{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38446/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38446","id":"gutenberg_38446","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38446","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity -- Philosophy","Dogma","Religion -- Philosophy"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  _Outlines of a Philosophy\n  of Religion based on\n  Psychology and History_\n\n\n_By Auguste Sabatier_\n\n_Author of the \"Apostle Paul\" etc._\n\n\n\n\nNEW YORK\n\nJAMES POTT & COMPANY\n\n119-121 WEST 23D STREET.\n\n1910\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n\nBOOK I.--RELIGION\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN AND THE NATURE OF RELIGION\n\n  1. First Critical Reflections\n  2. Initial Contradiction of the Psychological Consciousness\n  3. Religion the Prayer of the Heart\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nRELIGION AND REVELATION\n\n  1. The Mystery of the Religious Life\n  2. Mythological Notion of Revelation\n  3. Dogmatic Notion\n  4. Psychological Notion\n  5. Conclusion\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nMIRACLE AND INSPIRATION\n\n  1. The Notion of Miracle in Antiquity\n  2. Miracle and Science: Miracle and Piety\n  3. Religious Inspiration\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY\n\n  1. The Social Element in Religion\n  2. Progress in the Outward Forms of Religion\n  3. Progress in the Representation of the Divine\n  4. The History of Prayer\n  5. Conclusion\n\n\n\nBOOK II.--CHRISTIANITY\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nHEBRAISM, OR THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPEL\n\n  1. Prophetism\n  2. The Dawn of the Gospel\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY\n\n  1. The Problem\n  2. The Christian Principle\n  3. The Gospel of Jesus\n  4. A Necessary Distinction\n  5. The Corruptions of the Christian Principle\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE GREAT HISTORICAL FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY\n\n  1. The Evolution of the Christian Principle\n  2. Jewish or Messianic Christianity\n  3. Catholic Christianity\n  4. Protestant Christianity\n  5. Conclusion\n\n\n\nBOOK III.--DOGMA\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nWHAT IS A DOGMA?\n\n  1. Definition\n  2. Genesis of Dogma\n  3. The Role and the Religious Value of Dogma\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE LIFE OF DOGMAS AND THEIR HISTORICAL EVOLUTION\n\n  1. Three Prejudices\n  2. The Two Elements in Dogma\n  3. The Crisis of Dogma\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE SCIENCE OF DOGMAS\n\n  1. Mixed Character of the Science of Dogmas\n  2. The Science of Dogmas and the Church\n  3. The Science of Dogmas and Philosophy\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCRITICAL THEORY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE\n\n  1. Antiquated Theories\n  2. The Kantian Theory of Knowledge\n  3. The Two Orders of Knowledge\n  4. Subjectivity of Religious Knowledge\n  5. Teleology\n  6. Symbolism\n  7. Conclusion\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nReply to Criticisms\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThis volume contains three parts which are related to each other as the\nthree stories of one and the same edifice.  The first treats of\nreligion and its origin; the second of Christianity and its essence;\nthe third of Dogma and its nature.\n\nProceeding thus from the general to the particular, from the elementary\nforms of religion to its highest form, passing afterwards from\nreligious phenomena to religious doctrines, I have endeavoured to\ndevelop a series of connected and progressive views which I do not wish\nto be regarded as a system, but as the rigid application and the first\nresults of the method of strictly psychological and historical\nobservation that for years I have applied to this species of studies.\nIn no domain is there a greater incoherence of ideas, a sharper\nconflict of feeling, or data more contradictory or, at all events, more\ndifficult to reconcile.  In no other is it more urgent to introduce a\nlittle sequence, clearness, harmony.  Our century, from the beginning,\nhas had two great passions which still inflame and agitate its closing\nyears.  It has driven abreast the twofold worship of the scientific\nmethod and of the moral ideal; but, so far from being able to unite\nthem, it has pushed them to a point where they seem to contradict and\nexclude each other.  Every serious soul feels itself to be inwardly\ndivided; it would fain conciliate its most generous aspirations, the\ntwo last motives for living and acting that still remain to it.  Where\nbut in a renovated conception of religion will this needed\nreconciliation be found?\n\nNo one nowadays underestimates the social importance of the religious\nquestion.  Philosophers, moralists, politicians, show themselves to be\nalive to it; they see it dominating all others, whose solution, in the\nend, it may prevent or decide.  But, singular contradiction! the more\nzeal and the more decision these men manifest in handling the religious\nquestion in the social order, the more indifference or impotence they\nshow in solving it for themselves both in their inner and their family\nlife...  No one has the right to impose a doctrine or the presumption,\nsurely, to dictate to others how they must direct their thought; but a\nsincere and persuaded mind may tell how it has directed its own, and\nmay set forth as an experience and a \"document\" the views at which it\nhas arrived....\n\nThe solidarity of minds has now become so great, the currents of ideas,\nlike the currents in the atmosphere, move so quickly and create, in\ncircumstances so different and so far apart, states of soul so similar\nthat many who read these studies, and who are struggling with the same\ndifficulties as those which have so long engaged the author's thoughts,\nmay find both interest and profit in seeing how he has succeeded in\nsatisfying himself.  Those even who have never reflected on these\nquestions, or have lightly turned from them because they deemed them\ninsoluble, will not perhaps object to be directed to them by one who\nwishes, not to check their freedom of thought, but to stimulate them to\nexercise it.  Who, at the close of his secret meditations, on the\nconfines of his knowledge, at the end of his affections, of the joys he\nhas tasted, of the trials he has endured, has not seen rising before\nhim the religious question--I mean the mysterious problem of his\ndestiny?  Of all questions it is the most vital.  Men may be turned\nfrom it for a time by manifold distractions and by a sense of\npowerlessness to solve the question, but it is impossible that they\nshould not return to it.  Has life a meaning?  Is it worth living?  Our\nefforts, have they an end?  Our works and our thoughts, have they any\npermanent value to the universe?  This problem, which one generation\nmay evade, returns with the next.  Each new recruit to the human race\nbrings the problem along with him, because he wishes to live, and to\nlive is to act, and all action requires a faith.  It is of the young\nthat I have thought while preparing these pages, and it is to them that\nI dedicate them.\n\nTo a generation that believed it could repose in Positivism in\nphilosophy, utilitarianism in morals, and naturalism in art and poetry,\nhas succeeded a generation that torments itself more than ever with the\nmystery of things, that is attracted by the ideal, that dreams of\nsocial fraternity, of self-renunciation, of devotion to the little, to\nthe miserable, to the oppressed--devotion like the heroism of Christian\nlove.  Hence what has been called the renaissance of Idealism, the\nreturn, _i.e._, to general ideas, to faith in the invisible, to the\ntaste for symbols, and to those longings, as confused as they are\nardent, to discover a religion or to return to the religion their\nfathers have disdained.  Our young people, it seems to me, are pushing\nbravely forward, marching between two high walls: on the one side\nmodern science with its rigorous methods which it is no longer possible\nto ignore or to avoid; on the other, the dogmas and the customs of the\nreligious institutions in which they were reared, and to which they\nwould, but cannot, sincerely return.  The sages who have led them\nhitherto point to the impasse they have reached, and bid them take a\npart,--either for science against religion, or for religion against\nscience.  They hesitate, with reason, in face of this alarming\nalternative.  Must we then choose between pious ignorance and bare\nknowledge?  Must we either continue to live a moral life belied by\nscience, or set up a theory of things which our consciences condemn?\nIs there no issue to the dark and narrow valley which our anxious youth\ntraverse?  I think there is.  I think I have caught glimpses of a steep\nand narrow path that leads to wide and shining table-lands above.\nIndeed I have ascended in the footsteps of some others, and I signal in\nmy turn to younger, braver pioneers who, in course of time, will make a\nbroader, safer road, along which all the caravan may pass.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK FIRST\n\nRELIGION\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN, AND ON THE NATURE OF RELIGION\n\n1. _First Critical Reflections_\n\nWhy am I religious?  Because I cannot help it: it is a moral necessity\nof my being.  They tell me it is a matter of heredity, of education, of\ntemperament.  I have often said so to myself.  But that explanation\nsimply puts the problem further back; it does not solve it\n\nThe necessity which I experience in my individual life I find to be\nstill more invincible in the collective life of humanity.  Humanity is\nnot less incurably religious than I am.  The cults it has espoused and\nabandoned have deceived it in vain; in vain has the criticism of\nsavants and philosophers shattered its dogmas and mythologies; in vain\nhas religion left such tracks of blood and fire throughout the annals\nof humanity; it has survived all change, all revolution, all stages of\nculture and progress.  Cut down a thousand times, the ancient stem has\nalways sent new branches forth.  Whence comes this indestructible\nvitality?  What is the cause of the universality and perpetuity of\nreligion?\n\nBefore entering upon this question it will be necessary to remove a\nfruitful cause of error with respect to the essence and origin of the\nreligious sense, especially among the peoples of Latin extraction.\nThis cause lies in the very word _religion_.  It very badly designates\nthe psychological phenomenon to be studied; it envelops it in accessory\nand even in alien ideas, which blind and mislead half-educated men.\nThe word comes to us from the least religious of the peoples of the\nworld.  It has no synonym or equivalent in the language of the ancient\nHebrews, or in that of the Greeks, the Germans, the Celts, or the\nHindus, the human families which, in the religious order, have been the\nmost original and the most creative.  It was Rome that imposed the word\nupon us along with her language, her genius, and her institutions.\n\nThe first Christians were not acquainted with it.  It is absent from\nthe New Testament.  When, in the third century, it enters into\nChristian speech, it no doubt undergoes a sort of baptism, and seems to\ncover a meaning more in conformity with the spirit of the Gospel.\nLactantius defines religion as \"the link which unites man to God.\"  But\nin the ancient Roman writers the word never had this profound and\nmystical meaning.  Instead of marking the inward and subjective side of\nreligion, and signalising it as a phenomenon of the life of the soul,\nit defined religion by the outside, as a tradition of rites, and as a\nsocial institution bequeathed by ancestors.  The Christian baptism\nthrough which the word passed did not efface this ancient Roman stamp.\nTo the majority, even now, religion is hardly anything more than a\nseries of traditional rites, supernatural beliefs, political\ninstitutions; it is a Church in possession of divine sacraments,\nconstituted by a sacerdotal hierarchy, for the discipline and\ngovernment of souls.  Such is the form under which the genius of Rome\nconceived and realised Christianity in the Western world; and the\nfascination that this political and social conception of religion still\nexercises is so great that minds the most enlightened know no better\nthan to agree with M. Brunetiere, who, when wishing to set forth the\nsuperiority of Catholicism to Protestantism, confines himself, like\nBossuet, to praising it as a perfect model of government.\n\nBy a sort of logical necessity, whenever and wherever this political\nconception of religion has predominated, an analogous explanation of\nits origin has always arisen.  It is natural that men should have\napplied to it the ancient juridical adage: _is fecit cui prodest_.\nReligion admirably serves to govern the peoples; therefore it was\noriginally invented for that purpose.  It was the work of priests and\nchiefs who wished by means of it to strengthen and to ratify their\nauthority.  So reason the Romans in the days of Cicero and the\nphilosophers of the eighteenth century.  And there is some foundation\nfor their arguments.  Religion has often been utilised by politics:\npious frauds are to be found in all the cults.  But what then?  What do\nthe facts prove?  It is not the pious fraud that produces the religion;\nit is the religion that gives occasion and opportunity to pious frauds.\nWithout religion there would have been no pious frauds.  When I hear it\nsaid, \"Priests made religion,\" I simply ask, \"And who, pray, made the\npriests?\"  In order to create a priesthood, and in order that that\ninvention should find general acceptance with the people that were to\nbe subject to it, must there not have been already in the hearts of men\na religious sentiment that would clothe the institution with a sacred\ncharacter?  The terms must be reversed: it is not priesthood that\nexplains religion, but religion that explains priesthood.\n\nThe theory propounded by Positivism is profounder and more serious.\nReligion, which dates from the earliest ages, can only have been a\nfirst attempt at an explanation of the extraordinary phenomena by which\nman in his ignorance was astonished and frightened.  It is the\nbeginning of the childish form of science, which, in course of time,\nwould naturally give place to higher and more rigorous forms.  Children\nand savages animate all things round about them with a psychical life;\nthey see particular wills behind every phenomenon that excites their\nhope or fear.  Thus the imagination of primitive man peopled the\nuniverse with an infinite number of spirits, good and evil, whose\nmysterious action made itself felt at every moment of their destiny.  A\nwhile ago we had the explanation of religion by priesthood; now we have\nthe explanation by mythology.  But it is the same vicious circle: it is\nan insufficient psychology once more mistaking the effect for the cause.\n\nTo conceive of religion as a species of knowledge is an error not less\ngrave than to represent it as a sort of political institution.  No\ndoubt religious faith is always accompanied by knowledge, but this\nintellectual element, however indispensable, so far from being the\nbasis and the substance of religion, varies continually at all the\nepochs of religious evolution.  Doctrinal formulas and liturgies are\nmeans of expression and of education, of which religion avails itself,\nbut which it can exchange for others after each philosophical crisis.\nRites and beliefs become obliterated or die out; religion possesses a\npower of perpetual resurrection, whose principle cannot be exhausted in\nany external form or in any dogmatic idea.\n\nComte's theory of the three stages through which human thought has\npassed is well known: the theological stage of primitive times, the\nmetaphysical stage in the Middle Ages, the positive or scientific stage\nof modern times.  If knowledge were the essence of religion, one could\neasily understand the logical course of this evolution, an inferior\nform of knowledge being condemned to disappear before a superior form.\nThe proof that it is nothing of the kind is the fact that religion does\nnot cease to reappear at all epochs and in the most widely different\nconditions of culture.  The three stages are not successive but\nsimultaneous; they do not correspond to three periods of history, but\nto three permanent needs of the human soul.  You find them combined in\nvarious degrees in antiquity, in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; in\nmodern times, in Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, Kant, Claude Bernard, and\nPasteur.  The more science progresses and becomes conscious of its true\nmethod and of its limits, the more does it become distinguished from\nphilosophy and religion.  Scientific research, exclusively devoted to\nthe determination of phenomena and of their conditions in time and\nspace, is one thing; the philosophic need of comprehending the universe\nas an intelligible whole, and of explaining all that exists by a\nprinciple of sufficient reason, is another and a different thing; and,\nlastly, differing from both, is the religious need which, rightly\nunderstood, is but a manifestation, in the moral order, of the instinct\nof every being to persevere in being.  Why may not these divers\ntendencies of soul, coexisting always and everywhere, manifest\nthemselves simultaneously and on parallel lines?\n\nWe need not go beyond the Positivists themselves for examples and\nproofs of this persistence of the religious sentiment.  Comte, Spencer,\nand Littre may be called as witnesses.  The founder of Positivism, who\nhad predicted the fatal extinction of the disposition to religion in\nthe human soul, crowned his system and ended his career by founding a\nnew religion, clumsily copied from the sacerdotal organisation and the\nritual practices of Roman Catholicism.  There actually exists a\nPositivist Church, with a calendar of saints, with relics and\nanniversaries, with a catechism, and with a high priest not less\ninfallible than the one at Rome.  A few disciples, scandalised by this\nsupreme temptation of the master, desired to excuse him by declaring\nthat he had gone mad.  It was a mistake.  The fact is that, arriving at\nthe construction of a Positive Sociology, Comte comprehended the _role_\nof the religious instinct and of religious feeling in the life of\npeoples, and he believed that he would only be able to cement the\nedifice of society in the future by religion.  It is said that those\nwho have been amputated sometimes feel sharp twitches in the limbs they\nhave lost.  Comte and his disciples have experienced something similar.\nNature, with her usual irony, has avenged herself on them for the\nviolence they have done to her.\n\nOf Herbert Spencer not much need be said; everybody knows that the\n_Unknowable_ in his system has become a sort of undetermined and\nunconscious force, eluding every effort of the mind to grasp it, but\nremaining, none the less, the cause explaining evolution, and the\nsource profound whence all things flow.  Under different names, do we\nnot recognise the First Cause of the philosophers, and the image,\nhalf-effaced, of the God of believers?  Need we be surprised that the\nEnglish thinker pronounces religion to be eternal? that he finally\nreduces the mental life of man to these two essential and primordial\nactivities--the scientific activity which pursues the knowledge of\nphenomena and their transformation, and religious activity delivering\nitself up to mystical contemplation and to silent adoration of\nuniversal being?\n\nThe example of Littre is more touching still.  I remember reading a\nsublime page in one of his works, in which the savant, after running\nthrough the _terra firma_ of positive knowledge, reaches its utmost\nlimit, and, seating himself on the extremest promontory, sees himself\nsurrounded by the mystery of the unknowable, as by an infinite ocean.\nHe has neither barque, nor sails, nor compass wherewith to explore this\nboundless sea; nevertheless, he stands there gazing into it; he\ncontemplates it; he meditates in presence of this vast unknown, and\nfinally abandons himself to a movement of adoration and of confidence\nwhich renews his mental vigour and which fills his heart with peace.\nWhat is this, I ask, but a sudden outburst of religious feeling which\npositive science, so far from extinguishing, has only served to deepen\nand accentuate?  And since we have here the religion of the unknowable,\nis it not evident that religion is not necessarily knowledge?\n\nI now come to a third explanation which, older than either of the\nothers, will bring us nearer to the end at which we aim.  \"It is fear,\"\nsays a Latin poet, \"that engenders the gods.\"  There is a sense in\nwhich this is true.  It cannot be doubted that religion was at first\nawakened in the heart of man under the impress of the terror caused by\nthe disordered and destructive forces of primitive Nature.  Thrown\nnaked and disarmed on the barely-cooled planet, walking tremblingly\nupon a soil that quaked beneath his tread, his would be a state of\nmisery and distress which filled his heart with an infinite terror.\nBut the explanation needs completing.  In itself and of itself, fear is\nnot religious; it paralyses, crushes, stuns.  In order that it may\nbecome religiously fruitful, it is necessary that, from the outset, it\nshould be mixed with an opposite sentiment, an impulse of hope; it is\nnecessary that man, the prey of fear, should conceive, in some way or\nother, the possibility of surmounting it--that is to say that he should\nfind above him some help, some succour, by which to confront the\ndangers which threaten him.  Fear only gives birth to religion in man\nbecause it awakens hope and calls forth prayer--prayer that opens an\nissue to human distress.  There is that amount of truth in the ancient\nhypothesis.  It brings us near the source we are seeking, for it places\nus on the practical arena of life, and not in the theoretical region of\nscience.  The question man puts to himself in religion is always a\nquestion of salvation, and if he seems sometimes to be pursuing in it\nthe enigma of the universe, it is only that he may solve the enigma of\nhis life.  And now we must press nearer to the problem.  We must\nascertain out of what fundamental contradiction the religious feeling\narises.  We may reach it by a mental analysis that every one can\nfollow, and verify the more easily inasmuch as it is always in course\nof reconstruction, by noting our own experiences.\n\n\n2. _Initial Contradiction of the Psychological Consciousness_\n\nWhat is man?  Externally he does not differ much from the higher\nanimals, the series of which seems to have been closed by his\nappearance on our planet.  His physical organism is composed of the\nsame elements, acting according to the same laws; and of the same\norgans, performing analogous functions.  It is by the incomparable\ndevelopment of his mental life that man is distinguished, and little by\nlittle disengages himself from animality.  Phenomena and laws of a new\nkind now make their appearance.  The mysterious life of the spirit,\nemerging from the physical life, unfolds itself gradually like a divine\nflower, and gives the world, for us, its meaning and its loveliness.\nThe region of the true, the beautiful, the good, is opened up to\nconsciousness; the moral world is constituted as a higher order to\nwhich man belongs.  It is these moral laws, capable of dominating\nphysical laws and bending them to higher ends that, in the human\nanimal, realise and constitute humanity.  Man is only man in so far as\nhe obeys them, and such is the point of transition that he occupies\nbetween two worlds, such the necessity of the crisis by which he must\ndisengage himself from material animality, that, if he does not rise\nabove the brute, he necessarily, by the very perversion of his higher\nlife, falls beneath him.\n\nFrom the beginning, physical life implies a double movement: a movement\ninward from the outside to the centre of the ego, and a movement\noutward from the centre to the circumference.  The first represents the\naction of external things upon the ego by sensation (passivity); the\nsecond, the reaction of the ego upon things by the will (activity).\nThis internal flux and reflux is the whole mental life.  From this\npoint we shall soon perceive the initial contradiction in which this\nlife is formed, and in which it goes on developing itself continually.\nThe passive side and the active side of the life of the mind are not\nharmonious.  Sensation crushes the will.  The activity, the free\nexpansion of the ego, its desires to extend and aggrandise itself are\nchecked and crushed by the weight of the world, which on every side is\npressing in upon it.  Springing up from the centre, the wave of life\nbreaks itself inevitably on the rocks of outward things.  This\nperpetual collision, this conflict of the ego and the universe,--this\nis the primary cause and origin of all pain.  Thus thrown back upon\nitself, the activity of the ego returns upon the centre and heats it\nlike the axle of a wheel in motion.  Sparks soon fly, and the inner\nlife of the ego is lit up.  This is _consciousness_.  Brought back by\npainful sensations and by repeated failure of its efforts from the\noutside, the ego begins to reflect upon itself; it doubles itself and\nknows itself; soon it judges itself; it separates itself from the\norganism with which at first it confounded itself; it opposes itself to\nitself, as if there were really in itself two _beings_, an ideal ego\nand an empirical ego.  Hence comes its torment, its struggles, its\nremorse, but also the impulse ever renewed, the indefinite progress of\nits spiritual life, of which each moment seems to be but a degree from\nwhich it ought to rise to a stage still higher.\n\nMay we not here foresee the divine purpose of pain?  Without it, it\nwould seem as if the life of the spirit could not have arisen out of\nphysical life.  All births are painful.  Consciousness, like every\nother child, was born in tears.  The child of pain, it can only be\ndeveloped by pain.  Where do you find intelligence the most refined,\nconsciousness the keenest, inner life the most intense, if not amongst\nthe human beings whose external activities have been repressed by\nsickness or by some limitation in their social position?  How else will\nyou explain the _Pensees_ of Pascal or of Maine de Biran, or the\n_Journal_ of Amiel?  Whence comes that extraordinary development of\nconsciousness of which we are all aware in men like these, unless it be\nthat they feel more profoundly than others that radical contradiction\nwhich constitutes at once the misery and the grandeur of human destiny?\n\nContinue this observation; follow each of our faculties in its\nprogressive expansion.  Starting from a contradiction without which\nthey would not exist, you see them all end in a contradiction in which\nthey seem to perish, so that that which has engendered consciousness\nseems as if it must destroy it.  Everywhere the same discouraging\nantinomy.  Man cannot know himself without knowing himself to be\nlimited.  But he cannot feel these fatal limitations without going\nbeyond them in thought and by desire, so that he is never satisfied\nwith what he possesses, and cannot be happy except with that which he\ncannot attain.  I desire to know; my labouring intellect is athirst to\ncomprehend and understand, and its first discoveries enchant it.  But,\nalas, my head soon runs itself against the wall of mystery.  Not only\nare there things it does not know, but there are things which it knows\nfor a certainty that it will never be able to know.  How can a man jump\noff his own shadow, or stand on his own shoulders, to look over the\nimpassable wall?  That all which is intelligible to us is real, I\ngrant; but is all that is real intelligible to us?  And then what\nbecomes my knowledge save a melancholy feeling of ignorance that knows\nitself to be such?  The same contradiction in my faculty for enjoyment.\nAs my seeming knowledge changed into its opposite, so now I see\npleasure and happiness changing into pain and sorrow.  Let the\nsuperficial and the vulgar lay on fate or things the blame of their\ndeceptions and of their inability to be happy; as for me, I can only\nblame the inner constitution of my being.  It is as the result of that\nvery constitution that enjoyment bears within itself the cause of its\nown exhaustion, that pleasure is changed into disgust, and that pain is\nborn of all voluptuousness.  Pessimism is in the right; for it is\nproved by an experience only too long-lived that the only result of\nhappiness exclusively pursued is an increase of the capacity for\nsuffering.  Need I speak of moral activity?  I desire to do good, but\n\"evil is present with me.\"  I do not do that which I approve, and I do\nnot approve that which I do: I feel myself free in my will, and I am\nenslaved in action.  The more effort I make towards an ideal\nrighteousness, the more that ideal, which I never reach, constitutes me\na sinner and strengthens in me the consciousness of sin; so that here\nagain, and here especially, the final result of my search is the\nopposite of that which I set out to seek.\n\nWhence shall deliverance come?  How shall I solve this contradiction of\nmy being which makes me at the same time live and die?  To free man\nfrom the miseries and limitations of his nature men count upon the\nprogress of science and the amelioration of the conditions of his life.\nBut who does not see that here is a new source of despair?  How can we\nforget that, so far from attenuating it, science in its progress\naggravates and renders mortal the original condition of life?  To make\na discovery, to explain a new phenomenon, what is this but to add\nanother link to the causal and necessary network which science weaves\nand spreads over things?  To put sequence, order, and stability into\nthe world, is not this, for science, to put necessity into it, and to\nmake necessity the sovereign ruler of the world?  Science, in the\nstrict sense of the word, is determinist.  But then, prolong this\nprogress of science indefinitely; multiply it by ten, by a hundred, a\nthousand; what do you do but multiply proportionately the weight of\nuniversal determinism beneath which our soul groans and ceases to\nstrive?  We should then end in the still more tragic\ncontradiction--between science and conscience, physical laws and moral\nlaws, action and reflection.  The more the one enlarges and triumphs\nthe vainer seems the other.  Hence that philosophical dualism in which\nmodern thought ends--a science which cannot engender an acknowledged\nmorality, and a morality which cannot be the object of positive\nscience.  We touch the cause of that strange malady _le mal du siecle_,\na sort of internal consumption by which all cultivated minds are more\nor less affected.  It is an intestine war which arms the human ego\nagainst itself and dries up all the springs of life.  The more one\nreflects on the reasons that may be urged in favour of living and\nacting, the less capable one is of effort and of action.  Clearness of\nthought is in inverse proportion to the energy of the will.  The\nPessimists tell us that if we were fully and perfectly conscious we\nshould lose the will to act, and even the desire to be.  And which of\nus is not more or less of a Pessimist nowadays?  Who does not complain\nof \"the weary weight of all this unintelligible world\"?  Who does not\nfeel his weakness and the pressure of external things?  Who has not\nmarked that union now become almost habitual of frivolity of character\nand intellectual culture the most perfect and refined?  That sad\nmonotone which comes to us on every wind, from the latest volume of\nphilosophy, from the most popular novel, from the most successful\nplay,--what is it but the melancholy sigh of a life that seems to be\nready to expire, of a world that seems about to disappear.  Must one\ngive up thinking then if he would retain the courage to live, and\nresign himself to death in order to preserve the right to think?\n\nFrom this feeling of distress, from this initial contradiction of the\ninner life of man, religion springs.  It is the rent in the rock\nthrough which the living and life-giving waters flow.  Not that\nreligion brings a theoretical solution to the problem.  The issue it\nopens and proposes to us is pre-eminently practical.  It does not save\nus by adding to our knowledge, but by a return to the very principle on\nwhich our being depends, and by a moral act of confidence in the origin\nand aim of life.  At the same time this saving act is not an arbitrary\none; it springs from a necessity.  Faith in life both is and acts like\nthe instinct of conservation in the physical world.  It is a higher\nform of that instinct Blind and fatal in organisms, in the moral life\nit is accompanied by consciousness and by reflective will, and, thus\ntransformed, it appears under the guise of religion.\n\nNor is this life-impulse (_elan de la vie_) produced in the void, or\nobjectless.  It rests upon a feeling inherent in every conscious\nindividual, the feeling of dependence which every man experiences with\nrespect to universal being.  Which of us can escape this feeling of\nabsolute dependence?  Not only is our destiny, in principle, decided\noutside ourselves and apart from ourselves according to the general\nlaws of cosmical evolution, in the course of which we appear at a given\ntime and place with a heritage of forces which we have not chosen or\nproduced, but, not being able to discover in ourselves or in any series\nof individuals the sufficient reason of our existence, we are obliged\nto seek outside ourselves, in universal being, the first cause and\nultimate aim of our existence and our life.  To be religious is, at\nfirst, to recognise, to accept with confidence, with simplicity and\nhumility, this subjection of our individual consciousness; it is to\nbring this back and bind it to its eternal principle; it is to will to\nbe in the order and the harmony of life.  This feeling of our\nsubordination thus furnishes the experimental and indestructible basis\nof the idea of God.  This idea may possibly remain more or less\nindetermined, and may indeed never be perfected in our mind; but its\nobject does not on that account elude our consciousness.  Before all\nreflection, and before all rational determination, it is given to us\nand, as it were, imposed on us in the very fact of our absolute\ndependence; without fear we may establish this equation: the feeling of\nour dependence is that of the mysterious presence of God in us.  Such\nis the deep source from which the idea of the divine springs up within\nus irresistibly.  But it springs at once as religion and as an effect\nof religion.\n\nAt the same time, it is well to note at what a cost the mind of man\naccepts this subordination in relation to the principle of universal\nlife.  We have seen this mind in conflict with external things.  The\nmind revolts against them because they are of a different nature to\nitself, and because it is the proud prerogative of mind to comprehend,\nto dominate, to rule things and not to be subordinate to them.\nPascal's phrase is to the point: \"Man is but a reed, the feeblest thing\nin nature; but he is a thinking reed.  Were the universe to crush him,\nman would still be nobler than the universe that killed him, for he\nwould be conscious of the calamity, and the universe would know nothing\nof the advantage it possessed.\"  That is why the material universe is\nnot the principle of sovereignty to which it is possible for man to\nsubmit.  The superior dignity of spirit to the totality of things can\nonly be preserved in our precarious individuality by an act of\nconfidence and communion with the universal Spirit.  It is only on a\nspiritual power that my consciousness does actually make both me and\nthe universe to depend, and in making us both to depend on the same\nspiritual power, it reconciles us to each other, because, in that\nuniversal being conceived as spirit, both I and the universe have a\ncommon principle and a common aim.  Descartes was right: the first step\nof the human mind desirous of confirming to itself the sense of its own\nworth and dignity is an essentially religious act.  The circle of my\nmental life, which opens with the conflict of these two\nterms--consciousness of the ego, experience of the world--is completed\nby a third in which the other terms are harmonised: the sense of their\ncommon dependence upon God.  But is not this account of the genesis of\nreligion too philosophic and too abstract to be capable of universal\napplication?  If it explains the persistence of the religious sentiment\nin epochs of high culture, can it also explain its appearance in the\npre-historic ages of humanity?  Those who raise this objection have not\nsufficiently marked the permanent nature of the initial contradiction\nwhich constitutes, at the beginning as at the end, the empirical life\nof man, and which renders it in all degrees so precarious and so\nmiserable.  It is not a contradiction created by logic.  To experience\nit and to suffer from it man did not need to wait until he became a\nphilosopher.  It manifested itself in the terrors of the savage in\npresence of the cataclysms of nature, in the midst of the perils of the\nprimeval forest not less than in our troubled thought in presence of\nthe enigma of the universe and the mystery of death.  The expression of\nhuman misery and the consciousness thereof are different things; the\nreligious thrill which brings relief, at bottom is the same.  Pascal,\nwith all his knowledge, did not experience less distress than primitive\nman, when he exclaimed: \"The eternal silence of the infinite spaces\nterrifies me.\"  The disciple of Kant, shutting himself up in despair\nwithin the impassable limits of phenomenal knowledge, or the disciple\nof Schopenhauer ending in the internecine conflict between intellect\nand will, are they not smitten with a feeling of impotence still more\npainful, and, when they cease to reason in order to decide to live, do\nthey not feel forming within themselves, and in spite of themselves, a\nsigh which is the beginning of a prayer?\n\nReligion, therefore, is immortal.  Far from drying up with time, the\nspring from whence it flows in the human soul enlarges, deepens, and\nbecomes more rich under the twofold action of philosophic reflection\nand of the painful experiences of life.  Those who predict its\napproaching end mistake for religion that which is only its outward and\nfleeting expression.  The periodical crises in which it seems as if it\nmust perish, renew its traditions and its forms, and, so far from\nproving its weakness, demonstrate its fecundity and its faculty of\nrejuvenescence.  Never, in all history, has the human soul been seen\nentirely naked.  On this tree, in which the sap divine mounts ever, the\nleaves of one season only fall, however dry they may be, under the\npressure of new leaves.  Religious beliefs do not die; they are simply\ntransformed.  Let the friends of religion then cease to be alarmed and\nits enemies to rejoice.  The hopes of the one and the fears of the\nother show an equal misconception of that which is its essence and its\nprinciple.  If they seek it in themselves, they will find it all the\nmore living in their inner life, the more its traditional forms outside\nthemselves seem menaced.  The sigh, the impulse, or the melancholy of\nthe soul in distress are more religious than an interested or\nmechanical devotion.  There are hours when the heresy which suffers,\nand which seeks and prays, is much nearer the source of life than the\nintellectual obstinacy of an orthodoxy incapable, as it would seem, of\ncomprehending the dogmas that it keeps embalmed.  Let the men who\ndespise religion learn first to know it; let them see it as it is--the\ninward happy crisis by which human life is transformed and an issue\nopened up to it towards the ideal life.  All human development springs\nfrom it and ends in it.  Art, morals, science itself fade and waste\naway if this supreme inspiration be wanting to them; the irreligious\nsoul expires as if from lack of breath.  Man is not; he has to make\nhimself; and in order to this he must mount from the darkness and\nbondage of earth to light and liberty.  It is by religion that humanity\nbegins in him, and it is by religion that it is established and\ncompleted.\n\n\n3. _Religion is the Prayer of the Heart_\n\nWe shall now be able to define the essence of religion.  It is a\ncommerce, a conscious and willed relation into which the soul in\ndistress enters with the mysterious power on which it feels that it and\nits destiny depend.  This commerce with God is realised by prayer.\nPrayer is religion in act--that is to say, real religion.  It is prayer\nwhich distinguishes religious phenomena from all those which resemble\nthem or lie near to them, from the moral sense, for instance, or\naesthetic feeling.  If religion is a practical need, the response to it\ncan only be a practical action.  No theory would suffice.  Religion is\nnothing if it is not the vital act by which the whole spirit seeks to\nsave itself by attaching itself to its principle.  This act is prayer,\nby which I mean, not an empty utterance of words, not the repetition of\ncertain sacred formulas, but the movement of the soul putting itself\ninto personal relation and contact with the mysterious power whose\npresence it feels even before it is able to give it a name.  Where this\ninward prayer is wanting there is no religion; on the other hand,\nwherever this prayer springs up in the soul and moves it, even in the\nabsence of all form and doctrine clearly defined, there is true\nreligion, living piety.  From this point of view, perhaps a history of\nprayer would be the best history of the religious development of\nmankind.  That history would be seen to commence in the crudest cry for\nhelp and to complete itself in perfect prayer which, on the lips of\nChrist, is simply submission to and confidence in the Father's will.\n\nThis concrete definition of religion has the advantage of correcting by\ncompleting that of Schleiermacher.  It reconciles the two antithetic\nelements which constitute the religious sentiment: the passive and the\nactive elements, the feeling of dependence and the movement of liberty.\nPrayer, springing up out of our state of misery and oppression,\ndelivers us from it.  There is in it both submission and faith.\nSubmission makes us recognise and accept our dependence, faith\ntransforms that dependence into liberty.  These two elements correspond\nto the two poles of the religious life; for in all true piety man\nprostrates himself before the omnipotence that encompasses him, and he\nrises with a feeling of deliverance and of concord with his God.\nSchleiermacher erred in insisting only upon resignation.  Thenceforth\nhe could neither escape Pantheism in order to arrive at liberty, nor\nfind any link between the religious and the moral life.  Religion,\nthen, is a free act as well as a feeling of dependence.  And such is\nthe character and the virtue of the act of prayer that everything is\ntransformed by it.  The crushing feeling of my defeat becomes the\njoyful and triumphant feeling of my victory.  Each of these states is\nchanged into its opposite, so that the truly religious man lives at\nonce in a free obedience and in an obedient liberty.  If religion has\noften been an oppressive power and an instrument of servitude, it has\nbeen at least as often the mother of all the liberties.  The force\nwhich bows me down is that which also lifts me up, for it passes into\nmy soul.  The God that I adore comes in the end to be an inward God\nwhose presence drives away all fear and places me beyond the reach of\nall the menaces of things.  The conscious realisation of this presence\nof God,--that is the true salvation of my being and my life.\n\nI now understand why \"natural religion\" is not a religion.  It deprives\nman of prayer; it leaves God and man at a distance from each other.  No\nintimate commerce, no interior dialogue, no exchange between them, no\naction of God in man, no return of man to God.  At bottom, this\npretended religion is nothing but philosophy.  It arises in periods of\nrationalism, of criticism, of impersonal reason, and has never been\nanything but an abstraction.  The three dogmas in which it is summed\nup--the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the\nobligation of duty--are but the inorganic residue, the _caput mortuum_,\nfound at the bottom of the crucible in which all positive religions are\ndissolved.  This natural religion, so called, is not found in Nature;\nit is no more natural than it is religious.  A lifeless, artificial\ncreation, it shows hardly any of the characteristic marks of a\nreligion.  For the moment, it may seem to have the advantage of\nescaping the attacks of scientific criticism.  On trial, it is found to\nbe less resistant than any other.  The self-same reason that\nconstructed it destroys it, and its dogmas are perhaps more compromised\nto-day in face of modern thought than those it professes to replace.\n\nReligion then is inward prayer and deliverance.  It is inherent in man\nand could only be torn from his heart by separating man from himself,\nif I may so say, and destroying that which constitutes humanity in him.\nI am religious, I repeat, because I am a man, and neither have the wish\nnor the power to separate myself from my kind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nRELIGION AND REVELATION\n\n1. _The Mystery of the Religious Life_\n\n\"Thou wouldst not seek me hadst thou not already found me.\"  In this\nword that Pascal heard amid his restless search, the whole mystery of\npiety is disclosed.  If religion is the prayer of man, it may be said\nthat revelation is the response of God, but only on condition that we\nadd that this response is always, in germ at least, in the prayer\nitself.\n\nThis thought struck me like a flash of light.  It was the solution of a\nproblem that had long appeared to me to be insoluble.  I had never read\nwithout a certain amount of doubt, and as an oratorical exaggeration,\nthat promise made by Jesus to His disciples with so strange an\nassurance: \"Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and ye shall find:\nknock, and it shall be opened unto you.  For every one that asketh,\nreceiveth: and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it\nshall be opened\" (Matt vii. 7, 8).  Jesus had experienced a truth of\nwhich I am only beginning to catch sight: no prayer remains unanswered,\nbecause God to whom it is addressed is the One who has already inspired\nit.  The search for God cannot be fruitless: for, the moment I set out\nto seek Him, He finds me and lays hold of me.  Allow me to reflect a\nlittle longer on this mystery.  I seem as if I were listening to these\ngospel words and promises for the first time.  They sound in my ears\nlike deep and solemn music which, bearing to me the echo of the\nreligiously active soul of Jesus, brings succour to my own.  The\nreligious life, then, is not a fixed state; it is a movement of the\nsoul, it is a desire, a need.  The love of truth, is it not the\nprinciple of science?  To love truth above all things, is not that in\nsome way to be already in the truth?  The point of departure, the\ninward beginning of a real righteousness, is not this repentance, that\nis to say the pain of not being righteous?  I understand now why the\nChrist has made humility and confidence the sole conditions of entrance\nto His kingdom, why His Word has made riches spring from poverty,\nhealth from sickness, and satisfaction from the very intensity of need.\nSecret of the gospel, mysterious laws of spirit, pure moral essence of\nthe kingdom of God, paradoxes which disconcert the man immersed in the\nideas of the life of sense and self, but which contain the highest\nrealities of moral life, reveal yourselves with ever-growing clearness\nto my consciousness, since, for me, on this first revelation all the\nrest depend!\n\nI turn to another thought of Pascal.  \"Piety,\" he says, \"is God\nsensible to the heart.\"  If so, it is evident that in all piety there\nis some positive manifestation of God.  The ideas of religion and\nrevelation are therefore correlative and religiously inseparable.\nReligion is simply the subjective revelation of God in man, and\nrevelation is religion objective in God.  It is the relation of subject\nand object, of effect and cause, organically united; it is one and the\nsame psychological phenomenon, which can neither subsist nor be\nproduced save by their conjunction.  It is as impossible to isolate as\nit is to confound them.\n\nI conceive therefore that revelation is as universal as religion\nitself, that it descends as low, goes as far, ascends as high, and\naccompanies it always.  No form of piety is empty; no religion is\nabsolutely false; no prayer is vain.  Once more, revelation is in\nprayer and progresses with prayer.  From a revelation obtained in a\nfirst prayer is born a purer prayer, and from this a higher revelation.\nThus light grows with life, truth with piety.  This makes it possible\nfor me to enter into communion and sympathy with all sincerely\nreligious souls, however simple and however crude or gross their\nworship and their faith; but if I can comprehend them, I cannot always\nspeak their language or share their ideas.  All religions are not\nequally good, nor are all prayers acceptable to my consciousness.  To\nreturn to exploded superstitions or to beliefs now recognised to be\nillusory is as much a moral impossibility as it would be for a\nfull-grown man to return to the puerilities of his childhood.\nRevelation therefore is not a communication once for all of immutable\ndoctrines which only need to be held fast.  The object of the\nrevelation of God can only be God Himself, and if a definition must be\ngiven of it, it may be said to consist of the creation, the\npurification, and the progressive clearness of the consciousness of God\nin man,--in the individual and in the race.\n\nFrom this point of view, I see very clearly that the revelation of God\nnever needs to be proved to any one.  The attempt would be as\ncontradictory as it is superfluous.  Two things are equally impossible:\nfor an irreligious man to discover a divine revelation in a faith he\ndoes not share, or for a truly pious man not to find one in the\nreligion he has espoused and which lives in his heart.  With what,\nmoreover, and how could it be proved that light shines except by\nforcing those who are asleep to awake and open their eyes?  All serious\nApologetics must insist as a necessary starting-point on the awakening\nand conversion of the soul.\n\nHaving always been religious, mankind has never been destitute of\nrevelation, that is to say of witness more or less obscure, more or\nless correctly interpreted, of the presence in it and the action of\nGod.  But if men have always maintained some relation and some commerce\nwith the deity, they have not always represented in the same manner the\nmode in which communications have been received from Him.  The notion\nof revelation has progressed with the growth of mental enlightenment\nand with the nature of the piety.  It is therefore necessary to\ncriticise that notion and to see what it has now become for us.  It is\nto this examination that I shall devote this second meditation.  The\nidea of revelation has passed through three phases in the course of\nhistory: the mythological, the dogmatic, and the critical.\n\n\n2. _The Mythological Notion of Revelation_\n\nAmong the faculties of man, the first to awaken in the mental life of\nthe child and of the savage is the imagination.  All literatures begin\nwith chants, all histories with legends, and all religions with myths\nor symbols.  Poetry always makes its appearance before prose.  One can\nonly see the effect of an inveterate rationalism in the promptitude\nwith which men are scandalised at any attempt to point out in the Bible\nor around the cradle of Christianity legends and myths serving as\nsacred vehicles for the purest and sublimest religious revelations, as\nif the divine Spirit, in order to be intelligible to the simple and the\nignorant, could not as well avail Himself of the fictions of poetry as\nof logical reasonings, of the chants of the angels at Bethlehem as of\nthe rabbinical exegesis and argumentations of the Apostle Paul.  A myth\nis false in appearance only.  When the heart was pure and sincere the\nveils of fable always allowed the face of truth to shine through.  And\nwhy so much disdain?  Does not childhood run on into maturity and old\nage?  What are our most abstract ideas but primitive metaphors which\nhave been worn and thinned by usage and reflection?\n\nIt is none the less true, as St. Paul says, that in advancing in age we\nhave left behind the speech and thought of infancy.  The first men did\nnot know how to distinguish between the substance and the form of their\nbeliefs.  This distinction has become easy to us.  The most\nconservative minds can no longer read the stories or the monuments of\nthe ancient religions without criticising and translating them.\n\nThe men of other times, timid and ingenuous as children, saw everywhere\nmaterial signs by which they believed the will of the gods was\nmanifested.  They early formed the art of divination--an essentially\nreligious art.  It is found among all peoples, the ancient Hebrews not\nexcepted.  The thunder was to them the voice of God.  They consulted\nHim by the Urim and Thummim, and by the sacred ephod.  They did not\ndoubt, any more than the Greeks, either the divine origin or the\nprophetic sense of dreams.  Elsewhere they evoked the dead, they\ninterrogated the flight of birds, they listened to the sound of the\nwind in the foliage of the oaks, or to the noise of waters in sonorous\ncaverns.  That was an external and, in some sort, physical conception\nof revelation, from which modern peoples have escaped, but with which\nall set out.\n\nIn the oldest traditions of Hebraism, God speaks to Adam, to Noah, to\nAbraham, to Moses, as one man speaks to another, by articulate sounds\nperceived by the ear.  The sacred formula, _Thus saith the Lord_,\nserves as the uniform introduction to civil, political, and ritual, as\nwell as to moral and religious, laws.  Religion then embraced and\nregulated all the life.  The great empires of antiquity all claim a\ndivine origin.  As to ancient legislations, there is not one that is\nnot said to have come from heaven.  The Egyptians refer theirs to the\ngod Thoth or Hermes; Minos, in Crete, is said to have received his laws\nfrom Jupiter; Lycurgus, in Sparta, from Apollo; Zoroaster, in Persia,\nfrom Ahura Mazda; Numa Pompilius, at Rome, from the nymph Egeria.\nMoses does not stand alone.  I am not here comparing the value of the\nthings; I am simply pointing out the identity of the representations.\n\nNor was it only religious and political institutions that they referred\nto the will of the gods; they referred to it all kinds of decisions and\nenterprises; declarations of war, raids to make, the order of battle,\nthe extermination of the vanquished, the sharing of the spoils,\nconditions of peace, expiations to be made; everything was done in\nobedience to supernatural orders the authenticity of which no one\nthought of discussing.  In the same way, a divine inspiration explained\nthe gift of predicting the future, the eloquence of orators, the\nsagacity of statesmen, the genius of great soldiers, the verve of\npoets, and even the skill of the more famous artisans.  \"Legends!\" it\nis said.  No doubt.  But these legends are universal.  Men speak\neverywhere the same language, because everywhere they think in the same\nfashion.\n\nA great progress, however, is accomplished in Israel.  The notion of\nrevelation gradually becomes interior and moral.  Among the prophets,\nrevelation is conceived of as the action of the Spirit of Jehovah\nentering and acting in the spirit of man.  It is true that the mythical\nconception still persists and betrays itself in this: divine\ninspiration is represented as the invasion of a human being by another\nbeing alien to him,--as a sort of mental alienation or possession.  The\ndivine Spirit is represented as a force which comes from without, a\nwind from above which no one can resist, of which the elect are as much\nthe victims as the organs.  Its action is measured by the agitation and\ncommotion of the inspired, by the disorder of their faculties, by the\nincoherence of their gestures and their speech.  The delirium of man\nbecomes the sign of the presence of God.  Madmen, valetudinarians,\nepileptics, are regarded almost everywhere as the favourites of Heaven.\nTheir strange words or acts men believe to be divine oracles delivered\nunconsciously and against the will.\n\nThis violent opposition between the supernatural action of the divine\nSpirit and the normal exercise of rational faculties is gradually\nattenuated in the course of the ages.  It is easy to see that in the\ngreat prophets of Israel the formula _Thus saith the Lord_, while still\nfrequent and still expressing the same subjective certitude of\ninspiration, has become a simple rhetorical form.  God speaks\nhenceforth to His people by their eloquence, by their faith, by their\ngenius.  \"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,\" cries the second\nIsaiah; \"because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to\nthe meek,\" etc.  (Is. lxi. 1-3).\n\nThis evolution appears to have been completed in the soul of Christ.\nHere inspiration ceases to be miraculous without ceasing to be\nsupernatural.  It is no longer produced by fits and starts or\nintermittently.  An ancient gospel (\"The Gospel of the Hebrews\")\nadmirably marks this change.  At the moment of His baptism the Holy\nSpirit says to Jesus: _Mi fili, te exspectabam in omnibus prophetis, ut\nvenires et requiescerem in te.  Tu enim es requies mea_.  (My Son, in\nall the prophets I awaited Thy coming in order that I might repose in\nThee.  Thou art indeed my rest.)\n\nBeing continuous, the inspiration becomes normal.  The ancient conflict\nbetween the divine Spirit and the human vanishes.  The immanent and\nconstant action of the one manifests itself in the regular and fruitful\naction of the other.  God lives and works in man, man lives and works\nin God.  Religion and Nature, the voice divine and the voice of\nconscience, the subject and the object of revelation, penetrate each\nother and become one.  The supreme revelation of God shines forth in\nthe highest of all consciousnesses and the loveliest of human lives.\n\nThis progress, is it not admirable?  Should it not strike the attention\nall the more inasmuch as, instead of being the effect of rational\ncriticism, it is, in Christianity, exclusively the work of piety?\nThis, become more profound, has conquered the ancient antithesis\ncreated by the ignorance of early times.  Divesting itself more and\nmore of foreign and inferior elements, the idea of revelation has been\nfound to be more human as it has become more inward, more constant,\nmore strictly moral and religious.  Christ has not given us a critical\ntheory of revelation; He has done what is better; He has given us\nrevelation itself--a perfect and permanent revelation; He presents God\nand man to us so intimately united in all the acts and moments of His\ninner life, that they become inseparable.  The Father acts in His Son,\nand the Son reveals the Father to all who wish to know Him.\n\nThough he still retained many remnants of the ancient mythological\nnotion (visions, dreams, ecstasies, delirium of tongues), the Apostle\nPaul seized with energy the distinguishing characteristic of the\nChristian revelation, and propounded the theory of it with a sacred\nboldness.  That theory consists in the effusion and habitation of the\nHoly Spirit in the souls of Christians who, in their turn, become\n\"children of God,\" and enjoy, by this Spirit, the same direct and\npermanent communion with the Father.  This Spirit is no longer an alien\nguest or a perturbing force; He becomes in us a second nature.  That is\nwhy the Christian is set free from all the old tutelages; he judges\neverything and is judged by nothing; he has his law within himself, so\nthat from this inspiration springs his autonomy and his liberty.\n\nBut neither this spiritual piety nor the lofty conception which flows\nfrom it could long be sustained.  Preoccupied in founding its\nauthority, and only being able to succeed in it by returning to the\nidea of an external revelation, the Catholic Church made it to consist\nchiefly in rules and dogmas, and, by this change, it naturally\ntransformed the mythological notion of revelation into a dogmatic\nnotion not essentially different.\n\n\n3. _Dogmatic Notion_\n\n\"The Greeks,\" said Paul, \"seek philosophy; the Jews demand miracles.\"\nFrom these two tendencies combined, from Greek rationalism and Hebrew\nsupernaturalism, sprang the new notion that may be summed up and\ndefined thus: a divine doctrine legitimated by divine signs or miracles.\n\nThese two elements of the theory are mutually dependent, and form an\nindivisible whole.  Given to man in a supernatural way, the doctrine\nsurpasses the reach of the human understanding; hence it must not be\nimposed upon the mind by its own evidence or examined by natural\nreason.  The supernatural doctrine demands supernatural proof.  This\nproof can only be found in the miracles which have accompanied the\ndoctrine from its birth.  Thus mysteries, incomprehensible in the order\nof reason, will necessarily be established by inexplicable events in\nthe order of Nature.\n\nThe theory, in this way, becomes coherent, but it is not complete.  A\nthird term must be added.  The divine doctrine must be embodied in a\nform which distinguishes it from all others, and placed under an\nauthority that guarantees it.  For Protestantism, the form and the\nauthority of revelation is--the Bible; for Catholicism, it is the Bible\nsovereignly interpreted by the Church.  The scholastic notion of\nrevelation is now complete.  The doctors teach us to distinguish three\nthings in it: the object, which is dogma; the form, which is Scripture;\nand the proof or criterion, which is miracle.  This construction\nappears to be compact in all its parts; in reality it is so fragile and\nso artificial that it crumbles at a touch.\n\nTo make of dogma, that is to say of an intellectual datum, the object\nof revelation is, in the first place, to eliminate from it its\nreligious character by separating it from piety, and in the next place\nit is to place it in permanent and irreconcilable conflict with the\nreason, which is always progressing.  In vain do they appear to deduce\nthis scholastic theory from the Bible; it is simply an unfaithful\ntranslation of the Biblical notion.  They tear up from the soil of the\nreligious life the revelation of God in order to constitute it into a\nbody of supernatural verities, subsisting by itself, to which they make\nit an obligation and a merit to adhere, silencing, if needs be, both\nthe judgment and the conscience.  Faith, which, in the Bible, was an\nact of confidence and consecration to God, becomes an intellectual\nadherence to an historical testimony or to a doctrinal formula.  A\nmortal dualism starts up in religion.  It is admitted that orthodoxy\nmay exist apart from piety, that a man may obtain and possess the\nobject of faith apart from the conditions that faith presupposes, and,\nat a push, serve divine truth while inwardly an unbeliever and a\nreprobate.  Get rid of this illusion, frivolous and irreligious man!\nWhatever your authorities in earth or heaven, you are not in the truth,\nbecause you are not in piety.  God has not spoken anything to you.  To\nthe prophets He has spoken, doubtless, and to Christ and the apostles\nand the saints; to you He still remains a stranger and unknown.  His\nrevelation has not been to you a light, for you are walking in\ndarkness.  You are like the Jews who built the tombs of the prophets\nand crowned their memory with empty honours.  Had you been living in\nthe time of the men of God, you would have been the first to stone them.\n\nThis idea of revelation is at bottom entirely pagan.  In the region of\nauthentic Christianity you cannot separate the revealing act of God\nfrom His redeeming and sanctifying action.  God does not enlighten, on\nthe contrary He blinds those whom He does not save or sanctify.  Let us\nboldly conclude, therefore, against all traditional orthodoxies, that\nthe object of the revelation of God could only be God Himself, that is\nto say the sense of His presence in us, awakening our soul to the life\nof righteousness and love.  When the word of God does not give us life,\nit gives us nothing.  It is true that that presence and that action of\nthe divine Spirit in our hearts become in them a light whose rays\nillumine all the faculties of the soul.  But do not hope to enjoy that\nlight apart from the central sun from which it flows.\n\nThe scholastic notion is not only irreligious; it is\nanti-psychological.  In entering the human understanding this\nsupernatural knowledge introduces into it a hopeless dualism.  The\nsacred sciences are set up alongside the profane sciences without its\nbeing possible to organise them together into a coherent and harmonious\nbody, for they are not of the same nature, they do not proceed from the\nsame method, they do not accept the same control.  You have thus a\nsacred cosmogony and a profane cosmogony, a sacred history of the\norigins of man and a purely human history of his beginnings, and of his\nfirst adventures, a divine metaphysic and another purely rational.  How\nto make them live together and unite them?  If, by a subtle theology,\nyou succeed in rationalising dogma, do you not see that you destroy it\nin its very essence?  If you demonstrate that it is essentially\nirrational, do you not feel that you are instituting an endless warfare\nbetween the authority of dogma and the authority of reason?  One\nremembers the generous attempt of mediaeval scholasticism, taken up\nagain by the Protestant theologians of the seventeenth century, and one\nhas not forgotten its twice fatal issue.  One would need to have no\nnotion of the laws of human thought to be astonished at it.  Nominalism\nin the fifteenth century and rationalism in the eighteenth were the two\nnatural heirs of orthodoxy.\n\nThe intervention of miracle as a _criterion_ or proof of doctrine does\nnot remove the difficulties of the theory; it multiplies and aggravates\nthem.  In consequence of the lapse of time, the incertitude of the\ndocuments, and the demands of modern thought, miracle, which formerly\nestablished the truth of religion, has become much more difficult to\ndemonstrate than religion itself.  The relation between the two has\nbeen reversed.  The foundation of the edifice has become more ruinous\nthan the building.  Examples?  Consider, then, on the one hand, the\nDecalogue, and on the other the thunders and lightnings of Sinai.\nPeals of thunder may have served to convince the Hebrews that the law\nof Moses came from the Eternal; for they looked upon thunder as\nrevealing the presence, in some sort material and local, of their God.\nBut who does not see that it is much easier to-day to prove the\nexcellence and the truth of the _Ten Words_ of the Law than the divine\ncharacter of the most terrible of tempests?  Make the opposite\nexperiment: you are familiar with the Books of Joshua, Judges, Kings.\nYou have read in them those orders issued by Jehovah for the total\nextermination of peoples whose crime was the defence of their country\nagainst the invaders.  Prodigies abound in them: the walls of Jericho\nfall down at the sound of trumpets, etc., etc.  Are these events\nsufficient to warrant us in admitting the affirmation of the Hebrew\nhistorian that these terrible reprisals, these crimes and violences,\nwhich were then common in all the Semitic tribes, were commanded either\nby the heavenly Father of Jesus Christ or by the impartial God of the\nuniverse?  Our conscience resists and protests.  Prodigies the most\nbrilliant cannot make it do violence to itself or bend the law of\nrighteousness and love beneath any manifestation, however striking, of\nbrute force.  Let us go further; let us come to the miracles of Christ.\nLet us interrogate the best Christians of our time: let us ask\nourselves, Is it the cures that Jesus wrought which make us believe\nto-day in the divine truth of His word or which give authority to the\nSermon on the Mount?  Is it not rather the Gospel that helps us to\nbelieve in the miracles by persuading us that a man who spake like this\nman must have been able to do things and work works as beautiful and as\nwonderful as the words which He spoke?  The most conservative\nApologists of the traditional school confess to-day that miracle has\nlost its evidential force; it might move those who witnessed it, but\nits action and its prestige have necessarily been diminishing day by\nday for the generations which have followed them.\n\nWhat if we were to press the idea of miracle itself which is in process\nof vanishing in proportion as the idea of Nature is transformed?  What\nis Nature?  Who knows its secrets and its limits?  The theory of the\nevolution of things and beings, does it not show Nature to us as in\ntravail, and as if perpetually giving birth to marvels?  And if this\ncreative energy which is in it can only religiously be referred to the\nconstant activity of God in the universe and in history, how can we\nstill oppose the laws of Nature to the will of God?  Moreover, nothing\nis to-day more indeterminate, more impossible to define than the notion\nof miracle; it floats without ever being able to fix itself, between\nthe idea of an absolute violation of the laws of Nature now no longer\nwitnessed anywhere, to that entirely relative one of an extraordinary\nevent, which, seeing that it may be encountered everywhere, no longer\nproves anything.\n\nLastly, if from the _object_ and the _criterion_ of revelation, we pass\nto the form which conserves and warrants it, _i.e._ to the Bible,\nquestions become still more numerous and insoluble.  In the seventeenth\ncentury the notion of the Bible and that of revelation were coincident\nand commensurate.  But this identity depended upon two dogmas much\nimpaired to-day.  The one was the divine origin of the two Biblical\nCanons, _i.e._ of the Old and New Testaments: the other, the verbal\ninspiration of all holy Scripture, considered as divinely dictated.\n\nHistory and exegesis have dissipated the illusions and the ignorance on\nwhich these two strange affirmations rested.  The Bible appears to us\nas the work, slowly and laboriously constructed, of the ancient Jewish\nSynagogue, and of the Early Christian Church.  It needed more than four\ncenturies to establish and to delimitate the New Testament.  The books\nwhich compose it were still in the time of Eusebius divided into two\nclasses: books admitted everywhere and books contested.  Why then\nshould we not have the same liberty as Origen of doubting the\nauthenticity of 2 Peter, _e.g._, or as Denis of Alexandria in\ndiscussing the apostolic origin of the Apocalypse?  As to the theory of\nverbal inspiration, which makes the sacred writers God's penmen merely,\nno savant nowadays can defend it, so thoroughly have biblical studies\nset forth the personal originality of each of them, and the merits or\nthe imperfections of their works.  Moreover, the distinction clearly\nmade in all the schools between the sacred writings and revelation must\nbe considered as an inalienable conquest of modern theology.  There is\nno one now who does not admit this truth, which would have seemed\nintolerable to our fathers, namely, that the word of God is in the\nBible, but that all the Bible is not the word of God.\n\nIf this be so one sees new questions surging up and awaiting solution.\nWhat is the relation of the word of God to the Bible?  By what sign may\nwe recognise the first and distinguish the second?  Further, if there\nbe any word of God outside the Bible, if there has been any revelation\nof God beyond the limits of the Hebrew people and primitive\nChristianity--and how can we deny this without denying the worth of\nreligion?--what relation is there to establish, and what synthesis to\nmake, between the biblical revelation and the other revelations suited\nto the various human families?  Lastly, what place does the religion of\nJesus occupy in the religious evolution of humanity?  Modern theology\nseems deaf to these questions.  Despairing of a solution, it hesitates\nto approach them.  But they must be answered.  Contemporary philosophy\npresses them upon the conscience of Christians.  The scholastic theory,\nit is clear, cannot bring any solution to these new problems.  As soon\nas the distinction is made in our consciousness between the word of God\nand the letter of holy Scripture, the first becomes independent of all\nhuman form and of all external guarantee.  It is with it as with the\nlight of the sun.  It is only recognised by the brightness with which\nit floods us.  But take care to introduce this criterion of religious\nand moral evidence into the scholastic theory is to deposit an\nexplosive in the heart of it which shatters it to atoms....  I leave to\nothers the task of masking or repairing the ruins.  A task more urgent\nand more fruitful awaits us.  We must build up, on a new principle, a\nnew theory of revelation, a theory that will at once bear the test of\ncriticism and give satisfaction to piety.\n\n\n4. _Psychological Notion_\n\nTo return to psychology.  In all piety there is some positive\nmanifestation of God.  Otherwise, one might question the value of\nreligious phenomena.\n\nThree consequences follow: the revelation of God will be evident,\ninterior, progressive.\n\nIt will be interior, because God, not having phenomenal existence, can\nonly reveal Himself to spirit, and in the piety that He Himself\ninspires.\n\nIf revealers and prophets believed they heard the voice of God outside\nthemselves they were the victims of a psychological illusion that\nanalysis discerns and dissipates.  The old theologian was right who\nsaid:\n\n_Nulla fides si non primum Deus ipse loquitur; Nulla que verba Dei nisi\nquae in penetralibus audit Ipsa fides._[1]  This interior revelation is\nonly made, it is true, in connection with some external event of Nature\nor of History.  If wonder is the beginning of philosophy it is also the\ncommencement of piety.  Religious emotion does not spring up by chance\nand unconditionally.  But external signs are only revealers for those\nwho know how to comprehend them, and who are able to interpret them in\na religious sense.  That is why the distinction sometimes made between\nthe _manifestation_ of God in things and divine _inspiration_ in\nconsciousness, between the sign or external miracle and the inward\nword, is of little worth except for pedagogic purposes.  The\nmanifestation of God in Nature or in History is always a matter of\nfaith.  It would only appear to be such in the light on the hearth of\nconsciousness.  Put out that inner light and everything speedily\nbecomes obscure: \"If the light that is in thee be darkness, there will\nbe darkness round about thee,\" says Jesus.  To the deaf man the\nuniverse is mute.  The starry heavens which bent the pensive brows of\nNewton and of Kant before the majesty of God, said nothing to Laplace.\nLit up within, the soul of Christ saw everywhere the signs of God.\nCaiaphas saw none.  In the cross of Jesus, where St. Paul discerned the\nmanifestation of the wisdom and the power of God, the Pharisees had\nonly seen the crushing proof that this Messiah was a mere impostor.\n\n\n[1] There is no faith save in the heart where God has first made\nHimself heard, and there are no divine words except those which faith\nhears in the inmost sanctuary of the soul.\n\n\nThis inward revelation will be also _evident_.  The contrary would\nimply a contradiction.  He who says revelation says the veil withdrawn,\nthe light come.  True, the word _mystery_ is often on the lips of\nJesus, and in the writings of the New Testament; but, when applied to\nthe essence of the Gospel it never has the meaning which is given to it\nlater in the language of theology.  The mystery of which Jesus, Paul,\nand the Apostles speak is a revealed mystery, _i.e._ a mystery which\nhas become evident to pure hearts and pious souls through the public\npreaching of it.  The Gospel is not obscurity; it is daylight, and it\nis nonsense to demand a criterion of evangelical revelation other than\nitself, any other evidence, _i.e._, than its own truth, beauty, and\nefficiency.\n\nLastly, this revelation will be _progressive_.  It will be developed\nwith the progress of the moral and religious life which God begets and\nnourishes in the bosom of humanity.  The word of God is not that of a\npoor human founder who formulates in abstract terms ideas which are but\nthe pale shadows of things.  It is essentially creative.  It carries\nwith it all the substance of being and all the potency of life.  It\nrealises that which it proclaims, and never manifests itself except by\nits works.  When God wished to give the Decalogue to Israel, He did not\nwrite with His finger on tables of stone; He raised up Moses, and from\nthe consciousness of Moses the Decalogue sprang.  In order that we\nmight have the Epistle to the Romans, there was no need to dictate it\nto the Apostle; God had only to create the powerful individuality of\nSaul of Tarsus, well knowing that when once the tree was made the fruit\nwould follow in due course.  The same with the Gospel; He did not drop\nit from the sky; He did not send it by an angel; He caused Jesus to be\nborn from the very bosom of the human race, and Jesus gave us the\nGospel that had blossomed in His inmost heart.  Thus God reveals\nHimself in the great consciousnesses that His Spirit raises, fills,\nillumines one by one; they form a sacred theory through the ages and\nleave on history a track of light which brightens, broadens to the\nperfect day.\n\nA new and graver problem here arises.  This revelation, made in the\ndepths of the human soul, remains individual and subjective.  How will\nit become objective and concrete?  How will it be made an educating,\nsaving power?  This problem would be insoluble if Leibniz was right, if\nhuman souls were independent monads, closed against and impenetrable to\none another, if it had been necessary, in a word, to regard them as\nabsolute entities, posited from the beginning by the Creator.  But they\nare nothing of the kind.  Social philosophy has sufficiently\ndemonstrated that no individual exists either by himself or for himself\nalone.  In each man it is humanity that is realised--that is to say, a\nmoral life common to all.  Moral goods are in essence universal.  They\ndo not exist, doubtless, apart from the consciousness of the\nindividual; but no consciousness acquires them without acquiring them,\nin principle at least, for all others.\n\nWhence comes that religious kinship of souls, that facility of\ncommunion between them, and that infinite extension and prolongation of\none and the same inspiration, if not from the presence in each of the\nsame indwelling God?  Men are only divided by their external idols.  In\nproportion as they plumb their being and descend into the depths of\ntheir spiritual nature, they discover the same altar, recite the same\nprayer, aspire to the same end.  It is for this profound reason that\nindividual revelations become universal.  There are only prophets\nchosen of God because there is a general vocation and election of all\nmen.  If humanity were not potentially and in some degree an Immanuel\n(God with us), there would never have issued from its bosom Him who\nbore and revealed this blessed name.  The religious experience He\npassed through, He passed through for us; the victory He won was for\nour advantage and is repeated indefinitely in every sincere soul that\njoins itself to Him to live His life.  Thus the revelation of God given\nat one point and in one consciousness infallibly shines forth,\nperpetuates and multiplies itself.  A vibration set up in a soul\nresounds in kindred souls.  An illumined consciousness illuminates in\nturn.  There are religious filiations, just as there are historical\ngenealogies.  Thus the inner revelation becomes consistent and\nobjective in history; it forms a chain, a continuous tradition, and\nbecoming incarnate in each human generation, remains not only the\nrichest of heritages, but the most fecund of historical powers.\n\nOne step more.  Let us follow this historical incarnation of religious\ntradition into its most material form.  The inner experiences of men of\nGod and the witness of them that they give to the world, express\nthemselves naturally in speech, and this in its turn is transformed\ninto Scripture.  It is in this way that in all civilised religions\ndivine revelation is presented to man in the form of a sacred writing;\neverywhere it is gathered into collections of sacred books which have\nbeen called the bibles of humanity.  While all these have been born\naccording to the same psychological and historical laws, it does not\nfollow that they have all the same value, or that an unintelligent\nsyncretism has the right to mix together the various elements in them\nto make of them one common and characterless Bible.  No; each of them\nnaturally belongs to a particular stage in the ladder of divine\nrevelations, and there we must leave them.  The highest will always be\nthat which contains the deepest and purest expression of inward\nreligion, and consequently offers to man the most precious treasure.\nThe rank of the Hebrew and Christian Bible is thus found to be\nlogically determined by the moral worth of the Hebrew and the Christian\nreligions.  But in leaving historical criticism and religious\nexperience to make here the necessary demonstration and render it daily\nmore evident, we must once more call to mind the always human\nconditions of these written collections, of those at the top as well as\nthose at the bottom of the ladder, conditions which forbid us ever to\nidentify the letter and the spirit, the divine inspiration and the\nparticular form in which it has been clothed.\n\nGod, wishing to speak to us, has never chosen any but human organs.\nWith whatever inspiration He has endowed them, that inspiration has\nalways therefore passed through human subjectivity; it has only been\nable either to express or to translate itself in the language and the\nturn of mind of a particular individual and of a particular time.  Now,\nno individual and historical form can be absolute.  If the contents are\ndivine, the vessel is always earthen.  The organ of the revelation of\nGod necessarily limits it.  It must of necessity accommodate itself to\nthe limits of human receptivity.  How could it possibly enter and\nmingle with the changing waves of the intellectual and moral life of\nhumanity unless it flowed in the bed of the river and between its banks?\n\nHowever incontestable this historical complexity of the divine and\nhuman elements in religion, most men seem incapable of comprehending\nit, and of frankly accepting it.  Men of little faith, we feel\nourselves lost the moment men take from us the illusion that we ever\nhave before us and outside of us the divine revelation in an objective\nand unadulterated form, when alongside authority and tradition they\nmake a place for the freedom and the interpretation of consciousness.\nIs there then some chemistry by which we can separate that which God\nhas joined so indissolubly?  Has life ever been seen apart from living\nbeings or light apart from luminous vibrations?  Why not make an effort\nto see that the wisdom of God is infinitely greater than our own, and\nthat what He has given us is better than that of which we dreamed.\nLife and light, even if they are not absolute, propagate themselves\nwith none the less force.\n\nLastly, what is the criterion by which you may recognise an authentic\nrevelation of God in the books you read, in the things you are taught?\nListen: only one criterion is sufficient and infallible: every divine\nrevelation, every religious experience fit to nourish and sustain your\nsoul, must be able to repeat and continue itself as an actual\nrevelation and an individual experience in your own consciousness.\nWhat cannot enter thus as a permanent and constituent element into the\nwoof of your inner life, to enrich, enfranchise, and transform it into\na higher life, cannot be for you a light, or, consequently, a divine\nrevelation.  The spirit of life is not there.  Do not believe that the\nprophets and founders have transmitted to you their experience in order\nto make yours needless, or that their revelation has been brought to\nyou in a book for you to receive passively and as if it were an alien\nthing.  Religious truth cannot be borrowed like money, or, rather, if\nyou do so borrow it you are none the richer.  Remember what the\nSamaritans said to the woman: \"Now we believe, not because of thy\nsaying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed\nthe Christ, the Saviour of the world\" (John iv. 42).  Thus the divine\nrevelation which is not realised in us, and does not become immediate,\ndoes not exist for us.  And I admire the counsel of God, Who, wishing\nto raise man into liberty, did not give to him an objective revelation\nwhich would have become to him a yoke of bondage.  The aim of tradition\nis liberty, and liberty returns lovingly to tradition when, instead of\nfinding it a yoke, it sees in it only a help, an aliment, a guide.\n\n\n5. _Conclusion_\n\nSuch, in its principle, and with all its consequences, is the new idea\nof revelation given to us by psychology and history.  Before it vanish\nthe insoluble antitheses and conflicts raised by scholasticism between\nsupernatural and natural revelation, between what the theologians call\nimmediate and mediate, between a universal and a special revelation.\nSynthesis is made, and peace is re-established.\n\nThere is not and could never have been two revelations different in\nnature and opposed to each other.  Revelation is one, in different\nforms and various degrees.  It is at once supernatural and natural:\nsupernatural by the cause which engenders it in souls, and which,\nalways remaining invisible and transcendent, never exhausts or\nimprisons itself in the phenomena it produces; natural, by its effects,\nbecause, realising itself in history, it always appears therein\nconditioned by the historical environment and by the common laws which\nregulate the human mind.\n\nThis revelation also is immediate for all, for the least in the kingdom\nof heaven, as for the greatest of the prophets; for God desires to\nadmit them all into direct and personal communion with Himself; and it\nis equally mediate for all; for it comes to none, whether prophets or\ntheir disciples, unconditionally, and without previous preparation.\n\nLastly, it is not less false and futile to oppose universal revelation\nto particular revelations as two exclusive quantities.  Particular\nrevelations enter into general revelation as varieties into species.\nEvery special revelation, if it be really from God, is human, and tends\nto become universal; every general revelation was once individual, for\nit could only have been made in an individuality.  Among the men and\npeoples chosen by God as organs there is inequality in gifts but\nsolidarity in the common work.  We must not mistake the one or the\nother.  The religious vocation of humanity does not exclude--it\nprepares and supports--the particular vocation of Israel.  In this\nnational vocation there is a place for that of the prophets, and, among\nthe prophets, for the vocation of Him who was their heir, and in Whom\nthe revelation of God was completed, because in His consciousness was\nrealised perfectly the very idea of piety.\n\nIs everything explained in religion, then, and nothing left obscure?\nFar from that!  There remains the ground from which emerges the\nconscious and moral life of the soul; there remains that initial\nmystery, the relation in our consciousness between the individual and\nthe universal element, between the finite and the infinite, between God\nand man.  How can we comprehend their co-existence and their union, and\nyet how can we doubt it?  Where is the thoughtful man to-day who has\nnot broken the thin crust of his daily life, and caught a glimpse of\nthose profound and obscure waters on which floats our consciousness?\nWho has not felt within himself a veiled presence and a force much\ngreater than his own?  What worker in a lofty cause has not perceived\nwithin his own personal activity, and saluted with a feeling of\nveneration, the mysterious activity of a universal and eternal power?\n_In Deo vivimus, movemur et sumus_.  There is perhaps no other mystery\nin religion; at all events all others are but particular forms of this.\nBut this mystery cannot be dissipated, for, without it, religion itself\nwould no longer exist.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nMIRACLE AND INSPIRATION\n\nIn speaking of revelation we have already touched on the doctrines of\ninspiration and of miracle, which are dependencies of it, and, as it\nwere, constituent parts.  But these two notions are still so obscure in\nthe public mind, and give rise to so many and such lively\ncontroversies, that it may be well to return to them and study them by\nthemselves and in some detail.\n\nIn this matter there are two causes of dispute and misunderstanding.\nThe first is that everybody believes he ought to begin by giving his\nown personal and arbitrary definition of miracle, and afterwards\nexplain by way of deduction why he believes or does not believe in it.\nThe debate thus turns on a question of terminology--that is to say, on\na vain and barren logomachy.  The second cause is that the defenders of\nmiracle always keep to abstractions, instead of following their\ncontradictors on to the ground of criticism of miraculous stories and\nplacing themselves in presence of the facts which alone make up the\nmatter of the discussion.  They believe they have gained everything\nwhen they have proved that God, according to the very definition of the\nidea that we have of Him, can do everything--which no one denies--while\nthe problem consists not in knowing what God can do _in abstracto_, but\nwhat He has done _in concreto_, in Nature and in History.  Now, in\norder to know what is really done, and whether there are or ever have\nbeen produced phenomena which must be referred to the immediate\nintervention, and to a particular volition of God, independently of the\nconcurrence of second causes, this is evidently something that only the\ncritical observation of facts, past or present, can teach us.  Every\nother method of research and discussion is illusory.\n\nFaithful to our own, we here place ourselves at the historical point of\nview.  Convinced that ideas have a history, and are most clearly and\nsurely defined by their very evolution, we shall confine ourselves to\nfollowing and describing that evolution.  We shall seek in the first\nplace to ascertain the notion of miracle that was current in antiquity;\nafter that we shall see what became of it in mediaeval theology; and\nlastly we shall see into what elements it has resolved itself in modern\ntimes, as much at the point of view of science as of piety.  As\nreligious inspiration, properly speaking, is but a particular miracle,\na miracle of the psychological order, the solution available for the\none will apply to the other.\n\n\n1. _The Notion of Miracle in Antiquity_\n\nThe primitive conception of Nature was animistic.  In everything\n_astonishing_, extraordinary, men used to see the action of spirits\nlike themselves, with whom their religious imagination peopled the\nheavens, the earth, the seas.  They lived in miracle.  It would be\neasier to enumerate the things that were not than the things that were\nto them miraculous.  The word Nature, which has become so familiar and\nso indispensable to designate the regular course of things, does not\nexist in primitive languages.  One does not meet with it even in the\nlanguage of the Old Testament.  This is because the conception it\nrepresents only came into existence later, and by a slow and laborious\nprocess, in the philosophy of the Greeks.  The cosmos, ordered and\nharmonious and fixed, is the sublime creation of Hellenic reason.\nElsewhere, no doubt, with experience of life and the daily return of\nphenomena, a certain order, the effect of custom, would exist around\nman and be established in his mind.  He learned to distinguish between\nthe habitual course of things and the prodigies which caused him\nwonder, fear, or hope, and in which he always saw the effect either of\nthe favour or the anger of a demon or a god.  His imagination, to which\nhis ignorance gave free play, and his credulity, which religious terror\nheld open to all impressions, stories, legends, wrapped his life in an\natmosphere of marvel, gentle or terrible, but incessant.  Eclipses,\nearthquakes, thunder, lightning, rainbows, deluges, accidents,\nmaladies, etc.--these were the work of particular actors, personal,\nimpassioned like man, hidden behind the scenes.  Add to this the\ninventions of sorcerers and priests; ... transport yourself into this\nfirst effervescence of the human faculties, into this luxuriant\nvegetation of poetical creation in the early human mind, and you will\nhave some idea of what, for centuries on centuries, must have been the\nmental state of primitive historic humanity.  Such, however, is the\ncomparative poverty of human conceptions, that, when you come to\ncatalogue these marvels, you see them reduced to a small number of\nmiracles which turn up everywhere and again and again among all\npeoples.  Their similarity approaches to monotony....  The question for\nthe moment is not whether these miraculous facts are real or not, but\nhow the men who have transmitted them to us represented them.  There is\nno doubt on this point.  To them they were not simply astonishing facts\nthat admitted of a natural explanation.  Modern theologians and savants\nwho seek and find for them explanations of this kind do not perceive\nthat they contradict themselves, and that to explain miracle in this\nway is to destroy it.  No; that which is miraculous in these events--to\nthe contemporaries of Tarquin in Rome, of Joshua in Palestine, to the\npeople in our own day--is this, that they are produced, contrary to the\nnatural course of things, solely by a special intervention of the\ndivine will.  That is the mark and characteristic of ancient miracle.\nEfface it, for any reason whatever, and miracle disappears.  That which\nmakes it possible is ignorance of Nature and its laws: that which\nsupports it is the religious belief in the existence of these\nsupernatural wills and in their unexpected invasion of the succession\nof accustomed things.  \"Without this belief,\" as M. Menegoz remarks,[1]\n\"the birth of a myth or of a legend could not be explained.  St. Denis,\ndecapitated, would not have been able to carry his head.\"  In fact, the\nmiracles you find in the apocryphal legends are exactly of the same\nnature as those which are met with in narratives held to be more\nhistorical.\n\n\n[1] _La notion biblique du miracle_ (Lecon d'ouverture), 1894.\n\n\nI must add that this notion of miracle is absolutely the same in\nBiblical as in profane literature.  In a general way, no doubt, the\nsupernatural in the history of Israel and in the early days of\nChristianity is of a more sober, more profoundly moral and religious\ncharacter than it is everywhere else.  But the sacred writers do not\nrepresent miracles differently.  Without exception, they also conceive\nof them as a violation, by a particular volition of God, of the\nordinary course of things....  Still, so far from being more striking\nor more numerous, miracles and prodigies in the Bible are rarer than\nelsewhere, clearer, less fantastic, more under law to conscience and to\ncommon sense.  The worship of one God, invisible, spiritual, in whom\ncentres the ideal of wisdom, reason, righteousness, conceived by the\nprophets, joined to the lack of imagination in the Hebrew race, has\nfreed the Bible from the luxuriant growths of oriental mythologies and\ntheogonies, as of the marvellous in the poesy of Greece.  Nothing\npurifies the mind like a great moral idea around which all the rest\norganises itself.  It is very remarkable that the great prophets,\nIsaiah, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, work hardly any\nmiracles.  If prodigy has penetrated into the life of Jesus at two or\nthree points, the explanation is to be found in the mistakes or the\nlegendary corruptions for which His biographers are alone responsible,\nand which criticism may eliminate without violence.  Prodigy, properly\nso called, is quite foreign to the wholly moral conduct of His life,\nand to the strictly religious conception of His work.  He did not found\nHis religion on miracle, but on the light, the consolation, the pardon\nand the joy which His gospel, issuing from His holy, loving heart,\nbrought to broken and repentant souls.  His works proceeded only from\nHis charity.  Far from wishing to impose belief in His miracles, He\noften forbids men to divulge them.  It is to the faith of the afflicted\nthat He refers their cure.  He turns away from the seductive\ninvitations of miraculous _Messianism_ as from the distrust or the\ncuriosity of an incredulous wisdom.  To those who demanded of Him an\nindubitable prodigy come from heaven, He answers that no sign shall be\ngiven them save the preaching of repentance by the prophet Jonah.  The\nwhole temptation in the wilderness is simply a victory of the moral\nconsciousness over the religion of physical prodigy.  His filial piety\nto the Father raised Him above miracle itself and above the dualism\nthat miracle supposes in Nature and in the divine action.  He discovers\nin everything the signs of the presence, the will, the affection, of\nHis Father.  He accepts them, submits to them, celebrates them, without\npreoccupying Himself with the ordinary or the extraordinary manner in\nwhich they may be manifested.  This absolute piety, absolutely pure and\nconfident, succeeds in realising the unity of the world and the\nuniversal and continuous action of God, quite as well as the dialectic\nof a Scotus Eriginus or a Spinoza or a Hegel; for it suppresses still\nmore radically the old and mortal antithesis of the natural and the\nsupernatural.  Nature in its expansion and its evolution--what is it\nbut the very expression of the Will of the Father?  How can you imagine\nthen that there could ever be conflict in it between the order which\nreigns in it and the action of Him by whom that order is maintained day\nby day and moment by moment?  If the thought of Jesus was bounded by\nthe ancient notion of miracle, it must be acknowledged that His piety\nwas not imprisoned in it, but went beyond it.  Not having come into the\nworld to teach science, He contented Himself with the opinions He had\ninherited with the rest of His people, and which constituted the\nscience of Nature of His little popular environment, without concerning\nHimself as to whether these opinions were erroneous or correct.\nMiracle was not then something essentially religious as it is to-day.\nBelief in miracles was not a sign of piety.  Everybody shared in it,\nmen of the world as well as men of God.  Herod believed in them not\nless than the apostles.  The Pharisees did not doubt them; they only\ndenied the miracles of Jesus; they attributed them to Beelzebub.\nChrist did not doubt any more than they did that Satan and the demons\nwrought as many and perhaps more miracles than the messengers of God.\nHe did not wish them to believe the doctrine because of the prodigy,\nbut in the prodigy because of the doctrine.  It will be seen how far\nthey were at that time from the dualism of our day, and from the\nconflict created by scholasticism between science and piety.\n\nWhen we examine this ancient notion of miracle, especially in the\nsuperior expression it receives in the Bible, we discover in it two\nthings: it is made up of two judgments of a very different order: of an\nintellectual and scientific order, disclosing that which then existed\nin point of fact, a _naif_ and perfect ignorance of the nature and the\nlaws of things; and of a judgment of a religious order, implying an\nabsolute confidence in an all-good God who is almighty to respond to\nthe cry of His children and to deliver them.  These two judgments are\nso thoroughly blended in the biblical notion of miracle that orthodox\ntheologians and irreligious philosophers agree in declaring them to be\ninseparable, and they would compel us to choose between a piety hostile\nto the elementary results of science, and a science radically hostile\nto piety.  The dilemma is specious but false.  To see it vanish it is\nonly necessary to perceive that these two judgments, not being of the\nsame nature, cannot be eternally _solidaire_.  The settlement of the\ncontroversy in which Christian thought has been engaged for the last\nthree centuries will consist in separating them.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n2. _The Notion of Miracle in the Face of Modern Science and of Piety_\n\nModern science neither affirms nor denies miracle; it ignores it,\nnecessarily.  It is, for it, as if it did not exist.\n\nReligious persons, who often look towards science to ascertain what\ntheir faith may hope or fear from it, only consider its results, and as\nthese are never definitive, but always variable, always being revised,\nenlarged, enriched, they secretly indulge the hope that a moment may\ncome when science, which has not yet welcomed miracle, will welcome it;\nthat such a fact, supported by such and such testimony, will in the end\nconquer its resistances and obtain a place in the category or the\ncatalogue of scientific facts.  They would quickly lose this illusion,\nif, turning away from the net results of science, they would fix their\nattention on its processes and methods of investigation.  What is it,\naccording to science, to know a phenomenon?  It is to place it in a\nnecessary link of succession, concomitance, and causality with other\nphenomena which explain it by analogy.  Suppose a mysterious phenomenon\nwithout analogy and connection with any other; savants brought into its\npresence will declare themselves simply in a state of ignorance with\nrespect to it.  They will say they have not discovered the cause of it,\nthat they cannot explain it; they will study it on every side a\nthousand times if necessary until they have torn out the heart of the\nmystery.  Either they will succeed, or on this point there will never\nbe science made or explanation established.\n\nSavants, it is true, are the first to recognise and to proclaim, in all\ndomains, the limitations of their knowledge.  The most advanced are the\nmost modest.  They all have the feeling that their discoveries are but\na beginning, and that the part of Nature they have explored is as\nnothing to that of which they are ignorant.  They hold themselves in\nreadiness to modify the laws they have established, to enlarge their\nhypotheses, to make new ones, to record all facts which observation may\nsupply.  That many facts astonish them and disconcert them, we see\nevery day.  But mark the attitude of the true savant in face of these\nnew phenomena.  Does he doubt a single moment that they obey laws,\nunknown perhaps, but certain? ... There can only be science of that\nwhich is general and constant.\n\nIt is therefore absolutely chimerical to expect of science the\nestablishment of any miracle whatever....  Miracle, according to the\nonly tenable definition, and this is the ancient and traditional one,\nis a positive intervention of God in the phenomenal order and at a\nparticular point.  Now science knows only second causes.  How could it\never seize in the course of these causes the immediate action of the\nFirst Cause?  Is God a phenomenon that the eye of man can ever perceive\nin any phenomenal series?  And is not this the reason why science\ndespairs of ever proving scientifically the existence of God?  It\nrecognises itself to be impotent to step out of the relative, to\nresolve anything outside space and time, and it has removed from its\ndomain all questions as to origin and aim, because it has no means of\nreaching them.\n\nTo perceive God and the action of God in the human soul and in the\ncourse of things is the business of the pious heart (Matt. v. 8).  The\naffirmation of piety is essentially different from scientific\nexplanation.  It places us in the subjective and moral order of life,\nwhich no more depends on the order of science than the scientific order\ndepends on piety.  There cannot be conflict between these two orders,\nbecause they move on different planes and never meet.  Science, which\nknows its limits, cannot forbid the act of confidence and adoration of\npiety.  Piety, in its turn, conscious of its proper nature, will not\nencroach on science; its affirmations can neither enrich, impoverish,\nnor embarrass science, for they bear on different points and answer\ndifferent ends.  My child is ill; I procure for it the best advice and\nthe best remedies; but confiding in God's mercy, I beg of Him to spare\nme my child, or, in any case, to help me to accept His will.  The child\nrecovers.  What savant will forbid me to thank my heavenly Father?\nWill this be because my thanksgiving will be a denial of the science of\nthe physician?  Certainly not, for my gratitude will include the fact\nof the doctor, the medicine, the care bestowed, the whole series of\nsecond causes that have contributed to the recovery of my child.  Was\nnot this the piety of Jesus when He taught us to pray: \"Our Father\nwhich art in Heaven: Thy will be done: Give us our daily bread\"?  Was\nHe ignorant of the fact that in order to have bread we must sow wheat?\nNo; but none the less He asked His food from God, because He knew also\nthat, in the last resort, it is the will of God that makes the\nsubstance and the order of things, that it is He who clothes the lilies\nof the field, feeds the fowls of the air, makes His sun to shine upon\nthe evil and the good, and sends upon the labourer's soil the early and\nthe latter rain.\n\nReduced to its religious and moral significance, miracle, for Jesus,\nwas the answer to prayer, as M. Menegoz (_pp. cit._ pp. 19-29) has\nclearly shown, and this altogether apart from the phenomenal mode in\nwhich the answer was produced.  God only manifests Himself in\nextraordinary events in order that we may learn to recognise Him in\nordinary ones.  The child asks, the father grants; but the child does\nnot trouble himself about the means by which his wishes are gratified.\nThe pious man adores the ways he cannot comprehend.  This confidence in\nthe love and justice of God may be accompanied in the mind of the\napostles and of Jesus Himself by imperfect or erroneous scientific\nideas as to the mode of divine action in Nature.  But it is not\n_solidaire_, with them, and may easily be detached in order to bring it\ninto harmony with the views of our present science, as in the mind of\nJesus and the apostles it was in harmony with the science of their\ntime.  For piety, the laws of Nature which have since then been\nrevealed to us in their sovereign constancy, become the immediate\nexpression of the will of God.  The Christian submits to them\ninstinctively, saying: \"Thy will be done.\"  Which is only saying that\nthese laws, which are sometimes spoken of with a sort of horror, as of\na blind and brutal fate, become religious and are consecrated in the\neyes of piety by a divine authority.  Why then should not piety offer\nto science and its revelations of Nature the same frank and joyous\nwelcome as that accorded to them by scientists themselves?  The\nopposition established by scholasticism between faith and science, is\nit not as irreligious as it is irrational, and has it not been one of\nthe chief causes of the death of theology in the Church and of the\ntriumph of incredulity in the present age?\n\nWhile developing themselves on parallel lines, can science and faith\nremain isolated?  Man is one, and his scientific activity, like his\nreligious activity, tends to a synthesis.  The synthesis will be found\nin a teleological consideration of the universe.  This universal\nteleology, faith predicts it, science labours to realise it.  It can\nonly be established by this twofold concurrence.  Without faith,\nknowledge of the universe is impossible; without phenomenal science all\ninterpretation of the universe becomes illusory.  Faith, therefore,\nmust become more and more an act of confidence in God, and the\nscientific study of phenomena ever more profound and rigorous.  Of\ncourse the teleological synthesis will never be completed here below,\nbut it will always find a provisional and satisfying conclusion in the\nact of confidence and adoration towards God.\n\nScience is perpetually becoming.  If at times it closes to piety dear\nand familiar prospects, it necessarily and constantly opens new ones.\nIf it takes away its crutches, it gives it wings.  The contemplation of\nthe harmony of the worlds which moves us religiously is, it seems to\nme, worth more to modern thought than the fatidical oracle, or the cry\nof the crow that frightened the good old woman of Rome.  The more\nscience progresses the more it puts into things the order and harmony\nof thought.  It can only create a Cosmos more and more intelligible\nand, consequently, susceptible of an increasingly religious\ninterpretation.\n\nAt the same time as science instituted its severest methods, it\nradically transformed its primary notion of Nature.  This was conceived\nby the Cartesian Rationalism as a finished and coherent whole, a system\nof identical movements and phenomena which were produced by virtue of\nthe same springs acting in the same circle (the vortices of Descartes).\nThe familiar image under which they loved to represent it was that of a\nwatch, constructed and wound up by the divine artificer once for all.\nNow, we see this dogma of the immutability of Nature going to join the\nother dogmas of the past.  The theory of the ascensional evolution of\nbeings, which renders miracle useless, shows Nature to us in the course\nof constant transformation and perpetual travail.  Nothing in it is\nstable or final.  Everything is preparatory to something else; each\nform of life is the preface to a higher form.  What then is the hidden\nmystery which ferments in the bosom of this painful nature and\nendeavours to expand?\n\n\"The more cannot issue from the less,\" said the schoolmen, and no doubt\nin abstract logic they were right.  But reality smiles at logic.  It\nshows us everywhere the triumph of the opposite maxim.  Perfection is\nat the beginning of nothing.  Cosmic evolution proceeds always from\nthat which is poorer to that which is richer, from the simple to the\ncomplex, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from dead matter to\nliving matter, from physical to mental life.  At each stage Nature\nsurpasses itself by a mysterious creation that resembles a true miracle\nin relation to an inferior stage.  What then shall we conclude from\nthese observations except that in Nature there is a hidden force, an\nincommensurable \"potential energy,\" an ever open, never exhausted fount\nof apparitions at once magnificent and unexpected?  How can such a\nuniverse escape the teleological interpretation of religious faith?\nFor the moment, science may accord nothing more to piety; but piety has\nno need to ask more from it; for it has already in this way found\nsafeguarded the three things which the old notion of miracle guaranteed\nto it: the real and active presence of God, the answer to prayer, and\nliberty to hope.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n3. _Religious Inspiration_\n\nPassing by the subject of prophecy, which is a species of miracle, and\nadmits of the same kind of explanation, it may be well to touch upon\nthe subject of prophetic inspiration.  The ancients represent it as a\nveritable state of possession.  The spirit of the god or demon\nviolently entered into the body of a man or woman, sometimes of an\nanimal, and made of it an organ the more faithful in proportion as it\nwas unconscious.  Everybody knows the description given by Virgil of\nthe Cumaean sybil at the moment of vaticination: \"The god, the god, she\ncried,\" etc.  (Aeneid VI. v. 45 et 77.)[2]  It was a sort of frenzy or\nsacred delirium in which divine words involuntarily and sometimes\nunconsciously proceeded from the mouth of the possessed.  Madmen,\nepileptics, idiots, hysterical persons, were regarded almost everywhere\nas sacred beings, friends and confidants of superior spirits.  Their\nstrange malady only seems explicable by the presence in them of one of\nthese spirits.\n\n\n[2] Cf. Plato, _Meno. Timaeus_, 45.--Cicero, _De Divin_ 1. 2. 18. 31.\nAristotle, _Problem_, xxx. p. 474.\n\n\nThe same ideas were current among the Hebrews, and are to be found both\nin the Old and in the New Testament.  The prophets of Ramah, disciples\nof Samuel, and Saul himself, putting themselves by contagion into a\nstate of delirium and \"prophecy,\" are in a physical and mental state\nidentical with that of the sybil of Cumae.  The demons in possession of\nthe man who was healed by Jesus were the first to divine and to salute\nHis messianic dignity.  The poor woman whom Paul healed at Philippi was\nhaunted by \"a spirit, a Python.\"  The speakers with tongues at Corinth\nwere thought by those present to be mad, and those at Jerusalem on the\nday of Pentecost looked like drunken men (1 Sam. x. 5-7: Mark i. 24:\nActs xvi. 16-20: 1 Cor. xiv: Acts ii. 13).\n\nAll these manifestations, formerly held to be supernatural, are now\nrecognised as morbid phenomena, of which mental pathology describes the\nphysiological causes, the natural course, the fatal issue.  Even in\nfrightful disorders order has been discovered; laws and remedies have\nbeen found for many of these sad afflictions.  Formerly they deified\nthese demented and tormented souls; in the Middle Ages, and up to the\neighteenth century, they burned them; we pity them and care for them.\nThis is much the best for all concerned.\n\nPreoccupied with guaranteeing the infallibility of the sacred writings,\nthe theology of the Fathers, of the scholastic doctors, and of the\nProtestant doctors of the seventeenth century, drew from this ancient\nnotion of religious inspiration a dogmatic theory applicable to the\ndivine oracles contained in the Bible.  It seemed to them that the more\npassive the personal spirit of the writers was, the purer would be the\nword of God that they were charged to deliver when it reached us.  At\nthis point of view, the most faithful organ of God, the one that ought\nto inspire us with the greatest confidence, would be Balaam's ass.\n\"The writer might be stupid,\" exclaims Gaussen, \"but that which came\nfrom his hands would always be the Bible.\"  Some have gone further by\nway of inventing images borrowed from the material order, such as, \"the\nstrings of a lyre,\" sounding beneath the divine bow, \"the quills or\npens of the Holy Spirit,\" etc., etc.  The theory is familiar.  It was\ndeveloped throughout the Middle Ages until they came to say that God\nwas the author and is alone responsible for the Bible, and for\neverything that is found in it; not only for the things and thoughts,\nbut also for the words and style; not only for each word, but also for\nthe vowels and the consonants.  It only remained that they should have\nadded the punctuation, not the least important matter in a connected\ndiscourse.  Unhappily, the punctuation is absent from the oldest\nmanuscripts.\n\nLet us remind ourselves, however, that St. Paul, and Jesus Christ\nbefore him, had deposited the germ of a conception of religious\ninspiration more human, more psychological, and, at the same time, more\nreal.  Paul, who had ecstasies, visions, \"tongues,\" always spoke of\nthese doubtful privileges with a certain modesty, and that only when he\nwas constrained to it, as if he had the feeling that there was\nsomething abnormal and morbid in these phenomena.  On the other hand,\nhe opposes to them a theory of true Christian prophecy conceived as a\nforcible, eloquent, irresistible proclamation of the mercy and justice\nof God; prophecy on the lips of the apostle, the poet, or the orator,\nspringing from the assurance given him by the inward witness of the\nHoly Spirit that he is in perfect harmony with the divine thought.  The\nforce of this inspired prophecy comes from the luminous evidence which\nsprings up within, which warms and kindles up the spirit like an inward\nfire.  Under the influence of this illumination the apostle feels his\nstrength increase tenfold; he rises at a mighty bound above himself.\nHis faculties are carried to their maximum of energy and power.  So far\nfrom being an inert, passive instrument, his intellect has never been\nintenser, richer; his thoughts more clear and more coherent; his words\nmore fluent, more abundant, more pictorial and expressive; his voice\nmore firm and resonant; his gestures more imperious.  It is the hour\nwhen he is most himself, when his particular genius has freest play,\nwhen his moral originality is greatest, when he is most certainly the\norgan of eternal truth.  Thus understood, religious inspiration does\nnot differ psychologically from poetic inspiration.  It presents the\nsame mystery, but it is not more miraculous.  It is not produced like a\ntrouble violently introduced into the psychical life from without, but\nas a really fruitful force, acting from within, in harmony with all the\nlaws and forces of the mind.\n\nDoes not experience establish and piety confirm this?  When does an\nAmos, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, a St. Paul, or a St. John, appear to us as\nthe most authentic bearer of the word of truth and life, but in their\nmost eloquent pages, where their personal genius, their faith, their\nthought, shine forth most freely?  Religious inspiration is simply the\norganic penetration of man by God; but, I repeat, by an interior and\nindwelling God, and in such wise that when that penetration is\ncomplete, the man finds himself to be more really and fully himself\nthan ever.  It is with this mysterious action of the Spirit in the\nbosom of humanity as it is with the solar heat upon the plants that\nspring up from the soil.  In regions where the heat is greatest and the\nother conditions favourable, plants which elsewhere are stunted attain\ntheir richest development and their greatest fecundity.\n\nThe inner root of this inspiration is only found in the piety common to\nreligious men.  It differs from it not in nature, but simply in\nintensity and energy.  Prophetic inspiration is piety raised to the\nsecond power.  There is no other mystery in it than the religious\nmystery _par excellence_.  That is why this inspiration is essential to\nand promotes effectually the progress of the moral and religious life.\nThey advance together through the ages as we now shall see.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY\n\n1. _The Social Element in Religion_\n\nReligion is not merely a phenomenon of the individual and inner life:\nit is also a social and historical phenomenon.  Psychology lays bare\nits root, but history alone reveals its power and range.\n\nThis social action of religion springs from its very essence.  The\nphrase \"communion of souls\" is of religious origin and hue.  The thing\nexpressed by it--one of the most wonderful phenomena of collective\nmoral life--is never perfectly realised save in religion and by\nreligion.  An identic faith, a common act of adoration, not merely\nbrings souls together: it makes them live in each other, blends them\ninto one soul in which each of them finds itself, multiplied, as it\nwere, by all the rest.  That is what is properly called \"edification,\"\nby which I mean that feeling of joy, of force, of fulness of life,\nproduced by the common act of worship in those who sincerely take part\nin it.  That is the reason why men of the same religion have no more\nimperious need than that of praying and worshipping together.  State\npolice have always failed to confine growing religious sects within the\nsanctuary or the home.  Their members have never been resigned to this\ncomparatively solitary life; they have braved all interdicts and\npersecutions in order to turn it into social life and fraternal\ncommunion.\n\nGod, it is said, is the place where spirits blend.  In rising towards\nHim man of necessity passes beyond the limits of his own individuality.\nHe feels instinctively that the principle of his being is also the\nprinciple of the life of his brethren; that that which gives him safety\nmust give it to all.  In the same Religion, souls the most diverse,\nbeing affected in the same manner, become related to each other, and\nform a real family, united by closer, stronger bonds than those of\nblood.  The religious life is a higher region.  Those who rise into it\nfeel the barriers fall which hemmed in their existence.  They become\nfree; they penetrate the souls of their neighbours and feel themselves\nto be penetrated by them; and all live one life, which, although it be\nlarger and almost universal, is none the less very personal and very\nintense.  Have you ever been present in a crowd excited and exalted by\nreligious enthusiasm?  Have you felt the contagion?  Then you can never\nforget it.  It is said the early Christians were of one heart and one\nsoul.  Their community of faith, of hope, of love, went so far as to\nmake them forget the idea of property and put their goods in common.\nIn how many monastic orders or mystic sects has not this same need of\nequality and unity gone to the point of identity in costume and\ndeportment, and even of the loss of name and personal individuality?\n\nIt is not surprising therefore that religion, capable of creating in\nmodern times those moral societies called \"Churches,\" should, in all\nages, have been the strongest bond of natural societies, primitive\nfamilies, savage tribes, great empires, civilised peoples.  The first\nstone of every hearth was a sacred stone.  The first tombstone was a\nmonument of piety, and burial is an essentially religious ceremony.\nBefore they were regarded as protectors without, tribal gods were the\ninternal bonds of the tribe itself.  All the individuals of the tribe\nsaw in the god a father and an ever present head, so that religion came\nto double by this moral kinship their blood relationship.  In this\nmatter the great civilisations do not differ from the rest.  All have a\nreligious soul that differentiates and explains them.  It is not merely\nmorals and philosophy that are affected by religion, but literature,\nart, politics, social economy, and in a general way the whole destiny\nof men.  The secret of a race is hidden in its religion.  It is there\nthat the forces of life and resistance to the causes of dissolution are\nconcentrated....  Let us enter with deep piety therefore on the history\nof religion on the earth....  That history is still in embryo.  The\ncomparative study of religions has arisen within our time; it is still\nat its beginnings....  The idea of religious progress is a great and\nluminous idea, but it is not possible to apply it to all the details of\nhistory.  Progress has not taken place along a single or continuous\nline....  On four or five points the progress is undeniable; it must\nsuffice to point them out and mark their direction in order that we may\nforesee the supreme end to which this faltering and laborious march is\ntending.\n\nIn religions there are differences of degree and differences of kind:\nthe one mark in the scale of evolution the successive movements of the\nreligious consciousness in time; the others express the diversity and\nsimultaneity of religions in space.  The first are explained by\ninequalities of moral development; the second by variety of races,\nclimates, civilisations.  Take, for example, the Hebrew tradition;\nfollow it in broad outline, and you will note religious forms which\ngive birth one to another and constitute an historical development--the\nreligion of the ancient Beni-Israel, prophetism, rabbinical pharisaism,\nChristianity, Mohammedanism: there, in a continuous evolution, you have\nwhat may be called differences of degree.  But, on the other hand,\nconsider the Mongolian or Chinese religions, those of ancient Mexico,\nof India, Egypt, or Greece: you have differences of kind which you\ncannot classify in a single scale.  And, as some of these peoples have\ndisappeared, and others been arrested in their growth, and as they have\nnever marched abreast, it is impossible to compare them or to put into\none category the religious forms which their history presents.  But\nsome attempt must be made to trace them out.\n\n\n2. _Progress in the Outward Forms of Religion_\n\nIn this universal religious evolution the progress that is most\napparent because most outward is the enlargement of the form of\nreligion itself, the movement, often interrupted but never stopped,\nfrom the narrowest particularism to the most human universalism....  It\nis characteristic of all religion to propagate itself: that is the\nimplicit affirmation that it is made for all men.  Even when it is\nabased to the level of a recipe and of a magical secret that is hidden\nwith a jealous selfishness, or even from a ferocious patriotism, there\nis the avowal that it might be serviceable to others....  But we must\nsee how this passage from the particular to the universal is effected.\n\nThe beginnings of religion are everywhere the same.  The number of\ncults at first is almost endless, but they vary very little from each\nother.  It is impossible to write the history of barbarous religions,\nand it is useless to enumerate them.  Nothing is more monotonous than\nthe descriptions that have been attempted of them.  Their most\ncharacteristic feature is, that at first they are confined to the\nfamily.  Religion at this stage is a matter of instinct, and\ninstinctive matters are always uniform.  In mental life, diversity only\nappears with reflection and consciousness.\n\nTo the domestic and tribal succeeds the national stage of religion.\nPolitical federations are formed, and the religious as well as the\nsocial consciousness of the people is enlarged.  This phenomenon is\nseen in Greece in its most interesting form.  The religion of Greece,\nas witness the Homeric poems, was a confederation of local cults and\ndeities, just as Hellas was a federation of previously unconnected\ntribes.\n\nThe conquests of Alexander and the extension of the Roman Empire\ngreatly enlarged the horizon of ancient thought.  The philosophers in\nthe time of Cicero and Seneca had already risen from the national idea\nto that of the human race.  It must not be supposed, however, that the\nuniversal religion sprang from the philosophic or religious syncretism\nof the later ages of Graeco-Roman civilisation.  The dissolution of the\nnational religions had preceded that of political nationalities, and,\nso far from creating anything universal, the morbid curiosity of minds\ndenuded of all national tradition abandoned itself to individual\nsuperstitions the most exotic and monstrous.  Christianity was born,\nnot in Greece, in the schools, nor in Rome, at the foot of the throne\nof the Caesars, but in a race the narrowest, the most fanatical and\nintolerant that ever existed, and in the heart of a Son of Israel whom\nno extra-Palestinian influence seems ever to have reached.\n\nNowhere is a universal religion the fruit of an unconscious evolution,\nproduced by the action of fatal and external laws.  It presents itself\neverywhere as an individual creation, as the free and moral work of a\nfew elect souls, in whom tradition by a profound crisis is purified and\nenlarged.  This was the role of Confucius, of Buddha, of Socrates, of\nthe prophets of Israel, of Mohammed in Arabia.  All of them were\nreformers of the religion of their ancestors....  They did not discover\nthe universal religion outside themselves, but in their consciousness\nand personal piety.  Passing through their souls as through a filter,\nthe traditional religion of their race was gradually clarified and\nfreed from foreign or material elements, and it was found that, in the\nend, the new faith appeared the more human and universal as it had\nbecome more strictly religious, more inward, and more pure....  Not\nthat all the ancient cults were capable of transformation or all the\nprophets equally inspired.  Often the revelation would appear uncertain\nor incomplete.  On only one point and in only one consciousness would\nit be seen to end in a clear and definitive conclusion.  Progress\nimplies selection.  As we rise from one stage to another in the history\nof religious evolution we see the ranks enlightened and the number\ndiminished of concurrent religions.  At the lowest stage, the savage\ncults are almost innumerable.  The great national or ethnic religions\nwere much fewer.  Only three are frankly universalist: Buddhism,\nMohammedanism, and Christianity.  And these three are universalist, if\nI may so say, in a very unequal degree.\n\nMohammedanism was far from being an original religion.  The element\nwhich gives to it a higher moral and religious value came to it from\nJudaism and Christianity.  Its monotheism, its horror of idolatry, the\ncomparative purity of its ethics, have no other source, and, without\nparadox, it has been possible to represent it as an inferior form of\nChristianity accommodated to the needs and to the stature of\nsemi-civilised Semitic peoples.  But, alongside this Christian\nspiritualism it has conserved naturalistic elements, gross remnants of\nold Arab cults which, having made its fortune, perhaps, in its early\ndays, now embarrass it and paralyse it.  Moreover, in spite of its\nconquests, it has always remained an Oriental religion with Mecca as\nits centre and its head.  If it would survive, it must reform itself;\nit must enter into the path of moral and intellectual progress, free\nitself from local superstitions, from its gross hopes, its hatred of\nthe infidel, its doctrine of good works; in other words, it will have\nto cast off its old nature, and receive a new effusion of the Christian\nspirit.  It can only become universal in so far as it approaches the\nmoral principle of Christianity, in order, in the end, to become one\nwith it.\n\nBuddhism has a more profound originality, but it also is afflicted with\nan inward dualism which will ruin it.  From the beginning there have\nbeen two Buddhisms: the one an esoteric philosophy for the use of sages\nconvinced by experience of the vanity of all things, suffering from the\nessential evil of existence and aspiring to Nirvana.  It is an\nunfruitful mysticism because it is Atheistic.  The other is popular\nBuddhism, which sinks and dies into puerile superstitions and into the\ngrossest polytheism.  From which we may conclude that Buddhism only\nbecomes universalist when it ceases to be a positive religion, and that\nwhere it still remains a religion it is anything but universalist.\n\nWith Christianity it is altogether different.  The terms \"universal\nreligion\" and \"Christian religion\" coincide so exactly that if a form\nof Christianity is not universalist on any side, on that particular\nside it ceases to be Christian.  In fact there cannot here be either\ndivision or esoterism, nor consequently limitation or narrowness.  We\nare here in the absolute freedom of spirit.  Christ did not propound\nthe theory of the unity of the human race; but He did something quite\ndifferent and much better: He gave us the gospel.  Between His gospel\nand the humanitarian philosophy there is all the difference that there\nis between abstraction and life, between idea and love.  All men enter\ninto the kingdom of God by the same door, and that door cannot be shut\nby any one; for it is the door of humility, of confidence, of\nself-renunciation, of the higher righteousness fulfilling itself by\nfraternal charity.  Rank in that kingdom is determined by the measure\nof devotedness.  The greatest is the one that humbles himself the most,\nand the only way of being master is to serve.  In the religion of Jesus\nthere is nothing religious but that which is authentically moral, and\nnothing moral in human life that is not truly religious.  The perfect\nreligion coincides with the absolute morality, and this naturally\nextends to and is obligatory on all mankind.  Jesus not only proclaimed\nthe only God, or even the God who is spirit, whose worship could not\nthenceforth be confined to anything material or particular in time and\nspace: He showed us the Father who loves all His children with an equal\naffection, and desires to dwell in the humblest as well as in the\nhighest consciousness.  This divine Fatherhood, in proportion as it is\nrealised in our hearts, produces in them human brotherhood.  The\nreligious and the human ideals here join, no more to be separated.\nHaving begun in the animal man, with the grossest form of religion,\nhumanity finds itself completed in the perfect religion.\n\n\n3. _Progress in Representations of the Divine_\n\nTo represent the divine, man has never had any but the resources which\nare in himself.  These representations have varied therefore with the\ngeneral progress of experience and of thought....  From beginning to\nend the evolution of religious images and notions is based on the idea\nof spirit.  It is in this idea that the resemblance and the kinship of\nman to his God is based; only by this can there be understanding,\nconverse, harmony between them.  Primitive religions, doubtless, are\nneither spiritualist nor materialist; they are animistic.  A simple\nanimism gives to men their first conceptions.  The child projects the\nlife which animates him; he endows the things around him with a\npersonality similar to his own.  For him there is nothing dead or\ninert; the world is peopled with living beings with which he contends,\nand talks, and is angry, to which he gives his love and his caresses.\nDo not let us smile too much at this simplicity.  The latest steps of\nphilosophy are rejoining our earliest thoughts.  We are coming to see\nthat in sum we know nothing but ourselves, that our science is but the\nprojection of our consciousness without, and that it is solely on this\ncondition that the world becomes intelligible to us.  Man never\nworships anything purely material, anything that cannot hear and answer\nhim.  When he perceives that the object of his worship is inanimate, he\nthinks his god has deserted him, and he sets himself to pursue him.  He\nusually finds him and retains him under other names and forms.  By\nfaith in ghosts, and by the memory of his dreams, he has learnt to\ndouble himself, and to oppose his will to his thought, his interior ego\nto his body, which he calls his house.  He may easily quit this for\nanother.  Nothing is more ancient than the idea of the transmigration\nof souls.  But at the same time he doubles the being of his gods; he\ndistinguishes between the god and the object in which he habitually\nresides.  This is the period at which _idolatry_ begins.  It will only\nbe completed when the spirit-god has broken the bonds which bind him to\nits visible prison and its material image; when He shall speak who says\nthat \"God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in\nspirit and in truth.\"  From that moment, mythology transforms itself\ninto theology, and external rites into inward piety.\n\nNecessarily polytheistic in its origins, religion tended nevertheless\ntowards monotheism.  The subordination which disciplined the heads of\nthe tribes on earth also ranged the divinities under the authority of a\nsupreme head.  Force at first gave this supremacy.  Zeus was the king\nof gods and men because he was stronger than all of them put together.\nThis is the natural order of ideas.  Force first imposed itself on\nweakness; then intelligence conquered force; lastly, justice and love,\nwhich is the supreme form and flower of righteousness, obtain supremacy\nover intelligence itself.  The highest and the chiefest is no longer\nthe strongest, or the wisest, but the best.  In becoming moral, man has\nmoralised his gods, who, in their turn, becoming models and\nauthorities, have greatly helped to moralise the race.\n\nIt is very surprising that this evolution in the direction of moral\nmonotheism did not complete itself in the Indo-European family.  But\nthe fact is that that family encountered an invincible barrier in the\nvery nature of its primitive mythology.  The Greek and Hindu\nphilosophers, no doubt, pushed the notion of God to that of His\nspirituality and unity, but they did not succeed in transforming the\nreligion of their race.  Their rational criticism had power to\ndissolve, but not to change.  Their monotheism remained always an\nobject of speculation more or less esoteric.  When, in the second and\nthird centuries of our era, in competition with Christianity,\nGraeco-Roman polytheism endeavoured to reach a sort of monotheism, it\ncould only return to the most glorious mythus of its infancy, to the\nworship of the Sun, and raise it to supremacy among the symbols of\ntheir faith.\n\nThe transition from polytheism to monotheism was only made in Palestine\nand in the tradition of the Hebrews.  There were two reasons for this,\nboth of which bear witness to the divine vocation of that people: its\nreligious predispositions and the powerful action of its prophets, of\nthose men of God raised up in it from Moses to Christ.  The desert is\nnot monotheistic, as M. Renan was pleased at first to say, nor are\nnomads, shepherds, or freebooters nearer to the only God than sedentary\nand agricultural peoples.  But, owing to the special turn of mind of\nthe Hebrew family, its primitive polytheism, of which the plural,\n_elohim_, still reminds us, had an abstract character, and was reduced\nto a sort of anonymous plurality from which no divine genealogy could\nspring.  All these elementary spirits, these _elohim_ of the air, the\nearth, the waters, were so similar to each other that the thought of\nthe Semite never succeeded in discerning and discriminating them.  They\nentered into one another, and ended by forming a sort of collective and\nabstract power, analagous to that which is represented in our language\nby the word \"divinity.\"  Add to this that, by the idea of holiness,\nJehovah, the national _elohim_, was equally separated from Nature, and\nthat, gradually divested of all corporeal form, He was predestined to\nbecome the God of conscience, the invisible Creator of all things, the\nJudge and the rewarder of all human actions.\n\nNeither these original predispositions, however, nor these general\ncauses, account for the marvellous progress of the religion of Israel.\nThe faith of the prophets is a creation of the moral order; it is the\nwork of individual consciousnesses, of the religious heroes whom the\ndivine Spirit raised up in succession for more than a thousand years.\nWe shall explain elsewhere this heroic and age-long struggle of the\nprophets of Jehovah against the customs, the tendencies, and even the\ntemperament of their people.  Suffice it here to indicate the constant\ndirection of their efforts, the precision and the fixedness of their\nideal, the power of the common inspiration that animated them, the\nvigorous and vivacious feeling in each one of them that makes their\nwork divine and carries them beyond their individual thoughts and\nhopes.  Like us they laboured on an infinitely vaster plane than they\nconceived.\n\nBut their conception of a divine ideal of righteousness still left God\noutside the consciousness.  The image of His sanctity awakened in their\nsouls the sense of sin and raised a tragic conflict between the human\nwill enslaved by evil and the essentially inflexible law of God.  God\nand man were found to be more profoundly separated by this moral\nantithesis of righteousness and sin than they had before been by the\nantithesis of strength and feebleness.  How was this hostility to\ncease?  A supreme revelation is about to respond to this cry of\ndistress.  God will become internal to the consciousness; He will\nmanifest Himself, in man himself, as the principle of justification and\nsalvation.  He who was called _El, Allah_, the Mighty God, in\npatriarchal days,--He who from the times of Moses had been named\n_Jehovah_, the living God, the vigilant guardian of the Covenant,--will\nreveal Himself as the Father in the filial consciousness of Jesus\nChrist.  The revelation of love comes to crown the revelation of force\nand righteousness.  God desires to dwell in human souls.  The Heavenly\nFather lives within the Son of Man, and the dogma of the God-Man,\ninterpreted by the piety of each Christian, not by the subtle\nmetaphysics of the doctors and the schools, becomes the central and\ndistinguishing dogma of Christianity.  Do not spoil its religious\nmeaning, leave the mystery intact, see what is wrapped up in it: the\nsin of man effaced, the ancient conflicts ended, harmony restored, the\nwhole moral and spiritual life enrooted in the eternal life of God, the\nDivine Life shed abroad in the heart of man.  Try to comprehend this\nconsummation of the religious unity of the Divine and the human sought\nfor, cried for, in the dim desire of consciousness, and you will also\ncomprehend that, at this point of view, as at all the others, the\nprecedent religious evolution found its _raison d'etre_ and its final\naim in the soul and in the work of Christ.  The orphaned human soul and\nthe distant unknown God are re-united and embraced in filial love, to\nbe no more divided or estranged.\n\n\n4. _The History of Prayer_\n\nThe living expression of the relations of man to his God, prayer is the\nvery soul of religion.  It brings to God the miseries of man, and\nbrings back to man the communion and the help of God.  Nothing better\nreveals the worth and moral dignity of a religion than the kind of\nprayer it puts into the lips of its adherents.  Now, progress is more\napparent here than anywhere else.  The savage beats his fetish when it\nis not complacent enough.  The Christian in his greatest distresses\nrepeats the prayer of Jesus in the Garden: \"Father, not my will, but\nThine be done!\"  What a long road man has travelled between these two\nextreme points of religion!\n\nAt the outset, prayer would seem to have had nothing religious in it\nexcept the vague trust which men placed in its efficiency.  It was\nalmost everywhere conceived and practised as a sort of constraint put\nby the worshipper on the will that he wished to master.  There were\nmysterious syllables, which, pronounced correctly, would produce an\nirresistible effect.  To the voice were added rites and ceremonies,\n_i.e._ gestures menacing or wheedling, whose object was to move the god\nand bind his will to that of man.  Primitive stories and legends are\nfull of this idea.  Out of it sprang magic, sorcery, necromancy.\n\nWith the supernatural beings around him man does as with other\nneighbours.  He seeks to induce them to help him, and that by the\nself-same means.  There is very little respect in these primary\nrelations.  Ruse, violence, seduction by bribes or threats,--these are\nthe forms of that strange supplication.  It is human selfishness\naddressing itself naively to the selfishness of the gods.  Regular\ncontracts are made between these two egoisms, each of which arms itself\nagainst the other with the _Do ut des_.  The god who fails in his\npromise deserves to be chastised, and privations, and even blows, do\nnot fail to follow and punish his felony.\n\nSacrifice at first was merely a form of prayer.  Man never approaches\nhis superior or his master with empty hands.  To secure his favour or\nappease his wrath he brings the offerings he believes to be the most\nagreeable.  The gods, like mortals, _e.g._, have need of nourishment.\nFor them, therefore, are reserved the first-fruits of the human repast;\nlibations, presents of honey and fine flour, the most luscious fruits,\nthe most delicious viands.  What difficulty man has had in believing in\nthe goodness of his gods!  He saw the effects of their anger in the\nevils which befell him, and if good fortune came to him he felt obliged\nto offer a sacrifice to turn aside the jealousy of higher powers.  Was\na god supposed to have been offended?  They trembled for years beneath\nthe strokes of his wrath; they offered in expiatory sacrifices all\npossible equivalents; they invented penances, humiliations, tortures,\nwithout being sure that the divine vengeance ever was appeased.  These\nare universal religious phenomena.\n\nThe religious is so different from the moral sense that, at the outset,\nit exists by itself, and expresses itself in the most selfish and\nferocious manner.  How many crimes have been committed in the name of\nreligion! with what baseness and sordidness has it not been sincerely\nconnected!  But here also we must note the new revelation made in the\nsouls of prophets and of sages in order to raise the religion of\nnaturalism to morality.  Confucius, Buddha, the prophets of Israel, the\nphilosophers of Greece, came simultaneously to feel that the true\nrelation of man to God must be a moral relation, that righteousness is\nthe only link which binds earth to heaven, that sacred words, rites,\ninterested offerings, outward compensations, can do nothing, and mean\nnothing, the moment the religious man rises above the law of Nature and\nenters upon the higher life of the spirit.  If God be righteous, there\nis only one means henceforth of putting one's self into harmony and\npeace with Him--to become like Him.  Thus religion and morality were\ndestined to approach each other and to penetrate each other more and\nmore, until the perfect religion should be recognised by this sign: the\nhighest piety under the form of the ideal morality.  At bottom,\nChristianity has no other principle, and it is for this reason more\nthan for any other that it is not only the highest form of religion,\nbut the universal and final religion.  \"The absolute religion\" and \"the\nabsolute moral life\" are identical terms.  The ancient dualism is\nsurmounted in the unity of Christian consciousness.  It is not\nsurprising, therefore, that prayer should, in its turn, be transformed,\nand that, having at first been the most violently interested act of\nlife, it should come in the end to be a pure act of trust and\nself-abandonment, of disinterestedness the most religious and complete.\nIs there need of many words for a child to make its father understand?\nIt is the heathen, says Jesus, who make many prayers.  The Father knows\nyour needs before you ask Him.  It is a mark of unbelief to be anxious\nabout food and raiment and the future.  The essential thing is not to\nmultiply petitions, but to live near Him and feel Him ever near.  Is He\nnot Almighty and all-good?  Does He not love you better than you love\nyourselves?  Does He not make all things work together for the good of\nHis children?  If trials come, or dangers threaten, what ought we to\ndo?  Submit to God, as Jesus did.  What is such prayer as His but the\ndefeat of egoism and the perfect liberation of the individual spirit in\nthe feeling of its plenary union with God?\n\nSuch was the prayer of Jesus.  It did not consist in an outward flow of\nwords, but in a constant, silent state of soul which made Him say in\nturning towards His Father: \"I know that Thou hearest me always.\"\nConfidence increases with renunciation.  Admirable progress of\nreligion!  Sublime reversal of roles!  At the beginning the ambition of\nthe pious man was to bend the Divine will to his own; at the end his\npeace, his happiness, is to subordinate his wishes and desires to the\nwill of a Father who knows how to be gracious, righteous, perfect!\n\nThere is another aspect of this progress.  In all religions there is a\ndouble gamut of feeling: the one, which rules in primitive religions,\nand whose dominant note is fear and sadness; the other, which prevails\nin the end, in which the dominant note is confidence and joy.  It is a\nnatural effect of the progressive victory of the religious\nconsciousness gradually surmounting the contradictions in the midst of\nwhich it is born and developed.  At the outset, man, alone and\ndefenceless, finds no fewer enemies in heaven than on earth.  He feels\nas if surrounded by hostile and mysterious powers before which he\ncringes in fear, awaiting their decisions with respect to him.  But\neverything changes when there rises within his soul the luminous dawn\nof the moral revelation of God.  With the darkness, vanish all the\nfrightful phantoms of the night.  In the God whom he adores he sees his\nown interior law glorified and become henceforth the supreme law of\nthings.  That law of righteousness is, at bottom, a law of love.\nNothing can trouble me any more except the sense of my own\nfailure--that is, of my own sin, which alone can separate me from the\nvery principle of righteousness and life.  But, see, justice manifests\nitself as justifying grace!  God gives it as He gives life to those who\nthirst for it.  Reconciliation is complete.  The orphan has found his\nFather; the Father, His child.  The sinner, trembling, begins his\nprayer, prostrated; he ends it upright, with the confidence and freedom\nof a child that feels itself at home within the Father's house.  The\nGospel bids us to rejoice; it makes of joy an obligation, while\ndistrust and sadness are the marks of selfishness and unbelief.\n\n\n5. _Conclusion_\n\nSuch has been the course of religion through the centuries of human\nhistory, and amid the complex and confused development of particular\nfaiths.  The progress has not been on a straight line and by successive\nadditions, as in the scientific sphere.  Religious evolution is more\nlike the evolution of art, in which the experience of the past is only\nfruitful when translated by a higher inspiration and a mightier\ncreative force.  There are periods of recrudescence of the religious\nsentiment in which the passions of a past that seemed to have been\nabolished are revived.  These are the times of superstition.  There are\nalso periods of religious inertia, when the soul seems to empty itself\nof its eternal content, and divert itself into a frivolous activity and\na superficial wisdom.  These are the ages of incredulity.  Lastly,\nthere are epochs of crisis and confusion, in which mingle religious\ntraditions the most diverse, and currents of thought the most contrary.\nWe must pass over all these accidents and vicissitudes.  In the\nreligious evolution of humanity there is a sequence, an order, a\nprogress which, in spite of all interruptions and reactions, manifest\nthemselves as soon as we rise high enough to embrace it in its vast\nentirety.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nA few years ago there assembled in Chicago what the Americans called\nthe Parliament of Religions.  The official representatives of all the\nprincipal religions of the new world and the old met together under a\ncommon feeling of religious brotherhood.  They did not discuss the\nvalue of their rites or dogmas; their object was to approach each\nother, to edify each other, and, for the first time in the world's\nhistory, to present the spectacle of a universal religious communion.\nWhen it came to the point, three things became clear: first, the common\nname under which they were able to call upon God--the Father; secondly,\nthe Lord's Prayer was adopted and recited by all; thirdly, Christ\nHimself, apart from all theological definition, was unanimously\nrecognised and venerated as the Master and Initiator of the higher\nreligious life.\n\nIn my own consciousness, this practical demonstration is completed.  I\ncan hardly help being religious; but if I am seriously to be religious\nI can only be so under the Christian form.  I can hardly help praying;\nbut if I desire to pray, if moral anguish or intellectual doubt\nconstrain me to seek some form of prayer that I can use in all\nsincerity, I never find but these words: \"Our Father which art in\nheaven.\"  Lastly, I may disdain the inner life of the soul, and divert\nmyself from it by the distractions of science, art, and social life;\nbut if, wearied by the world of pleasure or of toil, I wish to find my\nsoul again and live a deeper life, I can accept no other guide and\nmaster than Jesus Christ, because, in Him alone, optimism is without\nfrivolity, and seriousness without despair.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK SECOND\n\nCHRISTIANITY\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nHEBRAISM, OR THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPEL\n\nTo understand Christianity we should need to see clearly and in one\nview the link which connects it with the religious evolution of\nmankind, the living originality by which it is distinguished, the\nsuccession and the character of the forms it has assumed.  Such are the\nthree points which we shall take up in turn.  We must begin with its\norigins.\n\nThere is never a complete break in the chain of history.  Every\nphenomenon arises in its place and at its time.  It has its\nantecedents, which prepare it and _condition_ it.  However new\nChristianity may have been, it is no exception to the rule.  It springs\nfrom the tradition of Israel by an evident affiliation.  The old\ntheology did not dissimulate this kinship of origin; it rather\nexaggerated it.  The Christian Church made the Bible of the Jews the\nfirst part of its own.  The writings of the prophets were placed in the\nsacred volume before those of the apostles, as if to intimate that the\none could not be understood without the other.  _Novum Testamentum in\nVetere latet; Vetus in Novo patet_.  At bottom, this old adage of the\nschoolmen is true.  It is an excellent rule of biblical exegesis to\ntrace the primary Christian ideas to their Hebraic root, and to regard\nas foreign and adventitious those which are not attached to it.  If\nthere is nothing essential in the New Testament the germ of which is\nnot to be found in the Old, there is nothing truly fruitful in the Old\nwhich has not passed into the New.  Such is the historical sequence and\nconnection that we must respect and follow.  The study of the religion\nof Israel is the natural introduction to the study of Christianity.\nThe only point to be considered here is how the one was preparatory to\nthe other.[1]\n\n\n[1] Two non-essential sections have here been omitted, one on _The\nSacred History_, the other on _The Nation_.--Trans.\n\n\n\n1. _Prophetism_\n\nThe miracle of the history of Israel is Prophetism.  In this is to be\nfound the incomparable force by which the religious evolution we may\ntrace in its annals was effected.\n\nBut first let me explain what I understand by this word evolution, and\nlet me eliminate from it the fatalistic sense too often given to it.\nIf by evolution you mean a necessary and unconscious process, a\nmechanical and continuous movement, which, without either effort or\ndanger, causes light to spring out of darkness, good from evil, and\nraises a people or a race from a lower to a higher form of life, you\nincur the reproach of confounding the laws of the moral world with\nthose of the physical order; you will be condemned to falsify history\nin general and to understand nothing of the history of Israel in\nparticular.  In the moral and religious progress which constitutes the\nsingular originality of that history, there is nothing facile, nothing\nthat can be logically deduced from the natural predispositions of the\nnation.  No doubt the prophets were the children of the nation and\nintimately connected with it; but the inspiration which breathes in\nthem, raises them and animates them, is something entirely different\nfrom the ethnic genius of their race.  The contrast is so great that it\namounts to contradiction.  The race, in Israel, as in Moab, or among\nthe Edomites or Philistines, had its interpreters and prophets.  But\nthese were not the prophets of conscience.  They flatter the people;\nthey do not elevate them.  They are found to be false prophets.  The\nothers, the witnesses for the righteous, holy God, only brought\nHebraism to the consciousness of its religious vocation by a saecular\nand painful struggle against hereditary idolatry and immorality.  This\nwas not a collective evolution, but an essentially individualist\nreform; it was a moral creation continually interrupted and\ncompromised; it was a work of faith and will.  Each prophet enters into\nthe conflict and utters his cry of battle and reform as if he were\nalone, responsible only to the God who has sent him, and yet all of\nthem succeed each other and pursue the same design, because they are\nall obedient to the same identic inspiration.  They fight against all;\nagainst the multitude that cannot break away from custom and from\nprejudice; against the priests who have always from the beginning made\nof the priesthood a _metier_ and of oracles a merchandise; against\nkings whose vanity, whose crimes, and whose exactions they denounce;\nagainst the great and rich oppressors of the weak and poor.  They speak\nin the name of Jehovah, because Jehovah speaks in their consciousness.\nThat is the origin of the prophetic spirit.  It is a divine ferment\nwhich, perpetuating itself, becoming clearer, stronger, from generation\nto generation, gradually raises and transmutes the heavy mass of\nprimitive Semitism.  No, this is not the work of time and Nature,\nunless you see God at work in time, and, beneath this word Nature, by\nthe side of realised and manifested forces you perceive the hidden and\nimmeasurable virtualities which ferment in it and carry it beyond\nitself into the higher life of liberty and love.  In the apparition of\nthese prophets, in the energy of their faith, in the boldness of their\nwords, there is a positive revelation of a new world, the revelation of\na religious ideal which, after divesting itself, in the gospel of\nChrist, of every national element, will naturally become the faith and\nconsolation of humanity.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nThe education of the people of God had been a long and laborious work;\nbesides the preaching of the prophets, it had needed repeated\ncatastrophes in which the nationality of Israel had perished, as if the\nspirit could not free itself save by the annihilation of the matter\nthat had from the outset grossly closed it in.  When in the age of\nCyrus we see the poor remnants of Benjamin and Judah return from\nBabylon, they are no longer a people; they are already almost a Church.\nThe religious Law is now fixed.  It enshrines the life, the ideas, the\nethics and the ritual, the minute practices and precautions, which will\nfor ever separate the Jew from all the other nations, and maintain him\nin a state of legal purity and high morality in the midst of universal\ncorruption.  It is the beginning of Pharisaism.  In it the spirit of\nprophetic piety deteriorates, hardens, freezes.  Nevertheless, when we\nthink of the progress that had been accomplished, when we think of the\ndistance that separates this rigid monotheism and this rigorous law\nfrom the old hard, cruel, sometimes impure Semitic cults, the prophets'\nwork in Israel will appear to us in its immense proportions and\nimmortal worth.\n\n\n2. _The Dawn of the Gospel_\n\nBut Prophetism was not to end in the Talmud.  The Isaiahs and Jeremiahs\nwere to have other heirs and successors than the Pharisees and the sons\nof the Synagogue.  Prophetism had in it the promise and the germ of a\nhigher and more human religion.  The prophets had accents which their\nimmediate successors in history seem never to have heard.  They\nattacked nothing with more vehemence than formalistic piety or\npractical religion divorced from righteousness.  Listen to Amos, as he\nmakes Jehovah utter words like these: \"I hate, I despise your feast\ndays,\" etc.  (Amos v. 21 _et seq._); or to Isaiah on the same theme in\nhis first chapter.  Hosea declares that heart-piety and mercy are\nbetter than sacrifices.  Jeremiah predicts the time when God will make\na new Covenant with His people, and write His laws in their hearts,\ninstead of on tables of stone.  Or think of Elijah in the cave of\nHoreb.  Fatigued with fighting, almost in despair, the terrible\nadversary of Baal, who had just had 450 of the priests of Baal put to\ndeath, has retired to the mountains and is asleep in a cave.  You know\nthe narrative (1 Kings xix. 9-13).  The still small voice!  Is there in\nall the Bible a finer image containing a profounder thought?  What is\nthis supreme revelation of the God of Israel but an apparition by\nanticipation of the God of the Gospel?  And the still, small voice,\n\"the sound of gentle stillness,\" what is it but the first faint accents\nof the gracious, tender words: \"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and\nare heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you, and\nlearn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest\nunto your souls.  For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light\" (Matt.\nxi. 28-30).\n\nBeneath the breathings of this creative inspiration the religion of\nlegal righteousness and rigorous retributions is softened into the\nreligion of love.  The God who punishes becomes the God who pardons and\nrestores.  Beneath the tears of the poor, the vanquished, the afflicted\nin Israel the gospel of divine compassion germinated and sprang up.\nWhat tones of tenderness are heard in the later prophets, the prophets\nof consolation, properly so called.  \"Comfort ye, comfort ye My people.\nSpeak ye comfortably to Jerusalem.  Say unto her that her warfare is\naccomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.\"  Read the chapter through\n(Is. xl.), and the forty-second and the sixty-sixth, and Psalms xxiii.\nand ciii.  Such words as these announce and prepare the way for the\ngreat religious revolution called by Jesus the New Covenant.  The\nrelations between God and the human soul are in course of being\nchanged.  From the beginning, a pact existed between Jehovah and His\npeople; a compact expressed and guaranteed in a Law on which depended\nthe destiny of the nation and of the individual.  The Covenant has\nbecome more inward and profound.  To the law of strict remunerations is\nnow joined a bond of love.  Between God and His people the relations\nare those of Husband and wife.  The wife has proved unfaithful to Him\nwho had loved her, who had found her poor and naked in the desert, and\nhad been desirous to enrich her.  She has followed other gods.\nJehovah, by the mouth of His messengers, covers her with reproaches, in\norder to excite her to repentance; but He has learnt to pity, and, in\nthe end, He pardons.  The more the nation's miseries are multiplied,\nthe more its tears flow on the soil of alien lands, the more His heart\nis melted in Him and the tenderer become His words.  \"Can a woman\nforget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the\nson of her womb? yea, she may forget, yet will not I forget thee\" (Is.\nxlix. 15).\n\nThe idea beneath these words is the Christian idea.  God loves His\npeople with a boundless love.  His mercy extends infinitely beyond the\nsins of the children of men.  In the consciousness of the great unknown\nprophet whom we call the second Isaiah, we see sketched, five centuries\nbeforehand, the drama of repentance and forgiveness, which Jesus, in\nprofounder and yet simpler words, sums up for all mankind in the\nParable of the Prodigal Son.\n\nThe long period of affliction and of misery between the Captivity and\nthe Advent of the Christ is like a time of painful gestation, during\nwhich, in the bosom of the Hebraic tradition, fecundated by the spirit\nof the prophets, was prepared in obscurity the gospel of the Beatitudes\nand of the Parables.  What a revolution!  The ancient theocratic law\npromised to the righteous length of days and great abundance of\nmaterial goods.  The friends of Job regarded him as criminal because\nthey saw him in adversity.  The problem of human destiny appeared to\nthe later prophets as less simple and more tragic.  \"Why do the wicked\nprosper?\" is the question ever on their lips.  \"Why do the righteous\nsuffer?\"  This spectacle has become so constant that the correlation of\nthe words has been reversed.  \"Rich and wicked\" in the Psalmists, and\nin the second Isaiah, are equivalent terms.  \"Poor and afflicted\" are\nsynonymous with \"the righteous\" and \"the friends of God.\"  Riches and\nhigh looks are the signs of malediction; humility, poverty,\npersecution, tears, are the marks of piety and the pledges of divine\naffection.  It was at this time that the words were born that edified\nthe early Christians: \"God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the\nhumble.\"  Gather together in a common hope this family of little ones,\nof the defeated and unhappy ones whose hearts were crushed and whose\neyes were filled with tears, and you have the true people of God, the\nheirs of all the promises, the \"little flock\" to whom it is the\nFather's pleasure to give the kingdom.  It was from their ranks that\nwas to come the \"Man of Sorrows,\" who should be scourged and put to\ndeath for the sins of His people.  The religion of suffering is born.\nFor the suffering of \"the Servant of Jehovah,\" in whom is no iniquity,\ncannot be the chastisement of His own crimes; it will henceforth be\naccepted as the necessary part that fraternal solidarity imposes on the\nbest for the redemption of the rest.  A tender, fragile flower, a bud\nas yet scarce opened in the writings of the prophets, this thought will\nexpand into the Gospel and become the religion of mankind.\n\nPity joined to a severe ideal of righteousness in the notion of God;\nmorality introduced into religion by the subordination of rites to\nrectitude of heart and will; hope of a future of peace and happiness by\nthe realisation of righteousness: these are the three great ideas\nbequeathed by Prophetism to the Gospel.  This heritage is a rich and\nlovely one, but it must not be over-estimated or misunderstood.  We are\nstill a long way off the Gospel.  The thought of the prophets did not\ngo beyond the narrow limits of a national Messianism; it remained\nJewish, not only by its forms and symbols, but also by the religious\nprivilege which is to guard the people of Israel in the future as in\nthe past.  The destiny of humanity is still bound up with the destiny\nof Jerusalem, and the triumph of the Jews implies the partial or total\ndefeat and subjection of the Gentiles in the days of the Messiah and\nafter they are admitted into the kingdom of God.  The saints of Israel\nare the children of the household; the heathen may enter, and even\nshare in the felicity which fills them, but only as servants and\ntributaries.\n\nIt should also be noted that, in the theology of the prophets, the\nobject of Jehovah's love is not the individual as a moral being, but\nthe chosen people.  Only the nation counts in the eyes of the Eternal.\nIn its deliverance and triumph the citizens find salvation....  There\nis something great and thrilling in this Messianic doctrine.  It\nelevated the soul of a people and of a religion to the point of the\nsublime.  It is something to have given hope to a defeated people and a\ndying world.  In this doctrine also we may note this admirable trait:\nthis national triumph is identified with the advent of righteousness to\nall the earth.  Nor have the hopes of Israel been belied.  The dream of\nthe prophets was realised in ways of which they did not think, but in a\nmanner not less marvellous.  The descendants of Japhet lodge to-day\nbeneath the tents of the children of Shem, and our eyes may see the day\napproaching when the ancient promise made to Abraham and his seed shall\nbe fulfilled, and all the families of the earth be blessed in Him.\n\nBetween the religion of the prophets and the religion of Jesus,\nhowever, there is one more barrier to be broken down.  In the \"Kingdom\nof God,\" the idea of the nation must give place to the idea of\nhumanity.  The universal God must be represented as the immanent God,\nas present in every human soul.  His seat and temple could not be in\nJerusalem or in Palestine; it could only be in pure and humble hearts.\nA supreme crisis was necessary.  The Hebrew nation must perish in order\nto free the human conscience from its Jewish yoke.  A divine flower had\nbeen formed in the heart of Prophetism; but it would have been a barren\nornament, had there not been deposited in its calix a living and a\nfruitful germ.  The transformation of the piety of the prophets into a\npurely moral creation and a Covenant really new with God, this was the\nwork of Jesus Christ.  That is why Jesus is \"He that should come,\" He\nwhom the prophets half unconsciously desired, He in whom, to the profit\nof all mankind, was completed the religious development of Israel.  Its\nwhole history ends in Jesus.  Apart from Him the inspiration of the\nprophets dies into rabbinical Talmudism or wanders into the vagaries\nand delirium of the apocalypses.  After giving birth to the Gospel,\nJudaism dries up and withers like a tree that has borne its fruit and\nwhose season is past.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY\n\n1. _The Problem_\n\nWe come at last to Christianity.  What is its principle or essence?\nThis question must be answered or we cannot judge of it aright.\n\nNow, during the eighteen centuries of its history, Christianity has\ntaken so many and such various forms, it has received so many\ndevelopments in every sense, it has become a thing so rich and\nluxuriant, that it is far from easy to discover beneath this thick\ngrowth of institutions, dogmas, ceremonies, and devotions the tap-root\nof the tree from which it all has sprung, and from which it still\nderives its nutriment.  It would be next to useless to interrogate the\nChurches.  They would each answer according to their official\ntheologies and Confessions of Faith.  This, they would say, is the\nessence of Christianity.  The Catholics would say it is the institution\nand infallible authority of the Church, because everything rests on\nthis first foundation, and because no one can be in Christian truth who\nis outside the Church.  The Protestants would not be agreed: one would\npropose the dogma of Justification by Faith; another the authority of\nScripture; a third the metaphysical divinity and the eternal\npre-existence of Jesus Christ, under the pretext that they could not\nconceive the possibility of the subsistence of Christianity without\nthese dogmas.  In entering on this examination we enter on an\ninterminable dispute.\n\nThe problem, happily, is simplified for the historian and the\npsychologist.  In asking what is the principle of Christianity, what do\nwe wish to know?  Simply what it is that makes a Christian a Christian.\nWe desire to ascertain what is the inward element, present in the soul,\nwhich compensates, at need, for the absence or defect of all the rest,\nand which, being wanting, cannot be supplied or compensated for by\nanything else.  In short, we want to get at the religious experience\nwhich determines and marks out the consciousness of all Christians,\nwhich makes them members of one moral family, and which makes them to\nbe recognised as such in spite of differences of times and place, of\nlanguage and of culture, of rites and even of beliefs.  To seize this\ncommon feature there is no need of polemics; all we need is a little\nhistory and psychology.\n\nIn history, Christianity offers itself to us as the term and crown of\nthe religious evolution of humanity.  In the consciousness of the\nChristian it is something more; it there reveals itself as the perfect\nreligion.  How must we understand this perfection?  Is it the\nperfection of a complete system of supernatural knowledge, of a\nreligious science which would have been strange to former generations,\nand which was shared by Christians alone?  In no wise.  If there are\nenlightened Christians, there are many who are very ignorant.  And yet\nthey are all Christians by one and the same principle, which is\nentirely independent of degrees of culture.  No Christian will maintain\nthat his knowledge is perfect.  They all agree with St. Paul that at\npresent it is very imperfect.  We see divine things dimly.  What, then,\ndo they affirm who say with so much assurance that Christianity is the\nperfect religion?  They affirm that, religion not being an idea but a\nrelation to God, the perfect religion is the perfect realisation of\ntheir relation to God and of God's relation to them.  And this is not,\non their part, a theoretical speculation; it is the immediate and\npractical result of their inward experience.  They feel that their\nreligious need is entirely satisfied, that God has entered with them,\nand they with Him, into a relation so intimate and so happy that, in\nthe matter of practical religion, not only can they imagine nothing,\nbut that they can desire nothing above it or beyond.  They simply set\nthemselves to realise more fully and more effectually in themselves\nthis supreme relation, this piety whose principle is immanent to\nthemselves; they know that in it they have the germ of perfect\nspiritual development and eternal life.  This is why they affirm\nwithout the slightest doubt that Christianity is the ideal and perfect\nreligion, the definitive religion of humanity.\n\nSuch is the first affirmation of the Christian consciousness.  Here is\nthe second.\n\nThis perfect relation between God and my soul, this supreme religious\ngood, this kind of piety which constitutes my joy and strength, which\nenlightens, renovates, sustains my whole inner life, does not date from\nmyself, and I well know that it is not my own virtue that has created\nit.  Nor can I refer the origin of it to my parents, although I may\nperhaps have received it through them or through my teachers; nor to my\nChurch, although I still remain its catechumen; for parents, teachers,\nchurches, will acknowledge, with myself, that they have only\ntransmitted that which they themselves received.  Remounting thus the\nliving chain of Christian experiences, I reach a first experience, a\ncreative and inaugural experience, which has made possible and\nengendered all the rest.  That experience was realised in the\nconsciousness of Jesus Christ.  I affirm, then, not only that Christ\nwas the author of Christianity, but that the first germ of it was\nformed in His inner life, and that in that life, first of all, that\ndivine revelation was made which, repeating and multiplying itself, has\nenlightened and quickened all mankind.  Christianity is therefore not\nonly the ideal, but an historical religion, inseparably connected not\nonly with the maxims of morality and with the doctrines of Jesus, but\nwith His person itself, and with the permanent action of the new spirit\nwhich animated Him, and which lives from generation to generation in\nHis disciples.\n\nThese are the two affirmations, equally immediate and equally\nessential, of every Christian consciousness.  Now, the whole\ntheological problem is how to reconcile the two.  How can that which is\nideal and perfect be realised in history?  How can that which is\nhistorical be held to be ideal and eternal?  Does it not seem as if\nthese attributes were contradictory and exclusive of each other, and\nthat Christianity could not become an ideal religion without severing\nall its links with a particular history, or that if it would remain an\nhistorical religion it must renounce all pretensions to absolute\nperfection?  On the other hand, these two attributes, are they not\nequally necessary to it?  How can it subsist if it obeys the formal and\nsummary logic which summons us to choose between them?  Will it be\nanything more than a speculative philosophy if cut off from its\nhistoric tradition?  Will it continue to inspire me with confidence,\nwill it place me in security, if it ceases to appear to me to be the\nperfect and definitive religion?\n\nTheology, from the beginning, has had no other task; at all events, it\nhas had no task more arduous or pressing than that of reconciling these\ntwo data.  There have always been two tendencies amongst theologians\ncorresponding to two families of minds: the _Idealist_ tendency--that\nof Origen and his emulators, which puts the emphasis en ideas and\nconstructs a religious metaphysic or gnosis, which of necessity\nrationalises dogma, and for which history is but a temporary envelope,\na sort of external and sensible illustration; and the _Realist_\ntendency, represented by the genius of Tertullian, which, obeying an\nopposite instinct, materialises ideas, gives an anthropomorphic body to\neverything, even to God, deifies phenomena, and changes contingent\nhistory into an eternal metaphysic.  From these two tendencies,\nperpetual and parallel, have issued the two solutions given by\nRationalism and by Orthodoxy to the problem as to the essence of\nChristianity.\n\nThe first finds that essence in a few simple truths of reason or of\nconsciousness, which are of all time and all lands, and which impose\nthemselves on every man by their own natural evidence.  Jesus of\nNazareth was the preacher and the martyr of these truths; but it is\nclear that His personality is no more essential to Christianity than\nthat of Plato is to his philosophy.  Only, mind, in thus severing\nitself from Christ the Christian Religion ceases to be positive and\nbecomes an abstract and dead doctrine; it loses its religious pith and\npower.\n\nOrthodoxy, whether Catholic or Protestant, avoids this reef but strikes\nupon another.  In making of Christ the Second Person of the Eternal\nTrinity, the Son of the Father, consubstantial and equal, it removes\nHim from history and transports Him into metaphysics.  But thus to\ndeify history is also in a fashion to destroy it.  The dogma annuls the\nlimited, contingent, and human character of the appearance of Jesus of\nNazareth.  His life loses all reality.  We have no longer a man before\nour eyes, although the Church, theoretically, maintains the humanity of\nChrist alongside His divinity.  This fatally absorbs everything.  We\nhave only a deity walking in the midst of His contemporaries, hidden\nbeneath a human figure.  The traditional Christology has been so\nincurably Docetic that it has been practically impossible, from this\npoint of view, to write a serious Life of Jesus without falling into\nthe heresy at once modern and semi-pagan of _Kenosis_, the theory\naccording to which the pre-existent and eternal deity commits suicide\nby incarnating Himself in order gradually to be re-born and find\nHimself God again at the end of His human life.  Can this strait be\ncrossed?  Is there a passage between Scylla and Charybdis?  Not so long\nas you cling to the intellectualist conception which forms the error\ncommon to both Rationalism and Orthodoxy, and ensures their final\nfailure.  If the essence of Christianity lies in the revelation of\nnatural truths or supernatural dogmas, the problem is insoluble.  All\nApologetics will inevitably dash themselves to pieces against the\ninsurmountable contradiction that they will soon encounter.  Strauss's\nargumentation, which the philosophers do not cease to repeat, and which\nthe theologians pretend not to hear, springs into one's mind.  So far\nfrom weakening it, the historical studies of the past half century have\nonly added sharpness to its edge.  \"The idea does not pour all its\nriches into a single individual.  The Absolute does not descend into\nhistory.  It is against all analogy that the fulness of perfection\nshould be met with at the outset of any evolution whatsoever; those who\nplace it at the origin of Christianity are victims of the same illusion\nas the ancients, who placed the Golden Age at the beginning of human\nhistory.\"\n\nBefore going further it may be convenient to estimate the strength and\nweakness of this famous dilemma, and to inquire how we may escape from\nit.  The traditional theology succumbs to it.  But this only proves\nthat that theology needs reforming.  Let us place ourselves at a\ndifferent point of view, and examine for a moment the idea of\nperfection which serves as the premise to Strauss's reasoning.  When he\nspeaks of the total or plenary perfection which cannot be found in the\nfirst link of an historical chain, he doubtless means a quantitative\nperfection--that is to say, a complete collection of virtues, merits,\nand faculties the numerical addition of which makes the notion entire.\nNow, from this point of view, Strauss's observation is incontestable.\nNeither the perfection of science comprising all scientific\ndiscoveries, nor the perfection of civilisation embracing all the\nprogress and all the forms of human life, are ever found or could be\nfound at the beginning or at any given moment in the course of history.\nOne individual, however great, could not exhaust the life or labour of\nthe species so as to render evolution useless.  But have you noticed\nthat this idea of perfection is contradictory, and therefore\nchimerical?  Under the category of quantity or of extension there could\nbe no real perfection either for the individual or for the species.  No\nsooner is anything that can be counted or measured conceived than the\nmind instantly conceives something greater.  There is no such thing as\nperfect number.  Here therefore it is needful to make an essential\ndistinction.  We must distinguish between the quantity and the quality,\nor rather, the intensity, of being.  Now, between the degrees of both\nthese things there is not the slightest relation, nor consequently any\ncommon measure.  And that which is true in the one becomes false in the\nother.  Take a cubic metre of stone, multiply it by a thousand or a\nmillion, you will still have the same stone--that is to say, there is\nnot more true reality in a million cubic metres of stone than there is\nin one.  But let a bit of moss spring up in a fissure in that stone; in\nthat bit of living moss there is more being, or, if you will, being of\na higher quality than that of a whole mass of rocks.  Still, do not\nforget that it needed a germ to produce it, and that this germ was a\nsort of positive perfection in relation to all inorganic matter, whose\nlast end is life.  This is why we may boldly say that evolution is not\nthe cause of anything; that no development ever gives more than what is\nhidden in the new germ which engenders it; that a hundred thousand\nimbeciles do not make a man of genius, and that if man descended from a\nmonkey all the monkeys in creation put together do not make up one\nhuman consciousness.  From this synthetic point of view, it will no\nlonger seem contradictory, but natural, and in full accordance with the\nanalogies of history, that we should meet in the person of the Founder\nof Christianity that perfect relation to God, that perfection of piety\nwhich every Christian still experiences within himself, and which he\ndeclares he has drawn from communion with Him.\n\nLastly, let us fortify ourselves, and finish this brief statement of\nthis somewhat novel view with Pascal's pregnant words.  There are, he\nsays, three orders of greatness.  From all bodies put together you\ncould not extract one thought, if there were not first a mind to\nconceive it.  From all thoughts you could not draw a single movement of\ncharity, if there were not there a heart to produce and feel it So far\nfrom needing to manifest themselves by the same attributes, these\nvarious kinds of greatness are absolutely independent of each other and\neven incommensurable.  That which makes one shine forth would diminish\nor obscure the others.  Alexander came with a pomp which dazzled the\neyes and astonished the imaginations of mere carnal men.  Archimedes\nhad no need of the pomp of Alexander in order to impress the minds of\nmen; his greatness, purely intellectual, was of an altogether different\norder.  And, so, the Christ did not come with the _eclat_ of Alexander\nor Archimedes.  His greatness is of another order still.  It is in fact\nso different that neither the glory of the conqueror nor the potency of\ngenius would add anything to it, and that it had need, the better to\nshine forth to all, to appear in lowliness and humiliation.  Therefore\nHe was humble, patient, gentle, holy towards God, merciful towards man,\nterrible to all the hosts of darkness.  Without sin, without external\ngoods, without the productions of science, He was in His own order.\nOh, with what pomp, with what transcendent magnificence, did He appear\nto the eyes of the heart that discerns true wisdom!\n\n\n2. _The Christian Principle_\n\nWe must therefore come to the religious consciousness of Jesus Christ\nas to the fountainhead from which the Christian stream has flowed.  It\nis certain that we shall find in it the principle and essence of\nChristianity itself, for it would be too paradoxical to maintain that\nthe Master alone was excluded from the benefit of the religion that He\nhas bequeathed to all His disciples.  No; we may affirm in all security\nthat the principle of Christianity was at first the very principle of\nthe consciousness of Christ.  To determine the one will be to define\nthe other.\n\nWhat we call the religious consciousness of a man is the feeling of the\nrelation in which he stands, and wills to stand, to the universal\nprinciple on which he knows himself to depend, and with the universe in\nwhich he sees himself to be a part of one great whole.  If then we\nwould know exactly what was the essential element in the consciousness\nof Jesus, what was the distinctive characteristic of His piety, we must\nask in what relation did He feel Himself to stand towards God and\ntowards the universe.  The answer will be neither difficult nor\nuncertain.  If there are matters on which the true thought of the\nMaster remains obscure, nothing shines out with more evidence and\ncontinuity through all His teaching and His life than the religious\nattitude of His soul towards God and man.\n\nHe felt Himself to be in a filial relation towards God, and He felt\nthat God was in a paternal relation towards Him.  The name of Father\nthat He gives to God continually, exclusively, uniquely; the name of\nSon that He takes to Himself; the nature of His adoration; the form of\nHis prayer; the motive of His devoted obedience even unto death; the\nway in which He works His cures, hails His first successes, accepts the\napparent failure of His work, and explains the incredulity of His\npeople,--all announce, manifest, and confirm that intimate relation,\nthat communion and union of spirit, by which a father prolongs his life\nin the life of his child, and the child feels himself to live by the\nlife of his father.  This was clearly the essential element in His\nconsciousness, the distinctive and original feature of His piety; it is\nalso the principle and essence of Christianity.\n\nThat which we observe in the consciousness of Jesus we find in the\nexperience of all Christians.  They are Christians exactly in\nproportion as the filial piety of Jesus is reproduced in them.  They\nare recognised by this unique but sufficient sign, by the confidence\nwith which they call God their Father, abandoning themselves to His\nlove for all that regards their present or future destiny, and living a\nlife of self-renunciation and of devotion to the good of others.  All\nwhose inner life has been raised from the region of selfishness and\npride to the higher realm of love and life in God,--who have found in\nthat profound conversion, together with the pardon and oblivion of\ntheir past, the germ of a higher life,--of the perfect, and, by\nconsequence, eternal life, are the true religious posterity of Christ;\nthey reproduce His spirit, continue His work, and are as dependent upon\nHim and as like Him religiously as are the descendants of an ancestor\nwhose blood and whose life have not ceased for an instant to flow in\ntheir veins.\n\nThis feeling, filial in regard to God, fraternal in regard to man, is\nthat which makes a Christian, and consequently it is the common trait\nof all Christians.  It should be added that this principle of\nChristianity admirably corresponds to the two fundamental affirmations\nof the Christian consciousness already established.  The contradiction\nthat appeared to us so menacing is thus resolved and reconciled.  On\nthe one hand, Christianity, by this filial union with God, is seen to\nbe the ideal and perfect religion; on the other, it appears as a real\nfact in the consciousness of Jesus Christ, so that this religious\nreality comes to us with the imperative character of the ideal.\nThrough prejudice men may neglect religion, but if they desire to have\none they can neither desire nor imagine a relation at once closer and\nmore moral, more sacred and more joyous, freer and more trustful, than\nthat which was inaugurated in the filial consciousness of Jesus Christ.\nWhat can they have in the shape of life superior to the life of perfect\nand reciprocal affection,--God giving Himself to man and realising in\nhim His paternity, man giving himself to God without fear, and\nrealising in Him his humanity?  Is not religious evolution accomplished\nwhen these two terms, God and man, opposed to each other at the origin\nof conscious life on earth, interpenetrate each other till they reach\nthe moral unity of love, in which God becomes interior to man and lives\nin him, in which man becomes interior to God and finds in God the full\nexpansion of his being?  Christianity is therefore the absolute and\nfinal religion of mankind.\n\nAt the same time, this filial piety in the person of Jesus and His\nfollowers is an observable phenomenon; so that the ideally perfect\nreligion has manifested itself from the beginning as an historical and\npositive religion.  It is not an abstract ideal, a theoretical\ndoctrine, floating above humanity, but a principle and a tradition of\nnew life, an inexhaustibly fruitful germ inserted in human life to\nraise it, not in idea but in fact, to a higher form.  That which the\nfirst human consciousness was on earth, separating itself from its\nmaternal animality, and bringing with it the kingdom of man, the\ninitiative consciousness of Christ, issuing from the bosom of antique\nhumanity, has been, and it has founded on our humble planet the kingdom\nof God, the kingdom, _i.e._, of free, pure spirit, of righteousness and\nlove.  We are no longer therefore in face of a rational doctrine or a\nspeculative view, but of a positive force, of a power of life with\nwhich no one can break (I do not say in form and from without, but in\nfact and in the inner man) without at the same time breaking with the\nhigher life of spirit as well as with all hope and joy, and health of\nsoul.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n3. _The Gospel of Jesus_\n\nThe Christian principle appears in its simple and naked form, in the\nform of feeling and of inspiration, in the soul of Jesus.  It is\ndescribed, explained, expanded, in His Gospel.  The Gospel in fact is\nmerely the popular translation and the immediate application of the\nprinciple of the piety of Jesus in the social _milieu_ in which He\nlived.  Everything springs from His filial consciousness as a natural\nand wonderful efflorescence: His messianic vocation, His twofold\nministry of preaching and healing, His deeds and His discourses, His\nethics and His doctrine, the absolute gift of Himself in life and\ndeath.  We must place ourselves at this luminous centre if we would see\nthe rest dart forth like rays.  In it is found the inner, living unity\nof His teaching and His destination.  He promulgates no law or dogma;\nHe founds no official institution.  His intention is quite different:\nHe wishes, before everything else, to awaken the moral life, to rouse\nthe soul from its inertia, to break its chains, to lighten its burden,\nto make it active, free, and fruitful.  He regards His work as finished\nwhen He has communicated His life, His piety, to a few poor\nconsciousnesses that He found asleep and dead.  Never man spake like\nthis man, because never had man less concern about what we call\n\"orthodoxy\"--that is, about abstract and accurate formulas.  He prefers\nthe language of the people to the language of the schools; He makes use\nof images, parables, paradoxes, of current and traditional ideas, of\nevery form of expression which, taken literally, is the most inadequate\nin the world, but which, on the other hand, is the most living and\nstimulating.  Each of His sentences or parables is enclosed in a hard\nshell that has to be broken before you can get at the kernel.  Jesus\nwished to force His hearers to interpret His words, because He called\nthem to an inward, personal, autonomous activity, because He wished to\nput an end to the religion of the letter and of rites, and to found the\nreligion of the spirit.  Even now, he that does not give himself to\nthis labour of interpretation and assimilation in reading the\nGospel,--he who does not penetrate through the letter and the form to\nthe inspiration and the inmost consciousness of the Master,--cannot\nunderstand or profit by His teaching.  He who does not collaborate with\nHim while listening to Him, who does not pierce through His words to\nHis soul, will come away empty.  He only gives to those who have, or at\nleast desire to have.  He only leads the seeker to the truth.  He only\npardons those who repent, or comforts those who mourn, or fills the\nhungerers and the thirsters after righteousness.\n\nSuch is the character of His Gospel.  We cannot here set forth its\ncontents; we can only note the religious attitude of Jesus with regard\nto things and men, to Nature and Society.\n\nAt peace with God, Jesus found Himself at peace with the universe.  The\nidea of Nature, that formidable screen erected between ourselves and\nGod, destroying hope and quenching prayer, did not exist for Him.\nNature--that was the Will of His Father.  He submitted to it with\nconfidence and joy, whereas we submit to it with desperate resignation.\nHe did not feel Himself to be an orphan or an exile in the world; He\nconducted Himself in it with ease and in security, not as a slave, but\nas a son in the house which the Father filled with His presence.  It is\nthe Father that directs all things; He makes His sun to shine upon the\nevil and the good; He watches over the sparrows; He clothes the lilies\nof the field; He gives life and food, the body and raiment; He notices\nthe work we have to do, the trials we must bear.  He never leaves us to\nourselves.  His spirit vivifies and fortifies our own.  He is at the\norigin of our life and at the end.  We are ever in the Father's hands.\n\nThe outlook of Jesus, it is true, is not our own.  He shared the\noutlook of His race and time....  But His filial piety did not depend\nupon His knowledge of the universe.  The amount of culture does not\ncount in this order of feelings.  Irreligion was not less easy or less\nfrequent then than now, and if His outlook on the universe was\nnarrower, it must not be imagined that it was less full of scandalous\nfatalities, of moral difficulties, of rude shocks to piety and faith.\nThe world of the apocalypses, which was the world in which Jesus had to\nlive and act, was not less full of mysteries and terrors than our own.\nHis filial piety alone gave Him the means and strength by which to\novercome them.  The duty of man, He considered, was to change his heart\nrather than to change the order of things, _i.e._ the will of God.\nThere is no trace of sorcery or magic or the appetite for miracles in\nthe prayer He taught to His disciples.  At bottom it amounts to this:\n\"Our Father, let Thy will be done!\"  His heart-obedience was composed\nhalf of childlike confidence, half of heroic renunciation.  In face of\nHis trials He submitted without weakness and without complaint, and in\nface of death He breathed the prayer of faith, the only one that still\nremains to us: \"Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.\"\n\nIn face of the universe and its laws the individual ego is necessarily\ncalled on to submit and to renounce itself.  The only matter of\nimportance is to know upon what altar we shall make this sacrifice.\nThose who offer it on the altar of that blind divinity, \"the nature of\nthings,\" remain still unconsoled.  Those who, with Jesus, make it in\nthe arms of the Heavenly Father, accomplish it with strength and joy.\nFrom the awakening of consciousness to its highest point of\ndevelopment, man carries within him this radical contradiction: he\nfeels that there is a mortal conflict between the idea that he\ngradually forms of the world and the idea he forms of himself.  The ego\nwishes to conquer and does actually conquer the world; it even goes\nbeyond it by thought; but the world has its revenge; it dominates the\nego, it crushes it beneath the weight of its invincible laws, and it\nswallows it up,--itself, its efforts, its works, its thought,--like an\nephemeral nonentity.  Jesus felt this opposition; He suffered from this\nconflict.  He resolved the antithesis by a third term, in which was\nrealised the other two: the notion of the Father, whose beneficent will\nis equally sovereign in man and in the universe.  And it is this happy\nsolution of the enigma of life that still renders the religion of Jesus\nthe religion of hope.\n\nAmongst men, in the midst of society, Jesus felt other relations and\nnew obligations formed in His heart.  His filial piety became a\nfraternal piety.  The first commandment, \"Thou shalt love the Lord thy\nGod with all thine heart,\" necessarily gave birth to the second: \"And\nthy neighbour as thyself.\"  The Father who lives in me lives equally in\nmy neighbour; He loves him as much as He loves me.  I ought therefore\nto love Him in my neighbour as well as in myself.  This paternal\npresence of God in all human souls creates in them not only a link but\na substantial and moral unity which makes them members of one body,\nwhatever may be the external and contingent differences which separate\nthem.  From the Fatherhood in heaven flows the brotherhood on earth.\nFrom a relation of righteousness and love towards God springs a similar\nrelation between men.\n\nIn thus defining the religious connection of Jesus with His brethren I\nam afraid of weakening it.  For Him it was not a matter of theory; for\nHe never constructed any theory or formulated any doctrine of human\nfraternity; it was with Him a passionate sentiment, a deep-felt\nsolidarity and kinship, a true family life, in which this Elder\nBrother's heart reverberated on the one hand with the love and pity of\nthe Father, and, on the other, with the miseries and distresses of His\nbrethren.  In His parables Jesus does not say \"The Father\" simply; He\nhabitually says \"the father of the family,\" \"the head of the house.\"\nIt is because the father does not exist without his children, and\nbecause humanity, on earth at least, is the family, by means of which\nthe paternity of God is realised.\n\nBut in the society of men Jesus encountered sin with all its effects in\nthe shape of moral deformity and physical suffering.  From the contact\nof His filial piety with this enormous human misery sprang a twofold\nappeal: the voice of His Father in His soul, the plaint of His brethren\nall around; and to this double cry the answer was--His ministry of\nrelief, of consolation, and salvation: \"The Spirit of the Lord is upon\nMe, because He hath anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He\nhath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of\nsight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to\nproclaim the acceptable year of the Lord\" (Luke iv. 18, 19, R.V.).\n\nIt all flows from the same source.  It was not only individuals who\nneeded to be healed and saved.  The family of God was not less broken\ndown, oppressed, disorganised, by all the powers of evil, a prey to\nhatred, selfish ambition, intestine wars.  Would it not be necessary\nhere also to effect a work of restoration, to reconstruct this family\nso highly-favoured of the Father for the salvation of the world, to\ninaugurate the kingdom of God announced by so many of the prophets, and\nexpected so impatiently by all pious souls and all the victims of\nunrighteousness?  This was His messianic vocation.  But how would this\nvictory of the Messiah be realised?  Would it be the work of Divine\npower, flashing forth and executing its pitiless reprisals?  Since the\npaternal heart of God had been opened and poured into His own, Jesus\nhad perceived another law and another force, the law and force of love,\nwhich triumphs by self-sacrifice.  Soon there arose in His\nconsciousness a new image of the Messiah, that of the Servant of\nJehovah, bearing the sins and miseries of His people, bruised,\nhumiliated, dying to procure them life and healing.  It was the gospel\nof the Cross.  The further He advanced in this emptying of self, and in\nthis work of love and pain, the larger and more luminous became the\nrevelation of the Father in His soul.  When at last He had the clear\nand perfect consciousness that He had no longer any will to do but the\nwill of God, no other plan to follow than His mysterious designs, no\nother cause to serve and to defend but His, He did not doubt the final\nvictory; His faith shone forth triumphantly, appropriating to itself,\nto express itself in perfect freedom, the boldest promises of the\nAncient Testament and of the contemporary apocalyptic seers.  By His\nunion with the Father, the heir of the past felt Himself master of the\nfuture.  On the throne of immolated love He has founded a kingdom that\nwill never end.  Such is the inner secret of His hope, such the moral\nand religious meaning of His prophecies of speedy victory, and of His\nreturn upon the clouds of heaven.\n\nJesus was fond of saying that a wise man knew how to bring forth from\nthe treasury of his heart things new and old.  It was in this way that\nHe accomplished the most radical of religious revolutions while seeming\nonly to fulfil the law and the prophets.  What was there then that was\nso new and potent in the least of His discourses?  The treasure of His\nfilial consciousness.  The inner inspiration springing up in them\nincessantly gives to every detail of His teaching, the oldest words,\nthe most familiar metaphors, a meaning altogether new, a reach and\nbearing infinite.  His speech confines itself to the antithesis that\nhad become traditional with all the prophets, of man's weakness and\nGod's strength, of sin and pardon, of repentance and confidence, of\nsickness and healing, of humility and exaltation.  But He had a way of\nlooking at them, and even of making them spring out of each other, that\nentirely renovated them.  \"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs\nis the kingdom of heaven!  Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall\nbe comforted!  Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after\nrighteousness, for they shall be filled!\"  To press thus and to\nstimulate the sense of need, of misery and sin, so far that it changes\ninto its opposite; to draw riches out of poverty, comfort out of\nsorrow, victorious strength from weakness; to find in sorrow for sin\nthe germ of saintly life and in hunger and thirst the very source of\nsatisfaction; to make every human soul thus pass through this inward\ndrama of repentance and conversion in which it is regenerated and\nrenewed,--such is the unique but admirable and all potent mystery of\nthe Gospel.\n\nChrist did not construct a theory of man, of his moral life, any more\nthan He constructed a theory with respect to God and the universe.  He\nwas content to place Himself at the centre of the human consciousness,\nand to dig down to the source of life.  He takes man as he is in all\nclimates and in all conditions.  He does not declare him to be\nradically impotent for good, but neither does He flatter him by veiling\nhis natural misery.  He knows him to be ardent and feeble, full of\nneeds and of illusions, capable of conversion, subject to all passions,\nthe victim of all slaveries.  He treats him as diseased, which is the\ntruth, and He does not think He can make him find the principle of a\nserious cure, save in the very sense of his malady.  So far from\nblunting the edge of the moral law, He sharpens it as one sharpens a\ndissecting knife in order the better to pierce the living flesh and\npenetrate to the very joints and marrow; He infinitely enhances the\ndemands of the traditional ideal; from the outward act He descends to\nthe inward feeling; He makes lust equal to adultery, and anger or\nhatred to murder itself.  He tells His disciples to love their enemies,\nto pray for those who persecute them, to answer violence by gentleness,\nand injuries by love.  He speaks thus not to weaken the vigour of\nrighteousness, but because He sees in love and gentleness a higher\nrighteousness and the sole means of securing the final triumph of good\nover evil.  That is why the righteousness of His friends exceeds the\nrighteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees.  It is no longer dictated\nby an outward letter, but it has, for soul, the very spirit of the\nFather, and, for inward rule, the ideal the Master has lit up in the\nconscience: \"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.\"\n\nThis morality would easily become ascetic and appear impossible if it\nwere not blended with an opposite element which renders it human and\nfruitful without either lowering or destroying it.  That element is\nmercy and forgiveness; it is pure, unconditional grace which in misery\nmakes room for hope, and in repentance opens the door to faith and to\nthe work of faith.  These two elements, inexorable law and\nunconditional grace, are so intimately blended in the Gospel of Christ\nthat the Gospel only subsists in its originality and with its power by\ntheir perfect fusion and reciprocal and constant action.  Without the\ninflexible rigours of the moral ideal, repentance would not be\npossible--at least it would never be profound enough to produce the\nrenovation of the heart; but, without faith in the divine mercy,\nrepentance itself, changing into despair, would be barren and\nineffectual.  These two elements of the Christian life are as fruitful\nby their union as they are impotent and liable to degeneration when\nisolated or opposed.  What does Christian law become without the\nsentiment of love, without the impulse of mercy, but a sort of moral\nStoicism, rigid and severe?  And what would be the doctrine of grace\napart from the sacred obligation of the law but the theory of a\nmischievous indulgence or a Pagan mysticism?  To decompose the Gospel\nsalt is to destroy its savour.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n4. _A Necessary Distinction_\n\nAt the close of this long meditation, one thing seems to me very clear,\nthe necessity, or rather the obligation under which I stand henceforth\nof distinguishing between the purely moral essence of Christianity and\nall its historical expressions or realisations, even the highest and\nmost faithful of them.  If religion is an inward life, a real and felt\nrelation between God and man, and if Christianity is that life carried\nto a higher degree, it is certain that religion in general, and\nChristianity in particular, must have the two characteristics of all\nliving things.  Life is a force, ideal in its essence, real in its\nmanifestations.  It can only manifest itself in the organisms that it\ncreates and animates.  But, while incarnating itself in its works, it\ndoes not exhaust itself or remain imprisoned in any of them.  Jesus was\nwell aware of this when He compared His gospel to the leaven which\nraises the dough and to the seed which germinates in the soil into\nwhich it falls.\n\nThis necessary distinction will neither be made nor admitted by\neverybody.  Many who concede it in theory deny it in practice.\nProtestants smile at the Catholics, who identify Christianity with the\nChurch.  But while admitting and making the distinction, when it comes\nto particular churches and particular systems of dogmas, they resist\nand protest in their turn, if it becomes necessary to apply it to the\nBible, and to distinguish between the Word and its human and historical\nexpression.\n\nShould we go further still?  May we, ought we in all fidelity to apply\nthe distinction to the Gospel of Christ itself and to the primitive\nform in which it has come down to us?  Most of those who have\naccompanied us thus far will now recoil and leave us.  They will employ\nagainst us the very same arguments which appear to them so pitiful when\nused with respect to the Church and to the Bible.  For my part, I\ncannot comprehend this fear of the freedom left to criticism.  It seems\nto me impossible to deny that in the teaching of Jesus there are parts\nwhich are uncertain, things which have been either badly understood or\nbadly reported, an oriental and contingent form which needs to be\ntranslated into our modern languages.  Who does not see that neither in\nHis language nor in His thought is there anything absolute?  Both of\nthem are constantly determined by the generally received ideas of His\ntime, the state of mind of His interlocutors; and unless you desire to\ndeny that Jesus was a man of His age and of His race, how can you\nabstract Him from His environment and attribute to Him ideas which have\nneither date nor place?  I have already compared Christianity to an oak\nwhich has lived and grown for eighteen centuries, and the Gospel to the\nacorn from which it sprang.  But in that acorn itself, as in the tree,\nit is manifest that there are two things: a principle of life, and some\nmatter borrowed from the Hebraic soil, with which the creating\nprinciple was obliged to amalgamate itself in order to enter into\nhistory and to become fruitful.  The characteristic of life is to\nrender possible and to institute the constant exchange of the materials\nwith which it builds up its works.  When this exchange has ceased, life\nhas disappeared.  If the Gospel of Jesus were something fixed and\nfinished like a code of laws or a collection of formulas, it would no\nlonger be a power of life.  His words defy the centuries and never\nwither; they are truly eternal, because they leave free and do not\nimprison in a rigid and immutable letter the spirit of life which\nanimates them.\n\nArrived at this point of view, I see the relations between Christianity\nand historical criticism change completely, and find myself once more\nin the greatest religious security.  Criticism will always be a just\ncause of alarm to those who elevate any historical and contingent form\nwhatever into the absolute, for the excellent reason that an historical\nphenomenon, being always conditioned, can never have the\ncharacteristics of the absolute.  But criticism can do nothing against\nthe Christian principle, which, brought back to the consciousness,\nalways disengages itself from the relative and fleeting expressions in\nwhich it has clothed itself by the way.  Criticism makes it to appear\nagain in its ideal purity and eternal worth.  Far from being injurious,\nit becomes necessary to it.  It is not doubtful that the teaching and\nthe work of Christ, having been preserved in the simple oral tradition\nfor half a century, have not been transmitted to us without some\ncorruptions and some legendary elements.  What then does historical\ncriticism, with all its rigour, do?  Nothing but purify this uncertain\ntradition, remove the veils, set forth more certainly the authentic\nsoul of Christ, and, consequently, place the Christian principle in its\nsurest, clearest light.\n\nWhat has been said of the Master's teaching is still more true of that\nof His disciples.  The Christian plants have all sprung from the same\nseed; but they vary according to the soil in which they grow.  They are\nall of the same species, but in that species there are innumerable\nvarieties.  How could the external result possibly have been the same\nwhether the divine seed fell into the heart of a simple fisherman of\nGalilee, or a rabbi of genius, or a thinker brought up in the school of\nAlexandria?  Could you possibly have the same Church, the same\ntheology, the same ritual in Arabia and in Greece, among a savage race\nand in the university circles of Germany, at Rome or in England, in the\nMiddle Ages in a feudal society, and in our democracies in a time of\nemancipated reason and free government?\n\nAnd here it will be convenient to pause and reflect a moment on that\nwonderful variety in the historical forms of Christianity, none of\nwhich are perfect and none contemptible.  A superficial examination may\ndraw from this spectacle a lesson of indifference; a more conscientious\nand attentive study finds in it an opposite lesson, the lesson of an\never-pressing obligation on both individuals and churches never to\nrepose in a deceitful satisfaction, but to progress unceasingly; for\nChristianity is nothing if it is not in us at once an ideal which is\nnever reached and an inner force which ever urges us beyond ourselves.\n\n\n5. _The Corruptions of the Christian Principle_\n\nThe differences which separate the historical forms of Christianity\nare, like those of religion in general, of two kinds: there are\ndifferences of kind and differences of degree.  The differences of kind\nare those which arise from diversity of races, languages,\ncivilisations, temperaments, genius.  The differences of degree are\nthose connected with the very intensity and purity of the Christian\nfaith and life.  Churches and peoples are diversified at once by their\nconstitution and by their degree of culture and of moral life.  It goes\nwithout saying that these two classes of differences are not\njuxtaposed; they are mixed incessantly and complicated endlessly.  It\nremains none the less true that they provoke and legitimate two sorts\nof judgment.  The first are accepted with tolerance and sympathy, since\nit would not be reasonable to blame a man for the colour of his skin.\nBut the second may and should be discussed and analysed, for they imply\nintellectual errors or moral defects, the corruption or the weakness of\nthe Christian principle, and they can only be corrected and remedied by\ndiscussion and criticism.\n\nThe Christian seed is never sown in a neutral and empty soil.  No soul,\nno social state, is a _tabula rasa_.  The place is always occupied by\nanterior traditions of ideas, rites, or customs, by institutions in\npossession.  Christianity cannot therefore root itself anywhere without\nentering into conflict with the regnant powers, without giving battle\nto prejudices, manners, and superstitions which naturally resist, and\nwhich, when conquered, spring up again in other forms in the victorious\nreligion.  Take the Ebionite Christianity of the first centuries: what\nis it but a mixture, a compromise between Jewish and Christian\nelements?  What shall we say of the Catholic Church after Constantine?\nIs it not true that, in the religious transformation at that time\neffected, there was a double and mutual conversion, and that it is hard\nto say whether the pagan world was more modified by Christianity or\nChristianity more deeply penetrated and invaded by the manners and the\nreligion that it was supposed to replace?\n\nIn this order the most striking victories are never complete.  Even\nafter the most radical conversion, the old man survives, at least by\nits roots, in the new man.  The Pharisee long survived in St. Paul\nafter he became an Apostle of Christ.  The same in human societies:\npolitical or moral revolutions never abolish the past.  After those\ngreat battles in which passions and interests have often as much weight\nas noble ideas and generous sentiments, there is always established a\nsort of equilibrium by mutual concessions and spontaneous alliances\nbetween the vanquished and the victorious tendencies.  Hence come what\nwe have named the corruptions of the Christian principle in the course\nof historical Christianity, for which alone should be reserved the name\nof heresies.\n\nIt must not be imagined, however, that these corruptions or heresies,\nagainst which it is the duty of Christian criticism ceaselessly to\nprotest, are arbitrary things, or that their number is unlimited.  On\nthe contrary, they fall, and must necessarily fall, into two\ncategories.  The cause of the corruptions of the Christian principle in\nsocial life can only be found in the previous tradition, in one of the\nmoral and religious tendencies that Christianity aspires to conquer and\nreplace.  Now, these tendencies may be reduced to two: the tendencies\nof the religions of Nature, or Pagan; and the tendency of the legal, or\nJewish, religion.  Closely examine all that has disfigured or that\nstill disfigures historical Christianity, and you will see that each of\nthese corruptions is connected, by its character, with a Jewish or a\nPagan root.  The Gospel as the religion of free spirit and pure\nmorality has never had, and could never have had, any other enemies\nthan Judaism or Paganism, ever ready to spring up in its bosom and\ntransform it either into the religion of Nature or into the religion of\nthe Law.\n\nChristianity, for example, in its pure essence, implies the\nabsoluteness of God--that is to say, His perfect spirituality and His\nperfect independence.  Hence, worship in spirit and in truth, the only\nworship that can be universal, the only one that corresponds to the\nChristian idea of God.  Therefore every tendency, even in Christianity\nitself, to shut up God in a phenomenal form, to bind Him to something\nmaterial, local, or temporary, to blend the Creator with the creature,\nor to fill up the gap between them by a hierarchy of divine beings\nwhich, under pretext of serving us as intermediaries, interrupt our\nfree and immediate communion with the Father, is, properly speaking, a\nresurrection of Paganism, and a return to idolatry.  Paganism and\nidolatry, of which we pretend to have so much horror, are simply the\nlocalisation and materialisation, more or less conscious, of the divine\nspirit and of divine grace, whatever may be the visible organ to which\nyou bind them, or on which you make their action to depend,--Pope of\nRome or Pythoness of Delphi, images of gods or images of virgin and of\nsaints, sacramental liturgies, the deification of a church, a\npriesthood, or a book.\n\nTake another example: Christianity is not only the liberty of God; it\nis also His holiness; it is pure morality placed above all the\ninstincts of nature; it is, finally, the unity of morality and\nreligion.  Hence, all that tends to break this unity, every blow at the\ndivine law, every attempt to cultivate religious emotion apart from\nconscience, all magic and mystagogy, aesthetic piety, religious\nromanticism, Christianity a la Chateaubriand, sensuous\nmysticism,--these essays, so numerous in our day, at philosophic or at\nliterary gnosis, these new religions without repentance or conversion,\nall these cults without any element of moral sanctification--these are\nso many corruptions of the Christian principle, and consequences more\nor less immediate of the Paganism always latent in the human heart.\n\nBy the side of this Pagan is the Judaising heresy.  Christianity is not\nonly moral law and intransigeant holiness; it is also unconditional\nlove, grace, mercy, the inward action of the Spirit of God in the\nspirit of man in order to produce in it that which He desires to find,\nand to realise that which His law commands; it is everything that\nscandalised Pharisaism in the teaching and conduct of Jesus in regard\nto the sinful and the lost: pardon without reproach, rehabilitation and\nsalvation through repentance and affection, the sincere impulse of the\nheart that has been raised above external works; the very opposite of\nlegal compacts, meritorious and atoning virtue, formalist religion and\nritual piety.  All that tends to separate the Father from the child;\nthat places the liberty and virtue of man outside and apart from God as\nhaving some merit in His sight; all Pelagianism, every theory of\nsalvation by works, every condition laid down to divine grace except\nfaith to receive it: adhesion to a doctrinal formula, sacramental\nusages, priestly absolution, outward mortification, asceticism whether\nmonkish or puritanical, which divides morality and, in the name of a\nfantastic sanctity, introduces dualism into the work of God,--all this\nshould be called by its right name; it should be taken for what it\nreally is--a relapse into the legal and formalist spirit of Jewish\nPharisaism.\n\nFinally, I see on what condition Christianity may remain faithful to\nitself while realising itself in history.  It is only by an incessant\nstruggle of the Christian principle against all the elements of the\npast which find, alas, in human propensities, and in the inertia of the\nmultitude, a complicity so constant and effectual.  So far from\nreligious indifference being permissible, critical action and Christian\nprayer become, in every church and every life, permanent duties.  I now\nunderstand the paradox of Christ: \"I am not come to send peace on the\nearth, but a sword.\"  For the Christian principle, in fact, war is\nlife.  To cease to fight is to succumb; it is to allow yourself to be\nsubmerged by the rising tide of human superstitions; it is to die.  Who\ndoes not see the danger of allowing Christianity to become absorbed in\none church form, Christian truth in one formula, the Christian\nprinciple in one of its particular realisations?  All these contingent\nexpressions, being imperfect, must be reformed sooner or later.  How\ncan they be unless the spirit of Christianity disengages itself without\nceasing and floats above them as an ideal?  For eighteen centuries a\nriver of life has flowed through human history.  Break down the\nbarriers which fanaticism and superstition are always setting up\nathwart its course.  If the waters cease to flow they stagnate, and\ncorrupt and poison the very land it was their mission to fertilise.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE GREAT HISTORICAL FORMS OF CHRISTIANITY\n\n1. _The Evolution of the Christian Principle_\n\nThe distinction between the Christian principle and its successive\nrealisations renders it easy to resolve the question, formerly so much\ndebated, as to the perfectibility of Christianity.  It is perfect\npiety, plenary union with God, consequently the absolute and definitive\nReligion.  But, regarded in its historical evolution, not only is it\nperfectible, but it must ceaselessly progress, since, for it, to\nprogress is to realise itself.  The germ could not be perfected in its\nessence, as germ and ideal type of the tree that it potentially\ncontains.  But the tree itself only comes into existence by the\ndevelopment of the germ.  No reform, no progress, no perfecting, could\nraise Christianity above itself--that is to say, above its principle;\nfor these reforms and this progress only bring it into closer\nconformity with that principle--that is, make it more Christian.  On\nthe other hand, the principle itself must enter into evolution in\nhistory in order to manifest its originality and its force, to realise\nin individual and social life, in the realm of thought and in the realm\nof action, in a word in the whole of civilisation, all its virtualities\nand all its consequences.  Jesus saw this when He spoke the Parable of\nthe Mustard Seed (Matt. xiii. 31-32).\n\nThis distinction has another advantage.  It alone permits the Christian\nthinker to be equitable in his judgments in regard to all religious\nforms, to place himself at a truly historical point of view, and to\nreconcile, without weakness and without violence, what is due to truth\nand what to charity.  Every sincere endeavour to express or to realise\nChristianity in a system or in a church becomes respectable so soon as\nyou know how to discover in it, under formulas however strange and\npractices however gross, some effects of the Christian principle or\nsome signs of its presence.  If disdain and contempt are not\npermissible with regard to any type of Christianity however different\nfrom our own, neither is illusion to be tolerated with regard to our\nown church or to our personal piety.  Perfection is nowhere to be\nfound.  Each community may repeat, and the larger, older, and more\nnumerous it becomes the more will it need to repeat, the words of the\nApostle Paul: \"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended,\" etc.\n(Phil. iii. 13, 14).  The habit we have got into of putting all the\ntruth on our side and all error on the side of others, of thus opposing\nlight and darkness, not only falsifies the judgment; it sours the heart\nand poisons piety, it dries up the feeling of fraternity, and is the\nperpetual sign of individual or collective vanity.  Let each examine\nhimself, let him judge his church without complacence in the light and\nspirit of Christ; he will soon attain to more humility and truth.  He\nwill never identify any particular church or its dogma with\nChristianity itself.  However pure its teaching, however generous its\ndeeds, he will reckon that this is, after all, but a commencement of\nChristianity, a mere nothing compared with what the Christian principle\nshould have accomplished in the world in eighteen centuries.\n\nSuch is the feeling with which we should approach the history of\nChristianity.  The field is vast; the vegetation in it is infinite; we\nmust content ourselves with incompleteness.  Being neither able nor\ndesirous to say everything, I have been obliged to seek a commanding\npoint of view from which it would be possible to take in that history\nin its entirety, and to take a bird's-eye view of the course it has\nfollowed.  Faithful to this idea, namely, that the Christian principle\nis like leaven or a seed thrown into a gross, heavy mass of anterior\ntraditions which it was meant gradually to raise and to transform, it\nis this struggle and this progress that I desire especially to\ndescribe.  I shall endeavour to show how Christianity, always borrowing\nits forms from the environment in which it realises itself, after\nenduring them for a time, subsequently frees itself from and triumphs\nover the inferior and temporary elements which fetter it, and manifests\nfrom age to age a greater independence and a purer and higher\nspirituality.  This progress is slow, obscure, oft interrupted,\nhindered by reactions or by moments of arrest; none the less striking,\nhowever, does it appear when, rising above these secondary\ncomplications, one measures the distance between the points of\ndeparture and arrival.  Not only has Christianity never been better\nunderstood than in our own day, but never were civilisation or the soul\nof humanity taken in their entirety more fundamentally Christian.  When\none follows the history of Christianity from this higher point of view,\none sees that it has passed through three very distinct phases and\nassumed three essentially different forms: the Jewish or Messianic, the\nGraeco-Roman or Catholic, the Protestant or modern, form.  Let us see\nhow it has passed from the one to the other.\n\n\n2. _Jewish, or Messianic Christianity_\n\nThe first of these periods is usually omitted or suppressed.  Being\nunable to admit that Catholicism is not the work of Christ and the\napostles, or that the Church has varied its dogma or its institutions,\nCatholic theologians naively imagine that the first Christian\ncommunities of Jerusalem and Antioch resembled those of Rome, Milan,\nand Lyons in the fourth century; that Peter was the first of the popes\nand exercised for five-and-twenty years the supreme pontificate; that\nthe apostles appointed bishops everywhere as their successors and the\nheirs of their power.  In this way the history of Christianity became,\nin the Catholic tradition, a tissue of legends.\n\nThe theologians of Protestantism arrived by another road at an\nanalagous conclusion.  Under the influence of the dogma of the verbal\ninspiration of the New Testament, they were led to make of apostolic\nChristianity an ideal and abstract type which all the ages ought to\nforce themselves to imitate and reproduce.  And, as they profess to\nhave returned to this type both in regard to ideas and to institutions\nand morals, they have made of this apostolic period the first chapter\nof the history of Protestantism, just as the Catholics have made of it\nthe first chapter of the history of Catholicism.  In both cases, it\nloses all distinct physiognomy and all reality.\n\nBy dissipating these prejudices, historical criticism has completely\nresuscitated that first form of Christianity.  It is no longer possible\nto confound it with any other.  It had its contrasts, its passions, its\nstorms.  Neither Jesus nor the apostles lived in the ideal or in\nparadisiacal peace.  They quarrelled and were divided in the Church of\nJerusalem as in our own.  The subjects of the quarrels were different,\nbut they did not consider them less grave than those which vex and\ntrouble us.  Peter, James, and Paul were not less divided in the first\ncentury over the question of circumcision and of the relations between\nJews and Gentiles, than were Luther, Zwingle, and Calvin in the\nsixteenth over the doctrine of the Lord's Supper.  From both camps,\nthen as now, they sent forth pamphlets and anathemas.  There were two\nopposite parties.  There were the stubborn holders of tradition and its\nauthority, and there were the innovators, or the partisans, sometimes\nas rash as they, of liberty of faith and individual inspiration; and\nbetween the two there were the men of conciliation and the golden mean\nwho were preoccupied especially in preventing schisms and arranging\ntruces and treaties of peace, to be followed in their turn by new\ncrises and fresh storms.\n\nIn this first form of Christianity, as in all that have followed it,\nthere was a certain dualism, a mixture of heterogeneous and soon\nhostile elements.  The struggle was bound to arise between the\nChristian principle and Jewish tradition.  The new seed sown in that\nancient soil could not germinate without rising in it and in places\nbreaking up the thick hard crust.  In the books of the New Testament\nthat have preserved to us the picture of that first and powerful\ngermination, side by side with the principle to which belongs the\nfuture we necessarily find old things which are on the way to death.\nIt will be seen what an error they commit and what a wrong they do\nthemselves who, misconceiving this historical complexity, sanctify and\ndeify both these opposite elements, and place on the same level the\neternally fruitful grain, and the chaff to-day dried up and utterly\ninert, a mere remnant of the Jewish stalk that bore it.\n\nConceived in this religious matrix of Judaism, the Christian principle,\nif I may so speak, could only take in it a body essentially Jewish in\nstructure, substance, colour.  I only speak, of course, of the body of\nthis primitive Christianity, not of its soul, which, as I have shown,\nwas altogether new.  Now, its body was Jewish on two sides and in two\naspects: by the persistence of the authority of the Law of Moses, and\nthe practical observance of its precepts, from which the disciples of\nJesus did not dream of detaching themselves; and, secondly, by the\napocalyptic Messianism which dominated Jewish thought from the time of\nthe Maccabees, and with which the first Christians were perhaps more\nimbued and more possessed than all the rest of their people.\n\nFaith in the evangel of Jesus, full and joyful communion with the\nFather, habits of Jewish devotion, Messianic hopes,--all this formed,\nin the consciousness of the first disciples, a mixture of various\nelements and of things of very unequal value.  These elements, in\ngradually revealing their disparate nature, could not fail to enter\ninto contradiction and to engender conflicts in the very heart of\napostolic Christianity.  It was these contradictions and conflicts\nwhich set Christian thought in movement, and produced the life and\nprogress of that early age, so that one may always rightly consider it\nas a creative and classic epoch, and hold it up as a normal example to\nthe churches of all time; on condition, however, that it be not\nconsidered as an immutable mass of eternal verities, but taken in its\nnatural movement, in its constant effort of progressive enfranchisement\nwith regard to the past, in its heroic ascent towards religious forms\nand ideas, freer, more human, more conformed to the universal\ncharacter, to the spirituality, and to the pure morality of the\nreligion of Jesus.\n\n\"What, then,\" it will be said, \"did not the Christ set His disciples\nfree at the outset from all the errors and superstitions of the past?\nDid He not at once give them perfect dogmas, a completed form of\nworship, an immutable and completed system of ethics?\"  No; Jesus did\nnothing of the kind.  So far from formally and systematically\ncriticising the traditional religion of His people, so far from making\n_ex cathedra_ that selection which the vulgar looked for, Jesus\nexpressly refused it, as a method essentially false and irreligious.\nHe did not wish to abolish anything by mere authority; He preferred\nrather to confirm the tradition in its totality, of which He was the\nheir and not the executioner.  \"Think not that I am come to destroy the\nLaw or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil\" (Matt. v.\n17).\n\nHis method was quite different.  It was the method of the sower to whom\nHe loved to compare Himself.  In the furrow made by His word in the\nancient soil of Judaism, He quietly and gently deposited new germs.  In\nthe traditional and theocratic notions of His race He placed contents\naltogether different drawn from His own religious experience, and from\nthe sense of His filial relation to the Father.  He then left time to\ndo its work, to develop one after another the consequences of the\nprinciples He had planted in human souls.  He sowed, and He and others\nreap from age to age the harvest He has sown.\n\nConsider His attitude towards the Law of Moses.  Not a jot or tittle of\nit is to fail or be neglected.  He strengthens it rather than relaxes\nits claims; He deepens it, carries it inward, makes it infinitely more\nspiritual and searching.  He gathers it up into two great commandments,\nand constrains the Law itself, if I may so speak, to surpass itself and\ntransform itself into pure evangelical morality.  That is what He meant\nby declaring that His work would be the fulfilment of the Law.  Nothing\nwas less violent; but nothing, at bottom, was more revolutionary....\nIt is easy now to see the consequences of this method; history has\nrevealed them.  But those who heard the words of Jesus could not\nperceive these consequences.  They had no idea probably that the day\nwould come when to be faithful to the Master they would be obliged to\nbreak with Moses.  They did not suddenly break with Judaism.  Indeed,\nthey had found in their new faith new motives for fervour and\nexactitude in their Mosaic piety.  The first Christians in Jerusalem\nwere honoured of all the people because of their assiduity in the\nTemple worship and for their exemplary devotion.  They are therefore\nnot enfranchised yet; they will have to free themselves from Judaism in\nthe school of events into which they will be led by the Spirit of Jesus\nthat is with them and dwells in them.  The Christian principle will\nhave to reconquer its independence of the Judaism which dominates and\nhems them in on every side.  This will be the work of more than a\ncentury of conflict and controversy.  All Christians will not enter\ninto the movement with the same decision; they will not march abreast\non the path of liberty.  Many will be stupid and turn back.  Progress\nwould not have been made if the Divine Spirit that had raised up Jesus\nhad not raised up valiant men like Stephen, Saul of Tarsus, Barnabas,\nthe author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and that of the Fourth\nGospel, to carry on the struggle against the bondage of Judaism and\ncarry it to complete victory.  When you pass from the one to the other,\nfrom the discourse of Stephen to the Epistle to the Galatians, from the\nEpistle to the Romans to the Johannean theology, you clearly see the\nmarch of progress.  At the end of the first century Christianity is so\nindependent of national and traditional Judaism that the one treats the\nother, without any further scruple, as an alien and hostile religion.\n\nMore adhesive still to the Christian principle, less easy to strip off,\nwas the second Jewish wrappage, apocalyptic Messianism.  Jesus had so\nthoroughly consecrated it by calling Himself the Messiah and by\ninaugurating the kingdom of God, that His Gospel might be named a\n\"Christian Messianism.\"  In His discourses He seems to have confirmed\nit still more expressly than the Law of Moses.  No doubt He proceeded\nin both cases alike.  In all the theocratic notions which constituted\nthis popular Messianism, He lodged a new content, a religious and moral\nelement which must, in the long run, make them burst their trammels and\nelevate Messianism above itself.  But He did not bring to it any\nnegative and abstract criticism, any more than He did to the divers\nparts of the Mosaic tradition; He never said either that it must be\nabandoned or that it must be retained; He deposited in it the new\nprinciple; but He left in it many obscurities, abandoning to time and\nto the force of things the care of drawing forth the consequences and\nclearing up confusions.\n\nFor His own part He wished simply to maintain intact beneath these\napocalyptic forms the principle and the inspiration of His inward\npiety.  It was in accordance with these that He interpreted the popular\nbeliefs, adapting them with a perfect sovereignty to the moral aim and\nnature of His work.  As with the Mosaic Law, so with Messianism; He is\nits Master, not its slave.  He uses it, but does not abandon Himself to\nit.  These hopes never trouble the clearness of His religious vision;\nthey do not take away His self-possession, or alter the direction,\nalways exclusively moral, of His acts.  He accepts the title of\nMessiah, but only after substituting the idea of the suffering and\nhumiliated for the national and triumphant Messiah.  If He preaches the\nkingdom of God, He takes care to explain the conditions and the true\ngoods of the kingdom--humility, repentance, childlike confidence,\nrighteousness, disinterested love, the joy of serving God and man.  He\nleaves to men of the flesh the pomp and splendour which dazzle the eyes\nof the flesh.  He admires the grandeur of John the Baptist more than\nthat of Herod.  The kingdom of God will not come with ostentation.  It\nwill begin like an unseen seed that a man puts into the ground.\n\nAt the outset of His work Jesus encountered a mysterious temptation.\nThis was the conflict of His consciousness with the seductions of the\npopular Messianism.  He triumphed over it with difficulty; but\nthenceforth He was always on His guard in that direction.  Is it not\nremarkable that this very temptation returned to Him through the mouth\nof Peter?  Jesus treats as Satan the first of His apostles, and refers\nto the devil in person and the prince of darkness suggestions of this\nnature which tend to make Him deviate from the road marked out by the\ninspiration of His heart.  He avoids the title Messiah until the day\nwhen He is able to join with it the image of the Cross.  He disdains\nthe title, \"Son of David,\" preferring to all others that of \"Son of\nMan,\" a title that was not open to the same mistakes.  On this road of\nrenunciation He must sacrifice not only His ease, His joys, and His\nrepose, but also, at each step, some of the beliefs of Israel, and some\nof the glories of the Messiah.  He never hesitates.  His people reject\nHim, and He turns to His Father and says to Him: \"Even so, Father, for\nso it seemed good in Thy sight.\"  He agonises in Gethsemane, the\nMessiah agonises in Him, and He prays thus: \"Father, not My will, but\nThine be done.\"\n\nHence comes His freedom of spirit, the elevation of His view in the\ninterpretation of events, as also His pious and trustful reserve in\nface of the enigmas and obscurities that His glance cannot penetrate.\nJohn the Baptist is beheaded in prison: singular destiny for that\nformidable Elijah who was to inaugurate by thunder and lightning the\nMessianic era, the dream of all patriots!  Is Jesus offended by it?\nDoes He hesitate to declare that John at that very moment is \"the Elias\nwhich was for to come\"?  What a defiance to the oracles of the popular\nMessianism!  When the sons of Zebedee desire Him to reserve for them\nthe foremost places in His future kingdom, He merely speaks to them of\nthe baptism of martyrdom, and teaches them that they must leave such\nthings at the disposal of the Father.  No doubt, He never contradicts\napocalyptic predictions; on the contrary He applies to Himself all the\npromises of glory and of triumph; but always in subjection to the\nFather's will.  Asked as to the date of the Messiah's advent, He\nanswers that He does not know, that they must observe the blossoms on\nthe fig-tree and the signs of the times around Himself; that they must\nwatch and pray, possess their souls in patience, and abandon to the\nFather the decisions of which He keeps the impenetrable secret.\n\nI speak of freedom of interpretation and of pious reserve, not of\nhypocritical and sceptical accommodation.  We cannot doubt that Jesus\naccepted at the outset, and shared, at bottom, the Messianic beliefs in\nwhich He had been trained like all the children of His race.  That His\ndisciples, in reporting His discourses on this point, exaggerated and\nmaterialised them, need not be denied.  But, on the other hand you can\nhardly explain the unanimity of the earliest Christian tradition in\nexpecting His return upon the clouds if Jesus had professed entirely\nopposite ideas.  After all, is there anything more astonishing in His\nsharing on this matter the hopes of His time than in the fact of His\nhaving explained certain mysterious maladies as His contemporaries did\nby demoniacal possession, or of His attributing Psalm cx., as did\ncertain of the rabbis, to King David; to the first Isaiah the work of\nthe second, and to Moses the redaction of the Pentateuch?  These\ncurrent and traditional ideas, however, which came to Him, not from\nheaven, but from His race and His environment, never succeeded in\ncorrupting the immutable purity of His inner piety or in falsifying the\ndivine inspirations of His heart.  Whenever there was contradiction\nbetween the Messianic beliefs or the Law of Moses, on the one hand, and\nthe consciousness of Jesus, on the other, it was not the latter but the\nformer that gave way and were transformed.\n\nThe disciples were not so free as the Master.  Their faith remained a\nlong time bound to these hopes of the future.  Why had they left all\nand followed Him but because He had appeared to them to be the bearer\nand the depository of the divine promises?  His death, which seemed to\nbelie their beliefs, only served to give them another turn.  They\ncorrected prophecy.  Instead of one Advent of the Messiah they imagined\ntwo, the first in humiliation, the second in glory.  The one having\nbeen realised, they expected the other with a more ardent confidence.\nNo one doubted it was near.  The apostle Paul lived in this hope as\nwell as the author of the _Apocalypse_, the compilers of the synoptic\ngospels, and the editors of \"The Teaching of the Apostles.\"  The time\nis short: the Master comes: _Maranatha_.  This was the watchword of all\nthe early Christians.  This faith in the imminent return of Christ and\nof the end of the world dominates all the thoughts as well as the\nfeelings of the apostles: it determines and colours their Christology,\ntheir theory of Redemption, their ethics, their idea of salvation, so\nthat to expound their writings and estimate the worth of their\nreasonings, the historian must always read them and explain them in\nthis light.  It is for this reason that their Christianity merits the\nname of Messianic, and could not be, in this Jewish form, an absolute\n_norm_ for all the ages.\n\nThe disciples of Jesus, however, found themselves in a school in which\nthey could not perpetually mistake the lessons.  The Christian\nprinciple had appeared to be at one with Messianism; it was something\naltogether different and could not continue for ever to be mixed up\nwith it.  Under the contradiction of events and the action of the\nspirit of Jesus, they soon began to see the dawn of a process of\nspiritualisation in their apocalyptic beliefs.  This progress is\nmanifest in the letters of St. Paul when read in their order and with\nattention.  In the first, he hopes before he dies to witness the advent\nof the Lord.  But, from the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, the\nimage of death and martyrdom begins to interpose itself between his\nfaith and that glorious ideal, which evermore seems to recede into the\nfuture.  It never entirely disappears, but this preoccupation with the\nreturn of Jesus diminishes and occupies a smaller space in his later\nepistles.  On the contrary, the work of Jesus, considered in the past\nand in its redemptive efficacy, the Christian life conceived as a life\nof faith and love, as an imitation of Jesus Christ and an inheriting of\nHis Spirit, receive ever-increasing developments.  Insensibly, the\ncentre of gravity of apostolic Christianity changes; from the\nhypnotising contemplation of the Messianic future, it passes to the\nsanctifying meditation on the passion of Christ, on His teaching, and\nredeeming work.  This is best seen in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and\nin the Fourth Gospel, in which the Jewish Messiah is transformed into\nthe eternal _Logos_, the light of all men here below, and the principle\nof the universal religion.\n\nThe work of emancipation that men alone could not accomplish, God\nHimself achieved.  The conquests of the Church in the Empire, and\nespecially the double and irreparable ruin of Jerusalem and the Jewish\nnation under Titus and under Hadrian, opened on the future other\nprospects.  The world continued.  It was necessary to settle down and\nlive in it.  Montanism was merely a last outburst of fever.  By the end\nof the second century, Jewish Messianism was so nearly dead that its\nobstinate adherents were regarded as heretics by the Church at large.\nOrganised into a hierarchy, the Church substituted itself resolutely\nfor the ancient people of Israel, and represented itself as heir to the\nancient promises.  The advent of the kingdom of God becomes the advent\nand the victory of the Catholic Church over all the other powers of\nearth.  The Messianic Theocracy is transformed into a Church Theocracy.\nMessianism gives place to Catholicism.\n\n\n3. _Catholic Christianity_\n\nTransplanted from the poor and arid soil of Hebraism into the rich and\nfruitful loam of Graeco-Roman civilisation, the Christian plant was\nsure to grow apace and be transformed.  Catholicism is as much Pagan as\nApostolic Messianism was Jewish--from the same causes, and according to\nthe same law.  More Greek in the East, more Roman in the West, it bears\nalways and everywhere the traces of its origin.  Study successively all\nthe features of the Catholic Church, and you will find on each of them\nthis indelible mark.\n\nThe dogmas of the Councils and the theology of the Fathers, who does\nnot see at the first glance their true character?  Who does not see\nthat the material is Greek in form, in colour, in every fibre of its\ntissue?  Whence came those terms and notions, of which Hebraism knew\nnothing, but which the theologians of all the schools will henceforth\nbandy to and fro--those abstract concepts, substance and hypostasis,\nnature and person, essence and accident, matter and form?  Whence came\nthe science of the Fathers of the Church, their exegesis, their\nhistory, their logic, their psychology, and that lofty metaphysic which\nhas so completely transformed the Prophetic into a Platonic firmament?\nAll this came from Athens, Ephesus, Samos, and Miletus, _via_\nAlexandria and Rome.  The Justins, the Athenagorases, the Clements and\nthe Basils, Athanasius even more than Arius, Jerome as well as\nAugustine, had been nourished from their childhood on Greek and Latin\nliterature.  They had read Plato, Heraclitus, Zeno, Philo, Cicero,\nPosidonius, and Seneca as much and more perhaps than the Old Testament.\nWhat is there astonishing in the fact that their theology should have\nfollowed step by step the theology of neo-Platonism until this latter,\nfor Augustine, should have become the true introduction to the Gospel,\nand that in the Middle Ages the names of Plato and Aristotle should\nhave been invested with an authority not less than those of Isaiah, St.\nPaul, and St. John?\n\nOr shall we pass to the constitution of the Church?  What is that but\nthe exact counterpart of the constitution of the Roman Empire: the\nparish modelling itself on the municipality, the diocese on the\nprovince, the metropolitan regions on the great prefectures, and, at\nthe top of the pyramid, the bishop of Rome and the papacy, whose ideal\ndream is simply, in the religious order, the universal and absolute\nmonarchy of which the Caesars had first set the pattern?  Or would you\nconsider the moral life and the type of piety?  It is true that at the\noutset, and so long as the persecutions continued, there is a great\ncontrast between Jewish or Christian morals and manners and those of\nRoman or Greek society.  But, with time, the contrast is singularly\nattenuated.  If the Church conquered the world, the world had its\nrevenge within the Church.  What is that monkish asceticism imposing\ncelibacy on the clergy, exalting virginity, multiplying pious works of\nmerit, and replacing, by factitious and sterile duties, the duties\ndictated by nature and essential to society,--what are all these but\nsurvivals of a dualism and the imitation of an ideal which, come from\nthe East, seduced the feverish imagination of an expiring world?  The\nmonks, the anchorites and their theology of impotent celibates, did\nthey save Egypt, Syria, and Byzantium?\n\nDuring this time, what did worship, adoration, religion, properly\nspeaking, become?  Between earth and heaven there reappeared the whole\nancient hierarchy of gods and demi-gods, of heroes, nymphs, and\ngoddesses, replaced by the Virgin Mother, angels, demons, saints.  Each\ntown, each parish, every fountain, had its patron or its patroness, its\ntutelary guardian, to whom they addressed themselves more familiarly\nthan to God in order to obtain temporal blessings and the grace for\nevery day.  The saints have their specialities like the minor deities\nof former times.  Some cured fevers, some diseases of the skin.  This\none had charge of travellers, that of harvests, a third of articles\nthat had been lost, a fourth of needed heirs in families in danger of\ndecay.  With this mythology, all the superstitions were revived, down\nto the grossest fetichism: pilgrimages, chaplets, litanies, the\nveneration of images, signs of the cross, rites and sacraments\nconceived after the manner of the ancient mysteries.  And all this is\ndone with a sort of unconsciousness, very gradually, and as the effect\nof a zeal that was supposed to be Christian.  The heads of the Church\nrecommend missionaries not to destroy the temples of the false gods,\nbut to consecrate them to the true one, and to replace their images by\nimages of the saints, and the rites of the old cults by similar\nceremonies.  Names and etiquettes were thus changed, but not the things\nthemselves.  At Rome, beneath the basilica of St. Peter, a superb\nstatue was erected to the Prince of the Apostles.  This was formerly a\nstatue of Jupiter.  Its great toe has been worn down by the kisses of\nthe faithful.  Before Christianity, they kissed the foot of the master\nof the gods; now they kiss the foot of Peter.  Is the cult of a\ndifferent order and the devotion of a higher quality?\n\nThese, however, are but the forms of Catholicism; let us go deeper and\ntry to reach its generating principle.  This principle should be found\nin the central dogma of the Catholic system, that in it which commands\nand regulates all the parts, which constitutes its unity and strength.\nTo designate this central dogma is not difficult.  The catechism\nteaches us that it is the dogma of the Church, of its infallibility and\ntraditional continuity, of its divine origin and supernatural powers.\nProtestants affirm that they belong to the Church because they belong\nto Christ.  Catholics reverse the terms: no one is in communion with\nChrist, no one really belongs to Him, unless he belongs to the Church.\nThus faith in the Church and submission to the Church are put into the\nforefront and remain the one thing needful and essential.  One is a\nCatholic by the fact of his implicit acceptance of the sovereign\nauthority of the Church; one ceases to be a Catholic when that\nsubmission ceases.  From which it is easy to conclude that the\nprinciple of Catholicism is the realisation of the Christian\nprinciple--that is to say, of the reign of God and of Christ, in the\nform of a visible institution, an organised social body, an external\npower, exercising itself by means of that which is the very soul of the\ninstitution--a priesthood endowed with supernatural functions and\nattributes.\n\nThe immediate consequence of this first principle was the rupture of\nthe organic union realised in the Gospel of Christ between the\nreligious element and the moral element.  Nothing is more striking in\nthe Sermon on the Mount and in all the Parables of Jesus, nothing\nbetter attests the superiority of Christianity to anterior cults,\nnothing proves with greater force and clearness that it is the perfect\nand definitive Religion, than that mutual penetration, that fusion,\nthat identification, in a word, of religion and morality, till then\nseparate and often opposed to each other.  The Christ did not desire in\nreligion anything that was not in morality, or in morality anything\nthat was not religious.  Thus did He bring back piety from without, and\nmade of it the inner inspiration which penetrates and transforms the\nwhole life, a hidden flame, a ferment acting from the centre to the\nsurface, the soul in the body, ever invisible and everywhere present.\nHe thus founded the absolute autonomy of the religious and of the moral\nlife which no longer are divided, but appear simply as the two sides of\nconsciousness; the one interior and turned towards God, the other\nexterior and turned towards the world.  In creating in us the sense of\nour sonship to God, Jesus did not admit the intervention of any\nexternal authority between the Father and the child.  The universal\npriesthood, with which, by His spirit, He invests the least of His\ndisciples, excludes in principle all supernatural priesthood.  \"Call no\nman master on earth, for one is your Master in heaven; and all ye are\nbrethren.\"  The children must have free access to the Father.\n\nBut, from the moment the Christian principle, instead of entering as\ndivine inspiration into the consciousness, sets itself up as a visible\ninstitution in society, it is evident that this organic union is\nbroken, and the autonomy of the individual consciousness compromised.\nThe religious element affirms itself on its own account, and imposes\nitself from without on the mind of the faithful as a divine authority.\nThe ancient dualism, which the Gospel surmounted, reappears in a\nprofounder form; it brings in its train a universal\nsupernaturalism--that is to say, a mechanical conception of the\nrelations between God and the world.  Instead of a penetration we have\na superposition of two elements.  The clergy separates itself from the\nlaity and superposes itself upon it as the necessary intermediary\nbetween earth and heaven.  Religious society, constituted under the\nform of a government, superposes itself upon the civil society that it\ndesires to rule; grace superposes itself upon nature, acting on it from\nabove in the sacraments; the morality of the Church, in so far as it is\na supernatural morality, superposes itself upon the natural morality of\nconscience; revelation upon reason; divine dogmas upon human science;\nthe spiritual power of the priest upon the temporal power of the family\nand of the State.  Everywhere, within and without, the division breaks\nout, and you see arise in man and in society an intestine struggle\nwhich will never end; for these two original forces that it brings into\nconflict, religion and nature, are equally powerful and eternal.\n\nCatholicism began, then, in the Church of the second century when,\nunder the unconscious action of tradition and of pagan habits, the need\nwas felt of objectivising and materialising the Christian principle in\nan external fact, of imprisoning the kingdom of God in a visible\ninstitution, the immanent revelation of the Holy Spirit in the\ndecisions and acts of a priesthood.  This tendency, once born, would be\nirresistible.  Ideal and transcendent as it was at first, the Christian\nprinciple would become ever more external and political.  Absorbing all\nChristianity, and holding in its hands all the graces of God, the\nChurch would naturally present itself to the world as the permanent\nmediator and the grand magician.  It was its part to effect the\nsalvation of sinners, and, for this, it would need, like the ancient\npriests, to offer daily to God an agreeable oblation, an expiatory\nsacrifice of infinite value to atone for the infinite sins of the\nworld.  Thus the Church transformed the commemoration of the death of\nChrist into a _real_ renewal of the sacrifice on Calvary; the Holy\nSupper became the mass; the fraternal table was turned into an altar;\nthe elder or presbyter was changed into a priest and pontiff, and the\nbread of the communion into a divine victim.  The dogma of\ntransubstantiation was bound to follow; to the materialisation of\nChristianity in the Church corresponds the materialisation of God in\nthe host.\n\nBy virtue of the same principle, Christian piety becomes devotion,\n_i.e._ a ritual and meritorious practice, as in the ancient cults.  But\nwe must not be unjust and attribute something to Catholicism that it\ncondemns.  It does not say that external practice is sufficient; the\nChurch esteems it vain and even culpable unless accompanied by the\naffections and the will.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nThe first and principal act of piety is submission to the Church.  Its\ndogmas may be irrational, contradictory; its commandments may seem\narbitrary, foreign to the natural conscience, sometimes in\ncontradiction with it; no matter.\n\nReason, conscience, all must abdicate, and all submit....  In the\nChurch, the Christian state must always be a state of minority, for the\ntutelage that it accepts will never cease.  And the authority of the\nChurch, being on this point sovereign and indefectible, could not\nremain invisible and indeterminate.  An imperious logic pushed it from\nthe first to incarnate itself in its organs, more and more apparent and\nsimplified.  First it was lodged in individual bishops, then in\ncouncils, until the Pope when speaking _ex cathedra_ became the sole\nauthority.  In 1870 the Council of the Vatican, by promulgating the\ndogma of Papal infallibility, drew the irresistible conclusion from the\npremises laid down in previous centuries.  The evolution of Catholicism\nwas completed.  The transformation of Christianity into a sacerdotal\ntheocracy was achieved.  The first is realised and exhausted in the\nsecond, and the distinction we established, when speaking of the\nessence of Christianity, between the Christian principle and its\nhistorical realisations, is not merely effaced; it no longer has any\nmeaning.\n\nFrom which follow two consequences which every day become more clear\nand patent.  The first is that the Catholic Church, notwithstanding the\ndesires of Leo XIII., is fatally condemned to be intolerant and\nintransigeant towards all others.  The second is that it is\ncontradictory to expect any reform in that Church, or even to speak of\nit; for the Church could not admit the necessity of reform without\nrenouncing all its pretentions.  A river never turns back to its\nsource.  Catholicism can only exist by struggling for supremacy.  It\nmust be all or nothing.\n\nAt the same time, things are not so simple as our systems.  The logic\nof ideas does not exhaust the reality of life.  Behind abstract\nprinciples there are pious souls....  In Catholicism there has always\nbeen a latent Protestantism, by which I mean a protest, mute or spoken,\ndirect or indirect, of the Christian principle against the oppressions\nof external and tyrannical authority....  Without the continuous\npresence of the Christian spirit in the Catholic Church, the\nReformation would have been impossible.  Without the triumph of the\nsacerdotal spirit it would have been unnecessary.  Protestantism sprang\nout of Catholicism because it was virtually contained in it.\n\n\n4. _Protestant Christianity_\n\nIt is strangely to mistake the nature of the Protestant Reformation of\nthe sixteenth century to see in it a sort of semi-rationalism, the\ninconsistent exercise of free examination, or the revolutionary\nintroduction of a foreign philosophical principle into the warp and\nwoof of Christianity.  You have only to read the biography of the\nReformers and to make a slight analysis of their soul to form an\nentirely different idea of their work.  The first and almost the only\nquestion which preoccupies and troubles them is an exclusively\nreligious and practical question: \"What must we do in order to be\njustified before God?  How may we attain to peace of soul and to the\nassurance of pardon and of life eternal?\"  To find this peace, this\npardon and salvation, which the Church could not procure for them, they\ndetermined to turn back and quench their thirst at the primitive\nsources of the Gospel.  They went back to the original documents\nbecause they were persuaded that Christianity had been corrupted in the\ncourse of centuries; they wished to have it in its purity.  Their whole\nreformation was to consist in this restoration of primitive truth.\n\nBut history never recommences.  This return to the past and this\nre-reading of the Bible were accompanied by a religious experience and\nan act of consciousness which made of their enterprise something\nessentially new and original, and which rendered it immeasurably\nfruitful.  It is unnecessary to seek elsewhere than in psychological\nexperience the germ of Protestantism.  It was in the humble cell of a\nconvent at Erfurt and in the soul of a poor monk that the drama was\nfirst enacted from which sprang the revolution that has changed the\nface of the world.\n\nLuther entered the convent with a faith in the authority of the Church\nand in the efficacy of its rites as serious and entire as that of any\nmonk.  \"If it was possible,\" he said afterwards, \"to reach Heaven by\nmonkery, I was resolved to reach it by that road.\"  For years he shrank\nfrom nothing that might render God propitious; he multiplied his acts\nof devotion and his works of penance.  There is a striking analogy\nbetween the experiences of Luther under the monachal regime and those\nof Saul of Tarsus under the discipline of the Pharisaic Law.  The\n_denoument_ was the same.  For the second time, the system of pious\nworks was found powerless to appease a conscience which roused against\nitself the rigour of its own ideal.  This struggle against an external\nlaw could only exasperate the sense of sin to the point of despair.\nPaul and Luther, in precisely the same manner, experienced the inward\nemptiness and radical worthlessness of the religious system in which\nthey had been trained.  The more they had tried to realise it in its\nperfection, the more had they found it wanting.  Catholicism,\nconsidered as a means of salvation, was rejected by the religious and\nmoral consciousness of Luther, before it was condemned by exegesis and\nby reasoning.  To reach this sentence without appeal the Saxon monk had\nbut to maintain inflexible the demands of the divine law and to\nmeasure, without illusion, the abyss that separated him from God, and\nthat no human works could fill.  It was in this way that he found\nhimself shut up to the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; he found\nthe peace that fled from him in the pure and simple acceptance of the\nglad tidings of the paternal love of God, in the confidence that He\ngives gratuitously that which man can never conquer for himself,\nnamely, the remission of sins and the certitude of eternal life.  What\nthen is faith?  Is it still intellectual adhesion to dogmas or\nsubmission to an external authority?  No.  It is an act of confidence,\nthe act of a childlike heart, which finds with joy the Father whom it\nknew not, and Whom, without presumption, it is happy henceforth to hold\nwith both its hands.  That is what Luther found in Paul's great words:\n\"The just shall live by faith.\"  In this radical transformation of the\nnotion of faith restored to its evangelical meaning is to be found the\nprinciple of the greatest religious revolution effected in the world\nsince the preaching of Jesus.\n\nLet us therefore here set forth the radical opposition between the\nCatholic principle and the Protestant principle in order that we may\nthoroughly understand the internecine war that was henceforth to be\nwaged between them.  In vain will eminent men in both camps, with the\nmost generous and conciliatory intentions, arise and endeavour to find\nsome middle ground, and effect a pacific reunion of the two halves of\nChristendom.  All compromises, all diplomatic negotiations, will fail,\nbecause each of the two principles can only subsist by the negation of\nthe other.  Having attained to salvation, to full communion with God,\nindependently of and in collision with the authority and the discipline\nof the sacerdotal Church, how could Luther recognise them any longer as\ndivine and submit to them with sincerity and confidence?  The ancient\nedifice had been the more thoroughly ruined, inasmuch as it had become\nuseless and had been replaced.  The originality of Luther consisted in\nthis: his religious enfranchisement sprang from his own piety, and he\nfounded his freedom on his sense of sonship, on the sense he had of his\nquality and titles as a child and heir of God.  How could such a\nconsciousness submit itself to the yoke again without denying itself?\nCatholicism, on the other hand, cannot be less intransigeant.  To\nrecognise in any degree whatever that it is possible to a Christian to\nenjoy pardon and the sense of the divine fatherhood apart from its\ndogmas and its priesthood, would not this be to abdicate all its\npretensions, and to transform itself to the point of destruction?\n\nNo doubt, in actual life, this opposition is attenuated by the fact\nthat in all Catholicism there is a latent Protestantism, and in all\nProtestantism a latent Catholicism.  Between Port-Royal and Geneva,\nbetween Bossuet and Leibniz, between Leo XIII. and the Anglican Church,\nthe distance seems but little.  It is an illusion.  Like two\nelectricities of the same name, no sooner do they come into contact\nthan they repel each other and separate more widely than before.  In\nCatholicism Christianity tends to realise itself as a theocratic\ninstitution; it becomes an external law, a supernatural power, which,\nfrom without, imposes itself on individuals and on peoples.  In\nProtestantism, on the contrary, Christianity is brought back from the\nexterior to the interior; it plants itself in the soul as a principle\nof subjective inspiration which, acting organically on individual and\nsocial life, transforms it and elevates it progressively without\ndenaturalising and doing violence to it.  Protestant subjectivity\nbecomes spontaneity and liberty, just as necessarily as Catholic\nobjectivity becomes supernaturalism and clerical tyranny.  The\nreligious element is no longer separated from the moral element; it no\nlonger asserts itself as a truth or a morality superior to human truth\nand human morality.  The intensity of the religious life is no longer\nmeasured by the number or the fervour of pious works or ritual\npractices, but by the sincerity and elevation of the life of the\nspirit.  All asceticism is radically suppressed.  Science is set free\nalong with conscience; the political life of the peoples, as well as\nthe inner life of the Christian.  Man escapes from tutelage, and in all\ndepartments comes into possession of himself, into the full and free\ndevelopment of his being, into his majority.\n\nThis subjective character of a religion strictly moral stamps itself\nwith energy on all the specific doctrines of Protestantism.  It would\nbe superfluous to dwell upon the doctrine of justification by faith;\nits subjective character is evident.  No doubt the term justification\nhas a legal colour and awakens the idea of a tribunal.  But it must not\nbe forgotten that this tribunal is nothing but the inner court where\nman and God meet each other face to face, where man is accused by his\nown conscience, and where the sentence which absolves him is the inward\nwitness of the Holy Spirit, heard by him alone.\n\nThe doctrine of the sovereign authority of Scripture in matters of\nfaith might seem at first sight to set up an external authority.  And\nit is very true that certain Protestants have often understood it in\nthe Catholic sense, and have employed it to exercise some violence on\ntheir own conscience or on the conscience of their brethren.  But they\nnever succeed for long; they soon fall into a too flagrant\ncontradiction.  The authority of the Bible is never separated in\nProtestantism from the right of the individual to interpret it freely,\nand from the personal duty of assimilating the truths he discovers in\nit.  What therefore are those Protestants doing who attempt to set up a\nconfession of faith as absolute and obligatory truth but imposing on\ntheir brethren their own subjective interpretation, and, consequently,\ndenying to others the right which they exercise themselves?  Nor let it\nbe forgotten, on the other hand, that the obligation laid on each\nChristian to read the Bible and draw from it his faith is a perpetual\nand fruitful appeal to the energy of thought and to the autonomy of the\ninner life.  The authority of Scripture, so far from being a menace to\nChristian liberty, is its invincible rampart.  Not only has the\nProtestant Christian in the name of the Bible triumphed over eighteen\ncenturies of tradition, but it is the Bible, an appeal to the Bible\never better understood, which has saved Protestant theology from\nscholasticism, which has prevented it from congealing in a confession\nof faith, and which, leaving the principle of the Gospel in an ideal\ntranscendence in relation to all its historical expressions or\nrealisations, has maintained, and still maintains, the spirit of reform\nin the Churches of the Reformation.\n\nThe doctrines of grace and of predestination, which are at the centre\nof Calvinism, have no other meaning.  Souls religiously inert see in\nthese doctrines nothing but an abuse of blind power, a sort of divine\n_fatum_, breaking every spring in the human soul.  Nothing appears to\nbe more oppressive or more immoral.  But this is only an appearance.\nThere is really no predestination for irreligious souls.  This doctrine\nis but the expression of the inner basis of all true piety, which is\nnothing if it is not the sense, the feeling, of the presence and the\nsovereign and continuous action of God in each soul and in all the\nuniverse.  No other sentiment gives so much spring and vigour to the\nhuman will, nothing raises it to such a height or makes it so\ninvincible to all assaults from within and without.  \"If God be for us,\nwho can be against us?\" etc. (Rom. viii. 31-39).  How is it that the\nCalvinistic Puritans of New England were the founders of modern\nliberty, and the Jesuits, those admirable theorisers on freewill, the\nprecursors of all the servitudes?  It is with predestination as it is\nwith religion itself.  Conceived as exterior to the life of the soul,\nit gives birth, no doubt, to a crushing despotism; conceived as an\ninward inspiration, sustaining the initiative and even the liberty of\nthe individual, it becomes, in the Christian soul, the source of a\nforce which nothing can break or subdue.\n\nBut the point at which the antithesis between Protestantism and\nCatholicism becomes most patent is the doctrine of the natural\npriesthood of all Christians as opposed to that of the supernatural\npriesthood of a privileged clergy.  The free and perpetual communion of\nbelieving souls with the Father is the foundation of the independence\nof each and of the fraternal equality of all.  The tap-root of\nclericalism is cut.  The individual is a priest before the interior\naltar of his conscience; the father is a priest in his household; the\ncitizen, if so he wills, in the city.\n\nThe Catholic notion of dogma vanishes with all the rest.  To speak of\nan immutable and infallible dogma, in Protestantism, is nonsense; that\nis to say, if we accept the dictionary definition of dogma--the\npromulgation by the Church of an absolute formula.  The decision of a\nChurch cannot have more authority than that Church itself.  Now, no\nProtestant Church holds itself, or can hold itself without denying\nitself, to be infallible.  How then could it communicate to its\ndefinitions an infallibility that it did not itself possess?\nProtestant confessions of faith are always conditioned in time, and can\nnever be definitive; they are always revisable, consequently they are\nalways liable to criticism and to reform.  Thus ceases the\nsolidification of traditional dogma.  The old ice melts beneath the\nbreath of knowledge and of piety.  The river takes again its natural\ncourse, and evolution, under the control of a perpetual criticism,\nbecomes the law of religious thought, as of all other human activities.\n\nFrom these observations and analyses (necessarily abridged) the true\nnature of Protestantism will have become sufficiently clear.  It is not\na dogma set up in the face of another dogma, a Church in competition\nwith a rival Church, a purified Catholicism opposed to a traditional\nCatholicism.  It is more and better than a doctrine, it is a method;\nmore and better than a better Church, it is a new form of piety; it is\na different spirit, creating a new world and inaugurating for religious\nsouls a new regime.  It is equally evident that Protestantism cannot be\nimprisoned in any definitive form.  It leads to variety of formulas,\nrites, and associations as necessarily as the Catholic principle leads\nto unity.  No limit can be set to its development.  Always interior,\ninvisible, ideal, the religious principle that it represents\naccompanies the life and activity of the spirit into all the paths that\nman may pursue and in all the progress he may make.  Nothing human is\nalien to it; nor is it alien to anything that is human.  It solves the\nproblem of liberty and authority as it is solved by free and ordered\ngovernments; it does not suppress either of the terms, but conciliates\nthem by reducing authority to its pedagogic _role_, and by making the\nChristian spirit the soul and inner rule of liberty.\n\nBy very reason of its superiority, and of the conditions of general\nculture that it presupposes, this form of Christianity could only\nappear after all the others.  The spirit can only become self-conscious\nby distinguishing itself from the body in which at first it seems as if\ndiffused, and by opposing to it an energetic moral protest.  \"That is\nnot first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterwards\nthat which is spiritual\" (1 Cor. xv. 46.  Cf. Gal. iv. 1-5).  This\ndivine plan, which the apostle discovered in the ancient history of\nhumanity, is repeated in the history of Christianity.  The Messianic\nform corresponds to infancy, to that brief, happy age in which the\nimpatient imagination nourishes itself on dreams and illusions which\nthe experience of life soon dissipates without killing or even\nenfeebling the immortal hope at the heart of it.  The Catholic form,\nwhich succeeds it, endures longer and corresponds to the age of\nadolescence, in which education is painfully prosecuted, and it demands\na strict external discipline and masters whose authority must not be\nquestioned or discussed.  It was in this way that Catholic discipline\nand authority conducted the slow, laborious education of the pagan and\nbarbarian world up to the sixteenth century.\n\nBut a moment must arrive when the work of education had succeeded, when\nthe leading strings essential to childhood began to be a bondage and a\nhindrance.  The pedagogic mission of the Church, like that of the\nfamily itself, had its limit and its term in the very function it\nfulfilled.  That function was to make adult Christians and free men,\nnot men without rule, but Christians having in themselves, in their\nconscience and their inner life, the supreme rule of their thought and\nconduct.  This new age of autonomy, of firm possession of self, and of\ninternal self-government, is that which Protestantism represents, and\nit could only commence in modern times--that is to say, with that\ngeneral movement which, since the end of the Middle Ages, is leading\nhumanity to an ever completer enfranchisement, and rendering it more\nuniversally and more individually responsible for its destinies.\n\nIt may be remarked that by this evolution, and under its Protestant\nform, the Christian principle was only returning to its pure essence\nand its primitive expression.  It could only recognise itself, take\ncognisance of its true nature, separate itself from that which was not\nitself; it could only disencumber itself of every material, temporary,\nor local element, of all by which it had become surcharged in the\ncourse of ages, and which was neither religious nor moral, by\nremounting to its source, and by renewing its strength, through\nreflection and criticism, at its original springs.  That is why\nProtestantism has taken the form of this return to the past, for in it\nChristianity does not surpass itself; it simply tries to know itself\nbetter and to become more faithful to its principle.  In the\nconsciousness of Christ, what did we find was the essence of the\nperfect and eternal piety?  Nothing more than moral repentance,\nconfidence in the love of the Father and the filial sense of His\nimmediate, active presence in the heart: the indestructible foundation\nof our liberty, of our moral dignity, of our security, in face of the\nenigmas of the universe and the mysteries of death.  Is it not to this\neternal gospel that we must always return?  To finish its course and\ncomplete its work, will humanity ever discover another viaticum that\nwill better renew its courage and its hope?\n\n\n5. _Conclusion_\n\nHere I must stop.  At the outset I spoke of a personal confession, and\nit seems to me as if it were nearly complete.  In sketching the broad\noutlines of the religious history of humanity, I have had but one\nobject; I have wished to show the men of my generation why I remain\nreligious, Christian, and Protestant.  I am religious because I am a\nman and do not desire to be less than human, and because humanity, in\nme and in my race, commences and completes itself in religion and by\nreligion.  I am Christian because I cannot be religious in any other\nway, and because Christianity is the perfect and supreme form of\nreligion in this world.  Lastly, I am Protestant, not from any\nconfessional zeal, nor from racial attachment to the family of\nHuguenots, although I thank God daily that I was born in that family,\nbut because in Protestantism alone can I enjoy the heritage of\nChrist--that is to say, because in it I can be a Christian without\nplacing my conscience under any external yoke, and because I can\nfortify myself in communion with and in adoration of an immanent Deity\nby consecrating to Him the activity of my intellect, the natural\naffections of my heart, and find in this moral consecration the free\nexpansion and development of my whole being.\n\nUnder this new form, divested of the swaddling-clothes by which at\nfirst it was bound, Christianity always seems to me to be best as it\nis, a spiritual and eternal principle, which brings peace to the soul,\nand which alone can give harmony and unity to the world.  Nothing can\ncontradict it except evil and error; everything serves and strengthens\nit.  It is this principle which to my eyes manifests itself with\never-growing clearness in that heroic love of Science which, in our\ntime, has created so many marvels and made so many martyrs; this it is\nwhich reveals itself to me in the works of all the great artists, in\nthat ideal of beauty which enraptures them and brings such generous\ntears into our eyes; it is this which I honour and bless in the efforts\nof men who interest themselves in the future of humanity, and who in\nthe political direction of their country or in the work of social\neducation seek and find some means of raising and ameliorating the\ncondition of the people: I salute it in the illustrious apostles of all\ngreat causes and in the obscure workers at all humble tasks, from the\nmother who teaches her children to join their hands and bend their\nknees before the Father in Heaven, to the preacher and the missionary\nwho faithfully distribute to the hungry soul the bread of the Gospel,\nfrom the sister of charity who devotes her life to the solace of the\nsick and suffering, to the thinker who fathoms the mysteries of the\nheart and of the universe in order that he may shed on the paths of\nerring humanity some rays of light and joy.\n\nAmid the twilight that envelopes us you predict the threatening night;\nI see the day that is about to dawn with a new century.  Where you see\nnothing but discords, conflicts, and confusion, I see a concourse of\nforces which, coming from all points of the horizon, are still ignorant\nof each other, and, because ignorant, conflicting, but which, by these\nvery conflicts and collisions, are labouring together in the common\nwork of elevation and salvation: the mysterious work whose nature\nChrist defined in His Gospel, and whose motive-power he created by\nbreathing into the human heart His own fraternal love.  Since then\nthere has been a secret inquietude at the heart of all egoisms, a\nsentence of condemnation on the brow of all abuses and all tyrannies.\nThe modern world can never settle down again into repose, or fall\nasleep in evil and in slavery; it has had a vision it cannot forget; it\nhas been touched with a flame that cannot be quenched.  Many who are\noften the best collaborators in this work of redemption know not whence\nit comes and whither it tends; they even blaspheme the Christ who\ninspires it and the God who maintains it.  They know not what they do,\nnor what they say: in their ignorance they calumniate that which is\nbest both in their life and in themselves.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THIRD\n\nDOGMA\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nWHAT IS A DOGMA?\n\n1. _Definition_\n\nDogma, in the strictest sense, is one or more doctrinal propositions\nwhich, in a religious society, and as the result of the decisions of\nthe competent authority, have become the object of faith, and the rule\nof belief and practice.\n\nIt would not be enough to say that a religious society has dogmas as a\npolitical society has laws.  For the first, it is a much greater\nnecessity.  Moral societies not only need to be governed; they need to\ndefine themselves and to explain their _raison d'etre_.  Now, they can\nonly do this in their dogma.\n\nDogma therefore is a phenomenon of social life.  One cannot conceive\neither dogma without a Church, or a Church without dogma.  The two\nnotions are correlative and inseparable.\n\nThere are three elements in dogma: a religious element, which springs\nfrom piety; an intellectual or philosophic element, which supposes\nreflection and discussion; and an element of authority, which comes\nfrom the Church.  Dogma is a doctrine of which the Church has made a\nlaw.\n\nAll the peoples of antiquity believed that their legislation came from\nheaven.  In like manner all the Churches have believed, and many of\nthem still believe, that their dogmas, in their official form, have\nbeen directly given to them by God Himself.  The history of evolution,\npolitical and religious, has dissipated these illusions.  Every law of\nrighteousness and truth should, doubtless, be referred to the\nmysterious action of the Divine Spirit which works incessantly in the\nspirits of men; but, in its historical form, it bears, nevertheless,\nthe stamp of the contingent conditions in which it is born.  The genius\nof a people is nowhere more manifest than in its constitution and its\nlaws, nor the soul and the original inspiration of a Church than in its\ndogmatic creations.  The work always bears the moral impress of the\nworkman.\n\nIt follows that a Church cannot claim for its dogma more authority than\nit possesses itself.  Only a Church which is infallible can issue\nimmutable dogmas.  When Protestantism sets up such a pretension, it\nfalls into a radical contradiction with its own principle, and that\ncontradiction ruins all attempts of this kind.\n\nIn Catholicism the theory of the immutability of dogmas is opposed to\nhistory; in Protestantism it is opposed to logic.  In both cases the\naffirmation is shown to be illusory.  It is with dogmas, so long as\nthey are alive, as it is with all living things; they are in a\nperpetual state of transformation.  They only become immutable when\nthey are dead, and they begin to die when they cease to be studied for\ntheir own sakes--that is, to be discussed.\n\nDogma, therefore, which serves as a law and visible bond to the Church,\nis neither the principle nor the foundation of religion.  It is not\nprimitive; it never appears until late in the history of religious\nevolution.  \"There were poets and orators,\" says Voltaire, \"before\nthere was a grammar and a rhetoric.\"  Man chanted before he reasoned.\nEverywhere the prophet preceded the rabbi, and religion theology.  It\nmay be said, no doubt, that dogma is in religion, since it comes out of\nit; but it is in it as the fruits of Autumn are in the blossoms of\nSpring.  Dogmas and fruits, in order to form and ripen, need long\nsummers and much sunshine.  The best way to describe their nature will\nbe to trace their genesis.\n\n\n2. _The Genesis of Dogma_\n\nDogma has its tap-root in religion.  In every positive Religion there\nis an internal and an external element, a soul and a body.  The soul is\ninward piety, the movement of adoration and of prayer, the divine\nsensibility of the heart; the body consists of external forms, of rites\nand dogmas, institutions and codes.  Life consists in the organic union\nof these two elements.  Without the soul, religion is but an empty\nform, a mere corpse.  Without the body, which is the expression and the\ninstrument of the soul, religion is indiscernible, unconscious, and\nunrealised.\n\nWhich of these two elements is primitive and generative?  The answer is\nnot doubtful.  Modern psychology has learnt it in a manner never to be\nforgotten from Schleiermacher, Benjamin Constant, and Alexander Vinet.\nThe principle of all religion is in piety, just as the principle of\nlanguage is in thought, although it is not possible now to conceive of\nthem as being separate.  Consider a moment.  That religion which time\nand custom have transformed, perhaps, into a mechanical round of\nceremonies, or into a system of abstractions and metaphysical theories,\nwhat was it at first?  Trace it to its source, and you will find that\nthese cold blocks of lava once came burning hot from an interior fire.\n\nBut this is the parting of the ways.  This is the point at which\nreligious minds separate into widely different groups.\n\nRegarding religion as a saving institution in the form of a visible\norganised Church maintained by God and provided with all the means of\ngrace, Catholicism was bound to end in a sort of mechanical psychology,\nand to explain the sentiment of piety as the inward effect of the\noutward and supernatural institution.  This is done by Bellarmine and\nde Bonald, the most consistent of the Catholic theologians.\nProtestantism, on the contrary, which makes of the faith of the heart,\nof the immediate and personal relation of the soul to God, the very\nprinciple of justification, and of all religious life, was bound none\nthe less logically to end, by analysis, in a more profound psychology,\nand to refer to an inward principle all the forms and manifestations of\nreligion.  Religious history thus becomes homogeneous, and runs\nparallel with that of all the other activities of the human mind.\n\nNone the less, this subjectivity of the religious principle frightens\nmany good men.  Persons devoted to practice, and unconsciously\ndominated by the habits and necessities of ecclesiastical government\nand religious teaching, hesitate to enter upon a road so naturally\nopened.  As, from generation to generation, religion has been taught\nand propagated externally by the Church, the family, or special agents,\nit is impossible for them to imagine that it was not always so, and not\nto trace back to God Himself that chain or tradition of external\ninstruction.  In which they are certainly right.  Their only error, but\nit is a grave one, is to represent God as an ordinary teacher, the\nfirst of a series, who once acted, like the rest of them, upon His\npupils from without; whereas God works in all souls, acts and teaches\nwithout ceasing through all human masters, and is present throughout\nthe whole religious education of humanity.\n\nWho does not see that to represent things otherwise is to remain in the\ncrudest and least religious of anthropomorphisms?  At bottom, these men\nare afraid of losing revelation, which they rightly judge to be\ninseparable from the very idea of religion.  They object that piety and\nthe awakening of the religious sentiment must have an objective cause,\nand that that cause can only be a revelation of God Himself.  Nothing\nis more true; but this revelation which is effected without, in the\nevents of Nature or of History, is only known within, in and by the\nhuman consciousness.  This inward inspiration alone enables religious\nmen to interpret Nature and History religiously.  Now, this\ninterpretation is made by their intellect and according to the laws and\nconditions which regulate it.  The religious phenomenon therefore has\nnot two moments only, the objective revelation as a cause and the\nsubjective piety as an effect; it has three, which always follow each\nother in the same order: the inner revelation of God, which produces\nthe subjective piety of man, which, in its turn, engenders the\nhistorical religious forms, rites, formularies of faith, sacred books,\nsocial creations, which we can know and describe as external facts.  It\nwill be seen what an error they commit, what a mistake they make, who\nidentify the third term with the first, suppressing the second, which\nis the necessary link and forms the transition between the other two.\nWhoever will fathom this little problem in psychology, and reflect upon\nit with a little attention, will see that all religious revelation of\nGod must necessarily pass through human subjectivity before arriving at\nhistorical objectivity.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nPassing now from the intellectual interpretation to the intellectual\nexpression of religion, and noting the successive stages through which\nit must necessarily advance towards dogma, I remark once more that\nman's first language is that of the imagination.  The imagination of\nthe child or of the savage animates, dramatises, and transfigures\neverything.  It spontaneously engenders vivid and poetic images.  At\nthe beginning, religion, consisting chiefly of emotions, presentiments,\nmovements of the heart, clothed itself in mythologic forms....  But the\nage of individual reflection comes.  The image tends to change into the\nidea.  Men interpret, define, translate it.  The religious myth is\nreplaced by the religious doctrine.  These are at first entirely\npersonal interpretations.  Nevertheless, these opinions desire to\npropagate themselves, to become general, and, as they are imperfect and\ndiverse, they engender conflicts which threaten to become schisms.\nMyths, appealing to the imagination merely, and only professing to\ntranslate the common emotion, draw souls together and fuse them into a\nreal unity; individual reason, private exegesis, inevitably separates\nthem.  But the consciousness of the community, thus menaced, naturally\nreacts by the instincts of conservation.  There is therefore a struggle\nbetween the two, and out of this conflict dogma is born.\n\nA new element must intervene.  There must be a Church.  Now, all\nreligions do not form churches.  The phenomenon is only produced in the\nuniversalist and moral religions.  Strictly speaking, there is no\nChurch except in Christianity; and no dogmas save Christian dogmas.  In\nancient societies, where religion was confounded either with the State,\nor with the nationality, the religious unity was maintained and\nguaranteed by the same means as the political unity.  There were no\ndogmas, because dogmas were of no use.  As much may be said of Hebraism\nand of Islam: in them there were rites, external signs and seals, which\nsufficed to weld and to maintain the religious bond.\n\nDogma only arises when the religious society, distinguishing itself\nfrom the civil, becomes a moral society, recruiting itself by voluntary\nadherents.  This society, like every other, gives to itself what it\nneeds in order to live, to defend itself, and propagate itself.\nDoctrine necessarily becomes for it an essential thing; for in its\ndoctrine it expresses its soul, its mission, its faith.  It is\nnecessary also that it should carry its doctrine to a degree at once of\ngenerality and precision high enough to embrace and to translate all\nthe moments of its religious experience and to eliminate all alien and\nhostile elements.  Controversy springs up and threatens to rend it.\nThe Church then chooses and formulates a definition of the point\ncontested: it enacts it as the adequate expression of its faith, and\nsanctions it with all its objective authority: dogma is born.  From\nthat moment also the two correlative notions of _orthodoxy_ and\n_heresy_ are formed.  Orthodoxy is official and collective doctrine;\nheresy is individual doctrine or interpretation....  By and by symbols\nor confessions of faith are formed, and these become the standards of\nfaith and practice in the various churches that adopt them.\n\nThis long evolution is fully justified in the eyes of reason.  It is a\nmovement of the mind as legitimate as it is necessary.  The germ must\nbecome a tree, the child grow to manhood, the image be transformed into\nthe idea, and poetry give place to prose.  It is possible to be\nmistaken as to the nature, origin, and value of dogma, but not as to\nits necessity.  The Church may make a different use of it in the\nfuture, but it will not be able to dispense with it, for the doctrinal\nform of religion answers to an imperative need of the epoch of\nintellectual growth at which we have arrived.  No one can either\nreverse or arrest its development....\n\nThe word dogma is anterior to Catholicism.  It had two senses in Greek\nantiquity: a political and authoritarian sense, designating the decrees\nof popular assemblies and of kings; this is the meaning which dominates\nand characterises the Catholic notion of dogma.  But the word had also\nin the schools of Greece an essentially philosophical and doctrinal\nmeaning; it designated the characteristic doctrine of each school.  The\nProtestant Churches have inherited this latter sense of the word: it is\nin perfect harmony with the spirit and the principle of Protestantism.\nDogma, in the Protestant sense, means the doctrinal type generally\nreceived in a Church, and publicly expressed in its liturgy, its\ncatechisms, its official teaching, and especially in its Confession of\nFaith.[1]\n\n\n[1] Originally the word dogma signified a command, a precept, and not a\ntruth (Luke ii. 1, and the Septuagint of Dan. ii. 13; vi. 8; Esther\niii. 9; 2 Maccab. x. 8, etc.).  Ignatius of Antioch still uses the word\nin this sense.  It is not until towards the time of Athanasius or of\nAugustine that it begins to be used of the doctrinal decisions of the\nFathers, the Councils, and the Pope.  (Cf. also Acts xv. 28, 29.  This\nis afterwards called a dogma, the only time it is used in the N.T. with\nreference to a decision of the Church.)\n\n\n\n3.  The Religious Value of Dogma\n\nThe intolerance of Catholic dogmatism has had consequences so\nrevolting, and, in Protestantism, wherever this dogmatism has revived,\nit has given rise to conflicts so sterile and so lamentable, that\ncertain minds have gone so far as to deny the utility of dogma in the\nlargest sense of the word, and have wished to suppress all doctrinal\ndefinition of the Christian Faith.  To call dogma either divine in\nitself or evil in itself is to go to an unwarrantable extreme.  In\nreligious development, whether individual or social, it has an organic\nplace that cannot be taken away from it, and a practical importance\nthat cannot be contested.\n\nReligious faith is a phenomenon of consciousness.  God Himself is its\nauthor and its cause; but it has for psychological factors all the\nelements of consciousness--feeling, volition, idea.  It must never be\nforgotten that these verbal distinctions are pure abstractions; that\nthese elements co-exist, and are enveloped and implicated with each\nother in the unity of the ego.  In the living reality there has never\nexisted feeling which did not carry within it some embryo of an idea\nand translate itself into some voluntary movement....  As it is\nimpossible for thought not to manifest itself organically by gesture or\nlanguage, so it is impossible for religion not to express itself in\nrites and doctrines.\n\nNo doubt, in the first period of physical life, sensation dominates,\nand at the _debut_ of religious life, feeling and imagination.  But as\nscience springs from sensation, so religious doctrine springs from\npiety.  To say that \"Christianity is a life, therefore it is not a\ndoctrine\" is to reason very badly.  We should rather say, \"Christianity\nis a life and therefore it engenders doctrine;\" for man cannot live his\nlife without thinking it.  The two things are not hostile; they go\ntogether.  In apostolic times the greatest of missionaries was the\ngreatest of theologians.  St. Augustine at the end of the old world,\nCalvin, Luther, Zwingle, at the beginning of the modern world, followed\nthe example of St. Paul.  When the sap of piety fails, theology\nwithers.  Protestant scholasticism corresponds to a decline of\nreligious life.  Spencer, by re-opening the springs of piety, renewed\nthe streams of theology.  Without Pietism Germany would have had no\nSchleiermacher; without the religious revival at the beginning of this\ncentury we should have had neither Samuel Vincent nor Alexander Vinet.\n\nIf the life of a Church be compared to that of a plant, doctrine holds\nin it the place of the seed.  Like the seed, doctrine is the last to be\nformed; it crowns and closes the annual cycle of vegetation; but it is\nnecessary that it should form and ripen; for it carries within it the\npower of life and the germ of a new development.  A Church without\ndogmas would be a sterile plant.  But let not the partisans of dogmatic\nimmutability triumph: let them pursue the comparison to the end:\n\"Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and _die_,\" said Jesus,\n\"it bears no fruit.\"  To be fruitful, dogma must be decomposed--that is\nto say, it must mix itself unceasingly with the evolution of human\nthought and die in it; it is the condition of perpetual resurrection.\n\nWithout being either absolute, or perfect in itself, then, dogma is\nabsolutely necessary to the propagation and edification of the\nreligious life.  The Church has a pedagogic mission that could not be\nfulfilled without it.  It bears souls, nourishes them and brings them\nup.  Its role is that of a mother.  In that educative mission, we may\nadd, the mother finds the principle and aim of her authority, the\nreason and the limit of her tutelage.  In this sense, dogma is never\nwithout authority.  But this same pedagogic authority is neither\nabsolute nor eternal; it has a double limit, in the nature of the\npupil's soul, which it ought to respect, and in the end it would\nattain, the making of free men, adult Christians, sons of God in the\nimage of Christ and in immediate relationship to the Father.  If dogma\nis the heritage of the past transmitted by the Church, it is the\nchildren's duty first to receive it, and then to add to its value by\ncontinually reforming it, since that is the only way to keep it alive\nand to render it truly useful and fruitful in the moral development of\nhumanity.  It is therefore to this idea of necessary dogma, but of\ndogma necessarily historical and changing, that we must henceforth\naccustom ourselves; and we shall most easily habituate ourselves to it\nby tracing its evolution in the past.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE LIFE OF DOGMAS AND THEIR HISTORICAL EVOLUTION\n\n1. _Three Prejudices_\n\nI here encounter three prejudices which are, I think, the most\ninveterate in the world.  The first is that dogmas are immutable; the\nsecond, that they die fatally the moment they are touched by criticism;\nthe third, that they form the essence of religion, which rises or falls\nwith them.  I wish to show that dogmas have neither this pretended\nimmobility nor this delicate fragility; that they live by an inner life\nextraordinarily resistant and fecund, and that the criticism of dogmas,\nso far from injuring the Christian religion, frees it from the chains\nof the past and permits it to manifest its marvellous gift of\nrejuvenescence and adaptation to circumstances.\n\nThe proof that dogmas are not immutable lies in the fact that they have\na history.  That history is as full of conflicts, controversies,\nrevolutions, as the history of philosophy....  One Church has said of\nits dogmas what a Jesuit General said of his Order: _sint ut sunt aut\nnon sint_!  It is an illusion.  Momentarily arrested at one point, the\nmovement begins again at another.  In one half of Christendom, and\ncertainly the most living half, criticism of dogma has never ceased\nsince the sixteenth century.  Even in the bosom of the Catholic Church,\nits most skilful advocates, the Moehlers and the Newmans, unable to\ndeny that Catholicism is not to-day what it was in the first centuries,\nhave made this strange concession to history; they have applied to\ndogmas the theory of development.  At Paris in 1682 the dogma of the\ninfallibility of the Bishop of Rome would have been condemned as an\nerror.  Since 1870 the orthodoxy of 1682 has become the gravest of\nheresies.  There is no fiction more evident than that of the\nimmutability of dogmas, whether in the Catholic or in the Protestant\nChurches.  Like all other manifestations of life, they have an\nevolution as natural as it is inevitable.  The proof that dogmas are\nnot religion, and that criticism does not kill them but transforms\nthem, will appear in what I now proceed to say.\n\n\n2. _The Two Elements in Dogma; and its Historical Evolution_\n\nDogma is the language spoken by faith.  In it there are two elements: a\nmystical and practical element, the properly religious element; this is\nthe living and fruitful principle of dogma: then there is an\nintellectual or theoretical element, a judgment of mind, a\nphilosophical proposition serving at once as an envelope and as an\nexpression of religion.\n\nNow, it is not an arbitrary relation which unites and amalgamates these\ntwo elements in dogma; it is an organic and necessary relation.  Go\nback for a moment to the origin of religious phenomena, and to the\nformation of the first and simplest doctrinal formulas.  In presence of\none of the great spectacles of Nature, man, feeling his weakness and\ndependence with respect to the mysterious power revealed in it,\ntrembled with fear and hope.  This is primitive religious emotion.  But\nthis emotion necessarily implies, for thought, a relation between the\nsubject which experiences it and the object that has caused it.  Now,\nthought, once awakened, will necessarily translate this relation into\nan intellectual judgment.  Thus, wishing to express this relation, the\nbeliever will exclaim, _e.g._ \"God is great!\" marking the infinite\ndisproportion between his being and the universal being which made him\ntremble.[1]  He obeys the same necessity which makes him ordinarily\nexpress his thought in language.  Religious emotion then is transformed\nin the mind into the notion of a relation, _i.e._ into an intellectual\nnotion which becomes the expressive image or representation of the\nemotion.  But the notion and the emotion are essentially different in\nnature.  In expressing it, and thanks to the imagination, the notion\nmay renew or fortify the emotion, and dogma may awaken piety; but the\ntwo must not be confounded.  The notion is like an algebraic expression\nwhich ideally represents a given quantity, but it is not the quantity\nitself.  This must be clearly kept in mind if we are to avoid the most\ndisastrous confusions.  In religion and in dogma the intellectual\nelement is simply the expression or envelope of the religious\nexperience....\n\n\n[1] It might be supposed that I make of this elementary experience the\nprimary root whence all dogmas, including the Christian, have sprung by\na process of evolution.  Nothing of the kind.  This is but a particular\nexample.  The revelation of Nature is the principle of the dogmas of\nthe Religions of Nature.  Christianity has behind it another revelation\nand other experiences: the revelation of God and of a higher life, in\nthe historical appearance of Jesus Christ.  Let a man morally prepared\nto hear the Gospel begin to follow Him, listen to His words, penetrate\nHis soul, comprehend His death, and he will cry out: \"God is Love!\" as\nthe spectator of Nature was supposed to exclaim: \"God is great!\"  And\nthis new proposition, translating a new  religious relation, will, in\nits turn, become the principle of all Christian dogmas.\n\n\nThe intellectual will therefore be the variable element in dogma.  It\nis the matter united to the germ, and it is ceaselessly transformed by\nthe very effect of the movement of life.  The reason of this is simple.\nWe said just now that a religious emotion, like every other, translates\nitself into a notion which fixes the relation of the subject to the\nobject, implied in the emotion itself.  But what will this notion be?\nWith what materials, with what concepts, will the religious man\nconstruct it?  Clearly with those at his disposal.  His religious\nformula will depend on his state of intellectual culture.  A child, he\nwill think and speak religiously as a child.  Religious reason and\nlanguage have followed the same steps as the general reason....\n\nI am well aware that many Christians imagine that God has revealed to\nus dogmas in the Bible, and that they will accuse me of denying\nrevelation.  God forbid!  We believe with all our soul in Divine\nRevelation and in its particular action in the souls of prophets and\napostles, and especially in Jesus Christ.  Only, the question is\nwhether the revelation of God has consisted of doctrines and dogmatic\nformulas.  No.  God does nothing needless, and since these doctrines\nand formulas can be and have been conceived by human intelligence, He\nhas left to it the care of elaborating them.  God, entering into\ncommerce and contact with a human soul, has produced in him a certain\nreligious experience whence, afterwards, by reflection, the dogma has\nsprung.  That therefore which constitutes revelation, that which ought\nto be the norm of our life, is the creative and fruitful religious\nexperience which first arose in the souls of the prophets, of Christ,\nand of His apostles.  We may be tranquil.  So long as this experience\nshall be renewed in Christian souls, Christian dogmas may be modified,\nbut they will never die.  But why should we retain dogmas which, in the\nnature of things, must always be imperfect?  Why not have religion pure\nand simple without dogmas?  What would happen if we listened to this\ncry for pure unmixed religion?  By suppressing Christian dogma you\nwould suppress Christianity; by discarding all religious doctrine you\nwould destroy religion.  How many great and eternal things there are\nwhich never exist, for us, in a pure and isolated state!  All the\nforces of Nature are in this case.  Thought, in order to exist, must\nincarnate itself in language.  Words cannot be identified with thought,\nbut they are necessary to it.  The hero in the romance, who was said to\nbe unable to think without speaking was not so ridiculous as was once\nsupposed, for that hero is everybody.  The soul only reveals itself to\nus by the body to which it is united.  Who has ever seen life apart\nfrom living matter?  It is the same with the religious life and the\ndoctrines and rites in which it manifests itself.  A religious life\nwhich did not express itself would neither know itself nor communicate\nitself.  It is therefore perfectly irrational to talk of a religion\nwithout dogma and without worship.  Orthodoxy is a thousand times right\nas against rationalism or mysticism, when it proclaims the necessity\nfor a Church of formulating its faith into a doctrine, without which\nreligious consciousnesses remain confused and undiscernible.\n\nThe mistake that orthodoxy sometimes makes is in denying or desiring to\narrest the constant metamorphosis to which dogma, like all living\nthings, is subject.  So long as they are alive, dogmas have the faculty\nof changing and evolving.  How is their evolution effected?  The\nanalogy between dogma and language will help us to the answer.  A\nlanguage is modified in three ways: (1) By disuse, _i.e._ by the\ndisappearance of words whose contents have vanished; (2) by\nintussusception, _i.e._ by the faculty which words have, without\nchanging their form, of acquiring new significations; (3) by the\nrenaissance of old or the creation of new words, _i.e._ by neologisms.\n\nNothing is easier than to establish these three kinds of variations in\nthe history of dogmas.  Some religious formulas perish from disuse;\nothers acquire a new content; while still others are themselves\nrenewed.  Many doctrines that were once alive and prevalent are seldom\nheard of now; they gradually passed out of use.  There is hardly a\ndogma dating from the seventeenth or the sixteenth century that has now\nthe same signification that it had at the beginning.  The new wine that\nhas been put into them has modified the old skins.  There are limits,\nhowever, to the elasticity of words and formulas.  There comes a moment\nwhen the new wine bursts the old skins, and when the Church has to\nconstruct other vessels to receive it.  In this way neologisms spring\nup in languages, and new dogmas in theology.  In the sixteenth century\nthe dogmas of Justification by Faith and of the universal priesthood\nwere resuscitated with a new energy.  The verses of Horace, on which I\nmight appear to have been commenting, are eternally true:\n\n  Ut silvae foliis pronos mutantur in annos,\n  *     *     *     *     *\n  Multa renascentur quae jam cecidere cadentque\n  Quae nunc sunt in honore, vocabula...\n  *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nThe evolution of dogma is possible; why is it necessary?  Simply\nbecause the material of which it is composed is in a state of constant\nflux and evolution....  We do not mean to say that everything in the\nold formulas should be condemned.  There are to be found in them many\ngreat and excellent ideas which still retain their truth and power.  We\nsimply say that there is nothing absolute in them, nothing that may be\nimposed by authority on Christian thought.  It is always with notions\nborrowed from current science and philosophy that the Church constructs\nher dogmas.  But science and philosophy are continually evolving and\ncarrying dogma in their train.  Everything changes, even our manner of\nthinking.  Why do certain things appear absurd or grotesque in the\nimaginations of the past?  Because we have lost the faculty for\ncomprehending them.  It is as impossible for us to think in Greek as to\nspeak in Greek.  Since the end of the Middle Ages two or three\nintellectual revolutions have occurred which have profoundly separated\nus from antiquity and changed the inner and the outer world in which we\nlive.  It will suffice to recall them in a few words in order to deepen\nour sense of the decadence of Graeco-Roman dogmatic Christianity, and of\nthe necessity incumbent upon us to reform and renovate it, if only we\nare strong enough to answer to the call of God.\n\n\n3. _The Crisis of Dogma_\n\nThe first of these revolutions was a religious one.  Our specific\nconsciousness as Protestant Christians dates from the Reformation.\nNow, the Evangelical Reformation of the sixteenth century was the\nrupture of the tradition of the Church, of which the Dogmatics of the\ngreat Councils was the framework and the centre.  In breaking the\nauthority of the Church, the Reformers broke up the basis on which\nthose ancient dogmas had been built.  In appealing to the Word of God\nagainst traditional doctrines, they at least called in question the\nDogmatics of the Councils.  After protesting against all the\ninfiltrations of pagan manners and superstitions into the morals of the\nChurch, into its organisation and its hierarchy into its worship and\nits rites, why should they regard as sacrosanct the ancient philosophy\nwhich had entered into the construction of its dogmas?\n\nOn the other hand, the Reformation renewed the Christian consciousness\nby its fundamental doctrine of Justification by Faith.  Until then\nsalvation had come through adhesion to the Symbols of the Church and\nobedience to its commands.  Justification by Faith (and faith here\nmeans the trust of the heart) freed the Christian from the tutelage of\nthe priesthood and the bondage of Symbols.  To maintain that you can\nonly be saved by believing certain theological doctrines, is the same\nas to say that you can only be saved by doing certain works; it is to\nadd to or to substitute for faith some other condition of salvation.\nThe second principle of the Reformation therefore also shook the\nancient edifice; in Dogmatics it substituted the internal principle of\nChristian experience for the external principle of authority; it made\nof Christianity a moral life and no longer a metaphysic.  Is it not\nright and necessary to give the new principles of the Reformation a new\ntheological expression?  This process has been going on ever since the\nsixteenth century and can never cease.\n\nThe Reformation displaced the centre of the Christian consciousness.\nAt the same time there began a scientific revolution which displaced\nthe centre of the universe.  I speak of that which is connected with\nthe names of Copernicus and Kepler, and which was continued by such men\nas Galileo, Newton, and Laplace.  Modern astronomy, geology, biology,\netc., have completely changed the outlines and the horizon of our\nphilosophy, and rendered for ever impossible the popular cosmogonies\nwhich, until then, had reigned supreme.  And who does not see the\nbearing of this revolution on our views of Scripture, on its\ncosmography in particular, and on many of its minor teachings?  The\ntraditional doctrines of creation have been greatly modified, as also\nthe doctrines as to the origin of evil, suffering, and death.  These\ndiscoveries, it is said, have ruined religion, and are destroying\nChristian faith.  Not so.  What is being destroyed is the debris of an\nancient philosophy.  But they do compel us, absolutely, if we would\nremain in touch with the thought of our age, to modify the formulas by\nwhich the Church has hitherto believed that she might render an account\nof the origin and evolution of the universe.\n\nA third intellectual evolution has been effected in our own time by the\nadvent of the Historical Method.  This has completely upset the\ntraditional view of the history of mankind.  Floods of new light have\nbeen poured upon the prehistoric and historic races of man.  Modern\ncriticism and exegesis have given us an entirely new view of the origin\nand contents of many parts of the Old and New Testaments.  In every\ndepartment of knowledge the historic method has made the point of view\nof evolution possible and victorious.  It is in vain to oppose it, for\nit is the law of life.  Those who cling to the doctrine of dogmatic\nimmutability, whether in the Catholic or the Protestant Churches, are\nexactly in the position of the Romish cardinals who covered Galileo\nwith anathemas and protested energetically against the rotation of the\nearth.  Neither their protests nor their anathemas prevented the earth\nfrom turning round, and the cardinals along with it.  In Protestantism,\na resistance so blind would be the grossest of inconsistencies.\nDogmatic revision is always alive, both in principle and in fact, in\nthe Churches of the Reformation: in principle, because all Confessions\nof Faith are relative, and subordinate to the Word of God; in fact,\nbecause the spirit of research, of criticism, and free discussion has\nnever ceased to breathe in Protestant Theology, and breathes to-day\nmore ardently than ever.  The work will therefore be completed; I am\nsure of it.  We may lack the faith and courage to carry it on, but,\nfailing us, God will not fail to raise up other fellow-workers with\nHimself in this great enterprise.  Christianity cannot perish; it has\nnever failed to adapt itself to the state of mind of ages past; in the\nfuture, it will find and make new forms in which to express and\npropagate itself, forms adapted to the coming times....\n\n\"One day, the monk Sarapion, a man of deep piety and ardent zeal, was\ntold by the priest Paphnutius and the deacon Photinus that God, in\nwhose image man had been created, was a purely spiritual being, without\nbody, without external figure, without sensible organs.  Serapion was\nconvinced by the ascendancy of Catholic tradition and by the arguments\nthat had been employed.  The assistants rose to render thanks to God\nfor having rescued so holy a man from the wicked heresy of the\nanthropomorphists.  But, in the midst of their devotions, the unhappy\nold man, feeling the image of the God to whom he had been accustomed to\npray vanishing from his heart, was deeply moved, and bursting into sobs\nand tears, he threw himself upon the ground, and cried out: 'Woe is me!\nUnhappy man!  They have taken away my God.  I have no one now to cling\nto and invoke.'\"[2]\n\n\n[2] J. Cassanius, abb. Massil.: Collatio, X. c. III.\n\n\nTouching image of our own experience and of the experience of humanity!\nWe are always making to ourselves some idol or other.  It is very\ndifficult for us to realise that God is spirit: we attach ourselves\ntherefore to some fetish of human fabrication.  And then, when science\ncomes and takes it away from us, we are troubled and perplexed, as if\nthey had taken from us God Himself.  The study of dogmas and their\nevolution, were it wider spread, would relieve us of our illusions and\ncalm our inquietude.  It would teach us that our religious life depends\non our faith alone, and that the God Who is its source and end is\nindependent of all theory or representation, because He is infinitely\nabove all human conceptions, and because, in order never to be\nseparated from Him, it suffices that we worship Him in spirit and in\ntruth.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE SCIENCE OF DOGMAS\n\n1. _The Mixed Character of Dogmatics_\n\nWe have shown the necessity of a free criticism of dogmas.  This\ncriticism, if it is religious, will at the same time be positive; it\nwill tend not to destroy, but to distinguish, in each dogma, that which\nis truly religious and permanent from that which is philosophical and\nfleeting.  Such is the object of the discipline that, in the schools,\nis called _Dogmatics_, or the Science of Dogmas.  It remains to define\nits task and to point out the resources which it has at its disposal.\nBoth points are connected with its relation to the Church and to\nPhilosophy.  The science of dogmas has always necessarily followed the\nlife of the one and the vicissitudes of the other.\n\nIn the religious experiences of the Church it finds the material that\nit elaborates; from philosophy it borrows the methods according to\nwhich it treats this material and the form in which it organises it.\nThis science is, therefore, a mixed science: positive and practical in\nits object, speculative and theoretical in its procedure, it seeks to\nconnect the religious and moral experience with the rest of the\nexperience of humanity, and to effect the synthesis claimed, in order\nto their full vigour, by the scientific order of thought and by the\nmoral order of practical life.\n\nThis intermediate position of our science, between the Church and\nphilosophy, constitutes its independence and its originality.  If, as\nin Catholicism, it were absolutely subjected to the authority of the\nChurch, and were limited to receiving, without critical examination,\nits successive decisions and traditions, it would be confounded with\nthe history of dogmas, and would be merely a survival of scholasticism.\nOn the other hand, if it did not start from the data furnished by\nhistory and by the personal and collective experience of piety,--if it\ndid not study the Christian life in its objectivity and in its historic\ncontinuity, but abandoned itself to purely subjective and general\nspeculations--it would be fatally confounded with philosophy.  It\nescapes this double peril, first, by taking as its object the study of\nthe doctrinal tradition of the Church, tracing it back to its\ngenerative principle, following it in its successive forms and\nnecessary evolution; and, secondly, by freely applying to this\nobjective material the principles and rules of a truly rational method,\na method that may be avowed as such by philosophers.  It thus\nconstitutes the philosophy of religion in general and of Christianity\nin particular, setting itself to connect the consciousness of the\nChurch with the general consciousness of humanity, and establishing or\nmaintaining between them communications equally profitable to both.\n\nIt follows that our discipline, in studying the tradition of the\nChurch, is independent of philosophy.  On the other hand, the fact that\nit borrows its methods and processes from philosophy, renders it\nindependent with regard to the Church.  Its freedom springs from its\ntwofold subjection.  Such a little principality, placed between two\ngreat rival Powers without whose help it could not live, maintains its\nindependence of them both by virtue of their very rivalry, and may\nbecome an arbiter, an element of pacification and good understanding,\nbetween forces which are only hostile because they either do not know\nor do not understand each other.  Thus the science of dogmas will be\nfree, pacific, fruitful, on condition that it does not break its\nconnection on either hand, but remains in close communication with the\ntwo sources of its life, without which it would be liable either to die\nof inanition for want of food, or of impotence for lack of liberty.\n\n\n2. _The Science of Dogmas and the Church_\n\nA religious society cannot dispense either with doctrines or doctrinal\nteaching.  The more moral it is in its character, the more it needs a\ndogmatic symbol which defines it and explains its _raison d'etre_.  It\nwill have its teachers as well as its pastors and missionaries.  The\napostle Paul compares the Church to an organism in which each member\nhas its necessary function, according to the special gift it has\nreceived.  \"God,\" says he, \"gave some, apostles; some, prophets; some,\nteachers\" (1 Cor. xii. 28; Rom. xii. 6-8.  \"Teaching of the Apostles,\"\n13 and 15).  In passing through different lips the Gospel takes\ndifferent forms.  It creates divers types of doctrine, divers schools\nor parties (1 Cor. i. 10-14).  It is necessary to instruct the\nignorant, to refute heretics, to heal schisms, to administer reproofs,\nto correct the interpretation of texts.  This could only be done by\nmeans of discussion, reasoning, exegesis, speculation.  It was not an\neffort of pure science, but of practical science, in the interest of\nthe Church itself, with a view to its inner edification and to the\ncontinuous reform of its worship and its faith.  The labour of\ndogmatics thus sprang up spontaneously in the bosom of the Church\nitself, and it has continued its work, not from without, but from\nwithin, through an office which is an essential ministry, an organ of\nthe Church.  It could not be done well in any other way....\n\nA religious society, by the very fact that it endures, creates a\ndoctrinal tradition, and this tradition soon assumes a divine character\nand tends to become an absolute authority.  This is the effect of a\npsychological illusion characteristic of the religious consciousness so\nlong as reflection does not put it on its guard against itself.  The\nobject of our faith being divine, we ingenuously transport this quality\ninto the formula by which it has been transmitted to us, and we hold\nthis formula to be divine before we have learnt to distinguish between\nthe essence of faith and its historical manifestations, between the\nreligious substance of the doctrine and its traditional expression.\nAdd to the prestige of the past the necessity of educating the new\ngenerations.  Every Christian begins as a catechumen, and, in certain\nrespects, he is and ought to be a learner all his life, for he cannot\nfail to see that the collective consciousness is always richer and more\nstable than his own.  But, if the aim of Christian education is to\nproduce adult Christians--that is, Christians who, having received the\nHoly Spirit, have entered into a direct and permanent relation to the\ncommon Father, and into personal and living piety, they possess an\ninward rule of conduct, and along with this a principle of free\njudgment.  As St. Paul says, our tutelage ends when we have attained to\nour majority.  The spiritual man judges all, but is judged of none.  He\nbecomes independent of the authority under which he has grown up, as\nthe full-grown man becomes free from the mother who has borne and\nnourished him.  He will, doubtless, always gratefully welcome the\ntradition of the past; but he feels within himself a higher principle\nwhich gives him the right to amend and the power to increase, in some\ndegree, the inheritance he has received from his fathers.  No one is\neither a man or a Christian on any other condition.\n\nThe solution of the problem named above is to be found in these\nconsiderations.  A tradition which desires to be absolute, which\nmisunderstands and stifles individual inspiration, is not only an\nusurper--it also fails in its mission, which is to make adult\nChristians, Christians who are inwardly inspired and autonomous.  It is\nlike those tyrannical mothers who, if they could, would keep their sons\nin a perpetual minority.  On the other hand, the children, even when\nthey have attained their majority, should not despise their parents and\ndisdain the counsels of experience and of age.  Individual inspiration\nis apt to lead to self-sufficiency and sectarianism; it loses sight of\nthe link of solidarity which unites the generations, and the social\ncontinuity in which alone progress is made in the religious life, as in\nthe life of civilisation.  The first defect, the tyrannical usurpation\nof tradition, predominates in the Catholic Church; the opposite defect,\nthat of the intransigeance of individual convictions and of Illuminism,\nis the plague of Protestant communities.  The truth would be found in a\nmiddle course, and in the organisation of a traditional Church stable\nenough to receive and keep the heritage of the past, large and flexible\nenough to permit in it the legitimate expansion of the Christian\nconsciousness and the acquisition of new treasure.\n\nTo this ideal, Catholicism cannot resign itself without succumbing to\ndeath.  Protestantism aspires to it without reaching it; and yet\nnothing is more really in the logic of its principle.  No Protestant\nChurch professes to be infallible.  Its most solemn Confessions of\nFaith have only a provisional value.  The spirit of reform breathes in\nit without truce, continually.  The principal task of the community, as\nof the individual, is to amend itself, to advance in knowledge and in\nvirtue.  A Church which should exclude this spirit of reform would\ncease to be a Protestant Church.  And, of course, the duty of reform\nimplies the legitimacy of criticism, of an appeal to the Gospel better\nunderstood, of a constant effort to bring the real up to the ideal.\nThe only matter of importance is to decide aright on the principle or\ncriterion according to which this criticism shall be made.\n\nShall it be another dogma?  No; not even if it be called a fundamental\none such as the authority of Scripture.  For this very dogma,\nformulated by tradition, is therefore human and contingent, and is open\nto criticism like all the rest.  With what then, or in the name of\nwhat, shall dogma be criticised?  Shall we, with Rationalism, take a\nmoral or philosophical axiom as the criterion?  We should then violate\nthe autonomy of the religious consciousness; we should denaturalise\nreligion itself, by subjecting it to an external rule; and Dogmatics,\nbasing its fabric on an alien principle, would produce a hybrid\nstructure that would be rejected by believers and philosophers with\nequal disdain.\n\nThe principle of criticism of Christian dogmas can only be the\nprinciple of Christianity itself, which is anterior to all dogmas, and\nwhich it is the aim of dogmas to manifest and to apply.  Now the\nprinciple of Christianity is not a theoretical doctrine: it is a\nreligious experience--the experience of Christ and His disciples\nthrough the centuries.  It is the Gospel of salvation by the faith of\nthe heart, the revelation of a moral relation, of a new relation, of a\nfilial relation, created and realised between the man who is sinful and\nlost, and the Father who calls and pardons him.  Such is the initial\ngerm from which the whole Christian development has sprung, and by\nwhich consequently that development should and can be judged.\n\nThis generative principle of the life and of all the dogmas of the\nChurch being laid down, and the distinction established between the\nideal principle and its successive realisations, all of them\nnecessarily incomplete, the criticism of dogmas will be effected\nautomatically, without violence, and with fruit.  It will be enough to\ntell the story of the genesis and evolution of each of them.  It will\nthen be seen what contingent and perishing elements have entered into\nit in the course of history.  Christianity is an organism whose soul is\nimmortal, but whose body is renewed unceasingly by the fact that its\nmaterials are in constant movement, and that they are gathered from the\nvarious environments through which it has to pass.  The philosophical\nnotions which have served it as a temporary expression, and which are\ndoubly dead to-day, either because civilisation has advanced, or\nbecause they were without vital connection with the initial Christian\nexperience, fall from the tree like withered leaves or lifeless\nbranches.  As to the others, in which the sap still rises from the\nmother root, they will be seen to be transformed, to grow and flower\nfrom year to year under the same salubrious breath of criticism.  Our\ndiscipline, religiously faithful to the principle of Christian piety,\nmay often find itself in conflict with the administrative powers of the\nChurch, but never really with the Church itself.\n\n\n3. _The Science of Dogmas and Philosophy_\n\nIf less burning, the problem of the relations of dogmatics to\nphilosophy is perhaps more difficult to solve than the problem just\ndiscussed.  It has given rise to quite as many controversies.  The\ndanger is twofold.  On the one hand, there is the pretension of\nscholasticism, the attempt to absorb philosophy in theology and make it\nsubservient.  It is still the pretension of a certain simple Protestant\northodoxy, for which there is no philosophy outside the Christian\nfaith.  At the other extreme is the attempt of rationalism to include\nthe Christian religion in general ethics and philosophy.  In the first\ncase it is dogmatics which absorbs philosophy; in the second it is\nphilosophy which absorbs dogmatics.  But, in both cases, the\nspecifically religious phenomena are lost sight of, the original\ncharacter of Christian piety is misconceived, and theology, no longer\nhaving any special domain, succumbs and vanishes.  It is the merit of\nthe Reformation of Luther, in the sixteenth, and of the thought of\nSchleiermacher and Vinet in the nineteenth century, to have brought out\nand rendered manifest, among all other psychological phenomena, the\ncharacter _sui generis_ of Christian faith and life, and thus to have\nassigned to theology an object of study, eminent no doubt, but very\nspecial and very circumscribed.  A task was thus marked out for\ntheology widely different from that of philosophy--a task which\nconsists, not in explaining everything in heaven and earth, but, more\nmodestly and usefully, in giving an account of the religious experience\nof the Christian Church.  Saved at once from scholasticism and\nrationalism, dogmatic theology may therefore build itself up in its own\ndomain by the side of the other sciences without menacing or fearing\nany of them.\n\nIts relations to philosophy will become clear if we call to mind a very\nsimple distinction.  Philosophy to-day comprises two parts very\ndifferent in nature: a study of the thinking subject, or, as it is\nsometimes called, a critique of reason, or a theory of knowledge; in\nthe second place, a doctrine on the essence and the necessary relations\nof beings, a metaphysic, or a theory of the universe.\n\nIt is easy to see that all the positive sciences are differently\nrelated to these two parts of philosophy.  None of them, for instance,\ncan dispense with the first, with the criticism of our faculty of\nknowing and of our means of reasoning, under penalty of mistaking the\nworth of its own hypotheses, and even the regularity of its processes.\nIt is clear that a physicist cannot dispense with correct syllogisms or\nwith vigilance against illusions of the senses and other errors of\nmethod.  But, on the other hand, no savant would accept the yoke of any\nmetaphysic whatever which should come to him _a priori_ to dictate to\nhim its conclusions.  Upon indications of this nature he desires to\nform hypotheses and make new experiments; but, as a savant, he will\nnever pronounce before that supreme and decisive consultation of facts.\n\nIt is exactly the same with the relations of dogmatics to philosophy.\nIt will have recourse to it for all that regards the theory of\nknowledge in general and the theory of religious knowledge in\nparticular.  Like every other science it needs to ascertain the scope\nof its instrument in order that it may be under no illusion as to the\nworth of the work it accomplishes.  But also, like every other science,\nit has the right and the duty to challenge and neglect all general\nmetaphysic which, flowing from another principle than that of the\nChristian religion, would dictate to it articles of faith or rules of\nmorality.\n\nLet it not be said that every theory of knowledge soon begets a\nmetaphysic in its own image.  We know theories which deny the very\npossibility of metaphysics, and it is a question whether a truly\nChristian dogmatic accommodates itself to it better than any other\ntheory.  It may be maintained in fact that the act of faith which is\nthe expression of the conservating energy of the ego and the principle\nof all religion is accomplished all the more freely when there is no\nknowledge, properly speaking, there to hinder it.  A common prejudice\nrequires that we should have metaphysics as a support to religion.  It\nis on religion, on the contrary, that metaphysics and ethics rest.  Man\ndid not become religious when he heard that there were gods; he only\nhad the idea of God and believed in Him because he was religious.\nMystery was the natural cradle of piety.  Faith is much less an\nacquisition of knowledge than a means of salvation and a source of\nstrength and life.  It is one thing to speculate on the universal\nproblem; it is another to place one's self by the heart in a living\nrelation of trust, of fear, or of love to the mysterious Being on whom\nall other beings depend.  Religion may possibly be under the necessity\nof ending in a metaphysic, but a metaphysic does not necessarily end in\nreligion, for there are some kinds of metaphysic which either exclude\nreligion or render it impossible.\n\nA theory of religion, dogmatics can have no other starting point than\nreligious phenomena themselves.  From this concrete and experimental\nprinciple, from this state of soul produced by the immediate feeling of\na necessary relation to God, the entire system should spring and\ndevelop.  What is not in religious experience should find no place in\nreligious science, and should be banished from it.\n\nIt would only be to its detriment, then, that the science of dogmas\nshould throw away its liberty by espousing beforehand metaphysical\ntheses or the final conclusions of any philosophy whatsoever.  These\ntheses, springing from another source than religion, have no right, in\nthat religion, to become articles of faith.  Rational truths not born\nof religious feeling would be in dogmatics so many dead weights and\nheterogeneous elements, which would lead to the greatest incoherence.\nTo build up a professedly revealed theology on a professedly natural\none is to construct a system without either unity or profound\nconnection.  Such a dualism of principles is as intolerable to science\nas to piety.  Instead of dogmatics subordinating itself to metaphysics,\nmetaphysics ought to include dogmatics as well as the results of all\nthe other sciences.\n\nIt is altogether different with the criticism of our means of knowing.\nIn every order of science it is mere levity of mind to commence or to\nconclude researches a little general without having first determined\nthe precise conditions of real knowledge.  The absence of a\nphilosophical critique of this nature explains why savants, so rigorous\nin their special studies, show a philosophical _naivety_ so great in\nthe conclusions that they draw from them, and so readily crown their\ndiscoveries by a pseudo-metaphysic that they impose upon the multitude\nwith all the authority and prestige of science.  More than any others,\ntheologians are guilty of this abuse when they wish to make their\nscience the sum of universal knowledge.  They would be more soundly\nreligious were they more modest and more reserved.  An excellent means\nof putting ourselves on our guard against this illusion and its\ndeplorable consequences will be to institute, without further delay, a\nrigorous criticism of religious knowledge.  This task, I believe, has\nnever been seriously attempted in France.  It is, however, as\nindispensable to the right conduct of the mind as it is fitted\nradically to cure us of our dogmatic pride and to inspire us with\ntolerance and humility.  This will be the object of the following\nchapter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCRITICAL THEORY OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE\n\nHe who says consciousness says science, or at least, the beginning of\nscience.  Consciousness implies a representation.  In other words, no\nmodification of the ego becomes conscious except by awakening in the\nmind a representative image of the object that has produced it and of\nthe relation of that object to the ego.  All our sensations and all our\nfeelings are accompanied by images.  The religious sentiment does not\nattain to the light of consciousness in any other way.  It is because\nit is a state or conscious movement of the soul that it becomes, it\nalso, a principle of knowledge.\n\nNo kind of mental life begins with clear and abstract ideas.  An idea\nis derived from an image, and, in order to produce the image, an\nexternal or an internal impression is necessary.  It is true that the\nidea or the image has, in its turn, the mysterious power of reproducing\nand renewing the sensation or the feeling from which it sprang.  On\nthis is based the art of teaching and the power of tradition.  But this\nmust not be allowed to produce in us the illusion that originally the\nidea preceded the sensation.  The development of the mental life of\nchildren is proof of the contrary.  We only know that by which we or\nour kind have been in some degree affected.  Our ideas are simply the\nalgebraic notation of our impressions and movements.  That which is\noutside our life is outside our view.  Without the external sensations\nwhich represent the action of the world on the ego, we should have no\nknowledge of the world.  Without the subjective reaction of the ego\nagainst that action of the world, a reaction which manifests itself in\nthe moral, aesthetic, and religious life of the soul, we should have no\nmoral or religious idea, no notion of the good or the beautiful.  All\nour metaphysical ideas come from that source.\n\nIt remains, of course, to inquire what is the worth of ideas of this\norder.  It is the particularly complex and delicate question that we\nhere approach.  There is no serious philosophy to-day that does not\nstart with a theory of knowledge.  Religious knowledge cannot escape by\nany special privilege.  The criticism of it is all the more necessary,\nbecause illusion, in this matter, is so easy, and because it clothes\nitself in a sacred character.  The theologian who undertakes the\nscientific treatment of dogmas without first measuring the scope of the\ninstrument he employs, and estimating the worth of the materials he\nuses, knows not what he is doing.\n\n\n1. _Obsolete Theories of Knowledge_\n\nFormerly three explanations of our knowledge prevailed in philosophy:\nthe hypothesis of a primitive revelation; the idealist theory; and the\nsensualist theory.\n\nThe first was revived three quarters of a century ago by de Bonald and\nJoseph de Maistre.  It no longer needs to be refuted.  According to\nthis hypothesis, our ideas came to us, not from within, from the\nnaturally productive force of the mind, but from without, by way of\nsupernatural communication.  This communication from God consisted at\nthe outset in the gift to man of a perfect language.  The exact word\nbrought with it the right idea.  \"Man,\" said de Bonald, \"thought his\nspeech before speaking his thought.\"  If errors have crept in and\nreigned among men, it is because they were not able to preserve without\ncorruption the sacred deposit of that primitive language and\nphilosophy.  Is it necessary to show how thoroughly this theory is\ncontradicted by psychology and history?  It is said that in certain\ncountries there still exists a Botany, according to which the Great\nSpirit, having created the trees of the forest, comes in the night each\nSpring to stick the leaves and blossoms on the branches.  The immediate\ncommunication of right ideas and supernatural virtues to man in his\ninfancy implies a contradiction; it forces us to imagine in him\nthoughts prior to the action of his intellect and virtues previous to\nthe action of his will.  Lastly, it is to misconceive the nature of the\nmind to make of it something passive and inert.  The mind is the\nthinking and willing force--that is to say, a force productive of\nthoughts and volitions.  If it is not this, it is nothing.  We must\naffirm, no doubt, that God creates this force and directs its\nevolution, but it is a contradiction to say at once that He creates it\nand that it is unproductive.  It cannot exist without being productive.\nIt is of its very essence to produce.  Mind is only mind in so far as\nit is a force that produces thought and volition.\n\nThe aim of this hypothesis, moreover, was to found the divine authority\nof an infallible tradition by making it go back to the earliest times.\nThese revealed ideas, by the very fact that they are the ideas of God,\nhave an absolute and eternal value.  Man finds them guaranteed in the\nreligious caste, to which the deposit has been confided, and which has\npreserved them intact.  Thus arose the idea of an infallible authority.\nSo they say.  But the idea of dogmatic authority never appears in early\ntimes; it is of very late date; it is elaborated very slowly, according\nto a psychological law that we have already discovered.  Everywhere,\nand in the traditions of all religions and Churches, it appears after\nall other doctrines as the keystone which closes and binds together the\narch.  It is an ultimate dogma logically derived from other dogmas, and\nafterwards used as a warrant for them.  Such was the dogma of Papal\nInfallibility promulgated at the Vatican Council of 1870; such, in\nProtestantism, was the dogma of Biblical infallibility, completed by\nthe theologians of the seventeenth century.  To base the value of\nreligious notions on a supernatural authority, with a view to rendering\nthem indisputable, is a vicious circle; the authority, it is evident,\nis the product of these notions themselves.  All systems of authority\nend by shutting themselves up in this circle and perishing in it.\n\nThe idealist theory of the origin of ideas is but the philosophical\nform of the preceding one.  It also is an endeavour to trace back our\ngeneral ideas to the divine understanding as their primary source.\nPure ideas, type-ideas, according to Plato, constitute the intelligible\nCosmos of which material phenomena are but the unreal and ephemeral\nshadows.  Clearly to conceive these divine ideas is to reach the\ntranscendent reality of things--it is to possess true knowledge.  From\nPlatonism to the realism of scholasticism, from this to the geometry of\nSpinoza and the dialectic of Hegel, the form of the theory has varied\nconstantly; the substance of it has remained the same.  Hegel always\nsaid: \"The rational is the real,\" and, for him, as for Plato, absolute\nknowledge resolved itself into perfect logic.\n\nPsychology has long since dispelled the scientific illusion of\nidealism.  We do not wish to recall the pitiful failure of all the\nattempts formerly made, and even in our own times, to deduce _a priori_\nthe laws of the physical world.  Everywhere, in this domain, the method\nof observation has superseded the deductive method.  The reason of it\nis simple.  An idea, however lofty, can only give out what it contains,\n_i.e._ other ideas.  We know very well that our ideas are in our mind,\nbut they are only in it in the state of ideas.  How do we know that the\nobjects which they represent exist outside ourselves?  Only by logic\ncan we pass from the idea of a thing to the external reality of that\nthing.  Experience is necessary.  Without it our ideas are empty forms.\nOne may conjure with them for ever without ever reaching anything\nobjective.  They are shells without kernels.  Pure idealism, so far\nfrom furnishing a solid theory of knowledge, ends in scepticism, _i.e._\nin the negation of knowledge.\n\nThe excesses and failures of idealist theories of knowledge have always\ngiven rise in history to the opposite theory of sensualist nominalism,\naccording to which our ideas are simply transformed sensations.\nUnhappily, sensualism, in laying down this axiom, never explained the\nnature and still less the cause of that marvellous transformation.\n\"There is nothing in the understanding,\" said Locke, \"that was not\npreviously in the senses.\"  To which Leibniz rightly replied: \"Except\nthe understanding itself;\" that is to say, the force which from\nsensation draws knowledge.  By suppressing this ideal principle, you\nremove from science all element of necessity--that is to say, all\ngeneral worth.  With Hume, the sensualist theory, so far from giving an\naccount of knowledge, ended in pure phenomenalism, _i.e._ once more, in\nscepticism.  It is, in fact, with isolated sensation as with pure idea;\nyou may press it as much as you will, you will never get out of it\nanything but what it contains--that is to say, contingencies without\nany connection between each other.  Materialism is still more\nembarrassed to furnish any theory whatever of knowledge, for it does\nnot even succeed in explaining sensation.  Between a mechanical\nmovement and a phenomenon of consciousness there is an impassable\nabyss.  One of the most evident marks of the inferiority of the\nphilosophy of French positivism is that it has not even approached this\nproblem of knowledge, and that it has been able to constitute itself\nwithout any other than the popular psychology.\n\n\n2. _The Kantian Theory of Knowledge_\n\nThinkers may to-day be divided into two classes: those who date from\nbefore Kant, and those who have received the initiation and, so to\nspeak, the philosophical baptism of his critique.  These two classes of\nminds will always have much ado to understand each other.  The first\nare dogmatists or Pyrrhonists.  The second no longer comprehend either\ndogmatism or Pyrrhonism.  For them, the point of view has been\ndisplaced.  Thanks to Kant, we judge both our knowledge and our faculty\nof knowing; we give an account to ourselves of the conditions in which\nit performs its functions, of the forms which determine it, and of the\nlimits that it cannot pass.  Kant compared, without exaggeration, the\nrevolution which he effected in philosophy to that which the discovery\nof Copernicus effected in the system of the world.  In philosophy also\nthe sun has ceased to move round the earth, and the ancient illusion\nhas been vanquished and dispersed.  The idea and the reality no longer\ncoincide; they are disjoined.  The intelligible no doubt is real; but\nit is not certain that all the real is intelligible.  Reality appears\nto us now as surpassing not only our knowledge, but our means of\nknowing.  The religious notion of mystery has entered into\nconsciousness.  Man has attained to intellectual humility.  Like his\nbody, his mind is a mean between the infinitely great and the\ninfinitely little, between nothing and everything.  The deductive\nphilosophy of the unity and necessary and continuous unfolding of an\neternal substance, gives place to the philosophy of observation, which\nwill be found to be that of the antinomies whose permanent conflict\nproduces the ascensional progress of the world and of life.\n\nTo make Kantism end in scepticism shows a lack of intelligence.  His\nsystem enables us, on the contrary, to form the _scientific_ theory of\nscience.  The truth is to be found neither in dogmatism nor in\nPyrrhonism, both of which Pascal combated with equal vigour.  In modern\nscience there is a certitude invincible to the subtlest Pyrrhonism; but\nthere is also in it a sense of the limits of our knowing faculty and of\nthe relative character of our most solid constructions which forbids\nman ever to be puffed up to the point of believing himself to be God.\nTo be in this mean is to be in the truth.  The same critique which\nestablishes the validity of human knowledge lays down the limits beyond\nwhich it cannot go.  We have come to know ourselves better, and that is\nthe mark of all true progress in philosophy.  _Know thyself_ is always\nits first rule and its final fruit.\n\nThe Kantian theory of knowledge, while satisfying the mind, at the same\ntime sets forth the essential antinomies whose normal play constitutes\nthe very life of the ego and explains its multiple manifestations.\n\nThere are two elements in all knowledge: an _a posteriori_ element\nwhich comes from experience, and an _a priori_ element which comes from\nthe thinking subject.  The first is the _matter_ of knowledge; the\nsecond is the _form_.  Separate, these two elements are unproductive.\nWith the first alone we have but a reality not known; with the second\nalone we have but a knowing without reality.  Their union renders them\nmutually fruitful by organising the data of experience into the\nnecessary forms of thought.  The principle of causation, _e.g._, is not\nin things; it is in the mind, and it is the mind which spontaneously\nconnects all phenomena.  Science, at bottom, consists in nothing but\nthe causal connection of things.  Where the chain breaks, positive\nknowledge ends.  This clear sense of ignorance on points on which we\nreally are ignorant is still a part of science and one of its principal\nforces, for it proves that it knows itself very well, and also knows\nthe conditions apart from which it no longer exists.  But, whether\ntriumphant or held in check, positive science can neither renounce its\ntask and method nor modify their nature.  It can only seek to complete,\nor rather to lengthen, the chain of phenomena.  The success of this\never-identical effort, an effort always in the same direction, is what\nis called its conquests and its progress.  It follows that the\nirresistible tendency of science will be to extend over the whole of\nthe phenomena the ever-tighter network of an invincible necessity.\nDeterminism is its last word.\n\nOn the other hand, the ego which knows is an acting ego.  Its thought\nitself, properly speaking, and this display of science, are only one of\nthe forms of its inner activity.  It wills, and it must will.  If the\nworld acts on it by sensation, it acts incessantly on the world by its\nvolitions.  And let it not be said that the will simply represents a\nmechanical reaction of the ego, exactly equivalent to the action of the\nexternal world upon it,--that it is a simple transformation of\nenergy,--for this is not true.  Without here raising the question of\nliberty, it is certain that I do not give back in will simply what I\nhave received under the form of sensation.  I deliberate on the motives\nwhich urge me to act; I choose between them; I feel myself under\nobligation; I feel that I should will the good.  It is impossible to\nconceive of moral action without the idea of end.  I conceive it,\ntherefore, under a different form from that of mechanical action.\nResponsibility and obligation are not less the necessary forms of will\nthan logical necessity is the necessary form of thought.  But soon\nthere arises in man the most tragical of conflicts.  Scientific\ndeterminism renders moral activity unintelligible, and moral activity\ncomes into collision with the determinism of science.  If mechanical\ndeterminism be absolutely true, my will is null; I am simply an\nautomaton.  If my responsibility is real, if my personal energy is not\nan illusion, there is in the world something besides matter, and, for\nman, there are other than mechanical laws.  Thus divided in myself, I\nought not to practise what I know, and I cannot do what I ought.  I\nremain floating between a science which is not moral and a morality\nthat I feel to be unscientific.  My intellect destroys my will.  As the\none develops the other dies.  The better I know the laws of the world\nthe less reason I have for living and acting.  My morality, at each\nact, gives the lie to my science, and my science, at each affirmation,\nrefutes my morality.  Such is the deep malady, the spiritual misery, of\nthe best of our contemporaries.  They feel that, with them, vital\nenergy is in inverse proportion to the extent and penetration of\nthought.  It is then that they declare that pessimism, a radical\npessimism, is the truth; that existence, will, desire, are the chief\nevils, and that the supreme effort of science should be to cure us of\nthem by delivering us from all our illusions; after which, in its turn,\nit will be extinguished itself, like a flame that has consumed the food\non which it fed.\n\nStill, the conscious subject is one.  You cannot proclaim it vain\nwithout at the same time proclaiming the vanity of its ideas as well as\nof its efforts.  The ruin of morality draws after it the ruin of\nscience.  Moreover, the conflict of which we speak is different from a\ntheoretical contradiction whose solution may be indefinitely postponed.\nThe conflict is practical; it is of the vital not of the intellectual\norder.  It is an internal dissolution of the being itself, a struggle\nbetween its elementary faculties, in which the mind is weakened,\ndroops, and dies.\n\nThe solution, therefore, if there be one, can only be a practical one,\na solution springing from the will.  What is needed is to give the mind\nconfidence in itself.  It is necessary to increase the energy of its\ninner life in order that it may find the strength to believe and to\naffirm in face of the universe the sovereignty of spirit.  This is the\nsame as saying that the solution of the conflict is religion; not an\nexternal religion, doubtless, in whose hands the thought and will of\nman should abdicate--that would in no wise re-establish their inner and\nliving harmony--but an inward religion, an activity of spirit which\ngrasps in itself the supremacy of the universal spirit, and by an act\nof intimate confidence, an instinctive impulse of the being ready to\nperish, affirms to itself its own dignity, and makes to spring up out\nof its own substance the irresistible religion of spirit.  Thus the\nconflict of the theoretic reason and the practical reason eternally\nengenders religion in the heart of man.  Let us show more clearly still\nthis necessary genesis of religion.\n\nIn observing, in reasoning, in generalising, I arrive at a certain\nknowledge of that which surrounds me; this knowledge of external\nobjects forms within me the contents of what I call my knowledge of the\nworld.  On the other hand, in acting, in living, in exercising my will,\nis formed what I call my knowledge of myself.  Consciousness of self,\nand consciousness of the world, condition and determine each other, and\ncannot exist without each other.  But, at the same time, they enter\ninto mortal conflict.  The ego desires to master the world, and the\nworld, in the end, devours the ego.  Thought triumphs over Nature and\ncontemns it; Nature takes its revenge and swallows up thought in its\nabyss.  The consciousness of self wishes to bring over to itself the\nknowledge of the world; and this absorbs and devours the consciousness\nof self.  The synthesis and reconciliation can only be found in the\nconsciousness of something superior to self and the world on which both\nof them absolutely depend.  This synthetic and pacificatory\nconsciousness is the consciousness of universal and sovereign Being; it\nis the sense of the presence of God.  To escape from his distress, man\nhas never had any but this means of salvation.  The savage has recourse\nto it, according to his degree of intellectual life, when, under terror\nof the phenomena of Nature, and of ever-threatening death, he calls to\nhis aid the obscure power of his gods.  The philosopher, nourished on\nspeculation, and arrived at the dualistic and divided consciousness of\nthe disciples of Kant, obeys the same instinctive impulse and the same\nvital necessity when he seeks in the notion of God the conciliation of\nthe conflict which he feels between the ego and the world, between pure\nreason and the practical reason.  He needs a universal Being on whom he\nfeels himself to depend, and on whom he may equally make to depend the\nwhole universe.  In uniting himself to Him, he affirms and confirms his\nown life; he feels God to be active and present, in his thought under\nthe form of logical law, in his will under the form of moral law.  He\nis saved by faith in the interior God, in whom is realised the unity of\nhis being.  It is therefore true to say that the human mind cannot\nbelieve in itself without believing in God, and that, on the other\nhand, it cannot believe in God without finding Him within itself.\n\nThat is a _salto mortale_, some superficial spirits will say,\nastonished at an apparent deduction which thus makes the religious\nactivity of the ego spring from the depths of its own distress and\ndespair.  To which we respond: it is, on the contrary, a _salto\nvitale_, the instinctive and at the same time reflective act which\nmoves the mind to affirm to itself the absolute value of spirit.\nConsidered at this first psychological moment of its birth, the\nreligious faith of spirit in itself and in its sovereignty is only the\nhigher form, and, as it were, the prolongation of the instinct of\nconservation which reigns in all Nature.  The mind, crushed beneath the\nweight of things, stands up and triumphs in the feeling of the eternal\ndignity of spirit.\n\nInward religion, sacred instinct of life, divine, immortal force which\nnecessarily appears at the first movement of spirit, how they\nmisunderstand thee who only see in thee the slavery of man!  On the\ncontrary, it is thou alone that breakest all the chains that Nature\nbinds on him, that savest him from death and from extinction, and that\nopenest out to his beneficent activity an infinite career by\nassociating him with the work of God: it is thou that renderest his\nspontaneity creative, that renewest his forces, and that, plunging him\ninto the fountain whence he issued, maintainest in him an eternal youth!\n\nThis issue to the conflict of our faculties is exclusively of the\npractical order; it is an act of trust, not a demonstration; an\naffirmation which presupposes, not scientific proofs, but an act of\nmoral energy.  This act must be performed, or we must die.  There is no\nconstraint except the desire to live, but this is irresistible, if not\nfor each individual in particular, at least for mankind in general.\nThe individual may commit suicide; humanity desires to live, and its\nlife is a perpetual act of faith.\n\nNevertheless, this practical solution implies the possibility and the\nhope of a theoretical one; and this in two ways: in the first place,\npsychologically, because the ego of pure reason is also that of the\npractical reason and feels itself to be one and the same knowing and\nacting subject; then, speculatively, because in believing in the\nsovereignty of spirit in ourselves and in the world we affirm that man\nand the world have in spirit the principle and the aim of their being.\nIn God present in us, are reconciled, at least in hope, the ego and the\nworld.  This religious faith of spirit in itself permits us to\nanticipate the future solution, and to affirm that at the summit of\ntheir complete development, and in their entire perfection, science and\nthe moral life will rejoin and penetrate each other.  Mathematicians\ntell us that two parallel lines meet in infinity.  So in God are\nreconciled the pure reason and the practical reason, which here seem to\nus to develop themselves on parallel lines without ever being able to\nmeet and to unite.  Let us never forget that we spring out of\nnothingness, or, if you will, out of unconsciousness, and that we\nslowly emerge into the light of consciousness.  Man is in course of\nbeing made spirit.  If it be well considered, it will be seen that this\nirreducible antithesis that fills us with despair is the very condition\nof our spiritual development.  The mind only disengages itself from the\nbonds of its mother, Nature, by an incessant struggle.  Struggle means\nopposition and victory.  Experience demonstrates that nothing\nspiritualises, deepens, or purifies morality more than the\ncontradictions of science; and finally, that nothing helps science more\nthan a high and disinterested morality.  These two sisters, enemies in\nappearance, are twins, and they are seen to grow and triumph together\nby the exercise they give to each other through their constant\ncontradictions.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n3. _The Two Orders of Knowledge_\n\n... The ego can only be conscious of itself and of its modifications.\nThat which does not touch it in any way remains unknown.  Now, the\nmodifications of the ego may be reduced to two groups.  The one comes\nto it from without, representing the action of things upon it; these\nare sensations.  The other springs up within, representing the action\nof the ego on things, its spontaneous energy, its volitions, and its\nacts.  Thence come the two constituent elements of every consciousness,\nthe distinction between object and subject, the ego and the non-ego,\nthought and the object of thought.  We call _objective_ every idea or\nquality that it is possible to refer to the object alone, independently\nof the action or disposition of the subject.  We call _subjective_ all\nknowledge implying identity of subject and object, all discipline\nbearing on the rules of the spontaneous activity of the ego, since\nwithout that activity the rules which should direct it would not exist.\nIn the first case we are conscious of a distinction and even of a\nradical opposition between the object and the subject of knowledge; in\nthe second, we are conscious of their fundamental identity in this\nsense, that the thinking and willing subject presents itself to itself\nas an object of thought and study.  In order that the two orders of\nknowledge, engendered by this duality of origin, may be brought into\nlogical unity, it is necessary either that the subject should enter\ninto the object, that the ego should be absorbed by the non-ego, so\nthat the laws of the non-ego should become the laws of the ego--and\nthat would be materialism; or that the object should enter into the\nsubject so that the laws of the subject should become the law of\nthings--and that would be idealism.  Outside these two systems, equally\nviolent and absolute, the two orders of knowledge are irreducible,\nbecause in us the consciousness of the ego and the consciousness of the\nworld are at present in conflict.  Morality is neither reconciled to\nscience, nor science to morality.  In their _rapprochement_,\nprogressive to infinity, a hiatus always subsists.\n\nOne would be greatly deceived if he reduced this difference to the\nordinary opposition between the physical and the spiritual, between\nexternal and internal phenomena.  Sensation, the foundation and the\nstarting point of the objective order of knowledge, is just as internal\nas volition.  On the other hand, man is a part of what we call Nature;\nand, as such, he is the theatre of a crowd of internal and external\nphenomena which, so far as that is possible, should be observed,\ndescribed, explained, by the principle of causality, like all the other\nphenomena of the physical order.  For example, the mechanism of memory\nand that of logic, the correlation between mental activities and the\nphysiological modifications of the cerebro-spinal system, the laws of\nassociation of ideas, the stable forms of the human understanding, all\nthat psychology that is now called \"scientific psychology,\" rightfully\nenters into the domain of the sciences of Nature.  It is a province\nthat may be explored like all the others.  The psychological\nobservations made in it are objective not less than those of\nphysiology, for the reason that the phenomena that are observed, while\noccurring in the ego, are nevertheless produced in it without the\nvoluntary intervention of the ego, and even without its express\nconsent.  Moreover, they do not imply or provoke on the part of the ego\nany moral judgment properly so called.\n\nOn the other hand, take the sciences of Nature which deal with the\nobjects most widely removed from man, with astronomy or geology,\n_e.g._; no longer consider the bare external results; consider rather\nthat spiritual force which we call thought, and which has the virtue of\nproducing these sciences; what are they but the external revelation of\nthe creative and organising energy of the thinking subject, the\nrevelation of spirit to spirit?  The work, seen from this subjective\nside, serves simply to set forth the worth of the worker.  You speak\nthen of the ordinary savant or of the intellectual genius, of the good\nor bad scientific workman.  The philosophy of science becomes a\nnecessarily subjective discipline.  \"Science,\" in fact, is simply an\nabstraction.  In the reality there are only minds more or less\nignorant, conscious, at each step, of their strength and of their\nimpotence, of their defeats and victories,--minds condemned to a\nperpetual effort to struggle out of the night from which they slowly\nmount.  When you think of this most disinterested side of the\nscientific life you ask yourself what is the basis, in the last resort,\nof this confidence of mind in itself--the foundation of all the rest.\nYou see clearly that this activity of pure intellect demands, like all\nother human activity, attention, forgetfulness of self, a heroism, in\nshort, going to the point of contempt of common enjoyments, and of the\nsacrifice of life itself.  You have then left the domain of the\nsciences of Nature and have entered the realms of spirit, and there\nrise around you the problems which form the object of the moral\ndisciplines.\n\nSuch is the intimate complexity of the two orders of knowledge that a\npersevering reflection discovers them to be everywhere mingled, and it\nis with difficulty that they are disentangled.  All knowledge is an\naggregate (_ensemble_) of judgments; but the judgments which constitute\nphysical knowledge and those that constitute moral science are not of\nthe same nature.  The first are judgments of _existence_, bearing\nsolely on the causality, the succession, the distribution of phenomena,\n_i.e._ on the relations of objects to each other, apart from the\nsubject.  The basis on which they rest is sensation, and, as sensation\nhas for necessary forms time and space, time and space will also be the\nforms and limits of these judgments.  Forming homogeneous quantities,\ntime and space give the notion of figure and of number, so that\nmathematics is the foundation and the necessary framework of all the\nphysical sciences.  They rise above this abstract science of the forms\nof sensibility in the order of their complexity, and form a hierarchy\nfrom rational mechanics to sociology, of which Comte and so many others\nvainly endeavour to make a simple social mechanics.  The destiny of\nthis universal objective science is to progress for ever without ever\nbeing completed; for it is of the same nature as number--that is to\nsay, essentially indefinite and imperfect.  It not only finds an\ninexhaustible subject of study in the external world; it encounters a\nmystery impenetrable to its methods and analyses in the very subject\nthat creates it, and which, in creating it, remains outside the\nmechanism it sets in motion.\n\nIn fact, when the thinking subject considers itself, or considers\nthings in relation to itself, it brings to bear upon itself and them a\nsecond series of judgments of an altogether different character.  It\nestimates them and it estimates itself according to a _norm_ which is\nin itself.  It declares them to be good or bad, beautiful or ugly, rich\nor poor in life, harmonious or discordant.  In other words, it is no\nlonger the idea of number--it is the category of _the good_ which\nbecomes the necessary form of these new judgments, which, for this\nreason, are called judgments of _estimation_ or of dignity, and it is\nclear that between these two kinds of judgments there is no common\nmeasure.  They can no more encounter each other than two balls rolled\non different planes.\n\nWill it be said that the judgments founded on the concept of _the good_\nare insignificant and worthless because neither man nor the good of man\ncan be the measure of things?  If this remark is useful for abating\nhuman pride and preventing childish illusions, it does not efface the\nprimordial distinction between good and evil inherent to the human\nmind, nor would one wish to deduce from it the vanity of all morality,\nand the equal worth of all the manifestations of life.  The proof,\nmoreover, that the rule of _the good_ is above man is that it judges\nand condemns him pitilessly; it is that consciousness, independently of\nthe painful or agreeable sensations that it receives from things,\nestablishes between them a fitness (_convenance_), a hierarchy, and\nconstitutes the harmonious unity of the universe itself in the supreme\nidea of the sovereign good.  If the legitimacy of the confidence which\nthe conscience has in its rule is to be contested, I do not see why we\nshould not contest that of the confidence of pure thought in itself.\nThen everything crumbles to pieces, both science and conscience, in the\nsame abyss.\n\nIn reality, the good, the beautiful, the relations of fitness and of\nharmony, are so many principles of knowledge, which progress, like\nphysical knowledge, by the culture of the mind.  The form of the moral\njudgments is universal, and identical in every man; it is this form\nalone which constitutes man as a moral being; but the contents of this\nform vary unceasingly in history, according to times and places.\nEverywhere and always man has sought the good, but he has not always\nplaced it in the same things; he has formed different ideas of it, and\nthese ideas have become more and more noble and pure in proportion as\nhis life itself has been ennobled and purified.  That is why there is a\nhistory of morality, of religion, of aesthetics, as there is a history\nof the natural sciences, although progress in these two classes has\nbeen of an opposite nature and accomplished according to different\nlaws.  However this may be, we may conclude that if mathematics, by the\nconcept of number, the abstract form of sensation, is the mould and\nframework of the sciences of Nature, ethics, by _the categorical\nimperative_, the abstract form of the activity of spirit, is the\nfoundation of the moral sciences, which are as diverse as the various\nactivities of the ego, each having special rules and criteria, no\ndoubt, but always falling under the common form of obligation.\n\nDistinct and often in conflict, these two orders of knowledge are none\nthe less _solidaire_; they are always developed by their action the one\nupon the other, and tend to a higher unity, the need for which gives\nrise to attempts, renewed from age to age, at a metaphysical synthesis.\nIf you take the disciplines as taught in the schools to-day, you will\nfind that they are almost all mixed sciences such as history, social\neconomy, politics, philosophy, etc.  So soon as the savant rises above\nthe simple description of phenomena, and wishes to organise his cosmos\nby formulating the unity and harmony of it, he necessarily borrows this\nprinciple of organisation and of harmony from the experience of his\nsubjective life.  On the contrary, religion, art, morality, can only be\nrealised in the conditions prescribed to them by science properly so\ncalled, and the last problem always propounded to human thought at each\nstage of its development is the conciliation of the _moral idea_\nacquired by the exercise of the will, and the _scientific idea_\nfurnished by its experience of the world.\n\nThere is no question, then, of separating the two orders of knowledge,\nbut of referring each of them to its true source, and preventing a\nconfusion which, mixing everything up, renders everything uncertain.\nIt is impossible in good psychology to trace to one centre the\ndivergent manifestations of our spiritual life, and to drive the moral\ninto the physical or the physical into the moral.  Our spiritual life\nis like an ellipse with two centres of light: on the one side, the\ncentre of _receptive life_, where all the sensations received are\nelaborated into phenomenal knowledge; on the other, the centre of\n_active life_, at which are concentrated all the revelations of the\nmind's own inner energy.  The line of the ellipse described by the\nrelation and the distance of these two centres is the approximate but\nnever perfect synthesis of the two kinds of data which thus arrive in\nconsciousness.  He who does not distinguish these two centres, and\ntransforms the ellipse into a circumference with equal rays and an\nunique centre, necessarily remains in chaos and old night.\n\nFrom these general considerations is naturally deduced the specific\ncharacter of religious knowledge, its inward nature and its range.\n\n\n4. _The Subjectivity of Religious Knowledge_\n\nThe first contrast that we have seen to arise between the knowledge of\nNature and religious knowledge is that the first is _objective_, and\nthat the second can never pass out of _subjectivity_.  This does not\nmean that the second is less certain, but that it is of another order,\nand is produced in another way and with other characteristics.\n\nIn one sense, the knowledge of Nature is subjective, for it depends on\nour mental constitution, and on the laws of our knowing faculty.  But\nreligious and moral knowledge is subjective in a different manner and\nfor a deeper reason.  The object of scientific knowledge is always\noutside the ego, and it is in knowing it as an object outside the ego\nthat the objectivity of that knowledge consists.  But the object of\nreligious or moral knowledge--God, the Good, the Beautiful--these are\nnot phenomena that may be grasped outside the ego and independently of\nit.  God only reveals Himself in and by piety; the Good, in the\nconsciousness of the good man; the Beautiful, in the creative activity\nof the artist.  This is only saying that the object of these kinds of\nknowledge is immanent in the subject himself, and only reveals itself\nby the personal activity of that subject.  Absolutely eliminate the\nreligious and moral subject, or rather take from him all personal\nactivity, and you suppress, for him, the object of morality and\nreligion.\n\nLet us take up again that striking antithesis of the two orders of\nknowledge.  What is at once the basis and the sign of the objectivity\nof the natural sciences?\n\nOne may theoretically ask whether the world of science, the world that\n_appears_ to us, is exactly the real world, existing outside of us.  It\nis thus that in the philosophy of Kant the famous question as to _the\nthing in itself_ is stated.  But it is equally certain that in the name\nof that philosophy this question ought logically to be discarded.  One\nis astonished that the author of the _Critique of Pure Reason_ did not\nimmediately close that door opened to scientific scepticism.  After his\ncritique, in fact, it is evident that that substratum which some are\nforced to imagine as a support to phenomena--that the indeterminate and\nindeterminable substance that they represent beneath the forms and\nqualities of things,--is both a non-being and nonsense.  _Das Ding an\nsich ist ein Unding_.  (The thing in itself is an unthing.)  It is a\nremnant of ancient metaphysics which ought to be eliminated from modern\nphilosophy.  In allowing it to introduce itself into our theory of\nknowledge, it overturns it as would a heterogeneous element.  He that\npersists in distinguishing between the thing in itself and the\nphenomenal thing will never be able to give an account of the\nobjectivity of the sciences of Nature, and of the kind of certitude\nthat belongs to them.\n\nThat which appears to us from without is not doubtless all the reality\nof the world; but it is a real world.  By his calculations, Leverrier\ncame first to suspect the existence of a large planet as yet\nunperceived; then he came to measure its volume, to trace its orbit,\nand finally to mark its place at a given time.  He said to his brother\nastronomers: \"Look there!\" and the planet appeared at the end of their\ntelescopes.\n\nHow explain, moreover, without this reality of science, the power that\nscience gives to man over Nature?  His power, is it not always exactly\nin proportion to his knowledge?\n\nIn what then does this objectivity of science consist if it is not\nfounded on the pretended knowledge of the thing in itself?  In the\nnecessary link that scientific thought establishes between phenomena.\nThis necessity does not come from experience, for it is something\nideal, which our mind adds to all experience.  But, as we can only\nthink according to these necessary laws, we necessarily objectivise in\nall scientific study.  We thus affirm, of necessity, the fundamental\nunity of the laws of thought and the laws of phenomena.  Experience\nalways confirms this immediate affirmation.  Now this necessity, it is\nobjectivity itself; it is the only noumenon that we are authorised to\nseek behind phenomena in Nature, and behind the manifestations of pure\nreason in spirit.\n\nThe first effect of this objective necessity is to eliminate from the\nwork of science the feelings and the subjective will of the ego.  A\nthinking and acting subject is no doubt necessary in making science;\nbut the characteristic of science is to see what it studies apart from\nthe subject, apart even from the psychical phenomena that it observes\nin the ego itself.  Posited outside the ego, the laws that it\npromulgates appear to us therefore independent of it.  This elimination\nof the subject from the conclusions of science thus becomes the sign\nand the measure of their objectivity.  Where the elimination is\ncomplete, as in astronomy and physics, the objectivity is entire.  On\nthe contrary, history, _e.g._ where the elimination can never be\nabsolute, always tends towards objectivity, but never reaches it.\n\nIt is altogether otherwise with religious knowledge.  With it we enter\nat once into the subjective order--that is to say, into an order of\npsychological facts, of determinations and internal dispositions of the\nsubject itself, the succession of which constitutes his personal life.\nTo eliminate the ego would not here be possible; for this would be both\nto eliminate the materials and to dry up the living spring of\nknowledge.  An ancient illusion pretended that we know God, as we know\nthe phenomena of Nature, and that the religious life springs from that\nobjective knowledge as by a sort of practical application.  The very\nopposite is true.  God is not a phenomenon that we may observe apart\nfrom ourselves, or a truth demonstrable by logical reasoning.  He who\ndoes not feel Him inside his heart will never find Him outside.  The\nobject of religious knowledge only reveals itself in the subject, by\nthe religious phenomena themselves.  It is with the religious\nconsciousness as with the moral consciousness.  In this the subject\nfeels obliged, and this obligation itself constitutes the revelation of\nthe moral object which obliges us.  There is no good known outside\nthat.  The same in religion: we never become conscious of our piety\nwithout--at the same time that we feel religiously moved--perceiving,\nmore or less obscurely, in that very emotion the object and the cause\nof religion, _i.e._ God.\n\nObserve the natural and spontaneous movement of piety: a soul feels\nitself to be trusting, that it is established in peace and light; is it\nstrong, humble, resigned, obedient?  It immediately attributes its\nstrength, its faith, its humility, its obedience, to the action of the\nDivine Spirit within itself.  Anne Doubourg, dying at the stake, prayed\nthus: \"O God, Do not abandon me lest I should fall off from Thee.\"  The\nprophet of Israel said: \"Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned.\"  And\nthe father in the Gospels cried: \"Lord, I believe; help Thou mine\nunbelief.\"  To feel thus in our personal and empirical activity the\naction and the presence of the Spirit of God within our own spirit, is\nthe mystery, but it is also the source, of religion.\n\nIt will be seen how much religious knowledge and the science of Nature\ndiffer by their very origin.  The one is the theory of the receptive\nand logical life of the ego; the other is the theory of its active and\nspontaneous life.  As both the receptive and the active life are one,\nhowever, the two orders of knowledge are neither isolated nor\nindependent.  But they must never be confounded.  Their results will\nalways remain heterogeneous; they are not of the same order, and cannot\nsupply the place of each other.  If you were to admit, _e.g._, that\nphilosophers may succeed (as they have often been believed to do) in\nestablishing a veritable objective science of God, and if they were\nthus to know God in Himself and apart from the religious ego, that\nscientific knowledge of God, even if it were possible, would not be\nreligious knowledge; for to know God religiously is to know Him in His\nrelation to us--that is to say, in our consciousness, in so far as He\nis present in it and determines it towards piety.  This is the sense in\nwhich it is permissible to maintain that religion is as independent of\nmetaphysics as it is of cosmology.  It is the same with the knowledge\nof the world.  To know the world as an astronomer or a physicist is not\nto know it religiously.  To know it religiously is, while taking it as\nit is, and in no wise contradicting the scientific laws according to\nwhich it is governed, to determine its value in relation to the life of\nspirit; it is to estimate it according as it is a means, a hindrance,\nor a menace, to the progress of that life.  In the same way, to know\nourselves religiously is not to construct scientific psychology; but\nthat psychology being once constructed, and properly constructed, it is\nto realise ourselves in our relation both to God and to the world,\nforcing ourselves to surmount the contradictions from which we suffer,\nin order that we may attain to unity and peace of mind.  Thus, not only\ncan religious knowledge never cast off its subjective character; it is\nin reality nothing but that very subjectivity of piety considered in\nits action and in its legitimate development.\n\nThe inner nature of these two orders of knowledge having been defined,\nit becomes evident that each of them is valid in its own domain, and\nthat they cannot legitimately encroach upon each other.  To try to\nestablish by religious faith the reality of any phenomenon whatsoever,\nof which experimental science or intellectual criticism are the sole\njudges; or to wish to formulate by means of objective science a moral\njudgment which springs from the subjective consciousness--these are two\nequivalent encroachments and abuses.  Experimental science has the\nright to forbid the religious consciousness to do violence to it; but\nthe religious consciousness has an equal right to restrict science to\nits true limits.  We must prevent confusion if we would put an end to\nthe conflicts between them.  To enclose God in any phenomenal form is,\nproperly speaking, superstition or _idolatry_; to confine or dissipate\nthe soul in external phenomenism, and to deny the seriousness and value\nof its religious and moral activity, is _infidelity_, properly so\ncalled.\n\nTruths of the religious and moral order are known by a subjective act\nof what Pascal calls _the heart_.  Science can know nothing about them,\nfor they are not in its order.  In the same way the phenomena of Nature\nare only known and measured by observation and calculation.  Neither\nthe heart nor religious faith can decide with respect to them.  Each\norder has its certitude.  We must not say that in the one the certitude\nis greater than in the other.  Science is not more sure of its object\nthan moral or religious faith is of its own; but it is sure in a\ndifferent way.  Scientific certitude has at its basis intellectual\nevidence.  Religious certitude has for its foundation the feeling of\nsubjective life, or moral evidence.  The first gives satisfaction to\nthe intellect; the second gives to the whole soul the sense of order\nre-established, of health regained, of force and peace.  It is the\nhappy feeling of deliverance, the inward assurance of \"salvation.\"\n\nIt is not surprising, lastly, that these two kinds of knowledge or of\ncertitude should spring up and propagate themselves by different means.\nObjective science transmits itself by objective demonstration.  The\nsubjective life of the savant has nothing to do with it.  To convince\nus of the reality of his discoveries, an astronomer does not need to be\na good man.  On the contrary, a fundamentally immoral man will always\nbe a detestable professor of ethics.  Religion is only propagated by\nreligious men.  It may also be added that, in religious knowledge, the\nintellectual demonstration or the idea has no value except in so far as\nit serves as the expression and the vehicle of the personal life of the\nsubject.  This is the secret and the mystery of eloquence.  The _si vis\nme flere, dolendum_, is true in all the moral disciplines, as much and\nmore than in aesthetics.  One gains nothing by attempting to demonstrate\nobjectively the existence of God.  That demonstration is ineffective\ntowards those who have no piety; for those who have, it is superfluous.\nThe true religious propaganda is effected by inward contagion.  _Ex\nvivo vivus nascitur_.  Accuracy in theology is much less important in\nreligion than warmth of piety.  Pitiful arguments have in all ages been\nfollowed by admirable conversions.  Those who are scandalised at this\nhave not yet penetrated into the essence of religious faith.\n\nFor want of this clear and frank separation between our two orders of\nknowledge, one sees, on the one hand, philosophers pretending to\ntransform ethics and philosophy into objective science, and, on the\nother, savants naively giving forth their objective science as a\nmetaphysic and as a solution of the enigma of life.  Two illusions, in\nwhose train everything is mixed up and founded.  Objective ethics are\neverything you could wish--except ethics.  You might as well speak of a\nround square.  When an objective science transforms itself into\nmetaphysics, it ceases to be science and becomes subjective philosophy.\nThis goes without saying.\n\nAnd yet, in distinguishing the two orders we must not isolate them, nor\nabove all must we lose sight of their solidarity, their close\nconnection, and correspondence.  The subject is one, and has a clear\nconsciousness of his unity; that is why he always tends towards a\nsynthesis.  Phenomenal science cannot complete itself without borrowing\nfrom the subjective consciousness of the ego the ideas of unity, of\nplan, and of harmony.  On the other hand, the moral and religious\nconsciousness, in order to express itself, needs to borrow from\nphenomenal science the data which it uses, and, consequently, it should\nalways avoid contradicting them.  Thus we tend towards the synthetic\nharmony of a continuous effort and of an indefectible faith; but we\ndiscard none the less resolutely the philosophy of logical unity.  We\nobstinately refuse to admit that the subjective order can ever be\ndeduced, by way of consequence and application, from the objective\norder of knowledge: that is the error of materialistic Pantheism; and,\n_vice versa_, that the objective order of phenomenal science can or\nought to be deduced from the religious or moral order: that is the\nopposite error of all the dogmatisms.  The mental cannot be simply\nreduced to the physical, or the physical entirely to the mental.  We\nmust respect the fruitful antinomies of life from which the necessary\nprogress springs.  The tendency towards harmony is there, not the\nharmony itself.  This is the reward promised, the aim proposed, to\neffort.  Our philosophy ought to regard the spiritual life in its\nbecoming--that is to say, in its growth and in its conflicts, without\nwishing, like all idealist and materialist speculations, to make of the\nactual and transient moment the eternal metaphysical reality.\n\n\n5. _Teleology_\n\nSubjective in essence and origin, religious knowledge is _teleological_\nin its procedure, and this second characteristic springs from the first.\n\nTeleology is the form of all organic life and of all conscious\nactivity.  Now, what is moral knowledge but the theory of the conscious\nlife of spirit?\n\nWithout the principle of causation, phenomena, in science, would not be\nconnected; without the idea of end, or principle of direction,\nbiological and psychical facts could not be organised--that is to say,\nhierarchised.\n\nMechanism and teleology: these then are the two new terms for the\nantithesis formed by the knowledge of Nature and religious knowledge.\nBut it is a prejudice to believe that the one form of explanation\nexcludes the other or renders it superfluous.  We have examples to the\ncontrary not only in the machines constructed by man, but also in all\nliving organisms, in which, according to Claude Bernard, the _directive\nidea_ of life is realised in an absolute determinism.\n\nThe mechanical explanation of phenomena and the determinism of science\nonly become exclusive of teleology when they are transformed into\nmetaphysical materialism--that is to say, when it is affirmed, _a\npriori_, and by a subjective act, that there is nothing in the universe\nbut matter and the movements of matter.  But then, it is clear that\nmaterialism, which believes itself to be scientific, becomes a\nphilosophy, and like all other philosophies it falls under the\njurisdiction not only of the objective science of the world, but of the\nconsciousness of the ego.\n\nThe ideas of cause and end spring from one and the same source.  The\nidea of cause awakens in us because the ego, as soon as it knows\nitself, has the clear sense of being the author of its acts; it has\nthis sense by that of the very effort that it has made.  But, at the\nsame time, it knows that it made that effort with a view to an end\nwhich attracted it.  Cause and end, therefore, are the two aspects of\nthe same conscious act.  The one is the backward glance of the\nconsciousness; the other is its forward look.  As we only know the\nworld by reflecting it in the mirror of our consciousness, it follows\nthat the two categories of cause and end impose themselves on our\nunderstanding with an equal necessity.\n\nThere is another consequence of this psychological observation.  The\nconsciousness of the ego is one; neither the idea of cause nor the idea\nof end, by itself, would suffice to explain the whole universe to me.\nIt is easy to see at a glance that the objective science of phenomena\nis not and never can be completed.  The chain into which it introduces\neach particular phenomenon as a new link is indefinitely lengthened by\nscientific progress, in time and space, but without the power to hang\non anywhere.  Outside space and time, the principle of causation only\nengenders insoluble antinomies.  Besides, to explain one phenomenon by\nanother is to explain it by a cause which itself needs explanation.\nThe mechanical reason of things is therefore never a sufficient reason.\nIt is an indefinite series of insufficient particular reasons.  The\nnetwork of science, however fine and firm it be, does not cover, and\ncannot cover all reality.  The Cosmos that science builds is like the\nglobe; it floats in immensity.  \"Where, O Lord, goes the earth through\nthe heavens?\"\n\nTo this question teleology alone responds.  But every teleological\naffirmation respecting the universe is a religious affirmation.\nScience, studying only accomplished facts, never establishes anything\nbut phenomena and their antecedent or concomitant conditions.  Once the\nphenomenon is integrated in the causal series, the task of science is\naccomplished.  To ask it to go further is to ask it to go beyond its\nlimits and to denaturalise itself.  You can only put teleology into the\nuniverse by affirming the sovereignty of spirit.  To say that there is\nreason, that there is thought, in things--that they move towards an end\nor realise an order, a harmony, a good: this is to say that matter is\nsubordinate to spirit.  Now, to affirm this sovereignty of spirit is to\ncommit that act of initial religious faith of which I spoke at the\nbeginning; it is to feel in one's self and in the world something\nbesides matter, the mysterious energy of spirit.  This act of\nfaith--legitimate because inevitable--belongs to the subjective order\nof religious life, not to the objective order of science.  Teleology\nand the theory of final causes have been compromised because their\nspecific character has been mistaken; they have sometimes been\nassimilated to, and sometimes substituted for, mechanical causes in the\nexplanation of phenomena.  For an unknown scientific explanation has\nbeen substituted an appeal to a supernatural intention or volition of\nGod.  The savants rightly protested against this.  God, who is the\nfinal reason of everything, is the scientific explanation of nothing.\nThe object of science is to search for second causes; where these do\nnot appear there is no science.  It is faith which replaces it.  To say\nthat God created the world, or that the world tends toward the\nsovereign good, is not to advance positive science a single step.  On\nthe other hand, to explain the phenomena of rain, or thunder, or the\nfall of bodies, is to dissipate some mythological conceptions; but it\nis not to suppress the religious affirmation of spirit that the\nmechanism of the universe has an end, and that the laws of gravitation\nand the material forces serve some purpose of which they are ignorant,\nand which is of more value than themselves.\n\nBetween the discoveries of science and the postulates of the religious\nand moral life there is always necessarily formed a synthesis which is\ndestroyed at each step, but which rises again higher and larger than\nbefore.  Mechanism itself, in order to be intelligible, calls for\nteleology.  The text of the material world awaits the interpretation\nthat spirit gives of it.  By its discoveries positive science\nestablishes the text.  Without this rigorous establishment of the text,\nthe exegesis of consciousness remains a phantasy.  But, without that\nexegesis, the text itself signifies nothing; it is almost as if it did\nnot exist.\n\nThere is another reason, a practical reason, which makes of teleology\nthe very essence of the religious consciousness.  We must never lose\nsight of the fact that what we seek in and by religion is the key to\nthe enigma of life.  The enigma of the universe only torments us, at\nthe religious point of view, because we believe that in this is the\nsecret of that.  We are embarked in the vessel, and we see clearly\nenough that our destiny depends upon its own.  That is why religious\nfaith, perfectly indifferent to the architecture and to the ways and\nmeans of the construction of the vessel, regards above all the\ndirection in which the sails are set, and seeks to discover the route\nwhich is being followed.  Has it a compass?  And is there some one at\nthe helm?\n\nIn other words, the religious instinct is the pressing need that spirit\nhas to guarantee itself against the perpetual menaces of Nature.  Faith\njudges everything from the point of view of the sovereign good, and the\nsovereign good, for spirit, can only be the final and complete\nexpansion of the life of the spirit.  Therefore, in every religious\nnotion there will never, at bottom, be anything but a teleological\njudgment.  It is not the essence of things--it is their reciprocal\nvalue and their hierarchy which interest religious faith.  In the\nreligious notion of God it is not the metaphysical nature--it is the\nwill of God in regard to men--which is of most concern; and in the\nreligious notion of the world it is not the mechanical cause of\nphenomena--it is to know which way the world is going, and whether it\nhas any other end to serve than as the theatre and the organ of spirit.\nWhat does faith itself desire to say when it defines God as the Eternal\nand Almighty Spirit, except that man needs to affirm that his own\nindividual spirit does not depend on any but a spiritual power like\nhimself?  It is true that to determine this final cause of the world is\nalso to determine its first cause.  It is the same thing in other\nterms; and indeed it is to make metaphysics in the etymological sense\nof the word.  The important point is to know that this decisive step\nbeyond the chain of visible phenomena, whether it be taken by the\nphilosopher or the theologian, is always an act of subjective life, an\naffirmation of spirit, an act of faith, and not a demonstration of\nscience.\n\n\n6. _Symbolism_\n\nThirdly, and lastly, religious knowledge is _symbolical_.  All the\nnotions it forms and organises, from the first metaphor created by\nreligious feeling to the most abstract theological speculation, are\nnecessarily inadequate to their object.  They are never equivalent, as\nin the case of the exact sciences.\n\nThe reason is easy to discover.  The object of religion is\ntranscendent; it is not a phenomenon.  Now, in order to express that\nobject, our imagination has nothing at its disposal but phenomenal\nimages, and our understanding, logical categories, which do not go\nbeyond space and time.  Religious knowledge is therefore obliged to\nexpress the invisible by the visible, the eternal by the temporary,\nspiritual realities by sensible images.  It can only speak in parables.\nThe theory of religious knowledge requires for its completion a theory\nof symbols and symbolism.\n\nWhat is a symbol?  To express the invisible and spiritual by the\nsensible and material--such is its principal characteristic and its\nessential function.  It is a living organism, in which we must\ndistinguish between appearance and substance.  It is a soul in a body.\nThe body is the manifestation of the soul, although it is not like it;\nit makes the soul active and present.  The most perfect example of\nsymbolism, in this respect, is found in language and writing--two\nincarnations of thought.  Neither the characters formed by my pen, nor\nthe sound made by the air in my larynx, have a positive resemblance to\nmy thought.  But these letters and sounds become signs to those who\nhave the key to them.  They express the intangible thought; they make\nit present and living in the minds of those who read or hear.\n\nThis is still truer of the creations of art.  They also are mere\nsymbols.  Art might be defined as the effort to enshrine the ideal in\nthe real, and by a material form to express the inexpressible.  This is\nclearly taught by the word _poesy_, which means creation.  The works of\ngreat artists really live; for they have a soul, a rich and intense\nlife, which the material form at once conceals and reveals.  From\narchitecture to music there is not an art that is not symbolical.\nEthics, religion, all the disciplines relating to the subjective life\nof spirit, have only this means of expression.  It is their peculiarity\nto become exterior and objective, and to dominate the external things\nthat science studies.  Symbols, much better than science, attest the\nvictory and the royalty of spirit.  If science reveals Nature, symbols\nmake of Nature, of its transformations and its laws, the glorified\nimage of the inner life of spirit.\n\nBorn in the artist's soul, of the subjective activity of his ego, the\nsymbol addresses itself much less to the pure intellect than to the\ninner life and to the emotions of those who contemplate it.  It awakes\nand sets in motion the subjective activity of the ego; it has produced\nits whole effect when it has produced in us the emotions, the\ntransport, the enthusiasm, the faith, that the poet himself experienced\nin engendering it.  Such is the source and the explanation of \"the\nmagic of art,\" of eloquence, of religious inspiration.  All the\ncreators of living symbols pour their soul into our soul, their life\ninto our life.  They subjugate and ravish us.  By symbols, much better\nthan by scientific notions, the community and fraternity of spirits is\nrealised, and the fusion of souls into a collective consciousness\neffected; a consciousness which includes all individual minds and tunes\nthem into harmony; the consciousness of a nation, of a church, of\nhumanity.  It is not science that rules the world--it is symbols.\n\nInferior to the exact ideas of science in logical clearness, symbolic\nforms are superior to them in power and reach.  Science is forcibly\narrested at the surface of things, at the appearances continually\narising in the universe.  In it is found neither the principle of\nenergy, nor, consequently, the secret of life, or the key to our\ndestiny.  You seek the meaning and the end of your action; you ask for\nsome sufficient reason for living; do you not feel that it is\ncontradictory to address yourself to the science of phenomena, seeing\nthat, from the strictly scientific point of view, phenomena have not in\nthemselves their own _raison d'etre_?  That which you seek is beyond\nphenomena, and it is symbols alone that can, not make you comprehend\nit, but reveal it to you.\n\nSince Nature may become and does become, in art and in religion, the\nconstant symbol of the inner life of spirit and of its normal\ndevelopment,--since it is susceptible of this perpetual and glorious\ntransfiguration by spirit,--it is impossible not to admit the inner\ncorrespondence of the laws of Nature and the laws of conscious life,\nand to believe in their deep unity.  It is, in fact, secret and\npowerful analogies which rule and inspire symbolical creations.  Art\nand religion are more than conventions; they are revelations of that\nwhich is hidden at once in spirit and in Nature, of the principle of\nBeing itself, of the absolute energy which is manifested, parallelly,\nin the unfolding of the physical universe and of the moral universe.\nAll things cover some mystery; phenomena are simply veils.  That is\nwhy, by their very destination, they become symbols.\n\nThe idea of symbol and the idea of mystery are correlative.  Who says\nsymbol says at the same time occultation and revelation.  In becoming\npresent and even sensible, the living verity still remains veiled.  The\nsame image that reveals it to the heart remains for the intellect an\nimpassable barrier.  One may say of it what the poet says of the sense\nof the infinite, for, at bottom, it is the same thing.  \"We are\nrestless because we see it but can never comprehend it.\"\n\nThis inquietude is soothed by a clear knowledge of the cause from which\nit springs.  Symbols are the only language suited to religion.  We need\nto know that which we adore; for no one adores that of which he has no\nperception; but it is not less necessary that we should not comprehend\nit, for one does not adore that which he comprehends too clearly,\nbecause to comprehend is to dominate.  Such is the twofold and\ncontradictory condition of piety, to which symbols seem to be made\nexpressly in order to respond.  Piety has never had any other language.\n\nIn considerations of this kind might be found the explanation of the\nbond which in the beginning unites religion and art.  But we must\nconfine ourselves to our special topic, and proceed to inquire what it\nis that constitutes the life and power of religious symbols.\n\nIt would be an illusion to believe that a religious symbol represents\nGod in Himself, and that its value, therefore, depends on the\nexactitude with which it represents Him.  The true content of the\nsymbol is entirely subjective: it is the conscious relation of the\nsubject to God, or rather, it is the way he feels himself affected by\nGod.  Thus when the Psalmist exclaims: \"The Lord is my rock\"; or \"God\nis a devouring fire\"; when the Christ teaches us to say, \"Our\nFather,\"--these are not scientific, and in this case metaphysical,\ndefinitions of God.  What these images simply translate is the relation\nof absolute confidence, of awe, of filial love, which, by His\nmysterious action, the Spirit of God creates in revealing Himself in\nthe spirit of man.  From these divers feelings spring spontaneously the\nstrong and simple images which translate them, and which, if these\nsubjective experiences are eliminated, have no content and no truth.\n\nFrom this point of view we may see in what religious inspiration\npsychologically consists.  Neither its aim nor its effect is to\ncommunicate to men exact, objective, ready-made ideas on that which by\nits nature is unknowable under the scientific mode; but it consists in\nan enrichment and exaltation of the inner life of its subject; it sets\nin motion his inward religious activity, since it is in that that God\nreveals Himself; it excites new feelings, constituting new concrete\nrelations of God to man, and by the fact of this creative activity it\nspontaneously engenders new images and new symbols, of which the real\ncontent is precisely this revelation of the God-spirit in the inner\nlife of the spirit of man.\n\nThe greatest initiators in the religious order have been the greatest\ncreators of symbols.  Prophecy, in the Biblical sense of the word, has\nnever given divine revelation except in the form of images.  And whence\nspring these images but from the exaltation of the religious life of\nthe prophet which spontaneously expresses itself without?  Every other\nconception of inspiration is anti-psychological.\n\nTo the question, Whence come the life and power of symbols? we reply:\nFrom the primitive organic unity of the sentiment of piety, and of the\nimage which translates it first to consciousness.  It is the organic\nunity of soul and body.  The greater the creative force that engenders\nthe symbol, the stronger is this unity.  It constitutes its truth\nbecause it constitutes its life.  For a symbol, to be living it\nsuffices that it should be sincere, that the feeling should not be\nseparate from the image, nor the image from the feeling.  To this cry\nof confidence in God, \"The Lord is my rock,\" there is no objection, so\nlong as this confidence is really felt, although a rock is a very poor\nimage of God.  It follows that the value of a symbol must not be\nmeasured by the nature of the image employed, but by the moral value,\nin the scale of feeling, of the relation in which it places us to God.\nIt is the moral value of this relation which alone makes the intrinsic\nvalue of a religion, and which permits us to assign to it its true\nplace in the development of humanity.\n\nThe time comes, however, when the image detaches itself from the\nfeeling that produced it, and when it fixes itself as such in the\nmemory.  In considering it in itself, reflection transforms the image\ninto an idea more or less abstract, and takes this idea for a\nrepresentation of the object of religion.  But then arises the original\ndiscrepancy that we noted at the outset between the object of religion,\nwhich is transcendent, and the nature of the phenomenal image by which\nwe attempt to represent it.  Hence there is a latent contradiction in\nevery symbolic idea.  To get rid of this contradiction the\nunderstanding is obliged to eliminate from these ideas the sensible\nelement which remains in them and renders them inadequate to their\nobject.\n\nBy progressive generalisation and abstraction, reasoning attenuates the\nprimitive metaphor; it wears it down as on a grindstone.  But, when the\nmetaphorical element has disappeared, the notion itself vanishes in so\nfar as it is a positive notion.  There are mysterious lamps which only\nburn under an alabaster globe.  You may thin away the solid envelope to\nmake it more transparent.  But mind you do not break it; for the flame\ninside will then go out and leave you in the dark.\n\nSo with all our general ideas of the object of religion.  When every\nmetaphorical element is eliminated from them, they become simply\nnegative, contradictory, and lose all real content.  Such are our pure\nideas of the infinite and the absolute.  If you would give them a\npositive character, you must put into them some element of positive\nexperience.  This is what is done when it is said that God is the\nultimate energy of things, that He is the creative cause of everything,\nthat He is Justice, that He is Spirit, a Judge, a Father.\n\nBorn of the primitive symbols of religion, all our religious ideas will\ntherefore necessarily keep their symbolical character to the end.  As\nis the seed, so is the plant.  Dogmatics itself will never be for the\nreligious soul anything but a higher symbolism--that is to say, a form\nwhich, without the inward presence of active and living faith, would be\nworthless.  If dogmas may sustain and produce faith, it is still more\ntrue that, at the outset, it is faith which produces dogmas and\nafterwards revives them.\n\nMany good men withstand these conclusions from a rigorous analysis of\nreligious knowledge and of its psychological genesis.  Supposing you\nare right, they say, and that the mental constitution of our spiritual\nnature confines religious thought to symbolic forms, cannot a\nsupernatural revelation enable us to pass beyond these limits and bring\nto us religious ideas adequate to their object, and consequently of a\npure and absolute truth?  This seems to us a very strange desire--that\na revelation of God should be effected apart from the conditions of\nknowledge--that is to say, apart from the forms under which alone it\ncan be accessible to us.  Do they not see that the very idea of\nrevelation soon becomes contradictory?  If God wished to make us a gift\nthat we could receive, must He not have suited the form of it to that\nof our mind?  Must He not have availed Himself of our ideas and of our\nlanguage in order to explain to us the nature of His benefits?  Now, it\nis certain that our ideas, as soon as they are transported outside\nspace and time, contradict and destroy themselves, and that we are\nreduced to the necessity of conceiving and expressing things invisible\nand eternal by images actual and terrestrial.  If God, in speaking to\nus of His mysteries, used other than these human means, we should not\nunderstand Him at all, so that the revelation would no longer be a\nrevelation.  And is it not for this reason that when God has desired to\nreveal Himself to men He has never employed any but men as His organs,\nand that He whom we name His Son never spoke except in images and\nparables of the things of the kingdom of God?\n\nNo one in fact was fonder and more intelligently fond of this\nsymbolical form than the Christ; He never wished to employ any other.\nThis preference did not arise, as is supposed, merely from the fact\nthat He found it a happy means of popularity to adapt Himself to all\nminds.  He also knew that no language was more natural or more\nconformed to the moral exigencies of piety.  He saw in it an\ninstitution ordained by God Himself.  And it is the truth.  The Parable\naddresses itself, not to the pure understanding, but to the active\nfaculty of the ego, to \"the heart.\"  It appeals to our subjective life;\nit awakens the religious need before satisfying it.  The soul which\nhears it meditates, and experiences the living content that it\ncontains.  On the contrary, the soul that is inert and dead finds\nnothing in the symbol and receives nothing from it even theoretically,\nso that it is literally true that the symbolic form, a shining\nrevelation unto some, remains a dull and empty letter for others.  It\nis from this point of view alone that it is possible to understand that\nother saying of Jesus, so paradoxical to common sense, so rich and just\nto the eyes of experience and of faith: \"To him that hath shall be\ngiven; from him that hath not shall be taken away that which he hath.\"\nThe gift of God comes only to the felt need and the active desire of\nman.\n\n\n7. _Conclusion_\n\nThe conclusion from all that has now been said is that religious\nknowledge is subject to the law of transformation which regulates all\nthe manifestations of human life and thought.\n\nAs there is disproportion and disparity between the object of religion\nand its means of expression, it will always be possible and necessary\nto distinguish, in all its creations, between the form and the\nsubstance, the body and the soul.  Religious symbolism will therefore\nalways be very variable _de facto_, but subject, _de jure_, to new\ninterpretations.\n\nThis variability, however, is not unlimited.  It is necessarily\nconfined within limits which, while not easy to define theoretically,\nare none the less precise and fixed; for the great religious creations\nare organisms, and every organism carries in itself, determined by its\nown nature, the exact capacity of its metamorphoses.\n\nIn every living organism, in fact, there is a principle of stability\nand a principle of movement.  The identity of a human being persists\nthrough all the modifications, internal and external, which he\nundergoes.  So with the language of a people; and so with every\nhistorical religion.  Its fundamental and regulative principle is the\nrelation it establishes between the soul and God.  The form or external\nrealisation of this principle depends, no doubt, on the race, the\ngeographical environment, the historical period.  It will vary\ntherefore with these circumstances.  But the religious type or organic\nprinciple remaining the same, this religion will appear the same\nthroughout the incessant movement of its dogmas, rites, and symbols.\nThis is the very condition of its life.  Forms which cannot bend,\nsymbols whose fresh and living interpretation is exhausted, a rigid\nbody that no longer assimilates or eliminates any external element,\nrepresent a state of sterility and death, to be followed by a speedy\ndissolution.\n\nPious men are right in clinging obstinately to the stability of their\nprinciple of piety, but they ought to cling as tenaciously to the\nrenewal of forms and ideas in their religion; for this is the only\nproof that their treasure has kept its value, and their religious\nprinciple its organising virtue.  The life of a religion is measured by\nthis power of adaptation and renovation.  If Christianity is the\nuniversal and eternal religion, it is because its virtuality in this\nrespect is infinite.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nBefore I close, let me try to prevent two misunderstandings.  In saying\nthat in dogmas we must distinguish the religious substance and the\nintellectual form, I do not mean that we either can or ought to isolate\nthem from each other, or that we can ever hope to have them separately.\nPiety is only conscious for us and discernible by others when incarnate\nin its expression or intellectual image.  A religion without doctrine,\na piety without thought, a feeling without expression, these are things\nessentially contradictory.  It is as vain to wish to seize pure piety,\nas in philosophy it is to seek to define \"the thing in itself.\"  When\nwe speak of the inward religious fact, then, of pious experience, we do\nnot speak of a bare experience; we speak of a psychological phenomenon,\nof a precise and, consequently, formulated experience.\n\nIn the second place, for religious science, it is not a question of\nisolated experience, of the experience of a single individual.  The\nmaterial would be too precarious, and the field of observation too\nlimited.  The question refers to the individual life in its continuity,\nand to the life of the religious society considered in its historical\ndevelopment.\n\nA social and universal as much and even more than it is an individual\nfact, it is in the social life of the species, in organised religious\nsocieties, in their institutions, their common worship, their liturgy,\ntheir rules of faith and discipline, that religion objectively realises\nits fundamental principle, manifests its inner soul, and develops all\nits power.  It is only as a social manifestation that it can become an\nobject of scientific study, and that it has need of explanation.\nMoreover, a religious life which remains hidden in the individual\nconsciousness, which does not communicate itself, which does not create\nany spiritual solidarity, any fraternity of soul, is as if it were not;\nit is a mere film of feeling, an ephemeral poetic flower, which has no\nmore effect on the individual himself than it has on the human race.\n\nFrom these considerations springs a method.  The dogmatic treatment of\nreligious knowledge will have for its subject the tradition of the\nreligious society as it is fixed, conserved, and developed in its\nhistoric monuments.  It will consider that tradition from the symbolic\npoint of view, as the objective revelation of the inner life of the\nChurch, and of its piety.  The tradition will then appear not as\nsomething dead and immutable, but as a power continuing in ourselves.\nTo grasp this soul in its fruitful continuity and in the perpetual\nrenewal of the external organism; to comprehend them in their living\nunity; to tell the story of the genesis of dogmas and their endless\nmetamorphoses as a constant and necessary incarnation of the principle\nthat is manifested in them; to follow this uninterrupted chain in\nhistory, and prolong it into our own life,--such is the method, at once\ncritical and positive, conservative and progressive, firm in piety and\nalways deferential to science, which critical symbolism enables us to\napply to all religious creations.\n\nThe error of that form of religious knowledge called _Orthodoxy_ is\nthat of forgetting the historically and psychologically conditioned\ncharacter of all doctrines, and of desiring to raise into the absolute\nthat which is born in time, and which must necessarily modify itself in\norder to live in time.  Impotent to arrest the current of ideas and the\nmovement of minds, it can only establish its rule by political\nmeasures, by regulations enacted and applied like civil laws--decisions\nof popes, bishops, or synods, trials for heresy, dogmatic tribunals.\nOrthodoxy has lost the sense of the symbolical character of Confessions\nof Faith, which, however, it still names symbols.  Its misfortune and\nits failing is to be anti-historical.\n\nThe error of _Rationalism_, at once the brother and the enemy of\northodoxy, is of the same nature, but it is produced in an opposite\nsense.  It does not lose sight of the imperfect and precarious\ncharacter of traditional dogmas and symbols; it exaggerates it; but it\nloses sight of their specifically religious contents.  Orthodoxy is\nmistaken as to the nature of the body of religion; rationalism as to\nthe nature of its soul.  Beneath the old traditional ideas it seeks for\nother ideas, moral or rational ideas, freer from sensible elements, and\nless contradictory, which it mistakes for the essence of religion.  It\nreplaces dogmas by other dogmas which it believes to be more simple,\nand which it regards as absolute truth.  But in giving to religion a\nrational or doctrinal content, it empties it of its real content, of\nspecific religious experience; it kills faith, which no longer having\nan object of its own, no longer has a _raison d'etre_.  It has less\nliking than orthodoxy for symbolism and for religious creations; it is\nradically impossible for it to comprehend, and consequently to\ninterpret, them.  The chief vice and the misfortune of rationalism is\nto be anti-religious.\n\nThe theory of _Critical Symbolism_, whose broad outlines we have\ntraced, will bring us out of this old antithesis.  It shows to us the\nkind of truth and the legitimacy possessed by symbolical ideas, without\nignoring the psychological and historical determinism which rules their\nform and their appearance.  It must not be imagined that, from this\npoint of view, everything becomes fluid and inconstant in\nreligion--that nothing in it can be fixed or permanent.  In the\nprogress of his life, man is destined to realise his spiritual nature,\nto attain to what St. Paul calls \"the stature of Christ,\" in which the\nreligious and moral ideal is realised.  This moral stature is a\nreality, the highest of all realities.  We tend towards it without\nceasing, and the value of each moment of our inner life is measured by\nthe progress that it marks towards that supreme end.  For this inner\nlife there is a norm which imposes itself on the consciousness with an\nimperative necessity, and, consequently, there may be religious symbols\nwhich are normal and normative in relation to others.  These are the\nsymbols which represent with perfect simplicity and fitness either this\nideal end of the Christian life or some of the necessary moments\nthrough which the soul passes on the way to it.  There are symbols, in\na word, such as that of the Heavenly Father, the Kingdom of God, the\nNew Birth, the Effusion of the Holy Spirit, so intimately bound up with\nour religious life, with its origin, its progress, or its end, which\none cannot conceive as disappearing, so long as the spiritual life of\nhumanity exists.  All the exclusively religious words of Christ which\nbear directly on the consciousness are of this number.  And it is of\nthem that He was able to say without being contradicted by the ages:\n\"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.\"\n\nOn the other hand, it is no less impossible to ignore the distinction\nwe have made in symbol between substance and form.  Now, this\ndistinction opens the door to criticism.  The most conservative of\nChristians confess that men may adhere to a doctrine without having\nappropriated its religious content; that they may be orthodox without\nbeing pious.  They therefore make it the duty of every member of the\nChurch to assimilate the contents of the symbol.  But how can the duty\nof personal assimilation be imposed without the right arising to\ncritically interpret the transmitted forms?  Is it not a psychological\nnecessity for each believer to bring his inner religious consciousness\ninto harmony with his general culture?  What if these syntheses and\nconciliations are necessarily unstable and precarious because of the\nconstant development of life and knowledge?  When a man is walking his\nequilibrium is destroyed and re-established at each step.  It is the\nvery condition of walking.\n\nSymbolism, which thus makes peace in the individual, may also effect it\nin religious societies.  In Catholicism the unity of the Church is only\nmaintained by a central infallible authority and by political means.\nThat authority creates peace by imposing silence.  Dogmas only subsist\nbecause no one concerns himself with them.  Can Protestant communities\nmaintain their unity by the same method?  The Catholic method ruins\nProtestant communities, inevitably, by causing schisms frequent in\nproportion as their life and thought become intense.  The theory of\nsymbolism offers them a more honourable issue.  It permits them to\ncombine veneration for traditional symbols with perfect independence of\nspirit by leaving to believers, on their own responsibility, the right\nto assimilate them and adapt them to their experiences.  They will\nattach themselves to tradition with all the more sincerity and zeal as\neach one is able to find in it that of which his religious faith has\nneed.  It will be a help and not a yoke.  Men will love it; they will\ndefend it as the link between the generations, as a family heritage, as\nthe place where souls of every race and age, and stage of scientific\nculture, meet and mingle and commune.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n\nREPLY TO CRITICISMS\n\nBefore laying down the pen, I ought perhaps to reply to one or two\nobjections.\n\nThe first reproach that has been addressed to me is contained in the\nwords, \"Naturalistic Evolutionism.\"  A conception more or less\nmaterialistic of the universe is thus attributed to me, according to\nwhich, like Herbert Spencer, I should explain all things by the single\nlaw of evolution, and end sooner or later by reducing the laws of the\nmoral world to the laws of the physical world, since I make of the\nfirst a simple transformation of the second.  Need I say that this is\nthe very opposite of my thought?  It is true that I like to use the\nword evolution, and to consider all phenomena in their natural\nsuccession.  But this is not a metaphysical doctrine; it is a process\nof study, a method which consists in these two essential rules: to\nobserve each fact as it presents itself; and to observe it in its\norder, _i.e._ in the conditions in which it presents itself, because a\nfact only possesses its truth and value in that order and succession.\nOn our planet, moral life emerges slowly and painfully out of organic\nlife.  Must we therefore conclude that there is no more in the one than\nin the other, and that they are of equal value?  Certainly not.  Both\nthese series of phenomena must be placed in their relations and\nconnections; but the method which makes them known to me gives me no\nmore right to confound them than to separate them, to ignore their\ndifferences than to forget their analogies.  It shows me, on the\ncontrary, that there is advance, _real_ progress from the one to the\nother; that the first in date has its end in the second; that there is\na sort of living and continuous creation, each stage and degree of\nwhich reveals new riches and new glories.  This is so thoroughly the\noasis of my religious philosophy that there would be more ground or, at\nall events, more excuse for accusing me of denying the reality of the\nworld than the continuous action of the Divine Creator.\n\nIt is true that the one reproach has not saved me from the other.  Both\nhave been addressed to me by persons who have not taken the trouble to\nreconcile them.  The accusation of Pantheism, contradictory as it may\nseem, has been added to that of Naturalistic Evolutionism.  I have been\nmade to appear the blind and docile disciple of an idealism more or\nless Hegelian, which would annihilate the reality of second causes in\norder to contemplate in the universe the flux and transformation of a\nfirst cause or substance, of which one might either say that it is\neverything or that it is nothing.  But here, again, they lose sight of\nthe character of the method that I follow.  It leads me to discover in\nmy consciousness the mysterious and real co-existence of a particular\ncause, which is myself, and of a universal cause, which is God.  That,\nI repeat, is a mystery impenetrable to analysis, but undeniable by any\nman who examines himself and enters into the ultimate basis of his\nlife.  It is the mystery out of which religion springs by an invincible\nnecessity.  Now, as this mystery is posited by me at the very outset of\nmy researches, and maintained to the end, how can they legitimately\nreproach me with sacrificing either of the two terms which constitute\nit to the other--the first effect of which would be to dissipate and\nmake impossible my theory of the psychological origin of religion?  \"In\nme,\" said Charles Secretan, \"lives some one greater than me\"--a\nmysterious guest whose universal and eternal action I feel beneath the\nvariable phenomena of my empirical activity, to Whom, when I am good,\nconfiding, humble, brave, I always attribute my goodness, my faith, my\ncourage, my humility, as to Him I attribute my whole life.\n\nI cannot comprehend the co-existence of the finite and the infinite;\nbut this duality is everywhere.  I observe that in the physical as in\nthe moral world there is, in each phenomenon, a latent force, a sort of\npotential energy, which raises it and urges it beyond itself.  Nature\nis perpetually becoming, that is to say, in perpetual travail.  It is\nnot true that there is nothing new under the sun, and that the future\nmust simply repeat the past.  Creation is not yet completed.  \"My\nFather worketh hitherto,\" said Jesus.  \"It doth not yet appear what we\nshall be.\"  But the little that I perceive of the Divine work\ndemonstrates to me that it is progressive, that it raises and enriches\nlife at every step, and that this progress accounts exactly for the\nessential antinomies amid which my reason loses itself and my heart\nadores.  To wish to reduce everything to unity is to turn the kingdom\nof life into the domain of death.  For my part, I have long since\nrenounced what is justly called \"the philosophy of identity,\" that\nabstract dialectic which, throwing all things back to their point of\nlogical departure, renders perfectly incomprehensible and superfluous\nthe ephemeral development which they have in our consciousness and in\nhistory.  The painful contradictions observed by Pascal in our moral\nlife, and the insoluble antinomies in our thought unveiled by Kant,\nalways seem to me to go nearer to the bottom of things than the\nontological deductions of Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nIn this book I have hardly noted any but facts that have been verified\nin myself and by myself.  It is true that I suppose that every\nreflective reader is capable of finding them and tracing them out in\nhis own personal experience.  Those who are able and wishful to re-read\nmy book in themselves, and thus verify my analyses, may perhaps draw\nsome profit from it.  Those who read me otherwise will not only lose\ntheir time and pains--they will misunderstand at every step the meaning\nof my phrases and the direction of my ideas.  Beneath my reasonings or\nmy images they will put other ideas and other intentions than mine, and\nthey may afterwards, with an apparent good conscience, deduce from them\nthe most terrible consequences....  Philosophical language lends itself\nto all and permits all; and the mischief of it is that it would be\nuseless to desire to prevent these quarrels.  New explanations only\ngive rise to new misunderstandings, and simply serve to perpetuate a\ndispute without interest and without fruit.  We can only repeat the\nsaying of the ancient sages of Arabia: _Magna est veritas et\npraevalebit_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END","title":"Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychology and History","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":73079}