Commentary on Filangieri’s Work. Benjamin de Constant
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often indulges in overemphasis and declamation, but he was writing in the presence of abuses, and one should pardon a little verbosity to conscientious indignation. He was also much more a well-intentioned citizen than a man of vast intellect. Revolted by the sufferings of the human species, and struck by the absurdity of some of the institutions which caused these sufferings, he seems to have taken up the pen much more as a philanthropist than as a writer led by his talent. He has neither the profundity of Montesquieu, nor the perspicacity of Smith, nor the originality of Bentham. He discovers nothing by himself. He consults his predecessors, gathers their thoughts, chooses those most favorable to the well-being of the greatest number, whose rights he establishes only in very diluted form, and arranges the materials gathered from the sorting process into the order which seems to him most convenient. This order itself is not always the most natural or the best. Filangieri wastes time proving what no one doubts, and he devotes
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entire pages to arousing feelings of enthusiasm or indignation in the reader’s soul which the author of the Spirit of the Laws produces in two lines. But even in the Neapolitan author’s wanderings we find a consciousness and love of the good. Since, when his book was published, opinion tended to favor improvements and recognized the necessity of limiting despotism, it is always in favor of improvements and in honor of freedom that Filangieri digresses or declaims.
From this characteristic of Filangieri (and I borrow this observation from his translator’s preface), it follows that his opinion does not rise much above public opinion as it was forty years ago, and certainly the public opinion of that time was very much below the public opinion which thirty years of struggles, revolutions, and experience has educated. But this mediocrity of reason, if I may be permitted the expression, is in my view the chief advantage of Filangieri’s work for us. We find in Filangieri’s work the means of assuring ourselves of the progress of the human species in legislation and politics over the past half-century, and of comparing the principles formerly accepted by very enlightened men in these matters with those which are now the object of our examination and our daily debates. If this comparison leads us on the one hand to reject those exaggerations as the fruit of inexperience, which makes the best theories inapplicable; and if on the other hand it prevents us from falling back, by a retrograde impulse, under the yoke of the prejudices from which our predecessors freed themselves; the work for which Filangieri has served as the spur rather than the guide will not, I think, be without all utility.
According to the account I have just given of this commentary’s plan, it is clear I had the choice either of following the thread of my own ideas, while recalling Filangieri’s, or of subordinating my work to his and adopting the order of contents found in his work. The latter choice seemed preferable to me, even though it often made me separate what I would have liked to combine. But the reader will find it easier to juxtapose the commentary and the text, and when there is disagreement between Filangieri and his commentator, to decide between them.
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CHAPTER TWO
The sole purpose of all the calculations which have so long disturbed rulers’ councils has been the solution of this problem: How can one kill the greatest number of men in the shortest possible time?
INTRODUCTION, P. 1.
If one reads Filangieri with some attention, one notes several flaws of which there are examples in our eighteenth-century writers. One of the most striking is the need to make an impression, which led these writers to look for unexpected turns of phrase in order to give themselves an air of boldness and novelty. The definition of the problem which the sovereigns of Europe sought to solve by perfecting the art of war is strongly tainted with this vice. Certainly, there are many things to be said about rulers’ mania for war, and about the guarantees to oppose to this mania. But an epigram which tends to error is certainly the worst beginning one could imagine. By creating the presumption that it is only going to be discussed with exaggerations, commonplaces, and jokes, it discredits in advance the examination of an important question.
Here, it seems to me, are the series of ideas which the Italian author ought to have followed in this respect. There are periods of society when war is part of human nature, and necessary to peoples. Then everything which can render war terrible, and thus shorter, is good and useful. Consequently, when the government concerns itself in such times with discovering “How can one kill the greatest number of men in the shortest possible time,” the government is engaged in useful research, given the circumstances. For as soon as it is necessary to kill enemies, it is better to kill them immediately rather than more slowly, so as not to have to go back and do it again, and it would be
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desirable to find a sure means of killing today all those whom tomorrow one would be forced to kill all the same.
But there are also periods of society when, civilization having created new relationships between man and his fellows, and through them a new nature, war is no longer a necessity. Then one should apply oneself not to making war less deadly, but to putting obstacles in the path of all useless wars. Now the question is to know which of these periods we are in. It is obvious that we find ourselves in the second.1
Why were the peoples of antiquity warriors? Because, divided into small tribes, they fought, arms in hand, over a narrow territory. Because they were thrust against one another by necessity, they constantly fought or threatened one another. Even those who did not wish to be conquerors could not lay down the sword, under pain of being conquered. All bought their security, their independence, their entire existence at the price of war.
The world of today is in precisely the opposite situation from the ancient world. While each people formerly constituted an isolated family, the born enemy of other families, now a mass of men exists, under different names and various forms of social organization, but homogeneous by nature. This mass is strong enough to have nothing to fear from still barbarous hordes. It is civilized enough for war to be expensive. Its uniform tendency is toward peace.
We have arrived at the period of commerce, a period which must necessarily replace that of war, just as war necessarily had to precede it. This is not the right moment to discuss all the consequences of this change which, as I have just said, gave man a new nature. I will come back to these consequences later. It is enough to have stated the principle.
The period of war being over for modern peoples, clearly it is the duty of governments to abstain from it.
Yet so that governments do not deviate from this duty, it is not in government that we should put our trust. For governments, war will always be a means of increasing their authority. For despots, it will be a distraction they throw to their slaves, so that they feel their slavery less. For the despot’s favorites, it will be a diversion they use to keep their master from understanding the details of their maladministration. For demagogues, it will be a way of
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inflaming the multitude’s passions, and of leading it to extremes which favor their violent counsels and their partisan views. Thus, if one leaves governments—and under the name of governments I include all those who take power, demagogues as well as ministers—if, I say, one leaves governments free to start or prolong wars, the benefit peoples ought to receive from the progress of civilization will be lost, and wars will continue long after the time when they are no longer necessary.
It is therefore by taking the question of war away from rulers’ arbitrary choice that we will succeed in preserving the governed from it. But how can we remove this question from rulers’ arbitrary choice? By a representative constitution, according to which the nation’s delegates have the right to deny the government the means of undertaking or continuing useless wars, and which subjects the holder of power who engages in such enterprises to a grave and inevitable responsibility.
This prejudges nothing about the question of the right of making peace and war proper, such as it has been discussed