ABSTRACT
The conception of disease as a lack of coordination between functional systems in a human body led to new ideas about the causes and cures for social disorder in the ‘body politic’. This chapter considers first the metaphor of the body politic and its relationship to the physiological writing of the idéologues, then it examines the role that sympathy plays as the social cement that allows society to function as an integrated system. Sympathy is, Tracy acknowledges, a ‘powerful attraction that brings us close again to our fellows at times when our individuality draws us apart’ (Tracy 1817, 4:516). And if sympathy is the foundation upon which society is based (Tracy 1817, 4:515) then moral education1 must have, as its fundamental goal, the cultivation of sympathy. The final section of this chapter considers to what extent a programme of public education designed to create a ‘rational morality’ through the inculcation of sympathy was characteristic of the writing of Roederer, Say, Cabanis and Tracy. As we shall see, both Roederer and Say took it for granted that moral
education was both desirable and effective. Tracy’s ‘Quels sont les moyens…’ (Tracy 1798c), however, rejects such mass education, not because it was undesirable or illiberal but rather because he expected it to be far less effective than his preferred alternative method of inculcating morality: the swift and certain punishment of crimes and misdemeanours. This would best be ensured by the creation of appropriate institutions by legislators, who certainly knew the ‘true interests’ of the people better than any ordinary person. But, whatever the emphases of different writers, all argued that legislators and teachers must ensure the health of the body politic by creating systems that coordinate the individual members.
