the principles of that morality which modern times have in vain sought to realise. "To feel and to assert the dignity of man," he says, "first in everything in connection with ourselves, then in the person of our neighbour, and that without a shadow of egoism, without any consideration either of divine or communal sanction—therein lies Right. To be ready to defend that dignity in every circumstance with energy, and, if necessary, against oneself, that is Justice."[1] Clemenceau, who doubtless can hardly be said to make a personal use of this morality, expresses the same thought when he writes: "Without the dignity of the human person, without independence, liberty, and justice, life is but a bestial state not worth the trouble of preserving" (Aurore, May 12, 1905).
One well-founded reproach has been brought against Proudhon, as well as against many others of the great moralists; it has been said that his maxims were admirable, but that they were doomed to remain ineffective. And, in fact, experience does prove, unfortunately, that those precepts which the historians of ideas call the most elevated precepts are, as a rule, entirely ineffective. This was evident in the case of the Stoics, it was no less remarkable in Kantism, and it does not seem as if the practical influence of Proudhon has been very noticeable. In order that a man may suppress the tendencies against which morality struggles, he must have in himself some source of conviction which must dominate his whole consciousness, and act before the calculations of reflection have time to enter his mind.
It may even be said that all the fine arguments by which authors hope to induce men to act morally are more likely to lead them down the slope of probabilism; as soon as we consider an act to be accomplished, we are led to ask ourselves if there is not some means of escaping
- ↑ Proudhon, De la justice dans la revolution et dans l'église, vol. i. 216.
