The Psychology of Revolution | Page 8

evolution is, therefore, far
more appropriate than revolution.
The various elements we have enumerated as entering into the genesis
of the majority of revolutions will not suffice to classify them.
Considering only the designed object, we will divide them into
scientific revolutions, political revolutions, and religious revolutions.
2. Scientific Revolutions.

Scientific revolutions are by far the most important. Although they
attract but little attention, they are often fraught with remote
consequences, such as are not engendered by political revolutions. We
will therefore put them first, although we cannot study them here.
For instance, if our conceptions of the universe have profoundly
changed since the time of the Revolution, it is because astronomical
discoveries and the application of experimental methods have
revolutionised them, by demonstrating that phenomena, instead of
being conditioned by the caprices of the gods, are ruled by invariable
laws.
Such revolutions are fittingly spoken of as evolution, on account of
their slowness. But there are others which, although of the same order,
deserve the name of revolution by reason of their rapidity: we may
instance the theories of Darwin, overthrowing the whole science of
biology in a few years; the discoveries of Pasteur, which revolutionised
medicine during the lifetime of their author; and the theory of the
dissociation of matter, proving that the atom, formerly supposed to be
eternal, is not immune from the laws which condemn all the elements
of the universe to decline and perish.
These scientific revolutions in the domain of ideas are purely
intellectual. Our sentiments and beliefs do not affect them. Men submit
to them without discussing them. Their results being controllable by
experience, they escape all criticism.
3. Political Revolutions.
Beneath and very remote from these scientific revolutions, which
generate the progress of civilisations, are the religious and political
revolutions, which have no kinship with them. While scientific
revolutions derive solely from rational elements, political and religious
beliefs are sustained almost exclusively by affective and mystic factors.
Reason plays only a feeble part in their genesis.
I insisted at some length in my book Opinions and Beliefs on the
affective and mystic origin of beliefs, showing that a political or

religious belief constitutes an act of faith elaborated in unconsciousness,
over which, in spite of all appearances, reason has no hold. I also
showed that belief often reaches such a degree of intensity that nothing
can be opposed to it. The man hypnotised by his faith becomes an
Apostle, ready to sacrifice his interests, his happiness, and even his life
for the triumph of his faith. The absurdity of his belief matters little; for
him it is a burning reality. Certitudes of mystic origin possess the
marvellous power of entire domination over thought, and can only be
affected by time.
By the very fact that it is regarded as an absolute truth a belief
necessarily becomes intolerant. This explains the violence, hatred, and
persecution which were the habitual accompaniments of the great
political and religious revolutions, notably of the Reformation and the
French Revolution.
Certain periods of French history remain incomprehensible if we forget
the affective and mystic origin of beliefs, their necessary intolerance,
the impossibility of reconciling them when they come into mutual
contact, and, finally, the power conferred by mystic beliefs upon the
sentiments which place themselves at their service.
The foregoing conceptions are too novel as yet to have modified the
mentality of the historians. They will continue to attempt to explain, by
means of rational logic, a host of phenomena which are foreign to it.
Events such as the Reformation, which overwhelmed France for a
period of fifty years, were in no wise determined by rational influences.
Yet rational influences are always invoked in explanation, even in the
most recent works. Thus, in the General History of Messrs. Lavisse and
Rambaud, we read the following explanation of the Reformation:--
``It was a spontaneous movement, born here and there amidst the
people, from the reading of the Gospels and the free individual
reflections which were suggested to simple persons by an extremely
pious conscience and a very bold reasoning power.''
Contrary to the assertion of these historians, we may say with certainty,

in the first place, that such movements are never spontaneous, and
secondly, that reason takes no part in their elaboration.
The force of the political and religious beliefs which have moved the
world resides precisely in the fact that, being born of affective and
mystic elements, they are neither created nor directed by reason.
Political or religious beliefs have a common origin and obey the same
laws. They are formed not with the aid of reason, but more often
contrary to all reason. Buddhism, Islamism, the Reformation,
Jacobinism, Socialism, &c., seem very different forms of thought. Yet
they have identical affective and mystic bases, and obey a logic that has