LIBERTY, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY
Explanation of Allan Kardec in the book Posthumous Works.
"Liberty, equality and fraternity", three words that are in itselves the program of a social order, that would realize the most absolute progress of the humanity, if the principles that they represent could receive entire application. Let us see the obstacles that, in the present state of the society, it can be presented to them and we will seek the means to remove them.
The fraternity, in the rigorous acceptation of the word, summarizes all the duties of the man towards the similar. It means: devotedness, abnegation, tolerance, benevolence, indulgence; is the evangelical charity par excellence and the application of the maxim "to do to the others what we want that the others do to us." The opposite is the norm of selfishness. The fraternity proclaims: one for all and all for one; the selfishness emphasizes: every man for himself. These two principles, being the negation one of the other, both impede to the egoist to be fraternal how to the avaricious to be generous and a mediocre man of reaching the level of a great man. Well, being the selfishness social, as long as it dominates will be impossible the true fraternity, wanting it each one to his own advantage; or, at most, will practice it to the benefit of others, only after be sure that nothing will lose with this.
The Liberty depends of the Fraternity and of the Equality
Attentive to its importance to the realization of the social happiness, the fraternity is at the first line: is the base; without it would be impossible the reals liberty and the equality. The equality arises from the fraternity and the liberty of the conjunct of the two. Let us suppose a society of men really disinterested, benevolent and helpful, in order to live fraternally. Among them there will be no exceptional privileges and rights, which would destroy the fraternity. Treat someone as brother is to treat of equal-to-equal, it is to want for him the same as for you. In a people of brothers, the equality will be the consequence of their feelings, of his manner of proceeding, and will be established by the force of the things.
Which is, however, the enemy of the equality? The pride, that works for being the first and for to dominate; that lives of privileges and exceptions and that will take advantage of the first occasion in order to destroy the social equality, for it never desired. Well, being the pride one of the social plagues, it is evident that no one society will have the equality without first devastate this barrier.
The liberty, already we said, is the daughter of equality and fraternity. We speak of the legal liberty, and not of the natural, which is an imprescriptible right of every human creature, even of the savage. The men, living as brothers, with equal rights, animated by the sentiment of mutual benevolence, will practice among themselves the justice, will not cause damage and, therefore, nothing shall fear ones of the others. The liberty will be inoffensive, because no one will abuse of it, in prejudice of his neighbor. How to get that the egoism, all wishing to itself, and the pride, that wants to dominate everything, give the hands to the liberty, that dethrones them? Will never do, because the liberty has no more radical enemies, as well as the equality and the fraternity.
The liberty presupposes mutual confidence, but this feeling is impossible among men who only have in view to their personality and, not being able to satisfy his ambition at the expense of others, living on guard against each other, always afraid of losing what they call the his right, have the predominance as a condition of existence; and therefore will raise barriers to the liberty and will suffocate it so quickly find propitious opportunity.
The three principles are, as we have said, in solidarity with each other and support each other mutually. Without their coexistence, the social edifice is incomplete. The fraternity, practiced in its purity, requires the liberty and the equality, without which it will not be perfect. Without the fraternity, the liberty shall be subject to the evil passions that will run without brakes. With the fraternity, the man will know regulate the free will, and will always be in the order. Without it, will use the free will without scruples; will be the license and the anarchy. That is why the most free nations are forced to put limits to the liberty. The equality, without fraternity, conducts to the same results, because the equality requires the liberty. Under the pretext of the equality, the small eliminates the great, in order to take his place, and he becomes tyrant in his turn. There is only a dislocation of the despotism.
From the exposed, does it result that should remain in slavery the people that do not yet have the true feeling of fraternity? That has no capacity for the institutions founded on the principles of equality and liberty? To think so is more than making a mistake, it is to commit an absurd. Never is expected that the child get to all his organic development in order to teach her to walk.
Who is, most often, the guide or guardian of the peoples? Are the men of great and generous ideas dominated by the love of the progress, that take advantage of the submission of their inferiors, in order to develop in them the moral sense and elevate them, little by little, to the condition of free men? Not: they are, almost always, men conscious of their power, to whose ambition others serve of instruments more intelligent than the animals and, that, for this, instead of emancipating them, retain them, when they can, under his dominion and in the ignorance. This order of things, however, changes by itself, under the irresistible influence of the progress.
The reaction is, often, violent and even more terrible as the feeling of fraternity, imprudently suffocated, not interposes its moderate power. The struggle occurs between those who want to conquest and those who want to keep; then, a conflict that is prolonged, sometimes, for centuries. A fictitious equilibrium finally establishes itself. The conditions improve, but the fundaments of the social order are not firm, the earth shakes under the feet; because it is not yet the time of the reign of the liberty and of the equality under the aegis of the fraternity, seen as the pride and the selfishness still contrast with the efforts of the men of good.
You all, that dream with this golden age to the humanity, work mainly in the construction of building foundations; before of having crowned his power, give her by cornerstone the fraternity in its purest acceptation; but one must know that, for this, is not enough to decree and to register the word in a flag; it is necessary that there is the feeling in the fund of the hearts and it be not exchanged by legislative dispositions. As well as in order to make fruitful a field must be removed the rocks and tears the herb, it is urgent work unceasingly in order to remove and tear the pride and the selfishness, because they are the source of all the evil, the real obstacle to the realm of the good things.
Lets destroy in the laws, in the institutions, in the religions, in the education, the most imperceptible traces of the times of barbarism and of the privileges, as well as all the causes, that entertain and develop those eternal obstacles to the true progress, vices that are ingested, so to speak, with the milk, and aspirated through all the pores in the social atmosphere.
Only then will the men understand the duties and benefits of fraternity, only then will fix for itselves, without shocks and without dangers, the complementary principles of liberty and equality. And is it possible the destruction of pride and egoism? High and formally we respond: YES; because on the contrary, it will be fixed an eternal mark to the progress of the humanity. That the man grows always in Intelligence is incontestable fact. Will have reached the culminating point of his walk by that way? Who would dare to sustain such an absurd thesis? Progress in morality? To answer this question, is enough to compare the epochs of the same country. Why would he have reached the limit of moral progress and not of the intellectual progress? His aspiration for a better order of things is an indication of the possibility of achieving it. To those who are progressives must accelerate this movement by means of the study and of the utilization of the most efficient means.
