In Philosophie du Progres, as the book was called, Proudhon
declares that the unifying bond in the many propositions he
upholds, the ‘something that links them together and forms out
of them a body o f doctrine,’ is the affirmation o f Progress and the
denial o f the Absolute. By Progress, using an almost Heraclitian
formula, he means ‘the affirmation o f universal movement and
in consequence the negation o f all immutable forms and formulae,
o f all doctrines o f eternity, permanence or impeccability, o f all
permanent order, not excepting that o f the universe, and o f every
subject or object, spiritual or transcendental, that does not change.’
According to this hypothesis, there can be no completion of
evolution; the movement of the universe is perpetual because the
universe itself is infinite. Equilibrium, which is the comple
mentary condition to movement, does not tend to uniformity or
immobility; on the contrary, by the conservation o f forces, it leads
to the universal renewal of movement. Thus, for man, as for the
universe, there is no final end; progress, though it does not pro
ceed in a regular manner, is constant. ‘We are carried along with
the universe in an incessant metamorphosis.’ In such a world the
Absolute has no place, and morality arises spontaneously as a
manifestation of Progress; ‘morality has no other sanction than
itself,’ Proudhon declares, anticipating the doctrine of immanence
developed later in D e la Justice.
Though The Philosophy of Progress is not primarily a political
pamphlet, it contains political undertones; progress is equated
with federalism and the direct government o f the people, and
Proudhon declares that in social relations the notion o f progress
must replace ‘constitutions and catechisms.’
Compared with almost any other o f Proudhon’s books, this is
a mild essay that keeps close to its philosophical subject and
avoids those inflammatory outbursts against existing authority
or vested institutions which elsewhere occur so regularly in his
writing. From the immediate viewpoint of the status quo it was
probably the most innocuous book he wrote, and it is ironical
that, through it, authoritarian prejudice should have struck its
first successful blow at his literary career.
The book was set up in type and duly submitted to the police,
who declared that they were not opposed to its sale, but at the
same time let it be understood that this did not imply a guarantee
against prosecution by the legal officers o f the government. No
THE PALADIN OF JUSTICE