Such a man is today the enemy of the present order of things, and he works to destroy it, and, corrected by an imprisonment or exile more or less extensive, will never return to take up the business of counterrevolution, because he does not contract the habit of plotting like the one who kills or robs. He who has been accustomed to being a thief does not easily let go of this vicious habit, but he who comes out badly in an attempted revolution generally remains forever taught by punishment. This rule can have exceptions, but it is fairly general.
If we did not observe in many of our fellow citizens that tendency to accelerate cases, trials of conspiracy, and to force and prejudice in a certain way the verdicts of judges, while, on the other hand, they do not show great insistence on the persecution of other crimes; if we do not recognize all this, we repeat, we would have exempted ourselves from fighting this inclination, which, if it begins to grow larger, can make itself excessively harmful to the system of tribunals and put social guarantees in great danger. We have suffered too much in the periods of our revolution, and it is now time for us to reestablish the reign of harmony, moderation, and justice in a shaking up that has taken as its motto the constitution and the laws.1
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| 8 | Discourse on Public Opinion and the General Will * |
Here are two phrases as often repeated in republics as silenced in absolute monarchies, perhaps because their true meaning constitutes the compelling strength of the first and is the implied censure and most constant threat against the existence of the second. But see at the same time two phrases humanity and philosophy will never pronounce without trembling, because in their name horrible crimes have been perpetrated in the world, and because they have been and will always be the cloak of demagogues, the deadly defense of factions and favorite watchword of all revolutionaries, similar to the comets, innocent stars like all the others, but which lent barbarism the occasion to cause, through impassioned imaginations, damages in which they did not take any part whatsoever. These phrases serve malice as a horrific weapon to get its way with their sacrilegious intentions, even when nothing corresponding to the phrases exists except sound devoid of all reality.
Just because the significance of these terms is so respectable, it is enough to pronounce them to make absolute governments tremble and fill with suspicious distrust and silence popular governments and make them lower their heads; but be careful, be careful with carrying that respect beyond its limits in such a way that it prevents us from approaching the intended object that must produce it (as almost always happens), for that way an illusion will generally intimidate us; we would worship a shadow instead of the divinity we imagine.
In no government is that examination more necessary than in the popular, and never more interesting than in times like, unfortunately, the present, in which diverse factions argue over the benefit of their opposing interests. As, then, each one of them defends his intentions with those
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respectable phrases, it is indispensible to know well their full value to determine if none, some, and which of the rivals possesses such treasure.
Let us attempt, then, to do for the government and the Mexican public a most interesting service, examining what those terms signify; if what they signify can exist and in which cases; if there will be sure indications to recognize their existence; and, finally, if it is assumed, whether there will always be an obligation to yield to their rule, or if one will be able to or even should resist it at some time.
These questions deserve all the attention and study of our fellow citizens, particularly the legislators and public officials, because on their erroneous resolution rest a thousand future woes of the patria and the noisy or silent undermining of the institutions on which it bases, with reason, its stability and its fate. Let us now get to the subject so that our reflections might contribute abundant material to whomever can speak with greater knowledge.
What do these phrases signify?
In metaphysics, opinion is adherence of the understanding to a proposition or propositions through solid foundations that one is convinced to be the truth, but not so clearly and evidently that they free it completely from the fear that it might be its contradiction. There are, for example, reasons for believing that the ebb and flow of the sea is the result of the attraction of the moon, but there are other, opposing reasons. He who on the basis of the first set of reasons decides to attribute such an effect to the moon without completely resolving the second is said to embrace opinion. Of him who repeats that proposition for no reason other than having heard it, what can be said with accuracy is that he does not know, and at most, that he believes, if his entire foundation for regarding the proposition as certain is the regard he has for the person from whom he heard it.
The significance of the word “opinion” does not change when it carries over into the political. There, the same as anywhere else, the term denotes adopt, embrace as true a proposition based on foundations that seem solid to the understanding, and more solid than those foundations that persuade of the opposite, although it cannot provide them a completely satisfactory response.
The word “will” is well understood by everyone; it always signifies the attachment of our soul to some object that the understanding has
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conceived as good. The intensity of love or desire is proportionate to the degrees of goodness that we apprehend in the object and those of the clarity with which the understanding presents that good to us.
These ideas are very clear; they are those that all philosophers assert and what all men experience. From them we deduce, then, the truths that pertain to our case.
To this point we are proceeding well, and we will not be contradicted. The difficulty begins with the adjectives in these phrases, because delving deeply into what “public” means in the first and “general” in the second, it is necessary that the spell vanish with which the unwary are deceived so as to make them blind instruments of destruction, who will, in their turn, be destroyed.
These phrases, “public opinion,” and “general will,” either signify nothing that can serve demagogic purposes, or they must denote the opinion and the will, at least, of the greater number of citizens who make up a republic, but not the absolute total, as it seems it should be.
Notice that the classical authors, when they use these phrases to establish their doctrines, seem not to give so much latitude to their meaning, but rather they understand by them the opinion and will more generalized among those who are capable of forming it with respect to each subject; but we, whose intention is to combat the frequent anarchic applications, give them generally the sense of coincidence of opinions and desire of all, or even the considerable majority of the citizens regarding a specific object. Having given this warning and the terms now defined, let us consider the second question.
Is there a subject regarding which a uniformity of opinions and the desire of the greater part of the citizens can be verified?
It has been said already that there is not desire or love with respect to objects that are not known, and that there is no opinion as long as the understanding has not settled on foundations whose solidity is sufficient to persuade it. So, therefore, there will not be uniformity in the thinking and desiring of the greater number of citizens of a republic, but rather only with respect to those objects that are within the reach of that majority, that is to say, in the reach of all men. How many objects of that class will there be? Will they exceed the number of fingers of the hands if we use them to count?