W. GODWIN

Au troisième chapitre du Premier Livre de son „Enquiry concerning political justice" Godwin traite de deux sortes importantes de crime : du vol et de la fraude.

Il en dit : „Two of the greatest abuses relative to the interior policy of nations, which at this time prevail in the world, consist in the irregular transfer of property, either first by violence, or secondly by fraud. If among the inhabitants of any country there existed no désire in one individual to possess himself of the substance of another, or no désire so véhément and restless as to prompt him to acquire it by means inconsistent with order and justice, undoubtedly in that country guilt could scarcely be known but by report. If every man could with perfect facility obtain the necessaries of life, and, obtaining them, feel no uneasy craving after its superfluities, temptation would lose its power. Private interest would visibly accord with public good ; and civil society become what poetry has feigned of the golden âge. Let us inquire into the principles to which thèse evils are indebted for their existence." l)

D'après lui ces crimes sont les conséquences:

i° de la grande pauvreté, qui a pris des dimensions énormes; (en Angleterre sur les sept habitants il y en a un qui pendant certain temps a été secouru.) La situation est devenue telle que pour le pauvre l'état de la société est un état de guerre. Il considère la société non comme un corps dont la destination est de maintenir des droits personnels et de procurer à chaque individu les moyens de pourvoir à sa subsistance, mais bien comme un corps protégeant la position avantageuse de quelques-uns et tenant les autres en un état de misère et de dépendance.

2° de l'ostentation des riches, qui fait plus sentir au pauvre tout ci qui lui manque.

3° de la tyrannie du riche, devenue permanente par la législation, par l'application des lois et par la division des richesses.

Dans le VHImer Livre („of property") Godwin précise les idées susnommées. Parlant de l'amélioration morale qui s'ensuivrait de l'abolition de la propriété privée, il dit: „And hère it is obvious that the great occasions of crime would be eut off for ever. Ail men love justice. AU men are conscious that man is a being of one common nature, and feel the propriety of the treatment they receive from one another being measured by a common standard. Every man is desirous of assisting another;

whether we should choose to ascribe this to an instinct implanted in his nature which renders this conduct a source of personal gratification, or to his perception of the reasonableness of such assistance* So necessary a part is this of the constitution of mind, that it may be doubted whether any man perpétrâtes any action however criminal, without having first invented some sophistry, some palliation, by which he proves to himself that it is best to be done. Hence it appears, that offence, the invasion of one man upon the security of another, is a thougt alien to the human mind, and which nothing could hâve reconciled to us but the sharp sting of necessity. To consider merely the présent order of society, it is évident that the first offence must hâve been his who began a monopoly, and took advantage of the weakness of his neighbours to secure certain exclusive privilèges to himself. The man on the other hand who determined to put an end to this monopoly, and who percmptorily demanded what was superfluous to the possessor and would be of extrême benefit to himself, appeared to his own mind to be merely avenging the violated laws of justice. Were it not for the plausibleness of this apology, it is to be presumed thad there would be no such thing as crime in the world.

The fruitful source of crimes consist in this circumstance, one man's possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute. We must change the nature of mind, before we can prevent it from being powerfully influenced by this circumstance, when brought strongly home to its perceptions by the nature of its situation. Man must cease to hâve sensés, the pleasures of appetite and vanity must cease to gratify, before he can look on tamely at the monopoly of thèse pleasures. He must cease to hâve a sensé of justice, before he can clearly and fully approve this mixed scène of superfluity and want. It is true that the proper méthode of curing this inequality is by reason and not by violence. But the immédiate tendency of the established administration is to persuade that reason is impotent. The injustice of which they complain is upheld by force, and they are too easily induced, by force to attempt its correction. Ail they endeavour is the partial correction of an injustice, which éducation tells them is necessary, but more powerful reason affirms to be tyrannical.

Force grew out of monopoly. It might accidentally hâve occurred among savages whose appetites exceded their supply, or whose passions were inflamed by the présence of the object of their désire ; but it would gradually hâve died away, as reason and civilisation advanced. Accumulated property has fixed its empire; and henceforth ail is an open contention of the strength and cunning of one party against the strength and cunning of the other. In this case the violent and prématuré struggles of the necessitous are undoubtedly an evil. They tend to defeat the very cause in the success of which they are most deeply interested ; they tend to procrastinate the triumph of truth. But the true crime in every instance is in the selfish and partial propensities of men, thinking only of themselves, and despising the émolument of others ; and of thèse the rich hâve their share.

The spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility and the spirit of fraud, thèse are the immédiate growth of the etablished administration of pro-

perty. They are alike hostile to intellectual and moral improvement. The other vices of envy, malice and revenge are their inséparable companions. In a state of society where men lived in the midst of plenty, and where ail chared alike the bounties of nature, thèse sentiments would inevitably expire. The narrow principle of selfishness would vanish. No man being obliged to guard his little store, or provide whith anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each would lose his individual existence in the thought of the gênerai good. No man would be an enemy to his neighbour, for they would hâve no subject of contention ; and of conséquence philanthropy would résume the empire which reasons assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her perpétuai anxiety about corporal support, and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is congenial to her. Each would assist the enquiries of ail. i) 2)

*) Voir sur le charactère de l'homme, non inné, mais changeant d'après le milieu social le très intéressant chapitre IV (livre I.)

R. OWEN. i)

L'auteur dans plusieurs ouvrages nous a exprimé ses idées sur le rapport entre la criminalité et le milieu social et les conditions économiques en particulier. C'est dans son livre „The Book ofthe New Moral World", paru en 1 844, qu'il nous rend le mieux ses idées. 2)

Les voici en résumé: ce n'est pas l'homme lui-même, ce sont les circonstances qui forment le caractère; un milieu défavorable rendra l'homme mauvais, un milieu favorable produira le contraire. L'organisation de la Société contemporaine est telle qu'elle éveille en l'homme toutes les mauvaises qualités. La plus grande partie de l'humanité vit dans les conditions les plus misérables et devient physiquement, intellectuellement et moralement inférieure. Les classes ouvrières n'ont point de demeures hygiéniques, elles accomplissent un travail trop pénible et trop long, elles sont nourries et vêtues insuffisamment.

La fausse production et distribution de la richesse en sont les causes parceque le désordre et l'anarchie y régnent. Les moyens de production, les matières et les forces productives existent suffisamment, de sorte que chacun pourrait pourvoir amplement à ses besoins ; mais la concurrence qui engloutit des trésors l'empêche et produit le contraire, tandis que quelques-uns ont le superflu, la plupart n'ont pas même le nécessaire (ce qui est une cause à part pour la criminalité). La distribution fait gaspiller énormément de forces à cause du grand nombre d'intermédiaires.

L'éducation et l'enseignement sont on ne peut plus négligés. Les enfants des classes inférieures sont dénués ou presque dénués d'enseignement, et l'on ne saurait guère parler d'éducation, les parents n'en ayant guère eu eux-mêmes ne sont point capables et n'ont pas le loisir de leur en donner. Cependant des enfants de toutes les classes on fait des êtres égoïstes et anti-sociaux ; on leur inculque la maxime de „chacun pour soi" au lieu de leur appendre que l'amour du prochain est le principe sur lequel la société devrait être basée.

Owen trouve la cause du crime dans l'organisation de la société d'alors, fondée sur la propriété privée. Citons un passage caractéristique

1) Voir aussi l'ouvrage intitulé: »Aninquiry into the principles of thc distribution of Wealth" (chapitre II et III) de W. Thompson, disciple d'Owen. P. 17 il dit e. a.: »The unrestrained tendency of the distribution of wealth, being so much towards equality, excessive wealth and excessive poverty being removed, almost ail the temptations, ail the motives, which now urge to the commission of crime, woûld be also removed."

2) Voir e. a. ses »Essays on the formation of Charactcr,,; et «Reports of the proceedings at thc several public meetings held in Dublin."

du VI Volume intitulé: „General constitution of Governement and Universal Code of Law" :

„Private property has been, and is at this day, the cause of endless crime and misery to man, and he should hail the period when the progress of science, and the knowledge of the means to form a superior character for ail the individuals of the human race, render its continuance not only unnecessary, but most injurious to ail ; injurious to an incalculable extent to the lower, middle, and upper classes. The possession of private property tends to make the possessor ignorantly selfish ; and selfish, very generally, in proportion to the extent of the property held by its claimant.

So selfish, that many possessing thousands a-year beyond ail reasonable wants, calmly read or hear of thousands oftheir brother men daily starving for want of that employment which thèse wealthy withhold ; and withhold often that they may préserve animais, first to destroy the wealth that the industrious create and require to support their existence, and then to consume their wealth, time, and mind in destroying thèse preserved wild animais in the most cruel manner, for the pastime of thèse most ignorantly selfish-made, wealthy, irrational créatures in human form. It may truly be said that private property has been so sadly injurious to the human race, that it trains those who possess the most of it to become, jm very many instances, no better than two-legged animais, whose chief pleasure and delight, through their lives, is to destroy four-legged animais, or other two-legged of the feathered tribe. An évident proof how little society has yet advanced from the state of brutal barbarism.

Private property also détériorâtes the character of its possessor in various ways ; it is calculated to produce in him pride, vanity, injustice, and oppression, with a total disregard of the natural and inaliénable rights of his fellow men. It limits his ideas within the little narrow circle of self, prevents the mind from expanding to perceive extended views bénéficiai for the human race, and « understand great gênerai interests that could be made most essentially to improve the character and condition of ail. It confines the human mind to immédiate self and its petty concerns; when the possessor, if he had been trained from birth without the deteriorating influence of the désire to obtain and retain private property, might hâve been educated to comprehend the advantages of gênerai interests and universal ideas ; to be familiar with the whole science and practice of society, instead of possessing some mère local ideas respecting a very small part of a mystified chaos called society.

Private property aliénâtes mind from mind, is a perpétuai cause of répulsive action throughout society, a never-failing source of déception and fraud between man and man, and a strong stimulus td prostitution among women. It has caused war through ail the past âges of the world's known history, and been a stimulant to innumerable private murders.

It is now the sole cause of poverty, and its endless crimes and miseries over the world, and in principle it is as unjust as it is unwise in practice.

In a rational-made society it will never exist. Whatever may hâve been its necessity or utility, before the introduction of the supremacy of machinery and chemistry, it is now most unnecessary and an unmixed evil; for every one, from the highest to the lowest, may be ensured through life much more of ail that is really bénéficiai for humanity, and the permanent happiness of the individual, through public scientific arrangements, than it is possible to obtain through the scramble and contest for procuring and maintaining private property.

Private property also continually interfères with or obstructs public measures which would greatly benefit ail, and frequently to merely please the whim or caprice of an ill-trained individual.

When everything except mère personals shall be public property, and public property shall always be maintained in superfluity for ail — and when artificial values shall cease, and intrinsic values shall be alone estimated — then will the incalculable superiority of a system of public property be duly appreciated over the evils arising from private property.

With a well arranged scientific system of public property, equal éducation and condition, there will be no mercenary or unequal marriages ; no spoiled children; and none of the evils which proceed from thèse errors in the présent system, if crudities which pervade ail the departments of life, and are thoroughly inconsistent, can be called a system of society .

In fact, as soon as individuals shall be educated and placed — and it is for the best and permanent interest of society that ail should be educated and placed — the saving of time, labour, and capital, between public and private property, will be beyond any estimate the mind of man can form in favour of public property. In the British empire alone it may be made to be several thousand millions sterling annually. The présent contest for individual wealth créâtes the greatest possible extravagance and waste through every department of society, and dcstroys the best and finest qualities of human nature, while it cultivâtes and encourages ail the inferior feelings and passions.

Therefore the twelfth.law J) will be, that —

„Under the Rational System of society — after the children shall hâve been trained to acquire new habits and new feelings, derived from a knowledge of the laws of human nature — there shall be no useless private property".

The old system of the world has been created and governed on the assumed principle of man 's responsibiliy to man, and by man' s rewards and punishments.

And this principle has been assumed upon the original supposition, that man was born with power to form himself into any character he liked ; to believe or disbelieve whatever he plaesed ; and that he could love, hâte, or be indiffèrent as to ail persons and things, according to an independent will which enabled him to do as he liked in ail thèse respects.

The présent system is, therefore, essentially a system supported and governed by laws of punishment and reward of man's creating, in ap-

l) Une des lois qui selon Owen doit produire le changement de la société actuelle à la société future.

positon to nature's laws of punishing and rewarding. The former System is artificial, and always produces crime and misery, continually increasing, and therefore requiring new laws to correct the evils necessarily forced upon society by the old laws ; thus laws are multiplied without limit by man to counteract nature's laws, and ever without success. While nature's beautiful and benevolent laws, if consistently acted upon in a System made throughout in accordance with them, would produce knowledge, goodness, and happiness, continually increasing, to the human race.

By man's laws being forced upon the population of ail countries, in continuai opposition to nature's laws; with law added to law,in the vain attempt to remedy endless previous laws, the world had been made and kept criminal, with crimes multiplying as human laws increased.

The laws of man are made to support injustice, and give additional power to the oppressor and to the man devoid of truth and honesty over the innocent and just. And such must be the resuit, as long as human laws, lawyers, and law parapharnalia shall be sanctioned by society.

But it is not sufficient that men should be trained in a knowledge of the laws of human nature ; it is equally necessary that they should be educated from birth to act in obédience to that knowledge, and that ail the circumstances of society should be made in unison with those laws, and not, as they hâve been hitherto, in accordance with man's laws.

Nature's laws carry with them the only just rewards and punishments that man should expérience; and they are, in every case, efficient for naturel purposes, and to ensure the happiness of man in aile countries and climes; and, differing from man's puny, short-sighted laws, they are always adéquate to the end intended to be accomplished. And this end is evidently to increase human knowledge and happiness. It is through thèse laws of nature, that man has attained the knowledge which he has acquired. He has been continually urged onward to make discoveries, and to invent, through pain experienced, or pleasure enjoyed or anticipated.

But man has been trained to hâve his character formed, and to be governed by laws of his own making; his habits, manners, ideas, and associations of ideas hâve emanated, directly or indirectly, from his artificial and injurious source ; and, in conséquence, the mind, language, and practice of ail individuals hâve become a chaos of confusion. And this chaos in the character and conduct of individuals has made a yet greater chaos in ail the proceedings of society: and, in conséquence, man is now opposing man, and nation opposing nation, ail over the earth. Yet ail nature déclares, that it shall be by union of man with man, and nation with nation, that the human race can ever attain a high degree of permanent prosperity and happiness, or become rational.

Nevertheless, while this irrational individual and gênerai character shall remain, those men and women who hâve been made to receive this character, and to be so injured, must continue for a time to be governed bij thèse most injurious laws. The laws of nature being alone applicable to a society, whose laws are in accordance with the laws of nature.

When this rational society shall be formed, and men, individually and generally, shall be trained to act in accordance with it, then shall human punishments and rewards cease, and cease for ever.

The thirteenth law will therefore be, that — „As soon as the members of thèse scientific associations shall hâve been educated, from infancy, in a knowledge of the laws of their nature, trained to act in obédience to them, and surrounded by circumstances ail in unison with them, there shall be no individuai reward or punishment."

The Rational System of society is one and indivisible in its principles and practices ; each part is essential to its formation. It is one unvarying consistent System for forming the character of ail individuals, and for governing their affairs ; and it is essentiaily a system to prevcnt evil, and render individuai punishment and reward as unnecessary, as they are unjust and most injurious to ail. While, on the contrary, the présent system, based on error, could. not be continued without individuai rewards and punishments, and, while it shall be maintained, however unjust thèse individuai rewards and punishments must be, when applied to beings who do not form any part of themselves, and who are kept ignorant of their own nature, thèse irrational rewards, and punishments, of man's devising, must be continued.

Individuai punishments and rewards, ignorance, the inferior feelings and passions, with ail crimes and miseries, will go together when the irrational system shall be abolished. When the cause of evil shall be removed, then will the evil cease, and not before" l) 2)

2) On sait qu' Owen a mis ses théories en pratique en fondant la colonie de New-Lanark. Les conséquences désastreuses du capitalisme industriel comme: la durée excessive du travail, la mauvaise nourriture, les habitations malsaines, le manque d'éducation des enfants etc. etc. y étaient diminuées et évitées. Parmi la population de la colonie, alcoolisée et demorasilée par le capitalisme (les vols étaient à Pordre du jour), améliorée peu à peu par te milieu favorable, aucune poursuite judiciaire n'eut lieu pendant 19 ans. Vol, ivrognerie et naissances illégitimes ne se présentèrent plus. (Voir le prof. H. Denis. Le socialisme et les causes économiques et sociales du crime p. 283, et le prof. H. P. G. Quack »>de Socialisten" 11 p. 279 sqq).