We are assured that the human soul is a simple substance; but if the soul is such a simple substance, it ought to be the same in all the individuals of the human race, who all ought to have the same intellectual faculties; however, this is not the case; men differ as much in qualities of mind as in the features of the face.
There are in the human race, beings as different from one another as man is from a horse or a dog. What conformity or resemblance do we find between some men? What an infinite distance between the genius of a Locke, of a Newton, and that of a peasant, of a Hottentot, or of a Laplander!
Man differs from other animals but by the difference of his organization, which causes him to produce effects of which they are not capable. The variety which we notice in the organs of individuals of the human race, suffices to explain to us the difference which is often found between them in regard to the intellectual faculties. More or less of delicacy in these organs, of heat in the blood, of promptitude in the fluids, more or less of suppleness or of rigidity in the fibers and the nerves, must necessarily produce the infinite diversities which are noticeable in the minds of men. It is by exercise, by habitude, by education, that the human mind is developed and succeeds in rising above the beings which surround it; man, without culture and without experience, is a being as devoid of reason and of industry as the brute.
A stupid individual is a man whose organs are acted upon with difficulty, whose brain is hard to move, whose blood circulates slowly; a man of mind is he whose organs are supple, who feels very quickly, whose brain moves promptly; a learned man is one whose organs and whose brain have been exercised a long while upon objects which occupy him.
The man without culture, experience, or reason, is he not more despicable and more abominable than the vilest insects, or the most ferocious beasts? Is there a more detestable being in nature than a Tiberius, a Nero, a Caligula? These destroyers of the human race, known by the name of conquerors, have they better souls than those of bears, lions, and panthers? Are there more detestable animals in this world than tyrants?
I’ve got to disagree with Meslier, here. The tyrant is bad, but it is the tyrant’s supporters who empower them (per De Boetie) without their armies of chanting goons or efficient soldiers they are nothing. What Meslier wishes to ignore is the conspiracy that inevitably supports a tyrant: a cloud of yes-men, dirt-slingers, lawyers, “fixers” and thugs without whom they could not be in power. Meslier ignores the corruption that is tyranny; it’s not just corruption of the leader, it’s the corrupt supporters they install.
Don’t forget the corruption in the population. Trump is not in office because of Giulianni or Bannon or even Fox News. He is in office because of the long-standing, deep-rooted racism (etc.) in the USAan population. I don’t think the people who voted for him were unaware of just what kind of person Trump is — he has never, ever made any attempt to hide it, and it’s the “platform” he campaigned on. They knew what he was, and that’s who they wanted running their country. And they stick with him because whatever benefit they feel they get from racism and bigotry is more important to them than whatever material harm they suffer from his gang’s policies.
Not that the people who oppose him are free of racism, misogyny, etc. On the one hand, we need only look at the racist, classist, and imperialist policies that elected officials in the Democratic party have been willing to endorse, on the other, we keep seeing public displays of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and every other kind of bigotry in supposedly “progressive” leaders and groups.
Our entire population (USA, at least) is marinated in corruptions, and anyone who pretends they aren’t infected by it in ways they can’t see is just in denial about it.
I am reminded of “The Universal Soldier” by Buffy Sainte Marie. ( Better known from Donovan’s cover version.) In the USA we often idolize the individuals in the armed forces without thinking about the realities of our forever wars.
I’ve got to say, this one isn’t Meslier at his best. His premises don’t seem to lead to his conclusions. He starts off with a very European, elitist, privileged POV comparing Locke and Newton to those beastly savages, with large dollops of casual racism thrown in. Of course there is a natural hierarchy of intelligence. Then he pivots to attacking the late Emperors, not, as a democratic view would have it, because peasants may have just as much or more worth and value as these three individuals, but rather because the wrong elites ended up on top. One presumes that if Locke and Newton had ended up as Emperors due to their intellectual superiority, he’d be just ducky with that. He doesn’t complain that we shouldn’t have Emperors, just that we shouldn’t have them unless they have “culture, experience, or reason” as he sees them.
I quite like Jared Diamond’s take, who points out that none of the elites like Meslier who look down upon the Kalihari bushmen would survive for 24 hours if dropped in the middle of the Kalihari desert where the bushmen live comfortably or even luxuriously. I’m always reminding myself that the student who is incapable or writing a coherent paragraph may have an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball stats. I think it’s best to assume we all have basically the same intellectual capacity, we just choose to use it in different ways. Even Tiberius, Nero, Caligula, and Trump may have had something they were good at — it just didn’t happen to be governing.
I mean, look at this passage again:
It looks as if he is building up to an argument as to why Europeans ought to occupy the savages; the whole thing about tyrants seem to come out of the blue. It really sounds as if he’s all in for social hierarchies, as long as the folks he likes are on top. Seriously, it’s attitudes like this that help explain why the European revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries went so frequently bad.
Maybe the sentiments expressed here aren’t typical of him? I hope?
brucegee1962@#4:
Maybe the sentiments expressed here aren’t typical of him? I hope?
He moslty sticks to attacks against religion. When he starts trying to bridge between anti-religion philosophy and politics, he has the same problems as a lot of enlightenment philosophers.
Interesting. His Wikipedia bio says he was some kind of proto-communist — maybe it just shows up more in his other writings.
I was wondering what happened to Monday Meslier.
As someone who has never been able to get an English translation of Meslier’s original work, I am always wary that some words attributed to him may have come from Baron d’Holbach. I raise this because Locke in particular had a similar worldview to Holbach.
polishsalami@#7:
The English translation I use is from project gutenberg [here]
Merry christmas!
brucegee1962@#6:
Interesting. His Wikipedia bio says he was some kind of proto-communist — maybe it just shows up more in his other writings.
Sort of. It appears that as he lost his faith, he tried to salvage value from christ’s alleged teachings – which sounds a bit like team-spirited communism if you squint.
Meslier seems to have been a profoundly conflicted man. He appears to have starved himself to death as a way of escaping his religion and the shame of preaching lies for years.
I was wondering what happened to Monday Meslier.
I keep thinking “I wish Meslier were here to write about Trump.” Then I think “I wish Voltaire were here to write about Trump.” Or even “I wish Mark Twain was here to write about Trump.” What a waste of ink all that would be.
That is Baron d’Holbach’s work, I believe.