But behind the superficial authority of ministers, without force or duration, the playthings of every demand of the politician, an anonymous power is secretly at work whose might is continually increasing the administrations.Possessing traditions, a hierarchy, and continuity, they are a power against which, as the ministers quickly realise, they are incapable of struggling.[14]
Responsibility is so divided in the administrative machine that a minister may never find himself opposed by any person of importance.His momentary impulses are checked by a network of regulations, customs, and decrees, which are continually quoted to him, and which he knows so little that he dare not infringe them.
[14] The impotence of ministers in their own departments has been well described by one of them, M.Cruppi, in a recent book.The most ardent wishes of the minister being immediately paralysed by his department, he promptly ceases to struggle against it.
This diminution of the power of democratic Governments can only develop.One of the most constant laws of history is that of which I have already spoken: Immediately any one class becomes preponderant--nobles, clergy, army, or the people--it speedily tends to enslave others.Such were the Roman armies, which finally appointed and overthrew the emperors; such were the clergy, against whom the kings of old could hardly struggle; such were the States General, which at the moment of Revolution speedily absorbed all the powers of government, and supplanted the monarchy.
The caste of functionaries is destined to furnish a fresh proof of the truth of this law.Preponderant already, they are beginning to speak loudly, to make threats, and even to indulge in strikes, such as that of the postmen, which was quickly followed by that of the Government railway employees.The administrative power thus forms a little State within the State, and if its present rate of revolution continues it will soon constitute the only power in the State.Under a Socialist Government there would be no other power.All our revolutions would then have resulted in stripping the king of his powers and his throne in order to bestow them upon the irresponsible, anonymous and despotic class of Government clerks.
To foresee the issue of all the conflicts which threaten to cloud the future is impossible.We must steer clear of pessimism as of optimism; all we can say is that necessity will always finally bring things to an equilibrium.The world pursues its way without bothering itself with our speeches, and sooner or later we manage to adapt ourselves to the variations of our environment.The difficulty is to do so without too much friction, and above all to resist the chimerical conceptions of dreamers.Always powerless to re-organise the world, they have often contrived to upset it.
Athens, Rome, Florence, and many other cities which formerly shone in history, were victims of these terrible theorists.The results of their influence has always been the same--anarchy, dictatorship, and decadence.
But such lessons will not affect the numerous Catilines of the present day.They do not yet see that the movements unchained by their ambitions threaten to submerge them.All these Utopians have awakened impossible hopes in the mind of the crowd, excited their appetites, and sapped the dykes which have been slowly erected during the centuries to restrain them.
The struggle of the blind multitudes against the elect is one of the continuous facts of history, and the triumph of popular sovereignties without counterpoise has already marked the end of more than one civilisation.The elect create, the plebs destroys.As soon as the first lose their hold the latter begins its precious work.
The great civilisations have only prospered by dominating their lower elements.It is not only in Greece that anarchy, dictatorship, invasion, and, finally, the loss of independence has resulted from the despotism of a democracy.Individual tyranny is always born of collective tyranny.It ended the first cycle of the greatness of Rome; the Barbarians achieved the second.
CONCLUSIONS
The principal revolutions of history have been studied in this volume.But we have dealt more especially with the most important of all--that which for more than twenty years overwhelmed all Europe, and whose echoes are still to be heard.
The French Revolution is an inexhaustible mine of psychological documents.No period of the life of humanity has presented such a mass of experience, accumulated in so short a time.
On each page of this great drama we have found numerous applications of the principles expounded in my various works, concerning the transitory mentality of crowds and the permanent soul of the peoples, the action of beliefs, the influence of mystic, affective, and collective elements, and the conflict between the various forms of logic.
The Revolutionary Assemblies illustrate all the known laws of the psychology of crowds.Impulsive and timid, they are dominated by a small number of leaders, and usually act in a sense contrary to the wishes of their individual members.
The Royalist Constituent Assembly destroyed an ancient monarchy;the humanitarian Legislative Assembly allowed the massacres of September.The same pacific body led France into the most formidable campaigns.
There were similar contradictions during the Convention.The immense majority of its members abhorred violence.Sentimental philosophers, they exalted equality, fraternity, and liberty, yet ended by exerting the most terrible despotism.
The same contradictions were visible during the Directory.
