(b) Mably

‘Who now reads Cowley?’ Probably fewer to-day than when the enquiry was first addressed to the world; but even so, possibly a hundred for every one who reads Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709–1785). Mably is one of the most striking examples of swift and irretrievable descent from a position of the highest reputation and influence to a position in which he is less than the dust that strews the paths of the generations of book-worms. A writer who, within a few years of his death, enjoys the spectacle of four entirely distinct editions of his collected works (ranging from 12 to 26 volumes according to the format) has no occasion to complain of neglect. Mably, in short, was read and quoted by every one in his own day, and immediately thereafter; almost a hundred years later, M. Janet was able to testify that, in the frequency of his appearance in the book-stalls along the Quais, he reigned supreme, with the Abbé Raynal as the only possible runner-up. The answer to those who are so hardy as to ask why the world at large does not now read Mably, is that they themselves should try. Without entering into a dangerous controversy, it may be suggested that he is the extreme example of the evil consequences of an undiluted classical education. He was never able to lay the ghost of Plato, and he wrote Platonic dialogues, as they might have been written by Plato, had Plato not been Plato. He worshipped Sparta and all its institutions, real or imagined; Lycurgus was his constant obsession. It has been suggested that he was acutely sensitive to the social evils, to the inequalities and injustices of his day, when the floods of revolution were gathering to sweep over France. In fact, however, the impression left on a reader of these days is that he sees everything through a haze of classical reading. His heart may have been touched by the wrongs of his time, but he thought and wrote in terms of Lacedaemon. A certain awareness of this paralysing defect seems at times to have knocked dumbly at the portals of his consciousness. In one of his dialogues, one of the speakers (who is more or less Mably) expresses a fear of what his friends may say of him: ‘La tête a tourné à ce pauvre homme; c'est dommage... il s'est gaté l'esprit à lire l'histoire des Grecs et des Romains qu'il aimait.’ ¹ His friends would have been abundantly right; but they obviously failed to say it effectively.

Mably was destined for the Church, but although throughout his life and subsequently, he has been consistently designated as ‘Abbé,’ he soon faded away from ecclesiastical activities. He trembled for a time on the fringe of political employment, but this he also abandoned and gave himself up to a life of writing. His works are deplorably numerous and extensive, ranging over the whole field of history, politics, legislation, morals and much more, although always, in his rather pedantic and pedagogic manner, he was chiefly concerned with making man good. For the purpose of ascertaining the relationship which links Plato and More at the one end and Babeuf at the other, a small selection from this numerous brood of publications is sufficient. There is the rather cumbrously entitled Doutes proposées aux philosophes économistes sur l'ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés politiques, which Mably wrote in order to demolish the views on property and other things expressed by Mercier de la Rivière, one of the Physiocrats—not in itself a difficult task. Des Droits et des Devoirs du Citoyen is not quite a dialogue, though it professes to report conversations with Lord Stanhope. De la Legislation, ou Principes des Loix is a triangular conversation between an English peer (who figures merely as ‘Milord’) who, although easily converted, is supposed to represent ‘common-sense’ views, a Swede who brings vision, and the narrator, who is either markedly silent, or modestly refrains from reporting his own contributions to the discussion. Lastly, for our purpose there is the Entretiens de Phocion, professedly a translation of a classical manuscript discovered in a monastery—a fiction as innocuous as the Entretiens themselves. It should scarcely be necessary to repeat the warning already hinted at in the case of Sir Thomas More. The Doutes are unmistakably straightforward Mably; but in some of the other more important works (e.g. De la Législation) he is professedly reporting the discussions of fictitious characters, and in such cases he clearly cannot be held responsible for all the views expressed. Probably in the work cited, Mably would approve in general of the views of the Swede, and he would not always have approved of the views of ‘Milord’; but in the nature of things it would have been open to him to disclaim both.

If truth be told, there is not much in Mably that may not be found better expressed elsewhere; he is of interest, partly because of his place in the development of things, and partly because of the strange pessimism which persuaded him that the world was suffering from a disease, or a multiplicity of diseases, for which there could be no effective remedy. Relying on natural law, he believed in the equality of men; looking around him (in the intervals of reading the classics) he was satisfied that private property was the root-cause of all human misfortunes; and (especially after reading the trite moral maxims of antiquity) he was of the opinion that there is much to be said for a simple life. Such, in brief, is the theoretical basis of Mably.

For Mably, the equality of man is part of the design of Nature: ‘Nature says to us in a hundred different ways: You are all my children, and I love you all equally... the whole earth is the patrimony of each of you; you were equal when you left my hands.’¹ Nature has given us the same needs to be a continual reminder of our equality. It made men parfaitement égaux, without rights one over the other, and consequently perfectly free. Nature created neither kings nor magistrates, neither subjects nor slaves, neither rich nor poor. When Nature had finished her work in the creation of man, there was nowhere any principle of inequality.² In a frequently recurring phrase Nature destined man to be equal. In one place he opens a wider door, and in words which sound rather like an anticipation of Proudhon, he tells us that this sentiment of equality is nothing other than the sentiment of our dignity.¹ In amplification, and a dangerous amplification, Mably emphasises the uniformity of Nature. Men are the same everywhere; he will have nothing to do with the geographical school that holds that men are affected by such trivialities as latitude, temperature and rainfall—as if it were the duty of a legislator, before settling to his task, to consult a thermometer in place of the human heart.² If it is urged that men are in fact unequal in endowments, Mably again gives a somewhat Proudhonian reply; it is education, brutalising some and developing the faculties of others, that persuades us to believe (wrongly) that Providence has established differences among men. At birth all men are substantially alike. The variegated history of any family, where presumably the members have the same heredity, and to a large extent have the same environment and education in essential matters, should provide sufficient comment on this aspect of the argument that humanity is but a tub of undifferentiated and indistinguishable peas.

On the question of the origin of property in the bosom of that primitive society which was so happy as to be propertyless, Mably offers suggestions which are peculiar, and which, if he had paused to reflect, go far towards the torpedoing of all his theorisings on these subjects. For in the Doutes where he is writing in his own person and cannot therefore disclaim responsibility, he suggests that property had its origin in the indolence of certain drones, frelons, who sought to live at the expense of others, and in whom it had not been possible to inculcate a love of work—à qui on n'avoit pas l'art de faire aimer le travail.³ This same explanation is advanced at greater length by the Swedish philosopher in De la Législation. Indolent men, less active than the others, served society with less assiduity and zeal. Their indifference grew because it was not repressed. These idlers were a burden on their fellow-citizens, who complained of their conduct, and presently the Republic was agitated by dissensions. Presumably, society then fell back on the Pauline injunction that if any would not work, neither should he eat. Should this theory of the dronishness of men prove unacceptable, the Swedish philosopher, like an obliging salesman, is quite prepared to offer an alternative solution of the problem of the origin of property. It is that certain of the magistrates retained more than their share in the distribution of the fruits of the earth, or showed an unjust preference towards their friends and relations.⁴ On this curious (and, perhaps, in part plausible) theorising, two comments are inescapable. Firstly, the indolence that ruined primitive communism would probably once again ruin communism, if re-established; there would still be drones willing to live at the expense of others, laborem fugientes in the language of St. Thomas Aquinas. And secondly, it reveals an extraordinary confusion of thought and of argument to proclaim that communism is the only condition in which men may live virtuously and happily, and in the same breath explain that communism was abandoned because the ordinary citizen failed to play fairly by his fellows, or alternatively because the leaders of society were dishonest and given to nepotism. The Abbé, in spite of himself, is being forced back to acknowledge the reality of original sin.

That property is the source of ‘tous les malheurs’ and of ‘tous les maux’ hardly calls for particularisation, inasmuch as the argument is on familiar lines.¹ The moment property is established, inequality becomes inevitable, with the result that there are henceforward opposed interests, all the vices of wealth and all the vices of poverty, brutalisation of men's minds, corruption of civil manners, and much more.² Carrying the argument a stage further, the existence of property leads to war.³ It is property that has introduced l'oisiveté and la fainéantise,⁴ those pet aversions of Saint-Simon later; although oddly enough, as has been seen, it was this penchant to l'oisiveté that led to the establishment of property. In language closely resembling that used by Babeuf, the thought constantly recurs that what one has in excess is obtained at the cost of others suffering deficiency. More important from the point of view of the theory of property, it is contended that property finds no support in the laws of nature; its sanction is to be found solely in convention; and what convention has made, convention may unmake.

If it be argued, as for example ‘Milord’ (representing commonsense) does in fact argue in De la Législation, that a ‘stimulus’ is needed, and that, in short, ‘on ne travaille pas pour les autres avec la même ardeur que pour soi,’⁵ Mably, disguised on this occasion as the Swedish philosopher, has two answers. Firstly, even if less were produced, it would be better so. There are more important things than opulence. Adam Smith said as much, having his mind directed to the issue of national defence. For Mably (or the Swede) the thing that is more important than Abundance is Virtue. It is more advantageous for the human race to have quelques vertus than beaucoup de fruits.⁶ It sounds like the echo of an unimpeachable copybook Latin tag. Moreover, to those who seek and attain unto simplicity, everything else is added. Adam Smith's ‘defence,’ for instance, comes in as a by-product of a life spent in spare leanness. With a curious innocence of mind he holds that such a society is safe from its enemies. If you have any doubt on the subject, he refers you to Plato and Socrates for reassurance; for is it not written that a poor army, if composed of happy citizens, is invincible, and will always be victorious over an army three times as numerous, which has the handicap of representing a rich State? ¹ In the twentieth century the assurance even of Plato brings us no comfort on this point.

The second answer suggested by Mably on this question of stimulus—and he is abundantly right—is that avarice is not the only motive capable of moving the human heart. Unfortunately, he pins his faith to a motive which for his purpose would be but a broken reed. There are such things, he says, as ‘distinctions’; and if society had in time devised an adequate system of distinctions, the whole evolution of property could have been nipped in the bud. This ‘amour de la gloire et de la considération’ obviously played a considerable part in Mably's ideas relating to the ordering of the universe. Milord's objection that a man works hardest when working for himself is met with the retort that he is in very deed, véritablement, working for himself, if the horizon is dotted with prospects of ‘glory’ and ‘distinctions.’ In a rather absurd phrase, what will a man not do to ‘goûter le plaisir qui accompagne la considération’?²

The idea that the world may find its driving force in a Birthday Honours List (giving the King, if necessary 365 official birthdays in the year) occurs with pathetic frequency in the more Utopian forms of socialist literature, although perhaps few are so badly bitten with the notion as is Mably. Fourier doubtless is more extreme, but he is always in a class by himself. It is a foolish doctrine anywhere, but nowhere more foolish than in Mably. For in his scheme of things, he makes use of ‘distinctions’ to induce every one to work, so that, had matters been arranged properly, society need never have been driven to the recognition of property. But obviously, if any were wise or depraved enough to say that they preferred indolence to a ribbon (and there would be many such) they would have to be allowed to continue to lead idle lives, sponging on their neighbours; perhaps some who had at last attained the ribbon might burst into a blaze of fainéantise in order that they might without distraction savour the pleasure which accompanies consideration. Mably's world, in short, is one in which it is expected that work will be done by all, without intermission, in the hope of a distinction to come, or in gratitude for a distinction already received.

But indeed the idea that the normal motives of life can be replaced by the desire of the scholar to be created, let us say, a Companion of the Midnight Lamp, or by the ambition of the worker to become a Member (Fourth Class) of the Most Assiduous Order of the Indefatigable Beaver, is a delusion revealing a strange misreading of human psychology in these matters. A distinction is a distinction, only if it distinguishes; and no commodity so precipitously loses all value, so rapidly comes to be shunned, as a distinction somewhat too generously shared with others. There is, moreover, a further point on which the Utopian resort to ‘distinctions’ and ‘honours’ as a substitute for more sordid incentives lamentably fails. Mably, since he at the moment is giving evidence, does not say how or by whom his distinctions are to be conferred: he is always vague when the point at issue calls for something more precise than a lugubrious shaking of the head. But it is assumed, and always is assumed, that there will be a universal and unquestioning belief that the fountain of honour has sprayed its refreshing waters on all the most deserving and on none but the most deserving. This naively innocent faith does not exist in the world we know, nor is it likely to exist in any earthly paradise that man may imagine. In the absence of such a faith, the shower of distinctions which Mably thinks ought to have saved the world from its selfishness might have precisely the contrary effect. An Honours List, while it is designedly an official commendation of those contained therein, is also inferentially, if not an official censure, at least a display of official frigid neutrality, of postponed approval with regard to those excluded. As Tertullian says, ‘choice implies rejection.’ It skilfully attains two ends simultaneously; it gives, or is supposed to give, pleasure to those included, if only by enabling them to contemplate the mortification of the less fortunate: no less emphatically it annoys, or may annoy, those who are excluded, and this annoyance is caused not by their exclusion, which might be borne with fortitude if not indifference, but by their having to witness the inclusion of others whom they deem less worthy. A general or a civil servant, kept waiting unduly in the queue for the Bath, may find his youthful ardour replaced by the sourness of hope deferred, and zeal may flag. Mably wants to confer honours on the shepherds whose flocks are most prolific (doubtless, the Order of the Fecund Ewe), the hunter who is best able to bear fatigue and the rigours of the seasons, and many more, including ‘la femme la plus ocupée de ses devoirs domestiques.’ Here indeed would be a nice apple of discord to toss lightly into the ranks of the W.R.I. and a copious cause of heart-burning among the excluded marginal women. This may appear a trivial, almost a puerile question, almost unworthy of mention; yet the search for non-material stimuli in the form of what Mably calls ‘considération’, is so recurrent, that it deserves somewhere to be looked at rather more closely.

Having thus laid bare the evils of the past and the present, Mably might be expected to hold out some hope for the future. He is, however, almost unique in his pessimism: never was a diagnostician so gloomy in his prognosis. It is a recurrent note in his lamentations that our accumulated vices have made any return to a state of happiness impossible. In preaching equality, he makes it clear at the outset that in his view no human power could now restore it without causing greater disorders than those sought to be avoided; and a few pages later he adds that the evil to-day is too deeply rooted to allow any hope of a cure.¹ The barriers between us and the true order of nature are insurmountable.² How gladly would one return to the equality established by Lycurgus and sought after by Plato, but in this world of ours this equality can be but a chimera.³ Moreover, the world is foolish and there is no use in trying. We have reached such a stage of corruption that ‘l'extrême sagesse doit paroître l'extrême folie, et l'est en effet.’⁴ The Swedish philosopher, who without injustice may in general be taken as the mouthpiece of Mably, declares that if he were to attempt to re-establish equality, he would most infallibly be taken for a fool.⁵ The Apostle Paul was not so sensitive.

This is indeed the voice of Timorous, who, having had his vision, such as it was, of the Celestial City, turns back in his pilgrimage, because of the lions in the way, not caring to know whether they were sleeping or waking, or perhaps even chained. From Mably, in short, we may look for no solution, for our evils are ‘sans remède.’ The utmost he can suggest lies in the adoption of a few ‘palliatives,’ in order perhaps to soften and somewhat diminish our misfortunes. The laws should be fashioned so as to discourage avarice and ambition, the two primary vices which property and inequality engender. The substance of his suggestions is somewhat archaic, as is indeed everything in Mably. The State must set the example. It must have few requirements: expenditure and taxation must be kept down to the minimum.⁶ As a slight contribution in this direction (and for other reasons) magistrates should be unpaid. The citizens should be induced to be content with a mediocre fortune, and to achieve this end riches should be rendered inutiles.⁷ Most of all he recommends sumptuary laws, of wide range and universal application. Luxury must be abandoned, and in this thirst for primitive simplicity, the Arts also should go: ‘je demande à quoi peut nous être bonne une académie de peinture?’ ⁸ The law of inheritance and bequest should be modified to prevent accumulation of wealth: a single daughter would be forcibly given two adopted brothers, in order to prevent her from being corrupted by an excess of wealth. Commerce should as far as possible be forbidden: it is undertaken for reasons of cupidity, and against the interests of good government. A merchant is a dangerous person, in that he has no fatherland. Here, mixed up with physiocratic views, is a reminiscence of the mediaeval doctrine that a merchant can hardly be pleasing to God. But indeed Hosea had already said it: ‘He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.’ Such, more or less, are the stale pills which Mably offers to the patient whom he has already pronounced too far gone for recovery.

On his own meagre merits, Mably might be left undisturbed in the complete oblivion that has overtaken him; but such a test is not the only proper criterion in an attempt, however sketchy, to trace the development of ideas and of thought. In his own lifetime and during the succeeding generation, he was an influence of the first magnitude in stressing the idea of absolute equality—although, indeed, his communism is largely based on the more or less uniform capacity of the human stomach, as man ‘leaves the hands of Nature,’ to borrow one of his favourite expressions. To take one instance of his influence (if it be not an absurd conjunction of names), there can be little doubt that he is the connecting link between Plato and Babeuf. His very great contemporary fame is slightly incomprehensible, even admitting that in many ways—as, for example, in his rapt admiration of the noble savage—he is of his time. But though a passable writer, discoursing with reasonable competence and adequate book-learning on a vast range of subjects,¹ no one would now call him a good writer. He is an uninteresting pedestrian who in time covers the ground several times. Moreover, when we turn to the substance of Mably, it is difficult to resist the impression that, if not a sham (and no one ought to allege this), his socialism was an artificial, academic product, quite out of touch with the needs of his own, and still more of the next, generation. It is exclusively a product of Plato and Lycurgus. His dream is of a primitive community which has succeeded in banishing luxury and the arts, or has never had them; which takes its magistrates direct from the plough, and which looks to its poverty and its temperance as the most potent munitions of war against any possible external enemy. Nor does Mably even have the redeeming feature of feeling at one with the people; in his heart he feels something approaching contempt for his fellows. In short, Mably is, all the time, looking in the wrong direction—backward and not forward; and it is rather odd that his own generation should apparently have had no instinctive feeling of this disabling characteristic.