Proudhon - A Biography

THE CRITIC OF PROPERTY
justice o f this self-definition, for it anticipated the most distinc­
tive characteristic of his polemical technique— the powerful use of
paradox, contradiction and antinomy to illuminate his reasoning
and deepen his criticism.
It soon became evident, though Proudhon expressed a con­
siderable personal regard for Droz, that the academician could
give him little in the way of instruction, since they disagreed
almost immediately on the aims of philosophy, history, linguis­
tics and every other subject that Proudhon was studying; Droz
seems to have argued that almost all had been said in these fields
of knowledge, whereas Proudhon felt that they were capable of
indefinite extension. Droz himself was sensitive enough to realise
their incompatibility, and limited their contacts to twice-weekly
conferences, which grew more irregular as Proudhon became
engrossed in his individual pattern o f work.
Nor were Droz’s efforts to overcome his pupil’s timidity by
introducing him to the social life of intellectual Paris any more
successful, for when he was invited to soirees Proudhon was too
terrified to attend. ‘Have you forgotten what it is to be a Franc-
Comtois of pure blood and pure race, who has never lived except
with his dreams, alone in contemplation between the sky and the
pine trees ?’ he asked Droz in a letter o f apology and explanation.
‘I am still only that. For the twenty years since I reached the age
o f reason I have almost always lived alone, and you would trans­
plant me suddenly into the most distinguished societyl No, I
could never endure such a trial!’
His excessive shyness impeded Proudhon’s contact with
scholars who worked in the fields that interested him; he became
a solitary student, rarely indulging in the reciprocal process of
discussion, and to this fact one can perhaps attribute the eccen­
tricity of thought and the encyclopaedic indiscipline in presenting
facts which so often mark his later works as those o f an un­
professional philosopher. They are faults whose corresponding
virtues are the equally individualist qualities of originality and
flexibility.
In his own way he worked from the beginning o f his stay in
Paris with fervour and energy. He attended the public lectures at
the Sorbonne, the College de France and the Conservatoire des
Arts et Metiers, and sent back to his friends highly critical notes
on the superficiality of the lectures and the backscratching