LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.

Liberty, equality, fraternity. These three words constitute, by themselves alone, the program of an entire social order that would bring about the most absolute progress of Humanity, if the principles they express could receive integral application. Let us see what obstacles, in the present state of society, are opposed to them and, alongside the evil, let us seek the remedy.

Fraternity, in the rigorous sense of the term, sums up all the duties of men toward one another. It signifies: devotion, abnegation, tolerance, benevolence, indulgence. It is, par excellence, evangelical charity and the application of the maxim: “To do unto others as we would wish that others do unto us.” The opposite of egoism. Fraternity says: “One for all and all for one.” Egoism says: “Each one for himself.” These two qualities being the negation of one another, it is as impossible for an egoist to act fraternally toward his fellows as it is for a miser to be generous, or for a man of small stature to attain that of another who is tall. Now, egoism being the dominant plague of society, as long as it reigns supreme, the reign of true fraternity will be impossible. Each will want it for his own benefit; he will not, however, want to practice it for the benefit of others, or, if he does, it will be after making sure that he will lose nothing. Considered from the point of view of its importance for the realization of social happiness, fraternity stands in the first rank: it is the base. Without it, neither equality nor serious liberty could exist. Equality derives from fraternity, and liberty is the consequence of the other two.

Indeed, let us suppose a society of men sufficiently disinterested, sufficiently good and benevolent to live fraternally, without there being among them either privileges or exceptional rights, for otherwise there would be no fraternity. To treat someone as a brother is to treat him as an equal; it is to wish, on the part of whoever so treats him, the same for him as one would wish for oneself. Among a people of brothers, equality will be the consequence of their sentiments, of their manner of acting, and will establish itself by the very force of things. What, however, is the enemy of equality? Pride, which makes man want to have everywhere primacy and dominion, which lives on privileges and exceptions, may tolerate social equality, but will never found it, and at the first opportunity will dismantle it. Now, pride being also one of the plagues of society, as long as it is not banished, it will oppose an obstacle to true equality. Liberty, as we have said, is the daughter of fraternity and equality. We speak of legal liberty and not of natural liberty, which, by right, is imprescriptible for every human creature, from the savage to the civilized. Men who live as brothers, with equal rights, animated by the sentiment of reciprocal benevolence, will practice justice among themselves, will not seek to cause harm to one another, and will consequently have nothing to fear from one another. Liberty will offer no danger, because no one will think of abusing it to the prejudice of his fellows. But how could egoism, which wants everything for itself, and pride, which incessantly wants to dominate, give their hand to liberty, which would dethrone them? Egoism and pride are, therefore, the enemies of liberty, as they are of equality and fraternity. Liberty presupposes mutual confidence. Now, there can be no confidence among persons dominated by the exclusivist sentiment of personality. Since each one can satisfy himself only at the expense of another, all will be constantly on guard against one another. Always fearful of losing what they call their rights, domination constitutes the very condition of the existence of all, wherefore they will continually lay snares against liberty and will curtail it as much as they can.

Those three principles are, therefore, as we said above, mutually interdependent and lend each other support; without their union the social edifice would not be complete. That of fraternity cannot be practiced in all its purity to the exclusion of the other two, for, without equality and liberty, there is no true fraternity. Liberty without fraternity is free rein given to all the evil passions, which thenceforth remain unbridled; with fraternity, man makes no evil use of his liberty: it is order; without fraternity, he uses liberty to give course to all his vile acts: it is anarchy, license. That is why the freest nations find themselves obliged to create restrictions on liberty. Equality, without fraternity, leads to the same results, since equality demands liberty; under the pretext of equality, the small man brings down the great one, to take his place, and becomes a tyrant in his turn; everything is reduced to a displacement of despotism. Will it follow from this that, as long as men are not imbued with the sentiment of fraternity, it will be necessary to hold them in servitude? Can it be that institutions founded on the principles of equality and liberty are unsuitable? Such an opinion would be more than erroneous; it would be absurd. No one waits for a child to have reached its full growth in order to teach it to walk. Who, moreover, has them under tutelage? Are they men of elevated and generous ideas, guided by the love of progress? Are they men who take advantage of the submission of their inferiors in order to develop their moral sense and raise them little by little to the condition of free men? No; they are, for the most part, men jealous of their power, to whose ambition and cupidity other men serve as instruments more intelligent than animals, and who, then, instead of emancipating them, keep them, for as long as possible, subjugated and in ignorance. But this order of things changes of itself, by the irresistible power of progress. The reaction is not rarely violent and all the more terrible the more the sentiment of fraternity, imprudently stifled, fails to interpose its moderating power; the struggle is engaged between those who want to take and those who want to retain; hence a conflict that is prolonged sometimes for centuries. At last, a fictitious equilibrium establishes itself; there is something better. One feels, however, that the social bases are not solid; at each step the ground trembles, because liberty and equality do not yet reign under the aegis of fraternity, because pride and egoism continue engaged in causing the efforts of men of good will to fail. All you who dream of that golden age for Humanity, work, above all, on the construction of the base of the edifice, without thinking of placing its dome upon it; lay in its first courses fraternity in its purest sense. But, for that, it is not enough to decree it and inscribe it on a banner; it is necessary that it be in the heart of men, and one does not change the heart of men by means of ordinances. Just as, to make a field bear fruit, it is necessary to tear from it the boulders and the stumps, here too it is necessary to work without rest to extirpate the virus of pride and egoism, for therein is found the cause of all the evil, the real obstacle to the reign of good. Eliminate from the laws, from the institutions, from the religions, from education itself, the last vestiges of the times of barbarism and of privileges, as well as all the causes that nourish and develop those eternal obstacles to true progress, which, so to speak, we drink with our milk and breathe through every pore in the social atmosphere. Only then will men understand the duties and the benefits of fraternity, and the complementary principles, those of equality and liberty, will also establish themselves of their own accord, without upheavals or dangers. Will the destruction of pride and egoism be possible? We will answer loudly and conclusively: YES. Otherwise, it would be necessary to determine a stopping point to the progress of Humanity. That man grows in intelligence is an incontestable fact; will he have reached the culminating point, beyond which he cannot go? Who would dare to maintain so absurd a thesis? Does he progress in morality? To answer this question, it suffices to compare the epochs of one and the same country. Why would he have attained the limit of moral progress and not that of intellectual progress? His aspiration for a better order of things is an indication of the possibility of attaining it. To those who are progressives it falls to accelerate this movement by means of the study and the use of the most efficient means.