The Psychology of Socialism
Book 3: Socialism As Affected By Race
Chapter 3: Latin Socialism and the Psychology of the Latin Peoples
Gustave Le Bon
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I. How the actual political system of a nation is determined :-We must go back to the roots of institutions to understand their genesis-How we may discover a nation's principles of government behind its visible institutions-Theoretical institutions are only borrowed clothes. 2. The mental state of the Latin peoples :-What one understands by the Latin peoples-Their characteristics-Quickness of intelligence-Weakness of initiative and will-Love of equality and indifference for liberty-Need of guidance-The cult of words and of logic-Opposition between the Anglo-Saxon and Latin mind as regards logic-The consequences-Development of sociability among the Latins, and weakness of solidarity-The qualities which formerly gave the Latins superiority are to-day becoming useless - The parts of character and intelligence in the development of civilisations.
I. HOW THE ACTUAL POLITICAL SYSTEM OF A NATION IS DETERMINED.
THE study of Socialism among the Anglo-Saxons has shown us that among these peoples all Socialistic theories must clash with racial characteristics which will render their development impossible. We are about to show that among the Latin peoples, on the contrary, Socialism is the result of previous evolution, of a system of government to which they have, unconsciously, for a longtime submitted, and whose development they call for more and more loudly.
On account of the importance of the subject it will be
127) necessary to devote to it several chapters. We can only measure the progress of certain institutions by going back to their roots. When an institution of any kind is seen to prosper in any nation, we may be very certain that it is the culmination of a whole previous process of evolution.
This evolutionary process is not always visible, because -above all in modern times-an institution is often merely a borrowed garment for which the theorist is responsible, and which, not being moulded on realities, possesses no significance. To study institutions and constitutions from the outside, to state that such a nation is under a monarchy, and such under a republic, will teach us absolutely nothing, and can only confuse the mind. There are more countries than one-for example, the Spanish-American republics-possessing constitutions which are admirable on paper, and perfect institutions, which yet are plunged into the completest anarchy, under the absolute despotism of petty tyrants whose fantasies know no limits. In other parts of the world, on the other hand, we find countries like England, living under a monarchical and aristocratic government, having the most obscure and imperfect constitutions that a theorist could imagine, but in which the personal liberty, prerogatives, and functions of the citizens are more highly developed than they have ever been elsewhere.
The best means of discovering, behind meaningless exterior forms, the actual political system of a people is to study, in the details of public affairs, the respective limits of the functions of the Government and the unit ; that is, to determine the conception which the nation entertains of the State. As soon as we enter on this study the borrowed garments disappear, and the realities stand out. We then very quickly see how futile are all theoretical discussions on the value of the exterior forms
(128) of governments and institutions, and we clearly perceive that a nation can no more choose the institutions that really govern it, than a man can choose his age. Theoretical institutions are about as valuable as the artifices by means of which man seeks to dissimulate his years. The reality is not apparent to the inattentive observer, but it none the less exists.
2. THE MENTAL STATE OF THE LATIN PEOPLES.
My reader knows what I mean by the phrases " Latin peoples," " Latin races." I do not intend the term to have an anthropological meaning, since pure races, except among the savage peoples, have long ago all but vanished. Among civilised peoples there are now only what I have elsewhere called historic races ; races entirely created by the events of history. Such races are established when a people, often comprising elements of very different origin, has been subjected for centuries to similar conditions of environment, similar ways of life, common institutions and beliefs, and an identical education. Unless the populations in juxtaposition are of too different origin-as, for example, the Irish under the English rule, and the heterogeneous races under the domination of Austria-they become fused, and acquire a national spirit ; that is to say, they acquire similar sentiments, interests, and manners of thought.
Such a work is not accomplished in a day, but a people is formed, a civilisation is established, a historical race comes into existence, only when the creation of a national spirit is consummated.Accordingly, when I speak of the Latin peoples, I speak of the peoples which may, perhaps, have no Latin elements in their blood, and which greatly differ from one another, but which for centuries and centuries have
129) been subjected to the yoke of the Latin ideals. They are Latin by sentiment, in their institutions, their literature, their beliefs, and their arts, and their education continues to maintain the Latin ideals among them. "After the Renascence," writes M. Hanotaux, "the image of Rome inscribed itself in ineffaceable characters on the face of France . . . . For three centuries French civilisation appeared nothing but a patchwork of Roman civilisation." Is it not so still ?
In a recent essay published apropos of a new edition of Michelet's Histoire romaine, M. Gaston Boissier upholds the same idea. He justly remarks that " from Rome we draw the greater part of what we are; when we analyse ourselves we find a deposit of sentiments and ideas that Rome has bequeathed to us, which nothing has been able to take from us, and on which everything else has its foundation."
If we wished to define in a few words the present psychology of the Latin peoples, we might say that they are characterised by feebleness of will, energy, and enterprise alike.
They, and notably the Celts, exhibit the fundamental peculiarity of possessing at once a very lively intelligence and very little enterprise or stability of will. Incapable of protracted efforts, they love to be guided, and for their failures they hold their governors, and never themselves, responsible. Ready, as Caesar even in his time observed, to undertake wars without motive, they are downcast at the first reverse. They have a feminine fickleness, which was already noted by the great conqueror as a Gallic infirmity. This fickleness makes them the slaves of every impulse. Perhaps their most definite characteristic is the lack of self-control, which, enabling a man to rule himself, prevents him from seeking to be ruled.
Much in love with equality, extremely jealous of all
(130) superiority, they have always shown themselves indifferent to liberty. So soon as they possess it they seek to place it in the hands of a master, in order to enjoy that control and government without which they cannot live. They have played an important part in history only when they have had great men at their head ; and for this reason, by a long-established and secret instinct, they are always seeking them out.
In all times they have been great speakers, lovers of logic and of words. Very little concerned with facts, they greatly love an idea, so long as it be simple, general, and presented in elegant language.[1]
Words and dialectic have always been the most terrible enemies of the Latin peoples. " The French," said yon Moltke, 11 always take words for facts." This is equally true of the other Latin peoples. It was justly remarked that, while the Americans were attacking the Philippines, the Spanish Cortes contented themselves merely with delivering pompous speeches and provoking crises in which the different parties struggled for power, instead of attempting to take the measures necessary to defend the last remnants of their national inheritance. An immense pyramid, higher than the highest of Egypt, might be
(131) built with the skulls of the victims to words and logic among the Latin races. An Anglo-Saxon complies with facts and necessities, never throws the responsibility for what happens to him on the Government, and cares very little for the obvious indications of logic. He believes in experience, and knows that men are not conducted by reason. A Latin always deduces all from logic, and reconstructs societies from bottom to top on plans traced by the light of reason. Such was the dream of Rousseau, and of all the writers of his century. The Revolution merely applied their doctrines, and so far no amount of deception has shaken the power of such illusions. This is what Taine called the classic spirit : "To isolate a few very simple and very general ideas ; then, leaving experience behind, to compare and combine them ; then, from the artificial compound thus obtained, to deduce, by a little reasoning, all the consequences it implies." The great writer has admirably seized on the effects of this mental disposition on the speeches of our revolutionary assemblies :
" Glance through the harangues of senate and club, the newspaper reports, the law cases, the pamphlets, all the writings inspired by present and pressing events there is no conception of the human creature as one has him before one's eyes, in the fields or in the street ; he is figured always as a simple automaton, whose mechanism is known. For the writer, he was but of late a musicalbox producing phrases ; for the politician, he is to-day a musical-box producing votes, and he needs only a touch of the finger in the proper place to make him give the proper answer. Never a fact ; nothing but abstractions ; strings of sentences on Nature, reason, the people, tyrants, liberty ; like so many air-balloons idly jostling one another in space. If we did not know that all this has practical and terrible effect, we should think it a game of
(132) logic, or so many school exercises, so much academic fencing, so many combinations of the science of ideas."
The sociability of the Latins, and especially of the French, is very great, but their feelings of solidarity are very feeble. The Englishman, on the other hand, is unsociable, but he coheres strongly with all the individuals of his race. We have seen that this cohesion is one of the great causes of his strength. The Latins are guided above all by individual egoism ; the Anglo-Saxons by collective egoism.
This complete lack of solidarity, which is met with in all the Latin peoples, is one of their most hurtful defects. It is a racial vice, but it is very largely developed by their education. By their perpetual examinations and competitions they set the individual always in competition with his fellows, and develop individual egoism at the expense of collective egoism.
The absence of solidarity is visible in the least circumstances of life among the Latins. For a long time it has been remarked that in the football matches against English teams the French are always losers, simply because the English player, preoccupied not with his personal success, but with that of his team, passes the ball when he is unable to stick to it, while the French player holds it obstinately, preferring that his side should lose, rather than he should see the ball gained by a comrade. The success of his team is indifferent to him ; he is concerned only with his individual success. This egoism will naturally follow him through life, and, if he become a general, he will even allow the enemy to crush a colleague whom he might have succoured, in order to avoid procuring him a success. "'c had lamentable examples of this in our last war.
This lack of solidarity among the Latins has especially
133) struck those travellers who have visited our colonies. I have often been enabled to verify the justice of the following remarks of M. A. Maillet :
" When two Frenchmen are neighbours in the colonies it is an exceptional thing if they are not enemies. The first sensation of the traveller who sets foot in a colony is one of stupefaction. Every colonist, every official, every officer even, expresses himself with regard to the others with so much acrimony, that the traveller demands how it is these people do not draw their revolvers."
Only by totally suppressing competition and examination in our educational system-as was done long ago in England-can we remedy a little this dangerous defect of egoism.
The Latin peoples have always exhibited great courage. But their indecision, their want of foresight, their lack of solidarity, their absence of sangfroid, their fear of responsibilities, render their bravery useless so soon as they are not thoroughly well commanded.In modern warfare the part played by the officers becomes more and more restricted, on account of the size of the field of battle. The qualities that count are coolness of head, foresight, solidarity, and a methodical spirit, and therefore the Latin peoples will hardly see their ancient successes renewed.
At one period, not yet very remote, wit, elegant speech, chivalrous qualities, and literary and artistic aptitude, constituted the principal factors of civilisation. Thanks to these qualities, which they possessed in a high degree, the Latin peoples were long at the head of all the nations.With the industrial, geographic, and economic evolution of the modern period the conditions of national superiority called for very different abilities. The factors of superiority to-day are the qualities of enduring energy, of enterprise, and of method. These the Latin nations
134) hardly possess, and therefore they have had to give place progressively to those that do possess them.
The system of education imposed on the young of the Latin nations is gradually destroying what remains of these qualities. Persistent will-power, perseverance, and enterprise are vanishing one by one, and, above all, that self-control is vanishing which allows a man to dispense with a master.
Many events have contributed to decimate, by an often-repeated negative selection, those individuals whose energy, activity, and independence of mind were most highly developed. The Latin peoples are to-day paying for the errors of their past. In Spain the Inquisition steadily decimated, during many centuries, all the best elements of the country. In France the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Revolution, the Empire, and the civil wars destroyed her most energetic and enterprising sons. The insignificant increase of population observed among most of the Latin peoples contributes to these causes of decadence. Nevertheless, if only they were the best elements of the population that reproduce themselves this smallness of increase would by no means be a disadvantage, for the strength of a country consists not in the number but the quality of its inhabitants. Unhappily they are the most incapable, the weakest, and the most imprudent who maintain the numerical level of the population. M. Fouillée very justly writes as follows -.
" France is practising Darwinism the wrong way about. She is relying, for the recruiting of her population, on the selection of inferior types. The more wealthy classes, who by means of work and intelligence have arrived at a certain degree of ease, and by this very fact exhibit a certain intellectual superiority, are precisely those who are eliminating themselves by a voluntary sterility. On the other hand, imprudence, unintelligence, idleness,
(135) insanity, and misery intellectual and material, are prolific, and are responsible for a great proportion of the national population. It has been remarked, and with reason, that if a stock-breeder were to proceed on these lilies he would soon procure the degeneration of his horses and cattle."
This observation is extremely just. It is indisputable, and it is a point on which I have elsewhere insisted at length, that the worth of a nation is caused by the number of remarkable men of all kinds which it produces. Its decadence arises from the diminution and disappearance of its superior elements. In an essay which recently appeared in the Revue scientifique Dl. Lapouge arrives at analogous conclusions with regard to the Romans.
" If, for example, we consider the great Roman families, at an interval of two hundred years, we find that the most illustrious of the old families no longer exist, and that in their place have risen other families, of inferior worth, and recruited from all classes, even from the freedmen. When Cicero lamented the decay of the Roman virtues he forgot that in the city, and even in the Senate, Romans of pure descent were rare ; that for one scion of the Quirites there were ten mongrel Latins and ten Etruscans. He forgot that the Roman city began to be endangered as soon as it was thrown open to all, and that if the title of citizen was incessantly diminishing in lustre, it was because it was borne by more sons of the vanquished than of the conquerors. When, by naturalisation after naturalisation, the city of Rome was laid open to every nation ; when Bretons, Syrians, Thracians, and Africans were muffled up in the livery of the Roman citizen, too heavy for their hearts, the Romans of pure blood had disappeared."
The rapid progress of certain races, the Anglo-Saxon for example, has been determined by the fact that selec-
136) -tion, instead of operating in a reverse sense, as in Latin Europe, has operated in the direction of progress. The United States were populated for a long time by all the most independent and energetic persons of the various European countries, and notably of England. It was necessary for a man to possess the most emphatically virile character to dare to emigrate with his family to a distant country, inhabited by hostile and warlike nations, and there create a civilisation.
It is important to note here a fact that I have already emphasised in my later books-that nations are effaced from the page of history not by the diminution of intelligence, but by weakening of character. This law was verified of old by the Greeks and Romans, and it is tending to verify itself again to-day.
This is a fundamental notion, still much disputed, but tending, however, to extend itself more and more. I find it very well expressed in a recent work by an English writer, Mr. Benjamin Kidd, and I cannot better support my argument than by borrowing from him a few passages in which he shows, with great justice and impartiality, what are the differences of character that divide the Anglo-Saxon from the Frenchman, and the historical consequences of these differences :
" If we take France, which of the three leading countries of Western Europe probably possesses the largest leaven of Celtic blood, any impartial person, who had fairly considered the evidence, would probably find himself compelled to admit that a very strong if not a conclusive case could be made out for placing the French people a degree higher as regards certain intellectual characteristics than any other of the Western peoples . . . . The influence of the French intellect is, in fact, felt throughout the whole fabric of our Western civilisation; in the entire region of politics, in
137) nearly every branch of art, and in every department of higher thought . . . .
"The Teutonic peoples tend, as a rule, to obtain the most striking intellectual results where profound research, painstaking, conscientious endeavour, and the laborious piecing together and building up of the fabric of knowledge go to produce the highest effects. But the idealism of the French mind is largely wanting . . . . Any conscientious observer, when first brought into close contact with the French mind, must feel that there is something in it of a distinctly high intellectual order which is not native either to the German or the English peoples. It is felt in the current literature and the current art of the time no less than in the highest products of the national genius of the past."
Having recognised this mental superiority of the French, the English author insists on the greater social importance of character over intelligence, and shows to what extent intelligence has been able to serve those nations who have possessed it. Taking the history of the colonial struggle between France and England which occupied the latter half of the eighteenth century, he says :
" By the middle of the eighteenth century England and France had closed in what--when all the issues dependent on the struggle are taken into account-is undoubtedly one of the most stupendous duels that history records. Before it came to a close the shock had been felt through the whole civilised world. The contest was waged in Europe, in India, in Africa, over the North American continent, and on the high seas. Judged by all those appearances which impress the imagination, everything was in favour of the inure brilliant race. In armaments, in resources, in population, they were the superior people. In 1789 the popula-
(138) -tion of Great Britain was only 9,600,000, the population of France was 26,000,000. The annual revenue of France was 24,000,000, that of Great Britain was only £I5,650,000. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the French people numbered some 27,000,000, while the whole English-speaking peoples, including the Irish and the population of the North American states and colonies, did not exceed 20,000,000.
" By the beginning of the last decade of the nineteenth century the English-speaking peoples, not including subject peoples, aboriginal races, or the coloured population of the United States, had, however, expanded to the enormous total of 101,000,000, while the French people scarcely numbered 40,000,000. Looking back it will be seen that the former peoples have been successful at almost every point throughout the world at which the conflict has been waged. In nearly the whole of the North American and Australian continents, and in those parts of Southern Africa most suitable for European races, the English-speaking races are in possession. No other peoples have so firmly and permanently established their position. No limits can be set to the expansion they are likely to undergo even in the next century, and it would seem almost inevitable that they must in future exercise a preponderating influence in the world."
Then, examining the qualities which have allowed the English to accomplish their tremendous progress, to administer their gigantic colonial empire with so great success, to transform Egypt to the extent of establishing, in a few years, the credit of a nation which was on the brink of bankruptcy, in the highest degree of prosperity, the author expresses himself as follows :
"All these results were attained by simple means ; by the exercise of qualities which are not usually counted either brilliant or intellectual . . . . These qualities are
(139) not as a rule of the brilliant order, nor such as strike the imagination. Occupying a high place among them, are such characteristics as strength and energy of character, humanity, probity and integrity, and simple-minded devotion to conceptions of duty in such circumstances as may arise. Those who incline to attribute the very wide influence which the English-speaking peoples have come to exercise in the world to the Machiavelian schemes of their rulers are often very wide of the truth. This influence is, to a large extent, due to qualities of not at all a showy character."
We are now prepared to understand how those nations that are strong as to intelligence but weak as to energy and character have always been led naturally to replace their destinies in the hands of their governments. A rapid survey of their past history will show us that this form of State Socialism known as Collectivism, which is proposed to us to-day, is, so far from being a novelty, the natural outcome of the past institutions and hereditary needs of the races in which it is to-day developing itself. Reducing to a minimum the source of energy and initiative which the individual must possess to conduct his life, and freeing him from all responsibility, Collectivism seems for these reasons well adapted to the needs of nations whose will, energy, and initiative have progressively decayed.
