“These are purely honorary responsibilities, which have no other result than to burden the budget with a quantity of useless salaries, to the profit of those who have least need of them. And an intelligent people tolerates being made a victim of the vanity of anyone who, by means of his importance, contributes to its prosperity or its ruination! For, in the final analysis, the first duty of a representative, before anything else, is to take the place of his electors in parliament. What is the purpose of the suffrage that appointed him? To award a vain title to a man whose negligence risks compromising not merely an entire district but also the entire country, since the absence of one vote might displace the majority? Today, it is a matter of lengthening the list of distinctions on a man’s visiting card. It is the same with decorations; they attract one another. Merit counts for nothing, diplomatic considerations are their pretext; they are exchanged en bloc.
“It has happened that the absence of a representative has titled the balance of the majority to the opposite side and thus overturned the normal progress of affairs. You will object that the legislative, general and municipal elections are free. That’s true—I’m not talking here about senatorial elections, whose electors are chosen from notable individuals—but the law ought to forearm citizens against intrigue, against their enthusiasms, against their sympathies. A man can only fruitfully give his intelligence to a task if that intelligence is not assailed by various preoccupations. Then again, it is not just that all dignities be conferred upon one person, when there is no lack of others for whom they would be a means of earning a living, first and foremost, and who would, in consequence, acquit themselves more conscientiously in their task.
“Let a representative by a general councilor in his département, no more. He has broadly studied the question of direct contributions in the Chamber; he knows the needs of the State better than anyone else; his advice might carry considerable weight in the General Council, with regard to the division of the tax burden between the département’s contributors. He is also familiar with the government’s projects; he has discussed them or heard them discussed. He also knows the statistics of the département he represents. He is therefore in a better position than anyone else to establish a calculation of taxation. Finally, that complementary function does not detract in any way from his functions as a representative, since the sessions of General Councils take place during parliamentary vacations.
“But that she should be mayor, no! That responsibility obliges a real presence, a perpetual vigilance. He can only do one of two things: go to the Chamber or administer his district. If he goes to the Chamber he leaves a deputy in his place, who then becomes the effective mayor. If he stays in his district, how can he justify the choice of his electors? He is a cogwheel lacking in the governmental machine, and his absence might cause an accident.
“The deputy’s reason for being is to replace the mayor temporarily when the latter is ill or when superior reasons require him to be elsewhere; those are unexpected events that affect everyone. But always? That would be too easy. The deputy would have the difficulty, and the nominal mayor would have the honors and the appointments! The deputy, as his title indicates, is only a substitute; he replaces the mayor in extreme circumstances. From the moment that he replaces him in his functions throughout the year, why should he not have the title?
“Our descendants have put an end to this accumulation, but they have not closed access to administrative functions to those who exercise an honorable profession in private life. On the contrary; their collaboration is useful to the government. They bring to the Chamber the enlightenment they possess in their specialty. Representatives deliberate all questions in general; it is indispensable that nuclei of individuals competent in particular matters should be found among them—otherwise, they would be judging in ignorance of causes.
“The industrialist is consulted in matters of manufacture, the merchant for trade, the financier for the movement of capital. Advocates they all are, only being eligible on production of a diploma in law. To make laws, is it not necessary to be expert in jurisprudence? But any advocate who embraces a political career is obliged to take leave of his clientele, even though he only plays the role of consultant. The manufacturer, the merchant and the financier have their businesses managed. It is their property; they are free to confide it to a manager; if they leave it on sufferance, they alone are the responsible parties, and victims.
“As it is necessary for each administrative branch to be equally represented, functionaries are only permitted to seek to become representatives when they reach the age of retirement, fixed at 50 years. At that age, they still have all the lucidity of their faculties; matured by labor, they bring to their colleagues the solid knowledge and sound and sure judgment of experience—qualities indispensable to the direction of a nation.
“Only the army has no members in the Chamber, for the excellent reason that there is no army. I shall leave it until later to explain the means that have been devised for its replacement. Everything in due time.
“Only the ministers enjoy the privilege of fulfilling two administrative functions at once. It is necessary to say that those two functions are so intimately linked as to be integral. Chosen by a majority of the representatives, they nevertheless retain the role of representatives; during the exercise of their ministry, they may speak, if they have occasion to do so, in the name of their electors. Continually required to set out their plans before the Chamber, it is easy for them to take in hand the cause of their district while defending that of the government. Bound, moreover, by the imperative mandate they have accepted, they are obliged to submit to it, under penalty of being invalidated by the assemblies, in which they are judged as representatives.”
“But there are functions awarded on merit,” Hobson objected, “for example, that of a member of one of the various sections of the Institut, which are honorary titles rather than employments, and which do no harm to the exercise of a political responsibility.”
“It is precisely for that reason that they are not included among administrative functions,” the savant replied. “They are, as you say, distinctions afforded to those who, by study, have acquired a marked superiority in some specialty. They dedicate themselves to science, and are as useful, in enlightening the deliberations of the Chamber, as the experience of retired functionaries. They are not subject, therefore, to the ostracism that applies to the accumulation of administrative functions. What is meant by administrative functions is those which participate directly in the mechanism of government. Savants are never surplus to requirements when it is a matter of presiding over the destiny of a nation. A counterweight is required to the impetuosity and imagination of the young. In all things, equilibrium is the sole means of achieving precision.
“But I feel tired. My ideas are beginning to get confused, and I can no longer see the images designed in the fiery fog in which they present themselves to my mind distinctly. Wake me up. It’s better to postpone the continuation to the next installment, as the feuilletonists say.”
Hobson woke the savant.
“Well?” asked the latter, when he had collected himself slightly.
“Well,” replied Hobson, “it’s impossible to put on a more paradoxical show. You would be the first to complain if the reforms you have predicted were to be realized today.”
“Really?”
“Yes—you’ve waxed lyrical about the suppression of the accumulation of administrative functions, but you are yourself a senator, a general councilor and a mayor.
“Oh, I can wax lyrical easily enough,” Monsieur Landet replied. “We’re no stick-in-the-muds in France. I work for posterity. On that account, I deserve it, without having the inconveniences.”
Chapter V
SOPHISMS
Providence—Children—Egoism
That evening, Monsieur Landet went to the home of his old enemy—politically speaking—the Marquise de la Roche-Houdion. By the greatest good fortune, he found her
alone in her small drawing-room, between a cup of tea and the Revue des Deux Mondes.
“What!” she exclaimed. “It’s you, illustrious prophet! We never see you anymore. So you’re always voyaging on the wings of the future, like witches on their broomsticks?”
“Joke as much as you like, dear friend,” the savant replied, sitting down after kissing her hand. “I’ll set up a rendezvous with you in 2000 years, to show you with your own eyes that my witchcraft has divined accurately.”
“Two thousand years! That’s a lot. And what will we be in that epoch?”
“Oh, I don’t know that myself. It might be that you, the elegant Marquise de la Roche-Houdion, would be, in that epoch, merely a simple goose-girl, just as I, the grim Republican whom you have separated from his fellows in spite of his convictions, might be no more than a simple road-sweeper.”
“Is that what you call an improvement?”
“Perhaps we’d be compensated for that lowly condition in being reborn morally improved.”
“My dear Monsieur Landet, when you’ve run out of arguments you have a deplorable habit of losing your adversary in a maze of sophisms whose twists and turns only you know—and you’re careful to keep the thread to yourself. Have the indulgence to descend to the level of my feeble intelligence.”
“Then have the frankness to confess that it’s a compliment you desire.”
“Oh, these logicians! What about the end of the world? In what epoch do you place that?”
“My double vision hasn’t extended as far as that, and I don’t want to try to go any further. I’d lose what little mind I have left.”
“Bah! Posterity will hold you to account.”
“I certainly hope so—that’s the least that it owes me. This escape to a better world, which my work will allow contemporary society to glimpse, ought to have a salutary effect on it. People will laugh at it to begin with—that’s how serious things are greeted—then they’ll take note of it, and the seeds that I shall have planted in every brain will produce their fruit. Perhaps it has been my mission to enlighten the world and help it to climb the slope of Progress!”
“And you believe, in good faith, everything that you say in somnambulistic sleep?”
“I’m astonished by that question, after the experiment that you witnessed.”
“I don’t deny the effect of magnetism—but I can’t grant it the power to foresee that which has not happened, and which doesn’t yet exist.”
“But in that case, the revelation that I made here, in your presence, at your request…?”
“Was merely the effect of a hallucination, the mirage of your own ideas, Monsieur Landet—don’t deceive yourself about that. Magnetism exerts a physical action on the human organism; that action provokes sleep—that much is evident—but in that sleep, it’s the subject’s most tenacious thoughts that cross his mind and are exposed to the light as in a dream.”
“I don’t want to debate with you, Marquise, a subject on which your opinion is obstinately fixed in a contradictory sense—that would drag on too long. I shall reserve my reply to the work that I am presently writing, in accordance with the stenographic record of my communications. I’m convinced that the solidity of my arguments will triumph over your prejudices, even if that work is not of the same kind as my treatise On the End of Things, which I perceive on your side-table, and whose pages have not yet been separated by your paper-knife.
The Marquise blushed slightly. “The fault is that of your penultimate work, which I haven’t yet finished reading,” she replied. “If you continue to put your works to my throat before leaving me time to digest their predecessors, you’ll surely assassinate me. But let’s resume our discussion. If we were of the same opinion, we’d end up finding one another dull. So you claim that society is on the road of Progress?”
“That’s in the order of things. It’s sufficient to compare the different ages of the world to be convinced. In giving us life, the Creator had an objective. Now, any objective, whatever it maybe, must suppose an amelioration. Common sense refuses to attribute caprices of God. In order to be infinitely perfect, his slightest thoughts and actions must be regulated with a mathematical precision, with a view to a utility that is hidden from us, or escapes us. He has an objective, I say, and that objective is to draw us gradually nearer to him in perfection, by the natural means that he has put at our disposal.
“For the same reason that every work emerging from his hands is perfectible to a certain degree, the work of God, which is perfection itself, must have the same property.
“Take, for example, a sculptor. At first, his statue is nothing but a formless block; he begins to shape it with sweeping strokes of his chisel, and then, as it takes form, he plies his implement prudently, lightly and delicately, for fear that a splinter detached too abruptly might injure the ideal that he is pursuing.
“Is it not the same with humankind? Thrown on to the Earth with an intuition of truth, beauty and justice, people know how far away they are from those goals, and if they persevere in the contrary path it isn’t for want of knowing the cause. A formless block to begin with, humankind begins to shape itself, laboring, polishing, with a view to the objective that God has designed for it. It is both the block and the artisan, but it is only accomplishing its task by virtue of a divine impression.
“What is applicable to human life must be applicable to the existence of the world, both being in concordance. The world changes its surface as human beings change bodily; spring gives birth to fruits as generation gives birth to humans; summer matures them as the prime of life gives humans the plenitude of their strength; autumn causes them to fall and strips the trees of foliage, as old age makes humans decrepit; finally, winter, buries the earth beneath a mourning-cloak as death removes humans from life. Both have their seasons, both perish, but to be reborn again, the world the following spring, humankind in another epoch. And the mind of society is modified by the centuries, as the human mind is modified by age. The world and human beings are regulated in the same fashion.
“Would God justify the sentiment that innate intuition gives us of him if we were beings delivered at hazard, if no superior will had forearmed us against our weaknesses and were presiding over our destiny? That supreme will, by the action of which God is manifest, is what is conventionally called Providence.”
“So you deny free will?”
“Far from denying it, I am providing evidence of it. Providence, although being the expression of divine will, is not an insurmountable barrier that God sets between our aspirations and their realization.
“The crimes committed every day are an indubitable proof that the human will knows no other restraint than its own resolution. The resistance it encounters in that struggle is nothing but the action of Providence, and conscience, that internal voice which tells us that we are doing good or evil, is the interpreter chosen by Providence to identify its weaknesses. Hence hesitation. According to temperaments, it concludes well or badly. Later, when evil is accomplished, conscience still makes its voice heard; it awakens remorse. It is still providence that gives people the hope of forgiveness, on the condition of repentance.
“Human will is therefore absolutely free to act according to its impressions; but it must take into account the slightest actions that bring it before the tribunal of the conscience, the vigilant guardian that Providence has delegated to it, in order to watch over it, to turn it away from reefs, indicating the right road and guiding it there if necessary.
“How can you imagine that, with such a mentor, enlightened by supernatural radiance, instructed by the experience of past centuries, human beings will not gradually strip away the unhealthy envelope with which the passions have surrounded them like a bark? Just as an apprentice acquires by practice the skill lacking in his first endeavors, humankind, the most perfectible endeavor of all, takes shape by means of intelligence, the divine parcel that transmit the sentiment of its mission.”
“How is it, the
n, that instead of advancing, we’re degenerating? How is it that our children are worse than us? The experience of past centuries, which you invoked just now, demonstrates that verity.”
“You’re not taking account, dear friend, of the fact that we haven’t yet recovered from the rude shock of ’89—that violent social commotion which, without transition, substituted the rule of human rights for an aristocratic regime. The epoch has not yet arrived when society, shaken at its base, will recover its normal equilibrium.
“War leaves traces that only future generations can succeed in erasing. The cataclysms of nature, which superimpose new terrain on old terrain and establish lines of demarcation between the different ages of the Earth, are only regularized over time.
“It is the same with children. Science, in an embryonic state in their minds, gradually follows their physical and moral development; it only extends fully when they are fully-grown.
“Nothing is accomplished in this world by the effort of our will alone. Will is only the superior agent that presides over action. Everything takes time. Time is the currency of destiny.
“Compare moral effects to physical effects; think about the interval that it will require for the new ideas that the great Revolution has thrown pell-mell into minds to emerge from chaos and coordinate with one another.
“The children born of the new era have absorbed the principle of liberty with their nurses’ milk. They have grown up with that idea; they have become adults with the firm intention of enjoying its respect—and that sentiment of their personality has attenuated the sentiment of filial respect within them. The evil is not as great as you think. The parents have lost in terms of form, but they have gained in terms of affection, which is worth a hundred times more. Once, respect held sway; one loved one’s father by virtue of duty, habit and necessity; one feared him as a master. Today, one listens to the voice of the heart. That natural impulse enlightens our impressions better than the deceptive appearances of prejudice. What good is vain ceremony and emphatic etiquette between a father and his child? Why raise children in constraint and terror? Should we not, on the contrary teach them to love their parents? Should we not, from the earliest infancy, allow them to follow the inclination of their sentiments? Affection need not be imposed; it is natural.
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