and consequently extend no further than the observance of the written law, when this latter is good. This is as much as to say that we have only negative duties to perform toward other men, taken individually. For instance, the matter of property, an individual man being supposed one whom we shall consider simply in the quality of a only be said that he is not under obligations always in the same way to such fulfillment.Negative duty is more imperative than positive, because it is more definite, and more necessary. Positive duty is nobler than negative, because it supposes a more generous nature, and because it can not be enforced by law. In general, the performance of a duty is more meritorious in propor-human being, making abstraction of the category tion as the obligation to fulfill it is less strict, and the sacrifice greater. But although there are degrees of obligation and of merit, obligation is always present. To content one's self by not injuring others simply, without doing them any good, is to degrade one's self voluntarily; for the worth and dignity of each one of us are measured by his service to mankind. On the other hand, doing good to others and failing in the performance of negative duties is to be a bad man with some virtues. The practice of virtue does not excuse any one from the observance of probity; probity without virtue suffices to make an honest man before the law and in the eyes of the world, but a useless man in the sight of God and of conscience. It is a question with writers on politics whether a constitution should simply declare rights, or whether it should also prescribe duty. No one can deny the existence of political duties; but we can and ought to deny that human law has for its object the prescribing of duties. All human law is a declaration of the principles of right and their application, and it can not be any more than this without attacking liberty. There are therefore, properly speaking, no political duties which can be included in a constitution or in a code. The right only, and the duty of each one to respect the right, can be written there, for this latter kind of duty is indissolubly connected with right, and is always understood, both as a sanction and as a consequence, to be part of the formula of right.-But if human law can not prescribe political duties, or if it only prescribes them indirectly, the moral law, on the contrary, enjoins upon us very directly and very imperatively political duties of the positive kind-We owe duties to every man individually considered, and special duties to the different categories of persons into which the human species is divided with respect to ourselves. These categories are four in number: society, country, friends and benefactors, and family. Besides, we must distinguish between the duties we owe to the entire category, and those we owe to the individuals who compose it. For instance, I have more duties to perform to a fellow-countryman than to a foreigner; but I have many more duties to perform to my country than to the citizens taken individually whose fatherland is mine. Of course there are degrees in each category: country, province, city; father, brother, and the most distant relative. Morality is obliged to descend to all these details; we shall give here only the most universal rules.-The duties we owe each person individually and solely, in his quality of human being, are measured strictly by his rights, to which he may belong-it is our duty not to rob him, but not our duty to give him anything. He has a right not to be injured in his property by us; he has no right to demand any sacrifice of ours. The duty to give exists only from the standpoint of the categories, and consequently creates no right to the advantage of an individual, considered simply as such. Thus I am obliged to give of my wealth to the poor, although no poor man individually can assert any claim whatever against my property. In order clearly to understand the special duties, which are at the same time positive duties, and which have relation to all four categories, we may picture them to ourselves as four concentric circles, with man in the centre of all: the largest circle represents society, the smallest the family. Here is the rule: our duties are both more numerous and less imperious, as they approach the centre. The words "less imperious" must not be left ambiguous; since every duty is imperious, the duty which outweighs another, when we are compelled to choose between duties, is considered the more imperious. For instance, my country can not exact from me so many sacrifices as my family; but when the interests of my country and my family conflict, and it is left to me to decide between them, I should sacrifice my family to my country. This is what is meant when it is said that my duties to my family are the more numerous, while those to my country are more imperious. If we take into consideration, not the entire category, but the persons who compose it, duties become both more numerous and more imperious as we approach the centre.-This rule, which suffices for all other categories of duties, is less clear in the case of politics, and for this reason: the constitution of other societies or categories is natural; that of political society is human. In other words, there is the country, which is a natural society, and the government of the country, which is factitious. Every government tries to prove that it is the natural organization of the country, and consequently the legitimate one; and this pretension, if it were proven, would elevate political law to the dignity of natural law. But let us ask if any government is legitimate simply just because it exists. This is the same as asking whether right can be the result of a fact-which is absurd. There are, therefore, legitimate governments and others which are not legitimate, and consequently it may happen to be the duty of a citizen to disobey his government in order to be true to his country. Can morality determine the duty of a citizen who looks upon the government of his coun try as illegitimate and pernicious? Evidently it can; for it is contrary to common sense that human liberty should be without rules, in a question of such importance. We must distinguish two kinds of illegitimate governments, namely, those which injure only interests, and those which are hurtful to morality. It is never allow able to endure the latter; the former should be resisted only when two things are very certain: 1. That we are not blinded by our private interests to ignore the general good. 2. That we do not injure the general good more by the insurrection than the government we are trying to overturn does by its existence.—As to legitimate governments, that is to say, those which are conformable to good morals and to the best interests of the country, the citizen owes them obedience and assistance. That he owes them obedience is a self-evident truth; that he owes them his assistance is not less evident, considering that the skaking of the strength of such a government puts order, and consequently justice, in peril. When this last duty is well understood in a coun try, it is seldom that it does not elevate a people to the first rank, whatever be its extent and wealth. But in a great many states, and especially in those in which the government takes charge of everything, the citizens resign themselves to a passive obedience, which degenerates into disobedience in certain cases. Thus, they do not do what the law commands before being required to do so; they do not lend a helping hand in the maintenance of order; unless, perchance, they hold office. They abstain from a declaration of their views, when it is necessary or useful; they refuse, for instance, to make known the full amount of what they own, which compels the state to replace exact and equitable contribution by uncertain taxation; in their enterprises they consult only their own interestsnever those of the public. Such practices among the citizens make the government strong, and the nation weak; or rather, they invest the government with a mischievous power. Only duty can make men, and only men can make a people-a nation. JULES SIMON. END OF VOLUME FIRST. |