A Memoir- the Testament

by Jean Meslier

  The Emperor Antoninus so detested the idle minds that he stopped the wages of all those who he found useless to the public, saying that it was shameful and cruel for the Republic to feed those who didn’t work for it. The Emperor Alexander Severus banished from his Court, not only all those who had a bad reputation, but also those who were judged to be useless to serve the Empire, saying that the Emperors who gave the entrails and blood of the inhabitants of Provinces as food to men whom they could have done without, and who brought no benefit to the Republic, were bad managers of a State. Even now someone like Antoninus or Severus Alexander would be of utmost urgency to reform all these monks and nuns and all these Ecclesiastical Orders, which are so useless and so burdensome on the people; that would benefit the Public enormously.

  And not only are many sorts of people allowed and authorized, as I’ve said, who are of no utility in the world, but worse still, many other sorts of people are allowed and authorized, who do nothing but, as it were, trample on, plunder, and torment others, and extort all they can get from them. Among these we should first mention many people who are usually called the men of justice, but who are rather men of injustice, such as Bailiffs, Prosecutors, Lawyers, Clerks, Notaries, Counselors, etc., for most of these people tend to do little more than gnaw upon and plunder the masses, on the pretext of providing, or wanting to provide justice. It is noted in the History of Dom Pedro, the King of Portugal, called the just, that he banished and drove out of his Kingdom all the Prosecutors and Lawyers, because they quibbled and prolonged the trials, to the ruin of the interested Parties. It is equally recorded that Pope Nicholas III, a man of great merit and wisdom, with a fondness for leaned men, drove from Rome the Notaries and quibblers, as leeches on the poor and public plagues. If only these great men had been able to banish and drive them entirely out of the world. Secondly, we must include in this category so many tax-collectors, cellar-rats, and many office clerks, so many collectors of land tax and imposts, along with an infinity of rogues, rascals, terrible salt and tobacco guards, who do nothing but roam the lands, continually coming and going in search of prey. All these people love nothing better than to ruin poor people, and they’re utterly delighted when they can catch someone in their traps, and when they find some good quarry to devour. In a Kingdom like our France, there may be no less than 40 or 50 thousand men thus employed in the oppression and plunder of the poor, on the pretext of serving the King, in heaping up his money, without including an infinity of insolent soldiers who love nothing better than looting and plundering whatever they can find. Kings and Princes, who truly seek the good of their subjects and who would love to govern and maintain them in justice and peace, as they should, should have no part in so inappropriately maintaining so many rogues at the expense of their loyal subjects, or to expose them every day, as they do, to the harsh and unjust harassment and extortion which all these people are engaged in. Good Princes have never done so, therefore, it is a clear abuse, and even a striking injustice, to allow and even authorize so many sorts of people who do nothing but trample, loot, ruin, and crush the poor.

  49. THE THIRD ABUSE, THAT MEN APPROPRIATE, EACH TO THEMSELVES, THE GOODS OF THE EARTH, INSTEAD OF OWNING AND ENJOYING THEM IN COMMON, WHICH LEADS TO AN INFINITY OF EVILS AND MISERY IN THE WORLD.

  Another abuse, which is almost universally received and authorized in the world, is the private appropriation by men of the goods and riches of the Earth, when they should all own them equally and in common, and also equally enjoying them in common. I mean all those in a single place or in the same Territory, such that all the men and women of a single town, of a single bourg, of a single village, or of a single parish, regarding themselves and considering everyone as brothers and sisters, and as if they were all the children of the same fathers and the same mothers, and who, for this reason, should all love each other like brothers and sisters, and who should, consequently, live peacefully and in common together, all of them with the same or similar food, and all of them being properly dressed, equally well housed, and able to sleep comfortably, and equally supplied with footwear, while also applying themselves equally to the chores, that is, to the work, or any other honest and useful employment, each following their own profession, or whatever is most necessary or suitable to do, according to the times or the seasons, and according to the needs that may arise for certain things, and all that under the guidance, not of those who would be eager to imperiously and tyrannically dominate the rest, but only that of those who would be the wisest and most concerned for the advancement and maintenance of the public good. All the cities and other communities which neighbor each other, thus having, each for its own part, a great need of mutual alliances, and to inviolably keep the peace and unity among themselves, in order to mutually help and rescue each other as needed, without which the public good cannot exist at all, and it is necessary for the majority of men to be miserable and unhappy.

  For, 1) What comes from this private division of the goods and the wealth of the earth, for private enjoyment, each separate from the rest, just as they please? This leads to a situation in which everyone one greedily strives to get as much as they can, by all sorts of means, good or evil: for greed, which is insatiable, and which is, as everyone knows, the root of all evil, seeing therein a kind of open door to the fulfilment of one’s desires, it doesn't fail to take advantage of the occasion and makes men do all they can to get an abundance of goods and riches, both so that they can will be safe from any poverty, as well as to, by this means, have the pleasure and contentment of enjoying everything that they want, which means that those who are the strongest, the cleverest, the most able, and often also the most wicked and the most unworthy, get the largest share of the goods of the earth, and the best provided with all the comforts of life.

  The end result is that some have more, others have less, and often some take all and others get nothing, that some are rich and others are poor, that some are well fed, well dressed, well housed, well furnished, and have good beds and footwear, while others are ill fed, ill dressed, ill housed, have terrible beds and bad shoes, and while many even have nowhere to rest, while they go hungry and are pierced with cold. The end result of this is that some get drunk and nearly burst from drinking and eating at their feasts, while others die of hunger. The result of this is that some are nearly always joyous and rejoicing, while others are continually mournful and sad. The result of this is that some are given honors and glory, while others are always in filth and are despised; for the rich are always honored and admired, while the poor are usually despised. The implication of this is that some have nothing else to do but rest, play, stroll, and sleep as much as they please; they essentially have nothing to do but to drink and to eat to excess, and grow fat in a sweet and sluggish idleness, while others are exhausted by work, finding to rest, day or night, and sweat blood and water to bring in just what is necessary for life. This means that the rich find all the help they need when they’re ill, all the assistance and gentleness, all possible consolations and remedies, while the poor are forsaken in their illness and suffering, and they die in them without the help of any remedy, without any gentleness or consolation in their distress. And finally, this means that some always prosper and enjoy an abundance of life's blessings, pleasures, and joys, living in a kind of Paradise, while others are, on the other hand, always unhappy, suffering, afflicted, and prey to all the miseries of poverty, living in a kind of Hell, and something that is even more odd in this respect, is that often there is but a very tiny interval between this Paradise and this Hell; for often there is but the crossing of a street, or the width of the wall of a courtyard or a house between the two, since quite often the houses of the rich, where an abundance of all blessings is found, and where the joys and delights of a Paradise lie, one can expect in the houses of the poor, where one finds a lack of all blessings, and where all the torments and miseries of a hell reside. And what is all the more unworthy and odious in this is that those who deserve most to enjoy th
e sweetness and pleasures of this Paradise, are those who suffer the torments and tortures of a hell, and that those who deserve the most to suffer the pains and miseries of this hell are those who enjoy most calmly the sweet things and the pleasures of this Paradise. In short, the good people suffer in this world the penalties that the wicked should suffer. And the wicked usually enjoy the blessings, honors, and satisfactions which should only belong to the good. For honor and glory should only belong to those who are good, just as shame, confusion, and loathing should only belong to the wicked and to the men of vice; however, the opposite is what usually comes about in the world, that which is manifestly an enormous abuse and a striking injustice, and it is doubtlessly what has given rise to another one, which I’ve already cited, of saying that things are ruined by human malice, or that God is not God, for it is not credible that a God should desire such an annulment of justice.

  This is not all; this abuse in particular also means that all goods, as badly distributed as they are among men, some having all or far more than they need for their fair share, while others, on the contrary, have nothing at all, or lack most of the things that would be necessary or useful, this means, I say, that hatred and envy first appear among men. From this then come the murmuring, complaints, disturbances, sedition, and wars that cause an infinity of problems for humanity. It also produces a thousand and a million bad judicial proceedings, which private Individuals must request, to defend their goods and maintain their rights, as they claim. These trials give them a thousand bodily pains and a thousand anxieties, and so often bring complete ruin of both parties. This also means that those who have nothing or don’t have all they need are, as it were, constrained and obliged to use many wicked means to get what they need to get by. From this come lies, deceptions, tricks, injustices, rapine, thefts, larcenies, murders, killings, and brigandry, which cause an infinity of evils among men.

  50. THE FOURTH ABUSE: THE VAIN AND INJURIOUS DISTINCTIONS OF FAMILIES, AND THE EVILS THIS BRINGS.

  Likewise, what comes from these vain, odious and injurious distinctions between Families, which men so ill-advisedly make between them, as if they were of different species and of different natures, or as if some had a better and purer origin than others, what comes from all this? It means that those who are of different families will despise and disdain each other, on the pretext that some think they come from a better or more honorable family than others do. This leads them to despise, dishonor, and defame each other, and even refuse to intermarry, on the pretext that there would be something shameful in this or that family, and that this shameful thing is usually based only on vain vague and confused rumors, and on false imaginations and opinions, which people put in their heads, and that there are races of sorcerers and witches, which their imagination plucks from thin air, from nothing, and based on trifles, and on simple hearsay and slander, which ignorant and passionate or ill-intentioned people say against each other, to which, if one always listened, probably no family on earth could be completely safe from these supposed stains, in light of the daily examples of those who think they’re the purest and freest of stain, who are the same people others disparage the most. Besides, even if certain families and certain individuals did behave badly and did things that were wrong, as so often does happen, and there are not many families without someone or other in it who misbehaves, is it right that everyone else from the same family, who might well be good people, should for that be disregarded and despised? Should those who are innocent and upright suffer for the guilty, and bear, along with them, the shame and confusion of their vices and unruliness? That is surely unjust; everyone should be esteemed on their own merits and not by the merits or demerits of anyone else. What else is produced by these vain and odious family distinctions? What is produced is that those who come from greater wealth than others want to take advantage of this, imagining that this makes them far better than other people. This is also why they always want to imperiously and tyrannically dominate over others, and subject them to their laws, as if they were only born to dominate and command, and the others were only born to serve them and be their slaves.

  It says in Telemachus that:

  The powerful are born and raised in the sort of arrogance and pride which spoils all that is good in them; they see themselves as having a different nature than other people; the rest only seem to have been placed on Earth by the Gods for their own pleasure, to serve them and look after all their desires, and bring all things to them as if to Divinities. The pleasure of serving them is, they think, already a great reward for those who serve them. Nothing must be seen as impossible in doing their pleasure, the least delay irritates their combustible and violent nature; they are incapable of loving anything but themselves. They are only sensible to their own glory and their own pleasures, it’s only the miseries of life that usually make the Princes and the Powerful men more moderate and sensible to the miseries of others; when they have never tasted anything but the sweet poison of prosperity, they think they are almost Gods on Earth, they want the mountains to be flattened for their contentment, they count men for nothing, they would toy with nature itself. When they hear talk of suffering, they don’t know what it means, it’s like a dream to them, they have never seen the distance from good to evil, misfortune alone can give them any humanity and change their stony heart into a human one; then they feel that they are men, and that other men who are like them must be spared.

  All of which inconveniences reveal how bad is the abuse inherent in these vain and odious family distinctions, that men so inaptly make among themselves.