BOOKS.

A CENTURY OF REVOLUTION.*

OF the many books called into being by the centenary of the French Revolution, Mr. Lilly has written one of the most striking. His book is a study of the spirit of the Revolution, —a difficult task, for which he has been well prepared by his

philosophical studies in European history. The foundations, the origins of the Revolution are outside the scope of the present book, which is chiefly concerned with its consequences, and with all that its doctrines have done for France and the world during the last hundred years. But we are sure that Mr. Lilly has not forgotten M. de Tocqueville's words :—

"La BEivolution francaise ne sera que tenebres pour ceux qui ne voudront regarder qu'elle ; c'est dans les temps qui la precedent qu'il faut chercher la genie huniere qui puisse l'eclairer. Sans une vue nette de l'ancienne societe, de ses lois, de ses vices, de ses prejuges, de ses miseres, de sa grandeur, on ne comprendra jamais co qu'ont fait les Francais pendant le cours des annees qui ont suivi sa chute."

The harm done by the Revolutionary spirit, its tyranny, its materialism, its naturalism in art and literature, its false and unscientific ideas of liberty and equality, cannot well be exaggerated ; but when we say that the old-world order, destroyed by the Revolution, rested upon the idea of duty, we need to remind ourselves that this idea of duty had lost its force ; that absolutism, unknown in the Middle Ages, had taken the place of their old Christian order, their "vast hierarchy of duties ;" that the rights they recognised had been replaced by an oppressive system of privilege ; and that the Church, the guardian of those rights and the ruling power of that hierarchy, had—partly, not entirely, by her own fault— lost her hold upon men's minds. In France, in the eighteenth century, it was impossible that some great reaction should not come to pass. There was never any real chance that the Revolution should be limited by the reforms of 1789, as such a distinguished writer as Monseigneur Freppel seems almost to think possible. His book, lately reviewed in the Spectator, takes very much the same line as A Century of Revolution, though he confines himself to the practical effect of revolutionary doctrines on French life in the present day. The irreligion of Voltaire, the vicious naturalism of Rousseau, and his doctrine of the "absolute equivalence of men," opened the door to changes far wider than the making of a new Con- stitution. That wonderful thing called "the Revolution" is, in fact, a new religion, and its object is quite as much ethical as political, quite as much to transform the ideas of the world as to alter the outward form of its government.

Mr. Lilly quotes the words of Burke, that the French Revolution was "a revolution of doctrine and theoretic

• A Century of Betolution. By William Samuel Lilly. London : Chapman and Hall. MEC

dogma," and he goes on to give an account of this dogma, for which Rousseau is responsible, that all men are born per- fectly free, equal, good, and reasonable, and the will of the majority of these "sovereign units" is "the supreme law." Mr. Lilly's object is to examine this Revolutionary dogma "in its relation with Liberty, Religion, Science, Art, Democracy, and in its bearing on the public life of England." Except the last chapter, the book is chiefly concerned with France, the native country of the Revolution, though even there it has only worked with a free hand during the last few years. Mr. Lilly's definition of liberty is most clear and true :—

" To permit each to be fully himself, to find his own proper level—this is liberty. Hence, it is not too much to say that liberty is rooted and grounded in inequality. Uniformity is fatal to it."

He points to England as the country where real liberty is to be found :—

" Liberty of person, liberty of .property, of which testamentary freedom is no small part, liberty of worship, liberty of public meeting, liberty of the Press, educational liberty ; we have them

all The free play of indefinitely varying personalities is of the very essence of national vitality The only legiti- mate limit to the freedom of each is that which is necessary for the equal freedom of all."

And he quotes Professor Green's definition of freedom :— "The liberation of the powers of all men, equally, for contri- butions to a common good." We in England have in great measure this liberty, and we have no revolutionary dogma to.

thank for it.

In France, the work of the Revolution has been chiefly negative. It has destroyed, no doubt, many things, many bad old laws and unjust privileges, which needed destroying, and has removed many "restrictions on the exercise of human powers." But in the name of a spurious equality—' hate striving to pass itself off as love,' Amiel well called it—France has been con- verted into a chaos of hostile individuals. To constitute a nation there is need of common traditions, common feelings, common modes and ends of action. Li the place of these we find complete- dissolution of the bonds of thought, the unappeasable rancour of factions, or rather sects, the irreconcilable antagonism of classes."

No one who knows France under her present government can. deny the truth of this ; and we are afraid, too, that Mr. Lilly's:

picture of the French peasantry, who might, at least, be sup- posed to have benefited by the Revolution, is not drawn in too dark colours. He takes it chiefly from revolutionary writers, especially M. Zola and M. Vacherot.

"Utter selfishness complete indifference to all except

the pettiest personal interests blind hatred and un- reasoning fear of everything above his social and intellectual

level abject meanness Abruti et ntecontent.

Avaricious, penurious, dishonest, tyrannical, foul."

Poor peasant-proprietors ! The picture sets one thinking of faces one has seen, worn but agreeable, which suggest that every rule has mercifully its exceptions. But certainly at the best, they, their houses, their farming, their manners and customs at the present day, do not show any power of enlighten- ment inherent in the Revolutionary dogma,. They may be freer in body than a hundred years ago, though they use their- freedom wretchedly enough, but they are certainly not freer-

in mind; even their superstitions are only changed in character.. A French lady who, ever since her marriage, had made it her object to be on good terms with the peasants, visiting them in their houses, clothing their children, showing them every kind- ness in her power, the refuge of the women in their troubles, and, in short, the good angel of the village near which she lived, said sadly to the present writer, after twenty years of this,—" Nos paysans sont mauvais." They were not to be trusted, she said ; there was no real friendliness in thein. And in the last year or two, under the present Government, even their manners were deserting them. They were polite enough if she met one alone ; but if they were standing in a. group, nobody would notice her as she passed. This she put down—truly, no doubt—to cowardice,—" ils ont peur de se compromettre." But the picture was all the more sad that it was drawn by a friendly hand, after so much experience. And the artisan class, in the towns, is quite as melancholy a spectacle,—full of envy, hatred, selfishness, and the wildest ideas of that equality of which Mr. Lilly quotes Mr Mill's. opinion :—

" 'Belief that any one man is as good as another is almost as detrimental to moral and intellectual excellence as any effect

which most forms of government can produce' M de Tocqueville told Mr. Senior, in 1858, that seventy years of revelu-

tion had destroyed public spirit in France : that only the most selfish vanity and covetousness remained. The only effective power left is that supplied by popular passions—passions de in cervelle and passions de l'estomac—and supremacy belongs to the agitator who knows how most effectually to manipulate them."

Mr. Lilly goes on to draw attention to the French criminal

law, and the laws of property and education, none of which can be said to breathe the true spirit of liberty. They are, in fact, tyrannical ; but the Revolution, with its rule of "sovereign units," is indeed a tyrannical despotism. At the same time, we must remember, with M. de Tocqueville, that this "nation

d'administres " is the old French nation ; that all their pre- sent sprang from their past, and that the ancien regime had its "centralisation," as great as that of the Republic.

We may perhaps venture to say here that it is difficult to gain any real understanding of the Revolution without a careful study of M. de Tocqueville ; though his views on the subject would have been still more interesting if L' Ancien Regime et la Revolution could have been written now, instead of thirty years ago. In some ways we think these views would have been modified; for instance, in what he says about revolutionary attacks on the Church and on religion, which, he thought, had had their day, He would scarcely have said the same now. The late developments of the Revolutionary spirit might have altered his opinion that the hatred shown by the followers of Voltaire and Rousseau against the Church had passed away in the triumph of their own views :— " C'etait bien mains," says M. de Tocqueville, " comme doctrine religieuse que comme institution politique que le Christianisme

avait allume ces furieuses haines non payee que ne pouvait prendre place dans la societe nouvelle qu'on allait fonder, mais puree qu'elle occupait alors In place la plus privilegiee et In plus forte dans cette vieille societe qu'il s'a,gissait de reduire en poudre."

And he goes on to say :— "A mesure que rceuvre politique de Is Revolution s'est con- solidee, son oeuvre irreligieuse s'est ruinee A mesure enfin quo le clerge s'est mis plus I part de tout ce qui etait tombe avec lui, on a vu la puissance de l'Eglise se relever dans les esprits et s'y raffermir."

It may be true, as many good judges think, that the Catholic

Church has never been stronger than she is to-day; but, if so, this is in spite of persecution, and not at all because "les haines se sont alangnies." As Mr. Lilly points out, there is, and always must be, an absolute enmity between the Revolutionary spirit, from its very nature, and the spirit of Christianity. They are diametrically opposed to each other. "In a word, the Revo- lutionary conception of man and society is materialistic ; the Christian is spiritual." And it is not only the Catholic

Church that the Revolution regards as an enemy. " Cleri- calism " is the enemy ; and M. Louis Blanc says,—" Nous

entendons par le clericalisme, non seulement le catholieisme, mais touts religion et toute religiosite, quelle qu'elle soit." It is not only from France that Mr. Lilly brings his witnesses to this, showing how the true Revolutionary spirit goes along with that atheism which sometimes runs so far as to regard morality " comme une clericale," or at least to say with M. Paul Bert, who fares ill, as we might expect, in his hands,— " Plus les societes s'acheminent vers la morale, plus elles s'eloignent de la religion." He brings Mr. Morley, in his studies on the Revolution, to prove that it is itself considered to be "a new Gospel," a new religion, and that therefore "the

war in which the Revolution is engaged is essentially a war against the Theistic idea." " L'idee de Dien," says M. Andrieux, "eat la source et le soutien de tout despotisme et de toute iniquit6." From Mr. Morley's writings, the nature of

this new religion is very clearly to be ascertained, and his views on the "new priesthood," Diderot and the rest, are most instructive. Mr. Lilly adds greatly to the power and effect of his book by allowing a distinguished:admirer of the Revo- lution to explain its spirit and its ends. This chapter on Religion is one of the most interesting in the book.

The Revolutionary spirit pretends to be before all things scientific : in this, as Mr. Lilly points out, it has departed from its earliest ways, when Lavoisier was guillotined,—the Republic having "no need of chemists,"—and is therefore not quite consistent. Its materialism, in the present day, over- shadows all its other doctrines. The true modern Revolu- tionist believes in nothing but "phenomenal realities," and in no progress but material progress. He calls himself a follower of Darwin. But Mr. Lilly goes on to show, in pages of great ability, that this Revolutionary materialism is not true Darwinism at all. It is Professor Haeckel's explanation of Darwin's teaching, very unlike the original, which is used and believed by the adherents of the "new Gospel." This is their chief weapon for the destruction of old beliefs :—

" It was observed by a Revolutionary publicist La Revolution demolit Dieu, demolit tout le vieux monde, et tine chose seule reste--l'evolution scientifique.' . . . . . Others may occupy themselves, if they will, said M. Paul Bert, • in seeking a nostrum to destroy the phylloxera; be it mine to find one that shall destroy the Christian religion.' And that nostrum, we are confidently assured, is found in Darwinism."

We have seldom read a more interesting argument than this, in which Mr. Lilly lays down the doctrines of true Darwinism and then inquires how far the Revolutionary dogma agrees with them. Certainly, in this light, thrown by the indis- putable facts of scientific evolution, the rights of man begin to look very shadowy. But we must let Mr. Lilly speak for himself, only adding that, after he has pointed out the very small logical connection between Darwinism and the Revolu- tionary dogma, he goes on to show how true science and true religion can never be really at war :— " First consider the doctrine of the natural, inalienable, and imprescriptible rights of the individual, which is the chief corner- stone of the whole Revolutionary edifice. How is it possible to predicate such rights of an animal whose attributes are constantly varying—whose original is not Jean Jacques's perfect man in a state of nature, but, not to go farther back, a troglodyte with half a brain, with the appetites and habits of a wild beast, with no conception of justice, and with only half articulate cries for language? Of the absolute reason, which the Revolution professes to worship, usually under the strangest travesties, Darwinism knows nothing. Its only notion of reason, as of justice and of right, is relative. Right to be means Might to be. For the true state of nature is a state of war Again, take the thrice- sacred formula, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. What place is there for these conceptions if the scientific evolution' alone remains as the one truth which the Revolution gospel will allow us to recognise ? Liberty ? the sovereignty of the individual ? It disappears with the fiction of a perfectly homogeneous humanity. The message of scientific evolution' to the masses is to know their masters, for that will be best for them ; to recognise the provision of nature, which has made the few strong, wise, and able ; the many, weak, foolish, and incompetent. Equality ? So far from being the holy law of nature, as Marat was wont to affirm, it is fiat blasphemy against that law. Inequality is everywhere her rule, and is the primary

condition of progress Man is nothing but the product of vast inequalities Inequalities of right rest upon in- equalities of fact. Fraternity ? Yes, the fraternity of Cain and Abel. Cain survived because he was fittest, and proved his fit- ness by surviving. And in his story you have the brief epitome

of the history of mankind The Social Contract ? A pure fiction ! Darwinism gives the lie direct to the individualism which is of the very essence of Jacobinism. To nature, the indi- vidual is valueless. The natural goodness of the bete humaine ? It is aboriginally unethical ; ferocious passions are its very groundwork; and all that countless ages of progress have effected has been, more or less imperfectly to tame them in favoured

varieties of it There is not one of the most cherished positions of the Revolution to which the Darwinism, wherein it seeks a scientific basis—after having demolished God and the rest of the old world '—is not absolutely fatal ; while to the optimism underlying the whole political doctrines of Rousseau, it opposes the blankest pessimism. Such is the radical antagonism between Darwinism and the Revolutionary dogma. If, as we are confidently assured, scientific evolution' is the only fact left, the natural, inalienable, and imprescriptible rights of man are dreams ; there is no possible foundation for such rights in merely physical nature There is one, and one only, true natural right—or rather fact—founded upon the law of physical life, and that is the survival of the fittest.'

Mr. Lilly's remarks on "The Revolution and Art," are chiefly concerned with the naturalism of M. Zola, of which he draws a strong and repulsive picture. The return to nature and reality, one of the chief features of the Revolution,— " means everywhere the banishment of imagination, of empirical doctrines, of poetic idealism ; the recognition of facts cognisable by the senses, which are the only facts ; and the adoption of the experimental method. Analysis and experience, the study of environment and mechanism—such is everywhere the course to be followed. The new democratic society is merely a collection of organised beings existing upon earth in certain conditions—of betes humaines, who have given up the futile vanity of regarding themselves as the end and aim of creation, who know that they are human beasts, and do not pretend to be any- thing else, who are well aware that the old religious conceptions which regarded them as something else arc cunningly devised fables."

The study of the bete humaine, generally in its lowest types, is the kind of art that logically belongs to a society like this. Mr. Lilly does not admit M. Zola's claim to be a direct suc- cessor of Balzac, and points out the wide difference between

" unimaginative realism" and "imaginative reality." But M. Zola compares his school in literature with M. Claude Bernard's school in medicine, and between the methods of the vivisector and of the naturalist writer, there certainly is a tolerably exact parallel.

Going on to the subject of "Democracy," Mr. Lilly begins by showing how far the meaning of the word now differs from that given to it in earlier ages.

tr No citizen of ancient Athens, no burgher of medileval Florence, would recognise as Democracy such a polity as that which at present exists, let us say, in France."

Those old democracies were in fact aristocratic :—" Citizen- ship was regarded not as a natural right, but as a legal privi- lege." Modern democracy, in France at least, where it has sprung from the Revolution, rests on the imaginary abstract rights of man. In a very fine and interesting chapter, Mr. Lilly points out the many faults and falsenesses belonging to the Revolutionary democracy ; the weaknesses which must belong to the system of government by majority until some reformer succeeds in establishing" mental equality," demanded by Armand de la Meuse in 1792. He points out that,—

" Revolutionary democracy differs from ancient and mediEeval merely in this, that it is not an aristocracy, or government of the best ; but a kakistocracy, or government of the worst,—a polity in which wisdom, culture, virtue, even wealth, are suppressed by folly, ferocity, vice, and poverty."

And he quotes Mr. Spencer's description of the necessary out- come of Rousseau's doctrines :—

" To take from the worthy the things they have laboured for, in order to give to the unworthy the things they have not earned.' . . . . . . True was the instinct which led Rousseau to curse

civilisation, for it is incompatible with his doctrines Can any nation be accounted perfectly sane which believes that it is possible to determine what is right or wrong, just and unjust, by counting heads ?"

But it is only in the French democratic system, so deeply imbued with the doctrines of the Revolution, that Mr. Lilly sees this hopelessness. Democracy itself is a great fact which has gone on growing slowly in the world, with "the ever- advancing vindication of human personality." The best type of this democracy, "at once the outcome and the subject of law," is found by Mr. Lilly in Germany, the work of philoso- phers, poets, kings, statesmen. He does not see, as some people do, this great house "smouldering at the four corners." The last chapter of this striking, thoughtful, and interesting book is concerned with the effect of Revolu- tionary dogma on England. No one could have dared to hope that England, in spite of her enjoyment of true freedom, in spite of all the great advances she has made in the last few years, led on by that Liberal Party of which Mr. Lilly speaks with such deserved praise, could for ever escape the poison of Revolutionary doctrines. There is not room here to describe the signs of decay which are showing themselves in the old English liberty : the abuses of party government, the absurd doctrines which lead to nothing but mob rule, that " kakis- ,tocracy " which "the sovereignty of the masses" means,— " the domination, not of the ethical idea, but of brute force ;" the degradation, consequent on this new kind of Liberalism, of the House of Commons itself.