For the sake of brevity, I will disregard the testimony of ecclesiastical history and Christian theology: this subject deserves a separate treatise, and I propose hereafter to return to it.Moses and Jesus Christ proscribed, under the names of usury and inequality, all sorts of profit and increase.The church itself, in its purest teachings, has always condemned property; and when I attacked, not only the authority of the church, but also its infidelity to justice, I did it to the glory of religion.I wanted to provoke a peremptory reply, and to pave the way for Christianity's triumph, in spite of the innumerable attacks of which it is at present the object.I hoped that an apologist would arise forthwith, and, taking his stand upon the Scriptures, the Fathers, the canons, and the councils and constitutions of the Popes, would demonstrate that the church always has maintained the doctrine of equality, and would attribute to temporary necessity the contradictions of its discipline.Such a labor would serve the cause of religion as well as that of equality.We must know, sooner or later, whether Christianity is to be regenerated in the church or out of it, and whether this church accepts the reproaches cast upon it of hatred to liberty and antipathy to progress.Until then we will suspend judgment, and content ourselves with placing before the clergy the teachings of history.
{GREEK, ?n n `},--greater property.The Vulgate translates it avaritia.
When Lycurgus undertook to make laws for Sparta, in what condition did he find this republic? On this point all historians agree.The people and the nobles were at war.The city was in a confused state, and divided by two parties,--the party of the poor, and the party of the rich.Hardly escaped from the barbarism of the heroic ages, society was rapidly declining.The proletariat made war upon property, which, in its turn, oppressed the proletariat.What did Lycurgus do? His first measure was one of general security, at the very idea of which our legislators would tremble.He abolished all debts;then, employing by turns persuasion and force, he induced the nobles to renounce their privileges, and re-established equality.
Lycurgus, in a word, hunted property out of Lacedaemon, seeing no other way to harmonize liberty, equality, and law.I certainly should not wish France to follow the example of Sparta; but it is remarkable that the most ancient of Greek legislators, thoroughly acquainted with the nature and needs of the people, more capable than any one else of appreciating the legitimacy of the obligations which he, in the exercise of his absolute authority, cancelled; who had compared the legislative systems of his time, and whose wisdom an oracle had proclaimed,--it is remarkable, I say, that Lycurgus should have judged the right of property incompatible with free institutions, and should have thought it his duty to preface his legislation by a coup d'etat which destroyed all distinctions of fortune.
Lycurgus understood perfectly that the luxury, the love of enjoyments, and the inequality of fortunes, which property engenders, are the bane of society; unfortunately the means which he employed to preserve his republic were suggested to him by false notions of political economy, and by a superficial knowledge of the human heart.Accordingly, property, which this legislator wrongly confounded with wealth, reentered the city together with the swarm of evils which he was endeavoring to banish; and this time Sparta was hopelessly corrupted.
"The introduction of wealth," says M.Pastoret, "was one of the principal causes of the misfortunes which they experienced.
Against these, however, the laws had taken extraordinary precautions, the best among which was the inculcation of morals which tended to suppress desire."The best of all precautions would have been the anticipation of desire by satisfaction.Possession is the sovereign remedy for cupidity, a remedy which would have been the less perilous to Sparta because fortunes there were almost equal, and conditions were nearly alike.As a general thing, fasting and abstinence are bad teachers of moderation.
"There was a law," says M.Pastoret again, "to prohibit the rich from wearing better clothing than the poor, from eating more delicate food, and from owning elegant furniture, vases, carpets, fine houses," &c.Lycurgus hoped, then, to maintain equality by rendering wealth useless.How much wiser he would have been if, in accordance with his military discipline, he had organized industry and taught the people to procure by their own labor the things which he tried in vain to deprive them of.In that case, enjoying happy thoughts and pleasant feelings, the citizen would have known no other desire than that with which the legislator endeavored to inspire him,--love of honor and glory, the triumphs of talent and virtue.
"Gold and all kinds of ornaments were forbidden the women."Absurd.After the death of Lycurgus, his institutions became corrupted; and four centuries before the Christian era not a vestige remained of the former simplicity.Luxury and the thirst for gold were early developed among the Spartans in a degree as intense as might have been expected from their enforced poverty and their inexperience in the arts.Historians have accused Pausanias, Lysander, Agesilaus, and others of having corrupted the morals of their country by the introduction of wealth obtained in war.It is a slander.The morals of the Spartans necessarily grew corrupt as soon as the Lacedaemonian poverty came in contact with Persian luxury and Athenian elegance.
Lycurgus, then, made a fatal mistake in attempting to inspire generosity and modesty by enforcing vain and proud simplicity.
