charles dunoyer and french classical liberalism - leonard liggio

8/14/2019 Charles Dunoyer and French Classical Liberalism - Leonard Liggio

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CHARLES DUNOYER AND FRENCH CLASSICAL LIBERALISM

LEONARD P. LIGGIODe pr lm en t ofAmerican Sfudier, Slale University ofNew York, Old Weslbury

(Barthelemy) Charles (Pierre Joseph) Dunoyer(1786-1862) was born on May 20, 1786 atCaremac in ancient Tureme (Quercy, Cahorsin),the present-day Lot. His father, Jean-Jacques-Philippe Dunoyer, was seigneur de Segonzac.Destined at an early age for the order of St.Jean de Malte, he began his education in theorder's near-by house at Martel. With theconfiscation of the order's houses in 1792, hisaunt, formerly of the Visitation order, and,then, the former Benedictine prior of Carennac,continued his education at home. His secondaryeducation was completed at Cahors in the ecolecentrale, one of the newly established schoolsunder the Directory in which the ideas of the18th century philosophes, and especially, theIdeologues, predominated. In 1803, Dunoyerwent to Paris to study law at the newly foundedUniversite de Jurisprudence.

Dunoyer arrived in Paris as a major intellectualand political era was ending and a new one -the Empire - was beginning. Dunoyer'seducation at the Pcole centrale had introducedhim to the major thinkers of the Enlightenmentand their followers during the Revolution andDirectory. Beginning in 1800 a strong campaignagainst the Enlightenment was initiated inParis, but was countered with lessening impactby the major organ of the philosophe tradition,La DPcade Philosophique, of which theprincipal editor had been Jean-Baptiste Say(1767-1832). Say was general editor of t h e m efrom its founding (An 11, April 29, 1794) untilhis entry into the Tribunat in 1800."' Theeducation with which Dunoyer came to Pariswas the product of the work of a number of menwho contributed to the DPcade.

Pierre Claude Franpis Daunou (1761-1840).who was to be closely associated with CharlesDunoyer during the Restoration, was the major

force in the development of the ecoles centralesas he had been for the creation of the Institut deFrance. During 1791-1792 Talleyrand hadproposed a secondary education based on langu-ages, literature, history and ethics; and Condor-cet had countered with an emphasis onmathematics, sciences, and the political andmoral sciences. in 1795, after a proposal byLakanal for a more scientific program, a lessscientific one of Daunou was adopted. Earlier,Daunou, along with Lakanal and Sieyes,desired that education be freed to be supplied byprivate initiative. Daunou emphasized thatliberty was a necessary condition for scientificprogress. This concept formed an importantpart of the educational and economic thoughtof Destutt de Tracy, who was active ineducational policy under the Directory as wellas a leading Ideologue. Fran~oisGuillaumeAndrieux, president of the Tribunat andcontributor to the Decade, said that if it wasbetter "to leave action to individual interest",then private market education should be thenorm: "There would then be competition,emulation, as Smith, Mirabeau, etc., have nothesitated to embrace this last policy". Jean-Baptiste Say advocated the market approach toeducation in his Trait6 d'economie politique(1803), for which he was not renewed in theTribunat."'

The Dkcade was particularly significant inthe history of economic thought. It contributedstrongly to the development of Say's thinking,and Say was the most important economist inFrance during the Restoration. What wouldbecome even more accentuated in Say's Traite,the DPcode was a major means of introducingthe economic iaeas of Adam Smith in a Francewhere the concepts of the Physiocrats had beendominant. While Condorcet represented the


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154 LEONARD P. LIGGIObeginning of a transition from the exclusiveagrarianism of the Physiocrats, his initiativestoward industrialism remained limited. But, theimpact of the industrial revo lution in France (ithad reached the point of inaugurating thestandardization of manufactured elements by1785) upon Condorcet, had more far-reachingrepercussions on the thinking of Say and Destuttde Tracy. However, the frame of reference ofthe Physiocrats remained significant. F or them ,natu ral society existed before the state. Naturalsociety was abs olute, necessary and permanent;the state was relative, acc idental and provisional.The Physiocrats' anarchism looked forwa rd tothe disappearance of the State. Condorcetstrongly articulated this individualism, and histhought was accorded more attention thananyone else's in the Decade. J 1For Say, industrialism and anarchism foun dtheir model in the U nited States, just as Chineseagrarian despotism was the model for mostPhysiocrats. The Physiocrats' preference fora "refined", comm unal, agricultural, old,tired, bureauc ratic society had been opposed byJean-Jacques Rousseau's "common", indivi-dualist, non-agricultural craftsman, young,fresh, non-bureaucratic society. "In passingsimply from the refinement of an old societytightly formed around agriculture to theindustrial activity of a new society, we aga in goforward from th e Physiocrats to Rousseau. It isalways the romanticism of the noble savageunder a different form". Say held that onlyman in a state of advanced personal well-being could achieve the natural perfection ofwhich Rousseau spoke. Only where the societyis natural can natural and social perfection beachieved; economic society for Say is natural,but political society is not natural and thusinhibits man's perfection. "J.-B. Say is inagreement with Rousseau in proclaiming thatpolitical society is assuredly not natural"."'Dunoyer's interest in the United States in hisown writings and in articles (especially aboutFranklin) in his periodicals, reflected a similarinterest on the part of the Ideologues andespecially Say in the DPcade. Say was critical ofthe Federalists and of the speculators ingovernment business and securities who mightintroduce materialism and large fortunes

destructive of capitalism in A merica. Fo r Say, asfor many French radicals, Rousseau wasassociated with Franklin (and Jefferson). Thesecond part of Franklin's Autobiography wasfirst printed by the D h d e in 1798 under Say'seditorship; he also printed various letters andessays of Franklin. Robert Fulton representedan ideal American in Paris with his book onimprovement of canal navigation, which Sayreviewed, and his successful steamship sailingon the Seine. Say, in 1803, sent Jefferson acopy of his Traiteaccom panied by a letter:

It is likewise your task t o demo nstrate to th e friends ofliberty througho ut Europe how great a n extent ofpersonal liberty is compa tible with the ma inten ance ofthe social body. It will then no longer b e possible t odefile by excesses the noblest of causes; and it will'perhaps finally be perceived that civil liberty is the

true goal of social organization, and that we mustconsider political liberty only as a means of attainingthis end . The United States are the children of Europ e;but the children are ereater th an the oarents. We a re oldparmi, ras ed in fo ol~ $h reludreq, . 'hamrd by a massot anclent letters, and bound by a quantlty of pue r~l cramldrrauons You udl shou JS [he [rue nays to f reeourselves from them. For you have done more thanwin you r liberty; you haveestablished it.L51For Say, America was the model of the young,fresh, active, unrefined society whose indust-rialism and anarchism would contribute tohum an perfection. He said in the Traitb:Herc uc ndirnre the pwnr of c o n t a ~ etween pola iialeco no my a nrl p ur r p o l l t c ~ . r q o n e is c0nvln;edthat the sacrifices that the \rat< o i soaery mnporesonus are especially the least where the government isbest . . . In which co untry is one best governed, th at isto say least governed at the cheapest cost than in theUnited States?"'

Say's optimism and naturalism was funda-mental to the economic thought which heintroduced. These premises were basic to manyof the Physiocrats as well as to Rousseau. T hePhysiocrats placed the age of gold in thefuture , in con trast to Rousseau; they posited a nindividual naturalism a posteriori to Rousseau'sindividual naturalism apriori. Th e influence ofRousseau's individualism along with that ofAdam Smith caused Say to negate the politicalmeans which many Physiocrats had favored.The individualism of Say's thought led hiseconomic naturalism to obviate the politicalsystem. With reference to Rousseau,

The economic utilitarianism is extended to theindividual. Individual naturalism is extended to theeconomy. It is from this conjunction that the new


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155HAR LES DUNOYER AND FRENC H CLASSICAL LIBERALISMnaturalism is born. And here is how, while forRousseau social utilitarianism was the means ofindividual naturalism, Say, after having strictlyseparated in his heart political society and economy,posited simply that political utilitarianism is thesuperfluous and temporary m eans of a naturalism notonly individual but economic, of that natural coinci-dence of individual utilitarianism and economicutilitarianism.If one goes to the foundation of things one wouldconclude finally that Say continues Rousseau muchmo re than he contradicts him."'Adam Smith differed from the Physiocrats

in putting aside their acceptance of a politicalsystem which they hoped to rationalize. Hiscontribution was rooted in a utilitarian naturalismin which economic and social relations flourishedin the absence of political action, howeverrational the intention. Say derived his basicconcepts directly and indirectly from Smith. Itwas upon Smith's optimism and naturalism thatmuch of the controversial literature wasbased among the English radicals following theFrench Revolution. Just as Say and the Frenchschool of economists were favorable to theFrench Revolution and the Industrial Revolutionin line with Smith's followers, Malthus and theEnglish school opposed them or saw them asevils however necessary.

To a major degree, the English radicalsmoved from the Rousseauan Declaration ofRights, which they recognized as an insufficientguarantee of natural rights, to the necessity ofabolition of the political system.

Amongst these democrats, who were opposed toB urke,Mackintosh, Paine, Godwin submitted so strongly tothe influeme of Smith that they ended by showingthemselves the insufficiency of the Declaration ofRights. Nothing catches this more than to see Mackin-tosh su bord inate natural rights to utility, Paine simplyjuxtaposed the two doctrines, and Gadwin, finally,sensing the necessity of ch oosing,perfected t he ideas ofPaine in disassociating government and society, inshowing that, far from relaxing the social bond, theabolition of government binds it tighter. . .Godwin inaccord with the tradition of utilitarian naturalismof Smith, had sacrificed politics to economics. It waseconomics that the artificial utilitarianism ofBentham sacrificed to politics.Is that to say that it is Godwin who fo unded politicaleconomy? No! For it is perhaps more against him tha nagainst Bentham that Malthus and Ricardo establishedtheirs . . . Godwin developed optimistic utilitariannaturalism, Malthus pessimistic utilitarian n aturalism.It is in this way th at o ne is able to say to th e E s w onthe Principle ofPopulorion tha t it is a rejoinder againstth e Wealth of N atio ns . . . According to Malthus,evil will not be able t o be destroyed either by political

action, contrary to what Bentham thought, n or by theabolition of government, contrary to what Godwinthought. If government can achieve nothing againsteconomic reality, it becomes an integral part of thatreality.. . is it not A dam Smith's optimistic utilitarianismthat J.B. Say begins anew? In such a manner thatdefinitely will his political economy be foundedactually less against Godwin than against Bentham,and less against the utilitarian rationalism o f Benthamthan against the pessimistic utilitarian naturalism ofM alth us a n d R i c a r d ~ ? ' ~ 'The pessimistic utilitarianism of Malthus and

Ricardo in opposition to Godwin and hisSmithian optimism was rooted in the crises ofoverproduction occurring during the period ofthe wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon.The crises of overproduction confrontedeconomists with a profound challenge to theconception of economic science. Saydemonstrated against Malthus the economicimpossibility of overproduction. In his analysisof the extra-economic, the anti-economic orpolitical, causes of overproduction, againstMalthus' incorporation of government intoeconomic reality, Say affirmed his renownedLaw of Markets.

The division between optimism and pessimismhad important roots in the respective attitudestoward industrialization. Just as Malthus'work was a response to Smith through Godwin.Say's industrialisme was a reaffirmation ofSmith and Godwin. Smith's positive economicattitude toward industry distinguished him fromthe Physiocrats. "If from the Wealth of Nations,the Traite of Say derived in one part only hisgerms of industrialism, he derived in anotherpart only the single optimistic branch of hisutilitarian naturalism; and he made this doublepart coincide. If he industrialized nature, henaturalized indu~try".~']The application ofindustrialization in absolute freedom wouldresult in general well-being. The Decadeperceived an indefinitely increasing prosperitydue to economic freedom or capitalism, andto the use of machinery applying new technologyand scientific discoveries. For Say, the facilityof amassing capital was one of the causes ofindefinite human perfectibility.

For th e LXcade, o ne of the great advantages of th esystem of laissez-faire is that it prevents excessiveenrichment due to monopolies and tariffs of a smallnumber of privileged families, and that it diffuses


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156 LEONARD P. LIGGIOvery widely the profits of industry . . . But thesemeasures of general utility (the liberalism of Smith andSay, for example) would they have a noticeable effect onthe poor? The Ddcade believed it would, at least inwhat concerned economic freedom. The liberation ofwork by the abolition of feudal rights and of corpora-tions seemed to it already an immense social progress.Its hopes for future progress of the people was foundedon the anticipated effects of the system of laissez-fairejoined to the mechanization of industry: nationalprosperity without precedent, work for all, lowerprices due to competition, and to standardizedmanufacturing production. It is an industrial revolutionsimilar to the manufacturing movement in England thatJean-Baptiste Say emphasi~ed."~'Say credited his friend the abbe Henri

Gregoire, the founder of the Conservatoire desArts et Mbiers, with recognizing the humanprogress which machinery was providing. TheDecade called for concentration on productionof articles of wide use, and "occupied itselfconstantly in inventions and new technology".

La m a d e nsisted on the importance of machinery andkept its readers current with the most recent develop-ments in this field. It presented regular accounts ofthe sessions of the Lycee des Arts (the society foundedin 1792 for the propagation of useful discoveries) andoccupied itself with the industrial expositions whichtook place in Paris every year from 1797 of the Societyfor the Encouragement of National Industry (foundedin 1801) and of the Conservatoire des Arts et MCiers(decreed in 1794).'"'Industrialization had an important practical

effect on capital, leading to one of Say'smajor contributions to economics. The revol-ution had reduced the importance of theprivileged "capital" of the old regime, and hadfreed men to acquire capital outside the role ofthe state and thus to improve the general interest.The industrial revolution represented the greatincrease of this capital and the reduction ofprivileged "capital". Income on capitalrepresented a reward to the capitalist for savingand for foregoing the use of savings rather thanmerely an insurance for risk. The rise in theprice of capital in industrial society no longerreflected the scarcitv of caoital. but the increase.in productive use of capital. This contrasts withthe conception of Malthus and Ricardo andplaced Say in radical opposition to thepessimistic English s~hool . ' '~ ]

The development of the industrial revolution had heldthe attention of Sav less on the alreadv old ohenomenon.of thc dwwon of labor than on rhc enllrely ncuphenomenon of mc:hanuarm whxh had cawed the~ndurrrroltrrneofSay. passlng beyond Sm~th,o returnto naturalism.""

From its birth, this harmonious conception witsdestined to be broken; and, if the progress which iheeconomics of l:B. Say realized was more distinct inrelation to his contemporaries than in relation to hispredecessors, it was perhaps still more distinct inrelation to his immediate successors . . .the industrialistidea passed in turn to the Censeur and to its editors:Charles Comte, Dunoyer and Augustin Thierry, inorder to reach in the end to Saint-Simon and to KarlMarx . . ."Political Economv", said the Cemeur Eu ro ~Penat the end of a review b f ~ a v zs roite.."in makinnieen~how peoples prmper and declm, har pused the [ruefoundauuns of polilkal thoughl". Even a, there uarno longer economic science strictly speaking, thereought no longer to be a pure political science. There ispolitical economy.. . . And the progressive effacement that theymarked of the warrior spirit before the industrialspirit was a veritable theory of historical materialism.As remarkable as their internal political conceptionwas their international relations. The system ofEuropean equilibrium was only "an old usedmachine", a perpetual menace of war. The Cemeuropposed to it the theory of markets and the realinternational entente that it engenders. There are nomore than two great nations: the European nation ofthe producers, the industrials; as to the other, it is theold Europe battling against the new. But, if therelationship of the economic liberalism of J.-B. Sayand the political liberalism of the Cenrew is tight, itdoes not cover one difference. The sole criticism thatDunoyer addressed to his master is of not havingseen that his doctrine was in itself a system ofpolitical thought and of having reduced the system ofpolitical thought to mere constitutional forms.t"lHowever, the flowering of Say's impact onDunoyer was to occur only after a postpone-

ment of a dozen years. For when Dunoyercame to Paris in 1803 under the impact of thephilosophical and literary views for which theDecade was the spokesman, the intellectualaffinity was broken due to Say's leaving Paris inthat year. The very publication of the Trait6 wasthe cause of Say's removal from Paris as aresult of his elimination from the Tribunat.Refusing an offer from Napoleon of a positionin the financial department, Say undertook toapply the recent developments in machinery toindustrial production. He established a cottonspinnery which eventually employed almost 400persons at Aulchy in Pas-de-Calais. When hesold his business a decade later and returned tothe intellectual life of Paris as the Empire wascoming to its conclusion, Say brought with hima complete knowledge of the role and theeffects of industrialization on modern society.

J.-B. Say was intimately involved in the emergence


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157HARLES DUNOYER A ND FRENCH CLASSICAL LIBERALISMof large scale industry. He was, in effect, one of themost remarkable types of these manufacturers of theConsulate and of the Emoire. of these first ereatentrepreneurs uho ruugh~ o place m upcrauon thenew te.hnolog~;al procore\ I"'

Equally important, during that decade Say wasable to clarify the social thought which he hadexpressed in the Trait6 and to publish in 1814the second edition which was to have a centralimportance on the development of the thoughtof Charles Dunoyer and Charles Comte andthrough them on many others. When Say hadlaunched his industrialisme in 1803, he facedthe strong opposition of the writers who weretied to the economic patterns and thought ofthe 18th century. By 1814 the industrial revolu-tion on the continent, alongside that ofEngland, clearly indicated that new ways ofthinking about reality were necessary. Thematerial conditions as well as the intellectualconditions were ready for industrialisme after1814.

But since 1789 industry had tripled. the CenseurEuropden and Saint-Simon triumphed. If Stendhalremained curiously hostile to industrialism, &"jaminConstant in 1818. and esoeciallv in 1829. allowedhimself to app roach it probably under the influence o fthesuccessof .I.-B.Say.'"'

Dunoyer's lively interest in philosophy andliterature remained guarded after his arrival inParis in 1803, under the chilling impact of theemerging imperial regime. Dunoyer pursued hislaw studies and translated the Novelles of theEmperor Leo 111. In 1807 he met (Franqois)Charles (Louis) Comte (1782-1837) who camefrom Sainte-Enimie, Lodre. Comte had arrivedin Paris alone without entree or fortune, butwith a rude aspect and energetic character.Later, he would occupy a special place amongthe friends of Odilon Barrot (1791-1873), whowas a compatriot from Villefort, Lozere, andwho said of Comte: "His conversations and hisexamples fortified and purified in me thesentiment of liberalism of which my educationand my origins had given me the germ."L"'Charles Comte was working on a study of thejurisprudence of Sirey when he and Dunoyerbecame friends.

At his parents' insistence, the reluctantDunoyer left his scholarly pursuits in Paris andentered government service under the Empire.

He became the secretary of a family friend,Baron Bertrand Bessieres (1773-1855) ofPrayssac (Lot), who was sent as intendant tonorthern Spain (1810-1811). Bessieres, who hadbeen a Napoleonic general de cavalerie andlater defended Marechal Ney, was the youngerbrother of Marechal Jean Baptiste Bessieres,duc d'Istria, who was the commander of Frencharmies in northern Spain. Dunoyer's experiencein Spain and his respect for the Spanish Liberalsopposed by the traditionalists and the Anglophileconstitutionalists, was to manifest itself in hisdiscussion of Spanish events in his articles duringthe Restoration. Following his service inSpain, Dunoyer acted as the secretary to anotherfamily friend who was an official in theadministration of Holland. There the policemethods of the imperial government causedhim to become completely opposed to theEmpire and to return t o Paris.

Dunoyer welcomed the actions of the Senatedeposing Napoleon, appointing a provisionalgovernment and preparing a constitution,especially with the leadership of such liberalsenators as Garat, Gregoire, Lanjuinais,Destutt de Tracy and Lambrechts. A newconstitution was issued by the Senate onApril 6, 1814, and the Comte de Provence wascalled to the throne of a constitutionalmonarchy. Dunoyer was one of the gentlemenof the National Guard cavalry formed as aguard of honor for the Comte d'Artois on hisentry into Paris in April. But, Dunoyer withdrewfrom the guard of honor when the Senate'sconstitution was set aside by the new king, LouisXVIII, in his declaration of Saint-Ouen on May2-3. Dunoyer published a pamphlet regardingthe constitution: Reponse a quelquespamphletscontre la constitution. Dunoyer was critical of theCharte issued by the royal government on June 4,in response to the pressure of the CoalitionAllies occupying Paris, following the treaty ofParis (May 30, 1814) which ended the war.

Dunoyer was then invited by Charles Comte tojoin him in the publication of a weekly journal,L e Censeur. The first volume (June 12-September 30, 1814) was published as a weeklyuntil a strong censorship law was established.The Censeur declared in an advertisement:

Strangers t o all the governm ents which have succeeded


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158 LEONARD P. LIGGIOeach other in France during the m ace o f twentv vears.we have, in writing, only the interest which o ught toanimate all Frenchmen, that of seeing our fellowcitizens obey the law, respect public morals and resistoppression. What men of such and such a Party, orsuch and such a sect, should not look f or, then , in thiswork, is what will feed their ~a ss io ns ,or thev will findhere nothing which will beable to please them.'"]Despite their disappointments regarding the

Charte, Dunoyer and Comte believed it capableof forming the basis for increased freedom andthus ending the successive revolutions which theFrench had experienced, but which had not inturn increased freedom. Dunoyer and Comtehoped that the royalists would be satisfied tofind the Bourbons on the throne, and acceptlimited monarchy and cabimet government. Theybelieved that constitutionalists would see theCharte as a major accomplishment in whichmost of their principles were clearly established.While the Bonapartists, as the most recentgovernment, were least easily reconciled, theywere seekers of office and power, and couldbecome important if the government were to fail.Republicans were advised that the forms wereless important than the content and that, withthe Charte, France like England was a truerepublic in all but name. England was acontradiction to Dunoyer and Comte. In themidst of liberal and radical French opinion forwhich England represented an ideal, the Censeurbecame increasingly skeptical and finallyabandoned its mild anglophilia for anglo-phobia. Since this evolution accompaniedtheir increasing discouragement with thefailures of the Restoration government and itsviolations of the Charte, it is possible thatopened eyes saw wider than France and gaineda depth of insight regarding England as well.With regard to Le Mythe Anglais, "the influenceof the Censeur was not negligible"; "it was themost important of the secondary re~iews"."~'

Dunoyer felt that France had only a palereflection of the English constitution becauseEnglish society had strong foundations forliberty. Like other French radicals, he saw thedefeat of Napoleon as a vindication of theirideas. The Censeur (September, 1914) wrote:

"the Endish have nresented themselves mainlv~iberators,,, Yet; D ~memories of th e ~

role of the English and their allies in Spain, atheme of his writings over these years, as weltas England's war against the United ,States,raised doubts as to Enaland's disinteresteddiplomacy. Despite its belief that England'sintention was hegemony, the Censeur couldprefer an alliance with England over one withRussia. The Censeur's Anglophobia was muchdeeper and analytic than the conceptions of"Perfidious Albion" of an Etienne de Jouy orof the "Noble England" of a Mme. de Stael.The depth of Dunoyer's analyses of England isevidenced in the impact that the Censeur had onBenjamin Constant's thinking. In this as inother areas the Censeur was part of the dialogueof attraction and criticism which they carriedon to the end of Constant's life. Constant'sconception of a free England was modifiedincreasingly to a criticism of England. "Withoutdoubt, in his portrayal of the economic andsocial evolution of England, Constant wasinspired by the brochures and articles of J.-B.Say as by the Censeur, taking account of thesentiments of his public and of the disquietwhich had provoked the social and politicaltroubles of Great Britain".[2o' This developmentof ideas regarding England occurred throughoutthe Left in France with the Censeur in theforefront.

On theLefr. one discovers with a certain astonishmentthat the banner of liberty covers henceforth an aristo-cratic merchandise. They begin to envisage thatEngland may cease being the forerunner of c i v b t i o n .Have no t its m inisters made themselves the recognizedprotectors of continental reaction? Moreover, onewould wish to be a patriore! Many former officers ofthe Grnnde Arm& still resented the hu miliation of th edefeat; many former prisoners or former soldiersrecalled the essential themes of revolutionary andimperial propaganda . The Left had h ardly more unitythan the Right: less still perhaps. Some hated, someadmired, others exploited, some desired to imitate.C. A. Scheffer and , in a lesser measure, the staff o f theCenseur began to critize the very idea of country.'"'This development did not include all those

associated with the Censeur. Henri de Saint-Simon and his secretary Augustin Thierryexpressed a deep Anglophilism in the Censeur,


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159HAR LES DUN OYER AN D ERE1 NCH CLASSICA L L laER ALIS Mespecially on the English parliamentary system.(Saint-Simon's "De Rbrganisation de la SocieteEuropeene", Le Censeur, 111): "In his articlesin the Censeur, he gave the same England asan example to the French: she had knownhow to resolve the problem of relationsbetween the ministers and the oppo~ition".~"'Furthermore, the shift to an anti-Englishposition resulted from the increasingly centralimportance for Comte and Dunoyer of economicthought. "For the readers of the Censeur . . .political economy eclipsed philosophy. In acertain measure, it replaced It was ironicthat at first this economic thought was English;Charles Comte had an acquaintance withJeremy Bentham's writings. Dunoyer andComte were interested in the less traditionalwriting which was being published in Englandand found that writing to be congenial to thecosmopolitan attitudes they inherited from thephilosophes, the Ideologues and the Ddcade. ("1

Thus, the first volume of the Censeur waslaunched in June, 1814 with certain significantpolitical attitudes and concepts hut with suffi-cient open-endedness to encourage andexperience growth. This was in addition to thespirit of independence and criticism for whichthe Censeur was particularly famous. EugineHatin, in his discussion of the press under theRestoration, has noted:

The only truly independent journal of the epoch wasLe Censeur. Le Censeur had been created by two ofthose young men for whom the imperial despotismcontradicted all their ideas, revolted all their senti-ments, and who despite their patriotism, had seen inthe day of March31 the signal of universal deliverance.Admitted to the intimacy of the most distinguishedmembers of the liberal minority of the Senate and ofthe philosophic party, the Tracys, the Lan juinais', theLenoir-Laroches, the Lambrechts', the Volneys, andthe Cahanis', Comte and Dunoyer had imbibed ahorror of tyrann y, and it was to prevent its return thatthey had taken their stand . . .the ideas which, in itsfirst numbers. Le Censeur expressed and developed ina firm and grave tone, contrasted singularly with mostof the writings currently published. In sum, it was asupport rather than a danger to the constitutionalgovernment of June 4, if that government would marchdirectly along its path; but it would encounter in thenew paper an inflexible censor everytime that itBut, the ministry did deviate rather quickly

from the principles which Dunoyer believed wereconsecrated in the Charte. This was especiallytrue concerning freedom of the press, which toComte and Dunoyer was the basis of all otherfreedoms. Respect for freedom of the presshad been accepted in the royal declaration ofSaint-Ouen on May 2, 1814. The Charte ofJune 4 provided in article eight: "The Frenchhave the right to publish and to print theiropinions, in conformity to the laws which oughtto punish abuses of this freedom". An alter-native interpretation of this article was suppliedby the ministry almost immediately. The conceptof punishment following the commission of anact was accepted by Dunoyer all his life as thebasis of law; the concept of prevention by thegovernment was rejected by Dunoyer to the endof his career. The minister of the interior, theabbe de Montesquiou, declared that "punish"and "prevent" were synonymous, and presentedto the chamber of deputies on July 5, 1814 aproposed law interpreting punish as the same asprevent. The proposed law was the work ofRoyer-Collard, directeur de la librairie, andGuizot, secretary general of the ministryof interior, who were the leading figuresin the Restoration party known as theDoctrinaires. That law was ultimately passed bythe legislature, and became effective on October21, 1814. According to Hatin: "The press didnot remain mute. A newly founded journal,which had come to enjoy a major role and toexercise a decisive influence in these years ofcrisis, Le Censeur, of which we will speakbelow, burst forth above all with a great forceand great hardiness against that law, 'as despoticin its base as it was liberal in its form'. . . It wasnot only that unique liberal journal of the epochwhich attacked the proposed law".1261Moderateroyalist journals such as the Journal de Parisand Journal des DPbats, attacked the law, butthe brunt of the counter-attack by the ultra-royalists was aimed at the Censeur. TheQuotidienne "described the liberals as Jacobinson half-pay, and compared le Censeur toMarat's paper", L'A m i du Peuple.


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160 LEONARD P. LIOGlOPolitics during the succeeding months of the

first Restoration did not give Dunoyer andComte confidence in the way that the ministrywould apply the new law on journalistic wkings.The new censorship applied to publications ofless than 320 pages; the second through theseventh volumes of the Censeur (November 10,1814-September 6, 1815) were thereforepublished in the form of books. As BenjaminConstant touchingly described the situation inhis De M.Dunoyer et de Quelques-uns de sesouvrages:. . . Nevertheless, the laws on writings, howeverabsurd they are, have this advantage, that in order t ostudy, one will try to elude them. Th e law on th e presssubmitted to the censorship works of less than twentyprinted sheets. Thus books of twenty and a half printedsheets were publishable: an d writers who, having onlyone truth to develop, would express it in four pages,would look for others who together would form avolume.Such was the origin of the Ce nsm r europien, towhich the authors , MM. Com te and D unoyer, devotedthemselves with good faith and with courage, to thestudy, which one could call experimental, of thesolidity of the guarnatees which the new pactpromised to the nation. The laws contrary t o theseguara ntees having been proposed by a timid andcrafty ministry, and voted by the ignorant anddocile Cham bers, M. Dunoyer combatted them. Havingraised persecutions against himself, this audaciouspatriot showed himself, in his defense, more occupiedwith the public interest tha n with his own .At his risk and peril, he seized that occasion toexpose the vices of o ur legislation, the insufficiency ofthe protection that citizens may expect, and thearbitrariness of authority made possible by theadministrative and judicial disposition bequested by theempire to themona rchy.He conquered in that way, for us and our heirs, apart o f our liberties. For, although he did not c ame toobtain for them the institutions which render theminviolable, his example and his writings had popula riredthe notions which, while not consecrated in theory,became victorious in practice, when the general

assent encompassed them . . . .The germs deposited, in1814, in the Cem eur europden, have developed andborn fruit.""Thus, the Censeur was published as a volume ofmore than 320 pages without any announceddate. Publication dates in the future werearbitrarily chosen once each volume wasprinted, in order to avoid being considered aregular periodical. Volume I1 was datedNovember 15, 1814; volume 111, December 20,1814; volume IV, March 1, 1815; volume V,April 18, 1815; volume VI, June 1, 1815; and

volume VII, September 6,1815, but most of thecopies were seized by the ministry of police ofthe second Restoration on September 4, 1815.As a pattern, the Censeur's second v o l w e wasissued at an interval of a month and a half. Themore than two months elapsing between thethird volume, December 20,1814 and th e fourthvolume, March 1, 1815, is explained by CharlesComte's involvement as the lawyer for GeneralRene Joseph Excelmans (1775-1852). GeneralExcelmans took a leading role in the defense ofFrance during the Allied invasion of 1814. Hewas prosecuted by the Restoration government'sminister of war, Marshall Soult, in 1814:Comteprepared Excelmans' case in December, 1814,and appeared before the council of war a t Lille,on January 23, 1815, where Excelmans wasacquitted. The delay between the publication ofvolume six and volume seven 3 months lateroccurred during the transition from the HundredDays to the second Restoration.During the Hundred Days, Dunoyer andComte had refused to leave Paris, for whichthey were condemned by royalists, and refusedto support the new imperial regime, for whichthey were criticized by Bonapartists. Theirstrong criticisms of the Hundred Days broughta brief delay in volume five's distribution dueto a temporary confiscation. Constant andCarnot intervened in the matter, and BaronLegoux, procureur ginkral, suspended anyaction to prosecute the Censeur. The role ofFoucht in initiating the action was suspected, asDunoyer and Comte rejected his requests thatthey work with him in his interest. Hatin hascommented:

Le Censeur was heard every hour to reprimand sovigorously the newspapers on their pusillanimity, andwithout doubt proved to them how far one was able tobe bold. It is said that Fauche, wishing to attach tohimself the editors o f that paper, h ad offered t o themthe editorship o f the Moniteur; then, on their refusal,had given them the choice of places which would b eagreeable to them. But Comte and Dunoyer hadrebuffed these offe rs, and they had remained inflexiblein their opposition to the imperial government, anopposition which, it is very necessary to say, was norunder the circumstances, very intelligent or verypat r io t lc .~"~

Hatin, among others, has attacked the liberalopposition under the Hundred Days as non-patriots; he objected to the Censeur's criticism


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161HARLES DUNOYER AND FREbJCH CLASSICAL LIBERALISMof the imperial regime while French troopsmoved to the frontier to meet the Allied armiesbefore Waterloo. The Censeur made quipsabout "De l'influence de la moustache sur leraisonnement, et de la necessite du sabre dunsI'udministration". However, the Hundred Daysmade a deep intellectual impact upon Dunoyerand Comte. The beginning of the majorphilosophic change leading to the importantcontributions to political, economic andsocial thought for which they become renownedcan be dated from then. That impact went farbeyond the quips about military men in govern-ment or the legitimacy of the imperial regime,although Hatin notes the importance of theirattitude on that question during the HundredDays.April 20, one month after the return from Elbe, LeCenseur said: "The government is only a provisionalgovernment. It is of little importance that Napoleon hasbeen proclaimed emperor by the army and by theinhabitants of the country through which he passed; oflittle importance that the coalition powers had or hadnot held to the conventions that they had made withhim. France does not belong to the soldiers, nor to theinhabitants found on the route from Cannes to Paris."s'

In the intense atmosphere of repression at thebeginning of the second Restoration, Dunoyerand Comte encountered hostility from theultraroyalists. But the seizure of the seventhvolume of the Censeur occurred while Fouchewas still minister of police, and appeared to beon his instigation. Dunoyer and Comte did notcontinue the periodical while the seizure of theseventh volume was in the courts, and theypursued the matter through the courts for overa year. They hoped that the decision of thecourts would be in their favor, and whenthey planned to renew publication followingSeptember 5, 1816, which they considered thebeginning of a third Restoration, they wishedto reissue the seventh volume of the Censeuras the first volume of the Censeur europien,their new periodical. After further delay, theyrecognized that their appeals would be denied,and launched the Censeur europden without theseventh volume.

Concerning the suspension of the Censeurafter the seizure of the seventh volume inSeptember, 1815, Dunoyer and Comte laterdeclared:

The chamber of deputies of 1815 was convoked and the

majority of members showed so much vlolcnce that alldrscusslon became mpossrble Not able to place itscllin a pxty which, in a s resoluuons, seemed to tdke forits guide only furors, and not wishing t o support aministry which showed itself much too weak when itwould defend justice, and much too strong when itattacked constitutional principles, men who did nothold to any faction and did not aspire to any favorcould only condemn themselves to silence. This was thepart which the authors of the Censeur took.""However, Dunoyer and Comte put their enforcedleisure to good advantage. It was during 1815-1816 that they thought deeply about the ideasand concepts that had been raised for themduring the Hundred Days by the actual politicalevents and debates, and by the insights thatthese events gave to the social and economicthought which they were reading at that time.From that reading, beginning in the spring of1815, came the new direction of their thinking,industrialisme, which first received expression inthe periodical which they launched in the autumnof 1816, the Censeur europeen, and which hadboth an immediate and long-lasting impact onthe social thought of the 19thcentury.

Contemporary Restoration commentatorsindicate the high regard in which Dunoyer'sand Comte's journalism was held. Restorationwriters were ranked according to conscienceand talents by Lebrun-Tossa, in his Conscienceslitteraires d'a present, avec un tableau de leursvaleurs comparees, indiquent deplus, les degrksde talent et d'esprit par un jury de vraisl i b P r a ~ x : [ ~ "

conscience talentChateaubriand 0 10Constant 10 10Dunoyer & Comte 10 8A. Thierry 10 4Saint-Simon 10 3Arnold Scheffer 10 2Royer-Collard 7 4Guizot 0 3Fievee 0 7

The accession of the Decazes ministry hadencouraged Dunoyer and Comte to launch theCenseur europeen late in 1816 (it was publishedin twelve volumes until April 17, 1819). But, inJune, 1817, the third volume was seized in acomplicated case secretly pressed by importantgovernment officials and carried through under


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) P. LlGGlOthe charge against Dunoyer and Comte ofBonapartism. Comte fled arrest and went intohiding; Dunoyer was apprehended; and theeditorship of the Censeur europien was placedin the hands of their principal assistant,Augustin Thierry, who took the occasion toplace in the Censeur europien over 300 pages ofhis Vue des revolutions d'Angleterre. Dunoyerwas held for a month in the Force prison, andthen transferred to Rennes, where the govern-ment's case had been initiated. The liberalnotables supported Dunoyer as sureties andorganized a society to support the legal costs ofthis and other press trials. Dunoyer, defendedat Rennes by Merilhou, was convicted; but thecase contributed to the development of liberalconsciousness in France, and particularly inwestern France. The Journal gPnPral wassuspended because it described one of theserenades presented to Dunoyer in front of theprison by the youth of Rennes. Appealsreduced tlie severity of the sentences but notthe conviction.

This process against the Censeurcaused for the fist timeto appear major manifestos of political doctrine signedby the most considerable members of the legal profes-sion. M. Merilhou, defender of MM. Comte andDunoyer, produced in support of his plea a consulta-tion of twenty-one lawyers among which one notesMM. Dupin, Persil. Parquin, Hennequin, Mauguin,Berrver fils. and some other names which oueht tofind ;elebr~ly n thcsc prc,s baulcs. Thl, isnsullauonbore prmopally on pruwipln . The publlrher, h l. Dupm,arabllshcd rhc famous disunxion "Between rhc artackswhich are directed against theperson or constitutionalauthority of the king, and the criticisms directly only

the Left's electoral victories in 1817, 1818, and1819. The Society's leaders were condemnedand it was dissolved. The Society had had acomitP directeur drawn from its most resolutemembers such as members of the Union LibPpleof Paris. The Union Libdrale appears to havebeen a vague, loose revolutionary coalitioninvolving Paris notables, Paris youth, andprovincial people, centering around Lafayette'ssalon in Paris and his chiteau at Lagrange.Members were said to include legislators suchas Lafayette, Voyer d'Argenson, Dupont deI'Eure, De Corcelles pere, General J.4. Tarayre,General M.-J. Demarchy, journalists such asDunoyer, Comte, Chatelain of the Courrierfrancais, and Desloges of the Journal duCommerce, lawyers such as Joseph Merilhouand Odilon Barrot, and a younger groupincluding Paul Dubois, Theodore Jouffroy,Victor Cousin, Francois de Corcelle fils,Felix Barthe, Augustin Thierry, and theScheffer brothers, Ary, Henri and Arnold whowas Lafayette's secretary. J.-B. Say, whose.daughter, Adrienne, married Charles Comtein 1818, has been mentioned as a parti~ipant.~"~Say's role, like that of Dunoyer and Comte,in revolutionary political activity in 1820, whileunexpected is not unnatural. Teilhac has said:

If we see then in 1.-B. Say the man of the Frenchpolitical revolution and o f the A nglo-French industrialrevolution, the man of political Ideology and ofeconom ic Utilitarianism, he joined not only formalclassical rationalism to a fundamental economicnaturalism but to this economic naturalism a politicalagainst his rninirlem or the o m o f h is g o ~ em m en t s " .~ ~ ~ ~ rationalism.""With the increasingly liberal press laws,

Dunoyer and Comte decided to publish theCenseur europeen as a daily newspaper. It wasissued in two volumes from June 15, 1819 toJune 23, 1820. It was suspended as a separatepublication amidst the reaction to the assassin-ation of the duc de Berry in February, 1820; theCenseur europeen was merged with the Courrierfrancais. However, Hatin has indicated theorigin of the reaction in the moves by Decagesagainst the Socidtk des amis de IibertP de lapresse, which had been established by liberalnotables in 1817 in defense of Dunoyer andcontinued to defend the Censeur europeen andother periodicals in press cases. The Society wasthe center for radical political activity leading to

John Stuart Mill visited Say in Paris in 1820and observed: "He belonged to the lastgeneration of men of the French Revolution; hewas the ideal type of true French republican".Similarly, Auguste Blanqui recalled: "I had hadin my youth the honor of knowing the mosteminent of French economists: J.-B. Say . . .J.-B. Say had very revolutionary ideas for thetimes. He detested at the sametime the Bourbonsand Bonaparte, an apparent contradiction whichfilled me with astonishment".[35' In 1824,Fredenc Jean Witt was interrogated by Bavarianpolice on revolutionary activities. Witt had beenin Paris in 1818 and 1820, where he declaredhimself to have been in political contact withLafayette, Comte and Dunoyer, and made him-


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CHARLESDUNOYERAND FRENCH CLASSICAL LIBERALISMself their means of communication with radicalelements in Germany.i3s1

The reaction of 1820 introduced a press lawof March 31 which required submission of allperiodicals to censorship before publication,and granted to the government the power tosuspend any publication accused of infractionof the law even before a judicial decision.Lafayette in March, 1820, said of the press lawthat it was a violation of the Charte: "to violateit is to annul it, to dissolve the mutual guaranteesof the nation and the throne, to restore us toourselves in all the primitive independence ofour rights and our duties". General Tarayer, inJune, declared to the deputies: "the Charte isviolated, and there remains to France no legaland regular means of defense against an ill-intentioned government". The ministry alteredthe electoral system, presenting in May, 1820 alaw of the double vote, weighing the electoralsystem in favor of wealthy landholders. Liberalswithdrew from the chamber of deputies for theremainder of the session, and the Right accusedthe Left of preparing to turn to illegal actions.There were protests in Paris leading to a riot onJune 5. It was in this atmosphere that the Censeureuropien's publication was suspended on June23, 1820. There followed an attempt at a militaryconspiracy in which Lafayette's circle, especiallyArnold Scheffer, were implicated: the plot ofAugust 19, 1819. Charles Comte went intoexile in Switzerland; Dunoyer remained in Pariswhere he was involved in the government'sprosecutions against the Censeur europeen.i5'l

Charles Comte settled in the Vaud which, in1821, named him professor of natural law at theUniversity of Lausanne. Either in Switzerland orParis, Witt introduced him to Karl Follen, whohad been a political refugee from the PrussianUniversity of Jena, following the assassinationof Kotzebue in March, 1819; Follen was forcedto move from France to Switzerland in 1820.Follen became professor of law at the Universityof Basel. Following Witt's revelations to theBavarian police in April, 1824, the Prussiangovernment demanded the surrender of Follen,who was given refuge in the United States andappointed to the faculty of Harvard University(1825-1835) where he became a leading abolition-ist. Comte similarly was forced to leave Switzer-

)a

land on May 15, 1824 when, on the basis ofWitt's statements, the French governmentintervened against Comte with the governmentof Vaud. Comte and his wife spent eighteenmonths in England in the company of Jamesand John Stuart Mill and other philosophicalradicals.13"Comte returned to France following his fiveyears' exile,L3g1nd became a contributor to theRevue Americaine, which Iafayette had foundedon his return from America in October, 1825.Other editors were Voyer d'Argenson, ArnoldScheffer, and Armand Carrel, with AugustinThierry as secretary. Comte wrote an importanttreatise on property, and published on similartopics. He was active in the opposition whichled to the July Revolution of 1830. While Barrotbecame the prefect of the Seine, Comte wasappointed aprwreur du roi. But he resigned in1831 and was elected a deputy by Mamers(Sarthe) and was reelected in 1834. During1832 Comte and Barrot were active in defendingnewspapers against increasing prosecutions bythe government. In 1832, Comte was appointedperpetual secretary of the newly reestablishedAcademy of Moral and Political Sciences.Charles Comte died on April 13, 1837.''01

The suspension of the Censeur europien inJune, 1820 found Dunoyer with the highestreputation as a political publicist, a reputationwhich was to be long-lasting. Hatin hassaid:

We have seen what reproaches had been madeagainst the authors of L e Censeur, and which as t obasics and which as to form; but they have the incon-testable merit of having dared first, since the Restor-ation, to profess with freedom the constitutionalprinciples in all their integrity, an d of having constantlysustained them, without ever making any concessionto the military spirit or to bonapartism; they haveyet the rare merit of having devoted themselves toproving by experience th e vices of the legislation whichthen regulated th e press.Among the collaborators of MM. Comte andDunoyer, we will name S cheffer, I.-B. Say and D aunou ,of which the articles sur ler garontier were veryremarkable. Paul-Louis Courier published there,between April 1819 and July 1820, the letters whereone find s the ideal of his politics, and where he beginsto design the original form of his style . . . e Censeur,said M. N ettement, was the banner of t he stoic school,which wished the complete and imm ediate applicationof the principle of political prefectibility, o f nearlyabsolute libertv. w ithout ta ki m enaunh account of th e"political dilfi;&icr that the Redo mu on cncuu ntcm l.It was, to tell the truth, a renarr,ansc of the movementof 1789, wrth that theorc trcd op t immn u h ~ hook 11s


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164 LEONARD P. LIGGIOsource in the best intentions, but which did not create inthe least any grave perils.'" ]During the remaining decade of the Restora-

tion, Dunoyer remained active in the politicalopposition associated with the Lafayettes, deBroglies and de Staels. In 1822, Dunoyer wrotea pamphlet, Lettre a un electeur de departement,and another in 1824, Du droit de petition dI'occasion des dections. Dunoyer and Comtebecame members (February, 1826) of the fore-runner of the "Adie-toi et le Ciel t'aidera"(which was instrumental in the July Revolution);this was "La Societe des Sciences morales etpolitiques", which was under the aegis ofBenjamin Constant and included Barrot,Merilhou, Mauguin, duc de Broglie, Augustede Stael and Guizot.14" Dunoyer's publiccontribution to the July Days was an open letterin Le National (July 26, 1830) declaring hisrefusal to pay taxes until the ordinances ofCharles X were revoked.Dunoyer's political role during the Restorationcan best be described as that of ideologicalleadership and of strategist and adviser,rather than political leadership per se, despitethe prominence he achieved from his severalpolitical trials in the courts and his well-publicized political imprisonments. Guillaumede Bertier de Sauvigny has well recognized theuniqueness of the political role occupied byDunoyer:

Le censeur, despite its powerful interest for thehistory of ideas, represented a relatively isolatedvoice; its editors, Comte and Dunoyer, were tooconcerned to raise themselves above the partisanpassions of their elloch, to o oriented toward the futur eof the nascent industrial society, to consider themrepresentatives o f a notable section o f opinian.'"lDunoyer's political role of ideologist and

councillor was indistinguishable from theintellectual importance which Bertier de Sauvignyjustly attributed to him. This activity continuedto be manifest in the periodical press of thelater Restoration, in the Revue encyclopedique,in the Journal de debuts, and in the Revuefranfaise. But, the center of Dunoyer's intellec-tual contribution was the continuity andorganization of the ideas, especially industri-alisme, which had been conceived and developedin the Censeur and the Censeur europeen. Onthe suspension of the Censeur europken,

Dunoyer embarked upon a course of lectures atthe Athenee Saint-Germain, at which 1.-B. Sayhad been presenting his lectures on economicsfor several years and Benjamin Constant hadinitiated his course on political thought. Theselectures of Dunoyer formed the basis of his book,published in 1825, L'industrie et la moraleconsiderPes duns leur rapport aver liberti. Arevised version was published in 1830,Nouveautrait4 d'Pconomie sociale, ou simple expositiond m causes sous ['influence des quelles leshomm es parviennent a uses de leur forces avecle plus de liberti, c'est-d-dire aver le plus defacilitii et de puissance (the bulk of thispublication was destroyed by fire beforedistribution in 1830).1441

Dunoyer has been viewed as part of the broadsociety of intellectuals considered as the laterIdeologues or the disciples of the Ideologues.Dunoyer was intermediate between Ideologueeconomists, Destutt de Tracy and Say,historians, C. F. Volney and P. C .F. Daunou,and the Younger disciples such as AugustinThierry and Victor Jacquemont, whose friends,in addition to Dunoyer, encompassed hauriel,Merimke, Monzoni and Stendhal.[4s1However,incontrast to thegenerally literary approachofthe later Ideologues, Dunoyer carried theprecision of the scientific attitudes of de Tracyand Say to their logical conclusions. Theradical optimisim of their naturalist philosophyWas such that , according to Roger Soltau,"Jean-Baptiste Say proclaims his belief in 'thenatural march of things', Dunoyer 'anticipatedSpencer' (according to Taine) in his champion-ship of the absolute 'freedom of labour',Garnier even denied the rinht of the State to-issue currency, Bastiat [Soltau quoting Guidode Ruggiero] is an echo of eighteenth-centuryoptimism with its identification of private andpublic interests, and the hostility towards theState which marks the earlier Liberalism".'"'

Dunoyer opposed legislation as attempts toprevent voluntary relations by words oractions between individuals. If at all, thereshould be only the application of judicialdecision when a crime is committed; for example,it should be immoral to establish any regulationof the practice of medicine. Anyone undertakingits practice would accept the risk of judicial


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165CHA RLES DUNOYER AN D FRENCH CLASSICAL LIBERALISMpunishment should an injury be criminal.Relations would be defined by processes ofcontract, sureties and insurance. The productionof security and justice would be a result ofmarket functions and transactions. As AlbertSchatz notes with reference to Dunoyer's ideas:

So understood, the governmental function needs asmall number of agents, the mass of w orkers remainingavailable to increase the sum of social utilities otherthan security. It is proper then t o diminish the num berof public offices and officers, and to employ to thisend the single efficacious means, which is to reducethe rewards or salaries. It is of little importance,moreover, whether the signboard of the companycharged with ordinary security be monarchy orrepublic, provided that it cost little an d disturb n o oneat all, that it realize progressively this ideal in asociety so perfectly developed that governmentdisappears, leaving to the inhabitants the full enjoymentof their time, their wealth an d their liberty.""Dunoyer's precision of thought, following de

Tracy and Say, and derived from scientificattitudes, contributed to the impact and the closerelations which he had with Auguste Comte.Henri Michel has called Dunoyer the "positivistbefore positivism".['" Dunoyer becameacquainted with Auguste Comte when hebecame Saint-Simon's secretary in mid-1817following Augustin Thierry's break with Saint-Simon and his full association with Dunoyer onthe Censeur europien . After Comte's resignationin a couple of years as Saint-Simon'ssecretary, he, too, wrote for the Censeureuropken and remained in intellectual contact(even when all other contact was excluded) withDunoyer throughout his life. (Comte died in1857.) Henri Gouhier in La Jeunesse d'AugusteCom te et la formation dup ositivism e, tome 111,Auguste Comte et Saint-Simon, emphasizes therole of Dunoyer in Comte's life. In Appendice I,Le Censeur europeen, Gouhier says:

The liberal and antifeudal tho ught expressed discreetlyin the constitutional journals, the Journal de Pa rb andthe Journ ol gJndra1, was expressed more freely in LeCenseur of CharlesComteand Charles Dunoyer, "ofwhich each edition was an event" (Houssaye, 1815,LopremiPreRestaurafion . . .p. 67).This publication enjoyed a ce rtain role in the form a-tion of positivism . . . Auguste Comte became part ofthe staff during 1819 . . . Finally, around this reviewthere was a n intellectual a nd political m ilieu: "l'.kolepositive de MM. Com te et Dunoyer", wrote Saint-Beuve (Cous eria du lundi, t. 11, 6e edi tion, Gam ier,M.de Broglie, p. 381). These youth had a spirit whichmust be acknowledged. The founder of sociology hasnever forgotten it; in 1857, he called Le Censeur "the

only periodical publication which posterity will honorin French journalism: (System, 1. IV , Preface deL'appendice general, p. 11). Com te's p ersonalrelations with Dunoyer have always been clear; theeconomist sent him his works and C omte never ceasedto feel for him a profoun d esteem; in 1845, at thetime when his reading was reduced practically to afew inquiries, he permitted himself "one specialexception to his severe hyg2ne cdrtbrale" (A Mill 28fevrier, 1845. p. 410) in opening La libertd du travail."In sum", he said to John S tuart Mill, "M.Dunoyerwhom I have known m ore than twenty-five years, ha salways seemed to m e one of m y immediate predeces-sors who merits the entirety of my sym pathies" (A Mill,p . 409). On diverse occasions, Comte noted what heowed to his work. It is Dunoyer and not 1.-B. Sa ywho figured as the associate of Adam Smith in thepositivist calendar.'"'It is in the emergence of the concept of

social science that Auguste Comte foundcommon ground with Dunoyer. The Censeureuropken, which spoke of a "laic breviary forliberals" in strongly recommending Daunou'sEssai historique sur la puissance temporelie despapes (4th ed., 1818; 1st ed., 1810) was a farcry from Joseph de Maistre's Du Pape (1821)which Comte claimed was the source of more ofhis ideas than any other book. Dunoyer'sanarchism, individualism and tolerance was inopposition to Comte's concern for the decay oftraditional morals and hostility to intellectualdivergence^."^' The infallability and dominanceof society posited by de Maistre was totallyappealing to Comte in the early 1820s. Theprograms of the rulers were acceptable incontrast to the radical criticism of the opposition.

Dunoyer's criticism of the concept of indefmiteperfectibility, however, while praised by Comte,would involve him in a major debate withBenjamin Constant, but the immediate conse-quence was a temporary break between Dunoyerand Stendhal. Fernand Rude, in "La Querelledes Industriels (1825)", Stendhal et La Penskesociale de Son Temps, describes the circum-stances, beginning with the publication ofDunoyer's book.'"'

In a letter to the London Magazine, dated Octob er I I,1825, he [Stendhall announced that Charles BmhelemyDunoyer, who in collaboration with Charles Comte.had published Le Censeur e u r o k n and who is "one ofthe most powerful intellectuals of France", is a n thepoin t of publishing "a p rofo und treatise" entitled "lamorale et l 'industrie considerkes dans leurs rapportsavec libertk". Except fo r th e inversion of indwtrie andmorale it is in fact the exact title. "This boo k o f


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166 LEONARD P. LIGGIODunoyer is too tr ue to be sermonized . . . His work isa faithful table of th e state of our society during thelast thirty-five years. And in a word, his work is a verygood supplement to Mignet's Hisloire de la Revolution",In anoth er letter of November 18, 1825, the "smallnephew of G rimm" characterized this work as "admir-able" and felicitated him on his success which, sa id he,"to m y great surprise. . .goes to a crescendo".All thegentlemen who wish to think read M. Dunoyer. Sixyears ago, no one had understood him.Dunoyer had presented a course in th e winter o f1825 at the Athenee which constituted a veritableplea for indurlrialkme. It was in fact the rough draftof his major book . . . The epigraph of this workgives the resume of it: "We become free only inbecoming industrious and moral . . ." Here is whatDunoyer wished to dem onstrate . And for this, said he,it is necessary to consider, not the governments butthe masses; the state of their industry and of theirmorals. Throughout that book, this author neverseparates in effect the progress ofindustry from theprogress of morals and of liberty . . . "Under thename of administration, I know not what mo nstrous,immense corpus, extending to all its innum erable hands,putting its shackles on everything, levying enormoustaxes, bending by fraud, corruption, violence, all thepolitical powers to its designs, exhaling chiefly thespirit of ambition which produced it, and the spirit ofservility which conserves it". Mo re even th an ofSaint-Simon, this indictment makes us think ofProudhon . . . [the industriel people are] . . . "thosewhere it is no longer the passion for power th at reigns,but the passion to work". . . . "In the beginning, t hedominating classes are all, and the laboring classesnothing; in the end, the dominating classes will benothing, at least so far as dominating, and thelaboring classes will be all; society will be constitutedfor work".^"^For Dunoyer, industrialisme was the exact

opposite of theft. Any action which was not theresult of a freely choosen choice was a theft.That is why he admired the American stateconstitutions of the Revolution, especially thatof Pennsylvania; that was a model because thegovernment appeared to have the character of anindustrial enterprise in which everyone was avoluntary associate. Similarly, he admiredAmerica's decentralism which he believed wasthe result of America's industrialisme.Industrialisme would dissolve states as theuniversality of mankind was rooted in free labor.

It is the spirit of domination which has formed thesemonstrous aggregations or which has rendered themnecessary; it is th e spirit of industry which will dissolvethem: one of its ends, one of its greatest and mostsalutary effects must be to municipalize the world.. . . The centers of action will be multiplied; andfinally the vastest countries will end by presenting onlya single people, composed of an infinite number ofuniform aggregates, aggregates between which will beestablished without confusion and without violence.

the most complex and at the same time the mosteasy, the most peaceful and the most profitabler e l a t i ~ n s , ~ " ~Rude notes that in his letter of November 18,

1825, Stendhal singles out a noteworthy aspectof Dunoyer's book.

There is a passage which had particularly struckStendhal. "M. Dunoyer, equally intrepid t o blame th epeople of France, as to attack its tyrants, i n place offlattering them basely in the fashion of the Consli-rutionnel, tells them courageously the truth. . . M .Dunoyer is the Sole liberal writer who does n ot flatterthe nation and is bold to tell them: 'Youmake your-selves slaves, that is why you have tyrants. E ach peo plehas never more liberty than it forces its sovereign toaccord t o them'.""a'The contacts between Dunoyer and Stendhal

were based upon more than common friends,such as the young Victor Jacquemont or theelderly Destutt de Tracy. For two decadesStendhal had been a student of economics; heconsidered himself a disciple of Smith, Say andde Tracy.[5s1Since Dunoyer was the majorwriter and lecturer continuing Say's contribu-tions, it was natural that Stendhal would knowDunoyer, as well as take a direct interest in thedevelopment of industrialisme. Along withCondorcet's Equisse and Volney's Ruines, theyoung Stendhal had been strongly influenced bythe writings of William Godwin, and waspraising Godwin's work in the early 1820s.Godwin's heroes, who were "at open war withtheir oppressors", were one of the inspirationsfor Stendhal's The Red and the Black (1830).IS8'The Red and the Black was inspired by a numberof sources during the 1820s and includedmaterial which Stendhal took from themanuscripts of his late fellow citizen of Grenoble,Barnave.Is7' Barnave's then unpublishedIntroduction to the French Revolution presentedone of the earliest statements of elements of theanalysis characterized as industrialisme. Stendhalis a potential source for Dunoyer's beinginformed of Barnave's thought before thepublication of Barnave's works in 1843 byAlphonse Marie BQenger de la DrBme (1785-1855). Rude writes:

We know the veneration which from his most youthfu lyears Stendhal had fo r Barnave, "that great spirit".He speaks of him repeatedly in his Mdmoirs d'untourisle and hen ote s even: "If I had the space, I wouldcite a curious manuscript of his". In effect Stendh alknew the sister of Barnave, Mme. Saint Germain, as


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167HARLES DUNOYER AND FRl3NCH CLASSICA L LIBERALISMwell as Btrenger de la Drdrne, who in 1843 publishedthe Oeuvres deBornnve.'"'Dunoyer's disagreement with Stendhal arose

from the printing in late November 1825 ofStendhal's booklet, D'un nouveau complotcontre les industriels, issued by their commonpublisher, Sautelet. Dunoyer was unhappy overthe publication of an attack on industrialismesince his book was the principal and mostwidely known treatise on the subject. Stendhalhad been prompted to write his pamphlet bySaintSimon's Cat&hisme des industriels (issuedin four cahiers between December, 1823 andJune, 1824). Rude believes that the nouveaucomplot was written in early 1825 but that thepublication was postponed by Saint-Simon'sdeath on May 19, 1825, and resumed byStendhal with the launching by Saint-Simon'sdisciples of the magazine Le Producteur at thetime of a speculative coup by Saint-Simonianbankers.15g1

In the Catbchisme, Saint-Simon had attackedthe "bourgeois", the lawyers, military officersand government bondholders (to which groupStendhaJ felt an affinity) and described bankingas a new, higher form of industry which wouldlead to the reign of the bankers. Saint-Simoncalled for a union of the center-left with thecenter-right, the industrialists and the royalistministerials, against the liberals. Saint-Simonexpressed pleasure at the liberal party's destruc-tion at the hands of the royalist ministry andwished the industrialists to repudiate liberalismbecause its critical and anti-organizationalattitudes were revolutionary. Stendhal sawthis project for a union of the bankers with thegovernment as the complot against the liberalsand the industrialists. Stendhal declared his faithin economics and in industrialization. Industrywas one of the "great strengths of civilization",and he looked forward to its progress as itwould lead the French to "put into practice theCharte': As a supporter of the producingmajority against the governors, Stendhalopposed the substitution of "the most importantindustrials" as governors in place of the existinggovernors. Stendhal feared that Saint-Simon-ianism was a diversion from the struggle forliberty, was a weapon against liberalism, andwas aimed at enshrining the rule of Baron de

Rothschild and the other half dozen majorbankers.leolLe Producteur, which was published by Saint-

Simon's disciples with the support of a numberof bankers headed by Jacques Laffitte, appearedon October 1, 1825; Cerclet was editor andEnfantin and Bazard were the publishers. Inthe early issues was a reprint of a chapter fromDunoyer's new book, a review by Say andarticles by Auguste Comte, in which he declaredthat out of the scientific class, the engineerswere forming a separate corporate class toact as intermediaries between the industrialistsand thk scientists (Comte also emphasized spirit-ual power as the new approach which Saint-Simon was initiating before his death). Stendhalwrote an article for the London Magazine(October 11, 1825) which was mostly favorablebut which for the first time publicly linked theeditors of Le Producteur with Saint-Simon. Forthey had attempted to present the wholespectrum of industrialiste authors rather thanthe narrow Saint-Simonian publication it wouldbecome. Indeed, there was a clear presentationof the diversity of industrialiste analyses. Say, ina review of McCulloch's Political Economy(Le Producteur, No. 5, October 29, 1825),attacked the Ricardian theory of value basedsolely on the quantity of labor in the product.Prosper Enfantin (No. 6, November 5, 1825)supported Ricardo and McCulloch against Say'seconomic analysis. Enfantin's article carriedRicardian classical economics, long before Marx,to the logical conclusion that Marx was toreach. In addition, there were articles onpositivist literature against which Stendhal

However, the matter which triggeredStendhal's booklet was a speculative coupwhich received the support of Le Producteur.Its first issue had proposed a company of thebankers of Europe with Laffitte at its head tobecome a Holy Alliance of the Bankers.French bankers had made loans to KingFerdinand VII at the same time as themartyrdom of the Spanish liberal Riego;Laffitte in July 1824 had aided the Villeleministry in its financial difficulty with thegovernment debt. Finally, the bankers associatedwith the Saint-Simonians had been engaged in


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168 LEONARD P. LIGGlOmaking loans to the Pasha of Egypt to purchaseships and arms to fight against the Greekrevolution. The last straw for Stendhal was aloan to Haiti to be negotiated by Ternaux whichwas much discussed in the early issues of L eProducteur. On November 3 , 1825 two sets ofequal bids were submitted by Pillet-Will, andby Andre Delessert and Casimir Perier. Thenext day the loan was granted to Laffitte andthe Rothschild brother^."^]Stendhal expressed his earliest criticism ofthe position of Le Producteur in conjunctionwith his distress over the Haitian loan(November 10) and added that issue to themanuscript he had written on Saint-Simon'sCatkchisme and the earlier activities of thebankers. Stendhal's D'un nouveau complotcontre les industriels viewed the conspiracy ofthe bankers and the government against theliberals and industrialists as a major aspect ofthe Saint-Simonian doctrine. Instead of theRothschilds, Laffitte et al., Stendhal proposedas disinterested heroes, Lafayette, Washington,Carnot, Dupont de I'Eure, Daunou andgeneral Bertrand.'63JCerclet wrote a letter of criticism to Stendhal.The Journal du Commerce responded (December3 , 1825) that Stendhal examined only a narrowsegment of industrialisme, and neglected themajor stream of industrialisme which centeredon the ending of exploitation of man by manthrough privileges, and on society administeringitself without an external agency. "Man willthen work upon nature, live from things andleave his fellow men in peace". Armand Carrelreviewed Stendhal's booklet in Le Producteur(December 3 , 1825). Stendhal in Le Globe(December 6, 1925) criticized the lack of clearwriting and growth of charlatanism, of whichan example was "a new polish for the boots, anew system of industrialisme, of a new vegetablerouge': L e Globe (December 17) reprinted longextracts from Stendhal's booklet.["'Meanwhile, Leon Haltvy, one of the leadingSaint-Simonians, had written an article inL'Opinion (December 5) on Benjamin Constant'slecture on December 3; Halevy's article "AthenkRoyal de Paris, Seance d'ouverture. Discoursde M. Benjamin Constant", sought to answerConstant's criticism of Saint-Simonianism and

recalled the friendship between Constant andSaint-Simon. Constant responded with a letterto L'Opinion (December 6) , which. wasreprinted in the Journaldu Commerce (December7) . He emphasized the need of constitutionalguarantees against the pursuit of purely materialinterest. He was especially fearful of Saint-Simonian intolerance and he- supportedfreedom of conscience against the implicitdespotism of the Saint-Simonians. Constant'sinterpretation regarding intolerance was con-fumed in a reply to Constant's letter by Cerclet'sarticle in L e Producteur (December lo) , whichfollowed an earlier response by Saint-AmandBazard in the issue of December 3 but obviouslypublished several day~.later.[~']

The Revue encyclopedique, for which Sayand Dunoyer wrote, contained a review(December, 1825) of Stendhal's booklet byComte Paul-Eugene Lanjuinais, son of theLiberal peer. He emphasized Stendhal's criticismof the Saint-Simonian banker's loans to theTurks and agreed with Constant's lecture thatindustry was very important but that it isnecessary to develop the moral faculties as well.Victor Jacquemont, who was a friend ofDunoyer's, was favorable to industrialisme andwas acquainted with the Saint-Simonians, hadfound Stendhal's booklet worthwhile. Jacque-mont wrote Stendhal on December 22, 1825:"Barthelemy Dunoyer is furious against you.He said that you understand nothing on thatquestion". So for Stendhal, "lourd" Dunoyerbecame "that most ignorant of liberal writers",because "it is too much to contemplate thatthey could believe that of me, who was of theirparty". However, Dunoyer and Say could notlong maintain their fragile association with theeditors of a L e Producteur which continued toespouse Ricardian economics. Against theabsolute opposition of Say and Dunoyer topaper money and the system of credit basedupon it, Enfantin (January 1, 1826) praisedRicardo's preference for paper money, andemphasized the role of banks in creatingcredit for major undertakings such as transport-ation development. So also the split betweenDunoyer and Stendhal was not continued;Rudewrites:

Stendhal acknowledges always his [Dunoyer's] science


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169HARLES DUNOYER AND FRENCH CLASSICAL LIBERALISMin political economy. And 1believe we recognize him inthe M.D. that the rouriste encountered at Chalon-sur-SaOne and whom he presents as "one of the leadingeconomists of France".'"'Dunoyer signaled his break with the Saint-Simonians in an article in the Revue encyclo-

pidique (t. XXXIII, fevrier, 1827). In thislengthy "Historical Notice on Industrialisme",Dunoyer presented an analysis and criticism ofthe writing of the Saint-Simonians in LeProducteur.As disciples of M. Saint-Simon, the authors haveundertaken the work with the intention of propagatinghis doctrines. They seem to adopt these doctrineswithout restriction. First, they claim for him thehonor of having founded indusrrialisme; they attributeto him even the glory of having invented the wordindustriel. Hence. like him. from the fact that the~ ~ ~thcolod1cal3nd ic"dal power; areconrlanlly d ~ l m i n g .ana lhal the arls, thc x'lewcs, and industry do nutcease to acquire strength, they conclude that thedirection of affairs must pass from the hands ofeccelesiastical and lay lords into those of the savants,the artists and the industrialists. Followine their maTteter.~- ~ ~~ -they reproach thebe latter clasrn lor only having worked10 lice th~n hcI\e %leiau ~ehe) habc long made *ax,of~lshillg 0 make uar aluay,; of rcndcrmg clcrnal uhatought only to be transitory; of making an end of whatwas only a means; of wishing to replace the oldsystem by criticism; . . . of reducing criticism to asystem. of makine an aim of criticism. without anvother ;bjm than I c r ~ t ~ i x .hey baeech tho\c ;lass&lo abandon thlr rrrrtcal rmdenrv, uhlch places, [he>,a). \cry grral obrla ~le \o tllc pr og rw ol ;iviliza~ion,and to adopt the organic tendency, to proceed withoutloss of time to the organization of the industrial system.What they desire also, after the example of Saint-Simon, is a state composed solely of savants, artists andartisans, where the most distinguished savants andartists will form the spiritual power, and the mostpreponderant industrialists the temporal power ofsociety; where the first will be charged with the form-ation of ideas, the second with the formation ofsentiments, and the last with the administration ofmaterial interests. This system took no account ofindividuals; it only occupied itself with the enlirehuman species. It assigned for the destiny of thespecies the more and more perfect exploitation of theglobe which we inhabit. It proclaimed the orgnnizationalprinciple of a productive association between allpeoples. The law of this association is not liberty.Laissez faire el laissez passer is an insufficientcoun~el .~"~Dunoyer strongly attacked the SaintSimoniandecision that human imperfection requiredman's social activities to be under the directionof other men. For the Saint-Simonians there isno reason for creative men to seek answers anddesire to apply them, if there is no force

compelling individuals who escape its

direction to return to its benefits and to show"continually to workers the route that theymust follow and not permit anyone to escapefrom it". Dunoyer was appalled by the Saint-Simonian claim that the masses required asystem of general directors and a negation ofcompetition. For the Saint-Simonians,competition was a principal enemy and "orderwould result only from the exceptions made tothe principle of competition". For Dunoyer,only competition can yield proper value and putin their correct place the means of order such asthe police. The Saint-Simonians' desire toeliminate economic competition was shown bytheir wish to centralize the control of credit inthe hands of bankers selected for this purpose.Dunoyer described this in terms taken fromLe Producteur:

We seek constantly to combat this principle[competition] . . . It is necessary that in each branch ofindustry there be associations of captialists who willmake advances only to the entrepreneurs and to theenterprises which merit it . . . it is necessary toestablish a credit center in each industrial class . . .There need to be disciplinary councils for lawyers,doctors, bakers, butchers, stockbrokers, notaries, etc.The disciplinary councils are no more an evil thanparticular directors in each branch of industry are anevil, than the general directors of society, thangovernments in general are an evil. Such councilsmust guide the science and the morality of all menexamined by them . . . But they must be composed ofevidently superior men. Such is that system. It is alldirected against what the authors call the criticaltendency, and towards what they call the organictendeny. ['O"The Saint-Simonian system of organizing,directing and ordering society through govern-ment was in direct opposition to the contributionsmade by Say and Dunoyer. For the Saint-Simonians, an industrial society was one inwhich the leading industrialists exercised

governmental power, in collaboration with thescientists and artists, over the rest of society. ForDunoyer, indusfrialisme was the negation ofgovernment of men by men, "a manner of life"where all social relations are characterized byfree, competitive activities in absolute freedom.The industrial system, the industrial society, is trulyone where all men are producers of usefulness, wherethe men of all classes, forced finally to renounce allviolence, are only able to live from useful things thatthey create by peaceful work, and from what theyobtain by voluntary gift or regular exchanges; butthere is not much use in speaking of the social


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170 LEONARD P. LIGGIOindustridstate, when, by the word induslriel,one onlyintends, asdo M. Saint-Simon and the writers of hisschool, one of several classes of individuals or oforofessions . . . It is then the fault of these writers tout,h to choose 0n.y from among the savant,. the~ n d u s t r ~ a l ~ > t snd thear tl,ts But they tall Into an erroryet more serious, concerning the regime ma st conveni-ent to the industrial system. Their complaints againstwhat they call the criticol system, tha t is to say, againsta general and permanent state of examination, ofdebate, of competition, attacks society in its mostactive principle of life, in its most efficacious meansof development. First, these writers mistake all the f aa s,when they accuse acr itica l philosophy of tending only todestrov and of orooosine onlv a neeative eoal. In. - " -~orking lo rcmwe the dbstarlcs ~ h hppusc thei rec and lc g~ tm at t xercise o i the human tasu l t~ rr , ttends, on t he contra ry, t o a very positive goal, which isto place hum anity in a situation where its faculties areable to grow easily. Hence, it demands the abolition ofall privilege, of all monopoly, of all evil and violentrestriction, and wishes that each be able to use hispowers freely within the limits of justice andequity. . .Thedisciples of the school which claims to be organicsee the greatest inconveniences in leaving society toitself and in looking forw ard t o its development by thefree competition of individual efforts. This state ofcompetition, they say, only leads to the anarchy ofsentiments an d ideas. However, by a singular contrad-iaion, they admit, at the same h e , hat free discussionis necessary at certain epochs, when society tends tooass fram on e doctrine to another. from an imoerfect~~state to a bcttcr , k c . Ijut, i i dis&ion often La, [h epower to produce cnlightcnment, lf 11is able to rcally\pwits to truth . if it i, in the nat ure o f things thatcommon ideas emerge fram a Conflict of divergentopinions, what is the significance of the reproa ch ma deagainst freedom, and when does it begin to be anarchic?Is there, in the course of centuries, a single instantwhere society does not ten d, in a multitude o f ways, tomodify its ideas, to change its manner of existence?T o accuse liberty of what remains of confusion inmoral and social doctrines, is to see evil in theremedy, and to complain precisely of what tends tomake the confusion cease. The error of the organicschool is the belief that liberty is only a provisionalutility. A time will come, they say, where all thesciences will be positive; and we will no longer haveneed of liberty when all the sciences are positive: onecannot dispute demonstrated truths. One disputes nolonger what is dem onstrate d, no dou bt; bu t will it everall be demonstrated? What appears to be demonstrated,will it.always appear so? Will not the inductions whichseem well established, in the experim ental sciences, bemodified some day by new experiences? In place ofsaying that our knowledge will become complete andcertain, we are able to affirm strongly that they alwayswill leave something to be discovered or to berectified. It is then in the nature of things thatliberty of examination will be perpetually necessary.Societv which lives chieflv bv action. acts. at each.m tan t , accordmg IJ the notlonr that i t possesses. but.to a7 bcttcr and bct tcr, 11needs to ua rk don\tanlly lopcrfect its knowlcdgc. and 11onl) 15 able to >ucceed bymeans of liberty: research, inquiry, examination,

discussion, controversy, such is its natural state, andsuch it will always be, even when its knowledge hasacquired the greatest certainty and understanding.This is not the advice of the organic school. Itbelieves, on the contrary, that this state is onlytransitory, and that there will come a time when ou rknowledge will have attain ed such a degree of ex tensionand of certitude, that there will be n o matter fo rdiscussion. In consequence, and as if huma n knowledgehad already arrived at that state of ideal perfection, itwishes to give from this mome nt official directors t osociety who will conduct its works in confo rmity withthe infallible and complete knowledge that it isdestined t o acquire. It comm ences with a vain suppos-ition in order to arrive at a disastrous conclusion. It ispuerile to wish to decide in advance what will be inthe future the progress of human knowledge; we donot have an y means t o know it; it will never become asperfect as one supposes; at least it is cerIain tha t it is yetfar from being perfect, and it is insane to think a s if itwere aerfect alreadv. Finallv. were it oerfeaed. if wecould Lnou f d y hc a m of sorlety and a ll the meansuc would eser hate to at tam i t , xere there noth~ngmore t o discover in the sciences; if we could kno w thebest means t o follow in the arts; if we could acqu ire theinfallible means to discern, in all cases, the good andbad undertakings, it would yet be very pernicious togive to the best instructed men in all things theright to submit others to their direaion. We do nothasten the progress of truth by constraints. The bestmeans, on the contrary, t o hinder it so that it does notspread, is to give to men who know it the power toimpose it on those who are ignorant. Far fromincreasing its influence, one destroys it. . . N o oneunderstands why he must apriori submit his reason t othat of another; no one consents to receive a truthimposed by force . It is surely desirable tha t society b eguided by the knowledge of its most enlightenedmembers, but it is more desirable that they possesspower only by their knowledge. The true savants havenot need to exercise any magistracy in order to beconsulted. The natura l disposition of whoever ha sn ee dof a service is to address himself to whomever is bestable to serve him. It is only coercive directors thatpeople refuse to fallow; a nd no thing will b e lessfavorable to the progress of society, then to give tomen of knowledge the power of constraint. Societywishes to be constrained only by whom it may select forthe service; no more by savantr than by priests; what itsinterest requires before anything, on the contrary, isthat all unjust constraint should be repressed.'"'Dunoyer's "critical" approach toward any

attempt to eliminate absolute freedom of choic

charles dunoyer and french classical liberalism - leonard liggio

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