formation considered as a political change, they would never have been troubled for their private religious opinions. There never was a time in English history when the mere fact that a man avowedly held the Roman Catholic creed subjected him to legal punishments proper. The Government never cared a straw about saving souls. They persecuted only in so far as they thought it politically expedient to do so. As to religious indifference, there is probably greater interest felt in every sort of religious discussion in England and America than in all the rest of the world put together. It is a topic on which hardly any one in this country is neutral; and though for political purposes people have happily agreed to sink their differences, the differences themselves attract as much attention as ever. That the whole English nation cannot be said to have, in its corporate capacity, any distinct religious faith is an undoubted truth; but it is equally true that a vast number of individuals, and organised religious bodies contained in it, have strong religious convictions, and it is by no means impossible that, if the balance could be struck, it would be found that the amount of religious indifference or disbelief concealed under a system of silent official uniformity, is as great as is to be found in the midst of our violent controversies. This, however, is by the way. It is no doubt true that doubt and toleration do go together, but the question is whether, if nothing but intolerance carried to the pitch of fierce persecution can prevent the growth and expression of doubt, doubt is not, for the present at least, the natural and proper condition of mankind? To this great question no answer, so far as we know, is to be got from De Maistre, except violent and scarcely intelligible affirmations, and brilliant declamation which can convince no one who requires to be convinced. XVI DE MAISTRE'S PRINCIPE GÉNÉRATEUR '1 IN noticing De Maistre's Considerations on France and Letters on the Spanish Inquisition, we said a few words of that part of the first-named essay which relates to written constitutions, and which is expanded in the Essai sur le Principe Générateur des Constitutions Modernes, the most original and systematic of its author's speculations. It has been the source of commonplaces which are repeated in all directions, and on all occasions, by writers who have no notion of the source from which they derive them. The following is an outline of its contents. The preface begins by laying down the principle that Whatever in this science' (politics) 'good sense regards at first sight as an evident truth, almost always turns out, when experience has spoken, to be not only false, but fatal'; and after giving various examples, he goes on to lay down a variety of principles, which he says are proved by experience to 1 Essai sur le Principe Générateur des Constitutions Politiques et des autres Institutions Humaines. Par le Comte Joseph de Maistre. First Edition. 1809. be true in 'the most substantial and most fundamental part of politics, that is to say, in what relates to the very constitution of empires.' These principles are as follows: 1. No constitution results from a deliberation ; the rights of the people are never written, or, if they are, it is only as a simple declaration of anterior unwritten rights. 2. Human action is circumscribed in cases of this sort to such a degree that the men who act are only circumstances. 3. The rights of the people, properly so called, proceed almost always from the concessions of sovereigns, in which case they may be in evidence historically; but the rights of the sovereign and of the aristocracy have no known dates or authors. 4. Even these concessions have always been preceded by a state of things which has made them necessary, and which did not depend upon the sovereign. '5. Though written laws are never more than declarations of anterior rights, it is far from the truth that all rights can be written. '6. The more writing the weaker is the institution. 7. No nation can give itself liberty if it has not got it, as human influence does not extend beyond the development of existing rights. '8. Legislators properly so called are extraordinary men, who belong perhaps only to the ancient world and the youth of nations. 9. These legislators, with all their marvellous power, have never done more than collect pre-existing elements, and have always acted in the name of the Divinity. ‘10. Liberty in one sense is a gift of kings; for almost all free nations were constituted by kings. 11. No free nation ever existed which had not, in its natural constitution, germs of liberty as old as itself, and no nation ever tried effectually to develop by its written fundamental laws, other rights than those which existed in its natural constitution. '12. Assemblies of whatever kind cannot constitute nations. Such an enterprise ought to be placed amongst the most memorable acts of madness.' 6 These principles, which are announced in a body in the preface, are expanded and supported in the body of the essay itself. De Maistre begins with considering the nature of laws. A law, he says, is not, as Locke declared, 'the expression of the general will'; such laws are mere regulations (règlements). A law (loi) is the expression of a superior will. He quotes Bergier for the remark, Sans le dogme d'un Dieu législateur, toute obligation morale est chimérique. Force d'un côté, impuissance de l'autre, voilà tout le lien des sociétés humaines.' Hence 'primordial good sense, happily anterior to sophisms, has sought on every side a sanction for its laws in superhuman power, either from God, or in revering certain unwritten laws as emanating from him.' Fundamental law, ce qu'il y a de plus essentiel, de VOL. III U |