BABEUF'S CONSPIRACY.
11
SYSTEM. That of Rousseau—the ORDER OF EQUALITY.[1]
From the moment that the tendencies of the different political sects, which figured on the stage of the
Revolu-
- ↑ Equality, the sentiment of which is the base of sociability, and the consolation of the wretched, is a chimera only in the eyes of men that are depraved by the love of riches and of power. All systems and all passions apart, where is the human being that does not, in his heart, recognise an equal in an individual of his own species, whatever he may be? Where is the man, who, placed in the same situation, does not experience an equal pang of pity at beholding the sufferings of any of his fellow men? This sentiment, the effect of our earliest impressions, is justified by reason, which teaches us, that nature has made all men equal. But how, and in what respects? To comprehend this rightly is important. The advocates of social inequalities pretend that they are inevitable, because, as they say, they are derived from those which nature herself has established between individuals of the human species. Mankind, they say, differing naturally in sex, size, colour, features, age, and rigour of limb and muscle, cannot possibly be equal either in power or riches; equality, whether natural or social, is, therefore, a mere creature of reason or of imagination. But granting that the natural differences just mentioned do really exist, does it, therefore, follow that the inequalities of institution are necessary consequences of them? Why, according to this reasoning, opulence and authority would always go hand in hand with physical force, with majesty of size and beauty—a consequence utterly disclaimed by fact and experience. But, say the partizans of inequality, there is another natural difference which necessarily induces distinctions in intellect and social position; namely, that of mind or spirit (esprit.) Nay, they have gone so far as to pretend to recognise in the bumps of the brain, according to their various degrees of protuberance, infallible indices of our inclinations and passions. Notwithstanding this, however, our very instincts apprise us that things have not been so ordered by the author of Nature; and that if human beings, ordinarily well organized, do not all possess the same mental capacity, the existing differences in this respect is much less the effect of diversity in their conformation, than of the circumstances in which they have been trained and placed. Who can doubt that numbers of men now ignorant, would not be so if they had had opportunities of instruction? Does not the coarsest rustic apply, in the direction of his works, and in the discussion of his interests, as much intellectual acuteness as was required by Newton for discovering the laws of attraction? Everything depends on the object towards which our study is directed. Besides, were it even true that intellectual inequality exists by nature, to the degree pretended, it would nevertheless be impossible to discover in that circumstance the source of those distinctions in riches and power which exist in society, since it is by no means true that wealth and authority are generally the inheritance of knowledge and wisdom. But, after all, are the qualities just spoken of necessary to the question? Not at all. The natural equality we have in view, and for whose existence we contend, is only that uniformity of wants and desires which are born with us, or are developed by the first use that we make of our senses and organs. The want of food—the desire of procreation—self-love—pity—sympathetic affections—the disposition to feel, to think, to will, to communicate our ideas, and understand those of our companions, and to conform our actions to rules—hatred of constraint and love of freedom; these are what exist in pretty nearly the same degrees, in the bosoms of all sound and well-constituted human beings. Such is the natural law, from which emanate, for all men, the same natural rights. In the eyes of him, who recognises in himself a being composed of two substances of distinct natures, a new argument, in favour of natural equality, may be derived from the spirituality of the thinking principle. This principle, which constitutes to him alone his entire human self (tout le moi humain), being indivisible and pure, and derived always from the same source, is necessarily equal in every individual of our species. As to the inequality of physical strength, it is certain that it can be no bar to the enjoyment of natural equality, at any rate no more than a momentary bar; and it was probably to obviate this evil that recourse has been had to conventions, and that civil society was instituted. And here, for want of foresight, mankind have precipitated themselves into a greater calamity than the one they had wished to guard against. The equality established by nature, and avowed by reason, has been violated in society by a succession of these same Conventions which were designed to maintain it. For the transitory inconveniences produced by the inequalities of physical force have been substituted other inconveniences more fatal, more permanent, and more inevitable, by the conventional inequalities of riches and power. Thus, by a strange metemorphosis, the most foolish, the most vicious, the feeblest, and the least numerous, have been enabled to overburden with painful toils and duties, and to deprive of their natural liberty, the great majority of the strongest, most virtuous, and even best instructed. From the unequal distribution of wealth and power arise all the disorders of which nine-tenths of the inhabitants of all civilized countries justly complain. From thence result to them privations, sufferings, humiliations, and slavery. From the same source results also that intellectual inequality which, through interested motives, is falsely ascribed to an exaggerated inequality of mental capacity. It is, therefore, to restrain within just limits the riches and power of individuals, that all true social institutions should tend—power, by subjecting all citizens equally to laws emanating from the whole—and riches, by providing such institutions for distribution, as would give to each enough, and to nobody more than enough. Behold in what consists the equality treated of in this work. Indeed, at the point to which things have arrived now, this equality may be said to regard riches only; for wealth alone, nowadays, confers the passport to power. Wealth is become the sole title to power, as well in the eyes of the governors as of the governed. Money, money, is the sovereign power.
