chapter i: that manners are softened as social conditions become more equal
we perceive that for several ages social conditions have tended to equality, and we discover that in the course of the same period the manners of society have been softened. are these two things merely contemporaneous, or does any secret link exist between them, so that the one cannot go on without making the other advance? several causes may concur to render the manners of a people less rude; but, of all these causes, the most powerful appears to me to be the equality of conditions. equality of conditions and growing civility in manners are, then, in my eyes, not only contemporaneous occurrences, but correlative facts. when the fabulists seek to interest us in the actions of beasts, they invest them with human notions and passions; the poets who sing of spirits and angels do the same; there is no wretchedness so deep, nor any happiness so pure, as to fill the human mind and touch the heart, unless we are ourselves held up to our own eyes under other features.
this is strictly applicable to the subject upon which we are at present engaged. when all men are irrevocably marshalled in an aristocratic community, according to their professions, their property, and their birth, the members of each class, considering themselves as children of the same family, cherish a constant and lively sympathy towards each other, which can never be felt in an equal degree by the citizens of a democracy. but the same feeling does not exist between the several classes towards each other. amongst an aristocratic people each caste has its own opinions, feelings, rights, manners, and modes of living. thus the men of whom each caste is composed do not resemble the mass of their fellow-citizens; they do not think or feel in the same manner, and they scarcely believe that they belong to the same human race. they cannot, therefore, thoroughly understand what others feel, nor judge of others by themselves. yet they are sometimes eager to lend each other mutual aid; but this is not contrary to my previous observation. these aristocratic institutions, which made the beings of one and the same race so different, nevertheless bound them to each other by close political ties. although the serf had no natural interest in the fate of nobles, he did not the less think himself obliged to devote his person to the service of that noble who happened to be his lord; and although the noble held himself to be of a different nature from that of his serfs, he nevertheless held that his duty and his honor constrained him to defend, at the risk of his own life, those who dwelt upon his domains.
it is evident that these mutual obligations did not originate in the law of nature, but in the law of society; and that the claim of social duty was more stringent than that of mere humanity. these services were not supposed to be due from man to man, but to the vassal or to the lord. feudal institutions awakened a lively sympathy for the sufferings of certain men, but none at all for the miseries of mankind. they infused generosity rather than mildness into the manners of the time, and although they prompted men to great acts of self-devotion, they engendered no real sympathies; for real sympathies can only exist between those who are alike; and in aristocratic ages men acknowledge none but the members of their own caste to be like themselves.
when the chroniclers of the middle ages, who all belonged to the aristocracy by birth or education, relate the tragical end of a noble, their grief flows apace; whereas they tell you at a breath, and without wincing, of massacres and tortures inflicted on the common sort of people. not that these writers felt habitual hatred or systematic disdain for the people; war between the several classes of the community was not yet declared. they were impelled by an instinct rather than by a passion; as they had formed no clear notion of a poor man's sufferings, they cared but little for his fate. the same feelings animated the lower orders whenever the feudal tie was broken. the same ages which witnessed so many heroic acts of self-devotion on the part of vassals for their lords, were stained with atrocious barbarities, exercised from time to time by the lower classes on the higher. it must not be supposed that this mutual insensibility arose solely from the absence of public order and education; for traces of it are to be found in the following centuries, which became tranquil and enlightened whilst they remained aristocratic. in 1675 the lower classes in brittany revolted at the imposition of a new tax. these disturbances were put down with unexampled atrocity. observe the language in which madame de sevigne, a witness of these horrors, relates them to her daughter:—
"aux rochers, 30 octobre, 1675.
"mon dieu, ma fille, que votre lettre d'aix est plaisante! au moins relisez vos lettres avant que de les envoyer; laissez-vous surpendre a leur agrement, et consolez-vous par ce plaisir de la peine que vous avez d'en tant ecrire. vous avez donc baise toute la provence? il n'y aurait pas satisfaction a baiser toute la bretagne, a moins qu'on n'aimat a sentir le vin. . . . voulez-vous savoir des nouvelles de rennes? on a fait une taxe de cent mille ecus sur le bourgeois; et si on ne trouve point cette somme dans vingt-quatre heures, elle sera doublee et exigible par les soldats. on a chasse et banni toute une grand rue, et defendu de les recueillir sous peine de la vie; de sorte qu'on voyait tous ces miserables, veillards, femmes accouchees, enfans, errer en pleurs au sortir de cette ville sans savoir ou aller. on roua avant-hier un violon, qui avait commence la danse et la pillerie du papier timbre; il a ete ecartele apres sa mort, et ses quatre quartiers exposes aux quatre coins de la ville. on a pris soixante bourgeois, et on commence demain les punitions. cette province est un bel exemple pour les autres, et surtout de respecter les gouverneurs et les gouvernantes, et de ne point jeter de pierres dans leur jardin." *a
a
[ to feel the point of this joke the reader should recollect that madame de grignan was gouvernante de provence.] "madame de tarente etait hier dans ces bois par un temps enchante: il n'est question ni de chambre ni de collation; elle entre par la barriere et s'en retourne de meme. . . ."
in another letter she adds:—
"vous me parlez bien plaisamment de nos miseres; nous ne sommes plus si roues; un en huit jours, pour entretenir la justice. il est vrai que la penderie me parait maintenant un refraichissement. j'ai une tout autre idee de la justice, depuis que je suis en ce pays. vos galeriens me paraissent une societe d'honnetes gens qui se sont retires du monde pour mener une vie douce."
it would be a mistake to suppose that madame de sevigne, who wrote these lines, was a selfish or cruel person; she was passionately attached to her children, and very ready to sympathize in the sorrows of her friends; nay, her letters show that she treated her vassals and servants with kindness and indulgence. but madame de sevigne had no clear notion of suffering in anyone who was not a person of quality.
in our time the harshest man writing to the most insensible person of his acquaintance would not venture wantonly to indulge in the cruel jocularity which i have quoted; and even if his own manners allowed him to do so, the manners of society at large would forbid it. whence does this arise? have we more sensibility than our forefathers? i know not that we have; but i am sure that our insensibility is extended to a far greater range of objects. when all the ranks of a community are nearly equal, as all men think and feel in nearly the same manner, each of them may judge in a moment of the sensations of all the others; he casts a rapid glance upon himself, and that is enough. there is no wretchedness into which he cannot readily enter, and a secret instinct reveals to him its extent. it signifies not that strangers or foes be the sufferers; imagination puts him in their place; something like a personal feeling is mingled with his pity, and makes himself suffer whilst the body of his fellow-creature is in torture. in democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for one another; but they display general compassion for the members of the human race. they inflict no useless ills; and they are happy to relieve the griefs of others, when they can do so without much hurting themselves; they are not disinterested, but they are humane.
although the americans have, in a manner, reduced egotism to a social and philosophical theory, they are nevertheless extremely open to compassion. in no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the united states. whilst the english seem disposed carefully to retain the bloody traces of the dark ages in their penal legislation, the americans have almost expunged capital punishment from their codes. north america is, i think, the only one country upon earth in which the life of no one citizen has been taken for a political offence in the course of the last fifty years. the circumstance which conclusively shows that this singular mildness of the americans arises chiefly from their social condition, is the manner in which they treat their slaves. perhaps there is not, upon the whole, a single european colony in the new world in which the physical condition of the blacks is less severe than in the united states; yet the slaves still endure horrid sufferings there, and are constantly exposed to barbarous punishments. it is easy to perceive that the lot of these unhappy beings inspires their masters with but little compassion, and that they look upon slavery, not only as an institution which is profitable to them, but as an evil which does not affect them. thus the same man who is full of humanity towards his fellow-creatures when they are at the same time his equals, becomes insensible to their afflictions as soon as that equality ceases. his mildness should therefore be attributed to the equality of conditions, rather than to civilization and education.
what i have here remarked of individuals is, to a certain extent, applicable to nations. when each nation has its distinct opinions, belief, laws, and customs, it looks upon itself as the whole of mankind, and is moved by no sorrows but its own. should war break out between two nations animated by this feeling, it is sure to be waged with great cruelty. at the time of their highest culture, the romans slaughtered the generals of their enemies, after having dragged them in triumph behind a car; and they flung their prisoners to the beasts of the circus for the amusement of the people. cicero, who declaimed so vehemently at the notion of crucifying a roman citizen, had not a word to say against these horrible abuses of victory. it is evident that in his eyes a barbarian did not belong to the same human race as a roman. on the contrary, in proportion as nations become more like each other, they become reciprocally more compassionate, and the law of nations is mitigated.