Page:Georges Sorel, Reflections On Violence (1915).djvu/93

 Rh interests of the proletariat (September 17, 1905); but how is it possible to know where these interests he when the principle of the class war is no longer taken as your unique and absolute rule?

Parliamentary Socialists believe that they possess special faculties which enable them to take into account, not only the material and immediate advantages reaped by the working classes, but also the moral reasons which compel Socialism to form part of the great Republican family. Their congresses spend their energies in putting together formulas designed to regulate Socialist diplomacy, in settling what alliances are permitted and what forbidden, in reconciling the abstract principle of the class war (which they are anxious to retain verbally) with the reality of the agreements with politicians. Such an undertaking is madness, and therefore leads to equivocations, when it does not force deputies into attitudes of deplorable hypocrisy. Each year problems have to be rediscussed, because all diplomacy requires a flexibility which is incompatible with the existence of perfectly clear statutes.

The casuistry which Pascal scoffed at so much was not more subtle and more absurd than that which is to be found in polemics between what are called the Socialist schools. Escobar would have some difficulty in finding his bearings amid the distinctions of Jaurès; the moral theology of responsible Socialists is not one of the least of the buffooneries of our time.

All moral theology can be split up into two tendencies: there are casuists who say that we must be content with opinions having a slight probability, others that we should always adopt those that are strictest and most certain. This distinction was bound to be met with among our Parliamentary Socialists. Jaurès prefers the soft and conciliatory method, provided that means are found to make it agree, somehow or other, with first principles.