The same phenomenon is to be observed in societies. The forms of democracy which select the better elements of the popular classes finally result in the creation of an intellectual aristocracy, a result the contrary of the dream of the pure theorists, to beat down the superior elements of society to the level of the inferior elements.
On the side of natural law, which is hostile to theories of equality, are the conditions of modern progress. Science and industry demand more and more considerable intellectual efforts, so that mental inequalities and the differences of social condition which spring from them cannot but become accentuated.
We therefore observe this striking phenomenon: as laws and institutions seek to level individuals the progress of civilisation tends still further to differentiate them. From the peasant to the feudal baron the intellectual difference was not great, but from the working-man to the engineer it is immense and is increasing daily.
Capacity being the principal factor of progress, the capable of each class rise while the mediocre remain stationary or sink. What could laws do in the face of such inevitable necessities?
In vain do the incapable pretend that, representing number, they also represent force. Deprived of the superior brains by whose researches all workers profit, they would speedily sink into poverty and anarchy.
The capital rôle of the elect in modern civilisation seems too obvious to need pointing out. In the case of civilised nations and barbarian peoples, which contain similar averages of mediocrities, the superiority of the former arises solely from the superior minds which they contain. The United States have understood this so thoroughly that they forbid the immigration of Chinese workers, whose capacity is identical with that of American workers, and who, Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 176
working for lower wages, tend to create a formidable competition with the latter. Despite these evidences we see the antagonism between the multitude and the elect increasing day by day. At no period were the elect more necessary, yet never were they supported with such difficulty.
One of the most solid foundations of Socialism is an intense hatred of the elect. Its adepts always forget that scientific, artistic, and industrial progress, which creates the strength of a country and the prosperity of millions of workers, is due solely to a small number of superior brains.
If the worker makes three times as much to-day as he did a hundred years ago, and enjoys commodities then unknown to great nobles, he owes it entirely to the elect.
Suppose that by some miracle Socialism had been universally accepted a century ago. Risk, speculation, initiative — in a word, all the stimulants of human activity — being suppressed, no progress would have been possible, and the worker would have remained as poor as he was. Men would merely have established that equality in poverty desired by the jealousy and envy of a host of mediocre minds. Humanity will never renounce the progress of civilisation to satisfy so low an ideal.
Chapter II: The Results of Democratic Evolution.
1. The Influence upon Social Evolution of Theories of no Rational Value.
We have seen that natural laws do not agree with the aspirations of democracy.
We know, also, that such a statement has never affected doctrines already in men’s minds. The man led by a belief never troubles about its real value The philosopher who studies a belief must obviously discuss its rational content, but he is more concerned with its influences upon the general mind.
Applied to the interpretation of all the great beliefs of history, the importance of this distinction is at once evident. Jupiter, Moloch, Vishnu, Allah, and so many other divinities, were, no doubt, from the rational point of view, mere illusions, yet their effect upon the life of the peoples has been considerable.
The same distinction is applicable to the beliefs which prevailed during the Middle Ages. Equally illusory, they nevertheless exercised as profound an influence as if they had corresponded with realities.
If any one doubts this, let him compare the domination of the Roman Empire Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 177
and that of the Church of Rome. The first was perfectly real and tangible, and implied no illusion. The second, while its foundations were entirely chimerical, was fully as powerful. Thanks to it, during the long night of the Middle Ages, semi-barbarous peoples acquired those social bonds and restraints and that national soul without which there is no civilisation.
The power possessed by the Church proves, again, that the power of certain illusions is sufficiently great to create, at least momentarily, sentiments as contrary to the interests of the individual as they are to that of society — such as the love of the monastic life, the desire for martyrdom, the crusades, the religious wars, etc.
The application to democratic and socialistic ideas of the preceding considerations shows that it matters little that these ideas have no defensible basis.
They impress and influence men’s minds, and that is sufficient. Their results may be disastrous in the extreme, but we cannot prevent them.
The apostles of the new doctrines are quite wrong in taking so much trouble to find a rational basis for their aspirations. They would be far more convinc-ing were they to confine themselves to making affirmations and awakening hopes. Their real strength resides in the religious mentality which is inherent in the heart of man, and which during the ages has only changed its object.
Later on we shall consider from a philosophical point of view various consequences of the democratic evolution whose course we see accelerating.
We may say in respect of the Church in the Middle Ages that it had the power of profoundly influencing the mentality of men. Examining certain results of the democratic doctrines, we shall see that the power of these is no less than that of the Church.
2. The Jacobin Spirit and the Mentality created by Democratic Beliefs.
Existing generations have inherited, not only the revolutionary principles but also the special mentality which achieves their success.
Describing this mentality when we were examining the Jacobin spirit, we saw that it always endeavours to impose by force illusions which it regards as the truth. The Jacobin spirit has finally become so general in France and in other Latin countries that it has affected all political parties, even the most conservative. The bourgeoisie is strongly affected by it, and the people still more so.
Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 178
This increase of the Jacobin spirit has resulted in the fact that political conceptions, institutions, and laws tend to impose themselves by force.
Syndicalism, peaceful enough in other countries, immediately assumed in France an uncompromising and anarchical aspect, which betrayed itself in the shape of riots, sabotage, and incendiarism.
Not to be repressed by timid Governments, the Jacobin spirit produces melancholy ravages in minds of mediocre capacity. At a recent congress of railway men a third of the delegates voted approval of sabotage, and one of the secretaries of the Congress began his speech by saying: “I send all saboteurs my fraternal greeting and all my admiration.”
This general mentality engenders an increasing anarchy. That France is not in a permanent state of anarchy is, as I have already remarked, due to the fact that the parties by which she is divided produce something like equilibrium. They are animated by a mortal hatred for one another, but none of them is strong enough to enslave its rivals.
This Jacobin intolerance is spreading to such an extent that the rulers themselves employ without scruple the most revolutionary tactics with regard to their enemies, violently persecuting any party that offers the least resistance, and even despoiling it of its property. Our rulers to-day behave as the ancient conquerors used; the vanquished have nothing to hope from the victors.
Far from being peculiar to the lower orders, intolerance is equally prominent among the ruling classes. Michelet remarked long ago that the violence of the cultivated classes is often greater than that of the people. It is true that they do not break the street lamps, but they are ready enough to cause heads to be broken. The worst violence of the revolution was the work of cultivated bourgeoisie — professors, lawyers, etc., possessors of that classical education which is supposed to soften the manners. It has not done so in these days, any more than it did of old. One can make sure of this by reading the advanced journals, whose contributors and editors are recruited chiefly from among the professors of the University.
Their books are as violent as their articles, and one wonders how such favourites of fortune can have secreted such stores of hatred.
One would find it hard to credit them did they assure us that they were consumed by an intense passion for altruism. One might more readily admit that apart from a narrow religious mentality the hope of being remarked by the Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 179
mighty ones of the day, or of creating a profitable popularity, is the only possible explanation of the violence recommended in their written propaganda.
I have already, in one of my preceding works, cited some passages from a book written by a professor at the College of France, in which the author incites the people to seize upon the riches of the bourgeoisie, whom he furiously abuses, and have arrived at the conclusion that a new revolution would readily find among the authors of such books the Marats, Robespierres, and Carriers whom it might require.
The Jacobin religion — above all in its Socialist form — has all the power of the ancient faiths over feeble minds Blinded by their faith, they believe that reason is their guide, but are really actuated solely by their passions and their dreams.
The evolution of democratic ideas has thus produced not only the political results already mentioned, but also a considerable effect upon the mentality of modern men.
If the ancient dogmas have long ago exhausted their power, the theories of democracy are far from having lost theirs, and we see their consequences increasing daily. One of the chief results has been the general hatred of superiority.
This hatred of whatever passes the average in social fortune or intelligence is to-day general in all classes, from the working-classes to the upper strata of the bourgeoisie. The results are envy, detraction, and a love of attack, of raillery, of persecution, and a habit of attributing all actions to low motives, of refusing to believe in probity, disinterestedness, and intelligence.
Conversation, among the people as among the most cultivated Frenchmen, is stamped with the craze for abasing and abusing everything and everyone. Even the greatest of the dead do not escape this tendency. Never were so many books written to depreciate the merit of famous men, men who were formerly regarded as the most precious patrimony of their country.
Envy and hatred seem from all time to have been inseparable from democratic theories, but the spread of these sentiments has never been so great as to-day.
It strikes all observers.
“There is a low demagogic instinct,” writes M. Bourdeau, “without any moral inspiration, which dreams of pulling humanity down to the lowest level, and for which any superiority, even of culture, is an offence to society... it is the Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 180
sentiment of ignoble equality which animated the Jacobin butchers when they struck off the head of a Lavoisier or a Chénier.
This hatred of superiority, the most prominent element in the modern progress of Socialism, is not the only characteristic of the new spirit created by democratic ideas.
Other consequences, although indirect, are not less profound. Such, for example, are the progress of “statism,” the diminution of the power of the bourgeoisie, the increasing activity of financiers, the conflict of the classes, the vanishing of the old social constraints, and the degradation of morality.
All these effects are displayed in a general insubordination and anarchy. The son revolts against the father, the employee against his patron, the soldier against his officers. Discontent, hatred, and envy reign throughout.
A social movement which continues is necessarily like a machine in movement which accelerates its motion. We shall therefore find that the results of this mentality will become yet more important. It is betrayed from time to time by incidents whose gravity is daily increasing — railway strikes, postmen’s strikes, explosions on board ironclads, etc. A propos of the destruction of the Liberté, which cost more than two million pounds and slew two hundred men in the space of a minute, an ex-Minister of Marine, M. de Lanessan, expresses himself as follows: —
The evil that is gnawing at our fleet is the same as that which is devouring our army, our public administrations, our parliamentary system, our governmental system, and the whole fabric of our society. This evil is anarchy — that is to say, such a disorder of minds and things that nothing is done as reason would dictate, and no one behaves as his professional or moral duty should require him to behave.”
On the subject of the catastrophe of the Liberté, which followed that of the Iéna, M. Felix Roussel said, in a speech delivered as president of the municipal council of Paris: —
“The causes of the evil are not peculiar to our day. The evil is more general, and bears a triple name: irresponsibility, indiscipline, and anarchy.” These quotations, which state facts with which everyone is familiar, show that the staunchest upholders of the republican system themselves recognise the progress of social disorganisation.12 Everyone sees it, while he is conscious of his own impotence to change anything. It results, in fact, from mental Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 181
influences whose power is greater than that of our wills.
3. Universal Suffrage and its Representatives.
Among the dogmas of democracy perhaps the most fundamental of all and the most attractive is that of universal suffrage. It gives the masses the idea of equality, since for a moment at least rich and poor, learned and ignorant, are equal before the electoral urn. The minister elbows the least of his servants, and during this brief moment the power of one is as great as the others.
All Governments, including that of the Revolution, have feared universal suffrage. At a first glance, indeed, the objections which suggests themselves are numerous. The idea that the multitude could usefully choose the men capable of governing, that individuals of indifferent morality, feeble knowledge, and narrow minds should possess, by the sole fact of number, a certain talent for judging the candidate proposed for its selection is surely a shocking one.
From a rational point of view the suffrage of numbers is to a certain extent justified if we think with Pascal.
“Plurality is the best way, because it is visible and has strength to make itself obeyed; it is, however, the advice of the less able.” As universal suffrage cannot in our times be replaced by any other institution, we must accept it and try to adapt it. It is accordingly useless to protest against it or to repeat with the queen Marie Caroline, at the time of her struggle with Napoleon: “Nothing is more dreadful than to govern men in this enlightened century, when every cobbler reasons and criticises the Government.” To tell the truth, the objections are not always as great as they appear. The laws of the psychology of crowds being admitted, it is very doubtful whether a limited suffrage would give a much better choice of men than that obtained by universal suffrage.
These same psychological laws also show us that so-called universal suffrage is in reality a pure fiction. The crowd, save in very rare cases, has no opinion but that of its leaders. Universal suffrage really represents the most limited of suffrages.
There justly resides its real danger. Universal suffrage is made dangerous by the fact that the leaders who are its masters are the creatures of little local committees analogous to the clubs of the Revolution. The leader who Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 182
canvasses for a mandate is chosen by them.
Once nominated, he exercises an absolute local power, on condition of satisfying the interests of his committees. Before this necessity the general interest of the country disappears almost totally from the mind of the elected representative.
Naturally the committees, having need of docile servants, do not choose for this task individuals gifted with a lofty intelligence nor, above all, with a very high morality. They must have men without character, without social position, and always docile.
By reason of these necessities the servility of the deputy in respect of these little groups which patronise him, and without which he would be no one, is absolute. He will speak and vote just as his committee tells him. His political ideal may be expressed in a few words: it is to obey, that he may retain his post.
Sometimes, rarely indeed, and only when by name or position or wealth he has a great prestige, a superior character may impose himself upon the popular vote by overcoming the tyranny of the impudent minorities which constitute the local committees.
Democratic countries like France are only apparently governed by universal suffrage. For this reason is it that so many measures are passed which do not interest the people and which the people never demanded. Such were the purchase of the Western railways, the laws respecting congregations, etc.
These absurd manifestations merely translated the demands of fanatical local committees, and were imposed upon deputies whom they had chosen.
We may judge of the influence of these committees when we see moderate deputies forced to patronise the anarchical destroyers of arsenals, to ally themselves with anti-militarists, and, in a word, to obey the most atrocious demands in order to ensure re-election. The will of the lowest elements of democracy has thus created among the elected representatives manners and a morality which we can but recognise are of the lowest. The politician is the man in public employment, and as Nietzsche says: —
“Where public employment begins there begins also the clamour of the great comedians and the buzzing of venomous flies.... The comedian always believes in that which makes him obtain his best effects, in that which impels the people to believe in him. To-morrow he will have a new faith, and the day Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 183
after to-morrow yet another.... All that is great has its being far from public employment and glory.”
4. The Craving for Reforms.
The craze for reforms imposed suddenly by means of decrees is one of the most disastrous conceptions of the Jacobin spirit, one of the formidable legacies left by the Revolution. It is among the principal factors of all the incessant political upheavals of the last century in France.
One of the psychological causes of this intense thirst for reforms arises from the difficulty of determining the real causes of the evils complained of. The need of explanation creates fictitious causes of the simplest nature. Therefore the remedies also appear simple.
For forty years we have incessantly been passing reforms, each of which is a little revolution in itself. In spite of all these, or rather because of them, the French have evolved almost as little as any race in Europe.
The slowness of our actual evolution may be seen if we compare the principal elements of our social life — commerce, industry, etc. — with those of other nations. The progress of other nations — of the Germans especially — then appears enormous, while our own has been very slow.
Our administrative, industrial, and commercial organisation is considerably out of date, and is no longer equal to our new needs. Our industry is not prosper-ing; our marine is declining. Even in our own colonies we cannot compete with foreign countries, despite the enormous pecuniary subventions accorded by the State. M. Cruppi, an ex-Minister of Commerce, has insisted on this melancholy decline in a recent book. Falling into the usual errors, he believed it easy to remedy this inferiority by new laws.
All politicians share the same opinion, which is why we progress so slowly.
Each party is persuaded that by means of reforms all evils could be remedied.
This conviction results in struggles such as have made France the most divided country in the world and the most subject to anarchy.
No one yet seems to understand that individuals and their methods, not regulations, make the value of a people. The efficacious reforms are not the revolutionary reforms but the trifling ameliorations of every day accumulated in course of time. The great social changes, like the great geological changes, are effected by the daily addition of minute causes. The economic history of Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 184
Germany during the last forty years proves in a striking manner the truth of this law.
Many important events which seem to depend more or less on hazard — as battles, for example — are themselves subject to this law of the accumulation of small causes. No doubt the decisive struggle is sometimes terminated in a day or less, but many minute efforts, slowly accumulated, are essential to victory. We had a painful experience of this in 1870, and the Russians have learned it more recently. Barely half an hour did Admiral Togo need to annihilate the Russian fleet, at the battle of Tsushima, which finally decided the fate of Japan, but thousands of little factors, small and remote, determined that success. Causes not less numerous engendered the defeat of the Russians
— a bureaucracy as complicated as ours, and as irresponsible; lamentable material, although paid for by its weight in gold; a system of graft at every degree of the social hierarchy, and general indifference to the interests of the country.
Unhappily the progress in little things which by their total make up the greatness of a nation is rarely apparent, produces no impression on the public, and cannot serve the interests of politicians at elections. These latter care nothing for such matters, and permit the accumulation, in the countries subject to their influence, of the little successive disorganisations which finally result in great downfalls.
5. Social Distinctions in Democracies and Democratic Ideas in Various Countries.
When men were divided into castes and differentiated chiefly by birth, social distinctions were generally accepted as the consequences of an unavoidable natural law.
As soon as the old social divisions were destroyed the distinctions of the classes appeared artificial, and for that reason ceased to be tolerated.
The necessity of equality being theoretical, we have seen among democratic peoples the rapid development of artificial inequalities, permitting their possessors to make for themselves a plainly visible supremacy. Never was the thirst for titles and decorations so general as to-day.
In really democratic countries, such as the United States, titles and decorations do not exert much influence, and fortune alone creates distinctions. It is only Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 185
by exception that we see wealthy young American girls allying themselves to the old names of the European aristocracy. They are then instinctively employing the only means which will permit a young race to acquire a past that will establish its moral framework.
But in a general fashion the aristocracy that we see springing up in America is by no means founded on titles and decorations. Purely financial, it does not provoke much jealousy, because every one hopes one day to form part of it.
When, in his book on democracy in America, Toqueville spoke of the general aspiration towards equality he did not realise that the prophesied equality would end in the classification of men founded exclusively on the number of dollars possessed by them. No other exists in the United States, and it will doubtless one day be the same in Europe.
At present we cannot possibly regard France as a democratic country save on paper, and here we feel the necessity, already referred to, of examining the various ideas which in different countries are expressed by the word “democracy.”
Of truly democratic nations we can practically mention only England and the United States. There, democracy occurs in different forms, but the same principles are observed — notably, a perfect toleration of all opinions.
Religious persecutions are unknown. Real superiority easily reveals itself in the various professions which any one can enter at any age if he possesses the necessary capacity. There is no barrier to individual effort.
In such countries men believe themselves equal because all have the idea that they are free to attain the same position. The workman knows he can become foreman, and then engineer. Forced to begin on the lower rungs of the ladder instead of high up the scale, as in France, the engineer does not regard himself as made of different stuff to the rest of mankind. It is the same in all professions. This is why the class hatred, so intense in Europe, is so little developed in England and America.
In France the democracy is practically non-existent save in speeches. A system of competitions and examinations, which must be worked through in youth, firmly closes the door upon the liberal professions, and creates inimical and separate classes.
The Latin democracies are therefore purely theoretical. The absolutism of the State has replaced monarchical absolutism, but it is no less severe. The Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 186
aristocracy of fortune has replaced that of birth, and its privileges are no less considerable.
Monarchies and democracies differ far more in form than insubstance. It is only the variable mentality of men that varies their effects. All the discussions as to various systems of government are really of no interest, for these have no special virtue of themselves. Their value will always depend on that of the people governed. A people effects great and rapid progress when it discovers that it is the sum of the personal efforts of each individual and not the system of government that determines the rank of a nation in the world.
Chapter III: The New Forms of Democratic Belief.
1. The Conflict between Capital and Labour.
While our legislators are reforming and legislating at hazard, the natural evolution of the world is slowly pursuing its course. New interests arise, the economic competition between nation and nation increases in severity, the working-classes are bestirring themselves, and on all sides we see the birth of formidable problems which the harangues of the politicians will never resolve.
Among these new problems one of the most complicated will be the problem of the conflict between labour and capital. It is becoming acute even in such a country of tradition as England. Workingmen are ceasing to respect the collective contracts which formerly constituted their charter, strikes are declared for insignificant motives, and unemployment and pauperism are attaining disquieting proportions.
In America these strikes would finally have affected all industries but that the very excess of the evil created a remedy. During the last ten years the industrial leaders have organised great employers’ federations, which have become powerful enough to force the workers to submit to arbitration.
The labour question is complicated in France by the intervention of numerous foreign workers, which the stagnation of our population has rendered necessary.13 This stagnation will also make it difficult for France to contend with her rivals, whose soil will soon no longer be able to nourish its inhabitants, who, following one of the oldest laws of history, will necessarily invade the less densely peopled countries.
These conflicts between the workers and employers of the same nation will be rendered still more acute by the increasing economic struggle between the Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Revolution, 187
Asiatics, whose needs are small, and who can therefore produce manufactured articles at very low prices, and the Europeans, whose needs are many. For twenty-five years I have laid stress upon this point. General Hamilton, ex-military attaché to the Japanese army, who foresaw the Japanese victories long before the outbreak of hostilities, writes as follows in an essay translated by General Langlois: —
“The Chinaman, such as I have seen him in Manchuria, is capable of destroying the present type of worker of the white races. He will drive him off the face of the earth. The Socialists, who preach equality to the labourer, are far from thinking what would be the practical result of carrying out their theories. Is it, then, the destiny of the white races to disappear in the long run?
In my humble opinion this destiny depends upon one single factor: Shall we or shall we not have the good sense to close our ears to speeches which present war and preparation for war as a usele