CHAPTER XIV.

PROXIMATE CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AFTER THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

In the last chapter but one, I have attempted to ascertain what those circumstances were which, almost immediately after the death of Louis XIV., prepared the way for the French Revolution. The result of the inquiry has been, that the French intellect was stimulated into activity by the examples and teachings of England; and that this stimulus caused, or at all events encouraged, a great breach between the government of France and its literature;-a breach the more remarkable, because during the reign of Louis XIV. the literature, notwithstanding its temporary brilliancy, had been invariably submissive, and had intimately allied itself with the government, which was always ready to reward its services. We have also seen that, this rupture having arisen between the governing classes and the intellectual classes, it followed, that the former, true to their ancient instincts, began to chastize that spirit of inquiry to which they were unaccustomed : hence those persecutions which, with hardly a single exception, were directed against every man of letters, and hence too those systematic attempts to reduce literature to a subserviency similar to that in which it had been held under Louis XIV. It has, moreover, appeared, that the great Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, though smarting from the injuries constantly inflicted on them by the government and the church, abstained from attacking the government, but directed all their hostility against the church. This apparent anomaly, of the religious institutions being assailed, and the political institutions being spared, has been shown to be a perfectly natural circumstance, arising out of the antecedents of the French nation; and an attempt has been made to explain what those antecedents were, and how they acted. In the present chapter, I purpose to complete this inquiry by examining the next great stage in the history of the French mind. It was needful that, before both church and state could fall, men should change the

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ground of their hostility, and should attack political abuses with the zeal they had hitherto reserved for religious ones. question, therefore, now arises, as to the circumstances under The which this change took place, and the period when it actually occurred.

The circumstances which accompanied this great change are, as we shall presently see, very complicated; and, as they have never yet been studied in connexion with each other, I shall, in the remaining part of this volume, examine them at considerable length. On this point it will, I think, be practicable to arrive at some precise and well-defined results respecting the history of the French Revolution. But the other point, namely, the time at which the change took place, is not only much more obscure, but by its nature will never admit of complete precision. This, however, is a deficiency it possesses in common with every other change in the history of man. The circumstances of each change may always be known, provided the evidence is ample and authentic. But no amount of evidence can enable us to fix the date of the change itself. That to which attention is usually drawn by the compilers of history is, not the change, but is merely the external result which follows the change. The real history of the human race is the history of tendencies which are perceived by the mind, and not of events which are discerned by the senses. It is on this account that no historical epoch will ever admit of that chronological precision familiar to antiquaries and genealogists. The death of a prince, the loss of a battle, and the change of a dynasty, are matters which fall entirely within the province of the senses; and the moment in which they happen can be recorded by the most ordinary observers. But those great intellectual revolutions upon which all other revolutions are based, cannot be measured by so simple a standard. To trace the movements of the human mind, it is necessary to contemplate it under several aspects, and then co-ordinate the results of what we have separately studied. By this means we arrive at certain general conclusions, which, like the ordinary estimate of averages, increase in value in proportion as we increase the number of instances from which they are collected. That this is a safe and available method, appears not only from the history of physical knowledge, but also from the fact, that it is the basis of the empirical maxims by which all men of sound understanding are guided in those ordinary transactions of life to which the generalizations of science have not yet been applied. Indeed, such maxims, which are highly valuable, and which in their aggregate

For a popular but able view of the value of averages in scientific inquiries, see Herschel's Disc. on Nat. Philos. pp. 215-219.

form what is called common sense, are never collected with any thing like the precautions that the philosophic historian ought to feel himself bound to employ.

The real objection, therefore, to generalizations respecting the development of the intellect of a nation is, not that they want certainty, but that they lack precision. This is just the point at which the historian diverges from the annalist. That the English intellect, for example, is gradually becoming more democratic, or, as it is termed, more liberal, is as certain as that the crown of this country is worn by Queen Victoria. But though both these statements are equally certain, the latter statement is more precise. We can tell the very day on which the Queen ascended the throne: the moment of her death will be known with equal precision; and there can be no doubt that many other particulars respecting her will be minutely and accurately preserved. In tracing, however, the growth of English liberalism, all such exactness deserts us. We can point out the year in which the Reform Bill was passed; but who can point out the year in which the Reform Bill first became necessary? In the same way, that the Jews will be admitted into parliament, is as certain as that the Catholics have been admitted. Both these measures are the inevitable result of that increasing indifference to theological disputes, which must now be obvious to every man who does not wilfully shut his eyes. But while we know the hour in which the bill for Catholic emancipation received the assent of the crown, there is no one now living who can tell even the year in which similar justice will be granted to the Jews. Both events are equally certain, but both events are not equally precise.

This distinction between certainty and precision I have stated at some length, because it seems to be little understood, and be

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"As we see in the pretensions set forth by mathematicians, who often suppose that an amount of certainty can be attained in their own pursuits not to be found in any other. This error has probably arisen, as Locke suggests, from confusing clearness with certainty. Essay on Human Understanding, book iv. chap. ii. secs. 9 and 10, in Works, vol. ii. pp. 73, 74. See also Comte, Philos. Pos. vol. i. p. 103, where it is justly observed, that all branches of knowledge capable of being generalized into sciences admit of equal certainty, but not of equal precision: "si, d'après l'explication précédente, les diverses sciences doivent nécessairement présenter une précision très-inégale, il n'en est nullement ainsi de leur certitude." This is handled unsatisfactorily by Montucla (Hist. des Mathémat. vol. i. p. 33), who says, that the principal cause of the peculiar certainty reached by the mathematician is, that "d'une idée claire il ne déduit que des conséquences claires et incontestables." Similarly, Cudworth (Intellect. System, vol. iii. p. 377): "nay the very essence of truth here is this clear perceptibility, or intelligibility." On the other hand, Kant, a far deeper thinker, avoided this confusion, by making mathematical clearness the mark of a kind of certainty rather than of a degree of it: "Die mathematische Gewissheit heisst auch Evidenz, weil ein intuitives Erkenntniss klärer ist, als ein discursives. Obgleich also beides, das mathematische und das philosophische Ver

cause it is intimately connected with the subject now before us. The fact of the French intellect having, during the eighteenth century, passed through two totally distinct epochs, can be proved by every description of evidence; but it is impossible to ascertain the precise time when one epoch succeeded the other. All that we can do is, to compare the different indications which the history of that age presents, and arrive at an approximation which may guide future inquirers. It would perhaps be more prudent to avoid making any particular statement; but as the employment of dates seems necessary to bring such matters clearly before the mind, I will, by way of provisional hypothesis, fix on the year 1750, as the period when those agitations of society which caused the French Revolution entered into their second and political stage.

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That this was about the period when the great movement, hitherto directed against the church, began to be turned against the state, is an inference which many circumstances seem to warrant. We know on the best authority, that towards the year 1750, the French began their celebrated inquiries respecting political economy, and that in their attempt to raise it to a science, they were led to perceive the immense injury which the interference of government had produced on the material interests of the country. Hence a conviction arose that, even in regard to the accumulation of wealth, the authority possessed by the rulers of France was mischievous, since it enabled them, under the notion of protecting commerce, to trouble the freedom of individual action, and to prevent trade from running into those profitable channels which traders are best able to select for themselves. Scarcely had a knowledge of this important truth been nunfterkenntniss, an sich gleich gewiss ist, so ist doch die Art der Gewissheit in beiden verschieden." Logik, Einleitung, sec. 9, in Kant's Werke, vol. i. p. 399. On the opinions of the ancients respecting certainty, compare Matter, Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie, vol. i. p. 195, with Ritter's Hist. of Ancient Philos. vol. ii. p. 46, vol. iii. pp. 74, 426, 427, 484, 614.

"Vers 1750, deux hommes de génie, observateurs judicieux et profonds, conduits par une force d'attention très-soutenue à une logique rigoureuse, animés d'un noble amour pour la patrie et pour l'humanité, M. Quesnay et M. de Gournay, s'occupèrent avec suite de savoir si la nature des choses n'indiquerait pas une science de l'économie politique, et quels seraient les principes de cette science." Additions aux Euvres de Turgot, vol. iii. p. 310. M. Blanqui (Hist. de l'Economie Politique, vol. ii. p. 78) also says, "vers l'année 1750;" and Voltaire (Dict. Philos. article Blé, in Euvres, vol. xxxvii. p. 384) says, 'vers l'an 1750, la nation, rassasiée de vers, de tragédies, de comédies, d'opéra, de romans, d'histoires romanesques,d e réflexions morales plus romanesques encore, et de disputes théologiques sur la grace et sur les convulsions, se mit enfin à raisonner sur les blés."

The revolutionary tendency of this economical movement is noticed in Alison's Europe, vol. i. pp. 184, 185; where, however, its commencement is erroneously assigned to "about the year 1761." See also, on the hostility this caused against government, Mém. de Campan, vol. i. pp. 7-8; Mem. of Mallet du Pan, vol. i. p. 32 ; and Barruel, Hist. du Jacobinisme, vol. i. p. 193, vol. ii. p. 152.

diffused, when its consequences were quickly seen in the national literature, and in the habits of national thought. The sudden increase in France of works relating to finance and to other questions of government, is, indeed, one of the most remarkable features of that age. With such rapidity did the movement spread, that we are told that, soon after 1755, the economists effected a schism between the nation and the government; and Voltaire, writing in 1759, complains that the charms of lighter literature were entirely neglected amidst the general zeal for these new studies. It is not necessary to follow the subsequent history of this great change; nor need I trace the influence exercised shortly before the Revolution by the later economists, and particularly by Turgot, the most eminent of their leaders." It is enough to say, that within about twenty years after the movement was first clearly seen, the taste for economical and financial inquiries became so common, that it penetrated those parts of society where habits of thought are not very frequent; since we find that, even in fashionable life, the conversation no longer turned upon new poems and new plays, but upon political questions, and subjects immediately connected with them. Indeed, when Necker, in 1781, published his celebrated Report on the

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"D'ailleurs la nation s'étoit accoutumée à se séparer toujours de plus en plus de son gouvernement, en raison même de ce que ses écrivains avoient commencé à aborder les études politiques. C'étoit l'époque où la secte des économistes se donnoit le plus de mouvement, depuis que le marquis de Mirabeau avoit publié, en 1755, son Ami des Hommes." Sismondi, Hist. des Franç. vol. xxix. p. 269. Compare Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 58. In this same year, 1755, Goldsmith was in Paris, and was so struck by the progress of insubordination, that he foretold the freedom of the people; though I need hardly say that he was not a man to understand the movement of the economists. Prior's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. pp. 198, 199; Forster's Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. 66.

In February, 1759, he writes to Madame du Boccage: "Il me paraît que les graces et le bon goût sont bannis de France, et ont cédé la place à la métaphysique embrouillée, à la politique des cerveaux creux, à des discussions énormes sur les finances, sur le commerce, sur la population, qui ne mettront jamais dans l'état ni un écu, ni un homme de plus." Euvres de Voltaire, vol. lx. p. 485. In 1763 (vol. lxiii. p. 204): "Adieu nos beaux arts, si les choses continuent comme elles sont. La rage des remontrances et des projets sur les finances a saisi la nation." Many of the ablest men being thus drawn off from mere literary pursuits, there began, about twenty years before the Revolution, a marked deterioration in style, particularly among prose writers. Compare Lettres de Dudeffand à Walpole, vol. ii. p. 358, vol. iii. pp. 163, 299; Mém. de Genlis, vol. ii. p. 374, vol. v. p. 123, vol. viii. pp. 180, 275; Mercier sur Rousseau, vol. ii. p. 151.

7 Georgel, who hated Turgot, says of him: "son cabinet et ses bureaux se transformèrent en ateliers où les économistes forgeoient leur système et leurs spéculations." Mém. de Georgel, vol. i. p. 406: see also Blanqui, Hist. de l'Econ. Politique, vol. ii. pp. 96-112; Condorcet, Vie de Turgot, pp. 32-35; Twiss, Progress of Political Econ. pp. 142 seq.

Sismondi, under the year 1774, notices "les écrits innombrables que chaque jour voyoit éclore sur la politique, et qui avoient désormais remplacé dans l'intérêt des salons ces nouveautés littéraires, ces vers, ces anecdotes galantes, dont peu d'années auparavant le public étoit uniquement occupé." Hist. des Français, vol. xxix. p. 495; and a similar remark in Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 126.