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The Treason of the ClerksR U S S E L L K I R K

THIRTY YEARS AGO, a book was publishedabout which a great many people talk, butwhich few have really read: La Truhisondes clercs, by a belligerent, eccentric, in-consistent, learned, fearless Frenchman ofgenius, Julien Benda. The American trans-lation of the book was published as TheTreason of the Intellectuals-lest, perhaps,American readers should think Benda wasreferring to a conspiracy in Woolworths.But the Marxist word intellectual doesnot quite express Bendas meaning; nordoes the English word clerk, exactly,even in its medieval signification. Coler-idges word clerisyyy omes nearer to themark. By Zes clercs, Benda meant thosepersons of learning and taste, particularlywriters and teachers, whose duty in everyage it is to preserve the integrity of moralideals. They may or may not be clerics;they may or may not be professors; but, iftrue to their calling, they always areguardians of the Truth. I n Bendas eyes,the Truth is the Hellenic view of man andnature.Now a very good book about Benda hasbeen published: Professor Robert J. NeisssJulien B e d u (University of MichiganPress, $6.50.) This is just the sort of bookwhich a university press ought to publish,and its appearance is one of the proofs ofthe recent reinvigoration of the Universityof Michigan Press, which had lain dormantfor some years. This volume is the bestwindow on twentieth-century French specu-lation that I know.

Benda, born in 1867, is still in the landof the living; but ever since the publicationof this famous book, a generation gone, hehas been in eclipse. Mr. Neiss says that nota single American library has a completecollection of Bendas works. The Treasonitself, however, now is available as anAmerican paperback. The book that madeBenda famous also brought him ostracismin many quarters. I t is perilous to write areally influential book: envy springs up onevery hand.

Now the treason to which Benda referredwas the desertion of the twentieth-centuryclerisy, in Bendas opinion, to the serviceof the State; for the clerisy should serveTruth, and truth only. The scholar was be-coming an ideologue, won over to the adu-lation of Society by the prospect of powerand the lure of creature-comforts; and theState would use the scholar and debasehim. (This theme runs through some recentperiodical writings of Dr. Thomas Molnar,a European-American philosopher, inci-dentally, and will reappear in a forthcom-ing book of Mr. Molnars which may awakenearly as much controversy in the UnitedStates as Bendas book did in France.) Inproportion as the intellectual, the scholar,the clerk surrenders himself to the serviceof the state, his actual influence will di-minish, for it is only from his maintainingan anarchic independence that he is able toobtain the respect of the average sensualman. The function of the clerk today isvery like the function of the Hebrew

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prophets in Israel: to preserve the integrityof ideals in a sensate age, to reprove andguide the kings. For Benda, as Mr. Neisssays, The true intellectual is a man whofeels this call of Idea, who abandons hisearthly lusts for the passion of the mind.The true intellectual is Humphrey Davydancing before his beaker of potassium.

Now there are certain grave difficultiesin Bendas position. For one thing, thoughhe denounced scholars of the Right forgiving to party what they owed to man-kind (Goldsmiths reproach against hisfriend Edmund Burke), commonly Bendawas much more tolerant of the tracts forthe times published by men of the Left; forBenda himself leaned toward the Left, andhimself engaged furiously in political con-troversies from time to time. For anotherthing, it really is never prudent for thelearned man to cut himself off utterly fromthe practical consequences of mundaneaction; as Mr. Neiss writes (and Mr. Neiss,though much an admirer of Benda, is aIsoBendas keenest critic), Because he wasintoxicated with a system he was led fromthe beginning into what seems, at least toAmerican eyes, a catastrophic intellectualerror, the error of constant generalizationwithout sufficient regard for facts; quitebluntly, the passion for system more thanfrequently made him identify the diverseto the point where he forgot that diversityis the norm of things, identity their de-formation. System, this is to say, barredhim from science. (Mr. Neiss, you mayperceive, knows his philosophy.)

Fiercely classical and rational in temperof mind, militantly anti-romantic and anti-mystical, Benda represents the Voltaire-Frenchman, not the Rousseau-Frenchman.But Benda himself disdains nationalism andeven nationality. The most sorry aspect ofthe Treason, according to Benda, has been

. he rallying of twentieth-century intellec-tuals to the arrogant banner of nationalism,which rejects universal and eternal truthfor the sake of national and passing ad-vantage. I t ought not to be thought, how-ever, that Benda is anything like a

humanitarian internationalist. A universal-ist in attitude, yes; but not an international-ist as we have come to know the devotees ofthe League of Nations and the United Na-tions. As Mr. Neiss summarizes his view,It is a favorite device of modern times toseek to maintain international morality bytribunals, commissions, and leagues, butBenda has no faith i n any of them. They donot exist, he maintains, because of any deep,popular desire for them, but have beenfounded on the same principle they are setup to combat, on self-interest, the fear ofwar.

Although the, intellectual should be ananarchic individualist in his personal inde-pendence, Benda insists, still his mission isnot private, but eternal and universal; andany attachment to self-interest corrupts thatmission. The clerk ought not even to marry,for that detracts him from his vocation. Ifthe scholar takes up the cause of race, caste,class, or nation, he is derelict in his duty.

Benda, although principally engaged inassailing the nationalist-intellectuals, wasnot unaware of the class-conscious intellec-tuals, like Sorel, who would substitute anunreasoning devotion to an abstract groupfor the free rational intellect. And thoughhe did not denounce Marx himself as one ofthe Traitors, still he felt that Marxs ideasand Marxs school were undermining thefoundations of Platonic philosophy, theeternal verities which are a philosophersonly proper concern.

Here I have been able only to skim thesurface of Bendas analysis of the missionof the scholar; and I have not touchedupon the several other important facets ofBendas thought, let alone Mr. Neisss pene-trating criticisms. M. Benda has beenpassionate in the cause of dispassionaterationality, partisan in the cause of politi-cal impartiality, atheistic in the defense ofreligious truth. He is as bewildering as heis brilliant. Often a careless scholar, he isthe most ardent champion of pure scholar-ship. I do commend to you his Treason ofthe InteZZectuals, and, still more, ProfessorNeisss sober and lucid criticism.

98 Summer 1957