{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25339/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25339","id":"gutenberg_25339","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25339","summary":null,"tags":["Apologetics","Atheism","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: French Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Sam W. and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n(This file was made using scans of public domain works\nfrom the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n     LAMARTINE ON ATHEISM.\n\n\n            ATHEISM\n             AMONG\n           THE PEOPLE\n\n\n               BY\n\n     ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.\n\n\n            BOSTON:\n PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY,\n     110 WASHINGTON STREET.\n             1850.\n\n\n\n\nEntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850,\nBY PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY,\nIn the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.\n\n\nSTEREOTYPED BY\nCHARLES W. COLTON,\nNo. 2 Water Street.\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENT.\n\n\nThrough the past year, M. de Lamartine has published a monthly journal,\ncalled The People's Counsellor, \"_Le Conseiller du Peuple_.\" Each\nnumber of this journal contains an Essay, by him, on some specific\nsubject, of pressing interest to the French people,--generally, some\npolitical subject.\n\nAs a companion to one of these numbers, he published the Essay which\nwe here translate. We have thought that its interest and merit are by\nno means local; but, that it will be read with as much interest in\nAmerica, as in France.\n\n                              EDWARD E. HALE,\n                              FRANCIS LE BARON.\n\n  _Worcester, Mass. March 7, 1850._\n\n\n\n\nATHEISM AMONG THE PEOPLE.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nI have often asked myself, \"Why am I a Republican?--Why am I the\npartizan of equitable Democracy, organized and established as a good\nand strong Government?--Why have I a real love of the People--a love\nalways serious, and sometimes even tender?--What has the People done\nfor me? I was not born in the ranks of the People. I was born between\nthe high Aristocracy and what was then called _the inferior classes_,\nin the days when there were classes, where are now equal citizens in\nvarious callings. I never starved in the People's famine; I never\ngroaned, personally, in the People's miseries; I never sweat with its\nsweat; I was never benumbed with its cold. Why then, I repeat it, do I\nhunger in its hunger, thirst with its thirst, warm under its sun,\nfreeze under its cold, grieve under its sorrows? Why should I not care\nfor it as little as for that which passes at the antipodes?--turn away\nmy eyes, close my ears, think of other things, and wrap myself up in\nthat soft, thick garment of indifference and egotism, in which I can\nshelter myself, and indulge my separate personal tastes, without\nasking whether, below me,--in street, garret, or cottage, there is a\nrich People, or a beggar People; a religious People, or an atheistic\nPeople; a People of idlers, or of workers; a People of Helots, or of\ncitizens?\"\n\nAnd whenever I have thus questioned myself, I have thus answered\nmyself:--\"I love the people because I believe in God. For, if I did\nnot believe in God, what would the people be to me? I should enjoy at\nease that lucky throw of the dice, which chance had turned up for me,\nthe day of my birth; and, with a secret, savage joy, I should say,\n'So much the worse for the losers!--the world is a lottery. Woe to\nthe conquered!'\" I cannot, indeed, say this without shame and\ncruelty,--for, I repeat it, _I believe in God_.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\n\"And what is there in common,\" you will say to me, \"between your\nbelief in God and your love for the People?\" I answer: My belief in\nGod is not that vague, confused, indefinite, shadowy sentiment which\ncompels one to suppose a principle because he sees consequences,--a\ncause where he contemplates effects, a source where he sees the rush\nof the inexhaustible river of life, of forms, of substances, absorbed\nfor ever in the ocean, and renewed unceasingly from creation. The\nbelief in God, which is thus perceived and conceived, is, so to\nspeak, only a mechanical sensation of the interior eye,--an instinct\nof intelligence, in some sort forced and brutal,--an evidence, not\nreasonable, not religious, not perfect, not meritorious; but like the\nmaterial evidence of light, which enters our eyes when we open them\nto the day; like the evidence of sound which we hear when we listen\nto any noise; like the evidence of touch when we plunge our limbs in\nthe waves of the sea, and shiver at the contact. This elementary,\ngross, instinctive, involuntary belief in God, is not the living,\nintelligent, active, and legislative faith of humanity. It is almost\nanimal. I am persuaded that if the brutes even,--if the dog, the\nhorse, the ox, the elephant, the bird, could speak, they would\nconfess, that, at the bottom of their nature, their instincts, their\nsensations, their obtuse intelligence, assisted by organs less\nperfect than ours, there is a clouded, secret sentiment of this\nexistence of a superior and primordial Being, from whom all emanates,\nand to whom all returns,--a shadow of the divinity upon their being,\na distant approach to the conception of that idea, which fills the\nworlds, and for which alone the worlds have been made,--the idea of\nGod!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis may be a bold, but it is not an impious supposition. For God,\nhaving made all things for himself alone, must have placed, upon all\nthat he made, an impress of himself; more or less clear, more or less\nluminous, more or less profound, a presentiment or a remembrance of a\nCreator. But this faith, when it stops here, is not worthy of the\nname. It is a species of _Pantheism_, that is to say, a confused\n\"visibility,\" a physical working together into indissoluble union of\nsomething impersonal, something blind, something fatal, and something\ndivine, which, in the elements composing the universe, we may call\nGOD. But this \"visibility\" can give to man no moral decision,--can\ngive to God no worship. The Pantheism of which I am accused as a\nphilosopher and poet, that Pantheism which I have always scorned as a\ncontradiction and as a blasphemy, resembles entirely the reasoning of\nthe man who should say, \"I see an innumerable multitude of rays,\ntherefore there is no sun.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nFaith, or reasonable and effective belief in God, proceeds, undoubtedly,\nfrom this first instinct; but in proportion as intelligence develops\nitself, and human thought expands, it goes from knowledge to knowledge,\nfrom conclusion to conclusion, from light to light, from sentiment to\nsentiment, infinitely farther and higher, in the idea of God. It does\nnot see him with the eyes of the body, because the Infinite is not\nvisible by a narrow window of flesh, pierced in the frontal bone of an\ninsect called Man; but it sees Him, with a thousand times more\ncertainty, by the spirit, that immaterial eye of the soul, which nothing\nblinds; and after having seen him with evidence, it reasons upon the\nconsequences of his existence, upon the divine aims of His creation,\nupon the terrestrial as well as eternal destinies of His creatures, upon\nthe nature of the homage and adoration that God expects, upon his moral\nlaws, upon the public and private duties which he imposes on his\ncreatures by their consciences, upon the liberty He leaves them; so that\nwith the sufferings of conflict He may give to them the merits and the\nprize of virtue. Thus in man does the instinct of God become Faith. Thus\nman can speak the greatest word that has ever been spoken upon the earth\nor in the stars, the word which fills the worlds by itself alone, the\nword which commenced with them, and which can only end with them;--\n\n\"I believe in God!\"\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nIt is in this sense, my friends, that I say to you, \"I believe in\nGod.\"\n\nBut, once having said this word with the universe of beings and of\nworlds, and blessed this invisible God for having rendered himself\nvisible, sensible, evident, palpable, adorable in the mirror of weak\nhuman intelligence, made gradually more and more pure, I reason with\nmyself on the best worship to be rendered Him in thought and action.\nLet me show how, by this reasoning, I am forcibly drawn to the love of\nthe People.\n\nI say to myself, then, \"Who is this God? Is he a vain _notion_, which\nhas no effect on the thoughts and acts of man, his creature; who\ninspires nothing in him; who gives him no commands; who imposes nothing\nupon him; who does not reward, and who does not punish?--No! God is\nnot a mere _notion_, an idea, an evidence;--God is a _law_,--the living\nlaw, the supreme law, the universal law, the eternal law. Because God\nis a law on high, he is a duty on the earth; and when man says, 'I\nbelieve in God,' he says, at the same time, 'I believe in my duty\ntowards God,--I believe in my duty towards man.' God is a government!\"\n\nAnd what are these duties? They are of three sorts:--\n\n_Duty towards God_,--that is to say, the duty of developing, as much\nas possible, my intelligence and my reason, to arrive at the purest\nidea and the highest worship of the Supreme Being, by whom and for\nwhom all is, all exists:--_Religion_.\n\n_Private Duties_,--that is to say, the exact and tender discharge of\nall sentiments to which form has been given, either in written or\nunwritten laws, which bind me to those, to whom, in the order of\nnature, I hold most closely,--the nearest to myself in the human\ngroup--father, mother, brothers, sisters, wife, children, friends,\nneighbors:--_the Family_.\n\n_Collective Duties_,--that is to say, devotions, even to the sacrifice\nof myself, even to death, to the progress, the well-being, the\npreservation, the amelioration of this great human family, of which my\nfamily, and my country, are only parts; and of which I myself am only\na miserable and vanishing fraction, a leaf of a summer, which\nvegetates and withers on a branch of the immense trunk of the human\nrace:--_Society_.\n\nLet us speak to-day only of these last duties,--because, now we are\noccupied with politics alone.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\nGod, when one believes in Him as you and I do, imposes then on man a\nduty towards the society of which he makes a part. You admit it, do\nyou not?\n\nThen follow, and analyze with me this society. Of whom, and how, is it\ncomposed?\n\nIt is composed, at the same time, of strong and weak, conquerors and\nconquered, victors and vanquished, oppressors and oppressed, masters\nand slaves, nobles and serfs, of citizens and bondmen or subjects\ndisinherited and enslaved, considered as living furniture, as tools\nand laughing-stocks to their fellow-men, as were the Blacks in our\ncolonies before the Republic.\n\nThanks to the increase of general reason, to the light of philosophy,\nto the inspiration of Christianity, to the progress of the idea of\njustice, of charity, and of fraternity, in laws, manners, and\nreligion, society in America, in Europe, and in France, especially\nsince the Revolution, has broken down all these barriers, all these\ndenominations of caste, all these injurious distinctions among men.\nSociety is composed only of various conditions, professions,\nfunctions, and ways of life, among those who form what we call a\nNation; of proprietors of the soil, and proprietors of houses; of\ninvestments, of handicrafts, of merchants, of manufacturers, of\nfarmers; of day-laborers becoming farmers, manufacturers, merchants,\nor possessors of houses or capital, in their turn; of the rich, of\nthose in easy circumstances, of the poor, of workmen with their\nhands, workmen with their minds; of day-laborers, of those in need, of\na small number of men enjoying considerable acquired or inherited\nwealth, of others of a smaller fortune painfully increased and\nimproved, of others with property only sufficient for their needs;\nthere are some, finally, without any personal possession but their\nhands, and gleaning for themselves and for their families, in the\nworkshop, or the field, and at the threshold of the homes of others on\nthe earth, the asylum, the wages, the bread, the instruction, the\ntools, the daily pay, all those means of existence which they have\nneither inherited, saved, nor acquired. These last are what have been\nimproperly called _the People_. This name is extended now; it embraces\nreally all the People; but still it is used as the name of the\nindigent and suffering part of the People.\n\nIt is more especially of this class that I intend to speak, in saying\nto you, \"To love the People, it is necessary to believe in God.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\nThe love of the People, the conscience of the citizen, the sentiment\nwhich induces the individual to lose himself in the mass, to submit\nhimself to the community, to sacrifice himself to its needs,--his\ninterest, his individuality, his egotism, his ambition, his pride, his\nfortune, his blood, his life, his reputation even, sometimes, to the\nsafety of his country, to the happiness of the People, to the good of\nhumanity, of which he is a member in the sight of God,--in one word,\nall these virtues, necessary under every form of government,--useful\nunder a monarchy, indispensable under a republic,--never have been\nderived, and never can be derived, from any thing but that single\nsentence, pronounced with religious faith, at the commencement, in the\nmiddle, at the end of all our patriotic acts:--\"I believe in God!\"\n\nThe People who do not believe strongly, efficaciously in this first\nprinciple, in this supreme original, in this last end of all\nexistence, cannot have a faith superior to their individual\nselfishness.\n\nThe People who cannot have a principle superior to their individual\nselfishness, in their acts as citizens, cannot have national virtue.\n\nThe People who cannot have national virtue cannot be free; for they\ncan have neither the courage which enables them to defend their own\nliberty, nor the conscience which forces them to respect the liberty\nof others, and to obey the laws, not as an outward force, but as a\nsecond conscience.\n\nThe People who can neither defend their liberty, nor restrain it, may\nbe, by turns, slaves or tyrants, but they can never be republicans.\n\nTherefore, Atheism in the People is the most invincible obstacle to\nthe establishment and consolidation of that sublime form of\ngovernment, the idol of all ages, the tendency of all perfect\ncivilization, the dream of every sage, the model of all great\nsouls,--the government of the entire People by the reason and\nconscience of each citizen,--otherwise called the REPUBLIC.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\n\nMust I demonstrate to you so simple a truth? Can you not comprehend,\nwithout explanation of mine, that a nation, where each citizen thinks\nonly of his own private well-being here below, and sacrifices\nconstantly the general good to his personal and narrow interest;--where\nthe powerful man wishes to preserve all the power for himself alone,\nwithout making an equitable and proportional division to the\nweak;--where the weak wishes to conquer at any price, that he may\ntyrannize in his turn;--where the rich wishes to acquire and\nconcentrate the greatest possible amount of wealth, to enjoy it alone,\nand even without circulating it in work, in wages, in assistance, in\nbenevolence, in good deeds to his brothers;--where the poor wishes to\ndispossess violently and unjustly those who possess more than himself,\ninstead of recognizing that diversity of chances, of conditions, of\nprofessions, of fortunes, of which human life is composed,--instead of\nacquiring prosperity for his family, in his turn and degree, by effort,\nby order, by labor, by economy, by the assistance of borrowed capital,\nby the law of inheritance, by the free transfer of real estate, by free\nentrance into different callings and trades, by free competition in the\nmoney market;--where each class of citizens declares itself an enemy to\nevery other, and heaps upon each other all manner of evil, instead of\ndoing all the good in its power, and uniting in the holy harmony of\nsocial unity;--where each individual draws around him, for himself\nalone, the common mantle, willing to tear it in pieces for himself,\nand thus leave the whole world naked,--do you not understand, I say,\nthat such a People, having no God but its selfishness, no judge but\ninterest, no conscience but cupidity, will fall, in a short time, into\ncomplete destruction, and, being incapable of a Republican government,\nbecause it casts aside the government of God himself, will rush\nheadlong into the government of the brute: the government of the\nstrongest, the despotism of the sword, the divinity of the\ncannon,--that last resort of anarchy, which is at once the remedy and\nthe death of nations without God!\n\nNow has not this weakening of the sentiment of God in the soul of the\nPeople been, from year to year, from century to century, indeed, I\nmight say, the most discouraging and threatening symptom, in the eyes\nof those who desire the progress of their race, who aspire to the\nmoral perfection of the human spirit, who hope in Republican\ninstitutions, who love the People, who wish to cultivate their reason,\nwho desire that the People should understand themselves, respect\nthemselves, and, finally, by their enlightenment, their\nconscientiousness, their moderation and virtue, give the lie to those\nwho declare them in a state of perpetual infancy, perpetual madness,\nor perpetual weakness?\n\nYes, this is but too true: men have been blotting out God, for a\ncentury past, from the souls of the People, and more especially in\nlatter years. The masses have been driven to Atheism, they have been\ndriven on every side and by every hand.\n\nSometimes, by blasphemies, such as were never heard upon the earth,\nuntil an insult to the Creator became a means of popularity among His\ncreatures; blasphemies which would have darkened the sun and\nextinguished the stars, if God had not commanded His creation to pass\nunnoticed the revolt of a blind and foolish insect against Infinity,\nand refused Himself to sink to the foolishness of avenging impiety!\nRead those lines which I dare not write, those lines where an apostle\nof Atheism effaces the name of God from the beautiful creation and\nendeavors to substitute his own! * * *\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\n\nSometimes the masses have been driven to Atheism by science. There are\nsome geometers great in paradox, men who, of all the senses that the\nCreator has given to his creatures, have cultivated only one, the\nsense of touch,--leaving out entirely that chief sense, which connects\nand confirms all others,--_the sense of the invisible_, the _moral\nsense_. These _savans_, geometers, physicians, arithmeticians,\nmathematicians, chemists, astronomers, measurers of distances,\ncalculators of numbers, have early acquired the habit of believing\nonly in the _tangible_. These are the beings who, so to speak, live\nand think in the dark; all, which is not palpable, does not exist for\nthem. They measure the earth, and say, \"We have not met God in any\nleague of its surface!\" They heat the alembic, and say, \"We have not\nperceived God in the smoke of any of our experiments!\" They dissect\ndead bodies, and say, \"We have not found God, or thought, in any\nbundle of muscles or nerves in our dissection!\" They calculate columns\nof figures, long as the firmament, and say, \"We have not seen God in\nthe sum of any of our additions!\" They pierce, with eye and glass,\ninto the dazzling mysteries of night, to discover, across thousands\nand thousands of leagues, the groups and the evolutions of the\ncelestial worlds, and say, \"We have not discovered God at the end of\nour telescopes! The existence of God does not concern us; it is no\naffair of ours!\"--Madmen! They do not suspect that the knowledge and\nadoration of God are, at bottom, the only business of the creature;\nand that all these distances, these globes, these numbers, these\nmysteries of the living being, this dissected mechanism of the dead,\nthese compositions and decompositions of combined elements, these\nhosts of stars, and these eternal evolutions of suns around the divine\nhand which guides them, have no other reason for existence, for\nmovement, and for duration, than to compel the acknowledgment, fear,\nadmiration, and adoration of God, by that supreme sense, that sense\nsuperior to all other senses, that sense imponderable and impalpable,\ninvisible yet beholding all things,--that sense which we call\n_intelligence_!\n\nAlas! it is not that God has denied this sense to these men of\nfigures, of science, and calculation; but they have blinded\nthemselves, they have cultivated the other senses so much, that they\nhave weakened this. They have believed too much in matter, and so they\nhave lost the eye of the spirit. These men, we are told, have made\ngreat progress in experimental science, but they have made good, evil,\nto the People, by saying to them, \"We, who are so high, we cannot see\nGod!--blind men! what do you see, then?\"\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\n\nBesides these men, there is still another class,--inventors of another\nscience, which they call \"_Political Economy_.\" This is the class of\n_Economists_. I do not, indeed, speak of all of them: there are among\nthem some who are as spiritual as Fenelon, and these are, perhaps, at\nthis day, the greater number. I speak only of those who, considering\nthis world alone, have been driven, voluntarily or involuntarily, to\nAtheism in another way. Leaving the eternal and fastidious metaphysical\nand religions disputes in which the theologians of past centuries\nwasted the time, the good sense, and the blood of men, to honor their\npretended God by immolating to Him the enemies of their faith, these\n_false economists_ have said to governments and people, \"Leave all\nthis; there is only one science which is good for any thing: it is the\nscience of Wealth. All else is vanity and vexation of spirit.\" This is\nthe famous cry, the cry of a materialistic society:--\"_Grow rich!_\" The\neconomists of this school, now highly enlightened, legitimate children\nof the materialists of the Eighteenth Century, see in humanity, only\nmatter and the things that belong to matter; in men, only consumers and\nproducers; in the social functions, only labor of the hands:--to labor,\nto sow, to reap, to hew, to build, to forge, to weave, to barter, to\nexchange, to sell, to buy, to acquire, to beget,--this is, according to\nthese disciples of Malthus, the whole of man! These are the Lycurguses\nand the Moseses, the legislators of a trading People: the moral,\nintellectual, spiritual, religious man does not exist for them. They\nlove liberty, not because it ennobles human nature; exercises free\nwill, the most sublime of man's vital functions; cultivates his highest\nfaculty,--conscience; purifies religion, the fundamental idea of\nmankind, from the superstitions that debase and dishonor it; sanctifies\nhuman society, by leading it to the knowledge and worship of God;--they\nlove it because it abolishes Custom House duties! All legislation, all\ncivilization, all religion, is reduced by them to a well-balanced\naccount! _To have_ and _to owe_, these are the only two words in their\nlanguage! What matter to them the spirit, the soul, virtue,\nsentiment?--What the moral and consoling beliefs, the divine hopes, the\nsupernatural certainties, revealed or proved, or the immortal destiny,\nof man?--What the present intellectual life, and the future immaterial\nlife of these harvests of human generations, which God sows that they\nmay bear fruit in his name, may adore his grandeur,--which Death cuts\ndown to bear them, ripe in faith and virtue, up to Heaven? All this can\nneither be bought nor sold; all this has neither stated price nor net\nrevenue; all this is not current on the Exchange,--therefore it is\nnothing!\n\nThus these men count for nothing the forms of worship and the forms of\ngovernment. They are neither followers of Brama, of Confucius, of\nMahomet, of Plato, or of Rousseau; neither absolute monarchists,\nconstitutional royalists, nor republicans. They are of the politics,\nand of the religion, in which they can manufacture most, buy and sell\neasiest, trade the best, multiply fastest! Their civilization is\ntraffic; their God is the dollar! This sect, useful in administering\nintelligently the affairs of commerce, has been a shadow over\nintellectual civilization; for it has forgotten heavenly things, and,\nin forgetting them, has contributed to make the People also forget\nthem.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\n\nBut that People which forgets God, forgets itself. What right has it\nto be a People, if it have not its origin and hope in Him? How can the\nmen of any nation expect tyrants to remember and respect its destiny,\nif they themselves debase this destiny to that of a machine with ten\nfingers, destined to weave the greatest possible number of yards of\ncloth in seventy years, to people as many hundred acres as possible\nwith creatures as much to be pitied and as miserable as themselves,\nand to serve, from generation to generation, as human manure for the\nland, to fertilize the soil of their birth, their life, and their\ngraves? How can the moral spiritualism of a People long resist such\ntheories? Where can they find God in this workshop of matter?\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\n\nBut even this is nothing. The French Revolution came in 1789. It came\nto put an end to a double philosophy,--the spiritual philosophy of\nRousseau's school, founded in reason and religion, the material\nphilosophy of the school of Helvetius, Diderot, and their disciples,\natheistic and cynical. The thought of the first of these philosophies\nwas religious at bottom. It consisted merely in freeing the luminous\nidea of God from the shadows by which ignorance, intolerance, the\ninquisition of temporal dynasties and times of barbarism had falsified\nit,--in freeing this idea, debased as it was,--obscured, and enchained\nto thrones,--so as to restore reason to its liberty, to inquiry, to\nthe free conscience of every worship and of every soul; to revive it\nin the eyes of the People, by leading them to the broad light of day,\nthe evidence of nature, the dignity and efficacy of free worship.\n\nBut, for this, it was necessary to dispossess the Middle Ages of their\ntemporal power, of their _mort-main_ possessions, of their civil\njurisdictions, of their exclusive privileges, of their legal\nintolerance against all other divine thoughts, and all other individual\nor national faith, all other forms of adoration and worship than what\nwere imposed by the exclusive and established religion. To rally the\npeople to this work, a work legitimate in itself, a work which the\nabuses of a crafty priesthood had made necessary, seven times, and\nwhose accomplishment they had seven times partially and gradually\nundertaken, since the time of Charlemagne,--the philosophers of the\nsecond school, the irreligious school, the atheistic school, of Diderot\nand Helvetius, drove the masses from stupidity even to impiety, and the\ndemagogues of '93 forced them from impiety to Atheism, and from Atheism\nto blood. Demagogues, those poisoners of liberty, corrupt every\nrevolution in which they mingle; they defile every thing that they\ntouch; they dishonor every truth which they profess, by polluting or\nperverting it. The age and philosophy, Heaven and earth, desire what\nwe too desire,--freedom of conscience, voluntary worship,--liberty of\nthe human mind in matters of faith,--the fraternity of altars,\ninvoking, each in its own language, that God whom the whole earth is\nspelling out, and who reveals, from age to age, still another letter of\nHis divine name.\n\nInstead of this, Atheists and demagogues united to persecute religion,\nto revenge themselves for the old persecutions of the priesthood. They\nprofaned the temples, violated conscience, blasphemed the God of the\nfaithful, parodied the ceremonies, cast to the winds the pious symbols\nof worship, and persecuted the ministers of religion.\n\nIn the name of the Revolution, and under the menace of terror, they\ndragged the People to these Saturnalia. They corrupted the eyes, the\nhands, the minds, the souls of the populace. These violences to the\naltar were cast back on the religious idea itself. The People, seeing\nthe temple fall, believed that Heaven itself crumbled; and that,\nfollowing the profaned image of a vanishing worship, God himself would\nvanish from the world, with conscience, the supernatural law, the\nunwritten moral law, the soul and the immortality of the human race!\n\nWhen the ignorant People no longer saw God between them and\nannihilation, they plunged into the boundless and bottomless abyss of\nAtheism, they lost their divine sense, they became brutal as the\nanimal, who sees in the earth only a pasture ground, instead of the\nfootstool of Jehovah.\n\nBut these irreligious abominations, and these Saturnalia of Atheism,\nhowever much injury they inflicted on the religious spirit of the\nPeople, did not effect so much, perhaps, as the reign which followed\nthis anarchy, the reign of Bonaparte, the so-called restorer of\nworship. And how?\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\n\nThe Republic had passed its paroxysm of fever, of demagoguical\nmadness, of persecution. The Directory had finally concentrated and\nregulated the republican power. This government was composed of men,\nnaturally moderate and tolerant, or made so by the experience and the\nlassitude of anarchy; the moderate principles of the Revolution of\n1789, and of the constituted Assembly, regained their level, thanks to\na natural reaction, limited by good sense, as happens after every\nrevolution that overshoots its mark. The priests officiated, without\nobstacle, in the temples restored by the municipalities to the\nfaithful, religion was entirely free, even favored by public respect,\nand by that care for good morals which all serious governments feel.\nFaith, taking refuge in men's consciences, was, moreover, more sincere\nand more active, because it was neither constrained, nor favored, nor\naltered, nor profaned by the hand of government.\n\nThis was, perhaps, the moment when there was the most religion in\nFrance,--for this was the moment when, after having had its martyrs,\nthe religious sentiment had a life in itself, and owed nothing to the\npartial and interested protection of the powers of the State. For, the\nless the State imposes upon you a God of its own fashion, or its own\nchoice, the more does your conscience rise, and the more does it\nattach itself to the God of your own reason, or your own faith!\n\nBonaparte, whose genius was entirely military, but who, in affairs of\nmoral, civil, and religious government, made it a matter of policy to\ncontradict and extinguish all the truths of the Revolution, hastened\nto change all this. He wished to parody Charlemagne.\n\nCharlemagne had been the philosopher and revolutionary organizer of\nhis time; Charlemagne had bound together the spiritual and temporal,\ncrowning the Pontiff that he might be crowned by him in turn.\nBonaparte desired a State religion, an agreement in which religion and\nthe empire should mutually engage and mutually check each other; a\nPope to subdue, to caress, to drive away, to recall, to persecute, by\nturns; a coronation by the hand of an enslaved Church; then a Church\nto chastise, when it did not obey;--in one word, all that shameful and\nscandalous _simony_ of ancient times, when the temporal power played,\nin the sight of the nations, with the idea and name of God, in a\nmanner as contemptuous as it was odious.\n\nThe People, who saw clearly through this intrigue of an indifferent\nsovereign,--an Atheist at Toulon, a crafty politician at Marengo, a\nMussulman in Egypt, a persecutor at Rome, an oppressor at Savona, a\nschismatic at Fontainbleau, a saint at Notre Dame de Paris,--protector\nof religion and profaner of consciences by turns,--felt their belief\nshaken anew. They asked themselves, \"What then is God for us, poor\nsouls, since God is such an instrument of power for great men, and\nsuch a police machine for governments?\" Scorn threw them back into\nAtheism. This was natural.\n\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\n\nThis system was continued, with more sincerity on the part of\ngovernment, under the dynasty of the Restoration. But the interested\nfavors of the Court, for the higher clergy of a particular worship,\nirritated the minds of the populace against the priesthood.\n\nThe more it lavished power and human dignities upon priestly\nsuperiors, the more the mind of the People turned from the religious\nsentiment. Each favor of royal authority to the privileged Church cast\nthousands of souls into Atheism.\n\nThe Revolution of July suppressed the religion of the State: it was a\nprogress towards the religion of conscience. But it favored the\nreligion of the majority; it still leaned towards the supremacy of\nnumbers in matters of faith. However, from the moment the State\nreligion was suppressed, the religion of conscience gained ground in\nmen's hearts. From 1830 to this day, every intelligent observer gladly\nacknowledges an immense progress in the religious sentiment in\nFrance.--Why? Because the suppression of the official religion of the\nState was a progress in the liberty of conscience, and all progress in\nliberty of conscience is a progress of human thought toward the idea\nof God. Go farther still, and complete liberty will destroy Atheism in\nthe People!\n\nBut the evil done was immense. The cynicism of Diderot, materialism,\nscepticism, revolutionary impiety, the false and hypocritical piety\nof the empire, the concordat, the restoration of an imperial religion,\nand of an official and dynastic God by Napoleon, the tendency of the\ntwo Bourbon reigns to reconstruct a political church, everlastingly\nendowed with a monopoly of goods and of souls,--and, finally, the\nindustrialism of the reign of Louis Philippe, turning every thought to\ntrade, to manual labor, to worldly wealth, and making gold the true\nand only God of the century;--all this has borne its fruits.\n\nLook at these fruits at the present day, and say, if practical Atheism\ndoes not devour the souls of this People. But let us proceed.\n\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\n\nFor eighteen years, new sects, or, rather, posthumous sects, have\ndisputed for the soul of the People, under the names of Fourierism, of\nPantheism, of Communism, of Industrialism, of Economism, and, finally,\nof Terrorism. Look at them, listen to them, read them, analyze them,\nsift them, handle them; and say, if, with the exception of a vague\ndeifying of every thing,--that is to say, of nothing, by the\nFourierites,--there is a single one of these philosophical, social, or\npolitical sects, which is not founded on the most evident practical\nAtheism; which has not matter for a God; material enjoyments for\nmorality; exclusive satisfaction of the senses for an end; purely\nsensual gratifications for a paradise; this world for the sole scene\nof existence; the body for the only condition of being; the\nprolonging of life a few more years for its only hope; a sharpening of\nthe senses to material appetites for a perspective; death for the end\nof all things; after death, an assimilation with the dust of the earth\nfor a future; annihilation for justice, for reward, and for\nimmortality!\n\nNo, there has not been since 1830, there has not been since the\nRevolution, there is not at this moment, one of these schools of\npretended apostles, prophets of the future, and saviors of the\npresent, which is not Materialism in action. It is the deadly seed of\nthe century of Helvetius, producing its poisons in the dregs of\nanother century. It is man, deprived of his spiritual and immortal\nsense, reduced to a solid measure of organized matter, and seeking,\nnot virtue, that key to his future destiny, in his soul; but, in his\nsenses, mere enjoyment, that end of the brute, who only believes in\nwhat he can eat and drink.\n\n\n\n\nXV.\n\n\nAnalyze with me, if you are not overwhelmed with humiliation, the five\nor six Revelations of the latter days; and ask yourselves, as I have\noften asked myself, while listening to them, if these revealers of\npretended human felicity do indeed address themselves to men, or to\nherds of fatted cattle! And are they astonished that the intellectual\nworld resists them? Do they complain that the ignorant are their only\ndisciples? Are they indignant that the ideas they attempt to spread,\ncreep, like fetid mists, along the abysses of society, and excite,\ninstead of enthusiasm, only the fanaticism of hunger and thirst? I\ncan well believe it! What People is there who would become fanatics,\nonly for their own destruction; renounce their moral nature, their\ndivine souls, their immortal destinies, only for a morsel of more\nsavory bread upon their table, for a larger portion of earth under\ntheir feet? No! no! enthusiasm soars aloft, it does not fall to earth.\nBear me up to Heaven, if you wish to dazzle my eyes; promise me\nimmortality, if you would offer to my soul a motive worthy of its\nnature, an aim worthy of its efforts, a price worthy of its virtue!\nBut what do your systems of atheistic society show us in perspective?\nWhat do they promise us in compensation for our griefs? What do they\ngive us in exchange for our souls? You know,--we will not speak of it.\n\nBut, indeed, if these sects survive the month which sees and which\nproduces them; and, if these questions which they debate, and these\nsystems which they bring before the astonished People, are destined to\nserve as enigmas to posterity; what will the future say of us? It will\nonly explain the Materialism, Atheism, and brutality of the doctrines\nand sects by which we have been disturbed for ten or twelve years, as\nthe nightmare of a starving People, whose dreams have, for an object,\nonly a frantic satisfaction of the senses. All these philosophies, or\nall these deliriums, are the deliriums or philosophies of the stomach!\n\"All this epoch,\" future historians will say, \"the French must have\nbeen a nation distressed by a terrible famine, to have forgotten, in\nso total an eclipse of the intellectual nature, the great and immortal\nideas which have alone inspired even these, the human race, and\nrendered the revolutions of the People worthy of the regard of\nposterity, and of the blood of man. The Eighteenth Century must have\nbeen a time when avaricious Nature shut up her bosom, and the earth\nbrought forth neither fruit nor harvests, that this great intellectual\nPeople, formerly called the French People, should have forgotten their\nsouls for a morsel of bread, their immortality for an income, and\ntheir God for a dollar! Let us turn away our eyes and weep over that\nage.\"\n\n\n\n\nXVI.\n\n\nSee where we were when the Republic arose: happy was it that the\nPeople had at bottom more of the true sentiment of God than these\nmasters and heads of sects. For, what would have become of us, if, in\nthat total eclipse of government, of armed force, and of law, which\nfollowed the 24th of February, the People, masters of all, of the\nfortunes and lives of the citizens, of Heaven and earth, had been a\nPeople of Materialists, of Terrorists, and of Atheists? The Revolution\nwould have been a pillage, the Republic a scaffold, the dynasty of the\nPeople a deluge of blood. But there was no such thing. God was there.\nHe revealed Himself in the multitude; Materialism disappeared in\nenthusiasm, which always exhibits the divinity of the human heart.\n\nWe heard but one cry,--\"Honor to God! Respect for the altars! Liberty\nto their ministers! Self-denial, harmony, protection to the weak,\ninviolability of property, assistance to the miserable!\" Yes,--on the\nfirst day, and during the whole time that the People was alone and\nburning with excitement, it was religious! It was not until after the\ncooling of this enthusiasm that the materialistic sects, who waited\ntheir opportunity afar off, and who now torment the People, dared to\noffer their sensual symbols, and to set up Capital and Interest, the\norganization of labor, the increase of wages, and equality of\nconditions in this human manger, as the sole Divinities,--dared to\ninfuse envy against the happy, the breath of hatred as the only\nconsolation to the hearts of the miserable, lightning vengeance\nagainst the wrongs of Providence, imprecations against society,\nblasphemies against the existence of God, the enjoyments and\nbestialities of the corporeal nature, purchased by complete\nforgetfulness of the moral nature, and enjoyed in a debauch of ideas,\nand in a deification of matter.\n\nThis cannot last; the People will not allow themselves to be changed\ninto hogs by the Circes of Atheism. Their souls will flash indignation\nagainst their transformers. A day will come when they will see that\nthey are impoverished under the pretext of being enriched; that, when\nthey are robbed of their souls and of God, both their titles to\nliberty are stolen from them. Atheism and Republicanism are two words\nwhich exclude each other. Absolutism may thrive without a God, for it\nneeds only slaves. Republicanism cannot exist without a God, for it\nmust have citizens. And what is it that makes citizens? Two\nthings,--the sentiment of their rights, and the sentiment of their\nduties as a republican People. Where are your rights, if you have not\na common Father in Heaven? Where are your duties, if you have not a\nJudge between your brothers and you? Republicanism draws you in both\nthese ways to God.\n\n\n\n\nXVII.\n\n\nThus, look at every free People, from the mountains of Helvetia to the\nforests of America; see even the free British nation, where the\nAristocracy is only the head of liberty, where the Aristocracy and\nDemocracy mutually respect each other, and balance each other by an\nexchange of kindnesses and services which sanctify society while\nfortifying it. Atheism has fled before liberty: in proportion as\ndespotism has receded, the divine idea has advanced in the souls of\nmen. Liberty lives by morality. What is morality without a God? What\nis a law without a lawgiver?\n\nI know well, and I shall give you the reason hereafter; I know well,\nand I mourn to think of it, that, even up to the present time, the\nFrench People have been the least religious People in Europe.\n\nIs this because the intelligence of France has not that force, and\nthat severity, which are needed to carry long enough and far enough\nthe idea of God,--the greatest idea of the human soul;--that idea, as\nit comes from all the evidences of nature, and all the depths of\nreflection, being the most powerful and the most grave of human\nintelligence,--and the intelligence of France being the most\nsuperficial, the most light, and the least reflecting of the European\nraces?\n\nIs it because our governments have always been charged with thinking,\nbelieving, and praying, for us?\n\nIs it that they have always given us gods of the Court, worship\naccording to Etiquette, and religions of State, instead of letting us\nform, make, and practise our faith for ourselves, by reason, by\nfree-will, by voluntary piety, by association, by tradition, by the\nsympathies of the community, of worship, and of the family?\n\nIs it because we are, and always have been, a military People, a\nnation of soldiers and adventurers, led by kings, heroes, ambitious\nmen, from battle-field to battle-field, making conquests and not\nkeeping them, ravaging, dazzling, charming, and corrupting Europe, and\nbearing the manners, vices, bravado, lightness, and impiety of the\ncamp into the homes of the People?\n\nI do not know; but it is certain that the nation has an immense\nprogress to make in serious thought, if it wishes to maintain its\nliberty. If we look at the comparative character, in matters of\nreligious sentiment, of the great nations of Europe, America, and even\nAsia, the advantage is not on our side. While the great men of other\nnations live and die upon the scene of history, looking towards\nheaven, our great men seem to live and die in entire forgetfulness of\nthe only idea for which life or death is worth any thing; they live\nand die looking at the spectators, or, at most, towards posterity.\n\nThus, even at the present time, while we have had the greatest men,\nother nations have had the greatest citizens. It is great citizens\nthat a Republic needs!\n\n\n\n\nXVIII.\n\n\nOpen the history of America, the history of England, and the history\nof France; read the great lives, the great deaths, the great\nsufferings, the sublime words, when the ruling passion of life reveals\nitself in the last moments of the dying,--and compare them!\n\nWashington and Franklin fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell, in\ntheir political life, from popularity to ingratitude, from glory to\nbitter scorn of their citizens,--always in the name of God, for whom\nthey acted; and the liberator of America died, committing to the\nDivine protection, first, the liberty of his People,--and, afterwards,\nhis own soul to His indulgent judgment.\n\nStrafford, dying for the constitution of his country, wrote to Charles\nI., to entreat his consent to his punishment, that he might spare\ntrouble to the State: \"Put not your trust,\" wrote he, after this\nconsent was obtained, \"put not your trust in princes, or in the son\nof man, because salvation is not in them, but from on high.\" While\nwalking to the scaffold, he stopped under the windows of his friend,\nthe Bishop of London; he raised his head towards him, and asked, in a\nloud voice, the assistance of his prayers in the terrible moment to\nwhich he had come. The primate, bowed with age, and bathed in tears,\ngave, in a stifled voice, his tender benedictions to his unhappy\nfriend, and fell, without consciousness, into the arms of his\nattendants. Strafford continued his way, sustained by the Divine\nforce, descending from this invocation upon him: he spoke with\nresignation to the People assembled to see him die. \"I fear only one\nthing,\" said he, \"and that is, that this effusion of innocent blood is\na bad presage for the liberty of my country!\" (Alas! why did not the\nConvention recall these words among us, in '93?) Stafford\ncontinued:--\"Now,\" said he, \"I draw near my end. One blow will make my\nwife a widow, my children orphans, deprive my poor servants of an\naffectionate master, and separate me from my dear brother, and my\nfriends. May God be all of these!\" He disrobed himself, and placed his\nhead on the block. \"I give thanks,\" said he, \"to my heavenly Master\nfor helping me to await this blow without fear; for not permitting me\nto be cast down for a single instant by terror. I repose my head as\nwillingly on this block as I ever laid it down to sleep.\" This is\nfaith in Patriotism! See Charles I., in his turn,--that model of a\nkingly death. At the moment that he was to receive the blow of the\naxe, the edge of which he had coolly examined and touched, he raised\nhis head, and addressed the clergyman who was present:--\"Remember!\"\nsaid he; as if he had said, \"Remember to advise my sons never to\nrevenge their father!\"\n\nSidney, the young martyr of a patriotism, guilty, because too hasty,\ndied to expiate the dream of the freedom of his country. He said to\nthe jailer, \"May my blood purify my soul! I rejoice that I die\ninnocent toward the king, but a victim resigned to the King of Heaven,\nto whom we owe all life.\"\n\nThe republicans of Cromwell sought only the way of God, even in the\nblood of battles. Their politics is nothing but faith; their\ngovernment, a prayer; their death, a holy hymn;--they sang, like the\nTemplars, on their funeral-pile. We see, we feel, we hear God, above\nall, in these revolutions, in these great popular movements, and in\nthe souls of the great citizens of these nations.\n\nBut recross the Atlantic, traverse the Channel, approach our own\ntime, open our annals; and listen to the great political actors in the\ndrama of our liberty. It would seem as if God was hidden from the\nsouls of men; as if his name had never been written in the language.\nHistory will have the air of being atheistic, while recounting to\nposterity these _annihilations_, rather than _deaths_, of the\ncelebrated men of the greatest years of France. The victims alone have\na God; the tribunes and lictors have none.\n\nSee Mirabeau on his death-bed. \"Crown me with flowers,\" said he,\n\"intoxicate me with perfumes, let me die with the sound of delicious\nmusic.\" Not one word of God, or of his soul! A sensual philosopher, he\nasks of death only a supreme sensualism; he desires to give a last\npleasure even to agony.\n\nLook at Madam Roland, that strong woman of the Revolution,--upon the\ncar that carries her to death. She looks with scorn upon the stupid\nPeople, who kill their prophets and their sibyls. Not one glance to\nHeaven; only an exclamation for the earth she leaves:--\"O, Liberty!\"\n\nApproach the prison door of the Girondines: their last night is a\nbanquet, and their last hymn is the _Marseillaise_!\n\nFollow Camille Desmoulins to punishment:--a cold and indecent\npleasantry at the tribunal; one long imprecation on the road to the\nguillotine;--those are the last thoughts of this dying man, about to\nappear on high!\n\nListen to Danton, upon the platform of the scaffold, one step from God\nand immortality:--\"I have enjoyed much; let me go to sleep,\" he\nsays;--then, to the executioner, \"You will show my head to the\nPeople; it is worth while!\" Annihilation for a confession of faith;\nvanity for his last sigh: such is the Frenchman of these latter days!\n\nWhat do you think of the religious sentiment of a free People, whose\ngreat characters seem to walk thus in procession to annihilation; and\ndie, without even death, that terrible minister, recalling to their\nminds the fear or the promises of God?\n\nThus the Republic,--which had no future,--reared by these men, and\nmere parties, was quickly overthrown in blood. Liberty, achieved by so\nmuch heroism and genius, did not find in France a conscience to\nshelter it, a God to avenge it, a People to defend it, against that\nother Atheism called Glory! All was finished by a soldier, and by the\napostacy of republicans travestied into courtiers! And what could you\nexpect? Republican Atheism has no reason to be heroic. If it is\nterrified, it yields. Would one buy it, it sells itself; it would be\nmost foolish to sacrifice itself. Who would mourn for it?--the People\nare ungrateful, and God does not exist.\n\nThus end atheistic revolutions!\n\n\n\n\nXIX.\n\n\nIf you wish that this revolution should not have the same end, beware\nof abject Materialism, degrading Sensualism, gross Socialism, of\nbesotted Communism; of all these doctrines of flesh and blood, of meat\nand drink, of hunger and thirst, of wages and traffic, which these\ncorruptors of the soul of the People preach to you, exclusively, as\nthe sole thought, the sole hope, as the only duty, and only end of\nman! They will soon make you slaves of ease, serfs of your desires.\n\nAre you willing to have inscribed on the tomb of our French race, as\non that of the _Sybarites_, this epitaph: \"This People ate and drank\nwell, while they browsed upon the earth?\" No! You desire that History\nshould write thus: \"This People worshipped well, served God and\nhumanity well,--in thought, in philosophy, in religion, in literature,\nin arts, in arms, in labor, in liberty, in their Aristocracies, in\ntheir Democracies, in their Monarchies, and their Republics! This\nnation was the spiritual laborer, the conqueror of truth; the disciple\nof the highest God, in all the ways of civilization,--and, to approach\nnearer to him, it invented the Republic, that government of duties and\nof rights, that rule of spiritualism, which finds in _ideas_ its only\nsovereignty.\"\n\nSeek God, then. This is your nature and your grandeur. And do not\nseek Him in these Materialisms! For God is not below,--he is on high!\n\n                              LAMARTINE,\n\n                   _Representative of the People_.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Note\n\nThis text uses some variant spelling--for example, partizan,\ndemagoguical, apostacy, corruptors. This has been preserved as\nprinted.\n\nThe ellipsis in this text uses asterisks rather than dots.\n\nOn page 62, the semicolon following 'rose' has been moved to follow\n'suffered'--\"... fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell ...\"\n\nA repetition of the book title has been deleted.","title":"Atheism Among the People","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":8659}