit, to the detriment of a recognized master daily acting as
a proprietor 2 Let us not disguise matters. As fast as the
tenants and the serfs grew rich, they wished to be indepen-
dent and free ; they commenced to associate, unfurl their
municipal banners, raise belfries, fortify their towns, and
refuse to pay their seigniorial dues. In doing these things
they were perfectly right; for, in fact, their condition was
intolerable. But in law — I mean in Roman and Napoleonic
law — their refusal to obey and pay tribute to their masters
was illegitimate. -
Now, this imperceptible usurpation of proper , by the com-
monalty was inspired by religion.
The seignior had attached the serf to the soil; religion
granted the serf rights over the soil. The seigntor imposed
duties upon the serf; religion fixed their limits. The seignior
could kill the serf with impunity, could deprive him of his
wife, violate his daughter, pillage his house, and rob him of
his savings ; religion checked his invasions: it excommuni-
cated the seignior. Religion was the real cause of the ruin
of feudal property. Why should it not be bold enough to-day
to resolutely condemn capitalistic property 2 Since the middle
ages, there has been no change in social economy except in its
forms; its relations remain unaltered.
The only result of the emancipation of the serfs was that
property changed hands; or, rather, that new proprietors were
356 WHAT IS PROPER:#y f
created. Sooner or later the extension of privilege, far front
curing the evil, was to operate to the disadvantage of the
plebeians. Nevertheless, the new social organization did not
meet with the same end in all places. In Lombardy, for
example, where the people rapidly growing rich through
commerce and industry soon conquered the authorities, even
to the exclusion of the nobles, – first, the nobility became poor
and degraded, and were forced, in order to live and maintain
their credit, to gain admission to the guilds; then, the ordi-
mary subalternization of property leading to inequality of for-
tunes, to wealth and poverty, to jealousies and hatreds, the
cities passed rapidly from the rankest democracy under the
yoke of a few ambitious leaders. Such was the fate of most
of the Lombardic cities, – Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Milan,
Pisa, &c., - which afterwards changed rulers frequently, but
which have never since risen in favor of liberty. The people
can easily escape from the tyranny of despots, but they do not
know how to throw off the effects of their own despotism;
just as we avoid the assassin's steel, while we succumb to a
constitutional malady. As soon as a nation becomes pro-
prietor, either it must perish, or a foreign invasion must force
it again to begin its evolutionary round."
*
1 The spirit of despotism and monopoly which animated the communes has
not escaped the attention of historians. “The formation of the commoners’
associations,” says Meyer, “did not spring from the true spirit of liberty, but
from the desire for exemption from the charges of the seigniors, from individual
interests, and jealousy of the welfare of others. . . . Each commune or cor-
poration opposed the creation of every other; and this spirit increased to such
an extent that the King of England, Henry V., having established a university
at Caen, in 1432, the city and university of Paris opposed the registration of
the edict.
“The communes once organized, the kings treated them as superior vassals.
TNow, just as the under vassal had no communication with the king except
SEcond MEMOIR. 357
In France, the Revolution was much more gradual. The
communes, in taking refuge under the protection of the kings,
had found them masters rather than protectors. Their liberty
had long since been lost, or, rather, their emancipation had
been suspended, when feudalism received its death-blow at
the hand of Richelieu. Then liberty halted; the prince of the
feudatories held sole and undivided sway. The nobles, the
clergy, the commoners, the parliaments, every thing in short
except a few seeming privileges, were controlled by the king;
who, like his early predecessors, consumed regularly, and
nearly always in advance, the revenues of his domain, – and
that domain was France. Finally, '89 arrived; liberty re-
sumed its march ; a century and a half had been required to
wear out the last form of feudal property, -monarchy.
The French Revolution may be defined as the substitution
of real right for personal right; that is to say, in the days of
feudalism, the value of property depended upon the standing
of the proprietor, while, after the Revolution, he regard for
the man was proportional to his property. Now, we have
seen from what has been said in the preceding pages, that
this recognition of the right of laborers had been the constant
aim of the serfs and communes, the secret motive of their
through the direct vassal, so also the commoners could enter no complaints
-except through the commune.
“Like causes produce like effects. Each commune became a small and
separate State, governed by a few citizens, who sought to extend their authority
over the others; who, in their turn, revenged themselves upon the unfortunate
inhabitants who had not the right of citizenship. Feudalism in unemancipated
countries, and oligarchy in the communes, made nearly the same ravages.
There were sub-associations, fraternities, tradesmen’s associations in the com-
munes, and colleges in the universities. The oppression was so great, that it
was no rare thing to see the inhabitants of a commune demanding its suppres-
ision. . . .”— Mayºr: Žudicial Institutions of Europe.
358 whAT IS PROPERTY P
efforts. The movement of '89 was only the last stage of that
long insurrection. But it seems to me that we have not paid
sufficient attention to the fact that the Revolution of 1789,
instigated by the same causes, animated by the same spirit,
triumphing by the same struggles, was consummated in Italy
four centuries ago. Italy was the first to sound the signal of
war against feudalism ; France has followed; Spain and Eng-
land are beginning to move; the rest still sleep. If a grand
example should be given to the world, the day of trial would
be much abridged.
Note the following summary of the revolutions of property,
from the days of the Roman Empire down to the present
time : —
1. Fifth Century. — Barbarian invasions; division of the lands
of the empire into independent portions or freeholds.
2. From the fifth to the eighth Century. — Gradual concentra-
tion of freeholds, or transformation of the small freeholds
into fiefs, feuds, tenures, &c. Large properties, small
possessions. Charlemagne (771–814) decrees that all
freeholds are dependent upon the king of France.
3. From the eighth to the tenth Century. — The relation
between the crown and the superior dependents is
broken ; the latter becoming freeholders, while the
smaller dependents cease to recognize the king, and
adhere to the nearest suzerain. Feudal system.
4. Twelfth Century. — Movement of the serfs towards liberty;
emancipation of the communes.
5. Thirteenth Century. — Abolition of personal right, and of
the feudal system in Italy. Italian Republics.
6. Seventeenth Century. — Abolition of feudalism in France
during Richelieu’s ministry. Despotism.
SECOND MEMOIR. 359
7. 1789. — Abolition of all privileges of birth, caste, prov-
inces, and corporations ; equality of persons and of rights.
French democracy.
8. 1830. — The principle of concentration inherent in indi-
vidual property is remarked. Development of the idea
of association. -
The more we reflect upon this series of transformations
and changes, the more clearly we see that they were neces-
sary in their principle, in their manifestations, and in their
result.
It was necessary that inexperienced conquerors, eager for
liberty, should divide the Roman Empire into a multitude of
estates, as free and independent as themselves.
It was necessary that these men, who liked war even better
than liberty, should submit to their leaders; and, as the free-
hold represented the man, that property should violate prop-
erty.
It was necessary that, under the rule of a nobility always
idle when not fighting, there should grow up a body of
laborers, who, by the power of production, and by the division
and circulation of wealth, would gradually gain control over
commerce, industry, and a portion of the land, and who,
having become rich, would aspire to power and authority
also.
It was necessary, finally, that liberty and equality of rights
having been achieved, and individual property still existing,
attended by robbery, poverty, social inequality, and oppres-
sion, there should be an inquiry into the cause of this evil,
and an idea of universal association formed, whereby, on con-
dition of labor, all interests should be protected and consoli-
dated.
26
36O WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
“Evil, when carried too far,” says a learned jurist, “cures itself; and
the political innovation which aims to increase the power of the State,
finally succumbs to the effects of its own work. The Germans, to secure
their independence, chose chi fs; and soon they were oppressed by their
kings and noblemen. The monarchs surrounded themselves with volun-
teers, in order to control the freemen; and they found themselves de-
pendent upon their proud vassais. The missi dominici were sent into
the provinces to maintain the power of the emperors, and to protect the
people from the oppressions of the noblemen; and not only did they
usurp the imperial power to a great extent, but they dealt more severely
with the inhabitants. The freemen became vassals, in order to get rid of
military service and court duty; and they were immediately involved in
all the personal quarrels of their seigniors, and compelled to do jury duty
in their courts. . . . The kings protected the cities and the communes,
in the hope of freeing them from the yoke of the grand vassals, and of
rendering their own power more absolute; and those same communes
have, in several European countries, procured the establishment of a
constitutional power, are "now holding royalty in check, and are giving
rise to a universal desire for political reform.”— Meyer: }udicial Insti
futions of Europe.
In recapitulation.
What was feudalism 2 A confederation of the grand seign
iors against the villeins, and against the king." What is
constitutional government P A confederation of the bour
geoisie against the laborers, and against the king.”
1 Feudalism was, in spirit and in its providential destiny, a long protest of
the human personality against the monkish communism with which Europe, in
the middle ages, was overrun. After the orgies of Pagan selfishness, society
—carried to the opposite extreme by the Christian religion—risked its life by
unlimited self-denial and absolute indifference to the pleasures of the world
Feudalism was the balance-weight which saved Europe from the combined
influence of the religious communities and the Manichean sects which had
sprung up since the fourth century under different names and in different
countries. Modern civilization is indebted to feudalism for the definitive
establishment of the person, of marriage, of the family, and of country. (See,
on this subject, Guizot, “History of Civilization in Europe.”)
2 This was made evident in July, 1830, and the years which followed it,
when the electoral bourgeoisie effected a revolution in order to get control over
SECOND MEMOIR. 36 I
How did feudalism end ? In the union of the communes
and the royal authority. How will the bourgeoise aristocracy
end ? In the union of the proletariat and the sovereign
power.
What was the immediate result of the struggle of the com-
munes and the king against the seigniors 2 The monarchical
unity of Louis XIV. What will be the result of the struggle
of the proletariat and the sovereign power combined against
the bourgeoisie 2 The absolute unity of the nation and the
government.
It remains to be seen whether the nation, one and supreme,
will be represented in its executive and central power by
ane, by five, by one hundred, or one thousand; that is, it re-
mains to be seen, whether the royalty of the barricades intends
to maintain itself by the people, or without the people, and
whether Louis Philippe wishes his reign to be the most
famous in all history.
T have made this statement as brief, but at the same time
—r-
the king, and suppressed the émeutes in order to restrain the people. The bour-
geoisie, through the jury, the magistracy, its position in the army, and its mu-
nicipal despotism, governs both royalty and the people. It is the bourgeoisie
which, more than any other class, is conservative and retrogressive. It is the
bourgeoisie which makes and unmakes ministries. It is the bourgeoisie which has
destroyed the influence of the Upper Chamber, and which will dethrone the
King whenever he shall become unsatisfactory to it. It is to please the bour-
geoisie that royalty makes itself unpopular. It is the bourgeoisie which is
troubled at the hopes of the people, and which hinders reform. The jour-
nals of the bourgeoisie are the ones which preach morality and religion to us,
while reserving scepticism and indifference for themselves; which attack per-
sonal government, and favor the denial of the electoral privilege to those who
have no property. The bourgeoisie will accept any thing rather than the eman-
cipation of the proletariat. As soon as it thinks its privileges threatened, it
will unite with royalty; and who does not know that at this very moment these
two antagonists have suspended their quarrels . . . It has been a question of
property.
362 WHAT IS PROPERTY P.
as accurate as I could, neglecting facts and details, that I"
might give the more attention to the economical relations of
society. For the study of history is like the study of the
human organism ; just as the latter has its system, its
organs, and its functions, which can be treated separately, so
the former has its ensemble, its instruments, and its causes.
Of course I do not pretend that the principle of property is a
complete résumé of all the social forces; but, as in that won-
derful machine which we call our body, the harmony of the
whole allows us to draw a general conclusion from the con-
sideration of a single function or organ, so, in discussing his-
torical causes, I have been able to reason with absolute
accuracy from a single order of facts, certain as I was of the
perfect correlation which exists between this special order
and universal history. As is the property of a nation, so is .
its family, its marriage, its religion, its civil and military
organization, and its legislative and judicial institutions.
JHistory, viewed from this standpoint, is a grand and sublime
psychological study.
Well, sir, in writing against property, have I done more
than quote the language of history I have said to modern
society, — the daughter and heiress of all preceding societies,—
Age quod agis: complete the task which for six thousand
years you have been executing under the inspiration and by
the command of God; hasten to finish your journey; turn
neither to the right nor the left, but follow the road which lies
before you. You seek reason, law, unity, and discipline ; but
hereafter you can find them only by stripping off the veils of
your infancy, and ceasing to follow instinct as a guide.
Awaken your sleeping conscience; open your eyes to the
pure light of reflection and science; behold the phantom
which troubled your dreams, and so long kept you in a state-
SECOND MEMOIR. 363
of unutterable anguish. Know thyself, O long-deluded so-
ciety! know thy enemy . . . And I have denounced prop-
erty.
We often hear the defenders of the right of domain quote
in defence of their views the testimony of nations and ages.
We can judge, from what has just been said, how far this his-
torical argument conforms to the real facts and the conclu-
sions of science. º
To complete this apology, I must examine the various
theories.
Neither politics, nor legislation, nor history, can be ex-
plained and understood, without a positive theory which
defines their elements, and discovers their laws; in short,
without a philosophy. Now, the two principal schools, which
to this day divide the attention of the world, do not satisfy
this condition.
The first, essentially practical in its character, confined to a
statement of facts, and buried in learning, cares very little by
what laws humanity develops itself. To it these laws are the
secret of the Almighty, which no one can fathom without a
commission from on high. In applying the facts of history
to government, this school does not reason ; it does not antic.
ipate; it makes no comparison of the past with the present,
in order to predict the future. In its opinion, the lessons of
experience teach us only to repeat old errors, and its whole
philosophy consists in perpetually retracing the tracks of
antiquity, instead of going straight ahead forever in the direc-
tion in which they point.
The second school may be called either fatalistic or pan-
theistic. To it the movements of empires and the revolutions
of humanity are the manifestations, the incarnations, of the
Almighty. The human race, identified with the divine
364 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
essence, wheels in a circle of appearances, informations, and
destructions, which necessarily excludes the idea of absolute
truth, and destroys providence and liberty.
Corresponding to these two schools of history, there are
two schools of jurisprudence, similarly opposed, and pos-
sessed of the same peculiarities.
1. The practical and conventional school, to which the law”
is always a creation of the legislator, an expression of his will.
a privilege which he condescends to grant, — in short, a gra-
tuitous affirmation to be regarded as judicious and legitimate,
no matter what it declares.
2. The fatalistic and pantheistic school, sometimes called
the historical school, which opposes the despotism of the first,
and maintains that law, like literature and religion, is always.
the expression of society, - its manifestation, its form, the
external realization of its mobile spirit and its ever-changing
inspirations.
Each of these schools, denying the absolute, rejects thereby
all positive and a priori philosophy.
Now, it is evident that the theories of these two schools,
whatever view we take of them, are utterly unsatisfactory:
for, opposed, they form no dilemma, – that is, if one is false,
it does not follow that the other is true; and, united, they do.
not constitute the truth, since they disregard the absolute,
without which there is no truth. They are respectively a
£hesis and an antithesis. There remains to be found, then,
a synthesis, which, predicating the absolute, justifies the will
of the legislator, explains the variations of the law, annihilates.
the theory of the circular movement of humanity, and demon-
strates its progress.
The legists, by the very nature of their studies and in spite
of their obstinate prejudices, have been led irresistibly to sus-
SE, COND MEMOIR. 365
pect that the absolute in the science of law is not as chimeri-
cal as is commonly supposed ; and this suspicion arose from
their comparison of the various relations which legislators
have been called upon to regulate.
M. Laboulaye, the laureate of the Institute, begins his
“History of Property” with these words: —
• “While the law of contract, which regulates only the mutual inter-
ests of men, has not varied for centuries (except in certain forms which
relate more to the proof than to the character of the obligation), the civil
law of property, which regulates the mutual relations of citizens, has
undergone several radical changes, and has kept pace in its variations
with all the vicissitudes of society. The law of contract, which holds
essentially to those principles of eternal justice which are engraven upon
the depths of the human heart, is the immutable element of jurispru-
dence, and, in a certain sense, its philosophy. Property, on the contrary,
is the variable element of jurisprudence, its history, its policy.”
Marvellous ! There is in law, and consequently in politics,
something variable and something invariable. The invariable
element is obligation, the bond of justice, duty; the varia-
ble element is property, - that is, the external form of law,
the subject-matter of the contract. Whence it follows that
the law can modify, change, reform, and judge property.
Reconcile that, if you can, with the idea of an eternal, ab-
solute, permanent, and indefectible right.
However, M. Laboulaye is in perfect accord with himself
when he adds, “Possession of the soil rests solely upon force
until society takes it in hand, and espouses the cause of the
possessor;”* and, a little farther, “The right of property is
1 The same opinion was recently expressed from the tribune by one of our
most honorable Deputies, M. Gauguier. “Nature,” said he, “has not en-
dowed man with landed property.” Changing the adjective landed, which
designates only a species, into capitalistic, which denotes the genus, - M.
Gauguier made an égaſſitaire profession of faith.
366 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
not natural, but social. The laws not only protect property:
they give it birth,” &c. Now, that which the law has made
the law can unmake; especially since, according to M. La-
boulaye, – an avowed partisan of the historical or pantheistic
school, - the law is not absolute, is not an idea, but a form.
But why is it that property is variable, and, unlike obliga-
tion, incapable of definition and settlement Before affirm-
ing, somewhat boldly without doubt, that in right there are
no absolute principles (the most dangerous, most immoral,
most tyrannical — in a word, most anti-social — assertion
imaginable), it was proper that the right of property should
be subjected to a thorough examination, in order to put in
evidence its variable, arbitrary, and contingent elements, and
those which are eternal, legitimate, and absolute ; then, this
operation performed, it became easy to account for the laws,
and to correct all the codes.
Now, this examination of property I claim to have made,
and in the fullest detail; but, either from the public's lack of
interest in an unrecommended and unattractive pamphlet, or
—which is more probable — from the weakness of exposition
and want of genius which characterize the work, the First
Memoir on Property passed unnoticed; scarcely would a few
communists, having turned its leaves, deign to brand it with
their disapprobation. You alone, sir, in spite of the disfavor
which I showed for your economical predecessors in too se-
vere a criticism of them,-you alone have judged me justly;
and although I cannot accept, at least literally, your first judg-
ment, yet it is to you alone that I appeal from a decision too
equivocal to be regarded as final.
It not being my intention to enter at present into a discus-
sion of principles, I shall content myself with estimating,
from the point of view of this simple and intelligible abso-
SECOND MEMOIR. 367
lute, the theories of property which our generation has pro-
duced.
The most exact idea of property is given us by the Roman
law, faithfully followed in this particular by the ancient le-
gists. It is the absolute, exclusive, autocratic domain of a
man over a thing, -a domain which begins by usucaption, is
maintained by possession, and finally, by the aid of prescrip-
tion, finds its sanction in the civil law; a domain which so
identifies the man with the thing, that the proprietor can say,
“He who uses my field, virtually compels me to labor for
him ; therefore he owes me compensation.”
I pass in silence the secondary modes by which property
can be acquired, – tradition, sale, exchange, inheritance, &c.,
— which have nothing in common with the origin of prop-
erty.
Accordingly, Pothier said the domain of property, and not
simply property. And the most learned writers on jurispru-
dence—in imitation of the Roman praetor who recognized a
right of property and a right of possession—have carefully
distinguished between the domain and the right of usufruct,
ause, and habitation, which, reduced to its natural limits, is the
very expression of justice; and which is, in my opinion, to
supplant domanial property, and finally form the basis of all
jurisprudence.
But, sir, admire the clumsiness of systems, or rather the
fatality of logic | While the Roman law and all the savants
inspired by it teach that property in its origin is the right
of first occupancy sanctioned by law, the modern legists, dis-
satisfied with this brutal definition, claim that property is
based upon labor. Immediately they infer that he who no
longer labors, but makes another labor in his stead, loses
his right to the earnings of the latter. It is by virtue of this
368 WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
principle that the serfs of the middle ages claimed a legal
right to property, and consequently to the enjoyment of polit-
ical rights; that the clergy were despoiled in '89 of their
immense estates, and were granted a pension in exchange;
that at the restoration the liberal deputies opposed the in-
demnity of one billion francs. “The nation,” said they, “has
acquired by twenty-five years of labor and possession the
property which the emigrants forfeited by abandonment and
long idleness: why should the nobles be treated with more
favor than the priests * * *
All usurpations, not born of war, have been caused and
supported by labor. All modern history proves this, from
the end of the Roman empire down to the present day. And
as if to give a sort of legal sanction to these usurpations,
the doctrine of labor, subversive of property, is professed
at great length in the Roman law under the name of pre-
scription.
The man who cultivates, it has been said, makes the land
his own ; consequently, no more property. This was clearly
seen by the old jurists, who have not failed to denounce this
novelty; while on the other hand the young school hoots at
the absurdity of the first-occupant theory. Others have pre-
1 A professor of comparative legislation, M. Lerminier, has gone still far-
ther. He has dared to say that the nation took from the clergy all their pos-
sessions, not because of idleness, but because of unworthiness. “You have
civilized the world,” cries this apostle of equality, speaking to the priests;
“and for that reason your possessions were given you. In your hands they
were at once an instrument and a reward. But you do not now deserve them,
for you long since ceased to civilize any thing whatever. . . .”
This position is quite in harmony with my principles, and I heartily applaud
the indignation of M. Lerminier; but I do not know that a proprietor was ever
deprived of his property because unworthy; and as reasonable, social, and
even useful as the thing may seem, it is quite contrary to the uses and customs.
of property.
SECOND MEMOIR. 369
sented themselves, pretending to reconcile the two opinions.
by uniting them. They have failed, like all the juste-milieur
of the world, and are laughed at for their eclecticism. At
present, the alarm is in the ‘camp of the old doctrine; from
all sides pour in defences of property, studies regarding prop-
erty, theories of property, each one of which, giving the lie
to the rest, inflicts a fresh wound upon property.
Consider, indeed, the inextricable embarrassments, the con-
tradictions, the absurdities, the incredible nonsense, in which
the bold defenders of property so lightly involve themselves.
I choose the eclectics, because, those killed, the others cannot
survive.
M. Troplong, jurist, passes for a philosopher in the eyes of
the editors of “Le Drøſt.” I tell the gentlemen of “Le
Droit” that, in the judgment of philosophers, M. Troplong
is only an advocate; and I prove my assertion.
M. Troplong is a defender of progress. “The words of
the code,” says he, “are fruitful sap with which the classic
works of the eighteenth century overflow: To wish to sup-
press them . . . is to violate the law of progress, and to
forget that a science which moves is a science which
grows.” "
Now, the only mutable and progressive portion of law, as
we have already seen, is that which concerns property. If,
then, you ask what reforms are to be introduced into the right
of property? M. Troplong makes no reply; what progress is
to be hoped for 2 no reply; what is to be the destiny of prop-
erty in case of universal association ? no reply; what is the
absolute and what the contingent, what the true and what
the false, in property no reply. M. Troplong favors quies-
! “Treatise on Prescription. '
37O whAT IS PROPERTY 2
cence and in statu quo in regard to property. What could be
more unphilosophical in a progressive philosopher ?
Nevertheless, M. Troplong has thought about these things.
“There are,” he says, “many weak points and antiquated
ideas in the doctrines of modern authors concerning prop-
erty: witness the works of MM. Toullier and Duranton.”
The doctrine of M. Troplong promises, then, strong points,
advanced and progressive ideas. Let us see ; let us ex-
amine : —
“Man, placed in the presence of matter, is conscious of a power over
it, which has been given, to him to satisfy the needs of his being. King
of inanimate or unintelligent nature, he feels that he has a right to modify
it, govern it, and fit it for his use. There it is, the subject of property,
which is legitimate only when exercised over things, never when over
persons.”
M. Troplong is so little of a philosopher, that he does not
even know the import of the philosophical terms which he
makes a show of using. He says of matter that it is the
subject of property; he should have said the object. M. Trop-
long uses the language of the anatomists, who apply the term
subject to the human matter used in their experiments.
This error of our author is repeated farther on : “Liberty,
which overcomes matter, the subject of property, &c.” The
subject of property is man; its object is matter. But even
this is but a slight mortification; directly we shall have some
crucifixions.
Thus, according to the passage just quoted, it is in the con-
science and personality of man that the principle of property
must be sought. Is there any thing new in this doctrine *
Apparently it never has occurred to those who, since the
days of Cicero and Aristotle, and earlier, have maintained
£hat things belong to the first occupant, that occupation may be
SECOND MEMOIR, 37 I
exercised by beings devoid of conscience and personality.
The human personality, though it may be the principle or the
subject of property, as matter is the object, is not the condi-
tion. Now, it is this condition which we most need to know.
So far, M. Troplong tells us no more than his masters, and
the figures with which he adorns his style add nothing to the
old idea.
Property, then, implies three terms: The subject, the object,
and the condition. There is no difficulty in regard to the
first two terms. As to the third, the condition of property
down to this day, for the Greek as for the Barbarian, has
been that of first occupancy. What now would you have it,
progressive doctor 2
“When man lays hands for the first time upon an object without a
master, he performs an act which, among individuals, is of the greatest
importance. The thing thus seized and occupied participates, so to
speak, in the personality of him who holds it. It becomes sacred, like
himself. It is impossible to take it without doing violence to his liberty,
or to remove it without rashly invading his person. Diogenes did but
express this truth of intuition, when he said: ‘Stand out of my light !’”
Very good but would the prince of cynics, the very per-
sonal and very haughty Diogenes, have had the right to
charge another cynic, as rent for this same place in the sun-
shine, a bone for twenty-four hours of possession ? It is that
which constitutes the proprietor; it is that which you fail to
justify. In reasoning from the human personality and indi-
viduality to the right of property, you unconsciously construct
a syllogism in which the conclusion includes more than the
premises, contrary to the rules laid down by Aristotle. The
individuality of the human person proves individual posses-
sion, originally called proprietas, in opposition to collective:
possession, communio. It gives birth to the distinction
372 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
between thine and mine, true signs of equality, not, by any
means, of subordination. “From equivocation to equivoca-
tion,” says M. Michelet,” “property would crawl to the end of
the world ; man could not limit it, were not he himself its
limit. Where they clash, there will be its frontier.” In
short, individuality of being destroys the hypothesis of com-
munism, but it does not for that reason give birth to domain,
— that domain by virtue of which the holder of a thing exerci-
ses over the person who takes his place a right of prestation
and suzerainty, that has always been identified with prop-
erty itself.
Further, that he whose legitimately acquired possession
injures nobody cannot be nonsuited without flagrant injus-
tice, is a truth, not of intuition, as M. Troplong says, but of
inward sensation,” which has nothing to do with property.
M. Troplong admits, then, occupancy as a condition of
property. In that, he is in accord with the Roman law, in
accord with MM. Toullier and Duranton; but in his opinion
this condition is not the only one, and it is in this particular
that his doctrine goes beyond theirs.
“But, however exclusive the right arising from sole occupancy, does
it not become still more so, when man has moulded matter by his labor;
when he has deposited in it a portion of himself, re-creating it by his
industry, and setting upon it the seal of his intelligence and activity?
Of all conquests, that is the most legitimate, for it is the price of labor.
1 “Origin of French Law.”
* To honor one's parents, to be grateful to one's benefactors, to neither kill
nor steal,-truths of inward sensation. To obey God rather than men, to
render to each that which is his ; the whole is greater than a part, a straight
line is the shortest road from one point to another, — truths of intuition. All
are a priori: but the first are felt by the conscience, and imply only a simple
act of the soul; the second are perceived by the reason, and imply comparison
and relation. In short, the former are sentiments, the latter are ideas.
SECOND MEMOIR. 373
º
He who should deprive a man of the thing thus remodelled, thus human-
ized, would invade the man himself, and would inflict the deepest wounds
upon his liberty.”
*:
I pass over the very beautiful explanations in which M.
. Troplong, discussing labor and industry, displays the whole
wealth of his eloquence. M. Troplong is not only a philoso-
pher, he is an orator, an artist. He abounds with appeals to
the conscience and the passions. I might make sad work of
his rhetoric, should I undertake to dissect it; but I confine
myself for the present to his philosophy.
If M. Troplong had only known how to think and reflect,
before abandoning the original fact of occupancy and plung-
ing into the theory of labor, he would have asked himself:
“What is it to occupy 2” And he would have discovered
that occupancy is only a generic term by which all modes of
possession are expressed, – seizure, station, immanence, habi-
tation, cultivation, use, consumption, &c.; that labor, conse-
quently, is but one of a thousand forms of occupancy. He
would have understood, finally, that the right of possession
which is born of labor is governed by the same general laws
as that which results from the simple seizure of things.
What kind of a legist is he who declaims when he ought to
reason, who continually mistakes his metaphors for legal
axioms, and who does not so much as know how to obtain a
universal by induction, and form a category 2
If labor is identical with occupancy, the only benefit which
it secures to the laborer is the right of individual possession
of the object of his labor; if it differs from occupancy, it gives
birth to a right equal only to itself, - that is, a right which
begins, continues, and ends, with the labor of the occupant.
It is for this reason, in the words of the law, that one cannot
acquire a just title to a thing by labor alone. He must also
374 whAT IS PROPERTY P
hold it for a year and a day, in order to be regarded as its
possessor; and possess it twenty or thirty years, in order to
become its proprietor. -
These preliminaries established, M. Troplong's whole struct-
ure falls of its own weight, and the inferences, which he at-
tempts to draw, vanish.
“Property once acquired by occupation and labor, it natu-
rally preserves itself, not only by the same means, but also by
the refusal of the holder to abdicate; for from the very fact
that it has risen to the height of a right, it is its nature to
perpetuate itself and to last for an indefinite period. . . .
Rights, considered from an ideal point of view, are imperish-
able and eternal; and time, which affects only the contin-
gent, can no more disturb them than it can injure God
himself.” It is astonishing that our author, in speaking of
the ideal, time, and etermity, did not work into his sentence-
the divine wings of Plato, - so fashionable to-day in philo-
sophical works.
With the exception of falsehood, I hate nonsense more
than any thing else in the world. Property once acquired /
Good, if it is acquired; but, as it is not acquired, it cannot
be preserved. Rights are eternal / Yes, in the sight of God,
like the archetypal ideas of the Platonists. But, on the earth,
rights exist only in the presence of a subject, an object, and
a condition. Take away one of these three things, and rights
no longer exist. Thus, individual possession ceases at the
death of the subject, upon the destruction of the object, or
in case of exchange or abandonment.
Let us admit, however, with M. Troplong, that property
is an absolute and eternal right, which cannot be destroyed
save by the deed and at the will of the proprietor. What
are the consequences which immediately follow from this.
position ?
SECOND MEMOIR. 375
To show the justice and utility of prescription, M. Trop-
long supposes the case of a bona fide possessor whom a pro-
prietor, long since forgotten or even unknown, is attempting
to eject from his possession. Jº At the start, the error of the
possessor was excusable but 'not irreparable. Pursuing its
course and growing old by degrees, it has so completely
clothed itself in the colors of truth, it has spoken so loudly
the language of right, it has involved so many confiding in-
terests, that it fairly may be asked whether it would not cause
greater confusion to go back to the reality than to sanction
the fictions which it (an error, without doubt) has sown on
its way? Well, yes; it must be confessed, without hesita-
tion, that the remedy would prove worse than the disease,
and that its application would lead to the most outrageous
injustice.”
How long since utility became a principle of law When
the Athenians, by the advice of Aristides, rejected a propo-
sition eminently advantageous to their republic, but also ut-
terly unjust, they showed finer moral perception and greater
clearness of intellect than M. Troplong. Property is an
eternal right, independent of time, indestructible except by
the act and at the will of the proprietor; and here this right
is taken from the proprietor, and on what ground 2 Good
God 1 on the ground of absence / Is it not true that legists
are governed by caprice in giving and taking away rights 2
When it pleases these gentlemen, idleness, unworthiness,
or absence can invalidate a right which, under quite similar
circumstances, labor, residence, and virtue are inadequate to
obtain. Do not be astonished that legists reject the ab-
solute. Their good pleasure is law, and their disordered
imaginations are the real cause of the evolutions in juris-
prudence.
27
376 WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
“If the nominal proprietor should plead ignorance, his claim would be
none the more valid. Indeed, his ignorance might arise from inexcus-
able carelessness, etc.”
What I in order to legitimate dispossession through pre-
scription, you suppose faults in the proprietor | You blame
his absence, — which may have been involuntary ; his neg-
lect, — not knowing what caused it; his carelessness, – a gra-
tuitous supposition of your own It is absurd. One very
simple observation suffices to annihilate this theory. Soci-
ety, which, they tell us, makes an exception in the interest of
order in favor of the possessor as against the old proprietor,
owes the latter an indemnity; since the privilege of prescrip-
tion is nothing but expropriation for the sake of public
utility.
But here is something stronger: —
“In society a place cannot remain vacant with impunity. A new man
arises in place of the old one who disappears or goes away; he brings
here his existence, becomes entirely absorbed, and devotes himself to
this post which he finds abandoned. Shall the deserter, then, dispute
the honor of the victory with the soldier who fights with the sweat stand-
ing on his brow, and bears the burden of the day, in behalf of a cause
which he deems just 2'
When the tongue of an advocate once gets in motion, who
can tell where it will stop 2 M. Troplong admits and justifies
usurpation in case of the absence of the proprietor, and on a
mere presumption of his carelessness. But when the neglect
is authenticated ; when the abandonment is solemnly and
voluntarily set forth in a contract in the presence of a magis-
trate; when the proprietor dares to say, “I cease to labor, but
I still claim a share of the product,” — then the absentee's
right of property is protected ; the usurpation of the possessor
would be criminal ; farm-rent is the reward of idleness.
SECOND MEMOIR. 377
"Where is, I do not say the consistency, but, the honesty of
this law
Prescription is a result of the civil law, a creation of the
legislator. Why has not the legislator fixed the conditions
differently — why, instead of twenty and thirty years, is not
a single year sufficient to prescribe 2–why are not voluntary
absence and confessed idleness as good grounds for dispos-
session as involuntary absence, ignorance, or apathy
But in vain should we ask M. Troplong, the philosopher, to
tell us the ground of prescription. Concerning the code, M.
Troplong does not reason. “The interpreter,” he says, “must
take things as they are, Society as it exists, laws as they are
made: that is the only sensible starting-point.” Well, then,
write no more books; cease to reproach your predecessors—
who, like you, have aimed only at interpretation of the law — ?
for having remained in the rear; talk no more of philosophy
and progress, for the lie sticks in your throat. -
M. Troplong denies the reality of the right of possession;
He denies that possession has ever existed as a principle of
society; and he quotes M. de Savigny, who holds precisely
the opposite position, and whom he is content to leave unan-
swered. At one time, M. Troplong asserts that possession
and property are contemporaneous, and that they exist at the
same time, which implies that the right of property is based
on the fact of possession, — a conclusion which is evidently
absurd ; at another, he denies that possession had any histori-
cal eristence prior to property, — an assertion which is contra-
dicted by the customs of many nations which cultivate the
land without appropriating it; by the Roman law, which dis-
tinguished so clearly between possession and property; and
by our code itself, which makes possession for twenty or
thirty years the condition of property. Finally, M. Troplong
378 WHA r is PROPERTYP
goes so far as to maintain that the Roman maxim, Nihil com--
mune habet proprietas cum possessione— which contains so
striking an allusion to the possession of the ager publicus,
and which, sooner or later, will be again accepted without
qualification — expresses in French law only a judicial axiom,
a simple rule forbidding the union of an action possessoire
with an action petitoire, — an opinion as retrogressive as it is
unphilosophical.
In treating of actions possessoires, M. Troplong is so unfor-
tunate or awkward that he mutilates economy through failure :
to grasp its meaning. “Just as property,” he writes, “gave
rise to the action for revendication, so possession — the fus'
possessionis — was the cause of possessory interdicts. . . . .
There were two kinds of interdicts, – the interdict recuper-
andae possessionis, and the interdict refinema'a possessionis, –
which correspond to our complainte en cas de saisine et nouvel-
leté. There is also a third, – adipiscendae possessionis, – of
which the Roman law-books speak in connection with the
two others. But, in reality, this interdict is not possessory:
for he who wishes to acquire possession by this means does
not possess, and has not possessed; and yet acquired posses-
sion is the condition of possessory interdicts.” Why is not
an action to acquire possession equally conceivable with an
action to be reinstated in possession ? When the Roman
plebeians demanded a division of the conquered territory;
when the proletaires of Lyons took for their motto, Vivre en-
travaillant, ou mourir en combattant (to live working, or die
fighting); when the most enlightened of the modern econo-
mists claim for every man the right to labor and to live, –
they only propose this interdict, adipiscenda possessionis, which
embarrasses M. Troplong so seriously. And what is my ob--
ject in pleading against property, if not to obtain possession ?
SECOND MEMOIR. 379
How is it that M. Troplong—the legist, the orator, the phi-
losopher — does not see that logically this interdict must be
admitted, since it is the necessary complement of the two
others, and the three united form an indivisible trinity, - to
recover, to maintain, to acquire 2 To break this series is to
create a blank, destroy the natural synthesis of things, and
follow the example of the geometrician who tried to conceive
of a solid with only two dimensions. But it is not astonishing
that M. Troplong rejects the third class of actions possessoires,
when we consider that he rejects possession itself. He is so
completely controlled by his prejudices in this respect, that he
is unconsciously led, not to unite (that would be horrible in
His eyes), but to identify the action possessoire with the action
petitoire. This could be easily proved, were it not too tedious
to plunge into these metaphysical obscurities.
As an interpreter of the law, M. Troplong is no more suc-
‘cessful than as a philosopher. One specimen of his skill in
this direction, and I am done with him : —
Code of Civil Procedure, Art. 23: “Actions possessoires are allowable
only when commenced within the year of trouble by those who have held
possession for at least a year by an irrevocable title.”
M. Troplong's comments:—
“Ought we to maintain—as Duparc, Poullain, and Lanjuínais would
have us — the rule spoliatus ante omnia restituendus, when an individual,
who is neither proprietor nor annual possessor, is expelled by a third
party, who has no right to the estate 2 I think not. Art. 23 of the Code
is general: it absolutely requires that the plaintiff in actions possessoires
shall have been in peaceable possession for a year at least. That is the
invariable principle: it can in no case be modified. And why should it
be set aside 2 The plaintiff had no seisin; he had no privileged posses-
sion; he had only a temporary occupancy, insufficient to warrant in his
favor the presumption of property, which renders the annual possession
so valuable. Well! this de facto occupancy he has lost; another is in-
38o whAT IS PROPERTY P
vested with it: possession is in the hands of this new-comer. Now, is
not this a case for the application of the principle, In pari causa posses-
sor potior habetur? Should not the actual possessor be preferred to the
evicted possessor P Can he not meet the complaint of his adversary by
saying to him : ‘Prove that you were an annual possessor before me, for
you are the plaintiff. As far as I am concerned, it is not for me to tell
you how I possess, nor how long I have possessed. Possideo quia £os-
sideo. I have no other reply, no other defence. When you have shown
that your action is admissible, then we will see whether you are entitled
to lift the veil which hides the origin of my possession.’”
And this is what is honored with the name of jurisprudence
and philosophy, - the restoration of force. What! when I
have “moulded matter by my labor” [I quote M. Troplong];
when I have “deposited in it a portion of myself” [M. Trop-
long] ; when I have “re-created it by my industry, and set
upon it the seal of my intelligence” [M. Troplong], - on the
ground that I have not possessed it for a year, a stranger may
dispossess me, and the law offers me no protection | And if
M. Troplong is my judge, M. Troplong will condemn me!
And if I resist my adversary, - if, for this bit of mud which
I may call my field, and of which they wish to rob me, a war
breaks out between the two competitors, – the legislator will
gravely wait until the stronger, having killed the other, has
had possession for a year! No, no, Monsieur Troplong you
do not understand the words of the law; for I prefer to call
in question your intelligence rather than the justice of the
legislator. You are mistaken in your application of the prin-
ciple, In pari causa possessor potior habetur: the actuality of
possession here refers to him who possessed at the time when
the difficulty arose, not to him who possesses at the time of
the complaint. And when the code prohibits the reception
of actions possessoires, in cases where the possession is not of
a year's duration, it simply means that if, before a year has
SECOND MEMOIR. 381
elapsed, the holder relinquishes possession, and ceases act-
ually to occupy in propria persona, he cannot avail himself of
an action possessoire against his successor. In a word, the
code treats possession of less than a year as it ought to treat
all possession, however long it has existed, - that is, the con-
dition of property ought to be, not merely seisin for a year,
but perpetual seisin.
I will not pursue this analysis farther. When an author
bases two volumes of quibbles on foundations so uncertain, it
may be boldly declared that his work, whatever the amount
of learning displayed in it, is a mess of nonsense unworthy a
critic's attention.
At this point, sir, I seem to hear you reproaching me for
this conceited dogmatism, this lawless arrogance, which re-
spects nothing, claims a monopoly of justice and good sense,
and assumes to put in the pillory any one who dares to main-
tain an opinion contrary to its own. This fault, they tell me,
more odious than any other in an author, was too prominent a
characteristic of my First Memoir, and I should do well to
correct it.
It is important to the success of my defence, that I should
vindicate myself from this reproach ; and since, while per-
seiving in myself other faults of a different character, I still
adhere in this particular to my disputatious style, it is right
:hat I should give my reasons for my conduct. I act, not
from inclination, but from necessity.
I say, then, that I treat my authors as I do for two reasons:
a reason of right, and a reason of intention ; both peremptory.
1. Reason of right. When I preach equality of fortunes, I
do not advance an opinion more or less probable, a utopia
more or less ingenious, an idea conceived within my brain by
means of imagination only. I lay down an absolute truth,
382 WHAT IS PROPERTY
concerning which hesitation is impossible, modesty super-
fluous, and doubt ridiculous.
But, do you ask, what assures me that that which I utter is
true 2 What assures me, sir? The logical and metaphysical
processes which I use, the correctness of which I have demon-
strated by & priori reasoning ; the fact that I possess an
infallible method of investigation and verification with which
my authors are unacquainted ; and finally, the fact that for
all matters relating to property and justice I have found a
formula which explains all legislative variations, and furnishes
a key for all problems. Now, is there so much as a shadow
of method in M. Toullier, M. Troplong, and this swarm of
insipid commentators, almost as devoid of reason and moral
sense as the code itself 2 Do you give the name of method
to an alphabetical, chronological, analogical, or merely nominal
classification of subjects Do you give the name of method
to these lists of paragraphs gathered under an arbitrary head,
these sophistical vagaries, this mass of contradictory quota-
tions and opinions, this nauseous style, this spasmodic rhetoric,
models of which are so common at the bar, though seldom
found elsewhere 2 Do you take for philosophy this twaddle,
this intolerable pettifoggery adorned with a few scholastic
trimmings 2 No, no a writer who respects himself, never will
consent to enter the balance with these manipulators of law,
misnamed jurists; and for my part I object to a comparison.
2. Reason of intention. As far as I am permitted to divulge
this secret, I am a conspirator in an immense revolution, ter.
rible to charlatans and despots, to all exploiters of the poor
and credulous, to all salaried idlers, dealers in political pana-
ceas and parables, tyrants in a word of thought and of opinion.
I labor to stir up the reason of individuals to insurrection
against the reason of authorities.
SECOND MEMOIR. 383
According to the laws of the society of which I am a mem-
ber, all the evils which afflict humanity arise from faith in
external teachings and submission to authority. And not to
go outside of our own century, is it not true, for instance,
that France is plundered, scoffed at, and tyrannized over,
because she speaks in masses, and not by heads 2 The
French people are penned up in three or four flocks, receiv-
ing their signal from a chief, responding to the voice of a
leader, and thinking just as he says. A certain journal, it is
said, has fifty thousand subscribers; assuming six readers to
every subscriber, we have three hundred thousand sheep
browsing and bleating at the same cratch. Apply this calcu-
lation to the whole periodical press, and you find that, in our
free and intelligent France, there are two millions of creatures
receiving every morning from the journals spiritual pasturage.
Two millions ! In other words, the entire nation allows a
score of little fellows to lead it by the nose.
By no means, sir, do I deny to journalists talent, science,
love of truth, patriotism, and what you please. They are very
worthy and intelligent people, whom I undoubtedly should
wish to resemble, had I the honor to know them. That of
which I complain, and that which has made me a conspirator,
is that, instead of enlightening us, these gentlemen command
us, impose upon us articles of faith, and that without demon-
stration or verification. When, for example, I ask why these
fortifications of Paris, which, in former times, under the influ-
ence of certain prejudices, and by means of a concurrence of
extraordinary circumstances supposed for the sake of the argu-
ment to have existed, may perhaps have served to protect us,
but which it is doubtful whether our descendants will ever
use,—when I ask, I say, on what grounds they assimilate the
future to a hypothetical past, they reply that M. Thiers, who
384 , whAT IS PROPERTY P
has a great mind, has written upon this subject a report of
admirable elegance and marvellous clearness. At this I be-
come angry, and reply that M. Thiers does not know what he
is talking about. Why, having wanted no detached forts
seven years ago, do we want them to-day ?
“Oh damn it,” they say, “the difference is great; the first
forts were too near to us; with these we cannot be bom-
barded.” You cannot be bombarded; but you can be block-
aded, and will be, if you stir. What! to obtain blockade forts
from the Parisians, it has sufficed to prejudice them against
bombardment forts | And they thought to outwit the govern-
ment Oh, the sovereignty of the people ! . . .
“Damn it ! M. Thiers, who is wiser than you, says that it:
would be absurd to suppose a government making war upon
citizens, and maintaining itself by force and in spite of the:
will of the people. That would be absurd ' " Perhaps so:
such a thing has happened more than once, and may happen
again. Besides, when despotism is strong, it appears almost
legitimate. However that may be, they lied in 1833, and;
they lie again in 1841, - those who threaten us with the
bomb-shell. And then, if M. Thiers is so well assured of
the intentions of the government, why does he not wish the
forts to be built before the circuit is extended ? Why this
air of suspicion of the government, unless an intrigue has,
been planned between the government and M. Thiers ?
“Damn it! we do not wish to be again invaded. If Paris.
had been fortified in 1815, Napoleon would not have been
conquered l’ But I tell you that Napoleon was not con-
quered, but sold; and that if, in 1815, Paris had had fortifi-
cations, it would have been with them as with the thirty
thcusand men of Grouchy, who were misled during the battle.
It is still easier to surrender forts than to lead soldiers.
SECOND MEMOIR. 385
Would the selfish and the cowardly ever lack reasons for
yielding to the enemy?
“But do you not see that the absolutist courts are provoked
at our fortifications?—a proof that they do not think as you
do.” You believe that; and, for my part, I believe that in
reality they are quite at ease about the matter; and, if they
appear to tease our ministers, they do so only to give the
latter an opportunity to decline. The absolutist courts are
always on better terms with our constitutional monarchy,
than our monarchy with us. Does not M. Guizot say that
France needs to be defended within as well as without *
Within against whom Against France. O Parisians l it
is but six months since you demanded war, and now you
want only barricades. Why should the allies fear your doc-
trines, when you cannot even control yourselves 2 . . . How
could you sustain a siege, when you weep over the absence of
an actress 2
“But, finally, do you not understand that, by the rules of
modern warfare, the capital of a country is always the objec-
tive point of its assailants Suppose our army defeated on
the Rhine, France invaded, and defenceless Paris falling into.
the hands of the enemy. It would be the death of the ad-
ministrative power; without a head it could not live. The
capital taken, the nation must submit. What do you say
to that * *
The reply is very simple. Why is society constituted in.
such a way that the destiny of the country depends upon the
safety of the capital * Why, in case our territory be invaded
and Paris besieged, cannot the legislative, executive, and mili-
tary powers act outside of Paris Why this localization of
all the vital forces of France 2 . . . Do not cry out upon de-
centralization. This hackneyed reproach would discredit only
386 WHAT IS PROPERTY P
your own intelligence and sincerity. It is not a question of
decentralization ; it is your political fetichism which I attack.
Why should the national unity be attached to a certain place,
to certain functionaries, to certain bayonets 2 Why should
the Place Maubert and the Palace of the Tuileries be the pal-
ladium of France 2
Now let me make an hypothesis.
Suppose it were written in the charter, “In case the coun-
try be again invaded, and Paris forced to surrender, the
government being annihilated and the national assembly dis-
solved, the electoral colleges shall reassemble spontaneously
and without other official notice, for the purpose of appoint-
ing new deputies, who shall organize a provisional govern-
ment at Orleans. If Orleans succumbs, the government
shall reconstruct itself in the same way at Lyons ; then at
Bordeaux, then at Bayonne, until all France be captured or
the enemy driven from the land. For the government may
perish, but the nation never dies. The king, the peers, and
the deputies massacred, Vive la France /’’
Do you not think that such an addition to the charter
would be a better safeguard for the liberty and integrity of
the country than walls and bastions around Paris 2 Well,
then I do henceforth for administration, industry, science, lit-
erature, and art that which the charter ought to prescribe for
the central government and common defence. Instead of
endeavoring to render Paris impregnable, try rather to render
the loss of Paris an insignificant matter. Instead of accu-
mulating about one point academies, faculties, schools, and
political, administrative, and judicial centres; instead of ar-
resting intellectual development and weakening public spirit
in the provinces by this fatal agglomeration, — can you not,
without destroying unity, distribute social functions among
SECOND MEMOIR. 387:
places as well as among persons Such a system—in allow-
ing each province to participate in political power and action,
and in balancing industry, intelligence, and strength in all
parts of the country— would equally secure, against enemies
at home and enemies abroad, the liberty of the people and
the stability of the government. -
Discriminate, then, between the centralization of functions
and the concentration of organs; between political unity and
its material symbol.
“Oh that is plausible; but it is impossible !” — which
means that the city of Paris does not intend to surrender its.
privileges, and that there it is still a question of property.
Idle talk | The country, in a state of panic which has been
cleverly worked upon, has asked for fortifications. I dare to
affirm that it has abdicated its sovereignty. All parties are
to blame for this suicide, – the conservatives, by their acqui-
escence in the plans of the government; the friends of the
dynasty, because they wish no opposition to that which
pleases them, and because a popular revolution would anni-
hilate them; the democrats, because they hope to rule in their
turn.” That which all rejoice at having obtained is a means
* Armand Carrel would have favored the fortification of the capital, “Le
National” has said, again and again, placing the name of its old editor by the
side of the names of Napoleon and Vauban. What signifies this exhumation
of an anti-popular politician P. It signifies that Armand Carrel wished to make
government an individual and irremovable, but elective, property, and that he
wished this property to be elected, not by the people, but by the army. The
political system of Carrel was simply a reorganization of the praetorian guards.
Carrel also hated the péquins. That which he deplored in the revolution of
July was not, they say, the insurrection of the people, but the victory of the
people over the soldiers. That is the reason why Carrel, after 1830, would
never support the patriots. “Do you answer me with a few regiments?” he
asked. Armand Carrel regarded the army—the military power—as the basis
of law and government. This man undoubtedly had a moral sense within him,
388 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
of future repression. As for the defence of the country, they
are not troubled about that. The idea of tyranny dwells in
the minds of all, and brings together into one conspiracy all
forms of selfishness. We wish the regeneration of society,
but we subordinate this desire to our ideas and convenience.
That our approaching marriage may take place, that our busi-
ness may succeed, that our opinions may triumph, we post-
pone reform. Intolerance and selfishness lead us to put
fetters upon liberty; and, because we cannot wish all that
God wishes, we would, if it rested with us, stay the course of
destiny rather than sacrifice our own interests and self-love.
Is not this an instance where the words of Solomon apply, -
“L’iniquité a menti d elle-même”f
For this reason, sir, I have enlisted in a desperate war
against every form of authority over the multitude. Advance
sentinel of the proletariat, I cross bayonets with the celebri-
ties of the day, as well as with spies and charlatans. Well,
when I am fighting with an illustrious adversary, must I stop
at the end of every phrase, like an orator in the tribune, to
say “the learned author,” “the eloquent writer,” “the pro-
found publicist,” and a hundred other platitudes with which
it is fashionable to mock people 2 These civilities seem to
me no less insulting to the man attacked than dishonorable
but he surely had no sense of justice. Were he still in this world, I declare it
boldly, liberty would have no greater enemy than Carrel.
It is said that on this question of the fortification of Paris the staff of “Le
National" are not agreed. This would prove, if proof were needed, that a
journal may blunder and falsify, without entitling any one to accuse its editors.
A journal is a metaphysical being, for which no one is really responsible, and
which owes its existence solely to mutual concessions. This idea ought to
frighten those worthy citizens who, because they borrow their opinions from a
journal, imagine that they belong to a political party, and who have not the
faintest suspicion that they are really without a head.
SECOND MEMOIR. 389
to the aggressor. But when, rebuking an author, I say to
him, “Citizen, your doctrine is absurd, and, if to prove my
assertion is an offence against you, I am guilty of it,” imme-
-diately the listener opens his ears; he is all attention; and, if
I do not succeed in convincing him, at least I give his thought
an impulse, and set him the wholesome example of doubt and
'free examination.
Then do not think, sir, that, in tripping up the philosophy
of your very learned and very estimable confrère, M. Trop-
dong, I fail to appreciate his talent as a writer (in my opinion,
he has too much for a jurist); nor his knowledge, though it is
too closely confined to the letter of the law, and the reading
•of old books. In these particulars, M. Troplong offends on
the side of excess rather than deficiency. Further, do not
‘believe that I am actuated by any personal animosity towards
him, or that I have the slightest desire to wound his self-love.
I know M. Troplong only by his “Treatise on Prescription,”
which I wish he had not written; and as for my critics, nei-
ther M. Troplong, nor any of those whose opinion I value,
will ever read me. Once more, my only object is to prove, as
far as I am able, to this unhappy French nation, that those
: who make the laws, as well as those who interpret them, are
not infallible organs of general, impersonal, and absolute
I CalSOIl.
I had resolved to submit to a systematic criticism the semi-
official defence of the right of property recently put forth by
M. Wolowski, your colleague at the Conservatory. With this
view, I had commenced to collect the documents necessary
for each of his lectures; but, soon perceiving that the ideas
of the professor were incoherent, that his arguments contra-
dicted each other, that one affirmation was sure to be over-
thrown by another, and that in M. Wolowski's lucubrations
390 WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
the good was always mingled with the bad, and being by:
nature a little suspicious, it suddenly occurred to me that
M. Wolowski was an advocate of equality in disguise, thrown
in spite of himself into the position in which the patriarch
Jacob pictures one of his sons, – inter duas clitellas, between
two stools, as the proverb says. In more parliamentary lan-
guage, I saw clearly that M. Wolowski was placed between
his profound convictions on the one hand and his official
duties on the other, and that, in order to maintain his posi-
tion, he had to assume a certain slant. Then I experienced.
great pain at seeing the reserve, the circumlocution, the fig-
ures, and the irony to which a professor of legislation, whose
duty it is to teach dogmas with clearness and precision, was
forced to resort; and I fell to cursing the society in which an
honest man is not allowed to say frankly what he thinks.
Never, sir, have you conceived of such torture: I seemed to
be witnessing the martyrdom of a mind. I am going to give
you an idea of these astonishing meetings, or rather of these:
scenes of sorrow.
Monday, Nov. 20, 1840. — The professor declares, in brief,
— I. That the right of property is not founded upon occupa-
tion, but upon the impress of man; 2. That every man has a
natural and inalienable right to the use of matter.
Now, if matter can be appropriated, and if, notwithstanding,
all men retain an inalienable right to the use of this matter,
what is property – and if matter can be appropriated only
by labor, how long is this appropriation to continue – ques
tions that will confuse and confound all jurists whatsoever.
Then M. Wolowski cites his authorities. Great God what.
witnesses he brings forward | First, M. Troplong, the great
metaphysician, whom we have discussed ; then, M. Louis,
Blanc, editor of the “Revue du Progrès,” who came near
SECOND MEMOIR. 39 I
being tried by jury for publishing his “Organization of
Labor,” and who escaped from the clutches of the public
prosecutor only by a juggler's trick; 1 Corinne,— I mean
Madame de Stael,-who, in an ode, making a poetical com-
parison of the land with the waves, of the furrow of a
plough with the wake of a vessel, says “that property exists
only where man has left his trace,” which makes property
dependent upon the solidity of the elements; Rousseau, the
apostle of liberty and equality, but who, according to M.
Wolowski, attacked property only as a joke, and in order to
point a paradox; Robespierre, who prohibited a division of
the land, because he regarded such a measure as a rejuvenes-
cence of property, and who, while awaiting the definitive or-
ganization of the republic, placed all property in the c ire of
the people, – that is, transferred the right of eminent domain
from the individual to society; Babeuf, who wanted prop-
erty for the nation, and communism for the citizens; M. Con-
sidérant, who favors a division of landed property into shares,
—that is, who wishes to render property nominal and ficti-
tious: the whole being intermingled with jokes and witticisms
(intended undoubtedly to lead people away from the hornets'
nests) at the expense of the adversaries of the right of prop-
erty
Mozemāer 26. — M. Wolowski supposes this objection:
Land, like water, air, and light, is necessary to life, there-
fore it cannot be appropriated; and he replies: The impor-
1 In a very short article, which was read by M. Wolowski, M. Louis Blanc
declares, in substance, that he is not a communist (which I easily believe); that
one must be a fool to attack property (but he does not say why); and that it is
very necessary to guard against confounding property with its abuses. When
Voltaire overthrew Christianity, he repeatedly avowed that he had no spite
against religion, but only against its abuses.
28
392 whAT IS PROPERTY F
tance of landed property diminishes as the power of industry
increases.
Good! this importance diminishes, but it does not disappear;
and this, of itself, shows landed property to be illegitimate.
Here M. Wolowski pretends to think that the opponents
of property refer only to property in land, while they merely
take it as a term of comparison; and, in showing with won-
derful clearness the absurdity of the position in which he
places them, he finds a way of drawing the attention of his
hearers to another subject without being false to the truth
which it is his office to contradict.
“Property,” says M. Wolowski, “is that which distin-
guishes man from the animals.” That may be ; but are we
to regard this as a compliment or a satire 2
“Mahomet,” says M. Wolowski, “decreed property.” And
so did Genghis Khan, and Tamerlane, and all the ravagers of
nations. What sort of legislators were they
“Property has been in existence ever since the origin of the
human race.” Yes, and so has slavery, and despotism also ;
and likewise polygamy and idolatry. But what does this
antiquity show
The members of the Council of the State — M. Portalis at
their head—did not raise, in their discussion of the Code, the
, question of the legitimacy of property. “Their silence,” says
M. Wolowski, “is a precedent in favor of this right.” I may
regard this reply as personally addressed to me, since the
observation belongs to me. I reply, “As long as an opinion
is universally admitted, the universality of belief serves of
itself as argument and proof. When this same opinion is
attacked, the former faith proves nothing; we must resort to
reason. Ignorance, however old and pardonable it may be,
never outweighs reason.”
SECOND MEMOIR. 393
Property has its abuses, M. Wolowski confesses. “But,”
The says, “these abuses gradually disappear. To-day their
cause is known. They all arise from a false theory of prop-
erty. In principle, property is inviolable, but it can and must
be checked and disciplined.” Such are the conclusions of
the professor. -
When one thus remains in the clouds, he need not fear to
equivocate. Nevertheless, I would like him to define these
abuses of property, to show their cause, to explain this true
theory from which no abuse is to spring; in short, to tell me
how, without destroying property, it can be governed for the
greatest good of all. “Our civil code,” says M. Wolowski, in
speaking of this subject, “leaves much to be desired.” I
think it leaves every thing undone.
Finally, M. Wolowski opposes, on the one hand, the con-
centration of capital, and the absorption which results there-
from ; and, on the other, he objects to the extreme division
of the land. Now I think that I have demonstrated in my
First Memoir, that large accumulation and minute division are
the first two terms of an economical trinity, -a thesis and an
antithesis. But, while M. Wolowski says nothing of the third
term, the synthesis, and thus leaves the inference in sus-
pense, I have shown that this third term is Association,
which is the annihilation of property.
Movember 30. — LITERARY PROPERTY. M. Wolowski grants
that it is just to recognize the rights of talent (which is not
in the least hostile to equality); but he seriously objects to
perpetual and absolute property in the works of genius, to the
profit of the authors' heirs. His main argument is, that
society has a right of collective production over every crea-
tion of the mind. Now, it is precisely this principle of col-
lective power that I developed in my “Inquiries into Property
394 whAT IS PROPERTY P
and Government,” and on which I have established the com—
plete edifice of a new social organization. M. Wolowski is,
as far as I know, the first jurist who has made a legislative
application of this economical law. Only, while I have ex-
tended the principle of collective power to every sort of
product, M. Wolowski, more prudent than it is my nature to
be, confines it to neutral ground. So, that that which I am
bold enough to say of the whole, he is contented to affirm of
a part, leaving the intelligent hearer to fill up the void for
himself. However, his arguments are keen and close. One
feels that the professor, finding himself more at ease with
one aspect of property, has given the rein to his intellect, and,
is rushing on towards liberty.
1. Absolute literary property would hinder the activity of
other men, and obstruct the development of humanity. It.
would be the death of progress; it would be suicide. What.
would have happened if the first inventions, – the plough,.
the level, the saw, &c., - had been appropriated 2
Such is the first proposition of M. Wolówski.
I reply: Absolute property in land and tools hinders human
activity, and obstructs progress and the free development of
man. What happened in Rome, and in all the ancient na-.
tions 2 What occurred in the middle ages 2 What do we
see to-day in England, in consequence of absolute property in
the sources of production ? The suicide of humanity.
2. Real and personal property is in harmony with the social.
interest. In consequence of literary property, social and indi--
vidual interests are perpetually in conflict.
The statement of this proposition contains a rhetorical.
figure, common with those who do not enjoy full and com-
plete liberty of speech. This figure is the anti-phrasis or
contre-verité. It consists, according to Dumarsais and the:
SECOND MEMOIR. 395
'best humanists, in saying one thing while meaning another.
M. Wolowski's proposition, naturally expressed, would read as
follows: “Just as real and personal property is essentially
hostile to society, so, in consequence of literary property,
social and individual interests are perpetually in conflict.”
3. M. de Montalembert, in the Chamber of Peers, vehe-
mently protested against the assimilation of authors to inven-
tors of machinery; an assimilation which he claimed to be
injurious to the former. M. Wolowski replies, that the rights
of authors, without machinery, would be nil; that, without
paper-mills, type foundries, and printing-offices, there could
be no sale of verse and prose; that many a mechanical
invention, — the compass, for instance, the telescope, or the
steam-engine, – is quite as valuable as a book.
Prior to M. Montalembert, M. Charles Comte had laughed
at the inference in favor of mechanical inventions, which
logical minds never fail to draw from the privileges granted
to authors. “He,” says M. Comte, “who first conceived and
executed the idea of transforming a piece of wood into a pair
of sabots, or an animal's hide into a pair of sandals, would
thereby have acquired an exclusive right to make shoes for
the human race l’” Undoubtedly, under the system of prop-
erty. For, in fact, this pair of sabots, over which you make
so merry, is the creation of the shoemaker, the work of his
genius, the expression of his thought; to him it is his poem,
quite as much as “Le Roi s'amuse,” is M. Victor Hugo's
drama. Justice for all alike. If you refuse a patent to a per-
fecter of boots, refuse also a privilege to a maker of rhymes.
4. That which gives importance to a book is a fact ex-
ternal to the author and his work. Without the intelligence
of society, without its development, and a certain community
of ideas, passions, and interests between it and the authors,
396 whAT IS PROPERTY
the works of the latter would be worth nothing. The ex-
changeable value of a book is due even more to the social"
condition than to the talent displayed in it. *
Indeed, it seems as if I were copying my own words. This
proposition of M. Wolowski contains a special expression of a
general and absolute idea, one of the strongest and most con-
clusive against the right of property. Why do artists, like
mechanics, find the means to live 2 Because society has
made the fine arts, like the rudest industries, objects of con-
sumption and exchange, governed consequently by all the
laws of commerce and political economy. Now, the first of
these laws is the equipoise of functions; that is, the equality
of associates.
5. M. Wolowski indulges in sarcasm against the petitioners.
for literary property. “There are authors,” he says, “who crave
the privileges of authors, and who for that purpose point out
the power of the melodrama. They speak of the niece of
Corneille, begging at the door of a theatre which the works.
of her uncle had enriched. . . . To satisfy the avarice of
literary people, it would be necessary to create literary majo-
rats, and make a whole code of exceptions.”
I like this virtuous irony. But M. Wolowski has by no.
means exhausted the difficulties which the question involves.
And first, is it just that MM. Cousin, Guizot, Villemain,
Damiron, and company, paid by the State for delivering lect-
ures, should be paid a second time through the booksellers ?—
that I, who have the right to report their lectures, should not
have the right to print them 2 Is it just that MM. Noel
and Chapsal, overseers of the University, should use their
influence in selling their selections from literature to the
youth whose studies they are instructed to superintend in
consideration of a salary 2 And, if that is not just, is it not
SECOND MEMOIR. 397
proper to refuse literary property to every author holding
public offices, and receiving pensions or sinecures 2
Again, shall the privilege of the author extend to irreligious
and immoral works, calculated only to corrupt the heart, and
obscure the understanding 2 To grant this privilege is to
sanction immorality by law; to refuse it is to censure the
author. And since it is impossible, in the present imperfect
state of society, to prevent all violations of the moral law, it
will be necessary to open a license-office for books as well as
morals. But, then, three-fourths of our literary people will be
obliged to register; and, recognized thenceforth on their own
declaration as prostitutes, they will necessarily belong to the
public. We pay toll to the prostitute ; we do not endow her.
Finally, shall plagiarism be classed with forgery If you
reply “Yes,” you appropriate in advance all the subjects of
which books treat; if you say “No,” you leave the whole
matter to the decision of the judge. Except in the case of a
clandestine reprint, how will he distinguish forgery from
quotation, imitation, plagiarism, or even coincidence 2 A
savant spends two years in calculating a table of logarithms
to nine or ten decimals. He prints it. A fortnight after his
book is selling at half-price; it is impossible to tell whether
this result is due to forgery or competition. What shall the
court do In case of doubt, shall it award the property to
the first occupant As well decide the question by lot.
These, however, are trifling considerations; but do we see
that, in granting a perpetual privilege to authors and their
heirs, we really strike a fatal blow at their interests We
think to make booksellers dependent upon authors, – a delu-
sion. The booksellers will unite against works, and their
proprietors. Against works, by refusing to push their sale,
by replacing them with poor imitations, by reproducing them
398 whAT IS PROPERTY 3
in a hundred indirect ways; and no one knows how far the
science of plagiarism, and skilful imitation may be carried.
Against proprietors. Are we ignorant of the fact, that a
demand for a dozen copies enables a bookseller to sell a thou-
sand; that with an edition of five hundred he can supply a
kingdom for thirty years 2 What will the poor authors do in
the presence of this omnipotent union of booksellers ? I will
tell them what they will do. They will enter the employ of
those whom they now treat as pirates ; and, to secure an
advantage, they will become wage laborers. A fit reward for
ignoble avarice, and insatiable pride."
1 The property fever is at its height among writers and artists, and it is
curious to see the complacency with which our legislators and men of letters
cherish this devouring passion. An artist sells a picture, and then, the mer-
chandise delivered, assumes to prevent the purchaser from selling engravings,
under the pretext that he, the painter, in selling the original, has not sold his
design. A dispute arises between the amateur and the artist in regard to both
the fact and the law. M. Villemain, the Minister of Public Instruction, being
consulted as to this particular case, finds that the painter is right; only the
property in the design should have been specially reserved in the contract: sc
that, in reality, M. Villemain recognizes in the artist a power to surrender his
work and prevent its communication; thus contradicting the legal axiom, One
cannot give and keep at the same time. A strange reasoner is M. Villemain An
ambiguous principle leads to a false conclusion. Instead of rejecting the prin-
ciple, M. Villemain hastens to admit the conclusion. With him the reductio aa
absurdum is a convincing argument. Thus he is made official defender of liter-
ary property, sure of being understood and sustained by a set of loafers, the
disgrace of literature and the plague of public morals. Why, then, does M.
Villemain feel so strong an interest in setting himself up as the chief of the
literary classes, in playing for their benefit the rôle of Zrissotin in the councils
of the State, and in becoming the accomplice and associate of a band of profli-
gates, – soi-disant men of letters, – who for more than ten years have labored
with such deplorable success to ruin public spirit, and corrupt the heart by
warping the mind?
Contradictions of contradictions ! “Genius is the great leveller of the
world,” cries M. de Lamartine; “then genius should be a proprietor. Liter-
ary property is the fortune of democracy.” This unfortunate poet thinks him-
self profound when he is only puffed up. His eloquence consists solely in
SECOND MEMOIR. 399
6. Objection.— Property in occupied land passes to the
heirs of the occupant. “Why,” say the authors, “should not
the work of genius pass in like manner to the heirs of the
man of genius 2" M. Wolowski's reply: “Because the labor
of the first occupant is continued by his heirs, while the heirs
of an author neither change nor add to his works. In landed
property, the continuance of labor explains the continuatice
of the right.” -
Yes, when the labor is continued ; but if the labor is not
continued, the right ceases. Thus is the right of possession,
founded on personal labor, recognized by M. Wolowski.
M. Wolowski decides in favor of granting to authors prop-
erty in their works for a certain number of years, dating from
the day of their first publication.
The succeeding lectures on patents on inventions were no
less instructive, although intermingled with shocking contra-
dictions inserted with a view to make the useful truths more
palatable. The necessity for brevity compels me to terminate
this examination here, not without regret.
Thus, of two eclectic jurists, who attempt a defence of
coupling ideas which clash with each other: round square, dark sun, fallen angel,
friest and love, thought and poetry, genius and fortune, levelling and property.
Let us tell him, in reply, that his mind is a dark luminary; that each of his dis-
courses is a disordered harmony; and that all his successes, whether in verse
or prose, are due to the use of the extraordinary in the treatment of the most
ordinary subjects.
“Le National,” in reply to the report of M. Lamartine, endeavors to prove
that literary property is of quite a different nature from landed property; as if
the nature of the right of property depended on the object to which it is ap-
plied, and not on the mode of its exercise and the condition of its existence.
, But the main object of “Le National" is to please a class of proprietors whom
an extension of the right of property vexes: that is why “Le National’’
opposes literary property. Will it tell us, once for all, whether it is for equality
, or against it?
4OO whAT IS PROPERTY P
property, one is entangled in a set of dogmas without prin–
ciple or method, and is constantly talking nonsense; and the
other designedly abandons the cause of property, in order to:
present under the same name the theory of individual posses-
sion. Was I wrong in claiming that confusion reigned among
legists, and ought I to be legally prosecuted for having said
that their science henceforth stood convicted of falsehood, its
glory eclipsed ?
The ordinary resources of the law no longer sufficing, phi-
losophy, political economy, and the framers of systems have
been consulted. All the oracles appealed to have been dis-
couraging.
The philosophers are no clearer to-day than at the time of
the eclectic efflorescence; nevertheless, through their mysti-
cal apothegms, we can distinguish the words progress, unity,
association, solidarity, fraternity, which are certainly not reas-
suring to proprietors. One of these philosophers, M. Pierre
Leroux, has written two large books, in which he claims to
show by all religious, legislative, and philosophical systems
that, since men are responsible to each other, equality of con-
ditions is the final law of society. It is true that this philoso-
pher admits a kind of property; but as he leaves us to
imagine what property would become in presence of equality, ,
we may boldly class him with the opponents of the right of
increase.
I must here declare freely—in order that I may not be:
suspected of secret connivance, which is foreign to my na-
ture—that M. Leroux has my full sympathy. Not that I,
am a believer in his quasi-Pythagorean philosophy (upon this-
subject I should have more than one observation to submit
to him, provided a veteran covered with stripes would not
despise the remarks of a conscript); not that I feel bound tor
SECOND MEMOIR. 4OI:
this author by any special consideration for his opposition
to property. In my opinion, M. Leroux could, and even
ought to, state his position more explicitly and logically. But
I like, I admire, in M. Leroux, the antagonist of our philo-
sophical demigods, the demolisher of usurped reputations, the
pitiless critic of every thing that is respected because of its
antiquity. Such is the reason for my high esteem of M.
Leroux; such would be the principle of the only literary asso-
ciation which, in this century of coteries, I should care to
form. We need men who, like M. Leroux, call in question
social principles, – not to diffuse doubt concerning them, but
to make them doubly sure; men who excite the mind by bold
negations, and make the conscience tremble by doctrines of
annihilation. Where is the man who does not shudder on
hearing M. Leroux exclaim, “There is neither a paradise nor
a hell; the wicked will not be punished, nor the good re-
warded. Mortals | cease to hope and fear; you revolve in a
circle of appearances; humanity is an immortal tree, whose
branches, withering one after another, feed with their débris
the root which is always young !” Where is the man who,
on hearing this desolate confession of faith, does not demand
with terror, “Is it then true that I am only an aggregate of
elements organized by an unknown force, an idea realized
for a few moments, a form which passes and disappears 2 Is
it true that my mind is only a harmony, and my soul a
vortex? What is the ego Ż what is God? what is the sanc-
tion of society 2"
In former times, M. Leroux would have been regarded as a
great culprit, worthy only (like Vanini) of death and universal
execration. To-day, M. Leroux is fulfilling a mission of salva-
tion, for which, whatever he may say, he will be rewarded.
Like those gloomy invalids who are always talking of their
4O2 WHAT IS PROPERTY f
approaching death, and who faint when the doctor's opinion
confirms their pretence, our materialistic society is agitated
and loses countenance while listening to this startling decree
of the philosopher, “Thou shalt die ' " Honor then to M.
Leroux, who has revealed to us the cowardice of the Epicu-
reans; to M. Leroux, who renders new philosophical solu-
tions necessary | Honor to the anti-eclectic, to the apostle of
equality
In his work on “Humanity,” M. Leroux commences by
positing the necessity of property: “You wish to abolish
property; but do you not see that thereby you would annihi-
late man and even the name of man 2 ... You wish to abolish
property; but could you live without a body ? I will not tell
you that it is necessary to support this body; . . . I will tell you
that this body is itself a species of property.”
In order clearly to understand the doctrine of M. Leroux,
it must be borne in mind that there are three necessary and
primitive forms of society, - communism, property, and that
which to-day we properly call association. M. Leroux rejects
in the first place communism, and combats it with all his
might. Man is a personal and free being, and therefore needs
a sphere of independence and individual activity. M. Letoux
emphasizes this in adding: “You wish neither family, nor
country, nor property; therefore no more fathers, no more
sons, no more brothers. Here you are, related to no. being
in time, and therefore without a name; here you are, alone
in the midst of a billion of men who to-day inhabit the earth.
How do you expect me to distinguish you in space in the
midst of this multitude 2 ”
If man is indistinguishable, he is nothing. Now, he can be
distinguished, individualized, only through a devotion of cer-
tain things to his use, — such as his body, his faculties, and
SECOND MF MOIR. 4O3.
the tools which he uses. “Hence,” says M. Leroux, “the
y
necessity of appropriation ;” in short, property.
But property on what condition ? Here M. Leroux, after
having condemned communism, denounces in its turn the
right of domain. His whole doctrine can be summed up
in this single proposition, — Man may be made by property a
slave or a despot by turns. -
That posited, if we ask M. Leroux to tell us under what
system of property man will be neither a slave nor a despot,
but free, just, and a citizen, M. Leroux replies in the third.
volume of his work on “Humanity: ” — ſº
“There are three ways of destroying man's communion with his fel-
lows and with the universe: . . . I. By separating man in time; 2. by
separating him in space; 3. by dividing the land, or, in general terms,
the instruments of production; by attaching men to things, by subordi-
nating man to property, by making man a proprietor.”
This language, it must be confessed, savors a little too.
strongly of the metaphysical heights which the author fre-
quents, and of the school of M. Cousin. Nevertheless, it
can be seen, clearly enough it seems to me, that M. Leroux
opposes the exclusive appropriation of the instruments of pro-
duction ; only he calls this non-appropriation of the instru-
ments of production a new method of establishing property,
while I, in accordance with all precedent, call it a destruc-
tion of property. In fact, without the appropriation of instru-
ments, property is nothing.
“Hitherto, we have confined ourselves to pointing out and combating
the despotic features of property, by considering property alone. We
have failed to see that the despotism of property is a correlative of the
division of the human race; . . . that property, instead of being organ-
1zed in such a way as to facilitate the unlimited communion of man with
his fellows and with the universe, has been, on the contrary, turned
against this communion.”
4O4 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
Let us translate this into commercial phraseology. In
order to destroy despotism and the inequality of conditions,
men must cease from competition and must associate their
interests. Let employer and employed (now enemies and
rivals) become associates.
Now, ask any manufacturer, merchant, or capitalist, whether
he would conside; himself a proprietor if he were to share
his revenue and profits with this mass of wage-laborers whom
it is proposed to make his associates.
“Family, property, and country are finite things, which ought to be
organized with a view to the infinite. For man is a finite being, who
aspires to the infinite. To him, absolute finiteness is evil. The infinite
is his aim, the indefinite his right.” \ e
Few of my readers would understand these hierophantic
words, were I to leave them unexplained. M. Leroux means,
by this magnificent formula, that humanity is a single im-
mense society, which, in its collective unity, represents the
infinite ; that every nation, every tribe, every commune, and
every citizen are, in different degrees, fragments or finite
members of the infinite society, the evil in which results
solely from individualism and privilege, – in other words,
from the subordination of the infinite to the finite; finally,
that, to attain humanity's end and aim, each part has a right
to an indefinitely progressive development. º
“All the evils which afflict the human race arise from caste. The
family is a blessing; the family caste (the nobility) is an evil. Country
is a blessing; the country caste (supreme, domineering, conquering)
is an evil; property (individual possession) is a blessing; the prop-
erty caste (the domain of property of Pothier, Toullier, Troplong, &c.)
is an evil.”
Thus, according to M. Leroux, there is property and prop-
- erty, — the one good, the other bad. Now, as it is proper to
SECOND MEMOIR. 4O5
call different things by different names, if we keep the name
“property” for the former, we must call the latter robbery,
rapine, brigandage. If, on the contrary, we reserve the name
“property” for the latter, we must designate the former by
:the term possession, or some other equivalent; otherwise we
should be troubled with an unpleasant synonymy.
What a blessing it would be if philosophers, daring for
once to say all that they think, would speak the language of
ordinary mortals | Nations and rulers would derive much
greater profit from their lectures, and, applying the same
names to the same ideas, would come, perhaps, to understand
each other. I boldly declare that, in regard to property, I
hold no other opinion than that of M. Leroux; but, if I
should adopt the style of the philosopher, and repeat after
him, “Property is a blessing, but the property caste — the
statu quo of property—is an evil,” I should be extolled as a
genius by all the bachelors who write for the reviews. If, on
the contrary, I prefer the classic language of Rome and the
civil code, and say accordingly, “Possession is a blessing, but
1 M. Leroux has been highly praised in a review for having defended prop-
erty. I do not know whether the industrious encyclopedist is pleased with the
praise, but I know very well that in his place I should mourn for reason and
for truth.
“Le National,” on the other hand, has laughed at M. Leroux and his ideas
on property, charging him with tautology and childishness. “Le National” does
not wish to understand. Is it necessary to remind this journal that it has no
right to deride a dogmatic philosopher, because it is without a doctrine itself?
From its foundation, “Le National " has been a nursery of intriguers and rene-
gades. From time to time it takes care to warn its readers. Instead of lament-
ing over all its defections, the democratic sheet would do better to lay the blame
on itself, and confess the shallowness of its theories. When will this organ of
popular interests and the electoral reform cease to hire sceptics and spread
doubt? I will wager, without going further, that M. Léon Durocher, the critic
of M. Leroux, is an anonymous or pseudonymous editor of some bourgeois, or
even aristocratic, journal.
4O6 WHAT IS PROPERTY
property is robbery,” immediately the aforesaid bachelors.
raise a hue and cry against the monster, and the judge:
threatens me. Oh, the power of language
The economists, questioned in their turn, propose to asso-
ciate capital and labor. You know, sir, what that means. If
we follow out the doctrine, we soon find that it ends in an
absorption of property, not by the community, but by a gen-
eral and indissoluble commandite, so that the condition of
the proprietor would differ from that of the workingman only
in receiving larger wages. This system, with some peculiar
additions and embellishments, is the idea of the phalanstery.
But it is clear that, if inequality of conditions is one of the
attributes of property, it is not the whole of property. That
which makes property a delightful thing, as some philosopher
(I know not who) has said, is the power to dispose at will, not
only of one's own goods, but of their specific nature; to use:
them at pleasure; to confine and enclose them ; to excommu-
nicate mankind, as M. Pierre Leroux says; in short, to make
such use of them as passion, interest, or even caprice, may
suggest. What is the possession of money, a. share in an
agricultural or industrial enterprise, or a government-bond
coupon, in comparison with the infinite charm of being mas-
ter of one's house and grounds, under one's vine and fig-tree ?
“Beati possidentes / " says an author quoted by M. Troplong.
Seriously, can that be applied to a man of income, who has
no other possession under the sun than the market, and in his
pocket his money : As well maintain that a trough is a cow-
yard. A nice method of reform They never cease to con-
demn the thirst for gold, and the growing individualism of
the century; and yet, most inconceivable of contradictions,
they prepare to turn all kinds of property into one, – prop-
erty in coin.
SECOND MEMOIR. 4O7
I must say something further of a theory of property lately
put forth with some ado: I mean the theory of M. Considé-
rant.
The Fourierists are not men who examine a doctrine in
order to ascertain whether it conflicts with their system. On
the contrary, it is their custom to exult and sing songs of
triumph whenever an adversary passes without perceiving or
noticing them. These gentlemen want direct refutations, in
order that, if they are beaten, they may have, at least, the
selfish consolation of having been spoken of. Well, let their
wish be gratified.
M. Considérant makes the most lofty pretensions to logic.
His method of procedure is always that of major, minor, and
conclusion. He would willingly write upon his hat, “Argu-
mentator in barbara.” But M. Considérant is too intelligent
and quick-witted to be a good logician, as is proved by the
fact that he appears to have taken the syllogism for logic.
The syllogism, as everybody knows who is interested in
philosophical curiosities, is the first and perpetual sophism
of the human mind, – the favorite tool of falsehood, the
stumbling-block of science, the advocate of crime. The syl-
logism has produced all the evils which the fabulist so elo-
quently condemned, and has done nothing good or useful: it
is as devoid of truth as of justice. We might apply to it
these words of Scripture: “Celui qui met en lui sa confiance,
périra.” Consequently, the best philosophers long since con-
demned it; so that now none but the enemies of reason wish
to make the syllogism its weapon.
M. Considérant, then, has built his theory of property upon
a syllogism. Would he be disposed to stake the system of
Fourier upon his arguments, as I am ready to risk the whole
doctrine of equality upon my refutation of that system 2
20
408 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
Such a duel would be quite in keeping with the warlike and
chivalric tastes of M. Considérant, and the public would
profit by it; for, one of the two adversaries falling, no more
would be said about him, and there would be one grumbler
less in the world.
The theory of M. Considérant has this remarkable feature,
that, in attempting to satisfy at the same time the claims of
both laborers and proprietors, it infringes alike upon the
rights of the former and the privileges of the latter. In the
first place, the author lays it down as a principle : “I. That
the use of the land belongs to each member of the race; that
it is a natural and imprescriptible right, similar in all respects
to the right to the air and the sunshine. 2. That the right
to labor is equally fundamental, natural, and imprescriptible.”
I have shown that the recognition of this double right would
be the death of property. I denounce M. Considérant to
the proprietors
But M. Considérant maintains that the right to labor creates
the right of property, and this is the way he reasons : —
Major Premise. —“Every man legitimately possesses the thing which
his labor, his skill,—or, in more general terms, his action, — has created.”
To which M. Considérant adds, by way of comment: “In-
deed, the land not having been created by man, it follows
from the fundamental principle of property, that the land,
being given to the race in common, can in no wise be the
exclusive and legitimate property of such and such indi-
viduals, who were not the creators of this value.”
If I am not mistaken, there is no one to whom this propo-
sition, at first sight and in its entirety, does not seem utterly
irrefutable. Reader, distrust the syllogism.
First, I observe that the words legitimately possesses signify
SECOND MEMOIR. 4O9
to the author's mind is legitimate proprietor; otherwise the
argument, being intended to prove the legitimacy of property,
would have no meaning. I might here raise the question of
the difference between property and possession, and call upon
M. Considérant, before going further, to define the one and
the other; but I pass on. -
This first proposition is doubly false. I. In that it asserts
the act of creation to be the only basis of property. 2. In
that it regards this act as sufficient in all cases to authorize
the right of property.
And, in the first place, if man may be proprietor of the
game which he does not create, but which he kills; of the
fruits which he does not create, but which he gathers; of the
vegetables which he does not create, but which he plants;
of the animals which he does not create, but which he rears,
—it is conceivable that men may in like manner become pro-
prietors of the land which they do not create, but which they
clear and fertilize. The act of creation, then, is not necessary
to the acquisition of the right of property. I say further, that
this act alone is not always sufficient, and I prove it by the
second premise of M. Considérant : —
Minor Premise. — “Suppose that on an isolated island, on the soil of
a nation, or over the whole face of the earth (the extent of the scene of
action does not affect our judgment of the facts), a generation of human
beings devotes itself for the first time to industry, agriculture, manufact-
ures, &c. This generation, by its labor, intelligence, and activity, creates
products, develops values which did not exist on the uncultivated land.
Is it not perfectly clear that the property of this industrious generation
will stand on a basis of right, if the value or wealth produced by the
activity of all be distributed among the producers, according to each
one's assistance in the creation of the general wealth 2 That is unques-
tionable.”
That is quite questionable. For this value or wealth, pro-
4 IO whAT IS PROPERTY 2
duced by the activity of all, is by the very fact of its creation:
collective wealth, the use of which, like that of the land, may
be divided, but which as property remains undivided. And
why this undivided ownership 2 Because the society which
creates is itself indivisible, – a permanent unit, incapable
of reduction to fractions. And it is this unity of society
which makes the land common property, and which, as M.
Considérant says, renders its use imprescriptible in the case
of every individual. Suppose, indeed, that at a given time
the soil should be equally divided ; the very next moment
this division, if it allowed the right of property, would become
illegitimate. Should there be the slightest irregularity in the
method of transfer, men, members of society, imprescriptible
possessors of the land, might be deprived at one blow of prop-
erty, possession, and the means of production. In short,
property in capital is indivisible, and consequently inalien-
able, not necessarily when the capital is uncreated, but when
it is common or collective.
I confirm this theory against M. Considérant, by the third
term of his syllogism:—
Conclusion. —“The results of the labor performed by this generation
are divisible into two classes, between which it is important clearly to
distinguish. The first class includes the products of the soil which
belong to this first generation in its usufructuary capacity, augmented,
improved, and refined by its labor and industry. These products consist
either of objects of consumption or instruments of labor. It is clear
that these products are the legitimate property of those who have created
them by their activity. . . . Second class. – Not only has this generation
created the products just mentioned (objects of consumption and instru-
ments of labor), but it has also added to the original value of the soil by
cultivation, by the erection of buildings, by all the labor producing per-
manent results, which it has performed. This additional value evidently
constitutes a product—a value created by the activity of the first gener-
ation; and if, by any means whatever, the ownership of this value be:
SECOND MEMOIR. 4 II
distributed among the members of society equitably, - that is, in pro-
portion to the labor which each has performed, - each will legitimately
possess the portion which he receives. He may then dispose of this
legitimate and private property as he sees fit, — exchange it, give it away,
or transfer it; and no other individual, or collection of other individuals,
—that is, society, —can lay any claim to these values.”
Thus, by the distribution of collective capital, to the use of
which each associate, either in his own right or in right of his
authors, has an imprescriptible and undivided title, there will
be in the phalanstery, as in the France of 1841, the poor and
the rich; some men who, to live in luxury, have only, as
Tigaro says, to take the trouble to be born, and others for
whom the fortune of life is but an opportunity for long-con-
tinued poverty; idlers with large incomes, and workers whose
fortune is always in the future; some privileged by birth and
caste, and others pariahs whose sole civil and political rights
are the right to labor, and the right to land. For we must not
be deceived ; in the phalanstery every thing will be as it is
to-day, an object of property, -machines, inventions, thought,
books, the products of art, of agriculture, and of industry;
animals, houses, fences, vineyards, pastures, forests, fields,
— every thing, in short, except the uncultivated land. Now,
would you like to know what uncultivated land is worth,
according to the advocates of property “A square league
'hardly suffices for the support of a savage,” says M. Charles
Comte. Estimating the wretched subsistence of this savage
at three hundred francs per year, we find that the square
league necessary to his life is, relatively to him, faithfully
represented by a rent of fifteen francs. In France there are
twenty-eight thousand square leagues, the total rent of which,
by this estimate, would be four hundred and twenty thousand
francs, which, when divided among nearly thirty-four millions
•of people, would give each an income of a centime and a quarter.
4I 2 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
That is the new right which the great genius of Fourier has,
invented in behalf of the French people, and with which his
first disciple hopes to reform the world. I denounce M.
Considérant to the proletariat!
If the theory of * Considérant would at least really guar-
antee this property which he cherishes so jealously, I might
pardon him the flaws in his syllogism, certainly the best one
he ever made in his life. But, no : that which M. Considérant
takes for property is only a privilege of extra pay. In Fou-
rier's system, neither the created capital nor the increased
value of the soil are divided and appropriated in any effective
manner: the instruments of labor, whether created or not,
remain in the hands of the phalanx; the pretended proprietor
can touch only the income. He is permitted neither to real-
ize his share of the stock, nor to possess it exclusively, nor to
administer it, whatever it be. The cashier throws him his
dividend; and then, proprietor, eat the whole if you can
The system of Fourier would not suit the proprietors, since
it takes away the most delightful feature of property, - the
free disposition of one's goods. It would please the commu-
nists no better, since it involves unequal conditions. It is.
repugnant to the friends of free association and equality, in
consequence of its tendency to wipe out human character and
individuality by suppressing possession, family, and country,
the threefold expression of the human personality.
Of all our active publicists, none seem to me more fertile in
resources, richer in imagination, more luxuriant and varied
in style, than M. Considérant. Nevertheless, I doubt if he
will undertake to reëstablish his theory of property. If he
has this courage, this is what I would say to him: “Before
writing your reply, consider well your plan of action; do not
scour the country; have recourse to none of your ordinary.
SECOND MEMOIR. 4 I 3
expedients; no complaints of civilization ; no sarcasms upon
equality; no glorification of the phalanstery. Leave Fourier
and the departed in peace, and endeavor only to re-adjust the
pieces of your syllogism. To this end, you ought, first, to
analyze closely each proposition of your adversary; second,
to show the error, either by a direct refutation, or by proving
the converse; third, to oppose argument to argument, so that,
objection and reply meeting face to face, the stronger may
break down the weaker, and shiver it to atoms. By that
method only can you boast of having conquered, and compel
me to regard you as an honest reasoner, and a good artillery-
man.”
I should have no excuse for tarrying longer with these phal-
ansterian crotchets, if the obligation which I have imposed
upon myself of making a clean sweep, and the necessity of
vindicating my dignity as a writer, did not prevent me from
passing in silence the reproach uttered against me by a cor-
respondent of “La Phalange.” “We have seen but lately,”
says this journalist,” “that M. Proudhon, enthusiast as he has
been for the science created by Fourier, is, or will be, an en-
thusiast for any thing else whatsoever.”
If ever sectarians had the right to reproach another for
changes in his beliefs, this right certainly does not belong to
the disciples of Fourier, who are always so eager to adminis-
ter the phalansterian baptism to the deserters of all parties.
But why regard it as a crime, if they are sincere? Of what
consequence is the constancy or inconstancy of an individual
to the truth which is always the same 2 It is better to en-
lighten men's minds than to teach them to be obstinate in
their prejudices. Do we not know that man is frail and
1 “Impartial,” of Besançon.
4. I4. whAT IS PROPERTY 2
fickle, that his heart is full of delusions, and that his lips are
a distillery of falsehood 2 Omnis homo mendar. Whether
we will or no, we all serve for a time as instruments of this
truth, whose kingdom comes every day. God alone is immu-
table, because he is eternal.
That is the reply which, as a general rule, an honest man
is entitled always to make, and which I ought perhaps to be
content to offer as an excuse; for I am no better than my
fathers. But, in a century of doubt and apostasy like ours,
when it is of importance to set the small and the weak an
example of strength and honesty of utterance, I must not
suffer my character as a public assailant of property to be
dishonored. I must render an account of my old opinions.
Examining myself, therefore, upon this charge of Fourier-
ism, and endeavoring to refresh my memory, I find that,
having been connected with the Fourierists in my studies
and my friendships, it is possible that, without knowing it, I
have been one of Fourier's partisans. Jérôme Lalande placed
Napoleon and Jesus Christ in his catalogue of atheists. The
Fourierists resemble this astronomer: if a man happens to
find fault with the existing civilization, and to admit the truth
of a few of their criticisms, they straightway enlist him, willy-
nilly, in their school. Nevertheless, I do not deny that I
have been a Fourierist; for, since they say it, of course it
may be so. But, sir, that of which my ex-associates are igno-
rant, and which doubtless will astonish you, is that I have
been many other things, – in religion, by turns a Protestant,
a Papist, an Arian and Semi-Arian, a Manichean, a Gnostic,
an Adamite even and a Pre-Adamite, a Sceptic, a Pelagian, a
Socinian, an Anti-Trinitarian, and a Neo-Christian;" in phi-
* The Arians deny the divinity of Christ. The Semi-Arians differ from the
Arians only by a few subtle distinctions. M. Pierre Leroux, who regards Jesus
SECOND MEMOIR. 4 I 5
losophy and politics, an Idealist, a Pantheist, a Platonist, a
Cartesian, an Eclectic (that is, a sort of juste-milieu), a Mon-
archist, an Aristocrat, a Constitutionalist, a follower of Ba-
beuf, and a Communist. I have wandered through a whole
encyclopaedia of systems. Do you think it surprising, sir,
that, among them all, I was for a short time a Fourierist 2
as a man, but claims that the Spirit of God was infused into him, is a true
Semi-Arian.
The Manicheans admit two co-existent and eternal principles, – God and
matter, spirit and flesh, light and darkness, good and evil; but, unlike the
Phalansterians, who pretend to reconcile the two, the Manicheans make war
upon matter, and labor with all their might for the destruction of the flesh, by
condemning marriage and forbidding reproduction, — which does not prevent
them, however, from indulging in all the carnal pleasures which the intensest
lust can conceive of. In this last particular, the tendency of the Fourieristic
morality is quite Manichean.
The Gnostics do not differ from the early Christians. As their name indi-
cates, they regarded themselves as inspired. Fourier, who held peculiar ideas
concerning the visions of somnambulists, and who believed in the possibility of
developing the magnetic power to such an extent as to enable us to commune
with invisible beings, might, if he were living, pass also for a Gnostic.
The Adamites attend mass entirely naked, from motives of chastity. Jean
Jacques Rousseau, who took the sleep of the senses for chastity, and who saw
in modesty only a refinement of pleasure, inclined towards Adamism. I know
such a sect, whose members usually celebrate their mysteries in the costume of
Venus coming from the bath.
The Pre-Adamites believe that men existed before the first man. I once met
a Pre-Adamite. True, he was deaf and a Fourierist.
The Pelagians deny grace, and attribute all the merit of good works to lib-
erty. The Fourierists, who teach that man's nature and passions are good, are
reversed Pelagians; they give all to grace, and nothing to liberty.
The Socinians, deists in all other respects, admit an original revelation.
Many people are Socinians to-day, who do not suspect it, and who regard their
opinions as new.
The Neo-Christians are those simpletons who admire Christianity because it
has produced bells and cathedrals. Base in soul, corrupt in heart, dissolute in
mind and senses, the Neo-Christians seek especially after the external form,
and admire religion, as they love women, for its physical beauty. They believe
in a coming revelation, as well as a transfiguration of Catholicism. They will
sing masses at the grand spectacle in the phalanstery
416 whAT IS PROPERTY P
For my part, I am not at all surprised, although at present IT
have no recollection of it. One thing is sure, — that my
superstition and credulity reached their height at the very
period of my life which my critics reproachfully assign as the
date of my Fourieristic beliefs. Now I hold quite other
views. My mind no longer admits that which is demon-
strated by syllogisms, analogies, or metaphors, which are the
methods of the phalanstery, but demands a process of gener-
alization ind induction which excludes error. Of my past
opinions, I retain absolutely none. I have acquired some
Ánowledge. I no longer believe. I either know, or am igno-
rant. In a word, in seeking for the reason of things, I saw
that I was a rationalist.
Undoubtedly, it would have been simpler to begin where I
have ended. But then, if such is the law of the human mind;.
if all society, for six thousand years, has done nothing but
fall into error; if all mankind are still buried in the darkness.
of faith, deceived by their prejudices and passions, guided
only by the instinct of their leaders; if my accusers, them-
selves, are not free from sectarianism (for they call themselves.
Fourierists), — am I alone inexcusable for having, in my inner
self, at the secret tribunal of my conscience, begun anew the
journey of our poor humanity ?
I would by no means, then, deny my errors; but, sir, that
which distinguishes me from those who rush into print is the
fact that, though my thoughts have varied much, my writings
do not vary. To-day, even, and on a multitude of questions, .
I am beset by a thousand extravagant and contradictory opin-
ions; but my opinions I do not print, for the public has noth-
ing to do with them. Before addressing my fellow-men, I
wait until light breaks in upon the chaos of my ideas, in order
that what I may say may be, not the whole truth (no man can.
know that), but nothing but the truth.
& SECOND MEMOIR. 4 I 7
This singular disposition of my mind to first identify itself
with a system in order to better understand it, and then to
reflect upon it in order to test its legitimacy, is the very thing
which disgusted me with Fourier, and ruined in my esteem
the societary school.' To be a faithful Fourierist, in fact, one
must abandon his reason and accept every thing from a mas-
ter, doctrine, interpretation, and application. M. Consid-
érant, whose excessive intolerance anathematizes all who do
not abide by his sovereign decisions, has no other concep-
tion of Fourierism. Has he not been appointed Fourier's
vicar on earth and pope of a Church which, unfortunately
for its apostles, will never be of this world 2 Passive belief
is the theological virtue of all sectarians, especially of the
Fourierists.
Now, this is what happened to me. While trying to demon-
strate by argument the religion of which I had become a fol-
lower in studying Fourier, I suddenly perceived that by
reasoning I was becoming incredulous; that on each article
of the creed my reason and my faith were at variance, and
that my six weeks' labor was wholly lost. I saw that the
Fourierists—in spite of their inexhaustible gabble, and their
extravagant pretension to decide in all things — were neither
savants, nor logicians, nor even believers; that they were
scientific quacks, who were led more by their self-love than
their conscience to labor for the triumph of their sect, and to
whom all means were good that would reach that end. I then
understood why to the Epicureans they promised women,
wine, music, and a sea of luxury ; to the rigorists, mainten-
ance of marriage, purity of morals, and temperance; to labor-
ers, high wages; to proprietors, large incomes; to philosophers,
solutions the secret of which Fourier alone possessed; to
priests, a costly religion and magnificent festivals; to savants,
4.18 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
knowledge of an unimaginable nature; to each, indeed, that
which he most desired. In the beginning, this seemed to me
droll; in the end, I regarded it as the height of impudence.
No, sir; no one yet knows of the foolishness and infamy
which the phalansterian system contains. That is a subject
which I mean to treat as soon as I have balanced my accounts
with property."
It is rumored that the Fourierists think of leaving France
and going to the new world to found a phalanstery. When a
house threatens to fall, the rats scamper away; that is because
they are rats. Men do better; they rebuild it. Not long
since, the St. Simonians, despairing of their country which
paid no heed to them, proudly shook the dust from their feet,
and started for the Orient to fight the battle of free woman.
Pride, wilfulness, mad selfishness! True charity, like true
faith, does not worry, never despairs; it seeks neither its own
glory, nor its interest, nor empire; it does every thing for all,
speaks with indulgence to the reason and the will, and de-
sires to conquer only by persuasion and sacrifice. Remain
in France, Fourierists, if the progress of humanity is the only
thing which you have at heart! There is more to do here
than in the new world. Otherwise, go! you are nothing but
liars and hypocrites
The foregoing statement by no means embraces all the
political elements, all the opinions and tendencies, which
threaten the future of property; but it ought to satisfy any
1. It should be understood that the above refers only to the moral and politi-
cal doctrines of Fourier, —doctrines which, like all philosophical and religious
systems, have their root and raison d'existence in society itself, and for this
reason deserve to be examined. The peculiar speculations of Fourier and his
sect concerning cosmogony, geology, natural history, physiology, and psychol-
ogy, I leave to the attention of those who would think it their duty to seriously
refute the fables of Blue Beard and the Ass's Skin.
SECOND MEMOIR. 4 IQ
one who knows how to classify facts, and to deduce their law
or the idea which governs them. Existing society seems
abandoned to the demon of falsehood and discord; and it is
this sad sight which grieves so deeply many distinguished
minds who lived too long in a former age to be able to under-
stand ours. Now, while the short-sighted spectator begins to
despair of humanity, and, distracted and cursing that of which
he is ignorant, plunges into scepticism and fatalism, the true
observer, certain of the spirit which governs the world, seeks
to comprehend and fathom Providence. The memoir on
“Property,” published last year by the pensioner of the Acad-
emy of Besançon, is simply a study of this nature.
The time has come for me to relate the history of this un-
lucky treatise, which has already caused me so much chagrin,
and made me so unpopular; but which was on my part so
involuntary and unpremeditated, that I would dare to affirm
that there is not an economist, not a philosopher, not a jurist,
who is not a hundred times guiltier than I. There is some-
thing so singular in the way in which I was led to attack
property, that if, on hearing my sad story, you persist, sir, in
your blame, I hope at least you will be forced to pity me.
I never have pretended to be a great politician ; far from
that, I always have felt for controversies of a political nature
the greatest aversion ; and if, in my “Essay on Property,” I
have sometimes ridiculed our politicians, believe, sir, that I
was governed much less by my pride in the little that I know,
than by my vivid consciousness of their ignorance and exces-
sive vanity. Relying more on Providence than on men; not
suspecting at first that politics, like every other science, con-
tained an absolute truth ; agreeing equally well with Bossuet
and Jean Jacques, – I accepted with resignation my share of
Human misery, and contented myself with praying to God for
42O whAT IS PROPERTY
good deputies, upright ministers, and an honest king. By
taste as well as by discretion and lack of confidence in my
powers, I was slowly pursuing some commonplace studies in
philology, mingled with a little metaphysics, when I suddenly
fell upon the greatest problem that ever has occupied philo-
sophical minds: I mean the criterion of certainty.
Those of my readers who are unacquainted with the philo-
sophical terminology will be glad to be told in a few words
what this criterion is, which plays so great a part in my
work.
The criterion of certainty, according to the philosophers,
will be, when discovered, an infallible method of establishing
the truth of an opinion, a judgment, a theory, or a system, in
nearly the same way as gold is recognized by the touchstone,
as iron approaches the magnet, or, better still, as we verify a
mathematical operation by applying the proof. Time has
hitherto served as a sort of criterion for society. Thus, the
primitive men —having observed that they were not all equal
in strength, beauty, and labor— judged, and rightly, that cer-
tain ones among them were called by nature to the perform-
ance of simple and common functions; but they concluded,
and this is where their error lay, that these same individuals
of duller intellect, more restricted genius, and weaker person-
ality, were predestined to serve the others; that is, to labor
while the latter rested, and to have no other will than theirs:
and from this idea of a natural subordination among men
sprang domesticity, which, voluntarily accepted at first, was
imperceptibly converted into horrible slavery. Time, making
this error more palpable, has brought about justice. Nations
have learned at their own cost that the subjection of man to
man is a false idea, an erroneous theory, pernicious alike to
master and to slave. And yet such a social system has stood
SECOND MEMOIR. 42 I
several thousand years, and has been defended by celebrated
philosophers; even to-day, under somewhat mitigated forms,
sophists of every description uphold and extol it. But experi-
ence is bringing it to an end.
Time, then, is the criterion of societies ; thus looked at,
history is the demonstration of the errors of humanity by the
argument reductio ad absurdum.
Now, the criterion sought for by metaphysicians would have
the advantage of discriminating at once between the true and
the false in every opinion; so that in politics, religion, and
morals, for example, the true and the useful being imme-
diately recognized, we should no longer need to await the
sorrowful experience of time. Evidently such a secret would
be death to the sophists, – that cursed brood, who, under differ-
ent names, excite the curiosity of nations, and, owing to the
difficulty of separating the truth from the error in their artis-
tically woven theories, lead them into fatal ventures, disturb
their peace, and fill them with such extraordinary prejudice.
Up to this day, the criterion of certainty remains a mystery;
this is owing to the multitude of criteria that have been
successively proposed. Some have taken for an absolute and
definite criterion the testimony of the senses; others intui-
tion; these evidence; those argument. M. Lamennais affirms
that there is no other criterion than universal reason. Before
him, M. de Bonald thought he had discovered it in language.
Quite recently, M. Buchez has proposed morality; and, to har-
monize them all, the eclectics have said that it was absurd to
seek for an absolute criterion, since there were as many crite-
ria as special orders of knowledge.
Of all these hypotheses it may be observed, That the testi-
mony of the senses is not a criterion, because the senses,
Jrelating us only to phenomena, furnish us with no ideas; that
422 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
intuition needs external confirmation or objective certainty;
that evidence requires proof, and argument verification ; that
universal reason has been wrong many a time; that language
serves equally well to express the true or the false; that moral-
ity, like all the rest, needs demonstration and rule; and finally,
that the eclectic idea is the least reasonable of all, since it is
of no use to say that there are several criteria if we cannot
point out one. I very much fear that it will be with the cri-
terion as with the philosopher's stone; that it will finally be
abandoned, not only as insolvable, but as chimerical. Conse-
quently, I entertain no hopes of having found it; nevertheless,
I am not sure that some one more skilful will not discover it.
Be it as it may with regard to a criterion or criteria, there
are methods of demonstration which, when applied to certain
subjects, may lead to the discovery of unknown truths, bring
to light relations hitherto unsuspected, and lift a paradox to
the highest degree of certainty. In such a case, it is not by
its novelty, nor even by its content, that a system should be
judged, but by its method. The critic, then, should follow
the example of the Supreme Court, which, in the cases which
come before it, never examines the facts, but only the form
of procedure. Now, what is the form of procedure ? A
method.
I then looked to see what philosophy, in the absence of a
criterion, had accomplished by the aid of special methods,
and I must say that I could not discover — in spite of the
loudly-proclaimed pretensions of some—that it had produced
any thing of real value; and, at last, wearied with the philo-
sophical twaddle, I resolved to make a new search for the
criterion. I confess it, to my shame, this folly lasted for
two years, and I am not yet entirely rid of it. It was like
seeking a needle in a haystack. I might have learned Chi--
SECOND MEMOIR. 423
nese or Arabic in the time that I have lost in considering and
reconsidering syllogisms, in rising to the summit of an induc-
tion as to the top of a ladder, in inserting a proposition be-
tween the horns of a dilemma, in decomposing, distinguishing,
separating, denying, affirming, admitting, as if I could pass
abstractions through a sieve.
I selected justice as the subject-matter of my experiments.
Finally, after a thousand decompositions, recompositions, and
double compositions, I found at the bottom of my analytical
crucible, not the criterion of certainty, but a metaphysico-
economico-political treatise, whose conclusions were such that
I did not care to present them in a more artistic or, if you
will, more intelligible form. The effect which this work pro-
duced upon all classes of minds gave me an idea of the spirit
of our age, and did not cause me to regret the prudent and
scientific obscurity of my style. How happens it that to-day
I am obliged to defend my intentions, when my conduct bears
the evident impress of such lofty morality ?
You have read my work, sir, and you know the gist of my
tedious and scholastic lucubrations. Considering the revolu-
tions of humanity, the vicissitudes of empires, the transfor-
mations of property, and the innumerable forms of justice
and of right, I asked, “Are the evils which afflict us inherent
in our condition as men, or do they arise only from an error?
This inequality of fortunes which all admit to be the cause
of society's embarrassments, is it, as some assert, the effect of
Nature ; or, in the division of the products of labor and the
soil, may there not have been some error in calculation? Does
each laborer receive all that is due him, and only that which
is due him In short, in the present conditions of labor,
wages, and exchange, is no one wronged 2–are the accounts
well kept 2—is the social balance accurate ’’’
424 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
Then I commenced a most laborious investigation. It was
necessary to arrange informal notes, to discuss contradictory
titles, to reply to captious allegations, to refute absurd preten-
sions, and to describe fictitious debts, dishonest transactions,
and fraudulent accounts. In order to triumph over quibblers,
I had to deny the authority of custom, to examine the argu-
ments of legislators, and to oppose science with science itself.
Finally, all these operations completed, I had to give a judi-
'cial decision.
I therefore declared, my hand upon my heart, before God
and men, that the causes of social inequality are three in
number: I. Gratuitous appropriation of collective wealth :
2. Inequality in exchange; 3. The right of profit or increase.
And since this threefold method of extortion is the very
essence of the domain of property, I denied the legitimacy
of property, and proclaimed its identity with robbery.
That is my only offence. I have reasoned upon property;
I have searched for the criterion of justice; I have demon-
strated, not the possibility, but the necessity, of equality of
fortunes; I have allowed myself no attack upon persons, no
assault upon the government, of which I, more than any one
else, am a provisional adherent. If I have sometimes used
the word proprietor, I have used it as the abstract name of a
metaphysical being, whose reality breathes in every individ-
ual, - not alone in a privileged few.
Nevertheless, I acknowledge—for I wish my confession to
be sincere—that the general tone of my book has been bit-
terly censured. They complain of an atmosphere of passion
and invective unworthy of an honest man, and quite out of
place in the treatment of so grave a subject.
If this reproach is well founded (which it is impossible for
me either to deny or admit, because in my own cause I can-
SECOND MEMOIR. 4.25
not be judge), – if, I say, I deserve this charge, I can only
humble myself and acknowledge myself guilty of an invol-
untary wrong; the only excuse that I could offer being of
such a nature that it ought not to be communicated to the
public. All that I can say is, that I understand better than
any one how the anger which injustice causes may render
an author harsh and violent in his criticisms. When, after
twenty years of labor, a man still finds himself on the brink
of starvation, and then suddenly discovers in an equivoca-
tion, an error in calculation, the cause of the evil which tor-
ments him in common with so many millions of his fellows,
he can scarcely restrain a cry of sorrow and dismay.
But, sir, though pride be offended by my rudeness, it is not
to pride that I apologize, but to the proletaires, to the simple-
minded, whom I perhaps have scandalized. My angry dia-
lectics may have produced a bad effect on some peaceable
minds. Some poor workingman — more affected by my sar-
casm than by the strength of my arguments — may, perhaps,
have concluded that property is the result of a perpetual
Machiavelianism on the part of the governors against the gov-
erned,—a deplorable error of which my book itself is the best
refutation. I devoted two chapters to showing how property
springs from human personality and the comparison of indi.
viduals. Then I explained its perpetual limitation ; and,
following out the same idea, I predicted its approaching
disappearance. How, then, could the editors of the “Revue
Démocratique,” after having borrowed from me nearly the
whole substance of their economical articles, dare to say:
“The holders of the soil, and other productive capital, are
more or less wilful accomplices in a vast robbery, they being
...the exclusive receivers and sharers of the stolen goods”?
The proprietors wilfully guilty of the crime of robbery!
426 WHAT IS I ROPERTY
Never did that homicidal phrase escape my pen; never did.
my heart conceive the frightful thought. Thank Heaven I
know not how to calumniate my kind; and I have too strong
a desire to seek for the reason of things to be willing to be-
lieve in criminal conspiracies. The millionnaire is no more
tainted by property than the journeyman who works for thirty
sous per day. On both sides the error is equal, as well as the
intention. The effect is also the same, though positive in
the former, and negative in the latter. I accused property;
I did not denounce the proprietors, which would have been
absurd.: and I am sorry that there are among us wills so per-
verse and minds so shattered that they care for only so much
of the truth as will aid them in their evil designs. Such is
the only regret which I feel on account of my indignation,
which, though expressed perhaps too bitterly, was at least
honest, and legitimate in its source.
However, what did I do in this essay which I voluntarily
submitted to the Academy of Moral Sciences 2 Seeking a
fixed axiom amid social uncertainties, I traced back to one
fundamental question all the secondary questions over which,
at present, so keen and diversified a conflict is raging. This .
question was the right of property. Then, comparing all
existing theories with each other, and extracting from them
that which is common to them all, I endeavored to discover
that element in the idea of property which is necessary, im--
mutable, and absolute; and asserted, after authentic verifica-
tion, that this idea is reducible to that of individual and
transmissible possession ; susceptible of exchange, but not of
alienation ; founded on labor, and not on fictitious occupancy, .
or idle caprice. I said, further, that this idea was the result.
of our revolutionary movements, – the culminating point to-
wards which all opinions, gradually divesting themselves oft
SECOND MEMOIR. 427
their contradictory elements, converge. And I tried to dem-
onstrate this by the spirit of the laws, by political economy,
by psychology and history.
A Father of the Church, finishing a learned exposition of
the Catholic doctrine, cried, in the enthusiasm of his faith,
“Domine, si error est, a te decepti sumus (if my religion is
false, God is to blame).” I, as well as this theologian, can
say, “If equality is a fable, God, through whom we act and
think and are ; God, who governs society by eternal laws,
who rewards just nations, and punishes proprietors, – God
alone is the author of evil: God has lied. The fault lies
not with me.”
But, if I am mistaken in my inferences, I should be shown
my error, and led out of it. It is surely worth the trouble,
and I think I deserve this honor. There is no ground for
proscription. For, in the words of that member of the Con-
vention who did not like the guillotine, to kill is not to reply.
TJntil then, I persist in regarding my work as useful, social,
full of instruction for public officials, — worthy, in short, of
reward and encouragement.
For there is one truth of which I am profoundly convinced,
— nations live by absolute ideas, not by approximate and par-
tial conceptions; therefore, men are needed who define prin-
ciples, or at least test them in the fire of controversy. Such
is the law, - the idea first, the pure idea, the understanding
of the laws of God, the theory: practice follows with slow
steps, cautious, attentive to the succession of events; sure to
seize, towards this eternal meridian, the indications of supreme
reason. The co-operation of theory and practice produces in
humanity the realization of order, — the absolute truth."
1 A writer for the radical press, M. Louis Raybaud, said, in the preface to
lis “Studies of Contemporary Reformers: ” “Who does not know that mo-
428 whAT IS PROPERTY P
All of us, as long as we live, are called, each in proportion
to his strength, to this sublime work. The only duty which
it imposes upon us is to refrain from appropriating the truth
to ourselves, either by concealing it, or by accommodating it
to the temper of the century, or by using it for our own
interests. This principle of conscience, so grand and so
simple, has always been present in my thought.
Consider, in fact, sir, that which I might have done, but
did not wish to do. I reason on the most honorable hypothe-
sis. What hindered me from concealing, for some years to
come, the abstract theory of the equality of fortunes, and, at
the same time, from criticising constitutions and codes; from
showing the absolute and the contingent, the immutable and
the ephemeral, the eternal and the transitory, in laws present
and past; from constructing a new system of legislation, and
establishing on a solid foundation this social edifice, ever de-
stroyed and as often rebuilt? Might I not, taking up the
definitions of casuists, have clearly shown the cause of their
contradictions and uncertainties, and supplied, at the same
time, the inadequacies of their conclusions 2 Might I not
rality is relative Aside from a few grand sentiments which are strikingly
instinctive, the measure of human acts varies with nations and climates, and
only civilization—the progressive education of the race—can lead to a uni-
versal morality. . . . The absolute escapes our contingent and finite nature;
the absolute is the secret of God.” God keep from evil M. Louis Raybaud I
But I cannot help remarking that all political apostates begin by the negation
of the absolute, which is really the negation of truth. What can a writer, who,
professes scepticism, have in common with radical views 7 What has he to say
to his readers ? What judgment is he entitled to pass upon contemporary
reformers ? M. Raybaud thought it would seem wise to repeat an old imperti-
nence of the legist, and that may serve him for an excuse. We all have these:
weaknesses. But I am surprised that a man of so much intelligence as M. Ray-
baud, who studies systems, fails to see the very thing he ought first to recognize,.
— namely, that systems are the progress of the mind towards the absolute.
SECOND MEMOIR. 429
have confirmed this labor by a vast historical exposition, in
which the principle of exclusion, and of the accumulation of
property, the appropriation of collective wealth, and the radi-
cal vice in exchanges, would have figured as the constant
causes of tyranny, war, and revolution ?
“It should have been done,” you say. Do not doubt, sir,
that such a task would have required more patience than
genius. With the principles of social economy which I have
analyzed, I would have had only to break the ground, and fol-
low the furrow. The critic of laws finds nothing more diffi-
cult than to determine justice: the labor alone would have
been longer. Oh, if I had pursued this glittering prospect,
and, like the man of the burning bush, with inspired counte-
nance and deep and solemn voice, had presented myself some
day with new tables, there would have been found fools to
admire, boobies to applaud, and cowards to offer me the dic-
tatorship; for, in the way of popular infatuations, nothing is
impossible.
But, sir, after this monument of insolence and pride, what
should I have deserved in your opinion, at the tribunal of
God, and in the judgment of free men 2 Death, sir, and
eternal reprobation
I therefore spoke the truth as soon as I saw it, waiting
only long enough to give it proper expression. I pointed out
error in order that each might reform himself, and render his
labors more useful. I announced the existence of a new polit-
ical element, in order that my associates in reform, develop-
ing it in concert, might arrive more promptly at that unity of
principles which alone can assure to society a better day. I
expected to receive, if not for my book, at least for my com-
mendable conduct, a small republican ovation. And, behold !
journalists denounce me, academicians curse me, political
43O whAT IS PROPERTY 2
adventurers (great God 1) think to niake themselves tolerable
by protesting that they are not ilke me ! I give the formula
by which the whole social edifice i,\ay be scientifically recon-
structed, and the strongest minds repreach. ºne for being able
only to destroy. The rest despise me, because I an: unknown
When the “Essay on Property” fell into the reformatory
camp, some asked: “Who has spoken 2 Is it Arago 2 Is it
Lamennais ? Michel de Bourges or Garnier-Pages 2 " An.
when they heard the name of a new man : “We do not know.
him,” they would reply. Thus, the monopoly of thei-ght,
property in reason, oppresses the proletariat as well as tº:*
Bourgeoisie. The worship of the infamous prevails even on
the steps of the tabernacle.
But what am I saying 2 May evil befall me, if I blame the
poor creatures | Oh ! let us not despise those generous
souls, who in the excitement of their patriotism are always
prompt to identify the voice of their chiefs with the truth.
Let us encourage rather their simple credulity, enlighten com-
placently and tenderly their precious sincerity, and reserve
our shafts for those vain-glorious spirits who are always ad-
miring their genius, and, in different tongues, caressing the
people in order to govern them.
These considerations alone oblige me to reply to the strange
and superficial conclusions of the “Journal du Peuple” (issue
of Oct. II, 1840), on the question of property. I leave, there-
fore, the journalist to address myself only to his readers. I
hope that the self-love of the writer will not be offended, if,
in the presence of the masses, I ignore an individual.
You say, proletaires of the “Peuple,” “For the very reason
that men and things exist, there always will be men who will
possess things; nothing, therefore, can destroy property.”
In speaking thus, you unconsciously argue exactly after the
SECOND MEMOIR. 43 I
manner of M. Cousin, who always reasons from possession to
froperty. This coincidence, however, does not surprise me.
M. Cousin is a philosopher of much mind, and you, prole-
taires, have still more. Certainly it is honorable, even for a
philosopher, to be your companion in error.
Originally, the word property was synonymous with proper
or individual possession. It designated each individual's
special right to the use of a thing. But when this right of
use, inert (if I may say so) as it was with regard to the other
usufructuaries, became active and paramount, — that is, when
the usufructuary converted his right to personally use the
thing into the right to use it by his neighbor's labor, — then
property changed its nature, and its idea became complex.
The legists knew this very well, but instead of opposing, as
they ought, this accumulation of profits, they accepted and
sanctioned the whole. And as the right of farm-rent necesa-
rily implies the right of use, – in other words, as the right to
cultivate land by the labor of a slave supposes one's power to
cultivate it himself, according to the principle that the greater
includes the less, – the name property was reserved to desig-
nate this double right, and that of possession was adopted to
designate the right of use. Whence property came to be called
the perfect right, the right of domain, the eminent right, the
heroic or quiritaire right, — in Latin, jus perfectum, fus
optimum, jus quiritarium, jus dominii, - while possession be-
came assimilated to farm-rent.
Now, that individual possession exists of right, or, better,
from natural necessity, all philosophers admit, and can easily
be demonstrated ; but when, in imitation of M. Cousin, we
assume it to be the basis of the domain of property, we fall
into the sophism called sophisma amphiboliae vel ambiguitatis,
which consists in changing the meaning by a verbal equivo-
cation.
4.32 whAT IS PROPERTY P
People often think themselves very profound, because, by
the aid of expressions of extreme generality, they appear to
rise to the height of absolute ideas, and thus deceive inexpe-
rienced minds; and, what is worse, this is commonly called
examining abstractions. But the abstraction formed by the
comparison of identical facts is one thing, while that which is
deduced from different acceptations of the same term is quite
another. The first gives the universal idea, the axiom, the
law ; the second indicates the order of generation of ideas.
All our errors arise from the constant confusion of these two
kinds of abstractions. In this particular, languages and phi-
losophies are alike deficient. The less common an idiom is,
and the more obscure its terms, the more prolific is it as a
source of error: a philosopher is sophistical in proportion to
his ignorance of any method of neutralizing this imperfection
in language. If the art of correcting the errors of speech by
scientific methods is ever discovered, then philosophy will
have found its criterion of certainty.
Now, then, the difference between property and possession
being well established, and it being settled that the former,
for the reasons which I have just given, must necessarily dis-
appear, is it best, for the slight advantage of restoring an ety-
mology, to retain the word property? My opinion is that it
would be very unwise to do so, and I will tell why. I quote
from the “Journal du Peuple:” —
“To the legislative power belongs the right to regulate property, to
prescribe the conditions of acquiring, possessing, and transmitting it. . .
It cannot be denied that inheritance, assessment, commerce, industry,
g
labor, and wages require the most important modifications.”
You wish, proletaires, to regulate property; that is, you
wish to destroy it and reduce it to the right of possession.
For to regulate property without the consent of the proprie-
SECOND MEMOIR, 433.
tors is to deny the right of domain ; to associate employees.
with proprietors is to destroy the eminent right; to suppress
or even reduce farm-rent, house-rent, revenue, and increase
generally, is to annihilate perfect property. Why, then, while
laboring with such laudable enthusiasm for the establish-
ment of equality, should you retain an expression whose
equivocal meaning will always be an obstacle in the way of
your success 2
There you have the first reason — a wholly philosophical
one—for rejecting not only the thing, but the name, prop-
erty. Here now is the political, the highest reason.
Every social revolution — M. Cousin will tell you — is
effected only by the realization of an idea, either political,
moral, or religious. When Alexander conquered Asia, his
idea was to avenge Greek liberty against the insults of Ori-
ental despotism ; when Marius and Caesar overthrew the
Roman patricians, their idea was to give bread to the people;
when Christianity revolutionized the world, its idea was to
emancipate mankind, and to substitute the worship of one
God for the deities of Epicurus and Homer; when France
rose in '89, her idea was liberty and equality before the law.
There has been no true revolution, says M. Cousin, with-
out its idea ; so that where an idea does not exist, or even
fails of a formal expression, revolution is impossible. There
are mobs, conspirators, rioters, regicides. There are no revo-
lutionists. Society, devoid of ideas, twists and tosses about,
and dies in the midst of its fruitless labor.
Nevertheless, you all feel that a revolution is to come, and
that you alone can accomplish it. What, then, is the idea
which governs you, proletaires of the nineteenth century 2–
for really I cannot call you revolutionists. What do you
-bink 2–what do you believe – what do you want 2 Be
434 what Is PROPERTY
guarded in your reply. I have read faithfully your favorite
journals, your most esteemed authors. I find everywhere only
vain and puerile entités; nowhere do I discover an idea. g
I will explain the meaning of this word entité, -new, with-
out doubt, to most of you.
By entité is generally understood a substance which the
imagination grasps, but which is incognizable by the senses
and the reason. Thus the soporific power of opium, of which
Sganarelle speaks, and the peccant humors of ancient medi-
cine, are entités. The entité is the support of those who do
not wish to confess their ignorance. It is incomprehensible;
or, as St. Paul says, the argumentum non apparentium. In
philosophy, the entité is often only a repetition of words
which add nothing to the thought.
For example, when M. Pierre Leroux—who says so many
excellent things, but who is too fond, in my opinion, of his
Platonic formulas —assures us that the evils of humanity are
due to our ignorance of life, M. Pierre Leroux utters an entité;
for it is evident that if we are evil it is because we do not
know how to live; but the knowledge of this fact is of no
value to us.
When M. Edgar Quinet declares that France suffers and
declines because there is an antagonism of men and of inter-
<sts, he declares an entité; for the problem is to discover the
cause of this antagonism. †
When M. Lamennais, in thunder tones, preaches self-sacri-
fice and love, he proclaims two entités; for we need to know
on what conditions self-sacrifice and love can spring up and
exist.
So also, proletaires, when you talk of liberty, progress, and
the sovereignty of the people, you make of these naturally in-
telligible things so many entités in space: for, on the one
SECOND MEMOIR. 435
hand, we need a new definition of liberty, since that of ’89
no longer suffices; and, on the other, we must know in what
direction society should proceed in order to be in progress.
As for the sovereignty of the people, that is a grosser entité
than the sovereignty of reason; it is the entité of ent; tes. In
fact, since sovereignty can no more be conceived of outside.
of the people than outside of reason, it remains to be ascer-
tained who, among the people, shall exercise the sovereignty;
and, among so many minds, which shall be the sovereigns.
To say that the people should elect their representatives is to:
say that the people should recognize their sovereigns, which
does not remove the difficulty at all.
But suppose that, equal by birth, equal before the law,.
equal in personality, equal in social functions, you wish also:
to be equal in conditions.
Suppose that, perceiving all the mutual relations of men,
whether they produce or exchange or consume, to be rela-
tions of commutative justice, — in a word, social relations;
suppose, I say, that, perceiving this, you wish to give this
natural society a legal existence, and to establish the fact by
law, -
I say that then you need a clear, positive, and exact expres-
sion of your whole idea, – that is, an expression which
states at once the principle, the means, and the end ; and
I add that that expression is association.
And since the association of the human race dates, at least
rightfully, from the beginning of the world, and has gradually
established and perfected itself by successively divesting
itself of its negative elements, slavery, nobility, despotism,
aristocracy, and feudalism, - I say that, to eliminate the last
negation of society, to formulate the last revolutionary idea,
you must change your old rallying-cries, no more absolutism,.
436 WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
no more mobility, no more slaves / into that of no more
property / . . .
But I know what astonishes you, poor souls, blasted by the
wind of poverty, and crushed by your patrons' pride: it is
equality, whose consequences frighten you. How, you have
said in your journal, - how can we “dream of a level which,
being unnatural, is therefore unjust 2 How shall we pay the
day's labor of a Cormenin or a Lamennais ?”
Plebeians, listen When, after the battle of Salamis, the
Athenians assembled to award the prizes for courage, after
the ballots had been collected, it was found that each com-
batant had one vote for the first prize, and Themistocles all
the votes for the second. The people of Minerva were
crowned by their own hands. Truly heroic souls l all were
worthy of the olive-branch, since all had ventured to claim
it for themselves. Antiquity praised this sublime spirit.
Learn, proletaires, to esteem yourselves, and to respect
your dignity. You wish to be free, and you know not how
to be citizens. Now, whoever says “citizens” necessarily
says equals.
If I should call myself Lamennais or Cormenin, and some
journal, speaking of me, should burst forth with these hyper-
boles, incomparable genius, superior mind, consummate virtue,
noble character, I should not like it, and should complain, –
first, because such eulogies are never deserved ; and, second,
because they furnish.a bad example. But I wish, in order to
reconcilé you to equality, to measure for you the greatest lit-
erary personage of our century. Do not accuse me of envy,
proletaires, if I, a defender of equality, estimate at their
proper value talents which are universally admired, and
which I, better than any one, know how to recognize. A
dwarf can always measure a giant: all that he needs is a
yardstick.
SECOND MEMOIR. 437
You have seen the pretentious announcements of “L’Es-
quisse d'une Philosophie,” and you have admired the work on
trust; for either you have not read it, or, if you have, you
are incapable of judging it. Acquaint yourselves, then, with
this speculation more brilliant than sound ; and, while admir-
ing the enthusiasm of the author, cease to pity those useful
labors which only habit and the great number of the persons
engaged in them render contemptible. I shall be brief; for,
notwithstanding the importance of the subject and the genius
of the author, what I have to say is of but little moment.
M. Lamennais starts with the existence of God. How does
he demonstrate it By Cicero's argument, — that is, by the
consent of the human race. There is nothing new in that.
We have still to find out whether the belief of the human
race is legitimate; or, as Kant says, whether our subjective
certainty of the existence of God corresponds with the ob-
jective truth. This, however, does not trouble M. Lamen-
nais. He says that, if the human race believes, it is because
it has a reason for believing. Then, having pronounced the
name of God, M. Lamennais sings a hymn; and that is his
demonstration l
This first hypothesis admitted, M. Lamennais follows it
with a second; namely, that there are three persons in God.
But, while Christianity teaches the dogma of the Trinity only
on the authority of revelation, M. Lamennais pretends to
arrive at it by the sole force of argument; and he does not
perceive that his pretended demonstration is, from beginning
to end, anthropomorphism, - that is, an ascription of the fac-
ulties of the human mind and the powers of nature to the
Divine substance. New songs, new hymns !
God and the Trinity thus demonstrated, the philosopher
passes to the creation, — a third hypothesis, in which M. La-
438 WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
mennais, always eloquent, varied, and sublime, demonstrates.
that God made the world neither of nothing, nor of some-
thing, nor of himself; that he was free in creating, but that
nevertheless he could not but create ; that there is in matter
a matter which is not matter; that the archetypal ideas of
the world are separated from each other, in the Divine mind,
by a division which is obscure and unintelligible, and yet sub-
stantial and real, which involves intelligibility, &c. We meet
with like contradictions concerning the origin of evil. To.
explain this problem, - one of the profoundest in philosophy,
— M. Lamennais at one time denies evil, at another makes
God the author of evil, and at still another seeks outside of
God a first cause which is not God, - an amalgam of entités,
more or less incoherent, borrowed from Plato, Proclus, Spin-
oza, I might say even from all philosophers.
Having thus established his trinity of hypotheses, M. La-
mennais deduces therefrom, by a badly connected chain of
analogies, his whole philosophy. And it is here especially
that we notice the syncretism which is peculiar to him. The
theory of M. Lamennais embraces all systems, and supports
all opinions. Are you a materialist Suppress, as useless
entités, the three persons in God; then, starting directly
from heat, light, and electro-magnetism, - which, according
to the author, are the three original fluids, the three primary
external manifestations of Will, Intelligence, and Love, –
you have a materialistic and atheistic cosmogony. On the
contrary, are you wedded to spiritualism With the theory
of the immateriality of the body, you are able to see every-
where nothing but spirits. Finally, if you incline to panthe-
ism, you will be satisfied by M. Lamennais, who formally
teaches that the world is not an emanation from Divinity, --
which is pure pantheism, - but a flow of Divinity.
SECOND MEMOIR. 439
I do not pretend, however, to deny that “L’Esquisse” con-
tains some excellent things ; but, by the author's declaration
these things are not original with him ; it is the system which
is his. That is undoubtedly the reason why M. Lamennais
speaks so contemptuously of his predecessors in philosophy,
and disdains to quote his originals. He thinks that, since
“L’Esquisse” contains all true philosophy, the world will lose
nothing when the names and works of the old philosophers
perish. M. Lamennais, who renders glory to God in beautiful
songs, does not know how as well to render justice to his fel-
lows. His fatal fault is this appropriation of knowledge,
which the theologians call the philosophical sin, or the sin
against the Holy Ghost, — a sin which will not damn you,
proletaires, nor me either.
In short, “L’Esquisse,” judged as a system, and divested of
all which its author borrows from previous systems, is a com-
monplace work, whose method consists in constantly explain-
ing the known by the unknown, and in giving entités for
abstractions, and tautologies for proofs. Its whole theodicy
is a work not of genius but of imagination, a patching up of
neo-Platonic ideas. The psychological portion amounts to
nothing, M. Lamennais openly ridiculing labors of this char-
acter, without which, however, metaphysics is impossible.
The book, which treats of logic and its methods, is weak,
vague, and shallow. Finally, we find in the physical and phy-
siological speculations which M. Lamennais deduces from his
trinitarian cosmogony grave errors, the preconceived design
of accommodating facts to theory, and the substitution in
almost every case of hypothesis for reality. The third
volume on industry and art is the most interesting to read,
and the best. It is true that M. Lamennais can boast of
31
44O whAT IS PROPERTY 2
nothing but his style. As a philosopher, he has added not a
single idea to those which existed before him.
Why, then, this excessive mediocrity of M. Lamennais con-
sidered as a thinker, a mediocrity which disclosed itself at the
time of the publication of the “Essai sur l’Indifférence” It
is because (remember this well, proletaires 1) Nature makes no
man truly complete, and because the development of certain
faculties almost always excludes an equal development of the
opposite faculties; it is because M. Lamennais is pre-eminently
a poet, a man of feeling and sentiment. Look at his style, –
exuberant, sonorous, picturesque, vehement, full of exaggera-
tion and invective, – and hold it for certain that no man pos-
sessed of such a style was ever a true metaphysician. This
wealth of expression and illustration, which everybody ad-
mires, becomes in M. Lamennais the incurable cause of his
philosophical impotence. His flow of language, and his sen-
sitive nature misleading his imagination, he thinks that he is
reasoning when he is only repeating himself, and readily takes
a description for a logical deduction. Hence his horror of
positive ideas, his feeble powers of analysis, his pronounced
taste for indefinite analogies, verbal abstractions, hypothetical
generalities, in short, all sorts of entités.
Further, the entire life of M. Lamennais is conclusive
proof of his anti-philosophical genius. Devout even to mysti-
cism, an ardent ultramontane, an intolerant theocrat, he at
first feels the double influence of the religious reaction and
the literary theories which marked the beginning of this cen-
tury, and falls back to the middle ages and Gregory VII. ;
then, suddenly becoming a progressive Christian and a demo-
crat, he gradually leans towards rationalism, and finally falls
into deism. At present, everybody waits at the trap-door. As
for me, though I would not swear to it, I am inclined to think
SECOND MEMOIR. 44 I.
that M. Lamennais, already taken with scepticism, will die in
a state of indifference. He owes to individual reason and
methodical doubt this expiation of his early essays.
It has been pretended that M. Lamennais, preaching now a
theocracy, now universal democracy, has been always con-
sistent; that, under different names, he has sought invariably
one and the same thing, — unity. Pitiful excuse for an author
surprised in the very act of contradiction | What would be
thought of a man who, by turns a servant of despotism under
Louis XVI., a demagogue with Robespierre, a courtier of the
Emperor, a bigot during fifteen years of the Restoration, a
conservative since 1830, should dare to say that he ever had
wished for but one thing, — public order * Would he be
regarded as any the less a renegade from all parties 2 Public
order, unity, the world's welfare, social harmony, the union of
the nations, – concerning each of these things there is no
possible difference of opinion. Everybody wishes them ; the
character of the publicist depends only upon the means by
which he proposes to arrive at them. But why look to M.
Lamennais for a steadfastness of opinion, which he himself
repudiates ? Has he not said, “The mind has no law; that
which I believe to-day, I did not believe yesterday; I do not
know that I shall believe it to-morrow’’ ”
No ; there is no real superiority among men, since all
talents and capacities are combined never in one individual.
This man has the power of thought, that one imagination and
style, still another industrial and commercial capacity. By
our very nature and education, we possess only special apti-
tudes which are limited and confined, and which become con-
sequently more necessary as they gain in depth and strength.
Capacities are to each other as functions and persons; who
would dare to classify them in ranks 2 The finest genius is,
442 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
by the laws of his existence and development, the most de—
pendent upon the society which creates him. Who would
dare to make a god of the glorious child
“It is not strength which makes the man,” said a Hercules of
the market-place to the admiring crowd ; “it is character.”
That man, who had only his muscles, held force in contempt.
The lesson is a good one, proletaires; we should profit by it. .
It is not talent (which is also a force), it is not knowledge, it
is not beauty which makes the man. It is heart, courage,
will, virtue. Now, if we are equal in that which makes us .
men, how can the accidental distribution of secondary facul-
ties detract from our manhood 2
Remember that privilege is naturally and inevitably the lot
of the weak; and do not be misled by the fame which accom-
panies certain talents whose greatest merit consists in their
rarity, and a long and toilsome apprenticeship. It is easier
for M. Lamennais to recite a philippic, or sing a humanitarian
ode after the Platonic fashion, than to discover a single useful
truth ; it is easier for an economist to apply the laws of pro-
duction and distribution than to write ten lines in the style of
M. Lamennais; it is easier for both to speak than to act.
You, then, who put your hands to the work, who alone truly
create, why do you wish me to admit your inferiority ? But,
what am I saying 2 Yes, you are inferior, for you lack virtue
and will ! Ready for labor and for battle, you have, when
liberty and equality are in question, neither courage nor
character |
In the preface to his pamphlet on “Le Pays et le Gouverne-
ment,” as well as in his defence before the jury, M. Lamennais
frankly declared himself an advocate of property. Out of
regard for the author and his misfortune, I shall abstain from
characterizing this declaration, and from examining these :
SECOND MEMOIR. 443
two sorrowful performances. M. Lamennais seems to be
only the tool of a quasi-radical party, which flatters him in
order to use him, without respect for a glorious, but hence
forth powerless, old age. What means this profession of
faith? From the first number of “L’Avenir” to “L’Esquisse
d’une Philosophie,” M. Lamennais always favors equality, as-
sociation, and even a sort of vague and indefinite communism.
M. Lamennais, in recognizing the right of property, gives the
lie to his past career, and renounces his most generous ten-
dencies. Can it, then, be true that in this man, who has
been too roughly treated, but who is also too easily flat-
tered, strength of talent has already outlived strength of
will 2
It is said that M. Lamennais has rejected the offers of sev-
eral of his friends to try to procure for him a commutation of
bis sentence. M. Lamennais prefers to serve out his time.
May not this affectation of a false stoicism come from the
same source as his recognition of the right of property 2 The
Huron, when taken prisoner, hurls insults and threats at his
conqueror, – that is the heroism of the savage; the martyr
prays for his executioners, and is willing to receive from them
his life, – that is the heroism of the Christian. Why has the
apostle of love become an apostle of anger and revenge 2
Has, then, the translator of “L’Imitation” forgotten that he
who offends charity cannot honor virtue 2 Galileo, retracting
on his knees before the tribunal of the inquisition his heresy
in regard to the movement of the earth, and recovering at
that price his liberty, seems to me a hundred times grander
than M. Lamennais. What l if we suffer for truth and just-
ice, must we, in retaliation, thrust our persecutors outside the
pale of human society; and, when sentenced to an unjust pun-
ishment, must we decline exemption if it is offered to us,
444 WHAT IS PROPERTY 2
because it pleases a few base satellites to call it a pardon.?"
Such is not the wisdom of Christianity. But I forgot that in
the presence of M. Lamennais this name is no longer pro-
nounced. May the prophet of “L’Avenir” be soon restored
to liberty and his friends; but, above all, may he henceforth.
derive his inspiration only from his genius and his heart
O proletaires, proletaires how long are you to be victim-
ized by this spirit of revenge and implacable hatred which
your false friends kindle, and which, perhaps, has done more
harm to the development of reformatory ideas than the cor-
ruption, ignorance, and malice of the government 2 Believe
me, at the present time everybody is to blame. In fact, in
intention, or in example, all are found wanting ; and you have-
no right to accuse any one. The king himself (God forgive
me! I do not like to justify a king), — the king himself is,
like his predecessors, only the personification of an idea, and
an idea, proletaires, which possesses you yet. His greatest.
wrong consists in wishing for its complete realization, while
you wish it realized only partially, - consequently, in being,
logical in his government; while you, in your complaints, are:
not at all so. You clamor for a second regicide. He that is,
without sin among you, -let him cast at the prince of prop-
erty the first stone ! &
How successful you would have been if, in order to influ-
ence men, you had appealed to the self-love of men, – if, in
order to alter the constitution and the law, you had placed.
yourselves within the constitution and the law Fifty thou–
sand laws, they say, make up our political and civil codes.
Of these fifty thousand laws, twenty-five thousand are for
you, twenty-five thousand against you. Is it not clear that
your duty is to oppose the former to the latter, and thus, by
the argument of contradiction, drive privilege into its last
SECOND MEMOIR. 445
ditch 2 This method of action is henceforth the only useful
one, being the only moral and rational one.
For my part, if I had the ear of this nation, to which I am
attached by birth and predilection, with no intention of play-
ing the leading part in the future republic, I would instruct
the laboring masses to conquer property through institutions
and judicial pleadings; to seek auxiliaries and accomplices in
the highest ranks of society, and to ruin all privileged classes
by taking advantage of their common desire for power and
popularity. The petition for the electoral reform has already
received two hundred thousand signatures, and the illustrious
Arago threatens us with a million. Surely, that will be well
done; but from this million of citizens, who are as willing to
vote for an emperor as for equality, could we not select ten
thousand signatures — I mean bond fide signatures — whose
authors can read, write, cipher, and even think a little, and
whom we could invite, after due perusal and verbal explana-
tion, to sign such a petition as the following:—
“To His Excellency the Minister of the Interior: —
“MonSIEUR LE MINISTRE,--On the day when a royal ordinance,
decreeing the establishment of model national workshops, shall appear in
the ‘Moniteur,” the undersigned, to the number of ten thousand, will re-
pair to the Palace of the Tuileries, and there, with all the power of their
lungs, will shout, •. Long live Louis Philippe l’
“On the day when the ‘Moniteur' shall inform the public that this
petition is refused, the undersigned, to the number of ten thousand, will
say secretly in their hearts, ‘Down with Louis Philippe l’”
If I am not mistaken, such a petition would have some
effect." The pleasure of a popular ovation would be well
1 The electoral reform, it is continually asserted, is not an end, but a means.
Undoubtedly; but what, then, is the end ? Why not furnish an unequivocal
explanation of its object 2 How can the people choose their representatives,
446 whAT IS oro PERTY 2
worth the sacrifice of a few millions. They sow so much to
reap unpopularity Then, if the nation, its hopes of 1830
restored, should feel it its duty to keep its promise, – and it
would keep it, for the word of the nation is, like that of God,
sacred, - if, I say, the nation, reconciled by this act with the
public-spirited monarchy, should bear to the foot of the throne
its cheers and its vows, and should at that solemn moment
choose me to speak in its name, the following would be the
substance of my speech : —
unless they know in advance the purpose for which they choose them, and the
object of the commission which they entrust to them *
But, it is said, the very business of those chosen by the people is to find out
the object of the reform.
That is a quibble. What is to hinder these persons, who are to be elected
in future, from first seeking for this object, and then, when they have found it,
from communicating it to the people 2 The reformers have well said, that,
while the object of the electoral reform remains in the least indefinite, it will
be only a means of transferring power from the hands of petty tyrants to the
hands of other tyrants. We know already how a nation may be oppressed by
being led to believe that it is obeying only its own laws. The history of uni-
versal suffrage, among all nations, is the history of the restrictions of liberty
by and in the name of the multitude.
Still, if the electoral reform, in its present shape, were rational, practical,
acceptable to clean consciences and upright minds, perhaps one might be ex-
cused, though ignorant of its object, for supporting it. But, no; the text of
the petition determines nothing, makes no distinctions, requires no conditions,
no guarantee; it establishes the right without the duty. “Every Frenchman is
a voter, and eligible to office.” As well say: “Every bayonet is intelligent,
every savage is civilized, every slave is free.” In its vague generality, the re-
formatory petition is the weakest of abstractions, or the highest form of politi-
cal treason. Consequently, the enlightened patriots distrust and despise each
other. The most radical writer of the time, — he whose economical and social
theories are, without comparison, the most advanced, - M. Leroux, has taken a
bold =;and against universal suffrage and democratic government, and has
written an exceedingly keen criticism of J. J. Rousseau. That is undoubtedly
the reason why M. Leroux is no longer the philosopher of “Le National.”
That journal, like Napoleon, does not like men of ideas. Nevertheless, “Le
National" ought to know that he who fights against ideas will perish by ideas.
SECOND MEMOIR. 447
“SIRE,--This is what the nation wishes to say to your Majesty: —
“O King you see what it costs to gain the applause of the citizens.
Would you like us henceforth to take for our motto: ‘Let us help the
King, the King will help us.” P Do you wish the people to cry: “THE
KING AND THE FRENCH NATION’ ” Then abandon these grasping
bankers, these quarrelsome lawyers, these miserable bourgeois, these
infamous writers, these dishonored men. All these, Sire, hate you, and
continue to support you only because they fear us. Finish the work of
“our kings ; wipe out aristocracy and privilege; consult with these faithful
proletaires, with the nation, which alone can honor a sovereign and sin-
cerely shout, “Long live the king !’”
The rest of what I have to say, sir, is for you alone; others
would not understand me. You are, I perceive, a republican
as well as an economist, and your patriotism revolts at the
very idea of addressing to the authorities a petition in which
the government of Louis Philippe should be tacitly recog-
nized. “National workshops it were well to have such insti-
tutions established,” you think; “but patriotic hearts never
will accept them from an aristocratic ministry, nor by the
courtesy of a king.” Already, undoubtedly, your old preju-
dices have returned, and you now regard me only as a sophist,
as ready to flatter the powers that be as to dishonor, by push-
ing them to an extreme, the principles of equality and uni-
versal fraternity.
What shall I say to you?... That I should so lightly com-
promise the future of my theories, either this clever sophistry
which is attributed to me must be at bottom a very trifling
affair, or else my convictions must be so firm that they de-
prive me of free-will.
But, not to insist further on the necessity of a compromise
between the executive power and the people, it seems to me,
sir, that, in doubting my patriotism, you reason very capri-
ciously, and that your judgments are exceedingly rash. You,
sir, ostensibly defending government and property, are al-
448 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
lowed to be a republican, reformer, phalansterian, any thing:
you wish; I, on the contrary, demanding distinctly enough a
slight reform in public economy, am foreordained a conserva-
tive, and likewise a friend of the dynasty. I cannot explain
myself more clearly. So firm a believer am I in the philoso-
phy of accomplished facts and the statu quo of governmental
forms, that, instead of destroying that which exists and be-
ginning over again the past, I prefer to render every thing
legitimate by correcting it. It is true that the corrections
which I propose, though respecting the form, tend to finally
change the nature of the things corrected. Who denies it?"
But it is precisely that which constitutes my system of statue
quo. I make no war upon symbols, figures, or phantoms. I
respect scarecrows, and bow before bugbears. I ask, on the
one hand, that property be left as it is, but that interest on
all kinds of capital be gradually lowered and finally abolished;
on the other hand, that the charter be maintained in its pres-
ent shape, but that method be introduced into administration
and politics. That is all. Nevertheless, submitting to all
that is, though not satisfied with it, I endeavor to conform:
to the established order, and to render unto Caesar the things
that are Caesar's. Is it thought, for instance, that I love
property? . . . Very well; I am myself a proprietor and do
homage to the right of increase, as is proved by the fact that
I have creditors to whom I faithfully pay, every year, a large
amount of interest. The same with politics. Since we are
3 y
a monarchy, I would cry, “Long live the king,” rather than
suffer death; which does not prevent me, however, from de-
manding that the irremovable, inviolable, and hereditary rep-
resentative of the nation shall act with the proletaires against
the privileged classes; in a word, that the king shall become
the leader of the radical party. Thereby we proletaires.
SECOND MEMOIR. 449?
would gain every thing; and I am sure that, at this price,.
Louis Philippe might secure to his family the perpetual presi-
dency of the republic. And this is why I think so.
If there existed in France but one great functional inequal-
ity, the duty of the functionary being, from one end of the
year to the other, to hold full court of savants, artists, sol-
diers, deputies, inspectors, &c., it is evident that the expenses
of the presidency then would be the national expenses; and
that, through the reversion of the civil list to the mass of
consumers, the great inequality of which I speak would form
an exact equation with the whole nation. Of this no econo-
mist needs a demonstration. Consequently, there would be:
no more fear of cliques, courtiers, and appanages, since no.
new inequality could be established. The king, as king,
would have friends (unheard-of thing), but no family. His.
relatives or kinsmen, –agnats et cognats, – if they were fools,
would be nothing to him; and in no case, with the exception
of the heir apparent, would they have, even in court, more
privileges than others. No more nepotism, no more favor,
no more baseness. No one would go to court save when duty
required, or when called by an honorable distinction ; and as
all conditions would be equal and all functions equally hon-
ored, there would be no other emulation than that of merit
and virtue. I wish the king of the French could say without
shame, “My brother the gardener, my sister-in-law the milk-
maid, my son the prince-royal, and my son the blacksmith.”
His daughter might well be an artist. That would be beauti-
ful, sir; that would be royal; no one but a buffoon could fail
to understand it.
In this way, I have come to think that the forms of royalty
may be made to harmonize with the requirements of equality,
and have given a monarchical form to my republican spirit.
45C wiłAT IS PROPERTY 2
I have seen that France contains by no means as many demo-
crats as is generally supposed, and I have compromised with
the monarchy. I do not say, however, that, if France wanted
a republic, I could not accommodate myself equally well, and
perhaps better. By nature, I hate all signs of distinction,
crosses of honor, gold lace, liveries, costumes, honorary titles,
&c., and, above all, parades. If I had my way, no general
should be distinguished from a soldier, nor a peer of France
from a peasant. Why have I never taken part in a review 2
for I am happy to say, sir, that I am a national guard; I
have nothing else in the world but that. Because the review
is always held at a place which I do not like, and because
they have fools for officers whom I am compelled to obey.
You see, – and this is not the best of my history, -that, in
spite of my conservative opinions, my life is a perpetual sacri-
fice to the republic.
Nevertheless, I doubt if such simplicity would be agreeable
to French vanity, to that inordinate love of distinction and
flattery which makes our nation the most frivolous in the
world. M. Lamartine, in his grand “Meditation on Bona-
parte,” calls the French a nation of Brutuses. We are merely
a nation of Narcissuses. Previous to '89, we had the aristoc-
racy of blood; then every bourgeois looked down upon the
commonalty, and wished to be a nobleman. Afterwards, dis-
tinction was based on wealth, and the bourgeoisie jealous of
the nobility, and proud of their money, used 1830 to promote,
not liberty by any means, but the aristocracy of wealth.
When, through the force of events, and the natural laws of
society, for the development of which France offers such free
play, equality shall be established in functions and fortunes,
then the beaux and the belles, the savants and the artists,
will form new classes. There is a universal and innate desire
SECOND MEMOIR. 45 I
in this Gallic country for fame and glory. We must have dis-
tinctions, be they what they may, - nobility, wealth, talent,
beauty, or dress. I suspect MM. Arago and Garnier-Pagès
of having aristocratic manners, and I picture to myself our
great journalists, in their columns, so friendly to the people, .
administering rough kicks to the compositors in their printing-
offices.
“This man,” once said “Le National” in speaking of
Carrel, “whom we had proclaimed first consul / . . .” Is it
not true that the monarchical principle still lives in the hearts
of our democrats, and that they want universal suffrage in
order to make themselves kings Since “Le National”
prides itself on holding more fixed opinions than “Le Journal
des Debats,” I presume that, Armand Carrel being dead, M.
Armand Marrast is now first consul, and M. Garnier-Pagès
second consul. In every thing the deputy must give way to
the journalist. I do not speak of M. Arago, whom I believe
to be, in spite of calumny, too learned for the consulship. Be
it so. Though we have consuls, our position is not much
altered. I am ready to yield my share of sovereignty to MM.
Armand Marrast and Garnier-Pagès, the appointed consuls,
provided they will swear on entering upon the duties of their
office, to abolish property and not be haughty.
Forever promises Forever oaths Why should the people
trust in tribunes, when kings perjure themselves 2 Alas !
truth and honesty are no longer, as in the days of King John,
in the mouth of princes. A whole senate has been convicted
of felony, and, the interest of the governors always being,
for some mysterious reason, opposed to the interest of the
governed, parliaments follow each other while the nation dies
of hunger. No, no l No more protectors, no more emperors,
no more consuls. Better manage our affairs ourselves than
452 whAT IS PROPERTY P
through agents. Better associate our industries than beg
from monopolies; and, since the republic cannot dispense
with virtues, we should labor for our reform.
This, therefore, is my line of conduct. I preach emancipa-
tion to the proletaires; association to the laborers ; equality to
the wealthy. I push forward the revolution by all means in
my power, — the tongue, the pen, the press, by action, and
example. My life is a continual apostleship.
Yes, I am a reformer ; I say it as I think it, in good faith,
and that I may be no longer reproached for my vanity. I
wish to convert the world. Very likely this fancy springs
from an enthusiastic pride which may have turned to deli-
rium ; but it will be admitted at least that I have plenty of
company, and that my madness is not monomania. At the
present day, everybody wishes to be reckoned among the
lunatics of Beranger. To say nothing of the Babeufs, the
Marats, and the Robespierres, who swarm in our streets and
workshops, all the great reformers of antiquity live again in
the most illustrious personages of our time. One is Jesus
Christ, another Moses, a third Mahomet ; this is Orpheus,
that Plato, or Pythagoras. Gregory VII., himself, has risen
from the grave together with the evangelists and the apostles;
and it may turn out that even I am that slave who, having
escaped from his master's house, was forthwith made a bishop
and a reformer by St. Paul. As for the virgins and holy
women, they are expected daily; at present, we have only
Aspasias and courtesans.
Now, as in all diseases, the diagnostic varies according to
the temperament, so my madness has its peculiar aspects and
distinguishing characteristic. -
Reformers, as a general thing, are jealous of their rôle ;
they suffer no rivals, they want no partners; they have dis-
SECOND MEMOIR. 453
ciples, but no co-laborers. It is my desire, on the contrary,
to communicate my enthusiasm, and to make it, as far as I
tan, epidemic. I wish that all were, like myself, reformers, in
order that there might be no more sects ; and that Christs,
Anti-Christs, and false Christs might be forced to understand
and agree with each other. -
Again, every reformer is a magician, or at least desires to
become one. Thus Moses, Jesus Christ, and the apostles,
proved their mission by miracles. Mahomet ridiculed mira-
cles after having endeavored to perform them. Fourier, more
..cunning, promises us wonders when the globe shall be
covered with phalansteries. For myself, I have as great a
horror of miracles as of authorities, and aim only at logic.
That is why I continually search after the criterion of cer-
tainty. I work for the reformation of ideas. Little matters
it that they find me dry and austere. I mean to conquer by a
bold struggle, or die in the attempt ; and whoever shall come
to the defence of property, I swear that I will force him to
argue like M. Considérant, or philosophize like M. Troplong.
Finally,– and it is here that I differ most from my com-
peers, – I do not believe it necessary, in order to reach equal-
; ity, to turn every thing topsy-turvy. To maintain that
nothing but an overturn can lead to reform is, in my judg-
ment, to construct a syllogism, and to look for the truth in
the regions of the unknown. Now, I am for generalization,
induction, and progress. I regard general disappropriation as
impossible: attacked from that point, the problem of univer-
sal association seems to me insolvable. Property is like the
dragon which Hercules killed: to destroy it, it must be taken,
not by the head, but by the tail, - that is, by profit and in-
£erest.
I stop. I have said enough to satisfy any one who can
454 whAT IS PROPERTY 2
read and understand. The surest way by which the govern-
ment can baffle intrigues and break up parties is to take pos-
session of science, and point out to the nation, at an already
appreciable distance, the rising oriflamme of equality; to
say to those politicians of the tribune and the press, for
whose fruitless quarrels we pay so dearly, “You are rushing
forward, blind as you are, to the abolition of property; but
the government marches with its eyes open. You hasten the
future by unprincipled and insincere controversy; but the
government, which knows this future, leads you thither by a
happy and peaceful transition. The present generation will
not pass away before France, the guide and model of civilized
nations, has regained her rank and legitimate influence.”
But, alas ! the government itself, - who shall enlighten it 2
Who can induce it to accept this doctrine of equality, whose
terrible but decisive formula the most generous minds hardly
dare to acknowledge . . . I feel my whole being tremble
when I think that the testimony of three men—yes, of three
men who make it their business to teach and define — would
suffice to give full play to public opinion, to change beliefs,
and to fix destinies. Will not the three men be found 2 . . .
May we hope, or not 2 What must we think of those who.
govern us? In the world of sorrow in which the proletaire
moves, and where nothing is known of the intentions of
power, it must be said that despair prevails. But you, sir, –
you, who by function belong to the official world; you, in
whom the people recognize one of their noblest friends, and
property its most prudent adversary, - what say you of our
deputies, our ministers, our king 2 Do you believe that the
authorities are friendly to us? Then let the government.
declare its position; let it print its profession of faith in
equality, and I am dumb. Otherwise, I shall continue ther
SECOND MEMOIR, 455
war; and the more obstinacy and malice is shown, the
oftener will I redouble my energy and audacity. I have said
before, and I repeat it, — I have sworn, not on the dagger and
the death's-head, amid the horrors of a catacomb, and in the
presence of men besmeared with blood; but I have sworn on
my conscience to pursue property, to grant it neither peace
nor truce, until I see it everywhere execrated. I have not
yet published half the things that I have to say concerning
the right of domain, nor the best things. Let the knights of
property, if there are any who fight otherwise than by retreat-
ing, be prepared every day for a new demonstration and ac-
cusation; let them enter the arena armed with reason and
knowledge, not wrapped up in sophisms, for justice will be
done.
“To become enlightened, we must have liberty. That alone suffices;
but it must be the liberty to use the reason in regard to all public
Imatters.
“And yet we hear on every hand authorities of all kinds and degrees
crying: “Do not reason l’
“If a distinction is wanted, here is one: —
“The public use of the reason always should be free, but the private
use ought always to be rigidly restricted. By public use, I mean the
scientific, literary use; by private, that which may be taken advantage of
by civil officials and public functionaries. Since the governmental ma-
chinery must be kept in motion, in order to preserve unity and attain our
object, we must not reason; we must obey. But the same individual who
is bound, from this point of view, to passive obedience, has the right to
speak in his capacity of citizen and scholar. He can make an appeal to
the public, submit to it his observations on events which occur around
him and in the ranks above him, taking care, however, to avoid offences
which are punishable. f
“Reason, then, as much as you like; only, obey.”—Kant: Fragment
on the Liberty of Zhought and of the Press. Tissot's Translation.
These words of the great philosopher outline for me my
duty. . I have delayed the reprint of the work entitled “What
32
456 whAT IS PROPERTY
is Property?” in order that I might lift the discussion to
the philosophical height from which ridiculous clamor has
dragged it down; and that, by a new presentation of the ques-
tion, I might dissipate the fears of good citizens. I now re-
enter upon the public use of my reason, and give truth full
swing. The second edition of the First Memoir on Property
will immediately follow the publication of this letter. Before
issuing any thing further, I shall await the observations of my
critics, and the co-operation of the friends of the people and
of equality.
Hitherto, I have spoken in my own name, and on my own
personal responsibility. It was my duty. I was endeavoring
to call attention to principles which antiquity could not dis-
cover, because it knew nothing of the science which reveals
them,-political economy. I have, then, testified as to facts;
in short, I have been a witness. Now my rôle changes. It
remains for me to deduce the practical consequences of the
facts proclaimed. The position of public prosecutor is the
only one which I am henceforth fitted to fill, and I shall sum
up the case in the name of the people.
I am, sir, with all the consideration that I owe to your
talent and your character,
Your very humble and most obedient servant,
P. J. PROUDHON,
Æensioner of the Academy of Besançon.
P.S. During the session of April 2, the Chamber of
Deputies rejected, by a very large majority, the literary-
property bill, because it did not understand it. Nevertheless,
literary property is only a special form of the right of prop-
SECOND MEMOIR. 457
erty, which everybody claims to understand. Let us hope
that this legislative precedent will not be fruitless for the
cause of equality. The consequence of the vote of the Cham-
ber is the abolition of capitalistic property, -property incom-
prehensible, contradictory, impossible, and absurd.
THE END,
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