The Summary Cause for the
Stability or Downfall of Human Societies
CHAPTER 7
Our criterion applied to the four stages
43. Let us now return to our subject and summarise what we have said. The first institutions are concerned with substance, the second, accidents; the primary need is to exist; the second, to enjoy the fruits of existence.
44. When the time has come for the institutions concerned with the accidental good of a society, the need to exist, which has so to speak been satisfied, is no longer felt. The essential, fundamental institutions are still in force through habit, not through an actual, urgent need as in the beginning. Habit however removes not only the force of sensations but distracts attention from reflection on the reasons for things. Wherever habit replaces deliberate attention to reality, the reason for the creation of the institutions is soon forgotten. Ancient institutions are no longer understood or intelligently maintained; only inveterate custom preserves them.
45. Many evils result from this and in a hidden way alter the State. Finally a time comes when we tire of acting mechanically; our oppressed understanding begins to long to return to its natural duty and becomes once more the guide of those enslaved for so long to ancient, obscure customs.(30) To this noble voice of reason desiring once more to exercise its rights, we can add the power of self-love spurring our minds to the discovery of new things. Prejudices, passions and a desire for sophistication can also reveal themselves in many people, who then have a wider field in which to give free rein to their immoderate desires. In these circumstances, ancient institutions, the target of so many conspiring forces and assaults, easily begin to succumb. Only an empty shell remains; the core, or reason for the original establishment of the institutions is no longer remembered.
46. At this stage, when the oldest institutions are assailed, the majority of people readily and naturally follow the standard raised by the new party. They consider the old institutions no longer defensible; as far as they can see, the attack is simply against the outmoded prejudices and useless relics of an ignorant, primitive age. But beside the majority there are some who are obstinately blind, others who through laziness retain the old practices, and others again who rightly sense they must be faithful to the past but are unable to explain why. Finally, there are a few who with great wisdom not only see why the majority are deceived but indicate the falsehood of the new teachings; they are able to reveal the ancient origins of the practices and show how their ancestors established them not so much as a result of wisdom but by force of necessity.
However this tiny minority (the vast majority often go to the opposite extreme) may fail to convince the multitude not to rebel openly against the old institutions. In addition, even those (fortunately a large number) who publicly proclaim and demonstrate in favour of preserving for a little longer the old institutions which they practise by force of habit may fail to convince the others. The same may befall those who through an intimate feeling for what is right are either immune to the new sophisms, which they do not understand, or unaffected by the novelty which seeks to shake them out of their laziness.
As a result of all this, society itself is shaken and made unstable. People now begin to feel the need for those ancient foundations of which they are so ignorant. Unable to accept meekly the total destruction of their society, they find themselves in the same state as their predecessors. In this state, it is not great wisdom (they have rejected wisdom and closed their ears to the warnings of prudent minds) but a harsh, ineluctable need that turns them to reconstruct what they have destroyed, to restore the things of the past, and to acknowledge or rather experience their usefulness. At such a time the institutions take on a new consistency and solidity; they are maintained and respected rationally, not habitually, and so give birth once more to human society.
47. What we have said describes the events of recent times. We can understand now that certain wise people have not condemned the modern age and mourned the past without foundation. Because of the early need to establish society, stronger and more solid institutions had obviously to be created from the start. But this does not allow us to consider lightly subsequent rulers of civil associations. Even when those who came later were of equal or greater intelligence, the nature of the case would have made them less remarkable; they were playing a minor theme, which gave them scope for virtuosity; what was substantial had already been attended to. Inevitably their only concern was to complete the work and adorn it with more detailed, ordered forms. The trunk of a tree divides into branches and fronds, but its form and completion is given by the foliage that clothes it. The foliage may indeed be less valuable than the trunk, but to require the tree to grow new trunks in place of the foliage would be unreasonable. The leaves must not be considered separately from the whole tree. Without the tree they would look very strange; joined to the tree they make the plant brighter and more majestic. The error of those who ceaselessly complain and moan about the rulers of civil and ecclesiastical societies, and affect an immoderate, blind love for antiquity (we presume that their devotion to the past is totally sincere and free of secondary aims), shows the kind of narrow vision which views the foliage separately from the trunk, and is upset to see that the great, perfectly formed tree, instead of putting out new branches, forms new leaves, blossom and fruit at its extremities.
48. But enough of that; we must now briefly summarise what we have said about the laws governing the progress of all human societies, as we have described them so far.
In every society, four principal stages or periods can be distinguished. Similarly, the political criterion we have posited is seen gradually to undergo four vicissitudes.
1st social stage. This stage concerns the existence of a society, when only its substance is considered. It is divided into two periods: foundation and legislation.
2nd social stage. This is the stage of development after existence has been assured. Although attention is now given to accidents, substance is not lost sight of. In this period nations, after becoming great, are embellished in every way and seen, by both the foreigner and its own members, in all its brilliant splendour.
3rd social stage. At this stage, the citizens are dazzled by the external pomp and by all that has rendered nations attractive and delightful rather than strong. They begin to lose sight of all that is substantial; a spirit of levity and over-confidence reveals itself. This period is one of degeneration and corruption for society.
4th social stage. The preoccupation of society’s members with frivolous objects eats away at the foundations on which the first builders constructed the edifice; the fourth accident to which the State is subject replaces the third. In this fourth period society is shaken either by attacks from external enemies or by internal upheavals, and its very existence is threatened.
49. In this very important period the State undoubtedly suffers a crisis or great change, which no human force can prevent. Once a society has reached this point it can no longer go back: it can only hope that the crisis be prolonged; it will never be overcome. In this period, the State is either completely destroyed, losing its freedom and becoming subject to an external enemy, or (granted great power and good fortune enabling it to resist external assaults and internal disorder.) renews and purges itself after terrible upheavals, receiving almost another existence. In this case it has taken a step forward in civilization and political prosperity, a step made at the price of mortal suffering, bloody sacrifices and countless victims but written with a clear sign of grace in the eternal book of Providence.
Notes
(30) Today we are a long way from the time of the founders and institutors of civil societies. However we have seen in our days a man who could be called the founder of a new society in Europe. He had to deal with the same principles as the heads of primitive societies. Properly speaking, this cannot be credited to his intelligence, as some believe. It is an effect of the nature of the situation. Napoleon's comments were the same as ours. The following excerpts, taken from Manoscritto di Sant'Elena, certainly express thoughts similar to his, and demonstrate his agreement with our own theory. — Page 40: `March 31st. proved how difficult it was, rather than easy, to make the old and new regimes live together in peace.' — P. 44: `They had no doubt that my rule bore no relationship at all to theirs. Mine rested totally on facts; theirs, solely on rights. Theirs was founded ONLY ON CUSTOM; MINE DID AWAY WITH CUSTOM and marched in line with the spirit of the age which they wanted to hold in check.' — P. 68: `I could not carry out anything on the basis of custom and illusion. I was obliged to create everything out of some kind of reality. Thus it was necessary to found my legislation on the immediate interests of the majority, and create my organisations on the basis of interest, because interests are what is most real in this world.' — P. 69: `The old nobility depended for its existence on its prerogatives; mine had nothing but power. The merit of the old was simply its exclusivity. All those who distinguished themselves entered by right into the new nobility, which was solely a reward for civic service; the people attached no other meaning to it. Each one had merited it by his actions, and all could obtain it at the same price; it was contemptuous of no one.' — P. 77: `The empire had acquired an immense superiority through the Battle of Jena. The public began to regard my cause as vindicated, and I noticed this by the comportment of others towards me. I began to believe it myself, and this favourable impression caused me to make mistakes.'