Sluggishness of thmtght is an appurtenance of religion and doctrinairianism ; they assume a wilful narrow-mindednc>ss, a definitive circumscription, living apart or in a narrow circle of its own that rejects everything new that life offers . . . or at any rate not troubling itself about it. The real truth must lie under the influence of events, must reflect them, \vhile remaining true to itself, or it would be not the living truth, but an eternal truth, at rest from the tempests of this world in the deadly stillness of sacred stagnation." Where, and on what occasion, I have sometimes asked, was Proudhon false to the organic basis of his view of things? I have been answered each time that he was so in his political mistakes, his blunders in revolutionary diplomacy. For his political mistakes he was, of course, responsible as a journalist; but even here it was not before himself that he was guilty : on the contrary, some of his mistakes were due to his believing more in his principles than in the party to which he, against his own \viii, belonged and with which he had
� "E\"en in d!'spair [because he couldn't support his family after he was relt•ased from prison in 1 852] Proudhon had 110 di fficulty in refusing
. . . a subn•ntion of 20.000 francs offPrPd through th!' patronage of Prinn• Jeronw Bonaparte'. H<> p rderred to <>arn h is Ji,·ing by hack work and brought out an anonymous i\lanual for Speculators on the ExcltangP.''-J . HamdPn Jackson : 1\Jari, Proudhon and European Socialism ( i\lacm illan, n .d . ) . " I n this yPar.'· adds Jackson. "Karl i\Iarx. in London, had to borrow two pounds to p<�y for his daugh ter's coffin and pawned his OYercoat to [ financt'] a pamphlet." The 1 850s wer<>n't kiwi to radicals. ( D .. H.)
:-, In S tuart i\Iil l's nPw book On J.ibrrl)'. he usPs an excPIIPnt expn•ssion i n rPgard to tlwse truths st•ll lt•d once and for t'\"Pr: 'tlw del'P slumber of a dPcidPd opinion.'
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nothing in common and was only associated by hatred for a common foe.
It was not in political activity that his strength lay; it was not there that he found the basis of the thought which he invested in the panoply of his dialectic. Quite the contrary: it is everywhere plainly to be seen that politics in the sense of the old liberalism and constitutional republicanism were, in his eyes, of secondary importance, as something passing, half elapsed. He was not indifferent to political questions and was ready to make compnimises because he did not ascribe any special importance to the forms, which in his view were not essential. All who have abandoned the Christian point of view stand in a similar relationship to the religious question. I may recognise that the constitutional religion of Protestantism is somewhat more liberal than the autocracy of Catholicism, but I cannot take to heart the question of church or creed; in consequence of this I probably make mistakes and concessions which the most ordinary graduate in divinity or parish priest would avoid.
Doubtless there was no place for Proudhon in the National Assembly as it \vas constituted, and his individuality was lost in that den of the petite bourgeoisie. In the Confessions of a Revolutionary Proudhon tells us that he was completely at a loss in the Assembly. And indeed what could have been done there by a man who said to Marrast's constitution, that sour fruit of the seven months' work of seven hundred heads: 'I give my vote against your constitution, not only because it's bad, but because it's a constitution.'
The parliamentary rabble greeted one of his speeches:6 'The speech to the !Honiteur, the speaker to the madhouse ! ' I do not think that in the memory of man there had been many of such parliamentary scenes from the days when the Archbishop of 6 On 13 July 1 8+8. the Constituent Assembly debated Proudhon's Gtopian Bill which proposed the taxation of movable and real property by a single tax at the rate of one third of the revenue from it. This enraged the bourgeois majority in the Assembly and the bourgeois press. His speech was accompanied by obstruction from the deputies. cries that the speaker should be sent to a madhouse. etc. Marx observed that Proudhon's speech in defence of his project was 'an act of lofty manliness.' although it also displayed how little he understood all that had happened.
The chief speaker who opposed Proudhon was Thiers. The Assemblv rejected Proudhon"s project (only two votes were cast for him, on�
of them his own) as an incitement to attack property and 'an abominable allentat on the principles of social morality.' (A.S.)
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Alexandria brought with him to Ecumenical Councils lay brothers armed with clubs in tlw name of the Virgin, till the days of the VVashington Senators \vho proved the benefits of sla,·ery to each other with the stick.i
But even there Proudhon succeeded in rising to his full height and left in the midst of the wrangling a glowing footprint.
Thiers in rejecting Proudhon's financial scheme made an insinuation about tlw moral depravity of the men who disseminated such doctrines. Proudhon mounted the tribune, and with his stooping figure and his menacing air of a stocky dweller in the fields said to the smiling old creature:
'Speak of financr>, but do not speak of morality: I may take that as personal, as I have already told you in committee. If you persist, I-I shall not challenge you to a duel' (Thiers smiled) ;
'no, your death is not enough for mt>--that would prove nothing.
I ch�llenge you to another sort of contest. Here from this tribune I shall tell the whole story of my life, fact by fact, and anyone may remind me if I forget or omit something; and then let my opponent tell the story of his ! '
The eyt>s o f all were turned upon Thiers; he sat scowling, and there \Vas no trace of the smile, and no answer either.
The hostile Chamber fell silent and Proudhon, looking contemptuously at the champions of religion and the family, came down from the platform. That was vvhere his strength lay: in these words of his is clt>arly !ward the language of the new world coming with its own standards and its o\vn penalties.
After the Revolution of February Proudhon was foretelling what France had come to: in a thousand different keys he rPpeated, 'Beware, do not trifle ; "this is not Catiline at your gates, but death." ' The French shrugged their shoulders. The skull, the scytht>, the hour-glass-all the trappings of death-were not to bt: seen. How could it be death)-it was 'a momentary eclipse, the after-dinner nap of a great people! ' Eventually many people discerned that things \vere in a bad way. Proudhon was less downcast than others, less frightened, because he had foreseen it; j In the Senate debate on the Kansas- N!'b1·aska Act ( 1 856 ) , Senator Charles Sumner of :\lassachusetts. a leading opponent of slavery. denounced the Act as "a swindle" and its two main defenders. Senators Douglas and 13utlP.-. as "myrmidons of slavery." Two days later a young Congrpssman. one Preston Brooks of South Carol ina. Butler's nephew, achiev!'d his Oswaldian footnotP in history by im·ading the S!'nate chambPr, shouting that Sumner had l ibPl!'d his uncle and his state and then attacking him with a heaq· GlllP. It wok Sumner three years to recOVPL (D.l\1. )