Читать книгу Commentary on Filangieri’s Work - Benjamin de Constant - Страница 11

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CHAPTER ONE Plan of This Commentary

When I decided to add a commentary to the work of Filangieri, I was moved by two considerations. First, I took pleasure in rendering homage to the memory of a writer who deserved well of his country and his century. Second, his work’s flaws gave me the opportunity to correct his ideas when they were wrong, to develop them when they were lacking in clarity and breadth, and finally to combat them when they were not fully in accord with the principles of political and, above all, of individual freedom, which I consider the sole purpose of human association, and which we are destined to establish either through progressive improvement or by terrible but inevitable convulsions. Filangieri never intended to contradict these principles, but the time when his book was published, and his personal character, noble and completely disinterested though he was, sometimes prevented him from marching with a sufficiently firm step along the direct path to truth.

One cannot say of Filangieri, as one can of Montesquieu—that ingenious and profound observer of what exists—that he was often the subtle apologist for what he observed. The immortal author of the Spirit of the Laws was frequently a zealous supporter of inequalities and privileges. He looked at these things, which had been consecrated by time immemorial, as constituent parts of the social order. A historian more than a reformer of institutions, Montesquieu asked no more than to preserve those institutions while describing them. However, his genius, and the bitterness inherent to genius, sometimes dictated language to Montesquieu that thundered against the very abuses for which his habits and social position inspired him with partiality and indulgence. Filangieri, on the other hand, was more distant from aristocratic prejudice than Montesquieu, and he did not disdain to declare himself a reformer.

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He did not conclude that because something existed it ought to be respected, and if his will alone had been enough to destroy them, all abuses would have disappeared. But Filangieri did not have Montesquieu’s genius. A sort of gentleness or reserve in his character led him to make concessions contrary to his principles, whereas the vehemence inseparable from a powerful mind forced Montesquieu, despite his moderation, to pronounce decrees which were incompatible with his concessions in favor of established systems. The result is that Filangieri, after having taken up the pen with a more hostile intent than Montesquieu, in reality fought abuses much more feebly. His attacks became compromises. He tried to mitigate evil rather than eliminate it. In his work there is a humble and painful resignation which often bows before the power it does not hope to disarm. Before the formidable revolution which shook and still threatens the world, perhaps this resignation was not imprudent. If men had been able to obtain redress for their grievances by reason mixed with prayers, rather than conquering it with blows which harmed the victors as well as the vanquished, perhaps things would have been much better. But today the price has been paid, the sacrifices consummated on both sides, and the language of free peoples, addressing themselves to their proxy-holders, cannot be that of subjects having recourse to their masters’ pity.

One will thus find me frequently opposed to Filangieri, not as to the end, but as to the means. To make my idea clearer, I will give an example: Filangieri shows on every page that he is convinced that hereditary privileges are oppressive and harmful. However, he proposes the sacrifice of their prerogatives to the nobles themselves. By enlightening them with arguments, touching them with pleas, and putting before their eyes a picture of the evil they cause and which rebounds on them, he hopes to move their souls. He bases the success he flatters himself with on their generosity. Like Filangieri, I am persuaded that aristocratic inequality is a curse, but it is not from those who profit from it that I expect deliverance. I expect it from the progress of reason, not among a caste, but among the masses in whom strength resides, and from whose midst, through their representatives, reforms and the institutions to preserve those reforms will come.

This difference between Filangieri’s doctrine and mine applies to everything which concerns government in general. The Neapolitan philosopher seems to always want to give government the job of limiting itself. In my opinion, this burden belongs to the nation’s representatives. The time is past

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when it was said that everything should be done for the people, not by the people. Representative government is nothing but introducing the people to participation in public affairs. It is therefore by the people that everything is now done for the people. The functions of government are known and defined. It is not from the government that improvements must come, it is from opinion. Transmitted to the masses by the freedom which its expression should have, opinion returns from that mass to those whom it chooses as its organs, and thus rises to the representative assemblies which pronounce, and the councils of ministers which execute.

I think I have indicated sufficiently how the commentary diverges from the text. What Filangieri wanted to obtain from government in defense of freedom, I want a constitution to impose on the government. In my opinion, the advantages for industry that he begs from the government ought to be conquered solely by industry’s independence. It is the same with morals and the same with education. Where Filangieri sees a gift, I perceive a right. Everywhere he calls for protection, I demand freedom.

As for the other flaws with which one can reproach Filangieri, in this respect indulgence is justice.

It is true that in this author one finds many maxims which appear trivial today. But in 1780 they had if not the merit of being new, at least that of being very good to repeat, for governments which already disdained them as commonplaces still treated them as paradoxes.

Filangieri often indulges in overemphasis and declamation, but he was writing in the presence of abuses, and one should pardon a little verbosity to conscientious indignation. He was also much more a well-intentioned citizen than a man of vast intellect. Revolted by the sufferings of the human species, and struck by the absurdity of some of the institutions which caused these sufferings, he seems to have taken up the pen much more as a philanthropist than as a writer led by his talent. He has neither the profundity of Montesquieu, nor the perspicacity of Smith, nor the originality of Bentham. He discovers nothing by himself. He consults his predecessors, gathers their thoughts, chooses those most favorable to the well-being of the greatest number, whose rights he establishes only in very diluted form, and arranges the materials gathered from the sorting process into the order which seems to him most convenient. This order itself is not always the most natural or the best. Filangieri wastes time proving what no one doubts, and he devotes

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entire pages to arousing feelings of enthusiasm or indignation in the reader’s soul which the author of the Spirit of the Laws produces in two lines. But even in the Neapolitan author’s wanderings we find a consciousness and love of the good. Since, when his book was published, opinion tended to favor improvements and recognized the necessity of limiting despotism, it is always in favor of improvements and in honor of freedom that Filangieri digresses or declaims.

From this characteristic of Filangieri (and I borrow this observation from his translator’s preface), it follows that his opinion does not rise much above public opinion as it was forty years ago, and certainly the public opinion of that time was very much below the public opinion which thirty years of struggles, revolutions, and experience has educated. But this mediocrity of reason, if I may be permitted the expression, is in my view the chief advantage of Filangieri’s work for us. We find in Filangieri’s work the means of assuring ourselves of the progress of the human species in legislation and politics over the past half-century, and of comparing the principles formerly accepted by very enlightened men in these matters with those which are now the object of our examination and our daily debates. If this comparison leads us on the one hand to reject those exaggerations as the fruit of inexperience, which makes the best theories inapplicable; and if on the other hand it prevents us from falling back, by a retrograde impulse, under the yoke of the prejudices from which our predecessors freed themselves; the work for which Filangieri has served as the spur rather than the guide will not, I think, be without all utility.

According to the account I have just given of this commentary’s plan, it is clear I had the choice either of following the thread of my own ideas, while recalling Filangieri’s, or of subordinating my work to his and adopting the order of contents found in his work. The latter choice seemed preferable to me, even though it often made me separate what I would have liked to combine. But the reader will find it easier to juxtapose the commentary and the text, and when there is disagreement between Filangieri and his commentator, to decide between them.