(c) Morelly

It is now universally accepted that Le Code de la Nature, ou Le Véritable Esprit de ses Loix de tout tems négligé ou méconnu, which appeared anonymously in 1755, in the same year as Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality was the work of Morelly; but Morelly remains, nevertheless, the most elusive of figures. For long the work was attributed to Diderot, and indeed so generally attributed that Le Code in fact appears in certain collected editions of Diderot's works. Such an attribution is, however, an insult to the memory of the great. It is for the expert in French literature to assess the evidence which has fathered this work on Morelly. To the outsider, the chief reason seems to be that Le Code contains in the early pages, and throughout, somewhat fulsome praise of a bad allegorical political poem, La Basiliade, published two years earlier; and as it seems to be agreed that no one but the author of La Basiliade could possibly praise La Basiliade, it follows that the author of Le Code was the author of La Basiliade, who was Morelly. Doubtless, this is not the only piece of evidence bearing on this point. Unfortunately this conclusion does not take us much further. Certain other very minor works swim into the picture, and there have been suggestions that there are two Morellys, a father and a son, sharing the honours between them. Perhaps in all this we should remember that fine flower of classical criticism, crystallised in the saying that ‘the Iliad was not written by Homer, but by another man of the same name.’ The only fact that clearly emerges is that nothing is known of Morelly. ‘Morelly,’ in short, is little more than a convenient abbreviation for ‘the author of Le Code de la Nature.’

But whether Le Code was written by Morelly, or by his father, or his son, or by another man of the same name, the book itself remains a work of capital importance as an influence in the second half of the eighteenth century, and beyond. The Code is as nearly destitute of intrinsic merits as it is possible for any book to be, though it has its interests. Apart from those spiritually akin to Babeuf, the critics have been uniformly harsh in their attitude toward Morelly. Raynal, on its appearance, described it as possessing ‘ni suite, ni méthode, ni vues’; another contemporary critic found ‘ni principes, ni raison, ni lumières dans son livre.’¹ Much later, from an impartial distance, Janet pronounced Morelly's socialism as ‘un socialisme sans lumières et sans culture,’ and Morelly himself as ‘un esprit vulgaire et de bas étage.’²

These criticisms are substantially justified. Morelly annoys—and in many ways. He is complacent, self-satisfied, and shallow; he dabbles in psychology and theology, indulging in doubtful disputations beyond his stunted depth; he is uniformly rather dreary. Moreover, putting aside as irrelevant (if one may rise to such heights of magnanimity) all these many occasions of irritation, Morelly has the further disability that he has not much to say that is in any way peculiar to himself. He believes that man is fundamentally good, and not depraved; he holds that the wickedness of man is occasioned by the society in which he lives and the corrupting institutions which surround him; and that ultimately all these evils spring from the existence of property; and he further seeks to persuade his readers that a better society, indeed a perfect society, would result from the abolition of property. All this is moderately common late eighteenth-century, left-wing doctrine, presented with no distinction. Where Morelly differs from anyone else is that he endeavours to codify the Code of Nature, and prints a ‘Model of Legislation conforming to the intentions of Nature.’ Natural law is spread all over the eighteenth century, but for obvious prudential reasons, it is usually left vaguely in the air, without a too precise definition of its contents. It is the merit, or at least the peculiarity, of Morelly, that he rushed in where Quesnay and many others had feared to tread, and laid down in a terrifying document the fundamental laws of a society that would seek to conform to the intentions of Nature.

We may pass over the compliments which at the outset the author of Le Code pays to the author of La Basiliade, a work which is supposed to clothe with poetic grace the truths about to be demonstrated in prose. Having discharged this pleasant duty, Morelly turns to the first point of his programme, the perverse and erroneous views of the political and moral philosophers. Morality ought to be as simple and as evident in its first axioms as mathematics, but it has become disfigured and clouded with prejudices. The fundamental error of the moralists is that they have assumed as their foundation the proposition that man is born vicious and evil (vicieux et méchant). It is, it will be observed, the repudiation of the Fall of Man and of the doctrine of Original Sin, which is so large a part of socialist teaching for the next three generations. It has not, he says, occurred to anyone (although in the fullness of time it will most emphatically occur to Fourier) that the problem is ‘to find a situation in which it is almost impossible for man to be depraved or wicked.’ ¹

The view of the philosopher is that even before Man is born, he carries within himself the baneful seeds of his depravity, urging him to seek his own good at the expense of all his kind.² This is self-interest (amour propre), and Morelly's attack on the philosophers is largely a white-washing of this self-love, and a demonstration that self-love ought to lead to sociability. For this self-love, transformed by the moralists into an hundred-headed hydra, is something entirely innocent ‘in the order of Nature.’ It is nothing more than a constant desire to preserve one's existence by means which are both easy and innocent, and which Providence has placed within the reach of all. But when human institutions have surrounded these innocent means with insurmountable difficulties and much more, need it cause surprise that this self-love is transmuted into a multitude of vices?¹ It is, however, from this ‘triste Morale’ of the philosophers, and not from Nature, that this ill-omened leaven derives.

The Supreme Wisdom, to which Morelly has at all times free access, intended, however, something entirely different. Its purpose was to make the human species an Intelligent Whole, which should arrange itself by a mechanism as simple as marvellous—indeed by a species of ‘moral attraction,’ another pointer in the direction of Fourier.² For out of self-love there springs, or ought to spring, a ‘benevolent affection’ for all that alleviates or helps our weakness. The desire to be happy may be fundamental, but self-love achieves nothing without assistance, and this impels us to the happy necessity of being benevolent. Crystallised in a sentence: ‘Tu veux être heureux; sois bienfaisant.’³ Benevolence is the path by which self-love realises itself.

Had we but followed the intentions of the Supreme Wisdom, the situation should have been an entirely happy one. Using in a contrary sense a metaphor to which Malthus was later to give an unenviable notoriety, Morelly assures us that

the world is a table sufficiently furnished for all the guests, whose provisions belong in their entirety, sometimes to all because all are hungry, sometimes to some only because the others are satisfied: thus no one is absolutely the master, nor has the right to claim to be so.⁴

Nature has ingeniously contrived a number of devices whereby men are impelled, though perhaps not very effectively, towards unanimity and general concord. It has given us a sense of equality of conditions and of rights and of the necessity of labouring in common by showing us our ‘parity’ in feeling and in needs. By temporary variations in our needs, so that all are not equally affected at the same time (we are not all hungry together), it has warned us that we should sometimes renounce our rights for the advantage of others. By endowing men differently in strength, in industry and in ability, it has pointed the way to different employments. The pain and effort of satisfying our needs when acting alone, impress on our minds the necessity of looking for the assistance of others, and inspire us with an affection for all that helps us. Thus Morelly, revealing the inner workings of the divine plan, shows how the stage was set to urge man on to a comprehensive benevolence; and these urgings the politicians and the moralists should have seconded, instead of playing the part of ‘maladroit mechanicians,’ breaking the springs and thereby involving the dissolution of humanity. Morelly is rather proud of his view of society as an automatic machine, and it recurs.

The methods by which primitive legislators should have kept man in the straight path are not obscure. There is but one vice in the world, namely Avarice.¹ All other vices, how different soever they may present themselves to the human eye, ultimately resolve themselves into a desire to possess, le désir d'avoir; and it therefore follows, with a devastatingly simple logic, that where there is no property, there can likewise be none of the pernicious consequences flowing from property. But our legislators, those pretended sages whom our imbecility admires, have broken the bonds of sociability in recognising property.² The law should have regulated, not property, but the use of property. Even now (apparently) if property is abolished, all will be well. If we are but delivered of this tyrant, as he tells us in a phrase of delicious and superfluous emphasis, it will be ‘impossible de toute impossibilité’ that man should be guilty of crime, that he should be either a thief, an assassin, or a conqueror.³ The legislators, however, missed the golden opportunity of basing society on the true intentions of Nature which, as will be seen presently, can be summarised in a few simple propositions. So far as concerns the application of these principles in practice to such matters as the direction of each to his appropriate employment and the assignment to each of the means of subsistence—all the tasks of the Ministry of Labour and of the Ministry of Food—this need cause no anxiety. Morelly belongs to that long and pathetic line that believes that the business of this world and the administration of government are matters which any child could compass in his less intelligent moments. All these questions, he says, merely amount to a simple matter of enumeration of things and of persons, a simple operation of calculation and combination and, consequently, ‘susceptible d'un très-bel ordre.’ Too often have socialist dreams of a Utopia been vitiated by the innocent faith that all business is ‘merely a matter of accounting.’

One other point in Morelly's general theory is perhaps worth mentioning, as it serves to link him with anarchist thought of a later date. He will have nothing to do with the suggestion that men are by nature indolent, or in any way averse from labour. If men appear to be lazy, or to be addicted to an untimely folding of the hands together, this also is the result of prejudices, springing from the institutions by which we have been corrupted. We have fixed a permanent condition of repose on some whom we call prosperous, leaving to others the heat and burden of the day. In these circumstances, where idleness is the privilege of the fortunate, it is natural that the others should acquire an aversion, indeed a dégaut, for work imposed upon them. That men are not naturally idle, may, however, be inferred from the zeal with which the rich seek ‘le tumulte fatiguant des plaisirs pour se délivrer d'une oisiveté importune.’ It is a wholly fallacious argument which in the fullness of time is called upon to bear a heavy burden.¹

The peculiarity of Morelly, however, lies in the fact that in the fourth part of the Code he is so temerarious as to give a model of legislation which conforms with the intentions of Nature.² It is a curious document. Quite obviously the intentions of Nature are not what they are usually assumed to be; moreover, Nature, which ought to confine herself to generalities, condescends to questions of detail which ought to be beneath her dignity. There are three fundamental and sacred laws, which are guaranteed by Morelly to cut the roots from the vices and evils of any society. These laws are buttressed by laws on specific subjects—distributive laws, agrarian laws, sumptuary laws, laws relating to the form of government, conjugal laws, penal laws and so on. These are not certified as fundamental and sacred; and on certain matters they contain very detailed provisions, sometimes of a rather arbitrary nature. What Morelly does is to present, professedly as a code of laws—though no lawyer would recognise it as such—the picture of a communistic society which owes not a little to More's Utopia. The three fundamental and sacred laws are somewhat general in their character. The first prescribes that there shall be no private property, apart from the things of which a man is making actual use, whether for his needs, his pleasures or his daily work—a definition which already opens a whole corridor of serious doors. The second, in a rather curious phrase, requires that every citizen is to be an ‘homme public,’ maintained and employed at the expense of the public. The third imposes on every citizen the obligation to contribute to the public good according to his strength, his talents and his age.³

The Morellian commonwealth is in part an orthodox Utopia; in part it has original features. However viewed, it would be a thoroughly unpleasant place of residence. The structure rests on families, tribes, cities and, if need be, provinces; and there is a system of government by rotation which may represent an obeisance to the principle of equality, but which would certainly sacrifice the remnants of efficiency. As in Utopia, goods are accumulated in, and distributed from, public magazines. In the event of a shortage of ‘provisions d'agrément,’ there may be a suspension or restriction of supplies. Essential goods are, however, dealt with on a different basis: ‘on prendra garde, avec soin, que ces accidens n'arrivent pas à l'egard de choses universellement nécessaires.’ ⁴ That ought to be quite enough to put a stop to a bad harvest. Every citizen works in agriculture from the age of 20 to 25, which again brings an echo from Utopia. Boys and girls are sorted out at the age of five, and entrusted to a curious rota of fathers and mothers, who do duty consecutively for periods of five days. It does not seem a very effective system of education; fortunately, education seems to end at the age of ten. At that age the children pass to the workshops: indeed, those who are bright may have acquired before then the rudiments of their destined trade. They are married off at the earliest possible moment, between the ages of fifteen and eighteen; and all marriages take place together at the beginning of the year. Religious, metaphysical and philosophical doctrine is prescribed, and no departure tolerated. Children are not to have their minds ‘imbued’ with any ‘fable, conte, ou fictions ridicules.’¹ The animosity of Utopians towards Red Riding Hood is deep-seated and ineradicable. There is an astonishing wealth of detailed provisions regarding divorce: Utopia apparently does not guarantee connubial felicity. One provision is so surprising that it deserves to be expiscated; the children (both sexes) remain with the father in the event of a divorce, and the woman whom he has last married will alone be regarded as their mother; none of those who have preceded her may take the title with regard to the children of the husband. This may be in conformity with the intentions of Nature, but one would like to know the sources of Morelly's information.

Lastly, these laws partake in part of the nature of the laws of the Persians and the Medes. The section dealing with government (foolish enough in itself) is, like the fundamental laws, to be reputed sacred and inviolable: ‘they cannot be changed or abrogated by anyone soever.’² Morelly shows a ghoulish enjoyment in the prospect of punishing his offenders, though it is odd that in a world where it was to have been ‘impossible de toute impossibilité’ for man to err, there should still be a place for penal laws. He is not the first of whom it may be said that the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. These laws for the restraint of criminals are, however, ‘aussi douces qu'efficaces.’ Morelly's ideas of a ‘douce’ punishment are somewhat peculiar. There are two grades of offenders, those who have merited separation from society for a time, and those who have deserved to ‘die civilly’—in other words to be separated perpetually from their fellows. In the least agreeable and most barren part of the country, Morelly contemplates the creation of a gloomy prison and a cemetery in close proximity. The prison with the heavy gratings is not, indeed, for those who would tamper with the laws. It is reserved for minor offenders, doing time—adulterers, those who speak disrespectfully of the Senators, and such small fry. Those who have deserved to die civilly, the would-be tamperers with the law, are accommodated in the cemetery, in spacious caverns with heavy iron bars, until they are not merely civilly dead, but dead in very deed. Thereafter the cavern becomes their tomb. It is an arrangement which is at least ultimately economical in the matter of transport; and again one can but wonder at the intentions of Nature.

Doubtless few will dissent from the verdict of M. Janet that this is indeed ‘un esprit vulgaire, et de bas étage,’ and that his is a socialism without light and without culture. This, however, does not prevent him from having given light, albeit a murky light, to others. Morelly and Mably indeed go hand in hand for many years, the inspiration of the egalitarian side of the French Revolution, culminating in the mysterious conspiracy of Babeuf. Babeuf was right when he said that the author of Le Code was the leader of his conspiracy: that he happened to call him Diderot is irrelevant. What chiefly astonishes and offends us to-day is perhaps not so much Morelly's shallow pilferings from all ages and his total lack of comprehension and profundity in face of the problems with which he professes to grapple, as his effrontery in fathering on Nature the details of a constitution and a system of law of which (apart from hints from Plato and More) no one but he could be the begetter. History, unfortunately, demands a place even for foolish people, and Morelly cannot be ignored here, partly because of his relation to Babeuf; partly (though one says it with regret) because in certain respects he holds out a hand to Fourier.