By the very fact that it is regarded as an absolute truth a belief necessarily becomes intolerant.This explains the violence, hatred, and persecution which were the habitual accompaniments of the great political and religious revolutions, notably of the Reformation and the French Revolution.
Certain periods of French history remain incomprehensible if we forget the affective and mystic origin of beliefs, their necessary intolerance, the impossibility of reconciling them when they come into mutual contact, and, finally, the power conferred by mystic beliefs upon the sentiments which place themselves at their service.
The foregoing conceptions are too novel as yet to have modified the mentality of the historians.They will continue to attempt to explain, by means of rational logic, a host of phenomena which are foreign to it.
Events such as the Reformation, which overwhelmed France for a period of fifty years, were in no wise determined by rational influences.Yet rational influences are always invoked in explanation, even in the most recent works.Thus, in the General History of Messrs.Lavisse and Rambaud, we read the following explanation of the Reformation:--``It was a spontaneous movement, born here and there amidst the people, from the reading of the Gospels and the free individual reflections which were suggested to simple persons by an extremely pious conscience and a very bold reasoning power.''
Contrary to the assertion of these historians, we may say with certainty, in the first place, that such movements are never spontaneous, and secondly, that reason takes no part in their elaboration.
The force of the political and religious beliefs which have moved the world resides precisely in the fact that, being born of affective and mystic elements, they are neither created nor directed by reason.
Political or religious beliefs have a common origin and obey the same laws.They are formed not with the aid of reason, but more often contrary to all reason.Buddhism, Islamism, the Reformation, Jacobinism, Socialism, &c., seem very different forms of thought.Yet they have identical affective and mystic bases, and obey a logic that has no affinity with rational logic.
Political revolutions may result from beliefs established in the minds of men, but many other causes produce them.The word discontent sums them up.As soon as discontent is generalised a party is formed which often becomes strong enough to struggle against the Government.
Discontent must generally have been accumulating for a long time in order to produce its effects.For this reason a revolution does not always represent a phenomenon in process of termination followed by another which is commencing but rather a continuous phenomenon, having somewhat accelerated its evolution.All the modern revolutions, however, have been abrupt movements, entailing the instantaneous overthrow of governments.Such, for example, were the Brazilian, Portuguese, Turkish, and Chinese revolutions.
To the contrary of what might be supposed, the very conservative peoples are addicted to the most violent revolutions.Being conservative, they are not able to evolve slowly, or to adapt themselves to variations of environment, so that when the discrepancy becomes too extreme they are bound to adapt themselves suddenly.This sudden evolution constitutes a revolution.
Peoples able to adapt themselves progressively do not always escape revolution.It was only by means of a revolution that the English, in 1688, were able to terminate the struggle which had dragged on for a century between the monarchy, which sought to make itself absolute, and the nation, which claimed the right to govern itself through the medium of its representatives.
The great revolutions have usually commenced from the top, not from the bottom; but once the people is unchained it is to the people that revolution owes its might.
It is obvious that revolutions have never taken place, and will never take place, save with the aid of an important fraction of the army.Royalty did not disappear in France on the day when Louis XVI.was guillotined, but at the precise moment when his mutinous troops refused to defend him.
It is more particularly by mental contagion that armies become disaffected, being indifferent enough at heart to the established order of things.As soon as the coalition of a few officers had succeeded in overthrowing the Turkish Government the Greek officers thought to imitate them and to change their government, although there was no analogy between the two regimes.
A military movement may overthrow a government--and in the Spanish republics the Government is hardly ever destroyed by any other means--but if the revolution is to be productive of great results it must always be based upon general discontent and general hopes.
