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Mably and Morelly had their disciples in Babeuf and the socialists. A naive confidence that the political upheaval meant regeneration and inaugurated a reign of justice and happiness pervaded France in the first period of the Revolution, and found a striking expression in the ceremonies of the universal "Federation" in the Champ-de-Mars on 14th July 1790.
'It was after the Revolution had fairly begun, as a contemporary says, 'that they sought in Mably and Rousseau for arms to sustain the system towards which the effervescence of some hardy spirits was dragging affairs. It was not the above-named authors who set people's heads aflame. M. Necker alone produced this effect, and determined the explosion.
'Coligny was an honest man, said the Abbe de Mably; 'Guise wore the mask of a greater number of virtues. Coligny was detested by the people; Guise was their idol. It is stated that the Admiral left a diary, which Charles IX. read with interest, but the Marshal de Retz had it flung into the fire.
Seated beside the fire in his big arm-chair, he used to read from morning till night; and it is from him that I inherit my love of books. I have in my library a Mably and a Raynal, which he annotated with his own hand from beginning to end. But it was utterly useless attempting to interest him in anything practical whatever.
"'They have the right to do what they like, says Helvetius; to 'change their constitution, says Vattel; to 'revolt against injustice, according to the contention of Glafey, Hotman, Mably, and others; and St. Thomas Aquinas authorises them to 'deliver themselves from a tyrant. 'They are even, says Jurieu, 'dispensed from being right."
But, oh! sublime writers, deign to remember sometimes that this clay, this sand, this manure, of which you are disposing in so arbitrary a manner, are men, your equals, intelligent and free beings like yourselves, who have received from God, as you have, the faculty of seeing, of foreseeing, of thinking, and of judging for themselves! Mably.
We have seen that, in cases where the evil is so great that the ordinary magistrates are unable to remedy it, Mably recommends a dictatorship, to promote virtue. "Have recourse," says he, "to an extraordinary magistracy, whose time shall be short, and his power considerable. The imagination of the people requires to be impressed." This doctrine has not been neglected. Listen to Robespierre:
The immediate object of the work was to counteract the weight of opinion advanced by several popular European writers of that day, Mr. Turgot, the Abbe de Mably and Dr. Price, at a time when the people of the United States were employed in forming and revising their system of government.
Arcadianism, which was thus only a side-issue for Rousseau, was the extreme expression of tendencies which appear in the speculations of other thinkers of the day. Morelly and Mably argued in favour of a reversion to simpler forms of life. They contemplated the foundation of socialistic communities by reviving institutions and practices which belonged to a past period of social evolution.
The immediate object of the work was to counteract the weight of opinions advanced by several popular European writers of that day, M. Turgot, the Abbé de Mably, and Dr. Price, at a time when the people of the United States were employed in forming and revising their systems of government.
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