Des rapports observés entre les moyens d’existence et l’état social de quelques peuples d’espèce mon

CHAP. 29: > Of the relations observed between the means of existence and the social state of some peoples of the Mongol species, of the west and of the center of Asia. — Parallel between the morals of the peoples of this species who live under a cold climate and the morals of those who live under a hot climate.

Persia presents us with a phenomenon analogous to the one we have observed in China: two classes of men who originally belong to the same species, but who have found themselves in different positions. On one side are the descendants of the men who first appropriated the soil by cultivating it; on the other, the descendants of the Barbarians who descended from the mountains and subjugated them. The former practice the arts and cultivate the land; they form the mass of the population. The latter, having become by conquest possessors of the best part of the soil, absorb a large part of its products. These fill the public offices, command the armies, or compose the monarch's court: they are the grandees. The physical characteristics of this part of the population have changed through alliances with women of the Caucasian species; but the moral characteristics have not undergone the same alteration. It must be added that the armies which the grandees command are ceaselessly recruited in the mountains of central Asia, and that thus the industrious population is constantly subjected to men whose moral character is formed only in cold and sterile lands. This distinction was necessary to understand the difference that exists between the morals of the diverse classes of the population.

Persia has not always been what it is today: several parts of the deserts, which are now uninhabited, were once cultivated and contained an industrious population. The wars that the inhabitants have had to sustain against foreigners began the ruin of this country, and it was the soldiers of a lieutenant of Omar and the religion of Muhammad that completed it.

The government of Persia, like that of Turkey, has no principle other than conquest: all powers are therefore concentrated in the hands of the chief of the army. But as any force can be destroyed by a contrary force, the conquerors brought in a second power to consolidate their possession: they called themselves the delegates and ministers of the Supreme Being. The Persians have created no fictions about the effects produced by the power of their princes: far from supposing that their kings can do no wrong, they say, on the contrary, that they are naturally violent and unjust, and that they must be considered as such. In their language, to be guilty of injustice and violence, or to play the king, is exactly the same thing. If they complain before a magistrate of an excessive outrage, and if they wish to express the highest degree of aggravation, they say: He played the king with me [56]. But, at the same time that they judge their kings by the facts that happen before their eyes, they admit, as a point of religion, that they owe them full and complete obedience, and that they are permitted to resist only when religion itself makes it a duty for them. In their eyes, the king's orders are above all human laws.

“Thus,” says Chardin, “the son must be the executioner of his father, or the father of his son, when the king commands him to put him to death; but they hold, on the other hand, that his orders are below divine law [57].”

These maxims are not conventional doctrines that one recites without believing in them; they are the result of a profound conviction that the priests imprint upon minds, because they form the basis of their power, and they do not have to fear that they will be turned against them. Having declared the kings' orders to be inferior to their doctrines, they can, without any danger, declare them superior to all the rest. Among the grandees, the wise themselves regard the kings not only as the ministers of justice, but as the oracles of divine justice itself. It is the principle of fatalism, carried as far as it can extend: this principle gives them that inconceivable resignation to the royal will, which they manifest in all circumstances. If it happens that their king condemns them to perish, they await their death sentence without a murmur; and when it is brought to them, they often help with the execution themselves [58].

Having learned, from the mouths of their priests, that their kings were given to them by the Divinity, and that the royal will has nothing above it except the divine will of which the priests are the interpreters, one should not be astonished if the grandees of Persia honor themselves with the title of slaves of the king; thus it is a title that is given only to the troops one wishes to honor, and to the people raised at court or born into office [59]. The title of subject, indicating a conquered man, is an ignoble qualification that is given only to peasants or to people who are even below them. But one says, a slave of the king, as one formerly said in France, a marquis [60]. This title designates that the one who bears it is the instrument or the ally of the conqueror. If they speak of the most precious jewels or clothing, they say that they are worthy of the wardrobe of the slaves of the king. If they speak of an ambassador who has been admitted to bow before the monarch, they say that he has kissed the feet of the king's slaves. Finally, if they speak of a heroic deed executed by the king himself, they say: The slaves of the king have performed a great action [61]. Nothing is great enough to be worthy of the king, and everything is attributed to his slaves, that is to say, to the soldiers or officers of his army [62].

The education of princes corresponds to the ideas that the priests give of them to the rest of the nation. Confined with women and eunuchs, they are first taught to read, to write, to draw a bow, and to do some handiwork; but they receive no other intellectual development than that which the priests give them; and the priests teach them only what relates to religion; to read the Quran and know how to interpret it in the sense that the priests desire, this is what a prince's learning is reduced to. He can therefore have, concerning the divinity of his person, the same ideas as his subjects, without any danger resulting for the priesthood. It is the ideas of his preceptors that reign in him, and these ideas have nothing in common with morality or with humanity. The priests not only make themselves masters of the princes by forming their understanding; they make themselves masters of the princesses by becoming their husbands. It is they who marry them, and the children they have by them are no less capable of succeeding to the throne than the children of the princes themselves [63].

One can conceive that, in a country where the priests have succeeded in propagating such maxims, and where the princes receive such an education from them, the kings could not have much respect either for persons or for properties [64]. Thus, the slightest desire of the monarch is executed the instant it manifests itself, without anyone permitting himself either to examine its justice or to foresee its consequences. If, in a moment of spite or impatience, the king says, speaking of a grandee of his court, that his eyes should be torn out, the nearest individual tears them out, without having to be told twice. If he says, speaking of an old man who has dared to implore royal clemency for a friend, "flay that dog," his courtiers flay him instantly; for in Persia, as in Russia until the last century, there are no other executioners, for the execution of royal sentences, than the monarch and his courtiers. Having seven or eight grandees cut to pieces in his presence; sending their wives and daughters to houses of prostitution after parading them on donkeys through the streets; having the eyes of his children, and those of his sisters and brothers, torn out, except for his successor; confiscating the riches that tempt him—these are, for a king of Persia, actions so familiar and habitual that they do not even excite his subjects' surprise. And his courtiers are no less avid for grandeur and power than those of the most moderate governments of Europe, which proves, it seems to me, that a people can be governed quite badly, even when its ministers are not inviolable [65].

In Persia, the wives of the grandees are but their slaves; and as polygamy is in use among them, they keep them in the most severe seclusion. The women of this class of the population are stripped of all kinds of authority, and do not even involve themselves in household affairs. They are esteemed neither for their wit, nor for their skill, nor for any kind of work; they are considered, in a word, only for their service to the pleasures of their masters, and to the propagation of the species. This abuse of the force of one sex over the other, and the contempt of which the weak are the object in all countries where there is no justice, lead the grandees to habits and actions that one can easily guess: vices against nature, violence, murders, poisonings, abortions, infanticides [66].

The grandees exercise a very extensive power over the people; however, they cannot exercise a power over them equal to that which is exercised upon themselves. The custom of presents that always go from the poor to the rich, the venality of functionaries, and the forced labor to which the peasants are subjected, are for the population very heavy burdens from which each seeks as much as he can to escape.

When a country has been subjected to such a regime by a conquering army, and the priestly power has come to lend its authority to the military power, it is easy to foresee the morals that must be the consequence. Should one expect that the grandees will have frankness and elevation of character, before a prince who has only to make a sign to have their eyes torn out or to have them flayed alive? Should one think that, seeing themselves at every moment on the verge of being stripped of their fortune, they will be very economical with it, and will impose privations on themselves to transmit it to their children? Should one think that, being ceaselessly exposed to injustice and oppression, they will not in their turn be unjust and oppressive, when they believe they can be so with impunity? Should one hope, finally, that women continually exposed to contempt and violence, and having no honorable means of defense, will not have recourse to cunning, to perfidy, to soften their captivity or to avenge themselves for it?

Passing from the higher classes of society to the lower, should we think that the same causes will not produce the same effects? Will men be very trusting, if they have no legal way to obtain justice when they are deceived? Will they be very industrious, if they have no certainty of being paid for their pains, or if they are ceaselessly exposed to seeing its fruit snatched away? Will they be very truthful, if the truth exposes them to arbitrary punishments? Will they never have recourse to cunning, if they have only this means of escaping violence? In Persia, the grandees, according to Chardin, are flattering, deceitful, groveling, greedy, improvident, profligate, and lazy. It would be very astonishing if this were not so; they have that in common with all slaves; and those of cold countries are no different from those of hot countries.

However, whatever the current state of the population of Persia, one must not believe that it is more enslaved and more vicious than that of northern Asia, or even than that of some countries of northern Europe. The peasants are not attached to the soil; if they cultivate, as elsewhere, a soil of which they do not have ownership, they at least cultivate it only by virtue of agreements they have freely made; sometimes, they have half of the produce, often even three-quarters, according to the nature of the soil. The king's lands are also cultivated by farmers who have taken them voluntarily, who have a more or less considerable share of the fruits, and who can abandon them when the term of their lease has expired. One does not see in Persia, as in the north of Asia and even of Europe, a prince giving thousands of peasants to his courtiers, as he would give them herds. Although subjected to certain forms of forced labor, similar to those that have existed in all the countries of Europe, the peasants of Persia live quite comfortably.

“I can assure you,” says Chardin, “that there are some incomparably more miserable in the most fertile countries of Europe. I have seen everywhere Persian peasant women with silver torcs, and large silver rings on their hands and feet, with chains that hang from their necks to their navels, along which are threaded silver coins, and sometimes gold coins. One likewise sees children adorned with coral necklaces around their necks. They are well supplied with dishes and furniture; but, in exchange for these comforts, they are exposed to insults and sometimes to blows from a stick from the king's men and the viziers, when they are not given soon enough what they ask for, which is understood to apply to the men only; for, as for the women and girls, one has consideration for them everywhere in the Orient, and it never happens that a hand is laid on them [67].”

The servants who serve in the houses of the grandees are not slaves as they are in the north of Asia and of Europe, and they receive very high wages [68]. The artisans are not slaves either; they work or rest when it suits them, and set the price they please on their work [69].The Persians are intolerant neither toward foreigners, nor toward those who do not profess their religion; they are, on the contrary, very hospitable; they welcome and protect foreigners; they even tolerate religions that seem abominable to them [70]. Finally, they have never thought of placing fetters on the freedom to change location; among them, everyone can go where he pleases, leave the kingdom or re-enter it, without anyone thinking of asking him for a passport [71]. They do not believe that their government can demand an account of their every movement, mark each person with a particular sign, and denounce as a suspect or even as a malefactor any individual who is not furnished with the sign. It is only the free men of the cold and temperate climates of Europe who bear on their person this irrefutable mark of their liberty.

The general morals of the mass of the population are far superior to those that existed in the seventeenth century in the most civilized States of Europe.

“I attribute the order that is maintained at executions in Europe,” says Chardin, “to the great quantity of scoundrels who are found there; as, on the contrary, the little regularity observed in the Orient in the judgment and execution of criminals, I attribute to the morals of that country, which one can call humane. In effect, we are so depraved in our countries, that if one did not treat the guilty more harshly than in Persia, the cities and the countryside would become so many cut-throat dens where, as in Mingrelia, each, out of fear of his neighbor, would be obliged to sleep half-clothed, with his sword in his arms. One almost never hears in Persia of breaking into houses, entering by main force, and slaughtering everyone inside. One does not know what assassination, duels, hostile encounters, or poison are. In all the time I was in Persia, where I spent my entire sojourn in the capital city, or in the retinue of the court, or else in other large cities, I saw only a single man executed, so that, with the exception of that one, all that I can report of the punishments of that country is only by hearsay [72].”

It is true that polygamy is not prohibited to any class of society, and it is for the individuals of both sexes who practice it or who are subjected to it, a source of vices, crimes, and misfortunes; but the men who belong to the great mass of the population generally have only one wife; some by reason, others by necessity. In the ordinary ranks of society, and among the peasants, women are treated with gentleness and are not exposed to any ill-treatment, even from the grandees and the employees of the government; thus, the most considerable part of the population is exempt from the vices that the plurality of women engenders.

To the north of Persia exist peoples who, by the elevation of the soil even more than by the degree of latitude under which they are placed, live under a comparatively cold climate. Now, do these peoples have more activity, courage, industry, and morals than the peoples placed under a less elevated latitude? Quite the contrary: they are the laziest, poorest, filthiest, and most vicious peoples of these countries. Chardin saw in Persia an embassy of these peoples; and he was told, he says, prodigious things of the scarcity of their country, and of their vile morals. The ambassador and his retinue were ill-favored people, poorly dressed and having the air of brigands. They kept themselves so filthily in the palace where they had been lodged, he adds, that it is not to be believed; with the exception of the ambassador's chamber, everything was full of filth and was sickening [73].

Chardin, struck by the contrast offered to him by ancient Persia, and Persia under the reign of the Muslim soldiers and priests, sought to account for the causes of this difference.

“I have reflected a hundred times,” he says, “on so strange a change, and it has come to my mind that this came firstly from the fact that the ancient inhabitants of Persia were robust, laborious, and diligent; whereas the new inhabitants are lazy, voluptuous, and speculative; secondly, from the fact that the former made a religion of agriculture, and they believed that it was serving God to plow; whereas the latter have principles that lead them to the contempt of activity, that cast them into voluptuousness, and that distance them from labor [74].”

But how did this change come about? Why did the Persians cease to be robust, laborious, diligent? Why did they cease to make a religion of agriculture, and to believe that they were serving God by plowing the earth? Why did they become lazy, speculative, voluptuous? Why did they adopt principles that lead them to the contempt of activity, that distance them from labor and cast them into voluptuousness? It is because barbarous peoples imported their prejudices and vices among them, and because the most active and laborious populations become idle and lazy when they lose the certainty of enjoying the fruit of their labors.

We must count among the principal causes of the ruin of Persia the ravages committed by its own armies to prevent or to halt the invasions of foreign armies. Montesquieu attributed these ravages to a systematic spirit common to all despotic governments; one could perhaps give a more natural explanation of this phenomenon. The armies of this country are composed in large part of the Tatars who inhabit the north of Persia, and one knows the horror that these peoples have for cultivation and for cities. In transforming the cultivated country into a desert, some may imagine that they are increasing the extent of their possessions; others may believe they are returning to their primitive state. How would the descendants of the Tatars who dominated in Persia not be flattered at the idea of seeing fertile countries converted into deserts, when among less barbarous peoples, there are men who feel the desire to see the countryside converted into forests and covered with wild beasts? Each race of men seems to have an irresistible tendency to return to the state from which it started; and everything that tends to distance it from that state is for it an object of antipathy.