Italy,3 although she has not fallen as low as Spain, is not in a much better condition, and her disorder is betrayed by her finances. She is the victim not only of the Latin conceptions which have shaped her soul, but also of that fatal idea of unity which has sprung up in the minds of her politicians. In uniting, under a central power, populations as profoundly dissimilar as the Piedmontese, the Lombards, the Sicilians, &c., Italy has undertaken the most ruinous and disastrous of experiments. In thirty years she has passed from a very enviable condition to the completest disorganisation of her politics, administration, finances, and military services.
Her finances are not in such a miserable state as those of Spain, but she is already forced to have recourse to a paper currency, and has established a duty on rent which has gradually, by increase after increase, mounted to 20 per cent, and which in rising further will lead her to a failure like that of Portugal. At a distance she gives the illusion of a great people, but her power is only a thin show, incapable of resisting the least of shocks. Despite the millions spent in creating an army permitting her to figure among the great Powers, Italy has for the first time in the world afforded the melancholy spectacle of an army of 20,000 Europeans annihilated in set battle by savage hordes, and of a great civilised country being obliged to pay an indemnity to a petty African king, whose capital had been so easily taken a few years before by a small force of Englishmen. She drags herself along at the apron-strings of Germany, and is obliged to submit without a murmur to the disdain which the German papers incessantly pour on her. The wastefulness and carelessness to be observed in Italy are incredible. She erects useless monuments, such as that of Victor Emmanuel, which will cost more than £1,600,000, while at the same time, in Sicily, she has provinces plunged into the blackest misery, whose villages are abandoned by their inhabitants and invaded by brambles.4 We may judge of the quality of her administration by the banking scandal, or by the lamentable process of Palermo, in which it was proved that all the Government agents, Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 150
from the director to the least of the employés, had for years lived by the most brazen pillage of the finances of their province. In the face of the proofs of disorganisation and demoralisation which Italy daily presents, and which show her to be on the eve of revolution, one can understand the scathing judgment which one of the most remarkable of Italian scientists, Signor Lombroso, has pronounced, in a recent work, on his own country; a judgment which we should like to believe too severe.
“We must be ten times blind not to see that with all our love of boasting, we in Italy form the last but one, if not the last, of the European nations; the last in morality, the last in education, the last in agricultural and industrial activity, the last in integrity of justice, and, above all, the last in respect of the relative comfort of the lower classes.”5
Italy would appear to be destined to inevitable revolutions, and very soon to see accomplished that fatal cycle of which I have already often spoken: Socialism, Caesarism, and dissolution.
M. A. Suissy has very well shown in the following lines how weary is Italy already of her parliamentary régime, which is yet the only one that can guarantee her liberties.
“The Italian people are losing confidence in the virtue of the parliamentary régime. The debates and intrigues to which their representatives are given up appear to them to be more often than not opposed to the general interests of the country. They have some intuition of the dangers which are gathering, and they have no hope of finding in the parliamentary system, as it is practised, any weapon of defence against them.
“In Rome we are beginning to see all the gravity of lassitude on the one side and exasperation on the other. The poor classes, who suffer the most from the crisis, are goaded to revolution. The middle and commercial classes, on the contrary, cry out for a saviour who shall deliver them from the trouble of defending themselves. The state of siege in Milan, Florence, and Naples offers no objection to their minds. The love of liberty is dying in the hearts of those who pretend to belong to the directing classes.” A factor which has created a problem for Italy, of which the solution is not apparent, is the fact that her desire to imitate the wealthy nations has led her into creating for herself a host of needs in the matters of comfort and luxury Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 151
which her poverty does not allow her to satiety. “The majority of Italians,” writes Signor Guglielmo Ferrero, “are on the threshold of a superior civilisation; they have developed new wants, and aspire to embellish their lives with a certain degree of comfort and culture, but their means are insufficient....
Italy cannot regard fine and beautiful things without wishing to enjoy them.
What disillusions, what rage, what vexation, must enter into the daily existence of the majority of men living under such conditions!... Reckon what a prodigious sum of irritability is gathering itself up in the whole of society, and you will have little trouble in comprehending the terrible instability of its equilibrium.”
It is among individuals whose needs are very great, and who have neither the capacity nor the energy to acquire the means to satisfy them, that Socialism most easily develops. It offers itself as a remedy for all evils, and for this reason Italy would seem fatally destined to suffer the most dangerous Socialistic experiments.
This craving for luxury, enjoyment, and splendour constitutes one of the greatest differences between Italy and Spain. In all that concerns the external aspect of civilisation, Spain is evidently very far below Italy, but the middle and lower strata of the population have very little to complain of, for their requirements have not multiplied, and so continue to be easily satisfied. As the means of communication, and railways in especial, are little developed in Spain, whole provinces are still isolated from the world, and have been able to retain their ancient manner of existence. Life has remained incredibly easy there; for as their needs are very small, and luxury is unknown to them, the produce grown on the spot is sufficient for the people. If we leave out of account large towns and external luxury — which are, it is true, the only thins we know, because they are the only ones that make themselves heard — Spain possesses a degree of civilisation which is doubtless little refined, but entirely suited to her mental evolution and its requirements. Socialism, therefore, cannot seriously threaten her.
Among the greater number of the Latin peoples few but the so-called directing classes are becoming more eager for the expensive refinements of civilisation. This aspiration is quite allowable when one is confident of the intelligence and energy necessary to procure these refinements. It is far less allowable when the development of energy and intelligence are very inferior Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 152
to the development of requirements. When people wish to make a fortune at any price, and their capacities do not permit them to satisfy their desire, they have little regard for the means they employ; honesty becomes elastic, and demoralisation very soon becomes general; as it has, indeed, in the case of most of the Latin nations. In them, indeed, we increasingly perceive the disquieting fact that the morality of the directing classes is often far below that of the populace. This is one of the most dangerous symptoms of the decadence that could appear, for if it is through the upper classes that civilisations advance, it is also through them that they perish.
This term “morality” is so vague, and embraces such dissimilar things, that its use necessarily results in serious confusion. I employ it here in the sense of simple honesty, the habit of respecting engagements, and the sentiment of duty, that is to say, in the sense in which an English author whom I have already quoted employs it, in the passage in which he shows that it is owing to these qualities, so modest in appearance, but in reality so important, that the English have so rapidly revolutionised the credit of Egypt and rendered the finances of their colonies so prosperous. We must not go to criminal statistics, which register only extreme cases, to determine the degree of morality of a nation. It is indispensable to enter into details. The financial bankruptcy of so many of the Latin peoples is a barometrical sign which indicates nothing less than a final state reached by successive steps. To form an opinion which shall repose on a reliable basis, we must enter into the intimate life of each country
; we must study the administration of financial societies; we must consider commercial manners, the independence or venality of justice, the probity of lawyers and officials, and many other symptoms which call for direct observation, and are not to be studied in any books. These are subjects on which a few dozen persons at most in Europe are perfectly informed. Would you, however, without too laborious research, gain an exact idea of the morality of the various nations? Merely consult a few leading men of business
— contractors, manufacturers, engineers — who have close relations with the commerce, administration, and legislatures of various countries. A contractor, who builds railways, tramways, gas and electric light works, in many countries, will tell you, if he cares to speak on the subject, which are the countries in which every one may be bought — ministers, magistrates, officials, and all — which are the countries in which few people are to be Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 153
bought, and which are the countries in which absolutely no one is to be bought; those in which commerce is honest, and those in which it is not in the least honest. If, however varied your sources of information be, you find them perfectly concordant, you may evidently convince yourself of their exactitude.6
Our rapid examination of the Latin peoples is not complete until we turn to France, whose part in the world was of old so brilliant and preponderant. She still holds out against decadence, but she is badly shaken to-day. In one century she has known all a nation can know; the bloodiest revolutions, glory, disaster, civil war, invasion, and but little repose. That which she most visibly experiences to-day is a fatigue and indifference which seemingly amount to exhaustion.
Compared with the same class in England and Germany,” recently wrote a German pamphleteer quoted by la France extérieure, “the French bourgeoisie give one the impression of a person well advanced in years. Individual initiative is gradually decaying; the spirit of enterprise appears paralysed; the craving for repose and for sedentary occupations is increasing; the investments in State funds increase; the number of functionaries increases; energy, and the sentiment of authority, justice, and religion are diminishing; the interest in public affairs is diminishing; expenditure is increasing imports are increasing all along the line; the infiltration of foreigners is increasing.” Presently, in studying the commercial and industrial struggles of the Western peoples, we shall see to what degree these assertions are unhappily justified.
4. The Results of the Adoption of the Latin Concepts by Peoples of Different Race.
Examples of peoples in an inferior state of civilisation adopting suddenly and in entirety the institutions of other peoples are rare in modern times. I can cite no such examples except those of Greece and Japan. Greece presents the interesting phenomenon of a nation that has adopted the Latin concepts era bloc, and notably that of education. The results produced are extremely striking, and it is all the more important that they should be given here inasmuch as they have not yet attracted the notice of any writer.
The modern Greeks, as we know, have no relationship to the Latins, nor for that matter with the ancient Greeks. Modern anthropology has shown that they are brachycephalous Slavs, while the ancient Greeks were dolichocephalous, Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 154
which fact is sufficient to establish an absolutely fundamental separation between the modern Greeks and their pretended ancestors.7
The inhabitants of Greece, although unrelated to the Latins, present several analogies to the latter in their character. They also possess, with little strength of will, and little constancy, much levity, mobility, and irritability. They have the same horror of prolonged effort, the same love of phrases, the same love of speechifying, the same craving for equality, the same habit of confounding dreams with realities.
However, I do not mention them here on account of these analogies, but simply in order to show, by means of an example full of instructiveness, the effects produced on a nation, in less than fifty years, by the adoption of Latin concepts, and notably by that of education.
Scarcely escaped from a long servitude, truly no school for the spirit of initiative or for strength of will, the modern Greeks imagined that they would be able to raise themselves by means of instruction. In a few years the country was sprinkled with three thousand schools and educational establishments of all sorts, in which were carefully applied our disastrous Latin programmes of education. “The French language,” writes M. Fouillée, “is taught everywhere in Greece, concurrently with Greek itself; our national spirit, our literature, our arts, and our education are far more in harmony with the Greek genius than those of any other nation could be.”
This theoretical and bookish education being good for nothing but the production of functionaries, professors, and lawyers, naturally produced nothing else: “Athens is a great factory of useless and noxious lawyers.” While industry and agriculture have remained in a rudimentary state, diplomés without employment are swarming, and, as with men of Latin race subjected to the same education, their sole ambition is to gain a Government berth.
“Every Greek,” writes M. Politis, “believes that the chief mission of the Government is to give a berth either to himself or to a member of his family.” If he does not obtain it he immediately becomes a reactionary, a Socialist, and raves against the tyranny of capital, although capital is hardly known in Greece. The principal function of the deputies is to find places for graduates of the colleges.
Favouritism, insubordination, and general disorganisation have soon resulted Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 155
from such a system of education. Two generations of such outclassed persons have sufficed to lead the country to the last degree of moral and material ruin.
Cultured Europe, who regarded the little nation across the classic memories of the time of Pericles, only began to lose her illusions when she beheld the perfect cynicism with which the Greek politicians, after having raised loans all over the continent, suppressed their debt with a stroke of the pen by refusing to pay interest and resuming the profits of the monopolies which had been solemnly set aside as guarantees to the creditors, on the very day when they found no more lenders.8 Europe was completely enlightened as to the demoralisation and disorganisation of all these brave prattlers when she saw the fortunes of the Graeco-Turkish war unfolded, and beheld the spectacle of whole armies at the mercy of the wildest panics, the most inordinate, helter-skelter flights, as soon as a mere Turkish detachment was espied at a distance. Without the intervention of Europe the Greeks would once more have disappeared from history, and the world would have been no loser by it. We were shown what things could exist under a deceptive veneer of civilisation.
Our young university men, so enthusiastic over Greece, must at the same time have acquired a few notions more serious than those to be found in their textbooks. Such of them as had escaped from the École normale with a few traces of the spirit of observation must have made some melancholy reflections on the results of Latin education, at perceiving to what a depth of abasement the system had sunk a nation in fifty years.
5. The Future Which Threatens the Latin Nations.
Such is, without, I trust, too great inaccuracy, the present state of the Latin nations, and those that have adopted the Latin concepts. While waiting till they shall have found some means of raising themselves they must not forget that in the new phase of evolution through which the world is passing, there is room for none but the strong, and that every nation which becomes weakened is quickly destined to become the prey of its neighbours, more especially at a period when the distant markets are closing one by one.
This point of view is absolutely fundamental. It was extremely well presented in a recent and famous speech of Lord Salisbury’s, from which I shall reproduce a few extracts, in view of its importance and the authority of the speaker. It points out with great clearness those consequences of a lowered Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 156
morality of which I have treated further back, and which form an excellent barometer of national decadence. The protests which this speech excited in Spain cannot affect the exactitude of the propositions enounced by this eminent statesman, nor of the conclusions which he draws from them.” You may roughly divide the nations of the world as the living and the dying.
On one side you have great countries of enormous power growing in power every year, growing in wealth, growing in dominion, growing in the perfection of their organisation. Railways have given to them the power to concentrate upon any one point the whole military force of their population and to assemble armies of a magnitude and power never dreamt of in the generations that have gone by. Science has placed in the hands of those armies weapons ever growing in their efficacy of destruction, and, therefore, adding to the power — fearfully to the power — of those who have the opportunity of using them. By the side of these splendid organisations, of which nothing seems to diminish the forces and which present rival claims which the future may only be able by a bloody arbitrament to adjust — by the side of these there are a number of communities — which I can only describe as dying, though the epithet applies to them of course in very different degrees and with a very different amount of certain application. They are mainly communities that are not Christian, but I regret to say that is not exclusively the case, and in these States disorganisation and decay are advancing almost as fast as concentration and increasing power are advancing in the living nations that stand beside them. Decade after decade they are weaker, poorer, and less provided with leading men or institutions in which they can trust, apparently drawing nearer and nearer to their fate and yet clinging with strange tenacity to the life which they have got. In them misgovernment is not only not cured but is constantly on the increase. The society, and official society, the Administration, is a mass of corruption, so that there is no firm ground on which any hope of reform or restoration could be based, and in their various degrees they are presenting a terrible picture to the more enlightened portion of the world-a picture which, unfortunately, the increase in the means of our information and communication draws with darker and more conspicuous lineaments in the face of all nations, appealing to their feelings as well as to their interests, calling upon them to bring forward a remedy. How long this state of things is likely to go on of course I do not attempt to prophesy. All I can indicate is that that process is Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 157
proceeding, that the weak States are becoming weaker and the strong States are becoming stronger. It needs no specialty of prophecy to point out to you what the inevitable result of that combined process must be. For one reason or for another — from the necessities of politics or under the pretence of philanthropy — the living nations will gradually encroach on the territory of the dying, and the seeds and causes of conflict among civilised nations will speedily appear.”
Are nations as shaken, as divided, as unprogressive as the Latin nations of to-day to be subjected to Socialism? Is it not evident that such a fate would merely increase their weakness, and render them a still easier prey to the stronger nations? Alas! the politicians do not foresee this, any more than the theologians of the Middle Ages, absorbed, in the depths of their convents, by religious controversies, were aware of the barbarians who were breaking down their walls and preparing to massacre them.
Must we, however, entirely despair of the future of the Latin nations? I still hope we need not. Necessity is a mighty prince, and is able to change many things. It is possible that, after a series of such profound calamities and upheavals as history has hardly known, the Latin peoples, wiser for experience, and having successfully escaped from the covetousness of the watchful Powers, will attempt the difficult undertaking of acquiring the qualities in which they are now lacking, in order thence forth to succeed in life. Only one means is in their power: entirely to change their system of education. We cannot too highly praise those few apostles, such as Jules Lemaitre and Bonvalot, that have applied themselves to such a task. And these apostles can perform a great deal; they succeed in altering public opinion, and public opinion is all-powerful to-day. But it will be no easy task to sweep away the stubborn prejudices of the universitaires and the intellectuels through which our system of education is maintained in its present state. History shows us that a dozen apostles have often been sufficient to found a religion; but religions, beliefs, and opinions have failed in propagating themselves for want of being able to reconcile the dozen.
But let us not be too pessimistic. History is so full of unforeseen occurrences, and the world is on the eve of undergoing such profound modifications, that it is impossible to-day to forecast the destinies of the nations. And in any case the duty of the philosopher is performed when he has pointed out to the nations Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 158
the dangers which threaten them.
Notes.
1. According to the figures given by senor Montero of Vidal, the most humble cures yield their incumbents £400 a year, and some yield £1,000 to
£63,000. These sums are paid by the natives, whose poverty is nevertheless extreme.
2. The following extract from an interview with Marshal Campos, published in all the journals, very well sums up the impression produced on the world at large by the incredible successes of the army improvised by the United States against a trained and very numerous army, for the Spaniards had 150,000 men in Cuba; far more than the Americans had: “Never could even the greatest of pessimists have imagined that our misfortunes would have been so numerous.
The disaster at Cavité the destruction of Cervera’s squadron, the fall of Santiago, the rapid and unopposed occupation of Porto Rico, — no one would ever have believed these possible, even in exaggerating the power of the States and the inferiority of Spain.”
3. In their manner of comprehending the rôle of the State the Italians surpass even the French in pushing the Latin concept to an extreme. Nowhere so much as in Italy is developed the absolute faith in the omnipotence of the State, the necessity of its fostering care iii all affair, and notably in commerce and industry, and as their final consequences the development of officialism and the incapacity of the citizen to manage his own business himself without the constant assistance of the Government.
4. And yet the needs of the Italian peasantry are very small. The wages of those who work by the day rarely exceed five-pence a day. As for the working men, they reckon themselves extremely well off if their wages are as much as nine or ten shillings a week. If the middle and upper classes possessed a tithe of the endurance and energy of the lower classes Italy would rank among the most prosperous of the nations, instead of finding herself almost in the last rank of the civilised nations.
5. The Anarchists.
6. It would be useless to enter into the details of this inquiry, which the relations established by my travels have permitted me to make in a number of Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 159
countries. I will limit myself to saying that I have been very happy to find that among the Latin nations with the exception of a few politicians, financiers, and journalists, France is the nation in which the greatest probity exists to administration and justice. The magistracy is often extremely narrow, and yields too readily to political pressure, and to questions of preferment, but it has remained honest. But the morality of our industrial and commercial classes is sometimes dubious enough. Yet there are, on the contrary, countries in which the venality of the magistracy and the administration, and the lack of commercial and financial probity reached the degree in which such vices no longer even seek to dissimilate themselves under appearances.
7. In 1851, at the time of her enfranchisement, Greece possessed about one million inhabitants, of whom a quarter were Albanians or Wallachians. The population was a residue of invaders of all peoples, and notably of Slavs. For centuries the Greeks properly so called had disappeared from Greece. From the time of the Roman conquest, Greece was regarded by every adventurer as a nursery of slaves, which every one might have recourse to with impunity.
Slave-traders brought as many as ten thousand Greek slaves to Rome at a single venture. Later on the Goths, Heruli, Bulgarians, Wallachians, and so forth, continued to invade the country and to lead its last inhabitants into slavery. Greece was repopulated a little only by the invasions of the Slavs. The language subsisted merely because it was spoken through all the Byzantine East. The present population consists almost entirely of Slavs, the ancient Greek type immortalised in sculpture having totally disappeared. The celebrated Schliemann, whom I met while travelling in Greece, has, however, called my attention to the fact that the ancient Greek type is still to be met with in remarkable purity in many of the islets of the Archipelago, which are inhabited by a few fishers whose isolation and poverty have probably saved them from invasion.
8. This process of the suppression of debts, commercially qualified as bankruptcy, has been adopted by Portugal, the Latin republics of America, Turkey, and many other countries. At first sight it appeared a very simple matter to the politicians who made use of it; but they did not in any way perceive that these bankruptcies must finally cause the countries that practised them to fall under the strict surveillance, and consequently into the power, of other countries. As it was impossible to find among them the few men Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 160
necessary to administer their finances with integrity, Vice have been forced, as Egypt and Turkey have been forced, to allow their finances to be administered by foreign agents, placed under the control of their respective governments.
Book IV: The Conflict between Economic Necessities and the Aspirations of the Socialists.
Chapter 1: The Industrial and Economic Evolution of the Present Age.
1. The New Factors of Social Evolution Which Have Been Created by Modern Discoveries.
The present, perhaps, is the one age in history which has seen tic greatest changes in the shortest time. These changes are the consequence of the appearance of factors very different from those which have hitherto dominated society. One of the principal characteristics of the present period is found precisely in the transformation of the determining causes of the evolution of nations. For centuries religious and political factors have exercised a fundamental influence, but to-day this influence has considerably paled.
Economic and industrial factors, for a long time very unimportant, are to-day assuming an absolutely preponderating influence. It was a matter of perfect indifference to Caesars to Louis Quatorze, to Napoleon, or to any Western sovereign of old, whether China did or did not possess coal. But now the sole fact that she should possess it and utilise it would soon have the most important effect on the progress of European civilisation. Formerly, a Birmingham manufacturer or an English farmer would never have been concerned to know whether India could grow wheat or manufacture cotton.
This fact, which for centuries was so insignificant in the eyes of England, must henceforth have for her a far greater importance than an event as significant in appearance as the defeat of the Invincible Armada or the overthrow of Napoleon.
But it is not only the progress of distant nations that has such an important effect on the nations of Europe. The rapid transformations of industry have revolutionised all the conditions of existence. It has justly been remarked that until the beginning of our century the instruments of industry had scarcely changed for thousands of years; they were, in fact, identical, as regards their essential parts, with the appliances which figure on the interior of Egyptian Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of Socialism, 162
tombs four thousand years old.1 But for a hundred years now there has been no comparison possible between the industry of the present and that of the ancient world. Industry has been completely transformed by the utilisation, by means of steam engines, of the solar energy latent in coal. The most modest of manufacturers has in his cellars more than enough coal to execute a far harder task than any the twenty thousand slaves attributed to Crassus could have performed. We have steam-hammers a single blow of which represents the strength of ten