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diff --git a/25339.txt b/25339.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab4b974 --- /dev/null +++ b/25339.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1450 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Atheism Among the People, by Alphonse de Lamartine + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Atheism Among the People + +Author: Alphonse de Lamartine + +Translator: Edward E. Hale + Francis Le Baron + +Release Date: May 5, 2008 [EBook #25339] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATHEISM AMONG THE PEOPLE *** + + + + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Sam W. and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This file was made using scans of public domain works +from the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + LAMARTINE ON ATHEISM. + + + ATHEISM + AMONG + THE PEOPLE + + + BY + + ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. + + + BOSTON: + PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY, + 110 WASHINGTON STREET. + 1850. + + + + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, +BY PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY, +In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. + + +STEREOTYPED BY +CHARLES W. COLTON, +No. 2 Water Street. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT. + + +Through the past year, M. de Lamartine has published a monthly journal, +called The People's Counsellor, "_Le Conseiller du Peuple_." Each +number of this journal contains an Essay, by him, on some specific +subject, of pressing interest to the French people,--generally, some +political subject. + +As a companion to one of these numbers, he published the Essay which +we here translate. We have thought that its interest and merit are by +no means local; but, that it will be read with as much interest in +America, as in France. + + EDWARD E. HALE, + FRANCIS LE BARON. + + _Worcester, Mass. March 7, 1850._ + + + + +ATHEISM AMONG THE PEOPLE. + + + + +I. + + +I have often asked myself, "Why am I a Republican?--Why am I the +partizan of equitable Democracy, organized and established as a good +and strong Government?--Why have I a real love of the People--a love +always serious, and sometimes even tender?--What has the People done +for me? I was not born in the ranks of the People. I was born between +the high Aristocracy and what was then called _the inferior classes_, +in the days when there were classes, where are now equal citizens in +various callings. I never starved in the People's famine; I never +groaned, personally, in the People's miseries; I never sweat with its +sweat; I was never benumbed with its cold. Why then, I repeat it, do I +hunger in its hunger, thirst with its thirst, warm under its sun, +freeze under its cold, grieve under its sorrows? Why should I not care +for it as little as for that which passes at the antipodes?--turn away +my eyes, close my ears, think of other things, and wrap myself up in +that soft, thick garment of indifference and egotism, in which I can +shelter myself, and indulge my separate personal tastes, without +asking whether, below me,--in street, garret, or cottage, there is a +rich People, or a beggar People; a religious People, or an atheistic +People; a People of idlers, or of workers; a People of Helots, or of +citizens?" + +And whenever I have thus questioned myself, I have thus answered +myself:--"I love the people because I believe in God. For, if I did +not believe in God, what would the people be to me? I should enjoy at +ease that lucky throw of the dice, which chance had turned up for me, +the day of my birth; and, with a secret, savage joy, I should say, +'So much the worse for the losers!--the world is a lottery. Woe to +the conquered!'" I cannot, indeed, say this without shame and +cruelty,--for, I repeat it, _I believe in God_. + + + + +II. + + +"And what is there in common," you will say to me, "between your +belief in God and your love for the People?" I answer: My belief in +God is not that vague, confused, indefinite, shadowy sentiment which +compels one to suppose a principle because he sees consequences,--a +cause where he contemplates effects, a source where he sees the rush +of the inexhaustible river of life, of forms, of substances, absorbed +for ever in the ocean, and renewed unceasingly from creation. The +belief in God, which is thus perceived and conceived, is, so to +speak, only a mechanical sensation of the interior eye,--an instinct +of intelligence, in some sort forced and brutal,--an evidence, not +reasonable, not religious, not perfect, not meritorious; but like the +material evidence of light, which enters our eyes when we open them +to the day; like the evidence of sound which we hear when we listen +to any noise; like the evidence of touch when we plunge our limbs in +the waves of the sea, and shiver at the contact. This elementary, +gross, instinctive, involuntary belief in God, is not the living, +intelligent, active, and legislative faith of humanity. It is almost +animal. I am persuaded that if the brutes even,--if the dog, the +horse, the ox, the elephant, the bird, could speak, they would +confess, that, at the bottom of their nature, their instincts, their +sensations, their obtuse intelligence, assisted by organs less +perfect than ours, there is a clouded, secret sentiment of this +existence of a superior and primordial Being, from whom all emanates, +and to whom all returns,--a shadow of the divinity upon their being, +a distant approach to the conception of that idea, which fills the +worlds, and for which alone the worlds have been made,--the idea of +God! + + * * * * * + +This may be a bold, but it is not an impious supposition. For God, +having made all things for himself alone, must have placed, upon all +that he made, an impress of himself; more or less clear, more or less +luminous, more or less profound, a presentiment or a remembrance of a +Creator. But this faith, when it stops here, is not worthy of the +name. It is a species of _Pantheism_, that is to say, a confused +"visibility," a physical working together into indissoluble union of +something impersonal, something blind, something fatal, and something +divine, which, in the elements composing the universe, we may call +GOD. But this "visibility" can give to man no moral decision,--can +give to God no worship. The Pantheism of which I am accused as a +philosopher and poet, that Pantheism which I have always scorned as a +contradiction and as a blasphemy, resembles entirely the reasoning of +the man who should say, "I see an innumerable multitude of rays, +therefore there is no sun." + + + + +III. + + +Faith, or reasonable and effective belief in God, proceeds, undoubtedly, +from this first instinct; but in proportion as intelligence develops +itself, and human thought expands, it goes from knowledge to knowledge, +from conclusion to conclusion, from light to light, from sentiment to +sentiment, infinitely farther and higher, in the idea of God. It does +not see him with the eyes of the body, because the Infinite is not +visible by a narrow window of flesh, pierced in the frontal bone of an +insect called Man; but it sees Him, with a thousand times more +certainty, by the spirit, that immaterial eye of the soul, which nothing +blinds; and after having seen him with evidence, it reasons upon the +consequences of his existence, upon the divine aims of His creation, +upon the terrestrial as well as eternal destinies of His creatures, upon +the nature of the homage and adoration that God expects, upon his moral +laws, upon the public and private duties which he imposes on his +creatures by their consciences, upon the liberty He leaves them; so that +with the sufferings of conflict He may give to them the merits and the +prize of virtue. Thus in man does the instinct of God become Faith. Thus +man can speak the greatest word that has ever been spoken upon the earth +or in the stars, the word which fills the worlds by itself alone, the +word which commenced with them, and which can only end with them;-- + +"I believe in God!" + + + + +IV. + + +It is in this sense, my friends, that I say to you, "I believe in +God." + +But, once having said this word with the universe of beings and of +worlds, and blessed this invisible God for having rendered himself +visible, sensible, evident, palpable, adorable in the mirror of weak +human intelligence, made gradually more and more pure, I reason with +myself on the best worship to be rendered Him in thought and action. +Let me show how, by this reasoning, I am forcibly drawn to the love of +the People. + +I say to myself, then, "Who is this God? Is he a vain _notion_, which +has no effect on the thoughts and acts of man, his creature; who +inspires nothing in him; who gives him no commands; who imposes nothing +upon him; who does not reward, and who does not punish?--No! God is +not a mere _notion_, an idea, an evidence;--God is a _law_,--the living +law, the supreme law, the universal law, the eternal law. Because God +is a law on high, he is a duty on the earth; and when man says, 'I +believe in God,' he says, at the same time, 'I believe in my duty +towards God,--I believe in my duty towards man.' God is a government!" + +And what are these duties? They are of three sorts:-- + +_Duty towards God_,--that is to say, the duty of developing, as much +as possible, my intelligence and my reason, to arrive at the purest +idea and the highest worship of the Supreme Being, by whom and for +whom all is, all exists:--_Religion_. + +_Private Duties_,--that is to say, the exact and tender discharge of +all sentiments to which form has been given, either in written or +unwritten laws, which bind me to those, to whom, in the order of +nature, I hold most closely,--the nearest to myself in the human +group--father, mother, brothers, sisters, wife, children, friends, +neighbors:--_the Family_. + +_Collective Duties_,--that is to say, devotions, even to the sacrifice +of myself, even to death, to the progress, the well-being, the +preservation, the amelioration of this great human family, of which my +family, and my country, are only parts; and of which I myself am only +a miserable and vanishing fraction, a leaf of a summer, which +vegetates and withers on a branch of the immense trunk of the human +race:--_Society_. + +Let us speak to-day only of these last duties,--because, now we are +occupied with politics alone. + + + + +V. + + +God, when one believes in Him as you and I do, imposes then on man a +duty towards the society of which he makes a part. You admit it, do +you not? + +Then follow, and analyze with me this society. Of whom, and how, is it +composed? + +It is composed, at the same time, of strong and weak, conquerors and +conquered, victors and vanquished, oppressors and oppressed, masters +and slaves, nobles and serfs, of citizens and bondmen or subjects +disinherited and enslaved, considered as living furniture, as tools +and laughing-stocks to their fellow-men, as were the Blacks in our +colonies before the Republic. + +Thanks to the increase of general reason, to the light of philosophy, +to the inspiration of Christianity, to the progress of the idea of +justice, of charity, and of fraternity, in laws, manners, and +religion, society in America, in Europe, and in France, especially +since the Revolution, has broken down all these barriers, all these +denominations of caste, all these injurious distinctions among men. +Society is composed only of various conditions, professions, +functions, and ways of life, among those who form what we call a +Nation; of proprietors of the soil, and proprietors of houses; of +investments, of handicrafts, of merchants, of manufacturers, of +farmers; of day-laborers becoming farmers, manufacturers, merchants, +or possessors of houses or capital, in their turn; of the rich, of +those in easy circumstances, of the poor, of workmen with their +hands, workmen with their minds; of day-laborers, of those in need, of +a small number of men enjoying considerable acquired or inherited +wealth, of others of a smaller fortune painfully increased and +improved, of others with property only sufficient for their needs; +there are some, finally, without any personal possession but their +hands, and gleaning for themselves and for their families, in the +workshop, or the field, and at the threshold of the homes of others on +the earth, the asylum, the wages, the bread, the instruction, the +tools, the daily pay, all those means of existence which they have +neither inherited, saved, nor acquired. These last are what have been +improperly called _the People_. This name is extended now; it embraces +really all the People; but still it is used as the name of the +indigent and suffering part of the People. + +It is more especially of this class that I intend to speak, in saying +to you, "To love the People, it is necessary to believe in God." + + + + +VI. + + +The love of the People, the conscience of the citizen, the sentiment +which induces the individual to lose himself in the mass, to submit +himself to the community, to sacrifice himself to its needs,--his +interest, his individuality, his egotism, his ambition, his pride, his +fortune, his blood, his life, his reputation even, sometimes, to the +safety of his country, to the happiness of the People, to the good of +humanity, of which he is a member in the sight of God,--in one word, +all these virtues, necessary under every form of government,--useful +under a monarchy, indispensable under a republic,--never have been +derived, and never can be derived, from any thing but that single +sentence, pronounced with religious faith, at the commencement, in the +middle, at the end of all our patriotic acts:--"I believe in God!" + +The People who do not believe strongly, efficaciously in this first +principle, in this supreme original, in this last end of all +existence, cannot have a faith superior to their individual +selfishness. + +The People who cannot have a principle superior to their individual +selfishness, in their acts as citizens, cannot have national virtue. + +The People who cannot have national virtue cannot be free; for they +can have neither the courage which enables them to defend their own +liberty, nor the conscience which forces them to respect the liberty +of others, and to obey the laws, not as an outward force, but as a +second conscience. + +The People who can neither defend their liberty, nor restrain it, may +be, by turns, slaves or tyrants, but they can never be republicans. + +Therefore, Atheism in the People is the most invincible obstacle to +the establishment and consolidation of that sublime form of +government, the idol of all ages, the tendency of all perfect +civilization, the dream of every sage, the model of all great +souls,--the government of the entire People by the reason and +conscience of each citizen,--otherwise called the REPUBLIC. + + + + +VII. + + +Must I demonstrate to you so simple a truth? Can you not comprehend, +without explanation of mine, that a nation, where each citizen thinks +only of his own private well-being here below, and sacrifices +constantly the general good to his personal and narrow interest;--where +the powerful man wishes to preserve all the power for himself alone, +without making an equitable and proportional division to the +weak;--where the weak wishes to conquer at any price, that he may +tyrannize in his turn;--where the rich wishes to acquire and +concentrate the greatest possible amount of wealth, to enjoy it alone, +and even without circulating it in work, in wages, in assistance, in +benevolence, in good deeds to his brothers;--where the poor wishes to +dispossess violently and unjustly those who possess more than himself, +instead of recognizing that diversity of chances, of conditions, of +professions, of fortunes, of which human life is composed,--instead of +acquiring prosperity for his family, in his turn and degree, by effort, +by order, by labor, by economy, by the assistance of borrowed capital, +by the law of inheritance, by the free transfer of real estate, by free +entrance into different callings and trades, by free competition in the +money market;--where each class of citizens declares itself an enemy to +every other, and heaps upon each other all manner of evil, instead of +doing all the good in its power, and uniting in the holy harmony of +social unity;--where each individual draws around him, for himself +alone, the common mantle, willing to tear it in pieces for himself, +and thus leave the whole world naked,--do you not understand, I say, +that such a People, having no God but its selfishness, no judge but +interest, no conscience but cupidity, will fall, in a short time, into +complete destruction, and, being incapable of a Republican government, +because it casts aside the government of God himself, will rush +headlong into the government of the brute: the government of the +strongest, the despotism of the sword, the divinity of the +cannon,--that last resort of anarchy, which is at once the remedy and +the death of nations without God! + +Now has not this weakening of the sentiment of God in the soul of the +People been, from year to year, from century to century, indeed, I +might say, the most discouraging and threatening symptom, in the eyes +of those who desire the progress of their race, who aspire to the +moral perfection of the human spirit, who hope in Republican +institutions, who love the People, who wish to cultivate their reason, +who desire that the People should understand themselves, respect +themselves, and, finally, by their enlightenment, their +conscientiousness, their moderation and virtue, give the lie to those +who declare them in a state of perpetual infancy, perpetual madness, +or perpetual weakness? + +Yes, this is but too true: men have been blotting out God, for a +century past, from the souls of the People, and more especially in +latter years. The masses have been driven to Atheism, they have been +driven on every side and by every hand. + +Sometimes, by blasphemies, such as were never heard upon the earth, +until an insult to the Creator became a means of popularity among His +creatures; blasphemies which would have darkened the sun and +extinguished the stars, if God had not commanded His creation to pass +unnoticed the revolt of a blind and foolish insect against Infinity, +and refused Himself to sink to the foolishness of avenging impiety! +Read those lines which I dare not write, those lines where an apostle +of Atheism effaces the name of God from the beautiful creation and +endeavors to substitute his own! * * * + + + + +VIII. + + +Sometimes the masses have been driven to Atheism by science. There are +some geometers great in paradox, men who, of all the senses that the +Creator has given to his creatures, have cultivated only one, the +sense of touch,--leaving out entirely that chief sense, which connects +and confirms all others,--_the sense of the invisible_, the _moral +sense_. These _savans_, geometers, physicians, arithmeticians, +mathematicians, chemists, astronomers, measurers of distances, +calculators of numbers, have early acquired the habit of believing +only in the _tangible_. These are the beings who, so to speak, live +and think in the dark; all, which is not palpable, does not exist for +them. They measure the earth, and say, "We have not met God in any +league of its surface!" They heat the alembic, and say, "We have not +perceived God in the smoke of any of our experiments!" They dissect +dead bodies, and say, "We have not found God, or thought, in any +bundle of muscles or nerves in our dissection!" They calculate columns +of figures, long as the firmament, and say, "We have not seen God in +the sum of any of our additions!" They pierce, with eye and glass, +into the dazzling mysteries of night, to discover, across thousands +and thousands of leagues, the groups and the evolutions of the +celestial worlds, and say, "We have not discovered God at the end of +our telescopes! The existence of God does not concern us; it is no +affair of ours!"--Madmen! They do not suspect that the knowledge and +adoration of God are, at bottom, the only business of the creature; +and that all these distances, these globes, these numbers, these +mysteries of the living being, this dissected mechanism of the dead, +these compositions and decompositions of combined elements, these +hosts of stars, and these eternal evolutions of suns around the divine +hand which guides them, have no other reason for existence, for +movement, and for duration, than to compel the acknowledgment, fear, +admiration, and adoration of God, by that supreme sense, that sense +superior to all other senses, that sense imponderable and impalpable, +invisible yet beholding all things,--that sense which we call +_intelligence_! + +Alas! it is not that God has denied this sense to these men of +figures, of science, and calculation; but they have blinded +themselves, they have cultivated the other senses so much, that they +have weakened this. They have believed too much in matter, and so they +have lost the eye of the spirit. These men, we are told, have made +great progress in experimental science, but they have made good, evil, +to the People, by saying to them, "We, who are so high, we cannot see +God!--blind men! what do you see, then?" + + + + +IX. + + +Besides these men, there is still another class,--inventors of another +science, which they call "_Political Economy_." This is the class of +_Economists_. I do not, indeed, speak of all of them: there are among +them some who are as spiritual as Fenelon, and these are, perhaps, at +this day, the greater number. I speak only of those who, considering +this world alone, have been driven, voluntarily or involuntarily, to +Atheism in another way. Leaving the eternal and fastidious metaphysical +and religions disputes in which the theologians of past centuries +wasted the time, the good sense, and the blood of men, to honor their +pretended God by immolating to Him the enemies of their faith, these +_false economists_ have said to governments and people, "Leave all +this; there is only one science which is good for any thing: it is the +science of Wealth. All else is vanity and vexation of spirit." This is +the famous cry, the cry of a materialistic society:--"_Grow rich!_" The +economists of this school, now highly enlightened, legitimate children +of the materialists of the Eighteenth Century, see in humanity, only +matter and the things that belong to matter; in men, only consumers and +producers; in the social functions, only labor of the hands:--to labor, +to sow, to reap, to hew, to build, to forge, to weave, to barter, to +exchange, to sell, to buy, to acquire, to beget,--this is, according to +these disciples of Malthus, the whole of man! These are the Lycurguses +and the Moseses, the legislators of a trading People: the moral, +intellectual, spiritual, religious man does not exist for them. They +love liberty, not because it ennobles human nature; exercises free +will, the most sublime of man's vital functions; cultivates his highest +faculty,--conscience; purifies religion, the fundamental idea of +mankind, from the superstitions that debase and dishonor it; sanctifies +human society, by leading it to the knowledge and worship of God;--they +love it because it abolishes Custom House duties! All legislation, all +civilization, all religion, is reduced by them to a well-balanced +account! _To have_ and _to owe_, these are the only two words in their +language! What matter to them the spirit, the soul, virtue, +sentiment?--What the moral and consoling beliefs, the divine hopes, the +supernatural certainties, revealed or proved, or the immortal destiny, +of man?--What the present intellectual life, and the future immaterial +life of these harvests of human generations, which God sows that they +may bear fruit in his name, may adore his grandeur,--which Death cuts +down to bear them, ripe in faith and virtue, up to Heaven? All this can +neither be bought nor sold; all this has neither stated price nor net +revenue; all this is not current on the Exchange,--therefore it is +nothing! + +Thus these men count for nothing the forms of worship and the forms of +government. They are neither followers of Brama, of Confucius, of +Mahomet, of Plato, or of Rousseau; neither absolute monarchists, +constitutional royalists, nor republicans. They are of the politics, +and of the religion, in which they can manufacture most, buy and sell +easiest, trade the best, multiply fastest! Their civilization is +traffic; their God is the dollar! This sect, useful in administering +intelligently the affairs of commerce, has been a shadow over +intellectual civilization; for it has forgotten heavenly things, and, +in forgetting them, has contributed to make the People also forget +them. + + + + +X. + + +But that People which forgets God, forgets itself. What right has it +to be a People, if it have not its origin and hope in Him? How can the +men of any nation expect tyrants to remember and respect its destiny, +if they themselves debase this destiny to that of a machine with ten +fingers, destined to weave the greatest possible number of yards of +cloth in seventy years, to people as many hundred acres as possible +with creatures as much to be pitied and as miserable as themselves, +and to serve, from generation to generation, as human manure for the +land, to fertilize the soil of their birth, their life, and their +graves? How can the moral spiritualism of a People long resist such +theories? Where can they find God in this workshop of matter? + + + + +XI. + + +But even this is nothing. The French Revolution came in 1789. It came +to put an end to a double philosophy,--the spiritual philosophy of +Rousseau's school, founded in reason and religion, the material +philosophy of the school of Helvetius, Diderot, and their disciples, +atheistic and cynical. The thought of the first of these philosophies +was religious at bottom. It consisted merely in freeing the luminous +idea of God from the shadows by which ignorance, intolerance, the +inquisition of temporal dynasties and times of barbarism had falsified +it,--in freeing this idea, debased as it was,--obscured, and enchained +to thrones,--so as to restore reason to its liberty, to inquiry, to +the free conscience of every worship and of every soul; to revive it +in the eyes of the People, by leading them to the broad light of day, +the evidence of nature, the dignity and efficacy of free worship. + +But, for this, it was necessary to dispossess the Middle Ages of their +temporal power, of their _mort-main_ possessions, of their civil +jurisdictions, of their exclusive privileges, of their legal +intolerance against all other divine thoughts, and all other individual +or national faith, all other forms of adoration and worship than what +were imposed by the exclusive and established religion. To rally the +people to this work, a work legitimate in itself, a work which the +abuses of a crafty priesthood had made necessary, seven times, and +whose accomplishment they had seven times partially and gradually +undertaken, since the time of Charlemagne,--the philosophers of the +second school, the irreligious school, the atheistic school, of Diderot +and Helvetius, drove the masses from stupidity even to impiety, and the +demagogues of '93 forced them from impiety to Atheism, and from Atheism +to blood. Demagogues, those poisoners of liberty, corrupt every +revolution in which they mingle; they defile every thing that they +touch; they dishonor every truth which they profess, by polluting or +perverting it. The age and philosophy, Heaven and earth, desire what +we too desire,--freedom of conscience, voluntary worship,--liberty of +the human mind in matters of faith,--the fraternity of altars, +invoking, each in its own language, that God whom the whole earth is +spelling out, and who reveals, from age to age, still another letter of +His divine name. + +Instead of this, Atheists and demagogues united to persecute religion, +to revenge themselves for the old persecutions of the priesthood. They +profaned the temples, violated conscience, blasphemed the God of the +faithful, parodied the ceremonies, cast to the winds the pious symbols +of worship, and persecuted the ministers of religion. + +In the name of the Revolution, and under the menace of terror, they +dragged the People to these Saturnalia. They corrupted the eyes, the +hands, the minds, the souls of the populace. These violences to the +altar were cast back on the religious idea itself. The People, seeing +the temple fall, believed that Heaven itself crumbled; and that, +following the profaned image of a vanishing worship, God himself would +vanish from the world, with conscience, the supernatural law, the +unwritten moral law, the soul and the immortality of the human race! + +When the ignorant People no longer saw God between them and +annihilation, they plunged into the boundless and bottomless abyss of +Atheism, they lost their divine sense, they became brutal as the +animal, who sees in the earth only a pasture ground, instead of the +footstool of Jehovah. + +But these irreligious abominations, and these Saturnalia of Atheism, +however much injury they inflicted on the religious spirit of the +People, did not effect so much, perhaps, as the reign which followed +this anarchy, the reign of Bonaparte, the so-called restorer of +worship. And how? + + + + +XII. + + +The Republic had passed its paroxysm of fever, of demagoguical +madness, of persecution. The Directory had finally concentrated and +regulated the republican power. This government was composed of men, +naturally moderate and tolerant, or made so by the experience and the +lassitude of anarchy; the moderate principles of the Revolution of +1789, and of the constituted Assembly, regained their level, thanks to +a natural reaction, limited by good sense, as happens after every +revolution that overshoots its mark. The priests officiated, without +obstacle, in the temples restored by the municipalities to the +faithful, religion was entirely free, even favored by public respect, +and by that care for good morals which all serious governments feel. +Faith, taking refuge in men's consciences, was, moreover, more sincere +and more active, because it was neither constrained, nor favored, nor +altered, nor profaned by the hand of government. + +This was, perhaps, the moment when there was the most religion in +France,--for this was the moment when, after having had its martyrs, +the religious sentiment had a life in itself, and owed nothing to the +partial and interested protection of the powers of the State. For, the +less the State imposes upon you a God of its own fashion, or its own +choice, the more does your conscience rise, and the more does it +attach itself to the God of your own reason, or your own faith! + +Bonaparte, whose genius was entirely military, but who, in affairs of +moral, civil, and religious government, made it a matter of policy to +contradict and extinguish all the truths of the Revolution, hastened +to change all this. He wished to parody Charlemagne. + +Charlemagne had been the philosopher and revolutionary organizer of +his time; Charlemagne had bound together the spiritual and temporal, +crowning the Pontiff that he might be crowned by him in turn. +Bonaparte desired a State religion, an agreement in which religion and +the empire should mutually engage and mutually check each other; a +Pope to subdue, to caress, to drive away, to recall, to persecute, by +turns; a coronation by the hand of an enslaved Church; then a Church +to chastise, when it did not obey;--in one word, all that shameful and +scandalous _simony_ of ancient times, when the temporal power played, +in the sight of the nations, with the idea and name of God, in a +manner as contemptuous as it was odious. + +The People, who saw clearly through this intrigue of an indifferent +sovereign,--an Atheist at Toulon, a crafty politician at Marengo, a +Mussulman in Egypt, a persecutor at Rome, an oppressor at Savona, a +schismatic at Fontainbleau, a saint at Notre Dame de Paris,--protector +of religion and profaner of consciences by turns,--felt their belief +shaken anew. They asked themselves, "What then is God for us, poor +souls, since God is such an instrument of power for great men, and +such a police machine for governments?" Scorn threw them back into +Atheism. This was natural. + + + + +XIII. + + +This system was continued, with more sincerity on the part of +government, under the dynasty of the Restoration. But the interested +favors of the Court, for the higher clergy of a particular worship, +irritated the minds of the populace against the priesthood. + +The more it lavished power and human dignities upon priestly +superiors, the more the mind of the People turned from the religious +sentiment. Each favor of royal authority to the privileged Church cast +thousands of souls into Atheism. + +The Revolution of July suppressed the religion of the State: it was a +progress towards the religion of conscience. But it favored the +religion of the majority; it still leaned towards the supremacy of +numbers in matters of faith. However, from the moment the State +religion was suppressed, the religion of conscience gained ground in +men's hearts. From 1830 to this day, every intelligent observer gladly +acknowledges an immense progress in the religious sentiment in +France.--Why? Because the suppression of the official religion of the +State was a progress in the liberty of conscience, and all progress in +liberty of conscience is a progress of human thought toward the idea +of God. Go farther still, and complete liberty will destroy Atheism in +the People! + +But the evil done was immense. The cynicism of Diderot, materialism, +scepticism, revolutionary impiety, the false and hypocritical piety +of the empire, the concordat, the restoration of an imperial religion, +and of an official and dynastic God by Napoleon, the tendency of the +two Bourbon reigns to reconstruct a political church, everlastingly +endowed with a monopoly of goods and of souls,--and, finally, the +industrialism of the reign of Louis Philippe, turning every thought to +trade, to manual labor, to worldly wealth, and making gold the true +and only God of the century;--all this has borne its fruits. + +Look at these fruits at the present day, and say, if practical Atheism +does not devour the souls of this People. But let us proceed. + + + + +XIV. + + +For eighteen years, new sects, or, rather, posthumous sects, have +disputed for the soul of the People, under the names of Fourierism, of +Pantheism, of Communism, of Industrialism, of Economism, and, finally, +of Terrorism. Look at them, listen to them, read them, analyze them, +sift them, handle them; and say, if, with the exception of a vague +deifying of every thing,--that is to say, of nothing, by the +Fourierites,--there is a single one of these philosophical, social, or +political sects, which is not founded on the most evident practical +Atheism; which has not matter for a God; material enjoyments for +morality; exclusive satisfaction of the senses for an end; purely +sensual gratifications for a paradise; this world for the sole scene +of existence; the body for the only condition of being; the +prolonging of life a few more years for its only hope; a sharpening of +the senses to material appetites for a perspective; death for the end +of all things; after death, an assimilation with the dust of the earth +for a future; annihilation for justice, for reward, and for +immortality! + +No, there has not been since 1830, there has not been since the +Revolution, there is not at this moment, one of these schools of +pretended apostles, prophets of the future, and saviors of the +present, which is not Materialism in action. It is the deadly seed of +the century of Helvetius, producing its poisons in the dregs of +another century. It is man, deprived of his spiritual and immortal +sense, reduced to a solid measure of organized matter, and seeking, +not virtue, that key to his future destiny, in his soul; but, in his +senses, mere enjoyment, that end of the brute, who only believes in +what he can eat and drink. + + + + +XV. + + +Analyze with me, if you are not overwhelmed with humiliation, the five +or six Revelations of the latter days; and ask yourselves, as I have +often asked myself, while listening to them, if these revealers of +pretended human felicity do indeed address themselves to men, or to +herds of fatted cattle! And are they astonished that the intellectual +world resists them? Do they complain that the ignorant are their only +disciples? Are they indignant that the ideas they attempt to spread, +creep, like fetid mists, along the abysses of society, and excite, +instead of enthusiasm, only the fanaticism of hunger and thirst? I +can well believe it! What People is there who would become fanatics, +only for their own destruction; renounce their moral nature, their +divine souls, their immortal destinies, only for a morsel of more +savory bread upon their table, for a larger portion of earth under +their feet? No! no! enthusiasm soars aloft, it does not fall to earth. +Bear me up to Heaven, if you wish to dazzle my eyes; promise me +immortality, if you would offer to my soul a motive worthy of its +nature, an aim worthy of its efforts, a price worthy of its virtue! +But what do your systems of atheistic society show us in perspective? +What do they promise us in compensation for our griefs? What do they +give us in exchange for our souls? You know,--we will not speak of it. + +But, indeed, if these sects survive the month which sees and which +produces them; and, if these questions which they debate, and these +systems which they bring before the astonished People, are destined to +serve as enigmas to posterity; what will the future say of us? It will +only explain the Materialism, Atheism, and brutality of the doctrines +and sects by which we have been disturbed for ten or twelve years, as +the nightmare of a starving People, whose dreams have, for an object, +only a frantic satisfaction of the senses. All these philosophies, or +all these deliriums, are the deliriums or philosophies of the stomach! +"All this epoch," future historians will say, "the French must have +been a nation distressed by a terrible famine, to have forgotten, in +so total an eclipse of the intellectual nature, the great and immortal +ideas which have alone inspired even these, the human race, and +rendered the revolutions of the People worthy of the regard of +posterity, and of the blood of man. The Eighteenth Century must have +been a time when avaricious Nature shut up her bosom, and the earth +brought forth neither fruit nor harvests, that this great intellectual +People, formerly called the French People, should have forgotten their +souls for a morsel of bread, their immortality for an income, and +their God for a dollar! Let us turn away our eyes and weep over that +age." + + + + +XVI. + + +See where we were when the Republic arose: happy was it that the +People had at bottom more of the true sentiment of God than these +masters and heads of sects. For, what would have become of us, if, in +that total eclipse of government, of armed force, and of law, which +followed the 24th of February, the People, masters of all, of the +fortunes and lives of the citizens, of Heaven and earth, had been a +People of Materialists, of Terrorists, and of Atheists? The Revolution +would have been a pillage, the Republic a scaffold, the dynasty of the +People a deluge of blood. But there was no such thing. God was there. +He revealed Himself in the multitude; Materialism disappeared in +enthusiasm, which always exhibits the divinity of the human heart. + +We heard but one cry,--"Honor to God! Respect for the altars! Liberty +to their ministers! Self-denial, harmony, protection to the weak, +inviolability of property, assistance to the miserable!" Yes,--on the +first day, and during the whole time that the People was alone and +burning with excitement, it was religious! It was not until after the +cooling of this enthusiasm that the materialistic sects, who waited +their opportunity afar off, and who now torment the People, dared to +offer their sensual symbols, and to set up Capital and Interest, the +organization of labor, the increase of wages, and equality of +conditions in this human manger, as the sole Divinities,--dared to +infuse envy against the happy, the breath of hatred as the only +consolation to the hearts of the miserable, lightning vengeance +against the wrongs of Providence, imprecations against society, +blasphemies against the existence of God, the enjoyments and +bestialities of the corporeal nature, purchased by complete +forgetfulness of the moral nature, and enjoyed in a debauch of ideas, +and in a deification of matter. + +This cannot last; the People will not allow themselves to be changed +into hogs by the Circes of Atheism. Their souls will flash indignation +against their transformers. A day will come when they will see that +they are impoverished under the pretext of being enriched; that, when +they are robbed of their souls and of God, both their titles to +liberty are stolen from them. Atheism and Republicanism are two words +which exclude each other. Absolutism may thrive without a God, for it +needs only slaves. Republicanism cannot exist without a God, for it +must have citizens. And what is it that makes citizens? Two +things,--the sentiment of their rights, and the sentiment of their +duties as a republican People. Where are your rights, if you have not +a common Father in Heaven? Where are your duties, if you have not a +Judge between your brothers and you? Republicanism draws you in both +these ways to God. + + + + +XVII. + + +Thus, look at every free People, from the mountains of Helvetia to the +forests of America; see even the free British nation, where the +Aristocracy is only the head of liberty, where the Aristocracy and +Democracy mutually respect each other, and balance each other by an +exchange of kindnesses and services which sanctify society while +fortifying it. Atheism has fled before liberty: in proportion as +despotism has receded, the divine idea has advanced in the souls of +men. Liberty lives by morality. What is morality without a God? What +is a law without a lawgiver? + +I know well, and I shall give you the reason hereafter; I know well, +and I mourn to think of it, that, even up to the present time, the +French People have been the least religious People in Europe. + +Is this because the intelligence of France has not that force, and +that severity, which are needed to carry long enough and far enough +the idea of God,--the greatest idea of the human soul;--that idea, as +it comes from all the evidences of nature, and all the depths of +reflection, being the most powerful and the most grave of human +intelligence,--and the intelligence of France being the most +superficial, the most light, and the least reflecting of the European +races? + +Is it because our governments have always been charged with thinking, +believing, and praying, for us? + +Is it that they have always given us gods of the Court, worship +according to Etiquette, and religions of State, instead of letting us +form, make, and practise our faith for ourselves, by reason, by +free-will, by voluntary piety, by association, by tradition, by the +sympathies of the community, of worship, and of the family? + +Is it because we are, and always have been, a military People, a +nation of soldiers and adventurers, led by kings, heroes, ambitious +men, from battle-field to battle-field, making conquests and not +keeping them, ravaging, dazzling, charming, and corrupting Europe, and +bearing the manners, vices, bravado, lightness, and impiety of the +camp into the homes of the People? + +I do not know; but it is certain that the nation has an immense +progress to make in serious thought, if it wishes to maintain its +liberty. If we look at the comparative character, in matters of +religious sentiment, of the great nations of Europe, America, and even +Asia, the advantage is not on our side. While the great men of other +nations live and die upon the scene of history, looking towards +heaven, our great men seem to live and die in entire forgetfulness of +the only idea for which life or death is worth any thing; they live +and die looking at the spectators, or, at most, towards posterity. + +Thus, even at the present time, while we have had the greatest men, +other nations have had the greatest citizens. It is great citizens +that a Republic needs! + + + + +XVIII. + + +Open the history of America, the history of England, and the history +of France; read the great lives, the great deaths, the great +sufferings, the sublime words, when the ruling passion of life reveals +itself in the last moments of the dying,--and compare them! + +Washington and Franklin fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell, in +their political life, from popularity to ingratitude, from glory to +bitter scorn of their citizens,--always in the name of God, for whom +they acted; and the liberator of America died, committing to the +Divine protection, first, the liberty of his People,--and, afterwards, +his own soul to His indulgent judgment. + +Strafford, dying for the constitution of his country, wrote to Charles +I., to entreat his consent to his punishment, that he might spare +trouble to the State: "Put not your trust," wrote he, after this +consent was obtained, "put not your trust in princes, or in the son +of man, because salvation is not in them, but from on high." While +walking to the scaffold, he stopped under the windows of his friend, +the Bishop of London; he raised his head towards him, and asked, in a +loud voice, the assistance of his prayers in the terrible moment to +which he had come. The primate, bowed with age, and bathed in tears, +gave, in a stifled voice, his tender benedictions to his unhappy +friend, and fell, without consciousness, into the arms of his +attendants. Strafford continued his way, sustained by the Divine +force, descending from this invocation upon him: he spoke with +resignation to the People assembled to see him die. "I fear only one +thing," said he, "and that is, that this effusion of innocent blood is +a bad presage for the liberty of my country!" (Alas! why did not the +Convention recall these words among us, in '93?) Stafford +continued:--"Now," said he, "I draw near my end. One blow will make my +wife a widow, my children orphans, deprive my poor servants of an +affectionate master, and separate me from my dear brother, and my +friends. May God be all of these!" He disrobed himself, and placed his +head on the block. "I give thanks," said he, "to my heavenly Master +for helping me to await this blow without fear; for not permitting me +to be cast down for a single instant by terror. I repose my head as +willingly on this block as I ever laid it down to sleep." This is +faith in Patriotism! See Charles I., in his turn,--that model of a +kingly death. At the moment that he was to receive the blow of the +axe, the edge of which he had coolly examined and touched, he raised +his head, and addressed the clergyman who was present:--"Remember!" +said he; as if he had said, "Remember to advise my sons never to +revenge their father!" + +Sidney, the young martyr of a patriotism, guilty, because too hasty, +died to expiate the dream of the freedom of his country. He said to +the jailer, "May my blood purify my soul! I rejoice that I die +innocent toward the king, but a victim resigned to the King of Heaven, +to whom we owe all life." + +The republicans of Cromwell sought only the way of God, even in the +blood of battles. Their politics is nothing but faith; their +government, a prayer; their death, a holy hymn;--they sang, like the +Templars, on their funeral-pile. We see, we feel, we hear God, above +all, in these revolutions, in these great popular movements, and in +the souls of the great citizens of these nations. + +But recross the Atlantic, traverse the Channel, approach our own +time, open our annals; and listen to the great political actors in the +drama of our liberty. It would seem as if God was hidden from the +souls of men; as if his name had never been written in the language. +History will have the air of being atheistic, while recounting to +posterity these _annihilations_, rather than _deaths_, of the +celebrated men of the greatest years of France. The victims alone have +a God; the tribunes and lictors have none. + +See Mirabeau on his death-bed. "Crown me with flowers," said he, +"intoxicate me with perfumes, let me die with the sound of delicious +music." Not one word of God, or of his soul! A sensual philosopher, he +asks of death only a supreme sensualism; he desires to give a last +pleasure even to agony. + +Look at Madam Roland, that strong woman of the Revolution,--upon the +car that carries her to death. She looks with scorn upon the stupid +People, who kill their prophets and their sibyls. Not one glance to +Heaven; only an exclamation for the earth she leaves:--"O, Liberty!" + +Approach the prison door of the Girondines: their last night is a +banquet, and their last hymn is the _Marseillaise_! + +Follow Camille Desmoulins to punishment:--a cold and indecent +pleasantry at the tribunal; one long imprecation on the road to the +guillotine;--those are the last thoughts of this dying man, about to +appear on high! + +Listen to Danton, upon the platform of the scaffold, one step from God +and immortality:--"I have enjoyed much; let me go to sleep," he +says;--then, to the executioner, "You will show my head to the +People; it is worth while!" Annihilation for a confession of faith; +vanity for his last sigh: such is the Frenchman of these latter days! + +What do you think of the religious sentiment of a free People, whose +great characters seem to walk thus in procession to annihilation; and +die, without even death, that terrible minister, recalling to their +minds the fear or the promises of God? + +Thus the Republic,--which had no future,--reared by these men, and +mere parties, was quickly overthrown in blood. Liberty, achieved by so +much heroism and genius, did not find in France a conscience to +shelter it, a God to avenge it, a People to defend it, against that +other Atheism called Glory! All was finished by a soldier, and by the +apostacy of republicans travestied into courtiers! And what could you +expect? Republican Atheism has no reason to be heroic. If it is +terrified, it yields. Would one buy it, it sells itself; it would be +most foolish to sacrifice itself. Who would mourn for it?--the People +are ungrateful, and God does not exist. + +Thus end atheistic revolutions! + + + + +XIX. + + +If you wish that this revolution should not have the same end, beware +of abject Materialism, degrading Sensualism, gross Socialism, of +besotted Communism; of all these doctrines of flesh and blood, of meat +and drink, of hunger and thirst, of wages and traffic, which these +corruptors of the soul of the People preach to you, exclusively, as +the sole thought, the sole hope, as the only duty, and only end of +man! They will soon make you slaves of ease, serfs of your desires. + +Are you willing to have inscribed on the tomb of our French race, as +on that of the _Sybarites_, this epitaph: "This People ate and drank +well, while they browsed upon the earth?" No! You desire that History +should write thus: "This People worshipped well, served God and +humanity well,--in thought, in philosophy, in religion, in literature, +in arts, in arms, in labor, in liberty, in their Aristocracies, in +their Democracies, in their Monarchies, and their Republics! This +nation was the spiritual laborer, the conqueror of truth; the disciple +of the highest God, in all the ways of civilization,--and, to approach +nearer to him, it invented the Republic, that government of duties and +of rights, that rule of spiritualism, which finds in _ideas_ its only +sovereignty." + +Seek God, then. This is your nature and your grandeur. And do not +seek Him in these Materialisms! For God is not below,--he is on high! + + LAMARTINE, + + _Representative of the People_. + + +THE END. + + + + +Transcriber's Note + +This text uses some variant spelling--for example, partizan, +demagoguical, apostacy, corruptors. This has been preserved as +printed. + +The ellipsis in this text uses asterisks rather than dots. + +On page 62, the semicolon following 'rose' has been moved to follow +'suffered'--"... fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell ..." + +A repetition of the book title has been deleted. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Atheism Among the People, by Alphonse de Lamartine + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATHEISM AMONG THE PEOPLE *** + +***** This file should be named 25339.txt or 25339.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/3/3/25339/ + +Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Sam W. and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This file was made using scans of public domain works +from the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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