{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_47421/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_47421","id":"gutenberg_47421","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47421","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Irreligion and sociology","Religion","Social sciences"],"text":"THE NON-RELIGION\n  OF THE FUTURE\n\n  _A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY_\n\n\n  TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH\n  OF\n  M. GUYAU\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  NEW YORK\n  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY\n  1897\n\n\n\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1897,\n  BY\n  HENRY HOLT & CO.\n\n\n  THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,\n  RAHWAY, N. J.\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS.\n\n\n  INTRODUCTION.\n\n  I. Sociality the basis of religion\u2014Its definition.\n\n  II. The connection between religion, \u00e6sthetics, and morals.\n\n  III. The inevitable decomposition of all systems of dogmatic\n  religion; the state of \u201cnon-religion\u201d toward which the human mind\n  seems to tend\u2014The exact sense in which one must understand the\n  non-religion as distinguished from the \u201creligion of the future.\u201d\n\n  IV. The value and utility, for the time being, of religion; its\n  ultimate insufficiency,                                             1\n\n\n  Part First.\n\n  THE GENESIS OF RELIGIONS IN PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES.\n\n\n  _CHAPTER I._\n\n  RELIGIOUS PHYSICS.\n\n  IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM OF THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION\u2014UNIVERSALITY\n    OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OR SUPERSTITIONS\u2014VARIABILITY OF RELIGIONS AND\n    RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION.\n\n  I. Idealist theory which attributes the origin of religion to\n  a notion of the infinite\u2014Henotheism of Max M\u00fcller and Von\n  Hartmann\u2014M. Renan\u2019s Instinct for Divinity.\n\n  II. Theory of a worship of the dead and of spirits\u2014Herbert\n  Spencer\u2014Spencer\u2019s objections to the theory of the attribution of a\n  soul to natural forces.\n\n  III. Answer to objections\u2014Religious physics sociological in\n  form, and the substitution of relations between malevolent\n  or beneficent conscious beings for relations between natural\n  forces\u2014Sociomorphism of primitive Peoples,                        21\n\n\n  _CHAPTER II._\n\n  RELIGIOUS METAPHYSICS.\n\n  I. Animism or polydemonism\u2014Formation of the dualist conception of\n  spirit\u2014Social relations with spirits.\n\n  II. Providence and miracles\u2014The evolution of the dualist\n  conception of a special providence\u2014The conception of\n  miracles\u2014The supernatural and the natural\u2014Scientific explanation\n  and miracles\u2014Social and moral modifications in the character\n  of man, owing to supposed social relations with a special\n  providence\u2014Increasing sentiment of irresponsibility and passivity\n  and \u201cabsolute dependence.\u201d\n\n  III. The creation\u2014Genesis of the notion of creation\u2014The dualistic\n  elements in this idea\u2014Monism\u2014Classification of systems of\n  religious metaphysics\u2014Criticism of the classification proposed by\n  Von Hartmann\u2014Criticism of the classification proposed by Auguste\n  Comte,                                                             80\n\n\n  _CHAPTER III._\n\n  RELIGIOUS MORALS.\n\n  I. The laws which regulate the social relations between gods and\n  men\u2014Morality and immorality in primitive religions\u2014Extension of\n  friendly and hostile relations to the sphere of the gods\u2014Primitive\n  inability in matters of conscience, as in matters of art, to\n  distinguish the great from the monstrous.\n\n  II. The moral sanction in the society which includes gods and\n  men\u2014Patronage\u2014That divine intervention tends always to be\n  conceived after the model of human intervention and to sanction it.\n\n  III. Worship and religious rites\u2014Principles of reciprocity and\n  proportionality in the exchange of services\u2014Sacrifice\u2014Principle\n  of coercion and incantation\u2014Principle of habit and its relation\n  to rites\u2014Sorcery\u2014Sacerdotalism\u2014Prophecy\u2014The externals of\n  worship\u2014Dramatization and religious \u00e6sthetics.\n\n  IV. Subjective worship\u2014Adoration and love; their psychological\n  origin,                                                           113\n\n\n  Part Second.\n\n  THE DISSOLUTION OF RELIGIONS IN EXISTING SOCIETIES.\n\n\n  _CHAPTER I._\n\n  DOGMATIC FAITH.\n\n  I. Narrow dogmatic faith\u2014The credulity of primitive man: First,\n  spontaneous faith in the senses and imagination; Second, faith in\n  the testimony of superior men; Third, faith in the divine word, in\n  revelation, and in the sacred texts\u2014The literalness of dogmatic\n  faith\u2014Inevitable intolerance of narrow dogmatic faith\u2014Belief\n  in dogma, revelation, salvation, and damnation all result in\n  intolerance\u2014Modern tolerance.\n\n  II. Broad dogmatic faith\u2014Orthodox Protestantism\u2014Dogmas\n  of orthodox Protestantism\u2014Rational consequences of these\n  dogmas\u2014Logical failure of orthodox Protestantism.\n\n  III. The dissolution of dogmatic faith in modern society\u2014Reasons\n  that render this dissolution inevitable\u2014Comparative influence of\n  the various sciences; influence of public instruction, of means\n  of communication, of industry even and of commerce, etc.\u2014The\n  disappearance of belief in oracles and prophecies\u2014Gradual\n  disappearance of the belief in miracles, in devils, etc.,         136\n\n\n  _CHAPTER II._\n\n  SYMBOLIC AND MORAL FAITH.\n\n  I. Substitution of metaphysical symbolism for dogma\u2014Liberal\n  Protestantism\u2014Comparison with Brahmanism\u2014Substitution\n  of moral symbolism for metaphysical symbolism\u2014Moral\n  faith\u2014Kant\u2014Mill\u2014Matthew Arnold\u2014A literary explanation of the\n  Bible substituted for a literal explanation.\n\n  II. Criticism of symbolic faith\u2014Inconsequence of liberal\n  Protestantism\u2014Is Jesus of a more divine type than other great\n  geniuses?\u2014Does the Bible possess a greater authority in matters of\n  morals than any other masterpiece of poetry?\u2014Criticism of Matthew\n  Arnold\u2019s system\u2014Final absorption of religions by morality,       167\n\n\n  _CHAPTER III._\n\n  DISSOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS MORALITY.\n\n  I. The first durable element of religious morality:\n  Respect\u2014Alteration of respect by the addition of the notion of the\n  fear of God and divine vengeance.\n\n  II. Second durable element of religious morality:\n  Love\u2014Alteration of this element by the addition of ideas of\n  grace, predestination, damnation\u2014Caducous elements of religious\n  morality\u2014Mysticism\u2014Antagonism of divine love and human\n  love\u2014Asceticism\u2014Excesses of asceticism\u2014Especially in the\n  religions of the East\u2014Conception of sin in the modern mind.\n\n  III. Subjective worship and prayer\u2014The notion of prayer from\n  the point of view of modern science and philosophy\u2014Ecstasy\u2014The\n  survival of prayer,                                               195\n\n\n  _CHAPTER IV._\n\n  RELIGION AND NON-RELIGION AMONG THE PEOPLE.\n\n  I. Is religious sentiment an innate and imperishable possession of\n  humanity\u2014Frequent confusion of a sentiment for religion with a\n  sentiment for philosophy and morals\u2014Renan\u2014Max M\u00fcller\u2014Difference\n  between the evolution of belief in the individual and the evolution\n  of belief in the race\u2014Will the disappearance of faith leave a void\n  behind?\n\n  II. Will the dissolution of religion result in a dissolution\n  of morality among the people?\u2014Is religion the sole safeguard\n  of social authority and public morality?\u2014Christianity and\n  socialism\u2014Relation between non-religion and immorality, according\n  to statistics.\n\n  III. Is Protestantism a necessary transition stage between religion\n  and free-thought?\u2014Projects for Protestantizing France\u2014Michelet,\n  Quinet, De Laveleye, Renouvier, and Pillon\u2014Intellectual,\n  moral, and political superiority of Protestantism\u2014Utopian\n  character of the project\u2014Uselessness, for purposes of morals,\n  of substituting one religion for another\u2014Is the possession of\n  religion a condition _sine qua non_ of superiority in the struggle\n  for existence?\u2014Objections urged against France and the French\n  Revolution by Matthew Arnold; Greece and Judea compared, France\n  and Protestant nations compared\u2014Critical examination of Matthew\n  Arnold\u2019s theory\u2014Cannot free-thought, science, and art evolve their\n  respective ideals from within?                                    226\n\n\n  _CHAPTER V._\n\n  RELIGION AND NON-RELIGION AND THE CHILD.\n\n  I. Decline of religious education\u2014Defects of this education,\n  in especial in Catholic countries\u2014Means of lightening these\n  defects\u2014The priest\u2014The possibility of state-action on the priest.\n\n  II. Education provided by the state\u2014Primary instruction\u2014The\n  schoolmaster\u2014Secondary and higher instruction\u2014Should the history\n  of religion be introduced into the curriculum?\n\n  III. Education at home\u2014Should the father take no part in the\n  religious education of his children\u2014Evils of a preliminary\n  religious education to be followed by disillusionment\u2014The special\n  question of the immortality of the soul: what should be said to\n  children about death,                                             272\n\n\n  _CHAPTER VI._\n\n  RELIGION AND NON-RELIGION AMONG WOMEN.\n\n  Are women inherently predisposed toward religion and even toward\n  superstition?\u2014The nature of feminine intelligence\u2014Predominance\n  of the imagination\u2014Credulity\u2014Conservatism\u2014Feminine\n  sensibility\u2014Predominance of sentiment\u2014Tendency to mysticism\u2014Is\n  the moral sentiment among women based upon religion\u2014Influence\n  of religion and of non-religion upon modesty and love\u2014Origin of\n  modesty\u2014Love and perpetual virginity\u2014M. Renan\u2019s paradoxes on\n  the subject of monastic vows\u2014How woman\u2019s natural proclivities\n  may be turned to account by free-thought\u2014Influence exercised by\n  the wife\u2019s faith over the husband\u2014Instance of a conversion to\n  free-thought,                                                     295\n\n\n  _CHAPTER VII._\n\n  THE EFFECT OF RELIGION AND NON-RELIGION ON POPULATION AND THE\n    FUTURE OF THE RACE.\n\n  I. Importance of the problem of population\u2014Antagonism between\n  numerical strength and wealth\u2014Necessity of numbers for the\n  maintenance and progress of the race\u2014Necessity of giving the\n  advantage of numbers to the superior races\u2014Problem of population\n  in France\u2014Its relation to the religious problem\u2014Are the reasons\n  for the restriction of the number of births physiological, moral,\n  or economic?\u2014Malthusianism in France\u2014The true national peril.\n\n  II. Remedies\u2014Is a return to religion possible?\u2014Religious\n  powerlessness and growing tolerance in the matter\u2014The\n  influence that the law might exercise upon the causes of small\n  families\u2014Enumeration of these causes\u2014Reform of the law in\n  regard to filial duty\u2014(Support of parents)\u2014Reform of the law\n  of inheritance\u2014Reform of the military law for the purpose of\n  favouring large families and of permitting emigration to the French\n  colonies.\n\n  III. Influence of public education: its necessity as a substitute\n  for religious sentiment,                                          315\n\n\n  Part Third.\n\n  NON-RELIGION OF THE FUTURE.\n\n\n  _CHAPTER I._\n\n  RELIGIOUS INDIVIDUALISM.\n\n  I. Is a renovation of religion possible? 1. Is a unification of the\n  great religions to-day existing possible? 2. Is the appearance of a\n  new religion to be expected?\u2014Future miracles impossible\u2014Religious\n  poetry not to be expected\u2014Men of genius capable of sincerely\n  and na\u00efvely labouring in the creating of a new religion not to\n  be expected\u2014Impossibility of adding to the original stock of\n  religious ideas\u2014No new cult possible\u2014Last attempts at a new cult\n  in America and in France\u2014The Positivist cult\u2014Ethical culture\u2014Can\n  socialism renew religion?\u2014Advantages and defects of socialistic\n  experiments.\n\n  II. Religious anomy and the substitution of doubt for faith\u20141.\n  Will the absence of religion result in scepticism? Will the number\n  of sceptics increase with the disappearance of religion? 2.\n  Substitution of doubt for faith\u2014Genuinely religious character of\n  doubt.\n\n  III. Substitution of metaphysical hypothesis for\n  dogma\u2014Difference between religious sentiment and instinct for\n  metaphysics\u2014Imperishable character of the latter\u2014Sentiment\n  at once of the limits of science and of the infinity of our\n  ideal\u2014Spencer\u2019s attempted reconciliation of science and\n  religion\u2014Confusion of religion with metaphysics,                 350\n\n\n  _CHAPTER II._\n\n  ASSOCIATION. THE PERMANENT ELEMENT OF RELIGIONS IN SOCIAL LIFE.\n\n  SOCIAL ASPECT OF RELIGIONS\u2014RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND\n    CHURCHES\u2014IDEAL TYPE OF VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION\u2014ITS DIVERSE FORMS.\n\n  I. Associations for intellectual purposes\u2014How such associations\n  might preserve the most precious elements of religions\u2014Societies\n  for the advancement of science, philosophy, religion\u2014Dangers to\n  avoid\u2014Popularization of scientific ideas; propagandism in the\n  interests of science.\n\n  II. Associations for moral purposes\u2014Tendency of religion in the\n  best minds to become one with charity\u2014Pity and charity will\n  survive dogma\u2014R\u00f4le of enthusiasm in moral propagandism\u2014Necessity\n  of hope to sustain enthusiasm\u2014Possibility of propagating moral\n  ideas: 1. Apart from myths and religious dogmas; 2. Apart from\n  any notion of a religious sanction\u2014Baudelaire\u2019s conception of a\n  criminal and happy hero\u2014Criticism of that conception\u2014Worship of\n  the memory of the dead.\n\n  III. Associations for \u00e6sthetic purposes\u2014Worship of art and\n  nature\u2014Art and poetry will sever their connection with religion\n  and will survive it\u2014Necessity of developing the \u00e6sthetic sentiment\n  and the worship of art, as the religious sentiment becomes more\n  feeble\u2014Poetry, eloquence, music; their r\u00f4le in the future\u2014Final\n  substitution of art for rites\u2014Worship of nature\u2014Feeling\n  for nature originally an essential element of the religious\n  sentiment\u2014Superiority of a worship of nature over worship of human\n  art\u2014Nature is the true temple of the future,                     391\n\n\n  _CHAPTER III._\n\n  THEISM.\n\n  REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESES WHICH WILL REPLACE\n    DOGMA.\n\n  I. Introduction\u2014Progress of metaphysical hypotheses\u2014Metaphysical\n  hypotheses destined to increasing diversity in details, and\n  increasing agreement on essential points\u2014Importance of the\n  moral element in metaphysical hypotheses\u2014The part played by\n  conscience in human morality will not diminish, as Mr. Spencer\n  says\u2014Sympathetic groups under which divers systems of metaphysics\n  will be ranged.\n\n  II. Theism\u20141. Probable fate of the creation hypothesis\u2014The author\n  of the world conceived as a prime mover\u2014Eternity of movement\u2014The\n  author of the world conceived as a creator properly so\n  called\u2014Illusion involved in the conception of nothing\u2014Criticism\n  of the creation hypothesis from the point of view of morals: the\n  problem of evil and of the responsibility of the creator\u2014Attempts\n  to save optimism\u2014Hypothesis of a God creating free agents,\n  \u201cworkmen\u201d and not \u201cwork\u201d\u2014Reciprocal determinism and the illusion\n  of spontaneity\u2014Immorality of the temptation\u2014Hypothesis of the\n  fall, its impossibility\u2014God the tempter\u2014Lucifer and God\u20142.\n  Probable fate of the notion of Providence\u2014Hypotheses to explain\n  a special Providence and miracles thus insufficient\u2014Hypothesis\n  of a non-omnipotent God proposed by John Stuart Mill\u2014The God of\n  Comtism\u2014Religion should be not solely human but cosmic\u2014The fate\n  of the philosophical idea of God\u2014Rational religion proposed by the\n  neo-Kantians\u2014Ultimate transformation of the notion of divinity and\n  of Providence\u2014Human Providence and progressive divinity in the\n  world,                                                            424\n\n\n  _CHAPTER IV._\n\n  PANTHEISM.\n\n  REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESES WHICH WILL REPLACE\n    DOGMA.\u2014_Continued._\n\n  I. Optimistic pantheism\u2014Transformation of transcendent Deism\n  into immanent theism and pantheism\u2014Disanthropomorphized\n  God, according to Messrs. Fiske and Spencer\u2014Diverse forms\n  of pantheism\u2014Optimistic and intellectualistic pantheism of\n  Spinoza\u2014Objections, Spinoza\u2019s fatalism\u2014The moral significance\n  that might be lent to pantheism by the introduction of some notion\n  of a final cause\u2014Qualities and defects of pantheism\u2014Conception\n  of unity upon which it is founded\u2014This conception criticised\u2014Its\n  possible subjectivity.\n\n  II. Pessimistic pantheism\u2014Pessimistic interpretation of religions\n  in Germany\u20141. Causes of the progress of pessimism in the present\n  epoch\u2014Progress of pantheistic metaphysics and of positive\n  science\u2014Penalties incident to thought and reflection\u2014Mental\n  depression and sense of powerlessness, etc.\u20142. Is pessimism\n  curable?\u2014Possible remedies\u2014The labour problem and the future\n  of society\u2014Illusions involved in pessimism\u2014Inexactitude of its\n  estimate of pleasures and pains\u2014Quotation from Leopardi\u2014Criticism\n  of the practical results of pessimism\u2014Nirv\u00e2na\u2014An experiment in\n  Nirv\u00e2na\u2014Will pessimistic pantheism be the religion of the\n  future?                                                           452\n\n\n  _CHAPTER V._\n\n  IDEALISM, MATERIALISM, MONISM.\n\n  REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESES WHICH WILL REPLACE\n    DOGMA.\u2014_Concluded._\n\n  I. Idealism\u2014Different forms of idealism: subjective idealism,\n  objective idealism: The whole of existence resolved into a mode\n  of mental existence\u2014Value of idealism considered from point of\n  view of the religious sentiment\u2014Most specious of contemporary\n  idealisms: Possibility of universal progress in the hypothesis\n  of radical spontaneity and of \u201cfreedom\u201d\u2014Reconciliation between\n  determinism and the conception of freedom\u2014Moral idealism as a\n  possible substitute for religious sentiment: Dependence of the\n  universe on the principle of goodness.\n\n  II. Materialism\u2014Difficulty in defining absolute materialism:\n  Matter\u2014The atom\u2014Nebular hypothesis\u2014Hydrogen\u2014Necessity of\n  supplementing materialism by some theory of the origin of\n  life\u2014The latest conception of materialism: Conception of infinite\n  divisibility and infinite extensibility.\n\n  III. Monism and the fate of worlds\u2014Current of contemporary systems\n  toward monism\u2014Scientific interpretation of monism\u2014The world\n  conceived monistically as a becoming and as a life\u2014Scientific\n  formul\u00e6 for life\u2014Progress consists in the gradual confusion\n  of these two formul\u00e6\u2014That the rise of morality and religion\n  can be accounted for without the presupposition of any final\n  cause\u2014Metaphysical and moral expectations in regard to the\n  destiny of the world and of humanity, it may be, founded on\n  scientific monism\u2014Facts which appear to be inconsistent with\n  these expectations\u2014Pessimistic conception of dissolution that is\n  complementary to the conception of evolution\u2014Is the immanence of\n  dissolution demonstrable?\u2014Natural devices for the perpetuation of\n  the \u201cfittest\u201d\u2014R\u00f4le of intelligence, of numbers, etc.\u2014Calculation\n  of probabilities\u2014Is eternity _a parte post_ a ground of\n  discouragement or of hope\u2014Probable existence of thinking beings in\n  other worlds: the planets, possibility of the existence of beings\n  superior to man\u2014Survival of the conception of gods\u2014Hypothesis of\n  intercosmic consciousness and of a universal society.\n\n  IV. Destiny of the human race\u2014The hypothesis of immortality\n  from the point of view of monism\u2014Two possible conceptions of\n  immortality\u2014Eternal or untemporal existence and continuation of\n  life in some superior forms\u2014I. Hypothesis of eternal life\u2014its\n  function in antique religions, in Platonism, and in the systems of\n  Spinoza, Kant, and Schopenhauer\u2014Eternal life and the subsistence\n  of the individual\u2014Distinction made by Schopenhauer and various\n  other philosophers between individuality and personality\u2014Eternal\n  life problematical and transcendent\u2014Aristocratic tendency\n  of the theory of eternal life\u2014Hypothesis of conditional\n  immortality\u2014Criticism of the hypothesis of conditional\n  immortality; incompatibility of this notion with that of divine\n  goodness\u2014II. Hypothesis of a continuation of the present\n  life and its evolution into some superior form\u2014What sort\n  of immortality the theory of evolution permits us to hope\n  for\u2014Immortality of one\u2019s labours and conduct\u2014True conception of\n  such immortality\u2014Its relation to the laws of heredity, atavism,\n  natural selection\u2014Immortality of the individual\u2014Objections\n  drawn from science\u2014Protestations of affection against the\n  annihilation of the person\u2014Resulting antinomy\u2014III. Modern\n  opposition between the conception of _function_ and the conception\n  of simple substance, in which ancient philosophy endeavours to\n  find a proof of immortality\u2014Peripatetic theory of Wundt and\n  modern philosophers on the nature of the soul\u2014Immortality as\n  a continuation of function, proved not by the simplicity, but\n  by the complexity of consciousness\u2014Relation between complexity\n  and instability\u2014Three stages of social evolution\u2014Analogy of\n  conscience with a society, collective character of individual\n  consciousness\u2014Conception of progressive immortality\u2014Last product\n  of evolution and natural selection: (1) No necessary relation\n  between the compositeness and complexity of consciousness and its\n  dissolubility: indissoluble compounds in the physical universe\u2014(2)\n  Relation between consciousnesses, their possible fusion in a\n  superior consciousness\u2014Contemporary psychology and the religious\n  notion of the interpenetration of souls\u2014Possible evolution of\n  memory and identification of it with reality\u2014Palingenesis by\n  force of love\u2014Problematic character of those conceptions and of\n  every conception relative to existence, of consciousness and the\n  relation between existence and consciousness\u2014IV. Conception of\n  death appropriate to those who, in the present state of evolution,\n  do not believe in the immortality of the individual\u2014Antique and\n  modern stoicism\u2014Acceptance of death: element of melancholy and\n  of greatness in it\u2014Expansion of self by means of philosophical\n  thought, and scientific disinterestedness, to the point of to some\n  extent approving one\u2019s own annihilation,                          477\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n    I. Sociality the basis of religion\u2014Its definition.\n\n    II. The connection between religion, \u00e6sthetics, and morals.\n\n    III. The inevitable decomposition of all systems of dogmatic\n      religion; the state of \u201cnon-religion\u201d toward which the\n      human mind seems to tend\u2014The exact sense in which one\n      must understand the non-religion as distinguished from the\n      \u201creligion of the future.\u201d\n\n    IV. The value and utility, for the time being, of religion;\n      its ultimate insufficiency.\n\n\nI. We shall meet, in the course of this work, many different\ndefinitions that have at one time or another been given to religion.\nSome were assigned from the point of view of physics, others from that\nof metaphysics, others from that of morals, almost none from that of\nsociology. And yet, upon closer scrutiny, the notion of a _social bond_\nbetween man and the powers superior to him, but resembling him, is\nprecisely the point in which all religious conceptions are at one. Man\nbecomes truly religious, in our judgment, only when above the human\nsociety in which he lives he superimposes in his scheme of the world\nanother society, more powerful and more cultured, a universal and, so\nto speak, a cosmic society. The sphere of sociality, which is one of\nthe characteristics of humanity, must be enlarged till it reaches to\nthe stars. Sociality is the firm foundation of the religious sentiment,\nand a religious being might be defined as a being disposed to be\nsociable, not only with all living creatures with whom experience makes\nhim acquainted, but also with the creatures of thought with whom he\npeoples the world.\n\nThat _religion_ consists essentially in the establishment of a bond\u2014at\nfirst mythical, and subsequently mystic, in the first instance\nbetween man and the forces of the universe, then between man and the\nuniverse itself, and ultimately between man and the elements of the\nuniverse\u2014is distinctly the outcome of every study of religion; but\nwhat we wish especially here to consider is the precise way in which\nthis bond has been conceived. Well (it may appear more clearly at the\nclose of this inquiry), the religious bond has been conceived _ex\nanalogia societatis human\u00e6_: the relations, amicable and inimical, of\nmen to each other were employed first for the explanation of physical\nphenomena and natural forces, then for the metaphysical explanation\nof the world, of its creation, conservation, and government; in\nshort, sociological laws were universalized, and the state of war\nor peace which existed among men, families, tribes, and nations was\nconceived as existing also among the volitions which were fancied\nto exist beneath or beyond the forces of nature. A mythic or mystic\nsociology, conceived as containing the secret of all things, lies at\nthe basis of all religions. Religion is not simply the expression of an\nanthropomorphism\u2014animals and fantastic beings of various sorts have\nplayed no inconsiderable r\u00f4le in different cults; it is an imaginative\nextension, a universalization of all the good or evil relations which\nexist among conscious beings, of war and peace, friendship and enmity,\nobedience and rebellion, protection and authority, submission, fear,\nrespect, devotion, love: religion is a universal _sociomorphism_.\nSocial relations with animals, with the dead, intellectual and social\nrelations with good and evil genii, with the forces of nature, are\nnothing more nor less than various forms of this universal sociology\nin which religion has sought to find the reason of things\u2014of physical\nphenomena such as thunder, storm, sickness, death, as well as of\nmetaphysical relations\u2014the origin and destiny of things, and of moral\nrelations\u2014virtue, vice, law, and sanction.\n\nIf, therefore, we were forced to condense the theory of this book into\na single definition, we should say that religion is the outcome of an\neffort to explain all things\u2014physical, metaphysical, and moral\u2014by\nanalogies drawn from human society, imaginatively and symbolically\nconsidered. In short it is a universal sociological hypothesis,\nmythical in form.\n\nTo justify this conception we shall review the various definitions\nthat have been put forth of the religious sentiment; we shall see that\neach of them needs completion by the rest, and that, too, from the\nsociological point of view.\n\nThe definition which has perhaps been most widely adopted of late\nyears, with divers modifications by Strauss, by Pfleiderer, by Lotze,\nand by M. R\u00e9ville, is that of Schleiermacher. According to him, the\nessence of religion consists in the feeling that we all have of our own\nabsolute dependence. The powers in respect to which this dependence is\nfelt we call divinities. On the other hand, according to Feuerbach, the\norigin, nay the essence even of religion is desire: if man possessed\nno needs, no desires, he would possess no gods. If grief and evil did\nnot exist, says Hartmann later on, there would be no religion; the\ngods, even the gods of history, are no more than the powers to whom\nman looks for what he does not possess, and wants, to whom he looks\nfor relief, for salvation, for happiness. The respective definitions\nof Schleiermacher and Feuerbach, taken separately, are incomplete; it\nis at least necessary, as Strauss suggests, to superpose them. The\nreligious sentiment is primarily, no doubt, a feeling of dependence;\nbut this feeling of dependence, really to give birth to religion, must\nprovoke in one a reaction\u2014a desire of deliverance. To feel one\u2019s own\nweakness; to be conscious of limitations of all sorts which bound\none\u2019s life, and then to desire to augment one\u2019s power over one\u2019s self\nand over the material universe; to enlarge one\u2019s sphere of action;\nto attain once more to a comparative independence in face of the\nnecessities of every kind which hem one in\u2014such is the course of the\nhuman mind in the presence of the universe.\n\nBut here an objection occurs: precisely the same course seems to be\nfollowed by the mind in the establishment of science. In a scientific\nperiod man feels himself as profoundly _dependent_ as in a religious\nperiod, and this feeling of dependence is accompanied by a no less\nvivid reaction in the one case than in the other. The man of science\nand the believer alike aim at enfranchisement, but by different means.\nMust one be content, then, with an external and negative definition,\nand say with M. Darmesteter: \u201cReligion embraces all knowledge and all\npower not scientific\u201d?[1] A knowledge not scientific possesses all\nthe attributes of a contradiction in terms, and, as for a power not\nscientific, it is indispensable to distinguish it in some positive way\nfrom the power which is afforded us by science. Well, to keep close\nto the facts, the power of religion is that which we frankly do not\npossess, while the power of science is that which we do possess and\nknow that we possess. One might indeed fall back on the distinction\nbetween belief and certainty; but the man of science also has his\nbeliefs, his preferences for such and such a cosmological hypothesis,\nwhich, however, is not a religious belief, properly so called.\nReligious and moral \u201cfaith,\u201d as opposed to scientific \u201chypothesis,\u201d is\nan ultimate and very complete manifestation of the religious sentiment,\nwhich we shall examine later, though it carries with it no suggestion\nof its primitive origin.\n\n      [1] See an account given of the _Prol\u00e9gom\u00e8nes_ of M. Albert\n      R\u00e9ville, by M. Darmesteter, _Revue philosophique_, seventh\n      year, vol. i. p. 76.\n\nFrom the sociological point of view the distinction is plain. The\nreligious sentiment begins at the point where mechanical determinism\nseems to offer an opportunity in the world for a sort of _moral_ and\n_social_ reciprocity\u2014a possible _exchange_ of _sentiments_ and even\nof desires, between man and the powers of the universe, whatever they\nmay be. That point once reached, man no longer conceives it possible to\nmeasure the consequences of an act\u2014of using an axe, for example, on a\nsacred tree\u2014in the exact terms of mere mechanical reaction; for over\nand above the simple brute fact of what he has done, the sentiment or\nintention that it indicates must be taken into account and the probable\neffect of that for good or evil upon the gods. Religious sentiment\nis a feeling of dependence, on the part of primitive man, in respect\nto the intelligences, the _volitions_, with which he has peopled the\nuniverse and which he believes capable of _being affected agreeably\nor disagreeably_ by his conduct. Religious sentiment is not a feeling\nof mere physical dependence upon the universal frame of things; it\nis more than all a physical dependence, a moral, and in especial, a\nsocial dependence. This relation of dependence consists really of two\nreciprocal terms: if man is bound by it in some sort to the powers of\nnature, they in turn are bound by it to man; man has more or less of\na hold on them, he can offend them morally, just as he might offend\na fellow-man. If man is in the hand of the gods, he can in a measure\nforce the hand to open or shut. The divinities are in a sense dependent\nalso on man; they experience, as the result of his conduct, a measure\nof pleasure or of pain. It is only later that this idea of reciprocal\ndependence becomes metaphysical; it reaches its ultimate development\nin the concept of the \u201cabsolute,\u201d and in the sentiment of adoration or\nsimple \u201crespect.\u201d\n\nBesides the consciousness of dependence and the correlative need\nof a liberation of some sort from it, we find in the religious\nsentiment the expression of another _social_ need not less important;\nthe need of affection, of tenderness, of love. Our sensibility,\ndeveloped by hereditary instincts of sociality and by the force even\nof our imagination stretching out beyond the limits of this world,\ninstinctively seeks for a person, a commanding figure to lean on, to\nconfide in. When we are happy we need to bless some one; when we are\nwretched, we need some one to complain to, to groan to, even to curse.\nIt is hard to resign ourselves to the belief that no one hears us,\nthat no one a long way off sympathizes with us, that this swarming\nuniverse spins in the void. God is the friend with us at the first\nhour and at the last, with us always and in all places, even where no\nother friend can follow, even in death. To whom can we speak of those\nwe have loved and lost? Of the people about us, some hardly remember\nthem, others did not even know them; but in this divine and omnipresent\nBeing we find the society, which is constantly broken by death, once\nmore reunited: _In eo vivimus_, in Him we cannot die. From this point\nof view, God, the object of the religious sentiment, no longer seems\na guardian and master simply. He is better than a friend; He is a\nfather; in the beginning a severe father and all-powerful, as very\nyoung children imagine their fathers to be. Children readily believe\nthat their father can do anything, even work miracles: a word from him\nand the world moves; _fiat lux_, and the day is born; the distinction\nbetween evil and good lies in his will; disobedience to him naturally\ninvolves punishment. They judge his power by their weakness; and so the\nprimitive race of man felt toward God. But later a superior conception\narose; as man developed he developed his God, endowed him with a more\ngenerous list of moral attributes; and this God is ours. We feel the\nneed of a smile from Him after a sacrifice, the thought of Him sustains\nus. Woman especially, who is more immature in this respect than man,\nexperiences a greater need of a \u201cFather in heaven.\u201d When one wishes\nto deprive us of a god, to deliver us from celestial tutelage, we\nsuddenly find ourselves orphans. One might recognize a profound truth\nin the great symbol of Christ, the God, dying for the enfranchisement\nof human thought. This modern version of the \u201cpassion\u201d is enacted, it\nis true, only in the heart, but it is none the less agonizing; it stirs\none\u2019s indignation none the less, it dwells in one like the image of a\nfather who is dead. One cares less for the promised freedom than for\nthe protection and affection that are gone. Carlyle\u2014whimsical, unhappy\ngenius\u2014could eat no bread that his wife\u2019s own hands, nay his wife\u2019s\nown heart, had not prepared; and we are all like that; we all have need\nof daily bread kneaded with love and tenderness; and they that have no\nloving hand from which to look for it, ask it of their god, of their\nideal, of their dream; they create for themselves a family in the realm\nof imagination, they fill out the bosom of infinity by the addition of\na heart.\n\nThe social need for protection and love was evidently not so dominant\nin primitive times. The tutelary functions attributed to divinities\nwere at first confined to the more or less vulgar accidents of this\nlife. Later they were more especially directed toward one\u2019s moral\nemancipation and extended even beyond the tomb. Need of protection and\naffection leads ultimately to considerations on the destiny of man and\nthe world; and thus it is that religion, nearly physical in origin,\nissues in systems of metaphysics.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nII. This book is intimately related to two others that we have\npublished on \u00e6sthetics and on morals. We believe that the \u00e6sthetic\nsentiment is identical with self-conscious life, with life that is\nconscious of its own subjective intensity and harmony; beauty we\nhave said may be defined as a perception or an act that stimulates\nlife simultaneously on its three sides\u2014sensibility, intelligence,\nwill\u2014and that produces pleasure by the immediate consciousness of this\ngeneral stimulation. Moral sentiment, on the other hand, is identical,\nwe believe, with a consciousness of the powers and possibilities in\nthe sphere of practice of a life ideal in intensity and breadth of\ninterest. The bulk of these possibilities relates to one\u2019s power,\nin some form or other, of serving other people. Finally, religious\nsentiment appears when this consciousness of the social aspect of life\nis extended to the totality of conscious beings, and not only of real\nand living, but also of possible and ideal beings. It is, therefore,\nin the very notion of life, and of its various individual or social\nmanifestations, that the essential unity of \u00e6sthetics with morals and\nreligion is to be found.\n\nIn the first part of this work we shall trace the origin and evolution\nof sociological mythology. In the succeeding portions we shall consider\nwhether, if we once set aside the mythical or imaginative element which\nis essential to religion and which distinguishes it from philosophy,\nthe _sociological_ theory does not offer the most probable, and most\ncomprehensive, metaphysical explanation of the universe.[2]\n\n      [2] The importance which Auguste Comte attributed to sociology\n      is well known, but in his horror of metaphysics the founder\n      of positivism excluded from his science everything really\n      universal and cosmic that it contained, in order to reduce it\n      to limits exclusively human. Messrs. Spencer and Lilienfeld,\n      Schaeffle and Espinas, improving on the sociology of Comte,\n      have extended social laws and have shown that every living\n      organism is an embryonic society, and, _vice versa_, that every\n      society is an organism. A contemporary philosopher goes still\n      further and attributes to sociology a certain metaphysical\n      significance. M. Alfred Fouill\u00e9e says: \u201cSince biology and\n      sociology are so closely related, may not the laws that are\n      common to them be expected to suggest still more universal laws\n      of nature and thought? Is the entire universe anything more\n      than a vast society in process of formation, a vast system\n      of conscious and consciously striving atoms which is working\n      itself out, and little by little falling into shape? The laws\n      which govern the grouping of individual atoms in the body are,\n      no doubt, at bottom the same as those that govern the grouping\n      of individuals in society; and the very atoms themselves, which\n      are supposed to be indivisible, are, it may be, diminutive\n      societies. If so, social science, the crown of human sciences,\n      may some day give us, in its ultimate formula, the secret of\n      universal life.... It is conceivable that the universal type\n      of existence of the world may be found in sociology\u2014that the\n      universe may come to be conceived as a society in process\n      of formation; miscarrying here and succeeding there, in its\n      effort to transmute the reign of mechanics into a reign of\n      justice, and to substitute fraternity for antagonism. If so,\n      the essential and immanent power at the heart of beings,\n      always ready to manifest itself as soon as circumstances give\n      it access to the light of consciousness, might be expressed\n      by the single word, sociability.\u201d (Alfred Fouill\u00e9e, _La\n      Science sociale contemporaine_, 2d edition, introduction\n      and conclusion.) M. Fouill\u00e9e has not applied this theory to\n      religion; he has noted its suggestiveness in the domain of\n      metaphysics and of ethics simply; we believe, and we shall\n      endeavour to show, that it is not less suggestive in the domain\n      of religion.\n\n      This book was finished, and in part printed, when there\n      appeared in the _Revue philosophique_ M. Lesbazeilles\u2019\n      interesting article on _Les bases psychologiques de la\n      religion_.\n\n      Although the author\u2019s point of view, as the title indicates, is\n      throughout strictly psychological, he has given his attention\n      also to social relations and \u201cconditions of collective\n      adaptation,\u201d which he regards as prefigured, anticipated,\n      and sanctified by religious rites and myths. This, we think,\n      implies some confusion between religion and morality. Morality\n      deals with collective human life, but religion deals with\n      collective life generally, and undertakes at the same time to\n      provide a physical and a metaphysical explanation of things. We\n      shall see that in the beginning religion was a superstitious\n      physics, in which the forces of nature were regarded simply as\n      the expression of some unknown person or person\u2019s volitions,\n      and that it thus naturally assumed a sociological form.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIII. It is important that there should be no misunderstanding in regard\nto this _non-religion_ of the future, as contradistinguished from\nthe multitude of _religions of the future_ that have been recently\nexpounded. It has seemed to us that these various expositions are based\non a number of equivocations. In the first place religion, properly\nso-called, has sometimes been confused with metaphysics, sometimes with\nmorals, sometimes with both; and it is owing to this confusion that\nreligion has been conceived to be indestructible. Is it not by an abuse\nof language that Mr. Spencer, for example, gives the name of religion\nto speculations concerning the unknowable and thence readily deduces\nthe conclusion that religion, by which he means metaphysics, possesses\nan impregnable stronghold in the human mind? In the same way many other\ncontemporary philosophers, like Herr von Hartmann, the theologian\nof the unconscious, have not resisted the temptation of describing\nfor us a religion of the future, which resolves itself simply into\ntheir own system, whatever it may be, of philosophy. Others again,\nespecially among liberal Protestants, preserve the name of religion\nfor purely rationalistic systems of thought. There is, of course, a\nsense in which one may admit that metaphysics and morals constitute a\nreligion, or form at least the vanishing point toward which religion\ntends. But, in many books, the \u201creligion of the future\u201d is no more\nthan a somewhat hypocritical compromise with some form of positive\nreligion. Under cover of the symbolism dear to the Germans, they save\nin appearance what they in reality destroy. It is in opposition to\nthis species of subterfuge that we have adopted the less misleading\nterm of the \u201cNon-religion of the Future.\u201d Thus we separate ourselves\nfrom Von Hartmann and the other prophets who reveal to us, point by\npoint, the religion of the fiftieth century. When one approaches an\nobject of such ardent controversy it is better to employ words with\nexactness. Everything, first and last, has been included within the\nlimits of philosophy; even the sciences, on the pretext that all\nscientific researches were in the beginning undertaken by philosophy;\nand philosophy, in turn, has been included in religion, on the pretext\nthat originally religion embraced within its limits the whole of\nphilosophy and of science. Given a religion of some kind, even that of\nthe Fuegians, there is nothing to prevent one from reading into its\nmyths the last dictum of modern metaphysics; by this means a religion\nmay apparently continue in existence until there is no more left of it\nthan a mere envelope of religious phraseology covering and discovering\na wholly metaphysical and purely philosophical system. Better still,\non this method, since Christianity is the highest form of religion,\nall philosophers must ultimately become Christians; and finally, since\nuniversality and catholicity are the ideal of Christianity, we shall\nall be Catholics before we are aware of it.\n\nFor the investigator who, without denying such analogies as may\nultimately be found to exist, proposes to take as his point of\ndeparture the specific differences of religion (which is the true\nmethod), every positive and historical religion presents three\ndistinctive and essential elements: (1) An attempt at a mythical\nand non-scientific explanation of natural phenomena (divine\nintervention, miracles, efficacious prayers, etc.), or of historical\nfacts (incarnation of Jesus Christ or of Buddha, revelations, and\nso forth); (2) A system of dogmas, that is to say, of symbolic\nideas, of imaginative beliefs, forcibly imposed upon one\u2019s faith as\nabsolute verities, even though they are susceptible of no scientific\ndemonstration or philosophical justification; (3) A cult and a system\nof rites, that is to say, of more or less immutable practices regarded\nas possessing a marvellous efficacy upon the course of things, a\npropitiatory virtue. A religion without myth, without dogma, without\ncult, without rite is no more than that somewhat bastard product,\n\u201cnatural religion,\u201d which is resolvable into a system of metaphysical\nhypotheses. By these three different, and really organic elements,\nreligion is clearly marked off from philosophy. Also, instead of\nbeing nowadays what it was at a former period, a popular philosophy\nand popular science, mythical and dogmatic religion tends to become a\nsystem of antiscientific and antiphilosophical ideas. If this character\nis not always apparent, it is owing to the sort of symbolism of which\nwe have spoken, which preserves the name and abandons the ideas or\nadapts them to the progress of the modern mind.\n\nThe elements which distinguish religion from metaphysics or from\nethics, and which constitutes a positive religion properly so-called,\nare, in our judgment, essentially caducous and transitory, and, if so,\nwe reject the religion of the future, as we should reject an alchemy\nof the future, or astrology of the future. But it does not follow that\nnon-religion or a-religion\u2014which is simply the negation of all dogma,\nof all traditional and supernatural authority, of all revelation,\nof all miracle, of all myth, of all rite erected into a duty\u2014is\nsynonymous with impiety, with a contempt for the moral and metaphysical\nelements of ancient faiths. Not in the least; to be non-religious or\na-religious is not to be anti-religious. More than that, as we shall\nsee, the non-religion of the future may well preserve all that is\npure in the religious sentiment: an admiration for the cosmos and\nfor the infinite powers which are there displayed; a search for an\nideal not only individual, but social, and even cosmic, which shall\noverpass the limits of actual reality. As it may be maintained that\nmodern chemistry is a veritable alchemy\u2014but an alchemy shorn of the\npresuppositions which caused its miscarriage\u2014as modern contemporary\nchemists may pronounce a sincere eulogium upon the ancient alchemists\nand their marvellous intuitions; just so it may be affirmed that the\ntrue religion, if the word must be preserved, consists in no longer\nmaintaining a narrow and superstitious religion. The absence of\npositive and dogmatic religion is, moreover, the very form toward which\nall particular religions tend. In effect they strip themselves, little\nby little (except Catholicism and Turkish Mohammedanism), of their\nsacred character, of their antiscientific affirmations; they renounce\nthe oppressive control that they have traditionally exercised over\nthe individual conscience. The developments of religion and those of\ncivilization have always proceeded hand in hand; the developments of\nreligion have always proceeded in the line of a greater independence\nof spirit, of a less literal and less narrow dogmatism, of a freer\nspeculation. Non-religion, as we here understand it, may be considered\nas a higher degree simply of religion and of civilization.\n\nThe absence of religion thus conceived is one with a reasoned\nbut hypothetical metaphysics, treating of men and the universe.\nOne may designate it as religious independence, or _anomy_, or\nindividualism.[3] It has, moreover, been preached in some degree by\nall religious reformers from Sakia-Mouni and Jesus to Luther and\nCalvin, for they have all of them maintained liberty of conscience\nand respected so much only of tradition as, in the then state of\ncontemporary religious criticism, they could not help admitting.\nCatholicism, for example, was founded in part by Jesus, but also in\npart in spite of Jesus; intolerant Anglicanism was founded in part by\nLuther, but also in part in spite of Luther. The non-religious man, the\nman simply without a religion, may therefore admire and sympathize with\nthe great founders of religion, not only in that they were thinkers,\nmetaphysicians, moralists, and philanthropists, but in that they\nwere reformers of established belief, more or less avowed enemies of\nreligious authority, of every affirmation which should be that of a\nsacred body and not of an individual. Every positive religion possesses\nas one of its essential characters that of transmitting itself from\none generation to another, by virtue of the authority which attaches\nto domestic or national traditions; its mode of transmission is thus\ntotally different from that of science and of art. New religions\nthemselves are obliged more often than not to present themselves in\nthe guise of simple reforms, in the guise of simple returns to the\nrigour of former teaching and precept, to avoid giving too great a\nshock to the principle of authority, but in spite of these disguises\nevery new religion has shaken it; the return to an alleged primitive\nauthority has always been a real outleap in the direction of ultimate\nliberty. There exists, then, in the bosom of every great religion a\ndissolving force; namely, the very force which served in the beginning\nto constitute it and to enable it to triumph over its predecessor:\nthe right of private judgment. It is upon this force, this right,\nthat one may count for the ultimate establishment, after the gradual\ndecomposition of every system of dogmatic belief, of a final absence of\nreligion.[4]\n\n      [3] See pt. 3, chap. ii.\n\n      [4] See pt. 3, chap. i.\n\nOver and above the confusion between the perpetuity of metaphysics\nand morals and that of positive religion, there is another tendency\namong our contemporaries against which we have wished to protest.\nIt is the belief, which many profess, in the final unification of\nexisting religions into a religion of the future, either a perfected\nJudaism, or a perfected Christianity, or a perfected Buddhism. To\nthis predicted religious unity we oppose rather a future plurality of\nbeliefs, a religious individualism. A pretension to universality is,\nno doubt, characteristic of every great religion; but the dogmatic\nand mythological element which constitutes a religion positive is\nprecisely irreconcilable, even under the elastic form of symbolism,\nwith the very universality to which they aspire. Such a universality\ncannot be realized even in metaphysics and morals, for the element\nof insolubility and unknowability, which cannot be eliminated, will\nalways attract different minds in different directions. The notion of\na dogma actually catholic, that is universal, or even a belief actually\ncatholic, seems to us a belief contrary to the indefinite progress\nfor which each of us ought to work according to his strength and his\nopportunities. A thought is not really personal, does not, properly\nspeaking, even exist or possess the right to exist, unless it be\nsomething more than a mere repetition of the thoughts of somebody else.\nEvery eye must have its own point of view, every voice its own accent.\nThe very progress of intelligence and of conscience must, like all\nprogress, proceed from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, nor seek\nfor an ideal unity except in an increasing variety. Would one recognize\nthe absolute power of the savage chief or the Oriental monarch in the\nfederative republican government, which, after a certain number of\ncenturies, will probably be that of all civilized nations? No; and\nyet humanity will have passed from the one to the other by a series\nof gradations sometimes scarcely visible. We believe that humanity\nwill progress in the same way generally, from dogmatic religion with\npretensions to universality, catholicity, and monarchy\u2014of which\nthe most curious type has precisely been achieved in our days with\nthe dogma of infallibility\u2014toward that state of individualism and\nreligions, which we consider as the human ideal, and which, moreover,\ndoes not in the least exclude the possibility of diverse religious\nassociations or federations, nor of free and continuous progress toward\nultimate unity of belief on the most general subjects of human inquiry.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe day when positive religions shall have disappeared, the spirit\nof curiosity in matters of cosmology and metaphysics, which has been\nmore or less paralyzed by an effort to dwell within the unyielding\nlimits of indomitable formula, will be more vivacious than ever before.\nThere will be less of faith, but more of free speculation; less of\ncontemplation, but more of reasoning, of hardy induction, of an active\noutleap of thought; the religious dogma will be extinct, but the best\nelements of religious life will be propagated, will be augmented in\nintensity and extent. For he alone is religious, in the philosophical\nsense of the word, who searches for, who thinks about, who loves the\ntruth. Christ might have said: I came not to bring peace into human\nthought, but an incessant battle of ideas; not repose, but movement and\nprogress of spirit; not universal dogma, but liberty of belief, which\nis the first condition of growth.[5]\n\n      [5] See pt. 3, chaps. i. and ii.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIV. To-day, when the very value of religion is increasingly called in\ndoubt, it has been defended by sceptics, who support it, sometimes in\nthe name of the poetry and beauty of religious legend, sometimes in\nthe name of its practical utility. There is sometimes a reaction in\nthe modern mind toward fiction and away from the reality. The human\nmind becomes weary of regarding itself as a too passively clear mirror\nin which the world throws its image; and takes pleasure in breathing\non the glass and obscuring it; and thence it comes that certain\nrefined philosophers raise the question whether truth and clearness\nare advantageous in art, in science, in morals, in religion; and they\ngo the length even of preferring religious or philosophical error on\n\u00e6sthetic grounds. For our part, we are far from antagonizing poetry,\nand believe it to be excessively beneficial for humanity, but on\ncondition that it be not the dupe of its own symbols and do not erect\nits intentions into dogmas. At this price, we believe that poetry may\nvery often be truer, and better, than certain too narrowly scientific,\nor too narrowly practical truths. We shall not take ourselves to task\nfor having frequently, in this book, mingled poetry and metaphysics.\nIn so doing we preserve, in so far as it is legitimate, one of the\naspects of every religion, its poetic symbolism. Poetry is often more\nphilosophic, not only than history, but than abstract philosophy, but\non condition of being sincere and of making no pretensions to being\nwhat it is not.\n\nBut the partisans of \u201cbeneficent error\u201d will object: Why endeavour\nto dissipate poetic illusion and to call things by their names? Are\nthere not for peoples, for men, for children, certain useful errors\nand permissible illusions?[6] Surely a great number of errors may\nbe considered as having been necessary in the history of humanity;\nbut has not progress precisely consisted in restricting the number of\nthese useful errors? There have been also organs in the body which\nhave become superfluous, and have disappeared or been fundamentally\ntransformed; such, for example, are the muscles which, no doubt, served\nour ancestors to move their ears. There exist evidently also, in the\nhuman mind, instincts, sentiments, and beliefs which have already\natrophied and are destined to disappear or to be transformed. To show\nthe deep roots that religion has sent down into the depths of the human\nmind is not to demonstrate the perpetuity of religion, for the human\nmind itself is incessantly changing. \u201cOur fathers,\u201d said Fontenelle,\n\u201cmade the mistake of hoarding up their errors for our benefit\u201d; and\nin effect, before arriving at the truth, a certain number of false\nhypotheses must be tried; to discover the true is in some sense to have\nexhausted the possibilities of the false. Religions have rendered the\nhuman mind this immense service, they have exhausted a whole class of\nside-issues in science, metaphysics, and ethics; one must cross the\nmarvellous to attain the natural, one must cross direct revelation and\nmystical intention to attain to rational induction and deduction. All\nthe fantastic and apocalyptical ideas with which religion has peopled\nthe human mind once possessed their utility, just as the incomplete\nand often grotesque sketches with which the studio of the artist is\nfilled once possessed theirs. This straying of the human mind was\na sort of reconnoitering, this play of imagination was a veritable\nlabour, a preliminary labour; but the products of it must not be\npresented as final. The false and even the absurd have always played\nso great a r\u00f4le in human affairs that it would assuredly be dangerous\nto attempt abruptly to proceed without them; transitions are useful,\neven in passing from darkness into light, and one needs to become\naccustomed even to the truth. It is for that reason that society has\nalways rested in a great measure upon error. To-day this portion of its\nfoundation is being withdrawn, and conservatives are sadly frightened\nlest the whole social equilibrium be destroyed; but we repeat, this\ndiminution of the number of errors is precisely what constitutes\nprogress, and in some sort defines it. Progress in effect is not simply\na sensible amelioration of life, it is also the achievement of a better\nintellectual formulation of life, it is a triumph of logic; to progress\nis to attain to a more complete consciousness of one\u2019s self and of\nthe world, and by that very fact to a more complete inner consistency\nof one\u2019s theory of the world. In the beginning, not only moral and\nreligious life, but civil and political life, rested upon the grossest\nerrors, on absolute monarchy, divine right, caste, and slavery; all\nthis barbarity possessed a certain utility, but its utility precisely\nconsisted in its leading to its own extinction; it served as a means\nof handing us on to something better. What distinguishes the living\nmechanism from other mechanisms is that the outer springs precisely\nlabour to cause themselves to be superseded; that the movement once\nproduced is perpetual. If we possessed means of projection powerful\nenough to rival those of nature, we might convert a cannon ball into\nan eternal satellite of the earth, without its being necessary to\nimpart movement to it a second time. A result accomplished in nature\nis accomplished once for all. A step forward if it is real and not\nillusory, and in especial if it is completely conscious, renders\nimpossible a step backward.\n\n      [6] See pt. 2, chap. iv.\n\nIn the eighteenth century the attack on religion was directed by\nphilosophical partisans of _a priori_ principles, who were persuaded\nthat the instant a faith was proved to be absurd that was the end\nof it. In our days the attack is led by historians who possess an\nabsolute respect for fact, which they are inclined to erect into a\nlaw, historians who pass a learned existence in the midst of absurdity\nin all its forms, and for whom the irrational, instead of condemning\na belief in which it appears, is often a condition of its duration.\nTherein lies the difference between the attitude of the eighteenth\ncentury and that of the nineteenth toward religion. The eighteenth\ncentury hated religion and wished to destroy it. The nineteenth century\nendeavours to understand religion and cannot reconcile itself to seeing\nso charming an object of study disappear. The historian\u2019s device is,\n\u201cWhat has been, will be\u201d; he is naturally inclined to model his\nconception of the future on his knowledge of the past. A witness of the\nfutility of revolutions, he sometimes forgets that complete evolution\nis possible: an evolution which transforms things to their very roots\nand metamorphoses human beings and their beliefs to an extent that\nrenders them unrecognizable.[7]\n\n      [7] \u201cYou are occupied with religion,\u201d a cultivated unbeliever\n      writes me. \u201cThere is then some such thing! So much the\n      better for those who cannot do without it.\u201d This witticism\n      precisely sums up the state of mind of a great many enlightened\n      Frenchmen: they are profoundly astonished that religion should\n      still be on its legs, and out of their astonishment they draw\n      the conviction that it is necessary. Their surprise thereupon\n      becomes a respect, almost a reverence. Assuredly positive\n      religions still exist and long will exist; and as long as they\n      exist they will no doubt do so for reasons; but these reasons\n      diminish day by day and the number of believers diminishes\n      along with them. Instead of bowing down before the fact as\n      before something sacred, one must rather say to one\u2019s self\n      that by modifying the fact one will modify and suppress the\n      _raisons d\u2019\u00eatre_ of that fact; by driving religions before it,\n      the modern mind demonstrates that they have less and less the\n      right to live. That certain people have not as yet learned\n      to do without them is true, and as long as they do not learn\n      to do without them religions will for them exist; we have\n      not the least anxiety on that score; and just in so far as\n      they find their certitude in regard to them shaken, they will\n      have proved that their intelligence is so far enfranchised as\n      to have no further need of an arbitrary rule. Similarly for\n      peoples: nothing is more na\u00efve than to urge the very necessity\n      of transitions as a bar to progress: it is as if one should\n      call attention to the shortness of human steps, and conclude\n      therefrom that movement is impossible; that man stands still\n      like a shell-fish attached to a stone or a fossil buried in a\n      rock.\n\nOne of the masters of religious criticism, M. Renan, wrote to\nSainte-Beuve: \u201cNo, assuredly I did not wish to detach from the old\ntrunk a soul which was not ripe.\u201d We, also, are not of those who\nbelieve in shaking the tree and gathering a green and bruised crop;\nbut if one ought not to make the green fruit fall, one may at least\ntake means to hasten its ripening upon the branch. The human brain is\na transmutation of solar heat; one must dissipate this heat, to become\nonce more a ray of the sun. Such an ambition is very gentle, is not at\nall exorbitant, when one remembers how small a thing a ray of the sun\nis and how lost in infinite space; a relatively small portion of these\nwandering rays, however, has sufficed to fashion the earth and all\nmankind.\n\nI often meet, near my home, a missionary with a black beard, a hard,\nsharp eye, lit sometimes by a mystic gleam. He seems to maintain a\ncorrespondence with the four corners of the world; assuredly he works\nand works precisely at building up what I am endeavouring to pull down.\nAnd must our opposite strivings therefore be regarded as hostile? Why\nso? Are we not both brothers and humble collaborators in the work\nof humanity? To convert primitive peoples to Christian dogma and to\ndeliver those who have arrived at a higher stage of civilization from\na positive and dogmatic faith, are two tasks which, far from excluding\neach other, complete each other. Missionaries and freethinkers\ncultivate different plants, in different places, but at bottom both are\nlabouring to make the field of humanity more fertile. It is said that\nJohn Huss, when tied to the stake at Constance, wore a smile of supreme\njoy when he perceived a peasant in the crowd, bringing straw from the\nroof of his hut to light the fire: _Sancta simplicitas!_ The martyr\nrecognized in this man a brother in sincerity; he was glad to find\nhimself in the presence of a disinterested conviction. We are no longer\nin the times of John Huss, of Bruno, of Servetius, of St. Justin, or\nof Socrates; it constitutes a reason the more for showing ourselves\ntolerant, and sympathetic even, toward those whom we regard as being in\nerror, provided that the error be sincere.\n\nThere is an anti-religious fanaticism which is almost as dangerous\nas religious fanaticism. Erasmus compares humanity to a drunken man\nseated on a horse and lurching first to the right and then to the\nleft. The enemies of religion have often committed the mistake of\ndespising their adversaries; it is the worst of faults. There is a\npower of elasticity in human beliefs which causes their resistance to\nincrease in proportion to the compression which is exerted upon them.\nFormerly, when a city was attacked by some scourge, the first care of\nthe notable inhabitants, of the chiefs of the city, was to order public\nprayers; to-day the practical means of battling with epidemics and\nother scourges are better known, but nevertheless, in 1885, when there\nwas cholera in Marseilles the municipal council devoted its attention\nalmost singly to removing the religious mottoes from the walls of the\npublic schools; it is a remarkable example of what one may call a\ncounter-superstition. Thus the two species of fanaticism, religious\nand anti-religious, may equally distract the timid from the employment\nof scientific means against natural evils; an employment which is\nafter all, _par excellence_, the business of man; these two kinds of\nfanaticism are paralyso-motors in the great body of humanity.\n\nAmong cultivated people there has now and then taken place a violent\nreaction against religious prejudice, and this reaction frequently\npersists till death; but in a certain number of cases this reaction is\nfollowed in the course of time by a counter-reaction; it is only, as\nSpencer has remarked, when this counter-reaction has been sufficient,\nthat one may formulate, with anything like completeness, judgments\nsomewhat less narrow and more comprehensive upon the question of\nreligion. Time makes us generous, enlarges our minds each year, as it\ndoes the concentric circles in the trunk of a tree. Life also pacifies\nus as death does; reconciles us with those who do not think and feel\nas we do. When you become indignant at some antique, absurd prejudice,\nremember that it has been a travelling companion of humanity for\nperhaps ten thousand years, that it has lent men aid when the ways\nwere bad and has been the occasion of many joys, and has lived, so to\nspeak, the life of humanity; one might well find a certain element of\nfraternity in every human thought.\n\nWe do not believe that the readers of this sincere book will be able\nto accuse us of partiality or of injustice, for we have not sought to\ndisguise either the good or the evil aspects of religion, and have\neven taken a certain pleasure in setting the former in relief. On the\nother hand, we shall hardly be taxed with ignorance of the religious\nproblem which we have patiently studied on its every side. We shall\nperhaps be reproached with belonging something too manifestly to the\ncountry of our birth, with introducing into the solutions here offered\nsomething of the French excess of logic, of an indisposition to yield\nto half measures, of the determination to have all or nothing, of the\nspirit which was unable to stop midway with Protestantism and which\nfor the past two centuries has been the home of the most ardent free\nthought in the world. We reply that if the French mind has a defect,\nthis defect is not logic but a certain nimble trenchancy, a certain\nnarrowness of view which is the reverse of the spirit of logic and\nanalysis; logic, after all, has always the last word here below.\nConcessions to absurdity, or at least to relativity, may sometimes be\nnecessary in human affairs\u2014and the French Revolutionists were wrong\nnot to recognize it\u2014but such concessions are always transitory. Error\nis not the end and aim of the human mind; if one cannot make up one\u2019s\naccount with it, if it is useless to disparage it bitterly, it is also\nunnecessary to venerate it. Minds at once logical and capacious are\nalways sure to be followed, provided one gives humanity time enough;\nand the truth can wait; it always remains young and is certain some\nday to be recognized. Sometimes during long night marches soldiers\nfall asleep without ceasing on that account to go forward; they march\non in their dreams and do not awaken till they have reached their\ndestination on the battlefield. It is thus that ideas advance in the\nhuman mind; they are so drowsy that they seem unable to stand upright,\none discovers their strength and their vitality only by the distance\nthey traverse, and finally day breaks and they appear on the field and\nare victorious.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NON-RELIGION OF THE FUTURE.\n\n\n\n\nPart First.\n\nTHE GENESIS OF RELIGIONS IN PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nRELIGIOUS PHYSICS.\n\n  IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM OF THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION\u2014UNIVERSALITY OF\n    RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OR SUPERSTITIONS\u2014VARIABILITY OF RELIGIONS AND\n    RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION.\n\n    I. Idealist Theory which Attributes the Origin of Religion to\n      a Notion of the Infinite\u2014Henotheism of Max M\u00fcller and Von\n      Hartmann\u2014M. Renan\u2019s Instinct for Divinity.\n\n    II. Theory of a Worship of the Dead and of Spirits\u2014Herbert\n      Spencer\u2014Spencer\u2019s Objections to the Theory of the\n      Attribution of a Soul to Natural Forces.\n\n    III. Answer to Objections\u2014Religious Physics Sociological in\n      Form, and the Substitution of Relations between Malevolent\n      or Beneficent Conscious Beings for Relations between\n      Natural Forces\u2014Socio-morphism of Primitive Peoples.\n\n\n[Sidenote: Importance of inquiry into genesis of religion.]\n\nThe question of the genesis of religion is more important than any\nother historical inquiry. It involves not only the truth or falsity\nof past events, but the value or the reverse of our ideas and present\nbeliefs. Each of us has something at stake in this investigation. The\ncauses which formerly gave rise to a belief are still, in the majority\nof cases, those which maintain it in existence in our days, and to\ntake stock of these causes is, whether one intends it to be so or not,\nto pass judgment on the belief itself. History, if it should ever be\ncomplete, would possess here the power of effacing in the future what\nit had failed to justify in the past. Perfectly to ascertain the\norigin of religions would be at the same time either to condemn them or\nto fortify and preserve them.\n\n[Sidenote: Established fact that every known race of people is\nreligious.]\n\nOne point may legitimately be regarded as attained by contemporary\ncriticism. After the labours of Herr Roskoff, M. R\u00e9ville, and M. Girard\nde Rialle, it is impossible to maintain that there exist nowadays on\nthe surface of the earth whole peoples absolutely without religion\nor superstition, which among non-civilized people amount to the same\nthing.[8] The reason why man is a superstitious or religious being is\nsimply that he possesses a high degree of intelligence. Megalithic\nmonuments (menhirs, cromlechs, dolmens), sepulchres, amulets, are\ntrustworthy evidence of the existence of religion in prehistoric times;\nand those fragments of bone detached from the skull and pierced with\nholes to pass a string through\u2014\u201ccranial rounds\u201d\u2014belong, no doubt,\nto the same category.[9] Manifestations of the religious spirit date\nback thus to the age of polished stone. And to pass from facts to\nhypotheses it is conceivable that at the beginning of the quaternary\nperiod, perhaps two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, man was\nalready feeding upon vague and elementary superstitions, though he does\nnot appear to have felt sufficient respect for his dead to have dug\nsepulchres, and although no fetiches belonging to that period have been\ndiscovered.\n\n      [8] Herr Roskoff, _Das Religionswesen der rohesten\n      Naturvoelker_ (Leipzig, 1880); M. Girard de Rialle, _Mythologie\n      compar\u00e9e_ (Paris, 1878); M. R\u00e9ville, _Les religions des peuples\n      non civilis\u00e9s_ (Paris, 1880).\n\n      [9] See M. G. De Mortillet, _Le pr\u00e9historique. Antiquit\u00e9 de\n      l\u2019homme_ (Paris, 1883).\n\n[Sidenote: Established fact that religion is of natural origin.]\n\nA second point which may be regarded as equally established, and which\nresults in important consequences in the matter of method of research,\nis that religion, being of natural origin, must have developed slowly\nand in accordance with universal and regular laws; it must have\noriginated in simple and vague notions of some sort, accessible to\nthe most primitive intelligence. And from that starting point it must\nhave risen by gradual evolution to the complex and precise conceptions\nwhich characterize it to-day. It is in vain for religions to believe\nthemselves immutable; they have all of them been borne forward\nunwittingly by the movement of universal evolution. The great Egyptian\nSphinx, who has not changed her position in the desert these four\nthousand years, might believe herself to be stationary, but she has\nnever ceased for an instant to whirl through space, borne along by the\nearth\u2019s motion around the sun.\n\n[Sidenote: Two contrasted theories of its origin.]\n\nIt remains to determine what these primary notions that lay at the\nbottom of all religions were. And here begins the disagreement among\nthe principal authorities on the science of religion. Some of them\nexplain the birth of religion by a sort of mysterious intuition of\nsupra-sensible verity, by a divination of God; others regard it as an\nintellectual error, a false hypothesis, which was natural, however,\nand perhaps inevitable to primitive intelligence. The first look upon\nreligion as an immense leap on the part of the human mind over and\nbeyond the limits of the physical world in which we are confined,\nthe second believe it to be born in the beginning of an inexact\ninterpretation of the commonest phenomena of the world, of objects\nof our senses or of our consciousness; for the first, religion is\nmore than science; for the second, religion is pseudo-science. All\nidealists\u2014Strauss, Renan, Matthew Arnold\u2014discover in every religion\nthe germ of their own especial form of refined idealism, and bow down\nbefore it with a respect that might well appear ironical if they did\nnot affirm themselves to be quite sincere; they see in religions\ngenerally the noblest and most lasting product of the human mind. Their\nextreme adversaries, on the contrary, see no more in the origin of\nreligions than, as Auguste Comte would have said, the expression of a\ngross fetichism.\n\n[Sidenote: Is religion a species of illusion?]\n\nIt is evident that the problem of the origin of religion, in the new\nform in which it presents itself to-day, is quite as grave as ever it\nwas; formerly the question was whether religion is revealed or natural;\nto-day the question is whether religion is or is not true\u2014whether\nit is or is not the product of an intellectual error, of a sort of\ninevitable optical illusion which it is the business of science to\nexplain and to correct; whether, in effect, the god of mythical and\nsymbolical religion is not simply a magnified idol.\n\n[Sidenote: The positivist theory no longer in possession of the field.]\n\nThe positivist theory of religion seemed some years ago close upon its\nultimate triumph.[10] Many had accepted it, but without having fully\nperceived all of its consequences. At the present moment it is, on the\ncontrary, strongly contested. New elements have been introduced into\nthe problem and the whole question must be gone over again. Max M\u00fcller\nin especial has made what might be almost called a desperate effort\nto make out a case for the objectivity and essential rationality of\nreligion, which had both been compromised by positivism.[11] From a\ndifferent point of view Herbert Spencer also, in his \u201cSociology,\u201d has\ncriticised theories which regard fetichism or naturism as the principle\nof religion.\n\n      [10] We find it adopted or almost so even by spiritualists,\n      like M. Vacherot, _La religion_, Paris, 1869.\n\n      [11] See _Origin and Development of Religion_, by F. Max\n      M\u00fcller, M.\u00a0A.\n\n[Sidenote: Max M\u00fcller\u2019s theory.]\n\nAccording to Max M\u00fcller some notion of divinity, in especial in the\nform of a notion of the infinite, must have preceded the conception of\nGod. Gods are simply subsequent personifications of this great innate\nidea; our ancestors kneeled in worship long before they possessed a\nname for Him before whom they were kneeling. Even at the present day\nwe recognize in the last resort the vanity of all the titles of the\nunknown God whom we must adore really in silence. Religion, which is\nresponsible for the origin of the gods of history, may therefore well\nsurvive them. We say religion; for in effect, according to Max M\u00fcller,\nall religions amount in the end to one, since they may all be traced\nback through the long course of their development to a single original\nconception, that namely of the infinite, which from the very beginning\nwas present in the mind of man. This universal conception, however,\nMax M\u00fcller does not regard as in any sense mystical or innate, in the\nold acceptation of that word. He willingly adopts the axiom: _Nihil\nin fide quod non antea fuerit in sensu._[12] But in his opinion some\nperception of the infinite is logically involved in a perception of\nthe finite, and this conception of infinity, with its basis at once in\nsense and reason, is the true foundation of religion. Given the five\nsenses of a savage, Max M\u00fcller undertakes to make him sensible of or at\nleast experience some presentiment of the infinite, make him desire it,\nfeel some aspiration toward it. Take the sense of sight for example:\n\u201cMan sees, he sees to a certain point; and then his eyesight breaks\ndown. But exactly where his eyesight breaks down there presses upon\nhim, whether he likes it or not, the perception of the unlimited or\nthe infinite.\u201d \u201cIt may be said,\u201d he adds, \u201cthat this is not perception\nin the ordinary sense of the word. No more it is, but still less is it\nmere reasoning.\u201d \u201cIf it seems too bold to say that man actually sees\nthe invisible, let us say that he _suffers_ from the invisible, and\nthe invisible is only a special name for the infinite.\u201d Man not only\nnecessarily divines the infinite as existing beyond the limits of the\nfinite, and as it were enveloping it; he perceives it within the limits\nof the finite, and as it were penetrating it; the infinite divisibility\nof matter is manifest to the senses, the fact that science seems to\ndemand the existence of an irreducible atom as a necessary postulate\nto the contrary notwithstanding. And what is true of space is equally\ntrue of time, applies equally to quality and quantity. \u201cBeyond, behind,\nbeneath, and within the finite, the infinite is always present to our\nsenses. It presses upon us, it grows upon us from every side. What we\ncall finite in space and time, in form and word, is nothing but a veil\nor net which we ourselves have thrown over the infinite.\u201d And let it\nnot be objected that primitive languages supply no means of expressing\nthe idea of infinity, of the beyond, which is given in every finite\nsensation. Do the languages of antiquity supply a means of designating\nthe infinite shades and variety of colour? Democritus was acquainted\nwith but four colours: black, white, red, and yellow. Shall we say,\ntherefore, that the ancients did not perceive the blue of heaven?\nThe sky was as blue for them as it is for us, but they had not yet\nestablished a conventional designation for the sensation it afforded\nthem. And similarly in the case of the infinite for the primitive man;\nit existed for him although he had not as yet invented a name for it.\nWell, what is this infinite, in the last resort, but the object to\nwhich every religion addresses itself? A religious being is essentially\none who is not satisfied with such and such a finite sensation; who\nlooks everywhere for the beyond\u2014looks for it in life, in death, in\nnature, in himself. To be divinely aware of a vague somewhat that\none cannot quite understand, to feel a veneration for it and then to\nendeavour to fit it with a name, to call to it stammeringly, these\nare the beginnings of every system of religious worship. The religion\nof the infinite comprehends and precedes all others, and since the\ninfinite itself is given in sensation, it follows that \u201cReligion is\nsimply another development of sensuous perception, quite as much as\nreason is.\u201d[13]\n\n      [12] _Origin and Development of Religion_, p. 210.\n\n      [13] _Origin of Religion_, p. 25.\n\n[Sidenote: Equally opposed to positivists and orthodox monotheists.]\n\nMax M\u00fcller is equally critical in his attitude toward positivists, who\nregard fetichism as the primitive religion, and toward the orthodox,\nwho find in monotheism the natural uncorrupted type of religion. In\nhis opinion, to name a god or gods implies antecedently the possession\nof a notion of the divine, of the infinite; gods are simply the\ndifferent forms, more or less imperfect indeed, in which divers peoples\nhave bodied forth one and the same idea; religion is, so to speak,\na language into which men have endeavoured to translate one and the\nsame internal aspiration\u2014that of comprehending the great unknown; if\nman\u2019s tongue and intelligence have gone astray, if the diversity and\ninequality of religions are comparable to the diversity and inequality\nof languages, that does not necessarily mean that at bottom the\nveritable principle and object of all these different religions, as of\nall these different languages, are not very nearly the same. According\nto Max M\u00fcller a fetich, in the proper sense of the word (_factitius_),\nis no more than a symbol which presupposes an idea symbolized; the\nidea of God cannot come out of a fetich unless it has already been put\nthere. Casual objects, such as stones, shells, the tail of a lion,\na tangle of hair, or any such rubbish, do not possess in themselves\na theogonic or god-producing character. The phenomena of fetichism,\ntherefore, are always historically and psychologically secondary.\nReligions do not begin in fetichisms, it is truer to say that they end\nin it; not one of them has shown itself capable of maintaining its\noriginal purity in connection with fetichism. Portuguese Catholics who\nreproach negroes with the _feiti\u00e7os_ were the first (were they not?) to\nhave their rosaries, their crosses, their sacred images, blessed by the\npriests, before their departure from their native land.\n\n[Sidenote: Henotheism.]\n\nIf fetichism, understood as Max M\u00fcller understands it, is not the\nprimitive form of religion, if self-conscious monotheism is equally\nincapable of maintaining its claim to be so, it is more exact to say\nthat the earliest religion, at least in India, consisted in the worship\nof different objects, accepted one after the other as representing _a_\ngod (\u03b5\u1f37\u03c2) and not the unique and sole God (\u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2). It is this that\nMax M\u00fcller calls by a word invented by him: henotheism (\u03b5\u1f37\u03c2, \u1f11\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2,\nin opposition to \u03bc\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2), or better, kathenotheism.[14] In ordinary\npolytheism the gods are arranged in hierarchies, belong to different\nranks; order reigns in heaven; but in the beginning no such system of\nsubordination could have existed. Each god must have seemed in turn\nthe most powerful to whoever invoked him; Indra, Varuna, Agni, Mitra,\nSomah were accustomed to hear the same epithets addressed to them;\nreligious anarchy preceded religious monarchy. \u201cAmong you, O Gods,\u201d\nsays Rishi Manu Vaivasvata, \u201cthere is none that is large, there is none\nthat is small, there is none that is old nor young: you are all great\nindeed.\u201d They are all but different symbols of the same idea, of an\nadoration for that which overpasses the limits of the human mind, for\nthe mysterious infinite whose existence our senses prove by their very\nincapacity of taking cognizance of it.\n\n      [14] This word has met with success in Germany. Hartmann also\n      adopts a theory of henotheism.\n\n[Sidenote: The evolution of the Hindu faith typical.]\n\nMax M\u00fcller endeavours to trace the evolution of Hindu thought from\na period long previous to the birth of Buddhism, which was the\nProtestantism of India. The learned philologist sees in the development\nof religion in India one of the essential types of the development of\nhuman religions generally. It may be even, he thinks, that the Hindus,\nwho started from as low a plane as we, have in some respects reached a\nmore considerable height. Let us follow him in this inquiry, which has\nnowhere been conducted more anxiously and indefatigably than in the\ngreat country which may almost be called the home of meditation. Let us\ntake with him a \u201cbird\u2019s-eye view\u201d of what may be regarded as an epitome\nof human history.\n\n[Sidenote: Progress from the semi-tangible to the intangible.]\n\n\u03a0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b8\u03b5\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c7\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\u2019 \u1f04\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9, said Homer. It was not within\nthe domain of the wholly tangible that India sought for its gods;\nunderstanding by _tangible_ whatever one can touch on all sides,\nstones, shells, bones, etc.; and Max M\u00fcller sees in this fact (which,\nby the way, may be contested) a fresh argument against the fetich\ntheory. On the contrary, in the presence of his great, snow-capped\nmountains, of which our comparatively level Europe can scarcely afford\nus even an idea, in the presence of his immense beneficent rivers with\ntheir rumbling cataracts, their eddies, their unknown sources, in the\npresence of the ocean, stretching away beyond the line of vision, the\nHindu found himself surrounded by things, of which he could touch\nand understand but some inconsiderable portion\u2014of which the origin\nand destiny baffled him. It was in the domain of the _semi-tangible_\nthat India found its _semi-deities_. One step beyond, Hindu thought\ndomesticated itself in the region of the intangible, that is to say,\nin the region of things which, though visible, lie entirely beyond our\nreach\u2014the visible heaven, the stars, the sun, the moon, the dawn,\nwhich were regarded in India, as also elsewhere, as true divinities.\nAdd to these thunder, which for the Hindus also descends from heaven\nwith a \u201chowl,\u201d the wind sometimes so terrible, which, however, in\nthe hot days of summer \u201cpours honey\u201d upon man, and the rain, sent\nby the beneficent rain god, Indra. Having thus created their deities\nand peopled heaven somewhat at haphazard, the Hindus were not slow\nto distribute them into classes and families\u2014to invent for them a\nnecessary background of genealogy. There is a record of certain efforts\nto establish in the Hindu heaven, as in the Olympus of the Greeks, a\nsystem of government, a supreme authority; in a number of hymns the\nnotion of the one God, Creator and Master of the world, is clearly\nexpressed: He is \u201cthe Father that begat us, the Ruler who knows the\nlaws and the worlds, in Him alone all creatures repose.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: And from the intangible to the unreal.]\n\nBut the Hindu mind was destined to rise at a bound above Greek\npolytheism and Hebrew monotheism. It is well to see God in nature.\nThere lies still a step beyond: to ignore nature. A firm belief in\nthe reality of this world, in the value of this life, enters as an\nessential element into the belief in a personal God, superior to\nthe world and distinct from it, like the Javeh of the Hebrews. The\ndistinguishing characteristic of the Hindu mind is precisely a certain\nscepticism in regard to the world, a persuasion of the vanity of\nnature; so that the Hindu god possesses and can possess nothing in\ncommon with Jupiter or Javeh. He who sees no more in material force\nthan a play of the senses, will see no more in the power which is\nsupposed to direct that force than a play of the imagination; faith\nin a Creator shares the fate of faith in a creation. It is in vain\nfor Hindu poets to vindicate _sraddh\u00e2_ faith, for the gods. Indra in\nespecial, the most popular of the divinities, to whom the supreme\nepithet of Visvakarman, the maker of all things, is given, is of all\nothers most subject to be doubted. \u201cThere is no Indra. Who has seen\nhim? Whom shall we praise?\u201d (Rig. vii. 89, 3.) It is true that the\npoet after these bitter words represents Indra as appearing in person,\nas in the book of Job. \u201cHere I am, O worshipper! behold me here. In\nmight I overcome all creatures.\u201d But the faith of the poet and of\nthe thinker takes fire but for a moment; we enter into a period of\ndoubt which Max M\u00fcller designates by the name of adevism and which he\ncarefully distinguishes from atheism properly so called. And in effect\nHindus did not reject the very notion of a god, the Greek \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2;\nthey sought God simply back of and beyond the personal and capricious\ndeities that up to that time they had adored; such deities became for\nthem names simply, but names of some thing, of some being, unknown.\n\u201cThere is only one being, although the poets call him by a thousand\nnames.\u201d Buddhism itself, which came later and did no more than develop\ntendencies already existing in Brahmanism, was not, in Max M\u00fcller\u2019s\njudgment, originally atheistic. Adevism was no more for India, with\nsome slight exceptions, than a period of transition; the Hindu mind\npassed it as a step toward a higher level. And yet what anxiety, what\nincertitude, is expressed in certain hymns which belong, no doubt,\nto this unhappy epoch. The Vedic poets no longer glorify the sky nor\nthe dawn, they do not celebrate the powers of Indra, nor the wisdom\nof Visvakarman and Prag\u00e2pati. They move about, as they themselves\nsay, \u201cas if enveloped in mist and idle speech.\u201d Another says: \u201cMy\nears vanish, my eyes vanish, and the light also which dwells in my\nheart; my mind with its far off longing leaves me; what shall I say,\nand what shall I think?... Who knows from whence this great creation\nsprang? and whether it is the work of a Creator or not? The most High\nSeer, that is in the highest heaven, he knows it, or perchance even\nhe knows not.\u201d (Rig. x. 129.) There is profoundness in these last\nwords, and how the problem of the creation has been probed by the human\nintellect since that epoch! The evolution of the ideas indicated in\nthe passages of the hymns reaches its climax in what are called the\nUpanishads, the last literary compositions which still belong to the\nVedic period, where all the philosophy of the time is found condensed,\nand where one catches glimpses of the modern doctrine of Schopenhauer\nand of Von Hartmann. After having meditated a long time the Hindu\nbelieved himself to have succeeded. Max M\u00fcller cites the surprising\ndialogue between Prag\u00e2pati and Indra, in which the latter acquires,\nafter a long effort, an acquaintance with the \u201cself hidden within the\nheart,\u201d the Atman, what Kant would call \u201cthe transcendental ego.\u201d In\nthe beginning Indra supposed this ego to be the visible reflection of\nhis body, covered with its splendid raiment, in the water. But no;\nfor when the body suffers or perishes, Atman would perish. \u201cI see no\ngood in this doctrine.\u201d Indra then entertained the hypothesis that the\nAtman reveals itself in dreams, when the mind is given over to the\ncontrol of one knows not what invisible power, and forgets the pains\nof life. But no, for in dreams one still weeps, still suffers. Or may\nnot the Atman, the supreme ego, be simply the man in dreamless sleep,\nin perfect repose? The ideal of repose, forgetfulness, of profound and\nsweet sleep, has always possessed great charm for the Orient. But no,\n\u201cfor he who sleeps does not know himself (his self), that he is I, nor\ndoes he know anything that exists. He is gone to utter annihilation.\nI see no good in this doctrine.\u201d It is only after passing through all\nthese successive stages, that the Hindu mind comes at last to formulate\nwhat seems to it altogether the most profound truth and the supreme\nideal. Atman is the self, leaving the body and freeing itself from\npleasure and pain, taking cognizance of its own eternity (Upan. viii.\n7-12); recognizing the Old, who is difficult to be seen, who has\nentered into darkness.... It is smaller than small, greater than great;\nhidden in the heart of the creature. (ii. 12, 20.) Atman the \u201chighest\nperson,\u201d whom the sage finally discovers in himself, lies also at the\nbottom of all other beings than himself. Atman, the subjective ego, is\nidentical with Brahma, the objective ego. Brahma is in us, and we are\nin all things, the distinction between individuals vanishes, nature\nand its gods are absorbed in Brahma, and Brahma is \u201cthe very ether of\nour hearts.\u201d \u201cThou art it, _tat tvam_, is the word of life and of the\nwhole world.\u201d To find one\u2019s self in everything, to feel the eternity\nof everything, is the supreme religion; it is the religion of Spinoza.\n\u201cThere is one eternal thinker, thinking the non-eternal thoughts; he,\nthough one, fulfils the desires of many.... Brahma cannot be reached\nby speech, by mind, or by eye. He cannot be apprehended, except by him\nwho says: He is.\u201d This Brahma in whom everything vanishes as a dream,\n\u201cis a great terror, like a drawn sword\u201d; but he is also the highest\njoy to him who has once found him; he is the appeaser of desire and\nintelligence. \u201cThose who know him become immortal.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Hindu tolerance.]\n\nWe have at last reached with Max M\u00fcller \u201cthe end of the long journey\nwhich we undertook to trace.\u201d We have seen the Hindu religion, which\nis typical of human religions, develop gradually, endeavour to cope\nwith the infinite in its various forms, until it attains the height\nof conceiving it as Brahma, the eternal thinker, of whom the world\nis no more than a transitory thought. The gods are dead; sacrifices,\nrites, observances of all sorts are useless; the sole rite which\nis appropriate as an offering to the infinite is meditation and\ndetachment. Do the d\u00e9bris therefore of the earlier stages of the faith\ndisappear and the temples fall in dust, and Agni, Indra, and all these\nsplendid titles pass into oblivion? Not at all, and here, following Max\nM\u00fcller, we may find in the history of the religions of India a lesson\nfor ourselves in tolerance and generosity. The Brahmans understood\nthat, as man grows from infancy to old age, the idea of the divine must\ngrow in him from the cradle to the grave; a religion which does not\nlive and grow is a dead religion. The Hindus accordingly have divided\nthe life of the individual into distinct periods\u2014\u00c2sramas, as they say;\nin the earlier \u00c2sramas the believer invokes gods, offers sacrifices,\nputs up prayers; it is only later, when he has accomplished these\nna\u00efve duties and tempered his soul by long contact with the juvenile\naspects of the faith, that in his mature reason he rises above the\ngods, and regards all sacrifices and ceremonies as vain forms, and\nthenceforth finds his cult in the highest science which is to him the\nhighest religion, the Vedanta. Thus in the life of the individual the\nvarious stages of religion exist in an harmonious hierarchy. Even in\nour days in a Brahman family one may see the grandfather at the summit\nof the intellectual ladder looking down without disdain upon his son,\nwho fulfils each day his sacred duties, and at his grandson learning\nby heart the ancient hymns. All generations live in peace, side by\nside. The different castes, each of which follows a system of belief\nadapted to its degree, do the same. All adore, at bottom, the same\ngod, but this god takes care to make himself accessible to everyone,\nto stoop for those whose station does not lift them above the earth.\n\u201cIt is thus,\u201d says Max M\u00fcller, \u201cthat every religion, if it is a bond\nof union between the wise and the foolish, the old and the young, must\nbe pliant, must be high, and deep, and broad; bearing all things,\nbelieving all things, enduring all things.\u201d Let us be as tolerant as\nour fathers in India, let us not be indignant against the superstitions\nabove which we ourselves have risen and which served us in their day as\nstepping stones. Let us learn how to discover the element of goodness\nand truth in all the creeds of humanity. It may be that all human\nreligions, if they could once be freed from the legends which drape\nthem, would unite to furnish for the cultivated portion of mankind a\nreligion really complete. \u201cWho knows but that their very foundation may\nserve once more, like the catacombs, or like the crypts beneath our old\ncathedrals, for those who, to whatever creed they may belong, long for\nsomething better, purer, older, and truer than what they can find in\nthe statutable sacrifices, services, and sermons of the days in which\ntheir lot on earth has been cast.\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Criticism of Max M\u00fcller\u2019s theory.]\n\nIs this elevated theory exact? In the first place it seeks erroneously\nto find in Hindu civilization the type of primitive religion; more\nthan that it inverts the order of evolution by presupposing at the\nbeginning the existence of complex notions and profound symbols which\nhave been misconceived, it holds, by later generations only through\nan inability correctly to interpret the language in which they lay\nembalmed.[15] The capital defect in the theory, however, is that it\ndiscovers the origin of religion in the vaguest and most modern of\nmetaphysical ideas, that namely of the infinite. Max M\u00fcller holds that\nthis idea is furnished even by the senses; his system presents itself\nto us as an effort at a reconciliation between the sensualists and\nthe idealists. But the doctrine rests upon a confusion. A perception\nof relativity is one thing, a perception of infinity is another; some\nobjects are great, some are small, and any object is great or small\naccording to the standard of comparison\u2014that is what the senses, or\nrather the memory, informs us of; and unless the metaphysical subtlety\nof a modern scholar whispers something in their ear, that is all they\ntell us. Max M\u00fcller seems to believe that the perception of space\nsupplies us directly with a perception of infinity; but over and above\nany question of the psychological inexactitude of this account, it\nis irreconcilable with the historical facts. The infinity of space\nis an idea which metaphysicians alone, and that too in comparatively\nlate times, have succeeded in realizing. The horizon is, on the face\nof it, a physical limit. The child fancies that he can go close up to\nthe horizon and touch the beginnings of the celestial dome with his\nfinger; the ancients conceived the heavens as an inverted bowl of hard\ncrystal, sown with luminous points.[16] For us who have been told since\nwe were children that the stars are greater than the earth, and are\nseparated from us by a distance unimaginably great, the spectacle of\nthe heavens by a necessary association gives rise to a feeling of the\nincommensurable and the infinite. There is no reason to suppose that\nanything analogous took place in the mind of primitive man when he\nlifted his eyes on high. Primitive man has not the least idea that the\npower of vision is limited, that the vault of heaven is the vault of\nhis incapacity and that infinite space stretches beyond; habitually,\nprimitive man locates the end of the world at the extremity of his line\nof vision, which forms on all sides of him a visible and motionless\nsphere. It is difficult for him to understand that heavenly space\nis greater than the visible world. He finds it equally difficult to\nconceive the infinitely little; the infinite divisibility of matter\nof which, according to Max M\u00fcller, the senses take cognizance, is a\nconception which results only from the most abstract reasoning. Man\u2019s\nnatural belief is that the divisibility of matter stops at the same\npoint that his power of taking cognizance of it does\u2014at the visible\natom.\n\n      [15] Max M\u00fcller, as is well known, goes the length of believing\n      that the authors of the first myths were perfectly conscious\n      that they were speaking in parables; and that subsequent\n      generations misunderstood them, because they personified the\n      figures and the names by which the Divine was referred to; so\n      that mythology becomes literally the science of a disease of\n      language.\n\n      [16] Among the most ingenious and least contestable of Max\n      M\u00fcller\u2019s suggestions, we cite the paragraph devoted to the\n      Vedic deity Aditi, one of the names of the dawn: \u201cYou will be\n      as surprised as I certainly was surprised when the fact first\n      presented itself to me, that there really is a deity in the\n      Veda who is simply called the boundless or the infinite, in\n      Sanscrit A-_diti_. _Aditi_ is derived from _diti_, and the\n      negative particle _a_. _Diti_, again, is regularly derived from\n      a root D\u00c2 (dyati), to bind, from which _dita_, the participle,\n      meaning bound, and _diti_, a substantive, meaning binding\n      and bound. _Aditi_, therefore, must originally have meant\n      without bounds, not chained nor inclosed, boundless, infinite,\n      infinitude.\u201d\n\n      This etymology, on the contrary, seems to us rather to be\n      calculated to show precisely that the conception of infinity is\n      not primitive, and that the first time the Hindus invoked the\n      dawn under the name of Aditi, they were far from possessing any\n      distinction between finite and infinite. The night was for them\n      a prison-house, the return of day was their deliverance. It is\n      well known that they represented day as a luminous cow, which\n      moved slowly out of the stable at night and stepped across\n      the fields of heaven and of earth. Sometimes these cows are\n      represented as stolen and confined in sombre caverns. Aurora\n      herself is retained in the depths of _Rita_; night threatens\n      to reign without end, but the gods set out in search of her,\n      Indra discovers and delivers her, and with her aid, the cows\n      bellowing for liberty are discovered in their cavern. It\n      seems to us that for one who enters into the spirit of these\n      primitive legends, it is easy to determine the primitive sense\n      of Aditi. Aditi is the dawn who, confined one knows not where,\n      succeeds at last in breaking bonds and appears radiantly in\n      the open heaven, delivering and delivered, breaking the jail\n      in which the hours of darkness have confined the world. Aditi\n      is the dawn, freed and giving freedom. And, by an extension\n      of meaning, it comes to signify the immortal and imperishable\n      light which no power can veil or hide for more than a day.\n      Whereas, Diti signifies what is mortal and perishable and\n      prisoned in the bounds of matter. This construction is simple,\n      and what is more, is confirmed by the legends to which we\n      have just alluded; after having advocated it in the _Revue\n      philosophique_ (December, 1879), we find it adopted by M.\n      R\u00e9ville, _Prol\u00e9gom\u00e8nes \u00e0 l\u2019histoire des religions_, 1881.\n\n[Sidenote: \u201cSuffering from the invisible,\u201d a modern malady.]\n\nAs to this \u201csuffering from the invisible\u201d of which Max M\u00fcller speaks,\nit is an altogether modern disease, which, instead of giving rise\nto the idea of the infinite, is, on the contrary, a late product of\nthis notion which was itself acquired by force of knowledge and of\nreasoning; far from marking the point from which religions spring,\nthe \u201csuffering from the unknown\u201d stamps their insufficiency, is the\nbeginning of their end. Primitive man troubles himself little about\nthe infinity of nature and the eternal silence of infinite space; he\nconstructs a world after the model of his own houses and shuts himself\nsafely up in it. It is only the visible world that troubles him; he\nfinds in it an object more than sufficient for his utmost physical\nand intellectual activity; he does not go far afield in search of\nhis gods; he finds them, so to speak, under his hand, touches them\nwith his finger, lives in their company. The essence of their power\nover him lies in the fact that they are neighbours of his. To his\ngross intelligence the greatness of the gods is not commensurate with\ntheir intrinsic infinity, but with their power over him; if heaven\nneither lighted him nor warmed him with its sun, it would not be the\nuniversal father, the Dyaush-pit\u00e2, the \u0396\u03b5\u03cd\u03c2, the Jupiter. We do\nnot mean to say with Feuerbach that religion strikes root in gross\nself-interest and brutal egoism simply; in his relations with the gods,\nas in his relations with his fellows, man is partly selfish, partly\nunselfish: what we maintain is that primitive man is not an advanced\nrationalist of the type of Max M\u00fcller, that the conception of infinity\nwas attained independently of religious faith, and, more than that,\nis in conflict with religious faith and will ultimately destroy it.\nWhen in the progress of human thought the universe is once conceived\nas infinite, it overpasses the gods and unseats them. This happened\nin Greece at the time of Democritus and Epicurus. Positive religion\ndemands a finite world: primitive people did not rear temples to the\nInfinite in the hopes of domesticating Him. Max M\u00fcller pronounces\na eulogy upon the Hindus for their adevism; was it really to their\nconception of the infinite that they owed their wisdom, and might not\nthe idea of infinity alone have quite as well led them to atheism?\nWhen one learns to contemplate the world as an eternally lengthening\nchain of phenomena, one no longer hopes, by a futile prayer, to stop\nor to modify the march of such inflexible determinism; one contents\none\u2019s self with investigating it by science or entering into it in some\nfield of action. Religion disappears in science or morality. There\nremains, it is true, a final hypothesis that one may maintain: one may\napotheosize the infinite, make over to it, after the manner of the\nBrahmans, of the ancient and modern Buddhists, of the Schopenhauers\nand the Hartmanns, a donation of some mysterious unity of essence;\nbut if so, prayer expires in meditation, in ecstasy, in a monotonous\nrocking of the cradle of thought to the rhythm of the phenomenal\nworld, and religion becomes a religion of monism. But this religion\ndoes not spring in any proper sense from the notion of infinity, it,\nso to speak, hooks on to it rather; it is another example of man\u2019s\nneed, if not to personify, at least to individualize and to unify the\ninfinite\u2014so great is man\u2019s need to project his individuality by main\nforce, if need be, into the world! One is bent on endowing this great\nmaterial body that one calls nature with some sort of a soul, one is\nbent on conceiving it in some fashion or other on the model of the\nhuman organism; and is not that, too, a species of anthropomorphism?\n\n[Sidenote: The conception of infinity a scientific discovery.]\n\nIt is only later that human thought, carried away upon an endless\nvoyage of discovery analogous to the migration of a primitive people,\nafter having traversed the length of visible space and leaped the\nbound of its own intellectual horizon, attains the presence of the\nunfathomable ocean of the infinite. The infinite is for the human mind\nsuch a discovery as the ocean was for peoples who had wandered to its\nshores from the mountains and the plains. Just as for the newborn child\nthe different planes of vision are indistinct and equally near; just\nas it is by the sense of touch that one learns little by little to\nrecognize the depth of space and to acquire the conception of distance;\njust as, so to speak, it is with one\u2019s own hand that one opens the\nhorizon before one; in the same way to the uncultivated intelligence\neverything seems finite and limited; and it is only by moving forward\nthat it perceives the breadth and depth of its domain. It is only to\na mind upon the march that the great perspective of the infinite is\nthrown open. At bottom this conception of infinity is less due to any\ndirect experience of mere things than to a sense of one\u2019s own personal\nactivity, to a belief in the perpetual progress open to human thought;\naction, as somebody has said,[17] is the real infinite or at least what\nappears as such. In this sense it may be admitted that there is in\nevery human thought some vague presentiment of infinity, for there is\na consciousness of a fund of activity which will not be exhausted in\nany given act nor in any given thought; to be conscious that one lives\nis thus in some sort to be conscious that one is infinite: illusion\nor reality, this notion forms a part of all our thoughts, turns up in\nevery proposition of science; but it does not produce science, it is,\non the contrary, born of it; it does not produce religion, which is\nthe science of primitive ages, but descends from it. The conception\nof infinity in many respects resembles the ignorance of Socrates, the\nrefined ignorance which was really in disguise the last development of\nintelligence. One of the antiscientific traits of existing religions is\nprecisely that they display no sufficient sentiment of our ignorance\nin the presence of the unknowable, that the window they have open\nupon the infinite is decidedly too contracted. If, as we have seen,\nreligious physics tends little by little to transform itself into a\nmetaphysics; if the gods have retreated from phenomenon to phenomenon,\nto the region of the supersensible; if heaven has separated itself\nfrom earth, positive religion nevertheless still lives in fear of\nthrowing open to human thought a perspective really infinite. Its eyes\nare always fixed upon a more or less, determinate being, a creator,\na unity in which the spirit may find repose and safety from the\ninfinite. Religious metaphysics, like religious physics, has remained\nmore or less anthropomorphic, and rests more or less on a foundation\nof miracle; a foundation, that is to say, which limits and suspends\nthe exercise of intelligence. And as the object of adoration, in the\nmajority of religions, is anything rather than the infinite, in the\nsame way religious faith itself leads to a disposition to arrest the\nmarch of thought and impose upon it an immutable barrier; it leads\nto the negation of infinity and of the indefinite progress of human\nresearch. Stricken by an arrest of development the majority of positive\nreligions settled once for all on the first formul\u00e6 that occurred to\nthem; they erected them into the practical object of a cult and left\nthe intangible infinite unmolested in outer vagueness.\n\n      [17] Alfred Fouill\u00e9e, _La libert\u00e9 et le d\u00e9terminisme, 2e partie_.\n\n[Sidenote: Conception of an all-embracing unity, also modern.]\n\nOver and above the conception of the infinite there is another and\na similar notion that it is equally impossible to discover at the\nroots of religious thought; it is that of unity in plurality, of\ntotality. This pantheistic, monistic concept Von Hartmann believes\nto be the starting-point of all religions. As a partial disciple of\nHegel and of Schopenhauer, Von Hartmann inevitably attributes to\nhumanity and applies to the interpretation of history the formul\u00e6 of\nhis dialectic. \u201cHenotheism,\u201d he says, \u201cis founded on a recognition\nof the positive identity at bottom of all the divinities of nature;\nan identity which permits one to adore in the person of every god\nindividually, and principally in the person of each of the leading\ngods, absolute divinity, the divine god. It becomes therefore a matter\nof indifference, in some measure, under which of its particular aspects\none worships Divinity; when Indra is represented imaginatively in the\nform of a buffalo, the right to represent him immediately afterward in\nthe form of an eagle, or a falcon, is not for an instant abrogated;\nwhen henotheism offers its homage to the supreme deity under the name\nof Indra, god of the tempest, it does not incapacitate itself from\nadoring him a moment afterward under the name of Surya, god of the\nsun; or of Rudra-Varuna, god of the heavens. Henotheism does not owe\nits origin, therefore, to a failure in the association of ideas, and\nto a chance forgetfulness, an incredible lapse of memory on the part\nof polytheists, when they were addressing their homage to Surya as the\nsupreme god, that there were still other gods in existence who were\nadored by other people, and even sometimes by themselves.\u201d Imagine\nprimitive humanity \u201cup\u201d in the latest developments of the philosophy\nof monism, with its symbolism and its notion of conceiving diverse\npowers as metaphorical manifestations of the fundamental unity of\nthings! Even for India, the home of pantheistic metaphysics, such a\nphilosophy is the reluctant product of a civilization already refined.\nPeople never take the first steps in thought by means of abstractions.\nTo conceive divinity in general, and subsequently represent it by\nIndra, Surya, or Rudra-Varuna, as by aspects, no one of which\nexhaust the totality of it\u2014by a sort of litany in which the unity of\nthings appears successively under diverse names and forms\u2014implies a\nsubtlety of intelligence and a mastery of the henotheistic conception\nof the universe that is one of the latest products of metaphysical\nspeculation. In the beginning the form and figure of the god was not\ndistinguished from the god himself. The distinction between body\nand mind was one that humanity attained with great difficulty; and,\n_a fortiori_, any notion of a unity of the supreme and world soul,\nexisting under a multiplicity of forms, must of necessity have made its\nappearance much later.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: M. Renan\u2019s religious instinct.]\n\nAnother and later form of this vague idealism, that Max M\u00fcller and Von\nHartmann, and also Strauss, have advocated, is presented in the theory\nof M. Renan concerning the \u201creligious instinct,\u201d or the \u201crevelation\nof the ideal.\u201d By religious instinct M. Renan understands something\nmysterious and mystical, a heavenly voice in one\u2019s bosom, a sudden\nand almost sacred revelation. \u201cThe construction of a religion,\u201d he\ncries, \u201cis for humanity what the construction of a nest is for a bird.\nA mysterious instinct awakens in the heart of a being, who heretofore\nhas lived totally unaware of the existence in himself of any such\npossibilities. The bird which has never itself laid an egg nor seen\nan egg laid, possesses a secret foreknowledge of the natural function\nwhich it is going to perform. It lends itself with a species of pious\nand devoted joy to an end which it does not understand. The birth of\nthe religious idea in man is something quite analogous. Mankind is\nmoving forward unsuspectingly in its allotted course, and suddenly\na little period of silence comes upon it, a lapse of sensation, and\nit cries to itself: \u2018O God, how strange is the destiny of man! Is\nit indeed true that I exist? What is the world? Am I the sun, and\ndoes its heat and light feed upon my heart?... O Father, I see thee\nbeyond the clouds,\u2019 and the noise of the outer world begins again,\nand the window, open out upon the infinite, closes once more, but,\nfrom that moment, a being to all appearance egoistic will perform\ninexplicable deeds and will experience a need to bow the knee and\nto adore.\u201d This charming passage, set off by the unction and the\necstasy of Gerson and F\u00e9nelon, is a capital instance of the mental\nattitude of a number of people nowadays who are endeavouring to\ntransmute a reverence for some tottering religion into a reverence\nfor the religious sentiment. Unhappily, M. Renan\u2019s account is purely\nmythological; primitive man never experienced anything of the kind.\nM. Renan completely confounds the ideas and sentiments which he, the\nhistorian of religion, the refined thinker, might have experienced\nhimself, with those which primitive man was really subject to. This\nspecies of supreme doubt on the matter of our own existence and that\nof the world, this sentiment of the strangeness of our destiny, this\ncommunion of the soul with the totality of nature, this outbreak of\nrefined sensibility, excited and tormented by modern life, possesses\nnothing in common with the sentiment of primitive religion, with its\nrobust and crude faith reposing upon palpable fact and visible miracle.\nMysticism, far from explaining the origin of religion, marks rather\nits period, its decomposition. A mystic is a person, who, feeling\nvaguely the insufficiency, the void, of a positive and finite religion,\nendeavours to compensate himself for the narrowness and poverty of\nestablished dogma by superabundance of sentiment. Mystics, substituting\na more or less personal sentiment and spontaneous outburst of emotion\nfor a faith in authority, have always played the r\u00f4le in history of\nunconscious heretics. Sentimental epochs are epochs of inaction, of\nconcentration upon one\u2019s self, of comparative independence of thought.\nOn the contrary, there presided nothing sentimental or meditative at\nthe origin of religion, there was a stampede simply of a multitude of\nsouls in mortal terror or hope, and no such thing as independence of\nthought; it is less of sentiment properly so-called, than of sensation\nand of action, that religions have been born. Primitive religion was\nnot a means of escape out of this world, a port-hole into the blue;\nthe earliest gods were not in the least ethereal, they were possessed\nof solid muscles, of arms capable of dealing blows. To explain the\norigin of primitive beliefs by a nascent idealism, is to explain them\nby their precise opposite. One becomes an idealist when one is on\nthe point of ceasing to believe; after having rejected a multitude of\nalleged realities one consoles one\u2019s self by adoring, for a time, the\nfigments of one\u2019s own imagination; the spirit of early times is much\nmore positive, as the Comtists say. A preoccupation with the infinite,\na divine vertigo, a sentiment of the abysses of life, are wanting to\nman in early times. The modern mind with its intenser vision now and\nagain perceives in nature an endless perspective down which we look\nwith agony; we feel ourselves carried forward to the verge of a chasm;\nwe are like navigators who, in the Antilles, under the intense light\nof the sun, can see the bottom and the depth of the sea and measure\nthe gulf above which they hang suspended. But for less enlightened\nintelligences nature is opaque, vision is limited to the surface of\nthings, and one floats upon the rhythm and pulse of the sea without\nasking what lies beneath.\n\n[Sidenote: A late phenomenon.]\n\nBefore the need for mystical belief can occur to one, one must have\nbeen reared in an atmosphere of faith, or else in an atmosphere of\ndoubt; and both these states of mind are equally unknown to the\nearlier and simpler races of humanity. Or, more accurately, they are\nperfectly acquainted with faith, but it is the na\u00efve faith of eye and\near; they possess the perfect confidence that every sentient being\nhas in his five senses, and in all that there is nothing religious\nproperly so-called. I remember the astonishment I felt in my infancy\nwhen I first saw the words doubt and faith; it was in some verses, and\nthe poet was singing, with much eloquence, all the horrors of doubt.\nI perfectly understood what it was to doubt a fact, or to believe in\nit, but I bothered my head in vain to discover what one meant by doubt\nsimply: What was there so terrible about being in doubt on matters with\nwhich one was insufficiently acquainted? The word faith was equally\nunintelligible to me, for I had as yet no conception of believing in\nanything except what was certain. The case of primitive man is exactly\nthe same. He no more experiences a mystical need to believe than he\nexperiences a mystical need to get drunk before having tasted wine.\nReligious sentiment does not make its appearance in him suddenly,\ndoes not simply step out on the stage. There are no lacun\u00e6 in the\nhuman soul, it is a prey to invincible continuity. Such a sentiment\nmust come gradually by a slow adaptation of the spirit to the inexact\nideas supplied to one by the senses. Man, imagining himself to live in\nthe bosom of a society of gods, inevitably accommodates himself to so\nnovel a habitat. Every society, human or divine, creates the individual\nmember in its own image; draft the labourer for a soldier, let the\nvillager become a citizen, they acquire of necessity new gestures and\nsentiments which, upon their return to their former habitat, they\nonce more in a measure lose. The case is inevitably the same for\nmankind and religion. As the most sociable of beings, man is also the\nmost readily subject to the influence of those with whom he lives or\nbelieves himself to live. The gods, whom we create more or less in our\nown image, thereupon, by an inevitable reaction, return the compliment.\nA religious instinct, such as M. Renan describes, is in a large part\nthe work of this sort of reaction and of education; if it possesses\nprofound roots in our being, the reason is that it was planted in us\nin our infancy, that it speaks to us with the voice of our childhood,\nand takes us back to our earliest years; often a word, a thought with\nwhich we have been struck at some former time, without, however,\nhaving understood it, unexpectedly reawakens in us, reverberates in\nour memory; it is but an echo, and it appeals to us as if it were a\nvoice. The r\u00f4le played by heredity in the formation of one\u2019s character\nhas been noticeably exaggerated; the influence of education is at the\npresent day not estimated at its full value.[18] Even among animals,\ninstinct amounts to little without education. A bird, no doubt, does\nnot actually need to see an egg laid to acquit itself with \u201cdevotion\u201d\nof that new function; but when it is a question of building the nest,\nthe case is not so simple: birds reared in a cage, who have never seen\na nest, are often at a loss what to do; instinct whispers indeed to\nthem still, but its voice is no longer clear, no definite image of\nthe ideal nest presents itself to their eyes. Nature\u2019s \u201cdevotion\u201d is\nat fault. Add that these instincts, so \u201cmysterious\u201d in M. Renan\u2019s\nopinion, act on the individual by means of a somewhat gross mechanism,\nand that it suffices to tamper with the mechanism, to excite the\ninstinct or to suspend it. To transform, for example, a capon into a\nsetting hen, it suffices simply to pluck the feathers off the belly;\nit then squats upon eggs\u2014or upon pebbles\u2014with pleasure. Really there\nis mystery enough in nature without going out of one\u2019s way to add to\nit; it is not philosophic to trace everything back to instinct, and\nthen presently to regard these instincts as unconscious intentions, and\nin these intentions to see the proof of a plan, and in this plan the\nproof of a god. With a logic so accommodating as that, M. Renan might\nwell find in the religious instinct a peremptory demonstration of the\nexistence of God.\n\n      [18] See the authors _Morale anglaise contemporaine, 2e partie_.\n\n[Sidenote: The only instincts involved the instincts of\nself-preservation and sociability.]\n\nIn our judgment there was, in the beginning, no other instinct involved\nthan the instinct of self-preservation, and the instinct of sociality,\nwhich is closely allied to the former. More than that, the intellectual\nprocedure upon which primitive men relied was no other than a simple\nassociation by contiguity and similarity, together with such reasoning\nby induction or analogy as is inseparably bound up with association.\nThis species of intellectual procedure is precisely that which, in its\nhighest stages, gives birth to the scientific explanation of things.\nReligion, as we shall show presently, originates as science does, in\na certain astonishment that an intelligent being experiences in the\nface of certain phenomena and in the fears and desires which result\ntherefrom, and in the consequent voluntary reaction.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: M\u00fcller and Spencer agree in rejecting the fetich hypothesis.]\n\nII. Herbert Spencer, who is almost at the antipodes from Max M\u00fcller,\nby a conscious return to euhemerism regards the gods simply as heroes\ntransfigured in the memories of their descendants, reduces religion to\nan ancestor worship, and thus implicitly denies that a presentiment\nof the divine or of the infinite has played any part in its origin.\nNevertheless, Max M\u00fcller and Herbert Spencer, in spite of such\ndivergences, agree in rejecting the theory which attributes the birth\nof religion to the mingled astonishment and fear of an intelligent\nbeing in the face of certain natural phenomena, and to the need of\nexplanation and protection that he experiences before what is puissant\nand powerful.\n\n[Sidenote: Necessity of relying upon a number of principles.]\n\nWe willingly concede to Mr. Spencer that ancestor worship has played\nits part in the genesis of human beliefs; heroes have been deified not\nonly after their death, but even in their lifetime. But why rely upon\nthis single principle for the explanation of so complex a phenomenon\nas religion? Why wish to see in every detail a realization of it, even\nwhen no positive fact seems to authorize one\u2019s doing so? Spencer\u2019s\nsystem, which resolves the whole body of our beliefs into one, reminds\none a little of Genesis, and of the theory that all mankind are\ndescended from the first couple, Adam and Eve, after Eve had herself\nbeen fashioned out of one of Adam\u2019s ribs. If it is an excellent\ncharacteristic of Mr. Spencer\u2019s to look for the origin of heterogeneous\nand later beliefs in some vague and homogeneous conception, this\nprimitive conception must at least be sufficiently ample to be able\nfairly to accommodate within its own limits the whole body of its\nsuccessors, and Mr. Spencer is somewhat too much inclined to confound\nthe homogeneity of a notion with its amplitude; it is only by a prodigy\nof artifice that he succeeds in extracting from his principle a\ncompletely furnished religious theory of the universe.\n\n[Sidenote: Spencer\u2019s theory wantonly clever.]\n\nMr. Spencer endeavours, first, to prove, by _three_ examples, that a\ncult for the dead exists among three tribes of savages very low in the\nscale of civilization and not possessed, so far as has been observed,\nof any other form of religion; he thereupon infers that a cult for\nthe dead is the earliest form of worship. These examples are open to\ndiscussion, but even if they were not, it in nowise follows that all\nother forms of religion spring from a cult for the dead. Death is,\nno doubt, so frequent and brutal a fact that it early engages the\nattention of primitive peoples; some germ of the notion of burial may\nbe discovered among animals. Ants have frequently been observed, after\ntheir battles, carrying off the corpses of their soldiers; but from the\nfact that human intelligence must necessarily have been engaged in one\ndirection, does it follow that it can have been engaged in no other?\nFor the manufacture of a god Mr. Spencer requires first a corpse,\nsecond the conception of a spiritual double of the corpse, third a\nbelief that this spirit is capable of inhabiting, not only the body,\nthat it has just quitted, but another body, an inanimate effigy, a bee,\na stone, etc. What a complication! One knows Mr. Spencer\u2019s ingenious\ndevice for explaining tree-worship; sometimes he would have us conceive\ntrees as the resting-places of departed souls, who for some reason or\nother have taken a notion to inhabit them; sometimes he would have\nus rely on a theory of misinterpreted legend: a tribe that in former\nyears inhabited the forest, a tribe _come from the forest_, ultimately\nbelieves itself to be descended from trees, ultimately believes that\nits ancestors were trees. Really, all that strikes us as particularly\nartificial. A tall tree is venerable in and of itself. A certain\n\u201csacred horror\u201d is an essential attribute of a dense forest. Night\nand obscurity play a notable part in the genesis of religion; well, a\nforest is the very incarnation of eternal night with its element of\nthe unforeseen, its terrors, the sigh of the wind in the branches like\na voice, the cry of the wild beast which seems sometimes to come from\nthe trees themselves. And what intense and silent life in and about a\ntree, if one but studies it closely! An animal does not observe with\nsufficient attention to see plants grow and the sap rise; but how\nastonished man must have been when first he remarked that the roots of\ntrees make their way even into rock, that their trunks break all bonds:\nthat they rise year by year, and are at the very beginnings of their\nmaturity at an age when man is old! Forest vegetation is alive, but\nwith a life so different from ours that it must naturally have filled\nour ancestors with surprise and reverence. Remember, too, that the\nsap of certain trees, when it flows from a wound, is of the colour of\nblood, or of the colour and almost of the taste of milk.\n\n[Sidenote: Superfluity of effort to explain zoolatry by ancestor\nworship.]\n\nSimilarly, why resort to an ancestor worship to explain zoolatry? What\nis more natural, for example, than the universal veneration for the\nsnake? This mysterious creature which glides away among the shadows,\nappears, and disappears, and carries with it power of life and death?\nOr instead of a serpent, consider the lion, or any other ferocious\nanimal. He makes his appearance in a country and creates havoc among\nthe flocks; one pursues him, but for some reason or other no shot\nreaches him; he is invulnerable. He becomes increasingly audacious and\nterrible; he disappears for weeks together, nobody knows where; he\nreappears suddenly, nobody knows why; he defies the hunters with the\nmajesty that wild beasts sometimes show, in perfect consciousness of\ntheir power. Behold! a veritable god.\n\nIt is well known that the aborigines worshipped the horses which the\nSpaniards imported into America; according to Prescott, they preferred\nto attribute the invention of firearms to the horses rather than to\nthe Spaniards. The fact is simply that the Spaniards were men like\nthemselves, and that the aborigines took their measure accordingly;\nbut an unknown animal came to them armed with an indefinite power.\nMen adore nothing but what they are comparatively ignorant of, and\nit is for that reason, whatever Mr. Spencer may say, that nature,\nso long imperfectly known, afforded to religion a more generous and\ninexhaustible aliment than humanity.\n\n[Sidenote: Narrowness and insufficiency of Spencer\u2019s formula.]\n\nAt bottom what Mr. Spencer regards as the true confirmation of his\ndoctrine is the relation it bears to the rest of his system; it\nis for him an example simply of a universal law, a consequence of\nevolution. According to this doctrine, everything seems to spring from\na primordial unity, from a single homogeneous belief\u2014the belief in\na power more or less vague, exercised by the souls of the dead; this\nbelief, once given, undergoes a complete series of integrations and\ndifferentiations, and ultimately becomes a belief in the regular action\nof an unknown and universal power. Mr. Spencer seems to us to be right\nin pitching upon the one homogeneous belief from which all others arise\nby a process of evolution; but the formula of this belief that he\npresents us with seems to us altogether too narrow and insufficient.\nIf one wishes to discover the idea which dominates both the cult for\nthe dead and the cult for the gods, one will find in it a natural\npersuasion that nothing is absolutely and definitively inanimate, that\neverything lives and possesses, therefore, intentions and volitions.\nMan has deified the phenomena of nature, as he has immortalized his\nancestors, for the sole and only reason that, as a living being\npossessed of a will, the most difficult thing in the beginning for him\nto understand is the invincible determinism and absolute inertia of the\nphenomena of the external world.[19]\n\n      [19] See our _Morale anglaise contemporaine_, p. 579.\n\n[Sidenote: Criticism of fetichism commonly a play on words.]\n\nThe adoration of natural forces, conceived as more or less analogous\nto powerful living beings possessed of volition, has been denominated\nsometimes fetichism, sometimes naturism. Messrs. M\u00fcller and Spencer\nare agreed that fetichism is one of the later forms of religion, and\ndecline to treat it as primitive. On both sides of this interesting\ndiscussion one desideratum seems to us to be beautifully conspicuous\nby its absence, namely, precision of formula and agreement as to the\nexact sense of terms. The words _fetich_, _animate being_, _inanimate\nbeing_, and so forth, seem to us to have given rise to a number of\nmisunderstandings, on the part both of those who are defending the\nfetich theory and of those who are attacking it. Let us cite some\nexamples: Max M\u00fcller has undertaken to define the word fetichism;\nas was natural for a philologist he went in search of an etymology,\nand he found, relying on Tylor, that fetichism (from the Portuguese\n_feiti\u00e7o_, derived from the Latin _factitius_, _artificial_) could not\ndesignate anything but a superstitious reverence felt or shown for\ncertain knick-knacks that possessed no apparent title to any such\nhonourable distinction. The definition of Tylor and of Max M\u00fcller may\nbe philologically exact; unhappily, none of the philosophers who have\nregarded fetichism as the basis of religion have ever employed that\nword in the narrow and rigorous sense which Max M\u00fcller puts upon it;\nthey understood by it, as de Brosses and A. Comte did, the primitive\ntendency to conceive external objects as animated by a life analogous\nto that of man. They comprehended also, under the title of fetichism,\nwhat Max M\u00fcller distinguishes from it so carefully under the names of\n_physiolatry_, or the worship rendered to natural objects other than\ngimcracks, and of _zoolatry_, or the worship of animals. The result is\nthat Max M\u00fcller\u2019s refutations really do not concern the doctrine which\nthey are designed to combat, and over against which he sets up his own\ndoctrine. Similarly in regard to the definitions of M. R\u00e9ville.[20]\nTo demonstrate that a cult for knick-knacks is not the primitive and\nunique original of all human religions does not help us forward; the\nproblem remains where it was. Let us consider, therefore, not the\nwords, but the theory itself of the animation of nature, and let us\nexamine the objections that have been urged against it.\n\n      [20] Fetichism, M. R\u00e9ville also says, is logically a later\n      belief. \u201cA fetich is a vulgar object, possessing no value in\n      itself, but which a negro preserves, venerates, adores, because\n      _he believes that it is the dwelling place of a spirit_. And\n      the choice of the said object is not absolutely arbitrary.\n      A fetich possesses this very special distinction, that it\n      is the property of the person who adores it. It is in this\n      element of individual ownership\u2014ownership by the tribe or\n      the family\u2014that the difference clearly appears between the\n      object of a naturist religion, and the fetich, properly so\n      called. However humble it may be\u2014tree, rock, or rivulet\u2014the\n      first is independent, is accessible to all, to strangers as\n      to indigenes, on the sole condition that they conform to the\n      exigencies of the ritual or the cult. The sun shines for\n      everybody, the mountain is accessible to all who scale its\n      sides, the spring refreshes the passer-by, whatever be his\n      tribe; the very tree which rises in the midst of the desert\n      asks of the traveller some mark of deference, and does not\n      trouble itself about his origin. One cannot appropriate a\n      natural object. It is otherwise with a fetich. Once adopted by\n      a family, it is in some sort in the service of that family and\n      has nothing to do with others.\u201d This definition of fetichism is\n      quite special, and in no wise concerns _primitive fetichism_,\n      conceived as an ascription of something analogous to the human\n      will in all inanimate things.\n\n[Sidenote: Children and even animals distinguish between animate and\ninanimate.]\n\nAccording to Messrs. Spencer and M\u00fcller the savage may legitimately\nbe compared to a child who mistakes a well-dressed doll for a living\nbeing, or who punishes a door against which he has stumbled; the savage\nis not so na\u00efve. The very child is far from possessing all the na\u00efvet\u00e9\nthat is ascribed to him, in general he perfectly distinguishes between\nthe animate and the inanimate; and when he talks to his play-things,\nand conducts himself before them as if they were alive he is not a dupe\nof his own words, he is composing a diminutive drama simply, in which\nhe is an actor; he is making poetry and not mythology. \u201cIf his doll\nshould step up to him and bite him, he would be the first person to be\nastonished.\u201d[21] In the same way, a dog plays with a stick\u2014the comedy\nof the chase\u2014he bites it, he tears it into pieces, he warms to his\ngame, which is still for him, when all is said, no more than a game.\nEven the famous example of a child\u2019s rage at inanimate objects against\nwhich it has stumbled, an example which has done service in the pages\nof all those who have written on religion,[22] is seriously damaged by\nMr. Spencer; according to him, mothers and nurses suggest to the child\nabsurd ideas which, but for them, it would not have; it is they, who,\nif it has hurt itself against an inanimate object, affect to be angry;\nand, to distract its attention from the pain, endeavour to excite its\nanger also. The little comedy of the inanimate object is one in which\nthe child displays no initiative. In any event the example deals with\nan ill-observed psychological phenomenon, which, for the present, can\nbe employed to support no theory whatever.\n\n      [21] Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_.\n\n      [22] See, among others, M. Vacherot, _La religion_.\n\n[Sidenote: Savages mistaking a watch, etc., for animate lends no\nsupport to fetichism.]\n\nSimilarly, according to Mr. Spencer, no employment can be made of the\nmistakes committed by a savage in the presence of certain complex\nproducts of the arts and of civilization; he believes these objects\nto be alive, but how should he do otherwise? If he is deceived, it is\nrather due to the degree of perfection attained by our art than to any\ndefect in his own intelligence. When the indigenes of New Zealand saw\nCook\u2019s ship, they took it for a sailing whale. Anderson relates that\nthe Bushmen supposed that a carriage was an animate being and must be\nprovided with fodder; the complexity of its structure, the symmetry of\nits parts, its moving wheels, naturally suggested no fragment of their\nown experience of inanimate things. Just so the Esquimaux believed\nthat a music-box and a hand-organ were living beings. All these errors\nare in a measure rational, but they are errors of a kind that really\nprimitive man would have no opportunity to commit. To suppose that he\nwas dominated by a natural tendency to assign life to things which were\nnot alive, to imagine that he went out of his way to confound things\nwhich animals of a lesser degree of intelligence perfectly distinguish,\nis to invert the whole course of evolution.\n\n[Sidenote: Primitive man incurious.]\n\nThere are, in Mr. Spencer\u2019s opinion, still other prejudices relative\nto primitive man from which we should free ourselves. We believe him\nto be voluntarily and incessantly occupied, as the modern infant\nis, with the _why_ of things; we fancy him perpetually endeavouring\nto satisfy a restless curiosity. Unhappily, if we are to trust our\nexperience of the lower races of man, it appears that the sentiment\nof curiosity decreases directly as one approaches the savage state.\nTo awaken curiosity demands surprise; Plato was correct in regarding\nastonishment as the beginning of philosophy. Well, what produces\nastonishment is an unexpected breach in the chain of causation; but\nfor a primitive intelligence which has not yet achieved scientific\nmaturity, there is no such thing as natural causation and no such\nthing as rational surprise.[23] The Fuegians, the Australians, show\nthe most complete indifference in the presence of matters for them\nabsolutely new and essentially surprising. According to Dampier, the\nAustralians whom he took on board paid no attention to anything in the\nvessel except what was given them to eat. The very mirrors did not\nsucceed in astonishing savages of inferior race; they were amused with\nthem, but evinced neither surprise nor curiosity. When Park inquired\nof the negroes, \u201cWhat becomes of the sun at night? Is it the same sun\nthat rises the next day or another?\u201d\u2014they made him no reply and found\nthe question puerile. Spix and Martius report, that the minute one\nbegins to question a Brazil Indian about his language he shows signs\nof impatience, complains of headache, and proves himself incapable\nof mental labour. Similarly the Abipones, when they find themselves\nunable to understand anything at a glance, soon become fatigued and\ncry, \u201cWhat, after all, does it amount to?\u201d \u201cIt seems,\u201d Sir John Lubbock\nsays, \u201cas if the mind of the savage lives in a perpetual come and\ngo of pure feebleness, incapable of fixing itself upon anything. He\naccepts what he sees as an animal does; he adapts himself to the world\nabout him spontaneously; astonishment, admiration, the very conditions\nof worship are above him. Accustomed to the regularity of nature he\npatiently awaits the succession of such phenomena as he has observed,\nmechanical habit overbears all intelligence in him.\u201d\n\n      [23] Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_.\n\n[Sidenote: Inexactitude of facts on which the fetich theory is founded.]\n\nIn effect, according to Mr. Spencer, all of the observed facts upon\nwhich the old fetichistic theory was founded are chargeable with\ninexactitude; they were taken from the narratives of the earlier\ntravellers, who rarely came into contact with any but races already\ndebauched and half civilized. Little by little, he says, the idea\nthat fetichism is primordial took possession of men\u2019s minds and, as\nprepossession constitutes nine-tenths of belief, it has rested master\nof the field almost without a contest; I myself accepted it, although,\nas I remember, with a vague feeling of discontent. This discontent\nbecame positive doubt when I was better informed with regard to the\nideas of the savage. From doubt I passed to negation when I had once\ntabulated the whole body of the facts relating to the most degraded\nraces.\n\n[Sidenote: A priori demonstration of the priority of animism.]\n\nMr. Spencer undertakes even to demonstrate _a priori_ the falsity\nof the fetich theory. What, he asks, is a fetich? An inanimate\nobject supposed to contain a being, of which the senses do not take\ncognizance; such a conception is extremely complex, and above the\nreach of primitive minds. The savage is so incapable of abstraction\nthat he can neither conceive nor express a colour as distinct from\nsome coloured object, a light as distinct from some light object\u2014star\nor fire, an animal which shall be neither a dog nor a cow nor a\nhorse; and he is asked to imagine an animate being in the heart of an\ninanimate thing, an invisible power in the heart of a visible object,\nin effect, a soul! Nothing less than the conception of a soul, in Mr.\nSpencer\u2019s judgment, will serve the fetich hypothesis; and primitive man\ncertainly could not attain the notion of a soul by mere observation of\nnature. Before projecting this complex idea into the heart of things,\nhe must previously have constructed it, and as preparation for that,\nMr. Spencer says, he must have supplied himself with a theory of\ndeath, and conceived the mind as surviving the body, and therefore as\nseparable from the body and as the motive principle of the body. It\nis to his notions on death that man must look for any conception of\nlife in inanimate nature. Every fetich is a spirit, no spirit can be\nfor a primitive intelligence anything else than the spirit of someone\nwho is dead. Necessarily, therefore, a cult for the dead, spiritism,\nmust precede fetichism; the latter is no more than an extension, a\nby-product, of the former.[24]\n\n      [24] Mr. Spencer\u2019s _Principles of Sociology_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Spencer\u2019s attack not against a vital spot.]\n\nIII. Such is the theory of Mr. Spencer. And he would be right if the\npartisans of primitive fetichism understood by fetich, as he does, a\nmaterial object at the heart of which the adorer imagines the existence\nof a mysterious agent _distinct from this object itself_. But is this\nnotion of distinctness a necessary part, at least in the beginning, of\nfetichism, or, as one says to-day, of naturism? Imagine a rock which\nshould detach itself unexpectedly from the mountain side, and roll\ndown to the hut of a savage; it stops suddenly just as it is on the\npoint of crushing his dwelling, it remains there pendent, menacing, to\nall appearance ready at an instant\u2019s notice to begin rolling again;\nthe savage fairly trembles at the sight of it. Do you believe that he\nneeds really to suppose the presence of some foreign agent, of a soul,\nof an ancestral spirit in that stone to regard it as an object of fear\nand of respect? Not at all. It is the rock itself which constitutes\nhis fetich, it is to the rock that he bows; he venerates it precisely\nbecause he is far from supposing it, as you do, essentially and\neternally inert and passive; he ascribes to it possible intentions,\na maleficent or beneficent will. He says to himself: \u201cIt is asleep\nto-day, but it was awake yesterday; yesterday it could have killed\nme, and it did not want to.\u201d Let the lightning strike a savage\u2019s hut\nthree times in succession within a month, and he will easily recognize\nthat the thunder is ill-disposed toward him and, quite without any\npreliminary need of personification in the way of endowing it with a\ndeparted soul, he will set about adoring the thunder and conjuring it\nnot to do him harm. Mr. Spencer does not perceive that, at the very\nbeginning of his exposition, he ascribes to primitive man a conception\nof nature analogous to the abstract mechanism of Descartes. Such a\nconception once pre-supposed, it is plain that to regard an object or\na natural phenomenon as the centre of a cult, some new conception must\nbe added to it, and this new conception may well be that of a spirit.\nMr. Spencer, as he himself admits, looks upon fetichism as quite\nanalogous to modern spiritualism, which sees in turning tables and\noscillating chairs the work of disembodied souls; but nothing could be\nmore arbitrary than this analogy. It is quite impossible that primitive\nman should stand in the same position that we do in the face of any\nnatural phenomenon; as he does not possess the modern metaphysical\nidea of inert matter, he experiences no need to invent an indwelling\nspirit before he can ascribe volition to it. If a savage should see a\ntable turn, he would say simply that the table was turning, no doubt,\nbecause it wanted to turn, and that, for him, would be the end of it;\nand if by chance it should be a matter of interest to him whether the\ntable turned or not, it would immediately become a fetich to him. The\nconception of a fetich does not in the least presuppose, as Mr. Spencer\nmaintains, the conception of a soul; there is no such metaphysical\nelement in fetichism, and it is precisely on that account that this\nform of religion must have preceded spiritism, which is always founded\non a more or less rudimentary metaphysics.\n\n[Sidenote: For savages and children nature a society.]\n\nFor animals and savages, as for very young children, nature is\nabsolutely the opposite of what it appears to be nowadays to the\nscholar and the philosopher: for them it is not a cold and neuter\nhabitat, in which man alone possesses aims and bends everything to\nthe fulfilment of his wishes; it is not a physical laboratory full\nof inert instruments for the service of man. On the contrary, nature\nis a society; primitive people see intention in everything. Friends\nor enemies surround them on all sides; the struggle for existence is\none long pitched battle with imaginary allies against adversaries not\ninfrequently only too real. How should they understand that there is\na profound unity in nature which rigidly excludes from the chain of\nthings anything like individuality or independence? The only cause of\nmovement with which they are acquainted is desire; they reckon desire\nor intention as the cause of every movement in nature, as of every\nmovement in their fellow-men and in animals; and they conceive that the\nintentions of all of the diverse beings by which they find themselves\nsurrounded may be equally modified by prayer and offerings. Their\nconception of nature is at once anthropomorphic and sociomorphic, as\nis subsequently their conception of God. Nothing is more natural and\ninevitable than this fashion of modeling the external world on the\ninternal, and the relations of things on the relations of men.\n\n[Sidenote: Panthelism.]\n\nIf the word fetichism is too vague to designate this primitive state\nof mind and gives rise to confusion, take another word; if the word\n_panthelism_ were not a little barbarous it would better express this\nstage of human intelligence in which one is inclined to ascribe to all\nthe phenomena of nature not indeed souls, as distinct from bodies, but\nsimply intentions, desires, volitions, as naturally inhering in the\nobjects themselves.\n\n[Sidenote: English classification of things.]\n\nBut here we shall perhaps be reminded that, as Mr. Spencer says, the\ndistinction between things animate and inanimate is quite clear even\nto the brute, and, _a fortiori_, to primitive man; so that primitive\nman will not attribute desire or volition to a thing which he knows\nto be inanimate\u2014_animate_, _inanimate_; how we do come back to the\nvague! Under each of these terms the modern man ranges a group of ideas\nabsolutely inaccessible to primitive man and to the lower animals.\nPersonally we deny that the distinction between animate and inanimate\nwas present in the earliest stages of intellectual evolution. Certainly\nboth the animal and the savage recognized a division of the phenomena\nof nature into two classes; one is composed of the things which are\ndisposed to do them good or evil, the other is composed of those\nwhich ignore them simply; that is the primitive distinction. As to an\nacquaintance with animate and inanimate they are innocent of anything\nof the kind; on this point, as on all others, they confine themselves\nto the grossest sense-experience. Their senses inform them that certain\nobjects are beings who are altogether inoffensive, who eat nobody and\nare not themselves good to eat; one gives them no further attention;\npractically they do not exist. I one day asked a peasant woman the\nname of a small plant. She looked at me with frank astonishment and\nreplied, with a shake of the head, \u201c_Ce n\u2019est rien_\u2014it is nothing;\nit is not good to eat!\u201d That woman was on a level with primitive man.\nIn the eyes of the latter, as in the eye of an animal, one-half the\nphenomena of nature are _nothing_\u2014they do not count; one scarcely\nsees them. The fruits on a tree, on the contrary, are _good to eat_.\nThe savage, however, perceives immediately that the fruit makes no\nactive resistance, does not cry out when he bites into it; and he\nconsiders it, therefore, as on all accounts absolutely indifferent,\nexcept that it is good to eat. But given a fruit that poisons him, he\npromptly fears it and venerates it. Similarly with animals: stones\nand vegetation hold equally aloof from the carnivora, are practically\nas distant as the moon and the stars. The herbivora, on the contrary,\npay no attention to anything but vegetation. Natural objects being\nthus parcelled off into two classes, the class of the indifferent and\ninoffensive, and the class of the useful and hurtful, the animal soon\nlearns to recognize that in the second class the most important objects\nare those which possess spontaneity of movement. But in his eyes\u2014and\nthis is a fact of capital importance\u2014spontaneity of movement is not\nthe exclusive sign of _life_, of interior activity; it is a sign simply\nof utility, or of heightened danger for him. He is wholly preoccupied\nwith personal and practical consequences; he indulges in no superfluity\nof inference in regard to the object itself; he does not speculate.\nMoreover, a moving object which in nowise affects his sensibility\nrapidly becomes quite as indifferent to him as a motionless object.\nAnimals soon become accustomed to the passage of railway trains: cows\nbrowse tranquilly, partridges on the brow of a hill scarcely lift their\nheads; and why? Because they have recognized in the locomotive an\ninanimate mechanism?[25] Not in the least; they observe simply that the\nlocomotive never goes out of its way to damage them.\n\n      [25] According to Mr. Spencer, the movement of a train does not\n      appear spontaneous to animals because it is continuous; and\n      therein lies the ground of their exemption from fright. On this\n      reasoning, animals who live in the neighbourhood of stations\n      should display fright at the arrival and departure of trains.\n      Nothing of the kind is observable. They are equally incurious\n      in regard to horses harnessed to wagons on a high-road.\n      Speculative disinterestedness is altogether lacking in animals\n      and savages; they live locked in the arms of sensation and\n      desire; they spontaneously draw a circle about their ego, and\n      whatsoever lies beyond lies beyond their intelligence.\n\n[Sidenote: Belief that all things are animate natural to animals.]\n\nThis being the primitive conception of the world, we believe that the\nmore incapable an uncivilized being is of observing and reasoning\nthe more natural it should be for him to acquire the conviction that\nobjects which at first struck him as indifferent are not genuinely\ninanimate, but are sometimes malevolent in their intentions toward him,\nsometimes benevolent; that they possess in effect over him a quite\nrespectable degree of power. In other words the more intelligent an\nanimal or a savage becomes, the more superstitious he will be, and thus\nby the very progress of mental evolution the primitive distinction\nof objects into two classes will become dim\u2014the distinction of\nobjects into those which are altogether indifferent and outside of the\nsociety in which one lives, and those which are more or less worthy\nof attention, more or less closely in practical relations with us.\nMental evolution has proceeded, believe us, in precisely the opposite\ndirection to that imagined by Mr. Spencer.\n\n[Sidenote: Motion a material sign of life in them.]\n\nLet us speak first of the more intelligent animals, before passing\nto man. The more intelligent animals are often obliged to give their\nattention to a class of objects in appearance indifferent to them\nand to modify the imperfect ideas which they had at first conceived\nin regard to them. Generally speaking, objects of this sort are\nmotionless; if immobility be not their essential distinguishing\ncharacteristic, it is at least one of their principal distinguishing\ncharacteristics. The instinct of self-preservation in a being\ninevitably bestirs itself in the presence of every movement that looks\nlike a menace. Well, an animal is soon obliged to recognize that\nindifferent objects possess in certain circumstances the attribute\nof spontaneous movement, an attribute which is for him so vitally\ninteresting. I remember the surprise a kitten once showed when it\nperceived the dead leaves rise in the wind and circulate about it;\nat first it ran away, and then came back and pursued the leaves, and\nsmelt them, and touched them with its paw. Darwin relates that a dog\nwas one day lying near an open parasol on the lawn; the parasol moved\nin the breeze, the dog began to bay, to growl furiously, and, every\ntime that the parasol moved again, began to growl afresh. Evidently it\nwas a new thing to Darwin\u2019s dog that such an object as a parasol might\nchange its place without the visible intervention of some person; all\nthe dog\u2019s classifications were thrown into disorder, he was no longer\ncertain whether he must class the parasol with things indifferent or\nwith things harmful. He would have experienced an analogous impression\nif he had seen a paralytic patient, always theretofore motionless in\nhis armchair, suddenly rise and walk. An animal\u2019s surprise is still\nmore strong when an object regarded as till then indifferent approaches\nhim and manifests its activity by an infliction of sudden pain. I\nwitnessed the astonishment of a cat which, having seen a red-hot coal\nroll out of the stove door, leaped forward to play with it; he caught\nit simultaneously with snout and paw, gave a cry of pain, and fled in\nsuch fear that it was two days before he returned to the house. Mr.\nSpencer himself cites another example which he has observed. The beast\nwas a formidable creature, half mastiff, half hound, who was playing\nwith a cane; he was leaping and gambolling, and holding it by the\nferule end. Suddenly the handle of the cane touched the ground and the\nferule was pushed forcibly back toward the dog\u2019s palate. The animal\ngroaned, let the cane fall, and fled some distance away; and there\nhe manifested, it appears, a degree of alarm truly comic in a beast\napparently so ferocious. It was only after many cautious approaches\nand much hesitation that he yielded to the temptation of taking hold\nof the cane. Mr. Spencer, who supplies us with this fact, with great\nimpartiality concludes from it, as we also do, that it was the unusual\nconduct of the cane which suggested to the dog the notion that it was\nanimate; but he hastens to add that before the vague idea of animation\nthus given rise to in an animal could become definite in a man,\nthe intervention of some spiritualistic theory would be absolutely\nnecessary. One may well ask one\u2019s self what spiritualism has to do with\nthe case.[26]\n\n      [26] _Principles of Sociology._\n\n[Sidenote: Instruments supposed to be animate by animals.]\n\nOne may learn from the preceding example something like what animals\nconceive the inert instruments to be which they see us handling and\nwith which we sometimes strike them. The notion of an instrument, as\nsuch, is relatively modern and was altogether unknown in the early\nstages of evolution. An instrument, in the eyes of an animal as in\nthe eyes of primitive man, is almost a companion and an accomplice;\nneither the one nor the other possesses any other notion in especial\nof causation than that of a co-operation, mute agreement between two\nassociated beings. A lion, which Livingstone shot at and did not hit,\nran first to bite the stone which the bullet had struck; it was only\nsubsequently that he threw himself upon the hunter; the ball, the\ngun, the hunter, were so many distinct and separate enemies that he\nwas bent on punishing in succession. Similarly, in an ancient list of\npains and penalties, one finds that the warrior is to lose his hand,\nthe blasphemer his tongue, the spy his ears. At this moment my dog\nis at my side; the whip with which I corrected him this morning lies\nupon a chair; the dog walks about that chair sniffing the air with\ndefiance and respect, and I do not believe he would have the courage\nto touch it. He is aware, however, that when the whip hurt him, the\ncircumstances were quite different, that I was holding that dangerous\nobject in my hand, and that I was, in a sense, the first cause of his\nchastisement. Still he is not perfectly reassured, as he would be in\nthe presence of an inert object. The impression he seems to have got\nstrikes me as comparable to that which a child receives from a serpent\nbehind a pane of glass; the child knows perfectly that under the actual\ncircumstances he is safe, but he cannot help saying to himself, \u201cIf the\ncircumstances were otherwise!\u201d[27] Recollect that the Australian savage\ntreats the white man\u2019s gun as a living and powerful being which he\nadores and crowns with flowers and supplicates not to kill him. Legend\nattributes a magic power to the swords of great captains, to Joyeuse\nor to Durandal. In our own days, even, one sees combatants spend their\nforce not only against their enemies but against everything which\npertains to them; it is as if something were supposed to have passed\nfrom the man into everything he possesses. Nothing is more difficult to\nrecognize than the profound indifference of nature.\n\n      [27] Add that when an animal or primitive man has recognized\n      that a certain object possesses a particular attribute, he\n      often finds it difficult to recognize that simply analogous\n      objects possess the same attribute. I was one day making a\n      kitten run after a wooden ball as a dog would do; the ball\n      struck it and hurt it; it cried out and I petted it and then\n      wanted to begin playing once more; it would run willingly even\n      after large stones when I threw them, but obstinately refused\n      to run after the ball. So that it evidently conceived that\n      the ball alone possessed the attribute of power to injure it;\n      the kitten looked upon the ball, no doubt, with an evil eye,\n      regarded it perhaps as an evil being who was unwilling to play;\n      by a fault of generalization the kitten created for itself a\n      sort of fetich which it did not adore indeed, but which it\n      feared, and fear is a step toward adoration.\n\n      Mr. Spencer himself admits in savages a certain inaptitude\n      for generalization. This opinion, paradoxical as it may seem,\n      is perhaps an important truth. If primitive intelligences,\n      as M. Taine among others remarked, are especially prompt at\n      noticing the superficial resemblances of things, that fact is\n      not always a mark of genuine perspicacity, for the resemblance\n      perceived between two sensations may be explicable less as\n      an intelligent generalization than as a sort of confusion of\n      the sensations themselves; if sensations are analogous or\n      indistinct, they may naturally be mistaken for each other\n      without any exercise whatsoever of intelligence. Thence the\n      comparative insignificance of many examples taken from the case\n      of language. True generalization seems to consist, more than\n      anything else, in the reduction of facts to law; that is to\n      say, in a conscious abstraction of differences, in a conscious\n      recognition of the fundamental determinism which binds things\n      up together and which precisely eludes both savages and animals.\n\n      Note finally that the majority of animals and of savages, when\n      they have once been deceived, are slow to recover from their\n      error, are for a long time distrustful toward the object which\n      has deceived them. A dog, coming home one evening, perceived\n      an empty cask in an unusual place. He was extremely frightened\n      and barked for a long time; it was only by day that he dared\n      approach near the object of his alarm, and he examined and\n      moved about it, and finally, like the frog in La Fontaine\u2019s\n      fable, recognized that the thing was inoffensive. If the cask\n      in question had disappeared during the night, the dog would\n      evidently have remembered it as a redoubtable being seen the\n      evening before in the yard. A monkey, which I left in the room\n      with a cardboard sheep one entire day, proved unable to the\n      end entirely to satisfy itself that the sheep was inanimate. I\n      believe, however, that this persuasion was ultimately achieved,\n      for the monkey began finally to pluck the sheep\u2019s wool and to\n      treat it something too familiarly. But nature seldom permits us\n      equally extended _t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate_ with objects that alarm us.\n\n      Messrs. Spencer and M\u00fcller will call our attention to the fact,\n      it is true, that cardboard sheep, no more than hand-organs\n      or watches, exist _in rerum natura_. We reply that nature\n      supplies primitive man with things much more astonishing: with\n      rocks, and forests which can talk (the echo), with springs of\n      hot water, with intermittent fountains. Mr. Fergusson (_Tree\n      and Serpent Worship_) relates that in India he saw with his\n      own eyes a tree which saluted the rising and setting sun, by\n      lifting or lowering its boughs. Temples had formerly been\n      reared in its neighbourhood. People came from all sides to\n      see the marvellous tree. This tree was an old date-palm, half\n      decayed, which hung above the road; in order to pass below it,\n      it had been held back by a rope; but during this operation the\n      fibres which composed the trunk were twisted like the threads\n      in a rope. These fibres contracted toward midday in the heat of\n      the sun; the tree untwisted and rose. It relaxed under the dew\n      at evening and once more bowed down. (See M. Girard de Rialle,\n      _Mythologie compar\u00e9e_, t. i.)\n\n[Sidenote: Conduct generates beliefs that justify it.]\n\nMr. Spencer, who denies that the child spontaneously strikes the table\nwhich has wounded him, is not, however, unaware that a savage\u2014the\nIndian Tupis, for example\u2014if he has bruised his foot against a stone,\nleaps against it in fury and bites it like a dog. Mr. Spencer sees in\nsuch facts a phenomenon wholly physical, the need for spending one\u2019s\nrage in violent muscular action; but this very need can but favour\nthe birth of a psychological illusion, of which the tenacity will be\nproportionate to the intensity of the sentiment. The physical and the\nmoral are too closely bound up together for a physical expression of\nanger not to be accompanied by a moral belief corresponding to the\naction; if a powerful instinct induces us to treat a stone as an enemy,\nwe shall very really see an enemy in this stone.\n\n[Sidenote: Romanes\u2019 experiments.]\n\nMr. Romanes made some observations, of the same kind as those of Mr.\nSpencer, upon a very intelligent Skye terrier. This terrier, like many\nother dogs, was accustomed to play with dried bones, throwing them\ninto the air and endowing them with an appearance of life, for the\npleasure of chasing them afterward. Mr. Romanes attached a long slender\nthread to a dried bone which he gave the dog to play with. After he had\nplayed for some time Mr. Romanes chose an opportune moment, when the\nbone had fallen to the ground some distance away, and the terrier was\napproaching it; he drew the bone gently away, by means of the thread\nattached to it. The attitude of the terrier changed entirely. The\nbone, which he had been pretending to regard as living, appeared to\nhim to be really so, and his surprise knew no bounds. He approached it\nnervously and cautiously, as Mr. Spencer describes in the observation\nwhich he made; but the slow motion of the bone continued, and the dog\nbecame more and more certain that the movement could not be explained\nas resulting from the impulsion which he had communicated; his surprise\nbecame terror, and he ran away and hid himself under the table, to\nstudy from a distance the disconcerting spectacle of dried bones coming\nto life again!\n\n[Sidenote: Soap-bubble experiment.]\n\nAnother of Mr. Romanes\u2019 experiments on the same dog shows that the\nsentiment of the mysterious was, in this animal, quite powerful\nenough to serve as an explanation of his conduct. Having taken the\nterrier into a carpeted room, Mr. Romanes rolled some soap-bubbles\nwhich an unsteady draft of air blew about the carpet. The dog took a\ngreat interest in the matter, and seemed unable to decide whether the\nbubbles were alive or not. At first he was very prudent, and followed\nthe bubbles at a distance, but as he was encouraged to examine them\nmore closely, he approached them with his ears up and his tail down,\nin evident apprehension; the instant the bubble moved he drew back.\nAfter a time, however, during which there was at least one bubble on\nthe floor, he took courage, and, the scientific spirit gaining the\nupper hand over the sentiment of mystery, he became brave enough to\ndraw slowly near one of them and to put his paw upon it, not without\nanxiety. Naturally the bubble burst, and his astonishment was vivid in\nthe extreme. Mr. Romanes made other bubbles, but could not persuade\nthe dog to approach them for a long time. After a while, however, he\nstarted again in pursuit of one, and endeavoured with much caution\nto put his paw upon it. The result was the same as before. After the\nsecond attempt it was impossible to induce him to make a third, and\nhe ultimately ran out of the room and could not be coaxed back. The\nsame experiment, tried by Professor Delb\u0153uf on his dog Mouston, gave\na still more striking result. At the blowing of the fourth bubble,\nhis wrath knew no bounds, but he no longer sought to seize it, he\ncontented himself with barking at it, in all the accents of rage, until\nit burst. Professor Delb\u0153uf wished to continue the experiment, and\nattempted to do so, but, to his great regret, was obliged to break off\nbecause of the frenzy into which the dog had worked himself. The moment\nthat Professor Delb\u0153uf laid his hand upon the vessel containing the\nsoap-suds, the dog was no longer under his control. His condition was\nevidently due, Professor Delb\u0153uf says, to a contradiction between the\nfact and his experience, that everything which is coloured is tangible.\nHe was in the presence of the unknown, with all its mysteries and\nmenaces; the unknown, which is the source of fear and of superstition.\n\n[Sidenote: Fear of thunder in animals due to sense of mystery.]\n\nAccording to Mr. Romanes the fear that many animals have of thunder\nis due, in some sort, to a sentiment of mystery. He once possessed a\nsetter, which, he says, had not heard thunder until it had reached the\nage of eighteen months, when it almost died of fear. He has observed\nthe same phenomenon in other animals, in diverse circumstances. The\nfright of the setter in question was so strong that, subsequently,\nwhen he heard some artillery practice and mistook it for thunder, his\naspect was positively pitiable, and in the midst of the chase he\nendeavoured to hide himself, or to gain the house. After two or three\nexperiences of thunder his horror of cannon became greater than ever,\nso much so that, in spite of his love for the chase, it was impossible\nto coax him out of his kennel, so great was his fear that the artillery\npractice might recommence and he be distant from the house. But the\nkeeper, who had had a wide experience of dogs, assured Mr. Romanes\nthat, if the dog were once taken to the battery and shown the veritable\ncause for a noise analogous to that of thunder, he would become once\nmore fit for the hunt. Mr. Romanes does not doubt that such would have\nbeen the case, for once, when sacks of apples were being emptied, it\nmade a noise in the house like distant thunder; the setter was very\nrestless, but when Mr. Romanes took him where the sacks were being\nopened and showed him the real cause of the noise, his terror left\nhim, and on his return to the house he listened to the low rumbling in\nperfect quietude.\n\n[Sidenote: All natural phenomena tend to seem artificial to primitive\nman.]\n\nWhen one looks close one is surprised to see how many causes would\nnaturally lead one to attribute life, and life of an extraordinary and\nmysterious character, to such and such really passive objects. Such\ncauses act evidently with greatly additional power upon the savage, the\nprimitive man, the man of the quaternary epoch, or upon the anthropoid,\nas yet undiscovered, whose instruments have been found in the tertiary\nperiod. Common animals, in effect, are almost lacking in attention;\nfrom which it results that to produce any durable mental effect on\nthem, a prolonged repetition of the same sensation is necessary; they\nmust be accustomed to it. Moreover their crude intelligence takes\nno impression from evanescent facts, they are unacquainted with the\nexternal world except by averages. Exceptional facts strike them for\nan instant, but presently glance off into oblivion. In this imperfect\nmachine, wear and tear is very rapid and the traces of phenomena\ninevitably blur and become confounded. If animals possess a memory\nfor sensations, they lack an intellectual memory altogether; they are\ncapable of surprise, but not of remembering a surprise. To produce\nin them a tenacious memory demands a setting of pain or pleasure, and\neven then, if they recollect the sensation they experienced, they\nreadily forget the grounds of it. They feel passively, instead of\nobserving. From the moment where, with man, the spirit of observation\nenters upon the scene everything is different; an exceptional fact,\nfor the same reason that it becomes rapidly effaced in an animal\nintelligence, penetrates the more deeply into the memory of a man.\nMoreover, man\u2019s sphere of action is much wider than that of any animal,\nand consequently the field of his experience is much more vast; the\nmore he modifies, voluntarily, the face of nature, the more capable he\nbecomes of recognizing and observing the variations which it presents,\nindependently of his interventions. Man possesses a notion unknown to\nanimals, the notion of _artificial_ things, of results deliberately\nattained by self-conscious volition. One remembers that _fetich_ comes\nfrom _factitius_, artificial. Man, being acquainted with the use of\nfire, will regard, for example, a forest set ablaze by lightning from\nentirely a different point of view from what any animal could: the\nanimal will flee without any other sentiment than that of alarm; the\nman will naturally suppose the existence of some person who set it on\nfire\u2014who was acting, who was doing on a grand scale what he himself\nsometimes does. Similarly with a boiling spring; this phenomenon lies\ntoo far beyond the limits of animal intelligence to be especially\nstriking; but a man, on the other hand, who habitually goes to some\ntrouble to provide himself with boiling water, infers the existence of\nsome subterranean person who is heating water for purposes of his own.\nAll natural phenomena tend thus to appear artificial to the eyes of a\nbeing who has once familiarized himself with the notion of artifice.\nI was present recently among some members of the lower classes at the\nflowing of an intermittent spring; not one of them was inclined to\nbelieve the phenomenon a natural one, they regarded it as an effect\nof some mechanism, of some artifice. The same belief is evidently\ncommon among primitive people, with this difference, that artificial,\ninstead of suggesting mechanics, implies the notion of a superhuman and\nmarvelous power.\n\n[Sidenote: Fetichism a logical theory to primitive man.]\n\nJust as the animal finds the rationale of all things in a notion of\nlife and of activity, man tends to find a rationale of all things in a\nconception of art and of scheming intelligence. For the one, surprising\nphenomena are simply inexplicable conduct; for the other, they are the\ncomplex effects of deliberative intelligence, they are master-pieces.\nBut the notion of activity, far from becoming effaced in the progress\nof evolution, becomes simply more definite and more precise. Given\nhis incomplete experience, primitive man is perfectly logical in\nattributing intelligence and consciousness to nature, he could not\nrationally do otherwise; his mind is imprisoned in a blind alley, and\nsuperstition is the sole outlet. At a given moment in human evolution,\nsuperstition was perfectly rational.\n\n[Sidenote: Seeming immanence of conscious life in nature.]\n\nEven in our days, men of science are greatly embarrassed by their\ninability to point out the precise line of demarcation between the\nanimate and the inanimate; and how should primitive man have grappled\nwith this problem? How distinguish, for example, between sleep and\ndeath during one entire portion of life; during sleep, living bodies\nlie inert, and why should not inert bodies sometimes prove to be alive?\nAt night especially, the whole becomes transformed, everything becomes\nanimate, a breath of wind suffices to make everything palpitate; it\nseems as if all nature awakened after its day\u2019s sleep; it is the hour\nwhen wild beasts go in search of prey, and mysterious noises fill the\nforest. The calmest imagination, under such circumstances, yields to\na temptation to see fantastic objects that are not. One night I was\nwalking on the sea-shore, and saw distinctly a gigantic beast moving\nsome distance away; it proved to be a perfectly motionless rock, in\nthe midst of others like it, but the waves, which alternately covered\nand discovered it in part, lent it, to my eyes, some portion of\ntheir own mobility. How many things in nature borrow thus from some\ncircumstance\u2014from the wind, from a more or less uncertain light\u2014an\nappearance of life![28] Even when the eyes themselves would be\nincapable of self-deception, the influence of the foolish terrors so\nfrequent among children and beings habituated to savage life would\ncount enormously. Emotional susceptibility is the more highly developed\namong savages, in that it forms for them frequently a means of safety.\nAnd primitive man is much more subject than we are to hallucinations\nof the sort that are due to terror, and are not wholly fantastic, but\nresult from a fantastic interpretation of some genuine sense stimulus.\nThe traveller Park met two negroes on horseback; they fled from him at\na gallop in extreme terror, and meeting his followers in the course of\ntheir flight reported that they had seen him dressed in the floating\nrobes of some redoubtable spirit. One of them affirmed that at sight\nof Park he had felt himself enveloped in a breath of cold air from\nheaven, which was like a jet of cold water. Suppress the word spirit in\nthis passage, which implies a pre-existing belief in the soul, and you\nwill perceive how hallucinations due to terror may well give birth to\nbeliefs all the more tenacious for the element of truth they contain.\n\n      [28] Mr. H. Russell, the explorer of the Pyrenees, remarks the\n      fantastic effects produced by the moonlight in the mountains.\n      As the moonlight replaced the previous shadow on the faces\n      and the angles of the rocks, he says, in an account of the\n      ascension of the peak of Eriste, they seemed so plainly to\n      move that once he mistook one of them for a bear and cocked\n      the revolver at his side. The same explorer remarks also the\n      surprising transformations which natural objects undergo at\n      nightfall and at daybreak. At dawn, he says, there is a sort of\n      universal shiver which seems to animate everything; the sound\n      of the neighbouring cascade changed frequently; at break of\n      day, after having groaned and thundered alternately, it begins\n      to scold. For in the morning in the mountains, he says, sounds\n      gain magnitude, they swell, and torrents in especial lift their\n      voices as if angry; with the arrival of the day the air becomes\n      sonorous and sound carries farther. He has experienced this, he\n      says, frequently, but does not understand the cause.\u2014_Alpine\n      Club_, 1887.\n\n[Sidenote: Dreams.]\n\nDreams also have played a considerable r\u00f4le in the genesis of\nsuperstitions, as Epicurus and Lucretius remarked, and the labours of\nMessrs. Tylor and Spencer have proved. Primitive language supplies\nno means of saying, \u201cI dreamt that I saw\u201d; one must say simply, \u201cI\nsaw.\u201d Well, in the dreams which the savage himself can scarcely\ndistinguish from reality, he sees nothing but a perpetual series of\nmetamorphoses, of the transformation of men into ferocious beasts,\nand of ferocious beasts into men; he dreams that he picks up a stone,\nand that it comes to life in his hand; he looks out upon a motionless\nlake, and it becomes suddenly a crawling mass of crocodiles and of\nserpents.[29] How can Mr. Spencer maintain, after that, that primitive\nman can distinguish with some degree of certainty the animate from the\ninanimate? Not only during dreams, but during wakefulness, everything\nsuggests to primitive man the notion of changes of substance and magic\nmetamorphoses. Eggs, which are inanimate, change into birds or insects;\ndead flesh becomes living worms; an effigy, under the influence of\nmemory, seems to live again and to respire.[30]\n\n      [29] Spencer\u2019s _Sociology_.\n\n      [30] Savages imagine that they see the eyes of portraits move.\n      I myself saw a child of two years old, accustomed to play\n      with engravings, one day in a great fright snatch away its\n      grandmother\u2019s finger, which was resting on the picture of a\n      ferocious beast. \u201cBig beast bite grandmamma!\u201d These ideas,\n      which totally ignore the profound and definitive difference\n      between animate and inanimate, are fixed in the human mind.\n      A man of distinguished education once maintained to me quite\n      seriously that certain petrifactive springs in the Pyrenees\n      possessed the power of changing sticks into serpents. For one\n      capable of imagining that a bit of wood might thus become a\n      serpent, what difficulty would there be in believing that\n      the bit of wood is alive (even a bit of dead wood), that the\n      spring is alive (in especial a spring with such marvellous\n      properties), and finally that the mountain itself is alive;\n      everything is animate to eyes like that, and possessed of magic\n      power.\n\n[Sidenote: Primitive man humanizes nature.]\n\nAn animal is not sufficiently master of its sensations to follow their\ncourse throughout their successive modifications; it is not in any\nproper sense a witness, as man is, of the progress, of the perpetual\nmovement and transformation of all things; nature is, for it, a\nseries of detached pictures of which it does not seize the contrasts.\nWhen man, on the contrary, follows attentively the more or less slow\nevolution of things, he perceives the effacement of every fundamental\ndifference between the animate and the inanimate, he observes a\nprocess of blind mechanical labour, which produces life in objects in\nappearance quite inert. Is there not something rationally profound\nand justifiable in the very na\u00efvet\u00e9 with which he interprets nature?\nPoetry is often philosophy in its most penetrating form. Who has not\nasked himself sometimes if a puissant and hidden spring of life does\nnot circulate unknown to us in the high mountains, in the still trees,\nand in the restless ocean, and if mute nature does not live in one long\ncourse of meditation upon themes unknown to us? And since even nowadays\nwe ourselves are full of such vague doubts as that, do we imagine that\nit would be easy to convince one of these primitive men of his error,\nwhen he fancies that he feels the beating of what the Germans call the\n\u201cheart of nature\u201d? After all is the primitive man wrong? Everything\nabout us does live, nothing is inanimate except in appearance, inertia\nis a word simply; all nature is one universal aspiration, modern\nscience alone can measure with some approach to accuracy the activity\nwith which all things are saturated, and show it to us, here existent\nin a state of diffusion, there in a state of concentration, and\nself-conscious, and make us acquainted with the difference between\nthe higher organisms and the lower organisms, and between the latter\nand mechanisms and rudimentary groupings of bits of matter. For\nprimitive man, to whom all these distinctions, all the gradations are\nimpossible, there is but one thing evident, and that is that the whole\nof nature lives; and he naturally conceives this life on the model of\nhis own, as accompanied by self-consciousness, by an intelligence the\nmore astonishing in that it is mysterious. Moreover he is a man, and\n_humanizes_ nature; he lives in society with other men, and conceives\nall things in terms of social relations of friendship or of enmity.\n\n[Sidenote: And divinizes it.]\n\nFrom the humanization to the divinization there is but one step; let us\nendeavour to make it. Whoever says _god_, means a living and powerful\nbeing worthy, in some especial degree, of fear, of respect, or of\ngratitude. Primitive man possesses already, let us suppose, some notion\nof life; he needs now to be supplied with some notion of power, which\nalone is capable of inspiring him with reverence, and this notion it\ndoes not seem difficult for a being to obtain, who sees in all nature\nan expression of a manifold conscious life, and who must recognize in\ncertain great phenomena the manifestation of a will much more powerful\nthan that of any man, and consequently more redoubtable and worthy of\nrespect. Here also, however, we encounter serious objections from Mr.\nSpencer and from anthropologists like M. Le Bon; the question becomes\nmore complex.\n\n[Sidenote: Natural phenomena quite striking enough to be adored on\ntheir own account.]\n\nAccording to Mr. Spencer, as we have seen, the most important phenomena\nof nature, and among others the rising and the setting of the sun,\nare precisely those which must be least striking to primitive man;\nthey cannot appear to him to be _extraordinary_ because they happen\nevery day; so that he experiences before them neither surprise nor\nadmiration. This argument is very ingenious, but is it not also a\nlittle sophistical? If it were pushed to the end it would amount simply\nto the fact that there is nothing surprising or unusual in nature,\nnothing which breaks with the preconceived association of ideas,\nnothing which seems to manifest the sudden intervention of strong\nor violent powers. The fact, however, is quite the contrary; nature\nis full of surprises and of terrors. The day may be fine; suddenly\nthe clouds gather and the thunder rolls\u2014the fear of thunder felt by\nanimals has already been spoken of; in the mountains especially the\nrumbling, re-echoing, fills them with unspeakable terror. Droves of\ncattle lose all control of themselves and throw themselves headlong\ndown precipices. It is with great difficulty that the herdsman by\nhis presence and exhortations keeps his herd in order; probably the\nbeasts see in the herdsman a powerful friend, capable of protecting\nthem against this terrible being whom the Hindus call the \u201chowler.\u201d If\nanimals tremble thus before the thunder, it is unlikely that primitive\nman should see nothing in it abnormal and extraordinary. Similarly\nwith the hurricane, which seems like an enormous respiration, as of\na universe out of breath. Similarly with the tempest: one knows the\nBasque proverb: \u201cIf you want to learn to pray, go to sea.\u201d Everyone\nwho finds himself in the hands of a victorious enemy is naturally\ninclined to beg for mercy. Let there supervene a sudden calm; at the\nmoment when the tempest was about to break, let the sun reappear like\na great smiling face, chasing away the cloud with his arrow of gold,\nand will it not seem a benevolent auxiliary; will it not be received\nwith cries of joy and enthusiasm? Nature is incessantly showing us thus\nsome unexpected change of scene, producing some theatrical effect which\ninevitably suggests some anthropomorphic drama, in which the elements\nand the stars are the actors. How many strange things happen in the sky\nwhen once the attention is directed thither! Eclipses of the moon and\nof the sun, and the very phases of the moon, are abundantly calculated\nto astonish the very savages whom Messrs. Spencer and M\u00fcller declare to\nbe incapable of astonishment. Note, too, that the simple view of the\nstars at night provokes a lively admiration in anyone who is accustomed\nto sleep under a roof. I remember still my surprise, when, as a child,\nI was awake for the first time in the night and lifted my eyes by\nchance on high and perceived the heaven glittering with stars; it was\none of the most striking impressions of my life.[31]\n\n      [31] Let us remember in this connection that, according to\n      Wuttke, J.\u00a0G. M\u00fcller, and Schultze, a cult for the moon and\n      nocturnal stars must have preceded that of the sun, contrary\n      to the weight of opinion heretofore. The moon\u2019s phases were\n      calculated to take the attention of primitive people, and must\n      early have done so. One must, however, in this connection be on\n      one\u2019s guard against generalizing too quickly and believing that\n      the evolution of human thought has in all places followed the\n      same route. Habitats differ too widely for there not to have\n      been in the beginning an infinite diversity in the religious\n      conceptions entertained by different peoples. In Africa, for\n      example, it is evident _a priori_ that the sun does not possess\n      all the characteristics of a divinity. It is never desired or\n      regretted, as in a northern country; it is, to all appearance\n      at least, rather maleficent than beneficent; and the Africans\n      adore by preference the moon and stars, the gentle radiance of\n      which affords them light without oppressive heat, refreshes\n      and reposes them from the fatigues of the day. The moon is\n      considered by them as a male and all-powerful being, of which\n      the sun is the female. It is when the new moon arises, after\n      its period of absence from the heavens, and begins once more\n      the round of its visible phases, that it is received and\n      saluted with an especial demonstration of cries and dances.\n      The Congo blacks go the length of seeing in the moon a symbol\n      of immortality (M. Girard de Rialle, _Mythologie compar\u00e9e_,\n      p. 148). America, on the contrary, has been the centre of the\n      worship of the sun. In general it seems that agriculture must\n      of necessity result in the triumph of sun worship over moon\n      worship, for the labourer is more dependent upon the sun than\n      the hunter or the warrior. According to J.\u00a0G. M\u00fcller, savage\n      and warlike races have displayed a preference for the moon.\n\nIn effect, earth and sky incessantly furnish mankind with new\nimpressions capable of stimulating the most torpid imagination, and\nof appealing to the whole round of human and social sensibilities:\nfear, respect, gratitude. With these three elements it is easy to\naccount for the genesis of the religious sentiment.[32] If, then, our\nancestors adored the dawn, we do not believe, with Max M\u00fcller, that it\nwas because it seemed to open the gates of heaven and reveal to them a\nvision of the infinite; we do not admit, with Mr. Spencer, that a cult\nfor the stars is reducible in the last resort to a simple confusion of\nnames, and was originally but an off-shoot from ancestor worship due\noriginally to the soul of some ancestor, who was metaphorically called\nin his lifetime by the name of the sun or of some star. It seems to us\nthat one might quite well worship the sun and the stars on their own\naccount, or rather on account of the relation they bear to us.\n\n      [32] As has been remarked, the adoration of natural forces has\n      been observed under two forms. It has been addressed sometimes\n      to regular and calm phenomena (Chaldeans, Egyptians), sometimes\n      to changing and portentous phenomena (Jews, Indo-Europeans). It\n      almost always results in the personification of these forces.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nTo sum up, the simplest, the most primitive conception that man can\nform of nature is to regard it, not as a manifold of interdependent\nphenomena, but as a multitude of conscious and voluntary beings, more\nor less independent and endowed with extreme power, capable of acting\nupon each other and upon mankind. Scientific determinism cannot but be\na much later conception, incapable of suggesting itself in the early\nstages of human thought. The world once conceived thus as a collection\nof physically powerful, voluntary beings, man comes, in the course\nof time, to endow these beings, morally and socially, with qualities\naccording to the manner in which they conduct themselves toward him.\n\u201cThe moon is naughty this evening,\u201d a child said to me; \u201cit will not\nshow itself.\u201d Primitive man said also that the hurricane was naughty,\nthe thunder was naughty, and so forth, whereas the sun, the moon, the\nfire, when they gave him pleasure, were good and beneficent. Well,\ngiven a world of voluntary beings sometimes good, sometimes evil, armed\nwith irresistible power, easy to irritate, prompt to take vengeance as\nman is himself, are they not gods? And if primitive man thus possesses\ngods, does he not also possess a religion as the ceremonial which\nregulates his social relations with the gods? To create a religion we\nneed, in effect, to add but one idea to those already dealt with\u2014the\nidea that it is possible by such and such conduct, by offerings, by\nsupplications, to influence the superior beings with which nature\nis peopled; but this idea, which seems to us quite simple, did not,\nhowever, appear before a relatively advanced stage of intellectual\nevolution. A savage animal is scarcely acquainted with any other means\nof influencing other beings than biting, growling, and menacing;\nif these means fail, he counts on flight. A mouse has no hope of\ninfluencing a cat in any manner whatsoever; once between the cat\u2019s\npaws, it knows there is but one resource, to run away; still the animal\nultimately, and in especial at the period of courtship, learns to\nrecognize the power of caresses and attentions; it does not, however,\noccur to him to employ these means toward any but individuals of the\nsame species. Moreover, the animals must be social before the language\nof manners can attain even a very humble degree of development; the\nanimal confines itself generally to caresses with the tongue, with the\nhead, with the tail. Evidently, also, such means would be inappropriate\nin regard to beings which did not possess a hide and coat of hair; an\nanimal would not lick a tree or a stone, even if it attributed to them\nan unwonted degree of power. So that even if the brute, as Auguste\nComte supposed, really possessed fetichistic conceptions more or\nless vague, it would experience a complete inability to manifest its\ngoodwill in any manner whatsoever toward its rudimentary fetiches.\n\nSuperstitious fear is one of the elements of religion which, after\nall, is well within the capacity of an animal, but this fear cannot\nin an animal produce even the first steps of an embryo cult. An\nanimal is ignorant of the means of touching, of captivating, of the\ninfinitely complex language of affection and reverence. Comparatively\ninaccessible to pity himself, he has no notion how to act to excite\npity in another; the conception of a gift, of an offering, so essential\nto the relations of men to each other and to their gods is, save in\nrare instances, to it unknown. The most primitive cult is always\nessentially a counterfeit of an advanced social state; an imitation,\nin an imaginary commerce with the gods, of a commerce already existing\namong men united by complex ties. Religion implies a nascent art of\nsociability, an elementary acquaintance with the springs which regulate\nthe conduct of beings in society; there is a certain rhetoric in\nprayer, in genuflections and prostrations. Everything of that kind\nis far beyond the range of the lower animals. One may discover among\nthem, however, some traces of the process of evolution which man\nmust have followed. It is, in especial, under domestication that an\nanimal\u2019s manners reach their highest development. Their association\nwith a superior being resembles, more closely than anything else in\nnature, the state in which primitive man believed himself to live with\nhis gods. The dog seems at times to put up a veritable prayer to the\nmaster who is beating it, when it crawls at his feet and whimpers.\nThis attitude, however, provoked by the fear of a blow, is perhaps in\na large measure instinctive and not reflectively designed to excite\npity. The true prayer of the dog consists in licking the hand which\nwounds him; the story is well known of the dog that licked the fingers\nof his master while the latter was pitilessly practising upon him an\nexperiment in vivisection. I myself observed an analogous fact in an\nenormous dog from the Pyrenees whose eye I had to cauterize; he might\nhave crushed my hand, and he simply licked it feverishly. It is almost\nan example of religious submission; the sentiment which is observable\nin embryo in the dog is the same as that which in its complete\ndevelopment appears in the Psalms and the book of Job. The lower\nanimals display such a sentiment toward no other being but man. As to\nman himself, he displays it only toward his gods, toward an absolute\nchief or a father. Profound, however, as this sentiment is in some\nanimals, their expression of it is quite imperfect; though I remember a\ncase in which the action of licking, so habitual with dogs, was almost\nlike a human kiss. I was embracing my mother, at the door of the house,\nbefore leaving for a journey, when my Pyrenees dog ran up to us, and,\nplacing his paws upon our shoulders literally kissed both of us. From\nthat time on (we have tried the experiment) he never sees us embrace\neach other without coming to demand his kiss.\n\n[Sidenote: Notion of Compensation.]\n\nAnother well-known fact, and worthy of remark, is the following: when a\ndog or even a cat has committed some reprehensible act, has eaten the\nroast or done something clumsy, it comes toward one with a thousand\nlittle attentions; in so much that I have found myself able to divine\nwhen my dog had committed a peccadillo simply by observing his unwonted\ndemonstrations of friendship. The animal hopes therefore, by force of\nhis social graces and attentions, to prevent his master from holding a\ngrudge against him, to deprecate the wrath that his culpable conduct\nought legitimately to arouse, and to awaken in its stead some degree\nof benevolence by his demonstrations of submission and affection.\nThis notion of compensation becomes later an important element in the\nreligious cult. The Neapolitan brigand who dedicates a wax candle to\nthe altar of the Virgin; the medi\u00e6val lord, who, after having killed\nhis next of kin, rears a chapel to some saint, the hermit who lacerates\nhis chest with his hair shirt in order to avoid the more redoubtable\npangs of hell, reason precisely after the same fashion as my dog, they\nare endeavouring, like him, to conciliate their judge, and, to be quite\nfrank, to corrupt him; for superstition rests in a great measure upon\nthe belief that it is possible to corrupt God.\n\n[Sidenote: Notion of conscious gift.]\n\nThe most difficult notion to discover among animals is that of the\nvoluntary and conscious gift; the solidarity observed among certain\ninsects, for example the ant, which causes them to hold all their\ngoods in common, is something too instinctive and irreflective; a\nveritable gift must address itself to some determinate person, and not\nto an entire society; it must possess a degree of spontaneity that\nexcludes any hypothesis of pure instinct; and finally, it must be as\nfar as possible a sign of affection, a symbol. And the more symbolic\nits character, the more religious, properly speaking, it will be;\nreligious offerings are more than anything else a symbolic testimony of\nrespect; piety scarcely plays a part in them, one does not in general\nbelieve that they answer to any real need on the part of the gods,\none believes that they will be rather accepted by them than seized\nupon with avidity. The notion of a gift, therefore, presupposes a\ncertain delicacy and refinement. Some germ of this sentiment, however,\nwe discover precisely in a dog observed by Mr. Spencer. This dog, a\nvery intelligent and very valuable spaniel, met one morning, after an\nabsence of some hours, a person of whom he was very fond. He amplified\nhis ordinary greeting by an addition which was not habitual; he drew\nback his lips in a sort of smile, and, once out of doors, offered other\ndemonstrations of fidelity. As a hunter he had been trained to bring\ngame to his master. He no doubt regretted that there was no game at the\nmoment for him to bring as a means of expressing his affection; however\nhe rummaged about, and seizing presently a dead leaf, carried it to\nhis master with a multitude of caressing gestures.[33] Evidently the\nleaf possessed for the dog no more than a symbolic value; he knew that\nit was his duty to retrieve game, and that the action of retrieving\ngave pleasure to his master, and he wished to accomplish this action\nunder his eyes, as to the object itself it made little difference; it\nwas his goodwill that he wished to show. The dead leaf was a veritable\noffering, it possessed a sort of moral value.\n\n      [33] H. Spencer, _Appendix to the Principles of Sociology_.\n\n[Sidenote: Elements of which religion is compounded within the reach of\nthe lower animals.]\n\nThus animals may acquire, by contact with man, a certain number of\nsentiments which enter later into human religion. The monkey in\nthis respect, as in all others, seems much in advance of the other\nanimals. Even in the savage state a number of simi\u00e6 display gestures of\nsupplication to deprecate the firing of a gun at them:[34] They possess\nthe sentiment of pity, since they ascribe it to others. Who knows but\nthat there may be in this mute prayer more of real religious sentiment\nthan exists sometimes in the psittacism of certain believers? Animals\nin general employ in their relations with man the maximum of the means\nof expression at their disposal, and it is not their fault if the means\nare limited; they seem to consider man as a really royal being, a thing\napart in nature.[35] Must one conclude, as is sometimes done, that man\nis a god in the eyes of the rest of the animal kingdom? Not altogether;\nthe lower animals see man too close; even in an embryonic religion one\nmust not be able to touch God with one\u2019s finger; in religion as in art,\nthere is an advantage in perspective. My dog and I are companions;\nsometimes he is jealous, sometimes he pouts. I am unhappily in no\nrespect, in his eyes, on a pedestal. There are, however, evidently\nexceptions, cases in which the master seems to preserve his prestige.\nI believe that under certain circumstances man has appeared to some\nmembers of the lower animals as endowed with a power so extraordinary\nthat he must have awakened some vague religious sentiments; if man\nis sometimes a god to his fellow-men, he may well be so to the lower\nanimals. I am aware that in the judgment of certain philosophers, and\neven of certain men of science, religion is the exclusive appanage\nof the human race, but up to this point we have found in primitive\nreligion no more than a certain number of simple ideas, not one of\nwhich, taken separately, is above the reach of the lower animals. Just\nas industry, art, language, and reason, so religion also has its roots\nin the nebulous and confused consciousness of the animal. The animal,\nhowever, rises to such ideas only at moments. He is unable to maintain\nhimself at their level, to synthesize them, to reduce them to a system.\nHis attention is too mobile for him to regulate his conduct by them.\nEven if an animal were quite as capable of conceiving a god as is the\nlowest of savages, he would remain forever incapable of a religious\ncult.\n\n      [34] Brehm, _Revue scientifique_, p. 974, 1874.\n\n      [35] Espinas, _Soci\u00e9ti\u00e9s animales_, p. 181.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Primitive religion a paraphysics.]\n\nWe have seen that the birth of religion is not a species of theatrical\neffect in nature, that preparation is being made for it among the\nhigher animals, and that man himself achieves it gradually, and\nwithout shock. In this rapid effort to trace the genesis of primitive\nreligions, we have found no need to rely upon the conceptions of\nthe soul, of spirit, of the infinite, of a first cause, nor upon\nany metaphysical sentiment. These ideas are of later date; they are\nthe product of religion, rather than the roots of it. The basis of\nreligion was in the beginning quite positive and natural; religion is\nsimply a mythical and sociomorphic theory of the physical universe,\nand it is only at its summit, at an advanced degree of evolution,\nthat it comes into contact with metaphysics. Religion lies beyond\nand at the side of science. Superstition, in the strict sense of\nthe word, and primitive religion were one, and it is not without\nreason that Lucretius compares the two: _relligio_, _superstitio_.\nTo be present at the birth of religion is to perceive an erroneous\nscientific conception, gathering other errors or incomplete verities\nto itself, entering into one body of belief with them, and ultimately,\nlittle by little, subordinating them. The earliest religions were\nsystematized and organized superstitions. Be it added that in our\njudgment superstition consists simply in an ill-conducted scientific\ninduction, in a mistaken effort of human reason; and we do not wish to\nbe understood as intending by that the mere play of the imagination;\nwe do not wish to be understood as holding that religion is founded\nin the last resort on a species of recreation of the mind. How often\nthe birth of religion has been attributed to an alleged appetite for\nthe marvellous, for the extraordinary, which is supposed to seize upon\nyoung peoples as upon infants! A singularly artificial explanation for\na very natural and profound tendency. To say the truth, what primitive\npeoples were in search of when they built up their different religions\nwas an explanation, and the least surprising explanation possible,\nthe explanation most in harmony with their rude intelligence, the\nmost rational explanation. It was infinitely less marvellous for an\nancient to suppose that the thunder came from the hand of Indra or\nof Jupiter, than to believe it to be the product of a certain force\ncalled electricity; the myth was for him a much more satisfying\nexplanation; it was the most plausible one that he could hit upon,\ngiven his intellectual habitat. So that if science consists in relating\nthings, Jupiter and Jehovah may be regarded as rudimentary scientific\nconceptions. If they are no longer such, the reason is simply that we\nhave discovered the natural and regular laws which supersede them.\nWhen a task, so to speak, begins to perform itself, one dismisses the\nemployee who had previously been charged with it; but one should be\ncareful not to say that he was previously good for nothing, that he\nhad been stationed there by caprice or by favour. If our gods seem\nnowadays to be purely honorary, the fact was otherwise at a previous\nperiod. Religions are not the work of caprice; they correspond to an\ninvincible tendency in man, and sometimes in the lower animals, to try\nto understand what passes before his eyes. Religion is nascent science,\nand it was with purely physical problems that it at first essayed to\ngrapple. It was a physics _\u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9_, a paraphysics, before becoming a\nscience _au del\u00e0_, a metaphysics.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nRELIGIOUS METAPHYSICS.\n\n    I. Animism or polydemonism\u2014Formation of the dualist\n      conception of spirit\u2014Social relations with spirits.\n\n    II. Providence and miracles\u2014The evolution of the dualist\n      conception of a special providence\u2014The conception of\n      miracles\u2014The supernatural and the natural\u2014Scientific\n      explanation and miracles\u2014Social and moral modifications\n      in the character of man owing to supposed social relations\n      with a special providence\u2014Increasing sentiment of\n      irresponsibility and passivity and \u201cabsolute dependence.\u201d\n\n    III. The creation\u2014Genesis of the notion of creation\u2014The\n      dualistic elements in this idea\u2014Monism\u2014Classification\n      of systems of religious metaphysics\u2014Criticism of the\n      classification proposed by Von Hartmann\u2014Criticism of the\n      classification proposed by Auguste Comte.\n\n\n_I. Animism._\n\n[Sidenote: Legitimate and illegitimate metaphysics.]\n\nThe upshot of the preceding chapter is that every religion in its\nbeginning consisted of a mistaken system of physics; and between a\nmistaken system of physics and certain forms of metaphysics there\nis often no difference but one of degree simply. Magnify some\nscientific error, reduce it to a system, explain heaven and earth\nby it, and it will be a metaphysics\u2014in the bad sense. Whatever one\nuniversalizes\u2014error or truth\u2014acquires metaphysical significance, and\npossibly it is more easy to universalize in this way the false than\nthe true; truth possesses always a greater concreteness than error,\nand therefore offers greater resistance to arbitrary fashioning. Let a\nmodern man of science develop his knowledge as he will, and enlarge the\ncircle of known phenomena; so long as he holds vigorously by scientific\nmethods he will never be able to pass at a bound from the sphere of\nphenomena to the sphere of things in themselves. The conscientious\nman of science is prisoned within the limits of knowledge, his\nthought has no outlet. But let him once break the chain of logic which\nconfines him, and behold him free. His false hypothesis grows without\nobstacle or check from reality; he lands at a bound up to his neck in\nmetaphysics. The fact is, one may arrive at a system of metaphysics\nin two ways\u2014incontinently, by a logical solecism and an exaggeration\nof some false premise _ad infinitum_, or by following the chain of\nknown truth to the point at which it disappears in eternal night, and\nby endeavouring to peer into the darkness by the light of hypothesis:\nin the first case metaphysics is simply a logically developed mistake\nwhich gains in magnitude what it loses in reality, an illegitimate\nnegation of science; in the second case it is a hypothetical extension\nof truth, in some sort a legitimate supplement to science.\n\nWe are approaching the moment when religious physics became transformed\ninto metaphysics; the period when the gods retreated from phenomenon\nto phenomenon, and took refuge ultimately in the supersensible; the\nperiod when heaven and earth first became distinct and separate;\nalthough, to be quite accurate, the distinguishing characteristic of\nreligion even at the present day is an incoherent mixture of physics\nand metaphysics, of anthropomorphic or sociomorphic theories in regard\nto nature and to the supernatural. The foundation of every primitive\nreligion is reasoning by analogy, that is to say, the vaguest and least\nsound of logical methods. At a later date the mass of na\u00efve analogies\nconstituting any one religion is criticised and systematized and\ncompleted by tentative induction or regular deduction.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Primitive metaphysics a fetichistic monism.]\n\nMan, as we have seen, begins by creating a natural society, including\nanimals, plants, and even minerals, which he endows with a life similar\nto his own: he believes himself to be in communication with them in\nmatters of volition and intention, just as he is in communication with\nother men and animals. But in thus projecting something analogous to\nhis own life, to his power of volition and of his social relations and\nresponsibilities, into the existence of external things, he does not,\nat first, dream of any distinction between the animating principle and\nthe body which it animates; he conceives as yet no such distinction in\nhis own case. The earliest stage of religious metaphysics, therefore,\nis not a sort of vague monism relative to the divine principle, the\nindwelling divinity of things, \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd, as Messrs. M\u00fcller and Von\nHartmann affirm, but a vague monism in regard to the soul and body,\nwhich at first are conceived as one. The whole world is a society of\nliving _bodies_.\n\n[Sidenote: Becomes a dualistic animism. Separate existence of the soul.]\n\nThe conception which is most analogous to the preceding is that of\ndistinct and separate souls animating each its body, of spirits capable\nof quitting each its dwelling-place. It is this that historians of\nreligion mean by animism. What is remarkable in this conception is its\ndualistic character. It contains the germ of the opposition between\nsoul and body. The dualistic conception arises slowly from a number of\nna\u00efve analogies. The first are borrowed from the fact of respiration.\nDoes not one fairly hear the departure of the breath animating a living\nbody, in what one calls the last gasp? Other analogies are borrowed\nfrom the physical fact of the shadow cast by the sun; one seems to see\nthe spirit marching side by side with the body, and even changing its\nplace when the body is motionless. Shadow has played a large r\u00f4le in\nthe paraphysics of primitive peoples; shadows people the other world.\nIn the third place, during sleep it is incontestable, on the premises\nthat primitive man has at his disposal, that the spirit sometimes makes\nlong journeys, for the sleeper often recollects wandering, hunting,\nor making war in distant countries, at a time when his companions are\nperfectly aware that his body has lain motionless. Fainting also seems\nto be a case in which something dwelling in us suddenly leaves and\npresently comes back again. Lethargy is a more striking example of the\nsame thing. Visions in delirium, hallucinations in madness, or even\nin dreams, deal with beings who are invisible to others; fantastic\nbeings who appear to savages as real as any others. Also it is well\nknown that fools and innocents were regarded, until modern times, as\ninspired and sacred. Other nervous maladies\u2014hysteria, \u201cpossession,\u201d\nsomnambulism\u2014add their quota of precision to the conception of a\nspirit animating the body, dwelling in it, quitting it more or less at\nwill, tormenting it, etc.\n\nThus, by degrees, there arises the conception of a subtle mode of being\neluding touch, and commonly vision even, capable of a life independent\nof the body it inhabits, and more powerful than the body. Man comes to\nbelieve himself to be living in a society with beings other than those\nwho appeal directly and grossly to his senses; he believes himself to\nbe living in a society of spirits.\n\n[Sidenote: Ghosts.]\n\nThat is not all. The problem of death early engaged the attention of\nprimitive people. They considered it altogether as a physical affair;\nthey explained it, as Messrs. Tylor and Spencer (following Lucretius)\nhave shown, by a number of inductions drawn from observations on sleep,\nlethargy, and dream. A sleeping body awakes, it seems to follow that a\ndead body will awake; that is the line of reasoning. Moreover, the dead\ncome back in dreams, or in the demi-hallucinations of the night and of\nfear. The modern conception of pure spirit is an indirect and later\nconsequence of a belief in immortality, it is not itself the principle\nof it. A cult for the dead, for the manes, as the Romans said, is\npartly explicable on moral or psychological grounds, as, for example,\nby a prolongation of filial respect and fear, and partly on grounds\naltogether material and gross. A cult for the dead rests on a na\u00efve\ntheory based on sentiment; it is semi-physical and semi-psychological.\nThe nature of a departed soul has been conceived in very different\nways. Among the Dakota Indians of North America, one\u2019s double goes up\ninto the air, one\u2019s _third_ rejoins the spirits, one\u2019s fourth and last\nsoul stays by the body; an instance of a very complicated theory formed\nout of elements altogether primitive. In general, the belief is that\nthe souls of the dead go to join ancestral souls in another world,\nwhich is commonly a distant land from which the tribe has migrated\nin former times\u2014affording an example of a social tie which survives\ndeath. The Greeks and Romans believed that, if the body was deprived\nof sepulture, its shadow could not penetrate into its proper place of\nabode; it remained on earth and haunted the living\u2014a remnant of former\nbeliefs in the necessity of sepulture and the maintenance of friendly\nrelations with the society of the dead.[36]\n\n      [36] See the author\u2019s _Morale d\u2019\u00c9picure_ (_Des id\u00e9es antiques\n      sur la mort_) 3d edition, p. 105.\n\n[Sidenote: Analogies between ghosts and living people.]\n\nThe dead were to be conciliated by the same means as the living, by\nsupplications and gifts. The gifts were the same as those which are\nacceptable to the living\u2014food, arms, costumes, horses, servants. In\nDahomey, when a king dies, a hundred of his soldiers are immolated on\nhis tomb as a body guard. Much the same thing was done among the Incas\nof Peru. At Bali all the women of the harem are immolated upon the\ngrave of the defunct sultan. In Homer, Achilles slaughtered his Trojan\nprisoners on the funeral pyre of Patroclus, together with the horses\nand the dogs of his dead friend. The Fiji islanders used to immolate a\nman at the foot of each pillar in the home of a chief, as a guard for\nthe edifice. In our days, spirits are still so numerous, in the eyes\nof certain people, that an Arab, for example, when he throws a stone,\nbreathes an apology to such spirits as he may strike.[37] The universe\nis populated by anthropomorphic societies.\n\n      [37] See Le Bon, _L\u2019Homme et les Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s_, t. ii.\n\n[Sidenote: Care of vengeance committed to ghosts.]\n\nIt was to spirits that the care of one\u2019s vengeances was confided.\nAccording to Tylor, two Brahmans, believing that a man had robbed them\nof fifty rupees, took their own mother and, with her consent, cut off\nher head in order that her shadow might torment and pursue the robber\ntill death. Among the Alfourous of Moluccas children are buried alive\nup to the neck, and left there under the scorching sun with their\nmouths full of pepper and salt, so that, dying in an agony of thirst,\ntheir souls may go in a state of fury in search of the enemy against\nwhom they have been sent. It is always some social exigency, some\nhatred, some vengeance, some punishment, that leads one to enter into\ncommerce with spirits.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nIn effect, all historical treatises unite to show that animism or\npolydemonism has at one time or other been universal. It immediately\nsucceeded fetichism or concrete naturism, the primitive belief, in\nwhich animating soul and animated body were not distinguished.\n\nA belief in separately existing spirits, or spiritism, as Mr. Spencer\ncalls it, which contains the germ of the belief in revisitants from\nthe other world, constitutes the primitive origin of the more refined\nmetaphysical system called spiritualism. This last system, founded also\nupon the notion of the fundamental duality of man, and of every living\nbeing, leads to the notion of a society of spirits.\n\nLet us now consider the inherent necessity under which animism lies of\ndeveloping into theism.\n\n\n_II. Providence and Miracles._\n\n[Sidenote: From ghosts to divinity a single step.]\n\nFrom the notion of a spirit to that of a divinity is but one step.\nIt suffices to conceive the spirit as sufficiently powerful and\nredoubtable to reduce us in some considerable measure to a state of\ndependence. Spirits, manes, gods, subsist in the beginning on an\nindistinct sentiment of terror. The instant that spirits can separate\nthemselves from the body and perform mysterious actions of which we are\nincapable, they begin to be divine; it is for this reason that death\nmay change a man into a species of god.\n\n[Sidenote: Development of notion of special providence.]\n\nSpirits are not only powerful, however; they are also clairvoyant,\nprevoyant\u2014they are acquainted with things that lie beyond our\nknowledge. More than that, they are benevolent or hostile; they\nare related to us in various social or antisocial ways. Here we\nhave the elements of the notion of divine providence. The second\nsemi-metaphysical idea, which lies in germ at the bottom of every\nreligion, is, therefore, this of perspicacious spirits, of favouring\nor unfavouring deities, of providences. \u201cThis being is well or ill\ndisposed toward me; he may work me good or harm.\u201d Such is the first\nna\u00efve formulation of the theory of divine providence. One must\nnot expect to find, in the beginning, the notion of a general,\ndirecting intelligence, but simply that of a social tie between\nparticular voluntary, well-disposed or ill-disposed beings. The notion\nof providence, like all other religious notions, was at first a\nsuperstition. A savage, on his way to some undertaking, meets a serpent\nand succeeds in his enterprise; it was the serpent that brought him\nluck: behold a providential accident! Gamblers at the present time\nare quite as superstitious. The fetich theory of providence still\nsubsists, in the belief in medals, scapularies, and so forth.[38]\nObservation inevitably results in the perception of causal relations\namong phenomena; the trouble is, simply, that to the primitive mind\nevery coincidence appears to be a cause; _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_.\nAny object that is a party to any such coincidence is a lucky object,\ngood to have in one\u2019s power, a portable providence, so to speak. Thus\nthere arises the notion of a destiny, a bias in phenomena toward good\nor evil, which imposes itself upon the previously existing conception\nof nature as animated or peopled by spirits. The _post hoc, ergo\npropter hoc_\u2014that is to say, the belief in the influence of phenomena\nimmediately preceding or concomitant to the main event, and in the\ninfluence of a present action upon some future event\u2014is the germ of\nsuperstitions both in regard to providence and to destiny. And out of\nthe idea of destiny, of fortune, of necessity, grows in process of time\nthe scientific notion of determinism and universal reciprocity.\n\n      [38] A belief in relics, pushed so far by the earlier\n      Christians and by so many Catholics to-day, is, too, a sort\n      of faith in fetiches or amulets. From the earliest period of\n      Christianity the faithful were accustomed to go to the Holy\n      Land to obtain water from the Jordan, and gather dust from the\n      soil that the feet of Christ had trod, and to break pieces from\n      the true cross, which St. Paulin of Nole says, \u201cpossesses in\n      all its parts a vital force in so much that although its wood\n      be every day clipped off by innumerable pilgrims, it remains\n      intact.\u201d Relics are supposed not only to cure the body, but\n      the soul of those who touch them: Gregory sent to a barbarous\n      king the chains that had served to manacle the apostle Paul;\n      assuring him that the same chains which had manacled the body\n      of the saint could deliver the heart from sin.\n\n      This superstition for relics, common in the Middle Ages, was\n      held in all its na\u00efvet\u00e9 by Bishop Gregory of Tours. He relates\n      that one day when he was suffering from a pain in the temples,\n      a touch from the hangings about the tomb of St. Martin cured\n      him. He repeated the experiment three times with equal success.\n      Once, he tells, he was attacked by a mortal dysentery; he\n      drank a glass of water in which he had dissolved a pinch of\n      dust scraped up on the tomb of the saint, and his health was\n      restored. One day a bone stuck in his throat, he began praying\n      and groaning, and kneeled before the tomb; he stretched out\n      his hand and touched the hangings and the bone disappeared.\n      \u201cI do not know,\u201d he says, \u201cwhat became of it, for I neither\n      threw it up nor felt it pass downward into my stomach.\u201d At\n      another time his tongue became swollen and tumefied; he licked\n      the railing of the tomb of St. Martin and his tongue became\n      of its natural size. St. Martin\u2019s relics go the length even\n      of curing toothache. \u201cOh, ineffable theriac!\u201d cries Gregory\n      of Tours, \u201cineffable pigment! admirable antidote! celestial\n      purge! superior to all the drugs of the faculty! sweeter than\n      aromatics, stronger than all unguents together! Thou cleanest\n      the stomach like scammony, the lungs like hyssop; thou purgest\n      the head like pyrethrig.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Systematic subordination among the gods.]\n\nLittle by little, by the growth of experience, man achieves the\nconception of an orderly subordination among the different voluntary\nbeings with whom he peoples the earth, a sort of unification of\nspecial providences, a more or less regular organization of the world.\nResponsibility for current events retreats from cause to cause into the\ndistance, from powerful being to still more powerful being; primitive\nman still insists on believing that every event is still the sign,\nthe expression of a volition. Once more his faith is dualistic: he\nconceives the world as dependent upon the will of some one or more\nsuperior beings who direct it, or suspend at need the ordinary course\nof things.\n\n[Sidenote: Development of belief in miracle.]\n\nIt is at this stage in the evolution of religion that the conception\nof miracles appears. The notion of miracles is at first very vague in\nprimitive religions; the period at which this notion begins to become\ndefinite marks the initiation of a further step in the development\nof religion. If, in effect, the marvellous has in all times formed\na necessary element in the constitution, it did not possess in the\nbeginning the same character as nowadays; it was not so definitely\ndistinguished from the natural order of things. Human intelligence\nhad not yet distinguished scientific determinism and supernaturalism.\nA natural phenomenon! The bare idea is almost modern; that is to\nsay, the idea of a phenomenon subject to immutable laws, bound up\ntogether with the whole body of other phenomena and forming with them\na single unit. What a complex conception, and how far above the reach\nof primitive intelligence! What we call a miracle _is_ a natural\nphenomenon to a savage, he sees miracles every hour; properly speaking,\nhe sees nothing else but miracles, that is to say, surprising events.\nPrimitive man, in effect, takes no notice of what does not surprise\nhim (surprise, it has been said, is the father of science), and one of\nthe immediate characteristics, in his opinion, of what surprises him,\nis that it is intentional.[39] That it should be so no more shocks\nhim, than a paradox shocks a philosopher. The savage is not acquainted\nwith the laws of nature, he has no notion of their being universal\nto prevent his admitting exceptions to them. A miracle is simply to\nhim a sign of a power like his own, acting by methods unknown to him\nand producing effects above the limits of his own capacity. Are such\neffects _infinitely_ above his capacity? No such notion enters into the\nquestion; it suffices that they be above it at all to make him bow down\nand adore.\n\n      [39] Etymologically, miracle signifies simply surprising. The\n      Hindus do not even possess a special word for a supernatural\n      event; miracle and spectacle in their language are one. The\n      supernatural, that is to say, is for them simply an object\n      of contemplation and admiration, an event which stands out\n      prominently from the general monotony which attracts the eye.\n\n[Sidenote: Marks a degree of intellectual progress.]\n\nThe belief in miracles, so anti-scientific nowadays, marks a\nconsiderable progress in the intellectual evolution. It amounts, in\neffect, to a limitation of divine intervention to a small number of\nextraordinary phenomena. A conception of universal determinism is, in\nfact, beginning to make its appearance. The belief in dualism, in the\nseparation between spirit and body, becoming constantly more marked,\nends in the belief in distinct and separate powers.\n\n[Sidenote: Conception of God as Providence more essential than that of\nHim as First Cause.]\n\nBelief in a power miraculously distributing good and evil, in a\nProvidence, is the most vital element in religion. The most important\nact in every religion, indeed, is propitiation and entreaty; well,\nthis act is not simply directed toward God as such, but toward God as\na presiding divinity, a power capable of favouring or disfavouring\nus. And the great Oriental religions have reached their present state\nof perfection without any special effort to make the notion of God\nprecise, without specially insisting upon any of his distinguishing\nattributes except such as are subsidiary to this notion of a Providence\nawarding good and evil; and popular fancy hastens to ascribe the\naccomplishment of this distribution to genii, to good and evil spirits;\nit need go no further, it need not penetrate to the Great Being, to\nthe infinite, so to speak, to the noumenon, and to the abyss which,\nin effect, is to it a comparative matter of indifference. Even in\nreligions of Christian origin\u2014in especial, in Catholicism, and the\nGreek Church\u2014God is not always addressed directly; saints, angels,\nthe Virgin, the Son, the Holy Spirit, are much more frequently invoked\nas mediators. There is something vague, and obscure, and terrible,\nin God the Father; He is the creator of heaven and hell, the great\nand somewhat ambiguous principle of goodness, and, in some dim way,\nof evil. One may see in Him the germ of an indirect personification\nof nature, which is so indifferent to man, so hard, so inflexible.\nChrist, on the contrary, is the personification of the best elements\nof humanity. The responsibility for ferocious laws, maledictions,\neternal punishments, is laid upon the shoulders of the Old Testament\nDeity hidden behind His cloud, revealed only in the lightning and\nthe thunder, reigning by terror, and demanding the life even of His\nSon as an expiatory sacrifice. At bottom, the real God adored by the\nChristians is Jesus, that is to say, a mediating Providence whose\nfunction is to soften down the asperities of natural law, a Providence\nwho distributes nothing but good and happiness, whereas nature\ndistributes good and evil with equal indifference. It is Jesus we\ninvoke, and it is to the personification of Providence rather than to\nthat of the first cause of the world that humanity has kneeled these\ntwo thousand years.\n\n[Sidenote: Increasing opposition between notion of Providence and\nscience.]\n\nA belief in miracles and in a Providence comes, in the course of its\ndevelopment, into sharper and sharper conflict with a belief in the\norder of nature. Man gives himself up to an exclusive preoccupation\nwith what he supposes to be the means of ameliorating his destiny and\nthat of his fellows: providential interference with the course of\nnature, sacrifice, and prayer are his great means of action on the\nworld. He lives in the supernatural. There exists always, in the early\nstages of every religion, a certain sentiment of evil, of suffering,\nof terror; and to correct it the believer takes refuge in miracles.\nProvidence is thus the primitive means of progress, and man\u2019s first\nhope lay in the superhuman.\n\n[Sidenote: Practical evil of belief in Providence.]\n\nFear of evil, and belief that it can be cured by divine intervention,\nwere the origin of prayer. A positive religion, even in our days, can\nscarcely rest content with the conception of a God who simply sits at\na distance and watches the march of a world which he regulated, once\nfor all, at the beginning of time. He must absolutely show himself\nfrom time to time in our midst, we must feel the proximity of his hand\nready to sustain us, he must be able to suspend the course of nature to\nour profit. Piety requires the stimulus of a belief in the immediate\nand present possibility of miracles, in their past existence, in their\npresent existence even, and in one\u2019s power of invoking them by prayer.\nThus the believer opposes to the conception of ordinary determinism,\nas the regulating principle of the external world, a faith in a being\ncapable at any moment of tampering with it; and he counts upon this\npower being exercised, he counts upon invoking it, he puts his hope in\nsupernatural means not less than in natural means, and sometimes even\nto the neglect of the latter.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Miracles not frauds.]\n\nAs Littr\u00e9 remarked, the mind may behave in three ways in regard to\nmiracles: adore them, reject them as a mystification, or explain them\nby natural means. Primitive times, Antiquity, and the Middle Ages\nadored miracles; the eighteenth century rejected them as impostures\nand made game of them. It was then that the theory, that the founders\nof religion were impostors simply, was generally prevalent. One of\nthe most necessary and most serious incidents in the human drama was\nsimply mistaken for a bit of comedy. It was forgotten that men do not\ndevote a whole lifetime to falsehood; the theory of imposture was a\npsychological as well as historical error. A man\u2014even an actor or a\npolitician\u2014is always sincere on some side or other; at some period or\nother a man inevitably says what he thinks, even if only by mistake.\nEven certain palinodes, provoked by self-interest, are explicable by an\nunconscious deviation, under the influence of some passion, rather than\nby an altogether conscious and brazen determination to deceive; and\neven when one lies with all one\u2019s heart, one inevitably believes, or\nsoon comes to believe, some part of one\u2019s own falsehood. The reproach\nof hypocrisy, of comedy and falsehood, has been uttered a hundred\ntimes in the course of history, and it has usually been a mistake.\nIn the eighteenth century the same men who prepared and achieved the\nFrench Revolution were fond of accusing the prophets and Apostles,\nthe revolutionists of an early date, of insincerity and fraud. To-day\nsuch an accusation can no longer be sustained against the sacred\nbooks, and the men of the eighteenth century are themselves accused\nof hypocrisy. For M. Taine, for example, almost all the leaders of\nthe French Revolution lie under the reproach of insincerity, and the\nvery people who sustained them were not, in his judgment, moved by\nthe ideas which they proclaimed, but by the grossest self-interest.\nThe fact is, there are always two points of view from which historic\nevents may be regarded: that of personal interests, which come to the\nsurface as seldom as possible, and that of the general and generous\nideas which, on the contrary, are complacently given prominence in\npublic speeches and writings. If it is useful for the historian to\ndivine the interested motives which contributed to the production of\na historical event, it is irrational to refuse to lend some measure\nof credence to the higher motives which justified it and which may\nwell have lent their influence to that of self-interest. The human\nheart is not a one-stringed instrument. The revolutionists had faith\nin the Revolution, in the rights which they were vindicating, in\nequality and fraternity; they even believed, sometimes, in their own\ndisinterestedness, as the Protestants believed in the Reformation, as\nChrist and the prophets believed in their own inspiration; as even in\nour days, by a belated superstition, the Pope believes in his own\ninfallibility. There is in every faith some element of the na\u00efvet\u00e9\nwhich a child shows in its little semi-conscious hypocrisies, in its\ncaresses which mask a demand and its smiles which are the efflorescence\nof satisfied desire. But without a certain element of genuineness,\na certain element of real na\u00efvet\u00e9 in the faith of the believers, no\nreligion could exist, no revolution would be achieved, no important\nchange would be produced in the life of humanity. Intellectual\naffirmation and action are always proportionate: to act is to believe\nand to believe is to act.\n\n[Sidenote: But illusions.]\n\nIn our days, miracles are beginning to be scientifically explained.\nThey are phenomena simply; frequently they were witnessed and described\nin good faith, but with insufficient knowledge. Everyone is acquainted,\nfor example, with the biblical miracle according to which Isaiah\n\u201cbrought again the shadows of the degrees, which was gone down in the\nsun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward\u201d; indeed the miracle has been\nreproduced. Mr. Guillemin[40] demonstrates by geometrical reasonings\nthat, by inclining the dial slightly toward the horizon, the shadow\nmay be made gradually to creep a certain distance backward. In the\nsame way, the successive appearances of Jesus after his burial have\nbeen paralleled by a recent event in the United States: a criminal,\nat whose execution all his fellow-prisoners were present, appeared to\nall of them successively the next day, or the day after. The latter is\na remarkable instance of collective hallucination, which shows that\na group of individuals living in, so to speak, the same emotional\nhabitat may well be struck at the same time by the same vision, without\nthere being, on their part, either conscious or unconscious fraud or\ncollusion. A third miracle, of an altogether different kind, has also\nbeen scientifically explained: I mean the colouring of the fleece of\nthe flocks of Laban and of Jacob; the effect was obtained by a process\nwell-known to the Egyptians, and mentioned by Pliny. Matthew Arnold\nbelieves that the miraculous cures also are not pure legend simply,\nthat they bear witness to the great influence of mind over matter.\nJesus really did exorcise devils, that is to say, the mad passions\nwhich howled about him. And thus may be understood in their true sense\nthe words: \u201cWhat does it matter whether I say, _Thy_ sins are forgiven\nthee! or whether I say Arise and walk?\u201d and again: \u201cThou art made\nwhole; sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee.\u201d Jesus himself\nmust have known, as Socrates and Empedocles did, though even in a more\nextraordinary degree, that he possessed a moral and physical power, a\nvirtue, which he himself did not understand and which seemed to him a\ndivine gift. He knew himself to be morally and symbolically the healer\nof the deaf, the blind, the paralytic, a physician of souls; and the\ncures that he wrought in cases of hysteria, more or less temporary but\nreal, forced him to attribute to himself a superhuman power over the\nbody also.\n\n      [40] _Actes de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 helv\u00e9t. des sc. nat._, August, 1877.\n\n[Sidenote: Usually explicable by the science of nervous phenomena.]\n\nThe science of the nervous system, which dates almost entirely from our\ndays, may be taken as a perpetual running commentary on the history\nof miracles. Perhaps a full quarter of the marvellous facts observed\nand revered by humanity fall into place within the limits of this\nnew science. A physician, or observer, in the midst of his subjects\nis like a prophet; those who surround him are incessantly obliged to\nrecognize in him an occult power, which he himself does not understand;\nphysician and patient, observer and observed, live equally in the realm\nof the extraordinary. The facts of partial insensibility, of catalepsy\nfollowed by a reawakening like a rising from the dead, of mental\nsuggestion taking place even at a distance, all these facts, which are\nwell known, and are each day becoming more and more explicable, are\neven for us at the present moment on the confines of the miraculous;\nthey are detaching themselves, under our very eyes, from the sphere of\nreligion, and falling within the compass of science. The observer who\nnotices for the first time that he can transmit an almost compulsive\ncommand by a look, by a pressure of the hand, and even, it appears\nnowadays, by a simple tension of his will, must experience a species of\nsurprise, even of fright, of almost religious disquietude at finding\nhimself armed with such a power. He must begin to understand that\nthe mythical and mystical interpretation of such facts is an affair\nof delicate discrimination, that lay beyond the stretch of primitive\nintelligence.\n\n[Sidenote: Often by less recondite knowledge.]\n\nEven the miracles which do not belong simply to the less explicable\nphenomena of the nervous system tend increasingly to appear to the\nhistorian as having been possessed of some foundation in fact. All\nthat was subjective in them is the element of the marvellous and the\nprovidential. The miracles really were produced, but in the human\nheart; and instead, in any proper sense, of engendering faith they\nproceeded from it and are explicable by it. An English missionary[41]\nwho made a journey in Siberia relates that at the moment of his\narrival at Irkutsk a fire was consuming three-fourths of the town; a\nchapel, however, had been spared and the Russian clergy saw in this\nfact a miracle; the English missionary explained it very simply by the\nobservation that the rest of the town had been built up of wood, and\nthat the chapel was of brick. But the missionary, who denies anything\nlike providential intervention in the above mentioned case, admits\nprovidential intervention the same day in regard to another point; for\nhe relates that but for one of his horses having run away he would have\narrived too soon at Irkutsk, and would have had his baggage burned in\nthe fire, and offers thanks to God because his horse had been inspired\nto break the traces. The same natural causes which suffice, according\nto this excellent gentleman, to explain why the Russian church was\nspared, suffice no longer when the luggage of an Anglican missionary,\nthe special _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_, is involved. Every believer is inclined thus to\ninterpret miraculously the mercies that have been shown to him. From\nthe height of a stall or the pulpit of a church one sees the events of\nthis world at a particular angle; from the stall or pulpit of another\nchurch one sees them at another angle, and for purposes of scientific\nverity the events must be looked down upon from the stalls and pulpits\nof every church\u2014unless one rejects churches altogether.\n\n      [41] _Through Siberia_, by Henry Lansdell, with illustrations\n      and maps; London, 1882.\n\n[Sidenote: Miracles essential to religion.]\n\nReligions create miracles by the very need that they themselves feel\nfor them, they create them as evidence in their own support; miracles\nenter as a necessary element into the process of mental evolution which\nengenders religion. The distinguishing mark of the word of God is that\nit alters the order of natural phenomena. Mohammedanism alone made its\nway in the world without the assistance of visible and gross evidence\nin its favour, appealing not to the eyes but to the spirit, as Pascal\nwould say; and in this respect it may perhaps claim an intellectual\nelevation that Judaism and Christianity cannot. But if Mohammed refused\nthe gift of miracles, with a good faith that Moses seems not to have\npossessed, his disciples hastened to force it upon him, and have\nsupplied his life and death with an appropriate setting of marvellous\nlegend. Ground of belief must be had; the messenger of God must present\nsome visible sign by which he may be recognized.\n\n[Sidenote: Prevalence of belief in special providence.]\n\nIt is evident that divine providence or protection must have been\nconceived in the beginning as quite _special_, and not as acting by\ngeneral laws. The course of the world was one continual series of\ndivine interventions in the natural order of things, and in the affairs\nof men; divinities lived in the midst of mankind, in the midst of\nthe family, in the midst of the tribe. This result may be explained\nas due to the very character of primitive humanity. Primitive man,\nwho is the most credulous, is evidently also the least responsible\nof mankind; incapable of governing himself, he is always willing\nto abandon himself to the management of somebody else; in every\ncircumstance of life he needs to share some part of his burden. If a\nmisfortune happens to him, he relies on anybody or anything rather\nthan on himself. This characteristic, which has been remarked in a\nnumber of races of mankind, is especially visible in infants and in\ninfant peoples. They lack patience to follow without skipping a link\nin the chain of cause and effect; they do not understand how any\nhuman action can produce any great effect, and are, in general, much\nastonished at the disproportion which exists between effects and their\ncauses\u2014a disproportion which is only explicable in their eyes by the\nintervention of some foreign cause. Hence the need, so remarkable in\nfeeble minds, to discover some other than the real explanation for\na phenomenon; the real explanation is never, in their eyes, truly\nsufficient. For a vanquished soldier, the defeat is never sufficiently\nexplained by scientific grounds; for example, by his own cowardice, by\nthe ill-management of the men on the field, by the ignorance of the\nleaders; before the explanation is complete the notion of treason must\nalways be added. Just so, if one of the lower classes has an attack\nof indigestion, he will not admit that he has eaten too much; he will\ncomplain of the quality of the food, and perhaps even suggest that\nsomebody has tried to poison him. In the Middle Ages, when there was\npestilence, it was the fault of the Jews; at Naples the people beat the\nimages of the saints when the harvest is not good. All these facts are\nexplicable in the same way; an uncultivated mind cannot bring itself\nto accept a result which is disagreeable to it, cannot resign itself\nto having been unexpectedly disconcerted by the mere brute course of\nthings, to say with Turenne, when he was asked how he lost a battle:\n\u201cBy my own fault.\u201d The notion of a special providence allies itself\nwith his natural disposition; it permits man to wash his hands of all\nresponsibility, no matter what happens. A result which it would be\ntoo much trouble to foresee, and to obtain by mere natural means, can\nalways be demanded at the hand of Providence; one waits for it instead\nof working for it; and if one is deceived in one\u2019s expectations one\nlays the blame on the Deity. In the Bible, kings are never guilty\nexcept toward God, their incapacity is simply impiety; but it is always\neasier to be pious than to be capable.\n\n[Sidenote: Belief in Providence tames people for absolute monarchy.]\n\nAt the same time that the na\u00efve irresponsibility of primitive people\nthus accommodates itself to the providential government of the world,\nit accommodates itself no less to the despotic government of a monarch\nor of an aristocracy. The principle of despotism is at bottom identical\nwith that of a supernatural, external providence; the latter also\ndemands a certain renunciation or abdication in the direction of\nevents. One lets one\u2019s self go, one confides one\u2019s self to someone\nelse, and by this means one winks at the cruellest of frauds, the\ndefraudment of one\u2019s own volition; another wills and determines in\none\u2019s stead. One limits one\u2019s self to desiring and hoping, and prayers\nand supplications take the place of action and of work. One floats with\nthe stream in a state of relaxation; if things turn ill there is always\nsomeone for one to blame, to curse, or to wheedle; if, on the contrary,\nthings turn out well, one\u2019s heart overflows with benedictions, not to\nmention that one secretly attributes some part (man is so made) of\nthe result obtained to one\u2019s self. Instead of saying, \u201cI determined\nthat it should be so,\u201d one says, \u201cI asked, I prayed for it.\u201d It is so\neasy to believe that one is helping to manage the state, or govern\nthe earth, when one has murmured two words into the ear of a king\nor a god\u2014when, like the fly in the fable, one has simply buzzed an\ninstant about the great rolling wheel of the world. Propitiatory prayer\npossesses a power which is great in proportion to its vagueness; it\nseems to be able to do everything precisely because it cannot ever do\nanything in especial. It exalts man in his own eyes because it enables\nhim to obtain the maximum of effect with the minimum of effort. What a\npenchant the people have always felt for destiny and men of destiny!\nHow every appeal to the people, in behalf of men of destiny, has in all\ntimes succeeded in taking the suffrage of the masses! A sentiment of\nsubmission to the decrees of Providence, who is destiny personified,\nhas been the excuse of every form of indolence, of every cowardly\nadherence to custom. And if one carries it to its logical conclusion,\nto what else does the indolent sophism of the Orientals amount? It is\ntrue that the precept, \u201cHeaven will aid thee,\u201d is habitually corrected\nby the precept, \u201cAid thyself.\u201d But efficiency to aid one\u2019s self demands\ninitiative, and audacity, and a spirit of revolt against an unwelcome\ncourse of things; efficiently to aid one\u2019s self one must not say,\n\u201cGod\u2019s will be done,\u201d but \u201cMy will be done\u201d; one must be a rebel in\nthe midst of the passive multitude, a sort of Prometheus or Satan. It\nis difficult to say to one, \u201cWhatever happens, whatever exists, is what\nit is, by the irresistible and special will of God,\u201d and nevertheless\nto add, \u201cDo not submit to the accomplished facts.\u201d In the Middle Ages\nmen consoled themselves in the midst of tyranny and poverty by thinking\nthat it was God himself who was oppressing them, and dared not rise\nagainst their masters for fear they might be rising really against God.\nTo preserve social injustice it had to be apotheosized. What was really\nno more than a human right had to be made divine.\n\n[Sidenote: Personal initiative a defiance of the gods.]\n\nThe sentiment of personal initiative, like that of personal\nresponsibility, is quite modern and incapable of being developed in\nthe atmosphere of bigotry and narrowness in which man has long lived\nwith his gods. To say to one\u2019s self, \u201cI can undertake something new;\nI shall have the audacity to introduce a change into the world; to\nmake an advance; in the combat against brute nature I shall shoot the\nfirst arrow, without waiting, like the soldier of antiquity, till the\nauspices have been consulted\u201d\u2014would have looked like an enormity to\nmen of former times; to men who did not take a step without consulting\ntheir gods and carrying their images before them to show the way.\nPersonal initiative was, on the face of it, a direct offence against\nProvidence, an encroachment on His rights; to strike the rock as Moses\ndid, before having received the order to do so from God, would have\nbeen to expose one\u2019s self to His wrath. The world was the private\nproperty of the Most High. It was not permitted to a man to employ\nthe forces of nature without special leave; man was in the position\nof a child, who is not allowed to play with the fire; except that the\nreason for prohibiting the child is not the same\u2014we do not prohibit\nchildren from playing with the fire because we are \u201cjealous\u201d of them.\nThe jealousy of the gods is a conception which has survived till the\npresent day, although it is incessantly retreating before the progress\nmade by human initiative. Machinery, the product of modern times, is\nthe most powerful enemy that the notion of a Providence has ever had to\nwrestle with. One knows how the innocent winnowing machine was cursed\nby the priests, and looked upon with an eye of hatred by the peasants,\nbecause it imprisoned and employed in the service of man an essentially\nprovidential force\u2014that of the wind. But malediction was useless,\nthe wind could not refuse to winnow the wheat; the machine vanquished\nthe gods. There, as everywhere, human initiative carried the day.\nScience found itself in direct opposition to the special intervention\nof Providence, and appropriated and subdued the forces of nature to\nan end, in appearance, not divine but natural. A man of science is a\ndisturbing element in nature, and science an anti-providence.\n\n[Sidenote: Man practically a domestic animal in the house of the gods:\nresulting enfeeblement of character.]\n\nBefore the earliest developments of science, primitive man found\nhimself, as a result of his imagination, in a state of domesticity\nin the world, analogous to that to which he had himself reduced\ncertain animals; and this state exerted a profound influence upon\nthe character of such animals, deprived them of certain capacities\nand endowed them, in turn, with others. Some of them\u2014certain birds,\nfor example\u2014become under domestication almost incapable of finding\nand providing themselves with their necessary food. More intelligent\nanimals like the dog, who might in a case of absolute necessity rely\nupon himself for indispensables, contract nevertheless a habit of\nsubjection to man which creates a corresponding need: my dog is not\nat ease except when he knows that I am near; if anything causes me\nto go away, he is restless and nervous; in the presence of danger he\nruns between my legs, instead of taking refuge in flight, which would\nbe the primitive instinct. Thus every animal which knows itself to be\nwatched and protected in the details of its life by a superior being,\nnecessarily loses its primitive independence, and if its primitive\nindependence should be once more restored, it would be unhappy, would\nexperience an ill-defined fear, a vague sentiment of enfeeblement.\nJust so in the case of primitive and uncultivated man: once he is\nhabituated to the protection of the gods, this protection becomes\nfor him a veritable need; if he is deprived of it, he falls into\na state of inexpressible discomfiture and inquietude. Add that, in\nthis case, he will soon provide himself with a substitute; to escape\nfrom the intolerable solitude which doubt creates within him, he\nwill take refuge in his gods or his fetiches, under the influence of\na sentiment identical with that which sends the dog to take refuge\nbetween the legs of his master. To attain some idea of the force of\nsuch a sentiment among primitive human beings, one must remember that\nthe surveillance of the gods is much more extended and more scrupulous\neven than that of man over domestic animals, or of a master over his\nslaves. Primitive man feels his god or his genii at his side at every\nstep, in all the circumstances of life; he is accustomed to being\nnever alone, to the presence of someone by him keeping step with him;\nhe believes that every word that he says and every act that he does\nis witnessed and judged. No domestic animal is accustomed to so high\na degree of subjection; he knows perfectly that our protection is not\nalways efficacious and that we are sometimes mistaken about him, that\nwe caress him when he ought to be punished, etc. Cats, for instance,\nknow that man cannot see in the dark: one evening a white cat made\nready to commit an abominable misdemeanour within two steps of me,\nnot suspecting that its colour would betray it to an attentive eye,\neven in the obscurity. Primitive men sometimes practised an analogous\ncunning in regard to their gods; they did not yet believe in the\ncomplete sovereignty, in the absolute ubiquity, of Providence. But by\na process of logical development, Providence is ultimately believed\nto extend to everything, to envelop one\u2019s whole life; the fear of God\nbecomes to man a perpetual prohibition against his passions, a hope in\nGod\u2019s aid his perpetual recourse. Religion and science possess this\nmuch in common, that they result in enveloping us equally in a network\nof necessities; but what distinguishes science is that it makes us\nacquainted with the real order and causes of phenomena, and by that\nfact permits us to modify that order at will; by showing us the fact\nand nature of our dependence, science supplies us with the means of\nconquering a comparative independence. In religion, on the contrary,\nthe mythical and miraculous element introduces an unforeseen factor,\nthe divine will, a special providence, into the midst of events, and\nby that fact deceives one as to the true means of modifying the real\ncourse of things. The instant one believes one\u2019s self to be dependent\nupon Jupiter or Allah, one ascribes a greater efficacy to propitiation\nthan to action; and it follows that the greater one perceives one\u2019s\ndependence to be the more completely one believes one\u2019s self to be\nwithout defence against it; the more complete the submission is to God,\nthe more complete one\u2019s resulting submission becomes to the established\nfact. The feeling of an imaginary dependence upon supernatural beings\nthus increases the general dependence of man in relation to nature.\nThus understood, the notion of a special providence, of a divine\ntutelage, has resulted in the protracted maintenance of the human\nsoul in a state of genuine minority; and this state of minority,\nin its turn, has rendered the existence and surveillance of divine\nprotectors a necessity. When, therefore, the believer refuses an offer\nof emancipation from the dependence which he has voluntarily accepted,\nthe reason is that he feels a vague sentiment of his own insufficiency,\nof his irremediably belated coming of age; he is a child, who does not\ndare stray far from the paternal roof; he does not possess the courage\nto walk alone. The child who should show a precocious independence,\nand should early learn to go its own road, would not improbably become\nsimply dissipated; his precocity might well be depravity in disguise.\nSimilarly in history, the irreligious, the sceptics, the atheists,\nhave been frequently spoiled children, precocious in the bad sense;\ntheir freedom of spirit was only a high form of mischief. The human\nrace, like the individual, long needed surveillance and tutelage; so\nlong as it experienced this need it leaned inevitably upon a belief\nin a providence external to itself and to the universe, capable of\ninterfering in the course of things, and of modifying the general laws\nof nature by particular acts of volition. Subsequently, by the progress\nof science, Providence has been deprived day by day of some of its\nspecial and miraculous powers, of its supernatural prerogatives. By\nthe evolution of human thought piety has been transformed; it tends\nto-day to regard as an object of filial affection what was formerly an\nobject of terror, of deprecation, of propitiation. Science, enveloping\nProvidence in a network of inflexible laws, is day by day reducing it\nto a state of immobility and, so to speak, paralyzing it. Providence\nis becoming like an old man whom age has rendered incapable of\nmovement\u2014who but for our aid could not raise a hand or foot, who lives\nwith our assistance, and who, nevertheless, is only the more beloved,\nas if his existence became to us more precious in proportion to its\nuselessness.\n\n\n_III. Creation._\n\n[Sidenote: Conception of creation dualistic.]\n\nAfter the notion of Providence one must deal, in running through the\nmetaphysical principles of religion, with the notion of a creator,\nwhich has acquired in our days an importance that it did not possess\nformerly. This conception, like that of the soul and of a special\nprovidence, presented itself originally under the form of dualism. Man\nconceived in the beginning a god as fashioning a world more or less\nindependent of himself, out of some pre-existing material. It was only\nlater that this crude dualism was refined into the notion of creation\n_ex nihilo_, which represented the traditional duality as produced by\na primitive unity\u2014God, who had at first existed alone, created out of\nnothing a world distinct and separate from himself.\n\n[Sidenote: Conception of creation natural.]\n\nThe following conversation, of which I can guarantee the authenticity,\naffords an example of na\u00efve metaphysic. The two interlocutors were\na little peasant girl, four years old, who had always lived in the\ncountry, and a young girl from town, the daughter of the owner\nof the farm. They had gone out into the garden where a number of\nflowers had opened that morning; the little peasant girl admired\nthem enthusiastically, and addressing her companion, for whom she\nhad long entertained a species of cult: \u201cIt is you, mistress, is it\nnot,\u201d she cried, \u201cwho makes these flowers?\u201d This interrogation did\nnot embody an incipient speculation in a sphere of physics; the child\nsimply attributed an unknown power to a visible and palpable being.\nHer mistress replied laughingly, \u201cNo, not I. I haven\u2019t the power.\u201d\n\u201cWho does it then?\u201d the child asked. One perceives the persistence,\nin primitive intelligences, of the impulse to explain things by the\ndirect action of somebody\u2019s volition, the impulse to place somebody\nbehind every event. \u201cIt is God,\u201d replied the elder girl. \u201cAnd where\nis God? Have you ever seen Him?\u201d No doubt the little peasant, who\nregarded the city as a very surprising place, supposed one might meet\nGod there, face to face, and God did not, as yet, represent to her\nanything supra-physical. But how admirably disposed she was for the\nreception of a more or less illegitimate metaphysic! \u201cI have never\nseen God,\u201d replied her mistress, \u201cand nobody has ever seen Him. He\nlives in heaven, and at the same time lives among us; He sees us and\nhears us; it is He who made the flowers, who made you and me, and\neverything that exists.\u201d I shall not report the child\u2019s replies, for\nI believe that she was too much astonished really to say anything.\nShe was in a situation such as a savage finds himself in when a\nmissionary comes and talks with him about God, the supreme being,\ncreator of all things, a spirit existing without a body. Savages\nsometimes refuse to understand, and point to their heads and declare\nthat they suffer; sometimes they believe that one is making fun of\nthem, and even among our children there is a good deal of persistent\nand mute astonishment, which wears off slowly with the lapse of\ntime. What is striking in the little conversation reported above,\nis the way in which the metaphysical myth necessarily rises out of\nthe scientific error. An inexact induction first gives rise to the\nnotion of a human being acting by means to us unknown and mysterious;\nthis notion, once obtained, fastens upon the body of such and such\nan individual, the object antecedently of especial veneration; from\nthis individual it retreats in course of time to another more distant,\nfrom country to town, from earth to heaven, from visible heaven to the\ninvisible essence of things, the omnipresent substratum of the world.\nSimultaneously with this retrograde movement, the being endowed with\nmarvellous powers becomes increasingly vague and abstract. The human\nintelligence, in developing its conception of the supernatural being,\nemploys what theologians call _the negative method_, which consists\nin abstracting one known attribute after another. If men and races of\nmen have always followed this procedure, it is less because of any\nrefinement of thought on their part than in obedience to the pressure\nof an external necessity. Directly as man becomes acquainted with\nnature, he sees all traces of his god fly before him; he is like a\nminer who, thinking that he recognizes the presence of gold in the soil\nbeneath his feet, begins to dig, and finding nothing, cannot make up\nhis mind to believe that the earth contains no treasure; he sinks his\nshafts deeper and deeper in an eternal hopefulness. Just so, instead\nof breaking with his gods, man exiles them to a greater and greater\ndistance as he advances in knowledge. What nature excludes tends to\ntake on a metaphysical character; every error which persists in spite\nof the progress of experience takes refuge in heaven, in some sphere\nmore and more completely inaccessible. Thus the somewhat gross origins\nof religions are not irreconcilable with the refined speculations\nincident to their period of development. Human intelligence, once\nlaunched into infinite space, inevitably describes a wider and wider\norbit about reality. A mythical religion is not a completely rational\nand _a priori_ construction; it always rests upon alleged experience,\nupon observations and analogies, which are tainted with error; it is,\ntherefore, false _a posteriori_, and therein lies the explanation of\nthe invincible and increasing divergence between myth and verity.\n\n[Sidenote: God conceived as orderer rather than as creator.]\n\nIn the beginning men conceived God rather as an orderer of the\nuniverse, as a workman fashioning a pre-existing matter, than as a\ncreator; we find this notion still predominant among the Greeks.\nIts genesis was probably something as follows: Whoever supposes the\nexistence of God regards the world as an instrument in His hands; God\nemploys the thunder, the wind, the stars for purposes of his own, as\nman employs his arrows and his hatchet. Does it not naturally result\nfrom that conception that God fashions these marvellous instruments\njust as man fashions his arrows and hatchet? If the little peasant\ngirl, of whom we spoke above, had not seen her father repair or make\nhis tools, make a fire, make bread, till the soil, she would never\nhave asked who made the flowers in the garden. The child\u2019s first\n_why_ involves the following reasoning: Somebody has acted on this\nthing as I myself have acted on such and such another thing; who,\nthen, in the present case is it? The abstract notion of causality is\na consequence of the practical development of our own causality; the\ngreater the number of things that one can make one\u2019s self, the greater\none\u2019s astonishment at seeing things done by other people with greater\nrapidity or on a larger scale. The more bound down one is one\u2019s self,\nto the employment of tedious artifice, the more one admires what is\nproduced suddenly by a power which is apparently extraordinary. So that\nthe notion of a miracle thus more naturally arose from one\u2019s experience\nof the practical arts, than, so to speak, from brute experience, and\nfor the rest contained no element which was contradictory to the na\u00efve\nscience of the earliest observers. Every question presupposes a certain\nkind and amount of action on the part of the questioner; one does\nnot demand the cause of an event until one has one\u2019s self been the\nconscious cause of such and such another event. If man possessed no\ninfluence in the world, he would not ask himself who made the world.\nThe mason\u2019s trowel and carpenter\u2019s saw have played a considerable part\nin the development of religious metaphysics.\n\n[Sidenote: Notion of creation ex nihilo of empirical origin.]\n\nRemark, also, how easy it is, even at the present day, to confound the\nword make with the word create, which indeed did not exist in primitive\ntimes. How should one distinguish precisely what one fashions from what\none creates? There is a certain element of creation in fashioning;\nand this element sometimes positively assumes a magical character,\nseems to rise _ex nihilo_. What a marvel, for example, is a spark of\nfire obtained from stone or wood! The Hindus see in it the symbol of\ngeneration. In fire the earliest races of men laid their fingers on\nthe miraculous. In appearance the pebble one strikes or the dried wood\none rubs to produce a spark is not itself consumed; it gives without\nloss, it creates. The first man who discovered the secret of producing\nfire seemed to have introduced something genuinely new into the world,\nto have ravished the power of creation from the gods. In general, what\ndistinguishes the artist, properly so called, from the simple workman\nis the feeling that he possesses a power which he does not understand,\nthat he produces in some sense more than he aims at, that he is lifted\nabove himself; genius is not fully conscious, as simple talent is, of\nits resources; it contains an element of the unforeseen, a force which\nis not calculable in advance, a creative power; and therein lies the\nsecret of the true artist\u2019s personal pride. Even in a matter of purely\nphysical power a superexcitation of the nervous system may place at\none\u2019s disposal an amount of muscular energy one did not suppose one\npossessed: the athlete, no more than the thinker, at such times knows\nthe limits of his own strength and the marvels of which he is capable.\nEach of us possesses thus, during certain hours of his existence,\nthe consciousness of a more or less creative power, of the direct\nproduction of something out of nothing. One feels that one has produced\nby force of will a result that one\u2019s intelligence cannot wholly account\nfor, that one cannot rationally explain. Therein lies the foundation\nand in a measure the justification of a belief in miracles, in the\nextraordinary power of certain men, and, in the last analysis, in a\npower of creating. This indefinite power that man sometimes feels well\nup within him, he naturally ascribes to his gods. Since he conceives\nthem as acting upon the world in a manner analogous to himself, he\nconceives them as capable of giving rise to new elements in the world;\nand this notion of creative power once introduced continuously develops\ntill the day when it leads one, from induction to induction, to the\nbelief that the entire world is the work of a divinity, that the\nearth and the stars have been fashioned and created by a supernatural\nvolition. If man can strike fire out of a stone, why might not God\nstrike a sun out of the firmament? The conception of a creator, which\nseems at first a remote consequence from a chain of abstract reasoning,\nis thus one of the innumerable manifestations of anthropomorphism;\none of the ideas which, at least originally, seems to have been rather\nparaphysical than metaphysical. It rests at bottom upon an ignorance\nof the possible transformation and actual equivalents of forces, owing\nto which every apparent creation is resolvable into a substantial\nequivalence and every apparent miracle into an exemplification of\nimmutable order.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nTo sum up, the creative power once ascribed to God is in our opinion\nan extension of the notion of special Providence, which itself is of\nempirical origin. When theologians nowadays begin by establishing the\ncreation, in order therefrom to deduce a special Providence, they\nare precisely inverting the order of things as they appeared in the\nbeginning. It is only through the continually increasing preoccupation\nof abstract thought and metaphysical speculation with the question\nof the first cause, that the idea of a creative deity has acquired\nthus a sort of preponderance, and constitutes in our day an essential\nelement in religion. Dualism, as we have seen, is of the essence of\nthis notion; dualism is the principal form under which the union of\nsouls and bodies, the relation of a special providence to natural laws,\nthe relation of creator to created has been conceived. The notion,\nhowever, of a supreme unity running through all things has been caught\nmore or less vague glimpses of, from remote times down to the present\nday. And it is on this notion that pantheistic and monistic religions,\nprincipally those of India, are based. Brahmanism and Buddhism tend to\nwhat has been called \u201cabsolute illusionism\u201d for the benefit of a unity\nin which the supreme being takes for us the form of non-existence.\n\n[Sidenote: Dangers of effort to classify systems of religious\nmetaphysics.]\n\nThe temptation is natural systematically to class diverse systems of\nreligious metaphysics and to represent them as evolving, one after the\nother in a regular order, conformable to a more or less determinate\nscheme; but one must be on one\u2019s guard here against two things: first,\nthe seduction of a system, with the metaphysical abstractions to which\nit leads; second, the pretense of finding everywhere a regular progress\nconstantly headed toward religious unity. Religious philosophers have\nerred in both these respects; Hegel, for example, yielded to the\ntemptation of imposing upon the history of religion his monotonous\ntrilogy, of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In Von Hartmann the\nHegelian spirit, influenced by Schopenhauer, still survives. We have\nseen Von Hartmann borrowing from Max M\u00fcller the abstract conception\nof a divinity at once unified and multiple, a species of primitive\nsynthesis out of which historical religions were to arise by a process\nof differentiation: out of henotheism, as out of matter still void\nand without form, was to arise polytheism, and then by a process of\ndegenerescence was to arise polydemonism or animism, and finally\nfetichism.[42] This order of development, as we have seen, is contrary\nto matter of fact.\n\n      [42] \u201cHenotheism,\u201d says Von Hartmann, \u201crests upon a\n      contradiction. Man goes forth in search of divinity, and finds\n      gods. He addresses each of these divinities in succession in\n      the hope that he may be the divinity sought for, and confers\n      upon him a multitude of predicates which call in question the\n      divinity of the other gods. Obliged, however, as he is to\n      look to different gods for the fulfilment of his respective\n      demands he is unable to remain faithful to any one of them;\n      he changes his object of adoration repeatedly and each time\n      acts toward the god he is addressing as if he were god _par\n      excellence_, without indeed himself observing at the time that\n      he is denying the supreme divinity of any god by attributing it\n      in turn to each of them. What renders the origin of religion\n      possible is that this contradiction is not at first remarked;\n      a persistent failure to recognize such a contradiction would\n      not be possible in the midst of the progress of civilization,\n      except in the case of an extreme intensity of religious\n      sentiment, which shields all religious subjects from rational\n      criticism. Such intensity of religious sentiment neither exists\n      in all places nor at all times, and a spirit of intellectual\n      criticism, operating intermittently, suffices in the long run\n      to render the point of view of henotheism untenable. Two ways\n      of avoiding the contradiction in question offer themselves.\n      One may maintain the unity of God at the expense of the\n      plurality, or, on the contrary, plurality of God at the expense\n      of the unity. The first way leads to abstract monism, the\n      second to polytheism; and out of polytheism, by a process of\n      degeneration, arise polydemonism or animism and then fetichism.\u201d\n\nFetichism, understood simply as the ascription of life to natural\nobjects, is primitive. Animism, or the conception of indwelling spirit,\narises subsequently. Polytheism, or the worship of a certain number\nof analogous objects, such as the trees of a forest, implies some\ndistinction between the deity and the forest, whereas fetichism limits\nitself strictly to the animation of each particular tree, and finally\nhenotheism, or the vague conception of an indwelling divinity in all\nthings, is ulterior and derivative. Monistic pantheism or monism lies\nbut one step beyond.\n\n[Sidenote: Logically posterior often historically prior.]\n\nRemark also that Von Hartmann, who endeavours to prove that a vague\nmonism is the primitive form of religion, regards the Vedas as a fair\nexample of the earliest form of natural religion, traces of which\nremain more or less distinctly manifest in all mythologies. But this\nis positively to forget that for an anthropologist the Vedas are\nquite modern compositions, and that Hindu literature belongs to a\nperiod of high refinement and civilization. Monistic metaphysics may\nbe the ultimate goal toward which all religions tend, but it is at\nleast not the point of departure. Finally, Von Hartmann endeavours to\nestablish the fact of a certain logical order in religious development,\na _progress_. This progress does not exist in history nor anywhere\noutside of the abstract system constructed by Von Hartmann; it is\ndialectic, not historic. The divers religious points of view have often\ncoincided in history; and sometimes a logically superior point of view\nhas even preceded an inferior.\n\n[Sidenote: Comte\u2019s classification logical, not psychological.]\n\nAnother classification, not less open to suspicion than that of Von\nHartmann, is the celebrated Comtist progression from fetichism to\npolytheism and from polytheism to monism. In this classification the\nframework no longer consists of metaphysical abstractions, but of\nnumbers. But numbers also possess their artificial and superficial\nside; they do not express the most fundamental aspects of religion.\nIn the first place, it is a matter of extreme difficulty to perceive\nany radical difference between naturistic fetichism and polytheism.\nMultiplicity of divinities is a characteristic common to both. The\nsole difference that Comte was able to establish is that in polytheism\na whole class of objects, for example all the trees of a forest, or a\nwhole class of phenomena, as lightning and storm, is represented by\none divinity. But this species of abstraction and generalization is\nmuch less important, much more exterior and purely logical, than the\npsychological and metaphysical progression from a grossly unitarian\nand concrete naturism to a dualistic animism. This latter line of\ndevelopment is in the direction of naturalistic and spiritualistic\nmetaphysics, which possess a deeper significance than a system of\nmathematical enumeration and logical generalization. The passage from\npolytheism to monotheism is also conceived by Comte somewhat too\nmathematically. Polytheism early resulted in a certain hierarchy and\nsubordination of the whole body of individual deities to some one\npowerful god: Jupiter, Fate, etc. On the other hand, monotheism has\nalways provided some place for secondary divinities\u2014angels, devils,\nspirits of every kind, to say nothing of the trinitarian conception of\nthe Godhead itself. Mathematical terms, in this connection, obscure\nprofound problems which belong really to metaphysics and to morals.\n\n[Sidenote: The real classification.]\n\nFrom the point of view of metaphysics the great question is that of the\nrelation which exists between the divinity and the world and mankind;\na relation of immanence or of transcendence, of duality or of unity.\nWe have seen that, from this point of view, religions have passed from\nan extremely vague primitive immanence to a relation of transcendence\nand of separation, ultimately to return, sometimes with comparative\nrapidity (as in India), sometimes very slowly (as among Christian\nnations), to the notion of an immanent God in whom we live and move and\nhave our being.\n\n[Sidenote: Progressive encroachment of deterministic conception.]\n\nAlong with this difference of conception there necessarily goes\na corresponding difference in the parts ascribed respectively to\ndeterminism and natural law, and to the arbitrary will of the deity or\ndeities. That is to say, the conflict between religion and science,\nor what will one day become such, exists implicitly in the earliest\nconceptions of the world. In the beginning, to be sure, there being\nno such thing as science properly so called, no conflict is apparent;\none explains whatever one chooses as the product of an arbitrary will,\nthen little by little the regularity, the determinism, the orderliness\nof certain phenomena are remarked. Divinities cease to be absolute\nprinces, and become more or less constitutional sovereigns. Therein\nlies the law of religious evolution, which is much more significant\nthan the law promulgated by Comte; humanity tends progressively to\nrestrict the number of the phenomena with the natural course of which\nthe gods are supposed to interfere; the sphere of natural law tends\nprogressively to become more and more nearly all-comprehensive. The\nCatholic nowadays no longer believes that a goddess brings his crops to\nmaturity or that a particular god launches a thunder-bolt, though he\nis still profoundly inclined to imagine that God blesses his fields or\npunishes him by destroying his house by a flash of lightning; arbitrary\npower tends to be concentrated in a single being placed on a height\nabove nature. At a still further stage in the course of evolution, the\nwill of this being is conceived as expressed in the laws of nature\nthemselves without allowing for the existence of miraculous exceptions;\nProvidence, the Divinity, becomes _immanent_ in the scientific ordering\nand determinism of the world. In this respect the Hindus and the Stoics\nare far in advance of the Catholics.\n\n[Sidenote: Unification of creeds incidental to that encroachment.]\n\nThe absorption of the respective worships of a number of deities into\nthe worship of one deity has been an incidental consequence of the\nprogress of science. Humanity began by offering up a multitude of\nspecial services to a multitude of special gods. If one were to believe\ncertain linguists, it is true, natural objects\u2014the sun, fire, the\nmoon\u2014were at first adored as impersonal entities; their subsequent\npersonification being due to a too literal interpretation of figurative\nimpressions habitually employed to designate them, such as \u0396\u03b5\u03cd\u03c2,\nthe brilliant. Certain myths, no doubt, did spring from this source:\n_nomina, numina_; but humanity does not usually progress from the\ngeneral to the particular. Primitive religion, on the contrary, was\nat first subdivided or rather simply divided into cults of all sorts;\nit was only later that simplifications and generalizations arose. The\npassage from fetichism to polytheism and to monotheism was simply the\nconsequence of a progressively scientific conception of the world; of\nthe progressive absorption of the several transcendent powers into a\nsingle power immanent in the laws of the universe.\n\n[Sidenote: Development of sociological and moral sides of religion.]\n\nMore important still than this metaphysical and scientific evolution\nof religion is the sociological and moral evolution. What is really\nimportant in a religious theory is less the conceived relation of the\nprimary substance to its manifestations in the universe, than the\nattributes ascribed to this substance and to the inhabitants of the\nuniverse. In other words, what sort of a society does the universe\nconstitute? What sort of social relation more or less moral between\nthe various members are derivable from the fundamental tie which binds\nthem to the principle which is immanent in all of them? That is the\ngreat problem for which the others simply constitute a preparation. The\nproblem is to interpret the true foundation of beings and of being,\nindependently of numerical, logical, and even metaphysical relations.\nWell, such an interpretation cannot be other than psychological and\nmoral. Psychologically, power was the first and essential attribute of\ndivinity, and this power was conceived as redoubtable. Intelligence,\nknowledge, foreknowledge, were only at a later period ascribed to\nthe gods. And finally, divine morality, under the twofold aspects of\njustice and goodness, is a very late conception indeed. We shall see it\ndevelop side by side with the development of the systems of practical\nmorals that are incident to religion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nRELIGIOUS MORALS.\n\n    I. The laws which regulate the social relations between\n      gods and men\u2014Morality and immorality in primitive\n      religions\u2014Extension of friendly and hostile relations to\n      the sphere of the gods\u2014Primitive inability in matters of\n      conscience, as in matters of art, to distinguish the great\n      from the monstrous.\n\n    II. The moral sanction in the society which includes gods and\n      men\u2014Patronage\u2014That divine intervention tends always to\n      be conceived after the model of human intervention and to\n      sanction it.\n\n    III. Worship and religious rites\u2014Principles of\n      reciprocity and proportionality in the exchange\n      of services\u2014Sacrifice\u2014Principle of coercion and\n      incantation\u2014Principle of habit and its relation to\n      rites\u2014Sorcery\u2014Sacerdotalism\u2014Prophecy\u2014The externals of\n      worship\u2014Dramatization and religious \u00e6sthetics.\n\n    IV. Subjective worship\u2014Adoration and love; their\n      psychological origin.\n\n\n_I. The laws which regulate the social relations between gods and men._\n\n[Sidenote: Religion and morals not originally related.]\n\nWe are to-day inclined to see everywhere a very intimate relation\nbetween religion and morals, since Kant recognized in ethics the aim\nand sole foundation of the conception of God. In the beginning nothing\nof the sort existed. It is plain from the preceding chapters that\nreligion was at first a physical explanation of events, and above all\nof events in their relation to the interests of mankind, by a theory\nof causes acting for ends of their own after the manner of the human\nwill; an explanation, that is to say, by causes at once efficient and\nfinal; and theology is the development of a primitive teleology. Man\nimagined himself to be living in society with beneficent or maleficent\nbeings, at first visible and tangible, then progressively invisible and\nseparate from the objects they inhabited. Therein, as we have said,\nlay the first step of religion. Religion was in the beginning nothing\nmore than an imaginative extension of human society; the explanation of\nthings by a theory of volitions analogous to the volitions by means of\nwhich man himself acts on the world, but of another order, of a higher\ndegree of power. Well, these volitions are sometimes good, sometimes\nevil, sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile: friendship and hatred are\nthe two categories under which man inevitably classified the superior\npowers with whom he believed himself to be in relations. Morality was\nin no sense one of the distinguishing characteristics of these powers;\nman was quite as naturally inclined to attribute to them wickedness as\ngoodness, or rather he felt vaguely that the rules of conduct by which\nhe was himself bound were not necessarily those by which these beings,\nat once analogous to men and so different from them, were themselves\nbound. Also in his relations with the gods, with the powers of nature,\nman in nowise believed that the rules of mere human society, of the\nfamily, of the tribe, of the nation, were always and in every respect\napplicable. Thence it came that to render the gods propitious, man had\nrecourse to practices which he would have blamed in mere human morals:\nhuman sacrifices, anthropophagy, sacrifices of virginity, etc.[43]\n\n      [43] It has been remarked that peoples who for centuries\n      have renounced anthropophagy have long persisted in human\n      sacrifices: that thousands of women in certain sanctuaries\n      have offered the painful sacrifices of their chastity to gods\n      of a furious sensuality. The gods of paganism are dissolute,\n      arbitrary, vindictive, pitiless, and still their adorers\n      rise little by little to a conception of moral purity, of\n      clemency, and of justice. Javeh is vindictive and ferocious,\n      and yet it is in the midst of his people that the religion\n      _par excellence_ of benignity and forgiveness took its rise.\n      Also the real morality of men was never proportionate to the\n      frequently fanatic intensity of their religious sentiments. See\n      M. R\u00e9ville (_Prol\u00e9gom\u00e8nes_, p. 281).\n\n[Sidenote: Religion much less moral than society.]\n\nIf one stops to recollect that moral laws are in a great measure\nthe expression of the very necessities of human life, and that the\ngenerality of certain rules is due to the uniformity of the conditions\nof life on the surface of the globe, one will understand why it was\nthat one\u2019s relations to the gods, that is to say to creatures of\nthe imagination, were not dominated so directly as one\u2019s relations\nto one\u2019s fellow-men by the exigencies of practical life, but were\nregulated by much more variable and fantastic laws containing often\na visible germ of immorality. The divine society was an imaginary\nextension of human society, not an imaginative perfection of it. It was\nphysical fear, _timor_, and not moral reverence, which gave being to\nthe first gods. The human imagination, labouring thus under the empire\nof fear, naturally gave birth to a prodigy more often than to an ideal.\nFor the primitive conscience, as for primitive art, the distinction\nbetween the great and the monstrous was by no means sufficiently\nmarked. The germ of immorality, therefore, not less than of morality\nlies at the root of every religion. Once more, it would be an error to\nbelieve that religions are immoral in that they are anthropomorphic, or\nsociomorphic; rather the contrary is true, they are not moral except\nin so far as they are sociomorphic. Mutilation, for example, cruelty,\nobscenity are foreign to the conceptions which dominate human conduct.\nOne may verify in every religion what is observed in Christianity,\nthat the truly moral God is precisely the man-God, Jesus, whereas God\nthe Father, who pitilessly sacrifices his own son, is anti-human and\nimmoral, precisely in that he is superhuman.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nIn effect we find our fundamental proposition confirmed afresh:\nreligion is a sociology conceived as a physical, metaphysical, and\nmoral explanation of all things; it is the reduction of all natural,\nand even supernatural forces to a human type, and the reduction of\ntheir relations to social relations. Also the progress of religion\nhas been exactly parallel to the progress in social evolution, which\nhas itself been dominated by the progress of subjective morals and\nconscience. The gods were at first divided into two classes: the\nbeneficent and the maleficent, who ultimately came to be recognized\nas respectively virtuous and wicked. Then these two classes were\nabsorbed into their respective chiefs, into Ormuzd and Ahriman, into\nGod and Satan, into a principle of good and a principle of evil. Thus\nby a fresh dualism spirits themselves were separated and ranged into\nclasses, as the spirit itself had previously been separated from the\nbody. Finally the principle of goodness subsisted victoriously under\nthe name of God. He became the personification of the moral law and\nthe moral sanction, the sovereign legislator and judge, in a word, the\nliving law of universal society, as a king is the living law in a human\nsociety. To-day God tends to be identified with the human conscience\npurified _ad infinitum_, and adequate with the universe. For these\nlast and most subtle representations of the religious sentiment, God\nis no more than a symbol of the moral and the ideal. One may see in\nthis evolution of religious ideas the gradual triumph of sociomorphism,\nsince it is characterized by an extension to the universe at large of\nsocial relations which are incessantly progressing toward perfection\namong men.\n\n\n_II. The moral sanction in the society which includes gods and men._\n\n[Sidenote: The gods inevitably become protectors of social justice.]\n\nTo the personification of the law, religious morals inevitably\njoined that of the sanction which plays so capital a r\u00f4le in every\nhuman society. The celestial government has always been a projection\nof the human government, with a penalty at first terrible and\nsubsequently softened. To say the truth, the theory of a sanction\nis the systematization of that of a providence. The distinguishing\ncharacteristic of a providence is that it awards or recompenses,\ninsomuch that one may bring down upon one\u2019s self or avoid its anger,\nby such and such conduct. Well, the instant a man admits that a divine\npower is governing him, this power will inevitably appear to him to be\nexercising a control over his conduct, and, as it were, sanctioning\nit. This control will at first be exercised only in regard to the\npersonal relations of the individual, with his god and his gods. But\nthe individual will soon recognize that if the gods take an interest\nin him they may well take an interest also in the other members of the\ntribe, provided that these last know how to render them propitious;\nand to injure the other worshippers of a god would be indirectly to\ninjure the god himself, and provoke his anger. All the members of a\ntribe therefore find themselves protected against each other by their\nassociation with the gods, religion lends support to social justice,\nand whoever violates social justice expects the gods to punish him.\nThis expectation also must have been confirmed by the facts, for if\nantisocial and unjust conduct had habitually prevailed among men,\nsocial life would have been impossible. Injustice must then always on\nan average have carried its sanction with it, and this sanction must\nhave appeared to be the direct work of the gods, passing judgment from\non high on the social conduct of their clients, as Roman patrons did,\nseated beneath the columns of the atrium.\n\n[Sidenote: And of human justice.]\n\nAs religions intermingled and grew in extent, the clientage of a god,\nat first extended to the members of a single tribe, passed beyond its\nbounds. Men, of no matter what origin, might become citizens of the\ncelestial city, of the superhuman association which took charge of each\nof its members, so that the divine sanction tended increasingly to\nbecome confounded with the moral sanction, and one understood that God\nprotected justice not only within the bosom of a tribe, but everywhere\nwithin the limits of humanity.\n\n[Sidenote: Natural desire to have the scales loaded on the side of\nrectitude.]\n\nWhile in the matter of the sanction the sociomorphic conception of the\nworld tended thus to become a moral conception, morality itself must\nhave tended, in order to eke out its own insufficiency, to ally itself\nwith religion. Human society, powerless to make itself always respected\nby every one of its members, inevitably invoked the aid of the\nsociety of superior beings which enveloped it on all sides. Man being\nessentially a social animal, \u03b6\u1ff6\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd, could not be resigned\nin the presence of the success of antisocial conduct, and whenever\nit seemed that such conduct had succeeded humanly, the very nature\nof mankind tended to make it turn toward the superhuman to demand a\nreparation and a compensation. If the bees should suddenly see their\nhives destroyed before their eyes without there being any hope of ever\nreconstructing them, their whole being would be shaken, and they would\ninstinctively await for an intervention of some kind, which should\nre-establish an order as immutable and sacred for them as that of the\nstars is for us. Man, by virtue of the moral nature with which heredity\nhas furnished him, is thus inclined to believe that wickedness ought\nnot to have the last word in the universe; the triumph of evil and of\ninjustice always stirs his indignation. This species of indignation\nis observable in infants almost before they can talk, and numerous\ntraces of it may be found even among animals. The logical result of\nthis instinctive protest against evil is a refusal to believe in its\ndefinitive triumph.[44]\n\n      [44] See the author\u2019s _Esquisse d\u2019une morale_ (I., iii.);\n      _Besoin psychologique d\u2019une sanction_.\n\n[Sidenote: Results in victory being given in heaven to principle of\nlight.]\n\nMan, in whose eyes the society in which the gods live corresponds so\nclosely to human society, must almost inevitably imagine the existence\namong them of antisocial beings, of Ahrimans and Satans, protectors of\nevil in heaven and on earth, but it is natural that he should give the\nvictory in the end to the \u201cprinciple of good\u201d over the \u201cprinciple of\nevil.\u201d Of all things it is the most repugnant to him to believe that\nthe universe is fundamentally indifferent to the distinction between\ngood and evil; a divinity may be irascible, capricious, and even\nintermittently wicked, but man cannot understand an impassible and cold\nnature.\n\n[Sidenote: Gods legitimated by alliance with the moral forces of\nsociety.]\n\nThe most powerful of the gods had thus served to reconcile force and\njustice, a barbarous justice appropriate to the spirit of primitive man.\n\nThrough the idea of sanction grafted thus upon that of providence,\nreligion assumes a really systematic character, and becomes attached\nto the very fibres of the human heart. As instruments of goodness\nin the universe, the gods, or at least the sovereign gods, serve to\nconfirm human morality; they become in some sort the life of morality.\nTheir existence is no longer simply a physical fact; it is a physical\nfact, morally justified by a social instinct which relies upon it as\nits main safeguard. Henceforth the power of the gods is legitimate. A\ndivine king, like a human king, requires a certain mystic consecration;\nit is religion which consecrates human kings, it is morality which\nconsecrates the king of the gods.\n\n[Sidenote: Importance of conception of immortality in the moral\nevolution of religion.]\n\nThe notion of a divine intervention to trim the balance of the social\norder, to punish and to recompense, was at first altogether foreign to\nthe belief in a continuation of life after death; it became allied to\nthis belief much later. Even among a people so advanced as the Hebrews\nin matters of religious evolution, reward and punishment beyond this\nlife played no r\u00f4le, and yet there has scarcely ever been a people\nwho believed more heartily in the will of God as directing the life\nof mankind; but in their eyes God achieved his victory in this life;\nthey possessed no need for an immortality as a means of redressing the\nmoral balance of the world.[45] It was only later, when the critical\nsense had attained a higher development, that it was recognized that\nthe sanction did not always come in this life; the chastisement of\nthe culpable, the hoped-for recompense of the virtuous, gradually\nretreated from the present world into a distant future. Hell and heaven\nwere thrown open to correct the manifest imperfections of this life.\nThe notion of immortality thus assumed an extraordinary importance,\ninsomuch that it seemed as if modern life would be destroyed if it were\ndeprived of this belief, which former times had, however, succeeded in\ndoing without. At bottom a clear and reflective conception of a life\nafter death, in which one is rewarded or punished for one\u2019s life here,\nis a very complex and remote deduction from the notion of sanction.\n\n      [45] The question whether the Hebrews believed in the\n      immortality of the soul has long been discussed, and M. Renan\n      has been reproached with his negative attitude in the matter;\n      but M. Renan never denied the existence, among the Hebrews, of\n      a belief in a sojourn for the shadows or manes of the dead; the\n      whole question was whether the Hebrews believed in a system\n      of reward and punishment after death, and M. Renan was right\n      in maintaining that any such notion is foreign to primitive\n      Judaism. It is equally foreign to primitive Hellenism. Though\n      the living endeavoured to conciliate the dead, they did not\n      envy their fate which, even in the case of the just, was worse\n      than the fate of the living. \u201cSeek not to console me for death,\n      noble Ulysses,\u201d Achilles says, when he arrives in Tartarus. \u201cI\n      would rather be a hired labourer and till a poor man\u2019s field\n      than reign over all the regions of the dead.\u201d (See _Morale\n      d\u2019\u00c9picure_, 3d ed.; _Des id\u00e9es antiques sur la mort_.)\n\n[Sidenote: Religious sanction at first conceived as a vengeance.]\n\nThe religious sanction, being fundamentally an extension of human\nsocial relations to the life of the gods, successively assumed the\nthree forms of human penalty. At first it was only vengeance, as in\nthe case of the lower animals and of savage man. It is evil rendered\nin return for evil. The sentiment of vengeance has subsisted, and\nstill subsists, in the bosom of every religion which admits a divine\nsanction; vengeance is confided to God, and becomes only the more\nterrible. \u201cDo not avenge yourselves,\u201d St. Paul says, \u201cbut rather give\nplace unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay,\nsaith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he\nthirst, give him to drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of\nfire on his head.\u201d \u201cOur patience,\u201d St. Cyprian wrote, \u201ccomes from our\ncertainty that we shall be avenged; it heaps coals of fire upon the\nheads of our enemies. The day on which the Most High shall number the\nfaithful shall see the culpable in Gehenna, and our persecutors shall\nbe consumed in eternal fire! What a spectacle for my transports, my\nadmiration, and my laughter!\u201d And by way of a refinement, one of the\nmartyrs at Carthage told the pagans to look him well in the face so\nthat they might recognize him on the day of judgment at the right\nhand of the Father, while they were being precipitated into eternal\nflame.[46]\n\n      [46] The most orthodox theologians, of course, mean by fire a\n      veritable flame.\n\n[Sidenote: Then as an expiation.]\n\nThe notion of vengeance, as it becomes more subtle and passes, so\nto speak, from the domain of passion into that of intelligence is\ntransformed into the notion of expiation, which is exclusively\nreligious, although spiritualistic philosophers believe that it\ncontains moral and rational elements. Expiation is a sort of na\u00efve\ncompensation by which one fancies one may counterbalance moral evil by\naccepting physical evil along with it. Expiation is a penalty which\npossesses no utility in the way of benefiting the culprit or those who\nmight follow his example; it is neither corrective nor preventive;\nit is an alleged satisfaction of the law, the re-establishment of\nan apparent symmetry for the delight of pure intelligence, a public\nprosecution pure and simple. In a singular passage in the _Pens\u00e9es\nchr\u00e9tiennes_, Father Bouhours has clearly and innocently set in relief\nthe inutility of religious expiation: \u201cPenitence of the damned, thou\nart rigorous, and how useless; could the anger of God go further than\nto punish pleasure so brief by torments which shall never end? When\na damned soul shall have shed tears enough to fill all the rivers of\nthe world, even if he should only have shed one a century, he will be\nno farther ahead after so many millions of years; he will only have\nbegun to suffer, and even when he shall have recommenced as often as\nthere are grains of sand upon the shores of the sea, he shall even\nthen have done nothing.\u201d The highest degree of the notion of expiation\nis in effect this of eternal damnation. In this theory of the penalty\nof damnation, and the pains of fire without end, one recognizes the\nbarbarism of former time and the torments inflicted on the vanquished\nby the vanquisher, on the rebel by the chief of the tribe. A sort\nof atavism attaches even to the religion of love in this perpetual\ninheritance of hatred, of the customs of a savage period erected into\nan eternal and divine institution.\n\n\n_III. Worship and religious rites._\n\n[Sidenote: The cult an expression of supposed reciprocity between gods\nand men.]\n\nThe cult, which, so to speak, is no more than the religion become\nvisible and tangible, is, like the religion itself, simply the\napotheosis of a certain social relation: the exchange of services\nbetween men living in society. Man, who believes himself to receive\nbenefits from the gods, feels himself obliged to give something in\nexchange. He conceives a sort of reciprocity of action as appropriate\nbetween God and man, a possible return in good or evil conduct; man\npossesses a certain hold on his God, he is capable of procuring Him a\ncertain satisfaction or causing Him a certain pain, and God will reply\na hundred fold in kind\u2014pain for pain, pleasure for pleasure.\n\n[Sidenote: Is so, even to-day.]\n\nOne knows how gross the external forms of worship in the beginning\nwere. They simply consisted in a practical application of the social\neconomy: the gods were given to eat and drink; an altar was a\nbutcher\u2019s stall or the stall of a wine merchant, and the cult was a\nveritable commerce between heaven and earth\u2014a sort of a market, in\nwhich man offered lambs or sheep and received in exchange riches and\nhealth. In our days, the cult is refined; the exchange has become\nmore and more symbolic, the gift is simply an expression of moral\nhomage, for which the worshipper expects no immediate return; still the\nprinciple of the cult is always the same, one believes that an act on\nman\u2019s part possesses a direct influence on the will of God, and this\nact consists in offerings or prayers fixed on beforehand.\n\n[Sidenote: Governed by the law of the market.]\n\nAnother principle of primitive cult is proportionality. One can expect\nno more from another than a proportionate return; bow three times\nbefore him, and he will be better disposed toward you than if you bow\nbut once; offer him a beef, and he will be more grateful than if you\noffer an egg. Accordingly, to an uncultivated and superstitious mind,\nit follows that quantity and number should regulate our relations with\nthe gods as they regulate our relations with our fellow-men; multiply\nyour prayers, and you will multiply your chances of favours; three\nPaternosters go farther than one, a dozen candles will produce a much\ngreater effect than a single candle. A prayer that you go to a temple\nto say in public, a cantique chanted in a sonorous voice, will attract\nmore attention than a silent demand formulated at the bottom of one\u2019s\nheart. Similarly, if one wishes to obtain rain or sun for the crops,\nit is into the fields that one must go to offer up one\u2019s prayer, in a\nmotley file of chanting worshippers; it is always serviceable to point\none\u2019s finger at what one wants, and to make the demand in person.\nThe better to stimulate the memory of one\u2019s idol primitive man was\naccustomed to drive a nail into him, and the custom still survives in\nBrittany in the form of thrusting pins into the bodies of the saints.\nOut of sight, out of mind, holds good both of gods and saints. To\nsimple minds it would be contrary to the law of proportionate exchange\nfor a simple thought, a silent prayer, to receive such favour in the\neyes of the gods as an overt act.\n\n[Sidenote: Embodied in fixed forms.]\n\nEvery religion insists upon some quite determinate exterior form of\nworship, a precise manifestation, a creed; it endeavours to incorporate\nitself into a certain number of rites and customs, which are numerous\nand inviolable in proportion as the religion is primitive. The\nuniversality of an external form of worship in the different religions\nof the world is the consequence and the most striking proof of their\nsociomorphic origin. Man has always believed that he might be useful\nand agreeable to his gods so long as he has conceived them as analogous\nto himself and to his neighbours.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Which soon came to be conceived as coercive.]\n\nAdd that to the notion of seducing the gods that of constraining is\nsoon joined. To the conception of an exchange of services is soon\njoined that of a species of coercion exercised in some vague manner by\nthe intermediation of some friendly god or even by some simple magic\nformula which has once succeeded, once procured the object demanded!\nFormul\u00e6 consecrated by custom appear to be equally binding on gods\nand men. Accordingly the cult, at first more or less loose, more or\nless arbitrary, ultimately becomes minutely regulated; ultimately\nbecomes what one knows as a rite. A rite, at its lowest, is simply\nthe result of a tendency to repeat indefinitely an act which, at some\ntime or other, has seemed to render a god or a fetich propitious.\nAfter propitiation comes mechanical custom. Religion, as Pascal well\nsaid, is to a large extent habit. Rites are born of the need to\nperform again and again the same act, under the same circumstances;\na need which is the foundation of custom, and without which all life\nwould be impossible. Moreover, there is something sacred in every\nhabit whatsoever, and every act, whatever it may be, tends to become\na habit and by that fact to become respectable, to be in some sort\nself-consecrated. Rites, therefore, strike root in the very foundations\nof our being; the need for rites manifests itself very early in\nthe life of the child. Children not only imitate other people and\nthemselves, repeat other people and themselves, but exact a scrupulous\nprecision in these repetitions; in general they do not distinguish the\nend from the means by which, and the circumstances under which, it is\npursued; they do not yet possess a sufficiently exercised intelligence\nto understand that the same line of action may lead to the same result\nin different ways and under different circumstances. I once observed\na child of from eighteen months to two years old: if I got up from my\narmchair and paraded about the room for its amusement, and stopped, it\nwas necessary before beginning once more that I should return to my\nseat; the child\u2019s pleasure was much diminished if the repetition was\nnot exact. The child was accustomed to be fed by a number of people\nindifferently; still if I had given it some one thing\u2014milk to drink,\nfor example\u2014a number of times, it was no longer satisfied to receive\nmilk from anybody else, and insisted that the same person should always\ngive it the same thing. If, on leaving the house, I took another cane\nthan my own, the child would take it away from me to put it back where\nit belonged. It was unwilling that one should wear one\u2019s hat in the\nhouse or go bare-headed out of doors. And finally, I saw it achieve a\nveritable bit of ceremonial on its own account. It had been accustomed\nto be told to call a domestic at the top of the servants\u2019 stairway;\none day the domestic was in the room when the child was told to call\nher; the child looked at her, turned about, went to the top of the\nstairway where it usually called her, and there only shouted out her\nname. All the conduct of life, in effect the most important as the most\ninsignificant, is classified in a child\u2019s head, rigorously defined,\nand modelled on the type of the first act of that kind that has caught\nits attention, without the child\u2019s ever being able to distinguish the\nobject of an act from its form. This confusion between purpose and\nform exists in a no less striking degree among savages and primitive\npeoples, and it is upon this very confusion that the sacred character\nof religious rites is founded.\n\n[Sidenote: Primitive man possesses a repugnance not to novelty but to a\nbreach of custom.]\n\nThe trouble that is apparent in a child or an uncultivated man in the\npresence of whatever deranges his established association of ideas,\nhas been explained by a pure and simple horror of novelty. Lombroso\nhas even coined a word to designate this psychological state; he has\ncalled it _misoneism_. But let us not confound two quite distinct\nthings, a horror of a breach of custom and a horror of novelty; there\nare new perceptions, and habits that may be added to the whole body\nof already existing perceptions and habits without deranging them\nmuch or at all; and against these neither the savage nor the child\nrebels. Though the child never wearies of listening to the same\ntale and becomes irritated the moment one alters its least detail,\nit will listen no less passionately to a new tale; and new toys and\nnew walks delight it. The same taste for novelty is observable among\nsavages, just in so far as it can be gratified without disturbing\ntheir preconceived ideas. Primitive man is like the miser who will\nnot part with any of his acquired treasure, but asks nothing better\nthan to increase it. He is naturally curious, but he has no desire to\npush his curiosity to the point of contradicting what he knows already\nor believes he knows. And in a measure he is right, he is simply\nobeying the powerful instinct of intellectual self-preservation; his\nintelligence is not sufficiently supple constantly to knit and unknit\nthe associations of ideas which experience has established in him. A\nblack, out of an attachment for Livingstone, wished to accompany him to\nEurope; a few days on the steamer drove him insane. It is, therefore,\nin obedience to a certain branch of the instinct of self-preservation\nthat primitive peoples are so conservative in their customs and rites;\nbut they show themselves no less willing to appropriate the customs and\nrites of other people whenever they can do so without abandoning their\nown. The Romans ultimately came to accept the cult of all the peoples\nin the world without, however, any abandonment of their national cult;\nand f\u00eates, which are properly survivals of paganism, subsist even at\nthe present day; one acquires superstition, and customs, much more\neasily than one loses them.\n\n[Sidenote: Worship in public confirms cult.]\n\nThe power of example contributes also to lend an additional stability\nto the public cult; an individual becomes hardened in a practice which\nhe finds universal in the society in which he lives. Thence comes the\nimportance of public worship; the practice of public worship makes\nthose who abstain from it conspicuous. Public worship is a _viva voce_\npoll. Everyone sits in judgment upon you, all of your acquaintances\nbecome your accusers, and all men who worship God are your enemies.\nNot to think as everybody else does is comprehensible\u2014but not to act\nas everybody else does! To wish to break away from the servitude of\naction which, once established, tends to perpetuate itself! In the\nend the machine bends; one becomes brutalized. Even among people of\nsuperior minds the force of habit is incredible. In the hours of doubt,\nin his youth, M. Renan wrote to his adviser: \u201cI recite the Psalms; I\ncould pass hours and hours, if I but followed my own inclination, in\nthe churches.... I experience lively returns of devotion.... At times\nI am simultaneously both Catholic and rationalist! When one cuts loose\nfrom such beliefs, beliefs which have become a second nature to one,\nit seems as if one has severed one\u2019s self from one\u2019s whole past. One\nhas in some sense lived them, and one is attached to them as to one\u2019s\nown life; to abandon them is to resolve to die to one\u2019s self. It seems\nas if one\u2019s entire strength had come from them and that one will be as\nfeeble as a child when one has lost them; they are to one what Samson\u2019s\nhair was to him. Happily they will grow again.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Priesthood a consequence of established rites.]\n\nPriesthood is a consequence of the establishment of rites. The priest\nis the man supposed to be most capable of influencing the divinity\nby a minute and learned observation of the sacred rites. Rites, in\neffect, the moment they become complicated by an accumulation of\ndiverse customs lie beyond the knowledge and power of the ordinary man;\nit requires a special education to talk to the gods in the complex\nlanguage which alone they understand, in the formul\u00e6 which coerce their\nwills. Whoever possesses this imagination is a species of magician or\nsorcerer; and the priesthood arose out of sorcery, of which it was\nsimply the regular organization.[47]\n\n      [47] \u201cSorcery, in the beginning purely individual and\n      fantastic,\u201d says M. R\u00e9ville, \u201cgradually develops into\n      sacerdotalism and by that change, having become a permanent\n      public institution, sacerdotal sorcery becomes systematic,\n      develops a ritual which becomes traditional, imposes upon\n      those who aspire to the honour of conducting the conditions\n      of initiation, proof of efficiency, a novitiate, receives\n      privileges, defends them if they are attacked, endeavours\n      to augment them. This is the history of all sacerdotal\n      institutions, which are certainly descended from a capricious,\n      fantastic, disorderly, practice of sorcery in previous ages.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Tendency of priest to become a sacred person.]\n\nThe externals of worship remain to-day, in special in the Catholic and\nGreek religions, a collection of traditional, inflexible formul\u00e6, which\ncould not be trusted to produce their effect if a word or a gesture in\nthem were changed; certain ceremonies are really veritable traditional\nforms of incantation. Rites resemble the invisible bonds in which Faust\nheld the Devil; but it is God himself in this case that is enchanted,\ncharmed, and overpowered. At bottom the belief which makes the Chinese\npriest turn his praying machine, the belief which makes the devotee\ntell her beads, the belief which makes the priest thumb his breviary\nor say salaried masses for unknown peoples, which in the Midi makes\nrich people pay beggars to mumble prayers before their doors, all rest\nupon one and the same principle: they all rest on a faith in a power of\nthe rite, of the traditional formula in and of itself, no matter who\npronounces it. The efficacity of the interested prayers does not seem\nto depend solely on the legitimacy of what one demands but on the form\nemployed in demanding them; and this form has been determined at bottom\nby experience; the majority of devotees perform minute experiments\non the comparative virtue of individual prayers, masses, offerings,\npilgrimages, miraculous waters, etc.; they amass the result of their\nobservations and transmit them to their children. The invocation of\ncertain privileged Madonnas, such as the Madonna at Lourdes, is even\nto-day a vestige of primitive sorcery. The priest inherits all these\nna\u00efve experiments as to the conditions appropriate to induce a miracle,\nand he systematizes them. Priests being men picked for their capability\nin the function which was regarded as the most useful of all others for\nthe preservation of society, necessarily came to constitute a really\nsuperior caste and to be personally in some sense the object of the\ncult which they administered. The perfect type of sacerdotal privilege\nis hereditary priesthood as it existed in ancient Judaism, as it still\nexists in India; every Brahman is born a priest and needs no special\neducation. The thirty-seven great priests of Vishnu in Gujerat are\nhonoured even to-day as the visible incarnation of Vishnu.[48]\n\n      [48] It is an honour for which one pays dear to be permitted\n      to consecrate to them one\u2019s soul, one\u2019s body, or the soul and\n      body of one\u2019s wife. One pays five rupees for the privilege of\n      contemplating them, twenty for the privilege of touching them,\n      thirteen for the privilege of being whipped by them, seventeen\n      for the privilege of eating betel that they have chewed,\n      nineteen for the privilege of drinking the water in which they\n      have bathed, thirty-five for the privilege of washing their\n      great toes, forty-two for the privilege of rubbing them with\n      perfumed oil, and from one hundred to two hundred for tasting\n      in their company the essence of delight.\n\n[Sidenote: Antagonism between priest and prophet.]\n\nHistorically the priest has always found a rival, sometimes an\nadversary, in the prophet, from Buddha to Isaiah and Jesus. The prophet\nis not a priest bound to a sanctuary and slave to a tradition, but\nan individual. \u201cProphecy,\u201d says M. Albert R\u00e9ville, \u201cis to religion\nwhat lyrism is to poetry.\u201d The prophet and the lyric poet, in effect,\nboth speak in the name of their own inspiration. The prophet is often\na revolutionist, the priest is essentially a conservative; the one\nrepresents innovation, the other custom.\n\n[Sidenote: Dramatic element in cult.]\n\nExterior forms of worship and rites allying themselves with refined\nand elevated sentiments have in all religions taken on a symbolic\nand expressive character that they did not possess in the practice\nof primitive sorcery; they have become \u00e6sthetic and by that fact\nrendered durable. For whoever looks upon the most ancient religious\nceremonies with the eye of an artist, they consist in the reproduction,\nnowadays too mechanically and unconsciously, of a work of art which\nonce was not without its significance and its beauty. They are\nnowadays like a hand-organ playing admirable compositions by some\nold master. Pfleiderer, in his \u201cPhilosophy of Religion,\u201d has shown\nthat the dominant element in the externals of worship is dramatic,\nthe dramatization of some mythological or legendary scenes. It is\nespecially among the Aryans that this element predominates; the Aryans\nare especially susceptible to the charm of great epics and dramas.\nThe Semites are lyric rather, and thence arises the importance of\nprophecy among them; although the lyric element was also represented\namong the Greek poets and Pythonesses. The dramatic element, on the\ncontrary, is visible in certain symbolic ceremonies of Christianity\nand Judaism. The Mass was formerly a veritable drama of the Passion in\nwhich the spectators also took part; the half pagan, half Christian\nprocessions that still subsist to-day possess for the crowd something\nof the attractiveness of the opera. The Communion is a dramatization\nof the Lord\u2019s Supper. Catholicism especially is distinguished by\nthe possession of dramatic and \u00e6sthetic (too often gross) elements,\nwhich explain, not less than historical reasons, its victory over\nProtestantism among the nations of southern Europe, which are more\nartistic than those of the north, and more sensually artistic. The\n\u00e6sthetic superiority of a religion is not to be disdained by the\nthinker. It is the \u00e6sthetic element in every rite which, as we shall\nsee, is its most respectable characteristic. Moreover, religious\nsentiment and \u00e6sthetic sentiment have always gone hand in hand;\nand this union has been one of the most important factors in the\ndevelopment of the \u00e6sthetic sentiment; it is thus that dramas and\nepics dealt in the beginning with gods and demi-gods rather than with\nmen; the earliest romances were religious legends; the first odes were\nsacred chants and songs. Music and religion have always been allied.\nBut in the end, the \u00e6sthetic element becomes feeble and is replaced,\nas religion loses its vitality, by a species of mechanical routine. In\nthe East, even more than among us, this phenomenon is manifest, the\nwhole tendency there is toward monotonous and interminable ceremonials.\nThe Parsees, the representatives of the oldest existing religion,\npass six hours a day in prayer. And according to the _Indian Mirror_\nthe following is a description of the festival of the Lord, a part\nof the cult of Brahmaism, the altogether modern and wholly deistical\nreligion founded by Ram Mohun Roy and Keshub: \u201cAt precisely six o\u2019clock\na hymn was intoned in chorus in the upper gallery of the _mandir_ to\nannounce the day\u2019s solemnity. Others followed to the accompaniment of\nthe harmonium, and thus, after a succession of hymns, the sacred office\nwas reached, which, counting in the sermon, lasted from seven to ten\no\u2019clock. A part of the congregation then retired to take some rest,\nbut those who remained intoned the _vedi_ to demand of the minister\nexplanations in regard to several points of his sermon. At noon, the\nassembly having convened, four _pundits_ came out successively and\nrecited Sanskrit texts. At one o\u2019clock the minister gave a conference.\u201d\nThen came the exposition of a number of philosophical and religious\ntheses, delivered by their respective authors. Hymns, meditations, and\nprayers in common lasted till nearly seven o\u2019clock, when the initiation\nof seven new Brahmaists was celebrated. This ceremony, including a\nsermon, lasted not less than two hours, and the assembly, which, if one\nmay believe the reporter, did not show any sign of fatigue after these\nfifteen hours of continuous devotion, separated with a hymn to the\neffect that it had not yet had enough: \u201cThe heart wishes not to return\nhome.\u201d\n\n\n_IV. Subjective worship\u2014Adoration and love._\n\n[Sidenote: Subjective worship a refinement on public and external\nworship.]\n\nSubjective worship has grown out of, and been a refinement upon, the\nexternal cult, which in the beginning was in the eyes of mankind much\nthe more important of the two. To the incantation, to the material\noffering, to the sacrifices of the victims succeeded subjective prayer\nand the subjective offering of love, and the subjective sacrifice\nof egoistic passion. To external homage, to evidences of fear and\nrespect by which one was supposed to recognize the superior power of\nthe gods, as one bows down in recognition of the superior power of\nkings, succeeded a mental adoration, in which a god is recognized as\nall-powerful but also as all-beneficent. The mental bowing down of the\nentire soul before God is the last refinement of ritual; and ritual\nitself in the higher religions comes to be the simple sign and symbol\nof this adoration.[49] Thus the primitive sociomorphic character of\nthe cult becomes progressively more subtle: the semi-material society,\nconsisting of gods and men, becomes a wholly moral society, composed\nof men and the principle of goodness, which still continues to be\nrepresented as a person, as a master, as a father, as a king.\n\n      [49] Among the Hindus, _Tapas_, that is to say fire, the ardour\n      of devotion, and of voluntary renouncement, signified in the\n      beginning simply the incantation intended to constrain the\n      Devas to obedience, and to deprive them of a part of their\n      power. Out of a crude conception has grown an extremely refined\n      one. See _Manuel de l\u2019Histoire des religions_, par C.\u00a0P. Tiele,\n      p. 19 (translated by Maurice Vernes).\n\n[Sidenote: The love of God an outlet for the surplus of human love.]\n\nThe highest form of subjective worship is love of God, in which all the\nduties of religious morality may be regarded as summed up. Adoration\ncontains in it a vitiating element of respect for power; love is a more\nintimate union. The love of God is a partial manifestation of the need\nto love which exists in every human being. This need is so great that\nit cannot always find satisfaction in real life; it tends therefore to\nstretch beyond, and not finding upon earth an object which completely\nsuffices for it, it seeks one in heaven. The love of God appears thus\nto be an expression of the superabundance of the love of man. Our heart\nsometimes feels too big for the world and seeks to overpass its limits.\nLet us not forget, for the rest, that the world has been strangely\ncontracted by religious ignorance, intolerance, and prejudice; the\nsphere left open to the need of loving was formerly a very narrow one:\nit is not astonishing that the latter should have stretched out its\narms toward a celestial and supernatural being.\n\n[Sidenote: Nourished by isolation, feebleness, and misfortune.]\n\nThe same thing happens when human affections are shipwrecked in us,\nlose their object, no longer find anything to which they can attach\nthemselves. In France, as in England and America, the habitual devotion\nof spinsters has long since been observed, though it often coincides\nwith a certain pining away of the heart. In our times a virtuous\nunmarried woman is, so to speak, predestined to devotion; divine love\nis for her (on an average, of course) a necessary compensation. Remark\nalso that old men are generally more inclined to devotion than young.\nThere are, no doubt, a number of reasons for it: the approach of death,\nthe enfeeblement of the body and of the intelligence, the increasing\nneed for a support, etc.; but there exists also a more profound reason.\nThe old man, always more isolated than the young, and deprived of the\nexcitations of the sexual instinct, possesses a smaller outlet for his\ninstinct for affection and for love. Thus there accumulates in him an\namount of treasure which he is free to apply as to him seems best;\nwell, the service of God is that which demands least effort, which\nis most appropriate to the natural indolence of the old, to their\npreoccupation with themselves; they become therefore devotees, partly\nout of egoism, partly out of a need for some disinterested occupation.\nA grain of incense burns in every heart, and when the perfume of it\ncan no longer be given to the earth we let it mount to heaven. Note\nalso that the loss of beloved beings, misfortunes of every sort, and\nirreparable infirmities all provoke an expansion of the heart toward\nGod. In the Middle Ages unhappiness was frequently one of the most\nimportant factors of piety; when a great and unmerited misfortune\nhappened to a man, the chances were that he would enter the Church or\nelse become an atheist; it depended often on his strength of mind, his\nhabits, and his education. When one strikes an animal it is equally\npossible that it may bite one or crouch at one\u2019s feet. Every time the\nheart is violently bruised there comes an inevitable reaction; we\nmust reply from within to the blows from without, and this reply is\nsometimes revolt and sometimes adoration. The feeble, the disinherited,\nthe suffering, all those to whom misfortune has not left strength\nenough for rebellion, have but one resource: the sweet and consoling\nhumility of divine love. Whoever does not love, or is not loved\ncompletely and sufficiently, on earth will always turn toward heaven:\nthe proposition is as regular as the parallelogram of forces.\n\n[Sidenote: Power of mysticism a perversion of love.]\n\nJust as we have seen in an error of the senses one of the objective\nprinciples of religious physics, so perhaps may we find in a perversion\nof love one of the most essential subjective principles of mysticism.\nIt is by love that this unction, this penetrating sweetness which makes\nthe mystic tremble to the marrow of his bones, is to be explained.\nProfound love, even the most terrestrial, tends to envelop the object\nwith respect and veneration; an effect which is due to a number of\ncauses, and among others to the psychological law according to which\ndesire magnifies the desired object. To love is always a little to\nadore. If it is a human being that is the object of the love, the\ndivinization incidental to it will be confined within certain limits,\nbut if the love stretch up from the earth into heaven, it may command\nthe full powers of the imagination; the soul, seeking at a distance\nfor some vague object to which to attach itself, will go out in mystic\noutbursts of emotion and ecstasy. The soul will personify its ideal,\nwill supply it with figure and speech: its ideal will be Jesus with\nMary Magdalene at his feet, or the Virgin weeping at the foot of the\ncross, or Moses in the midst of the clouds, or the child Buddha before\nwhom the statues of the gods rose and made obeisance. Thus mystical\nreligions are formed of great images and passionate sentiments and the\nheart of man, the very life blood of which they turn to their profit.\nWhat appears often to be the most intellectual of tastes is only love\nin disguise. The most earthly love is often a religion in its earliest\nstages. Henri Beyle, visiting the salt-mines at Salzburg, found in a\nshaft a branch covered with incomparable diamonds scintillating in\nthe light. It was a dead timber on which the salt had crystallized;\nin the timber thus transformed Beyle saw the symbol of what happens\nin every loving heart; every object one finds there has taken on an\nextraordinary brilliancy, a marvellous beauty. He calls this phenomenon\ncrystallization; we should prefer to call it divinization. Love always\ndivinizes its object; partially and provisionally when this object\nis placed upon earth and close to one\u2019s eyes, but definitively when\nthis object is lost in the distance of heaven. Our gods are like those\nmysterious beings who spring, in legend, from a drop of generous blood\nor a loving tear let fall upon the earth; it is with our own substance\nthat we nourish them; their beauty, their goodness come out of our\nlove, and if we love them as we do, the reason is that we must love\nsomething; must lift up to the four corners of the horizon, even if\nthey be deaf, a supreme appeal. This outcome of love and religious\nsentiment is most visible in exalted minds, both in the Middle Ages\nand in our own days. The true element of originality in Christian\nliterature is that one there finds, for the first time, a sincere\nand warm accent of love, scarcely divined, here and there, by the\ngreat spirits of antiquity, by Sappho and Lucretius. In a page of St.\nAugustine one finds the expression of a franker and more profound\nardour than in all the elegant affectations of Horace or the languors\nof Tibullus. Nothing in pagan antiquity is comparable to the chapter\nin the \u201cImitation\u201d on love. The passion, confined and held in check,\nmounts to heights till then unknown, like a dammed river; but it is\nno less genuinely itself. What shall we say of the visionary mystics\nof the people like St. Theresa, and Chantal, and Guyon? Among them\npiety, in its most exaggerated form, verges upon the madness of love.\nSt. Theresa might have been a courtesan of genius equally as well as\na saint. Physiologists and physicians have often observed, in our\ndays, analogous pathological cases, in which the religious effusion is\nsimply, so to speak, a case of mistake in identity.[50]\n\n      [50] Ribot, _de l\u2019H\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9_, 364; Moreau de Tours, _Psych.\n      morbide_, 259.\n\n[Sidenote: Worship of Christ to a considerable extent a perversion of\nlove.]\n\nIn Christianity the conception of Jesus, the beautiful, gentle young\nman, the Holy Spirit incarnate in the purest and most ideal form,\nfavours more directly than any corresponding conception in any rival\nreligion this particular perversion of love. Christianity is the most\nanthropomorphic belief in existence, for it is the one of all others\nwhich, after having conceived the most elevated idea of God, abases\nit, without degrading it, to the most human of human conditions. By\na much more refined, much more profound paganism than the paganism\nof antiquity, the Christian religion has succeeded in making God the\nobject of an ardent love, without ceasing to make Him an object of\nrespect. By a myth much more seductive and poetic even than that of\nPsyche, we see God, the true God, descended upon earth in the form of\na blond and smiling young man; we hear him speak low in the ear of\nMary Magdalene at the fall of evening; and then this vision suddenly\ndisappears and we see in the gathering shadow two mutilated arms\nextended toward us, and a heart which bleeds for humanity. In this\nlegend all the powers of the imagination are called in play, all the\nfibres of the heart are moved; it is an accomplished work of art. What\nis there astonishing in the fact that Christ has been and is still the\ngreat seducer of souls? In the ears of a young girl his name appeals\nat once to all her instincts, even to the maternal instinct, for Jesus\nis often represented as a child with the dimpled, rosy cheeks which\nthe Greeks ascribed to Eros. The heart of the woman is thus besieged\non all sides at once: her wavering and timid imagination wanders from\nthe cherub to the youth, and from the youth to the pale figure, with\nthe bowed head, upon the cross. It is possible that from the birth of\nChristianity down to the present day there has not been one single\nwoman of an exalted piety whose heart has not first beat for her God,\nfor Jesus, for the most lovable and loving type that the human mind has\never conceived.\n\n[Sidenote: Moral element in the law of God.]\n\nSide by side with its somewhat sentimental element the love of God\ncontains a moral element, which is progressively detaching itself\nwith the march of ideas. God being the very principle of goodness,\nthe personification of the moral ideal, the love of God ultimately\nbecomes a moral love properly so called, the love of virtue, of\nsanctity at its height. The subjective act of charity thus becomes\nthe religious act _par excellence_, in which morality and subjective\nworship are identified; good works and the externals of worship are\nsimply a translation into the outer world of the moral consciousness.\nAt the same time, in the highest speculations of philosophic theology,\ncharity has been conceived as embracing simultaneously all beings in\nthe divine love, and by consequence as beginning to realize the sort of\nperfect society in which \u201call exist in all and all in every part.\u201d The\nsocial and moral character of religion thus attains its highest degree\nof perfection and God appears as a sort of mystic realization of the\nuniversal society, _sub specie \u00e6terni_.\n\n\n\n\nPart Second.\n\nTHE DISSOLUTION OF RELIGIONS IN EXISTING SOCIETIES.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nDOGMATIC FAITH.\n\n    I. Narrow dogmatic faith\u2014The credulity of primitive man:\n      First, spontaneous faith in the senses and imagination;\n      Second, faith in the testimony of superior men; Third,\n      faith in the divine word, in revelation, and in the sacred\n      texts\u2014The literalness of dogmatic faith\u2014Inevitable\n      intolerance of narrow dogmatic faith\u2014Belief in dogma,\n      revelation, salvation, and damnation all result in\n      intolerance\u2014Modern tolerance.\n\n    II. Broad dogmatic faith\u2014Orthodox Protestantism\u2014Dogmas of\n      orthodox Protestantism\u2014Rational consequences of these\n      dogmas\u2014Logical failure of orthodox Protestantism.\n\n    III. The dissolution of dogmatic faith in modern\n      society\u2014Reasons that render this dissolution\n      inevitable\u2014Comparative influence of the various sciences:\n      influence of public instruction, of means of communication,\n      of industry even and of commerce, etc.\u2014The disappearance\n      of belief in oracles and prophecies\u2014Gradual disappearance\n      of the belief in miracles, in devils, etc.\n\n\n_I. Narrow dogmatic faith._\n\nIf faith has not varied especially in and of itself as a mode of\nfeeling, the objects with which it is concerned have differed from\ngeneration to generation. Hence the various forms of doctrine which we\nshall pass in review as showing the evolution and dissolution of faith.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Primitive faith more properly a credulity.]\n\nIn primitive religions, faith was altogether experimental and physical;\nit was not opposed to scientific belief, which, to say the truth, did\nnot exist. It was a credulity rather than a faith; and religious faith,\nin our day, is still a credulity, an obligatory credulity, primarily in\nthe authority of superior men, secondarily in that of God himself.\n\n[Sidenote: Subordination of the marvellous in primitive faith.]\n\nThe origin of religious faith has been attributed solely to an appetite\nfor the marvellous and the extraordinary; but we have already shown\nthat religions do everything in their power to regulate the imagination\neven in the very act of stimulating it, and to bring the unknown to the\ntouchstone of the known. The marvellous must aid in making something at\nleast apparently comprehensible; with marvel for marvel\u2019s sake religion\nholds no commerce. So much so, that primitive people have sought in\nreligion, less to multiply the marvellous, in the modern sense of\nthe word, than partially to suppress it; they have been in search of\nan explanation of some sort. An explanation by superior powers, by\nspirits, by occult virtues, seemed clearer to them than an explanation\nby scientific law.\n\n[Sidenote: Rationale of primitive man\u2019s faith in the marvellous.]\n\nFor the rest, any explanation once given, primitive man never dreamed\nof disputing it, he was essentially a \u201cman of faith.\u201d The delicate\nshades of thought we designate as verisimilitude, probability,\npossibility, were as little known to primitive man as to children.\nThe voluntary suspension of judgment that we call doubt indicates\nan extremely advanced state of mind. With children and savages, to\nconceive and to believe are one; they know nothing about reserving\ntheir approbation, or mistrusting their own intelligence or that of\nothers. A certain humility, which young minds do not possess, is\nnecessary before one can say: That may be true but also it may not,\nor in other words, I don\u2019t know. And also one must have patience to\nverify with care what one believes, and patience is courage of the most\ndifficult kind. Finally, man always feels the need to declare that what\nis attractive, what satisfies his mind, is real: when one tells an\ninteresting story to a child, he says, \u201cIt is true, is it not?\u201d If, on\nthe contrary, it is a sad story he will cry out: \u201cThat is not true!\u201d A\nman of the people to whom one should demonstrate, with the evidence in\none\u2019s hand, that a thing he thought true was false, would reply with a\nshake of the head, \u201cIf it is not true, it ought to be.\u201d All primitive\npeople were like that. In a memorandum on The Development of Language\nand Intelligence among Children, E. Egger characterized this state of\nmind as \u201crebellion against the notion of doubt and even that of simple\nprobability.\u201d Felix, a child of five and one-half years, took a lively\ninterest in sacred history, but he could not understand why all the\nlacun\u00e6 had not been filled in, or why doubtful points should be marked\nas such. \u201cThe actual state of his mind,\u201d adds E. Egger, \u201ccorresponds in\na manner to that of the Greek mind during the period when the effort\nwas made painfully to set in order the chaos of ancient legend.\u201d Two\nyears later the same child received a present of a collection of\nstories. He found in the preface that the author gave the stories out\nas true; he asked nothing further, and was promptly astonished to find\nanybody else in doubt. \u201cHis trustfulness displayed no disposition to go\nbehind the letter of his text, in especial as the stories sounded to\nhim sufficiently probable.\u201d In my own experience with children, I have\nnoticed that nothing irritates them like uncertainty; a thing must be\ntrue or false, and generally they prefer that it should be true. For\nthe rest, a child does not know the limits of his own power, and still\nless that of others; and too, he has no clear sense of the marvellous\nand the improbable. A child saw a horse galloping by one day, and said\nto me seriously, \u201cI could run as fast as that.\u201d Thus again the little\npeasant girl, of whom we spoke above, asked her mistress why she might\nnot have made the flowers in the garden. A sense of the possible is\nlacking in primitive intelligences: because you seem to a child or\na savage to be able to do more things than he, he readily comes to\nbelieve that you can do everything; so that what we call miracles seem\nto primitive people simply the visible and necessary sign of superior\npower; so much so, indeed, that to them a man of mark ought to be\nable to perform miracles; they expect them from him as their due, and\nbecome indignant if they are not forthcoming, as a child is indignant\nwhen one does not help him carry a burden that is too heavy for his\nstrength. The Hebrews precisely expected Moses to perform miracles and,\nso to speak, obliged him to do them. The people believe in their great\nmen, and the belief in miracles is but a corollary from their general\nconfidence.\n\n[Sidenote: Absoluteness of primitive faith.]\n\nMoreover, faith reaches a height among primitive nations that it never\ndoes among cultivated intelligences: they believe immeasurably things\nthat it is out of all measure to believe at all; the happy _inter\nutrumque_ is as lacking in the belief itself as in the thing believed.\nMr. Spencer, in his \u201cSociology,\u201d cites the example of a young woman who\nattributed to a certain amulet the magical virtue of preserving her\nagainst injuries. She thought herself as invulnerable as Achilles. The\nchief of the tribe, astonished that so precious an amulet should exist,\nand wishing no doubt to acquire it, asked to have its virtues verified\nbefore his eyes. The woman was brought to him, a warrior prepared his\nhatchet, and in perfect confidence she put out her arm. The blow fell\nand the woman uttered a cry of astonishment not less than of pain as\nher hand fell to the ground. Who in our day has such absolute faith?\nVery few among us would risk his life, or even his hand, to maintain\nsuch and such a dogma. This woman belonged to the race of martyrs; her\nintense credulity bordered on heroism.\n\n[Sidenote: Confusion of sincerity with verity by primitive man.]\n\nMan\u2019s natural confidence in his fellow-men, especially when there is no\nvery evident reason why the latter should mislead him, is the origin\nof the credence we give to the testimony and authority of those who\nclaim to be inspired; which all seemed very human and natural in the\nbeginning, and only later came to be regarded as supernatural. This\nspontaneous disposition to believe is an elementary instinct which\nplays a large r\u00f4le in religious sociomorphism. Suspicious as primitive\nman is when his material interests are at stake, in all other matters\nhe is apt to be credulous to a fault. Moreover, he scarcely knows what\none means by _error_, and does not distinguish it from deception; he\nputs trust in his own judgment and in that of other people. When you\ntell him something extraordinary, his first thought is that you are\nmaking sport of him; he is less inclined to believe that you have\ndeceived yourself, that you have reasoned falsely; sincerity and verity\nare confused in his mind. It has taken all the experience of modern\nlife to make clear to us the difference between these two things; to\ninduce us to verify the affirmations even of those whose characters we\nesteem most highly; to contradict, without offending, those who are\ndearest to us. Primitive man never distinguished his belief in the\n\u201claw\u201d from his faith in the \u201cprophets.\u201d Those whom he esteemed and\nadmired seemed to him of necessity to know the facts. Add that man is\nalways inclined to make much of anything that is a material fact, of\nanything that appeals to his eyes and to his ears. The sacred word, and\nthe sacred writings that embody it, are to him not merely indications,\nbut _proofs_ of what they affirm. I overheard it given in a church one\nday as an incontestable proof that Moses conversed with the Lord that\nMt. Sinai is still in existence; that is the sort of argument that is\nsuccessful with the people. Livingstone says that the negroes listened\nand believed from the moment he showed them the Bible and told them\nthat the celestial Father had written His will on the pages of that\nbook; they touched the pages and believed at once.\n\n[Sidenote: Inference from reality of the sign to reality of the thing\nsignified the essence of faith in revelation.]\n\nIn effect, blind confidence in a word, in a sign\u2014precipitate induction\nfrom which one infers from the reality of the sign to the reality of\nthe thing signified: a second induction to the effect that any doctrine\nrelatively elevated, from the social and moral point of view, and put\nforth by men one respects, is probably true, even if it be in many\npoints irrational\u2014these are the principal elements of the primitive\nfaith in revelation. And this faith, in all its crudity, exists at the\npresent day. It wins its way through the eyes and ears; therein lies\nits power. It is much less mystical than we are inclined to fancy; it\nis incarnate in its monuments, its temples, its books; it walks about\nand breathes in the person of its priests, its saints, its gods; we\ncannot look about us without realizing its existence in one form or\nanother. It has been of great service to human thought, in spite of its\npitfalls, thus to have been able to express itself, to fashion objects\nin its own image, to penetrate marble and stone, to provide that it\nshall itself be borne back in upon us from without. How can one doubt\nwhat is visible and tangible?\n\n[Sidenote: Results in \u201ccredo quia ineptum.\u201d]\n\nFaith in testimony and authority leads to faith in sacred texts and in\nthe very letter of these texts. This is what one means by _literal_\nfaith. It exists still in our day, among many civilized people. It\nconstitutes the basis of the Catholicism of the masses. \u201cIn order\nto silence restless spirits,\u201d said the council of Trent, \u201cit is\ndecreed that no one may, in the interpretation of the Scriptures, ...\ndeviate from the construction sanctioned by the Church, to seek for a\nsupposedly more exact rendering.\u201d Faith lies thus in a renunciation\nof thought, an abdication of liberty; imposes upon itself a rule not\nof logic but of morals, and subjects itself to dogmas as to immutable\nprinciples. It restricts intelligence beforehand to precise limits,\nand imposes a general direction on it, with instructions not to swerve\nfrom it. It is at this point that faith comes really to be opposed\nto scientific belief for which in the beginning it was a substitute.\nAccording to the council of the Vatican, those who have faith do not\nbelieve \u201cbecause of the intrinsic truth of the things revealed,\u201d but\n\u201cbecause of the divine _authority_ that revealed them.\u201d If you reason\nwith a person of that stamp, he will listen, understand, and follow\nyou\u2014but only to a certain point; there he stops, and nothing in the\nworld can make him go beyond. Or rather from that point he will declare\nhimself inexpugnable, and will assure you that you have absolutely\nno hold on him; and in effect, no scientific or philosophical reason\ncould turn him from his belief, since he places the object of his\nfaith in a sphere superior to reason, and makes his faith an affair of\n\u201cconscience.\u201d Nothing can force a man to think rightly when he does not\npropose rectitude of thought to himself as a supreme aim, and nothing\ncan oblige him to follow the dictates of reason to the bitter end,\nif he believes that the instant he calls certain dogmas and certain\nauthorities in question he is committing a sin. Thus, faith gives a\ncertain sacred and inviolable character to what it sanctions,\u2014converts\nit into a sacred ark that one may not touch without sacrilege or\ndanger, neither may one look at it too closely nor touch it with one\u2019s\nfingers, even to lend it support now and then when it seems ready\nto fall. Free-thought and science never consider a thing as true\nexcept provisionally, and so long as it is not seriously doubted by\nsomeone. Dogmatic faith, on the contrary, affirms as true not only the\nthings that are uncontested, but those which, according to it, are\nconclusively presumed, and therefore above discussion. It follows that,\nif reasons for belief diminish, faith must be none the less strong. It\nwas this that Pascal endeavoured to demonstrate. In effect, the less\na belief seems rational to our finite minds, the more merit there is\nin lending credence to \u201cdivine authority.\u201d It would be too simple to\nbelieve no more than what one sees or what sounds probable to one; to\naffirm the improbable, to believe in what seems incredible, is much\nmore meritorious. Our courage rises in proportion as our intelligence\nbecomes humble; the more absurd one is the greater one is\u2014_credo quia\nineptum_; the more difficult the task, the greater the merit. The\nstrength of our faith is estimated, in the mysticism of Pascal, by\nthe weakness of its \u201creasons.\u201d The ideal, on this theory, would be to\npossess no more than the metaphysical minimum of reason for belief,\nthe weakest conceivable of motives, a mere nothing; that is to say,\none should be attached to the supreme object of one\u2019s faith by the\nslenderest of bonds. The Albigensian priests, the _parfaits_, wear a\nsimple white cord around their waists as an emblem of their vow; all\nmankind wears this cord, and it is in reality more solid and often\nheavier than any chain.\n\n[Sidenote: Complete intellectual rest incident to faith.]\n\nScepticism tends toward a complete intellectual indifference with\nregard to all things; dogmatic faith produces a partial indifference,\nan indifference limited to certain points, determined once for all;\nit is no longer anxious on these heads, but rests and delights in\nestablished dogma. The sceptic and the man of faith abandon themselves\nthus to a more or less extensive abstinence from thought. Religious\nfaith is a determination to suspend the flight of the imagination,\nto limit the sphere of thought. We all know the Oriental legend that\nthe world is held up by an elephant, which stands on a tortoise,\nwhich floats on a sea of milk. The believer must always refrain from\nasking what supports the sea of milk? He must never notice a point of\nwhich there is no explanation; he must constantly repeat to himself\nthe abortive incomplete idea that has been given him without daring\nto recognize that it is incomplete. In a street through which I pass\nevery day, a blackbird whistles the same melodic phrase; the phrase\nis incomplete, ends abruptly, and for years I have heard him lift his\nvoice, deliver himself of his truncated song, and stop with a satisfied\nair, with no need to complete his musical fragment, which I never hear\nwithout a feeling of impatience. It is thus with the true believer;\naccustomed as he is in the most important questions to dwell within\nthe limits of the customary, without any curiosity about the beyond,\nhe sings his monotonous little note without dreaming that it lacks\nanything\u2014that his phrase is as clipped as his wings are, and that the\nnarrow world of his belief is not the universe.\n\n[Sidenote: Wilful blindness of faith.]\n\nThe people who still hold to this kind of faith represent the antique\nworld endeavouring to perpetuate itself without a compromise in the\nbosom of the new world, the world of modern society. The barbarian\ndoes not wish to yield to the progress of ideas and of manners; if\nsuch people formed the majority of the nation they would constitute\nthe greatest danger to human reason, to science, and to truth. Literal\nfaith, in effect, makes naked truth a subject of pudicity; one does\nnot dare to look it in the face or lift the sacred veil that hides its\nbeauty; you find yourself in the midst of a conspiracy, mysterious\nbeings surround you, putting their hands before your eyes and a finger\non your lips. Dogma holds you, possesses you, masters you in spite of\nyourself; it is fixed in your heart and petrified in your intelligence:\nit is not without reason that faith has been compared to an anchor\nthat has caught on the bottom and checked the vessel in its course,\nwhile the open and free ocean stretches beyond as far as the eye can\nreach. And who shall break the anchor from his heart? When you shake\nit loose in one place, faith settles to its hold somewhere else; you\nhave a thousand weak points at which it attacks you. You can completely\nabandon a philosophical doctrine; but you cannot break away absolutely\nfrom a collection of beliefs in which blind and literal faith has\nborne sway; there is always something left; you will carry the scars\nand marks from it as slaves who are freed still carry on their flesh\nthe signs of their servitude. You are branded in the heart, you shall\nfeel the effects of it always; you shall have moments of dread and\nshuddering, of mystic enthusiasm, of distrust of reason, of need to\nrepresent things as being other than they really are, to see what is\nnot, and not to see what is. The fiction that was early forced upon\nyour soul shall often seem to you sweeter than the sound and rugged\ntruth, you need to know; you shall hate yourself for the sin of\nknowledge.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Intolerance incident to faith.]\n\nThere is a story of a Brahman who was talking with a European of his\nreligion, and among other dogmas mentioned the scrupulous respect due\nto animals. \u201cThe law,\u201d said he \u201cnot only forbids one\u2019s doing evil,\nvoluntarily, to the smallest creature even for the purpose of supplying\none\u2019s self with food, it even bids one walk with extraordinary\ncircumspection with one\u2019s eyes down, that one may avoid stepping on the\nhumblest ant.\u201d Without trying to refute this na\u00efve faith the European\nhanded the speaker a microscope. The Brahman looked through the\ninstrument and saw on everything about him, on the fruits that he was\nabout to eat, in the beverage that he was about to drink, everywhere\nthat he might put his hand or foot, the movement of a multitude of\nlittle animals of whose existence he had never dreamed: creatures that\nhe had totally left out of account. He was stupefied and handed the\nmicroscope back to the European. \u201cI give it to you,\u201d the latter said.\nThe Brahman with a movement of joy took it and threw it on the ground,\nand broke it, and departed satisfied; as if by that stroke he had\ndestroyed the truth and saved his faith. Happily, in our day, one may\nwithout great loss destroy an optical or physical instrument, it can\nbe replaced; but what is to become of an intelligence in the hands of\nthe fanatical believer? Would he not crush it, in case of need, as the\ninstrument of glass was crushed, and sacrifice it the more gaily that\na more limpid gleam of truth might well filter through it? In India\nwe have an example of the philosophical doctrine, very inoffensive in\nappearance and upheld, with various modifications, by great thinkers,\nof the transmigration of souls, becoming a religious dogma, producing\nas a direct result intolerance, contempt of science, and all the\nusual effects of blind dogmatism. Dogmatic and absolute faith in its\nevery form tends to check thought; thence springs its intolerance\u2014a\nconsequence that may well be insisted on.\n\n[Sidenote: And even logically resulting from it.]\n\nIntolerance is only an outward realization of the tyranny exercised\nwithin by dogmatic faith. Belief in a _revelation_, which all religion\nrests upon, is the very opposite of progressive _discovery_; the\ninstant one affirms that the first exists, the latter becomes useless,\ndangerous, and ends in being condemned. Intolerance, first theoretic,\nthen practical, is the legitimate offspring of absolute faith of every\nkind. In all revealed religion doctrine first appears in the form of\n_dogma_, then of dogmatic and categorical commandment. There have\nalways been things that must be believed, and practices that must be\nobserved, under pain of perdition. The sphere of dogmas and sacred\nrites may be widened or narrowed, the discipline may be loose or so\nstrict that it extends to the very items of one\u2019s diet; but there is\nalways at least a minimum of dogma that is absolute and of practice\nthat is rigidly obligatory, without which no truly religious church\ncould exist. And this is not all. Theological sanction is by its\nvery nature always in extremes; it presents one with no mean between\nabsolute good and absolute evil, both conceived as eternal. And this\nbeing granted, how should believers, who are dominated by an exclusive\npreoccupation with an ardent and profound faith, hesitate to employ\nconstraint in case of need when the matter at stake is so great\u2014is of\nabsolute and eternal good or of absolute and eternal evil? For them the\nonly value of free-will lies in its use\u2014in its use toward its proper\nobject, which is the fulfilment of the divine will. In the presence of\nan eternity of penalties to be avoided, everything seems permissible;\nany means seems good provided it be successful. Possessed of that\nimplicit certitude which is inseparable from an absolute and explicit\nfaith, what really enthusiastic soul would hold back before the\nemployment of force? Accordingly, as a matter of fact, every religion\nwhich is at once new and powerful is intolerant. The appearance of\ntolerance marks a decline of faith; a religion which allows for the\nexistence of another is a religion in decay. One cannot believe\nanything \u201cwith all one\u2019s heart\u201d without a sentiment of pity and even of\nhorror for those who believe differently. If I were absolutely certain\nof possessing the supreme and ultimate verity, should I hesitate to\nturn the world upside-down to make it prevail? One puts blinkers on a\nhorse to keep him from seeing to the right or left; he looks straight\nahead and runs forward under the whip with the hardiness and vigour of\nignorance; it is in the same fashion that the partisans of an absolute\ndogma move through life. \u201cEvery positive religion, every immutable\nform,\u201d says Benjamin Constant, \u201cleads directly to intolerance,\nproviding one reasons logically.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Use of force as justifiable in a priest as in a physician.]\n\nThe reply to Benjamin Constant is that it is one thing to believe that\none knows the way to salvation and another thing to force others to\nwalk in that way. The priest looks upon himself as the physician of the\nsoul; to wish to minister by violence to an ailing soul, \u201cis quite as\nif,\u201d it has been said, \u201cthe physician of the body for greater certainty\nshould take the precaution of having his patient condemned to death\nor to hard labor in case of disobedience to his prescriptions.\u201d[51]\nAssuredly it would involve a contradiction in terms for the physician\nof the body to wish to bring it to death; but it in nowise involves a\ncontradiction for the physician of the soul to wish to put constraint\nupon the body. The objection falls of its own weight. For the rest,\nlet us not deceive ourselves; if the physicians of the body leave\ntheir patients free, it is sometimes that they cannot help so doing,\nsimply; in certain grave cases they insist on having the patient under\ntheir control in a hospital, which is, after all, a sort of prison.\nIf a European physician had to prescribe for one of those American\nIndians, whose habit it is in an attack of smallpox, when the fever\nreaches forty degrees, to plunge into the water to refresh themselves,\nthe first thing he would do would be to strap his patient to his cot.\nAnd every physician would like really to be able to proceed after the\nsame fashion, even in Europe, even at the present day, with people\nlike Gambetta, Mirabeau, and many others less illustrious, who kill\nthemselves by negligence.\n\n      [51] M. Franck, _Des rapports de la religion et de l\u2019\u00c9tat_.\n\n[Sidenote: Intolerance a perverted charity.]\n\nBesides, one must not reason as if the believer could isolate himself\nand act only for himself. For example, to a Catholic what is the\nmeaning of absolute liberty of choice in education? It means the right\nof parents to damn their children. Is this right thus permissible in\ntheir eyes? There are books calculated to destroy faith; books by\nVoltaire, or Strauss, or Renan; books which, if circulated, result\nin our losing our souls, \u201ca thing far more grave than the death of\nthe body,\u201d as Th\u00e9odore de B\u00e8ze said, after St. Augustine. Can a\nnation truly penetrated by a Christian charity allow such books to\nbe circulated on the pretext of liberty of conscience? No; one must\nbefore all else deliver the very will from the bonds of heresy and\nerror; it is on this condition only that it can be free. Moreover, one\nmust prevent the corrupt conscience from corrupting others. We see\nplainly that charitable intolerance is justified from an exclusively\ntheological point of view. It rests on logical reasonings of which the\npoint of departure alone is vicious.[52]\n\n      [52] It is easy to understand the high ecclesiastical\n      authorities in the Catholic Church, who maintain as an article\n      of faith the right to repress error. Recollect the well-known\n      pages in which St. Augustine speaks of what good effects he\n      had observed to result from the employment of constraint in\n      religious matters. \u201cA great many of those who have been brought\n      back into the Church by force confess themselves to be greatly\n      rejoiced at having been delivered from their former errors,\n      who, however, by I know not what force of custom, would never\n      have thought of changing for the better if the fear of the\n      law had not put them in mind of the truth. Good precepts and\n      wholesome fear must go together so that not only the light of\n      truth may drive away the gloom of error, but that charity may\n      break the bonds of bad custom, so that we may rejoice over the\n      salvation of the many.... It is written: \u2018Bid them to enter\n      in.\u2019 ... God Himself did not spare his son, but delivered\n      Him for our sake to the executioners.\u201d Schiller makes the\n      great inquisitor in _Don Carlos_ say the same thing. See St.\n      Augustine, _Epist._ cxiii. 17, 5\u2014St. Paul, _Ephes._, vi. 5,\n      6, 9. Lastly, recollect also the reasoned decision of the\n      doctors and councils. \u201cHuman government,\u201d said St. Thomas,\n      \u201cis derived from _divine government_ and should _imitate_\n      it. Now although God is all-powerful and infinitely good, He\n      nevertheless permits in the universe that He has made the\n      existence of evils which He could prevent; He permits them for\n      fear that in suppressing them more than equivalent goods might\n      be suppressed incidentally along with them and greater evils\n      provoked in their stead. The same is true in human government;\n      _rulers naturally tolerate certain evils for fear of putting\n      an obstacle in the way of certain goods, or of causing greater\n      evils_, as St. Augustine said in the treatise on _Order_. It\n      is thus that _infidels_, though they sin in their rites, may\n      be _tolerated, either because of some good coming from them,\n      or to avoid some evil_. The Jews observe their rites, in which\n      formerly the truth of the faith that we hold was prefigured;\n      the result is advantageous in this, that we have the testimony\n      of our enemies in favour of our faith, and that the object\n      of our faith is, so to speak, shown in a reflected image. As\n      for the worship of the other unbelievers, which is opposed in\n      every way to truth and is entirely useless, _it would merit\n      no tolerance_ if it were not to avoid some evil, such as the\n      scandal or _the trouble which might result from the suppression\n      of this worship_; or again as an impediment to the salvation\n      of those who, under cover of this species of tolerance, come\n      little by little into the faith. It is for that reason that\n      the Church has occasionally tolerated even the worship of\n      heretics, and heathens, when the number of infidels was great.\u201d\n      (_Summa theol._, 2 a; q. x, a. II.) One readily perceives the\n      nature of _tolerance_ in that sense. It does not in the least\n      recognize the right of those who are the object of it: if it\n      does not maltreat them, it is simply to _avoid a greater evil_,\n      or rather because its power is too small, and the number of\n      infidels is too large.\n\n      A professor of theology at the Sorbonne has recently contested\n      the charge of Catholic intolerance. (M. Alfred Fouill\u00e9e had\n      just spoken of it in his _Social Science_.) He did so for\n      reasons that may be cited as further proof. \u201cNeither to-day,\n      nor _ever, in any epoch of its history_, has the Catholic\n      Church intended to _impose acceptance of the truth by\n      violence_. All great theologians have taught that the act of\n      faith is a voluntary act, which presupposes an illumination\n      of the mind; _but they have also taught that constraint may\n      favour this illumination, and in especial may preserve others\n      from_ a bad example, from a contagious darkness. The Christian\n      Church has had no need of the sword to evangelize the nations;\n      if it has shed blood in its triumph, it has been _its own_.\u201d\n      Has it, then, not shed the blood of others? If one counts all\n      the murders committed by intolerance in the name of absolute\n      dogma, in every country in the world; if one could measure\n      all the bloodshed; if one could gather together all the dead\n      bodies\u2014would the pile not mount higher than the spires of\n      the cathedrals and the domes of the temples, where man still\n      goes, with unalterable fervour, to invoke and bless the \u201cGod\n      of Love\u201d? Faith in a God who talks and acts, who has a history\n      of His own, His Bible, His prophet and His priest, will always\n      end by being intolerant. By adoring a jealous and vengeful God,\n      one becomes in the end His accomplice. One tacitly approves all\n      the crimes committed in His name and often (if one believes the\n      Holy Scriptures) commanded by Him. One endeavours to forget\n      these things when they are too stained with blood and filth.\n      The monuments of such bloody scenes have been razed, and the\n      places to which the strongest memories are attached have been\n      purified and transformed: the partisans of certain dogmas need\n      to wash their hearts also in lustral water.\n\n[Sidenote: And a half-caste public spirit.]\n\nIn order to understand how legitimate religious intolerance appears\nfrom its own point of view, we must remember with what perfect calm\nwe forbid and punish acts that are directly contrary to the actual\nconditions of our social life (for example, the public outrage of\ngood morals, etc.). Now we know that all religion superposes another\nsociety upon the actual one; it conceives men\u2019s life as enveloped and\nbounded by the life of the gods; it must therefore seek to maintain\nthe conditions of this supernatural society with not less energy than\nwe employ to maintain our human society, and the conditions of this\nsuperior society lead to the multiplication of all the prohibitive\nrules that we have previously imposed on our existence with our\nfellows; imaginary walls cannot avoid being added to the walls and\nditches already impeding circulation on the earth\u2019s surface; if we\nlive with the gods, we must expect to be jostled by them, and curbed\nin their name. This state of things cannot disappear entirely until we\ncease to believe we are co-members of a society with the gods, until we\nsee them transmuted into simple ideals. Ideals never necessitate the\nexclusiveness and intolerance that realities do.\n\n[Sidenote: Tolerance highly intellectual.]\n\nOn the whole, one must distinguish two kinds of virtue on which\nreligion has influence. The first are the virtues that may be called\npositive and active, of the heart and of instinct, like charity and\ngenerosity; at all times and in all countries they have existed among\nmen; religion exalts them, and to Christianity the honour is due of\nhaving developed them to their highest degree. The second category\nincludes the purely intellectual virtues, whose operation consists\nrather in checking and confining than in extending the sphere of\none\u2019s activity\u2014the virtues of self-possession, of abstinence, and of\ntolerance, which are quite modern really and the result of science,\nwhich has brought about a clearer knowledge of its own limitations\neven. Tolerance is a very complex virtue, much more intellectual than\ncharity; it is a virtue of the head rather than of the heart; the\nproof of it is that charity and intolerance are often found together,\nforming an alliance rather than opposing each other. When tolerance\nis not philosophical and wholly reasoned, it takes on the aspect of\na simple good-humour that greatly resembles moral weakness. Really to\ndemonstrate the greatness of tolerance, one must put to the front the\nobjective reasons drawn from the relativity of human knowledge and\nnot the subjective reasons drawn from our own hearts.[53] Up to the\npresent time tolerance has been founded on _respect_ for the person\nand the will of another: \u201cIt is necessary,\u201d it is said, \u201cfor man to\nbe free\u2014free to deceive himself and to do evil, if need be;\u201d and\nnothing is truer, but there is another source of tolerance which is\nmore substantial and tends to gain ground more and more rapidly as\ndogmatic faith disappears. This source is distrust of human thought and\nconscience, which are not free not to deceive themselves, and to which\nevery article of absolute _faith_ must necessarily be also an article\nof error. So that, at the present day, tolerance is no longer a virtue,\nbut simply an affair of the intelligence; the further one goes, the\nmore one sees that one does not in the least understand; the more one\nsees that the beliefs of one\u2019s neighbour are a complement to one\u2019s own,\nthat no one of us can be right alone, to the exclusion of all others.\nBy the mere development of the intelligence which makes us aware of the\ninfinite variety of the world and the impossibility of any one solution\nof eternal problems, each individual opinion comes to have a value in\nour eyes: it is nothing more nor less than a bit of evidence bearing\non the theory of the universe, and it goes without the saying that no\none item of evidence can be made the basis of a definitive judgment, a\ndogmatic conclusion, without appeal.\n\n      [53] See A. Fouill\u00e9e, _Syst\u00e8mes de morale contemporains_.\n\n\n_II. Broad dogmatic faith._\n\n[Sidenote: Conflict between intelligence and dogmatism.]\n\n\u201cThe aim of most men,\u201d as an English writer says, \u201cis to pass through\nlife with as little expenditure of thought as possible:\u201d but what is\nto become of those who think, and of intellectual men in general? Even\nwithout suspecting it, one will ultimately allow an interpretation more\nor less broad of the texts to which one has seemed to cling in a narrow\nand _literal_ faith. There is almost no such thing as a perfectly\northodox believer. Heresy enters by one door or another, and strange\nto say it is that precise fact that keeps traditional faith alive in\nface of the progress of science. An absolute and immutably literal\nfaith would be too offensive to last long. Orthodoxy either kills the\nnations in which it entirely stifles freedom of thought or it kills\nfaith in itself. Intelligence can never stand still; it is a light that\nmoves, like that cast by the sun on the dripping oars as the boat is\nbeing lustily rowed along.\n\n[Sidenote: Dogmatism doubly irrational.]\n\nThe partisans of literal interpretation and authority seem sooner\nor later to accept two irrational hypotheses instead of one; it is\nnot enough for them that there have been certain revelations from on\nhigh, they insist that the very terms in which the divine thought is\nincorporated shall be divine, sacred, and immutable, and of an absolute\nexactitude. They divinize human language. They never think of the\ndifficulties that someone might feel who was not a god but simply a\nDescartes, a Newton, or a Leibnitz, to express his great thoughts in\nan unformed and half-savage tongue. Genius is always superior to the\nlanguage that it makes use of, and the words themselves are responsible\nfor many of the errors in its thoughts; and a \u201cdivine inspiration,\u201d\nbrought down to the level of our language, would be perhaps more\nembarrassed than an even purely human inspiration. Nothing therefore\ncan be stranger, to those who examine the matter calmly, than to see\ncivilized nations seeking for a complete expression of the divine\nthought in the literatures of ancient peoples and semi-barbarous\nnations, whose language and intelligence were infinitely inferior\nto ours; their god, talking and dictating, would nowadays hardly\nbe given a certificate of competency in a primary examination. It\nis the grossest anthropomorphism to conceive a divinity not in the\ntype of an ideal man but in the type of a barbarous man. Also, it is\nnot simply that a literal faith (the primitive form of all revealed\nfaith) ultimately appears to be entirely irrational; it is that this\ncharacteristic becomes constantly more marked, for the reason that\nfaith stands still, or tries to stand still, while humanity marches on.\n\n[Sidenote: Dogmatism is intellectual indifference or death.]\n\nBut for a certain number of heresies born and circulated among them,\nbut for a constant stream of fresh thought, people holding by a\nliteral religion would be a _caput mortuum_ in history, a little\n\u201clike the faithful Tibetians of Dala\u00ef-lama,\u201d as Von Hartmann says.\nLiteral religions cannot last and perpetuate themselves except by a\nseries of compromises. There are always in the minds of the sincere\nand intelligent believer periods of advancement and of reaction, steps\nforward followed by a recoil. Confessors know these sudden changes\nwell, and are prepared to deal with them and keep them within certain\nlimits. They themselves are subject to such changes; how many of them\nhave thought they believed and been suspected of heresy! If we could\nsee into the bottom of their minds what reconciliations should we not\nperceive, what secret accommodations and compliances! There is in every\none of us something that _protests_ against literal faith, and if this\nprotestation is not explicit, it is often none the less real. No one\ncan hope to read more exactly than he who reads between the lines. When\none venerates and admires everything, it is generally what one simply\ndoes not understand. Very many minds positively like vagueness and\naccommodate themselves to it, they believe in gross and arrange the\ndetails to suit themselves; sometimes even, after accepting a thing as\na whole, they eliminate one by one all its parts. Generally speaking,\nthose who aspire to literal faith nowadays are divisible into three\nclasses: the indifferent, the blind, and unconscious Protestants.\n\n[Sidenote: Protestantism and liberty of conscience.]\n\nThe Protestantism of Luther and Calvin was a compromise replacing\na despotism; it was a broad faith, although it is at the same time\nintolerant and orthodox; for there are certain things even in\nProtestantism which do not admit of compromise; it contains _dogmas_\nthat it is impious to reject, and which, to the free-thinker, seem\nscarcely less contrary to calm reason than the dogmas of Catholicism;\nit contains a system of metaphysical or historical theses regarded\nnot as merely human, but as divine. The most desirable thing in a\nreligion that is to be progressive is that the sacred texts should be\nambiguous; and the text of the Bible is not ambiguous enough. How are\nwe to doubt, for example, the divinity of Christ\u2019s mission? How doubt\nthe miracles? A belief in the divinity of Christ, and the genuineness\nof the miracles, are the very foundation of the Christian religion;\nLuther was obliged to accept them, and in our day even they bear\ndown with their full weight on orthodox Protestantism. So that what\nseemed at first a generous concession to liberty of thought amounts\nin the end to little. The circle one moves about in is so contracted!\nProtestants, too, are fettered; the chain is simply longer and more\nflexible. Protestantism has rendered services of great importance to\nlaw and to liberty of conscience; but alongside of the concessions to\nliberty that it enforced, it contains dogmas from which the use of\n\u201ccharitable constraint\u201d may logically be deduced. These dogmas which\nare essential to true Protestantism are: original sin, conceived as\neven more radical than it appears in Catholicism, and as destructive\nof freedom of the will; the redemption, which recognizes the death of\nGod the Son as necessary to redeem man from the vindictiveness of God\nthe Father; predestination in all its rigour; grace and election in\ntheir most fatalistic and mystical form; and last and most important,\nan eternity of suffering without purgatory! If all these dogmas are\nsimply philosophical myths, Christian is a purely verbal title, and one\nmight as well call one\u2019s self a heathen, for all the myths of Jupiter,\nSaturn, Ceres, Proserpine, and the \u201cdivinities of Samothrace,\u201d are also\nsusceptible of becoming symbols of higher metaphysics; we refer the\nreader to Jamblicus and Schelling. We must thus assume that orthodox\nProtestants believe in hell, redemption, and grace; and if so, the\nconsequences that we have deduced from these dogmas become inevitable.\nAlso Luther, Calvin, Th\u00e9odore de B\u00e8ze, have preached and practised\nintolerance for the same reasons as did the Catholics. They claimed the\nright of private judgment for themselves alone, and only in so far as\nthey felt need of it; they never raised it to the level of an orthodox\ndoctrine. Calvin burned Servetius, and the Puritans in America in 1692\npunished witchcraft with death.\n\n[Sidenote: Every heresy serves liberty of conscience.]\n\nIf Protestantism has in the long run served the cause of liberty of\nconscience, the reason is simply that every heresy is an instance of\nliberty and of that enfranchisement which brings in its train a series\nof additional heresies. In other words, heresy is the victory of\ndoubt over faith. By doubt Protestantism serves the cause of liberty;\nby faith it would cease to serve it and would menace it\u2014if it were\nlogical. But the characteristic of certain minds is precisely to come\nto a halt halfway between freedom and liberty, between faith and\nreason, between the past and the future.\n\n[Sidenote: Protestantism a mark of logical feebleness in those who hold\nit.]\n\nOver and above the dogmas admitted in common, the true Protestant\ndemands further some fixed objective expression of his belief: he\nattempts\u2014he also\u2014to incorporate it in a certain number of customs\nand rites which create the need they satisfy and incessantly give\nfresh life to a faith incessantly on the point of a decline; he\ndemands temples, priests, a ceremonial. In the item of ceremonial as\nwell as in the item of dogmas, orthodox Protestants nowadays feel\nthemselves to be much superior to Catholics; and they have really\nrejected a considerable number of na\u00efve beliefs and of useless rites\nnot infrequently borrowed from paganism. You should hear an excited\nProtestant, in a discussion with a Catholic, speak of the Mass, that\ndegrading superstition in which \u201cthe most material and barbarous\ninterpretation possible\u201d is put upon the words of Christ\u2014_He that\neateth me shall live by me_. But does not this same Protestant admit\nwith the Catholic the miracle of the redemption, of Christ sacrificing\nhimself to save mankind? If you admit one miracle, what reason is there\nto stop with that or any succeeding miracle? \u201cOnce more in this order\nof ideas,\u201d says Mr. Matthew Arnold, \u201cand what can be more natural and\nbeautiful than to imagine this miracle every day repeated, Christ\noffered in thousands of places, everywhere the believer enabled to\nenact the work of redemption and unite himself with the Body whose\nsacrifice saves him.\u201d A beautiful conception, you acknowledge, for a\nlegend, but you refuse to put faith in it on the ground that it shocks\nyour reason; very good, but you reject in the same breath all the\nrest of the irrationalities that are part and parcel of Christianity.\nIf Christ sacrificed himself for the human race, why should not he\nsacrifice himself for me? if he came to a world that did not call\nhim, why should he not come to me who call upon him and pray to him?\nif God once took on a form of flesh and blood, if He once inhabited a\nhuman body, why find it strange that He should be present in my flesh\nand blood? You want miracles, on condition that you are not to see\nthem; what is the meaning of such false modesty? When one believes a\nthing, one must live in the heart of this belief, one must see it and\nfeel it everywhere; when one possesses a god, it is in order that he\nmay walk and breathe on earth. He whom we adore must not be relegated\nto a corner of the heavens, or forbidden to appear in our midst; and\nthey must not be made sport of, who see him, and feel him, and touch\nhim. Free-thinkers may laugh, if they have the courage, at the priest\nwho believes that God is present in the Host that he holds in his\nhands, and present in the temple when he officiates. They may laugh\nat the peasant children who believe that Saints or the Virgin present\nthemselves before them to listen to their wants, but a true believer\ncannot do otherwise than take all this seriously. Protestants take\nbaptism very seriously, and think it absolutely necessary to salvation.\nLuther certainly believed in the devil; he saw him everywhere, in\nstorms, in fires, in the tumult that his passage along the streets\noften excited, in the interruptions that occurred in his sermons; he\nchallenged, and threatened all devils, \u201cwere they as numberless as the\ntiles of the roofs.\u201d One day he even exorcised the Evil One, who had\nbeen vociferating in the person of the audience, so efficiently that\nthe sermon, which opened in the midst of the greatest disturbance,\nwas finished in peace; the devil had been frightened. Why, then, do\northodox Protestants, especially in our day, so genuinely wish to\nstop arbitrarily short in their faith? Why believe that God or the\ndevil appeared to men two thousand years ago, and at no time since?\nWhy believe in the Gospel cures and not in the na\u00efve legends that\nare related of the Communion, or in the miracles at Lourdes? All\nthings hold together in a faith, and if you propose outraging human\nreason, why not do it thoroughly? As Mr. Matthew Arnold observes, the\northodox Protestant doctrine, in admitting that the Son of God could\nsubstitute himself as an expiatory victim for man, condemned for the\nfault of Adam,\u2014in other words that he could suffer for a crime that\nhe had not committed for men who had not committed it either,\u2014is only\nto accept the following passage literally and rudely: \u201cThe son of man\nis come to give his life as a ransom unto many.\u201d From the moment that\none holds literally to a single text, why not do the same in regard to\nothers? In introducing a certain share of liberty into their faith,\nthe Protestants have also introduced a spirit of inconsequence; this\nis its characteristic and its defect. Someone said to me once: \u201cIf I\nshould try to believe everything, I should end by believing nothing.\u201d\nThis was Luther\u2019s reasoning; he wished to make some allowances for\nenlightenment; he hoped to preserve the faith by minimizing it. But\nthe limits are artificial. Only listen to Pascal, who possesses the\nFrench talent for logic, and is at the same time a mathematician,\nmaking light of Protestantism. \u201cHow I detest such nonsense!\u201d he cries:\nthat is, not to believe in the Eucharist, etc. \u201cIf the Gospel is true,\nif Jesus Christ is God, what difficulty is there in all that?\u201d Nobody\nsaw more clearly than Pascal the things that, as he says, are \u201cunjust\u201d\nin certain Christian dogmas, that are \u201cshocking,\u201d are \u201cfar-fetched,\u201d\nthe \u201cabsurdities\u201d; he saw it all and accepted it all. He accepted\neverything or nothing. When one makes a bargain with faith, one does\nnot pick and choose; one takes all and gives all. It was Pascal who\nsaid that atheism was a sign of strength of mind, but a strength\ndisplayed in one direction only. One might turn that round and say\nthat Catholicism implies strength of mind, at least on one point.\nProtestantism, though of a higher order in the evolution of belief,\nremains to-day a mark of a certain weakness of mind in those who,\nhaving made the first step toward freedom of thought, rest there; it\nis a halt midway. At bottom, however, the two rival orthodoxies, over\nwhich nowadays civilized nations dispute, are equally astonishing to\nthose who have passed beyond them.\n\n\n_III. The dissolution of dogmatic faith in modern society._\n\n[Sidenote: Dogmatic faith distanced by science.]\n\nCan a dogmatic faith, whether narrow or broad, indefinitely coexist\nwith modern science? We think not. Science consists of two portions:\nthe constructive and the destructive. The constructive portion is\nalready far enough advanced, in modern society, to provide for certain\ndesiderata which dogma undertook formerly to supply. We have to-day,\nfor example, more extended and detailed information about the genesis\nof the world than is found in the Bible. We are attaining by degrees a\ncertain number of facts relating to the affiliation of species. And all\nthe celestial or terrestrial phenomena which strike the eye are already\ncompletely explained. The definitive _why_ has not been given, no\ndoubt; we even ask ourselves if there is one. But the _how_ has already\nbeen in a great part dealt with. Let us not forget that religions\nin the beginning took the place of physics; that physical theories\nconstituted for a long time an essential and preponderant part of them.\nNowadays physics and religion have been distinguished, and religion has\nlost by the separation a large part of its power, which has passed over\nto science.\n\n[Sidenote: And undermined.]\n\nThe dissolvent and destructive aspect of science is not less important.\nThe first to present it in high relief were the physical sciences and\nastronomy. All the ancient superstitions about the trembling of the\nearth, eclipses, etc., which were a constant occasion of religious\nexaltation, are destroyed, or nearly so, even among the populace.\nGeology has overturned with a single stroke the traditions of most\nreligions. Physics has done away with miracles. The same almost may\nbe said of meteorology, which is so recent and has such a brilliant\nfuture. God is still to a man of the people too often the sender of\nrain and good weather, the Indra of the Hindus. A priest told me the\nother day, in the best faith in the world, that the prayers of his\nparishioners had brought the country three days of sunshine. In a\nreligious town if rain falls the day of a religious procession, and\nstops shortly before the time of setting out, the people unhesitatingly\nbelieve that a miracle has been performed. Sailors, who depend\nso entirely on atmospheric perturbations, are more inclined to\nsuperstition. The minute the weather can be more or less accurately\nforetold and guarded against, all these superstitions are doomed. It\nis thus that fear of thunder is rapidly subsiding at the present day;\nthis fear formed an important factor in the formation of the ancient\nreligions. By inventing the lightning-rod, Franklin did more to destroy\nsuperstition than the most active propaganda could have done.\n\n[Sidenote: Experiment in miracles.]\n\nAs M. Renan has remarked, we might even in our day demonstrate\nscientifically the non-existence of miraculous interference in the\naffairs of this world and the inefficiency of requests to God to\nmodify the natural course of things; one might, for example, minister\nto patients according to the same methods, in two adjoining rooms of\na hospital; for the one set of patients a priest might pray, and one\nmight see whether the prayer would appreciably modify the means of\nrecovery. The result of this sort of experiment on the existence of a\nspecial providence is moreover easy to foretell, and it is doubtful\nwhether any educated priest would lend himself to it.\n\n[Sidenote: Religion and physiology and psychology.]\n\nThe sciences of physiology and psychology have explained to us in\na natural way a multitude of phenomena of the nervous system which\nwe were forced until recently to attribute to the marvelous, or to\ntrickery, or to divine influence, or to the devil.\n\n[Sidenote: Religion and history.]\n\nFinally, history is attacking not only the object of religion,\nbut religions themselves, by displaying all the sinuosities and\nuncertainties of the thought that constructed them; the primitive\ncontradictions, corrected for better or for worse at some later period,\nthe genesis of the precisest dogmas by the gradual juxtaposition of\nvague and heterogeneous ideas. Religious criticism, the elements of\nwhich will sooner or later find their way into elementary instruction,\nis the most terrible weapon that could be used against religious\ndogmatism; it has produced and will produce its effect in Protestant\ncountries, where theology passionately engages the multitude. Religious\nfaith tends to give place to curiosity about religion; we understand\nmore readily the things we do not so absolutely believe, and we can be\nmore disinterestedly interested in the things that no longer fill us\nwith a sacred horror. But the explanation of positive religion seemed\ndestined to be absolutely the opposite of its justification: to write\nthe history of religions is to write a damaging criticism of them.\nWhen one endeavours to come to close quarters with their foundation in\nreality, one finds it retire before one little by little and ultimately\ndisappear like the place where the rainbow rests upon the earth: one\nbelieves that one has discovered in religion a bond between heaven and\nearth, a pledge of alliance and hope; it is an optical illusion which\nscience at once corrects and explains.\n\n[Sidenote: Religion undermined by primary instruction.]\n\nPrimary instruction, which is sometimes made, nowadays, a subject of\nridicule, is also an altogether recent institution of which in former\ntimes there scarcely existed a trace, and which profoundly modifies\nall of the terms of every social and religious problem. The modicum\nof elementary instruction that the modern schoolboy possesses, in\nespecial if one adds some few notions of religious history, would\nalone suffice to put him on his guard against a great many forms of\nsuperstition. Formerly it was the custom for a Roman soldier to embrace\nthe religion of any, and of every country, in which he was stationed\nfor a considerable space of time; on his return home he would set up an\naltar to the distant gods that he had made his own: Sabazius, Adonis,\nthe goddess of Syria, or Asiatic Bellona, the Jupiter of Baalbec, or\nthe Jupiter of Doliche. To-day our soldiers and mariners bring back\nfrom their travels little more than an incredulous tolerance, a gently\ndisrespectful smile in relation to gods in general.\n\n[Sidenote: And by the perfection of the means of communication.]\n\nThe perfection of means of communication is also one of the great\nobstacles to the maintenance of a dogmatic faith; nothing shelters\na belief like the abyss of a deep valley or the meanderings of an\nunnavigable river. The last surviving believers in the religions of\nantiquity were the peasants\u2014_pagani_; whence the word pagan. But\nto-day the country is being thrown open, mountains are being pierced,\nthe perpetually increasing activity in the movement of things and\nof people results in the circulation of ideas, in a lowering of the\npretensions of the faith, and this levelling down must inevitably\ncontinue step by step with the progress of science. In all times it\nhas been observed that the effect of travelling alters one\u2019s beliefs.\nTo-day one travels standing still: the intellectual horizon changes\nfor one, whether one will or not. Men like Papins, Watts, Stephenson,\nhave done as much for the propagation of free-thought as the boldest of\nphilosophers. Even in our days the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez will\nprobably have done more for the enlightenment of the Hindus than the\nconscientious efforts of R\u00e2m Mohun Roy or of Keshub.\n\n[Sidenote: And by the development of commerce and industry.]\n\nAmong the causes which will tend in the future to eliminate the dogma\nof a special providence, let us note the development of the arts\u2014even\nthe art of commerce and of industry, which is still in its very\nbeginnings. Merchants and workmen, equally, have learned already to\nrely upon no one but their own individual selves, to rely each upon\nhis own initiative, his personal ingenuity; he knows that to work\nis to pray, not in the sense that his labour possesses some sort of\nmystical value but because its value is real and within his reach;\nand he acquires by that very fact a vivid and increasing sense of\nresponsibility. Compare, for instance, the life of a pointsman (that\nof a working-man) with the life of a soldier, and you will see that\nthe conduct of the first is of necessity reflective, and develops\nin him a sense of responsibility, whereas the second\u2014accustomed to\nmarch he knows not where, to obey, he knows not why, to vanquish\nor be vanquished he knows not how\u2014lives among circumstances which\nnaturally inspire in him a conception of irresponsibility, of divine\nchance, or of hazard. Moreover, whenever industry does not treat the\nworkman like a machine but forces him to act consciously and with\nreflection, its natural effect is to enfranchise the mind. And the\nsame thing is true of commerce; although in commerce a more important\nr\u00f4le is played, by mere lying in wait\u2014mere passivity; the merchant\nwaits for a purchaser, and his coming or not coming depends upon\nsomething else. The superstitions of commerce, however, will grow\nfeebler as the functions of personal initiative and activity become\nmore extensive. Thirty years ago in a very religious town there existed\na number of small merchants who looked upon it as a matter of duty\nnot to examine their account book till the end of the year: it would\nbe, they said, a distrust of God to ascertain too often whether they\nwere losing or gaining; it would bring bad luck; the less attention\nyou pay to your income the greater it grows. Add that, thanks to this\nsort of reasoning, which for the rest was not altogether without a\ncertain na\u00efve logic, the merchants spoken of did not do an especially\nbrilliant business. In modern commerce the \u201cpositive\u201d spirit\u2014restless\nintelligence and calculation outstripping chance\u2014tends to become the\ntrue and sole element of success; as to the risks which, in spite of\nevery precaution, still remain, they are covered by insurance.\n\n[Sidenote: And by the practice of insurance.]\n\nInsurance, then, is a conception altogether modern, whose operation is\nto substitute the direct action of man for the intervention of God in\nprivate affairs, and which looks to the recompense for a misfortune\nbefore it has happened. It is probable that insurance, which dates only\nsome few years back and is spreading rapidly, will be applied some\nday to almost every form of accident to which man is liable, will be\nadapted to every circumstance of life, will accompany us everywhere,\nwill envelop us in a protecting net; and agriculture and navigation,\nand those pursuits generally in which human initiative plays the\nsmallest part, in which one must dance attendance upon the special\nbenediction of heaven and ultimate success is always contingent, will\nbecome increasingly independent and free. It is possible that the\nnotion of a special providence will some day be completely eliminated\nfrom the sphere of economics; everything that in any manner whatsoever\nis capable of being estimated in terms of money will be covered by an\ninsurance, shielded from accident, made independent of divine favour.\n\n[Sidenote: And the progress of medical knowledge.]\n\nThere remains the purely personal sphere, the physical and moral\naccidents which may befall us, the maladies that may come upon\nourselves and those who belong to us. That is the sphere in which\nthe majority of men feel their will most feeble, their perspicacity\nmost at fault. Listen to a member of the lower classes on the subject\nof physiology or medicine, and you will understand how deep is the\nabasement of their intelligence in this matter; and often, indeed, even\nmen of a more extended education are possessed of no more knowledge\nthan they on such points. Speaking generally, our ignorance of hygiene\nand the most elementary notions of medicine is such that we are\nhelpless in the presence of physical evil; and it is because of this\nhelplessness, at the very spot precisely where we most need help, that\nwe seek for an outlet for an embarrassed volition and a restless hope\nand find it in a petition addressed to God. Many people never think of\npraying except when ill, or when they see persons dear to them ill. As\nalways, so here, a sense of an absolute dependence provokes a return\nof religious sentiment. Just in proportion as instruction spreads,\njust in proportion as the natural sciences become of service, we feel\nourselves armed with a certain power, even in the face of physical\naccident. In more than usually pious families, the physician scarcely\nassumed formerly any other character than that of an instrument of\nspecial providence; one had confidence in him, less on the score of\nhis talent than of his sanctity; that confidence was absolute; one\nwashed one\u2019s hands of all responsibility, as primitive people do in the\npresence of the sorcerers and \u201cpriest physicians.\u201d Nowadays, however,\nthe physician is beginning to be looked upon as a man like another, who\nmust rely upon himself, who receives no inspiration from on high, and\nwho must, in consequence, be chosen with care, and aided and sustained\nin his task. It is understood that the remedies employed by him are\ninnocent of mystery, that their operation is uniform, that the matter\nis altogether one of intelligence in their use; and instead of putting\none\u2019s self, like so much brute matter, into the physician\u2019s hands, one\ndoes one\u2019s best to co-operate with him. When we hear someone calling\nfor help and are free to run to him, does it ever occur to us nowadays\nto fall upon our knees? No; we should even consider a passive prayer\nas an indirect form of homicide. The epoch is past when Ambroise Par\u00e9\ncould say modestly: \u201cI poulticed him, God cured him.\u201d The fact is, God\ndoes not cure those whom the physician does not poultice properly. The\nprogress of natural science will result really in a sort of preventive\ninsurance, no longer confined wholly to the sphere of economics; and\nwe shall be able some day to insure ourselves, not simply against the\neconomical consequences of such and such an accident, but against\nthe accident itself; we shall foresee it and avoid it, as we not\ninfrequently nowadays foresee and avoid poverty. And finally, in\nrespect even to unavoidable evils, it will occur to no one to rely upon\nanything but human science and human effort.\n\n[Sidenote: Progress in matters of belief since heathen antiquity and\nthe Middle Ages.]\n\nOwing to the causes above enumerated, how far we have travelled since\nthe time of the ancients and the Middle Ages! In the first place we no\nlonger lend credence to oracles or to predictions. The law at least no\nlonger goes the length of lending credence to them, and even punishes\nthose who endeavour to speculate upon a na\u00efvet\u00e9 of their more innocent\nneighbours. Soothsayers at the present day are no longer lodged in\nTemples. And in no case are philosophers and higher personages among\ntheir clients. We are far from the time when Socrates and his disciples\nmade a pilgrimage to consult the oracle, when the gods spoke, and\ngave advice, and regulated the conduct of men, and took the place of\nattorneys, of physicians, of judges, and decided upon peace and war.\nIf it had been affirmed to a pagan that the day would come when man\nwould find the oracle at Delphi a superfluity, he would have been as\nfrankly surprised as a Christian is to-day when he hears it affirmed\nthat cathedrals, priests, and religious ceremonies will some day become\na superfluity.\n\n[Sidenote: Tendency toward simplicity and uniformity.]\n\nThe r\u00f4le which prophecies played in the religion of the Hebrews is\nwell known. In the Middle Ages certain prophecies, such as that of the\nmillennium, were publicly and miserably put to the proof. Since that\ntime dogmatic religion, in the fear of compromising itself, has stood\naloof from oracles and prophecies, preferring increase of security to\nextent of influence. Thus by degrees authoritative religion has come\nto renounce its sway over one of the most important portions of human\nlife, which it pretended formerly to possess a knowledge of, and to\nregulate\u2014the future. It contents itself to-day with the present. Its\npredictions, ever vaguer and more vague, nowadays bear only on the\nperiod beyond the grave; it contents itself with promising heaven to\nthe faithful\u2014which the Catholic religion indeed goes the length of in\nsome measure securing for them by absolution. And one may recognize\nin the confessional a certain substitute for the divination of former\ntimes. The hand of the priest opens or shuts the door of heaven for\nthe believer kneeling in the shadow of the confessional; he wields a\npower in some respects greater than that of the Pythoness who might\ndetermine with a word the fate of battles. Confession itself, however,\nhas disappeared in the stronger and younger offshoots of Christianity.\nIn orthodox Protestantism one is one\u2019s self the judge of one\u2019s own\nfuture, and possesses no other clew to one\u2019s destiny than the dictum\nof one\u2019s own conscience, with all its uncertainty upon its head. Owing\nto this transformation dogmatic faith in the word of a priest or a\nprophet tends to become a simple reliance on the voice of conscience,\nwhich becomes ever less and less authoritative, ever more and more\nfeeble in the face of doubt. Faith in oracles and in the visible\nfinger of Providence in this world has become to-day simply a somewhat\nhesitating reliance upon an inner oracle and an together transcendental\nProvidence. This is one of the items in respect to which religious\nevolution may be considered as already something like complete, and\nreligious individualism as on the point of replacing obedience to the\npriest, and the negation of the marvellous as substituted for antique\nsuperstition.\n\n[Sidenote: Belief in God falls with belief in devils.]\n\nThe strength of the belief in a personal God has been in all times\nproportionate to the strength of the belief in a devil\u2014we have just\nseen an illustration of it in the case of Luther. In effect these\ntwo beliefs are correlatives; they are the opposite faces of one and\nthe same anthropomorphism. Well, in our days, belief in the devil\nis incontestably becoming feebler; and this enfeeblement is even\nespecially characteristic of the present epoch; there has at no other\ntime been anything to equal it. There is not an educated person to be\nfound in whom the notion of a devil does not excite a smile. That,\nbelieve me, is a sign of the times, a manifest proof of the decline\nof dogmatic religion. Wherever the power of dogmatic religion by an\nexception to the general course of things has retained its vitality,\nand retained it, as in America, even to the point of giving birth\nto new dogmas, the fear of the devil has subsisted in its entirety;\nwherever, as in more enlightened regions than America, this fear no\nlonger exists except as a symbol or a myth, the intensity and the\nfecundity of the religious sentiment decline inevitably in the same\ndegree. The fate of Javeh is bound up with that of Lucifer; angels\nand devils go hand in hand, as in some fantastic medi\u00e6val dance. The\nday when Satan and his followers shall be definitively vanquished and\nannihilated in the minds of the people, the celestial powers will not\nhave long to live.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Results.]\n\nTo sum up, in all these relations, dogmatic faith\u2014and in especial,\nsuch as is narrow, authoritative, intolerant, and at enmity with a\nspirit of science\u2014seems on every account destined to disappear, or to\nsurvive, if at all, among a small number of believers. Every doctrine,\nno matter how moral or how elevating, seems to us nowadays to lose\nthese attributes and to become degraded from the moment it proposes\nto impose itself upon the human mind as a dogma. Dogma happily\u2014that\ncrystallization of faith\u2014is an unstable compound; like certain complex\ncrystals, it is apt to explode, under a concentrated ray of light, into\ndust. Modern criticism supplies the ray. If Catholicism, in pursuit of\nreligious unity, logically results in the doctrine of infallibility,\nmodern criticism in the course of its establishment of the relativity\nof human knowledge and of the essential fallibility of intelligence\nin general, tends toward religious individualism and toward the\ndissolution of every universal or \u201cCatholic\u201d dogma. And on that score\northodox Protestantism is itself menaced with ruin, for it also has\npreserved in its dogmas an element of Catholicity, and by that very\nfact of intolerance, if not practical and civil, at least theoretical\nand religious.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nSYMBOLIC AND MORAL FAITH.\n\n    I. Substitution of metaphysical symbolism for dogma\u2014Liberal\n      Protestantism\u2014Comparison with Brahmanism\u2014Substitution\n      of moral symbolism for metaphysical symbolism\u2014Moral\n      faith\u2014Kant\u2014Mill\u2014Matthew Arnold\u2014A literary explanation\n      of the Bible substituted for a literal explanation.\n\n    II. Criticism of symbolic faith\u2014Inconsequence of liberal\n      Protestantism\u2014Is Jesus of a more divine type than\n      other great geniuses\u2014Does the Bible possess a greater\n      authority in matters of morals than any other masterpiece\n      of poetry\u2014Criticism of Matthew Arnold\u2019s system\u2014Final\n      absorption of religions by morality.\n\n\n[Sidenote: Inevitable tendency of religion toward non-religion.]\n\nEvery illogical position being in its nature unstable, the very\ninconsequence of a religion obliges it to a perpetual evolution\nin the direction of an ultimate non-religion, which it approaches\nincessantly by almost insensible steps. The Protestant knows nothing\nof the ordeal of a Catholic obliged to accept everything or to reject\neverything; he knows nothing of prodigious revolutions and subjective\n_coups d\u2019\u00e9tat_; he possesses instinctively the art of transition, his\n_credo_ is elastic. There are so many different creeds, each a little\nmore thorough-going than the last, that he may pass through, that he\nhas time to habituate his spirit to the truth before being obliged to\nprofess it in its simplicity. Protestantism is the only religion, in\nthe Occident at least, in which it is possible for one to become an\natheist unawares and without having done one\u2019s self the shadow of a\nviolence in the process: the subjective theism of Mr. Moncure Conway,\nfor example, or any such ultra-liberal Unitarian is so near a neighbour\nto ideal atheism that really the two cannot be told apart, and yet the\nUnitarians, who as a matter of fact are often simply free-thinkers,\nhold, so to speak, that they still believe. The truth is that an\naffectionate faith long retains its charm, even after one is persuaded\nthat it is an error and dead in one; one caresses the lifeless\nillusions and cannot bring one\u2019s self altogether to abandon them, as\nin the land of the Slavs it is the custom to kiss the pale face of the\ndead in the open coffin before throwing upon it the handful of earth\nwhich severs definitely the last visible bonds of love.\n\n[Sidenote: Exemplified in the case of Brahmanism and Buddhism.]\n\nLong before Christianity, other great religions, Brahmanism and\nBuddhism, which are much more comprehensive and less arrested in their\ndevelopment, followed the course of evolution by which a literal\nfaith comes to be transformed into a symbolic faith. They have been\nreconciled successively with one metaphysical system after another\u2014a\nprocess which has been inevitably carried forward with a fresh impulse\nunder the English rule. To-day Sumangala, the Buddhist high-priest of\nColombo, interprets in a symbolic sense the at once profound and na\u00efve\ndoctrine of the transmigration; he pretends to reject miracles. Other\nenlightened Buddhists freely accept modern doctrines, from those of\nDarwin to those of Spencer. On the other hand, in the bosom of Hinduism\nthere has grown up a really new and wholly theistical religion,\nthat of the Brahmaists.[54] R\u00e2m Mohum Roy founded, at the beginning\nof the century, a very deeply symbolical and wide-spread faith;\nhis successors have gone the length, with Debendra N\u00e2th T\u00e2gore, of\ndenying the authenticity even of the very texts which they were in the\nbeginning most concerned to interpret mystically. This last step was\ntaken suddenly, under circumstances which it is worth while to detail,\nbecause they sum up in a few characteristic strokes the universal\nhistory of religious thought. It happened about 1847. The disciples of\nR\u00e2m Mohum Roy, the Brahmaists, had been for a long time engaged in a\ndiscussion about the Vedas, and, quite as in the case of our liberal\nProtestants, had been giving especial prominence to texts in which\nthey imagined they found an unmistakable affirmation of the unity of\nthe Godhead; and they rid themselves of all concern with the passages\nthat seemingly contradicted this notion by denying their authenticity.\nUltimately, somewhat alarmed at their own progress, they sent four\nPundits to Benares to collate the sacred texts: it was in Benares that,\naccording to the tradition, the only so-called complete and authentic\nmanuscript was preserved. During the two years that the labour of the\nPundits covered, the Hindus waited for the truth in the same spirit\nthat the Hebrews had done at the foot of Sinai. Finally the authentic\nversion, or what purported to be such, was brought to them; and they\npossessed the definitive formula of revelation. Their disappointment\nwas great, and they took the matter into their own hands, realizing\nat one blow the revolution which the liberal Protestants are pursuing\ngradually in the bosom of Christianity: they rejected definitively the\nVedas and the antique religion of the Brahmans, and proclaimed in its\nstead a theistical religion, which rests in no sense whatsoever upon\nrevelation. The new faith must in time develop, not without heresy\nand schism, but its adherents constitute to-day in India an important\nelement in progress.\n\n      [54] M. Goblet d\u2019Alviella, _Evolution religieuse contemporaine_.\n\n[Sidenote: Preservation of the letter while tampering with the spirit\nof the Bible.]\n\nIn our days very estimable persons have essayed to push Christianity\nalso into a new path. In according the right of interpretation to\nprivate individuals, Luther gave them the right of clothing their own\nindividual thoughts in the language of the antique dogmas and the\ntexts of the sacred books. Insomuch that by a singular revolution,\nthe \u201cWord,\u201d which was considered in the beginning as the faithful\nexpression of the divine thought, has tended to become for each of us\nthe expression of our own personal thought. The sense of the words\ndepending really upon ourselves, the most barbarous language can be\nmade at a pinch to serve us for the conveyance of the noblest ideas.\nBy this ingenious expedient texts become flexible, dogmas become\nacclimated more or less to the intellectual atmosphere in which they\nare placed, and the barbarism of the sacred books becomes disguised. By\nvirtue of living with the people of God we civilize them, we lend them\nour ideas, inoculate them with our aspirations, everyone interprets\nthe Bible to suit himself, and the result is that the commentary\nultimately overgrows and half obscures the text itself; we no longer\nread with undimmed vision\u2014we look through a medium which disguises\neverything that is hideous, and lends a fresh beauty to everything\nthat is beautiful. At bottom the veritable sacred Word is no longer\nthe one which God pronounced and sent forth reverberating, eternally\nthe same, down the centuries; it is the one which we pronounce or\nrather whisper\u2014for is it not the sense which one puts upon it\nthat constitutes the real value of an utterance? and it is we who\ndetermine the sense. The Divine Spirit has passed into the believer\nand, at certain times at least, the true God would seem to be one\u2019s\nown thought. This attempt at a reconciliation between religion and\nfree-thought is a masterpiece of tact. Religion seems always to lag\na little behind, but free-thought by exercise of a little ingenuity\nalways find means, in the end, of helping it forward. The progress of\nthe two consists of a series of arrangements, compromises, something\nlike what takes place between a conservative Senate and a progressive\nChamber of Deputies, honestly in search of a _modus vivendi_.\n\n[Sidenote: Extension of symbolic interpretation to essential dogmas.]\n\nBy a procedure which Luther would never have dared to emulate\nProtestants have taken the liberty of employing on essential dogmas\nthis power of symbolical interpretation which Luther reserved for texts\nof a secondary importance. The most essential of dogmas, that upon\nwhich all others depend, is the dogma of revelation. If, since Luther\u2019s\ntime, an orthodox Protestant feels himself at liberty to discuss at\nhis ease whether the sense of the sacred Word is really this, that, or\nthe other, he never for an instant questions whether the Word itself\nis really sacred in effect, or whether it really possesses any meaning\nthat can properly be called divine. When he holds the Bible he has no\ndoubt but that he has his hand upon the truth; he has only to discover\nit beneath the words in which it is contained, has only to dig for it\nin the sacred Book as a labourer might dig in a field in search of a\nburied treasure. But is it then quite certain that the treasure is\nreally there, that the truth lies ready-made somewhere between the\ncovers of the Book? That is the question which the liberal Protestant\nis asking himself, and he has already taken possession of Germany, of\nEngland, of the United States, and possesses even in France a large\nnumber of representatives. Previous to his advent all Christians were\nat one in the belief that the sacred Word really exists somewhere; at\nthe present day this belief itself tends to become symbolic. No doubt\nthere was in Jesus a certain element of divinity, but is there not in\nall of us, in one sense or another, a certain element of divinity? \u201cWhy\nshould we be surprised,\u201d writes a liberal clergyman, \u201cat finding Jesus\na mystery, when we are all of us ourselves a mystery?\u201d According to\nthe new Protestants there is no longer any reason for taking anything\nat its face value, not even what has hitherto been considered as the\nspirit of Christianity. For the most logical of them, the Bible is\nscarcely more than a book like another; custom has consecrated it;\none may find God in it if one seeks Him there, because one may find\nGod anywhere and put Him there, if by chance He be really not there\nalready. The divine halo has dropped from Christ\u2019s head, or rather\nhe shares it with all the angels and all the saints. He has lost his\ncelestial purity or rather we share it with him, all of us; for is not\noriginal sin also a symbol, and are we not all of us born innocent sons\nof God? The miracles are but fresh symbols which represent, grossly\nand visibly, the subjective power of faith. We are no longer to look\nfor orders directly from God; God no longer talks to us by a single\nvoice, but by all the voices of the universe, and it is in the midst\nof the great concert of nature that we must seize and distinguish the\nveritable Word. All is symbolic except God, who is the eternal truth.\n\n[Sidenote: And even to the conception of God.]\n\nWell, and why stop at God? Liberty of thought, which has been\nincessantly turning and adapting dogma to its progress, has it in its\npower to make a step beyond. Immutable faith is hemmed in by a circle\nwhich is daily shrinking. For the liberal Protestant this contraction\nhas reached its extreme, and centre and circumference are one and the\nprocess is continuing. Why should not God Himself be a symbol? What is\nthis mysterious Being, after all, but a popular personification of the\n_divine_ or even of ideal humanity; in a word, of morality?\n\n[Sidenote: The result practically a religion of morals. Perceived to be\nso in Germany.]\n\nThus a purely moral symbolism comes in process of time to be\nsubstituted for a metaphysical symbolism. We are close upon the Kantian\nconception of a religion of duty, resting upon a simple postulate or\neven a simple generalization of human conduct, to the effect that\nmorality and happiness are in the last resort in harmony. A faith in\nmorals, thus understood, has been adopted by many Germans as the basis\nof religious faith. Hegelians have converted religion into a moral\nsymbolism. Strauss defines morality as the \u201charmonization\u201d of man with\nhis species, and defines religion as the harmonization of man with the\nuniverse; and these definitions, which seem at first sight to imply\na difference in extent and a certain opposition between morality and\nreligion, aim in reality at showing their ultimate unity; the ideal of\nthe species and the purpose of the universe are one, and if by chance\nthey should be distinct, it would be the more universal ideal that\nmorality itself would command us to follow. Von Hartmann, also, in\nspite of his mystical tendencies, concludes that there is no religion\npossible except one which will consecrate the moral autonomy of the\nindividual, his salvation by his own effort and not by that of somebody\nelse (autosoterism as distinguished from heterosoterism). From which\nit follows that, in Von Hartmann\u2019s opinion, the essence of religious\nadoration and gratitude should be one\u2019s respect for the essential and\nimpersonal element in one\u2019s self; in other words, piety is, properly\nspeaking, no more than a form of morality and of absolute renouncement.\n\n[Sidenote: Also in France.]\n\nIn France, as is well known, M. Renouvier follows Kant and bases\nreligion upon morality. M. Renan also makes of religion a little more\nthan an ideal morality: \u201cAbnegation, devotion, sacrifice of the real\nto the ideal, such,\u201d he says, \u201cis the very essence of religion.\u201d And\nelsewhere: \u201cWhat is the state but egoism organized? what is religion\nbut devotion organized?\u201d M. Renan forgets, however, that a purely\negoistic state, that is to say a purely immoral state, could not\ncontinue to exist. It would be more accurate to say that the state is\njustice organized; and since justice and devotion are in principle the\nsame, it follows that the state as well as religion rests ultimately\nupon morality: morality is the very foundation of social life.\n\n[Sidenote: Also in England.]\n\nIn England, also, the same process of the transformation of a\nreligious faith into a purely moral faith may be observed. Kant\nthrough the intermediation of Coleridge and of Hamilton has exercised\na great influence upon English thought and upon the course of this\ntransformation. Coleridge brought down the Kingdom of God from Heaven\nand domesticated it upon earth; the reign of God for him, as for Kant,\nbecame that of morality. For John Stuart Mill, whose point of approach\nwas widely different from that of Coleridge, the outcome of the study\nof religions was the same\u2014that their essential value has always\nconsisted in the moral precepts they inculcate; the good that they have\ndone should be attributed rather to the stimulus they have given to the\nmoral sentiment than to the religious sentiment properly so called.\nAnd it is to be added, Mill says, that the moral principles furnished\nby religions labour under this double disability, that (1) they are\ntainted with selfishness, and operate upon the individual by promises\nor menaces relating to the life to come without entirely detaching him\nfrom a preoccupation with his own interest, and, (2) they produce a\ncertain intellectual apathy, and even an aberration of the moral sense,\nin that they attribute to an absolutely perfect being the creation of\na world so imperfect as our own, and thus in a certain measure cloak\nevil itself in divinity. Nobody could adore such a god willingly\nwithout having undergone a preliminary process of degeneration. The\ntrue religion of the future, according to John Stuart Mill, will be\nan elevated moral doctrine, going beyond an egoistic utilitarianism\nand encouraging us to pursue the good of humanity in general; nay,\neven of sentient beings in general. This conception of a religion of\nhumanity, which is not without analogy to the Positivist conception,\nmight be reconciled, John Stuart Mill adds, with the belief in a divine\npower\u2014a principle of goodness present in the universe. A faith in God\nis immoral only when it supposes God to be omnipotent, since it, in\nthat case, charges him with responsibility for existing evil. A good\ngod can exist only on condition that he is less than omnipotent, that\nhe encounters in nature, nay in human nature, obstacles which hinder\nhim from effecting the good that he desires. Once conceive God thus,\nand the formula of duty reads simply: Help God; work with Him for the\nproduction of what is good, lend Him the concurrence that He really\nneeds since He is not omnipotent. Labour also with all great men\u2014all\nmen like Socrates, Moses, Marcus Aurelius, Washington\u2014do as they do,\nall that you can and ought to do. This disinterested collaboration on\nthe part of all men with each other and with the principle of goodness,\nin whatsoever manner that principle may be conceived or personified,\nwill be, in John Stuart Mill\u2019s judgment, the ultimate religion. And\nit is evidently no more than a magnified system of morality, erected\ninto a universal law for the world. What is it that we call the divine,\nexcept this that is the best in ourselves? \u201cGod is good,\u201d cried\nFeuerbach, \u201csignifies: goodness is divine; God is just signifies:\njustice is divine.\u201d Instead of saying: there have been divine agonies,\ndivine deaths, one has said, God has suffered, God has died. \u201cGod is\nthe apotheosis of the heart of man.\u201d[55]\n\n      [55] Mr. Seeley, in his work entitled _Natural Religion_\n      (1882), takes pains to establish that of the three elements\n      which compose the religious idea\u2014the love of truth or\n      science, the sentiment of beauty or art, the notion of duty or\n      morals\u2014it is the last only that can to-day be reconciled with\n      Christianity.\n\n[Sidenote: Matthew Arnold\u2019s \u201cLiterature and Dogma.\u201d]\n\nAn analogous thesis is maintained with great cleverness in a book which\ncaused considerable stir in England: Mr. Matthew Arnold\u2019s \u201cLiterature\nand Dogma.\u201d The author, in common with religious critics generally,\nremarks the growing tension that nowadays exists between science\nand dogma. \u201cAn inevitable revolution, of which we all recognize the\nbeginnings and signs, but which has already spread, perhaps, farther\nthan most of us think, is befalling the religion in which we have been\nbrought up.\u201d Mr. Arnold is right. At no former period have unbelievers\nappeared to have so strong a hold in right reason; the old arguments\nagainst providence, miracles, and final causes, that the Epicureans\nbrought into prominence, seem as nothing beside the arguments furnished\nin our days by the Laplaces and the Lamarcks, and quite recently by\nDarwin, the \u201cevictor of miracles,\u201d in Strauss\u2019 phrase. One of the\nsacred prophets whom Mr. Arnold is fond of quoting once said: \u201cBehold,\nthe days come, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine\nof bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the\nLord: and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even\nto the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord,\nand shall not find it.\u201d The time predicted by the prophet Mr. Arnold\nmight well recognize as our own; might it not with truth be said of\nthe present that it lacks the word of the Eternal, or soon will lack\nit? A new spirit animates our generation; not only are we in doubt\nwhether the Eternal ever did speak or ever does speak to man, but\nmany of us believe in the existence of no other eternity than that of\na universe of mute and unfeeling matter which keeps its own secret\nexcept as against those who have the wit to find it out. There are of\ncourse, even to-day, some few faithful servants in the houses of the\nLord; but the Master seems to have departed for the far countries of\nthe past, to which memory alone has access. In Russia in the older\nseigniorial estates, a disc of iron is fastened to the wall of the\nmansion of the lord of the soil; and when he returns from a journey,\nthe first night he passes in his dominion, some follower runs to the\ndisc of iron and in the silence of the night beats upon the metal to\nannounce his vigilance and the presence of the master. Who will awaken\nnowadays the voice of the bells in the church-steeples to announce\nthe return to His temple of the living God, and the vigilance of the\nfaithful? To-day the sound of the church-bells is as melancholy as\na cry in the void; they tell of the deserted house of God, of the\nabsence of the lord of the soil, they sound the knell of the believers.\nAnd is there nothing that can be done to domesticate religion once\nmore in the heart of man? There is but one means: to see in God no\nmore than a symbol of what exists always at the bottom of the human\nheart\u2014morality. And it is to this expedient that Matthew Arnold also\nturns his attention. But he is not content with a purely philosophic\nsystem of morals, he aims at the preservation of religion, and in\nespecial of the Christian religion; and to that end he brings forward\na new method of interpretation, the literary and \u00e6sthetic method, the\npurpose of which is to glean from the sacred texts whatever they may\ncontain of moral beauty, in the hope that it may incidentally prove\nto contain also what is true. It aims at reconstructing the primitive\nnotions of Christianity, in whatsoever they possessed of vagueness,\nof indecision, and at the same time of profundity, and to set them\nin opposition over against the gross precision of popular views. In\nmatters of metaphysic or religion there is nothing more absurd than an\nexcessive precision; the truth in such matters is not to be rounded in\nan epigram. Epigram can at best serve, not as a definition, but as a\nsuggestion of the infinities that it really does not circumscribe. And\njust as the verity in such matters overpasses the measure of language,\nso it overpasses the personalities and the figures which humanity has\nchosen as representative of it. When an idea is powerfully conceived,\nit tends to become definite, to take unto itself a visage, a voice;\nour ears seem to hear and our eyes to see what our hearts feel. \u201cMan\nnever knows,\u201d said Goethe, \u201chow anthropomorphic he is.\u201d What is there\nso surprising in the fact that humanity has personified that which in\nall climes claimed its allegiance\u2014the idea of goodness and of justice?\nThe Eternal, the eternally Just, the Omnipotent who squares reality\nwith justice, He who parcels out evil and good, the Being who weighs\nall actions, who does all things by weight and measure, or rather who\nis Himself weight and measure\u2014_that_ is the God of the Jewish people,\nthe Javeh of adult Judaism, as He ultimately appears in the mist of\nthe unknown. In our days He has become transmuted into a simple moral\nconception, which, having forcibly taken possession of the human mind,\nhas at last clothed itself in a mystical form\u2014has become personified\nby alliance with a crowd of superstitions that the \u201cfalse science of\ntheologians\u201d regards as inseparable from it and from which a more\ndelicately discriminating interpretation\u2014an interpretation more\n_literary_ and less _literal_\u2014should set it free. God having become\none with the moral law, a further step may be taken; one may regard\nChrist who immolated Himself to save the world as a moral symbol of\nself-sacrifice, as the sublime type in which we find united all the\nsuffering of human life and all the ideal grandeur of morality. In His\nfigure the human and the divine are reconciled. He was a man, for He\nsuffered, but His devotion was so great that He was a god. And what\nthen is that Heaven which is reserved for those who follow Christ and\nwalk in the path of self-sacrifice? It is moral perfection. Hell is the\nsymbol of that depth of corruption to which, by hypothesis, they will\nfall who, by a persistent choice of evil, ultimately lose all notion\neven of goodness. The terrestrial paradise is a charming symbol for\nthe primitive innocence of the child: he has done as yet no evil, he\nhas done as yet no good; his earliest disobedience is his first sin;\nwhen desire is awakened in him for the first time, his will has been\nconquered, he has fallen, but this fall is precisely the condition of\nhis being set upon his feet again, of his redemption by the moral law;\nbehold him condemned to labour, to the hard labour of man upon himself,\nto the struggle of self-mastery; without that contest to strengthen\nhim he would never see the god descend in him, Christ the Saviour, the\nmoral ideal. Thus it is in the evolution of the human conscience that a\nkey to human symbolism must be found.[56] Of them must be said what the\nphilosopher Sallust said of religious legends generally in his treatise\n\u201cOn the Gods and the World\u201d: Such things have never happened, but they\nare eternally true. Religion is the morality of the people; it shows to\nthem, realized and divinized, the higher types of conduct which they\nshould force themselves to imitate here below; the dreams with which\nit peoples the skies are dreams of justice, of equality of goods, of\nfraternity: Heaven pays for earth. Let us then no longer employ the\nnames of God, of Christ, of the Resurrection except as symbols, vague\nas hope itself. Then, according to Mr. Matthew Arnold, and those who\nmaintain the same thesis, we shall begin to love these symbols, our\nfaith will find a resting place in the religion which before seemed\nto be but a tissue of gross absurdities. Beneath dogma, which is but\nthe surface, we shall find the moral law, which is the substance. This\nlaw, it is true, has in religion become concrete; it has, so to speak,\ntaken on colour and form. That, however, is simply owing to the fact\nthat people are poets; they think in images or not at all. You can\nonly attract their attention by pointing your finger at something.\nAfter all, what harm is there in the fact that the apostles, opening\nthe blue ether, showed the gaping nations of the earth the thrones of\ngold and seraphim and white wings, and the kneeling multitude of the\nelect? This spectacle fascinated the Middle Age, and at times, when\nwe shut our eyes, we seem to see it still. This poetry, spread upon\nthe surface of the moral law, lends it an attractiveness that it did\nnot possess in its bare austerity. Sacrifice becomes less difficult\nwhen it presents itself crowned with a halo. The early Christians\nwere not fond of representing Christ as bleeding under the crown of\nthorns, but as transfigured and triumphant; they preferred to keep\nhis agony in the background. Such pictures as ornament our Churches\nwould have filled them with horror; their young faith would have been\nshaken by the image of the \u201cagony upon the cross,\u201d which caused Goethe\nalso a sort of a repugnance. When they represented the cross it was\nno longer burdened with the God, and they took care even to cover\nit with flowers and ornaments of every kind. You may see it in the\nrude figures, the designs and sculptures found in the catacombs. To\nhide the cross beneath an armful of flowers is precisely the marvel\nrealized by religion. And when religions are regarded from this\npoint of view, all ground vanishes for looking with disdain upon the\nlegends which constitute the material of popular faith. They become\ncomprehensible, they become lovable, one feels one\u2019s self enveloped in\nan \u201cinfinite tenderness\u201d for this spontaneous product of na\u00efve thought\nin quest of goodness, in pursuit of the ideal, for these fairy-tales\nof human morality, profounder and sweeter than all other fairy-tales.\nIt was necessary that religious poetry should prepare the earth long\nbeforehand for the coming of the mysterious ideal; should embellish\nthe place where it was to descend, as the mother of the Sleeping\nBeauty, seeing the eyes of her daughter grow heavy with the sleep of\na hundred years, placed with confidence at the side of the bed the\nembroidered cushion, on which the enamoured prince would one day kneel\nto reawaken her with a kiss.\n\n      [56] Besides Mr. Matthew Arnold, consult M. L. M\u00e9nard, _Sources\n      du dogme Chr\u00e9tien_ (_Critique religieuse, janvier, 1879._)\n\n[Sidenote: Historical religions to be regarded historically.]\n\nWe have come a long way in all this from the servile interpretation of\nthe blind leaders who fasten upon particular texts and lose sight of\ntheir subject as a whole. If one approaches a picture too near, the\nperspective disappears and all the colours lose their proper value;\none must stand back a certain distance and see it in a favourable\nlight: and then alone the richness of the colours and the unity of\nthe work appear. Religions must be looked upon in the same way. If\nthe spectator stands sufficiently above them and aloof from them, he\nloses all prejudice, all hostility, in respect to them; their sacred\nbooks come even in time to merit in his eyes the name of sacred, and\nhe finds in them, Mr. Arnold says, a providential \u201csecret,\u201d which is\nthe \u201csecret of Jesus.\u201d Why not recognize, adds Mr. Arnold, that the\nBible is an inspired book, dictated by the Holy Spirit? After all,\neverything that is spontaneous is more or less divine, providential;\nwhatever springs from the very sources of human thought is infinitely\nvenerable. The Bible is a unique book, corresponding to a peculiar\nstate of mind, and it can no more be made over or corrected than a\nwork of Phidias or Praxiteles. In spite of its moral lapses and its\nfrequent disaccord with the conscience of our epoch, it is a necessary\ncomplement of Christianity; it manifests the spirit of Christian\nsociety, it represents the tradition of it, and attaches the beliefs\nof the present to those of the past.[57] The Bible and the dogmas of\nthe Church, having been formerly the point of departure for religious\nbelief, have come nowadays, no doubt, in the face of modern faith, to\nbe in need of justification; and this justification they will obtain;\nto be understood is itself to be forgiven.\n\n      [57] See M. L. M\u00e9nard, _ibid._ (_Crit. relig., 1879._)\n\n[Sidenote: The moral doctrine of the New Testament the main strength of\nChristianity.]\n\nIf the New Testament contains at all a more or less reflective moral\ntheory, it is assuredly that of love. Charity, or rather affectionate\njustice (charity is always justice, absolutely considered), such is\nthe \u201csecret\u201d of Jesus. The New Testament may then be considered,\naccording to the opinion of Mr. Matthew Arnold, as before all else a\ntreatise on symbolical morality. The actual superiority of the New\nTestament, as compared with Paganism and with pagan philosophy, is a\nmoral superiority; therein lay the secret of its success. There is no\ntheology in the New Testament unless it be the Jewish theology, and\nthe Jewish theology had proved itself incapable of the conquest of\nthe world. The power of the New Testament lay in its morality, and it\nis its morality which even in our times survives still, more or less\ntransformed by modern progress. And it is upon the morality of the New\nTestament that modern Christian societies must of necessity lean, it\nis in the morality of the New Testament that they will find their true\nstrength; the morality of the New Testament is the principal argument\nthat they can invoke in proof of the legitimacy of religion itself and,\nso to speak, of God.\n\n[Sidenote: Logical outcome of Matthew Arnold\u2019s position.]\n\nMr. Matthew Arnold and the group of liberal critics, who, like him,\nare inspired by the spirit of the age (_Zeitgeist_), seem thus to have\nguided faith to the ultimate point beyond which nothing remains but to\nbreak definitively with the past and its texts and dogmas.\n\nReligious thought in these pages is bound by the slenderest threads to\nreligious symbolism. At bottom, if one looks close, liberal Christians\nsuppress religion, properly so called, and substitute a religious\nmorality in its stead. The believer of other times affirmed the\nexistence of God first, and then made His will the rule of conduct; the\nliberal believer of our day affirms the existence, first of all, of\nthe moral law, and cloaks it in divinity afterward. He, like Matthew\nArnold, treats with Javeh on equal terms, and speaks to Him almost as\nfollows: \u201cArt Thou a person? I do not know. Hast Thou had prophets, a\nMessiah? I no longer believe so. Hast Thou created me? I doubt it. Dost\nThou watch over me\u2014me in especial\u2014dost Thou perform miracles? I deny\nit. But there is one thing, and one alone, in which I do believe, and\nthat is in my own conception of morality; and if Thou art willing to\nbecome a surety for that and to bend the reality into harmony with my\nideal, we will make a treaty of alliance; and by the affirmation of my\nexistence as a moral being, I will affirm Thine into the bargain.\u201d We\nare far away from the antique Javeh, the Power, with whom no bargain\ncould be made; the jealous God, who wished man\u2019s every thought to point\ntoward Him alone, and who would make no treaty with His people unless\nHe could precisely dictate the terms.\n\n[Sidenote: Practical attenuation of Christian faith.]\n\nThe more distinguished German, English, and American clergymen thrust\ntheology so far into the background for the purpose of forwarding\npractical morality that one may apply to all of them the words\nof an American periodical, the _North American Review_: that a\npagan, desirous of making himself acquainted with the doctrines of\nChristianity, might frequent our most fashionable churches for an\nentire year and not hear one word about the torments of hell or the\nwrath of an incensed God. As to the fall of man and the expiatory\nagony of Christ, just so much would be said as to fall short of giving\numbrage to the most fanatical believer of the theory of evolution.\nListening and observing for himself, he would reach the conclusion\nthat the way to salvation lies in confessing one\u2019s belief in certain\nabstract doctrines, beaten out as thin as possible by the clergyman\nand by the believer, in frequenting assiduously the church and\nextra-religious meetings, in dropping an obolus every Sunday into the\ncontribution box, and in imitating the attitudes of his neighbours.\nAll the terms of theology are so loosely employed that all those are\nconsidered Christians whose character has been formed by Christian\ncivilization, all those who have not remained total strangers to the\ncurrent of ideas set up in the Occident by Jesus and Paul. It was an\nAmerican clergyman who had abandoned the narrow dogmas of Calvin[58]\nthat, after having employed a long life in becoming more and more\nliberal, discovered, in his seventieth year, this large formula for his\nfaith: \u201cNobody ought to be regarded as an infidel who sees in justice\nthe great creed of human life, and who aims at an increasingly complete\nsubjection of his will to his moral sense.\u201d\n\n      [58] Mr. Henry Ward Beecher.\n\nII. What is the possible value and the possible duration of this moral\nand metaphysical symbolism to which it is being attempted to reduce\nreligion?\n\n[Sidenote: Logical hollowness of the position of the liberal\nProtestants.]\n\nLet us speak first of the liberal Protestants. Liberal Protestantism,\nwhich resolves the very dogmas of its creed into mere symbols, stands\nno doubt in the scale of progress in about the same relation to\northodox Protestantism as the latter does in relation to Catholicism.\nBut far as it seems in advance of them from the point of view of morals\nand society, it is inferior to them in logic. Catholicism has been\nirreverently called a perfectly embalmed corpse, a Christian mummy,\nin an admirable state of preservation beneath the cold embroidered\nchasubles and surplices which envelop it; Luther\u2019s Protestantism tears\nthe body to shreds, liberal Protestantism reduces it to dust. To\npreserve Christianity while suppressing Christ the son, or at least\nthe messenger of God, is an undertaking of which they alone will be\ncapable who are little disposed to make much of what is known as logic.\nWhoever does not believe in Revelation ought frankly to confess himself\na philosopher, and to hold the Bible and the New Testament as little\nauthoritative as the dialogues of Plato, or the treatises of Aristotle,\nor the Vedas, or the Talmud. Liberal Protestants, as Herr von Hartmann,\none of their bitterest adversaries, remarks, seize upon the whole body\nof modern ideas and label them Christianity. The process is not very\nconsistent. If you are absolutely determined to rally round a flag,\nlet it at least be your own. But the liberal Protestants wish, and\nhonestly, to be and to remain Protestants; in Germany, they obstinately\nremain in the United Evangelical Church of Prussia, where they about\nas truly belong as a sparrow does in the nest of a swallow. Herr von\nHartmann, whose zeal against them is unflagging, compares them to a\nman whose house is riven in many places and going to ruin, and who\nperceives and does all that in him lies still further to shatter it,\nand continues, nevertheless, tranquilly to sleep in it and even to\ncall in passers-by and offer them board and lodging. Or again\u2014always\naccording to Herr von Hartmann\u2014they are like a man who should seat\nhimself in perfect confidence upon a chair after having first sawed\nthrough all four legs of it. Strauss had already said: \u201cThe instant\nthat Jesus is regarded as no more than a man, one has no longer any\nright to pray to him, to retain him as the centre of a cult, to preach\nthe whole year through on him, on his actions, on his adventures\nand maxims; in especial, if the more important of his adventures\nand actions have been recognized as fabulous, and if his maxims are\ndemonstrably incompatible with our present views on human life and\nthe world.\u201d To understand what is peculiar in the majority of liberal\ncommunions which always stop halfway, it is necessary to observe that\nthey are generally the work of ecclesiastics who have broken with the\ndominant church, and that they preserve to the end some suggestion of\ntheir former belief; they can no more think, except in the terms of the\nformul\u00e6 of some dogma, than we can speak in the words of a language\nwith which we are unacquainted; and even when they endeavour to acquire\na new language they speak it always with an accent which betrays their\nnationality. For the rest they feel instinctively that the name of\nChrist lends them a certain authority, and they find it impossible to\nabandon their profession and its emoluments. In Germany, and even in\nFrance, over and above the liberal Protestants, who in the latter place\nare few in number, former Catholics have sought to abandon orthodox\nCatholicism, but they have not dared to abandon Christianity. The case\nof Father Hyacinthe[59] is sufficiently well known. It is in vain for\nthose who are born Christians to try their hand at logic, and to make\nan effort to rid themselves of their faith. They make one think, in\nspite of one\u2019s self, of a fly caught in a spider-web, who has freed\none wing and one leg, and only one.\n\n      [59] Dr. Junqua, whose name almost became celebrated a few\n      years ago, also tried to found a church, the Church of Liberty;\n      those who entered were at liberty to believe almost anything\n      they liked, not even the atheist, properly so called, being\n      excluded. The church in question was to have been purely\n      symbolic: baptism it was to recognize as the symbol of\n      initiation into Christian civilization; confirmation as the\n      symbol of an enrolment among the soldiers of Liberty; and\n      the eucharist, that is to say a religious love feast, as the\n      symbol of the brotherhood of man. It is to be added that these\n      sacraments were not obligatory and that the members might\n      abstain from them entirely if they chose. Still, they would be\n      members of a communion. Their faith would be designated by a\n      common name, they would be in relations with a priest who would\n      comment in their presence on texts of the New Testament, and\n      would talk of Christ if he and they believed in Him. The church\n      of Dr. Junqua might easily have succeeded in England with Mr.\n      Moncure Conway and the secularists.\n\n[Sidenote: Neo-Christianity.]\n\nLet us endeavour, however, to enter more intimately into the thoughts\nof those who may be called the Neo-Christians, and let us seek for the\nelement of truth, if such there be, that their much-criticised doctrine\ncontains. If Jesus is only a man, they say, he is at least the most\nextraordinary of men; at one bound, by an intuition at once natural\nand divine, he discovered the supreme truth necessary to the life of\nhumanity; he is in advance of all times, he spoke not only for his own\npeople, nor for his own century, nor even for a score of centuries;\nhis voice rolled beyond the restricted circle of his auditors, and the\ntwelve apostles, beyond the people of Judea prostrate before him, to us\nin whose ears it sounds the eternal truth; and it finds us even still\nattentive, listening, trying to understand it, incapable of finding a\nsubstitute for it. \u201cIn Jesus,\u201d writes Pastor Bost in his work on \u201cLe\nProtestantisme lib\u00e9ral,\u201d \u201cthe mingling of the human and the divine\nwas accomplished in proportions not seen elsewhere. His relation to\nGod is the normal and typical relation of humanity to the Creator....\nJesus stands forever as the model.\u201d Professor Herman Schultz in a\nconference in G\u00f6ttingen, some years ago, also expressed the same idea,\nthat Jesus is really the Messiah, properly so called, in the sense\nthat the Jews attached to that word. He did found the kingdom of God,\nnot it is true by marvellous exploits like those of Moses or of Elias,\nbut by an exploit surpassing theirs, by the sacrifice of love, by the\nvoluntary gift of himself. The apostles and Christians in general\ndid not believe in Jesus because of the miracles he performed: they\naccepted his miracles owing to their previous faith in him, a faith\nthe true foundation of which lay in Christ\u2019s moral superiority, and\nthat subsists still even if one deny the miracles. Professor Schultz\nconcludes, against Strauss and M. Renan, that \u201ca belief in Christ is\nwholly independent of the results of a historical criticism of his\nlife.\u201d Every one of the actions attributed to Jesus may be mythical,\nbut there remain to us his words and his thoughts, which find in us\nan eternal echo. There are things which one discovers once for all,\nand whosoever has found love has made a discovery that is not illusory\nnor of brief duration. Is it not just that men should group themselves\nabout him, range themselves under his name? He himself loves to call\nhimself the Son of Man; it is under this title that humanity should\nrevere him. It is not destruction but reconstruction that is the\noutcome of contemporary biblical exegesis, one of the representatives\nof English Unitarianism, the Rev. A. Armstrong, said in 1883. It adds\nto our love of Jesus to recognize in him a brother and to see in the\nmarvellous legends associated with him no more than the symbol of a\nlove more na\u00efve than ours, that namely of his disciples. Proof by\nmiracle is but the ultimate form of a temptation from which humanity\nshould escape. In the symbolic story of the temptation in the desert,\nSatan says: \u201cCommand that these stones be made bread;\u201d he urged Christ\nto be guilty of a miracle, of the prestidigitation which the ancient\nprophets had employed so frequently to strike the imagination of the\npeople. But Jesus refused. And on another occasion he said to the\npeople indignantly: If you did not see prodigies and miracles you do\nnot believe, and to the Pharisees: \u201cYe hypocrites, ye can discern the\nface of the sky and of the earth, ... and why even of yourselves judge\nye not what is right?\u201d It is by the testimony of our own souls, say\nthe Neo-Christians; it is by our own individual conscience, our own\nindividual reason, that we shall find justice in the word of Christ,\nand that we shall revere it; and this word is not true because it is\ndivine, it is divine because it is true.\n\n[Sidenote: Modern German historical criticism and liberal\nProtestantism.]\n\nThus understood, liberal Protestantism is a doctrine that merits\ndiscussion; only it is sadly in lack of any distinguishing\ncharacteristic especially to mark it off from the numerous\nphilosophical sects which, in the course of history, have gathered\nabout the opinions of some man and endeavoured to identify his\nteachings with the truth and to lend to them an authority more than\nhuman. Pythagoras was for his disciples what Jesus is to the liberal\nProtestant. The traditional respect also of the Epicureans for their\nmaster is well known, the sort of worship they rendered him, the\nauthority that they lent to his words.[60] Pythagoras brought to light\na great idea, that of the harmony which governs the physical and moral\nuniverse; Epicurus, another, that of the happiness which is the true\naim of rational conduct, the measure of goodness, and even of truth;\nand by their disciples these two great ideas came to be looked upon not\nas parts of the truth but as truth itself in its entirety; they saw\nno ground for further search. In the same way, in our own times, the\nPositivists see in Auguste Comte not a profound thinker simply, but one\nwho has laid his finger, so to speak, on the definitive verity, one who\nhas traversed at a dash the whole domain of intelligence and traced out\nonce for all its limits. It is rigorously exact to say that Auguste\nComte is a sort of Christ for bigoted Positivists\u2014a Christ a trifle\ntoo recent, who did not have the happiness of dying on the cross. Each\nof these sects reposes on the following belief: Before Pythagoras,\nEpicurus, or Comte, nobody had seen the truth; after them nobody will\never see it more clearly. Such a creed implicitly denies: 1. Historical\ncontinuity, the inevitable result of which is that the man of genius is\nalways more or less the expression of his century and that the honour\nof his discoveries is not due wholly to himself; 2. Human evolution,\nthe inevitable result of which is that the man of genius cannot be the\nexpression of all the centuries to come\u2014that his point of view must\nnecessarily be some day passed by\u2014that the truth discovered by him is\nnot the whole truth but simply a stage in the infinite progress of the\nhuman mind. A _deus dixit_ is comprehensible, or if not comprehensible\nat least conceivable; but to resuscitate in favour of some mere human\nbeing, were it Jesus himself, the _magister dixit_ of the Middle Ages,\nis a bit of an anachronism. Geometers have always held Euclid in the\nhighest respect, but each of them has done his best to contribute some\nnew theorem to the body of doctrine that he left behind; and is the\nrule for moral truth not the same as that for mathematical truth? Is\nit within the compass of one man\u2019s powers to know and to utter all\nthat there is to be known? Is an autocracy the only form of government\nin the sphere of mind? Liberal Protestants speak to us of the \u201csecret\nof Jesus\u201d; but there are many secrets in this world, and each of us\ncarries his own; and who shall utter the secret of secrets, the last\nword, the supreme verity? Nobody in particular, probably; truth is the\nproduct of a prodigious co-operation, at which all peoples and all\ngenerations must work. The horizon of truth can neither be taken in at\na single glance nor contracted; to perceive the whole of it one must\nmove forward incessantly, and at every step a new perspective is laid\nbare. For humanity, to live is to learn; and before any individual\nhuman being can tell us the great secret, he must have lived the life\nof humanity, the lives of all existing beings and even of all existing\nthings, which seem scarcely to deserve the name of beings; he must have\nconcentrated in himself the universe. There can therefore properly be\nno religion centred about a man. A man, be he Jesus himself, cannot\nattach the human spirit to himself as to a fixed point. Liberal\nProtestants think that they have seen the last of the Strausses and\nRenans and their destructive criticism, because they have admitted\nonce for all that Jesus was not a god, but criticism will object to\nthem that the non-supernatural Messiah that they cherish is himself\na pure figment of the imagination. According to the rationalistic\nexegesis, the doctrine of Christ, like his life, belongs more or less\nto the domain of legend. Jesus never so much as conceived an idea of\nthe redemption\u2014the very conception that is which lies at the root of\nChristianity; he never so much as conceived an idea of the Trinity. If\none may rely upon works which stand perhaps shoulder to shoulder with\nthat of Strauss\u2014the works of F.\u00a0A. M\u00fcller, of Professor Weiss, of M.\nHavet\u2014Jesus was a Jew with the spiritual limitations of a Jew. His\ndominant idea was that the end of the world was at hand and that on a\nnew-created earth would soon be realized the national kingdom looked\nfor by the Jews in the form of an altogether terrestrial theocracy.\nThe end of the world being near, it was naturally not worth while\nto set up an establishment on earth for the short time that it was\nstill to exist; one\u2019s entire business was properly with penitence and\nthe amendment of one\u2019s conduct, in order not to be devoured by fire\nat the day of judgment and excluded from the kingdom to be founded\non the new-created earth. Moreover, Jesus preached neglect of the\nstate, of the administration of justice, of the family, of labour\nand of property; in effect, of all the essential elements of social\nlife. Evangelical morality itself presents to the critics of this\nschool little more than a disorderly mixture of the precepts of Moses\non disinterested love with the doctrine of Hillel more or less well\nfounded on enlightened self-interest. The original element in the New\nTestament consisted less in the logical coherence of its teachings\nthan in a certain unction in the language employed, in a persuasive\neloquence which often took the place of reasoning. All that Christ said\nothers had said before him, but not with the same accent. In effect,\nGerman historical criticism at once professes the greatest admiration\nfor the numerous founders of Christianity and leads its followers a\nlong way from the ideal man conceived by the Neo-Christians as being\nthe man-God whom primitive Christians adored. There exists accordingly\nno more reason to attribute an element of revelation or of sacred\nauthority to the New Testament than to the Vedas or to any other\nreligious book. If Christianity is a symbolic faith, the myths of India\nmay quite as well be adopted as a basis of symbolism as the myths of\nthe Bible. And contemporary Brahmaists with their eclecticism, confused\nand mystic as it often is, must be regarded as even nearer to the truth\nthan the liberal Protestants who still look for shelter and salvation\nnowhere but under the diminishing shadow of the cross.\n\n      [60] See the author\u2019s work on _la Morale d\u2019\u00c9picure et ses\n      rapports avec les doctrines contemporaines_, p. 186.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAbandoning, then, all effort to attribute a sacred authority to the\nsacred books and to the Christian tradition, may one ascribe to them\nat least a superior moral authority? Do they lend themselves in any\nespecial degree to such a purely \u00e6sthetic and moral symbolism as that\nsuggested by Mr. Arnold?\n\n[Sidenote: Futility of Mr. Arnold\u2019s method considered as an instrument\nof historical criticism.]\n\nA purely moral symbolism may be regarded from either of two points of\nview: the concrete, which is that of history; or the abstract, which\nis that of philosophy. Historically nothing could be more inexact than\nMr. Arnold\u2019s method, which essentially consists in making a present\nof the most refined conceptions of our epoch to primitive peoples. It\ngives us to understand, for example, that the Javeh of the Hebrews\nwas not regarded as a perfectly definite person, a transcendent power\naltogether distinct and separate from the world and manifesting\nhimself by acts of capricious volition, a king of the skies, a lord\nof battles, bestowing on his people victory or defeat, abundance or\nfamine, sickness or health. It suffices to read one page of the Bible\nor the New Testament to convince one\u2019s self that a doubt as to the\npersonal existence of Javeh never for an instant crossed the Hebrew\nmind. So be it, Mr. Arnold will say, but Javeh was in their eyes no\nmore, after all, than the personification of justice, because they\nbelieved powerfully in justice. It would be more exact to say that\nthe Hebrews had not as yet a very philosophic notion of justice; that\nthey conceived it as an order received from without, a command which\nit would be dangerous to disobey, a hostile will forcibly imposed\nupon one\u2019s own. Nothing could be more natural in the sequel than\nto personify such a will. But is that precisely what we understand\nnowadays by justice; and does it not really seem to Mr. Arnold himself\nthat he is playing on words, when he endeavours to make us believe\nall that? Fear of the Lord is not justice. There are matters that one\ncannot express in the form of legend when one has once really conceived\nthem\u2014matters the true poetry of which consists in their very purity,\nin their simplicity. To personify justice, to represent it as external\nto ourselves under the form of a menacing power, is not to possess a\n\u201chigh idea\u201d of it; is not in the least, as Mr. Arnold phrases it, to\nbe aglow with it, illuminated by it; it is, on the contrary, not yet\nreally to have formed a conception of justice. What Mr. Arnold regards\nas the sublimest expression of an altogether modern moral sentiment\nis, on the contrary, a partial negation of it. Mr. Arnold\u2019s aim, as\nhe says, is a \u201cliterary\u201d criticism; but the literary method consists\nin resetting the great works of human genius in the circumstances\namong which they were conceived; in discovering in them the spirit of\nthe age in which they were written, and not of the present age. If we\nendeavour to interpret history by the light of modern ideas we shall\nnever understand a jot of it. Mr. Arnold is pleasantly satirical at\nthe expense of those who find in the Bible allusions to contemporary\nevents, to such and such a modern custom, to such and such a dogma\nunknown to primitive times. A commentator, he says, finds a prediction\nof the flight to Egypt in the prophecy of Isaiah: \u201cThe Lord rideth\nupon a swift cloud and shall come into Egypt\u201d; this light cloud being\nthe body of Jesus born of a virgin. Another, more fantastic, perceives\nin the words: \u201cWoe unto them that draw up iniquity with cords of\nvanity\u201d\u2014a malediction of God against church bells. That assuredly\nis a singular method of interpreting the sacred texts, but at bottom\nit is no more logical to look in the sacred texts for modern ideas,\ngood or evil, than to search them for the announcement of such and\nsuch a distant event or for a commentary on such and such a trait of\ncontemporary manners. Really to practise the literary method\u2014and the\nscientific method at the same time\u2014one must a little forget one\u2019s\nself, one\u2019s nation, one\u2019s century; one must live the life of past\ntimes\u2014must become a Greek when one reads Homer, a Hebrew when one\nreads the Bible, and not desire that Racine should be a Shakespeare,\nnor Boccaccio a St. Benedict, nor Jesus a free-thinker, nor Isaiah an\nEpictetus or a Kant. All things and all ideas are appropriate in their\nown times and circumstances. Gothic cathedrals are magnificent, our\nsmall houses to-day are very comfortable; there is no reason why we\nshould not admire the one and inhabit the other; the only thing that is\nreally inexcusable is to be absolutely unwilling that cathedrals should\nbe what alone they are.\n\n[Sidenote: Philosophical insufficiency of Mr. Arnold\u2019s position.]\n\nConsidered not from the point of view of history but purely from\nthat of philosophy, Mr. Arnold\u2019s doctrine is much more attractive,\nfor its aim is precisely to enable us to discover our own ideas in\nthe ancient books as in a mirror. Nothing could be better, but are\nwe really in want of this mirror? Do we really need to rediscover\nour modern conceptions embodied in the form of myth and more or less\ndistorted in the process? Do we really need voluntarily to go back to\nthe state of mind of primitive peoples? Do we really need to dwell\nupon the somewhat narrow conception that they possessed of justice and\nof morality before we shall be capable of conceiving a justice more\ngenerous in its proportions and a morality more worthy of its name?\nWould it not be much the same sort of thing as for one who was teaching\nchildren physics to begin by seriously inculcating the classic theory\nof nature\u2019s abhorrence of a vacuum, of immobility of the earth, etc.?\nThe authors of the Talmud in their na\u00efve faith said that Javeh, filled\nwith veneration for the book which he had himself dictated, would\ndevote the first three hours of every day to a study of the sacred law.\nThe most orthodox Jews do not to-day oblige their God to this recurrent\nperiod of meditation; might not one without danger permit mankind a\nsomewhat similar economy of time? Mr. Arnold, whose mind moves so\neasily, although with so plentiful a lack of directness and of logic,\ncriticises somewhere or other those who feel a need of a foundation\nof fable for their faith, a foundation of supernatural intervention\nand marvellous legend, and he says that many religious men resemble\nreaders of romances or smokers of opium; the reality becomes insipid\nto them, although it is really more grand than the fantastic world of\nopium and romance. Mr. Arnold does not perceive that, if the reality\nis, as he says, the greatest and most beautiful of things, we have no\nfurther need of the legend of Christianity, not even interpreted as\nhe interprets it: the real world, and by the real world I understand\nthe moral not less than the physical universe, should prove abundantly\nsufficient for us. Ithuriel, Mr. Arnold says, has punctured miracles\nwith his spear; and did he not at the same stroke puncture symbolism?\nWe prefer to see truth naked rather than tricked out in parti-coloured\nvestments; to clothe truth is to degrade it. Mr. Arnold compares a too\nabsolute faith to intoxication; one might willingly compare Mr. Arnold\nto Socrates, who could drain off more than any other guest at the table\nwithout becoming intoxicated. Not to become intoxicated was, for the\nGreeks, one of the prerogatives of the sage. With this reservation they\npermitted him to drink, but in our days the sages make small use of the\npermission; they admire Socrates without imitating him, and find that\nsobriety is still the best means of keeping one\u2019s head. One might say\nas much to Matthew Arnold. The Bible with its scenes of massacre, of\nrape, and of divine vengeance is in his judgment bread for the soul;\nthe soul can no more do without it than we can ourselves do without\neating. The reply is that he has himself proved it to be a dangerous\nform of nourishment, and that it is sometimes better to fast than to\neat poison.\n\n[Sidenote: Buddhism more deeply symbolic than Christianity.]\n\nFor the rest, if one persists in seeking in the sacred books of by-gone\nages for the expression of primitive morality, it is not in the\nBible, but rather in the Hindu books that a literary or philosophical\ninterpretation will find the most extraordinary example of moral\nsymbolism. The entire world appears to the Buddhist as the realization\nof the moral law, since in his opinion beings take rank in the universe\naccording to their virtues or vices, mount or descend on the ladder of\nlife according to their moral elevation or abasement. Buddhism is in\ncertain respects an effort to find in morals a theory of the universe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Dependence of religion upon morality.]\n\nIn spite of the partial lapses from logical consistency that have\nbeen here pointed out in the theory of moral symbolism, there is one\nconclusion that is logically insisted on in the books just examined,\nand in especial Mr. Arnold\u2019s book, namely: that the solidest support\nof every religion is a more or less imperfect system of morals; that\nthe power of Christianity, as of Buddhism, has lain in its moral\ninjunctions, and that if one suppressed this moral injunction there\nwould nothing remain of the two great \u201cuniversal\u201d religions brought\nforth by human intelligence. Religion serves, so to speak, as an\nenvelope for morality; it protects morality against the period of its\nultimate development and efflorescence, but when once moral beliefs\nhave gained strength enough they tend to protrude from this envelope,\nlike a flower bursting out of the bud. Some years ago what was at that\ntime called Independent Morality was much discussed; the defenders of\nreligion maintained that the fate of morality is intimately bound up\nwith it\u2014that if morality were separated from religion it must decline.\nThey were perhaps right in pointing out the intimate connection between\nmorality and religion, but they were mistaken in maintaining that it\nis the former that is dependent; it would be truer to say the precise\nopposite, that it is religion that depends upon morality, that the\nlatter is the principal and the former the subordinate. The Ecclesiast\nsays somewhere, \u201cHe hath set the world in their heart.\u201d It is for that\nreason that man should first look into his own heart, and should first\nof all believe in himself. Religious faith might more or less logically\nissue out of moral faith, but could not produce the moral faith, and if\nit should go counter to the moral faith it would condemn itself. The\nreligious spirit cannot therefore accommodate itself to the new order\nof things except by abandoning, in the first place, all the dogmas\nof a liberal faith, and then all the symbols of a more enlightened\nfaith and holding fast by the fundamental principle which constitutes\nthe life of religion and dominates its historical evolution; that\nis to say, the moral sentiment of Protestantism in spite of all its\ncontradictions has really introduced into the world a new principle; it\nis this, that conscience is its own judge, that individual initiative\nshould be substituted for objective authority.[61] Such a principle\nincludes as a logical consequence not only the suppression of real\ndogmas and of mysteries, but also that of precise and determinate\nsymbols; of everything, in a word, which proposes to impose itself\nupon the conscience as a ready-made truth. Protestantism unwittingly\ncontained in its own bosom the germ of the negation of every positive\nreligion that does not address itself exclusively and directly to\nprivate judgment, to the moral sense of the individual. In our days\nno one is willing to believe simply what he is told to believe; he\nmust accept it independently: he believes that the danger of private\njudgment is only apparent, and that in the intellectual world, as in\nthe world of civil liberty, it is out of liberty that all authority\nworthy of respect takes its rise. The revolution which tends thus\nto replace a religious faith, founded on the authority of texts and\nsymbols, by a moral faith founded upon the right of private judgment\nrecalls the revolution accomplished three centuries ago by Descartes,\nwho substituted evidence and reasoning for authority. Humanity is\nincreasingly anxious to reason out its own beliefs, to see with its\nown eyes. The truth is no longer exclusively locked up in temples;\nit addresses itself to everybody, communicates with everybody, gives\neverybody the right to act. In the cult of scientific truth everyone,\nas in the early days of Christianity, is capable of officiating in\nhis turn; there are no seats reserved in the sanctuary, there is no\njealous God, or rather the temples of truth are those which each of\nus rears in his own heart\u2014temples which are no more truly Christian\nthan Hebrew or Buddhist. The absorption of religion into morality is\none with the dissolution of all positive and determinate religion, of\nall traditional symbolism and of all dogmatism. Faith, said Heraclitus\nprofoundly, is a sacred malady, \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u1f70 \u03bd\u03cc\u03c3\u03bf\u03c2. For us moderns it is no\nlonger a sacred malady, and it is one from which all of us wish to be\ndelivered and cured.\n\n      [61] Toward the end of his life Luther felt an increasing\n      discouragement and disquietude on the subject of the reform\n      inaugurated by him: \u201cIt is by severe laws and by superstition,\u201d\n      he wrote with bitterness, \u201cthat the world desires to be guided.\n      If I could reconcile it with my conscience I would labour\n      that the Pope with all his abominations might become once\n      more our master.\u201d Responsibility to one\u2019s own conscience was\n      indeed Luther\u2019s fundamental idea\u2014the idea which justifies the\n      Reformation in the eyes of history, as formerly in the eyes of\n      its own author.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nDISSOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS MORALITY.\n\n    I. The first durable element of religious morality:\n      Respect\u2014Alteration of respect by the addition of the\n      notion of the fear of God and divine vengeance.\n\n    II. Second durable element of religious morality:\n      Love\u2014Alteration of this element by the addition of\n      ideas of grace, predestination, damnation\u2014Caducous\n      elements of religious morality\u2014Mysticism\u2014Antagonism\n      of divine love and human love\u2014Asceticism\u2014Excesses\n      of asceticism\u2014Especially in the religions of the\n      East\u2014Conception of sin in the modern mind.\n\n    III. Subjective worship and prayer\u2014The notion of\n      prayer from the point of view of modern science and\n      philosophy\u2014Ecstasy\u2014The survival of prayer.\n\n\nHaving traced the dissolution of dogma and religious symbolism it is\nappropriate to consider the fate of that system of religious morality\nwhich rests upon dogma and upon faith. There are in religious morality\nsome durable elements and some caducous ones which stand out in sharper\nand sharper opposition in the course of the progress of human society.\nThe two stable elements of religious morality which will occupy us\nfirst are respect and love; these are the elements indeed of every\nsystem of morality, those which are in nowise related to mysticism or\nsymbolism, and which tend progressively to part company with them.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Superiority of element of love over that of respect.]\n\nI. Kant regarded respect or reverence as the moral sentiment _par\nexcellence_; the moral law, in his opinion, was a law of reverence\nand not of love, and therein lay its pretensions to universality: for\nif it had been a law of love, there would have been a difficulty in\nimposing it upon all reasonable beings. I can insist on your respecting\nme but not on your loving me. In the sphere of society Kant is right;\nthe law cannot provide that men shall love each other, but only that\nthey shall respect each other\u2019s rights. But is the same thing true\nin the sphere of pure morality\u2014have not the two great \u201cuniversal\u201d\nreligions, Buddhism and Christianity, been right in regarding love\nas the controlling principle in ethics? Respect is no more than the\nbeginnings of ideal morality; in the attitude of respect the soul\nfeels itself restricted, held in check, embarrassed. And what in\neffect essentially is respect, but the ability to violate a right on\nthe one hand and on the other a right to go inviolable? Well, there\nis another sentiment which does away with the very possibility of\nviolence and which therefore is even purer than respect, that is to\nsay love, and Christianity has so understood it. Be it remarked also\nthat respect is necessarily implied in a properly understood moral\nlove; love is superior to respect not because it suppresses it but\nbecause it completes it. Genuine love inevitably presents itself under\nthe form of respect, but this conception of respect, abstractly taken,\nis an empty form without content; and can be filled with love alone.\nWhat one respects in the dignity of another person is\u2014is it not?\u2014a\npersonal power held in check, a sort of moral autonomy. It is possible\nto conceive a cold hard respect that is not absolutely free from some\nsuggestion of mechanical necessity. What one loves, on the contrary,\nin the dignity of another person is the element in his character which\nbeckons and welcomes one. Is it possible to conceive a cold love?\nRespect is a species of check, love is an outleap of emotion; respect\nis the act by which will meets will; in love there is no sense of\nopposition, of calculation, of hesitation; one gives one\u2019s self simply\nand entirely.\n\n[Sidenote: The mistake of Christianity.]\n\nLet it not therefore be made a reproach to Christianity that it sees in\nlove the very principle of relationship between reasonable beings, the\nvery principle of the moral law and of justice. Paul says with reason\nthat he who loves others fulfils the law. In effect, the commandments:\nthou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not\ncovet, and the rest, were summed up in: thou shalt love thy neighbor\nas thyself. The defect of Christianity\u2014a defect from which Buddhism\nis free\u2014is that the love of men is there conceived as disappearing,\nin the last analysis, in the love of God. Man is not beloved except in\nGod and for God, and human society as a whole possesses no foundation\nnor rule of life except in the relationship of men to God. Well, if\nthe love of man for man, properly understood, actually implies respect\nfor rectitude, the same thing cannot be said with the same degree\nof emphasis for the love of man for God, and in God\u2019s sight. The\nconception of a society founded on the love of God contains the seeds\nof theocratic government with all its abuses.\n\nMoreover, if in Christian morality love of man resolves itself, in the\nlast resort, into love of God, love of God is always adulterated with\nfear; the Old Testament insists upon it with positive complacency. The\nfear of the Lord plays an important r\u00f4le in the celestial sanction,\nand justice also, which is essential to Christianity, and which more\nor less definitely antagonizes and sometimes even paralyzes it. It is\nthus that, after having traced the sentiment of respect itself and of\njustice to a foundation in love, Christianity suddenly reinstates the\nformer, re-endows it with precedence and that under its most primitive\nand savage form\u2014the form of fear in man and vengeance in God.\n\n[Sidenote: Respect for the welfare of sentient beings in general the\nessence of morality.]\n\nThis sanction, we have seen, is a special form of the notion of a\nProvidence. Those who believe in a special Providence distributing good\nand evil admit, in the last resort, that this distribution takes place\nin conformity with the conduct of the receivers and the sentiments of\napproval or disapproval that that conduct inspires in the divinity. The\nidea of a Providence, in the natural course of its development, becomes\ntherefore one with the notion of distributive justice, and this latter,\non the other hand, becomes one with the idea of divine sanction. The\nidea of divine sanction has been conceived up to this point as one of\nthe essential elements of morality, and it seems, at first glance,\nthat religion and morality here coincide, that their respective needs\nhere unite, or rather that morality reaches completeness only by\nthe aid of religion. The notion of distributive justice naturally\ninvolves the notion of a celestial distributor, but we have seen in\na preceding work that the notion of a sanction properly so called,\nand the notion of a divine penal code, have in reality no essential\nconnection with morality; that on the contrary they possess a character\nof immorality and irrationality; and that thus the religion of the\nvulgar in no respect coincides with the highest morality, but that, on\nthe contrary, the very fundamental idea of the religion of the vulgar\nis opposed to morality.[62] The founders of religion believe that the\nmost sacred law is the law of the strongest; but the idea of force\nlogically resolves itself into the relation between power on the one\nhand and resistance on the other, and physical force is always, in\nthe sphere of morals, a confession of weakness. The _summum bonum_\ntherefore can contain no suggestion of force of this especial kind.\nIf human law, if civil law be condemned to rely upon a backing of\nphysical force, it is therein precisely that it lies under the reproach\nof being merely civil and human. The case stands otherwise with the\nmoral law, which is immutable, eternal, and in some sort inviolable;\nand in the presence of an inviolable law one can in no sense assume an\nattitude even of suppressed violence. Force is powerless against the\nmoral law, and the moral law has therefore no need on its own side of\na show of force. The sole sanction of which the moral law stands in\nneed, the author has said elsewhere, as against the man who supposes\nhimself to have abrogated it, is and ought to be the mere fact of its\ncontinued existence face to face with him, rising up before him ever\nanew, as the giant Hercules believed himself to have vanquished rose\never stronger to his embrace. To possess the attribute of eternity in\nthe face of violence is the only revenge that goodness personified or\nnot, under the figure of a god, can permit itself as against those who\nviolate it.[63] In human societies one of the distinguishing traits\nof high civilization is slowness to take offence; with the progress of\nknowledge one finds less and less ground for indignation in the conduct\nof one\u2019s fellow-men. When the being involved is by definition the very\npersonification of love the idea of offence becomes ridiculous; it is\nimpossible for any philosophic mind to admit the bare conception of\noffending God, or of drawing down upon one, in the Biblical phrase,\nhis anger or his vengeance. Fear of an external sanction, or of any\nsanction other than that of conscience, is therefore an element that\nthe progress of the modern mind tends to exclude from morality. It is\nin vain for the Bible to say that fear of the Lord is the beginning\nof wisdom; morality does not truly begin until fear ceases to exist,\nfear being, as Kant said, pathological, not moral. Fear of hell may\nhave possessed in former times a certain social utility, but it is\nessentially a stranger in modern society, and, _a fortiori_, will be\nin the society of the future. Moreover, respect for the happiness\nof people in general is becoming less and less adulterated by any\nadmixture of fear. This respect, mingled with love and even engendered\nby love, is coming to be an altogether moral, and an altogether\nphilosophic sentiment, purified of anything in the nature of mysticism,\nand in the best sense religious.\n\n      [62] See the author\u2019s _Esquisse d\u2019une morale sans obligation ni\n      sanction_, p. 188, etc.\n\n      [63] \u201cIf God had consciously created the human will of such\n      essential perversity as to find its natural expression in\n      thwarting Him, He would be impotent in the face of it; could\n      only show Himself compassionate; could only regret His own act\n      in creating it. His duty would not be to punish mankind but\n      to the utmost possible degree to lighten their sufferings, to\n      show Himself gentle and good directly in proportion to this\n      evil; and the damned, if they were truly incurable, would be in\n      greater need of the joys of heaven than the elect themselves.\n      Either the sinner can be reclaimed; and in that event hell\n      would be nothing more than an immense school, an immense house\n      of correction for preparing the culpable with the utmost\n      possible rapidity for heaven; or the sinner is incorrigible,\n      is analogous to an incurable maniac (which is absurd), and\n      then he is eternally to be pitied and a supreme Goodness would\n      endeavour to compensate him for his misery by every imaginable\n      means by showering upon him every bliss that he was capable of\n      enjoying. Turn it as one will, the dogma of hell stands thus in\n      direct opposition to the truth.\n\n      \u201cFor the rest, by the very act of damning a soul, that is to\n      say shutting it out forever from His presence, or, in terms\n      less mystical, excluding it forever from a knowledge of the\n      truth, would not God in turn be shutting Himself out from the\n      soul, limiting His own power, and so to speak in some measure\n      damning Himself also? The penalty of the damnation would fall\n      in part on Him who inflicted it. As to the physical torment\n      of which theologians speak, interpreted metaphorically, it\n      becomes even more inadmissible. Instead of damning mankind God\n      ought eternally to gather about Him those who have strayed\n      from Him; it is for the culpable above all others that, as\n      Michel Angelo said, God opened wide his arms upon the cross. We\n      represent Him as looking down upon the sinning multitude from\n      too great a height for them ever to be anything to Him but the\n      incarnation of misfortune. Well, just in so far as they are\n      unfortunate must they not logically be the especial favourites\n      of divine goodness?\u201d\u2014_Esquisse d\u2019une morale sans obligation ni\n      sanction_, p. 189.\n\n[Sidenote: Unstable equilibrium of the Christian notion of absolute\nlove.]\n\nII. Having seen how readily the notion of respect became corrupt in\nChristianity, let us consider the fate of the notion of love. If the\nimportance which it gave to this principle constitutes the chief\nhonour of Christianity is not the God of the Christians, nevertheless,\nconceived in a manner inconsistent with the very essence of His\nbeing? The God of Christianity, or at least of orthodox Christianity,\nis a conception of absolute love which involves a contradiction and\nthe destruction of all true fraternity. For the love affirmed to be\nabsolute is in fact limited, since it has to do with a world that\nis marred by evil, metaphysical, sensible, moral. The love is not\neven universal, since it is conceived as an especial grace more or\nless arbitrarily bestowed or withheld, according to the dogma of\npredestination. The doctrine of grace, round which theology has played\nwith such excess of subtlety, completes the highest principle of\nmorality, the principle of love by the addition of the grossest notion\nof anthropomorphism: that of favour. God is always conceived on the\nmodel of absolute kings who accord favour and disfavour capriciously;\none of the most vulgar of sociomorphic relations being chosen, as one\nperceives, as the true analogue of God\u2019s relation to His creatures. The\ntwo elements of the notion of grace are antagonistic to each other.\nAbsolute love is in its nature universal, favouritism is in its nature\nparticular. There are, according to theology, a certain number of\nbeings who are excluded from universal love; the sentence of damnation\nis in its very essence such an exclusion. Thus understood, divine\ncharity is incompatible with true fraternity, with true charity; for\ntrue charity God does not possess\u2014sets us no example of it. If we\nbelieve that God hates and damns, it will be in vain for Him to forbid\npersonal vengeance. We shall inevitably espouse His hatreds, and the\nvery principle of vengeance will find its support and its highest\nrealization in Him. When St. Paul said: \u201cLet thyself not conquer by\nthe instrumentality of evil, but overcome evil by goodness,\u201d the\nprecept was admirable. Unhappily God was the first to violate it, to\ndecline to overcome evil by good. Do as I bid thee and not as I myself\ndo is the very spirit of Christian teachings. Is it not in the midst\nof a sort of hymn to charity and forgiveness that the characteristic\nphrase of St. Paul occurs: \u201cIf thine enemy have hunger give him to eat\nand thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.\u201d Thus the apparent\nforgiveness becomes transmuted into a refined form of vengeance, which\nthe divine sanction serves only to make more terrible, and which, under\nthe cloak of benefits, nay even of caresses, pours upon the head of\none\u2019s enemy an avenging flame; one\u2019s very charity sets the torch to the\nfires of hell. This indelible stain of barbarism on the page of love,\nthis atavistic animal instinct of vengeance ascribed to God, shows the\ndangerous side of the theological element introduced into the morality\nof love.\n\n[Sidenote: Conflict between divine and human love.]\n\nAnother danger to which a religion founded upon a divine love is\nsubject is mysticism; a sentiment destined to an increasing antagonism\nwith the modern mind and condemned, therefore, ultimately to disappear.\nThe heart of man, in spite of its fertility in giving birth to passions\nof all sorts, has nevertheless always concentrated itself upon a small\nnumber of objects which find their own level. God and the world are\ntwo antagonists between which our sensibility is portioned out. One\nor the other of them inevitably receives the greater share. In all\ntimes religious sects have felt a possible opposition between absolute\nlove of God and love of man. In a number of religions God has shown\nhimself jealous of the affection devoted to others, and thus in a\nsense stolen from Him. He was not content with the superfluity of the\nhuman heart, He was bent on appropriating the soul in its entirety.\nAmong the Hindus, as we know, the very essence of supreme piety lies\nin detachment from the world, in a life of solitude in the midst\nof great forests, in the rejection of all earthly affection, in a\nmystical indifference in regard to all mortal things. In the western\nworld, when Christianity had made its way, this thirst of solitude,\nthis home-sickness for the desert seized once more upon the soul, and\nthousands of men fled the faces of their fellows, quitting their\nfamilies and their homes, renouncing all other love but that of God,\nfeeling themselves more intimately in His presence when they were\ndistant from all beings else but Him. The whole of the Middle Ages\nwere tormented by this antagonism between divine and human love. In\nthe end, with the immense majority of men, human love carried the day.\nIt could not be otherwise; the very Church could not preach complete\ndetachment for everybody under pain of having nobody to preach to. But\namong scrupulous and strenuous souls the opposition between divine and\nhuman love manifested itself in all the circumstances of life. One\nremembers Mme. P\u00e9rier\u2019s account of Pascal. She was surprised at times\nthat her brother repulsed her, became suddenly cold to her, turned away\nfrom her when she approached to soothe him in his pain; she began to\nthink he did not love her, she complained of it to her sister, but it\nwas in vain to try to undeceive her. Finally the enigma was explained\non the very day of Pascal\u2019s death by Domat, one of his friends. Mme.\nP\u00e9rier learned that in Pascal\u2019s opinion the most innocent and fraternal\nfriendship is a fault for which one habitually fails to take one\u2019s self\nsufficiently to task, because one underestimates its magnitude. \u201cBy\nfomenting and suffering these attachments to grow up, one is giving\nto someone else some portion of what belongs to God alone; one is in\na manner robbing Him of what is to Him the most precious thing in all\nthe world.\u201d It would be impossible better to express the mystical\nantagonism between divine and human love. This principle occupied so\nprominent a place in the foreground of Pascal\u2019s mind that, the more\nreadily to keep it always before him, he wrote with his own hand upon\na piece of paper: \u201cIt is unjust in me to permit anyone to form an\nattachment for me, however voluntarily, and with whatever pleasure\nthey may do it. In the long run I should deceive them, for I belong\nto nobody but to God, and have not the wherewithal to satisfy a human\naffection.... I should therefore be culpable, if I should allow anyone\nto love me, if I should attract people toward me.... They should pass\ntheir lives and employ their effort in pleasing and searching for God.\u201d\nThe instant God is conceived as a person and not as a simple ideal,\nthere inevitably arises in souls tinged with mysticism, a rivalry\nbetween His claims and those of other persons. How can the Absolute\nadmit any human being to a share of what essentially is His? He must\ndwell in as absolute a solitude at the bottom of man\u2019s heart as on the\nheight of heaven.\n\n[Sidenote: Exists at the present day.]\n\nThe rivalry between divine and human love perceived by the Jansenists,\nas by many of the early Christians and by mystics generally, exists\neven to-day for a large number of men. In certain religious houses\nany excessively affectionate demonstration toward their parents is\nforbidden to children, and a fraternal or filial kiss is made the basis\nof a case of conscience. If Protestant education and custom are not at\none on this point with Catholic education and custom, the reason is\nthat Protestantism, as has already been observed, has no talent for\nultimate logical consequences. Catholicism, on the contrary, holds\nlogic in scrupulous respect. To cite but one example: is not the\ninterdiction of marriage in the case of the clergy a logical deduction\nfrom the conception of a religion which is founded on the theory of the\nfall of man, and whose purpose in the world is essentially anti-carnal?\nLove for a woman is too absorbing, too exclusive, to coexist in the\nheart of a priest, side by side with an undiminished love for God.\nOf all the sentiments of the soul, love is the one which fills it\nmost nearly to the limit of its capacity. It is, in this respect, in\ndiametric opposition to the theological sentiment which consists in the\nrecognition of a sort of subjective void and personal insufficiency.\nTwo lovers are of all the world the beings who are most sufficient unto\nthemselves, they are of all the world those who experience least the\nneed of God. Well, for mystics, love that is not given to God is love\nwasted. The lightest veil is enough to screen them once and forever\nfrom the \u201cintelligible sun.\u201d It is of the very essence of such a God to\nbe relegated to some region above the world, exiled in a manner from\nthe soul of man; there are regions of love in which He does not exist\nand never will exist. He calls me, and if I do not turn my face in His\ndirection precisely, I lose Him.\n\n[Sidenote: Conflict between mysticism and egoism.]\n\nThe absolute detachment of the mystic leads to another consequence\nwhich is equally in opposition to modern tendencies; it treats, that\nis to say, as an absolute zero a being who has at least the value of\nunity, to wit: the ego. If I aim at the welfare of all sentient beings\nindiscriminatingly, I aim also in some measure at my own, who am one\nof them; and moreover, it is for my own that I can labour to best\nadvantage. This ego counts for something in this world, it is a unit\nin the sum. The pure love inculcated by mysticism, on the contrary,\nlets the ego go for nothing, after the manner of the muleteer, who,\nin reckoning his mules, always forgot to count the one he was sitting\non; the missing mule never turned up except when he dismounted, so\nthat he ultimately resolved to go forward on foot. The transcendent\nand chimerical morality of mysticism might be compared to a purely\nhumanitarian theory of politics; it is indeed even more abstract.\nPatriotism, no doubt, leans upon a delusion when it regards one\u2019s\nnative country as the centre of the world, but does not humanitarianism\nlean not upon one but upon a whole series of illusions? In the item\nof illusions here below one must put up with the least false and most\nuseful. Well, it is probably not wholly without utility that each\nnation in the universe should act for itself; if each should attempt\nto act exclusively for the universe as a whole and for the love of the\nwhole, either it would not act at all or it would conceive the future\nof the universe practically on the model of its own future and would\ncommit an uninterrupted succession of mistakes. Very frequently in this\nworld unconscious and indirect collaboration is more efficacious than\nthat which is conscious and direct. Men often do more for the best aims\nof humanity by directing their attention in a spirit of rivalry toward\nneeds comparatively immediate but which for that very reason stimulate\ntheir efforts and their hopes, than by uniting for the attainment of\nan object so distant that it discourages them. In morals and politics\none has not only to hit upon the best means of combining the forces\nof humanity, but also upon what is the best means of exciting human\neffort; and on that score there is something to be said even for the\nlove of the parish in which one is born. One\u2019s parish is at least a\ndefinite object: one knows where it is, one cannot lose one\u2019s way, one\nmay entertain a hope, nay even a certitude, of reaching it, and hope\nand certitude are great allies. And the same is true of self-love and\nlove for those with whom one identifies one\u2019s self. It is precisely\nthis that mysticism ignores and by that means puts itself in opposition\nto the scientific spirit. For mysticism there is no compromise possible\nbetween the fact and its ideal which denies the fact. Logically\nmysticism ought to address its efforts toward total annihilation, much\nafter the manner of the followers of Schopenhauer and of Hartmann.\nIt would be better for the world to go off in smoke, so to speak; to\nbecome sublimated like the corpses which the worshippers of the sun\nused to expose to its rays, to be converted, as far as possible, into\nvapour.\n\n[Sidenote: Love of God on the decline.]\n\nExcess destroys itself. If pleasure ends in disgust, mysticism\npossesses also its seamy side in a certain disenchantment with God\nhimself, in a certain home-sickness for unknown joys, in that sadness\npeculiar to the cloister for which Christians were obliged to invent a\nnew name, in the Latin language, to designate\u2014_acedia_. When in the\nMiddle Ages all one\u2019s preoccupations and affections were turned toward\nheaven, human tenderness was impoverished to precisely that extent. The\nintellectual and moral evolution of our days has moved in a contrary\ndirection; love of God is on the decline. Love of mankind, on the\ncontrary, and love of living beings in general, is on the increase. A\nsort of substitution of the one for the other is taking place. Does\nit not seem as if earth\u2019s turn had come, and that much of the force\npreviously spent in futile adoration, devoted toward the clouds, is\nbeing more and more practically employed in the service of humanity?\n\n[Sidenote: Love of man to take its place.]\n\nFormerly, ideas of human fraternity and loving equality were promoted\nin especial by the Christians. The explanation is simple: God was\nconceived by them as an actual father, a _genitor_; men seemed to\nthe early Christians all of one family, having a common ancestor. So\nthat divine love and human love were regarded by them as inseparably\nbound up with each other. It is to be added that Christianity, which\nmade its way into the world through the lower classes of society,\nhad everything to gain by giving prominence to notions of fraternity\nand equality; it was by this means among others that it conciliated\nthe masses, who were for a long time its main support. But from\nthe moment it found itself able to rely upon the higher classes of\nsociety, how quickly it changed its language is well known, and at\nthe present moment the position of Christianity is precisely opposite\nto that which it occupied in the ancient world. Ardent advocates of\nthe ideas of fraternity are often adversaries of religion, are often\nfree-thinkers, sometimes decided atheists. The system of thought which\nfounded the love of men for each other upon a community of origin is\nalmost universally rejected. Social doctrines, which in former times\nwere so often based upon the element of socialism in the New Testament,\nare nowadays being formed and inculcated in complete independence of\nreligious faith and often in positive antagonism to any religious\nfaith whatever. Religion sometimes presents itself as an additional\nobstacle, simply, to the brotherhood of man, in that it creates more\nstubborn divisions among them than differences of class or even of\nlanguage. By an inevitable evolution religion has to-day come to\nrepresent among certain nations the spirit of caste and intolerance,\nand consequently of jealousy and enmity, whereas non-religion has come\nto be the recognized champion of social equality, of tolerance, and of\nfraternity. Behind God, rightly or wrongly, as behind their natural\ndefender, the partisans of the old order of things, of privilege and\nhereditary enmities, have ranged themselves; in the breast of the\nfaithful a mystical love for God corresponds to-day as in other days\nto an anathema and malediction on mankind. It was long ago remarked\nthat those whose blessing is most fluent can also show themselves at\nneed the most fluent to curse; the most mystical are the most violent.\nNothing can equal the violence of the gentle Jesus himself when he\nis speaking of the Pharisees, whose doctrines possessed so close an\nanalogy to his own. Whoever believes himself to have felt the breath\nof God upon his forehead becomes bitter and obstinate in his relations\nwith mere men; he is no longer one of them. So that the notion of the\ndivine, of the superhuman tends toward that of the antinatural and\nantihuman.\n\n[Sidenote: And also love of family.]\n\nThe aim of progress in modern societies is to domesticate peace\nwithin their limits as well as without, to suppress mysticism, and to\nconcentrate upon the real universe, present or to come, the whole body\nof our affections; to bind our hearts together in so intimate a union\nthat they shall be sufficient unto themselves and unto each other, and\nthat the human world, magnified by the eyes of love, may gather to\nitself the totality of things. In the first place the love of family,\nwhich scarcely existed at all in ancient times, and which in the Middle\nAges was almost entirely absorbed by the conception of authority and of\nsubordination, can scarcely be said to have acquired before our days\na considerable hold on human life. It is only since the eighteenth\ncentury and the spread of the theory of equality that the father of a\nfamily, in especial in France, has ceased to consider himself as a sort\nof irresponsible sovereign, and begun to treat his wife in some sort as\nhis equal and to exercise over his children no more than the minimum of\npossible authority. Whenever women shall receive an education almost\nequivalent to that given to men, the moral equality between them and\nmen will have been consecrated, and as love is always more complete and\nmore durable between beings who consider each other as morally equal,\nit follows that the love of family will increase, will draw to itself\na greater proportion of the desires and aspirations of the individual.\nIn positive opposition to religion, which has undertaken to combat the\nlove of woman by restraining it within narrow limits, the love of woman\nhas attained little by little an intensity that it never possessed in\nancient times: it suffices to read our poets to become convinced of\nit, and it will continue to increase with the intellectual development\nof women, which will make a closer and more complete union between men\nand women possible than exists at present. The association of man and\nwoman being capable thus of becoming in a manner a sort of intellectual\nassociation and fellowship, it will result in a fertility of a new\nspecies: love will no longer act upon the intelligence solely as the\nmost powerful of stimulants, it will contribute positive elements\nhitherto unknown. It is impossible to predict the sort of work that\nthe combined labour of man and woman will produce when they possess\na preparation for it that will be practically upon both sides equal.\nSome hint of what one means may be gathered from examples actually\nunder one\u2019s eyes. In the present century men and women of talent are\ntending to come into closer relations with each other; and I might\ncite the names of Michelet and Mme. Michelet, of John Stuart Mill\nand his wife, of Lewes and George Eliot, and other names besides.\nBut not to give an undue prominence to great names like these, which\nare after all exceptions in the human race, it is not too much to\nassert that from the very top of the social ladder to the bottom the\nfamily tends increasingly to become a unity, a more and more perfect\norganism in which man will one day find scope for all of his powers\nand capabilities. The importance of the family increases, as that of\nthe city and of the despotic tutelage of the state decreases. This\nimportance, which is almost non-existent in purely military societies\n(of which Laced\u00e6mon may serve as the accomplished exemplar), becomes\ngreater and greater in free and industrial societies such as those of\nthe future, and thus there opens a new field for human activity and\nsensibility. The love of men and women for each other and of both for\ntheir children, heightened by the growing sentiment of equality, is\ndestined in the author\u2019s judgment to create a new and non-mystical\nsort of religion, the worship of the family. If a cult for the gods\nof the hearth was one of the earliest religions, perhaps it will also\nbe actually the last: the family hearth possesses in and of itself an\nelement of sacredness, of religion, since it binds together as about a\ncommon centre beings so diverse in origin and sex. And thus the modern\nfamily, founded on the law of equality, seems by its very spirit,\nand by the sentiments which it excites, to be in growing opposition\nto religious mysticism. The true type of the priest, whatever\nProtestantism may say, is the solitary man, the missionary here below,\ndevoted body and soul to God; whereas the type of the practical\nphilosopher and the modern sage is a loving, thinking, labouring man,\ndevoted to those who are dear to him.\n\n[Sidenote: And love of country.]\n\nA similar antagonism may be seen between the sentiment of mysticism\nand of allegiance to the state. The citizen who knows that the fate of\nhis country lies in his arms, who loves his country with an active and\nsincere love, is a worshipper in a social religion. Great politicians\nhave almost always been large and liberal minds. The ancient republics\nwere comparatively non-religious for their time; the disappearance\nof monarchy coincides in general, in the history of mankind, with\nenfeeblement of faith. When everybody shall feel himself as equally and\ntruly a citizen as anybody else, and shall be able to devote himself\nwith an equal love to the good of the state, there will no longer be\nso great a store of unemployed activity, of surplus sensibility lying\nready to the hand of mysticism. For the rest, let us magnify a little\nthe sphere of human activity; not only the family and the state are\nnowadays demanding an increasingly large share of one\u2019s attention and\naffection, but the human race itself is coming to be each day more and\nmore intimately present to the mind of each of us. We find it more\nand more difficult even in thought to isolate ourselves, to become\nabsorbed either in ourselves, or in God. The human world has become\ninfinitely more human than formerly; all the bounds which separated\nmen from each other (religion, language, nationality, race) are\nregarded already by superior men as artificial. The human race itself\nis coming to be recognized as a part only of the animal kingdom, the\nentire world claims the attention of science, offers itself to our love\nand opens for the devotees of mysticism the perspective of a species\nof universal fraternity. Just in so far as the universe thus grows\nlarger, it becomes less and less insufficient in our eyes; and this\nsurplus of love, which formerly mounted toward heaven in search of some\ntranscendent resting place, finds ample room upon the surface of the\nearth and of heavenly bodies not unknown to astronomy. If the mystical\ntendency of the human mind be not destined completely to disappear, if\nit possesses any element of permanency, it will at least change its\ndirection, and indeed, little by little is changing it. Christians were\nin no sense wrong in finding society in ancient times too narrow and\nthe ancient world too cabined and confined under its dome of crystal;\nthe very reason for the existence of Christianity lay in this vicious\nconception of society and of nature. To-day the one thing needful is\nto magnify the world till it shall satisfy the needs of man; until\nan equilibrium be established between the universe and the human\nheart. The aim of science is not to extinguish the need to love which\nconstitutes so considerable an element of the religious sentiment, but\nto supply that need with an actually existing object; its function is\nnot to put a check upon the outleap of human affection but to justify\nit.\n\n[Sidenote: But the love of a personal God must be distinguished in all\nthis from love of the ideal God.]\n\nAnd remark, also, that if the love of a personal God mystically\nconceived tends to become dim in modern societies, the same is not\ntrue of the love of an ideal God conceived as the practical type of\nconduct. The ideal God, in effect, in no sense exists in opposition\nto the world, He surpasses it simply; He is at bottom identical with\nthe progress of human thought which, with its point of departure in\nbrute fact, outstrips the actual and foresees and prepares the way\nfor perpetual progress. In human life the real and the ideal are\nharmonized, for life as a whole both is and becomes. Whoever says life,\nsays evolution; and evolution is the Jacob\u2019s ladder resting both on\nheaven and on earth; at the base of it we are brutes, at the summit\nof it we are gods, so that religious sentiment cannot be said so much\nto be in opposition to science and philosophy as to complete them;\nor rather, it is at bottom identical with the spirit that animates\nthem. We have spoken of religion as science,\u2014in its beginnings as\nunconscious science; in the same way science may be called religion\nheaded back toward reality; headed, that is to say in the normal\ndirection. Religion says to the human race: Bind yourselves together\ninto a single whole; science shows the human race that all mankind are\ninevitably parts of a single whole already, and the teaching of the two\nis practically one.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nIn effect there is taking place a certain substitution in our\naffections; we are coming to love God in man, the future in the\npresent, the ideal in the real. The man of evolution is precisely the\nman-God of Christianity. And this love of the ideal harmonized with the\nlove of humanity, instead of finding its vent in vain contemplation and\necstasy, will fill the limbs with energy. We shall love God all the\nmore that He will be, so to speak, the work of our own hands. And if\nthere be really at the bottom of the human heart some indestructible\nelement of mysticism, it will be employed as an important factor in the\nservice of evolution; our heart will go out to our ideas, and we shall\nadore them in proportion as we shall realize them. Religion having\nbecome the purest of all things\u2014pure love of the ideal\u2014will at the\nsame time have become the realest and in appearance the humblest of all\nthings\u2014labour.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Mysticism and asceticism.]\n\nThe natural and practical complement of mysticism is asceticism; and\nasceticism is another of the elements of religious morality that are\nbecoming daily feebler in the presence of the modern spirit.\n\n[Sidenote: Asceticism in the good and the bad sense.]\n\nAusterity is of two kinds, the one quite mystical in origin, despising\nart, beauty, science; the other founded on a certain moral stoicism,\na certain respect for one\u2019s self. The latter is in no sense ascetic,\nit is composed for the most part of the very love for science and art,\nbut it is the highest art only that it loves, and science for science\u2019s\nsake that it pursues. The excess of austerity, to which religions have\nso often led, bears the same relation to virtue that avarice does to\neconomy. Austerity alone does not constitute a merit or an element of\nsuperiority. Life may be much more gentle, more social, better on many\naccounts among a people of loose manners like the ancient Greeks, than\namong a people who regard existence as hard and dry, and who make it so\nby the brutality of their faith and ignore the lightening of the burden\nof life that lies in smiles and tears. One would rather live with\nprodigals than with misers. Avarice, however, which may be regarded\nin the life of a people or of a family as a state of transition, is\neconomically and morally superior to prodigality. The same may be said\nof excessive rigour. Excessive rigour and avarice are defects which\nare rendered tolerable by their consequences, which impoverish life\nin order subsequently, with a freer hand, to enrich it. It is better\nfor the race if not always so for the individual to be economical to\nexcess than to dissipate its resources intemperately. An impulse held\nin check gathers force. Austerity, like avarice, is a means of defence\nand of protection, a weapon. Conquerors have often in the course of\nhistory been the sons of misers who have amassed treasure and blood for\ntheir benefit. From time to time it is good to regard one\u2019s self as an\nenemy, and to live and sleep in a coat of mail. For the rest, there\nare temperaments that can be held in check by nothing lighter than\nbars of iron, that find no mean between pure water and pure alcohol;\nbetween a bed of roses and a crown of thorns; between moral law and\nmilitary discipline; between a moralist and a corporal. Still, one\nmust not represent such a state of mind at least as ideal. The ascetic\nhates himself; but one must hate nobody, not even one\u2019s self; one must\nunderstand all things and regulate them. Hatred of self springs from\nfeebleness of will; whoever is gifted with self-control need not hate\nhimself. Instead of giving one\u2019s self a bad name one\u2019s duty is to make\none\u2019s self worthy of a better. There may well be a certain legitimate\nelement of rigour, of inner discipline, in every system of morality;\nbut this discipline should be reasonable, rationally directed toward\nan end which explains and justifies it: one\u2019s business is not to break\nthe body but to fashion it, to bend it. The savant, for example,\nshould aim to develop his brain, to refine his nervous system, to\nreduce his circulatory and nutritive system to their lowest terms. You\nmay call that asceticism if you like, but it is a fertile, a useful\nasceticism; it is at bottom a moral hygiene simply\u2014which ought to be\nmade a part of physical hygiene. A surgeon knows that he must lead a\nsevere and continent life, or his hand will lose its cunning. The very\ncondition of his being able to aid other people is that he in a measure\nsuffer privation himself; he must choose. And to make this choice\nhe experiences no need of a religious injunction, he requires only\nthe voice of conscience. It suffices for him to know enough of moral\nhygiene to foresee the distant results of his conduct and to possess\na sufficient measure of firmness to be self-consistent. It is after\nthis fashion that, in plotting out one\u2019s life according to scientific\nlaws, one may regulate it, may render it almost as hard as that of\nthe most self-denying monk. Every profession that is freely chosen is\nin the nature of a self-imposed discipline. As to the choice of no\nprofession, as to voluntary idleness\u2014that is in and of itself immoral\nand necessarily leads to immorality, whatever may be the religion that\none holds.\n\n[Sidenote: Asceticism results in a preoccupation with sin.]\n\nThe ultimate consequence of excessive rigourism is morbid preoccupation\nwith sin: an obsession which, with the fear of the millennium, is one\nof the greatest of the futile tortures that have afflicted humanity.\nIt is as dangerous for man to magnify his vices as his virtues; to\nbelieve one\u2019s self a monster possesses no greater exemption from evil\nconsequences than to believe one\u2019s self perfect. Sin in itself, and\nphilosophically considered, is a conception difficult to reconcile\nwith the modern idea of scientific determinism, which, when it has\nexplained everything, goes far, if not toward justifying everything, at\nleast toward pardoning everything. Neither the pangs nor the vanity of\nsin are permissible to us nowadays when we are hardly certain really\nthat our own sins belong to us. Temptation comes to us in the guise of\nthe reawaking of an hereditary appetite, handed down to us not only\nfrom the first man, but from the ancestors of the first man, or more\naccurately from life itself, from the universe, from the God who is\nimmanent in the world or who transcends it, and has created it; it is\nnot the devil that tempts us, it is God. Like Jacob, of whom we were\nspeaking a moment ago, we must vanquish God, must subject life to\nthought, must give the victory to the higher forms of life, as against\nthe lower. If we are wounded in this struggle, if we are branded with\nthe mark of sin, if we mount haltingly up the steps of goodness, we\nought not to be immeasurably terrified: the essential thing is to go\nupward. Temptation is not in and of itself a blot, it may be even\nan emblem of nobility so long as one does not yield to it. Our first\nfathers were not subject to temptation, properly so called, because\nthey yielded to all their desires, because they made no struggle\nagainst them. Sin or moral evil is explicable: first by the antagonism\nbetween instinct and reflection; second, by the antagonism between\negoistic instincts and altruistic instincts. This double antagonism\nbetween instinct and conscious purpose, between egoism and altruism,\nis a necessary incident of self-knowledge and a condition of progress:\nto know one\u2019s self is to be aware more or less uneasily of a manifold,\nand succession of inconsistent desires of which the moving equilibrium\nconstitutes life itself; self-knowledge, and knowledge in general, is\nthe equivalent of temptation. Life is in some sort always sin, for one\ncannot eat, one cannot even breathe without some measure of affirmation\nof low and egoistic instincts. Moreover asceticism logically leads\nnowhere, to negation of life; the most thorough-going ascetics are the\nYoghis of India, who attain the point of living without air or food and\nof going down alive into the tomb.[64] And in believing himself thus to\nhave realized absolute renunciation, what the ascetic actually realized\nis complete and perfect egoism, for the last drops of vegetative life\nwhich flow in his veins circulate for him alone and not a shiver of his\nheart is directed beyond himself; by impoverishing and annihilating his\nlife, he has suppressed the generosity that fulness of life produced;\nin his endeavour to kill sin he has slaughtered charity. The real moral\nand religious ideal does not consist in denying one\u2019s self everything\nin order to deny one\u2019s self what is sinful. There is nothing absolutely\nevil in us, except excess; when we apply the knife to our hearts, we\nshould have but one aim, the one which the gardener has in view in\npruning trees, to increase our real power. Our manifold desires should\nall be satisfied at one time or another; we should take example from\nthe mother who forces herself to eat that she may watch to the end at\nthe bedside of her dying child. Whoever purposes to live for others\nbesides himself, will find no time to sulk; for whoever possesses a\nheart sufficiently great no function in life is impure. Every moral\nrule should be a reconciliation between egoism and altruism, original\nsin and ideal sanctity; and to accomplish this reconciliation it\nsuffices to show that each of our manifold and mutually exclusive\ndesires, if carried to the extreme, contradicts itself; that our\ndesires need each other, that when nature endeavours to rise above\nherself she inevitably falls headlong. To govern one\u2019s self means to\nreconcile all parties. Ormuzd and Ahriman, spirit and nature, are\nnot so hostile to each other as seems to be believed, and either of\nthem indeed is powerless without the other. They are two gods whose\norigin is the same, they are immortal, and for immortals some means of\naccommodation must be found. Complete and unremunerated sacrifice never\ncan be adopted as a rule of life; never can be more than a sublime\nconception, a spark in some individual existence, consuming the fuel it\nfeeds upon and then disappearing and leaving behind, face to face, the\ntwo great principles, a conscious reconciliation of which constitutes\nthe moral mean.\n\n      [64] The fact has been verified by the English authorities and\n      has been commented on by the physiologist W. Preyer (_\u00dcber die\n      Erforschung des Lebens_, Jena, and _Sammlung physiologischer\n      Abhandlungen_). Yoghis who have attained the highest degree of\n      perfection, and are insensible to cold and to heat and have\n      contracted, by a series of experiments, the habit of breathing\n      almost not at all, have been buried alive and resuscitated at\n      the end of some weeks. When they were reawakened a heightening\n      of the temperature was noticed as in the case of the reawaking\n      of hibernating mammals, and it is indeed to the phenomena of\n      hibernation that this strange voluntary suspension of animation\n      most closely approaches\u2014this mystical return to a life merely\n      vegetative, this absorption in the bosom of the unconscious,\n      where the Yoghis hopes to find God. As a preliminary discipline\n      the Yoghis diminishes little by little the quantity of air and\n      light necessary to his life; he lives in a cell which is lit\n      and ventilated by no more than a single chink; he minimizes all\n      movement in order to minimize the necessity of respiration;\n      he does not speak except to repeat to himself twelve thousand\n      times a day the mystic name of Om; he remains for hours\n      together motionless as a statue. He practises breathing over\n      again and again the same body of air, and the longer the\n      period between inspiration and expiration, the greater his\n      sanctity! Finally he carefully seals all the openings of his\n      body with wax and cotton and closes the opening of the throat\n      with the tongue, which certain incisions permit him to fold\n      over backward, and finally falls into a lethargy in which the\n      movements of respiration may be suspended without the thread of\n      life positively being severed.\n\n[Sidenote: Results a priori from the nature of ideas.]\n\nThe very nature of the conceptions confirms what we have just said\nrespecting temptation and sin. Directly or indirectly, every idea\nis a suggestion, an incitement to action; it tends even to take\nexclusive possession of us, to become a fixed idea, to employ us as\na means to its own end, to realize itself often in spite of us; but\nas our thought embraces all things in the universe, high and low, we\nare incessantly solicited to act in opposite directions; temptation,\nfrom this point of view, is simply the law of thought, and the law of\nsensibility. And ascetics and priests have endeavoured as a means of\nstruggling against temptation to confine human thought, to prevent it\nfrom playing freely about the things of this world. But the things\nof this world are precisely those which are always present, which\nsolicit us most strongly and constantly. And the greater our effort\nto exclude them from the mind, the greater their power over us. There\nis nothing one sees more clearly than what one resolves not to look\nat; there is nothing that makes the heart beat so quickly as what one\nresolves not to love. The cure for temptation, so persistently demanded\nby essentially religious people, is not restriction of thought but\nenlargement of thought. The visible world cannot be hidden, it is\nfolly to attempt it, but it can be magnified indefinitely. Incessant\ndiscoveries may be made in it and the peril of certain points of view\ncounteracted by the novelty and attractiveness of certain others,\nand the known universe lost sight of in the abyss of the unknown.\nThought bears its own antidote\u2014a science sufficiently great is more\ntrustworthy than innocence; a boundless curiosity is the cure for all\npetty curiosities. An eye which reaches the stars will not aim long\nat a low mark; it is protected by its command of space and light, for\nlight is purifying. By making temptation infinite one makes it salutary\nand in the best sense divine. Asceticism, and the artificial maturity\nthat comes of a dissolute life, often amount to the same thing. One\nmust keep one\u2019s youth and memory green, and one\u2019s heart open. \u201cI\nwas not a man before years of manhood,\u201d said Marcus Aurelius. Both\nasceticism and debauchery make men precociously old, wean them from\nlove and enthusiasm for the things of this world. The island of Cythere\nand the desert of Thebes are alike deserts. To remain young long, to\nremain a child even in the spontaneity and affectionateness of one\u2019s\nheart, to preserve not in externals, but in \u201cinternals,\u201d something of\nlightness and gaiety is the best means of dominating life; for what\nis more powerful than youth? One must neither stiffen one\u2019s self, nor\nbristle up against life, nor cowardly abandon one\u2019s self to it; one\nmust take it as it is, that is to say, according to the popular maxim,\n\u201cas it comes,\u201d and welcome it with an infant\u2019s smile without any other\ncare than to maintain one\u2019s possession of one\u2019s self, in order that one\nmay possess all things.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Prayer.]\n\nIII. Morality and religion are inseparable in all historical faiths,\nand the essential act of subjective worship, the fundamental rite\ncommanded by religious morality, is prayer.\n\n[Sidenote: Kinds of prayer distinguished.]\n\nTo analyze prayer into all its component elements would be very\ndifficult and far from simple. Prayer may be an almost mechanical\naccomplishment of the rite, the babbling of vain words, and as such\nit is despicable even from the point of view of religion. It may be\nan egoistic demand, and as such it is mean, simply. It may be an act\nof na\u00efve faith in beliefs more or less popular and irrational, and on\nthis score its value is so slight that it may be neglected. But it may\nbe also the disinterested outpouring of a soul which believes itself\nto be in some fashion or other serving someone else, acting upon the\nworld by the ardour of its faith, conferring a gift, an offering,\ndevoting something of itself to someone else. Therein lies the grandeur\nof prayer: it is then no more than one of the forms of charity and\nthe love of mankind. But suppose it should be demonstrated that this\nespecial form of charity is illusory, does one imagine that the very\nprinciple of charity itself will by that fact receive a check?\n\n[Sidenote: Superficiality of most pleas in its behalf.]\n\nMany arguments have been urged in favour of prayer, but the majority\nof them are quite external and superficial. Prayer, it has been said,\nas being a demand on a special Providence, is sovereignly consoling;\nit is one of the sweetest of the satisfactions incident to religious\nfaith. One who had been converted to free-thought said to me recently,\n\u201cThere is but one thing in my former faith that I regret, and that is\nthat I can no longer pray for you and imagine that I am serving you.\u201d\nAssuredly it is sad to lose a faith which consoled one; but suppose\nthat someone believed himself to possess the fairy-wand and to be able\nto save the world. Some fine morning he finds himself undeceived, he\nfinds himself alone in the world with no power at his disposal more\nmysterious than that of his ten fingers and his brain. He cannot but\nregret his imaginary power, but he will labour nevertheless to acquire\na real power and the loss of his illusions will but serve as a stimulus\nto his will. It is always dangerous to believe that one possesses a\npower that one has not, for it hinders one in some degree from knowing\nand exercising those that one has. The men of former times, the times\nof absolute monarchy, who had access to the ear of princes, possessed a\npower analogous to that which the believers on their knees in temples\nstill believe themselves to possess; this power, in the case of\nkings, their confidential ministers have lost as the result of purely\nterrestrial revolutions; and have they thereby been diminished in their\ndignity as moral beings? No, a man is morally greater as a citizen than\nas a courtier; one is greater as the result of what one does one\u2019s self\nonly, or attempts to do, and not as the result of what one endeavours\nto obtain from a master.\n\n[Sidenote: Arguments for its utility equally good for auricular\nconfession.]\n\nWill the individual never be able to do without prayers conceived as a\nconstant communication with God, as a daily confession, a faith in Him\nand before Him? He will probably not renounce it until he is capable\nof existing without it. Arguments to prove the practical utility of\nprayer, conceived as a direct communication with one\u2019s living ideal,\nwould all hold equally good in favour of Catholic confession before\nthe priest as a realization of the moral ideal. Nevertheless, when\nProtestants suppressed the confession they gave a fresh development\nto moral austerity: the morality of Protestant peoples, which is\ndefended only by the voice of conscience, is not inferior to that of\nCatholic peoples.[65] Is it any more necessary for the purpose of\nascertaining one\u2019s faults and curing them to kneel before a personified\nand anthropomorphic God than before a priest beneath the roof of\na church? Experience alone can decide, and a number of men seem\nalready successfully to have tried the experiment. The scrutiny of a\nphilosophical conscience has been proved to be sufficient.\n\n      [65] See below chapter iv.\n\n[Sidenote: Prayer as a subjective relief.]\n\nFinally it has been said that prayer, even conceived as destitute of\nobjective effect, nevertheless justifies itself by the comfort it\naffords; one has attempted to argue in its favour on purely subjective\ngrounds, but prayer runs the risk precisely of losing its power as a\nconsoler the instant one ceases to believe in its objective efficiency.\nIf nobody hears us, who will continue to offer up petitions simply to\nease the burden of his own heart? If the orator is uplifted by the\nsympathy of the assembly which listens to him, does it follow that he\nwill experience the same effect if he deliver his oration in the void\nwith the knowledge that his thought, his word, his emotion, are lost,\nand spend themselves in space?\n\n[Sidenote: Subjective charity the durable element in prayer.]\n\nIf prayer is really to be its own reward, it must not consist of a\ndemand addressed to some Being exterior to one\u2019s self, it must be a\nsubjective act of love, what Christianity calls an act of charity.\nCharity is the eternal element in prayer. To ask for something for\none\u2019s self is a thing difficult to justify; to ask for something for\nsomeone else is at least a beginning of disinterested conduct. \u201cHow\nmuch longer thy prayers grow, grandmama, day by day!\u201d \u201cThe number\nof those for whom I pray increases day by day.\u201d Over and above this\nelement of charity, prayer contains a certain beauty\u2014a beauty which\nwill not disappear with the disappearance of the superstitions which\nhave clustered about it. The moral beauty of prayer is intimately bound\nup with certain profound human sentiments: one prays for somebody whom\none loves; one prays out of pity or of affection; one prays in despair,\nin hope, in gratitude; so that the most elevated of human sentiments\nsometimes ally themselves with prayer and colour it. This tension of\none\u2019s whole being at such times finds its way out upon the visage,\nand transfigures it with the intense expression that certain painters\nhave loved to catch and to perpetuate.[66] What is most beautiful and\nprobably also what is best in prayer is, more than all else, the human\nand moral element in it. If there is thus an essential charity in\ngenuine prayer, charity of the lips is not enough, that of the heart\nand hands must be added to it, and that is to say in the last resort\naction must be substituted for it.\n\n      [66] This, however, is exceptional; in church, during the\n      services, the majority of the faces remain inexpressive, for\n      the reason that prayer with the majority of the faithful is\n      almost always mechanical.\n\n[Sidenote: Increasing tendency for such prayer to express itself in\naction.]\n\nPrayer for love and charity tends increasingly to find vent in action:\na verification of this fact may be found in history. Formerly, in a\nmoment of distress, a pagan woman would have thought only of appeasing\nthe anger of the Gods by some blood sacrifice, by the murder of some\ninnocent member of the larger mammals; in the Middle Ages she would\nhave made a vow or founded a chapel\u2014things still vain and powerless\nto alleviate the misery of this world; in our days she would think\nrather, if she were a person of some elevation of spirit, of giving\nmoney in charity, of founding an establishment for the instruction of\nthe poor or the care of the infirm. One sees in that fact the march\nof progress in religious ideas; the time will come when such actions\nwill no longer be accomplished for a directly interested end but as a\nsort of exchange with the divinity, a traffic of kindness; they will\nconstitute a recognized part of public worship, the essence of worship\nwill be charity. Pascal asks, somewhere, why God has bestowed prayer\nupon man, why God has commanded man to pray; and he replies profoundly\nenough: \u201cTo give him the dignity of seeing himself as a cause\u201d; but\nif he who demands benefits by prayer possessed formerly the dignity\nof being, in his own right, a cause, how much greater is the dignity\nof him who by the exercise of his own moral will procures the object\nof his desire? And if to be the cause of one\u2019s own well-being be thus\nthe essence of prayer, of that which brings man nearest to God, of\nthat which lifts man nearest to His level\u2014may one not say that the\nmost disinterested, the most sacred, the most human, the most divine\nof prayers is moral conduct? In Pascal\u2019s opinion, it is true, moral\nconduct presupposes two terms, duty and power, and man cannot always\ndo what he should; but one must break with the antique opposition\nestablished by Christianity, between the sentiment of duty and the\npractical powerlessness of a man shorn of all adventitious aid\u2014shorn\nof grace. In reality the sentiment of duty is, in and of itself, the\nfirst vague consciousness of a power existent in us, of a force which\ntends to achieve its own realization.[67] Consciousness of his power\nfor good and of the power of the ideal unite in man, for this ideal is\nno more than the projection, the objectification, of the highest power\nwithin, the form that that power takes in reflective intelligence.\nEvery volition is at bottom no more than a capability of some sort in\nlabour, an action in the stage of germination: the will to do good, if\nit is conscious of its own power, has no need to await the prompting\nof external grace; it is itself its own grace; by the very fact of\nits birth it becomes efficacious; by the very fact of wishing, nature\ncreates. Pascal conceived the moral end, which duty places before us,\ntoo much after the manner of a physical and external object, that one\nmight be able to look upon but not to attain. \u201cOne directs one\u2019s looks\non high,\u201d says he, in his \u201cPens\u00e9es,\u201d \u201cbut one rests upon the sand and\nthe earth will slip from under one, and one shall fall with one\u2019s eyes\non heaven.\u201d But might not one respond that the heaven of which Pascal\nis here speaking, the heaven we carry in our own bosoms, is something\nquite different from the heaven which we perceive spread out above our\nheads? Must it not here be said that to see is to touch and to possess;\nthat a sight of the moral end renders possible a progress toward it;\nthat the resting point one finds in the moral will, the most invincible\nof all the forms of volition, will not give way beneath one, and that\none cannot fall, in one\u2019s progress toward goodness and that in this\nsense to lift one\u2019s eyes toward heaven is already to have set one\u2019s\nfeet on the way thither.\n\n      [67] See on this point our _Esquisse d\u2019une morale sans\n      obligation_, p. 27.\n\n[Sidenote: Ultimate claim for prayer.]\n\nThere remains one more aspect under which prayer may be considered. It\nmay be regarded as a species of spiritual elevation, a communication\nwith the universe or with God.[68] Prayer has in all times been\nglorified as a means of uplifting the whole being to a plane that it\notherwise would have been unable to attain. The best of us, as Amiel\nsaid not long since, find complete development and self-knowledge in\nprayer alone.\n\n      [68] \u201cOh, God\u201d said Diderot, at the end of his _Interpr\u00e9tation\n      de la nature_, \u201cI do not know if Thou existest, but I shall\n      bear myself as if Thou sawest into my soul; I shall act as if I\n      felt myself in Thy presence.... I ask nothing of Thee in this\n      world, for the course of things is necessary in and of its own\n      nature, if Thou dost not exist, and necessary if Thou dost, by\n      Thy decree.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Distinction between religious ecstasy and philosophical\nmeditation.]\n\nOne must be on one\u2019s guard against a multitude of illusions in this\nconnection, and must carefully distinguish between two very different\nthings: religious ecstasy and philosophical meditation. One of the\nconsequences of our profounder knowledge of the nervous system is an\nincreasing contempt for ecstasy and for all of those states of nervous\nintoxication or even of intellectual intoxication which were formerly\nregarded by the multitude, and sometimes even by philosophers, as\nsuperhuman, and truly divine. Religious ecstasy, so called, may be\na phenomenon so purely physical that it suffices to apply a bit of\nvolatile oil of cherry laurel to induce it in certain subjects, and\nto fill them with ecstatic beatitude, and make them pray and weep\nand kneel. Such was the fact in the case of a hysteric patient, a\nhardened courtesan of Jewish origin; it sufficed even to induce in\nher definite visions, even such as that of the girl with golden hair\nin the blue robe starred with gold.[69] The intoxication indulged in\nby the followers of Dionysius in Greece, like that indulged in by\nhasheesh-eaters, was no more than a violent means of inducing ecstasy\nand of entering into communication with the supernatural world.[70]\nIn India,[71] and among the Christians, fasting is practised to attain\nthe same end, namely a nervous excitation of the nervous systems. The\nmacerations of the anchorite were, says Wundt, a solitary orgie, in the\ncourse of which monks and nuns ardently pressed in their arms fantastic\nimages of the Virgin and the Saviour. According to a legend of\nKrishna\u00efsm, the Queen Udayapura, Mira Bai, being pressed to abjure her\nGod, threw herself at the feet of the statue of Krishna and made this\nprayer: \u201cI have quitted for thee my love, my possessions, my crown; I\ncome to thee, oh, my refuge! Take me.\u201d The statue listened motionless;\nsuddenly it opened and Mira disappeared inside of it. To vanish thus\ninto the bosom of one\u2019s God is\u2014is it not?\u2014the perfect ideal of the\nhighest human religions. All of them have proposed it to man, as a\nprime object of desire, to die in God; all of them have seen the\nhigher life as a form of ecstasy; whereas the fact is that, in a state\nof ecstasy, one descends on the contrary to a lower and a vegetative\nplane of existence, and that this apparent fusion with God is no more\nthan a return to a primitive inertia, to a mineral impassibility, to a\nstatuesque petrifaction. One may believe one\u2019s self uplifted in a state\nof ecstasy, and mistake for an exaltation of thought what is in reality\nno more than a sterile nervous excitement. The trouble is that there\nis no means of measuring the real force and extent of thought. Under\nnormal circumstances the only means that exist are action; one who does\nnot act is inevitably inclined to exaggerate the value of his thought.\nAmiel himself did not escape from this danger. Fancied superiority\ndisappears the moment a thought seeks expression of whatsoever kind.\nThe dream that is told becomes absurd; the ecstasy in which one retains\ncomplete control of one\u2019s mind, in which one endeavours to take stock\nof the confused emotions one experiences, vanishes before us and leaves\nbehind no more than a fatigue, a certain subjective obscurity, like a\nwinter twilight, which precipitates a frost upon the window-panes that\nintercepts the last rays of the sun. My most beautiful verses will\nnever be written, the poet says: \u201cOf my work, the better part lies\nburied in myself.\u201d[72] That is an illusion by which dream seems always\nsuperior to reality; an illusion of the same sort as that which makes\nus attach so much value to certain hours of religious exaltation. The\ntruth is that the poet\u2019s best verses are those which he has written\nwith his own hand, his best thought is that which has possessed\nvitality enough to find its formula and its music; the whole of him\nlies in his poetry. And we also, we are in our actions, in our words,\nin the glance of an eye or the accent of a word, in a gesture, in the\npalm of a hand open in charity. To exist is to act, and a thought which\nis incapable of expression is an abortion which has never really been\nalive and has never merited to live. In the same way the true God is\nalso the one who can be domesticated in one\u2019s own heart, who does not\nfly the face of reflective consciousness, who does not show himself\nin dreams alone, whom one does not invoke as a phantom or a demon.\nOur ideal ought not to be some passing and fantastic apparition, but\na positive creation of our spirit; we must be able to contemplate it\nwithout destroying it, to feed our eyes upon it as upon a reality.\nFor the rest this ideal of goodness and of perfection, persisting as\nit does in the face of inner scrutiny, has no need of an objective\nexistence in some sort material, to produce its proper effect upon\nthe spirit. The profoundest love subsists for those who have been, as\nwell as for those who are, and reaches out into the future as well as\ninto the present. Nay, it even in a manner outstretches the measure\nof existence and develops a power of divining and loving the ideal\nthat shall some day be. Maternal love is a model now as always for all\nmoral beings, in that it does not await the birth of its object before\nmaking the first steps in its service. Long before the child is born\nthe mother forms an image of it in her fancy, and loves it and gives\nherself to it in advance.\n\n      [69] _Report of MM. Bourru and Burot au Congr\u00e8s scientifique de\n      Grenoble_, August 18, 1885.\n\n      [70] A defender of the use of hasheesh scientifically employed,\n      M. Giraud, who conceives that it is possible to induce ecstasy\n      at will, and to regulate it by medical doses, writes us\n      with enthusiasm: \u201cA bit of hasheesh dispenses with painful\n      mystical expedients to induce ecstasy. There is no further\n      need of asceticism; the result is an intoxication, but a\n      sacred intoxication, which is nothing else than an excess of\n      activity in the higher centres.\u201d We believe that every sort\n      of drunkenness, far from possessing a sacred character, will\n      constitute for ever and always, in the eyes of science, a\n      morbid state, in no sense enviable from any rational point\n      of view, by an individual in normal health; the constant\n      employment of stimulants will exhaust the nervous system and\n      throw it out of order, as the daily employment of nux vomica\n      will, in the long run, destroy the power of a healthy stomach.\n\n      [71] See above what we have already said in regard to the\n      Yoghis and asceticism.\n\n      [72] M. Sully-Prudhomme.\n\n[Sidenote: The highest form of prayer.]\n\nFor a truly elevated spirit the hours consecrated to the formation\nof its ideal will always be precious hours of patient attention and\nmeditation, not only upon what one knows or does not know, but upon\nwhat one hopes and will attempt; upon the ideal seeking for birth\nthrough one\u2019s instrumentality, and leaning upon one\u2019s heart. The\nhighest form of prayer is thought. Every form of philosophic meditation\npossesses, like prayer, an element of consolation, not directly, for it\nmay well deal with the saddest of realities, but indirectly because it\nenlarges the heart. Every aperture broken open upon the infinite braces\nus like a current in the open air. Our personal sorrows are lost in the\nimmensity of the infinite, as the waters of the earth are lost in the\nimmensity of the sea.\n\nAs for those who are not capable of thinking for themselves, of\nstanding spiritually on their own feet; it will always be good for them\nto retrace the thoughts which appear to them to be the highest and\nthe noblest product of the human mind. On this account the Protestant\ncustom of reading and of meditating on the Bible is, in principle,\nexcellent; the book however is ill-chosen. But it is good that man\nshould habituate himself to read or to re-read a certain number of\ntimes a day, or a week, something else than a newspaper or a novel;\nthat he should turn now and then to some serious subject of meditation\nand dwell on it. Perhaps the day will come when every one independently\nwill compose a Bible of his own; will select from among the works of\nthe greatest human thinkers the passages which especially appeal to\nhim, and will read them and re-read and assimilate them. To read a\nserious and high-minded book is to deal at first hand with the greatest\nof human thoughts; to admire is to pray, and it is a form of prayer\nthat is within the power of all of us.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nRELIGION AND NON-RELIGION AMONG THE PEOPLE.\n\n    I. Is religious sentiment an innate and imperishable\n      possession of humanity?\u2014Frequent confusion of a sentiment\n      for religion with a sentiment for philosophy and\n      morals\u2014Renan\u2014Max M\u00fcller\u2014Difference between the evolution\n      of belief in the individual and the evolution of belief\n      in the race\u2014Will the disappearance of faith leave a void\n      behind?\n\n    II. Will the dissolution of religion result in a\n      dissolution of morality among the people?\u2014Is religion\n      the sole safeguard of social authority and public\n      morality?\u2014Christianity and socialism\u2014Relation between\n      non-religion and immorality, according to statistics.\n\n    III. Is Protestantism a necessary transition stage\n      between religion and free-thought?\u2014Projects for\n      Protestantizing France\u2014Michelet, Quinet, De Laveleye,\n      Renouvier, and Pillon\u2014Intellectual, moral, and political\n      superiority of Protestantism\u2014Utopian character of\n      the project\u2014Uselessness, for purposes of morals, of\n      substituting one religion for another\u2014Is the possession\n      of religion a condition _sine qua non_ of superiority in\n      the struggle for existence?\u2014Objections urged against\n      France and the French Revolution by Matthew Arnold;\n      Greece and Judea compared, France and Protestant nations\n      compared\u2014Critical examination of Matthew Arnold\u2019s\n      theory\u2014Cannot free-thought, science, and art evolve their\n      respective ideals from within?\n\n\nWe have seen the dissolution which menaces religious dogmatism, and\neven religious morality, in modern societies. And from the very fact\nof such dissolution certain more or less disturbing social problems\narise. Is it really a perilous thing, this gradual enfeeblement of\nwhat has so long served as the basis of social and domestic virtue?\nCertain people delight in subjecting nine-tenths of the human race to\na sort of ostracism. They declare in advance that the people, and all\nwomen and children, are incapable of rising to a conception which it\nis recognized that a large number of men have attained. The mass of\nthe people, it is said, and women and children, must be appealed to on\nthe side of the imagination; only, one must take care to choose the\nleast dangerous form of appeal possible, for fear of injuring those\nwhom one means to serve. Let us consider to what extent this incapacity\nof the people, of women and children, for philosophy is capable of\ndemonstration. It is the more necessary in this book, in that it\nis the sociological aspect of religion that is here the subject of\ninvestigation.\n\n\n_I. Is religious sentiment an innate and imperishable possession of\nhumanity?_\n\n[Sidenote: Tendency to regard religious beliefs as necessary in\nproportion to their absurdity.]\n\nIn our days, be it remarked, religious sentiment has found defenders\namong those who, like Renan, Taine, and so many others, are most\nfirmly convinced of the absurdities of the dogmas themselves. So\nlong as such men occupy a purely intellectual point of view\u2014that\nis to say, their real point of view\u2014the whole of the contents of\nreligion, all the dogmas, all the rites appear to them to be so many\nastounding errors, a vast system of unconscious, mutual deception;\nbut the instant, on the contrary, they regard religion from the point\nof view of sensibility\u2014that is to say, from the point of view of\nthe masses\u2014everything becomes justifiable in their eyes; everything\nthat they would attack without scruple as a bit of reasoning becomes\nsacred to them as a bit of sentiment, and by a strange optical illusion\nthe absurdity of religious beliefs becomes an additional proof of\ntheir necessity; the greater the abyss which separates them from the\nintelligence of the masses, the greater their fear of having this\nabyss filled up. They do not for themselves feel the need of religious\nbeliefs, but on this very account they regard them as indispensable for\nother people. They say, \u201cHow many irrational beliefs the people do have\nthat we get along very well without!\u201d And they conclude, therefore,\n\u201cThese beliefs must be extremely necessary to the existence of social\nlife and must correspond to a real need, in order thus firmly to have\nimplanted themselves in the life of the masses.\u201d[73]\n\n      [73] Moreover when one has passed one\u2019s life, or even many\n      years, in any study whatsoever, one is inclined extremely to\n      exaggerate the importance of this study. Greek professors\n      believe that Greek is necessary to the best interests of\n      humanity. When any question arises of drawing up a curriculum,\n      if the professors of the several studies are interrogated, each\n      wishes to see his own especial branch of science in the first\n      rank. I remember that after I myself had been making Latin\n      verses for some years I would have ranged myself voluntarily\n      among the defenders of Latin verse. Whenever anyone makes an\n      especial study of some work of genius, that of an individual,\n      or _a fortiori_ that of a people\u2014Plato, Aristotle or Kant, the\n      Vedas or the Bible, this work tends to become in his eyes the\n      very centre of human thought; the book of which one makes a\n      special study tends to become _the_ book. A priest looks upon\n      the whole of human life as an affair of faith simply; knowledge\n      to a priest means simply a knowledge of the Fathers of the\n      Church. It is not astonishing that even members of the laity,\n      who have made religion the principal object of their studies,\n      should be inclined to magnify its importance for humanity,\n      or that the historian of religious thought should regard it\n      as including the whole of human life, and as acquiring, even\n      independently of any notion of revelation, a sort of inviolable\n      character.\n\n[Sidenote: Free-thought for an intellectual aristocracy.]\n\nFrequently, along with this belief in the omnipotence of the religious\nsentiment, there goes a certain contempt for those who are the victims\nof it; they are the serfs of thought, they must remain attached to\nthe soil, bound within the limits of their own narrow horizon. The\naristocracy of science is the most jealous of aristocracies, and\na certain number of our contemporary men of science are bent on\ncarrying their coat of mail in their brain. They profess toward the\nmass of the people a somewhat contemptuous charity, and propose to\nleave it undisturbed in its beliefs, immersed in prejudice as being\nthe sole habitat in which it is capable of existing. For the rest,\nthey sometimes envy the people its eternal ignorance, platonically\nof course. The bird no doubt possesses vague regrets, vague desires,\nwhen he perceives from on high a worm trailing tranquilly through\nthe dew, oblivious of heaven; but the bird, as a matter of fact, is\nalways careful to retain his wings, and our superior men of science\ndo the same. In their judgment, certain superior minds are capable of\nenfranchising themselves from religion, without evil results following;\nthe mass of the people cannot. It is necessary to reserve freedom of\nconscience and free-thought for a certain select few; the intellectual\naristocracy should defend itself by a fortified camp. Just as the\nancient Roman people demanded bread and spectacles, so modern people\ndemand temples, and to give them temples is sometimes the sole means\nof making them forget that they have not enough bread. The mass of\nhumanity must, as a mere necessity of existence, adore a god, and not\nsimply god in general, but a certain God whose commandments are to be\nfound in a pocket Bible. A sacred book, _that_ is what is necessary.\nWe are reminded of Mr. Spencer\u2019s saying, that the superstition of\nthe present day is the superstition of the printed page; we believe\nthat some mystical virtue inheres in the four and twenty letters of\nthe alphabet. When a child asks questions concerning the birth of his\nyounger brother, he is told that one found him under a bush in the\ngarden; and the child is content. The mass of the people is a big child\nsimply, and must be dealt with after the same fashion. When the mass\nof the people asks questions about the origin of the world, hand it\nthe Bible\u2014it will there see that the world was made by a determinate\nBeing, who carefully adjusted its parts to each other; it will learn\nthe precise amount of time that was consumed in the work; seven days,\nneither more nor less; and it needs learn nothing further. Its mind is\nwalled in by a good solid barrier which it is forbidden to overleap\neven by a look\u2014the wall of faith. Its brain is carefully sealed, the\nsutures become firm with age, and there is nothing to do but to begin\nthe same thing over again with the next generation.\n\nIs it then true that religion is thus, for the mass of mankind, either\na necessary good or a necessary evil, rooted in the human heart?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Confusion of religious sentiment with need for philosophy\nand morality.]\n\nThe belief that the religious sentiment is innate and perpetual rests\nupon a confusion of the religious sentiment with the need that exists\nin mankind for philosophy and morality; and however closely bound up\ntogether philosophy and morality and religion may be, they are in\nthemselves distinct and separate, and tend progressively to become more\nand more manifestly so.\n\n[Sidenote: Religious sentiment not innate.]\n\nIn the first place, how universal soever the religious sentiment may\nappear to be, it must be admitted that it is not innate. Persons who\nhave passed their childhood without any communication with other\nhuman beings, owing to some corporal defect, display no signs of the\npossession of religious ideas. Dr. Kitto, in his book on the loss of\nthe senses, cites the case of an American woman who was congenitally\ndeaf and dumb, and who later, after she was capable of communicating\nwith the people about her, was found not to possess the slightest\nnotion of a divinity. The Rev. Samuel Smith, after twenty-three\nyears intercourse with deaf mutes, says that, education apart, they\npossess no notion of a divinity. Lubbock and Baker cite a great number\nof examples of savages who are in the same case. According to the\nconclusions set forth above, in the beginning religions did not spring\nready-made out of the human heart: they were imposed on man from\nwithout, they reached him through his eyes and through his ears; they\ncontained no element of mysticism\u2014in their first steps. Those who\nderive mysticism from an innate religious sentiment reason a little\nafter the manner of those who in politics should derive royalty from\nsome supposed innate respect for a royal race. Such a respect is the\nwork of time, of custom, of the sympathetic tendencies of a body of men\nlong trained in some one direction; there is contained in it no single\nprimitive element, and yet the power of the sentiment of loyalty to\na royal race is considerable. The Revolution showed as much, in the\nwars of the Vend\u00e9e. But this power wears out some day or other, the\ncult for royalty disappears with the disappearance of royalty itself;\nother habits are formed, creating other sentiments, and the spectator\nis surprised to see that a people which was royalist under monarchy\nbecomes republican under republicanism. The reign of sensibility over\nintelligence is not perpetual; sooner or later, the position of the two\nmust be reversed; there is an intellectual habitat to which we must as\ninevitably adapt ourselves as to our physical habitat. The perpetuity\nof the religious sentiment depends upon its legitimacy. Born, as it is,\nof certain beliefs and certain customs, its fate is one with theirs.\nSo long as a belief is not completely compromised and dissolved, the\nsentiment attaching to it may no doubt possess the power of preserving\nit, for sentiment always plays the r\u00f4le of protector and preserver.\nThe human soul in this respect is analogous to society. Religious or\npolitical sentiments resemble iron braces buried in some wall menaced\nwith ruin; they bind together the disjointed stones, and may well\nsustain the edifice for some time longer than, but for them, it would\nhave stood; but let the wall once be undermined, so that it begins\nto give way, and they will fall with it. No better method could be\nemployed for securing the complete and absolute extinction of a dogma\nor an institution than to maintain it till the last possible instant;\nits fall under such circumstances becomes a veritable annihilation.\nThere are periods in history when to preserve is not to save but\ndefinitely to ruin.\n\n[Sidenote: Post hoc ergo propter hoc.]\n\nThe perpetuity of religion has therefore in nowise been demonstrated.\nFrom the fact that religions always have existed it cannot be concluded\nthat they always will exist; by ratiocination like that one might\nindeed achieve singular consequences. Humanity has always, in all\ntimes and places, associated certain events with others which chanced\nto accompany them; _post hoc ergo propter hoc_ is a universal sophism\nand the principle of all superstition. It is the basis of the belief\nthat thirteen must not sit down at table, that one must be careful\nnot to spill the salt, etc. Certain beliefs of this kind, such as\nthat Friday is an unlucky day, are so widespread that they suffice\nsensibly to affect the average of travellers arriving in Paris on\nthat day of the week by train and omnibus; a number of Parisians are\naverse to beginning a journey on Friday, or to attending to business\nthat can be postponed; and it must be remembered that the intelligence\nof Parisians, at least of the men, stands high in the scale. What can\none conclude from that if not that superstition is tenacious of life\nin the bosom of humanity and will long be so? Let us reason, then, in\nregard to superstition as in regard to mythological religion. Must we\nnot admit that the need of superstition is innate in man, that it is\npart of his nature, that his life would really be incomplete if he\nceased to believe that the breaking of a mirror is a sign that someone\nwill die? Let us therefore set about finding some _modus vivendi_\nwith superstition; let us combat superstitions which are harmful not\nby exposing their irrationality but by substituting in their stead\nsuperstitions which are contrary to them and inoffensive. Let us\ndeclare that there are political superstitions and instruct women and\nchildren in them; let us inoculate, for example, feeble minds with\nthat ingenious Mohammedan aphorism, that the duration of one\u2019s life is\ndetermined in advance and that the coward gains absolutely nothing by\nfleeing from the field of battle; if he was fated to die, he will die\non his own doorstep. Does not that strike one as a useful belief for an\narmy to hold and more inoffensive than a great many religious beliefs?\nPerhaps it even contains an element of truth.\n\n[Sidenote: That religious beliefs have been useful no reason for\nretaining them.]\n\nOne might go far along that path and discover a number of necessary\nor at least useful illusions, a number of \u201cindestructible\u201d beliefs.\n\u201cIt is,\u201d says M. Renan, \u201cmore difficult to hinder mankind\u2019s believing\nthan to induce it to believe.\u201d Certainly it is. In other words, it is\nmore difficult to instruct than to deceive. If it were not so, what\nmerit would there be in the communication of knowledge? Knowledge is\nalways more complex than prejudice. A knowledge sufficiently complete\nto put one on one\u2019s guard against lapses of judgment demands years\nof patience. Happily, humanity has long centuries before it, long\ncenturies and treasures of perseverance; for there is no creature more\npersevering than man and no man more obstinate than the savant. But\nit may be said that religious myths, being better adapted than pure\nknowledge to popular intelligence, possess after all the advantage of\nsymbolizing a portion of the truth; and that on this score one may\npermit them to the vulgar. It is as if one should say that the \u201cvulgar\u201d\nshould be permitted to believe that the sun moves round the earth\nbecause the common man is incapable of conceiving, with accuracy, the\ninfinite complexity of the motion of the stars. But every theory, every\nattempted explanation, however crude it may be, is in some degree a\nsymbol of the truth. It is symbolic of the truth to say that nature\nexperiences a horror of a vacuum, that the blood lies motionless in\nthe arteries, that the line of vision runs from the eye to the object,\ninstead of from the object to the eye. All these primitive theories are\nincomplete formulations of the reality, more or less popular efforts to\n\u201crender\u201d it; they rest upon visible facts not yet correctly interpreted\nby a completer scientific knowledge; and does that constitute a reason\nfor respecting all these symbols, and for condemning the popular\nintelligence to fatten upon them? Primitive and mythical explanations\nserved in the past to build up the truth; they ought not nowadays to\nbe employed to obscure it. When a scaffolding has served its purpose\nin aiding one to erect an edifice, one tears it down. If certain\ntales are good to amuse children with, one at least should be careful\nthat they are not taken too seriously. Let us not take outworn dogmas\ntoo seriously, let us not regard them with excessive complacency and\ntenderness; if they are still legitimately objects of admiration to us\nwhen we reset them among the circumstances to which they owed their\nbirth, they cease to be so the instant one endeavours to perpetuate\nthem among the circumstances of modern life where they are quite out of\nplace.\n\n[Sidenote: Preliminary acquisition of falsehood not necessary to\nrecognition of truth.]\n\nLike M. Renan, Mr. Max M\u00fcller almost sees an example to be followed\nin the castes established by the Hindus among the minds, as among the\nclasses of the people, in the regular periods or asr\u00e2mas through which\nthey oblige the intelligence successively to pass, in the hierarchy of\nreligions with which they burden the spirit of the faithful. For them\ntraditional error is sacred and venerable; it serves as a preparation\nfor the truth; one must place a bandage on the eyes of the neophyte in\norder to be able to take it off again afterward. The tendencies of the\nmodern mind are precisely the opposite; it likes to supply the present\ngeneration at once, and without superfluous preliminary, with the whole\nbody of truth acquired by the generations which have passed away,\nwithout false respect or false courtesy for the errors it replaces;\nit is not enough that the light should filter into the mind through\nsome secret rift, the doors and windows must be thrown wide open.\nThe modern mind fails to see in what respect a deliberate effort to\ninculcate absurdity in a portion of the community can serve to secure\nrectitude of judgment in the remaining portions; or in what respect it\nis necessary to build a house of truth upon a foundation of falsehood;\nor to run down the part of the hill that we have already climbed, as a\npreparation for climbing higher.\n\n[Sidenote: Transformation of faith inevitable.]\n\nIf the religious sentiment should disappear, it may be objected, it\nwould leave a void which it would be impossible to fill, and humanity\u2019s\nhorror of a vacuum is even greater than nature\u2019s. Humanity, therefore,\nwould satisfy somehow or other, even with absurdities, that eternal\nneed of believing of which we have spoken above. The instant one\nreligion is destroyed another takes its place; it will be always so\nfrom age to age, because the religious sentiment will always exist as\na continuing need for some object of worship which it will create and\nre-create in spite of all the ratiocination in the world. No victory\nover nature can be lasting; no permanent need in the human breast\ncan be long silenced. There are periods in human life when faith is\nas imperious as love; one experiences a hunger to embrace something,\nto give one\u2019s self\u2014even to a figment of the imagination; one is a\nvictim to a fever of faith. Sometimes this mood lasts throughout\none\u2019s whole life, sometimes it lasts some days only or some hours;\nthere are cases in which it does not present itself till late, and\neven very late, in life. And the priest has taken note of all these\nvicissitudes; he is always there, patient, waiting tranquilly for the\nmoment when the symptoms shall appear, and the sleeping sentiment\nshall awaken and become masterful; he has the Host ready, he has\ngreat temples reverberating with sacred prayers, where man may come\nto kneel, and breathe in the spirit of God, and arise strengthened.\nThe reply is that it is a mistake to regard all humanity as typified\nin the person of the recently disabused believer. It has often been\nmade a subject of reproach to free-thinkers that they endeavour to\ndestroy without replacing, but one cannot destroy a religion in the\nbreasts of a people. At some certain moment in its history it falls of\nits own weight, with the disappearance of the pretended evidences on\nwhich it was resting; it does not, properly speaking, die; it ceases\nsimply\u2014becomes extinct. It will cease definitely when it shall have\nbecome useless, and there is no obligation to replace what is no longer\nnecessary. Among the masses, intelligence is never far in advance\nof tradition; one never adopts a new idea until one has by degrees\nbecome accustomed to it. It all takes place without violence, or at\nleast without lasting violence; the crisis passes, the wound closes\nquickly, and leaves no trace behind; the forehead of the masses bears\nno scar. Progress lies in wait for the moment of least resistance, of\nleast pain. Even revolutions do not succeed except in so far as they\nare purely beneficial, as they constitute a universally advantageous\nevolution. For the rest, there is no such thing as a revolution, or a\ncataclysm, properly so called, in human belief. Each generation adds a\ndoubt to those which existed before in the minds of their parents, and\nthus faith falls away bit by bit, like the banks of a river worn by the\nstream; the sentiments which were bound up with the belief go with it,\nbut they are incessantly replaced by others, a new wave sweeps forward\nto fill the void, and the human soul profits by its losses and grows\nlarger, like the bed of a river. The adaptation of a people to its\nenvironment is a beneficent law. It has often been said, and justly,\nthat there is food for the soul as well as food for the body; and the\nanalogy may be pursued by remarking that it is difficult to induce\na people to change its national diet. For centuries the inhabitants\nof Brittany have lived upon imperfectly cooked buckwheat cakes, as\nthey live by their simple faith and infantine superstitions. It may,\nhowever, be affirmed, _a priori_, that the day will come when the reign\nof the buckwheat cake in Brittany will be at an end, or at least will\nbe shared by other, and better prepared, and more nourishing foods; it\nis equally rational to affirm that the faith of Brittany will some day\ncome to an end, that the somewhat feeble minds of the inhabitants will\nsooner or later seek nourishment in solider ideas and beliefs, and that\nthe whole of their intellectual life will, by degrees, be transformed\nand renewed.\n\n[Sidenote: The disenchantment that accompanies it temporary.]\n\nIt is only those who have been reared in a faith, and then disabused\nof it, that preserve, along with their primitive sentiments, a certain\nhome-sickness for a belief to correspond to these sentiments. The\nreason is that they have been violently hastened in their passage from\nbelief to incredulity. The story of the passing disenchantment with\nlife, which the recent disbeliever experiences, has often been told.\n\u201cI felt horribly exiled,\u201d M. Renan once said, in speaking of the moral\ncrisis through which he himself had passed. \u201cThe fish in Lake Baikal\nhave taken thousands of years, it is said, to transform themselves from\nsalt-water to fresh-water fish. I had to achieve my own transformation\nin the course of some weeks. Catholicism surrounds the whole of life\nlike an enchanted circle with so much magic that, when one is deprived\nof it, everything seems insipid and melancholy; the universe looked to\nme like a desert. If Christianity was not true, everything else seemed\nto me to be indifferent, frivolous, scarce worthy of attention; the\nworld looked mediocre, morally impoverished to me. The world seemed\nto me to be in its dotage and decadence; I felt lost in a nation of\npigmies.\u201d This pain incident to metamorphosis, this sort of despair at\nrenouncing everything that one has believed and loved up to that time,\nis not peculiar to the Christian who has fallen away from Christianity;\nit exists in diverse degrees, as M. Renan well knew, whenever a love of\nany sort comes to an end in us. For him who, for example, has placed\nhis whole life in the love of a woman and feels himself betrayed by\nher, life seems not less disenchanted than for the believer who sees\nhimself abandoned by his God. Even simple intellectual errors may\nproduce an analogous sentiment. Archimedes no doubt would have felt\nhis life crumble away beneath him, if he had discovered irremediable\nlacun\u00e6 in his chain of theorems. The more intimately a god has been\npersonified and humanized, the more intimately he comes to be beloved,\nand the greater must be the wound he leaves behind when he deserts the\nheart. But even though this wound be in certain instances incurable,\nthat fact constitutes no argument in support of the religion of the\nmasses, for an illegitimate and unjustifiable love may cause as\nmuch suffering when one is deprived of it as a legitimate love. The\nbitterness of truth lies less in truth itself than in the resistance\noffered to it by intrenched and established error. It is not the world\nwhich is desert when deprived of the god of our dreams, it is our own\nheart; and we have ourselves to blame if we have filled our hearts with\nnothing better than dreams. For the rest, in the majority of cases, the\nvoid, the sense of loss which a religion leaves behind, is not lasting;\none adapts one\u2019s self to one\u2019s new moral environment, one becomes\nhappy again; no doubt not in the same manner\u2014one is never happy twice\nin the same manner\u2014but in a manner less primitive, less infantine,\nmore stable. M. Renan is an example of it. His transmutation into a\nfresh-water fish was achieved in reality tranquilly enough; it is\ndoubtful whether he ever dreams now of the salt-water stretches of the\nBible, and nobody has ever declared so forcibly that he is happy. One\nmight almost make it a matter of reproach to him, and suggest that the\nprofoundest happiness is sometimes not so precisely aware of itself. If\nevery absolute faith is a little na\u00efve, one is not absolutely without\nna\u00efvet\u00e9 when one is too confident of one\u2019s own happiness.\n\n[Sidenote: The essential cheapness of religious speculation.]\n\nTo the surprise and to the disenchantment which a former Christian\nexperiences in the presence of scientific truth may be opposed the\neven more profound astonishment which those who have been exclusively\nnourished on science experience in the presence of religious dogma.\nThe man of science can understand religious dogmas, for he can follow\nthe course of their birth and development century by century; but he\nexperiences, in his effort to adapt himself to this narrow environment,\nsomething of the difficulty that he might feel in an effort to enter\na Liliputian fairy palace. The world of religion\u2014with the ridiculous\nimportance which it ascribes to the earth as the centre of the\nuniverse, with the palpable moral errors that the Bible contains, with\nits whole body of legend, which is affecting only to those who believe\nin them, with its superannuated rites\u2014all seems so poor, so powerless\nto symbolize the infinite, that the man of science is inclined to see\nin these infantine dreams the repugnant and despicable side rather\nthan the elevated and attractive side. Livingstone says that one day,\nafter having preached the Gospel to a new tribe, he was taking a walk\nin the neighbouring fields when he heard near him, behind a bush, a\nstrange noise like a convulsive cough; he there found a young negro who\nhad been taken by an irresistible desire to laugh by the account of\nthe Biblical legends, and had hidden himself there out of respect for\nLivingstone, and in the shadow of the bush was writhing with laughter\nand unable to reply to the questions of the worthy pastor. Certainly\nthe surprising legends of religion can give rise to no such outburst\nof gaiety as this in one who has spent his life among the facts of\nscience and the reasoned theories of philosophy. He feels rather a\ncertain bitterness, such as one feels generally in the presence of\nhuman feebleness, for man feels something of the same solidarity in the\npresence of human error as in the presence of human suffering. If the\neighteenth century ridiculed superstition, if the human mind was then\n\u201cdancing,\u201d as Voltaire said, \u201cin chains,\u201d it is the distinction of our\nepoch more accurately to have estimated the weight of those chains; and\nin truth, when one examines coolly the poverty of the popular attempts\nthat have been made to represent the world and the ideal of mankind,\none feels less inclination to laugh than to weep.\n\n[Sidenote: Inevitable extinction of fanaticism.]\n\nBut, however that may be, the evolution of human belief must not be\njudged by the painful revolutions of individual belief; in humanity\nsuch transformations are subject to regular laws. The very explosions\nof the religious sentiment, explosions even of fanaticism, which\nstill occur and have so often occurred in the course of religious\ndegeneration, enter as an integral part into the formula of the very\nprocess of degeneration itself. After having been so long one of the\nmost ardent interests of humanity, religious faith must, of necessity,\nbe slow in cooling. Every human interest resembles those stars which\nare gradually declining at once in light and heat, and which from\ntime to time present a solid exterior and then, as the result of some\ninner disturbance, burst through their outer rind and become once\nmore brilliant to a degree that they had not rivalled for hundreds\nof centuries; but this very brilliancy is itself an expenditure of\nlight and heat, a phase simply of the process of cooling. The star\nhardens once more on its surface, and, after every fresh cataclysm and\nillumination, it becomes less brilliant and dies in its efforts to\nrevive. A spectator who should be watching it from a sufficient height\nmight even find a certain comfort in the triumphs of the very spirit\nof fanaticism and reaction which result in a prolonged subsequent\nenfeeblement and a more rapid approach toward final extinction. Just\nas haste is sometimes more deliberate than deliberation, so a violent\neffort to reanimate the past sometimes results in hastening its death.\nYou cannot heat a cold star from the outside.\n\n\n_II. Will the dissolution of religion result in a dissolution of\nmorality among the people?_\n\nThe general enfeeblement of the religious instinct will set free, for\nemployment in social progress, an immense amount of force hitherto\nset aside for the service of mysticism; but it may well be asked also\nwhether there are not a number of forces hurtful to society, and\nhitherto held in check or annulled by the religious instinct, which\nupon its disappearance will be given free play.\n\n[Sidenote: One must respect what is respectable only.]\n\n\u201cChristianity,\u201d Guizot said, \u201cis a necessity for mankind; it is\na school of reverence.\u201d No doubt; but less so perhaps than Hindu\nreligions, which go the length of proposing the absolute division of\nmankind into castes as an object for reverence; however contrary it may\nbe to the natural sentiments of mankind and the operation of social\nlaws. Assuredly no society can subsist if its members neither respect\nnor reverence what is respectable and venerable; respect is decidedly\nan indispensable element in national life; the fact is one which we too\neasily forget in France; but society is barred from progress if one\nrespects what is not respectable, and progress is a condition of life\nfor a society. Tell me what you respect, and I will tell you what you\nare. The progress of human reverence for objects ever higher and more\nhigh is symbolic of all other kinds of progress achieved by the human\nmind.\n\n[Sidenote: Christianity quite the opposite of a defence against\ncommunism.]\n\nBut for religion, say the Guizot school, the property-question would\nsweep away the masses of the people; it is the Church which holds\nthem in check. If there is a property-question, let us not seek to\nignore it; let us labour sincerely and actively at its solution. _Qui\ntrompe-t-on ici?_ Is God simply a means of saving the capitalist? More\nthan that, the property-question is not one which is more intimately\nbound up to-day with religion than with free-thought. Christianity,\nwhich implicitly contains within it the principles of communism,\nis itself responsible for spreading ideas among the people which\nhave inevitably germinated in the course of the great intellectual\ngermination which distinguishes the present epoch. M. de Laveleye,\none of the defenders of liberal Christianity, confesses as much.\nIt was well known that among the first Christians all property was\nheld in common, and that communism was the immediate consequence\nof baptism.[74] \u201cWe hold everything in common except our women,\u201d\nTertullian and St. Justin say; \u201cwe share everything.\u201d[75] It is well\nknown with what vehemence the Fathers of the Church have attacked the\nright of private property. \u201cThe earth,\u201d says St. Ambrose, \u201cwas given\nto the rich and poor in common. Why, oh, ye rich! should ye arrogate\nto yourselves alone the ownership of it?\u201d \u201cNature created rights in\ncommon, usurpation has created private rights.\u201d \u201cWealth is always the\nproduct of robbery,\u201d says St. Jerome. \u201cThe rich man is a robber,\u201d\nsays St. Basil. \u201cIniquity is the basis of private property,\u201d says St.\nClement. \u201cThe rich man is a brigand,\u201d says St. Chrysostom. Bossuet\nhimself cries, in a sermon on the distribution of the necessities\nof life: \u201cThe murmurs of the poor are just: why this inequality of\ncondition?\u201d And, in the sermon on the eminent dignity of the poor:\n\u201cThe politics of Jesus are directly opposed to those of this century.\u201d\nAnd finally Pascal, summing up in an illustration all the socialistic\nideas which compose the bulk of Christian doctrine: \u201c\u2018That dog is\nmine,\u2019 say these poor children; \u2018that place there is my place in the\nsun.\u2019 Behold the beginning and the type of the usurpation of the\nearth.\u201d When \u201cthese poor children\u201d are men, they do not always view\nthe usurpation of the earth with resignation; from the Middle Ages\ndown they have, from time to time, risen in revolt and there have\nbeen resulting massacres. Men like Pastoureaux and Jacques in France\nand Wat Tyler in England, the anabaptists and John of Leyden in\nGermany, are examples of what we mean. But, these great explosions of\npopular clamour once at an end, the Christian priest had always at his\ndisposal, to subdue the crowd, a robust doctrine of compensation in\nheaven for one\u2019s sufferings on earth; all the beatitudes are summed up\nin \u201cBlessed are the poor, for they shall see God.\u201d In our days, owing\nto the progress of the natural sciences, anything like certitude on the\nsubject of compensation in heaven has disappeared; even the Christian,\nless sure of Paradise, aspires to see the justice and compensations of\nheaven realized in this world. The most durable element in Christianity\nis, therefore, less the check that it imposes upon the masses than\nthe contempt for the established order with which it inspires them.\nReligion is nowadays obliged to call in social science to aid it in\nits struggle against socialism. The true principle of private property\nas of social authority cannot be religious; it lies essentially in\nthe sentiment of the rights of other people and in an increasingly\nscientific acquaintance with the conditions of social and political\nlife.\n\n      [74] _Acts_ ii. 44, 45; iv. 32, sqq.\n\n      [75] Tertull. _Apolog._ c. 39, Justin., _Apolog._ I, 14.\n\n[Sidenote: Religion not necessary to morality.]\n\nBut is not religion a safeguard of popular morality? It is true\nthat immorality and crime are habitually conceived as associated\nwith non-religion, and as products of it. Criminologists, however,\nhave demonstrated that no proposition could be less tenable. If one\nconsiders the mass of the delinquents in any country, one will find\nthat irreligion among them is an exception, and a rare exception. In\nunusually religious countries like England delinquents are not less\nnumerous, and the average of belief among them is higher; the greater\nnumber, Mayhew says, profess to believe in the Bible. In France,\nwhere non-religion is so common, it is natural that it should also\nbe common among the criminal classes, but it is far from being the\nrule; it is most frequent among the leaders, the organizers of crime,\nthose, in effect, who rise above the mass of their fellows, like\nMandrin in the last century, La Pommerais, Lacenaire. If sociologists\nfind themselves obliged to attribute a positive antisocial bias to\ncertain criminals, it is not surprising that they should recognize\nin a number of them an amount of instruction and a degree of talent\namply sufficient to disembarrass them of the superstitious beliefs of\nthe multitude, which are shared by their companions in crime. Neither\ntheir talents nor their culture have sufficed absolutely to check\ntheir evil disposition, but certainly they have not been responsible\nfor it. Criminologists cite a number of facts which go to prove that\nthe most minute and sincere practice of religion may go along with the\ngreatest crimes. Despine relates that Bourse had scarcely finished a\nrobbery and a homicide, before he went to kneel and take part in a\nchurch service. G., a courtesan, as she set fire to her lover\u2019s house,\ncried: \u201cGod and the ever blessed Virgin do the rest!\u201d The wife of\nParency, while her husband was killing an old man as a preliminary to\nrobbery, was praying God for her husband\u2019s success. It is well known\nhow religious the Marquise of Brinvilliers was; her very condemnation\nwas facilitated by the fact of her having written with her own hands\na secret confession of her sins in which she made mention, along with\nparricides, fratricides, arsons, and poisonings without number, of the\nlist of the number of times that she had been remiss or negligent in\nconfession.[76] Religion is no more responsible for all these crimes\nthan non-religion is; the higher elements of both are equally debarred\nof entrance into the brain of a criminal. Although the moral sense\nand religious sentiment are in origin distinct, they act and react\nincessantly upon each other. It may be announced, as a law, that no one\nwhose moral sense is obliterated can be capable of experiencing genuine\nreligious sentiment in all its purity, though such a person may well\nbe more than usually apt to attach a value to the superstitious forms\nof a cult. The religious sentiment, at its height, always rests upon a\nrefined moral sense, although, when religious sentiment goes further\nand becomes fanaticism, it may react on and debase the moral sense. On\na person who is deficient in moral sense, religion produces no effects\nbut such as are evil\u2014fanaticism, formalism, and hypocrisy\u2014because it\nis of necessity ill-comprehended and misconstrued.\n\n      [76] It must not be believed that even prostitutes, who\n      as a class are so closely allied to criminals, are wholly\n      non-religious. A case is cited of a number of prostitutes who\n      subscribed the money to have one of their companions, who was\n      on the point of death, removed from a house of ill-fame to\n      some place where the priest might visit her; others subscribed\n      money for a great number of masses to be said for the soul of\n      a companion who was dead. At all events prostitutes are quite\n      superstitious, and their religion swarms with strange and\n      ridiculous beliefs.\n\n      In Italy criminals are usually religious. Quite recently the\n      Tozzi family of butchers, after having killed and dismembered a\n      young man, sold his blood, mixed with sheep\u2019s blood, in their\n      shop, and went none the less to perform their devotions to the\n      Madonna, and to kiss the statue of the Virgin. The Caruso band,\n      Lombroso says, habitually placed sacred images in the caves\n      and woods in which they lived, and burned candles before them.\n      Verzeni, who strangled three women, was an assiduous frequenter\n      of the church and the confessional, and he came of a family\n      which was not only religious but bigoted. The companions of\n      La Gala, who were imprisoned at Pisa, obstinately refused to\n      take food on Friday during Lent, and when the keeper tried\n      to persuade them to do so, they replied, \u201cDo you think we\n      have been excommunicated?\u201d Masini, with his band, met three\n      countrymen and among them a priest; he slowly sawed open the\n      throat of one of them with an ill-sharpened knife, and then,\n      with his hands still bloody, obliged the priest to give him the\n      consecrated Host. Giovani Mio and Fontana went to confession\n      before going out to commit a murder. A young Neapolitan\n      parricide, covered with amulets, confessed to Lombroso that\n      he had invoked the aid of the Madonna de la Cha\u00eene in the\n      accomplishment of his horrible crime. \u201cAnd that she really\n      helped me I conclude from this, that at the first blow of the\n      stick my father fell dead, although I am myself personally\n      weak.\u201d Another murderer, a woman, before killing her husband,\n      fell on her knees and prayed to the blessed Virgin to give her\n      the strength to accomplish her crime. Still another announced\n      his acceptance of a line of action devised by his companion in\n      these words, \u201cI will come, and I will do that with which God\n      has inspired thee.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Ignorance, not Catholicism, responsible for immorality.]\n\nCatholic countries often supply an unusually high percentage of\ncriminals, because Catholic countries are more ignorant than Protestant\ncountries. In Italy, for example, as many as sixteen out of every\nhundred deaths in the Papal States and Southern Italy, have at times\nbeen deaths by violence, whereas in Liguria and Piedmont only two\nor three out of every hundred are deaths by violence. The population\nof Paris is not, on the whole, more immoral than that of any other\ngreat European city, although it is distinctly less religious; what\na difference, for example, between London and Paris! The churches,\ntemples, and synagogues in Paris would not hold one-tenth of the\npopulation, and, as they are half empty in time of services, a\nstatistician may with some show of reason conclude that only about a\ntwentieth of the population fulfil their religious duties. Whereas\nParis contains only 169 places of worship, London, in 1882, possessed\n1231\u2014without counting the religious assemblies which regularly gather\nin the parks, the public squares, and even under the railway viaducts.\n\n[Sidenote: Non-religion not responsible for French Revolution and the\nCommune.]\n\nBut should not the crimes of the Commune and those of the French\nRevolution be set down to non-religion? One might, with more show of\ntruth, render religion responsible for the massacres of St. Bartholomew\nand of the Dragonnades, for, in the wars of the Huguenots, of the\nVaudois, of the Albigenses, the issue was a religious issue, whereas in\nthe case of the Commune the issue was wholly a social one; religion was\nonly very indirectly involved in it. The analogy for the Commune is to\nbe found in the wars concerning the agrarian laws of ancient Rome, or\nin contemporary strikes which are so often accompanied by bloodshed, or\nin any of the brutal uprisings of the labourer or the peasant against\nthe capitalist or the owner of the soil. Be it remarked, moreover,\nthat in all these and the like contests the stronger party\u2014the\nrepresentative of society and, it is alleged, of religion\u2014commits,\nin the name of repression, violences comparable to and sometimes less\nexcusable than those with which they charge the party of disorder.\n\n[Sidenote: Labour for labour\u2019s sake.]\n\nWhat demoralizes races and peoples is not so much the downfall of\nreligion as the luxury and idleness of the few and the discontented\npoverty of the many. In society demoralization begins at the two\nextremes, top and bottom. The law of labour is open to two species\nof revolt; the revolt of the discontented working man who curses the\nlaw of labour even while he obeys it, and the revolt of the idle\nnoble, or man of fortune, who ignores it simply. The richest classes\nin society are often those whose lives show a minimum of devotion, of\ndisinterestedness, of true moral elevation. For a fashionable woman,\nfor example, the duties of life too frequently consist in an unbroken\nround of trifles; she is utterly ignorant of what it means to take\npains. To bear a child or two (to exceed the number of three, one of\nthem has said, is the height of immorality), to have a nurse to take\ncare of them, to be faithful to one\u2019s husband, at least within the\nlimits of coquetry\u2014behold the whole duty of woman! Too frequently,\nin the upper classes, duty comes to be conceived simply as a matter\nof abstinence, of not being as nasty or as wicked as one might.\nTemptations to do evil increase in number as one mounts in the social\nscale, whereas what one may call temptations to do good decrease in\nnumber. Fortune enables one to hire a substitute, so to speak, in\nall the duties of life\u2014in caring for the sick, in nursing children,\nin rearing them, and so forth; the rich are not obliged to pay, as\nthe saying is, with their person\u2014_payer de la personne_! Wealth too\noften produces a species of personal avarice, of miserliness of one\u2019s\nself, a restriction of moral and physical activity, an impoverishment\nof the individual and of the race. The shopkeeping class constitute\nthe least immoral section of the rich, and that because they preserve\ntheir habits of work; but they are constantly affected by the example\nof the higher classes, who take a pride in being useless. The remnant\nof morality, which exists among the middle class, is partly due to\nthe love of money; money does, in effect, possess one advantage, that\nit must in general be worked for. Nobles and business men love money\nbut in different ways. Young men of good family love it as a means of\nexpense and of prodigality, people in a small way of business love it\nfor its own sake, and out of avarice. Avarice is a powerful safeguard\nfor the remnants of morality in a people. It coincides, in almost all\nits results, with a disinterested love of labour; it exercises no evil\ninfluence except in the matter of marriage, where the question of the\ngirl\u2019s portion becomes paramount, and in the matter of children,\nof which it tends to restrict the number. All things considered, as\nbetween prodigality and avarice, the moralist is obliged to cast\nhis vote for the latter on the ground that it is not favourable to\ndebauchery, and does not therefore tend to dissolve society; both are\nmaladies which benumb and may destroy one, but the former is contagious\nand is transmitted by contact. We may add that love of expense rarely\nserves to encourage regular labour: it produces, rather, an appetite\nfor gambling and even for robbery; clever strokes on the stock-exchange\namount, in certain cases, to robbery pure and simple. Thence arises a\nsecondary demoralizing influence. Prodigals are necessarily attracted\nto the more or less shaky forms of financial speculation, by which,\nabsolutely without labour properly so called, more money can be amassed\nthan by labour; the miser, on the contrary, will hesitate, will prefer\neffort to risk, and his effort will be more beneficial to society. In\neffect, the only thing that can maintain society in a healthy state\nis that love of labour for its own sake which is so rarely met with,\nand which one must endeavour to develop; but this love of intellectual\nand physical labour is in nowise bound up with religion; it is bound\nup with a certain broad culture of the mind and heart which render\nidleness insupportable.\n\n[Sidenote: Religion the creature of circumstance.]\n\nSimilarly with the other moral and social virtues which are alleged\nto be inseparable from religion. In all times humanity has found a\ncertain average of vice, as of virtue, necessary. Religions themselves\nhave always been obliged to give way before certain prevalent habits\nand passions. If we had been living at the time of the Reformation,\nwe should have heard Catholic priests maintaining, with all the\nseriousness in the world, that, but for Catholic dogmas and the\nauthority of the Pope, society would dissolve and perish. Happily\nexperience has proved that these dogmas and that authority are not\nindispensable to social life; the conscience of mankind has attained\nits majority and no longer needs the services of a guardian. The day\nwill come, no doubt, when Frenchmen will no more feel an inclination to\nenter into a house of stone and invoke God to the sound of a hymn than\nan Englishman or a German experiences to-day an inclination to kneel\nbefore a priest and confess to him.\n\n\n_III. Is Protestantism a necessary transition stage between religion\nand free-thought?_\n\n[Sidenote: Dependence of Catholicism on power.]\n\nOver and above free-thinkers, properly so called, there exists in every\ncountry a class of men who understand perfectly the defects in the\nreligions in force about them, but have not the power of mind necessary\nto lift them above revealed dogma generally, and every form of external\ncult and rite. They begin accordingly to dabble in the religions\nof neighbouring peoples. A religion which is not in force in one\u2019s\nimmediate neighbourhood always possesses the advantage of being seen\nfrom a distance. At a distance its faults are scarcely distinguishable,\nand the imagination freely endows it with all excellent qualities.\nHow many things and persons gain thus by aloofness! When one has seen\none\u2019s ideal, it is sometimes good not to approach it too near if one is\nto preserve one\u2019s reverence for it. A number of Englishmen, indignant\nat the aridity of the hard and blind fanaticism of the extreme\nProtestants, cast envious glances across the Channel, where a religion\nseems to reign that is more friendly to art,\u2014at once more \u00e6sthetic\nand more mystical, capable of affording a completer satisfaction to\ncertain human needs. Among those who are thus favourable to a properly\nunderstood Catholicism may be cited Matthew Arnold and Cardinal Newman;\nand one might even add the Queen of England herself. In France, as\nmight be expected, quite the opposite disposition obtains. Wearied of\nthe Catholic Church and of its intolerance, we should gladly escape\nits dominion: compared with the objections against Catholicism which\nassail our eyes, the objections against Protestantism appear to us as\ntrifling. And the same notion has occurred simultaneously to a number\nof distinguished Frenchmen: why should France remain Catholic, at least\nin name? Why should not France adopt the religion of the more robust\npeople who have recently vanquished her; the religion of Germany, of\nEngland, of the United States, of all the young, strong, and active\nnations? Why not begin again the labour interrupted by the massacre\nof St. Bartholomew and the Edict of Nantes? Even if one should not\nsucceed in converting the masses, it would suffice, according to the\npartisans of Protestantism, to propagate the new religion among the\n\u00e9lite of the population very sensibly to modify the general course\nof our government, of our national spirit, even of our laws. The\nlaws regulating the relations of Church and State would promptly be\ncorrected; they would be reconstructed so as to offer protection to\nthe development of the Protestant religion, as they at this moment do\nin a thousand ways to the outworn religion of Catholicism. Ultimately\nProtestantism would be declared to be the national religion of France;\nthe religion, in other words, toward which she ought to endeavour\nto move, and which constitutes her real ideal, her sole hope of the\nfuture, the sole means open to Latin nations to escape death, and\nto outlive, in some sense, themselves. Add that, in the judgment of\nthe authors of this hypothesis, the Protestant religion, once fairly\nentered in the lists against Catholicism, must inevitably and speedily\nwin the day; the iron pot would make short work of the earthen pot.\nThe partisans of Protestantism invoke history in support of their\nconclusions; Protestantism was vanquished among us by force, and\nnot by persuasion; its defeat is therefore not definitive. Wherever\nCatholicism has not employed violence, persecution, and crime to\nmaintain itself, it has always succumbed; its only tenable argument\nhas been to put its opponents to death; to-day this comfortable method\nof backing the syllogism by the sword is out of date, and Catholicism\nis condemned the instant it is attacked. It contains, moreover,\nan essential and irremediable vice, auricular confession. By the\nconfessional it excites the open or secret hostility of every husband\nand every father, who sees the priest interposing between him and his\nwife, between him and his children. The confessor is a supernumerary in\nevery family; a member who has neither the same interests nor the same\nideas, and who, nevertheless, is perfectly informed of everything the\nother members do, and can, in a thousand ways, oppose their projects,\nand, at the moment when they least expect it, bar their path. When one\ntakes into consideration the mute state of war which so often exists\nbetween the married man and the Catholic priest; when one analyzes the\nother causes of dissolution which are working in Catholicism; when\none considers, for example, that the dogma of infallibility is simply\ninacceptable to anyone whose conscience is not absolutely distorted,\none must admit that the project of Protestantizing France, how strange\nsoever it may seem at first glance, is worthy of serious attention.\n\n[Sidenote: Proposal to Protestantize France.]\n\nIt is not astonishing that it should have won to its side a number\nof partisans, and should have provoked a certain intellectual\nfermentation. Michelet and Quinet were desirous that France should\nbecome Protestant, at least transitorily! In 1843, during a journey\nto Geneva, Michelet discussed with some clergymen the means of\naccelerating the progress of Protestantism in France and of creating\na really national church. Two men, whose names are known to all those\nwho have laboured in philosophy or in social science, MM. Renouvier\nand De Laveleye, are among the promoters of this movement. Convinced\nfree-thinkers, like M. Louis M\u00e9nard, acquiesce in it, making use of\nthe names of Turgot and Quinet; and M. Pillon also has sustained the\nproject. Many Protestant ministers have turned the whole of their\nactivity in this channel, have founded journals and written for the\nreviews; pamphlets, works often remarkable in their kind, have been\ncomposed and circulated. Protestants are more disposed than Catholics\nto propagandism, because their faith is more personal. They feel\nthat in a number of provinces they form an important nucleus which\nmay grow in time like a snowball. A number of villages, of Yonne, la\nMarne, l\u2019Aude, etc., have already been converted; in spite of all the\nobstacles raised by the civil and religious authorities, in spite of\nvexations and annoyances of every sort, the neophytes have finally\nsucceeded in establishing a Protestant pastor among them. Materially\nconsidered, these results are small; their consequences, however, may\nsome day be of great importance. One never suspects how many people\nthere are ready to listen and to believe; how many people there are\nready to preach and to convert. It need not be a matter of surprise,\nsome day or other, to see Protestant clergymen fairly rise out of\nthe soil and overrun our country districts. The Catholic clergy, who\npresent an almost unbroken front of incapacity, will scarcely be able\nto hold their own against a new and ardent adversary.\n\n[Sidenote: Contrary to the tendency of French history.]\n\nThe most serious opposition to Protestantism in France is not to be\nlooked for from the Catholics, but from the free-thinkers. It is in the\nname of free-thought that we shall consider the following question:\nOught France really to accept as its ideal any religion whatsoever,\neven though it be superior to the one professedly in possession at\nthe present day? Is not the acceptance of any religion as an ideal\nprecisely contrary to the whole movement of the French mind since the\nRevolution?\n\n[Sidenote: French Revolution still being accomplished.]\n\nIt has been said that, if the French Revolution was put down before it\nhad produced all of the results which were expected of it, the reason\nwas that it was undertaken, not in the name of a liberal religion,\nbut in antagonism to all religion. The nation rose as a body against\nCatholicism, but it had nothing to offer in its stead; it was an\neffort in the void and resulted necessarily in a fall. To address\nsuch a reproach to the Revolution, is precisely to fail to recognize\nits distinguishing peculiarity. Theretofore religion had usually been\ninvolved in the political discussions of men; the English Revolution,\nfor example, was in part religious. And when an uprising was, as it\nhappened, wholly religious, its purpose was to pull down one cult and\nset up another; the aid of a new God had to be called in to expel the\nold; but for Jesus or some other unknown divinity, Jupiter would still\nhave been enthroned on Olympus. Also the result of these religious\nrevolutions was easy to predict; at the end of a certain number of\nyears some new cult was bound to carry the day, to intrench itself, and\nto become quite as intolerant as its predecessor; and the revolution\nwas achieved\u2014that is to say, everything was practically in the same\nstate that it was before. A determinate end, close at hand, had been\npursued and attained; a little chapter in the history of the universe\nhad been written, and one was ready to close it with a period and to\nsay that was all. What drives the historian to despair in the case\nof the French Revolution, is precisely the impossibility of writing\na peroration, of reaching a final stop, of saying, \u201cThat is all.\u201d\nThe great fermentation persists, and passes on from generation to\ngeneration. \u201cThe French Revolution has come to nothing,\u201d it is said;\nbut the reason is perhaps simply that it has not miscarried. The French\nRevolution is still in its earliest stages; if we are still unable to\nsay where it is leading us, we may at least affirm with confidence\nthat it is leading us somewhere. It is precisely the incertitude and\nthe remoteness of their aim that constitute the nobility of certain\nenterprises; if one wants something very big, one must be resigned to\nwant something a little vague. One must be resigned also to a settled\ndiscontent with everything that is offered one as a substitute for the\nfleeing ideal that constitutes one\u2019s aim. Never to be satisfied\u2014behold\na comparatively unknown state of mind in many parts of the world! Some\nthousands of years ago there were a number of revolutions in China,\nwhich brought forth results so precise and so incontestable that they\nhave come down in a state of absolute preservation to the present day.\nIs China the ideal of those who wish a people to achieve once for\nall a state of satisfaction, of stable equilibrium, of established\nenvironment, of unalterable outline and form? Certainly the bent of\nthe French mind is precisely the opposite of that of the Chinese.\nHorror of routine, of tradition, of the established fact in the face\nof reason, is an attribute that we possess to a fault. To carry reason\ninto politics, into law, into religion was precisely the aim of the\nFrench Revolution. It is no easy thing, it is even futile, to attempt\nto introduce simultaneously logic and light into everything; one makes\nmistakes, one reasons ill, one has one\u2019s days of weakness, one succumbs\nto concordats and empires. In spite, however, of so many temporary\ndivergences from the straight path, it is already easy to recognize the\ndirection toward which the Revolution tends, and to affirm that this\ndirection is not religious. The French Revolution affords an example,\nfor the first time in the world, of a liberal movement disassociated\nfrom religion. To wish, with Quinet, that the Revolution should become\nProtestant is simply not to understand it. Republican in the sphere\nof politics, the Revolution tends to enfranchise man, in the sphere\nof thought also, from every species of religious domination, and of\nuniform and irrational dogmatic belief. The Revolution did not achieve\nthis end at the first attempt; it was guilty even of imitating the\nintolerance of the Catholics; therein lay its prime fault, its great\ncrime; we suffer from it still. But the remedy does not consist in\nadopting a new religion, which would simply be a disguised return to\nthe past.\n\n[Sidenote: Advantages of Protestantism.]\n\nLet us examine, however, the substantial apology for Protestantism,\npresented by M. de Laveleye. He maintains the superiority of\nProtestantism principally in regard to three points: 1. It is\nfavourable to education; 2. It is favourable to political and religious\nliberty; 3. It does not possess a celibate clergy living outside of the\nfamily, and even outside of the country. Let us pass these different\npoints in review. In Protestantism the need of instruction, and\ntherefore of a knowledge of how to read, is inevitable, for the reason\nthat, as has been often remarked, the reformed religion is founded on\nthe interpretation of a book, the Bible. The Catholic religion, on the\ncontrary, rests upon the sacraments and certain practices, such as the\nconfession, and the Mass, which presuppose no knowledge of reading.\nLuther\u2019s first and last word was, \u201cGod commands you to educate your\nchildren.\u201d In the eyes of the Catholic priest an ability to read is\nnot, so far as religion is concerned, an unqualified advantage, it\nexposes the possessor to certain dangers, it is a path that may lead\nto heresy. The organization of popular instruction dates from the\nReformation. The consequence is that Protestant countries are far in\nadvance of Catholic countries in the matter of popular instruction.[77]\nWherever popular instruction attains its height, labour will be\ndirected with more intelligence, and the economic situation will\nbe better; Protestantism therefore gives rise to a superiority not\nonly in instruction, but in commerce and industry, in order and in\ncleanliness.[78]\n\n      [77] In Saxony, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Scotland (not\n      England), illiteracy is at a minimum. Even in the most favoured\n      Catholic countries, such as France and Belgium, at least a\n      third of the population are illiterate. In this comparison race\n      goes for nothing; Switzerland proves as much; purely Latin but\n      also Protestant cantons Neuch\u00e2tel, Vaux, and Geneva are on a\n      level with the Germanic cantons of Z\u00fcrich and Bern, and are\n      superior to such as Tessin, Valais, and Lucerne.\n\n      [78] In Switzerland the cantons of Neuch\u00e2tel, Vaux, and Geneva\n      are strikingly in advance of Lucerne, Valais, and the forest\n      cantons; they are not only superior in matters of education,\n      but in matters of industry, of commerce, and of wealth; and\n      their artistic and literary activity is greater. \u201cIn the United\n      States,\u201d says De Tocqueville, \u201cthe majority of the Catholics\n      are poor.\u201d In Canada the larger order of business interests,\n      manufacturing, commerce, the principal shops in the cities, are\n      in the hands of Protestants. M. Audiganne, in his studies on\n      the labouring population in France, remarks on the superiority\n      of the Protestants in respect to industry, and his testimony\n      is the less suspicious because he does not attribute that\n      superiority to Protestantism. \u201cThe majority of the labourers\n      in N\u00eemes, notably the silk-weavers, are Catholics, while the\n      captains of industry and of commerce, the capitalists in a\n      word, belong to the Reformed religion.\u201d \u201cWhen a family has\n      split into two branches, one of which has clung to the faith\n      of its fathers, while the other has become Protestant, one\n      almost always remarks in the former a progressive financial\n      embarrassment, and in the other an increasing wealth.\u201d \u201cAt\n      Mazamet, the Elb\u0153uf of the south of France, all the captains of\n      industry with one exception are Protestants, while the great\n      majority of the labourers are Catholics. And Catholic working\n      men are, as a class, much less well educated than Protestant\n      working men.\u201d Before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes\n      members of the Reformed church had taken the lead in all\n      branches of labour, and the Catholics, who found themselves\n      unable to maintain a competition with them, had the practice of\n      a number of different industries in which the latter excelled\n      forbidden them by a series of edicts beginning with the year\n      1662. After their expulsion from France the Huguenots carried\n      into England, into Prussia, into Holland, their spirit of\n      enterprise and of economy; and enriched the districts in which\n      they settled. The Germans owe some portion of their progress\n      to Huguenot exiles. Refugees from the Revocation introduced\n      different industries into England, among others the silk\n      industry; and it was certain disciples of Calvin who civilized\n      Scotland. (See M. de Laveleye _De l\u2019avenir des peuples\n      catholiques_.)\n\n[Sidenote: Protestantism favours self-government.]\n\nSimilarly in civil and political matters, Protestants have always been\npartisans of self-government, of liberty, of local autonomy, and of\ndecentralization. Side by side with the advance of the Reformation\nin Switzerland, in Holland, in England and America there went a\ndissemination of the principles of liberty which later became the\narticles of faith of the French Revolution. Calvinists, notably, have\nalways been inclined to an ideal of liberty and equality which has\nrightfully rendered them objects of suspicion to the French monarchy;\nthey realized this ideal only beyond the seas in the American\nConstitution, which may be regarded, in some sort, as the product\nof Calvinistic ideas. As early as the year 1633 an American, Roger\nWilliams, proclaimed universal liberty, and liberty of conscience\nin particular; he proclaimed the complete equality of all modes of\nreligious worship before the law, and on these principles founded\nthe democracy of Rhode Island and the town of Providence. The United\nStates, with the local autonomy and decentralization which characterize\nits government, still forms the type of the Protestant state. In such\na state the widest liberty exists only, to say the truth, within the\nlimit of Christianity: the founders of the American Constitution\nscarcely foresaw the day when a wider tolerance would be necessary.\nAnd it would be to form an extremely false idea of the United States\nto imagine that the civil power and religion are wholly disassociated.\nThe separation between Church and state is far from being as absolute\nin America as is often supposed, and M. Goblet d\u2019Alviella very justly\ncorrects the too enthusiastic assertions, on this point, of M. Guizot\nand M. de Laveleye.[79]\n\n      [79] \u201cPublic institutions are still deeply impregnated with\n      Christianity. Congress, the State legislatures, the navy, the\n      army, the prisons, are all supplied with chaplains; the Bible\n      is still read in a large number of schools. The invocation of\n      God is generally obligatory in an oath in a court of law, and\n      even in an oath of office. In Pennsylvania the Constitution\n      requires that every public employee shall believe in God, and\n      in a future state of reward and punishments. The Constitution\n      of Maryland awards liberty of conscience to deists only. The\n      laws against blasphemy have never been formally abrogated.\n      In certain States, more or less stringent Sunday laws are\n      enforced. In 1880 a court declined to recognize, even as a\n      moral obligation, a debt contracted on Sunday, and a traveller,\n      injured in a railway accident, was refused damages on the\n      ground that he was travelling on the Lord\u2019s Day. And, finally,\n      church property and funds are in a considerable degree exempt\n      from taxation.\u201d (M. Goblet d\u2019Alviella, _\u00c9volution religieuse_,\n      p. 233.)\n\n      Similarly, in Switzerland, in the month of February, 1886, the\n      criminal court of Glaris, the chief place in a canton of 7000\n      inhabitants, at 130 kilometers from Bern, rendered a singular\n      judgment. A mason named Jacques Schiesser, who was obliged to\n      work in water of an excessively low temperature, shivering\n      with cold, his hands blue, made a movement of impatience\n      at the cold, and uttered irreverential words toward God. A\n      _proc\u00e8s-verbal_ was made out against him. He appeared before\n      the judges, who condemned him for blasphemy to two days\u2019\n      imprisonment. It is surprising to see Switzerland carried,\n      actually by Protestantism, back to the Middle Ages.\n\n[Sidenote: Intellectual and moral superiority of Protestant clergy.]\n\nFinally, to the political superiority of Protestantism must be added\nthe intellectual and moral superiority of its clergy. The obligation\nto read and interpret the Bible has given rise, in the universities of\nProtestant theology, to a work of exegesis which has resulted in a new\nscience, the Science of Religion. The Protestant clergymen are better\neducated than our priests, and have moreover families and children,\nand lead a life like that of any other citizen; they are national,\nbecause their church is a national church; they do not receive orders\nfrom abroad, and, more than all, they do not possess the terrible power\nwhich the Catholic priest owes to the confessional; a power which\ncost France the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and so many other\ndeplorable measures.[80]\n\n      [80] \u201cBy means of the confessional,\u201d says M. de Laveleye,\n      the \u201cpriest holds the sovereign, the magistrates, and the\n      electors, and through the electors the legislative chamber, in\n      his power; so long as the priest presides over the sacraments,\n      the separation of Church and State is only a dangerous\n      illusion. The absolute submission of the entire ecclesiastical\n      hierarchy to a single will, the celibacy of the clergy, and\n      the multiplication of monastic orders, constitute a danger in\n      Catholic countries of which Protestant countries know nothing.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: But Protestantism is not a necessary step toward\nfree-thought.]\n\nThe several advantages which Protestantism enjoys by comparison\nwith Catholicism are so incontestable that, if one must absolutely\nchoose between the two religions, one could not hesitate. But such\na choice is not necessary; one can avoid both horns of the dilemma.\nFree-thought is even more intimately dependent upon, and more disposed\nto favour, science than Protestantism is, for free-thought absolutely\ndepends upon science. Free-thought is more intimately dependent upon\npractical and civil liberty than Protestantism is, by the very fact\nthat free-thought is the complete realization of liberty in the sphere\nof theory. Finally free-thought renders the clergy superfluous, or\nrather to reinstate a medi\u00e6val term it tends to replace the priest by\nthe _clerk_, that is to say by the _savant_, the professor, the man\nof letters, the man of culture, to whatever state of society he may\nbelong. The best thing that has been said about Protestantism in France\nis M. de Narbonne\u2019s remark to Napoleon. \u201cThere is not enough religion\nin France to make two.\u201d Instead of a national religion we possess in\nFrance a national non-religion; that very fact constitutes our claim\nto originality among the nations. In France two-thirds at least of the\nmale population live outside the limits of religious tradition. In the\ncountry, as in the town, there is scarcely one man for every ten women\nto be found in church, sometimes not more than one for a hundred, and\nsometimes none at all. In the majority of the departments, scarcely\none man can be found fulfilling his religious duties. In the great\ncities, the labourer is the avowed enemy of religion, in the country\nthe peasant is simply indifferent. The peasantry displays a certain\nrespect for the exterior forms of worship; but the reason is that the\npeasantry comes in contact with the priest, its intercourse with him\nis constant, it generally fears or esteems him enough not to laugh\nat him, except behind his back. The results of the French Revolution\ncannot be arrested in this country; sooner or later they will suffice\nto give birth to a complete religious, political, and civil liberty:\neven to-day in politics it is not in the direction of a lack of liberty\nthat our failure lies, it is quite the reverse. For the French, it is\nuseless to talk of adopting Protestantism under the pretext that it is\nfavourable to civil and political liberty, to diffusion of modern ideas\nand science.\n\n[Sidenote: No sufficient evidence that Protestant countries are more\nmoral than Catholic.]\n\nThere remains the consideration of public morality in France. But it\nis impossible to demonstrate that the morality of Protestant people\nis superior to that of Catholics; nay, in respect to a certain number\nof items, statistics tend rather to prove the contrary, if anything\ncan be proved of morality by statistics. Drunkenness, for example,\nis a much less terrible scourge among Catholic peoples who inhabit\nclimates in which alcohol constitutes a much smaller temptation.\nIllegitimate births are much more frequent in Germany than in France;\nno doubt because of the laws that regulate marriage. The average of\ncrimes and offences is not very variable from country to country,\nand such variations as there are, are attributable to difference of\nclimate, of race, of greater or less density of population, and not\nto differences of religion. To-day, on account of the increasing\nperfection of means of communication, vice tends to find its level.\nVices spread like contagious diseases: everyone whose system is in a\nstate which is favourable to poison becomes contaminated, to whatsoever\nrace or whatsoever religion he may belong. The effect of any given\nreligion upon the morality of any given people is certainly not to\nbe overlooked, but it is altogether relative to the character of the\npeople in question, and proves nothing as to the absolute moral quality\nof the religion itself. Mohammedanism is of great service to barbarous\ntribes, because it prohibits drunkenness, and travellers generally\nagree as to the moral superiority of Mohammedan tribes as compared with\ntribes converted to Christianity; the first are composed of shepherds\nand relatively honest merchants, the second are composed of drunkards,\nwhom alcohol has transformed into beasts and pillagers. Does it follow\nthat we must all become converted to Mohammedanism, or even that the\nprohibitions of the Koran, all-powerful as they are over the savage\nmind, would act with the same force upon a drunkard of Paris or of\nLondon? Alas, no! and in the absence of any such possibility one may\ntake refuge in this means: sobriety is even more important for the\nmasses of the people than continence, its absence borders more nearly\non bestiality; moreover the labouring man and especially the peasant\npossesses less opportunity to run to excesses of incontinence than of\ndrink, for the simple reason that women cost more than drink. Even\namong the followers of Mohammed, the poor are obliged to restrict\nthemselves to one wife.\n\n[Sidenote: And religion is not the sole factor that determines\nmorality.]\n\nAnd finally religion does not constitute the sole cause of morality;\nstill less is it capable of re-establishing a morality which is on a\ndecline; the utmost it can do is to maintain morality somewhat longer\nin existence than it otherwise would be, to confirm custom and habit by\na backing of faith. The power of custom and of the accomplished fact\nis so considerable that even religion can scarcely make head against\nit. When a new religion takes possession of a people it never destroys\nthe mass of the beliefs which have taken root in their hearts; it\nfortifies them rather by adapting itself to them. To conquer paganism,\nChristianity was obliged to transform itself: it became Latin in Latin\ncountries, German in German countries. Mohammedanism in Persia, in\nHindustan, in the island of Java serves simply as a vestment and a veil\nfor the old Zoroastrian, or Brahman, or Buddhistic beliefs. Manners,\nnational characters, and superstitions are more durable than dogmas.\nThe character of northern peoples is always hard and all of a piece, to\nan extent that produces a certain external regularity in their lives, a\ncertain submission to discipline, sometimes also a certain savageness\nand brutality. The men of southern Europe, on the contrary, are mobile,\nmalleable, open to temptation. The explanation is to be looked for\nin their climate, not in their religion. The rigid fir-tree grows in\nthe north; flexible, tall reeds in the south. The discipline of the\nPrussian army and administration does not result from the religion\nof Prussia, but from the worship of discipline. Throughout the whole\nlife of the north there runs a certain stiffness which shows itself\nin the smallest details, in the manner of walking, of speaking, of\ndirecting the eyes; and the northern conscience is brusque and rough,\nit commands, and one must obey or disobey; in the south of Europe it\nargues. If Italy were Protestant, there would probably be few Quakers.\nWe believe therefore that the effect is often taken for the cause,\nwhere a preponderant influence is attributed to the Protestant or\nCatholic religion on public or private morality, and, that is to say,\non the vital power of a people. This influence formerly was enormous,\nit is diminishing day by day, and it is science to-day which tends to\nbecome the principal arbiter of the destinies of a nation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Is the possession of a religion indispensable for the best\ninterests of humanity.]\n\nIf it be so, what must one think of the doubts, as to the future\nof France, which seem to be entertained in certain quarters? Those\nwho regard religion as the condition _sine qua non_ of life and of\nsuperiority in the struggle for existence among nations, must naturally\nconsider France as in danger of disappearing. But is this criterion of\nnational vitality admissible?\n\n[Sidenote: Matthew Arnold\u2019s theory.]\n\nWe find ourselves here once more in the presence of Mr. Matthew\nArnold. In his judgment, the modern world has been made what it is by\nthe influence of two peoples, the Greeks and the Jews, representing\nrespectively two distinct and almost opposed ideas, which are\ncontending with each other for the possession of the modern mind. For\nGreece\u2014the brilliant, but in spite of its subtlety of spirit, somewhat\nsuperficial Greece\u2014art and science fill the measure of life. For the\nHebrews life might be summed up in one word, justice. And by justice\nmust not be understood a rigid respect for the rights of others, but\na willingness to renounce one\u2019s own interest, one\u2019s own pleasure,\na self-effacement in the presence of the eternal law of sacrifice\npersonified in Javeh. Greece and Judea are dead; Greece faithful to the\nlast moment to its belief in the all-sufficiency of art and science,\nJudea faithless at the last moment to its belief in the all-sufficiency\nof justice, and falling by reason of that very infidelity. Mr. Matthew\nArnold finds the two nations symbolized in an Old Testament story. It\nwas before the birth of Isaac, the veritable inheritor of the divine\npromise, who was humble but elect. Abraham looked upon his first son\nIshmael, who was young, vigorous, brilliant, and daring, and implored\nGod: \u201cOh, that Ishmael might live before Thee!\u201d But it could not be.\nGreece, the Ishmael among nations, has perished. Later the Renaissance\nappeared as its successor; the Renaissance was full of vitality, of\nfuture; the dream, the sombre nightmare had passed away, there was\nto be no more religious asceticism, we were to return to nature. The\nRenaissance held in horror the tonsured and hooded Dark Ages, whose\nspirit was renouncement and mortification. For the Renaissance itself\nthe ideal was fulness of life, growth of the individual, the free and\njoyous satisfaction of all our instincts, of art and science; Rabelais\nwas the personification of it. Alas! the Renaissance fell, as Greece\nfell, and the natural successor of the Renaissance, in Mr. Matthew\nArnold\u2019s judgment, is George Fox, the first Quaker, the open contemner\nof arts and sciences. Finally, in our days, a people in Europe has\ntaken up the succession; the modern Greece, dear to the enlightenment\nof all nations, the friend of art and science, is France. How often,\nand with what ardour, has this prayer in its favour been raised to God\nin heaven: \u201cOh, that Ishmael might live before Thee!\u201d France is the\naverage sensual man, and Paris is his city, and who of us does not feel\nhimself attracted? The French possess this element of superiority over\nthe Renaissance, that they are more balanced than other peoples, and\nthough France has aimed to liberate mankind and to enfranchise them\nfrom the austere rule of sacrifice, she has not conceived man as a\nmonster, nor liberty as a species of madness. Her ideas are formulated\nin a system of education which lies in the regular, complete, and\nharmonious development of all the faculties. Accordingly the French\nideal does not shock other nations, it seduces them; France is for\nthem the land of tact, of measure, of good sense, of logic. We aim in\nperfect confidence at developing the whole human being without violence\nto any part of it. It is in this ideal that we have found our famous\ngospel of the rights of man. The rights of man consist simply in a\nsystematization of Greek and French ideas, in a consecration of the\nsupremacy of self, as against abnegation and religious sacrifice. In\nFrance, Mr. Matthew Arnold says, the desires of the flesh, and current\nideas, are mistaken for the rights of man. While we are pursuing one\nideal, other peoples, more tightly chained to Hebraism, continue to\ncultivate that justice which is founded on renouncement. From time\nto time they look with envy out of their own austere and dull life,\nand with admiration upon the French ideal which is so positive, so\nclear, so satisfying; they are half inclined at times to make a trial\nof it. France has exerted a charm on the entire world. Everyone at\nsome period or other of his life has thirsted for the French ideal,\nhas desired to make a trial of it. The French wear the guise of the\npeople to whom has been intrusted the beautiful, the charming ideal\nof the future, and other nations cry: \u201cOh, that Ishmael might live\nbefore Thee!\u201d And Ishmael seems to grow more and more brilliant each\nday, seems certain of success, is on the point of making the conquest\nof the world. But at this moment a disaster occurs, the Crisis, the\nBiblical judgment arrives at the moment of triumph; behold the judgment\nof the world! The world, in Mr. Matthew Arnold\u2019s opinion, was judged\nin 1870: the Prussians were Javeh\u2019s substitute. And once more Ishmael,\nthe spirit of Greece, the spirit of the Renaissance, the spirit of\nFrance, free-thought, and free conduct were conquered by Israel, by\nthe spirit of the Bible, by the spirit of the Middle Ages. A brilliant\nbut superficial civilization was crushed beneath the weight of the\nbarbarous and unyielding asceticism of a more or less na\u00efve faith.\nJaveh is even in the present century the god of battles, and woe to the\nindividuals who do not believe, with the ancient Jew, that abnegation\nconstitutes three-fourths of life, and that art and science together\nbarely fill the other fourth.\n\n[Sidenote: Victorious superiority of Hellenism.]\n\nRightly to estimate this philosophy of history let us occupy Matthew\nArnold\u2019s point of view, which is not without some shade of truth.\nAssuredly Greece and Judea, although their ideas dissolved into and\nbecame a part of Christianity, are, so to speak, two antithetical\nnations representing respectively two opposed conceptions of life and\nof the world. These two nations have unceasingly struggled against each\nother in intellectual battle, and one may accept as most honourable\nfor France the r\u00f4le that Mr. Arnold has assigned to her, that of being\nthe modern Greece, of representing the struggle of art and science\nagainst mystical and ascetic faith. Greece and France were conquered,\nit is true, but it does not follow from that fact that the spirit of\nGreece and France, of art and science, has been conquered by faith.\nThe battle is on the definitive issue still uncertain. If one must\ntrust to a calculation of probabilities, all the probabilities are in\nfavour of science; if the French were conquered in 1870, it was not by\nGerman religion but by German science. In general it is very difficult\nto say that a doctrine is inferior because the people who maintained\nit have been vanquished in history. History is a succession of events\nwhose causes are so complex that we never can affirm that we know\nabsolutely all of the reasons which produced any given historical fact.\nThere are, moreover, in the life of any people a number of currents\nof thought running side by side, and sometimes in opposite directions.\nThe land of Rabelais is also that of Calvin. More than that, in other\nnations we see a species of official doctrine professed by a series\nof remarkable thinkers, which seems more or less in opposition to the\nmore unconscious doctrine of the people, in which the conduct and\nthoughts of the great multitude may be regarded as summarized. What,\nfor example, is to be considered as the true doctrine of the Jewish\npeople? Is it the passionate faith of Moses, of Elijah, or of Isaiah;\nis it the scepticism of the Ecclesiast, already foreshadowed in the\nbook of Job; is it the explosion of sensuality in the Song of Songs? It\nis difficult to decide; it may be affirmed with some show of truth that\nthe temperament of the Jewish people as a whole is rather more sensual\nthan mystic. The official doctrine handed down to us in the Bible\nmay be regarded as a reaction against popular tendencies; a reaction\nwhose violence is the measure of the strength and stubbornness of the\ntendencies against which it was directed. The great days of the Hebrew\npeople were rather those when, under the reign of Solomon, the arts\nof ease and life were flourishing than those when the prophets were\nbewailing the disappearance of so much splendour. Or what was really\nthe spirit of the people in the Middle Ages? Is it to be found in the\nmystical books of the monks of the times? And are the Middle Ages,\napart from the Renaissance, to be regarded as constituting a great\nand completed epoch? Even if we supposed, with Mr. Matthew Arnold,\nthat every brilliant age, such as the Renaissance, every age of art\nand science, harbours in its own bosom the germs of death, does that\nfact constitute a reason for lowering one\u2019s estimate of such epochs of\nintense life, and is it not better for a people to have lived, even\nthough but for a few years, than to have slept through centuries?\n\n[Sidenote: Analogy between life of nation and that of individual.]\n\nNothing is eternal. When a nation has enjoyed a brilliant life\nduring a certain number of years or centuries, when it has produced\ngreat artists or great scholars, there necessarily comes a period of\ncomparative exhaustion. Religions also are subject to the law of birth,\nmaturity, and decay. Where does the responsibility lie? On the very\nlaws of life, which do not permit plants to blossom eternally, and\nwhich in general provide, in all the kingdoms of the natural world,\nthat there shall be nothing so fragile as a flower. But if all human\nthings are transitory, to labour for the efflorescence of intelligence,\nto regard art and science as the supreme aim of life, is precisely\nto pursue that which is least perishable. Art, science, the last\nachievements of the human mind do not decay; man alone, the individual\ndisappears, and the ancient adage is eternally true: \u201cArt is long, and\nlife is short.\u201d As to true justice, it also is surely eternal; but if\nby true justice be understood the hard law of Jehovah, the worship of\nthis law has always fallen upon the insignificant epochs of history,\nand precisely upon the epochs of injustice and barbarism. Therein lies\nthe explanation of the fact that that cult has flourished at periods\nwhen nations were the most robust and difficult to subdue. The manners\nof such nations are ferocious, their life at bottom is quite contrary\nto the ideal of justice, and their religious faith resembles their\nmanners, and is violent and savage, and inclines them to intolerance,\nto fanaticism, to massacre; but all these elements of injustice none\nthe less constitute, in the people that unites them all, so many\nadditional chances of victory over other people. Later, when manners\nbecome more civilized, when faith diminishes and art and science are\nborn, a nation often becomes weaker, directly as it becomes nobler; the\nfiner an organism is, the more delicate it becomes, the easier it is to\nbreak. Renouncement of self, submission of the weak to the strong, and\nof the strongest to an all-powerful priest, the species of hierarchy\nthat obtained in Judea, in India, and Europe during the Middle Ages,\nformerly gave a people a superiority in the struggle for existence,\nlike that of a rock over a vegetable, of an oak over a sensitive\nplant, of a bull or an elephant over man; but is precisely that kind\nof effectiveness the ideal of humanity, and the aim to be proposed\nto human effort? To raise art and science to their highest possible\ndevelopment exacts a considerable expense of force; art and science\nfatigue and exhaust the people who give them birth. After epochs of\neffervescence, follow epochs of repose and of recuperation, epochs, so\nto speak, of intellectual lying fallow. These alternations of repose\nand productivity, of sterility and fecundity will continue to recur\nuntil some means be found of maintaining the human mind continuously\nin its state of highest vitality, as one fertilizes the earth, and,\nso to speak, thus secures a constant flow of sap and a perpetual\nefflorescence. The day perhaps will come when the psychic analogue\nof the rotation of crops may be discovered. However that may be, the\ngreatness of a people has in the past too often exhausted it. But it\ndoes not follow, from that fact, that history must be read backward,\nand that periods of mere preparation and barbarism and despotism must\nbe regarded as those which are the incarnation of the law of justice\nand have saved the race of mankind.\n\n[Sidenote: Hellenism contains the cure of its own evils.]\n\nIf greatness kills it is beautiful to die for greatness; but when it is\nthe death of a nation that is in question, mortality is never complete.\nWhich is the more completely alive to-day, whatever Mr. Matthew Arnold\nmay say, Greece or Judea? Which will be more alive to-morrow, France,\nwhich to-day seems trampled underfoot, or the nations which seem to\nbe France\u2019s superiors? If we were perfectly sure that France, better\nthan any other nation, represents art and science, we might affirm\nwith perfect certitude that she will possess the future, and say with\nconfidence that Ishmael will live. It is true that, in Mr. Matthew\nArnold\u2019s opinion, Ishmael represents not only the man of intellect\nbut the man of the senses, of the desires of the flesh. Of a truth\nit is strange to see anyone regarding the conquerors of France as\nQuakers, and Paris can lay no better claim than London or Berlin to\nbeing dubbed the modern Babylon. Mr. Matthew Arnold\u2019s mystic terrors\nin this connection are really deserving of raillery. What is just in\nhis position is that the French, even in the pursuit of pleasure,\ndisplay a certain moderation and measure, display a degree of art that\nis unknown to other people; and by that very fact they achieve, if not\nthe substance, at least the form of morality, which is, as Aristotle\nhas said, a just mean between two vicious extremes. In Mr. Matthew\nArnold\u2019s judgment, however, this specious morality serves simply as\na cloak for the lowest degree of immorality, that namely of seeking\none\u2019s rule of life not in God but in human nature, with all its diverse\ntendencies, high and low. This immorality constitutes in its turn a\nsort of social danger, that of a softening or enfeeblement of the\nnational character of a people. This danger appears to us illusory,\nor rather, if one may so speak, it is a question which belongs rather\nto hygiene than to morals; what is really wanted is that science\nitself should discover in the matter a rule of conduct. In reality,\ngenuine men of science actually are those who know best how to direct\nthemselves in life, and a whole people of men of science could leave\nlittle to desire on the score of conduct; and that fact shows that\nscience itself contains an element of practical wisdom and morality.\nNote also that there exists an antagonism between cerebral labour and\nthe violence of the physical appetites. The prohibitions which are\nbased upon a mystical law too often season desire simply, as it is\neasy to prove by examples drawn from the clergy of the Middle Ages.\nA much more certain method may be employed, namely, to extinguish\ndesire, to substitute a sort of intellectual disdain in place of\nreligious terror. The Mohammedan religion prohibits the use of wine;\nbut it is very easy to distinguish between wine and alcohol, which\nMohammed did not formerly forbid for the sufficient reason that he was\nunacquainted with its existence. Moreover, religious faith is not only\nsubject to subtleties of interpretation, it is subject to periods of\nweakness; but if, on the contrary, you issue no mystical prohibition\nbut cultivate a man to a certain degree of intellectual development,\nhe will simply not desire to drink; education will have transformed\nhim more perfectly than religion could have done. Far from diminishing\nthe value that individuals set upon pleasure, religions in reality\nfrequently augment it considerably, because, over and against such and\nsuch a pleasure, and, as it were, holding the balance level against it,\nthey establish an eternity of pain. When a religious devotee yields\nto temptation, he conceives the desired indulgence as, in some sort,\nof an infinite value, as condensing into an instant such an eternity\nof joy as may compensate an eternity of suffering. This conception,\nwhich unconsciously dominates the entire conduct of the believer, is\nfundamentally immoral. Fear of chastisement, as psychologists have\nfrequently remarked, lends a certain additional charm to the forbidden\npleasure; magnify the chastisement, you heighten the charm. Therein\nlies the explanation of the fact that, if a devotee is immoral at all,\nhe is infinitely more so than a sceptic; he will indulge in monstrous\nrefinements in his pleasures, analogous to the monstrous refinements\nin which his god indulges, in the item of punishments; and his virtue,\nconsisting largely in fear, is itself fundamentally immoral. In epochs\nof scientific development this mystical and diabolical heightening of\npleasure will disappear. The man of science is acquainted with the\ncauses of pleasure, they fall into place in his scheme of things, in\nthe general network of causes and effects; a pleasure is a desirable\neffect, but only in so far as it does not exclude such and such another\nequally desirable effect. The pleasures of the senses take their\nlegitimate rank in the classified and subordinated list of human aims.\nA man of large intelligence holds desire in check by means of its\nnatural and sole all-powerful antagonist\u2014disdain.\n\n[Sidenote: Hellenism more just than justice.]\n\nTo sum it all up, Ishmael is quite capable of regulating his own\nconduct without Jehovah\u2019s help. Justice is salvation, said the Hebrew\npeople; but science also is salvation, and justice too, and justice\nnot infrequently more just and more certain than any other kind. If\nIshmael sometimes strays into the desert, sometimes loses his way and\nfalls, he knows how to get up again; he has strength enough in his own\nheart to help himself, and to make him independent of Jehovah, who\nleft him alone in infinite space without even sending to his aid the\nangel mentioned in the Bible. If France has really, as Mr. Arnold says,\nformulated the new gospel of Ishmael, this profoundly human gospel is\nindubitably destined to outlive the other, for there is often nothing\nmore provisional, more unlasting, more fragile, than what men have\ncrowned with the adjective divine. The surest method of finding what\nis really eternal is to look for the best and most universal elements\nin the human character. But the gospel of the rights of man, Mr. Arnold\nobjects, is the ideal of the average, sensual man only. One wonders\nwhat the meaning of the word \u201csensual\u201d in this place can be, and what\nsensuality can have to do with an unwillingness to disregard the rights\nof other people or to have one\u2019s own rights disregarded by other\npeople. As if the rights of man had anything to do with sensuality!\nMr. Arnold forgets that the word \u201cright\u201d always implies some measure\nof sacrifice. But the sacrifice is precisely proportionate\u2014it is not\nthe sacrifice of all for the benefit of one or of the few; it is not a\nsterile sacrifice, it is not a vain expense of force, it is the partial\nsacrifice of all for the benefit of all, it is the renunciation in\nour own conduct of everything which might interfere with like conduct\non the part of other people; so that, instead of being a waste of\nsocial power, it is in the best sense an organization and an increase\nof social power. The people who first truly realize the gospel of\nthe rights of man will not only be the most brilliant, the most\nenviable, the happiest of peoples, but also the justest of peoples,\nwith a justice which will be not only national and passing, but, so\nto speak, universal and indestructible; not even the hand of Jehovah\nwill be able to shiver its power, for what is really divine in power\nwill dwell in its own heart. The French Revolution was not so purely\nsensual and earthly as Mr. Matthew Arnold affirms. It was an uprising\nnot in the name of the senses but of the reason. The Declaration of\nRights is a series of formul\u00e6 _a priori_, constituting a sort of\nmetaphysics or religion of civil government, founded upon a revelation\nby the human conscience. It is easily comprehensible that positive\nand empirical thinkers, such as Bentham and John Stuart Mill and\nTaine, should have a word of blame for this novel species of religious\nUtopia; but a person like Mr. Matthew Arnold, who prides himself on\nbeing religious, ought not to draw back from it, ought even to admire\nit. Theodore Parker, a Christian not less liberal than Mr. Matthew\nArnold, did so. Writing on the subject of the French Revolution,\nTheodore Parker said: that the French were more transcendental than\nthe Americans. To the intellectual conception of liberty and to the\nmoral conception of equality they joined the religious conception of\nfraternity, and thus supplied politics as well as legislation with a\ndivine foundation as incontestable as the truths of mathematics. They\ndeclare that rights and duties precede and dominate human law. America\nsays: \u201cThe Constitution of the United States is above the President;\nthe Supreme Court is above Congress.\u201d France says: \u201cThe constitution of\nthe universe is above the Constitution of France!\u201d That is what forty\nmillions of men declare. It is the greatest proclamation that a nation\nhas ever made in history.\n\n[Sidenote: Good and evil sides of French gaiety.]\n\nWhat we may reasonably be reproached with is not our love for art and\nscience, but our love for a facile art and a superficial science. We\nmay rightfully be reproached also with a somewhat Attic lightness,\na lack of perseverance and of seriousness. Naturally, one does not\nmean that we should imitate the superstitious Slave who attributes\nan involuntary burst of laughter to the devil, and who, after having\nlaughed, expectorates indignantly to exorcise the sweet spirit of\ngaiety whom he regards as a spirit of evil. If French gaiety is one\nof our weaknesses it is also one of the elements of our national\nstrength; but let us be quite clear about the sense to be put upon\nthe word. The gaiety which is genuine and charming consists simply in\nhigh-heartedness and vivacity of mind. One\u2019s courage is strong enough,\nconfident enough, to be able to afford not to look at things on their\npainful side. Everything has two handles, says the Greek sage; and by\none handle it is light and easy to manage; it is by that handle that\nthe French are fond of taking destiny and fortune. Gaiety of that\nkind is simply a form of hope; thoughts which come from the heart,\ngreat thoughts are often the most smiling. What one calls _aptness_,\nthat swift fitness and appropriateness in which the French delight,\nis itself an evidence of mental detachment, an affirmation to the\neffect that things which appeared at first so enormous really possess\nslight importance, a mark of high courage in the face of disaster; it\nis simply a less theatrical rendering of the ancient _non dolet_. A\nFrench officer, in a guerilla war (in New Caledonia, I think), felt\nhimself struck in the breast by a bullet; \u201cWell aimed, for a savage,\u201d\nhe said, as he fell. That is French heroism; not going the length of\nignoring the fact, but maintaining a just appreciation of it as it is.\nBut there is a gaiety that cannot be too much blamed or too steadily\nrepressed, a gaiety undistinguished by subtlety or high courage, and\none to which other peoples are quite as inclined as the French, the\ngross laugh which follows horse-play like an echo, and inhabits taverns\nand _caf\u00e9s chantants_. That species of gaiety is the vicious gaiety\nof peasants out for a holiday, of commercial travellers at dinner. It\nis undeniable that the Gaul has a weakness for _gaudriole_. I know a\npromising young physician who was obliged to leave Paris, where he had\nwon a name as a hospital surgeon, obliged to quit work and to go to a\ndistant country for his health; in a moment of expansion he confided\nto me that what he regretted most were the jolly evenings at the\nPalais-Royal. There are thousands of distinguished young men subjected\nto this species of education, of discipline in \u201cchaff,\u201d and it is\ninevitable that it should result in a loss, for them, of something\nthat is fine. The Palais-Royal, the vaudeville, _caf\u00e9s-concerts_ are\nplaces which corrupt the taste as the palate is corrupted by drinking\nwood eau-de-vie. It is difficult to be a really remarkable man and\nat the same time to possess a serious taste for the gross pleasantry\nof second-class theatres. The two are irreconcilable. And it is a\nmelancholy thing to think that the pick of the young men of France\nshould be exposed to precisely that influence, should pass a number of\nyears in such an environment and lose their taste as surely as their\near for music. Whatever is anti-\u00e6sthetic in laughter is degrading;\nwitticisms must be spiritual, must really expand the heart with healthy\nmirth; laughter should positively embellish the face. _Nihil inepto\nrisu ineptius est_; the reason is that in such cases laughter is simply\nan explosion of silliness. The wise man, says the Bible, laughs with an\ninner laugh. Laughter should illuminate and not disfigure the visage,\nbecause it reveals the soul, and the soul should be beautiful, should\nresemble an outburst of frankness, of sincerity. The charm of laughter\nlies, in a great measure, in the sincerity of the joy which renders\nus, for the time being, transparent to those about us. Human thought\nand the human heart, with the entire world that they contain, may be\nembodied in a tear.\n\n[Sidenote: Parisian wit an epitome of all that is evil in French\ngaiety.]\n\nParisian wit, which in some quarters is regarded as the very type and\nideal of French wit, is in some respects no more than an epitome of\nits defects; among the working classes it consists in chaff, what they\ncall _blague_; among the upper classes it consists in a superficial\nvarnish, an inability to fix the mind on a logical succession of ideas.\nIn the salon frivolity is a convention, it has positively attained\nthe height of being good manners. My attention was attracted a minute\nago by a fly buzzing about my window, its transparent wings described\ncurve after curve on the luminous surface that arrested its flight. Its\ngraceful and futile progress reminded me of the conversation of a lady\nto whom I had just been listening in the salon, and who for an hour\nhad described a series of scarcely larger circles, upon the surfaces\nof everything, and beneath the surface of nothing. The whole world of\nParisian frivolity was typefied by the shimmering flight of the fly on\nthe window-pane, ignorant of the open air, playing with stray rays of\nthe great sun toward which it was unable to mount.\n\n[Sidenote: True inwardness.]\n\nBut must one be serious to the point of ennui? Certainly not, it\nis not necessary. It does not belong to our temperament. Let us\nrecognize, however, that to be enduring of ennui is a great power;\nit is the secret of slow, patient, painstaking labour, which spares\nno detail, which guarantees solidity in the foundations and remote\nand hidden elements of knowledge; it is the secret of the superiority\nof men of northern race over men of southern. In the south, owing to\nan impatience of what is tedious, there is manifested an inability\nto stick to one thing, to follow one pursuit, to venture into the\ndarkness beyond where the light stops. Tasks pursued with obstinacy\nin the certitude of an ultimate success, indefatigable labour at the\ndesk, reading understood as the absolute appropriation of every word\nand thought between the covers of the book in hand, are unknown to\nthose superficial intelligences which are quick to take a birds-eye\nview of a subject in its entirety, but are impatient of details and\nof course among others of essential details. There are races of men\nwho are incapable of anything exacting more attention than \u201cskimming\u201d;\nthey skim their books, they skim the world, they turn the leaves of\nlife. Neither true art nor true science is within their reach. \u201cLive\ninwardly,\u201d says the \u201cImitation.\u201d It is an ideal which Frenchmen, who\nare particularly inclined to lose themselves in external details,\nmight well pursue. But true inwardness does not necessarily consist\nin sterile meditation on a dogma. \u201cLive inwardly\u201d should signify, be\nserious, be yourself, be original, independent, and free; bestir your\nown powers of thought, take a pleasure in developing them and yourself;\nbloom inwardly like certain plants which lock up within themselves\ntheir pollen, their perfume, their beauty; but give out your fruit. The\nnatural expansiveness which leads a Frenchman to be so communicative\nis one of his good qualities; the bad side of it, where there is a bad\nside, consists simply in not having anything serious to communicate.\n\n[Sidenote: Remedy for French levity.]\n\nOur defects are curable, and their remedy does not lie in a sort of\nreligious asceticism, but in a more profound and complete understanding\nof the great objects of love that have always attracted the French\nmind\u2014science, art, law, liberty, universal fraternity. There is a\nJapanese legend of a young girl who procured some flower seeds and was\nsurprised to find them nothing but little black prickly grains; she\noffered them to her playmates, who would not accept them; then she\nsowed them, in some anxiety as to the results, and by and by a superb\nflower sprang from every grain and all her playmates begged for the\nseeds that they had refused. Philosophic and scientific truths are just\nsuch seeds; they are unattractive at first, but the day will come when\nmankind will prize them at their just worth.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nRELIGION AND NON-RELIGION AND THE CHILD.\n\n    I. Decline of religious education\u2014Defects of this education,\n      in especial in Catholic countries\u2014Means of lightening\n      these defects\u2014The priest\u2014The possibility of state-action\n      on the priest.\n\n    II. Education provided by the state\u2014Primary instruction\u2014The\n      schoolmaster\u2014Secondary and higher instruction\u2014Should the\n      history of religion be introduced into the curriculum.\n\n    III. Education at home\u2014Should the father take no part in the\n      religious education of his children\u2014Evils of a preliminary\n      religious education to be followed by disillusionment\u2014The\n      special question of the immortality of the soul: what\n      should be said to children about death.\n\n\n_I. Decline of religious education._\n\n[Sidenote: Unfitness of religious dogma as material for education.]\n\nThe religious education given to children by the priest possesses\ndefects and even dangers which it is important to set in a clear\nlight, and which explain the gradual decline in secular education.\nAn opinion regarded as divine is an opinion which is as unfit for\npurposes of education as for purposes of science. The great opposition\nwhich obtains between religion and philosophy\u2014in spite of their\noutward resemblances\u2014is that the one is seeking and that the other\ndeclares that it has found; the one is anxious to hear, the other\nhas already heard; the one weighs evidence, the other puts forth\nassertions and condemnations; the one recognizes it as its duty to\nraise objections and to reply to them; the other to shut its eyes\nto objections and to difficulties. From these differences result\ncorresponding differences in methods of instruction. A philosopher,\na metaphysician, aims to convince, the priest inculcates; the former\ninstructs, the latter reveals; the former endeavours to stimulate and\nto train the reasoning, the latter to suppress it or at least to turn\nit aside from primitive and fundamental dogmas; the former awakens\nthe intelligence, the latter in some measure lays it asleep. It is\ninevitable that revelations should be opposed to spontaneity and\nliberty of mind. When God has spoken man should be silent, in especial\nwhen the man is a child. And errors, which are often inoffensive if\ntaught by a philosopher, are grave and dangerous if taught by a priest\nwho speaks in the name and with the authority of God. In the first\ninstance the remedy lies always at hand: an insufficient reason may\nalways be made to give way before a sufficient reason; the child holds\nthe standards of weight and measure in his own hands. And indeed it\nis not always easy to teach error at all by reason and reasoning: to\nattempt to give reasons for a prejudice is an excellent means of making\nits essential untruth prominent. It has always been some attempt on the\npart of humanity to demonstrate its beliefs that has resulted in their\ndisproof. Whoever endeavours to examine a dogma is close upon the point\nof contradicting it, and the priest, who regards contradiction as a\nfailure in faith, is always obliged, in the nature of things, to avoid\nan examination of it, to interdict a certain number of questions, to\ntake refuge in mystery. When a priest has filled a brain with faith he\nseals it. Doubt and investigation, which are the life of philosophy,\nthe priest regards as a mark of distrust and suspicion, as a sin,\nas an impiety; he lifts his eyes to Heaven at the bare notion of\nanybody\u2019s thinking for himself. God is both judge and party in every\ndiscussion; at the very time when you are endeavouring to find reasons\nfor believing in his existence, He commands you to affirm it. The\nbeliever who hesitates at a dogma is a little in the position of the\nsheep in the fable, who wished to reason with the wolf and to prove to\nhim that the water was not muddy; he proved it indeed, but he was eaten\nup for his pains; he would have done just as well to hold his peace and\nyield. Also there is nothing more difficult than to shake yourself free\nfrom a faith that was fastened upon you in your childhood and that has\nbeen confirmed by the priest, by custom, by example, by fear. Fear, in\nespecial, is a capital guardian to watch over the interests of positive\nreligion and a religious education, a guardian who is always on the\n_qui vive_; but for it the body of belief which is known as dogma would\nsoon fall into decay and blow away in dust. One person would reject\nthis, another that; everybody would rise in open revolt, running hither\nand thither gaily like a lot of schoolchildren out for a holiday.\nHappily they are always accompanied by a tutor, who keeps them in order\nand brings them home like a flock of lambs to the sheepcote. What power\ncan reasoning have over anybody who is afraid? How can you be expected\nto see anything as in itself it really is, if you have been accustomed\nfrom childhood to walk with your eyes closed? Truth becomes for you as\nvariable and unstable as your own sensibility. At an audacious moment\nyou deny everything, the next day you are prepared to affirm more than\nyou were before. It is very easy to understand; nobody is obliged to\nbe brave always, and, more than all, one\u2019s conscience is involved.\nConscience, like government, is conservative; it is naturally inimical\nto revolution and change. It is early taken in hand, and taught its\nlittle lesson; it becomes uneasy the instant you call in question a\nline on the map; you cannot take an independent step without some inner\nvoice crying out to you to take care. Accustomed as you are to hear\npeople anathematized who do not think as you do, you shudder at the\nthought of incurring such anathemas yourself. The priest has corrupted\nto his interest every sentiment in your soul\u2014fear, respect, remorse;\nhe has fashioned your soul, your character, your morals to his hand.\nInsomuch that if you call religion in question, you call everything in\nquestion.\n\n[Sidenote: Impropriety of suppressing the clergy.]\n\nSubsidence of thought, benumbment of the spirit of liberty, love of\nroutine, of blind tradition, of passive obedience, of everything, in\na word, which is directly opposed to the spirit of modern science are\nthe results of a too exclusively clerical education. These dangers are\nbeing more and more distinctly felt, especially in France\u2014perhaps\ntoo much so. We go the length of demanding that religious education\nshall be suppressed and that immediately, as being hostile to liberty\nand to progress. An irresistible movement has begun toward lay\neducation, a movement to which Catholics must some day or other adjust\nthemselves. But it should be done slowly, transition should not be\npushed too rapidly. To suppress at a blow the whole clergy who once\nhad complete control of the national education, and still have charge\nof some portion of it, ought not to be the aim of free-thinkers; the\nclergy will suppress themselves if they are but given time; they will\nsimply become extinct. At bottom it is not a bad thing that fifty-five\nthousand people should be or appear to be occupied with something\nelse than their personal wants. No doubt one never lives completely\nup to one\u2019s ideal, and the ideal of disinterestedness that the priest\nproposes to himself is rarely realized; still it is good that a certain\nnumber of men here below should labour at a task which is above their\nstrength; so many others labour at tasks only which are beneath them.\n\n[Sidenote: A religion at its best only in competition.]\n\nIt must be confessed, however, that no religion is at its best in a\ncountry in which it reigns supreme; really to estimate it, one must see\nit struggling for supremacy against some rival faith, Catholic against\nProtestant, for example. Under such circumstances the priest and the\npastor in a sense run a race with each other, compete with each other\nin activity and intelligence. One may see the results in the Dauphin\u00e9,\nin Alsace, and in a number of foreign countries. The zeal of the priest\nprofits immensely by some such struggle for existence on the part of\nthe religion to which he belongs; whoever does the most good, gives the\nbest advice, the best education, to the children in his charge, wins a\nvictory for his faith. The result, which is easy to foresee, is that\na mixed population of Protestants and Catholics is better instructed,\nmore enlightened, is possessed of a higher morality than many other\ncountries wholly Catholic.\n\n[Sidenote: Proposed reform in Catholic countries.]\n\nOne very desirable step in Catholic countries is that the priest\nshould be given complete civil liberty, should be allowed to leave\nthe Church if he choose, without becoming an outcast in society,\nshould be free to marry, and to enjoy absolutely all the rights of\ncitizenship. A second desirable step, and an essential one, is that the\npriest, who is one of the schoolmasters of the nation, should himself\nreceive a higher education than he does to-day. The state, far from\nendeavouring to diminish the income of the priesthood\u2014a very slight\neconomy\u2014might well, at need, augment it and exact diplomas analogous\nto those demanded of other instructors, and sufficient evidences of\ncompetence in extended historical and scientific inquiries and in\nreligious history.[81] Already a number of priests in country districts\nare studying botany, mineralogy, and, in some instances, music. The\nranks of the clergy contain a great quantity of live force, which is\nneutralized by a defective primary education, by lack of initiative,\nby lack of habits of freedom. Instead of endeavouring to separate\nchurch and state by a species of surgical operation, free-thinkers\nmight well take their stand on the concordat, and profit by the fact\nthat the state controls the income of the clergy, and endeavour to\nreawaken the priesthood to the conditions of modern life. In sociology,\nas in mechanics, it is sometimes easier to make use of the obstacles\nto one\u2019s advancement than to try to batter them down. Whatever is, is\nin some measure useful; from the very fact that clerical education\nstill maintains its existence it may be argued that it still plays a\ncertain r\u00f4le in maintaining the social equilibrium, even if it be but\na passive r\u00f4le, the r\u00f4le of counterpoise. But whatever possesses some\ndegree of utility may well acquire a higher degree; whatever is may\nbe transformed. We must not endeavour to destroy the priesthood but\nto transform it; to supply it with other practical and theoretical\npursuits than the mechanical handling of the breviary. Between the\nliteral religion which the majority of the French clergy teach, and\na national and human ideal, there exist innumerable degrees which\nmust be achieved successively and slowly, by a gradual intellectual\nprogress, by an almost insensible widening of the intellectual horizon.\nMeanwhile, until the priest shall have passed through these successive\ndegrees and have become aware of his essential superfluousness, it is\ngood that he should make himself useful in the manner in which he\nstill believes himself capable of being of use: but one thing should\nbe exacted of him, that he should not make himself harmful by stepping\noutside of the limits within which he is properly confined.\n\n      [81] Would it not be possible at once to raise the income of\n      all priests who are possessed of certain lay diplomas such as\n      those of bachelor, licentiate, etc., and who, by that very\n      fact, would be plainly competent to conduct a lay or religious\n      education in a more modern and scientific spirit?\n\n\n_II. Education provided by the state._\n\n[Sidenote: State neutrality in religious matters.]\n\nThe task undertaken by a state that is endeavouring to substitute a\nlay for a clerical education is one of increasing importance. The law\nought, no doubt, to recognize all religions as equal, but, as has been\nremarked,[82] there are two ways in which this recognition may be\nconducted: the one passive, the other active. The government may stand\nneutral simply, and abstain from either refuting or from giving comfort\nto the pretensions of any given system of theology; or it may be\nactively neuter, that is to say, it may pursue its task of scientific\nand philosophical achievement in complete indifference to any and every\nsystem of theology.[83] It is a neutrality of the latter sort that\nshould be practised in primary and secondary instruction, and that\nshould govern the conduct of the instructor.\n\n      [82] M. Goblet d\u2019Alviella.\n\n      [83] \u201cLay education,\u201d said Littr\u00e9, \u201cought not to avoid dealing\n      with anything which is essential; and what could be more\n      essential in considering the moral government of society than\n      the religions which have dominated or still dominate it?\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Importance of the schoolmaster.]\n\nThe schoolmaster has always been a mark for raillery, and sometimes\njustly so; to-day he is slightly regarded by everyone with any\npretensions to high acquirements. Renan and Taine, and partisans\ngenerally of an intellectual aristocracy, can scarcely suppress a\nsmile at the mention of this representative of democracy, of science\nfor small children. University professors show small tolerance for\nthe pedantry of their humble assistant, who is sometimes ignorant of\nGreek. Men of culture, with any tincture of poetry or of art, regard\nthe man as something very prosaic and utilitarian whose main ambition\nis to instruct some thousands of peasants in the alphabet, grammar, and\nthe names of the principal cities of Europe, and of the geographical\nlocalities from which we obtain pepper and coffee. And yet this\ndespised schoolmaster, whose importance is daily increasing, is the\nsole middle-man between the belated masses and the intellectual \u00e9lite,\nwho are moving ever more and more rapidly forward. He has the advantage\nof being necessary and the disadvantage of knowing it; buried in his\nremote village, his accomplishments impress him almost as much as they\ndo the children and the peasantry about him; the optical illusion is\na natural one. But if an exaggerated estimate of his own importance\nsometimes gives rise in him to an offensive pedantry, it supplies\nhim with the sort of devotion that enables a humble functionary to\nrise to the height of the duties to which he has been called. And\nwho, after all, but society, is responsible for the fashioning and\ninstruction of the schoolmaster? And cannot society raise the level\nof his intelligence in proportion as it increases the magnitude of\nhis task? A little knowledge makes a pedant, much knowledge makes\na scholar. There will always be schoolmasters who will be as well\neducated as one could wish, provided only that their salaries are\nraised side by side with the list of required studies. It is strange\nthat a society should not do its best to form those whose function it\nis in turn to form it. The great question of popular education becomes\nin certain aspects a question of shillings and pence. The practical\ninstruction of schoolmasters has already been carried to a certain\ndegree of perfection; he has been initiated into an apprenticeship, and\nintroduced, as it were, into the kitchen of certain sciences; he has\nbeen supplied with notions on agriculture and chemistry which often\nenable him to give excellent advice to the peasantry. It would be very\neasy a little to perfect his theoretical knowledge, to give him a\nbroader knowledge of the sciences which he considers too exclusively\non their practical side, to give him some conception of things as\na whole, to raise him above an exclusive adoration of the isolated\nfacts of historical or grammatical minuti\u00e6. A little philosophy would\nmake a better historian and a less tedious geographer. He might be\nintroduced to the great cosmological hypotheses, to some sufficient\nnotions of psychology, and in especial of child-psychology, and finally\na little history of religion would familiarize him with the principal\nmetaphysical speculations that the human mind has put forth in its\nendeavour to pass beyond the bounds of science; he would become, as a\nresult of it, more tolerant in all matters of religious belief. This\nmore extended instruction would permit him to follow at a distance the\nprogress of science; his intelligence would not stand still, he would\nnot come to his complete maturity somewhere between the ABC-book and\nthe grammar. Moreover, intellectual elevation is always accompanied\nby a moral elevation which manifests itself in all the conduct of\nlife, and sometimes a word from a schoolmaster may change all the\nrest of a pupil\u2019s existence. The greater one\u2019s intellectual, and in\nespecial, one\u2019s moral superiority, the greater one\u2019s influence over\nthose about one. Even at the present time the very modest amount of\nknowledge at the disposal of the ordinary teacher gives him a very\ngenuine influence; he is believed in, his words are listened to and\naccepted. The peasant\u2014that doubting Thomas\u2014who nowadays shakes his\nhead over what the priest says, is becoming accustomed to consult\nthe schoolmaster; the schoolmaster has shown him how to make more\ngrain grow in the same amount of ground; the quivering of a blade of\ngrass in the wind is for a man of the people the most categorical\nof affirmations; to accomplish something is to prove: action is\nratiocination enough. Moreover the schoolmaster demonstrates the\npractical power of science by fashioning successive generations of\nmankind, by converting them into men. It is at the schoolmaster\u2019s hands\nthat everyone receives the provision of knowledge that must last him\nand maintain his strength throughout his whole life; he prepares one\nfor life as the priest prepares one for death, and in the eyes of the\npeasant, preparation for life is much more important than preparation\nfor death. Life has its mystery as well as death, and in the former\ncase the fact of one\u2019s capability is certain; the schoolmaster often\ndetermines the future of the pupil in a manner that is visible and\nverifiable; and nothing like so much can be said for the priest. The\npower of the latter also has diminished with the change that has taken\nplace in the popular notion of punishment after death. The priest\u2019s\npower lies in ceremonies, in propitiatory or expiatory sacrifices;\nthe virtue of sacrifices of both kinds equally is to-day looked on\nsceptically. Knowledge is better than prayer, and the priest is\ngradually losing his ascendency over the people. The schoolmaster is\noften the butt of raillery, but the country priest, whom it was so much\nthe fashion to idealize at the beginning of the century, is to-day\na mark for open mirth. The reaction was natural and in some measure\nlegitimate; perfection is not of this world, and dwells neither in\nthe state nor the school, but the r\u00f4le of the schoolmaster and the\npriest in humanity is important, for they are the sole dispensers of\nscience and metaphysics to the multitude. We have seen how much it is\nto be hoped that the priest, who is so ignorant to-day in Catholic\ncountries, will soon receive a better education, will soon begin to\ncreate a reason for his continued existence in modern society. If he\nfalls too far behind the intellectual movement of the times, he will\ndrop out simply, and the schoolmaster will inherit his power. After all\nthere are all kinds of apostles, in blouse and frock-coat as well as\nin priestly robes; and the proselytism of some of them is based upon a\nmystical disinterestedness, and of others on a certain practical aim;\nthere are some who travel about the world, and some who sit by the fire\nand are none the less active for all that. What may be affirmed safely\nis that in all times apostles have been even more disposed to address\nlittle children than men, and it is notable that the modern Vincent de\nPaul was a schoolmaster-Pestalozzi.\n\n[Sidenote: Moral education the legitimate successor of religious\neducation.]\n\nWhat is taking the place of religious education, in existing societies,\nis moral education. The moral sentiment, as we know, is the least\nsuspicious element in the modern religious sentiment, and metaphysical\nhypotheses, based in the last resort upon moral conceptions, are\nthe ultimate and highest outcome of religious hypotheses. To the\nelements of philosophic morality it has been proposed to add, in\nsecondary and even in primary instruction, some notion of the history\nof religions[84]. If this proposition is to be made acceptable it\nmust be reduced within just limits. Let us cherish no illusion; M.\nVernes is wrong if he believes that a professor, and in especial a\nschoolmaster, ever could dwell with insistence upon the history of the\nJews without coming into conflict with the clergy. A truly scientific\ncriticism of the legends which are usually taught children under the\nname of sacred history positively batters down the very foundations\nof Christianity. Clergymen and priests would not endure it; they\nwould protest and with some show of reason against it, in the name of\nreligious neutrality: religion is not less certain in their eyes than\nscience, and the ignorant faith that distinguishes many of them has\nnot yet been tempered by a habit of free criticism; so that anything\nlike a genuine historical education which should openly controvert\nportions of the traditional theology must be considered in advance as\nimpossible. There must be no question in the matter of openly refuting\nanybody; the course of instruction must simply be such as to furnish\nthose who follow it with a criterion of truth, and to teach them to\nmake use of it. We believe therefore that if the history of religions\nis ever made a part of the regular course of instruction, it will deal\nprincipally with everything but the history of the Jews. It might\nfurnish elementary instruction on the moral system of Confucius, on\nthe moral metaphysical notions involved in Indo-European religions,\non the antique Egyptian religion, on the Greek myths, and finally on\nthe religious and moral atmosphere in which Christianity took its\nrise, and on which it in some sort depended and throve. It would be\nwell even to make scholars in primary schools acquainted with the\nnames of some of the great sages in the history of the world, with\ntheir actual or legendary biography, with the moral maxims which are\nattributed to them. What harm could it do to instruct our children in\nthe aphorisms uttered by Confucius, Zoroaster, Buddha, Socrates, Plato,\nand Aristotle, and to let them see something of what humanity really\nbelieved before the time of Christ? One cannot destroy the old faith\nopenly and in a minute, but one may do much to undermine and justly to\nundermine it by showing where and how it borrowed much of all that is\nbest in it\u2014that it is not an exception in the history of human thought\nnor even, in all respects, unsurpassed in its kind.\n\n      [84] By M. Maurice Vernes (approved by Littr\u00e9, and later by M.\n      Paul Bert).\n\n[Sidenote: Helplessness of religion in the face of argument.]\n\nThe Church possesses two means of educating children in its dogmas, and\nonly two; the first is that of patristic or ecclesiastical authority:\n\u2018The fact is thus and such because I say so\u2019; the second is the\ntestimony of miracles. These two, even at the present day, constitute\nthe whole effective contents of the priests\u2019 armoury. The moment they\nstep outside this little circle of ideas they lose their power. And to\ndestroy these two arguments it suffices to show: 1st, that other men\nhave said something different from the teachings of Christianity; 2d,\nthat other gods than Jehovah have also performed miracles; or, in other\nwords, there are no miracles whatever that have been scientifically\nascertained. A number of French schools were founded in Kabail, and\nwere prospering, when by degrees they were abandoned. In one of\nthem, which was the last deserted, some exercises of the pupils were\ndiscovered: they dealt with a story about Fredegunde. This anecdote\nillustrates current notions on instruction in classical history:\nHistory means facts, and facts often monstrous and immoral; not content\nwith teaching them to young Frenchmen we export them to Kabail; but we\ndo not export our ideas, nor even employ them at home. We should have\ndone better to teach the young Algerians what we know about Mohammed\nand his religion and about Jesus and the other prophets, the divinity\nof whose inspiration Mohammed himself admitted. The slightest traces\nthat a really rational education should leave in a half-savage mind\nwould be more useful than a heap of absurd facts perfectly remembered.\nAt bottom it is more important even that a French child should know\nsomething of Mohammed or Buddha than of Fredegunde. Although Mohammed\nand Buddha never lived on French soil, their influence on us is\ninfinitely more great and their relation to us infinitely closer than\nthat of Chilperic or Lothaire.\n\n[Sidenote: Place of religion in state education.]\n\nThe place in which the history of religions really belongs, is in the\nhigher education. It is not enough to have introduced it with success\ninto the Coll\u00e8ge de France, and quite recently to have secured its\nrecognition in a small part of the higher studies in the \u00c9cole. If\nwe should replace our faculties of theology by chairs of religious\ncriticism we should do no more than follow the example of Holland.[85]\nMr. Max M\u00fcller introduced the science of religions into the University\nof Oxford with success. Similarly in Switzerland at the organization\nof the University of Geneva, in 1873, there was created in the faculty\nof letters a chair of the history of religions, although there already\nexisted in the university a faculty of theology. In Germany the history\nof religions is taught independently, notably at the University of\nWurtzburg, under the name of Comparative Symbolism. Just as a complete\ncourse of instruction in philosophy should include the principles of\nthe philosophy of law and the philosophy of history, it will some day\ninclude also the principles of the philosophy of religion. After all,\neven from the point of view of philosophy, Buddha and Jesus possess a\nmuch greater importance than Anaximander or Thales.[86]\n\n      [85] Some years ago, as is well known, on the 1st of October,\n      1877, the faculty of theology in the three state universities\n      of Leyden, Utrecht, and Groningen, and in the Communal\n      University of Amsterdam, was declared to be a lay faculty and\n      was freed from all association and connection with the Church,\n      and was required to give purely scientific and philosophic\n      instruction on the history of religion, without practical\n      discipline. (See M. Steyn Parv\u00e9, _Organisation de l\u2019instruction\n      primaire, secondaire et sup\u00e9rieure dans le royaume des\n      Pays-Bas_, Leyden, 1878, and M. Maurice Vernes, _M\u00e9langes de\n      critique religieuse_, p. 305.)\n\n      The following is the programme of this faculty: 1. General\n      theology; 2. History of doctrines concerning divinity; 3.\n      History of religions in general; 4. History of the Israelite\n      religion; 5. History of Christianity; 6. Literature of the\n      Israelites, and the ancient Christians; 7. Old and New\n      Testament exegesis; 8. History of the dogmas of the Christian\n      church; 9. Philosophy of religion; 10. Ethics.\n\n      [86] As M. Vernes has remarked, the preparation for teaching\n      the history of religions might well be the same as that for\n      teaching philosophy, history, and letters. It should include\n      the studies in the upper classes, of the philosophical section\n      of the _\u00e9cole normale_, and a preparatory course in the divers\n      other faculties: a real _normal_ course. In this course the\n      professor should point out the general principle of the history\n      of religions and should confine himself to indicating them very\n      summarily in the case of the religions of Greece and Rome, to\n      which a general literary education will have given the pupil\n      access; he should deal, without excessive attention to detail,\n      with the other Indo-European religions (those of India, Persia,\n      etc.), with the religions of Egypt, of Assyria, of Ph\u0153nicia, of\n      Islam; and should spend his greatest efforts on the criticism\n      of Judaism and the early stages of Christianity, on the history\n      of the principal Christian dogmas and their development.\n\n[Sidenote: Education of instructors.]\n\nIt has been said, after M. Laboulaye, that a professor of the history\nof religion should be at once an arch\u00e6ologist, an epigraphist, a\nnumismatist, a linguist, an anthropologist, and versed in Hindu,\nPh\u0153nician, Slavonic, Germanic, Celtic, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman\nantiquities; he should be nothing less than a Pico della Mirandola. At\nthat rate one might show also that neither schools nor colleges can be\nexpected to include a course on natural history or on the political\nhistory of some seven or eight nations\u2014nay, even that it is impossible\nto teach children to read: the art of reading is so difficult in its\nperfection! Really is it necessary that the historian of religion\nshould be a master of all the historical sciences? He is under no\nobligation to discover new materials, he has simply to make use of\nthose which philologists and epigraphists have put at his disposal;\nsuch materials are now abundant enough and well enough ascertained\nto require a course specially devoted to them. There is no need for\nthe instructor to master such and such a particular division of the\nhistory of religion; he is simply required to furnish students in our\nuniversities, in the course of one or two years, with a general view\nof the development of religious ideas in history. The professor will\nno doubt encounter certain difficulties in dealing with religious\nquestions because of the amount of feeling that such problems always\ninvolve, but the same difficulty is met with in every course which\ndeals with contemporary questions, and almost every course does deal\nwith them. A professor of history has to deal with contemporary facts,\nto describe the successive changes in the form of government in\nFrance, etc. A professor of philosophy has to deal with questions of\ntheodicy and morals; and even in pure psychology, materialistic and\ndeterministic theories have to be passed upon; even a mere professor\nof rhetoric is obliged, in treating of literature and of Voltaire and\nof the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to touch on questions\nwhich are burning. Similarly, a professor in the law school must find\na thousand occasions for praising, or blaming, or criticising the laws\nof the State. And must one, because of dangers of this sort which are\nmet with at every step, cease teaching history, philosophy, and law?\nNo, and we do not believe that one should be debarred from teaching\nreligious history. The whole question is one of fact rather than of\nprinciple; it should be the master\u2019s business to avoid digressions\nbeyond the limits of pure science, and to be on his guard against\nseeming to mean something more than he says, and masking a criticism of\nthe existing order of things under a course on abstract theory.[87]\n\n      [87] Works in religious criticism would naturally find their\n      place in the school and college libraries. They might be\n      supplemented by a more or less extensive museum of religious\n      curiosities, beginning with the fetiches of savage tribes and\n      extending down to the present day.\n\n      To the mass of the French public the solid results already\n      achieved by an independent criticism of the Bible constitute a\n      _terra incognita_; they must be disseminated. M. Lenormant\u2019s\n      effort might serve as an example for other efforts of the\n      same kind. In order to make it apparent at a glance how the\n      Pentateuch has been formed, by the combination and fusion\n      of the earlier sets of documents, M. Lenormant undertook\n      to publish a translation from the Hebrew, in which he\n      distinguishes the extracts from the respective sets of\n      documents by different kinds of type. Thus one has before one\n      the natural explanation of the way in which all the episodes in\n      Genesis are presented in the two parallel versions, sometimes\n      juxtaposed, sometimes mingled.\n\n[Sidenote: Legitimate object of religious instruction.]\n\nThe aim of this impartial course of instruction should be to supply\neach religion with its proper historical setting, to show how it\nwas born, developed, opposed to others; it should be described, not\nrefuted. The bare introduction of historical continuity into the course\nof religious thought is itself a considerable step in advance; whatever\nis continuous ceases to be marvellous. Nobody is astonished at a brook\nwhich gradually becomes bigger; our ancestors adored great rivers of\nwhose sources they were ignorant.\n\n\n_III. Education at Home._\n\nIt has often been asked, as a question of practical conduct, whether\nthe head of a household ought not to have a religion, at least if not\nfor himself, for his wife and children, and if his wife is religious\nought he to abandon the education of his children to her?\n\n[Sidenote: Father\u2019s duty in regard to religious instruction.]\n\nWe believe it is the duty of the head of a household to rear his family\nin the ideas in which he believes. Whatever solution of the religious\nproblem he may have attained, he ought to hide it from no one, and\nin especial not from his family. Moreover, even if he should wish to\nkeep his opinions secret, he would be unable to do so, at least for\nthe whole of his life. His dissimulation would simply result in such\nan association in the minds of his children between moral precepts\nand religious dogmas that the chances would be that they would stand,\nor rather fall, together. Of all people in the world the child is\nprecisely the one who is likely to suffer most from a belief that\nreligion and morality are inseparably bound up together. Of all human\nbeings children are least philosophical, least metaphysical, least\nfamiliar with scientific ideas, and therefore of all others the most\neasily biassed once for all by the inculcation of false or doubtful\nnotions presented as certain. In China, at the periodical conferences,\ncertain mandarins dilate upon the following theme in the presence of\nthe more notable among the inhabitants: \u201cDo your duty as a citizen and\nbeware of religion.\u201d That is precisely what a father ought to say again\nand again to his children. It is a good principle of education to take\nit for granted that the child is rational, and to treat it as such, in\norder ultimately and gradually to develop the spirit of reason in it.\nWhat a child lacks is much less intensity of attention than continuity.\nVery often among country people, and almost always among inferior races\n(as also among animals), the young are more wide-awake, more curious,\nmore quick-minded than the mature men; but their attention must be\nseized in transit; teaching them resembles teaching a bird on the wing.\nTheir schoolmaster must have the gifts of a bird-fancier; and it is his\nfault much oftener than the child\u2019s if the latter does not understand,\ndoes not ask questions, is inert and incurious. The scientific\neducation of the child should begin with its first question; truth is\na debt that one owes to it, and truth accessible to its intelligence.\nThe moment a child asks a question out of its own head, it is at least\nin part prepared to understand the reply; the duty of the person\ninterrogated is to reply, as fully and as truly as he believes the\nchild capable of understanding, and if he leaves gaps he must at least\nnever fill them with lies. It is so easy to tell the child to wait\nuntil it is bigger. There should be no fear of precociously developing\nthe child\u2019s reason in its two essential forms, the instinct of inquiry,\nof _why_ and _how_, and the instinct of perception, of logical cogency\nin the reply to the \u201cwhy\u201d and \u201chow.\u201d One need not be afraid that the\nchild will fatigue its brain by abstract reasoning; Pascals are rare.\nThe danger does not lie in a premature development of the reason, which\nit is always easy moreover to check, but in a premature development of\nthe sensibility. The child must not be encouraged to feel too strongly.\nTo subject it to vain fears such as those of hell and the devil, or to\nbeatific visions and mystic enthusiasms such as young girls experience\nat the time of the first communion, is to do it much greater harm than\nto teach it to reason justly and to develop in it a certain intelligent\nvirility. Races become effeminate by excess of sensibility, never by\nexcess of scientific and philosophic power.\n\n[Sidenote: Impossible to leave the child in ignorance.]\n\nIt will perhaps be said, with Rousseau, that if the child is not\nto be trammelled with religious prejudice it may at least wait for\nreasoned instruction on religion until it has attained its intellectual\nmaturity. We reply that it is impossible to do so in the present state\nof society. If the father does not teach his child it will absorb the\nprejudices of those it associates with, and to disabuse it of them\nafterward will demand a veritable crisis, which is always painful and\noften the cause of permanent suffering. The great art of education\nshould consist precisely in avoiding crises of this sort in the orderly\ngrowth of the intellect. The father who postpones the decisive moment\nwill be the first person to be surprised at the amount of pain he will\nbe obliged to subject his child to in order to root up the error which\nhe has placidly permitted to grow under his very eyes.\n\n[Sidenote: One must begin early.]\n\nM. Littr\u00e9 has given an account of a case of conscience of this kind;\nafter having voluntarily held aloof from the religious education of\nhis daughter till she had reached years of discretion, he found her\nat last so sincerely convinced, so completely fashioned by religion\nfor religion, that he recoiled before so thorough-going a change; like\na surgeon whose hand should tremble at the thought of an operation\nupon a body that love had rendered sacred to him; like an oculist who\nshould feel that light was not worth the pain that he would have to\ninflict on eyes that were dear to him. The intellectual operator has\nnot at his command even the resource of chloroform; he must practise\nhis surgery upon a subject who is fully conscious and even excited\nby attention and reflection. Prevention is better than expectant\ntreatment, which allows the disease to develop in the hopes of curing\nit afterward. The competent educator, like the competent physician,\nmay be known by his ability in avoiding the necessity of operations.\nIt is a mistake to allow a child to grow up in complete belief in\nreligious legends, with the intention of undeceiving it afterward. It\nwill be undeceived not without regret nor without effort. And often\nthe effort put forth will itself be too great, will overshoot itself,\nand from excess of faith the child will pass at a bound to sceptical\nindifference and will suffer for it. Treasures in heaven are treasures\nin fiat money; the disappointment which must some day come, when\none learns the truth, will be bitter. It would be better always to\nhave known that one was poor. A child may early be accustomed to the\nconception of the infinite; it makes up its account with it as with\nthe notion of the antipodes, or of the absence of an absolute up and\ndown in the universe. The first sensation one experiences when one\nlearns that the earth is spherical is of terror, a fear of the void,\nof tumbling off into the abyss of open space. The same na\u00efve fear lies\nat the bottom of the religious sentiment in certain minds, and is due\nto factitious associations of ideas which are a matter of education\nwholly. A fish born in an aquarium becomes accustomed to its habitat,\nas the ancients were accustomed to the inverted crystal ball of the\nheavens; it would be lost in the ocean. Birds reared in the cage often\ndie if they are abruptly given their liberty. A period of transition is\nalways necessary, one needs time to become accustomed to intellectual\nexpanses as well as to expanses of air and water. If mankind is to live\nwithout religion it must receive a non-religious education, and this\neducation will spare it a great deal of the suffering that those who\nhave been educated in the faith and have subsequently broken away by\ntheir own efforts have undergone. The wood-cutter\u2019s child experiences\nno sentiment of fear in the solitude and obscurity of the forest, in\nthe arched lanes and alleys, among the trees among which it was born. A\ntown-born child would feel lost in such a place and would begin to cry.\nThe world of science, with its shadowy labyrinths and limitless extent\nand its numberless obstacles which must be removed one at a time, is\nsuch a forest; the child who is born in it will not be frightened, will\nlive in it always happily.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: What to say to the child about death. M. Louis M\u00e9nard\u2019s\nposition.]\n\nOf all the problems of education which lie on the borders of religious\nmetaphysics the most interesting is, unquestionably, what to say to\nthe child about death and human destiny. When these questions are\ndiscussed before him, is a rational and truly philosophical method to\nbe employed? Is he to be informed dogmatically, or is it a matter of\nindifference what is said to him? This problem has been discussed,\nin the \u201cCritique philosophique,\u201d by M. Louis M\u00e9nard, who deals with\nthe hypothetical case of a child that has lost its mother and is\ncross-questioning its father. That is ingenious, but it is a specious\nway of raising the problem. When a young child loses its mother we\nregard it as the first duty of the father to console and spare its\ndelicate organism the strain of all strong emotions. The question\nis one of moral hygiene, in which philosophy and religion are not\nconcerned, in which the age and temperament of the child are the sole\nthings to consider. Truth is not equally valuable at all periods of\nlife; one does not tell a man abruptly that his wife has just died.\nThe most convinced materialist will hesitate to announce to a nervous\nchild that it will never see its mother again. But the materialist\nin question would always do wrong to put forth a categorical\naffirmation in a case in which there exists at best nothing more than\nprobabilities; the most dangerous method of deception is to present as\na recognized certainty what is really nothing of the kind. In any event\nthere is one form of immortality, that of memory, and that species of\nimmortality we may ourselves secure by implanting it in the mind of\nthe child.[88] The father ought repeatedly to talk to the orphan child\nof the dead mother. He can create a recollection in the child as vivid\nand as detailed as his own; whether the child behaves well or ill he\ncan always say, \u201cIf your mother were but here!\u201d The child will thus\nbecome accustomed to find a recompense or a punishment in its mother\u2019s\napprobation or disapprobation.[89]\n\n      [88] \u201cMemory is no doubt an affliction for the grown man\n      much more than for the child, but it is also a consolation.\n      Cultivation of one\u2019s memories supplies powerful means of\n      moral education for all ages, and for nations as well as for\n      individuals. It was quite to be expected that we should find an\n      ancestor worship in the early history of every people.\u201d (Felix\n      Henneguy, _Critique philosophique_, 8th year, vol. ii. p. 218.)\n\n      [89] _Ibid._\n\n[Sidenote: Should talk with child as with a grown person.]\n\nTo raise the problem more fairly, let us suppose the circumstances\nsomewhat less tragic than those which M. M\u00e9nard has chosen, and let us\nask how, in general, the child must be spoken to about death. When the\nchild is capable of following a more or less complex bit of exposition,\ntoward the age of ten or twelve for example, I confess that I see no\nreason why its questions should not be answered exactly as if they\nwere those of a grown person. At that age it will no longer believe\nin fairies, it will no longer need to believe in legends, not even\nin those of Christianity. The scientific and philosophic spirit will\nhave begun to develop and must not be either checked or distorted. If\nits intelligence leads it toward philosophical problems, so much the\nbetter; one must meet its need as simply as if the problems in question\nwere historical. I have seen a child much tormented by a desire to know\nwhether such and such an historical personage died a natural death or\nwas poisoned. The child was told that the thing was doubtful, but that\nthe probability was so and so. The same method should be pursued in\nreference to more important problems.\n\n[Sidenote: No difficulty in making the child understand.]\n\nBut how, it may be asked, is one to form replies, that the child can\nunderstand, to questions which relate to the life beyond the grave?\nIs not the sole language that it understands that of Christianity,\nwhich deals with men raised to heaven, with happy souls seated among\nthe angels and the seraphim, etc.? We reply that people in general\nseem to have a strange conception of the child\u2019s intelligence; they\nexpect it to understand the most refined subtleties of grammar, the\nmost unexpected turns and shifts of theology, and are afraid to say\na word to it of philosophy. A little girl of twelve years, of my\nacquaintance, replied with much ingenuity to this unexpected question:\nWhat is the difference between a perfect and an imperfect Christian?\nIt was evident that she would not have experienced greater difficulty\nin replying to a metaphysical question. I recollect having myself\nfollowed, at the age of eight, a discussion on the immortality of the\nsoul; nay, I even pronounced an interior judgment in favour of him\nwho was maintaining the cause of immortality. Our system of education\nis full of contradictions, which consist at once in mechanically\nburdening the child\u2019s memory with things it cannot understand, and\nin depriving its intelligence of subjects in which it might take an\ninterest. \u201cBut,\u201d M. M\u00e9nard will object, \u201ca child must not be put into\na position of being able to oppose its father\u2019s belief to that of its\nmother or of its grand-mother.\u201d Why not? It happens, necessarily, every\nday. There are, on all subjects, incessantly going on in the bosom of\nthe family a series of discussions, of small disagreements which in\nnowise fundamentally disturb the harmony of the household; why should\nit be otherwise when more important and uncertain questions simply\nare involved? \u201cBut the child will lose respect for its parents.\u201d It\nis certainly better that it should lose respect for them than that\nit should believe everything they say, even when they deceive it.\nHappily, respect for one\u2019s parents is not at all the same thing as\nbelief in their infallibility. Children early make use of liberty\nof judgment, they may early be taught to sift out the truth from a\nmass of more or less contradictory affirmations, their judgment may\nbe developed instead of being supplied, as is at present attempted,\nready and completely made. The essential thing is to avoid rousing\ntheir passions and converting them into fanatics. The child needs an\natmosphere of calm for the harmonious development of its faculties;\nit is a delicate plant that must not be too soon exposed to wind and\nweather; but it does not follow that it should be kept in the obscurity\nor half light of religious legend. The sole means of sparing the child\nthe trouble of passion and fanaticism is to place it outside of all\nreligious communion and to habituate it to examine things coolly,\nphilosophically; to take problems of religion for what they are; that\nis to say, for problems simply, with ambiguous solutions.[90] Nothing\nserves better to awake the intellectual spontaneity of the child than\nto say to it: This is what I believe, and these are my reasons for\nbelieving it; I may be wrong. Your mother, or such and such a person,\nbelieves something else for certain other reasons, right or wrong. The\nchild acquires thus a rare quality, that of tolerance; its respect\nfor its parents attaches to the diverse doctrines that it sees them\nprofessing; it learns, in its earliest years, that every sincere and\nreasoned belief is in the highest degree respectable. I am intimately\nacquainted with a child that has been reared in this way, and it has\nnever had any occasion for anything but satisfaction with the education\nit has received. It has never been presented on the subject of human\ndestiny, or the destiny of the world, with any opinion in the nature of\nan article of faith; instead of religious certitudes it has heard only\nof metaphysical possibilities and probabilities. Toward the age of\nthirteen and a half the problem of the destiny of mankind was abruptly\nsuggested to it; the death of a very dear aged relative caused it to\ndo more thinking than is customary at that age, but its philosophic\nbeliefs proved themselves sufficient. They still are sufficient,\nalthough the child in question has been obliged several times to face\nthe possibility, and the immediate possibility, of its own death. I\ncite the example as an experiment which bears on the question under\ndiscussion.\n\n      [90] Among the greatest causes of difficulty with a child, let\n      us note the following: the father is apt to be a free-thinker,\n      the mother a Catholic. It hears every day at Church that those\n      who do not practise their religious duties will go to hell:\n      the child therefore reasons that if its father dies it will\n      never see him again, unless it goes to hell with him, and then\n      it will never see its mother again. A full and complete belief\n      in annihilation would be less painful and less annoying than\n      this belief in eternal damnation. Add that in this respect many\n      Protestant clergymen, in especial in England and in the United\n      States, are not less intolerant than Catholic priests.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nHow then should death be spoken of to a child? I reply confidently, as\none would speak of it to a grown person, allowing for the difference\nbetween abstract and concrete language. I naturally suppose the child\nto be semi-rational, more than ten years old, and capable of thinking\nof something else than its top or its doll. I believe it should then\nbe talked with openly, and told what we ourselves think most probable\non these terrible questions. The free-thinker who leans toward\nnaturalistic doctrines will say to his son or his daughter that he\nbelieves death to be a resolution of the person into its constituent\nelements, a return to a blind material existence, a fresh beginning\nin the perpetual round of evolution; that all that we leave behind is\nthe good that we have done and that we live in humanity by our good\nactions and our good thoughts, and that immortality is productivity\nfor the best interests of humanity. The spiritualist will say that,\nowing to the distinction between the soul and the body, death is simply\na deliverance. The pantheist or the monist will repeat the formula\nconsecrated by the use of three thousand years: _Tat tvam asi_\u2014Thou\nart that; and the modern child will recognize, as the young Brahman\ndoes, that beneath the surface of things there lies a mysterious unity\ninto which the individual may fade. Finally the Kantian will endeavour\nto make his child understand that the conception of duty involves\nsomething anterior and superior to the present life; that to be aware\nof the moral law is to be conscious of immortality. Everyone will say\nwhat he believes, and take care not to pretend that his opinion is the\nabsolute truth. The child, thus treated like a human being, will early\nlearn to make up its own mind, to provide itself with a creed without\nhaving received it from any traditional religion or any immutable\ndoctrine; it will learn that a really sacred belief is one which is\nreflective and reasoned and seemingly personal; and if at times, as it\nadvances in age, it experiences a greater or less anxiety about the\nunknown, so much the better; such an anxiety, when the senses are not\ninvolved and thought alone is concerned, is in no sense dangerous. The\nchild who experiences it will be of the stuff out of which philosophers\nand sages are made.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nRELIGION AND NON-RELIGION AMONG WOMEN.\n\n    Are women inherently predisposed toward religion\n      and even toward superstition?\u2014The nature of\n      feminine intelligence\u2014Predominance of the\n      imagination\u2014Credulity\u2014Conservatism\u2014Feminine\n      sensibility\u2014Predominance of sentiment\u2014Tendency to\n      mysticism\u2014Is the moral sentiment among women based upon\n      religion?\u2014Influence of religion and of non-religion upon\n      modesty and love\u2014Origin of modesty\u2014Love and perpetual\n      virginity\u2014M. Renan\u2019s paradoxes on the subject of monastic\n      vows\u2014How woman\u2019s natural proclivities may be turned\n      to account by free-thought\u2014Influence exercised by the\n      wife\u2019s faith over the husband\u2014Instance of a conversion to\n      free-thought.\n\n\nAmong free-thinkers themselves there are a certain number who\nbelieve that women are by the very nature of their minds devoted to\nsuperstition and to myth. Is the incapacity of the female mind for\nphilosophy more demonstrable than that of the child\u2019s mind to which it\nhas so frequently been compared?\n\n[Sidenote: Woman\u2019s attention to details.]\n\nWe are not obliged to decide the question whether women\u2019s mental powers\nare or are not inferior to those of men.[91] We are obliged to consider\nonly whether the limits of female intelligence are so tightly drawn\nthat religion, and even superstition, are for it inevitable. Those\nwho maintain that women are in some sort condemned to error argue\nfrom certain essential elements in her character; let us examine\naccordingly the peculiarity of her intelligence and of her sensibility.\nThe female mind, it has been said, is less abstract than that of the\nmale; women are more impressionable on the side of the senses and of\nthe imagination, are more readily appealed to by what is beautiful and\nstriking and coloured: thence arises their need for myths, for symbols,\nfor a cult, for rites that speak to the eye. We reply that this need is\nnot absolute: are not Protestant women content with a cult which does\nnot appeal to the senses? And in any event, an imaginative spirit is\nnot necessarily superstitious. Superstition is a matter of education,\nnot of nature; there is a certain maturity of mind which lends no\nencouragement to superstition. I have known a number of women who did\nnot possess one superstition among them and were incapable of acquiring\none; there was no distinction in this respect to be observed between\ntheir intelligence and that of a man; the conception of the world as\nan orderly succession of phenomena, once really accepted by the human\nmind, maintains itself by its own power, without aid from without, as\nthe fact in the long run always does.\n\n      [91] As a general rule, Darwin says, men go farther than women,\n      whether the matter be one of profound meditation, of reason,\n      or imagination, or simply of the use of the senses or even of\n      the hands. According to certain statistical investigations\n      it appears that the modern female brain has remained almost\n      stationary, while the male brain has developed notably. The\n      brain of a Parisian woman is no larger than that of a Chinese\n      woman, and the Parisian woman labours under the additional\n      disadvantage of possessing a larger foot.\n\n      Admitting these facts one may still refuse to infer from them\n      the existence of a congenital incapacity, for the way in which\n      women have always been treated by men and the education that\n      they have received may well have left results which have become\n      hereditary. The education of women has in all times been less\n      strenuous than that of men; and their mind, perhaps naturally\n      less scientific, has never been developed by direct contact\n      with the external world. In the Orient and in Greece, among the\n      nations from whom we derive our civilization, women (at least\n      in families in easy circumstances) were always restricted to a\n      subordinate r\u00f4le, confined to woman\u2019s quarters, or withdrawn\n      from all direct contact with the real world. Thence arose a\n      sort of tradition of ignorance and intellectual abasement which\n      has been handed down to us. There is nothing like the brain of\n      a young girl reared at home for gathering to itself completely,\n      and without loss, the whole residue of middle-class silliness,\n      of na\u00efve and self-satisfied prejudice, of strutting ignorance\n      that does not see itself as others see it, of superstition\n      transformed into a rule of conduct. But change the education\n      and you will in a great measure change these results. Even\n      according to Darwin\u2019s own theory, education and heredity can in\n      the long run undo anything that they have done. Even if there\n      should remain a certain balance of intelligence in favor of\n      the male, even if the female should prove to be in the end, as\n      Darwin says, incapable of pushing invention as far in advance\n      as man, it would not follow that her heart and intelligence\n      should be filled with another order of ideas and sentiments\n      than those which are beneficial to men. It is one thing to\n      invent and to widen the domain of science, and another thing\n      to assimilate the knowledge already acquired; it is one thing\n      to widen the intellectual horizon, and another thing to adapt\n      one\u2019s eyes and heart to this more open habitat.\n\n[Sidenote: Female credulity.]\n\nA second trait of female intelligence, which has also been made use\nof, is its credulity\u2014by which religion has so largely profited. Women\nare more credulous than men, in this sense: they possess a certain\nconfidence in men, whom they recognize as stronger and more widely\nexperienced than themselves; they willingly believe whatever grave men,\nwhom they are accustomed to venerate, men like priests, assert. Their\ncredulity is thus in a great part a mere form of their natural need to\nlean on some member of the opposite sex. Conceive a religion originated\nand administered solely by women; it would be looked upon with great\ndistrust by women, in general. The day men cease to believe, female\ncredulity\u2014in especial that of the average woman, who is accustomed\nto judge with the eyes and intelligence of someone else\u2014will be\nprofoundly affected. I once asked a maid who had remained thirty years\nin the same house what were her beliefs. \u201cThose of my master,\u201d she\nreplied; her master was an atheist. The same question was put to the\nwife of a member of the Institute. She replied: \u201cI was a Catholic\nuntil I was married. After I was married I began to appreciate the\nsuperiority of my husband\u2019s mind, I saw that he did not believe in\nreligion, and I ceased to believe in it entirely myself.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Female conservatism.]\n\nA third trait of the feminine character is its conservativeness, its\nfriendliness to tradition, its indisposition to initiative. Respect for\npower and authority, Spencer says, predominates in women, influences\ntheir ideas and sentiments in regard to all institutions, and tends\nto strengthen political and ecclesiastical governments. For the same\nreason women are particularly inclined to put faith in whatever is\nimposing; doubt, criticism, a disposition to question whatever is\nestablished is rare among them, Mr. Spencer thinks. Women certainly do\npossess a more conservative disposition than men in religion and in\npolitics; it has been so found in England where women vote on municipal\nquestions, and in our judgment the r\u00f4le that woman should play in this\nworld is precisely that of conservatism; as a young girl, she must\nguard her person as a treasure, must be always suspicious of she knows\nnot precisely what; then as a wife she must watch over her child, her\nhouse, her husband; must preserve, retain, defend, embrace somebody\nor something. Is it a thing to be complained of? Is it not to this\ninstinct that we owe our life, and if difference in sex, or sexual\nfunctions, involves grave differences in character, must we conclude\nfrom this fact that women possess an irremediable civil and religious\nincapacity? No; conservatism may be of service in the ranks of truth\nas in the ranks of error; all depends on what is given to conserve.\nIf women are more philosophically and scientifically educated, their\nconservatism may do good service.\n\n[Sidenote: Female timidity.]\n\nA final trait of the feminine mind, very like the preceding, is that\nwomen are more given to an absorption in detail, are less courageous,\nare more capable of dealing with particular details than with general\nideas and things as a whole, and are more inclined to narrow and\nliteral interpretations than men. If a woman, for example, is intrusted\nwith any administrative office she will execute every rule to the\nletter with an exaggerated conscientiousness and a na\u00efve anxiety. The\nconclusion is that women will always lend comfort to literal religions\nand to superstitious practices. In our opinion this penchant for\nminuti\u00e6 and for scrupulousness which is so frequently observed among\nwomen may become, on the contrary, an important factor of incredulity\nwhen women are sufficiently instructed to perceive at first hand the\ninnumerable contradictions and ambiguities of the texts they are\ndealing with. An enlightened scruple is a keener instrument of doubt\nthan of faith.\n\nWe confess we do not yet see that the differences, native or acquired,\nbetween the male and the female brain suffice to constitute women a\nsort of inferior caste, devoted by their birth to religion and the\nservice of myth, while men are reserved for science and philosophy.\n\n[Sidenote: Is sentiment a badge of servitude to error?]\n\nLet me now examine the more profound reasons based on the nature of\nwomen\u2019s sentimental proclivities. In general, it is said that women are\ndominated not by reason but by sentiment. They respond quickly to a\ncall made in the name of pity or of charity, and not so quickly to one\nmade in the name of equity. But is sentiment the exclusive possession\nof religions? And are there not also men of sentiment as well as men of\nthought? And are the first on that account condemned to a life of error\nwhile the second live in the presence of the truth?\n\n[Sidenote: Women and mysticism.]\n\nBut it is insisted that in women sentiment naturally tends toward\nmysticism. Among the Greeks, Spencer says, the women were more\naccessible than the men to religious excitation.[92] It may be replied\nthat the greatest mystics have not been women. St. Theresas have been\nmuch less numerous than men like Plotinus (it was Plotinus who first\ngave the word \u1f14\u03ba\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 its current sense), Porphyry, Iamblicus,\nDionysius the Areopagite, St. Bonaventure, Gerson, Richard de Saint\nVictor, Eckhart, Tauler, Swedenborg. Mysticism develops in proportion\nto the restriction of the individual\u2019s activity. Women\u2019s life, which is\nless active than that of men, allows more space for the development of\nmystic impulses and exercises of piety. But activity cures the diseases\nof contemplation, in especial of vain and empty contemplation in which\nonly average and ignorant minds can take delight. Woman\u2019s religious\nactivity will diminish in proportion as a wider field of activity is\nopened up to her, and in proportion as an intellectual and \u00e6sthetic\neducation is supplied to her and she becomes interested in all the\nhuman questions and realities of this world. It has been desired even\nto render political life accessible to woman, to restore to her the\nrights which have hitherto been denied her. M. Secr\u00e9tan has recently\nadvocated this measure, which was formerly advocated by John Stuart\nMill. To do so at the present moment would be to hand over politics\ndirectly to the priesthood, who at present control women. But when\nby gradual degrees women\u2019s religious emancipation shall have been\ncompleted, it is possible that a certain political emancipation may\nbe the natural consequence of it. Her civil emancipation in any event\nis only a matter of time. The equality of women before the law is a\nnecessary consequence of democratic ideas. When they shall be forced\nthus to occupy themselves more actively in the affairs of this world\nthe new employment of their energy will protect them more and more from\nmystical tendencies.\n\n      [92] Sir Rutherford Alcock says also, that in Japan it is\n      very rare to see any other worshippers in the temples than\n      women and children; the men are always extremely few in number\n      and belong to the lower classes. At least five-sixths and\n      often nine-tenths of the pilgrims who come to the temple of\n      Juggernaut are women. Among the Sikhs the women are said to\n      believe in more gods than the men. These examples, borrowed\n      as they are from different races, and at different epochs,\n      show sufficiently, in Spencer\u2019s opinion, that, when we find an\n      analogous state of things in Catholic countries, and even in\n      some measure in England, we are not to attribute it solely to\n      the education of women; the cause, he thinks, is deeper, lies\n      in their nature. (See Spencer\u2019s _Study of Sociology_.)\n\nIf an opportunity be given them to influence society they will no\ndoubt exercise it philanthropically. Well, pity is one of the most\npowerful derivatives of mysticism. Even among religious orders it has\nbeen remarked how much less exalted the devotion of the members of\nthe philanthropic orders is than of those who restrict themselves to\nsterile meditation in the cloister.\n\n[Sidenote: Female moral sentiment.]\n\nIf mysticism is no more truly indispensable to women than to men, can\nit be maintained that their moral sentiment is incapable of subsistence\napart from some religion? Is women\u2019s moral power less than that of men,\nand is it only in religion that they can find the additional increment\nof strength of which they are in need? Resistance to physical or moral\npain supplies a sufficiently exact measure of power. Well, women show\nin maternity, with all its consequences, in pregnancy, in childbirth,\nin nursing, accompanied as it is by continual watchfulness and care,\na patience of physical pain which is perhaps greater than anything\nthat the average man is capable of. Just so in respect to patience of\nmoral pain: women may suffer much from poverty, and sadness follows the\nflying needle, but love and pity are the great sources of restraint. As\nthe sphere of her intelligence widens, a large field will be supplied\nfor the exercise of women\u2019s power of love which is so highly developed.\nThe genuine remedy for every kind of suffering is increased activity of\nmind, which means increased instruction. Action is always an anodyne\nof pain. Therein lies the explanation of the power of charity to calm\npersonal suffering, which is always in some degree egoistic. The best\nway to console one\u2019s self, for women and men alike, will always be to\nminister to someone else; hope revives in a heart which gives hope to\nothers. Pains become gentle as they become fertile in beneficence, and\nproductivity is an appeasement.\n\n[Sidenote: Best side of female levity.]\n\nAnd finally, by way of compensation, there are other respects in which\nwomen would suffer perhaps less than men from the disappearance of\nreligious beliefs. Women live more completely in the present than men\ndo, they are somewhat bird-like in their composition, and forget the\ntempest the instant it is passed. Women laugh as easily as they cry,\nand their laughter soon dries their tears: they are to be forgiven\nfor at least one aspect of this divine levity. Moreover they have\ntheir household, all the tender and practical preoccupations of life,\nwhich absorb them more completely, heart and soul, than men. A woman\u2019s\nhappiness is probably complete the instant she believes herself to be\nbeautiful and feels that she is loved; a man\u2019s happiness is a much\nmore complex product and contains a much larger number of intellectual\nelements. Women live more wholly within the limits of their own\ngeneration than men, and experience a sort of contemporary immortality\nin the hearts of those they love.\n\n[Sidenote: Modesty and love.]\n\nAmong the most developed sentiments of women there are two which\nconstitute the strength of their disposition to propriety: modesty,\nthe dignity of their sex, and love, which is exclusive when it is\ntrue. But for these two powerful causes religious motives would always\nhave weighed lightly with her. If religion exercises a great control\nover women, it is by taking possession of these two motives: the\nsurest means of making women listen, and almost the sole means, is to\nawaken their love, or to appeal to their modesty: to give themselves\nor to refuse themselves are the two great acts which dominate their\nlives, and immorality among them generally increases directly with\nthe diminution of their modesty. Thence arises a new and delicate\nproblem, whether modesty, that compound of power and grace, is not\nrather a religious than a moral virtue, and if religion has maintained\nit, would it not disappear with the disappearance of religion, and\nbe enfeebled by a religion increasingly scientific and, in a sense,\npositive? Note in the first place, that if the essence of all feminine\nvirtue is modesty, as of all male virtue it is courage, that very\nfact constitutes an additional reason for doing everything in one\u2019s\npower to make modesty independent of religion, in order that it may\nstand unaffected by the doubts which necessarily, in the modern world,\nwill overwhelm the latter. Certainly modesty is capable of serving\nremarkably well as a safeguard for beliefs, and even for irrational\nbeliefs; it always prevents one from pushing reason, as from pushing\ndesire to the end, but there is a true and a false, a useful and a\nharmful modesty. The first, as we shall see, is not bound up with\nreligion, either in its origin or in its destiny.\n\n[Sidenote: Origin of modesty.]\n\nIn the first place is modesty of religious origin? Every young girl\nfeels vaguely that she has at her disposal a treasure which a number\nof people desire. This sentiment, which is confused with some obscure\nconsciousness of sex, was necessary to enable the female to attain\ncomplete physical development before giving herself. Precocious\nimmodesty must inevitably, in effect has, resulted in an arrested\ndevelopment. It might easily have produced also a comparative\nsterility. Modesty is thus a guarantee for the continuance of the\nspecies, one of the sentiments that natural selection must inevitably\nhave tended to preserve and to increase. It is a condition, moreover,\nof sexual selection; if the female had been disposed to give herself\nindiscriminately, the species would have suffered. Happily desire is\nchecked by modesty, an obstacle which it can remove only on condition\nof the woman\u2019s being strongly attracted by the object desired; a\nquality which will subsequently be transmissible to the species. From\nthe point of view of sexual selection there is in modesty a great deal\nof coquetry\u2014a coquetry which is unaware of its aim, which is half\nunconscious, and often mistakes for a duty what is really but a bit of\nmanagement. The art of provisional refusal, and of attractive flight,\nmust inevitably have attained a high development among superior\nbeings, for it is a powerful medium of seduction and selection. Modesty\nhas developed side by side with it, and really constitutes but a\nfugitive moment in the eternity of female coquetry. Coquetry originates\nin the young girl who is yet too ignorant to be really modest, but too\nmuch of a woman not to love to attract and to retreat; and at the other\nextreme it constitutes the last remnant of modesty in women who really\npossess none. Finally, modesty is also composed largely of an element\nof fear, which has been very useful in the preservation of the race.\nAmong animals the female almost always runs some risk in the presence\nof the male, which is generally stronger than she; love-making is\nnot only a crisis but a danger, and she must mollify the male before\nsurrendering herself to him, must seduce him before satisfying him.\nEven in the human race, in primitive times, women were not always safe\nfrom violence from men. Modesty secures a sort of expectant love which\nwas necessary in primitive times, a proof, a period of mutual scrutiny.\nLucretius has remarked that children, by their weakness and by their\nfragility, have contributed to the softening of human manners; the same\nremark applies to women and to this sense of their own comparative\nweakness, which they experience so acutely in modesty, and which they\nto some degree communicate to men. Women\u2019s fears and scruples have made\nman\u2019s hand less hard; their modesty has given rise in him to a certain\nform of respect, to a form of desire which is less brutal and more\ngentle; they have civilized love. Modesty is analogous to the species\nof fright that inclines a bird to flee one\u2019s caresses, which bruise\nit. One\u2019s very look possesses some element of hardness for a bird;\nand is it not a prolongation of touch? In addition to these various\nelements there goes, to the composition of a young girl\u2019s or a young\nman\u2019s modesty, a higher and more properly human element; the fear of\nlove itself, the fear of something new and unknown, of the profound\nand powerful instinct which is awakening in one after having up to\nthat time lain asleep, which abruptly arises in one and struggles for\ndominance with the other forces and impulses of one\u2019s being. The young\nman, unaccustomed as yet to submit to the domination of this instinct,\nfinds in it something stranger and more mysterious than in any other;\n_c\u2019est l\u2019interrogation anxieuse de ch\u00e9rubin_.[93]\n\n      [93] Shame is usually regarded as constituting the essence of\n      modesty, but shame can have been but one of the elements in its\n      formation; such shame as actually exists is readily explicable\n      as a sense of the uncleanness attaching, in especial in the\n      case of the woman (of whom the Hebrews required a periodic\n      purification), to certain animal functions. But modesty must\n      have been developed also by the use of clothing and the growth\n      of the habit of covering, first the loins and then more and\n      more of the entire person; and indeed the development of\n      modesty and of the habit of wearing clothes must each have been\n      aided by the other. The habit of going covered gives rise very\n      soon to shame at being seen uncovered. The little negresses\n      whom Livingstone supplied with shifts became, in a few days,\n      so accustomed to having the upper half of their bodies hidden\n      that, when they were surprised in their chambers in the\n      morning, they hastily covered their breasts.\n\n[Sidenote: Religious education and modesty.]\n\nTo sum up, the sentiment of modesty neither originates in religion nor\ndepends upon it; it is only very indirectly allied to it. Even from the\npoint of view of modesty a religious education is not above reproach.\nAmong Protestants, is the reading of the Bible always a good school? M.\nBruston has contended for the propriety of reading the Song of Songs\nin an epoch like ours when marriages are often made out of interest\nrather than of inclination; and indeed we agree with him that the\nreading of the Song of Songs does tend to develop certain inclinations\nin young girls, but hardly an inclination to a regular and complicated\nchurch marriage. Among Catholics how many indiscreet questions the\nconfessor puts to the young girl! How many prohibitions, as dangerous\nin their way as suggestions! And even in the item of modesty excess is\na defect; a little wholesome liberty in education and manners would\ndo no harm. Catholic education sometimes distorts the woman\u2019s mind by\nmaking it too different from that of the man, and by accustoming it to\na perpetual timidity and discomposure in the presence of the being with\nwhom she must pass her life, and by rendering her modesty somewhat too\nindeterminate and savage, and converting it into a sort of religion.\n\n[Sidenote: True modesty.]\n\nThere is also sometimes manifest a sort of perversion of modesty in the\nmystical tendencies of woman, which are especially strong at the age\nof puberty. These tendencies, exploited by the priesthood, give rise\nto convents and cloisters. A Catholic education too often constitutes\nfor young girls a sort of moral mutilation; one endeavours to keep them\nvirgins, and one succeeds in converting them into imperfect women.\nReligions are too inclined to consider the union of the sexes under I\nknow not what mystical aspect, and, from the point of view of morals,\nas a stain. Certainly purity is a power; it is with a little diamond\npoint that mountains, and even continents, are nowadays pierced, but\nChristianity has confounded chastity with purity. True purity is that\nof love, true chastity is chastity of heart; chastity of heart survives\nchastity of body, and stops at the point beyond which it would become\na restriction, an obstacle to the free development of the entire\nbeing. An eunuch or a young man studying for the priesthood may well\nbe destitute of chastity; the smile of a young girl at the thought\nof her fianc\u00e9 may be infinitely more virginal than that of a nun.\nNothing moreover stains the mind like a too exclusive preoccupation\nwith the things of the body; incessant attention to them necessarily\nevokes a chain of immodest imagery. St. Jerome in his desert,\nbelieving, as he relates, that he saw the Roman courtesans dancing\nnaked in the moonlight, was less pure in heart and brain than Socrates\nunceremoniously paying a visit to Theodora. A too self-conscious\nmodesty is immodest. The whole grace of virginity is ignorance; the\ninstant virginity becomes aware of itself it is tarnished; virginity,\nlike certain fruits, can only be preserved by a process of desiccation.\nLove and sunshine transform the universe. Modesty is simply a coat of\nmail which presupposes a state of war between the sexes, and aims at\npreventing a blind promiscuity; the mutual self-abandonment of love\nis more chaste than the modest inquietude and the immodest suspicion\nwhich precede it; there grows up between two people who love each\nother a sort of confidence that results in their neither wishing nor\nbeing able to keep back anything from each other; self-constraint,\nsuspicion, consciousness of antagonism of interest, all disappear. This\nis assuredly the characteristic of the most perfect form of reunion\nthat can exist in this world; Plato believed that the human body is\nthe prison of the spirit and cuts it off from immediate communication\nwith its fellow-spirits; paradoxical as it may seem, it is in love that\nthe body becomes less opaque, and effaces itself, and soul communicates\nwith soul. Nay, marriage itself preserves in women a sort of moral\nvirginity, as one may recognize on the scarred and discoloured hands of\nold women the white line that has been protected for thirty years, by\nthe wedding ring, against the wear and tear of life.\n\n[Sidenote: M. Renan on celibacy.]\n\nModesty is a sentiment which has survived, as we have seen, because\nit was useful to the propagation of the species; mysticism perverts\nand corrupts it and enlists it precisely against the propagation\nof the species. Between a Carmelite nun and a courtesan like Ninon\nde Lenclos the sociologist might well hesitate; socially they are\nalmost equally worthless, their lives are almost equally miserable\nand vain; the excessive macerations of the one are as foolish as the\npleasures of the other; the moral desiccation of the one is often\nnot without some analogy to the corruption of the other. Vows or\nhabits of perpetual chastity, the monastic life itself, have found\nin our days an unexpected defender in M. Renan. It is true he does\nnot regard such matters from the point of view of Christianity. If he\nhas a word to say in favour of perpetual chastity, it is strictly in\nthe name of physiological induction; he considers chastity simply as\na means of heightening the capacity of the brain and of increasing\none\u2019s intellectual fertility. He does not absolutely blame impurity,\nhe delights in a sense, as he himself says, in the joys of the\ndebauchee and the courtesan; he possesses the boundless curiosity and\nthe accomplished impudicity of the man of science. But he believes\nthat there exists a sort of intellectual antinomy between complete\nintellectual development and bodily love. The true man of science\nshould concentrate his entire vitality in his brain, should devote\nhis life to abstractions and chimeras; by this reservation of his\nentire strength for the service of his head, his intelligence will\nflower in double blossoms, the monstrous beauty of which, produced\nby the transformation of stamens into petals, is the achievement of\nsterility. Love is a heavy tax to pay for the vanities of the world,\nand in the budget of the human race women count almost exclusively on\nthe side of expense. Science, economical of time and force, should\nteach one to disembarrass one\u2019s self of women and love, and to leave\nsuch futilities to the drones. These paradoxes that M. Renan puts\nforth rest on a well-known scientific fact: that the most intelligent\nspecies are those in which reproduction is least active; fertility,\ngenerally speaking, varies inversely to cerebral energy. But love must\nnot quite be confounded with sexual activity, unless one is to draw the\nsomewhat strange conclusion that among animals hares are those who are\nbest acquainted with love, and among men Frenchmen are those who know\nleast of it. From the fact that excessive commerce with the other sex\nparalyses the intelligence, it does not in the least follow that the\nsentiment of love produces the same effect and that one\u2019s intellectual\npower diminishes with the growth of one\u2019s heart.\n\n[Sidenote: Love a cerebral stimulant.]\n\nWe believe that love may be sufficiently defended on intellectual as\nwell as on moral grounds. If it in certain respects involves an expense\nof force, it in others so heightens the entire vital energy, that the\nexpense must be regarded as one of those fruitful investments which are\ninseparable from the very continuance of life. To live, after all, in\nthe physical as well as in the moral sense of the word, is not only to\nreceive but to give, but above all to give one\u2019s self to love; it is\ndifficult to pervert one of the most primitive elements of the human\ncharacter, without also perverting the heart and the intelligence.\nLove is above all things a stimulant to the entire being and to the\nbrain itself; it takes possession of the whole man; it plays upon man\nas upon a harp and sounds the whole compass of his being. It cannot be\nreplaced by coffee or hasheesh. Women not only complete men, and form\nby union with them a more complete, more rounded existence, more justly\nepitomizing the possibilities of life; they are capable also, by their\nmere presence, by their mere smile, of doubling our individual powers\nand carrying them to the highest point of energy of which they are\ncapable. Our manhood leans upon their grace. All other motives which\ninspire man\u2014love of reputation, of glory, even of God\u2014are slight as\ncompared with the love of a woman who understands her r\u00f4le. Even the\nmost abstract passion, the passion for science, often fails to acquire\nits entire strength until it has called to its aid the love of a woman,\nwhich wrings a smile out of the grave alembics and fills the crucibles\nwith the gaiety of hope. Nothing is simple in our being; all things\namalgamate and unite together. They who invented the monk aimed at\nsimplifying human life; they succeeded only in unnaturally complicating\nit or mutilating it.\n\n[Sidenote: Love makes for sanity.]\n\nBut love does not only play, in the life of the man of science and of\nthe thinker, the r\u00f4le of stimulant; over and above its function in\ninciting such men to work, it contributes indirectly to rectify the\nproduct of their labours. Love lives in reality, and to live in reality\nhelps one to think justly. Rightly to understand the world in which\nwe live, we must not dwell beyond its bounds, must not make a world\nof our own, an unnatural and frigid world, rounded by the walls of a\nmonastery. \u201cTo aim at being an angel is to be a beast,\u201d says Pascal;\nand not only to be a beast, but in a measure to brutalize one\u2019s self,\nto dim the precision and vivacity of one\u2019s intelligence. A complete\nacquaintance with the details of the lives of great minds would\nreveal surprising traces of love in the audacity and sweep of great\nmetaphysical and cosmological hypotheses, in profound generalizations,\nin passionate exactitude of demonstration. Love reaches everywhere;\nand as the philosopher who is also a lover pushes audaciously forward\nin the domain of thought, he moves more easily, more lightly, more\nconfidently, with a heightened faith in himself, in others, and in this\nmysterious and mute universe. Love inspires one with that gentleness of\nheart which inclines one to an interest in the smallest things and in\ntheir place in the universe. There is great kindliness in the heart of\nthe true philosopher.\n\n[Sidenote: Love the essence of art.]\n\nThen, too, what is science without art? The most intimate relations\nexist between the intellectual and artistic faculties.[94] Could art\nexist without love? Love becomes, in matters of art, of the very tissue\nof thought. To compose verses or music, to paint or model, is simply\nto transmute love by diverse methods and into diverse forms. Whatever\nthe more or less sincere defenders of the monastic spirit and religious\nmysticism may say, love, which is as old as the world, is not upon the\npoint of quitting it; and it is in the hearts and minds of the greatest\nof mankind that it dwells most securely. \u201cHuman frailty!\u201d someone will\nmurmur. \u201cNo,\u201d we reply: \u201csource of strength and strength itself.\u201d If\nlove is the science of the ignorant it constitutes some part also\nof the science of the sage. Eros is of all the gods the one on whom\nPrometheus is most dependent, for it is from Eros that he steals the\nsacred flame. Eros will survive in every heart, and in especial in\nevery woman\u2019s heart, when all religions shall have decayed.\n\n      [94] See the author\u2019s _Probl\u00e8mes de l\u2019esth\u00e9tique\n      contemporaine_, livre ii.\n\n[Sidenote: Importance of early education in woman.]\n\nWe may conclude, therefore, that the characteristic tendencies of woman\nmay be employed in the services of truth, science, free-thought, and\nsocial fraternity. Everything depends on the education that is given\nher, and on the influence of the man whom she marries. Woman must\nbe begun with in childhood. The life of a woman is more orderly and\ncontinuous than that of a man; for that reason the habits of childhood\nexercise a more permanent influence over her. There is but one great\nrevolution in a woman\u2019s life: marriage. And there are women for whom\nthis revolution does not exist; and there are others for whom it exists\nin its most attenuated form, as when, for example, the husband\u2019s manner\nof life and his beliefs are practically the same as those of the wife\u2019s\nmother and family. In a tranquil environment, such as the majority of\nwomen exist in, the influence of early education may persist to the\nend; the small number of religious or philosophical ideas that were\nplanted in a woman\u2019s brain in her childhood may be found there years\nafterward, practically unchanged. The home is a protection, a sort of\nhot-house in which plants flourish that could not live in the open air;\nthe film of glass or of veiling behind which women habitually stand to\nlook out into the street does not protect them against sun and rain\nalone. A woman\u2019s soul, like her complexion, preserves something of its\nnative whiteness.\n\n[Sidenote: Husband responsible for wife\u2019s education.]\n\nIn France, in the majority of instances, women are children up to the\ntime of their marriage; and children inclined to regard the man to whom\ntheir parents wish them to give their hand with a certain mixture of\nfear and of respect. Such a woman\u2019s intelligence is almost as virgin\nas her body, and in the first months of marriage the husband may\nacquire, if he chooses, a decisive influence over his wife, model her\nas yet imperfectly developed brain almost to his will. If he waits,\nif he temporizes, he will find his task difficult\u2014the more so as his\nwife will some day gain over him some such influence as he might at\nfirst have gained over her. The instant a woman becomes fully aware of\nher power, she almost always becomes the controlling influence in the\nhousehold; if her husband has not formed her, if he has left her with\nall the prejudices and ignorances of a child, and often of a spoiled\nchild, she will, in the course of time, form or rather deform him\u2014will\noblige him at first to tolerate, and ultimately to accept, her childish\nbeliefs and errors, and perhaps in the end, profiting by the decline of\nhis intelligence, with the coming on of old age, she will convert him,\nand by that fact retard the intellectual progress of the household by\nan entire generation. The priesthood positively count on the growing\ninfluence of the wife in every household; but they are helpless in\nthe first months, or perhaps years, of marriage against the influence\nthat the husband may exercise. And once fashioned by him the wife may\ncontinue to exist to the end of her life in his image, and to give him\nback his own ideas and instil them into his children.\n\n[Sidenote: Free-thinker\u2019s difficulty.]\n\nThe free-thinker, it is true, labours under a great disadvantage in\nthe work of conversion: a believer may always decline to reason;\nwhenever an intellectual duel seems to him to be disadvantageous he may\ndecline to fight; a high degree of indulgent tenacity and of prudence\nis necessary in a discussion with anyone who is thus ready to take\nrefuge in flight at the slightest alarm. What can one do against a\ngentle and obstinate determination to say nothing, to intrench one\u2019s\nself in ignorance, to allow argument to shatter itself against an outer\nwall. \u201cIt seemed to me,\u201d a Russian novelist cries, \u201cas if all my words\nbounded off her like peas shot at a marble statue.\u201d One of Shakspere\u2019s\nheroines proposes to essay matrimony as an exercise of patience. If\npatience is, in the management of the household, the great virtue of\nthe wife, the man\u2019s virtue should be perseverance and active obstinacy\nin an effort to fashion and create her to his desire and ideal. I\nonce questioned a woman who had married a free-thinker with a secret\nintention of converting him. The upshot of the matter was the precise\nopposite, and I quote below her own account, as she gave it to me,\nof the successive phases of this moral crisis. It is of course only\nan isolated example, but it may serve to illustrate the character of\nwomen, and the more or less great facility with which they may be made\nto accept scientific or philosophic ideas.\n\n[Sidenote: Wife\u2019s effort to convert her husband.]\n\n\u201cThe double aim of every Christian woman is to save souls, in general,\nand to save her own in particular. To aid Christ, by bringing back into\nthe fold the sheep who have strayed away, is her great dream, and to\npreserve her own purity is her constant preoccupation. When the moment\ncame for me to try my powers, a lively solicitude took possession of\nme: should I really succeed in winning over the man to whom I was to\nunite my life, or would he succeed in winning me over? Great is the\npower of evil, and whoever exposes himself to temptation will perish,\nbut if evil is powerful, God, I assured myself, is still more powerful,\nand God never abandons those who confide in him, and I confided in God.\nTo convince the incredulous who had systematized their incredulity into\na reasoned whole was no slight task, and I did not hope to accomplish\nit in four and twenty hours. My plan was this: to be faithful in the\nmidst of the unfaithful, immutable and confident in my religion which\nwas the religion of the humble, the simple, and the ignorant; to do the\nutmost good possible, according to the first of Christ\u2019s commandments;\nto practise my religion in silence but openly; to domesticate it in my\nhousehold; to inaugurate a secret, slow, incessant combat which should\nlast, if necessary, till the end of my life. And then to rely upon the\ninfinite mercy of God.\n\n\u201cWith this disposition of mind I had no difficulty in standing mute\nwhenever my husband attacked my beliefs. My first object was to prove\nthe uselessness of all discussion, the firmness of my faith. I knew\nperfectly well that I really was unable to reply, that he knew so much\nand I so little. But if I had only been a doctor of theology I would\nhave accepted the challenge, I would have heaped up proof on proof!\nWith the truth and God for me, how could I have been vanquished? But\nI was not in the least like a doctor of theology, and the result\nwas that, fortified in my ignorance, I listened placidly to all his\narguments, and the livelier, the more cogent they were, the more\nprofoundly I was convinced of the truth of my religion, which stood\nerect under so much battering and triumphed in its immunity.\n\n\u201cI was inexpugnable, and the siege might have lasted long if my husband\nhad not recognized the strength of my position and changed his tactics.\nHis object was to force me to discuss, to follow his objections, to\nunderstand them in spite of myself, to turn them over in my own mind.\nHe told me that it would be a help to him in his work if I should\nepitomize sometimes in writing, sometimes _viva voce_, a certain number\nof works on religion. He put into my hands M. Renan\u2019s \u2018Vie de J\u00e9sus,\u2019\nM. Reville\u2019s wise and conscientious little book on \u2018L\u2019Histoire du dogme\nde la divinit\u00e9 de J\u00e9sus Christ,\u2019 often full of abstract inquiries in\nwhich the sincerity of the author was evident and contagious, even\nwhen the reader was looking for sophisms.[95] I could not refuse to\nread the books without abandoning my most cherished ambition, which\nwas to aid my husband in his work. My conscience was involved, and I\ncould not consult my confessor because we were then abroad; moreover\nmy faith, although profound, had always been, or pretended to be,\ngenerous and enlightened. If I was ever to hand my religion on I must\nnot be intolerant; and I read! M. Renan did not especially scandalize\nme, he was a follower of Jesus, writing of Jesus; his book, which has\ncharmed many women as much as a romance, saddened me without repelling\nme. I was obliged to make a written abstract of the entire book and had\nto put myself into the author\u2019s place, to see things with his eyes,\nto think his thoughts; and, in spite of myself, I sometimes saw in my\nown heart, side by side with the impeccable and perfect Christ God,\nthe figure of the imperfect, suffering, worn man, out of patience and\ncursing. The other books, which were much more abstract, called for a\nmuch greater effort on my part, but the very effort that I put forth\nconstrained me more completely to assimilate their contents. Every day\nI lost ground, and my once passive faith became slowly transformed into\nan anxious desire to know, into a hope that a more complete knowledge\nwould re-establish my broken defences.\n\n      [95] \u201cAmong the polemical works on Christianity I shall cite\n      one which is perhaps somewhat old, but precious, in that it\n      sums up with great impartiality the whole mass of secular\n      objections, including a large number of modern objections to\n      Christianity, the book of M. Patrice Larroque, entitled _Examen\n      critique des doctrines de la religion Chr\u00e9tienne_.\u201d\n\n\u201cOne day, my husband said to me abruptly: \u2018You will not refuse to\nread the Bible, which is the source of your religion, from one end to\nthe other?\u2019 I acceded with pleasure, I did not wait for permission\u2014I\nwas beyond that; it seemed to me that to read the Bible must be the\nbeginning of that profound knowledge which I envied my ideal doctor of\ntheology. It was with trembling fingers that I opened the black-bound\nbook, with its closely printed pages dictated by God Himself, alive\nstill with the divine Word! I held in my hands the truth, the\njustification of human life, the keys of the future; it seemed to me\nthat the tablets of Sinai had been committed to me as to the prostrate\nmultitude of the Hebrews at the foot of the mountain, and I also would\nhave kneeled humbly to receive it. But, as I made my way through the\nbook, the immorality of certain pages seemed to me so evident that\nmy whole heart rose in revolt against them. I had not been hardened\nfrom my childhood, as Protestant girls are, to all these tales. The\nCatholic education, which does what it can to keep the Sacred Books\nout of sight, seems to me in this respect, and only in this respect,\nmuch superior to the Protestant religion. In any event, it prepares one\nwho reads the Bible for the first time in mature years to feel much\nmore acutely the profound immorality of sacred history. Catholicism\noften perverts the intelligence; Protestantism might naturally go the\nlength of perverting the heart. Unbelievers have often made the moral\nmonstrosities in the Bible a subject of raillery; I felt nothing but\nindignation when I came across them, and I closed with disgust the book\nwhich I had so long regarded with respect.\n\n\u201cWhat should I think of it; what should I believe? The words of\ninfinite love and charity which the New Testament contains came back\nto me. If God was anywhere He must be there, and once more I opened\nthe sacred book\u2014the book which has so often tempted humanity. After\nall, it was Christ that I had adored rather than the Lord of Hosts.\nMy acquaintance had been almost wholly limited to the Gospel of St.\nJohn, which I had learned was of disputable authenticity. I read the\nGospels from end to end. Even in St. John I could not find the model\nman above reproach, the incarnate God, the divine Word; in the very\nmidst of the beauties and sublimities of the text, I myself began to\nperceive innumerable contradictions, na\u00efvet\u00e9s, superstitions, and moral\nfailings. My beliefs no longer existed, I had been betrayed by my God,\nmy whole previous intellectual life looked to me more and more like a\ndream. This dream had its beautiful aspects; even to-day I sometimes\nregret the consolation that it once afforded me and can never afford\nme again. Nevertheless, in all sincerity, if I had the chance to sleep\nonce more the intellectual sleep of my girlhood, to forget all that\nI have learned, to return to my errors\u2014I would not for the world\nconsent to take it, I would not take a step backward. The memory of the\nillusions that I have lost has never disturbed the line of reasoning by\nmeans of which I lost them. When once I had come face to face with the\nreality, it maintained itself from that moment on, sometimes painfully,\nbut steadily in my imagination. The last thing that a human being can\nwillingly consent to is to be deceived.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE EFFECT OF RELIGION AND NON-RELIGION ON POPULATION AND THE FUTURE OF\nTHE RACE.\n\n    I. Importance of the problem of population\u2014Antagonism\n      between numerical strength and wealth\u2014Necessity of numbers\n      for the maintenance and progress of the race\u2014Necessity\n      of giving the advantage of numbers to the superior\n      races\u2014Problem of population in France\u2014Its relation to\n      the religious problem\u2014Are the reasons for the restriction\n      of the number of births physiological, moral, or\n      economic?\u2014Malthusianism in France\u2014The true national peril.\n\n    II. Remedies\u2014Is a return to religion possible?\u2014Religious\n      powerlessness and growing tolerance in the matter\u2014The\n      influence that the law might exercise upon the causes of\n      small families\u2014Enumeration of these causes\u2014Reform of the\n      law in regard to filial duty\u2014(Support of parents)\u2014Reform\n      of the law of inheritance\u2014Reform of the military law for\n      the purpose of favouring large families and of permitting\n      emigration to the French colonies.\n\n    III. Influence of public education: its necessity as a\n      substitute for religious sentiment.\n\n\nOne of the most important of the problems to which the gradual\nenfeeblement of the religious sentiment has given rise is that of\nrace fertility and the question of population. Almost all religions\nhave attached a considerable importance to the rapid increase of\npopulation. With the diminution of the influence of religions among the\nsuperior races of mankind, shall we not lose an important aid in their\nmaintenance and multiplication?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Antagonism between wealth and population.]\n\nI. In the beginning, for the earliest aggregations of mankind, number\nwas a condition of power and consequently of security. The power of\nwealth, which can be concentrated in the possession of a single man,\ndid not, so to speak, exist. In our days wealth has become a power\nwhich is sufficient unto itself, and which division and distribution\noften inevitably dissipate. Therein lies the source of the reasoning\nwhich appeals nowadays to the heads of families: \u201cTo render a family\npowerful one must transmit one\u2019s capital in as undivided a state as\npossible; that is to say, one must restrict the numbers of one\u2019s\ndescendants to the utmost feasible limits.\u201d Capital and capitalistic\negoism is therefore the enemy of population, because multiplication of\nmen always implies a more or less minute subdivision of wealth.\n\n[Sidenote: Importance of rapid increase of population.]\n\nReligion has always held the power of capital, in this respect, in\ncheck. The Christian, the Hindu, the Mohammedan religion all correspond\nto a state of things very different from that of the modern world; to\na state of society in which number constitutes a great power, in which\nlarge families possess an immediate and visible utility. The greater\nnumber of the great religions are at one in the precept: \u201cIncrease\nand multiply.\u201d According to the laws of Manou, one of the conditions\nof salvation is the large number of male descendants. The religious\nand national tradition of the Jews on the point is well known. Every\nreligion of Jewish origin being thus favourable to increase in the\nsize of the family, and expressly prohibiting means of prevention,\nit follows that, other things equal, a sincerely Christian or Jewish\npeople will multiply more rapidly than a free-thinking people. The\ninfertility of the higher races, over and above the influence of the\nopposition between religion and the modern spirit, is induced also by\na sort of antinomy between civilization and race propagation: rapid\ncivilization is always accompanied by a certain race corruption. This\nantinomy must be remedied under penalty of extinction. Life is intense\nin proportion to the number of young, ambitious people who engage\nin it; the struggle for existence is fertile just so far as it is\ncarried on by young men rather than by men who are fatigued and who no\nlonger possess an enthusiasm for work; a young and rapidly increasing\nnation constitutes a richer and more powerful organism, a steam-engine\nworking at a high pressure. One-half, perhaps three-fourths of the\ndistinguished men have come of numerous families; some have been the\ntenth, some the twelfth child; to restrict the number of children is\nto restrict the production of talent and genius, and that, too, out\nof all proportion to the restriction of the family. An only son, far\nfrom having, on the average, a greater number of chances of being a\nremarkable man, really possesses fewer; in especial if he belongs to\nthe upper classes. \u201cBoth the mother and father, it has been said, watch\nover this first child and enfeeble it by superfluous care, and spare\nit, by yielding to its wishes, all moral gymnastic.\u201d Every child who\nexpects to be the sole inheritor of a small fortune will put forth\nless energy, in the struggle for existence, than he otherwise would.\nAnd finally, it is a physiological fact that the first children are\noften less vigorous and less intelligent; maternity is a function which\nbecomes perfect, as other functions do, by repetition; a mother\u2019s first\neffort is as rarely a masterpiece as a poet\u2019s. To limit the number of\nchildren is, therefore, in a certain measure to dwarf their physical\nand intellectual powers.\n\n[Sidenote: Fallacy of Malthusianism.]\n\nAs an increase of population heightens the intensity of the physical\nand mental life of a nation, so also it heightens the intensity of the\neconomic life of a nation, stimulates the circulation of wealth, and\nultimately increases the public treasure instead of diminishing it. It\nis happening under our very eyes in Germany and England, where public\nwealth has increased side by side with the population. In Germany, in\na period of nine years (1872-1881), the average annual revenue of each\nindividual increased six per cent., while the population rolled up by\nmillions. The economical doctrine which regards overpopulation as the\nprincipal cause of poverty is a very superficial one. As long as there\nis an available plot of ground unoccupied, and perhaps even after the\nentire earth shall be cultivated (for science may be able to create\nnew sources of wealth and even of food) a man will always constitute a\nbit of living capital, of a higher value than a horse or a cow, and to\nincrease the numbers of citizens of a nation will be to increase the\nsum of its wealth.[96]\n\n      [96] What economists have really established, and what MM.\n      Maurice Block, Courcelles-Seneuil, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, Othenin\n      d\u2019Haussonville are right in maintaining, is that it is harmful\n      to society to add to the non-working classes, to the number\n      of feeble beings who are incapable of labour, to the number\n      of beggars, and of non-combatants generally, whoever they may\n      be. Well, poverty favours the birth of those who are dependent\n      upon society, and the birth of those who are dependent upon\n      society tends still further to increase poverty; that is the\n      circle from which so many economists have believed that the\n      precepts of Malthus offered them an issue. Unhappily, if there\n      is one universal attribute of poverty, it is its fertility;\n      for in all nations the poorest classes are those that have the\n      greatest number of children. Malthus has never been listened to\n      by the poorer classes, but precisely by those only who, from\n      the point of view of a sagacious political economy, ought to be\n      encouraged to leave as many children behind them as possible,\n      because they alone would educate them well: that is to say, the\n      economical peasantry and the prosperous middle class. Insomuch\n      that a fertility of the poor is absolutely without remedy\n      (except by way of charity or emigration); but it constitutes in\n      the end a much less considerable evil than the infertility of a\n      nation as a whole, and is an ultimate evil only because, in the\n      last analysis, it results in a genuine unproductivity. Poverty,\n      especially in the cities, rapidly kills out the most prolific\n      races.\n\n[Sidenote: Menace to modern civilization.]\n\nFormerly the struggle for existence between two races or nations ended\nin a single violent crisis: the vanquished were massacred or reduced\nto slavery, and slavery usually resulted in the gradual extinction\nof the inferior race; it was a slow massacre. Famine, produced by\nmethodical devastation, achieved what war had begun\u2014whole races\ndisappeared abruptly from the face of the globe and left not a trace\nbehind: the most recent and most striking example is that of the\ngreat American empires of Mexico and Peru. Thus the strongest and\nmost intelligent races alone survived, and had only to confirm their\nvictory with all its consequences by clearing the earth before them.\nExistence was a monopoly in the hands of the strong. It is no longer\nso. To-day the vanquished are no longer massacred; on the contrary,\nwhen an uncivilized country is conquered, it is supplied with good\nlaws, with police and hygiene. Inferior races increase and multiply\nunder the rule of superior races. The Cape negroes, the Chinese, the\nnegroes in the United States, and even the last surviving red-skins,\nwho seem disposed to-day to take heart, are examples of what I mean.\nWell, the Orient contains, in the Chinese Empire, a veritable reservoir\nof men, which some day or other will overflow the entire earth. In the\nface of this compact multitude, which is increasing rapidly, and with\nadvancing civilization will increase more rapidly, the four or five\ngreat nations of Europe, and the United States and Australia, seem\na small matter. The future of humanity depends mathematically upon\nthe proportions in which the more intelligent races are represented\nin the complex composition of the man of the future. And every son of\none of the more highly endowed races of the globe, such as the French,\nGerman, or English, commits a positive fault in not labouring for the\nmultiplication of his race; he contributes to lower the future level\nof human intelligence. Men of science have already established it as\na law that the power of reproduction decreases with the increase of\ncerebral activity, and that intelligent races reproduce themselves\nwith increasing difficulty; to augment this natural difficulty by a\nvoluntary restriction is daily to labour for the brutalization of the\nhuman race.\n\n[Sidenote: Duty of civilized races to multiply.]\n\nThe followers of Malthus, supposing that there at present exists an\nequilibrium between population and the means of subsistence, look\nwith anxiety upon every new arrival in the world; but even admitting\nthat the struggle for existence has already reached that acute stage,\nit might still be hoped that only the more intelligent would leave\nchildren behind them. Malthus\u2019 law should possess no force for the\neducated men of Europe, who alone are acquainted with it, but only for\nthe negroes or the Chinese, who are absolutely ignorant of it. Malthus\u2019\nlaw is not meant for us; in reality it is not meant for anyone. By the\nvery fact that one is acquainted with it, and possesses foresight and\nself-control enough to put it into practice, one proves that one stands\nbeyond the circle of its applicability. Malthusians, who endeavour to\napply to the reproduction of mankind the principles of animal-breeders,\nforget that the dominant principle in all breeding is to favour the\nmultiplication of the superior species. One Durham bull is worth\nten common bulls. What is true of bulls and sheep is true of men: a\nFrenchman, with the scientific and \u00e6sthetic aptitude of his race,\nrepresents on the average a social capital a hundred times greater\nthan that represented by a negro, an Arab, a Turk, a Cossack, or a\nChinaman. To leave few French descendants, in order that Cossacks and\nTurks may increase and multiply, is to commit an absurdity, even on\nthe principles of a Malthusian. Be it remembered that it was among the\nAryans, and in especial among the Greeks, that science and art worthy\nof the name took their rise; from them they passed to the other Aryans,\nand then to the other human races.\n\n[Sidenote: Bad outlook for the future.]\n\nMichelet compares the treasure of science and truth, amassed by the\nhuman mind, to the egg that a slave carried into the Roman circus,\nat the end of the entertainment, into the midst of the great lions,\nwho were gorged and asleep. If one of the wild beasts opened his eyes\nand was seized once more by desire at sight of the man with the egg,\nwhich is the symbol of human genius, the slave was lost. In our times\ngenius is infinitely less persecuted than heretofore, and is no longer\nin danger of the arena or of the headsman, and it seems as if the\nsacred egg out of which the future is to arise has nothing further to\nfear; but this is a mistake. Precisely because the human mind is year\nby year growing richer, its treasure is becoming so considerable, so\ndelicate, and difficult to preserve in its entirety, that it may well\nbe asked whether a succession of people sufficiently well endowed\nwill arise to retain and to augment the acquisitions of science. Up\nto the present day those truths alone have survived the wear and tear\nof time which were simple; at the present epoch the rapidity of the\nprogress of science may well make us anxious as to its permanence. The\nextreme complexity of science may well make us fear that the peoples\nof the future may not possess mental elevation enough to embrace it\nin its entirety, and to add to it by a constant increase. Suppose,\nfor example, that the world should be reduced abruptly to Africa,\nAsia, and South America, where the Spanish race has not yet produced\na single scientific genius; must not the scientific labours of our\ncentury inevitably miscarry? Happily their safety is bound up with that\nof certain great nations. The Anglo-Saxon and Germanic peoples to-day\ncover the earth with their children and their colonies. But it is sad\nto think that one of the three or four great European peoples, which\nalone count for much in the progress of humanity, should be dancing\ngaily toward annihilation.\n\n[Sidenote: Danger from Asia.]\n\nA fusion of races will sooner or later take place in humanity; it is\nalready taking place in the United States, and the perfection of means\nof communication is hastening its consummation throughout the entire\nworld. Europe is pouring out its surplus upon America, Africa, and\nAustralia; Asia will some day overflow Europe and America; what is\ntaking place to-day, fifty years after the invention of railways, can\nscarcely give us an idea of the mixture and amalgamation of races which\nwill some day be realized on the earth. Such a mixture, even though\nit raise the level, in some small degree, of races intellectually\nill-endowed, may well abase the level of races intellectually\nwell-endowed, if the latter are greatly outnumbered by the former.\n\n[Sidenote: Money the modern patent of nobility.]\n\nIt may be objected, it is true, that the superior races of mankind\nmay remain isolated in the midst of the multiplication of the other\nbranches of humanity in a sort of jealous aristocracy, served and\nrespected by those whom they dominate by their intelligence. This is\none of the dreams of M. Renan, who sees in the Chinese the future slave\nof the Europeans\u2014gentle, docile slaves, with just enough intelligence\nto be marvellous industrial machines. Unhappily we have learned, to our\nexpense, that the Chinese are also excellent instruments of war. In the\nindustrial society in which we live, money constitutes, in the long\nrun, the basis of aristocracy. To-day money is the true force and title\nof nobility. To lay up treasures demands a very average intelligence,\nof which a great number of inferior people are no doubt capable: once\nrich and they will be our equals; richer, they will be our superiors\nand our masters. If they have money enough they can purchase every\nprivilege, even that of mixing their blood with ours, even that of\nmarrying our daughters and of confounding our race and theirs. The\nonly means by which intelligence can preserve its power is by means of\nnumbers. Genius itself must leave a posterity behind it, and in spite\nof prejudice to the contrary, if we are to be eternal it must be by\nmeans of our children rather than by our works.\n\n[Sidenote: Religion of the family.]\n\nPositivists propose to substitute a religion of humanity for existing\nand rapidly disappearing religions; there is a still more accessible\nreligion, and more practical, and more useful, which was one of the\nfirst religions of humanity: the religion of the family, the worship of\nthe little group of beings bound together by ties of blood and memory\nand name and honour, which form an epitome of a nation; to permit one\u2019s\nfamily to die out or to diminish in number is to labour, to the extent\nthat in one lies, to diminish the power of one\u2019s native country and\nof humanity itself. Patriotism has been made a subject of ridicule,\nbut patriotism is a beautiful thing, and befitting in the head of a\nhousehold. Paternity in its completest sense, that is to say, the\nresponsibility for the education of a new generation from birth to the\nage of manhood, is, after all, the surest element of patriotism, and is\nwithin the reach of everyone.\n\n[Sidenote: Gradual impoverishment of France.]\n\nIn France especially, as we have seen, the population question is an\nimportant one, and should be insisted on. It has been said with reason\nthat France to-day is not threatened by a multitude of dangers, but\nby one only, which actually constitutes a national peril: that of\nextinction from lack of children.[97] A nation may increase its capital\nin two ways; 1. By productive expenditure and productive labour; 2. By\nthe utmost possible diminution of both, of labour and of expenditure.\nFrance has been employing the second means since the beginning of the\npresent century; she has been economizing in children and diminishing\nthe rapidity of the circulation of national life. She has, by this\nprocess, amassed a great treasure, but the results of her economy\nhave been in part consecrated to the payment of an indemnity of five\nbillions, and in part to loans, as in Mexico, Turkey, and Egypt, and to\nspeculation of every kind, and the result of these blind economies has\nbeen a gradual impoverishment.\n\n      [97] M. Richet.\n\n[Sidenote: Classes in France that maintain the population.]\n\nOver and above those who are unreflective, or who simply trust to\nluck, there exists no considerable class of people in France, except\nCatholics, Protestants, and Jews, who can be counted on to maintain\nthe race. There exists no doubt a certain number of _bons vivants_\nwho are determined to take their pleasure at all hazards, and who find\nin the restriction of the family a limitation of their pleasure; but\nthey are rare. The disciples of Malthus are nowadays much more numerous\nthan those of Rabelais. People who have children, not out of pleasure\nnor by chance, but out of patriotism and philosophy, are so rare that\nthey need not at present be taken into account. The more the property\nin France is subdivided, the greater the number of small proprietors,\nthe fewer children there are. Since 1866 the agricultural inquiry\nhas demonstrated the invasion of Malthusianism and the progress of\nvoluntary infertility in almost every department _side by side with\nthe subdivision of the soil_. From that time on the movement has gone\nforward unchecked. \u201cIn certain communes the words brother and sister\nhave almost fallen out of use. Primogeniture, which was abolished\nin 1789, has been replaced by unigeniture.\u201d[98] Labourers only are\nanti-malthusians, and that out of carelessness for the future. A\nMalthusian was one day remonstrating with a poor labourer, who was\nthe father of twelve children and ambitious to become the father of\na thirteenth. \u201cWhat will you have?\u201d said the latter, \u201cit is the only\npleasure in the world that I get for nothing; I would not diminish it\non any account.\u201d\n\n      [98] Toubeau, _La R\u00e9partition des imp\u00f4ts_, t. ii.\n\n[Sidenote: Power of religion to stimulate population.]\n\nIt has been maintained that a greater or less restriction of the number\nof births is essentially due, not to a diminution in the religious\ndevotion of the people, but simply to an increase of prudence. Whoever\ndoes not live simply in the present moment, but takes account of the\nfuture, will restrict the number of his children according to the\nfigure of his income. And yet where faith is sincere and rigid, it does\nnot permit one to hesitate on mere grounds of economics. In Brittany\nprudence neither checks religion nor fertility. Engaged couples,\nknowing that they will have children after marriage, postpone their\nunion till they shall have laid by a certain amount of money, purchased\na house and a plot of ground. In the department of Ille-et-Vilaine,\nmen do not generally become engaged before their twenty-fourth year,\nnor women before their nineteenth year. Marriage does not last as\nlong therefore in Brittany as in Normandy; it lasts on the average\ntwenty-seven years and a half in Normandy and twenty-one in Brittany,\nand yet the fertility of the women of Brittany, as compared with that\nof the women of Normandy, is almost as that of a hundred to sixty.\nIn Brittany the result of religion and prudence, before marriage,\ncombined, is a constant increase of population; in Normandy the effect\nof incredulity and prudence, after marriage, combined, is a constant\ndiminution of the population; although, of the two peoples, the Normans\nare more vigorous, and owing to the greater frequency of twins,\nnaturally more fertile.[99]\n\n      [99] See M. Baudrillart, _Les Populations rurales de la\n      Bretagne_.\n\n[Sidenote: Condition of population in France not due to aversion to\nmarriage.]\n\nThe weakness of the French as a nation does not lie in the smallness of\nthe number of marriages. Practically the average number of marriages\nin France is the same as in Germany, something like eight a year for\nevery thousand inhabitants, so that marriages are about as frequent in\nFrance as elsewhere. There is no question of immorality involved, but\nsimply one of the prudence of married people. Illegitimate births are\nless numerous in France than in Italy or in Germany and in especial in\nCatholic Germany. In Paris scarcely more than twenty-five per cent. of\nthe children are illegitimate, at Osmultz in Moravia fully seventy per\ncent. are illegitimate. M. Bertillon has established the fact that,\nsince the beginning of the century, the percentage of marriage has\nbeen maintained, and even has increased rather than diminished up to\n1865; but that the percentage of births has diminished continuously,\nand regularly. According to statistics every marriage averages five\nchildren in Germany, five in England, or almost five, and three only in\nFrance.\n\n[Sidenote: Nor to degree of civilization in France.]\n\nCertain thinkers have been inclined to believe that the comparative\nslowness in the increase of the French people was due to a relatively\nhigh development of the brain. We have already remarked the antagonism\nwhich exists between reproduction and the development of the nervous or\ncerebral system, but it is somewhat precipitate to apply to a special\ngroup of men what is true of the species as a whole; and there is a\ntouch of fatuity in the notion that the French people have achieved so\nhigh a point of development that there exists in certain provinces not\nonly a decrease in the rate of reproduction, but an absolute decrease\nof population. A statistical investigation has shown, it is true, that\nmembers of the Institute do not average more than one or two children\napiece, but this statistical inquiry proves simply that members of\nthe Institute have not desired to have large families, and that their\nconduct, which is generally not influenced by religion, has been\ncomformable to their desire. An ordinarily healthy man could become the\nfather of a hundred children every year; and to imagine that his sexual\nneeds diminish under the influence of intellectual labour to the extent\nof his having but one child in forty years would be more apropos in a\ncomic opera than in a serious book. Remark, however, that the fertility\nis less great among peasants, whose cerebral activity is at a minimum,\nthan in our cities, in which it is relatively great; but in cities\nfertility is balanced unhappily by mortality. The antagonism between\nfertility and development of the brain should be at its greatest in\nwomen; but Frenchwomen, whose education has long been neglected, do not\nappear to possess on the average any intellectual superiority over the\nwomen of other countries. And in our provinces population advances most\nslowly in Normandy, where the women are so vigorous that the percentage\nof twins is higher than elsewhere.\n\n[Sidenote: Malthusianism the cause.]\n\nMalthusianism therefore is the cause of the evil, and malthusianism\nis a worse scourge than pauperism; it is in a sense the pauperism of\nthe middle classes. Just as an excessive impoverishment may kill out a\nwhole social class, malthusianism is the death of the middle classes.\nIt is rare to find a middle-class family with more than two or three\nchildren; two children, at least, are necessary to replace the father\nand the mother, and to maintain the population; a certain number of\ncelibates and of married people who are sterile must be allowed for.\nThe middle classes therefore are approaching extinction: the result of\nrestricting their number is suicide.\n\nTo sum up, the population question in France is purely and simply a\nmoral question; but more than any other question of the like nature\nit is closely bound up with religion because, up to the present time,\nreligion has been the sole power which has dared to check popular\ninclination in this regard. It is in respect to population that lay\nmorality has been most negligent.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Futility of effort to bring about a return of religion.]\n\nII. If the question is really one of a return to some traditional\nreligion or a gradual extinction of the race, free-thinkers may well\nhesitate between a number of lines of conduct. They may, in the first\nplace, take refuge in resignation: \u201cAfter me the Deluge.\u201d Many of the\nmiddle classes and a great number even of economists, who regard the\nfuture of their race and of their country as much too distant to be\ntaken into account and consider present comfort as the sole rational\naim of man, accept this position. A more radical alternative is to\njoin the Church: both the Catholic and the Protestant churches, in\nspite of the eccentricity of their legends, are useful as an aid in\nmaking a nation numerous and strong and prolific; and the French\nof all nations needs religion, so that, instead of endeavouring to\ndestroy the Christian faith, it is our duty to endeavour to propagate\nit. There is an element of hypocrisy and even of cowardice in this\neffort to revive a bygone error in the name of present utility. And\nit involves the affirmation that error is at the bottom more useful\nthan truth, and that truth is fundamentally irreconcilable with the\ncontinued existence of the human race\u2014an affirmation which is somewhat\nprecipitate. Above all, the effort to arrest scepticism is simply\nfutile\u2014futile for humanity, for a people, for a family. When it is\ntime to regret that certain things have been learned it is too late to\nset about ignoring them. The French people, in especial, possess a fund\nof incredulity which is based upon the practical and logical character\nof their temperament: they rose in 1789 against the clergy, in the name\nof liberty; nowadays they will struggle with the same stubbornness in\nthe name of comfort against the prescriptions of religion, against the\nvery instincts of human nature, and will make themselves sterile in\norder to become rich without immoderate labour. The re-establishment\nof religion is simply out of the question; sincerely religious men\nthemselves, if they happen also to be intelligent, recognize it. This\nrational sterility, produced by a triumph of the intellect over natural\ninstinct and religious dogma, is a charming theme for declamation;\nbut declamation is also sterile, and does not date from yesterday; it\nwas tried before the Revolution and succeeded neither in augmenting\nreligious sensibility nor in diminishing French infertility. In a\npamphlet on the Erreurs de Voltaire, the Abb\u00e9 Nonotte wrote in 1766:\n\u201cPresent notions and practices on the subject of population are as\nmelancholy for morality as for statesmanship. People are content\nnowadays with a single heir. Pleasure and libertinism carry the day.\nThe fortunes of a great number of the first families in Paris rest\non the shoulders of a single child. It was better in former times;\nfor families were not afraid of a number of children, and were not\nso extravagant but that they could provide them with a means of\nsubsistence.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Inability of priest to cope with question of population.]\n\nNeither the priest nor the confessor can be counted on. Has the priest\never power enough, even in countries like Brittany where devotion is at\nits height, to suppress the grossest vice; drunkenness, for example,\nand that, too, among women? How can a priest be expected to maintain\nan influence over men who confess hardly more than once a year\u2014at\nEaster? How can the priest, under such circumstances, be expected to be\nreally a governor of the conscience, and in especial a physician of the\nsoul? He receives a general confession from each of his parishioners,\nhe is in a hurry, he is obliged to restrict his attention to the\nmost enormous of the sins confessed to him, and the whole ends in\nabsolution, followed by communion. Some days afterward the men get\ndrunk again, and do just as they did before, till the year comes round.\nPrejudices and habits are stronger than anything else.\n\n[Sidenote: Pliancy of religion.]\n\nThey who, with the Abb\u00e9 Nonotte, regard religion as the cure of all\nevils, forget that religion itself is very compliant, that it can be\nmade to stand for a multitude of things. If the mass of the French\npeople should allow themselves to be persuaded by the Abb\u00e9 Nonotte\nand his disciples to return to the traditional faith, the traditional\nfaith itself would soon cease to be so austere. Confessors would\nbecome more discreet. Are they not to-day obliged to tolerate polkas\nand waltzes, and young people whirling about the room in each other\u2019s\narms, which was formerly so severely prohibited? The letter of religion\nremains in vain the same, the spirit of the worshippers changes. At the\npresent day Jesuits willingly close their eyes to the sterility of the\nfamily; they have even been accused of whispering to advice for the\npreservation of certain inheritances. Do you imagine that confessors\nin the Faubourg Saint-Germain ask especially embarrassing questions?\nHeaven can be compromised with.\n\n[Sidenote: Even of Protestantism.]\n\nThis sort of tolerance, like all tolerance, will grow with time. Even\nin Protestant families in which a more extreme rigidity reigns, the\nspirit of the times is dominant. Orthodoxy is everywhere becoming less\nferocious, sterility is everywhere on the increase. Even clergymen do\nnot have as large families as formerly. Statistics on this head would\nbe very instructive; one might find in the very bosom of Protestantism\nsterility increasing directly with liberalism of belief. If Darwin and\nSpencer have partisans in the English clergy, and among the American\nProtestants, why should not Malthus also? In especial, since Malthus\nwas a grave and religious man.\n\n[Sidenote: Decrease of population encouraged by the Catholic Church.]\n\nThe Catholic religion has itself been guilty by its advocacy of\nreligious celibacy. In France one hundred and thirty thousand persons\nof both sexes are devoted to celibacy.[100] It is to be regretted that\nCatholicism, which during a number of centuries (in the time when\nSt. Sidonius Apollinaris, the son-in-law of the Emperor Avitus, was\nBishop of Clermont-Ferrand) did not impose celibacy upon ecclesiastics,\nshould have felt obliged later to exact it, and should have come to\nconsider absolute continence superior to marriage, contrary to all\nphysiological and psychological laws. \u201cContinence as a profession,\u201d\nsays M. Montesquieu, \u201chas destroyed more men than pestilence and war\ntogether. Every religious house constitutes a family which never gives\nbirth to a child, and which continues in existence only by adopting\nchildren from without. Such houses are open like so many abysses, to\nswallow up the future of the race.\u201d Religious celibacy results in\nanother evil consequence: although priests do not to-day constitute\nthe \u00e9lite of society, they are still among the most intelligent, the\nbest educated, the least ill-disposed members of society. And they\ngaily consent to be annihilated, to disappear, and to leave, like the\nheretics they used to burn, no trace behind. They form as constant a\ndrain on the body-politic as the victims of the Inquisition formed\nduring so many years in Spain. If we should count the sons only of\nclergymen who have become distinguished or even great men, from Linn\u00e6us\nto Wurtz and Emerson, we might see how much we lose by the celibacy of\nour priesthood.\n\n      [100] Dr. Lagneau, _Remarques d\u00e9mographiques sur le c\u00e9libat en\n      France_.\n\nBut religion apart, sterility may be combated by law, by morals, and by\neducation.\n\n[Sidenote: Legal remedy.]\n\nReligion is the law of primitive peoples; when it becomes feeble, its\nprecepts split into two parts: one of which, regarded as useless,\nis neglected and loses its entire value, while the other, which is\nregarded as the guarantee of social life, becomes formulated into moral\nor civilized laws obligatory in character. This is the history of a\nnumber of hygienic measures prescribed by Oriental religion which have\nbecome simple police regulations in the laws of modern Europe. In the\npresent question it is evident that the law should take the place that\nreligion once held; the legislator should assume the function of the\npriest. Such a substitution is not unexampled; it took place among the\nGreeks; the citizen was obliged, by law, to have children. Socrates in\nAthens was obliged by law to take a second wife. In Sparta the young\nhusband lived at the public table until he had supplied the state with\nthree sons. He was subject to military service until he had supplied\nthe state with four.[101] Nowadays of course such radical laws are\nnot to be thought of, and indeed no simple and direct law could reach\nthe evil; an entire system of mutually completing laws is necessary.\nThe whole series of reasons which prevent the head of a household from\nhaving a large family must first be known; then they must be met in\ndetail by a series of laws devised to suppress them or counterbalance\nthem; so that whenever one interest makes for sterility, another and\nequivalent interest shall make for fertility. It is accordingly in the\nvery bosom of the family that the law, and that progressive reform of\nmorals to which the law is so capable of contributing, must operate.\n\n      [101] Aristotle, _Politica_, ii. 6, 13.\n\n[Sidenote: Worship of comfort a reason for small families.]\n\nThe head of a family to-day abandons the notion of having many children\nfor a number of reasons, sometimes mutually contradictory, which it\nis necessary we should make ourselves fully acquainted with before\nendeavouring to devise means of counteracting them. There exist in\nthe first place, though not very frequently, physical reasons: the\nill-health of the mother, the fear of her dying through frequent\npregnancies. When this fear is justified in the judgment of a physician\nit is respectable; it is defensible even from the point of view of\nsociety, for children born under such conditions would be delicate\nand useless as members of society. But in almost the whole number of\ncases, the grounds of sterility are economical and egoistic. French\nsterility is an economical, much more than a physiological phenomenon.\nThe head of a family calculates the cost of rearing a numerous family,\ncalculates that instead of being able to lay by money while he is in\nthe vigour of his life, he will have to spend it on his children, and\nto pass his old age in poverty; having a large family he regards simply\nas a bit of prodigality. Our budget of 4,200,000,000 represents an\naverage of 113 francs a head; with such taxes, decidedly, if one is to\nbring up a numerous family, one must have a considerable fortune or\nmust deftly manipulate one\u2019s poverty.\n\n[Sidenote: Worship of land another.]\n\nAlso the small proprietor regards the earth somewhat as a savage does\nhis fetich: his field, his house, are sacred entities which he wishes\nto confide to sure hands. If he has a number of children, it will be\nnecessary to share these treasures and perhaps to sell them in case\nthey cannot otherwise be divided equally. The peasant no more regards\nsuch a division of property as possible than a gentleman under the old\nr\u00e9gime would have admitted the possibility of selling his ancestral\nchateau. Both of them would regard a mutilation of their family as a\nless evil than the mutilation of their domain. But to rear a child is\nto create a bit of capital, and fertility is a form of social economy.\nBoth economists and French peasants admit willingly that to rear a calf\nor a sheep is to add to one\u2019s wealth, and _a fortiori_ they should\nadmit that to rear a child is. But there is a difference: the calf,\nonce reared, labours solely for the person who reared it, whereas the\nchild ultimately comes to labour for itself. From the selfish point of\nview of the father, it is better to raise cattle and sheep. From the\npoint of view of society, it is incontestably better to rear men. In\nall new countries the French race is prolific, because a large number\nof children under such circumstances is not a charge but a profitable\ninvestment. In Canada sixty thousand Frenchmen have grown into a people\nof two millions and a half. In Algeria the birth-rate is from 30 to 35\nper 1000; in Normandy it is not 20 per thousand. Finally, a striking\nexample of the influence of emigration has been discovered in France\nitself, in the Department of the Basses-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es, where the birth-rate\nvaries with the rate of emigration, to fill the places of those who\nhave gone to America.\n\n[Sidenote: Women of fashion imitate the demi-monde.]\n\nLet us consider, on the other hand, the causes which influence women.\nIt is natural that, in a certain stage of society, women should be\nunwilling to be mothers. Motherhood represents the sole task which it\nis left to them to perform, and this task they find the harder because\nfortune has relieved them of every other. They are not even obliged\nto nourish their children: the maternal breast can find a substitute;\nthey are not obliged either to rear their children or to teach them:\ngovernesses can be hired; but nobody can give birth to their children,\nand in their life of frivolity childbirth is the one serious function\nthat remains. They protest against it and they are right. The ambition\nof women of the _grandmonde_ being too often, as has been said, to\nmimic women of the _demi-monde_, it is well that they should imitate\nthem in this respect as in all others, and that they should endeavour\nto establish between marriage and prostitution this final bond of\nsimilarity\u2014sterility.\n\n[Sidenote: Women of the lower classes fear labour.]\n\nEven among the women of the people gestation and childbirth, being, as\nthey are, painful, are also objects of the liveliest repugnance and of\nprotestations of every kind. I have never seen a woman of the people\nwho did not complain at being pregnant and who would not have preferred\nany other malady. _Ah! Nous ne faisons pas, nous recevons_\u2014\u201cWe women\nhave no voice in the matter,\u201d said one of them to me\u2014\u201cif but we\nhad!\u201d She epitomized in a word the physiological and psychological\nposition of the poor woman. Those who have not had children, far from\ncomplaining of it, congratulate themselves, and in any event they\nrarely desire more than one.\n\n[Sidenote: Large families among the poor traceable to ignorance.]\n\nIn Picardy and in Normandy, as M. Baudrillart remarks, a woman who has\nmany children is made the butt of raillery. And if other provinces\nare less sterile, it is owing to religion or to ignorance. The women\nhave not yet become acquainted with Malthus. They know of but one\nremedy against an evil that they fear\u2014to keep out of the way of\ntheir husbands. The wife of such and such a labouring man prefers a\nbeating to the risk of having another child: but as she is the weaker\nshe often succeeds in bringing upon herself both the beating and the\nchild. Fear of pregnancy is more often than is commonly believed the\ncause of dissension in poor households, and for that matter in rich\nhouseholds also. The instant a woman reasons, instead of submitting to\nthe law, she inevitably feels the disproportion that exists, for her,\nbetween the pleasures of love and the pains of maternity. She must be\nsupplied with a new conception of duty, and that not simply in the way\nof a religious obligation which the husband can ridicule but of a moral\nobligation.\n\n[Sidenote: Girls should be educated for maternity.]\n\nCatholic education, as we have already remarked, does great harm in\nrearing young girls in a false modesty, in never speaking to them of\nthe duties of marriage for fear of awakening their imagination in the\ndirection of their future husband. The actual result is precisely the\nopposite of the calculated result. Young girls see nothing in marriage\nbut the future husband and unknown pleasures. They never think of any\nmatter of painful duty which they must accept in advance; they do\nnot consider children as a question of duty but of necessity simply,\nthey are actuated by but one ambition, that of diverting themselves.\nGirls should be educated and prepared for motherhood; our present\neducation is adapted to the formation of nuns or old maids, sometimes\nof courtesans, for we neglect early to inspire woman with a feeling of\nduty for her proper function, which constitutes also a large portion of\nall that is moral in her life\u2014the duty of maternity. Happily, married\nwomen cannot remain sterile simply by wishing it, their husbands must\nbecome their accomplices; it is their husbands, who, in the last\nresort, are responsible. If the husband, out of complaisance to his\nwife or to his wife\u2019s relatives, undertakes to be a Malthusian _malgr\u00e9\nlui_, he plays almost as ridiculous a r\u00f4le as that of Georges Dandin:\nthe man who permits himself to be dictated to in the matter of not\nhaving children is almost as complaisant as the man who acknowledges\nthe children of other people.\n\n[Sidenote: Paternal love tends to restrict the number of children.]\n\nAnother cause which explains the low birth-rate in France is that\npaternal and maternal love is more tender and more exclusive there\nthan in other countries. The French family, whatever may be said\nto the contrary, is much more closely united than the English or\nGerman family: in it a sort of fraternity obtains between parents and\nchildren. Members of a family separate with regret, and the ideal of\nthe father is to have so few children that he may always keep them by\nhim. We are too refined, too far advanced from a state of nature, to\nsubmit without suffering to the rupture which puberty naturally brings\nabout in the animal family, to the flight of the young bird whose wings\nare grown; we have not the courage to accept the dismemberment of the\nhousehold, far less to wish it as a necessity and, on the whole, a good\nthing. This affection has of course its egoistic side, and it is on\nthat side that it results in sterility. Parents rear children less for\nthe children\u2019s sake than for their own.\n\n[Sidenote: Two legal remedies.]\n\nHaving thus passed in review the principal causes which restrict the\nnumber of children in French families let us consider what influence\nlaw and morals might exert in counteracting them. Legal reforms should\nbe directed especially toward the two following points: 1. Reform of\nthe law relating to filial duties (maintenance of parents); 2. Reform\nof the law of inheritance; 3. Reform of the military law, so as to\nfavour numerous families and permit emigration to the French colonies.\n\n[Sidenote: Present state of the law does not sufficiently protect\nparents against ingratitude.]\n\nRearing children being a considerable trouble and expense it is\nnecessary that it should be made profitable, that it should be\nconverted into a species of loan for a long term of years. The law can\nbring this about in various ways. French legislation has protected\nchildren by a provision that their fathers cannot completely disinherit\nthem; it should also have protected fathers against children\u2019s\ningratitude. It often happens, in the country especially, that after\nan aged couple have reared a numerous generation they find themselves\ndependent upon their sons or upon their sons-in-law and are ill-fed\nand greeted with abuse. The law provides that children must maintain\ntheir parents, no doubt, but maintenance may be supplied in a manner\nwhich renders it little better than assassination. The law which has\nendeavoured to establish the moral independence of the son as against\nthe father might well endeavour to establish on a firm basis the moral\nindependence of the parents themselves. If a father to-day cannot\ndisinherit his son, is it not shocking that a son should be able, in a\nsense, to disinherit his father\u2014to accept life, nourishment, education\nfrom him and to give derision, abusive language, and sometimes blows\nin return? Observers who have lived among the people, in especial in\ncountry districts, uniformly bear witness to the deplorable situation\nof certain old men who are obliged to beg on the highroad, or of\ntheir neighbours, for means of support which are refused them in\ntheir own houses. The present French law is helpless in the presence\nof filial ingratitude which takes the form, not of overt act, but of\nabusive language and disrespectful conduct. It annuls a donation made\nto an ungrateful child, but it cannot annul the donation of life, and\nungrateful children benefit by the inability. A father should be able\nto count at least on a certain minimum of revenue from his children,\nwhoever they may be.[102]\n\n      [102] We are not obliged here to enter into details of\n      administration. Perhaps it would be no more than just to give\n      parents their choice between living with their children,\n      which is often so painful, and an annual sum, proportional\n      to the salary and resources of the children. This sum might\n      be taxed by the state or the commune, and paid by it to the\n      father. Every head of a family would at once reflect that if\n      he some day becomes poor and has but one child he will have\n      but one source of income, whereas, if he has ten children,\n      he will have ten sources of income, and ten chances that one\n      of them may be considerable; as it would be if any of one\u2019s\n      children should have become wealthy. A numerous family would\n      thus constitute a guarantee of independence for the father; on\n      the other hand, the more he expended in educating them, the\n      greater chance he would have of later obtaining an equivalent\n      return for it. In labouring for the augmentation of the social\n      capital he would thus be securing an insurance for his old\n      age. Even supposing that the execution of a law of this kind\n      should be difficult, the right of parents to some really active\n      gratitude on the part of their children should be recognized\n      and consecrated formally by the letter of the law, which should\n      prescribe a line of conduct for children and even fix a certain\n      appropriate ratio between their income and the amount of their\n      remittances to their parents. The law should even do what in\n      it lies to efface from the language, in especial in their\n      applicability to those who have generously fulfilled their\n      duties of paternity, the shameful words: _\u00eatre \u00e0 la charge de\n      ses enfants_\u2014dependent on his children for support; the public\n      should be made accustomed to consider this sort of dependence\n      not as an accident to the children, and as a misfortune, and\n      almost a disgrace, to the parents, but as a natural consequence\n      of the relation of parent and child.\n\n[Sidenote: The state owes parents a debt.]\n\nIf, as is probable, the principle of social insurance is ultimately\nto prevail, and if a certain amount of the regular income of every\nlabourer is to be retained and laid by to form a provision for his\nold age, which his employer or the state will increase in certain\nproportions, we believe that it would be equitable to increase the\nprovision laid by for the father of a family in a larger ratio than\nthe provision laid by for a celibate. The father of a family having\ndone more for the state than the celibate\u2014having contributed to the\nstate his time and trouble and expense in rearing certain members of\nthe new generation\u2014it would be legitimate for the state to make a\nrestitution to him of some small portion of the money he has laid out\nin a disinterested manner; in a manner which did not benefit him and\nhas benefited the state.\n\n[Sidenote: Tax on celibacy.]\n\nMeanwhile this consummation is somewhat distant, and there is a reform\nimmediately practicable: a tax on celibacy. Whenever this tax has been\nmentioned it has been made the subject of universal ridicule; it has\nbeen represented, as M. Ch. Richet remarked, as a sort of penalty,\na fine for not being willing or not being able to marry. This is a\nvery unfair statement of the case; the measure would be simply strict\njustice. With anything like an equality in the matter of fortune\na celibate pays smaller taxes (indirect taxes, taxes on doors and\nwindows, etc.); and the tax of rearing a family, by which the married\nman serves the state in a number of ways at once, the celibate avoids\naltogether. The celibate therefore is an altogether privileged person,\nhe avoids almost everything in the way of social duties. In regard to\nall taxes, direct and indirect, he enjoys dispensations which are not\nwithout analogy to those formerly admitted to priests and nobles. The\nsame thing holds good of married people who do not have children; they\nare, so to speak, encouraged by the law: it is a state of things which\nshould not and cannot last.\n\n[Sidenote: In principle identical with certain provisions at time of\nRevolution.]\n\nBy a tax on celibacy one would simply be reverting to the ideas of\nthe French Revolution. The Revolution took care, by a number of laws,\nto favour the married man at the expense of the unmarried. Thus every\ncelibate was ranked, for purposes of taxation, in a higher class than\nthat to which, according to his income, he would have been placed had\nhe been married. If he demanded assistance for some of the causes for\nwhich assistance was granted, he would be given but half the amount\nthat a married man in his situation would have received; if he was more\nthan thirty years old the laws obliged him to pay twenty-five per\ncent. additional to all ground tax; the taxable value of his property\nwas estimated at fifty per cent. higher than it would otherwise have\nbeen. A manufacturer was obliged to declare whether he was celibate or\nmarried. The law considered every man a celibate who was thirty years\nold and was not married, or a widower.[103]\n\n      [103] See the _\u00c9tudes sur le c\u00e9libat en France_, by Dr. G.\n      Lagneau (Acad\u00e9mie des sciences morales et politiques, p. 835,\n      1885.)\n\n[Sidenote: Parents should be taxed inversely to number of children.]\n\nOver and above the special tax on celibacy, a more equitable\ndistribution of the tax on families might be realized. As M. Richet\nremarks, if the father of a family cannot be assisted by indirect\ntaxes, the direct tax on him should at least be inversely proportional\nto the number of his children.[104] Not only so, but compulsory road\nlabour\u2014this unpopular tax, which constitutes the last vestige of the\n_corv\u00e9e_\u2014might well be suppressed entirely for the fathers of more\nthan four or even of more than three children.[105]\n\n      [104] \u201cDirect taxes,\u201d says M. Javal, \u201care in a great measure a\n      tax on children: compulsory road labour is forced on young men\n      before they are adult. The tax on doors and windows is a tax on\n      air and light, the inconvenience of which increases directly\n      with the increase in the size of the family and the consequent\n      necessity of occupying a larger apartment. The license itself,\n      which applies to the amount of the rent of one\u2019s habitation,\n      is in a great measure proportional to the necessary expenses\n      and not to the resources of the person taxed.\u201d (_Revue\n      scientifique_, No. 18, November 1, 1884, p. 567.) \u201cIt is well\n      known,\u201d says M. Bertillon, \u201cthat the city of Paris pays to\n      the state the tax on apartments that rent for less than four\n      hundred francs. In principle nothing could be better, but in\n      practice: suppose two neighbours, one of them an unmarried\n      man, possesses a comfortable lodging of two rooms with the\n      accessories; one of these two rooms can scarcely be called a\n      necessity for him and is distinctly a simple addition to his\n      comfort, and the city pays his tax. His neighbour has a family\n      and four children, and lives in three rooms which constitute\n      a very narrow, and hardly a sufficient lodging, but the rent\n      of it is five hundred francs and the unhappy man must pay: (1)\n      Six times greater taxes on what he consumes than his neighbour;\n      (2) A furniture tax; (3) Some portion of the tax that the city\n      pays on the apartment of the celibate neighbour. Evidently\n      the result is precisely the opposite of what it should be.\u201d\n      (Bertillon, _La statistique humaine de la France_.)\n\n      [105] If a purse should be given by the state to one of every\n      seven children in the same family (according to a law at the\n      time of the Revolution which has recently been revived and\n      corrected) it would be no more than justice, nay, it would be\n      almost an act of simple reparation; although it must not be\n      supposed that the practical results would be considerable.\n      The benefit that it would do to the father of the family is\n      too uncertain, and the prospect of such an advantage could\n      influence only a man who had six children and was hesitating\n      about the seventh; but he who has had six children is not a\n      follower of Malthus and is not likely to be.\n\n[Sidenote: Injustice of present law of inheritance.]\n\nEverybody is agreed nowadays as to the defects in the law regulating\nthe taxation of inheritances. We believe that it is more than anything\nelse by a modification of this law that the practice of malthusianism\ncan be checked. The tax on every inheritance which is to be divided\nup among a great number of children ought as far as possible to be\nreduced, whereas the tax on inheritances which are to go undivided to a\nsingle inheritor ought to be increased. The small proprietor who limits\nhimself to one child, in order to avoid dividing his field, would\nsoon learn that he is making a bad calculation if by that very act he\nsubjects his estate to a heavy tax. On the contrary, whoever lays out\nhis fortune in rearing a number of children would at least have the\nsatisfaction of thinking that almost the whole of his fortune could be\nhanded down to them, that the public treasury would take little of it,\nand that if his property had to be divided after his death it would at\nleast not be seriously diminished; almost nothing would \u201cgo out of the\nfamily.\u201d[106]\n\n      [106] Suppose, to take almost the first figures that occur to\n      one, that the law taxed an only son\u2019s inheritance twenty per\n      cent.; it might tax an inheritance to be handed down to two\n      children only fifteen per cent., an inheritance to be handed\n      down to three children ten per cent., to four children eight\n      per cent., to five children six per cent., to six children\n      four per cent., to seven children two per cent., and to any\n      greater number of children nothing. Remark that this gradation\n      actually exists to-day but inversely, because just in so far\n      as an inheritance has to be divided up among a large number\n      of children, the expenses of the sale and partition tend to\n      increase and the value of the property, which is thus split up\n      into bits, tends to decrease. A number of cases may be cited in\n      which inheritances that had to be divided among seven or eight\n      children have lost, by partition, not only twenty but even\n      twenty-five or fifty per cent. of their value. On the contrary,\n      an inheritance transmitted to a single inheritor is burdened\n      with the direct tax only, and that amounts at most to ten per\n      cent. Here, as elsewhere, the law protects small families and\n      encourages sterility.\n\n[Sidenote: Tax on inheritances falling to celibates.]\n\nEvery reform of the law of inheritance must make up its account with\nthe two motives which alone inspire a man to amass a fortune: a\npersonal interest, and an interest in his wife and children. So that,\nwhenever a man is a widower without children, his property might be\nmade subject at his death to a considerable tax, without his industry,\nwhich society is interested in stimulating, being thereby especially\ndiscouraged. A considerable tax therefore on the property left by\ncelibates, and married couples without children, would be evidently\nequitable, and, no more than in the case of a tax on celibacy, to be\nregarded as a penalty. The simple fact is that a man who has not\nreared children has expended much less of his income for the benefit\nof society, and that society has the right during his lifetime or at\nhis death to trim the scales against him. Indeed proportionate taxation\nought positively to be a matter of conscience with society.\n\n[Sidenote: French law of inheritance tends toward minute subdivision of\nestates.]\n\nGiven the importance of large fortunes in modern society, religion and\nthe patriarchal spirit together devised in former times a compromise\nbetween the necessity of having a large family and of keeping the\nfamily possessions undivided; I refer to primogeniture. To attempt to\nre-establish the law of primogeniture in nations which have rejected\nit would be impracticable and unjust, even though one should recognize\nthat the traditional superstition and prejudices on this point were\nnot without some justification. But, to reassure those who dislike the\nthought of the inevitable partition of their territorial possessions,\nthe present laws in regard to inheritances might be made less\nstringent. Every land-owner, every owner of a factory or a commercial\nhouse, might be left free to designate which of his children he\nconsidered most competent to succeed him in the possession of such real\nproperty, and the law of partition might be considered as applicable\nto the rest of his property only. It would be a sort of liberty of\nbequest, within the limits of the family. The authors of our civil\ncode broke the line of succession as it had existed in the families\nof the nobility; and they did well, in that they dispersed masses of\nunproductive capital, and by that very fact rendered them productive;\nbut they did less well, in that they rendered it difficult to bequeath\nlarge farming or manufacturing establishments from father to son. They\nhave necessitated the subdivision of capitals which were much more\nproductive in their entirety; and as a result families of farmers and\nmanufacturers who remain, from father to son, for generations in the\nsame pursuit and are thereby enabled to carry it to its highest degree\nof perfection, have almost disappeared in France. Such commercial\nor land-owning dynasties constitute the greatness of England and of\nGermany. A great commercial house or a great farming enterprise is\nnot to be created in a day, and if after one\u2019s death one\u2019s labour is\nto be destroyed by partition, so much the worse for the country. Le\nPlay has depicted in lively colours the despair of the farmer who\nhas laboured all his life to perfect a system of cultivation, of the\nmanufacturer who has created a prosperous house, who see their work\nmenaced with destruction if they have a number of children. Such men\nhave but one resource; to withdraw enough money from their business\nto satisfy the requirements of the law in regard to the children\nwho are not to succeed them, and thus to prevent the sale of their\nestablishment. The result of this man\u0153uvre often is that the child who\ninherits this establishment is left too poor to carry on the business\nand finds ruin where his father found wealth. The law, in its endeavour\nto divide the produce of the father\u2019s labour among his children, too\noften annihilates the most valuable part of the father\u2019s labour; in the\neffort to obtain an apparent equity in the partition of the revenues,\nit destroys the source of them. The law cuts down the tree to gather\nthe fruit.\n\n[Sidenote: Large families should be partly exempted from military\nservice.]\n\nMilitary service, which is perhaps the heaviest burden that the state\nlays on the individual, also constitutes the state\u2019s principal means of\ninfluencing him. The most Malthusian native of Normandy would become\namenable at once if a question of five years\u2019 military service, more\nor less, were involved. To-day the father of four living children is\nexempt from the twenty-eight days\u2019 military service (the law does not\nseem to be well known, but ought to be); he ought to be exempt from all\nreserve service, even in time of war. Similarly, as has already been\ndemanded, a family which has furnished two soldiers to the army ought\nto be exempt from further military duty. The younger sons should be\ndefinitively excused from military service by the fact of their two\nelder brothers having marched under the flag. As a matter of fact,\nfamilies in which there are more than two sons are so rare that such\na measure would hardly diminish the annual recruits.[107] More than\nthat the Budget is unequal to the needs of the whole number of possible\nrecruits even as the case stands; it is therefore irrational to make\none\u2019s selection from among them by an appeal to chance. Such a device\nis an appeal to inequality and that under the disguise of equality\nand law; the future of every society depends upon the decreasing part\nplayed in it by the injustices of chance. The military service required\nof each family should therefore be regulated with some rational\nreference to the number of children in it.[108]\n\n      [107] M. Javal in 1885 proposed, in the Chamber, to substitute\n      for Article 19 of the commission another article, according\n      to the terms of which when two or three sons of the same\n      family were enrolled they should be held to only three years\n      of service all told, and that when there were more than three\n      brothers enrolled they should each be required to give but\n      one year\u2019s service. The amendment was due to the fact that\n      population in France is not increasing.\n\n      [108] Young soldiers also, as M. Richet says, might be\n      permitted to marry under certain conditions. They are precisely\n      at the age when fertility is at its greatest.\n\n[Sidenote: Emigration to be encouraged.]\n\nEmigration tends to augment fertility; emigration must therefore\nbe favoured by law. It is soberly estimated at present that from\nthirty to forty thousand Frenchmen emigrate each year; the figure is\nrelatively small, but that number of emigrants a year is enough to\nsettle important colonies.[109] It is unscientific to maintain at this\nlate day that the French are incapable of colonizing when they have\nso powerfully aided in forming the great English colonies in Canada,\nIndia, and Egypt and are actually colonizing Algeria and Tunis. What\nwe lack is not the ability to establish colonies, but the habit of\nemigration. Emigration, in spite of its importance for us, obtains\nmainly in certain poor districts in France; it is not general enough\nto have any considerable influence, as yet, in raising the birth-rate;\nthe law should here be looked to, to correct the habits of the people.\nIn England out of every family of four sons it is almost to be expected\nthat one of them will go to India, another to Australia, a third to\nAmerica; there is nothing surprising in it, it is the custom. A sense\nof distance is almost unknown on the opposite side of the Channel. In\nFrance, if a single child leaves the country, even as the secretary\nof an embassy, he is as solemnly bid good-bye as if he were going\nnever to return, as if he were dying even. There is a great deal of\nprejudice and ignorance in paternal anguish of this kind. Such and such\na sedentary profession, for example that of a physician, is subject\nto perils that are perfectly well known to statisticians and which\nwe nevertheless do not hesitate to choose for our children precisely\nbecause it permits them to live next door to us, rather than at the\nother end of the world. Such national prejudices will give way before\neducation, the increasing habit of travelling, and the progressively\nrapid circulation of society; laws might favour it. The spirit of\nenterprise and colonization, which seems at first sight so foreign to\nlove of family, is capable of being allied with it; nay, becomes, under\ncertain circumstances, the very condition of it. To rear a numerous\nfamily is always in a certain sense to colonize, even though all the\nchildren live within the limits of their native country. To rear a\nlarge family is to launch one\u2019s children upon unknown ways, and demands\nthe activity of mind and fertility of resource which are of the essence\nof colonization. The creation of a numerous family is positively a\nsocial enterprise, as the creation of a great commercial house or a\ngreat farming industry is an economical enterprise; success in both\ncases demands constant effort and brings a various profit in return.\nSuppose a couple have reared ten children to labour and honesty; the\nchildren form a protecting phalanx about the parents and give them,\nin return for the rearing, if not gross and direct benefits, at least\nhappiness and honour. We do not wish to disguise the fact, however,\nthat to rear a family involves a certain amount of risk; but every\nenterprise involves a risk. And indeed the prime need in this whole\nmatter is to develop the spirit of enterprise and audacity which was\nformerly so powerful in the French nation. A great many people to-day\nremain celibate for the same reason that they are content to live\nwithin a small income without endeavouring to increase their fortune\nby investing it in commerce or manufacture; they are afraid of the\nrisks of the family, just as they are afraid of commercial risks. They\nconsume instead of producing, because producing is inseparable from a\ncertain preliminary investment of money and activity. Similarly a great\nmany people, once they are married, endeavour, so to speak, to reduce\nmarriage to a minimum; they do not dare to have children; they are\nafraid of the preliminary outlay, they are afraid of emerging from the\nshell of their short-sighted egoism.\n\n      [109] Rightly to appreciate the ability of France to maintain\n      colonies, this figure must not be compared with the rate of\n      emigration from other countries, but with the average excess of\n      births over deaths in France. Thus considered, the number of\n      forty thousand emigrants (adopted by M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu)\n      becomes relatively large, since the annual excess of our births\n      is not one hundred thousand.\n\n[Sidenote: To French colonies.]\n\nIt is, of course, emigration to French colonies that the law ought\nespecially to favour, and for that purpose there is one respect in\nwhich the military law should be reformed. As a matter of fact, in\nspite of the law of July 27, 1872, the government is obliged to grant\npardon to the numerous Basques and Savoyards who emigrate to escape\nmilitary service. More than that, the sole important current that\nexists in France flows toward foreign colonies, and often creates on\ntheir shores industries which rival our own, while they rarely open\nadvantageous markets for our commerce. Is it not a matter of urgent\nnecessity to make our colonies as attractive to the French emigrants\nas the colonies of any foreign nationality? If the young man of\ntwenty who has made up his mind to pass some years of his life in\nBrazil finds himself _de facto_ exempt from military service, ought\nhe not to be _de jure_ exempt if he wishes to emigrate to Algiers,\nto Tunis, to Tonquin, to Madagascar? Emigration is itself a sort of\nmilitary service. Colonists defend and enlarge the frontiers of the\ncountries; a really rational law should recognize them as a portion\nof the military power of the country. Fifty-four chambers of commerce\nin our principal cities, \u201cconsidering that it is of the greatest\nimportance to encourage, by every means possible, intelligent and\nwell-educated young people, intending to emigrate, to establish\nthemselves in our colonies,\u201d demanded justly \u201cthat, in times of peace,\nyoung men residing in the colonies should be granted a delay of five\nyears in the call to military service, a delay which should become a\ndefinitive exemption after a further residence of five consecutive\nyears.\u201d We believe that this period of ten years might be shortened,\nand that a residence of seven years in the colonies, or even of five\nin certain distant colonies, like Tonquin, might be infinitely more\nprofitable to the mother country than a three-years\u2019 military service\nat home.[110] We are much less in need of soldiers to guard our\ncolonies than of colonists; indeed our colonies are too often \u201ccolonies\nwithout colonists.\u201d More than that, we travel too little, we are not\nas well acquainted as we should be with our own possessions; whoever\nhad spent five of the most active years of his life in the colonies\nwould be tempted to return there or to send his friends and relatives\nthere. An amendment, looking to this exemption from military service,\nwas discussed in the Chamber of Deputies in May and June, 1884. If it\nshould ever be passed, it might have a considerable influence upon the\ndestinies of the French people.[111]\n\n      [110] The legal minimum of required residence should not be\n      taken as representing the real duration of actual residence:\n      people do not come back from distant countries merely for the\n      wishing; but the legislature should take advantage of the\n      psychological effect of a definite figure; an emigrant rarely\n      leaves France without a determination to be gone only so long.\n      The majority of the Basques who emigrate in such large numbers\n      to America expect to return soon; three-fourths of them become\n      good citizens of the Argentine Republic.\n\n      [111] Among the secondary causes which tend to lower the\n      French birth-rate, and which the law might counteract, let\n      us notice that of abortion, which is practised in France not\n      less commonly than in Germany, but bears much worse results\n      here than there, because of the small number of children that\n      are born in France. Paris positively enjoys a reputation for\n      the art of miscarriage, and ladies come there from various\n      parts of the world to be relieved of their children. \u201cOne of\n      the professors of our schools said this year, in one of his\n      courses, that a midwife had confessed to him that she produced\n      on an average one hundred miscarriages a year.\u201d (Dr. Verrier,\n      _Revue scientifique_, June 21, 1884.) Pajot affirms that there\n      are more miscarriages than births. Might not this state of\n      things be remedied: 1. By the re-establishment of the revolving\n      boxes (_tours_); 2. By a more constant inspection of the books\n      and offices of midwives and accoucheurs, such as furnished\n      lodgings in Paris are subject to.\n\n      Among the principal reasons which prevent marriage let us\n      mention the preliminary formalities, which are too numerous\n      even when both parties are French, and are simply numberless\n      when one party is a foreigner. The law of marriages when\n      both parties are French ought to be simplified to the utmost\n      possible extent, so that an impatience of the preliminaries\n      could in nowise influence engaged couples. More than that\n      every effort should be made to facilitate marriages between\n      French subjects and foreigners, unions the results of which are\n      generally good for the race and which are hindered by all sorts\n      of legal obstacles in certain countries; this last question is\n      a subject to be dealt with by diplomacy. Still other causes\n      that the law might modify operate in France, if not to diminish\n      the birth-rate, at least\u2014what amounts to the same thing\u2014to\n      increase the mortality among children. In the first place is to\n      be reckoned the employment of wet-nurses, who should be subject\n      to a much more rigorous surveillance than they are at present,\n      under the Roussel law. In the second place, there is the\n      deplorable condition of illegitimate children, the mortality\n      among whom is greater in France than in any other country:\n      some of them are reported as stillborn, who medical statistics\n      would go to show are the victims of murder; others die of\n      hunger in the second week of their birth owing to negligence or\n      cruelty on the part of the mother. The re-establishment of the\n      revolving boxes (_tours_) would here also be of prime service.\n      In the third place, let us mention the exceptional mortality in\n      France of adults from twenty to twenty-five years of age, which\n      must result from bad administration in the army. Legislators\n      and administrators should direct their attention simultaneously\n      to all these points, if they are to check the current of\n      depopulation in France.\n\n[Sidenote: Dangers of depopulation should be taught.]\n\nIII. Apart from the laws, the great means of influencing races is\npublic education: it is by that means that the ideas and feelings may\nbe moulded. The French people must be enlightened, therefore, on the\ndisastrous consequences of depopulation; sentiments of patriotism,\nof honour, of duty, must in every possible way be appealed to. The\nschoolmaster, the physician, and the mayor may all be of help. There\nare a whole multitude of such means of instruction that are being\nneglected.\n\n[Sidenote: In the army by conferences.]\n\nIn the first place there are military conferences. Conferences of a\nhalf hour each, with striking facts and examples and a few significant\nfigures, might exercise a considerable influence on the army, which\nis to-day the nation. Military conferences will some day certainly be\none of the great means for the dissemination of knowledge; they have\nrecently been employed with success in Belgium during the strikes, to\ninculcate notions of political economy in the army and to fortify the\nmilitary against certain communistic arguments.\n\n[Sidenote: In the country by proclamations.]\n\nThen, in the second place, posters might be used. Certain speeches\ndelivered in the Chamber or the Senate have a much feebler title\nto be placarded on the walls of remote villages than such and such\neconomical, statistical, and geographical information. In the country\nplacarding might be supplemented by _viva voce_ reading by some\nimportant functionary of the village, or even by the public crier. The\n_Bulletin des Communes_, if it were composed more carefully than it is\nand filled with examples, might be read every Sunday in front of the\ntown hall. If the schoolmaster were intrusted with this function the\nreading would be the germ of a weekly conference, which considering\nthe emptiness and monotony of country life might well succeed in\nattracting a certain number of the public. Statistical and economical\ninformation on the depopulation of certain provinces; on the dangers\nof such depopulation; on the enormous growth of the English, German,\nand Italian peoples; on the social consequences of the enfeeblement\nof a race\u2014might thus be placarded, read aloud, and commented on in\norder to call to the attention of everyone the economical and political\nruin which is menacing us. The influence of religious instruction\nis diminishing; it is essential to supply its place by a moral and\npatriotic education which shall combat prejudice, egoism, imprudence,\nand false prudence.\n\n[Sidenote: Tastes of parents and of children not the same.]\n\nOne of the commonest psychological illusions that a better education\nmight dispel is the belief that one\u2019s children are going to depend for\ntheir happiness on precisely the same circumstances that constitute\none\u2019s own happiness. A miser, whose happiness consists in adding to\nhis wealth, does not perceive that his posterity will not lay the same\nemphasis that he does on the possession of an immense and undivided\ncapital. The peasant, who has passed his life in rounding out his plot\nof ground, by obtaining here a bit and there a bit of real estate at\nthe expense of infinite stratagem, conceives his son as finding his\nhighest happiness in a continuation of the same process. His vision\ndoes not stretch beyond the hedge that bounds his own meadow, or rather\nthe hedge that bounds the neighbouring meadow which he is ambitious\nto acquire. A village butcher will have but one child, so that he may\nmake him a butcher like himself, and his successor; if he had two, the\nsecond might be forced to become a baker or a carpenter or a locksmith.\nWhat a misfortune!\u2014how could one consent to live if one were not a\nbutcher! The idle man of leisure, who passes the first forty years of\nhis life between women and horses, dreams of nothing better for his\nheir than idleness. Those, on the contrary, who feel such and such a\nthorn in their present mode of life imagine that they are securing\nperfect happiness for their son if they secure him an immunity from\nthat particular source of suffering. The hard-working day labourer,\nthe small shopkeeper, the functionary who has laboured all his life\nten or twelve hours out of every twenty-four, and has never had but\none desire in his life\u2014that of taking his fill of rest\u2014imagines\nthat his son will naturally be much happier than himself if he does\nnot have to work so much. Ninety-five per cent. of the human race are\nbound to hard labour and imagine that the pinnacle of happiness would\nbe to do nothing. The majority are absolutely ignorant of the fact\nthat, other things equal, happiness is never exactly proportionate to\nwealth, and that, according to one of Laplace\u2019s theorems, if fortune\nshould increase by geometrical progression, happiness would increase by\narithmetical progression; the millionaire controls but a fraction more\nhappiness than a workman who makes enough to live on. And too, wealth\nis never known at its best except by the man who has made it, who knows\nwhat it is worth, who looks upon it with the satisfaction of an artist\ncontemplating his work, of a house-owner examining his house, of a\npeasant measuring his field. A fortune is always more precious to the\nman who has got it together than to his son, who will perhaps dissipate\nit. If there is one axiom that fathers ought to take the trouble to\nmaster, it is this: A robust, intelligent young man with the advantage\nof a good education, which to-day is indispensable, runs a greater\nchance of being happy in life if he is busy, and he will not be busy\nif a fortune is handed to him when he comes of age. If a young man is\nto be made happy, the surest means is not to give him a fortune but\nto supply him with an opportunity of acquiring one, if fortune be his\naim.[112]\n\n      [112] We conceive, for example, that a father who proposes\n      to enrich his son might often do well to take as the measure\n      of his generosity the sum that his son can lay by, and does\n      really lay by, during a year of labour. The father might double\n      or even sextuple that sum, but he ought at least to make it\n      the basis of his calculations instead of taking counsel with\n      some vague and often deceptive notion of equality, or with his\n      affection for his child, which is often an extreme instance\n      of inequality. We know a young man who at his twenty-eighth\n      year had already amassed by ten years of labour forty thousand\n      francs; his parents tripled the amount.\n\n[Sidenote: Relation between ample means of subsistence and population.]\n\nThe peasantry and the middle classes of France, when they become more\nenlightened, will begin to understand that the universe stretches\nbeyond their village or their street; that their children, when once\nthey have been sufficiently educated, will have a multitude of careers\nopen to them, and notably that of emigration to the colonies. Whenever\na limitless field of action is thrown open to a race, its birth-rate\nincreases. People who live near unoccupied land, or who see numerous\ncareers open to their children, are like people who live on the coast\nin the presence of the wealth of the ocean. What is the explanation of\nthe well-known fertility of the fishing population, even in France?\nIt has been attributed to differences of food; it is more probably\ndue, as has been remarked, to the fact that the produce of fishing is\nproportionate to the number of fishermen and that the sea is large\nenough and deep enough for all.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nTo sum up, the relation of religious beliefs to the maintenance of\nthe race is the foundation of one of the gravest problems that the\ndecline of Christianity gives rise to. If we have insisted at length\nupon this problem, the reason is that it is almost the only one in\nregard to which neither morals nor politics have as yet seriously\nattempted to supply the place of religion. In regard to such questions\nmorals have hitherto been afraid to insist, and politics have been\nunpardonably negligent. Religion alone is afraid of nothing and has\nneglected nothing. This state of things must be changed; some solution\nmust be found for so vital a problem\u2014a problem which becomes every\nyear more and more vital as instinct declines in power and reflective\nintelligence becomes stronger.[113] Shall we be obliged some day to\nadopt the most radical imaginable solution; shall those who have\nno children be obliged to pay for the rearing and education of the\nchildren of those who have many? No; before reaching so extreme a\npoint as that a number of palliatives will have been tried, and we\nhave endeavoured to suggest some of them. What is essential is that\npolitics, morals, education, and hygiene should all do their duty in\nthis matter, in especial since religion is nowadays beginning to be\npowerless in it. Science must do in the future what religion has done\nin the past; must secure the fertility of the race and its physical,\nmoral, and economical education.\n\n      [113] See _Esquisse d\u2019une morale sans obligation ni sanction_,\n      p. 53, and _Morale anglaise contemporaine_, 2e partie.\n\n\n\n\nPart Third.\n\nNON-RELIGION OF THE FUTURE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nRELIGIOUS INDIVIDUALISM.\n\n    I. Is a renovation of religion possible? 1. Is a unification\n      of the great religions to-day existing possible? 2. Is\n      the appearance of a new religion to be expected?\u2014Future\n      miracles impossible\u2014Religious poetry not to be\n      expected\u2014Men of genius capable of sincerely and na\u00efvely\n      labouring in the creating of a new religion not to\n      be expected\u2014Impossibility of adding to the original\n      stock of religious ideas\u2014No new cult possible\u2014Last\n      attempts at a new cult in America and in France\u2014The\n      Positivist cult\u2014Ethical culture\u2014Can socialism renew\n      religion?\u2014Advantages and defects of socialistic\n      experiments.\n\n    II. Religious anomy and the substitution of doubt for\n      faith\u20141. Will the absence of religion result in\n      scepticism? Will the number of sceptics increase with the\n      disappearance of religion? 2. Substitution of doubt for\n      faith\u2014Genuinely religious character of doubt.\n\n    III. Substitution of metaphysical hypothesis for\n      dogma\u2014Difference between religious sentiment and\n      instinct for metaphysics\u2014Imperishable character of\n      the latter\u2014Sentiment at once of the limits of science\n      and of the infinity of our ideal\u2014Spencer\u2019s attempted\n      reconciliation of science and religion\u2014Confusion of\n      religion with metaphysics.\n\n\n_I. Is a renovation of religion possible?_\n\n[Sidenote: Is contemporary scepticism final?]\n\nWe have seen that the influence of dogma and of religious morality is\non the wane in actually existing societies; but will not this period of\ndecline be followed by a reaction in the opposite direction?\n\n[Sidenote: Consolidation of existing religions not possible.]\n\nSuch a reaction could take place in two ways only: 1. By the\nunification of religions; 2. By the appearance of a new religion.\nThe unification of existing religions is not to-day to be thought\nof; each of them has shown itself to be incapable of assimilating\nthe others. The different Christian confessions hold each other in\nmutual respect, but they do the same with the great religions of the\nEast. Islamism alone has made notable progress among tribes still\nimbued with primitive animism, and for them it represents a manifest\nprogress. As for Christian missionaries they have never been able\nto make many proselytes among the Mussulmans, the Buddhists, or\nthe Hindus. The Hindu who has been instructed in European science\nnecessarily comes to doubt the revealed foundation of his national\nreligion, but he is not on that account any the more inclined to\nbelieve in the Christian revelation. He ceases simply to be religious\nand becomes a free-thinker. All peoples alike are in that position;\nthe principal great religions possess an approximate value as symbols\nof the unknowable, and worshippers perceive no advance in passing from\none of them to the other: mankind in general does not welcome change\nfor change\u2019s sake. Missionaries themselves to-day lack faith in their\nreligion; they possess either enthusiasm minus talent or talent minus\nenthusiasm, and the time is at hand when the spirit of propagandism,\nwhich has hitherto constituted the power of religion, will abandon\nit. Few people can cry to-day in the words of the unbelieving Jesuit\nmissionary: \u201cAh, you have no conception of the pleasure of convincing\nmen of what you do not believe yourself!\u201d Where absolute faith is\nlacking, and absolute faith in the very details of the dogmas is\nlacking, sincerity, which constitutes the essential power of all\npropagandism, is lacking too. Bishop Colenso was one day asked, by his\nneophytes in Natal, some questions on the Old Testament. After having\nfollowed him up from question to question they asked him, on his word\nof honour, if all that was true. Seized by a scruple, the Bishop fell\ninto a profound train of reflection, studied the question, read Strauss\nand the German commentators, and finally published a book in which\nhe treats Biblical history as a series of myths. To this celebrated\nexample of Colenso among the Kaffirs, must be joined that of Mr.\nFrancis Newman in Syria, and of the Rev. Adams in India, and of others\nless well known. Efficiently to combat religions as well organized\nas those of India, for example, our missionaries would be obliged to\nbecome seriously proficient in the history of religion. But the day\nthey sincerely study comparative religion in the hopes of converting\nsomebody else, they will themselves undergo conversion, or at least\nwill rapidly learn to reject a belief in a special revelation.[114]\nThe great religions, and principally the \u201cuniversal\u201d religions, which\nto-day have attained their full development, hold each other in\ncheck. These vast bodies show almost no signs of life except within,\nby the formation of new centres of activity which detach themselves\nfrom the primitive nucleus, as we see daily happening in the bosom of\nProtestantism, which is constantly being subdivided into new sects; as\nalso within the bosom of Hinduism, insomuch that the only sign of life\nthat these religions give is that they are beginning to disintegrate.\n\n      [114] See M. Goblet d\u2019Alviella, _L\u2019\u00e9volution religieuse_.\n      Anglo-Saxon religious proselytism has achieved the distinction\n      of contradicting and paralyzing itself. The Theosophist\n      Society of the United States, in 1879, sent to India certain\n      missionaries, or rather counter-missionaries, who were\n      commissioned \u201cto preach the majesty and glory of all ancient\n      religions and to fortify the Hindu, the Cingalese, the Parsee,\n      against all efforts to induce him to accept a new faith instead\n      of the Vedas, of the Tri-Pit\u00e2ka and of the Zend Avest\u00e2.\u201d In\n      India and in the island of Ceylon these counter-missionaries\n      have succeeded in bringing back to the primitive faith some\n      thousands of converts to Christianity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Analogy between nineteenth century and times of the\nAntonines superficial.]\n\nThe increasing multiplicity of sects, for example of the Protestant\nsects; the courageous efforts of certain disciples of Comte and of\nSpencer, the birth of Mormonism in America and of Brahmaism in India,\nhave been regarded as symptoms of a religious fermentation analogous\nto that which disturbed the world at the time of the Antonines and\nvery possibly destined, like that, to result in a renovation. \u201cAll\nthings in nature spring from humble beginnings, and no one can to-day\nsay whether the unconscious mission of the fisherman and publicans,\ngathered eighteen centuries ago on the borders of Lake Tiberias about\na gentle and mystical idealist, will not to-morrow be handed on to\nsuch and such an association of spiritualists prophesying in a gorge\nof the Rocky Mountains; to such and such an illuminated gathering\nof socialists in some back shop in London; to such and such a band\nof ascetics, meditating, like the Essenes of old on the miseries of\nthe world, in some jungle of Hindustan. Perhaps all they need is to\ndiscover on the road to Damascus another Paul, to give them a passport\nto future ages.\u201d[115] These analogies between our century and that of\nthe Antonines are very superficial; between the century which, as a\nwhole, is of an unexampled incredulity and the century which was of an\nunexampled credulity\u2014which accepted all religion from that of Isis\nand Mithra to that of Christ; from that of the talking serpent to that\nof Christ incarnate in the body of a virgin. During the past eighteen\nhundred years a new thing has been born into the world\u2014science; and\nscience is not compatible with supernatural revelations, which are the\nfoundation of religions.\n\n      [115] _L\u2019\u00e9volution religieuse contemporaine_, by M. Goblet\n      d\u2019Alviella, p. 411.\n\n[Sidenote: Attempt to found a religion to-day on miracles desperate.]\n\nWill it be objected that miracles still happen? Possibly one or two\nnotable ones in a century! The surprising thing is not that miracles\nstill happen, but that, with millions of believers, including in their\nranks thousands of excited women and children, they do not happen\nfrequently. Every day ought to bring forth its duly authenticated\nmiracle, but unhappily daily miracles no longer happen\u2014except in\nmad-houses and hospitals for the hysterical, where they are observed\nand reported nowadays by incredulous men of science. When they happen\nelsewhere, true believers themselves are almost afraid of them and\ndo not care to talk about them. Of old a king forbade God to perform\nmiracles; the Pope has done almost as much to-day; they are regarded\nas objects of doubt and suspicion, rather than of edification. Among\northodox Protestant nations, miracles do not happen; enlightened\ntheologians among them no longer insist on the marvellous elements\nin the early Christian tradition; they regard them as more likely to\nenfeeble than to confirm the authority of the Scriptures. Add that as\na means of founding a new religion, or of reviving old religions, a\nmiracle or two would do no good; they would rather result in the total\ndestruction of the faith they were intended to establish. A whole\nseries of miracles would be necessary, a sort of marvellous atmosphere\nin which the whole face of nature should be transformed, a mystic halo\nnot only visibly resting on the head of the prophet, but reflected\non the believers who surround him. In other words, the Messiah must\nbe in his lifetime quite as wonderful as he is always reported to\nbe afterward, and that without deception or finesse, either on his\npart or on the part of those who surround him and are supported by\nhis divinity. Unhappily, in our days great men are immediately taken\naccount of by history, which verifies everything, describes everything,\nsets down in plain print the contemporary fact, otherwise so likely\nto settle, with time, into some fantastic shape. Even the legend of\nNapoleon, which he himself laboured with all the resources of despotic\npower and brutal force to establish, did not last thirty years in\nEurope; in the East it exists still, transfigured. Personalities\nshrink beneath the touch of history. If Jesus had lived to-day his\nletters would have been published, and it is impossible to believe in\nthe divinity of anybody after one has read his correspondence. The\nslightest facts of an interesting man\u2019s life are ascertainable: state\nrecords enable us to ascertain important dates, what he did from year\nto year and even sometimes from day to day; sometimes a mere appearance\nin court, such as happened in the life of Shakspeare\u2019s father, may\nserve to fix a date; and in the life of a prophet there would be\nno lack of appearances in court since unlicensed assemblies are\ninterdicted. Life to-day is so hemmed in by reality, so disciplined,\nthat it is difficult for the marvellous to find entrance, or to make\ngood its lodgment even if it should get in. We live in little numbered\nand windowed boxes, in which the least disturbance attracts attention;\nwe are watched like soldiers living in barracks; we have every evening\nto be present at the roll-call, with no possibility of dropping out of\nthe society of men, of returning into ourselves, of avoiding the big\neye of society. We are like bees living under a glass; the observer can\nwatch them at work, watch them constructing their hive, watch them\nmaking their honey; and the sweetest of honey, even the honey with\nwhich the ancients nourished the baby Jupiter, ceases to be marvellous\nwhen one has been present at its tardy and painstaking elaboration.\n\nWe are far from the time when Pascal could say \u201cMiracles are as a flash\nof lightning that reveals.\u201d The lightning no longer flashes. Science\nstands ready to explain the first miracle that arises in support of a\nnew religion.\n\n[Sidenote: Genius has deserted the service of religion.]\n\nMetaphysical and poetic genius also, upon which religions were so\ndependent in their earliest stages in the past, have also withdrawn\nfrom their service. Read the descriptions of the latest miracles, those\nat Lourdes, for example: the little girl taking off her stockings to\nstep into the rivulet, the words of the Virgin, the vision repeated\nas a spectacle before witnesses who saw nothing\u2014all of it is trivial\nand insignificant; how far we have travelled from the Lives of the\nSaints, the Gospel, the great Hindu legends! The poor in spirit may see\nGod or the Virgin, but they cannot make others see them; the poor in\nspirit cannot found or revive religion; it requires genius, and genius,\nwhich bloweth where it listeth, bloweth to-day elsewhere. If the Bible\nand the Gospels had not been sublime poems they would not have made\nthe conquest of the world. \u00c6sthetically considered, they are epics\ngreater than the Iliad. What Odyssey equals that of Jesus? Refined\nGreeks and Romans did not at first appreciate the simple, impassioned\npoetry of the Gospels; it was long before they admired the style of\nthe Scriptures. St. Jerome, transported in a dream to the feet of the\nSovereign Judge, heard a menacing voice cry: \u201cThou art naught but a\nCiceronian!\u201d After this dream St. Jerome applied himself to the study\nof the beauties of the Bible and the New Testament, and came ultimately\nto prefer them to the balanced periods of the great Latin orator: the\nSermon on the Mount, in spite of some inconsistencies (in part the work\nof the disciples), is more eloquent than the most eloquent of Cicero\u2019s\norations, and the invectives against the Pharisees, authentic or not,\nare better literature than the denunciations against Catiline. M.\nHavet, in our judgment, entirely misses the point, when he asks how\n\u201cso great a revolution could have taken its rise from such commonplace\nliterature as the New Testament.\u201d The literary excellence of the New\nTestament is of a new kind, unparalleled among the Greeks or the\nwriters of the Old Testament; it possesses the grace of tenderness\nand of unction, which is well worth the lyrical fire of the prophets;\nit is a profound and na\u00efve manual of popular morality, and every word\nmakes one\u2019s heart vibrate. The literary success of the New Testament\nwas fully merited. The Hebrew people, who had not produced one man\nof science, had evidently produced a succession of sombre, tender,\npuissant poets unparalleled among any other people; a fact which in a\ngreat part explains the victorious progress of Hebrew religion. Poetry,\nlike hope, is the sister of faith, and is more necessary than hope to\nfaith, for one may forego the distant grace of hope when one is under\nthe present charm of an illusion.\n\n[Sidenote: And the conditions in which alone genius could succeed are\nwanting.]\n\nTo found a great religion has demanded and will always demand the\nservices of men of genius such as Jesus was, or, to be quite historic,\nas St. Paul was. But if genius is to found religion it can do so\nonly under two essential conditions. It must in the first place be\nabsolutely sincere; we no longer live in a period when religion can be\nbenefited by imposture; it must, in the second place, distinctly impose\nupon itself; it must be the dupe of its own inspiration, of its own\ninterior illuminations, disposed to see in them something superhuman,\nto feel itself in direct communication with God, or at least especially\ndesignated by God. This second condition was easy to realize in ancient\ntimes when, in their ignorance of psychological and physiological\nphenomena, not only men like Jesus but philosophers like Socrates and\nPlotinus believed that they felt within them something supernatural,\ntook their visions and their ecstasies seriously; and, unable to\nexplain their own very genuine genius, regarded it as a proof of some\nmysterious or miraculous communication with God. Purely and simply to\nrank these great men among lunatics would be absurd; they were simply\nseeking to explain phenomena which overtaxed their knowledge and gave\nwhat, after all, was the most plausible explanation for the times\nin which they lived. With the scientific knowledge that we possess\nnowadays, and which every man who attains a certain intellectual\nlevel inevitably will possess, men like Moses and Jesus, men who\nare inspired, will be obliged, so to speak, to choose between two\nalternatives; to see in their inspiration simply the natural impulse of\ngenius, to speak in their own name, to make no pretences to revelation\nor prophecy, to be, in effect, philosophers, or actively to allow\nthemselves to be deceived by their own exaltation, to objectify it, to\npersonify it, to become madmen in downright earnest. At the present\nday those who are not capable of naming the force that is acting in\nthem and declaring it to be natural and human, and of preserving their\nself-mastery, are definitively regarded as of unsound mind; prophets\nwho believe in their own prophecies are sent to Charenton. We are\nfamiliar with distinctions that were unknown in ancient times, even to\nthe promoters of religious ideas; the great men who founded religions\nwere carried away by the movement they had themselves called into\nbeing; were divinized by the God that they themselves had brought\nto men. Genius is as capable of going to school as stupidity; and,\nlike stupidity, it has been to school in the nineteenth century and\nis familiar with nineteenth-century science. A time will come\u2014nay,\nprobably has come for Europe\u2014when prophets, apostles, and Messiahs\nwill be extinct among men. It is a species which is dying out. \u201cWho\nof us, who of us will become a god?\u201d None of us will become a god,\nand more than that none of us wants to. Science has killed the\nsupernatural in us even in the very centre of our being, in our deepest\necstasies; visions no longer put on the shape of apparition but of\nsimple hallucination, and the day they become so strong that we believe\nin them we lose all power to make anybody else believe in them, and\nbecome, not uncommonly, amenable to the law. The middle term between\nthe man of genius and the fool, the man of inspiration, of revelation,\nthe Messiah, the God, has disappeared.\n\n[Sidenote: Dissemination of knowledge has weakened the religious\nsentiment.]\n\nAdd that inspiration nowadays, and forever more, lacks and will lack\nits appropriate environment. Intensity of religious emotion in a\npeople, an intensity which sometimes rises to the height of fanaticism,\ndepends, in a great measure, upon ignorance and upon the level of\nintelligence achieved by average human life. When problems of the\norigin and destiny, and reason of things, are suddenly presented to an\nignorant people, it experiences profound terrors, ecstasies, a general\nheightening of the sensibility which is due to the fact that a state of\nmetaphysical and philosophical curiosity is utterly unfamiliar to it,\nconstitutes a positive revolution in its ordinary habits of mind. When\nthe average level of intellectual activity is once raised, metaphysical\nemotion loses its revolutionary character precisely because the whole\nextent of human existence has become imbued with it. A calm, high,\ncontinuous enjoyment takes the place of a brief, stormy ecstasy; people\nwho pass their lives on the shore of the ocean cease to fear it, or\nat least do not experience so violent an emotion in its presence as\nthey did at the sight of their first tempest. If we had never looked\nupon the starry heavens, the first time we lifted our eyes to them we\nshould be filled with fear; the spectacle of them to-day calms us,\ngently inspires us. To appease the violence of religious sentiment, it\nmust, when it has been purified, be permitted to permeate the whole of\nhuman existence, be always present with us, and domesticate us in the\ninfinite.\n\n[Sidenote: A new religion must be both novel and significant.]\n\nA final condition precedent to the success of a new religion would be\nthat it should be really new, that it should contribute a new idea to\nthe treasury of the human mind. Among the wretched attempts at starting\na new faith which have been made from one end of the world to the other\nin our days, nothing original has made its appearance. In America a\nreligion new in appearance, Mormonism, has had some success; it is,\nof all modern attempts, the only one which has relied upon miraculous\nprophecy and revelation, such as are indispensable to a genuine\ndogmatic religion: it has also its book, its Bible, and even includes\nin its legend some prosaic tale of marvellous pair of spectacles\ndestined for the deciphering of the book. The God of Mormonism, who\nis rather better educated than the God of the Bible, possesses some\nnotion of optics. But at bottom Mormonism is simply a modern edition of\nJewish ideas and customs: the whole religion is a bit of plagiarism,\na resuscitation of superanuated legends and beliefs, to which it has\nadded nothing but what is trivial; it is a religious anachronism. It\nseems also to have reached the limit of its development, the number\nof its adherents is not increasing. Hindu Brahmaism is an eclectic\nand mystic spiritualism without one really new idea. Comtism, which\nconsists of the rites of religion and nothing else, is an attempt\nto maintain life in the body after the departure of the soul. The\nspiritualists are charlatans, or empirics, who have been impressed with\ncertain, as yet obscure, phenomena of the nervous system which they\nthemselves are unable to explain scientifically. But charlatanism has\nnever founded anything durable in the domain of religion. To compare\nAmerican Mormonism or spiritualism to nascent Christianity is to make\none\u2019s self ridiculous. Humble as the beginnings of Christianity were\none must not be the dupe of historical illusion, nor believe that\nChristianity owed its triumph to a simple concurrence of happy events;\nthat the world, for example, according to M. Renan\u2019s hypothesis, might\nquite easily have become Mithraic. The disciples of a certain Chrestus,\nmentioned for the first time by Suetonius, could present, as the basis\nof their as yet vague beliefs, two incomparable epic poems, the Old\nTestament and Gospels; they introduced into the world a new system\nof morality, which was admirable even in its errors, and original at\nleast for the mass of mankind; and they contributed, finally, to the\ncommon stock of ideas a great metaphysical conception, that of the\nresurrection, which, combined with current philosophical conceptions,\nnecessarily gave birth to the doctrine of personal immortality.\nChristianity conquered by its own weight, it was inevitable that it\nshould find its St. Paul; the Old Testament and the Gospels were too\neminent to be forgotten, or to remain without influence on human life.\nThere is not a single example in the history of the world of a great\nmasterpiece, at once literary or philosophical, which has gone its\nway unperceived, without exerting an influence upon the progress of\nhumanity. Every work which is sufficiently endowed with beauty or\nvirtue is sure of the future.\n\n[Sidenote: No great religion could nowadays take its rise among the\nmasses.]\n\nIt is among the masses that religious movements have hitherto begun.\nBut a new religion could not come to us to-day from the ignorant\nmasses of an Oriental people nor from the lower classes of any country\nof Europe. In heathen antiquity, all social classes were united in a\nbelief in na\u00efve superstitions. Marcus Aurelius himself was obliged\nto preside in great pomp over a ceremony in honour of the serpent of\nAlexander of Abonoteichos which numbered believers among his friends.\nTo-day a bishop in Australia can refuse to order a prayer for rain, and\ndeclare that atmospheric phenomena are regulated by inflexible natural\nlaws, and persuade the believers in his diocese, if they want a remedy\nagainst drought, to ameliorate their system of irrigation. These two\nfacts indicate the thorough-going difference between the ancient and\nmodern world. The contemptuous title of Barbarians, which the Greeks\nand Romans applied to all other peoples, was less than exact, for the\nHebrews and the Hindus at least possessed a more profound religion\nthan the Greeks and Romans and even in certain respects a superior\nliterature. Greek and Roman civilization is a rare historical example,\nwhich proves that religion is not necessarily the measure of the\nintellectual development of a people. Greece excels principally by her\nart and science; but the superiority which she conceived herself to\npossess in other respects was a pure illusion founded on ignorance.\nThe superiority that we attribute to ourselves is demonstrated by\nour knowledge; we are better acquainted to-day with the religion of\nmost Oriental peoples than they are themselves; and we have earned\na right to sit in judgment on them, and admire them, and criticise\nthem, that the ancients did not possess. The distinction between those\nwho know and those who do not is to-day the sole really serious line\nof demarcation between classes and nations. And the line is one that\nreligion cannot pass, for every complete religion involves a general\nconception of the world, and no such na\u00efve conception of the world\nas a man of the people is capable of can ever find acceptance by a\ncultivated mind. No great religion can germinate and achieve complete\ndevelopment in modern society.\n\n[Sidenote: Impossibility of improving on existing religions in their\nkind.]\n\nThe impossibility of finding anything new in the domain of mythical\nreligion might almost be demonstrated _a priori_; nothing more\nattractive will ever be discovered in the way of a metaphysical myth\nthan the sovereign happiness obtained in this life in the Buddhists\nNirv\u00e2na, or obtained in the life after death in Christian immortality.\nIn these two conceptions, the metaphysical imagination of humanity\nhas once for all achieved its masterpiece, as the plastic imagination\nonce for all achieved its masterpiece in Greek statuary. Something\nmay be demanded in another order of ideas, one may exact less na\u00efve\nhypotheses, hypotheses more neighbour to the truth; but these\nhypotheses will never seduce humanity nor pass over the world like a\nwave of light, nor become transfigured in the form of a revelation.\nThe multitude never listens to a revelation that does not announce\nsome glad tidings, some salvation in this world, or the next; to be\na prophet, and to be listened to, imperatively requires one to be a\nprophet of good augury. Religious metaphysics, after its two immense\nefforts in Buddhism and Christianity (Mohammedanism is simply a\nvulgarization of these two), is condemned in the future to sterility\nor repetition, so long as severe and truly philosophical hypotheses,\nbased on scientific generalization, engage the attention of mankind.\nInfantine hypotheses, which resolve the problems of the destiny of\nmankind and of the world in a manner altogether consoling to human\nvanity, are condemned to uniformity and banality. To discover anything\nnew in the realm of metaphysics, the religious spirit will have to\nabandon the conditions which have hitherto existed; will have to deal\nwith ideas that lie beyond the primitive intellectual range of a\nHottentot, and even abandon all notion of universality, of Catholicity,\nin the sphere of speculation.\n\n[Sidenote: Impossibility of improving existing religious morality as\nsuch.]\n\nThe same is true in the sphere of morals. So far as an exalted and\nattractive system of morality is concerned, can one go farther than\nChristianity and Buddhism, both of which preach exclusive altruism,\nabsolute self-abnegation? All that one can do is really to take a few\nsteps backward to moderate certain exaggerated outbursts of devotion in\nthe void, to fit Christian and Buddhistic morality to the real world,\nto supply this beautiful mysticism with a material body; but for such\na task a new Messiah would be powerless, simple good sense does not\ncharm humanity; the cold, humble, commonplace duties of everyday life\ncannot be made the basis of a great popular movement. Common-sense\nis not contagious after the fashion of religious exaltation, which\npasses from man to man like wildfire. Moral sentiment may well, in the\ncourse of time, filter into us, pass slowly from man to man, rise like\na rising tide, but so gradually as scarcely to be perceptible. The\nmost lasting approaches to perfection are often the most unconscious.\nIt is a difficult matter by a simple impulse of faith to climb sheer\nup on the ladder of civilization. True moral perfection is often the\nprecise opposite of heroic paroxysm. As the passion for goodness\nbecomes triumphant, it ceases to be a passion: it becomes, and must\nbecome, a portion of our normal life, of the flesh that the mystics\ncurse; the man must become good from the roots of his hair to the\nsoles of his feet. Thus Buddhism and Christianity, in many respects,\nhave miscarried. If the first apostles, who preached these religions,\nshould return among men, how unchanged and untransmuted they would\nfind humanity, after so many thousands of years! There has been, no\ndoubt, an intellectual progress which has confirmed a certain number\nof moral ideas, but this very complex intellectual progress has not\nentirely been effected by religions. There was as yet no sign of it in\nthe small number of simple-hearted people gathered about the \u201cnew word\u201d\nin which the apostles saw their moral and religious ideal realized. As\nthe primitive virtues of this small knot of wholly religious and not\nat all scientific people overspread humanity, they necessarily became\ncorrupt: and a morality of exalted self-abnegation could not succeed\nbeyond a small group, a family, a convent, artificially sequestered\nfrom the rest of the world it necessarily failed when it undertook to\nappeal to all mankind. The great world is too inhospitable and shifting\na soil; one does not sow seed in the sea. A revival or a repetition of\nthe religious epics of Christianity or of Buddhism would to-day meet\nwith an immediate check; for it is the very essence of their influence\nto develop the heart disproportionately to the brain, and, such an\neffect being a sort of disturbance of equilibrium, a sort of natural\nmonstrosity, can be produced in individuals indeed, but not in races.\nThe investigator to-day, who adds the least item of truth to the mass\nof scientific and philosophic knowledge already acquired, performs a\nmuch less brilliant but probably more definitive work than the purely\nreligious work of a Messiah. He is of those who construct not in three\ndays, but during successive ages, the sacred edifice which will not\nfall.\n\n[Sidenote: Growing antagonism to externals of worship.]\n\nThe most essential incident of every dogmatic religion, the cult, is\nnot less foreign to the spirit of modern society than dogma itself\nis. The foundation of outer forms of worship, as we have seen, is a\ncrystallization of custom and tradition into the form of rites. Well,\nas has been said, one of the characteristic marks of the innovating\nspirit, and of intellectual superiority, is the power of breaking up\nassociations of ideas, of liberating one\u2019s self in a measure from\nestablished collocations of ideas, of being slow to contract invincible\nhabits of thought, of precisely not possessing a ritualistic mind. If\nsuch be one of the great signs of superiority in an individual, it is\nnone the less so in a people. Progress in humanity may be estimated by\nthe degree of perfection that the faculty of psychic disassociation\nhas achieved. The instinct for novelty is then no longer held in\ncheck by the instinct for ritualism; curiosity may be pushed to its\nextreme without any sense of innovating impiety such as primitive\npeoples regard it with. The importance of ritualism in the material\nand religious life of a people indicates the predominance among them\nof obscure and unconscious associations of ideas, their brain is\ncaught and enveloped in a closely woven network of tradition, in a\ntissue impenetrable to the light of conscience. On the contrary, the\nprogress of reflection and of conscience which is manifested among\nmodern people is accompanied by an enfeeblement of established custom,\nof unconscious habit, of the discipline and power of the past. There\nis often a certain danger, on the practical side, in this change,\nbecause reflection becomes strong enough to dissolve habits before it\nis capable of making head against the passions of the moment. The power\nof disassociation is intellectual, and is not in itself adequate to\nthe moral domination and direction of the individual, and whatever may\nbe the objections, from the point of view of morals, to the progress\nof reflection, it is certain that it sooner or later strips rites,\nreligious ceremonies, and the whole machinery of worship, of their\nsacred character. Etiquette in the presence of kings and gods alike\nis destined to disappear. Whatever is an observance ceases to be a\nduty, and the r\u00f4le of the priest by that fact is seriously changed.\nThe distant ideal toward which we are marching includes among other\nthings the disappearance of the priesthood, which is rite personified;\nthe god of the priesthood, who in certain respects is no more than an\napotheosis of custom, has to-day grown old and maintains his power only\nby the prestige of the accomplished fact. It is in vain for men like\nGerman, English, or American clergymen, or Hindu deists, who still\npossess a religion, to endeavour to throw over revelation and dogma,\nand reduce their faith to a system of personal and progressive beliefs,\nto be accompanied by a ritual. The ritual is an excrescence simply,\nan almost superstitious habit, mechanically practised and destined to\ndisappear.\n\n[Sidenote: The liberal movement in religion a movement of\ndisintegration.]\n\nThe movement which, in certain countries, inclines religion to be shy\nof dogmas and rites, is in reality a movement of disintegration, not\nof reconstruction. Human beliefs, when they shall have taken their\nfinal form in the future, will bear no mark of dogmatic and ritualistic\nreligion, they will be simply philosophical. Among certain people,\nit is true, every philosophical system tends to assume the practical\nand sentimental form of a system of beliefs and aspirations. The\nideas of Kant and Schelling, when they passed into America, gave\nbirth to Emerson\u2019s and Parker\u2019s transcendentalism; Spencer\u2019s theory\nof evolution became, in America, a religion of Cosmism, represented\nby Messrs. Fiske, Potter, and Savage. But all such alleged religions\nare simply the moving shadow, in the domain of sentiment and action,\nof the substance of intellectual speculation. It is not enough to be\nof the same opinion on some sociological or metaphysical theory and\nthen to congregate to the number of ten or a hundred in some theatre\nor temple, to found a new religion and a new cult. The majority of\nthese pretended religions, which are simply philosophies and sometimes\nvery bad philosophies, are open to Mark Pattison\u2019s observation on the\ncongregation of Comtists in their chapel in London: \u201cThree persons and\nno God.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Secularism.]\n\nThe defects of these modern cults appear in their most exaggerated form\nin secularism, which had its hour of success in England. Secularism is\na purely atheistic and utilitarian religion, which has borrowed all it\ncould from the ritual of the English Church. This contradiction between\nthe outer form and the inner void resulted in a positive parody.[116]\n\n      [116] See the secularist version of the _Ite missa est_.\n\n[Sidenote: Comtists.]\n\nIn France the Comtists have made the same attempt to preserve the\nrites, without the background, of belief. The Comtist doctrine of\nfetichism contains a certain amount of truth as characterizing\nprimitive religion, but it is insufficient in its application to\nactual, existing religions. The religions of the present day have\ndeveloped, gradually, from a primitive system of physics to a complete\nsystem of metaphysics: the fetiches have been transmuted into symbols\nof the First Cause, or of the Final Cause. Positivism can offer us\nno symbol of this kind; its \u201cGreat Fetich\u201d is genuinely a fetich,\nand appropriate for primitive peoples only. \u201cHumanity\u201d does not\nafford complete satisfaction to one\u2019s conception of causality, nor\nto one\u2019s conception of finality. In regard to the first, humanity is\na simple link in the infinite chain of phenomena; in regard to the\nsecond, humanity constitutes an end which is practically inexact and\ntheoretically insufficient: practically inexact because almost the\nwhole of one\u2019s activity relates to such and such a restricted group\nof human beings and not to humanity as a whole; and theoretically\ninsufficient, because humanity looks small in the presence of the great\nuniverse. Its life is a point in space, a point in time; it constitutes\na contracted ideal, and to say the truth, it is as vain for a race to\nregard itself as its own end as for an individual. One cannot eternally\ncontemplate one\u2019s own image and cannot, in especial, eternally adore\nit. Love of humanity is the greatest of virtues and the most ridiculous\nof fetichisms. The marriage of positive science and blind sentiment\ncannot produce religion; the attempt to return to fetichism is an\nattempt to foist the religion of a savage upon the most civilized of\nmankind. Moreover, what we believe destined to subsist in the future in\na multitude of forms, and to replace religions, is not pure and simple\nsentiment, but sentiment roused by metaphysical symbols, by speculation\nand thought. Religious metaphysics may consist in involuntary illusion,\nin error, in dream; but unmetaphysical fetichism consists in voluntary\nillusion, in cherished error, in day-dream. Auguste Comte seemed to\nbelieve that we should always need as the centre of our system of\nworship, an imaginary personification of humanity, a great Being, a\ngreat Fetich; such a fetichism would be a species of new category, in\nthe Kantian sense. Fetichism has never imposed itself upon humanity\nafter that fashion; intellectually considered, it was based on reasons\nwhich can be shown to be false; emotionally considered, it was based on\nfeelings which can be shown to be perverted, and can be rectified. If\nlove sometimes stretches out toward personification, toward fetiches,\nit is only in default of real persons and living individuals; such in\nour opinion is, in its simplest form, the law which will gradually\nresult in the disappearance of every fetichistic cult. We must find\ngods of flesh and bone, living and breathing among us\u2014not poetical\ncreations like those of Homer, but visible realities. We must discover\nthe kingdom of heaven in the human soul, a future providence in\nscience, absolute goodness in the foundation of life. We must not\nproject our ideas and subjective images of things into the outer world,\nand beyond the limits of the outer world, and love them with a sterile\nlove; but must love the beings of this world with an active affection\nin so far as they are capable of conceiving and realizing the same\nideas as we. Just as patriotism, in so far as it is an abstract love,\ntends to disappear, and to resolve itself into a general sympathy for\nall our fellow-citizens, just so far the love of God tends to overflow\nthe surface of the earth and to include all living beings. To know\nliving beings is to love them; and thus science, in so far as it is\nscience of the observation of life, is one with the sentiment which\nconstitutes what is best in religion, is one with love.\n\n[Sidenote: Ethical Culture Society.]\n\nAnother religion of humanity, or rather a religion of ethics, has\nrecently been founded in New York by Mr. Felix Adler, the son of an\nAmerican rabbi; but Mr. Adler, who is more consistent than Comte, has\ndetermined to do away with religious ceremonial, not less than with\nreligious dogma. He has abandoned almost everything in the way of\nceremony; he has abandoned the catechism, and professes allegiance to\nno sacred book. As a metaphysician he is a follower of Kant, rather\nthan of Comte, but makes no positive affirmation on the subject of\nGod and immortality; he admits only the existence of an unknowable\nnoumenon, of an ultimate reality which lies behind all appearances,\nand is responsible for the harmony of the world. So long as divergence\nin matters of belief continues to become increasingly great, Mr.\nAdler regards it as necessary to concentrate attention on the moral\nlaw itself, apart from any theory of its origin or justification. Men\nhave so long disputed, he thinks, about the basis of the law, that the\nlaw itself has not received its due share of notice. His movement is\nessentially a practical movement and appeals to the conscience, a cry\nfor more justice, an exhortation for the performance of duty.\n\n[Sidenote: Its object.]\n\nThe primary aim of the society should be, according to Mr. Adler,\nto reform the lives of its own members. He has founded: 1. A\nSunday-school, where instruction is given in practical morality, in\nthe history of the most important religions, and in the elements of\nthe philosophy of religion; 2. A public kindergarten organized on the\nFroebel method; 3. A school, for working people\u2019s children between the\nages of three and nine.[117]\n\n      [117] Indigent pupils are clothed and fed; the instruction is\n      gratuitous; the school contains at present one hundred pupils,\n      having begun with eight. An industrial museum is attached to\n      it. The society also sends out district nurses to attend the\n      sick in the poorer quarters of New York.\n\n[Sidenote: Is of a type destined to survive.]\n\nMr. Adler\u2019s following at first consisted of Jews; subsequently a number\nof people, without distinction of race, gathered about him. They are\nleft entirely free in the matter of their personal beliefs, and are\nunited only in an ardent desire for the regeneration of mankind.\nEvery Sunday the faithful congregate, to listen to a discourse and\nthen disperse; none but members of the society are permitted to join\nin the management of the institutions founded and maintained by the\nsociety. This religion, which is, _\u00e0 l\u2019am\u00e9ricaine_, wholly practical,\nis acceptable to the philosopher; at bottom it is simply a great mutual\naid temperance society. The only objection that can be urged against it\nis that it is somewhat prosaic, but it is certainly one of the forms of\nsocial activity which are destined to succeed ritualistic religions.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Antiquity of faith in socialism as a panacea.]\n\nCertain partisans of religious revival regard socialism as their last\nhope. Socialistic ideas ought, in their judgment, to give religion\na fresh start and supply it with an impetus hitherto unknown. This\nconception wears an air of originality, but, as a matter of fact, it is\nquite the reverse of original. The great catholic religions, Buddhism\nand Christianity, were in the beginning socialistic, they preached\nuniversal partition of goods, and poverty; it was by means of so doing\nthat they were in part enabled to spread with such rapidity. In reality\nthe instant that the period of propagandism succeeded the period of\nstruggle for permission to exist, these religions did everything\nwithin their power to become individualistic even at the expense of\ninconsistency; they ceased to promise equality on earth and relegated\nit to heaven or to Nirv\u00e2na.\n\n[Sidenote: Socialism unrealizable except by a select few.]\n\nDo we therefore believe that socialistic ideas will play no part in\nthe future, and is it not conceivable that a certain mysticism might\nform an alliance with socialism, and both lend and borrow force by so\ndoing? A mystical socialism is by no means unrealizable under certain\nconditions, and, far from constituting an obstacle to religious\nfree-thought, it might become one of its most important manifestations.\nBut what has hitherto rendered socialism impracticable and utopian is\nthat it has aimed at subjugating the whole of mankind, rather than\nsome small social group. What has been aimed at is state socialism;\nthe case has been the same in the matter of religion. But systems of\nsocialism and of religious doctrine must, in the future at least, be\naddressed to small groups and not to confused masses; must be made the\nbasis of manifold and various associations in the bosom of society. As\nits most earnest partisans recognize, socialism presupposes for its\nsuccess a certain average of virtue, that may well obtain among some\nhundreds of men but not among some millions. It endeavours to establish\na sort of special providence, which would be quite incompetent to\nmanage the affairs of the world but may well watch over the interests\nof a neighbourhood. Socialism aims more or less at playing the part of\nfate, at predetermining the destiny of the individual, at supplying\neach individual with a certain average amount of happiness which he can\nneither increase nor diminish. Socialism is the apotheosis of state\ninterference, and the world in general is not disposed to worship it;\nits ideal is a life which is completely foreseen, insured, with the\nelement of fortune and of hope left out, with the heights and the\ndepths of human life levelled away\u2014an existence somewhat utilitarian\nand uniform, regularly plotted off like the squares on a checker board,\nincapable of satisfying the ambitious desires of the mass of mankind.\nSocialism is to-day advocated by the rebels in society. Its success,\nhowever, would depend on the most peaceable, the most conservative, the\nmost bourgeois people in the world; it supplies no sufficient outlet\nfor the love of risk, of staking one\u2019s everything, of playing for the\nheight of fortune against the depth of misery, which is one of the\nessential factors of human progress.\n\n[Sidenote: Experiments in socialism.]\n\nPractical experiments in socialism are being made every day; there\nis in France the phalansterian association of M. Godin; in America\nthere are the associations by the followers of Cabet, not to speak\nof others of a more purely religious character, such as those of the\nQuakers, Shakers, etc.; and finally, there are co-operative societies\nof various kinds. These avowedly or unavowedly socialistic experiments\nhave never succeeded except when their promoters were willing very\nrigorously to limit their numbers; certain intellectual and moral\ndefects in the members must inevitably in every case have proved fatal\nto them. Socialism is possible only in a small society of the elect.\nEven the theorists who once regarded profit-sharing as the universal\npanacea recognize to-day that profit-sharing constitutes a remedy in\nsome cases only; that the labouring classes are not, as a whole, either\npatient, or painstaking enough to fulfil the very simple conditions\nthat profit-sharing demands. They are unfit for corporate life, they\nare hard repellent individuals, they are elements of disintegration;\nwhen a small socialistic society finds them on its list of members,\nit excludes them; if mankind as a whole formed one great socialistic\nsociety, it also would be obliged to exclude them. To universalize\nsocialism is to destroy it.\n\n[Sidenote: Future of socialism.]\n\nEvery scientific discovery passes through three distinct stages:\nthe stage of pure theory, of application on a small scale in the\nlaboratory, of application on a grand scale in the world of business.\nIt frequently happens that the development of an idea is arrested\nin the sphere of theory, that it does not enter into the sphere of\npractice at all, or that, completely successful in the laboratory,\nit miscarries when the attempt is made to apply it to business. If\nthis holds true of scientific ideas, of devices that depend for their\nsuccess upon the plasticity of inert matter only, which we may bend\nto our will, _a fortiori_ it must be true of sociological ideas, of\nexperiments, of devices that depend for their success on the plasticity\nof so variable, so heterogeneous a substance as human nature. Socialism\nis still, for the most part, at the theoretical stage; and even as\na theory socialism is very vague and not very consistent and, when\nthe effort is made to put it into practice, the difference between\nexperiments in the laboratory, among conditions that the experimenter\ncan in a measure determine and control, and in the great world in which\neverything is determined and controlled for him, must be remembered.\nThe state which yields to the seduction of some charming socialistic\ntheory, and endeavours, as it will endeavour, to realize it, will\ninevitably be ruined. Social experiments cannot be attempted by the\nstate\u2014not even if they are experiments in religion, or rather in\nespecial not if they are experiments in religion. Some experiments may\nat most be observed by the state and followed with interest by it; nay,\nthe state may even in certain cases encourage the most interesting of\nthem and subsidize them as it does certain industrial enterprises.\nWe are persuaded that socialism in the future, like religion in the\npast, will appear in many different forms. There will arise a number\nof conceptions of an ideal society, each of which is realizable in\nspecial circumstances, and by people of some special disposition. Human\nsociety which to-day, beyond the limits of convents and monasteries\n(which consist in artificial groupings of individuals of the same sex),\npresents a certain uniformity of type, may well at some later date,\nowing to complete liberty of association, and to the spread of personal\ninitiative, present a great variety of types. Socialism will not result\nin the founding of a religion, but it may well result in the founding\nof a number of associations dominated respectively by some metaphysical\nor moral idea. Socialism will thus contribute to that multiplicity and\ndiversity of beliefs which does not exclude but rather encourages their\npractical application.\n\n[Sidenote: Necessity of allowing for a multiplicity of conflicting\nideals.]\n\nThe future, therefore, will leave the human mind, as time goes on, more\nand more at liberty; will permit the individual to do increasingly as\nhe likes so long as he does not violate the rights of anybody else.\nWhat is the highest social ideal? Does it lie purely and simply in the\npractice of the necessary virtues or of a half conscious morality, an\nunreflecting benignity, compounded of ignorance and custom? This social\nideal is realized in certain countries in the Orient, where Buddhism\nis dominant, and the people are so gentle that years pass without a\nhomicide; and yet life in these countries in nowise appeals to us\nas ideal. To this sort of morality must be added some satisfaction\nof the principal desire of mankind, of the desire for economic ease\nand for practical happiness, and even that would not be enough; for\nthat much is realized in corners of Switzerland, of Portugal, in\nprimitive countries like Costa Rica, where poverty is unknown. Artists\ndream of a life devoted entirely to art, to the beautiful, of a life\nwhich is hostile to prosaic and practical virtue, and this ideal was\nrealized in the Renaissance: the Renaissance was distinguished by an\nextraordinary efflorescence of \u00e6sthetic instinct and moral depravity,\nand we in nowise desire to return to it. And if science, which is\nthe modern ideal, should become absolute, we should see a society of\n_blas\u00e9s_ Fausts which would not be more enviable perhaps than other\nsocieties. No; a complete social ideal must neither consist in bare\nmorality nor in simple economic well-being, nor in art alone, nor in\nscience alone\u2014it must consist in all of these together; its ideal must\nbe the greatest and most universal conceivable. This ideal is that\nof progress, and progress cannot take place in one direction only at\na time; whoever advances in one direction only will soon retreat. A\npoint of light shines in all directions simultaneously. The excellence\nof religion cannot be demonstrated by showing that it favours some\none species of human activity; morality, for example, or art. It is\nnot enough to make man moral as Christianity and Buddhism did, nor to\nexcite his \u00e6sthetic imagination as Paganism did. Not one but all of his\nfaculties must be stimulated, and there is but one religion that can\ndo it; and that religion each must create for himself. Whoever feels\nattracted by a life similar to that of a priest will do well to become\na Christian and even a Quaker, and the artist will do well to become a\npagan. What is certain is that no one of the deities which mankind has\ncreated and worshipped is all-sufficing; mankind needs all of them and\nsomething more, for human thought has outgrown its gods.\n\n[Sidenote: Liberty the condition of knowledge.]\n\nUnder the sounding domes of old cathedrals, the echoes are so numerous\nthat an immense screen has sometimes to be stretched across the nave to\nbreak the reverberations and enable the priest\u2019s voice alone to reach\nthe faithful. This screen which is invisible from below, which isolates\nthe sacred word and deadens all other sound, is stretched not only\nacross the cathedral nave but across the heart of every true believer.\nIt must be torn away; every voice and word must be free to attain\nthe ear of man; the sacred word rises from no one throat, but is the\nsymphony of all the voices that sound beneath the dome of heaven.\n\n[Sidenote: Decline of the power of religion.]\n\nI was talking one day with M. Renan upon the gradual decrease in the\npower of religion, on the silence that has fallen on the divine word,\nwhich formerly drowned all other sounds. To-day, it is the word of\nnature and humanity, of free-thought and free sentiment, which is\ntaking the place of oracles and of supernatural revelation, of dogmatic\nreligion. M. Renan, with the openness of mind which is habitual with\nhim, and which partakes indeed largely of scepticism, took up at\nonce my point of view. \u201cYes,\u201d he said, \u201cwe are all marching toward\nnon-religion. After all, why should not humanity do without religious\ndogmas? Speculation will take the place of religion. Even at the\npresent day, among advanced peoples, dogmas are disintegrating, the\nincrustations of human thought are breaking up. Most people in France\nare already non-religious; men of the people hardly believe more than\nprofessed men of science; they possess their little fund of ideas, more\nor less profound, on which they live, without help from the priest.\nIn Germany the work of decomposition is far advanced. In England it\nis only in its beginnings, but it is moving rapidly. Christianity is\neverywhere giving place to free-thought. Buddhism and Hinduism are\ndoing the same; in India the mass of intelligent men are free-thinkers,\nin China there is no state religion. It will take a long while, but\nreligion will in the end disappear, and one may already imagine for\nEurope a time when it will be a thing of the past.... Islam is the one\nblack spot on the horizon. The Turks are narrow, rebellious against\nreasoning, hostile to everything that lies beyond literal faith ...\nbut if they will not follow us we shall simply leave them behind, and\nI think we shall be obliged to do so.\u201d We should add that, if some\nChristians and Buddhists show themselves as backward as the Turks, we\nshall leave them behind also. Those members of mankind who think, see,\nand move forward, are always obliged to drag a long train of those who\nneither see, nor think, nor wish to move forward. They do move forward,\nhowever, in the long run. Professed advocates of the different positive\nand dogmatic religions count every day for less and less among the\ntruly active members of the human species; and we ask nothing better.\nWhoever does not count for progress practically does not exist, and\nultimately will not exist. Activity of thought is becoming more and\nmore a condition of existence; the preponderant r\u00f4le that religions\nplayed in the past is to be explained by the fact that religion offered\nalmost the sole field of intellectual and moral activity\u2014the sole\nissue for the most elevated tendencies of our being. At that time there\nlay beyond the limits of religion nothing but the grossest and most\nmaterial occupations; there was no known middle ground between heaven\nand earth. To-day this middle ground has been discovered\u2014the ground\nof thought. Science and art are born; and open before us an infinite\nperspective, where each of us may find an opportunity to employ the\nbest of our gifts. Science offers a field for disinterestedness and\nresearch, but does not tolerate vagaries of the imagination. It\nencourages enthusiasm, but not delirium, and possesses a beauty of its\nown, the beauty of truth.\n\n\n_II. Religious anomy and the substitution of doubt for faith._\n\n[Sidenote: Religious anomy.]\n\nI. We have proposed as the moral ideal what we have called moral\nanomy\u2014the absence of any fixed moral rule.[118] We believe still\nmore firmly that the ideal toward which every religion ought to tend\nis religious anomy, the complete enfranchisement of the individual in\nall religious matters, the redemption of his thought, which is more\nprecious than his life, the suppression of dogmatic faith in every\nform. Instead of accepting ready-made dogmas, we should each of us be\nthe makers of our own creed. Whatever Montaigne may say, faith is a\nsofter pillow for idleness than doubt. Faith is a species of nest in\nwhich idleness lies in shelter, and hides its head under the warmth\nand darkness of a protecting wing; nay, it is a nest prepared in\nadvance, like those that are sold in the markets and made by men, for\nbirds that are kept in cages. We believe that in the future man will\nbe increasingly unwilling to live in cages and that, if he needs a\nnest, he will construct it himself twig by twig in the open air, and\nabandon it when he is weary of it, and remake it, if necessary, every\nspringtime, at each new stage of his thought.\n\n      [118] See our _Esquisse d\u2019une morale sans obligation ni\n      sanction_.\n\n[Sidenote: Religious anomy and scepticism.]\n\nIs religious anomy, or the absence of religion, synonymous with\nscepticism? Since the disappearance of Pyrrhonism and \u00c6nesideinism,\nscepticism is simply a word which serves as a label for the most\ndissimilar doctrines. Greek sceptics were fond of calling themselves\nseekers, \u0396\u03b7\u03c4\u03b7\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03af; a name which is appropriate to every philosopher\nas distinguished from believer. But how the term scepticism in its\nmodern negative acceptation is abused! If you do not belong to some\ndefinite system of thought, you are at once set down as a sceptic.\nBut nothing is further removed from a superficial scepticism than\nthe sympathetic mind which, precisely because it embraces so large a\nhorizon, refuses to confine itself to some one narrow point of view, as\nin a glade a hundred feet square or in a diminutive valley between two\nmountains. \u201cYou are not dogmatic enough,\u201d the philosopher is sometimes\ntold. \u201cTo what system do you belong?\u201d \u201cIn what class of thinking\ninsects do you belong?\u201d \u201cTo what card in our collection must you be\npinned?\u201d A reader always wants to ask an author a certain number of\nconventional questions. What do you think of such and such a problem?\nOf such and such another? You are not a spiritualist; are you then a\nmaterialist? You are not an optimist; are you then a pessimist? One\nmust reply, yes or no, without explanatory amplification. But what I\nthink is of small importance, even for myself; my point of view is\nnot the centre of the universe. What I am seeking to learn, what\nyou are seeking to learn, is the contents of human thought in all\nits variety and complexity. If I study myself it is not because I am\nmyself, but because I am a man like other men. If I watch my own little\nsoap bubble, it is because it contains a ray of the sun; my object is\nprecisely to pass beyond the limits of my own horizon and not to remain\nwithin them. More than that, people whose ideas are fixed, clear-cut,\nabsolute, are exactly those who have no ideas of their own. Revelation,\nintuition, religion, categorical and exclusive affirmation, are notions\nhostile to modern thought, which is in its very essence progressive.\nThere are two sorts of men: those who remain on the surface of things\nand those who sound the depths of things. There are superficial minds\nand serious minds. In France almost all those whom we designate as\nsceptics or as blas\u00e9s are superficial minds, with an affectation of\nprofundity. They are also often practical Epicureans. There will always\nbe people ready to say, with a certain hero of Balzac\u2019s: \u201cA good fire,\na good table; behold the ideal of human life!\u201d Waiting for dinner is\nthe sole occupation of the day. But there will always be other people\nfor whom life consists in an indefatigable activity.\n\n[Sidenote: Feebleness of scepticism.]\n\nThe number of sceptics will not necessarily be increased by the final\ndecay and disappearance of religious scepticism, which is a compound of\nlightness and ignorance, resting on the same foundation as religious\nprejudice, on the absence of a solid philosophical education. Really\nserious minds are either positive or speculative; a too positive,\ncommon-sense spirit might, if it became general in society, menace\nit with a certain intellectual debasement; but religion would not\nhinder its development: witness America. The true means of checking\nthe positive spirit is to cultivate the sense of beauty and the love\nof art. To speculative minds, on the other hand, belongs the future\nof humanity; but far from being dependent upon dogma, speculation\ncan flourish only in its absence. It is the life of speculation\nto ask questions about the deepest concerns of human life; dogma\nprovides ready-made answers, and speculation cannot accept them.\nThe disappearance of positive religions will give scientific and\nmetaphysical speculation a fresh impulse. The speculative spirit is\nthe extreme opposite both of the spirit of faith and of the spirit\nof absolute negation. An inquirer may suspect his own resources, may\nrecognize his own powerlessness, but he will never give up the search.\nStrong minds will never be discouraged or disgusted, will never be\nfollowers of M\u00e9rim\u00e9e or Beyle. In active mental labour there is\nsomething which is worth more than faith and doubt together, as there\nis in genius something which is worth more at once than the somewhat\nsilly admiration of the multitude and the disdainful criticism of\npretended connoisseurs; excess of criticism and excess of credulity\nare alike powerless. It is good to be aware of one\u2019s own weakness, but\nfrom time to time only; one must turn one\u2019s eyes toward the limits of\nhuman intelligence, but not rest them there, on pain of paralysis.\n\u201cMan,\u201d says Goethe, \u201cshould believe firmly that the incomprehensible\nwill become comprehensible; but for that he would cease to scrutinize\nand to try.\u201d In spite of the number of ideas which make their entrance\ninto and exit from the human mind, which rise and set on the human\nhorizon, which flame up and burn out, there is, in every human mind,\nan element of eternity. On certain autumn nights one may observe a\nveritable shower of aerolites; hundreds of stars detach themselves\nfrom the zenith like luminous flakes of snow; the dome of heaven\nitself seems to have given way, the worlds hung above the earth seem\nto have broken loose, and all the stars at once to be descending and\nabout to leave the great firmament of night unvariegated, opaque; but\nthe falling stars go out one by one, and the serene brilliancy of the\nfixed stars still remains; the storm has passed beneath them and has\nnot troubled the tranquil splendour of their rays, nor the incessant\nappeal of their fixity and glory. The appeal is one that man will\nalways respond to; under the open sky and the pressure of the problem\nbrought home to him by the great stars, man does not feel himself\nfeeble unless he pusillanimously shuts his eyes. Humanity will lose\nnone of its intellectual power by the disappearance of religious faith;\nits horizon will grow wider simply, and the luminous points in the\nimmensity of space will grow more numerous. True genius is speculative,\nand in whatever environment true genius is placed it will speculate; it\nhas speculated hitherto despite of all that orthodox faith could do, it\nwill speculate still more actively in spite of all that scepticism can\ndo.\n\n[Sidenote: Speculation and practice.]\n\nAnd the practical side of human life has nothing to fear from the\ngrowth of the speculative spirit. Given minds sufficiently large, and\nthe fact that they look down upon the earth from a height, does not\nprevent them from seeing human life as it is and as it should be.\nDecidedly one must be a man, a patriot, a \u201ctellurian,\u201d as Amiel said,\nwith some contempt; to be so may appear to be a small function in the\ntotality of things, but an upright spirit will not fulfil it with\nless exactitude because he perceives its limits and its restricted\nimportance. Nothing is in vain, and _a fortiori_ no being is in vain;\nsmall functions are as necessary as great. If a man of intelligence\nhappens to be a porter or a scavenger, he should apply himself to that\nprofession with as much devotion as to any other. To do well what one\nhas to do, however humble it may be, is the first of duties. An ant of\ngenius ought not to bring to the ant-hill a grain the less, even though\nhe were capable of taking cognizance of the eternities of time and\nspace.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Doubt as distinguished from scepticism.]\n\nII. Although the suppression of religious dogma does not lead to\nscepticism, it decidedly does lead to doubt, and we believe that the\nmodern sense of doubt represents a higher stage of civilization than\nthe faith in dogma that distinguished former times. Religious faith is\ndistinguished from philosophic belief by a subjective difference. If\nthe man of faith is not altogether blind, at least he perceives but one\npoint in the intellectual horizon; he has focussed his intelligence\nupon some one plot of ground, and the rest of the world does not\nexist for him; he returns day after day to his chosen corner, to the\nlittle nest he has made for his thoughts to dwell in, as we said\nabove\u2014returns as a dove returns to the dovecote and sees but it in\nthe immensity of space. Fanaticism marks a still further degree of\ncontraction in one\u2019s intellectual vision. On the contrary, the greater\nthe progress of reflection in the history of the human race, the more\ncompletely religious faith becomes merged in, and subordinated to,\nphilosophic conviction; the two cease to be distinguishable except by\na difference in the degree of doubt that they involve, a doubt which\nitself rests upon a clearness in one\u2019s vision of things. As reflection\nbecomes more profound, it manifests here as everywhere its destructive\ninfluence upon instinct; everything that is instinctive, primitive,\nand na\u00efve in faith disappears, and, along with it, disappears\neverything that constituted its strength, that made it so powerful in\nthe human heart. True strength lies in the human reason, in complete\nself-consciousness, in a consciousness of the problems of life, of\ntheir complexity, of their difficulties.\n\n[Sidenote: Ideal gradation of faith.]\n\nFaith, as we have seen, consists in affirming things not capable of\nobjective verification, with the same subjective satisfaction as if\nthey could be verified: in attributing to the uncertain as great a\nvalue as to the certain\u2014nay, perhaps a greater value. The ideal of the\nphilosopher, on the contrary, would be a perfect correspondence between\nconclusiveness of evidence and degree of belief. The intellectual\nsatisfaction that we take in our beliefs, the degree of tenacity with\nwhich we hold them, should vary precisely with the completeness and\ncertainty of our knowledge. A primitive intelligence cannot be content\nto remain in suspense, it must decide one way or the other; it is the\nmark of a more perfect intelligence to remain in doubt in reference to\nwhat is doubtful. Credulity is intellectual original sin.\n\n[Sidenote: Uncertainty of metaphysics.]\n\nEmploying the word certitude strictly for what is certain, and meaning\nby belief what is plausible or probable only, when one is investigating\nsome mere matter of fact, one may in the end be able to say positively\nsuch and such is certain, is what the future will affirm on this point;\nbut, when the degree of certitude involved amounts to no more than to\nprobability or even possibility, and to metaphysical possibility at\nthat, it is ridiculous to say: \u201cI believe such and such a thing; such\nand such is therefore the dogma that everybody ought to adopt.\u201d Such\npositive basis for metaphysical inductions as exists is too uneven\nnot to result in a divergence in the lines of the hypotheses which\nrise from it into the obscure heights of the unknown; no two of our\nglances toward the infinite are parallel; our attempts at solving\nmetaphysical problems are little more than rockets shot capriciously\ninto the sky. The philosopher can do little more than take cognizance\nof the divergence of rival hypotheses, and of their equality and equal\ninsufficiency in the eye of reason.\n\n[Sidenote: Postulates for purposes of practice.]\n\nBut the problem of action presents itself to the philosopher no less\nthan to the rest of mankind. For purposes of conduct some one among\nthe diverging lines of human speculation must be chosen; philosophic\nthought must be left to describe its curves and circles above our\nheads while we walk, if not sure-footedly at least in some definite\ndirection, upon the earth. One is sometimes for practical purposes\nobliged to rely on doubtful premises as if they were certain. Such\na choice, however, is simply an inferior and exceptional means of\nchoosing among hypotheses which one has neither the time nor the power\nexactly to test. One cuts loose from one\u2019s doubts, but the expedient\nis a purely practical one; cutting the Gordian knots of life cannot be\nadopted as one\u2019s habitual intellectual procedure. Faith which leans\nwith an equal sense of security upon the certain and the uncertain,\nthe evident and the doubtful, should be but a provisional state of\nmind forced upon one by some practical necessity. One ought never,\nso to speak, to believe once for all, to subscribe one\u2019s allegiance\nforever. Faith should never be regarded as more than a second best,\nand a provisional second best. The instant that action is no longer\nnecessary, one must revert to one\u2019s doubt, to one\u2019s scruples, to all\nthe precautions of science. Kant did violence to the natural order\nof things when he ascribed to faith and morals a predominance over\nreasoning; when he gave to the practical reason, whose commandments may\nbe the expression simply of acquired habits, control over the critical\nand scientific reason. His moral philosophy consists in erecting a\nforegone conclusion into a rule, whereas, as a matter of fact, one\nought not to make up one\u2019s mind definitely until all the evidence is\nin, until every alternative choice has been considered and rejected, if\nat all, on good grounds; our beliefs should be relied upon in practice\nexactly in proportion to their probability in the actual state of\nour knowledge. Alternatives do not exist in the outer world, they do\nnot exist in a state of complete knowledge. The moral ideal is not\nto multiply them, nor to make a leap in the dark the habitual method\nof intellectual procedure. There is no such thing as a categorical\nimperative or a religious _credo_ for the traveller under unknown\nskies; he is not to be saved by faith but by active and constant\nself-control, by the spirit of doubt and criticism.\n\n[Sidenote: Doubt and the religious sentiment.]\n\nDoubt is not, at bottom, as profoundly opposed as might be believed to\nwhat is best in the religious sentiment, it is even a product of the\nreligious sentiment. For doubt is simply a consciousness that one\u2019s\nthought is not absolute\u2014cannot seize the absolute either directly or\nindirectly; and so, consequently, doubt is the most religious attitude\nof the human mind. Even atheism is often less irreligious than a\npositive belief in the imperfect and inconsistent God of religion. To\nbe in doubt about God is a form of the sense of the divine. Moreover,\nthe constant inquiry that doubt provokes does not necessarily exclude\nthe erection of an altar to the unknown God, but it excludes everything\nin the nature of a determinate religion, the erection of an altar that\nbears a name, the establishment of a cult that consists in rites. In\nthe cemeteries in Tyrol, a little marble basin rests on each tomb;\nit gathers water from the rain and the swallows from the eaves of\nthe neighbouring church come and drink from it; this clear water,\nthat comes from on high, is a thousand times more sacred, more deeply\nblessed than that which sleeps in the holy-water vessel in the church,\nand over which the priest has stretched his hands. Why should religion,\nso to speak, sequestrate, retire from public circulation, everything\nit touches? That alone is truly sacred which is consecrated to the\nuse of mankind as a whole, which passes from hand to hand, which is\nworn out in process of time in the service of humanity. There has been\nenough and to spare of closed houses, closed temples, closed souls\u2014of\ncloistered and walled-in lives, of smothered or extinguished hearts;\nwhat is wanted is an open heart and life under the open sky, under the\nincessant benediction of the sun and clouds.\n\n[Sidenote: Modesty of doubt.]\n\nPhilosophy is often accused of pride because it rejects faith, but it\nwas the father of philosophy, Socrates, who first said: \u201cI know but one\nthing, that I know nothing.\u201d It is precisely because the philosopher\nknows how much he does not know that he is not certain in regard to\nall things, but is reduced to remain in doubt, to wait anxiously and\nreverentially for the germination of the seed of truth in the distant\nfuture. To regard as certain what one does not positively know is to\nviolate one\u2019s intellectual conscience. From the point of view of the\nindividual, as from the point of view of society, doubt is in certain\ncases a duty\u2014doubt, or if you prefer, methodical ignorance, humility,\nself-abnegation in matters intellectual. Where philosophy is ignorant\nit is morally obliged to say to others and to itself: \u201cI do not know; I\ndoubt, I hope, nothing more.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Morality of doubt.]\n\nThe most original, and one of the most profoundly moral products of\nthe present century, of the century of science, is precisely this\nsincere sense of doubt, of the seriousness of every act of faith,\nof its not being a matter to be undertaken lightly, of its being a\ngraver engagement than many others that one hesitates to assume; to\ngive in one\u2019s faith to an opinion has come to be like attesting one\u2019s\nallegiance to it by the medi\u00e6val signature, which was written in one\u2019s\nblood and bound one for all eternity. At the point of death especially,\nwhich is the very period when religion says to a man, \u201cAbandon thyself\nfor an instant, yield to the force of example, of custom, to the\nnatural disposition to affirm as certain what thou dost not know, to\nfear of damnation, and thou shalt be saved\u201d\u2014at the point of death when\na blind act of faith is a last weakness and a last cowardice, doubt is\nassuredly the highest and most courageous position the human thought\ncan assume: it is a fight to the finish without surrender; it is death\nwith all one\u2019s wounds before, in the presence of the problem still\nunsolved, but faced to the end.\n\n\n_III. Substitution of metaphysical hypotheses for dogma._\n\n[Sidenote: Scope of metaphysics.]\n\nBeyond the limits of science there lies still a field for hypothesis,\nand for that other science called metaphysics, the aim of which is to\nestimate the comparative value of hypotheses; to know, to suppose, to\nreason, to inquire, are of the essence of the modern mind; we no longer\nneed dogma. Religion, which in the beginning was a na\u00efve science, has\nultimately become the enemy of science; in the future it must give\nway before science or must become merged in some really scientific\nhypothesis; an hypothesis, that is to say, which acknowledges itself\nto be such, which declares itself to be provisional, which measures\nits utility by the amount it explains; and aspires to nothing better\nthan to give place to an hypothesis that shall be more inclusive.\nScience and research outweigh stationary adoration. The eternal\nelement in religion is the tendency which produced there the need of\nan explanation, of a theory that shall bind mankind and the world\ntogether; the indefatigable activity of mind which declines to stop\nat the brute fact which produced in former times the tangle of\ncontradictory myths and legends now transmuted into the co-ordinate\nand harmonious body of science. What is respectable in religion\nis precisely the germ of the spirit of metaphysics and scientific\ninvestigation, which is to-day proving fatal to religions.\n\n[Sidenote: Distinction between metaphysical and religious sentiment.]\n\nReligious sentiment properly so called must not be confounded with\nthe instinct for metaphysics, the two are utterly distinct. The first\nis destined to decline with the extension of knowledge; the other,\nunder some form or other, will always continue. The instinct for free\nspeculation corresponds in the first place to an indestructible sense\nof the limits of positive knowledge: it is an echo in us of the undying\nmystery of things. It corresponds to an invincible tendency in the\nhuman mind to the need for an ideal; to the need, not only of the\nintelligence but of the heart, to pass beyond the limits of the visible\nand tangible world. The wings of the soul are too long to fly close to\nthe earth, the soul is formed to move in long swoops and circles in\nthe open sky. All it needs is to be lifted above the earth; often it\nis unable to do this of itself, and its long wings beat and trail in\nthe dust. And to what power is it to look for its preliminary start?\nTo its very desire for unknown spaces, to its desire for an infinite\nand insecure ideal. Nature, as positive science reveals it to us, is,\nno doubt, the sole incontestable divinity, the _deus certus_, as the\nEmperor Aurelius called the Sun; but its very certitude constitutes an\nelement of inferiority. Sun-light is not the most brilliant light; the\nreality can have no lasting pretensions to be regarded as divine. The\nideal God is necessarily the _deus incertus_, a problematical, perhaps\neven fictitious God.\n\n[Sidenote: Persistence of metaphysical problems.]\n\nThis sense at once of the limits of science and of the infinity of\nhuman aspirations makes it forever inadmissible for man to abandon\nall effort to solve the great problem of the origin and destiny\nof the universe. The child, Spencer says, may hide his head under\nthe bed-clothes, and for an instant escape consciousness of the\ndarkness outside; but in the long run the consciousness subsists, the\nimagination continues to dwell upon what lies beyond the limits of\nhuman conception. The progress of human thought has consisted less\nin discovering answers to ultimate problems than in discovering more\nprecise methods of formulating the problems themselves; the enigmas\nare no longer stated in primitive terms. This change in statement is a\nproof of the progress and growth in the human mind; but the problems\nunhappily are as difficult as ever to solve. Up to the present moment\nno sufficient answer has been suggested, the mystery has simply been\ntransposed from one place to another; so much so that Spencer says\nthe scientific interpretation of the universe is as full of mysteries\nas theology; and he compares human knowledge to a luminous globe in\nthe midst of infinite darkness. The larger the globe becomes the\ngreater the depth and extent of darkness that it reveals, insomuch that\nincrease of science but enlarges the abyss of our ignorance.\n\n[Sidenote: Possible finiteness of the unknown.]\n\nOne must, however, be on one\u2019s guard against exaggeration. The universe\nis infinite, no doubt, and consequently the material of human science\nis infinite, but the universe is dominated by a certain number of\nsimple laws with which we may become continuously better and better\nacquainted. Many generations of men would be necessary to master in\nall their complexity the vedic epics, but we are able even to-day to\nformulate the principles which dominate them, and it is not impossible\nthat we may some day be able to do the same for the epic of the\nuniverse. We may be able even to go the length of achieving precision\nin our ignorance, of marking in the infinite chain of phenomena the\nlinks which must forever be hidden from us. It is not accurate,\ntherefore, to say that our ignorance increases with our knowledge,\nalthough it may be considered as probable that our knowledge will\nalways be aware of something that escapes it, and may come in time to\nbe able more and more distinctly to define, however negatively, the\nnature of this residuum. The infinity of the unknowable, even, is no\nmore than hypothetical. We perhaps flatter ourselves in the belief\nthat we possess anything that is infinite\u2014even ignorance. Perhaps\nthe sphere of our knowledge is like the terrestrial globe, enveloped\nby but a thin atmosphere of the unknowable and unknown; perhaps there\nis no basis and foundation of the universe, just as there is no basis\nand foundation of the earth; perhaps the ultimate secret of things is\nthe gravitation of phenomena. The unknown is the air we breathe, but\nit is perhaps no more infinite than the earth\u2019s atmosphere, and one\u2019s\nconsciousness of an unknowable infinity can no more be regarded as the\nbasis of knowledge than the atmosphere of the earth can be regarded as\nthe foundation upon which the earth rests.[119]\n\n      [119] The notion of the unknowable has been the subject of a\n      lively discussion in England and in France. See on this point\n      the work of M. Paulhan in the _Revue philosophique_, t. vi. p.\n      279.\n\n[Sidenote: Distinction between religion and metaphysics.]\n\nUnknowable or not, infinite or finite, the unknown will always be the\nobject of metaphysical hypotheses. But is to admit the perpetuity of\nmetaphysical hypotheses to admit the eternity of religion? The question\ninvolves an ambiguity of words. Spencer defines religious thought as\nthat which deals with all that lies beyond the sphere of the senses,\nbut that is precisely the field of philosophic thought; philosophy\nin its entirety, therefore, and not religion only, is included in\nSpencer\u2019s definition. Nay more, science itself is in part included in\nSpencer\u2019s definition, for science, which takes cognizance of everything\nwithin the reach of perception and reasoning, by that very fact\nundertakes to fix the limit of their power, and thus indirectly touches\nupon the field of the unknowable\u2014if not to enter it, at least to\noutline it, and that itself constitutes a sort of negative acquaintance\nwith it. Knowledge is essentially critical and self-critical. The\neternity of philosophy and of science must, no doubt, be admitted; but\nthe eternity of religion, as that word is usually understood, in nowise\nfollows from that admission.\n\n[Sidenote: Spencer\u2019s unknowable.]\n\nAccording to Spencer, the unknowable itself is not absolutely\nunknowable. Among the mysteries, which become more mysterious as they\nare more deeply reflected upon, there will remain, Spencer thinks,\nfor man one absolute certitude\u2014that he is in the presence of an\ninfinite and eternal energy which is the source of all things. The\nformula of human certitude is open to discussion. The man of science\nis more inclined to believe in an infinite number of energies than in\nan infinite energy, in a sort of mechanical atomism, a subdivision of\nforce _ad infinitum_ rather than in monism. Moreover, no religion can\nstop with the bare affirmation of the existence of an eternal energy or\ninfinity of energies. It must maintain the existence of some relation\nbetween these energies and human morality, between the direction of\nthese energies and that of the moral impulse in mankind. But a relation\nof this sort is the last thing in the world that can be deduced from\nthe doctrine of evolution. Hypotheses in regard to the matter may of\ncourse be devised, but, far from possessing a character of certitude,\nsuch hypotheses would rather, from the point of view of pure science,\ndisplay a positive improbability. Human morality, if it be considered\nscientifically, is a question that concerns the struggle for existence\nand not a question that concerns the universe. What distinguishes the\nnatural forces, with which science deals, from gods, is precisely\nthat the former are indifferent to the morality or immorality of our\nlives. In spite of our increasing admiration for the complexity of the\nphenomena of the world, for the solidarity that obtains among them,\nfor the latent or active life which animates all things, we have not\nyet demonstrably discovered in the world a single element of divinity.\nScience does not reveal to us a universe spontaneously labouring for\nthe realization of what we call goodness: goodness is to be realized,\nif at all, only by our bending the world to our purposes, by enslaving\nthe gods that we once adored, by replacing the reign of God by the\nreign of man.\n\n[Sidenote: Spencer\u2019s followers in France.]\n\nThe alleged reconciliation of science and religion in Spencer\u2019s pages\nis not made out except by virtue of an ambiguity in terms. Partisans of\nreligion have, however, hastened to welcome these apparent concessions\nin their favour and have based on them an argument for the perpetuity\nof dogmas. Jouffroy has told us how dogmas become extinct; recently\none of his successors at the Sorbonne endeavoured to show \u201chow dogmas\ncome into being again,\u201d and he took his stand with Spencer on an\nambiguity in terms. By dogmas M. Caro meant the principal points of the\noriginal doctrine of the soul\u2014as if one could apply the name dogma\nto philosophical hypotheses, even though they be eternal hypotheses!\nThe important thing, however, is to understand each other; if problems\nwhich constantly recur, and constantly receive hypothetical solutions,\nare to be called dogmas, then dogmas do come to life again, and may\nbe expected always to do so; _multa renascentur qu\u00e6 jam cecidere,\ncadentque_.... But if terms be employed as a philosopher should employ\nthem, with precision, how can metaphysical conclusions be regarded as\ndogmas? Examine the writings of Heraclitus, the evolutionist; Plato,\nthe contemplator of ideas; Aristotle, the formulater of the laws of\nthought; Descartes, the inquirer who sought in an abyss of doubt for\nthe absolute criterion of truth; Leibnitz, who regarded himself as\nthe mirror of the universe; Spinoza, lost in the heart of infinite\nsubstance; Kant, resolving the universe into thought and thought\ninto the moral law; where are the dogmas in these great metaphysical\npoems? They are not systems of dogma, they are systems marked by the\nindividuality of genius, although containing something of the eternal\nphilosophy, the _perennis philosophia_ of Leibnitz. Every system, as\nsuch, is precisely the means of demonstrating the insufficiency of\nthe central idea which dominates it, and the necessity for the human\nmind of passing beyond it. To systematize is to develop a group of\nideas to their logical conclusion, and, by that very fact, to show how\nmuch they do not include, how far they fall short of exhausting human\nthought as a whole; to construct is to demonstrate the weight of the\nmaterial one is building with, and the impossibility of piling it up\nto heaven. Every system requires a certain number of years to bring it\nto completion, and then, when the edifice is achieved, one may one\u2019s\nself mark the points where it will begin to crack, what columns will\nyield first, where its ultimate decay will begin. To recognize that\nthe subsidence and decay of a thing is rational, is to be resigned\nto it and in some measure consoled for it; but whatever is useful is\nnecessarily transitory, for it is useful for an end; and it is thus\nthat the utility of a system implies that it will some day make way for\nsomething else. \u201c\u1f08\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b7 \u03c3\u03c4\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9,\u201d says dogma; \u201c\u1f00\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b7 \u03bc\u1f74 \u03c3\u03c4\u1fc6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9,\u201d\nthe philosopher says. Systems die and dogmas die; sentiments and ideas\nsurvive. Whatever has been set in order falls into disorder, boundaries\nbecome obliterated, structures fall into dust; what is eternal is the\ndust itself, the dust of doctrine, which is always ready to take on a\nnew form, to fill a new mould, and which, far from receiving its life\nfrom the fugitive forms it fills, lends them theirs. Human thoughts\nlive, not by their contours but from within. To understand them they\nmust be taken, not as they appear in any one system, but as they appear\nin a succession of different and often diverse systems.\n\n[Sidenote: Instability of metaphysics.]\n\nAs speculation and hypothesis are eternal, so also is the instinct for\nphilosophy and metaphysics which corresponds to them eternal, though\nit is perpetually changing. It appears at the present day as something\nwidely different from the intimate certitude of dogma, of confident and\nplacid faith. If independence of mind and freedom of speculation are\nnot without their sweetness, their attractiveness, their intoxication,\nthey are not without their bitterness and disquietude. We must make up\nour minds to-day to accept a certain modicum of intellectual suffering\nas inseparable from our treasure of intellectual joy; for the life of\nthe spirit, like that of the body, follows a just mean between pleasure\nand pain. Intense metaphysical emotion, like intense \u00e6sthetic emotion,\npossesses always an element of sadness.[120] The day will come when\nthe graver moods of the human heart will sometimes demand satisfaction\nas they demanded and found satisfaction in Heraclitus and Jeremiah.\nIt is inevitable that there should be an element of melancholy in the\nemotional setting of metaphysical speculation\u2014as there inevitably\nis in the perception of the sublimity we feel ourselves incapable of\nattaining, in the experience of doubt, of intellectual evil, of moral\nevil, of sensible evil which are mingled with all our joys, and of\nwhich doubt itself is but a reverberation in consciousness. There is\nan element of suffering in all profound philosophy as in all profound\nreligion.\n\n      [120] See our _Probl\u00e8mes de l\u2019esth\u00e9tique contemporaine_, 1st\n      part.\n\n[Sidenote: Communion with the universe.]\n\nOne day when I was seated at my desk my wife came up to me and\nexclaimed: \u201cHow melancholy you look! What is the matter with you?\nTears, _mon Dieu_! Is it anything that I have done?\u201d \u201cOf course it is\nnot; it is never anything that you have done. I was weeping over a bit\nof abstract thought, of speculation on the world and the destiny of\nthings. Is there not enough misery in the world to justify an aimless\ntear? and of joy to justify an aimless smile?\u201d The great totality of\nthings in which man lives may well demand a smile or a tear from him,\nand it is his conscious solidarity with the universe, the impersonal\njoy and pain that he is capable of experiencing, the faculty, so to\nspeak, of impersonalizing himself, that is the most durable element\nin religion and philosophy. To sympathize with the whole universe, to\ninquire the secret of it, to wish to contribute to its amelioration, to\noverpass the limits of our egoism and live the life of the universe, is\nthe distinguishing pursuit of humanity.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nReligion, therefore, may pass away without in the least affecting the\nmetaphysical instinct, or the emotion which accompanies its exercise.\nWhen the Hebrews were marching toward the promised land they felt that\nGod was with them, God had spoken and had told them what lay beyond,\nand at night a pillar of fire lighted them on their way. The pillar\nof fire has burned out, and we are no longer sure that God is with\nus; we possess no other fire to light us on our way through infinite\nnight but that of our intelligence. If we could but be sure that there\nis a promised land\u2014that others may attain it as well as we\u2014that the\ndesert really has an end! But we are not certain even of that; we are\nseeking for a new world and are not positive that it exists; nobody\nhas journeyed thither, nobody has returned thence, and our sole hope\nof repose lies in discovering it. And we shall go forward forever, the\npuppets of an indefatigable hope.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nASSOCIATION. THE PERMANENT ELEMENT OF RELIGIONS IN SOCIAL LIFE.\n\nSOCIAL ASPECT OF RELIGIONS\u2014RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND CHURCHES\u2014IDEAL\nTYPE OF VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATION\u2014ITS DIVERSE FORMS.\n\n    I. Associations for intellectual purposes\u2014How such\n      associations might preserve the most precious elements\n      of religions\u2014Societies for the advancement of science,\n      philosophy, religion\u2014Dangers to avoid\u2014Popularization of\n      scientific ideas; propagandism in the interests of science.\n\n    II. Associations for moral purposes\u2014Tendency of religion\n      in the best minds to become one with charity\u2014Pity\n      and charity will survive dogma\u2014R\u00f4le of enthusiasm\n      in moral propagandism\u2014Necessity of hope to sustain\n      enthusiasm\u2014Possibility of propagating moral ideas:\n      1. Apart from myths and religious dogmas; 2. Apart\n      from any notion of a religious sanction\u2014Baudelaire\u2019s\n      conception of a criminal and happy hero\u2014Criticism of that\n      conception\u2014Worship of the memory of the dead.\n\n    III. Associations for \u00e6sthetic purposes\u2014Worship of art and\n      nature\u2014Art and poetry will sever their connection with\n      religion and will survive it\u2014Necessity of developing the\n      \u00e6sthetic sentiment and the worship of art, as the religious\n      sentiment becomes more feeble\u2014Poetry, eloquence, music;\n      their r\u00f4le in the future\u2014Final substitution of art for\n      rites\u2014Worship of nature\u2014Feeling for nature originally an\n      essential element of the religious sentiment\u2014Superiority\n      of a worship of nature over worship of human art\u2014Nature is\n      the true temple of the future.\n\n\n[Sidenote: Association and religion.]\n\nThe most durable practical idea in possession of the religious\nspirit, as of the spirit of reform, is that of association. In the\nbeginning, as we have seen, religion was essentially sociological, by\nits conception of a society of gods and men. The element of various\nreligions that will survive in the non-religion of the future is\nprecisely this conception, that the ideal of humanity and even of\nnature consists in the establishment of closer and closer social\nrelations between all kinds of beings. Religions, therefore, have\njustly chosen to call themselves associations and _\u00e9glises_, that is\nto say, assemblies. It is by force of assemblies, secret or open, that\nthe great Jewish and Christian religions have conquered the world.\nChristianity has even resulted in the notion of an universal church,\nfirst militant, then triumphant, and united in love; although, by a\nstrange aberration, instead of regarding universality as an ideal, as\nthe inaccessible limit of an indefinite evolution, Catholicity has been\npresented as already realized in a system of dogmas which there was\nnothing to do but to disseminate, and that, if need be, by force. This\nmistake has been the ruin of dogmatic religions, and it still subsists,\neven in religions which have transmuted their dogmas into symbols; for\nan universal symbol is less conceivable than an universal dogma. The\nonly universal thing is and should be precisely the liberty accorded\nto individuals of conceiving the eternal enigma in any manner whatever\nthat appeals to them, and of associating themselves with those who\nshare the same hypothesis.\n\n[Sidenote: Ideal type of association.]\n\nThe right of association, which has hitherto been checked by law, by\nignorance, by prejudice, by difficulties of communication, etc., had\nscarcely begun to manifest its full importance till in the present\ncentury. Associations of every kind will some day cover the globe,\nor rather everything, so to speak, will be accomplished by associate\nenterprise; and within the limits of the great body of society\ninnumerable groups of the most diverse kinds will form and dissolve\nwith an equal facility, without impeding the general movement. The\nideal type of every form of association is a compound of the ideal\nof socialism and of the ideal of individualism\u2014such a form of\nassociation, that is to say, as will afford the individual at once the\nmaximum of present and future security, and the maximum of personal\nliberty. Every insurance company is an association of this kind; the\nindividual member is protected by the immense power of the association;\nhis contribution to the associate funds is of the slightest, he is free\nto join the association or to withdraw from it, and to lead his life\nabsolutely as he chooses.\n\n[Sidenote: Its various forms.]\n\nThe mistake of religions, and of systems of socialism also, as we have\nalready remarked, is that they presuppose a society of individuals\nmorally and intellectually of the same type. But human beings are,\nneither within nor without, copies of each other; the comparative\npsychology and physiology of races and nations, sciences which are\nstill embryonic, will one day demonstrate the diversity which exists\nbetween different divisions of the human species and, owing to atavisms\nof various kinds, even between individuals of the most strictly\nhomogeneous divisions and groups. Religious, metaphysical, and moral\nsentiment will one day appear in very various forms, and give rise to\nassociations of every kind\u2014some individualistic, some socialistic\u2014so\nthat men of the same stamp may mutually aid and encourage each other,\nunder condition, however, of preserving their complete independence,\ntheir perfect right to change their beliefs when they will. Union and\nindependence should go hand in hand; everything should be shared, but\nnobody should be compelled to give or to receive; minds may be made\ntransparent without losing their freedom of movement. The future, in a\nword, belongs to association, providing it be voluntary association,\nfor the augmentation, and not for the sacrifice of personal liberty.\n\nIf we pass from these general principles to their particular\napplications we find three essential kinds of voluntary association\nthat seem destined to survive religions: associations for intellectual\npurposes, for moral purposes, for emotional purposes.\n\n\n_I. Associations for intellectual purposes._\n\n[Sidenote: Associations for the advancement of research.]\n\nIt will always be possible for men of science to associate for the\npurpose of verifying and collecting evidence in regard to doctrines\nand beliefs which they themselves recognize as provisional only.\nThere are divisions and subdivisions in the world of thought, which\nresemble the geographical division of the earth; these divisions\npractically result from the division of labour; each person has a\ndistinct task to fulfil, a distinct object to which he must apply his\nintelligence. The whole body of labourers united in one and the same\neffort of thought, and turned toward the same point in the intellectual\nhorizon, tend naturally to gravitate toward each other; every form of\nco-operation tends to become an association. We all of us belong to\nsome intellectual province, we have all of us a mental native land,\nin which we find our fellow-citizens, our brothers toward whom we are\nimpelled by a natural sympathy. This sympathy is explicable as a vague\nconsciousness of the solidarity existing between the whole body of\nintelligent human beings who inevitably take an interest in each other,\nwho love to share truth or error, as they love to share pleasure or\npain: it is good to see men draw together and agree, providing they\ndo not thereby lose flexibility; providing their solidarity becomes a\ncondition of progress and not of immobility. Men will always delight in\ncontributing their store of ideas to the common stock, as the disciples\nof Socrates brought their dinners and shared them in the little house\nin Athens; knowledge, supposition, or prejudice, in common, draws\npeople together like a common love. Our hearts should go out first\nto those who are nearest to us, to those who are our neighbours in\nthe field of intelligence. Labour not only fashions the object it\nis expended on, it fashions the labourer; similarity of occupation\npursued with the same ardour ends by producing similarity of heart.\nCompanionship in labour, of whatsoever kind it may be, constitutes one\nof the strongest ties among men. In our days associations are formed\namong men of science or investigators, as among journeymen following\nthe same trade. There are societies for the pursuit of scientific,\nmedical, biological studies, etc.; and societies for the pursuit of\nliterary and philological studies, of philosophical, psychological,\nand moral studies; of economic and social studies, and finally of\nreligious studies. These societies are genuine _\u00e9glises_, churches,\nbut churches for community of labour and not for associate repose\nin a conventional faith; and they will increase in number with the\nsubdivision and specialization of each of these several branches of\nstudy. Such associations are typical of future associations generally,\nreligious associations included. Community of inquiry, which no less\nthan community of faith gives rise to a feeling of fraternity, is often\nsuperior to community of faith and more fertile than it. The highest\nreligious associations will, no doubt, some day be associations for the\npursuit of religious and metaphysical studies. Thus the best elements\nof individualism and socialism will be reconciled. The infinite\nextensibility of science, the opportunity that it offers inquirers of\nappropriating the results of each other\u2019s labours, make association for\nthe acquisition of knowledge the type of a perfect association, of an\nassociation that exists for the benefit both of the individuals and of\nthe society.\n\n[Sidenote: Scientific fanaticism.]\n\nThere is one thing, however to be avoided. Opinions, and in especial\nopinions on morals, social matters, or metaphysical subjects, acquire,\nlike the sticks in the fable, a prodigious power, when a number of\npeople holding them in common once associate, which is out of all\nrelation to the intrinsic value of the opinions themselves. Novalis\nsaid: \u201cMy faith gained an infinite value in my eyes the moment I saw\nit shared by someone else.\u201d The psychology of that remark is just; it\ncalls attention to a dangerous illusion against which precaution should\nbe taken; for in a certain state of the emotions it is easier for two\npeople, and even for a thousand, to make mistakes than for any one of\nthem separately. Science has its enthusiasts, and also its fanatics,\nand might have at need its advocates of intolerance and violence.\nHappily it carries the remedy for all this with it; increase science,\nand it becomes the very principle of tolerance, for the greatest\nscience is best aware of its own limits.\n\n[Sidenote: Association for purposes of propagandism.]\n\nWhile distinguished minds will thus associate and carry on their\nlabours and speculations in common, men who are occupied rather with\nmanual labour will associate for the communication of their more or\nless vague, more or less irreflective beliefs, which, however, will be\nincreasingly free from all element of the supernatural as instruction\nspreads among the people. These beliefs, which among certain peoples\nwill be metaphysical, among certain others, such as the Latin nations,\nwill be social and moral. Such associations will be of every possible\nkind, according to the opinions which preside over their formation;\nthey will, however, possess this trait in common, that they will more\nand more rigorously exclude anything in the nature of dogma and of\nrevelation. They will aim also at becoming like the associations of\nthinkers and men of science of which we have just spoken. It will be\nthe duty of people of education, in such societies, to hand on the\nresults of the scientific and metaphysical inquiries conducted by\nassociations higher in the intellectual scale. Every temple will thus\nbe built in stages, nave on nave, as in certain ancient churches,\nand the highest of these temples from which the inspired word will\ndescend will be open to the sky and inhabited not by believers but\nby unbelievers in every limitation of research\u2014by minds restlessly\nactive, in quest of a more extended and demonstrable knowledge: _ad\nlucem per lucem_.\n\n[Sidenote: Association for the dissemination of useful knowledge.]\n\nOne of the principal effects of association for intellectual purposes,\nthus conducted, would be the diffusion of scientific ideas among\nthe people. If religions may be considered as so many expressions\nof the earliest scientific theories, the surest means of combating\nthe errors and of preserving the good sides of religion would be the\ndissemination of the established principles of modern science. To\ndisseminate is in a sense \u201cto convert,\u201d but to convert the believer\nto a faith in indubitable virtues; the task is one which is most\ntempting to a philosopher; one is sure that truth can do no harm,\nwhen it is handed on in all its purity. A really capital bit of\nstatement, a really capital book, is often better than a good action;\nit carries farther, and if an imprudent act of heroism sometimes has\na melancholy ending, words that speak to the heart never have. There\nare already in existence books for children, and for the people,\nthat are masterpieces; they supply the public, for which they are\nintended, with ideas on morality and on certain sciences and supply\nthose ideas undisfigured; and such books constitute more or less\nscientific catechisms, which are altogether superior to religious\ncatechisms. At some future day such books will be written in regard\nto the great cosmological and metaphysical theories, epitomizing in\nsimple language, made simpler by telling illustrations, the body of\nacquired facts or of probable hypotheses on the prime subjects of human\ninterest. The dissemination of knowledge, standing thus on the middle\nplane between original inquiry and research and popular ignorance, will\ntake the place held by religions, which are themselves founded on a\ncollection of exoteric notions\u2014a gross and symbolic epitome of what\nonce was profound, and to-day is na\u00efve, in the realm of knowledge.\nModern science, if it is to progress, must be popularized; like a great\nriver, if it is to grow larger, its bed must be deepened and widened.\n\n[Sidenote: Scientific research open to everybody.]\n\nOne of the great advantages of science is that it can employ half\ntalent and modest capacity\u2014a manifest advantage for it as compared\nwith art. A mediocre poet is a zero in the universe\u2014at least\nsometimes; but a very ordinary mind may be capable of rendering a\ngenuine service by some almost insignificant improvement in the\nmethod of covering the wires in an electric coil or in the gear\nof a steam-engine; it will have done its work in this world, will\nhave paid its tribute, have won its place in the sun. Art cannot\nendure mediocrity, science may rely upon it\u2014and find collaborators\neverywhere. Owing to that fact, science is capable of a degree of\ndemocratization that art does not always possess\u2014and that religion\nalone has equalled. Art is capable of being and remaining aristocratic;\nscience disdains nothing, gathers together all kinds of observations,\nmakes use of all kinds and grades of intellectual power. Like the\ngreat Buddhistic and Christian religions, science favours equality,\nneeds the support of the multitude, needs to be named legion. No\ndoubt a small number of commanding men of genius are always necessary\nto conduct the work, to synthesize the materials in their totality,\nto make the more fundamental inductions. But if these men of genius\nwere isolated, they would be powerless. Every man must contribute a\nstone, somewhat at haphazard, and the construction settles firmly on\nits foundation beneath the added weight of all of them, and becomes\nreally indestructible. Dikes made of irregular stones are the solidest\nof all. When one walks along such a dike, one feels the sea rumble\nand break not only near one but under one\u2019s very feet; the water plays\nvainly against the uncemented, undressed blocks of stone without being\nable to detach them, bathes them all and destroys none; such, in the\nhistory of the human mind, is science, which is formed of a multitude\nof little facts, gathered in very much at haphazard, which generations\nof mankind have piled up in disorder, and which ultimately become so\nsolidly united that no effort of the imagination can disjoin them. The\nhuman mind, in the midst of its eternal ebb and flow, feels something\nsolid and indestructible in its possession that its waves beat against\nin vain.\n\n\n_II. Associations for moral purposes and moral propagandism._\n\n[Sidenote: Association for uplifting the masses.]\n\nThere is another element of religion that will survive. Men not only\nassociate for intellectual purposes, they will continue to do so for\nthe purpose of ministering to human suffering, of correcting errors,\nof disseminating moral ideas. Such associations, like those for\nintellectual purposes, are based on a consciousness of the solidarity\nand fraternity of mankind, although, of course, so far as the future\nis concerned, there will be no question of a fraternity conceived\nsuperstitiously, or anti-philosophically, as arising out of a community\nof origin, from the same terrestrial or celestial father, but only of\na rational and moral fraternity, arising out of an identity of nature\nand interest. The true philosopher should say not only, \u201cNothing that\nis human is strange to me;\u201d but also, \u201cNothing that lives, suffers,\nand thinks is strange to me.\u201d The heart feels at home wherever it\nfinds another heart, though it even be in a lower order of being, and\n_a fortiori_, if it be in an equal or higher order of being. A Hindu\npoet, says the legend, saw a wounded bird fall struggling at his feet;\nthe heart of the poet, sobbing with pity, struggled with the struggles\nof the dying bird: it is this fluttering of the heart, this measured\nand modulated rhythm of pain, which was the origin of verse. Like\npoetry, religion also originated in the highest and most beautiful\nmanifestation of pity. Human love for human beings does not demand, as\na condition precedent, perfect spiritual accord; it is love itself\nthat produces such accord as is necessary. Love one another, and you\nwill understand one another; light springs from the true union of\nhearts.\n\n[Sidenote: Love of mankind in the future.]\n\nUniversal sympathy is a sentiment which is destined increasingly\nto develop in future societies. Even to-day, as the result of an\ninevitable evolution, religion has come to be confounded in the best\nminds with charity. Hard and sterile among primitive peoples, little\nmore than a collection of formul\u00e6 of propitiation, religions have\ncome, through their alliance with morality, to be one of the essential\nsources of human tenderness. Buddhism and Christianity have headed,\nfirst and last, the principal charitable organizations established\namong mankind. Fatally condemned as they are, at the end of a longer\nor shorter period, to intellectual sterility, these two religions\nare endowed with the genius of the heart. Men like Vincent de Paul\nhave little by little come to replace men like St. Augustine or St.\nAthanasius, not without profit to humanity. This evolutionary process\nwill, no doubt, continue; to-day, for example, few really talented\ntheological works are produced by the priesthood,[121] but a great many\npractical charities are excellently conceived and executed by them.\nThe day, no doubt, will come when the experience of personal suffering\nwill always result in a desire to relieve the suffering of others.\nPhysical pain usually produces a need of physical movement; \u00e6sthetic\ninstinct introduces rhythm into the movement, transforms disorderly\ngestures into a beautiful regularity, and discordant cries into songs\nof pain;[122] moral instinct turns this need of movement toward the\nservice of other people, and every misfortune thus becomes a source\nof pity for the misfortunes of others, and grief is transmuted into\ncharity.\n\n      [121] None in France.\n\n      [122] See the author\u2019s _Probl\u00e8mes d\u2019esth\u00e9tique_, i. 3.\n\n[Sidenote: Must find expression in action.]\n\nAs in the case of artistic sentiment, religious sentiment at its best\nmust be productive, must stimulate one\u2019s activity. Religion, according\nto St. Paul, means charity, love; but there is no charity that is not\ncharity for someone, and a really rich love cannot be confined within\nthe limits of contemplation and mystic ecstasy, which, scientifically\nconsidered, are simply perversions and, as it were, spiritual\nmiscarriages. True love must act.\n\nThe ancient opposition between faith and works is thus effaced. There\nis no powerful faith without works, any more than there is any such\nthing as a sterile genius or an unproductive talent for art. If Jesus\npreferred Mary, who was motionless at his feet, to Martha, who was\nmoving about the house, it was, no doubt, because he perceived in the\nformer a treasure of moral energy in reserve for the service of some\ngreat devotion; in reserve and therefore only waiting; silent, with a\nsilence of sincere love which speaks more fervently than words.\n\n[Sidenote: Charity.]\n\nCharity will always constitute the point of meeting between the most\naudacious theoretic speculation and the least audacious practical\nactivity. To identify one\u2019s self, thought and heart, with someone else\nis to _speculate_ in the most charming sense of the word, is to stake\none\u2019s all. And the risk of staking his all is one that man will always\nwish to run. He is pushed to it by the most vivacious impulses in his\nnature. Goethe said that a man is not really worthy of the name till\nhe has \u201cbegotten a child, built a house, and planted a tree.\u201d The\ndetails chosen are somewhat trivial, but the aphorism embodies the\nneed for productivity which is inherent in every being, the need to\ngive or to develop life, to found something; the being who does not\nobey this impulse is _d\u00e9class\u00e9_, is degraded below the rank of man; he\nwill suffer from it some day or other, and die of it body and soul.\nHappily absolute egoism is less frequent than is believed; to live\nsolely for one\u2019s self is a sort of utopia that may be summed up in the\nna\u00efve formula: Everybody for me and I for nobody. The humblest of us,\nthe instant we undertake a work of charity, come into possession of\na completer self; we belong at once wholly to the enterprise, to the\nidea involved in it, to an idea more or less impersonal; we are drawn\nforward in spite of ourselves, like a swimmer by the current of the\nstream.\n\n[Sidenote: Enthusiasm.]\n\nThe promotion of every enterprise great and small and of almost every\nhuman work depends on enthusiasm, which has played so important a\nr\u00f4le in religion. Enthusiasm presupposes a belief in the possible\nreality of an ideal, an active belief to be manifested in effort. There\nis generally but one way of demonstrating what is merely possible,\nand that is by realizing it, by converting it from possibility\ninto actuality. Excessively matter-of-fact minds\u2014minds immersed\nin matter\u2014are condemned to short-sightedness in the realm of the\npossible; analysts distinguish too exactly between what is, and what is\nnot, to be able to be of the best service in the labour of increasingly\ntransforming the one into the other. There is, no doubt, a point of\njunction between the present and the future, but pure intelligence\nfinds it difficult to lay its finger on it: it is everywhere and\nnowhere, or rather it is not an inert point but a flying point, a\n_direction_, a volition in pursuit of an end. The world belongs to\nthe enthusiast, who deliberately deals with the \u201cnot yet\u201d as the\n\u201calready,\u201d and treats the future as if it were the present; the world\nbelongs to the synthetic mind, which confounds the real and the ideal\nin its embrace; the world belongs to men of the voluntary type, who do\nviolence to reality, and break up its rigid outlines, and force it to\nyield up from within what might beforehand, in pure reason, have with\nequal justice been pronounced the possible and the impossible. The\nworld belongs to the prophets and messiahs of science; enthusiasm is\nnecessary to mankind, it is the genius of the masses and the productive\nelement in the genius of individuals.\n\n[Sidenote: Courage.]\n\nThe essence of enthusiasm is hope, and the basis of hope is manliness,\nis courage. Courage of despair is not so intense a phrase as courage of\nhope. Hope and true and active charity are one. If Hope alone remained\nin the bottom of Pandora\u2019s box it was not because she had lost her\nwings and was unable to desert the society of men for the open spaces\nof the sky; it was that pity, charity, devotion, are very elements of\nher nature; to hope is to love, and to love is to wish to minister\nto those who suffer. Upon the half-open box of Pandora, from which\nHope in her devotion to mankind refused to make her escape, should be\ninscribed, as upon the leaden coffer in the \u201cMerchant of Venice,\u201d \u201cWho\nchooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Proselytism.]\n\nThe object of enthusiasm varies from age to age: it was once religion,\nit may be scientific doctrine and discovery, it may above all be\nmoral and social beliefs. It results therefrom that the spirit of\nproselytism, that seems so peculiar to religion, is destined to survive\nreligion: it will be transformed simply. Every sincere and enthusiastic\nman with a surplus of moral energy is at heart a missionary, a\npropagandist of ideas and beliefs. Next to the joy of possessing a\ntruth or a system which seems to be true, is that of disseminating\nthis truth, of feeling it speak and act in us, of exhaling it with\nour breath. There have been more than twelve apostles in the history\nof humanity; every heart that is young, and strong, and loving is\nthe heart of an apostle. There is not an idea in our brain that does\nnot possess some element of sociality, of fraternity; that does not\nstruggle for expression. Propagandism will be as ardently pursued, in\nthe society of the future, as discovery. Moral proselytism will aim\nat communicating enthusiasm for the good and the true, at uplifting\nthe moral level of mankind as a whole and mainly of the masses of the\npeople.\n\n[Sidenote: Morality apart from religion difficult to teach.]\n\nBut here we shall be met by an objection; we shall be told that\nindependently of religion it will be difficult to disseminate a system\nof practical morality, conformable to the scientific ideas of our\ntimes. A professor of the Sorbonne was one day maintaining, in my\nhearing, that in the present crisis anything like systematic moral\ninstruction is gravely in danger. Abstract theories cannot be taught,\nfor they end in scepticism; absolute precepts cannot be taught, for\nthey are false; nothing can be taught but facts, but history: one may\nbe certain about facts. That is to say, morality cannot be taught at\nall.\n\n[Sidenote: But not impossible.]\n\nWe believe, on the contrary, that, even at the present day, the various\ntheories in regard to the principles of morals possess a certain fund\nof ideas in common, which might well be made the subject of popular\ninstruction. Even the most sceptical and egoistic moral theories admit\nthat the individual cannot live by himself and for himself solely;\nthat egoism involves a narrowing of the sphere of human activity that\nresults in the impoverishment of life. To live fully and completely\none must live for others. Our actions are like a shadow which we\nproject upon the universe; the shadow can only be contracted by a\ndiminution of our height; and the best way to enlarge it is to become\ngenerous\u2014the principle of egoism is interior littleness. The idea and\nthe sentiment which lie at the bottom of all human morality are the\nidea and sentiment of generosity; even the systems of Epicurus and of\nBentham become generous and philanthropic when they are looked at from\na certain height. It is this spirit of generosity which is inherent in\nevery system of morals that a moralist ought always to endeavour to\nelicit and to communicate to his auditors. What, after all, constitutes\nthe outcome of the years of instruction to which we devote our youth?\nAbstract forms? More or less scholastic ideas inculcated with so much\ndifficulty? No, that sort of thing fades rapidly away; what subsist\nare certain sentiments. From history one acquires a certain cult for\nthe past and for our natural tradition, which is useful but may become\ndangerous if it is carried to extremes; from the study of philosophy\nwe acquire a certain openness of mind, a disinterested preoccupation\nwith the causes of things, a love of hypothesis, a tolerance for\ndifference of opinion; and from a study of ethics we acquire\u2014what?\nA generosity of heart that causes us, if not to forget ourselves, at\nleast not to forget other people. Other studies enlarge the mind, this\none enlarges the heart. It is unreasonable, therefore, to be appalled\nby diversity of moral systems, for they are all of them obliged in\none way or other to beat up to the physiological and psychological\nverity of love, which is the principle of all altruism and presents\nmankind with this alternative: to desiccate or to expand. Exclusively\negoistic conduct is a rotten fruit. Egoism is eternal illusion and\navarice, afraid to open its hands, ignoring the necessity of mutual\ncredit, and the productivity of wealth in circulation. In morals as\nin political economy, circulation is necessary; the individual must\nshare in the life of the society. Moralists have been wrong, perhaps,\nin overestimating self-sacrifice. It may be denied that virtue is at\nbottom, in any rigorous sense of the word, a sacrifice, but it cannot\nbe denied that it is at bottom an enlargement of one\u2019s self, a form\nof generosity. And this sentiment of generosity, by means of which\none embraces all humanity and the universe, is what constitutes the\nsolid base of all great religions, as of all systems of morality; and\ntherein lies the reason why one may, without danger, study the infinite\ndiversity of human beliefs in regard to the moral ideal\u2014the _summum\nbonum_. There is a unity in the variety, a unity that centres in the\nidea of love. To be generous in thought and deed is to be at the centre\nof all great speculation on morals and religion.\n\n[Sidenote: Necessity of disinterestedness.]\n\nFor the rest, is there any need of calling in the aid of mythical\nand mystical ideas in our effort to understand human society and\nits necessities, and among them the necessity of disinterestedness?\nThe profounder one\u2019s intelligence becomes, the more adequately one\nperceives the necessity, the inherent rationality of the function one\naccomplishes in human society; the more absolutely one understands\none\u2019s self and one\u2019s self as a social being. A functionary above\nreproach is always ready to risk his life for the accomplishment of the\nduty with which he is charged, even though it be a relatively humble\none\u2014that of a policeman or a customs officer, of a signal man, of a\nrailway employee or telegraph operator. Whoever does not feel himself\nready to die at a given moment is inferior to these. One may sit in\njudgment on one\u2019s self and on one\u2019s ideal, by asking one\u2019s self this\nquestion: for what idea, for what person would I risk my life? Whoever\nhas not a reply ready has an empty or vulgar heart, he is incapable\neither of sympathizing with or of achieving anything that is great in\nlife, for he is hidebound to the limits of his own individuality; he is\nfeeble and sterile, and lives in his egoism like the tortoise in his\nshell. On the contrary, he who is conscious of a willingness to face\ndeath for his ideal is willing and anxious to maintain his ideal to\nthe height of this possible sacrifice, and finds in the fact of the\nrisk a supreme and constant tension, an indefatigable energy and power\nof will. The sole means of being great in life is to be conscious of\nindifference to death. And this courage in the presence of death is not\nthe privilege of religions; its germ exists in every intelligent and\nloving volition, in the very sense for the universal which gives us\nscience and philosophy; it shows itself in the spontaneous impulses of\nthe heart, in the moral inspirations (which are as truly inspirations\nas those of the poet) that art and morality seek to give rise to in us.\nIndependently of any religious conception, morality is privileged to\nbelong to the poetry of the world and to the reality of the world. This\npoetry, instead of being purely contemplative, exists in action and in\nmovement, but the sentiment of the beautiful is none the less one of\nthe essential elements of it. A virtuous life, as the Greeks said, is\nat once both beautiful and good. Virtue is the profoundest of the arts,\nis that in which the artist and the work of art are one. In the old oak\nchoir stalls in our churches, lovingly sculptured in the ages of faith,\nthe same slab of wood sometimes represents on one side the life of a\nsaint and on the other a pattern of roses and flowers, so arranged that\neach event in the saint\u2019s life corresponds to a petal or the corolla of\na flower; his self-sacrifice or his martyrdom lies on a background of\nlilies or roses. To live and to flower side by side, at once to suffer\nand to blossom, to unite in one\u2019s self the reality of goodness and the\nbeauty of the ideal, is the double aim of life; and we also, like the\nsaints in the choir stalls, should present both sides.\n\n[Sidenote: Religious sanction a superfluity.]\n\nIt will be objected that if the dissemination of moral ideas should\nbe attempted in independence of religion, it will lack an element of\nsovereign power: the idea of a sanction after death, or at least the\ncertitude of that sanction. It may be replied that the moral sentiment\nin its purity implies precisely doing good for its own sake. And if\nit be rejoined that any such notion is chimerical, we reply that the\npower of the moral ideal in future societies will be proportionate\nto its height.[123] It is commonly believed that the highest ideals\nare those which it is least easy to disseminate among the masses;\nthe future will, we believe, demonstrate the opposite. Everything\ndepends on the talent of the propagandist. Jesus and the evangelists\ndid more to diffuse morality by embodying moral ideas in a form at\nonce simple and sublime than by menacing men with divine vengeance\nand the flames of Gehenna. \u201cLove ye one another; by this shall all\nmen know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.\u201d\nIn this admirable and eternal precept there is more of inexhaustible,\npractical power than in: ye shall be cast into the fire; there shall\nbe wailing and gnashing of teeth. Even in the past, it is by favour of\ngreat sentiments that great religious revolutions have been achieved;\nand these great sentiments will persist in the future, shorn of the\nsuperstitions with which they have long been associated. Thousands of\nmartyrs have gone gaily to death for religion; and martyrdom to simple\nhonesty and goodness of heart is, no doubt, more difficult though not\nless realizable than martyrdom to death. Morality will lose none of its\npractical power by revealing itself more and more as it is; that is, as\nthe supreme end that a man can propose to himself. The true ideal of\nmorality is charity, and charity is absolute disinterestedness, which\nlooks for a recompense neither from man nor God. Recompense ought never\nto enter into one\u2019s calculations in life nor into the hopes with which\none regards the future; besides, the calculation would probably be bad.\nRecompense should be taken, when it comes, as a gift; as something\ndistinctly over and above what one has earned. It is even good and\nreasonable never to do right with any other expectation than that of\ningratitude, and to resign one\u2019s self to receiving after death no\nreward of merit. The most practical religious instruction is an appeal\nto generous sentiments.\n\n      [123] See the author\u2019s _Esquisse d\u2019une morale_, pp. 236, 237.\n\n[Sidenote: Baudelaire\u2019s triumphant criminal.]\n\nTo maintain the necessity of the idea of sanction in moral instruction\nand propagandism, the following argument has been employed. Baudelaire,\nit is said, in the last days of his intellectual life, sketched a great\ndrama, destined to astonish the partisans of middle-class morality. The\nhero of the drama, stripping himself of vulgar prejudice, was to commit\none after another, and with an equal success, the crimes which are\nsupposed to be the most terrible\u2014was to kill his father, to dishonour\nhis brother, to violate his sister and his mother, to betray his\ncountry, and finally, his work in the world accomplished, in possession\nof fortune and reputation, was to retire to some charming site, under\nsome soft sky, and to exclaim with all the tranquillity in the world:\n\u201cLet us now enjoy in peace the fruits of our crime.\u201d What reply could\nyou make, it is asked, to such a man and to those who might be tempted\nto imitate him, if you had not at hand the menaces of religion and the\nprospect of future punishment? How could you disturb the criminal\u2019s\npromised joy?\n\n[Sidenote: His life punishes itself.]\n\nLet us consider first in what the criminal\u2019s promised joy can consist.\nBaudelaire\u2019s hero is naturally incapable of appreciating the pleasures\nof the hearth; a man who has killed his father can find little delight\nin the birth of a son. He is equally incapable of appreciating a love\nof science for science\u2019s sake, for the man who could love science for\nscience\u2019s sake would never be tempted to become a great criminal, and\nas for pure \u00e6sthetic pleasures, moral delicacy and \u00e6sthetic delicacy\nin general go hand in hand; it is not probable that a being incapable\nof remorse and insensitive to all the shades and varieties of the\nmoral life would be apt to be sensible of all the shades and varieties\nof beauty and of \u00e6sthetic enjoyment. The capacity for a sincere\nadmiration of the beautiful corresponds always to a possibility of\nstrong repugnances to the ugly, and repugnance for the ugly is scarcely\nconceivable apart from a repugnance for what is ugly in immorality.\nIt is true that Byron depicted certain satanic heroes accomplishing\nthe blackest of crimes without any loss to their elegance, to their\ngood manners, to their high spirit and courage, but his heroes, not to\nraise the question of their possibility in real life, are extremely\nunhappy; they, like Byron himself and his disciples, are the victims\nof a refined remorse, distaste of life, misanthropy; the only art\nthat lies within their range is pessimistic art, which but aggravates\ntheir malady. Their \u00e6sthetic joys are veritable agonies. Or if, Byron\nand Byronism apart, one keeps close to the truth, one may well doubt\nwhether true \u00e6sthetic pleasures are more within the reach of a genuine\ncriminal than of an educated butcher\u2019s boy. His pleasure would be\nconfined to the monotonous round of wine, women, and play; and he could\nnot take wine with a light heart, for men talk under the influence of\nwine; and he must play but little, for men ruin themselves at play;\nso that there remains nothing but women who constitute, as a matter\nof fact, the habitual consolation of criminals. In all times police\nhave looked for criminals, and found them, the day after their offence\nin places of ill-repute. Very well, the defence of society apart, we\nsee no reason for depriving the poor wretches of the restricted joys\nthat remain to them. It would be doing too much honour to Baudelaire\u2019s\nhero to give him an immortality in the next life, simply as a means\nof making him pay dearer than he has already done in this for the few\nkisses that he has purchased with his blood-stained gold. He suffers\nenough as it is, the only additional suffering that could be wished\nfor him is that of remorse, but remorse is a sign of superiority. Real\ncriminals, temperamental criminals, those who are the victims of what\nis known as moral insanity, are absolutely ignorant of remorse, because\nthey are perfectly adapted to crime; they are made for the immoral\nenvironment in which they live, and live at ease, and experience no\ndesire for a change. To perceive that a door is low, one\u2019s stature\nmust be great. If Lady Macbeth\u2019s hand had been rude and her eye dull,\nshe never would have desired to wash off the drop of blood. To suffer\nis to pass beyond the bounds of one\u2019s environment; the criminal who\nexperiences remorse has strayed less far from the human type than the\none who does not feel remorse. The first may become a man once more,\nthe second is incapable of crossing the line of demarcation which\nseparates man and beast, for he is incapable of perceiving it; he is\nwalled in with his crime, and is a brute or a madman.\n\n[Sidenote: And will in the future be viewed with horror.]\n\nBut, it will be objected, if this brute or this madman sees no divine\nmenace above his head, would not many people regard his situation\nas enviable, and labour as they are labouring, to destroy the moral\nand human instincts in themselves, to place themselves precisely in\nthe position of Baudelaire\u2019s hero? We do not believe that faith in\na religious sanction could greatly change anybody\u2019s attitude toward\nsuch an abnormal being. Crime offers man but one attraction, that of\nwealth; but wealth, whatever value it may have in the eyes of the\npeople, is but one among the good things of the world. Offer a poor\nman a million dollars coupled with the gout, and if he had an atom of\ncommon-sense he would refuse. Propose to make him rich, on condition\nof his being bandy-legged or humpbacked, and he would probably refuse\nalso; in especial, if he were young. All women would refuse. The\ndifficulty experienced in finding people to fill certain situations\nwhich are in themselves well paid\u2014that, for instance, of public\nexecutioner\u2014demonstrates that, even in the eyes of the people, money\nis not everything. If it were, no menace of punishment after death\ncould prevent men generally from becoming assassins.[124] I know women,\nand men also, who would refuse a fortune if they were obliged to\nacquire it by becoming butchers\u2014so great are certain repugnances, even\npurely sentimental and \u00e6sthetic repugnances. The moral horror of crime,\nwhich is in the generality of cases stronger than any other repugnance,\nwill always separate us from criminals, whatever the prevailing beliefs\nas to life after death.\n\n      [124] M. de Molinari has calculated the chances of death to\n      which the profession of assassin is exposed, as compared with\n      certain dangerous occupations, as that of miner. He reaches the\n      following result: that an assassin runs less risk of death than\n      a miner; an insurance company might demand a smaller premium\n      of assassins than it would be obliged to demand of miners.\n      (See _Esquisse d\u2019une morale_, the chapter on _Le risque et la\n      lutte_, i. 4.)\n\n[Sidenote: And with pity.]\n\nThis horror will be still stronger when for the habitual hatred,\nanger, and desire for revenge, that the presence of a criminal now\ncauses us, shall be substituted by degrees a feeling of pity\u2014the pity\nwhich we feel for inferior or malformed beings, for the unconscious\nmonstrosities of nature. One may sometimes envy the life of what one\nhates; but one can never envy the life of what one pities. Hatred\nsignifies the presence of some element of attraction in the object\nhated; but pity is the highest and most definitive moral barrier that\ncan exist between two beings.\n\n[Sidenote: The durable element in this notion of sanction.]\n\nThe sole respectable and durable element in the idea of sanction is\nneither the notion of recompense nor of penalty, but that of the ideal\nof goodness as possessed of sufficient force to impose itself upon\nnature, and to envelop the world; it seems to us good that the just\nand gentle man should have the last word in the universe, but this\nkingdom of goodness of which humanity dreams does not need for its\nestablishment the procedure of a human kingdom. The moral sentiment\nmay be considered the great power in the universe. The inherent\ntendency of morality gradually to subdue nature to its purposes by the\ninstrumentality of mankind is the most striking fact in the realm of\nphilosophy, and the one which is, of all others, the most appropriate\nto excite the spirit of proselytism. No myth is necessary to arouse an\nardour for goodness and a sense of universal fraternity. What is great\nand beautiful is self-sufficing.\n\n[Sidenote: Cult for the dead.]\n\nWhatever may be the beliefs that men will one day hold on a life after\ndeath, and the conditions which render possible the final triumph\nof goodness, the notion of such a triumph is an ultimate moral and\nsocial idea, which will always lend itself readily to propagandism,\nbecause it is the foundation of all religions without being in any\nwise essentially bound up with religious dogma; it is in essence a\ncult for memory, for veneration and love of ancestry, for respect for\ndeath and for the dead. Far from necessarily declining with the decline\nof religion, a reverence for the dead may rapidly increase because\nthe metaphysical sentiment of the unknown in death will increase. The\nspirit of democracy itself inclines the masses to an uneasy admiration\nin the presence of death, the great democrat, the great leveller\nwho wanders incessantly about humanity, and planes down equally all\nexcesses of misery and happiness; casts us, without distinction of\npersons, into the great abyss from the depths of which the attentive\near has caught no sound of an arrested fall.\n\n[Sidenote: Among the Greeks.]\n\nThe Greeks, who of all ancient people are supposed to have been the\nleast religious, were of all ancient people those who showed most\nreverence for the dead. The most irreligious city in modern times,\nParis, is that in which the f\u00eate for the dead is most solemn, in which\nthe entire people rise to celebrate it, and that also in which we see\nthe most flippant street Arab take off his hat in the presence of a\nfuneral and salute the visible image of the eternal enigma. A respect\nfor the dead which binds the generations of mankind together, which is\nthe essence of the most certain form of immortality, that of memory and\nexample, will not disappear with the decay of religion. Corpus Christi\nmay be forgotten, but All Souls\u2019 Day will be observed till the end of\nhuman time.\n\n\n_III. Associations for \u00e6sthetic purposes\u2014Worship of art and nature._\n\n[Sidenote: Association for enjoyment of products of \u00e6sthetic genius.]\n\nI. The third notion which is destined to survive historic religions,\nand which has been as yet imperfectly realized, is that of voluntary\nassociation for the purpose of enjoying in common some \u00e6sthetic\npleasure of a high and morally refining kind; therein lies what\nwill survive of the ceremonial of diverse religions. The artistic\nelements pent up in various religions will disengage themselves, will\nbecome independent of tradition, of symbolism taken seriously, and of\nsuperstition. Science, metaphysics, and morals all have their poetical\nside, and in so far are analogous to religion.\n\n[Sidenote: Destined prevalence of admiration.]\n\nThe pure abstraction by which the thinker escapes beyond the limits\nof sentiment is an unstable and unlasting state of mind; abstraction\ncontains something fictitious, for nothing abstract exists in nature;\nabstraction is of value only as an instrument; its aim is to grapple\nwith some one side of the reality, to enable one subsequently more\neasily to embrace the reality as a whole. Every general result\nthat abstraction can achieve may sooner or later become the object\nof a sentiment. The progress of science, as Mr. Spencer says, has\nalways been accompanied side by side by a corresponding progress\nin the faculty of admiration; this faculty must inevitably develop,\nin the future, when man will have attained a less fragmentary and\nmore genuinely synthetic conception of the universe. Admiration is\none of the surviving elements of the religious sentiment. Man will\nalways be subject to astonishment, and will always contemplate the\nuniverse in a spirit of wonder, although, no doubt, the time must\ncome when he will cease to kneel. Artistic genius, even when inspired\nby great philosophical and cosmological ideas, remains essentially\ndifferent from religious genius properly so called, the distinctive\ncharacter of which is to be dogmatic. The Greeks were of all peoples\nthe most poetical and the least religious. Poetry, like metaphysics,\nconsists in constructions in the realm of imagination and thought,\nwhich are capable of infinite variety and tend to overrun the whole\ncompass of the human mind. Dogmatic religion, on the contrary,\ntends continually to limit the fertility of the imagination and of\nphilosophic thought; it implies a certain poverty of mind to cling\nalways to the same conception, to feel no desire to pass beyond it,\nto create. Metaphysical hypothesis, unshackled by dogma, gifted with\nvariety and liberty, must inevitably be fertile even in the domain of\nart; it cannot dwell forever among abstractions, it must produce a\ncorresponding sentiment, a poetic sentiment which will not be the na\u00efve\nassurance of faith but the proper emotional reaction in the presence\nof a transformation of the real world under the influence of thought\nconceiving the ideal. For the philosopher, as for the poet, every\nsurface that science touches, every form and figure in the world that\nthe finger of knowledge taps, gives forth a sound, not of the void,\nbut, so to speak, of the \u201cessential inwardness of life.\u201d They resemble\nthe marbles in Italy which give forth, beneath a blow, a sound as\nharmonious as their forms. There is an inner harmony that may well go\nalong with harmony of surface; science shows us the laws of surfaces,\nphilosophy and poetry put us into sympathy with what lies below the\nsurface. If it is impossible to deny, as pure idealists attempt to\ndeny, the objective character of the world in which we live, one can,\nat least, not say where objectivity begins and subjectivity ends.\nBetween Naghiri and Yarkand there exists an almost unknown tribe called\nHunza, whose language presents a peculiarity which it is impossible to\nseparate from one\u2019s notion of humanity; one cannot, in their speech,\nexpress the idea of a horse simply, but must say my horse or thy horse\nor his horse. Our language is more perfect than that of the Hunza, but\nwe are absolutely incapable of conceiving things in abstraction from\nall notion of human personality; in especial, when we are dealing, not\nwith individual, external objects, but with the cosmos as a whole.\nThere is no such thing as a world existing in isolation; there is only\nyour world, my world, the human world. Man is so inseparably associated\nwith his conception of the universe that it is impossible to know\nwhat our universe would be apart from us, or what we should be apart\nfrom it. The metaphysician and the poet are at one in celebrating the\nprojection of humanity into all things. At their highest points poetry\nand philosophy coincide. Metaphysics is the poetry of pure reason,\npoetry is the metaphysics of the senses and of the heart. The two\nsupply us with our conception of the world, and, after all, since we\nare the product of the world, it must be in some sense akin to all\nthat we contain. The fundamental secret of things lies at the bottom\nof human thought. Poetry is a light and winged creature, Plato says,\nbut he was speaking of the poetry of the poet, of his sonorous and\nharmonious words; but the poetry of the metaphysician, the poetry of\nprofound ideas and hidden causes, is also a winged thing, but winged\nnot to be enabled to skim the surfaces of things as a land bird skims\nthe surface of land and sea, but to be enabled to dive as \u201cdivers\u201d do\nwhen they plunge into the limpid waves, and, at the risk of asphyxia,\nwalk upon the opaque bottom of the sea and tear it up with their beaks\nin search of food and come up shaking their feathers from none knows\nwhere. Sometimes their search has been in vain, sometimes they bring up\nburied treasure; and they alone of all beings employ their wings not\nto skim and to touch the surface of things, but to penetrate to the\ndepths of them. The last word of poetry, as of thought, will be to\ndive beneath the moving flood and sweep of things, and seize the secret\nof the material universe which is also the secret of the spiritual\nuniverse.\n\n[Sidenote: Art in a measure to take the place of religion.]\n\nII. The more feeble dogmatic religions become, the greater the\nnecessity for a stronger and higher art. Humanity needs a certain\namount of distraction, and even, as Pascal said, of \u201cdiversion.\u201d A\nhuman beast, such as an English or German labouring man, knows but one\ndistraction in the world: eating and drinking, especially drinking.\nMany English labourers never go to the theatre or to church, never\nread, know nothing of the pleasures of home; the gin-palace and gin\ntake the place of art, religion, and the family. Opium plays the same\nrole in China. They who do not know how to amuse themselves brutalize\nthemselves; self-brutalization is, at least, a change, an element of\nvariety in the monotony of life, a break in the continuity of the\nchain of misery. Oblivion from time to time is imperative. One of\nthe ancients said that he would rather be a master in the science of\noblivion than in that of memory. The only porches of forgetfulness\nthat are open to the more debased portions of mankind are sleep and\nintoxication; people at a higher stage of civilization may approach art\nand adoration; and these two forms of distraction are the highest and\nsweetest.[125]\n\n      [125] Slaves, exiles, and unfortunates generally drink. The\n      Irish and Poles are, according to statistics, the most drunken\n      peoples in Europe.\n\n[Sidenote: Art as a diversion.]\n\nThe amount of activity devoted by men to religion and \u00e6sthetics\nmay appear at first sight useless and even harmful; but it must be\nrecognized that humanity is always possessed of a surplus which must be\nexpended in some way or other. Prayer and religious exercises, regarded\nas occupations simply, are of the least harmful of pastimes, are of the\nleast vain of the various forms of distraction. Prayer and the church\nhave hitherto been the art and theatre of the poor. No doubt art and\nprayer cannot be made to constitute alone the whole of life; mystics\nhave believed that it is practical life that is the diversion, and that\nthe serious element in things is religious contemplation. Precisely\nthe opposite is true: preoccupation with art and metaphysics should\ndominate human life, but not absorb it. Religion in especial, with its\nmyths, is too generously compounded of illusion and downright fiction\nto be made the centre of life; religion is a radiant coloured cloud\nthat wreaths the summit of the mountain. If we climb up into it we\nperceive that it is empty and sombre within, that it is a cloud, damp\nand cold like other clouds and radiant only from below.\n\n[Sidenote: \u00c6sthetic element in religion.]\n\nThe poetry of religion may survive the dogmatism of religion; as\narticles of faith, religious ideas are to-day anachronisms; as\npractical and philosophical conceptions they are like all works of art,\nin a measure imperishable. Who, asks Lange, could wish to refute a Mass\nof Palestrina or accuse the Madonna of Raphael of error? Religions have\ninspired literary and artistic labours\u2014products which will survive\nthem at least in part, and will constitute ultimately their best\njustification. What remains of the Crusades to-day? Among the best\nthings that they gave us must be counted certain flowers that they\nbrought back with them and propagated among us, for example, Damascus\nroses, and certain colours and perfumes which have survived the great\nrising of Europe against Asia in support of certain ideas and passions\nwhich are to-day forever extinct.\n\n[Sidenote: Defects of \u00e6sthetic side of religion.]\n\nLooked at from a certain point of view, priests are the artists of\nthe people, but the genuine artist ought to move with the times,\nunderstand new motives and not repeat indefinitely, from generation\nto generation, the same musical or poetical theme. The feeble side of\nreligious a\u00e6sthetics is that its repertoire of incident and mystery is\nseverely limited, that it has repeated itself for centuries. It must\nenlarge the number of its pieces, must abandon those it has. Nothing\ncould be better than to assemble for the purpose of experiencing in\ncommon an emotion at once a\u00e6sthetic and serious, seeing and hearing\nsomething beautiful; but it is impossible that this emotion should be\nindefinitely prolonged by a repetition of the same stimulus. Rites are\nirreconcilable with the double aim of art: variety and progress in the\nexpression of the emotions themselves. Sooner or later the rudimentary\nart of ritual must give place to genuine and progressive art, just as\nthe instinctive and eternally monotonous architecture practised by bird\nand insect has become the infinitely varied architecture which has\nproduced and will produce masterpieces of the most varied kind, from\nNotre Dame de Paris to the Alhambra.\n\n[Sidenote: Transformation of the sermon.]\n\nIn general, men gather together to listen. Conferences, sermons, songs\nare the most permanent features in religious cult. They will probably\nexist in some form or other in future associations as in those of the\npast. One point will become increasingly important in every spoken word\naddressed to the people, and that is the instructive aspect of what is\nsaid; if one is to address the people, one must teach them something.\nWell, there are three kinds of instruction, scientific, literary\nand moral, or metaphysical. The first will have to be more and more\ngenerously given, not only in school but wherever adults congregate.\nThe two other sorts may be given simultaneously by lectures. The most\ninteresting elements in many sermons and conferences are the texts and\ncitations brought to the hearers\u2019 attention by the speaker. The choice\nof these texts, the manner in which they are expounded and introduced\nto the comprehension of the multitude, constitute the value of the\nsermon. In other words, the best sermon consists simply in the reading\nand exposition of some choice page from a good book. In Germany, in\nEngland, in the Indies preachers of certain liberal sects choose their\ntexts indifferently from among the whole number of the sacred books of\nhumanity. A still more liberal epoch may be conceived, when texts will\nbe selected not only from among the writings of the poets of ancient\ntimes but also from among the writings of men of genius of all times;\nevery great work will be read and commented on as a sacred book. The\nmost complete expression of the so-called religious sentiment, apart\nfrom the vast Hindu or Jewish epochs, is, after all, to be found in\ncertain profane masterpieces, from the works of Plato and Marcus\nAurelius to Kant\u2019s \u201cHymn to Duty\u201d; from the dramas of \u00c6schylus to\nthe \u201cHamlet\u201d of Shakespeare, to the \u201cPolyeucte\u201d of Corneille, and the\n\u201cContemplations\u201d of Victor Hugo.\n\n[Sidenote: Transformation of the prophet.]\n\nReligious prophets, like priests, will be replaced by great poets,\ngreat metaphysicians, great men of science. Each of us will be able to\nchoose our prophet, to prefer the genius which is best adapted to our\npersonal intelligence and best serves as an intermediary between us and\nthe eternal truth, and each of us will be in the last resort our own\npriest.[126]\n\n      [126] \u201cProphecy is not dead, it flourishes under another name.\n      Religious reforms, emancipation from oppressive authority, war\n      against corrupt institutions, religious poetry, philosophy of\n      history\u2014are all represented under various titles in the modern\n      world. The old trunk has branched again simply.\u201d (M. Albert\n      R\u00e9ville, p. 229, _Prol\u00e9gom\u00e8nes de l\u2019Histoire des religions_.)\n\n[Sidenote: Music.]\n\nApart from poetry and eloquence, the most religious of the arts, the\nmost capable of inspiring the multitude with an elevated sympathy has\nbeen, and will be music. Wagner was not absolutely wrong in his notion\nthat music will be the religion of the future, or, at least, the cult\nof the future. We do not speak of instrumental music only, but also\nand in especial of vocal music, of choruses such as are often met with\nin Germany, in which many voices unite in producing the same chant, in\nbeating the same rhythm which has been regulated in advance by genius.\nThus conceived, music is truly religious and socially significant.[127]\n\n      [127] Music at the present day forms a part of the cult; but\n      either it is supplied by members of the faithful, in which\n      event it is sufficiently bad, for the majority of the faithful\n      are ignorant of music; or it is provided by mercenaries,\n      and it is then more commonly good, but is generally ill\n      chosen. Musical education will one day probably be much more\n      wide-spread than it is to-day; it would not be more difficult,\n      and would always be more useful, to teach children the elements\n      of music than to teach them the mystery of the Incarnation.\n      More than that, if religious music were chosen not only from\n      so-called sacred works but from the works of classical masters\n      generally, one might be certain of hearing good music, varied\n      in style and movement, and capable of pleasing all those in\n      whom the \u00e6sthetic sense is developed.\n\n[Sidenote: Kinship of \u00e6sthetic and religious sentiment.]\n\nFor the rest, almost every art is reconcilable with the gravity of\nreligious sentiment, for every art at its best awakens, no less than\npoetry and music, a contemplative and philosophical mood. One may\nagree with Strauss that religion will gradually be transmuted into\nart, and even at the present day profane art and sacred art are rather\ndifferent than opposed. These differences will always subsist; it is\nevident that a _pas redoubl\u00e9_, for example, can never be the symbol of\na really profound idea of nature or of humanity or of the infinite.\nReligious \u00e6sthetics, even though it becomes continuously larger and\nmore tolerant, will exclude to the end certain inferior forms of art.\n\n[Sidenote: Necessary reforms in lay art.]\n\nIf art is to take the place of religion, it must progress in certain\ndirections, not only in its forms but in its material methods of\nappeal. Note how much better church services are presented, from the\npoint of view of hygiene, than art exhibitions are. Moderation is\npractised in the matter of light; the rooms are large and well supplied\nwith fresh air, are of an almost constant temperature; and the \u00e6sthetic\nservices are restful rather than exhausting. Compare with all this the\nentertainment given in concert halls and theatres, where multitudes\nare packed together under unnecessarily brilliant lights, where the\nspectators are wrought up and excited and exhausted in a hundred ways\nand pass out, finally, fatigued, enfeebled, nervously keyed up, and\npursued by a host of sensual images. Church architects are infinitely\nmore conversant with hygiene than those who build our theatres; they\nunderstand that if the heavens are to be shut out at all, space enough\nmust be shut in to give the heart and chest room to expand. Among the\nGreeks, where art really did form a sort of religion, the theatres were\nopen to the sky so that the spectators might really repose in body\nwhile they gave up their minds to be played upon by the poet.\n\n[Sidenote: In religious art.]\n\nJust as existing profane art must undergo certain transformations\nbefore it can be expected fully to satisfy a sane and well-balanced\nnature, so religious art, if it is to be true to its highest\ntendencies, must transform itself, must rid itself of precisely the\nelements which to-day seem distinctively to constitute it, namely its\nmarvellous subject-matter and conventional handling. The marvellous in\nart was long necessary, as we have seen, to capture men\u2019s attention;\ncontemporaneous art does not need to make this appeal. All art took its\nrise from convention, from ceremonial, but has enfranchised itself by\ndegrees. It might even be established as a general law that the more\nperfect, the more expressive, arts become\u2014the more, that is to say\nthey seek precisely to body forth the sentiment of the artist; and the\nmore expressive they are the less conventional and less pompous they\nmust be. Amplification and exaggeration are suppressed. The artist\noccupies toward his emotions the same relation that the translator of a\ngreat work does to his text: his translation will be regarded nowadays\nas perfect in proportion as it is close, as it follows the text, line\nby line and word by word; formerly the tradition was otherwise, and\nevery translator felt himself obliged to amplify. Art possesses _great_\nmeans of inspiring emotion, but not _gross_ means. Public speakers at\nthe present day make much less frequent use of gesture; the actor no\nlonger steps out on the stage in the cothurnus; the language of verse\nis approaching the language of ordinary life; music is breaking away\nfrom the conventions of counterpoint. What is true of the diverse arts\nis true also of religious \u00e6sthetics, which will one day abandon the\nfictitious ornaments and vain ceremonies of ritualism. If an \u00e6sthetic\nexpression of some profound sentiment is to be true and durable, it\nmust itself be profound, must be like what it expresses, must be\nmurmured rather than articulate. What renders certain verse eternal\nis its simplicity: the more overcharged an art is the more caducous\nit proves, like the architecture of the Jesuit style, which is to-day\nso ridiculous, with its gilding and false ornaments. Ceremonies,\nproperly so called, will become more and more simple in religious or\nmoral associations; the day will come, no doubt, when they will not be\nemployed at all except to celebrate the three great events of human\nlife: birth, marriage, and death; nay, perhaps they will disappear\naltogether as emotion becomes too profound to be translated by any\nobjective device, by any conventional ceremony whatever.\n\n    \u201cUne larme en dit plus que vous n\u2019en pourriez dire.\u201d\n\nIn cemeteries the tombs of distinguished people may be recognized\nby their simplicity, by their freedom from conventional ornament. A\nmarble slab under a wreath of flowers is enough to produce upon the\npasser-by a more vivid impression than crosses, burning lamps, images\nof the saints, infantine gewgaws, and ridiculous inscriptions. Eternal\nenigmas need not be supplied with excess of language; they are quite\ncapable of making themselves heard without raising their voices. The\nsilence of the stars is more impressive than speech, and the highest\nreligious instruction could not do better than teach men to listen to\nsuch science. Meditation, which, after all, is recommended by every\nreligion, implies the negation of rite.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Enjoyment of natural beauty.]\n\nIII. A feeling for nature was, in the beginning, an important element\nin the composition of the religious sentiment. Hindu ascetics went up\ninto the valleys of the Himalayas, St. Antoine went into the desert\nat Thebes, St. Bruno went to La Grande Chartreuse, in search of\nsomething more than simple solitude; they all of them experienced an\nill-defined need to eke out monotony of contemplation by admiration\nof the beautiful in nature; a need to fill the void of ecstasy with\nharmonious and powerful sensations. They were unconscious poets,\npainters without hands, astronomers without special knowledge, and\ntheir sentiment for nature made part of their religious sentiment;\nthe profane mingled with the divine, and they ascribed to God alone\nthe intense emotion that forest and mountain summit had given rise to\nin them. To-day, the \u00e6sthetic sentiment exists apart from religious\nsentiment; although every \u00e6sthetic sentiment of an especially elevated\nkind is both contemplative and philosophical, it contains no suggestion\nof any particular religion: no tabernacle can roof in heaven; \u00e6sthetic\nsentiment is foreign to the definite and anthropomorphic notion of a\npersonal God. When we contemplate nature we have no sense of communion\nwith the personality of God; the artist has definitively supplanted the\nreligious hermit. The power of theological sentiment has weakened; the\npower of sympathy for nature has increased.\n\n[Sidenote: Should be cherished.]\n\nThis sense of natural beauty, which is so strong in many men at the\npresent day, is destined to a much greater future. Like \u00e6sthetic\nfaculties generally, a sense for the beauty of nature must be\ncultivated and developed by a well-directed education. No germ of it\napparently is to be found in certain cases among the peasantry, where\na mechanical habit of life has dulled the emotions, nor among dwellers\nin cities, in whom antagonistic tastes have been developed. A genuine\nParisian cares little for the country; he can pass an hour or two in\nthe fields, as he might in the Bois de Boulogne. An open-air landscape\nwould not so readily appeal to him as a picture of it in a gold frame;\nhis eye is not educated for dealing with the dimensions of nature.\n\n[Sidenote: The most wholesome form of enjoyment.]\n\nOf all \u00e6sthetic sentiments, love of nature possesses the advantage of\nbeing the one which, even though pushed to excess, does not disturb\nthe equilibrium of body and mind. Love of nature is the sole emotion\nwhich is absolutely hygienic. One may die of an exaggerated love of\nthe theatre, of music and so forth; one simply becomes healthy from\nan exaggerated love of nature. Air and light! The Greeks were right,\nwere they not? to philosophize in the open air, in gardens and groves.\nA ray of sunlight sometimes helps one more to understand the world\nthan an eternity of meditation in some gray room in the midst of open\nvolumes.[128]\n\n      [128] Every library reading room ought to open on a garden\n      where one could read and write on fine days in the open air.\n      For all men whose labour is physical\u2014for example, for a\n      factory hand\u2014the proper recreation is repose in the open\n      air, and, if need be, intellectual labour in the open air.\n      For men who work with their minds, the proper recreation is\n      bodily exercise in the open air, in the sunlight. For children\n      every holiday ought to be spent in the country. Lighted\n      rooms, children\u2019s entertainments in the house even on Sunday\n      afternoons, theatrical representations, are, hygienically\n      speaking, absurdities. All boarding-schools, moreover, ought to\n      be beyond the city limits and if possible on some commanding\n      height. If there existed in France, as in Germany for example,\n      great colleges in country districts hard by forests, or still\n      better, in the highlands of Dauphiny or the Pyrenees, such\n      places would ultimately be adopted by the better classes for\n      their children\u2019s education, and thus might be combated the\n      degeneracy of the middle class, which is so much more rapid in\n      France than elsewhere, because the custom of restricting the\n      number of children interferes with natural selection.\n\n[Sidenote: Superior to enjoyment of human art.]\n\nCompare the appeal that nature makes to the \u00e6sthetic sense with that\nmade by human art, and you will at once perceive the superiority of\nthe former. Art, even great art, even that which seems closest to the\ntruth, can never be more than a very insufficient representation of the\nreal world, because it is forced to a selection; it is forced to ignore\nnine-tenths of life in order to set in a clear light what is extreme,\nwhat appeals to laughter or to tears. Average human life is neither\nridiculous nor tragic; life, as it appears in art, is generally one or\nthe other. The reason is that art subordinates truth to interest, while\nlife is truth. Thence results the movement toward pessimism in art,\nand in especial in modern art; the more masterly the artist is, the\nmore he will be inclined to seek for the ridiculous or the melancholy\naspects of life; his aim is to move pity or mirth, and existence in his\npages must take the form of tragedy or comedy. To live too exclusively\nin the world of art is to live in a factitious environment as if one\nshould pass one\u2019s whole existence in a theatre. The most beautiful\npoem, the most beautiful work of art, contains pitfalls which one must\navoid. The imagination usually plays with loaded dice. Whoever lives\ntoo exclusively on human art becomes, therefore, a little unhealthy, a\nlittle unbalanced. The great source of \u00e6sthetic appeal is and should be\nnature, which is always sincere, always shows for what it is, without\ndeception and ornament. A higher \u00e6sthetic culture will increase one\u2019s\nsensibility to natural beauty, and it is in a contemplation of the\ncosmos that \u00e6sthetic sentiment, and a purified religious sentiment,\nwill find it possible most completely to coincide. The emotion that\narises from the contemplation of a landscape, of a sunset, of a stretch\nof blue sea, of a snow-capped mountain outlined against the sky, or\neven the blue dome of the sky itself, is absolutely pure, sane, neither\ntoo depressing, nor too immoderately gay. In the presence of nature\none\u2019s \u00e6sthetic sensibilities become the means of refreshing and\nresting one instead of fatiguing one\u2014nature smiles but never grimaces;\nand its smile penetrates the soul as the sunlight penetrates the eye;\nand if nature has its moods of sadness, they contain a touch of the\ninfinite which enlarges the heart. The immensity of nature and of the\nall-enveloping heavens becomes, for those who feel it, a constant\nsource of a certain stoical serenity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHEISM.\n\nREVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESES WHICH WILL REPLACE\nDOGMA.\n\n    I. Introduction\u2014Progress of metaphysical\n      hypothesis\u2014Metaphysical hypotheses destined to increasing\n      diversity in details, and increasing agreement on essential\n      points\u2014Importance of the moral element in metaphysical\n      hypotheses\u2014The part played by conscience in human morality\n      will not diminish, as Mr. Spencer says\u2014Sympathetic groups\n      under which divers systems of metaphysics will be ranged.\n\n    II. Theism\u20141. Probable fate of the creation hypothesis\u2014The\n      author of the world conceived as a prime mover\u2014Eternity\n      of movement\u2014The author of the world conceived as a\n      creator properly so called\u2014Illusion involved in the\n      conception of nothing\u2014Criticism of the creation hypothesis\n      from the point of view of morals: the problem of evil\n      and of the responsibility of the creator\u2014Attempts\n      to save optimism\u2014Hypothesis of a God creating free\n      agents, \u201cworkmen\u201d and not \u201cwork\u201d\u2014Reciprocal determinism\n      and the illusion of spontaneity\u2014Immorality of the\n      temptation\u2014Hypothesis of the fall, its impossibility\u2014God\n      the tempter\u2014Lucifer and God\u20142. Probable fate of the\n      notion of Providence\u2014Hypotheses to explain a special\n      Providence and miracles thus insufficient\u2014Hypothesis of\n      a non-omnipotent God proposed by John Stuart Mill\u2014The\n      God of Comtism\u2014Religion should be not solely human but\n      cosmic\u2014The fate of the philosophical idea of God\u2014Rational\n      religion proposed by the neo-Kantians\u2014Ultimate\n      transformation of the notion of Divinity and of\n      Providence\u2014Human Providence and progressive Divinity in\n      the world.\n\n\n_I. Introduction\u2014Progress of metaphysical hypothesis._\n\n[Sidenote: Trend visible in metaphysical speculation.]\n\nTo say that humanity, in its search for a plausible explanation\nof the world, finds itself in the presence of a great number of\nhypotheses among which it must choose does not mean that these\nhypotheses should be regarded with a benevolent neutrality, that they\nare equivalent in the eyes of reason. Far from it: we believe that\nmetaphysical hypotheses already are following a certain general\ndirection and will continue to do so in the future. Our conception\nof the unknown will become precise as our knowledge of the knowable\nbecomes complete. Even morals, which vary so markedly from country to\ncountry, tend to approach a single type and to become identical among\nall civilized peoples. The same may be said of the practical part of\nall religions. Rites become every day simpler, and dogmas do the same,\nand metaphysical hypotheses will do the same. By the progress of human\nthought, the avenues that lead to truth will be better known. We regard\nit as certain, for example, that all effort will be abandoned, if it\nhas not been abandoned already, to conceive mankind\u2019s ideal as embodied\nin the jealous and evil God of the Bible.\n\n[Sidenote: Number of metaphysical hypotheses not destined to decrease.]\n\nThe angle at which different human beings look out upon the ideal\nwill continually diminish; and as the angle diminishes, the power of\nvision will increase, and this unexpected result will follow: that\nmetaphysical hypotheses concerning the world, and its destiny will\nnever be less numerous nor less varied, in spite of the increasing\nconvergence. Human thought may even become more personal, more\noriginal, fuller of delicate distinctions, and at the same time less\ninconsistent as one passes from mind to mind. As mankind approximates\nthe truth its details will become more various, and the beauty of\nthe whole more marked. An approach to certitude augments the dignity\nand probability of the possible hypotheses without diminishing their\nnumber. Astronomy, for example, has increased the sum of the known\ntruths about celestial bodies and at the same time multiplied the\nnumber of possible hypotheses concerning them; the most definite\nknowledge may thus be the most fertile in views of every sort, even\nof obscure ones. As the human mind progresses it will see the aspects\nof nature diversify and the laws of nature unify. This evening from\nSermione, the peninsula dear to Catullus, I saw on the surface of Lago\ndi Garda the reflection of as many stars as I could have seen had\nI lifted my eyes to heaven. Each star reflected in the lake was in\nreality nothing but a brilliant drop of water, close to my hand; each\nof the stars in heaven is a world separate from me by an infinite\nreach of space; the stars of heaven and of the lake were, however, to\nme the same. The real distance of things and the depth of the universe\nescape the human eye. But science corrects the eye, measures distances\nat their just worth, probes ever deeper into the vault of heaven,\ndistinguishing objects from their reflections. Science takes account\nat once of the place of the ray in the water and of its origin in the\nsky. It will perhaps one day discover, in an infinitely magnified\nexpanse of thought, the primitive and central spring of light which as\nyet communicates with us only by reflection and broken rays and flying\nscintillations from some unstable mirror.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Moralism.]\n\nSince the Stoics and Kant, metaphysical hypotheses have come to be\nregarded from a new point of view. What to-day has come to be the\ngreat charm of such hypotheses is that they endeavour to lend a moral\nsignificance to the world, to impress upon the course of universal\nevolution a direction conformable to that of our conscience as\naffectionate and sociable beings. The future history of religion may\nbe summed up in this law: that religious dogmas, transformed at first\ninto simple metaphysical conjectures, reduced later to a certain number\nof definite hypotheses, among which the individual made his choice on\nincreasingly rational grounds, ultimately came to bear principally on\nthe problem of morals. Religious metaphysics, in effect, will result in\na transcendental theory of universality, an ideal sociology embracing\nin its sweep all the beings that constitute the universe; and this\nsociology will be founded, not upon physical inductions, like that\nof the earliest religions, nor upon ontological inductions like that\nof the first system of metaphysics, but upon the moral conscience of\nmankind. Animism, theism, pantheism, are destined to fall under the\ndomination of what may be called moralism.\n\n[Sidenote: Increasing interest in moralism.]\n\nSuch diverse solutions as may be given of the moral problem thus\nunderstood will always interest mankind, but they will occupy a\nsmaller and smaller place in its practical life; they will lose the\nextraordinary influence that religions have often possessed over\nthe conduct of men. As society progresses the moral agent will find\nless and less need to appeal for support in the conduct of life to\nmetaphysical hypotheses and systematic uncertainty. Positive morality\nwill more and more completely suffice for the ordinary exigencies of\nlife. Generosity of heart will be less dependent on the intelligence\nfor its adventurous impulses; it will produce them unassisted.\nMetaphysical speculations will tend to become, like the highest\n\u00e6sthetic products, a luxury; they will be sought for their own sakes,\nand for the general elevation of mind that they bestow, rather than for\nguidance in particular matters of conduct. The destiny of the world\nwill interest us quite apart from any question of our own destiny, and\nour voyages into the unknown will be prompted not by selfishness but by\ndisinterested curiosity.\n\n[Sidenote: And in reflective rectitude.]\n\nWe do not believe, however, with Mr. Spencer that the part to be\nplayed by the reflective conscience in human life is destined to\ndiminish, nor that man will come to do what is right in obedience to\na blind instinct\u2014to rush into the fire or throw himself into the\nwater to save the life of a fellow-creature almost as irreflectively\nas he would lift his hat to a friend in the street. On the contrary,\nman will become more and more reflective and philosophical in all\nthings, and among others, in regard to the directing principles of\nhis conduct. And there is no room in all this for the belief that the\ndissolving influence exercised by reflection upon primitive instincts\nwill seriously hinder the growth of the social instinct. Intelligence\nparalyzes instincts only when it is obliged to oppose them, when it\ndoes not justify them, when it aims really at displacing them.[129]\nBut speculative thought will always justify social instinct, even\nconsidered purely from the scientific and positive point of view. As\nwe have shown, the most extraordinary manifestation of the social\ninstinct, devotion, belongs to the general law of life, and does not\nin the least possess the abnormal character that has sometimes been\nattributed to it; to run a risk for someone else is not to be purely\nunselfish, for one is attracted by the sublimity of danger and of risk,\nand a capacity for this attraction has been developed and rendered\npowerful by natural selection in the higher species of the animal\nkingdom; the desire to expose one\u2019s self is almost normal in a morally\nwell-constituted individual. In morals as in \u00e6sthetics sublimity is\nallied to beauty.[130] The speculative instinct will, therefore,\nnot counteract the social instinct; it will rather fortify it, and\nhuman disinterestedness generally, for speculation itself is the most\ndisinterested act of the mental life. Generally speaking, reflective\nconscience is always more disinterested than irreflective action, which\nis typified in reflex action; it is less directly useful to life on\nits simplest terms. Parallel to the development of conscience and of\nspeculative intelligence there goes always a development of our moral\nactivity. The more truly intelligent a human being is the more active\nhe is; and the more active he is, the less self-sufficing he becomes,\nthe greater his need to live for someone else. Antisocial beings are\nalmost always mentally and physically dawdlers, who are incapable of\ncontinuous mental or physical labour. Activity of mind must inevitably,\ntherefore, indirectly fortify the moral instincts. Sociality is\ndeveloped by thought.\n\n      [129] See upon this point the author\u2019s _Probl\u00e8mes\n      d\u2019esth\u00e9tique_, p. 139 (_De l\u2019antagonisme entre l\u2019esprit\n      scientifique et l\u2019instinct_.)\n\n      [130] _Esquisse d\u2019une morale sans obligation_, p. 215.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Possible to classify the diverse systems of future.]\n\nAlthough by the progress of analysis the complication of the great\nmental and moral hypotheses must increase, it is possible, even at\nthe present day, to foresee the main synthetic groups under which the\nseveral systems will be classifiable.\n\n[Sidenote: Present interest in such systems.]\n\nThis book is not a treatise on metaphysics: an exposition and criticism\nof these systems will not, therefore, here be expected; but their\ncharacteristic spirit, which has also been the spirit of the great\nreligions, is of interest to us here, and, for us, constitutes their\nvalue. It is this spirit which is at once speculative and religious,\nin the true sense of the word, that it is important, accordingly, to\nelicit, and that wholly without dogmatical or polemical aim of any\nkind. Absolute sincerity, impersonal and passionate sincerity, is\nthe first duty of the philosopher. To arrange the world according to\none\u2019s personal preferences, to be on the lookout, not for the most\nprobable, but for the most consoling hypotheses, is to resemble a\nmerchant who should count his credits only when he is making up his\nbooks and should indulge in none but consoling additions. The strictest\nprobity is demanded of him who balances the great book of life; the\nphilosopher should hide nothing either from others or from himself. We\nshall endeavour, therefore, to set forth, what are in our judgment the\ndiverse aspects under which the knowable as a whole, and therefore also\nthe unknowable, or if you prefer, the great unknown, present themselves\nto-day. We shall endeavour to interpret the great metaphysical systems\nsympathetically, without, however, any illusions in regard to their\nincompleteness and their errors. In a certain church in Verona sacred\ntexts are inscribed on the marble slabs of which the floor is composed;\nthey interpret and complete each other, and, however obscure at first,\ngradually become plain as one advances under the high arched roof; thus\nit is in life: the religious and philosophical beliefs in the midst\nof which we live seem to us at first enigmatical and mysterious, we\ntrample them under foot without understanding them; but, as we advance,\nwe discover their hidden meaning, their na\u00efvet\u00e9, and their profoundity.\nAt every step in life a new perspective into the heart of humanity is\nthrown open to us; to live is to understand, and to understand is not\nonly to tolerate but to love. Such love, however, is not incompatible\nwith clearness of vision, nor with an effort to transform and\nameliorate the beloved object; on the contrary, a really active love\nought to be, more than all else, a desire for transformation and for\nprogress. To love a being or a belief is to seek to make it better.\n\n\n_II. Theism._\n\n[Sidenote: Theism and religion distinct.]\n\nThe majority of people scarcely see any possible alternative to such\nand such a determinate religion except atheism. The fact is, of course,\nquite otherwise. Religious thought manifests itself in a hundred\nforms; why should free-thought be restricted to a single conception of\nthe universe? I have known a multitude of free-thinkers who believed\nmore sincerely in the existence of God, in the immortality of the\nsoul, and, in general, in spiritual principles than a great many\nprofessed worshippers. Were they right to do so? Was Voltaire, for\nexample, who based his affirmation of the existence of God upon the\nsplendour of a sunrise, somewhat na\u00efve, and inclined to mistake an\nemotion for a bit of proof? It makes little difference; what we wish\nto set in relief is that faith in a priest is not necessarily part and\nparcel of faith in a God, and that the disappearance of the former may\nlend an increase of power and of refinement to the latter. No single\nphilosophic doctrine is to be regarded as standing alone in opposition\nto the whole body of religions; religions and philosophies together\nare all philosophic doctrines, all hypotheses, and none of them above\ndiscussion. We say to the individual: \u201cWeigh and choose.\u201d And among\nthese hypotheses we include that of which modern religions constitute\nthe symbolic expression, theism. If the religious anomy which we regard\nas the ideal implies the suppression of everything in the nature of an\nexternal revelation, it does not on that account exclude a subjective\nand personal intuition of divinity. Even mystics may find their account\nin the religious individualism of the future. Intuition, however, in\nmetaphysics as in morals, is every day losing ground. The progress\nof ideas will result in the gradual triumph of scientific induction\nover alleged natural intuition, of probability over faith. Subjective\nrevelation will disappear as objective revelation is doing, and give\nplace by degrees to reasoning. Dogmatic theism, like all dogma, is\ndoomed; but what is purest in the theistic spirit may survive.\n\n[Sidenote: God conceived as prime mover a superfluity according to\nmodern physics.]\n\nI. Let us first consider the probable fate of the dogma of the Creator,\nwhich belongs to the great Jewish, Christian, and Islamite religions.\nScience follows the law of parsimony; nature economizes force, science\neconomizes ideas. The first economy to be undertaken might well relate\nprecisely to the idea of the creation. The author of the world may\nbe conceived as the universal motor. But the conception of cause as\na source of movement, or as a prime motor, is full of contradictions\nand is becoming more and more foreign to modern philosophy. For the\nconception of a first cause implies a pre-existing state of repose, and\nrepose is no more primitive and absolute than nothingness. Nothing is\nin repose, nothing has ever been in repose. The most motionless atom\nin the atmosphere describes in its vibration, according to Clausius,\nfour hundred and forty-seven metres a second in a space of ninety-five\nmillionths of a millimetre; it receives during this time four billion\nseven hundred million shocks. The vibrating atom of hydrogen describes\none thousand eight hundred and eighty-four metres in a second. Repose\nis an illusion of the human mind, and the conception of a divine first\nmover is a second illusion based on the first. The eternal movement\nthat stirred the molecules of the primitive substance, later grouped\nthem into spheres, and the spheres began whirling of their own accord\nin the ether without need of a preliminary push from the sacred beetle\n(as the Egyptian legend has it) that rolls his sacred ball, which is\nthe image of the universe. Where, as Strauss remarked, Newton felt\ncalled upon to assume a \u201cdivine first impulse,\u201d and Buffon was obliged\nto resort to the hypothesis of a comet colliding with the primitive\nsphere and breaking it up into the fragments which now constitute the\nearth and the planets, we need invoke nothing but the fixity of natural\nlaws. Since Kant, Descartes, and Laplace, we possess an approximate\nexplanation of the formation of the stars, which are alternately\nproduced and dissolved by the concentration and resolution of material\nmasses\u2014are born to be \u201cdevoured,\u201d as Kant said, in the abyss of\neternity. One and the same cause, resistance of the ether, explains the\nagglomeration of nebulous matter into nucle\u00ef, and the slowing down of\nthe motion of the spheres thus formed, and the ultimate fall of these\nspheres upon some neighbouring centre of attraction and the resulting\ndispersion into nebul\u00e6.\n\n[Sidenote: And with physiology.]\n\nMore than that, by the progress of physiology and natural history,\nthe organic and the inorganic worlds have come to be conceived\nas so closely related that a true explanation of the first would\nprobably include a true explanation of the second. The chasm that once\nexisted between life and what sustains life has been closed. If our\nlaboratories do not enable us to catch spontaneous generation in the\nact, the reason is simply that their resources are not equal to those\nof nature, that they have not the same means at their disposal, that\nthe so-called primitive beings that we endeavour to produce in the\nlaboratory are really not primitive. Men of science who have attempted\nsuch experiments resemble the followers of Darwin who have tried to\ntransform an anthropoid ape into a human being. Nature permits of an\ninfinite convergence of forces upon a determinate point, that cannot\nbe realized in a laboratory. More than that, time, which we are always\ninclined to neglect, is a necessary factor in the evolution of things;\nwhat is natural is slow. To find the earliest stages of organic life,\nas to find the early stages in the formation of a star, we must go far\nback into the remote past.\n\n[Sidenote: God conceived as a Creator worse than superfluous.]\n\nIf there is no necessity for the conception of God as a prime mover,\nis there any necessity for the conception of God as the Creator of\nthe universe? A creative cause seems to the modern mind less and less\nneeded for the explanation of the world, for the fact of existence\nstands in no need of explanation; what rather needs explanation is\nnon-existence. Death, repose, are all relative and derived. Death\nimplies life, and is itself only a provisional stage, an interval\nbetween two metamorphoses. There exists no _punctum mortuum_, no\none really dead point in the universe. It is by a pure artifice of\nthought that religions have conceived the universe as beginning in\nannihilation, in death (which is a remote consequence of life), in\norder to afford an opportunity for the intervention of a creative\npower: creation is a resurrection following on a fictitious death.\n\n[Sidenote: Nothingness an aspect of existence.]\n\nThe real state of the case is not that existence springs from\nnon-existence, but that non-existence is a simple aspect of existence,\nor rather an illusion of thought. The notion of creation will be more\nand more widely displaced by that of evolution and variation. Different\nworlds are eternal variations on the same theme, the _tat tvam asi_ of\nthe Hindus tends to become a scientific variety. A substantial unity\nof the world and the solidarity of all the beings in the world will,\nundoubtedly, be more and more clearly demonstrated.\n\n[Sidenote: God responsible for evil.]\n\nThe creation may be considered, since Kant\u2019s time, as a demonstrably\nindemonstrable and even inconceivable hypothesis; but Kant did not\nstay to inquire whether the Biblical dogma of the creation will not\ntend to appear to us increasingly immoral; a tendency which, according\nto Kant\u2019s principles, would suffice to cause it to be rejected in the\nfuture. A doubt, which some thinkers of antiquity felt keenly, has come\nto be widely diffused in our days; a Creator is a being in whom all\nthings find their reason and their cause, and who, consequently, is\nultimately responsible for everything. He is responsible for all the\nevil in the universe. As the idea of infinite power, of supreme liberty\nof action became inseparable from the conception of God, God was\ndeprived of every excuse, for the Absolute is dependent upon nothing.\nEverything, on the contrary, depends on Him and finds its reason in\nHim. In the last resort He alone is culpable; His work, in the manifold\nseries of its effects, presents itself to modern thought as one sole\naction, and this action, like any other, is capable of being sat upon\nin moral judgment; the author is to be judged by his work, the world\npasses judgment on God. Well, as evil and immorality in the universe,\nwith the progress of the moral sense, become more shocking, it seems\nthat to admit the creation hypothesis is to centralize, to concentrate,\nall the immorality of the world in one being, and to justify the\nparadox: \u201cGod is evil.\u201d To admit the doctrine of a Creator is, in a\nword, to banish evil from the world to God, its primordial source; to\nabsolve men and the universe and accuse the author of both.\n\n[Sidenote: Evil of denying the existence of evil to exculpate God.]\n\nThere is something still worse than referring the source of all evil\nthus to a creative will, and that is, for the purpose of exculpating\nthe Creator, to deny the evil itself, and to declare that this world\nis the best of all possible worlds. Such is the choice that Leibnitz\nand the theologians made. Religions are obliged to apologize for\nthe universe, to profess an admiration for the divine plan; they\nhold in reserve excuses for the existence of injustice, and labour\nunconsciously to falsify the moral sense, in order to relieve God of\nhis responsibility.\n\n[Sidenote: Doctrine that physical or intellectual evil are conditions\nof well-being.]\n\nMany hypotheses have been devised in the service of optimism to excuse\nthe Creator, without compromising the moral sense, and mankind\u2019s\ninstinct for progress. Physical evil (suffering), intellectual evil\n(error and doubt), have been declared to be a condition _sine qua\nnon_ of moral good; which would justify them. Moral evil would thus\nremain the sole verifiable evil in the universe, and as moral evil\nconsists simply in evil intentions on the part of men, men alone, on\nthis hypothesis, would be responsible. The universe itself, that is\nto say, would contain no evil except in the person of the man who is\npurposely evil by his own free choice, and the possibility of moral\nevil might be considered as a supreme condition of moral goodness,\nthe latter presupposing freedom of choice, a selection by the will,\nand an alternative to be refused. The evil in the universe would thus\nbe compensated for by morality, suffering would be compensated for by\nvirtue, mistakes by good will. The world itself would be simply a means\nof producing morality and, in its apparent imperfection, it would be\nthe best world possible, because its apparent imperfection would be\nnecessary to produce what is best in it.\n\n[Sidenote: Doctrine that the dignity of the world lies in its\nspontaneity.]\n\nThe world, it has been said, cannot be in every respect absolute,\nfor it would then be God; it must always be in the position of a\nrecipient; the less it receives\u2014the more it acts in independence\nof external aid, the more it develops from within, and the more it\napproaches the Absolute, insomuch that the very poverty of the earth\nconstitutes its grandeur, since it is the condition of its real\nwealth, a wealth not borrowed from another but acquired by its own\neffort. Everything, therefore, becomes transfigured according to this\nhypothesis, every suffering becomes a merit; God wished to create the\nmost spontaneous world possible, that is to say at bottom to create\nas little as possible, to leave as large an initiative as possible to\nhis creatures. _Laissez faire_ is God\u2019s device, as it is the device of\nall good government. A small result, but obtained by spontaneity, is\nsuperior to a greater result obtained by mechanical artifice. \u201cDivine\nart,\u201d says a philosopher, in commenting on some doctrines of Plato,\n\u201cis infinitely superior to human art; it creates individuals who are\nends unto themselves and self-evolved. These individuals are not, as\nLeibnitz believed, automata ... true perfection is autonomous. If God\nis only a demiurge, he may be accused, and ought to be accused, of\nbeing a bad workman. Is the world not full of unsuccessful attempts,\nof unfortunate combinations, of ends either missed altogether or ill\nachieved? The critics of Providence will always have enough to say, but\nthese unfinished sketches are the work not of God but of his creatures,\nof the forces and individual souls that he has set in operation. In a\nword God is not a workman who produces works, but a workman who creates\nworkmen.\u201d[131] This formula sums up in a striking manner what may be\ncalled transfigured optimism. The new hypothesis does not deny evil,\nbut, on the contrary, hastens to admit it; but by converting evil into\na consequence of spontaneity, it subordinates it to good itself, makes\nit labour in the service of its opposite; the most fragmentary sketch\nbecomes respectable when it is a step, and a necessary step, toward a\nmasterpiece.\n\n      [131] A. Fouill\u00e9e, _Philosophie de Platon_, t. ii. p. 639. See\n      also M. Secr\u00e9tan, _Philosophie de la libert\u00e9_, and Vallier,\n      _L\u2019Intention morale_.\n\n[Sidenote: Criticised.]\n\nThe hypothesis in question is certainly one which, within the realm of\ntheism, may well continue to be long the most plausible. It gives rise,\nhowever, to a great many difficulties. In the first place it assumes\nthe superiority of what is spontaneous to what is not; of what, so to\nspeak, does itself, as compared with what is done. Be it so, but in\nwhat respect can beings in this world be said to lead a spontaneous\nexistence; in what respect can I be said to lead a spontaneous\nexistence? Am I not the result of a multitude of causes? I was born\nand am maintained by the consilience of a multitude of little cellular\nor atomic volitions. Should I be less than I am if I were the result of\na single volition, and that a divine volition? Over and above myself\nthere always exist my antecedents, the causes of me; my true cause does\nnot lie within the limits of myself: what difference does it make to\nme, therefore, whether those causes lie within the universe or beyond?\nWhether the world is the more or less harmonious work of a multitude of\nblind spontaneities or the work of a single intelligent will, neither\ndiminishes nor increases the value of any given individual that is the\nproduct of the world. My ancestors are indifferent to me the instant I\nbecome dependent upon ancestors at all. Should the statue of Pygmalion\nreproach the sculptor with having made it beautiful, and having made it\nwith his own hands, and definitively fashioned it for life? Providing\nit lives and is happy, it matters little whence its life comes.\nObscurity lies behind, light and life lie before, and it is forward\nthat one\u2019s face is set.\n\n[Sidenote: Results in determinism.]\n\nIn the new Platonic hypothesis, transfigured as above, the organization\nof the individual always becomes, in the last resort, the work of a\nreciprocal determinism. According to the ordinary hypothesis, it is\nthe work of a single, absolute, determining will; but the absolute or\nrelative character of the determining principle in nowise affects the\nnature of what is determined. The actual world is no more passive,\nif it is produced directly by the operation of the first cause, than\nif it is produced indirectly by the intermediation of a multitude\nof derivative causes, even if these causes present individually the\ncharacter of spontaneity. After all, since the individual must always\nbe solidary, solidarity between it and divine perfection is preferable\nto solidarity with derivative imperfection.\n\n[Sidenote: And contradicts itself.]\n\nThere is, however, in the Platonic and Aristotelian notion of\nspontaneity an element of profundity and of verisimilitude, but it\nleads precisely to the refutation of the doctrine of creation: once\ncarry the hypothesis of the spontaneity of existence to its ultimate\nconclusion, and the original fund of existence must be impoverished\nuntil nothing but nude unqualifiable substance be left; but that is to\nsay, one must go back to Aristotle\u2019s pure force, to Hegel\u2019s pure being,\nwhich is identical with not being; the masterpiece of spontaneity\nwould be self-creation. The instant such a spontaneity is possible God\nis a superfluity; it is easier to say that becoming arose out of the\nidentity of being and not being, or rather that becoming is eternal on\nits own account. Becoming thus becomes God and theism becomes atheism\nor pantheism.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nTo sum up, the Creator unable to create bare, virtual substance, must\nhave created beings endowed with some real quality; but, if so, they\nare once for all his works and not simply independent workmen. More\nthan that, such a substance with such qualities once created, such and\nsuch effects necessarily follow; qualities are determinations which\ndetermine subsequent determinations in their turn. Behold therefore the\npresent, big with the future. The world becomes a determined succession\nof \u201cworks\u201d which develop fatally from their earliest stage.\n\n[Sidenote: Doctrine that God has created beings free to choose\ncriticized.]\n\nM. Secr\u00e9tan will tell us that God simply created free wills but not\nsubstances; but it must be confessed that these free wills have been\nimmersed in a deterministic universe which leaves them little liberty\nof action. Why, therefore, did He not create us freer and still\nfreer and as free as Himself? But we should have been gods, it is\nobjected:\u2014so much the better, might be replied; there could not be\ntoo many gods; we do not see why God should have reduced himself to\na unity, \u201cas if the laws of number constituted a limitation of His\npower.\u201d[132] It does not appear why the Creator should be unable to\ncreate a double of Himself; why He should be obliged to hand on the\ndivine life, that He wishes to share, on lower terms only; we do not\nsee why God\u2019s productivity should involve a certain degeneration.\n\n      [132] M. Fouill\u00e9e has effectively stated this in his _Syst\u00e8mes\n      de morale contemporains_, where he in some measure attacks the\n      hypothesis that he had incidentally proposed in his commentary\n      on Plato.\n\n[Sidenote: A maximum of liberty.]\n\nIn any event, in default of other attributes, we ought to be given the\nmaximum of possible liberty; admitting that we could not be created\nfree and equal to God, our liberty should differ from His by a minimum.\nThis minimum, being susceptible of infinite diminution, might become\nless than any conceivable difference; it might become, that is to say,\ninfinitely little, practically zero; but we are far from any such\nexalted station, and if God gave us liberty He was very miserly about\nit.\n\n[Sidenote: An abuse of language to call us free.]\n\nTo say the truth, it is only by an abuse of language that any such\nideal liberty is ascribed to us as is attributed to God, and regarded\nas of infinite value. The freedom that religion ascribes to us is\nfreedom of the will, power to do evil or good, a power the very\nconsequence of which is irreconcilable with the notion of God. Without\nentering upon a consideration of what such a power would be and of its\nmoral worth, why does our free-will exist in the midst of conditions so\nunfavourable to it, so calculated to render it ineffective? The sole\nresponse is the classic theory of the temptation. The temptation, as\nan explanation of the world, practically involves the hypothesis of a\nfather exposing his children, as a means of testing their virtue, to\ntemptations of vice and crime, and knowing beforehand that they will\nsuccumb. Morally, the conception is simply inadmissible; is worthy of\nthe distant times when hearts were harder than they are to-day. More\nthan that, the only beings that could in any proper sense be put to\nthe proof are truly conscientious beings, for they alone are capable\nof entertaining a moral alternative. A reflective conscience is so\nrare in the world! By virtue of what temptation resisted are minerals\nand vegetables permitted to exist in unconsciousness and sleep, while\nanimals are torn by the miseries of life and death without being able\nto convert their sufferings into a confirmation of the moral will or\namelioration of their lot?\n\n[Sidenote: Doctrine of the fall.]\n\nThe supreme resource of Christianity and of religions generally is\nthe doctrine of the fall, but this explanation of evil as the result\nof a primitive imperfection is an explanation of evil by evil. The\nfall must have been preceded by some defect in the will itself, or\nthe will would not have failed. Original sin is not an ultimate; one\ndoes not stumble if there is no obstacle in the way, and one\u2019s legs\nare well made, and one is walking in the eye of the Lord. Sin involves\ntemptation, and the doctrine of the temptation necessarily implies\nthat God was the first tempter; morally, it was God himself who fell\nin the fall of His creatures by Him planned. To explain original\nsin, which is the root of all sin, the sin of Lucifer, theologians\nhave resorted not to a temptation within the realm of sense, but to\na temptation within the realm of intelligence. It was by pride that\nthe angels fell. Their sin rose thus out of the very centre of their\nminds. But pride is incidental only to short-sightedness. Complete\nscience is aware of its own limitations. Pride, therefore, results from\ninsufficiency of knowledge. The pride of the angels was due to God. One\nmay have reasons for wishing to do and for doing evil, but reasons do\nnot hold in the face of reason itself. If, according to the partisans\nof free-will, human intelligence is capable by virtue of pride and\ninner perversity of creating out of nothing motives for evil-doing, it\nis at least incapable of so doing except in so far as its knowledge\nis limited, ambiguous and uncertain. Practically, nobody hesitates\nexcept in the absence of absolute knowledge. There is no such thing\nas rationally and consciously flying in the face of reason. Lucifer\nwas, therefore, by his very nature impeccable. The will to do evil is\nborne of the opposition which an imperfect intelligence fancies it\nperceives, in a world hypothetically perfect, between its own advantage\nand the advantage of everybody else. But if God and his works are\nreally perfect, such an antinomy between the good of the individual\nand the universal good, which even to the best human intelligences\nappears provisional only, would _a fortiori_ appear so to one of the\narchangels of the intelligence, to the Light-bearer of thought. To\nknow is to participate in the supreme truth, in the divine conscience;\nto possess all knowledge would be to possess, among other things, the\nmoral insight of God; and how out the midst of all that divinity should\nanything Satanic arise?\n\n[Sidenote: God always responsible in the last resort.]\n\nTo-day, when a sin is committed among men and it cannot be traced\nto any fault of education, or of environment, or of overwhelming\ntemptation, men of science look for the explanation among the ancestors\nof the guilty person, in the conviction that they must be in the\npresence of a case of atavism. No such explanation could exist in the\ncase of God\u2019s firstborn. When the world was young and beautiful and\ngood, original sin was as wonderful as the first appearance of the\nworld itself; it was a veritable creation of something out of nothing.\nSatan\u2019s creation was superior to God\u2019s. His moral _fiat nox_ was\ngreater in genius and creative power than God\u2019s _fiat lux_. In effect,\nevery religious explanation of evil ultimately leads to the ascription\nof it to God himself or to a being more powerful than God, and in\nboth cases equally the Creator is debased. That fact constitutes the\nprincipal reason that compromises the creation hypothesis, properly so\ncalled, for every philosophical mind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Special Providence and miracles.]\n\nII. The second notion of theism is that of Providence, which may\nbe either general or special. Along with the notion of a special\nProvidence governing the world from without, we have seen that the\nnotion of miracle must be included. The sole means by which these two\ndecrepit conceptions can be defended are the following: Conceive,\nwith Pascal, two worlds, a physical world and above it the moral\nworld enveloping it, and in places penetrating it. The points of\nintersection, so to speak, between the moral and physical world are\nmiracles. They are not so much breaches in the laws of nature as\naffirmations of superior laws. Such is the argument; but we reply\nthat the so-called superior laws are inevitably, in certain respects,\ncontradictory to those of nature, in the very respects in reference to\nwhich the miracle has happened. One cannot, for example, suppose that\na saint, precipitated from the height of a rock, resists the law of\ngravitation and floats up to heaven, without a manifest contradiction,\nso far as natural laws are concerned; without a destruction, indeed, of\nthose laws. More than that, a moral law is such precisely in so far as\nit differs in the lines of its applicability from natural law; just in\nso far as a conflict between it and natural laws is inconceivable. Only\na natural law can suspend (and that apparently only) the operation of a\nnatural law.\n\n[Sidenote: Attempt to limit its activity to the subjective side.]\n\nIt has been fancied that the difficulty about miracles may be done\naway with by conceiving that Providence acts, not upon the material\nuniverse, but upon human thought, by means of suggestion, inspirations\nfrom on high, providential ideas; but contemporary science has\nestablished so intimate a connection between motion and thought that\nit is impossible to distinguish between an influence exerted in the\nspiritual and an influence exerted in the material world. It is\nhopeless to attempt to immaterialize Providence in order to save it.\nThe special intervention of Providence must be material or not at all.\n\n[Sidenote: Universal Providence.]\n\nThe old conception of miracles and of the supernatural and special\nProvidence was therefore, in a certain sense, logical. Religions had\nnot been mistaken; they had perceived that the day Providence became\ntoo exclusively universal religion would be absorbed in metaphysics,\nand this result, in effect, will be produced in the future. Religions\nhave never supported the theory of a general Providence, and it is\ncertain that if a general Providence sufficed for the abstract reason\nof a Malebranche, with his sense of order, symmetry, and law, it would\nnot suffice for the human heart, with its sense of justice and its\ndesire, if it is to sacrifice itself for God, to find in the God at\nleast a defender and a benefactor. A benefit loses its value as such\nby being too indirect; humanity has little understanding of justice in\ngeneral which treats the individual as a means of securing the good of\nthe whole and sacrifices him at need\u2014at least, for a time. Charity,\nlike justice, it seems to him, should be individual and special. A\nuniversal Providence is so universal that no traces of it exist in\nthe details of life, and in especial in the particular evils and\nsufferings which form so large a part of life. The God of Malebranche,\nwho is incapable of showing His effective benevolence to any of us\nindividually, is paralyzed, as Louis XIV. was, by His very greatness.\nHe is the sole being who cannot move without breaking a natural law,\nand who consequently is condemned to eternal immobility. The least of\nHis interventions being a miracle, He cannot employ the means that\nother beings employ without derogating from His dignity and His power;\nso that God is reduced, if He is to remain God, either to standing\ninert or to contradicting our intelligence. By that very fact He ceases\nto be lovable, unless one pretend to love Him precisely for what He\ncannot do, for the benevolence that He cannot show, as for the prayers\nHe cannot grant. Pity is the sole sentiment that can be roused in us by\na being who is so good that He cannot wish evil, and so powerless that\nHe is obliged to see nothing but evil accomplished in the world. No\nhuman misery could be comparable to a divine misery like that. The very\nheight of suffering must be experienced by a God who should at once\nbe conscious of His own infinity and should feel the distance which\nseparates Him from the world which He has created. Only the clear and\nprofound vision of such a God could penetrate the abyss of evil to the\nbottom, and it is He of all beings in the world who would suffer from\nan eternal vertigo.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: God\u2019s omnipotence.]\n\nWhat is most unacceptable in the traditional notion of Providence is\nthe attribute of omnipotence. In the first place, divine omnipotence\nis inconsistent with the existence of evil; in the second place, it\nleads logically to the possibility of supernatural intervention in this\nworld, which, if it is to be of any service, must be special and not\ngeneral. To avoid these implications of the conception of Providence,\nJohn Stuart Mill has conceived a superior and divine being who should\nnot be all-powerful. This being would be the principle of good, acting\nin the universe according to natural laws, but hindered and retarded in\nhis action by these laws themselves, which bring suffering and death.\nThe existence of such a being once established, religion would be saved\nand morality confirmed. Virtue would consist in a sort of co-operation\nwith this great unknown being, who is struggling against evil. The good\nman would feel that he was aiding God and that God was aiding him in\nso far as He found it possible.\n\n[Sidenote: Non-omnipotent God.]\n\nThis amended conception of Providence is more admissible and more\nreconcilable with the real and imperfect world that we are familiar\nwith. But it must be confessed that the amendment amounts to an almost\ncomplete cancellation. If Providence is to be reduced thus simply to\none of the forces at work in nature, to the force that makes more or\nless partially and provisionally for goodness, there is nothing to\ndistinguish it from the power that makes for evolution, from natural\nselection, or from any other beneficent natural law. To personify such\nlaws is futile scientifically; and, practically, is it so very useful?\nOr conceive the being as existent side by side with these laws and\nwatching their operation, but unable to contravene it; but so to do\nis to return to the conception of an ineffective, immobile God. The\nprime condition of existence for a God is to be good for something; a\nnon-omnipotent God soon comes to be an impotent God. The actual world\nmarks the extreme limits of the power of such a God, and at some stage\nin the course of evolution the unconscious forces of nature, leagued\ntogether against the principle of goodness, may succeed in paralyzing\nit entirely.\n\n[Sidenote: Is such a God to be conceived as eternal?]\n\nMore than that, is a non-omnipotent God to be conceived as eternal?\nIf not, He is in no very striking respect superior to man. His power\nis so slight that He has not even been able to make it very clearly\nmanifest to mankind that it exists at all. Or if He is eternal, and\neternally present in all things, then His lack of power is growing and\nbecoming radical. One may in any event congratulate one\u2019s self that a\nblind and indifferent universe has, among all possible combinations,\nfallen by chance into the one which constitutes our present world; but\na God who has pursued goodness conscientiously through a whole eternity\ndemonstrates His complete incapacity, if He has succeeded in producing\nnothing better than such a miscarriage of the ideal as this universe.\nThe judgment that may fairly be passed upon the world is altogether\ndependent upon the question who made it and who created life; if the\nworld is self-evolved, it may well appear to us as possessing a certain\nbeauty, as giving an earnest of better things; but if it is the work\nof an intelligent will, present in all things, and persisting in its\ndesigns throughout the eternity of the past, it is inevitable that\none should feel that this volition has not been possessed of great\npower, that the importance of the victory is not in proportion to the\nduration of the struggle, that such a God does not constitute a very\nsolid support, and that His existence is a matter of indifference to\nthe future of the universe. Is such a God more powerful than humanity,\nor even so powerful? His eternity is but a proof of voluntary or forced\ninaction; far from dignifying Him it debases Him. On the surface of\nthe earth there are many species of insects which were probably in\nexistence before the race of man. In the transparent amber that belongs\nto tertiary strata may be seen the little corselet of the melipones\ncaught and held there these past five hundred thousand years. Are these\ndistant predecessors of the human race on that account more venerable?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The religion of humanity.]\n\nJohn Stuart Mill, a disciple of Auguste Comte, put forth this theory of\na non-omnipotent Providence, conceived on the model of the human will,\nwith a certain mental reservation; his real meaning was that for many\ncultivated men such a being, labouring for goodness, according to the\nutmost of its limited power, would be confounded with humanity, taken\nas a whole. Humanity is, in effect, according to Comte, a great being\nof divine aspirations, to whom one might, with all one\u2019s heart, render\nhomage; in especial, if one leaves out of account the individuals who\nare, properly speaking, only parasites, and do not co-operate for the\nproduction of the common result, whom progress consists precisely in\nexcluding from society. Religion, on this theory, is the state of\nspiritual unity resulting from the convergence of all our thoughts and\nall our actions toward the service of humanity. This, as Mill said,\nis a genuine religion, quite capable of resisting sceptical attack\nand of undertaking the labour of the older cults. According to this\ndoctrine, Providence is simply humanity, looking after the interest of\nits individual members. Such a Providence, regarded as one with human\nvolition, might assuredly be accepted by any philosopher; it marks, as\nwe shall see later, the extreme limit of which the development of the\nnotion of a Special Providence is susceptible, the point at which this\nnotion and the conception of human morality become one. The precept\nto love mankind in God becomes transformed into the precept to love\nGod in mankind. For a philosopher who identifies God with his ideal,\nboth precepts are equally true and beautiful. We have ourselves shown\nhow the religious sentiment in the course of its evolution tends to\nbecome one with the respect and love of humanity, and how religious\nfaith tends to develop into a moral faith, and a simple and active\nhopefulness in the triumph of moral goodness.\n\n[Sidenote: Criticised.]\n\nJohn Stuart Mill\u2019s and Comte\u2019s ideas are thus shielded against\ncriticism so long as they are taken in a general and almost\nmetaphorical sense; but if they are to be interpreted literally and\nmade the basis of a cult and a religion of humanity, they are puerile\nsimply. Precisely because Providence can be realized by humanity, the\ncult for Providence, with all its ceremonies, invocations, adorations,\nwhich are manifest and ridiculous paganism, must be suppressed. Every\norganism exemplifies a certain sort of Providence\u2014even the social\norganism, which is the equilibrium of the laws of life. The totality of\nan organism is truly admirable, and one may readily understand how any\nindividual member, if he is endowed with consciousness, might admire\nthe whole to which he belongs; but how could he make it the object of\na cult? The cellules which constitute me might well be interested in\nthe preservation of what I call myself and help each other, and by\nthat very fact help me to that end, but they could not adore me. Love\nof humanity is one thing, and idolatry of humanity, or sociolatry,\naccording to Comte\u2019s term, is another. A really sincere and enlightened\nlove of humanity is the very opposite of such idolatry; would be\nby it compromised and corrupted. The cult for humanity reminds one\nof the antique, na\u00efve cult for the family, for the lares, for the\nhearth, for the sacred fire kept alive beneath the ashes. To preserve\nrespect and love to-day does not require a resuscitation of all these\nsuperstitions; respect and love pass from heart to heart without need\nof ceremonial as a medium. The Positivist religion, far from being a\nstep in advance, is a step backward toward the superstitious beliefs\nwhich have been banished because they were useless, and consequently\nharmful.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Religion must be cosmic.]\n\nReligion ought to be not only human but cosmic, and such it will be by\nthe very nature of the case as the result of reflection. Theism will be\nobliged, if it is to subsist at all, to confine itself to the vaguest\npossible affirmation of a principle analogous to the soul as the\nmysterious origin of the world and of its development. The essential\ncharacter of this principle must be that it is not really separate\nfrom the world nor opposed to its determinism. Beliefs in the creation\nand in a special Providence will give place more and more to belief in\nsome spontaneous action, which is essential to beings generally, and\nin especial to those who are endowed with consciousness. Religion has\ngradually come to be a metaphysics of immanent finality, consisting in\nthe single general proposition: the world possesses a significance, and\nis making toward an end and aim of its own;[133] the world is a society\nof beings who may come to discover in themselves an identity of moral\nimpulse.[134] God is the term by which we designate what renders the\nmovement of the world toward a state of peace, concord, and harmony\n_possible_. And since for human intelligence the possible and the\nreal[135] are confused, a belief in the possibility of a better world\nbecomes the belief in something divine which is immanent in this world.\n\n      [133] Kant\u2019s _Kritik der Urtheils-Kraft_.\n\n      [134] See M. A. Fouill\u00e9e, _Les syst\u00e8mes de morale\n      contemporains_.\n\n      [135] See Aristotle, _Metaphysica_, and Hegel\u2019s _Logik_.\n\n[Sidenote: Theism and atheism insensibly pass into each other.]\n\nBetween idealistic theism and atheism the distance may be\ndiminished _ad infinitum_. Many atheists, language to the contrary\nnotwithstanding, are already at one with theists, intoxicated with God.\nIf the actual existence of God be called in question, at least His\nprogressive existence, the progressive realization of an ideal, the\ngradual descent of Christ from heaven to earth, may be admitted. The\npresentiment of progress thus becomes merged in a sense of the actual\npresence of the divine. The ideal seems to live and palpitate in the\nworld about one; it is as if an artist\u2019s vision of his work should be\nso intense that it should seem to float out of his brain and take its\nplace upon the untouched canvass before him.\n\n[Sidenote: Theism must be furnished with a new vocabulary.]\n\nThe power of words is limited; there are shades and subtleties of\nthought that cannot be expressed in language. What possible verbal\nreply can be given to questions like those that Marguerite asks of\nFaust? \u201cIt is a long time since thou wert at mass ... dost thou believe\nin God?\u201d \u201cMy beloved,\u201d replies Faust, \u201cwho would dare to say I believe\nin God?\u201d ... \u201cSo thou dost not believe in Him?... Who would dare to say\nthat he does not believe when he listens to the voice of his heart,\nwhen a sense of tenderness and happiness fills his soul? Pronounce\nthe first words that occur to thee. What difference what thou callest\nit: happiness, heart, love, God? The feeling is everything, the word\nis vain.\u201d The deist philosopher who holds words cheap seems to the\nsuperficial multitude to be simply a hypocritical sceptic; whereas the\nrigid atheist displays the narrowness of a sectary. What is certain is\nthat the name of God has sometimes been associated with the greatest\nof human conceptions, sometimes with the most barbarous. The theistic\nhypothesis cannot continue to subsist unless it be freed once for all\nfrom puerile and gross associations.\n\n[Sidenote: Rational religion.]\n\nIt is toward this consummation that theism, at its best, and in\nparticular what Kant calls religion, within the limits presented by\nreason, is tending. It merits a special examination.\n\n[Sidenote: Neo-Kantianism.]\n\nThe neo-Kantian religion ascribes the supreme place to moral goodness\nas the directing principle of every reasonable will. From that\npremise the neo-Kantians deduce \u201cmoral liberty\u201d as the condition of\ngoodness. For goodness, in their judgment, is simply freedom conceived\nas appearing to itself in its intellectual purity, and dominating\nthe phenomenal self. Freedom thus conceived occupies a place above\nphenomena, which belong essentially to necessity and to determinism.\nKantians found also implied in the notion of absolute liberty, subject\nto the condition of time, the attribute of eternity. They say, with\nSpinoza: \u201cI feel, and I know that I am eternal; eternity is one with\ndivinity.\u201d Is it not the eternal that all the nations of men have\nadored? I feel God therefore present in myself. He reveals himself to\nme in the moral ideal. But is this God that my conscience reveals to me\nreally myself? Is he each of us, and must one believe that the universe\nin the last resort is, as has been said, a republic of free-wills\u2014that\nthere are thus as many Gods as individuals, and that we are all Gods?\nOr does this multiplicity of individuals and of personalities exist\nonly in appearance, and is the universe at bottom the expression of a\nsingle will? Theism may choose between these two hypotheses\u2014between\na sort of metaphysical and moral polytheism and a sort of monotheism,\nand may subsequently arrange to its liking the relations which it may\nsuppose to exist between the absolute will and the world of phenomenon.\nBut a belief in a moral ideal does not in the least involve anything\nmore than a belief in something eternal and divine, as shaping the\nuniversal course of things. One cannot bend it to the service of any\none determinate religion, rather than of any other. Within certain\nlimits, however, it may lend some support to the moral and religious\nsentiments. The most acceptable form of theistic doctrine in the future\nwill, no doubt, be some moral philosophy analagous to that of Kant.\nKantianism itself, however, is too closely bound up with the notion of\nduty, properly so called, and with the categorical imperative. It, like\nJudaism, is a religion of law. Instead of the law, one will content\none\u2019s self, in all probability, in the future, with an ideal conceived\nas supreme above all things, and as exercising upon our thought and\nwill the highest attraction that can be exercised by what has been\ncalled the power of an ideal.[136]\n\n      [136] See the criticism of Kantianism in the _Syst\u00e8mes de\n      morale contemporains_, by M. Alfred Fouill\u00e9e.\n\n[Sidenote: Belief consists not in worship, but in action.]\n\nA belief in the divine will then no longer consist in passive\nadoration, but in action. A belief in Providence will no longer\nconsist in a justification of the existing world and of its evils in\nthe name of the divine intention, but in an effort to introduce by\nhuman intervention a greater amount of justice and of goodness into\nthe world. We have seen that the notion of Providence was based among\nancient peoples on the conception of an exterior finality, forcibly\nimposed upon things, of a secret and transcendent aim, which the\nuniverse was warped to serve by force of some unknown will. With such\na theory of things, man was incessantly checked in his activity,\nsince he conceived it to be impossible to prevent the course of the\nworld from achieving its aim. The world seemed to him to be organized\ndefinitively; he had no hope, except in prayer and miracle; everything\nabout him seemed to him to be sacred; the inviolability of nature\nwas both a principle and a consequence of the notion of Providence\nthus understood. And, as we have seen, science was long regarded as\nsacrilegious. It created both surprise and scandal to see science\nintervene in the affairs of this world, disturbing everything, changing\nthe direction of natural forces, transforming the divine rulers of the\nworld into humble ministrants to human wants. In our days, however,\nscience is coming to be more and more held in honour. For the past\ncentury nature has been, to the best of human ability, turned upside\ndown. Humanity\u2019s long quietism has been succeeded by a feverish\nactivity. Everybody wishes to lend a hand in the universal mechanism,\nand to contribute his part in the modification of the direction of the\nwhole; everybody wishes to bend things to his own views, and to become,\nso far as in him lies, a minor Providence.\n\n[Sidenote: Increasing power of mankind in the universe.]\n\nJust as the individual is coming to feel himself more and more a\ncitizen of the state, so he is coming to feel himself more and more a\ncitizen of the universe, inseparably bound by relations of cause and\neffect with the universal sum of phenomena. He recognizes that there\nis nothing in the world that does not concern him, and that on every\nside he can exert an influence, great or small, and leave his mark on\nthe great world. He perceives with astonishment the extent of the power\nof his will and intelligence. Just in so far as his rational faculties\nestablish a connection between phenomena, they establish by that very\nfact a connection between phenomena and himself, and he no longer\nfeels himself alone in the universe. Since, according to a celebrated\ntheory, the centre of the world is in each and every distinct being,\nit follows that if this centre were exhaustively self-conscious it\nwould see all the rays in infinite space focussing in it, and all the\nchains of phenomenal causation meeting in it, and the effects of its\nvolition stretching out into infinity, and its every action possessing\nan influence upon the totality of things. It would perceive itself to\nbe a sort of universal Providence.\n\n[Sidenote: A consequence of liberty of thought.]\n\nIf human beings are not so exhaustively self-conscious as all that,\nthe progress of science is carrying them forward in that direction.\nA portion of the government of nature is in our hands, some part of\nthe responsibility for what takes place in the universe is on our\nheads. At the beginning man conceived himself as living in a state of\ndependence on the world, in a state which ancient religions symbolize;\nat present he perceives that the world is equally dependent upon him.\nThe substitution of a human providence for the omnipresent influence of\na divine providence might be given as being, from this point of view,\nthe formula of progress; the increasing independence of mankind, in the\nface of the natural universe, will thus result in an increasing inner\nindependence, in a growing independence of mind and thought.\n\n[Sidenote: Mankind to be its own special providence.]\n\nThe vulgar conception of a special and exterior providence which, as\nwe have seen, is so closely bound up with the conception of man\u2019s\nplace in the universe as one of subjection\u2014nay, even the most refined\nconception of providence as transcendent and distant and as assigning\nto each being its determinate place in the totality of things\u2014may\nthus, without ground of regret, be displaced in the mind of humanity.\nWe shall some day perceive that we are stronger when we stand on our\nfeet, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, than when we kneel with bowed\nheads and implore the unfeeling sky. Among the ancient Germans, when\none of the faithful was about to enter a sacred forest he had his hands\nbound together as a symbol of his subjection to the gods; if he had\nthe misfortune to fall as he was making his way into the forest, he did\nnot dare to get up again; so to do would have been an affront to the\ngods; he was reduced to squirming and rolling like a reptile out of the\nimmense temple. To this primitive conception of religious servitude,\nthe modern conception of mankind as free in the presence of its God,\nof its beloved ideal, of its conceived work in the world, of its dream\nof progress, is more and more opposed. Even at the present day a true\nsense of the divine may be recognized by its giving man a consciousness\nof his liberty and his dignity rather than his subjection; the true\ngods are those who make us lift our heads higher in the struggle for\nexistence; adoration no longer consists in prostration but in standing\nupright.\n\n[Sidenote: Story of the anchorite.]\n\nTo borrow once more from the classic land of symbolism, from India,\nwhence our German or Gallic ancestors came, the great epic of Ramayana\ntells us of a sainted and sage anchorite who exemplified in his own\nperson the whole sum of human virtue and piety. One day, confiding\nin the justice of heaven, he was invoking Indra and the whole chorus\nof the gods, and the gods were capricious and did not listen to him;\nhis prayer fell back from the heavens unheard. The man, perceiving\nthe indifference of the gods, was moved with indignation; and\ngathering together the power that he had hoarded, by his sacrifices\nand renunciation, and, feeling himself more powerful than his gods,\nmore powerful than Indra himself, began to issue forth commands to\nthe high heavens. And at his voice new stars rose and shone in the\ncrystal sphere; he said, \u201cLet there be light!\u201d and there was light;\nhe refashioned the world; his goodness became a creative providence.\nNor was this all: he conceived the notion of creating new and better\ngods; and Indra himself was trembling toward his fall, for not even he\nthat commands the air and the skies shall prevail against sanctity.\nIndra, the powerful, therefore hastened to yield and cried out to the\nsaint, \u201cThy will be done!\u201d and he left a place in the heavens for the\nnew stars, and their light bears eternal witness to the omnipotence of\ngoodness, which is the supreme God and object of adoration among men.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nPANTHEISM.\n\nREVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESES WHICH WILL REPLACE\nDOGMA.\u2014_Continued._\n\n    I. Optimistic pantheism\u2014Transformation of transcendent Deism\n      into immanent theism and pantheism\u2014Disanthropomorphized\n      God, according to Messrs. Fiske and Spencer\u2014Diverse\n      forms of pantheism\u2014Optimistic and intellectualistic\n      pantheism of Spinoza\u2014Objections, Spinoza\u2019s fatalism\u2014The\n      moral significance that might be lent to pantheism by the\n      introduction of some notion of a final cause\u2014Qualities\n      and defects of pantheism\u2014Conception of unity upon which\n      it is founded\u2014This conception criticised\u2014Its possible\n      subjectivity.\n\n    II. Pessimistic pantheism\u2014Pessimistic interpretation\n      of religions in Germany\u20141. Causes of the progress of\n      pessimism in the present epoch\u2014Progress of pantheistic\n      metaphysics and of positive science\u2014Penalties incident\n      to thought and reflection\u2014Mental depression and sense of\n      powerlessness, etc.\u20142. Is pessimism curable?\u2014Possible\n      remedies\u2014The labour problem and the future of\n      society\u2014Illusions involved in pessimism\u2014Inexactitude\n      of its estimate of pleasures and pains\u2014Quotation\n      from Leopardi\u2014Criticism of the practical results of\n      pessimism\u2014Nirv\u00e2na\u2014An experiment in Nirv\u00e2na\u2014Will\n      pessimistic pantheism be the religion of the future?\n\n\n[Sidenote: Conception of God being disanthropomorphized.]\n\nAs theism becomes immanent, the personality of God comes to be more and\nmore vaguely conceived. It is the very existence of God\u2019s personality\nthat pantheism either denies or confounds with that of the universe.\nAccording to Mr. Spencer and Mr. Fiske, the movement which led\nhumanity to conceive its God anthropomorphically will be succeeded by\na movement in the opposite direction; God will be deprived of all of\nHis human attributes, will be disanthropomorphized. He will first be\nshorn of His lower impulses, and then of everything which is analogous\nto human sensibility; the highest human sentiments will be regarded\nas too gross to be attributed to Him. Similarly with the attributes\nof intelligence and will; every human faculty will in its turn be\nabstracted and divinity, as it becomes relieved of its limitations,\nwill lose, one after the other, every item of its significance to the\nintelligence; it will be conceived ultimately as a vague unity simply,\nwhich eludes the forms of distinct thought. Pantheism lends itself to\nthis notion of an indeterminate and indeterminable disanthropomorphized\ndivinity. Nevertheless, the crudest and most na\u00efve speculations,\nanthropomorphism and fetichism, in Mr. Spencer\u2019s judgment, contained\na part of the truth, namely, that the power that manifests itself in\nconsciousness is simply a different form of the mysterious power that\nmanifests itself beyond consciousness. The last result attained by\nhuman science, Mr. Spencer thinks, is that the unknown force which\nexists outside of consciousness is, if not similar to the known force\nthat exists in consciousness, at least a simple mode of the same force,\nsince the two are convertible into each other. So that the final result\nof the line of speculation begun by primitive man is that the power\nwhich manifests itself in the material universe is the same as that\nwhich manifests itself in us under the form of consciousness.\n\n[Sidenote: Pantheism.]\n\nIf pantheism goes the length of denying the personality and\nindividuality of God, it is by way of compensation inclined to\nattribute a sort of individuality to the world. In effect, if God is\npresent in every atom of the universe, the universe is a veritable\nliving being possessing an organic unity, and developing, like an\nembryo, according to a determinate law. What distinguishes pantheism\nfrom this point of view is, therefore, the substantial unity that it\nascribes to the world.\n\n[Sidenote: Different forms of pantheism.]\n\nBut, of course, pantheism is a very indefinite doctrine, susceptible\nof many interpretations according to the manner in which the universal\nenergy, the omnipresent unity, and in especial, the fundamental ground\nof its activity, which some regard as determinism simply and others as\nthe orderly achievement of a final cause, are conceived. Nay, more;\nboth necessity and the orderly achievement of a final cause may be\nconceived optimistically or pessimistically.\n\n\n_I. Optimistic pantheism._\n\n[Sidenote: Spinozism.]\n\nThe first kind of pantheism, then, that which conceives a single\nsubstance as developing in an infinity of modes with no final cause\nin view, may be typified by the purely intellectualistic pantheism of\nSpinoza. This doctrine shows us, as existing in the totality of things,\nthe immanent logic which presides over its development. The essence of\nhuman nature is reason, since reason is the essence of man. The proper\nfunction of reason is understanding, and to understand is to perceive\nthe necessity of things, and the necessity of things is nature, or,\nif you will, God. Reason serves no other purpose than to enable us\nto understand; and the soul, in so far as it employs reason, regards\nthat alone as useful which leads to understanding. To conceive the\nabsolute necessity of eternal nature is to conceive that which, being\nsubject only to the law of its own being, is free; it is, therefore, to\nconceive eternal freedom. And by that very fact it is to participate\nin eternal freedom, to identify itself with it. A consciousness of\nnecessity is thus one with the fact of freedom. Human thought thus\nidentifies itself with divine thought and becomes a consciousness\nof eternity. This consciousness, which is supreme joy, is love of\nGod. The mystic Hebrew and Christian idea thus proves one with the\nmoral theories of antiquity in Spinoza\u2019s vast synthesis. Intellectual\nintuition is self-conscious nature; the intellectual liberty, as the\nStoics taught it, is consciousness of necessity, and nature possessing\nitself; and mystic ecstasy, by which the individual is absorbed in\nuniversal being, is nature returning to itself and rediscovering its\neternal existence beneath its passing modes.[137]\n\n      [137] See the chapter on Spinoza in the author\u2019s _Morale\n      d\u2019\u00c9picure_, p. 230.\n\n[Sidenote: An optimistic fatalism.]\n\nThe objection that moral and religious philosophy urged, and always\nwill urge, against Spinoza\u2019s pantheism, considered as a possible\nsubstitute for religion, is that it is an optimistic fatalism, that\nregards everything as achieved by the mechanical and brutal operation\nof efficient causes, and excludes the possibility of any conception of\nfinal cause or of progress, properly so called. The evolution of the\nmodes of substance, even when it results in pain, death, and vice, is\ndivine; and the question arises, why this universe, which is alleged to\nbe perfect and incapable of progress, should not be wholly motionless,\nand why this eternal, aimless agitation in the bosom of absolute\nsubstance should exist?\n\n[Sidenote: Fiske\u2019s theory of a dramatic movement in the universe.]\n\nIn Mr. Fiske\u2019s judgment, Spinozism is the only pantheism, properly so\ncalled. The remark seems to us unduly to restrict the application of\nthe term. Every system of theism that involves the notion of a final\ncause tends to become pantheistic when it denies the transcendence and\nadmits the organic unity of the universe, which is the _Deus vivens_,\nthe _natura naturans_, with a law of progress which is superior to\nthe necessary laws of pure logic and mathematics and mechanics. The\nexclusion of any notion of the immanence of a final cause in things is\nnot essential to pantheism. One might even conceive a sort of moral\npantheism which should recognize a certain moral significance in the\nworld, or at least what Mr. Fiske himself calls a dramatic tendency\ntoward a moral d\u00e9nouement. The instant men feel it to be a god that is\nlabouring in the universe, they feel, rightly or wrongly, reassured as\nto the destiny of the moral ideal; they feel that they have an aim to\nmarch toward, and seem to hear, in the shadow of things, a multitude\nmarching with them. They no longer have a sense of the vanity of life;\nall life, on the contrary, becomes divine, if not as it is, at least as\nit tends to be and ultimately will be.\n\n[Sidenote: Criticised.]\n\nThis system, according to its partisans, may be regarded as an\ninduction which is justified by the modern doctrine of evolution.\nMr. Fiske even goes the length of saying that Darwinism has done as\nmuch to confirm theology as to weaken it. Unhappily, nothing is more\nproblematic than such an interpretation of modern science. Science\nreveals no element of divinity in the universe, and the process of\nevolution, which results in the incessant construction and destruction\nof similar worlds in an endless round, moves toward no conscious or\nunconscious natural end, so far as we can discover. Scientifically,\ntherefore, the notion of a final cause of the universe may be no more\nthan a human conception, than a bit of abstract anthropomorphism. No\nscientific induction can justify one in ascribing to the universe\nas such a conscious purpose. And it is equally rash to conceive the\nuniverse as a whole possessing a psychical and moral unity, since the\nuniverse, as science reveals it to us, is an infinity in no sense\ngrouped about a centre. Materially speaking, the universe may perhaps\nbe regarded as the expression of a single power, but not as possessing\nany moral or psychic unity. Whatever is organized, living, feeling,\nthinking, is, so far as we know, finite, and the equivalence of forces\nin the universe possesses nothing in common with the centralization\nof these forces. It is, perhaps, precisely because the forces of the\nuniverse are not moving in the same direction that the struggle and\ncontest which are the life of the world exist. Who knows but that for\nthe universe to become a unity and a total would involve its becoming\nfinite, involve the acquisition of a centre, and by that very fact,\nperhaps, of a circumference which would arrest the eternal expansion of\nmatter and life in infinite space.\n\n[Sidenote: No unity in the so-called universe.]\n\nWhat constitutes the charm of pantheism, for a number of its followers,\nis precisely this conception of unity in the world; but when one\nendeavours to make the conception precise, it proves so evanescent\nthat it ultimately resolves itself into the absolute indetermination\nof Hegelian Non-Being. The more one examines it, the more one asks\none\u2019s self whether the unity that pantheism ascribes to the universe\nis not as purely a bit of anthropomorphism as is the design that\npantheism attributes to the universe. The character of definiteness\nand of totality that the universe seems to possess may be simply a\nform that the human mind imposes upon the world of experience. Project\non a wall\u2014the wall of Plato\u2019s cavern\u2014shadows of numberless confused\nobjects, of revolving atoms and formless clouds, and they will all\nfall into some certain figure; will look like the fantastic shadow of\ncertain human constructions: will present the outline of towers and\ncities, animals and what not. The unity and figure of the world are\nperhaps simply of the same nature. Apart from our conception of it, the\nworld is perhaps infinite, and infinity can never mean anything else\nto the human mind than formlessness, for we are, by the very nature of\nthe case, unable to describe its contours. The unity of the world is\nperhaps realized only in our minds; it is, perhaps, only from our minds\nthat the mass of things obtain such unity as they seem to possess.\nNeither the world nor humanity are totals except in so far as we think\nof them as such, and act upon them, and group them about our thought\nand action as a centre.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nTo sum up, if the need of unity seems to justify pantheism, this\nneed receives, at least, but an illusory satisfaction in the two\nprincipal forms of pantheism, and, in especial, in the deterministic\nform. Either the primordial and finite unity of the world is abstract\nand indeterminate and therefore purely subjective; or it becomes\ndeterminate in attributes which are as human as those of the god of\natheism. The will which Schopenhauer makes the basis of his system\nis either the human will or simply force (which itself is human or\nanimal), or the sense of effort, or, finally, pure abstraction.\nThe same is true of the eternal force which Mr. Spencer regards as\nimmanent in the universe. Such conceptions are more meagre in content\nbut not necessarily more objective than those of the God of love, the\nWorld-Spirit, the World-Thought.\n\n\n_II. Pessimistic pantheism._\n\n[Sidenote: Pessimism.]\n\nPantheism has travelled from Spinoza\u2019s optimism to Schopenhauer\u2019s\npessimism; its most recent form, and in some respects one of its most\nancient forms. The pessimistic interpretation of religions with death\nor Nirv\u00e2na regarded as the redemption, is making incessant progress\nin Germany. Pascal long ago said: \u201cOf all creatures that inhabit the\nearth, the Christian alone avoids pleasure and willingly embraces\npain.\u201d Germany, after having resuscitated Buddhism with Schopenhauer,\nVon Hartmann, Bahnsen, is in a fair way to supply us with a sort of\npessimistic edition of Christianity which will far outdo Pascal. But\nfor evil and sin, religion would not have existed, Von Hartmann thinks,\nand as evil is of the essence of existence annihilation is the sole\nsalvation possible. Bahnsen, in his philosophy of despair reaches an\nanalogous conclusion. The most interesting representative of the new\ndoctrine is Philipp Mainlaender, the author of the \u201cPhilosophy of the\nRedemption\u201d (Die Philosophie der Ercl\u00f6sing). He was the son of parents\nof an exalted piety, and grandson of a mystic who died of nervous\nfever in his thirty-third year, and brother of another mystic who, on\nhis arrival in India, was converted to Buddhism and died soon after,\nexhausted by the intensity of his mental life. Mainlaender found his\nDamascus in Italy; the heavens opened upon him in a bookshop in Naples\nwhere he discovered the writings of Schopenhauer. After having composed\nhis system of pessimistic philosophy, he supervised the printing of the\nfirst volume, and the day he received his first copy (March 31, 1876)\nhe hanged himself.[138] The sincerity of this pessimist\u2019s conviction\ncannot be denied, nor the power of abstract ideas implanted on a brain\nprepared for them by heredity, and by the intellectual tendencies of\nthe times. Mainlaender regarded philosophy as some day destined to\nreplace religion, but the philosophy is to be pessimistic; Mainlaender\ndeclared himself a Christian even while he was founding a scientific\nsystem of atheism. Freedom to commit suicide is the modern substitute\nfor the beautiful illusion of immortality. Salvation by death will,\nMainlaender thought, take the place of salvation by eternal life. The\ntree of science will thus become the legendary fig-tree of Timon the\nmisanthrope, the branches of which were weighted every morning afresh\nby the bodies of the dead, who had come in search of oblivion from the\nevil of life, and had found it in self-destruction.\n\n      [138] See in the _Revue philosophique_, June, 1885, an article\n      by M. Arr\u00e9at on Mainlaender.\n\n[Sidenote: Must find the causes of pessimism.]\n\nI. To estimate the value and probable duration of the pessimistic\nsentiment, which has in some cases at the present day been identified\nwith the religious sentiment, one must first consider its causes.\n\n[Sidenote: The growth of pantheistic metaphysics.]\n\nDifferent reasons have brought about this transformation of pantheism,\nwhich after having divinized the world, now inspires the individual to\ndream fondly on his annihilation and reabsorption into the unity of\nthings. The first cause is the progress of pantheistic metaphysics.\nAfter having adored nature as the product of immanent reason,\npantheists have come to regard it as a work of immanent unreason,\nas the degeneration of an indeterminate and unconscious unity in\nthe misery and conflict of phenomenal selves, of conscious beings\ncondemned to suffering. At the very least, nature is indifferent to\nman. Eternal force, which is so much spoken of to-day, is no more\ncomforting and reassuring to us than eternal substance. Right or wrong,\nthe metaphysical instinct, which is identical at bottom with the moral\ninstinct, demands not only the presence of life in all things, but of\nlife in pursuit of an ideal of goodness and universal sociality.\n\n[Sidenote: Persistence of anthropomorphism.]\n\nI was lying one day in the mountains, stretched on the grass; a lizard\ncame out of a hole and mistook my motionless body for a rock, and\nclimbed up on my leg and stretched himself out to bask in the sun. The\nconfiding little creature lay on me enjoying the light, untroubled\nby any suspicion of the relatively powerful stream of life which was\nflowing noiselessly and amicably beneath him. And I, for my part, began\nto look at the moss and the grass on which I was reposing, and the\nbrown earth and the great rocks; was I not myself, after all, a lizard\nsimply as compared with the great world, and was I not perhaps a victim\nof the same mistake? Was there not a secret life throbbing everywhere\nabout me, palpitating beneath my feet, sweeping forward confusedly in\nthe great totality of things? Yes, but what difference did it make if\nit was simply the blind egoistic life of a multitude of atoms, each\nstriving for ends of its own. Little lizard, why have I not, like thee,\na friendly eye in the universe to watch over me?\n\n[Sidenote: The progress of science.]\n\nThe second cause of contemporary pessimism is the rapid progress of\npositive science, and the revelations it is making in regard to the\nnatural world. The movement has been so precipitate, new ideas have\nbeen produced with such rapidity, that the intelligence has found it\ndifficult to adapt itself to them; we are going too fast, we find it\nas difficult to get our breath as the rider of a runaway horse, or an\naeronaut swept away at a dizzy speed by the wind. Knowledge causes\nthus, at the present epoch, a sense of discomfort which is due to a\ndisturbance of the inner equilibrium; consciousness of the world,\nso joyous in its beginnings at the time of the Renaissance, making\nits first appearance in the midst of Rabelais\u2019 uproarious fun, has\ncome to be almost melancholy. We have not yet become domesticated in\nthe infinities of the new world which has been revealed to us, and\nwe feel a little lost; therein lies the secret of the melancholy of\nthe present epoch, which was melodramatic and rapid in the pages of\nChateaubriand and the youngest children of the century; and has come to\nbe serious and reflective in the pages of Leopardi and of Schopenhauer\nand of the pessimists of the present day. In India the Brahmans are\ndistinguished by a black point between their eyes; our men of science,\nour philosophers and artists, carry this black point on their foreheads.\n\n[Sidenote: Exaggerated development of thought.]\n\nThe third cause of pessimism, which results from the two preceding,\nis the suffering caused by the exaggerated development of thought at\nthe present day, and the disproportionate place that it occupies at\npresent in human life. We are suffering from a sort of hypertrophy of\nthe intelligence. Those who work with their brains, who meditate upon\nlife and death, who philosophize, ultimately experience this suffering;\nand the same is true of artists, who pass their life in endeavouring\nto realize a more or less inaccessible ideal. One is drawn all ways\nat once by the sciences and arts; one wishes to devote one\u2019s self\nsimultaneously to all of them, and one is obliged to choose. One\u2019s\nwhole vitality sets in toward one\u2019s brain; one has to check it, to beat\nit back, to resign one\u2019s self to vegetating instead of to living! One\ndoes not resign one\u2019s self\u2014one prefers to abandon one\u2019s self to the\ninner fire that consumes one. One\u2019s thoughts gradually become feebler,\nthe nervous system becomes irritable, becomes feminine; but the will\nremains virile, is always on the stretch, unsatisfied, and the result\nis an eternal struggle, an endless dissatisfaction with one\u2019s self;\none must choose, must have muscles or nerves; be a man or a woman;\nand the thinker and artist are neither the one nor the other. If by a\nsimple immense effort we could but express the world of sentiment and\nthought we carry within us, with what joy, what pleasure we should\ndo it; even if the brain should be torn asunder in the process! But\nwe must give it out by small fragments, squeeze it out drop by drop,\nsubmit to all the interruptions of life, and little by little the\norganism becomes exhausted in the struggle between mind and body, and\nthe intelligence flickers like a light in a rising wind, until the\nspirit is vanquished and the light goes out.\n\n[Sidenote: Dissolving effect of subjective analysis on the emotions.]\n\nModern thought is not only more clear-sighted in matters of the\nexternal world, but also in matters of the internal world. John\nStuart Mill maintained that introspection and the progress of\npsychological analysis possess a certain dissolving force that, along\nwith disillusionment, induces sadness. We come to be too well aware\nof the source of our feelings and the details of our character; what\nan antagonism between being gifted enough in matters of philosophy or\npoetry to create a world to one\u2019s own mind, to embellish and illuminate\nthe real world, and, nevertheless, being too analytic and introspective\nto profit by the pleasing illusion! We build airy palaces of cards\nand are the first to blow them down. We are without pity for our own\nhearts, and sometimes wonder whether we should not have been better off\nwithout them; we are too transparent to our own eyes, we see the hidden\nsprings of our own activity, we have no sincere faith in objective\nreality, nor faith enough in the rationality of our own joys to enable\nthem to attain their maximum.\n\n[Sidenote: Heightened sensibility.]\n\nAt the same time that the intelligence is becoming more penetrating and\nreflective with the progress of knowledge, sensibility of every kind\nis becoming more delicate; even sympathy, according to the pessimist,\nis coming to be an instrument of torture by annexing the suffering of\nothers in addition to our own. The echo and reverberation in us of the\nsufferings of other people, growing with the growing sociality, seem\nto be greater than the echo and reverberation in us of human joys.\nSocial needs themselves, which have been so magnified at the present\nday, are so far from being satisfied that pessimists are asking whether\nthey ever can be satisfied and whether humanity is not destined to\nbecome simply more numerous in the struggle for existence, and more\nwretched and more conscious of its wretchedness.\n\n[Sidenote: Depression of vitality.]\n\nAnd, finally, a last cause of pessimism is the enfeeblement of the\nwill, which accompanies an exaltation of the intelligence and the\nsensibility. Pessimism is in some sort a metaphysical suggestion\nengendered by physical and moral powerlessness. Consciousness of\nlack of power produces a disesteem, not only for one\u2019s self, but for\neverything; a disesteem which, in certain speculative minds, must\ninevitably crystallize into _a priori_ formul\u00e6. It has been said that\nsuffering embitters one; and the same is true in an even greater degree\nof a sense of powerlessness. Recent psychological observations confirm\nthis conclusion.[139] Among the insane, and among hypnotic subjects,\nperiods of satisfaction and optimism, which are periods of benevolence\nand amenity, coincide with a heightened muscular power, whereas periods\nof discontent and malevolence coincide with a state of depression of\nthe will which is accompanied by a lowering of the muscular powers,\nsometimes by one-half. One may say, with M. F\u00e9r\u00e9, that people in good\nhealth, at the maximum of their muscular vitality, are incessantly\ndisposed to estimate the world in terms of their own vigour, whereas\nthe degenerate, the physically or mentally enfeebled, are incessantly\ndisposed to estimate the world and its possibilities in terms of their\nown slackness and incompetency. Add that, being themselves unequal\nto the struggle with the universe, it seems to them, by a natural\nillusion, that the universe is unequal to their ideals and demands upon\nit; they fancy that it is they that tip the scale, whereas the fact is\nprecisely the opposite.\n\n      [139] M. Ch. F\u00e9r\u00e9, _Revue philosophique_, July, 1886.\n\n[Sidenote: Relation between powerlessness and pessimism.]\n\nIn all the experiments in hypnotism a sense of powerlessness engenders\ndissatisfaction; the patient who finds himself unable to obtain\npossession of a desired object endeavours to explain his inability by\nseeking in the object itself some quality which renders it repulsive.\nWe are inevitably inclined to objectify the limitations of our own\npower instead of recognizing them for what they are. Once started in\nthis path, hypnotic patients would certainly, if they were competent,\ngo the length of constructing a metaphysical system to justify their\nstate of mind.[140]\n\n      [140] A woman somnambulist was induced to believe that she\n      could not lift her worsted neckerchief off the back of a chair;\n      her shoulders were cold and she wanted it; she put out her\n      hand, and finding herself unable to overcome the subjective\n      obstacle, she translated it into the outer world and declared\n      that the neckerchief was unclean, or of an offensive colour,\n      etc., and ultimately became violently terrified. Another\n      subject, also a woman, was persuaded that she could not pull\n      open a drawer; she touched the button and then let go of it\n      shivering, and exclaiming that it was cold. \u201cNo wonder,\u201d she\n      added, as a rational justification of her repulsion, \u201cit is of\n      iron!\u201d She was given an iron compass; she endeavoured to handle\n      it, but soon dropped it. \u201cYou see,\u201d she said, \u201cit is as cold as\n      the handle, I cannot hold it.\u201d Thus the objective explanation\n      of a subjective fact, once entertained, tends by force of\n      logic to become general, to include a whole class of similar\n      phenomena, to become a system, and, if need be, a cosmological\n      and metaphysical system.\n\n[Sidenote: Sense of powerlessness destined to increase.]\n\nPessimism thus probably originates, for the individual, in a sense of\nlack of power. Sometimes this sense possesses indisputably a certain\nelement of universality; a consciousness of the limits of human power,\nas of human intelligence, must as inevitably increase by the very\nprogress of our knowledge and capacity. Pessimism is not, therefore,\npure madness, nor pure vanity; or, if it is madness, the madness is\nnatural, and is induced sometimes by nature itself. At certain periods\nnature seems to go insane, to revel in folly, although the power of\nlogic, which is identical in the last resort with the overruling\nprinciple of things, always has the last word in the universe, as it\nought to have also in the human mind.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nTo sum up: in this century of transition, of religious and moral and\nsocial transformation, of reflection and dissolving analysis, causes\nof suffering are abundant and ultimately assume the guise of motives\nof despair. Every new step in intelligence and sensibility brings new\nmodes of suffering within our reach. The desire of knowledge, in\nespecial, which is the most dangerous of all human desires, because the\nobject of it is really infinite, becomes every day more insatiable and\nenslaves not only isolated individuals, but entire nations; it is the\ndesire of knowledge that is the disease of the century, a disease which\nis growing, and becoming for the philosopher the disease of humanity.\nThe seat of the disease is in the head; it is the brain of mankind that\nis attacked. We are far from the na\u00efvet\u00e9 of primitive people, who, when\nthey are asked for the seat of thought, point to the stomach or the\nbosom! We are well aware that we think with our heads, for it is in our\nheads that we suffer from a preoccupation with the unknown, with the\nideal, with an incessant endeavour to overtake the progress of a winged\nand devouring thought. On the mountains of Tartary one sometimes sees\na strange animal pass through the morning mist at a breathless speed;\nits eyes are those of a frightened antelope, and while it gallops with\na foot that trembles as it strikes the soil, two great wings stretch\nout from the sides of its head and seem on the point of lifting it from\nthe ground each time that they pulsate. It sweeps down the valleys, and\nits path is marked by traces of blood, and suddenly it falls, and the\ntwo great wings rise from the body, and an eagle, which was feeding\nleisurely upon its brain, takes its way off into the sky.\n\n[Sidenote: Is pessimism the last word of philosophy?]\n\nII. Is pessimism curable? A sense of evil constitutes a legitimate\nelement in the metaphysical or religious sentiment; but is that a\nsufficient reason for recognizing it not simply as a part, but as the\nwhole of metaphysics and of religion? Such is the problem.\n\n[Sidenote: Pessimism only part of the truth.]\n\nVon Hartmann has endeavoured to discover in all religion a basis of\npessimism. To do so is to judge all humanity too narrowly, according to\none\u2019s observation of it at the present day. To maintain that religion\nis founded on a radical pessimism is like affirming that medicine is\nbased not on a theory of the curability, but of the incurability of\ndisease. Schopenhauer\u2019s pessimism, like Spinoza\u2019s optimism, contains,\nno doubt, a certain indestructible element of truth, but immensely\noverstated and magnified. If science cannot regard the world as\ndivine, neither can it regard the world as diabolical. There is no\nmore ground for cursing the objective universe than for adoring it.\nAnd the subjective causes of unhappiness, which we have analyzed,\nare provisional simply. Human knowledge, which at present is so\nconsiderable in its dimensions that it actually embarrasses the brain,\nmay well come to be so organized (as, indeed, in some cases, it is even\nnow) that it will produce a sense of well-being and of largeness of\nlife only. There is need, however, for a wholly new science, that of\nintellectual hygiene, of intellectual therapeutics, a science which,\nonce created, might prevent or cure the mental depression which seems\nto result from exaggerated nervous excitation, such as pessimism seems\nto be incidental to, and such as Greece was unacquainted with.\n\n[Sidenote: Resignation.]\n\nFor the rest, the desire of knowledge, which is, as we have seen,\namong the most profound of the desires of the century, may become the\nsource of, perhaps, the most trustworthy and most infallible cure for\na great number of human ills. Some of us, certainly, who are of the\nphysically and mentally disinherited, may cry: \u201cI have suffered in all\nmy joys.\u201d _Nescio quid amari_ was present for us in the first draught\nof pleasure, in the first smile, in the first kiss, and yet the present\nlife is not without its sweetness when we do not rebel against it,\nwhen it is rationally accepted. What makes up for the bitterness of\nknowledge is the definiteness and clearness that it lends to the world.\nAs science becomes more perfect it may some day inspire the soul with\nsomething of the serenity that is everywhere incidental to unfaltering\nclear light. Therein lies the secret of Spinoza\u2019s intellectual calm.\nIf his objective optimism is indefensible, his subjective optimism is\nnot without an aspect of truth in the consciousness of inner peace that\nbelongs to breadth of intelligence and harmony of thought.\n\n[Sidenote: Analysis destroys irrational joys only.]\n\nSo far as introspection is concerned, and the dissolving force it\nexercises upon our joys, introspection is destructive, really, of none\nbut irrational joys, and by way of compensation, it is destructive also\nof irrational griefs. Truth resists analysis; it is our business to\nseek in truth not only for the beautiful, but for the good. Take it\nall in all, there is as much solid and enduring truth in enlightened\nlove of family, of country, of humanity, as in the most unquestionable\nscientific fact, or in certain physical laws, like that of gravitation.\nThe great remedy for excessive analysis, such as Amiel, for example,\nsuffered from, is a little to forget one\u2019s self, to widen one\u2019s\nhorizon, and, above all, to do something. Action, by its very nature,\nis a realized synthesis, a decision which necessitates the solution of\na certain number of problems, or the recognition that their solution is\nnot indispensable. Action is something too trenchant and provisional,\nno doubt, but men must remember that they live in the provisional and\nnot the eternal, and that of their life, after all, what is least\nprovisional is action, motion, the vibration of an atom, the undulation\nwhich traverses the great whole. Whoever lives immersed in the conduct\nof life has no time for self-pity or self-dissection. Other forms of\noblivion are involuntary and sometimes lie beyond one\u2019s power, but one\nmay always forget one\u2019s self. The cure for all the sufferings of the\nmodern brain lies in an enlargement of the heart.\n\n[Sidenote: The problem of distribution of wealth.]\n\nIt has been urged, it is true, that we suffer increasingly from a\ngrowing sympathy and pity for each other. The problem of individual\nhappiness, owing to the increasing sense of the solidarity of mankind,\nis more than ever dependent to-day upon the happiness of society at\nlarge. Not only our immediate and personal griefs, but the griefs of\nother people, of society, of humanity, present and to come, influence\nus. So be it. To discuss the future would be endless. We have not\nMacbeth\u2019s privilege of being brought face to face with the file of\nfuture generations, and cannot read in advance the destiny of our\ndescendants in their faces. The mirror of human life shows us nothing\nbut an image of ourselves, and in this image we are inclined, like the\npoets, to emphasize the lines of pain. The labour problem, which at\npresent distresses us, is infinitely complex; but we believe that the\noptimists have even more right to regard it with tranquillity than the\npessimists have to declare it insoluble; in especial when one considers\nthat it has assumed a threatening aspect only during something like\nthe last half century.\n\n[Sidenote: How the economic half of the problem will be dealt with.]\n\nThe labour problem involves two distinct questions, one of them\nrelating to a conflict of interests, the other to a conflict of\nintentions. We believe that the strictly economic problem will one\nday be solved by a simultaneous increase in the difficulty of the\nindustrial situation and in the knowledge of how to deal with it, which\nwill lead the well-to-do classes to perceive that by endeavouring to\nsave everything they are running the risk of losing everything, and\nwill lead the lower classes to perceive that by endeavouring to obtain\ntoo much they are running the risk of gaining nothing and of seeing\nsociety\u2019s coveted wealth melt away before their eyes, and that dividing\ncapital is like dividing a germ, and results in sterilization. The\nremedy for socialism lies in science\u2014even though the first effect of\na wider dissemination of knowledge would be to increase the strength\nof socialism. Out of the very intensity of the crisis the solution\nwill come. The moment different interests are completely conscious of\ntheir real points of antagonism, they are close upon a compromise. War\nis never the result of anything but an incomplete knowledge of the\ncomparative powers and respective interests of the opposing parties;\npeople fight when they can no longer calculate, and the march of armies\nand pitched battles may themselves be regarded as a sort of higher\narithmetic.\n\n[Sidenote: The human half will settle itself.]\n\nWhen it has once come to be understood that there is no fundamental\nconflict of interest between the classes, the sense of antagonism\nbetween them will gradually diminish. The most reassuring promise of a\ncomplete solution of the industrial problem lies in human sociality.\nAll asperity of temper in the matter will be smoothed away by the\nincontestable growth of sympathy and altruism.\n\n[Sidenote: Love and admiration the panacea for pessimism.]\n\nIf sympathy, love, labour in common, recreation in common, sometimes\nseem to augment the pains of life, they more than proportionately\naugment the joys. Moreover, as is well known, to share trouble is to\nlessen it; sympathy is itself a pleasure; poets know it, dramatic poets\nin especial; even when pity is accompanied by a lively realization\nof another\u2019s pain it nevertheless induces love, and to that extent\nstill preserves a certain charm. That creature suffers, therefore\nI love it; and there are infinite joys in love; it, multiplies the\nvalue of life in one\u2019s own eyes, by giving it a value in the eyes of\nother people, a social value, which is in the best sense a religious\nvalue. Man, Wordsworth says, lives in admiration, hope, and love,\nbut he who possesses admiration and love will always possess an\nabundance of hope. He who loves and admires will possess the lightness\nof heart that carries one through the day without fatigue. Love and\nadmiration are the great remedies of despair. Love, and you will wish\nto live. Whatever may be the value of life from the point of view of\nsensibility\u2014knowledge and action, and principally action in behalf of\nanother, will always constitute reasons for living. And it is mainly\none\u2019s reasons for living that justify one\u2019s tenacity of life.\n\n[Sidenote: Pessimism an optical illusion.]\n\nPessimism sees only the sensitive side of life; but life presents also\nan active and an intellectual side; over and above the agreeable there\nexist the great, the beautiful, and the generous. Even from the mere\npoint of view of pleasure and pain, pessimism is based on calculations\nwhich are as open to discussion as Bentham\u2019s hedonistic arithmetic. We\nhave seen elsewhere[141] that happiness and unhappiness are _ex post\nfacto_ mental constructions that are based upon a multitude of optical\nillusions. Even the disillusionment of pessimism is itself a sort of an\nillusion.\n\n      [141] _Esquisse d\u2019une morale sans obligation ni sanction_, p.\n      89.\n\nLeopardi hit upon an ingenious empirical argument in favour of\npessimism in his dialogue between an almanac seller and a passer-by:\n\n_Almanac Seller._ Almanacs! New almanacs! New calendars! Who wants new\nalmanacs?\n\n_Passer-by._ Almanacs for the new year?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ Yes, sir.\n\n_Passer-by._ Do you think this year will be a happy one?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ Yes, to be sure, sir.\n\n_Passer-by._ As happy as last year?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ Much more so.\n\n_Passer-by._ As the year before?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ Still more so, sir.\n\n_Passer-by._ Why, should you not like the new year to resemble one of\nthe past two years?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ No, sir, I should not.\n\n_Passer-by._ How many years have gone by since you began to sell\nalmanacs?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ About twenty years, sir.\n\n_Passer-by._ Which of the twenty should you wish the new year to be\nlike?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ I do not know.\n\n_Passer-by._ Do you not remember any particular year which you thought\na happy one?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ Indeed, I do not, sir.\n\n_Passer-by._ And yet life is a fine thing, is it not?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ So they say.\n\n_Passer-by._ Should you not like to live those twenty years, and even\nall your past life from your birth, over again?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ Ah, dear sir, would to God that I could!\n\n_Passer-by._ But if you had to live over again the life you have\nalready lived, with all its pleasures and sufferings?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ I should not like that.\n\n_Passer-by._ Then what other life would you like to live? Mine, or that\nof the prince, or whose? Do you not think that I, or the prince, or\nanyone else would reply exactly as you have done, and that no one would\nwish to repeat the same life over again?\n\n_Almanac Seller._ Yes, I believe that....\n\n_Passer-by._ And it is clear that each person is of opinion that the\nevil he has experienced exceeds the good; ... but with the new year\nfate will commence treating you, and me, and everyone well, and the\nhappy life will begin....\n\n_Almanac Seller._ Almanacs! New almanacs! New calendars![142]\n\n      [142] Dialogue cited by M. Caro in _Pessimisme_.\n\n[Sidenote: Persistent novelty in the universe.]\n\nMany of us no doubt would reply to the poet as the almanac seller\ndid\u2014we should not wish to begin our life over again\u2014but it is not\nto be concluded from that that our past life, taken as a whole, has\nbeen unhappy rather than happy. It is to be concluded simply that it\nhas lost its novelty, and with its novelty a great part of its charm.\nMan, in effect, is not a purely sensitive being. His pleasures are,\nso to speak, not blind. He not only enjoys, he knows that he enjoys,\nand knows what he enjoys, and each of his sensations constitutes an\naddition to his treasures of knowledge. Having once begun to amass\nthis treasure, he desires incessantly to augment it, though he cares\nlittle enough futilely to handle and to contemplate the wealth already\nacquired. Our past life, therefore, is to some extent tarnished and\ndeflowered. The number of hours that were so rich, so full that we\ncould not exhaust them at the time and desire to repeat them, is not\ngreat; and, barring such hours, the principal charm of the rest of our\npast existence lay in estimating its details, in comparing them with\neach other, in exercising upon them our intelligence and our activity,\nand in lightly passing them by; they were not worth lingering over;\nthey resembled the tracts of country that the traveller does not feel\ntempted to turn and look back upon. If novelty possesses for mankind\na certain charm, if a repetition of identically similar circumstances\nrarely affords as great pleasure the second time as the first, the\nfact is owing in part to the very laws of desire, but in part to the\nsuperiority of the human mind; the desired object should always offer\nsomething new to the intelligence. Every desire contains an element of\nphilosophic and \u00e6sthetic curiosity that the past cannot satisfy; the\nflower of novelty cannot be gathered twice from the same branch.\n\n[Sidenote: And genuine novelty.]\n\nBut Leopardi might reply, What is the charm of novelty but an\nillusion? For everything on earth is really old: the future is but\na repetition of the past and ought logically to be as repugnant as\nthe past. Abstract formul\u00e6, and precipitate inductions like that,\noffer no resistance either to reason or to experience. Whatever\npessimistic poets may say to the contrary, nothing is a repetition\nof anything else, either in human life or in the universe. There is\nalways something new under the sun, if it be no more than the budding\nleaves on a tree or the changing colour on a cloud. No two sunsets are\nthe same. Fairy-stories tell of a marvellous picture book, the pages\nof which one may turn forever without weariness, for the instant the\npicture has been looked upon and the page turned, its place is taken\nby a new picture. The universe is such a book; when one wishes to turn\nback to a familiar page it is no longer the same nor are we ourselves\nthe same, and if we consider the matter narrowly, the world should\nalways possess for us its first freshness.\n\n[Sidenote: Perception of difference the mark of high intelligence.]\n\nThe distinctive sign of a really superior, really human intellect is\nto be interested in everything in the universe, and in the difference\nbetween things. When we look straight before us without, properly\nspeaking, seeing anything, we perceive resemblances only; when we\nlook with attention, with affectionate love of detail, we perceive an\ninfinity of differences; an intellectual activity, always awake, finds\neverywhere objects of interest. To love anything is to find in it,\nincessantly, elements of novelty.\n\n[Sidenote: The world inexhaustibly interesting.]\n\nWhen pessimists maintain that the charm of the future is an illusion,\nit may be retorted that the illusion is theirs, that they do not\nlook at the world closely enough to see it as it is, and do not love\nit because they do not know it. If one could view the Alps from the\nsurface of a passing a\u00ebrolite, the Rigi, the Faulhorn, Mont Blanc,\nMonte Rosa would all look alike, would all appear to be indifferent\npoints on the earth\u2019s rind; but what shall be said of the na\u00efve\ntraveller who confounds them, and professes to have seen the whole\nof the Alps when he has climbed the Rigi? Life, also, is a perpetual\nascent, of which it is difficult to say one has seen the whole because\none has climbed the first peak. From childhood to old age, the horizon\ngrows larger and changes and is always new. Nature seems to repeat\nitself only to a superficial gaze. Each of its works is original,\nlike those of genius. \u00c6sthetically or intellectually considered,\ndiscouragement is voluntary or involuntary blindness. If poets have\nwished to forget past experiences which were too painful, even in\nmemory, no true scholar or man of science has ever expressed the desire\nto forget what he knew, to make a blank space in his intelligence, to\nreject the knowledge so slowly acquired\u2014unless, indeed, it were for\nthe refined pleasure of learning it all over again and of owing nothing\nto the labour of previous generations. Beneath every human desire,\nwe repeat, there exists this thirst for truth, which is one of the\nessential elements of the religious sentiment, and all other desires\nmay be satiated or fatigued, but this one still subsists; one may be\nweary of life without being weary of knowledge; even those who have\nbeen most bitterly wounded by the conditions of life may still accept\nthem for the light that the intelligence brings them at the price\nof pain, as a soldier, whose eyes have been injured by some chance\nsplinter, nevertheless strains them beneath his eyelids to follow the\ncourse of the fight about him.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nIn effect, the analysis that pessimism is based upon is, in many\nrespects, superficial. Even the word pessimism is inexact, for the\ndoctrine ascribes no progress from bad to worse, from pejus to\npessimum; it maintains simply that the world is bad and must be\nrecognized as such, and that this recognition is the consequence and\nthe condition of progress, of intellectual power and of knowledge.\n\n[Sidenote: Suicide as a resource.]\n\nThe practical rules for the conduct of life that pessimism prescribes\nfrom its principles are still more open to discussion. Granted the\nwretchedness of life, the remedy that pessimists propose is the new\nreligious salvation that modern Buddhists are to make fashionable. This\nnovelty, which is older than S\u00e2kya-Muni itself, is one of the most\nancient of Oriental ideas; it to-day proves attractive to a number of\nOccidental peoples, as it has several times proved attractive to them\nin former days, for traces of it may be found among the Neo-Platonists\nand the Christian mystics. The conception is that of Nirv\u00e2na. To\nsever all the ties which attach you to the external world; to prune\naway all the young offshoots of desire, and recognize that to be rid\nof them is a deliverance; to practice a sort of complete psychical\ncircumcision; to recoil upon yourself and to believe that by so doing\nyou enter into the society of the great totality of things (the\nmystics would say of God); to create an inner vacuum, and feel dizzy\nin the void and, nevertheless, to believe that the void is plentitude\nsupreme\u2014\u03a0\u03bb\u1f74\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1\u2014these have always constituted temptations to\nmankind; mankind has been tempted to meddle with them, as it has been\ntempted to creep up to the verge of dizzy precipices and look over. The\npantheistic or monistic notion of Nirv\u00e2na eludes criticism precisely\nbecause it is void of all precise content. Physiologically speaking,\nNirv\u00e2na corresponds to the period of repose and quietude which always\nfollows a period of tension and of effort. One cannot stop and take\nbreath in the eternal forward march that constitutes the phenomenal\nlife of humanity; it is good sometimes to feel lassitude, it is good a\nlittle to understand the comparative cheapness and vanity of everything\none has hitherto attained, but good only on condition that such an\nunderstanding of our past constitutes a spur to fresh effort in the\nfuture. To rest content with lassitude\u2014to believe that the deepest\nexistence is the meanest, the coldest, the most inert\u2014is equivalent to\na confession of defeat in the struggle for existence. Nirv\u00e2na leads, in\nfact, to the annihilation of the individual and of the race, and to the\nlogical absurdity that the vanquished in the struggle for existence are\nthe victors over the trials and miseries of life.\n\n[Sidenote: Trial of Nirv\u00e2na.]\n\nIt would be interesting to perform a practical experiment in Nirv\u00e2na.\nOne of my acquaintances pushed the experiment as far as a European of\nscientific tendencies could. He practised asceticism to the point of\nrejecting all variety in his diet, he gave up meat (as Mr. Spencer\nalso did for some time), wine, every kind of ragout, every form of\ncondiment, and reduced to its lowest possible terms the desire that\nis most fundamental in every living being\u2014the desire of food, the\nexcitation of the famished animal in the presence of appetizing dishes,\nthe moment of heightened expectation before dinner which constitutes\nfor so many people the event of the day. For the protracted meals\nthat are customary, he substituted a certain number of cups of pure\nmilk. Having thus blunted his sense of taste and the grosser of his\nappetites, having abandoned all physical activity, he sought to find\na recompense in the pleasures of abstract meditation, and of \u00e6sthetic\ncontemplation. He entered into a state which was not that of dreamland,\nbut neither was it that of real life, with its definite details. What\ngives relief and outline to the life of each day, what makes each day\nan epoch for us in our existence, is the succession of our desires\nand our pleasures. One has no idea what a blank would be produced in\none\u2019s existence by the simple omission of some hundreds of meals. By\na similar process of elimination, employed in regard to pleasures\nand desires generally, he secured for his life a certain savourless,\ncolourless, ethereal charm. The whole universe recoiled by degrees\ninto the distance, for the universe was composed of things that he\nno longer came into forcible contact with, that he no longer handled\nvigorously, and that, therefore, came less violently into contact with\nhim, and left him, therefore, more indifferent to them. He entered the\ncloud in which the gods sometimes envelop themselves, and no longer\nfelt the firm earth beneath his feet, but he soon found that, if he no\nlonger stood upon firm earth, he was not on that account the nearer\nheaven; what struck him most was the enfeeblement of his thoughts\nprecisely at the time when, owing to his complete detachment from all\nmaterial cares, he was inclined to believe himself most intellectually\ncompetent. The instant that thought ceased to rest upon a foundation\nof solid reality it became incapable of abstraction; the life of\nthought as of our whole being is contrast, and it gathers power by\ndealing from time to time with objects which seem least readily to lend\nthemselves to its purposes. An endeavour to purify and to sublimate\nthought robs it of its precision; meditation gives place to dream, and\ndream gives place to the ecstasy in which mystics lose all sense of\nthe distinction between \u1f15\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u1fb6\u03bd, but in which a mind accustomed\nto self-possession cannot long remain without a sense of vapidity.\nThen a feeling of revolt supervenes, and one begins to understand\nthat abstract thought needs, if it is to achieve its highest point of\nlucidity and concentration, to be spurred on by desire. Such at least\nwas the experience of the friend mentioned above, and I suggest his\nexperiment for imitation to those who speak of Nirv\u00e2na from hearsay\nonly, and have never practised absolute renunciation. The only danger\nto fear is lest renunciation produce a certain brutalization, lest one\nlose one\u2019s self-control and be overcome by a sort of vertigo before\nhaving measured the depth of the abyss, and having perceived that it is\nbottomless. The safest paths in the mountains are those that have been\ntrodden out by asses and mules. \u201cFollow the asses,\u201d is the advice of\nthe guides. The advice is often good in real life; the good sense of\nthe multitude opens the way which must be followed, whether one will or\nnot, and philosophers may well at times \u201cfollow the asses.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Sanctity and egoism.]\n\nAbsorption in infinite substance, renunciation of the desire to live,\nand inert sanctity will always constitute the ultimate form and\nexpression of human illusion. If all is vanity, nothing, after all, is\nmore vain than to be completely conscious that all is vanity; if action\nis vain, repose is still more vain; life is vain, death is vainer.\nEven sanctity is not the equal of charity, the equal, that is to say,\nof what binds the individual to other individuals, and by that fact\nrenders him once more the slave of desire and of pleasure\u2014if not of\nhis own desires and pleasures, at least of those of other people. One\nmust always serve someone, must always be in bonds to something, even\nif only to the flesh. One must drag a chain, if one is to draw others\nafter one. Nobody forms a sufficient end and aim for his own activity;\nnobody can emancipate himself by living \u2018in and in,\u2019 by forming\nan ideal circle like the coiled serpent, by reflecting eternally,\naccording to the Hindu precept, on his navel; nothing is more like\nservitude than liberty that is confined within the bounds of self. The\nperfect sanctity of the mystics, Buddhists, and pessimists is a subtler\negoism simply; and the sole genuine virtue in the world is generosity,\nwhich does not fear to set its foot in the dust, in the service of\nanother.\n\n[Sidenote: Pessimism not destined to prevail.]\n\nWe do not therefore believe, with Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann,\nthat pessimism will be the religion of the future. Life will not be\npersuaded to seek death, nor movement to prefer immobility. We have\nsaid elsewhere that what renders existence possible renders it also\ndesirable; if the sum of the pains of human life were greater than the\nsum of the pleasures, the species would become extinct by a gradual\ndecrease in the vitality of each succeeding generation. Occidental\nnations, or rather the active people in the world, to whom the future\nbelongs, will never become converts to pessimism. Whoever acts, feels,\nhas power, and to be strong is to be happy. Even in the Orient, when\ntheir pessimism, the great religions, is addressed to the multitude, it\nis very superficial; commonplace maxims on the ills of existence, and\non the necessity for resignation, result as a matter of fact in a _far\nniente_ which is appropriate to the manners of the Orient. And, when\nit is addressed to thinkers, pessimism is only provisional\u2014it points\nto its own remedy in Nirv\u00e2na; but Nirv\u00e2na as a panacea and salvation\nby negation, or by violent self-destruction, will not long captivate\nmodern common sense. It is ridiculous to attribute to man the power\nto destroy the sacred germ from which life, with all its illusions,\nhas sprung, and will always spring, in spite of ascetics and partisans\nof individual suicide, and even, if Von Hartmann will, of \u201ccosmic\nsuicide.\u201d It is perhaps less difficult to create than to annihilate, to\nmake God than to destroy Him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nREVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESES WHICH WILL REPLACE\nDOGMA\u2014_Concluded_.\n\nIDEALISM, MATERIALISM, MONISM.\n\n    I. Idealism\u2014Different forms of idealism: subjective\n      idealism, objective idealism: The whole of existence\n      resolved into a mode of mental existence\u2014Value of\n      idealism considered from point of view of the religious\n      sentiment\u2014Most specious of contemporary idealisms:\n      Possibility of universal progress on the hypothesis of\n      radical spontaneity and of \u201cfreedom\u201d\u2014Reconciliation\n      between determinism and the conception of freedom\u2014Moral\n      idealism as a possible substitute for religious sentiment:\n      Dependence of the universe on the principle of goodness.\n\n    II. Materialism\u2014Difficulty in defining absolute materialism:\n      Matter\u2014The atom\u2014Nebular hypothesis\u2014Hydrogen\u2014Necessity\n      of supplementing materialism by some theory of the origin\n      of life\u2014The latest conception of materialism: Conception\n      of infinite divisibility and infinite extensibility.\n\n    III. Monism and the fate of worlds\u2014Current of contemporary\n      systems toward monism\u2014Scientific interpretation of\n      monism\u2014The world conceived monistically as a becoming and\n      as a life\u2014Scientific formul\u00e6 for life\u2014Progress consists\n      in the gradual confusion of these two formul\u00e6\u2014That the\n      rise of morality and religion can be accounted for without\n      the presupposition of any final cause\u2014Metaphysical\n      and moral expectations in regard to the destiny of the\n      world and of humanity it may be founded on scientific\n      monism\u2014Facts which appear to be inconsistent with these\n      expectations\u2014Pessimistic conception of dissolution that\n      is complementary to the conception of evolution\u2014Is the\n      immanence of dissolution demonstrable?\u2014Natural devices for\n      the perpetuation of the \u201cfittest\u201d\u2014R\u00f4le of intelligence,\n      of numbers, etc.\u2014Calculation of probabilities\u2014Is\n      eternity _a parte post_ a ground of discouragement or\n      of hope\u2014Probable existence of thinking beings in other\n      worlds: the planets, possibility of the existence of\n      beings superior to man\u2014Survival of the conception of\n      gods\u2014Hypothesis of intercosmic consciousness and of a\n      universal society.\n\n    IV. Destiny of the human race\u2014The hypothesis of\n      immortality from the point of view of monism\u2014Two\n      possible conceptions of immortality\u2014Eternal or\n      untemporal existence and continuation of life in some\n      superior forms\u2014I. Hypothesis of eternal life\u2014its\n      function in antique religions, in Platonism, and in the\n      systems of Spinoza, Kant, and Schopenhauer\u2014Eternal\n      life and the subsistence of the individual\u2014Distinction\n      made by Schopenhauer and various other philosophers\n      between individuality and personality\u2014Eternal life\n      problematical and transcendent\u2014Aristocratic tendency of\n      the theory of eternal life\u2014Hypothesis of conditional\n      immortality\u2014Criticism of the hypothesis of conditional\n      immortality; incompatibility of this notion with that\n      of divine goodness\u2014II. Hypothesis of a continuation of\n      the present life and its evolution into some superior\n      form\u2014What sort of immortality the theory of evolution\n      permits us to hope for\u2014Immortality of one\u2019s labours\n      and conduct\u2014True conception of such immortality\u2014Its\n      relation to the laws of heredity, atavism, natural\n      selection\u2014Immortality of the individual\u2014Objections\n      drawn from science\u2014Protestations of affection against\n      the annihilation of the person\u2014Resulting antinomy\u2014III.\n      Modern opposition between the conception of _function_\n      and the conception of simple substance, in which\n      ancient philosophy endeavours to find a proof of\n      immortality\u2014Peripatetic theory of Wundt and modern\n      philosophers on the nature of the soul\u2014Immortality as a\n      continuation of function, proved not by the simplicity,\n      but by the complexity of consciousness\u2014Relation between\n      complexity and instability\u2014Three stages of social\n      evolution\u2014Analogy of conscience with a society, collective\n      character of individual consciousness\u2014Conception of\n      progressive immortality\u2014Last product of evolution and\n      natural selection: (1) No necessary relation between the\n      compositeness and complexity of consciousness and its\n      dissolubility: indissoluble compounds in the physical\n      universe\u2014(2) Relation between consciousnesses, their\n      possible fusion in a superior consciousness\u2014Contemporary\n      psychology and the religious notion of the interpenetration\n      of souls\u2014Possible evolution of memory and identification\n      of it with reality\u2014Palingenesis by force of\n      love\u2014Problematic character of those conceptions and of\n      every conception relative to existence, of consciousness,\n      and the relation between existence and consciousness\u2014IV.\n      Conception of death appropriate to those who, in the\n      present state of evolution, do not believe in the\n      immortality of the individual\u2014Antique and modern\n      stoicism\u2014Acceptance of death: element of melancholy\n      and of greatness in it\u2014Expansion of self by means of\n      philosophical thought, and scientific disinterestedness,\n      to the point of to some extent approving one\u2019s own\n      annihilation.\n\n\n[Sidenote: The problem of the immanence of being.]\n\nNaturalism consists in believing that nature, together with the beings\nwhich compose it, make up the sum total of existence. But even from\nthis point of view there still remains the problem, what existence\nessentially is, and what special mode of existence is most typical.\nIs nature material, or mental, or both? The problem of the essence of\nbeing is one that cannot be escaped.\n\n[Sidenote: The double-aspect theory.]\n\nThe theory that seems to-day to be dominant is the \u201cdouble-aspect\u201d\ntheory\u2014the theory of two inseparable correlatives subjective and\nobjective, of consciousness and of motion. We have, as M. Taine[143]\nwould say, two texts of the eternal book instead of one. The question\nis, which of the two texts is original and sacred? Sometimes that which\nis furnished by introspection alone, sometimes that which objective\nscience endeavours to decipher, are respectively held to be primitive.\nThence arise two opposed tendencies, not alone in psychological but\nin metaphysical speculation; the one toward idealism, the other\ntoward materialism; the one toward what lies within, the other toward\nwhat lies without. But these two aspects may and should be conceived\nas possessing a certain unity; there is an inevitable tendency in\nthe human mind to follow out two converging lines to their point\nof intersection. There are, therefore, three forms of naturalism:\nidealism, materialism, monism. These three constitute the three genuine\nsystems of thought from which theism, atheism, and pantheism are\nrespectively derived.\n\n      [143] M. Ribot holds the same doctrine.\n\n\n_I. Idealism._\n\n[Sidenote: Idealism defined.]\n\nIf the words thought and idea be interpreted as Descartes and Spinoza\nunderstand them, as designating the entire life of the mind, the sum\ntotal of the possible content of consciousness, idealism may be defined\nas the system which resolves all reality into thought, into psychical\nexistence, insomuch that to be is to think or to be thought; to feel or\nto be felt; to will or to be willed; to be the object or subject of a\nconscious effort.\n\n[Sidenote: Idealism and the religious instinct.]\n\nIt is evident that idealism is one of the systems which is capable of\naffording a certain satisfaction to the religious sentiment, because\nthe religious sentiment is allied to the instinct for metaphysics, and\nthe instinct for metaphysics finds itself at home among all things\nof the spirit, of thought, of the moral world. The foundation of\ntheism, as we have said, is _moralism_; the belief, that is to say,\nthat the true power in nature is mental and moral. God is simply a\nrepresentation of this power, conceived as transcendent. Pantheism\nitself, after having divinized and materialized the universe and\nresolved all things, so to speak, into God, tends to become idealistic,\nto resolve God into the thought which has conceived Him, to deny Him\nall existence over and above that which He possesses in thought,\nand for thought, and by virtue of thought. According to the Hindu\ncomparison, the human mind is like the spider that can build its\nmansion out of materials drawn from its own body, and then reabsorb\nthem.\n\n[Sidenote: Subjective idealism criticised.]\n\nBut how shall the mind itself, the central fund of thought that is\nthe origin and end of all things, be conceived? Is it individual or\nimpersonal? English subjective or egoistic idealism, as Mr. Huxley\ndefines it in his \u201cLife of Hume,\u201d replies, that in spite of all\ndemonstration to the contrary, the collection of perceptions which\nconstitute our consciousness may be simply a phantasmagoria which,\nengendered and co-ordinated by the ego, unrolls its successive\nscenes upon a background of nonentity. Mr. Spencer retorts that,\nif the universe is thus simply a projection of our subjective\nsensations, evolution is a dream; but evolution may be formulated in\nidealistic quite as well as realistic terms: and a coherent dream\nis as good as reality. Subjective idealism is therefore difficult\nto refute logically; but in spite of that fact it will never have\nmany followers. For this apparent simplification of the world is in\nreality a complication. For subjective idealism involves the ridiculous\nhypothesis of a chance agreement between the impressions of any given\nindividual and of all other individuals: a difficulty much harder to\nexplain away than the preliminary one of the simple reflection in us\nof an external world. Mental phenomena are always more complex than\nmaterial phenomena.\n\nThe reduction of the external world to subjective terms, the\nexplanation of the optical illusion of objectivity, demands a much\ngreater display of vain ingenuity than any theory of simple perception.\nMore than that, the least effort with the resistance that it encounters\nis a refutation of egoistic, or as the English again say, solipsistic\nidealism. In the fact of resistance, subjective sensation and the\nperception of an objective reality coincide. Even if the manner in\nwhich our sensations of resistance are combined in tridimensional space\nmay be conceived as subjective, it is difficult to admit that the\nmaterials out of which the structure is made are, as it were, suspended\nin mid-air. To explain the fact of resistance requires us absolutely\nto pass beyond the limits of consciousness, for even in the cases in\nwhich the sensation of resistance seems to be due to hallucination,\nthe cause of hallucination is always found to be some instance of\nactual resistance, of friction or stress inside the body. The mistake\nof a madman, who sees an unfamiliar form take shape and rise before\nhis eyes, is not that of considering the power as existing outside\nof himself, but of locating it at the extremities of his nerves of\ntouch; whereas it is really in his brain, at the point where the nerves\nintersect with the cerebral centres. He is right in his sense of the\npresence of an enemy, but wrong in the direction in which he looks for\nit.\n\n[Sidenote: Truth in subjective idealism.]\n\nWe are obliged, therefore, to admit the hypothesis of a multitude\nof microcosms, of mine, of yours, of everybody\u2019s, and of a single\nmacrocosm the same for everybody. What is true is that between the\ngreat world and every little world there is an incessant communication,\nby means of which everything that passes in the one is echoed in the\nother. We live in the universe, and the universe lives in us. The\nstatement is not metaphorical, but literal. If we could look into the\nconsciousness of a school child, we should see a more or less faithful\nimage of all the marvels of the world: skies, seas, mountains, cities,\netc.; we should perceive the germ of every elevated sentiment, of\nevery kind of complex knowledge that the human brain contains. If we\ncould look into the consciousness of some great man\u2014some thinker, some\npoet\u2014the spectacle would be quite different. It would embrace the\nwhole of the visible and invisible universe, with its facts and its\nlaws; it would embrace what is best in the whole of humanity. If the\ntraces left by experience on the nervous system could be read, like the\nwriting in a book, the earth might disappear, and its image and history\nbe handed down in certain chosen human brains.\n\n[Sidenote: Realism destined to prevail.]\n\nActive and practical humanity will always believe in realism to the\nextent of insisting that the world possesses an existence which is\nindependent of any individual thought. We shall dwell no further\non subjective idealism, which is more important as a metaphysical\ncuriosity than for any comfort it gives to the religious sentiment.\n\n[Sidenote: Objective idealism.]\n\nOf objective idealism the same cannot be said. In objective idealism,\ntoo, all material existence is regarded as a mode of mental existence;\nbeing is identified either with the ideal law which presides over the\ndevelopment of the universe, or with the genuine foundation of our\nconsciousness, our sensations, our desires. The world, as Emerson has\nsaid, is a precipitate of the soul.\n\n[Sidenote: Criticised.]\n\nThis hypothesis is certainly one of those that may best serve as a\nsubstitute for theism, if theism should ever disappear. But idealism,\nthus understood, is open to the following objection: Is it of any\nspecial use to objectify the soul, if the existence of evil, which\nPlato identified with matter, is thereby left unchanged? It is in\nvain to translate evolution into psychic terms; no difficulty can be\navoided by so doing. The mysterious imperfections of the exterior world\nare transported bodily into the mind; evil is spiritualized simply.\nIdentifying things with the intellectual law which presides over their\nevolution in nowise excuses us from explaining why that law is in so\nmany respects bad, and why the intelligence that directs the universe\nis so often self-contradictory and feeble.\n\n[Sidenote: Objective idealism relatively capable of satisfying the\nmoral instincts.]\n\nIn spite of this objection, which will, perhaps, never receive a\nsufficient reply, it is certain that, so far as our moral and social\ninstincts are concerned, idealism offers us greater ground for hope\nthan either of the remaining systems of thought. In spite of evil and\npain, the desire of progress and of salvation, which is the basis of\nall religious speculation, may rely upon thought as its last resource.\nBut thought, if the doctrine of objective idealism is to be made\nacceptable, must be understood as including not only intelligence,\nbut also sentiment, desire, and volition, and, in effect, the purely\nintellectual idealism of a former time is at the present day being\nsucceeded by an idealism that regards the will as the fundamental\nelement in the universe.[144] Universal sensibility is an incident of\nuniversal power of will, whereas intelligence, properly so called,\nat least in so far as the function of intelligence is regarded as\nrepresentation, is more superficial than sensibility or volition.[145]\nThese three inseparable forms of psychic life[146] constitute the great\nforces to which moral and religious sentiment must always turn for\nsupport.\n\n      [144] See Schelling, Schopenhauer, Lotze, Wundt, Secr\u00e9tan, MM.\n      Ravaison, A. Fouill\u00e9e, Lachelier, and, to a certain extent, M.\n      Renouvier.\n\n      [145] See Schopenhauer, Horwicz, and M. Fouill\u00e9e.\n\n      [146] See Wundt\u2019s _Psychologie physiologique_.\n\n[Sidenote: Hypothesis of moral progress immanent in the world.]\n\nIdealism, thus understood, constitutes one of the most tempting of the\nsolutions of the problem of evil. Optimism being, as we have seen,\nindefensible, and pessimism being a caricature, the most plausible\nreligious and metaphysical hypothesis at the present day is the\nconception of a \u201cpossible progress owing to the radical spontaneity\nof all existing things.\u201d[147] The will, according to this hypothesis,\nwith its tendency to indefinite self-expansion, is _par excellence_\nthe primitive power, the central element in man and in the universe.\nFreedom of the will in man means the consciousness of this progressive\npower, which is immanent in all things, and this consciousness may\nbe made the foundation of a moral being. This conception of freedom,\nwhich is reconcilable with determinism, becomes an additional motive\namong the other motives that govern man\u2019s life, and tends to be\nrealized by the very fact that it is conceived and desired. Through\nthe intermediation of this conception, reality possesses a progressive\nfreedom, that is to say, a power of constant union with the whole, and\nof moral enfranchisement. \u201cIn the beginning there obtains a universal\nantagonism among the forces of the universe, a brutal fatality, an\ninfinite reign of shock and counter-shock, between blind and blindly\ndriven beings; then there arises a progressive organization that makes\nthe evolution of consciousness, and therefore of volition, possible;\nthere arises a gradual union and fraternity among the particulars that\nconstitute the universe. Ill-will, whether it originate in mechanical\nnecessity or in intellectual ignorance, is transitory; good-will is\npermanent, radical, normal, and fundamental. To cultivate good-will\nin one\u2019s self is to enfranchise one\u2019s self from the individual and\nthe transitory in favour of the universal and the permanent; it is to\nbecome truly free, and by that very fact to become truly loving.\u201d[148]\n\n      [147] Alfred Fouill\u00e9e, _La Libert\u00e9 et le D\u00e9terminisme_, 2d\n      edition, pp. 353, 354, 356.\n\n      [148] Alfred Fouill\u00e9e, _La Libert\u00e9 et le D\u00e9terminisme_, 2d\n      edition, pp. 353, 354, 356.\n\n[Sidenote: Reconciliation between freedom and determinism.]\n\nBetween progressive freedom thus conceived, and the determinism in\nthe midst of which it progresses, there is no opposition; freedom and\ndeterminism constitute two aspects of one and the same process of\nevolution. Determinism essentially consists in a series of actions and\nreactions existing between other beings and ourselves; but these very\nactions and reactions constitute the manifestation of the development\nof our, and their, inner activities. And the source of activity in the\nuniverse is none other than an overflowing power, which is hostile to\nlimitation, to impediment of every kind; is, in a word, none other than\na self-realizing volition. Freedom, thus understood, may, therefore,\nbe considered in the last resort as the origin of determinism and as\none with it.[149] Necessity is, so to speak, the outer surface of\nfreedom\u2014the point of contact between two or more free agents. Freedom\nis inconceivable apart from a resulting determinism, for to be free is\nto possess power, is to act and to react, is to determine and to be\ndetermined. Determinism, on the other hand, that is to say, reciprocal\naction, is inconceivable apart from freedom, from internal action, from\na spontaneous outbreak of power that tends to be free. So that one may\nsay, without contradiction, that determinism envelops the world, and\nthat free-will constitutes it.\n\n      [149] A. Fouill\u00e9e, _op. cit._\n\n[Sidenote: Ideal liberty the aim of the universe.]\n\nIf the shock of wills in the world is unusually brutal, the reason\nis that they are as yet but half conscious of their powers; as\nconsciousness develops, contest will give way to concurrence. To\navoid violent concussion with obstacles in the way, the free agent\nhas less need of acquaintance with them than of acquaintance with\nitself. As there is nothing in the universe that is foreign to\nvolition, there is nothing in the universe that is foreign to the ideal\nthat every volition aims at. It is probable that life is always and\neverywhere accompanied by consciousness in some slight degree; and\nwherever consciousness exists, desire may exist. Nature\u2019s device, as\na contemporaneous poet has said, is \u201cI aspire.\u201d The human ideal is,\nperhaps, no more than the conscious formulation of this aspiration\nwhich is common to the whole universe. If so, it follows that ideal\nfreedom is the limit of evolution, and that volition, which aims at\nideal freedom, is the principle of it.[150]\n\n      [150] \u201cThe category of Real Existence does not seem\n      reconcilable with the notion of liberty; the latter in its\n      perfection must be conceived under the category of the Ideal,\n      and in its imperfection under that of Becoming.\u201d\u2014A. Fouill\u00e9e,\n      _La Libert\u00e9 et le D\u00e9terminisme_, conclusion.\n\n[Sidenote: Objections answered.]\n\nIt has been objected to this idealist theory of evolution that\nprogress implies an aim and the observance of certain principles\nin its attainment, while evolution does not.[151] But the precise\nobject of the doctrine in question is to supply evolution with a name\nand appropriate principles, and to extend the notion of progress to\nthe universe as a whole. It has also been objected to this somewhat\npanthelistic hypothesis (\u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2), that if everything is free, nothing\nis free.[152] This objection is not exact, for it would imply, in\neconomics, for instance, that to increase everybody\u2019s well-being would\nincrease the well-being of nobody, or that if everybody equally\nshould be impoverished, everybody would equally be enriched. To\nuniversalize a conception is one thing, to suppress it is another.\nThe world cannot at the present day be conceived as distinct from the\nhuman race: the two are vitally and intimately related. Endow mankind\nwith an unbiassed freedom of will, and Epicurus would be right in\nholding that indeterminism is the basis of all things.[153] Similarly,\nsuppose mankind endowed with \u201ca radical goodness of will, which is\nvery distinct from freedom of the will, but nevertheless constitutes a\nsort of moral freedom in process of formation,\u201d[154] and the germ of\nsuch goodness of will should be found in a more or less unconscious\nform throughout the entire universe. Before the human mind can really\nproduce anything whatever, the whole universe must be like it in\nlabour. Partisans of the theory of goodness of will as the basis of\nhuman morality are therefore logical in regarding it as more or less\npresent in some degraded form throughout the whole of nature, even\nin beings in which intelligence has not yet made its appearance; and\ngoodness of will in such cases is to be considered as accompanied\nby the obscure beginnings of responsibility, of implicit merit or\ndemerit\u2014one must return in effect to a sort of re-reading of the Hindu\ntheory, according to which the several degrees that exist in nature\nrepresent so many stages in morality.\n\n      [151] M. Franck, _Essais de critique philosophique_.\n\n      [152] M. Franck, _op. cit._\n\n      [153] The author argued the point at length, in 1873, in his\n      book on Epicurus. See also his _Morale anglaise_, 2 partie, pp.\n      385-386, 2d edition.\n\n      [154] A. Fouill\u00e9e, _La Libert\u00e9 et le D\u00e9terminisme_, 2d edition.\n\n[Sidenote: Moral idealism and the religious sentiment.]\n\n_Hypotheses fingo_ is the mother of metaphysics. Moral idealism of\nthe kind we have just epitomized from the pages of a contemporary\nauthor is decidedly no more than a hypothesis, and a hypothesis open\nto discussion; but it is assuredly the form of idealism that is\nleast incompatible with the theory of evolution, and with the facts\nof natural history and of human history.[155] Moreover, it affords\nunusual scope for the religious sentiment, freed from its mysticism\nand transcendence. If the unknown activity which lies at the basis\nof the natural world has produced in the human race a consciousness\nof goodness, and a deliberate desire for it, there is reason to hope\nand to believe that the last word of ethics and metaphysics is not a\nnegative.\n\n      [155] This form of idealism is equally compatible with the\n      prevailing monistic doctrines, and is in some cases, as notably\n      in that of M. Fouill\u00e9e, confounded with them. See below.\n\n[Sidenote: Religion interpreted in the light of this hypothesis.]\n\nWe have a number of times cited Schleiermacher\u2019s definition of\nreligion: the sense of our absolute dependence in regard to the\nuniverse and its principle. When the religious sentiment becomes\ntransformed into a moral idealism its correct formula tends to be the\ninverse of the preceding: a sense of the dependence of the universe\nupon the determination that goodness shall prevail, of which we are\nconscious in ourselves and which we conceive to be or to be capable of\nbecoming the directing principle of universal evolution. The notion\nof the moral and social ideal of freedom is, therefore, according to\nthis doctrine, not a mere superficial accident in the universe, but\na revelation and growing consciousness of the most fundamental laws\nof the universe, of the true essence of things, which is the same in\nall beings in different degrees and in diverse combinations. Nature\nrepresents an eternal ascent toward a more and more clearly conceived\nideal, which dominates its progress from beginning to end. As one\nclimbs a height to survey a mountain range, the snow-capped peaks rise\nsilently and take their places side by side along the horizon; it seems\nas if the enormous masses rise in obedience to an immense effort which\nuplifts them; it seems as if their immobility is only apparent, and one\nfeels borne aloft with them toward the zenith. The heroes in the Indian\nlegend, when they were weary of life and of the earth, rallied their\nstrength for a final effort, and hand in hand scaled the Himalayas,\nand the mountains bore them away into the clouds. Ancient peoples\ngenerally regarded the mountains as a transition between earth and sky;\nit was from the mountains that the soul, profiting by the impulse lent\nit by the last touch of earth, took its freest flight: the mountains\nconstituted a pathway toward the open heavens. And that may be an\nelement of profundity in these na\u00efve ideas which ascribe to nature\naspirations which are more properly human. Do there not exist in nature\ngreat unfinished sketches, hints and lines leading upward? Nature has\ndone all that unconsciously, has blindly piled block on block of stone\nslowly toward the stars. It is man\u2019s privilege to read a meaning into\nher work, to make use of her efforts, to employ past centuries as the\nmaterials out of which to build the future; by scaling the heights of\nnature man will reach the sky.\n\n\n_II. Materialism._\n\nProperly to estimate idealism it must be contrasted with its opposite,\nmaterialism.\n\n[Sidenote: Materialism difficult to define.]\n\nWe shall say but a few words on the subject of pure materialism,\nbecause of all systems of thought materialism is the farthest removed\nfrom those which give rise to religious and to metaphysical theories.\nAbsolute materialism is somewhat difficult to define, because matter\nis one of the vaguest of words. To aim at representing the ultimate\nelements of matter as wholly independent of thought, of consciousness,\nof life, is evidently chimerical; such an effort leads straight to\nthe pure indeterminism of matter as conceived by Plato, Aristotle,\nand Hegel; to an indefinite dyad, to a theory of virtuality and of\nthe identity of non-being. Also materialists are obliged to regard\nas determinate and material the primitive force of which the world\nconstitutes simply a development. If, for example, according to the\nmost recent theories, all matter should prove to be reducible to\nhydrogen, materialism would regard hydrogen as constituting a sort of\nmaterial or substantial unity in the world. Variety would exist only\nin the forms displayed by the primitive element, hydrogen, or, if you\nprefer, pre-hydrogen.\n\n[Sidenote: Materialism criticised.]\n\nIt must be confessed that this conception is somewhat na\u00efve and\nnominalistic; the word material or chemical can never express more\nthan the outside, than the exterior properties of the primordial\nelement. The hydrogen atom itself is probably in a high degree\ncomposite, is itself probably a world of little worlds, held in\nplace by gravitation. The very conception of an indivisible atom is\nphilosophically infantine. Thomson and Helmholtz have shown that our\natoms are little vortices of energy, and have succeeded in producing\nexperimentally analogous vortices formed of vapour; for instance, of\nthe vapour chlor-hydrate of ammonia. Each vortex is composed always of\nthe same particles; no one particle can be separated from the others;\neach vortex possesses, therefore, a stable individuality. When the\nattempt is made to cut the vortices, they fly the blade or bend about\nit, and prove to be indivisible. They are capable of contraction, of\ndilation, of partial interpenetration and distortion, but never of\ndissolution. And certain men of science have thence inferred that we\npossess thus a material proof of the existence of atoms. And so indeed\nwe do, providing an atom be understood to be something as complex, as\nlittle primordial, and as relatively enormous as a nebula. Atoms are\nindivisible as a nebula is indivisible by a knife blade, and the atom\nof hydrogen is about as simple as the solar system. To explain the\nuniverse by hydrogen is like explaining it by the sun and the planets.\nThe rise of the actual world out of hydrogen can be conceived only\non condition of ascribing to the alleged atoms of hydrogen something\nmore than physicists and chemists know them to possess. Materialism,\ntherefore, must enlarge its principle if it is to prove productive:\nenlarge, as Diderot would say, your atheism and your materialism.\n\n[Sidenote: Must be supplemented by some theory to account for life.]\n\nBut the instant materialism is \u201cenlarged,\u201d the universal element must\nat once be regarded as alive and is not what is called brute matter.\nEvery generation of physicists, as Mr. Spencer says, discovers in so\ncalled brute matter forces the existence of which the best informed\nphysicist would some years previous have disbelieved. When we perceive\nsolid bodies, sensitive in spite of their inertia to the action of\nforces, the number of which is infinite; when the spectroscope proves\nto us that terrestrial molecules move in harmony with molecules in the\nstars; when we find ourselves obliged to infer that the innumerable\nvibrations traverse space in all directions, the conception which is\nforced upon us is not that of a universe of dead matter but rather\nthat of a universe everywhere alive; alive in the general sense of the\nword, if not in the restricted.[156] The notion of life is perhaps\nmore human and more subjective, but after all more complete and\nconcrete than the notion of movement and of force; for we cannot hope\nto discover the truth at any great distance from the subjective, since\nsubjectivity is the necessary form in which truth appears to us.\n\n      [156] Mr. Spencer himself has a little forgotten this fact in a\n      number of his own somewhat too mechanical constructions.\n\n[Sidenote: Must be supplemented by some sort of mind-stuff theory.]\n\nThe second emendation to which materialism must submit, if it is to\nsatisfy the metaphysical instincts of mankind, is to include in the\nprimordial element not only life but some germ of mind. But primitive\nmatter conceived as a force capable of living and ultimately of\nthinking is not what is scientifically and vulgarly regarded as matter,\nfar less as hydrogen. The pure materialist, thumping the rotundity of\nthe earth with his fist, and relying grossly on his sense of touch,\ncries: \u201cMatter is everything,\u201d but matter is analyzable into force, and\nforce is simply a primitive form of life. Materialism therefore issues\ninto a sort of animism; in the presence of the circling world, the\nmaterialist is obliged to say it is alive. Nor can he stop there; the\nworld is force, is action, is life\u2014and something more; for in and by\nme the world thinks. _E pur si pensa!_\n\n[Sidenote: Passes readily into idealism.]\n\nBehold us landed once more in idealism. And, indeed, as Lange and M.\nTaine have well shown, materialism easily passes to idealism; pure\nmaterialism results in an abstract mechanism, which is analyzable\ninto the laws of logic and of thought. And the basis of this\nmechanism\u2014atoms and motion\u2014consists in enfeebled subtilized and\nrarefied tactual and visual sensations, taken ultimately as the\nexpression of the final reality. The alleged foundation of objective\nreality is simply a residuum of our most essential sensations.\nMaterialism is advocated in the name of positive science; but it, not\nless than idealism, belongs really to the poetry of metaphysics; its\npoetry is recorded simply in terms of atoms and motion, instead of in\nterms of the elements of consciousness. Materialistic symbols are more\nmatter of fact, more neighbour to the visible reality, possess a wider\ncompass and generality, but they are none the less symbols simply.\nMaterialism is in some sort a tissue of metaphor in which scientific\nterms lose their scientific signification, and gain a metaphysical\nsignification in its stead, transferred, as they are, to a domain that\nlies beyond the range of experience. The man of science who speculates\nthus upon the nature of things is, unknown to himself, a modern\nLucretius.\n\n[Sidenote: Materialism and the notion of infinity.]\n\nAnd finally, materialism, properly so called, has been invaded by\na notion which has been at all times peculiarly adapted to satisfy\nthe metaphysical and religious aspirations of mankind; the notion of\ninfinity, whether in the direction of greatness or the opposite. Men of\nscience go to the trouble of estimating the number of molecules in a\ndrop of water; they tell us that the thousandth part of a millimeter of\nwater contains 228,000,000 molecules; they say that a pinhead contains\nthe fourth power of 20,000,000 atoms, and that, if the atoms could be\ncounted a billion every second, it would take 253,678 years to complete\nthe task. But all such calculations are simply arithmetical _jeux\nd\u2019esprit_. These figures, which are so great in appearance, really\namount to nothing, and a grain of sand, no doubt, contains literally an\ninfinite number of particles.\n\n[Sidenote: Final breakdown of materialism.]\n\nThe argument against the notion of infinity, based on the logical\nimpossibility of an infinite number, is not decisive;[157] it rests\nupon a begging of the question, namely, that everything in the\nuniverse is innumerable\u2014that is to say, is capable of being precisely\nincluded within the limits of an intelligence like our own. Logic, on\nthe contrary, insists that in homogeneous matter, like space, time,\nand quantity, there is no limit to the possibility of division and\nmultiplication, and that, consequently, they may proceed beyond any\ngiven number. If so called \u201cpurely scientific\u201d materialism does not\nadmit that nature is coextensive with man\u2019s conception of what is\npossible\u2014if it denies the parallelism between thought and nature\u2014it\nby that very fact denies also the rationality of nature, which is\nprecisely the principle upon which every philosophy that pretends to\nbe purely scientific ultimately relies. Whoever rejects the notion\nof infinity is obliged, in the last resort, to suppose a species of\ncontradiction between the activity of the human mind, which is unable\nto stop at any given point, and nature, which stops, for no reason in\nparticular, at a determinate point in time and space. The conception\nof infinity may be said to be forced upon materialism, and that very\nnotion contains one of the antinomies against which intelligence, by\nthe very fact of its employment, is ultimately brought to a standstill;\nit is precisely in the act of counting that intelligence achieves\nthe conception of the innumerable; it is by exhausting every given\nquantity that it achieves the conception of the inexhaustible; it is\nby reaching ever beyond the limits of the known that it comes in touch\nwith the unknowable; and all these conceptions mark the point where\nwe feel our intelligence becoming feeble and beyond which our sight\ngrows dim. Back of matter, which thought takes cognizance of, and back\nof thought, which takes cognizance of itself, lies infinity, which\nenvelops both of them, and which seems the most fundamental aspect\nof matter itself. It was not without reason that the ancients called\nmatter, abstractly considered, as independent of its diverse forms,\nthe infinite \u1f04\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd. Materialism thus leaves us, as other systems\ndo, in the presence of that ultimate mystery which all religions have\nsymbolized in their myths, and which metaphysics will always be obliged\nto recognize, and poetry to express, by the instrumentality of images.\n\n      [157] See Renouvier\u2019s arguments and Lotze\u2019s and Fouill\u00e9e\u2019s\n      replies to them in the _Revue philosophique_.\n\n[Sidenote: Apologue.]\n\nBy the seaside stood a great, upright mountain that pierced the sky\nlike an arrow-head, and the waves beat upon its base. In the morning,\nwhen the first light of the sun touched the ancient rocks, they\nshivered, and a voice rose from the gray stones and mingled with the\nsound made by the blue sea; and mountain and wave conversed together.\nThe sea said: \u201cThe heavens have been mirrored in my shifting waves\na million years, and in all that time have held as high aloof from\nme and stood as motionless.\u201d And the mountain said: \u201cI have climbed\ntoward the heavens a million years, and they are still as high above\nme as ever.\u201d One day a ray of sun fell smiling upon the brow of the\nmountain, and the mountain questioned it on the distant heavens from\nwhich it came. The ray was about to reply, but was reflected suddenly\nfrom the mountain to the sea, and from a scintillating wave back to\nthe heavens from which it came. And the ray is still _en route_ across\nthe infinite, toward the nebul\u00e6 of Ma\u00efa, in the Pleiades, which were\nso long invisible, or toward some point farther still, and has not yet\nreplied.\n\n\n_III. Monism. The Fate of Worlds._\n\n[Sidenote: Monism.]\n\nThe word infinite, \u1f04\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd, which the ancients applied to matter, the\nmoderns have applied to mind. The reason, no doubt, is that matter and\nmind are two aspects of one and the same thing. The synthesis of these\ntwo aspects is attempted by monism.\n\n[Sidenote: Monism to-day prevalent.]\n\nI. It is not our purpose here to pass judgment upon the theoretical\npretensions of monism as a system of metaphysics. We observe simply\nthat the trend of modern thought is toward this system. Materialism is\nsimply a mechanical monism, the fundamental law of which is conceived\nas capable of being completely formulated in mathematical terms.\nIdealism is simply a monism the essential law of which is conceived as\nmental, as pertaining to the intelligence or to the will. This latter\nform of monism numbers many adherents in Germany and in England. In\nFrance it has been advocated by M. Taine, and we have just seen that\nit is maintained at the present moment under a somewhat different form\nby M. Fouill\u00e9e, who regards it as a reconciliation of naturalism and\nidealism, and no doubt also as a possible reconciliation between what\nis essential in pantheism and in theism.[158] In our judgment the\nbalance must be more evenly trimmed than the philosophers above cited\nhave done, between the material and mental aspects of existence,\nbetween objective science and subjective, conscious knowledge. Monism,\ntherefore, essentially consists simply in a hypothesis that combines\nthe least questionable facts dealt with by science, those which are\ninseparable from the elementary facts of consciousness. The fundamental\nunity imported by the term monism is not to be confounded with\nSpinoza\u2019s unity of substance, nor with the absolute unity advocated\nby the Alexandrians, nor with Spencer\u2019s unknowable force, nor with\nanything in the nature of a final cause, such as is spoken of, for\nexample, by Aristotle. Neither do we affirm the existence of any\nunity of figure and form in the universe. We are content to admit,\nby a hypothesis at once scientific and metaphysical, the fundamental\nhomogeneity of all things, the fundamental identity of nature. Monism,\nin our judgment, should be neither transcendent nor mystical, but\nimmanent and naturalistic. The world is one continuous Becoming; there\nare not two kinds of existence nor two lines of development, the\nhistory of which is the history of the universe.\n\n      [158] See the preceding chapter.\n\n[Sidenote: The fundamental conception of philosophy is that of life.]\n\nInstead of endeavouring to resolve matter into mind or mind into\nmatter, we recognize them both as united in this synthesis, which\nscience itself (and science is a stranger to anything in the nature of\nmoral or religious prejudice) is obliged to recognize: the synthesis\nknown as _life_. Science tends every day still further to extend the\ndomain of life, and there exists no fixed point of demarcation between\nthe organic and the inorganic world. We do not know whether the\nfoundation of life is _will_, or _idea_, or _thought_, or _sensation_,\nalthough in sensation we no doubt approach the central point; it seems\nto us probable simply that consciousness, which constitutes for us\neverything, should count for something in every mode of being, and\nthat there is, so to speak, no being in the universe which is entirely\nabstracted from self. But, leaving these hypotheses to one side, what\nwe can affirm with certainty is that life, by the very fact of its\ndevelopment, tends to engender consciousness; and that progress in life\nultimately comes to be one with progress in consciousness, in which\nwhat is movement in one aspect is sensation in another. Considered\nfrom within everything, even the intellectual forms of time and space,\nis resolvable by the psychologist into sensation and desire;[159] and,\nconsidered from without, everything is resolvable by the physicist into\nemotion; to feel and to move seem to be the two formul\u00e6 that express\nthe entire inner and outer universe, the concave and convex aspects of\nthings; but to feel that one\u2019s self moves is the formula that expresses\nself-conscious life which is still so infrequent in the great totality\nof things, but which is becoming increasingly more common. The very\nmeaning of progress in life consists in what is expressed by the\ngradual fusion of these two. Life means, in fact, development toward\nsensation and thought.\n\n      [159] See the author\u2019s study on _L\u2019id\u00e9e de temps_ (_Revue\n      philosophique_, April, 1885).\n\n[Sidenote: Life and activity.]\n\nSide by side with the tendency which life thus displays to take\npossession of itself by consciousness, it seeks to widen the sphere\nof its operation by a more and more profound activity. Life is\nproductivity. At the lowest stage of consciousness life leads only\nto the inner development of the solitary cell; at the highest stage\nof consciousness, life manifests itself in intelligent and moral\nproductivity. Expansion, far from being opposed to the nature of\nlife, is in harmony with its nature, is the very condition of life,\nproperly so called, just as in generation the need to engender another\nindividual results in that individual\u2019s existence being, as it were,\na condition of our own. The fact is that life does not consist in\nnutrition only, it consists in production, and pure egoism involves not\nan expansion of self but a diminution and mutilation of self. Also the\nindividual, by the mere fact of growth, tends to become both social and\nmoral.[160] It is this fact of the fundamental sociality of mankind\nwhich is the basis of the moral instinct, and of what is most profound\nand durable in the religious and metaphysical instinct. Metaphysical\nspeculation, like moral action, thus springs from the very source\nof life. To live is to become a conscious, a moral, and ultimately\na philosophical being. Life is activity in one or other of its more\nor less equivalent forms: moral activity, and what may be called\nmetaphysical activity, that is to say, activity of thought, binds up\nthe individual with the universe.\n\n      [160] See the author\u2019s _Esquisse d\u2019une morale_, p. 447, _et\n      seq._\n\n[Sidenote: No final cause in nature.]\n\nUp to this point we have made no mention of anything in the nature of\na final cause. Morality, in our judgment, is as independent as the\nso-called religious instinct of anything in the nature of a primordial\nend and aim. Morality in the beginning is simply a more or less blind,\nunconscious, or, at best, subconscious power. As this power becomes\nendowed with self-consciousness, it directs itself toward more and more\nrational objects: _duty_ is self-conscious and organized morality.\nJust as humanity moves blindly forward without in the first instance\npossessing any notion of its destination, so also moves nature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Monism and the problem of destiny.]\n\nAll this being true, what is the destiny of mankind in the world? Does\nmonism allow a place for the hopes on which the moral and metaphysical\nsentiments have always relied in their effort to save thought and\ngood-will from the charge of vanity?\n\n[Sidenote: Natural selection and the possible evolution of gods.]\n\nIf evolution may be conceived as possessing from the beginning a\ncertain aim and as being on the whole providential,\u2014a metaphysical\nhypothesis which unhappily is guiltless of the smallest trace of\nscientific induction,\u2014it may also be conceived as resulting in beings\ncapable of proposing to themselves a certain aim, and of dragging\nnature after them toward it. Natural selection would thus finally be\nconverted into moral and, in some sort, divine selection. Such an\nhypothesis is, no doubt, as yet a rash one, but is at least in the\ndirection of the trend of scientific thought, and it is not formally\nin contradiction with present knowledge. Evolution, in effect, can and\nwill produce species and types superior to humanity as we know it; it\nis not probable that we embody the highest achievement possible in\nlife, thought, and love. Who knows, indeed, but that evolution may\nbe able to bring forth, nay, has not already brought forth, what the\nancients called gods?\n\n[Sidenote: Possibility of arresting process of dissolution.]\n\nSuch speculation offers a permanent support for what is best in the\nreligious sentiment for sociality, not only with all living and knowing\nbeings, but with the creatures of thought and superior power with which\nwe people the universe. Provided such beings are in no sense anti-real,\nprovided they might somewhere exist, if not in the present at least in\nthe future, the religious sentiment may attach itself to them without\ncheck from the scientific sentiment. And in so doing it becomes one\nwith the metaphysical and poetic impulse. The believer is transmuted\ninto a philosopher or a poet, but into a poet whose poetry is his\nlife, and who dreams of a universal society of real or possible beings\nwho shall be animated to a goodness of will analogous to his own. The\nstatement that Feuerbach proposed, of what is essential in moral and\nreligious sentiment (the reaction of human desire on the universe),\nmay then be interpreted in a higher sense as referring to a desire and\na hope both that, first, the sociality with which we feel ourselves\npersonally to be animated may, as biology would lead us to believe,\nbe discovered in all beings that exist at the summit of universal\nevolution; and second, that these beings thus placed at the front by\nevolution, will one day succeed in securing what they have gained, in\npreventing dissolution, and that they may thereby permanently establish\nin the universe the love of social or rather universal well-being.\n\n[Sidenote: The highest possible conception in the realms of morals.]\n\nThus understood, the religious sentiment may still be regarded as\nultra-scientific, but no longer as anti-scientific. It is, no doubt,\ntaking much for granted to suppose that beings who have arrived at a\nhigh degree of evolution may determine from that point on the direction\nthat the evolutionary process is to take, but, after all, since we are\nunable to affirm with certitude that such is not or may not become the\nfact, the moral and social sentiment urges us to act in such manner\nas to turn as far as in us lies the process of evolution in that\ndirection. If, as we have said, morality is a species of productivity,\nevery moral being must turn his eyes toward the future, must hope that\nhis work will not die, must watch over the safety of that portion of\nhimself that he has delivered to someone else\u2014of his love\u2014by which\nnot only he has devoted himself to others, but has made others in a\nsense his own; has acquired rights over them, has conquered them, so to\nspeak, by subjecting himself to them. By labouring for humanity and for\nthe universe with which humanity is bound up, I acquire certain rights\nover the universe. There arises between us a relation of reciprocal\ndependence. The highest conception of morals and metaphysics is that\nof a sort of sacred league between the higher beings of the earth, and\neven of the universe, for the advancement of what is good.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nII. What scientific facts may be urged in bar of such hopes as to the\ndestiny of the universe and of humanity?\n\n[Sidenote: Immanence of dissolution.]\n\nThe most discouraging aspect of the theory of evolution is that\nof dissolution, which seems to be inevitably incident to it. From\nHeracleitus to Mr. Spencer, philosophers have regarded these two ideas\nas inseparable. But does evolution necessarily result in dissolution?\nOur experience, both of the life of individuals and of worlds,\nseems, so far as the past is concerned, to make for a reply in the\naffirmative. Our whole acquaintance has been with worlds which have\ngone or are going to shipwreck. When the corpse of a sailor is thrown\ninto the sea, his friends take notice of the exact point of latitude\nand longitude at which his body disappeared in the ocean. Two figures\non a bit of paper are all that exists of what was a human life. An\nanalogous destiny may be supposed to be in reserve for the terrestrial\nglobe and for humanity as a whole. They may some day sink out of sight\nin space and dissolve beneath the moving waves of ether; and at that\nperiod, if some neighbouring and friendly star observe us, it may\ntake the latitude and longitude in infinite space of the point in the\ncelestial abyss where we disappeared\u2014the angle made by the last rays\nthat left the earth; and the measure of this angle, made by two extinct\nrays, may be the sole trace to remain of the whole sum of human effort\nin the world of thought.\n\n[Sidenote: Has been observed in the past only.]\n\nNevertheless, the duty of science being equally in its denials and\nin its affirmations to keep within the limits of certainty, it is\nimportant not to model our conception of the future too absolutely upon\nour knowledge of the past.\n\n[Sidenote: The future may differ from the past.]\n\nUp to the present time there has been no individual, nor group of\nindividuals, nor world which has attained complete self-consciousness,\ncomplete consciousness of its life and of the laws of its life. We are\nunable, therefore, either to affirm or to demonstrate that dissolution\nis essentially and eternally incident to evolution by the very law\nof being: the law of laws is to us simply _x_. If thought is ever to\nunderstand the law of laws, it will be by realizing the law in its\nown person. And such a height of development is conceivable; if it\nis impossible to prove its existence, it is still more impossible to\nprove its non-existence. It may be that if complete self-consciousness,\nif complete consciousness is ever achieved, it will produce a\ncorresponding power great enough to arrest the process of dissolution.\nBeings who are capable, in their infinite complication of movements\nin the world, of distinguishing those which make for evolution as\nagainst those which make for dissolution, might be capable of defeating\nthe latter and of securing the unimpeded operation of the former. If\na bird is to cross the sea it needs a certain breadth of wing; its\ndestiny depends on some inches, more or less, of feathers. Seabirds\nthat desert the shore before their wings have attained the proper\nstrength are one after another engulfed in the waves, but when their\nwings are full grown they can cross the ocean. A world also needs, so\nto speak, a certain breadth of wing to secure its flight in infinite\nspace\u2014its fate depends on some small increments, more or less, in the\ndevelopment of consciousness; beings may one day be produced capable of\ntraversing eternity without danger of being engulfed, and evolution may\nbe established once for all in security against a recoil; for the first\ntime in the onward movement of the universe a definitive result may be\nachieved. According to the profound symbolism of the Greek religion,\ntime is the father of worlds. The power of evolution which the moderns\nregard as ruling over all things is the ancient Saturn who devours\nhis offspring. Which of his children shall deceive him and vanquish\nhim\u2014what Jupiter shall some day prove strong enough to chain up the\ndivine and terrible power that engendered him? The problem for him when\nhe shall arise\u2014for this god of light and intelligence\u2014will be to\ncheck the eternal and blind impulse of destruction without at the same\ntime arresting the impulse of productivity. Nothing, after all, can\njustify one in affirming scientifically that such a problem is forever\ninsoluble.\n\n[Sidenote: The inexhaustible resources of nature.]\n\nThe great resource of nature is number, the possible combinations of\nwhich are infinite and constitute the secret of the eternal mechanism\nof the universe. Fortuitous combination and selection, which have\nproduced so many marvels in the past, may give rise to still greater\nmarvels in the future. It is on that fact that Heracleitus, Empedocles,\nDemocritus, and later the men like Laplace, Lamarck, and Darwin based\ntheir conception of the part played by chance in the universe, and of\nthe point of union between luck and destiny. There is in the history\nof the world\u2014as in the history of a people, a belief, or a science\u2014a\ncertain number of partings of the way, where the least impulse toward\none side or toward the other suffices to destroy or to preserve the\naccumulated effort of centuries. We must happily have passed an\ninfinity of such cross-roads to have attained our present point of\ndevelopment. And at each new point of the kind we encounter once more\nthe same danger and run the same risk of losing everything that we have\ngained. The number of times that a fortunate soldier has evaded death\nwill not make the next shot fired at him deviate a millimetre from its\nappointed path, but if our successes in the past are no guarantee of\nsuccess in the future, our failures in the past do not constitute a\ndefinitive proof of failure in the future.\n\n[Sidenote: Even chances that the future may not resemble the past.]\n\nThe gravest objection that can be urged against hopefulness, an\nobjection which has hitherto not been sufficiently considered,\nand which M. Renan has omitted to deal with in his something too\noptimistic \u201cDialogues\u201d\u2014is that of the eternity _a parte post_, is the\nsemi-abortion, the partial miscarriage of a universe which, throughout\nan infinite past, has proved itself incapable of a better world than\nthis.[161] Still, if that fact constitutes a reason for looking with\nless confidence toward the future, it cannot be regarded as a ground\nfor despair. An infinite past has proved to be more or less sterile,\nbut an infinite future may prove to be otherwise. Even taking for\ngranted the total miscarriage hitherto of the labours of humanity and\nof the infinity of extra-terrestrial beings who no doubt co\u00f6perate with\nus, there remains, so far as the future is concerned, mathematically\none chance out of every two of success; and that is enough to debar\npessimism forever of an ultimate triumph. If the mere chances of the\ndice, by which, according to Plato, the universe is governed, have as\nyet produced nothing but crumbling worlds and caducous civilization, a\ncalculation of probabilities demonstrates that even after an infinite\nnumber of throws the result of the present cast or of the next cast\ncannot be foreseen. The future is not entirely determined by the past\n_which is known to us_. Future and past are reciprocally related and\nthe one cannot be absolutely known without the other, and the one\ncannot be absolutely divined from a knowledge of the other. Conceive a\nflower in bloom at some point in infinite space\u2014a sacred flower, the\nflower of thought: hands have been groping for it in every direction\nthroughout an infinite past; some have touched it by chance and then\nlost it again before they could seize it. Is the divine flower never\nto be plucked? Why not? A negative answer would be simply the outcome\nof discouragement, not the expression of probability. Or conceive,\nonce more, a ray of light following a straight line through space,\nnot reflected by any solid atom or molecule of air, and an infinity\nof eyes in an eternal obscurity seeking for this ray, with no means\nof discovering how near to them or how far from them it may, at any\nmoment, be. The ray pursues its way unimpeded, and innumerable open,\nardent eyes long for it and sometimes seem to feel the presence of\nthe luminous wave moving forward on its victorious course. Must\ntheir search eternally be vain? If there is no definitive reason for\naffirming it, there is still less any categorical reason for denying\nit. It is a matter of chance, the man of science might say; it is a\nmatter, also, of perseverance and intelligence, would be added by the\nphilosopher.\n\n      [161] See on this subject the author\u2019s _Vers d\u2019un philosophe_,\n      p. 198.\n\n[Sidenote: Positive evidence of ultimate success.]\n\nThe fact that we are to-day capable of stating such problems in regard\nto the destiny of the universe seems to indicate something like an\nadvance in the direction of solving them; thought is unable to advance\nupon reality beyond a certain point; the conception of an ideal\npresupposes the existence of a more or less imperfect realization of\nit. In the tertiary period no animal speculated about the universal\nsociety. A true conception of the ideal, if the truth about the matter\ncould be known mathematically, would be found to possess, in all\nprobability, an enormous number of chances of being realized; properly\nto state a problem is to have begun to solve it. A purely mathematical\ncalculation of the external probabilities of the case does not,\ntherefore, express the real value in the domain of intelligence and\nmorality, because in matters of intelligence and morality, possibility,\nprobability, and the powers upon which the realization of the fact\ndepends, lie in thought which is a concentration of inner and, so to\nspeak, living chances.\n\n[Sidenote: In especial when the infinity of space is taken into\naccount.]\n\nOver and above infinity of number and eternity of time, a field of\nhopefulness lies in the immensity of space, which makes it irrational\nfor us to judge too absolutely of the future of the universe solely\nfrom our experience of so small a portion of it as our solar, and even\nas our stellar system. Are we the only thinking beings in the universe?\nWe have already seen that, without passing far beyond what science\nholds to be certain, one may even now reply in the negative. There\nvery probably exists an infinity of cold or cooling stars, which have\narrived at about the same point in their evolution as our earth; each\nof these stars is physically and chemically analogous to the earth,\nand they must have passed through analogous stages of vapourization,\nand condensation, and incandescence, and cooling. It is therefore\nprobable that they have given rise to forms of organic life more\nor less analogous to those that we are acquainted with. In effect,\nthe homogeneity of the organic matter of which our stellar system\nis composed (a fact which spectral analysis enables us to ascertain\nin regard to even the most remote stars) allows us to infer, by an\ninduction which is not too improbable, a certain similitude in the most\nfundamental types of organic life. Analogous types of mineralization\nand crystallization must have given rise to analogous types of\norganization, although the number and richness of the forms that are\npossible increase as existence grows more complex. We do not see why\nthe primordial protoplasm should in such and such a satellite of Sirius\nbe especially different from that of our globe; nay, there may even\nobtain a certain cycle of forms and \u201cliving numbers,\u201d as Pythagoras\nwould say, that periodically recur. It is difficult in the actual state\nof science to conceive life as appearing except in some form of matter\nanalogous to the cellule, and to conceive consciousness as otherwise\nthan centralized in and manifesting itself by vibrations such as those\nto which our nervous systems are subject. Conscious life implies a\nsociety of living beings, a sort of social consciousness which the\nindividual consciousness seems, in a sort, to presuppose. Organic and\nconscious life, the conditions of which are so much more determinate\nthan those of inorganic life, must everywhere, in spite of differences\nin the circumstances, have assumed in the course of evolution forms\nthat, in a number of respects, must have been analogous to animals and\nhuman beings such as we are familiar with. Perhaps the most general\nof the laws formulated by Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire on the correlation\nof organs might be found to hold good of the animals existing on the\nsatellites of distant stars of the twentieth magnitude. In spite of the\ninfinite variety of the flora and fauna of our globe, and the seemingly\ninexhaustible ingenuity that nature has displayed in varying their\nforms, it may reasonably be surmised that the difference between the\ntypes of life with which we are acquainted and those with which we are\nnot acquainted is subject to certain considerable limitations. In spite\nof differences of temperature, of light, of attraction, of electricity,\nsidereal species, how different soever they may be from terrestrial\nspecies of living beings, must, by the necessities of the case, have\nbeen developed in the direction of sensitiveness and of intelligence,\nand have gone in that direction sometimes not as far as we, sometimes\nfarther. Note also that even on our globe the excessively odd and\nmonstrous types produced, like those of the tertiary period, as it were\nin obedience to a sort of apocalyptic imagination, have proved unable\nto maintain themselves. The most enduring species have generally been\nthe least eccentric, the closest to a uniform and \u00e6sthetic type. It is\nnot excessively improbable, therefore, that the universe contains an\ninfinite number of human species analogous to humanity as we know it,\nin all essential faculties, although, perhaps, very different in the\nform of their organs and in the degree of their intelligence. They are\nour planetary brothers. Perhaps by comparison with us they are gods;\nand in that fact lies, as we have said, the kernel of possible or\nactual truth in the ancient beliefs in regard to the divine inhabitants\nof the skies.[162]\n\n      [162] To understand the enormous differences which, in spite\n      of the analogies, may exist between the organization of the\n      planetary or stellar beings and our own, it suffices to\n      consider the immense variety which obtains among terrestrial\n      species. Ants have already achieved an advanced state of\n      society with their shepherd, labouring, and warrior castes.\n      Suppose them to continue their intellectual development instead\n      of halting at a mechanical life of instinct; they might arrive\n      at a point of mental evolution analogous, _mutatis mutandis_,\n      to that of such and such a human society; for example, that\n      of the Chinese. Who knows, indeed, but that they might rule\n      the earth by virtue of substituting number and intelligence\n      for individual power? Their civilization would be in some sort\n      Liliputian, and destined, no doubt, to exercise a smaller\n      influence on the course of things than that of which physically\n      stronger beings might prove capable; or, to pass from one\n      extreme to the other, in the dreamland in which Fontenelle,\n      Diderot, and Voltaire have laboured, conceive a race of human\n      beings developed not from anthropoids, but from the next most\n      intelligent members of the animal kingdom\u2014from elephants.\n      Scientifically, the supposition is not impossible, when it is\n      considered that the elephant\u2019s trunk is at once one of the\n      strongest and most delicate organs of prehension known to us,\n      and that to possess a well-developed brain and good organs of\n      prehension are perhaps the prime requisites for success in the\n      struggle for existence. A giant civilization, therefore, quite\n      different from ours in externals, if not in essentials, might\n      well have been achieved on the earth or on some neighbouring\n      star. However repugnant to our instinctive anthropomorphism,\n      we should familiarize ourselves with the thought that if\n      evolution is subject to necessary laws, a simple series of\n      accidents and favourable circumstances may give such and such\n      a species the advantage over such and such another, and invert\n      the comparative dignity of the two without the general onward\n      movement of evolution being checked.\n\n      Moreover, the development of intelligence in a planet depends\n      much less on the bodily form and number of the inhabitants\n      than on the nature of their life; and as their life depends\n      upon phenomena of heat, light, electricity, and the chemical\n      modifications that they produce, it is these phenomena that\n      in some sort decide the intellectual future of the planet.\n      Kant threw out the suggestion that in an astronomic system,\n      for example\u2014in our solar system\u2014the intellectual and moral\n      perfection of the inhabitants increases with their aloofness\n      from the central star, and thus follows a lowering of the\n      temperature; but such a hypothesis is much too simple to\n      account for so complex an effect, and one which is dependent\n      upon many other things than temperature. What is probable, from\n      the phenomena of life as we know them, is that thought could\n      scarcely be developed either in a brazier or a glacier, and\n      that a certain mean is a necessary condition of organic and\n      intellectual development.\n\n[Sidenote: Objections answered.]\n\nBut, it has been said, if other globes than ours are inhabited by\nintelligent and affectionate beings who live as we do upon the daily\nbread of science, these beings cannot be notably superior to us, or\nthey would have given us before this time visible signs of their\nexistence. To argue thus is not sufficiently to take account of the\nterrible power of space to imprison beings in infinite isolation.\nIt may well be doubted whether beings of a relatively infinite\nintelligence, as compared with us, would not find their power unequal\nto dealing with such spaces as separate the stars. Our testimony on a\nquestion of the existence of such beings has no more value than that of\na flower in the polar regions, or a bit of moss on the Himalayas, or a\nbit of weed in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, would have if it should\ndeclare the earth to be void of really intelligent beings on the ground\nthat they had never been plucked by a human hand. If, therefore, the\nuniverse somewhere contains beings really worthy of the name of gods,\nthey are probably so distant from us that they are as unaware of our\nexistence as we are of theirs. They perhaps have realized our ideals,\nand the fact of that realization will perhaps remain unknown to us to\nthe end.\n\n[Sidenote: Possibility of discovering inhabitants in other spheres.]\n\nIt is to-day admitted that every thought corresponds to a certain kind\nof motion. Suppose that an analysis more delicate even than that of\nthe spectrum should enable us to record and to distinguish, not only\nvibrations of light but the invisible vibrations of thought in distant\nworlds. We should, perhaps, be surprised to see that in proportion as\nthe light and heat of the incandescent stars decrease, there by degrees\narises consciousness, and that the smallest and most obscure stars are\nthe first to produce it, whereas the most brilliant and enormous, like\nSirius and Aldebaran, are the last to feel these subtler vibrations,\nbut feel them ultimately with greater power, and develop a humanity\nwith faculties and powers proportionate to their enormity.\n\n[Sidenote: Slowness of spread of civilization from star to star.]\n\nThe total amount of space which is known to us, from our earth to\nthe farthest nebul\u00e6 that the telescope renders visible, and to the\ndark depths beyond, is no more than a mere point as compared with the\ntotality of the universe\u2014supposing always that there is a totality.\nEternity may, therefore, be necessary for progress to traverse the\nimmensity of space, if one conceives progress (if such a thing exists\nat all) as starting from some one point of departure, from a sort\nof holy-land and elect people, and spreading from them out in all\ndirections into the infinite. Modern science, of course, scarcely\npermits one to believe in so privileged a land. Illimitable nature\nscarcely possesses, after the fashion of God, exclusive election.\nIf the ideal has been achieved in one place, it must also, in all\nprobability, have been achieved in a number of others, although the\nwave of progress has not yet spread to us. Intellectual light travels\nless rapidly than solar and stellar light, and yet how long it takes a\nray to come to us from Capricornus!\n\n[Sidenote: Possibility of mind-acting on mind at a distance.]\n\nIn our inferior organisms, consciousness does not seem to pass from\none living molecule to another unless they are contiguous in space;\nstill, according to the most recent discoveries in regard to the\nnervous system, and to the propagation of thought by mental suggestion\nfrom a distance,[163] it is not contrary to the facts to conceive the\npossibility of a sort of radiation of consciousness through space by\nmeans of undulations of a degree of subtlety as yet unknown to us. It\nis not utterly unpermissible to conceive a society of consciousnesses\nnot hemmed into some small corner of the universe, each in a narrow\norganism which is a prison, but communicating freely with each other\nthroughout the whole expanse of space; it is not utterly unpermissible\nto conceive the ultimate realization of the ideal of universal\nsociality which constitutes the basis of the religious instinct. Just\nas out of a more intimate communication with individual consciousnesses\nthere may arise upon our earth a sort of collective consciousness, so\nit is not ridiculous to suppose that there may arise, in an infinity of\nages, a sort of intercosmic consciousness.\n\n      [163] See the _Revue philosophique_, 1886.\n\n[Sidenote: Patience.]\n\nGod is patient because he is eternal, theologians are fond of saying.\nIn an all-powerful being patience of evil would be a crime; patience,\nwhich can scarcely be ascribed with any propriety to God, belongs\nhowever most fitly to a being who is aware of his fundamental unity\nwith the totality of things, and is conscious of his eternity as a\nmember of the human species, as a member of the brotherhood of living\nbeings of which the human species is simply an accident, as a part of\nthe evolution of this globe in which conscious life itself at first\nappears as no more than an accident, and of the evolution of the vast\nastronomical systems in which our globe is no more than a point. Man\nmay be patient because, as an inseparable part of nature, he is eternal.\n\n\n_IV. The destiny of the human race and the hypothesis of immortality\nfrom the point of view of monism._\n\n[Sidenote: Theory of evolution and death.]\n\nNext to the fate of the universe, what interests us most vitally\nis the question of our own destiny. Religion consists for the most\npart in a meditation on death. If death were not an incident of life\nmankind would nevertheless be superstitious, but superstition would\nprobably never have been systematized into religions. The mass of\nsociety possesses so slight an interest in metaphysics! A problem must\nbruise and wound them to attract their attention; and death prevents\nsuch problems. Will the gates of the valley of Jehoshaphat, through\nwhich the dead must pass, open on the heavens like a rainbow made of\nlight and hope, like a joyous triumphal arch, or will it be low as the\ndoor of the tomb, and open upon infinite darkness? Such is the great\nquestion to which all religions have endeavoured to furnish a response.\n\u201cThe last enemy that shall be vanquished is death,\u201d says St. Paul;\nperhaps that also represents the last secret that shall be penetrated\nby human thought. The ideas which tend to become dominant in modern\nphilosophy seem, however, to exclude the notion of the perpetuity\nof the self. The conception of evolution principally is based on a\ntheory of mobility, and appears to result in the dissolution of the\nindividual, with even a greater certainty than in that of the species\nor the world. The individual form, and the species form, are equally\nunstable. On the walls of the catacombs may often be seen, roughly\ndesigned, the dove, bringing back to the ark the green bough, the\nsymbol of the soul which has passed beyond the ocean and discovered the\neternal harbour; at the present day the harbour recoils _ad infinitum_,\nbefore human thought; limitless open sea stretches away before it:\nwhere in the abyss of bottomless and limitless nature shall be found\nthe branch of hope. Death is a wider void than life.\n\n[Sidenote: The problem of life after death at the present day.]\n\nWhen Plato approached the problem of destiny, he did not hesitate\nto launch out into philosophical hypotheses, and even into poetical\nmyths. It is our present purpose to examine what are to-day the\nsuppositions, or, if you choose, the dreams that may still be\nentertained as to the future by a sincere believer in the dominant\nphilosophy of the present day, the philosophy of evolution. Given the\npresent conception of nature, would Plato have found himself cut off\nfrom those beautiful expectations to the charm of which he said we\nought to submit ourselves? In Germany, and in especial in England,\nit is not uncommon to endeavour to discover how much of the antique\nreligious beliefs still subsists, and is, in however problematic and\nuncertain a form, involved in the scientific and philosophic hypotheses\nof the day. It is our purpose to undertake here an analogous inquiry\nin regard to immortality, recognizing how conjectural any attempt to\nsolve the mystery of fate must be. Is it necessary to say that we\nmake no pretensions to \u201cdemonstrating\u201d either the existence or even\nthe _scientific_ probability of a life after death? Our design is more\nmodest; it is enough to show that the impossibility of such a life is\nnot yet proven; even in the presence of modern science immortality is\nstill a problem; if this problem has not received a positive solution,\nno more has it received a negative solution.\n\nIt is our intention further to consider what bold, and even adventurous\nhypotheses may be necessary to enable one to translate into philosophic\nlanguage the sacred symbols of religion, or the destiny of the soul.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Death and idealism.]\n\nI. There are two possible conceptions as to life after death; that\nof eternal existence and that of immortality, properly so called, or\ncontinuation and evolution of life under a superior form. The first\nconception corresponds more particularly to the idealistic theories of\nthe world, which we have analyzed above, which, regarding the basis\nof things as an eternal thought, a thought of thought, believe that\nby identifying itself with it mankind might pass out of time into\neternity. Thought, which seems at first no more than a reverberation\nand image of things, idealists believe, turns out in the last analysis\nto be the very reality of which all the rest of the world is but a\nreflection; but this conception of an eternal existence is not in the\nleast incompatible with the philosophy of evolution, for evolution\nin time does not exclude a transcendent mode of existence out of\ntime. Such an existence, however, remains essentially problematic; it\ncorresponds to Kant\u2019s Noumenon and Spencer\u2019s Unknowable; according\nto this hypothesis, corporal death is simply a stage in physical\nevolution, and the final term to be attained by all beings is their\nfixation in the consciousness of eternity. This point of fixation,\naccessible to every thinking being, is to be attained only by the\nhighest, most disinterested, impersonal, and universal thought possible.\n\n[Sidenote: An eternal element in man.]\n\nSuch is the hope which lies at the bottom of the great religions,\nand the great idealistic systems of metaphysics. According to Plato\nthere is nothing durable in us but what relates to the eternal, and\nto the universal, and is therefore of the same nature as they are.\nAll the rest is eliminated by Becoming, by perpetual Generation, that\nis, by evolution. A flower is, in our eyes, a friend; it owes its\ncolour and charm, however simple, to a ray of the sun; but this ray,\nto which our affection is due, is wholly impersonal; it creates the\nbeauty of the flower, and passes on its way; and it is the sun that\nwe should love, both for the ray and the flower. Too exclusive and\nlimited affection is always based on some mistake, and is on that\naccount perishable. It insists on our stopping at such and such a\nlink in the infinite chain of causes and effects. It is the principle\nof the universe, it is the universal being that we must love, if our\nheart is big enough, and it is that love alone, according to Plato,\nwhich is eternal. Is not eternity the very form of existence in the\nintelligible world, in which Goodness is the sun and the Ideas are the\nstars? Christian neo-Platonists, over and above Time and its incessant\nmobility, have dreamed of an intemporal and immutable somewhat, that\nthey call the life eternal: _Qu\u00e6 enim videntur, temporalia sunt; qu\u00e6\nautem non videntur, \u00e6terna_. Spinoza has dealt with the same conception\nof an existence under the form of eternity, which does not exclude\nthe perpetual development of changing modes. Kant also, by his word\n_Noumenon_, designated an intelligible, intemporal, transcendent\nsomewhat, that lay beyond the scope of physical evolution. \u201cThe eternal\nevolution of the soul,\u201d Schelling has said in his turn, \u201cis not eternal\nin the sense that it possesses neither a beginning nor an end, but in\nthat it bears no relation to Time.\u201d And Schopenhauer, finally, believes\nin an intemporal, eternal will, which is distinguished from the will\nto live that belongs to time and to the evolution of temporal forms.\n\u201cWe willingly recognize,\u201d says Schopenhauer, \u201cthat what remains after\nthe complete abolition of the will is absolutely nothing to those who\nare still full of the desire of life, but for those in whom desire is\nannihilated what does our evil world, with its sun and its Milky Way,\namount to? Nothing.\u201d It is with these words that Schopenhauer closes\nhis book. He brings us once more into the presence of _Nirv\u00e2na_,\nconceived not only as a refuge from life, but also as a refuge from\ndeath; as an existence that shall be placeless and timeless, and, so to\nspeak, _utopian_ (in its primary intention) and _achronistic_.\n\n[Sidenote: Is such immortality personal or not?]\n\nBut is this eternal life, the fact of which is, as we have seen,\nproblematic, altogether impersonal or not? No certain reply can be\ngiven since we are as ignorant of the essence of individual being as\nof the essence of universal being, and consequently of the degree to\nwhich it is possible for individuality to subsist in universality.\nSchopenhauer, however, in his endeavour to ascribe to the individual\na greater amount of reality than Plato allowed, opposed the principle\nof individuation to the natural individualities in which it manifests\nitself, and it may, indeed, be asked, whether genuine consciousness,\ngenuine thought, and genuine volition do not at once pass beyond the\nindividual, and preserve what is most essential in the individual.\nIndividuality is always more or less physical, but it is possible that\nwhat makes individuality limited is not of the essence of personality,\nof consciousness; perhaps what is best in thought and will may become\nuniversal, without ceasing in the best sense to be personal like the\n\u039d\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 of Anaxagoras.[164]\n\n      [164] At the very centre of one\u2019s being, universality and\n      personality increase side by side; that is to say, the greater\n      the share of existence a being possesses, the greater the\n      amount of existence that it is capable of sharing with other\n      beings. Incommunicability or impenetrability represents the\n      lowest degree of existence; natural existence, the existence\n      of forces as yet blind and fatal, maintains by their mutual\n      antagonism an equilibrium in a state of inertia and torpor\n      ... The greater one\u2019s self-appropriation by intelligence, the\n      greater one\u2019s power of taking possession of other beings by\n      thought; the being that best knows itself best knows other\n      beings ... the spirit, in so far as it is intelligent, should\n      be open, penetrable, participable, and participant. Two minds,\n      in so far as they are perfect, may interpenetrate each other by\n      means of thought (A. Fouill\u00e9e, _Philosophie de Platon_).\n\n      \u201cWe must distinguish,\u201d M. Janet also says, \u201cbetween\n      personality and individuality. Individuality consists in all\n      the external circumstances which distinguish one man from\n      another\u2014circumstances of time, place, organization, etc....\n      The root of personality lies in individuality, but it tends\n      incessantly to withdraw from it. The individual is centred in\n      himself; personality aspires to rise above itself. The ideal\n      of individuality is egoism, the focussing of the whole in\n      self; the ideal of personality is devotion, the identification\n      of self with the whole. Personality, properly so called, is\n      consciousness of the impersonal\u201d (_Moral_, 573).\n\n[Sidenote: No positive knowledge to oppose to hypothesis of\nimmortality.]\n\nSpeculate as we may upon individual and universal being, we are all\nbut brought face to face in the end with the same transcendental _x_.\nSuch speculations, however, are not without a certain utility, that\nof impressing us afresh with the limits of our knowledge. A belief\nin a transcendent immortality, as Fiske says, can be defined only\nnegatively, as a refusal to believe that this world is everything.\nThe materialist maintains, Fiske says, that when we have described\nthe entire universe of phenomena, of which we are capable of taking\ncognizance under the conditions of this life, the whole of the story\nhas been told. Fiske himself believes, on the contrary, that the whole\nhas not then been told.[165] We may at least say that it is _possible_\nthat the whole story has not then been told. But to pass from the\npossible to the probable, no conclusion of the kind can be considered\nsatisfactory that is not based upon more positive reason, psychological\nor moral; unsupported metaphysical speculations leave the mind simply\nin the presence of a problem.\n\n      [165] Fiske, _The Destiny of Man_, p. 113.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The hypothesis of a conditional eternity.]\n\nTheories in regard to an eternal life such as we above mentioned have\nalways proved in history more or less aristocratic and inclined to\nlimit the number of the elect. In Buddhism the sage alone is capable\nof achieving eternal existence, whereas all the rest of mankind are\ncondemned to life in time and illusion. Spinoza recognizes eternity\nonly in what he calls cognition of the third order, intellectual\nintuition and love. Such cognition belongs properly to the true\nphilosopher only. The intelligence of the vulgar is passive and\nperishable. \u201cThe instant the vulgar cease ... to suffer,\u201d says Spinoza,\n\u201cthey cease to exist.\u201d And Goethe, too, was inclined to regard the\neternal life as reserved for an aristocracy.\n\n[Sidenote: Criticised.]\n\nThis theory of inequality is maintainable only in so far as it is based\nupon an actual ascertainment of the difference in progress displayed\nby different minds, and of the small number of those who achieve the\nheights of wisdom. The case is otherwise when such an observed fact\nof natural or moral inequality is converted into a divine right, and\nGod is conceived as creating and desiring precisely such a state of\nthings. The latter, however, is the alternative that modern Christian\ntheologians have adopted in their effort to offer a re-reading of\nthe sacred texts. In their judgment the good alone are immortal, or,\nrather, are immortalized by God; the others are damned, in the sense\nthat they are totally annihilated\u2014an interpretation of the dogma of\neternal punishment that seems to them wholly to exculpate the Deity.\nAny such notion is based upon a metaphysical illusion. The hypothesis\nof traditional eternity is inconsistent with that of the existence of a\ncreator, since it is forever impossible on that hypothesis, to escape\nthe contradiction involved in the notion of a being\u2019s creating only to\ndestroy\u2014of a being\u2019s choosing among his creatures a certain number\nfor condemnation to death. Annihilation is simply damnation palliated;\nit is the substitution of a celestial guillotine for the long miseries\nthat have preceded. This theological hypothesis affords us no way out\nof the difficulties involved in the doctrine of divine sanction that\nlies at the heart of all religions; it is the sacrifice of Isaac, or of\nJesus, in another form simply. Will it be said that, on the hypothesis\nof conditional immortality, the immoral being is alone responsible\nfor his own death? Yielding to passion, or even to vice, cannot be\nassimilated to suicide, for in suicide one knows what one is doing and\nis responsible for it; one kills one\u2019s self because one wishes to die;\nbut one does not wish to die when one abandons one\u2019s self to a passion;\nand, if the result therefore of so doing is annihilation, death comes\nupon one unforeseen and undesired, takes one by surprise, by a sort of\ndivine ruse, and the responsibility for such annihilation lies and must\nlie with God. Moreover, how can there exist between two individuals\nof the same nature a sufficiently great natural or moral difference\nto justify the one\u2019s being wholly annihilated, and the other\u2019s being\npermitted to live _in \u00e6ternum_? It may be said, with Plato in the\n\u201cRepublic,\u201d that, if vice were a disease that is really mortal to the\nsoul, it would kill it in this life. Its destructive influence would\nbe felt long before the occurrence of death, which, so far as vice is\nconcerned, is an accidental circumstance simply.\n\n[Sidenote: Is incompatible with human fellowship.]\n\nAs the notion of conditional immortality is incompatible with the\nnotion of an omnipotent, omniscient, sovereignly loving creator, so\nalso is it with that of a society of souls, of a spiritual kingdom,\nfrom which a certain number of mankind would be excluded forever. An\nabsolutely wicked and hateful soul, unpossessed of any element of\nhumanity, not to say of divinity, and consequently unfit to live, is a\npure figment of hate and amounts to transporting the caste of pariah\ninto the celestial city. It is a contradiction in terms to enjoin us\nto universal charity toward all men without exception, and at the same\ntime to wish us to consent to the absolute annihilation and damnation\nof some of them. We are naturally and morally too intimately related\nfor certain of us to be condemned definitively to death without the\nrest of us being impeded on our upward course; we are bound to each\nother by our love of humanity like Alpine climbers by the cord that\npasses from waist to waist, and one of us cannot slip but that the\nrest of us feel it, nor fall without all of us falling. _Nihil humani\nalienum_; one heart beats in the bosom of humanity, and if it stops\nforever in a single human breast, it will stop forever in the breasts\nof those also who are supposed to be immortal. The best of us, those\nwho would be fit to receive baptism into immortality, would do as the\nbarbarous and pagan chief, who, after having washed away his sins in\nthe holy water of the font, with salvation in his hand and Paradise\nbefore his eyes, demanded suddenly what would be the fate of his former\ncompanions who had died unconverted, and whether he should find them\nin heaven. \u201cNo,\u201d replied the priest, \u201cthey will be among the miserable\nand the damned, and thou amongst the blessed.\u201d \u201cI will go, then, among\nthe damned, for I wish to go where I shall find my companions in arms.\nAdieu!\u201d And he turned his back upon the font.\n\n[Sidenote: Summary.]\n\nThe hypothesis of conditional immortality can, therefore, be maintained\nonly by eliminating from it the doctrine of a creator of absolute\nmerit, of virtue, and of universal and infinite charity; thus\ndiminished, it becomes a belief in a sort of natural or metaphysical\nnecessity to which beings are subject according to their degree of\nperfection simply. This hypothesis is essentially anti-providential,\nand in harmony only with systems more or less analogous to that of\nSpinoza.\n\nIn general the notion of eternal life is altogether transcendent and a\nfit subject for mystical dreams only. Let us, therefore, abandon this\nhigh ground and descend to nature and experience. Instead of talking\nof eternity, let us speak of life after death and of an immortality\nnot conditional, but conditioned by the laws of matter and of mind and\nattainable by everyone.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Does personality contain a permanent element?]\n\nII. Let us take our stand in the beginning on positive experience, and\nconsider what sort of immortality the philosophy of evolution permits\nus to hope for. There exists in the sphere of consciousness, so to\nspeak, a series of concentric circles which lie closer and closer about\nan unfathomable centre, personality. Let us pass in review the diverse\nmanifestations of personality and see if they contain any imperishable\nelement.\n\n[Sidenote: One\u2019s works immortal.]\n\nThe most external, and, in some sort, the most observable aspect of\nmankind, consists in their works and actions. Where material works\nalone are concerned, such as a house that one has built, a picture that\none has painted, a statue that one has modelled, it may be felt that\nthe distance between the worker and the work is too great, and that\nimmortality in one\u2019s work is too much like a sort of optical illusion.\nBut when intellectual and moral works are concerned, the effect and the\ncause are more nearly one; therein lies the element of truth contained\nin the highly impersonal and disinterested doctrine that one lives\nin one\u2019s works. Intellectual and moral labours are more than their\nmere material effect. The good man\u2019s highest wish is to live and live\nagain in his good actions; the thinker\u2019s highest wish is to live and\nlive again in the thought that he has contributed to the inheritance\nof humanity. This doctrine may be found in almost all great religions\nand is capable of subsistence in the domain of pure science. According\nto the modern Buddhists of India a man\u2019s actions are his soul, and it\nis this soul that survives his death, and transmigration of souls\nis simply the constant transformation of good into better, and evil\ninto worse; the immortality of one\u2019s soul is the immortality of one\u2019s\nactions, which continue to operate forever in the world according to\ntheir original force and direction.\n\n[Sidenote: Continuity of human effort.]\n\nGeneration after generation labours at the task, and passes the token\nof hope from hand to hand. _Heri meum, tuum hodie_, yesterday was mine\nand I spent it in doing good, but not enough good; to-day is thine:\nemploy the whole of it, do not lose an hour of it; if an hour dies\nsterile, it is a chance lost of realizing the ideal. Thou art master of\nto-day; do what in thee lies to make to-morrow what thou wouldst have\nit, let to-morrow be always in advance of to-day, and the horizon that\nmen see each fresh morning be brighter and higher than the one they saw\nbefore.\n\n[Sidenote: Nothing lost.]\n\nThe action must be followed into its effects, or into the effect\nof those effects, and so on infinitely. Our conduct stretches away\n_ad infinitum_, beyond the reach of our knowledge. Even from the\npurely physical and physiological point of view, neither intended\nnor attempted goodness is ineffective, since both thought and desire\ndevelop the mind. The very notion of what is to-day chimerical\ncorresponds to a real movement in our brains; it is a mental force\nwhich contains its element of verity and influence. We inherit not only\nwhat our fathers did, but what they could not do, what they attempted\nand did not achieve. We are still alive with the devotion and sacrifice\nof our ancestors, with the courage that perhaps they spent in vain, as\nwe feel in the spring the breath of distant antedeluvian springs and\nthe loves of the tertiary period.\n\n[Sidenote: Failure in the past the guarantee of success in the future.]\n\nThe ability of the present generation has been made possible by the\nstumbling and mistakes of generations in the past; and this embryonic\nand successless past constitutes the guarantee of our future. In the\nmoral, as in the physiological world, there are instances of fertility\nthat are not yet explicable. Sometimes long after the death of the\nman who first loved her the woman brings forth a child that resembles\nhim; and humanity may bring forth a civilization on the model of some\nideal cherished in the past, even when the past seems to be buried\nforever, if the ideal contains some obscure element of truth and,\nby consequence, of imperishable force. What has once really lived\nshall live again, and what seems to be dead is only making ready to\nrevive. The scientific law of atavism is a guarantee of resurrection.\nTo conceive and desire the best is to attempt the ideal, is to\npredetermine the path that all succeeding generations shall tread. Our\nhighest aspirations, which seem precisely the most vain, are, as it\nwere, waves which, having had the power to reach us, have the power to\npass beyond us, and may, by a process of summation with other waves,\nultimately shake the world. I am satisfied that what is best in me\nwill survive, perhaps not one of my dreams shall be lost; other men\nwill take them up, will dream them over again in their turn until they\nare realized. It is by force of spent waves that the sea fashions the\nimmense bed in which it lies.\n\n[Sidenote: Death not inevitable.]\n\nIn effect, in the philosophy of evolution life and death are recognized\nas relative and correlative conceptions; life is in one sense death,\nand death is the triumph of life over one of its particular forms.\nProteus in the fable could be prevented from changing his shape only\nby being caught in sleep, which is the image of death; thus it is\nin nature; fixed form is sleep, is death, is a pause in the eternal\nfluctuation of life. Becoming and life are alike formless. Form,\nindividuality, species, mark a transitory stoppage in the channel of\nlife; we can neither seize nor hold nature, except when it is laid\nasleep, and what we call death\u2014my death or yours\u2014is itself a latent\npulse of universal life, like one of the secret vibrations that pass\nthrough the germ during the months of apparent inertia during which it\nis making ready for the later stages of its development. The law of\nnature is eternal germination. A man of science was one day holding\na handful of wheat, that had been found in the tomb of an Egyptian\nmummy. \u201cFive thousand years without sight of the sun! Unhappy grains\nof wheat, as sterile as death, of which they have so long been the\ncompanions, never shall their tall stalks bow beneath the wind on the\nbanks of the Nile. Never? What do I know of life, of death?\u201d As an\nexperiment simply, without much hope of success, the man of science\nsowed the grains of wheat that he had recovered from the tomb, and the\nwheat of the Pharaohs received the caress of the sun, of the air, and\ncame up green through the soil of Egypt, and bowed beneath the wind on\nthe banks of the sacred and inexhaustible flood of the Nile. And shall\nhuman thought, and the higher life which stirs in us like the germ in\nthe seed, and love that seems to sleep forever in the tomb, not have\nthis reawakening in some unforeseen springtime, and not be brought\nface to face with eternity, which seems at present to be buried, once\nand for all, in darkness? What is death, after all, in the universe,\nbut a lesser degree of vital heat, a more or less transitory lowness\nof temperature? Death cannot be powerful enough to hold life and its\nperpetual youth in check, and to prevent the infinite activity of\nthought and of desire.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Is a more personal immortality possible?]\n\nIII. Yes, I and my works shall survive; but is immortality in this\nsense sufficient to satisfy the religious sentiment? As an individual,\nwhat do science and the philosophy of evolution promise me or permit me\nto hope? A somewhat external and impersonal immortality is, as we have\nseen, possible; is anything in the nature of an internal or personal\nimmortality likewise possible?\n\n[Sidenote: Science answers in the negative.]\n\nAssuredly, it is not of science that the individual can demand proofs\nof his permanence. The fact of generation is, in the eyes of the man\nof science, in and of itself a negative of individual immortality; the\nsocial instinct which opens our hearts to thousands of other beings\nemphasizes the negation, and the scientific and metaphysical instincts\nthemselves, which cause us to take an interest in the sensitive world,\nin its laws and destinies, diminish, so to speak, our importance as\nlimited individuals. Thought breaks the limits of the self in which it\nis confined, and our breast is too narrow to contain our heart. Oh,\nhow rapidly one learns in science and in art to make small account of\none\u2019s self, and this diminution of self-esteem neither lessens one\u2019s\nenthusiasm nor one\u2019s ardour, but adds to them only an element of manly\nsadness such as a soldier might feel who says: \u201cI count for but one in\nthe battle, nay, for less than that, for but a hundred millionth, and\nif I should disappear the result of the contest would no doubt not be\nchanged, and yet I shall stay and fight.\u201d\n\n[Sidenote: Counsels resignation.]\n\nScientifically considered, individuality is a sort of provisional\nnative land, and one\u2019s native land is a sort of magnified individual\nwith a consciousness composed of ideas and sentiments, and one\u2019s love\nfor one\u2019s country may be greater than one\u2019s love for such and such an\nindividual. Such a love does not prevent us from understanding that\nour country will not be immortal as a nation, that it will have its\nperiods of growth and of decay, that the obstacles which keep peoples\napart are caducous, and that nations incessantly disappear and lose\nold elements and take on new. Why, merely from the fact that we love\nour own individuality, should we not consent to the same reasoning in\nregard to it; why should we wish to imprison it forever within the\nlimits of the same individuality? If a nation dies, why should not a\nman? If it sometimes amounts to divination to cry out as one falls on\nthe battlefield, \u201c_Finis patri\u00e6!_\u201d does it any the less surely amount\nto divination to cry out in the presence of death, \u201c_Finis individu\u00e6_\u201d?\nCould Kosciusko feel that he himself had a right to live when Poland\nand the ideas and beliefs to which he had devoted his life were no more?\n\n[Sidenote: Dignity of resignation.]\n\nA young girl, a relative of mine, on the point of death and unable\nto articulate, signified her wish for a piece of paper. When it was\ngiven to her, she began to write, \u201cI do not want\u2014\u2014\u201d Death suddenly\nintervened and interrupted her volition before it could find expression\nin words; the thinking being and the expression of her thought seemed\nto be annihilated by the same blow. The child\u2019s protest, like her life,\nwas interrupted in the middle. Volition is powerless against death,\nand it is useless to stiffen one\u2019s will against the final blow. On\nthe contrary, man\u2019s sole superiority in death consists in acceptance.\nPascal\u2019s conscious reed might not only be constrained to bend like\nany other reed, it might bend consentingly and respect the law that\nrequires its death. Next to consciousness of his own power, the highest\nof man\u2019s privileges is consciousness of the limits of his power, at\nleast as an individual. Out of the very disproportion between the\ninfinity that kills us, and the nothing that constitutes us, arises\nthe sense of a certain greatness in us; we prefer to be stricken\nby a mountain rather than by a pebble; we should rather fall in a\nstruggle against a thousand than in a struggle against one; so that\nintelligence, by measuring the greatness of our adversary, deprives us\nof regret at our defeat.\n\n[Sidenote: Desire to survive egoistic.]\n\nTo desire to make the individual, who is more or less physical even in\nhis moral nature, eternal, is, in the eyes of the man of science, a\nremnant of egoism. In his judgment, the human mind should accept the\ndeath of the individual by a species of intellectual devotion analogous\nto that with which we accept the death of our native country. Modern\nmen of science may be defined as those who have no hope, \u1f41\u03b9 \u03bc\u1f74\n\u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bb\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b1, as St. Paul said; we are _individually_ of too small\naccount in the eyes of science to live always _individually_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: But only when it relates to one\u2019s self.]\n\nOught we, therefore, to consent cheerfully to the sacrifice of self,\nand to die willingly for the benefit of the universal life? So far\nas one\u2019s self is concerned, one can make the sacrifice lightly, but\nthe annihilation of those one loves cannot be accepted by a conscious\nand affectionate being. It is in vain for scientific and philosophic\nstoicism to urge with Epictetus that it is natural for a vase, which is\nfragile, to break, and for a man, who is mortal, to die. The question\nstill remains, whether what is natural and scientific ought, as the\nStoics alleged, to satisfy my reason and my love. As a matter of fact,\nwhen one really loves another person, what one endeavours to love is\nnot the element of fragility, the vase of clay, but the intelligence\nand the heart, which Epictetus declines to consider separately from\ntheir perishable accompaniments. One attaches one\u2019s self to them as\nto something permanent; one corrects and transfigures nature itself,\nand passes in thought beyond the brutality of its laws, and therein\nlies, perhaps, the very essence of the love of another. If the laws\nof nature, after seeming for a moment to be suspended and vanquished\nby the force of one\u2019s disinterested love, subsequently break the bond\nthat holds them in check, is it surprising that one\u2019s love should\nstill hold out against them? It is not only pain that I experience\nat being baffled by the laws of nature; it is indignation, it is the\nsense of injustice. The Stoics regarded pain as a passive affection of\nthe sensibility simply, but moral pain implies a struggle of the will\nagainst nature, and an effort, as they themselves admit, to correct it.\nIt is on this ground that pain is not an evil; its r\u00f4le is incessantly\nto impose our moral and social ideal on our physical nature, to force\nit to perfect itself; pain is the principle of development in life,\nand if there exists a means of vanquishing death, it is perhaps by\nvirtue of pain that we shall arrive at it. We are right, therefore, in\nrebelling against nature\u2019s powers of life and death, in so far as she\nexercises them for the purpose of annihilating what is morally best in\nus and in others.\n\n[Sidenote: Love under the form of eternity.]\n\nTrue love should never be expressed in the language of time. We say: \u201cI\nloved my father during his lifetime; I was deeply attached to my mother\nor my sister.\u201d Why locate it in the past? Why not say always: \u201cI love\nmy father or my mother?\u201d Does not, and should not, love lay claim to an\neternal present?\n\n[Sidenote: Uniqueness of the individual.]\n\nHow could one say to a mother that there is nothing truly and\ndefinitively alive, personal, unique, in the at once smiling and\nmeditative eyes of the child she holds upon her knees; that the little\nbeing that she dreams of mature, and good, and great, is a simple\nincident in the life of the species? No; her child is not like any\nother that has ever lived or that ever will live; none other could\npossess that look. Nowhere among the generations of men can there\nexist a fac-simile of the beloved face before one. All nature does not\npossess the equivalent of the individual, which it can destroy, but\nnot replace. It is not, therefore, without reason that love refuses\nto consent to the substitution of one individual for another, which\nconstitutes the very movement of life; it cannot reconcile itself to\nthe eternal whirl in the dust of being; it is bent on fixing life, on\narresting the world in mid-progress. But the world does not stop at\nits bidding. The future calls to generation after generation, and this\npowerful force of attraction is also a force of dissolution. Nature\ngives birth by means of death, and the joy of new loves is composed of\nthe fragments of the old.\n\n[Sidenote: The protest of love against death not limited to humanity.]\n\nThis protest of love against death, against the dissolution of the\nindividual, attaches also to the lower animals. A dog, it seems, has\nonly a market value, and yet can I ever buy again one that shall be the\nequivalent of this one that has died before my eyes? He loved me with\nall the power of his unhappy being, and endeavoured to hold fast to me\nwhile he was slipping away, and I endeavoured to hold him fast. Does\nnot every being that loves acquire a right to immortality? Yes; the\nideal of affection would be to immortalize all conscious beings; nay,\nmore, the poet who is delicately sensitive to the individuality of a\nflower, or a ray of coloured light, of the drop of dew that refracts\nit, would wish to immortalize all nature, would wish to view under the\nform of eternity the rainbow that quivers in a soap bubble; for can\nany two bubbles ever be the same? And yet, while the poet aims thus\nat holding everything fast, at preserving everything, at fixing his\ndreams, at enchaining the ocean of life, the man of science replies\nthat the eternal flood must be allowed to pulsate, to engulf our tears\nand our blood, and that the world must be left free. For the man of\nscience, the flux and reflux and progress of life are more sacred than\nthe love of the individual.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Antagonism between love and science.]\n\nThus, in the question of individual immortality, two great forces drag\nhuman thought in opposite directions. Science is inclined everywhere\nto sacrifice the individual in the name of natural evolution; love\nis inclined, in the name of a higher moral and social evolution, to\npreserve the individual. The antinomy is one of the most disquieting\nthat the philosophic mind has to deal with.\n\n[Sidenote: The best in one may survive.]\n\nShould science be admitted to be wholly in the right, or must we\nbelieve that an element of truth exists in the social instinct\nwhich lies at the basis of affection, as there is a presentiment\nand anticipation of the truth in all great natural instincts? The\nsocial instinct possesses a greater value at the present day, because\nphilosophers are beginning to consider even the individual as a\nsociety, and to recognize association as a universal law of nature.\nLove, which is the power of cohesion at its highest degree, is\nperhaps right in its desire for an element in the association between\nindividuals. Its sole error is that of exaggerating its pretensions\nand of misplacing its hopes. After all, one must not be too exacting\nnor ask too much of nature. A true philosopher, even for those that he\nloves, should not shrink from proof by fire, and death is the flame\nthat purifies while it consumes. If anything survives the ordeal that\nalone is much, and if what survives is precisely what is best in us,\nwhat more can be asked? One may break the vase, of which Epictetus\nspeaks, but the perfume remains, and floats out into the air, and\nbecomes, no doubt, ultimately indistinguishable, but still subsists.\n\n[Sidenote: Sociology and the problem of immortality.]\n\nThe science which seems to offer the strongest opposition to the\npreservation of the individual is mathematics, which recognizes the\nexistence of nothing in the world but variable and equivalent figures\nand abstractions. On the contrary, perhaps the most concrete of the\nsciences, sociology, recognizes everywhere groups of realities;\nsociology therefore cannot hold relations that arise out of\nassociation, nor the terms between which they exist, so cheap. Let us\nconsider whether, from the point of view of a more complete and more\nconcrete science, consciousness, which is the principle of personality,\nproperly so called, necessarily and forever excludes the possibility of\nindefinite duration that all great sciences attribute to the spirit.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The basis of existence not substance but activity.]\n\nIII. Antique metaphysics gave too much attention to questions of\nsubstance, to considering whether the soul is simple or complex.\nThe question amounts to whether the soul is made of indivisible\nor divisible material; it assumes as the basis of the phenomena of\nmind, an imaginary and in some sort extended substance. It was upon\nthis doctrine of the simple substance that the demonstration of the\nimmortality of the soul was founded. Evolutionist philosophy tends\nto fix our attention nowadays, not on the substance, but on the\nway the substance behaves, that is to say, in physical terms, on\nmovements.[166] Consciousness is a certain action accompanied by a\ncertain collective unity of movements. If it exists in a substance\nit is not the duration of this substance that interests us, but that\nof its activity, since it is that activity which constitutes our\nconsciousness.\n\n      [166] \u201cWhoever says that he cannot conceive an action without\n      a substratum confesses by his very words that the alleged\n      substratum which he conceives is a product of his imagination;\n      it is his own thought that he is obliged to place as a support\n      behind the reality of things. By a pure illusion of the\n      imagination, after one has stripped off from an object the only\n      qualities that it possesses, one affirms that something of it,\n      one knows not what, still subsists.\u201d (Schelling, _System of\n      Transcendental Idealism_.)\n\n      \u201cTo be,\u201d said Berkeley, \u201cis to be this or that. Simply to be,\n      without explanatory addition, is to be nothing; it is a simple\n      conception, if not a word void of sense.\u201d\n\n      \u201cBerkeley\u2019s object was to overthrow the hypothesis of a\n      substance lying beyond the range of spirit, as an imperceptible\n      support of the qualities of which our senses take cognizance.\u201d\n      (F\u00e9lix Revaisson, _La Philosophie en France_, 9.)\n\n      See also M. Lachelier, _De l\u2019Induction_.\n\n[Sidenote: Continuity of existence means continuity of function.]\n\nWundt is one of the contemporary philosophers, who, after Aristotle,\nHume, Berkeley, and Kant, has best shown the illusiveness of\nendeavouring to discover a simple substance underlying consciousness.\nIt is only internal experience, he says, only consciousness itself,\nthat comes to us guaranteed by immediate certainty. And this implies,\nhe adds, \u201cthat all these substances which spiritualism regards as the\nbasis of subjective or objective experience are of the highest degree\nof uncertainty, for in no experience whatsoever are they given. They\nare deliberate fictions, by the aid of which it has been attempted\nto explain the unity of experience.\u201d The true explanation of this\nunity should be sought for elsewhere in continuity of function, and\nnot in simplicity of substance. \u201cThe consecutive effects of anterior\nstates combine with those which arise later; in this way there is\ncaused a subjective continuity of states which corresponds to the\nobjective continuity of movement, which is the condition of unity of\nconsciousness.\u201d The binding together of successive mental states is\nlacking in bodies, although they must possess the germ of action and\nof sensation. For this reason Leibnitz was right in saying that bodies\nare \u201cmomentary spirits,\u201d which forget everything immediately, and know\nonly a present, uncomplicated by a past or a future. Conscious life,\non the contrary, by the very means of changing elements, realizes\na continuity of mental functions, a memory of the past, a certain\ndurability. This continuity is not a result of simplicity, but, on the\ncontrary, of the higher complexity that belongs to mental functions.\n\u201cOn the physical side, as on the psychical side,\u201d says Wundt, \u201cthe\nliving body is a unity; this unity is not founded in simplicity but\nin compositeness of a high degree of complexity. Consciousness, with\nits multitude of combined states, is a unity analogous to that of the\nbodily organism. The absolute correlation between the physical and the\npsychical suggests the following hypothesis:[167] that what we call the\nsoul is the internal aspect of what, in its external aspect, we call\nthe body that contains the soul. This way of conceiving the problem\nof correlation inevitably leads us to the belief that the essence of\nreality is intellectual, and that the fundamental attribute of being is\ndevelopment or evolution. Human consciousness is the highest point of\nsuch evolution; it constitutes the nodal point in the course of nature\nwhere the world recollects itself. It is not as a simple being but as a\nproduct evolved out of innumerable elements that the human soul is, as\nLeibnitz says, \u2018a mirror of the world.\u2019\u201d[168]\n\n      [167] This hypothesis is identical with that of monism.\n\n      [168] Wundt, _Psychologie_, vol. ii.\n\n[Sidenote: The problem of immortality at the present day.]\n\nFrom this modern point of view, which is a development of that of\nAristotle,[169] the question of immortality amounts to asking how\nfar the continuity of mental functions may be supposed to extend the\ncontinuity of one\u2019s intellectual being, which is the subjective unity\nof a complex multiplicity aware of itself as such?\n\n      [169] See M. Ravaisson, _La M\u00e9taphysique d\u2019Aristote_, vol. ii.,\n      and _Rapport sur la Philosophie en France_.\n\n[Sidenote: Indissoluble material compounds.]\n\nNote, first, that even in the external world we are not without\nexamples of indissoluble compounds; certain simple atoms are compounds\nof this sort. The atom of hydrogen is a vortex of little worlds. Well,\nis there nothing indissoluble in the universe except so-called atoms,\nso-called physical \u201cindividuals,\u201d and is it unpermissible to conceive,\non the subjective side, individuals more worthy of the name, whose\nduration is guaranteed by the very fact of their complexity?\n\n[Sidenote: Restatement of the problem.]\n\nAccording to the reigning doctrines in physiology and experimental\npsychology, individual consciousness is, as we have said, a compound of\nthe consciousnesses of all the cells that are united in the physical\norganism.[170] The individual, consisting thus of a society, the\nproblem of death amounts to the question, whether there can exist an\nassociation, at once solid enough to endure forever, and flexible\nenough to adapt itself to the ever-shifting conditions of universal\nevolution.\n\n      [170] Association or grouping is the general law of organic\n      and inorganic existence. Society, properly so called, is only\n      a particular case, is only the most complex instance, of this\n      universal law.... A consciousness is rather a _We_ than an\n      _I_. It is capable of union with other consciousnesses and\n      of forming, in conjunction with them, a more comprehensive\n      and more durable consciousness, from which it receives and\n      to which it communicates thought, as a star both borrows\n      and communicates motion in the system to which it belongs.\n      (Espinas, _Des Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s animales_, 128. See also M. Fouill\u00e9e,\n      _La Science sociale contemporaine_, l. iii.)\n\n[Sidenote: The ideal type of association.]\n\nThis problem, be it observed in the first place, is precisely that\nwhich human societies are endeavouring to solve. At the lowest stage\nof social evolution solidity and flexibility are rarely united. Egypt,\nfor example, was solid but not very progressive. A stage higher in the\nscale of evolution, in proportion as science advances and personal\nliberty comes to be recognized, civilization becomes both more solid\nand indefinitely flexible, and at some period in the future, when\nscientific civilization shall have once mastered the globe, it will\npossess a power that the most compact, and, in appearance, the solidest\nmasses cannot equal; it will be firmer than the very pyramids, and\nwill at the same time prove increasingly flexible, progressive,\ncapable of adaptation to every variation in the environment. The\nsynthesis of complexity and stability will then have been achieved.\nThe very character of thought is increasing adaptivity, and the\nmore intellectual a being is, the greater its power of displaying\nthe qualities which are most advantageous under any given set of\ncircumstances. The eye, which is more intellectual than the sense of\ntouch, furnishes a power of adaptation to a wider and more diversified\nenvironment. Thought, which is more intellectual than sight, enables\none to adapt one\u2019s self to the universe itself, to the immensity of\nthe stars, as well as to the infinite pettiness of the atoms in a drop\nof water. If memory is a masterpiece of intellectual record-taking,\nreasoning is a masterpiece of flexibility, of mobility, and of\nprogress. So that, whether individuals or nations are in question, the\nmost intellectual are those which possess at once the greatest amount\nof stability and of adaptability. The problem of society is to unite\nthese two things, the problem of immortality is at bottom the same;\nthe individual consciousness being, as we have seen, itself a society.\nFrom this point of view, it seems probable that the more perfect\none\u2019s personal consciousness is, the more absolutely it possesses\nboth durability and a power of indefinite metamorphosis. So that,\neven admitting what the Pythagoreans insist upon, that consciousness\nis a number, a harmony, a musical chord, we may still ask whether\ncertain harmonies may not become sufficiently perfect to endure forever\nwithout, on that account, ceasing to enter as elements into richer and\nmore complex harmonies. A lyre might vibrate _ad infinitum_ without\nits several strings losing their respective tonalities amid the\nmultitude of their variations. There ought to exist an evolution in the\norganization of consciousness as in the organization of molecules and\nliving cells, and the most vital and durable and flexible combinations\nshould possess the advantage in the struggle for existence.\n\n[Sidenote: The last stage in the struggle for existence.]\n\nConsciousness is a collection of associations of ideas, and,\nconsequently, of habits, grouped about a centre; and we know that\nhabits possess an indefinite duration; contemporary philosophy\nregards the properties of elementary material substances as habits,\nas instances of indissoluble association. A vegetable or animal\nspecies is a habit, a type of grouping and organic form which subsists\ncentury after century. It is not proved that mental habits may not in\nthe course of evolution achieve a fixity and a durability of which\nwe possess to-day no example. It is not proved that instability is\nthe definitive and eternal characteristic of the highest functions\nof consciousness. A philosophic hopefulness in regard to immortality\nis founded on the belief that, in the last stages of evolution,\nthe struggle for existence will become a struggle for immortality.\nNature will then come to realize, not by virtue of simplicity, but of\njudicious complexity, a sort of progressive immortality, the final\nproduct of natural selection; and, if so, religious symbols will have\nbeen simply an anticipation of this final period. We shall have wings\nto support us in our flight through life, R\u00fcckert says, wings to\nsupport us in our flight past death; but the bird does not learn to\nfly immediately nor at once; the hereditary habit of flight must have\nbeen acquired and developed by the species because of the advantage it\nbrings with it in the struggle for existence. Survival, therefore, must\nnot be conceived as completed at a bound, but as slowly perfected by a\ngradual and continuous lengthening of the average span of life. It must\nbe shown, however, that such a survival would constitute a superiority,\nnot only for the individual, but for the species.\n\n[Sidenote: Psychology and the communion of souls.]\n\nAnd now let us consider consciousnesses in their relations to each\nother. Contemporary psychology tends to the doctrine that different\nconsciousnesses, or if you prefer, different aggregates of states\nof consciousness, may combine, and even interpenetrate, somewhat\nanalogously to what theologians mean by communion of souls. And\nif so, it is permissible to ask whether, if consciousnesses can\ninterpenetrate, they may not some day come to possess a continuity of\nexistence; may not be able to hand on their existence to each other,\nand to communicate to each other a new sort of durability instead of\nremaining, as Leibnitz says, more or less momentary; supposing always\nthat such durability would be advantageous to the species.\n\n[Sidenote: Possible frequency of the phenomenon.]\n\nMystical intuitions sometimes contain a certain presentiment of the\ntruth. St. Paul tells us that the heavens and the earth shall pass\naway, that prophecies and languages shall pass away, but that one thing\nshall not pass, and that is charity, or love. If this doctrine is to be\ninterpreted philosophically, the bond of continual love, which is of\nall bonds the least primitive and the most complex, must be conceived\nas capable of ultimately becoming the most durable of bonds, and as\ntending progressively to embrace a larger and larger proportion of the\nwhole number of the inhabitants of the celestial city. It is by what is\nbest, what is most disinterested, most impersonal, and most loving in\none, that one achieves communion with the consciousness of another, and\nsuch disinterestedness must coincide ultimately with disinterestedness\nin others, with others\u2019 love for one\u2019s self; and there will arise thus\na possible fusion of souls, a communion so intense that as one suffers\nin the bosom of another, so, too, one may come to live in the heart of\nanother. To be sure, we have passed here into the limits of dreamland,\nbut it is to be remarked that such dreams are extra-scientific, and not\nanti-scientific.\n\n[Sidenote: Vision of the ideal society.]\n\nLet us conceive ourselves as existing in this problematical, though\nnot impossible, epoch when individual consciousnesses shall have\nachieved a higher degree of complexity and of subjective unity, and\nalong with them a power of more intimate communion than they possess\nto-day, without the fact of that communion altogether breaking down\nthe bounds of personality. They will communicate thus with each other,\nas the living cells in the same body sympathize with each other, and\ncontribute each to form the collective consciousness; they will be all\nin all, and all in every part. And indeed one may readily conceive\nmeans of communication and of sympathy, much more subtle and direct\nthan those which exist to-day among different individuals. The science\nof the nervous system is in its earliest stages; we are acquainted as\nyet with exaltation as a state of disease only, and with suggestion at\na distance as an incident merely of hypnotism; but we already begin\nto be dimly aware of a whole world of phenomena that go to show the\npossibility of a direct communication between different, and even\nunder certain circumstances of a sort of reciprocal absorption of two\npersonalities. Some such complete fusion of two consciousnesses, that\nhowever still preserve their individuality, is to-day the dream of love\nwhich, as one of the greatest of social forces, ought not to labour\nin vain. Supposing the power of communion with other consciousnesses\ngradually to develop, the death of the individual will manifestly\nencounter a greater and greater resistance on the part of the several\nminds with which such an individual is in communication. And, in any\nevent, the minds with which an individual is in communication will\ntend to retain an increasingly vivid, and, so to speak, living memory\nof him. Memory at the present day is simply an absolutely distinct\nrepresentation of a certain being\u2014an image, as it were, vibrating\nin the ether after the original has disappeared. The reason is that\nthere does not as yet exist an intimate solidarity and continuous\ncommunication between one individual and another. But it is possible\nto conceive an image which would be scarcely distinguishable from the\nobject represented; would be the sum of what such and such an object\nmeans to me; would be, as it were, the prolongation of the effect\nof another consciousness on my consciousness. Such an image might\nbe regarded as a point of contact between the two consciousnesses\ninvolved. Just as in generation the two factors combine in a certain\nthird, which represents them both, so such an animated and beloved\nimage, instead of being passive, would constitute a component part of\nthe collective energy and purpose of one\u2019s being; would count for one\nin the complex whole that one calls a mind or a consciousness.\n\n[Sidenote: Personal immortality.]\n\nAccording to this hypothesis, the problem would be, to be at once\nloving enough and beloved enough to live and survive in the minds\nof others. The individual, in so far as his external accidents are\nconcerned, would disappear; but what is best in him would survive in\nthe souls of those he loves who love him. A ray of sunlight may for\na time record upon a bit of dead paper the lines of a face that no\nlonger exists among the living; nay, human art may go farther, and\nimpart to canvas or to stone the minutest resemblances to human life;\nbut art has not yet succeeded in imparting a soul to Galatea. Love must\nbe added to art to achieve that miracle\u2014men must love each other so\ncompletely that they become identified in the universal consciousness.\nWhen that consummation has been reached, each of us will live\ncompletely, and without loss, in the love of our fellows. The power of\nlove is not limited, like that of light, to giving permanence to the\noutward appearances of life; it is capable of lending stability to life\nitself.\n\n[Sidenote: Elimination of death.]\n\nSeparation on such an hypothesis would be as impossible as in the case\nof those atomic vortices of which we spoke above, which consisted each\nin a single individual, in the sense that no force could break them\nup into their elements; their unity lay not in their simplicity, but\nin their inseparability. Just so in the sphere of consciousness, a\nmanifold of conscious states may conceivably form a luminous ring that\ncan neither be broken nor extinguished. The atom, it has been said, is\ninviolable, and consciousness may come to be inviolable _de facto_.\n\n[Sidenote: Triumph of love.]\n\nNay, one\u2019s secondary and reflected life in the minds of other people\nmight even come to be more important than the original of which it is\na copy, insomuch that a gradual process of substitution might take\nplace, a substitution of which death would simply mark the definitive\nand tranquil accomplishment. We might feel ourselves, even in this\nlife, entering into possession of an immortality in the hearts of\nthose who love us. Such an immortality would be a species of new\ncreation. Morality, and religion even, are in our judgment simply the\noutcome of moral productivity; such an immortality would be simply an\nultimate manifestation of the same thing. And if it were once achieved,\nthe opposition that the man of science to-day perceives between the\ncontinuation of the species and the immortality of the individual would\nhave disappeared in a final synthesis. Death closes one\u2019s eyes, but\nlove stands by to open them again.\n\n[Sidenote: Complete survival of the individual.]\n\nThe point of contact might thus be found between life and immortality.\nAt the beginning of evolution, death was the end of the individual and\nthe light of consciousness ended in obscurity. By virtue of moral and\nsocial progress, one\u2019s friends tend to remember one after death with\nincreasing intensity and for longer and longer periods; the image that\nsurvives the original fades only by degrees, and more and more slowly,\nas the course of evolution advances. And it may be that, at some time\nin the future, the memory of beloved beings will so mingle with the\nlife and the blood of each new generation, and will be so passed on\nfrom one to the other, that it will become a permanent element in\nthe current of conscious existence. Such a persistent memory of the\nindividual would be a gain in power for the species, for they who\nremember love more dearly than they who forget, and to love dearly\nis advantageous to the species. It is not, therefore, unpermissible\nto conceive a gradual increase in the faculty of memory by natural\nselection. The day may come when the individual will survive in as\ndetailed and complete a fac-simile of what he was in his lifetime as\ncan well be imagined, and death may become less significant than a\nperiod of absence; love will endow the beloved object with the mystery\nof eternal presence.\n\n[Sidenote: Exemplified to-day in isolated cases.]\n\nEven at the present day individuals here and there are sometimes so\ndeeply loved that it is doubtful whether or no what is best in them\ndoes not survive their death, and their minds, unhappily subject to\nthe weaknesses of humanity and unable as yet to break through the\nlimitations of the physical organism, do not really succeed, by virtue\nof the love that surrounds them, in achieving an almost complete\nimmortality even before their death. It is in the hearts of those\nwho love them that they really live, and in all the world the corner\nthat it really concerns them to be able to call their own lies in the\naffections of two or three people.\n\n[Sidenote: Destined to become common.]\n\nThis phenomenon of mental palingenesis, which is at present isolated,\nmay gradually come to be extended to the whole of the human species.\nImmortality may be an ultimate possession acquired by the species,\nas a whole, for the benefit of all of its members. Every individual\nconsciousness may come to survive as a constituent part in a more\ncomprehensive consciousness. Fraternity may, at some time in the\nfuture, be universal, render soul transparent to soul, and the ideal of\nmorals and of religion be realized. Every soul will be reflected and\nmirrored in every other; although it will not suffice for that purpose\nsimply to look into each other\u2019s eyes unless one\u2019s heart positively\nshines through them. One must project one\u2019s own image into the mirror\nof the sea, if one is to find it there.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Possibility of a still more literal immortality.]\n\nIt must, of course, be admitted that, if such speculations do not\npositively stretch away beyond the limits of possibility, they\ncertainly do stretch away beyond the limits of actual science and\nexperience, but precisely what renders all such hypotheses uncertain\nrenders them also forever possible: namely, our irremediable ignorance\nof the basis of consciousness. Whatever discovery science may make in\nregard to consciousness and its conditions, it will never ascertain its\nessence, nor, consequently, the limits of its possible subsistence.\nPsychologically and metaphysically considered, what are conscious\naction and volition? Nay, what is unconscious activity, what is force,\nwhat is efficient causality? We do not know, we are obliged to define\nsubjective activity and power in terms of objective motion, that is\nto say, in terms of their effect, and it will always be permissible\nfor a philosopher to deny that motion, as a simple change of relations\nin space, constitutes the whole of an action, and that there are no\nuncaused movements, no relations between non-existent terms. And, if\nso, how are we to know precisely to what extent activity is essentially\nenduring as the emanation of a subjective power of which motion is, as\nit were, the visible sign, and of which consciousness is the immediate\nand intimate \u201capprehension.\u201d Neither word nor act expresses all of us,\nsomething always remains unsaid, and will, perhaps, remain unsaid to\nthe end of our lives\u2014and beyond. It is possible that the foundation of\npersonal consciousness is a power as incapable of being exhausted by\nany amount of activity as of being confined to any variety of forms.\n\n[Sidenote: Can never be disproved.]\n\nIn any event the matter is, and always will be, a mystery, which arises\nfrom the fact that consciousness is _sui generis_, is absolutely\ninexplicable, and at bottom forever inaccessible to scientific formul\u00e6\nand a fit subject, therefore, of metaphysical hypotheses. Just as being\nis the supreme genus, _genus generalissimum_, in the objective world,\nso consciousness is the supreme genus in the subjective world; so that\nno reply can ever be given to these two questions: What is being, and\nwhat is consciousness? Nor, therefore, to this third question, which\ndepends upon the two preceding: Will consciousness continue to exist?\n\nOn an old dial, in a town in the south of France, may be read the\nlegend: _Sol non occidat!_ May the light not fail! Such is, indeed, the\nproper epilogue to _fiat lux_. Of all things in this world light is the\none upon which we are most dependent; it, of all things, should have\nbeen created once for all, \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f00\u03b5\u03af; should pour down from the heavens\nthrough all eternity. And the light of the mind, which is more powerful\nthan the light of the sun, may ultimately succeed in eluding the law of\ndestruction which everywhere in the book of nature immediately follows\nthe law of creation, and then only will the command, _fiat lux_, have\nbeen accomplished. _Lux non occidat in \u00e6ternum!_\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Stoicism the last resort.]\n\nIV. But, it will be asked, what consolation and encouragement is\nthere in all this for those who do not feel the charm of these remote\nhypotheses concerning the outer limits of existence, for those who see\ndeath in all its brutality, and lean, as you yourself probably do, in\nthe present state of the theory of evolution, somewhat toward purely\nnegative conclusions? What can be said to them when they stand, as they\nbelieve they do, on the brink of annihilation? Nothing better could\nbe said than the simple and somewhat unfeeling words of the ancient\nStoics, who, be it remarked also, were themselves disbelievers in\nthe immortality of the individual: \u201cBe not a coward!\u201d Deeply in the\nwrong as Stoicism was in the presence of death, in its insensibility\nto the pain of love which was the condition of its power and of its\nprogress among mankind, when it interdicted attachment and commanded\nimpassibility, it was right when it recommended insensibility to one\u2019s\nown death. A man needs no other consolation than to feel that he has\nlived a complete life, that he has done his work, and that mankind\nis not the worse, nay, is perhaps the better for his having existed;\nand that whatever he has loved will survive, that the best of his\ndreams will somewhere be realized, that the impersonal element in his\nconsciousness, the portion of the immortal patrimony of the human race,\nwhich has been intrusted to him and constitutes what is best in him,\nwill endure and increase, and be passed on, without loss, to succeeding\ngenerations; that his own death is of no more importance, no more\nbreaks the eternal continuity of things, than the shivering of a bit of\na hand-glass does. To gain a complete consciousness of the continuity\nof life is to estimate death at its proper value, which is perhaps\nthat of the disappearance of a kind of living illusion. Once more, in\nthe name of reason, which is capable of understanding death, and of\naccepting it as it accepts whatsoever else is intelligible\u2014be not a\ncoward!\n\n[Sidenote: Dignity of resignation.]\n\nMore than that, despair is grotesque because it is useless; cries and\ngroans, at least such as are not purely reflex, originally served their\npurpose in the life of the species of arousing attention or pity, or\nof summoning aid; it is to the fact that it was once useful that the\nexistence and propagation of the language of pain are due; but as there\nis no help against the inexorable, and no pity to be asked for in a\nmatter that is in harmony with the interests of the totality of things\nand conformable to the dictates of our own thought, resignation alone\nis the proper attitude of mind, or rather a certain inner assent, or\nstill better, a smile of detachment and intelligence and comprehension,\nand interest even in our own extinction. What is beautiful in the\nnatural order of things cannot definitively excite despair.\n\n[Sidenote: Of considering one\u2019s own case impersonally.]\n\nIf anyone who has experienced the pangs of death should make light of\nthe sort of consolation here referred to, we reply that we are not\nourselves speaking in absolute ignorance of the visage of the supreme\nmoment. We have ourselves had occasion more than once to look death in\nthe face, less often no doubt than a soldier in active service; but we\nhave had more time to consider it at our ease, and we have never found\nreason to desire that it should be veiled by an irrational belief.\nIt is better to see and to know the truth; it is better not to tread\nthe brink of the precipice with bandaged eyes. To disguise death is\nto pay it too great a compliment. We have had more than one example\nof it under our eyes. We have seen our grandfather, who, by the way,\nwas himself not a believer, stricken down by successive attacks of\napoplexy, and he said to us, smiling in the intervals of his pain,\nthat he felt but one regret, and that was that so many superstitions\nshould be in existence, and that Catholicism in particular (it was at\nthat time when France was aiding the Papacy) should still be in power.\nNote also that the progress of science\u2014in especial, of physiological\nand medical sciences\u2014tends to increase the number of instances in\nwhich death is foreseen and is waited for almost with serenity.\nThe least stoical of mankind sometimes feel the inclination toward\nan act of heroism, which, though in a measure forced upon them, is\nnevertheless not without its dignity. In the course of certain cases\nof protracted disease, such as consumption or cancer, the patient, if\nhe possesses the necessary scientific qualifications, can calculate\nthe probabilities of his life and determine within a few days at what\ntime he will die. Bergot, whom I knew, was such a patient; Trousseau\nwas another, and there have been many more. Knowing one\u2019s self to be\ncondemned, feeling one\u2019s self to count for but one in the infinity of\nthe universe, one can consider one\u2019s self and one\u2019s progress toward the\nunknown in a sense impersonally.\n\n[Sidenote: Sudden death a blessing.]\n\nIf such a death is not without its bitterness, it is nevertheless the\none which, of all others perhaps, is likely to prove attractive to a\nphilosopher, to a mind with a passion for clearness, for foresight, for\ncomprehension. For the rest, in the majority of cases, death takes its\nvictims in the height of their vigour, in the midst of the struggle\nfor existence; it is a matter of a few hours, like birth; its very\nsuddenness renders it less redoubtable to the majority of mankind, who\nfind it comparatively easy to be brave in the presence of a danger that\nis brief, and they hold out against the supreme enemy with the same\nobstinate courage that they would display against any other. On the\ncontrary, when death approaches slowly, and deprives us of our strength\nby degrees, and each day leaves us in possession of something less than\nthe day before, another source of consolation is open to us.\n\n[Sidenote: Decline in interest in life with decline in vitality.]\n\nIt is a law of nature that diminution of vitality brings with it a\nproportionate diminution of desire; a man cares less keenly for what\nhe feels himself less capable of attaining. Illness and old age always\nmake us set less value upon the joys of which they deprive us which\nthey first render bitter and then impossible; and the last joy of all,\nthat of bare existence, is as subject to the law as its predecessors.\nConsciousness of one\u2019s inability to live brings with it inability to\ndesire to live; it becomes a burden to draw one\u2019s breath. One feels\none\u2019s self dispersing, falling into dust, and no longer possessing\nthe strength to check the process of decay. Moreover, egoism declines\nwith declining strength; as we approach the grave we gain a power of\nestimating ourselves more nearly at our just value, of understanding\nthat a faded flower has no right to live; that, as Marcus Aurelius\nsaid, \u201ca ripe olive _ought_ to fall from the tree.\u201d One sentiment alone\nsurvives, a sense of weariness, of extreme weariness. We long for rest,\nlong to relax the tension of life, to lie at ease, to have done with\nit once for all. Oh! to be no longer on one\u2019s feet. The dying well\nknow the supreme joy of looking forward to their last resting place!\nThey no longer envy the interminable file of the living whom they\nperceive, as it were in a dream, vainly marching and countermarching\nupon the surface of the earth where they sleep. They are resigned\nto the solitude and abandonment of death. They are like travellers\nin the desert\u2014worn with fever, and fatigue, and unwilling to make\nanother step in advance; they are no longer borne up by the hope of\nrevisiting familiar skies; they are unable to surmount the remaining\ndifficulties of the way and request their companions to leave them, to\nmarch on without them, and, stretched upon the sand, watch without a\ntear, without a desire, the departing caravan creeping away toward the\nhorizon.\n\n[Sidenote: Persistence of curiosity.]\n\nNaturally, some of us will always shrink before death, and wring our\nhands, and lose our self-possession. Some temperaments are subject to\nvertigo, to a horror of abysses, and in especial to a horror of the\ngreat abyss toward which all paths converge. Montaigne counsels such\npeople to throw themselves blindly over the verge; others counsel them\nto fix their eyes till the end on some small mountain flower in the\ncrevice of the rock. The manliest of mankind will give their attention\nto the depths of space and to the heavens, will fill their hearts with\nthe immensity of the universe, will magnify their souls to the limits\nof the abyss, will subdue the rebellious individuality in themselves\nbefore it is forcibly subdued for them, and will scarcely be aware of\nthe precipice till they have fairly passed beyond its brink. And for\nthe philosopher, who is essentially a worshipper of the unknown, death\npossesses the attraction of novelty; birth only excepted, it is the\nmost mysterious incident in life. Death has its secret, its enigma, and\nwe are haunted by a vague hope that, as the final touch of irony, it\nmay be revealed to us at the last moment; that the dying, according to\nthe ancient belief, divine it and close their eyes only to shield them\nfrom an intolerable brightness. Man\u2019s last agony and his last pulse of\ncuriosity are one.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n  A\n\n  Absoluteness of primitive faith, 139\n  Adler, Felix, 367\n  All-embracing unity, modernity of concept of, 39\n  Alviella, M. Goblet d\u2019, 254, 277, 352\n  Amiel, 378, 466\n  Analysis, effect of, on emotions, 461;\n    destroys irrational joys only, 466\n  Ancestor worship, 47\n  Animal\u2019s prayer, 74;\n    religion in lower, 76\n  Animate and inanimate, obviousness of distinction between, 49\n  Animism, priority of, 52;\n    dualistic, 82\n  Anomy, religious, 374\n  Antagonism between wealth and population, 315\n  Arnold, Matthew, 23, 92, 143, 156, 174, 189, 247, 259\n  Art, and religion, 414;\n    necessary reforms in, 418\n  Asceticism, 211, 473\n  Asia, danger from, 321\n  Association, ideal type of, 392\n  Augustine, Saint, 147\n  Aurelius, Marcus, 360\n\n  B\n\n  Baudelaire\u2019s criminal, 406\n  Baudrillart, 324, 332\n  Beneficent error, 14\n  Bentham, 403\n  Bertillon, M., 324, 337\n  Bost, Pastor, 184\n  Buddhism, 362\n  Byron, 407\n\n  C\n\n  Caro, M., 387\n  Catholicism, 203, 244, 247\n  Cause, conception of God as first, 88\n  Celibacy, 306;\n    tax on, 336\n  Charity, intolerance a perverted, 147, 400\n  Christianity, 359, 362;\n    main strength of, 180;\n    the error of, 196;\n    and communism, 240\n  Civilization, menace to modern, 318\n  Clergy, impropriety of suppressing the, 274\n  Colenso, Bishop, 357\n  Commune, The, 244\n  Communism and Christianity, 240\n  Compensation, notion of, 75\n  Comte, A., 109\n  Confessional, the, 248\n  Conservatism, feminine, 7\n  Constant, Benjamin, 146\n  Conway, Moncure, 167\n  Cosmism, 365\n  Creation hypothesis, 102, 433\n  Credulity, feminine, 29\n  Crimes of French Revolution and Commune not due to non-religion, 244\n  Criminal, Baudelaire\u2019s, 406\n  Criminology and religion, 241\n\n  D\n\n  Darwin, 295\n  Dead, cult for the, 410\n  Defect of French mind, 20\n  Definition, by Schleiermacher and Feuerbach, of religion, 3\n  Delirium, 82\n  Dependence of religion upon morality, 192\n  Determinism, concept of, 72;\n    reconciliation between indeterminism and, 484\n  Diderot, 222\n  Dissolution, possibility of arresting, 497\n  Divine and human love, conflict between, 201\n  Divine Providence, notion of a, 85;\n    futility of doctrine of, 440\n  Divinization, 69\n  Doctrine of Divine Providence, futility of, 440\n  Dogma, unfitness as material for education of religions, 272\n  Dogmatism and intelligence, 150\n  Doubt, Morality of, 382\n  Dreams, 67, 82\n  Dualistic animism, 82\n  Duty of civilized races to multiply, 319\n\n  E\n\n  Ecstasy, religious, 222\n  Education, unfitness of religious dogma as material for, 272;\n    by the priesthood, 273, 282;\n    moral, 280;\n    husband responsible for wife\u2019s, 310\n  Egoism and mysticism, conflict between, 204\n  Eighteenth century view of miracles, 91\n  Espinas, 526\n  Essence of religion, 1, 10\n  Ethical Culture Society, 367\n  Evil of belief in a Divine Providence, 97\n  Evil, problem of, 433\n  Experiment in miracles, 158\n\n  F\n\n  Fainting, 82\n  Faith, absoluteness of primitive, 139;\n    complete intellectual rest, incident to, 142;\n    willfully blind, 143;\n    transformation of inevitable, 234\n  Fall of man, doctrine of the, 439\n  Family, religion of the, 322\n  Fanaticism, possible scientific, 395\n  Father\u2019s duty in regard to religious instruction, 286\n  Feminine credulity, 297;\n    conservatism, 297;\n    timidity, 298\n  F\u00e9r\u00e9, M. Ch., 462\n  Fetichism, 44, 48, 65\n  Fetichistic monism, primitive metaphysics a, 81\n  Feuerbach\u2019s definition of religion, 3\n  First cause, concept of God as, 88\n  Fiske, Mr. John, 452, 455, 512\n  Force, use of justifiable, 146\n  Fouill\u00e9e, M. Alfred, 7, 37, 435, 484, 485, 493, 526\n  France, proposal to Protestantize, 249;\n    gradual improvement of, 322\n  French, mind, its defect, 20;\n    Revolution, 250;\n    gaiety, 268\n\n  G\n\n  Gaiety, French, 268\n  Ghosts, 83\n  Gift, notion of, 75\n  God, conceived as first cause, 88, 431;\n    as ordered, 104;\n    as creator, 432;\n    responsible for evil, 433;\n    His omnipotence, 442;\n    hypothesis of, a non-omnipotent, 443;\n    disanthropomorphization of concept of, 452;\n    possible evolution of by natural selection, 496\n  God, love of, 131;\n    belief in, falls with belief in devil, 165;\n    love of, on the wane, 205\n  Goethe, 377, 400\n  Grace, doctrine of, 200\n\n  H\n\n  Hartmann, Von, 39, 108, 109, 464\n  Hasheesh, use of, defended, 223\n  Havet, M., 355\n  Hellenism, 261\n  Henneguy, Felix, 290\n  Henotheism, 27, 39, 108\n  Hindu tolerance, 32\n  History and religion, 158\n  Human and divine love, conflict between, 261\n  Humanity, religion of, 365\n  Humanization, 68\n  Husband responsible for wife\u2019s education, 310\n  Huxley, 480\n  Hysteria, 83\n\n  I\n\n  Ideal type of association, 392\n  Idealism, 479\n  Incuriosity of primitive man, 51\n  Indeterminism, reconciliation between determinism and, 484\n  Individualism, religious, 12\n  Infinite, concept of the, 34\n  Inheritance, injustice of present law of, 338\n  Initiative, sentiment of personal, 98\n  Instinct, religious, 40, 229;\n    of self-preservation and sociality, 44\n  Instruction, father\u2019s duty in regard to, 286\n  Insurance and religion, 161\n  Intolerance, incident to faith, 144;\n    a perverted charity, 147\n  Invisible, suffering from the, a modern malady, 35\n  Immanence of conscious life in nature, 66\n  Immortality, importance of concept of, 119\n\n  J\n\n  Javal, M., 337, 341\n  Jerome, Saint, 355\n  Jesus, 134, 187, 356\n  Junqua, Dr., 183\n\n  K\n\n  Kant, 195, 380, 433, 447\n\n  L\n\n  Lange, 415, 490\n  Laveleye, M. de, 249, 252, 284\n  Lenormant, M., 285\n  Leopardi, 468\n  Lethargy, 82\n  Liberal Protestantism, 182\n  Littr\u00e9, 277, 288\n  Livingstone, 302\n  Love, conflict between divine and human, 201;\n    a cerebral stimulant, 307;\n    makes for sanity, 308;\n    of mankind, future of, 399\n  Love of God, 131;\n    on the wane, 205\n  Lower animals, religion in, 76\n  Luther, 193\n\n  M\n\n  Mainlaender, Phillipp, 458\n  Malthusianism, 317;\n    fallacy of, 317;\n    in France, 325\n  Marvellous, primitive man\u2019s faith in the, 137\n  Materialism, 488\n  Maternity, girls should be trained for, 333\n  Medical knowledge, progress of, and religion, 162\n  M\u00e9nard, M. Louis, 249, 289\n  Metaphysics, primitive, a fetichistic monism, 81;\n    scope of, 383;\n    instability of, 389;\n    present direction of, 424\n  Michelet, 249, 320\n  Mill, John Stuart, 173, 442, 461\n  Mind stuff, 490\n  Misoneism, 125\n  Miracles, conception of, 87;\n    not frauds, 90;\n    eighteenth century view of, 91;\n    but illusions, 92;\n    experiment in, 128;\n    in modern times, 353\n  Modesty, nature or, 301\n  Mohammedanism, 257, 361\n  Molinari, M. de, 409\n  Monism, 493\n  Montesquieu, 329\n  Moral sentiment defined, 7\n  Moralism, 426\n  Morality and religion, 114, 241, 362;\n    dependence of religion upon, 192;\n    essence of, 197;\n    apart from religion not hard to teach, 402\n  Mormonism, 358\n  M\u00fcller, Max, 24, 49, 233\n  Mystery, fear of thunder due to sense of, 62\n  Mysticism a perversion, 132;\n    conflicts with egoism, 204;\n    and asceticism, 211;\n    and women, 299\n\n  N\n\n  Natural phenomena non-existent for primitive man, 64\n  Natural selection, evolution of gods by, 496\n  Nature a society, 55;\n    seeming menace of conscious life in, 66;\n    love of, 421;\n    inexhaustible resources of, 500\n  Neo-Christianity, 184\n  Neutrality, propriety in religious affairs of state, 277\n  Newman, Cardinal, 247\n  Newman, Mr. Francis, 351\n  Nirv\u00e2na, 473\n  Nonotte, Abb\u00e9, 327\n  Non-religion defined, 8;\n    the goal of religion, 167;\n    not responsible for the crimes of the French Revolution and the\n      Commune, 244\n  Novelty, persistent in the world, 470\n\n  O\n\n  Omnipotence, God\u2019s, 442\n\n  P\n\n  Pantheism, 452\n  Panthelism, 55\n  Paraphysics, religion primarily a, 79\n  Parents, not protected against ingratitude, 334;\n    should be taxed inversely to number of children, 337\n  Parv\u00e9, M. Steyn, 283\n  Pascal, 202, 440\n  Pattison, Mark, 365\n  Paul, Saint, 356\n  Paul, Vincent de, 399\n  Personal initiative, sentiment of, 98\n  Pessimism, 457;\n    an optical illusion, 468\n  Pillon, M., 249\n  Polydemonism, 85\n  Population, antagonism between wealth and, 315;\n    importance of, 316;\n    inability of priest to cope with question of, 327;\n    decrease of, encouraged by the church, 328\n  Positivism, 24, 109, 365\n  Possession, 83\n  Prayer, the animal\u2019s, 74;\n    kinds of, distinguished, 217;\n    durable element in, 217;\n    highest form of, 225\n  Priest and prophet, antagonism between, 128\n  Priesthood, origin of, 126;\n    education by the, 273, 282\n  Primary instruction and religion, 159\n  Primitive man, incurious, 51;\n    unaware of natural phenomena as such, 64;\n    and novelty, 125;\n    and the marvelous, 137\n  Primitive metaphysics, a fetichistic monism, 81\n  Problem of evil, 433\n  Prophet and priest, antagonism between, 128\n  Protestantism, 152, 167, 252;\n    liberal, 182\n  Providence, notion of a Divine, 85;\n    evil of belief in, 97;\n    futility of doctrine of, 440\n\n  R\n\n  Realism, 482\n  Reconciliation between determinism and indeterminism, 484\n  Relics, belief in, 86\n  Religion, essence of, 1, 10;\n    and science, difference between, 3;\n    Feuerbach\u2019s definition of, 3;\n    Schleiermacher\u2019s definition of, 3, 487;\n    of natural origin, 22;\n    and superstition, 78;\n    primarily a paraphysics, 79;\n    morally retrograde, 114;\n    and physiology, psychology, and history, 158;\n    and primary instruction, 159;\n    and development of commerce, 160;\n    and insurance, 161;\n    and progress of medical knowledge, 162;\n    tends toward non-religion, 167;\n    dependent upon morality, 192;\n    and crime, 241;\n    not essential to morality, 241;\n    deserted by genius, 355;\n    of humanity, 365;\n    and art, 414\n  Religious individualism, 12;\n    instinct, 40, 229;\n    ecstasy, 222;\n    instruction, father\u2019s duty in regard to, 286\n  Renan, 17, 23, 40, 119, 126, 158, 172, 227, 232, 236, 306, 321, 373\n  Renouvier, 249\n  Revelation, essence of faith in, 140\n  R\u00e9ville, M., 49, 114, 128, 417\n  Revolution, French, 244, 250\n  Richet, M., 337\n  Romanes, George, 62\n\n  S\n\n  Sanction, superfluity of religious, 405\n  Scepticism, feebleness of, 376\n  Schelling, 524\n  Schleiermacher\u2019s definition of religion, 3, 487\n  Schoolmaster, importance of the, 277\n  Schultz, Professor Hermann, 184\n  Science and religion, difference between, 3\n  Secr\u00e9tan, M., 437\n  Secularism, 365\n  Self-preservation, and sociality, instincts of, 44\n  Sentiment, definition of moral, 7\n  Sermon, transformation of the, 416\n  Shadows, 82\n  Sin, morbid preoccupation with, 213\n  Socialism, 369\n  Sociality, and self-preservation, instincts of, 44\n  Society for Ethical Culture, 367\n  Sociomorphism, religion a, 2\n  Somnambulism, 83\n  Special Providence, 440;\n    mankind to be its own, 450\n  Spencer, Herbert, 44, 384, 427, 451, 490\n  Spinozism, 454\n  Spirit, genesis of concept of, 82\n  Stoicism, 520\n  Strauss, 23, 417, 431\n  Suffering from the invisible, a modern malady, 35\n  Suicide, as a resource, 472\n  Superstition and religion, 78\n  Symbolism, 9\n\n  T\n\n  Taine, 227, 479, 490, 493\n  Tax on celibacy, 306\n  Theism, 429\n  Theresa, Saint, 134\n  Thunder, sense of mystery responsible for fear of, 63\n  Timidity, feminine, 298\n  Tolerance, 149;\n    Hindu, 32\n  Totality, concept of, 39\n  Transformation of the sermon, 416\n  Trent, Council of, 141\n\n  U\n\n  Unity, modernity of concept of an all-embracing, 39\n  Universal Providence, 441\n\n  V\n\n  Vernes, M. Maurice, 281, 283\n  Verrier, Dr., 344\n\n  W\n\n  Wealth, antagonism between population and, 315\n  Wife, husband responsible for education of, 310\n  Women and mysticism, 299;\n    importance of early education of, 309\n  Worship of ancestors, 47;\n    public, 126;\n    subjective, 130\n\n  Z\n\n  Zo\u00f6latry, 47\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s note\n\n\nWords in italics have been surrounded with _underscores_ and small\ncapitals have been replaced with all capitals. The footnotes have been\nrenumbered and placed directly after the paragraph they belong to.\n\nMinor errors in spacing, capitalization etc. have been corrected\nwithout note. Missing accents in the sidenotes have been added to be\nconsistent with the main text. Also the following changes have been\nmade, on page\n\n    5 \u201cas\u201d added (just as he might offend a fellow-man)\n   18 \u201cadverversaries\u201d changed to \u201cadversaries\u201d (the mistake of\n      despising their adversaries)\n   45 \u201cpuisant\u201d changed to \u201cpuissant\u201d (what is puissant and powerful)\n   48 footnote anchor added (the phenomena of the external world.[19])\n   64 \u201cunaquainted\u201d changed to \u201cunacquainted\u201d (they are unacquainted\n      with the external world)\n  157 \u201cterrestial\u201d changed to \u201cterrestrial\u201d (the celestial or\n      terrestrial phenomena which)\n  163 \u201cneigbours\u201d changed to \u201cneighbours\u201d (their more innocent\n      neighbours)\n  167 \u201cProtestanism\u201d changed to \u201cProtestantism\u201d (Inconsequence of\n      liberal Protestantism)\n  191 \u201cabhorence\u201d changed to \u201cabhorrence\u201d (theory of nature\u2019s\n      abhorrence)\n  207 \u201cconsiderble\u201d changed to \u201cconsiderable\u201d (a considerable hold on\n      human life)\n  215 \u201cmimimize\u201d changed to \u201cminimize\u201d (in order to minimize the\n      necessity)\n  241 \u201cWatt\u201d changed to \u201cWat\u201d (Pastoureaux and Jacques in France and\n      Wat Tyler in England)\n  298 \u201csentitiment\u201d changed to \u201csentiment\u201d (dominated not by reason\n      but by sentiment)\n  304 \u201ccherubin\u201d changed to \u201cch\u00e9rubin\u201d (l\u2019interrogation anxieuse de\n      ch\u00e9rubin)\n  304 \u201cSongs\u201d changed to \u201cSong\u201d (reading the Song of Songs)\n  335 \u201c\u00e9tre\u201d changed to \u201c\u00eatre\u201d (\u00eatre \u00e0 la charge de ses enfants)\n  337 \u201ccorve\u00e9\u201d changed to \u201ccorv\u00e9e\u201d (the last vestige of the _corv\u00e9e_)\n  337 \u201ccelibat\u201d changed to \u201cc\u00e9libat\u201d (sur le c\u00e9libat en France)\n  347 \u201canxiom\u201d changed to \u201caxiom\u201d (If there is one axiom that fathers\n      ought to)\n  389 \u201cesthetique\u201d changed to \u201cesth\u00e9tique\u201d (Probl\u00e8mes de l\u2019esth\u00e9tique\n      contemporaine)\n  399 \u201cBudhism\u201d changed to \u201cBuddhism\u201d (Buddhism and Christianity have\n      headed)\n  453 \u201casscribes\u201d changed to \u201cascribes\u201d (unity that it ascribes to\n      the world)\n  477 \u201cHydrogene\u201d changed to \u201cHydrogen\u201d (hypothesis\u2014Hydrogen\u2014Necessity\n      of), also in the table of contents\n  533 \u201cPyschologically\u201d changed to \u201cPsychologically\u201d (Psychologically\n      and metaphysically considered)\n  542 \u201cReconcilation\u201d changed to \u201cReconciliation\u201d (Reconciliation\n      between determinism and indeterminism)\n  542 \u201cSocialty\u201d changed to \u201cSociality\u201d (Sociality, and\n      self-preservation)\n  462 \u201cFr\u00e9r\u00e9\u201d changed to \u201cF\u00e9r\u00e9\u201d (One may say, with M. F\u00e9r\u00e9, that\n      people in good)\n  539 \u201cComtes\u201d changed to \u201cComte\u201d (Comte, A., 109)\n  539 \u201cFeurbach\u201d changed to \u201cFeuerbach\u201d (by Schleiermacher and\n      Feuerbach)\n  541 \u201cLavelaye\u201d changed to \u201cLaveleye\u201d (Lavelaye, M. de, 249, 252,\n      284)\n  541 \u201cascetism\u201d changed to \u201casceticism\u201d (and asceticism, 211)\n  541 \u201cPanthelism, 55-453\u201d changed to \u201cPantheism, 452\u201d and\n      \u201cPanthelism, 55\u201d\n  541 \u201cParve\u201d changed to \u201cParv\u00e9\u201d (Parv\u00e9, M. Steyn, 283)\n\nand in footnote number\n\n   36 \u201cEpicure\u201d changed to \u201c\u00c9picure\u201d (See the author\u2019s _Morale\n      d\u2019\u00c9picure_)\n   40 \u201cSociete\u201d changed to \u201cSoci\u00e9t\u00e9\u201d (Actes de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 helv\u00e9t. des\n      sc. nat.)\n   44 \u201ca\u2019une\u201d changed to \u201cd\u2019une\u201d (Esquisse d\u2019une morale)\n   78 \u201cembarassment\u201d changed to \u201cembarrassment\u201d (remarks in the former\n      a progressive financial embarrassment)\n   85 \u201cs\u00e9condaire\u201d changed to \u201csecondaire\u201d (l\u2019instruction primaire,\n      secondaire et sup\u00e9rieure)\n   87 \u201cLenornant\u201d changed to \u201cLenormant\u201d (M. Lenormant undertook to\n      publish a translation)\n  139 \u201cFr\u00e9r\u00e9\u201d changed to \u201cF\u00e9r\u00e9\u201d (M. Ch. F\u00e9r\u00e9, _Revue philosophique_,\n      July, 1886.).\n\nOtherwise the original was preserved, including inconsistencies\nin spelling, hyphenation and capitalisation, also possible errors\nin foreign languages. No italics were used in the sidenotes, this\nhas not been changed. The index has not been checked for errors in\nalphabetization or pagenumbers. Additional: M. Janet, mentioned in\nfootnote 164 is probably Paul Janet, \u201cLa Morale\u201d.","title":"The Non-religion of the Future: A Sociological Study","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":213165}