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+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #60815 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60815)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christianity Viewed In Relation To The
-Present State Of Society And Opinion., by François Guizot
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world 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.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Christianity Viewed In Relation To The Present State Of Society And Opinion.
-
-Author: François Guizot
-
-Release Date: November 30, 2019 [EBook #60815]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIANITY VIEWED IN RELATION ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Don Kostuch
-
-
-
-
-[Transcriber's note: This production is based on
-https://archive.org/details/christianityview00guiz/page/n6]
-
-{i}
-
-         Christianity Viewed In Relation To
-
-     The Present State Of Society And Opinion.
-
-                  By M. Guizot.
-
-
-  Translated Under The Superintendence Of The Author.
-
-
-                    London:
-
-         John Murray, Albemarle Street.
-
-                     1871.
-
-{ii}
-
-             By The Same Author.
-
-       The Essence Of Christianity.
-             Post 8vo, 9s. 6d.
-
-  "No one can open this book, and recollect the circumstances
-  which produced it, without feeling that it is a valuable
-  contribution to the literature of the present controversy."
-    --_Edinburgh Review_.
-
-
-
-      The Present State Of Christianity.
-          Post 8vo, 10s. 6d.
-
-  "A remarkable series of religious meditations. They form a
-  sequel to a similar volume on the Essence of Christianity,
-  published two years ago, and an introduction to a further
-  series, in which M. Guizot proposes to treat the great
-  questions of the history of Christianity, and the future
-  destiny of the Christian religion. The book is one of great
-  interest."--_Pall Mall Gazette_.
-
-{iii}
-
-{iv}
-
-{v}
-
-                   Preface.
-
-
-In the First Series of these Meditations, I gave a summary of the
-facts and dogmas which constitute, as I think, the foundation and
-the essence of the Christian Religion. In the next series I
-retraced the Reawakening of Faith and of Christian Life during
-the nineteenth century in France, both amongst Romanists and
-Protestants. With Christianity thus reanimated and resuscitated
-amongst us, after having passed through one of its most violent
-trials, I confronted the principal philosophical systems which in
-these days reject and combat it: Rationalism, Positivism,
-Pantheism, Materialism, Scepticism. I essayed to determine the
-fundamental error which seems to me to characterize each of those
-systems, and to have always rendered them inadequate to the
-office either of satisfying or explaining man's nature and
-destiny.
-{vi}
-That series of my Meditations I concluded with these words: "Why
-is it that Christianity, in spite of all the attacks which it has
-had to undergo, and all the ordeals through which it has been
-made to pass, has for eighteen centuries satisfied infinitely
-better the spontaneous instincts and invincible cravings of
-humanity? Is it not because it is pure from the errors which
-vitiate the different systems of philosophy just passed in
-review? because it fills up the void that those systems either
-create or leave in the human soul? because, in short, it conducts
-man nigher to the fountain of light?" [Footnote 1]
-
-    [Footnote 1: Meditations on the Actual State of Christianity.
-    Eighth Meditation: Impiety, Recklessness, Perplexity, p. 336.]
-
-Far from wishing to elude any of the difficulties of this
-question, I would now set Christianity in contact with the ideas
-and forces that seem most contrary to it, and with three of them
-more especially: Liberty, Independent Morality, and Science.
-{vii}
-Assertions are running the tour of the world that Christianity
-can accommodate itself neither to liberty nor science; that
-morality is essentially distinct and separate from Religious
-Faith. All this I hold to be false and highly prejudicial to the
-very cause of Liberty, of Morality, and of Science, which those
-who give utterance to such assertions affect to serve. I believe
-Christianity and Liberty to be not only compatible with each
-other, but necessary to each other. I regard Morality as
-naturally and intimately united to Religion. I am convinced that
-Christianity and Science need not make any mutual sacrifices,
-that neither has anything to fear from the other. This I
-establish in the first three Meditations of the present series. I
-then enter into the peculiar domain of Christianity, and
-determine what, in the presence of Liberty, of Philosophical
-Morality, and of Human Science, is the principle and what the
-bearing of "Christian Ignorance" and of Christian Faith.
-{viii}
-I finally apply to ideas their natural and inevitable law, the
-law which obliges them to express themselves in facts; I
-interrogate theory thus transformed into practice, and I show
-that Christianity alone supports this test victoriously.
-"Christian Life" becomes a forcible demonstration of the
-Legitimacy of Christian Faith. With these three Meditations the
-present series concludes.
-
-But to complete my undertaking, a final and capital question, the
-historical question, remains to be treated. Not that I think of
-retracing the History of Christianity throughout the whole of its
-course; such a design is far from my thoughts. I neither can nor
-wish to do more than to demonstrate the grand historical facts
-which, in my opinion, are in Christianity the stamp of a divine
-origin, and of a divine influence upon the development and
-destiny of the human race. Of these facts the following is a
-summary:--
-
-  1. The authority of the sacred books.
-
-  2. The primitive foundation of Christianity.
-
-  3. The Christian Faith persistent from age to age.
-
-{ix}
-
-  4. The Church of Christ persistent also from age to age.
-
-  5. Romanism and Protestantism.
-
-  6. The different Antichristian crises, their
-     character and their issue.
-
-It is upon these grand facts, and the questions which they
-suggest, that Historical Criticism has in our days exercised
-itself with ardour, as it is continuing to do; science, severe
-and daring, no invention of our epoch, but beyond all doubt one
-of its glories! If, after concluding this final series of my
-Meditations, I shall have succeeded in appreciating at their real
-value the exigencies made and the results obtained by Historical
-Criticism, where it has applied itself to the History of
-Christianity, I shall have realised the object which I proposed
-to myself on voluntarily entering upon this solemn and laborious
-study, where I meet with so much that is obscure, and so many
-quicksands.
-
-{x}
-
-But as I draw near the close, a scruple seizes me. What have I
-been thinking of to persist obstinately in casting such a work
-into the midst of the events and the practical problems which are
-agitating the whole civilized world, and which are demanding
-their instant solution? What good result can I expect from
-studying the past history of the Christian Religion in my
-country, or even speculating upon its future prospects, when the
-actual condition of the present generation and the lot of that
-which is to succeed it on the stage, are subject to so many
-troubles and plunged in such darkness? The more narrowly I
-scrutinize generations--the honour and the destiny of which I
-have so much at heart, for my children form part of them--the
-more am I struck and disquieted by two facts: on the one side the
-general sentiment of fatigue and incertitude manifesting itself
-in society and in individuals: on the other side not merely the
-grandeur but the unusual complexity of the questions agitated.
-{xi}
-I fear that, in her lassitude and in her sceptical vacillations,
-France may not render an exact account to herself of the problems
-and perils scattered over her path, of their number, their
-gravity, and their intimate connexion. I fear that, from not
-having an accurate conception of what her burthen is, and from
-not having the courage at once to weigh it well, the moment when
-she will have to bear it will come upon her with the necessary
-forces unmustered, and the necessary resolutions unformed.
-
-Almost every great epoch in history has been devoted to some
-question, if not an exclusive one, at least one dominant both in
-events and opinions, and around which the varying opinions and
-the efforts of men were concentrated. Not to go farther back than
-the era of modern history--in the sixteenth century the question
-of the unity of Religion and of its Reform; in the seventeenth
-century the question of pure monarchy, with its conquests abroad
-and administration at home; in the eighteenth century that of the
-operation of civil and religious liberty: such have been in
-France the different points on which ideas have culminated, the
-different objects which each social movement had specially in
-view.
-{xii}
-The systems of the day, although opposed, were clear; the
-struggles ardent but well defined. Men walked in those days on
-high roads; they did not wander about in the infinite
-complications of a labyrinth.
-
-And it is in a very labyrinth of questions and of ideas, of
-essays and events, diverse in character, confused, incoherent,
-contradictory, in which in these days the civilized world is
-plunged. I do not pretend to seize the clue to the labyrinth; I
-propose but to throw some light upon the chaos.
-
-First I turn my eyes to the external situation and relations of
-the States of Christendom, and consider the questions which
-concern the boundaries of territories and the distribution of
-populations between distinct and independent nations. Formerly
-these questions were all reducible to one--the aggrandizement or
-the weakening of these different States, and the maintenance or
-the disturbance of that balance of forces which was called the
-balance of power in Europe.
-{xiii}
-War and Diplomacy, Conquests and Treaties, discussed and settled
-this supreme question, of which Grotius expounded the theory, and
-Ancillon wrote the history. Now we are no longer in a situation
-so simple. What a complication of ideas: what ideas, novel and
-ill-defined, start up in these days to embarrass the course and
-entangle the relations of States! The question of races, the
-question of nationalities, the question of little states and of
-great political unities, the question of popular sovereignty and
-of its rights beyond the limits of nations as well as in their
-midst,--all these problems arise and cast into the shade, as a
-routine which has served its turn, the old public right and the
-maxims of the equilibrium of Europe, in their place seeking
-themselves to impose rules for regulating the territorial
-organizations and the external relations of States.
-
-{xiv}
-
-Not that the old traditional policy of Europe does not mingle
-itself with, and exercise a powerful influence upon, the new
-ideas and questions which invade us; however intellectual
-theories and ambitions may change, the passions and interests of
-men are permanent. War and the right of conquest have made good
-their old pretensions, and this before our very eyes, without any
-respect for the principle of Nationalities and of Races, a
-principle nevertheless inscribed upon the very standards which
-the conquerors bore. Prussia has aggrandized herself in the name
-of German Unity, and at the very moment excluded from
-participating in the common affairs of Germany, the seven or
-eight millions of Germans who form part of the Empire of Austria.
-Prussia seized the petty German Republic of Frankfort, evidently
-against the will of its sovereign people, and Danish Schleswick
-does not yet form part of the political group, to the class of
-which she belongs by similarity of national origin and of
-language. Even while sheltering themselves under the Ægis of some
-general idea, selfish interests and rude violence have not ceased
-to play a great part in the events which are passing before us,
-and if the ambition of Frederick the Second was not more
-legitimate, it was at least more logical than that of his
-successors.
-
-{xv}
-
-I am far from meaning to deny that the new ideas which men
-follow, and the desires which they evince, contain a certain part
-of truth, or to affirm that they have not a right to a certain
-share of influence. The identity of origin and of race, the
-possession in common of a single name and of one language, have a
-moral value very capable of becoming itself a political force; of
-this fair and prudent statesmanship is bound to hold account. But
-policy becomes chimerical and dangerous when it attributes to
-these new ideas and these aspirations a supreme authority and
-right to dominion; and what shocks all experience and common
-sense is to reject, as out of date, and no longer applicable,
-maxims which were the foundation of the public law of nations,
-and which, up to the present time, have presided over the
-relations of States.
-{xvi}
-The equilibrium of Europe, the long duration of territorial
-agglomerations, the right of small states to exist and be
-independent, the ancient titles to government, and the respect
-for ancient treaties,--all these elements of European order have
-not succumbed, neither were they bound to succumb, to the theory
-of nationalities, and the fashionable doctrine of great political
-unities. What would not be said, and what would not be said with
-justice, if France had proclaimed that, as Belgium and Western
-Switzerland speak French, that, as their populations have, both
-in origin and manners, great affinities with our fellow
-countrymen in French Flanders and in Franche-Comté, the principal
-of National Unity requires their incorporation with France?
-Prince Metternich was wrong to say that Italy was a mere
-Geographical expression; there are certainly between the nations
-of Italy historical bonds, both intellectual and moral, which
-draw them towards one another, and repel from their territories
-all foreign domination.
-{xvii}
-But this relationship, which may, and ought to be, a principle of
-union, did not impose upon Italy the form of political unity; and
-the _régime_ of a confederation of States might have been
-established in the peninsula and yet its liberation from the
-foreigner might have been secured, and a satisfaction might have
-been procured along our own frontier of the Alps, in the
-interests of our own security, and of that of Europe, for the
-preservation of the equilibrium of power. As soon as we look at
-the question with serious attention, we are forced to admit that
-any general application of the principle of nationalities, or of
-that of the great political unities, would throw the civilized
-world into such a confusion and fermentation as would be equally
-compromising to the internal liberties of nations, and to the
-preservation of peace between the different States.
-
-{xviii}
-
-What if I had to sound the consequences of another principle, the
-sovereign authority which men also seek in these days to set up,
-the right, I mean, of populations, or of some part of a
-population, to dissolve the State with which they are connected,
-and to range themselves under another State, or to constitute
-themselves into new and independent States? What would become of
-the existence, or even of the very name of country, if it also
-were thus left to be dealt with according to the fluctuating
-wills of men, and the special interests of such or such of its
-members? There is in the destiny of men, whether of generations
-or individuals, a great part which they have no share in deciding
-or disposing of; a man does not choose his family, neither does
-he select his country; it is the natural state of man to live in
-the place where he is born, in the society where is his cradle.
-The cases are infinitely rare which can permit of the bonds being
-rent asunder by which man is attached to the soil, the citizen to
-the state; which can justify his leaving the bosom of his
-country, to order to separate himself from it absolutely, and to
-strive to lay the foundation of a new country.
-{xix}
-We have just been spectators of such an attempt; we have seen
-some of the States which form the nation of the United States of
-America, abjure this union, and erect themselves into an
-independent confederation. Wherefore? In order to maintain in
-their bosom the institution of slavery. By what right? By the
-right, it is said, of every people, or portion of a people, to
-change its government at discretion. The States which remained
-faithful to the ancient American Confederation denied the
-principle and combatted the attempt. They succeeded in
-maintaining the federal Union, and in abolishing slavery. I am
-one of those who think that they had both right and reason on
-their side. Many years before the struggle commenced, one of the
-most eminent men in the United States, eminent by his character
-as well as his talents, a faithful representative of the
-interests of the States of the South, and an avowed apologist for
-negro slavery, Mr. Calhoun, did me the honour of transmitting to
-me all that he had written and said upon the subject.
-{xx}
-I was struck by the frank and earnest language with which he
-expressed his convictions, but no less by the futility of the
-efforts which he made to justify, upon general considerations and
-by historical necessities, the fact of slavery in his country. He
-would never have dared to paint it in its actual and living
-reality, as Mrs. Beecher Stowe has done in her romances of "Uncle
-Tom's Cabin" and of "Dred," which have everywhere excited so much
-sympathy and emotion. I became every day more and more convinced
-that there was here a radical iniquity and a social wound, of
-which it was at last time to efface the shame and to conjure the
-danger. It was with the motive of maintaining the system of
-slavery that the States of the South undertook to break up the
-great American State which was their country. Motive detestable
-for a deplorable act! Our epoch, so unfortunate in many respects,
-has, in my opinion, been fortunate in this, that it produced a
-Republic, the greatest of all Republics of ancient or of modern
-times, which has afforded us the example of an uncompromising
-resistance to an illegitimate popular desire, and of an
-unflinching respect for the tutelary principles of the life of
-States.
-
-{xxi}
-
-So far of the territorial questions, and those which concern the
-external relations of nations. Let me now speculate upon what the
-future has in store for those which involve domestic order and
-the organization of government. I meet here with the same
-confusion, the same complications, the same fluctuations between
-ideas and essays incoherent or inconsistent. At the base as at
-the summit of society, the monarchy and the republic are in
-collision: the monarchy reigns in events; the republic ferments
-in opinions.
-
-The proposition is now universally received that society has the
-right not only to see clearly and to intervene in its own
-government, but to see so clearly and to intervene in such a
-manner as to justify the expression that it governs itself.
-{xxii}
-The Constitutional Monarchy and the Republic profess each to
-attain this object: the one by a national representation, by the
-monarch's inviolability and his ministry's responsibility; the
-other by universal suffrage and the periodical elections of the
-great representatives of public power. But neither the
-constitutional monarchy nor the republic has as yet succeeded
-amongst us in obtaining firm possession of opinions and of
-events, of public confidence and of durable power. After and in
-spite of thirty-four years of prosperity, of peace, and of
-liberty, the constitutional power fell. The republic, accepted on
-its sudden appearance as the form of government which, as was
-affirmed, divided us least, after a few months of turbulent and
-sterile anarchy, fell also. In the place of the constitutional
-monarchy and of the republic there arose another form of
-government, a mixture of Dictatorship and of Republic, a sort of
-personal government combined with, universal suffrage. Will the
-essay have greater success? Events will decide.
-{xxiii}
-In the meantime let us be sincere with ourselves; the cause of so
-many painful and abortive attempts resides rather in the
-disposition of the people of France than in the acts of its
-governments: our revolutionary existence since 1789, our
-ambitious aspirings and disappointments, both equally immense,
-have left us at once very excited and very fatigued, full of
-impatience at the same time as of incertitude; we know not very
-well what we think or what we would have; our ideas are perplexed
-and confused; our wills vacillating and feeble; our minds have no
-fixed points, our conduct no determined objects; we often yield
-ourselves up readily against our better judgment, nay against our
-very wish, to whatever power extends its hand to seize us; but
-soon, very soon, we evince towards that power not a whit less
-exigency or unfairness; as soon as we feel ourselves rid of our
-most urgent cause for disquietude, our discontent is as
-precipitate as was our submission in the hour of peril. We are
-again disposed to be quarrelsome, and demand instant action in
-the midst even of our doubts and hesitation. Our revolutions have
-taught us the lesson neither of resistance nor of patience. Yet
-these are virtues without which it is idle to propose to found
-any free government.
-
-{xxiv}
-
-I pass from political questions to social questions, and from the
-state of our political institutions to that of the relations
-existent between the different parts of society. I say the
-_different parts_ to avoid saying _different classes_,
-for we cannot hear the word class pronounced without thinking
-that we are threatened with the re-establishment of privileges
-and exclusions, of that entire _régime_ with its narrow
-compartments and inseparable barriers within which men were
-formerly enclosed, and ranked according to their origin, their
-name, their religion, or whatever other factitious or accidental
-qualification they might possess. In effect, this _régime_
-has fallen--fallen completely and definitively; all legal
-barriers have disappeared; all careers are open; all labour free:
-by individual merit and by labour every man may aspire to
-everything, and examples abound in confirmation of the principle.
-{xxv}
-This was the great work, the great conquest of 1789; we celebrate
-it unceasingly, and we have often the air of forgetting that it
-ever occurred. The different ancient classes are still full of
-jealousy, of distrust, and of restless irritation; because they
-have to struggle for influence in the midst of liberty, they
-persuade themselves that they are still risking life and limb in
-defence of their situation and of their right. The Restoration
-was attacked and undermined on account, it was said, of the evils
-that the _bourgeoisie_ had to endure, and the risks which it
-had to run at the hands of the nobles. Under the government of
-July, the working classes were told incessantly that they were
-the victims of the privileges and of the tyranny of the middle
-classes. Facts and actual events gave singularly the lie to such
-assertions. With what effect? In the hurry of passions and the
-intoxication of thought, men appealed to theories which had been
-already often produced on the stage of the world,--theories which
-have only served to agitate, never to satisfy it.
-{xxvi}
-Landed property and capital, labour and wages, the artificial
-distribution of the means of material happiness amongst men, have
-served sometimes as the subjects of unjust recrimination,
-sometimes of chimerical expectations. Attacks were made upon
-things which the assailants had no right to take; and promises
-were made to give things which the promisers had not the power to
-give.
-
-I have heard it remarked by clear-sighted men who are good
-observers, that this malady of the mind is decreasing, and that
-even amongst the labouring classes themselves, false notions as
-to the conflict of capital and labour, as to the artificial
-settlement of wages, and the intervention of the State in the
-distribution of the material means of existence, are in
-discredit, and that the ambitious aspirings of the people,
-although continuing to be very democratic, have ceased to assume
-the form of Socialism.
-{xxvii}
-I ardently wish it were so: the passionate feelings which find
-their field in facts affecting the sphere of material
-subsistence, are the rudest, the most rebellious, and the most
-recalcitrant to the principles of the moral order: it is easier
-to deal with the aspirings of political ambition than with the
-ardent cravings for physical advantages. But I fear, I confess,
-that errors such as those which presented themselves under the
-names of Socialism and Communism, and which recently made so much
-noise, are not so discarded as we might hope them to be; that
-they are actually without a mouthpiece is not a sufficient proof
-of their defeat; materialism, and the evil instincts to which it
-leads or from which it springs, have penetrated very far amongst
-us, and a long period of social and moral progress in the midst
-of a society which has been well ordered will be necessary in
-order to surmount this danger.
-
-Several years ago I put to a great manufacturer of Manchester,
-who had been Mayor of that immense centre of industry, the
-following question: "What amongst you is the proportion between
-the laborious and well-conducted workmen, who live respectably in
-their homes, set aside money in the savings' bank, and apply for
-books at the people's library, and the idle and disorderly
-workmen who pass their time at taverns, and only work so much as
-is necessary to furnish them with the means of subsistence?"
-{xxviii}
-After a moment's reflection, he replied: "The former are
-two-thirds of the whole number." After congratulating him, I
-added, "Allow me to put one more question. If you had amongst you
-great disorders, seditious assemblages, and riots, what would be
-the result?" "With us, sir," he said without hesitation, "the
-honest men are braver than the ill-conditioned ones." I
-congratulated him this time still more.
-
-In these questions I had touched the root of the evil which
-afflicts us. It is to their shortcomings in morality, to their
-disorderly lives, that we must attribute the favour with which
-the working classes receive the fallacious theories that menace
-social order. The condition of these classes is hard and full of
-distressing accidents; whoever regards it closely, and with a
-little fairness and sympathy, cannot fail to be deeply moved by
-all the sufferings which they have to support, the privations
-from which they have no chance of escape, and the efforts which
-they must make to ensure themselves a living at best monotonous
-and full of hazard.
-{xxix}
-The happy ones of the earth feel sometimes alarm and irritation,
-when they hear from the pulpit descriptions purer and more true
-to the life than are to be met with in philanthropical novels, of
-the precarious state and distresses of the lower orders. Beyond
-doubt, from pictures of this nature should be scrupulously
-excluded everything that would seem to excite sentiments of
-hostility, or that would set one class against another; still as
-the upper classes must resign themselves to the spectacle, it
-devolves more especially upon Christian Painters to place it
-before them.
-{xxx}
-Nothing but strong moral convictions, and the habits of well
-living amongst the labouring classes, can furnish them with
-efficacious means of struggling against the temptations and
-resisting the ambitious yearnings, suggested to them by the
-spectacle of the world which surrounds them,--a world now at
-length transparent to all, a world of which the stir, the noise,
-the accidents, the adventures, penetrate with rapidity even to
-the workshops of our cities and the remotest recesses of our
-villages. What influence shall protect the masses of the people
-from the irritating and demoralizing effect of such a sight,
-unless it be the influence of religious principles, the moral
-discipline which religion maintains, and the moral serenity which
-religion diffuses over the rudest existences and the lives
-subjected to the greatest privations? And it is precisely
-religious belief and religious discipline, Christian faith and
-Christian law, which are now being attacked and undermined, and
-this far more in the obscurer classes, than in the brilliant
-regions of society!
-
-{xxxi}
-
-These attacks are of a general although of diverse nature, and of
-unequal violence; they occur in the bosom of Roman Catholicism,
-of Protestantism, and of scientific philosophy; some are direct,
-open, impetuous; others indirect and full of reserves, and of a
-tenderness sometimes affected, sometimes sincere. Christianity
-counts amongst its enemies fanatics who persecute it in the name
-of reason and of liberty, as well as adversaries who criticise it
-with moderation and prudence; the latter admit its practical
-deservings, are distressed by the wounds which they inflict, and,
-in the very act of dealing their blows, seek to lessen their
-force. This diversity of attack is a proof of the trouble, of the
-incertitude, and of the incoherence which reign in men's
-opinions, both upon religious questions and upon questions which
-are only simply political and social; many they are who would be
-inclined to save such or such a portion of the edifice which they
-are battering and seeking to destroy. But the upshot is, that all
-these blows are telling upon the same point, and are concurring
-to produce the same effect; it is the Christian Religion which
-receives them all; it is the right and the empire of Christ
-which, in the world learned and unlearned, is subjected to doubt
-and exposed to peril.
-
-{xxxii}
-
-I have touched upon all the great questions which are agitating
-the human mind and human societies: questions of public right,
-questions of political organization, questions of social
-institutions, questions of religious belief. Everywhere I
-encounter two facts, facts everywhere the same: a great
-complication and a great incertitude in man's opinions and in his
-efforts. Nothing is simple, no one decided. Problems of every
-kind--doubts of every kind weigh upon the thoughts of men, and
-oppress their wills; their ambitious aspirings are varied,
-immense, but everywhere they hesitate. They may be likened to
-travellers already exhausted with fatigue, yet feebly driving to
-feel their way through a labyrinth.
-
-Are we then to infer that we are living in an era of decay and
-impotence? that we have nothing ourselves to do, nothing to hope
-for, in this situation so complicated and so obscure? that we
-have only to wait until our lot is decided by that sovereign
-power called by some Providence, by others Fate?
-
-{xxxiii}
-
-I am far from thinking so.
-
-Of the men distinguished by singleness of views and strength of
-convictions whom I have known, I consider the Marshal Gouvion
-Saint-Cyr in these respects the most remarkable. He was one day
-detailing his reasons for disapproving of the system of a royal
-or imperial guard, or of privileged corps, in an army: "Few,"
-said he, "are really brave: the best thing to be done is to
-disseminate them in the ranks, where each singly, by his presence
-and example, will make eight or ten more brave men around him." I
-am no judge as to the value of the Marshal's maxim in a military
-sense; I do not believe it to be invariably true, or always
-applicable in the political sense; there are epochs at which, in
-order to further the progress of which a nation stands in need,
-to withdraw it from its embarrassments or to rouse it from its
-apathy, the most urgent thing to be done, and the plan the most
-efficacious, is to form in its bosom picked bodies of men (the
-number is immaterial), and then to incorporate with them others
-possessing distinguished qualities, and animated by the same
-spirit, decided in their opinions, and resolute in their action,
-single of purpose, and full of confidence: these would soon
-attract to themselves as associates many others who would never,
-without such impulse, begin to move in the same path.
-{xxxiv}
-We are, I believe, at an era which calls for such a mode of
-influencing society, and which authorises us to expect success if
-we adopt it.
-
-I can never be accused of ignoring or extenuating the evil which
-torments us upon all the points which I have just indicated, the
-rights of nations, the civil organization of society and its
-economy, moral and religious belief. In all these directions an
-evil wind is blowing, an evil current is hurrying away a part of
-French society, and it is my constant design so to arouse the
-moral sense of the people, and its good sense, as to make them
-attentive to the existence of the ill, and solicitous for its
-removal.
-{xxxv}
-But at the side of this fact, so deplorable and so full of peril,
-a fact of contrary and salutary nature is occurring and
-developing itself: a good wind there also is which is blowing, a
-good current which is impelling us forwards;--at the same time
-that violent and revolutionary theories are being diffused, the
-principles of legal order, and of liberties, serving mutually to
-control and check one another, are proclaimed and maintained; the
-maxims and the sentiments of the spirit of peace are heard at
-least as loudly pronounced, as the souvenirs and the traditions
-of the spirit of adventure and conquest; the sound principles of
-political economy have defenders no less zealous than the
-presumptuous and dreamy theories of Socialism; Spiritualism
-raises its voice high at the side of Materialism; Christianity is
-advancing at the same time as Incredulity, and with a progress
-also distinguished by its scientific method and its practical
-applications.
-{xxxvi}
-Following respectively their different objects, there are on both
-sides groups of men of strong convictions, activity, and
-influence, who hope for and pursue the triumph of their several
-causes. Like the ardent huntsman of Bürgers ballad, France is
-solicited by two Genii, ever at her side, ever present, urgent,
-contrary. Since the commencement of the nineteenth century, our
-history is made up of this great struggle and of its
-vicissitudes, of the series of victories gained and defeats
-sustained by these two forces, which are disputing the future of
-our country.
-
-They find a field of action in a people of quick, various, and
-keen feelings, prone to generous impulses, full of human
-sympathies and mobility, at this moment chilled and intimidated
-by the checks imposed upon their ambitious yearnings, by the
-disappointments which have befallen their hopes, and so brought
-back by actual experience to confine their aspirations within the
-modest limits of good sense; more occupied with the perils of
-their situation than with the rights of thought, but always
-remarkable for intelligence and sagacity; friendly to liberty
-even when they dread its abuse, and to order although they only
-defend it at the last extremity; more touched by virtue than
-shocked by vice; honest in their instincts and moral judgments in
-spite of the weakness of their moral belief and their complacent
-indulgence of men whom they do not esteem; and always ready, in
-spite of their doubts and their alarms, to recur to the noble
-desires which they have the air of no longer entertaining.
-
-{xxxvii}
-
-We have in all this evidently matter to encourage the good genius
-of France. The life of nations is neither easier nor less mixed
-with good and evil, with successes and reverses, than the life of
-individuals; but assuredly, in spite of what is wanting to it,
-and in spite of its sorrows, the actual state of our country, as
-well as its long history, open a wide field to the efforts and
-the hopes of the men of elevated, resolute, and honest minds, who
-are occupying themselves in earnest with its destiny.
-
-{xxxviii}
-
-What, in order to attain their object, can be, ought to be, the
-conduct of the men engaged in this patriotic design, men who have
-it at heart to second the good current and to stem the evil
-current, which have both set in amongst us? Upon what conditions
-and by what means can we hope to pass through the sieve of good
-sense and of moral sense the confused ideas which plague us, and
-to find an issue for the public out of the doubts and hesitation
-which are a source of languor and enervation to the soul?
-
-Political Liberty and Belief in Religion, the movement of society
-in advance and the impulse of the soul towards eternity, Free
-Government and Christianity, these are the two forces to which we
-should recur, and the only ones capable of remedying this disease
-of trouble and doubt which afflict both our thoughts and our
-conduct, and which at one time impairs, at another paralyses, our
-understanding.
-
-{xxxix}
-
-I have no intention here to speak of political liberties in the
-abstract, and of their necessity either to a country in order to
-guarantee to it a good administration at home and abroad, or to
-individuals in order to secure their interests, moral and
-material. The right of France to these liberties, and their
-opportuneness to her at this moment, have recently been set in
-their clearest light, and established in all their force on their
-highest stage, in the bosom of the legislative body. [Footnote 2]
-It is solely because of its influence upon that ill of our epoch,
-the complication of questions and the hesitations of opinion,
-that I speak here of political liberty; I regard it as one of the
-two great remedies against this ill.
-
-    [Footnote 2: Discourse of M. Thiers, _Sur les libertés
-    nécessaires et sur la liberté de la presse_, in the séances of
-    the 11th January, 1864, 13th February, 1866, 30th January,
-    7th, 8th, 15th, 21st, and 22nd February, 1868.]
-
-{xl}
-
-When all questions are agitated pell mell, and all minds are
-perplexed, the first salutary result consequent upon liberty is
-that it sets all opinions and all intentions in contact and in
-conflict. At first, and for a time, this simultaneous invasion of
-so many complex facts, and of so many diverse and contrary ideas,
-does but add to the perplexity of the questions and to the
-confusion of minds; but little by little, and quickly too,
-provided liberty endures, the winnowing process produces its
-effect upon the questions, and light penetrates into the
-understandings: the different facts, and problems which these
-facts suggest, are set in turn in their place, and valued only
-for as much as they are worth; actors and spectators grow
-accustomed to them all, and begin to form more precise
-conceptions of them.
-
-Little by little order takes the place of confusion; opinions
-define and classify themselves; and instead of the fermentation
-of opinions in a chaotic confusion, we have a contest in regular
-form, and upon intelligible issues, I repeat that a result so
-salutary cannot be obtained unless upon the condition of a
-liberty universal, real, and durable; partial or transitory, it
-would serve only to aggravate the perturbation, and to unsettle
-opinions still more.
-
-{xli}
-
-Political liberty has a second effect, one, perhaps, still more
-important: it forces all questions to submit to the test of
-practical experiment. As long as the liberty is only in the
-thought, it is vain and intemperate; everything seems permitted,
-and everything possible to those who are not responsible for the
-effects of an act: man's thought, intoxicated with itself, runs
-riot in the vagueness of infinite space and time. But when to
-liberty of thought is superadded political liberty,--when,
-instead of treating questions speculatively, they have to be
-virtually solved,--when men are charged as real actors to
-transform into facts their own opinions or those of the
-spectators who are looking on,--then it is that the human mind,
-making its own strength the object of its reflection and
-examination, is driven to the admission that it does not dispose
-at its own will of the world, and that even in order to satisfy
-itself, it must confine itself to the limits imposed by good
-sense, by justice, and by possibility,--then it is that it learns
-to govern itself, and to hold itself responsible for its acts.
-Responsibility engenders discretion, but is itself engendered by
-liberty alone.
-
-{xlii}
-
-Our own times have furnished us with three great examples of the
-salutary empire exercised by political liberty in furnishing an
-escape from the embarrassment of situations, and in solving
-questions the most different--I might say the most contrary--in
-their nature. We have only to cast our eyes over the contemporary
-histories of England, of the United States of America, and of
-France herself, to discover their examples and their authority as
-precedents.
-
-From 1792 to 1818, England was engaged in struggles first against
-the spirit of Revolution, and then against that termed by M.
-Benjamin Constant the spirit of usurpation and of conquest. With
-what forces and with what arms did England support these two
-formidable struggles? With the forces and the arms of political
-liberty.
-{xliii}
-It was by the elections, by publicity, by discussions continued
-in the midst of the energetic manifestations of all the parties,
---it was by appeals to public sentiments and opinions,--it was by
-setting in action all the springs of a free and representative
-government, that England succeeded in her resistance to the most
-potent revolutionary and military movement which ever agitated
-Europe. That struggle over, after the lapse of a few years,
-during which the presiding policy prolonged its tenure of office
-by pursuing a pacific course, England entered upon quite a
-different path; sometimes under the Government of Liberals,
-sometimes of Conservatives, the policy of Reform took the place
-of the policy of resistance; and since 1828, it is in this path
-that England is progressing; it is in favour of innovations,
-sometimes prudent, sometimes daring, and sometimes, perhaps,
-improvident, that she is exerting to the utmost all the forces of
-the country, all the strength of its government. Political
-Liberty has in turn, and with similar efficacy, served the cause
-and assured the success, at one time of a policy of resistance,
-at another of that of progress.
-
-{xliv}
-
-The United States of America have been subjected to a still ruder
-trial. Their government has had to struggle against the
-insurrection of a notable portion of their people, and against a
-civil war entered upon in the name of a principle, popular
-independence. The central power of the Confederation has resisted
-an insurrection radically illegitimate, which was entered upon to
-maintain the slavery of a part of the human race; it defended the
-national existence of the State against the attempts which were
-made to dislocate it, and which were founded upon the same
-motive; and after a civil war which endured four years, in the
-course of which each side was prodigal of efforts and sacrifices,
-and displayed an equal energy, the policy of resistance triumphed
-by the medium of a republican power, and the liberal idea of the
-abolition of slavery vanquished the revolutionary idea of the
-right of insurrection.
-{xlv}
-It is to political liberty, and to the potent force of the
-institutions and manners founded under her influence, that this
-victory of the great right of humanity was due; and, the war once
-over, the civil _régime_ of American society resumed its
-action, still stormy and perilous, but free from every anarchical
-usurpation or military tyranny.
-
-Newer to France, its principles less understood by it, and not so
-well applied, Political Liberty has not on these accounts
-remained without producing there some fruits. In 1830 and in 1848
-France passed through two revolutions, one of which had been
-preceded by sixteen the other by eighteen years of civil liberty.
-Neither of the _régimes_ in operation immediately previous
-to each revolution sufficed to prevent it, but they greatly
-changed its character and weakened its effects. In 1830, thanks
-to the instantaneous intervention of the public authorities which
-owed their existence to the previous _régime_, a regular
-government was promptly established, and a new constitutional
-monarchy succeeded to that which had just fallen.
-{xlvi}
-On the instant it set itself in opposition to the revolutionary
-movement which had given it birth; but the principle of respect
-for the Law and for Liberty exercised, as yet, so incomplete and
-feeble an empire upon men's minds, that the anarchical
-fermentation of opinions prolonged themselves even after the
-victory. The doctrine of Religious Liberty, in particular, was
-more than once lost sight of and violated: in February, 1831, the
-funeral ceremonies in the church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois,
-celebrated in commemoration of the Duke de Berri, who had been
-assassinated eleven years previously, was not allowed to be
-tranquilly celebrated; a violent and riotous mob sacked the
-archiepiscopal palace of Paris, and was the cause of the church,
-which had furnished them with a pretext for violence, being
-closed for many months.
-{xlvii}
-In 1848, on the contrary, during a revolutionary crisis which set
-men's passions far more furiously in movement, and which was more
-profound than that of 1830, neither the liberty of Religion nor
-the peace of the churches was disturbed; the ruling authorities
-were exposed to anarchy for a longer period, but the rights of
-the individual were respected, and he might affirm himself free
-even in the midst of the public troubles and perils. Thirty-four
-years of civil Liberty have not disappeared with the governments
-which were then in force without leaving their traces; their
-traditions and their examples have evidently exercised a salutary
-influence both upon the last Revolution, and upon the Reaction
-which put an end to it.
-
-That this influence may still surmount the great trials through
-which governments and people may have both to pass, two things
-are necessary: the one is, that civil liberty should form real
-citizens, that nations as well as governments should learn to
-make use of their rights, and to submit to the limits imposed by
-their laws; the other is, that each country and ruling power, at
-the same time that they are culling the fruits of civil liberty,
-should accept its inconveniences and its perils.
-{xlviii}
-A free government is not exempt from either vices or dangers; it
-does not dispense men from the necessity of contemplating with
-resignation the imperfection of every work of man as well as of
-every human situation.
-
-Free institutions are not of themselves enough: they leave room
-to nations for--what do I say? they demand from them--great
-activity and much responsibility. If nations strive to elude
-their part of responsibility and omit to exercise their share of
-action, free institutions become idle words; they are no longer
-anything but a picture-frame without the picture--a drama
-written, not represented--in which the actors fail to assume
-their parts or to co-operate to produce the _dénouement_.
-
-It is the absolute necessity of this co-operation of the public
-in the life of free government which gives so capital an
-importance to the popular beliefs, moral and religious.
-{xlix}
-When I say beliefs, moral and religious, I attach to the word a
-sense at once the largest and most positive: these beliefs may
-have different dogmas and different internal organizations; I am
-not one of those who believe that Romanists are necessarily
-hostile to civil liberty, or that the doctrine of the right of
-private judgment impels Protestants inevitably to anarchy. What
-is indispensable is, that in their diversity the beliefs styled
-moral and religious should be beliefs really moral and
-religious--beliefs which recognize and attest that man is
-naturally moral and religious, and which assign to man something
-essentially to distinguish him from the material world in the
-midst of which he lives, in short a soul. Nations animated by
-such beliefs are the only ones which accept really under a free
-_régime_ a large share both of its responsibility and of its
-active duties: it is only when so animated that they give
-consequently to civil Liberty the potent support of which it
-stands in need, for it is only then that they seriously believe
-in the existence of moral Liberty. The world has seen more than
-once how feeble and precarious an affection men feel for liberty
-when they no longer believe in the human soul; and with what a
-tame complacency, when they regard themselves as an ephemeral
-combination of material elements, they submit to the empire of
-the material forces which assail them.
-{l}
-Many in these days are of opinion that it is enough in a free
-country if religious beliefs are freely practised by those who
-profess them, and externally respected by others, and that all
-which can be expected from them is an indirect influence in
-favour of the maintenance of order. But this is a complete
-misapprehension of the great facts of nature and of human
-society. There are two things which never fail finally to prove
-incompatible, Liberty and Falsehood. Whether from prudence or in
-tenderness for the opinions of those who surround him, a man
-isolated in position may preserve silence, or may utter even a
-falsehood as to what he thinks and believes respecting the
-supreme questions concerning Man's nature and Man's destiny; this
-is possible, for such cases are seen; a single isolated
-individual is so paltry a thing, and passes so quickly, that his
-silence or his falsehood can exercise but little influence upon
-the vast ocean of society in which he is plunged: but the
-falsehood or the silence of a free people from feelings of
-respect or of prudence cannot be regarded as possible; their
-opinions and their sentiments concerning the supreme questions of
-humanity manifest themselves necessarily, and carry with them in
-such manifestation their natural and logical consequences.
-{li}
-To engage a free people to treat with tenderness and respect, to
-refrain from contesting, perhaps even to reduce to practice,
-moral and religious beliefs in which it does not itself believe,
-is to give to it not only a very discreditable but a very
-impracticable counsel. Liberty in the domain of civil society
-calls for and infallibly induces veracity in the region of the
-intellect; a free country can never escape in its public and
-practical life from the effectual influence of any ideas, whether
-moral or immoral, religious or irreligious, which may happen to
-be fermenting and spreading themselves abroad in the minds of the
-people.
-
-{lii}
-
-I leave generalities and call things by their proper names; in
-all that I have just said respecting beliefs moral and religious,
-it is of Christianity that I am thinking. That Christianity on
-the one hand is necessary to the firm establishment of civil
-Liberty amongst us, and on the other hand is very reconcilable
-with the principles and the rights of modern society, is what I
-have at heart to establish in the series of Meditations which I
-am now publishing.
-
-I do not deceive myself by imagining that it will be an easy task
-to effect this reconciliation, and to restore at the present day
-to Christianity, the object of so many attacks, that influence of
-which the interests most dear to us, Liberty as well as Order,
-stand equally in need. Still, I believe that success is not only
-here possible but infallible. I was speaking just now of two
-contrary currents which had set in in the domain of intellect as
-well as of Politics, and which lead to the formation of groups
-profoundly different, Conservatives and Revolutionists, Liberals
-and Radicals, Spiritualists and Materialists, Christians and
-Disbelievers.
-{liii}
-No one of these groups really represents a dominant party
-in France: amidst them and around them there is a scattered and
-hesitating population, sometimes heedless, sometimes anxious,
-vacillating alternately between innovations and its traditions,
-wearied of its agitations and of its doubt, and not seeing
-clearly the quarter from which shall come that government of
-truth, of liberty, and of order, which is to give repose to man's
-thoughts and life and enable him again to rise. In this confused
-and wavering multitude there are to be found men whose ways of
-thinking, whose desires, and sometimes whose tastes, are, to
-appearance, very decided, but whose opinions or wills are in
-reality neither clear, determined, nor pronounced. We have here a
-vast field open to all the winds, accessible to every labourer, a
-field ever fertile, and, although harassed by various and
-incoherent attempts, still a field only demanding good seed to
-bear an abundant harvest. If we sound the depths of French
-society in all directions, and study it in all its elements and
-under all its aspects, we shall find it to be as I have here
-described it.
-{liv}
-Above and below, in all classes and parties, amongst the powerful
-and the humble, the learned and ignorant, we shall find
-everywhere, on one side groups of persons of resolute purposes
-devoting their activity to the service of opinions and causes the
-most contrary; on the other a wavering, vacillating crowd, in
-search of a path to follow, and impelled, perhaps, in the most
-different directions. Upon this population it is that we must
-act; it is amongst them that there are immense and decisive
-conquests to make; good aspirations, moral and religious
-instincts, those necessary preliminaries to faith in Christ, are
-by no means wanting; but to conduct them to their goal, to
-transform them into positive and effectual convictions, we must
-accommodate ourselves to the general character of this
-population; we must be of our time, and speak its language; an
-adequate satisfaction must be offered, and a necessary confidence
-must be inspired, before we can expect that a population, anxious
-to ensure the rights and the interests of its new life, should
-give in return its soul.
-{lv}
-It is not a complacent indulgence that I am counselling, it is
-not concessions that I ask from the contemporary defenders of
-Christianity; what their mission demands is, that they should
-know, that they should comprehend, that they should love the
-society to which they are addressing themselves, and that they
-should zealously occupy themselves with it to rally it under
-their banner, not to cast it prostrate or to humiliate it under
-their blows.
-
-Not only must their work have this character, but when it has it
-prospers, and the nineteenth century has seen instances of such
-success. I shall only cite two, which occurred at different
-epochs, and in which the modes of action were different. Why did
-Chateaubriand and the Father Lacordaire exercise upon their
-times, and especially upon the youth of their times, so
-extraordinary an influence?
-{lvi}
-First, because the awakening of Christianity which they provoked
-was a thing in harmony with the popular instincts, but also
-because, in the midst of the religious reaction of which they
-were the organs, they each of them, by degrees and by different
-processes, respectively inspired the France of their days with
-the sentiment that they were its children and its friends, that
-they shared its new aspirations, that they accepted its political
-transformation, and that it was not in order to reconstitute it
-on its ancient basis that they wished it to be Christian. They
-more than once astounded, disquieted, even shocked their country,
-the one by his political career, the other by his monastic zeal;
-still their popularity continued, and they influenced it, the one
-by causing Christianity to resume her place in the modern
-literatures of France, the other notwithstanding his having
-re-established in France the monastic orders. The reason of this
-is, that in spite of the prejudices which it entertained against
-them, and the opinions in which it differed from them, France
-felt itself understood and honoured by them; it rejoiced in their
-glory, because it believed in their sympathy.
-
-{lvii}
-
-Men such as M. de Chateaubriand and the Father Lacordaire are
-rare; but the spirit which animated them, the comprehension of
-their age and country which distinguished them, did not die with
-them, nor are they without successors in their work of religion
-and patriotism. Beyond a doubt the Faith of Christ and the Church
-of Rome have in our days had no champion more eloquent and more
-liberal than M. de Montalembert, and worthily the Father
-Hyacinthe occupies the pulpit from which once resounded the voice
-of the Father Lacordaire. At the side of these names, already
-more than once cited by me, I see others start up of a different
-origin and with a different physiognomy, but devoted to the same
-cause and to the same work.
-{lviii}
-At the very moment at which I am terminating these Meditations,
-two compositions meet my eye, published by men, neither of whom I
-have the honour to know, men very different in position and in
-ideas: the one a Romanist, the other a Protestant, the one a
-great Prelate in his Church, the other a simple Pastor in his;
-both firm Christians, and both sympathizers with the instincts,
-the aspirations, and the moral and intellectual ideas prevalent
-in the present state of French society; both having the
-resolution and the ability required in order to present
-Christianity to Frenchmen under the form and in the language most
-proper to make it penetrate the soul. The one is Monseigneur
-Darboy, the Archbishop of Paris, the other, M. Decoppel, pastor
-at Alais. The former has just addressed to the clergy of his
-diocese, (Lent, 1868,) _A Pastoral Letter upon the Truth of
-Christianity_. [Footnote 3] The second presented, on the 7th
-of November in the previous year, to the National Evangelical
-Conference assembled at Nérac, _A Report as to the Actual
-Requirements of Preachers in the Protestant Churches_.
-[Footnote 4]
-
-    [Footnote 3: This Pastoral Letter was published at full length
-    in the _Gazette de France_, on the 25th and 26th of
-    February, 1868.]
-
-    [Footnote 4: This report was published, at Toulouse, by the
-    Society for the Publication of Religious Books, 1868.]
-
-{lix}
-
-I was struck, in spite of their diversity, by the substantially
-analogous character of these two documents, and I cite them here
-because I would set in a clear light the great fact which each
-reveals, that a general and contemporaneous work is now being
-prosecuted in order to maintain and reestablish the harmony
-between the Christianity of former ages and the spirit of the
-present century, a work of which the mission is to solve, as far
-as the solution can rest with man, the question whether our epoch
-is Christian.
-
-"Religion," says the Archbishop of Paris, "is a fact that was
-contemporary with primitive man--a fact present in all ages, ever
-paramount, ever visible, although not everywhere to the same
-degree. Never was there wanting in the world a voice to remind
-man of the truths of Religion, whether it proceeded from the tent
-of the Patriarch, the synagogue of the Jew, or the church of the
-Catholic; whether it was heard in the whisperings of a simple and
-upright conscience, or emanated from legislators or prophet
-raised up by Heaven, or was the voice of God himself incarnate,
-constituting Himself the preceptor and the model of His
-creatures, humanity was never so imperfect as that these lofty
-lessons did not draw forth from the generously faithful responses
-more or less unanimous.
-
-{lx}
-
-"Heathen nations--their history proves it--have preserved
-something of these hopes and of the religious dogmas connected
-with them. The grandsons of Noah, in dispersing in the plains of
-Sennaar, convey to the four quarters of the earth the traditions
-which they received from their grandsire, and which are the
-common patrimony of the human race. Doubtless these traditions
-are gradually altered and deformed by the vain intermixtures of
-fables, which owe their origin to the dreamers of the far East
-and to the poets of Greece and of Rome; but in the eyes of the
-multitude, and particularly of those who are its superiors and
-its governors, the grand features of the truth are readily
-distinguishable. Thus, the existence of God and the action of
-Providence, the distinction of good and of evil, the original
-fall of man and the necessity for an atonement, the immortality
-of the soul, the rewards and punishments of another life; all
-these doctrines, more or less disfigured, it is true, live in the
-depths of the conscience of the people.
-{lxi}
-Even Pagans have their souls by nature Christian, which testify
-in favour of justice and virtue; and if Pagans are to be
-condemned, says St. Paul, it is not for having ignored God, but
-for having neglected to serve Him and to glorify Him.
-
-"At an era nearer to ourselves, three centuries ago, a sorrowful
-work was accomplished. Theological disputes led to religious
-wars, and by a tearing asunder of ties which it is impossible too
-much to deplore, Europe divided itself into Catholics and
-Protestants. But in spite of this fatal resolution it remained
-Christian, although not in the same degree. Their political
-charters and institutions, their civil laws and social habits,
-breathe all of Christianity; and the character of their baptism
-remains stamped upon their foreheads, which it for ever ennobles.
-
-{lxii}
-
-"And now this fact, which is the common work of so many
-generations, made up of beliefs expressed in every kind of manner
-and sometimes practised even to heroism, written in books sacred
-and profane, engraved on marble and on brass, in institutions and
-in laws, in the mind and in the heart of nations--this fact, what
-is its moral value, and what its bearing? Are we to be told that
-it is purely natural--the spontaneous production of our habits,
-the simple result of our instincts--and, so to say, an
-irrepressible necessity of mankind? Even in this case it is
-divine, as divine as our nature itself, which was directly
-created by God; and so we must recognise and respect Religion as
-a thing true, necessary and divine. It is reason, it is common
-sense which tells us this.
-
-"But there is more than that, my very dear brethren. This fact,
-as it presents itself, so general and so constant, is not merely
-the common work of the races of mankind. Our nature, left to its
-own resources and its proper energy, is incapable of producing it
-and of continuing it with a brilliancy that so endures, and with
-a force which renews itself every day.
-{lxiii}
-It is also, it is more especially the providential and prodigious
-effect of a cause to which all of us are subject, men and
-nations, and which here shows itself that it is so by giving to
-its effects a supernatural character. ... Supernatural means were
-necessary, that is to say, a continual action of God always in
-relation to the varying exigencies of each different age, and the
-constant requirements of humanity, in order that the person of
-the Revealer having disappeared, and His direct action being no
-longer visible, His teachings, His spirit, and His institutions
-should be maintained in the world in a manner authentic,
-infallible, and triumphant. In a single word, there was necessary
-a perpetual assistance of God, accrediting the mission of His
-envoys by extraordinary facts--facts of a superhuman power,
-miraculously protecting their work against the consequences of
-the weaknesses of some and of the perversity of others,
-intervening with supernatural _éclat_ to enable the mission
-to develop itself amongst nations incessantly, to act more and
-more efficaciously upon them in spite of their shortcomings and
-their revolts, and to aid them and to support them in their
-religious and predestined course.
-
-{lxiv}
-
-"This paramount action, this divine action, is manifested in the
-highest degree in Religion. After the miracles and the prophecies
-of ancient times, after the Jewish nation, whose history is a
-prophecy and one unceasing miracle, Christianity appears with
-signs so supernatural that it is impossible for us to deceive
-ourselves. Miraculous agency appears at every turn. The Saviour,
-and what he affirms concerning himself, His discourses, His
-character and His actions, the difficulties of His undertaking,
-the marvels of wisdom and sanctity which He accomplished;
-finally, the survival and the development of His work through
-centuries; everything here forces us to recur to the fact of the
-direct intervention of God--sole possible means of finding a
-satisfactory explanation of such grand results."
-
-{lxv}
-
-The circular letter is throughout but a development of the ideas
-recapitulated in the passages of the text which I have cited--a
-development sometimes so prudent and so little precipitate as to
-assume the character of extreme circumspection, yet always
-faithful to the same thought. The writer indulges in no
-discussion purely theological, makes no pompous display of
-ecclesiastical authority, engages in no polemics with any class
-of dissent. When I affirm that we have here the History of
-Humanity, a correct appreciation of the ideas and behaviour of
-man in his different stages; Religion in general and Christianity
-in particular; considered as a grand fact--a fact universal and
-permanent, traceable everywhere and in all times, even amongst
-the heathens; a fact which survived all the divisions, the
-scientific struggles, and the civil wars which took place amongst
-Christians themselves, particularly amongst Roman Catholics and
-Protestants, all of whom are Christians, according to the writer,
-by the same title, if not in the same degree;
-{lxvi}
-a fact at once human and divine--human by its accordance with
-man's nature, divine by the direct and supernatural action of
-God, of God the creator, personal, free, whose presence and power
-reveal themselves, now by the general and permanent order of
-events, now by special miracles, judged by Him necessary for the
-accomplishment of His designs; the Christian faith thus
-associated with the whole life of the human race; the principle
-of the supernatural and miraculous, as well as the dogmas of
-Christianity, proclaimed aloud, but without controversy, without
-any appeal made to any external or exclusive dominion; homage
-rendered to the right of the "conscience simple and upright" at
-the same time as to the biblical traditions and to the authority
-of the Church: when I affirm that all this is here, am I not
-justified in also affirming that Christianity is here presented
-under an aspect the least likely to shock opponents, the most
-proper to rally the minds of the hesitating? Is it not in effect,
-on the part of a Prince of the Church of Rome, the acceptance and
-pursuit of that great work of harmony between the Christian
-Religion and Modern Society, which is manifesting itself in so
-many analogous manners and under banners so very diverse?
-
-{lxvii}
-
-The pastor of Alais chooses a subject more limited, but is more
-vivid in thought and more incisive in manner than the Archbishop
-of Paris. It is not the general history of Christianity which he
-traces; it is its actual state, its religious bias and
-requirements in the nineteenth century which he observes and
-describes. His Report is no work of philosophy, but is penetrated
-and animated throughout by a real liberalism. He does not go in
-search of polemics: on the contrary, he recommends little use to
-be made of them; but when the occasion or the necessity is there,
-he does not evade it, but enters upon the arena unhesitatingly
-and without compromise.
-
-"There are," he says, "exigencies upon which all men concur in
-insisting, and these depend upon the general state of men's minds
-in our epoch. Each age has its ideas and its sentiments, its
-prejudices and its doubts, a certain moral physiognomy which the
-preacher encounters more or less in our congregations.
-{lxviii}
-Our auditors, perhaps we are too prone to forget this, do not
-live isolated from their contemporaries; they are of their time,
-they inhale its intellectual and moral atmosphere, they follow
-its movement, they share in its shortcomings and in its
-aspirations. We may indeed affirm that now more than ever men are
-of their time, thanks to the rapidity with which ideas circulate
-and diffuse themselves. Although men read less in France than in
-many other countries, they read more than they did formerly. In
-France, for good or for evil, there are influences at work which
-have to be taken into account. One of our first duties, as
-preachers, is, then, to know our age, to be attentive to every
-symptom which can reveal to us its spirit and its tendencies. To
-neglect this duty is to expose ourselves to the risk of
-addressing, so to say, fictitious auditors, that is, men who
-neither have the ideas nor feel the sentiments, nor think of the
-objections which we attribute to them.
-
-{lxix}
-
-"In the midst of the discordant voices heard now-a-days, it is
-easy, alas! to distinguish one high above the others--it is that
-of incredulity; not as in the last century, marked by a raillery
-or levity, but by an earnestness and a high tone, occasionally
-even by a certain melancholy, and being for these very reasons
-more seductive. It is in favour of the progress of liberty, of
-the dignity of the soul, that is to say, of everything which is
-noblest and most sacred to man, that that voice addresses our
-generation, and invites it to bid for ever adieu to the faith of
-its infancy. These sad words, which pretend to toll the knell of
-Christianity, express but too faithfully the incredulity dominant
-now-a-days in the elevated regions of science and of thought,
-whence it is diffused over all the classes of society. It is
-impossible to deceive ourselves; we are now in presence of a
-fresh and a great conspiracy, not only against the faith of
-Christ, but against every religious faith. The leaders of
-incredulity proclaim aloud that the cycle of Religions is
-definitively closed, and that we have, once for all, to efface
-God from our thoughts and from our lives, just as if God were an
-obsolete hypothesis, with which modern science has nothing to do.
-
-{lxx}
-
-"This Atheism is so much the more dangerous and contagious in
-these days, that it does not appear in the shape of a mere revolt
-or falling off of the mind, but as a generous doctrine, having
-for objects the enfranchisement of nations, and their delivery
-from the yoke of priests and of tyrants, who, it is supposed, are
-combined in order to prey upon them. One of its principal adepts,
-Guillaume Marr, exclaimed, a few years ago: 'The faith in a
-personal and living God is the origin, the fundamental cause of
-the miserable state of society in which we exist. The idea of a
-God is the key-stone of the arch of the decayed and worm-eaten
-civilization. Away with it! The true road to liberty, equality,
-and happiness, is Atheism. There is no hope for the earth so long
-as man shall cling to heaven by even a thread. ... Let nothing
-henceforth stand in the way of the spontaneous action of the
-human understanding. Let us teach man that he has no other God
-than himself, that he is himself the alpha and omega of all
-things, the being paramount, and the reality most real.'
-
-{lxxi}
-
-"Thus contemporary Atheism seeks to conquer the masses by their
-weak side, by their democratical and liberal instincts. This is
-not a mere system; it is a powerful party which has its
-lecturers, its newspapers, its associations, its congresses, and
-its Propaganda. A man of earnest meaning, M. Pearson, estimated
-at 640,000 copies the number of publications avowedly atheistical
-which appeared in England in the course of the year 1851. And it
-is not only in England that Atheism is raising its head, it is in
-France, Germany, and Italy.
-
-"Far from me the idea of setting in the same category our Radical
-Reformers, and the disbelievers and free thinkers who seek to
-destroy every faith and all religion! Let us hope that the former
-never will go so far as these.
-{lxxii}
-But, definitively, they openly extend to them a sympathizing
-hand; they greet their writings with marked favour; and, say it
-we must, when they go so far as to deny the supernatural,
-stripping thus Christianity of every divine authority, or when
-merely they proclaim the unimportance of dogmas to a religious
-life, they are making common cause with Atheism, and working,
-without suspecting that they are doing so, at the same work of
-destruction.
-
-"But although we have all this to deplore, how many subjects have
-we for hope and encouragement! Moments of crisis are the most
-painful, but they are not the least fruitful. Sow we do, indeed,
-with tears; what matters, after all, that no hymn of triumph
-attends our harvest. The thing essential is that we sow. Behold,
-how magnificently the ground is in many respects prepared for the
-Christian preacher. The mere fact that religious questions are
-the fashion of the day gives us an immense advantage, and one by
-which we may profit. Is it not very encouraging to know that in
-discussing such subjects we are answering to serious demands of
-general interest?
-{lxxiii}
-The contest which divides our churches has been certainly hurtful
-to the growth of piety; but has it not also shaken many a soul
-from its torpor? Has it not impelled many persons to search after
-the truth who were before indifferent? Is it not better to have
-to address ourselves to souls troubled if only by doubt, than to
-souls plunged in the heavy torpor of indifference?
-
-"After all, our age has its grandeur. Let us not underrate it: we
-are not to imitate that ready and vulgar pessimism, which sees
-everything dressed in the livery of woe, and which delights to
-note the vices and shortcomings of an epoch, without admitting
-the virtue to which it can lay just claim, or its generous
-aspirations. It is certain that, even where rejecting the dogmas
-of Christianity, our age has made immense progress in the social
-application of Christianity, and especially in philanthropy. The
-age passionately loves liberty, equality, tolerance, and peace;
-it insists upon respect for all consciences; it dreams of the
-union of all nations; it occupies itself with the material
-happiness and the amelioration of all classes in society.
-{lxxiv}
-Not so rich as other ages in men of a high temper of character,
-men really original, our age has nevertheless contributed, more
-than others, perhaps, to the general awakening of men to their
-rights as individuals, and of _self-government_, and
-consequently, to the sentiment of personal responsibility. Here
-assuredly we have noble tendencies; precious _points
-d'appui_ for the preachers of the Gospel. Let us feel no dread
-for this breath of Liberalism which is passing over nations.
-Liberty rightly understood leads to the Gospel, as the Gospel
-leads to Liberty.
-
-"And now what have we to say to this age so tormented? What ought
-we to say to these souls who have confidence in us, and who
-demand from us Light and Peace? How often has this question
-overwhelmed the Gospel preacher with the sentiment of his
-weakness and insufficiency? How often has it made him prostrate
-himself in his agony at the feet of the Lord? How often torn from
-him the cry of the prophet--'Ah, Lord God, behold I cannot
-speak, for I am a child!'
-
-{lxxv}
-
-"Let Christian Science proceed with its work! She has, assuredly,
-much to do in these days. In the teeth of the affirmations of
-Positivism and of Materialism let her make her own affirmation.
-Hers the task to show that the biblical dogmas respecting the
-origin of the world and of man are infinitely more rational and
-more scientific than all that in these days men seek to
-substitute in their place. Hers the task to prove that the
-supernatural, far from being antagonistic to the science of
-Nature, is as much called for by Nature as by the sentiment of
-Religion itself.
-
-"Let Christian Philosophy also accomplish her task. Hers it is to
-establish the profound harmony which exists between Reason and
-Faith; hers to show that the systems by which men seek to replace
-Christianity present to the thought as many difficulties, if not
-more, than any which follow from the evangelical dogmas.
-{lxxvi}
-Hers the task to lay the foundation of a new philosophy with the
-materials furnished by Revelation, and by the Christian
-Conscience.
-
-"Let Christian Literature equally accomplish her mission! Let her
-spread the truth by the means, infinitely diverse, which the
-progress of the press has placed at her disposal! Let her make
-herself popular; let her put on all forms to combat error; let
-her oppose Journal to Journal, Review to Review; and, if it must
-be so, Novel to Novel! Let her make herself everything to
-everybody; and follow the adversary upon every field, and seize
-all his arms.
-
-"And for us Preachers, what have we to do? What this day is our
-special mission in the special position in which God has placed
-us?"
-
-{lxxvii}
-
-Having come to this, the particular object of his study and of
-his Report, made by him to the Evangelical Conference of Nérac,
-M. Decoppel enters, as to the Mission and actual work of the
-preachers, into details which although they are full of life, and
-evince the greatest practical knowledge, apply more especially to
-the Protestant Churches of France. Finally, he reverts to the
-general question of Christianity by a concluding remark of
-general application, but announcing a truth of both practical and
-urgent importance for all the Christian Churches.
-
-"What is most essential," says he, "is not so much to defend
-Christianity, as to present it to our age, not as an enemy that
-comes to anathematize and to combat it, but as a friend that
-comes to raise it and save it. Beyond a doubt, we must not fear
-to lay stress upon Christian Truth, and to present it with its
-most salient angles and its austerest face in advance; but with
-anathemas and declamations we must have done. What most is
-necessary is, that we address a word of sympathy to the Age; we
-must show to it Christianity, I do not say so much in the aspect
-fitted to inspire love as in the aspect in which it is loving.
-{lxxviii}
-Regard St. Paul at Athens. He does not consider himself bound to
-confound the idolatry of his auditors; he does quite the
-contrary; he knows how to find in their idolatry itself a
-_point d'appui_ for the Gospel. Let us do as he did; let us
-strive, we also, to find these _points d'appui_, those
-keystones upon which the edifice of faith may in these days be
-made safely repose. It is more especially true in our country
-that Christianity is not known for what it is, and the remark
-applies not only to the lower classes of society, but even to the
-educated classes, so that when they attack Christianity it is, as
-it were, an attack upon a thing unknown. The Age is liberal: let
-us show it that the Gospel is still more liberal, and that its
-liberality is of the genuine kind. The Age loves science, and
-demands a rational faith: let us show it that faith is sovereign
-reason, and cannot but profit by every conquest achieved by
-science.
-{lxxix}
-The Age aspires to make progress in every branch of human
-activity: let us show it that all genuine progress is contained
-in the principles of the Gospel."
-
-I make no more citations. I neither examine nor discuss any of
-the particular ideas, or phrases, or words which these two
-documents contain: I would solely draw attention to their main
-and common characteristic. These writings are not only Christian,
-but uncompromisingly Christian; at the same time, they aim at
-leading Christianity and Modern Society to understand each other,
-to accept each other mutually and freely, and to exercise, the
-one upon the other, such an action as shall be salutary to both.
-The authors are not authors, or orators, or amateurs in religion,
-or in philosophy; they are ecclesiastics by profession, belonging
-to different churches who are entering upon this war, regarded by
-each both as legitimate and necessary; who are labouring to draw
-to it the populations placed naturally under their influence; and
-are hoping, without doubt, that their efforts will be successful.
-
-{lxxx}
-
-I think that they are right both in their hope and their
-endeavours, and knowing that outside of the groups of persons
-pledged to particular opinions or sides in the contests of
-religion and politics, there exists a vast population, uncertain
-and vacillating, now indifferent, now anxious upon the subject of
-religious questions and the relations of Christianity to Modern
-Society, I think that this population, which is, in effect,
-France, is capable of feeling religious emotions, of being
-informed and brought back to the great beliefs of Christianity as
-well as to a sentiment of the natural and necessary agreement
-between Christian faith and the principles of public Liberty. The
-profound desire which I feel, and the hope from which I will not
-part, of this great result, have induced me to give still greater
-development to these Meditations, and to risk them amidst the
-events, the issue of which is obscure, which are now crowding
-upon each other, and amidst questions, passions, and interests,
-to which such subjects are all very strange.
-{lxxxi}
-The more I consider the matter, the more I feel persuaded that
-France is not so little busied as she would appear to be with
-religious questions, and that in the midst of her languor and
-fluctuations she has a secret sentiment of their imperishable
-grandeur and their practical importance. If this, as I think, is,
-at bottom, the public disposition, I may consider myself well
-entitled to command attentive listeners. In the course of my long
-life, I have seen much and have done somewhat. I have taken part
-in the world's affairs. I have quitted it, and am no longer
-anything more than a spectator. For twenty years I have been
-essaying my tomb. I have gone down into it living, and have made
-no effort to issue forth again. Not only have I experience of the
-world, but nothing attaches me to it.
-{lxxxii}
-Could I be still of some service to the two great causes, in my
-eyes but one, the cause of Christian Faith in men's souls, and
-the cause of Political Liberty in my country, I should await with
-thankfulness, in the bosom of my seclusion, the dawn of that
-eternal day which "fools call death," says Petrarch:--
-
-  Quel che morir chiaman gli sciocchi.
-
-    Guizot.
-    Paris, _April_, 1868.
-
-{lxxxiii}
-
-                Contents.
-
-
-                                         Page
-
-Preface                                    v
-
-I.   -- Christianity and Liberty            1
-
-II.  -- Christianity and Morality          52
-
-III. -- Christianity and Science           93
-
-IV.  -- Christian Ignorance               128
-
-V.   -- Christian Faith                   153
-
-VI.  -- Christian Life                    190
-
-Appendix. -- Observations upon the Work
-             called "Ecce Homo"           213
-
-
-{lxxxiv}
-
-{1}
-
-      Meditations On Christianity
-
-               in its
-
-     Relation To The Actual State
-       Of Society And Opinion.
-
-
-
-           First Meditation.
-
-       Christianity And Liberty.
-
-
-The passionate longing both of men and of nations in these days
-for Liberty and Equality, is a fact not only evident but dominant
-in modern civilization. Sometimes this desire has for its object
-Liberty only, sometimes Equality only, sometimes both
-simultaneously. Sometimes the desire is at once intelligent and
-respectable, sometimes nothing more than a blind and
-ill-regulated impulse.
-{2}
-Sometimes the feeling displays itself in revolutions, in which it
-develops itself in all its intensity; sometimes it fades away,
-and subsides amidst the reactions which those very revolutions
-have, by their calamities and excesses, called forth. At one time
-men vaunt that the problem is solved, at another they are
-discouraged, and pronounce it to be insolvable. But whether they
-vaunt or are discouraged, the passionate desire continues to
-exist, and the problem ever reappears. Such a state of opinion
-may be applauded or may be deplored; it may have incense showered
-upon it or it may be visited with malediction; but to escape from
-it is an impossibility. It remains a trial which humanity is
-condemned to pass through; it furnishes it with a task which it
-is bound to perform.
-
-But it is not only this fact and this problem with which our
-epoch has to deal; at their side there is another not less
-important, the solution of which also falls within the mission of
-the age. Many of the friends of Liberty and Equality regard
-Christianity, and especially Roman Catholicism, as their greatest
-enemy.
-{3}
-In his moments of perverseness and angry waywardness, Voltaire so
-treated it. Thousands of men, not only men of intelligence, but a
-multitude of others, obscure enough, still not deficient in
-activity, speak and act under the empire of the same idea; at one
-time brutal, at another hypocritical, the anti-Christian
-sentiment is at once ardent and far-spread. Is it well founded?
-Is Christianity, after all, the obstacle to the progress of
-Liberty and of Equality? Or is it not, on the contrary, rather
-true that both already owe much to Christianity, and that both
-require its sanction and its support to ensure their legitimate
-and durable triumph? The great question of the 19th century
-remains in suspense, and social order in peril, so long as that
-other question is not solved.
-
-I meet at every step in the Gospels words such as these--"What
-shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
-his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
-[Footnote 5]
-
-    [Footnote 5: Mark viii. 36, 37.]
-
-{4}
-
-"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the
-soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and
-body in hell." [Footnote 6] "Go ye into all the world, and preach
-the Gospel to every creature." [Footnote 7]
-
-    [Footnote 6: Matthew x. 28.]
-
-    [Footnote 7: Mark xvi. 15.]
-
-The dominant idea in the Gospels is the infinite worth of the
-human soul, of every human soul. Jesus came to influence and to
-save souls, all souls without exception,--souls of the powerful
-and of the obscure, of the rich and poor, learned and ignorant,
-happy or afflicted. The condition and the salvation of souls is
-the foundation of the Christian Religion.
-
-The human soul is no mere word, no mere abstraction, no mere
-hypothesis; the soul is the human being himself, the individual
-being who feels and thinks, enjoys and suffers, wills and acts,
-who observes and knows himself, in the complexity of his actual
-condition, and to whom his destiny in remote futurity is an
-object of present solicitude.
-{5}
-To those who confound soul and body, and see in man only a
-product, an ephemeral form of matter, I have nothing to say. What
-have they to do with the words of the Gospel--with the immense
-value attached to a fugitive shadow, deceived according to them
-as to its own reality, and only appearing to lose itself
-forthwith in nonentity? It is Spiritualists and Christians who
-speak with propriety when they discourse in grand and elevated
-tones of the human soul; and if they so discourse it is because
-they see in every human soul a true being, a real and individual
-man, with the grandeur of man's nature and of man's destiny. What
-constitutes the essential worth of the human being, of every
-human being, is, that he is free to act or not to act, and that
-he is morally responsible how he acts. Man believes essentially
-in the distinction of moral good and evil and in the obligation
-which this entails; he believes that he is at liberty to act up
-to it or not as he pleases, that he is responsible for the use
-which he makes of his liberty. It is because such is the nature
-of man, whether his own conduct is in conformity to it or not,
-that the Gospel exalts man so nigh, and accords to him so sublime
-a destiny.
-{6}
-Philosophers, Christian and anti-Christian too, have made great
-efforts, in my opinion ill-judged efforts, to solve the problem
-of man's liberty in relation to God's prescience; the Gospel
-recognises and proclaims human liberty without troubling itself
-about the problem of philosophy. The Christian Religion entirely
-rests upon the fact which it assumes, that man is a free and
-responsible being. Man's liberty is the point from which
-Christianity starts in all that she says to humanity, and in
-every command that she gives to humanity.
-
-Christianity, then, is essentially liberal, in favour of all men,
-and of them as men; by her elementary and fundamental idea of
-man's nature, she founds his liberty upon the most solid basis
-and the broadest right that human thought can conceive. The most
-daring of the writers on public law never carried to so high a
-point as the Gospel has done either the native universal dignity
-of man's nature or the consequences derivable from this fact.
-
-{7}
-
-Christianity does not confine itself to this;--after having laid
-down the principle of Liberty, it gives to it the practical
-sanction which Liberty requires: it establishes the right of
-resistance to oppression. The priests and the chiefs of the
-synagogue at Jerusalem "commanded them (Peter and John) not to
-speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus;" but Peter and John
-answered them and said unto them, "Whether it be right in the
-sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."
-[Footnote 8]
-
-    [Footnote 8: Acts iv. 18,19.]
-
-Having been again summoned before the high priest, who says to
-them, "Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach
-in this name?" Peter replies, "We ought to obey God rather than
-men." [Footnote 9]
-
-    [Footnote 9: Acts v. 28, 29.]
-
-The multitude joins its acts of violence to the injunctions of
-the authorities. Stephen, the first Christian Deacon, avows his
-faith before the multitude, and falls the first martyr to the
-principle of Christian resistance. [Footnote 10]
-
-    [Footnote 10: Acts vii. 59.]
-
-{8}
-
-The most zealous of the persecutors of Stephen, Paul of Tarsus,
-who had become Christian, is, in his turn, stoned and left for
-dead by the multitude of Lystra and Iconium; in his turn he
-resists the multitude, and returns again to Lystra and Iconium,
-"confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to
-continue in the faith," and representing to them that it is by
-much tribulation that we must enter into the kingdom of God.
-[Footnote 11] Resistance to oppression is an essential principle
-of Christianity, and the definitive guarantee of Liberty.
-
-    [Footnote 11: Acts xiv. 19, 22.]
-
-It is the peculiar characteristic and honour of Christianity that
-it derives both the right of resistance to oppression, and the
-principle of even Liberty itself, not from the temporal and
-transitory interests of earthly life, but from the moral and
-eternal interests of the soul. At the same time that it affirms
-the principle of Liberty and proclaims its consequences, it
-equally affirms and proclaims the principles and rights of
-Authority.
-{9}
-I have referred to this upon another occasion; when Jesus made
-that reply to the question of the Pharisees whether it was
-permissible or not to pay tribute to Caesar, "Render unto Cæsar
-the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are
-God's," he established in principle the distinction between the
-religious life and civil life, between the Church and the State.
-Cæsar has no right to intervene with his laws and material force,
-between the soul of man and his God; and on his side the faithful
-worshipper of God is bound to fulfil towards Cæsar the duties
-which the necessity of the maintenance of public order imposes.
-[Footnote 12]
-
-    [Footnote 12: Meditations upon the Essence of Christianity,
-    p. 278. London: 1864.]
-
-It was by affirming and defending religious liberty, the highest
-and proudest of all liberties, that modern civilization
-commenced. The principle and right of liberty once deeply rooted
-in the soul, the flower and the fruit of this potent germ have
-strongly developed themselves in the course of ages, and expanded
-with more or less of promptitude and fecundity, according as the
-seasons were favourable or unfavourable; but upon the whole,
-history has confirmed the Gospel.
-
-{10}
-
-Of all the Religions which have appeared in the world,
-Christianity is the only one which conquered by means of Liberty,
-and which was founded upon Liberty; the only one which has been
-able to assume and keep her place amidst the greatest diversity
-of social institutions, and which in them all, as exigencies
-required, accepted and supported at one time authority, at
-another liberty.
-
-Even if I wished, it would be impossible for me in this place to
-refer to more than the general and evident facts of history. If I
-remount to the origins of the different religions, I observe that
-Christianity was the only one which did not appeal to force; she
-was the only one which did not employ force to issue forth from
-her cradle and to grow. During more than three centuries she
-alone combated and conquered her adversaries by vanquishing souls
-in the name of truth and by the arms of truth.
-{11}
-If I interrogate the results, I find that three great religious
-establishments--Paganism, Bouddhism, and Mahometanism--have
-held, and, with Christianity, still hold a great place in the
-world. Paganism, after some fair but brief moments of progress,
-attained to nothing but the anarchy of the Greek and Roman
-Republics, and the despotic decay of the Roman Empire. Bouddhism
-did nothing but generate the fantastic superstitions and the
-enervating abstractions of a pantheistic mythology, amidst the
-immobility of the castes and the stagnation of absolute power.
-Mahometanism carried into every quarter to which she penetrated
-only the yoke of force, the incurable animosity of races, the
-sterility of conquest. Christianity alone accepted the spirit of
-Liberty and Progress where she found it already existing in the
-soul of man and in human societies, and where she did not find it
-she awakened it.
-
-Let me not be accused of forgetting that since the triumph of
-Christianity, oppressive tyrannies and odious persecutions have
-occurred in, different Christian societies in the name of the
-Christian faith.
-{12}
-No one more than I deplores and detests such facts. They were the
-work of the sins of men, not of the principles of Christianity,
-which, far from authorising them, condemns them. Water from the
-purest source is changed and polluted in its course over the
-surface of the earth, after it has been exposed to the stormy
-atmospheric influences. In creating man free, God left him a part
-and a share in his own destiny and in the events which determine
-it. Christianity, emanating from God, marks out and combats
-uncompromisingly all evil desires and bad motives, all the
-excesses and all the weaknesses of man's selfishness: she has not
-destroyed them; she did not at once restore innocence to man nor
-make him a present of virtue: he is bound to labour in the work
-of his own control and of his own reformation; the Gospel is a
-Mirror in which, if he looks at himself, he may, it is true,
-behold the stains upon his soul and upon his life, but those
-stains proceed from himself, and not from the mirror, which only
-enables him to see them.
-{13}
-When we lay to the charge of the Christian Religion the fatal
-errors, the unlawful passions and actions which have appeared
-under its name in the history of Christian Societies, we acquit
-without reason men, whether princes or nations, learned or
-ignorant, of the responsibility that weighs upon them; we ignore
-what Christianity commands and what she forbids; we demand from
-her that which she has not promised.
-
-Of history thus far. I now confine myself to the present epoch
-and to the problems which the actual relations of Christianity to
-Liberty present. What are the principal obstacles at the present
-day in the way of the establishment of a real and lasting
-Liberty, and what are the means within our reach to surmount
-them? In other terms, which express my meaning more exactly, What
-are our infirmities to retard, what our strength to accelerate,
-the establishment of a free government? Is Christianity an
-obstacle to us in this work or a help, an ill or a remedy?
-
-{14}
-
-It is with a profound feeling of sadness that I see eminent men,
-men truly Christian, incessantly depicting in the most sombre
-colours society as it now exists, and representing it as only a
-prey to political and moral diseases now acute, now indolent, as
-deprived thereby of all title to respect, and of all hope of
-amelioration, incapacitated at one time for orderly life, at
-another for Liberty. As for straightforward attacks upon our
-vices and failings, our errors and shortcomings, I complain not
-of them however violent: nations as well as individuals require
-to be often admonished frankly and with severity; the rudeness
-which shakes them is more salutary than the indulgence which
-cradles them to sleep. But what I regret and deplore in the
-attitude and in the language of these worthy Christian Censors,
-is not that they scrupulously and unsparingly expose prevalent
-evils, our bad propensities, and our foolish pretensions; but
-that they ignore what good there is in us, the progress which we
-make, and the just and salutary results to which we are tending.
-{15}
-The simultaneous presence, the profound intermixture, of good and
-evil, of virtue and vice, of wisdom and folly, is the chronic
-sore of man and of human societies; this is no new fact, no evil
-which we are the first to endure and for which we are the first
-to be responsible; it is the old condition of the world as it
-appears from the constant testimony of History; each of its ages
-has incurred and has merited reproaches, not the same, but at
-least as serious as those laid to the charge of our age; and if
-we were suddenly transported to any other epoch of the past, it
-matters not to which, I do not hesitate to affirm that we would
-not willingly accept that epoch in exchange for our own, nor
-should we even very much like to contemplate the spectacle.
-Severity is well, but justice is due to different periods and
-different conditions of society. In the last hundred years we
-have gained more, both in morality and in common sense, than we
-have ever forgotten.
-
-{16}
-
-And here I am met by a question respecting which I will explain
-my view unreservedly and at once. Society in France has reached
-its actual condition only by a progressive effort, an advance
-more or less perceptible, more or less rapid, but not without
-numerous interruptions and vicissitudes; it has sought to escape
-in turn from the feudal system, from the pretensions and the
-selfish contests of the great nobles, from the predominance of
-the Court, from arbitrariness, from the improvidence and caprices
-of absolute power. National unity, civil equality, and political
-liberty have been, throughout the whole course of our history,
-the objects of our aim and desire. Our greatest thinkers, the
-actors on the stage of our Politics, the nation itself, with its
-tendency dimly marked, yet powerful, have constantly proceeded in
-this direction and towards this object. The Revolution of 1789
-was the most violent and most serious explosion of this incessant
-travail of France. Was it pregnant with fruitful consequences, or
-is the issue to be now deplored? France believed that she had
-then gained a great victory, not only for herself, but for all
-mankind. Did she deceive herself?
-{17}
-Have we been for so many centuries proceeding in a good road or
-in a bad road, towards success or towards delusion? Are we
-progressing, or are we declining? It is a question upon which
-eminent men, and men whose opinions are entitled to every
-respect, are, at the present day, not all of the same opinion;
-for whereas some persist in a cry of triumph, others give but
-utterance to gloomy and alarming prognostics.
-
-I have some right to say that no one is more struck, more shocked
-than I am by the crimes, faults, errors, and follies both of
-opinion and action generated by this French Revolution; I never
-hesitated openly to characterise them as, in my opinion, they
-deserved; indeed the severe contests through which I have had to
-pass in my public career may, perhaps, in some degree have
-originated in my sincerity upon this subject. I had to confront
-many prejudices, and to wound much self-love. I regret no
-sentiment which I felt, and I retract no language which I used.
-{18}
-But in spite of the strong anti-revolutionary opinions which have
-been attributed to me, I was and still am convinced that, upon
-the whole, whatever the evil which that Revolution occasioned,
-and is occasioning, it nevertheless, served the good cause both
-of the nation and of Humanity; I believe that France and the
-world will gain by it more than they suffered, or are suffering,
-and that we are, in the midst of all our trials, still in an æra
-of progress, and not at the commencement of a decline. I derive
-motives for my Optimism upon this subject in the sphere of ideas
-as well as in that of facts. Theoretically the principles of 1789
-contain a large share of truth, truth pregnant of consequence,
-truth superior to the share of error which they contain, and
-which is, nevertheless, large. Historically the tendency and the
-travail of opinion which have been for centuries a source to
-France of incontestable progress in the way of justice, liberty,
-and social happiness, cannot have become, all of a sudden, a
-cause of decline.
-{19}
-Practically, in spite of all its ills and all its shortcomings,
-the present century has no cause to dread a comparison with past
-centuries. There never has been any epoch in the history of
-French society in which it would have bettered its condition by
-halting, or to which it should wish to return.
-
-I revert to my question; what perils, what obstacles, do our
-social institutions and our manners oppose to the establishment
-of Liberty with effect and upon a lasting footing? Is
-Christianity of a nature to stand us in good stead, or to hurt us
-in such a work?
-
-All earnest men, all clear-sighted men, at the present day,
-whether they are Conservatives or Liberals, Christians or
-Free-thinkers, Catholics or Protestants, are unanimous in
-deploring the preponderance of material interests, the thirst for
-physical and vulgar pleasures, and the habits of selfishness and
-effeminacy which they generate.
-
-{20}
-
-They are right; we have indeed here an evil greater, when we
-consider what is the mission of our epoch, than perhaps even
-those believe it to be who deplore it. The Emperor Napoleon said,
-in a phrase marked by all the clear and forcible colouring of his
-habitual language:--"I do not fear conspirators who rise at ten
-o'clock in the morning, and who cannot do without a fresh shirt."
-[Footnote 13]
-
-    [Footnote 13: "Je ne crains pas les conspirateurs qui se
-    lèvent à dix heures du matin, et qui ont besoin de mettre une
-    chemise blanche."]
-
-There is no question of conspirators here, and for the soul to be
-vigorous it is not essential that the care of the person should
-be neglected. What concerns those who would be free, whether
-individuals or nations, is that they should not have their
-attention essentially absorbed by considerations affecting merely
-their material prosperity, or their petty personal comforts; they
-have especially to guard themselves against selfishness and
-Epicureanism. Whether his tastes be refined or gross, the
-Epicurean does not readily resign himself to make either effort
-or sacrifice; but he is not difficult to content if he is
-permitted to enjoy his pleasures and his repose.
-{21}
-Selfishness, even where it is sober and gentle, is a cold and
-sterile passion, it owes its empire to its success in enervating
-and lowering a man's nature. Liberty calls for a character of
-more strength, higher aspirations, greater power of resistance; a
-state of soul offering freer action to moral sympathy and
-disinterested motives. It is precisely here that Christianity can
-supply modern society with that of which it stands in need.
-Christianity teaches all men, the great and the small, the rich
-and the poor, not to devote all their lives to material things;
-she summons them to more elevated regions, and whilst she
-inspires them with a purer ambition, she opens to them a fairer
-hope even of happiness. The Christian, whether his station be
-powerful or humble, and his aspirations ambitious or modest, can
-never find an exclusive object of attention, or an exclusive
-motive to action, even in that principle of interest which
-politicians, using the word in its best sense, vainly imagine to
-be a panacea.
-{22}
-Man, whether towards his fellow-creatures, or on his own account,
-has another object to pursue, other laws to accomplish, other
-sentiments to display and to satisfy: he can neither be an
-Epicurean nor an Egotist.
-
-This is the first and the greatest of the services which
-Christianity can and does render in our days to every society
-which aspires to Liberty. I proceed to mention a second service.
-
-There is no liberty without a large measure of license. They are
-dreamers who hope to enjoy the benefits of the one without
-incurring the risk, and undergoing the inconveniences, of the
-other. They, too, are dreamers who believe that license will ever
-be effectually repressed by penalties, courts of justice, or
-measures of Police. Two things are certain; the one is, that it
-is idle to attempt to repress license completely in a free
-country; the other, that the moral and preventive forces of
-society itself are alone to be relied upon, both by governments
-and nations, to enable them to support that license which they
-cannot suppress.
-{23}
-Christianity is the most efficacious, the most popular, and the
-most approved of these forces. It is efficacious against license
-for two reasons and in two ways. In principle, Christianity
-maintains to Authority its right and its rank intact; without
-humbling it before Liberty, Christianity yet recognises the
-rights of Liberty, and demands that these should be admitted; in
-fact Christianity inspires men with a sentiment, with which
-authority cannot dispense, respect. The absence of respect is the
-most serious danger to which authority is exposed; authority
-suffers much more from insult than from attack; it is precisely
-to the task of systematically insulting and debasing authority,
-that its most ardent opponents, in our days, address themselves
-with most passion and with most art. There exist licentious,
-turbulent, and insolent persons in Christian societies, just as
-such exist in other societies; but Christian principles and
-Christian habits make and maintain friends to Order in the great
-mass of the people as well as in the higher classes, friends to
-order, who respect order both in law and in morals, men whom
-licentious and insulting; conduct shock as much as they terrify,
-and who, equally free, appeal in their own favour to the maxims
-and the arms of Liberty.
-{24}
-History supplies us on this subject with conclusive examples. The
-nations of Christendom are the only nations to which license has
-not brought as a final consequence anarchy and despotism,--the
-only nations which, although they have on different occasions and
-by salutary reactions experienced the excesses both of power and
-of liberty, have not succumbed under them morally and
-politically. Neither the states of Pagan Antiquity nor those of
-the East, whether Bouddhist or Mussulman, have stood such trials;
-these have had their days of healthy vigour and even of glory;
-but when the evils which license or tyranny generated have once
-come upon them, they have fallen irretrievably, and all their
-subsequent history has merely been that of a decline more or less
-rapid, more or less stormy, more or less apathetic.
-
-{25}
-
-It is the honour of the Christian Religion that it has within it
-that which can cure states of their maladies, as well as
-individuals of their errors; and that, by the belief which it
-generates, and the sentiments which it inspires, it has already
-more than once furnished, sometimes to the friends of Order, and
-sometimes to the friends of Liberty, a refuge in their reverses,
-as well as strength to recover lost ground.
-
-It would be as imprudent as ungrateful in these days for the
-friends of Liberty to ignore this grand fact and its salutary
-admonishment. They are called to a work much more difficult than
-any that they have hitherto had to accomplish: their task is no
-longer merely to search after guarantees for Liberty against the
-encroachments of pre-existent Power, or the accidental and
-transient ebullition of License. They have to reconcile the
-normal and constitutional dominion of Democracy with Liberty, and
-with the regular action and permanence of Liberty.
-{26}
-Until modern times, political liberty, wherever it has existed,
-has been the result of the simultaneous presence and of the
-conflict of different forces of society, no one of them strong
-enough to rule alone, but each too weak to resist efficaciously
-the attack of the others; at one time the Crown, at another the
-Aristocracy, at another the Church, each previously powerful and
-independent, have lived side by side with Democracy when
-Democracy has had limits and restrictions imposed upon its power
-and success; but at the present day, there are amongst us no
-distinct surviving influences which are powerful enough to play a
-similar part in society and in the government. The Crown, the
-Aristocracy, and the Church are no longer anything but frail
-wrecks of the past, or instruments created by the Democracy, and
-indebted to it for a borrowed force. Is this to be henceforth the
-permanent condition of human society, or is it only a phase, more
-or less transitory, of a series of ages and of revolutions, which
-fresh ages and fresh revolutions will hereafter profoundly
-modify? Futurity must decide. In any case, it is only under the
-exclusive dominion of a single force, Democracy, that in these
-days free institutions can be founded.
-
-{27}
-
-That every dominant force when single is tempted to commit abuses
-and to become tyrannical, is a truth so much in accordance with
-the lessons of experience and with the conclusions of reason,
-that no pains need be taken to insist upon it. Not to speak of
-the dangerous acclivity upon which Democracy, in common with all
-other forces, is placed, it has peculiar characteristics which
-are not of a nature to set the friends of Liberty at their ease.
-Democracy derives its origin and power from the right of every
-human will, and from the majority of human wills. Truth and error
-press so very closely upon each other in this system, that
-Liberty is placed in a position of great peril. Man's volition is
-entitled to every respect; but it is not all its law to itself,
-nor is it in itself essentially a law at all: it is bound to
-another law, which does not emanate from itself, and which comes
-to it from a higher source than man, and which it is as unable to
-abrogate as it was to create.
-{28}
-The law paramount is the moral law,--the law laid down by God, to
-which all wills of men, whatever their number, are bound to
-submit. Democracy, essentially busied with the wills of men, is
-always inclined to attribute to them the character and the rights
-of divine law. Man occupies so much space in this form of
-government, and has so elevated a position there, that he easily
-forgets God--easily takes himself for God. The result is a sort
-of political polytheism, which, unless it appeals to a gross,
-material arbitrament, and to the majority of human wills, is
-incapable of arriving at that unity of law and of action, with
-which no society or government can dispense. I do not say that
-the individual man, and that numbers of men, are the only
-principles, but I do say, that they are principles characteristic
-of Democracy; it is against the absolute dominion of these two
-principles that Democracy has, in the interest of its own honour
-and of its own safety, to be incessantly admonished and defended.
-{29}
-A royal sage enjoined that he should be saluted every morning
-with the words, "Remember thou art man." This sublime and prudent
-admonition is no less needful for Democracy than for Royalty, and
-it is precisely the salutary service which is rendered to it by
-Christianity. In Christianity there is a light, a voice, a law, a
-history, which does not come from man, but which, without
-offending his dignity, sets him in his proper place. No belief,
-no institution, exalts man's dignity so highly, and at the same
-time so effectually represses his arrogance. The more democratic
-a society is, the more it is important that this double effect
-shall take place within it. Christianity alone has this virtue.
-
-I am aware of the capital objection made to its empire. "The
-Physic without the Physicians," exclaimed Rousseau, in a sally
-against medical men, but the expression shows nevertheless how
-little he was disposed to forget that it is possible for medicine
-to be good and salutary.
-{30}
-How often have I heard men of intelligence and men in all other
-respects very worthy of consideration, exclaim, "Let me have
-Religion without the priests: I am a Christian, but no friend of
-the clergy." I am far from seeking to leave this difficulty
-unnoticed, or to elude it. It is a difficulty of the gravest
-nature, not in essence, but in the actual circumstances and state
-of opinions at the present day.
-
-As a Protestant it does not concern me. The clergy is not amongst
-Protestants the object of any such uneasiness. One of the best
-results, in my opinion, of the Reformation of the 16th century,
-whether regarded as Lutheran or Calvinistic, as Anglican, or as
-the work of other Dissidents in religion, is that it strongly
-cemented the union between the ecclesiastics and the general
-religious community--between the spiritual and the lay members of
-the Church. The Reformation produced this effect, first, by
-authorising the clergy to marry and to enter into the relations
-which a life of family brings with it; and, secondly, by giving
-to the laity a share in the government of the Church.
-{31}
-The partition was not always judicious or equitable. At one time
-the clergy, at another the laity, have been transported from
-their natural places, and injured in their legitimate rights; but
-the relations between the two classes ceased to present the
-appearance of either absolutism on the one hand, or of entire
-subordination on the other; the laity obtained a voice and
-influence in the affairs of the flock; the priests, although
-remaining religious pastors and religious magistrates, ceased to
-be spiritual masters. This organisation has led to the two social
-institutions combining themselves in a variety of ways. At one
-time the civil power has invaded the government of the religious
-society, and deprived the clergy, not merely of empire, but of
-independence; at another time the two forms of society, the State
-and the Church, have regulated by treaty the terms of their
-mutual relations; whereas, in the United States of America, the
-two forms of society have been entirely separated, and have
-mutually recovered their independence;
-{32}
-elsewhere, as amongst the Quakers and the Moravians, all
-ecclesiastical authority and orders of priesthood have been
-abolished, and laymen have lived in the isolation each of his
-individual conscience, obedient only to its spontaneous impulses.
-But amidst all this diversity, it is the fundamental
-characteristic of the churches and of the sects which issued from
-the Reform of the 16th century, that priests do not in themselves
-constitute the necessary and sovereign mediators between God and
-man's soul, nor the sole rulers of religious society. It is
-particularly by virtue of this principle that the distinction
-between civil life and religious life has become an efficacious
-and a consecrated doctrine, and that Liberty has resumed its
-right and become an active influence in religious society itself.
-
-{33}
-
-But amongst Roman Catholic nations, priests are the objects of a
-persistent distrust which has been the fruitful source of much
-calamity to Christianity. History forbids surprise. The Roman
-Catholic clergy has often presented the spectacle of ambition and
-passion, of mundane and selfish interests, strangely intermixed
-with faith and with earnest zeal for the furtherance of their
-religious mission. Serious ills and grave abuses have resulted
-therefrom in the relation of Church to State, and of priests to
-their flocks, and even in the bosom of the Church itself. These
-are facts almost as undisputed as they are indisputable; in proof
-of them the testimony, not only of its adversaries, but of the
-holiest members of the Church of Rome itself, may be invoked.
-Nothing is more natural, and indeed more inevitable, than that
-this should have led and should still lead, not only to ill-will
-towards priests, but to their being regarded as proper subjects
-for attack. It is not, however, on that account less certain that
-such an attack is, in our days, and as society is at present
-constituted, unjust, silly, and inopportune, as injurious to
-State as to Church, to Liberty as to Religion. There may be
-injustice and ingratitude to institutions as well as to
-individuals.
-{34}
-From the fall of the Roman Empire, and during the rudest and most
-sombre ages of modern history, the Catholic clergy, whether as
-Popes, Bishops, monastic orders, or simple priests, in the midst
-of their selfish pretensions and ambitious usurpations, displayed
-and expended treasures of intellect, courage, and perseverance in
-order to affirm and protect the immaterial and moral interests of
-humanity. They did not on all occasions accept their mission to
-its full extent; they did not maintain the Christian Religion in
-all its breadth, and in all its evangelical disinterestedness;
-they had their share in the acts of violence, iniquity, and
-tyranny of the different masters of society for the time being;
-they often made Liberty pay dearly for the services which they
-rendered to civilization; but when Liberty has become one of the
-conquests of that very civilization, the proof as well as the
-guarantee for its further progress, there is injustice and
-ingratitude in forgetting what part the Roman Catholic clergy
-effected towards the constitution of that society, the ultimate
-result of which has been so glorious.
-
-{35}
-
-The injustice is the greater that it is now inopportune and
-useless. From the acrimony, the anger, and alarm which
-characterise the attacks directed at Roman Catholicism and its
-Priests, we might suppose that the Inquisition was at our gates,
-that Rome was making a perilous onslaught upon our civil and
-religious liberties, and that we need to deploy all our force and
-all our passions to repulse the domination of the Court of Rome
-and of its army. Was there ever so strange a perversion of facts?
-For a century past, on which side has been the movement and the
-aggression? Is it not evidently the spirit of religious and
-political liberty which has now the initiative, the impulsive,
-onward movement? The defensive is the natural and enforced
-situation of the Roman Catholic Church; Romanism is much more
-menaced, much more attacked by public opinion in these days than
-our liberties are menaced or attacked by her. The supreme power
-in the Church of Rome, the Papacy, does indeed maintain, in
-principle, certain maxims and certain traditions irreconcileable
-with, the actual state of opinion and society; it continues to
-condemn authoritatively some of the essential principles of
-modern civilization.
-{36}
-In all earnestness, yet with every feeling of respect, I shall
-here make at once use of my right, both as a Protestant and as
-the citizen of a free country, to declare my profound conviction
-that this systematic persistence, however conscientious and
-dignified it may be, shows a great want of religious foresight as
-well as of political prudence. I think that Romanism, without
-abdication and without renouncing anything that is vitally
-essential to itself, might assume a position in harmony with the
-moral and social state in these days, and with the conditions
-also vitally essential to the existence of such state. I may add,
-that so long as the government of the Romish Church shall not
-have accepted and accomplished this work of
-conciliation--conciliation real and profound--the friends of
-Liberty will be justified in keeping themselves on the alert, and
-in maintaining a reserve towards it, as representing, themselves,
-those moral and liberal principles which it disavows.
-{37}
-But let them not attribute to this disavowal a greater importance
-than it deserves; let them watch the ecclesiastical power which
-utters it, without alarm; it has in it nothing very menacing,
-nothing that opposes any effectual barrier to the march of
-events; Liberalism is not the less victorious in these days, and
-not the less advancing. Many faults have been committed, and many
-probably will continue to be committed; as has already been the
-case, we shall have perhaps many a barrier opposed in our path,
-many a reactionary movement to endure, but the general onward
-impulse will nevertheless be the same, and the final result, the
-conquest of Liberty, religious, civil and political, not the less
-a certainty.
-
-This is no mere philosophical aspiration. It is already history.
-There have been many vicissitudes in France, and many a crisis of
-different kinds during the last hundred years in the struggle
-between Liberalism and Roman Catholicism; the former has often
-committed errors, made mistakes, by which Romanism has adroitly
-profited; but at every reverse Romanism has recognised her own
-defeat, and accepted some part of its consequences.
-{38}
-The Constituent Assembly by the civil organisation of the clergy,
-the National Convention by its proscriptions, had endeavoured,
-the one to enslave, the other to abolish the Catholic Church; the
-great master of the revolution, Napoleon, raised it up again by
-the Concordat of 1802; but the Concordat at the same time
-consecrated many of the fundamental principles of the liberal
-regime, and the Catholic Church of Rome consecrated Napoleon and
-signed the Concordat, even whilst protesting against some of its
-consequences. At the Restoration some wished to discuss again the
-question of the Concordat, and to re-establish the relation
-between Church and State upon their ancient foundations; but the
-attempt encountered, in the ranks of the Royalists themselves, a
-decisive resistance, and totally failed. Under the Government of
-1830, Roman Catholicism regained its ground and resumed fresh
-vigour by both using the name of Liberty and claiming its right.
-{39}
-When the Republic again appeared in 1848, Roman Catholicism
-treated it with as much tenderness as it experienced itself from
-the Republic. I pause before the actual relations of the Church
-of Rome to the new Empire; Rome has paid a dear price for all
-that she has received from the Empire; but even here she showed,
-and appears disposed still to show, a large measure of patience
-and resignation. She is right.
-
-One fact particularly arrests my attention in the course of this
-stormy history. In the midst of her reverses and her concessions,
-Roman Catholicism has displayed rare and energetic virtues of
-fidelity and independence. She has opposed to the bloody
-persecution of Terrorism, the inexhaustible blood of her martyrs,
-bishops, priests, monks, men and women; that Clergy of France,
-once so vacillating in faith and so mundane in morals, bore their
-cross with an indomitable sentiment of Christian honour.
-{40}
-The despotism of the Emperor Napoleon encountered in the person
-of Pope Pius VII., in some Cardinals, and some Bishops, a passive
-but firm resistance, which neither the power of the Despot, nor
-the contagious servility of their contemporaries, could surmount.
-And again, in these days, who can fail to perceive with what
-activity and devotedness, with what sacrifices and efficacy,
-Roman Catholicism, by the mere force of its native energy,
-upholds the cause of its chief and of itself? If civil society
-had defended its liberties and its dignities as the Church of
-Rome defends hers, Liberalism in France would be farther advanced
-on its road and towards its object.
-
-But let not Romanists deceive themselves: one cannot make use of
-Liberty without being forced to enter into an engagement and
-compromise with Liberty; one cannot appeal to Liberty without
-doing homage to her; she lays her hand upon those to whom she
-lends her aid. The great fact which I before invoked, the work of
-reconciliation between modern society and Roman Catholicism, is
-more advanced than those believe who still stand aloof from it
-and oppose it.
-{41}
-This is proved by two facts. In the very bosom of Roman
-Catholicism, and from amongst its most zealous defenders, that
-group of liberal Catholics was formed which has played and which
-continues to play so active a part in struggling for the
-Liberties of their church, and for the rights of their chief:
-these are at once the ornaments of then church, and its
-intellectual sword; and the publication which supports their
-views, the "Correspondant," is, next to the "Revue des deux
-Mondes," the periodical which meets with most success and has the
-greatest circulation. Passing from this brilliant group to the
-more modest ranks of the Roman Catholic clergy, I ask what is the
-disposition, the attitude, the conduct of those faithful and
-humble priests who exercise the Christian ministry in our
-provinces and in the inferior quarters of our cities; they have
-not always all the science, all the mental culture, which one
-might desire; but whilst adhering to Catholic faith and giving
-the example of Christian lives, they live in the midst of the
-people;
-{42}
-they know it, they understand it; they are aware what the
-conditions are which permit them to live with and to exercise an
-influence upon the people; they enter by degrees into its
-sentiments and its instincts; without premeditation, almost
-without perceiving it, they become each day more and more men of
-their time and country, more familiar with the ideas and liberal
-tendencies of modern society. Thus at the two poles of Roman
-Catholicism, in its most elevated ranks and in its popular
-militia, the same result is obtained, in the one case by men of
-enlightened views and of superior ability, and in the other case
-by men of good sense and honesty of purpose; and thus in the
-Roman Church those moral and political principles of 1789 make
-their way, which form the basis of the new social edifice, of its
-laws, and of its liberties.
-
-I do not dispute, neither do I attack; I record facts as I
-observe and appreciate them. And in my opinion, with reference to
-French institutions,--for I speak only of France,--the essential
-consequences from these facts, as far as they bear upon the
-relations of Christianity to Liberty, are as follows.
-
-{43}
-
-I have here not a word to say respecting the Protestant Church in
-France; the questions which have agitated her for some time past
-are questions of faith and internal discipline, entirely aloof
-from any incertitude or differences of opinion as to the rights
-of conscience or of religious society in their relations to civil
-society. Protestantism in France, whether orthodox or not, adopts
-and upholds the largest maxims as to religious liberty, and as to
-the guarantee for it, in the separation of religious life from
-civil life. The most zealous Liberals have nothing more in this
-respect to demand from even the most orthodox Protestants; these
-are indeed of their church the most urgent in claiming for
-religious society the right to have its internal autonomy, and to
-stand independently of the state. It is, on the contrary, Roman
-Catholics, and the advocates of the essential principles of
-modern society, who most dispute about the general question of
-liberty.
-
-{44}
-
-The more I reflect, the more I am convinced that henceforth this
-question can only be seriously and efficaciously dealt with in
-one of two ways: the one is by the alliance of Church and State,
-on conditions which, whilst distinguishing civil life from
-religious life, shall guarantee to individuals religious liberty
-in civil society, and to the church itself its internal autonomy
-in matters of faith and of religious discipline. The other
-solution is the complete separation of Church and State, and
-their mutual independence.
-
-That the Church prefers the system of an Alliance with the State
-to that of the Church's Liberty and isolation from the State, I
-well understand.
-
-She is right. Alliance with the State is to her a sign of
-strength, a means of influence, a pledge for her dignity and her
-stability. The complete separation of the two societies leaves
-religious institutions, and particularly their clergy, in a
-fluctuating and precarious situation: a system essentially
-democratic, it rather places the ecclesiastical magistracy under
-the opinions and wills of its lay members, than these under the
-influence of the religious authorities.
-{45}
-This system is especially alien to the origin, the fundamental
-principle, and the Hierarchy, of the Roman Catholic Church; it is
-impossible for this Church to accept it unless urgently demanded
-by the interests of moral authority, independence, and liberty.
-But let not the Roman Catholic Church misapprehend; an alliance
-of Church with State has also conditions without which a Church
-would vainly expect any advantage; for the alliance to be serious
-and effectual, there must be between Church and State a large
-measure of harmony as to the essential principles of the
-religious society and of the civil society which the Church and
-the State respectively represent: if the two societies and those
-who govern them, do not mutually admit their respective
-principles, if they disavow each other incessantly, and carry on
-in the bosom of their alliance, a war, open or secret, all the
-good effect of such alliance disappears, and the alliance itself
-is soon compromised.
-{46}
-The treaties concluded at different epochs, under the name of
-Concordats, between Chambers and States in different countries of
-Christendom, have only been possible and efficacious, because
-there was a great basis of harmony in the fundamental
-institutions of the two contracting parties; they differed upon
-some points; they had reciprocally to make concessions and grant
-guarantees; but taken altogether they approved of each other and
-were sincere in supporting each other; peace was the point from
-which their alliance started, and the dissentiments which existed
-on each side had no reference to any vital questions. It suffices
-for us to cast a glance at the history of Catholicism in France,
-of the Anglican Church in England, of the Lutheran Church in
-Germany and in Sweden, to acknowledge this truth; and what is
-occurring and forming matter of negotiation in our days in Italy
-and in Austria, upon the subject of the relations of the Church
-with the State, furnishes a further striking confirmation.
-{47}
-In an age of liberty, of publicity, and of continual discussion,
-when it is possible for anything to be thought or said, and for
-any opinion to be maintained or attacked, it is more than ever
-indispensable that any treaty between Church and State should be
-serious and sincere; that is to say, that the two contracting
-parties should recognise and accept in each other, without
-equivocation and without subterfuge, the character which each
-really possesses. This is the only condition upon which an
-alliance can be real, becoming, and advantageous. In presence of
-the undisguised movements and the ever recurring and daring
-ventures of Liberty, a policy of reticence and procrastination,
-obscure and dim reservations, inconsistent expedients, and secret
-warfare, is no longer practicable; such policy, far from lending
-any help, discredits and weakens the power which places its trust
-in it.
-{48}
-As for me, I believe that the Catholic Church, if not without
-endangering her habits, at least without endangering her
-essential principles, has it in her power to set herself at peace
-with the fundamental principles of modern society and of actual
-civil governments; but should she either not wish or not know how
-to march towards this object and to obtain it, let her not give
-way to any illusion; alliance with the State would be rather a
-source of weakness and of peril to her than an advantage, and she
-would only eventually be driven to seek a refuge in the system of
-separation and complete independence.
-
-As for the State, the system which separates the two societies
-would free it from many a burthen and much embarrassment; but it
-would cause her other embarrassments, and lead to the loss of
-many advantages. It is convenient to discourse of the principle
-of a "Free church in a free country," but after the long alliance
-which has existed between them, it is easier to proclaim such
-principle than to apply it: not only is it impossible to divorce
-Church from State without violently wrenching asunder previous
-bonds, but more lasting consequences ensue; once disengaged from
-every connection with the civil power, ministers of religion busy
-themselves no longer about the interests of civil society; their
-thoughts are exclusively absorbed by questions of religion and
-its affairs.
-{49}
-Governments have long been accustomed to derive, and derive at
-the present day, a moral influence of great value from an
-alliance with the Church: but this influence supposes one
-condition which is not only especially important in our days, but
-of capital importance: in the actual state of opinion and of
-manners, no good results can be politically looked for from the
-alliance, if the civil power do not abstain from all interference
-in questions purely religious; the complete independence of the
-church and of its chiefs, in matters of faith and of religious
-discipline, is the only condition which can justify their giving
-their indirect support to the state government, and which can
-purge their support of all impure motives.
-{50}
-The alliance of the two powers could formerly, in a certain
-degree, co-exist with no inconsiderable confusion in their
-respective attributes, and a somewhat earnest claim on the part
-of each to domineer over the other; nothing similar can occur at
-the present day; neither Church nor State can any longer be the
-master or the servant of the other. Let neither princes nor
-priests deceive themselves; their reciprocal independence, and
-their uncontested empire, each in its own province, can alone
-give to their alliance the dignity which the alliance requires,
-if it is to be real, efficacious, and lasting.
-
-Every road leads me to the same point; to every question the
-facts give me the same answer. Liberty has need of Christianity,
-Christianity has need of Liberty. As modern society demands to be
-free, the religion of Christ is its most necessary ally.
-Christianity and civil society have mutually, I admit it, a grave
-feeling of disquietude and distrust; but this disquietude and
-distrust are not natural and inevitable results of principles
-essential to civil society and religious society, of any
-compulsory relations existing between them; they spring from the
-faults which the two institutions have committed towards each
-other, and from the contest which each has forced upon the other.
-{51}
-Liberty alone can effectually combat such sentiments which have
-become habitual and traditional. To dissipate them entirely,
-something besides Liberty is requisite; but without Liberty
-neither religious society nor civil society will obtain their
-legitimate objects, these objects being peace in their relations
-to each other, and the moral progress of man, and of the State,
-whether allied with or independent of the Church.
-
-{52}
-
-           Second Meditation.
-
-       Christianity And Morality.
-
-
-Two attempts are now being simultaneously made, of different
-characters, although, of the same origin and tendency. Seriously
-minded men, who persist in believing and calling themselves
-Christians, are labouring to separate Christian morals from
-Christian dogmas, and although they make Jesus their moral idea
-of humanity, are stripping him of his miracles and divinity.
-Others, who declare openly that they are no Christians, endeavour
-to separate morality in the abstract from religion in the
-abstract, and place the source of morality, as well as its
-authority, in human nature, and in it alone. On the one side we
-find a Christian morality independent of Christian faith; on the
-other a Morality independent of all religious belief, either
-natural or revealed: these two doctrines are in our days
-proclaimed and propagated with ardour.
-
-{53}
-
-I frankly admit that their defenders are sincere in adopting and
-upholding them, and that they do so in the name of truth alone.
-In philosophy, as in politics, I believe error and honest
-intentions to be more general than falsehood and evil design.
-Moreover, who would discuss convictions, unless himself convinced
-that they are serious and earnest? Opinions founded on interested
-or hypocritical motives are not worth the honour of a discussion;
-they merit only to be attacked and unmasked. In the name of truth
-alone I combat the two doctrines to which I have alluded, and
-which some now strive to accredit.
-
-The true cause of this twofold attempt is the incredulity and the
-scepticism which prevail with regard to religion. Non-Christians
-are numerous; few Deists are quite sure of their belief and of
-its efficacy.
-{54}
-A necessity for morality is felt to exist; its right to regulate
-the actions of man is acknowledged; it is in order to preserve to
-it its integrity and its force that efforts are made to separate
-it from religion, from all religious creeds, all of which, it is
-here assumed, are either ruined or tottering. Thus, Independent
-Morality is, as it were, a raft, offered to the human soul, and
-to human society, to save their time-worn vessel from being
-wrecked.
-
-The idea is false, the attempt of evil consequence. They who
-flatter themselves that they can leave Christian morality
-standing, after wrenching it from Christian dogmas,--and they who
-believe it possible to preserve morality, after detaching it from
-religion,--err alike, for they fail to recognise the essential
-facts of human nature and of human society.
-
-Both doctrines are derived from an inexact and incomplete
-observation of these facts. I have already stated in these
-Meditations what I think of the isolation of Christian morality
-from Christianity, and the reason why I reject it.
-{55}
-At present I apply myself to the idea of independent morality,
-and in the name of a psychology, pure at once and severe, I
-affirm that there exists an intimate, legitimate, and necessary
-union between morality and religion.
-
-A preliminary observation occurs to me. Those who adopt the
-theory of an independent morality, start from the idea that there
-is a moral law, strange to and superior to all interested
-motives, to all selfish passions; these rank duty above, and
-treat it as independent of, every other motive of action.
-
-I am far from contesting this principle with them, but they
-forget that it _has_ been, and still _is_, strongly
-contested: contested by both ancient and modern philosophers.
-Some have considered the pursuit of happiness, and the
-satisfaction of individual interests, as the right and legitimate
-aims of human life. Others have placed the rule of man's conduct,
-not in personal interests, but in general utility, in the common
-welfare of all mankind. Others have thought that they could
-perceive the origin and the guarantee for morals in the sympathy
-of human sentiments.
-{56}
-The moral and obligatory law, or duty, is far from being the
-recognised and generally accepted basis of morality; systems the
-most varied have arisen, and are incessantly forming themselves,
-with respect to the principles of morals, as with respect to
-other great questions of our nature; and the human understanding
-fluctuates no less in this corner of the philosophic arena than
-in the others. Let the moralists of the new school not deceive
-themselves; in proclaiming morality to be independent of
-religion, they mean to give it one fixed basis, the same for all,
-and they believe that they succeed in the attempt. They deceive
-themselves: morality, thus isolated, remains as much as ever a
-prey to the disputes of man.
-
-I pass over this grave misconception on the part of the defenders
-of the system, and I examine the system itself. Let us see if it
-is the faithful and full expression of human morality, if it
-contains all the facts which constitute its natural and essential
-elements.
-
-{57}
-
-These facts I sum up as follows: the distinction between moral
-good and evil; the obligation of doing good and avoiding evil;
-the faculty of accomplishing or not this obligation. In brief and
-philosophic terms the Moral Law, Duty, and Liberty. These are the
-natural, primitive, and universal facts which constitute human
-morality; it is by reason and by virtue of these facts that man
-is a moral being.
-
-I have not here to enter into a discussion of these same facts; I
-do not occupy myself at this moment with systems which disregard
-or deny them, in whole or in part; all the three facts, or any
-one of the three. The partisans of the system of independent
-morality admit them all, as I do; the question between them and
-myself is this, whether or not, whilst rendering homage to the
-true principle of morality, they fully comprehend its
-signification, and accept its results.
-
-{58}
-
-It is the characteristic and the honour of man that he is not
-satisfied with merely gathering facts which relate either to
-himself or to the external world, but that he seeks to know their
-origin and object, their import and bearing.
-
-In morals, as in physics, statistics are only the point from
-which science sets out; it is only after having well observed
-facts, and having verified them, that we have to discuss the
-questions which they raise, and the further ultimate facts which
-the facts already ascertained contain and reveal. The fact of
-human morality, such as I have just described it in its three
-constituent elements, the Moral Law, Duty, and Liberty, cannot
-fail to suggest these two questions: Whence proceeds the moral
-law, and whence is its authority? What is the sense, and what the
-ultimate result to the moral being himself, of the fulfilment or
-violation of his duty; that is to say, of the use which he makes
-of his liberty? No philosophical system can either suppress or
-elude these questions; they present themselves to the mind of man
-as soon as he directs his attention to the moral character of
-man's nature. I propose to consider in succession the three
-constituent elements of this great truth, so as to determine
-rightly its source and bearing.
-
-{59}
-
-Moral law has neither been invented by man, nor does it spring
-from any human convention; man, by acknowledging it, admits that
-he has not created it, that he cannot abolish or change it.
-Political and civil laws are diverse and ever varying; they
-depend in a great measure upon time, place, social circumstances,
-or human will; when men adopt or reject them, they do so with the
-feeling that they are the masters of them, to deal with them
-accordingly as their interests or their fancies suggest.
-
-But when a law presents itself to them in the form of a moral
-law, they feel that this is not dependent on them, that it takes
-its source and derives its authority elsewhere than from their
-own opinion or volition. They may mistake in rendering or in
-refusing homage to a particular precept of conduct; they may
-attach to laws a moral value which they do not intrinsically
-possess, or pass unnoticed the really moral character of another
-law, and the obligations which it imposes upon them; but wherever
-they believe that they perceive the character of a moral law,
-they bow before it as before something which does not emanate
-from them, and before a power of a different nature from man's.
-
-{60}
-
-The moral law no more belongs to the general mechanism of the
-world, than to the invention of man; it has none of the
-characteristics that mark the laws of physical order; none of the
-results which follow from them; it is by no means inherent in the
-forms or combinations of matter; it does not govern the relations
-or movements of bodies; obligatory, and fixed as fate, it
-addresses itself solely to that intelligent and free being, of
-whom Pascal said, in his grand language, "If the universe were to
-crush him, still man would be more noble than that which
-destroyed him, because he knows that he dies; and of the
-advantage that the universe has over him, the universe knows
-nothing." Man does much more than know that he dies; it happens,
-sometimes, that he encounters death voluntarily--that he chooses
-to die in obedience to the moral law. It is the law of Liberty.
-
-{61}
-
-What mean these words, Law of Liberty? How does this law, called
-Duty, come to establish itself in the human mind, and command
-man's Liberty to respect it?
-
-Some essay to found Duty upon Right, and to derive its authority
-solely from the independence and dignity of humanity. Man, it is
-said, feels and knows that he is a free agent; as such it is his
-right that no human being shall attack his independence or his
-dignity. He finds in every other human being the same nature, and
-therefore the same right as he possesses himself. Thus mutual
-right is derived from individual right, and "Duty is nothing but
-the right which it is recognised that another possesses."
-[Footnote 14]
-
-    [Footnote 14: La Morale Independante,
-    a weekly journal, No. 1, 6th August, 1865.]
-
-{62}
-
-There is here a profound mistake, and a strange forgetfulness.
-
-Why, when a man finds himself in relation with his fellow-men,
-does he attribute to them the same right which he recognises
-himself as possessing, and which he calls upon them to see and
-admit there? If this is a prudent calculation, the wisdom which
-arises from a correct appreciation of his interest, let us have
-done with it, it is not morality. If, prudence and interest
-apart, man regards himself as bound to pay, to the independence
-and personal dignity of his fellow-men, the same respect, and to
-attribute to them the same right, as he lays claim to for
-himself; if reciprocity becomes in this manner the fundamental
-principle of morality, what becomes of the obligation where there
-is no reciprocity? Will man be bound to respect in others the
-right which will not be respected in himself? If he is bound to
-it in all cases, and in spite of everything, then Duty has
-another source than the mutual respect of persons. If he is, on
-the other hand, not bound to it in all cases, what becomes of the
-paramount and absolute character of Duty; in other words, of the
-moral law? It is no longer anything but law upon condition.
-
-{63}
-
-Not merely the religion of Christ, but all the great doctrines of
-the world, religious or philosophical, peremptorily refuse to
-attach this conditional character of reciprocity to the moral
-law; all maintain that duty is in every case absolute and
-imperative, independently of the conduct of others. "If ye love
-them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love
-those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to
-you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same."
-"Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing
-again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the
-children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and
-to the evil." [Footnote 15]
-
-    [Footnote 15: Luke vi. 32, 33, 35.]
-
-"Be ye," say the laws of Menou to the Hindoos, "as the wood of
-the sandal tree, that perfumes the hatchet which wounds it." If
-we interrogate Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Kant; in whatever other
-respect they may disagree, they think upon this fundamental point
-with the Gospel and the Laws of Menou.
-
-{64}
-
-It is in the confusion of Duty and of Right, and in the inversion
-of their natural and their true order, that the error resides of
-those who maintain the Theory of an Independent Morality. Duty is
-the moral law of men's actions; law intimate, personal. Right, on
-the other hand, is derived from the application of the moral law
-to the relations of men. I will not deny myself the great yet
-melancholy pleasure of citing upon this subject a few words of a
-person whose mind and life were united to mine, and who, in a
-modest essay, threw over this important subject a flood of light
-as vivid as it is pure: "The word Right, brings with it the idea
-of a relation to something. As every Right is an application of a
-moral law to the different relations of Society, there exists not
-a Right of which Society is not the occasion. A Right is only the
-moral power of an individual over the Liberty of another: a power
-attributed to him by virtue of the moral law which regulates the
-relations of men with one another.
-{65}
-Duty is the sole basis of Right. Did there exist no duties there
-would exist no rights. There is no claim of a right which does
-not affirm a Duty to be its source. Duty applied as a rule to
-govern the relations of man to man constitutes justice; justice
-cannot exist without Duty; a thing is neither just, nor unjust,
-as far as regards the being who has not had the duty prescribed
-to him of distinguishing between them. Ideas of Right are as
-essential to men as ideas of duty; for if the idea of Duty is the
-social bond;--the means of peace and of Union amongst
-mankind;--the idea of Right constitutes the arms, offensive and
-defensive, which society gives to men, for reciprocal use. Every
-man has a consciousness of his own rights, which aids him to keep
-others in the line of their duty; but rights only so far aid him
-to do this, as the duty upon which they are founded is known and
-respected; for with regard to that man who ignores his duty, the
-man who has a right has absolutely nothing.
-{66}
-Right is a moral power producing its effects without the help of
-physical force; if he who has both right and power must employ
-the power to enforce his right, it is no longer his right which
-triumphs, it is his power; his right remains to him to justify
-the employment of force; but it is not his right which has made
-his cause triumph. Thus it is that the idea of Duty is the basis
-of society, and is at the same time the basis of the idea of
-right, an idea which in its turn contributes also to the
-stability of society. To found society upon the sole idea of
-duty, is to deprive society of one of its most powerful means of
-defence and of development; to strip the tree of the buds which
-serve to give it at once strength and amplitude. To found society
-upon the idea of Right without the idea of duty, is to cut away
-the very roots of the tree." [Footnote 16]
-
-    [Footnote 16: "Essai sur les idées de droit et de devoir
-    considérées comme fondement de la société." It is inserted in
-    the work entitled, "Conseils de Morale, ou Essais sur
-    l'homme, les mœurs, les caractères, le monde, les femmes,
-    l'education, etc. Par Madame Guizot, née de Meulan,"
-    (2 vols. 8vo, 1828) vol. ii., pp. 147-271.]
-
-{67}
-
-This is not all. Besides the mistake which they commit in
-considering Duty as a mere consequence of Right, derived from the
-independence and dignity of man as man, the advocates of the
-theory of an independent morality forget an entire class of moral
-elements occupying an important position in our nature; I mean,
-the instinctive sentiments intimately allied to the Moral Law,
-sentiments to which the notion of a Right, founded upon the
-independence and dignity of man's personality, is completely
-strange. Is it on account of the independence and dignity of
-man's personality that fathers and mothers regard it as their
-duty to love their children, to take charge of them, to work for
-and devote themselves to them? Is it by virtue of this principle,
-and of the right which flows from it, that children are bound to
-honour their father and their mother? Man's soul, man's
-existence, is full of moral relations and moral acts, in which
-the idea of Right has no part; no part, I mean, in the sense
-which these theorists of an independent morality attach to it:
-their system is no more an explanation of Sympathy than of Duty.
-
-{68}
-
-I am touching upon the source of their error. If they make the
-principle of human morality consist in a Right emanating from
-man's Liberty and man's intelligence, it is that they see in man
-only a free and intelligent being. Strange ignorance, and
-mutilation of man's nature. At the same time that he is a free
-and intelligent being, man is a being dependent and subject: he
-is dependent, in the material order, upon a power superior to his
-own; and subject, in the moral order, to a law which he did not
-make, which he cannot change, which he is forced to admit even
-whilst he is free not to obey it; a law from which he cannot
-withdraw himself without troubling his soul and endangering his
-future. Morality in a sense is in effect independent; it is
-essentially independent of man; man, the free agent man, is its
-subject. Morality is truly the law of Liberty of Action.
-
-{69}
-
-Liberty is not an isolated fact, which exhausts itself by working
-its own completion, and which, once accomplished, remains without
-further consequences. To Liberty is attached Responsibility. When
-the human being, giving effect to his free will, resolves and
-acts, he feels that he is responsible for his resolution and his
-act. The Laws of Society declare this to him in express terms,
-for they punish him if they judge his act to be criminal; not
-merely because they find his act to be hurtful, but because they
-find it to be morally culpable: for, were its author pronounced
-to be mad, or his mind or volition recognised as unsound, the
-laws of society would acquit him. And if a culprit escape legal
-punishment, he does not escape from the internal punishment of
-remorse. Without speaking of penal laws, remorse is at once the
-proof and the sanction of moral responsibility. Possible it is
-that all remorse may be lulled to sleep in the mind of the
-hardened offender; but there are a thousand instances to prove
-that it may be always reawakened.
-{70}
-Neither in good nor in evil is man's nature entirely effaced.
-Repentance sometimes hides itself in recesses so profound, that
-to penetrate thither is impossible, except for the soul which
-feels repentance even when seeking to escape from it.
-
-As Liberty supposes responsibility, so Responsibility supposes an
-idea of merit or of demerit attaching naturally to the use made
-of liberty. I set aside here all the questions, in my opinion,
-ill put and wrongly solved by Theologians, upon this subject of
-merit or demerit. According to the general sentiment and common
-sense of all mankind, there is merit for a man in the
-accomplishment of Moral Law, there is demerit in its violation.
-It is a fact recognised and proclaimed even in the simplest and
-most ordinary incidents of human life, as well as in the
-political organisation of society, and in the problems which
-concern the eternal future.
-{71}
-However the recompense or the punishment may be accelerated or
-delayed; whatever its nature or its measure; the moral career of
-a man is not complete, nor the moral order established, until the
-responsibility inherent in his Liberty has received its
-complement and arrived at its end in the just appreciation and
-equitable return made to him for his merits or demerits.
-
-Thus far I have spoken of Independent Morality; I have
-scrupulously confined myself to studying moral facts as man's
-nature, and man's nature alone, presents them to us. I have
-considered and described them as they are in themselves, entirely
-apart from every other element and every other consideration.
-Those moral facts are briefly as follows:--
-
-  The distinction between moral good and moral evil.
-
-  The Moral Law, the duty of doing good and avoiding evil.
-
-  Moral Liberty.
-
-  Moral Responsibility.
-
-  Moral merit and demerit.
-
-{72}
-
-These are, I admit, facts which man recognises in himself as the
-proper and intimate characteristics of his own nature. But these
-truths once recognised and determined, what is their import? Are
-they facts isolated in human nature, as they are in Psychology,
-or have they anterior causes and necessary consequences! Are they
-self-sufficing, or do they contain and reveal other truths which
-form their complement and their sanction? The human mind cannot
-elude this question.
-
-I have established that the moral law is not of human invention;
-that it does not exist merely by man's agreement; that it is not
-one of those laws of fate by which the material world is
-governed. It is the law of the intellectual world, of the free
-world; a law superior to that world which, by recognising it as
-law, recognises itself at the same time both as free and subject.
-Who is the author of that law? Who imposes it upon man--upon man
-of whom it is not the work, and whom it governs without
-enslaving? Who placed it above this world where the present life
-is passed?
-{73}
-Evidently there must be a superior power from which the moral law
-emanates, and of which it is a revelation. With the good sense
-which his frivolity and his cynicism made him so oft forget,
-Voltaire said, speaking of the material world and the order
-reigning in it:--
-
-  "Je ne puis songer
-  Que cette horloge existe et n'ait point d'horloger."
-
-  I cannot think
-  This clock exists and never had a maker.
-
-In the moral world we have to do with something far different
-from a clock; nor are we in the presence of a machine
-constructed, regulated, once for all; the law of Order, that is
-to say, the moral law, is incessantly in contact with man's free
-agency; man does homage to the law which he is yet at liberty to
-accomplish or to violate; the law is a manifestation of the
-supreme legislator, of whose thought and will it is the
-expression. God moral sovereign, and man free subject, are both
-contained in the fact of the moral law. In this fact alone Kant
-found God; he erred in not also finding God elsewhere; but it is
-nevertheless true that it is in the moral law, the rule of human
-Liberty, that God shows himself to man most directly, most
-clearly, most undeniably.
-
-{74}
-
-Just as the moral law, without a sovereign legislator to impose
-it upon man, is an incomplete and inexplicable fact, a river
-without source, just so the moral responsibility of the free
-agent man, without a supreme judge to apply it, is an incomplete
-and inexplicable fact, a source without outlet, which runs and
-loses itself no one can tell whither. Just as the moral law
-reveals the moral legislator, just so does moral Responsibility
-reveal the moral judge. Just as the moral law is no law of human
-invention, just so human judgments, rendered in the name of moral
-responsibility, are hardly ever the judgments perfectly true and
-just which such responsibility expects and calls for. God is
-contained in the moral law as its primal author, and in moral
-responsibility as its definitive judge. The moral system, that
-is, the empire of the moral law, is incomprehensible and
-impossible if there is no God there, not only to establish it in
-a region above and paramount to man's free agency, but to
-establish it when troubled by man's conduct as a free agent.
-
-{75}
-
-Thus the moral truths, inherent in and proper to the human
-nature--that is, the distinction between moral good and moral
-evil, moral obligation, moral responsibility, moral merit and
-demerit,--are necessarily and intimately connected with the
-truths of Religion; for instance, with God moral legislator, God
-moral spectator, God moral judge. Thus morality is naturally and
-essentially connected with religion. Morality is, it is true, a
-thing special and distinct in the ensemble of man's nature and of
-man's life, but it is in no respect independent of the ensemble
-to which it belongs. It has its particular place in that
-ensemble, but it is only in that ensemble that its existence is
-reasonable, thence only that it derives its source and its
-authority.
-
-Morals may, in the order of science, be separately observed and
-described; but in the order of actuality morality is inseparable
-from Religion.
-
-{76}
-
-What would be said of a physiologist if he maintained that the
-heart is independent of the brain, because those two organs are
-distinct, organs which are closely united and indispensable to
-each other in the unity of the human being?
-
-The spectacle of the world leads us to the same result as the
-study of man, and reads us the same lesson. History confirms
-Psychology. What is the great action which makes itself most
-remarkable upon the stage of human societies? The constant
-struggle of good with evil, of just with unjust. In this struggle
-what shocking disorders! What iniquity perpetrated! How frequent
-an interregnum in the empire of the moral law and of justice, and
-what vicissitudes there! At one time the moral decree is expected
-in vain, and the human conscience remains painfully troubled by
-the successes of vice and of crime: at another time, contrary to
-all expectation, and after the most deplorable infractions of the
-moral law, the moral judgment comes.
-{77}
-"In vain," said Chateaubriand fifty years ago, "does Nero
-prosper; Tacitus already lives in the empire; he grows up
-unnoticed near the ashes of Germanicus, and already a just
-providence has left in the hands of an obscure child the fame of
-the master of the world." Chateaubriand was right: Tacitus was
-the avenger of the moral law outraged by the masters of the Roman
-Empire; he was the judge of their triumphs; but in that very
-Empire the most victorious of its masters, Marcus Aurelius, after
-having consecrated his life to the search after and the practice
-of the moral law, dies in profound sadness beneath his tent on
-the banks of the Danube; sad on account of his wife, sad on
-account of his son, and of the future of that world which he had
-governed, and which was only to be renewed, and regenerated, by
-those Christians whom he had persecuted. Everything is
-incomplete, imperfect, incoherent, obscure, contradictory, in
-this vast conflict of men and actions called History; and
-Providence, the personification of eternal wisdom and justice,
-sometimes manifests itself there with _éclat_, and sometimes
-remains there, inert and veiled, beneath the most sombre
-mysteries.
-{78}
-Is such the normal, definitive state of the universe? Shall
-truth, shall justice, never assume there more space than they now
-occupy? When shall light dawn upon the darkness? Who restore
-order to this chaos? Man evidently is insufficient to the task;
-in the world, as in individual man, the moral principle is still
-mutilated, and too infirm for its mission, unless it is
-intimately united to the religious principle. Morality can as
-little dispense with God in the life of the human race, as in
-that of the individual man.
-
-In these days more than ever morality has need of God. I am far
-from thinking ill of my country or of my age; I believe that they
-progress, that they have a future; but humanity is now-a-days
-exposed to a rude trial. On one side we have been witnesses to
-events of the most contradictory character: everything in the
-world of opinion has been questioned; everything in that of facts
-has been shaken, overthrown, raised up again, left tottering.
-{79}
-Oppressed by this spectacle, what remains to men's minds more
-than feeble convictions--dim hopes? On the other side, in the
-midst of this universal shock of minds, science, and man's power
-over the surrounding world, have been prodigiously extended and
-confirmed; light has shone more and more brightly upon the
-material world, at the very moment when it was becoming paler and
-paler, declining more and more, in the moral world. We have
-plucked and are still plucking, more actively than ever, the
-fruit of the tree of knowledge; whereas the rules of human
-conduct, the laws of good and of evil, have become indistinct in
-our thought. Man remains divided between pride and doubt;
-intoxicated by his power, and disquieted by his weakness. Man's
-soul, how perturbed! human morality, how endangered!
-
-{80}
-
-Thus far I have treated the subject with far more reserve and
-indulgence for the opinions of others than I intended. I have
-limited myself to the bounds assigned to the question by the
-advocates of the theory of independent morality themselves. I
-have done nothing more than set in broad daylight the intimate,
-natural, and necessary connection of morals with religion; of
-man, moral being, with God, moral sovereign. I am only at the
-threshold of the truth. It is not merely to religion in general
-that morality pertains; it is not merely the idea of God of which
-it has need; it requires the constant presence of God, his
-unceasing action upon the human soul. It is from Christianity
-alone that morality can now derive the clearness, force, and
-security, indispensable for the exercise of its empire. And it is
-not for her practical utility, it is for her truth, her intrinsic
-value, that I hold Christianity to be necessary to the human
-soul, and to human societies. It is because she is in perfect
-harmony with man's moral nature; and because she has been already
-tested in man's history; that Christianity is the faithful
-expression of the moral law, and the legitimate master of the
-moral being.
-
-{81}
-
-The first and the incomparable characteristic of Christianity, is
-the extent, I should rather say the immensity, of her moral
-ambition. The moral system established by Christ has often been
-contrasted with the reforms aimed at by great men whose endeavour
-it also was to fix moral laws for man's conduct, and to secure
-their empire over him. Jesus has been compared to Confucius,
-Zoroaster, Socrates, Cakia-mouni, Mahomet. The comparison is
-singularly inappropriate and superficial. The wisest, the most
-illustrious, of these moral reformers, even the most powerful,
-understood and accomplished at best but a very limited and
-incomplete work; sometimes they only sought to place in a clear
-light the rational principles of morality; sometimes they gave to
-their disciples, addressing themselves to these alone, rules for
-conduct in conformity with rational principles of morality; they
-taught a doctrine or established rules for discipline; they
-founded schools or sects.
-{82}
-The Christian work was something quite different. Jesus was not a
-philosopher who entered into discussions with his disciples, and
-instructed them in moral science; nor a chief who grouped around
-him a certain number of adepts, and subjected them to certain
-special rules which distinguish, nay sever, them from the mass of
-mankind: Jesus expounds no doctrine, sets up no system of
-discipline, and organises no particular society: he penetrates to
-the bottom of the human soul, of every soul; he lays bare the
-moral disease of humanity, and of every man; and he commands his
-disciples with authority to apply the cure, first to themselves,
-and then to all men:--"Save your soul, for what would it profit a
-man to gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul?" "Go and
-preach to all nations."
-
-What philosopher, what reformer, ever conceived an idea so
-ambitious, so vast? ever undertook to solve so completely, so
-universally, the moral problem of man's nature and man's destiny?
-
-{83}
-
-And this was no chimerical ambition; the mission of Christ has
-been pursued, and is still being pursued in the world, its onward
-movement often crossed, interrupted, altered, never hopelessly
-arrested. And during the first three centuries of Christianity,
-it was in the name and solely with the arms of Faith and of
-Liberty, that she commenced her enterprise of vanquishing man and
-the world. And in these days, after the lapse of nineteen
-centuries, in spite of the intermixture of error, of crime, and
-evil, it is with the same arms, and with them alone, that
-Christianity, in the name of Faith and of Liberty, and exposed to
-fresh and violent attacks, resumes in the moral world the same
-task, and promises herself fresh success.
-
-Without attempting, indeed, to sound them to their depths, let me
-at least indicate the causes of this indomitable vitality of the
-Christian Religion, and show why the hope is well founded which
-she entertains in the midst of her trials.
-
-{84}
-
-Of the moral philosophers, almost all are either bitter censors,
-cold observers, or flatterers of human nature. Some of them
-proclaim that man is naturally good, and that his vices are
-solely due to the bad institutions of society. Some, again,
-regard self-interest and self-esteem as the only springs of human
-actions. Others describe the errors and foibles of man with a
-careful sagacity, and yet a sagacity that does not indispose them
-to jeer and mock at them, as if they were actors in a drama, both
-amused themselves and amusing the spectators. How different the
-regard and the sentiment of Jesus when contemplating man: how
-serious that regard! how profound, how pregnant with effect that
-sentiment! No illusion, no indifference with respect to the
-nature of man; full, he knows it to be, of evil and at the same
-time of good; inclined to revolt against the moral law, at the
-same time that it is not incapable of obeying it; he sees in man
-the original sin, source of the troubles and of the perils of his
-soul: he does not regard the evil as incurable; he contemplates
-it with an emotion at once severe and tender, and he attacks it
-with a resolution superior to every discouragement, and prepared
-for every sacrifice.
-{85}
-Why should I not simply employ Christian terms, the most genuine
-of any, as well as the most impressive? Jesus lays bare the sin
-without reserve, and without reserve devotes himself to the
-sinner's salvation. What philosopher ever comprehended man so
-well, and loved him so well, even whilst judging him so freely
-and so austerely?
-
-Jesus does not occupy himself less with man's futurity than with
-man's nature. At the same time that he lays down, in all its
-rigour, the principle of the moral law, the pure accomplishment
-of duty, he forgets not that man has need of happiness, and
-thirsts after happiness, after a happiness pure and lasting; he
-opens to virtue the prospect of its attainment, he holds out a
-hope, foreign to all worldly objects, hope of an ideal happiness
-inaccessible to the curiosity of man's mind, but apt to satisfy
-the aspirations of his soul, and not, as it were, a conquest to
-be effected by merit, nor the acquittal of a debt, but a
-recompense to be accorded to the virtuous efforts of man by the
-equitable benevolence of God.
-{86}
-The Christian Religion, at the same time that it compels man
-during this life to constant and laborious exertion, has in store
-for him, if only he labour in accordance to the law, "the kingdom
-of God" and "the promises of eternal life."
-
-Thus, Jesus knows human nature entirely, and satisfies it; he
-keeps simultaneously in view man's duties and his necessities,
-his weaknesses and his merits. He does not allow the curtain to
-fall upon the rude scenes of life, and the sad spectacles of the
-world, without any _dénouement_. He has a prospect, and a
-futurity, and a satisfaction for man, superior to his trials, and
-superior to his disappointments. In what manner does Jesus attain
-this result? How does he touch all the chords of man's soul, and
-respond to all its appeals? By the intimate union of morality
-with religion, of the moral law with moral responsibility: sole
-view, complete at once and definitive, of the nature and destiny
-of humanity; sole efficacious solution of the problems which
-weigh upon the thought and life of man!
-
-{87}
-
-I say the sole efficacious solution. Efficacy is, in truth, the
-peculiar, the essential characteristic of Christianity. However
-high-reaching the ambition of philosophy is, it is infinitely
-less so than that of religion. The ambition of philosophers is
-purely scientific. They study, observe, discuss; their labours
-produce systems, schools. The Christian Religion is a practical
-work, not a scientific study. At the base of its dogmas and of
-its precepts there is certainly a philosophy, and, in my opinion,
-the true philosophy; but this philosophy is only the point from
-which Christianity departs, not its object. The object is to
-induce the human soul to govern itself according to the divine
-law; and to attain this object it deals with man's nature as it
-is, in its entirety, with all its different elements, all its
-sublime aspirations. There, to borrow the language of strategy,
-we see the basis of operation of Christianity; the basis upon
-which it enters upon its moral struggle, and upon which it
-undertakes to ensure the triumph in man of good over evil, and to
-procure the salvation of man by his reformation.
-
-{88}
-
-When I published, two years ago, the Second Series of these
-Meditations--the subject of which is the actual state of the
-Christian Religion--I essayed to characterise therein the
-fundamental errors of the different philosophical systems which
-combat it. I sent, according to my custom, the volume to my
-companion in life, and my _confrère_ at the Institute, M.
-Cousin, with whom, notwithstanding our differences of opinion, I
-maintained always very friendly relations. On the 1st June, 1866,
-he wrote to me from the Sorbonne the following letter:--
-
-  "My dear Friend,
-
-  "As soon as I received your book I hastened to read it, and I
-  tell you very sincerely that I am very content with it. The
-  little difference between our opinions, which you have not
-  pretended to conceal, are inevitable, because they are the
-  consequence of a general dissimilarity in the manner in which
-  we form our conceptions of the nature of philosophy and of the
-  nature of religion.
-{89}
-  These two great powers may and ought to be in accord, still
-  they are different. To Religion belongs an influence of an
-  elevated and universal kind; to philosophy an influence more
-  restricted, and still very elevated. The one addresses itself
-  to the entire soul, comprising in it the imagination; the other
-  only addresses itself to the reason. The first sets out from
-  mysteries, without which there is no religion; the second sets
-  out from clear and distinct ideas, as has been said both by
-  Descartes and by Bossuet. This distinction is the foundation of
-  my philosophy and of my religion; and this distinction is also,
-  in my view, the principle of their harmony. To confound them
-  is, I think, an infallible mode of confusing them each by the
-  other, as Malebranche has done. To absorb philosophy in
-  religion gave, in Pascal, the result of a faith full of
-  contradiction and of anguish; to absorb religion in philosophy
-  is an extravagant enterprise, of which sound philosophy must
-  disapprove. To admit them both, each in its place, is truth,
-  grandeur, and peace.
-
-{90}
-
-  "Hence you perceive the reason of our differences of opinion,
-  which are no more hurtful to our union, than they are to our
-  old and sincere friendship."
-
-I replied to him on the 13th of June:--
-
-  "I count, as well as you, my dear friend, upon our
-  dissentiments not being hurtful to our old and sincere
-  friendship; and I feel the more pleasure in so counting,
-  because, independently of our particular and petty
-  dissentiments, there is, as you say, between us a general, a
-  profound difference of opinion. I think, as you do, that
-  philosophy is not to be confounded or absorbed in religion, nor
-  religion in philosophy. I regard them both as free in their
-  manifestations and in their influence; but I do not found their
-  distinction or their accord upon the same grounds as you do.
-{91}
-  To me, philosophy is but a science, that is the work of man,
-  limited in its sphere and reach, as is man's mind itself.
-  Religion, in its principle and its history, is of divine origin
-  and institution. The one springs from man's avidity of
-  knowledge; the other is the light coming from God, 'which
-  shines upon every man that comes into the world,' and which God
-  continues to maintain and to shed over the world, according to
-  his impenetrable designs, by the act, general or special, of
-  his free will.
-
-  "I will not say more. We know, both of us, how far our opinions
-  are in the same road, and where is the point of divergence."
-
-I had left Paris when I received M. Cousin's letter. He was at
-Cannes when I returned to Paris. We never saw each other
-afterwards. He has preceded me to that region where light is shed
-upon the mysteries of this life. But in our last correspondence
-we had each touched in a few words upon the knot of the whole
-question.
-{92}
-It is this--What are the points of resemblance, and what of
-difference, between Religion and science, between Christianity
-and philosophy? Although M. Cousin and I agreed as to the
-reciprocal rights of these two influences to liberty of action,
-we entertained different sentiments as to their origin and their
-nature, and consequently as to the boundaries of their empire,
-and the character of their mission.
-
-{93}
-
-           Third Meditation.
-
-        Christianity And Science.
-
-
-It is the faith of Christians, and the point from which
-Christianity starts, that the Scriptures, which render an account
-of its origin, its dogmas, and its precepts, are divinely
-inspired. Not that Christians understand by these words that
-divine action upon the mind of man so often called inspiration,
-and of which Cicero said, "No one has ever been a great man
-without some divine inspiration;" [Footnote 17] and of which
-Plato was thinking when he said, "It is not by art that they make
-these noble poems, but because a God is in them, by whom they are
-possessed. ... They do not speak so by art, but by divine power."
-[Footnote 18]
-
-    [Footnote 17: Pro Archià, c. 8.]
-
-    [Footnote 18: I have translated the Greek text literally,
-    which M. Cousin has rendered with his accustomed elegance.
-    (Jon., vol. iv. p. 249, et passim.) Note of author.]
-
-{94}
-
-The inspiration of the holy book of Christianity is quite a
-different thing: it is special and supernatural. There is divine
-inspiration in all the great works of man; these books are a work
-directly and personally inspired by God: they affirm this
-themselves. The language used by Jesus in the Gospels incessantly
-implies it; and, in numerous passages, the epistles of St. Peter
-and St. Paul, as well as the Acts of the Apostles, declare it
-positively. [Footnote 19]
-
-    [Footnote 19: In his History of Christian Theology in the
-    Apostolic Age, M. Reuss acknowledges it: "This inspiration,"
-    says he, "was regarded as something unlike any other, and
-    reserved to a few individuals chosen by Providence, and only
-    to them upon special and solemn occasions;" and he refers to
-    the different texts of the New Testament which prove his
-    assertion. (Vol. i. p. 411, ed. 1860.)]
-
-This Christian principle of the special and divine inspiration of
-the Scriptures was not originally taken in so narrow an
-acceptation as in later times.
-{95}
-In the first ages of the Christian era, the Christians of the
-school of Plato, whilst carefully distinguishing the inspiration
-of the sacred volumes from the inspiration of the great poets,
-strove to determine the process common to these two kinds of
-inspiration, and to explain one by the other--"It is not by any
-effect of nature nor by any human faculty," says St. Justin,
-"that it is in the power of men to know things so grand and so
-divine; it is by the grace which descends from on high upon the
-saints. They have no need for any art to be revealed to them;
-pure themselves, they must offer themselves to the action of the
-divine spirit, in order that the divine bow, descending itself
-from heaven and making use of the just, in the same way as the
-musician does of the chords of a harp or lyre, may unfold to us
-the knowledge of things divine." "I think," says Athenagoras,
-"that you are not ignorant of Moses, or of Isaiah, or of the
-other prophets, who, being turned aside from any process of
-individual reasoning, and moved by the spirit of God, proclaimed
-aloud that which echoed within them, the holy spirit employing
-them and attaching itself to them as the player adds to his flute
-the breath which makes it discourse its music."
-
-{96}
-
-Questions soon began to be agitated in Christendom as to which of
-the religious books in circulation were really inspired, and as
-to which did not possess this divine characteristic. Hence
-proceeded disputes in respect to the Apocryphal books, and the
-formation of the Canon, or collection of the Holy Scriptures. But
-even in the very books, received by all as divinely inspired,
-great Christian doctors, not merely Origen, but St. Jerome and
-St. Augustin, discovered grammatical errors and faults which it
-was impossible to attribute to divine inspiration; and they
-distinguished, with greater or less exactness, the inspiration of
-God from the imperfection of man. St. Jerome points out solecisms
-in the Epistles of St. Paul; and St. Augustin says, in speaking
-of St. John, "I venture to say that John perhaps has not spoken
-of the thing as it really was, but only as it was in his power to
-speak; for he is a man, and he speaks of God.
-{97}
-Inspired, no doubt, by God, but still a man. ... When we meet
-with such diversity of expressions--although not in themselves
-contradictory--used by the Evangelists, we should regard, in the
-words of each, only the intent with which the words are
-pronounced, and not, like wretched cavillers, attach an idea of
-truth to the external form of the letter; for we must seek the
-very spirit, not only in all the words, but in everything else
-which serve as symptoms of the manifestation of the spirit."
-
-It was in the presence and in spite of these discussions, of this
-explanation and of this free criticism, that the divine
-inspiration of the Scriptures was nevertheless upheld in the
-fourth century as the common and positive faith of Christians.
-
-I pass by the twelve following centuries: a long period; full of
-darkness, but yet with flashes of light; silent yet full of
-uproar, full of liberty and oppression: period beginning with the
-invasion of the Barbarians and terminating with the Renaissance;
-that period in short which, taken together, is called the Middle
-Age.
-
-{98}
-
-I transport myself at once to the sixteenth century, that epoch
-of political struggles, when men reduced to systems, and reasoned
-upon, the different elements of moral and social institutions;
-for they had, ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, been
-fermenting pell-mell in Europe, which, although so small, was yet
-destined to conquer and civilize that globe, termed by us the
-world.
-
-Striving to discover what, after the lapse of so many years and
-events, had become of the principle of the divine inspiration of
-the sacred books, that base of the religious faith and rule of
-Christian societies, I find that this question had received two
-solutions: one in the name of the Church of Rome, by its
-representative the Council of Trent; the other in the name of the
-Protestant churches, by their great founders and teachers. The
-Council of Trent "receives all the books both of the old and of
-the new Testament, since the same God is the author of each;
-surrounds them with the same respect, and with an equally pious
-reverence;" inserts in its decree the complete catalogue of these
-books, and "anathematises whoever does not accept as sacred and
-canonical those books, with all that they contain, just as they
-are in use in the Catholic Church, and as they exist in the
-ancient Latin edition known as the Vulgate." [Footnote 20]
-
-    [Footnote 20: Le Saint Concile de Trente, translated by the
-    Abbé Chanut, pp. 10--13. Paris, 1686.]
-
-{99}
-
-The founders of the great Protestant Churches, although they
-began to apply the right of historical criticism to both texts
-and manuscripts, proclaimed nevertheless the absolute and
-complete inspiration of the holy volumes, in form and sense,
-narrative, precepts, and words. The Bible, all the Bible, the
-old, the new Testament, were, according to them, written at God's
-dictation to serve as the law of Christian Faith.
-
-{100}
-
-The Decree of the Council of Trent remains the Rule of the Church
-of Rome in the nineteenth century as much as it was in the
-sixteenth century; and in our days a Protestant Divine, justly
-respected for elevation of thought as much as for the energetic
-sincerity of his Faith, in maintaining the principle of the
-complete and divine inspiration, and of the absolute
-infallibility, of the Bible, has been driven so far as to make
-this strange assertion: "All the expressions and all the letters
-of the ten commandments were certainly written by the finger of
-God, from the Aleph with which they begin, to the Caph with which
-they end;" a few pages further on he says: "The Decalogue, we
-repeat, was written entirely by the finger of Jehovah upon the
-two stone slabs." [Footnote 21]
-
-    [Footnote 21: Théopneustie. By M. Gaussen.
-    2nd ed., 1842, pp. 225, 242.]
-
-"Be on your guard," said Bossuet, "you assign to God arms and
-hands; unless you strip these expressions of all that savours of
-humanity, so as to leave nothing of arms and hands but their
-action and their force, you err. ... God does everything by
-command; he has no lips to move, neither does he strike the air
-with his tongue to draw forth sounds from it; he has only to
-will, and his will is accomplished." [Footnote 22]
-
-    [Footnote 22: Elévations sur les Mystères, vol. ix. pp.
-    66-68, 85, 109; and the Sixiéme Avertissement sur les lettres
-    de Jurieu, vol. xxx. pp. 57, 134.]
-
-{101}
-
-The empire of circumstances, both in the sixteenth and the
-nineteenth centuries, has had much to do with the adoption of
-these two doctrines, thus conceived and expressed. The Council of
-Trent, in order to cut short all controversies with the
-Reformers, took the Scriptures, and the interpretation of the
-Scriptures, under the guardianship of the supreme and infallible
-authority of the Church of Rome. The Reformers, in their turn,
-found their fixed point and a basis, firm in the midst of the
-movement to which they were giving the impulse, in the
-infallibility of the Bible, itself divinely inspired. And at the
-present time, on the one side the Church of Rome in its new
-dangers, and on the other side the Protestants, sincere in their
-ardent zeal to awaken that Christian Faith which is languishing,
-have pushed the two doctrines,--the former of ecclesiastical
-authority, the latter of biblical infallibility,--to their
-extremest verge: in my opinion each beyond the limits of right
-and of truth. History explains errors, it does not justify them.
-{102}
-I resume, briefly: those with which I reproach the two doctrines
-referred to,--they severally infringe, the one the rights of
-religious liberty, the other those of human science. In both
-cases they greatly endanger that Christian Religion which they
-have, in these respects, severally ill understood.
-
-I have already expressed my views upon this subject. [Footnote
-23]
-
-    [Footnote 23: Meditations on the Essence of Christianity.
-    Sixth Meditation. Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, pp.
-    145-146. London, 1864.]
-
-Fervent and learned men maintain "that all, absolutely all, in
-the Scriptures is divinely inspired--the words as well as the
-ideas, all the words used upon all subjects--the material of
-language, as well as the doctrine which lies at its base. In this
-assertion I see but deplorable confusion, leading to profound
-misapprehension both of the meaning and the object of the sacred
-books. It was not God's purpose to give instruction to men in
-grammar, and if not in grammar neither was it his purpose to give
-instruction in geology, astronomy, geography, or chronology.
-{103}
-It is on their relations with their Creator, upon duties of men
-towards Him and towards each other, upon the rule of faith and of
-conduct in life, that God has lighted them by light from heaven.
-It is to the subject of religion and morals, and to these alone,
-that the inspiration of the Scriptures is directed."
-
-I have read the Holy Scriptures scrupulously, and over and over
-again, with a view neither to criticise nor defend, with the sole
-object of familiarising myself with their character and sense.
-The more I advanced in this study, the longer I had lived in the
-Bible, the more did the two facts seem clear to me, the Divine
-truths and the human faults at once profoundly distinct and in
-intimate contact. I meet at each step in the Bible with God and
-with man: God, Being real and personal, to whom nothing happens,
-in whom nothing changes, Being identical and immovable in the
-midst of the universal movement, who gives of himself the
-unparalleled definition, "I am that I am:" on the other side man,
-Being incomplete, imperfect, variable, full of deficiencies and
-of contradictions, of sublime instincts and gross desires, of
-curiosity and ignorance, capable of good and of evil, and
-perfectible in the midst of his imperfection.
-{104}
-What the Bible is incessantly showing us is, God and Man, their
-points of connection and their contests,--God watching over and
-acting upon man; man at one time accepting, at another rejecting,
-God's influence. The divine person and the human person, if the
-expression is permissible, are in each other's presence, each
-acting upon the other and upon events. It is the education of man
-after his Creation: his education as a religious and moral being,
-nothing less and nothing more. God does not, in thus educating
-man, change him: he created him intelligent and free: he
-enlightens him as to the religious and moral law with light from
-heaven; in other respects he leaves him absorbed in the laborious
-and perilous exercise of his intelligence and of his liberty as a
-free agent.
-{105}
-At each epoch, in every circumstance, during his continuous
-action upon man, God takes him as he finds him, with his
-passions, vices, defects, errors, ignorance; just such a being as
-he has made himself; nay, every day is making himself, by the
-good or bad use of his intelligence and of his freedom of action.
-This is the Biblical account, and the Biblical history of the
-relations of Man with God.
-
-What a strange contrast, and still what an intimate and powerful
-connection exists, in this history, between those whom--how shall
-I dare to permit myself to call the two actors! God does not
-appear so elevated, so pure, so strange to imperfection, so
-untroubled by any human nature, so immutable and serene in the
-plenitude of the divine nature, so really God, in any tradition,
-invention of poetry, or in any mythology, as he is presented to
-us in the Bible. On the other hand, in no nation, in no
-historical narrative or document, does man show himself more
-violent and ruder, more brutal, more cruel, more prompt to
-ingratitude, and more rebellious to his God, than he is amongst
-the Hebrews.
-{106}
-Nowhere else, and in no history, is the distance so great between
-the divine sphere and the human region, between the sovereign and
-the subject. Still, Israel never entirely separates itself from
-God; and, in spite of vices and excesses, Israel returns to God,
-and recognises his law and empire, even whilst incessantly
-violating them. Nowhere, on the other hand, does God appear, in
-his turn, so occupied with man, does he at once exact so much
-from him and yet evince so much sympathy for him: he does not
-change him suddenly, by any act of his sovereign will; he is a
-witness to all his imperfections, all his weaknesses, and all his
-errors; nevertheless, he abandons him not; he holds ever steadily
-before him the torch of Heavenly Light, and never omits to
-interest himself in his destiny. The religious and moral idea is
-ever present and dominant; nowhere else have the business and
-labour of human science held so small a place in man's thoughts
-and man's society. God, and the relations of God and man, are the
-only subjects which fill the Holy volumes.
-
-{107}
-
-In what do those relations consist? By what results does this
-continuous action manifest itself, of God upon man; this
-incessant dialogue between God and man? By laws, precepts, and
-commands, religious and moral--God proposes these to man; he
-enjoins nothing more; he speaks to him of nothing else; demands
-nothing from him but obedience to his Law. God does not teach, he
-commands; God does not discuss, he warns. And the organs of God's
-speech, the men whom he takes for his interpreters and his
-prophets, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, do neither less nor more.
-Although superior to most of their contemporaries by reason of
-possessing certain attainments, they are no professors of human
-sciences: just as they speak the language of the common people
-whom they address, just so do they share most of their ignorance
-and errors respecting the objects and facts of the finite world,
-in the midst of which they are living.
-{108}
-When they are made the medium for the religious and moral
-precepts and warnings of God, it is then that they are no longer
-mere men of their time; it is then, only then, that the light of
-divine inspiration descends upon them, and that they diffuse it
-to all around them.
-
-I do not wish to limit myself to a general summary only of what I
-regard as the essential character of the Holy Scriptures,--the
-simultaneous presence of the divine element and of the human
-element; the one in all its sublimity, the other in all its
-imperfection; God revealing to man in a certain place his
-religious law and his moral law, but without conveying elsewhere
-the divine light; God taking man as he finds him, in the points
-of time and of space in which he is placed, with all his
-barbarism and imperfections. I proceed, therefore, to consider
-some of the particular examples presented by the Scriptures,
-which make this great truth so evident as to be incontestable.
-
-{109}
-
-I open the book of Genesis and read:--
-
-  "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt
-  Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here
-  I am.
-
-  And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou
-  lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him
-  there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I
-  will tell thee of.
-
-  And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass,
-  and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and
-  clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went
-  unto the place of which God had told him.
-
-  Then on the third day Abraham lift up his eyes, and saw the
-  place afar off.
-
-  And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the
-  ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come
-  again to you.
-
-  And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it
-  upon Isaac his son: and he took the fire in his hand, and a
-  knife: and they went both of them together.
-
-  And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father:
-  and he said, here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire
-  and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?
-
-  And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a
-  burnt-offering: so they went both of them together.
-{110}
-  And they came to the place which God had told him of; and
-  Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order; and
-  bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
-
-  And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to
-  slay his son.
-
-  And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and
-  said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, here am I.
-
-  And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou
-  any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God,
-  seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
-
-  And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind
-  him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went
-  and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in
-  the stead of his son."
-
-A man who, by his enlightened views, and the elevation of his
-mind, as well as by his faithfulness as a follower of Christ, is
-an honour to the church which he serves, Dr. Arthur Stanley, Dean
-of Westminster, explains and characterises in these terms the
-Biblical truths to which I am referring.
-
-{111}
-
-"There have been," he says, "in almost all ancient forms of
-religion, and also in some of more modern date, two strong
-tendencies, each in itself springing from the best and purest
-feelings of humanity, yet each, if carried into the extremes
-suggested by passion or by logic, incompatible with the other and
-with its own highest purpose. One is the craving to please, or to
-propitiate, or to communicate with the powers above us, by
-surrendering some object near and dear to ourselves. This is the
-source of all sacrifice. The other is the profound moral instinct
-that the Creator of the world cannot be pleased, or propitiated,
-or approached by any other means than a pure life and good deeds.
-On the exaggeration, on the contact, on the collision of these
-two tendencies, have turned some of the chief difficulties of
-evangelical history. The earliest of them we are about to witness
-in the life of Abraham. ...
-{112}
-The sacrifice, the resignation of the will in the father and the
-son was accepted; the literal sacrifice of the act was repelled.
-The great principle was proclaimed that mercy was better than
-sacrifice,--that the sacrifice of self is the highest and holiest
-offering that God can receive. ... We have a proverb which tells
-us that man's extremity is God's opportunity." [Footnote 24]
-
-    [Footnote 24: Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church.
-    By Arthur P. Stanley, D.D. Vol. i. pp. 47, 48, 50. London,
-    1867.]
-
-Abraham was upon the point of accomplishing an act which, even in
-the presence of virtuous motives and a divine command, has been
-forbidden, and is held accursed by the subsequent Revelation and
-the sentiments of all whom it has enlightened. At this moment the
-hand of Abraham is stayed, and patriarchal religion is saved from
-the antagonism of a conflict between the rigour of the Hebrew law
-and the merciful dispensation of the Gospel.
-
-The sentiment which Dean Stanley expresses has my full
-concurrence; but I go still further, and maintain that there is
-in the pathetic narrative of Abraham's sacrifice something more
-than he points out.
-{113}
-This interposition of God in order to arrest the very act which
-he has required is in accord with the general doctrine of the
-Bible, expressly condemning human sacrifices; [Footnote 25] but
-Abraham's as well as several other examples prove how such
-sacrifices continued to exist in the ferocious traditions and
-manners, not only of several nations of Semitic origin, but even
-of the Hebrews themselves. God's intent is to try Abraham, and he
-pauses as soon as Abraham's obedience to the divine order is
-beyond doubt. Abraham does not hesitate to execute the divine
-command; he expresses no surprise at it. The sacrifice of Isaac
-is prepared, and very nearly consummated, as an event almost of
-course. Here we have man in the grossest and blindest condition
-of barbarism, in the presence of God, in whom as sovereign he
-believes, and whose sovereignty it is not his purpose to dispute.
-
-    [Footnote 25: Leviticus xviii. 21; Deuteronomy xii. 31;
-    Ezekiel xx. 26. This question is treated and conclusively
-    solved in the Theologische Encyclopedie of Herzog, art.
-    Sacrifice, vol. x. p. 621.]
-
-{114}
-
-It would be easy for me to multiply these examples, and to show,
-in many other passages of the Bible, the following fundamental
-characteristic of Biblical History: the thought and word of man,
-although constantly in presence of the divine law and of the
-divine action, yet in contact and contrast with the thought and
-word of God. I prefer seeking for proofs in support of my
-conviction in a comparison of the Old and New Testaments, and in
-the light which Christianity sheds upon the Hebrew Revelation,
-which it does not contradict, but to which it applies a movement
-of progress.
-
-I say progress,--progress immense, infinitely grander than man's
-imagination could ever have conceived,--and at the same time the
-character of the divine work remaining absolutely the same. It is
-no longer, as in the Old Testament, the stormy combat, the
-continuous struggle of God and of man in the events of the world
-and in the life of the people. God no longer interposes in the
-New Testament to warn or direct, to raise up or humble, to
-recompense or to punish man in this world; he decides no longer
-directly the issue of battle or the destiny of states.
-{115}
-It is still God, God in Jesus Christ, with all his sublimity: He,
-and He only, occupies and fills the place. He appears there under
-a different aspect. In his human form, He is weakness itself,
-intended and destined to become the very type of humility and of
-suffering; the voluntary victim, who expiates man's sin; the
-victim of man's fall. But in the midst of His miseries it is God,
-God as He was for Israel in all the splendour of His power.
-Christ's own knowledge of this appears throughout. He says it, He
-manifests it unceasingly by actions and by words; sometimes by
-natural effects, sometimes by miracles. And yet how different!
-what a range in the object and the bearing of His actions and of
-His words! In the Old Testament the scene concentrates itself
-upon a corner of the world, a single people, a petty nation,
-separated by God from the rest of the world, in order to withdraw
-it from the contagion of idolatry;--but now it is for the whole
-world, for all nations, for future as well as for living
-generations, for the Gentile as well as for the Jew, for the
-barbarians of Malta as well as for the Greeks of Athens, that the
-God of the New Testament manifests Himself and speaks; it is over
-the whole of humanity that He spreads His light and orders His
-servants to extend His empire.
-
-{116}
-
-He does more, much more. That divine light which Jesus comes to
-spread over the whole world, although it continues to emanate
-from the same fountain, becomes more complete and more pure.
-Jesus is the first to recognise the fact that the ancient law,
-although issuing from God, bears here and there traces of human
-errors and passions. "I am not come," says he, "to abolish the
-law, but to fulfil it." How fulfil it? By removing the errors
-with which it had become intermixed owing to the imperfect nature
-of the men, of the time, and of the place, at which it appeared,
-and by filling up the gaps which that imperfection had entailed.
-He disentangles the ancient law from every human element, and
-brings it back to its one divine element, its one pure and
-perfect source. I refrain from all argument or commentary. I will
-not cite anything in proof of this grand fact but those very
-texts of the Ancient and of the New Testament which embody their
-most essential precepts.
-
-{117}
-
-I read in Exodus, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,
-foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for
-stripe." [Footnote 26] Jesus effaces this _lex talionis_.
-"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy
-neighbour, and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your
-enemies; bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
-you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute
-you." [Footnote 27]
-
-    [Footnote 26: Exodus xxi. 24, 25.]
-
-    [Footnote 27: Matthew v. 43, 44.]
-
-It is said in the book of Deuteronomy: "When a man hath taken a
-wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour
-in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then
-let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand,
-and send her out of his house." [Footnote 28]
-
-    [Footnote 28: Deuteronomy xxiv. 1.]
-
-{118}
-
-I read in the New Testament: "And the Pharisees came to him, and
-asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? ... And
-he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And
-they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to
-put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the
-hardness of your hearts he wrote you this precept. But from the
-beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this
-cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his
-wife; and they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more
-twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together,
-let not man put asunder." [Footnote 29]
-
-    [Footnote 29: Mark x. 2-9;  Matthew xix. 3-9.]
-
-The Mosaic law condemns to death every adulterer: "If a man be
-found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall
-both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the
-woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel." [Footnote 30]
-
-    [Footnote 30: Deuteronomy xxii. 22.]
-
-{119}
-
-Jesus is called upon to pronounce upon the very case: "And the
-scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery;
-and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him,
-Master, this woman was taken in adultery; in the very act. Now
-Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: but
-what sayest thou? This they said tempting him, that they might
-have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger
-wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. So when they
-continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them,
-He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at
-her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they
-which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out
-one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and
-Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When
-Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said
-unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man
-condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her,
-Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." [Footnote 31]
-
-    [Footnote 31: John viii. 3-11.]
-
-{120}
-
-The Mosaic law is full of minute ceremonial regulations, and of
-rigorous conditions, which attach to the performance of certain
-external acts, in certain appointed places, the duty of adoration
-and of prayer. Not only does Jesus object to the Scribes and
-Pharisees that they place all their faith and their piety in the
-acts alone; he does more; he gives his disciples personally a
-lesson of striking simplicity by teaching them the Lord's Prayer;
-and when the Samaritan woman, whom he meets near the well of
-Jacob, says to him: "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and
-ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
-... Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, ... the hour cometh,
-and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in
-spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
-God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in
-spirit and in truth." [Footnote 32]
-
-    [Footnote 32: John iv. 20, 21, 23, 24.]
-
-{121}
-
-Thus Jesus, not to abolish but to accomplish the ancient law, and
-to make it harmonise with the new and universal work which he is
-about, separates from the law that which the imperfection of man
-had introduced in it in other times, and for a more limited work;
-he leaves in it nothing but the divine element in all its purity
-and empire. He only leaves to the divine element its religious
-and moral empire, for it is in its name alone that he speaks; the
-religious and moral law is the only law revealed by Jesus, and
-extended over the entire world; no other thought mixes itself
-with his doctrine, no other motive influences his action;
-political science, human science, have absolutely no place at all
-in the New Testament; Jesus does not think of satisfying either
-social ambition or intellectual curiosity; he desires to make
-neither kings nor doctors; as soon as he finds such pretensions
-advanced, he sets them aside;
-{122}
-"Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the
-things that are God's." "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and
-earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and
-prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." [Footnote 33]
-
-    [Footnote 33: Matthew xxii. 21; xi. 25.]
-
-Jesus occupies himself with man's soul alone, with the human
-being in his native simplicity; the relations of man, of every
-man, with God; the state and destiny of the human soul, of every
-human soul, in the present and in the future: this is the sole
-idea, the sole mission, of the New Testament. Jesus knows that
-when once accomplished this will bring with it its own salutary
-consequences: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
-righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."
-[Footnote 34]
-
-    [Footnote 34:  Matthew vi. 33.]
-
-{123}
-
-I do not hesitate, then, to affirm, that human science, in its
-different and special objects,--whether astronomy, geology,
-geography, chronology, physics, historical criticism,--is as
-foreign to the object as it is to the source of the sacred
-Volumes. In the sciences we have the domain of the mind of man
-left to itself, and to itself alone. They are the fruits,
-assiduously cultivated and slowly acquired by the laborious
-exertions of the human intellect during a succession of ages. If,
-then, you meet, in Scriptural texts, not treating of acts
-declared miraculous, terms and assertions apparently repugnant to
-facts recognised as truths in these different sciences, feel no
-disquietude. It is not there that God has set up His divine
-torch; it is not there that God has spoken. The language is the
-language of the men of the different epochs, men who speak
-according to the measure of their knowledge or of their
-ignorance, the language which they are obliged to speak in order
-to be understood by their contemporaries. I feel surprised that
-men should require to be told this, so simple, so clear is it.
-{124}
-In matters of religion and of morality there have always existed,
-and in every place there have existed, spontaneous instincts,
-aspirations, and ideas common to all men, which lead them to
-employ a similar language,--a language comprehended and received
-by all who hear it, whatever in other respects may be their
-inequality in attainments and civilization; whereas, in matters
-purely scientific we find nothing at all like this; men in the
-mass see and speak of these, not as they are to the eye of
-science, but according to their appearances, and so men
-comprehend or do not comprehend them, hear them or do not hear
-them, according to the degree of scientific knowledge or of
-ignorance prevalent at the time and place at which they live.
-What would the Hebrews in the Desert, or the Jews about the
-person of Christ, or the savages of the Pacific have said to his
-missionaries, if they had been told that it is the earth which
-turns round the sun, that its shape is that of a spheroid, that
-it is habitable and inhabited at opposite points of its
-circumference?
-{125}
-What is more natural, what more inevitable, than that the
-language of the Scriptures should agree with the scientific
-imperfection of men upon all these matters, even where that
-language is full of divine inspiration as to the religious or
-moral law of humanity?
-
-No one honours science more than I do, no one feels a greater
-admiration for it. It is a mission that man has to perform, and
-it is one of his glories; but it has no place in the relation of
-man with God, and in the action of God upon man. God is no
-sublime, no mighty doctor, who reveals truths of science to man,
-to give him the noble pleasure of contemplating them, or of
-publishing them; he has left such researches to labours purely
-human. The work of God is more complex and grander: it is
-essentially practical. That of which man, every man, stands in
-need, that after which he thirsts, that which all mankind asks of
-God, simple as well as learned, is to be enlightened as to the
-religious and moral truths which are to regulate his soul and his
-life, and to decide his lot in eternity.
-{126}
-It is to all mankind that God responds; it is to the salvation of
-all men that the Scripture applies itself. A celebrated
-philosopher, a man of a mind lofty and sincere, but one of the
-most lost of the great lost ones of the human intelligence,
-thought differently. According to Spinoza, "all men are far from
-being called to enjoy eternal life in the same plenitude. ...
-After death the reason,--just ideas survive; all the rest
-perishes. Souls governed by reason, philosophical souls, who even
-from the moment when their life in this world ceases, live in
-God, are consequently exempt from death; for death deprives them
-only of that which is of no value. But those dim and feeble
-souls, upon which reason hardly gleams at all, those souls made
-up entirely, so to say, of empty imaginings and passions, perish
-almost entirely; and death, instead of coming to them as a simple
-accident, penetrates to the very bottom of their being. The soul
-of the sage, on the contrary, cannot be more than barely
-troubled; possessing, by a sort of eternal necessity, the
-consciousness of itself and of God, and of things as they really
-are, it never ceases to exist; and as for real tranquillity of
-soul, it possesses it for ever." [Footnote 35]
-
-    [Footnote 35: Œuvres de Spinoza. According to the translation
-    of Emile Saisset. Introduction, vol. iii. p. 291.]
-
-{127}
-
-I know not if human pride ever gave expression to a thought
-showing a stranger aberration of intellect; and in spite of the
-favour with which some men of distinguished abilities endeavour
-at the present day to encircle the name of Spinoza, I do not
-believe that there is any chance, at an epoch when war is
-declared against all privileges, for philosophers to make good
-their exclusive claim to the privilege of immortality.
-
-{128}
-
-           Fourth Meditation.
-
-          Christian Ignorance.
-
-
-When I use the term "Christian Ignorance," I would not have
-either the sense which I attach to the expression, or the
-intention with which I use it, misunderstood. I do not think that
-it should be denied to man to make any use of his intelligence,
-to exercise any right to inquire freely after truth, or after any
-kind of truth. Is the field which is open to the human mind
-limited in extent? Is the mind itself of limited reach? Is there
-a difference of degree in human knowledge according as the
-objects are different to which it is applied? These are
-questions, all of them, fundamentally contained in the words
-"Christian Ignorance;" and of these questions it is my aim to
-offer what appears to me to be the right solution.
-
-{129}
-
-I am in the presence of four sciences, and of six schools or
-systems, which have made, are making, and will always continue to
-make, much noise in the world. The sciences are, Physiology,
-Psychology, Ontology, and Theology. The systems to which these
-sciences have given birth are, Materialism, Positivism,
-Scepticism, Spiritualism, Scientific Theology, Mystical Theology.
-I am far from meaning to discuss here the principles of these
-systems, or to attempt to determine their value; it would be to
-undertake the task of examining all philosophy and all
-philosophies. I mean to touch only upon one of the special
-questions which furnish in our days matter of debate between
-Christianity and these different schools. It is thus, and thus
-only, that I can clearly establish the sense which I attach to
-the words "Christian Ignorance;" and determine, at the same time,
-their bearing and their limitation.
-
-{130}
-
-I have, and for very simple reasons, little to say respecting the
-first three systems to which I have just referred, i. e.,
-Materialism, Positivism, Scepticism. By its denial of the
-distinction of the soul and the body, of mind and matter,
-Materialism rejects Psychology, and arrives, as far as Ontology
-is concerned, only at Atheism or at Pantheism. Of the four great
-philosophical sciences, Physiology is the only one with which
-Materialism has any concern. Amongst Positivists, some, the more
-eminent, admit, it is true, the reality of Objects, or to speak
-more exactly, the reality of the domain of Psychology and of
-Ontology; but in admitting it they declare it to be inaccessible
-to the human mind: "Inaccessible," says M. Littré, "not null or
-non-existent; it is an ocean which washes our shore, and for
-which we have neither bark nor sail." [Footnote 36]
-
-    [Footnote 36: A. Comte et la Philosophie Positive.
-    By M. Littré, p. 519.]
-
-That is to say, that, according to Positivists, Psychology,
-Ontology, and Theology are not--cannot be--sciences.
-{131}
-As for sceptics, they contest to the human mind all certitude,
-and especially certitude with respect to the subject-matters of
-Psychology, Ontology, and Theology. The fundamental principle of
-Christian belief is then too absolutely strange to those three
-schools for it to be necessary that I should discuss with them
-the source, bearing, and legitimacy of that which I term
-"Christian Ignorance."
-
-It is only with Spiritualists, with scientific Theologians, and
-with mystic Theologians, that it is possible to discuss this
-question of Christian Ignorance, for the three schools to which
-they belong are the only ones which, in the same way as
-Christianity itself does, open to the human mind the domain of
-the four sciences--Physiology, Psychology, Ontology, and
-Theology, and which recognise the right of the human mind there
-to search after truth, and the possibility of its being there
-discovered.
-
-When I speak of Spiritualists, a preliminary remark is
-indispensable. Christianity is as spiritualistic, not to say more
-so, than Spiritualism itself.
-{132}
-It is not, then, with Spiritualism in general, and with all
-Spiritualists without distinction, that Christians have to deal
-in the question of "Christian Ignorance," as it has in other
-questions; the discussion here lies between Christianity and
-Rationalistic Spiritualism alone; and not only between
-Rationalism and Christian ignorance, but also between
-Rationalistic science and Christian science.
-
-Rationalistic Spiritualism admits the reality of Psychology, of
-Ontology, and of Theology, just as it does that of Physiology; it
-admits that these different sciences owe their birth and
-development necessarily to the spectacle of the universe, of men
-and of things, and have for their object the solution of the
-questions which this spectacle suggests. But this great fact once
-admitted, Rationalism places in Psychology, and in Psychology
-alone, the starting-point and the fulcrum of Ontology and of
-Theology; it only admits in these two sciences results to which
-the human mind attains by its own unaided efforts, that is to
-say, by way of observation and of reasoning; it recognises for
-human knowledge, with respect to Ontology and Theology, no source
-other than human reason.
-{133}
-Christianity opens to Ontology and Theology a larger sphere and
-other sources of knowledge: besides the psychological facts
-supplied to these two sciences by observation and reasoning, it
-recognises historical facts as truths, not only which they are
-bound themselves to admit, but which they have a right to demand
-that others shall admit; Christianity does not make the human
-mind the sole object of its belief; it believes also in the
-history of Humanity, and finds in that History facts to the truth
-of which centuries, and the traditions of centuries, have
-testified, which it therefore holds, and is bound to hold, as
-well proved and as certain as any physical or psychological fact
-proved by the observations of contemporary science. The Creation,
-the primitive Revelation, the Mosaic Revelation, the Evangelical
-Revelation, are in Christian Doctrine historical facts which
-Ontology and Theology take, with reason, as the elementary data
-and the legitimate bases of science.
-
-{134}
-
-I am here met by a fundamental objection made to these facts and
-to their scientific authority; they are, it is said, opposed to
-the permanent laws of nature and of reason, as well as of human
-experience; science cannot admit supernatural facts. I have no
-intention in merely passing to re-enter here upon this great
-question; I have already expressed unreservedly my opinion with
-respect to it, [Footnote 37] and upon some other occasion I shall
-return to it; for, if I do not deceive myself, the question has
-not hitherto been properly sounded and to the depth which it
-demands. Here I confine myself to referring to two ideas--facts,
-rather--absolutely forgotten or ignored by the systematic
-opponents of the supernatural.
-
-    [Footnote 37: Meditations on the Essence of Christianity.
-    Third Meditation: "The Supernatural," pp. 84-108. London,
-    1864.]
-
-Liberty, free agency, in presence of the external or internal
-causes which operate upon the will, is the peculiar and
-distinctive characteristic of man.
-{135}
-It is by this that man separates himself from and raises himself
-above nature, understanding by the term the ensemble of things
-determined by laws general, anterior, permanent. Man alone has it
-in his power to commence a new series of facts foreign to any
-general law, and originating in his will alone. To deny such
-facts, is to deny that man is a free agent, and to make him a
-machine regulated by external and fatal laws; that is to say, to
-drive man back to the condition of that nature which is
-substantially governed by laws of this kind, and thus to abolish
-at one blow human morality and human liberty.
-
-The blow strikes still higher--it would abolish God. God, who
-created man, is, and was previous to the existence of his
-creations, a being essentially free; for liberty cannot be the
-daughter of Fatality. It is in the free divine volition that
-human Liberty has its source, and man's Liberty itself testifies
-to the source from which it emanates.
-{136}
-By denying human liberty, we throw not only man but God into the
-condition of physical nature, that is to say, into the ensemble
-of causes obedient to fate, and deprived of all moral essence;
-that is to say, we plunge into Pantheism, which, in spite of
-Spinoza and Goethe, in spite of all the efforts of logical
-reasoning or poetic imagination, is, in ultimate analysis,
-nothing more than Atheism.
-
-The systematic opponents of the supernatural must submit to this
-consequence. Most of them, I am certain, are far from being
-disposed to accept it, and would indeed repudiate it with the
-most honourable perseverance. Vain efforts! Driven from
-entrenchment to entrenchment, from fall to fall, they will be
-finally reduced to this extremity; and if divine wisdom had not
-assigned limits to the force of man's Logic, the practical
-consequences of such a system would soon make themselves evident
-in the moral and social condition of humanity.
-
-{137}
-
-There is a second necessity to which the systematic opponents of
-the supernatural must make up their minds. They must affirm that
-the laws proclaimed by them as general laws, laws immanent and
-permanent in what they call nature, are in effect the essential
-laws of all nature, of the entire universe, and of all the beings
-whose seeds are there sown. They would have no right to reject
-absolutely facts as supernatural if they were not supernatural of
-necessity and everywhere; if, in short, they were anywhere in
-harmony with laws of nature other than the laws of this hardly
-perceptible corner of nature which is the residence of man. If
-the laws of our world are not universal and absolute, who will
-venture to affirm that they cannot be changed or suspended, even
-there where they reign? Is human science ready to maintain that
-the laws which she discovers from her infinitely small
-Observatory are in effect universal and absolute laws in every
-place where matter exists, and where life manifests itself, in
-the midst of space and of time?
-
-{138}
-
-Here it is that Christian Ignorance begins to take its place; it
-admits the unknown and the diverse in the universe--an unknown
-incommensurable, a diverse infinitely possible. I respect and
-admire science profoundly; I am as moved, I feel as proud as M.
-de Laplace could ever have been at the aspect of this sublime
-flight of the human intelligence, which marches with sure footing
-in space and across worlds, measures their distances, and knows
-how many years are required for the light of the nearest of the
-fixed stars to reach us, whereas the light of our own sun reaches
-us in a few minutes. I am not less touched by the labours and the
-discoveries of the great modern Physiologists, who, walking in
-the footsteps of Bichat, observe and note, even in their minutest
-and most obscure details, the different phenomena which life in
-the midst of matter presents. But when I have rendered homage to
-these triumphs of human science, I compare them with the reality
-of things, with this universe infinitely great and infinitely
-minute, which man makes his study, and I cannot prevent the
-reflection, that the universe contains infinitely more objects
-than man's mind attains to, and infinitely more secrets than it
-discovers.
-{139}
-What astronomer will dare to affirm that he has counted all the
-worlds, and that his eye has reached the point beyond which no
-more exist? What physiologist, what naturalist, will affirm that
-all those worlds have living inhabitants? and that, if so, those
-inhabitants must have the same form, and be subject to the same
-conditions and laws, as govern the inhabitants of this globe. Our
-science becomes very modest when set side by side with our
-ignorance, even in the matters appropriate to science; and,
-however extensive and various the conquests of the human mind may
-be, the universe is infinitely vaster and more varied than is
-either the genius or the strength of its vain conqueror. Knowing
-this, and without ceasing to admire the works of human science,
-Christian Ignorance bows humbly before that work of God, which
-outstrips and surpasses immeasurably every attainment of man.
-
-{140}
-
-Thus on two sides, and by two different processes, Christianity
-has a higher point of view, and penetrates further into the
-reality of things than Rationalistic Spiritualism. On the one
-side, by allowing its place to historic facts which are the life
-of mankind, as well as to psychological facts which are the life
-of man's soul, Christianity gives to Christian science a deeper,
-a broader foundation than rationalistic science supplies. On the
-other side, Christianity admits, both with greater grandeur and
-with more modesty than Rationalism, the unfathomable immensity of
-the universe, as well as the infinite diversity of its possible
-laws; and by the avowal of a "Christian Ignorance," it places
-itself, at least, at the most elevated point to view the
-spectacle of which human science cannot traverse or measure the
-extent.
-
-{141}
-
-It is in the presence of another rival, I do not say of another
-adversary, that I have now to set Christian Ignorance. I begin by
-asking learned Theologians to forgive the freedom of my thoughts
-and of my speech; I feel for them a sincere sentiment of respect,
-let me say brotherly respect; for in the question to which I
-address myself I am now to deal with Christians. But actuated by
-the same feeling as that which influenced me when I was before
-speaking of the relation of the sacred writings to human science,
-I must declare my profound conviction that the subject which is
-here being treated is of pressing interest to Christian Religion
-in the great struggle in which it is engaged.
-
-The Christian Religion is founded upon facts, upon an
-uninterrupted series of facts recorded in documents which exist.
-Whether the authenticity or the authority of any part of these
-documents, the reality or even the possibility of any of the
-facts which they contain is admitted or contested, it is not the
-less true that Christianity is not, as Greek Paganism was, a
-poetical mythology attributed to fabulous times; as the religion
-of Zoroaster was, a personification of the great forces and of
-the great phenomena of nature; or as the writings of Confucius
-were, a collection of philosophical meditations, and of moral
-precepts and counsels, for the use of wise and simple, of princes
-and subjects.
-{142}
-I am far from contesting that poetry and philosophy, human
-imagination and human meditation, have their share in the books
-which form the documents of Christianity; it is at the same time
-incontestable, however, that the peculiar and essential
-characteristic of Christianity, from its very origin down to its
-latest development, is that it is historical: we behold the
-Christian Religion starting to life, living, traversing
-centuries, growing great and independent, just as we behold civil
-society doing, in a series of facts which succeed to one another
-and are different from one another. Christianity is not merely a
-religious doctrine; it is the history of the events wherein have
-been manifested the relations of God to man, and the action of
-God upon the destinies of Mankind.
-
-{143}
-
-In proportion to the vigour with which these events have
-developed and spread themselves, the human mind has been exposed
-to two temptations, which constitute at once its honour and its
-peril, the temptation of explanation and that of controversy.
-
-What an undertaking! to explain God! his relation to man! the
-means and the process of his action upon man! Even when he essays
-to study, and to describe, the Nature of the God in whom he
-believes, Man's vision is troubled by the dazzling light; his
-thought exhausts itself, loses itself in the vain effort to
-attain, by means of comparisons and figures of all kinds, to the
-Divine Person: he conceives that person, he affirms that person,
-he contemplates that person, and yet that person he cannot know,
-cannot explain. The nearer he feels himself to God, the more does
-Man cast his eyes down, the more lowly does he incline himself,
-to adore, where he cannot pretend to observe. Even the very
-presence of God does not aid man in attaining to the science of
-God. What, then, the result where he would seek closely to follow
-the agency of God in the facts in which he only sees Him
-imperfectly,--where he attempts to carry the torch of human
-science into the depths of the secrets of Divine action?
-
-{144}
-
-I here enter into the domain which Christianity ignores. Two
-examples will fully suffice, I hope, to make my meaning clear.
-
-The Divinity of Jesus, God's incarnation in Jesus, Jesus God and
-Man, these are the truths admitted, proclaimed, incessantly
-repeated in different forms, by the Gospels and the primitive
-documents of Christianity. I have already said [Footnote 38] that
-"it is the fact itself of the Incarnation which constitutes the
-Christian faith, and which rises above all definitions and all
-theological controversies. To disregard this fact--to deny the
-divinity of Jesus Christ--is to deny, to overthrow the Christian
-religion, which would never have been what it is, and would never
-have accomplished what it has, but that the Divine Incarnation
-was its principle, and Jesus Christ--God and Man--its author."
-
-    [Footnote 38: Meditations on the Essence of
-    Christianity. Second Meditation, pp. 75, 76.]
-
-{145}
-
-But Christians have not confined themselves to the belief of this
-sublime truth; they have striven to explain it; they have sought
-to know and to define how, and when, the divine nature and the
-human nature became united in Jesus Christ, to what extent such
-union took place, and what effect it produced upon Christ's
-personality. Hence all the questions, all the controversies,
-which were raised as to the mode and the consequences of the
-divine incarnation, by Nestorius and Eutyches, and which in the
-councils of Constantinople, of Ephesus and Chalcedon, divided and
-agitated the Christian Church, especially in the East.
-
-Man had here essayed to construct a science of Religion and of
-divine History.
-
-The Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, as
-unanimously and persistently as they have proclaimed the
-Incarnation, contain and proclaim another great truth of
-Christianity, the co-existence of the Father, Son, and Holy
-Ghost, and their combined action upon the human soul.
-{146}
-The Trinity is written in the New Testament, where it takes its
-place in the history and in the Faith of Christ from their very
-beginning. Here, again, men have refused to restrict themselves
-to History, or to a belief in History; they have essayed to
-determine the elements, and to explain the "quomodo" of the
-religions truth; in other words, to transform history into
-science. Hence all the controversies, all the contests, all the
-authoritative decisions which have pretended to fix the nature,
-rank, and relations of the three Divine persons, or the manner of
-the one God's existence and action in the Trinity of Father, Son,
-and Holy Ghost.
-
-I enter into none of these controversies; I examine none of the
-doctrines and decisions which those controversies have either
-originated, or disputed; I now only seek to determine their
-essential character; it is the transition from divine truth to
-human science: it is Theology, the offspring, more or less
-legitimate, of Religion.
-
-{147}
-
-When I say its offspring more or less legitimate, and speak of
-Theological science in these guarded terms, it is not that I do
-not design to say openly all that I think upon the subject. The
-scientific Theology of Christianity commands often my admiration,
-always my respect. In their effort to explain the grand facts of
-the Old and New Testament, its writers have addressed themselves
-to a glorious task; they have in pursuing it fallen upon and
-thrown light upon sublime truths; they have engaged for the cause
-of Christianity in formidable contests; they have lent a moral
-influence often pregnant of effect to the institutions and
-authorised teachers of Christ's religion. But their efforts have
-been even more ambitious than energetic, more compromising than
-efficacious; they have, even with the words unceasingly in their
-mouths, shown an ignorance of the limits of human science. The
-Christian Religion is a miracle, the miraculous work of God; this
-was the point from which they started, their fundamental datum;
-forgetting what they have so affirmed, they have sought and they
-have thought to ensure the triumph of the divine truth by
-explaining it; they have obscured and changed it by an
-intermixture of man's work.
-{148}
-Man can recognise as realities the facts which are at the same
-time both Christian dogmas and Christian mysteries. Man can
-recognise his own subjection to them, but it is not given to man
-to make of them a science.
-
-Bossuet also essayed to fathom the Trinity; in the midst of his
-explanations and of his comparisons, he stops short and exclaims:
-"I do not know who can vaunt that he understands that perfectly,
-or who can satisfy himself as to what the modes of being can add
-to being, or as to whence arises their distinction in the unity
-and the identity which they have with the being itself. All this
-is not very comprehensible; all this, nevertheless, is truth."
-[Footnote 39]
-
-    [Footnote 39: Élévations sur les Mystères.
-    Works of Bossuet, vol. ix., p. 49.]
-
-Thus after this final effort of his genius, it was in Christian
-ignorance that the last great doctor of the Church was forced to
-take refuge.
-
-{149}
-
-It is not only that these attempts of Scientific Theology are
-unsuccessful, they entail, as experience painfully shows, a
-serious danger. Pride is the ordinary companion of science, and
-what pride equal to the pride of the science which dares to
-believe that it has penetrated the secrets of God's action and of
-man's destiny! Scientific Theology has had the greatest share in
-religious persecutions; its doctors have had to defend not only
-their faith but their system, not only God's work but their own
-work and this simultaneously. Those whose systems were the most
-logical have generally been the most tyrannical; history in this
-respect fully confirms what independently of history might fairly
-be presumed; namely, that supposing the faith equal, "Christian
-ignorance" is far more naturally and readily inclined to
-moderation and charity than Theological science.
-
-But it is not only the scientific Theologians whose ambition and
-efforts have led them to mount beyond the sphere of human
-science; others there are who fall in a different manner into the
-same error and the same peril.
-{150}
-The Mystic Theologians ask for light as to the relations of God
-to man, not from dialectics and reasoning, but from sentiment and
-inspiration. They admit between God and man a direct and
-mysterious communication, which, in certain cases and upon
-certain conditions, conveys to the human being divine revelations
-of a character personal and individual. With this torch in the
-hand they approach the questions which concern grace, prayer, and
-the destiny awarded by Providence to each creature, and flatter
-themselves that they are able to raise the veil by which the
-solution of such questions is hidden.
-
-I cannot contemplate without profound emotion these pious
-impulses of the human soul, desirous of penetrating the secrets
-of God. What more excusable than that ardent and trembling
-curiosity in the midst of the darkness of our life and destiny?
-Whoever believes really in God cannot fail to believe himself
-under the eye and in the power of God; how, indeed, would it be
-possible for him to admit that his Creator is indifferent and
-powerless?
-{151}
-There are, it may be added, very few who, at certain moments and
-under certain circumstances, have not felt, in the innermost
-recesses of their being, a stirring, an impulsion, not proceeding
-from themselves, nor from the world around them, inexplicable to
-them, except as proceeding from a superior source and power. Who
-of us has not, in the course of his life, been sometimes aware of
-a design foreign to his own volition, his own forecast,
-conducting him to an end which he did not forecast? And, finally,
-in the infinite number of prayers rising to God from the midst of
-human misery and suffering, are there not some to which the event
-brings satisfaction, just as there are others with respect to
-which the contrary is the case? Hence the problems of the divine
-Grace, the divine Providence, the efficacy of prayer. No doubt
-the desire is very natural which passionately aspires to solve
-problems so grand, and which, in the hope to do so, strives to
-rise to a direct and personal communication with their Divine
-author.
-{152}
-But the more natural the desire, the more profound the error. No
-doubt God acts upon us, upon our soul, and upon our destiny, by
-his providence and by his grace; no doubt he hears and listens to
-our prayers; but it is not given to us to foresee his action and
-his answer, nor to appreciate them in their motives and their
-effects. "The ways of God are not our ways." Whether general
-problems are submitted to man's intelligence, or questions
-touching him personally trouble his soul; whether the Doctors of
-Theology construct systems, or the Mystic Theologians fall into
-ecstasies, we see in all these cases that man has arrived at
-limits which oppose an effectual barrier to his scientific
-vision, and which no transports of piety will ever enable him to
-overleap. Beyond those limits, the condition imposed by God upon
-man is confidence in spite of ignorance; or in other words,
-"Christian Ignorance" which is gage at once for his wisdom, his
-charity, and his liberty.
-
-{153}
-
-           Fifth Meditation.
-
-           Christian Faith.
-
-
-Forty years ago, upon the appearance of a work of the Abbé
-Bautain, entitled "The Morality of the Gospel compared with the
-Morality of the Philosophers," I published, in the "Revue
-Française," an essay upon that state of the human soul which is
-called Faith, upon the different intellectual facts which it
-expresses, and the different ways by which man attains to it.
-Although my special subject, at present, is no longer Faith in
-its abstract sense, but of Faith in Christ, it is not foreign to
-my purpose to lay before readers in the year 1868 some passages
-which appeared in my essay in 1828. For notwithstanding the
-imperfection of the essay referred to, I have not ceased to
-regard it as founded on just reasoning; it serves as a
-starting-point for that Meditation upon Christian Faith which I
-now give to the press.
-
-{154}
-
-By the word faith is commonly understood a certain belief in
-facts or dogmas of a special nature--in facts or dogmas of
-religion. This word, indeed, has only this meaning, when in
-speaking of _the faith_ the term is used alone and
-absolutely. This, however, is neither its sole meaning, nor its
-fundamental meaning; it has a still more extended sense from
-which its religious sense is derived. Expressions like the
-following are met with:--"I have full _faith_ in your words;
-this man has _faith_ in himself--in his strength--in his
-fortune, &c." This employment of the word _faith_ in secular
-matters, so to say, occurs more frequently in the present day; it
-is, however, no recent invention, and religious ideas have never
-been so exclusively its sphere that the word faith has not had
-also other significations attached to it.
-
-{155}
-
-It appears, then, by the usages of common speech and popular
-opinion, 1st, that the word _faith_ designates a certain
-internal condition of the person who believes, and not merely a
-certain species of belief: that it refers to the nature itself of
-the conviction, not to its object; 2ndly, that this word was,
-nevertheless, in its origin, and still is, more generally applied
-to those kinds of belief termed religious. What then, in its
-special and ordinary application to religious belief, are the
-variations which have taken place in its meaning, and which are
-taking place every day?
-
-Men engaged in teaching and preaching a religion, a doctrine, a
-religious reform, sometimes whilst appealing to the whole energy
-of the human mind in its state of liberty, succeed in producing
-in their disciples an entire, profound, and powerful conviction
-of the truth of their teaching. This conviction is called
-_Faith_; a name which neither masters and disciples will
-repudiate, nor even their adversaries disallow.
-{156}
-Faith then is only a profound and imperious conviction of the
-truth of a dogma of religion; it matters little whether the
-conviction has been acquired by way of reasoning, or has been
-generated by controversy, or by free and rigorous examination;
-that which gives to it its character, and entitles it to the name
-of _Faith_, is its energy, is the empire which that energy
-gives to it over the whole man. Such at every time was the faith
-of the great Reformers, and more especially in the sixteenth
-century, such the faith of their most illustrious disciples, of
-Calvin after Luther, and Knox after Calvin.
-
-The same men have preached the same doctrine to persons whom it
-was impossible for them to convince by the use of reasoning, by
-an appeal to examination, or to science, to women and crowds of
-persons incapable alike of laborious study and of lengthened
-reflection. They spoke to the imagination, to the moral
-affections, where the persons whom they addressed were prone to
-feel emotion, and to believe in consequence of emotion. They gave
-the name of _Faith_ to the result of their action, just as
-they had done so to the result of the process essentially
-intellectual of which I was before speaking.
-{157}
-Faith thus instilled was a religious conviction, not acquired by
-reasoning, and deriving its origin in human sensibility. This is
-the idea of faith as entertained by the Mystic Sects.
-
-Appeals to human sensibility and human emotion have not always
-sufficed to generate faith. Another spring of human influence has
-been resorted to; and men have been commanded to adhere to
-practices and to form habits. Man must sooner or later attach
-ideas to the acts which are habitual to him, and attribute a
-meaning to that which produces in him a constant effect. The mind
-was led to the belief of the principles which had given birth to
-certain practices and habits. A new kind of faith appeared, it
-had for its principle and dominant characteristic, the submission
-of the mind to an authority invested with the right at once to
-govern man's life and to regulate his thought.
-
-{158}
-
-Finally, faith has not everywhere nor constantly been generated
-in the human mind, either by the free exercise of the
-intelligence, or by appeals to sensibility, or by the formation
-of habits. It was then said that faith was incommunicable, that
-it was not in man's power to impart faith, or to acquire it by
-any exertion of his own, that for this purpose God's intervention
-and the action of his grace were necessary. Divine grace became
-thus the preliminary condition of faith and its definitive
-character.
-
-The word _faith_ has, consequently, in turn expressed: 1st,
-a conviction acquired by the free efforts of the human
-intelligence; 2ndly, a conviction acquired by way of the
-sensibility, and without the concurrence of the reason, and often
-even against its authority; 3rdly, a conviction acquired by man's
-long submission to a power invested with a power from on high to
-command conviction; 4thly, a conviction induced by supernatural
-means,--by divine grace.
-
-{159}
-
-What in the midst of this variety of sources from which it may
-emanate is the essential and invariable character of faith? What
-is the state of the soul in which faith reigns when we consider
-it independently of its origin and of its object?
-
-Two kinds of belief exist in man: the one, I will not call it
-innate, for this is an inexact and justly criticised expression,
-but a belief natural and spontaneous which springs up and
-establishes itself in the mind of man, if not without his being
-aware of it, at least without the help of any reflection or
-volition on his part, by the development alone of his nature and
-the influence of that external world in the midst of which his
-life is passed; the other kind of belief is the result of
-laborious examination and reflection, the fruit of voluntary
-study and of the power possessed by man either to concentrate all
-his faculties upon a certain object with the design of mastering
-it, or to direct the thought inwards, and realise what is there
-taking place--to render an account thereof to himself, and thus
-to acquire by an act of volition and of reflection, a knowledge
-which he did not before possess, although the facts which form
-its object nevertheless existed as facts external--and which he
-might see by his eyes,--or as facts which were taking place
-within him.
-
-{160}
-
-Of these two kinds of belief which merits the name of
-_faith_?
-
-It seems at first sight that the name is perfectly suitable to
-that kind of belief which I have termed natural and spontaneous:
-such belief is exempt from doubt and disquietude; it directs man
-in his judgment, in his actions, and with an empire which he
-dreams neither of eluding nor contesting; it is ingenuous,
-unhesitating, practical, sovereign; who would not recognise in it
-the characteristics of _faith?_
-
-Faith has in effect two characters; but it has at the same time
-others which belief natural and spontaneous has not. Almost
-unnoticed by the man who is yet guided by it, this natural and
-spontaneous belief is to him, as it were, a law from without
-which he has received, not accepted; which he obeys by instinct
-without having given it any intimate and personal assent.
-{161}
-It suffices for the exigencies of his life; it guides him,
-admonishes him, impels him, or checks him; but without, so to
-say, any concurrence on his own part, without giving birth in him
-to the sentiment that any active, energetic, or powerful
-principle is stirring within him, without procuring him the
-profound joy of contemplating, loving, adoring the truth which
-reigns over him. _Faith_, on the contrary, has this power;
-faith is not science, neither is it ignorance; the mind which
-faith penetrates has never yet, perhaps, rendered a true account
-to itself of that in which it has faith; and, perhaps, never will
-do so; but the mind is, nevertheless, certain of it; to the mind
-it is present, living; it is no longer a general belief, a law of
-human nature which governs the moral man, as the law of
-gravitation governs bodies; it is a personal conviction, a truth
-which the moral man has made his own by force of contemplation,
-of voluntary obedience, and love. Henceforth this truth does much
-more than suffice to his life, it satisfies his soul; it does
-much more than direct him, it enlightens him.
-{162}
-How many, for instance, live under the empire of a natural and
-instinctive belief that moral good and moral evil exist, without
-our being able to affirm that they have _faith_ in them.
-Such belief is in them, as it were, a master undisputed; to whom,
-nevertheless, they render no homage, whom they obey without
-seeing and without loving. But if a circumstance, a cause,
-however trivial, revealing, so to say, the conscience to itself,
-should attract and fix their attention upon this distinction
-between moral good and evil, which is a spontaneous law of their
-nature; should they knowingly acknowledge and accept it as their
-legitimate master, should their intelligence honour itself by
-comprehending it, and their liberty do itself honour by obeying
-it; should they feel their soul, as it were, the sanctuary of a
-sacred law, as the focus into which this truth concentrates and
-establishes itself in order thence to diffuse its rays of light;
-this is no longer simple natural belief, it is _faith_.
-
-{163}
-
-Faith, then, does not exclusively consist of either of the two
-kinds of belief which at first sight seem to share between them
-the soul of man; it partakes at once of natural and spontaneous
-belief and of the belief which is the fruit of reflection and
-science; yet it differs from each; like the latter, it is
-individual and intimate; like the former confidant, active,
-dominant. Considered in itself, independently of all comparison
-with any other particular and analogous state of the intellect,
-faith is the full security of man in the possession of his
-belief, as absolved from effort, as exempt from doubt; the path
-which the mind has pursued in arriving at it is obliterated, and
-a sentiment only is left behind of the natural and pre-existent
-harmony between the mind of man and the truth itself. To the man
-whose mind faith penetrates, his intelligence and his volition
-present no longer any problems for solution as to the things
-which are the objects of his faith: he feels himself in full
-possession of the truth to light and to guide him on his way, and
-in full possession of himself to act according to the truth.
-{164}
-As faith has internal characteristics which are peculiar to it,
-it has also, with some strange and rare exceptions, external
-conditions which are necessary to it; it is distinguishable from
-other modes of human belief, not only by its nature, but by its
-object. Up to a certain point these conditions may be determined
-and perceived, although imperfectly, according to the nature
-itself of that state of the soul and of its effects. A belief may
-be so entire and sure of itself that no further effort of the
-intellect seems necessary, and the believer, wholly absorbed in
-the truth which in his judgment he possesses, may lose all memory
-of the way by which he arrived at it. A conviction may be so
-forcible as to become master of his every action, as well as of
-every impulse of his mind, and may imperatively force and morally
-oblige him to submit all things to its empire; a state this of
-the intellect which is the fruit, perhaps, not merely of the
-exercise of the intelligence, but of a strong emotion, of a long
-obedience to certain practices, and in the midst of which all the
-three great faculties of man, the sensibility, the intelligence,
-and the will, are simultaneously in activity, and simultaneously
-satisfied.
-{165}
-Where all this is the case, the occasion which has induced such a
-situation of the soul, had need be one worthy of the soul, and of
-its situation; the subject with which it is so occupied, had need
-be one which embraces the entire man, which sets in play all his
-faculties; responding to all the requirements of his moral
-nature, it has a right in return to all his devotedness.
-
-The characteristics of ideas proper to become really a faith
-would seem _à priori_ to be intellectual beauty, and
-practical importance. An idea which should present itself to the
-mind as true, without at the same time striking it by the extent
-or the gravity of its consequences, might produce certitude; but
-the name of _faith_ would not be suitably applied to it.
-{166}
-Nor would the practical merit, or the immediate utility of an
-idea suffice of itself to generate faith; to do so it must also
-attract, it must also take possession of the human mind by the
-pure beauty of truth. In other words, in order that a simple
-belief, whether instinctive, or arising from reflection, may
-become faith, the thing believed must be of a nature to procure
-to man the united joys of contemplation and of activity, to
-awaken in him the twofold sentiment, that it is of lofty origin
-and of potent influence; his idea must be such as that he shall
-be induced to regard it as a medium between the ideal world and
-the real world, as a missionary charged to model the one upon the
-other, and to unite them.
-
-It is easy to understand why the name of faith is used almost
-exclusively to characterise religious beliefs; no other belief
-possesses in so high a degree the two characteristics, [Footnote
-40] which provoke the development of faith.
-
-    [Footnote 40: Intellectual beauty and practical importance.]
-
-{167}
-
-Many principles of science are beautiful and fruitful in useful
-applications; political theories may strike the mind by the
-elevation of the ideas which they embody, and by the grandeur of
-their results; the doctrines of a pure morality are still more
-surely and more commonly invested with this double power. Nor
-have these kinds of belief failed sometimes to generate faith in
-the human soul. Still, to receive a clear and profound impression
-at one time of their intellectual beauty, at another of their
-practical importance, a certain measure of science and of
-sagacity, or a certain turn for public life, or for politics, as
-the case may require, is almost always necessary, and this does
-not belong to all men, nor to every epoch. Religious belief, on
-the contrary, has no need of such resources: it carries in
-itself, and in its very nature, infallible means of effect;
-having once penetrated into the heart of man, however limited and
-undeveloped in other respects his intelligence may be, or however
-rude and low his condition, it seems to him a truth at once
-sublime and usual, a truth which addresses itself to him as an
-habitant of this earth, and at the same time which opens to him
-access to those lofty regions, to those treasures of intellectual
-life, which without the light of faith he would have never known;
-it has for him the charm of the purest truth, and exercises over
-him the empire of the most powerful interest.
-{168}
-Can it astonish us, that the belief once existent, its transition
-to a state of _faith_ should be so rapid and so general? But
-it is precisely on account of its instinctive tendency to
-transform itself into faith, and into a faith of extraordinary
-energy, that religious belief has need to continue always free
-and always subject to the tests which Liberty has the right to
-impose. Legitimate faith, that is, as we understand it, the faith
-which does not deceive itself as to its objects, and which
-addresses itself really to the truth, is beyond contradiction the
-loftiest condition to which the human mind, in its present state,
-can attain, for it is that state in which man feels his moral
-nature fully satisfied, in which he gives himself up entirely to
-the mission prescribed to him by his thought.
-{169}
-But a faith may be illegitimate; it is possible for this state of
-the soul to be produced by error; the chance of error (experience
-proves this at every step) is even here greater, the more the
-different routes which lead to faith are multiplied and the more
-its effects are energetic; man may be led astray in his faith by
-his sentiments, by his habits, by the empire of moral affections
-or of external circumstances, as well as by the defect or the
-abuse of his intellectual faculties; for his faith may spring
-from any of these various sources. Nevertheless, faith once
-there, it is daring and ambitious; it passionately aspires to
-diffuse itself, to usurp, to reign, and constitute itself the law
-of opinions and facts. Not only is faith ambitious, it is strong,
-it possesses, it displays, in support of its pretensions and its
-designs, an energy, an address, a perseverance, which are almost
-always wanting to opinions simply scientific. So that for this
-mode and degree of conviction and belief, far more than for any
-other, there is chance of the individual falling into error, and
-of society falling under oppression.
-
-{170}
-
-For these perils there is but one remedy, Liberty. Whether in
-belief or in action, the nature of man is the same: not only his
-will but his thought, if it is not to become absurd or culpable,
-has incessantly need of contradiction and of control. Where faith
-fails, moral energy and moral dignity fail equally; where liberty
-does not exist, faith first usurps,--then becomes
-bewildered--finally destroys itself. If human belief passes to
-the state of faith, it is its progress and its glory; if, in its
-efforts toward this result, and after having attained it, it
-abides constantly under the control of the free intelligence; we
-have, in this fact, at once a guarantee for society against the
-tyranny of that faith and a pledge that the faith is legitimate.
-In the co-existence and mutual respect of these two forces
-consist the excellency and security of society. [Footnote 41]
-
-    [Footnote 41: Revue Française (January, 1828), Méditations et
-    Études Morales, par M. Guizot, pp. 143, 173-175 (edition of
-    1861).]
-
-{171}
-
-If I consider this essay, or psychological portrait, shall I
-rather call it, of faith in general, and compare with it
-Christian faith, I am immediately struck by two features as
-characterising it. On the one side, the ideas and the facts upon
-which Christian faith is founded, have evidently that twofold
-merit of intellectual beauty and of practical importance which
-has both the right and the power to compel faith. On the other
-side, Christian faith may originate, in fact does originate, in
-sources the most diverse, in study and rational meditation, in
-sentiment, in authority, in an appeal to the divine grace.
-
-What grander and more impressive to the mind of man than the
-principles of Christian faith, regarded as a whole? God and Man
-incessantly present the one to the other, in the life of each
-man, as in the history of the human race! What more grave and
-more momentous, regarded from a practical point of view? In the
-present hour, it is peace to the soul of man, peace to his life;
-in the future, it is his destiny throughout eternity.
-
-{172}
-
-The diversity of the sources of Christian faith is not less
-evident than its intellectual beauty and its practical
-importance. Beyond a doubt, the Christian faith of the Chancellor
-de l'Hospital, of Pascal, of Bossuet, of Fénelon, of Luther, of
-Calvin, of Newton, of Euler, of Chalmers, was as much the fruit
-of reflection and of learning, was as freely meditated and
-adopted as the scepticism of Montaigne and of Bayle, as the
-sensualism of Hobbes, and the pantheism of Spinoza. It is equally
-certain that all Christian communities, Roman Catholic or
-Protestant, have had their mystics, their eminent and sincere
-believers, whose faith was illumed and fed by sensibility and
-imagination; in the former case in the emotions and practices of
-fervent piety; in the latter, in empassioned transports and
-strivings after a direct communication with God and with Christ.
-As for the faith founded upon authority, the Church of Rome has
-presented the most extraordinary example which the world has ever
-seen, and if Protestantism has caused the faith of individuals to
-make great strides in the direction of liberty, it has
-nevertheless taken for its fixed basis the divine inspiration of
-the Sacred Book, and has thus ensured a great importance and very
-efficacious influence to the principle of authority.
-
-{173}
-
-Having thus placed Christian Faith in its true point of view, and
-assigned to it its just rank in the history of the human soul,
-let us see whence arises the contest in which that Faith is
-engaged with natural Religion and with religious philosophy? What
-is the principle of this contest, and what its character?
-
-Here we are met by that all-important question, the question
-which has been agitated during nineteen centuries, and to which
-all the intellect of modern times has applied itself. Is the
-Christian Faith in contradiction to human reason? Some affirm
-that a contest between the two is natural and inevitable; of
-these there are who tell us that reason should give way to faith,
-and again others who say that faith should yield to reason:
-whereas, on the contrary, there are those also who deny that such
-contest is inevitable, and who maintain that faith and reason, as
-they ought to do, may both live in peace with each other.
-
-{174}
-
-In my opinion, the difference between Christian Faith and that
-which is styled natural Religion, or religious philosophy, is
-profound; but I do not think that the question between the two
-has been rightly put, or that the character of their opposition
-has been rightly defined.
-
-To discover what, in effect, this character is, I address myself,
-first, to the philosophers.
-
-We know how Descartes began his great philosophical inquiries, to
-what state he brought his mind in order to enter upon his task:
-"I persuaded myself," says he, "that I could not do better with
-respect to the opinions which up to that time I had entertained,
-than to begin by ridding myself of them entirely, in order then
-either to replace them by better opinions, or to return to the
-old ones if I should find them, on examination, to conform to the
-standard of reason."
-{175}
-Then proceeding to determine the precepts to be followed by him
-in this recasting of all his opinions by such standard,--"My
-first principle," said he, "was never to accept anything as true,
-unless I could evidently recognise its truth; in other words, to
-avoid carefully any precipitate judgment, to allow my mind to
-follow no bias, and not to comprise anything in its judgments but
-what presented itself so clearly and so distinctly to my mind as
-to leave me no room for doubt." [Footnote 42]
-
-    [Footnote 42: Discours de la Méthode. Works of Descartes,
-    vol. i., pp. 135, 141; edition of M. Cousin.]
-
-More than a century after Descartes, Condillac, wishing to trace
-to its source the origin of human knowledge, and to write the
-history of its progressive development, did far more than
-obliterate from his mind its primitive ideas. He began his
-labours by curtailing the human mind of a great part of its
-proper proportions; he reduced man to the primitive condition of
-a statue, leaving to it no other faculty than the sensation: and
-then he fancied he could derive from sensations all man's ideas,
-all his knowledge,--in fact, the entire man himself.
-
-{176}
-
-Thus these two great systems, Spiritualism and Sensualism, have
-their very commencement, each in an arbitrary assumption.
-Descartes, effacing from the human mind all that it has learnt to
-know or to believe, solely by its spontaneous activity, and by
-the natural course of human life, has treated the mind as a
-_tabula rasa_, and to fill up the void which he has so made,
-he does not admit anything there unless it presents itself "so
-clearly and so distinctly to his mind, as to leave him no room to
-doubt respecting it." Condillac, on the other hand, suppresses
-not only all that which man has learnt spontaneously and without
-reflection, but the man himself; leaving in the place of man a
-statue, sentient, it is true, but only sentient, and with this
-statue and his sensations alone, he undertakes to reconstruct the
-man--the entire man--with all the developments of his nature and
-of his thought.
-
-{177}
-
-I see nothing in either of these processes more than a starting
-point entirely fictitious, a false step made at the very
-commencement of philosophy,--in short, a mere hypothesis.
-Descartes rendered admirable services to the cause of liberty and
-of intellectual sincerity; Condillac contributed to the progress
-of the method which I shall call, the method of anatomy and
-scientific dissection applied both to the human mind and to the
-material world; but from their very commencement both these
-philosophers threw themselves out of the high road, the straight
-road of philosophy; each from the very commencement substituted a
-mere hypothesis in the place of an exact and complete
-appreciation of facts. It is far from my intention to discuss
-either of these two systems; I am content to put aside the two
-hypotheses, the _tabula rasa_ of Descartes, and the statue
-of Condillac, and I proceed, my way lighted by the facts, as they
-are, naturally produced in the history of the mind of man, to
-inquire what is the cause, and what the import, of the struggle
-which is taking place between rationalistic religious philosophy,
-and Christian faith.
-
-{178}
-
-The true point of departure of this history and the first of the
-facts which show themselves there, is the co-existence of man and
-the universe, spectator and spectacle, the one confronting the
-other, the "_moi_" and the "_non moi_," the subject and
-the object, in the language of philosophy. I hasten to say that I
-repudiate absolutely the different systems,--Pantheism, whether
-materialistic or idealistic,--Scepticism, whether idealistic or
-absolute,--which refuse to admit this primary fact, deny the
-reality of the external world, or the legitimacy of the knowledge
-of it which the understanding acquires, see only illusions in the
-relations of man to the universe, or absorb man and the universe
-together, in the confusion and the obscure darkness of a
-pretended identity. I do not dream of here discussing these
-different systems; if I engaged in such discussion, I should have
-to deal with something very different from the question to which
-I am applying myself at this moment.
-{179}
-Here I have only to do with Rationalistic Spiritualism. This form
-of Spiritualism has so much in common with Christianity, that it
-admits the reality and the distinction of the "_moi_" and of
-the "_non moi_" of the subject and the object, of the
-spectator and the spectacle, of spirit and matter, of man and the
-universe. For Rationalistic Spiritualists as well as for
-Christians, this is the great fact in the midst of which, and
-under the empire of which, man's intelligence is developed, man's
-life passed. Man is there passive, active, and witness, all
-simultaneously. As spectator he receives impressions from the
-spectacle, which both prompt him to act, and which stir his being
-from within; he is witness both to what is passing within himself
-and to what is passing without himself. Notwithstanding the
-diversity and the mobility of the impressions which he receives
-from without, and of the acts which he originates himself, he has
-a consciousness of his own personal and permanent existence, and
-also the consciousness of existences other than his own; he knows
-not, by the way of reasoning or hypothesis, but by instinctive
-and immediate intuition, that which, although it is not himself,
-yet acts upon himself as something coming from himself.
-{180}
-Man discovers the external world as he becomes aware of himself,
-by the intercommunication which takes place between them, and
-which, nevertheless, shows him how distinct from himself is that
-external world. He observes and notes both what takes place
-without him and within him. The results of this observation he
-terms facts, nor are they for him vain appearances, creations
-merely of his thought or volition; they are manifestations to him
-of realities independent of himself, and yet to which he stands
-in relation; they are bonds of union in which he feels that he is
-highly interested, not merely as any curious spectator might be,
-but as a real being; interested, not merely for the sake of
-science, but interested as one whose very destiny is therein
-involved.
-
-{181}
-
-Amongst these facts, in their nature so numerous and so diverse,
-I only select those which concern the religious instincts of man,
-or the questions which they suggest. I admit two kinds of these;
-first, the spontaneous and common religious beliefs, which
-mankind professes, although under very different forms and in
-very different degrees; secondly, the theories and systems of
-philosophy, emanating from and promulgated by philosophers in
-order to bring under discussion the popular religious opinions,
-and to resolve the questions which they involve. On the one side
-is the natural and instinctive religion of humanity; on the other
-is human science, which, when it addresses itself to the task of
-disengaging natural religion from every system of mythology, is
-called religious philosophy.
-
-Are there in the nature and in the religious history of men no
-other great facts besides these instincts of humanity, and these
-systems of human science? Natural Religion with its mythologies,
-and religious philosophy with its systems, are these all the
-religious aid accorded to man to enlighten him upon subjects of
-religion?
-
-{182}
-
-To the question thus formalised, Rationalistic Spiritualism says,
-Yes; whereas Christian Faith replies, No.
-
-In addition to the facts to which I have just referred, viz., the
-instinctive beliefs of mankind, and the systemised doctrines of
-human science concerning religion, the Christian faith admits and
-proclaims another great religious fact, the real and active
-presence of God in the life of man and in the history of
-humanity. What the Christian faith affirms is, that the real and
-active presence of God, in man's life, amidst the mysteries of
-Providence, of prayer, and of grace, and the real and active
-presence of God in the history of the human race, amidst the
-mysteries of Revelation, of Inspiration, of the Incarnation, and
-of the Redemption, do not constitute simply a poetical mythology,
-are not merely hypotheses of philosophy, but are psychological
-and historic facts which human science cannot explain, but which
-it nevertheless can, nay, is bound to recognise.
-
-{183}
-
-Not philosophers only, but the whole human race, believers and
-disbelievers, are placed in the same permanent position in which
-all originally stood; that is to say, Man stands always
-confronting the Universe, Man always at once spectator and actor,
-greedy to know and comprehend the spectacle on which he is
-looking, and of which he himself forms part. The spectacle is
-immense, infinite; the spectator petty, imperfect, ephemeral,
-diverse, and with limited powers of vision. Accordingly as he is
-situated, accordingly as he is disposed and his intelligence
-reaches, he sees to a greater or less distance, and with a vision
-more or less accurate, all that the spectacle presents. He
-observes more or less completely, more or less exactly, the facts
-which are occurring there. Hence the differences of opinion
-amongst mankind. Who are they amongst them who succeed best in
-appreciating and in describing these facts without altering their
-character or omitting any? This is the fundamental question, the
-question antecedent to and which governs all the others.
-
-{184}
-
-The contest, then, between Christians and non-Christians, is not
-a contest between Faith and Reason. Reason occupies a place, and
-a large place, in the Faith of Christians; they attain to faith
-as well by reason as by sentiment or authority; nor is there, at
-the same time, in the negations or the doubts of non-Christians,
-as much reflection and as much accurate observation as they
-themselves suppose. Are Christians right in affirming not only
-the existence of God, but his real and active presence in the
-life of man and in the history of the human race? Are these
-psychological and historic facts which reason and science are
-bound to admit? Or are the Deists who are not Christians
-justified in denying these facts and in limiting God to existence
-alone, and in treating him as subject to the general and
-permanent laws assigned to all other existences?
-
-{185}
-
-As far as Christianity and Rationalistic Spiritualism are
-concerned, this is the real question at issue.
-
-Having pointed out the source of the differences of opinion which
-we find amongst men, I will now indicate their consequences.
-
-Rationalistic Spiritualism affirms the existence of God, and
-those who follow this system evince the strongest desire to
-demonstrate his existence. They are right; for the existence of
-God, and the rational consequences of his existence, form all
-their natural religion, all their religious philosophy. In these
-days, men of minds, as eminent as sincere, M. Émile Saisset, M.
-Jules Simon, M. Ernest Bersot, M. de Rémusat, have made
-earnest--I would willingly say pious--efforts to elucidate the
-proposition of God's existence, and to derive from it all the aid
-that reason can furnish to explain the instincts and satisfy the
-religious exigencies of humanity. But these Spiritualists deceive
-themselves. They do not attain to God himself, they only attain
-to the idea of God; what they establish is the admissibility of
-the intellectual idea, not the presence of a real being.
-{186}
-In rejecting the psychological and historical facts upon which
-Christianity is founded, that is to say, the relations free and
-unintermitted of God with Man, whether in the individual life of
-each man or in the history of the mankind, Rationalistic
-Spiritualism deprives itself of direct and positive evidence to
-prove God's existence; it places a human argument in the place of
-the divine manifestation, and a scientific work of man in the
-place of the real action of God.
-
-In an excellent book, justly entitled by him "Idea of God,"
-another contemporary philosopher, M. Caro, has valiantly, and
-with brilliant success, defended this idea against the different
-systems which reject or distort it. And not limiting himself to
-polemics, he has concluded his work by a forcible and clear
-enunciation of his own thought.
-{187}
-"It is the living God, the intelligent God, whom we defend
-against the God of Naturalism, who would not be more than a law
-of geometry or a blind force; against the God of Hegel, who would
-not be more than an indeterminate Being, an origin and a
-commencement of things, or an absolute mind, result at once and
-product of the world; against the God of the new Idealists, who,
-to save his divinity, strip him of his reality. We affirm, in
-opposition to all these subtle and hazardous conceptions, that a
-supposed perfect being, unless he had an existence, would not be
-perfect; that a mere ideal of the mind is not a God; that if he
-is not a substance he is but a conception, a pure category of
-spirit, a creation and dependence upon man's thought which, in
-ceasing to exist, annihilates its God; that, if he is not cause,
-he is the most useless of beings; and if he is cause, he is mind
-supreme, for were he not so he would be nothing but an
-unconscious and necessary agent, a blind spring of the world,
-inferior to what he produces, since in the organic matter that
-emanates from him, an intelligence displays itself, of which he
-would possess nothing, and since too in man is manifested a
-divine Reason.
-
-{188}
-
-Another remark, and we have done with our definition. This living
-God, this God intelligent, is also a God that loves ... A God
-that loved not would not be worthy of being adored ... We do not
-adore a law, however simple it may be, however fruitful in
-consequence; we do not adore a force if it be blind, however
-potent, however universal it may be; nor an ideal, however pure
-it may be, if it be only an abstraction. We only adore a being
-who is living perfection, the perfection of reality in its
-highest forms of mind and love. Every other adoration implies a
-contradiction if the object is a pure abstraction, idolatry if
-the object be the substance of the universe or humanity.
-
-This is God as he appears to reason, and as the religious
-conscience of humanity will have him. This is your God."
-[Footnote 43]
-
-    [Footnote 43: L'Idée de Dieu et ses Nouveaux Critiques.
-    By E. Caro. p. 498. 8vo. Paris, 1864.]
-
-{189}
-
-It is to be regretted M. Caro has not carried his conclusions
-still higher, and completed his work by proceeding on from
-philosophical spiritualism to Christian Spiritualism.
-
-Rationalistic Deism is merely an idea of God, given as the
-philosophical solution of the grand problem, which the spectacle
-of the Universe and of Man in the Universe causes to weigh upon
-the soul of man.
-
-Christianity is faith in God, Being real, Sovereign real,
-continually present, and active in the government of the
-Universe, as he is in the soul of man and in the history of the
-human race.
-
-Rationalistic Deism arrives at the idea of God, and stops short
-there, because it ignores the psychological and historical facts
-which go beyond this idea. It is by holding account of these
-facts, and by doing to them the homage which is their due, that
-Christianity forwards and justifies her faith.
-
-{190}
-
-           Sixth Meditation.
-
-            Christian Life.
-
-
-Every doctrine, religious, moral, or political, has yet to submit
-to a test--the great test--the practical application. The idea
-has to be transformed into reality, the thought to be made life.
-
-Philosophers pride themselves upon searching only for the truth,
-upon busying themselves only with the theoretical truth of their
-ideas, to the neglect of every other consideration. They are
-right in one sense: for the knowledge of truth, of truth as it is
-in itself, is that which the human mind proposes to itself as its
-object, and is the only thing which can satisfy it; if man
-pretends to it, it is his right and his honour to do so: whatever
-the object of his study, the mind does not halt or rest until it
-believes that it has attained to the truth.
-
-{191}
-
-This is no privilege of philosophers; neither are they the only
-ones for whom truth is a law: all men have a right to live under
-its empire, whether as to facts or ideas. No one, not even those
-who affect most disdain for theory, would venture to lay down the
-principle that we should be indifferent whether we are
-essentially in the right, and that practically there is no
-difference between truth and error.
-
-But by what signs is truth recognisable? Are there no other than
-the affirmations of that inquisitive spectator, named the human
-mind? Is it only by language, by reasoning, and by discussion,
-that the truth of an idea and of a doctrine manifests and proves
-itself?
-
-To such a pretension, if advanced, I hesitate not to reply with a
-denial, and in doing so, to repeat what I have just said: every
-doctrine, religious, moral, or political, has to submit to a
-test,--the practical application.
-{192}
-The idea transformed into reality, the thought made the life;
-these are the most certain signs of an idea being intrinsically
-true, these, too, are proofs of its reasonable legitimacy, which
-it is bound to give.
-
-There is a radical difference between the material world and the
-intellectual world. The laws which regulate and maintain order in
-the material world, are independent of man, of both his thought
-and his volition. It matters not that he knows these laws, or is
-ignorant of them; they do not the less exist and govern; man has
-no power to change, arrest, or suspend their operation; he cannot
-influence them. Galileo was right to say of the earth, in spite
-of his judges, "Still it moves;" it would have moved even if
-Galileo, as well as his judges, had been ignorant of the fact,
-and the contest between the whirlpool of Descartes and Newton's
-principle of attraction, was a matter perfectly indifferent to
-the general system of the world. _There_ man's error is
-absolutely without effect or influence.
-
-{193}
-
-In the intellectual and moral world it is otherwise; here man is
-not only spectator, he is an actor, an actor free or not to act--
-to act with effect. He thinks and he wills, and so contributes to
-the facts which take place in the world; he knows, or is ignorant
-of, the laws, he respects or violates the laws which preside
-here, but which do not preside here as laws external to and
-independent of himself. Man's errors, man's faults, are not here
-without real and serious consequences; they have the power of
-sowing evil and of carrying perturbation into the intellectual
-and moral world, thus delivered up, as the Bible proclaims, to
-the disputes of men.
-
-Learned men, in the study and appreciation of the material world,
-separate sciences absolutely, and, considering each apart from
-its practical application, occupy themselves in their scientific
-investigations only with the pure theory. This I understand and
-admit; for such a course does not endanger the security of
-society or the results of their own labours.
-{194}
-Their ignorance and their errors have no doubt grave
-inconveniences; the facts and the forces of the material world
-are either misconceived or not turned sufficiently to account;
-man and human society do not reap all the advantages which the
-profound and exact knowledge of the truth might, in this respect,
-procure them. Such ill, although real, is of a negative
-description, a good, it may be, missed or postponed; but no
-general disturbance results in that material world upon which
-naturalists or chemists concentrate their labours; the world will
-not have to undergo the effect, nor to pay the penalty, of their
-ignorance or of their errors. The intellectual and moral world,
-on the contrary, runs a greater risk, and imposes upon its
-teachers severer duties; no doubt these study it as freely, and
-make truth, too, their object; but science does not here escape
-the weight of its own conclusions; it is a power as formidable in
-its abuse as it is in itself sublime; it may carry into the world
-to which it addresses itself trouble instead of order,
-incendiarism instead of light. If practical application is not
-here the object of science, it is still its necessary and
-appropriate proof; in facts as in a mirror are reflected the
-truth or the error, the good or the ill, of human opinions.
-
-{195}
-
-Christianity has now been subjected to this test for nineteen
-centuries: it is subject to it at this moment, it will continue
-ever to be so. I need not say that I do not propose to retrace
-here the narrative of the manner in which it has supported and
-surmounted that test; that would be to write the History of
-Christianity. I confine myself, on the contrary, to a single
-small part of this history, the most modest part, the least
-pretending: and shall endeavour to bare a little to the view what
-Christianity, when it has been put into practice, what Christian
-Faith, after it has become Christian Life, has in the different
-situations of man's life accomplished, and is every day
-accomplishing, for the ennoblement of his nature, and the
-furtherance of his ultimate destiny.
-
-{196}
-
-Three words, "_Rights of Man_" inscribed upon the banners of
-the French Revolution, constituted its force; the rights of man
-as man, rights by this title alone, by virtue alone of his
-humanity. Three other words, _Liberty, Equality,
-Fraternity_, have served as a commentary upon the three
-former. It is in the name of these two maxims that the French
-Revolution is making the tour of the world; they are the sources
-of the good and the evil, the movements in advance as well as the
-ruinous calamities of our time and of an unknown future.
-
-Whilst all of true and good that these two maxims contain is
-Christian and was proclaimed by Christianity, all that they have
-of false and fatal is condemned and expressly repudiated by
-Christianity. Not only in this terrible confusion does
-Christianity proclaim in principle the part that is good, and
-condemn in principle the part that is evil; but Christianity
-alone, in point of fact, has the necessary authority and moral
-force to suppress the evil without at the same time causing the
-good also to perish.
-
-{197}
-
-It is a subject to us, in these days, of pride, and of a pride
-that is just, that we have at last begun to consider man himself,
-the individual man, his existence, and his personal liberty, his
-rights, and the guarantees of his rights, as the essential
-objects of social institutions. We have at last emerged from the
-rut of pagan antiquity, glorious at once and rude, where the
-individual, made wholly subordinate, was sacrificed to the state,
-where man was regarded simply as citizen, and thousands of human
-creatures were degraded and treated as cyphers in favour of a
-single class. Men are no longer numbered as Jews and Gentiles,
-Romans and Barbarians, freemen and slaves. Christianity first not
-only proclaimed but put into practice this important truth. The
-right of every man, as man, the worth of the human soul, and of
-the human person, irrespectively of his situation in life,
-constitute the starting-point, the fundamental idea, the dominant
-precept of the Christian religion.
-{198}
-It was, in effect, in religious society, in the rising Christian
-Church, that this principle was first proclaimed, and first put
-into practice; Christianity treated the relation of man to God as
-the chief concern of man's life, and religious liberty as the
-chief of human liberties; it was in the presence of God that
-Christians admitted the equal importance of every soul; as it was
-amongst Christians themselves that they greeted each other as
-brethren, and that fraternity engendered charity. But although
-sprung from a source so elevated, and applied at first upon a
-stage so small, the Christian idea was not on that account less
-potent, or less fruitful; in spite of obstacles and reverses it
-maintained itself, and diffused itself through centuries and over
-distant countries; it made constant efforts to penetrate civil
-society. At the epochs of the history of Christendom which are
-most to be deplored, in the midst of the oppressions and the
-iniquities which have brought desolation upon it, daring voices
-have never been wanting: at one time it was the voice of the
-Christian Church itself directed against the masters of the
-earth; at another a voice issuing from the bosom of the Church
-itself, full of generous protestations against the disorders and
-acts of violence which were taking place in its own bosom.
-{199}
-Jesus, God and man, having raised man before God, man never
-afterwards entirely humiliated and degraded himself before any
-human tyranny. In the presence of the greatest inequalities of
-earthly power, the appellation, _brethren_, never ceased to
-be echoed in Christian Society; and even at this day, after all
-the progress which equality has made in civil society, it is only
-in religious societies and in Christian Churches that men hear
-themselves greeted as _brethren_.
-
-The Christian faith has not only exercised a political influence
-in the state by changing the relations in which individuals stand
-to the political authorities, or in which the different classes
-stand to one another: it has also introduced a change in the
-constitution of the primary natural and imperishable association,
-called family.
-{200}
-There, also, it has caused to disappear, at one time, the
-despotism of husband and father; at another, the degradation of
-wife, and the brutal or licentious independence of children. If
-we give ourselves the trouble to compare the Christian family as
-religion, laws, and morals have made it, with the family of
-antiquity which was most strongly constituted, namely, the Roman
-family,--we shall not need to examine long before we discern
-clearly on which side order really is, on which side the just
-appreciation of natural sentiments, the respect for right and
-liberty.
-
-I have said that at the same time that Christianity proclaims and
-puts in practice all that is true and healthy in the popular
-maxims of our times, man's rights and liberty, his equality and
-fraternity, it condemns and rejects all that they contain of
-false and deplorable. There is one very striking fact in the
-history of the foundation of Christianity, a fact traceable not
-merely in the records of a few years, but through three
-centuries.
-{201}
-Christianity began with resisting absolute power, and with laying
-claim to liberty of conscience. It owed its establishment to the
-same cause. In the Roman world no one any longer made even a show
-of resistance; every kind of oppression was in force, every claim
-to freedom abandoned: the Christians again raised high the banner
-of right, and of resistance in the name of right; but never did
-they raise their banner to encourage revolt or attacks upon
-authority; they undertook the defence of liberty against tyranny,
-and never made appeals to insurrection against authority.
-Martyrdom, not murder; such is the sum of the history of
-Christianity from the day of its birth in the manger of Jesus, to
-the day when it mounted the throne of Constantine. The reason of
-this is, that from the time when Christianity was yet in its
-cradle, and even afterwards when it was struggling to conquer its
-liberty, liberty was not an exclusive idea for Christians either
-in their doctrines or their lives: they recognised, respected,
-and proclaimed with equal solicitude both principles upon which
-the moral order of the world reposes, authority and liberty.
-{202}
-They never, in any respect, sacrificed the one to the other, nor
-humiliated the one in the presence of the other; masters and
-disciples, all referred power to its true source, and did homage
-to its right at the same time that they maintained their own
-right against power. When Jesus spoke, the people were astonished
-at his doctrine, "for he taught as one having authority, and not
-as the Scribes." [Footnote 44]
-
-    [Footnote 44: Matthew vii. 29.]
-
-Jesus declared formally to his disciples his authority over them,
-and the mission which it imposed upon them: "Ye have not chosen
-me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go
-and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain."
-[Footnote 45]
-
-    [Footnote 45: John xv. 16.]
-
-And when St. Paul, although exposed to all kinds of perils and
-struggles, spread abroad throughout the Roman Empire the
-doctrines of Jesus, he said to the new Christians, "Let every
-soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but
-of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. ... Wherefore ye
-must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for
-conscience' sake." [Footnote 46]
-
-    [Footnote 46: Romans xiii. 1, 5. ]
-
-{203}
-
-Nor can I here omit again to cite the words which Jesus himself
-addressed to the Pharisees: "Render under Cæsar the things which
-are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." [Footnote
-47]
-
-    [Footnote 47: Matthew xxii. 21.]
-
-The respect for authority as much as for liberty, the right of
-power as well as the right of conscience, the separation of
-religious life from civil life,--all these were not, for the
-primitive Christians, simple necessities arising out of their
-situation, nor simple counsels of prudence; they were principles
-of doctrine and precepts of life, recognised and practised in the
-name of justice and of truth.
-
-{204}
-
-Christian doctrine and Christian practice have been, I know,
-greatly altered, lost sight of, violated, in the course of the
-history of the Christian world. Human nature succumbs readily to
-the temptations of victory and pleasure; when Christianity once
-became powerful it was too often invaded and disfigured by
-earthly interests and passions; ambition, cupidity, pride, the
-arrogance of power, and the lies of cunning; every evil
-inclination, every vice which the Christian faith rebukes and
-combats, displayed themselves in this world which Christianity
-had not conquered merely to hand it over to them, but from which,
-nevertheless, it had not expelled them. The grand and salutary
-doctrines of Christianity have been often themselves perverted
-and profaned to the service of an egotism assuming every shape
-and carried to every pitch. Still they never were lost, they
-never perished in this impure mixture and this unworthy use; they
-survived, they combated, sometimes in obscurity, sometimes in the
-broad light of day; everywhere, at every epoch, Christian voices,
-Christian lives, and Christian Reforms protested and struggled
-against the passions and the corruptions of mankind. And in spite
-of all these centuries, so sombre, so full of agitation, of
-violence, and of oppression, so full of moral and material ill,
-the decline of man and of human society did not ensue.
-{205}
-Greece and Rome, in their state of youthful growth, were glorious
-and vigorous; and glorious, too, was the development in them of
-human intelligence and dignity; but their career was short, and
-these two brilliant forms of society did not find in their ideas,
-traditions, or models, a sufficiency of moral force to enable
-them to escape from, or even survive, the seductive and
-corrupting influence of material grandeur and of human success.
-Amidst all the sufferings, all the darkness, all the crimes which
-agitate her long career, Christianity has proved infinitely
-healthier and more sound; she has made herself an incessant
-subject of study; she has shifted her place upon her couch of
-sorrow; she has raised herself up, she has renewed, regenerated
-herself; she has grown and prospered at the same time that she
-has suffered; and in spite of the ills, vices, and perils against
-which Christianity has had to defend herself, and against which
-she will ever have to defend herself, she has before her, over
-the whole face of the world, a future immense and full of
-promise. This she owes to her origin--she was born in the manger
-of Jesus.
-
-{206}
-
-There is at present a disposition amongst earnest and enlightened
-men to recognise, it is true, the services which Christianity has
-rendered to the world; but to attribute them only to the morality
-of Christianity. They laud to the sky the moral character of
-Jesus, and his moral precepts; but they repudiate, nay, deplore,
-the dogmas with which, in the Christian faith, Christian morality
-is combined and incorporated; they demand that the morality be
-separated from it, and be presented to man without anything but
-its intellectual beauty and practical excellence. Although not
-disputing that there is somewhat of human in the origin and
-empire of morality, I have established in this volume of
-Meditations that it is necessarily allied to religious belief,
-and that when separated from its divine source, and viewed apart
-from that which gives it sanction, it is incomplete, illogical,
-and powerless--a branch without root and without fruit.
-{207}
-I go farther now, and express my meaning fully. Not only is
-Christian morality intimately connected with Christian faith, as
-the Christian faith is itself connected with Christian dogmas,
-but Christian morals, Christian faith, and Christian dogmas have
-taken their origin, and derived their force, at a source still
-higher, and in an authority still more decisive. Christianity did
-not begin, it did not rise upon the world, as one body of
-doctrines or code of precepts; from its first step it was a
-truth, strange to the ordinary course of human affairs, and
-superior to them; a fact divine, and an act divine; it was as
-such, and by its character as such, that, sometimes all at once,
-and sometimes gradually, it struck men as by a blow and
-vanquished them, at first the rude and simple, then the great and
-learned, publicans and emperors, the disciples of Plato, and the
-fishermen of the sea of Gennesareth.
-{208}
-At different moments, and for different motives, all of them saw
-in the cradle, and the rapid extent of infant Christianity, a
-sublime and superhuman fact, a God present and acting in and by
-Jesus. Some recognised and adored him at the very moment of his
-appearing; others observed him with troubled and angry feelings;
-but, in proportion as the truth developed itself, even those who
-detested him doubted if they were right in doubting. The council
-and all the senate of the children of Israel had caused Peter and
-the other apostles to be placed in prison, and took counsel to
-have them put to death. "Then stood there up one in the council,
-a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in
-reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the
-apostles forth a little space; and said unto them: Ye men of
-Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching
-these men. For before these days rose up Theudas boasting himself
-to be somebody, to whom a number of men, about four hundred,
-joined themselves: who was slain, and all, as many as obeyed him,
-were scattered and brought to nought.
-{209}
-After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the
-taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished;
-and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. And now I
-say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if
-this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But
-if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found
-even to fight against God." [Footnote 48]
-
-    [Footnote 48: Acts v. 21, 33--39.]
-
-The question which Gamaliel thus put with respect to Christianity
-at its birth was not new; the high priest of Israel had already
-made the same demand of Jesus himself: "I adjure thee by the
-living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son
-of God? Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said." [Footnote 49]
-
-    [Footnote 49: Matthew xxvi. 63, 64.]
-
-{210}
-
-The Jews replied to the affirmation of Jesus by crucifying him. A
-short time afterwards, when they sought to treat the apostles as
-their Master had been treated, Gamaliel counselled them to abide
-the test of time, and in the meanwhile to leave "these people in
-repose." They did not leave these people in repose, and the proof
-was only on that account the more decisive: after three centuries
-of persecutions and martyrdoms, the grand facts of
-Christianity,--the Revelation, the Incarnation, the Redemption,
-the Inspiration of the Scriptures,--became the grand dogmas of
-Christianity, the basis of Christian faith, which faith in its
-turn is the basis of Christian Life. Sixteen centuries elapsed
-from this trial of Christianity in its cradle, and it was made to
-undergo fresh and still ruder trials; in these trials earthly
-interests and human errors and passions had a great part;
-Christ's precepts were sometimes forgotten, and sometimes
-converted into human instruments; no doctrine or idea was ever so
-constantly in contact with, and at issue with, facts; never was
-theory more rigorously reviewed, more subjected to the test of
-practical application in every form and every shape.
-{211}
-The design which emanated from God traversed and surmounted all
-these perils; it braved the faults of its adherents and the blows
-of its enemies. It is engaged in our days in a new contest, and
-is subjected to fresh trials; it has entered upon it with the
-same arms, which, nineteen centuries ago, secured its triumph,
-with the grand facts which form the basis of Christian faith, and
-the great examples which furnish the rule of Christian living.
-The History of Christianity is the strongest proof of its
-Divinity, and the surest guarantee for its future. The
-authenticity and authority of this history will be the subject of
-the next and last series of my "Meditations."
-
-{212}
-
-{213}
-
-               Appendix.
-
-
-Ecce Homo: such is the title of a work published anonymously, at
-London and at Cambridge in 1866, which produced on its appearance
-a great sensation in London, a sensation which still continues:
-all the papers and reviews, whether religious, philosophical, or
-simply literary, busied themselves with it, either to praise or
-attack it; the distinguished chief of the Liberal Party himself,
-perhaps soon to be the Prime Minister of England, Mr. Gladstone,
-has just made it the subject of three articles, which are
-remarkable alike for acuteness, elegance, and eloquence. They
-appeared in one of the most widely circulated periodicals in his
-country. [Footnote 50]
-
-    [Footnote 50: "Good Words," a Monthly Review, edited by
-    Norman Macleod, one of the Chaplains of her Majesty Queen
-    Victoria. The articles referred to appeared in the numbers of
-    January, February, and March, 1868.]
-
-  "No anonymous book," says he, "since the 'Vestiges of Creation'
-  (now more than twenty years old), indeed, it might almost be
-  said, no theological book, whether anonymous, or of certified
-  authorship--that has appeared within the same interval, has
-  attracted anything like the amount of notice and of criticism
-  which have been bestowed upon the remarkable volume, entitled
-  'Ecce Homo.'"
-
-{214}
-
-The anonymous author has expressed in a very short preface his
-intention in writing this volume, as well as its fundamental
-ideas. "Those who feel," says he, "dissatisfied with the current
-conceptions of Christ, if they cannot rest content without a
-definite opinion, may find it necessary to do what, to persons
-not so dissatisfied, it seems audacious and perilous to do. They
-may be obliged to reconsider the whole subject from the
-beginning, and placing themselves, in imagination, at the time
-when he whom we call Christ bore no such name, but was simply, as
-St. Luke describes him, a young man of promise, popular with
-those who knew him, and appearing to enjoy the Divine favour, to
-trace his biography from point to point, and accept those
-conclusions about him, not which Church doctors, or even apostles
-have sealed with their authority, but which the facts themselves,
-critically weighed, appear to warrant.
-
-"This is what the present writer undertook to do for the
-satisfaction of his own mind, and because, after reading a good
-many books on Christ, he felt still constrained to confess that
-there was no historical character whose motives, objects and
-feelings remained so incomprehensible to him. The inquiry which
-proved serviceable to himself may chance to be useful to others.
-
-"What is now published is a fragment. No theological questions
-whatever are here discussed. Christ as the Creator of modern
-Theology and Religion will make the subject of another volume;
-which, however, the author does not hope to publish for some time
-to come. In the meanwhile, he has endeavoured to furnish an
-answer to the question, 'What was Christ's object in founding the
-Society which is called by his name, and how is it adapted to
-attain that object?'"
-
-{215}
-
-On merely considering, even after a first perusal, the brief
-words which I have here extracted, it is, I think, impossible not
-to perceive how much there is that is artificial and embarrassed,
-I had almost said how much there is that is false, not only in
-the position in which the Author has placed himself at the very
-outset, but in the special intentions which he avows. To study
-the life and the aim of the life of Christ without considering
-him "as the Creator of Modern Theology and Religion," to defer
-all examination and conclusion upon this last subject; to aspire
-to know the person and the mind of Christ after thus separating
-him from his work; to inquire what he meant to accomplish when
-living, without considering what he in effect accomplished in the
-ages which followed his passage through the world; to treat him,
-in short, and to examine him as we should treat and examine a
-person unknown to us--a fossil man, so to say, of which the
-features might be traceable in some contemporary document,
-showing that he once existed, but who has left no other trace to
-supply us with argument or proof of what he intended, or what he
-performed;--this, undoubtedly, is a strange manner of proceeding,
-one which holds out very little chance of an accurate and true
-comprehension of the immense fact called Christianity, thus
-mutilated in its very cradle, Christianity of which the writer
-limits himself to a bare search after the germ in the nascent
-thought of its owner, whereas it might have been observed, and
-its nature verified in its positive and vast development.
-
-{216}
-
-This is a species of decomposition, of which the great facts of
-history and morality do not admit. We are not here, like
-anatomists, describing the autopsy of a corpse. To know and
-comprehend such facts really, we must study them in their
-different elements and in all the development of their life. They
-form a drama in which we are actors, not a manuscript which we
-are deciphering.
-
-I can easily understand how the anonymous writer of the "Ecce
-Homo" came to conceive the idea of his book, and to confine it
-within the limits which he has himself assigned: I can also
-understand his motives. Like all his contemporaries, he is placed
-and lives in presence of the grave questions agitated in these
-days respecting Christianity and its author. What was Christ?--a
-man or very God, or God and man at once? How did the divine
-nature and the human nature manifest themselves in him? Did he
-really effect the miracles assigned to him? Can there be such
-things as miracles? What are we to understand by the
-supernatural? Is God a real being personal and free, existing and
-accomplishing his works in a region beyond that which we style
-Nature? Christianity and the life of its founder inevitably
-suggest all these questions, which in our days occupy and
-violently agitate men's minds. The anonymous author of the "Ecce
-Homo" did not wish to enter upon them; nay, it was his aim to
-study and comprehend Christ without touching them at all. Is it
-because upon these grave problems he entertains himself no
-positive and decided opinions? Or, because he wished, to a
-certain extent, to accommodate himself to the state of opinion of
-some of his contemporaries, and to treat Christ as those speak of
-him who only see in him a man, who regard Christianity as a fact
-not supernatural, owing its origin, like other natural facts, to
-the sole and proper force of mankind?
-
-{217}
-
-Upon this I can form no opinion; I neither know the anonymous
-author of the "Ecce Homo," nor the motives which actuate him:
-what is certain is, that he is quite right in entitling his book
-"Ecce Homo," for it is only the Man Christ that he has proposed
-to study, and it is by studying the Man Christ that he has
-proposed to explain Christianity.
-
-I do not know if, after having written his book, he was aware of
-the result to which it leads, but the result is in effect a
-strange one,--it is condemnatory and destructive of the
-fundamental idea of the book, it demonstrates by a sincere and
-honest, although an incomplete and superficial study of the
-facts, the impossibility of explaining either Christ by the human
-nature alone, or the Christian Religion by any merely natural
-operations of humanity.
-
-The work is divided into two parts, and contains altogether
-twenty-four chapters. The first part is devoted to the study of
-Christ personally, his peculiar character, his manner of dealing
-with men, the mission which he proposed to himself to accomplish,
-the nature of the society which he sought to found, and the
-authority which he counted upon exercising. In the second part,
-the Christian society itself, its points of resemblance to the
-systems of philosophy and its points of difference therefrom, its
-fundamental principles and positive laws, and the habits and
-sentiments which are developed by those laws, all become in turn
-the objects of the author's observations and descriptions.
-Observations often profound, descriptions often exact and
-striking, although somewhat minute and lengthy; everywhere,
-however, there breathes forth a sentiment unquestionably moral,
-and full of the gentlest sympathy for humanity.
-
-{218}
-
-All this gives to the work a real attractiveness, in spite of the
-vagueness of the ideas which reign there, and in spite of the
-perceptible incertitude of the author's conclusions upon the
-solemn questions which he approaches, but upon which he does not
-enter.
-
-I have no intention of saying more; I have not to render an
-account in detail of this book or to discuss any of the author's
-opinions or assertions upon which I may not agree with him; my
-aim is only to determine the character of his work, and to show
-plainly, first its tendency and then its insufficiency. There
-precisely is his originality; in setting out, and dealing with
-the subject of the purely human nature both of Christ and of
-Christianity, he seems not far from participating the opinions of
-Rationalistic criticism; but the more he advances, the farther he
-departs from the goal at which the Rationalists arrive: he
-appears predisposed in their favour; the process of his thought
-seems often to conform to theirs; his conclusions are not clearly
-contrary, but in effect, under the empire either of his instincts
-or under the influence of his historical and moral studies, he is
-more Christian than he appears, perhaps even more so than he
-believes himself to be; and if the firm doctrines of Christianity
-find in him no sure and declared defender, neither do they
-encounter in him the consistent hostility of a severe logician or
-the indifferentism of a mere sceptic.
-
-{219}
-
-There are several passages of this remarkable work which are
-particularly distinguished by these characteristics. To these I
-feel pleasure in referring the reader. They are in both parts of
-the book; that is to say, in the first part, chapter fifth,
-entitled _Christ's Credentials_, and chapter ninth,
-[Footnote 51] entitled _Reflections on the Nature of Christ's
-Society;_ in the second part, chapter tenth, entitled
-_Christ's Legislation compared with Philosophic systems_,
-and chapter the eleventh, _The Christian Republic_ [Footnote
-52] A perusal of these passages will, if I do not deceive myself,
-fully justify the impression which the work has made upon me, and
-satisfy the reader that I am right in what I have said of the
-author's inconsistency with respect to religion.
-
-    [Footnote 51: Ecce Homo, ed. 1866, pp. 41-51, 81--102.]
-
-    [Footnote 52: _Ibid_, pp. 108--119, 120--126.]
-
-Without expressly referring to any other passages I simply
-remark, that there are in this book ideas expressed and
-particular assertions made, which suggest numerous questions and
-call for many observations. I find in the entire volume a
-singular mixture of plain and practical common sense with a
-subtlety sometimes tinctured with piety, and sometimes with
-philosophy. There reigns in it, upon the nature of man and of
-human societies, an intellectual elevation, both moral and
-religious, which embarrasses and obscures itself in a long and
-painful process of refinements. It bears the impress of a
-grandeur of thought and of sentiment, without presenting them,
-however, in a form sufficiently simple and vivid. But I have no
-idea of examining or discussing here in detail this remarkable
-work; my aim is only to make the result clear to the reader, to
-which I have already referred, and indeed it appears
-incontestable. The author's aim has been to study and portray the
-human part of Christ, the human part of his doctrine as well as
-of his life. He has declared this to be his aim by entitling his
-book "Ecce Homo," and by saying that he deferred to another
-volume "every theological question, every study of Christ as the
-Creator of Theology and of Modern Religion."
-{220}
-He has already done much more than he is aware; the striking
-inference from his first volume being that there was in Christ
-much more than man, and that if he had been but man, however
-superior we may picture his nature to be to that of ordinary
-humanity, the work of Christianity, such as it in fact was and
-is, would have been to him a thing not only which he could not
-have accomplished, but which he could not even have conceived.
-
-
-                 The End.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-  Bradbury, Evans, And Co., Printers, Whitefriars.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Christianity Viewed In Relation To The
-Present State Of Society And Opinion., by François Guizot
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christianity Viewed In Relation To The
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-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
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-Title: Christianity Viewed In Relation To The Present State Of Society And Opinion.
-
-Author: François Guizot
-
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTIANITY VIEWED IN RELATION ***
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-</pre>
-
-
-
-<p>
-[Transcriber's note: This production is based on
-https://archive.org/details/christianityview00guiz/page/n6]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i">{i}</a></span>
-
-         <h1>Christianity Viewed In Relation To
-<br><br>
-     The Present State Of Society And Opinion.</h1>
-<br>
-                  <h2>By M. Guizot.
-</h2>
-
-  <h3>Translated Under The Superintendence Of The Author.
-<br><br><br>
-
-                    London:
-<br><br>
-         John Murray, Albemarle Street.
-<br><br>
-                     1871.</h3>
-<br>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii">{ii}</a></span>
-
-             <h2>By The Same Author.</h2>
-
-       <h3>The Essence Of Christianity.<br>
-             Post 8vo, 9s. 6d.</h3>
-<p>
-  "No one can open this book, and recollect the circumstances
-  which produced it, without feeling that it is a valuable
-  contribution to the literature of the present controversy."<br>
-    &mdash;<i>Edinburgh Review</i>.
-</p>
-<br>
-
-      <h3>The Present State Of Christianity.<br>
-          Post 8vo, 10s. 6d.</h3>
-<p>
-  "A remarkable series of religious meditations. They form a
-  sequel to a similar volume on the Essence of Christianity,
-  published two years ago, and an introduction to a further
-  series, in which M. Guizot proposes to treat the great
-  questions of the history of Christianity, and the future
-  destiny of the Christian religion. The book is one of great
-  interest."&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii">{iii}</a></span>
-<br>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv">{iv}</a></span>
-<br>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v">{v}</a></span>
-<br>
-                   <h2>Preface.</h2>
-<br>
-<p>
-In the First Series of these Meditations, I gave a summary of the
-facts and dogmas which constitute, as I think, the foundation and
-the essence of the Christian Religion. In the next series I
-retraced the Reawakening of Faith and of Christian Life during
-the nineteenth century in France, both amongst Romanists and
-Protestants. With Christianity thus reanimated and resuscitated
-amongst us, after having passed through one of its most violent
-trials, I confronted the principal philosophical systems which in
-these days reject and combat it: Rationalism, Positivism,
-Pantheism, Materialism, Scepticism. I essayed to determine the
-fundamental error which seems to me to characterize each of those
-systems, and to have always rendered them inadequate to the
-office either of satisfying or explaining man's nature and
-destiny.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi">{vi}</a></span>
-That series of my Meditations I concluded with these words: "Why
-is it that Christianity, in spite of all the attacks which it has
-had to undergo, and all the ordeals through which it has been
-made to pass, has for eighteen centuries satisfied infinitely
-better the spontaneous instincts and invincible cravings of
-humanity? Is it not because it is pure from the errors which
-vitiate the different systems of philosophy just passed in
-review? because it fills up the void that those systems either
-create or leave in the human soul? because, in short, it conducts
-man nigher to the fountain of light?" [Footnote 1]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 1: Meditations on the Actual State of Christianity.
-    Eighth Meditation: Impiety, Recklessness, Perplexity, p. 336.]
-</p>
-<p>
-Far from wishing to elude any of the difficulties of this
-question, I would now set Christianity in contact with the ideas
-and forces that seem most contrary to it, and with three of them
-more especially: Liberty, Independent Morality, and Science.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii">{vii}</a></span>
-Assertions are running the tour of the world that Christianity
-can accommodate itself neither to liberty nor science; that
-morality is essentially distinct and separate from Religious
-Faith. All this I hold to be false and highly prejudicial to the
-very cause of Liberty, of Morality, and of Science, which those
-who give utterance to such assertions affect to serve. I believe
-Christianity and Liberty to be not only compatible with each
-other, but necessary to each other. I regard Morality as
-naturally and intimately united to Religion. I am convinced that
-Christianity and Science need not make any mutual sacrifices,
-that neither has anything to fear from the other. This I
-establish in the first three Meditations of the present series. I
-then enter into the peculiar domain of Christianity, and
-determine what, in the presence of Liberty, of Philosophical
-Morality, and of Human Science, is the principle and what the
-bearing of "Christian Ignorance" and of Christian Faith.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii">{viii}</a></span>
-I finally apply to ideas their natural and inevitable law, the
-law which obliges them to express themselves in facts; I
-interrogate theory thus transformed into practice, and I show
-that Christianity alone supports this test victoriously.
-"Christian Life" becomes a forcible demonstration of the
-Legitimacy of Christian Faith. With these three Meditations the
-present series concludes.
-</p>
-<p>
-But to complete my undertaking, a final and capital question, the
-historical question, remains to be treated. Not that I think of
-retracing the History of Christianity throughout the whole of its
-course; such a design is far from my thoughts. I neither can nor
-wish to do more than to demonstrate the grand historical facts
-which, in my opinion, are in Christianity the stamp of a divine
-origin, and of a divine influence upon the development and
-destiny of the human race. Of these facts the following is a
-summary:&mdash;
-</p>
-<p class="cite">
-  1. The authority of the sacred books.
-<br><br>
-  2. The primitive foundation of Christianity.
-<br><br>
-  3. The Christian Faith persistent from age to age.
-<br>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ix">{ix}</a></span>
-<br>
-  4. The Church of Christ persistent also from age to age.
-<br><br>
-  5. Romanism and Protestantism.
-<br><br>
-  6. The different Antichristian crises, their
-     character and their issue.
-</p>
-<p>
-It is upon these grand facts, and the questions which they
-suggest, that Historical Criticism has in our days exercised
-itself with ardour, as it is continuing to do; science, severe
-and daring, no invention of our epoch, but beyond all doubt one
-of its glories! If, after concluding this final series of my
-Meditations, I shall have succeeded in appreciating at their real
-value the exigencies made and the results obtained by Historical
-Criticism, where it has applied itself to the History of
-Christianity, I shall have realised the object which I proposed
-to myself on voluntarily entering upon this solemn and laborious
-study, where I meet with so much that is obscure, and so many
-quicksands.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_x">{x}</a></span>
-<p>
-But as I draw near the close, a scruple seizes me. What have I
-been thinking of to persist obstinately in casting such a work
-into the midst of the events and the practical problems which are
-agitating the whole civilized world, and which are demanding
-their instant solution? What good result can I expect from
-studying the past history of the Christian Religion in my
-country, or even speculating upon its future prospects, when the
-actual condition of the present generation and the lot of that
-which is to succeed it on the stage, are subject to so many
-troubles and plunged in such darkness? The more narrowly I
-scrutinize generations&mdash;the honour and the destiny of which I
-have so much at heart, for my children form part of them&mdash;the
-more am I struck and disquieted by two facts: on the one side the
-general sentiment of fatigue and incertitude manifesting itself
-in society and in individuals: on the other side not merely the
-grandeur but the unusual complexity of the questions agitated.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xi">{xi}</a></span>
-I fear that, in her lassitude and in her sceptical vacillations,
-France may not render an exact account to herself of the problems
-and perils scattered over her path, of their number, their
-gravity, and their intimate connexion. I fear that, from not
-having an accurate conception of what her burthen is, and from
-not having the courage at once to weigh it well, the moment when
-she will have to bear it will come upon her with the necessary
-forces unmustered, and the necessary resolutions unformed.
-</p>
-<p>
-Almost every great epoch in history has been devoted to some
-question, if not an exclusive one, at least one dominant both in
-events and opinions, and around which the varying opinions and
-the efforts of men were concentrated. Not to go farther back than
-the era of modern history&mdash;in the sixteenth century the question
-of the unity of Religion and of its Reform; in the seventeenth
-century the question of pure monarchy, with its conquests abroad
-and administration at home; in the eighteenth century that of the
-operation of civil and religious liberty: such have been in
-France the different points on which ideas have culminated, the
-different objects which each social movement had specially in
-view.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xii">{xii}</a></span>
-The systems of the day, although opposed, were clear; the
-struggles ardent but well defined. Men walked in those days on
-high roads; they did not wander about in the infinite
-complications of a labyrinth.
-</p>
-<p>
-And it is in a very labyrinth of questions and of ideas, of
-essays and events, diverse in character, confused, incoherent,
-contradictory, in which in these days the civilized world is
-plunged. I do not pretend to seize the clue to the labyrinth; I
-propose but to throw some light upon the chaos.
-</p>
-<p>
-First I turn my eyes to the external situation and relations of
-the States of Christendom, and consider the questions which
-concern the boundaries of territories and the distribution of
-populations between distinct and independent nations. Formerly
-these questions were all reducible to one&mdash;the aggrandizement or
-the weakening of these different States, and the maintenance or
-the disturbance of that balance of forces which was called the
-balance of power in Europe.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiii">{xiii}</a></span>
-War and Diplomacy, Conquests and Treaties, discussed and settled
-this supreme question, of which Grotius expounded the theory, and
-Ancillon wrote the history. Now we are no longer in a situation
-so simple. What a complication of ideas: what ideas, novel and
-ill-defined, start up in these days to embarrass the course and
-entangle the relations of States! The question of races, the
-question of nationalities, the question of little states and of
-great political unities, the question of popular sovereignty and
-of its rights beyond the limits of nations as well as in their
-midst,&mdash;all these problems arise and cast into the shade, as a
-routine which has served its turn, the old public right and the
-maxims of the equilibrium of Europe, in their place seeking
-themselves to impose rules for regulating the territorial
-organizations and the external relations of States.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiv">{xiv}</a></span>
-<p>
-Not that the old traditional policy of Europe does not mingle
-itself with, and exercise a powerful influence upon, the new
-ideas and questions which invade us; however intellectual
-theories and ambitions may change, the passions and interests of
-men are permanent. War and the right of conquest have made good
-their old pretensions, and this before our very eyes, without any
-respect for the principle of Nationalities and of Races, a
-principle nevertheless inscribed upon the very standards which
-the conquerors bore. Prussia has aggrandized herself in the name
-of German Unity, and at the very moment excluded from
-participating in the common affairs of Germany, the seven or
-eight millions of Germans who form part of the Empire of Austria.
-Prussia seized the petty German Republic of Frankfort, evidently
-against the will of its sovereign people, and Danish Schleswick
-does not yet form part of the political group, to the class of
-which she belongs by similarity of national origin and of
-language. Even while sheltering themselves under the Ægis of some
-general idea, selfish interests and rude violence have not ceased
-to play a great part in the events which are passing before us,
-and if the ambition of Frederick the Second was not more
-legitimate, it was at least more logical than that of his
-successors.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xv">{xv}</a></span>
-<p>
-I am far from meaning to deny that the new ideas which men
-follow, and the desires which they evince, contain a certain part
-of truth, or to affirm that they have not a right to a certain
-share of influence. The identity of origin and of race, the
-possession in common of a single name and of one language, have a
-moral value very capable of becoming itself a political force; of
-this fair and prudent statesmanship is bound to hold account. But
-policy becomes chimerical and dangerous when it attributes to
-these new ideas and these aspirations a supreme authority and
-right to dominion; and what shocks all experience and common
-sense is to reject, as out of date, and no longer applicable,
-maxims which were the foundation of the public law of nations,
-and which, up to the present time, have presided over the
-relations of States.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xvi">{xvi}</a></span>
-The equilibrium of Europe, the long duration of territorial
-agglomerations, the right of small states to exist and be
-independent, the ancient titles to government, and the respect
-for ancient treaties,&mdash;all these elements of European order have
-not succumbed, neither were they bound to succumb, to the theory
-of nationalities, and the fashionable doctrine of great political
-unities. What would not be said, and what would not be said with
-justice, if France had proclaimed that, as Belgium and Western
-Switzerland speak French, that, as their populations have, both
-in origin and manners, great affinities with our fellow
-countrymen in French Flanders and in Franche-Comté, the principal
-of National Unity requires their incorporation with France?
-Prince Metternich was wrong to say that Italy was a mere
-Geographical expression; there are certainly between the nations
-of Italy historical bonds, both intellectual and moral, which
-draw them towards one another, and repel from their territories
-all foreign domination.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xvii">{xvii}</a></span>
-But this relationship, which may, and ought to be, a principle of
-union, did not impose upon Italy the form of political unity; and
-the <i>régime</i> of a confederation of States might have been
-established in the peninsula and yet its liberation from the
-foreigner might have been secured, and a satisfaction might have
-been procured along our own frontier of the Alps, in the
-interests of our own security, and of that of Europe, for the
-preservation of the equilibrium of power. As soon as we look at
-the question with serious attention, we are forced to admit that
-any general application of the principle of nationalities, or of
-that of the great political unities, would throw the civilized
-world into such a confusion and fermentation as would be equally
-compromising to the internal liberties of nations, and to the
-preservation of peace between the different States.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xviii">{xviii}</a></span>
-<p>
-What if I had to sound the consequences of another principle, the
-sovereign authority which men also seek in these days to set up,
-the right, I mean, of populations, or of some part of a
-population, to dissolve the State with which they are connected,
-and to range themselves under another State, or to constitute
-themselves into new and independent States? What would become of
-the existence, or even of the very name of country, if it also
-were thus left to be dealt with according to the fluctuating
-wills of men, and the special interests of such or such of its
-members? There is in the destiny of men, whether of generations
-or individuals, a great part which they have no share in deciding
-or disposing of; a man does not choose his family, neither does
-he select his country; it is the natural state of man to live in
-the place where he is born, in the society where is his cradle.
-The cases are infinitely rare which can permit of the bonds being
-rent asunder by which man is attached to the soil, the citizen to
-the state; which can justify his leaving the bosom of his
-country, to order to separate himself from it absolutely, and to
-strive to lay the foundation of a new country.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xix">{xix}</a></span>
-We have just been spectators of such an attempt; we have seen
-some of the States which form the nation of the United States of
-America, abjure this union, and erect themselves into an
-independent confederation. Wherefore? In order to maintain in
-their bosom the institution of slavery. By what right? By the
-right, it is said, of every people, or portion of a people, to
-change its government at discretion. The States which remained
-faithful to the ancient American Confederation denied the
-principle and combatted the attempt. They succeeded in
-maintaining the federal Union, and in abolishing slavery. I am
-one of those who think that they had both right and reason on
-their side. Many years before the struggle commenced, one of the
-most eminent men in the United States, eminent by his character
-as well as his talents, a faithful representative of the
-interests of the States of the South, and an avowed apologist for
-negro slavery, Mr. Calhoun, did me the honour of transmitting to
-me all that he had written and said upon the subject.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xx">{xx}</a></span>
-I was struck by the frank and earnest language with which he
-expressed his convictions, but no less by the futility of the
-efforts which he made to justify, upon general considerations and
-by historical necessities, the fact of slavery in his country. He
-would never have dared to paint it in its actual and living
-reality, as Mrs. Beecher Stowe has done in her romances of "Uncle
-Tom's Cabin" and of "Dred," which have everywhere excited so much
-sympathy and emotion. I became every day more and more convinced
-that there was here a radical iniquity and a social wound, of
-which it was at last time to efface the shame and to conjure the
-danger. It was with the motive of maintaining the system of
-slavery that the States of the South undertook to break up the
-great American State which was their country. Motive detestable
-for a deplorable act! Our epoch, so unfortunate in many respects,
-has, in my opinion, been fortunate in this, that it produced a
-Republic, the greatest of all Republics of ancient or of modern
-times, which has afforded us the example of an uncompromising
-resistance to an illegitimate popular desire, and of an
-unflinching respect for the tutelary principles of the life of
-States.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxi">{xxi}</a></span>
-<p>
-So far of the territorial questions, and those which concern the
-external relations of nations. Let me now speculate upon what the
-future has in store for those which involve domestic order and
-the organization of government. I meet here with the same
-confusion, the same complications, the same fluctuations between
-ideas and essays incoherent or inconsistent. At the base as at
-the summit of society, the monarchy and the republic are in
-collision: the monarchy reigns in events; the republic ferments
-in opinions.
-</p>
-<p>
-The proposition is now universally received that society has the
-right not only to see clearly and to intervene in its own
-government, but to see so clearly and to intervene in such a
-manner as to justify the expression that it governs itself.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxii">{xxii}</a></span>
-The Constitutional Monarchy and the Republic profess each to
-attain this object: the one by a national representation, by the
-monarch's inviolability and his ministry's responsibility; the
-other by universal suffrage and the periodical elections of the
-great representatives of public power. But neither the
-constitutional monarchy nor the republic has as yet succeeded
-amongst us in obtaining firm possession of opinions and of
-events, of public confidence and of durable power. After and in
-spite of thirty-four years of prosperity, of peace, and of
-liberty, the constitutional power fell. The republic, accepted on
-its sudden appearance as the form of government which, as was
-affirmed, divided us least, after a few months of turbulent and
-sterile anarchy, fell also. In the place of the constitutional
-monarchy and of the republic there arose another form of
-government, a mixture of Dictatorship and of Republic, a sort of
-personal government combined with, universal suffrage. Will the
-essay have greater success? Events will decide.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxiii">{xxiii}</a></span>
-In the meantime let us be sincere with ourselves; the cause of so
-many painful and abortive attempts resides rather in the
-disposition of the people of France than in the acts of its
-governments: our revolutionary existence since 1789, our
-ambitious aspirings and disappointments, both equally immense,
-have left us at once very excited and very fatigued, full of
-impatience at the same time as of incertitude; we know not very
-well what we think or what we would have; our ideas are perplexed
-and confused; our wills vacillating and feeble; our minds have no
-fixed points, our conduct no determined objects; we often yield
-ourselves up readily against our better judgment, nay against our
-very wish, to whatever power extends its hand to seize us; but
-soon, very soon, we evince towards that power not a whit less
-exigency or unfairness; as soon as we feel ourselves rid of our
-most urgent cause for disquietude, our discontent is as
-precipitate as was our submission in the hour of peril. We are
-again disposed to be quarrelsome, and demand instant action in
-the midst even of our doubts and hesitation. Our revolutions have
-taught us the lesson neither of resistance nor of patience. Yet
-these are virtues without which it is idle to propose to found
-any free government.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxiv">{xxiv}</a></span>
-<p>
-I pass from political questions to social questions, and from the
-state of our political institutions to that of the relations
-existent between the different parts of society. I say the
-<i>different parts</i> to avoid saying <i>different classes</i>,
-for we cannot hear the word class pronounced without thinking
-that we are threatened with the re-establishment of privileges
-and exclusions, of that entire <i>régime</i> with its narrow
-compartments and inseparable barriers within which men were
-formerly enclosed, and ranked according to their origin, their
-name, their religion, or whatever other factitious or accidental
-qualification they might possess. In effect, this <i>régime</i>
-has fallen&mdash;fallen completely and definitively; all legal
-barriers have disappeared; all careers are open; all labour free:
-by individual merit and by labour every man may aspire to
-everything, and examples abound in confirmation of the principle.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxv">{xxv}</a></span>
-This was the great work, the great conquest of 1789; we celebrate
-it unceasingly, and we have often the air of forgetting that it
-ever occurred. The different ancient classes are still full of
-jealousy, of distrust, and of restless irritation; because they
-have to struggle for influence in the midst of liberty, they
-persuade themselves that they are still risking life and limb in
-defence of their situation and of their right. The Restoration
-was attacked and undermined on account, it was said, of the evils
-that the <i>bourgeoisie</i> had to endure, and the risks which it
-had to run at the hands of the nobles. Under the government of
-July, the working classes were told incessantly that they were
-the victims of the privileges and of the tyranny of the middle
-classes. Facts and actual events gave singularly the lie to such
-assertions. With what effect? In the hurry of passions and the
-intoxication of thought, men appealed to theories which had been
-already often produced on the stage of the world,&mdash;theories which
-have only served to agitate, never to satisfy it.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxvi">{xxvi}</a></span>
-Landed property and capital, labour and wages, the artificial
-distribution of the means of material happiness amongst men, have
-served sometimes as the subjects of unjust recrimination,
-sometimes of chimerical expectations. Attacks were made upon
-things which the assailants had no right to take; and promises
-were made to give things which the promisers had not the power to
-give.
-</p>
-<p>
-I have heard it remarked by clear-sighted men who are good
-observers, that this malady of the mind is decreasing, and that
-even amongst the labouring classes themselves, false notions as
-to the conflict of capital and labour, as to the artificial
-settlement of wages, and the intervention of the State in the
-distribution of the material means of existence, are in
-discredit, and that the ambitious aspirings of the people,
-although continuing to be very democratic, have ceased to assume
-the form of Socialism.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxvii">{xxvii}</a></span>
-I ardently wish it were so: the passionate feelings which find
-their field in facts affecting the sphere of material
-subsistence, are the rudest, the most rebellious, and the most
-recalcitrant to the principles of the moral order: it is easier
-to deal with the aspirings of political ambition than with the
-ardent cravings for physical advantages. But I fear, I confess,
-that errors such as those which presented themselves under the
-names of Socialism and Communism, and which recently made so much
-noise, are not so discarded as we might hope them to be; that
-they are actually without a mouthpiece is not a sufficient proof
-of their defeat; materialism, and the evil instincts to which it
-leads or from which it springs, have penetrated very far amongst
-us, and a long period of social and moral progress in the midst
-of a society which has been well ordered will be necessary in
-order to surmount this danger.
-</p>
-<p>
-Several years ago I put to a great manufacturer of Manchester,
-who had been Mayor of that immense centre of industry, the
-following question: "What amongst you is the proportion between
-the laborious and well-conducted workmen, who live respectably in
-their homes, set aside money in the savings' bank, and apply for
-books at the people's library, and the idle and disorderly
-workmen who pass their time at taverns, and only work so much as
-is necessary to furnish them with the means of subsistence?"
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxviii">{xxviii}</a></span>
-After a moment's reflection, he replied: "The former are
-two-thirds of the whole number." After congratulating him, I
-added, "Allow me to put one more question. If you had amongst you
-great disorders, seditious assemblages, and riots, what would be
-the result?" "With us, sir," he said without hesitation, "the
-honest men are braver than the ill-conditioned ones." I
-congratulated him this time still more.
-</p>
-<p>
-In these questions I had touched the root of the evil which
-afflicts us. It is to their shortcomings in morality, to their
-disorderly lives, that we must attribute the favour with which
-the working classes receive the fallacious theories that menace
-social order. The condition of these classes is hard and full of
-distressing accidents; whoever regards it closely, and with a
-little fairness and sympathy, cannot fail to be deeply moved by
-all the sufferings which they have to support, the privations
-from which they have no chance of escape, and the efforts which
-they must make to ensure themselves a living at best monotonous
-and full of hazard.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxix">{xxix}</a></span>
-The happy ones of the earth feel sometimes alarm and irritation,
-when they hear from the pulpit descriptions purer and more true
-to the life than are to be met with in philanthropical novels, of
-the precarious state and distresses of the lower orders. Beyond
-doubt, from pictures of this nature should be scrupulously
-excluded everything that would seem to excite sentiments of
-hostility, or that would set one class against another; still as
-the upper classes must resign themselves to the spectacle, it
-devolves more especially upon Christian Painters to place it
-before them.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxx">{xxx}</a></span>
-Nothing but strong moral convictions, and the habits of well
-living amongst the labouring classes, can furnish them with
-efficacious means of struggling against the temptations and
-resisting the ambitious yearnings, suggested to them by the
-spectacle of the world which surrounds them,&mdash;a world now at
-length transparent to all, a world of which the stir, the noise,
-the accidents, the adventures, penetrate with rapidity even to
-the workshops of our cities and the remotest recesses of our
-villages. What influence shall protect the masses of the people
-from the irritating and demoralizing effect of such a sight,
-unless it be the influence of religious principles, the moral
-discipline which religion maintains, and the moral serenity which
-religion diffuses over the rudest existences and the lives
-subjected to the greatest privations? And it is precisely
-religious belief and religious discipline, Christian faith and
-Christian law, which are now being attacked and undermined, and
-this far more in the obscurer classes, than in the brilliant
-regions of society!
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxi">{xxxi}</a></span>
-<p>
-These attacks are of a general although of diverse nature, and of
-unequal violence; they occur in the bosom of Roman Catholicism,
-of Protestantism, and of scientific philosophy; some are direct,
-open, impetuous; others indirect and full of reserves, and of a
-tenderness sometimes affected, sometimes sincere. Christianity
-counts amongst its enemies fanatics who persecute it in the name
-of reason and of liberty, as well as adversaries who criticise it
-with moderation and prudence; the latter admit its practical
-deservings, are distressed by the wounds which they inflict, and,
-in the very act of dealing their blows, seek to lessen their
-force. This diversity of attack is a proof of the trouble, of the
-incertitude, and of the incoherence which reign in men's
-opinions, both upon religious questions and upon questions which
-are only simply political and social; many they are who would be
-inclined to save such or such a portion of the edifice which they
-are battering and seeking to destroy. But the upshot is, that all
-these blows are telling upon the same point, and are concurring
-to produce the same effect; it is the Christian Religion which
-receives them all; it is the right and the empire of Christ
-which, in the world learned and unlearned, is subjected to doubt
-and exposed to peril.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxii">{xxxii}</a></span>
-<p>
-I have touched upon all the great questions which are agitating
-the human mind and human societies: questions of public right,
-questions of political organization, questions of social
-institutions, questions of religious belief. Everywhere I
-encounter two facts, facts everywhere the same: a great
-complication and a great incertitude in man's opinions and in his
-efforts. Nothing is simple, no one decided. Problems of every
-kind&mdash;doubts of every kind weigh upon the thoughts of men, and
-oppress their wills; their ambitious aspirings are varied,
-immense, but everywhere they hesitate. They may be likened to
-travellers already exhausted with fatigue, yet feebly driving to
-feel their way through a labyrinth.
-</p>
-<p>
-Are we then to infer that we are living in an era of decay and
-impotence? that we have nothing ourselves to do, nothing to hope
-for, in this situation so complicated and so obscure? that we
-have only to wait until our lot is decided by that sovereign
-power called by some Providence, by others Fate?
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxiii">{xxxiii}</a></span>
-<p>
-I am far from thinking so.
-</p>
-<p>
-Of the men distinguished by singleness of views and strength of
-convictions whom I have known, I consider the Marshal Gouvion
-Saint-Cyr in these respects the most remarkable. He was one day
-detailing his reasons for disapproving of the system of a royal
-or imperial guard, or of privileged corps, in an army: "Few,"
-said he, "are really brave: the best thing to be done is to
-disseminate them in the ranks, where each singly, by his presence
-and example, will make eight or ten more brave men around him." I
-am no judge as to the value of the Marshal's maxim in a military
-sense; I do not believe it to be invariably true, or always
-applicable in the political sense; there are epochs at which, in
-order to further the progress of which a nation stands in need,
-to withdraw it from its embarrassments or to rouse it from its
-apathy, the most urgent thing to be done, and the plan the most
-efficacious, is to form in its bosom picked bodies of men (the
-number is immaterial), and then to incorporate with them others
-possessing distinguished qualities, and animated by the same
-spirit, decided in their opinions, and resolute in their action,
-single of purpose, and full of confidence: these would soon
-attract to themselves as associates many others who would never,
-without such impulse, begin to move in the same path.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxiv">{xxxiv}</a></span>
-We are, I believe, at an era which calls for such a mode of
-influencing society, and which authorises us to expect success if
-we adopt it.
-</p>
-<p>
-I can never be accused of ignoring or extenuating the evil which
-torments us upon all the points which I have just indicated, the
-rights of nations, the civil organization of society and its
-economy, moral and religious belief. In all these directions an
-evil wind is blowing, an evil current is hurrying away a part of
-French society, and it is my constant design so to arouse the
-moral sense of the people, and its good sense, as to make them
-attentive to the existence of the ill, and solicitous for its
-removal.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxv">{xxxv}</a></span>
-But at the side of this fact, so deplorable and so full of peril,
-a fact of contrary and salutary nature is occurring and
-developing itself: a good wind there also is which is blowing, a
-good current which is impelling us forwards;&mdash;at the same time
-that violent and revolutionary theories are being diffused, the
-principles of legal order, and of liberties, serving mutually to
-control and check one another, are proclaimed and maintained; the
-maxims and the sentiments of the spirit of peace are heard at
-least as loudly pronounced, as the souvenirs and the traditions
-of the spirit of adventure and conquest; the sound principles of
-political economy have defenders no less zealous than the
-presumptuous and dreamy theories of Socialism; Spiritualism
-raises its voice high at the side of Materialism; Christianity is
-advancing at the same time as Incredulity, and with a progress
-also distinguished by its scientific method and its practical
-applications.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxvi">{xxxvi}</a></span>
-Following respectively their different objects, there are on both
-sides groups of men of strong convictions, activity, and
-influence, who hope for and pursue the triumph of their several
-causes. Like the ardent huntsman of Bürgers ballad, France is
-solicited by two Genii, ever at her side, ever present, urgent,
-contrary. Since the commencement of the nineteenth century, our
-history is made up of this great struggle and of its
-vicissitudes, of the series of victories gained and defeats
-sustained by these two forces, which are disputing the future of
-our country.
-</p>
-<p>
-They find a field of action in a people of quick, various, and
-keen feelings, prone to generous impulses, full of human
-sympathies and mobility, at this moment chilled and intimidated
-by the checks imposed upon their ambitious yearnings, by the
-disappointments which have befallen their hopes, and so brought
-back by actual experience to confine their aspirations within the
-modest limits of good sense; more occupied with the perils of
-their situation than with the rights of thought, but always
-remarkable for intelligence and sagacity; friendly to liberty
-even when they dread its abuse, and to order although they only
-defend it at the last extremity; more touched by virtue than
-shocked by vice; honest in their instincts and moral judgments in
-spite of the weakness of their moral belief and their complacent
-indulgence of men whom they do not esteem; and always ready, in
-spite of their doubts and their alarms, to recur to the noble
-desires which they have the air of no longer entertaining.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxvii">{xxxvii}</a></span>
-<p>
-We have in all this evidently matter to encourage the good genius
-of France. The life of nations is neither easier nor less mixed
-with good and evil, with successes and reverses, than the life of
-individuals; but assuredly, in spite of what is wanting to it,
-and in spite of its sorrows, the actual state of our country, as
-well as its long history, open a wide field to the efforts and
-the hopes of the men of elevated, resolute, and honest minds, who
-are occupying themselves in earnest with its destiny.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxviii">{xxxviii}</a></span>
-<p>
-What, in order to attain their object, can be, ought to be, the
-conduct of the men engaged in this patriotic design, men who have
-it at heart to second the good current and to stem the evil
-current, which have both set in amongst us? Upon what conditions
-and by what means can we hope to pass through the sieve of good
-sense and of moral sense the confused ideas which plague us, and
-to find an issue for the public out of the doubts and hesitation
-which are a source of languor and enervation to the soul?
-</p>
-<p>
-Political Liberty and Belief in Religion, the movement of society
-in advance and the impulse of the soul towards eternity, Free
-Government and Christianity, these are the two forces to which we
-should recur, and the only ones capable of remedying this disease
-of trouble and doubt which afflict both our thoughts and our
-conduct, and which at one time impairs, at another paralyses, our
-understanding.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xxxix">{xxxix}</a></span>
-<p>
-I have no intention here to speak of political liberties in the
-abstract, and of their necessity either to a country in order to
-guarantee to it a good administration at home and abroad, or to
-individuals in order to secure their interests, moral and
-material. The right of France to these liberties, and their
-opportuneness to her at this moment, have recently been set in
-their clearest light, and established in all their force on their
-highest stage, in the bosom of the legislative body. [Footnote 2]
-It is solely because of its influence upon that ill of our epoch,
-the complication of questions and the hesitations of opinion,
-that I speak here of political liberty; I regard it as one of the
-two great remedies against this ill.
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 2: Discourse of M. Thiers, <i>Sur les libertés
-    nécessaires et sur la liberté de la presse</i>, in the séances of
-    the 11th January, 1864, 13th February, 1866, 30th January,
-    7th, 8th, 15th, 21st, and 22nd February, 1868.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xl">{xl}</a></span>
-<p>
-When all questions are agitated pell mell, and all minds are
-perplexed, the first salutary result consequent upon liberty is
-that it sets all opinions and all intentions in contact and in
-conflict. At first, and for a time, this simultaneous invasion of
-so many complex facts, and of so many diverse and contrary ideas,
-does but add to the perplexity of the questions and to the
-confusion of minds; but little by little, and quickly too,
-provided liberty endures, the winnowing process produces its
-effect upon the questions, and light penetrates into the
-understandings: the different facts, and problems which these
-facts suggest, are set in turn in their place, and valued only
-for as much as they are worth; actors and spectators grow
-accustomed to them all, and begin to form more precise
-conceptions of them.
-</p>
-<p>
-Little by little order takes the place of confusion; opinions
-define and classify themselves; and instead of the fermentation
-of opinions in a chaotic confusion, we have a contest in regular
-form, and upon intelligible issues, I repeat that a result so
-salutary cannot be obtained unless upon the condition of a
-liberty universal, real, and durable; partial or transitory, it
-would serve only to aggravate the perturbation, and to unsettle
-opinions still more.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xli">{xli}</a></span>
-<p>
-Political liberty has a second effect, one, perhaps, still more
-important: it forces all questions to submit to the test of
-practical experiment. As long as the liberty is only in the
-thought, it is vain and intemperate; everything seems permitted,
-and everything possible to those who are not responsible for the
-effects of an act: man's thought, intoxicated with itself, runs
-riot in the vagueness of infinite space and time. But when to
-liberty of thought is superadded political liberty,&mdash;when,
-instead of treating questions speculatively, they have to be
-virtually solved,&mdash;when men are charged as real actors to
-transform into facts their own opinions or those of the
-spectators who are looking on,&mdash;then it is that the human mind,
-making its own strength the object of its reflection and
-examination, is driven to the admission that it does not dispose
-at its own will of the world, and that even in order to satisfy
-itself, it must confine itself to the limits imposed by good
-sense, by justice, and by possibility,&mdash;then it is that it learns
-to govern itself, and to hold itself responsible for its acts.
-Responsibility engenders discretion, but is itself engendered by
-liberty alone.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlii">{xlii}</a></span>
-<p>
-Our own times have furnished us with three great examples of the
-salutary empire exercised by political liberty in furnishing an
-escape from the embarrassment of situations, and in solving
-questions the most different&mdash;I might say the most contrary&mdash;in
-their nature. We have only to cast our eyes over the contemporary
-histories of England, of the United States of America, and of
-France herself, to discover their examples and their authority as
-precedents.
-</p>
-<p>
-From 1792 to 1818, England was engaged in struggles first against
-the spirit of Revolution, and then against that termed by M.
-Benjamin Constant the spirit of usurpation and of conquest. With
-what forces and with what arms did England support these two
-formidable struggles? With the forces and the arms of political
-liberty.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xliii">{xliii}</a></span>
-It was by the elections, by publicity, by discussions continued
-in the midst of the energetic manifestations of all the parties,
-&mdash;it was by appeals to public sentiments and opinions,&mdash;it was by
-setting in action all the springs of a free and representative
-government, that England succeeded in her resistance to the most
-potent revolutionary and military movement which ever agitated
-Europe. That struggle over, after the lapse of a few years,
-during which the presiding policy prolonged its tenure of office
-by pursuing a pacific course, England entered upon quite a
-different path; sometimes under the Government of Liberals,
-sometimes of Conservatives, the policy of Reform took the place
-of the policy of resistance; and since 1828, it is in this path
-that England is progressing; it is in favour of innovations,
-sometimes prudent, sometimes daring, and sometimes, perhaps,
-improvident, that she is exerting to the utmost all the forces of
-the country, all the strength of its government. Political
-Liberty has in turn, and with similar efficacy, served the cause
-and assured the success, at one time of a policy of resistance,
-at another of that of progress.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xliv">{xliv}</a></span>
-<p>
-The United States of America have been subjected to a still ruder
-trial. Their government has had to struggle against the
-insurrection of a notable portion of their people, and against a
-civil war entered upon in the name of a principle, popular
-independence. The central power of the Confederation has resisted
-an insurrection radically illegitimate, which was entered upon to
-maintain the slavery of a part of the human race; it defended the
-national existence of the State against the attempts which were
-made to dislocate it, and which were founded upon the same
-motive; and after a civil war which endured four years, in the
-course of which each side was prodigal of efforts and sacrifices,
-and displayed an equal energy, the policy of resistance triumphed
-by the medium of a republican power, and the liberal idea of the
-abolition of slavery vanquished the revolutionary idea of the
-right of insurrection.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlv">{xlv}</a></span>
-It is to political liberty, and to the potent force of the
-institutions and manners founded under her influence, that this
-victory of the great right of humanity was due; and, the war once
-over, the civil <i>régime</i> of American society resumed its
-action, still stormy and perilous, but free from every anarchical
-usurpation or military tyranny.
-</p>
-<p>
-Newer to France, its principles less understood by it, and not so
-well applied, Political Liberty has not on these accounts
-remained without producing there some fruits. In 1830 and in 1848
-France passed through two revolutions, one of which had been
-preceded by sixteen the other by eighteen years of civil liberty.
-Neither of the <i>régimes</i> in operation immediately previous
-to each revolution sufficed to prevent it, but they greatly
-changed its character and weakened its effects. In 1830, thanks
-to the instantaneous intervention of the public authorities which
-owed their existence to the previous <i>régime</i>, a regular
-government was promptly established, and a new constitutional
-monarchy succeeded to that which had just fallen.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlvi">{xlvi}</a></span>
-On the instant it set itself in opposition to the revolutionary
-movement which had given it birth; but the principle of respect
-for the Law and for Liberty exercised, as yet, so incomplete and
-feeble an empire upon men's minds, that the anarchical
-fermentation of opinions prolonged themselves even after the
-victory. The doctrine of Religious Liberty, in particular, was
-more than once lost sight of and violated: in February, 1831, the
-funeral ceremonies in the church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois,
-celebrated in commemoration of the Duke de Berri, who had been
-assassinated eleven years previously, was not allowed to be
-tranquilly celebrated; a violent and riotous mob sacked the
-archiepiscopal palace of Paris, and was the cause of the church,
-which had furnished them with a pretext for violence, being
-closed for many months.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlvii">{xlvii}</a></span>
-In 1848, on the contrary, during a revolutionary crisis which set
-men's passions far more furiously in movement, and which was more
-profound than that of 1830, neither the liberty of Religion nor
-the peace of the churches was disturbed; the ruling authorities
-were exposed to anarchy for a longer period, but the rights of
-the individual were respected, and he might affirm himself free
-even in the midst of the public troubles and perils. Thirty-four
-years of civil Liberty have not disappeared with the governments
-which were then in force without leaving their traces; their
-traditions and their examples have evidently exercised a salutary
-influence both upon the last Revolution, and upon the Reaction
-which put an end to it.
-</p>
-<p>
-That this influence may still surmount the great trials through
-which governments and people may have both to pass, two things
-are necessary: the one is, that civil liberty should form real
-citizens, that nations as well as governments should learn to
-make use of their rights, and to submit to the limits imposed by
-their laws; the other is, that each country and ruling power, at
-the same time that they are culling the fruits of civil liberty,
-should accept its inconveniences and its perils.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlviii">{xlviii}</a></span>
-A free government is not exempt from either vices or dangers; it
-does not dispense men from the necessity of contemplating with
-resignation the imperfection of every work of man as well as of
-every human situation.
-</p>
-<p>
-Free institutions are not of themselves enough: they leave room
-to nations for&mdash;what do I say? they demand from them&mdash;great
-activity and much responsibility. If nations strive to elude
-their part of responsibility and omit to exercise their share of
-action, free institutions become idle words; they are no longer
-anything but a picture-frame without the picture&mdash;a drama
-written, not represented&mdash;in which the actors fail to assume
-their parts or to co-operate to produce the <i>dénouement</i>.
-</p>
-<p>
-It is the absolute necessity of this co-operation of the public
-in the life of free government which gives so capital an
-importance to the popular beliefs, moral and religious.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xlix">{xlix}</a></span>
-When I say beliefs, moral and religious, I attach to the word a
-sense at once the largest and most positive: these beliefs may
-have different dogmas and different internal organizations; I am
-not one of those who believe that Romanists are necessarily
-hostile to civil liberty, or that the doctrine of the right of
-private judgment impels Protestants inevitably to anarchy. What
-is indispensable is, that in their diversity the beliefs styled
-moral and religious should be beliefs really moral and
-religious&mdash;beliefs which recognize and attest that man is
-naturally moral and religious, and which assign to man something
-essentially to distinguish him from the material world in the
-midst of which he lives, in short a soul. Nations animated by
-such beliefs are the only ones which accept really under a free
-<i>régime</i> a large share both of its responsibility and of its
-active duties: it is only when so animated that they give
-consequently to civil Liberty the potent support of which it
-stands in need, for it is only then that they seriously believe
-in the existence of moral Liberty. The world has seen more than
-once how feeble and precarious an affection men feel for liberty
-when they no longer believe in the human soul; and with what a
-tame complacency, when they regard themselves as an ephemeral
-combination of material elements, they submit to the empire of
-the material forces which assail them.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_l">{l}</a></span>
-Many in these days are of opinion that it is enough in a free
-country if religious beliefs are freely practised by those who
-profess them, and externally respected by others, and that all
-which can be expected from them is an indirect influence in
-favour of the maintenance of order. But this is a complete
-misapprehension of the great facts of nature and of human
-society. There are two things which never fail finally to prove
-incompatible, Liberty and Falsehood. Whether from prudence or in
-tenderness for the opinions of those who surround him, a man
-isolated in position may preserve silence, or may utter even a
-falsehood as to what he thinks and believes respecting the
-supreme questions concerning Man's nature and Man's destiny; this
-is possible, for such cases are seen; a single isolated
-individual is so paltry a thing, and passes so quickly, that his
-silence or his falsehood can exercise but little influence upon
-the vast ocean of society in which he is plunged: but the
-falsehood or the silence of a free people from feelings of
-respect or of prudence cannot be regarded as possible; their
-opinions and their sentiments concerning the supreme questions of
-humanity manifest themselves necessarily, and carry with them in
-such manifestation their natural and logical consequences.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_li">{li}</a></span>
-To engage a free people to treat with tenderness and respect, to
-refrain from contesting, perhaps even to reduce to practice,
-moral and religious beliefs in which it does not itself believe,
-is to give to it not only a very discreditable but a very
-impracticable counsel. Liberty in the domain of civil society
-calls for and infallibly induces veracity in the region of the
-intellect; a free country can never escape in its public and
-practical life from the effectual influence of any ideas, whether
-moral or immoral, religious or irreligious, which may happen to
-be fermenting and spreading themselves abroad in the minds of the
-people.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lii">{lii}</a></span>
-<p>
-I leave generalities and call things by their proper names; in
-all that I have just said respecting beliefs moral and religious,
-it is of Christianity that I am thinking. That Christianity on
-the one hand is necessary to the firm establishment of civil
-Liberty amongst us, and on the other hand is very reconcilable
-with the principles and the rights of modern society, is what I
-have at heart to establish in the series of Meditations which I
-am now publishing.
-</p>
-<p>
-I do not deceive myself by imagining that it will be an easy task
-to effect this reconciliation, and to restore at the present day
-to Christianity, the object of so many attacks, that influence of
-which the interests most dear to us, Liberty as well as Order,
-stand equally in need. Still, I believe that success is not only
-here possible but infallible. I was speaking just now of two
-contrary currents which had set in in the domain of intellect as
-well as of Politics, and which lead to the formation of groups
-profoundly different, Conservatives and Revolutionists, Liberals
-and Radicals, Spiritualists and Materialists, Christians and
-Disbelievers.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_liii">{liii}</a></span>
-No one of these groups really represents a dominant party
-in France: amidst them and around them there is a scattered and
-hesitating population, sometimes heedless, sometimes anxious,
-vacillating alternately between innovations and its traditions,
-wearied of its agitations and of its doubt, and not seeing
-clearly the quarter from which shall come that government of
-truth, of liberty, and of order, which is to give repose to man's
-thoughts and life and enable him again to rise. In this confused
-and wavering multitude there are to be found men whose ways of
-thinking, whose desires, and sometimes whose tastes, are, to
-appearance, very decided, but whose opinions or wills are in
-reality neither clear, determined, nor pronounced. We have here a
-vast field open to all the winds, accessible to every labourer, a
-field ever fertile, and, although harassed by various and
-incoherent attempts, still a field only demanding good seed to
-bear an abundant harvest. If we sound the depths of French
-society in all directions, and study it in all its elements and
-under all its aspects, we shall find it to be as I have here
-described it.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_liv">{liv}</a></span>
-Above and below, in all classes and parties, amongst the powerful
-and the humble, the learned and ignorant, we shall find
-everywhere, on one side groups of persons of resolute purposes
-devoting their activity to the service of opinions and causes the
-most contrary; on the other a wavering, vacillating crowd, in
-search of a path to follow, and impelled, perhaps, in the most
-different directions. Upon this population it is that we must
-act; it is amongst them that there are immense and decisive
-conquests to make; good aspirations, moral and religious
-instincts, those necessary preliminaries to faith in Christ, are
-by no means wanting; but to conduct them to their goal, to
-transform them into positive and effectual convictions, we must
-accommodate ourselves to the general character of this
-population; we must be of our time, and speak its language; an
-adequate satisfaction must be offered, and a necessary confidence
-must be inspired, before we can expect that a population, anxious
-to ensure the rights and the interests of its new life, should
-give in return its soul.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lv">{lv}</a></span>
-It is not a complacent indulgence that I am counselling, it is
-not concessions that I ask from the contemporary defenders of
-Christianity; what their mission demands is, that they should
-know, that they should comprehend, that they should love the
-society to which they are addressing themselves, and that they
-should zealously occupy themselves with it to rally it under
-their banner, not to cast it prostrate or to humiliate it under
-their blows.
-</p>
-<p>
-Not only must their work have this character, but when it has it
-prospers, and the nineteenth century has seen instances of such
-success. I shall only cite two, which occurred at different
-epochs, and in which the modes of action were different. Why did
-Chateaubriand and the Father Lacordaire exercise upon their
-times, and especially upon the youth of their times, so
-extraordinary an influence?
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lvi">{lvi}</a></span>
-First, because the awakening of Christianity which they provoked
-was a thing in harmony with the popular instincts, but also
-because, in the midst of the religious reaction of which they
-were the organs, they each of them, by degrees and by different
-processes, respectively inspired the France of their days with
-the sentiment that they were its children and its friends, that
-they shared its new aspirations, that they accepted its political
-transformation, and that it was not in order to reconstitute it
-on its ancient basis that they wished it to be Christian. They
-more than once astounded, disquieted, even shocked their country,
-the one by his political career, the other by his monastic zeal;
-still their popularity continued, and they influenced it, the one
-by causing Christianity to resume her place in the modern
-literatures of France, the other notwithstanding his having
-re-established in France the monastic orders. The reason of this
-is, that in spite of the prejudices which it entertained against
-them, and the opinions in which it differed from them, France
-felt itself understood and honoured by them; it rejoiced in their
-glory, because it believed in their sympathy.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lvii">{lvii}</a></span>
-<p>
-Men such as M. de Chateaubriand and the Father Lacordaire are
-rare; but the spirit which animated them, the comprehension of
-their age and country which distinguished them, did not die with
-them, nor are they without successors in their work of religion
-and patriotism. Beyond a doubt the Faith of Christ and the Church
-of Rome have in our days had no champion more eloquent and more
-liberal than M. de Montalembert, and worthily the Father
-Hyacinthe occupies the pulpit from which once resounded the voice
-of the Father Lacordaire. At the side of these names, already
-more than once cited by me, I see others start up of a different
-origin and with a different physiognomy, but devoted to the same
-cause and to the same work.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lviii">{lviii}</a></span>
-At the very moment at which I am terminating these Meditations,
-two compositions meet my eye, published by men, neither of whom I
-have the honour to know, men very different in position and in
-ideas: the one a Romanist, the other a Protestant, the one a
-great Prelate in his Church, the other a simple Pastor in his;
-both firm Christians, and both sympathizers with the instincts,
-the aspirations, and the moral and intellectual ideas prevalent
-in the present state of French society; both having the
-resolution and the ability required in order to present
-Christianity to Frenchmen under the form and in the language most
-proper to make it penetrate the soul. The one is Monseigneur
-Darboy, the Archbishop of Paris, the other, M. Decoppel, pastor
-at Alais. The former has just addressed to the clergy of his
-diocese, (Lent, 1868,) <i>A Pastoral Letter upon the Truth of
-Christianity</i>. [Footnote 3] The second presented, on the 7th
-of November in the previous year, to the National Evangelical
-Conference assembled at Nérac, <i>A Report as to the Actual
-Requirements of Preachers in the Protestant Churches</i>.
-[Footnote 4]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 3: This Pastoral Letter was published at full length
-    in the <i>Gazette de France</i>, on the 25th and 26th of
-    February, 1868.]
-<br><br>
-    [Footnote 4: This report was published, at Toulouse, by the
-    Society for the Publication of Religious Books, 1868.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lix">{lix}</a></span>
-<p>
-I was struck, in spite of their diversity, by the substantially
-analogous character of these two documents, and I cite them here
-because I would set in a clear light the great fact which each
-reveals, that a general and contemporaneous work is now being
-prosecuted in order to maintain and reestablish the harmony
-between the Christianity of former ages and the spirit of the
-present century, a work of which the mission is to solve, as far
-as the solution can rest with man, the question whether our epoch
-is Christian.
-</p>
-<p>
-"Religion," says the Archbishop of Paris, "is a fact that was
-contemporary with primitive man&mdash;a fact present in all ages, ever
-paramount, ever visible, although not everywhere to the same
-degree. Never was there wanting in the world a voice to remind
-man of the truths of Religion, whether it proceeded from the tent
-of the Patriarch, the synagogue of the Jew, or the church of the
-Catholic; whether it was heard in the whisperings of a simple and
-upright conscience, or emanated from legislators or prophet
-raised up by Heaven, or was the voice of God himself incarnate,
-constituting Himself the preceptor and the model of His
-creatures, humanity was never so imperfect as that these lofty
-lessons did not draw forth from the generously faithful responses
-more or less unanimous.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lx">{lx}</a></span>
-<p>
-"Heathen nations&mdash;their history proves it&mdash;have preserved
-something of these hopes and of the religious dogmas connected
-with them. The grandsons of Noah, in dispersing in the plains of
-Sennaar, convey to the four quarters of the earth the traditions
-which they received from their grandsire, and which are the
-common patrimony of the human race. Doubtless these traditions
-are gradually altered and deformed by the vain intermixtures of
-fables, which owe their origin to the dreamers of the far East
-and to the poets of Greece and of Rome; but in the eyes of the
-multitude, and particularly of those who are its superiors and
-its governors, the grand features of the truth are readily
-distinguishable. Thus, the existence of God and the action of
-Providence, the distinction of good and of evil, the original
-fall of man and the necessity for an atonement, the immortality
-of the soul, the rewards and punishments of another life; all
-these doctrines, more or less disfigured, it is true, live in the
-depths of the conscience of the people.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxi">{lxi}</a></span>
-Even Pagans have their souls by nature Christian, which testify
-in favour of justice and virtue; and if Pagans are to be
-condemned, says St. Paul, it is not for having ignored God, but
-for having neglected to serve Him and to glorify Him.
-</p>
-<p>
-"At an era nearer to ourselves, three centuries ago, a sorrowful
-work was accomplished. Theological disputes led to religious
-wars, and by a tearing asunder of ties which it is impossible too
-much to deplore, Europe divided itself into Catholics and
-Protestants. But in spite of this fatal resolution it remained
-Christian, although not in the same degree. Their political
-charters and institutions, their civil laws and social habits,
-breathe all of Christianity; and the character of their baptism
-remains stamped upon their foreheads, which it for ever ennobles.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxii">{lxii}</a></span>
-<p>
-"And now this fact, which is the common work of so many
-generations, made up of beliefs expressed in every kind of manner
-and sometimes practised even to heroism, written in books sacred
-and profane, engraved on marble and on brass, in institutions and
-in laws, in the mind and in the heart of nations&mdash;this fact, what
-is its moral value, and what its bearing? Are we to be told that
-it is purely natural&mdash;the spontaneous production of our habits,
-the simple result of our instincts&mdash;and, so to say, an
-irrepressible necessity of mankind? Even in this case it is
-divine, as divine as our nature itself, which was directly
-created by God; and so we must recognise and respect Religion as
-a thing true, necessary and divine. It is reason, it is common
-sense which tells us this.
-</p>
-<p>
-"But there is more than that, my very dear brethren. This fact,
-as it presents itself, so general and so constant, is not merely
-the common work of the races of mankind. Our nature, left to its
-own resources and its proper energy, is incapable of producing it
-and of continuing it with a brilliancy that so endures, and with
-a force which renews itself every day.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxiii">{lxiii}</a></span>
-It is also, it is more especially the providential and prodigious
-effect of a cause to which all of us are subject, men and
-nations, and which here shows itself that it is so by giving to
-its effects a supernatural character. &hellip; Supernatural means were
-necessary, that is to say, a continual action of God always in
-relation to the varying exigencies of each different age, and the
-constant requirements of humanity, in order that the person of
-the Revealer having disappeared, and His direct action being no
-longer visible, His teachings, His spirit, and His institutions
-should be maintained in the world in a manner authentic,
-infallible, and triumphant. In a single word, there was necessary
-a perpetual assistance of God, accrediting the mission of His
-envoys by extraordinary facts&mdash;facts of a superhuman power,
-miraculously protecting their work against the consequences of
-the weaknesses of some and of the perversity of others,
-intervening with supernatural <i>éclat</i> to enable the mission
-to develop itself amongst nations incessantly, to act more and
-more efficaciously upon them in spite of their shortcomings and
-their revolts, and to aid them and to support them in their
-religious and predestined course.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxiv">{lxiv}</a></span>
-<p>
-"This paramount action, this divine action, is manifested in the
-highest degree in Religion. After the miracles and the prophecies
-of ancient times, after the Jewish nation, whose history is a
-prophecy and one unceasing miracle, Christianity appears with
-signs so supernatural that it is impossible for us to deceive
-ourselves. Miraculous agency appears at every turn. The Saviour,
-and what he affirms concerning himself, His discourses, His
-character and His actions, the difficulties of His undertaking,
-the marvels of wisdom and sanctity which He accomplished;
-finally, the survival and the development of His work through
-centuries; everything here forces us to recur to the fact of the
-direct intervention of God&mdash;sole possible means of finding a
-satisfactory explanation of such grand results."
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxv">{lxv}</a></span>
-<p>
-The circular letter is throughout but a development of the ideas
-recapitulated in the passages of the text which I have cited&mdash;a
-development sometimes so prudent and so little precipitate as to
-assume the character of extreme circumspection, yet always
-faithful to the same thought. The writer indulges in no
-discussion purely theological, makes no pompous display of
-ecclesiastical authority, engages in no polemics with any class
-of dissent. When I affirm that we have here the History of
-Humanity, a correct appreciation of the ideas and behaviour of
-man in his different stages; Religion in general and Christianity
-in particular; considered as a grand fact&mdash;a fact universal and
-permanent, traceable everywhere and in all times, even amongst
-the heathens; a fact which survived all the divisions, the
-scientific struggles, and the civil wars which took place amongst
-Christians themselves, particularly amongst Roman Catholics and
-Protestants, all of whom are Christians, according to the writer,
-by the same title, if not in the same degree;
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxvi">{lxvi}</a></span>
-a fact at once human and divine&mdash;human by its accordance with
-man's nature, divine by the direct and supernatural action of
-God, of God the creator, personal, free, whose presence and power
-reveal themselves, now by the general and permanent order of
-events, now by special miracles, judged by Him necessary for the
-accomplishment of His designs; the Christian faith thus
-associated with the whole life of the human race; the principle
-of the supernatural and miraculous, as well as the dogmas of
-Christianity, proclaimed aloud, but without controversy, without
-any appeal made to any external or exclusive dominion; homage
-rendered to the right of the "conscience simple and upright" at
-the same time as to the biblical traditions and to the authority
-of the Church: when I affirm that all this is here, am I not
-justified in also affirming that Christianity is here presented
-under an aspect the least likely to shock opponents, the most
-proper to rally the minds of the hesitating? Is it not in effect,
-on the part of a Prince of the Church of Rome, the acceptance and
-pursuit of that great work of harmony between the Christian
-Religion and Modern Society, which is manifesting itself in so
-many analogous manners and under banners so very diverse?
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxvii">{lxvii}</a></span>
-<p>
-The pastor of Alais chooses a subject more limited, but is more
-vivid in thought and more incisive in manner than the Archbishop
-of Paris. It is not the general history of Christianity which he
-traces; it is its actual state, its religious bias and
-requirements in the nineteenth century which he observes and
-describes. His Report is no work of philosophy, but is penetrated
-and animated throughout by a real liberalism. He does not go in
-search of polemics: on the contrary, he recommends little use to
-be made of them; but when the occasion or the necessity is there,
-he does not evade it, but enters upon the arena unhesitatingly
-and without compromise.
-</p>
-<p>
-"There are," he says, "exigencies upon which all men concur in
-insisting, and these depend upon the general state of men's minds
-in our epoch. Each age has its ideas and its sentiments, its
-prejudices and its doubts, a certain moral physiognomy which the
-preacher encounters more or less in our congregations.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxviii">{lxviii}</a></span>
-Our auditors, perhaps we are too prone to forget this, do not
-live isolated from their contemporaries; they are of their time,
-they inhale its intellectual and moral atmosphere, they follow
-its movement, they share in its shortcomings and in its
-aspirations. We may indeed affirm that now more than ever men are
-of their time, thanks to the rapidity with which ideas circulate
-and diffuse themselves. Although men read less in France than in
-many other countries, they read more than they did formerly. In
-France, for good or for evil, there are influences at work which
-have to be taken into account. One of our first duties, as
-preachers, is, then, to know our age, to be attentive to every
-symptom which can reveal to us its spirit and its tendencies. To
-neglect this duty is to expose ourselves to the risk of
-addressing, so to say, fictitious auditors, that is, men who
-neither have the ideas nor feel the sentiments, nor think of the
-objections which we attribute to them.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxix">{lxix}</a></span>
-<p>
-"In the midst of the discordant voices heard now-a-days, it is
-easy, alas! to distinguish one high above the others&mdash;it is that
-of incredulity; not as in the last century, marked by a raillery
-or levity, but by an earnestness and a high tone, occasionally
-even by a certain melancholy, and being for these very reasons
-more seductive. It is in favour of the progress of liberty, of
-the dignity of the soul, that is to say, of everything which is
-noblest and most sacred to man, that that voice addresses our
-generation, and invites it to bid for ever adieu to the faith of
-its infancy. These sad words, which pretend to toll the knell of
-Christianity, express but too faithfully the incredulity dominant
-now-a-days in the elevated regions of science and of thought,
-whence it is diffused over all the classes of society. It is
-impossible to deceive ourselves; we are now in presence of a
-fresh and a great conspiracy, not only against the faith of
-Christ, but against every religious faith. The leaders of
-incredulity proclaim aloud that the cycle of Religions is
-definitively closed, and that we have, once for all, to efface
-God from our thoughts and from our lives, just as if God were an
-obsolete hypothesis, with which modern science has nothing to do.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxx">{lxx}</a></span>
-<p>
-"This Atheism is so much the more dangerous and contagious in
-these days, that it does not appear in the shape of a mere revolt
-or falling off of the mind, but as a generous doctrine, having
-for objects the enfranchisement of nations, and their delivery
-from the yoke of priests and of tyrants, who, it is supposed, are
-combined in order to prey upon them. One of its principal adepts,
-Guillaume Marr, exclaimed, a few years ago: 'The faith in a
-personal and living God is the origin, the fundamental cause of
-the miserable state of society in which we exist. The idea of a
-God is the key-stone of the arch of the decayed and worm-eaten
-civilization. Away with it! The true road to liberty, equality,
-and happiness, is Atheism. There is no hope for the earth so long
-as man shall cling to heaven by even a thread. &hellip; Let nothing
-henceforth stand in the way of the spontaneous action of the
-human understanding. Let us teach man that he has no other God
-than himself, that he is himself the alpha and omega of all
-things, the being paramount, and the reality most real.'
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxi">{lxxi}</a></span>
-<p>
-"Thus contemporary Atheism seeks to conquer the masses by their
-weak side, by their democratical and liberal instincts. This is
-not a mere system; it is a powerful party which has its
-lecturers, its newspapers, its associations, its congresses, and
-its Propaganda. A man of earnest meaning, M. Pearson, estimated
-at 640,000 copies the number of publications avowedly atheistical
-which appeared in England in the course of the year 1851. And it
-is not only in England that Atheism is raising its head, it is in
-France, Germany, and Italy.
-</p>
-<p>
-"Far from me the idea of setting in the same category our Radical
-Reformers, and the disbelievers and free thinkers who seek to
-destroy every faith and all religion! Let us hope that the former
-never will go so far as these.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxii">{lxxii}</a></span>
-But, definitively, they openly extend to them a sympathizing
-hand; they greet their writings with marked favour; and, say it
-we must, when they go so far as to deny the supernatural,
-stripping thus Christianity of every divine authority, or when
-merely they proclaim the unimportance of dogmas to a religious
-life, they are making common cause with Atheism, and working,
-without suspecting that they are doing so, at the same work of
-destruction.
-</p>
-<p>
-"But although we have all this to deplore, how many subjects have
-we for hope and encouragement! Moments of crisis are the most
-painful, but they are not the least fruitful. Sow we do, indeed,
-with tears; what matters, after all, that no hymn of triumph
-attends our harvest. The thing essential is that we sow. Behold,
-how magnificently the ground is in many respects prepared for the
-Christian preacher. The mere fact that religious questions are
-the fashion of the day gives us an immense advantage, and one by
-which we may profit. Is it not very encouraging to know that in
-discussing such subjects we are answering to serious demands of
-general interest?
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxiii">{lxxiii}</a></span>
-The contest which divides our churches has been certainly hurtful
-to the growth of piety; but has it not also shaken many a soul
-from its torpor? Has it not impelled many persons to search after
-the truth who were before indifferent? Is it not better to have
-to address ourselves to souls troubled if only by doubt, than to
-souls plunged in the heavy torpor of indifference?
-</p>
-<p>
-"After all, our age has its grandeur. Let us not underrate it: we
-are not to imitate that ready and vulgar pessimism, which sees
-everything dressed in the livery of woe, and which delights to
-note the vices and shortcomings of an epoch, without admitting
-the virtue to which it can lay just claim, or its generous
-aspirations. It is certain that, even where rejecting the dogmas
-of Christianity, our age has made immense progress in the social
-application of Christianity, and especially in philanthropy. The
-age passionately loves liberty, equality, tolerance, and peace;
-it insists upon respect for all consciences; it dreams of the
-union of all nations; it occupies itself with the material
-happiness and the amelioration of all classes in society.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxiv">{lxxiv}</a></span>
-Not so rich as other ages in men of a high temper of character,
-men really original, our age has nevertheless contributed, more
-than others, perhaps, to the general awakening of men to their
-rights as individuals, and of <i>self-government</i>, and
-consequently, to the sentiment of personal responsibility. Here
-assuredly we have noble tendencies; precious <i>points
-d'appui</i> for the preachers of the Gospel. Let us feel no dread
-for this breath of Liberalism which is passing over nations.
-Liberty rightly understood leads to the Gospel, as the Gospel
-leads to Liberty.
-</p>
-<p>
-"And now what have we to say to this age so tormented? What ought
-we to say to these souls who have confidence in us, and who
-demand from us Light and Peace? How often has this question
-overwhelmed the Gospel preacher with the sentiment of his
-weakness and insufficiency? How often has it made him prostrate
-himself in his agony at the feet of the Lord? How often torn from
-him the cry of the prophet&mdash;'Ah, Lord God, behold I cannot
-speak, for I am a child!'
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxv">{lxxv}</a></span>
-<p>
-"Let Christian Science proceed with its work! She has, assuredly,
-much to do in these days. In the teeth of the affirmations of
-Positivism and of Materialism let her make her own affirmation.
-Hers the task to show that the biblical dogmas respecting the
-origin of the world and of man are infinitely more rational and
-more scientific than all that in these days men seek to
-substitute in their place. Hers the task to prove that the
-supernatural, far from being antagonistic to the science of
-Nature, is as much called for by Nature as by the sentiment of
-Religion itself.
-</p>
-<p>
-"Let Christian Philosophy also accomplish her task. Hers it is to
-establish the profound harmony which exists between Reason and
-Faith; hers to show that the systems by which men seek to replace
-Christianity present to the thought as many difficulties, if not
-more, than any which follow from the evangelical dogmas.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxvi">{lxxvi}</a></span>
-Hers the task to lay the foundation of a new philosophy with the
-materials furnished by Revelation, and by the Christian
-Conscience.
-</p>
-<p>
-"Let Christian Literature equally accomplish her mission! Let her
-spread the truth by the means, infinitely diverse, which the
-progress of the press has placed at her disposal! Let her make
-herself popular; let her put on all forms to combat error; let
-her oppose Journal to Journal, Review to Review; and, if it must
-be so, Novel to Novel! Let her make herself everything to
-everybody; and follow the adversary upon every field, and seize
-all his arms.
-</p>
-<p>
-"And for us Preachers, what have we to do? What this day is our
-special mission in the special position in which God has placed
-us?"
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxvii">{lxxvii}</a></span>
-<p>
-Having come to this, the particular object of his study and of
-his Report, made by him to the Evangelical Conference of Nérac,
-M. Decoppel enters, as to the Mission and actual work of the
-preachers, into details which although they are full of life, and
-evince the greatest practical knowledge, apply more especially to
-the Protestant Churches of France. Finally, he reverts to the
-general question of Christianity by a concluding remark of
-general application, but announcing a truth of both practical and
-urgent importance for all the Christian Churches.
-</p>
-<p>
-"What is most essential," says he, "is not so much to defend
-Christianity, as to present it to our age, not as an enemy that
-comes to anathematize and to combat it, but as a friend that
-comes to raise it and save it. Beyond a doubt, we must not fear
-to lay stress upon Christian Truth, and to present it with its
-most salient angles and its austerest face in advance; but with
-anathemas and declamations we must have done. What most is
-necessary is, that we address a word of sympathy to the Age; we
-must show to it Christianity, I do not say so much in the aspect
-fitted to inspire love as in the aspect in which it is loving.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxviii">{lxxviii}</a></span>
-Regard St. Paul at Athens. He does not consider himself bound to
-confound the idolatry of his auditors; he does quite the
-contrary; he knows how to find in their idolatry itself a
-<i>point d'appui</i> for the Gospel. Let us do as he did; let us
-strive, we also, to find these <i>points d'appui</i>, those
-keystones upon which the edifice of faith may in these days be
-made safely repose. It is more especially true in our country
-that Christianity is not known for what it is, and the remark
-applies not only to the lower classes of society, but even to the
-educated classes, so that when they attack Christianity it is, as
-it were, an attack upon a thing unknown. The Age is liberal: let
-us show it that the Gospel is still more liberal, and that its
-liberality is of the genuine kind. The Age loves science, and
-demands a rational faith: let us show it that faith is sovereign
-reason, and cannot but profit by every conquest achieved by
-science.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxix">{lxxix}</a></span>
-The Age aspires to make progress in every branch of human
-activity: let us show it that all genuine progress is contained
-in the principles of the Gospel."
-</p>
-<p>
-I make no more citations. I neither examine nor discuss any of
-the particular ideas, or phrases, or words which these two
-documents contain: I would solely draw attention to their main
-and common characteristic. These writings are not only Christian,
-but uncompromisingly Christian; at the same time, they aim at
-leading Christianity and Modern Society to understand each other,
-to accept each other mutually and freely, and to exercise, the
-one upon the other, such an action as shall be salutary to both.
-The authors are not authors, or orators, or amateurs in religion,
-or in philosophy; they are ecclesiastics by profession, belonging
-to different churches who are entering upon this war, regarded by
-each both as legitimate and necessary; who are labouring to draw
-to it the populations placed naturally under their influence; and
-are hoping, without doubt, that their efforts will be successful.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxx">{lxxx}</a></span>
-<p>
-I think that they are right both in their hope and their
-endeavours, and knowing that outside of the groups of persons
-pledged to particular opinions or sides in the contests of
-religion and politics, there exists a vast population, uncertain
-and vacillating, now indifferent, now anxious upon the subject of
-religious questions and the relations of Christianity to Modern
-Society, I think that this population, which is, in effect,
-France, is capable of feeling religious emotions, of being
-informed and brought back to the great beliefs of Christianity as
-well as to a sentiment of the natural and necessary agreement
-between Christian faith and the principles of public Liberty. The
-profound desire which I feel, and the hope from which I will not
-part, of this great result, have induced me to give still greater
-development to these Meditations, and to risk them amidst the
-events, the issue of which is obscure, which are now crowding
-upon each other, and amidst questions, passions, and interests,
-to which such subjects are all very strange.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxi">{lxxxi}</a></span>
-The more I consider the matter, the more I feel persuaded that
-France is not so little busied as she would appear to be with
-religious questions, and that in the midst of her languor and
-fluctuations she has a secret sentiment of their imperishable
-grandeur and their practical importance. If this, as I think, is,
-at bottom, the public disposition, I may consider myself well
-entitled to command attentive listeners. In the course of my long
-life, I have seen much and have done somewhat. I have taken part
-in the world's affairs. I have quitted it, and am no longer
-anything more than a spectator. For twenty years I have been
-essaying my tomb. I have gone down into it living, and have made
-no effort to issue forth again. Not only have I experience of the
-world, but nothing attaches me to it.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxii">{lxxxii}</a></span>
-Could I be still of some service to the two great causes, in my
-eyes but one, the cause of Christian Faith in men's souls, and
-the cause of Political Liberty in my country, I should await with
-thankfulness, in the bosom of my seclusion, the dawn of that
-eternal day which "fools call death," says Petrarch:&mdash;
-<p class="cite">
-  Quel che morir chiaman gli sciocchi.
-<br><br>
-    Guizot.<br>
-    Paris, <i>April</i>, 1868.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxiii">{lxxxiii}</a></span>
-<br><br>
-                <h2>Contents.</h2>
-<table>
-<tr>
-	<td></td>
-	<td></td>
-	<td>Page</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-	<td>Preface</td>
-	<td></td>
-	<td><a href="#Page_v">v</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-	<td>I.</td>
-	<td>Christianity and Liberty</td>
-	<td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-	<td>II.</td>
-	<td>Christianity and Morality</td>
-	<td> <a href="#Page_52">52</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-	<td>III.</td>
-	<td>Christianity and Science</td>
-	<td><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-	<td>IV.</td>
-	<td>Christian Ignorance</td>
-	<td><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-	<td>V.</td>
-	<td>Christian Faith</td>
-	<td><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-	<td>VI.</td>
-	<td>Christian Life</td>
-	<td><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-	<td>Appendix</td>
-	<td>Observations upon the Work
-             called "Ecce Homo"</td>
-	<td><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-<br>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_lxxxiv">{lxxxiv}</a></span>
-<br>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1">{1}</a></span>
-<br>
-      <h1>Meditations On Christianity
-<br><br>
-               in its
-<br><br>
-     Relation To The Actual State<br>
-       Of Society And Opinion.</h1>
-<br>
-
-
-           <h2>First Meditation.
-<br><br>
-       Christianity And Liberty.</h2>
-<br>
-<p>
-The passionate longing both of men and of nations in these days
-for Liberty and Equality, is a fact not only evident but dominant
-in modern civilization. Sometimes this desire has for its object
-Liberty only, sometimes Equality only, sometimes both
-simultaneously. Sometimes the desire is at once intelligent and
-respectable, sometimes nothing more than a blind and
-ill-regulated impulse.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2">{2}</a></span>
-Sometimes the feeling displays itself in revolutions, in which it
-develops itself in all its intensity; sometimes it fades away,
-and subsides amidst the reactions which those very revolutions
-have, by their calamities and excesses, called forth. At one time
-men vaunt that the problem is solved, at another they are
-discouraged, and pronounce it to be insolvable. But whether they
-vaunt or are discouraged, the passionate desire continues to
-exist, and the problem ever reappears. Such a state of opinion
-may be applauded or may be deplored; it may have incense showered
-upon it or it may be visited with malediction; but to escape from
-it is an impossibility. It remains a trial which humanity is
-condemned to pass through; it furnishes it with a task which it
-is bound to perform.
-</p>
-<p>
-But it is not only this fact and this problem with which our
-epoch has to deal; at their side there is another not less
-important, the solution of which also falls within the mission of
-the age. Many of the friends of Liberty and Equality regard
-Christianity, and especially Roman Catholicism, as their greatest
-enemy.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3">{3}</a></span>
-In his moments of perverseness and angry waywardness, Voltaire so
-treated it. Thousands of men, not only men of intelligence, but a
-multitude of others, obscure enough, still not deficient in
-activity, speak and act under the empire of the same idea; at one
-time brutal, at another hypocritical, the anti-Christian
-sentiment is at once ardent and far-spread. Is it well founded?
-Is Christianity, after all, the obstacle to the progress of
-Liberty and of Equality? Or is it not, on the contrary, rather
-true that both already owe much to Christianity, and that both
-require its sanction and its support to ensure their legitimate
-and durable triumph? The great question of the 19th century
-remains in suspense, and social order in peril, so long as that
-other question is not solved.
-</p>
-<p>
-I meet at every step in the Gospels words such as these&mdash;"What
-shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
-his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
-[Footnote 5]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 5: Mark viii. 36, 37.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4">{4}</a></span>
-<p>
-"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the
-soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and
-body in hell." [Footnote 6] "Go ye into all the world, and preach
-the Gospel to every creature." [Footnote 7]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 6: Matthew x. 28.]
-<br><br>
-    [Footnote 7: Mark xvi. 15.]
-</p>
-<p>
-The dominant idea in the Gospels is the infinite worth of the
-human soul, of every human soul. Jesus came to influence and to
-save souls, all souls without exception,&mdash;souls of the powerful
-and of the obscure, of the rich and poor, learned and ignorant,
-happy or afflicted. The condition and the salvation of souls is
-the foundation of the Christian Religion.
-</p>
-<p>
-The human soul is no mere word, no mere abstraction, no mere
-hypothesis; the soul is the human being himself, the individual
-being who feels and thinks, enjoys and suffers, wills and acts,
-who observes and knows himself, in the complexity of his actual
-condition, and to whom his destiny in remote futurity is an
-object of present solicitude.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5">{5}</a></span>
-To those who confound soul and body, and see in man only a
-product, an ephemeral form of matter, I have nothing to say. What
-have they to do with the words of the Gospel&mdash;with the immense
-value attached to a fugitive shadow, deceived according to them
-as to its own reality, and only appearing to lose itself
-forthwith in nonentity? It is Spiritualists and Christians who
-speak with propriety when they discourse in grand and elevated
-tones of the human soul; and if they so discourse it is because
-they see in every human soul a true being, a real and individual
-man, with the grandeur of man's nature and of man's destiny. What
-constitutes the essential worth of the human being, of every
-human being, is, that he is free to act or not to act, and that
-he is morally responsible how he acts. Man believes essentially
-in the distinction of moral good and evil and in the obligation
-which this entails; he believes that he is at liberty to act up
-to it or not as he pleases, that he is responsible for the use
-which he makes of his liberty. It is because such is the nature
-of man, whether his own conduct is in conformity to it or not,
-that the Gospel exalts man so nigh, and accords to him so sublime
-a destiny.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6">{6}</a></span>
-Philosophers, Christian and anti-Christian too, have made great
-efforts, in my opinion ill-judged efforts, to solve the problem
-of man's liberty in relation to God's prescience; the Gospel
-recognises and proclaims human liberty without troubling itself
-about the problem of philosophy. The Christian Religion entirely
-rests upon the fact which it assumes, that man is a free and
-responsible being. Man's liberty is the point from which
-Christianity starts in all that she says to humanity, and in
-every command that she gives to humanity.
-</p>
-<p>
-Christianity, then, is essentially liberal, in favour of all men,
-and of them as men; by her elementary and fundamental idea of
-man's nature, she founds his liberty upon the most solid basis
-and the broadest right that human thought can conceive. The most
-daring of the writers on public law never carried to so high a
-point as the Gospel has done either the native universal dignity
-of man's nature or the consequences derivable from this fact.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7">{7}</a></span>
-<p>
-Christianity does not confine itself to this;&mdash;after having laid
-down the principle of Liberty, it gives to it the practical
-sanction which Liberty requires: it establishes the right of
-resistance to oppression. The priests and the chiefs of the
-synagogue at Jerusalem "commanded them (Peter and John) not to
-speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus;" but Peter and John
-answered them and said unto them, "Whether it be right in the
-sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."
-[Footnote 8]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 8: Acts iv. 18,19.]
-</p>
-<p>
-Having been again summoned before the high priest, who says to
-them, "Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach
-in this name?" Peter replies, "We ought to obey God rather than
-men." [Footnote 9]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 9: Acts v. 28, 29.]
-</p>
-<p>
-The multitude joins its acts of violence to the injunctions of
-the authorities. Stephen, the first Christian Deacon, avows his
-faith before the multitude, and falls the first martyr to the
-principle of Christian resistance. [Footnote 10]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 10: Acts vii. 59.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8">{8}</a></span>
-<p>
-The most zealous of the persecutors of Stephen, Paul of Tarsus,
-who had become Christian, is, in his turn, stoned and left for
-dead by the multitude of Lystra and Iconium; in his turn he
-resists the multitude, and returns again to Lystra and Iconium,
-"confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to
-continue in the faith," and representing to them that it is by
-much tribulation that we must enter into the kingdom of God.
-[Footnote 11] Resistance to oppression is an essential principle
-of Christianity, and the definitive guarantee of Liberty.
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 11: Acts xiv. 19, 22.]
-</p>
-<p>
-It is the peculiar characteristic and honour of Christianity that
-it derives both the right of resistance to oppression, and the
-principle of even Liberty itself, not from the temporal and
-transitory interests of earthly life, but from the moral and
-eternal interests of the soul. At the same time that it affirms
-the principle of Liberty and proclaims its consequences, it
-equally affirms and proclaims the principles and rights of
-Authority.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9">{9}</a></span>
-I have referred to this upon another occasion; when Jesus made
-that reply to the question of the Pharisees whether it was
-permissible or not to pay tribute to Caesar, "Render unto Cæsar
-the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are
-God's," he established in principle the distinction between the
-religious life and civil life, between the Church and the State.
-Cæsar has no right to intervene with his laws and material force,
-between the soul of man and his God; and on his side the faithful
-worshipper of God is bound to fulfil towards Cæsar the duties
-which the necessity of the maintenance of public order imposes.
-[Footnote 12]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 12: Meditations upon the Essence of Christianity,
-    p. 278. London: 1864.]
-</p>
-<p>
-It was by affirming and defending religious liberty, the highest
-and proudest of all liberties, that modern civilization
-commenced. The principle and right of liberty once deeply rooted
-in the soul, the flower and the fruit of this potent germ have
-strongly developed themselves in the course of ages, and expanded
-with more or less of promptitude and fecundity, according as the
-seasons were favourable or unfavourable; but upon the whole,
-history has confirmed the Gospel.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10">{10}</a></span>
-<p>
-Of all the Religions which have appeared in the world,
-Christianity is the only one which conquered by means of Liberty,
-and which was founded upon Liberty; the only one which has been
-able to assume and keep her place amidst the greatest diversity
-of social institutions, and which in them all, as exigencies
-required, accepted and supported at one time authority, at
-another liberty.
-</p>
-<p>
-Even if I wished, it would be impossible for me in this place to
-refer to more than the general and evident facts of history. If I
-remount to the origins of the different religions, I observe that
-Christianity was the only one which did not appeal to force; she
-was the only one which did not employ force to issue forth from
-her cradle and to grow. During more than three centuries she
-alone combated and conquered her adversaries by vanquishing souls
-in the name of truth and by the arms of truth.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11">{11}</a></span>
-If I interrogate the results, I find that three great religious
-establishments&mdash;Paganism, Bouddhism, and Mahometanism&mdash;have
-held, and, with Christianity, still hold a great place in the
-world. Paganism, after some fair but brief moments of progress,
-attained to nothing but the anarchy of the Greek and Roman
-Republics, and the despotic decay of the Roman Empire. Bouddhism
-did nothing but generate the fantastic superstitions and the
-enervating abstractions of a pantheistic mythology, amidst the
-immobility of the castes and the stagnation of absolute power.
-Mahometanism carried into every quarter to which she penetrated
-only the yoke of force, the incurable animosity of races, the
-sterility of conquest. Christianity alone accepted the spirit of
-Liberty and Progress where she found it already existing in the
-soul of man and in human societies, and where she did not find it
-she awakened it.
-</p>
-<p>
-Let me not be accused of forgetting that since the triumph of
-Christianity, oppressive tyrannies and odious persecutions have
-occurred in, different Christian societies in the name of the
-Christian faith.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12">{12}</a></span>
-No one more than I deplores and detests such facts. They were the
-work of the sins of men, not of the principles of Christianity,
-which, far from authorising them, condemns them. Water from the
-purest source is changed and polluted in its course over the
-surface of the earth, after it has been exposed to the stormy
-atmospheric influences. In creating man free, God left him a part
-and a share in his own destiny and in the events which determine
-it. Christianity, emanating from God, marks out and combats
-uncompromisingly all evil desires and bad motives, all the
-excesses and all the weaknesses of man's selfishness: she has not
-destroyed them; she did not at once restore innocence to man nor
-make him a present of virtue: he is bound to labour in the work
-of his own control and of his own reformation; the Gospel is a
-Mirror in which, if he looks at himself, he may, it is true,
-behold the stains upon his soul and upon his life, but those
-stains proceed from himself, and not from the mirror, which only
-enables him to see them.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13">{13}</a></span>
-When we lay to the charge of the Christian Religion the fatal
-errors, the unlawful passions and actions which have appeared
-under its name in the history of Christian Societies, we acquit
-without reason men, whether princes or nations, learned or
-ignorant, of the responsibility that weighs upon them; we ignore
-what Christianity commands and what she forbids; we demand from
-her that which she has not promised.
-</p>
-<p>
-Of history thus far. I now confine myself to the present epoch
-and to the problems which the actual relations of Christianity to
-Liberty present. What are the principal obstacles at the present
-day in the way of the establishment of a real and lasting
-Liberty, and what are the means within our reach to surmount
-them? In other terms, which express my meaning more exactly, What
-are our infirmities to retard, what our strength to accelerate,
-the establishment of a free government? Is Christianity an
-obstacle to us in this work or a help, an ill or a remedy?
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14">{14}</a></span>
-<p>
-It is with a profound feeling of sadness that I see eminent men,
-men truly Christian, incessantly depicting in the most sombre
-colours society as it now exists, and representing it as only a
-prey to political and moral diseases now acute, now indolent, as
-deprived thereby of all title to respect, and of all hope of
-amelioration, incapacitated at one time for orderly life, at
-another for Liberty. As for straightforward attacks upon our
-vices and failings, our errors and shortcomings, I complain not
-of them however violent: nations as well as individuals require
-to be often admonished frankly and with severity; the rudeness
-which shakes them is more salutary than the indulgence which
-cradles them to sleep. But what I regret and deplore in the
-attitude and in the language of these worthy Christian Censors,
-is not that they scrupulously and unsparingly expose prevalent
-evils, our bad propensities, and our foolish pretensions; but
-that they ignore what good there is in us, the progress which we
-make, and the just and salutary results to which we are tending.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15">{15}</a></span>
-The simultaneous presence, the profound intermixture, of good and
-evil, of virtue and vice, of wisdom and folly, is the chronic
-sore of man and of human societies; this is no new fact, no evil
-which we are the first to endure and for which we are the first
-to be responsible; it is the old condition of the world as it
-appears from the constant testimony of History; each of its ages
-has incurred and has merited reproaches, not the same, but at
-least as serious as those laid to the charge of our age; and if
-we were suddenly transported to any other epoch of the past, it
-matters not to which, I do not hesitate to affirm that we would
-not willingly accept that epoch in exchange for our own, nor
-should we even very much like to contemplate the spectacle.
-Severity is well, but justice is due to different periods and
-different conditions of society. In the last hundred years we
-have gained more, both in morality and in common sense, than we
-have ever forgotten.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16">{16}</a></span>
-<p>
-And here I am met by a question respecting which I will explain
-my view unreservedly and at once. Society in France has reached
-its actual condition only by a progressive effort, an advance
-more or less perceptible, more or less rapid, but not without
-numerous interruptions and vicissitudes; it has sought to escape
-in turn from the feudal system, from the pretensions and the
-selfish contests of the great nobles, from the predominance of
-the Court, from arbitrariness, from the improvidence and caprices
-of absolute power. National unity, civil equality, and political
-liberty have been, throughout the whole course of our history,
-the objects of our aim and desire. Our greatest thinkers, the
-actors on the stage of our Politics, the nation itself, with its
-tendency dimly marked, yet powerful, have constantly proceeded in
-this direction and towards this object. The Revolution of 1789
-was the most violent and most serious explosion of this incessant
-travail of France. Was it pregnant with fruitful consequences, or
-is the issue to be now deplored? France believed that she had
-then gained a great victory, not only for herself, but for all
-mankind. Did she deceive herself?
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17">{17}</a></span>
-Have we been for so many centuries proceeding in a good road or
-in a bad road, towards success or towards delusion? Are we
-progressing, or are we declining? It is a question upon which
-eminent men, and men whose opinions are entitled to every
-respect, are, at the present day, not all of the same opinion;
-for whereas some persist in a cry of triumph, others give but
-utterance to gloomy and alarming prognostics.
-</p>
-<p>
-I have some right to say that no one is more struck, more shocked
-than I am by the crimes, faults, errors, and follies both of
-opinion and action generated by this French Revolution; I never
-hesitated openly to characterise them as, in my opinion, they
-deserved; indeed the severe contests through which I have had to
-pass in my public career may, perhaps, in some degree have
-originated in my sincerity upon this subject. I had to confront
-many prejudices, and to wound much self-love. I regret no
-sentiment which I felt, and I retract no language which I used.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18">{18}</a></span>
-But in spite of the strong anti-revolutionary opinions which have
-been attributed to me, I was and still am convinced that, upon
-the whole, whatever the evil which that Revolution occasioned,
-and is occasioning, it nevertheless, served the good cause both
-of the nation and of Humanity; I believe that France and the
-world will gain by it more than they suffered, or are suffering,
-and that we are, in the midst of all our trials, still in an æra
-of progress, and not at the commencement of a decline. I derive
-motives for my Optimism upon this subject in the sphere of ideas
-as well as in that of facts. Theoretically the principles of 1789
-contain a large share of truth, truth pregnant of consequence,
-truth superior to the share of error which they contain, and
-which is, nevertheless, large. Historically the tendency and the
-travail of opinion which have been for centuries a source to
-France of incontestable progress in the way of justice, liberty,
-and social happiness, cannot have become, all of a sudden, a
-cause of decline.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19">{19}</a></span>
-Practically, in spite of all its ills and all its shortcomings,
-the present century has no cause to dread a comparison with past
-centuries. There never has been any epoch in the history of
-French society in which it would have bettered its condition by
-halting, or to which it should wish to return.
-</p>
-<p>
-I revert to my question; what perils, what obstacles, do our
-social institutions and our manners oppose to the establishment
-of Liberty with effect and upon a lasting footing? Is
-Christianity of a nature to stand us in good stead, or to hurt us
-in such a work?
-</p>
-<p>
-All earnest men, all clear-sighted men, at the present day,
-whether they are Conservatives or Liberals, Christians or
-Free-thinkers, Catholics or Protestants, are unanimous in
-deploring the preponderance of material interests, the thirst for
-physical and vulgar pleasures, and the habits of selfishness and
-effeminacy which they generate.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20">{20}</a></span>
-<p>
-They are right; we have indeed here an evil greater, when we
-consider what is the mission of our epoch, than perhaps even
-those believe it to be who deplore it. The Emperor Napoleon said,
-in a phrase marked by all the clear and forcible colouring of his
-habitual language:&mdash;"I do not fear conspirators who rise at ten
-o'clock in the morning, and who cannot do without a fresh shirt."
-[Footnote 13]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 13: "Je ne crains pas les conspirateurs qui se
-    lèvent à dix heures du matin, et qui ont besoin de mettre une
-    chemise blanche."]
-</p>
-<p>
-There is no question of conspirators here, and for the soul to be
-vigorous it is not essential that the care of the person should
-be neglected. What concerns those who would be free, whether
-individuals or nations, is that they should not have their
-attention essentially absorbed by considerations affecting merely
-their material prosperity, or their petty personal comforts; they
-have especially to guard themselves against selfishness and
-Epicureanism. Whether his tastes be refined or gross, the
-Epicurean does not readily resign himself to make either effort
-or sacrifice; but he is not difficult to content if he is
-permitted to enjoy his pleasures and his repose.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21">{21}</a></span>
-Selfishness, even where it is sober and gentle, is a cold and
-sterile passion, it owes its empire to its success in enervating
-and lowering a man's nature. Liberty calls for a character of
-more strength, higher aspirations, greater power of resistance; a
-state of soul offering freer action to moral sympathy and
-disinterested motives. It is precisely here that Christianity can
-supply modern society with that of which it stands in need.
-Christianity teaches all men, the great and the small, the rich
-and the poor, not to devote all their lives to material things;
-she summons them to more elevated regions, and whilst she
-inspires them with a purer ambition, she opens to them a fairer
-hope even of happiness. The Christian, whether his station be
-powerful or humble, and his aspirations ambitious or modest, can
-never find an exclusive object of attention, or an exclusive
-motive to action, even in that principle of interest which
-politicians, using the word in its best sense, vainly imagine to
-be a panacea.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22">{22}</a></span>
-Man, whether towards his fellow-creatures, or on his own account,
-has another object to pursue, other laws to accomplish, other
-sentiments to display and to satisfy: he can neither be an
-Epicurean nor an Egotist.
-</p>
-<p>
-This is the first and the greatest of the services which
-Christianity can and does render in our days to every society
-which aspires to Liberty. I proceed to mention a second service.
-</p>
-<p>
-There is no liberty without a large measure of license. They are
-dreamers who hope to enjoy the benefits of the one without
-incurring the risk, and undergoing the inconveniences, of the
-other. They, too, are dreamers who believe that license will ever
-be effectually repressed by penalties, courts of justice, or
-measures of Police. Two things are certain; the one is, that it
-is idle to attempt to repress license completely in a free
-country; the other, that the moral and preventive forces of
-society itself are alone to be relied upon, both by governments
-and nations, to enable them to support that license which they
-cannot suppress.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23">{23}</a></span>
-Christianity is the most efficacious, the most popular, and the
-most approved of these forces. It is efficacious against license
-for two reasons and in two ways. In principle, Christianity
-maintains to Authority its right and its rank intact; without
-humbling it before Liberty, Christianity yet recognises the
-rights of Liberty, and demands that these should be admitted; in
-fact Christianity inspires men with a sentiment, with which
-authority cannot dispense, respect. The absence of respect is the
-most serious danger to which authority is exposed; authority
-suffers much more from insult than from attack; it is precisely
-to the task of systematically insulting and debasing authority,
-that its most ardent opponents, in our days, address themselves
-with most passion and with most art. There exist licentious,
-turbulent, and insolent persons in Christian societies, just as
-such exist in other societies; but Christian principles and
-Christian habits make and maintain friends to Order in the great
-mass of the people as well as in the higher classes, friends to
-order, who respect order both in law and in morals, men whom
-licentious and insulting; conduct shock as much as they terrify,
-and who, equally free, appeal in their own favour to the maxims
-and the arms of Liberty.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24">{24}</a></span>
-History supplies us on this subject with conclusive examples. The
-nations of Christendom are the only nations to which license has
-not brought as a final consequence anarchy and despotism,&mdash;the
-only nations which, although they have on different occasions and
-by salutary reactions experienced the excesses both of power and
-of liberty, have not succumbed under them morally and
-politically. Neither the states of Pagan Antiquity nor those of
-the East, whether Bouddhist or Mussulman, have stood such trials;
-these have had their days of healthy vigour and even of glory;
-but when the evils which license or tyranny generated have once
-come upon them, they have fallen irretrievably, and all their
-subsequent history has merely been that of a decline more or less
-rapid, more or less stormy, more or less apathetic.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25">{25}</a></span>
-<p>
-It is the honour of the Christian Religion that it has within it
-that which can cure states of their maladies, as well as
-individuals of their errors; and that, by the belief which it
-generates, and the sentiments which it inspires, it has already
-more than once furnished, sometimes to the friends of Order, and
-sometimes to the friends of Liberty, a refuge in their reverses,
-as well as strength to recover lost ground.
-</p>
-<p>
-It would be as imprudent as ungrateful in these days for the
-friends of Liberty to ignore this grand fact and its salutary
-admonishment. They are called to a work much more difficult than
-any that they have hitherto had to accomplish: their task is no
-longer merely to search after guarantees for Liberty against the
-encroachments of pre-existent Power, or the accidental and
-transient ebullition of License. They have to reconcile the
-normal and constitutional dominion of Democracy with Liberty, and
-with the regular action and permanence of Liberty.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26">{26}</a></span>
-Until modern times, political liberty, wherever it has existed,
-has been the result of the simultaneous presence and of the
-conflict of different forces of society, no one of them strong
-enough to rule alone, but each too weak to resist efficaciously
-the attack of the others; at one time the Crown, at another the
-Aristocracy, at another the Church, each previously powerful and
-independent, have lived side by side with Democracy when
-Democracy has had limits and restrictions imposed upon its power
-and success; but at the present day, there are amongst us no
-distinct surviving influences which are powerful enough to play a
-similar part in society and in the government. The Crown, the
-Aristocracy, and the Church are no longer anything but frail
-wrecks of the past, or instruments created by the Democracy, and
-indebted to it for a borrowed force. Is this to be henceforth the
-permanent condition of human society, or is it only a phase, more
-or less transitory, of a series of ages and of revolutions, which
-fresh ages and fresh revolutions will hereafter profoundly
-modify? Futurity must decide. In any case, it is only under the
-exclusive dominion of a single force, Democracy, that in these
-days free institutions can be founded.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27">{27}</a></span>
-<p>
-That every dominant force when single is tempted to commit abuses
-and to become tyrannical, is a truth so much in accordance with
-the lessons of experience and with the conclusions of reason,
-that no pains need be taken to insist upon it. Not to speak of
-the dangerous acclivity upon which Democracy, in common with all
-other forces, is placed, it has peculiar characteristics which
-are not of a nature to set the friends of Liberty at their ease.
-Democracy derives its origin and power from the right of every
-human will, and from the majority of human wills. Truth and error
-press so very closely upon each other in this system, that
-Liberty is placed in a position of great peril. Man's volition is
-entitled to every respect; but it is not all its law to itself,
-nor is it in itself essentially a law at all: it is bound to
-another law, which does not emanate from itself, and which comes
-to it from a higher source than man, and which it is as unable to
-abrogate as it was to create.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28">{28}</a></span>
-The law paramount is the moral law,&mdash;the law laid down by God, to
-which all wills of men, whatever their number, are bound to
-submit. Democracy, essentially busied with the wills of men, is
-always inclined to attribute to them the character and the rights
-of divine law. Man occupies so much space in this form of
-government, and has so elevated a position there, that he easily
-forgets God&mdash;easily takes himself for God. The result is a sort
-of political polytheism, which, unless it appeals to a gross,
-material arbitrament, and to the majority of human wills, is
-incapable of arriving at that unity of law and of action, with
-which no society or government can dispense. I do not say that
-the individual man, and that numbers of men, are the only
-principles, but I do say, that they are principles characteristic
-of Democracy; it is against the absolute dominion of these two
-principles that Democracy has, in the interest of its own honour
-and of its own safety, to be incessantly admonished and defended.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29">{29}</a></span>
-A royal sage enjoined that he should be saluted every morning
-with the words, "Remember thou art man." This sublime and prudent
-admonition is no less needful for Democracy than for Royalty, and
-it is precisely the salutary service which is rendered to it by
-Christianity. In Christianity there is a light, a voice, a law, a
-history, which does not come from man, but which, without
-offending his dignity, sets him in his proper place. No belief,
-no institution, exalts man's dignity so highly, and at the same
-time so effectually represses his arrogance. The more democratic
-a society is, the more it is important that this double effect
-shall take place within it. Christianity alone has this virtue.
-</p>
-<p>
-I am aware of the capital objection made to its empire. "The
-Physic without the Physicians," exclaimed Rousseau, in a sally
-against medical men, but the expression shows nevertheless how
-little he was disposed to forget that it is possible for medicine
-to be good and salutary.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30">{30}</a></span>
-How often have I heard men of intelligence and men in all other
-respects very worthy of consideration, exclaim, "Let me have
-Religion without the priests: I am a Christian, but no friend of
-the clergy." I am far from seeking to leave this difficulty
-unnoticed, or to elude it. It is a difficulty of the gravest
-nature, not in essence, but in the actual circumstances and state
-of opinions at the present day.
-</p>
-<p>
-As a Protestant it does not concern me. The clergy is not amongst
-Protestants the object of any such uneasiness. One of the best
-results, in my opinion, of the Reformation of the 16th century,
-whether regarded as Lutheran or Calvinistic, as Anglican, or as
-the work of other Dissidents in religion, is that it strongly
-cemented the union between the ecclesiastics and the general
-religious community&mdash;between the spiritual and the lay members of
-the Church. The Reformation produced this effect, first, by
-authorising the clergy to marry and to enter into the relations
-which a life of family brings with it; and, secondly, by giving
-to the laity a share in the government of the Church.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31">{31}</a></span>
-The partition was not always judicious or equitable. At one time
-the clergy, at another the laity, have been transported from
-their natural places, and injured in their legitimate rights; but
-the relations between the two classes ceased to present the
-appearance of either absolutism on the one hand, or of entire
-subordination on the other; the laity obtained a voice and
-influence in the affairs of the flock; the priests, although
-remaining religious pastors and religious magistrates, ceased to
-be spiritual masters. This organisation has led to the two social
-institutions combining themselves in a variety of ways. At one
-time the civil power has invaded the government of the religious
-society, and deprived the clergy, not merely of empire, but of
-independence; at another time the two forms of society, the State
-and the Church, have regulated by treaty the terms of their
-mutual relations; whereas, in the United States of America, the
-two forms of society have been entirely separated, and have
-mutually recovered their independence;
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32">{32}</a></span>
-elsewhere, as amongst the Quakers and the Moravians, all
-ecclesiastical authority and orders of priesthood have been
-abolished, and laymen have lived in the isolation each of his
-individual conscience, obedient only to its spontaneous impulses.
-But amidst all this diversity, it is the fundamental
-characteristic of the churches and of the sects which issued from
-the Reform of the 16th century, that priests do not in themselves
-constitute the necessary and sovereign mediators between God and
-man's soul, nor the sole rulers of religious society. It is
-particularly by virtue of this principle that the distinction
-between civil life and religious life has become an efficacious
-and a consecrated doctrine, and that Liberty has resumed its
-right and become an active influence in religious society itself.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33">{33}</a></span>
-<p>
-But amongst Roman Catholic nations, priests are the objects of a
-persistent distrust which has been the fruitful source of much
-calamity to Christianity. History forbids surprise. The Roman
-Catholic clergy has often presented the spectacle of ambition and
-passion, of mundane and selfish interests, strangely intermixed
-with faith and with earnest zeal for the furtherance of their
-religious mission. Serious ills and grave abuses have resulted
-therefrom in the relation of Church to State, and of priests to
-their flocks, and even in the bosom of the Church itself. These
-are facts almost as undisputed as they are indisputable; in proof
-of them the testimony, not only of its adversaries, but of the
-holiest members of the Church of Rome itself, may be invoked.
-Nothing is more natural, and indeed more inevitable, than that
-this should have led and should still lead, not only to ill-will
-towards priests, but to their being regarded as proper subjects
-for attack. It is not, however, on that account less certain that
-such an attack is, in our days, and as society is at present
-constituted, unjust, silly, and inopportune, as injurious to
-State as to Church, to Liberty as to Religion. There may be
-injustice and ingratitude to institutions as well as to
-individuals.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34">{34}</a></span>
-From the fall of the Roman Empire, and during the rudest and most
-sombre ages of modern history, the Catholic clergy, whether as
-Popes, Bishops, monastic orders, or simple priests, in the midst
-of their selfish pretensions and ambitious usurpations, displayed
-and expended treasures of intellect, courage, and perseverance in
-order to affirm and protect the immaterial and moral interests of
-humanity. They did not on all occasions accept their mission to
-its full extent; they did not maintain the Christian Religion in
-all its breadth, and in all its evangelical disinterestedness;
-they had their share in the acts of violence, iniquity, and
-tyranny of the different masters of society for the time being;
-they often made Liberty pay dearly for the services which they
-rendered to civilization; but when Liberty has become one of the
-conquests of that very civilization, the proof as well as the
-guarantee for its further progress, there is injustice and
-ingratitude in forgetting what part the Roman Catholic clergy
-effected towards the constitution of that society, the ultimate
-result of which has been so glorious.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35">{35}</a></span>
-<p>
-The injustice is the greater that it is now inopportune and
-useless. From the acrimony, the anger, and alarm which
-characterise the attacks directed at Roman Catholicism and its
-Priests, we might suppose that the Inquisition was at our gates,
-that Rome was making a perilous onslaught upon our civil and
-religious liberties, and that we need to deploy all our force and
-all our passions to repulse the domination of the Court of Rome
-and of its army. Was there ever so strange a perversion of facts?
-For a century past, on which side has been the movement and the
-aggression? Is it not evidently the spirit of religious and
-political liberty which has now the initiative, the impulsive,
-onward movement? The defensive is the natural and enforced
-situation of the Roman Catholic Church; Romanism is much more
-menaced, much more attacked by public opinion in these days than
-our liberties are menaced or attacked by her. The supreme power
-in the Church of Rome, the Papacy, does indeed maintain, in
-principle, certain maxims and certain traditions irreconcileable
-with, the actual state of opinion and society; it continues to
-condemn authoritatively some of the essential principles of
-modern civilization.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36">{36}</a></span>
-In all earnestness, yet with every feeling of respect, I shall
-here make at once use of my right, both as a Protestant and as
-the citizen of a free country, to declare my profound conviction
-that this systematic persistence, however conscientious and
-dignified it may be, shows a great want of religious foresight as
-well as of political prudence. I think that Romanism, without
-abdication and without renouncing anything that is vitally
-essential to itself, might assume a position in harmony with the
-moral and social state in these days, and with the conditions
-also vitally essential to the existence of such state. I may add,
-that so long as the government of the Romish Church shall not
-have accepted and accomplished this work of
-conciliation&mdash;conciliation real and profound&mdash;the friends of
-Liberty will be justified in keeping themselves on the alert, and
-in maintaining a reserve towards it, as representing, themselves,
-those moral and liberal principles which it disavows.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37">{37}</a></span>
-But let them not attribute to this disavowal a greater importance
-than it deserves; let them watch the ecclesiastical power which
-utters it, without alarm; it has in it nothing very menacing,
-nothing that opposes any effectual barrier to the march of
-events; Liberalism is not the less victorious in these days, and
-not the less advancing. Many faults have been committed, and many
-probably will continue to be committed; as has already been the
-case, we shall have perhaps many a barrier opposed in our path,
-many a reactionary movement to endure, but the general onward
-impulse will nevertheless be the same, and the final result, the
-conquest of Liberty, religious, civil and political, not the less
-a certainty.
-</p>
-<p>
-This is no mere philosophical aspiration. It is already history.
-There have been many vicissitudes in France, and many a crisis of
-different kinds during the last hundred years in the struggle
-between Liberalism and Roman Catholicism; the former has often
-committed errors, made mistakes, by which Romanism has adroitly
-profited; but at every reverse Romanism has recognised her own
-defeat, and accepted some part of its consequences.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38">{38}</a></span>
-The Constituent Assembly by the civil organisation of the clergy,
-the National Convention by its proscriptions, had endeavoured,
-the one to enslave, the other to abolish the Catholic Church; the
-great master of the revolution, Napoleon, raised it up again by
-the Concordat of 1802; but the Concordat at the same time
-consecrated many of the fundamental principles of the liberal
-regime, and the Catholic Church of Rome consecrated Napoleon and
-signed the Concordat, even whilst protesting against some of its
-consequences. At the Restoration some wished to discuss again the
-question of the Concordat, and to re-establish the relation
-between Church and State upon their ancient foundations; but the
-attempt encountered, in the ranks of the Royalists themselves, a
-decisive resistance, and totally failed. Under the Government of
-1830, Roman Catholicism regained its ground and resumed fresh
-vigour by both using the name of Liberty and claiming its right.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39">{39}</a></span>
-When the Republic again appeared in 1848, Roman Catholicism
-treated it with as much tenderness as it experienced itself from
-the Republic. I pause before the actual relations of the Church
-of Rome to the new Empire; Rome has paid a dear price for all
-that she has received from the Empire; but even here she showed,
-and appears disposed still to show, a large measure of patience
-and resignation. She is right.
-</p>
-<p>
-One fact particularly arrests my attention in the course of this
-stormy history. In the midst of her reverses and her concessions,
-Roman Catholicism has displayed rare and energetic virtues of
-fidelity and independence. She has opposed to the bloody
-persecution of Terrorism, the inexhaustible blood of her martyrs,
-bishops, priests, monks, men and women; that Clergy of France,
-once so vacillating in faith and so mundane in morals, bore their
-cross with an indomitable sentiment of Christian honour.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40">{40}</a></span>
-The despotism of the Emperor Napoleon encountered in the person
-of Pope Pius VII., in some Cardinals, and some Bishops, a passive
-but firm resistance, which neither the power of the Despot, nor
-the contagious servility of their contemporaries, could surmount.
-And again, in these days, who can fail to perceive with what
-activity and devotedness, with what sacrifices and efficacy,
-Roman Catholicism, by the mere force of its native energy,
-upholds the cause of its chief and of itself? If civil society
-had defended its liberties and its dignities as the Church of
-Rome defends hers, Liberalism in France would be farther advanced
-on its road and towards its object.
-</p>
-<p>
-But let not Romanists deceive themselves: one cannot make use of
-Liberty without being forced to enter into an engagement and
-compromise with Liberty; one cannot appeal to Liberty without
-doing homage to her; she lays her hand upon those to whom she
-lends her aid. The great fact which I before invoked, the work of
-reconciliation between modern society and Roman Catholicism, is
-more advanced than those believe who still stand aloof from it
-and oppose it.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41">{41}</a></span>
-This is proved by two facts. In the very bosom of Roman
-Catholicism, and from amongst its most zealous defenders, that
-group of liberal Catholics was formed which has played and which
-continues to play so active a part in struggling for the
-Liberties of their church, and for the rights of their chief:
-these are at once the ornaments of then church, and its
-intellectual sword; and the publication which supports their
-views, the "Correspondant," is, next to the "Revue des deux
-Mondes," the periodical which meets with most success and has the
-greatest circulation. Passing from this brilliant group to the
-more modest ranks of the Roman Catholic clergy, I ask what is the
-disposition, the attitude, the conduct of those faithful and
-humble priests who exercise the Christian ministry in our
-provinces and in the inferior quarters of our cities; they have
-not always all the science, all the mental culture, which one
-might desire; but whilst adhering to Catholic faith and giving
-the example of Christian lives, they live in the midst of the
-people;
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42">{42}</a></span>
-they know it, they understand it; they are aware what the
-conditions are which permit them to live with and to exercise an
-influence upon the people; they enter by degrees into its
-sentiments and its instincts; without premeditation, almost
-without perceiving it, they become each day more and more men of
-their time and country, more familiar with the ideas and liberal
-tendencies of modern society. Thus at the two poles of Roman
-Catholicism, in its most elevated ranks and in its popular
-militia, the same result is obtained, in the one case by men of
-enlightened views and of superior ability, and in the other case
-by men of good sense and honesty of purpose; and thus in the
-Roman Church those moral and political principles of 1789 make
-their way, which form the basis of the new social edifice, of its
-laws, and of its liberties.
-</p>
-<p>
-I do not dispute, neither do I attack; I record facts as I
-observe and appreciate them. And in my opinion, with reference to
-French institutions,&mdash;for I speak only of France,&mdash;the essential
-consequences from these facts, as far as they bear upon the
-relations of Christianity to Liberty, are as follows.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43">{43}</a></span>
-<p>
-I have here not a word to say respecting the Protestant Church in
-France; the questions which have agitated her for some time past
-are questions of faith and internal discipline, entirely aloof
-from any incertitude or differences of opinion as to the rights
-of conscience or of religious society in their relations to civil
-society. Protestantism in France, whether orthodox or not, adopts
-and upholds the largest maxims as to religious liberty, and as to
-the guarantee for it, in the separation of religious life from
-civil life. The most zealous Liberals have nothing more in this
-respect to demand from even the most orthodox Protestants; these
-are indeed of their church the most urgent in claiming for
-religious society the right to have its internal autonomy, and to
-stand independently of the state. It is, on the contrary, Roman
-Catholics, and the advocates of the essential principles of
-modern society, who most dispute about the general question of
-liberty.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44">{44}</a></span>
-<p>
-The more I reflect, the more I am convinced that henceforth this
-question can only be seriously and efficaciously dealt with in
-one of two ways: the one is by the alliance of Church and State,
-on conditions which, whilst distinguishing civil life from
-religious life, shall guarantee to individuals religious liberty
-in civil society, and to the church itself its internal autonomy
-in matters of faith and of religious discipline. The other
-solution is the complete separation of Church and State, and
-their mutual independence.
-</p>
-<p>
-That the Church prefers the system of an Alliance with the State
-to that of the Church's Liberty and isolation from the State, I
-well understand.
-</p>
-<p>
-She is right. Alliance with the State is to her a sign of
-strength, a means of influence, a pledge for her dignity and her
-stability. The complete separation of the two societies leaves
-religious institutions, and particularly their clergy, in a
-fluctuating and precarious situation: a system essentially
-democratic, it rather places the ecclesiastical magistracy under
-the opinions and wills of its lay members, than these under the
-influence of the religious authorities.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45">{45}</a></span>
-This system is especially alien to the origin, the fundamental
-principle, and the Hierarchy, of the Roman Catholic Church; it is
-impossible for this Church to accept it unless urgently demanded
-by the interests of moral authority, independence, and liberty.
-But let not the Roman Catholic Church misapprehend; an alliance
-of Church with State has also conditions without which a Church
-would vainly expect any advantage; for the alliance to be serious
-and effectual, there must be between Church and State a large
-measure of harmony as to the essential principles of the
-religious society and of the civil society which the Church and
-the State respectively represent: if the two societies and those
-who govern them, do not mutually admit their respective
-principles, if they disavow each other incessantly, and carry on
-in the bosom of their alliance, a war, open or secret, all the
-good effect of such alliance disappears, and the alliance itself
-is soon compromised.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46">{46}</a></span>
-The treaties concluded at different epochs, under the name of
-Concordats, between Chambers and States in different countries of
-Christendom, have only been possible and efficacious, because
-there was a great basis of harmony in the fundamental
-institutions of the two contracting parties; they differed upon
-some points; they had reciprocally to make concessions and grant
-guarantees; but taken altogether they approved of each other and
-were sincere in supporting each other; peace was the point from
-which their alliance started, and the dissentiments which existed
-on each side had no reference to any vital questions. It suffices
-for us to cast a glance at the history of Catholicism in France,
-of the Anglican Church in England, of the Lutheran Church in
-Germany and in Sweden, to acknowledge this truth; and what is
-occurring and forming matter of negotiation in our days in Italy
-and in Austria, upon the subject of the relations of the Church
-with the State, furnishes a further striking confirmation.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47">{47}</a></span>
-In an age of liberty, of publicity, and of continual discussion,
-when it is possible for anything to be thought or said, and for
-any opinion to be maintained or attacked, it is more than ever
-indispensable that any treaty between Church and State should be
-serious and sincere; that is to say, that the two contracting
-parties should recognise and accept in each other, without
-equivocation and without subterfuge, the character which each
-really possesses. This is the only condition upon which an
-alliance can be real, becoming, and advantageous. In presence of
-the undisguised movements and the ever recurring and daring
-ventures of Liberty, a policy of reticence and procrastination,
-obscure and dim reservations, inconsistent expedients, and secret
-warfare, is no longer practicable; such policy, far from lending
-any help, discredits and weakens the power which places its trust
-in it.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48">{48}</a></span>
-As for me, I believe that the Catholic Church, if not without
-endangering her habits, at least without endangering her
-essential principles, has it in her power to set herself at peace
-with the fundamental principles of modern society and of actual
-civil governments; but should she either not wish or not know how
-to march towards this object and to obtain it, let her not give
-way to any illusion; alliance with the State would be rather a
-source of weakness and of peril to her than an advantage, and she
-would only eventually be driven to seek a refuge in the system of
-separation and complete independence.
-</p>
-<p>
-As for the State, the system which separates the two societies
-would free it from many a burthen and much embarrassment; but it
-would cause her other embarrassments, and lead to the loss of
-many advantages. It is convenient to discourse of the principle
-of a "Free church in a free country," but after the long alliance
-which has existed between them, it is easier to proclaim such
-principle than to apply it: not only is it impossible to divorce
-Church from State without violently wrenching asunder previous
-bonds, but more lasting consequences ensue; once disengaged from
-every connection with the civil power, ministers of religion busy
-themselves no longer about the interests of civil society; their
-thoughts are exclusively absorbed by questions of religion and
-its affairs.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49">{49}</a></span>
-Governments have long been accustomed to derive, and derive at
-the present day, a moral influence of great value from an
-alliance with the Church: but this influence supposes one
-condition which is not only especially important in our days, but
-of capital importance: in the actual state of opinion and of
-manners, no good results can be politically looked for from the
-alliance, if the civil power do not abstain from all interference
-in questions purely religious; the complete independence of the
-church and of its chiefs, in matters of faith and of religious
-discipline, is the only condition which can justify their giving
-their indirect support to the state government, and which can
-purge their support of all impure motives.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50">{50}</a></span>
-The alliance of the two powers could formerly, in a certain
-degree, co-exist with no inconsiderable confusion in their
-respective attributes, and a somewhat earnest claim on the part
-of each to domineer over the other; nothing similar can occur at
-the present day; neither Church nor State can any longer be the
-master or the servant of the other. Let neither princes nor
-priests deceive themselves; their reciprocal independence, and
-their uncontested empire, each in its own province, can alone
-give to their alliance the dignity which the alliance requires,
-if it is to be real, efficacious, and lasting.
-</p>
-<p>
-Every road leads me to the same point; to every question the
-facts give me the same answer. Liberty has need of Christianity,
-Christianity has need of Liberty. As modern society demands to be
-free, the religion of Christ is its most necessary ally.
-Christianity and civil society have mutually, I admit it, a grave
-feeling of disquietude and distrust; but this disquietude and
-distrust are not natural and inevitable results of principles
-essential to civil society and religious society, of any
-compulsory relations existing between them; they spring from the
-faults which the two institutions have committed towards each
-other, and from the contest which each has forced upon the other.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51">{51}</a></span>
-Liberty alone can effectually combat such sentiments which have
-become habitual and traditional. To dissipate them entirely,
-something besides Liberty is requisite; but without Liberty
-neither religious society nor civil society will obtain their
-legitimate objects, these objects being peace in their relations
-to each other, and the moral progress of man, and of the State,
-whether allied with or independent of the Church.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52">{52}</a></span>
-<br>
-           <h2>Second Meditation.
-<br><br>
-       Christianity And Morality.</h2>
-<br>
-<p>
-Two attempts are now being simultaneously made, of different
-characters, although, of the same origin and tendency. Seriously
-minded men, who persist in believing and calling themselves
-Christians, are labouring to separate Christian morals from
-Christian dogmas, and although they make Jesus their moral idea
-of humanity, are stripping him of his miracles and divinity.
-Others, who declare openly that they are no Christians, endeavour
-to separate morality in the abstract from religion in the
-abstract, and place the source of morality, as well as its
-authority, in human nature, and in it alone. On the one side we
-find a Christian morality independent of Christian faith; on the
-other a Morality independent of all religious belief, either
-natural or revealed: these two doctrines are in our days
-proclaimed and propagated with ardour.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53">{53}</a></span>
-<p>
-I frankly admit that their defenders are sincere in adopting and
-upholding them, and that they do so in the name of truth alone.
-In philosophy, as in politics, I believe error and honest
-intentions to be more general than falsehood and evil design.
-Moreover, who would discuss convictions, unless himself convinced
-that they are serious and earnest? Opinions founded on interested
-or hypocritical motives are not worth the honour of a discussion;
-they merit only to be attacked and unmasked. In the name of truth
-alone I combat the two doctrines to which I have alluded, and
-which some now strive to accredit.
-</p>
-<p>
-The true cause of this twofold attempt is the incredulity and the
-scepticism which prevail with regard to religion. Non-Christians
-are numerous; few Deists are quite sure of their belief and of
-its efficacy.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54">{54}</a></span>
-A necessity for morality is felt to exist; its right to regulate
-the actions of man is acknowledged; it is in order to preserve to
-it its integrity and its force that efforts are made to separate
-it from religion, from all religious creeds, all of which, it is
-here assumed, are either ruined or tottering. Thus, Independent
-Morality is, as it were, a raft, offered to the human soul, and
-to human society, to save their time-worn vessel from being
-wrecked.
-</p>
-<p>
-The idea is false, the attempt of evil consequence. They who
-flatter themselves that they can leave Christian morality
-standing, after wrenching it from Christian dogmas,&mdash;and they who
-believe it possible to preserve morality, after detaching it from
-religion,&mdash;err alike, for they fail to recognise the essential
-facts of human nature and of human society.
-</p>
-<p>
-Both doctrines are derived from an inexact and incomplete
-observation of these facts. I have already stated in these
-Meditations what I think of the isolation of Christian morality
-from Christianity, and the reason why I reject it.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55">{55}</a></span>
-At present I apply myself to the idea of independent morality,
-and in the name of a psychology, pure at once and severe, I
-affirm that there exists an intimate, legitimate, and necessary
-union between morality and religion.
-</p>
-<p>
-A preliminary observation occurs to me. Those who adopt the
-theory of an independent morality, start from the idea that there
-is a moral law, strange to and superior to all interested
-motives, to all selfish passions; these rank duty above, and
-treat it as independent of, every other motive of action.
-</p>
-<p>
-I am far from contesting this principle with them, but they
-forget that it <i>has</i> been, and still <i>is</i>, strongly
-contested: contested by both ancient and modern philosophers.
-Some have considered the pursuit of happiness, and the
-satisfaction of individual interests, as the right and legitimate
-aims of human life. Others have placed the rule of man's conduct,
-not in personal interests, but in general utility, in the common
-welfare of all mankind. Others have thought that they could
-perceive the origin and the guarantee for morals in the sympathy
-of human sentiments.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56">{56}</a></span>
-The moral and obligatory law, or duty, is far from being the
-recognised and generally accepted basis of morality; systems the
-most varied have arisen, and are incessantly forming themselves,
-with respect to the principles of morals, as with respect to
-other great questions of our nature; and the human understanding
-fluctuates no less in this corner of the philosophic arena than
-in the others. Let the moralists of the new school not deceive
-themselves; in proclaiming morality to be independent of
-religion, they mean to give it one fixed basis, the same for all,
-and they believe that they succeed in the attempt. They deceive
-themselves: morality, thus isolated, remains as much as ever a
-prey to the disputes of man.
-</p>
-<p>
-I pass over this grave misconception on the part of the defenders
-of the system, and I examine the system itself. Let us see if it
-is the faithful and full expression of human morality, if it
-contains all the facts which constitute its natural and essential
-elements.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57">{57}</a></span>
-<p>
-These facts I sum up as follows: the distinction between moral
-good and evil; the obligation of doing good and avoiding evil;
-the faculty of accomplishing or not this obligation. In brief and
-philosophic terms the Moral Law, Duty, and Liberty. These are the
-natural, primitive, and universal facts which constitute human
-morality; it is by reason and by virtue of these facts that man
-is a moral being.
-</p>
-<p>
-I have not here to enter into a discussion of these same facts; I
-do not occupy myself at this moment with systems which disregard
-or deny them, in whole or in part; all the three facts, or any
-one of the three. The partisans of the system of independent
-morality admit them all, as I do; the question between them and
-myself is this, whether or not, whilst rendering homage to the
-true principle of morality, they fully comprehend its
-signification, and accept its results.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58">{58}</a></span>
-<p>
-It is the characteristic and the honour of man that he is not
-satisfied with merely gathering facts which relate either to
-himself or to the external world, but that he seeks to know their
-origin and object, their import and bearing.
-</p>
-<p>
-In morals, as in physics, statistics are only the point from
-which science sets out; it is only after having well observed
-facts, and having verified them, that we have to discuss the
-questions which they raise, and the further ultimate facts which
-the facts already ascertained contain and reveal. The fact of
-human morality, such as I have just described it in its three
-constituent elements, the Moral Law, Duty, and Liberty, cannot
-fail to suggest these two questions: Whence proceeds the moral
-law, and whence is its authority? What is the sense, and what the
-ultimate result to the moral being himself, of the fulfilment or
-violation of his duty; that is to say, of the use which he makes
-of his liberty? No philosophical system can either suppress or
-elude these questions; they present themselves to the mind of man
-as soon as he directs his attention to the moral character of
-man's nature. I propose to consider in succession the three
-constituent elements of this great truth, so as to determine
-rightly its source and bearing.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59">{59}</a></span>
-<p>
-Moral law has neither been invented by man, nor does it spring
-from any human convention; man, by acknowledging it, admits that
-he has not created it, that he cannot abolish or change it.
-Political and civil laws are diverse and ever varying; they
-depend in a great measure upon time, place, social circumstances,
-or human will; when men adopt or reject them, they do so with the
-feeling that they are the masters of them, to deal with them
-accordingly as their interests or their fancies suggest.
-</p>
-<p>
-But when a law presents itself to them in the form of a moral
-law, they feel that this is not dependent on them, that it takes
-its source and derives its authority elsewhere than from their
-own opinion or volition. They may mistake in rendering or in
-refusing homage to a particular precept of conduct; they may
-attach to laws a moral value which they do not intrinsically
-possess, or pass unnoticed the really moral character of another
-law, and the obligations which it imposes upon them; but wherever
-they believe that they perceive the character of a moral law,
-they bow before it as before something which does not emanate
-from them, and before a power of a different nature from man's.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60">{60}</a></span>
-<p>
-The moral law no more belongs to the general mechanism of the
-world, than to the invention of man; it has none of the
-characteristics that mark the laws of physical order; none of the
-results which follow from them; it is by no means inherent in the
-forms or combinations of matter; it does not govern the relations
-or movements of bodies; obligatory, and fixed as fate, it
-addresses itself solely to that intelligent and free being, of
-whom Pascal said, in his grand language, "If the universe were to
-crush him, still man would be more noble than that which
-destroyed him, because he knows that he dies; and of the
-advantage that the universe has over him, the universe knows
-nothing." Man does much more than know that he dies; it happens,
-sometimes, that he encounters death voluntarily&mdash;that he chooses
-to die in obedience to the moral law. It is the law of Liberty.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61">{61}</a></span>
-<p>
-What mean these words, Law of Liberty? How does this law, called
-Duty, come to establish itself in the human mind, and command
-man's Liberty to respect it?
-</p>
-<p>
-Some essay to found Duty upon Right, and to derive its authority
-solely from the independence and dignity of humanity. Man, it is
-said, feels and knows that he is a free agent; as such it is his
-right that no human being shall attack his independence or his
-dignity. He finds in every other human being the same nature, and
-therefore the same right as he possesses himself. Thus mutual
-right is derived from individual right, and "Duty is nothing but
-the right which it is recognised that another possesses."
-[Footnote 14]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 14: La Morale Independante,
-    a weekly journal, No. 1, 6th August, 1865.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62">{62}</a></span>
-<p>
-There is here a profound mistake, and a strange forgetfulness.
-</p>
-<p>
-Why, when a man finds himself in relation with his fellow-men,
-does he attribute to them the same right which he recognises
-himself as possessing, and which he calls upon them to see and
-admit there? If this is a prudent calculation, the wisdom which
-arises from a correct appreciation of his interest, let us have
-done with it, it is not morality. If, prudence and interest
-apart, man regards himself as bound to pay, to the independence
-and personal dignity of his fellow-men, the same respect, and to
-attribute to them the same right, as he lays claim to for
-himself; if reciprocity becomes in this manner the fundamental
-principle of morality, what becomes of the obligation where there
-is no reciprocity? Will man be bound to respect in others the
-right which will not be respected in himself? If he is bound to
-it in all cases, and in spite of everything, then Duty has
-another source than the mutual respect of persons. If he is, on
-the other hand, not bound to it in all cases, what becomes of the
-paramount and absolute character of Duty; in other words, of the
-moral law? It is no longer anything but law upon condition.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63">{63}</a></span>
-<p>
-Not merely the religion of Christ, but all the great doctrines of
-the world, religious or philosophical, peremptorily refuse to
-attach this conditional character of reciprocity to the moral
-law; all maintain that duty is in every case absolute and
-imperative, independently of the conduct of others. "If ye love
-them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love
-those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to
-you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same."
-"Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing
-again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the
-children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and
-to the evil." [Footnote 15]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 15: Luke vi. 32, 33, 35.]
-</p>
-<p>
-"Be ye," say the laws of Menou to the Hindoos, "as the wood of
-the sandal tree, that perfumes the hatchet which wounds it." If
-we interrogate Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Kant; in whatever other
-respect they may disagree, they think upon this fundamental point
-with the Gospel and the Laws of Menou.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64">{64}</a></span>
-<p>
-It is in the confusion of Duty and of Right, and in the inversion
-of their natural and their true order, that the error resides of
-those who maintain the Theory of an Independent Morality. Duty is
-the moral law of men's actions; law intimate, personal. Right, on
-the other hand, is derived from the application of the moral law
-to the relations of men. I will not deny myself the great yet
-melancholy pleasure of citing upon this subject a few words of a
-person whose mind and life were united to mine, and who, in a
-modest essay, threw over this important subject a flood of light
-as vivid as it is pure: "The word Right, brings with it the idea
-of a relation to something. As every Right is an application of a
-moral law to the different relations of Society, there exists not
-a Right of which Society is not the occasion. A Right is only the
-moral power of an individual over the Liberty of another: a power
-attributed to him by virtue of the moral law which regulates the
-relations of men with one another.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65">{65}</a></span>
-Duty is the sole basis of Right. Did there exist no duties there
-would exist no rights. There is no claim of a right which does
-not affirm a Duty to be its source. Duty applied as a rule to
-govern the relations of man to man constitutes justice; justice
-cannot exist without Duty; a thing is neither just, nor unjust,
-as far as regards the being who has not had the duty prescribed
-to him of distinguishing between them. Ideas of Right are as
-essential to men as ideas of duty; for if the idea of Duty is the
-social bond;&mdash;the means of peace and of Union amongst
-mankind;&mdash;the idea of Right constitutes the arms, offensive and
-defensive, which society gives to men, for reciprocal use. Every
-man has a consciousness of his own rights, which aids him to keep
-others in the line of their duty; but rights only so far aid him
-to do this, as the duty upon which they are founded is known and
-respected; for with regard to that man who ignores his duty, the
-man who has a right has absolutely nothing.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66">{66}</a></span>
-Right is a moral power producing its effects without the help of
-physical force; if he who has both right and power must employ
-the power to enforce his right, it is no longer his right which
-triumphs, it is his power; his right remains to him to justify
-the employment of force; but it is not his right which has made
-his cause triumph. Thus it is that the idea of Duty is the basis
-of society, and is at the same time the basis of the idea of
-right, an idea which in its turn contributes also to the
-stability of society. To found society upon the sole idea of
-duty, is to deprive society of one of its most powerful means of
-defence and of development; to strip the tree of the buds which
-serve to give it at once strength and amplitude. To found society
-upon the idea of Right without the idea of duty, is to cut away
-the very roots of the tree." [Footnote 16]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 16: "Essai sur les idées de droit et de devoir
-    considérées comme fondement de la société." It is inserted in
-    the work entitled, "Conseils de Morale, ou Essais sur
-    l'homme, les mœurs, les caractères, le monde, les femmes,
-    l'education, etc. Par Madame Guizot, née de Meulan,"
-    (2 vols. 8vo, 1828) vol. ii., pp. 147-271.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67">{67}</a></span>
-<p>
-This is not all. Besides the mistake which they commit in
-considering Duty as a mere consequence of Right, derived from the
-independence and dignity of man as man, the advocates of the
-theory of an independent morality forget an entire class of moral
-elements occupying an important position in our nature; I mean,
-the instinctive sentiments intimately allied to the Moral Law,
-sentiments to which the notion of a Right, founded upon the
-independence and dignity of man's personality, is completely
-strange. Is it on account of the independence and dignity of
-man's personality that fathers and mothers regard it as their
-duty to love their children, to take charge of them, to work for
-and devote themselves to them? Is it by virtue of this principle,
-and of the right which flows from it, that children are bound to
-honour their father and their mother? Man's soul, man's
-existence, is full of moral relations and moral acts, in which
-the idea of Right has no part; no part, I mean, in the sense
-which these theorists of an independent morality attach to it:
-their system is no more an explanation of Sympathy than of Duty.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68">{68}</a></span>
-<p>
-I am touching upon the source of their error. If they make the
-principle of human morality consist in a Right emanating from
-man's Liberty and man's intelligence, it is that they see in man
-only a free and intelligent being. Strange ignorance, and
-mutilation of man's nature. At the same time that he is a free
-and intelligent being, man is a being dependent and subject: he
-is dependent, in the material order, upon a power superior to his
-own; and subject, in the moral order, to a law which he did not
-make, which he cannot change, which he is forced to admit even
-whilst he is free not to obey it; a law from which he cannot
-withdraw himself without troubling his soul and endangering his
-future. Morality in a sense is in effect independent; it is
-essentially independent of man; man, the free agent man, is its
-subject. Morality is truly the law of Liberty of Action.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69">{69}</a></span>
-<p>
-Liberty is not an isolated fact, which exhausts itself by working
-its own completion, and which, once accomplished, remains without
-further consequences. To Liberty is attached Responsibility. When
-the human being, giving effect to his free will, resolves and
-acts, he feels that he is responsible for his resolution and his
-act. The Laws of Society declare this to him in express terms,
-for they punish him if they judge his act to be criminal; not
-merely because they find his act to be hurtful, but because they
-find it to be morally culpable: for, were its author pronounced
-to be mad, or his mind or volition recognised as unsound, the
-laws of society would acquit him. And if a culprit escape legal
-punishment, he does not escape from the internal punishment of
-remorse. Without speaking of penal laws, remorse is at once the
-proof and the sanction of moral responsibility. Possible it is
-that all remorse may be lulled to sleep in the mind of the
-hardened offender; but there are a thousand instances to prove
-that it may be always reawakened.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70">{70}</a></span>
-Neither in good nor in evil is man's nature entirely effaced.
-Repentance sometimes hides itself in recesses so profound, that
-to penetrate thither is impossible, except for the soul which
-feels repentance even when seeking to escape from it.
-</p>
-<p>
-As Liberty supposes responsibility, so Responsibility supposes an
-idea of merit or of demerit attaching naturally to the use made
-of liberty. I set aside here all the questions, in my opinion,
-ill put and wrongly solved by Theologians, upon this subject of
-merit or demerit. According to the general sentiment and common
-sense of all mankind, there is merit for a man in the
-accomplishment of Moral Law, there is demerit in its violation.
-It is a fact recognised and proclaimed even in the simplest and
-most ordinary incidents of human life, as well as in the
-political organisation of society, and in the problems which
-concern the eternal future.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71">{71}</a></span>
-However the recompense or the punishment may be accelerated or
-delayed; whatever its nature or its measure; the moral career of
-a man is not complete, nor the moral order established, until the
-responsibility inherent in his Liberty has received its
-complement and arrived at its end in the just appreciation and
-equitable return made to him for his merits or demerits.
-</p>
-<p>
-Thus far I have spoken of Independent Morality; I have
-scrupulously confined myself to studying moral facts as man's
-nature, and man's nature alone, presents them to us. I have
-considered and described them as they are in themselves, entirely
-apart from every other element and every other consideration.
-Those moral facts are briefly as follows:&mdash;
-</p>
-<p class="cite">
-  The distinction between moral good and moral evil.
-<br><br>
-  The Moral Law, the duty of doing good and avoiding evil.
-<br><br>
-  Moral Liberty.
-<br><br>
-  Moral Responsibility.
-<br><br>
-  Moral merit and demerit.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72">{72}</a></span>
-<p>
-These are, I admit, facts which man recognises in himself as the
-proper and intimate characteristics of his own nature. But these
-truths once recognised and determined, what is their import? Are
-they facts isolated in human nature, as they are in Psychology,
-or have they anterior causes and necessary consequences! Are they
-self-sufficing, or do they contain and reveal other truths which
-form their complement and their sanction? The human mind cannot
-elude this question.
-</p>
-<p>
-I have established that the moral law is not of human invention;
-that it does not exist merely by man's agreement; that it is not
-one of those laws of fate by which the material world is
-governed. It is the law of the intellectual world, of the free
-world; a law superior to that world which, by recognising it as
-law, recognises itself at the same time both as free and subject.
-Who is the author of that law? Who imposes it upon man&mdash;upon man
-of whom it is not the work, and whom it governs without
-enslaving? Who placed it above this world where the present life
-is passed?
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73">{73}</a></span>
-Evidently there must be a superior power from which the moral law
-emanates, and of which it is a revelation. With the good sense
-which his frivolity and his cynicism made him so oft forget,
-Voltaire said, speaking of the material world and the order
-reigning in it:&mdash;
-<p class="cite">
-  "Je ne puis songer<br>
-  Que cette horloge existe et n'ait point d'horloger."
-<br><br>
-  I cannot think<br>
-  This clock exists and never had a maker.
-</p>
-<p>
-In the moral world we have to do with something far different
-from a clock; nor are we in the presence of a machine
-constructed, regulated, once for all; the law of Order, that is
-to say, the moral law, is incessantly in contact with man's free
-agency; man does homage to the law which he is yet at liberty to
-accomplish or to violate; the law is a manifestation of the
-supreme legislator, of whose thought and will it is the
-expression. God moral sovereign, and man free subject, are both
-contained in the fact of the moral law. In this fact alone Kant
-found God; he erred in not also finding God elsewhere; but it is
-nevertheless true that it is in the moral law, the rule of human
-Liberty, that God shows himself to man most directly, most
-clearly, most undeniably.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74">{74}</a></span>
-<p>
-Just as the moral law, without a sovereign legislator to impose
-it upon man, is an incomplete and inexplicable fact, a river
-without source, just so the moral responsibility of the free
-agent man, without a supreme judge to apply it, is an incomplete
-and inexplicable fact, a source without outlet, which runs and
-loses itself no one can tell whither. Just as the moral law
-reveals the moral legislator, just so does moral Responsibility
-reveal the moral judge. Just as the moral law is no law of human
-invention, just so human judgments, rendered in the name of moral
-responsibility, are hardly ever the judgments perfectly true and
-just which such responsibility expects and calls for. God is
-contained in the moral law as its primal author, and in moral
-responsibility as its definitive judge. The moral system, that
-is, the empire of the moral law, is incomprehensible and
-impossible if there is no God there, not only to establish it in
-a region above and paramount to man's free agency, but to
-establish it when troubled by man's conduct as a free agent.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75">{75}</a></span>
-<p>
-Thus the moral truths, inherent in and proper to the human
-nature&mdash;that is, the distinction between moral good and moral
-evil, moral obligation, moral responsibility, moral merit and
-demerit,&mdash;are necessarily and intimately connected with the
-truths of Religion; for instance, with God moral legislator, God
-moral spectator, God moral judge. Thus morality is naturally and
-essentially connected with religion. Morality is, it is true, a
-thing special and distinct in the ensemble of man's nature and of
-man's life, but it is in no respect independent of the ensemble
-to which it belongs. It has its particular place in that
-ensemble, but it is only in that ensemble that its existence is
-reasonable, thence only that it derives its source and its
-authority.
-</p>
-<p>
-Morals may, in the order of science, be separately observed and
-described; but in the order of actuality morality is inseparable
-from Religion.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76">{76}</a></span>
-<p>
-What would be said of a physiologist if he maintained that the
-heart is independent of the brain, because those two organs are
-distinct, organs which are closely united and indispensable to
-each other in the unity of the human being?
-</p>
-<p>
-The spectacle of the world leads us to the same result as the
-study of man, and reads us the same lesson. History confirms
-Psychology. What is the great action which makes itself most
-remarkable upon the stage of human societies? The constant
-struggle of good with evil, of just with unjust. In this struggle
-what shocking disorders! What iniquity perpetrated! How frequent
-an interregnum in the empire of the moral law and of justice, and
-what vicissitudes there! At one time the moral decree is expected
-in vain, and the human conscience remains painfully troubled by
-the successes of vice and of crime: at another time, contrary to
-all expectation, and after the most deplorable infractions of the
-moral law, the moral judgment comes.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77">{77}</a></span>
-"In vain," said Chateaubriand fifty years ago, "does Nero
-prosper; Tacitus already lives in the empire; he grows up
-unnoticed near the ashes of Germanicus, and already a just
-providence has left in the hands of an obscure child the fame of
-the master of the world." Chateaubriand was right: Tacitus was
-the avenger of the moral law outraged by the masters of the Roman
-Empire; he was the judge of their triumphs; but in that very
-Empire the most victorious of its masters, Marcus Aurelius, after
-having consecrated his life to the search after and the practice
-of the moral law, dies in profound sadness beneath his tent on
-the banks of the Danube; sad on account of his wife, sad on
-account of his son, and of the future of that world which he had
-governed, and which was only to be renewed, and regenerated, by
-those Christians whom he had persecuted. Everything is
-incomplete, imperfect, incoherent, obscure, contradictory, in
-this vast conflict of men and actions called History; and
-Providence, the personification of eternal wisdom and justice,
-sometimes manifests itself there with <i>éclat</i>, and sometimes
-remains there, inert and veiled, beneath the most sombre
-mysteries.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78">{78}</a></span>
-Is such the normal, definitive state of the universe? Shall
-truth, shall justice, never assume there more space than they now
-occupy? When shall light dawn upon the darkness? Who restore
-order to this chaos? Man evidently is insufficient to the task;
-in the world, as in individual man, the moral principle is still
-mutilated, and too infirm for its mission, unless it is
-intimately united to the religious principle. Morality can as
-little dispense with God in the life of the human race, as in
-that of the individual man.
-</p>
-<p>
-In these days more than ever morality has need of God. I am far
-from thinking ill of my country or of my age; I believe that they
-progress, that they have a future; but humanity is now-a-days
-exposed to a rude trial. On one side we have been witnesses to
-events of the most contradictory character: everything in the
-world of opinion has been questioned; everything in that of facts
-has been shaken, overthrown, raised up again, left tottering.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79">{79}</a></span>
-Oppressed by this spectacle, what remains to men's minds more
-than feeble convictions&mdash;dim hopes? On the other side, in the
-midst of this universal shock of minds, science, and man's power
-over the surrounding world, have been prodigiously extended and
-confirmed; light has shone more and more brightly upon the
-material world, at the very moment when it was becoming paler and
-paler, declining more and more, in the moral world. We have
-plucked and are still plucking, more actively than ever, the
-fruit of the tree of knowledge; whereas the rules of human
-conduct, the laws of good and of evil, have become indistinct in
-our thought. Man remains divided between pride and doubt;
-intoxicated by his power, and disquieted by his weakness. Man's
-soul, how perturbed! human morality, how endangered!
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80">{80}</a></span>
-<p>
-Thus far I have treated the subject with far more reserve and
-indulgence for the opinions of others than I intended. I have
-limited myself to the bounds assigned to the question by the
-advocates of the theory of independent morality themselves. I
-have done nothing more than set in broad daylight the intimate,
-natural, and necessary connection of morals with religion; of
-man, moral being, with God, moral sovereign. I am only at the
-threshold of the truth. It is not merely to religion in general
-that morality pertains; it is not merely the idea of God of which
-it has need; it requires the constant presence of God, his
-unceasing action upon the human soul. It is from Christianity
-alone that morality can now derive the clearness, force, and
-security, indispensable for the exercise of its empire. And it is
-not for her practical utility, it is for her truth, her intrinsic
-value, that I hold Christianity to be necessary to the human
-soul, and to human societies. It is because she is in perfect
-harmony with man's moral nature; and because she has been already
-tested in man's history; that Christianity is the faithful
-expression of the moral law, and the legitimate master of the
-moral being.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81">{81}</a></span>
-<p>
-The first and the incomparable characteristic of Christianity, is
-the extent, I should rather say the immensity, of her moral
-ambition. The moral system established by Christ has often been
-contrasted with the reforms aimed at by great men whose endeavour
-it also was to fix moral laws for man's conduct, and to secure
-their empire over him. Jesus has been compared to Confucius,
-Zoroaster, Socrates, Cakia-mouni, Mahomet. The comparison is
-singularly inappropriate and superficial. The wisest, the most
-illustrious, of these moral reformers, even the most powerful,
-understood and accomplished at best but a very limited and
-incomplete work; sometimes they only sought to place in a clear
-light the rational principles of morality; sometimes they gave to
-their disciples, addressing themselves to these alone, rules for
-conduct in conformity with rational principles of morality; they
-taught a doctrine or established rules for discipline; they
-founded schools or sects.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82">{82}</a></span>
-The Christian work was something quite different. Jesus was not a
-philosopher who entered into discussions with his disciples, and
-instructed them in moral science; nor a chief who grouped around
-him a certain number of adepts, and subjected them to certain
-special rules which distinguish, nay sever, them from the mass of
-mankind: Jesus expounds no doctrine, sets up no system of
-discipline, and organises no particular society: he penetrates to
-the bottom of the human soul, of every soul; he lays bare the
-moral disease of humanity, and of every man; and he commands his
-disciples with authority to apply the cure, first to themselves,
-and then to all men:&mdash;"Save your soul, for what would it profit a
-man to gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul?" "Go and
-preach to all nations."
-</p>
-<p>
-What philosopher, what reformer, ever conceived an idea so
-ambitious, so vast? ever undertook to solve so completely, so
-universally, the moral problem of man's nature and man's destiny?
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83">{83}</a></span>
-<p>
-And this was no chimerical ambition; the mission of Christ has
-been pursued, and is still being pursued in the world, its onward
-movement often crossed, interrupted, altered, never hopelessly
-arrested. And during the first three centuries of Christianity,
-it was in the name and solely with the arms of Faith and of
-Liberty, that she commenced her enterprise of vanquishing man and
-the world. And in these days, after the lapse of nineteen
-centuries, in spite of the intermixture of error, of crime, and
-evil, it is with the same arms, and with them alone, that
-Christianity, in the name of Faith and of Liberty, and exposed to
-fresh and violent attacks, resumes in the moral world the same
-task, and promises herself fresh success.
-</p>
-<p>
-Without attempting, indeed, to sound them to their depths, let me
-at least indicate the causes of this indomitable vitality of the
-Christian Religion, and show why the hope is well founded which
-she entertains in the midst of her trials.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84">{84}</a></span>
-<p>
-Of the moral philosophers, almost all are either bitter censors,
-cold observers, or flatterers of human nature. Some of them
-proclaim that man is naturally good, and that his vices are
-solely due to the bad institutions of society. Some, again,
-regard self-interest and self-esteem as the only springs of human
-actions. Others describe the errors and foibles of man with a
-careful sagacity, and yet a sagacity that does not indispose them
-to jeer and mock at them, as if they were actors in a drama, both
-amused themselves and amusing the spectators. How different the
-regard and the sentiment of Jesus when contemplating man: how
-serious that regard! how profound, how pregnant with effect that
-sentiment! No illusion, no indifference with respect to the
-nature of man; full, he knows it to be, of evil and at the same
-time of good; inclined to revolt against the moral law, at the
-same time that it is not incapable of obeying it; he sees in man
-the original sin, source of the troubles and of the perils of his
-soul: he does not regard the evil as incurable; he contemplates
-it with an emotion at once severe and tender, and he attacks it
-with a resolution superior to every discouragement, and prepared
-for every sacrifice.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85">{85}</a></span>
-Why should I not simply employ Christian terms, the most genuine
-of any, as well as the most impressive? Jesus lays bare the sin
-without reserve, and without reserve devotes himself to the
-sinner's salvation. What philosopher ever comprehended man so
-well, and loved him so well, even whilst judging him so freely
-and so austerely?
-</p>
-<p>
-Jesus does not occupy himself less with man's futurity than with
-man's nature. At the same time that he lays down, in all its
-rigour, the principle of the moral law, the pure accomplishment
-of duty, he forgets not that man has need of happiness, and
-thirsts after happiness, after a happiness pure and lasting; he
-opens to virtue the prospect of its attainment, he holds out a
-hope, foreign to all worldly objects, hope of an ideal happiness
-inaccessible to the curiosity of man's mind, but apt to satisfy
-the aspirations of his soul, and not, as it were, a conquest to
-be effected by merit, nor the acquittal of a debt, but a
-recompense to be accorded to the virtuous efforts of man by the
-equitable benevolence of God.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86">{86}</a></span>
-The Christian Religion, at the same time that it compels man
-during this life to constant and laborious exertion, has in store
-for him, if only he labour in accordance to the law, "the kingdom
-of God" and "the promises of eternal life."
-</p>
-<p>
-Thus, Jesus knows human nature entirely, and satisfies it; he
-keeps simultaneously in view man's duties and his necessities,
-his weaknesses and his merits. He does not allow the curtain to
-fall upon the rude scenes of life, and the sad spectacles of the
-world, without any <i>dénouement</i>. He has a prospect, and a
-futurity, and a satisfaction for man, superior to his trials, and
-superior to his disappointments. In what manner does Jesus attain
-this result? How does he touch all the chords of man's soul, and
-respond to all its appeals? By the intimate union of morality
-with religion, of the moral law with moral responsibility: sole
-view, complete at once and definitive, of the nature and destiny
-of humanity; sole efficacious solution of the problems which
-weigh upon the thought and life of man!
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87">{87}</a></span>
-<p>
-I say the sole efficacious solution. Efficacy is, in truth, the
-peculiar, the essential characteristic of Christianity. However
-high-reaching the ambition of philosophy is, it is infinitely
-less so than that of religion. The ambition of philosophers is
-purely scientific. They study, observe, discuss; their labours
-produce systems, schools. The Christian Religion is a practical
-work, not a scientific study. At the base of its dogmas and of
-its precepts there is certainly a philosophy, and, in my opinion,
-the true philosophy; but this philosophy is only the point from
-which Christianity departs, not its object. The object is to
-induce the human soul to govern itself according to the divine
-law; and to attain this object it deals with man's nature as it
-is, in its entirety, with all its different elements, all its
-sublime aspirations. There, to borrow the language of strategy,
-we see the basis of operation of Christianity; the basis upon
-which it enters upon its moral struggle, and upon which it
-undertakes to ensure the triumph in man of good over evil, and to
-procure the salvation of man by his reformation.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88">{88}</a></span>
-<p>
-When I published, two years ago, the Second Series of these
-Meditations&mdash;the subject of which is the actual state of the
-Christian Religion&mdash;I essayed to characterise therein the
-fundamental errors of the different philosophical systems which
-combat it. I sent, according to my custom, the volume to my
-companion in life, and my <i>confrère</i> at the Institute, M.
-Cousin, with whom, notwithstanding our differences of opinion, I
-maintained always very friendly relations. On the 1st June, 1866,
-he wrote to me from the Sorbonne the following letter:&mdash;
-<p class="cite">
-  "My dear Friend,
-<br><br>
-  "As soon as I received your book I hastened to read it, and I
-  tell you very sincerely that I am very content with it. The
-  little difference between our opinions, which you have not
-  pretended to conceal, are inevitable, because they are the
-  consequence of a general dissimilarity in the manner in which
-  we form our conceptions of the nature of philosophy and of the
-  nature of religion.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89">{89}</a></span>
-  These two great powers may and ought to be in accord, still
-  they are different. To Religion belongs an influence of an
-  elevated and universal kind; to philosophy an influence more
-  restricted, and still very elevated. The one addresses itself
-  to the entire soul, comprising in it the imagination; the other
-  only addresses itself to the reason. The first sets out from
-  mysteries, without which there is no religion; the second sets
-  out from clear and distinct ideas, as has been said both by
-  Descartes and by Bossuet. This distinction is the foundation of
-  my philosophy and of my religion; and this distinction is also,
-  in my view, the principle of their harmony. To confound them
-  is, I think, an infallible mode of confusing them each by the
-  other, as Malebranche has done. To absorb philosophy in
-  religion gave, in Pascal, the result of a faith full of
-  contradiction and of anguish; to absorb religion in philosophy
-  is an extravagant enterprise, of which sound philosophy must
-  disapprove. To admit them both, each in its place, is truth,
-  grandeur, and peace.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90">{90}</a></span>
-<p class="cite">
-  "Hence you perceive the reason of our differences of opinion,
-  which are no more hurtful to our union, than they are to our
-  old and sincere friendship."
-</p>
-<p>
-I replied to him on the 13th of June:&mdash;
-</p>
-<p class="cite">
-  "I count, as well as you, my dear friend, upon our
-  dissentiments not being hurtful to our old and sincere
-  friendship; and I feel the more pleasure in so counting,
-  because, independently of our particular and petty
-  dissentiments, there is, as you say, between us a general, a
-  profound difference of opinion. I think, as you do, that
-  philosophy is not to be confounded or absorbed in religion, nor
-  religion in philosophy. I regard them both as free in their
-  manifestations and in their influence; but I do not found their
-  distinction or their accord upon the same grounds as you do.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91">{91}</a></span>
-  To me, philosophy is but a science, that is the work of man,
-  limited in its sphere and reach, as is man's mind itself.
-  Religion, in its principle and its history, is of divine origin
-  and institution. The one springs from man's avidity of
-  knowledge; the other is the light coming from God, 'which
-  shines upon every man that comes into the world,' and which God
-  continues to maintain and to shed over the world, according to
-  his impenetrable designs, by the act, general or special, of
-  his free will.
-<br><br>
-  "I will not say more. We know, both of us, how far our opinions
-  are in the same road, and where is the point of divergence."
-</p>
-<p>
-I had left Paris when I received M. Cousin's letter. He was at
-Cannes when I returned to Paris. We never saw each other
-afterwards. He has preceded me to that region where light is shed
-upon the mysteries of this life. But in our last correspondence
-we had each touched in a few words upon the knot of the whole
-question.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92">{92}</a></span>
-It is this&mdash;What are the points of resemblance, and what of
-difference, between Religion and science, between Christianity
-and philosophy? Although M. Cousin and I agreed as to the
-reciprocal rights of these two influences to liberty of action,
-we entertained different sentiments as to their origin and their
-nature, and consequently as to the boundaries of their empire,
-and the character of their mission.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93">{93}</a></span>
-<br>
-           <h2>Third Meditation.
-<br><br>
-        Christianity And Science.</h2>
-<br>
-<p>
-It is the faith of Christians, and the point from which
-Christianity starts, that the Scriptures, which render an account
-of its origin, its dogmas, and its precepts, are divinely
-inspired. Not that Christians understand by these words that
-divine action upon the mind of man so often called inspiration,
-and of which Cicero said, "No one has ever been a great man
-without some divine inspiration;" [Footnote 17] and of which
-Plato was thinking when he said, "It is not by art that they make
-these noble poems, but because a God is in them, by whom they are
-possessed. &hellip; They do not speak so by art, but by divine power."
-[Footnote 18]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 17: Pro Archià, c. 8.]
-<br><br>
-    [Footnote 18: I have translated the Greek text literally,
-    which M. Cousin has rendered with his accustomed elegance.
-    (Jon., vol. iv. p. 249, et passim.) Note of author.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94">{94}</a></span>
-<p>
-The inspiration of the holy book of Christianity is quite a
-different thing: it is special and supernatural. There is divine
-inspiration in all the great works of man; these books are a work
-directly and personally inspired by God: they affirm this
-themselves. The language used by Jesus in the Gospels incessantly
-implies it; and, in numerous passages, the epistles of St. Peter
-and St. Paul, as well as the Acts of the Apostles, declare it
-positively. [Footnote 19]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 19: In his History of Christian Theology in the
-    Apostolic Age, M. Reuss acknowledges it: "This inspiration,"
-    says he, "was regarded as something unlike any other, and
-    reserved to a few individuals chosen by Providence, and only
-    to them upon special and solemn occasions;" and he refers to
-    the different texts of the New Testament which prove his
-    assertion. (Vol. i. p. 411, ed. 1860.)]
-</p>
-<p>
-This Christian principle of the special and divine inspiration of
-the Scriptures was not originally taken in so narrow an
-acceptation as in later times.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95">{95}</a></span>
-In the first ages of the Christian era, the Christians of the
-school of Plato, whilst carefully distinguishing the inspiration
-of the sacred volumes from the inspiration of the great poets,
-strove to determine the process common to these two kinds of
-inspiration, and to explain one by the other&mdash;"It is not by any
-effect of nature nor by any human faculty," says St. Justin,
-"that it is in the power of men to know things so grand and so
-divine; it is by the grace which descends from on high upon the
-saints. They have no need for any art to be revealed to them;
-pure themselves, they must offer themselves to the action of the
-divine spirit, in order that the divine bow, descending itself
-from heaven and making use of the just, in the same way as the
-musician does of the chords of a harp or lyre, may unfold to us
-the knowledge of things divine." "I think," says Athenagoras,
-"that you are not ignorant of Moses, or of Isaiah, or of the
-other prophets, who, being turned aside from any process of
-individual reasoning, and moved by the spirit of God, proclaimed
-aloud that which echoed within them, the holy spirit employing
-them and attaching itself to them as the player adds to his flute
-the breath which makes it discourse its music."
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96">{96}</a></span>
-<p>
-Questions soon began to be agitated in Christendom as to which of
-the religious books in circulation were really inspired, and as
-to which did not possess this divine characteristic. Hence
-proceeded disputes in respect to the Apocryphal books, and the
-formation of the Canon, or collection of the Holy Scriptures. But
-even in the very books, received by all as divinely inspired,
-great Christian doctors, not merely Origen, but St. Jerome and
-St. Augustin, discovered grammatical errors and faults which it
-was impossible to attribute to divine inspiration; and they
-distinguished, with greater or less exactness, the inspiration of
-God from the imperfection of man. St. Jerome points out solecisms
-in the Epistles of St. Paul; and St. Augustin says, in speaking
-of St. John, "I venture to say that John perhaps has not spoken
-of the thing as it really was, but only as it was in his power to
-speak; for he is a man, and he speaks of God.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97">{97}</a></span>
-Inspired, no doubt, by God, but still a man. &hellip; When we meet
-with such diversity of expressions&mdash;although not in themselves
-contradictory&mdash;used by the Evangelists, we should regard, in the
-words of each, only the intent with which the words are
-pronounced, and not, like wretched cavillers, attach an idea of
-truth to the external form of the letter; for we must seek the
-very spirit, not only in all the words, but in everything else
-which serve as symptoms of the manifestation of the spirit."
-</p>
-<p>
-It was in the presence and in spite of these discussions, of this
-explanation and of this free criticism, that the divine
-inspiration of the Scriptures was nevertheless upheld in the
-fourth century as the common and positive faith of Christians.
-</p>
-<p>
-I pass by the twelve following centuries: a long period; full of
-darkness, but yet with flashes of light; silent yet full of
-uproar, full of liberty and oppression: period beginning with the
-invasion of the Barbarians and terminating with the Renaissance;
-that period in short which, taken together, is called the Middle
-Age.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98">{98}</a></span>
-<p>
-I transport myself at once to the sixteenth century, that epoch
-of political struggles, when men reduced to systems, and reasoned
-upon, the different elements of moral and social institutions;
-for they had, ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, been
-fermenting pell-mell in Europe, which, although so small, was yet
-destined to conquer and civilize that globe, termed by us the
-world.
-</p>
-<p>
-Striving to discover what, after the lapse of so many years and
-events, had become of the principle of the divine inspiration of
-the sacred books, that base of the religious faith and rule of
-Christian societies, I find that this question had received two
-solutions: one in the name of the Church of Rome, by its
-representative the Council of Trent; the other in the name of the
-Protestant churches, by their great founders and teachers. The
-Council of Trent "receives all the books both of the old and of
-the new Testament, since the same God is the author of each;
-surrounds them with the same respect, and with an equally pious
-reverence;" inserts in its decree the complete catalogue of these
-books, and "anathematises whoever does not accept as sacred and
-canonical those books, with all that they contain, just as they
-are in use in the Catholic Church, and as they exist in the
-ancient Latin edition known as the Vulgate." [Footnote 20]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 20: Le Saint Concile de Trente, translated by the
-    Abbé Chanut, pp. 10&mdash;13. Paris, 1686.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99">{99}</a></span>
-<p>
-The founders of the great Protestant Churches, although they
-began to apply the right of historical criticism to both texts
-and manuscripts, proclaimed nevertheless the absolute and
-complete inspiration of the holy volumes, in form and sense,
-narrative, precepts, and words. The Bible, all the Bible, the
-old, the new Testament, were, according to them, written at God's
-dictation to serve as the law of Christian Faith.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100">{100}</a></span>
-<p>
-The Decree of the Council of Trent remains the Rule of the Church
-of Rome in the nineteenth century as much as it was in the
-sixteenth century; and in our days a Protestant Divine, justly
-respected for elevation of thought as much as for the energetic
-sincerity of his Faith, in maintaining the principle of the
-complete and divine inspiration, and of the absolute
-infallibility, of the Bible, has been driven so far as to make
-this strange assertion: "All the expressions and all the letters
-of the ten commandments were certainly written by the finger of
-God, from the Aleph with which they begin, to the Caph with which
-they end;" a few pages further on he says: "The Decalogue, we
-repeat, was written entirely by the finger of Jehovah upon the
-two stone slabs." [Footnote 21]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 21: Théopneustie. By M. Gaussen.
-    2nd ed., 1842, pp. 225, 242.]
-</p>
-<p>
-"Be on your guard," said Bossuet, "you assign to God arms and
-hands; unless you strip these expressions of all that savours of
-humanity, so as to leave nothing of arms and hands but their
-action and their force, you err. &hellip; God does everything by
-command; he has no lips to move, neither does he strike the air
-with his tongue to draw forth sounds from it; he has only to
-will, and his will is accomplished." [Footnote 22]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 22: Elévations sur les Mystères, vol. ix. pp.
-    66-68, 85, 109; and the Sixiéme Avertissement sur les lettres
-    de Jurieu, vol. xxx. pp. 57, 134.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101">{101}</a></span>
-<p>
-The empire of circumstances, both in the sixteenth and the
-nineteenth centuries, has had much to do with the adoption of
-these two doctrines, thus conceived and expressed. The Council of
-Trent, in order to cut short all controversies with the
-Reformers, took the Scriptures, and the interpretation of the
-Scriptures, under the guardianship of the supreme and infallible
-authority of the Church of Rome. The Reformers, in their turn,
-found their fixed point and a basis, firm in the midst of the
-movement to which they were giving the impulse, in the
-infallibility of the Bible, itself divinely inspired. And at the
-present time, on the one side the Church of Rome in its new
-dangers, and on the other side the Protestants, sincere in their
-ardent zeal to awaken that Christian Faith which is languishing,
-have pushed the two doctrines,&mdash;the former of ecclesiastical
-authority, the latter of biblical infallibility,&mdash;to their
-extremest verge: in my opinion each beyond the limits of right
-and of truth. History explains errors, it does not justify them.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102">{102}</a></span>
-I resume, briefly: those with which I reproach the two doctrines
-referred to,&mdash;they severally infringe, the one the rights of
-religious liberty, the other those of human science. In both
-cases they greatly endanger that Christian Religion which they
-have, in these respects, severally ill understood.
-</p>
-<p>
-I have already expressed my views upon this subject. [Footnote
-23]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 23: Meditations on the Essence of Christianity.
-    Sixth Meditation. Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, pp.
-    145-146. London, 1864.]
-</p>
-<p>
-Fervent and learned men maintain "that all, absolutely all, in
-the Scriptures is divinely inspired&mdash;the words as well as the
-ideas, all the words used upon all subjects&mdash;the material of
-language, as well as the doctrine which lies at its base. In this
-assertion I see but deplorable confusion, leading to profound
-misapprehension both of the meaning and the object of the sacred
-books. It was not God's purpose to give instruction to men in
-grammar, and if not in grammar neither was it his purpose to give
-instruction in geology, astronomy, geography, or chronology.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103">{103}</a></span>
-It is on their relations with their Creator, upon duties of men
-towards Him and towards each other, upon the rule of faith and of
-conduct in life, that God has lighted them by light from heaven.
-It is to the subject of religion and morals, and to these alone,
-that the inspiration of the Scriptures is directed."
-</p>
-<p>
-I have read the Holy Scriptures scrupulously, and over and over
-again, with a view neither to criticise nor defend, with the sole
-object of familiarising myself with their character and sense.
-The more I advanced in this study, the longer I had lived in the
-Bible, the more did the two facts seem clear to me, the Divine
-truths and the human faults at once profoundly distinct and in
-intimate contact. I meet at each step in the Bible with God and
-with man: God, Being real and personal, to whom nothing happens,
-in whom nothing changes, Being identical and immovable in the
-midst of the universal movement, who gives of himself the
-unparalleled definition, "I am that I am:" on the other side man,
-Being incomplete, imperfect, variable, full of deficiencies and
-of contradictions, of sublime instincts and gross desires, of
-curiosity and ignorance, capable of good and of evil, and
-perfectible in the midst of his imperfection.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104">{104}</a></span>
-What the Bible is incessantly showing us is, God and Man, their
-points of connection and their contests,&mdash;God watching over and
-acting upon man; man at one time accepting, at another rejecting,
-God's influence. The divine person and the human person, if the
-expression is permissible, are in each other's presence, each
-acting upon the other and upon events. It is the education of man
-after his Creation: his education as a religious and moral being,
-nothing less and nothing more. God does not, in thus educating
-man, change him: he created him intelligent and free: he
-enlightens him as to the religious and moral law with light from
-heaven; in other respects he leaves him absorbed in the laborious
-and perilous exercise of his intelligence and of his liberty as a
-free agent.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105">{105}</a></span>
-At each epoch, in every circumstance, during his continuous
-action upon man, God takes him as he finds him, with his
-passions, vices, defects, errors, ignorance; just such a being as
-he has made himself; nay, every day is making himself, by the
-good or bad use of his intelligence and of his freedom of action.
-This is the Biblical account, and the Biblical history of the
-relations of Man with God.
-</p>
-<p>
-What a strange contrast, and still what an intimate and powerful
-connection exists, in this history, between those whom&mdash;how shall
-I dare to permit myself to call the two actors! God does not
-appear so elevated, so pure, so strange to imperfection, so
-untroubled by any human nature, so immutable and serene in the
-plenitude of the divine nature, so really God, in any tradition,
-invention of poetry, or in any mythology, as he is presented to
-us in the Bible. On the other hand, in no nation, in no
-historical narrative or document, does man show himself more
-violent and ruder, more brutal, more cruel, more prompt to
-ingratitude, and more rebellious to his God, than he is amongst
-the Hebrews.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106">{106}</a></span>
-Nowhere else, and in no history, is the distance so great between
-the divine sphere and the human region, between the sovereign and
-the subject. Still, Israel never entirely separates itself from
-God; and, in spite of vices and excesses, Israel returns to God,
-and recognises his law and empire, even whilst incessantly
-violating them. Nowhere, on the other hand, does God appear, in
-his turn, so occupied with man, does he at once exact so much
-from him and yet evince so much sympathy for him: he does not
-change him suddenly, by any act of his sovereign will; he is a
-witness to all his imperfections, all his weaknesses, and all his
-errors; nevertheless, he abandons him not; he holds ever steadily
-before him the torch of Heavenly Light, and never omits to
-interest himself in his destiny. The religious and moral idea is
-ever present and dominant; nowhere else have the business and
-labour of human science held so small a place in man's thoughts
-and man's society. God, and the relations of God and man, are the
-only subjects which fill the Holy volumes.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107">{107}</a></span>
-<p>
-In what do those relations consist? By what results does this
-continuous action manifest itself, of God upon man; this
-incessant dialogue between God and man? By laws, precepts, and
-commands, religious and moral&mdash;God proposes these to man; he
-enjoins nothing more; he speaks to him of nothing else; demands
-nothing from him but obedience to his Law. God does not teach, he
-commands; God does not discuss, he warns. And the organs of God's
-speech, the men whom he takes for his interpreters and his
-prophets, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, do neither less nor more.
-Although superior to most of their contemporaries by reason of
-possessing certain attainments, they are no professors of human
-sciences: just as they speak the language of the common people
-whom they address, just so do they share most of their ignorance
-and errors respecting the objects and facts of the finite world,
-in the midst of which they are living.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108">{108}</a></span>
-When they are made the medium for the religious and moral
-precepts and warnings of God, it is then that they are no longer
-mere men of their time; it is then, only then, that the light of
-divine inspiration descends upon them, and that they diffuse it
-to all around them.
-</p>
-<p>
-I do not wish to limit myself to a general summary only of what I
-regard as the essential character of the Holy Scriptures,&mdash;the
-simultaneous presence of the divine element and of the human
-element; the one in all its sublimity, the other in all its
-imperfection; God revealing to man in a certain place his
-religious law and his moral law, but without conveying elsewhere
-the divine light; God taking man as he finds him, in the points
-of time and of space in which he is placed, with all his
-barbarism and imperfections. I proceed, therefore, to consider
-some of the particular examples presented by the Scriptures,
-which make this great truth so evident as to be incontestable.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109">{109}</a></span>
-<p>
-I open the book of Genesis and read:&mdash;
-</p>
-<p class="cite">
-  "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt
-  Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here
-  I am.
-<br><br>
-  And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou
-  lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him
-  there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I
-  will tell thee of.
-<br><br>
-  And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass,
-  and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and
-  clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went
-  unto the place of which God had told him.
-<br><br>
-  Then on the third day Abraham lift up his eyes, and saw the
-  place afar off.
-<br><br>
-  And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the
-  ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come
-  again to you.
-<br><br>
-  And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it
-  upon Isaac his son: and he took the fire in his hand, and a
-  knife: and they went both of them together.
-<br><br>
-  And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father:
-  and he said, here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire
-  and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?
-<br><br>
-  And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a
-  burnt-offering: so they went both of them together.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110">{110}</a></span>
-  And they came to the place which God had told him of; and
-  Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order; and
-  bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
-<br><br>
-  And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to
-  slay his son.
-<br><br>
-  And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and
-  said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, here am I.
-<br><br>
-  And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou
-  any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God,
-  seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
-<br><br>
-  And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind
-  him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went
-  and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in
-  the stead of his son."
-</p>
-<p>
-A man who, by his enlightened views, and the elevation of his
-mind, as well as by his faithfulness as a follower of Christ, is
-an honour to the church which he serves, Dr. Arthur Stanley, Dean
-of Westminster, explains and characterises in these terms the
-Biblical truths to which I am referring.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111">{111}</a></span>
-<p>
-"There have been," he says, "in almost all ancient forms of
-religion, and also in some of more modern date, two strong
-tendencies, each in itself springing from the best and purest
-feelings of humanity, yet each, if carried into the extremes
-suggested by passion or by logic, incompatible with the other and
-with its own highest purpose. One is the craving to please, or to
-propitiate, or to communicate with the powers above us, by
-surrendering some object near and dear to ourselves. This is the
-source of all sacrifice. The other is the profound moral instinct
-that the Creator of the world cannot be pleased, or propitiated,
-or approached by any other means than a pure life and good deeds.
-On the exaggeration, on the contact, on the collision of these
-two tendencies, have turned some of the chief difficulties of
-evangelical history. The earliest of them we are about to witness
-in the life of Abraham. &hellip;
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112">{112}</a></span>
-The sacrifice, the resignation of the will in the father and the
-son was accepted; the literal sacrifice of the act was repelled.
-The great principle was proclaimed that mercy was better than
-sacrifice,&mdash;that the sacrifice of self is the highest and holiest
-offering that God can receive. &hellip; We have a proverb which tells
-us that man's extremity is God's opportunity." [Footnote 24]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 24: Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church.
-    By Arthur P. Stanley, D.D. Vol. i. pp. 47, 48, 50. London,
-    1867.]
-</p>
-<p>
-Abraham was upon the point of accomplishing an act which, even in
-the presence of virtuous motives and a divine command, has been
-forbidden, and is held accursed by the subsequent Revelation and
-the sentiments of all whom it has enlightened. At this moment the
-hand of Abraham is stayed, and patriarchal religion is saved from
-the antagonism of a conflict between the rigour of the Hebrew law
-and the merciful dispensation of the Gospel.
-</p>
-<p>
-The sentiment which Dean Stanley expresses has my full
-concurrence; but I go still further, and maintain that there is
-in the pathetic narrative of Abraham's sacrifice something more
-than he points out.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113">{113}</a></span>
-This interposition of God in order to arrest the very act which
-he has required is in accord with the general doctrine of the
-Bible, expressly condemning human sacrifices; [Footnote 25] but
-Abraham's as well as several other examples prove how such
-sacrifices continued to exist in the ferocious traditions and
-manners, not only of several nations of Semitic origin, but even
-of the Hebrews themselves. God's intent is to try Abraham, and he
-pauses as soon as Abraham's obedience to the divine order is
-beyond doubt. Abraham does not hesitate to execute the divine
-command; he expresses no surprise at it. The sacrifice of Isaac
-is prepared, and very nearly consummated, as an event almost of
-course. Here we have man in the grossest and blindest condition
-of barbarism, in the presence of God, in whom as sovereign he
-believes, and whose sovereignty it is not his purpose to dispute.
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 25: Leviticus xviii. 21; Deuteronomy xii. 31;
-    Ezekiel xx. 26. This question is treated and conclusively
-    solved in the Theologische Encyclopedie of Herzog, art.
-    Sacrifice, vol. x. p. 621.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114">{114}</a></span>
-<p>
-It would be easy for me to multiply these examples, and to show,
-in many other passages of the Bible, the following fundamental
-characteristic of Biblical History: the thought and word of man,
-although constantly in presence of the divine law and of the
-divine action, yet in contact and contrast with the thought and
-word of God. I prefer seeking for proofs in support of my
-conviction in a comparison of the Old and New Testaments, and in
-the light which Christianity sheds upon the Hebrew Revelation,
-which it does not contradict, but to which it applies a movement
-of progress.
-</p>
-<p>
-I say progress,&mdash;progress immense, infinitely grander than man's
-imagination could ever have conceived,&mdash;and at the same time the
-character of the divine work remaining absolutely the same. It is
-no longer, as in the Old Testament, the stormy combat, the
-continuous struggle of God and of man in the events of the world
-and in the life of the people. God no longer interposes in the
-New Testament to warn or direct, to raise up or humble, to
-recompense or to punish man in this world; he decides no longer
-directly the issue of battle or the destiny of states.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115">{115}</a></span>
-It is still God, God in Jesus Christ, with all his sublimity: He,
-and He only, occupies and fills the place. He appears there under
-a different aspect. In his human form, He is weakness itself,
-intended and destined to become the very type of humility and of
-suffering; the voluntary victim, who expiates man's sin; the
-victim of man's fall. But in the midst of His miseries it is God,
-God as He was for Israel in all the splendour of His power.
-Christ's own knowledge of this appears throughout. He says it, He
-manifests it unceasingly by actions and by words; sometimes by
-natural effects, sometimes by miracles. And yet how different!
-what a range in the object and the bearing of His actions and of
-His words! In the Old Testament the scene concentrates itself
-upon a corner of the world, a single people, a petty nation,
-separated by God from the rest of the world, in order to withdraw
-it from the contagion of idolatry;&mdash;but now it is for the whole
-world, for all nations, for future as well as for living
-generations, for the Gentile as well as for the Jew, for the
-barbarians of Malta as well as for the Greeks of Athens, that the
-God of the New Testament manifests Himself and speaks; it is over
-the whole of humanity that He spreads His light and orders His
-servants to extend His empire.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116">{116}</a></span>
-<p>
-He does more, much more. That divine light which Jesus comes to
-spread over the whole world, although it continues to emanate
-from the same fountain, becomes more complete and more pure.
-Jesus is the first to recognise the fact that the ancient law,
-although issuing from God, bears here and there traces of human
-errors and passions. "I am not come," says he, "to abolish the
-law, but to fulfil it." How fulfil it? By removing the errors
-with which it had become intermixed owing to the imperfect nature
-of the men, of the time, and of the place, at which it appeared,
-and by filling up the gaps which that imperfection had entailed.
-He disentangles the ancient law from every human element, and
-brings it back to its one divine element, its one pure and
-perfect source. I refrain from all argument or commentary. I will
-not cite anything in proof of this grand fact but those very
-texts of the Ancient and of the New Testament which embody their
-most essential precepts.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117">{117}</a></span>
-<p>
-I read in Exodus, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,
-foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for
-stripe." [Footnote 26] Jesus effaces this <i>lex talionis</i>.
-"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy
-neighbour, and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your
-enemies; bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
-you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute
-you." [Footnote 27]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 26: Exodus xxi. 24, 25.]
-<br><br>
-    [Footnote 27: Matthew v. 43, 44.]
-</p>
-<p>
-It is said in the book of Deuteronomy: "When a man hath taken a
-wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour
-in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then
-let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand,
-an</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 28: Deuteronomy xxiv. 1.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118">{118}</a></span>
-<p>
-I read in the New Testament: "And the Pharisees came to him, and
-asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? &hellip; And
-he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And
-they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to
-put her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the
-hardness of your hearts he wrote you this precept. But from the
-beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this
-cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his
-wife; and they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more
-twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together,
-let not man put asunder." [Footnote 29]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 29: Mark x. 2-9;  Matthew xix. 3-9.]
-</p>
-<p>
-The Mosaic law condemns to death every adulterer: "If a man be
-found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall
-both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the
-woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel." [Footnote 30]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 30: Deuteronomy xxii. 22.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119">{119}</a></span>
-<p>
-Jesus is called upon to pronounce upon the very case: "And the
-scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery;
-and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him,
-Master, this woman was taken in adultery; in the very act. Now
-Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: but
-what sayest thou? This they said tempting him, that they might
-have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger
-wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. So when they
-continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them,
-He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at
-her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they
-which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out
-one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and
-Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When
-Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said
-unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man
-condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her,
-Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." [Footnote 31]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 31: John viii. 3-11.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120">{120}</a></span>
-<p>
-The Mosaic law is full of minute ceremonial regulations, and of
-rigorous conditions, which attach to the performance of certain
-external acts, in certain appointed places, the duty of adoration
-and of prayer. Not only does Jesus object to the Scribes and
-Pharisees that they place all their faith and their piety in the
-acts alone; he does more; he gives his disciples personally a
-lesson of striking simplicity by teaching them the Lord's Prayer;
-and when the Samaritan woman, whom he meets near the well of
-Jacob, says to him: "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and
-ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
-&hellip; Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, &hellip; the hour cometh,
-and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in
-spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
-God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in
-spirit and in truth." [Footnote 32]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 32: John iv. 20, 21, 23, 24.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121">{121}</a></span>
-<p>
-Thus Jesus, not to abolish but to accomplish the ancient law, and
-to make it harmonise with the new and universal work which he is
-about, separates from the law that which the imperfection of man
-had introduced in it in other times, and for a more limited work;
-he leaves in it nothing but the divine element in all its purity
-and empire. He only leaves to the divine element its religious
-and moral empire, for it is in its name alone that he speaks; the
-religious and moral law is the only law revealed by Jesus, and
-extended over the entire world; no other thought mixes itself
-with his doctrine, no other motive influences his action;
-political science, human science, have absolutely no place at all
-in the New Testament; Jesus does not think of satisfying either
-social ambition or intellectual curiosity; he desires to make
-neither kings nor doctors; as soon as he finds such pretensions
-advanced, he sets them aside;
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122">{122}</a></span>
-"Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God the
-things that are God's." "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and
-earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and
-prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." [Footnote 33]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 33: Matthew xxii. 21; xi. 25.]
-</p>
-<p>
-Jesus occupies himself with man's soul alone, with the human
-being in his native simplicity; the relations of man, of every
-man, with God; the state and destiny of the human soul, of every
-human soul, in the present and in the future: this is the sole
-idea, the sole mission, of the New Testament. Jesus knows that
-when once accomplished this will bring with it its own salutary
-consequences: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
-righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."
-[Footnote 34]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 34:  Matthew vi. 33.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123">{123}</a></span>
-<p>
-I do not hesitate, then, to affirm, that human science, in its
-different and special objects,&mdash;whether astronomy, geology,
-geography, chronology, physics, historical criticism,&mdash;is as
-foreign to the object as it is to the source of the sacred
-Volumes. In the sciences we have the domain of the mind of man
-left to itself, and to itself alone. They are the fruits,
-assiduously cultivated and slowly acquired by the laborious
-exertions of the human intellect during a succession of ages. If,
-then, you meet, in Scriptural texts, not treating of acts
-declared miraculous, terms and assertions apparently repugnant to
-facts recognised as truths in these different sciences, feel no
-disquietude. It is not there that God has set up His divine
-torch; it is not there that God has spoken. The language is the
-language of the men of the different epochs, men who speak
-according to the measure of their knowledge or of their
-ignorance, the language which they are obliged to speak in order
-to be understood by their contemporaries. I feel surprised that
-men should require to be told this, so simple, so clear is it.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124">{124}</a></span>
-In matters of religion and of morality there have always existed,
-and in every place there have existed, spontaneous instincts,
-aspirations, and ideas common to all men, which lead them to
-employ a similar language,&mdash;a language comprehended and received
-by all who hear it, whatever in other respects may be their
-inequality in attainments and civilization; whereas, in matters
-purely scientific we find nothing at all like this; men in the
-mass see and speak of these, not as they are to the eye of
-science, but according to their appearances, and so men
-comprehend or do not comprehend them, hear them or do not hear
-them, according to the degree of scientific knowledge or of
-ignorance prevalent at the time and place at which they live.
-What would the Hebrews in the Desert, or the Jews about the
-person of Christ, or the savages of the Pacific have said to his
-missionaries, if they had been told that it is the earth which
-turns round the sun, that its shape is that of a spheroid, that
-it is habitable and inhabited at opposite points of its
-circumference?
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125">{125}</a></span>
-What is more natural, what more inevitable, than that the
-language of the Scriptures should agree with the scientific
-imperfection of men upon all these matters, even where that
-language is full of divine inspiration as to the religious or
-moral law of humanity?
-</p>
-<p>
-No one honours science more than I do, no one feels a greater
-admiration for it. It is a mission that man has to perform, and
-it is one of his glories; but it has no place in the relation of
-man with God, and in the action of God upon man. God is no
-sublime, no mighty doctor, who reveals truths of science to man,
-to give him the noble pleasure of contemplating them, or of
-publishing them; he has left such researches to labours purely
-human. The work of God is more complex and grander: it is
-essentially practical. That of which man, every man, stands in
-need, that after which he thirsts, that which all mankind asks of
-God, simple as well as learned, is to be enlightened as to the
-religious and moral truths which are to regulate his soul and his
-life, and to decide his lot in eternity.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126">{126}</a></span>
-It is to all mankind that God responds; it is to the salvation of
-all men that the Scripture applies itself. A celebrated
-philosopher, a man of a mind lofty and sincere, but one of the
-most lost of the great lost ones of the human intelligence,
-thought differently. According to Spinoza, "all men are far from
-being called to enjoy eternal life in the same plenitude. &hellip;
-After death the reason,&mdash;just ideas survive; all the rest
-perishes. Souls governed by reason, philosophical souls, who even
-from the moment when their life in this world ceases, live in
-God, are consequently exempt from death; for death deprives them
-only of that which is of no value. But those dim and feeble
-souls, upon which reason hardly gleams at all, those souls made
-up entirely, so to say, of empty imaginings and passions, perish
-almost entirely; and death, instead of coming to them as a simple
-accident, penetrates to the very bottom of their being. The soul
-of the sage, on the contrary, cannot be more than barely
-troubled; possessing, by a sort of eternal necessity, the
-consciousness of itself and of God, and of things as they really
-are, it never ceases to exist; and as for real tranquillity of
-soul, it possesses it for ever." [Footnote 35]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 35: Œuvres de Spinoza. According to the translation
-    of Emile Saisset. Introduction, vol. iii. p. 291.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127">{127}</a></span>
-<p>
-I know not if human pride ever gave expression to a thought
-showing a stranger aberration of intellect; and in spite of the
-favour with which some men of distinguished abilities endeavour
-at the present day to encircle the name of Spinoza, I do not
-believe that there is any chance, at an epoch when war is
-declared against all privileges, for philosophers to make good
-their exclusive claim to the privilege of immortality.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128">{128}</a></span>
-<br>
-           <h2>Fourth Meditation.
-<br><br>
-          Christian Ignorance.</h2>
-<br>
-<p>
-When I use the term "Christian Ignorance," I would not have
-either the sense which I attach to the expression, or the
-intention with which I use it, misunderstood. I do not think that
-it should be denied to man to make any use of his intelligence,
-to exercise any right to inquire freely after truth, or after any
-kind of truth. Is the field which is open to the human mind
-limited in extent? Is the mind itself of limited reach? Is there
-a difference of degree in human knowledge according as the
-objects are different to which it is applied? These are
-questions, all of them, fundamentally contained in the words
-"Christian Ignorance;" and of these questions it is my aim to
-offer what appears to me to be the right solution.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129">{129}</a></span>
-<p>
-I am in the presence of four sciences, and of six schools or
-systems, which have made, are making, and will always continue to
-make, much noise in the world. The sciences are, Physiology,
-Psychology, Ontology, and Theology. The systems to which these
-sciences have given birth are, Materialism, Positivism,
-Scepticism, Spiritualism, Scientific Theology, Mystical Theology.
-I am far from meaning to discuss here the principles of these
-systems, or to attempt to determine their value; it would be to
-undertake the task of examining all philosophy and all
-philosophies. I mean to touch only upon one of the special
-questions which furnish in our days matter of debate between
-Christianity and these different schools. It is thus, and thus
-only, that I can clearly establish the sense which I attach to
-the words "Christian Ignorance;" and determine, at the same time,
-their bearing and their limitation.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130">{130}</a></span>
-<p>
-I have, and for very simple reasons, little to say respecting the
-first three systems to which I have just referred, i. e.,
-Materialism, Positivism, Scepticism. By its denial of the
-distinction of the soul and the body, of mind and matter,
-Materialism rejects Psychology, and arrives, as far as Ontology
-is concerned, only at Atheism or at Pantheism. Of the four great
-philosophical sciences, Physiology is the only one with which
-Materialism has any concern. Amongst Positivists, some, the more
-eminent, admit, it is true, the reality of Objects, or to speak
-more exactly, the reality of the domain of Psychology and of
-Ontology; but in admitting it they declare it to be inaccessible
-to the human mind: "Inaccessible," says M. Littré, "not null or
-non-existent; it is an ocean which washes our shore, and for
-which we have neither bark nor sail." [Footnote 36]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 36: A. Comte et la Philosophie Positive.
-    By M. Littré, p. 519.]
-</p>
-<p>
-That is to say, that, according to Positivists, Psychology,
-Ontology, and Theology are not&mdash;cannot be&mdash;sciences.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131">{131}</a></span>
-As for sceptics, they contest to the human mind all certitude,
-and especially certitude with respect to the subject-matters of
-Psychology, Ontology, and Theology. The fundamental principle of
-Christian belief is then too absolutely strange to those three
-schools for it to be necessary that I should discuss with them
-the source, bearing, and legitimacy of that which I term
-"Christian Ignorance."
-</p>
-<p>
-It is only with Spiritualists, with scientific Theologians, and
-with mystic Theologians, that it is possible to discuss this
-question of Christian Ignorance, for the three schools to which
-they belong are the only ones which, in the same way as
-Christianity itself does, open to the human mind the domain of
-the four sciences&mdash;Physiology, Psychology, Ontology, and
-Theology, and which recognise the right of the human mind there
-to search after truth, and the possibility of its being there
-discovered.
-</p>
-<p>
-When I speak of Spiritualists, a preliminary remark is
-indispensable. Christianity is as spiritualistic, not to say more
-so, than Spiritualism itself.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132">{132}</a></span>
-It is not, then, with Spiritualism in general, and with all
-Spiritualists without distinction, that Christians have to deal
-in the question of "Christian Ignorance," as it has in other
-questions; the discussion here lies between Christianity and
-Rationalistic Spiritualism alone; and not only between
-Rationalism and Christian ignorance, but also between
-Rationalistic science and Christian science.
-</p>
-<p>
-Rationalistic Spiritualism admits the reality of Psychology, of
-Ontology, and of Theology, just as it does that of Physiology; it
-admits that these different sciences owe their birth and
-development necessarily to the spectacle of the universe, of men
-and of things, and have for their object the solution of the
-questions which this spectacle suggests. But this great fact once
-admitted, Rationalism places in Psychology, and in Psychology
-alone, the starting-point and the fulcrum of Ontology and of
-Theology; it only admits in these two sciences results to which
-the human mind attains by its own unaided efforts, that is to
-say, by way of observation and of reasoning; it recognises for
-human knowledge, with respect to Ontology and Theology, no source
-other than human reason.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133">{133}</a></span>
-Christianity opens to Ontology and Theology a larger sphere and
-other sources of knowledge: besides the psychological facts
-supplied to these two sciences by observation and reasoning, it
-recognises historical facts as truths, not only which they are
-bound themselves to admit, but which they have a right to demand
-that others shall admit; Christianity does not make the human
-mind the sole object of its belief; it believes also in the
-history of Humanity, and finds in that History facts to the truth
-of which centuries, and the traditions of centuries, have
-testified, which it therefore holds, and is bound to hold, as
-well proved and as certain as any physical or psychological fact
-proved by the observations of contemporary science. The Creation,
-the primitive Revelation, the Mosaic Revelation, the Evangelical
-Revelation, are in Christian Doctrine historical facts which
-Ontology and Theology take, with reason, as the elementary data
-and the legitimate bases of science.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134">{134}</a></span>
-<p>
-I am here met by a fundamental objection made to these facts and
-to their scientific authority; they are, it is said, opposed to
-the permanent laws of nature and of reason, as well as of human
-experience; science cannot admit supernatural facts. I have no
-intention in merely passing to re-enter here upon this great
-question; I have already expressed unreservedly my opinion with
-respect to it, [Footnote 37] and upon some other occasion I shall
-return to it; for, if I do not deceive myself, the question has
-not hitherto been properly sounded and to the depth which it
-demands. Here I confine myself to referring to two ideas&mdash;facts,
-rather&mdash;absolutely forgotten or ignored by the systematic
-opponents of the supernatural.
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 37: Meditations on the Essence of Christianity.
-    Third Meditation: "The Supernatural," pp. 84-108. London,
-    1864.]
-</p>
-<p>
-Liberty, free agency, in presence of the external or internal
-causes which operate upon the will, is the peculiar and
-distinctive characteristic of man.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135">{135}</a></span>
-It is by this that man separates himself from and raises himself
-above nature, understanding by the term the ensemble of things
-determined by laws general, anterior, permanent. Man alone has it
-in his power to commence a new series of facts foreign to any
-general law, and originating in his will alone. To deny such
-facts, is to deny that man is a free agent, and to make him a
-machine regulated by external and fatal laws; that is to say, to
-drive man back to the condition of that nature which is
-substantially governed by laws of this kind, and thus to abolish
-at one blow human morality and human liberty.
-</p>
-<p>
-The blow strikes still higher&mdash;it would abolish God. God, who
-created man, is, and was previous to the existence of his
-creations, a being essentially free; for liberty cannot be the
-daughter of Fatality. It is in the free divine volition that
-human Liberty has its source, and man's Liberty itself testifies
-to the source from which it emanates.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136">{136}</a></span>
-By denying human liberty, we throw not only man but God into the
-condition of physical nature, that is to say, into the ensemble
-of causes obedient to fate, and deprived of all moral essence;
-that is to say, we plunge into Pantheism, which, in spite of
-Spinoza and Goethe, in spite of all the efforts of logical
-reasoning or poetic imagination, is, in ultimate analysis,
-nothing more than Atheism.
-</p>
-<p>
-The systematic opponents of the supernatural must submit to this
-consequence. Most of them, I am certain, are far from being
-disposed to accept it, and would indeed repudiate it with the
-most honourable perseverance. Vain efforts! Driven from
-entrenchment to entrenchment, from fall to fall, they will be
-finally reduced to this extremity; and if divine wisdom had not
-assigned limits to the force of man's Logic, the practical
-consequences of such a system would soon make themselves evident
-in the moral and social condition of humanity.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137">{137}</a></span>
-<p>
-There is a second necessity to which the systematic opponents of
-the supernatural must make up their minds. They must affirm that
-the laws proclaimed by them as general laws, laws immanent and
-permanent in what they call nature, are in effect the essential
-laws of all nature, of the entire universe, and of all the beings
-whose seeds are there sown. They would have no right to reject
-absolutely facts as supernatural if they were not supernatural of
-necessity and everywhere; if, in short, they were anywhere in
-harmony with laws of nature other than the laws of this hardly
-perceptible corner of nature which is the residence of man. If
-the laws of our world are not universal and absolute, who will
-venture to affirm that they cannot be changed or suspended, even
-there where they reign? Is human science ready to maintain that
-the laws which she discovers from her infinitely small
-Observatory are in effect universal and absolute laws in every
-place where matter exists, and where life manifests itself, in
-the midst of space and of time?
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138">{138}</a></span>
-<p>
-Here it is that Christian Ignorance begins to take its place; it
-admits the unknown and the diverse in the universe&mdash;an unknown
-incommensurable, a diverse infinitely possible. I respect and
-admire science profoundly; I am as moved, I feel as proud as M.
-de Laplace could ever have been at the aspect of this sublime
-flight of the human intelligence, which marches with sure footing
-in space and across worlds, measures their distances, and knows
-how many years are required for the light of the nearest of the
-fixed stars to reach us, whereas the light of our own sun reaches
-us in a few minutes. I am not less touched by the labours and the
-discoveries of the great modern Physiologists, who, walking in
-the footsteps of Bichat, observe and note, even in their minutest
-and most obscure details, the different phenomena which life in
-the midst of matter presents. But when I have rendered homage to
-these triumphs of human science, I compare them with the reality
-of things, with this universe infinitely great and infinitely
-minute, which man makes his study, and I cannot prevent the
-reflection, that the universe contains infinitely more objects
-than man's mind attains to, and infinitely more secrets than it
-discovers.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139">{139}</a></span>
-What astronomer will dare to affirm that he has counted all the
-worlds, and that his eye has reached the point beyond which no
-more exist? What physiologist, what naturalist, will affirm that
-all those worlds have living inhabitants? and that, if so, those
-inhabitants must have the same form, and be subject to the same
-conditions and laws, as govern the inhabitants of this globe. Our
-science becomes very modest when set side by side with our
-ignorance, even in the matters appropriate to science; and,
-however extensive and various the conquests of the human mind may
-be, the universe is infinitely vaster and more varied than is
-either the genius or the strength of its vain conqueror. Knowing
-this, and without ceasing to admire the works of human science,
-Christian Ignorance bows humbly before that work of God, which
-outstrips and surpasses immeasurably every attainment of man.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140">{140}</a></span>
-<p>
-Thus on two sides, and by two different processes, Christianity
-has a higher point of view, and penetrates further into the
-reality of things than Rationalistic Spiritualism. On the one
-side, by allowing its place to historic facts which are the life
-of mankind, as well as to psychological facts which are the life
-of man's soul, Christianity gives to Christian science a deeper,
-a broader foundation than rationalistic science supplies. On the
-other side, Christianity admits, both with greater grandeur and
-with more modesty than Rationalism, the unfathomable immensity of
-the universe, as well as the infinite diversity of its possible
-laws; and by the avowal of a "Christian Ignorance," it places
-itself, at least, at the most elevated point to view the
-spectacle of which human science cannot traverse or measure the
-extent.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141">{141}</a></span>
-<p>
-It is in the presence of another rival, I do not say of another
-adversary, that I have now to set Christian Ignorance. I begin by
-asking learned Theologians to forgive the freedom of my thoughts
-and of my speech; I feel for them a sincere sentiment of respect,
-let me say brotherly respect; for in the question to which I
-address myself I am now to deal with Christians. But actuated by
-the same feeling as that which influenced me when I was before
-speaking of the relation of the sacred writings to human science,
-I must declare my profound conviction that the subject which is
-here being treated is of pressing interest to Christian Religion
-in the great struggle in which it is engaged.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Christian Religion is founded upon facts, upon an
-uninterrupted series of facts recorded in documents which exist.
-Whether the authenticity or the authority of any part of these
-documents, the reality or even the possibility of any of the
-facts which they contain is admitted or contested, it is not the
-less true that Christianity is not, as Greek Paganism was, a
-poetical mythology attributed to fabulous times; as the religion
-of Zoroaster was, a personification of the great forces and of
-the great phenomena of nature; or as the writings of Confucius
-were, a collection of philosophical meditations, and of moral
-precepts and counsels, for the use of wise and simple, of princes
-and subjects.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142">{142}</a></span>
-I am far from contesting that poetry and philosophy, human
-imagination and human meditation, have their share in the books
-which form the documents of Christianity; it is at the same time
-incontestable, however, that the peculiar and essential
-characteristic of Christianity, from its very origin down to its
-latest development, is that it is historical: we behold the
-Christian Religion starting to life, living, traversing
-centuries, growing great and independent, just as we behold civil
-society doing, in a series of facts which succeed to one another
-and are different from one another. Christianity is not merely a
-religious doctrine; it is the history of the events wherein have
-been manifested the relations of God to man, and the action of
-God upon the destinies of Mankind.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143">{143}</a></span>
-<p>
-In proportion to the vigour with which these events have
-developed and spread themselves, the human mind has been exposed
-to two temptations, which constitute at once its honour and its
-peril, the temptation of explanation and that of controversy.
-</p>
-<p>
-What an undertaking! to explain God! his relation to man! the
-means and the process of his action upon man! Even when he essays
-to study, and to describe, the Nature of the God in whom he
-believes, Man's vision is troubled by the dazzling light; his
-thought exhausts itself, loses itself in the vain effort to
-attain, by means of comparisons and figures of all kinds, to the
-Divine Person: he conceives that person, he affirms that person,
-he contemplates that person, and yet that person he cannot know,
-cannot explain. The nearer he feels himself to God, the more does
-Man cast his eyes down, the more lowly does he incline himself,
-to adore, where he cannot pretend to observe. Even the very
-presence of God does not aid man in attaining to the science of
-God. What, then, the result where he would seek closely to follow
-the agency of God in the facts in which he only sees Him
-imperfectly,&mdash;where he attempts to carry the torch of human
-science into the depths of the secrets of Divine action?
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144">{144}</a></span>
-<p>
-I here enter into the domain which Christianity ignores. Two
-examples will fully suffice, I hope, to make my meaning clear.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Divinity of Jesus, God's incarnation in Jesus, Jesus God and
-Man, these are the truths admitted, proclaimed, incessantly
-repeated in different forms, by the Gospels and the primitive
-documents of Christianity. I have already said [Footnote 38] that
-"it is the fact itself of the Incarnation which constitutes the
-Christian faith, and which rises above all definitions and all
-theological controversies. To disregard this fact&mdash;to deny the
-divinity of Jesus Christ&mdash;is to deny, to overthrow the Christian
-religion, which would never have been what it is, and would never
-have accomplished what it has, but that the Divine Incarnation
-was its principle, and Jesus Christ&mdash;God and Man&mdash;its author."
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 38: Meditations on the Essence of
-    Christianity. Second Meditation, pp. 75, 76.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145">{145}</a></span>
-<p>
-But Christians have not confined themselves to the belief of this
-sublime truth; they have striven to explain it; they have sought
-to know and to define how, and when, the divine nature and the
-human nature became united in Jesus Christ, to what extent such
-union took place, and what effect it produced upon Christ's
-personality. Hence all the questions, all the controversies,
-which were raised as to the mode and the consequences of the
-divine incarnation, by Nestorius and Eutyches, and which in the
-councils of Constantinople, of Ephesus and Chalcedon, divided and
-agitated the Christian Church, especially in the East.
-</p>
-<p>
-Man had here essayed to construct a science of Religion and of
-divine History.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, as
-unanimously and persistently as they have proclaimed the
-Incarnation, contain and proclaim another great truth of
-Christianity, the co-existence of the Father, Son, and Holy
-Ghost, and their combined action upon the human soul.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146">{146}</a></span>
-The Trinity is written in the New Testament, where it takes its
-place in the history and in the Faith of Christ from their very
-beginning. Here, again, men have refused to restrict themselves
-to History, or to a belief in History; they have essayed to
-determine the elements, and to explain the "quomodo" of the
-religions truth; in other words, to transform history into
-science. Hence all the controversies, all the contests, all the
-authoritative decisions which have pretended to fix the nature,
-rank, and relations of the three Divine persons, or the manner of
-the one God's existence and action in the Trinity of Father, Son,
-and Holy Ghost.
-</p>
-<p>
-I enter into none of these controversies; I examine none of the
-doctrines and decisions which those controversies have either
-originated, or disputed; I now only seek to determine their
-essential character; it is the transition from divine truth to
-human science: it is Theology, the offspring, more or less
-legitimate, of Religion.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147">{147}</a></span>
-<p>
-When I say its offspring more or less legitimate, and speak of
-Theological science in these guarded terms, it is not that I do
-not design to say openly all that I think upon the subject. The
-scientific Theology of Christianity commands often my admiration,
-always my respect. In their effort to explain the grand facts of
-the Old and New Testament, its writers have addressed themselves
-to a glorious task; they have in pursuing it fallen upon and
-thrown light upon sublime truths; they have engaged for the cause
-of Christianity in formidable contests; they have lent a moral
-influence often pregnant of effect to the institutions and
-authorised teachers of Christ's religion. But their efforts have
-been even more ambitious than energetic, more compromising than
-efficacious; they have, even with the words unceasingly in their
-mouths, shown an ignorance of the limits of human science. The
-Christian Religion is a miracle, the miraculous work of God; this
-was the point from which they started, their fundamental datum;
-forgetting what they have so affirmed, they have sought and they
-have thought to ensure the triumph of the divine truth by
-explaining it; they have obscured and changed it by an
-intermixture of man's work.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148">{148}</a></span>
-Man can recognise as realities the facts which are at the same
-time both Christian dogmas and Christian mysteries. Man can
-recognise his own subjection to them, but it is not given to man
-to make of them a science.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bossuet also essayed to fathom the Trinity; in the midst of his
-explanations and of his comparisons, he stops short and exclaims:
-"I do not know who can vaunt that he understands that perfectly,
-or who can satisfy himself as to what the modes of being can add
-to being, or as to whence arises their distinction in the unity
-and the identity which they have with the being itself. All this
-is not very comprehensible; all this, nevertheless, is truth."
-[Footnote 39]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 39: Élévations sur les Mystères.
-    Works of Bossuet, vol. ix., p. 49.]
-</p>
-<p>
-Thus after this final effort of his genius, it was in Christian
-ignorance that the last great doctor of the Church was forced to
-take refuge.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149">{149}</a></span>
-<p>
-It is not only that these attempts of Scientific Theology are
-unsuccessful, they entail, as experience painfully shows, a
-serious danger. Pride is the ordinary companion of science, and
-what pride equal to the pride of the science which dares to
-believe that it has penetrated the secrets of God's action and of
-man's destiny! Scientific Theology has had the greatest share in
-religious persecutions; its doctors have had to defend not only
-their faith but their system, not only God's work but their own
-work and this simultaneously. Those whose systems were the most
-logical have generally been the most tyrannical; history in this
-respect fully confirms what independently of history might fairly
-be presumed; namely, that supposing the faith equal, "Christian
-ignorance" is far more naturally and readily inclined to
-moderation and charity than Theological science.
-</p>
-<p>
-But it is not only the scientific Theologians whose ambition and
-efforts have led them to mount beyond the sphere of human
-science; others there are who fall in a different manner into the
-same error and the same peril.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150">{150}</a></span>
-The Mystic Theologians ask for light as to the relations of God
-to man, not from dialectics and reasoning, but from sentiment and
-inspiration. They admit between God and man a direct and
-mysterious communication, which, in certain cases and upon
-certain conditions, conveys to the human being divine revelations
-of a character personal and individual. With this torch in the
-hand they approach the questions which concern grace, prayer, and
-the destiny awarded by Providence to each creature, and flatter
-themselves that they are able to raise the veil by which the
-solution of such questions is hidden.
-</p>
-<p>
-I cannot contemplate without profound emotion these pious
-impulses of the human soul, desirous of penetrating the secrets
-of God. What more excusable than that ardent and trembling
-curiosity in the midst of the darkness of our life and destiny?
-Whoever believes really in God cannot fail to believe himself
-under the eye and in the power of God; how, indeed, would it be
-possible for him to admit that his Creator is indifferent and
-powerless?
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151">{151}</a></span>
-There are, it may be added, very few who, at certain moments and
-under certain circumstances, have not felt, in the innermost
-recesses of their being, a stirring, an impulsion, not proceeding
-from themselves, nor from the world around them, inexplicable to
-them, except as proceeding from a superior source and power. Who
-of us has not, in the course of his life, been sometimes aware of
-a design foreign to his own volition, his own forecast,
-conducting him to an end which he did not forecast? And, finally,
-in the infinite number of prayers rising to God from the midst of
-human misery and suffering, are there not some to which the event
-brings satisfaction, just as there are others with respect to
-which the contrary is the case? Hence the problems of the divine
-Grace, the divine Providence, the efficacy of prayer. No doubt
-the desire is very natural which passionately aspires to solve
-problems so grand, and which, in the hope to do so, strives to
-rise to a direct and personal communication with their Divine
-author.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152">{152}</a></span>
-But the more natural the desire, the more profound the error. No
-doubt God acts upon us, upon our soul, and upon our destiny, by
-his providence and by his grace; no doubt he hears and listens to
-our prayers; but it is not given to us to foresee his action and
-his answer, nor to appreciate them in their motives and their
-effects. "The ways of God are not our ways." Whether general
-problems are submitted to man's intelligence, or questions
-touching him personally trouble his soul; whether the Doctors of
-Theology construct systems, or the Mystic Theologians fall into
-ecstasies, we see in all these cases that man has arrived at
-limits which oppose an effectual barrier to his scientific
-vision, and which no transports of piety will ever enable him to
-overleap. Beyond those limits, the condition imposed by God upon
-man is confidence in spite of ignorance; or in other words,
-"Christian Ignorance" which is gage at once for his wisdom, his
-charity, and his liberty.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153">{153}</a></span>
-<br>
-           <h2>Fifth Meditation.
-<br><br>
-           Christian Faith.</h2>
-<br>
-<p>
-Forty years ago, upon the appearance of a work of the Abbé
-Bautain, entitled "The Morality of the Gospel compared with the
-Morality of the Philosophers," I published, in the "Revue
-Française," an essay upon that state of the human soul which is
-called Faith, upon the different intellectual facts which it
-expresses, and the different ways by which man attains to it.
-Although my special subject, at present, is no longer Faith in
-its abstract sense, but of Faith in Christ, it is not foreign to
-my purpose to lay before readers in the year 1868 some passages
-which appeared in my essay in 1828. For notwithstanding the
-imperfection of the essay referred to, I have not ceased to
-regard it as founded on just reasoning; it serves as a
-starting-point for that Meditation upon Christian Faith which I
-now give to the press.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154">{154}</a></span>
-<p>
-By the word faith is commonly understood a certain belief in
-facts or dogmas of a special nature&mdash;in facts or dogmas of
-religion. This word, indeed, has only this meaning, when in
-speaking of <i>the faith</i> the term is used alone and
-absolutely. This, however, is neither its sole meaning, nor its
-fundamental meaning; it has a still more extended sense from
-which its religious sense is derived. Expressions like the
-following are met with:&mdash;"I have full <i>faith</i> in your words;
-this man has <i>faith</i> in himself&mdash;in his strength&mdash;in his
-fortune, &amp;c." This employment of the word <i>faith</i> in secular
-matters, so to say, occurs more frequently in the present day; it
-is, however, no recent invention, and religious ideas have never
-been so exclusively its sphere that the word faith has not had
-also other significations attached to it.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155">{155}</a></span>
-<p>
-It appears, then, by the usages of common speech and popular
-opinion, 1st, that the word <i>faith</i> designates a certain
-internal condition of the person who believes, and not merely a
-certain species of belief: that it refers to the nature itself of
-the conviction, not to its object; 2ndly, that this word was,
-nevertheless, in its origin, and still is, more generally applied
-to those kinds of belief termed religious. What then, in its
-special and ordinary application to religious belief, are the
-variations which have taken place in its meaning, and which are
-taking place every day?
-</p>
-<p>
-Men engaged in teaching and preaching a religion, a doctrine, a
-religious reform, sometimes whilst appealing to the whole energy
-of the human mind in its state of liberty, succeed in producing
-in their disciples an entire, profound, and powerful conviction
-of the truth of their teaching. This conviction is called
-<i>Faith</i>; a name which neither masters and disciples will
-repudiate, nor even their adversaries disallow.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156">{156}</a></span>
-Faith then is only a profound and imperious conviction of the
-truth of a dogma of religion; it matters little whether the
-conviction has been acquired by way of reasoning, or has been
-generated by controversy, or by free and rigorous examination;
-that which gives to it its character, and entitles it to the name
-of <i>Faith</i>, is its energy, is the empire which that energy
-gives to it over the whole man. Such at every time was the faith
-of the great Reformers, and more especially in the sixteenth
-century, such the faith of their most illustrious disciples, of
-Calvin after Luther, and Knox after Calvin.
-</p>
-<p>
-The same men have preached the same doctrine to persons whom it
-was impossible for them to convince by the use of reasoning, by
-an appeal to examination, or to science, to women and crowds of
-persons incapable alike of laborious study and of lengthened
-reflection. They spoke to the imagination, to the moral
-affections, where the persons whom they addressed were prone to
-feel emotion, and to believe in consequence of emotion. They gave
-the name of <i>Faith</i> to the result of their action, just as
-they had done so to the result of the process essentially
-intellectual of which I was before speaking.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157">{157}</a></span>
-Faith thus instilled was a religious conviction, not acquired by
-reasoning, and deriving its origin in human sensibility. This is
-the idea of faith as entertained by the Mystic Sects.
-</p>
-<p>
-Appeals to human sensibility and human emotion have not always
-sufficed to generate faith. Another spring of human influence has
-been resorted to; and men have been commanded to adhere to
-practices and to form habits. Man must sooner or later attach
-ideas to the acts which are habitual to him, and attribute a
-meaning to that which produces in him a constant effect. The mind
-was led to the belief of the principles which had given birth to
-certain practices and habits. A new kind of faith appeared, it
-had for its principle and dominant characteristic, the submission
-of the mind to an authority invested with the right at once to
-govern man's life and to regulate his thought.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158">{158}</a></span>
-<p>
-Finally, faith has not everywhere nor constantly been generated
-in the human mind, either by the free exercise of the
-intelligence, or by appeals to sensibility, or by the formation
-of habits. It was then said that faith was incommunicable, that
-it was not in man's power to impart faith, or to acquire it by
-any exertion of his own, that for this purpose God's intervention
-and the action of his grace were necessary. Divine grace became
-thus the preliminary condition of faith and its definitive
-character.
-</p>
-<p>
-The word <i>faith</i> has, consequently, in turn expressed: 1st,
-a conviction acquired by the free efforts of the human
-intelligence; 2ndly, a conviction acquired by way of the
-sensibility, and without the concurrence of the reason, and often
-even against its authority; 3rdly, a conviction acquired by man's
-long submission to a power invested with a power from on high to
-command conviction; 4thly, a conviction induced by supernatural
-means,&mdash;by divine grace.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159">{159}</a></span>
-<p>
-What in the midst of this variety of sources from which it may
-emanate is the essential and invariable character of faith? What
-is the state of the soul in which faith reigns when we consider
-it independently of its origin and of its object?
-</p>
-<p>
-Two kinds of belief exist in man: the one, I will not call it
-innate, for this is an inexact and justly criticised expression,
-but a belief natural and spontaneous which springs up and
-establishes itself in the mind of man, if not without his being
-aware of it, at least without the help of any reflection or
-volition on his part, by the development alone of his nature and
-the influence of that external world in the midst of which his
-life is passed; the other kind of belief is the result of
-laborious examination and reflection, the fruit of voluntary
-study and of the power possessed by man either to concentrate all
-his faculties upon a certain object with the design of mastering
-it, or to direct the thought inwards, and realise what is there
-taking place&mdash;to render an account thereof to himself, and thus
-to acquire by an act of volition and of reflection, a knowledge
-which he did not before possess, although the facts which form
-its object nevertheless existed as facts external&mdash;and which he
-might see by his eyes,&mdash;or as facts which were taking place
-within him.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160">{160}</a></span>
-<p>
-Of these two kinds of belief which merits the name of
-<i>faith</i>?
-</p>
-<p>
-It seems at first sight that the name is perfectly suitable to
-that kind of belief which I have termed natural and spontaneous:
-such belief is exempt from doubt and disquietude; it directs man
-in his judgment, in his actions, and with an empire which he
-dreams neither of eluding nor contesting; it is ingenuous,
-unhesitating, practical, sovereign; who would not recognise in it
-the characteristics of <i>faith?</i>
-</p>
-<p>
-Faith has in effect two characters; but it has at the same time
-others which belief natural and spontaneous has not. Almost
-unnoticed by the man who is yet guided by it, this natural and
-spontaneous belief is to him, as it were, a law from without
-which he has received, not accepted; which he obeys by instinct
-without having given it any intimate and personal assent.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161">{161}</a></span>
-It suffices for the exigencies of his life; it guides him,
-admonishes him, impels him, or checks him; but without, so to
-say, any concurrence on his own part, without giving birth in him
-to the sentiment that any active, energetic, or powerful
-principle is stirring within him, without procuring him the
-profound joy of contemplating, loving, adoring the truth which
-reigns over him. <i>Faith</i>, on the contrary, has this power;
-faith is not science, neither is it ignorance; the mind which
-faith penetrates has never yet, perhaps, rendered a true account
-to itself of that in which it has faith; and, perhaps, never will
-do so; but the mind is, nevertheless, certain of it; to the mind
-it is present, living; it is no longer a general belief, a law of
-human nature which governs the moral man, as the law of
-gravitation governs bodies; it is a personal conviction, a truth
-which the moral man has made his own by force of contemplation,
-of voluntary obedience, and love. Henceforth this truth does much
-more than suffice to his life, it satisfies his soul; it does
-much more than direct him, it enlightens him.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162">{162}</a></span>
-How many, for instance, live under the empire of a natural and
-instinctive belief that moral good and moral evil exist, without
-our being able to affirm that they have <i>faith</i> in them.
-Such belief is in them, as it were, a master undisputed; to whom,
-nevertheless, they render no homage, whom they obey without
-seeing and without loving. But if a circumstance, a cause,
-however trivial, revealing, so to say, the conscience to itself,
-should attract and fix their attention upon this distinction
-between moral good and evil, which is a spontaneous law of their
-nature; should they knowingly acknowledge and accept it as their
-legitimate master, should their intelligence honour itself by
-comprehending it, and their liberty do itself honour by obeying
-it; should they feel their soul, as it were, the sanctuary of a
-sacred law, as the focus into which this truth concentrates and
-establishes itself in order thence to diffuse its rays of light;
-this is no longer simple natural belief, it is <i>faith</i>.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163">{163}</a></span>
-<p>
-Faith, then, does not exclusively consist of either of the two
-kinds of belief which at first sight seem to share between them
-the soul of man; it partakes at once of natural and spontaneous
-belief and of the belief which is the fruit of reflection and
-science; yet it differs from each; like the latter, it is
-individual and intimate; like the former confidant, active,
-dominant. Considered in itself, independently of all comparison
-with any other particular and analogous state of the intellect,
-faith is the full security of man in the possession of his
-belief, as absolved from effort, as exempt from doubt; the path
-which the mind has pursued in arriving at it is obliterated, and
-a sentiment only is left behind of the natural and pre-existent
-harmony between the mind of man and the truth itself. To the man
-whose mind faith penetrates, his intelligence and his volition
-present no longer any problems for solution as to the things
-which are the objects of his faith: he feels himself in full
-possession of the truth to light and to guide him on his way, and
-in full possession of himself to act according to the truth.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164">{164}</a></span>
-As faith has internal characteristics which are peculiar to it,
-it has also, with some strange and rare exceptions, external
-conditions which are necessary to it; it is distinguishable from
-other modes of human belief, not only by its nature, but by its
-object. Up to a certain point these conditions may be determined
-and perceived, although imperfectly, according to the nature
-itself of that state of the soul and of its effects. A belief may
-be so entire and sure of itself that no further effort of the
-intellect seems necessary, and the believer, wholly absorbed in
-the truth which in his judgment he possesses, may lose all memory
-of the way by which he arrived at it. A conviction may be so
-forcible as to become master of his every action, as well as of
-every impulse of his mind, and may imperatively force and morally
-oblige him to submit all things to its empire; a state this of
-the intellect which is the fruit, perhaps, not merely of the
-exercise of the intelligence, but of a strong emotion, of a long
-obedience to certain practices, and in the midst of which all the
-three great faculties of man, the sensibility, the intelligence,
-and the will, are simultaneously in activity, and simultaneously
-satisfied.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165">{165}</a></span>
-Where all this is the case, the occasion which has induced such a
-situation of the soul, had need be one worthy of the soul, and of
-its situation; the subject with which it is so occupied, had need
-be one which embraces the entire man, which sets in play all his
-faculties; responding to all the requirements of his moral
-nature, it has a right in return to all his devotedness.
-</p>
-<p>
-The characteristics of ideas proper to become really a faith
-would seem <i>à priori</i> to be intellectual beauty, and
-practical importance. An idea which should present itself to the
-mind as true, without at the same time striking it by the extent
-or the gravity of its consequences, might produce certitude; but
-the name of <i>faith</i> would not be suitably applied to it.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166">{166}</a></span>
-Nor would the practical merit, or the immediate utility of an
-idea suffice of itself to generate faith; to do so it must also
-attract, it must also take possession of the human mind by the
-pure beauty of truth. In other words, in order that a simple
-belief, whether instinctive, or arising from reflection, may
-become faith, the thing believed must be of a nature to procure
-to man the united joys of contemplation and of activity, to
-awaken in him the twofold sentiment, that it is of lofty origin
-and of potent influence; his idea must be such as that he shall
-be induced to regard it as a medium between the ideal world and
-the real world, as a missionary charged to model the one upon the
-other, and to unite them.
-</p>
-<p>
-It is easy to understand why the name of faith is used almost
-exclusively to characterise religious beliefs; no other belief
-possesses in so high a degree the two characteristics, [Footnote
-40] which provoke the development of faith.
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 40: Intellectual beauty and practical importance.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167">{167}</a></span>
-<p>
-Many principles of science are beautiful and fruitful in useful
-applications; political theories may strike the mind by the
-elevation of the ideas which they embody, and by the grandeur of
-their results; the doctrines of a pure morality are still more
-surely and more commonly invested with this double power. Nor
-have these kinds of belief failed sometimes to generate faith in
-the human soul. Still, to receive a clear and profound impression
-at one time of their intellectual beauty, at another of their
-practical importance, a certain measure of science and of
-sagacity, or a certain turn for public life, or for politics, as
-the case may require, is almost always necessary, and this does
-not belong to all men, nor to every epoch. Religious belief, on
-the contrary, has no need of such resources: it carries in
-itself, and in its very nature, infallible means of effect;
-having once penetrated into the heart of man, however limited and
-undeveloped in other respects his intelligence may be, or however
-rude and low his condition, it seems to him a truth at once
-sublime and usual, a truth which addresses itself to him as an
-habitant of this earth, and at the same time which opens to him
-access to those lofty regions, to those treasures of intellectual
-life, which without the light of faith he would have never known;
-it has for him the charm of the purest truth, and exercises over
-him the empire of the most powerful interest.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168">{168}</a></span>
-Can it astonish us, that the belief once existent, its transition
-to a state of <i>faith</i> should be so rapid and so general? But
-it is precisely on account of its instinctive tendency to
-transform itself into faith, and into a faith of extraordinary
-energy, that religious belief has need to continue always free
-and always subject to the tests which Liberty has the right to
-impose. Legitimate faith, that is, as we understand it, the faith
-which does not deceive itself as to its objects, and which
-addresses itself really to the truth, is beyond contradiction the
-loftiest condition to which the human mind, in its present state,
-can attain, for it is that state in which man feels his moral
-nature fully satisfied, in which he gives himself up entirely to
-the mission prescribed to him by his thought.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169">{169}</a></span>
-But a faith may be illegitimate; it is possible for this state of
-the soul to be produced by error; the chance of error (experience
-proves this at every step) is even here greater, the more the
-different routes which lead to faith are multiplied and the more
-its effects are energetic; man may be led astray in his faith by
-his sentiments, by his habits, by the empire of moral affections
-or of external circumstances, as well as by the defect or the
-abuse of his intellectual faculties; for his faith may spring
-from any of these various sources. Nevertheless, faith once
-there, it is daring and ambitious; it passionately aspires to
-diffuse itself, to usurp, to reign, and constitute itself the law
-of opinions and facts. Not only is faith ambitious, it is strong,
-it possesses, it displays, in support of its pretensions and its
-designs, an energy, an address, a perseverance, which are almost
-always wanting to opinions simply scientific. So that for this
-mode and degree of conviction and belief, far more than for any
-other, there is chance of the individual falling into error, and
-of society falling under oppression.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170">{170}</a></span>
-<p>
-For these perils there is but one remedy, Liberty. Whether in
-belief or in action, the nature of man is the same: not only his
-will but his thought, if it is not to become absurd or culpable,
-has incessantly need of contradiction and of control. Where faith
-fails, moral energy and moral dignity fail equally; where liberty
-does not exist, faith first usurps,&mdash;then becomes
-bewildered&mdash;finally destroys itself. If human belief passes to
-the state of faith, it is its progress and its glory; if, in its
-efforts toward this result, and after having attained it, it
-abides constantly under the control of the free intelligence; we
-have, in this fact, at once a guarantee for society against the
-tyranny of that faith and a pledge that the faith is legitimate.
-In the co-existence and mutual respect of these two forces
-consist the excellency and security of society. [Footnote 41]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 41: Revue Française (January, 1828), Méditations et
-    Études Morales, par M. Guizot, pp. 143, 173-175 (edition of
-    1861).]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171">{171}</a></span>
-<p>
-If I consider this essay, or psychological portrait, shall I
-rather call it, of faith in general, and compare with it
-Christian faith, I am immediately struck by two features as
-characterising it. On the one side, the ideas and the facts upon
-which Christian faith is founded, have evidently that twofold
-merit of intellectual beauty and of practical importance which
-has both the right and the power to compel faith. On the other
-side, Christian faith may originate, in fact does originate, in
-sources the most diverse, in study and rational meditation, in
-sentiment, in authority, in an appeal to the divine grace.
-</p>
-<p>
-What grander and more impressive to the mind of man than the
-principles of Christian faith, regarded as a whole? God and Man
-incessantly present the one to the other, in the life of each
-man, as in the history of the human race! What more grave and
-more momentous, regarded from a practical point of view? In the
-present hour, it is peace to the soul of man, peace to his life;
-in the future, it is his destiny throughout eternity.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172">{172}</a></span>
-<p>
-The diversity of the sources of Christian faith is not less
-evident than its intellectual beauty and its practical
-importance. Beyond a doubt, the Christian faith of the Chancellor
-de l'Hospital, of Pascal, of Bossuet, of Fénelon, of Luther, of
-Calvin, of Newton, of Euler, of Chalmers, was as much the fruit
-of reflection and of learning, was as freely meditated and
-adopted as the scepticism of Montaigne and of Bayle, as the
-sensualism of Hobbes, and the pantheism of Spinoza. It is equally
-certain that all Christian communities, Roman Catholic or
-Protestant, have had their mystics, their eminent and sincere
-believers, whose faith was illumed and fed by sensibility and
-imagination; in the former case in the emotions and practices of
-fervent piety; in the latter, in empassioned transports and
-strivings after a direct communication with God and with Christ.
-As for the faith founded upon authority, the Church of Rome has
-presented the most extraordinary example which the world has ever
-seen, and if Protestantism has caused the faith of individuals to
-make great strides in the direction of liberty, it has
-nevertheless taken for its fixed basis the divine inspiration of
-the Sacred Book, and has thus ensured a great importance and very
-efficacious influence to the principle of authority.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173">{173}</a></span>
-<p>
-Having thus placed Christian Faith in its true point of view, and
-assigned to it its just rank in the history of the human soul,
-let us see whence arises the contest in which that Faith is
-engaged with natural Religion and with religious philosophy? What
-is the principle of this contest, and what its character?
-</p>
-<p>
-Here we are met by that all-important question, the question
-which has been agitated during nineteen centuries, and to which
-all the intellect of modern times has applied itself. Is the
-Christian Faith in contradiction to human reason? Some affirm
-that a contest between the two is natural and inevitable; of
-these there are who tell us that reason should give way to faith,
-and again others who say that faith should yield to reason:
-whereas, on the contrary, there are those also who deny that such
-contest is inevitable, and who maintain that faith and reason, as
-they ought to do, may both live in peace with each other.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174">{174}</a></span>
-<p>
-In my opinion, the difference between Christian Faith and that
-which is styled natural Religion, or religious philosophy, is
-profound; but I do not think that the question between the two
-has been rightly put, or that the character of their opposition
-has been rightly defined.
-</p>
-<p>
-To discover what, in effect, this character is, I address myself,
-first, to the philosophers.
-</p>
-<p>
-We know how Descartes began his great philosophical inquiries, to
-what state he brought his mind in order to enter upon his task:
-"I persuaded myself," says he, "that I could not do better with
-respect to the opinions which up to that time I had entertained,
-than to begin by ridding myself of them entirely, in order then
-either to replace them by better opinions, or to return to the
-old ones if I should find them, on examination, to conform to the
-standard of reason."
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175">{175}</a></span>
-Then proceeding to determine the precepts to be followed by him
-in this recasting of all his opinions by such standard,&mdash;"My
-first principle," said he, "was never to accept anything as true,
-unless I could evidently recognise its truth; in other words, to
-avoid carefully any precipitate judgment, to allow my mind to
-follow no bias, and not to comprise anything in its judgments but
-what presented itself so clearly and so distinctly to my mind as
-to leave me no room for doubt." [Footnote 42]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 42: Discours de la Méthode. Works of Descartes,
-    vol. i., pp. 135, 141; edition of M. Cousin.]
-</p>
-<p>
-More than a century after Descartes, Condillac, wishing to trace
-to its source the origin of human knowledge, and to write the
-history of its progressive development, did far more than
-obliterate from his mind its primitive ideas. He began his
-labours by curtailing the human mind of a great part of its
-proper proportions; he reduced man to the primitive condition of
-a statue, leaving to it no other faculty than the sensation: and
-then he fancied he could derive from sensations all man's ideas,
-all his knowledge,&mdash;in fact, the entire man himself.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176">{176}</a></span>
-<p>
-Thus these two great systems, Spiritualism and Sensualism, have
-their very commencement, each in an arbitrary assumption.
-Descartes, effacing from the human mind all that it has learnt to
-know or to believe, solely by its spontaneous activity, and by
-the natural course of human life, has treated the mind as a
-<i>tabula rasa</i>, and to fill up the void which he has so made,
-he does not admit anything there unless it presents itself "so
-clearly and so distinctly to his mind, as to leave him no room to
-doubt respecting it." Condillac, on the other hand, suppresses
-not only all that which man has learnt spontaneously and without
-reflection, but the man himself; leaving in the place of man a
-statue, sentient, it is true, but only sentient, and with this
-statue and his sensations alone, he undertakes to reconstruct the
-man&mdash;the entire man&mdash;with all the developments of his nature and
-of his thought.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177">{177}</a></span>
-<p>
-I see nothing in either of these processes more than a starting
-point entirely fictitious, a false step made at the very
-commencement of philosophy,&mdash;in short, a mere hypothesis.
-Descartes rendered admirable services to the cause of liberty and
-of intellectual sincerity; Condillac contributed to the progress
-of the method which I shall call, the method of anatomy and
-scientific dissection applied both to the human mind and to the
-material world; but from their very commencement both these
-philosophers threw themselves out of the high road, the straight
-road of philosophy; each from the very commencement substituted a
-mere hypothesis in the place of an exact and complete
-appreciation of facts. It is far from my intention to discuss
-either of these two systems; I am content to put aside the two
-hypotheses, the <i>tabula rasa</i> of Descartes, and the statue
-of Condillac, and I proceed, my way lighted by the facts, as they
-are, naturally produced in the history of the mind of man, to
-inquire what is the cause, and what the import, of the struggle
-which is taking place between rationalistic religious philosophy,
-and Christian faith.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178">{178}</a></span>
-<p>
-The true point of departure of this history and the first of the
-facts which show themselves there, is the co-existence of man and
-the universe, spectator and spectacle, the one confronting the
-other, the "<i>moi</i>" and the "<i>non moi</i>," the subject and
-the object, in the language of philosophy. I hasten to say that I
-repudiate absolutely the different systems,&mdash;Pantheism, whether
-materialistic or idealistic,&mdash;Scepticism, whether idealistic or
-absolute,&mdash;which refuse to admit this primary fact, deny the
-reality of the external world, or the legitimacy of the knowledge
-of it which the understanding acquires, see only illusions in the
-relations of man to the universe, or absorb man and the universe
-together, in the confusion and the obscure darkness of a
-pretended identity. I do not dream of here discussing these
-different systems; if I engaged in such discussion, I should have
-to deal with something very different from the question to which
-I am applying myself at this moment.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179">{179}</a></span>
-Here I have only to do with Rationalistic Spiritualism. This form
-of Spiritualism has so much in common with Christianity, that it
-admits the reality and the distinction of the "<i>moi</i>" and of
-the "<i>non moi</i>" of the subject and the object, of the
-spectator and the spectacle, of spirit and matter, of man and the
-universe. For Rationalistic Spiritualists as well as for
-Christians, this is the great fact in the midst of which, and
-under the empire of which, man's intelligence is developed, man's
-life passed. Man is there passive, active, and witness, all
-simultaneously. As spectator he receives impressions from the
-spectacle, which both prompt him to act, and which stir his being
-from within; he is witness both to what is passing within himself
-and to what is passing without himself. Notwithstanding the
-diversity and the mobility of the impressions which he receives
-from without, and of the acts which he originates himself, he has
-a consciousness of his own personal and permanent existence, and
-also the consciousness of existences other than his own; he knows
-not, by the way of reasoning or hypothesis, but by instinctive
-and immediate intuition, that which, although it is not himself,
-yet acts upon himself as something coming from himself.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180">{180}</a></span>
-Man discovers the external world as he becomes aware of himself,
-by the intercommunication which takes place between them, and
-which, nevertheless, shows him how distinct from himself is that
-external world. He observes and notes both what takes place
-without him and within him. The results of this observation he
-terms facts, nor are they for him vain appearances, creations
-merely of his thought or volition; they are manifestations to him
-of realities independent of himself, and yet to which he stands
-in relation; they are bonds of union in which he feels that he is
-highly interested, not merely as any curious spectator might be,
-but as a real being; interested, not merely for the sake of
-science, but interested as one whose very destiny is therein
-involved.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181">{181}</a></span>
-<p>
-Amongst these facts, in their nature so numerous and so diverse,
-I only select those which concern the religious instincts of man,
-or the questions which they suggest. I admit two kinds of these;
-first, the spontaneous and common religious beliefs, which
-mankind professes, although under very different forms and in
-very different degrees; secondly, the theories and systems of
-philosophy, emanating from and promulgated by philosophers in
-order to bring under discussion the popular religious opinions,
-and to resolve the questions which they involve. On the one side
-is the natural and instinctive religion of humanity; on the other
-is human science, which, when it addresses itself to the task of
-disengaging natural religion from every system of mythology, is
-called religious philosophy.
-</p>
-<p>
-Are there in the nature and in the religious history of men no
-other great facts besides these instincts of humanity, and these
-systems of human science? Natural Religion with its mythologies,
-and religious philosophy with its systems, are these all the
-religious aid accorded to man to enlighten him upon subjects of
-religion?
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182">{182}</a></span>
-<p>
-To the question thus formalised, Rationalistic Spiritualism says,
-Yes; whereas Christian Faith replies, No.
-</p>
-<p>
-In addition to the facts to which I have just referred, viz., the
-instinctive beliefs of mankind, and the systemised doctrines of
-human science concerning religion, the Christian faith admits and
-proclaims another great religious fact, the real and active
-presence of God in the life of man and in the history of
-humanity. What the Christian faith affirms is, that the real and
-active presence of God, in man's life, amidst the mysteries of
-Providence, of prayer, and of grace, and the real and active
-presence of God in the history of the human race, amidst the
-mysteries of Revelation, of Inspiration, of the Incarnation, and
-of the Redemption, do not constitute simply a poetical mythology,
-are not merely hypotheses of philosophy, but are psychological
-and historic facts which human science cannot explain, but which
-it nevertheless can, nay, is bound to recognise.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183">{183}</a></span>
-<p>
-Not philosophers only, but the whole human race, believers and
-disbelievers, are placed in the same permanent position in which
-all originally stood; that is to say, Man stands always
-confronting the Universe, Man always at once spectator and actor,
-greedy to know and comprehend the spectacle on which he is
-looking, and of which he himself forms part. The spectacle is
-immense, infinite; the spectator petty, imperfect, ephemeral,
-diverse, and with limited powers of vision. Accordingly as he is
-situated, accordingly as he is disposed and his intelligence
-reaches, he sees to a greater or less distance, and with a vision
-more or less accurate, all that the spectacle presents. He
-observes more or less completely, more or less exactly, the facts
-which are occurring there. Hence the differences of opinion
-amongst mankind. Who are they amongst them who succeed best in
-appreciating and in describing these facts without altering their
-character or omitting any? This is the fundamental question, the
-question antecedent to and which governs all the others.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184">{184}</a></span>
-<p>
-The contest, then, between Christians and non-Christians, is not
-a contest between Faith and Reason. Reason occupies a place, and
-a large place, in the Faith of Christians; they attain to faith
-as well by reason as by sentiment or authority; nor is there, at
-the same time, in the negations or the doubts of non-Christians,
-as much reflection and as much accurate observation as they
-themselves suppose. Are Christians right in affirming not only
-the existence of God, but his real and active presence in the
-life of man and in the history of the human race? Are these
-psychological and historic facts which reason and science are
-bound to admit? Or are the Deists who are not Christians
-justified in denying these facts and in limiting God to existence
-alone, and in treating him as subject to the general and
-permanent laws assigned to all other existences?
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185">{185}</a></span>
-<p>
-As far as Christianity and Rationalistic Spiritualism are
-concerned, this is the real question at issue.
-</p>
-<p>
-Having pointed out the source of the differences of opinion which
-we find amongst men, I will now indicate their consequences.
-</p>
-<p>
-Rationalistic Spiritualism affirms the existence of God, and
-those who follow this system evince the strongest desire to
-demonstrate his existence. They are right; for the existence of
-God, and the rational consequences of his existence, form all
-their natural religion, all their religious philosophy. In these
-days, men of minds, as eminent as sincere, M. Émile Saisset, M.
-Jules Simon, M. Ernest Bersot, M. de Rémusat, have made
-earnest&mdash;I would willingly say pious&mdash;efforts to elucidate the
-proposition of God's existence, and to derive from it all the aid
-that reason can furnish to explain the instincts and satisfy the
-religious exigencies of humanity. But these Spiritualists deceive
-themselves. They do not attain to God himself, they only attain
-to the idea of God; what they establish is the admissibility of
-the intellectual idea, not the presence of a real being.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186">{186}</a></span>
-In rejecting the psychological and historical facts upon which
-Christianity is founded, that is to say, the relations free and
-unintermitted of God with Man, whether in the individual life of
-each man or in the history of the mankind, Rationalistic
-Spiritualism deprives itself of direct and positive evidence to
-prove God's existence; it places a human argument in the place of
-the divine manifestation, and a scientific work of man in the
-place of the real action of God.
-</p>
-<p>
-In an excellent book, justly entitled by him "Idea of God,"
-another contemporary philosopher, M. Caro, has valiantly, and
-with brilliant success, defended this idea against the different
-systems which reject or distort it. And not limiting himself to
-polemics, he has concluded his work by a forcible and clear
-enunciation of his own thought.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187">{187}</a></span>
-"It is the living God, the intelligent God, whom we defend
-against the God of Naturalism, who would not be more than a law
-of geometry or a blind force; against the God of Hegel, who would
-not be more than an indeterminate Being, an origin and a
-commencement of things, or an absolute mind, result at once and
-product of the world; against the God of the new Idealists, who,
-to save his divinity, strip him of his reality. We affirm, in
-opposition to all these subtle and hazardous conceptions, that a
-supposed perfect being, unless he had an existence, would not be
-perfect; that a mere ideal of the mind is not a God; that if he
-is not a substance he is but a conception, a pure category of
-spirit, a creation and dependence upon man's thought which, in
-ceasing to exist, annihilates its God; that, if he is not cause,
-he is the most useless of beings; and if he is cause, he is mind
-supreme, for were he not so he would be nothing but an
-unconscious and necessary agent, a blind spring of the world,
-inferior to what he produces, since in the organic matter that
-emanates from him, an intelligence displays itself, of which he
-would possess nothing, and since too in man is manifested a
-divine Reason.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188">{188}</a></span>
-<p>
-Another remark, and we have done with our definition. This living
-God, this God intelligent, is also a God that loves &hellip; A God
-that loved not would not be worthy of being adored &hellip; We do not
-adore a law, however simple it may be, however fruitful in
-consequence; we do not adore a force if it be blind, however
-potent, however universal it may be; nor an ideal, however pure
-it may be, if it be only an abstraction. We only adore a being
-who is living perfection, the perfection of reality in its
-highest forms of mind and love. Every other adoration implies a
-contradiction if the object is a pure abstraction, idolatry if
-the object be the substance of the universe or humanity.
-</p>
-<p>
-This is God as he appears to reason, and as the religious
-conscience of humanity will have him. This is your God."
-[Footnote 43]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 43: L'Idée de Dieu et ses Nouveaux Critiques.
-    By E. Caro. p. 498. 8vo. Paris, 1864.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189">{189}</a></span>
-<p>
-It is to be regretted M. Caro has not carried his conclusions
-still higher, and completed his work by proceeding on from
-philosophical spiritualism to Christian Spiritualism.
-</p>
-<p>
-Rationalistic Deism is merely an idea of God, given as the
-philosophical solution of the grand problem, which the spectacle
-of the Universe and of Man in the Universe causes to weigh upon
-the soul of man.
-</p>
-<p>
-Christianity is faith in God, Being real, Sovereign real,
-continually present, and active in the government of the
-Universe, as he is in the soul of man and in the history of the
-human race.
-</p>
-<p>
-Rationalistic Deism arrives at the idea of God, and stops short
-there, because it ignores the psychological and historical facts
-which go beyond this idea. It is by holding account of these
-facts, and by doing to them the homage which is their due, that
-Christianity forwards and justifies her faith.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190">{190}</a></span>
-<br>
-           <h2>Sixth Meditation.
-<br><br>
-            Christian Life.</h2>
-<br>
-<p>
-Every doctrine, religious, moral, or political, has yet to submit
-to a test&mdash;the great test&mdash;the practical application. The idea
-has to be transformed into reality, the thought to be made life.
-</p>
-<p>
-Philosophers pride themselves upon searching only for the truth,
-upon busying themselves only with the theoretical truth of their
-ideas, to the neglect of every other consideration. They are
-right in one sense: for the knowledge of truth, of truth as it is
-in itself, is that which the human mind proposes to itself as its
-object, and is the only thing which can satisfy it; if man
-pretends to it, it is his right and his honour to do so: whatever
-the object of his study, the mind does not halt or rest until it
-believes that it has attained to the truth.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191">{191}</a></span>
-<p>
-This is no privilege of philosophers; neither are they the only
-ones for whom truth is a law: all men have a right to live under
-its empire, whether as to facts or ideas. No one, not even those
-who affect most disdain for theory, would venture to lay down the
-principle that we should be indifferent whether we are
-essentially in the right, and that practically there is no
-difference between truth and error.
-</p>
-<p>
-But by what signs is truth recognisable? Are there no other than
-the affirmations of that inquisitive spectator, named the human
-mind? Is it only by language, by reasoning, and by discussion,
-that the truth of an idea and of a doctrine manifests and proves
-itself?
-</p>
-<p>
-To such a pretension, if advanced, I hesitate not to reply with a
-denial, and in doing so, to repeat what I have just said: every
-doctrine, religious, moral, or political, has to submit to a
-test,&mdash;the practical application.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192">{192}</a></span>
-The idea transformed into reality, the thought made the life;
-these are the most certain signs of an idea being intrinsically
-true, these, too, are proofs of its reasonable legitimacy, which
-it is bound to give.
-</p>
-<p>
-There is a radical difference between the material world and the
-intellectual world. The laws which regulate and maintain order in
-the material world, are independent of man, of both his thought
-and his volition. It matters not that he knows these laws, or is
-ignorant of them; they do not the less exist and govern; man has
-no power to change, arrest, or suspend their operation; he cannot
-influence them. Galileo was right to say of the earth, in spite
-of his judges, "Still it moves;" it would have moved even if
-Galileo, as well as his judges, had been ignorant of the fact,
-and the contest between the whirlpool of Descartes and Newton's
-principle of attraction, was a matter perfectly indifferent to
-the general system of the world. <i>There</i> man's error is
-absolutely without effect or influence.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193">{193}</a></span>
-<p>
-In the intellectual and moral world it is otherwise; here man is
-not only spectator, he is an actor, an actor free or not to act&mdash;
-to act with effect. He thinks and he wills, and so contributes to
-the facts which take place in the world; he knows, or is ignorant
-of, the laws, he respects or violates the laws which preside
-here, but which do not preside here as laws external to and
-independent of himself. Man's errors, man's faults, are not here
-without real and serious consequences; they have the power of
-sowing evil and of carrying perturbation into the intellectual
-and moral world, thus delivered up, as the Bible proclaims, to
-the disputes of men.
-</p>
-<p>
-Learned men, in the study and appreciation of the material world,
-separate sciences absolutely, and, considering each apart from
-its practical application, occupy themselves in their scientific
-investigations only with the pure theory. This I understand and
-admit; for such a course does not endanger the security of
-society or the results of their own labours.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194">{194}</a></span>
-Their ignorance and their errors have no doubt grave
-inconveniences; the facts and the forces of the material world
-are either misconceived or not turned sufficiently to account;
-man and human society do not reap all the advantages which the
-profound and exact knowledge of the truth might, in this respect,
-procure them. Such ill, although real, is of a negative
-description, a good, it may be, missed or postponed; but no
-general disturbance results in that material world upon which
-naturalists or chemists concentrate their labours; the world will
-not have to undergo the effect, nor to pay the penalty, of their
-ignorance or of their errors. The intellectual and moral world,
-on the contrary, runs a greater risk, and imposes upon its
-teachers severer duties; no doubt these study it as freely, and
-make truth, too, their object; but science does not here escape
-the weight of its own conclusions; it is a power as formidable in
-its abuse as it is in itself sublime; it may carry into the world
-to which it addresses itself trouble instead of order,
-incendiarism instead of light. If practical application is not
-here the object of science, it is still its necessary and
-appropriate proof; in facts as in a mirror are reflected the
-truth or the error, the good or the ill, of human opinions.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195">{195}</a></span>
-<p>
-Christianity has now been subjected to this test for nineteen
-centuries: it is subject to it at this moment, it will continue
-ever to be so. I need not say that I do not propose to retrace
-here the narrative of the manner in which it has supported and
-surmounted that test; that would be to write the History of
-Christianity. I confine myself, on the contrary, to a single
-small part of this history, the most modest part, the least
-pretending: and shall endeavour to bare a little to the view what
-Christianity, when it has been put into practice, what Christian
-Faith, after it has become Christian Life, has in the different
-situations of man's life accomplished, and is every day
-accomplishing, for the ennoblement of his nature, and the
-furtherance of his ultimate destiny.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196">{196}</a></span>
-<p>
-Three words, "<i>Rights of Man</i>" inscribed upon the banners of
-the French Revolution, constituted its force; the rights of man
-as man, rights by this title alone, by virtue alone of his
-humanity. Three other words, <i>Liberty, Equality,
-Fraternity</i>, have served as a commentary upon the three
-former. It is in the name of these two maxims that the French
-Revolution is making the tour of the world; they are the sources
-of the good and the evil, the movements in advance as well as the
-ruinous calamities of our time and of an unknown future.
-</p>
-<p>
-Whilst all of true and good that these two maxims contain is
-Christian and was proclaimed by Christianity, all that they have
-of false and fatal is condemned and expressly repudiated by
-Christianity. Not only in this terrible confusion does
-Christianity proclaim in principle the part that is good, and
-condemn in principle the part that is evil; but Christianity
-alone, in point of fact, has the necessary authority and moral
-force to suppress the evil without at the same time causing the
-good also to perish.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197">{197}</a></span>
-<p>
-It is a subject to us, in these days, of pride, and of a pride
-that is just, that we have at last begun to consider man himself,
-the individual man, his existence, and his personal liberty, his
-rights, and the guarantees of his rights, as the essential
-objects of social institutions. We have at last emerged from the
-rut of pagan antiquity, glorious at once and rude, where the
-individual, made wholly subordinate, was sacrificed to the state,
-where man was regarded simply as citizen, and thousands of human
-creatures were degraded and treated as cyphers in favour of a
-single class. Men are no longer numbered as Jews and Gentiles,
-Romans and Barbarians, freemen and slaves. Christianity first not
-only proclaimed but put into practice this important truth. The
-right of every man, as man, the worth of the human soul, and of
-the human person, irrespectively of his situation in life,
-constitute the starting-point, the fundamental idea, the dominant
-precept of the Christian religion.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198">{198}</a></span>
-It was, in effect, in religious society, in the rising Christian
-Church, that this principle was first proclaimed, and first put
-into practice; Christianity treated the relation of man to God as
-the chief concern of man's life, and religious liberty as the
-chief of human liberties; it was in the presence of God that
-Christians admitted the equal importance of every soul; as it was
-amongst Christians themselves that they greeted each other as
-brethren, and that fraternity engendered charity. But although
-sprung from a source so elevated, and applied at first upon a
-stage so small, the Christian idea was not on that account less
-potent, or less fruitful; in spite of obstacles and reverses it
-maintained itself, and diffused itself through centuries and over
-distant countries; it made constant efforts to penetrate civil
-society. At the epochs of the history of Christendom which are
-most to be deplored, in the midst of the oppressions and the
-iniquities which have brought desolation upon it, daring voices
-have never been wanting: at one time it was the voice of the
-Christian Church itself directed against the masters of the
-earth; at another a voice issuing from the bosom of the Church
-itself, full of generous protestations against the disorders and
-acts of violence which were taking place in its own bosom.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199">{199}</a></span>
-Jesus, God and man, having raised man before God, man never
-afterwards entirely humiliated and degraded himself before any
-human tyranny. In the presence of the greatest inequalities of
-earthly power, the appellation, <i>brethren</i>, never ceased to
-be echoed in Christian Society; and even at this day, after all
-the progress which equality has made in civil society, it is only
-in religious societies and in Christian Churches that men hear
-themselves greeted as <i>brethren</i>.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Christian faith has not only exercised a political influence
-in the state by changing the relations in which individuals stand
-to the political authorities, or in which the different classes
-stand to one another: it has also introduced a change in the
-constitution of the primary natural and imperishable association,
-called family.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200">{200}</a></span>
-There, also, it has caused to disappear, at one time, the
-despotism of husband and father; at another, the degradation of
-wife, and the brutal or licentious independence of children. If
-we give ourselves the trouble to compare the Christian family as
-religion, laws, and morals have made it, with the family of
-antiquity which was most strongly constituted, namely, the Roman
-family,&mdash;we shall not need to examine long before we discern
-clearly on which side order really is, on which side the just
-appreciation of natural sentiments, the respect for right and
-liberty.
-</p>
-<p>
-I have said that at the same time that Christianity proclaims and
-puts in practice all that is true and healthy in the popular
-maxims of our times, man's rights and liberty, his equality and
-fraternity, it condemns and rejects all that they contain of
-false and deplorable. There is one very striking fact in the
-history of the foundation of Christianity, a fact traceable not
-merely in the records of a few years, but through three
-centuries.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201">{201}</a></span>
-Christianity began with resisting absolute power, and with laying
-claim to liberty of conscience. It owed its establishment to the
-same cause. In the Roman world no one any longer made even a show
-of resistance; every kind of oppression was in force, every claim
-to freedom abandoned: the Christians again raised high the banner
-of right, and of resistance in the name of right; but never did
-they raise their banner to encourage revolt or attacks upon
-authority; they undertook the defence of liberty against tyranny,
-and never made appeals to insurrection against authority.
-Martyrdom, not murder; such is the sum of the history of
-Christianity from the day of its birth in the manger of Jesus, to
-the day when it mounted the throne of Constantine. The reason of
-this is, that from the time when Christianity was yet in its
-cradle, and even afterwards when it was struggling to conquer its
-liberty, liberty was not an exclusive idea for Christians either
-in their doctrines or their lives: they recognised, respected,
-and proclaimed with equal solicitude both principles upon which
-the moral order of the world reposes, authority and liberty.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202">{202}</a></span>
-They never, in any respect, sacrificed the one to the other, nor
-humiliated the one in the presence of the other; masters and
-disciples, all referred power to its true source, and did homage
-to its right at the same time that they maintained their own
-right against power. When Jesus spoke, the people were astonished
-at his doctrine, "for he taught as one having authority, and not
-as the Scribes." [Footnote 44]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 44: Matthew vii. 29.]
-</p>
-<p>
-Jesus declared formally to his disciples his authority over them,
-and the mission which it imposed upon them: "Ye have not chosen
-me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go
-and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain."
-[Footnote 45]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 45: John xv. 16.]
-</p>
-<p>
-And when St. Paul, although exposed to all kinds of perils and
-struggles, spread abroad throughout the Roman Empire the
-doctrines of Jesus, he said to the new Christians, "Let every
-soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but
-of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. &hellip; Wherefore ye
-must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for
-conscience' sake." [Footnote 46]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 46: Romans xiii. 1, 5. ]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203">{203}</a></span>
-<p>
-Nor can I here omit again to cite the words which Jesus himself
-addressed to the Pharisees: "Render under Cæsar the things which
-are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." [Footnote
-47]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 47: Matthew xxii. 21.]
-</p>
-<p>
-The respect for authority as much as for liberty, the right of
-power as well as the right of conscience, the separation of
-religious life from civil life,&mdash;all these were not, for the
-primitive Christians, simple necessities arising out of their
-situation, nor simple counsels of prudence; they were principles
-of doctrine and precepts of life, recognised and practised in the
-name of justice and of truth.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204">{204}</a></span>
-<p>
-Christian doctrine and Christian practice have been, I know,
-greatly altered, lost sight of, violated, in the course of the
-history of the Christian world. Human nature succumbs readily to
-the temptations of victory and pleasure; when Christianity once
-became powerful it was too often invaded and disfigured by
-earthly interests and passions; ambition, cupidity, pride, the
-arrogance of power, and the lies of cunning; every evil
-inclination, every vice which the Christian faith rebukes and
-combats, displayed themselves in this world which Christianity
-had not conquered merely to hand it over to them, but from which,
-nevertheless, it had not expelled them. The grand and salutary
-doctrines of Christianity have been often themselves perverted
-and profaned to the service of an egotism assuming every shape
-and carried to every pitch. Still they never were lost, they
-never perished in this impure mixture and this unworthy use; they
-survived, they combated, sometimes in obscurity, sometimes in the
-broad light of day; everywhere, at every epoch, Christian voices,
-Christian lives, and Christian Reforms protested and struggled
-against the passions and the corruptions of mankind. And in spite
-of all these centuries, so sombre, so full of agitation, of
-violence, and of oppression, so full of moral and material ill,
-the decline of man and of human society did not ensue.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205">{205}</a></span>
-Greece and Rome, in their state of youthful growth, were glorious
-and vigorous; and glorious, too, was the development in them of
-human intelligence and dignity; but their career was short, and
-these two brilliant forms of society did not find in their ideas,
-traditions, or models, a sufficiency of moral force to enable
-them to escape from, or even survive, the seductive and
-corrupting influence of material grandeur and of human success.
-Amidst all the sufferings, all the darkness, all the crimes which
-agitate her long career, Christianity has proved infinitely
-healthier and more sound; she has made herself an incessant
-subject of study; she has shifted her place upon her couch of
-sorrow; she has raised herself up, she has renewed, regenerated
-herself; she has grown and prospered at the same time that she
-has suffered; and in spite of the ills, vices, and perils against
-which Christianity has had to defend herself, and against which
-she will ever have to defend herself, she has before her, over
-the whole face of the world, a future immense and full of
-promise. This she owes to her origin&mdash;she was born in the manger
-of Jesus.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206">{206}</a></span>
-<p>
-There is at present a disposition amongst earnest and enlightened
-men to recognise, it is true, the services which Christianity has
-rendered to the world; but to attribute them only to the morality
-of Christianity. They laud to the sky the moral character of
-Jesus, and his moral precepts; but they repudiate, nay, deplore,
-the dogmas with which, in the Christian faith, Christian morality
-is combined and incorporated; they demand that the morality be
-separated from it, and be presented to man without anything but
-its intellectual beauty and practical excellence. Although not
-disputing that there is somewhat of human in the origin and
-empire of morality, I have established in this volume of
-Meditations that it is necessarily allied to religious belief,
-and that when separated from its divine source, and viewed apart
-from that which gives it sanction, it is incomplete, illogical,
-and powerless&mdash;a branch without root and without fruit.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207">{207}</a></span>
-I go farther now, and express my meaning fully. Not only is
-Christian morality intimately connected with Christian faith, as
-the Christian faith is itself connected with Christian dogmas,
-but Christian morals, Christian faith, and Christian dogmas have
-taken their origin, and derived their force, at a source still
-higher, and in an authority still more decisive. Christianity did
-not begin, it did not rise upon the world, as one body of
-doctrines or code of precepts; from its first step it was a
-truth, strange to the ordinary course of human affairs, and
-superior to them; a fact divine, and an act divine; it was as
-such, and by its character as such, that, sometimes all at once,
-and sometimes gradually, it struck men as by a blow and
-vanquished them, at first the rude and simple, then the great and
-learned, publicans and emperors, the disciples of Plato, and the
-fishermen of the sea of Gennesareth.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208">{208}</a></span>
-At different moments, and for different motives, all of them saw
-in the cradle, and the rapid extent of infant Christianity, a
-sublime and superhuman fact, a God present and acting in and by
-Jesus. Some recognised and adored him at the very moment of his
-appearing; others observed him with troubled and angry feelings;
-but, in proportion as the truth developed itself, even those who
-detested him doubted if they were right in doubting. The council
-and all the senate of the children of Israel had caused Peter and
-the other apostles to be placed in prison, and took counsel to
-have them put to death. "Then stood there up one in the council,
-a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in
-reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the
-apostles forth a little space; and said unto them: Ye men of
-Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching
-these men. For before these days rose up Theudas boasting himself
-to be somebody, to whom a number of men, about four hundred,
-joined themselves: who was slain, and all, as many as obeyed him,
-were scattered and brought to nought.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209">{209}</a></span>
-After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the
-taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished;
-and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. And now I
-say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if
-this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But
-if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found
-even to fight against God." [Footnote 48]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 48: Acts v. 21, 33&mdash;39.]
-</p>
-<p>
-The question which Gamaliel thus put with respect to Christianity
-at its birth was not new; the high priest of Israel had already
-made the same demand of Jesus himself: "I adjure thee by the
-living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son
-of God? Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said." [Footnote 49]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 49: Matthew xxvi. 63, 64.]
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210">{210}</a></span>
-<p>
-The Jews replied to the affirmation of Jesus by crucifying him. A
-short time afterwards, when they sought to treat the apostles as
-their Master had been treated, Gamaliel counselled them to abide
-the test of time, and in the meanwhile to leave "these people in
-repose." They did not leave these people in repose, and the proof
-was only on that account the more decisive: after three centuries
-of persecutions and martyrdoms, the grand facts of
-Christianity,&mdash;the Revelation, the Incarnation, the Redemption,
-the Inspiration of the Scriptures,&mdash;became the grand dogmas of
-Christianity, the basis of Christian faith, which faith in its
-turn is the basis of Christian Life. Sixteen centuries elapsed
-from this trial of Christianity in its cradle, and it was made to
-undergo fresh and still ruder trials; in these trials earthly
-interests and human errors and passions had a great part;
-Christ's precepts were sometimes forgotten, and sometimes
-converted into human instruments; no doctrine or idea was ever so
-constantly in contact with, and at issue with, facts; never was
-theory more rigorously reviewed, more subjected to the test of
-practical application in every form and every shape.
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211">{211}</a></span>
-The design which emanated from God traversed and surmounted all
-these perils; it braved the faults of its adherents and the blows
-of its enemies. It is engaged in our days in a new contest, and
-is subjected to fresh trials; it has entered upon it with the
-same arms, which, nineteen centuries ago, secured its triumph,
-with the grand facts which form the basis of Christian faith, and
-the great examples which furnish the rule of Christian living.
-The History of Christianity is the strongest proof of its
-Divinity, and the surest guarantee for its future. The
-authenticity and authority of this history will be the subject of
-the next and last series of my "Meditations."
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212">{212}</a></span>
-<br>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213">{213}</a></span>
-<br>
-               <h2>Appendix.</h2>
-<br>
-<p>
-Ecce Homo: such is the title of a work published anonymously, at
-London and at Cambridge in 1866, which produced on its appearance
-a great sensation in London, a sensation which still continues:
-all the papers and reviews, whether religious, philosophical, or
-simply literary, busied themselves with it, either to praise or
-attack it; the distinguished chief of the Liberal Party himself,
-perhaps soon to be the Prime Minister of England, Mr. Gladstone,
-has just made it the subject of three articles, which are
-remarkable alike for acuteness, elegance, and eloquence. They
-appeared in one of the most widely circulated periodicals in his
-country. [Footnote 50]
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 50: "Good Words," a Monthly Review, edited by
-    Norman Macleod, one of the Chaplains of her Majesty Queen
-    Victoria. The articles referred to appeared in the numbers of
-    January, February, and March, 1868.]
-</p>
-<p class="cite">
-  "No anonymous book," says he, "since the 'Vestiges of Creation'
-  (now more than twenty years old), indeed, it might almost be
-  said, no theological book, whether anonymous, or of certified
-  authorship&mdash;that has appeared within the same interval, has
-  attracted anything like the amount of notice and of criticism
-  which have been bestowed upon the remarkable volume, entitled
-  'Ecce Homo.'"
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214">{214}</a></span>
-<p>
-The anonymous author has expressed in a very short preface his
-intention in writing this volume, as well as its fundamental
-ideas. "Those who feel," says he, "dissatisfied with the current
-conceptions of Christ, if they cannot rest content without a
-definite opinion, may find it necessary to do what, to persons
-not so dissatisfied, it seems audacious and perilous to do. They
-may be obliged to reconsider the whole subject from the
-beginning, and placing themselves, in imagination, at the time
-when he whom we call Christ bore no such name, but was simply, as
-St. Luke describes him, a young man of promise, popular with
-those who knew him, and appearing to enjoy the Divine favour, to
-trace his biography from point to point, and accept those
-conclusions about him, not which Church doctors, or even apostles
-have sealed with their authority, but which the facts themselves,
-critically weighed, appear to warrant.
-</p>
-<p>
-"This is what the present writer undertook to do for the
-satisfaction of his own mind, and because, after reading a good
-many books on Christ, he felt still constrained to confess that
-there was no historical character whose motives, objects and
-feelings remained so incomprehensible to him. The inquiry which
-proved serviceable to himself may chance to be useful to others.
-</p>
-<p>
-"What is now published is a fragment. No theological questions
-whatever are here discussed. Christ as the Creator of modern
-Theology and Religion will make the subject of another volume;
-which, however, the author does not hope to publish for some time
-to come. In the meanwhile, he has endeavoured to furnish an
-answer to the question, 'What was Christ's object in founding the
-Society which is called by his name, and how is it adapted to
-attain that object?'"
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215">{215}</a></span>
-<p>
-On merely considering, even after a first perusal, the brief
-words which I have here extracted, it is, I think, impossible not
-to perceive how much there is that is artificial and embarrassed,
-I had almost said how much there is that is false, not only in
-the position in which the Author has placed himself at the very
-outset, but in the special intentions which he avows. To study
-the life and the aim of the life of Christ without considering
-him "as the Creator of Modern Theology and Religion," to defer
-all examination and conclusion upon this last subject; to aspire
-to know the person and the mind of Christ after thus separating
-him from his work; to inquire what he meant to accomplish when
-living, without considering what he in effect accomplished in the
-ages which followed his passage through the world; to treat him,
-in short, and to examine him as we should treat and examine a
-person unknown to us&mdash;a fossil man, so to say, of which the
-features might be traceable in some contemporary document,
-showing that he once existed, but who has left no other trace to
-supply us with argument or proof of what he intended, or what he
-performed;&mdash;this, undoubtedly, is a strange manner of proceeding,
-one which holds out very little chance of an accurate and true
-comprehension of the immense fact called Christianity, thus
-mutilated in its very cradle, Christianity of which the writer
-limits himself to a bare search after the germ in the nascent
-thought of its owner, whereas it might have been observed, and
-its nature verified in its positive and vast development.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216">{216}</a></span>
-<p>
-This is a species of decomposition, of which the great facts of
-history and morality do not admit. We are not here, like
-anatomists, describing the autopsy of a corpse. To know and
-comprehend such facts really, we must study them in their
-different elements and in all the development of their life. They
-form a drama in which we are actors, not a manuscript which we
-are deciphering.
-</p>
-<p>
-I can easily understand how the anonymous writer of the "Ecce
-Homo" came to conceive the idea of his book, and to confine it
-within the limits which he has himself assigned: I can also
-understand his motives. Like all his contemporaries, he is placed
-and lives in presence of the grave questions agitated in these
-days respecting Christianity and its author. What was Christ?&mdash;a
-man or very God, or God and man at once? How did the divine
-nature and the human nature manifest themselves in him? Did he
-really effect the miracles assigned to him? Can there be such
-things as miracles? What are we to understand by the
-supernatural? Is God a real being personal and free, existing and
-accomplishing his works in a region beyond that which we style
-Nature? Christianity and the life of its founder inevitably
-suggest all these questions, which in our days occupy and
-violently agitate men's minds. The anonymous author of the "Ecce
-Homo" did not wish to enter upon them; nay, it was his aim to
-study and comprehend Christ without touching them at all. Is it
-because upon these grave problems he entertains himself no
-positive and decided opinions? Or, because he wished, to a
-certain extent, to accommodate himself to the state of opinion of
-some of his contemporaries, and to treat Christ as those speak of
-him who only see in him a man, who regard Christianity as a fact
-not supernatural, owing its origin, like other natural facts, to
-the sole and proper force of mankind?
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217">{217}</a></span>
-<p>
-Upon this I can form no opinion; I neither know the anonymous
-author of the "Ecce Homo," nor the motives which actuate him:
-what is certain is, that he is quite right in entitling his book
-"Ecce Homo," for it is only the Man Christ that he has proposed
-to study, and it is by studying the Man Christ that he has
-proposed to explain Christianity.
-</p>
-<p>
-I do not know if, after having written his book, he was aware of
-the result to which it leads, but the result is in effect a
-strange one,&mdash;it is condemnatory and destructive of the
-fundamental idea of the book, it demonstrates by a sincere and
-honest, although an incomplete and superficial study of the
-facts, the impossibility of explaining either Christ by the human
-nature alone, or the Christian Religion by any merely natural
-operations of humanity.
-</p>
-<p>
-The work is divided into two parts, and contains altogether
-twenty-four chapters. The first part is devoted to the study of
-Christ personally, his peculiar character, his manner of dealing
-with men, the mission which he proposed to himself to accomplish,
-the nature of the society which he sought to found, and the
-authority which he counted upon exercising. In the second part,
-the Christian society itself, its points of resemblance to the
-systems of philosophy and its points of difference therefrom, its
-fundamental principles and positive laws, and the habits and
-sentiments which are developed by those laws, all become in turn
-the objects of the author's observations and descriptions.
-Observations often profound, descriptions often exact and
-striking, although somewhat minute and lengthy; everywhere,
-however, there breathes forth a sentiment unquestionably moral,
-and full of the gentlest sympathy for humanity.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218">{218}</a></span>
-<p>
-All this gives to the work a real attractiveness, in spite of the
-vagueness of the ideas which reign there, and in spite of the
-perceptible incertitude of the author's conclusions upon the
-solemn questions which he approaches, but upon which he does not
-enter.
-</p>
-<p>
-I have no intention of saying more; I have not to render an
-account in detail of this book or to discuss any of the author's
-opinions or assertions upon which I may not agree with him; my
-aim is only to determine the character of his work, and to show
-plainly, first its tendency and then its insufficiency. There
-precisely is his originality; in setting out, and dealing with
-the subject of the purely human nature both of Christ and of
-Christianity, he seems not far from participating the opinions of
-Rationalistic criticism; but the more he advances, the farther he
-departs from the goal at which the Rationalists arrive: he
-appears predisposed in their favour; the process of his thought
-seems often to conform to theirs; his conclusions are not clearly
-contrary, but in effect, under the empire either of his instincts
-or under the influence of his historical and moral studies, he is
-more Christian than he appears, perhaps even more so than he
-believes himself to be; and if the firm doctrines of Christianity
-find in him no sure and declared defender, neither do they
-encounter in him the consistent hostility of a severe logician or
-the indifferentism of a mere sceptic.
-</p>
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219">{219}</a></span>
-<p>
-There are several passages of this remarkable work which are
-particularly distinguished by these characteristics. To these I
-feel pleasure in referring the reader. They are in both parts of
-the book; that is to say, in the first part, chapter fifth,
-entitled <i>Christ's Credentials</i>, and chapter ninth,
-[Footnote 51] entitled <i>Reflections on the Nature of Christ's
-Society;</i> in the second part, chapter tenth, entitled
-<i>Christ's Legislation compared with Philosophic systems</i>,
-and chapter the eleventh, <i>The Christian Republic</i> [Footnote
-52] A perusal of these passages will, if I do not deceive myself,
-fully justify the impression which the work has made upon me, and
-satisfy the reader that I am right in what I have said of the
-author's inconsistency with respect to religion.
-</p>
-<p class="footnote">
-    [Footnote 51: Ecce Homo, ed. 1866, pp. 41-51, 81&mdash;102.]
-<br><br>
-    [Footnote 52: <i>Ibid</i>, pp. 108&mdash;119, 120&mdash;126.]
-</p>
-<p>
-Without expressly referring to any other passages I simply
-remark, that there are in this book ideas expressed and
-particular assertions made, which suggest numerous questions and
-call for many observations. I find in the entire volume a
-singular mixture of plain and practical common sense with a
-subtlety sometimes tinctured with piety, and sometimes with
-philosophy. There reigns in it, upon the nature of man and of
-human societies, an intellectual elevation, both moral and
-religious, which embarrasses and obscures itself in a long and
-painful process of refinements. It bears the impress of a
-grandeur of thought and of sentiment, without presenting them,
-however, in a form sufficiently simple and vivid. But I have no
-idea of examining or discussing here in detail this remarkable
-work; my aim is only to make the result clear to the reader, to
-which I have already referred, and indeed it appears
-incontestable. The author's aim has been to study and portray the
-human part of Christ, the human part of his doctrine as well as
-of his life. He has declared this to be his aim by entitling his
-book "Ecce Homo," and by saying that he deferred to another
-volume "every theological question, every study of Christ as the
-Creator of Theology and of Modern Religion."
-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220">{220}</a></span>
-He has already done much more than he is aware; the striking
-inference from his first volume being that there was in Christ
-much more than man, and that if he had been but man, however
-superior we may picture his nature to be to that of ordinary
-humanity, the work of Christianity, such as it in fact was and
-is, would have been to him a thing not only which he could not
-have accomplished, but which he could not even have conceived.
-</p>
-<br>
-                 <h3>The End.</h3>
-
-<br><br>
-
-
-
-
-  <h3>Bradbury, Evans, And Co., Printers, Whitefriars.</h3>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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