{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_60815/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_60815","id":"gutenberg_60815","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60815","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity","Church history -- 19th century"],"text":"[Transcriber's note: This production is based on\nhttps://archive.org/details/christianityview00guiz/page/n6]\n\n{i}\n\n         Christianity Viewed In Relation To\n\n     The Present State Of Society And Opinion.\n\n                  By M. Guizot.\n\n\n  Translated Under The Superintendence Of The Author.\n\n\n                    London:\n\n         John Murray, Albemarle Street.\n\n                     1871.\n\n{ii}\n\n             By The Same Author.\n\n       The Essence Of Christianity.\n             Post 8vo, 9s. 6d.\n\n  \"No one can open this book, and recollect the circumstances\n  which produced it, without feeling that it is a valuable\n  contribution to the literature of the present controversy.\"\n    --_Edinburgh Review_.\n\n\n\n      The Present State Of Christianity.\n          Post 8vo, 10s. 6d.\n\n  \"A remarkable series of religious meditations. They form a\n  sequel to a similar volume on the Essence of Christianity,\n  published two years ago, and an introduction to a further\n  series, in which M. Guizot proposes to treat the great\n  questions of the history of Christianity, and the future\n  destiny of the Christian religion. The book is one of great\n  interest.\"--_Pall Mall Gazette_.\n\n{iii}\n\n{iv}\n\n{v}\n\n                   Preface.\n\n\nIn the First Series of these Meditations, I gave a summary of the\nfacts and dogmas which constitute, as I think, the foundation and\nthe essence of the Christian Religion. In the next series I\nretraced the Reawakening of Faith and of Christian Life during\nthe nineteenth century in France, both amongst Romanists and\nProtestants. With Christianity thus reanimated and resuscitated\namongst us, after having passed through one of its most violent\ntrials, I confronted the principal philosophical systems which in\nthese days reject and combat it: Rationalism, Positivism,\nPantheism, Materialism, Scepticism. I essayed to determine the\nfundamental error which seems to me to characterize each of those\nsystems, and to have always rendered them inadequate to the\noffice either of satisfying or explaining man's nature and\ndestiny.\n{vi}\nThat series of my Meditations I concluded with these words: \"Why\nis it that Christianity, in spite of all the attacks which it has\nhad to undergo, and all the ordeals through which it has been\nmade to pass, has for eighteen centuries satisfied infinitely\nbetter the spontaneous instincts and invincible cravings of\nhumanity? Is it not because it is pure from the errors which\nvitiate the different systems of philosophy just passed in\nreview? because it fills up the void that those systems either\ncreate or leave in the human soul? because, in short, it conducts\nman nigher to the fountain of light?\" [Footnote 1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: Meditations on the Actual State of Christianity.\n    Eighth Meditation: Impiety, Recklessness, Perplexity, p. 336.]\n\nFar from wishing to elude any of the difficulties of this\nquestion, I would now set Christianity in contact with the ideas\nand forces that seem most contrary to it, and with three of them\nmore especially: Liberty, Independent Morality, and Science.\n{vii}\nAssertions are running the tour of the world that Christianity\ncan accommodate itself neither to liberty nor science; that\nmorality is essentially distinct and separate from Religious\nFaith. All this I hold to be false and highly prejudicial to the\nvery cause of Liberty, of Morality, and of Science, which those\nwho give utterance to such assertions affect to serve. I believe\nChristianity and Liberty to be not only compatible with each\nother, but necessary to each other. I regard Morality as\nnaturally and intimately united to Religion. I am convinced that\nChristianity and Science need not make any mutual sacrifices,\nthat neither has anything to fear from the other. This I\nestablish in the first three Meditations of the present series. I\nthen enter into the peculiar domain of Christianity, and\ndetermine what, in the presence of Liberty, of Philosophical\nMorality, and of Human Science, is the principle and what the\nbearing of \"Christian Ignorance\" and of Christian Faith.\n{viii}\nI finally apply to ideas their natural and inevitable law, the\nlaw which obliges them to express themselves in facts; I\ninterrogate theory thus transformed into practice, and I show\nthat Christianity alone supports this test victoriously.\n\"Christian Life\" becomes a forcible demonstration of the\nLegitimacy of Christian Faith. With these three Meditations the\npresent series concludes.\n\nBut to complete my undertaking, a final and capital question, the\nhistorical question, remains to be treated. Not that I think of\nretracing the History of Christianity throughout the whole of its\ncourse; such a design is far from my thoughts. I neither can nor\nwish to do more than to demonstrate the grand historical facts\nwhich, in my opinion, are in Christianity the stamp of a divine\norigin, and of a divine influence upon the development and\ndestiny of the human race. Of these facts the following is a\nsummary:--\n\n  1. The authority of the sacred books.\n\n  2. The primitive foundation of Christianity.\n\n  3. The Christian Faith persistent from age to age.\n\n{ix}\n\n  4. The Church of Christ persistent also from age to age.\n\n  5. Romanism and Protestantism.\n\n  6. The different Antichristian crises, their\n     character and their issue.\n\nIt is upon these grand facts, and the questions which they\nsuggest, that Historical Criticism has in our days exercised\nitself with ardour, as it is continuing to do; science, severe\nand daring, no invention of our epoch, but beyond all doubt one\nof its glories! If, after concluding this final series of my\nMeditations, I shall have succeeded in appreciating at their real\nvalue the exigencies made and the results obtained by Historical\nCriticism, where it has applied itself to the History of\nChristianity, I shall have realised the object which I proposed\nto myself on voluntarily entering upon this solemn and laborious\nstudy, where I meet with so much that is obscure, and so many\nquicksands.\n\n{x}\n\nBut as I draw near the close, a scruple seizes me. What have I\nbeen thinking of to persist obstinately in casting such a work\ninto the midst of the events and the practical problems which are\nagitating the whole civilized world, and which are demanding\ntheir instant solution? What good result can I expect from\nstudying the past history of the Christian Religion in my\ncountry, or even speculating upon its future prospects, when the\nactual condition of the present generation and the lot of that\nwhich is to succeed it on the stage, are subject to so many\ntroubles and plunged in such darkness? The more narrowly I\nscrutinize generations--the honour and the destiny of which I\nhave so much at heart, for my children form part of them--the\nmore am I struck and disquieted by two facts: on the one side the\ngeneral sentiment of fatigue and incertitude manifesting itself\nin society and in individuals: on the other side not merely the\ngrandeur but the unusual complexity of the questions agitated.\n{xi}\nI fear that, in her lassitude and in her sceptical vacillations,\nFrance may not render an exact account to herself of the problems\nand perils scattered over her path, of their number, their\ngravity, and their intimate connexion. I fear that, from not\nhaving an accurate conception of what her burthen is, and from\nnot having the courage at once to weigh it well, the moment when\nshe will have to bear it will come upon her with the necessary\nforces unmustered, and the necessary resolutions unformed.\n\nAlmost every great epoch in history has been devoted to some\nquestion, if not an exclusive one, at least one dominant both in\nevents and opinions, and around which the varying opinions and\nthe efforts of men were concentrated. Not to go farther back than\nthe era of modern history--in the sixteenth century the question\nof the unity of Religion and of its Reform; in the seventeenth\ncentury the question of pure monarchy, with its conquests abroad\nand administration at home; in the eighteenth century that of the\noperation of civil and religious liberty: such have been in\nFrance the different points on which ideas have culminated, the\ndifferent objects which each social movement had specially in\nview.\n{xii}\nThe systems of the day, although opposed, were clear; the\nstruggles ardent but well defined. Men walked in those days on\nhigh roads; they did not wander about in the infinite\ncomplications of a labyrinth.\n\nAnd it is in a very labyrinth of questions and of ideas, of\nessays and events, diverse in character, confused, incoherent,\ncontradictory, in which in these days the civilized world is\nplunged. I do not pretend to seize the clue to the labyrinth; I\npropose but to throw some light upon the chaos.\n\nFirst I turn my eyes to the external situation and relations of\nthe States of Christendom, and consider the questions which\nconcern the boundaries of territories and the distribution of\npopulations between distinct and independent nations. Formerly\nthese questions were all reducible to one--the aggrandizement or\nthe weakening of these different States, and the maintenance or\nthe disturbance of that balance of forces which was called the\nbalance of power in Europe.\n{xiii}\nWar and Diplomacy, Conquests and Treaties, discussed and settled\nthis supreme question, of which Grotius expounded the theory, and\nAncillon wrote the history. Now we are no longer in a situation\nso simple. What a complication of ideas: what ideas, novel and\nill-defined, start up in these days to embarrass the course and\nentangle the relations of States! The question of races, the\nquestion of nationalities, the question of little states and of\ngreat political unities, the question of popular sovereignty and\nof its rights beyond the limits of nations as well as in their\nmidst,--all these problems arise and cast into the shade, as a\nroutine which has served its turn, the old public right and the\nmaxims of the equilibrium of Europe, in their place seeking\nthemselves to impose rules for regulating the territorial\norganizations and the external relations of States.\n\n{xiv}\n\nNot that the old traditional policy of Europe does not mingle\nitself with, and exercise a powerful influence upon, the new\nideas and questions which invade us; however intellectual\ntheories and ambitions may change, the passions and interests of\nmen are permanent. War and the right of conquest have made good\ntheir old pretensions, and this before our very eyes, without any\nrespect for the principle of Nationalities and of Races, a\nprinciple nevertheless inscribed upon the very standards which\nthe conquerors bore. Prussia has aggrandized herself in the name\nof German Unity, and at the very moment excluded from\nparticipating in the common affairs of Germany, the seven or\neight millions of Germans who form part of the Empire of Austria.\nPrussia seized the petty German Republic of Frankfort, evidently\nagainst the will of its sovereign people, and Danish Schleswick\ndoes not yet form part of the political group, to the class of\nwhich she belongs by similarity of national origin and of\nlanguage. Even while sheltering themselves under the \u00c6gis of some\ngeneral idea, selfish interests and rude violence have not ceased\nto play a great part in the events which are passing before us,\nand if the ambition of Frederick the Second was not more\nlegitimate, it was at least more logical than that of his\nsuccessors.\n\n{xv}\n\nI am far from meaning to deny that the new ideas which men\nfollow, and the desires which they evince, contain a certain part\nof truth, or to affirm that they have not a right to a certain\nshare of influence. The identity of origin and of race, the\npossession in common of a single name and of one language, have a\nmoral value very capable of becoming itself a political force; of\nthis fair and prudent statesmanship is bound to hold account. But\npolicy becomes chimerical and dangerous when it attributes to\nthese new ideas and these aspirations a supreme authority and\nright to dominion; and what shocks all experience and common\nsense is to reject, as out of date, and no longer applicable,\nmaxims which were the foundation of the public law of nations,\nand which, up to the present time, have presided over the\nrelations of States.\n{xvi}\nThe equilibrium of Europe, the long duration of territorial\nagglomerations, the right of small states to exist and be\nindependent, the ancient titles to government, and the respect\nfor ancient treaties,--all these elements of European order have\nnot succumbed, neither were they bound to succumb, to the theory\nof nationalities, and the fashionable doctrine of great political\nunities. What would not be said, and what would not be said with\njustice, if France had proclaimed that, as Belgium and Western\nSwitzerland speak French, that, as their populations have, both\nin origin and manners, great affinities with our fellow\ncountrymen in French Flanders and in Franche-Comt\u00e9, the principal\nof National Unity requires their incorporation with France?\nPrince Metternich was wrong to say that Italy was a mere\nGeographical expression; there are certainly between the nations\nof Italy historical bonds, both intellectual and moral, which\ndraw them towards one another, and repel from their territories\nall foreign domination.\n{xvii}\nBut this relationship, which may, and ought to be, a principle of\nunion, did not impose upon Italy the form of political unity; and\nthe _r\u00e9gime_ of a confederation of States might have been\nestablished in the peninsula and yet its liberation from the\nforeigner might have been secured, and a satisfaction might have\nbeen procured along our own frontier of the Alps, in the\ninterests of our own security, and of that of Europe, for the\npreservation of the equilibrium of power. As soon as we look at\nthe question with serious attention, we are forced to admit that\nany general application of the principle of nationalities, or of\nthat of the great political unities, would throw the civilized\nworld into such a confusion and fermentation as would be equally\ncompromising to the internal liberties of nations, and to the\npreservation of peace between the different States.\n\n{xviii}\n\nWhat if I had to sound the consequences of another principle, the\nsovereign authority which men also seek in these days to set up,\nthe right, I mean, of populations, or of some part of a\npopulation, to dissolve the State with which they are connected,\nand to range themselves under another State, or to constitute\nthemselves into new and independent States? What would become of\nthe existence, or even of the very name of country, if it also\nwere thus left to be dealt with according to the fluctuating\nwills of men, and the special interests of such or such of its\nmembers? There is in the destiny of men, whether of generations\nor individuals, a great part which they have no share in deciding\nor disposing of; a man does not choose his family, neither does\nhe select his country; it is the natural state of man to live in\nthe place where he is born, in the society where is his cradle.\nThe cases are infinitely rare which can permit of the bonds being\nrent asunder by which man is attached to the soil, the citizen to\nthe state; which can justify his leaving the bosom of his\ncountry, to order to separate himself from it absolutely, and to\nstrive to lay the foundation of a new country.\n{xix}\nWe have just been spectators of such an attempt; we have seen\nsome of the States which form the nation of the United States of\nAmerica, abjure this union, and erect themselves into an\nindependent confederation. Wherefore? In order to maintain in\ntheir bosom the institution of slavery. By what right? By the\nright, it is said, of every people, or portion of a people, to\nchange its government at discretion. The States which remained\nfaithful to the ancient American Confederation denied the\nprinciple and combatted the attempt. They succeeded in\nmaintaining the federal Union, and in abolishing slavery. I am\none of those who think that they had both right and reason on\ntheir side. Many years before the struggle commenced, one of the\nmost eminent men in the United States, eminent by his character\nas well as his talents, a faithful representative of the\ninterests of the States of the South, and an avowed apologist for\nnegro slavery, Mr. Calhoun, did me the honour of transmitting to\nme all that he had written and said upon the subject.\n{xx}\nI was struck by the frank and earnest language with which he\nexpressed his convictions, but no less by the futility of the\nefforts which he made to justify, upon general considerations and\nby historical necessities, the fact of slavery in his country. He\nwould never have dared to paint it in its actual and living\nreality, as Mrs. Beecher Stowe has done in her romances of \"Uncle\nTom's Cabin\" and of \"Dred,\" which have everywhere excited so much\nsympathy and emotion. I became every day more and more convinced\nthat there was here a radical iniquity and a social wound, of\nwhich it was at last time to efface the shame and to conjure the\ndanger. It was with the motive of maintaining the system of\nslavery that the States of the South undertook to break up the\ngreat American State which was their country. Motive detestable\nfor a deplorable act! Our epoch, so unfortunate in many respects,\nhas, in my opinion, been fortunate in this, that it produced a\nRepublic, the greatest of all Republics of ancient or of modern\ntimes, which has afforded us the example of an uncompromising\nresistance to an illegitimate popular desire, and of an\nunflinching respect for the tutelary principles of the life of\nStates.\n\n{xxi}\n\nSo far of the territorial questions, and those which concern the\nexternal relations of nations. Let me now speculate upon what the\nfuture has in store for those which involve domestic order and\nthe organization of government. I meet here with the same\nconfusion, the same complications, the same fluctuations between\nideas and essays incoherent or inconsistent. At the base as at\nthe summit of society, the monarchy and the republic are in\ncollision: the monarchy reigns in events; the republic ferments\nin opinions.\n\nThe proposition is now universally received that society has the\nright not only to see clearly and to intervene in its own\ngovernment, but to see so clearly and to intervene in such a\nmanner as to justify the expression that it governs itself.\n{xxii}\nThe Constitutional Monarchy and the Republic profess each to\nattain this object: the one by a national representation, by the\nmonarch's inviolability and his ministry's responsibility; the\nother by universal suffrage and the periodical elections of the\ngreat representatives of public power. But neither the\nconstitutional monarchy nor the republic has as yet succeeded\namongst us in obtaining firm possession of opinions and of\nevents, of public confidence and of durable power. After and in\nspite of thirty-four years of prosperity, of peace, and of\nliberty, the constitutional power fell. The republic, accepted on\nits sudden appearance as the form of government which, as was\naffirmed, divided us least, after a few months of turbulent and\nsterile anarchy, fell also. In the place of the constitutional\nmonarchy and of the republic there arose another form of\ngovernment, a mixture of Dictatorship and of Republic, a sort of\npersonal government combined with, universal suffrage. Will the\nessay have greater success? Events will decide.\n{xxiii}\nIn the meantime let us be sincere with ourselves; the cause of so\nmany painful and abortive attempts resides rather in the\ndisposition of the people of France than in the acts of its\ngovernments: our revolutionary existence since 1789, our\nambitious aspirings and disappointments, both equally immense,\nhave left us at once very excited and very fatigued, full of\nimpatience at the same time as of incertitude; we know not very\nwell what we think or what we would have; our ideas are perplexed\nand confused; our wills vacillating and feeble; our minds have no\nfixed points, our conduct no determined objects; we often yield\nourselves up readily against our better judgment, nay against our\nvery wish, to whatever power extends its hand to seize us; but\nsoon, very soon, we evince towards that power not a whit less\nexigency or unfairness; as soon as we feel ourselves rid of our\nmost urgent cause for disquietude, our discontent is as\nprecipitate as was our submission in the hour of peril. We are\nagain disposed to be quarrelsome, and demand instant action in\nthe midst even of our doubts and hesitation. Our revolutions have\ntaught us the lesson neither of resistance nor of patience. Yet\nthese are virtues without which it is idle to propose to found\nany free government.\n\n{xxiv}\n\nI pass from political questions to social questions, and from the\nstate of our political institutions to that of the relations\nexistent between the different parts of society. I say the\n_different parts_ to avoid saying _different classes_,\nfor we cannot hear the word class pronounced without thinking\nthat we are threatened with the re-establishment of privileges\nand exclusions, of that entire _r\u00e9gime_ with its narrow\ncompartments and inseparable barriers within which men were\nformerly enclosed, and ranked according to their origin, their\nname, their religion, or whatever other factitious or accidental\nqualification they might possess. In effect, this _r\u00e9gime_\nhas fallen--fallen completely and definitively; all legal\nbarriers have disappeared; all careers are open; all labour free:\nby individual merit and by labour every man may aspire to\neverything, and examples abound in confirmation of the principle.\n{xxv}\nThis was the great work, the great conquest of 1789; we celebrate\nit unceasingly, and we have often the air of forgetting that it\never occurred. The different ancient classes are still full of\njealousy, of distrust, and of restless irritation; because they\nhave to struggle for influence in the midst of liberty, they\npersuade themselves that they are still risking life and limb in\ndefence of their situation and of their right. The Restoration\nwas attacked and undermined on account, it was said, of the evils\nthat the _bourgeoisie_ had to endure, and the risks which it\nhad to run at the hands of the nobles. Under the government of\nJuly, the working classes were told incessantly that they were\nthe victims of the privileges and of the tyranny of the middle\nclasses. Facts and actual events gave singularly the lie to such\nassertions. With what effect? In the hurry of passions and the\nintoxication of thought, men appealed to theories which had been\nalready often produced on the stage of the world,--theories which\nhave only served to agitate, never to satisfy it.\n{xxvi}\nLanded property and capital, labour and wages, the artificial\ndistribution of the means of material happiness amongst men, have\nserved sometimes as the subjects of unjust recrimination,\nsometimes of chimerical expectations. Attacks were made upon\nthings which the assailants had no right to take; and promises\nwere made to give things which the promisers had not the power to\ngive.\n\nI have heard it remarked by clear-sighted men who are good\nobservers, that this malady of the mind is decreasing, and that\neven amongst the labouring classes themselves, false notions as\nto the conflict of capital and labour, as to the artificial\nsettlement of wages, and the intervention of the State in the\ndistribution of the material means of existence, are in\ndiscredit, and that the ambitious aspirings of the people,\nalthough continuing to be very democratic, have ceased to assume\nthe form of Socialism.\n{xxvii}\nI ardently wish it were so: the passionate feelings which find\ntheir field in facts affecting the sphere of material\nsubsistence, are the rudest, the most rebellious, and the most\nrecalcitrant to the principles of the moral order: it is easier\nto deal with the aspirings of political ambition than with the\nardent cravings for physical advantages. But I fear, I confess,\nthat errors such as those which presented themselves under the\nnames of Socialism and Communism, and which recently made so much\nnoise, are not so discarded as we might hope them to be; that\nthey are actually without a mouthpiece is not a sufficient proof\nof their defeat; materialism, and the evil instincts to which it\nleads or from which it springs, have penetrated very far amongst\nus, and a long period of social and moral progress in the midst\nof a society which has been well ordered will be necessary in\norder to surmount this danger.\n\nSeveral years ago I put to a great manufacturer of Manchester,\nwho had been Mayor of that immense centre of industry, the\nfollowing question: \"What amongst you is the proportion between\nthe laborious and well-conducted workmen, who live respectably in\ntheir homes, set aside money in the savings' bank, and apply for\nbooks at the people's library, and the idle and disorderly\nworkmen who pass their time at taverns, and only work so much as\nis necessary to furnish them with the means of subsistence?\"\n{xxviii}\nAfter a moment's reflection, he replied: \"The former are\ntwo-thirds of the whole number.\" After congratulating him, I\nadded, \"Allow me to put one more question. If you had amongst you\ngreat disorders, seditious assemblages, and riots, what would be\nthe result?\" \"With us, sir,\" he said without hesitation, \"the\nhonest men are braver than the ill-conditioned ones.\" I\ncongratulated him this time still more.\n\nIn these questions I had touched the root of the evil which\nafflicts us. It is to their shortcomings in morality, to their\ndisorderly lives, that we must attribute the favour with which\nthe working classes receive the fallacious theories that menace\nsocial order. The condition of these classes is hard and full of\ndistressing accidents; whoever regards it closely, and with a\nlittle fairness and sympathy, cannot fail to be deeply moved by\nall the sufferings which they have to support, the privations\nfrom which they have no chance of escape, and the efforts which\nthey must make to ensure themselves a living at best monotonous\nand full of hazard.\n{xxix}\nThe happy ones of the earth feel sometimes alarm and irritation,\nwhen they hear from the pulpit descriptions purer and more true\nto the life than are to be met with in philanthropical novels, of\nthe precarious state and distresses of the lower orders. Beyond\ndoubt, from pictures of this nature should be scrupulously\nexcluded everything that would seem to excite sentiments of\nhostility, or that would set one class against another; still as\nthe upper classes must resign themselves to the spectacle, it\ndevolves more especially upon Christian Painters to place it\nbefore them.\n{xxx}\nNothing but strong moral convictions, and the habits of well\nliving amongst the labouring classes, can furnish them with\nefficacious means of struggling against the temptations and\nresisting the ambitious yearnings, suggested to them by the\nspectacle of the world which surrounds them,--a world now at\nlength transparent to all, a world of which the stir, the noise,\nthe accidents, the adventures, penetrate with rapidity even to\nthe workshops of our cities and the remotest recesses of our\nvillages. What influence shall protect the masses of the people\nfrom the irritating and demoralizing effect of such a sight,\nunless it be the influence of religious principles, the moral\ndiscipline which religion maintains, and the moral serenity which\nreligion diffuses over the rudest existences and the lives\nsubjected to the greatest privations? And it is precisely\nreligious belief and religious discipline, Christian faith and\nChristian law, which are now being attacked and undermined, and\nthis far more in the obscurer classes, than in the brilliant\nregions of society!\n\n{xxxi}\n\nThese attacks are of a general although of diverse nature, and of\nunequal violence; they occur in the bosom of Roman Catholicism,\nof Protestantism, and of scientific philosophy; some are direct,\nopen, impetuous; others indirect and full of reserves, and of a\ntenderness sometimes affected, sometimes sincere. Christianity\ncounts amongst its enemies fanatics who persecute it in the name\nof reason and of liberty, as well as adversaries who criticise it\nwith moderation and prudence; the latter admit its practical\ndeservings, are distressed by the wounds which they inflict, and,\nin the very act of dealing their blows, seek to lessen their\nforce. This diversity of attack is a proof of the trouble, of the\nincertitude, and of the incoherence which reign in men's\nopinions, both upon religious questions and upon questions which\nare only simply political and social; many they are who would be\ninclined to save such or such a portion of the edifice which they\nare battering and seeking to destroy. But the upshot is, that all\nthese blows are telling upon the same point, and are concurring\nto produce the same effect; it is the Christian Religion which\nreceives them all; it is the right and the empire of Christ\nwhich, in the world learned and unlearned, is subjected to doubt\nand exposed to peril.\n\n{xxxii}\n\nI have touched upon all the great questions which are agitating\nthe human mind and human societies: questions of public right,\nquestions of political organization, questions of social\ninstitutions, questions of religious belief. Everywhere I\nencounter two facts, facts everywhere the same: a great\ncomplication and a great incertitude in man's opinions and in his\nefforts. Nothing is simple, no one decided. Problems of every\nkind--doubts of every kind weigh upon the thoughts of men, and\noppress their wills; their ambitious aspirings are varied,\nimmense, but everywhere they hesitate. They may be likened to\ntravellers already exhausted with fatigue, yet feebly driving to\nfeel their way through a labyrinth.\n\nAre we then to infer that we are living in an era of decay and\nimpotence? that we have nothing ourselves to do, nothing to hope\nfor, in this situation so complicated and so obscure? that we\nhave only to wait until our lot is decided by that sovereign\npower called by some Providence, by others Fate?\n\n{xxxiii}\n\nI am far from thinking so.\n\nOf the men distinguished by singleness of views and strength of\nconvictions whom I have known, I consider the Marshal Gouvion\nSaint-Cyr in these respects the most remarkable. He was one day\ndetailing his reasons for disapproving of the system of a royal\nor imperial guard, or of privileged corps, in an army: \"Few,\"\nsaid he, \"are really brave: the best thing to be done is to\ndisseminate them in the ranks, where each singly, by his presence\nand example, will make eight or ten more brave men around him.\" I\nam no judge as to the value of the Marshal's maxim in a military\nsense; I do not believe it to be invariably true, or always\napplicable in the political sense; there are epochs at which, in\norder to further the progress of which a nation stands in need,\nto withdraw it from its embarrassments or to rouse it from its\napathy, the most urgent thing to be done, and the plan the most\nefficacious, is to form in its bosom picked bodies of men (the\nnumber is immaterial), and then to incorporate with them others\npossessing distinguished qualities, and animated by the same\nspirit, decided in their opinions, and resolute in their action,\nsingle of purpose, and full of confidence: these would soon\nattract to themselves as associates many others who would never,\nwithout such impulse, begin to move in the same path.\n{xxxiv}\nWe are, I believe, at an era which calls for such a mode of\ninfluencing society, and which authorises us to expect success if\nwe adopt it.\n\nI can never be accused of ignoring or extenuating the evil which\ntorments us upon all the points which I have just indicated, the\nrights of nations, the civil organization of society and its\neconomy, moral and religious belief. In all these directions an\nevil wind is blowing, an evil current is hurrying away a part of\nFrench society, and it is my constant design so to arouse the\nmoral sense of the people, and its good sense, as to make them\nattentive to the existence of the ill, and solicitous for its\nremoval.\n{xxxv}\nBut at the side of this fact, so deplorable and so full of peril,\na fact of contrary and salutary nature is occurring and\ndeveloping itself: a good wind there also is which is blowing, a\ngood current which is impelling us forwards;--at the same time\nthat violent and revolutionary theories are being diffused, the\nprinciples of legal order, and of liberties, serving mutually to\ncontrol and check one another, are proclaimed and maintained; the\nmaxims and the sentiments of the spirit of peace are heard at\nleast as loudly pronounced, as the souvenirs and the traditions\nof the spirit of adventure and conquest; the sound principles of\npolitical economy have defenders no less zealous than the\npresumptuous and dreamy theories of Socialism; Spiritualism\nraises its voice high at the side of Materialism; Christianity is\nadvancing at the same time as Incredulity, and with a progress\nalso distinguished by its scientific method and its practical\napplications.\n{xxxvi}\nFollowing respectively their different objects, there are on both\nsides groups of men of strong convictions, activity, and\ninfluence, who hope for and pursue the triumph of their several\ncauses. Like the ardent huntsman of B\u00fcrgers ballad, France is\nsolicited by two Genii, ever at her side, ever present, urgent,\ncontrary. Since the commencement of the nineteenth century, our\nhistory is made up of this great struggle and of its\nvicissitudes, of the series of victories gained and defeats\nsustained by these two forces, which are disputing the future of\nour country.\n\nThey find a field of action in a people of quick, various, and\nkeen feelings, prone to generous impulses, full of human\nsympathies and mobility, at this moment chilled and intimidated\nby the checks imposed upon their ambitious yearnings, by the\ndisappointments which have befallen their hopes, and so brought\nback by actual experience to confine their aspirations within the\nmodest limits of good sense; more occupied with the perils of\ntheir situation than with the rights of thought, but always\nremarkable for intelligence and sagacity; friendly to liberty\neven when they dread its abuse, and to order although they only\ndefend it at the last extremity; more touched by virtue than\nshocked by vice; honest in their instincts and moral judgments in\nspite of the weakness of their moral belief and their complacent\nindulgence of men whom they do not esteem; and always ready, in\nspite of their doubts and their alarms, to recur to the noble\ndesires which they have the air of no longer entertaining.\n\n{xxxvii}\n\nWe have in all this evidently matter to encourage the good genius\nof France. The life of nations is neither easier nor less mixed\nwith good and evil, with successes and reverses, than the life of\nindividuals; but assuredly, in spite of what is wanting to it,\nand in spite of its sorrows, the actual state of our country, as\nwell as its long history, open a wide field to the efforts and\nthe hopes of the men of elevated, resolute, and honest minds, who\nare occupying themselves in earnest with its destiny.\n\n{xxxviii}\n\nWhat, in order to attain their object, can be, ought to be, the\nconduct of the men engaged in this patriotic design, men who have\nit at heart to second the good current and to stem the evil\ncurrent, which have both set in amongst us? Upon what conditions\nand by what means can we hope to pass through the sieve of good\nsense and of moral sense the confused ideas which plague us, and\nto find an issue for the public out of the doubts and hesitation\nwhich are a source of languor and enervation to the soul?\n\nPolitical Liberty and Belief in Religion, the movement of society\nin advance and the impulse of the soul towards eternity, Free\nGovernment and Christianity, these are the two forces to which we\nshould recur, and the only ones capable of remedying this disease\nof trouble and doubt which afflict both our thoughts and our\nconduct, and which at one time impairs, at another paralyses, our\nunderstanding.\n\n{xxxix}\n\nI have no intention here to speak of political liberties in the\nabstract, and of their necessity either to a country in order to\nguarantee to it a good administration at home and abroad, or to\nindividuals in order to secure their interests, moral and\nmaterial. The right of France to these liberties, and their\nopportuneness to her at this moment, have recently been set in\ntheir clearest light, and established in all their force on their\nhighest stage, in the bosom of the legislative body. [Footnote 2]\nIt is solely because of its influence upon that ill of our epoch,\nthe complication of questions and the hesitations of opinion,\nthat I speak here of political liberty; I regard it as one of the\ntwo great remedies against this ill.\n\n    [Footnote 2: Discourse of M. Thiers, _Sur les libert\u00e9s\n    n\u00e9cessaires et sur la libert\u00e9 de la presse_, in the s\u00e9ances of\n    the 11th January, 1864, 13th February, 1866, 30th January,\n    7th, 8th, 15th, 21st, and 22nd February, 1868.]\n\n{xl}\n\nWhen all questions are agitated pell mell, and all minds are\nperplexed, the first salutary result consequent upon liberty is\nthat it sets all opinions and all intentions in contact and in\nconflict. At first, and for a time, this simultaneous invasion of\nso many complex facts, and of so many diverse and contrary ideas,\ndoes but add to the perplexity of the questions and to the\nconfusion of minds; but little by little, and quickly too,\nprovided liberty endures, the winnowing process produces its\neffect upon the questions, and light penetrates into the\nunderstandings: the different facts, and problems which these\nfacts suggest, are set in turn in their place, and valued only\nfor as much as they are worth; actors and spectators grow\naccustomed to them all, and begin to form more precise\nconceptions of them.\n\nLittle by little order takes the place of confusion; opinions\ndefine and classify themselves; and instead of the fermentation\nof opinions in a chaotic confusion, we have a contest in regular\nform, and upon intelligible issues, I repeat that a result so\nsalutary cannot be obtained unless upon the condition of a\nliberty universal, real, and durable; partial or transitory, it\nwould serve only to aggravate the perturbation, and to unsettle\nopinions still more.\n\n{xli}\n\nPolitical liberty has a second effect, one, perhaps, still more\nimportant: it forces all questions to submit to the test of\npractical experiment. As long as the liberty is only in the\nthought, it is vain and intemperate; everything seems permitted,\nand everything possible to those who are not responsible for the\neffects of an act: man's thought, intoxicated with itself, runs\nriot in the vagueness of infinite space and time. But when to\nliberty of thought is superadded political liberty,--when,\ninstead of treating questions speculatively, they have to be\nvirtually solved,--when men are charged as real actors to\ntransform into facts their own opinions or those of the\nspectators who are looking on,--then it is that the human mind,\nmaking its own strength the object of its reflection and\nexamination, is driven to the admission that it does not dispose\nat its own will of the world, and that even in order to satisfy\nitself, it must confine itself to the limits imposed by good\nsense, by justice, and by possibility,--then it is that it learns\nto govern itself, and to hold itself responsible for its acts.\nResponsibility engenders discretion, but is itself engendered by\nliberty alone.\n\n{xlii}\n\nOur own times have furnished us with three great examples of the\nsalutary empire exercised by political liberty in furnishing an\nescape from the embarrassment of situations, and in solving\nquestions the most different--I might say the most contrary--in\ntheir nature. We have only to cast our eyes over the contemporary\nhistories of England, of the United States of America, and of\nFrance herself, to discover their examples and their authority as\nprecedents.\n\nFrom 1792 to 1818, England was engaged in struggles first against\nthe spirit of Revolution, and then against that termed by M.\nBenjamin Constant the spirit of usurpation and of conquest. With\nwhat forces and with what arms did England support these two\nformidable struggles? With the forces and the arms of political\nliberty.\n{xliii}\nIt was by the elections, by publicity, by discussions continued\nin the midst of the energetic manifestations of all the parties,\n--it was by appeals to public sentiments and opinions,--it was by\nsetting in action all the springs of a free and representative\ngovernment, that England succeeded in her resistance to the most\npotent revolutionary and military movement which ever agitated\nEurope. That struggle over, after the lapse of a few years,\nduring which the presiding policy prolonged its tenure of office\nby pursuing a pacific course, England entered upon quite a\ndifferent path; sometimes under the Government of Liberals,\nsometimes of Conservatives, the policy of Reform took the place\nof the policy of resistance; and since 1828, it is in this path\nthat England is progressing; it is in favour of innovations,\nsometimes prudent, sometimes daring, and sometimes, perhaps,\nimprovident, that she is exerting to the utmost all the forces of\nthe country, all the strength of its government. Political\nLiberty has in turn, and with similar efficacy, served the cause\nand assured the success, at one time of a policy of resistance,\nat another of that of progress.\n\n{xliv}\n\nThe United States of America have been subjected to a still ruder\ntrial. Their government has had to struggle against the\ninsurrection of a notable portion of their people, and against a\ncivil war entered upon in the name of a principle, popular\nindependence. The central power of the Confederation has resisted\nan insurrection radically illegitimate, which was entered upon to\nmaintain the slavery of a part of the human race; it defended the\nnational existence of the State against the attempts which were\nmade to dislocate it, and which were founded upon the same\nmotive; and after a civil war which endured four years, in the\ncourse of which each side was prodigal of efforts and sacrifices,\nand displayed an equal energy, the policy of resistance triumphed\nby the medium of a republican power, and the liberal idea of the\nabolition of slavery vanquished the revolutionary idea of the\nright of insurrection.\n{xlv}\nIt is to political liberty, and to the potent force of the\ninstitutions and manners founded under her influence, that this\nvictory of the great right of humanity was due; and, the war once\nover, the civil _r\u00e9gime_ of American society resumed its\naction, still stormy and perilous, but free from every anarchical\nusurpation or military tyranny.\n\nNewer to France, its principles less understood by it, and not so\nwell applied, Political Liberty has not on these accounts\nremained without producing there some fruits. In 1830 and in 1848\nFrance passed through two revolutions, one of which had been\npreceded by sixteen the other by eighteen years of civil liberty.\nNeither of the _r\u00e9gimes_ in operation immediately previous\nto each revolution sufficed to prevent it, but they greatly\nchanged its character and weakened its effects. In 1830, thanks\nto the instantaneous intervention of the public authorities which\nowed their existence to the previous _r\u00e9gime_, a regular\ngovernment was promptly established, and a new constitutional\nmonarchy succeeded to that which had just fallen.\n{xlvi}\nOn the instant it set itself in opposition to the revolutionary\nmovement which had given it birth; but the principle of respect\nfor the Law and for Liberty exercised, as yet, so incomplete and\nfeeble an empire upon men's minds, that the anarchical\nfermentation of opinions prolonged themselves even after the\nvictory. The doctrine of Religious Liberty, in particular, was\nmore than once lost sight of and violated: in February, 1831, the\nfuneral ceremonies in the church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois,\ncelebrated in commemoration of the Duke de Berri, who had been\nassassinated eleven years previously, was not allowed to be\ntranquilly celebrated; a violent and riotous mob sacked the\narchiepiscopal palace of Paris, and was the cause of the church,\nwhich had furnished them with a pretext for violence, being\nclosed for many months.\n{xlvii}\nIn 1848, on the contrary, during a revolutionary crisis which set\nmen's passions far more furiously in movement, and which was more\nprofound than that of 1830, neither the liberty of Religion nor\nthe peace of the churches was disturbed; the ruling authorities\nwere exposed to anarchy for a longer period, but the rights of\nthe individual were respected, and he might affirm himself free\neven in the midst of the public troubles and perils. Thirty-four\nyears of civil Liberty have not disappeared with the governments\nwhich were then in force without leaving their traces; their\ntraditions and their examples have evidently exercised a salutary\ninfluence both upon the last Revolution, and upon the Reaction\nwhich put an end to it.\n\nThat this influence may still surmount the great trials through\nwhich governments and people may have both to pass, two things\nare necessary: the one is, that civil liberty should form real\ncitizens, that nations as well as governments should learn to\nmake use of their rights, and to submit to the limits imposed by\ntheir laws; the other is, that each country and ruling power, at\nthe same time that they are culling the fruits of civil liberty,\nshould accept its inconveniences and its perils.\n{xlviii}\nA free government is not exempt from either vices or dangers; it\ndoes not dispense men from the necessity of contemplating with\nresignation the imperfection of every work of man as well as of\nevery human situation.\n\nFree institutions are not of themselves enough: they leave room\nto nations for--what do I say? they demand from them--great\nactivity and much responsibility. If nations strive to elude\ntheir part of responsibility and omit to exercise their share of\naction, free institutions become idle words; they are no longer\nanything but a picture-frame without the picture--a drama\nwritten, not represented--in which the actors fail to assume\ntheir parts or to co-operate to produce the _d\u00e9nouement_.\n\nIt is the absolute necessity of this co-operation of the public\nin the life of free government which gives so capital an\nimportance to the popular beliefs, moral and religious.\n{xlix}\nWhen I say beliefs, moral and religious, I attach to the word a\nsense at once the largest and most positive: these beliefs may\nhave different dogmas and different internal organizations; I am\nnot one of those who believe that Romanists are necessarily\nhostile to civil liberty, or that the doctrine of the right of\nprivate judgment impels Protestants inevitably to anarchy. What\nis indispensable is, that in their diversity the beliefs styled\nmoral and religious should be beliefs really moral and\nreligious--beliefs which recognize and attest that man is\nnaturally moral and religious, and which assign to man something\nessentially to distinguish him from the material world in the\nmidst of which he lives, in short a soul. Nations animated by\nsuch beliefs are the only ones which accept really under a free\n_r\u00e9gime_ a large share both of its responsibility and of its\nactive duties: it is only when so animated that they give\nconsequently to civil Liberty the potent support of which it\nstands in need, for it is only then that they seriously believe\nin the existence of moral Liberty. The world has seen more than\nonce how feeble and precarious an affection men feel for liberty\nwhen they no longer believe in the human soul; and with what a\ntame complacency, when they regard themselves as an ephemeral\ncombination of material elements, they submit to the empire of\nthe material forces which assail them.\n{l}\nMany in these days are of opinion that it is enough in a free\ncountry if religious beliefs are freely practised by those who\nprofess them, and externally respected by others, and that all\nwhich can be expected from them is an indirect influence in\nfavour of the maintenance of order. But this is a complete\nmisapprehension of the great facts of nature and of human\nsociety. There are two things which never fail finally to prove\nincompatible, Liberty and Falsehood. Whether from prudence or in\ntenderness for the opinions of those who surround him, a man\nisolated in position may preserve silence, or may utter even a\nfalsehood as to what he thinks and believes respecting the\nsupreme questions concerning Man's nature and Man's destiny; this\nis possible, for such cases are seen; a single isolated\nindividual is so paltry a thing, and passes so quickly, that his\nsilence or his falsehood can exercise but little influence upon\nthe vast ocean of society in which he is plunged: but the\nfalsehood or the silence of a free people from feelings of\nrespect or of prudence cannot be regarded as possible; their\nopinions and their sentiments concerning the supreme questions of\nhumanity manifest themselves necessarily, and carry with them in\nsuch manifestation their natural and logical consequences.\n{li}\nTo engage a free people to treat with tenderness and respect, to\nrefrain from contesting, perhaps even to reduce to practice,\nmoral and religious beliefs in which it does not itself believe,\nis to give to it not only a very discreditable but a very\nimpracticable counsel. Liberty in the domain of civil society\ncalls for and infallibly induces veracity in the region of the\nintellect; a free country can never escape in its public and\npractical life from the effectual influence of any ideas, whether\nmoral or immoral, religious or irreligious, which may happen to\nbe fermenting and spreading themselves abroad in the minds of the\npeople.\n\n{lii}\n\nI leave generalities and call things by their proper names; in\nall that I have just said respecting beliefs moral and religious,\nit is of Christianity that I am thinking. That Christianity on\nthe one hand is necessary to the firm establishment of civil\nLiberty amongst us, and on the other hand is very reconcilable\nwith the principles and the rights of modern society, is what I\nhave at heart to establish in the series of Meditations which I\nam now publishing.\n\nI do not deceive myself by imagining that it will be an easy task\nto effect this reconciliation, and to restore at the present day\nto Christianity, the object of so many attacks, that influence of\nwhich the interests most dear to us, Liberty as well as Order,\nstand equally in need. Still, I believe that success is not only\nhere possible but infallible. I was speaking just now of two\ncontrary currents which had set in in the domain of intellect as\nwell as of Politics, and which lead to the formation of groups\nprofoundly different, Conservatives and Revolutionists, Liberals\nand Radicals, Spiritualists and Materialists, Christians and\nDisbelievers.\n{liii}\nNo one of these groups really represents a dominant party\nin France: amidst them and around them there is a scattered and\nhesitating population, sometimes heedless, sometimes anxious,\nvacillating alternately between innovations and its traditions,\nwearied of its agitations and of its doubt, and not seeing\nclearly the quarter from which shall come that government of\ntruth, of liberty, and of order, which is to give repose to man's\nthoughts and life and enable him again to rise. In this confused\nand wavering multitude there are to be found men whose ways of\nthinking, whose desires, and sometimes whose tastes, are, to\nappearance, very decided, but whose opinions or wills are in\nreality neither clear, determined, nor pronounced. We have here a\nvast field open to all the winds, accessible to every labourer, a\nfield ever fertile, and, although harassed by various and\nincoherent attempts, still a field only demanding good seed to\nbear an abundant harvest. If we sound the depths of French\nsociety in all directions, and study it in all its elements and\nunder all its aspects, we shall find it to be as I have here\ndescribed it.\n{liv}\nAbove and below, in all classes and parties, amongst the powerful\nand the humble, the learned and ignorant, we shall find\neverywhere, on one side groups of persons of resolute purposes\ndevoting their activity to the service of opinions and causes the\nmost contrary; on the other a wavering, vacillating crowd, in\nsearch of a path to follow, and impelled, perhaps, in the most\ndifferent directions. Upon this population it is that we must\nact; it is amongst them that there are immense and decisive\nconquests to make; good aspirations, moral and religious\ninstincts, those necessary preliminaries to faith in Christ, are\nby no means wanting; but to conduct them to their goal, to\ntransform them into positive and effectual convictions, we must\naccommodate ourselves to the general character of this\npopulation; we must be of our time, and speak its language; an\nadequate satisfaction must be offered, and a necessary confidence\nmust be inspired, before we can expect that a population, anxious\nto ensure the rights and the interests of its new life, should\ngive in return its soul.\n{lv}\nIt is not a complacent indulgence that I am counselling, it is\nnot concessions that I ask from the contemporary defenders of\nChristianity; what their mission demands is, that they should\nknow, that they should comprehend, that they should love the\nsociety to which they are addressing themselves, and that they\nshould zealously occupy themselves with it to rally it under\ntheir banner, not to cast it prostrate or to humiliate it under\ntheir blows.\n\nNot only must their work have this character, but when it has it\nprospers, and the nineteenth century has seen instances of such\nsuccess. I shall only cite two, which occurred at different\nepochs, and in which the modes of action were different. Why did\nChateaubriand and the Father Lacordaire exercise upon their\ntimes, and especially upon the youth of their times, so\nextraordinary an influence?\n{lvi}\nFirst, because the awakening of Christianity which they provoked\nwas a thing in harmony with the popular instincts, but also\nbecause, in the midst of the religious reaction of which they\nwere the organs, they each of them, by degrees and by different\nprocesses, respectively inspired the France of their days with\nthe sentiment that they were its children and its friends, that\nthey shared its new aspirations, that they accepted its political\ntransformation, and that it was not in order to reconstitute it\non its ancient basis that they wished it to be Christian. They\nmore than once astounded, disquieted, even shocked their country,\nthe one by his political career, the other by his monastic zeal;\nstill their popularity continued, and they influenced it, the one\nby causing Christianity to resume her place in the modern\nliteratures of France, the other notwithstanding his having\nre-established in France the monastic orders. The reason of this\nis, that in spite of the prejudices which it entertained against\nthem, and the opinions in which it differed from them, France\nfelt itself understood and honoured by them; it rejoiced in their\nglory, because it believed in their sympathy.\n\n{lvii}\n\nMen such as M. de Chateaubriand and the Father Lacordaire are\nrare; but the spirit which animated them, the comprehension of\ntheir age and country which distinguished them, did not die with\nthem, nor are they without successors in their work of religion\nand patriotism. Beyond a doubt the Faith of Christ and the Church\nof Rome have in our days had no champion more eloquent and more\nliberal than M. de Montalembert, and worthily the Father\nHyacinthe occupies the pulpit from which once resounded the voice\nof the Father Lacordaire. At the side of these names, already\nmore than once cited by me, I see others start up of a different\norigin and with a different physiognomy, but devoted to the same\ncause and to the same work.\n{lviii}\nAt the very moment at which I am terminating these Meditations,\ntwo compositions meet my eye, published by men, neither of whom I\nhave the honour to know, men very different in position and in\nideas: the one a Romanist, the other a Protestant, the one a\ngreat Prelate in his Church, the other a simple Pastor in his;\nboth firm Christians, and both sympathizers with the instincts,\nthe aspirations, and the moral and intellectual ideas prevalent\nin the present state of French society; both having the\nresolution and the ability required in order to present\nChristianity to Frenchmen under the form and in the language most\nproper to make it penetrate the soul. The one is Monseigneur\nDarboy, the Archbishop of Paris, the other, M. Decoppel, pastor\nat Alais. The former has just addressed to the clergy of his\ndiocese, (Lent, 1868,) _A Pastoral Letter upon the Truth of\nChristianity_. [Footnote 3] The second presented, on the 7th\nof November in the previous year, to the National Evangelical\nConference assembled at N\u00e9rac, _A Report as to the Actual\nRequirements of Preachers in the Protestant Churches_.\n[Footnote 4]\n\n    [Footnote 3: This Pastoral Letter was published at full length\n    in the _Gazette de France_, on the 25th and 26th of\n    February, 1868.]\n\n    [Footnote 4: This report was published, at Toulouse, by the\n    Society for the Publication of Religious Books, 1868.]\n\n{lix}\n\nI was struck, in spite of their diversity, by the substantially\nanalogous character of these two documents, and I cite them here\nbecause I would set in a clear light the great fact which each\nreveals, that a general and contemporaneous work is now being\nprosecuted in order to maintain and reestablish the harmony\nbetween the Christianity of former ages and the spirit of the\npresent century, a work of which the mission is to solve, as far\nas the solution can rest with man, the question whether our epoch\nis Christian.\n\n\"Religion,\" says the Archbishop of Paris, \"is a fact that was\ncontemporary with primitive man--a fact present in all ages, ever\nparamount, ever visible, although not everywhere to the same\ndegree. Never was there wanting in the world a voice to remind\nman of the truths of Religion, whether it proceeded from the tent\nof the Patriarch, the synagogue of the Jew, or the church of the\nCatholic; whether it was heard in the whisperings of a simple and\nupright conscience, or emanated from legislators or prophet\nraised up by Heaven, or was the voice of God himself incarnate,\nconstituting Himself the preceptor and the model of His\ncreatures, humanity was never so imperfect as that these lofty\nlessons did not draw forth from the generously faithful responses\nmore or less unanimous.\n\n{lx}\n\n\"Heathen nations--their history proves it--have preserved\nsomething of these hopes and of the religious dogmas connected\nwith them. The grandsons of Noah, in dispersing in the plains of\nSennaar, convey to the four quarters of the earth the traditions\nwhich they received from their grandsire, and which are the\ncommon patrimony of the human race. Doubtless these traditions\nare gradually altered and deformed by the vain intermixtures of\nfables, which owe their origin to the dreamers of the far East\nand to the poets of Greece and of Rome; but in the eyes of the\nmultitude, and particularly of those who are its superiors and\nits governors, the grand features of the truth are readily\ndistinguishable. Thus, the existence of God and the action of\nProvidence, the distinction of good and of evil, the original\nfall of man and the necessity for an atonement, the immortality\nof the soul, the rewards and punishments of another life; all\nthese doctrines, more or less disfigured, it is true, live in the\ndepths of the conscience of the people.\n{lxi}\nEven Pagans have their souls by nature Christian, which testify\nin favour of justice and virtue; and if Pagans are to be\ncondemned, says St. Paul, it is not for having ignored God, but\nfor having neglected to serve Him and to glorify Him.\n\n\"At an era nearer to ourselves, three centuries ago, a sorrowful\nwork was accomplished. Theological disputes led to religious\nwars, and by a tearing asunder of ties which it is impossible too\nmuch to deplore, Europe divided itself into Catholics and\nProtestants. But in spite of this fatal resolution it remained\nChristian, although not in the same degree. Their political\ncharters and institutions, their civil laws and social habits,\nbreathe all of Christianity; and the character of their baptism\nremains stamped upon their foreheads, which it for ever ennobles.\n\n{lxii}\n\n\"And now this fact, which is the common work of so many\ngenerations, made up of beliefs expressed in every kind of manner\nand sometimes practised even to heroism, written in books sacred\nand profane, engraved on marble and on brass, in institutions and\nin laws, in the mind and in the heart of nations--this fact, what\nis its moral value, and what its bearing? Are we to be told that\nit is purely natural--the spontaneous production of our habits,\nthe simple result of our instincts--and, so to say, an\nirrepressible necessity of mankind? Even in this case it is\ndivine, as divine as our nature itself, which was directly\ncreated by God; and so we must recognise and respect Religion as\na thing true, necessary and divine. It is reason, it is common\nsense which tells us this.\n\n\"But there is more than that, my very dear brethren. This fact,\nas it presents itself, so general and so constant, is not merely\nthe common work of the races of mankind. Our nature, left to its\nown resources and its proper energy, is incapable of producing it\nand of continuing it with a brilliancy that so endures, and with\na force which renews itself every day.\n{lxiii}\nIt is also, it is more especially the providential and prodigious\neffect of a cause to which all of us are subject, men and\nnations, and which here shows itself that it is so by giving to\nits effects a supernatural character. ... Supernatural means were\nnecessary, that is to say, a continual action of God always in\nrelation to the varying exigencies of each different age, and the\nconstant requirements of humanity, in order that the person of\nthe Revealer having disappeared, and His direct action being no\nlonger visible, His teachings, His spirit, and His institutions\nshould be maintained in the world in a manner authentic,\ninfallible, and triumphant. In a single word, there was necessary\na perpetual assistance of God, accrediting the mission of His\nenvoys by extraordinary facts--facts of a superhuman power,\nmiraculously protecting their work against the consequences of\nthe weaknesses of some and of the perversity of others,\nintervening with supernatural _\u00e9clat_ to enable the mission\nto develop itself amongst nations incessantly, to act more and\nmore efficaciously upon them in spite of their shortcomings and\ntheir revolts, and to aid them and to support them in their\nreligious and predestined course.\n\n{lxiv}\n\n\"This paramount action, this divine action, is manifested in the\nhighest degree in Religion. After the miracles and the prophecies\nof ancient times, after the Jewish nation, whose history is a\nprophecy and one unceasing miracle, Christianity appears with\nsigns so supernatural that it is impossible for us to deceive\nourselves. Miraculous agency appears at every turn. The Saviour,\nand what he affirms concerning himself, His discourses, His\ncharacter and His actions, the difficulties of His undertaking,\nthe marvels of wisdom and sanctity which He accomplished;\nfinally, the survival and the development of His work through\ncenturies; everything here forces us to recur to the fact of the\ndirect intervention of God--sole possible means of finding a\nsatisfactory explanation of such grand results.\"\n\n{lxv}\n\nThe circular letter is throughout but a development of the ideas\nrecapitulated in the passages of the text which I have cited--a\ndevelopment sometimes so prudent and so little precipitate as to\nassume the character of extreme circumspection, yet always\nfaithful to the same thought. The writer indulges in no\ndiscussion purely theological, makes no pompous display of\necclesiastical authority, engages in no polemics with any class\nof dissent. When I affirm that we have here the History of\nHumanity, a correct appreciation of the ideas and behaviour of\nman in his different stages; Religion in general and Christianity\nin particular; considered as a grand fact--a fact universal and\npermanent, traceable everywhere and in all times, even amongst\nthe heathens; a fact which survived all the divisions, the\nscientific struggles, and the civil wars which took place amongst\nChristians themselves, particularly amongst Roman Catholics and\nProtestants, all of whom are Christians, according to the writer,\nby the same title, if not in the same degree;\n{lxvi}\na fact at once human and divine--human by its accordance with\nman's nature, divine by the direct and supernatural action of\nGod, of God the creator, personal, free, whose presence and power\nreveal themselves, now by the general and permanent order of\nevents, now by special miracles, judged by Him necessary for the\naccomplishment of His designs; the Christian faith thus\nassociated with the whole life of the human race; the principle\nof the supernatural and miraculous, as well as the dogmas of\nChristianity, proclaimed aloud, but without controversy, without\nany appeal made to any external or exclusive dominion; homage\nrendered to the right of the \"conscience simple and upright\" at\nthe same time as to the biblical traditions and to the authority\nof the Church: when I affirm that all this is here, am I not\njustified in also affirming that Christianity is here presented\nunder an aspect the least likely to shock opponents, the most\nproper to rally the minds of the hesitating? Is it not in effect,\non the part of a Prince of the Church of Rome, the acceptance and\npursuit of that great work of harmony between the Christian\nReligion and Modern Society, which is manifesting itself in so\nmany analogous manners and under banners so very diverse?\n\n{lxvii}\n\nThe pastor of Alais chooses a subject more limited, but is more\nvivid in thought and more incisive in manner than the Archbishop\nof Paris. It is not the general history of Christianity which he\ntraces; it is its actual state, its religious bias and\nrequirements in the nineteenth century which he observes and\ndescribes. His Report is no work of philosophy, but is penetrated\nand animated throughout by a real liberalism. He does not go in\nsearch of polemics: on the contrary, he recommends little use to\nbe made of them; but when the occasion or the necessity is there,\nhe does not evade it, but enters upon the arena unhesitatingly\nand without compromise.\n\n\"There are,\" he says, \"exigencies upon which all men concur in\ninsisting, and these depend upon the general state of men's minds\nin our epoch. Each age has its ideas and its sentiments, its\nprejudices and its doubts, a certain moral physiognomy which the\npreacher encounters more or less in our congregations.\n{lxviii}\nOur auditors, perhaps we are too prone to forget this, do not\nlive isolated from their contemporaries; they are of their time,\nthey inhale its intellectual and moral atmosphere, they follow\nits movement, they share in its shortcomings and in its\naspirations. We may indeed affirm that now more than ever men are\nof their time, thanks to the rapidity with which ideas circulate\nand diffuse themselves. Although men read less in France than in\nmany other countries, they read more than they did formerly. In\nFrance, for good or for evil, there are influences at work which\nhave to be taken into account. One of our first duties, as\npreachers, is, then, to know our age, to be attentive to every\nsymptom which can reveal to us its spirit and its tendencies. To\nneglect this duty is to expose ourselves to the risk of\naddressing, so to say, fictitious auditors, that is, men who\nneither have the ideas nor feel the sentiments, nor think of the\nobjections which we attribute to them.\n\n{lxix}\n\n\"In the midst of the discordant voices heard now-a-days, it is\neasy, alas! to distinguish one high above the others--it is that\nof incredulity; not as in the last century, marked by a raillery\nor levity, but by an earnestness and a high tone, occasionally\neven by a certain melancholy, and being for these very reasons\nmore seductive. It is in favour of the progress of liberty, of\nthe dignity of the soul, that is to say, of everything which is\nnoblest and most sacred to man, that that voice addresses our\ngeneration, and invites it to bid for ever adieu to the faith of\nits infancy. These sad words, which pretend to toll the knell of\nChristianity, express but too faithfully the incredulity dominant\nnow-a-days in the elevated regions of science and of thought,\nwhence it is diffused over all the classes of society. It is\nimpossible to deceive ourselves; we are now in presence of a\nfresh and a great conspiracy, not only against the faith of\nChrist, but against every religious faith. The leaders of\nincredulity proclaim aloud that the cycle of Religions is\ndefinitively closed, and that we have, once for all, to efface\nGod from our thoughts and from our lives, just as if God were an\nobsolete hypothesis, with which modern science has nothing to do.\n\n{lxx}\n\n\"This Atheism is so much the more dangerous and contagious in\nthese days, that it does not appear in the shape of a mere revolt\nor falling off of the mind, but as a generous doctrine, having\nfor objects the enfranchisement of nations, and their delivery\nfrom the yoke of priests and of tyrants, who, it is supposed, are\ncombined in order to prey upon them. One of its principal adepts,\nGuillaume Marr, exclaimed, a few years ago: 'The faith in a\npersonal and living God is the origin, the fundamental cause of\nthe miserable state of society in which we exist. The idea of a\nGod is the key-stone of the arch of the decayed and worm-eaten\ncivilization. Away with it! The true road to liberty, equality,\nand happiness, is Atheism. There is no hope for the earth so long\nas man shall cling to heaven by even a thread. ... Let nothing\nhenceforth stand in the way of the spontaneous action of the\nhuman understanding. Let us teach man that he has no other God\nthan himself, that he is himself the alpha and omega of all\nthings, the being paramount, and the reality most real.'\n\n{lxxi}\n\n\"Thus contemporary Atheism seeks to conquer the masses by their\nweak side, by their democratical and liberal instincts. This is\nnot a mere system; it is a powerful party which has its\nlecturers, its newspapers, its associations, its congresses, and\nits Propaganda. A man of earnest meaning, M. Pearson, estimated\nat 640,000 copies the number of publications avowedly atheistical\nwhich appeared in England in the course of the year 1851. And it\nis not only in England that Atheism is raising its head, it is in\nFrance, Germany, and Italy.\n\n\"Far from me the idea of setting in the same category our Radical\nReformers, and the disbelievers and free thinkers who seek to\ndestroy every faith and all religion! Let us hope that the former\nnever will go so far as these.\n{lxxii}\nBut, definitively, they openly extend to them a sympathizing\nhand; they greet their writings with marked favour; and, say it\nwe must, when they go so far as to deny the supernatural,\nstripping thus Christianity of every divine authority, or when\nmerely they proclaim the unimportance of dogmas to a religious\nlife, they are making common cause with Atheism, and working,\nwithout suspecting that they are doing so, at the same work of\ndestruction.\n\n\"But although we have all this to deplore, how many subjects have\nwe for hope and encouragement! Moments of crisis are the most\npainful, but they are not the least fruitful. Sow we do, indeed,\nwith tears; what matters, after all, that no hymn of triumph\nattends our harvest. The thing essential is that we sow. Behold,\nhow magnificently the ground is in many respects prepared for the\nChristian preacher. The mere fact that religious questions are\nthe fashion of the day gives us an immense advantage, and one by\nwhich we may profit. Is it not very encouraging to know that in\ndiscussing such subjects we are answering to serious demands of\ngeneral interest?\n{lxxiii}\nThe contest which divides our churches has been certainly hurtful\nto the growth of piety; but has it not also shaken many a soul\nfrom its torpor? Has it not impelled many persons to search after\nthe truth who were before indifferent? Is it not better to have\nto address ourselves to souls troubled if only by doubt, than to\nsouls plunged in the heavy torpor of indifference?\n\n\"After all, our age has its grandeur. Let us not underrate it: we\nare not to imitate that ready and vulgar pessimism, which sees\neverything dressed in the livery of woe, and which delights to\nnote the vices and shortcomings of an epoch, without admitting\nthe virtue to which it can lay just claim, or its generous\naspirations. It is certain that, even where rejecting the dogmas\nof Christianity, our age has made immense progress in the social\napplication of Christianity, and especially in philanthropy. The\nage passionately loves liberty, equality, tolerance, and peace;\nit insists upon respect for all consciences; it dreams of the\nunion of all nations; it occupies itself with the material\nhappiness and the amelioration of all classes in society.\n{lxxiv}\nNot so rich as other ages in men of a high temper of character,\nmen really original, our age has nevertheless contributed, more\nthan others, perhaps, to the general awakening of men to their\nrights as individuals, and of _self-government_, and\nconsequently, to the sentiment of personal responsibility. Here\nassuredly we have noble tendencies; precious _points\nd'appui_ for the preachers of the Gospel. Let us feel no dread\nfor this breath of Liberalism which is passing over nations.\nLiberty rightly understood leads to the Gospel, as the Gospel\nleads to Liberty.\n\n\"And now what have we to say to this age so tormented? What ought\nwe to say to these souls who have confidence in us, and who\ndemand from us Light and Peace? How often has this question\noverwhelmed the Gospel preacher with the sentiment of his\nweakness and insufficiency? How often has it made him prostrate\nhimself in his agony at the feet of the Lord? How often torn from\nhim the cry of the prophet--'Ah, Lord God, behold I cannot\nspeak, for I am a child!'\n\n{lxxv}\n\n\"Let Christian Science proceed with its work! She has, assuredly,\nmuch to do in these days. In the teeth of the affirmations of\nPositivism and of Materialism let her make her own affirmation.\nHers the task to show that the biblical dogmas respecting the\norigin of the world and of man are infinitely more rational and\nmore scientific than all that in these days men seek to\nsubstitute in their place. Hers the task to prove that the\nsupernatural, far from being antagonistic to the science of\nNature, is as much called for by Nature as by the sentiment of\nReligion itself.\n\n\"Let Christian Philosophy also accomplish her task. Hers it is to\nestablish the profound harmony which exists between Reason and\nFaith; hers to show that the systems by which men seek to replace\nChristianity present to the thought as many difficulties, if not\nmore, than any which follow from the evangelical dogmas.\n{lxxvi}\nHers the task to lay the foundation of a new philosophy with the\nmaterials furnished by Revelation, and by the Christian\nConscience.\n\n\"Let Christian Literature equally accomplish her mission! Let her\nspread the truth by the means, infinitely diverse, which the\nprogress of the press has placed at her disposal! Let her make\nherself popular; let her put on all forms to combat error; let\nher oppose Journal to Journal, Review to Review; and, if it must\nbe so, Novel to Novel! Let her make herself everything to\neverybody; and follow the adversary upon every field, and seize\nall his arms.\n\n\"And for us Preachers, what have we to do? What this day is our\nspecial mission in the special position in which God has placed\nus?\"\n\n{lxxvii}\n\nHaving come to this, the particular object of his study and of\nhis Report, made by him to the Evangelical Conference of N\u00e9rac,\nM. Decoppel enters, as to the Mission and actual work of the\npreachers, into details which although they are full of life, and\nevince the greatest practical knowledge, apply more especially to\nthe Protestant Churches of France. Finally, he reverts to the\ngeneral question of Christianity by a concluding remark of\ngeneral application, but announcing a truth of both practical and\nurgent importance for all the Christian Churches.\n\n\"What is most essential,\" says he, \"is not so much to defend\nChristianity, as to present it to our age, not as an enemy that\ncomes to anathematize and to combat it, but as a friend that\ncomes to raise it and save it. Beyond a doubt, we must not fear\nto lay stress upon Christian Truth, and to present it with its\nmost salient angles and its austerest face in advance; but with\nanathemas and declamations we must have done. What most is\nnecessary is, that we address a word of sympathy to the Age; we\nmust show to it Christianity, I do not say so much in the aspect\nfitted to inspire love as in the aspect in which it is loving.\n{lxxviii}\nRegard St. Paul at Athens. He does not consider himself bound to\nconfound the idolatry of his auditors; he does quite the\ncontrary; he knows how to find in their idolatry itself a\n_point d'appui_ for the Gospel. Let us do as he did; let us\nstrive, we also, to find these _points d'appui_, those\nkeystones upon which the edifice of faith may in these days be\nmade safely repose. It is more especially true in our country\nthat Christianity is not known for what it is, and the remark\napplies not only to the lower classes of society, but even to the\neducated classes, so that when they attack Christianity it is, as\nit were, an attack upon a thing unknown. The Age is liberal: let\nus show it that the Gospel is still more liberal, and that its\nliberality is of the genuine kind. The Age loves science, and\ndemands a rational faith: let us show it that faith is sovereign\nreason, and cannot but profit by every conquest achieved by\nscience.\n{lxxix}\nThe Age aspires to make progress in every branch of human\nactivity: let us show it that all genuine progress is contained\nin the principles of the Gospel.\"\n\nI make no more citations. I neither examine nor discuss any of\nthe particular ideas, or phrases, or words which these two\ndocuments contain: I would solely draw attention to their main\nand common characteristic. These writings are not only Christian,\nbut uncompromisingly Christian; at the same time, they aim at\nleading Christianity and Modern Society to understand each other,\nto accept each other mutually and freely, and to exercise, the\none upon the other, such an action as shall be salutary to both.\nThe authors are not authors, or orators, or amateurs in religion,\nor in philosophy; they are ecclesiastics by profession, belonging\nto different churches who are entering upon this war, regarded by\neach both as legitimate and necessary; who are labouring to draw\nto it the populations placed naturally under their influence; and\nare hoping, without doubt, that their efforts will be successful.\n\n{lxxx}\n\nI think that they are right both in their hope and their\nendeavours, and knowing that outside of the groups of persons\npledged to particular opinions or sides in the contests of\nreligion and politics, there exists a vast population, uncertain\nand vacillating, now indifferent, now anxious upon the subject of\nreligious questions and the relations of Christianity to Modern\nSociety, I think that this population, which is, in effect,\nFrance, is capable of feeling religious emotions, of being\ninformed and brought back to the great beliefs of Christianity as\nwell as to a sentiment of the natural and necessary agreement\nbetween Christian faith and the principles of public Liberty. The\nprofound desire which I feel, and the hope from which I will not\npart, of this great result, have induced me to give still greater\ndevelopment to these Meditations, and to risk them amidst the\nevents, the issue of which is obscure, which are now crowding\nupon each other, and amidst questions, passions, and interests,\nto which such subjects are all very strange.\n{lxxxi}\nThe more I consider the matter, the more I feel persuaded that\nFrance is not so little busied as she would appear to be with\nreligious questions, and that in the midst of her languor and\nfluctuations she has a secret sentiment of their imperishable\ngrandeur and their practical importance. If this, as I think, is,\nat bottom, the public disposition, I may consider myself well\nentitled to command attentive listeners. In the course of my long\nlife, I have seen much and have done somewhat. I have taken part\nin the world's affairs. I have quitted it, and am no longer\nanything more than a spectator. For twenty years I have been\nessaying my tomb. I have gone down into it living, and have made\nno effort to issue forth again. Not only have I experience of the\nworld, but nothing attaches me to it.\n{lxxxii}\nCould I be still of some service to the two great causes, in my\neyes but one, the cause of Christian Faith in men's souls, and\nthe cause of Political Liberty in my country, I should await with\nthankfulness, in the bosom of my seclusion, the dawn of that\neternal day which \"fools call death,\" says Petrarch:--\n\n  Quel che morir chiaman gli sciocchi.\n\n    Guizot.\n    Paris, _April_, 1868.\n\n{lxxxiii}\n\n                Contents.\n\n\n                                         Page\n\nPreface                                    v\n\nI.   -- Christianity and Liberty            1\n\nII.  -- Christianity and Morality          52\n\nIII. -- Christianity and Science           93\n\nIV.  -- Christian Ignorance               128\n\nV.   -- Christian Faith                   153\n\nVI.  -- Christian Life                    190\n\nAppendix. -- Observations upon the Work\n             called \"Ecce Homo\"           213\n\n\n{lxxxiv}\n\n{1}\n\n      Meditations On Christianity\n\n               in its\n\n     Relation To The Actual State\n       Of Society And Opinion.\n\n\n\n           First Meditation.\n\n       Christianity And Liberty.\n\n\nThe passionate longing both of men and of nations in these days\nfor Liberty and Equality, is a fact not only evident but dominant\nin modern civilization. Sometimes this desire has for its object\nLiberty only, sometimes Equality only, sometimes both\nsimultaneously. Sometimes the desire is at once intelligent and\nrespectable, sometimes nothing more than a blind and\nill-regulated impulse.\n{2}\nSometimes the feeling displays itself in revolutions, in which it\ndevelops itself in all its intensity; sometimes it fades away,\nand subsides amidst the reactions which those very revolutions\nhave, by their calamities and excesses, called forth. At one time\nmen vaunt that the problem is solved, at another they are\ndiscouraged, and pronounce it to be insolvable. But whether they\nvaunt or are discouraged, the passionate desire continues to\nexist, and the problem ever reappears. Such a state of opinion\nmay be applauded or may be deplored; it may have incense showered\nupon it or it may be visited with malediction; but to escape from\nit is an impossibility. It remains a trial which humanity is\ncondemned to pass through; it furnishes it with a task which it\nis bound to perform.\n\nBut it is not only this fact and this problem with which our\nepoch has to deal; at their side there is another not less\nimportant, the solution of which also falls within the mission of\nthe age. Many of the friends of Liberty and Equality regard\nChristianity, and especially Roman Catholicism, as their greatest\nenemy.\n{3}\nIn his moments of perverseness and angry waywardness, Voltaire so\ntreated it. Thousands of men, not only men of intelligence, but a\nmultitude of others, obscure enough, still not deficient in\nactivity, speak and act under the empire of the same idea; at one\ntime brutal, at another hypocritical, the anti-Christian\nsentiment is at once ardent and far-spread. Is it well founded?\nIs Christianity, after all, the obstacle to the progress of\nLiberty and of Equality? Or is it not, on the contrary, rather\ntrue that both already owe much to Christianity, and that both\nrequire its sanction and its support to ensure their legitimate\nand durable triumph? The great question of the 19th century\nremains in suspense, and social order in peril, so long as that\nother question is not solved.\n\nI meet at every step in the Gospels words such as these--\"What\nshall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose\nhis own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?\"\n[Footnote 5]\n\n    [Footnote 5: Mark viii. 36, 37.]\n\n{4}\n\n\"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the\nsoul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and\nbody in hell.\" [Footnote 6] \"Go ye into all the world, and preach\nthe Gospel to every creature.\" [Footnote 7]\n\n    [Footnote 6: Matthew x. 28.]\n\n    [Footnote 7: Mark xvi. 15.]\n\nThe dominant idea in the Gospels is the infinite worth of the\nhuman soul, of every human soul. Jesus came to influence and to\nsave souls, all souls without exception,--souls of the powerful\nand of the obscure, of the rich and poor, learned and ignorant,\nhappy or afflicted. The condition and the salvation of souls is\nthe foundation of the Christian Religion.\n\nThe human soul is no mere word, no mere abstraction, no mere\nhypothesis; the soul is the human being himself, the individual\nbeing who feels and thinks, enjoys and suffers, wills and acts,\nwho observes and knows himself, in the complexity of his actual\ncondition, and to whom his destiny in remote futurity is an\nobject of present solicitude.\n{5}\nTo those who confound soul and body, and see in man only a\nproduct, an ephemeral form of matter, I have nothing to say. What\nhave they to do with the words of the Gospel--with the immense\nvalue attached to a fugitive shadow, deceived according to them\nas to its own reality, and only appearing to lose itself\nforthwith in nonentity? It is Spiritualists and Christians who\nspeak with propriety when they discourse in grand and elevated\ntones of the human soul; and if they so discourse it is because\nthey see in every human soul a true being, a real and individual\nman, with the grandeur of man's nature and of man's destiny. What\nconstitutes the essential worth of the human being, of every\nhuman being, is, that he is free to act or not to act, and that\nhe is morally responsible how he acts. Man believes essentially\nin the distinction of moral good and evil and in the obligation\nwhich this entails; he believes that he is at liberty to act up\nto it or not as he pleases, that he is responsible for the use\nwhich he makes of his liberty. It is because such is the nature\nof man, whether his own conduct is in conformity to it or not,\nthat the Gospel exalts man so nigh, and accords to him so sublime\na destiny.\n{6}\nPhilosophers, Christian and anti-Christian too, have made great\nefforts, in my opinion ill-judged efforts, to solve the problem\nof man's liberty in relation to God's prescience; the Gospel\nrecognises and proclaims human liberty without troubling itself\nabout the problem of philosophy. The Christian Religion entirely\nrests upon the fact which it assumes, that man is a free and\nresponsible being. Man's liberty is the point from which\nChristianity starts in all that she says to humanity, and in\nevery command that she gives to humanity.\n\nChristianity, then, is essentially liberal, in favour of all men,\nand of them as men; by her elementary and fundamental idea of\nman's nature, she founds his liberty upon the most solid basis\nand the broadest right that human thought can conceive. The most\ndaring of the writers on public law never carried to so high a\npoint as the Gospel has done either the native universal dignity\nof man's nature or the consequences derivable from this fact.\n\n{7}\n\nChristianity does not confine itself to this;--after having laid\ndown the principle of Liberty, it gives to it the practical\nsanction which Liberty requires: it establishes the right of\nresistance to oppression. The priests and the chiefs of the\nsynagogue at Jerusalem \"commanded them (Peter and John) not to\nspeak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus;\" but Peter and John\nanswered them and said unto them, \"Whether it be right in the\nsight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.\"\n[Footnote 8]\n\n    [Footnote 8: Acts iv. 18,19.]\n\nHaving been again summoned before the high priest, who says to\nthem, \"Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach\nin this name?\" Peter replies, \"We ought to obey God rather than\nmen.\" [Footnote 9]\n\n    [Footnote 9: Acts v. 28, 29.]\n\nThe multitude joins its acts of violence to the injunctions of\nthe authorities. Stephen, the first Christian Deacon, avows his\nfaith before the multitude, and falls the first martyr to the\nprinciple of Christian resistance. [Footnote 10]\n\n    [Footnote 10: Acts vii. 59.]\n\n{8}\n\nThe most zealous of the persecutors of Stephen, Paul of Tarsus,\nwho had become Christian, is, in his turn, stoned and left for\ndead by the multitude of Lystra and Iconium; in his turn he\nresists the multitude, and returns again to Lystra and Iconium,\n\"confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to\ncontinue in the faith,\" and representing to them that it is by\nmuch tribulation that we must enter into the kingdom of God.\n[Footnote 11] Resistance to oppression is an essential principle\nof Christianity, and the definitive guarantee of Liberty.\n\n    [Footnote 11: Acts xiv. 19, 22.]\n\nIt is the peculiar characteristic and honour of Christianity that\nit derives both the right of resistance to oppression, and the\nprinciple of even Liberty itself, not from the temporal and\ntransitory interests of earthly life, but from the moral and\neternal interests of the soul. At the same time that it affirms\nthe principle of Liberty and proclaims its consequences, it\nequally affirms and proclaims the principles and rights of\nAuthority.\n{9}\nI have referred to this upon another occasion; when Jesus made\nthat reply to the question of the Pharisees whether it was\npermissible or not to pay tribute to Caesar, \"Render unto C\u00e6sar\nthe things which are C\u00e6sar's; and unto God the things that are\nGod's,\" he established in principle the distinction between the\nreligious life and civil life, between the Church and the State.\nC\u00e6sar has no right to intervene with his laws and material force,\nbetween the soul of man and his God; and on his side the faithful\nworshipper of God is bound to fulfil towards C\u00e6sar the duties\nwhich the necessity of the maintenance of public order imposes.\n[Footnote 12]\n\n    [Footnote 12: Meditations upon the Essence of Christianity,\n    p. 278. London: 1864.]\n\nIt was by affirming and defending religious liberty, the highest\nand proudest of all liberties, that modern civilization\ncommenced. The principle and right of liberty once deeply rooted\nin the soul, the flower and the fruit of this potent germ have\nstrongly developed themselves in the course of ages, and expanded\nwith more or less of promptitude and fecundity, according as the\nseasons were favourable or unfavourable; but upon the whole,\nhistory has confirmed the Gospel.\n\n{10}\n\nOf all the Religions which have appeared in the world,\nChristianity is the only one which conquered by means of Liberty,\nand which was founded upon Liberty; the only one which has been\nable to assume and keep her place amidst the greatest diversity\nof social institutions, and which in them all, as exigencies\nrequired, accepted and supported at one time authority, at\nanother liberty.\n\nEven if I wished, it would be impossible for me in this place to\nrefer to more than the general and evident facts of history. If I\nremount to the origins of the different religions, I observe that\nChristianity was the only one which did not appeal to force; she\nwas the only one which did not employ force to issue forth from\nher cradle and to grow. During more than three centuries she\nalone combated and conquered her adversaries by vanquishing souls\nin the name of truth and by the arms of truth.\n{11}\nIf I interrogate the results, I find that three great religious\nestablishments--Paganism, Bouddhism, and Mahometanism--have\nheld, and, with Christianity, still hold a great place in the\nworld. Paganism, after some fair but brief moments of progress,\nattained to nothing but the anarchy of the Greek and Roman\nRepublics, and the despotic decay of the Roman Empire. Bouddhism\ndid nothing but generate the fantastic superstitions and the\nenervating abstractions of a pantheistic mythology, amidst the\nimmobility of the castes and the stagnation of absolute power.\nMahometanism carried into every quarter to which she penetrated\nonly the yoke of force, the incurable animosity of races, the\nsterility of conquest. Christianity alone accepted the spirit of\nLiberty and Progress where she found it already existing in the\nsoul of man and in human societies, and where she did not find it\nshe awakened it.\n\nLet me not be accused of forgetting that since the triumph of\nChristianity, oppressive tyrannies and odious persecutions have\noccurred in, different Christian societies in the name of the\nChristian faith.\n{12}\nNo one more than I deplores and detests such facts. They were the\nwork of the sins of men, not of the principles of Christianity,\nwhich, far from authorising them, condemns them. Water from the\npurest source is changed and polluted in its course over the\nsurface of the earth, after it has been exposed to the stormy\natmospheric influences. In creating man free, God left him a part\nand a share in his own destiny and in the events which determine\nit. Christianity, emanating from God, marks out and combats\nuncompromisingly all evil desires and bad motives, all the\nexcesses and all the weaknesses of man's selfishness: she has not\ndestroyed them; she did not at once restore innocence to man nor\nmake him a present of virtue: he is bound to labour in the work\nof his own control and of his own reformation; the Gospel is a\nMirror in which, if he looks at himself, he may, it is true,\nbehold the stains upon his soul and upon his life, but those\nstains proceed from himself, and not from the mirror, which only\nenables him to see them.\n{13}\nWhen we lay to the charge of the Christian Religion the fatal\nerrors, the unlawful passions and actions which have appeared\nunder its name in the history of Christian Societies, we acquit\nwithout reason men, whether princes or nations, learned or\nignorant, of the responsibility that weighs upon them; we ignore\nwhat Christianity commands and what she forbids; we demand from\nher that which she has not promised.\n\nOf history thus far. I now confine myself to the present epoch\nand to the problems which the actual relations of Christianity to\nLiberty present. What are the principal obstacles at the present\nday in the way of the establishment of a real and lasting\nLiberty, and what are the means within our reach to surmount\nthem? In other terms, which express my meaning more exactly, What\nare our infirmities to retard, what our strength to accelerate,\nthe establishment of a free government? Is Christianity an\nobstacle to us in this work or a help, an ill or a remedy?\n\n{14}\n\nIt is with a profound feeling of sadness that I see eminent men,\nmen truly Christian, incessantly depicting in the most sombre\ncolours society as it now exists, and representing it as only a\nprey to political and moral diseases now acute, now indolent, as\ndeprived thereby of all title to respect, and of all hope of\namelioration, incapacitated at one time for orderly life, at\nanother for Liberty. As for straightforward attacks upon our\nvices and failings, our errors and shortcomings, I complain not\nof them however violent: nations as well as individuals require\nto be often admonished frankly and with severity; the rudeness\nwhich shakes them is more salutary than the indulgence which\ncradles them to sleep. But what I regret and deplore in the\nattitude and in the language of these worthy Christian Censors,\nis not that they scrupulously and unsparingly expose prevalent\nevils, our bad propensities, and our foolish pretensions; but\nthat they ignore what good there is in us, the progress which we\nmake, and the just and salutary results to which we are tending.\n{15}\nThe simultaneous presence, the profound intermixture, of good and\nevil, of virtue and vice, of wisdom and folly, is the chronic\nsore of man and of human societies; this is no new fact, no evil\nwhich we are the first to endure and for which we are the first\nto be responsible; it is the old condition of the world as it\nappears from the constant testimony of History; each of its ages\nhas incurred and has merited reproaches, not the same, but at\nleast as serious as those laid to the charge of our age; and if\nwe were suddenly transported to any other epoch of the past, it\nmatters not to which, I do not hesitate to affirm that we would\nnot willingly accept that epoch in exchange for our own, nor\nshould we even very much like to contemplate the spectacle.\nSeverity is well, but justice is due to different periods and\ndifferent conditions of society. In the last hundred years we\nhave gained more, both in morality and in common sense, than we\nhave ever forgotten.\n\n{16}\n\nAnd here I am met by a question respecting which I will explain\nmy view unreservedly and at once. Society in France has reached\nits actual condition only by a progressive effort, an advance\nmore or less perceptible, more or less rapid, but not without\nnumerous interruptions and vicissitudes; it has sought to escape\nin turn from the feudal system, from the pretensions and the\nselfish contests of the great nobles, from the predominance of\nthe Court, from arbitrariness, from the improvidence and caprices\nof absolute power. National unity, civil equality, and political\nliberty have been, throughout the whole course of our history,\nthe objects of our aim and desire. Our greatest thinkers, the\nactors on the stage of our Politics, the nation itself, with its\ntendency dimly marked, yet powerful, have constantly proceeded in\nthis direction and towards this object. The Revolution of 1789\nwas the most violent and most serious explosion of this incessant\ntravail of France. Was it pregnant with fruitful consequences, or\nis the issue to be now deplored? France believed that she had\nthen gained a great victory, not only for herself, but for all\nmankind. Did she deceive herself?\n{17}\nHave we been for so many centuries proceeding in a good road or\nin a bad road, towards success or towards delusion? Are we\nprogressing, or are we declining? It is a question upon which\neminent men, and men whose opinions are entitled to every\nrespect, are, at the present day, not all of the same opinion;\nfor whereas some persist in a cry of triumph, others give but\nutterance to gloomy and alarming prognostics.\n\nI have some right to say that no one is more struck, more shocked\nthan I am by the crimes, faults, errors, and follies both of\nopinion and action generated by this French Revolution; I never\nhesitated openly to characterise them as, in my opinion, they\ndeserved; indeed the severe contests through which I have had to\npass in my public career may, perhaps, in some degree have\noriginated in my sincerity upon this subject. I had to confront\nmany prejudices, and to wound much self-love. I regret no\nsentiment which I felt, and I retract no language which I used.\n{18}\nBut in spite of the strong anti-revolutionary opinions which have\nbeen attributed to me, I was and still am convinced that, upon\nthe whole, whatever the evil which that Revolution occasioned,\nand is occasioning, it nevertheless, served the good cause both\nof the nation and of Humanity; I believe that France and the\nworld will gain by it more than they suffered, or are suffering,\nand that we are, in the midst of all our trials, still in an \u00e6ra\nof progress, and not at the commencement of a decline. I derive\nmotives for my Optimism upon this subject in the sphere of ideas\nas well as in that of facts. Theoretically the principles of 1789\ncontain a large share of truth, truth pregnant of consequence,\ntruth superior to the share of error which they contain, and\nwhich is, nevertheless, large. Historically the tendency and the\ntravail of opinion which have been for centuries a source to\nFrance of incontestable progress in the way of justice, liberty,\nand social happiness, cannot have become, all of a sudden, a\ncause of decline.\n{19}\nPractically, in spite of all its ills and all its shortcomings,\nthe present century has no cause to dread a comparison with past\ncenturies. There never has been any epoch in the history of\nFrench society in which it would have bettered its condition by\nhalting, or to which it should wish to return.\n\nI revert to my question; what perils, what obstacles, do our\nsocial institutions and our manners oppose to the establishment\nof Liberty with effect and upon a lasting footing? Is\nChristianity of a nature to stand us in good stead, or to hurt us\nin such a work?\n\nAll earnest men, all clear-sighted men, at the present day,\nwhether they are Conservatives or Liberals, Christians or\nFree-thinkers, Catholics or Protestants, are unanimous in\ndeploring the preponderance of material interests, the thirst for\nphysical and vulgar pleasures, and the habits of selfishness and\neffeminacy which they generate.\n\n{20}\n\nThey are right; we have indeed here an evil greater, when we\nconsider what is the mission of our epoch, than perhaps even\nthose believe it to be who deplore it. The Emperor Napoleon said,\nin a phrase marked by all the clear and forcible colouring of his\nhabitual language:--\"I do not fear conspirators who rise at ten\no'clock in the morning, and who cannot do without a fresh shirt.\"\n[Footnote 13]\n\n    [Footnote 13: \"Je ne crains pas les conspirateurs qui se\n    l\u00e8vent \u00e0 dix heures du matin, et qui ont besoin de mettre une\n    chemise blanche.\"]\n\nThere is no question of conspirators here, and for the soul to be\nvigorous it is not essential that the care of the person should\nbe neglected. What concerns those who would be free, whether\nindividuals or nations, is that they should not have their\nattention essentially absorbed by considerations affecting merely\ntheir material prosperity, or their petty personal comforts; they\nhave especially to guard themselves against selfishness and\nEpicureanism. Whether his tastes be refined or gross, the\nEpicurean does not readily resign himself to make either effort\nor sacrifice; but he is not difficult to content if he is\npermitted to enjoy his pleasures and his repose.\n{21}\nSelfishness, even where it is sober and gentle, is a cold and\nsterile passion, it owes its empire to its success in enervating\nand lowering a man's nature. Liberty calls for a character of\nmore strength, higher aspirations, greater power of resistance; a\nstate of soul offering freer action to moral sympathy and\ndisinterested motives. It is precisely here that Christianity can\nsupply modern society with that of which it stands in need.\nChristianity teaches all men, the great and the small, the rich\nand the poor, not to devote all their lives to material things;\nshe summons them to more elevated regions, and whilst she\ninspires them with a purer ambition, she opens to them a fairer\nhope even of happiness. The Christian, whether his station be\npowerful or humble, and his aspirations ambitious or modest, can\nnever find an exclusive object of attention, or an exclusive\nmotive to action, even in that principle of interest which\npoliticians, using the word in its best sense, vainly imagine to\nbe a panacea.\n{22}\nMan, whether towards his fellow-creatures, or on his own account,\nhas another object to pursue, other laws to accomplish, other\nsentiments to display and to satisfy: he can neither be an\nEpicurean nor an Egotist.\n\nThis is the first and the greatest of the services which\nChristianity can and does render in our days to every society\nwhich aspires to Liberty. I proceed to mention a second service.\n\nThere is no liberty without a large measure of license. They are\ndreamers who hope to enjoy the benefits of the one without\nincurring the risk, and undergoing the inconveniences, of the\nother. They, too, are dreamers who believe that license will ever\nbe effectually repressed by penalties, courts of justice, or\nmeasures of Police. Two things are certain; the one is, that it\nis idle to attempt to repress license completely in a free\ncountry; the other, that the moral and preventive forces of\nsociety itself are alone to be relied upon, both by governments\nand nations, to enable them to support that license which they\ncannot suppress.\n{23}\nChristianity is the most efficacious, the most popular, and the\nmost approved of these forces. It is efficacious against license\nfor two reasons and in two ways. In principle, Christianity\nmaintains to Authority its right and its rank intact; without\nhumbling it before Liberty, Christianity yet recognises the\nrights of Liberty, and demands that these should be admitted; in\nfact Christianity inspires men with a sentiment, with which\nauthority cannot dispense, respect. The absence of respect is the\nmost serious danger to which authority is exposed; authority\nsuffers much more from insult than from attack; it is precisely\nto the task of systematically insulting and debasing authority,\nthat its most ardent opponents, in our days, address themselves\nwith most passion and with most art. There exist licentious,\nturbulent, and insolent persons in Christian societies, just as\nsuch exist in other societies; but Christian principles and\nChristian habits make and maintain friends to Order in the great\nmass of the people as well as in the higher classes, friends to\norder, who respect order both in law and in morals, men whom\nlicentious and insulting; conduct shock as much as they terrify,\nand who, equally free, appeal in their own favour to the maxims\nand the arms of Liberty.\n{24}\nHistory supplies us on this subject with conclusive examples. The\nnations of Christendom are the only nations to which license has\nnot brought as a final consequence anarchy and despotism,--the\nonly nations which, although they have on different occasions and\nby salutary reactions experienced the excesses both of power and\nof liberty, have not succumbed under them morally and\npolitically. Neither the states of Pagan Antiquity nor those of\nthe East, whether Bouddhist or Mussulman, have stood such trials;\nthese have had their days of healthy vigour and even of glory;\nbut when the evils which license or tyranny generated have once\ncome upon them, they have fallen irretrievably, and all their\nsubsequent history has merely been that of a decline more or less\nrapid, more or less stormy, more or less apathetic.\n\n{25}\n\nIt is the honour of the Christian Religion that it has within it\nthat which can cure states of their maladies, as well as\nindividuals of their errors; and that, by the belief which it\ngenerates, and the sentiments which it inspires, it has already\nmore than once furnished, sometimes to the friends of Order, and\nsometimes to the friends of Liberty, a refuge in their reverses,\nas well as strength to recover lost ground.\n\nIt would be as imprudent as ungrateful in these days for the\nfriends of Liberty to ignore this grand fact and its salutary\nadmonishment. They are called to a work much more difficult than\nany that they have hitherto had to accomplish: their task is no\nlonger merely to search after guarantees for Liberty against the\nencroachments of pre-existent Power, or the accidental and\ntransient ebullition of License. They have to reconcile the\nnormal and constitutional dominion of Democracy with Liberty, and\nwith the regular action and permanence of Liberty.\n{26}\nUntil modern times, political liberty, wherever it has existed,\nhas been the result of the simultaneous presence and of the\nconflict of different forces of society, no one of them strong\nenough to rule alone, but each too weak to resist efficaciously\nthe attack of the others; at one time the Crown, at another the\nAristocracy, at another the Church, each previously powerful and\nindependent, have lived side by side with Democracy when\nDemocracy has had limits and restrictions imposed upon its power\nand success; but at the present day, there are amongst us no\ndistinct surviving influences which are powerful enough to play a\nsimilar part in society and in the government. The Crown, the\nAristocracy, and the Church are no longer anything but frail\nwrecks of the past, or instruments created by the Democracy, and\nindebted to it for a borrowed force. Is this to be henceforth the\npermanent condition of human society, or is it only a phase, more\nor less transitory, of a series of ages and of revolutions, which\nfresh ages and fresh revolutions will hereafter profoundly\nmodify? Futurity must decide. In any case, it is only under the\nexclusive dominion of a single force, Democracy, that in these\ndays free institutions can be founded.\n\n{27}\n\nThat every dominant force when single is tempted to commit abuses\nand to become tyrannical, is a truth so much in accordance with\nthe lessons of experience and with the conclusions of reason,\nthat no pains need be taken to insist upon it. Not to speak of\nthe dangerous acclivity upon which Democracy, in common with all\nother forces, is placed, it has peculiar characteristics which\nare not of a nature to set the friends of Liberty at their ease.\nDemocracy derives its origin and power from the right of every\nhuman will, and from the majority of human wills. Truth and error\npress so very closely upon each other in this system, that\nLiberty is placed in a position of great peril. Man's volition is\nentitled to every respect; but it is not all its law to itself,\nnor is it in itself essentially a law at all: it is bound to\nanother law, which does not emanate from itself, and which comes\nto it from a higher source than man, and which it is as unable to\nabrogate as it was to create.\n{28}\nThe law paramount is the moral law,--the law laid down by God, to\nwhich all wills of men, whatever their number, are bound to\nsubmit. Democracy, essentially busied with the wills of men, is\nalways inclined to attribute to them the character and the rights\nof divine law. Man occupies so much space in this form of\ngovernment, and has so elevated a position there, that he easily\nforgets God--easily takes himself for God. The result is a sort\nof political polytheism, which, unless it appeals to a gross,\nmaterial arbitrament, and to the majority of human wills, is\nincapable of arriving at that unity of law and of action, with\nwhich no society or government can dispense. I do not say that\nthe individual man, and that numbers of men, are the only\nprinciples, but I do say, that they are principles characteristic\nof Democracy; it is against the absolute dominion of these two\nprinciples that Democracy has, in the interest of its own honour\nand of its own safety, to be incessantly admonished and defended.\n{29}\nA royal sage enjoined that he should be saluted every morning\nwith the words, \"Remember thou art man.\" This sublime and prudent\nadmonition is no less needful for Democracy than for Royalty, and\nit is precisely the salutary service which is rendered to it by\nChristianity. In Christianity there is a light, a voice, a law, a\nhistory, which does not come from man, but which, without\noffending his dignity, sets him in his proper place. No belief,\nno institution, exalts man's dignity so highly, and at the same\ntime so effectually represses his arrogance. The more democratic\na society is, the more it is important that this double effect\nshall take place within it. Christianity alone has this virtue.\n\nI am aware of the capital objection made to its empire. \"The\nPhysic without the Physicians,\" exclaimed Rousseau, in a sally\nagainst medical men, but the expression shows nevertheless how\nlittle he was disposed to forget that it is possible for medicine\nto be good and salutary.\n{30}\nHow often have I heard men of intelligence and men in all other\nrespects very worthy of consideration, exclaim, \"Let me have\nReligion without the priests: I am a Christian, but no friend of\nthe clergy.\" I am far from seeking to leave this difficulty\nunnoticed, or to elude it. It is a difficulty of the gravest\nnature, not in essence, but in the actual circumstances and state\nof opinions at the present day.\n\nAs a Protestant it does not concern me. The clergy is not amongst\nProtestants the object of any such uneasiness. One of the best\nresults, in my opinion, of the Reformation of the 16th century,\nwhether regarded as Lutheran or Calvinistic, as Anglican, or as\nthe work of other Dissidents in religion, is that it strongly\ncemented the union between the ecclesiastics and the general\nreligious community--between the spiritual and the lay members of\nthe Church. The Reformation produced this effect, first, by\nauthorising the clergy to marry and to enter into the relations\nwhich a life of family brings with it; and, secondly, by giving\nto the laity a share in the government of the Church.\n{31}\nThe partition was not always judicious or equitable. At one time\nthe clergy, at another the laity, have been transported from\ntheir natural places, and injured in their legitimate rights; but\nthe relations between the two classes ceased to present the\nappearance of either absolutism on the one hand, or of entire\nsubordination on the other; the laity obtained a voice and\ninfluence in the affairs of the flock; the priests, although\nremaining religious pastors and religious magistrates, ceased to\nbe spiritual masters. This organisation has led to the two social\ninstitutions combining themselves in a variety of ways. At one\ntime the civil power has invaded the government of the religious\nsociety, and deprived the clergy, not merely of empire, but of\nindependence; at another time the two forms of society, the State\nand the Church, have regulated by treaty the terms of their\nmutual relations; whereas, in the United States of America, the\ntwo forms of society have been entirely separated, and have\nmutually recovered their independence;\n{32}\nelsewhere, as amongst the Quakers and the Moravians, all\necclesiastical authority and orders of priesthood have been\nabolished, and laymen have lived in the isolation each of his\nindividual conscience, obedient only to its spontaneous impulses.\nBut amidst all this diversity, it is the fundamental\ncharacteristic of the churches and of the sects which issued from\nthe Reform of the 16th century, that priests do not in themselves\nconstitute the necessary and sovereign mediators between God and\nman's soul, nor the sole rulers of religious society. It is\nparticularly by virtue of this principle that the distinction\nbetween civil life and religious life has become an efficacious\nand a consecrated doctrine, and that Liberty has resumed its\nright and become an active influence in religious society itself.\n\n{33}\n\nBut amongst Roman Catholic nations, priests are the objects of a\npersistent distrust which has been the fruitful source of much\ncalamity to Christianity. History forbids surprise. The Roman\nCatholic clergy has often presented the spectacle of ambition and\npassion, of mundane and selfish interests, strangely intermixed\nwith faith and with earnest zeal for the furtherance of their\nreligious mission. Serious ills and grave abuses have resulted\ntherefrom in the relation of Church to State, and of priests to\ntheir flocks, and even in the bosom of the Church itself. These\nare facts almost as undisputed as they are indisputable; in proof\nof them the testimony, not only of its adversaries, but of the\nholiest members of the Church of Rome itself, may be invoked.\nNothing is more natural, and indeed more inevitable, than that\nthis should have led and should still lead, not only to ill-will\ntowards priests, but to their being regarded as proper subjects\nfor attack. It is not, however, on that account less certain that\nsuch an attack is, in our days, and as society is at present\nconstituted, unjust, silly, and inopportune, as injurious to\nState as to Church, to Liberty as to Religion. There may be\ninjustice and ingratitude to institutions as well as to\nindividuals.\n{34}\nFrom the fall of the Roman Empire, and during the rudest and most\nsombre ages of modern history, the Catholic clergy, whether as\nPopes, Bishops, monastic orders, or simple priests, in the midst\nof their selfish pretensions and ambitious usurpations, displayed\nand expended treasures of intellect, courage, and perseverance in\norder to affirm and protect the immaterial and moral interests of\nhumanity. They did not on all occasions accept their mission to\nits full extent; they did not maintain the Christian Religion in\nall its breadth, and in all its evangelical disinterestedness;\nthey had their share in the acts of violence, iniquity, and\ntyranny of the different masters of society for the time being;\nthey often made Liberty pay dearly for the services which they\nrendered to civilization; but when Liberty has become one of the\nconquests of that very civilization, the proof as well as the\nguarantee for its further progress, there is injustice and\ningratitude in forgetting what part the Roman Catholic clergy\neffected towards the constitution of that society, the ultimate\nresult of which has been so glorious.\n\n{35}\n\nThe injustice is the greater that it is now inopportune and\nuseless. From the acrimony, the anger, and alarm which\ncharacterise the attacks directed at Roman Catholicism and its\nPriests, we might suppose that the Inquisition was at our gates,\nthat Rome was making a perilous onslaught upon our civil and\nreligious liberties, and that we need to deploy all our force and\nall our passions to repulse the domination of the Court of Rome\nand of its army. Was there ever so strange a perversion of facts?\nFor a century past, on which side has been the movement and the\naggression? Is it not evidently the spirit of religious and\npolitical liberty which has now the initiative, the impulsive,\nonward movement? The defensive is the natural and enforced\nsituation of the Roman Catholic Church; Romanism is much more\nmenaced, much more attacked by public opinion in these days than\nour liberties are menaced or attacked by her. The supreme power\nin the Church of Rome, the Papacy, does indeed maintain, in\nprinciple, certain maxims and certain traditions irreconcileable\nwith, the actual state of opinion and society; it continues to\ncondemn authoritatively some of the essential principles of\nmodern civilization.\n{36}\nIn all earnestness, yet with every feeling of respect, I shall\nhere make at once use of my right, both as a Protestant and as\nthe citizen of a free country, to declare my profound conviction\nthat this systematic persistence, however conscientious and\ndignified it may be, shows a great want of religious foresight as\nwell as of political prudence. I think that Romanism, without\nabdication and without renouncing anything that is vitally\nessential to itself, might assume a position in harmony with the\nmoral and social state in these days, and with the conditions\nalso vitally essential to the existence of such state. I may add,\nthat so long as the government of the Romish Church shall not\nhave accepted and accomplished this work of\nconciliation--conciliation real and profound--the friends of\nLiberty will be justified in keeping themselves on the alert, and\nin maintaining a reserve towards it, as representing, themselves,\nthose moral and liberal principles which it disavows.\n{37}\nBut let them not attribute to this disavowal a greater importance\nthan it deserves; let them watch the ecclesiastical power which\nutters it, without alarm; it has in it nothing very menacing,\nnothing that opposes any effectual barrier to the march of\nevents; Liberalism is not the less victorious in these days, and\nnot the less advancing. Many faults have been committed, and many\nprobably will continue to be committed; as has already been the\ncase, we shall have perhaps many a barrier opposed in our path,\nmany a reactionary movement to endure, but the general onward\nimpulse will nevertheless be the same, and the final result, the\nconquest of Liberty, religious, civil and political, not the less\na certainty.\n\nThis is no mere philosophical aspiration. It is already history.\nThere have been many vicissitudes in France, and many a crisis of\ndifferent kinds during the last hundred years in the struggle\nbetween Liberalism and Roman Catholicism; the former has often\ncommitted errors, made mistakes, by which Romanism has adroitly\nprofited; but at every reverse Romanism has recognised her own\ndefeat, and accepted some part of its consequences.\n{38}\nThe Constituent Assembly by the civil organisation of the clergy,\nthe National Convention by its proscriptions, had endeavoured,\nthe one to enslave, the other to abolish the Catholic Church; the\ngreat master of the revolution, Napoleon, raised it up again by\nthe Concordat of 1802; but the Concordat at the same time\nconsecrated many of the fundamental principles of the liberal\nregime, and the Catholic Church of Rome consecrated Napoleon and\nsigned the Concordat, even whilst protesting against some of its\nconsequences. At the Restoration some wished to discuss again the\nquestion of the Concordat, and to re-establish the relation\nbetween Church and State upon their ancient foundations; but the\nattempt encountered, in the ranks of the Royalists themselves, a\ndecisive resistance, and totally failed. Under the Government of\n1830, Roman Catholicism regained its ground and resumed fresh\nvigour by both using the name of Liberty and claiming its right.\n{39}\nWhen the Republic again appeared in 1848, Roman Catholicism\ntreated it with as much tenderness as it experienced itself from\nthe Republic. I pause before the actual relations of the Church\nof Rome to the new Empire; Rome has paid a dear price for all\nthat she has received from the Empire; but even here she showed,\nand appears disposed still to show, a large measure of patience\nand resignation. She is right.\n\nOne fact particularly arrests my attention in the course of this\nstormy history. In the midst of her reverses and her concessions,\nRoman Catholicism has displayed rare and energetic virtues of\nfidelity and independence. She has opposed to the bloody\npersecution of Terrorism, the inexhaustible blood of her martyrs,\nbishops, priests, monks, men and women; that Clergy of France,\nonce so vacillating in faith and so mundane in morals, bore their\ncross with an indomitable sentiment of Christian honour.\n{40}\nThe despotism of the Emperor Napoleon encountered in the person\nof Pope Pius VII., in some Cardinals, and some Bishops, a passive\nbut firm resistance, which neither the power of the Despot, nor\nthe contagious servility of their contemporaries, could surmount.\nAnd again, in these days, who can fail to perceive with what\nactivity and devotedness, with what sacrifices and efficacy,\nRoman Catholicism, by the mere force of its native energy,\nupholds the cause of its chief and of itself? If civil society\nhad defended its liberties and its dignities as the Church of\nRome defends hers, Liberalism in France would be farther advanced\non its road and towards its object.\n\nBut let not Romanists deceive themselves: one cannot make use of\nLiberty without being forced to enter into an engagement and\ncompromise with Liberty; one cannot appeal to Liberty without\ndoing homage to her; she lays her hand upon those to whom she\nlends her aid. The great fact which I before invoked, the work of\nreconciliation between modern society and Roman Catholicism, is\nmore advanced than those believe who still stand aloof from it\nand oppose it.\n{41}\nThis is proved by two facts. In the very bosom of Roman\nCatholicism, and from amongst its most zealous defenders, that\ngroup of liberal Catholics was formed which has played and which\ncontinues to play so active a part in struggling for the\nLiberties of their church, and for the rights of their chief:\nthese are at once the ornaments of then church, and its\nintellectual sword; and the publication which supports their\nviews, the \"Correspondant,\" is, next to the \"Revue des deux\nMondes,\" the periodical which meets with most success and has the\ngreatest circulation. Passing from this brilliant group to the\nmore modest ranks of the Roman Catholic clergy, I ask what is the\ndisposition, the attitude, the conduct of those faithful and\nhumble priests who exercise the Christian ministry in our\nprovinces and in the inferior quarters of our cities; they have\nnot always all the science, all the mental culture, which one\nmight desire; but whilst adhering to Catholic faith and giving\nthe example of Christian lives, they live in the midst of the\npeople;\n{42}\nthey know it, they understand it; they are aware what the\nconditions are which permit them to live with and to exercise an\ninfluence upon the people; they enter by degrees into its\nsentiments and its instincts; without premeditation, almost\nwithout perceiving it, they become each day more and more men of\ntheir time and country, more familiar with the ideas and liberal\ntendencies of modern society. Thus at the two poles of Roman\nCatholicism, in its most elevated ranks and in its popular\nmilitia, the same result is obtained, in the one case by men of\nenlightened views and of superior ability, and in the other case\nby men of good sense and honesty of purpose; and thus in the\nRoman Church those moral and political principles of 1789 make\ntheir way, which form the basis of the new social edifice, of its\nlaws, and of its liberties.\n\nI do not dispute, neither do I attack; I record facts as I\nobserve and appreciate them. And in my opinion, with reference to\nFrench institutions,--for I speak only of France,--the essential\nconsequences from these facts, as far as they bear upon the\nrelations of Christianity to Liberty, are as follows.\n\n{43}\n\nI have here not a word to say respecting the Protestant Church in\nFrance; the questions which have agitated her for some time past\nare questions of faith and internal discipline, entirely aloof\nfrom any incertitude or differences of opinion as to the rights\nof conscience or of religious society in their relations to civil\nsociety. Protestantism in France, whether orthodox or not, adopts\nand upholds the largest maxims as to religious liberty, and as to\nthe guarantee for it, in the separation of religious life from\ncivil life. The most zealous Liberals have nothing more in this\nrespect to demand from even the most orthodox Protestants; these\nare indeed of their church the most urgent in claiming for\nreligious society the right to have its internal autonomy, and to\nstand independently of the state. It is, on the contrary, Roman\nCatholics, and the advocates of the essential principles of\nmodern society, who most dispute about the general question of\nliberty.\n\n{44}\n\nThe more I reflect, the more I am convinced that henceforth this\nquestion can only be seriously and efficaciously dealt with in\none of two ways: the one is by the alliance of Church and State,\non conditions which, whilst distinguishing civil life from\nreligious life, shall guarantee to individuals religious liberty\nin civil society, and to the church itself its internal autonomy\nin matters of faith and of religious discipline. The other\nsolution is the complete separation of Church and State, and\ntheir mutual independence.\n\nThat the Church prefers the system of an Alliance with the State\nto that of the Church's Liberty and isolation from the State, I\nwell understand.\n\nShe is right. Alliance with the State is to her a sign of\nstrength, a means of influence, a pledge for her dignity and her\nstability. The complete separation of the two societies leaves\nreligious institutions, and particularly their clergy, in a\nfluctuating and precarious situation: a system essentially\ndemocratic, it rather places the ecclesiastical magistracy under\nthe opinions and wills of its lay members, than these under the\ninfluence of the religious authorities.\n{45}\nThis system is especially alien to the origin, the fundamental\nprinciple, and the Hierarchy, of the Roman Catholic Church; it is\nimpossible for this Church to accept it unless urgently demanded\nby the interests of moral authority, independence, and liberty.\nBut let not the Roman Catholic Church misapprehend; an alliance\nof Church with State has also conditions without which a Church\nwould vainly expect any advantage; for the alliance to be serious\nand effectual, there must be between Church and State a large\nmeasure of harmony as to the essential principles of the\nreligious society and of the civil society which the Church and\nthe State respectively represent: if the two societies and those\nwho govern them, do not mutually admit their respective\nprinciples, if they disavow each other incessantly, and carry on\nin the bosom of their alliance, a war, open or secret, all the\ngood effect of such alliance disappears, and the alliance itself\nis soon compromised.\n{46}\nThe treaties concluded at different epochs, under the name of\nConcordats, between Chambers and States in different countries of\nChristendom, have only been possible and efficacious, because\nthere was a great basis of harmony in the fundamental\ninstitutions of the two contracting parties; they differed upon\nsome points; they had reciprocally to make concessions and grant\nguarantees; but taken altogether they approved of each other and\nwere sincere in supporting each other; peace was the point from\nwhich their alliance started, and the dissentiments which existed\non each side had no reference to any vital questions. It suffices\nfor us to cast a glance at the history of Catholicism in France,\nof the Anglican Church in England, of the Lutheran Church in\nGermany and in Sweden, to acknowledge this truth; and what is\noccurring and forming matter of negotiation in our days in Italy\nand in Austria, upon the subject of the relations of the Church\nwith the State, furnishes a further striking confirmation.\n{47}\nIn an age of liberty, of publicity, and of continual discussion,\nwhen it is possible for anything to be thought or said, and for\nany opinion to be maintained or attacked, it is more than ever\nindispensable that any treaty between Church and State should be\nserious and sincere; that is to say, that the two contracting\nparties should recognise and accept in each other, without\nequivocation and without subterfuge, the character which each\nreally possesses. This is the only condition upon which an\nalliance can be real, becoming, and advantageous. In presence of\nthe undisguised movements and the ever recurring and daring\nventures of Liberty, a policy of reticence and procrastination,\nobscure and dim reservations, inconsistent expedients, and secret\nwarfare, is no longer practicable; such policy, far from lending\nany help, discredits and weakens the power which places its trust\nin it.\n{48}\nAs for me, I believe that the Catholic Church, if not without\nendangering her habits, at least without endangering her\nessential principles, has it in her power to set herself at peace\nwith the fundamental principles of modern society and of actual\ncivil governments; but should she either not wish or not know how\nto march towards this object and to obtain it, let her not give\nway to any illusion; alliance with the State would be rather a\nsource of weakness and of peril to her than an advantage, and she\nwould only eventually be driven to seek a refuge in the system of\nseparation and complete independence.\n\nAs for the State, the system which separates the two societies\nwould free it from many a burthen and much embarrassment; but it\nwould cause her other embarrassments, and lead to the loss of\nmany advantages. It is convenient to discourse of the principle\nof a \"Free church in a free country,\" but after the long alliance\nwhich has existed between them, it is easier to proclaim such\nprinciple than to apply it: not only is it impossible to divorce\nChurch from State without violently wrenching asunder previous\nbonds, but more lasting consequences ensue; once disengaged from\nevery connection with the civil power, ministers of religion busy\nthemselves no longer about the interests of civil society; their\nthoughts are exclusively absorbed by questions of religion and\nits affairs.\n{49}\nGovernments have long been accustomed to derive, and derive at\nthe present day, a moral influence of great value from an\nalliance with the Church: but this influence supposes one\ncondition which is not only especially important in our days, but\nof capital importance: in the actual state of opinion and of\nmanners, no good results can be politically looked for from the\nalliance, if the civil power do not abstain from all interference\nin questions purely religious; the complete independence of the\nchurch and of its chiefs, in matters of faith and of religious\ndiscipline, is the only condition which can justify their giving\ntheir indirect support to the state government, and which can\npurge their support of all impure motives.\n{50}\nThe alliance of the two powers could formerly, in a certain\ndegree, co-exist with no inconsiderable confusion in their\nrespective attributes, and a somewhat earnest claim on the part\nof each to domineer over the other; nothing similar can occur at\nthe present day; neither Church nor State can any longer be the\nmaster or the servant of the other. Let neither princes nor\npriests deceive themselves; their reciprocal independence, and\ntheir uncontested empire, each in its own province, can alone\ngive to their alliance the dignity which the alliance requires,\nif it is to be real, efficacious, and lasting.\n\nEvery road leads me to the same point; to every question the\nfacts give me the same answer. Liberty has need of Christianity,\nChristianity has need of Liberty. As modern society demands to be\nfree, the religion of Christ is its most necessary ally.\nChristianity and civil society have mutually, I admit it, a grave\nfeeling of disquietude and distrust; but this disquietude and\ndistrust are not natural and inevitable results of principles\nessential to civil society and religious society, of any\ncompulsory relations existing between them; they spring from the\nfaults which the two institutions have committed towards each\nother, and from the contest which each has forced upon the other.\n{51}\nLiberty alone can effectually combat such sentiments which have\nbecome habitual and traditional. To dissipate them entirely,\nsomething besides Liberty is requisite; but without Liberty\nneither religious society nor civil society will obtain their\nlegitimate objects, these objects being peace in their relations\nto each other, and the moral progress of man, and of the State,\nwhether allied with or independent of the Church.\n\n{52}\n\n           Second Meditation.\n\n       Christianity And Morality.\n\n\nTwo attempts are now being simultaneously made, of different\ncharacters, although, of the same origin and tendency. Seriously\nminded men, who persist in believing and calling themselves\nChristians, are labouring to separate Christian morals from\nChristian dogmas, and although they make Jesus their moral idea\nof humanity, are stripping him of his miracles and divinity.\nOthers, who declare openly that they are no Christians, endeavour\nto separate morality in the abstract from religion in the\nabstract, and place the source of morality, as well as its\nauthority, in human nature, and in it alone. On the one side we\nfind a Christian morality independent of Christian faith; on the\nother a Morality independent of all religious belief, either\nnatural or revealed: these two doctrines are in our days\nproclaimed and propagated with ardour.\n\n{53}\n\nI frankly admit that their defenders are sincere in adopting and\nupholding them, and that they do so in the name of truth alone.\nIn philosophy, as in politics, I believe error and honest\nintentions to be more general than falsehood and evil design.\nMoreover, who would discuss convictions, unless himself convinced\nthat they are serious and earnest? Opinions founded on interested\nor hypocritical motives are not worth the honour of a discussion;\nthey merit only to be attacked and unmasked. In the name of truth\nalone I combat the two doctrines to which I have alluded, and\nwhich some now strive to accredit.\n\nThe true cause of this twofold attempt is the incredulity and the\nscepticism which prevail with regard to religion. Non-Christians\nare numerous; few Deists are quite sure of their belief and of\nits efficacy.\n{54}\nA necessity for morality is felt to exist; its right to regulate\nthe actions of man is acknowledged; it is in order to preserve to\nit its integrity and its force that efforts are made to separate\nit from religion, from all religious creeds, all of which, it is\nhere assumed, are either ruined or tottering. Thus, Independent\nMorality is, as it were, a raft, offered to the human soul, and\nto human society, to save their time-worn vessel from being\nwrecked.\n\nThe idea is false, the attempt of evil consequence. They who\nflatter themselves that they can leave Christian morality\nstanding, after wrenching it from Christian dogmas,--and they who\nbelieve it possible to preserve morality, after detaching it from\nreligion,--err alike, for they fail to recognise the essential\nfacts of human nature and of human society.\n\nBoth doctrines are derived from an inexact and incomplete\nobservation of these facts. I have already stated in these\nMeditations what I think of the isolation of Christian morality\nfrom Christianity, and the reason why I reject it.\n{55}\nAt present I apply myself to the idea of independent morality,\nand in the name of a psychology, pure at once and severe, I\naffirm that there exists an intimate, legitimate, and necessary\nunion between morality and religion.\n\nA preliminary observation occurs to me. Those who adopt the\ntheory of an independent morality, start from the idea that there\nis a moral law, strange to and superior to all interested\nmotives, to all selfish passions; these rank duty above, and\ntreat it as independent of, every other motive of action.\n\nI am far from contesting this principle with them, but they\nforget that it _has_ been, and still _is_, strongly\ncontested: contested by both ancient and modern philosophers.\nSome have considered the pursuit of happiness, and the\nsatisfaction of individual interests, as the right and legitimate\naims of human life. Others have placed the rule of man's conduct,\nnot in personal interests, but in general utility, in the common\nwelfare of all mankind. Others have thought that they could\nperceive the origin and the guarantee for morals in the sympathy\nof human sentiments.\n{56}\nThe moral and obligatory law, or duty, is far from being the\nrecognised and generally accepted basis of morality; systems the\nmost varied have arisen, and are incessantly forming themselves,\nwith respect to the principles of morals, as with respect to\nother great questions of our nature; and the human understanding\nfluctuates no less in this corner of the philosophic arena than\nin the others. Let the moralists of the new school not deceive\nthemselves; in proclaiming morality to be independent of\nreligion, they mean to give it one fixed basis, the same for all,\nand they believe that they succeed in the attempt. They deceive\nthemselves: morality, thus isolated, remains as much as ever a\nprey to the disputes of man.\n\nI pass over this grave misconception on the part of the defenders\nof the system, and I examine the system itself. Let us see if it\nis the faithful and full expression of human morality, if it\ncontains all the facts which constitute its natural and essential\nelements.\n\n{57}\n\nThese facts I sum up as follows: the distinction between moral\ngood and evil; the obligation of doing good and avoiding evil;\nthe faculty of accomplishing or not this obligation. In brief and\nphilosophic terms the Moral Law, Duty, and Liberty. These are the\nnatural, primitive, and universal facts which constitute human\nmorality; it is by reason and by virtue of these facts that man\nis a moral being.\n\nI have not here to enter into a discussion of these same facts; I\ndo not occupy myself at this moment with systems which disregard\nor deny them, in whole or in part; all the three facts, or any\none of the three. The partisans of the system of independent\nmorality admit them all, as I do; the question between them and\nmyself is this, whether or not, whilst rendering homage to the\ntrue principle of morality, they fully comprehend its\nsignification, and accept its results.\n\n{58}\n\nIt is the characteristic and the honour of man that he is not\nsatisfied with merely gathering facts which relate either to\nhimself or to the external world, but that he seeks to know their\norigin and object, their import and bearing.\n\nIn morals, as in physics, statistics are only the point from\nwhich science sets out; it is only after having well observed\nfacts, and having verified them, that we have to discuss the\nquestions which they raise, and the further ultimate facts which\nthe facts already ascertained contain and reveal. The fact of\nhuman morality, such as I have just described it in its three\nconstituent elements, the Moral Law, Duty, and Liberty, cannot\nfail to suggest these two questions: Whence proceeds the moral\nlaw, and whence is its authority? What is the sense, and what the\nultimate result to the moral being himself, of the fulfilment or\nviolation of his duty; that is to say, of the use which he makes\nof his liberty? No philosophical system can either suppress or\nelude these questions; they present themselves to the mind of man\nas soon as he directs his attention to the moral character of\nman's nature. I propose to consider in succession the three\nconstituent elements of this great truth, so as to determine\nrightly its source and bearing.\n\n{59}\n\nMoral law has neither been invented by man, nor does it spring\nfrom any human convention; man, by acknowledging it, admits that\nhe has not created it, that he cannot abolish or change it.\nPolitical and civil laws are diverse and ever varying; they\ndepend in a great measure upon time, place, social circumstances,\nor human will; when men adopt or reject them, they do so with the\nfeeling that they are the masters of them, to deal with them\naccordingly as their interests or their fancies suggest.\n\nBut when a law presents itself to them in the form of a moral\nlaw, they feel that this is not dependent on them, that it takes\nits source and derives its authority elsewhere than from their\nown opinion or volition. They may mistake in rendering or in\nrefusing homage to a particular precept of conduct; they may\nattach to laws a moral value which they do not intrinsically\npossess, or pass unnoticed the really moral character of another\nlaw, and the obligations which it imposes upon them; but wherever\nthey believe that they perceive the character of a moral law,\nthey bow before it as before something which does not emanate\nfrom them, and before a power of a different nature from man's.\n\n{60}\n\nThe moral law no more belongs to the general mechanism of the\nworld, than to the invention of man; it has none of the\ncharacteristics that mark the laws of physical order; none of the\nresults which follow from them; it is by no means inherent in the\nforms or combinations of matter; it does not govern the relations\nor movements of bodies; obligatory, and fixed as fate, it\naddresses itself solely to that intelligent and free being, of\nwhom Pascal said, in his grand language, \"If the universe were to\ncrush him, still man would be more noble than that which\ndestroyed him, because he knows that he dies; and of the\nadvantage that the universe has over him, the universe knows\nnothing.\" Man does much more than know that he dies; it happens,\nsometimes, that he encounters death voluntarily--that he chooses\nto die in obedience to the moral law. It is the law of Liberty.\n\n{61}\n\nWhat mean these words, Law of Liberty? How does this law, called\nDuty, come to establish itself in the human mind, and command\nman's Liberty to respect it?\n\nSome essay to found Duty upon Right, and to derive its authority\nsolely from the independence and dignity of humanity. Man, it is\nsaid, feels and knows that he is a free agent; as such it is his\nright that no human being shall attack his independence or his\ndignity. He finds in every other human being the same nature, and\ntherefore the same right as he possesses himself. Thus mutual\nright is derived from individual right, and \"Duty is nothing but\nthe right which it is recognised that another possesses.\"\n[Footnote 14]\n\n    [Footnote 14: La Morale Independante,\n    a weekly journal, No. 1, 6th August, 1865.]\n\n{62}\n\nThere is here a profound mistake, and a strange forgetfulness.\n\nWhy, when a man finds himself in relation with his fellow-men,\ndoes he attribute to them the same right which he recognises\nhimself as possessing, and which he calls upon them to see and\nadmit there? If this is a prudent calculation, the wisdom which\narises from a correct appreciation of his interest, let us have\ndone with it, it is not morality. If, prudence and interest\napart, man regards himself as bound to pay, to the independence\nand personal dignity of his fellow-men, the same respect, and to\nattribute to them the same right, as he lays claim to for\nhimself; if reciprocity becomes in this manner the fundamental\nprinciple of morality, what becomes of the obligation where there\nis no reciprocity? Will man be bound to respect in others the\nright which will not be respected in himself? If he is bound to\nit in all cases, and in spite of everything, then Duty has\nanother source than the mutual respect of persons. If he is, on\nthe other hand, not bound to it in all cases, what becomes of the\nparamount and absolute character of Duty; in other words, of the\nmoral law? It is no longer anything but law upon condition.\n\n{63}\n\nNot merely the religion of Christ, but all the great doctrines of\nthe world, religious or philosophical, peremptorily refuse to\nattach this conditional character of reciprocity to the moral\nlaw; all maintain that duty is in every case absolute and\nimperative, independently of the conduct of others. \"If ye love\nthem which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love\nthose that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to\nyou, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.\"\n\"Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing\nagain; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the\nchildren of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and\nto the evil.\" [Footnote 15]\n\n    [Footnote 15: Luke vi. 32, 33, 35.]\n\n\"Be ye,\" say the laws of Menou to the Hindoos, \"as the wood of\nthe sandal tree, that perfumes the hatchet which wounds it.\" If\nwe interrogate Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Kant; in whatever other\nrespect they may disagree, they think upon this fundamental point\nwith the Gospel and the Laws of Menou.\n\n{64}\n\nIt is in the confusion of Duty and of Right, and in the inversion\nof their natural and their true order, that the error resides of\nthose who maintain the Theory of an Independent Morality. Duty is\nthe moral law of men's actions; law intimate, personal. Right, on\nthe other hand, is derived from the application of the moral law\nto the relations of men. I will not deny myself the great yet\nmelancholy pleasure of citing upon this subject a few words of a\nperson whose mind and life were united to mine, and who, in a\nmodest essay, threw over this important subject a flood of light\nas vivid as it is pure: \"The word Right, brings with it the idea\nof a relation to something. As every Right is an application of a\nmoral law to the different relations of Society, there exists not\na Right of which Society is not the occasion. A Right is only the\nmoral power of an individual over the Liberty of another: a power\nattributed to him by virtue of the moral law which regulates the\nrelations of men with one another.\n{65}\nDuty is the sole basis of Right. Did there exist no duties there\nwould exist no rights. There is no claim of a right which does\nnot affirm a Duty to be its source. Duty applied as a rule to\ngovern the relations of man to man constitutes justice; justice\ncannot exist without Duty; a thing is neither just, nor unjust,\nas far as regards the being who has not had the duty prescribed\nto him of distinguishing between them. Ideas of Right are as\nessential to men as ideas of duty; for if the idea of Duty is the\nsocial bond;--the means of peace and of Union amongst\nmankind;--the idea of Right constitutes the arms, offensive and\ndefensive, which society gives to men, for reciprocal use. Every\nman has a consciousness of his own rights, which aids him to keep\nothers in the line of their duty; but rights only so far aid him\nto do this, as the duty upon which they are founded is known and\nrespected; for with regard to that man who ignores his duty, the\nman who has a right has absolutely nothing.\n{66}\nRight is a moral power producing its effects without the help of\nphysical force; if he who has both right and power must employ\nthe power to enforce his right, it is no longer his right which\ntriumphs, it is his power; his right remains to him to justify\nthe employment of force; but it is not his right which has made\nhis cause triumph. Thus it is that the idea of Duty is the basis\nof society, and is at the same time the basis of the idea of\nright, an idea which in its turn contributes also to the\nstability of society. To found society upon the sole idea of\nduty, is to deprive society of one of its most powerful means of\ndefence and of development; to strip the tree of the buds which\nserve to give it at once strength and amplitude. To found society\nupon the idea of Right without the idea of duty, is to cut away\nthe very roots of the tree.\" [Footnote 16]\n\n    [Footnote 16: \"Essai sur les id\u00e9es de droit et de devoir\n    consid\u00e9r\u00e9es comme fondement de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\" It is inserted in\n    the work entitled, \"Conseils de Morale, ou Essais sur\n    l'homme, les m\u0153urs, les caract\u00e8res, le monde, les femmes,\n    l'education, etc. Par Madame Guizot, n\u00e9e de Meulan,\"\n    (2 vols. 8vo, 1828) vol. ii., pp. 147-271.]\n\n{67}\n\nThis is not all. Besides the mistake which they commit in\nconsidering Duty as a mere consequence of Right, derived from the\nindependence and dignity of man as man, the advocates of the\ntheory of an independent morality forget an entire class of moral\nelements occupying an important position in our nature; I mean,\nthe instinctive sentiments intimately allied to the Moral Law,\nsentiments to which the notion of a Right, founded upon the\nindependence and dignity of man's personality, is completely\nstrange. Is it on account of the independence and dignity of\nman's personality that fathers and mothers regard it as their\nduty to love their children, to take charge of them, to work for\nand devote themselves to them? Is it by virtue of this principle,\nand of the right which flows from it, that children are bound to\nhonour their father and their mother? Man's soul, man's\nexistence, is full of moral relations and moral acts, in which\nthe idea of Right has no part; no part, I mean, in the sense\nwhich these theorists of an independent morality attach to it:\ntheir system is no more an explanation of Sympathy than of Duty.\n\n{68}\n\nI am touching upon the source of their error. If they make the\nprinciple of human morality consist in a Right emanating from\nman's Liberty and man's intelligence, it is that they see in man\nonly a free and intelligent being. Strange ignorance, and\nmutilation of man's nature. At the same time that he is a free\nand intelligent being, man is a being dependent and subject: he\nis dependent, in the material order, upon a power superior to his\nown; and subject, in the moral order, to a law which he did not\nmake, which he cannot change, which he is forced to admit even\nwhilst he is free not to obey it; a law from which he cannot\nwithdraw himself without troubling his soul and endangering his\nfuture. Morality in a sense is in effect independent; it is\nessentially independent of man; man, the free agent man, is its\nsubject. Morality is truly the law of Liberty of Action.\n\n{69}\n\nLiberty is not an isolated fact, which exhausts itself by working\nits own completion, and which, once accomplished, remains without\nfurther consequences. To Liberty is attached Responsibility. When\nthe human being, giving effect to his free will, resolves and\nacts, he feels that he is responsible for his resolution and his\nact. The Laws of Society declare this to him in express terms,\nfor they punish him if they judge his act to be criminal; not\nmerely because they find his act to be hurtful, but because they\nfind it to be morally culpable: for, were its author pronounced\nto be mad, or his mind or volition recognised as unsound, the\nlaws of society would acquit him. And if a culprit escape legal\npunishment, he does not escape from the internal punishment of\nremorse. Without speaking of penal laws, remorse is at once the\nproof and the sanction of moral responsibility. Possible it is\nthat all remorse may be lulled to sleep in the mind of the\nhardened offender; but there are a thousand instances to prove\nthat it may be always reawakened.\n{70}\nNeither in good nor in evil is man's nature entirely effaced.\nRepentance sometimes hides itself in recesses so profound, that\nto penetrate thither is impossible, except for the soul which\nfeels repentance even when seeking to escape from it.\n\nAs Liberty supposes responsibility, so Responsibility supposes an\nidea of merit or of demerit attaching naturally to the use made\nof liberty. I set aside here all the questions, in my opinion,\nill put and wrongly solved by Theologians, upon this subject of\nmerit or demerit. According to the general sentiment and common\nsense of all mankind, there is merit for a man in the\naccomplishment of Moral Law, there is demerit in its violation.\nIt is a fact recognised and proclaimed even in the simplest and\nmost ordinary incidents of human life, as well as in the\npolitical organisation of society, and in the problems which\nconcern the eternal future.\n{71}\nHowever the recompense or the punishment may be accelerated or\ndelayed; whatever its nature or its measure; the moral career of\na man is not complete, nor the moral order established, until the\nresponsibility inherent in his Liberty has received its\ncomplement and arrived at its end in the just appreciation and\nequitable return made to him for his merits or demerits.\n\nThus far I have spoken of Independent Morality; I have\nscrupulously confined myself to studying moral facts as man's\nnature, and man's nature alone, presents them to us. I have\nconsidered and described them as they are in themselves, entirely\napart from every other element and every other consideration.\nThose moral facts are briefly as follows:--\n\n  The distinction between moral good and moral evil.\n\n  The Moral Law, the duty of doing good and avoiding evil.\n\n  Moral Liberty.\n\n  Moral Responsibility.\n\n  Moral merit and demerit.\n\n{72}\n\nThese are, I admit, facts which man recognises in himself as the\nproper and intimate characteristics of his own nature. But these\ntruths once recognised and determined, what is their import? Are\nthey facts isolated in human nature, as they are in Psychology,\nor have they anterior causes and necessary consequences! Are they\nself-sufficing, or do they contain and reveal other truths which\nform their complement and their sanction? The human mind cannot\nelude this question.\n\nI have established that the moral law is not of human invention;\nthat it does not exist merely by man's agreement; that it is not\none of those laws of fate by which the material world is\ngoverned. It is the law of the intellectual world, of the free\nworld; a law superior to that world which, by recognising it as\nlaw, recognises itself at the same time both as free and subject.\nWho is the author of that law? Who imposes it upon man--upon man\nof whom it is not the work, and whom it governs without\nenslaving? Who placed it above this world where the present life\nis passed?\n{73}\nEvidently there must be a superior power from which the moral law\nemanates, and of which it is a revelation. With the good sense\nwhich his frivolity and his cynicism made him so oft forget,\nVoltaire said, speaking of the material world and the order\nreigning in it:--\n\n  \"Je ne puis songer\n  Que cette horloge existe et n'ait point d'horloger.\"\n\n  I cannot think\n  This clock exists and never had a maker.\n\nIn the moral world we have to do with something far different\nfrom a clock; nor are we in the presence of a machine\nconstructed, regulated, once for all; the law of Order, that is\nto say, the moral law, is incessantly in contact with man's free\nagency; man does homage to the law which he is yet at liberty to\naccomplish or to violate; the law is a manifestation of the\nsupreme legislator, of whose thought and will it is the\nexpression. God moral sovereign, and man free subject, are both\ncontained in the fact of the moral law. In this fact alone Kant\nfound God; he erred in not also finding God elsewhere; but it is\nnevertheless true that it is in the moral law, the rule of human\nLiberty, that God shows himself to man most directly, most\nclearly, most undeniably.\n\n{74}\n\nJust as the moral law, without a sovereign legislator to impose\nit upon man, is an incomplete and inexplicable fact, a river\nwithout source, just so the moral responsibility of the free\nagent man, without a supreme judge to apply it, is an incomplete\nand inexplicable fact, a source without outlet, which runs and\nloses itself no one can tell whither. Just as the moral law\nreveals the moral legislator, just so does moral Responsibility\nreveal the moral judge. Just as the moral law is no law of human\ninvention, just so human judgments, rendered in the name of moral\nresponsibility, are hardly ever the judgments perfectly true and\njust which such responsibility expects and calls for. God is\ncontained in the moral law as its primal author, and in moral\nresponsibility as its definitive judge. The moral system, that\nis, the empire of the moral law, is incomprehensible and\nimpossible if there is no God there, not only to establish it in\na region above and paramount to man's free agency, but to\nestablish it when troubled by man's conduct as a free agent.\n\n{75}\n\nThus the moral truths, inherent in and proper to the human\nnature--that is, the distinction between moral good and moral\nevil, moral obligation, moral responsibility, moral merit and\ndemerit,--are necessarily and intimately connected with the\ntruths of Religion; for instance, with God moral legislator, God\nmoral spectator, God moral judge. Thus morality is naturally and\nessentially connected with religion. Morality is, it is true, a\nthing special and distinct in the ensemble of man's nature and of\nman's life, but it is in no respect independent of the ensemble\nto which it belongs. It has its particular place in that\nensemble, but it is only in that ensemble that its existence is\nreasonable, thence only that it derives its source and its\nauthority.\n\nMorals may, in the order of science, be separately observed and\ndescribed; but in the order of actuality morality is inseparable\nfrom Religion.\n\n{76}\n\nWhat would be said of a physiologist if he maintained that the\nheart is independent of the brain, because those two organs are\ndistinct, organs which are closely united and indispensable to\neach other in the unity of the human being?\n\nThe spectacle of the world leads us to the same result as the\nstudy of man, and reads us the same lesson. History confirms\nPsychology. What is the great action which makes itself most\nremarkable upon the stage of human societies? The constant\nstruggle of good with evil, of just with unjust. In this struggle\nwhat shocking disorders! What iniquity perpetrated! How frequent\nan interregnum in the empire of the moral law and of justice, and\nwhat vicissitudes there! At one time the moral decree is expected\nin vain, and the human conscience remains painfully troubled by\nthe successes of vice and of crime: at another time, contrary to\nall expectation, and after the most deplorable infractions of the\nmoral law, the moral judgment comes.\n{77}\n\"In vain,\" said Chateaubriand fifty years ago, \"does Nero\nprosper; Tacitus already lives in the empire; he grows up\nunnoticed near the ashes of Germanicus, and already a just\nprovidence has left in the hands of an obscure child the fame of\nthe master of the world.\" Chateaubriand was right: Tacitus was\nthe avenger of the moral law outraged by the masters of the Roman\nEmpire; he was the judge of their triumphs; but in that very\nEmpire the most victorious of its masters, Marcus Aurelius, after\nhaving consecrated his life to the search after and the practice\nof the moral law, dies in profound sadness beneath his tent on\nthe banks of the Danube; sad on account of his wife, sad on\naccount of his son, and of the future of that world which he had\ngoverned, and which was only to be renewed, and regenerated, by\nthose Christians whom he had persecuted. Everything is\nincomplete, imperfect, incoherent, obscure, contradictory, in\nthis vast conflict of men and actions called History; and\nProvidence, the personification of eternal wisdom and justice,\nsometimes manifests itself there with _\u00e9clat_, and sometimes\nremains there, inert and veiled, beneath the most sombre\nmysteries.\n{78}\nIs such the normal, definitive state of the universe? Shall\ntruth, shall justice, never assume there more space than they now\noccupy? When shall light dawn upon the darkness? Who restore\norder to this chaos? Man evidently is insufficient to the task;\nin the world, as in individual man, the moral principle is still\nmutilated, and too infirm for its mission, unless it is\nintimately united to the religious principle. Morality can as\nlittle dispense with God in the life of the human race, as in\nthat of the individual man.\n\nIn these days more than ever morality has need of God. I am far\nfrom thinking ill of my country or of my age; I believe that they\nprogress, that they have a future; but humanity is now-a-days\nexposed to a rude trial. On one side we have been witnesses to\nevents of the most contradictory character: everything in the\nworld of opinion has been questioned; everything in that of facts\nhas been shaken, overthrown, raised up again, left tottering.\n{79}\nOppressed by this spectacle, what remains to men's minds more\nthan feeble convictions--dim hopes? On the other side, in the\nmidst of this universal shock of minds, science, and man's power\nover the surrounding world, have been prodigiously extended and\nconfirmed; light has shone more and more brightly upon the\nmaterial world, at the very moment when it was becoming paler and\npaler, declining more and more, in the moral world. We have\nplucked and are still plucking, more actively than ever, the\nfruit of the tree of knowledge; whereas the rules of human\nconduct, the laws of good and of evil, have become indistinct in\nour thought. Man remains divided between pride and doubt;\nintoxicated by his power, and disquieted by his weakness. Man's\nsoul, how perturbed! human morality, how endangered!\n\n{80}\n\nThus far I have treated the subject with far more reserve and\nindulgence for the opinions of others than I intended. I have\nlimited myself to the bounds assigned to the question by the\nadvocates of the theory of independent morality themselves. I\nhave done nothing more than set in broad daylight the intimate,\nnatural, and necessary connection of morals with religion; of\nman, moral being, with God, moral sovereign. I am only at the\nthreshold of the truth. It is not merely to religion in general\nthat morality pertains; it is not merely the idea of God of which\nit has need; it requires the constant presence of God, his\nunceasing action upon the human soul. It is from Christianity\nalone that morality can now derive the clearness, force, and\nsecurity, indispensable for the exercise of its empire. And it is\nnot for her practical utility, it is for her truth, her intrinsic\nvalue, that I hold Christianity to be necessary to the human\nsoul, and to human societies. It is because she is in perfect\nharmony with man's moral nature; and because she has been already\ntested in man's history; that Christianity is the faithful\nexpression of the moral law, and the legitimate master of the\nmoral being.\n\n{81}\n\nThe first and the incomparable characteristic of Christianity, is\nthe extent, I should rather say the immensity, of her moral\nambition. The moral system established by Christ has often been\ncontrasted with the reforms aimed at by great men whose endeavour\nit also was to fix moral laws for man's conduct, and to secure\ntheir empire over him. Jesus has been compared to Confucius,\nZoroaster, Socrates, Cakia-mouni, Mahomet. The comparison is\nsingularly inappropriate and superficial. The wisest, the most\nillustrious, of these moral reformers, even the most powerful,\nunderstood and accomplished at best but a very limited and\nincomplete work; sometimes they only sought to place in a clear\nlight the rational principles of morality; sometimes they gave to\ntheir disciples, addressing themselves to these alone, rules for\nconduct in conformity with rational principles of morality; they\ntaught a doctrine or established rules for discipline; they\nfounded schools or sects.\n{82}\nThe Christian work was something quite different. Jesus was not a\nphilosopher who entered into discussions with his disciples, and\ninstructed them in moral science; nor a chief who grouped around\nhim a certain number of adepts, and subjected them to certain\nspecial rules which distinguish, nay sever, them from the mass of\nmankind: Jesus expounds no doctrine, sets up no system of\ndiscipline, and organises no particular society: he penetrates to\nthe bottom of the human soul, of every soul; he lays bare the\nmoral disease of humanity, and of every man; and he commands his\ndisciples with authority to apply the cure, first to themselves,\nand then to all men:--\"Save your soul, for what would it profit a\nman to gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul?\" \"Go and\npreach to all nations.\"\n\nWhat philosopher, what reformer, ever conceived an idea so\nambitious, so vast? ever undertook to solve so completely, so\nuniversally, the moral problem of man's nature and man's destiny?\n\n{83}\n\nAnd this was no chimerical ambition; the mission of Christ has\nbeen pursued, and is still being pursued in the world, its onward\nmovement often crossed, interrupted, altered, never hopelessly\narrested. And during the first three centuries of Christianity,\nit was in the name and solely with the arms of Faith and of\nLiberty, that she commenced her enterprise of vanquishing man and\nthe world. And in these days, after the lapse of nineteen\ncenturies, in spite of the intermixture of error, of crime, and\nevil, it is with the same arms, and with them alone, that\nChristianity, in the name of Faith and of Liberty, and exposed to\nfresh and violent attacks, resumes in the moral world the same\ntask, and promises herself fresh success.\n\nWithout attempting, indeed, to sound them to their depths, let me\nat least indicate the causes of this indomitable vitality of the\nChristian Religion, and show why the hope is well founded which\nshe entertains in the midst of her trials.\n\n{84}\n\nOf the moral philosophers, almost all are either bitter censors,\ncold observers, or flatterers of human nature. Some of them\nproclaim that man is naturally good, and that his vices are\nsolely due to the bad institutions of society. Some, again,\nregard self-interest and self-esteem as the only springs of human\nactions. Others describe the errors and foibles of man with a\ncareful sagacity, and yet a sagacity that does not indispose them\nto jeer and mock at them, as if they were actors in a drama, both\namused themselves and amusing the spectators. How different the\nregard and the sentiment of Jesus when contemplating man: how\nserious that regard! how profound, how pregnant with effect that\nsentiment! No illusion, no indifference with respect to the\nnature of man; full, he knows it to be, of evil and at the same\ntime of good; inclined to revolt against the moral law, at the\nsame time that it is not incapable of obeying it; he sees in man\nthe original sin, source of the troubles and of the perils of his\nsoul: he does not regard the evil as incurable; he contemplates\nit with an emotion at once severe and tender, and he attacks it\nwith a resolution superior to every discouragement, and prepared\nfor every sacrifice.\n{85}\nWhy should I not simply employ Christian terms, the most genuine\nof any, as well as the most impressive? Jesus lays bare the sin\nwithout reserve, and without reserve devotes himself to the\nsinner's salvation. What philosopher ever comprehended man so\nwell, and loved him so well, even whilst judging him so freely\nand so austerely?\n\nJesus does not occupy himself less with man's futurity than with\nman's nature. At the same time that he lays down, in all its\nrigour, the principle of the moral law, the pure accomplishment\nof duty, he forgets not that man has need of happiness, and\nthirsts after happiness, after a happiness pure and lasting; he\nopens to virtue the prospect of its attainment, he holds out a\nhope, foreign to all worldly objects, hope of an ideal happiness\ninaccessible to the curiosity of man's mind, but apt to satisfy\nthe aspirations of his soul, and not, as it were, a conquest to\nbe effected by merit, nor the acquittal of a debt, but a\nrecompense to be accorded to the virtuous efforts of man by the\nequitable benevolence of God.\n{86}\nThe Christian Religion, at the same time that it compels man\nduring this life to constant and laborious exertion, has in store\nfor him, if only he labour in accordance to the law, \"the kingdom\nof God\" and \"the promises of eternal life.\"\n\nThus, Jesus knows human nature entirely, and satisfies it; he\nkeeps simultaneously in view man's duties and his necessities,\nhis weaknesses and his merits. He does not allow the curtain to\nfall upon the rude scenes of life, and the sad spectacles of the\nworld, without any _d\u00e9nouement_. He has a prospect, and a\nfuturity, and a satisfaction for man, superior to his trials, and\nsuperior to his disappointments. In what manner does Jesus attain\nthis result? How does he touch all the chords of man's soul, and\nrespond to all its appeals? By the intimate union of morality\nwith religion, of the moral law with moral responsibility: sole\nview, complete at once and definitive, of the nature and destiny\nof humanity; sole efficacious solution of the problems which\nweigh upon the thought and life of man!\n\n{87}\n\nI say the sole efficacious solution. Efficacy is, in truth, the\npeculiar, the essential characteristic of Christianity. However\nhigh-reaching the ambition of philosophy is, it is infinitely\nless so than that of religion. The ambition of philosophers is\npurely scientific. They study, observe, discuss; their labours\nproduce systems, schools. The Christian Religion is a practical\nwork, not a scientific study. At the base of its dogmas and of\nits precepts there is certainly a philosophy, and, in my opinion,\nthe true philosophy; but this philosophy is only the point from\nwhich Christianity departs, not its object. The object is to\ninduce the human soul to govern itself according to the divine\nlaw; and to attain this object it deals with man's nature as it\nis, in its entirety, with all its different elements, all its\nsublime aspirations. There, to borrow the language of strategy,\nwe see the basis of operation of Christianity; the basis upon\nwhich it enters upon its moral struggle, and upon which it\nundertakes to ensure the triumph in man of good over evil, and to\nprocure the salvation of man by his reformation.\n\n{88}\n\nWhen I published, two years ago, the Second Series of these\nMeditations--the subject of which is the actual state of the\nChristian Religion--I essayed to characterise therein the\nfundamental errors of the different philosophical systems which\ncombat it. I sent, according to my custom, the volume to my\ncompanion in life, and my _confr\u00e8re_ at the Institute, M.\nCousin, with whom, notwithstanding our differences of opinion, I\nmaintained always very friendly relations. On the 1st June, 1866,\nhe wrote to me from the Sorbonne the following letter:--\n\n  \"My dear Friend,\n\n  \"As soon as I received your book I hastened to read it, and I\n  tell you very sincerely that I am very content with it. The\n  little difference between our opinions, which you have not\n  pretended to conceal, are inevitable, because they are the\n  consequence of a general dissimilarity in the manner in which\n  we form our conceptions of the nature of philosophy and of the\n  nature of religion.\n{89}\n  These two great powers may and ought to be in accord, still\n  they are different. To Religion belongs an influence of an\n  elevated and universal kind; to philosophy an influence more\n  restricted, and still very elevated. The one addresses itself\n  to the entire soul, comprising in it the imagination; the other\n  only addresses itself to the reason. The first sets out from\n  mysteries, without which there is no religion; the second sets\n  out from clear and distinct ideas, as has been said both by\n  Descartes and by Bossuet. This distinction is the foundation of\n  my philosophy and of my religion; and this distinction is also,\n  in my view, the principle of their harmony. To confound them\n  is, I think, an infallible mode of confusing them each by the\n  other, as Malebranche has done. To absorb philosophy in\n  religion gave, in Pascal, the result of a faith full of\n  contradiction and of anguish; to absorb religion in philosophy\n  is an extravagant enterprise, of which sound philosophy must\n  disapprove. To admit them both, each in its place, is truth,\n  grandeur, and peace.\n\n{90}\n\n  \"Hence you perceive the reason of our differences of opinion,\n  which are no more hurtful to our union, than they are to our\n  old and sincere friendship.\"\n\nI replied to him on the 13th of June:--\n\n  \"I count, as well as you, my dear friend, upon our\n  dissentiments not being hurtful to our old and sincere\n  friendship; and I feel the more pleasure in so counting,\n  because, independently of our particular and petty\n  dissentiments, there is, as you say, between us a general, a\n  profound difference of opinion. I think, as you do, that\n  philosophy is not to be confounded or absorbed in religion, nor\n  religion in philosophy. I regard them both as free in their\n  manifestations and in their influence; but I do not found their\n  distinction or their accord upon the same grounds as you do.\n{91}\n  To me, philosophy is but a science, that is the work of man,\n  limited in its sphere and reach, as is man's mind itself.\n  Religion, in its principle and its history, is of divine origin\n  and institution. The one springs from man's avidity of\n  knowledge; the other is the light coming from God, 'which\n  shines upon every man that comes into the world,' and which God\n  continues to maintain and to shed over the world, according to\n  his impenetrable designs, by the act, general or special, of\n  his free will.\n\n  \"I will not say more. We know, both of us, how far our opinions\n  are in the same road, and where is the point of divergence.\"\n\nI had left Paris when I received M. Cousin's letter. He was at\nCannes when I returned to Paris. We never saw each other\nafterwards. He has preceded me to that region where light is shed\nupon the mysteries of this life. But in our last correspondence\nwe had each touched in a few words upon the knot of the whole\nquestion.\n{92}\nIt is this--What are the points of resemblance, and what of\ndifference, between Religion and science, between Christianity\nand philosophy? Although M. Cousin and I agreed as to the\nreciprocal rights of these two influences to liberty of action,\nwe entertained different sentiments as to their origin and their\nnature, and consequently as to the boundaries of their empire,\nand the character of their mission.\n\n{93}\n\n           Third Meditation.\n\n        Christianity And Science.\n\n\nIt is the faith of Christians, and the point from which\nChristianity starts, that the Scriptures, which render an account\nof its origin, its dogmas, and its precepts, are divinely\ninspired. Not that Christians understand by these words that\ndivine action upon the mind of man so often called inspiration,\nand of which Cicero said, \"No one has ever been a great man\nwithout some divine inspiration;\" [Footnote 17] and of which\nPlato was thinking when he said, \"It is not by art that they make\nthese noble poems, but because a God is in them, by whom they are\npossessed. ... They do not speak so by art, but by divine power.\"\n[Footnote 18]\n\n    [Footnote 17: Pro Archi\u00e0, c. 8.]\n\n    [Footnote 18: I have translated the Greek text literally,\n    which M. Cousin has rendered with his accustomed elegance.\n    (Jon., vol. iv. p. 249, et passim.) Note of author.]\n\n{94}\n\nThe inspiration of the holy book of Christianity is quite a\ndifferent thing: it is special and supernatural. There is divine\ninspiration in all the great works of man; these books are a work\ndirectly and personally inspired by God: they affirm this\nthemselves. The language used by Jesus in the Gospels incessantly\nimplies it; and, in numerous passages, the epistles of St. Peter\nand St. Paul, as well as the Acts of the Apostles, declare it\npositively. [Footnote 19]\n\n    [Footnote 19: In his History of Christian Theology in the\n    Apostolic Age, M. Reuss acknowledges it: \"This inspiration,\"\n    says he, \"was regarded as something unlike any other, and\n    reserved to a few individuals chosen by Providence, and only\n    to them upon special and solemn occasions;\" and he refers to\n    the different texts of the New Testament which prove his\n    assertion. (Vol. i. p. 411, ed. 1860.)]\n\nThis Christian principle of the special and divine inspiration of\nthe Scriptures was not originally taken in so narrow an\nacceptation as in later times.\n{95}\nIn the first ages of the Christian era, the Christians of the\nschool of Plato, whilst carefully distinguishing the inspiration\nof the sacred volumes from the inspiration of the great poets,\nstrove to determine the process common to these two kinds of\ninspiration, and to explain one by the other--\"It is not by any\neffect of nature nor by any human faculty,\" says St. Justin,\n\"that it is in the power of men to know things so grand and so\ndivine; it is by the grace which descends from on high upon the\nsaints. They have no need for any art to be revealed to them;\npure themselves, they must offer themselves to the action of the\ndivine spirit, in order that the divine bow, descending itself\nfrom heaven and making use of the just, in the same way as the\nmusician does of the chords of a harp or lyre, may unfold to us\nthe knowledge of things divine.\" \"I think,\" says Athenagoras,\n\"that you are not ignorant of Moses, or of Isaiah, or of the\nother prophets, who, being turned aside from any process of\nindividual reasoning, and moved by the spirit of God, proclaimed\naloud that which echoed within them, the holy spirit employing\nthem and attaching itself to them as the player adds to his flute\nthe breath which makes it discourse its music.\"\n\n{96}\n\nQuestions soon began to be agitated in Christendom as to which of\nthe religious books in circulation were really inspired, and as\nto which did not possess this divine characteristic. Hence\nproceeded disputes in respect to the Apocryphal books, and the\nformation of the Canon, or collection of the Holy Scriptures. But\neven in the very books, received by all as divinely inspired,\ngreat Christian doctors, not merely Origen, but St. Jerome and\nSt. Augustin, discovered grammatical errors and faults which it\nwas impossible to attribute to divine inspiration; and they\ndistinguished, with greater or less exactness, the inspiration of\nGod from the imperfection of man. St. Jerome points out solecisms\nin the Epistles of St. Paul; and St. Augustin says, in speaking\nof St. John, \"I venture to say that John perhaps has not spoken\nof the thing as it really was, but only as it was in his power to\nspeak; for he is a man, and he speaks of God.\n{97}\nInspired, no doubt, by God, but still a man. ... When we meet\nwith such diversity of expressions--although not in themselves\ncontradictory--used by the Evangelists, we should regard, in the\nwords of each, only the intent with which the words are\npronounced, and not, like wretched cavillers, attach an idea of\ntruth to the external form of the letter; for we must seek the\nvery spirit, not only in all the words, but in everything else\nwhich serve as symptoms of the manifestation of the spirit.\"\n\nIt was in the presence and in spite of these discussions, of this\nexplanation and of this free criticism, that the divine\ninspiration of the Scriptures was nevertheless upheld in the\nfourth century as the common and positive faith of Christians.\n\nI pass by the twelve following centuries: a long period; full of\ndarkness, but yet with flashes of light; silent yet full of\nuproar, full of liberty and oppression: period beginning with the\ninvasion of the Barbarians and terminating with the Renaissance;\nthat period in short which, taken together, is called the Middle\nAge.\n\n{98}\n\nI transport myself at once to the sixteenth century, that epoch\nof political struggles, when men reduced to systems, and reasoned\nupon, the different elements of moral and social institutions;\nfor they had, ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, been\nfermenting pell-mell in Europe, which, although so small, was yet\ndestined to conquer and civilize that globe, termed by us the\nworld.\n\nStriving to discover what, after the lapse of so many years and\nevents, had become of the principle of the divine inspiration of\nthe sacred books, that base of the religious faith and rule of\nChristian societies, I find that this question had received two\nsolutions: one in the name of the Church of Rome, by its\nrepresentative the Council of Trent; the other in the name of the\nProtestant churches, by their great founders and teachers. The\nCouncil of Trent \"receives all the books both of the old and of\nthe new Testament, since the same God is the author of each;\nsurrounds them with the same respect, and with an equally pious\nreverence;\" inserts in its decree the complete catalogue of these\nbooks, and \"anathematises whoever does not accept as sacred and\ncanonical those books, with all that they contain, just as they\nare in use in the Catholic Church, and as they exist in the\nancient Latin edition known as the Vulgate.\" [Footnote 20]\n\n    [Footnote 20: Le Saint Concile de Trente, translated by the\n    Abb\u00e9 Chanut, pp. 10--13. Paris, 1686.]\n\n{99}\n\nThe founders of the great Protestant Churches, although they\nbegan to apply the right of historical criticism to both texts\nand manuscripts, proclaimed nevertheless the absolute and\ncomplete inspiration of the holy volumes, in form and sense,\nnarrative, precepts, and words. The Bible, all the Bible, the\nold, the new Testament, were, according to them, written at God's\ndictation to serve as the law of Christian Faith.\n\n{100}\n\nThe Decree of the Council of Trent remains the Rule of the Church\nof Rome in the nineteenth century as much as it was in the\nsixteenth century; and in our days a Protestant Divine, justly\nrespected for elevation of thought as much as for the energetic\nsincerity of his Faith, in maintaining the principle of the\ncomplete and divine inspiration, and of the absolute\ninfallibility, of the Bible, has been driven so far as to make\nthis strange assertion: \"All the expressions and all the letters\nof the ten commandments were certainly written by the finger of\nGod, from the Aleph with which they begin, to the Caph with which\nthey end;\" a few pages further on he says: \"The Decalogue, we\nrepeat, was written entirely by the finger of Jehovah upon the\ntwo stone slabs.\" [Footnote 21]\n\n    [Footnote 21: Th\u00e9opneustie. By M. Gaussen.\n    2nd ed., 1842, pp. 225, 242.]\n\n\"Be on your guard,\" said Bossuet, \"you assign to God arms and\nhands; unless you strip these expressions of all that savours of\nhumanity, so as to leave nothing of arms and hands but their\naction and their force, you err. ... God does everything by\ncommand; he has no lips to move, neither does he strike the air\nwith his tongue to draw forth sounds from it; he has only to\nwill, and his will is accomplished.\" [Footnote 22]\n\n    [Footnote 22: El\u00e9vations sur les Myst\u00e8res, vol. ix. pp.\n    66-68, 85, 109; and the Sixi\u00e9me Avertissement sur les lettres\n    de Jurieu, vol. xxx. pp. 57, 134.]\n\n{101}\n\nThe empire of circumstances, both in the sixteenth and the\nnineteenth centuries, has had much to do with the adoption of\nthese two doctrines, thus conceived and expressed. The Council of\nTrent, in order to cut short all controversies with the\nReformers, took the Scriptures, and the interpretation of the\nScriptures, under the guardianship of the supreme and infallible\nauthority of the Church of Rome. The Reformers, in their turn,\nfound their fixed point and a basis, firm in the midst of the\nmovement to which they were giving the impulse, in the\ninfallibility of the Bible, itself divinely inspired. And at the\npresent time, on the one side the Church of Rome in its new\ndangers, and on the other side the Protestants, sincere in their\nardent zeal to awaken that Christian Faith which is languishing,\nhave pushed the two doctrines,--the former of ecclesiastical\nauthority, the latter of biblical infallibility,--to their\nextremest verge: in my opinion each beyond the limits of right\nand of truth. History explains errors, it does not justify them.\n{102}\nI resume, briefly: those with which I reproach the two doctrines\nreferred to,--they severally infringe, the one the rights of\nreligious liberty, the other those of human science. In both\ncases they greatly endanger that Christian Religion which they\nhave, in these respects, severally ill understood.\n\nI have already expressed my views upon this subject. [Footnote\n23]\n\n    [Footnote 23: Meditations on the Essence of Christianity.\n    Sixth Meditation. Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, pp.\n    145-146. London, 1864.]\n\nFervent and learned men maintain \"that all, absolutely all, in\nthe Scriptures is divinely inspired--the words as well as the\nideas, all the words used upon all subjects--the material of\nlanguage, as well as the doctrine which lies at its base. In this\nassertion I see but deplorable confusion, leading to profound\nmisapprehension both of the meaning and the object of the sacred\nbooks. It was not God's purpose to give instruction to men in\ngrammar, and if not in grammar neither was it his purpose to give\ninstruction in geology, astronomy, geography, or chronology.\n{103}\nIt is on their relations with their Creator, upon duties of men\ntowards Him and towards each other, upon the rule of faith and of\nconduct in life, that God has lighted them by light from heaven.\nIt is to the subject of religion and morals, and to these alone,\nthat the inspiration of the Scriptures is directed.\"\n\nI have read the Holy Scriptures scrupulously, and over and over\nagain, with a view neither to criticise nor defend, with the sole\nobject of familiarising myself with their character and sense.\nThe more I advanced in this study, the longer I had lived in the\nBible, the more did the two facts seem clear to me, the Divine\ntruths and the human faults at once profoundly distinct and in\nintimate contact. I meet at each step in the Bible with God and\nwith man: God, Being real and personal, to whom nothing happens,\nin whom nothing changes, Being identical and immovable in the\nmidst of the universal movement, who gives of himself the\nunparalleled definition, \"I am that I am:\" on the other side man,\nBeing incomplete, imperfect, variable, full of deficiencies and\nof contradictions, of sublime instincts and gross desires, of\ncuriosity and ignorance, capable of good and of evil, and\nperfectible in the midst of his imperfection.\n{104}\nWhat the Bible is incessantly showing us is, God and Man, their\npoints of connection and their contests,--God watching over and\nacting upon man; man at one time accepting, at another rejecting,\nGod's influence. The divine person and the human person, if the\nexpression is permissible, are in each other's presence, each\nacting upon the other and upon events. It is the education of man\nafter his Creation: his education as a religious and moral being,\nnothing less and nothing more. God does not, in thus educating\nman, change him: he created him intelligent and free: he\nenlightens him as to the religious and moral law with light from\nheaven; in other respects he leaves him absorbed in the laborious\nand perilous exercise of his intelligence and of his liberty as a\nfree agent.\n{105}\nAt each epoch, in every circumstance, during his continuous\naction upon man, God takes him as he finds him, with his\npassions, vices, defects, errors, ignorance; just such a being as\nhe has made himself; nay, every day is making himself, by the\ngood or bad use of his intelligence and of his freedom of action.\nThis is the Biblical account, and the Biblical history of the\nrelations of Man with God.\n\nWhat a strange contrast, and still what an intimate and powerful\nconnection exists, in this history, between those whom--how shall\nI dare to permit myself to call the two actors! God does not\nappear so elevated, so pure, so strange to imperfection, so\nuntroubled by any human nature, so immutable and serene in the\nplenitude of the divine nature, so really God, in any tradition,\ninvention of poetry, or in any mythology, as he is presented to\nus in the Bible. On the other hand, in no nation, in no\nhistorical narrative or document, does man show himself more\nviolent and ruder, more brutal, more cruel, more prompt to\ningratitude, and more rebellious to his God, than he is amongst\nthe Hebrews.\n{106}\nNowhere else, and in no history, is the distance so great between\nthe divine sphere and the human region, between the sovereign and\nthe subject. Still, Israel never entirely separates itself from\nGod; and, in spite of vices and excesses, Israel returns to God,\nand recognises his law and empire, even whilst incessantly\nviolating them. Nowhere, on the other hand, does God appear, in\nhis turn, so occupied with man, does he at once exact so much\nfrom him and yet evince so much sympathy for him: he does not\nchange him suddenly, by any act of his sovereign will; he is a\nwitness to all his imperfections, all his weaknesses, and all his\nerrors; nevertheless, he abandons him not; he holds ever steadily\nbefore him the torch of Heavenly Light, and never omits to\ninterest himself in his destiny. The religious and moral idea is\never present and dominant; nowhere else have the business and\nlabour of human science held so small a place in man's thoughts\nand man's society. God, and the relations of God and man, are the\nonly subjects which fill the Holy volumes.\n\n{107}\n\nIn what do those relations consist? By what results does this\ncontinuous action manifest itself, of God upon man; this\nincessant dialogue between God and man? By laws, precepts, and\ncommands, religious and moral--God proposes these to man; he\nenjoins nothing more; he speaks to him of nothing else; demands\nnothing from him but obedience to his Law. God does not teach, he\ncommands; God does not discuss, he warns. And the organs of God's\nspeech, the men whom he takes for his interpreters and his\nprophets, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, do neither less nor more.\nAlthough superior to most of their contemporaries by reason of\npossessing certain attainments, they are no professors of human\nsciences: just as they speak the language of the common people\nwhom they address, just so do they share most of their ignorance\nand errors respecting the objects and facts of the finite world,\nin the midst of which they are living.\n{108}\nWhen they are made the medium for the religious and moral\nprecepts and warnings of God, it is then that they are no longer\nmere men of their time; it is then, only then, that the light of\ndivine inspiration descends upon them, and that they diffuse it\nto all around them.\n\nI do not wish to limit myself to a general summary only of what I\nregard as the essential character of the Holy Scriptures,--the\nsimultaneous presence of the divine element and of the human\nelement; the one in all its sublimity, the other in all its\nimperfection; God revealing to man in a certain place his\nreligious law and his moral law, but without conveying elsewhere\nthe divine light; God taking man as he finds him, in the points\nof time and of space in which he is placed, with all his\nbarbarism and imperfections. I proceed, therefore, to consider\nsome of the particular examples presented by the Scriptures,\nwhich make this great truth so evident as to be incontestable.\n\n{109}\n\nI open the book of Genesis and read:--\n\n  \"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt\n  Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here\n  I am.\n\n  And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou\n  lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him\n  there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I\n  will tell thee of.\n\n  And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass,\n  and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and\n  clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up, and went\n  unto the place of which God had told him.\n\n  Then on the third day Abraham lift up his eyes, and saw the\n  place afar off.\n\n  And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the\n  ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come\n  again to you.\n\n  And Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it\n  upon Isaac his son: and he took the fire in his hand, and a\n  knife: and they went both of them together.\n\n  And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father:\n  and he said, here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire\n  and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?\n\n  And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a\n  burnt-offering: so they went both of them together.\n{110}\n  And they came to the place which God had told him of; and\n  Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order; and\n  bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.\n\n  And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to\n  slay his son.\n\n  And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and\n  said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, here am I.\n\n  And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou\n  any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God,\n  seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.\n\n  And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold, behind\n  him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went\n  and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in\n  the stead of his son.\"\n\nA man who, by his enlightened views, and the elevation of his\nmind, as well as by his faithfulness as a follower of Christ, is\nan honour to the church which he serves, Dr. Arthur Stanley, Dean\nof Westminster, explains and characterises in these terms the\nBiblical truths to which I am referring.\n\n{111}\n\n\"There have been,\" he says, \"in almost all ancient forms of\nreligion, and also in some of more modern date, two strong\ntendencies, each in itself springing from the best and purest\nfeelings of humanity, yet each, if carried into the extremes\nsuggested by passion or by logic, incompatible with the other and\nwith its own highest purpose. One is the craving to please, or to\npropitiate, or to communicate with the powers above us, by\nsurrendering some object near and dear to ourselves. This is the\nsource of all sacrifice. The other is the profound moral instinct\nthat the Creator of the world cannot be pleased, or propitiated,\nor approached by any other means than a pure life and good deeds.\nOn the exaggeration, on the contact, on the collision of these\ntwo tendencies, have turned some of the chief difficulties of\nevangelical history. The earliest of them we are about to witness\nin the life of Abraham. ...\n{112}\nThe sacrifice, the resignation of the will in the father and the\nson was accepted; the literal sacrifice of the act was repelled.\nThe great principle was proclaimed that mercy was better than\nsacrifice,--that the sacrifice of self is the highest and holiest\noffering that God can receive. ... We have a proverb which tells\nus that man's extremity is God's opportunity.\" [Footnote 24]\n\n    [Footnote 24: Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church.\n    By Arthur P. Stanley, D.D. Vol. i. pp. 47, 48, 50. London,\n    1867.]\n\nAbraham was upon the point of accomplishing an act which, even in\nthe presence of virtuous motives and a divine command, has been\nforbidden, and is held accursed by the subsequent Revelation and\nthe sentiments of all whom it has enlightened. At this moment the\nhand of Abraham is stayed, and patriarchal religion is saved from\nthe antagonism of a conflict between the rigour of the Hebrew law\nand the merciful dispensation of the Gospel.\n\nThe sentiment which Dean Stanley expresses has my full\nconcurrence; but I go still further, and maintain that there is\nin the pathetic narrative of Abraham's sacrifice something more\nthan he points out.\n{113}\nThis interposition of God in order to arrest the very act which\nhe has required is in accord with the general doctrine of the\nBible, expressly condemning human sacrifices; [Footnote 25] but\nAbraham's as well as several other examples prove how such\nsacrifices continued to exist in the ferocious traditions and\nmanners, not only of several nations of Semitic origin, but even\nof the Hebrews themselves. God's intent is to try Abraham, and he\npauses as soon as Abraham's obedience to the divine order is\nbeyond doubt. Abraham does not hesitate to execute the divine\ncommand; he expresses no surprise at it. The sacrifice of Isaac\nis prepared, and very nearly consummated, as an event almost of\ncourse. Here we have man in the grossest and blindest condition\nof barbarism, in the presence of God, in whom as sovereign he\nbelieves, and whose sovereignty it is not his purpose to dispute.\n\n    [Footnote 25: Leviticus xviii. 21; Deuteronomy xii. 31;\n    Ezekiel xx. 26. This question is treated and conclusively\n    solved in the Theologische Encyclopedie of Herzog, art.\n    Sacrifice, vol. x. p. 621.]\n\n{114}\n\nIt would be easy for me to multiply these examples, and to show,\nin many other passages of the Bible, the following fundamental\ncharacteristic of Biblical History: the thought and word of man,\nalthough constantly in presence of the divine law and of the\ndivine action, yet in contact and contrast with the thought and\nword of God. I prefer seeking for proofs in support of my\nconviction in a comparison of the Old and New Testaments, and in\nthe light which Christianity sheds upon the Hebrew Revelation,\nwhich it does not contradict, but to which it applies a movement\nof progress.\n\nI say progress,--progress immense, infinitely grander than man's\nimagination could ever have conceived,--and at the same time the\ncharacter of the divine work remaining absolutely the same. It is\nno longer, as in the Old Testament, the stormy combat, the\ncontinuous struggle of God and of man in the events of the world\nand in the life of the people. God no longer interposes in the\nNew Testament to warn or direct, to raise up or humble, to\nrecompense or to punish man in this world; he decides no longer\ndirectly the issue of battle or the destiny of states.\n{115}\nIt is still God, God in Jesus Christ, with all his sublimity: He,\nand He only, occupies and fills the place. He appears there under\na different aspect. In his human form, He is weakness itself,\nintended and destined to become the very type of humility and of\nsuffering; the voluntary victim, who expiates man's sin; the\nvictim of man's fall. But in the midst of His miseries it is God,\nGod as He was for Israel in all the splendour of His power.\nChrist's own knowledge of this appears throughout. He says it, He\nmanifests it unceasingly by actions and by words; sometimes by\nnatural effects, sometimes by miracles. And yet how different!\nwhat a range in the object and the bearing of His actions and of\nHis words! In the Old Testament the scene concentrates itself\nupon a corner of the world, a single people, a petty nation,\nseparated by God from the rest of the world, in order to withdraw\nit from the contagion of idolatry;--but now it is for the whole\nworld, for all nations, for future as well as for living\ngenerations, for the Gentile as well as for the Jew, for the\nbarbarians of Malta as well as for the Greeks of Athens, that the\nGod of the New Testament manifests Himself and speaks; it is over\nthe whole of humanity that He spreads His light and orders His\nservants to extend His empire.\n\n{116}\n\nHe does more, much more. That divine light which Jesus comes to\nspread over the whole world, although it continues to emanate\nfrom the same fountain, becomes more complete and more pure.\nJesus is the first to recognise the fact that the ancient law,\nalthough issuing from God, bears here and there traces of human\nerrors and passions. \"I am not come,\" says he, \"to abolish the\nlaw, but to fulfil it.\" How fulfil it? By removing the errors\nwith which it had become intermixed owing to the imperfect nature\nof the men, of the time, and of the place, at which it appeared,\nand by filling up the gaps which that imperfection had entailed.\nHe disentangles the ancient law from every human element, and\nbrings it back to its one divine element, its one pure and\nperfect source. I refrain from all argument or commentary. I will\nnot cite anything in proof of this grand fact but those very\ntexts of the Ancient and of the New Testament which embody their\nmost essential precepts.\n\n{117}\n\nI read in Exodus, \"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,\nfoot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for\nstripe.\" [Footnote 26] Jesus effaces this _lex talionis_.\n\"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy\nneighbour, and hate thine enemy: but I say unto you, Love your\nenemies; bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate\nyou, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute\nyou.\" [Footnote 27]\n\n    [Footnote 26: Exodus xxi. 24, 25.]\n\n    [Footnote 27: Matthew v. 43, 44.]\n\nIt is said in the book of Deuteronomy: \"When a man hath taken a\nwife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour\nin his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then\nlet him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand,\nand send her out of his house.\" [Footnote 28]\n\n    [Footnote 28: Deuteronomy xxiv. 1.]\n\n{118}\n\nI read in the New Testament: \"And the Pharisees came to him, and\nasked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? ... And\nhe answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And\nthey said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to\nput her away. And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the\nhardness of your hearts he wrote you this precept. But from the\nbeginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this\ncause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his\nwife; and they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more\ntwain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together,\nlet not man put asunder.\" [Footnote 29]\n\n    [Footnote 29: Mark x. 2-9;  Matthew xix. 3-9.]\n\nThe Mosaic law condemns to death every adulterer: \"If a man be\nfound lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall\nboth of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the\nwoman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.\" [Footnote 30]\n\n    [Footnote 30: Deuteronomy xxii. 22.]\n\n{119}\n\nJesus is called upon to pronounce upon the very case: \"And the\nscribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery;\nand when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him,\nMaster, this woman was taken in adultery; in the very act. Now\nMoses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: but\nwhat sayest thou? This they said tempting him, that they might\nhave to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger\nwrote on the ground as though he heard them not. So when they\ncontinued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them,\nHe that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at\nher. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they\nwhich heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out\none by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and\nJesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When\nJesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said\nunto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man\ncondemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her,\nNeither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.\" [Footnote 31]\n\n    [Footnote 31: John viii. 3-11.]\n\n{120}\n\nThe Mosaic law is full of minute ceremonial regulations, and of\nrigorous conditions, which attach to the performance of certain\nexternal acts, in certain appointed places, the duty of adoration\nand of prayer. Not only does Jesus object to the Scribes and\nPharisees that they place all their faith and their piety in the\nacts alone; he does more; he gives his disciples personally a\nlesson of striking simplicity by teaching them the Lord's Prayer;\nand when the Samaritan woman, whom he meets near the well of\nJacob, says to him: \"Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and\nye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.\n... Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, ... the hour cometh,\nand now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in\nspirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.\nGod is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in\nspirit and in truth.\" [Footnote 32]\n\n    [Footnote 32: John iv. 20, 21, 23, 24.]\n\n{121}\n\nThus Jesus, not to abolish but to accomplish the ancient law, and\nto make it harmonise with the new and universal work which he is\nabout, separates from the law that which the imperfection of man\nhad introduced in it in other times, and for a more limited work;\nhe leaves in it nothing but the divine element in all its purity\nand empire. He only leaves to the divine element its religious\nand moral empire, for it is in its name alone that he speaks; the\nreligious and moral law is the only law revealed by Jesus, and\nextended over the entire world; no other thought mixes itself\nwith his doctrine, no other motive influences his action;\npolitical science, human science, have absolutely no place at all\nin the New Testament; Jesus does not think of satisfying either\nsocial ambition or intellectual curiosity; he desires to make\nneither kings nor doctors; as soon as he finds such pretensions\nadvanced, he sets them aside;\n{122}\n\"Render unto C\u00e6sar the things which are C\u00e6sar's; and unto God the\nthings that are God's.\" \"I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and\nearth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and\nprudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.\" [Footnote 33]\n\n    [Footnote 33: Matthew xxii. 21; xi. 25.]\n\nJesus occupies himself with man's soul alone, with the human\nbeing in his native simplicity; the relations of man, of every\nman, with God; the state and destiny of the human soul, of every\nhuman soul, in the present and in the future: this is the sole\nidea, the sole mission, of the New Testament. Jesus knows that\nwhen once accomplished this will bring with it its own salutary\nconsequences: \"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his\nrighteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.\"\n[Footnote 34]\n\n    [Footnote 34:  Matthew vi. 33.]\n\n{123}\n\nI do not hesitate, then, to affirm, that human science, in its\ndifferent and special objects,--whether astronomy, geology,\ngeography, chronology, physics, historical criticism,--is as\nforeign to the object as it is to the source of the sacred\nVolumes. In the sciences we have the domain of the mind of man\nleft to itself, and to itself alone. They are the fruits,\nassiduously cultivated and slowly acquired by the laborious\nexertions of the human intellect during a succession of ages. If,\nthen, you meet, in Scriptural texts, not treating of acts\ndeclared miraculous, terms and assertions apparently repugnant to\nfacts recognised as truths in these different sciences, feel no\ndisquietude. It is not there that God has set up His divine\ntorch; it is not there that God has spoken. The language is the\nlanguage of the men of the different epochs, men who speak\naccording to the measure of their knowledge or of their\nignorance, the language which they are obliged to speak in order\nto be understood by their contemporaries. I feel surprised that\nmen should require to be told this, so simple, so clear is it.\n{124}\nIn matters of religion and of morality there have always existed,\nand in every place there have existed, spontaneous instincts,\naspirations, and ideas common to all men, which lead them to\nemploy a similar language,--a language comprehended and received\nby all who hear it, whatever in other respects may be their\ninequality in attainments and civilization; whereas, in matters\npurely scientific we find nothing at all like this; men in the\nmass see and speak of these, not as they are to the eye of\nscience, but according to their appearances, and so men\ncomprehend or do not comprehend them, hear them or do not hear\nthem, according to the degree of scientific knowledge or of\nignorance prevalent at the time and place at which they live.\nWhat would the Hebrews in the Desert, or the Jews about the\nperson of Christ, or the savages of the Pacific have said to his\nmissionaries, if they had been told that it is the earth which\nturns round the sun, that its shape is that of a spheroid, that\nit is habitable and inhabited at opposite points of its\ncircumference?\n{125}\nWhat is more natural, what more inevitable, than that the\nlanguage of the Scriptures should agree with the scientific\nimperfection of men upon all these matters, even where that\nlanguage is full of divine inspiration as to the religious or\nmoral law of humanity?\n\nNo one honours science more than I do, no one feels a greater\nadmiration for it. It is a mission that man has to perform, and\nit is one of his glories; but it has no place in the relation of\nman with God, and in the action of God upon man. God is no\nsublime, no mighty doctor, who reveals truths of science to man,\nto give him the noble pleasure of contemplating them, or of\npublishing them; he has left such researches to labours purely\nhuman. The work of God is more complex and grander: it is\nessentially practical. That of which man, every man, stands in\nneed, that after which he thirsts, that which all mankind asks of\nGod, simple as well as learned, is to be enlightened as to the\nreligious and moral truths which are to regulate his soul and his\nlife, and to decide his lot in eternity.\n{126}\nIt is to all mankind that God responds; it is to the salvation of\nall men that the Scripture applies itself. A celebrated\nphilosopher, a man of a mind lofty and sincere, but one of the\nmost lost of the great lost ones of the human intelligence,\nthought differently. According to Spinoza, \"all men are far from\nbeing called to enjoy eternal life in the same plenitude. ...\nAfter death the reason,--just ideas survive; all the rest\nperishes. Souls governed by reason, philosophical souls, who even\nfrom the moment when their life in this world ceases, live in\nGod, are consequently exempt from death; for death deprives them\nonly of that which is of no value. But those dim and feeble\nsouls, upon which reason hardly gleams at all, those souls made\nup entirely, so to say, of empty imaginings and passions, perish\nalmost entirely; and death, instead of coming to them as a simple\naccident, penetrates to the very bottom of their being. The soul\nof the sage, on the contrary, cannot be more than barely\ntroubled; possessing, by a sort of eternal necessity, the\nconsciousness of itself and of God, and of things as they really\nare, it never ceases to exist; and as for real tranquillity of\nsoul, it possesses it for ever.\" [Footnote 35]\n\n    [Footnote 35: \u0152uvres de Spinoza. According to the translation\n    of Emile Saisset. Introduction, vol. iii. p. 291.]\n\n{127}\n\nI know not if human pride ever gave expression to a thought\nshowing a stranger aberration of intellect; and in spite of the\nfavour with which some men of distinguished abilities endeavour\nat the present day to encircle the name of Spinoza, I do not\nbelieve that there is any chance, at an epoch when war is\ndeclared against all privileges, for philosophers to make good\ntheir exclusive claim to the privilege of immortality.\n\n{128}\n\n           Fourth Meditation.\n\n          Christian Ignorance.\n\n\nWhen I use the term \"Christian Ignorance,\" I would not have\neither the sense which I attach to the expression, or the\nintention with which I use it, misunderstood. I do not think that\nit should be denied to man to make any use of his intelligence,\nto exercise any right to inquire freely after truth, or after any\nkind of truth. Is the field which is open to the human mind\nlimited in extent? Is the mind itself of limited reach? Is there\na difference of degree in human knowledge according as the\nobjects are different to which it is applied? These are\nquestions, all of them, fundamentally contained in the words\n\"Christian Ignorance;\" and of these questions it is my aim to\noffer what appears to me to be the right solution.\n\n{129}\n\nI am in the presence of four sciences, and of six schools or\nsystems, which have made, are making, and will always continue to\nmake, much noise in the world. The sciences are, Physiology,\nPsychology, Ontology, and Theology. The systems to which these\nsciences have given birth are, Materialism, Positivism,\nScepticism, Spiritualism, Scientific Theology, Mystical Theology.\nI am far from meaning to discuss here the principles of these\nsystems, or to attempt to determine their value; it would be to\nundertake the task of examining all philosophy and all\nphilosophies. I mean to touch only upon one of the special\nquestions which furnish in our days matter of debate between\nChristianity and these different schools. It is thus, and thus\nonly, that I can clearly establish the sense which I attach to\nthe words \"Christian Ignorance;\" and determine, at the same time,\ntheir bearing and their limitation.\n\n{130}\n\nI have, and for very simple reasons, little to say respecting the\nfirst three systems to which I have just referred, i. e.,\nMaterialism, Positivism, Scepticism. By its denial of the\ndistinction of the soul and the body, of mind and matter,\nMaterialism rejects Psychology, and arrives, as far as Ontology\nis concerned, only at Atheism or at Pantheism. Of the four great\nphilosophical sciences, Physiology is the only one with which\nMaterialism has any concern. Amongst Positivists, some, the more\neminent, admit, it is true, the reality of Objects, or to speak\nmore exactly, the reality of the domain of Psychology and of\nOntology; but in admitting it they declare it to be inaccessible\nto the human mind: \"Inaccessible,\" says M. Littr\u00e9, \"not null or\nnon-existent; it is an ocean which washes our shore, and for\nwhich we have neither bark nor sail.\" [Footnote 36]\n\n    [Footnote 36: A. Comte et la Philosophie Positive.\n    By M. Littr\u00e9, p. 519.]\n\nThat is to say, that, according to Positivists, Psychology,\nOntology, and Theology are not--cannot be--sciences.\n{131}\nAs for sceptics, they contest to the human mind all certitude,\nand especially certitude with respect to the subject-matters of\nPsychology, Ontology, and Theology. The fundamental principle of\nChristian belief is then too absolutely strange to those three\nschools for it to be necessary that I should discuss with them\nthe source, bearing, and legitimacy of that which I term\n\"Christian Ignorance.\"\n\nIt is only with Spiritualists, with scientific Theologians, and\nwith mystic Theologians, that it is possible to discuss this\nquestion of Christian Ignorance, for the three schools to which\nthey belong are the only ones which, in the same way as\nChristianity itself does, open to the human mind the domain of\nthe four sciences--Physiology, Psychology, Ontology, and\nTheology, and which recognise the right of the human mind there\nto search after truth, and the possibility of its being there\ndiscovered.\n\nWhen I speak of Spiritualists, a preliminary remark is\nindispensable. Christianity is as spiritualistic, not to say more\nso, than Spiritualism itself.\n{132}\nIt is not, then, with Spiritualism in general, and with all\nSpiritualists without distinction, that Christians have to deal\nin the question of \"Christian Ignorance,\" as it has in other\nquestions; the discussion here lies between Christianity and\nRationalistic Spiritualism alone; and not only between\nRationalism and Christian ignorance, but also between\nRationalistic science and Christian science.\n\nRationalistic Spiritualism admits the reality of Psychology, of\nOntology, and of Theology, just as it does that of Physiology; it\nadmits that these different sciences owe their birth and\ndevelopment necessarily to the spectacle of the universe, of men\nand of things, and have for their object the solution of the\nquestions which this spectacle suggests. But this great fact once\nadmitted, Rationalism places in Psychology, and in Psychology\nalone, the starting-point and the fulcrum of Ontology and of\nTheology; it only admits in these two sciences results to which\nthe human mind attains by its own unaided efforts, that is to\nsay, by way of observation and of reasoning; it recognises for\nhuman knowledge, with respect to Ontology and Theology, no source\nother than human reason.\n{133}\nChristianity opens to Ontology and Theology a larger sphere and\nother sources of knowledge: besides the psychological facts\nsupplied to these two sciences by observation and reasoning, it\nrecognises historical facts as truths, not only which they are\nbound themselves to admit, but which they have a right to demand\nthat others shall admit; Christianity does not make the human\nmind the sole object of its belief; it believes also in the\nhistory of Humanity, and finds in that History facts to the truth\nof which centuries, and the traditions of centuries, have\ntestified, which it therefore holds, and is bound to hold, as\nwell proved and as certain as any physical or psychological fact\nproved by the observations of contemporary science. The Creation,\nthe primitive Revelation, the Mosaic Revelation, the Evangelical\nRevelation, are in Christian Doctrine historical facts which\nOntology and Theology take, with reason, as the elementary data\nand the legitimate bases of science.\n\n{134}\n\nI am here met by a fundamental objection made to these facts and\nto their scientific authority; they are, it is said, opposed to\nthe permanent laws of nature and of reason, as well as of human\nexperience; science cannot admit supernatural facts. I have no\nintention in merely passing to re-enter here upon this great\nquestion; I have already expressed unreservedly my opinion with\nrespect to it, [Footnote 37] and upon some other occasion I shall\nreturn to it; for, if I do not deceive myself, the question has\nnot hitherto been properly sounded and to the depth which it\ndemands. Here I confine myself to referring to two ideas--facts,\nrather--absolutely forgotten or ignored by the systematic\nopponents of the supernatural.\n\n    [Footnote 37: Meditations on the Essence of Christianity.\n    Third Meditation: \"The Supernatural,\" pp. 84-108. London,\n    1864.]\n\nLiberty, free agency, in presence of the external or internal\ncauses which operate upon the will, is the peculiar and\ndistinctive characteristic of man.\n{135}\nIt is by this that man separates himself from and raises himself\nabove nature, understanding by the term the ensemble of things\ndetermined by laws general, anterior, permanent. Man alone has it\nin his power to commence a new series of facts foreign to any\ngeneral law, and originating in his will alone. To deny such\nfacts, is to deny that man is a free agent, and to make him a\nmachine regulated by external and fatal laws; that is to say, to\ndrive man back to the condition of that nature which is\nsubstantially governed by laws of this kind, and thus to abolish\nat one blow human morality and human liberty.\n\nThe blow strikes still higher--it would abolish God. God, who\ncreated man, is, and was previous to the existence of his\ncreations, a being essentially free; for liberty cannot be the\ndaughter of Fatality. It is in the free divine volition that\nhuman Liberty has its source, and man's Liberty itself testifies\nto the source from which it emanates.\n{136}\nBy denying human liberty, we throw not only man but God into the\ncondition of physical nature, that is to say, into the ensemble\nof causes obedient to fate, and deprived of all moral essence;\nthat is to say, we plunge into Pantheism, which, in spite of\nSpinoza and Goethe, in spite of all the efforts of logical\nreasoning or poetic imagination, is, in ultimate analysis,\nnothing more than Atheism.\n\nThe systematic opponents of the supernatural must submit to this\nconsequence. Most of them, I am certain, are far from being\ndisposed to accept it, and would indeed repudiate it with the\nmost honourable perseverance. Vain efforts! Driven from\nentrenchment to entrenchment, from fall to fall, they will be\nfinally reduced to this extremity; and if divine wisdom had not\nassigned limits to the force of man's Logic, the practical\nconsequences of such a system would soon make themselves evident\nin the moral and social condition of humanity.\n\n{137}\n\nThere is a second necessity to which the systematic opponents of\nthe supernatural must make up their minds. They must affirm that\nthe laws proclaimed by them as general laws, laws immanent and\npermanent in what they call nature, are in effect the essential\nlaws of all nature, of the entire universe, and of all the beings\nwhose seeds are there sown. They would have no right to reject\nabsolutely facts as supernatural if they were not supernatural of\nnecessity and everywhere; if, in short, they were anywhere in\nharmony with laws of nature other than the laws of this hardly\nperceptible corner of nature which is the residence of man. If\nthe laws of our world are not universal and absolute, who will\nventure to affirm that they cannot be changed or suspended, even\nthere where they reign? Is human science ready to maintain that\nthe laws which she discovers from her infinitely small\nObservatory are in effect universal and absolute laws in every\nplace where matter exists, and where life manifests itself, in\nthe midst of space and of time?\n\n{138}\n\nHere it is that Christian Ignorance begins to take its place; it\nadmits the unknown and the diverse in the universe--an unknown\nincommensurable, a diverse infinitely possible. I respect and\nadmire science profoundly; I am as moved, I feel as proud as M.\nde Laplace could ever have been at the aspect of this sublime\nflight of the human intelligence, which marches with sure footing\nin space and across worlds, measures their distances, and knows\nhow many years are required for the light of the nearest of the\nfixed stars to reach us, whereas the light of our own sun reaches\nus in a few minutes. I am not less touched by the labours and the\ndiscoveries of the great modern Physiologists, who, walking in\nthe footsteps of Bichat, observe and note, even in their minutest\nand most obscure details, the different phenomena which life in\nthe midst of matter presents. But when I have rendered homage to\nthese triumphs of human science, I compare them with the reality\nof things, with this universe infinitely great and infinitely\nminute, which man makes his study, and I cannot prevent the\nreflection, that the universe contains infinitely more objects\nthan man's mind attains to, and infinitely more secrets than it\ndiscovers.\n{139}\nWhat astronomer will dare to affirm that he has counted all the\nworlds, and that his eye has reached the point beyond which no\nmore exist? What physiologist, what naturalist, will affirm that\nall those worlds have living inhabitants? and that, if so, those\ninhabitants must have the same form, and be subject to the same\nconditions and laws, as govern the inhabitants of this globe. Our\nscience becomes very modest when set side by side with our\nignorance, even in the matters appropriate to science; and,\nhowever extensive and various the conquests of the human mind may\nbe, the universe is infinitely vaster and more varied than is\neither the genius or the strength of its vain conqueror. Knowing\nthis, and without ceasing to admire the works of human science,\nChristian Ignorance bows humbly before that work of God, which\noutstrips and surpasses immeasurably every attainment of man.\n\n{140}\n\nThus on two sides, and by two different processes, Christianity\nhas a higher point of view, and penetrates further into the\nreality of things than Rationalistic Spiritualism. On the one\nside, by allowing its place to historic facts which are the life\nof mankind, as well as to psychological facts which are the life\nof man's soul, Christianity gives to Christian science a deeper,\na broader foundation than rationalistic science supplies. On the\nother side, Christianity admits, both with greater grandeur and\nwith more modesty than Rationalism, the unfathomable immensity of\nthe universe, as well as the infinite diversity of its possible\nlaws; and by the avowal of a \"Christian Ignorance,\" it places\nitself, at least, at the most elevated point to view the\nspectacle of which human science cannot traverse or measure the\nextent.\n\n{141}\n\nIt is in the presence of another rival, I do not say of another\nadversary, that I have now to set Christian Ignorance. I begin by\nasking learned Theologians to forgive the freedom of my thoughts\nand of my speech; I feel for them a sincere sentiment of respect,\nlet me say brotherly respect; for in the question to which I\naddress myself I am now to deal with Christians. But actuated by\nthe same feeling as that which influenced me when I was before\nspeaking of the relation of the sacred writings to human science,\nI must declare my profound conviction that the subject which is\nhere being treated is of pressing interest to Christian Religion\nin the great struggle in which it is engaged.\n\nThe Christian Religion is founded upon facts, upon an\nuninterrupted series of facts recorded in documents which exist.\nWhether the authenticity or the authority of any part of these\ndocuments, the reality or even the possibility of any of the\nfacts which they contain is admitted or contested, it is not the\nless true that Christianity is not, as Greek Paganism was, a\npoetical mythology attributed to fabulous times; as the religion\nof Zoroaster was, a personification of the great forces and of\nthe great phenomena of nature; or as the writings of Confucius\nwere, a collection of philosophical meditations, and of moral\nprecepts and counsels, for the use of wise and simple, of princes\nand subjects.\n{142}\nI am far from contesting that poetry and philosophy, human\nimagination and human meditation, have their share in the books\nwhich form the documents of Christianity; it is at the same time\nincontestable, however, that the peculiar and essential\ncharacteristic of Christianity, from its very origin down to its\nlatest development, is that it is historical: we behold the\nChristian Religion starting to life, living, traversing\ncenturies, growing great and independent, just as we behold civil\nsociety doing, in a series of facts which succeed to one another\nand are different from one another. Christianity is not merely a\nreligious doctrine; it is the history of the events wherein have\nbeen manifested the relations of God to man, and the action of\nGod upon the destinies of Mankind.\n\n{143}\n\nIn proportion to the vigour with which these events have\ndeveloped and spread themselves, the human mind has been exposed\nto two temptations, which constitute at once its honour and its\nperil, the temptation of explanation and that of controversy.\n\nWhat an undertaking! to explain God! his relation to man! the\nmeans and the process of his action upon man! Even when he essays\nto study, and to describe, the Nature of the God in whom he\nbelieves, Man's vision is troubled by the dazzling light; his\nthought exhausts itself, loses itself in the vain effort to\nattain, by means of comparisons and figures of all kinds, to the\nDivine Person: he conceives that person, he affirms that person,\nhe contemplates that person, and yet that person he cannot know,\ncannot explain. The nearer he feels himself to God, the more does\nMan cast his eyes down, the more lowly does he incline himself,\nto adore, where he cannot pretend to observe. Even the very\npresence of God does not aid man in attaining to the science of\nGod. What, then, the result where he would seek closely to follow\nthe agency of God in the facts in which he only sees Him\nimperfectly,--where he attempts to carry the torch of human\nscience into the depths of the secrets of Divine action?\n\n{144}\n\nI here enter into the domain which Christianity ignores. Two\nexamples will fully suffice, I hope, to make my meaning clear.\n\nThe Divinity of Jesus, God's incarnation in Jesus, Jesus God and\nMan, these are the truths admitted, proclaimed, incessantly\nrepeated in different forms, by the Gospels and the primitive\ndocuments of Christianity. I have already said [Footnote 38] that\n\"it is the fact itself of the Incarnation which constitutes the\nChristian faith, and which rises above all definitions and all\ntheological controversies. To disregard this fact--to deny the\ndivinity of Jesus Christ--is to deny, to overthrow the Christian\nreligion, which would never have been what it is, and would never\nhave accomplished what it has, but that the Divine Incarnation\nwas its principle, and Jesus Christ--God and Man--its author.\"\n\n    [Footnote 38: Meditations on the Essence of\n    Christianity. Second Meditation, pp. 75, 76.]\n\n{145}\n\nBut Christians have not confined themselves to the belief of this\nsublime truth; they have striven to explain it; they have sought\nto know and to define how, and when, the divine nature and the\nhuman nature became united in Jesus Christ, to what extent such\nunion took place, and what effect it produced upon Christ's\npersonality. Hence all the questions, all the controversies,\nwhich were raised as to the mode and the consequences of the\ndivine incarnation, by Nestorius and Eutyches, and which in the\ncouncils of Constantinople, of Ephesus and Chalcedon, divided and\nagitated the Christian Church, especially in the East.\n\nMan had here essayed to construct a science of Religion and of\ndivine History.\n\nThe Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles, as\nunanimously and persistently as they have proclaimed the\nIncarnation, contain and proclaim another great truth of\nChristianity, the co-existence of the Father, Son, and Holy\nGhost, and their combined action upon the human soul.\n{146}\nThe Trinity is written in the New Testament, where it takes its\nplace in the history and in the Faith of Christ from their very\nbeginning. Here, again, men have refused to restrict themselves\nto History, or to a belief in History; they have essayed to\ndetermine the elements, and to explain the \"quomodo\" of the\nreligions truth; in other words, to transform history into\nscience. Hence all the controversies, all the contests, all the\nauthoritative decisions which have pretended to fix the nature,\nrank, and relations of the three Divine persons, or the manner of\nthe one God's existence and action in the Trinity of Father, Son,\nand Holy Ghost.\n\nI enter into none of these controversies; I examine none of the\ndoctrines and decisions which those controversies have either\noriginated, or disputed; I now only seek to determine their\nessential character; it is the transition from divine truth to\nhuman science: it is Theology, the offspring, more or less\nlegitimate, of Religion.\n\n{147}\n\nWhen I say its offspring more or less legitimate, and speak of\nTheological science in these guarded terms, it is not that I do\nnot design to say openly all that I think upon the subject. The\nscientific Theology of Christianity commands often my admiration,\nalways my respect. In their effort to explain the grand facts of\nthe Old and New Testament, its writers have addressed themselves\nto a glorious task; they have in pursuing it fallen upon and\nthrown light upon sublime truths; they have engaged for the cause\nof Christianity in formidable contests; they have lent a moral\ninfluence often pregnant of effect to the institutions and\nauthorised teachers of Christ's religion. But their efforts have\nbeen even more ambitious than energetic, more compromising than\nefficacious; they have, even with the words unceasingly in their\nmouths, shown an ignorance of the limits of human science. The\nChristian Religion is a miracle, the miraculous work of God; this\nwas the point from which they started, their fundamental datum;\nforgetting what they have so affirmed, they have sought and they\nhave thought to ensure the triumph of the divine truth by\nexplaining it; they have obscured and changed it by an\nintermixture of man's work.\n{148}\nMan can recognise as realities the facts which are at the same\ntime both Christian dogmas and Christian mysteries. Man can\nrecognise his own subjection to them, but it is not given to man\nto make of them a science.\n\nBossuet also essayed to fathom the Trinity; in the midst of his\nexplanations and of his comparisons, he stops short and exclaims:\n\"I do not know who can vaunt that he understands that perfectly,\nor who can satisfy himself as to what the modes of being can add\nto being, or as to whence arises their distinction in the unity\nand the identity which they have with the being itself. All this\nis not very comprehensible; all this, nevertheless, is truth.\"\n[Footnote 39]\n\n    [Footnote 39: \u00c9l\u00e9vations sur les Myst\u00e8res.\n    Works of Bossuet, vol. ix., p. 49.]\n\nThus after this final effort of his genius, it was in Christian\nignorance that the last great doctor of the Church was forced to\ntake refuge.\n\n{149}\n\nIt is not only that these attempts of Scientific Theology are\nunsuccessful, they entail, as experience painfully shows, a\nserious danger. Pride is the ordinary companion of science, and\nwhat pride equal to the pride of the science which dares to\nbelieve that it has penetrated the secrets of God's action and of\nman's destiny! Scientific Theology has had the greatest share in\nreligious persecutions; its doctors have had to defend not only\ntheir faith but their system, not only God's work but their own\nwork and this simultaneously. Those whose systems were the most\nlogical have generally been the most tyrannical; history in this\nrespect fully confirms what independently of history might fairly\nbe presumed; namely, that supposing the faith equal, \"Christian\nignorance\" is far more naturally and readily inclined to\nmoderation and charity than Theological science.\n\nBut it is not only the scientific Theologians whose ambition and\nefforts have led them to mount beyond the sphere of human\nscience; others there are who fall in a different manner into the\nsame error and the same peril.\n{150}\nThe Mystic Theologians ask for light as to the relations of God\nto man, not from dialectics and reasoning, but from sentiment and\ninspiration. They admit between God and man a direct and\nmysterious communication, which, in certain cases and upon\ncertain conditions, conveys to the human being divine revelations\nof a character personal and individual. With this torch in the\nhand they approach the questions which concern grace, prayer, and\nthe destiny awarded by Providence to each creature, and flatter\nthemselves that they are able to raise the veil by which the\nsolution of such questions is hidden.\n\nI cannot contemplate without profound emotion these pious\nimpulses of the human soul, desirous of penetrating the secrets\nof God. What more excusable than that ardent and trembling\ncuriosity in the midst of the darkness of our life and destiny?\nWhoever believes really in God cannot fail to believe himself\nunder the eye and in the power of God; how, indeed, would it be\npossible for him to admit that his Creator is indifferent and\npowerless?\n{151}\nThere are, it may be added, very few who, at certain moments and\nunder certain circumstances, have not felt, in the innermost\nrecesses of their being, a stirring, an impulsion, not proceeding\nfrom themselves, nor from the world around them, inexplicable to\nthem, except as proceeding from a superior source and power. Who\nof us has not, in the course of his life, been sometimes aware of\na design foreign to his own volition, his own forecast,\nconducting him to an end which he did not forecast? And, finally,\nin the infinite number of prayers rising to God from the midst of\nhuman misery and suffering, are there not some to which the event\nbrings satisfaction, just as there are others with respect to\nwhich the contrary is the case? Hence the problems of the divine\nGrace, the divine Providence, the efficacy of prayer. No doubt\nthe desire is very natural which passionately aspires to solve\nproblems so grand, and which, in the hope to do so, strives to\nrise to a direct and personal communication with their Divine\nauthor.\n{152}\nBut the more natural the desire, the more profound the error. No\ndoubt God acts upon us, upon our soul, and upon our destiny, by\nhis providence and by his grace; no doubt he hears and listens to\nour prayers; but it is not given to us to foresee his action and\nhis answer, nor to appreciate them in their motives and their\neffects. \"The ways of God are not our ways.\" Whether general\nproblems are submitted to man's intelligence, or questions\ntouching him personally trouble his soul; whether the Doctors of\nTheology construct systems, or the Mystic Theologians fall into\necstasies, we see in all these cases that man has arrived at\nlimits which oppose an effectual barrier to his scientific\nvision, and which no transports of piety will ever enable him to\noverleap. Beyond those limits, the condition imposed by God upon\nman is confidence in spite of ignorance; or in other words,\n\"Christian Ignorance\" which is gage at once for his wisdom, his\ncharity, and his liberty.\n\n{153}\n\n           Fifth Meditation.\n\n           Christian Faith.\n\n\nForty years ago, upon the appearance of a work of the Abb\u00e9\nBautain, entitled \"The Morality of the Gospel compared with the\nMorality of the Philosophers,\" I published, in the \"Revue\nFran\u00e7aise,\" an essay upon that state of the human soul which is\ncalled Faith, upon the different intellectual facts which it\nexpresses, and the different ways by which man attains to it.\nAlthough my special subject, at present, is no longer Faith in\nits abstract sense, but of Faith in Christ, it is not foreign to\nmy purpose to lay before readers in the year 1868 some passages\nwhich appeared in my essay in 1828. For notwithstanding the\nimperfection of the essay referred to, I have not ceased to\nregard it as founded on just reasoning; it serves as a\nstarting-point for that Meditation upon Christian Faith which I\nnow give to the press.\n\n{154}\n\nBy the word faith is commonly understood a certain belief in\nfacts or dogmas of a special nature--in facts or dogmas of\nreligion. This word, indeed, has only this meaning, when in\nspeaking of _the faith_ the term is used alone and\nabsolutely. This, however, is neither its sole meaning, nor its\nfundamental meaning; it has a still more extended sense from\nwhich its religious sense is derived. Expressions like the\nfollowing are met with:--\"I have full _faith_ in your words;\nthis man has _faith_ in himself--in his strength--in his\nfortune, &c.\" This employment of the word _faith_ in secular\nmatters, so to say, occurs more frequently in the present day; it\nis, however, no recent invention, and religious ideas have never\nbeen so exclusively its sphere that the word faith has not had\nalso other significations attached to it.\n\n{155}\n\nIt appears, then, by the usages of common speech and popular\nopinion, 1st, that the word _faith_ designates a certain\ninternal condition of the person who believes, and not merely a\ncertain species of belief: that it refers to the nature itself of\nthe conviction, not to its object; 2ndly, that this word was,\nnevertheless, in its origin, and still is, more generally applied\nto those kinds of belief termed religious. What then, in its\nspecial and ordinary application to religious belief, are the\nvariations which have taken place in its meaning, and which are\ntaking place every day?\n\nMen engaged in teaching and preaching a religion, a doctrine, a\nreligious reform, sometimes whilst appealing to the whole energy\nof the human mind in its state of liberty, succeed in producing\nin their disciples an entire, profound, and powerful conviction\nof the truth of their teaching. This conviction is called\n_Faith_; a name which neither masters and disciples will\nrepudiate, nor even their adversaries disallow.\n{156}\nFaith then is only a profound and imperious conviction of the\ntruth of a dogma of religion; it matters little whether the\nconviction has been acquired by way of reasoning, or has been\ngenerated by controversy, or by free and rigorous examination;\nthat which gives to it its character, and entitles it to the name\nof _Faith_, is its energy, is the empire which that energy\ngives to it over the whole man. Such at every time was the faith\nof the great Reformers, and more especially in the sixteenth\ncentury, such the faith of their most illustrious disciples, of\nCalvin after Luther, and Knox after Calvin.\n\nThe same men have preached the same doctrine to persons whom it\nwas impossible for them to convince by the use of reasoning, by\nan appeal to examination, or to science, to women and crowds of\npersons incapable alike of laborious study and of lengthened\nreflection. They spoke to the imagination, to the moral\naffections, where the persons whom they addressed were prone to\nfeel emotion, and to believe in consequence of emotion. They gave\nthe name of _Faith_ to the result of their action, just as\nthey had done so to the result of the process essentially\nintellectual of which I was before speaking.\n{157}\nFaith thus instilled was a religious conviction, not acquired by\nreasoning, and deriving its origin in human sensibility. This is\nthe idea of faith as entertained by the Mystic Sects.\n\nAppeals to human sensibility and human emotion have not always\nsufficed to generate faith. Another spring of human influence has\nbeen resorted to; and men have been commanded to adhere to\npractices and to form habits. Man must sooner or later attach\nideas to the acts which are habitual to him, and attribute a\nmeaning to that which produces in him a constant effect. The mind\nwas led to the belief of the principles which had given birth to\ncertain practices and habits. A new kind of faith appeared, it\nhad for its principle and dominant characteristic, the submission\nof the mind to an authority invested with the right at once to\ngovern man's life and to regulate his thought.\n\n{158}\n\nFinally, faith has not everywhere nor constantly been generated\nin the human mind, either by the free exercise of the\nintelligence, or by appeals to sensibility, or by the formation\nof habits. It was then said that faith was incommunicable, that\nit was not in man's power to impart faith, or to acquire it by\nany exertion of his own, that for this purpose God's intervention\nand the action of his grace were necessary. Divine grace became\nthus the preliminary condition of faith and its definitive\ncharacter.\n\nThe word _faith_ has, consequently, in turn expressed: 1st,\na conviction acquired by the free efforts of the human\nintelligence; 2ndly, a conviction acquired by way of the\nsensibility, and without the concurrence of the reason, and often\neven against its authority; 3rdly, a conviction acquired by man's\nlong submission to a power invested with a power from on high to\ncommand conviction; 4thly, a conviction induced by supernatural\nmeans,--by divine grace.\n\n{159}\n\nWhat in the midst of this variety of sources from which it may\nemanate is the essential and invariable character of faith? What\nis the state of the soul in which faith reigns when we consider\nit independently of its origin and of its object?\n\nTwo kinds of belief exist in man: the one, I will not call it\ninnate, for this is an inexact and justly criticised expression,\nbut a belief natural and spontaneous which springs up and\nestablishes itself in the mind of man, if not without his being\naware of it, at least without the help of any reflection or\nvolition on his part, by the development alone of his nature and\nthe influence of that external world in the midst of which his\nlife is passed; the other kind of belief is the result of\nlaborious examination and reflection, the fruit of voluntary\nstudy and of the power possessed by man either to concentrate all\nhis faculties upon a certain object with the design of mastering\nit, or to direct the thought inwards, and realise what is there\ntaking place--to render an account thereof to himself, and thus\nto acquire by an act of volition and of reflection, a knowledge\nwhich he did not before possess, although the facts which form\nits object nevertheless existed as facts external--and which he\nmight see by his eyes,--or as facts which were taking place\nwithin him.\n\n{160}\n\nOf these two kinds of belief which merits the name of\n_faith_?\n\nIt seems at first sight that the name is perfectly suitable to\nthat kind of belief which I have termed natural and spontaneous:\nsuch belief is exempt from doubt and disquietude; it directs man\nin his judgment, in his actions, and with an empire which he\ndreams neither of eluding nor contesting; it is ingenuous,\nunhesitating, practical, sovereign; who would not recognise in it\nthe characteristics of _faith?_\n\nFaith has in effect two characters; but it has at the same time\nothers which belief natural and spontaneous has not. Almost\nunnoticed by the man who is yet guided by it, this natural and\nspontaneous belief is to him, as it were, a law from without\nwhich he has received, not accepted; which he obeys by instinct\nwithout having given it any intimate and personal assent.\n{161}\nIt suffices for the exigencies of his life; it guides him,\nadmonishes him, impels him, or checks him; but without, so to\nsay, any concurrence on his own part, without giving birth in him\nto the sentiment that any active, energetic, or powerful\nprinciple is stirring within him, without procuring him the\nprofound joy of contemplating, loving, adoring the truth which\nreigns over him. _Faith_, on the contrary, has this power;\nfaith is not science, neither is it ignorance; the mind which\nfaith penetrates has never yet, perhaps, rendered a true account\nto itself of that in which it has faith; and, perhaps, never will\ndo so; but the mind is, nevertheless, certain of it; to the mind\nit is present, living; it is no longer a general belief, a law of\nhuman nature which governs the moral man, as the law of\ngravitation governs bodies; it is a personal conviction, a truth\nwhich the moral man has made his own by force of contemplation,\nof voluntary obedience, and love. Henceforth this truth does much\nmore than suffice to his life, it satisfies his soul; it does\nmuch more than direct him, it enlightens him.\n{162}\nHow many, for instance, live under the empire of a natural and\ninstinctive belief that moral good and moral evil exist, without\nour being able to affirm that they have _faith_ in them.\nSuch belief is in them, as it were, a master undisputed; to whom,\nnevertheless, they render no homage, whom they obey without\nseeing and without loving. But if a circumstance, a cause,\nhowever trivial, revealing, so to say, the conscience to itself,\nshould attract and fix their attention upon this distinction\nbetween moral good and evil, which is a spontaneous law of their\nnature; should they knowingly acknowledge and accept it as their\nlegitimate master, should their intelligence honour itself by\ncomprehending it, and their liberty do itself honour by obeying\nit; should they feel their soul, as it were, the sanctuary of a\nsacred law, as the focus into which this truth concentrates and\nestablishes itself in order thence to diffuse its rays of light;\nthis is no longer simple natural belief, it is _faith_.\n\n{163}\n\nFaith, then, does not exclusively consist of either of the two\nkinds of belief which at first sight seem to share between them\nthe soul of man; it partakes at once of natural and spontaneous\nbelief and of the belief which is the fruit of reflection and\nscience; yet it differs from each; like the latter, it is\nindividual and intimate; like the former confidant, active,\ndominant. Considered in itself, independently of all comparison\nwith any other particular and analogous state of the intellect,\nfaith is the full security of man in the possession of his\nbelief, as absolved from effort, as exempt from doubt; the path\nwhich the mind has pursued in arriving at it is obliterated, and\na sentiment only is left behind of the natural and pre-existent\nharmony between the mind of man and the truth itself. To the man\nwhose mind faith penetrates, his intelligence and his volition\npresent no longer any problems for solution as to the things\nwhich are the objects of his faith: he feels himself in full\npossession of the truth to light and to guide him on his way, and\nin full possession of himself to act according to the truth.\n{164}\nAs faith has internal characteristics which are peculiar to it,\nit has also, with some strange and rare exceptions, external\nconditions which are necessary to it; it is distinguishable from\nother modes of human belief, not only by its nature, but by its\nobject. Up to a certain point these conditions may be determined\nand perceived, although imperfectly, according to the nature\nitself of that state of the soul and of its effects. A belief may\nbe so entire and sure of itself that no further effort of the\nintellect seems necessary, and the believer, wholly absorbed in\nthe truth which in his judgment he possesses, may lose all memory\nof the way by which he arrived at it. A conviction may be so\nforcible as to become master of his every action, as well as of\nevery impulse of his mind, and may imperatively force and morally\noblige him to submit all things to its empire; a state this of\nthe intellect which is the fruit, perhaps, not merely of the\nexercise of the intelligence, but of a strong emotion, of a long\nobedience to certain practices, and in the midst of which all the\nthree great faculties of man, the sensibility, the intelligence,\nand the will, are simultaneously in activity, and simultaneously\nsatisfied.\n{165}\nWhere all this is the case, the occasion which has induced such a\nsituation of the soul, had need be one worthy of the soul, and of\nits situation; the subject with which it is so occupied, had need\nbe one which embraces the entire man, which sets in play all his\nfaculties; responding to all the requirements of his moral\nnature, it has a right in return to all his devotedness.\n\nThe characteristics of ideas proper to become really a faith\nwould seem _\u00e0 priori_ to be intellectual beauty, and\npractical importance. An idea which should present itself to the\nmind as true, without at the same time striking it by the extent\nor the gravity of its consequences, might produce certitude; but\nthe name of _faith_ would not be suitably applied to it.\n{166}\nNor would the practical merit, or the immediate utility of an\nidea suffice of itself to generate faith; to do so it must also\nattract, it must also take possession of the human mind by the\npure beauty of truth. In other words, in order that a simple\nbelief, whether instinctive, or arising from reflection, may\nbecome faith, the thing believed must be of a nature to procure\nto man the united joys of contemplation and of activity, to\nawaken in him the twofold sentiment, that it is of lofty origin\nand of potent influence; his idea must be such as that he shall\nbe induced to regard it as a medium between the ideal world and\nthe real world, as a missionary charged to model the one upon the\nother, and to unite them.\n\nIt is easy to understand why the name of faith is used almost\nexclusively to characterise religious beliefs; no other belief\npossesses in so high a degree the two characteristics, [Footnote\n40] which provoke the development of faith.\n\n    [Footnote 40: Intellectual beauty and practical importance.]\n\n{167}\n\nMany principles of science are beautiful and fruitful in useful\napplications; political theories may strike the mind by the\nelevation of the ideas which they embody, and by the grandeur of\ntheir results; the doctrines of a pure morality are still more\nsurely and more commonly invested with this double power. Nor\nhave these kinds of belief failed sometimes to generate faith in\nthe human soul. Still, to receive a clear and profound impression\nat one time of their intellectual beauty, at another of their\npractical importance, a certain measure of science and of\nsagacity, or a certain turn for public life, or for politics, as\nthe case may require, is almost always necessary, and this does\nnot belong to all men, nor to every epoch. Religious belief, on\nthe contrary, has no need of such resources: it carries in\nitself, and in its very nature, infallible means of effect;\nhaving once penetrated into the heart of man, however limited and\nundeveloped in other respects his intelligence may be, or however\nrude and low his condition, it seems to him a truth at once\nsublime and usual, a truth which addresses itself to him as an\nhabitant of this earth, and at the same time which opens to him\naccess to those lofty regions, to those treasures of intellectual\nlife, which without the light of faith he would have never known;\nit has for him the charm of the purest truth, and exercises over\nhim the empire of the most powerful interest.\n{168}\nCan it astonish us, that the belief once existent, its transition\nto a state of _faith_ should be so rapid and so general? But\nit is precisely on account of its instinctive tendency to\ntransform itself into faith, and into a faith of extraordinary\nenergy, that religious belief has need to continue always free\nand always subject to the tests which Liberty has the right to\nimpose. Legitimate faith, that is, as we understand it, the faith\nwhich does not deceive itself as to its objects, and which\naddresses itself really to the truth, is beyond contradiction the\nloftiest condition to which the human mind, in its present state,\ncan attain, for it is that state in which man feels his moral\nnature fully satisfied, in which he gives himself up entirely to\nthe mission prescribed to him by his thought.\n{169}\nBut a faith may be illegitimate; it is possible for this state of\nthe soul to be produced by error; the chance of error (experience\nproves this at every step) is even here greater, the more the\ndifferent routes which lead to faith are multiplied and the more\nits effects are energetic; man may be led astray in his faith by\nhis sentiments, by his habits, by the empire of moral affections\nor of external circumstances, as well as by the defect or the\nabuse of his intellectual faculties; for his faith may spring\nfrom any of these various sources. Nevertheless, faith once\nthere, it is daring and ambitious; it passionately aspires to\ndiffuse itself, to usurp, to reign, and constitute itself the law\nof opinions and facts. Not only is faith ambitious, it is strong,\nit possesses, it displays, in support of its pretensions and its\ndesigns, an energy, an address, a perseverance, which are almost\nalways wanting to opinions simply scientific. So that for this\nmode and degree of conviction and belief, far more than for any\nother, there is chance of the individual falling into error, and\nof society falling under oppression.\n\n{170}\n\nFor these perils there is but one remedy, Liberty. Whether in\nbelief or in action, the nature of man is the same: not only his\nwill but his thought, if it is not to become absurd or culpable,\nhas incessantly need of contradiction and of control. Where faith\nfails, moral energy and moral dignity fail equally; where liberty\ndoes not exist, faith first usurps,--then becomes\nbewildered--finally destroys itself. If human belief passes to\nthe state of faith, it is its progress and its glory; if, in its\nefforts toward this result, and after having attained it, it\nabides constantly under the control of the free intelligence; we\nhave, in this fact, at once a guarantee for society against the\ntyranny of that faith and a pledge that the faith is legitimate.\nIn the co-existence and mutual respect of these two forces\nconsist the excellency and security of society. [Footnote 41]\n\n    [Footnote 41: Revue Fran\u00e7aise (January, 1828), M\u00e9ditations et\n    \u00c9tudes Morales, par M. Guizot, pp. 143, 173-175 (edition of\n    1861).]\n\n{171}\n\nIf I consider this essay, or psychological portrait, shall I\nrather call it, of faith in general, and compare with it\nChristian faith, I am immediately struck by two features as\ncharacterising it. On the one side, the ideas and the facts upon\nwhich Christian faith is founded, have evidently that twofold\nmerit of intellectual beauty and of practical importance which\nhas both the right and the power to compel faith. On the other\nside, Christian faith may originate, in fact does originate, in\nsources the most diverse, in study and rational meditation, in\nsentiment, in authority, in an appeal to the divine grace.\n\nWhat grander and more impressive to the mind of man than the\nprinciples of Christian faith, regarded as a whole? God and Man\nincessantly present the one to the other, in the life of each\nman, as in the history of the human race! What more grave and\nmore momentous, regarded from a practical point of view? In the\npresent hour, it is peace to the soul of man, peace to his life;\nin the future, it is his destiny throughout eternity.\n\n{172}\n\nThe diversity of the sources of Christian faith is not less\nevident than its intellectual beauty and its practical\nimportance. Beyond a doubt, the Christian faith of the Chancellor\nde l'Hospital, of Pascal, of Bossuet, of F\u00e9nelon, of Luther, of\nCalvin, of Newton, of Euler, of Chalmers, was as much the fruit\nof reflection and of learning, was as freely meditated and\nadopted as the scepticism of Montaigne and of Bayle, as the\nsensualism of Hobbes, and the pantheism of Spinoza. It is equally\ncertain that all Christian communities, Roman Catholic or\nProtestant, have had their mystics, their eminent and sincere\nbelievers, whose faith was illumed and fed by sensibility and\nimagination; in the former case in the emotions and practices of\nfervent piety; in the latter, in empassioned transports and\nstrivings after a direct communication with God and with Christ.\nAs for the faith founded upon authority, the Church of Rome has\npresented the most extraordinary example which the world has ever\nseen, and if Protestantism has caused the faith of individuals to\nmake great strides in the direction of liberty, it has\nnevertheless taken for its fixed basis the divine inspiration of\nthe Sacred Book, and has thus ensured a great importance and very\nefficacious influence to the principle of authority.\n\n{173}\n\nHaving thus placed Christian Faith in its true point of view, and\nassigned to it its just rank in the history of the human soul,\nlet us see whence arises the contest in which that Faith is\nengaged with natural Religion and with religious philosophy? What\nis the principle of this contest, and what its character?\n\nHere we are met by that all-important question, the question\nwhich has been agitated during nineteen centuries, and to which\nall the intellect of modern times has applied itself. Is the\nChristian Faith in contradiction to human reason? Some affirm\nthat a contest between the two is natural and inevitable; of\nthese there are who tell us that reason should give way to faith,\nand again others who say that faith should yield to reason:\nwhereas, on the contrary, there are those also who deny that such\ncontest is inevitable, and who maintain that faith and reason, as\nthey ought to do, may both live in peace with each other.\n\n{174}\n\nIn my opinion, the difference between Christian Faith and that\nwhich is styled natural Religion, or religious philosophy, is\nprofound; but I do not think that the question between the two\nhas been rightly put, or that the character of their opposition\nhas been rightly defined.\n\nTo discover what, in effect, this character is, I address myself,\nfirst, to the philosophers.\n\nWe know how Descartes began his great philosophical inquiries, to\nwhat state he brought his mind in order to enter upon his task:\n\"I persuaded myself,\" says he, \"that I could not do better with\nrespect to the opinions which up to that time I had entertained,\nthan to begin by ridding myself of them entirely, in order then\neither to replace them by better opinions, or to return to the\nold ones if I should find them, on examination, to conform to the\nstandard of reason.\"\n{175}\nThen proceeding to determine the precepts to be followed by him\nin this recasting of all his opinions by such standard,--\"My\nfirst principle,\" said he, \"was never to accept anything as true,\nunless I could evidently recognise its truth; in other words, to\navoid carefully any precipitate judgment, to allow my mind to\nfollow no bias, and not to comprise anything in its judgments but\nwhat presented itself so clearly and so distinctly to my mind as\nto leave me no room for doubt.\" [Footnote 42]\n\n    [Footnote 42: Discours de la M\u00e9thode. Works of Descartes,\n    vol. i., pp. 135, 141; edition of M. Cousin.]\n\nMore than a century after Descartes, Condillac, wishing to trace\nto its source the origin of human knowledge, and to write the\nhistory of its progressive development, did far more than\nobliterate from his mind its primitive ideas. He began his\nlabours by curtailing the human mind of a great part of its\nproper proportions; he reduced man to the primitive condition of\na statue, leaving to it no other faculty than the sensation: and\nthen he fancied he could derive from sensations all man's ideas,\nall his knowledge,--in fact, the entire man himself.\n\n{176}\n\nThus these two great systems, Spiritualism and Sensualism, have\ntheir very commencement, each in an arbitrary assumption.\nDescartes, effacing from the human mind all that it has learnt to\nknow or to believe, solely by its spontaneous activity, and by\nthe natural course of human life, has treated the mind as a\n_tabula rasa_, and to fill up the void which he has so made,\nhe does not admit anything there unless it presents itself \"so\nclearly and so distinctly to his mind, as to leave him no room to\ndoubt respecting it.\" Condillac, on the other hand, suppresses\nnot only all that which man has learnt spontaneously and without\nreflection, but the man himself; leaving in the place of man a\nstatue, sentient, it is true, but only sentient, and with this\nstatue and his sensations alone, he undertakes to reconstruct the\nman--the entire man--with all the developments of his nature and\nof his thought.\n\n{177}\n\nI see nothing in either of these processes more than a starting\npoint entirely fictitious, a false step made at the very\ncommencement of philosophy,--in short, a mere hypothesis.\nDescartes rendered admirable services to the cause of liberty and\nof intellectual sincerity; Condillac contributed to the progress\nof the method which I shall call, the method of anatomy and\nscientific dissection applied both to the human mind and to the\nmaterial world; but from their very commencement both these\nphilosophers threw themselves out of the high road, the straight\nroad of philosophy; each from the very commencement substituted a\nmere hypothesis in the place of an exact and complete\nappreciation of facts. It is far from my intention to discuss\neither of these two systems; I am content to put aside the two\nhypotheses, the _tabula rasa_ of Descartes, and the statue\nof Condillac, and I proceed, my way lighted by the facts, as they\nare, naturally produced in the history of the mind of man, to\ninquire what is the cause, and what the import, of the struggle\nwhich is taking place between rationalistic religious philosophy,\nand Christian faith.\n\n{178}\n\nThe true point of departure of this history and the first of the\nfacts which show themselves there, is the co-existence of man and\nthe universe, spectator and spectacle, the one confronting the\nother, the \"_moi_\" and the \"_non moi_,\" the subject and\nthe object, in the language of philosophy. I hasten to say that I\nrepudiate absolutely the different systems,--Pantheism, whether\nmaterialistic or idealistic,--Scepticism, whether idealistic or\nabsolute,--which refuse to admit this primary fact, deny the\nreality of the external world, or the legitimacy of the knowledge\nof it which the understanding acquires, see only illusions in the\nrelations of man to the universe, or absorb man and the universe\ntogether, in the confusion and the obscure darkness of a\npretended identity. I do not dream of here discussing these\ndifferent systems; if I engaged in such discussion, I should have\nto deal with something very different from the question to which\nI am applying myself at this moment.\n{179}\nHere I have only to do with Rationalistic Spiritualism. This form\nof Spiritualism has so much in common with Christianity, that it\nadmits the reality and the distinction of the \"_moi_\" and of\nthe \"_non moi_\" of the subject and the object, of the\nspectator and the spectacle, of spirit and matter, of man and the\nuniverse. For Rationalistic Spiritualists as well as for\nChristians, this is the great fact in the midst of which, and\nunder the empire of which, man's intelligence is developed, man's\nlife passed. Man is there passive, active, and witness, all\nsimultaneously. As spectator he receives impressions from the\nspectacle, which both prompt him to act, and which stir his being\nfrom within; he is witness both to what is passing within himself\nand to what is passing without himself. Notwithstanding the\ndiversity and the mobility of the impressions which he receives\nfrom without, and of the acts which he originates himself, he has\na consciousness of his own personal and permanent existence, and\nalso the consciousness of existences other than his own; he knows\nnot, by the way of reasoning or hypothesis, but by instinctive\nand immediate intuition, that which, although it is not himself,\nyet acts upon himself as something coming from himself.\n{180}\nMan discovers the external world as he becomes aware of himself,\nby the intercommunication which takes place between them, and\nwhich, nevertheless, shows him how distinct from himself is that\nexternal world. He observes and notes both what takes place\nwithout him and within him. The results of this observation he\nterms facts, nor are they for him vain appearances, creations\nmerely of his thought or volition; they are manifestations to him\nof realities independent of himself, and yet to which he stands\nin relation; they are bonds of union in which he feels that he is\nhighly interested, not merely as any curious spectator might be,\nbut as a real being; interested, not merely for the sake of\nscience, but interested as one whose very destiny is therein\ninvolved.\n\n{181}\n\nAmongst these facts, in their nature so numerous and so diverse,\nI only select those which concern the religious instincts of man,\nor the questions which they suggest. I admit two kinds of these;\nfirst, the spontaneous and common religious beliefs, which\nmankind professes, although under very different forms and in\nvery different degrees; secondly, the theories and systems of\nphilosophy, emanating from and promulgated by philosophers in\norder to bring under discussion the popular religious opinions,\nand to resolve the questions which they involve. On the one side\nis the natural and instinctive religion of humanity; on the other\nis human science, which, when it addresses itself to the task of\ndisengaging natural religion from every system of mythology, is\ncalled religious philosophy.\n\nAre there in the nature and in the religious history of men no\nother great facts besides these instincts of humanity, and these\nsystems of human science? Natural Religion with its mythologies,\nand religious philosophy with its systems, are these all the\nreligious aid accorded to man to enlighten him upon subjects of\nreligion?\n\n{182}\n\nTo the question thus formalised, Rationalistic Spiritualism says,\nYes; whereas Christian Faith replies, No.\n\nIn addition to the facts to which I have just referred, viz., the\ninstinctive beliefs of mankind, and the systemised doctrines of\nhuman science concerning religion, the Christian faith admits and\nproclaims another great religious fact, the real and active\npresence of God in the life of man and in the history of\nhumanity. What the Christian faith affirms is, that the real and\nactive presence of God, in man's life, amidst the mysteries of\nProvidence, of prayer, and of grace, and the real and active\npresence of God in the history of the human race, amidst the\nmysteries of Revelation, of Inspiration, of the Incarnation, and\nof the Redemption, do not constitute simply a poetical mythology,\nare not merely hypotheses of philosophy, but are psychological\nand historic facts which human science cannot explain, but which\nit nevertheless can, nay, is bound to recognise.\n\n{183}\n\nNot philosophers only, but the whole human race, believers and\ndisbelievers, are placed in the same permanent position in which\nall originally stood; that is to say, Man stands always\nconfronting the Universe, Man always at once spectator and actor,\ngreedy to know and comprehend the spectacle on which he is\nlooking, and of which he himself forms part. The spectacle is\nimmense, infinite; the spectator petty, imperfect, ephemeral,\ndiverse, and with limited powers of vision. Accordingly as he is\nsituated, accordingly as he is disposed and his intelligence\nreaches, he sees to a greater or less distance, and with a vision\nmore or less accurate, all that the spectacle presents. He\nobserves more or less completely, more or less exactly, the facts\nwhich are occurring there. Hence the differences of opinion\namongst mankind. Who are they amongst them who succeed best in\nappreciating and in describing these facts without altering their\ncharacter or omitting any? This is the fundamental question, the\nquestion antecedent to and which governs all the others.\n\n{184}\n\nThe contest, then, between Christians and non-Christians, is not\na contest between Faith and Reason. Reason occupies a place, and\na large place, in the Faith of Christians; they attain to faith\nas well by reason as by sentiment or authority; nor is there, at\nthe same time, in the negations or the doubts of non-Christians,\nas much reflection and as much accurate observation as they\nthemselves suppose. Are Christians right in affirming not only\nthe existence of God, but his real and active presence in the\nlife of man and in the history of the human race? Are these\npsychological and historic facts which reason and science are\nbound to admit? Or are the Deists who are not Christians\njustified in denying these facts and in limiting God to existence\nalone, and in treating him as subject to the general and\npermanent laws assigned to all other existences?\n\n{185}\n\nAs far as Christianity and Rationalistic Spiritualism are\nconcerned, this is the real question at issue.\n\nHaving pointed out the source of the differences of opinion which\nwe find amongst men, I will now indicate their consequences.\n\nRationalistic Spiritualism affirms the existence of God, and\nthose who follow this system evince the strongest desire to\ndemonstrate his existence. They are right; for the existence of\nGod, and the rational consequences of his existence, form all\ntheir natural religion, all their religious philosophy. In these\ndays, men of minds, as eminent as sincere, M. \u00c9mile Saisset, M.\nJules Simon, M. Ernest Bersot, M. de R\u00e9musat, have made\nearnest--I would willingly say pious--efforts to elucidate the\nproposition of God's existence, and to derive from it all the aid\nthat reason can furnish to explain the instincts and satisfy the\nreligious exigencies of humanity. But these Spiritualists deceive\nthemselves. They do not attain to God himself, they only attain\nto the idea of God; what they establish is the admissibility of\nthe intellectual idea, not the presence of a real being.\n{186}\nIn rejecting the psychological and historical facts upon which\nChristianity is founded, that is to say, the relations free and\nunintermitted of God with Man, whether in the individual life of\neach man or in the history of the mankind, Rationalistic\nSpiritualism deprives itself of direct and positive evidence to\nprove God's existence; it places a human argument in the place of\nthe divine manifestation, and a scientific work of man in the\nplace of the real action of God.\n\nIn an excellent book, justly entitled by him \"Idea of God,\"\nanother contemporary philosopher, M. Caro, has valiantly, and\nwith brilliant success, defended this idea against the different\nsystems which reject or distort it. And not limiting himself to\npolemics, he has concluded his work by a forcible and clear\nenunciation of his own thought.\n{187}\n\"It is the living God, the intelligent God, whom we defend\nagainst the God of Naturalism, who would not be more than a law\nof geometry or a blind force; against the God of Hegel, who would\nnot be more than an indeterminate Being, an origin and a\ncommencement of things, or an absolute mind, result at once and\nproduct of the world; against the God of the new Idealists, who,\nto save his divinity, strip him of his reality. We affirm, in\nopposition to all these subtle and hazardous conceptions, that a\nsupposed perfect being, unless he had an existence, would not be\nperfect; that a mere ideal of the mind is not a God; that if he\nis not a substance he is but a conception, a pure category of\nspirit, a creation and dependence upon man's thought which, in\nceasing to exist, annihilates its God; that, if he is not cause,\nhe is the most useless of beings; and if he is cause, he is mind\nsupreme, for were he not so he would be nothing but an\nunconscious and necessary agent, a blind spring of the world,\ninferior to what he produces, since in the organic matter that\nemanates from him, an intelligence displays itself, of which he\nwould possess nothing, and since too in man is manifested a\ndivine Reason.\n\n{188}\n\nAnother remark, and we have done with our definition. This living\nGod, this God intelligent, is also a God that loves ... A God\nthat loved not would not be worthy of being adored ... We do not\nadore a law, however simple it may be, however fruitful in\nconsequence; we do not adore a force if it be blind, however\npotent, however universal it may be; nor an ideal, however pure\nit may be, if it be only an abstraction. We only adore a being\nwho is living perfection, the perfection of reality in its\nhighest forms of mind and love. Every other adoration implies a\ncontradiction if the object is a pure abstraction, idolatry if\nthe object be the substance of the universe or humanity.\n\nThis is God as he appears to reason, and as the religious\nconscience of humanity will have him. This is your God.\"\n[Footnote 43]\n\n    [Footnote 43: L'Id\u00e9e de Dieu et ses Nouveaux Critiques.\n    By E. Caro. p. 498. 8vo. Paris, 1864.]\n\n{189}\n\nIt is to be regretted M. Caro has not carried his conclusions\nstill higher, and completed his work by proceeding on from\nphilosophical spiritualism to Christian Spiritualism.\n\nRationalistic Deism is merely an idea of God, given as the\nphilosophical solution of the grand problem, which the spectacle\nof the Universe and of Man in the Universe causes to weigh upon\nthe soul of man.\n\nChristianity is faith in God, Being real, Sovereign real,\ncontinually present, and active in the government of the\nUniverse, as he is in the soul of man and in the history of the\nhuman race.\n\nRationalistic Deism arrives at the idea of God, and stops short\nthere, because it ignores the psychological and historical facts\nwhich go beyond this idea. It is by holding account of these\nfacts, and by doing to them the homage which is their due, that\nChristianity forwards and justifies her faith.\n\n{190}\n\n           Sixth Meditation.\n\n            Christian Life.\n\n\nEvery doctrine, religious, moral, or political, has yet to submit\nto a test--the great test--the practical application. The idea\nhas to be transformed into reality, the thought to be made life.\n\nPhilosophers pride themselves upon searching only for the truth,\nupon busying themselves only with the theoretical truth of their\nideas, to the neglect of every other consideration. They are\nright in one sense: for the knowledge of truth, of truth as it is\nin itself, is that which the human mind proposes to itself as its\nobject, and is the only thing which can satisfy it; if man\npretends to it, it is his right and his honour to do so: whatever\nthe object of his study, the mind does not halt or rest until it\nbelieves that it has attained to the truth.\n\n{191}\n\nThis is no privilege of philosophers; neither are they the only\nones for whom truth is a law: all men have a right to live under\nits empire, whether as to facts or ideas. No one, not even those\nwho affect most disdain for theory, would venture to lay down the\nprinciple that we should be indifferent whether we are\nessentially in the right, and that practically there is no\ndifference between truth and error.\n\nBut by what signs is truth recognisable? Are there no other than\nthe affirmations of that inquisitive spectator, named the human\nmind? Is it only by language, by reasoning, and by discussion,\nthat the truth of an idea and of a doctrine manifests and proves\nitself?\n\nTo such a pretension, if advanced, I hesitate not to reply with a\ndenial, and in doing so, to repeat what I have just said: every\ndoctrine, religious, moral, or political, has to submit to a\ntest,--the practical application.\n{192}\nThe idea transformed into reality, the thought made the life;\nthese are the most certain signs of an idea being intrinsically\ntrue, these, too, are proofs of its reasonable legitimacy, which\nit is bound to give.\n\nThere is a radical difference between the material world and the\nintellectual world. The laws which regulate and maintain order in\nthe material world, are independent of man, of both his thought\nand his volition. It matters not that he knows these laws, or is\nignorant of them; they do not the less exist and govern; man has\nno power to change, arrest, or suspend their operation; he cannot\ninfluence them. Galileo was right to say of the earth, in spite\nof his judges, \"Still it moves;\" it would have moved even if\nGalileo, as well as his judges, had been ignorant of the fact,\nand the contest between the whirlpool of Descartes and Newton's\nprinciple of attraction, was a matter perfectly indifferent to\nthe general system of the world. _There_ man's error is\nabsolutely without effect or influence.\n\n{193}\n\nIn the intellectual and moral world it is otherwise; here man is\nnot only spectator, he is an actor, an actor free or not to act--\nto act with effect. He thinks and he wills, and so contributes to\nthe facts which take place in the world; he knows, or is ignorant\nof, the laws, he respects or violates the laws which preside\nhere, but which do not preside here as laws external to and\nindependent of himself. Man's errors, man's faults, are not here\nwithout real and serious consequences; they have the power of\nsowing evil and of carrying perturbation into the intellectual\nand moral world, thus delivered up, as the Bible proclaims, to\nthe disputes of men.\n\nLearned men, in the study and appreciation of the material world,\nseparate sciences absolutely, and, considering each apart from\nits practical application, occupy themselves in their scientific\ninvestigations only with the pure theory. This I understand and\nadmit; for such a course does not endanger the security of\nsociety or the results of their own labours.\n{194}\nTheir ignorance and their errors have no doubt grave\ninconveniences; the facts and the forces of the material world\nare either misconceived or not turned sufficiently to account;\nman and human society do not reap all the advantages which the\nprofound and exact knowledge of the truth might, in this respect,\nprocure them. Such ill, although real, is of a negative\ndescription, a good, it may be, missed or postponed; but no\ngeneral disturbance results in that material world upon which\nnaturalists or chemists concentrate their labours; the world will\nnot have to undergo the effect, nor to pay the penalty, of their\nignorance or of their errors. The intellectual and moral world,\non the contrary, runs a greater risk, and imposes upon its\nteachers severer duties; no doubt these study it as freely, and\nmake truth, too, their object; but science does not here escape\nthe weight of its own conclusions; it is a power as formidable in\nits abuse as it is in itself sublime; it may carry into the world\nto which it addresses itself trouble instead of order,\nincendiarism instead of light. If practical application is not\nhere the object of science, it is still its necessary and\nappropriate proof; in facts as in a mirror are reflected the\ntruth or the error, the good or the ill, of human opinions.\n\n{195}\n\nChristianity has now been subjected to this test for nineteen\ncenturies: it is subject to it at this moment, it will continue\never to be so. I need not say that I do not propose to retrace\nhere the narrative of the manner in which it has supported and\nsurmounted that test; that would be to write the History of\nChristianity. I confine myself, on the contrary, to a single\nsmall part of this history, the most modest part, the least\npretending: and shall endeavour to bare a little to the view what\nChristianity, when it has been put into practice, what Christian\nFaith, after it has become Christian Life, has in the different\nsituations of man's life accomplished, and is every day\naccomplishing, for the ennoblement of his nature, and the\nfurtherance of his ultimate destiny.\n\n{196}\n\nThree words, \"_Rights of Man_\" inscribed upon the banners of\nthe French Revolution, constituted its force; the rights of man\nas man, rights by this title alone, by virtue alone of his\nhumanity. Three other words, _Liberty, Equality,\nFraternity_, have served as a commentary upon the three\nformer. It is in the name of these two maxims that the French\nRevolution is making the tour of the world; they are the sources\nof the good and the evil, the movements in advance as well as the\nruinous calamities of our time and of an unknown future.\n\nWhilst all of true and good that these two maxims contain is\nChristian and was proclaimed by Christianity, all that they have\nof false and fatal is condemned and expressly repudiated by\nChristianity. Not only in this terrible confusion does\nChristianity proclaim in principle the part that is good, and\ncondemn in principle the part that is evil; but Christianity\nalone, in point of fact, has the necessary authority and moral\nforce to suppress the evil without at the same time causing the\ngood also to perish.\n\n{197}\n\nIt is a subject to us, in these days, of pride, and of a pride\nthat is just, that we have at last begun to consider man himself,\nthe individual man, his existence, and his personal liberty, his\nrights, and the guarantees of his rights, as the essential\nobjects of social institutions. We have at last emerged from the\nrut of pagan antiquity, glorious at once and rude, where the\nindividual, made wholly subordinate, was sacrificed to the state,\nwhere man was regarded simply as citizen, and thousands of human\ncreatures were degraded and treated as cyphers in favour of a\nsingle class. Men are no longer numbered as Jews and Gentiles,\nRomans and Barbarians, freemen and slaves. Christianity first not\nonly proclaimed but put into practice this important truth. The\nright of every man, as man, the worth of the human soul, and of\nthe human person, irrespectively of his situation in life,\nconstitute the starting-point, the fundamental idea, the dominant\nprecept of the Christian religion.\n{198}\nIt was, in effect, in religious society, in the rising Christian\nChurch, that this principle was first proclaimed, and first put\ninto practice; Christianity treated the relation of man to God as\nthe chief concern of man's life, and religious liberty as the\nchief of human liberties; it was in the presence of God that\nChristians admitted the equal importance of every soul; as it was\namongst Christians themselves that they greeted each other as\nbrethren, and that fraternity engendered charity. But although\nsprung from a source so elevated, and applied at first upon a\nstage so small, the Christian idea was not on that account less\npotent, or less fruitful; in spite of obstacles and reverses it\nmaintained itself, and diffused itself through centuries and over\ndistant countries; it made constant efforts to penetrate civil\nsociety. At the epochs of the history of Christendom which are\nmost to be deplored, in the midst of the oppressions and the\niniquities which have brought desolation upon it, daring voices\nhave never been wanting: at one time it was the voice of the\nChristian Church itself directed against the masters of the\nearth; at another a voice issuing from the bosom of the Church\nitself, full of generous protestations against the disorders and\nacts of violence which were taking place in its own bosom.\n{199}\nJesus, God and man, having raised man before God, man never\nafterwards entirely humiliated and degraded himself before any\nhuman tyranny. In the presence of the greatest inequalities of\nearthly power, the appellation, _brethren_, never ceased to\nbe echoed in Christian Society; and even at this day, after all\nthe progress which equality has made in civil society, it is only\nin religious societies and in Christian Churches that men hear\nthemselves greeted as _brethren_.\n\nThe Christian faith has not only exercised a political influence\nin the state by changing the relations in which individuals stand\nto the political authorities, or in which the different classes\nstand to one another: it has also introduced a change in the\nconstitution of the primary natural and imperishable association,\ncalled family.\n{200}\nThere, also, it has caused to disappear, at one time, the\ndespotism of husband and father; at another, the degradation of\nwife, and the brutal or licentious independence of children. If\nwe give ourselves the trouble to compare the Christian family as\nreligion, laws, and morals have made it, with the family of\nantiquity which was most strongly constituted, namely, the Roman\nfamily,--we shall not need to examine long before we discern\nclearly on which side order really is, on which side the just\nappreciation of natural sentiments, the respect for right and\nliberty.\n\nI have said that at the same time that Christianity proclaims and\nputs in practice all that is true and healthy in the popular\nmaxims of our times, man's rights and liberty, his equality and\nfraternity, it condemns and rejects all that they contain of\nfalse and deplorable. There is one very striking fact in the\nhistory of the foundation of Christianity, a fact traceable not\nmerely in the records of a few years, but through three\ncenturies.\n{201}\nChristianity began with resisting absolute power, and with laying\nclaim to liberty of conscience. It owed its establishment to the\nsame cause. In the Roman world no one any longer made even a show\nof resistance; every kind of oppression was in force, every claim\nto freedom abandoned: the Christians again raised high the banner\nof right, and of resistance in the name of right; but never did\nthey raise their banner to encourage revolt or attacks upon\nauthority; they undertook the defence of liberty against tyranny,\nand never made appeals to insurrection against authority.\nMartyrdom, not murder; such is the sum of the history of\nChristianity from the day of its birth in the manger of Jesus, to\nthe day when it mounted the throne of Constantine. The reason of\nthis is, that from the time when Christianity was yet in its\ncradle, and even afterwards when it was struggling to conquer its\nliberty, liberty was not an exclusive idea for Christians either\nin their doctrines or their lives: they recognised, respected,\nand proclaimed with equal solicitude both principles upon which\nthe moral order of the world reposes, authority and liberty.\n{202}\nThey never, in any respect, sacrificed the one to the other, nor\nhumiliated the one in the presence of the other; masters and\ndisciples, all referred power to its true source, and did homage\nto its right at the same time that they maintained their own\nright against power. When Jesus spoke, the people were astonished\nat his doctrine, \"for he taught as one having authority, and not\nas the Scribes.\" [Footnote 44]\n\n    [Footnote 44: Matthew vii. 29.]\n\nJesus declared formally to his disciples his authority over them,\nand the mission which it imposed upon them: \"Ye have not chosen\nme, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go\nand bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.\"\n[Footnote 45]\n\n    [Footnote 45: John xv. 16.]\n\nAnd when St. Paul, although exposed to all kinds of perils and\nstruggles, spread abroad throughout the Roman Empire the\ndoctrines of Jesus, he said to the new Christians, \"Let every\nsoul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but\nof God: the powers that be are ordained of God. ... Wherefore ye\nmust needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for\nconscience' sake.\" [Footnote 46]\n\n    [Footnote 46: Romans xiii. 1, 5. ]\n\n{203}\n\nNor can I here omit again to cite the words which Jesus himself\naddressed to the Pharisees: \"Render under C\u00e6sar the things which\nare C\u00e6sar's, and unto God the things that are God's.\" [Footnote\n47]\n\n    [Footnote 47: Matthew xxii. 21.]\n\nThe respect for authority as much as for liberty, the right of\npower as well as the right of conscience, the separation of\nreligious life from civil life,--all these were not, for the\nprimitive Christians, simple necessities arising out of their\nsituation, nor simple counsels of prudence; they were principles\nof doctrine and precepts of life, recognised and practised in the\nname of justice and of truth.\n\n{204}\n\nChristian doctrine and Christian practice have been, I know,\ngreatly altered, lost sight of, violated, in the course of the\nhistory of the Christian world. Human nature succumbs readily to\nthe temptations of victory and pleasure; when Christianity once\nbecame powerful it was too often invaded and disfigured by\nearthly interests and passions; ambition, cupidity, pride, the\narrogance of power, and the lies of cunning; every evil\ninclination, every vice which the Christian faith rebukes and\ncombats, displayed themselves in this world which Christianity\nhad not conquered merely to hand it over to them, but from which,\nnevertheless, it had not expelled them. The grand and salutary\ndoctrines of Christianity have been often themselves perverted\nand profaned to the service of an egotism assuming every shape\nand carried to every pitch. Still they never were lost, they\nnever perished in this impure mixture and this unworthy use; they\nsurvived, they combated, sometimes in obscurity, sometimes in the\nbroad light of day; everywhere, at every epoch, Christian voices,\nChristian lives, and Christian Reforms protested and struggled\nagainst the passions and the corruptions of mankind. And in spite\nof all these centuries, so sombre, so full of agitation, of\nviolence, and of oppression, so full of moral and material ill,\nthe decline of man and of human society did not ensue.\n{205}\nGreece and Rome, in their state of youthful growth, were glorious\nand vigorous; and glorious, too, was the development in them of\nhuman intelligence and dignity; but their career was short, and\nthese two brilliant forms of society did not find in their ideas,\ntraditions, or models, a sufficiency of moral force to enable\nthem to escape from, or even survive, the seductive and\ncorrupting influence of material grandeur and of human success.\nAmidst all the sufferings, all the darkness, all the crimes which\nagitate her long career, Christianity has proved infinitely\nhealthier and more sound; she has made herself an incessant\nsubject of study; she has shifted her place upon her couch of\nsorrow; she has raised herself up, she has renewed, regenerated\nherself; she has grown and prospered at the same time that she\nhas suffered; and in spite of the ills, vices, and perils against\nwhich Christianity has had to defend herself, and against which\nshe will ever have to defend herself, she has before her, over\nthe whole face of the world, a future immense and full of\npromise. This she owes to her origin--she was born in the manger\nof Jesus.\n\n{206}\n\nThere is at present a disposition amongst earnest and enlightened\nmen to recognise, it is true, the services which Christianity has\nrendered to the world; but to attribute them only to the morality\nof Christianity. They laud to the sky the moral character of\nJesus, and his moral precepts; but they repudiate, nay, deplore,\nthe dogmas with which, in the Christian faith, Christian morality\nis combined and incorporated; they demand that the morality be\nseparated from it, and be presented to man without anything but\nits intellectual beauty and practical excellence. Although not\ndisputing that there is somewhat of human in the origin and\nempire of morality, I have established in this volume of\nMeditations that it is necessarily allied to religious belief,\nand that when separated from its divine source, and viewed apart\nfrom that which gives it sanction, it is incomplete, illogical,\nand powerless--a branch without root and without fruit.\n{207}\nI go farther now, and express my meaning fully. Not only is\nChristian morality intimately connected with Christian faith, as\nthe Christian faith is itself connected with Christian dogmas,\nbut Christian morals, Christian faith, and Christian dogmas have\ntaken their origin, and derived their force, at a source still\nhigher, and in an authority still more decisive. Christianity did\nnot begin, it did not rise upon the world, as one body of\ndoctrines or code of precepts; from its first step it was a\ntruth, strange to the ordinary course of human affairs, and\nsuperior to them; a fact divine, and an act divine; it was as\nsuch, and by its character as such, that, sometimes all at once,\nand sometimes gradually, it struck men as by a blow and\nvanquished them, at first the rude and simple, then the great and\nlearned, publicans and emperors, the disciples of Plato, and the\nfishermen of the sea of Gennesareth.\n{208}\nAt different moments, and for different motives, all of them saw\nin the cradle, and the rapid extent of infant Christianity, a\nsublime and superhuman fact, a God present and acting in and by\nJesus. Some recognised and adored him at the very moment of his\nappearing; others observed him with troubled and angry feelings;\nbut, in proportion as the truth developed itself, even those who\ndetested him doubted if they were right in doubting. The council\nand all the senate of the children of Israel had caused Peter and\nthe other apostles to be placed in prison, and took counsel to\nhave them put to death. \"Then stood there up one in the council,\na Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in\nreputation among all the people, and commanded to put the\napostles forth a little space; and said unto them: Ye men of\nIsrael, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching\nthese men. For before these days rose up Theudas boasting himself\nto be somebody, to whom a number of men, about four hundred,\njoined themselves: who was slain, and all, as many as obeyed him,\nwere scattered and brought to nought.\n{209}\nAfter this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the\ntaxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished;\nand all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. And now I\nsay unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if\nthis counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But\nif it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found\neven to fight against God.\" [Footnote 48]\n\n    [Footnote 48: Acts v. 21, 33--39.]\n\nThe question which Gamaliel thus put with respect to Christianity\nat its birth was not new; the high priest of Israel had already\nmade the same demand of Jesus himself: \"I adjure thee by the\nliving God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son\nof God? Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said.\" [Footnote 49]\n\n    [Footnote 49: Matthew xxvi. 63, 64.]\n\n{210}\n\nThe Jews replied to the affirmation of Jesus by crucifying him. A\nshort time afterwards, when they sought to treat the apostles as\ntheir Master had been treated, Gamaliel counselled them to abide\nthe test of time, and in the meanwhile to leave \"these people in\nrepose.\" They did not leave these people in repose, and the proof\nwas only on that account the more decisive: after three centuries\nof persecutions and martyrdoms, the grand facts of\nChristianity,--the Revelation, the Incarnation, the Redemption,\nthe Inspiration of the Scriptures,--became the grand dogmas of\nChristianity, the basis of Christian faith, which faith in its\nturn is the basis of Christian Life. Sixteen centuries elapsed\nfrom this trial of Christianity in its cradle, and it was made to\nundergo fresh and still ruder trials; in these trials earthly\ninterests and human errors and passions had a great part;\nChrist's precepts were sometimes forgotten, and sometimes\nconverted into human instruments; no doctrine or idea was ever so\nconstantly in contact with, and at issue with, facts; never was\ntheory more rigorously reviewed, more subjected to the test of\npractical application in every form and every shape.\n{211}\nThe design which emanated from God traversed and surmounted all\nthese perils; it braved the faults of its adherents and the blows\nof its enemies. It is engaged in our days in a new contest, and\nis subjected to fresh trials; it has entered upon it with the\nsame arms, which, nineteen centuries ago, secured its triumph,\nwith the grand facts which form the basis of Christian faith, and\nthe great examples which furnish the rule of Christian living.\nThe History of Christianity is the strongest proof of its\nDivinity, and the surest guarantee for its future. The\nauthenticity and authority of this history will be the subject of\nthe next and last series of my \"Meditations.\"\n\n{212}\n\n{213}\n\n               Appendix.\n\n\nEcce Homo: such is the title of a work published anonymously, at\nLondon and at Cambridge in 1866, which produced on its appearance\na great sensation in London, a sensation which still continues:\nall the papers and reviews, whether religious, philosophical, or\nsimply literary, busied themselves with it, either to praise or\nattack it; the distinguished chief of the Liberal Party himself,\nperhaps soon to be the Prime Minister of England, Mr. Gladstone,\nhas just made it the subject of three articles, which are\nremarkable alike for acuteness, elegance, and eloquence. They\nappeared in one of the most widely circulated periodicals in his\ncountry. [Footnote 50]\n\n    [Footnote 50: \"Good Words,\" a Monthly Review, edited by\n    Norman Macleod, one of the Chaplains of her Majesty Queen\n    Victoria. The articles referred to appeared in the numbers of\n    January, February, and March, 1868.]\n\n  \"No anonymous book,\" says he, \"since the 'Vestiges of Creation'\n  (now more than twenty years old), indeed, it might almost be\n  said, no theological book, whether anonymous, or of certified\n  authorship--that has appeared within the same interval, has\n  attracted anything like the amount of notice and of criticism\n  which have been bestowed upon the remarkable volume, entitled\n  'Ecce Homo.'\"\n\n{214}\n\nThe anonymous author has expressed in a very short preface his\nintention in writing this volume, as well as its fundamental\nideas. \"Those who feel,\" says he, \"dissatisfied with the current\nconceptions of Christ, if they cannot rest content without a\ndefinite opinion, may find it necessary to do what, to persons\nnot so dissatisfied, it seems audacious and perilous to do. They\nmay be obliged to reconsider the whole subject from the\nbeginning, and placing themselves, in imagination, at the time\nwhen he whom we call Christ bore no such name, but was simply, as\nSt. Luke describes him, a young man of promise, popular with\nthose who knew him, and appearing to enjoy the Divine favour, to\ntrace his biography from point to point, and accept those\nconclusions about him, not which Church doctors, or even apostles\nhave sealed with their authority, but which the facts themselves,\ncritically weighed, appear to warrant.\n\n\"This is what the present writer undertook to do for the\nsatisfaction of his own mind, and because, after reading a good\nmany books on Christ, he felt still constrained to confess that\nthere was no historical character whose motives, objects and\nfeelings remained so incomprehensible to him. The inquiry which\nproved serviceable to himself may chance to be useful to others.\n\n\"What is now published is a fragment. No theological questions\nwhatever are here discussed. Christ as the Creator of modern\nTheology and Religion will make the subject of another volume;\nwhich, however, the author does not hope to publish for some time\nto come. In the meanwhile, he has endeavoured to furnish an\nanswer to the question, 'What was Christ's object in founding the\nSociety which is called by his name, and how is it adapted to\nattain that object?'\"\n\n{215}\n\nOn merely considering, even after a first perusal, the brief\nwords which I have here extracted, it is, I think, impossible not\nto perceive how much there is that is artificial and embarrassed,\nI had almost said how much there is that is false, not only in\nthe position in which the Author has placed himself at the very\noutset, but in the special intentions which he avows. To study\nthe life and the aim of the life of Christ without considering\nhim \"as the Creator of Modern Theology and Religion,\" to defer\nall examination and conclusion upon this last subject; to aspire\nto know the person and the mind of Christ after thus separating\nhim from his work; to inquire what he meant to accomplish when\nliving, without considering what he in effect accomplished in the\nages which followed his passage through the world; to treat him,\nin short, and to examine him as we should treat and examine a\nperson unknown to us--a fossil man, so to say, of which the\nfeatures might be traceable in some contemporary document,\nshowing that he once existed, but who has left no other trace to\nsupply us with argument or proof of what he intended, or what he\nperformed;--this, undoubtedly, is a strange manner of proceeding,\none which holds out very little chance of an accurate and true\ncomprehension of the immense fact called Christianity, thus\nmutilated in its very cradle, Christianity of which the writer\nlimits himself to a bare search after the germ in the nascent\nthought of its owner, whereas it might have been observed, and\nits nature verified in its positive and vast development.\n\n{216}\n\nThis is a species of decomposition, of which the great facts of\nhistory and morality do not admit. We are not here, like\nanatomists, describing the autopsy of a corpse. To know and\ncomprehend such facts really, we must study them in their\ndifferent elements and in all the development of their life. They\nform a drama in which we are actors, not a manuscript which we\nare deciphering.\n\nI can easily understand how the anonymous writer of the \"Ecce\nHomo\" came to conceive the idea of his book, and to confine it\nwithin the limits which he has himself assigned: I can also\nunderstand his motives. Like all his contemporaries, he is placed\nand lives in presence of the grave questions agitated in these\ndays respecting Christianity and its author. What was Christ?--a\nman or very God, or God and man at once? How did the divine\nnature and the human nature manifest themselves in him? Did he\nreally effect the miracles assigned to him? Can there be such\nthings as miracles? What are we to understand by the\nsupernatural? Is God a real being personal and free, existing and\naccomplishing his works in a region beyond that which we style\nNature? Christianity and the life of its founder inevitably\nsuggest all these questions, which in our days occupy and\nviolently agitate men's minds. The anonymous author of the \"Ecce\nHomo\" did not wish to enter upon them; nay, it was his aim to\nstudy and comprehend Christ without touching them at all. Is it\nbecause upon these grave problems he entertains himself no\npositive and decided opinions? Or, because he wished, to a\ncertain extent, to accommodate himself to the state of opinion of\nsome of his contemporaries, and to treat Christ as those speak of\nhim who only see in him a man, who regard Christianity as a fact\nnot supernatural, owing its origin, like other natural facts, to\nthe sole and proper force of mankind?\n\n{217}\n\nUpon this I can form no opinion; I neither know the anonymous\nauthor of the \"Ecce Homo,\" nor the motives which actuate him:\nwhat is certain is, that he is quite right in entitling his book\n\"Ecce Homo,\" for it is only the Man Christ that he has proposed\nto study, and it is by studying the Man Christ that he has\nproposed to explain Christianity.\n\nI do not know if, after having written his book, he was aware of\nthe result to which it leads, but the result is in effect a\nstrange one,--it is condemnatory and destructive of the\nfundamental idea of the book, it demonstrates by a sincere and\nhonest, although an incomplete and superficial study of the\nfacts, the impossibility of explaining either Christ by the human\nnature alone, or the Christian Religion by any merely natural\noperations of humanity.\n\nThe work is divided into two parts, and contains altogether\ntwenty-four chapters. The first part is devoted to the study of\nChrist personally, his peculiar character, his manner of dealing\nwith men, the mission which he proposed to himself to accomplish,\nthe nature of the society which he sought to found, and the\nauthority which he counted upon exercising. In the second part,\nthe Christian society itself, its points of resemblance to the\nsystems of philosophy and its points of difference therefrom, its\nfundamental principles and positive laws, and the habits and\nsentiments which are developed by those laws, all become in turn\nthe objects of the author's observations and descriptions.\nObservations often profound, descriptions often exact and\nstriking, although somewhat minute and lengthy; everywhere,\nhowever, there breathes forth a sentiment unquestionably moral,\nand full of the gentlest sympathy for humanity.\n\n{218}\n\nAll this gives to the work a real attractiveness, in spite of the\nvagueness of the ideas which reign there, and in spite of the\nperceptible incertitude of the author's conclusions upon the\nsolemn questions which he approaches, but upon which he does not\nenter.\n\nI have no intention of saying more; I have not to render an\naccount in detail of this book or to discuss any of the author's\nopinions or assertions upon which I may not agree with him; my\naim is only to determine the character of his work, and to show\nplainly, first its tendency and then its insufficiency. There\nprecisely is his originality; in setting out, and dealing with\nthe subject of the purely human nature both of Christ and of\nChristianity, he seems not far from participating the opinions of\nRationalistic criticism; but the more he advances, the farther he\ndeparts from the goal at which the Rationalists arrive: he\nappears predisposed in their favour; the process of his thought\nseems often to conform to theirs; his conclusions are not clearly\ncontrary, but in effect, under the empire either of his instincts\nor under the influence of his historical and moral studies, he is\nmore Christian than he appears, perhaps even more so than he\nbelieves himself to be; and if the firm doctrines of Christianity\nfind in him no sure and declared defender, neither do they\nencounter in him the consistent hostility of a severe logician or\nthe indifferentism of a mere sceptic.\n\n{219}\n\nThere are several passages of this remarkable work which are\nparticularly distinguished by these characteristics. To these I\nfeel pleasure in referring the reader. They are in both parts of\nthe book; that is to say, in the first part, chapter fifth,\nentitled _Christ's Credentials_, and chapter ninth,\n[Footnote 51] entitled _Reflections on the Nature of Christ's\nSociety;_ in the second part, chapter tenth, entitled\n_Christ's Legislation compared with Philosophic systems_,\nand chapter the eleventh, _The Christian Republic_ [Footnote\n52] A perusal of these passages will, if I do not deceive myself,\nfully justify the impression which the work has made upon me, and\nsatisfy the reader that I am right in what I have said of the\nauthor's inconsistency with respect to religion.\n\n    [Footnote 51: Ecce Homo, ed. 1866, pp. 41-51, 81--102.]\n\n    [Footnote 52: _Ibid_, pp. 108--119, 120--126.]\n\nWithout expressly referring to any other passages I simply\nremark, that there are in this book ideas expressed and\nparticular assertions made, which suggest numerous questions and\ncall for many observations. I find in the entire volume a\nsingular mixture of plain and practical common sense with a\nsubtlety sometimes tinctured with piety, and sometimes with\nphilosophy. There reigns in it, upon the nature of man and of\nhuman societies, an intellectual elevation, both moral and\nreligious, which embarrasses and obscures itself in a long and\npainful process of refinements. It bears the impress of a\ngrandeur of thought and of sentiment, without presenting them,\nhowever, in a form sufficiently simple and vivid. But I have no\nidea of examining or discussing here in detail this remarkable\nwork; my aim is only to make the result clear to the reader, to\nwhich I have already referred, and indeed it appears\nincontestable. The author's aim has been to study and portray the\nhuman part of Christ, the human part of his doctrine as well as\nof his life. He has declared this to be his aim by entitling his\nbook \"Ecce Homo,\" and by saying that he deferred to another\nvolume \"every theological question, every study of Christ as the\nCreator of Theology and of Modern Religion.\"\n{220}\nHe has already done much more than he is aware; the striking\ninference from his first volume being that there was in Christ\nmuch more than man, and that if he had been but man, however\nsuperior we may picture his nature to be to that of ordinary\nhumanity, the work of Christianity, such as it in fact was and\nis, would have been to him a thing not only which he could not\nhave accomplished, but which he could not even have conceived.\n\n\n                 The End.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  Bradbury, Evans, And Co., Printers, Whitefriars.","title":"Christianity Viewed in Relation to the Present State of Society and Opinion.","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":52988}