Alfred Jules Émile Fouillée

“ To reduce sociology to the category of moral, economical, and political sciences is to condemn it to remain an abstraction, and to treat its problems incompletely by ignoring essential data; the legist, the economist, and the politician, who take no account of the laws of biology, are like a doctor who is not acquainted with the structure or the functions of the organs, or, to use Mr. Spencer's comparison, resemble a blacksmith who would work in iron without knowing anything of its properties. ”

“ Instruction is a matter of duty and right as of all toward all, and from all points of view; but, to speak only of the duty of reparation, in what way can it be exercised to better advantage, more pacifically, more conformably to the true interests and real rights of all classes, than by distributing knowledge widely among all? Instruction is the universal instrument of labor, useful for all professions, adapting itself flexibly to the most varied employments, an instrument which in virtue of this very fact helps us to find new resources when the usual ones fail. ”

“ Where Malthus sees an effort of human vanity, social science sees an effort of human justice, superior to the pretended justice of Nature or of Providence. To trust to natural and providential laws for the prevention or reparation of wrong is to act like beings without intelligence or will—is to accept for man the fatality that controls animals, "which," however, have not eaten of the forbidden fruit." ”

“ If it is important to establish in principle, as we have tried to do, the legitimacy and utility of philanthropy, it is not less necessary to fix the rules and limits of its application. An enlightened philanthropy should not bestow its benevolence at hazard and without conditions; it should be reparative and preventive justice together, instead of remaining that ancient "Christian charity" which, like love, too often has a bandage over its eyes. ”

“ In the perfected machines which modern industry uses to weave linen, cotton, or wool, when a single thread breaks, the loom stops of itself, as if the whole had been informed of the accident that had befallen one of its parts, and could not continue its work till the breach is repaired. This is a type of the solidarity which is destined to reign more and more extensively in human society. ”

“ In the existing society the capital is not lacking, but all the men have not their share; this state of affairs, the inevitable effect of economical laws, creates in the laborers a condition of inferiority and servitude. Here, then, is a place for the intervention of reparative justice in the form of public assistance. Is the man who, in the midst of a dearth, refuses to sell his corn, or who buys a large quantity of corn to take it out of the market, exercising his right? ”

“ Education can not be anything but useful; it tends to the development of intelligence, and is an aid that raises up, not an aid that depresses. By education, instead of favoring the propagation of imbeciles, we prepare more and more intelligent and capable generations. The bearing of education extends to all kinds of servitude and want, but principally to intellectual servitude and want, which are the origin of all the other kinds. Ignorance of the things most essential to social life, and even to private life, is the worst state of minority. It exists by nature in all children ”

“ The practical limitation of a right is always by another right: the right of property, for example, is limited by the right of circulation, by that of condemning it for public uses, etc., and vice versa and the means of fixing the limit is free parleying between the parties, resulting in a contract. All legislation which neglects to give a form of contract to the laws it promulgates, prepares conflicts of every kind for society, and leaves a germ of war in the law itself. ”

“ Does society owe assistance only to those who are incapable of working, or does it owe it also to those who are capable but are exceptionally out of work, and thereby reduced to a condition of extreme misery—to a kind of temporary servitude and minority? ”

“ One of two things must be the case: either the evil relieved by philanthropy is a fatal germ of decay and death for the posterity of the assisted man, in which event the benevolence will only delay without preventing the inevitable extinction of that posterity; or, on the contrary, the evil is reparable and posterity may recruit, strengthen, and perfect itself—that is, may cross over the mountain instead of falling back upon it. Must we in the latter case reproach Philanthropy for having held out the hand of relief to those who were about to fall for ever? ”

“ Furthermore, instruction is the only public assistance, or, if that is better, the only indemnity, the only public reparation, in applying which we do not risk sacrificing the interest and health of future generations to those of existing ones. The second means at the service of an enlightened philanthropy is work, which of itself can not be anything but useful: labor elevates the character as instruction elevates the mind; by compelling those to work who are capable, by giving to the less well-endowed tasks proportioned to their capacity, we may be doing something to raise the moral level. ”

“ In lifting up the orphan, society does not perform a work of mere charity, as those believe who speak of children brought up by charity; it simply performs a work of justice, not reparative only, but contractual justice. Shall we maintain that society has a right to let the foundling die, under the pretext that the support of children is the duty of the parents, and the parents are unknown? ”

“ A man born into a world already occupied, whose family has no means of supporting him or of whose labor society has no need, has not any right to demand any portion whatever of food. He is really one too many on the land. No cover is laid for him at the great banquet of Nature. Nature tells him to go away, and does not delay herself to put the order into execution. ”

“ The question of philanthropy, then, when generalized, ultimately becomes confounded with that of civilization itself. Now, it would not do to repeat to-day Rousseau's dissertation against inequality and the arts; we could not take man back to the savage state under the pretext that civilization exhausts his physical forces and the best of his vigor in the intellectual blossoming. The whole of society, in profiting by the discoveries of science or art, profits by the sacrifice of individuals or of their immediate posterity, if there is a sacrifice, and the profit exceeds the loss. ”

“ In this point of view, we can say in truth with the Malthusians and the Darwinians that the increase of sustenance would not follow the increase of population. As Malthus shows, an absurd consequence is implied in acknowledging an indefinite and unlimited right to assistance and to work; it is, that the funds destined to support labor can be made to grow at will, and that an order of government or a tax, like Elizabeth's tax, is all that is needed to bring this about. It would not be more unreasonable to order that two ears of corn shall grow where the earth has heretofore produced but one. ”

“ The real reason of this is, that while the brain of a Parisian woman is definitively but little overstocked with ideas, her whole body is still less developed than her brain; but it is not so with the strong-limbed negresses. Why has the body of the Parisian woman been arrested in its development? Do not lay it to her intelligence, but to her want of intelligence, to costumes and fashion, to bad hygienic conditions, to parties, vigils, balls, and theatres; to the activity, at the same time feverish and frivolous, of a wholly worldly life in an air more or less vitiated. ”

“ Regarding the question of right, it seems to us that a capital distinction should be made between the present and the future, between the duty of the state toward those who are born and its duty in respect to those who may hereafter be born. There is at this moment upon the earth enough, and more than is needed, to support the men who are now living; but the time may come when there will not be enough to support all those who may have been called to life, and it is only at that time that the Malthusian law of population will become incontestable. ”

“ When a child is born into a family, it is rightly said, none of his brothers has the right to prevent his sharing in the property of their father; likewise, there are no "cadets" in a nation. If the family fails, there is still above it the great national family; a solidarity exists between all the citizens of the same country. It is by reason of this that you, legislators, unable to establish a law to regulate the multiplication of the species, have implicitly accepted certain charges in regard to the children who are born, in the event of the failure of their natural fathers and mothers. ”

“ Society, then, ought to see that all minority, all servitude, all excess of inequality that may be produced by the fatal effect of the laws of nature or of the social laws, is suppressed or alleviated as much as possible. ”

“ Darwin, another rock in the way of the philanthropist—the danger of producing a physical and intellectual deterioration of the species by overlooking the laws of natural selection and heredity.
Philanthropy, apart from science, sees only the immediate influence of the measures it proposes; it entirely neglects their influence, infinitely more important, on the physical status and the morals of future generations. It forgets that every new measure in legislation or policy tends to produce modifications, for better or worse, in human nature. ”

“ The penalty attached to improvidence by the laws of Nature, he asserts, falls immediately upon the guilty one, and that penalty is itself severe. But, we may ask, are not those who suffer from the improvidence of the father, contrary to this assertion, the innocent wife and children? Let them alone, Malthus persists; let God's justice take its course. These pretended laws of God, of which Malthus tries to show us the justice, are injustice itself. ”

“ In addition to the material and intellectual advantages we have just demonstrated, philanthropy brings precious moral advantage to the whole race. It develops, in the individuals and the people who exercise it, the qualities of heart most important for social life. Darwin and his partisans early recognized how essential to society is the development of altruistic inclinations; even justice is impossible without those inclinations, for they alone can restrain egoism. A society without pity is always careless of the right. ”

“ But the identical principle on which property is founded—that is, the right to work for a living—limits it by the equal right of another. Society has not hesitated to impose restrictions and obligations as to many points on proprietors who assume to be "absolute"; it prevents them from blocking the course of circulation; it expropriates for causes of public use; it punishes the man who burns his goods; it can exact an indemnity from the one who lets his property go to waste. As a rule, no right relative to exterior objects can be absolute ”

“ Canute did not arrogate a greater power over the laws of nature when he prohibited the waves from touching his royal feet. To say that we ought to furnish work to all who only ask to work, is really to say, in other words, that the forces dedicated to labor, in any country, are infinite, that they are not subject to any variation, and that the ability to give work and good wages to the working classes ought to remain absolutely the same, without regard to whether the resources of the country are rapidly or slowly progressive, stationary, or retrograde. ”

“ Public philanthropy does not, therefore, appear to be responsible for the principal inconveniences it brings; it is parental love that we have to deal with, and, since that love is infinitely more advantageous than inconvenient to society, it is our duty to brighten, not to obscure it.
It is rather before marriage than after the birth of children that the real problem presents itself, and philanthropy should be exercised in the interest of humanity itself. ”

“ It is necessary to distinguish here between useful and injurious inequalities, between natural and acquired ones; among the last, also, must be distinguished those which are in accord with Nature, and those which are opposed to her. These distinctions, too much neglected by Mr. Jacoby, are the very ones, in our opinion, which scientific philanthropy ought always to have in view. Its aim should be to re-establish, so far as possible, a degree of equality at those points where social arrangements have created artificial inequalities, injurious and contrary to Nature. ”

“ Suppose a whole nation composed of old men: old age differs from youth and the age of maturity in being less active in production and less capable of resistance to destructive influences; men feeble in constitution, while they are still young, are in an analogous position. A society of enfeebled persons would, then, lead the kind of life that a society composed of old men, with no one to wait upon them, would lead. The resemblance becomes complete in the fact that in both groups life lacks the energy that renders labor easy and pleasure keen. ”

“ If you will, assistance is possible; if not, it is not, for you can not require those who have labored, produced, and saved, before you, to abstain from the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor till they have assured the support of all the beings whom it may be convenient for you or your descendants to call into existence." The procreation of children is not an act of individual whim, it is of the nature of a social act and of a contract. ”

“ Do we have to lament that a Pascal and a Spinoza were rescued from the death with which their feeble constitutions threatened them from their youth? How many poor children have there been who, by means of the aid they have received, have afterward become great men of science or great artists! ”