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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 183.: FRENCH NEWS [71] EXAMINER, 4 NOV., 1832, PP. 710-11 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

183.: FRENCH NEWS [71] EXAMINER, 4 NOV., 1832, PP. 710-11 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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183.

FRENCH NEWS [71]

EXAMINER, 4 NOV., 1832, PP. 710-11

For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 181. The item, headed “London, November 4, 1832,” is listed in the Somerville College set of the Examiner as “Article on France” and enclosed in square brackets, with two corrections: at 520.25 “bar” is altered to “ban” and at 520.31 “history; and” is altered to “history and”.

the french government has performed an act worthy of commendation, if it be followed up in the spirit in which it is conceived, and which has escaped the notice of the English Newspapers,—the re-establishment of the Department of Moral and Political Science in the Institute.1

In the original scheme of the Institute, as suggested by Talleyrand in his report to the Constituent Assembly on National Education,2 as re-touched by Condorcet in another report submitted to the Assemblée Législative,3 and as ultimately adopted by the Convention on the proposition of one of the still surviving ornaments of that great period of history, M. Daunou,4 (and long may he yet survive!) the moral and political sciences occupied the prominent place which justly belongs to them in any attempt to bring together into one body the men who have done the greatest things for science and philosophy. But a despot came, in whose sight all which savoured of thought and inquiry in politics or morals was odious; and, with a stroke of the pen, the Department of Moral and Political Science was blotted out from the Institute.5 The Bourbons were as little disposed as Bonaparte to look with favour upon such pursuits. Casimir Périer, we suspect, would have fully sympathised with the “hero” and the “descendant of St. Louis”6 in an aversion so natural, and, for a selfish government, so reasonable. But the Doctrinaires, setting up for philosophers themselves, and owing all their reputation to the cultivation of philosophy, have no prejudice against it.

The new Academy of Moral and Political Science will, we suppose, publish Transactions, at the public expense; and the members will be allowed pensions sufficient to enable them to confine themselves to philosophic pursuits. This is so far good; provided the appointments are not given to favour, but bestowed exclusively on persons who, by what they have already done, have proved that it is for the interest of society to place them in such a situation that philosophy may have an exclusive claim upon their time and exertions. Further than this, we know not that such bodies are ever likely to be of much use; but if an institution exists which professes to embody the most distinguished men in all branches of science, it is a disgrace to the nation that the most important sciences of all should be excluded; and by removing this ban from moral and political philosophy, and publicly proclaiming that in the estimation of France they are sciences, and sciences of transcendant value, an impulse will be given to a really scientific study of them, for which the Guizot ministry are entitled to all praise.

The Academy is to consist of thirty members, and to be divided into five sections; namely, moral philosophy; legislation; droit public et jurisprudence; political economy and statistics; general history and the history of philosophy.

All who were members of this branch of the Institute when it was dissolved by Napoleon, and who still survive, are retained as the nucleus of the new Academy. It is interesting to review the list of these distinguished relics of the last age. Sieyès, Talleyrand, Daunou, Garat, Merlin (de Douai), Roederer, Pastoret, Lacuée de Cessac, Reinhardt, Dacier.7 To these are added those of the surviving corresponding members, who have since become members of the other branches of the Institute; namely, MM. Destutt-Tracy and de Gérando.8 These were to elect, by ballot, four more, which completes the number sixteen, (necessary by the former statutes) to supply the remaining vacancies. These sixteen are then to elect seven others, and those twenty-three are to elect the remaining seven. The first four were to be selected (for no good reason that we can see) from the ranks of the Institute itself. The successful candidates were, MM. Cousin, Dupin (the advocate), Alexandre Delaborde, and Naudet.9 The remaining fourteen are not yet elected. It is from their names that we shall judge whether the new institution is intended as an encouragement to philosophy, or as a mere trick for popularity.

Several of the Doctrinaires themselves ought unquestionably to be members of the body; especially M. Guizot himself, (who ought not, however, to draw the salary,) and MM. Royer-Collard and Jouffroy.10 These, we have no doubt, will be elected. But the list ought to contain various names, some of which are less acceptable to the party now in power. It ought to comprehend Say, the eminent political economist; Comte, and Dunoyer,11 the authors of the Censeur Européen, and various important works; Cormenin, the ablest political writer in France, whose works on Administration have earned him so well-merited a reputation;12 and others whom it would be tedious to enumerate. We shall see whether the suffrages of the Academy fall on such men, or what others are preferred to them.

[1 ]Bull. 194, No. 4523 (26 Oct., 1832), given in Moniteur, 1832, p. 1881, with the Rapport au roi by Guizot.

[2 ]Rapport sur l’instruction publique, fait au nom du comité de constitution, par M. Talleyrand-Périgord (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, [1791]).

[3 ]In his Rapport et projet de décret sur l’organisation générale de l’instruction publique (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1792), presented to the National Assembly on 20 and 21 Apr., 1792, Condorcet outlined at length his proposal for “une société nationale des sciences et des arts,” with four divisions, of which the second was made up of the moral and political sciences (pp. 35-55, esp. 37).

[4 ]See No. 134, n9, for the reference to Daunou’s speech of 19 Oct., 1795, and the founding of the Institute.

[5 ]Napoleon abolished the Department of Moral and Political Science by Bull. 243, No. 2257 (3 pluviôse an XI; 23 Jan., 1803).

[6 ]Louis IX (1214-70).

[7 ]Those not identified earlier are Emmanuel Joseph, comte Sieyès (1748-1836), an abbé very active during the early years of the Revolution who then helped Napoleon to power; he had been appointed to the Institut in 1795, and in 1804 to the Académie Française. Dominique Joseph, comte Garat (1749-1833), originally a professor of history, was in turn a member of the Estates General, editor of the Journal des Débats, Minister of Justice, and professor of ideology at l’Ecole Normale. Philippe Antoine, comte Merlin de Douai (1754-1838), jurist, statesman, and legal reformer, was reappointed a member of the Institut in 1830. Pierre Louis, comte Roederer (1754-1835), economist and writer, active in the early days of the Revolution, editor of the Journal de Paris, had served Napoleon, then retired into private life in 1815, and had been dismissed from the Institut in 1816. Marquis Claude Emmanuel Joseph Pierre de Pastoret (1756-1839) had refused to take the oath to Louis Philippe in 1830 and remained in the service of Charles X. Jean Gérard, comte Lacuée de Cessac (1752-1841), military adviser throughout the Revolution (except for the Terror) and under Napoleon, had been appointed to the Institut in 1795; on its reorganization in 1803 he had transferred to the Académie Française. Charles Frédéric, comte Reinhart (1761-1837), a diplomat, had won many honours, including membership in the Académies des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and des Sciences Morales et Politiques and a peerage in 1832. Joseph Bon, baron Dacier (1742-1833), historian, first became a member of Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1772 and was its Permanent Secretary from 1782 until it was closed in 1793; he fled the Terror but returned in 1795 to take part in the new Institut and the Bibliothèque Nationale; two years later Napoleon charged him with the task of reorganizing the Institut into four Académies, and he then became Permanent Secretary of Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, and in 1823 of the Académie Française.

[8 ]Antoine Louis Claude, comte Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836), philosopher, had been a member of the Académie Française since 1808. Joseph Marie, baron de Gérando (1772-1842), philosopher and administrator, had been a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.

[9 ]Those not previously identified are Alexandre Louis Joseph, comte de Laborde (1773-1842), archeologist and politician, a member of the Institut in 1813, a liberal deputy in 1820, briefly prefect of the Seine at the end of the July days, then aide-de-camp to Louis Philippe; and Joseph Naudet (1786-1878), classicist, who became a member of Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1817.

[10 ]Théodore Simon Jouffroy (1796-1842), philosopher, deputy from 1829; and Pierre Paul Royer-Collard (1763-1845), political philosopher, member of the Council of 500 in 1797, a deputy and, in 1828, President of the Chamber of Deputies.

[11 ]Barthélemy Charles Pierre Joseph Dunoyer (1786-1862), economist and administrator, friend of Charles Comte; after the July Revolution he became prefect of Allier. He was elected in December 1832 to the Académie des Sciences Morales.

[12 ]Cormenin was known for his Du conseil d’état envisagé comme conseil et comme juridiction sous notre monarchie constitutionnelle (Paris: Pillet, 1818), De la responsabilité des agents du gouvernement (Paris: Baudouin, 1818), and, his chief work, Questions de droit administratif, 2 vols. (Paris: Ridler, 1822).