"The government gives the national form to souls.[25] Nations, in the long run, are what the government makes them - soldiers, citizens, men when so disposed, a populace, canaille if it pleases," being fashioned by their education. "Would you obtain an idea of public education? Read Plato's 'Republic.'[26].... The best social institutions are those the best qualified to change man's nature, to destroy his absolute being, to give him a relative being, and to convert self into the common unity, so that each individual may not regard himself as one by himself, but a part of the unity, and no longer sensitive but through the whole. An infant, on opening its eyes, must behold the common patrimony and, to the day of its death, behold that only.... He should be disciplined so as never to contemplate the individual except in his relations with the body of the State."Such was the practice of Sparta, and the sole aim of the "great Lycurgus."-"All being equal through the law, they must be brought up together and in the same manner." "The law must regulate the subjects, the order and the form of their studies." They must, at the very least, take part in public exercises, in horse-races, in the games of strength and of agility instituted "to accustom them to law, equality, fraternity, and competition;" to teach them how "to live under the eyes of their fellow-citizens and to crave public applause."Through these games they become democrats from their early youth, since, the prizes being awarded, not through the arbitrariness of masters, but through the cheers of spectators, they accustom themselves to recognizing as sovereign the legitimate sovereignty, consisting of the verdict of the assembled people. The foremost interest of the State is, always, to form the wills of those by which it lasts, to prepare the votes that are to maintain it, to uproot passions in the soul that might be opposed to it, to implant passions that will prove favorable to it, to fix firmly with the breasts of its future citizens the sentiments and prejudices it will at some time need.[27] If it does not secure the children it will not possess the adults, Novices in a convent must be as monks, otherwise, when they grow up, the convent will no longer exist.
Finally, our lay convent has its own religion, a lay religion. If Ipossess any other it is through its condescension and under restrictions. It is, by nature, hostile to other associations than its own; they are rivals, they annoy it, they absorb the will and pervert the votes of its members.
"To ensure a full declaration of the general will it is an important matter not to allow any special society in the State, and that each citizen should pronounce according to it alone."[28]
"Whatever breaks up social unity is worthless," and it would be better for the State if there were no Church. -Not only is every church suspicious but, if I am a Christian, my belief is regarded unfavorably. According to this new legislator "nothing is more opposed to the social spirits than Christianity. . .
. A society of true Christians would no longer form a society of men."For, "the Christian patrimony is not of this world." It cannot zealously serve the State, being bound by its conscience to support tyrants. Its law "preaches only servitude and dependence. . . it is made for a slave," and never will a citizen be made out of a slave.
"Christian Republic, each of these two words excludes the other."Therefore, if the future Republic assents to my profession of Christianity, it is on the understood condition that my doctrine shall be shut up in my mind, without even affecting my heart. If I am a Catholic, (and twenty-five out of twenty-six million Frenchmen are like me), my condition is worse. For the social pact does not tolerate an intolerant religion; any sect that condemns other sects is a public enemy; "whoever presumes to say that there is no salvation outside the church, must be driven out of the State."Should I be, finally, a free-thinker, a positivist or skeptic, my situation is little better.
"There is a civil religion," a catechism, "a profession of faith, of which the sovereign has the right to dictate the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas but as sentiments of social import without which we cannot be a good citizen or a loyal subject." These articles embrace "the existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent, foreseeing and provident divinity, the future life, the happiness of the righteous, the punishment of the wicked, the sacredness of the social contract and of the laws.[29] Without forcing anyone to believe in this creed, whoever does not believe in it must be expelled from the State; it is necessary to banish such persons not on account of impiety, but as unsociable beings, incapable of sincerely loving law and justice and, if need be, of giving up life for duty."Take heed that this profession of faith be not a vain one, for a new inquisition is to test its sincerity.
"Should any person, after having publicly recognized these dogmas, act as an unbeliever, let him be punished with death. He has committed the greatest of crimes: he has lied before the law."Truly, as I said above, we are in a conventV. SOCIAL CONTRACT, SUMMARY.
Complete triumph and last excesses of classic reason. - How it becomes monomania. - Why its work is not enduring.
