of living well." The old dream of abundance seemed to have become a reality in the eighteenth century, at least for the upper classes. "Towards I780," thanks to the growth of productive forces, "everybody believed in the dogma of the indefinite progress of mankind." This "feeling of absolute confidence" would be "bizarre and inexplicable," Sorel added, except as the product of economic improvements, since it was so obviously at odds with the experience of mankind. Experience and common sense indicated that "movements toward greatness are always forced," as he wrote to Croce in 1911, "whereas the movement toward decadence is always natural; our nature is irresistibly carried in the direction considered bad by the philosopher of history."

Sorel believed that the bourgeoisie, having derived its moral ideas from eighteenth-century absolutism and from the decadent aristocracy fostered by absolutism, was now attempting to instill this ethic of irresponsibility into the workers, seducing them with the promise of endless leisure and abundance. He argued, in effect, that the aristocracy of the old regime, with its cultivation of the "art of living," had anticipated the modern cult of consumption. Aristocrats had traded their power for the brilliant, feverish delights of the Sun King's court. Without civic functions, they determined at least "to enjoy their wealth with relish"; they "no longer wanted to hear of the prudence long imposed on their fathers." The assumption that improvement had become automatic and irresistible relieved them of the need to provide for times to come. "Why worry about the fate of new generations, which are destined to have a fate that is automatically superior to ours?" Aristocrats tried to avoid their obligations not only to the future but to the poor; this escape from responsibility, according to Sorel, was the dominant theme in eighteenth-century aristocratic culture. "At the dawn of modern times, anyone who held any authority aspired to liberate himself from the responsibilities that archaic conventions, customs, and Christian morality had, until then, imposed on the masters for the benefit of the weak." The idea of progress furnished the theoretical justification for the abrogation of reciprocal obligations, the foundation of aristocratic morality in its heroic phase, before enlightened aristocrats were corrupted by easy living.

-307-